Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Israel refers to the relations between Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the State of Israel, characterized by contentious speeches and statements, including what many commentators perceive to be calls to destroy the country.
On October 26, 2005, IRIB News, an English-language subsidiary of the state-controlled Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), filed a story on Ahmadinejad's speech to the "World Without Zionism" conference in Asia, entitled: Ahmadinejad: Israel must be wiped off the map.[1] The story was picked up by Western news agencies and quickly made headlines around the world. On October 30, The New York Times published a full transcript of the speech in which Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying:
Our dear Imam (referring to Ayatollah Khomeini) said that the occupying regime must be wiped off the map. We cannot compromise over the issue of Palestine. Is it possible to create a new front in the heart of an old front. This would be a defeat and whoever accepts the legitimacy of this regime has in fact, signed the defeat of the Islamic world. Our dear Imam targeted the heart of the world oppressor in his struggle, meaning the occupying regime. I have no doubt that the new wave that has started in Palestine, and we witness it in the Islamic world too, will eliminate this disgraceful stain from the Islamic world.[2]
Ahmadinejad said 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",[3] 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 indicated that he considered Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip to be a trick, designed to gain acknowledgment from Islamic states. In a rally held two days later, Ahmadinejad declared that his words reflected the views of the Iranian people, adding that Western world was free to comment, but its reactions were invalid.[4]
Many news sources repeated the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting statement by Ahmadinejad 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]
The translation presented by the official Islamic Republic News Agency has been challenged by Arash Norouzi, who says the statement "wiped off the map" was never made and that Ahmadinejad did not refer to the nation or land mass of Israel, but to the "regime occupying Jerusalem". Norouzi translated the original Persian to English, with the result, "the Imam said this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time."[11] Juan Cole, a University of Michigan Professor of Modern Middle East and South Asian History, agrees that 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).[12] 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."[13] The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) translated the phrase similarly, as "this regime" must be "eliminated from the pages of history."[14]
Iranian government sources denied that Ahmadinejad issued any sort of threat. On 20 February 2006, Iran's foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki told a news conference: "How is it possible to remove a country from the map? He is talking about the regime. We do not recognize legally this regime."[15][16][17]
Shiraz Dossa, a professor of Political Science at St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia, Canada, also believes the text is a mistranslation.[18]
Ahmadinejad was quoting the Ayatollah Khomeini in the specific speech under discussion: what he said was that "the occupation regime over Jerusalem should vanish from the page of time." No state action is envisaged in this lament; it denotes a spiritual wish, whereas the erroneous translation – "wipe Israel off the map" – suggests a military threat. There is a huge chasm between the correct and the incorrect translations. The notion that Iran can "wipe out" U.S.-backed, nuclear-armed Israel is ludicrous.[19][20][21]
The Guardian columnist and foreign correspondent Jonathan Steele published an article based on this line of reasoning.[22]
In a June 11, 2006 analysis of the translation controversy, New York Times editor Ethan Bronner stated:
[T]ranslators 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. 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.
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."[13] This elicited a further response from Jonathan Steele, who noted that Bronner agreed that "map" or any other place noun had not been used and criticized this Wikipedia entry (as it was on June 14, 2006) for "claiming falsely" that Ethan Bronner had "concluded that Ahmadinejad had in fact said that Israel was to be wiped off the map".[23]
At a gathering of foreign guests marking the 19th anniversary of the death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 2008, Ahmadinejad said:
"You should know that the criminal and terrorist Zionist regime which has 60 years of plundering, aggression and crimes in its file has reached the end of its work and will soon disappear off the geographical scene."[24]
The Iranian presidential website states: that "the Zionist Regime of Israel faces a deadend and will under God's grace be wiped off the map," and "the Zionist Regime that is a usurper and illegitimate regime and a cancerous tumor should be wiped off the map."[25]
At a 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, he denied that his country would ever instigate military action. Instead he claimed that "the Zionist regime" in Israel would eventually collapse on its own.[27][28]
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 Ahmadinejad was asked: "If the Palestinian leaders agree to a two-state solution, could Iran live with an Israeli state?" He 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 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]
The speech was interpreted by some as a call for genocide. 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][33] "Calling on the United Nations Security Council to charge 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.[34]
On 'Qods Day' in 2007, Iranian government IRIB News in English reported 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, a professor of political science at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, said: "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]
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, using them to justify his belief that the United States and the State of Israel can also be defeated: "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]
Ahmadinejad has repeatedly called for a referendum in Palestine.[37][38][39][40] Most recently in an interview with Time magazine in 2006:[41]
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.
