Was Ahmadinejad stmt about "wipe Israel off the map" debunked?

[GregD]

I recall seeing a remark that Ahmadinejad's remarks were mis-translated, mis-represented or something to the effect. Could someone please confirm this if true? I need to know this for a debate with a right-wing buddy.

[deaniac21]

1. No one in Iran, Syria or Lebanon would EVER say such a thing.

[Anarcho-Socialist]

12. You're being sarcastic, right? n/t

[deaniac21]

19. Yes and I am an Anarco-Syndicalist!

[Anarcho-Socialist]

24. Excellent :-)

and a feminist I would imagine too :hi:

[Kagemusha]

2. Juan Cole essentially said the remark was over-translated.

He's made several competing remarks since and I've really no time to keep track of bloviated propaganda like that so, that's all the help I can be, sorry.

[oberliner]

3. Let's check in with Aljazeera for the answer:

Ahmadinejad: Wipe Israel off map

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has openly called for Israel to be wiped off the map.

<snip>

"As the Imam said, Israel must be wiped off the map," said Ahmadinejad, referring to Iran's revolutionary leader Ayat Allah Khomeini.

His comments were the first time in years that such a high-ranking Iranian official has called for Israel's eradication, even though such slogans are still regularly used at government
rallies.


http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/15E6BF77-6F91-46EE-A4B5-A3CE0E9957EA.htm

[Phx_Dem]

4. He said it--deal with it.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has openly called for Israel to be wiped off the map.

"The establishment of the Zionist regime was a move by the world oppressor against the Islamic world," the president told a conference in Tehran on Wednesday, entitled The World without Zionism.

Al-Jazeera good enough for you?

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/15E6BF77-6F91-46EE-A4B5-A3CE0E9957EA.htm

[deaniac21]

20. Maybe he is talking about just the maps and not the people.

[InternalDialogue]

5. Google "ahmadinejad occupying regime"

That seems, in my limited understanding, to be the crux of the issue -- whether the translation specifically called for the elimination of Israel or the elimination of the "occupying regime." The NY Times ran a column in October 2005 addressing that exact point, but it's archived (and therefore available only to subscribers).

I don't know enough to posit an educated opinion, but I wholeheartedly endorse vigorous reading on anyone's part to form their own.

[Totallybushed]

6. Well, I

believe it.

Why should he say something different than Iran has been saying for years?

[Warren DeMontague]

7. "Debunked". Sure. He said he "hoped Israel got a nice case of the clap"

:eyes:

[HongKonger]

8. Juan Cole

This affair is similar to the attribution to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of the statement that "Israel must be wiped off the map." No such idiom exists in Persian, and Ahmadinejad actually just quoted an old speech of Khomeini in which he said "The occupation regime over Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time." Of course Ahamdinejad does wish Israel would disappear, but he is not commander of the armed forces and could not attack it even if he wanted to, which he denies.

I had a very disturbing short email correspondence with a reporter of a major national newspaper who used the inaccurate "wiped off the face of the map" quote. When challenged, he said it was "carried by the news wires and is well known" or words to that effect. I pointed out that the "quote" was attributed to a specific speech and that the statement was inaccurately translated. When challenged further he alleged that his trusted translator in Tehran affirmed that Ahmadinejad had said the phrase. When that was challenged, he reported that the translator said that anyway he had said something like it. When I pointed out that the translator was either lying or lazy, the reporter took offense that I had insulted a trusted colleague! I conclude that this reporter is attached to the phrase. He complained about being challenged by "bloggers" and said he was tempted to stop reading "blogs."

http://www.juancole.com/2006/05/another-fraud-on-iran-no-legislation.html

[Igel]

25. We have no such idiom,

"vanish from the page of time."

The question isn't whether the language has one idiom that another doesn't--that's simply a common occurrence. What's at issue is whether the two idioms are equivalent.

JC doesn't address that, or whether the English is expression is equivalent. Translating it as "vanish from the page of time" strikes me as actually a lazy translation, pushing towards the literal at the risk of losing the meaning. If it's an idiom it should be translated to reflect the meaning of the idiom; if there's an idiom in English with the same meaning, the proper course is to use it.

But then again, I'm in the 'nativizing' camp of translation theory, not the 'foreignizing'. I like translations that sound like they're not translations at all.

