DECEPTIVE MISTRANSLATIONS; CONSIDER THE SOURCE
Deliberate mistranslations of Farsi seem to be more prevalent than a few isolated incidents.
Photos of banners and placards in photos of Iranians may read "Death to America / Israel" in English but in reality the Farsi translation is far more benign.
Not only has Ahmadinejad's speech been mistranslated but so have those of other Iranian leaders to paint Iran with a more malevolent brush than is accurate.
Rather than transcribe the following article, I'll only cite Excerpts & hope that readers looking for the truth about what Iranians have REALLY said:
“Did Ahmadinejad really say Israel should be ‘wiped off the map’?”
Did Ahmadinejad really say Israel should be ‘wiped off the map’? - The Washington Post
The Facts
EXCERPTS “Arash Norouzi of the Mossadegh Project pointed out that the original statement in Persian did not say that Israel should be wiped from the map, but instead that it would collapse.
“Khomeini gave a speech in which he said in Persian “Een rezhim-i eshghalgar-i Quds bayad az sahneh-i ruzgar mahv shaved.”
This means, “This occupation regime over Jerusalem must vanish from the arena of time.”*
But then anonymous wire service translators rendered Khomeini as saying that Israel “must be wiped off the face of the map,” which Cole and Nourouzi say is inaccurate.
Joshua Teitelbaum of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs compiled an interesting collection of photographs of these banners, such as one on the building that houses reserve military forces of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. “Israel should be wiped out of the face of the world,” the sign reads in English
Sadjadpour, who has closely studied the statements of Khamenei, said that the supreme leader has spoken more on the question of Israel than any other issue, which is remarkable given that Iran shares no border with Israel and that the Jewish state has virtually no impact on the daily lives of Iranians.
Sadjadpour said Khamenei has been consistent, stating repeatedly that the goal is not the military destruction of the Jewish state but “the defeat of Zionist ideology and the dissolution of Israel through a ‘popular referendum.’”
Karim Sadjadpour, an Iranian specialist at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace,”CONTINUED
. . . .
Since even US Presidents have repeated deliberately translated quotes leaving millions to believe that Iran is far more hostile toward Israel & the US than in reality, the result has been an extensively deceived Western world.
The tragic result is that IF there is to be a WW 3 evolving from a War on Iran, it will be as most wars:
"One of the most horrible features of war is that all the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are NOT fighting."
George Orwell, 1938