Read other letters about this article

• Tuesday, May 20, 2008 10:54 AM

  @ dash

  Dash said, a few comments back, that regarding "Wiping Israel off the Map, context is everything : If I recall correctly, this statement -- or any better translation of it -- came in the context of Dick Cheney openly advocating that Israel launch a military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities (clearly as a proxy for the US doing so). Iran's governmental response was, not surprisingly, if Israel did such a thing, Iran would "wipe them off the map."

  Well, Dash, you not only do not recall correctly, you do not recall at all, you are imagining this exchange, which never took place at all.

  In an October 2005 speech to a conference on a "World without Zionism," Ahmadinejad was quoted by a state-run Iranian news agency as agreeing with a statement by Iran's late spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, that "Israel must be wiped off the map." Iran's foreign minister later said the comment had been incorrectly translated from Farsi, and that Ahmadinejad was "talking about the regime," which Iran does not recognize and wants to see collapse. According to Farsi-speaking commentators, including Juan Cole, a professor of Middle Eastern history at the University of Michigan, Ahmadinejad's exact quote was, "The Imam said that this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time."

  but then, Juan Cole is a cheese-eating surrender monkey, of course, so he is doubtless lying about the literal meaning of the Farsi words, and the leftist elitists are all covering up for him.

  —Rowan Berkeley Read Rowan Berkeley's other letters
  Permalink
  Flag
  Click "Submit Flag" if you feel this post is inappropriate. Explain why below if you wish.

  Cancel