The U.S and Israeli leadership are the biggest threats to World peace.
Iran has attacked no one in approx 300 years.
Hpw many countries have the U.S and Israel attacked in that time?
Maybe the only thing that can stop these war-mongering bastards is if they're taught a lesson.
I actually hope Iran announces that they have nukes. It'll then be interesting to see the reaction of the U.S and Israel. I doubt they'd be in such a hurry to attack them. They'd have to start whipping up war fever against another country instead in order to satisfy the greed of the arms industry. I wonder who they'd choose? Venezuela maybe?
just bc terrorist types put innocents in the way.... :idea:
simple solution. Iran does not get bombed if they listen to the "world" community. Or if they can't do that, how about listening to the USA. that makes the most logical sense. We are, in fact, the big deal on the block right now. i don't think we are going to give that up without a fight.
just bc terrorist types put innocents in the way.... :idea:
simple solution. Iran does not get bombed if they listen to the "world" community. Or if they can't do that, how about listening to the USA. that makes the most logical sense. We are, in fact, the big deal on the block right now. i don't think we are going to give that up without a fight.
FREEDOM!
duh
I bet you couldn't even find Iran on a map, let alone tell us the first thing about that country.
But that doesn't matter, does it? Because all you know is that Iranians are Arabs, and Arabs are baaad. And when that t.v set that you sit blinking in front of all day tells you that Iran is a threat to America, it must be so.
If your self-esteem is really so low that you need a war to feel good about yourself then get down to your local recruitment office and sign up, instead of calling for other people to do your dirty work.
We are, in fact, the big deal on the block right now. i don't think we are going to give that up without a fight.
Why do you use the word 'we'?
It won't be you doing the fighting will it? You''ll just be sitting at home in front of your t.v gloating over it, and trolling on this message board, doing your best to drag this place down to the level of Youtube's comments section.
The mods should have banned your trolling, juvenile bullshit a long time ago.
We are, in fact, the big deal on the block right now. i don't think we are going to give that up without a fight.
Why do you use the word 'we'?
proper English.
back on topic....
The head of Shin Bet, Israel's internal security service, told an audience at a closed forum in Tel Aviv recently that Iran is trying to hit Israeli targets because of what it believes are Israeli attacks on it nuclear scientists. Yoram Cohen said that Iran's Revolutionary Guard, the same militant wing of the government linked to the recent alleged plot against the Saudi ambassador to the U.S., is working tirelessly to attack Israeli and Jewish targets abroad in order to deter Israel.
"The thwarted assassination plot of a Saudi official in Washington, D.C., a couple of months ago was an important data point," added the official, "in that it showed at least parts of the Iranian establishment were aware of the intended event and were not concerned about inevitable collateral damage to U.S. citizens had they carried out an assassination plot on American soil."
"That was an eye opener, showing that they did not care about any collateral damage," the federal official said.
The Israeli security letter sums up the resultant risks very clearly. "In conclusion, we operate according to the information that Iran and Hezbollah are working hard and with great intensity to release a 'quality' attack against Israeli/Jewish sites around the world."
We are, in fact, the big deal on the block right now. i don't think we are going to give that up without a fight.
Why do you use the word 'we'?
It won't be you doing the fighting will it? You''ll just be sitting at home in front of your t.v gloating over it, and trolling on this message board, doing your best to drag this place down to the level of Youtube's comments section.
The mods should have banned your trolling, juvenile bullshit a long time ago.
just don't feed him. it's that simple.
i am ashamed that people with his views represent my country on this forum.
truth is, there will always be war cheerleaders who are too cowardly to fight for the cause they are trumpeting. in the states we call them chickenhawks.
don't worry b, the polls that were released today show that an overwhelming number of americans and jewish americans are strongly against military action in iran. not that that matters to our government and will not influence their decision, but this poster's opinion is in the very minority at this point in time...