[GregD]

27. that's just what I had heard, and was looking for. thanks.

[JackintheGreen]

9. Sort of...

I listen to NPR podcasts at work, at 2 a.m., so forgive my incomplete memory...

Ahmadinejad was actually misquoting another Iranian leader (Khomeini?), who said something to the effect of the Jewish state being wiped clean, which could be interpreted in several ways - say the way the GOP wanted to wipe the Clinton administration clean. The original Persian verb is considerably less strident than the current quote, but the statement has been floating around Iran for 20+ years and has acquired a new denotative meaning that means just that: wipe Israel off the map.


So think of it this way:

"My kids leave their dishes all over the house. I could kill them for being such slobs!"

...then, over time, actually meaning it.

Not exactly an accurate comnparison. The point is that the original comment, the one misquoted by Ahmedinajad, was certainly strident, political grand-standing, but not so out-rightly nasty or nti-semitic.

[NoPasaran]

10. Whatever the literal translation of what he said

I don't think he was soliciting donations to plant trees in Israel.

[in_cog_ni_to]

11. UH, NO. It was all over the networks the day he gave that hateful speech.

They played him SAYING it. Now they're trying to say his Iranian tranlator translated it wrong?:rofl::rofl: And people believe that?:rofl:

[Anarcho-Socialist]

15. Give it a few weeks...

...and this myth will become a "TRUTH!!!111" for those who identify as 'anti-Zionists.'

Therefore any trace of him saying it will be claimed as "Zionist conspiracy lies."

[barb162]

21. Unfortunately , I think that will happen.

Facts? Facts? Who cares about facts?

[Baclava]

13. It's a Holy War all right

"The skirmishes in the occupied land are part of a war of destiny. The outcome of hundreds of years of war will be defined in Palestinian land," he said.

"As the Imam said, Israel must be wiped off the map," said Ahmadinejad, referring to Iran's revolutionary leader Ayat Allah Khomeini.

[cgrindley]

14. Your enemy's enemy is NOT always your friend

Way to polarize the issue. Just because the Repukes are against the Iranian government, doesn't make it a priori a government we should support. I advocate neutrality towards Iran. If they try something against Israel, then I advocate action. I'd like to see Iran move towards a more democratic system, perhaps less influenced by religion, but I'd like to see that happen here in the US too.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

16. Why Do We Play Games Like This Here?

We demean ourselves..



Ahmadinejad said the Holocaust never happened, he hates Israel, and wants to see it destroyed.

[in_cog_ni_to]

17. Because it furthers their agenda on having ISRAEL looking

like the BAD guy in everything that happens in the ME. They can do nothing right in their eyes.

[Poppyseedman]

22. Because it enforces the delusion that there is a

moral equivalence between Israel and her enemies.

If the propaganda is layered on heavy and thick enough that all the trouble in the Middle East can be laid at Israel feet. People can justify their anti Israel positions.



It isn't hard to figure out

[PCIntern]

18. What does it take around here?

OK, since George W. Bush is President, then everyone around the world, no matter how homicidal, sociopathic, genocidal, crazy, or just downright weird who hates Bush, is entitled to free rein? When did everyone become so narcissistic as a nation that everything in the whole world relates to them?

If some guy chopping off limbs in Darfour says he hates Bush, then do we then say that he's 'misuderstood' and just avenging precious wrongs? I mean, where does this stop?

The Iranian President, among many many others wants to wipe Israel off the map. He said that the Holocaust never happened.Give these people credit for telling the truth.

[barb162]

23. He has said MANY times he wants Israelis out of the Mideast

The man is a Jew hater, denying historical facts about what happened in Europe in the concentration camps and elsewhere

[Phx_Dem]

26. but juan cole said he is misunderstood

why do you hate Juan?

[AngryAmish]

28. Does Mr. Cole speak Farsi?

[Phx_Dem]

29. Does it matter?

[AngryAmish]

30. If he doesn't then how can he attack the translation?

I think a native Farsi speaker (or a highly trained translater) could do better.

[Phx_Dem]

31. So do I AA

I was being sarcastic.

[AngryAmish]

32. Sorry, i missed that

I'm dumb.

[barb162]

33. Hahahaha

Well, if that nutcase said it, it must be true

Hi there!