How MEMRI fooled the U.S Media with its Mickey Mouse Translation
How easy was it for MEMRI to fool so many of the US media outlets with its translation of a children program on Hamas TV, where a child was supposedly have said the words “ we will annihilate the Jews”It was very easy!
The controversy was fueled further when CNN decided to yank the video off the air because of major translation errors on part of MEMRI.
First let me just say that I reviewed the Arabic version of the MEMERI clip which looked discontinuous and disjointed because the context of the conversation in the show did not seem to be coherent. However, at the bottom of this page you will find my corrections of MEMERI translation errors.
The inflammatory words MEMRI blasted the US media with were when the young caller “Sanable” was supposed to have said “we will annihilate the Jews” were not even mentioned by the caller or by anyone else in that clip.
Sanable actually said “The Jews are shooting us” which is entirely different word and different meaning and which makes me wonder as to where in the world the words “we will annihilate the Jews come from.”
Was MEMRI actually playing verbal gymnastics? Yes indeed.
The issue here is not simply some error in the translation of this word or that, but actually making new words up and putting them in the mouth of that child to show defamatory evidence against the Palestinians.
MEMERI which stands for Middle East Media Research Institute was established by former Israeli intelligence agents, the Mossad, to police Arabic media for any evidence of anti-Israeli rhetoric.
Yegal’ head of MEMRI was interviewed on CNN’s Glen Beck on his radio show and assured Beck that he stands by his translation and blasted CNN’s Arabic desk and Octavia Nasr head of the desk for uncovering the forgery by claiming that CNN’s Arabic desk do not know Arabic and they are “hiding” while he is on the other hand out there ready and willing to debate and challenge anyone for his version of the translation.
In my professional opinion, MEMRI’s “translation” is not credible and flat out forgery.
Translation is not simply transferring words from language A to language B, it involves however much more than that. It involves advanced knowledge of the culture, religious references, historical past and political history and knowledge of the subtleties of the language and its usage in different situations by different people.
Here is MEMRI’s transcripts and my corrections are in black letters.
Host Saraa, a young girl: Sanabel, what will you do for the sake of the Al-Aqsa Mosque? How will you sacrifice your soul for the sake of Al-Aqsa? What will you do?
Sanabel, young girl on phone: I will shoot.
( It is rather Mickey’s character speaking the words and hand gestures, “I will shoot” Not Sanable the young girl on the phone)
Farfour, a Mickey Mouse character in a tuxedo: Sanabel, what should we do if we want to liberate…
Sanable: We want to fight. (The word used was we want to resist, not to fight the reference here is to resist the Israeli occupation.
Farfour: We got that. What else?
Saraa: We want to…
Sanabel: We will annihilate the Jews. Actually she is saying: (the Jews are shooting us)
Saraa:We are defending Al-Aqsa with our souls and our blood, aren’t we, Sanabel?
Sanabel: I will commit martyrdom.
Sanabel actually said “I’ll be a martyr” ( as in to die for my country, and the reason for that because from a cultural and Islamic religious point of view and law, to be a martyr, one has to have died defending his family, property, religion and country,although the child does not all of this, however the usage of the Arabic version of the word Martyr, carries in it those references. and not to “commit” the word used in MEMRI translation to indicate action and/or planning. This point was elaborated further by YegaL head of MEMRI on Beck’s show by saying that the child meant “committing suicide bombing.”
Farfour: We’ve said more than once that becoming masters of the world requires the following: First, to be happy with our Arabic language, which once upon a time ruled this world. (Excellency in the world, not Mastery of the world two totally different meanings)
Saraa: Of course.
Farfour: Second… or maybe that’s it?
Adult host: Farfour, I heard you talking in English.
Farfour: Yes. How are you, Saraa? I hope to be good time.
Saraa: What’s with you, Farfour? Why are talking this way? Didn’t we agree to talk in literary Arabic? (Standard Arabic not literary Arabic)
Farfour: But Saraa, this is the language of the advanced world, the language of the world that understands and invents things, isn’t it?
Saraa: No, Farfour, you are wrong, because you don’t know that the Muslims are the basis of civilization. If not for the Muslims, the world wouldn’t have got to where it is today.
[...]
Farfour: My dear youngsters, we’re back. We always miss seeing you on your weekly program “The Pioneers of Tomorrow,” in which we are placing together the cornerstone for the ruling of the world by an Islamic leadership.
