They tried numerous times but each time Arafat walked away.
Doesn’t matter what size Israel is the Muslims will never accept its existence

Should the Jordanians get out of Palestine too??

Irans biggest gripe is Saudi Arabia. And they are allied with America who are allied with Israel. Iran is fighting a bunch of proxy wars (Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, etc…) with the sauds and IF, and I thinks it’s a fairly big if, they’re trying to get nukes it’s to use against Saudi Arabia. Which still isn’t good for anyone!

What you’ve said is very misleading. Let’s say, if Iran even did get a nuclear weapon, (worst case scenaro). It would only be one, compared to Israel’s hundreds, and the US thousands. (plus they would need a warhead to launch it)
Second of all, Iran are shia, and all the other islamic countries are Sunni, so they wouldn’t even bother protecting them. It would be Iran on their own vs Israel, the US etc. they would not stand a chance.
Ahmadinejad is a horrible bastard, but something tells me he’s not completely suicidal. I don’t really believe that Iran, (at least for a long time), is not going to do anything to attack Israel, and starting a war with them won’t help anything.

So Evan
What did I say that was misleading?
I only stated some facts, not a call to nuke Iran.
“Something tells you” admejinadad is not suicidal? You’re right. He has the Mahdi to protect him and endorse his decisions

Iran has never attacked Israel, they have not invaded their neighbors! Compared to the rest of the middle east they are quite mild mannered. I don’t support their government by any means but that is no means to set harsh economic sanctions on a country. The sanctions on Iraq during the Clinton administration killed thousands of people and only pulled people closer to Sadam. When the US have their eye on the middle east it is never noble!

Kieran “Mac” Court. There are currently 25,000 Jews living quite happily in Iran, If Iran wanted to “Liquidate” Jews, would it not be easier to start at home? In the real world (made of real people) the number of demolitions in the West Bank has doubled over the last 12 months; Jeff Halper; a prominent Israeli activist and nobel peace prize nominee recently wrote of the emergence of a new apartheid regime in the West Bank owing to settlements and the tightening constrictions and indignities placed on the Palestinian populace. Bibi’s speech to AIPAC didn’t mention Palestine once. The occupation has been going on for 45 years and still the world is not awake to the reality of life for normal men women and children who live under it. The “Iranian Threat” is a distraction. No nation would be suicidal enough to attack America’s staunchest ally who also have 200 or so nukes of their own, no matter who crazy they are made out to be.

Hi – this conversation has now gone completely off topic. Comments are welcome, and I appreciate you feel strongly about this, but comments should really stay on topic.
Thanks
Aoife

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad did not say he wanted Israel wiped off the map. What he said, translated correctly from Persian, was that “the occupation regime over Jerusalem should vanish from the page of time”. Many of us agree. UN Security Council resolution 242, adopted in 1967, calls for Israel’s withdrawal from the territory it occupied in the 6 Days War, including Jerusalem, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip,the Sinai Desert and the Golan Heights. Even the US signed up to it. Ahmadinejad was just reiterating the international consensus on Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian/Transjordanian/Arab land. That International Consensus is that Israel must end its illegal occupation.

People like Kieran McCourt just uncritically accept and parrot Israeli PM Benny Netanyahu’s insistence that Ahmadinejad said these words when he didn’t. It’s so so sad that he is green thumbed up more than red thumbed down. Kieran McCourt spouts lies with each passing paragraph.

The Supreme leader of Iran has said that the development, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons is unIslamic. Iran has called for a nuclear weapons free zone for the Middle East and beyond since 1972. The second coming of the Mahdi? The religious loons who believe in the End of Times have more success gaining prominent political positions in the US Republican party than in the government of Iran.

I have many problems with the domestic policies of Iran such as the fact that they have executed 4000 people for practicing homosexuality since 1979. I am convinced however that they are not developing nuclear weapons and have no intention to do so. Iran has not attacked another country since the 18th century. It seeks nuclear power, not nuclear weapons. It has a population of 75 million which is still increasing significantly. The harnessing of nuclear energy will facilitate this country’s rapid industrialization and the prosperity of this and future generations. It has a sovereign right to catch up in economic development with the economically developed world.

