It has been uncovered that the BBC mistranslated references to “Jews” and “jihad” in their Gaza documentary, as pressure is rising for them to reveal whether taxpayers’ money was given to Hamas.
The Telegraph has reported that at least five times, the words Yahud and Yahudy – Arabic for “Jew” and “Jews”- were changed to “Israel” or “Israeli forces”. Some were removed from the subtitles completely.
One interviewee, who praised the now-deceased Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar for “jihad against the Jews” was mistranslated as saying he was fighting “Israeli forces”.
This comes as the BBC is under increasing pressure to reveal if any taxpayers’ money was paid to Hamas during the making of the film.
The film was removed from BBC iPlayer after it was revealed that the young narrator of the film was the son of a Hamas minister
BBC
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch called for counter terror police to investigate, if the BBC finds evidence money was given to Hamas.
She said: “We know that it is illegal to give money to terrorist organisations. Hamas is a terrorist organisation. The Met would make its operational decisions.”
“I think that the BBC certainly needs to investigate and get the evidence for what has or what hasn’t happened, and then the police can make a decision on that. But we know what is right and what is legal in our country, and giving money to terrorists is not it.”
Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone was removed from BBC iPlayer after it was revealed that the young narrator of the film was the son of a Hamas minister.
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Now, amid rising scrutiny, translations by the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis found several inaccurate translations, with the BBC being accused of “whitewashing” the views of people in the film.
In the first five minutes of the film, a Gazan woman seen attempting to flee part of the strip is asked by a cameraman “What’s going on?” She then says: “The Jews invaded our [area].” However, the BBC subtitles translated this as saying: “The Israeli army invaded our area.”
In another excerpt, around 30 minutes in, a boy said he left his home because of bombings, saying “the Jews came, they destroyed us, Hamas and the Jews”. This was translated as “the Israelis destroyed everything, and so did Hamas”.
In a clip 40 minutes in, a doctor amputates the arm of a child in front of the camera, and apparently says: “Look what the Israelis are doing to the children of Gaza.” However, according to a translation, the word Israeli was not used by the doctor.
Moments later, a young girl watching Iranian missiles in the sky as the Islamic Republic launched its attack on Israel in October last year is quoted as saying: “We’re used to seeing flashes of lightning in the sky. But now it’s real missiles. We’re happy that for once the rockets aren’t falling on us.”
However, the Camera translation states what she really said is: “At first, when we would see these [flashes], they would be flares, by the way. From the Jews. But now they turned out to be [real] missiles.”
Straight after that scene, a woman is interviewed about the Oct 7 attack on Israel, and the subtitles state she said: “first time we invaded Israel – it was always the other way round”. However, she actually says: “We were invading the Jews for the first time.”
Around the end of the film, a Palestinian woman holds her phone as she shows the camera crew footage of Sinwar being killed. She is quoted as saying that “his face was covered and his weapon was ready, prepared for battle”, but she really said he was “ready for jihad”.
Alex Hearn said the mistranslation of the words Jewish to Israeli was one of many “ongoing issues” with “the BBC’s sympathetic coverage of Hamas”
GETTY
The co-director of Labour Against Antisemitism, Alex Hearn, said the mistranslation of the words Jewish to Israeli was one of many “ongoing issues” with “the BBC’s sympathetic coverage of Hamas”.
He said: “In so doing, the BBC have sanitised views expressed about Sinwar, orchestrator of the Hamas massacre, and instead presented a more acceptable version for a Western audience.”
“It is this whitewashing that keeps viewers ill-informed about the nature of Hamas, and promotes sympathy for their deadly ideology. This documentary signifies the institutional failure behind the BBC’s reporting of the Israel-Hamas conflict.”
Although the BBC did not comment on the concerns over translation, a spokesman addressed the wider controversy surrounding the film, saying: “There have been continuing questions raised about the programme and, in the light of these, we are conducting further due diligence with the production company. The programme will not be available on iPlayer while this is taking place.”