In the distant past the Islamic empire was a world power so the allusion was to a world where Muslims were a powerful and advanced nation, hence the references to Arabic language, the advanced western world,excellency in standard Arabic language, Islamic civilization. So clearly the context here was more educational to the children to instill a sense of pride of one’s culture and glorious history. And despite references for “resisting” the occupation, and I’ll die for my country, which in my opinion do not find highly unusual for an occupied and traumatized society such as the Palestinian society. Although it sounds here that Farfour is vowing for Islamic leadership of the world, but he actually was referring to a glorious Islamic past when Arabic was a universal language of medicine, philosophy and sciences.
One cannot be objective and say that this show is a representative of the Palestinian society any more than any right wing televangelist American who calls for dropping a nuclear bomb on the state department or calling for the assassination of a president of another country and say that such outrageous statements are representative of the American people or culture.
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Despite MEMRI’s known melovolence and despite their slightly poor or misleading translation, the message sent by this program isnt rosey by any means. This is a program made by Hamas which shamelessly puts kids in the middle of the conflict.
These children live in the conflict and its sad that when they turn on the TV to escape and to be a child they have this on their kid show.
Excuse me but what you are saying is outrageous and sociopathic. Programming that glorifies death and demands violent conquest is an educational tool to instill a sense of pride in young children? Are you kidding?? This wasn’t just a bland history lesson about Islamic society, it was an attempt to mobilize little kids to commit violence and to obsess upon martyrdom!
The Palestinian Authority is using government-owned media to indoctrinate child soldiers. Do you think you can muster even a little outrage over such an obvious and blatant crime against humanity without trying to mitigate it?
That’s false. The Palestinians voted for Hamas, whose charter clearly calls for the annihilation of the Jews (which in turn was a quote from the Hadith… am I an Islamophobe to note this?), and which clearly refuses to negotiate for peace. Farfur did not call for world peace but rather world domination under one political religion shoved up everyone.
When Pat Robertson called for the assassination of Chavez, most Christians were outraged and he ended up apologizing. He does not represent America because Christians condemned his remarks. Note also that he was not elected during the 1988 presidential primary elections.
Sigh! Do people even read the news anymore?!
Palestinians are NOT happy with Hamas, hence why they rallied against them like 10 time already demanding things like employment and finances (many were working with overdue salaries, the rallies took place throughout all last summer, and you’re telling me this is what the Palestinians want?)
Secondly, HOW many people actually voted, do you even know?!
The silliest and most unfair thing ever is to imply that Palestinian somehow deserve this kind of treatment merely because of what they “picked,” which many didn’t even have an input in. It was either Fatah, an obvious thief, or Hamas, which only later developed into the obvious thief. The Palestinians are unlucky – they are NOT murderers, and they do not deserve this, it was NOT a choice!
Many actually didn’t even vote, and those who did, voted for CHANGE, not for WAR. Like many other things, it was a last resort. An unfair and unjust one, but a last resort nonetheless, and I’m not denying or justifying any crimes the Palestinians commit in the name of Hamas or their holy land, but they certainly don’t represent the majority.
No, just obviously misguided.
The Koran itself doesn’t support this nonsense, which Hadith are you talking about, the one that can’t be relied on after THIS many years? It’s religious text, and you honestly believe that no one, in this many years, has fondled with it, or intentionally misinterpret it? Surely this applies to the Koran as well, but the pure principles are still stated clearly within what we have today in our holy book – and guess what, both Christians and Jews are accepted in our text. Another clearly stated principle is that you personally don’t get to choose who goes where or who receives what kind of judgment as only God can make such a decision once the day has come. The contradiction within the text is there to support a decision (the one we are not responsible for,) so if a Jew commits good deeds he or she have as much of a chance of entering heaven as the rest of the Muslims who also commit good deeds.
Don’t spread the overdone rumor that Islam wants all Jews dead – this is false. Many Jews here have actually expressed how highly the Koran speaks of them.
Keep the Koran or Islam bashing for another day please, we are here to discuss another issue.
Stop whining and putting words in my mouth. I’m Palestinian and I have family there. I’m the last to say Palestinians deserve suffering. I said that the Mickey Mouse show, aired on a Hamas TV station, does represent their views. That’s all. It represents then because they chose bloodthirsty killers over ‘moderate’ killers. Furthermore, when’s the last time you saw a moderate walk out of a Friday sermon and denounce the anti-Semitic remarks a Hamas-funded preacher makes? Or is that something MEMRI deliberately removes to give Palestinians a bad image?
I know the tough position they are in. I still stand by saying that Hamas (and Fatah, which is not as moderate as it sounds) represent them.
