Did Ahmadinejad threaten to wipe Israel off the map?

[Cutlerzzz]

http://antiwar.com/orig/norouzi.php?articleid=11025

I'm curious if anyone here can tell me with certainty that the quote is falsified. I want to get my facts straight.

[Mike Mitrosky]

I dont believe he said those exact words.

[phill4paul]

I couldn't give a flying monkeys ass. Not my job to worry and fret for Israel. Have enough problems right here in the U.S. of A.

[specsaregood]

//

[COpatriot]

Yes. He did say "vanish from the face of time". So when Hannity beats that "He wants to wipe Israel off the map" to death again and again, he's misquoting him.

[CaptainAmerica]

Honestly, Ive yet to hear him say it in any translated interview. I am pretty sure there is a misinterpretation because Iran does not have the capability and never will have that capability because they are surrounded by 3 nuclear armed nations it would be a double jeopardy and he just doesn't hit me as the kind of person who would relinquish his power for a decision to get wiped off the planet by Israeli nukes.

[Cleaner44]

Translation controversy
Many news sources repeated the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting statement by Ahmadinejad that "Israel must be wiped off the map",[5][6] an English idiom which means to "cause a place to stop existing",[7] or to "obliterate totally",[8] or "destroy completely".[9]

Ahmadinejad's phrase was " بايد از صفحه روزگار محو شود " according to the text published on the President's Office's website.[10]

The translation presented by the official Islamic Republic News Agency has been challenged by Arash Norouzi, who says the statement "wiped off the map" was never made and that Ahmadinejad did not refer to the nation or land mass of Israel, but to the "regime occupying Jerusalem". Norouzi translated the original Persian to English, with the result, "the Imam said this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time."[11] Juan Cole, a University of Michigan Professor of Modern Middle East and South Asian History, agrees that Ahmadinejad's statement should be translated as, "the Imam said that this regime occupying Jerusalem (een rezhim-e eshghalgar-e qods) must [vanish from] the page of time (bayad az safheh-ye ruzgar mahv shavad).[12] According to Cole, "Ahmadinejad did not say he was going to 'wipe Israel off the map' because no such idiom exists in Persian." Instead, "he did say he hoped its regime, i.e., a Jewish-Zionist state occupying Jerusalem, would collapse."[13] The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) translated the phrase similarly, as "this regime" must be "eliminated from the pages of history."[14]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmoud...jad_and_Israel

[IPSecure]

"Just How Far Did They Go, Those Words Against Israel?" See: NY Times 2006 Article

[moderate libertarian]

No.

Although I don't believe he is CIA agent, he is a quasi US ally for Iraq/Afghan wars and beyond.

[oyarde]

Not exactly . First , who cares ?he is in no position to make threats , second , he has some very crazy beliefs.