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The Middle East Media Research Institute, or MEMRI for short, is a Middle Eastern press monitoring organization located in Washington, D.C., with branch offices in Jerusalem, Berlin, London, and Tokyo. It provides translations of Arabic and Persian media as well as original analyses of political, ideological, intellectual, social, cultural, and religious trends in the Middle East.

MEMRI was founded in 1998 by Yigal Carmon along with Dr. Meyrav Wurmser. The organization became more prominent after the September 11, 2001 attacks, due to increased Western public interest in Arab and Iranian affairs. At that time, it expanded its staff considerably, setting up new branches outside the United States in early 2002.

MEMRI is a free source of English language translations of material published in Arabic and Persian. MEMRI publishes its translations, analyses, and in-depth reports on its Web site. MEMRI has been regularly quoted by major international newspapers. The organization has attracted both criticism and support for its work.

Objectives and projects

MEMRI's current "about us" page states, "The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) explores the Middle East through the region's media. MEMRI bridges the language gap which exists between the West and the Middle East, providing timely translations of Arabic, Persian, and Turkish media, as well as original analysis of political, ideological, intellectual, social, cultural, and religious trends in the Middle East."

MEMRI's goals have evolved over the years, originally translating Arabic and Hebrew. Brian Whitaker of The Guardian noted that until 2001, its Mission Statement stated that the institute also emphasizes "the continuing relevance of Zionism to the Jewish people and to the state of Israel."

MEMRI's translated articles and media analysis focus on the following areas:

• Jihad and Terrorism Studies Project
• U.S. And the Middle East
• Reform in the Middle East and North Africa
• Arab-Israeli Conflict
• Inter-Arab Relations
• Antisemitism Documentation Project

Starting in October 2006, they added The Islamist Websites Monitor Project focusing on the translated news, videos, and analysis of "major jihadi websites".

Staff

When founded in 1998, MEMRI's staff of seven included three who had formerly served in Military Intelligence in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF).

MEMRI President and founder Yigal Carmon states that MEMRI's current staff includes "people of the Jewish, Christian and Muslim faiths hold a range of political views"

Prominent staff

• Yigal Carmon — MEMRI's founder and President. Carmon is fluent in Arabic. He served as Colonel in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) Intelligence Branch from 1968 to 1988. He was Acting Head of Civil Administration in Judea and Samaria and the adviser on Arab Affairs to the Civil Administration from 1977 to 1982. He advised Prime Ministers Shamir and Rabin on Countering Terrorism from 1988 to 1993. In 1991 and 1992 Carmon was a senior member of the Israeli Delegation to peace negotiations with Syria in Madrid and Washington.

• Prof. Menahem Milson (Academic Advisor), is a professor at Hebrew University in Arabic literature, and has served as head of the Department of Arabic Language and Literature and Dean of the Faculty of Humanities. He has published extensively on modern Egyptian writers. He was appointed Head of the Civil Administration of the West Bank and Gaza in 1981 by then Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon. Milson served in that position until he resigned in 1982 to be replaced by then-Colonel Yigal Carmon.

• Dr. Nimrod Raphaeli received a Ph.D. in development planning from the University of Michigan. He spent most of his professional career at the World Bank, and has consulted for the International Monetary Fund. Dr. Raphaeli, an Iraqi-born Israeli, joined the Middle Media Research Institute (MEMRI)as a senior analyst in 2001.

• Meyrav Wurmser (founding Executive Director) left MEMRI in early 2002 to join the Hudson Institute and was replaced by Steven Stalinsky. Wurmser was one of the authors of the 1996 Clean Break document which according to Whitaker at The Guardian, "proposed reshaping Israel's '"strategic environment'" in the Middle East, starting with the overthrow of Saddam Hussein."

Financial support

MEMRI is registered in the US with the IRS as a 501(c)3, which means that it is exempt from federal taxation on income. Jay Nordlinger wrote, in the National Review, that "MEMRI exists entirely on private donations — there are about 250 donors, including some foundations — and will not accept any government money, as a matter of policy."

MediaTransparency, a non-profit organization which monitors the financial ties of conservative think tanks to conservative foundations in the United States, reports that for the years 1999 to 2004, MEMRI received $100,000 from The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, Inc., $100,000 from The Randolph Foundation, and $5000 from the John M. Olin Foundation.

