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What Hassan Rouhani Really Said About the Holocaust

Lost in Translation

Not so fast, CNN. Iran’s president did not denounce the Nazis. Michael Moynihan says a more accurate translation suggests he is just another Holocaust denier.

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Vahid Salemi/Getty Images

In a 1731 essay on Shakespeare’s “brilliant monstrosities,” Voltaire confessed to readers that he added his own stylistic flourishes to a self-translated passage from Hamlet: “Woe to the makers of literal translations, who by rendering every word weaken the meaning!”

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It’s an admonition appreciated by the Islamic Republic of Iran’s...

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