Our current political landscape shows the ways in which language’s influence can be magnified, used as a propaganda tool, a vehicle to circulate ideologies. The coverage of the genocide in Gaza is one such example. In 2025, the Centre for Media Monitoring shared a report concluding that the BBC’s coverage of the war was “systemically biased against Palestinians.” As well as continuously using more emotive language when discussing Israeli deaths, the BBC reportedly “gave Israeli deaths 33 times more coverage”—“despite Gaza suffering 34 [times] more casualties.” Through a simple choice of language, the BBC failed to capture truthfully the reality of life in Gaza.

In this context, the use of language in shaping public opinion about Israel takes on new significance, with three US public relations companies recently being contracted by Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs to win back the favor of disaffected Americans. By maximizing multiple platforms, this content will likely find its way into AI LLMs such as ChatGPT, allowing the use of biased language that favors Israel when responding to users’ questions. Acknowledging these vital consequences of language use, Bobin demonstrates that translation is far more than a means of communication; it holds the power to shape the circulation of knowledge, calling out genocidal policies and the lives they continue to destroy.

Bobin highlights the importance of de-emphasizing translations that emanate from the Western world. Establishing the benefit of collective translation, she notes that such exercises “open paths for critical movements of decentering via the mutual contamination of positions and perspectives.” She posits that a more intentional mode of translation provides the opportunity to consider which voices and experiences are embodied in the telling of a story.