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 these remarks: "[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.[42] Then Prime Minister of Canada Paul Martin also condemned the comments on several occasions.
On June 20, 2007, the United States House of Representatives called upon United Nations Security Council to charge Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with violating the 1948 Convention on Genocide and the United Nations Charter. 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[43] 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".[44] Members of the House objected and inclusion of the independent translations were blocked.
In July 2008, United Kingdom Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, told 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."[45]
The day after Ahmadinejad's remarks, 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, Shimon Peres told Reuters that "the president of Iran should remember that Iran can also be wiped off the map," Army Radio reported.[46]
Saeb Erekat, 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][47]
Iranian Ambassador to the European Union Ali Ahani called the response in Europe "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.[48] 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."[49]
Former president Khatami stated "those words have created hundreds of political and economic problems for us in the world."[50] 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.[51]
In an interview on Iran's Arabic channel 'Al-Alam', Ahmadinejad said that if Germany and Austria feel responsible for the massacre of Jews during World War II, they should host a state of Israel on their own soil. Speaking at a news conference on the summit sidelines, Ahmadinejad said most Jews in Israel "have no roots in Palestine, but they are holding the destiny of Palestine in their hands and allow themselves to kill the Palestinian people." The summit condemned terrorism and extremism, stressing the themes of moderation and tolerance.[52][53]
“Some European countries insist on saying that during World War II, Hitler burned millions of Jews and put them in concentration camps. Any historian, commentator or scientist who doubts that is taken to prison or gets condemned. Although we don't accept this claim [of the holocaust], if we suppose it is true... If the Europeans are honest they should give some of their provinces in Europe – like in Germany, Austria or other countries – to the Zionists and the Zionists can establish their state in Europe. You offer part of Europe and we will support it."[52][53]
German Chancellor Merkel[54] was said to “condemn Ahmadinejad’s words”, without specifying which words. And she said: “We shall do everything to make clear that Israel’s right to exist is not imperiled in any way”. Austrian Chancellor Schüssel[55] said: "these remarks are “an outrageous gaffe, which I want to repudiate in the sharpest manner.” British Foreign Secretary Straw[55]: “I condemn [the comments] unreservedly. They have no place in civilised political debate”. BBC[55]: these comments “come as Iran is mired in controversy over its nuclear programme (etc.)”. NRC Handelsblad[54]: “with suchlike remarks” Ahmadinejad has “in recent months set Iran on a ramming course with the West”.
White House spokesman McClellan[55] said Ahmadinejad’s comments “further underscore our concerns about the regime” in relation to its “ability to develop nuclear weapons”. A U.S. Foreign Office spokesman[54] called some (unspecified) remarks of Ahmadinejad’s “baffling and objectionable” and said they “do not inspire hope in anyone of us in the international community that Iran's government is prepared to behave as a responsible member of that community”.
Israel’s foreign ministry spokesman Regev[55] said the Iranian president has again ”expressed the most outrageous ideas concerning Jews and Israel”. Israel's Foreign Minister Shalom[54] said that some of these remarks “should awaken all of us in the world”. “This country (…) will do anything to destroy the state of Israel”.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan[56][57] was “shocked” at some of Ahmadinejad's remarks. Saudi, Turkish and Iranian officials[58][59] criticized Ahmadinejad's speech because it "marred a Mecca summit dedicated to showing Islam's moderate face".
