'Wiped off the Map' – The Rumor of the Century

Seems like the US and Israel keeps referring to a misquote and riding on it as an excuse to invade Iran. When it turns out, all he said was the regime occupying Jerusalem should vanish from the pages of time.

www.antiwar.com...


Isreal and the US kept crying about how Iran stated that it wanted to WIPE Israel off the map.
----------------

The Actual Quote:

So what did Ahmadinejad actually say? To quote his exact words in Farsi:

"Imam ghoft een rezhim-e ishghalgar-e qods bayad az safheh-ye ruzgar mahv shavad."

-------------------------------
The full quote translated directly to English:

"The Imam said this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time".
------------------------------

That passage will mean nothing to most people, but one word might ring a bell: rezhim-e. It is the word "regime." pronounced just like the English word with an extra "eh" sound at the end. Ahmadinejad did not refer to Israel the country or Israel the land mass, but the Israeli regime. This is a vastly significant distinction, as one cannot wipe a regime off the map. Ahmadinejad does not even refer to Israel by name, he instead uses the specific phrase "rezhim-e ishghalgar-e qods" (regime occupying Jerusalem).
So this raises the question.. what exactly did he want "wiped from the map"? The answer is: nothing. That's because the word "map" was never used. The Persian word for map, "nagsheh" is not contained anywhere in his original Farsi quote, or, for that matter, anywhere in his entire speech. Nor was the western phrase "wipe out" ever said. Yet we are led to believe that Iran's president threatened to "wipe Israel off the map." despite never having uttered the words "map." "wipe out" or even "Israel."

Yes I saw this myself...but try telling anyone!! This is just that convenient misinterpretation joke they are trying on. No wonder Iran doesnt like the west lol

Yeah, I mean they have a terrorists country like Israel treating to nuke Iran, and than in the US where we have McCain singing "bomb bomb Iran", I think Iran has every right to be concern of a future attack by Israel and the US.

I hope Iran do get their hands on the S-300 defensive system. Maybe if Iran lease out its oil field to Russia/China, the US would be least likely to attack. Israel would never attack w/o the US to cover their asses.

www.guardian.co.uk...

The Guardian corrected the "misquote"

The following correction was printed in the Guardian's Corrections and clarifications column, Saturday July 28 2007

In the article below we reported that last year President Ahmadinejad said (quoting the late Ayatollah Khomeini) that Israel should be "wiped off the map". A more literal translation of the statement he made in 2005, at The World without Zionism conference in Tehran, is "the regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time".

FUNNY how the US media and the Jews all over still using the misquote to antagonize Iran.

[edit on 28-2-2009 by verbal_assassin]

Well - quote or misqoute, you understand perfectly well what he meant and so do i.In dozens of similar-meaning quotes. So no need to catch on to exect words.
It was not "something meaningless" - it was a threat, in diplomatic language.
Did Hitler openly said that he will occupy all Eastern Europe or just that he has to protect all German people? If you were living then you of course would say that since he said only this and that people are just trying to antagonise against peaceful Hitler who was just quoting Bismarc.
By pure chance Hitler just keeps investing in armed forces and new technologies, has nothing to do with what Churchill implies....
Rather pathetic attempt to hide behind words when meaning is understood by all. By the way - show me once any Iraninan official saying Israel and not "regime"...
Threats (not this one only, by far) , nuclear research, balistic missile research, rapidly rising investment in military... Hmm, Iranian leadership is as peaceful as they come.

Kinda reminds you of when every talking head coined the phrase "Wepons of Mass Destruction" ..... Iraq

I hve known this for some time but thanks for posting.

Add to that the number of times that Israel has actually and literally threatened war, and who we're supporting seems more and more backwards.