Well said Paul …. :) At last we agree on something

mahmoud ahmadinijad on Iranian state television.leading a nuremurg style rally in chanting “Death to.Israel” clear enuf to me

Paul.
East Jerusalem NOT Jerusalem, get your facts straight

And it never stated it actually had to leave every single part . If you read the text fully rather than what you wish to read

Israel will never leave parts of Eastern Jerusalem such as the Mt of Olives,Mount Zion and the Western Wall or the ancient Jewish quarter. To expect it to is fanciful.

East Jerusalem never existed .Jerusalem was divided only be the Jordanians when the occupied East Jerusalem prior to that it was never divided. When the Jordanians controlled East Jerusalem and ignored it largely no one called it occupation. There is a huge double standard there.

Carr

Get your facts right before you accuse people of lying.
Mahmoud has repeatedly called for the destruction of Israel, too many times to mention here. It would take you 60 seconds to google that.

You wrote “The Supreme leader of Iran has said that the development, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons is unIslamic.” How completely naive are you? Didn’t you know that lying to further the cause of Islam or protect Islam is permiitted, actually encouraged, in the Qu’ran? Many copies and translations of the Islamic Holy Book are available online for you to check that out for yourself.

The references to the Mahdi are all factual and recorded, and are the basic tenets and belief of the Iranian government.

You wrote “I am convinced however that they are not developing nuclear weapons and have no intention to do so”
You are wilfully ignorant of and blind to certain facts which completely contradict your position.

You throw around the accusation “liar” very loosley.
Your own left-wing Sinn Fein pro-terrorist anti-semitic views are largely based on delusions and an instinctive hate for Israel.
Actually, I don’t know that, but it makes as much sense for me to accuse you of that as for you to accuse me of lying.

What I know for sure about you is you are fairly crap at getting your facts right.

Well, John, I stand corrected. I wrote Jerusalem when I should have written East Jerusalem as part of the area that Israel occupied after the 6 Day War. However, clearly, UN Security Council Resolution 242 states that Israel must withdraw from all areas it occupied militarily as a result of the Six Day War.

Kieran: All holy books are bonkers. Take the Torah for example. In Deuteronomy, God calls for the ethnic cleansing of all the tribes that had the misfortune to occupy the land he has designated for is chosen people, the Hebrews. Anyone who refuses to obey is commands are forced to kill their own children before he kills them. In Numbers, Moses kills perhaps 200,000 Midianite men, women and boys. Only the virgins are spared to be used as sex slaves, though some of them are also sacrificed to God. In the book of Jeremiah, God forces those who defies him to eat their own children before killing them.

Folks,

Even if Ahmadinejad didn’t exactly say on that occasion that Israel should be wiped off the map (that was how it was reported by a state-controlled English language station), his hostility to Israel and Jews is well documented. He has said that the Holocaust was a myth.

In February 2008, he told Le Monde that the Jews of Israel were: “a people falsified, invented; they will not last. they must leave the territory.”

The regime’s attitude towards that wiped-off-the-map translation may be judged by the fact that banners quoting it in English have been used at military parades and draped over public buildings.

Did he actually say the Jews or did he say the Zionists, because there’s a large difference.. There are Jewish people who are not Zionists, and Zionists who are not Jews.

Indeed, there is a more fundamentalist sect of Jews who consider Zionsim to be heresy, so the terms are most certainly not interchangeable.

I may be mistaken, but every quote I have seen of Admadinijad was him talking about the regime (Zionsim) as opposed to actual Jews..

Shanti, how is your French? The interview is no longer on the LeMonde website but I found it on this Iranian site.

http://www.tebyan.net/News/Analyses/2008/2/12/61300.html

It’s in the response to the very first question. I think it’s clear he’s referring to all Israelis – or rather all Israeli Jews.