On 14 December 2005, in Zahedan, Iran, Ahmadinejad said: ‘People in Palestine are getting killed every day by the new rulers of Palestine. As a consequence of the Holocaust, the Europeans took land from the Palestinians for a Jewish state. I don’t care whether the Holocaust took place or not, but it is illogical to give a piece of Palestine for compensation. Some people make an awful fuss about that Holocaust, make a myth of it. (…) Countries that themselves have nuclear, chemical and biological weapons should not raise an outcry when Iran wants access to peaceful nuclear technology.’[60][61][62]
Israel, the U.S., the European Commission and several European countries reacted with shock and indignation.[61][62] Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Mark Regev said, the Iranian regime holds a “perverse vision of the world”. Germany’s foreign minister called Ahmadinejad’s remarks “shocking and unacceptable”. The White House spokesman said, the comments underline the need to “keep Iran from developing nuclear weapons”. A European Commission spokeswoman called the comments “completely unacceptable”.
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."[63]
Iran's Interior Minister Pourmohammadi[64] said:
Actually the case has been misunderstood. (Ahmadinejad) did not mean to raise this matter. [He] wanted to say that if others harmed the Jewish community and created problems for the Jewish community, they have to pay the price themselves. People like the Palestinian people or other nations should not pay the price (for it).
The head of Iran's Jewish community, Haroun Yashayaei, sent a letter to Ahmadinejad in early 2006 that read: "How is it possible to ignore all of the undeniable evidence existing for the exile and massacre of the Jews in Europe during World War Two? Challenging one of the most obvious and saddening events of 20th-century humanity has created astonishment among the people of the world and spread fear and anxiety among the small Jewish community of Iran."[65]
In February 2006, Mohammad Khatami called the Holocaust a "historic fact".[66]
Khamenei's main advisor in foreign policy, Ali Akbar Velayati, refused to take part in the Holocaust conference. In February 2007, he said that the Holocaust was a genocide and a historical reality.[67]
In 2008, Ahmadinejad's statements on the Holocaust were criticized by cleric Mahdi Karroubi.[68][69]
In August 2006, the ‘Deutsche Welle’ citing AFP reported that Ahmadinejad had written a letter to German Chancellor Angela Merkel suggesting that the victorious Allied powers in World War II may have invented the Holocaust to embarrass Germany.[70][71] "Is it not a reasonable possibility that some countries that had won the war made up this excuse to constantly embarrass the defeated people ... to bar their progress," Ahmadinejad reportedly wrote in the letter. Merkel indicated that she would not formally respond to the letter, saying it contained "totally unacceptable" criticism of Israel and the Jewish state's right to exist.
In a September 2006 interview with NBC Nightly News Anchor Brian Williams, Ahmadinejad said that when he called the Holocaust a myth he was merely trying to communicate that it was not just Jews that died, but millions of people and he wants to know why it is the Palestinian people that have to pay for the Nazis' slaughter of the Jewish people.[72]
In the second World War, over 60 million people lost their lives. They were all human beings. Why is it that only a select group of those who were killed have become so prominent and important? Do you think that the 60 million who lost their lives were all at the result of warfare alone? There were two million that were part of the military at the time, perhaps altogether, 50 million civilians with no roles in the war – Christians, Muslims. They were all killed. The second and more important question that I raised was, if this event happened, and if it is a historical event, then we should allow everyone to research it and study it. The more research and studies are done, the clearer the issue gets. We still leave open to further studies absolute knowledge of science or math. Historical events are always subject to revisions, and reviews and studies. We're still revising our thoughts about what happened over thousands of years ago. Why is it that researchers are jailed? Why is researching this issue prohibitited? Where as we can openly question God, the prophet, concepts such as freedom and democracy? And the third question that I raised in this regard: assuming that this happened, where did it happen? Did the Palestinian people have anything to do with it? Why should the Palestinians pay for it now? Five million displaced Palestinian people is what I'm talking about. Over 60 years of living under terror. Losing the lives of thousands of dear ones. And homes that are destroyed on a daily basis over people's heads. You might argue that the Jews have the right to have a government. We're not against that. But where? At a place where their people were – several people will vote for them, and where they can govern.
