The BBC is under fire over its controversial documentary Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone after apparently deliberately mistranslating statements made by interviewees to downplay antisemitic rhetoric and sanitize support for terrorism. The broadcaster has been caught repeatedly altering references to “the Jews” in Arabic to “Israel” or “Israeli forces” in subtitles—fundamentally misrepresenting the words spoken on camera.

The Telegraph has exposed at least five instances in which the words Yahud or Yahudy—Arabic terms for “Jew” or “Jews”—were changed to “Israel” or “Israeli forces,” or omitted entirely. Even more egregiously, when an interviewee praised Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar for his “jihad against the Jews,” the BBC subtitles softened the statement to say he was fighting “Israeli forces.”

The blatant distortion of language has fueled outrage over the BBC’s coverage of the Israel-Hamas conflict, with accusations that the broadcaster is whitewashing extremism and shielding its audience from the raw reality of antisemitic incitement in Gaza.

This is not the first time the BBC has been caught misrepresenting Arabic-language speech to suit its editorial narrative. In a pattern that has spanned over a decade, the corporation has frequently substituted the word Yahud with “Israelis” in reports about Palestinian perspectives, effectively obscuring the deeply ingrained antisemitism that fuels groups like Hamas.

In the Gaza documentary, multiple mistranslations significantly altered the meaning of statements. Among them:

• A Gazan woman, describing an Israeli military operation, originally said, “The Jews invaded our area.” The BBC subtitles changed this to: “The Israeli army invaded our area.”
• A child interviewed about bombings said, “The Jews came, they destroyed us, Hamas and the Jews.” The BBC rephrased this as: “The Israelis destroyed everything, and so did Hamas.”
• A Palestinian woman speaking about the October 7 Hamas attacks declared: “We were invading the Jews for the first time.” Yet, in the BBC’s version, she was simply “invading Israel.”
• In a chilling scene where a Palestinian doctor was amputating a child’s arm, he said, “Look what the Jews are doing to the children of Gaza.” The BBC subtitled it as: “Look what the Israelis are doing to the children of Gaza.”

These deliberate mistranslations fundamentally distort the film’s narrative, replacing explicit Jew-hatred with a more politically palatable anti-Israel framing—one that conveniently aligns with the BBC’s long-standing anti-Israel bias.

Beyond the erasure of antisemitism, the BBC also systematically softened references to jihad. When a Palestinian woman described Sinwar as “engaging in resistance and jihad against the Jews,” the BBC translated it as “resisting Israeli forces.” Even the Arabic word for “jihad” was omitted from subtitles in a clear attempt to downplay the ideological and religious motivations behind Hamas’s war on Israel.

This whitewashing is not just a translation issue—it’s a propaganda problem. By airbrushing language that directly calls for violence against Jews, the BBC shields Hamas’s ideology from scrutiny and misleads its audience about the reality on the ground.

The revelations about the documentary’s gross misrepresentations come amid mounting pressure on the BBC to disclose whether taxpayer money was funneled to Hamas-linked entities during the film’s production. The BBC initially defended the documentary as an “invaluable testament” to Palestinian experiences but later pulled it from iPlayer under the guise of “further due diligence.”

Media watchdogs and Jewish advocacy groups have condemned the broadcaster’s actions, calling them a deliberate obfuscation of truth. Alex Hearn, co-director of Labour Against Antisemitism, slammed the BBC’s pattern of mistranslations, accusing the corporation of “sanitizing views expressed about Sinwar” to make them “more acceptable for a Western audience.”

“This is whitewashing terrorism,” Hearn said. “It keeps viewers ill-informed about the nature of Hamas and promotes sympathy for their deadly ideology. The BBC’s reporting of the Israel-Hamas conflict has become an institutional failure.”

Orly Goldschmidt, a spokesperson for the Israeli embassy in the UK, went even further, describing the BBC’s actions as a “sinister and misleading policy” that not only distorts reality but also “excuses racism” by concealing the indoctrination of Jew-hatred among Palestinians.

Despite the damning evidence, the BBC has refused to acknowledge the severity of the issue. A spokesman offered a weak defense, saying: “The programme will not be available on iPlayer while we conduct further due diligence with the production company.”

This non-answer is unlikely to quell public anger. Ofcom chief executive Melanie Dawes has confirmed that the BBC faces “some really important questions” over the documentary, adding that regulators are “watching closely” to determine whether action will be taken. But for many, this is too little, too late.

On Tuesday night, the Campaign Against Antisemitism is set to protest outside Broadcasting House in London, demanding an independent investigation into the BBC’s handling of Middle East coverage.

A spokesperson for the group denounced the corporation’s bias, saying: “The BBC has no shame. For over 16 months, we have watched our national broadcaster provide ever more sympathetic coverage to a proscribed terrorist organization while claiming to be impartial. Enough is enough.”

The BBC’s relentless editorial distortions are no longer just embarrassing—they’re dangerous. By systematically misrepresenting reality, the corporation is not just failing its duty of impartiality; it is actively shaping a misleading and one-sided narrative about the Israel-Hamas war.

In sanitizing Hamas’s rhetoric, downplaying the role of jihad, and erasing the explicit antisemitism present in Palestinian discourse, the BBC is complicit in fueling a global disinformation campaign.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)