On Comment is Free yesterday Jonathan Steele writes 1,200 words in order to establish that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad didn't say that Israel must be 'wiped off the map'. No, he said something more like that 'the regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time' or 'must be eliminated from the page of history'. This Steele calls 'the doveish view of what Ahmadinejad said'. It is only 'a vague wish for the future', not a threat.
As the commenter Soru notes in the thread that follows: 'If the intent of the statement was radically different from the translation, Iran could easily have issued a clarification...'
[In this connection, see also here.]
