Sunday, August 10, 2014

German Foreign Ministry Mistranslates Own Document

The from the Joint statement by the Foreign Ministers of France, the United Kingdom and Germany on the situation in Middle East (as per IMRA) who are Laurent Fabius, Foreign Minister of France, Philip Hammond, Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom and Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Foreign Minister of Germany, in the official German FO translation:


...We call upon all parties immediately to return to a cease-fire. We fully support the ongoing efforts by Egypt to this end.
...To be sustainable, a ceasefire must envisage steps to address both Israeli security concerns and Palestinian requirements regarding the lifting of restrictions on Gaza.

"Palestinian requirements"?

Reports at WSJ and a German news site.


Well, I did my own checking.  It isn't up at the UK Foreign Office.  Or France's Ministry site.

The original German reads
als auch die palästinensischen Anforderungen für eine Aufhebung der Blockade gleichermaßen berücksichtigen.

and that is translated as

taken into account as well as the Palestinian demands for a lifting of the blockade alike.

I don't think an aggressor and one that has basically lost a miliitary campaign has any real "demands" especially one concerning a legal blockade placed on its capabilities to generate hostilities and terror attacks.

And Gaza and Israel are not "alike".

2 comments:

YMedad said...

Lillian Mueller Blaettler writes:

Your perception is correct. "Anforderungen" mean "demands" in English. How typical they used another softer word. Appeasers lost in translation.

YMedad said...

PB sent me:

Well, strictly speaking, demands is Forderungen. "Anforderungen" are a bit more vague, it doesn't necessarily mean that somebody demands something -- like: I insist to get that -- but rather that something is needed...