Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Israel – What he said and

what he didn’t
2005 "World Without Zionism" speech

Video Links

Iran's Ahmadinejad on Holocaust

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykd-syzZ4ZY

The Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting IRIB News Service have provided a text in
English, titled "Ahmadinejad: Israel must be wiped off the map" [4] containing IRIB's
selected key quotes by Ahmadinejad:

"The establishment of the Zionist regime was a move by the world oppressor against the
Islamic world,""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," "As the Imam
said, Israel must be wiped off the map," said Ahmadinejad, referring to the late founder of
the Islamic Republic of Iran, Imam Khomeini." Addressing some 4,000 students gathered
in an interior ministry conference hall, Ahmadinejad also called for Palestinian unity,
resistance and a point where the annihilation of the Zionist regime will come. "The
Islamic umma (community) will not allow its historic enemy to live in its heartland," he
said. Regarding the Zionist regime's retreat from the Gaza Strip he said, "we should not
settle for a piece of land". "Anyone who signs a treaty which recognises the entity of
Israel means he has signed the surrender of the Muslim world," Ahmadinejad said. "Any
leaders in the Islamic umma who recognise Israel face the wrath of their own people."
Regarding the prolonged conflict between the Islamic Ummah and the Zionist regime,
Ahmadinejad said "It dates backs hundreds of years. Sometimes Islam has advanced.
Sometimes nobody was winning. Unfortunately over the past 300 years, the world of
Islam has been in retreat". "One hundred years ago the last trench of Islam fell, when the
oppressors went towards the creation the Zionist regime. It is using it as a fort to spread
its aims in the heart of the Islamic world."

Ahmadinejad also claimed in the speech that the issue with Palestine would be over "the
day that all refugees return to their homes [and] a democratic government elected by the
people comes to power" [1], and denounced attempts to normalise relations with Israel,
condemning all Muslim leaders who accept the existence of Israel as "acknowledging a
surrender and defeat of the Islamic world."

The speech also indicated that the Iranian President considered Israel's withdrawal from
the Gaza Strip to be a trick, designed to gain acknowledgement from Islamic states. In a
rally held two days later, Ahmadinejad declared that his words reflected the views of the
Iranian people, adding that Westerners are free to comment, but their reactions are
invalid. [2]

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", an English idiom which means to
"obliterate totally", and "destroy completely", such as by powerful bombs, or other
catastrophes.

Juan Cole, a University of Michigan Professor of Modern Middle East and South Asian
History, translates the Persian phrase as:

The Imam said that this regime occupying Jerusalem (een rezhim-e eshghalgar-e
qods) must [vanish from] the page of time (bayad az safheh-ye ruzgar mahv shavad).

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."

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

[T]his regime that is occupying Qods [Jerusalem] must be eliminated from the pages of
history.

Iran has repeatedly rejected the allegations that Ahmadinejad has stated 'Israel must be
wiped off the map'. On 20 February 2006, Iran’s foreign minister denied that Tehran
wanted to see Israel “wiped off the map,” saying Ahmadinejad had been misunderstood.
"Nobody can remove a country from the map. This is a misunderstanding in Europe of
what our president mentioned," Manouchehr Mottaki told a news conference, speaking in
English, after addressing the European Parliament. "How is it possible to remove a
country from the map? He is talking about the regime. We do not recognise legally this
regime," he said.

In a June 11, 2006 analysis of the translation controversy, New York Times deputy
foreign editor Ethan Bronner stated that Ahmadinejad had said that Israel was to be wiped
off the map. After noting the objections of critics such as Cole and Steele, Bronner said:
"But translators in Tehran who work for the president's office and the foreign ministry
disagree with them. All official translations of Mr. Ahmadinejad's statement, including a
description of it on his Web site (www.president.ir/eng/), refer to wiping Israel away.
Bronner stated: "..it is hard to argue that, from Israel's point of view, Mr. Ahmadinejad
poses no threat. Still, it is true that he has never specifically threatened war against Israel.
So did Iran's president call for Israel to be 'wiped off the map'? It certainly seems so. Did
that amount to a call for war? That remains an open question."
On June 15, 2006 The Guardian columnist and foreign correspondent Jonathan Steele
cites several Persian speakers and translators who state that the phrase in question is more
accurately translated as an "occupying regime" being "eliminated" or "wiped off" or
"wiped away" from "the page of time" or "the pages of history", rather than "Israel" being
"wiped off the map".

A synopsis of Mr Ahmadinejad's speech on the Iranian Presidential website states:

He further expressed his firm belief that the new wave of confrontations generated in
Palestine and the growing turmoil in the Islamic world would in no time wipe Israel
away.

The same idiom in his speech on December 13, 2006 was translated as "wipe out" by
Reuters:

Just as the Soviet Union was wiped out and today does not exist, so will the Zionist
regime soon be wiped out."

Iran's state-owned Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting translated Ahmadinejad's

comments as "Israel must be wiped off the map".

Interpretation of speech as call for genocide

The speech was interpreted by some as a call for genocide. For example, Canada's then
Prime Minister Paul Martin said, "this threat to Israel's existence, this call for genocide
coupled with Iran's obvious nuclear ambitions is a matter that the world cannot ignore."

In 2007, more than one hundred members of the United States House of Representatives
co-sponsored a bill, "Calling on the United Nations Security Council to charge Iranian
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with violating the 1948 Convention on the Prevention
and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and the United Nations Charter because of his
calls for the destruction of the State of Israel."