MEMRI's U.S. income statement (06/2004) states that its' total U.S. revenue was US$2,571,899, its total U.S. functional expenses were US$2,254,990, and that it possessed net assets of US$700,784. Charity Navigator, a non-profit organization that evaluates the financial health of America'a largest charities, has given MEMRI a four-star (exceptional) rating, meaning that it "... exceeds industry standards and outperforms most charities in its Cause" when rated on its financial health.

Controversy

Criticism

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• Bias

Brian Whitaker, the Middle East editor for the UK Guardian newspaper, has been one of the most outspoken critics of MEMRI, writing: "My problem with Memri is that it poses as a research institute when it's basically a propaganda operation," and that "the stories selected by Memri for translation follow a familiar pattern: either they reflect badly on the character of Arabs or they in some way further the political agenda of Israel."

Whitaker has also complained that "MEMRI's website does not mention you or your work for Israeli intelligence. Nor does it mention MEMRI's co-founder, Meyrav Wurmser, and her extreme brand of Zionism ... Given your political background, it's legitimate to ask whether MEMRI is a trustworthy vehicle."

Leila Hudson writes in the journal Middle East Policy, "MEMRI simultaneously highlights stories emphasizing the most extreme stereotypes of clashing Arab and Islamic civilization, which would not otherwise come to light. In effect, it amplifies the noise that most effectively distracts from the projects of engagement and negotiation. This is compounded by the interlinked series of websites, blogs and forums on the right wing of the think-tank periphery. Like the Israeli disinformation site Debka.com, MEMRI produces and amplifies noise, while buttressing the weak 'clash of civilizations' theory with selective extremist writing."

• Selectivity

According to Juan Cole, Professor of Modern Middle East History at the University of Michigan, MEMRI has a tendency to "cleverly cherry-pick the vast Arabic press, which serves 300 million people, for the most extreme and objectionable articles and editorials" Similarly, Ibrahim Hooper, a director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, stated in the Washington Times that "MEMRI's intent is to find the worst possible quotes from the Muslim world and disseminate them as widely as possible."

William Rugh, former US ambassador to the United Arab Emirates and Yemen, describes MEMRI as a service which "does not present a balanced or complete picture of the Arab print media. ...Quotes are selected to portray Arabs as preaching hatred against Jews and westerners, praising violence and refusing any peaceful settlement of the Palestinian issue."

Laila Lalami has written that, "There are three general observations that can be made about MEMRI's work. One is that it consistently picks the most violent, hateful rubbish it can find, translates it and distributes it in e-mail newsletters to media and members of Congress in Washington. The second is that MEMRI does not translate comparable articles published in Israel, although the country is not only a part of the Middle East but an active party to some of its most searing conflicts. For instance, when the right-wing Israeli politician Effi Eitam referred to Israel's Palestinian citizens as a "cancer," MEMRI did not pick up this story. The third is that this organization is now the main source of media articles on the region of Islam, a far greater and far more diverse whole than the individual countries it lists."

Ken Livingstone, former British MP and the current Mayor of London, has accused MEMRI of "outright distortion". Journalist Rima Barakat wrote of the January 2005 Greater London Authority report that: "A study was commissioned to investigate the 'Islamic conspiracy dossier.' This dossier was compiled to defame a renowned Muslim scholar and was presented to British officials in an attempt to prevent a renowned Muslim scholar, Sheikh Yusuf al- Qaradawi, from entering Britain to participate in a London conference. The report found that "nearly all the distortions came from material produced by the MEMRI."

• Translation inaccuracy

The accuracy of MEMRI's translations is sometimes disputed.. For example, a controversy arose over MEMRI's translation of the Arabic words "ay wilayah" in the 2004 Osama bin Laden video. Osama bin Laden's statement was widely translated as: "Every state that does not toy with our security has automatically guaranteed its own security". The US media in general translated "state" as nation-state, and viewed Bin Laden's statement as a warning to the US to stop intervening in the Middle East in order to guarantee US security. But MEMRI interpreted "state" in the sense of a US state rather than a nation-state. MEMRI's translation was widely reported since it differed from most earlier translations and since MEMRI's "Special Alert" published along with Bin Laden's speech the weekend before the 2004 presidential election stated that: "Osama bin Laden ... included a specific threat to 'each U.S. state,' designed to influence the outcome of the upcoming election against George W. Bush." The media watchdog site mediamatters.org noted that: "MEMRI's translation has been challenged by a number of scholars and experts," of whom they quote Juan Cole, professor of modern Middle East History at the University of Michigan; Omer Taspinar, a foreign policy studies research fellow at the Brookings Institution; and Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert and director of the RAND Corp's Washington DC office. They include Juan Cole's statement that bin Laden: "cannot possibly mean that he thinks Rhode Island is in a position to " Brian Whitaker went even further, commenting that it was "a clever bit of election propoganda on MEMRI's part, implying that Bin Laden wanted Americans to vote for Kerry"

