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Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (محمود احمدینژاد; born October 28, 1956 is the sixth and current President of the Islamic Republic of Iran. He became president on 6 August 2005 after winning the 2005 presidential election by popular vote. Before becoming president, he was the Mayor of Tehran.
Source: IRNA
The letter was the first direct communication between Iran and the US since a break of diplomatic ties in 1980. It lists greviences of the Iranian government and questions current and past US foreign policy (8 May 2006).
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (محمود احمدینژاد; born October 28, 1956 is the sixth and current President of the Islamic Republic of Iran. He became president on 6 August 2005 after winning the 2005 presidential election by popular vote. Before becoming president, he was the Mayor of Tehran.
The World without Zionism
A speech at a conference in Tehran entitled "The World without Zionism" (26 October 2005)- They have invented a myth that Jews were massacred and place this above God, religions and the prophets. The West has given more significance to the myth of the genocide of the Jews, even more significant than God, religion, and the prophets, (it) deals very severely with those who deny this myth but does not do anything to those who deny God, religion, and the prophet. If you have burned the Jews, why don't you give a piece of Europe, the United States, Canada or Alaska to Israel? Our question is, if you have committed this huge crime, why should the innocent nation of Palestine pay for this crime?
- Source: Translation by CNN (Dec 2005) http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/12/14/iran.israel/
- If the Europeans are telling the truth in their claim that they have killed six million Jews in the Holocaust during the World War II - which seems they are right in their claim because they insist on it and arrest and imprison those who oppose it, why should the Palestinian nation pay for the crime. Why have they come to the very heart of the Islamic world and are committing crimes against the dear Palestine using their bombs, rockets, missiles and sanctions. [...] The same European countries have imposed the illegally-established Zionist regime on the oppressed nation of Palestine. If you have committed the crimes so give a piece of your land somewhere in Europe or America and Canada or Alaska to them to set up their own state there. Then the Iranian nation will have no objections, will stage no rallies on the Qods Day and will support your decision.
- Source: Translation by Islamic Republic News Agency (Dec 2005) http://www.irna.ir/en/news/view/line-17/0512149877153313.htm
- The establishment of the Zionist regime was a move by the world oppressor against the Islamic world.
- Source: Worldpress.org http://www.worldpress.org/Mideast/2170.cfm
- The Imam said that this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time.
- Anybody who recognizes Israel will burn in the fire of the Islamic nation's fury.
- There is no doubt that the new wave in Palestine will soon wipe off this disgraceful blot from the face of the Islamic world.
- Is it possible for us to witness a world without America and Zionism? You should know that this slogan, this goal, can certainly be achieved.
Islamic logic
- We are confident that the Islamic logic, culture, and discourse can prove their superiority in all fields over all schools of thought and theories.
2006 International Qods Conference address
- How long can this situation last and be tolerated? When Imam Ali, Commander of the Faithful, heard that an anklet was forcefully removed from the feet of a Jewish woman by the invaders in one of the frontier cities under his rule, he said, "If a man dies from grief because of this act, he should not be reprimanded."
- Today, even the children are not spared and are targeted by their bullets. Palestinian men and women are abducted and tortured in their fearsome prisons. People are shot dead in schools, on the streets and at markets.
- The existence of the Zionist regime is tantamount to imposition of an unending and unrestrained threat so that none of the nations and Islamic countries of the region and beyond can feel secure from its threat. The closer these nations are to the epicenter of this threat, the more threatened they feel. The people of Palestine are at the very core of such a threat. They have not been able to spend a day with peace of mind for the past sixty years. Three generations of sons and daughters of Palestinians have lived and are presently living under these circumstances. The peoples of Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and the entire Middle East are essentially under similar situation.
- The bullying powers use different excuses to prevent transfer of science and technology and progress of the nations of our region.
- They regard our advancement as a threat to the corrupt Zionist regime. They do not allow the countries of the region to tread on the path to progress and advancement.
- They even oppose indigenous technologies in the Islamic countries and interpret any scientific advancement as a threat to the security of Qods occupier regime.
- Some Western powers admit that they have killed a large part of Jewish population in Europe and founded the occupied regime in order to put right the wrong they had committed.
- With deference to all nations and followers of divine religions, we are asking if this atrocity is true, then why the people of the region should pay for it by occupation of Palestinian lands and unending suppression of Palestinian people, by homelessness of millions of Palestinians, by destruction of their cities and rural areas and agricultural lands.
- Why should they pay by fire, bullets and imposition of forces? And why should they pay by tolerating occupation of Islamic lands? Are the consequences of the establishment of this regime less than the Holocaust you are claiming?
