"An April 21 article about Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's speech at the United Nations World Conference against Racism in Geneva on Monday included incorrect information that resulted from an erroneous early translation of the speech. In fact, Ahmadinejad did not call for the eradication of Israel. Nor did he brand Israel as illegitimate.
According to the translation given in the United Nations' webcast of the speech, the Iranian president did say "Efforts must be made to put an end to the abuse by Zionists and their supporters of political and international means and in respect of the will and aspirations of nations.
"Governments must be encouraged and supported in their fights aimed at eradicating this barbaric racism and to move towards reforming the current international mechanisms."
From The Star's article yesterday :
"As Ahmadinejad began to talk, delegates from many of the 192 states at the conference walked out of the room in protest. Although Canada was the first to decline attendance at this year's conference, Israel, Australia, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand and the United States were also conspicuous by their absence.
"Our government is leading the world, not following it," Prime Minister Stephen Harper said yesterday. "We observed clear, unmistakable signs this conference will again scapegoat the Jewish people."
Go on - listen to Ahmadinejad's speech. After two minutes of salutations in a couple of languages, he says that after WWII, the UN Security Council awarded itself veto powers and used them, "under a pretext of Jewish suffering", to "install a cruel and oppressive racist government in occupied Palestine in compensation for the dire consequences of racism in Europe. The UN security Council has supported this."
Then he calls for a reform of the UN.
And this is the speech that is supposed to be too terrible to hear?
Update from Paulitics :
"The Canadian, Australian, American and New Zealand governments were the only governments in the entire world to reject the UN declaration on the rights of Aboriginal and Indigenous peoples and thus did not want to be a part of Durban’s discussions on Aboriginal peoples. And the Israel government doesn’t want to talk about a whole host of issues on which it has long been in violation of UN declarations and Geneva Convention rights (notably the injunctions against acquiring land through military conquest, the right of refugees to return to their homes, nuclear weapons, the slaughter of refugees and engaging in illegal warfare).
So, in this context, the West was poised to find any excuse to discredit the UN’s attempts to eradicate racism and they believe they found it with Ahmadinejad’s speech. Indeed, if the public didn’t read or listen to Ahmadinejad’s speech, there wouldn’t be a problem."
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"For the sake of preserving the public's respect and belief in the integrity of that process, I believe it is important to reassure them on this matter."
