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 Jerusalem- occupying regime [Israel] must be erased from the page of time. This was a very wise statement.
In the same speech of October 26, 2005, Ahmadinejad
returned to the theme of Israel as dirty vermin which needed to be eradicated: Soon this stain of disgrace will be cleaned from the garment of the world of Islam, and this is attainable.
The theme of the Israeli germ or microbe is also a common one with the Iranian president. In his speech before a crowd in Bandar Abbas on February 20, 2008, Ahmadinejad said:
In the Middle East, they [the global powers] have created a black and filthy microbe called the Zionist regime, so they could use it to attack the peoples of the region, and by using this excuse, they want to advance their schemes for the Middle East.
According to President Ahmadinejad,
ridding the world of the germ Israel is possible and imminent. On April 14, 2006, Ahmadinejad insisted that Israel
was “heading towards annihilation.” He added that Israel was A dried, rotten tree that will collapse with a single storm.
The President of Iran told a press conference on March 14, 2008, held during a meeting of the Organization of the Islamic Conference in Senegal
The Zionist regime is on its way out [destructible].
Referring to the U.S. (the “Great Satan”) and Israel (the “Little Satan”), Ahmadinejad said at a military parade on April 17, 2008
The region and the world are prepared for great changes and for being cleansed of Satanic enemies.
For Ahmadinejad, Iran’s support for the Palestinians will help them destroy the State of Israel. He told a press conference on May 13, 2008:
“This terrorist and criminal state is backed by foreign powers, but this regime would soon be swept away by the Palestinians.”
A day later, Ahmadinejad spoke in Gorgan, in northern Iran, declaring,
“Israel’s days are numbered,” adding that “the peoples of the region would not miss the narrowest opportunity to annihilate this false regime.”
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.”
Clearly, Ahmadinejad’s call for the imminent destruction of Israel was not a one-time event in 2005, but rather publicly declared on multiple occasions.
Ahmadinejad was fully prepared to make his assertions about Jews and Israel in the Western press, as well. In an interview that appeared in the French daily Le Monde on February 5, 2008,
he said the Jews of Israel are: “a people falsified, invented, [the people of Israel] will not last; they must leave the territory.”
From the interview it is clear he believes that Israelis will not endure and will not continue to stay on the territory on which they are living. This is not a call for a change of government or new policies alone, but rather for the removal of Israel’s Jewish population from the country, either by ethnic cleansing or physical destruction.
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 (emphasis added)"
Notice how he use propaganda bend Islamic rules to gain support from other Muslims around the world. Most of them don't see or hear these things that is really going on. Lets continue shall we.
Even before Ahmadinejad himself spoke about wiping Israel off the map, the Iranian regime used such expressions but did not leave any doubt about what stood behind this phraseology.
By juxtaposing its call for Israel’s elimination with a Shahab 3 missile during a military parade, the Iranian regime itself has clarified that these expressions about Israel’s future do not describe a long-term historical process, in which the Israeli state collapses by itself like the former Soviet Union, but rather the actual physical destruction of Israel as a result of a military strike.
The Shahab 3 missile has a range of 1,300 kilometers and can reach Israel from launch points in Iranian territory. Once Iran has completed the production of sufficient quantities of highly enriched uranium – or weapons-grade plutonium – there is no reason why Iran cannot deploy a future Iranian nuclear weapon on a Shahab 3 missile in order to carry out Ahmadinejad’s threat to wipe Israel off the map.
In the Iranian system, the highest ranking political authority is the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who succeeded Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989. Khamenei has made statements about Israel similar to Ahmadinejad. In a Friday sermon on December 15, 2000 (shown on Iranian TV), he declared:
“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.”
A month later on January 15, 2001, at a meeting with organizers of the International Conference for Support of the Intifada, he stated:
“The foundation of the Islamic regime is opposition to Israel and the perpetual subject of Iran is the elimination of Israel from the region.”
Iranian journalist Kasra Naji translated this sentence from the original Farsi as follows:
“It is the mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to erase Israel from the map of the region.”
The difference between international reaction to Khamenei’s statements on Israel and those of Ahmadinejad in 2005 comes from the fact that Ahmadinejad’s declarations were made after the disclosure of Iran’s clandestine nuclear weapons program in 2002-3, and the breakdown of EU-Iranian talks on halting the Iranian uranium enrichment program.
Why did Ahmadinejad talk about the destruction of Israel? Are his statements supported by religious laws and decrees? Do you think its really the US who are scared of Iran if they create a nuclear weapon? No they are out of range. Can you see now why I posted the background of Islamic law earlier?
