Vice President Joe Biden reached out to the international community Saturday, saying that the U.S. is open for talks with Iran to repair relations, and willing to work with allies to solve world problems. However, Netanyahu of Israel wants to bomb Iran and wipe it off the map.
Will it be a different and peaceful world under the Obama administration? This new approach will render the extremists, including Netanyahu, irrelevant to the new world order.
I sure hope so. Extremism and terrorism by any country is wrong.
ReplyDeletejanfromthebruce, so true.
ReplyDeleteThe "wipe off the map" statement is what Iran's leaders say about Israel.
ReplyDeleteWhile denying the existence of the Holocaust, Iran's Supreme Leader advocates for a new one by calling for the destruction of an entire State.
C-Nuck, care to source the "wipe off the map" statement - where Iran's leaders have said that about Israel? And I'm not talking about some third hand translation that was done by IDF members....
ReplyDeleteWTF:How about an Arab reporter with the International Herald Tribune. Is that good enough for you, or are they part of the international zionist press as well??
ReplyDeleteWTF its time to stop your relentless anti-Israel hate.
________
Wipe Israel 'off the map' Iranian says
New leader revives an old rhetorical tack
By Nazila FathiPublished: THURSDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2005
TEHRAN: Iran's conservative new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said Wednesdaythat Israel must be "wiped off the map" and that attacks by Palestinians would destroy it, the ISNA press agency reported.
Ahmadinejad was speaking to an audience of about 4,000 students at a program called "The World Without Zionism," in preparation for an annual anti-Israel demonstration on the last Friday of the holy month of Ramadan.
His tone was reminiscent of that of the early days of Iran's Islamic revolution in 1979. Iran and Israel have been bitter enemies since then, and anti-Israel slogans have been common at rallies.
Senior officials had avoided provocative language over the past decade, butAhmadinejad appears to be taking a more confrontational tone than Iranian leaders have in recent years.
Ahmadinejad said in his remarks Wednesday that the issue of a Palestinian state would be resolved only when Palestinians took control of all their lands.
C-Nuck, it's about time that you start posting the truth instead of old meme.
ReplyDeleteI am glad you posted that little article because it's been debunked so many times. Only those that suck the tailpipe of Israeli propaganda keep on using it and try to promote lies....
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"Wiped off the map" or "Vanish from the pages of time" translation
Many news sources repeated the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) statement that Ahmadinejad had demanded that "Israel must be wiped off the map",[5][6] an English idiom which means to "cause a place to stop existing",[7] or to "obliterate totally",[8] or "destroy completely".[9]
Ahmadinejad's phrase was " بايد از صفحه روزگار محو شود " according to the text published on the President's Office's website.[10]
According to Juan Cole, a University of Michigan Professor of Modern Middle East and South Asian History, Ahmadinejad's statement should be translated 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).[11]
According to Cole, "Ahmadinejad did not say he was going to 'wipe Israel off the map' because no such idiom exists in Persian". Instead, "He did say he hoped its regime, i.e., a Jewish-Zionist state occupying Jerusalem, would collapse."[12]
The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) translates the phrase similarly.[13] On June 2, 2006 The Guardian columnist and foreign correspondent Jonathan Steele published an article based on this reasoning.[14]
Sources within the Iranian government have also denied that Ahmadinejad issued any sort of threat.[15][16][17] 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 recognize legally this regime," he said.[18][19][20]
In a June 11, 2006 analysis of the translation controversy, New York Times deputy foreign editor and Israeli resident Ethan Bronner argued that Ahmadinejad had called for Israel to be wiped off the map. After noting the objections of critics such as Cole and Steele, Bronner stated: "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 website, refer to wiping Israel away." Bronner continued: "..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."[12] This elicited a further response from Jonathan Steele.[21]
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Nice to try and demonize...
Again my question stands...
I would be in the wrong not to include the following also:
ReplyDeleteClarifying comments by Ahmadinejad
President Ahmadinejad has been asked to explain his comments at subsequent press conferences. At a later news conference on January 14, 2006, Ahmadinejad stated his speech had been exaggerated and misinterpreted.[26] "There is no new policy, they created a lot of hue and cry over that. It is clear what we say: Let the Palestinians participate in free elections and they will say what they want."
