Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Israel

Ahmadinejad was born in 1956 in Aradan, a village near Garmsar southeast of Tehran, the fourth son of seven children in the family of an ironworker. His family later moved to Tehran. He earned a doctorate in traffic and transport engineering from Tehran University of Science and Technology, co-founded the Islamic Society of Students, and joined the Revolutionary Guards in 1986 after volunteering to serve in the Iran-Iraq War.[4]

Before the presidency, Ahmadinejad served in provincial government, including as governor-general of Ardabil, and was appointed mayor of Tehran in 2003. He won Iran’s presidency in a June 2005 runoff after campaigning on anti-corruption, economic support for the poor, and adherence to the principles of the Islamic Revolution.[4] He took office that August and remained president until 2013.[4][1]

Ahmadinejad took office as president of Iran in August 2005 and subsequently made a series of statements about Israel, Jews, and the Holocaust in speeches both inside Iran and abroad.[4] His presidency also brought a hard-line approach to the confrontation with Western countries over Iran’s nuclear program, which Israel and other Western states suspected included the development of nuclear weapons.[1] His remarks about the “Zionist regime” and repeated Holocaust denial made his nuclear plans a particular concern for Israeli policymakers.[1]

On October 26, 2005, Ahmadinejad addressed students at a Tehran conference titled “The World Without Zionism.”[6] In excerpts translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute, he quoted Khomeini as saying, “This regime that is occupying Qods [Jerusalem] must be eliminated from the pages of history,” and praised that statement as “very wise.”[2] He presented Palestine as an issue on which Iran could not compromise and described Israel as a “front” of the West within the Islamic world.[2] Other passages predicted that Israel would “very soon” vanish from the region.[2]

The address combined predictions about Israel’s future with criticism of Muslim governments that recognized it or pursued normal relations with it.[6][7] Ahmadinejad described recognition as acknowledgment of the Islamic world’s “surrender and defeat.”[7] He called Israel “a disgraceful blot” and portrayed its establishment as “an offensive move,” declaring that “the Islamic nation will not let its historic enemy live in its midst.”[7][8] Iranian media also quoted him as predicting that a new wave of Palestinian attacks would “wipe off this stigma [Israel] from the face of the Islamic world.”[6]

The speech drew swift international condemnation, including responses from UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and European Union leaders.[2] The United States, United Kingdom, European Union, and UN Security Council condemned the remarks.[7] Their international reception centered in part on the English wording “Israel must be wiped off the map,” which circulated widely in accounts of the address.[6][7]

A resolution introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives on December 15, 2005, condemned the speech and called on Ahmadinejad to repudiate his remarks.[9] Its recitals reproduced the “wiped off the map” wording, the description of Israel as a “disgraceful blot,” and a warning that those recognizing Israel would “burn in the fire of the Islamic nation’s fury.”[9] The resolution was referred to the House Committee on International Relations.[9]

At a December 2005 press conference in Mecca, during a summit of Muslim nations, Ahmadinejad questioned accounts of the Holocaust and proposed that European states provide territory for a Jewish state instead of supporting Israel in the Middle East.[10][7] He suggested Germany and Austria as possible locations and asked why Palestinians should bear the consequences of injustice committed against Jews in Europe.[10] His formulation made European responsibility for Nazi crimes the premise for a proposal to relocate the Jewish state rather than recognize its place in the region.[10]

Ahmadinejad said, “Let’s give some land to the Zionists in Europe or in Germany or Austria.”[10] He also asserted that Jews ruling in Palestine had “no roots in Palestine.”[11] These were his claims about Jewish history and Israel’s legitimacy, expressed alongside his questioning of the Holocaust.[11] The summit at which he spoke had been convened to address terrorism and extremism, and his remarks instead generated further international condemnation.[10]

