BBC mistranslates violent racists so they look slightly less racistThe BBC has claimed it was “accurate and true to the speakers’ intentions” for it to translate a Palestinian interviewee’s use of the word “yahud” to refer to an “Israeli” rather than a “Jew.”
The chilling interview was broadcast as part of the BBC documentary One Day in Gaza, about the ongoing border riots along the Israel-Gaza Strip border.
Bader Saleh, 24, the subject of the interview, said, “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.”
Saleh used the word “yahud,” Arabic for “Jew.” The BBC, however, translated it as “Israeli,” leading to a storm of criticism charging the network with covering up Palestinian antisemitism.
The BBC strenuously denied the charges, with a spokesperson saying, “We sought expert advice on the translation before broadcast and we believe the translation of ‘Yahudi’ as ‘Israeli’ in this documentary is both accurate and true to the speakers’ intentions.”
The network’s Chief International Correspondent Lyse Doucet, also defended the decision, saying, “We talked to people in Gaza, we talked to translators.” She claimed they were told that when Gaza youths “say ‘Jews,’ they mean ‘Israelis.’”
“We felt it was a better translation of it,” she asserted.
let me translate that for you Ms Doucet. "We felt that the Gazans came across as more racist than we wanted, so we changed some words to make them look less racist than they actually are, we are very sorry this was noticed, but we're going to die on this hill!"