Speaking at a D-8 summit meeting in July 2008, when asked to comment on whether he has called for the destruction of Israel he denied that his country would ever instigate military action, there being "no need for any measures by the Iranian people". Instead he claimed that "the Zionist regime" in Israel would eventually collapse on its own. "I assure you... there won't be any war in the future," both the BBC and AP quoted him as saying.[27][28]
And asked if he objected to the government of Israel or Jewish people, he said that "creating an objection against the Zionists doesn't mean that there are objections against the Jewish". He added that Jews lived in Iran and were represented in the country's parliament.[27]
In a September 2008 interview with Juan Gonzalez and Amy Goodman on the radio and television program Democracy Now!, Ahmadinejad was asked: "If the Palestinian leaders agree to a two-state solution, could Iran live with an Israeli state?" and replied
If they [the Palestinians] want to keep the Zionists, they can stay ... Whatever the people decide, we will respect it. I mean, it's very much in correspondence with our proposal to allow Palestinian people to decide through free referendums.[29]
Interviewer Juan Gonzalez called the reply "a tiny opening".[29] Another observer however dubbed it an "astonishing" admission "that Iran might agree to the existence of the state of Israel," and a "softening" of Ahmadinejad's "long-standing, point-blank anti-Israeli stance". Australian-born British human rights activist Peter Tatchell also asked whether the statement reflected opportunism on Ahmadinejad's part, or an openness by Iran "to options more moderate than his reported remarks about wiping the Israeli state off the map."[30]
[edit]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."[31]
In 2007, more than one hundred members of the United States House of Representatives co-sponsored a bill,[32] "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."[33]
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.[34]
However, the Iranian government IRIB News in English published a story reporting on the Ahmadinejad speech on 'Qods Day' on Oct 5 2007, stating that the president 'repeated an earlier suggestion to Europe on settlement of the Zionists in Europe or big lands such as Canada and Alaska so they would be able to own their own land.'[35]
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.[36]
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."[2]
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.[37]
[edit]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".[38]
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.[39]
Ahmadinejad himself has also repeatedly called for such solution.[40][41][42][43] Most recently in an interview with Time magazine:[44]
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.
[edit]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.[45] 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.[46] According to ABC News, "Israel is within range of Iran's ballistic missiles but Israel is believed to possess the only nuclear arsenal in the Middle East."[47][48] 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."[49]
Ahmadinejad's remark found support among Anti-Zionism Jewish groups. A spokesperson for one such organisation argued a distinction, saying Iran's leader had not called for the elimination of Jews but rather the illegal and illegitimate Zionist movement.[50]
[edit]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."[31][51]
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."[52]
[edit]International reaction to the speech
The White House stated that Ahmadinejad's rhetoric showed that it was correct in trying to halt Iran's nuclear program. United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said he was dismayed by the comments, and reiterated Iran's obligations and Israel's right of existence under the UN Charter.
EU leaders issued a strong condemnation of the Iranian President's remarks, stating that "[c]alls for violence, and for the destruction of any state, are manifestly inconsistent with any claim to be a mature and responsible member of the international community." On November 17, the European Parliament adopted a resolution condemning Ahmadinejad's remarks[4] and called on him to retract his bellicose comments in their entirety and to recognise the state of Israel and its right to live in peace and safety.[53] Then Prime Minister of Canada Paul Martin also condemned the comments on several occasions.
On June 20, 2007, the United States House of Representatives passed Resolution 21, a resolution that pressures the United Nations Security Council to charge Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with violating the 1948 Convention on Genocide and the United Nations Charter because of his alleged call for Israel to be "wiped off the map". Congressman Dennis Kucinich attempted to include in the Congressional record independent translations of the speech from The New York Times and the Middle East Media Research Institute[54] that translated the phrase as "the regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time" saying "The resolution passed by the House today sets a dangerous precedent in foreign affairs. A mistranslation could become a cause of war. The United States House may unwittingly be setting the stage for a war with Iran".[55] Members of the House objected and inclusion of the independent translations were blocked.
