There is a major difference between saying you oppose Israeli policy and saying you oppose Jews.
Someone should explain this to the BBC, which is defending itself this week from critics who claim it intentionally obscured anti-Semitism featured in a documentary the network aired Tuesday evening.
To wit, the English subtitles provided by the BBC repeatedly mistranslated the Arabic word “Yehud” to “Israeli.” Just looking at the word “Yehud,” which means “Jew” in both Arabic and Hebrew, and you know the translation aired by the British broadcaster is incorrect.
But the BBC is digging in.
“We sought expert advice on the translation before broadcast and we believe the translation of ‘Yehudi’ as ‘Israeli’ in this documentary is both accurate and true to the speakers’ intentions,” a spokesperson said this week, according to the Times of Israel.
The problem here is not merely one of a sloppy translation. It is so much worse when you realize the context in which “Yehud” is spoken by the interview subjects featured in the documentary, which explores the violence that coincided with the 2018 opening of the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem.
The film, titled “One Day in Gaza,” includes a conversation with 24-year-old Palestinian Bader Saleh, who vigorously protested the embassy’s opening. He tells his interviewer in Arabic [emphasis added]: “I’m not one for fighting or burning [tires], but when I went I was convinced by it. The revolutionary songs, they excite you, they encourage you to rip a Jew’s head off.”
The English subtitle provided by the BBC changes what Saleh said so that he is quoted as saying, “ … they encourage you to rip an Israeli’s head off.”
Clearly, this changes the meaning.
Saleh uses the word “Yehud” no fewer than three times, according to the Jerusalem Post. For each instance, the translation provided by the BBC claims incorrectly that he said “Israeli.”
If you can believe it, there are additional examples of the BBC inserting the word “Israeli” into its subtitles when the speakers clearly use the Arabic word for “Jew.” Another Palestinian protester, Hanan Abu Jamee’a, says in her interview: “Some of us distracted the Jews with stones and Molotov cocktails.” The BBC translation claims she said “Israeli.” Yet another Palestinian, Reem Abu Ermana, recalls how the protesters, “would pull the car [tires] with a wire to act as a cover for the young people, so the smoke would protect them from the Jews.” The BBC subtitle claims Ermana said “Israeli.”
And just in case you think this is all an innocent translation issue, the Jerusalem Post offers some important background context: “Arabic media throughout the Middle East does not use the term ‘Yahud’ to refer to Israel, but rather ‘Israel’ written in Arabic letters. On any day numerous articles at newspaper like Al-Ghad in Jordan illustrate this. Even Hamas writes ‘Israel’ in its official press release for media, not ‘Yahud.'”
The BBC is acting like it does not understand the problem with mistranslating “Jew” to “Israeli” when the quote involves the speaker saying something like “they encourage you to rip a Jew’s head off.” This suggests the people running the broadcasting company are liars or too stupid to be trusted with the news.