"You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry." - Lincoln
Stand by my original post Isreal is just trying to defend it's sovriegnty as a nation which has every right to exist & co-exist with it's neighbours. if iran is out to 'wipe israel off the map' something/some one has to stand up for them, or they for themselves!
How I choose to feel is how I am...I will not lose my faith, It's an inside job today.
Manchester Aug 17th 2009
Hyde Park June 25th 2010
Manchester June 20th & 21st 2012
Leeds July 14th 2014
i am ashamed that people with his views represent my country on this forum.
I think most fans of this band will be embarrassed, if not disgusted, reading some of the war-mongering, racist bullshit posted on this site. It's a fucking shame. I wonder what any of the band members would think if they read this crap?
Stand by my original post Isreal is just trying to defend it's sovriegnty as a nation which has every right to exist & co-exist with it's neighbours. if iran is out to 'wipe israel off the map' something/some one has to stand up for them, or they for themselves!
Except the Iranians never said they wanted to wipe Israel off the map. This was a mis-quotation.
Stand by my original post Isreal is just trying to defend it's sovriegnty as a nation which has every right to exist & co-exist with it's neighbours. if iran is out to 'wipe israel off the map' something/some one has to stand up for them, or they for themselves!
Except the Iranians never said they wanted to wipe Israel off the map. This was a mis-quotation.
wasn't it a partial quote that had been translated incorrectly? i lost my links to that information when my computer crashed.
"You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry." - Lincoln
I'm all for care, compassion and wwjd most of the time. But when Iran wants to 'DESTROY' isreal just because they are a different religion isn't that intolerant and rascist too?
How I choose to feel is how I am...I will not lose my faith, It's an inside job today.
Manchester Aug 17th 2009
Hyde Park June 25th 2010
Manchester June 20th & 21st 2012
Leeds July 14th 2014
I'm all for care, compassion and wwjd most of the time. But when Iran wants to 'DESTROY' isreal just because they are a different religion isn't that intolerant and rascist too?
that is not what irans leader said.
"You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry." - Lincoln
The head of Shin Bet, Israel's internal security service, told an audience at a closed forum in Tel Aviv recently that Iran is trying to hit Israeli targets because of what it believes are Israeli attacks on it nuclear scientists.
Don't tell me, all these Iranian scientists have actually been victims of spontaneous human combustion?
Yoram Cohen said that Iran's Revolutionary Guard, the same militant wing of the government linked to the recent alleged plot against the Saudi ambassador to the U.S., is working tirelessly to attack Israeli and Jewish targets abroad in order to deter Israel.
"The thwarted assassination plot of a Saudi official in Washington, D.C., a couple of months ago was an important data point," added the official, "in that it showed at least parts of the Iranian establishment were aware of the intended event and were not concerned about inevitable collateral damage to U.S. citizens had they carried out an assassination plot on American soil."
"That was an eye opener, showing that they did not care about any collateral damage," the federal official said.
The Israeli security letter sums up the resultant risks very clearly. "In conclusion, we operate according to the information that Iran and Hezbollah are working hard and with great intensity to release a 'quality' attack against Israeli/Jewish sites around the world."
The so-called plot to assassinate a Saudi Ambassador in Washington D.C was so flimsy it would collapse as soon as you touched it.
In fact, most foreign correspondents who have analysed this so-called plot have described it in various ways as being laughable.
On the other hand we see Iranian scientists actually being blown up in acts of international terrorism by agents of Israel and the U.S, and yet we're told that the Iranians are the ones we should be worried about?
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]
Iranian government sources denied that Ahmadinejad issued any sort of threat. On 20 February 2006, Iran's foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki told a news conference: "How is it possible to remove a country from the map? He is talking about the regime. We do not recognize legally this regime."[15][16][17]
Shiraz Dossa, a professor of Political Science at St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia, Canada, also believes the text is a mistranslation.[18]
'Ahmadinejad was quoting the Ayatollah Khomeini in the specific speech under discussion: what he said was that "the occupation regime over Jerusalem should vanish from the page of time." No state action is envisaged in this lament; it denotes a spiritual wish, whereas the erroneous translation – "wipe Israel off the map" – suggests a military threat. There is a huge chasm between the correct and the incorrect translations. The notion that Iran can "wipe out" U.S.-backed, nuclear-armed Israel is ludicrous.'
