Respond's Arabic team combats language violence against Palestinians

Nov 23

At Respond Crisis Translation, we witness that language access is central to the struggle against violence everywhere.

Our team is working tirelessly to address language violence and language gaps that are exacerbating the ongoing genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.

One of many examples is the systemic mistranslation of common Arabic words that has perpetuated disinformation and anti-Palestinian and Islamophobic stereotypes in global media.

Our team of Arabic translators has been mobilizing to support work related to civil and human rights, facilitating ethical coverage in journalism, and public education.

This work is led by Palestinian and Arab translators – while already inundated with casework responding to recent environmental catastrophes in Libya, Morocco, and Syria. In order to sustain the surging caseload, they must earn dignified wages for this work. Please consider making an urgent donation to enable the around-the-clock rapid-response efforts of our incredible Arabic team.

Keep reading for a rundown of our recent work responding to the crisis in Gaza and how you can support.

Civil and human rights work

Respond is collaborating with civil and human rights organizations in the U.S., Palestine, Europe, and elsewhere to facilitate their advocacy toward an immediate ceasefire and to help protect the right to protest the Israeli assault on Gaza.

This has included translating affidavits, legal proceedings, know-your-rights documents, and trainings for people experiencing or at risk of incarceration and criminalization due to protesting; translating statements from organizations calling for ceasefire, humanitarian corridors, and a lifting of the 16-year siege on Gaza; and on-the-ground organizing support, including interpretation, during demonstrations.

Here are a few among many examples of this work:

Translation of the Palestine Institute for Public Democracy (PIPD)’s “Urgent Notice of Intention to Prosecute European Officials Complicit in War Crimes and Genocide” from English to German, French, Dutch, Swedish, and Danish.
Translation of legal materials for Baladna, an organization that does legal defense for Palestinians who are administrative detainees (political prisoners) in Israeli prisons.
Translation of the University Network for Human Rights (UNHR)’s statement from English into Spanish, Hebrew, Arabic. UNHR has been one of the leaders in U.S. academia taking principled stances for Palestinian human rights and working toward ending the suppression of free speech and academic freedom regarding Palestine across U.S. university campuses.
Translation of the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN) statement demanding an end to the genocide into French, German, Portuguese.
Translation of one of the most read Guardian op-eds, We’re anti-Zionist Jews and we see genocide unfolding in Gaza into Spanish to ensure accessibility across Latin America.

Bridging language gaps to facilitate ethical coverage in journalism

Rampant disinformation has been used to justify the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza since October 7. Western news media’s failure to include Arabic-language voices and content is contributing to the spread of falsehoods and propaganda.

We are bridging these language gaps by partnering with journalists to help bridge language gaps in coverage (see our social media announcements on Twitter (Arabic) and Instagram. We are also creating guidance for ethical coverage accessible to journalists in multiple languages. For example, we translated the Arab and Middle Eastern Journalist Association (AMEJA)’s reporting guide from English to Spanish, French, and German.

Public education on language

Mistranslation and misinterpretation – both unintentional and willful – in traditional and social media sites specifically has perpetuated disinformation and anti-Palestinian and Islamophobic stereotypes.

Our rapid response communications strategy to help educate the public on this language violence has included a project called “Mistranslating the Movement.” This is a series of public education content about commonly mistranslated Arabic social justice and movement terms on our blog and social media [Twitter, Instagram]. This post went viral. We are also working to partner with Gaza Translated on Instagram, by looping Respond’s Arabic-language team members to help translate content from on the ground in Gaza for English-speaking audiences.

We have many other projects underway in order to contribute to the struggle against war, genocide, apartheid, and occupation.

We need support to sustain this work alongside our pre-existing massive caseload! Please consider supporting Respond in addressing the forms of language violence that are central to injustice in Palestine and worldwide.