more "mis"translations that demonise

Same old story  of so called 'mis' translations. Such a straight echo of  the  Iranian Case.  The Observer accepted their mistake  just as the NYT did (though the latter took a lot longer). The constant repetition of the  original lie will continue, thought -  just as it still does with  the Iranian President's so called threat.  Propaganda is what its all about. Repeating a lie often enough does not make it the truth. Forget about what the Nazi propaganda machine believed. But then  this is not about truth . It is  just about  controlling Perception and the  grand Narrative.

In its report on Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal’s speech in Gaza on Saturday, The Observer, the Sunday sister paper of The Guardian, quoted Meshaal saying the following words:

We don’t kill Jews because they are Jews. We kill the Zionists because they are conquerors and we will continue to kill anyone who takes our land and our holy places … We will free Jerusalem inch by inch, stone by stone.

This however is a blatant mistranslation. What Meshaal actually said is:

We do not fight the Jews because they are Jews. We fight the Zionist occupiers and aggressors. And we will fight anyone who tries to occupy our lands or attacks us. We fight those who fight us, who attack us, who besiege us, who attack our holy places and our land.

Can you see the massive difference? To an untrained ear the Arabic verbs for “kill” and “fight” could sound the same because قتل – to kill – and قاتل – to fight or combat – come from the same root. But to any fluent Arabic speaker there is no ambiguity at all in what Meshaal said as the clip below shows.

خطاب القائد خالد مشعل في مهرجان الانطلاقة 25 لحماس

Update, 9 December

The Observer replaced the word “kill” with “fight” and added this note to its article: “This article was amended on Sunday 9 December 2012 to correct a mistranslation in a quote by Meshaal.”

http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/uks-observer-adds-kill-jews-hamas-leader-khaled-meshals-gaza-speech-when-he-did