At a gathering of foreign guests marking the 19th anniversary of the death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 2008, Ahmadinejad said:
"You should know that the criminal and terrorist Zionist regime which has 60 years of plundering, aggression and crimes in its file has reached the end of its work and will soon disappear off the geographical scene."[24]
The Iranian presidential website states: that "the Zionist Regime of Israel faces a deadend and will under God's grace be wiped off the map," and "the Zionist Regime that is a usurper and illegitimate regime and a cancerous tumor should be wiped off the map."[25]
At a news conference on January 14, 2006, Ahmadinejad stated his speech had been exaggerated and misinterpreted[...]Speaking at a D-8 summit meeting in July 2008, he denied that his country would ever instigate military action. Instead he claimed that "the Zionist regime" in Israel would eventually collapse on its own.
Asked if he objected to the government of Israel or Jewish people, he said that "creating an objection against the Zionists doesn't mean that there are objections against the Jewish". He added that Jews lived in Iran and were represented in the country's parliament.[27]
In a September 2008 interview Ahmadinejad was asked: "If the Palestinian leaders agree to a two-state solution, could Iran live with an Israeli state?" He replied:
'If they [the Palestinians] want to keep the Zionists, they can stay ... Whatever the people decide, we will respect it. I mean, it's very much in correspondence with our proposal to allow Palestinian people to decide through free referendums.'
My recent comment piece explaining how Iran's president was badly misquoted when he allegedly called for Israel to be "wiped off the map" has caused a welcome little storm. The phrase has been seized on by western and Israeli hawks to re-double suspicions of the Iranian government's intentions, so it is important to get the truth of what he really said.
I took my translation - "the regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time" - from the indefatigable Professor Juan Cole's website where it has been for several weeks.
But it seems to be mainly thanks to the Guardian giving it prominence that the New York Times, which was one of the first papers to misquote Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, came out on Sunday with a defensive piece attempting to justify its reporter's original "wiped off the map" translation. (By the way, for Farsi speakers the original version is available here.)
Joining the "off the map" crowd is David Aaronovitch, a columnist on the Times (of London), who attacked my analysis yesterday. I won't waste time on him since his knowledge of Farsi is as minimal as that of his Latin. The poor man thinks the plural of casus belli is casi belli, unaware that casus is fourth declension with the plural casus (long u).
The New York Times's Ethan Bronner and Nazila Fathi, one of the paper's Tehran staff, make a more serious case. They consulted several sources in Tehran. "Sohrab Mahdavi, one of Iran's most prominent translators, and Siamak Namazi, managing director of a Tehran consulting firm, who is bilingual, both say 'wipe off' or 'wipe away' is more accurate than 'vanish' because the Persian verb is active and transitive," Bronner writes.
The New York Times goes on: "The second translation issue concerns the word 'map'. Khomeini's words were abstract: 'Sahneh roozgar.' Sahneh means scene or stage, and roozgar means time. The phrase was widely interpreted as 'map', and for years, no one objected. In October, when Mr Ahmadinejad quoted Khomeini, he actually misquoted him, saying not 'Sahneh roozgar' but 'Safheh roozgar', meaning pages of time or history. No one noticed the change, and news agencies used the word 'map' again."
This, in my view, is the crucial point and I'm glad the NYT accepts that the word "map" was not used by Ahmadinejad. (By the way, the Wikipedia entry on the controversy gets the NYT wrong, claiming falsely that Ethan Bronner "concluded that Ahmadinejad had in fact said that Israel was to be wiped off the map".)
