so when will Fuhrer Ahmedinejad declare Jehad on the Jooooooos?

It's been argued that his 'wipe Israel off the map' comment has been mistranslated (this is from 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, translates the Persian phrase as:

The Imam said that this regime occupying Jerusalem (een rezhim-e ishghalgar-e qods) must [vanish from] 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:

[T]his regime that is occupying Qods [Jerusalem] must be eliminated from the pages of history.[9]

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. [10][11][12]

In a June 2006 analysis of the translation controversy, New York Times deputy foreign editor Ethan Bronner concluded that Ahmadinejad had in fact said that Israel was to be wiped off the map. After noting the objections of critics such as Cole, 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: "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."[2]

On June 15, 2006 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".[13]

In the original post it is stated, "[Saudi Arabia has] become increasingly dependent on US aid in recent years." In fact, foreign aid to Saudia Arabia was a mere $25,000 in 2005 [1], which pales in comparison to over $2.5 billion to Israel [2], along with over $2 billion to Egypt [3]. So the argument for Egypt's inability to carry out the "Saudi threat" is plausible, but the notion that Saudi Arabia suffers from a similar inability due to a dependence on U.S. aid is dubious.

-- References --

[1] fpc.state.gov

[2] usembassy.it

[3] usembassy.it 2

bilbo,

Aid takes many forms. Saudi Arabia is completely dependent on US forces for protection in case of invasion. Also, a new $6 billion weapons deal was announced only days ago.

OF course, the weapons are less important to the country than US forces, especially with Iran's growing power -- missile technology.

Akeel Shah,

Read the NY Times article on translating Ahmadinejad's rhetoric. Here are some highlights:

If Mr. Steele (of The Guardian) and Mr. Cole are right, not one word of the quotation -- Israel should be wiped off the map -- is accurate.

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. Sohrab Mahdavi, one of Iran's most prominent translators, and Siamak Namazi, managing director of a Tehran consulting firm, who is bilingual, both say "wipe off" or "wipe away" is more accurate than "vanish" because the Persian verb is active and transitive.

The second translation issue concerns the word "map." Khomeini's words were abstract: "Sahneh roozgar." Sahneh means scene or stage, and roozgar means time. The phrase was widely interpreted as "map," and for years, no one objected. In October, when Mr. Ahmadinejad quoted Khomeini, he actually misquoted him, saying not "Sahneh roozgar" but "Safheh roozgar," meaning pages of time or history. No one noticed the change, and news agencies used the word "map" again.

Ahmad Zeidabadi, a professor of political science in Tehran whose specialty is Iran-Israel relations, explained: "It seems that in the early days of the revolution the word 'map' was used because it appeared to be the best meaningful translation for what he said. The words 'sahneh roozgar' are metaphorical and do not refer to anything specific. Maybe it was interpreted as 'book of countries,' and the closest thing to that was a map. Since then, we have often heard 'Israel bayad az naghshe jographya mahv gardad' -- Israel must be wiped off the geographical map. Hard-liners have used it in their speeches."

The final translation issue is Mr. Ahmadinejad's use of "occupying regime of Jerusalem" rather than "Israel."

To some analysts, this means he is calling for regime change, not war, and therefore it need not be regarded as a call for military action. Professor Cole, for example, says: "I am entirely aware that Ahmadinejad is hostile to Israel. The question is whether his intentions and capabilities would lead to a military attack, and whether therefore pre-emptive warfare is prescribed. I am saying no, and the boring philology is part of the reason for the no."

But to others, "occupying regime" signals more than opposition to a certain government; the phrase indicates the depth of the Iranian president's rejection of a Jewish state in the Middle East because he refuses even to utter the name Israel. He has said that the Palestinian issue "does not lend itself to a partial territorial solution" and has called Israel "a stain" on Islam that must be erased. By contrast, Mr. Ahmadinejad's predecessor, Mohammad Khatami, said that if the Palestinians accepted Israel's existence, Iran would go along.

When combined with Iran's longstanding support for Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah of Lebanon, two groups that have killed numerous Israelis, and Mr. Ahmadinejad's refusal to acknowledge the Holocaust, 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.

Whatever the details of that particular comment, I think there can be no argument that Ahmadinejad has repeatedly made it clear he feels Jews should be eliminated/killed/wiped off the face of the earth. He's been very unequivocal about that.

I think we are playing with and are surrounded by perceptions here.

here is mine: it is inconceivable that the president of iran would say something like "kill all the jews".

however it is conceivable that he wants to destroy the policy and actions of isreal - the regime.

There are two good reasons for being dramatic about this:
~ oil price goes up
~ he gets a boost in domestic and international standing

also this is much less OBSCENE than gwbush and rumsfeldt and powell!! saying : we are there to clean iraq of the WMDs

thats good for the oil tycoons too.

best

Dr P

well it should be amply clear from the article that the warmongers in this case are the israelis and the neocons spurring them on, and not iran. qed.

best

Nancy,

What is your argument based on? Are you thinking with your 'gut' ;-)

Oh no, I will rather have Ahmadinejad die coz of influenza or Dengue fever. Anything other than missile hit or something which will make him a martyr! He's a seriously crazy guy. Even bin Laden choses his words more carefully.

Dr. Politico,

Re: Aid to Saudi Arabia, I'm not entirely convinced of the Saudi dependency on American arms and protection that you seem so sure of. Perhaps this could be true in the near term, but with their enviable money/oil supply, I don't see a problem with the Saudis eventually "purchasing" their protection somewhere else if Saudi-US relations went south. Perhaps the recent Abdullah visit to Beijing saudi-us-relations.org may serve as a preliminary indication of this (?).

-bilbo.

Western media would have us believe Iran's president would drop nukes on Israel to kill all the Jews there. That doesn't seem to make any sense. It appears that his hostility is directed towards the regime, not the people. He doesn't hate Jews, and want to kill them all. There are Jews living in Iran as we speak. They are discriminated against, but they aren't dead. Dropping nukes on Israel would be disasterous for the whole region. Israel is tiny, and the nuclear fallout would affect the surrounding nations.

Israel is a very hostile country, and it's not suprising that it's neighbors advocate regime change. Everyone in the west made a big deal over the Israel soldiers that were captured by Hezbollah, but they fail to mention the fact that Israel regularly conducts raids into pallestine and captures soldiers. Our media is clearly biased in these matters.

Take a step back, and realize that the only countries who have been wagin any war in the middle east lately are Israel and the U.S.

Dr. Politico

You have not proven your premise. You stated that "Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has apparently backed down from his usual, "kill all the Jews" rhetoric"

You have not proven that that rhetoric actually exists so your article is baseless. It amounts to rhetoric itself and actually garbage until you have proof that that is what Ahmadinejad has declared. What you think Ahmadinejad must feel is irrelevant and certainly isn't a bases for an article

It seems rather convenient for supporters of Israel to promote a demonization of all who apose the actions of Israel against the Palestinians.

The truth is no matter who says what about Israel, regardless of what smoke and mirrors and presented, what has happenend to the Palestinians is a crime and needs to stop!!

As is the case with human nature we tend to divert our misdeeds and place blame on others in order to evade criticism. The truth is that the anger against Israel is because of what they did by taking the land of the Palestinians away.....