In July 2008 the United Kingdom Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, repeated the controversial remarks to the Israeli parliament, the Knesset. "To those who believe that threatening statements fall upon indifferent ears we say in one voice - it is totally abhorrent for the president of Iran to call for Israel to be wiped from the map of the world." [56]
[edit]Iranian responses to the speech controversy
The Iranian Ambassador to the European Union, Ali Ahani, called the tough political reactions in Europe against Ahmadinejad "unrealistic and premature," complaining about the discriminatory treatment of the international community, which Iran feels has continued to ignore the threats of Israel and its "organized campaign to provoke others into attacking Iran's facilities and infrastructure". Referring to Israel's support of an American attack on Iran.[57] Hassan Hanizadeh, an editorialist for the Tehran Times, claimed that the criticism of Ahmadinejad's statement by the United States and other Western countries is an attempt to divert attention from "the ever-increasing crimes the Zionists are committing against the innocent Palestinians."[58]
Former president Khatami stated "those words have created hundreds of political and economic problems for us in the world."[59] Khatami has also recently accused Ahmadinejad and his supporters of being an Iranian "Taliban" and giving the enemies of Iran "... the best excuse to attack Islam and Iran."[60] Others in Iran have said that there is nothing new about his statements and that the West has overreacted in order to try to smear Iran's international image.[61]
In 2005 Khamenei responded to President Ahmadinejad's alleged remark that Israel should be "wiped of the map" by saying that "the Islamic Republic has never threatened and will never threaten any country."[62] Moreover Khamenei's main advisor in foreign policy, Ali Akbar Velayati, refused to take part in Holocaust conference. In contrast to Ahmadinejad's remarks, Velayati said that Holocaust was a genocide and a historical reality.[63]
What is the difference? Netanyahu wants to nuke Iran. Is that not crazy? He said Bush promised him to nuke Iran and he agreed with Bush and expected Bush to fulfil his promise. Too bad for him Bush is gone.
ReplyDeleteNetanyahu is more of an extremist.....
ReplyDeleteLeDaro and WTF:
ReplyDeleteThere has been no debunking of the report I posted. You are a liar.
Bibi has never called for "nuking" Iran. Prove it!
You are both extremists and once again I am thankfull thsat neither one of you is a member of the Liberal Party of Canada.
Here are French, Russian and British Leaders all condemning the statement to wipe Israel off the map.
ReplyDelete"I have never come across a situation of the president of a country saying they want to . . . wipe out another country," British Prime Minister Tony Blair said at a summit outside London of the 25 leaders of the European Union's member states.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair, right, and French President Jacques Chirac, left, were among the 25 European Union leaders who excoriated Iran. (Pool Photo/by Patrick Kovarik Via Associated Press)
Blair said Ahmadinejad's comment was "completely and totally unacceptable."
In a joint statement, the E.U. leaders "condemned in the strongest terms" the Iranian president's call, saying it "will cause concern about Iran's role in the region and its future intentions." President Jacques Chirac of France told reporters that Ahmadinejad risked Iran "being left on the outside of other nations."
Russia's foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, in Israel, called the Iranian president's statement "unacceptable."
Maybe WTF everyone is wrong and you are right - I think not!!!
C-Nuck, you should change your name to The-Nut. When you have no argument then you say,
ReplyDelete"You are ...extremists and once again I am thankfull thsat neither one of you is a member of the Liberal Party of Canada."
Good for your hyperbole. Have fun. Open the champaign.
Of all the people Veterans for Common Sense(which you lack) Organization confirms, "We'll nuke Iran - Bush promises Israel
Thu, 01/10/2008 - 16:08 - Wire Services - US President George W. Bush promised Israel's opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu that the United States will join the Jewish state in a nuclear strike against Iran, Israel Radio reported today.
..."
Here is what Nutyahoo said:
""I told him my position and Bush agreed,"" Netanyahu told Israel Radio."
You're the one who is lying and start using abusive language when you feel cornered. You say you don't support Nutyahoo but you're willing to defend him with your life. Make up your mind. Grow up.
Here is the link;
http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/?Page=Article&ID=9104
C-nuck, you are deflecting.
ReplyDeleteDeflecting nothing.
ReplyDeleteThe two of you defend Iran.
makes both of you very suspect.
C.Nuck, you really need help now. When paranoia takes over then you go to a psychiatrist and not comment on blogs because you’re making an ass of yourself.
ReplyDeleteThe two of you defend Iran.
ReplyDeleteIf exposing a lie is defending Iran than I am guilty.
So are we at war with Eurasia? I forget so easily...
C-Nuck says he does not like Netanyahu and then goes to great lengths to defend him. I am very ‘suspicious’ that he is mentally unbalanced.
ReplyDeleteWhen you were arguing with specific facts sticking to the point, and arguing your case the argument was interesting and informative. I am from Israel. It was interesting to learn the different translations/interpratations of the "wipe Israel off the map" statement/fabrication. I have an Iranian friend, and he says the same thing: the phraze has been distorted to mean something different that what it meant in its original language. If that is true, it is sad.
ReplyDelete