- If there are doubts regarding the Holocaust, there is really no doubt regarding Palestinian disaster and Holocaust. The Holocaust in Palestine has persisted for more than sixty years.
- The young tree of resistance in Palestine is blooming and blooms of faith and desire for freedom are flowering.
- The Zionist regime is a decaying and crumbling tree that will fall with a storm. Today even the inhabitants of the occupied Palestine, especially the African and Asian settlers are living in [p]ain, poverty and discontent.
Source: IRNA
Letter to George W. Bush
Wikisource has an original copy of Ahmadinejad's letter |
The letter was the first direct communication between Iran and the US since a break of diplomatic ties in 1980. It lists greviences of the Iranian government and questions current and past US foreign policy (8 May 2006).
- Can one be a follower of Jesus Christ... and have countries attacked. The lives, reputations and possessions of people destroyed and on the slight chance of the presence of a few criminals in a village, city, or convoy for example, the entire village, city or convoy set ablaze.
- Paragraph 2
- Or because of the possibility of the existence of WMDs in one country, it is occupied, around one hundred thousand people killed, its water sources, agriculture and industry destroyed, close to 180,000 foreign troops put on the ground, sanctity of private homes of citizens broken, and the country pushed back perhaps fifty years. At what price?... On the pretext of the existence of WMDs, this great tragedy came to engulf both the peoples of the occupied and the occupying country. Later it was revealed that no WMDs existed to begin with.
- Paragraphs 3-4
- There are prisoners in Guantanamo Bay that have not been tried, have no legal representation, their families cannot see them and are obviously kept in a strange land outside their own country. There is no international monitoring of their conditions and fate. No one knows whether they are prisoners, POWs, accused or criminals. European investigators have confirmed the existence of secret prisons in Europe too.
- Paragraphs 6-7
- ...many questions about the phenomenon of Israel... Students are saying that sixty years ago such a country did not exist... I tell them to study the history of WWI and WWII. One of my students told me that during WWII, which more than tens of millions of people perished in, news about the war, was quickly disseminated by the warring parties. Each touted their victories and the most recent battlefront defeat of the other party. After the war they claimed that six million Jews had been killed. Six million people that were surely related to at least two million families. Again let us assume that these events are true. Does that logically translate into the establishment of the state of Israel in the Middle East or support for such a state? How can this phenomenon be rationalized or explained?
- Paragraphs 8, 10-12
- Why is it that any technological and scientific achievement reached in the Middle East region is translated into and portrayed as a threat to the Zionist regime? Is not scientific R&D one of the basic rights of nations?
- Paragraph 20
- Don’t Latin Americans have the right to ask why their elected governments are being opposed and coup leaders supported? Poverty and hardship in large parts of Africa are preventing this from happening. Don’t they have the right to ask why their enormous wealth – including minerals – is being looted, despite the fact that they need it more than others?
- Paragraph 23
- The brave and faithful people of Iran too have many questions and grievances, including: the coup d’etat of 1953 and the subsequent toppling of the legal government of the day, opposition to the Islamic revolution, transformation of an Embassy into a headquarters supporting the activities of those opposing the Islamic Republic (many thousands of pages of documents corroborate this claim), support for Saddam in the war waged against Iran, the shooting down of the Iranian passenger plane, freezing the assets of the Iranian nation, increasing threats, anger and displeasure vis-à-vis the scientific and nuclear progress of the Iranian nation (just when all Iranians are jubilant and celebrating their country’s progress), and many other grievances that I will not refer to in this letter.
- Paragraph 23
- Western media only intensified the climate of fear and insecurity
- Paragraph 25
- Do you not think that if all of us come to believe in and abide by these principles, that is, monotheism, worship of God, justice, respect for the dignity of man, belief in the Last Day, we can overcome the present problems of the world
- I have been told that Your Excellency follows the teachings of Jesus (PBUH)
Letter to Angela Merkel
This letter was sent from Ahmadinejad to German Chancellor Angela Merkel in July 2006. Source: Fars News Agency- I have no intention of arguing about the Holocaust. But, does it not stand to reason that some victorious countries of World War II intended to create an alibi on the basis of which they could continue keeping the defeated nations of World War II indebted to them. Their purpose has been to weaken their morale and their inspiration in order to obstruct their progress and power. In addition to the people of Germany, the peoples of the Middle East have also borne the brunt of the Holocaust. By raising the necessity of settling the survivors of the Holocaust in the land of Palestine, they have created a permanent threat in the Middle East in order to rob the people of the region of the opportunities to achieve progress.
