The BBC has come under fire for censoring virulent anti-Jewish sentiments in a documentary about violent Hamas-orchestrated border riots, which aired Monday evening on BBC Two.

In the English subtitles of the 60-minute film, One Day in Gaza, the BBC translated the Arabic word for “Jew” (Yahud) to “Israeli” in an apparent attempt to play down expressions of anti-Semitism in the documentary.

One of the Palestinian rioters remarked in Arabic: “The revolutionary songs, they excite you, they encourage you to rip a Jew’s head off.” But the English translation of Bader Saleh’s remarks offered by the BBC referred to an “Israeli,” not a “Jew.”

The rioter also said: “I was really close to the fence and I could see this Jewish soldier with his gun. I could even see the gun he was carrying.”

The interview with Saleh was just one of at least five instances of the Arabic word for “Jew” being purposely mistranslated to “Israeli” to overtly censor anti-Semitic sentiments in the documentary.

The BBC similarly quoted another rioter, Hanan Abu Jamee’a, as saying: “Some of us distracted the Israelis with stones and molotov cocktails,” when in fact, she employed the Arabic word for “Jews” to refer to IDF soldiers.

In another instance, interviewee Reem Abu Ermana, noted: “They would pull the car tyres with a wire to act as a cover for the young people, so the smoke would protect them from the Jews.” But according to the BBC subtitles, the woman referred to IDF soldiers as “Israelis.”

Board of Deputies Senior Vice President, Sheila Gewolb, sharply condemned the BBC for the censorship.

“The anti-Jewish racism in the phrase ‘rip a Jew’s head off’ is there for all to see. The BBC should explain why viewers were given a subtitle in which the word Jew was substituted for Israeli,” Gewolb said.

“Does the BBC believe that its job is to protect the perpetrators from their own racism?”

[Photo: hosny_salah / pixabay]