UK: Israel’s existence lost in BBC translation

For our readers. This happens also with French and Belgian media.  

Honest Reporting:

The BBC and its translators leave me at a loss for words.

A documentary, Children of the Gaza War (part one aired last night), came under criticism because reporter Lyse Doucet and the Beeb’s translators made a poor judgement call. Whenever Palestinian kids used the word Arabic word, Yahud (which means Jew), the translators translated it as “Israeli.”

The Jewish Chronicle explains:

The BBC’s chief international correspondent said that Gazan translators had advised her that Palestinian children interviewed on the programme who refer to “the Jews” actually meant Israelis.

In one instance, a Gazan child says the “yahud” are massacring Palestinians. However the subtitles read: “Israel is massacring us”.

Canada-born Ms Doucet said: “We talked to people in Gaza, we talked to translators. When [the children] say ‘Jews’, they mean ‘Israelis’.

“We felt it was a better translation of it.”

It wasn’t a better translation. In Arabic, Yahudi means a Jew (plural is Yahud). Yisraili means an Israeli (plural is Yisraileen). Full stop.  Several problems came into play here.

[...]

Which brings me to one last question I’ll ask in plain English:  Did Doucet’s translators take other liberties we should know about?

Read the full article.