Cole interprets the speech as a call for the end of Jewish rule of Israel, but not necessarily
for the removal of Jewish people:

His statements were morally outrageous and historically ignorant, but he did not
actually call for mass murder (Ariel Sharon made the "occupation regime" in
Gaza "vanish" last summer[sic]) or for the expulsion of the Israeli Jews to
Europe.

Gawdat Bahgat, Director of Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Indiana University of
Pennsylvania, commenting on this saying of Ahmadinejad and Iran's nuclear program
states: "The fiery calls to destroy Israel are meant to mobilize domestic and regional
constituencies. Iran has no plan to attack Israel with its nuclear arsenal and powerful
conventional military capabilities. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameni summed up
his country’s stand on the Arab-Israeli conflict by stressing, '[The] Palestine issue is not
Iran’s jihad.'" In fact, Bahgat says that according to most analysts a military confrontation
between Iran and Israel is unlikely.

In the speech, Ahmadinejad gave the examples of Iran under the Shah, the Soviet Union
and Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq as examples of apparently invincible regimes that
ceased to exist. Ahmadinejad used these examples to justify his belief that the United
States and the State of Israel can also be defeated claiming, "they say it is not possible to
have a world without the United States and Zionism. But you know that this is a possible
goal and slogan."

In April 2006, Iran's ambassador was asked directly about Ahmadinejad's position
towards Israel by CNN correspondent Wolf Blitzer:

BLITZER: But should there be a state of Israel?

SOLTANIEH: I think I've already answered to you. If Israel is a synonym and will
give the indication of Zionism mentality, no. But if you are going to conclude that
we have said the people there have to be removed or they have to be massacred or
so, this is fabricated, unfortunate selective approach to what the mentality and
policy of Islamic Republic of Iran is. I have to correct, and I did so.

Interpretation of speech as call for referendum

Iran's stated policy on Israel is to urge a one-state solution through a countrywide

referendum. Juan Cole and others interpret Ahmadinejad's statements 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; which would normally be an end to
the "Zionist state".

In November 2005 Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei, rejecting any attack on
Israel, called for a referendum in Palestine:

We hold a fair and logical stance on the issue of Palestine. Several decades ago,
Egyptian statesman Gamal Abdel Nasser, who was the most popular Arab personality,
stated in his slogans that the Egyptians would throw the Jewish usurpers of Palestine into
the sea. Some years later, Saddam Hussein, the most hated Arab figure, said that he
would put half of the Palestinian land on fire. But we would not approve of either of these
two remarks. We believe, according to our Islamic principles, that neither throwing the
Jews into the sea nor putting the Palestinian land on fire is logical and reasonable. Our
position is that the Palestinian people should regain their rights. Palestine belongs to
Palestinians, and the fate of Palestine should also be determined by the Palestinian
people. The issue of Palestine is a criterion for judging how truthful those claiming to
support democracy and human rights are in their claims. The Islamic Republic of Iran
has presented a fair and logical solution to this issue. We have suggested that all native
Palestinians, whether they are Muslims, Christians or Jews, should be allowed to take
part in a general referendum before the eyes of the world and decide on a Palestinian
government. Any government that is the result of this referendum will be a legitimate
government.

Ahmadinejad himself has also repeatedly called for such solution. Most recently in an
interview with Time magazine:

TIME: You have been quoted as saying Israel should be wiped off the map. Was
that merely rhetoric, or do you mean it?
Ahmadinejad: [...] Our suggestion is that the 5 million Palestinian refugees come
back to their homes, and then the entire people on those lands hold a referendum
and choose their own system of government. This is a democratic and popular
way.

Israeli responses to the speech

The day immediately following Ahmadinejad's statements, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon called for Iran to be expelled from the United Nations and Israel's Foreign
Minister Silvan Shalom called for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council. In
that meeting, all fifteen members condemned Ahmadinejad's remarks.

On May 8 2006, Israel's Second Vice Prime Minister Shimon Peres said in an interview
with Reuters that "the president of Iran should remember that Iran can also be wiped off
the map," Army Radio reported. In 1981, Israeli fighter jets bombed Osirak, Iraq’s
nuclear reactor, severely damaging that country's nuclear weapons program. Today,
however, experts state that a similar attack on Iran's nuclear facilities is unlikely, given
that Iran's nuclear program is spread out across numerous locations, including some sites
that are buried deep enough underground that they are thought to be safe from aerial
strikes Israel is within range of Iran's ballistic missiles but Israel is believed to possess the
only nuclear arsenal in the Middle East. Peres, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, drew
unusually stiff criticism from an analyst on Israel's state television, Yoav Limor, for
talking of destroying another country. "There is a broad consensus that it would have
been better if Peres had not said this, especially now," Limor said. "I'm quite sure Israel
does not want to find itself in the same insane asylum as (Iranian President Mahmoud)
Ahmadinejad."

Palestinian responses to the speech

Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator and member of the Palestinian Legislative
Council, stated: "Palestinians recognise the right of the state of Israel to exist and I reject
his comments. What we need to be talking about is adding the state of Palestine to the
map, and not wiping Israel from the map."

Khaled Meshaal, the Damascus-based political leader of ruling Hamas party, has
supported Ahmadinejad's stance towards Israel calling Ahmadinejad's remarks
"courageous". He has said that "Just as Islamic Iran defends the rights of the Palestinians,
we defend the rights of Islamic Iran. We are part of a united front against the enemies of
Islam."