@ Paul Carr & Shanti Om

Have a look at Iran’s official presidential website, specifically the following link:

http://www.president.ir/en/10114

While it does refer to wiping the Zionist regime off the map (despite the translation Paul offered), are we really expected to believe that Iran distinguishes between Zionists and every other Israeli Jew as @Shanti Om suggests. Is it a case of “once the Zionists are gone, Israel and its remaining Jewish population will no longer concern us”. I seriously doubt it.

As for “vanishing from the page of time”, again, are Iran’s intentions merely to physically remove references from the history books or ban talking about it?
What else could Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have meant if not the physical destruction of Israel as a nation?

Clearly, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in that 2005 speech when he allegedly said that Israel must be wiped off the map, was, in fact, referring to the Zionist regime (the regime occupying Jerusalem) and not the Israeli government. He was referring to the expansionist Israeli regime that refuses to implement UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, that is, resolutions to withdraw militarily from all the territory it seized in both the Six Days War and the Yom Yippur war. By doing so, Israel defies the International Consensus, a Consensus that even the USA signed up to at the time and a Consensus that remains in place today despite US equivocation. The Zionist regime, as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad meant it and as the Iranian establishment meant it, refers to the Israeli government that refuses to abide by International Law, that is, obey UN security Council resolutions to withdraw militarily from all territory it occupied in both the Six Day War and the Yom Yippur War.

Any comment on this, Paul?

“He (Ahmadinejed) has said that the Holocaust was a myth.

In February 2008, he told Le Monde that the Jews of Israel were: “a people falsified, invented they will not last. they must leave the territory.”

The regime’s attitude towards that wiped-off-the-map translation may be judged by the fact that banners quoting it in English have been used at military parades and draped over public buildings.”

Any comment on this, Paul?

“He (Ahmadinejad) has said that the Holocaust was a myth.

In February 2008, he told Le Monde that the Jews of Israel were: “a people falsified, invented they will not last. they must leave the territory.”

The regime’s attitude towards that wiped-off-the-map translation may be judged by the fact that banners quoting it in English have been used at military parades and draped over public buildings.”

Ciaran: It’s not quite clear to me what your point is. Is your point that we should attack Iran because the President of Iran says some dodgy things? Well, that is not a good enough reason to attack any country. The 1945 UN Charter expressly forbids the use of force and the threat of the use of force against another member state except under two conditions that do not apply to Iran. A chapter 7 resolution of the UN Security Council and Article 51 which provides for self defense and collective self defense.

As for the dodgy things Ahmadinejad said, Newt Gingrich, US Republican Candidate called the Palestinians an invented people a few weeks ago and I think you’ll find plenty of Israeli legislators in the Knesset who don’t consider the mass killings of Armenians by the Ottoman regime as a Genocide or Holocaust, at least, as one on the same league as the Jewish Genocide or Holocaust.

And as for Iran supposedly being a threat to its neighbours so that Article 51 of the UN Charter may apply, that is laughable. A brief glance at any map will show that the USA has a ring a military bases surrounding Iran (as well as hugely outspending Iran militarily) and therefore the USA poses much more of a threat against Iran than Iran poses to the USA or even Israel.

I fail to see how he could have “allegedly” said it when his own office website quotes him as saying it, or at very least his support of the Ayatollah saying it, but anyway….
While I don’t deny Israel is in contravention of the UNSC resolutions, can we really believe that the end of the so-called Zionist regime and a withdrawal in compliance with the resolutions would mean the end of tensions between the two nations. Would Iran suddenly become happy with it’s lot and allow the existence of ANY Jewish state, no matter how small?
Surely you must agree, Iran will not be satisfied until Israel ceases to exist.

Chris: Of course, I don’t agree with that because it’s not true. The Arab League has supported a two state solution, a state for the Israelis and a state for the Palestinians, since the mid 1970s. Iran supports this too. Since 1976, the USA has vetoed resolutions supporting a two state solution at UN Security Council level.