At a Holocaust conference at Sharif University of Technology in Tehran on January 27, 2009, Ahmadinejad stated:
For 60 years they allowed no one to question and cast doubt on the logic of the Holocaust and its very essence – because if the truth were to be exposed, nothing would remain of their logic of liberal democracy. It is the very advocates of liberal democracy who defend the Holocaust, who have sanctified it to the point where none may enter. Breaking the padlock of the Holocaust and reexamining it will be tantamount to cutting the vital arteries of the Zionist regime. It will destroy the philosophical foundation and raison d'être of this regime...I invite the dear researchers, intellectuals, young people and students, who are the trailblazers, to reexamine not only the Holocaust, but also its consequences and aftermath and inform others of their studies and research. Let us not forget that more than ever before, the Zionist network, which came up with the issue of the Holocaust, must be exposed, and be presented to the peoples as it really is.[73]
In early June 2009, Ahmadinejad described Israel as "the most criminal regime in human history" and spoke about the "great deception of the Holocaust" in a speech quoted by IRIB.[74]
At the September 2009 Quds Day ceremonies in Tehran, he stated Israel was created on "a lie and a mythical claim,"[75] that the Western powers "launched the myth of the Holocaust. They lied, they put on a show and then they support the Jews"[76] – what the New York Times considered his "among his harshest statements on the topic,"[77] and one immediately condemned by the US, UK, French and German governments.[76][78]
The U.S. Senate unanimously agreed to a resolution[79][80] condemning Ahmadinejad’s "harmful, destructive, and anti-Semitic statements."
The Iranian government responded that "the Western media empire is trying to portray Iran as an anti-Semitic country".[81] Currently, 40,000 Jews live in Iran and have representation in the Iranian parliament in the form of a Jewish MP, Maurice Mohtamed. Their treatment is a matter of great debate, some stating that the Jews are treated better than other religious minorities in Iran.[82]
In addition Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has stated that "Jews are respected by everyone, by all human beings ... some people think if they accuse me of being anti-Jew they can solve the problem. No, I am not anti-Jew ... I respect them very much ... We love everyone in the world – Jews, Christians, Muslims, non-Muslims, non-Jews, non-Christians".[83]
Shiraz Dossa, a professor at St. Francis Xavier University, wrote in June 2007 that "Ahmadinejad has not denied the Holocaust or proposed Israel’s liquidation; he has never done so in any of his speeches on the subject (all delivered in Persian). As an Iran specialist, I can attest that both accusations are false... What Ahmadinejad has questioned is the mythologizing, the sacralization, of the Holocaust and the “Zionist regime’s” continued killing of Palestinians and Muslims. He has even raised doubts about the scale of the Holocaust. His rhetoric has been excessive and provocative. And he does not really care what we in the West think about Iran or Muslims; he does not kowtow to western or Israeli diktat."[19]
On January 4, 2006, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon suffered a massive haemorrhagic stroke and was reported to be dead or near death. The next day Ahmadinejad told Shi'a clerics in Qom:
Hopefully, the news that the criminal of Sabra and Shatila has joined his ancestors is final.[84]
The United States condemned Ahmadinejad's comment as "hateful and disgusting" and U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack called Ahmadinejad's remarks "part of a continuing stream of hateful invective that has come from this president."[85]
On July 15, 2006, Ahmadinejad compared the actions of Israel in launching an offensive against Lebanon to that of Nazi Germany. "Hitler sought pretexts to attack other nations," Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying by the ISNA students news agency at the inauguration of a Tehran road tunnel. "The Zionist regime is seeking baseless pretexts to invade Islamic countries and right now it is justifying its attacks with groundless excuses," he added.[86]
On Aug 3rd, 2006, in a speech during an emergency meeting of Muslim leaders, Ahmadinejad called for "the elimination of the Zionist regime". While some media outlets immediately interpreted his words as another threat to "destroy Israel",[87][88][89] such interpretations have again been challenged.[90] In the speech, Ahmadinejad said, "although the main solution is for the elimination of the Zionist regime, at this stage an immediate cease-fire must be implemented". He stated that the Middle East would be better off "without the existence of the Zionist regime". He called Israel an "illegitimate regime" with "no legal basis for its existence" and accused the United States of using Israel as a proxy to control the region and its oil resources; "The Zionist regime is used to reach this objective. The sole existence of this regime is for invasion and attack."