I mentioned it as a peripheral matter. You just wrote an entire post focusing on it and then expect others not to ‘divert’ either to respond to you. So who’s discussing another issue? And if part of the roots of Hamas’ Mickey Mouse show may be related to religion (oh, I don’t know, it may have to do with the number of times the shows talks about religious domination), then why not mention it?
I am not bashing Islam. If quoting Islamic texts is bashing, I carry the label of a basher with pride.
Sahih Muslim, Book 041, Number 6985:
I don’t approve of this so why condemn me? Condemn the text itself. Do you condemn this Hadith? Do you condemn Hamas for placing it in the charter? Do you condemn any imam who preaches this? Do you condemn anyone who does not object to this afterhearing it in a mosque? Why am I the bashed one here?
I have talked about this with you by email and unfortunately I am not in a condition to type very lengthy posts (as you know). Also, I never mentioned the Koran. See below anyway.
I never said anything about the Koran. Again you put words in my mouth. The Koran does not call for death to the Jews and I never said it does. It calls for them being converted, subjugated under the dhimma treaty, or be killed:
Quran 9:29
For example, most of the Khaybar jews were expelled after the raid of Khaybar. The few who begged to stay in Arabia were allowed under the condition of paying the tax from their harvest.
Appeal to authority is a fallacy. Many Jews are also disgusted at what the Quran says of them. So we must look at the source independently. Here’s a sample of what the Quran does say about the Jews:
I only brought up one hadith (which I never even posted) in my last post in reference to the Hamas charter. It’s you who responded with a can of worms. If you don’t want to discuss this to keep things on topic, don’t reply. If you do, I will have an obligation to express what I see as true within my time constraints.
Hey look everyone, Faith Freedom’s biggest fan found his way to our posts (and is making great use out of copy/paste directly from LGF-inspired sites too!)
Within my reply, I specifically told you NOT to make this thread about your ridiculous hatred for Islam and the Koran. There are other threads, and actually an entire forum, for that. Take your hideous claims there. Here we are discussing an entirely different topic, so you can post your propaganda elsewhere.
And Mohammed, I know we had this discussion before, countless times – which is why I am NOT putting words in your mouth, YOU said them and I specifically remember it. In fact, it seems to be that this is the only reason why you support Kareem, and why you don’t support Monem. You don’t want free speech. You only want this kind of things to spread about Islam which Kareem was working towards, this is such a shame. I always wondered why you were such a staunch supporter and now I highly doubt you would work this much had it not been Kareem. Maybe in the future you may find the guts to fight for someone you actually disagree with, but I won’t raise my hopes up.
In any case any other comments that are not directly related to the topic at hand shall be removed. You may feel free to post them in the forums.
Silly accusations. If you want to deflect, at least stick to our deflection without ad hominen attacks. Unfortunately I have to defend myself because your accusations are serious and can get me in hot water. I am not affiliated with any site. I agree with the contents of some sites and disagree with others. I said I disagree with many things on such sites before but you’re not listening to me. I told you I’m not a fan of idea’s like FFI’s because it involves destroying the faith. I’m trying to think of how to reform it.
And the only thing I copied and pasted was the Quran. Didn’t know it was LGF-related. My bad.
More words in my mouth. My discussion was about the ideological support for Hamas. You then asked me for the Hadith and I showed it. I never mentioned the Quran but you did first. How I deflected is beyond me. I just made a peripheral remark.
My hatred for Islam? Responded above. You’re making incalculable damage with such accusations. If I’ll ever hate Islam it’s because of you. (Well, not really).
What a lie. What a shameful lie. I told you at least twice was that it’s not about differing with Monem. It’s about finding the Muslim brotherhood intolerant. I am not against anyone who has a differing view. I find your views wrong, deceptive, and harming, but if you were jailed, I’d campaign for you as a friend who has the right to free speech because I agree to have different views.
And despite all what I said on Monem, I said that I know he’s being jailed for blogging and not for being a member of the Muslim brotherhood, and hence I support his release. I don’t know why you’re making things up about me. I hope you can post a clarification, otherwise a retraction would be nice.
Fine.
This whole thing was about MEMRI’S Forgery. and let me just say this; Israel, a very militaristic country, with untold billions worth of US military hardware, powerful air force and reported nuclear weapons and on top of all that occupying Palestinian lands, stealing g their water from underground, taking away the air from their skies, reducing them to no more than prisoners in their in their own towns and villages. yet they have the audacity to claim to be in danger of their existence( as MEMRI wants us to believe) from the Palestinians, who have nothing but side arms and home-made rockets and sling shots! If anyone should be afraid for their existence it is the Palestinians.
