Tricky Headlines

“Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Wednesday that Israel should be wiped off the map, the official news agency IRNA reported, dampening hopes Iran would temper its hostility toward the Jewish state...." reads the Reuters report, and we've all seen it.

Why on earth would Ahmadinejad say such a thing? Is that not political suicide?

Yes, it is. And that's why that saying was attributed to him. Most of us remember the many words used in the drum-up toward war with Iraq, and now the very same thing is going on with Iran. And these words, like so many used against Iraq, are untrue. Demonizing an "enemy" is an old trick.

But here's what failed to get reported in the mainstream news.

Reuters participates in a propaganda campaign against Iran

In order to justify a military operation against Iran, the neoconservatives have started to create a record. The have put a lot of effort into making people believe that this country is ruled by dangerously crazy people who are trying to make a nuclear bomb to be used. In view of such a danger, the only answer is to wage a preventive war. Within this context, the U.S. press agency Reuters, one of whose representatives is, since the summer, a member of the War Room of the Pentagon, launched an insidious operation against Iran.

On October 26, 2005, Reuters wrote: “Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Wednesday that Israel should be wiped off the map, the official news agency IRNA reported, dampening hopes Iran would temper its hostility toward the Jewish state. Support for the Palestinian cause is a central pillar of the Islamic Republic which officially refuses to recognize Israel’s right to exist. “Israel must be wiped off the map,” Ahmadinejad told a conference called "The World without Zionism," attended by some 3,000 conservative students who chanted "Death to Israel" and "Death to America."

Surprisingly, not many people thought of checking the original wire from IRNA “Ahmadinejad: Zionist regime bent on countering world of Islam”, IRNA, October 26, 2005]], that does not cite the words attributed to president Ahmadineyad.

On this basis, Shimon Peres requested that Iran be kicked out of the UN, and the Israeli Foreign Minister, Silvan Shalom, compelled the Security Council to make a decision.

However, the facts are very different. President Ahmadineyad never said that he wanted to wipe Israel off the map, but he endorsed the statement made by imam Khomeini that someday the Zionist regime would be wiped from the map (see document below). There is therefore, no such radicalization of Iran, but the same position stated 25 years ago. Neither is there a threat from Iran to kill anyone, let alone to commit genocide against the Israeli people. There is only a position of principle to condemn the Zionism on the same basis as Iran condemns apartheid, racism and anti-Semitism.

Read on ....