The president of Iran did not say he wanted to wipe the Jewish people off the map.

My opening statement said that the American media had been retelling this lie and you turn around and give me a quote from the American media. Not only that but CNN. So If CNN says it's so it must be correct. Let me show you how correct CNN is. This is a word for word translation of what Ahmadinejad actually said: Imam (Khomeini) ghoft (said) een (this) rezhim-e (regime) ishghalgar-e (occupying) qods (Jerusalem) bayad (must) az safheh-ye ruzgar (from page of time) mahv shavad (vanish from). "The Imam said this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time". Notice the word "regime" in there. He's clearing speaking about a change in the leadership of Israel. But hey don't take my word for it. 1)"The fact that he compared his desired option - the elimination of "the regime occupying Jerusalem" - with the fall of the Shah's regime in Iran makes it crystal clear that he is talking about regime change, not the end of Israel. As a schoolboy opponent of the Shah in the 1970's he surely did not favor Iran's removal from the page of time. He just wanted the Shah out."—Johnathan Steele, The Guardian 2)"So he didn't say, 'wipe off the map,' he said 'erase from the page.' What's the difference? Anyway he's saying he wants to get rid of Israel." But Cole explains why the mistranslation significantly distorts the Iranian leader's words. "Ahmadinejad was not making a threat, he was quoting a saying of Khomeini and urging that pro-Palestinian activists in Iran not give up hope -- that the occupation of Jerusalem was no more a continued inevitability than had been the hegemony of the Shah's government. Whatever this quotation from a decades-old speech of Khomeini may have meant, Ahmadinejad did not say that 'Israel must be wiped off the map' with the implication that phrase has of Nazi-style extermination of a people. He said that the occupation regime over Jerusalem must be erased from the page of time."-- Juan Cole, a professor of Middle Eastern studies at University of Michigan (written by Gary Leupp) 3)The translation presented by IRIB has been challenged by Mr. Arash Norouzi, who proposes that the statement "wiped off the map" was never made and that Ahmadinejad did not refer to the nation or land mass of Israel, but to the "regime occupying Jerusalem". He says that the Iranian government News Agency IRIB/IRNA translation is the source of the myth: One may wonder: where did this false interpretation originate? Who is responsible for the translation that has sparked such worldwide controversy? The answer is surprising. The inflammatory 'wiped off the map' quote was first disseminated not by Iran's enemies, but by Iran itself. The Islamic Republic News Agency, Iran's official propaganda arm, used this phrasing in the English version of some of their news releases covering the World Without Zionism conference. International media including the BBC, Al Jazeera, Time magazine and countless others picked up the IRNA quote and made headlines out of it without verifying its accuracy, and rarely referring to the source. Iran's Foreign Minister soon attempted to clarify the statement, but the quote had a life of its own. Though the IRNA wording was inaccurate and misleading, the media assumed it was true, and besides, it made great copy.[12]—wikipedia