Re: [Marxism] Ahmadinejah/"wipe Israel off the map" translation

["Eli Stephens" <elishastephens@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Steele's article in the Guardian is certainly a welcome elaboration on the
subject, not that I expect it to do much to diminish the claims that Iran
wants to "wipe Israel off the map." But I think he, and the various experts
he quotes, make a bit too much of the difference between "time" and "place,"
i.e., arguing that Ahmadinejad said something like Israel must vanish from
the pages of history rather than be wiped off the map.

Here's something I wrote last October, which I still think is as important
as any arguments over the exact translation of the Farsi:
http://lefti.blogspot.com/2005_10_01_lefti_archive.html#113069891058325659

The Iranian Foreign Ministry responded to the U.N. statement by saying that
"Iran is loyal to its commitments based on the U.N. charter and it has never
used or threatened to use force against any country," and indeed, a reading
of Ahmadinejad's statement suggests quite clearly that the "wiped off the
map" is to be taken literally (i.e., that the political boundaries of the
region should be redrawn), and not figurately as meaning "wiped off the face
of the earth." He explicitly denies that he is talking about "A fight
between Judaism and other religions," and explicitly describes the endpoint
of the struggle in the Middle East by saying: "It will be over the day a
Palestinian government, which belongs to the Palestinian people, comes to
power; the day that all refugees return to their homes; a democratic
government elected by the people comes to power." There is no talk of
"driving the Jews into the sea" or "waging war against Israel" or anything
remotely along those lines, merely the expression of support for the goal of
a democratic Palestinian state. And for that, he is condemned by the U.N.,
while real aggressor states like the U.S. and U.K. (not to mention Israel)
are among those who do the condemning.



Eli Stephens
 Left I on the News
 http://lefti.blogspot.com



________________________________________________
YOU MUST clip all extraneous text before replying to a message.
Send list submissions to: Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism