Wiping Israel off the map?

I stitched this video together after reading Arash Norouzi's news piece, The Rumor of the Century.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's obnoxious behaviour is not in contention - the issue at hand is what he did or didn't say, what he is or isn't advocating. There is no shortage of effigy burning and it's not unusual to hear shouts of "death to America" or "death to Israel", yet as outrageous as this behaviour continues to be, it's not certain confirmation that he called for Israel to be wiped off the map (by means of military science). The nature of this hostility predates his tenure, and so I'm inclined not to take it as a new and sudden declaration of intent.

Ahmadinejad clearly finds Israeli expansion at the expense of the Palestinian people wholly unacceptable. To this end, he talks about the need for regime change: "As the Soviet Union disappeared, the Zionist regime will also vanish." Since the Soviet Union was not atom-bombed out of existence, there is no necessary military connotation in what he said. Elsewhere he appears to be calling for a one-state solution with all people living side-by-side: "Our suggestion is that the five million Palestinian refugees come back to their homes, and then the entire people on those lands hold a referendum and choose their own system of government. This is a democratic and popular way." Failing this, however, Palestinians have every right to self-defence.

It is not proper to take a misquotation, twist and stretch it some more, and ignore every piece of information that invalidates it.

Alas, members of the Republican Party are not going to hobble humiliated to the next election with 'loser' stamped broadly across their forehead. American-Israeli military intervention would be a disaster for most people in the region and almost certainly delay the natural collapse of the Iranian system. In the meantime we can throw our weight behind Iranian resistance movements and campaigns like CASMII.

Update #1: BBC Editors accepted my comment. Let's hope they were listening.

Update #2: Obviously not. The demonisation continues. This time on BBC Radio 4's premiere comedy programme, Moral Maze. Check it out. It's ludicrous.