The Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU) is a 501(c)(3) Pro-Palestinian non-profit advocacy organization.
Founded in 2005, it received a grant from the Washington-based Jerusalem Fund for Education and Community Development in 2006 for Education and Community Development, which was used to undertake the first compilation of profiles of Palestinian-Americans in the fields of the arts, literature, academia, business and community service, which were then disseminated to news media and on the Internet. As an example, the IMEU sent a letter to news outlets in November 2007 that provided the names and profiles of Palestinian-Americans who could be contacted to discuss the upcoming Annapolis Conference. The names included Samar Assad, Executive Director of The Jerusalem Fund, Diana Buttu, a Ramallah-based attorney and former advisor to Palestinian negotiators, Omar Dajani, a San Francisco-based law professor and former legal advisor to United Nations Special Envoy Terje Rød-Larsen, and Nadia Hijab, a Senior Fellow at the Washington-based Institute for Palestine Studies.
One of the organization's co-founders is Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, who is also a member of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) Seattle chapter. As Secretary and Treasurer of the IMEU, she and the organization were featured in the Non-Profit Spotlight of the e-magazine The Mideast Connect. Since 2006, the IMEU has also published Letters from Palestine, a collection of first-hand testimonies from Palestinians about their daily lives.
References
- Richter, Paul (28 April 2014). "Kerry draws fire for reported comment about 'apartheid' and Israel". Los Angeles Times.
- "Past Humanitarian Grant Recipients: 2006 Grantees". The Jerusalem Fund. Archived from the original on December 3, 2008. Retrieved 2008-03-10.
- "Samar Assad". C-SPAN. Retrieved 2023-02-02.
- "Unmasking Israel's Intentions at Annapolis". Booman Tribune. 13 November 2007. Retrieved 2008-03-10.
- Zakarian, Ani; Shahid, Kaiser (2006-07-10). "The Non-Profit Spotlight". The Cultural Connect. Retrieved 2008-03-16.
- "Letters from Palestine". Encompass. 2021-10-08. Retrieved 2023-02-02.
- Pike, Deborah (2006). "Sharon's Wall and the Dialectics of Inside/Outside". Borderlands. 5 (3).