{"id":2190,"date":"2007-07-17T22:25:51","date_gmt":"2007-07-18T03:25:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/?p=2190"},"modified":"2007-08-24T21:23:23","modified_gmt":"2007-08-25T02:23:23","slug":"caught-red-handed-media-backtracks-on-irans-anti-israel-threat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/?p=2190","title":{"rendered":"Caught Red-Handed: Media Backtracks on Iran\u2019s Anti-Israel \u201cThreat\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Arash Norouzi<\/a>, Dissident Voice<\/em>, 17 July 2007<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/strong>For close to two years, the media has stubbornly clung to a long discredited story about the Iranian President\u2019s alleged threat to \u201cdestroy Israel\u201d with nuclear weapons Iran doesn\u2019t have and denies any intent to acquire. \u2018Wiped off the map, wiped off the map,\u2019 they bleat incessantly, even though his actual words, \u201cThe Imam [Khomenei] said this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time,\u201d were paralleled with the fall of regimes like the Soviet Union and Iran\u2019s former U.S.-installed monarchy [see: \u201cWIPED OFF THE MAP\u201d \u2014 The Rumor of the Century<\/a> for a thorough disassembly of this claim]. From the start of his Presidency, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has rhapsodized regularly about the demise of the \u2018Zionist regime\u2019 in various metaphorical terms. He and his associates in the Iranian government have compared its fate to the Pharaohs of Egypt and the former apartheid regime in South Africa (which they also did not recognize), but never have they threatened to start a war with any country.<\/p>\n

Yet the rumor persists. Top respected journalists, advocates for peace and dialogue with Iran, and individual Iranians themselves bring up the misquote regularly, as do noted Iranian-American scholars. The media\u2019s constant drumbeat has even duped top world leaders into believing the myth. On October 29, 2005, the false quote was officially condemned by all 15 Security Council members in a United Nations statement, just following Israel\u2019s prior demand that the Security Council expel Iran from the UN due to the remark.<\/p>\n

The effect this misquote has had on American policy towards Iran is undeniable. The majority of 2008 Presidential candidates in both parties have repeatedly mentioned the alleged threat in speeches and interviews, obviously influenced by media reports.<\/p>\n

And yet suddenly, after all this hoopla, at least two of the biggest media titans, the BBC and the Associated Press, appear to be backing away from the incorrect \u201cwiped off the map\u201d quotation they\u2019ve been drilling into people\u2019s minds for so long. It\u2019s happening quietly and undemonstratively, but some recent subtle changes in their presentation indicate a tacit acknowledgement of their previous misreporting.<\/p>\n

The details of how this reversal came to be, their curious handling of the subject in some of their recent news items, and contradictory arguments defending their work, is a story in itself. Let\u2019s begin with the legendary British Broadcasting Company.<\/p>\n

[Read the report<\/a>]<\/strong><\/p>\n

Antiwar.com Backtalk!<\/strong><\/a>
\nArash Norouzi replies to Congressman Steve Rothman (D-N.J.)<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Arash Norouzi, Dissident Voice, 17 July 2007 For close to two years, the media has stubbornly clung to a long discredited story about the Iranian President\u2019s alleged threat to \u201cdestroy Israel\u201d with nuclear weapons Iran doesn\u2019t have and denies … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdXTf-zk","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2190\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}