Wiping Out Israel or its Government?

Iranian Newspaper, April 2006. The Headline says: "Iran Among 8 Nuclear Powers". Note the picture of President Admedinijad surrounded by Doves, to try to give it a peaceful implication. Original Photo (modified by me) from DD/MM/YYYY on Flickr.

There's an overly long article running right now on Digg which is so preposterous that I ignored it when I first read it a couple of weeks ago. I figured reasonable people would see what a non-story it is. But apparently I was wrong. As of right now, it has 1344 diggs (and probably many more by the time you read this) which shows that there are at least 1344 people who lack some common sense.

The article claims that Iranian President Ahmedinijad did not say in his infamous speech on Oct 26, 2005: "Israel must be wiped off the map". No, instead, the much more accurate translation is "this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time" Wow. Doesn't that sound so much better?

To Iran's apologists, anyway, that does sound so much better, with the key word being "regime". You see, since Bush and Blair called for regime changes in Iraq and Afghanistan, (so the logic goes) then obviously Iran can say the same thing about Israel. The apologists are essentially grasping at every straw they can to portray Admedinijad's speech in the most innocent light possible, just as they have been doing for Iran's nuclear ambitions.

First of all, Bush and Blair's statements are unrelated to Iran and Israel, but in any case they were calling for regime changes toward democracy. Since Israel is already a democracy (even giving full rights to its Arab citizens), the only way you are going to wipe out the regime IS by wiping out its citizens.

Second, you have to look at the context of the statement and the speaker himself. At the time of his speech, he was standing in front of a backdrop with the words "A World Without Zionism" prominently displayed in Farsi and English, and during the speech several times he referred to the "Zionist regime" in Israel. Shortly after this speech, he headlined a Jerusalem Day ceremony in Oct 2005 (an annual rally to show Iran's support for Palestine), where there were tens of thousands of participants:

Shouting "Death to Israel, death to the Zionists", the protesters dragged Israeli flags along the ground and then set them on fire.
Many carried posters and placards sporting the slogan "Israel should be wiped off the map".
Joining the protest, Mr Ahmadinejad said: "My words were the Iranian nation's words."

Or, if you don't believe the media, you can watch video of him whipping up a rally crying "Death to Israel" here at a rally in January this year, captured by Memri TV on YouTube. And these aren't exactly aberrations. "Death to Israel, Death to America" have become routine slogans in Iran everywhere from political rallies to grade school assemblies. And there are also of course other signs that give us clues to Iran's intentions toward Israel, like my previous post here.

Third, the article is not exactly news. It actually was released back in January, and was generally ignored for many of the reasons above. But now Anti-War.com decided to rally a group of their supporters and put this on the front page of Digg. By the way, Anti-War.com does not really live up to its namesake. Far from protesting all war, it has focused over 90% of its energies to simply discrediting the United States, and to a lesser degree Israel, on a wide range of issues (with all the wars going on in the world, you might think they would branch out a bit). In any case, don't just take my word for it, go to their front page and take a look for yourself.

Finally, bear in mind, even the Digg article admits that "wiped of the map" was not an invention of the West, but it was put out by Iranian news outlets and then spread by the wire services. Westerners usually assume that Iranians know their own language better than others do. Maybe it is time to scrutinize the official Iranian media a bit more, and stop taking everything they feed us for at face value.