Ahmedinejad: "Iran is not a threat to any country," including Israel

[BurtWorm]

According to Juan Cole:


http://www.juancole.com/2006/08/ahmadinejad-we-are-not-threat-to-any.html


Ahmadinejad: We are Not a Threat to Any Country, Including Israel

Believe it, don't believe it, that's up to you. But at least we should know what exactly he said, which is not something our US newspapers will tell us about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's speech on Saturday:

Kayhan reports that Ahmadinejad said, "Iran is not a threat to any country, and is not in any way a people of intimidation and aggression." He described Iranians as people of peace and civilization. He said that Iran does not even pose a threat to Israel, and wants to deal with the problem there peacefully, through elections:

"Weapons research is in no way part of Iran's program. Even with regard to the Zionist regime, our path to a solution is elections."

Ahmadinejad seems to be explaining what his calls for the Zionist regime to be effaced actually mean. He says he doesn't want violence against Israel, despite its own acts of enmity against Middle Eastern neighbors. I interpret his statement on Saturday to be an endorsement of the one-state solution, in which a government would be elected that all Palestinians and all Israelis would jointly vote for. The result would be a government about half made up of Israeli ministers and half of Palestinian ones. Whatever one wanted to call such an arrangement, it wouldn't exactly be a "Zionist state," which would thus have been dissolved.

The schlock Western pundits, journalists and politicians who keep maintaining that Ahmadinejad threatened "to wipe Israel off the map" when he never said those words will never, ever manage to choke out the words Ahmadinejad spoke on Saturday, much less repeat them as a tag line forever after.

[geek tragedy]

1. Well, considering that he claims that the Nazis

weren't a genocidal threat to Jews, he really can't be trusted on the subject.

[Ian David]

2. I was just thinking the same thing.

I suppose, when the Neoclowns nuke Iran, we can just claim that it never happened-- that the Iranians just made it up to embarrass America.

[Clark2008]

4. Actually, I don't believe he said that.

I think he argued that the state of Israel should have been placed in Europe since the Holocaust happened in Europe. He argues that the Middle East should have been left alone.


Not defending or offending: just clarifying.

[geek tragedy]

5. No, he's repeatedly engaged in Holocaust denial

so vile and repulsive it would make Mel Gibson blush.

[in_cog_ni_to]

8. Yes he did.

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,2149241,00.htm...

Ahmadinejad Claims Holocaust Invented to Embarass Germany

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has told German Chancellor Angela Merkel that the Holocaust may have been invented by the victorious Allied powers in World War II to embarrass Germany.

The remarks by the outspoken Iranian president, who has repeatedly questioned the veracity of the Holocaust, came in a letter sent to Merkel in July whose contents have not been disclosed until now, according to the news agency Mehr as reported by AFP.

"Is it not a reasonable possibility that some countries that had won the war made up this excuse to constantly embarrass the defeated people ... to bar their progress," Ahmadinejad said in the letter.

...

"By promoting the necessity of settlement of Holocaust survivors in the occupied Palestine, they have created a constant threat in the Middle East," he said, referring to Israel.

[jayfish]

16. I Think Some Context Here Would be Helpful, Because According...

to what you posted Ahmadinejad affirms the Holocaust in the very next sentence. he also does so here; ""The question is if these countries, especially Britain, felt responsible for the Holocaust survivors, why they did not settle them in their own countries?"
Ya know, I see no denial of the Holocaust in what you and Deutsche Welle posted. What is "this excuse"?

Jay

[in_cog_ni_to]

17. I hope Aljazeera is a good enough source for you

or is Aljazeera now a RW media organization? He said it. He's NOT acknowledging the Holocaust. He's saying If THOSE COUNTRIES believe it....Big difference. He's NOT saying HE believes it.

Ahmadinejad: Holocaust a myth


Wednesday 14 December 2005, 15:53 Makka Time, 12:53 GMT


Ahmadinejad has caused outrage in Washington and Jerusalem



Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, has again caused international outcry by repeating his view that the Holocaust was a myth.


In a speech broadcast live on state television on Wednesday, Ahmadinejad told a crowd in the southern city of Zahedan: "They have fabricated a legend under the name Massacre of the Jews, and they hold it higher than God himself, religion itself and the prophets themselves.

"If somebody in their country questions God, nobody says anything, but if somebody denies the myth of the massacre of Jews, the Zionist loudspeakers and the governments in the pay of Zionism will start to scream."<snip>

<snip>
The president, who said in October that Israel must be "wiped off the map", said last week that if Germany and Austria believed that Jews were massacred during the second world war, a state of Israel should be established on their soil.<snip>

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/60AE1720-F333-4869-974D-3B69283105BF.htm

[azurnoir]

6. Not defending him

but I'd really like to hear the couple sentences proceeding and succeeding that one sound-bite.
then there is this item
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=364&topic_id=1684404

[geek tragedy]

7. Google Ahmadinejad and Holocaust.

He's commented at length. He'd fit right in at st0rmfr0nt.0rg

[marmar]

3. Oh, you just wait Mahmoud....

until BushCo cooks up some faux intel that Iran had a hand in the London Underground bombings, the thwarted attempt to blow up planes, the murder of JonBenet Ramsey and the war on Christmas.

[deaniac21]

9. Thank goodness thats all be cleared up. The US press would

have you believe (snicker) that Iran sponsors terrorism.

[Warren DeMontague]

10. You know, you can be against pre-emptive war with Iran and still recognize

that Ahmadinejad is a major fuckhead.

Some people keep trying to turn him into Ghandi. It's absurd.

[BurtWorm]

11. Who's turning him into Gandhi?

He's clearly a tool of the religious authorities. He's like a nuclear arsenal personified.

[Warren DeMontague]

12. I think Juan Cole seems to be trying to, here.

JMO. I heard others make similar noises after the Mike Wallace interview; about how he was "reasonable" and "wise" and a "man of peace".

I'm not buyin' it.

[BurtWorm]

13. He doesn't seem reasonable to me.

He seems like a religious nut. But I really don't think Iran is as much of a threat to the long-term peace and stability of the Middle East as the US is.

[bdamomma]

14. I don't believe Iran is a threat

our regime is a threat, and they have many bombs.

[Warren DeMontague]

18. I think, given our current leadership, we're certainly making things worse

When we had actual give-a-shit competence in the White House, OTOH, I think we made actual progress towards improving the situation there.

[geek tragedy]

15. Cole has denounced his bigotry and Holocaust denial. eom

[Tom Joad]

19. Didn't Israel just about wipe Lebanon off the map?

[Rex]

20. Practice what you preach.

I'm sure he knows The Cheney (shot a man in the face) would nuke Iran until it glowed at night, IF he thought he could get away with it. Sounds a lot better than, 'we will wipe Israel off the map'. Time shall tell which is true.