Israeli, American, German, French, and British officials sharply criticized the Mecca statements.[11] In a nationally televised speech later that December, Ahmadinejad again denied the Holocaust and asked why Palestinians should bear responsibility for what he characterized as a European crime.[7] He also urged that Israel be moved to Europe, Canada, or the United States.[12] Avner Shalev, chairman of the Yad Vashem Directorate, called for concrete international and United Nations action, arguing that condemnations alone were insufficient.[12]

The argument about European territory appeared repeatedly in his public statements rather than only at the Mecca press conference.[4][10] In the Congressional Research Service’s account of his October 2005 student address, he said, “Let’s assume what the Europeans say is true,” before proposing land in Europe for Zionists and asking why Palestinians should bear the repercussions of injustice against Jews.[4] In the same account, he asserted that most Jews in Israel had “no roots in Palestine.”[4]

In a July 2006 letter to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Ahmadinejad raised the possibility that the victorious Allied powers had invented the Holocaust to embarrass Germany.[13] He had already described the Holocaust as a “myth” used to justify Israel’s creation and claimed that settling Holocaust survivors in Palestine had produced a continuing threat in the Middle East.[13] Merkel called the letter’s criticism of Israel “totally unacceptable” and said it repeatedly questioned Israel’s right to exist.[13] At the time, Iran was also preparing a conference on the Holocaust for December.[13]

Throughout 2006, Ahmadinejad repeatedly predicted the disappearance or elimination of the “Zionist regime.”[5] On April 15, he said it was “headed towards annihilation,” and on April 27 he said it would “one day vanish.”[5] In July, he called for the region to mobilize to remove it.[5] During a meeting of Muslim leaders, he described its elimination as the “real cure” for the Lebanon conflict while also calling for an immediate cease-fire.[5]

On August 3, Ahmadinejad called the regime “fraudulent and illegitimate.”[5] In October and November, he said it would be “gone, definitely.”[5] In December, he again described the trajectory of its existence as downward and compared its anticipated disappearance to the dissolution of the Soviet Union.[5] These statements extended the theme of Israel’s eventual disappearance across speeches addressing regional conflict, political legitimacy, and the future of the Middle East.[5]

The government-sponsored Tehran conference, titled “Review of the Holocaust: Global Vision,” took place in December 2006 and was widely criticized as a forum for Holocaust denial.[5] An institute affiliated with Iran’s Foreign Ministry held the gathering at Ahmadinejad’s urging, and he addressed its participants.[4] Speakers included Holocaust deniers David Duke and Robert Faurisson, Nazi sympathizers, and anti-Zionists, among them British Rabbi Ahron Cohen.[4]

The gathering brought together approximately 67 researchers from 30 countries.[14] Ahmadinejad spoke on its second day, predicting that Israel would “crash” and again comparing its future to the Soviet Union’s disappearance.[14] He added that “humanity will be free.”[14] Other speakers called for Israel’s elimination or delegitimization, while the gathering and Ahmadinejad’s remarks drew international condemnation.[5][14]

Ahmadinejad questioned why the West would not permit “any investigation” into the Holocaust.[15] Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki similarly connected doubt about the Holocaust’s official account with doubt about Israel’s identity and nature.[15] The conference thus brought together the two subjects that Ahmadinejad had repeatedly linked in public: questioning the Holocaust and challenging the legitimacy of Israel.[4][15]

In a February 2007 interview with ABC’s Good Morning America, Ahmadinejad was asked whether he stood by earlier calls for Israel to be wiped off the map.[16] He did not directly answer whether Iran would recognize Israel, instead saying that Palestinians should decide and invoking the UN Charter and international regulations.[16] Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev called the response “disingenuous.”[16]

During a September 2007 visit to New York for the UN General Assembly, Ahmadinejad spoke at Columbia University.[17] His suggestion there that the Holocaust required further research caused controversy, adding another prominent American venue to his record of statements about the Holocaust.[17] The appearance formed part of the broader international condemnation generated by his statements about Israel and Holocaust denial.[17]