If the Iranian president made a mistake and used "safheh" rather than "sahneh", that is of little moment. A native English speaker could equally confuse "stage of history" with "page of history". The significant issue is that both phrases refer to time rather than place. As I wrote in my original post, the Iranian president was expressing a vague wish for the future. He was not threatening an Iranian-initiated war to remove Israeli control over Jerusalem.
Two other well-established translation sources confirm that Ahmadinejad was referring to time, not place. The version of the October 26 2005 speech put out by the Middle East Media Research Institute, based on the Farsi text released by the official Iranian Students News Agency, says: "This regime that is occupying Qods [Jerusalem] must be eliminated from the pages of history." (NB: not "wiped". I accept that "eliminated" is almost the same, indeed some might argue it is more sinister than "wiped", though it is a bit more of a mouthful if you are trying to find four catchy and easily memorable words with which to incite anger against Iran.)
MEMRI (its text of the speech is available here) is headed by a former Isareli military intelligence officer and has sometimes been attacked for alleged distortion of Farsi and Arabic quotations for the benefit of Israeli foreign policy. On this occasion they supported the doveish view of what Ahmadinejad said.
Finally we come to the BBC monitoring service which every day puts out hundreds of highly respected English translations of broadcasts from all round the globe to their subscribers - mainly governments, intelligence services, thinktanks and other specialists. I approached them this week about the controversy and a spokesperson for the monitoring service's marketing unit, who did not want his name used, told me their original version of the Ahmadinejad quote was "eliminated from the map of the world".
As a result of my inquiry and the controversy generated, they had gone back to the native Farsi-speakers who had translated the speech from a voice recording made available by Iranian TV on October 29 2005. Here is what the spokesman told me about the "off the map" section: "The monitor has checked again. It's a difficult expression to translate. They're under time pressure to produce a translation quickly and they were searching for the right phrase. With more time to reflect they would say the translation should be "eliminated from the page of history".
Would the BBC put out a correction, given that the issue had become so controversial, I asked. "It would be a long time after the original version", came the reply. I interpret that as "probably not", but let's see.
Finally, I approached Iradj Bagherzade, the Iranian-born founder and chairman of the renowned publishing house, IB Tauris. He thought hard about the word "roozgar". "History" was not the right word, he said, but he could not decide between several better alternatives "this day and age", "these times", "our times", "time".
So there we have it. Starting with Juan Cole, and going via the New York Times' experts through MEMRI to the BBC's monitors, the consensus is that Ahmadinejad did not talk about any maps. He was, as I insisted in my original piece, offering a vague wish for the future.
A very last point. The fact that he compared his desired option - the elimination of "the regime occupying Jerusalem" - with the fall of the Shah's regime in Iran makes it crystal clear that he is talking about regime change, not the end of Israel. As a schoolboy opponent of the Shah in the 1970's he surely did not favour Iran's removal from the page of time. He just wanted the Shah out.
The same with regard to Israel. The Iranian president is undeniably an opponent of Zionism or, if you prefer the phrase, the Zionist regime. But so are substantial numbers of Israeli citizens, Jews as well as Arabs. The anti-Zionist and non-Zionist traditions in Israel are not insignificant. So we should not demonise Ahmadinejad on those grounds alone.
Does this quibbling over phrases matter? Yes, of course. Within days of the Ahmadinejad speech the then Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, was calling for Iran to be expelled from the United Nations. Other foreign leaders have quoted the map phrase. The United States is piling pressure on its allies to be tough with Iran.
Let me give the last word to Juan Cole, with whom I began. "I am entirely aware that Ahmadinejad is hostile to Israel. The question is whether his intentions and capabilities would lead to a military attack, and whether therefore pre-emptive warfare is prescribed. I am saying no, and the boring philology is part of the reason for the no."
"You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry." - Lincoln
I just finished reading letters and their photos from Iran who share our want for peace. This is not a simple matter of nuclear bombs. If you believe anything less you are misguided.