2006
- The world is rapidly getting 'Ahmadinejadized,' if I'm allowed to make a joke. (20 November 2006)
- I want to tell them (western countries) just as the Soviet Union was wiped out and today does not exist, so will the Zionist regime (in Israel) soon be wiped out."
- My letter http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Mahmoud Ahmadinejad%27s 2006 letter to the American people Ahmadinejad's "letter to the American people" had different aims and goals. Many American citizens in the messages and letters they sent requested that I bring up my points of view directly. Many of them said that the government of America doesn't let them receive my point of view in its entirety and without distortions. So I talked to them directly. The behavior of the American government has severely damaged the position of the United States. No country in the world looks upon America as a friend. When the U.S. is mentioned, people are reminded of war, aggression and bloodshed, and that's not a good thing. In other words, the American people are paying for something they don't believe in.
- Source: Interview in Time Magazine, December 2006 http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1570714,00.html
- Anyone who is a Palestinian citizen, whether Christian, Jewish or Muslim, should decide together in a very free referendum. There is no need for war. There is no need for threats or an atom bomb either.
- Source: Time Magazine, December 2006 http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1570714,00.html
- Everyone knows that the Zionist regime is a tool in the hands of the United States and British governments.
- Source: Time Magazine, December 2006 http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1570714,00.html
- We thank God that our enemies are idiots. (6 February 2006) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/02/06/wiran06.xml&DCMP=EMC-new_06022006
- They [Western countries] know that they are not capable of inflicting the slightest blow on the Iranian nation because they need the Iranian nation. They will suffer more and they are vulnerable. That is why if the Iranian nation and government steps back on nuclear energy today, the story will not end there and the Americans will make another pretext. (8 March 2006) http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=newsOne&storyID=2006-03-09T075726Z_01_L09418430_RTRUKOC_0_US-NUCLEAR-IRAN-AHMADINEJAD.xml
- We say that this fake regime (Zionist) cannot not logically continue to live. (April 24, 2006) http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/04/24/D8H6DHK02.html
- If (problems) are decided through the use of force, everything becomes double-complicated....He who sows the wind will reap a hurricane and this will be a very strong storm in the whole Middle East region, which will strike painfully....All questions on international security have to be settled only through dialogue because using force will not lead anywhere. (July 25, 2006) http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2006/07/25/iran_president_warns_of_hurricane_in_middle_east/?rss_id=Boston.com+%2F+News
- If all of you gather and also invite your ancestors from hell, you will still not be able to stop the Great Iranian nation.
2007
- The Soviet Union died peacefully but that does not have any affect on what will happen in there [Israel]. The Zionist regime will either go two ways. They will peacefully be disbanded and the Holy Land will become a democracy like our good friend Russia. Or the country will forcefully take on itself like Romania. He [Refering to Nicolae Ceauşescu]did not seem to know (or care) what was happening to the Romanians and the people got sick and tired of this to the point they got rid of the fake regime [Ahmadinejad Denounces Communisim] by force. We do not want this option. We want a peacfully let the people choose what they truely want and everything will go right.
- Undated interview with Russian news agency.
- We do not accept or officially recognise Israel. They are occupiers and illegitimate. But our approach is humanitarian. I ask you where is the Soviet Union now - has it been wiped out or not? It vanished without a war. Let the Palestinian people chose. It will happen.
- Interview with Jon Snow on Channel 4 News , 12 September 2007
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- Why should it be insulting? ... Something happened there which led to other events. Many innocent people were killed there. Some of those people were American citizens obviously. We obviously are very much against any terrorist action and any killing. And also we are very much against any plots to sow the seeds of discord among nations. Usually you go to these sites to pay your respects. And-- also to perhaps to air your views about the root causes of such incidents. I think that when I do that, I will be paying, as I said earlier, my respect to the American nation.
- When asked about his stated desire to visit the site of the World Trade Center in an interview with Scott Pelley of 60 Minutes, 20 September 2007.
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- I'm not anti-Jew. Jews are respected by everyone, like all human beings, and I respect them very much.
- Discussion with reporters at the UN, September 21, 2007.
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- We had principles in mathematics that were granted to be absolute in mathematics for over 800 years, but new science has gotten rid of those absolutism, gotten — forward other different logics of looking at mathematics, and sort of turned the way we look at it as a science altogether after 800 years.
- Columbia University speech, 24 September 2007
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- In Iran we don't have homosexuals like in your country. […] In Iran we do not have this phenomenon. I don't know who's told you that we have this.
