That was the same article I referenced above. It cites one apologist for every tyrant in the Muslim world and the other who works at a paper the NYT declares left-leaning. (That would put them somewhere to the left of Trotsky).

Bottom line: The President of Iran’s own translators used “wiped off the map”. If his own handpicked translators cannot be trusted I don’t know who can.

It was not more than a part of the column (here) where they excused such use and practically turn the tables back to their side really.

I guess it comes to the matter of which translator to trust after all.

Please direct me to the NYT article where they backed away from the quote.

The acceptance of the word “map” seemingly originated with the New York Times, who later had to back away from this false translation. The BBC also wrongly used the word and, in comments to Steele, later accepted their mistake but refused to issue a retraction.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/archive/archive?ArchiveId=15816

or here: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/11/weekinreview/11bronner.html?ex=1307678400&en=efa2bd266224e880&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

“If Mr. Steele and Mr. Cole are right, not one word of the quotation — Israel should be wiped off the map — is accurate.

But translators in Tehran who work for the president’s office and the foreign ministry disagree with them. All official translations of Mr. Ahmadinejad’s statement, including a description of it on his Web site (www.president.ir/eng/), refer to wiping Israel away. Sohrab Mahdavi, one of Iran’s most prominent translators, and Siamak Namazi, managing director of a Tehran consulting firm, who is bilingual, both say “wipe off” or “wipe away” is more accurate than “vanish” because the Persian verb is active and transitive. “