Iran Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei chimed in on Friday, promising to help any nation or group that wants to confront Israel and vowed to continue its nuclear program.
He called Israel a "cancerous tumor that should be cut and will be cut"
translate that in your pipe and smoke it. You are missing the point but thats ok, I am here to help.
Iran Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei chimed in on Friday, promising to help any nation or group that wants to confront Israel and vowed to continue its nuclear program.
He called Israel a "cancerous tumor that should be cut and will be cut"
translate that in your pipe and smoke it. You are missing the point but thats ok, I am here to help.
lens change.
"You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry." - Lincoln
Iran Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei chimed in on Friday, promising to help any nation or group that wants to confront Israel and vowed to continue its nuclear program.
No he didn't.
This is what he said:
"From now on, in any place, if any nation or any group confronts the Zionist regime, we will endorse and we will help. We have no fear expressing this," said Khamenei.
Though it's interesting that you need to resort to bullshit to promote your war fantasy.
start your own. You can have it to yourself and circle jerk nation.
I wonder if there are any Iranians, either in Iran or elsewhere, who may like Pearl Jam and get to read Pearl Jam fans calling for their country to be bombed?
This hateful thread should have been locked a long time ago.
We realy shouldn't be pandering to the twisted fantasies of hatemongers.
A country who wants to destroy Israel, my countries friend and ally.
I've already provided proof that Iran has made no call to destroy Israel. The fact that you've chosen to ignore the evidence and continue to spout this bullshit makes you a troll.
Comments
Iran has attacked no one in approx 300 years.
Hpw many countries have the U.S and Israel attacked in that time?
Maybe the only thing that can stop these war-mongering bastards is if they're taught a lesson.
I actually hope Iran announces that they have nukes. It'll then be interesting to see the reaction of the U.S and Israel. I doubt they'd be in such a hurry to attack them. They'd have to start whipping up war fever against another country instead in order to satisfy the greed of the arms industry. I wonder who they'd choose? Venezuela maybe?
300 years my ass.
Open your mind and change the lens
They fight who?
The illegal Israeli ocupation?
How terrible!
That probably has more legs (DEFINATELY more cred) than OWS
So when are you enlisting?
I'm perfectly stable, thanks. Which is one reason why I don't sit at home fantasizing about war and dropping bombs on people.
fixed.
welcome
just bc terrorist types put innocents in the way.... :idea:
simple solution. Iran does not get bombed if they listen to the "world" community. Or if they can't do that, how about listening to the USA. that makes the most logical sense. We are, in fact, the big deal on the block right now. i don't think we are going to give that up without a fight.
FREEDOM!
duh
I bet you couldn't even find Iran on a map, let alone tell us the first thing about that country.
But that doesn't matter, does it? Because all you know is that Iranians are Arabs, and Arabs are baaad. And when that t.v set that you sit blinking in front of all day tells you that Iran is a threat to America, it must be so.
If your self-esteem is really so low that you need a war to feel good about yourself then get down to your local recruitment office and sign up, instead of calling for other people to do your dirty work.
avatar >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
ha
Wippah
WOOT WOOT
btw, this is not about me. It is about taking down the axis of evil. If you can't discuss the topic i suggest you move on.
Why do you use the word 'we'?
It won't be you doing the fighting will it? You''ll just be sitting at home in front of your t.v gloating over it, and trolling on this message board, doing your best to drag this place down to the level of Youtube's comments section.
The mods should have banned your trolling, juvenile bullshit a long time ago.
proper English.
back on topic....
The head of Shin Bet, Israel's internal security service, told an audience at a closed forum in Tel Aviv recently that Iran is trying to hit Israeli targets because of what it believes are Israeli attacks on it nuclear scientists. Yoram Cohen said that Iran's Revolutionary Guard, the same militant wing of the government linked to the recent alleged plot against the Saudi ambassador to the U.S., is working tirelessly to attack Israeli and Jewish targets abroad in order to deter Israel.
