Telling Lies about Ahmadinejad

Buried in the Week in Review section of the New York Times is an admission that Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad never said Israel should be “wiped off the map,” a reference to a mistranslated phrase bandied about the corporate media over the last several weeks as an example of Iran’s intention to attack Israel, especially after it develops nukes, either next week or a decade out, depending on the level of fanaticism of the neocon making the claim.

In predictable, pro-Israel fashion, Ethan Bronner writes: “When combined with Iran’s longstanding support for Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah of Lebanon, two groups that have killed numerous Israelis, and Mr. Ahmadinejad’s refusal to acknowledge the Holocaust, it is hard to argue that, from Israel’s point of view, Mr. Ahmadinejad poses no threat. Still, it is true that he has never specifically threatened war against Israel.”

In other words, for Ethan Bronner and the New York Times, it doesn’t matter what Ahmadinejad actually said because everybody (here in the land of the brainwashed) knows Iran wants to wipe Israel off the map, an updated version of Arabs pushing Jews into the sea.

In fact, Ahmadinejad never used the phrase “wiped off the map” in his speech. Instead, he said Israel should be “eliminated from the page of history,” which is different than saying Israel should be wiped off the map.

“Does this quibbling over phrases matter? Yes, of course. Within days of the Ahmadinejad speech the then Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, was calling for Iran to be expelled from the United Nations. Other foreign leaders have quoted the map phrase. The United States is piling pressure on its allies to be tough with Iran,” writes Jonathan Steele for the Guardian. “The fact that [Ahmadinejad] compared his desired option—the elimination of ‘the regime occupying Jerusalem’—with the fall of the Shah’s regime in Iran makes it crystal clear that he is talking about regime change, not the end of Israel…. The Iranian president is undeniably an opponent of Zionism or, if you prefer the phrase, the Zionist regime. But so are substantial numbers of Israeli citizens, Jews as well as Arabs. The anti-Zionist and non-Zionist traditions in Israel are not insignificant. So we should not demonise Ahmadinejad on those grounds alone.”

Point is, the corporate media, onboard with the neocon plan to demonize all things Muslim, will not correct the record, or will not give it the same amount of air play as the original misquotation, in fact a MEMRI-spun lie.

In 2002, the neocons worked overtime to demonize Saddam Hussein—not a difficult task, as he was an unsavory character, but an unsavory character supported and armed to the teeth for decades by the United States nonetheless—and the corporate media dutifully spread neocon lies about Iraq (millions of people, to this day, believe Saddam had something to do with nine eleven, thus demonstrating facts have nothing to do with reporting the news, or rather propaganda).

It does not matter what Ahmadinejad actually said, or that he was democratically elected by the people of Iran. As a Muslim, Ahmadinejad is concerned about Israel’s occupation of al-Quds (Jerusalem), where the Dome of the Rock is situated (Muslims believe the center of the dome is the spot from which Muhammad ascended through the heavens to God). If the Israelis annexed the Vatican and did not allow Christians to pilgrimage there, imagine the response of Catholics.

Fake Muslim terrorists in Ontario and London, inflammatory cartoons of Muhammad, misquoting and demonizing Ahmadinejad—all of these things are propaganda artifices designed to be used to build a case for further attacks against Islam, specifically the coming shock and awe campaign to be unleashed against the people of Iran.

In the weeks ahead, we can expect the freshly cobbled together Iranian Directorate, a refurbished Office of Special Plans, to issue all manner of absurd propaganda against Iran in preparation for an attack.

Question is, will the American people buy into the lies and disinformation?

But of course.