Translation Mistake?
“A lie, repeated often enough, will end up as truth.” Dr Paul Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda (1933-1945), invented the Big Lie theory.
There is a major controversy concerning the translation of a speech by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the “World Without Zionism” conference held for students in 2005. Nazila Fathi of The New York Times’ Tehran bureau reported the Iranian President said Israel would be “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 catasrophes.
However, Juan Cole a University of Michigan Professor of Modern Middle East and South Asian History, translates the Persian phrase as: “this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time.”
According to Cole, Ahmadinejad did not say he was going to “wipe Israel off the map”, because no such idiom exists in Persian. He said that “he hoped the Jewish-Zionist state occupying Jerusalem, would collapse.”
The Middle East Media Research Institute translates the phrase similarly: “This regime that is occupying Jerusalem must be eliminated from the pages of history.”
In 2006, Jonathan Steele a columist and foreign correspondent for “The Guardian” 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.”
Ahmadinejad 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”.
There is a major controversy concerning the translation of a speech by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the “World Without Zionism” conference held for students in 2005. Nazila Fathi of The New York Times’ Tehran bureau reported the Iranian President said Israel would be “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 catasrophes.
However, Juan Cole a University of Michigan Professor of Modern Middle East and South Asian History, translates the Persian phrase as: “this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time.”
According to Cole, Ahmadinejad did not say he was going to “wipe Israel off the map”, because no such idiom exists in Persian. He said that “he hoped the Jewish-Zionist state occupying Jerusalem, would collapse.”
The Middle East Media Research Institute translates the phrase similarly: “This regime that is occupying Jerusalem must be eliminated from the pages of history.”
In 2006, Jonathan Steele a columist and foreign correspondent for “The Guardian” 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.”
Ahmadinejad 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”.
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