So for some enlightenment (mine)…Is it the position that the Palestinians are “universal” victims in that Hamas and Fatah don’t truly represent them but represent them by default. That the Palestinian people are not responsible for/to Hamas TV. That incorect MEMRI translations exist but are not so far off context but need to focus on Hamas TV as opposed to the Palestinian people.???
Blah blah blah … zionists stealing air from palestinian skys … blah blah
To all those who are so worried about a couple of minutes of a television program, where is your concern about how Jewish settlers attack and harass Palestinians to prevent them from going to school?
When American volunteers escorted Palestinians to school, some of the volunteers were brutally beaten and their bones were broken. See
Where is the media attention and outcry over Jewish hatred and terrorism agaisnt the Palestinian children and the American activists?
I was attempting to put a link to an article about Jewish settlers who terrorize Palestinian school children. But it didn’t come out as I expected . Here is the web adress
http://www.wrmea.com/archives/December_2004/0412013.html
Well said Randal, I would like to see the Israelis condemn this… but where are they? They are too busy justifying this type of behavior in the other thread where we are merely asking them to admit such mistakes. And none will! They ask us for peace but only if peace means total submission and an exchange of Palestinian human rights. That’s not peace. That’s racism. It’s torture.
I want to see Israelis apologize more often for this type of extremism; I never find any doing that. Not even on this blog, where many Palestinians are admitting their own mistakes and condemning their own extremism. I wish to see Israelis be just as understanding and willing to swallow their violent nationalism and pride for the sake of human rights. But I ask once again….
Where are they?!
The last few messages are quite clearly off the topic of the (mis)translation, and yet instead of being villified and told to leave and post in the forums (as the more relevant issue of anti-Jewish sentiment in the Qu’ran was – in the sense that whether the word ‘annihilaing’ or ‘fighting’ was used, violence towards Jews particularly was encouraged), the original post about Israeli harassment of schoolchildren receives a polite and enthusiastic response. I, personally, do not find this kind of selective treatment helpful for the possibility of rational debate.
I would also like to ask why nobody attempted to counter the extensive evidence of anti-semiism quoted from the Qu’ran. For the sake of debate, it would be more helpful to actually discuss his, civilly, rather than avoiding the issue.
However, I would like to say how much I have enjoyed many of the topics on this website, which have also taught me a lot, and how I would like to congratulate everyone involved on such a wonderful vision.
The comment above yours was also much more relevant to what we are talking about here, rather than hatred against Islam. The latter implication would have hijacked the thread quite early. We’re not here to discuss religion. We’re here to talk about media.
You see people defend MEMRI so often, but these same people never acknowledge their mistakes or admit them. While this Mickey Mouse show took place there are Israeli Rabbis asking for the death of innocent civilians, and others justifying it, where is the public condemnation for that?! Where is the public condemnation for people being beaten or mistreated merely for valuing Palestinian human rights?
I don’t see one. Thus, it’s a valid comment directly involving the public outcry on Mickey Mouse Hamas vs. the untouched Israeli media that does highlight a lot of hatred, which people have yet to condemn or at least apologize for.
It is said that Walt Disney was an anti-semite and most people accuse Hamas of being anti-Semitic?
So you would think people would be saying that mickey mouse and Hamas TV go together.
Here is an article about the history of children’s cartoons and racism in America
http://web.media.mit.edu/~ayah/MediaTheories/
THere are have been people like Jack Shaheen that have complained that some of Disney’s more recent children’s films have demonized Arabs and Muslims.
What about today’s children’s cartoons in America, where the different characters are hitting each other with heavy objects, blowing each other up or are shooting each other in the face?They always manage to survive and get right back up to commit more acts of vioelnce? Does this influence our children to think they can commit a violent act and there are no real negative consequences to it?
Walt Disney is not an anti-Semite, that controversy arose when a new-nazi group in Germany started a website using Mickey and other Disney characters as their logos. They turned Mickey Mouse into Hitler and the site itself promoted hatred and violence; I think Disney either filed a suit or the site was blocked as soon as the authorities became aware of it in Germany (which has strict “hate speech” laws.) This also made Germany include new media laws against these types of things.
You can find Aladdin to be a perfect example of Arabs/Muslims being painted as the “enemy” for Disney… in fact you find this in many video games as well, where the “other” is always the bad guy who must be killed.
Memri are always cutting and chopping media from the Muslim world to carry on presenting the distortion of the Muslims and Islamic faith….something that my ancestors began after getting their barbaric uncouth selves beaten by the early Muslims in Spain, Greater Syria, Anatolia, Eastern Europe et al. May Allaah guide the Romans/Europeans from their immorality and oppression and worship of desires to the worship and justice of their Creator Allaah.