"The thwarted assassination plot of a Saudi official in Washington, D.C., a couple of months ago was an important data point," added the official, "in that it showed at least parts of the Iranian establishment were aware of the intended event and were not concerned about inevitable collateral damage to U.S. citizens had they carried out an assassination plot on American soil."
"That was an eye opener, showing that they did not care about any collateral damage," the federal official said.
The Israeli security letter sums up the resultant risks very clearly.
"In conclusion, we operate according to the information that Iran and Hezbollah are working hard and with great intensity to release a 'quality' attack against Israeli/Jewish sites around the world."
http://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-israel- ... -news.html
I am American and I will stand with my allies!
hence preemptive strike to preserve peace.
WOOT
i am ashamed that people with his views represent my country on this forum.
truth is, there will always be war cheerleaders who are too cowardly to fight for the cause they are trumpeting. in the states we call them chickenhawks.
don't worry b, the polls that were released today show that an overwhelming number of americans and jewish americans are strongly against military action in iran. not that that matters to our government and will not influence their decision, but this poster's opinion is in the very minority at this point in time...
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
Manchester Aug 17th 2009
Hyde Park June 25th 2010
Manchester June 20th & 21st 2012
Leeds July 14th 2014
I think most fans of this band will be embarrassed, if not disgusted, reading some of the war-mongering, racist bullshit posted on this site. It's a fucking shame. I wonder what any of the band members would think if they read this crap?
Except the Iranians never said they wanted to wipe Israel off the map. This was a mis-quotation.
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
Manchester Aug 17th 2009
Hyde Park June 25th 2010
Manchester June 20th & 21st 2012
Leeds July 14th 2014
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
Don't tell me, all these Iranian scientists have actually been victims of spontaneous human combustion?
The so-called plot to assassinate a Saudi Ambassador in Washington D.C was so flimsy it would collapse as soon as you touched it.
In fact, most foreign correspondents who have analysed this so-called plot have described it in various ways as being laughable.
On the other hand we see Iranian scientists actually being blown up in acts of international terrorism by agents of Israel and the U.S, and yet we're told that the Iranians are the ones we should be worried about?
A nice attempt at turning reality on it's head.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmoud_Ah ... ontroversy
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]
Iranian government sources denied that Ahmadinejad issued any sort of threat. On 20 February 2006, Iran's foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki told a news conference: "How is it possible to remove a country from the map? He is talking about the regime. We do not recognize legally this regime."[15][16][17]
Shiraz Dossa, a professor of Political Science at St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia, Canada, also believes the text is a mistranslation.[18]
'Ahmadinejad was quoting the Ayatollah Khomeini in the specific speech under discussion: what he said was that "the occupation regime over Jerusalem should vanish from the page of time." No state action is envisaged in this lament; it denotes a spiritual wish, whereas the erroneous translation – "wipe Israel off the map" – suggests a military threat. There is a huge chasm between the correct and the incorrect translations. The notion that Iran can "wipe out" U.S.-backed, nuclear-armed Israel is ludicrous.'
At a gathering of foreign guests marking the 19th anniversary of the death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 2008, Ahmadinejad said:
"You should know that the criminal and terrorist Zionist regime which has 60 years of plundering, aggression and crimes in its file has reached the end of its work and will soon disappear off the geographical scene."[24]
The Iranian presidential website states: that "the Zionist Regime of Israel faces a deadend and will under God's grace be wiped off the map," and "the Zionist Regime that is a usurper and illegitimate regime and a cancerous tumor should be wiped off the map."[25]
At a news conference on January 14, 2006, Ahmadinejad stated his speech had been exaggerated and misinterpreted[...]Speaking at a D-8 summit meeting in July 2008, he denied that his country would ever instigate military action. Instead he claimed that "the Zionist regime" in Israel would eventually collapse on its own.