Israel is the only nuclear weapons state in the region. Israel refuses to sign up to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. It refuses to decommission its nukes or accept in IAEA inspectors. It officially denies it has any.

Iran has signed up to the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty and has admitted IAEA inspectors as it must do as a signatory of that treaty. As a signatory of the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty, Iran is entitled to the peaceful development and use of nuclear energy. Iran abides by international law. Israel does not.

When you bear in mind that study of the Torah makes up part of the islamic faith, this may explain why they are opposed to ZIONISM, as opposed to Judaism..
http://jewsnotzionists.org/
Notice, they, being the more fundamentalist Jews I spoke of, oppose the “regime” of Zionism too, they consider it to be heretical..
They also feel that this same regime sold them down the river during the Holocaust in their pursuance of the Israeli state.. (see the section on Zionism and the Holocaust).

THIS is a major reason why one cannot lump the Zionists in with the Jewish people.. There is a Jewish opposition to it..

Paul,

My point is that he is hostile to Jews and the continued existence of the State of Israel and we should be taking the guy seriously rather than rooting around for reasons to explain this away.

I don’t want to see a war and that should be the very last resort but when people try to somehow pretend that he-didn’t-say-that-and-anyway-he-didn’t-mean-it, they’re repeating the mistake that they did with an another guy in the last century who was extremely hostile to Jews. They were wrong then too.

Shanti,

We’re discussing Ahmadinejad here and I think it’s pretty plain that he doesn’t share your nuanced views. His comments are not about “Zionists”. They’re about all Jews in the State of Israel.

Ciaran.
There are Jews living in Iran, if Ahdmadinijad wanted all the Jews dead, these people would have felt it first and fled – they haven’t. It’s clear Iran does not call for death to “the Jews”.

In Israel there are Jews, Muslims and Christians – and no doubt atheists and other religions too, so to attack Israel would not be an attack on “the Jews”. It would be an attack on people from all walks of life.

The state of Israel – eg, the Government, is made up of predominantly Zionists. Now here’s where you need to follow carefully – Zionism is NOT, I repeat, NOT, Judaism. It is a political ideology, not a religion.

If he were to say “US Republicanism should vanish from the page of time”, would that mean he was calling for the deaths of all US Christians? That’s like saying that to wish for the utter demise of Fianna Fail is somehow attacking Irish Catholics..

So long as people are duped into thinking that Zionism and the Zionist regime = “the Jews” this will continue to happen, George Bush is a Zionist – is he Jewish? If people keep equating Zionist with Jew, then they will automatically compare him to Hitler, when he may be raising valid questions about the actions of the Israeli GOVERNMENT, who, let’s face it, have indeed acted questionably. His problem is with a regime – the Zionist regime, who are responsible for the many things I’m sure I do not need to list here.

If he wanted death to the Jews, he would come out and say it, the fact that he makes the distinction is actually rather significant, it’s just lost on all those who can’t separate Zionist from Jew. Hopefully that’s been cleared up now.. As a matter of course, you should hear what some Zionists say about Muslims – and I’m talking Muslims, not any of the Islamic regimes. If anything sounds reminiscent of Hitler it’s the comments coming from the Zionist owned media in the States..

Shanti,

With the greatest of respect you are putting a point to me – repeatedly, vociferously and at length – that I don’t disagree with. I know that not all Jews are Zionists and not all Zionists are Jews.

I’ve posted evidence that:
1. Ahmadinejad is a Holocaust denier. He denies it regularly.
2. That he wants Jews out of Israel
3. That his regime has taken on the “Israel must be wiped off the map” slogan and used it on public buildings and at state events.

I can post more links to comments he made: describing Israeli Jews as, for example “the most criminal people in the world”. I’ve followed your rules – there are dozens of quotes where he rails against Zionists and – from the context – you’d need to be very naive to think that in all cases, he wasn’t talking about Jews. But I’ve left them out – there are waaay too many to go into. He rants about “Zionists” practically ever other day.