Professor Halim Barakat of Georgetown University cited MEMRI's translations of his own articles as an example of such distortion: "Every time I wrote Zionism, MEMRI replaced the word by Jew or Judaism. They want to give the impression that I'm not criticizing Israeli policy, but that what I'm saying is anti-Semitic."

More recently, on his blog for The Guardian, Brian Whitaker wrote that in a translation of a Hamas video showing a Mickey-mouse figure eliciting political comments from a young girl, the MEMRI transcript misrepresents the segment, by attributing a sentence said by the mouse figure ("I'll shoot") to the child, and ignoring the child's statement ("I'm going to draw a picture") Also, where MEMRI translates the girl as saying "We will annihilate the Jews", Whitaker and others, including Arabic speakers used by CNN, insist that based on careful listening to the low quality video clip, the girl is variously interpreted as saying, "The Jews will shoot us" or "The Jews are killing us." Whitaker concluded: "The effect of this is to devalue everything Memri translates - good and bad alike. Responsible news organisations can't rely on anything it says without going back and checking its translations against the original Arabic."

Response to Criticism

• On claims of bias

Yigal Carmon, MEMRI President, has responded: "You are right: we do have an agenda. As an institute of research, we want MEMRI to present translations to people who wish to be informed on the ideas circulating in the Middle East. We aim to reflect reality. If knowledge of this reality should benefit one side or another, then so be it."

"Whatever the agenda, the research has to be scientific. If it isn't - if we were trying to prove that some phenomenon existed when it didn't, or vice versa - it wouldn't be an agenda, it would be bias."

Addressing the issue of supposed bias, John Lloyd has noted in the New Statesmen that "One beneficial side effect of the focus on the Middle East is that we now have available much more information on the discourse of the Arab world...it is a sobering experience to read on the internet Memri's vast store of translations from many media, and to note how much of what is written is conspiratorial, vicious and unyieldingly hateful. Memri and Carmon have been accused of selecting the worst of a diverse media: however, the sheer range of what is available weakens that criticism, as does support for the initiative by Arab liberals. The Iraqi exile Kanan Makiya, for example, wrote in the spring 2002 issue of Dissent that Arab intellectuals have allowed a mixture of victimhood and revenge to take hold of popular culture, with few if any dissenting voices.

Carmon replied to Whitaker's complaint that his and Wurmsyers backgrounds were not detailed on the MEMRI Web site by saying, "As for myself, I make no secret of my past. I appear regularly on various media outlets, including Al-Jazeera, and my background is always mentioned. omitted the fact that I retired from service over 10 years ago." Carmon also noted that Meyrav Wurmser had left MEMRI many years before Whitaker made his complaint that her background was not outlined on the MEMRI Web site' In the same interview Carmon also stated "Memri is not a news agency or a press review service".

• On claims of selectivity

In response to the selection of material portraying the Arab/Muslim world in a negative light, Carmon stated, "In 1994-5, before MEMRI was formally established, I taped TV broadcasts of Arafat calling for jihad. The reaction to that tape was: 'Kill the messenger'...And I protested by saying, 'But it's not me ; it's him .'...I asked a very senior journalist, 'Why are you criticizing our work? We're merely revealing the truth.' 'There is no such thing as truth...Every news item must be judged by the question of whom it serves. And you are serving the enemies of peace.' Horrified, I retorted, "And you're the one who's considered the reliable journalist, while I'm seen as biased?' So he said, 'If you want to play naive, do it with someone else, not with me. You know I'm right.' 'No,' I said. 'I do not know that you're right. There is such a thing as truth, and it is impartial'"