Asked if he objected to the government of Israel or Jewish people, he said that "creating an objection against the Zionists doesn't mean that there are objections against the Jewish". He added that Jews lived in Iran and were represented in the country's parliament.[27]
In a September 2008 interview Ahmadinejad was asked: "If the Palestinian leaders agree to a two-state solution, could Iran live with an Israeli state?" He replied:
'If they [the Palestinians] want to keep the Zionists, they can stay ... Whatever the people decide, we will respect it. I mean, it's very much in correspondence with our proposal to allow Palestinian people to decide through free referendums.'
Experts confirm that Iran's president did not call for Israel to be 'wiped off the map'. Reports that he did serve to strengthen western hawks.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... 14/post155
My recent comment piece explaining how Iran's president was badly misquoted when he allegedly called for Israel to be "wiped off the map" has caused a welcome little storm. The phrase has been seized on by western and Israeli hawks to re-double suspicions of the Iranian government's intentions, so it is important to get the truth of what he really said.
I took my translation - "the regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time" - from the indefatigable Professor Juan Cole's website where it has been for several weeks.
But it seems to be mainly thanks to the Guardian giving it prominence that the New York Times, which was one of the first papers to misquote Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, came out on Sunday with a defensive piece attempting to justify its reporter's original "wiped off the map" translation. (By the way, for Farsi speakers the original version is available here.)
Joining the "off the map" crowd is David Aaronovitch, a columnist on the Times (of London), who attacked my analysis yesterday. I won't waste time on him since his knowledge of Farsi is as minimal as that of his Latin. The poor man thinks the plural of casus belli is casi belli, unaware that casus is fourth declension with the plural casus (long u).
The New York Times's Ethan Bronner and Nazila Fathi, one of the paper's Tehran staff, make a more serious case. They consulted several sources in Tehran. "Sohrab Mahdavi, one of Iran's most prominent translators, and Siamak Namazi, managing director of a Tehran consulting firm, who is bilingual, both say 'wipe off' or 'wipe away' is more accurate than 'vanish' because the Persian verb is active and transitive," Bronner writes.
The New York Times goes on: "The second translation issue concerns the word 'map'. Khomeini's words were abstract: 'Sahneh roozgar.' Sahneh means scene or stage, and roozgar means time. The phrase was widely interpreted as 'map', and for years, no one objected. In October, when Mr Ahmadinejad quoted Khomeini, he actually misquoted him, saying not 'Sahneh roozgar' but 'Safheh roozgar', meaning pages of time or history. No one noticed the change, and news agencies used the word 'map' again."
This, in my view, is the crucial point and I'm glad the NYT accepts that the word "map" was not used by Ahmadinejad. (By the way, the Wikipedia entry on the controversy gets the NYT wrong, claiming falsely that Ethan Bronner "concluded that Ahmadinejad had in fact said that Israel was to be wiped off the map".)
If the Iranian president made a mistake and used "safheh" rather than "sahneh", that is of little moment. A native English speaker could equally confuse "stage of history" with "page of history". The significant issue is that both phrases refer to time rather than place. As I wrote in my original post, the Iranian president was expressing a vague wish for the future. He was not threatening an Iranian-initiated war to remove Israeli control over Jerusalem.
Two other well-established translation sources confirm that Ahmadinejad was referring to time, not place. The version of the October 26 2005 speech put out by the Middle East Media Research Institute, based on the Farsi text released by the official Iranian Students News Agency, says: "This regime that is occupying Qods [Jerusalem] must be eliminated from the pages of history." (NB: not "wiped". I accept that "eliminated" is almost the same, indeed some might argue it is more sinister than "wiped", though it is a bit more of a mouthful if you are trying to find four catchy and easily memorable words with which to incite anger against Iran.)
MEMRI (its text of the speech is available here) is headed by a former Isareli military intelligence officer and has sometimes been attacked for alleged distortion of Farsi and Arabic quotations for the benefit of Israeli foreign policy. On this occasion they supported the doveish view of what Ahmadinejad said.