The fact that he tolerates a tiny community of Jews in Israel (about one sixth its former size) doesn’t say much.

No Ciarán, you haven’t posted any such evidence, all you’ve done is repeated the same old Zionist lies. Even in your own French link there isn’t a single mention of the word “Jews”. Ahmadinejad never denied the Holocaust, he spoke of the myth of the Holocaust, questioning the numbers spread by the Zionists which many other historians also do, and he condemned the hijacking of the Holocaust by Zionists who are not real Jews and use it as an excuse to carry out their vile agenda.

And again you repeat the same Zionist lies that he said that “Israel must be wiped off the map”, when even the link posted above by your fellow Zionist clearly states that he said that the “Zionist Regime of Israel faces a deadend and will under God’s grace be wiped off the map”. Show us a picture of these English slogans you claim the Iranian regime has on public buildings calling for “Israel” to be wiped off the map.

And while you’re so fond of misquoting one single Iranian, why don’t you search Google for the countless vile comments made by Zionist and then try telling us that it’s Iran that’s a threat to World peace and not Israel.

Larry,

I specifically conceded that Ahmadinejad might not have made those comments about Israel being wiped off the map. It’s up there where I pointed out that that original translation came from an Iranian state-owned English language radio station.

So you accused me of something I didn’t do.

Meanwhile,this is what Ahmadinejad said in French:
“An falsified people, an invented people, the Israeli people will not remain – they must leave the territory.”

There it is – plain and simple. He wants Israel to be emptied of Israelis. Are you going to argue that when he said this, he wasn’t referring to Jews? If you’re going to argue that, then please tell us all who you think he means when he talks of the Israeli people?

Here are links to the pictures:

http://davidandgoliathbook.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/iran_wipe-off-face.jpg

This banner appears on a building in Tehran housing the Basiji Resistance. The Basijis are back-up forces used as reserves for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. They’re a legal, government-authorised force.

This image was taken at a Iranian army military rally.
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/iran-bus-e1330787495324.jpg

I could also post images of the Shahab 3 missiles which apparently have the words in Farsi “Israel must be uprooted and erased from history” on them. I can’t read Farsi but feel free to run a Google image search yourself and check with any Iranians if you know any.

This link below quotes Ahmadinejad clearly referring to the Holocaust as a “myth” that was “fabricated”.
http://www.aljazeera.com/archive/2005/12/200849154418141136.html

As I said before, I don’t support war or a unilateral attack but the Israelis have legitimate concerns and I don’t like the way some people here are so dismissive of them.

Ciarán, these banners were set up during the World Without Zionism conference in Tehran where Ahmadinejad quoted the words of the late Ayatollah Khomeini. Posters and banners were all over the place written in English for the benefit of the visiting international press during the conference. The banner you linked shows an image of the Ayatollah (not Ahmadinejad) and quotes his words. However they were mistranslated into English by Iran’s Islamic Republic News Agency. This is how it all started, it was their own fault. By the time they tried to explain the mistranslation it had been taken up by practically every media organisation on the planet and twisted even further. You’ll note the handful of different variations floating about… Off the map, off the face of the World, Zionist regime, Israel, the Jewish state etc. Have a read of this article which should help clear a few things up: http://www.mohammadmossadegh.com/news/rumor-of-the-century/

Likewise with the holocaust myth statements, please have a Google around yourself to see what he actually said from people who can translate it properly. Irrespective of what us Western viewers are led to believe Al Jazeera is not some sort of anti American propaganda machine. It’s been set up to make it look like we have an alternative middle Eastern view.

Grand, Larry. I’ll have a read when I get home.

Of course, there’s an Iranian point of view that at least deserves to be articulated too. They are a nation more sinned against than sinning and have tended to find their interests being subverted to those of western countries – the overthrow of Mussadeg and the Shah’s reign being a couple of examples.

Assad was one of the few friends (maybe the only one) the Islamic regime has in the region. Now that his position is vulnerable and he’s more likely to be replaced by a Sunni leader, the Iranians are starting to feel a little encircled.