Despite protestations — malevolent on the part of those like Iran, naïve on the part of some university students — that anti-Zionism is distinct from anti-Semitism, we have definitive proof otherwise. It’s straight from the horse’s mouth.
News item in the IJN, page 6: Gazans say “yahuds” (in English, “Jews”) are responsible for the alleged massacres of Gazan children. However, the BBC, the UK’s publicly funded flagship media corporation, opted to translate “Jews” as “Israelis.” According to BBC, “We took advice from a number translators in Gaza and London and were advised that the most accurate interpretation of what the contributors were saying in this context was ‘Israeli.’”
Apparently the translators know what the Jewish community has recognized for a long while: To Gazans, and to anti-Israel activists across the globe, Jews and Israelis are one and the same. When the IDF takes action in Gaza — it’s not the Israeli army, it’s the Jewish one. Never mind that not all members of the IDF are Jewish.
Not to mention, deeply questionable is the BBC decision to interpretively translate “yahud” without any explanation to its viewers, who, unless they understand Arabic, will be clueless that the Gazan interviewed used the word “Jew,” not “Israeli.”
The BBC claims that it’s not trying to cover anything up. Wouldn’t this interview have been an opportune moment for the BBC to share with its viewers — many of whom claim the distinction between anti-Israel and anti-Semitic — the true nature of the interchangeability of “Israeli” and “Jew” among those who oppose the State of Israel?
Isn’t the anti-Semitism of the Gazan interviewed and of those like him newsworthy? Isn’t it “truth” and “accuracy” that the BBC strives for? Both were sorely lacking in this instance.
Copyright © 2015 by the Intermountain Jewish News
