Headlines are designed to grab the reader\u2019s attention and pull \u2018em in.<\/p>\n
Today [25 Sep 2012], Reuters rolled out a serious eye-grabber: In New York, defiant Ahmadinejad says Israel will be \u201celiminated.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n Just sounds like par for the course when it comes to Iran\u2019s dangerous doom-dealer, right?<\/p>\n Well, there is a bit of a problem.<\/p>\n You see, the headline doesn\u2019t quite match the actual quote in the story. Rather than delivering on their big tease with a blustering rant about destroying Israel with a hail of newly-minted nuclear weapons, Ahmadinejad\u2019s quote in paragraph eleven of the story comes across a bit differently:<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t even count them as any part of any equation for Iran. During a historical phase, they (the Israelis) represent minimal disturbances that come into the picture and are then eliminated.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n In the story, that quote follows a number of other quotes responding to questions about the possibility of an Israeli attack on Iran, to which Ahmadinejad offers a number of dismissive responses and some blustery posturing about Iran\u2019s centuries-long history and fearlessness in the face of these threats:<\/p>\n \u201cFundamentally we do not take seriously the threats of the Zionists,\u201d Ahmadinejad, in New York for this week\u2019s U.N. General Assembly, told reporters. \u201cWe have all the defensive means at our disposal and we are ready to defend ourselves.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n and<\/p>\n \u201cWe do believe that they have found themselves at a dead end and they are seeking new adventures in order to escape this dead end. Iran will not be damaged with foreign bombs,\u201d Ahmadinejad said, speaking through an interpreter at his Manhattan hotel.<\/em><\/p>\n Put into the context of the full interview and, even more alarming, taking the actual quote referenced by Reuters in their sexed-up headline, it seems that Ahmadinejad is referring to threats made by Netanyahu and that Iran, which, sadly, he is speaking for in this interview, simply \u201celiminates\u201d the \u201cminimal disturbances that come into the picture\u201d regarding the threats being made against it. It sounds like Ahmadinejad is saying he disregards the threats being made.<\/p>\n That has far different implications than those stated in Reuters\u2019 eye-grabbing headline. And with the talk of war at a fever pitch, and the tension in the region rising faster than a Predator drone<\/a> on take-off, it might be more important than ever for a much-respected news source to pay close attention to these details.<\/p>\n Perhaps something was lost in translation. But the alarming part of this is that we are not comparing quotes from various sources. No, the misquote featured in the headline is misquoting a decidedly less incendiary quote found in the story itself!<\/p>\n This is not a small matter, particularly when it comes to Iran, Ahmadinejad, Israel and the hurly-burly<\/a> of Middle East diplomacy\u2014and the role news plays in shaping public opinion as nations dance on the precipice of war.<\/p>\n Reuters takes this fast and loose word game even further by following up the quote in question with this little remark:<\/p>\n In 2005, Ahmadinejad called Israel a \u201ctumor\u201d and echoed the words of the former Iranian Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, by saying that Israel should be wiped off the map.<\/em><\/p>\n Apparently, the folks at Reuters haven\u2019t been reading newspapers.<\/p>\n Why? Because he never actually said it.<\/p>\n This misquote, which entered the public\u2019s consciousness in 2005 and been repeated ad infinitum<\/em> by politicians and war advocates, has been thoroughly debunked by Professor Juan Cole<\/a> and a real, live Farsi speaker at the Mossadegh Project<\/a>. In fact, the story was featured in the October 05, 2011 edition of the Washington Post<\/a>\u2014hardly an obscure or little-read news source.<\/p>\n Even more damning, Dan Meridor, Israel\u2019s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Intelligence and Atomic Energy, admitted in an interview<\/a> that Ahmadinejad did not call for Israel to be \u201cwiped off the map.\u201d This story<\/a> in the New York Times ran on April 17, 2012 and in it the infamous misquote is debunked yet again:<\/p>\n Mr. Meridor said that Mr. Ahmadinejad and Iran\u2019s ruling cleric, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had said repeatedly \u201cthat Israel is an unnatural creature, it will not survive. They didn\u2019t say, \u2018We\u2019ll wipe it out,\u2019 you\u2019re right, but, \u2018It will not survive.\u2019\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n But that still doesn\u2019t quite get there. According to Cole and the Mossadegh Project, the translation of Ahmadinejad\u2019s \u201coriginal statement in Persian did not say that Israel should be wiped from the map, but instead that it would collapse.\u201d<\/p>\n