"We aim to reflect main trends of thought and when possible general public opinion. We feature the most topical issues on the Middle Eastern or international agenda...We also translate discussions on social issues, such as the status of women in Egypt (Special Dispatches 392, 393, January 2002) and debates on Al-Jazeera TV which reach an estimated 60 million viewers. When controversial matters are aired before such a large audience, Memri does not need to fight shy of translating their contents. Are the examples chosen extreme? While some of the topics covered do seem extreme to the western reader, they are an accurate representation of what appears in the Arab and Farsi media...if mainstream papers repeatedly publish the Jewish blood libel; accuse Jews and Americans of deliberately spreading Aids or the US of dropping genetically modified foods with the intention of harming people in Afghanistan (the latter allegation made by no less than the editor in chief of the most important government daily in Egypt) Memri is entitled to translate these articles...there are even more extreme views - like those expressed by most Islamist organisations - which we rarely translate."

"Memri has never claimed to 'represent the view of the Arabic media', but rather to reflect, through our translations, general trends which are widespread and topical. You accused us of distortion by omission but when asked to provide examples of trends and views we have missed, you have failed to answer."

• On claims of translation inaccuracy

MEMRI asserted that: "the U.S. media in general mistranslated the word" wilayah and that the modern standard Arabic definition of "wilayah" as "province or administrative district" as in Arabic name of the United States of America, (الولايات الأمريكية المتح), was what bin Laden meant, rather than nation-states. MEMRI cited a post on an Islamist website which made the threats to US states explicit. Robert Fisk said in an interview that "(bin Laden) always had this notion ... this idea that the American people would shrug off the American government, and would -- their individual states of the union would become individual countries". Conservative commentators asserted that this was bin Laden "voting" for John Kerry, but the later consensus within the CIA is that the video as a whole was most probably meant to assist George W Bush's re-election.

Support

Thomas L. Friedman, a political opinion columnist for the New York Times, credits MEMRI with helping to "shine a spotlight on hate speech wherever it appears" and "presenting the voices of the...courageous Arab or Muslim intellectual, cleric or columnist (who) publishes an essay in his or her media calling on fellow Muslims to deal with the cancer in their midst. The truth tellers' words also need to be disseminated globally." Friedman quotes Husain Haqqani, author of the book 'Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military': "The rulers in these countries have no interest in amplifying the voices of moderates because the moderates often disagree with the rulers as much as they disagree with the extremists...You have to deal us moderates into the game by helping to amplify our voices and exposing the extremists and their amen corner."

Brad Sherman, a Congressman and ranking member of the United States House of Representatives International Relations Committee's Subcommittee on International Terrorism and Non-proliferation, wrote the introduction to a MEMRI report on Arab and Iranian reactions to 9/11: "Since MEMRI's inception eight years ago, Americans and others in the West have had at least one outstanding source of information on the media of the Arab world, Iran and Turkey. MEMRI provides timely translations of materials that you will find nowhere else. As a member of Congress on the House International Relations Committee, and the top Democratic member of its Terrorism Subcommittee, I have utilized MEMRI.org to better understand the Middle East and its political culture."

Jay Nordlinger, the managing editor of National Review, wrote: "Wading or clicking through MEMRI's materials can be a depressing act, but it is also illusion-dispelling, and therefore constructive. This one institute is worth a hundred reality-twisting Middle Eastern Studies departments in the U.S. Furthermore, listening to Arabs — reading what they say in their newspapers, hearing what they say on television — is a way of taking them seriously: a way of not condescending to them, of admitting that they have useful things to tell us, one way or the other. Years ago, Solzhenitsyn exhorted, "Live not by lies." We might say, in these new circumstances, "Live not by ignorance about lies, either." Anyone still has the right to avert his eyes, of course. But no one can say that that is not a choice."

