The idea has gained currency lately that Ahmadinejad did not really call for Israel to be "wiped off the map." Two of the better Muslim blogs have posts based on a Jonathan Steele article to that effect. In this connection it is interesting to note that the English section of the website of IRNA, the Islamic Republic News Agency, used that translation. I am not trying to ignore all the learned philology in the Steele article, but if the basic issue is the belligerency of the statement, then it is worth noting that someone at IRNA thought "wipe off the map" conveyed the basic thought well enough in English. And those are pretty bellicose words in English. Blogger Osama Saeed asks, "One obvious question emanating from this is who did spread the 'wiped off the map' translation?" Well, there's one answer for you.
Update: the link to IRNA doesn't work anymore. Here is a Boston Globe article which reports on IRNA's translation. (I should have made a screen shot!)
Further update: IRIB still has it.
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