- Q&A after Columbia speech, 24 September 2007, when asked about executions of homosexuals in Iran
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- They [the US] get our oil and give us a worthless piece of paper.
- Commenting on the weak U.S. Dollar at the OPEC Summit, 18 November 2007http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7101050.stm.
2008
- The world powers established this filthy bacteria, the Zionist regime [Israel], which is lashing out at the nations in the region like a wild beast.
- Comments during a rally in southern Iran
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- If they want to continue with that path of sanctions, we will not be harmed. They can issue resolutions for 100 years.
- It is the American practice to present others as guilty wherever they are defeated. Is it not funny that those with 160,000 forces in Iraq accuse us of interference?"
2009
- My former health minister, Kamran Bagheri Lankarani, is like a peach. I love to eat him. http://www.b92.net/eng/news/world-article.php?yyyy=2009&mm=08&dd=24&nav_id=61346
- Today too, the most important issue in the world is Palestine. If a war breaks out in Iraq, we believe it is due to the provocation of the Zionists. If it happens in Afghanistan, it is because of their provocation. If Sudan is oppressed, it is due to Zionist seduction. We consider all the arrogant, colonialist schemes to be inspired by the Zionists.
- September 18, 2009. http://www.memritv.org/clip_transcript/en/2247.htm
Unsourced
- America's unilateral move to sever ties with the Islamic Republic was aimed at destroying the Islamic revolution.
- We did not have a revolution in order to have democracy.
Misattributed
- … the use of nuclear weapons is Iran's right.
- CNN mistranslation of phrase in 14 January 2006 news conference
- correct translation: "Iran has the right to nuclear energy."
- "CNN allowed to resume work in Iran after apology", Reuters, 17 January 2006
About Ahmadinejad
- Ahmadinejad was the only presidential candidate who talked against future relations with the United States. Also, in an interview with the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting a few days before the elections, Ahmadinejad accused the United Nations of being "one-sided, stacked against the world of Islam."
- Current President of Iran, Populist, defender of the poorest, fighter against the capitalists and their American collaborators, the only hope for Iran against the American threat.
- Those who insist on transferring the Iranian nuclear dossier to the UN Security Council have received an additional argument for doing so.
- Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov responding to the news of Ahmadinejad's missatributed comments that Israel should be "wiped of the map" "Iran leader's comments attacked" (27 October 2005) (BBC)
- [H]e is a fervent believer in the imminent reappearance of the 12th Imam, Shi'ism's version of the Messiah. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been reported as saying in official meetings that the end of history is only two or three years away. He reportedly told an associate that on the podium of the General Assembly last September, he felt a halo around him and for "those 27 or 28 minutes, the leaders of the world did not blink ... as if a hand was holding them there and it opened their eyes to receive" his message. He believes that the Islamic revolution's raison d'être is to prepare the way for the messianic redemption, which in his eschatology is preceded by worldwide upheaval and chaos.
- Mr. President, you exhibit all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator. [..] You are either brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated. [..] Will you cease this outrage?
- Lee Bollinger, president of Columbia University, 24 September 2007
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- We have to confront the Iranian revolution immediately. There is no way to stabilize the Middle East today without defeating the Iranian regime. The Iranian nuclear program must be stopped. [...] We have to consider killing him [President Ahmadinejad]. All options must be considered.
- By Moshe Ya'alon , Former Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff (2008)
Videos
- We have to confront the Iranian revolution immediately. There is no way to stabilize the Middle East today without defeating the Iranian regime. The Iranian nuclear program must be stopped. [...] We have to consider killing him [President Ahmadinejad]. All options must be considered.
- They [the US] get our oil and give us a worthless piece of paper.
- In Iran we don't have homosexuals like in your country. […] In Iran we do not have this phenomenon. I don't know who's told you that we have this.
- We had principles in mathematics that were granted to be absolute in mathematics for over 800 years, but new science has gotten rid of those absolutism, gotten — forward other different logics of looking at mathematics, and sort of turned the way we look at it as a science altogether after 800 years.
- I'm not anti-Jew. Jews are respected by everyone, like all human beings, and I respect them very much.
- Why should it be insulting? ... Something happened there which led to other events. Many innocent people were killed there. Some of those people were American citizens obviously. We obviously are very much against any terrorist action and any killing. And also we are very much against any plots to sow the seeds of discord among nations. Usually you go to these sites to pay your respects. And-- also to perhaps to air your views about the root causes of such incidents. I think that when I do that, I will be paying, as I said earlier, my respect to the American nation.
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