References

1. ^ MEMRI About Us, Memri.org, accessed July 23 2006
2. Memri.org Mission Statement, at web.archive.org, accessed July 2 2001
3. ^ Brian Whitaker, Selective Memri, Guardian Unlimited, Monday August 12, 2002
4. The Islamist Websites Monitor No. 1, Memri.org, accessed January 28 2006
5. Memri.org Mission Statement, at web.archive.org, accessed Dec 2 1998
6. ^ Email debate: Yigal Carmon and Brian Whitaker at Guardian Unlimited, January 28 2003 Cite error: The named reference "Debate" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
7. ^ One on One with Yigal Carmon: If MEMRI serves... Jerusalem Post, Nov. 16, 2006 Cite error: The named reference "jpint" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
8. Growing Doubts at Home Time Magazine, May 17, 1982
9. Status of Palestinian Territories and Palestinian Society under Israeli Occupation The Applied Research Institute, Jerusalem
10. ^ Whitaker, Brian (15 May 2007). "Arabic under fire". The Guardian. Retrieved 16 May 2007.
11. Thanks for the MEMRI (.org) Jay Nordlinger, National Review, September 13 2004, accessed July 23 2006
12. MEMRI Media Transparency Profile, accessed Oct. 7 2007
13. Charity Navigator, Charity Navigator Rating - The Middle East Media Research Institute
14. Charity Navigator, What Do Our Ratings Mean, accessed Oct. 8, 2007
15. Leila Hudson, "The New Ivory Towers: Think Tanks, Strategic Studies and 'Counterrealism'," Middle East Policy 12:4 (Winter 2005) p. 130.
16. ^ Bin Laden's Audio: Threat to States?, Professor Juan Cole Informed Comment blog, November 2 2004
17. Brian Whitaker, Language matters, Guardian Unlimited, September 28, 2005
18. Laila Lalami, "Missionary Position," The Nation (19 June 2006) p. 32.
19. "Propaganda that widens the Arab-West divide - Gained in translation". Le Monde Diplomatique. October 2005. See in French (freely available) "Traduction ou trahison? Désinformation à l'israélienne". Le Monde Diplomatique. October 2005. (Persian translation also available for free here)
20. ^ Mayor of London Press Release
21. Rima Barakat, "MEMRI's systematic distortions," Rocky Mountain News (27 March 2006) p. 35A.
22. ^ Yigal Carmon Osama Bin Laden Tape Threatens U.S. States memri.org, 1 November 2004
23. ^ Ramona Smith, "Did Osama send election threat?," Philadelphia Daily News (2 November 2004).
24. "How MEMRI doctored Finkelstein's interview to portray him as a "Holocaust denier"". Official Norman Finkelstein Website.
25. Full transcript of bin Ladin's speech at Al-Jazeera. 01 November 2004
27. Richard H. Curtiss, "Meyrav Wurmser: the neocons' den mother," Washington Report on Middle East Affairs 26.3 (April 2007).
28. "Paula Zahn Now" TV show transcript, CNN transcripts, aired 2007-05-08
29. John Lloyd, "Pay any price, bear any burden?," New Statesman (3 February 2003).
30. Robert Fisk: "Bin Laden's Vote is For George Bush", Democracy Now, Monday, November 1st, 2004
31. Robert Parry, CIA: Osama Helped Bush in '04, Consortiumnews.com, July 4, 2006
32. Giving the Hatemongers No Place to Hide reprinted in Der Spiegel Online
33. Brad Sherman,Introduction to the MEMRI Compilation on the Arab and Iranian Reactions to 9/11, MEMRI, 2006
34. Jay Nordlinger, Thanks for the MEMRI (.org) National Review May 6, 2002

See also

• Palestinian Media Watch
• Mosaic: World News from the Middle East
• Institute for War and Peace Reporting
• SITE Institute
• Tomorrow's Pioneers

External links

MEMRI websites

• MEMRI website
• MEMRI German website
• MEMRI Israeli website
• MEMRITV website
• The MEMRI Blog
• The MEMRI Economic Blog
• MEMRI site archived - snapshots of the MEMRI site from its inception onwards

Other External Links

• Mosaic: World News from the Middle East Free streaming video of daily news broadcasts in the Middle East, with English translation.
• Mideastwire Translation organization based in Beirut
• Laura Mansfield
• SITE Institute
• Debate on CNN between Yigal Carmon and Ali Abunimah of the Electronic Intifada
• A Note on MEMRI & Translations by Leah Harris, Counterpunch

• Media analysis organizations
• Arab world media
• Iranian media
• Turkish media
• Antisemitism
• Middle East
• Terrorism
• Women's rights in the Middle East
• Human rights in Arab League member countries
• American Middle Eastern studies
• Non-profit organizations