Addressing Iran’s parliament on May 8, 2008, Ahmadinejad called Israel a “stinking corpse.”[4] He said those who believed they could revive the “fabricated and usurper regime” were mistaken.[4] He also warned countries in the region that assisted it that they would “burn in fire arising from nations’ hatred.”[4] As in his 2005 criticism of normalization, the warning extended beyond Israel to governments that might cooperate with it.[4][7]

In his September 2008 UN General Assembly address, Ahmadinejad said Israel was on a “definite slope to collapse.”[18] He accused a small number of “deceitful” Zionists of manipulating Americans and Europeans.[18] The speech also defended Iran’s right to nuclear power, described its nuclear program as peaceful, and claimed full cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency.[18] Earlier that month, however, the agency had said Iran was not cooperating sufficiently with its inspectors.[18]

In a 2008 Los Angeles Times interview, Ahmadinejad compared Israel to “an airplane that has lost its engine” and described it as doomed.[19] He proposed a political arrangement in which Palestinian residents and returning refugees would outnumber Jews and vote for a single government over Israel, the West Bank — known by its original, indigenous Jewish name of Judea and Samaria — and Gaza.[19] He said he would present the proposal to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.[19]

The interview again connected his proposed political future for the region with his questioning of the relationship between the Holocaust and Israel’s establishment.[19] “Why is it that the Palestinian people should pay for it?” he asked.[19] On the nuclear issue, he said documentation questioning the peaceful purpose of Iran’s program was forged and maintained that the IAEA should act independently.[19] His discussion of Israel’s future therefore appeared alongside a defense of Iran’s nuclear activities in both the interview and his UN address that year.[18][19]

At the UN Durban Review Conference in Geneva on April 20, 2009, Ahmadinejad described Israel as a “most cruel and oppressive, racist regime” and called for efforts to “put an end to Zionism.”[20] He said Israel had been created on the “pretext of Jewish suffering” during World War II.[20] He also declared that “the word Zionism personifies racism” and called for efforts to silence Zionists and their supporters.[21]

Ahmadinejad claimed that, under the pretext of Jewish suffering, a people had been driven from its homeland and immigrants sent there.[22] He described Israel as a “Jewish and racist state,” accused it of committing genocide in Gaza, and accused it of occupying Palestine.[22] These were accusations advanced in his address, which again combined opposition to Israel with an argument about the political use of Jewish suffering.[20][22]

France’s delegation walked out during the speech, followed by approximately 40 diplomats from more than 20 countries and several nongovernmental organizations.[20] European Union representatives and other delegations participated in the protest.[21] UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon criticized Ahmadinejad for using the conference platform to accuse and divide.[20] Norway’s foreign minister condemned the speech as incitement to hatred, while Iran subsequently rejected criticism expressed in national statements.[21]

In March 2012, speaking to participants in the Global March to Jerusalem, Ahmadinejad likened Israel to a malignant cancerous cell.[23] He said it no longer had a legitimate right to occupy any part of Palestine and that Palestinians should be “running the field.”[23] He added that the enemies would be destroyed and that “arrogance” would be wiped from the face of the earth.[23]

A U.S. Senate resolution later that year reproduced an August 2 statement in which Ahmadinejad said people who loved freedom and justice should strive for the “annihilation of the Zionist regime.”[24] Its recitals also quoted an August 17 televised statement describing the regime and Zionists as a “cancerous tumor” and predicting that nations in the region would soon finish off the Zionists in Palestinian land.[24] The resolution presented these as statements by Ahmadinejad rather than as findings about a specific military plan.[24]

At the annual International al-Quds Day event in August, Ahmadinejad called Israel an “insult to humanity” and a “cancerous tumor.”[25] He called for a “new Middle East with no trace of Americans or Zionists.”[25] The Iranian government organized the event, held on the last Friday of Ramadan.[25] EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, Ban Ki-moon, and the U.S. administration condemned his remarks.[25]

