"Nuance" or Whitewash, anyone? What's your definition of definition?

From the International Herald Tribune, we have the following headline:

Iran's Leader and Israel: What did he say, and what did he mean?

Ever since he spoke at an anti-Zionism conference in Tehran last October, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran has been known for one statement above all. As translated by news agencies at the time, it was that Israel "should be wiped off the map."

...more...

For months, a debate among Iran specialists over both questions has been intensifying. It starts as a dispute over translating Persian, but quickly turns on whether the United States (with help from Israel) is doing to Iran what some believe it did to Iraq - building a case for military action predicated on a faulty premise.

...still more...

"Ahmadinejad did not say he was going to wipe Israel off the map, because no such idiom exists in Persian," remarked Juan Cole, a Middle East specialist at the University of Michigan and a critic of U.S. policy who has argued that the Iranian president was misquoted.

"He did say he hoped its regime, i.e., a Jewish-Zionist state occupying Jerusalem, would collapse." Since Iran has not "attacked another country aggressively for over a century," he said If Steele and Cole are right, not one word of the quotation - Israel should bBut translators in Tehran who work for the president's office and the Foreign Ministry disagree with them. All official translations of Ahmadinejad's statement, including a description of it on his Web site, www.president.ir/eng/, refer to wiping Israel away.
e wiped off the map - is accurate.

...the hook...

If Steele and 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 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 the most prominent Iranian 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.

Full story:

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/06/11/news/iran.php