Curious statement by Iran

[DFW]

By Irwin Arieff

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Iran, whose president has vowed to wipe Israel off the map, complained to the United Nations on Wednesday that the Jewish state was repeatedly threatening to bomb it.

The threats were "matters of extreme gravity" and the U.N. Security Council should condemn them and demand that Israel "cease and desist immediately from the threat of the use of force against members of the United Nations," Iranian U.N. Ambassador Javad Zarif said.
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I can only stop laughing at this if Iran will state how it was going to wipe Israel off
the map by peaceful means. I have no problem blasting Israel for its excesses in retaliating
against what must be a frustrating conflict with an enemy who hides among the civilian
population to make sure that any Israeli retaliation will necessarily hit civilians. Still,
Iran, of all countries, whining about Israeli threats while crowing about wiping that same
nation off the map just doesn't cut it with me.

[Dhalgren]

1. That "wipe Israel off the map" thing has been debunked by

Juan Cole. The statement in Farsi is something like "May Israel vanish from the pages of History", which, evidently is kind of Farsi phrase of condemnation. According to Cole, it was in no way a threat, but the Western (US) media chose to report it as one.

[jobycom]

2. Thanks, I was just trying to find this debunking. Here's Wikipedia.

Translation of phrase "wiped off the map"
Many news sources have presented one of Ahmadinejad's phrases in Persian as a statement that "Israel must be wiped off the map"<4><5><6>, an English idiom which means to cause a place to stop existing<7>.

Juan Cole, a University of Michigan Professor of Modern Middle East and South Asian History, says it was not Ahmadinejad's own phrase (Ahmadinejad quoted Imam (Khomeini?), and translates the Persian phrase as:

The Imam said that this regime occupying Jerusalem (een rezhim-e ishghalgar-e qods) must the page of time (bayad az safheh-ye ruzgar mahv shavad).<8>

According to Cole, "Ahmadinejad did not say he was going to wipe Israel off the map because no such idiom exists in Persian" and "He did say he hoped its regime, i.e., a Jewish-Zionist state occupying Jerusalem, would collapse."<1>

The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) translates the phrase similarly:

his regime that is occupying Qods must be eliminated from the pages of history.<9>

snip

On June 15, 2006 The Guardian columnist and foreign correspondant Jonathan Steele cites several Persian speakers and translators who state that the phrase in question is more accurately translated as "eliminated" or "wiped off" or "wiped away" from "the page of time" or "the pages of history", rather than "wiped off the map". Concluding that "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.... e should not demonise Ahmadinejad on those grounds alone."<13>

[Kikosexy2]

4. Sad thing...

Israel is taking this way too seriously...well just the other night there was Netyahu on TV calling Iran Nazi Germany...comparing Iran's prez to Hitler...Nazis--Boo! they're coming to wipe us out...Boo! As if Israel couldn't defend itself with the all nukes they have gotten from U.S. ...and the way they oppress Palestinians...who are the real Nazis???...please!

[wholetruth00]

7. Hmmmm. sounds almost like "regime change."

[jobycom]

3. Try to remember that BushCo has been trying to justify a war in Iran, and that

most of these insane "quotations" we hear from Ahmadinejad are attempts by BushCo to demonize him in the way Hussein was demonized.

[endarkenment]

5. Iran has not made explicit threats and

has no means to carry out such threats, even if you choose to believe the MSM that these threats have been made.

Israel and the United States, on the other hand, have made explicit threats against Iran, and have alluded to a first strike use of nuclear weapons against Iran, and both Israel and the United States have the means, and the apparent recklessness to do what they have explicitly threatened to do.

[DFW]

6. Ahmadinejad's statements

Even if not translatable as wanting to eliminate Israel's population, are
rather clear in wanting Israel to disappear. Stating, even casually, as a goal that all
Israelis should go back to their ancestral homelands is about is realistic as
the Navajos wanting all white Americans to do the same.

That having been stated, Iran has always erred on the side of caution, and
is far less likely to instigate a reckless first strike than the Bush administration.
Israel I doubt would engage in that either, unless they felt themselves directly
threatened by Iranian action. A Persian friend (not Jewish) told me that many
of the current and past Israeli higher-ups were in fact exiled Iranian Jews who were
well dialed into the mentality of the land they left, which could be good or bad,
depending on how accurate their understanding is of the regime in place there now.

I still think Bush would not attack Iran unilaterally. Cowards rarely attack those
who they know are most likely to shoot back.

[Dhalgren]

9. Not far off.

"Stating, even casually, as a goal that all
Israelis should go back to their ancestral homelands is about is realistic as
the Navajos wanting all white Americans to do the same." Yeah, but you couldn't blame a Navajo for wanting it...

[warrens]

8. The entire Arab world

Is furious that Israel got nukes, then bullies its neighbors while using its U.S. connection to keep Arab countries from developing them.

My solution to the Israel/Palestine problem? Give the Palestinians $100 billion worth of arms and let the two duke it out on a level playing field. Or come to their senses and negotiate in good faith. Giving one side such an advantage is grossly unfair, and is the root of our problems in Iraq and elsewhere.