On December 11, 2006, at the "International Conference to Review the Global Vision of the Holocaust" in Tehran, Ahmadinejad said: “The Zionist regime will be wiped out soon the same way the Soviet Union was, and humanity will achieve freedom”, and elections should be held among “Jews, Christians and Muslims so the population of Palestine can select their government and destiny for themselves in a democratic manner”.[91]
On Israel's 60th birthday, Ahmadinejad said:
Those who think they can revive the stinking corpse of the usurping and fake Israeli regime by throwing a birthday party are seriously mistaken. Today the reason for the Zionist regime's existence is questioned, and this regime is on its way to annihilation."[92]
Ahmadinejad also stated that Israel "has reached the end like a dead rat after being slapped by the Lebanese." Later, he said: "The Zionist regime is dying," and "The criminals imagine that by holding celebrations (...) they can save the Zionist regime from death." Ahmadinejad also stated that "They should know that regional nations hate this fake and criminal regime and if the smallest and briefest chance is given to regional nations they will destroy (it)".[93]
At the United Nations summit on global food security in June 2008, Ahmadinejad stated:
"People like my comments, because people will save themselves from the imposition of the Zionists. European peoples have suffered the greatest damage from Zionists and today the costs of this false regime, be they political or economic costs, are on Europe's shoulders."[94]
Ronald S. Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress, complained to the United Nations and the Italian government about Ahmadinejad's presence at the conference, stating that "It is deplorable that a leader like him, who is failing both his own people and the international community, is allowed to hijack the agenda of this important FAO conference."
In an address to the United Nations General Assembly on September 23, 2008, Ahmadinejad stated that Zionists are criminals and murderers, are "acquisitive" and “deceitful,” and dominate global finance despite their “minuscule” number. He further stated that “It is deeply disastrous to witness that some presidential nominees have to visit these people [Zionists], take part in their gatherings and swear their allegiance and commitment to their interests in order to win financial or media support. These nations are spending their dignity and resources on the crimes and threats of the Zionist network against their will.”Ahmadinejad stated the “Zionist regime” was on the path to collapse and that the "underhanded actions of the Zionists" as among the causes of the recent unrest in the former Soviet republic of Georgia. In a subsequent interview with the Los Angeles Times, Ahmadinejad stated that "The [Zionist] regime resembles an airplane that has lost its engine and is kind of going down. And no one can help it," he said. “This will benefit everyone.”[95][96]
Ahmadinejad's speech was denounced as "blatant anti-Semitism" by German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier.[97]
In a speech broadcast on IRINN on September 18 and 23, 2008, Ahmadinejad stated, in regard to the idea of Greater Israel being dead, that:
I would like to declare that the idea of "smaller Israel" is also dead. The very notion of Israel is dead, but they are lagging behind the times. Just like the idea of Greater Israel died 30 years ago, and they did not realize this, and have continued to perpetrate crimes for 30 years... Today, I say to them: The idea of smaller Israel is dead.[98]
In a public address on IRINN TV on June 2, 2008, Ahmadinejad stated:
The Zionist regime has lost its raison d'être. Today, the Palestinians identify with your name Khomeini, your memory, and in your path. They are walking in your illuminated path and the Zionist regime has reached a total dead end. Thanks to God, your wish will soon be realized, and this germ of corruption will be wiped off.[99]
In a speech broadcast on IRINN on September 18 and 23, 2008, Ahmadinejad stated:
The Zionists are crooks. A small handful of Zionists, with a very intricate organization, have taken over the power centers of the world. According to our estimates, the main cadre of the Zionists consists of 2,000 individuals at most, and they have another 8,000 activists. In addition, they have several informants, who spy and provide them with intelligence information. But because of their control of power centers in the U.S. and Europe, and their control of the financial centers and the news and propaganda agencies, they spread propaganda as if they were the entire world, as if all the peoples supported them, and as if they were the majority ruling the world.[98]
At a Holocaust conference at Sharif University of Technology in Tehran on January 27, 2009, Ahmadinejad stated:
"Today the Zionists dominate many of the world's centers of power, wealth, and media. Unfortunately, they have ensnared many politicians and parties, and they are plundering the wealth and assets of nations in this way, depriving peoples of their freedoms and destroying their cultures and human values by spreading their nexus of corruption."[73]
At a Holocaust conference at Sharif University of Technology in Tehran on January 27, 2009, Ahmadinejad stated:
The illegitimate Zionist regime is an outcome of the Holocaust... a political and power-seeking network claimed to be the advocate for one group of the victims, and sought reparations for their blood. [This network] ruled that the survivors of this particular group of victims must receive compensation – and part of this compensation was to establish the Zionist regime in the land of Palestine. On this pretext, they attacked Palestine and, after massacring the [indigenous] people and driving them from their homes, they occupied their homeland and created the Zionist regime – in order to ensure that no regional power would emerge in the Islamic lands except for the West, [because] Islamic civilization and culture have the dynamic potential to threaten their interests, which were based on oppression and thirst for power. These principles and philosophy comprise the Zionist regime.[73]
In an interview with IRINN on January 28, 2009, Ahmadinejad stated:
"An incident known as 9/11 occurred. It is not yet clear who carried it out, who collaborated with them, and who paved the way for them. The event took place, and – like in the case of the Holocaust – they sealed it off, refusing to allow objective research groups to find out the truth. They invaded Iraq and Afghanistan, using 9/11 as a pretext."[73]
At an Asian security summit in Istanbul, Turkey on June 8, 2010, Ahmadinejad stated that the Israeli raid on a flotilla attempting to break the blockade in Gaza (in which nine people were killed)
showed violence and hatred and war-mongering attitudes. The devilish sound of the uncultured Zionists was coming out from their deceit. ... They were holding up the flag of the devil itself... [The raid] has actually rung the final countdown for its existence. It shows that it has no room in the region and no one is ready to live alongside it. Actually, no country in the world recognizes it, and you know that the Zionist regime is the backbone of the dictatorial world order...The Zionist regime, with what it has done, it actually stopped its possibility to exist in the region anymore.[100]
On al-Quds Day in September 2010, Ahmadinejad criticized the Palestinian Authority for agreeing to renew direct peace talks with Israel. He called the talks "stillborn" and "doomed to fail," and urged Palestinians to continue armed resistance.[101][102] Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a spokesman for the PA, responded that Ahmadinejad "does not represent the Iranian people,... is not entitled to talk about Palestine, or the President of Palestine."[103][104]
In May 2011, after a protest in which 12 Palestinians were killed, Ahmadinejad said on television "... like a cancer cell that spreads through the body, this regime infects any region. It must be removed from the body," according to a report from Agence France Presse[105]
In remarks published Egypt’s Al-Akhbar newspaper in November 2011, Ahmadinejad stated "This entity [Israel] can be compared to a kidney transplanted in a body that rejected it. “Yes it will collapse and its end will be near.”[106]
In 2009, The Daily Telegraph wrote that according to his identity papers, which were photographed in his hands during the Iranian elections, Ahmadinejad was once called "Sabourjian," a well known Jewish name in Iran".[107] The article claims that Sabourjian means "weaver of the Sabour," the name for the Jewish tallit in Persia. The article also claimed that the family converted to Islam and changed the family name after Ahmadinejad was born, though no information was printed on Ahmadinejad's mother. Ahmadinejad has admitted that his family name was changed to "Ahmadinejad" but did not comment further. The article cites an expert who says that Ahmadinejad's Jewish roots, if true, would explain his hostility toward Judaism and Israel: "Every family that converts to a different religion takes a new identity by condemning their old faith."
According to Iranian experts interviewed by the Guardian, "There is no such meaning for the word 'sabour' in any of the Persian Jewish dialects, nor does it mean Jewish prayer shawl in Persian," the name actually means "thread painter," both of Ahmadinejad's ancestors are known to have been Muslims, and Ahmadinejad's relatives say he adopted the new surname upon moving to Tehran, to avoid discrimination based on his rural roots.[3] Besides this, there is no clear consensus on what the family name printed on the identity papers, with a biography claiming it reads "Sabaghian."[108]
Karmel Melamed,[109] said it was a tactic common in Iranian politics to try to cast doubt on someone's loyalty by insinuating Jewish ancestry.
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