Finally we come to the BBC monitoring service which every day puts out hundreds of highly respected English translations of broadcasts from all round the globe to their subscribers - mainly governments, intelligence services, thinktanks and other specialists. I approached them this week about the controversy and a spokesperson for the monitoring service's marketing unit, who did not want his name used, told me their original version of the Ahmadinejad quote was "eliminated from the map of the world".
As a result of my inquiry and the controversy generated, they had gone back to the native Farsi-speakers who had translated the speech from a voice recording made available by Iranian TV on October 29 2005. Here is what the spokesman told me about the "off the map" section: "The monitor has checked again. It's a difficult expression to translate. They're under time pressure to produce a translation quickly and they were searching for the right phrase. With more time to reflect they would say the translation should be "eliminated from the page of history".
Would the BBC put out a correction, given that the issue had become so controversial, I asked. "It would be a long time after the original version", came the reply. I interpret that as "probably not", but let's see.
Finally, I approached Iradj Bagherzade, the Iranian-born founder and chairman of the renowned publishing house, IB Tauris. He thought hard about the word "roozgar". "History" was not the right word, he said, but he could not decide between several better alternatives "this day and age", "these times", "our times", "time".
So there we have it. Starting with Juan Cole, and going via the New York Times' experts through MEMRI to the BBC's monitors, the consensus is that Ahmadinejad did not talk about any maps. He was, as I insisted in my original piece, offering a vague wish for the future.
A very last point. The fact that he compared his desired option - the elimination of "the regime occupying Jerusalem" - with the fall of the Shah's regime in Iran makes it crystal clear that he is talking about regime change, not the end of Israel. As a schoolboy opponent of the Shah in the 1970's he surely did not favour Iran's removal from the page of time. He just wanted the Shah out.
The same with regard to Israel. The Iranian president is undeniably an opponent of Zionism or, if you prefer the phrase, the Zionist regime. But so are substantial numbers of Israeli citizens, Jews as well as Arabs. The anti-Zionist and non-Zionist traditions in Israel are not insignificant. So we should not demonise Ahmadinejad on those grounds alone.
Does this quibbling over phrases matter? Yes, of course. Within days of the Ahmadinejad speech the then Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, was calling for Iran to be expelled from the United Nations. Other foreign leaders have quoted the map phrase. The United States is piling pressure on its allies to be tough with Iran.
Let me give the last word to Juan Cole, with whom I began. "I am entirely aware that Ahmadinejad is hostile to Israel. The question is whether his intentions and capabilities would lead to a military attack, and whether therefore pre-emptive warfare is prescribed. I am saying no, and the boring philology is part of the reason for the no."
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
how about this fresh one.....
Iran Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei chimed in on Friday, promising to help any nation or group that wants to confront Israel and vowed to continue its nuclear program.
He called Israel a "cancerous tumor that should be cut and will be cut"
translate that in your pipe and smoke it. You are missing the point but thats ok, I am here to help.
lens change.
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
lmfao
cry
start your own. You can have it to yourself and circle jerk nation.
No he didn't.
This is what he said:
"From now on, in any place, if any nation or any group confronts the Zionist regime, we will endorse and we will help. We have no fear expressing this," said Khamenei.
Though it's interesting that you need to resort to bullshit to promote your war fantasy.
I wonder if there are any Iranians, either in Iran or elsewhere, who may like Pearl Jam and get to read Pearl Jam fans calling for their country to be bombed?
This hateful thread should have been locked a long time ago.
We realy shouldn't be pandering to the twisted fantasies of hatemongers.
I've already provided proof that Iran has made no call to destroy Israel. The fact that you've chosen to ignore the evidence and continue to spout this bullshit makes you a troll.
This bands message board deserves better.
Thems fighting words for my countries strongest ally in that part of the rock.
Time to blast their nuclear sites.
I do hope no innocent people perish though. Just evil doers
What's this? More juvenile baiting?
Like I said before, maybe Youtube's comments section is more suited to your infantile mentality.