Quote:In 2007, CNN correspondent Atika Shubert and Arabic translators accused MEMRI of mistranslating portions of a Palestinian children's television programme.
Media watchdog MEMRI translates one caller as saying – quote – 'We will annihilate the Jews'," said Shubert. "But, according to several Arabic speakers used by CNN, the caller actually says 'The Jews are killing us.'[66][67]
CNN's Glenn Beck later invited Yigal Carmon onto his program to comment on the alleged mistranslation. Carmon criticized CNN's translators understanding of Arabic stating: "Even someone who doesn't know Arabic would listen to the tape and would hear the word 'Jews' is at the end, and also it means it is something to be done to the Jews, not by the Jews. And she (Octavia Nasr) insisted, no the word is in the beginning. I said: 'Octavia, you just don't get it. It is at the end.'" Brian Whitaker, a Middle East editor for the Guardian newspaper (UK) later pointed out that the word order in Arabic is not the same as in English: "the verb comes first and so a sentence in Arabic which literally says 'Are shooting at us the Jews' means 'The Jews are shooting at us.'"[55]
Naomi Sakr, a professor of Media Policy at the University of Westminster has charged that specific MEMRI mistranslations, occurring during times of international tension, have generated hostility towards Arab journalists.[68]
Brian Whitaker wrote in a blog for The Guardian newspaper that in the translation of the video, showing Farfour eliciting political comments from a young girl named Sanabel, the MEMRI transcript misrepresents the segment. Farfour asks Sanabel what she will do and, after a pause says "I'll shoot", MEMRI attributed the phrase said by Farfour, ("I'll shoot"), as the girl's reply while ignoring her actual reply ("I'm going to draw a picture").[69] Whitaker and others commented that a statement uttered by the same child, ("We're going to [or want to] resist"), had been given an unduly aggressive interpretation by MEMRI as ("We want to fight"). Also, where MEMRI translated the girl as saying the highly controversial remark ("We will annihilate the Jews"), Whitaker and others, including Arabic speakers used by CNN, insist that based on careful listening to the low quality video clip, the girl is saying "Bitokhoona al-yahood", variously interpreted as, "The Jews [will] shoot us"[69] or "The Jews are killing us."[70]
MEMRI stands by their translation of the show, saying: "Yes, we stand by the translation by the very words, by the context, by the syntax, and every measure of the translation."[70]
In response to accusations of inaccuracies and distortion, Yigal Carmon, said:
As an institute of research, we want MEMRI to present translations to people who wish to be informed on the ideas circulating in the Middle East. We aim to reflect reality. If knowledge of this reality should benefit one side or another, then so be it.
In an email debate with Carmon, Whitaker asked about MEMRI's November 2000 translation of an interview given by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem to Al-Ahram al-Arabi. One question asked by the interviewer was: "How do you deal with the Jews who are besieging al-Aqsa and are scattered around it?" which was translated as: "How do you feel about the Jews?" MEMRI cut out the first part of the reply and combined it with the answer to the next question, which, Whitaker claimed, made "Arabs look more anti-semitic than they are". Carmon admitted this was an error in translation but defended combining the two replies as both questions referred to the same subject. Carmon rejected other claims of distortion by Whitaker, saying: "it is perhaps reassuring that you had to go back so far to find a mistake... You accused us of distortion by omission but when asked to provide examples of trends and views we have missed, you have failed to answer." Carmon also accused Whitaker of "using insults rather than evidence" in his criticism of MEMRI.[6]
Whitaker claims that although Memri's translations are usually accurate, they are selective and often out of context. He stated: "When errors do occur, it's difficult to attribute them to incompetence or accidental lapses... there appears to be a political motive."[55]
Response by MEMRI
MEMRI responds to criticism by saying that the media had a tendency to whitewash statements of Arab leaders,[7] and regularly defends its translations as being representative of actual ME viewpoints, even when the translations themselves are disputed: "MEMRI has never claimed to 'represent the view of the Arabic media', but rather to reflect, through our translations, general trends which are widespread and topical."[6]
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MEMRI is hardly the unbiased source for any information, something which they, themselves essentially admitted.
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