New from the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
What Iranian Leaders Really Say about Doing Away with Israel: A Refutation
of the Campaign to Excuse Ahmadinejad’s Incitement to Genocide
Joshua Teitelbaum
Over the past several years, Iranian leaders - most prominently, Iranian
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - have made numerous statements calling for
the destruction of Israel and the Jewish people. While certain experts have
interpreted these statements to be simple expressions of dissatisfaction
with the current Israeli government and its policies, in reality, the intent
behind Ahmadinejad’s language and that of others is clear.
What emerges from a comprehensive analysis of what Ahmadinejad actually
said - and how it has been interpreted in Iran - is that the Iranian
president was not just calling for “regime change” in Jerusalem, but rather
the actual physical destruction of the State of Israel. When Ahmadinejad
punctuates his speech with “Death to Israel” (marg bar Esraiil), this is no
longer open to various interpretations.
A common motif of genocide incitement is the dehumanization of the target
population. The Nazi weekly Der Stürmer portrayed Jews as parasites and
locusts. Ahmadinejad said in a speech on October 26, 2005: “In the Middle
East, they [the global powers] have created a black and filthy microbe
called the Zionist regime.”
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who succeeded Ayatollah Khomeini in
1989, has made statements about Israel similar to Ahmadinejad. On December
15, 2000, he declared on Iranian TV: “Iran’s position, which was first
expressed by the Imam [Khomeini] and stated several times by those
responsible, is that the cancerous tumor called Israel must be uprooted from
the region.”
Michael Axworthy, who served as the Head of the Iran Section of Britain’s
Foreign and Commonwealth Office, notes that when the slogan “Israel must be
wiped off the map” appeared “draped over missiles in military parades, that
meaning was pretty clear.”
There is an ample legal basis for the prosecution of Ahmadinejad in the
International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court for
direct and public incitement to commit genocide and crimes against humanity.
Click here to read the Full Report.
www.jcpa.org/text/ahmadinejad2-words.pdf
Quotes selected by IMRA from the report:
In an address to the “World without Zionism” Conference held in Tehran on
October 26, 2005, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said: Our dear Imam
[Khomeini] ordered that this Jerusalemoccupying regime [Israel] must be
erased from the page of time. This was a very wise statement.
Iranian Students News Agency, October 26, 2005,
www.isna.ir/Main/ NewsView.aspx?ID=News-603209
In a public address shown on the Iranian news channel on June 2, 2008,
Ahmadinejad again reiterated: “Thanks to God, your wish will soon be
realized, and this germ of corruption will be wiped off the face of the
world.”
MEMRI TV, June 2, 2008, www.memritv.org/clip_transcript/en/1784.htm
Resalat, a conservative Iranian daily, published an editorial on October 22,
2006, entitled “Preparations for the Great War,” in which it reflected on a
speech given by Ahmadinejad two days earlier. It stated: “It must not be
forgotten that the great war is ahead of us, perhaps tomorrow, or in a few
months, or even a few years. The nation of Muslims must prepare for the
great war, so as to completely wipe out the Zionist regime, and remove this
cancerous growth.
MEMRI Special Dispatch Series, No. 1357, November 15, 2006,
www.memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=countr ies&Area=iran&ID=SP135706.
In a Friday sermon, former Iranian President Rafsanjani made the statement:
“If one day, a very important day of course, the Islamic world will also be
equipped with the weapons available to Israel now, the imperialist strategy
will reach an impasse, because the employment of even one atomic bomb inside
Israel will wipe it off the face of the earth, but would only do damage to
the Islamic world .” “Iran Calls for the Destruction of Israel,”
Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, Center for Special Studies,
Special Information Bulletin, November 2003, citing Khabar TV, December 14,
2000. www.terrorism-info.org.
il/malam_multimedia//ENGLISH/IRAN/PDF/NOV_03.PDF
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