During his September visit to New York for the UN General Assembly, Ahmadinejad dismissed the prospect of an Israeli strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities and said Iran was ready to defend itself but did not take Zionist threats seriously.[26] He described Iran’s uranium-enrichment project as peaceful.[27] He also asserted that Israel had “no roots” in the Middle East, contrasting its roughly 60 years of existence with Iran’s thousands of years.[26]

In remarks during the visit, Ahmadinejad described Israelis as eventually being “eliminated.”[26] The White House condemned his comments and reaffirmed the United States’ commitment to Israel’s security.[26] At a later UN meeting, Ahmadinejad called Israel a nuclear-armed “fake regime,” prompting Israel’s UN ambassador to walk out.[27]

In his General Assembly speech, Ahmadinejad said Iran faced a continuing threat of military action from “uncivilized Zionists” and criticized the “hegemonic policies and actions of world Zionism.”[28] He did not repeat the earlier statement that Israel would eventually be “eliminated.”[28] Israel and the United States had not ruled out a military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities; Western countries suspected the program was intended to produce nuclear weapons, while Iran maintained that it was peaceful.[28]

Near the end of his presidency, Ahmadinejad publicly counted the dissemination of his Holocaust-denial claims among his major achievements.[29] At a farewell ceremony, he said, “That was a taboo topic that no one in the West allowed to be heard.”[29] He claimed that raising the subject had “broke the spine of the Western capitalist regime.”[29] At the same ceremony, he urged Arab countries to work together to punish Israel for its treatment of Palestinians.[29]

His retrospective defense of Holocaust denial followed years of international criticism of his statements about Israel and the Holocaust.[1][29] During his presidency, the venues for those statements had included student conferences, Iran’s parliament, television interviews, the Tehran Holocaust conference, and United Nations meetings.[4][16] His defense of Iran’s nuclear program also remained a prominent feature of his international public life.[1]

The atmosphere created by Iranian government rhetoric affected Jews within Iran as well as relations with Israel.[5] The government’s anti-Israel stance, including presidential speeches calling for the Zionist regime’s elimination, combined with some citizens’ perception that Jewish citizens supported Zionism and Israel to create a threatening atmosphere for the Iranian Jewish community.[5] Estimates in 2006 placed that community at between 15,000 and 30,000 people.[5]

Israeli concern about Ahmadinejad was connected not only to individual phrases but also to the combination of repeated Holocaust denial, statements questioning Israel’s future, and the confrontation over Iran’s nuclear program.[1] Diplomats walked out of his Geneva address, and Israel’s UN ambassador left a later meeting.[20][27] American congressional resolutions also addressed his statements.[9][24]

The principal linguistic dispute concerns the October 2005 quotation of Khomeini, commonly rendered in English as a call for Israel to be “wiped off the map.”[3] Alternative translations include “eliminated from the pages of history” and “this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time.”[2][3] Ynet later reported that the widely circulated translation was incorrect and rendered the quotation as “this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time”; the Congressional Research Service likewise recorded both the widespread wording and the alternative translation.[3][30]

In April 2012, Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor distinguished statements that Israel was illegitimate and would not survive from an explicit declaration of Iranian military action: “They didn’t say ‘we’ll wipe it out.’”[30] A 2012 adviser to Iran’s supreme leader likewise characterized Ahmadinejad’s comments as nonmilitary and said that approach was not Iranian policy.[3] The president’s role also had institutional limits: he was one member of the Supreme National Security Council, while the Supreme Leader appeared to have the final say on major national issues.[31]

Interpretations of the rhetoric’s implications have differed as well as its translation.[3][31] An analysis distinguished Ahmadinejad’s statements from advocacy of an attack or genocide and described his stated proposal as a referendum involving Arabs and Jews on an equal basis.[31] By contrast, the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs argues that the phrase called for Israel’s destruction and rejects the interpretation that it referred merely to removing a governing regime.[32] The dispute concerns the precise wording and implications of his statements, alongside the documented record of his opposition to Israel and Holocaust denial.[3][1]