1/ The @BBC wants us to know that Palestinian rioters in Gaza—remember their swastika kites?—didn't really mean "Jews" when they said "Jews." Because in the BBC's apparent view, they're too primitive to know the meaning of the word "Jews." (A thread.)
bbcwatch.org/2019/05/15/bbc…
2/ I'm being too generous. BBC didn't really "want" us to know. The mistranslations (e.g. from "rip a Jew’s head off" to "rip an Israeli's head off") were surreptitious. But BBC was called out and had to defend its decision to conceal anti-Jewish language. jpost.com/Middle-East/BB…
3/ The @nytimes once tried a similar stunt. After a Palestinian boy murdered a 13-year-old Israeli girl in her sleep, his mother called him a "martyr" and a "hero." The NYT posted that video, but doctored the words to conceal her approval: camera.org/article/new-yo…
4/ Unlike the BBC, the NY Times at least corrected its subtitles after the mistranslations were called out. (An aside: I could be wrong, but a quick Google search suggests that the BBC never reported on the swastikas that flew during the Gaza riots.)
5/ So the sophisticated journalists at the BBC insist they know what Palestinians mean better than the Palestinians themselves, who in fact are quite capable of choosing their words.
BBC policy is meant to hide Palestinian antisemitism. Imagine that happening in other contexts:
6/ For example, Netanyahu's ugly comment that "Arabs are voting in droves," which the BBC has repeatedly cited. Imagine the BBC instead reporting:
"Netanyahu tried to inspire his base by telling them, 'My political opponents are voting in droves.'"
7/ I mean, clearly Netanyahu wasn't opposed to those Arabs who voted Likud, the higher-truthers of the BBC might say. (Which, at least, would be more plausible than "Gazans are incapable of differentiating between the words Jews and Israelis, or of anti-Jewish language.")
8/ When reporting on racist mourners chanting "Death to Arabs!," the BBC didn't translate it as "Death to terrorists!" or "Death to Islamists!" Why? Are these people more sophisticated than Palestinians? Are Gazans less capable of linguistic nuance than others?
9/ Of course not. But for Gazans who speak ill of Jews, the BBC does its best Salieri-in-Amadeus impression:
10/ Don't worry. All this time they were just talking about Israelis!
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