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."
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]
CUBert
I believe that you are an apologist for those that wish to destroy Israel - You would welcome the complete and total destruction of Israel along with the slaughter of all Jews in Israel - You made that crystal clear with your nukem statement.
You are a genocidal freak that tries to explain and defend others of like mind - The world is filled with your type that attempt to reintepret what Genocidal Freaks always do - Manage the message - they tell many - well he did not really mean this or that - he really meant this - not that - what sane man would want to perpertrate Genocide - Well many understand what the message is - The complete and total destruction of Israel and all Jews in the Mid East.
Some quotes that I am sure you will like Chamberlain try to whittle away at. But many of us read and remember History -
WHAT IF THE JEWS LOST ANY WAR?
"There are two different approaches in the Arab world: that Israel can be overwhelmed militarily, or that a military victory is impossible. The power struggle between Israel and the Arabs is a long-term historical trial. Victory or defeat are for us questions of existence or annihilation, the outcome of an irreconcilable hatred." Al-Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, July 11, 1986.
When we stopped the Intifada we did not stop the Jihad [Islamic holy war] to establish Palestine with Jerusalem as our capital.... We know only one word: Jihad, Jihad, Jihad.... We are in a conflict with the Zionist movement, the Balfour Declaration, and all imperialist activity...."
Yasser Arafat, in a speech at the Dehaishe refugee camp near Bethlehem, 22 October 1996
The hands of the U.S. are fully stained with the blood of the Palestinians. There is only one possible solution to unrest in the Middle East, namely, the annihilation and destruction of the Zionist state." - Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in a "prayer sermon" at Tehran University addressing hundreds of thousands of Iranians, Dec. 31, 1999
"There is no solution to the conflict in this region except with the disappearance of Israel... And on this last day of the century, I promise Israel that it will see more suicide attacks, for we will write our history with blood." - Hizbollah leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, at a rally of supporters on December 31, 1999.
“Israel is much smaller than Iran in land mass, and therefore far more vulnerable to nuclear attack.” Former Iranian President Ali Rafsanjani, quoted in Jerusalem Report, March 11, 2002