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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 mission statement is to "explore 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 translated articles and media analysis currently 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

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 President. Carmon is fluent in Arabic. Prior to founding MEMRI, Carmon was a delegate to Israeli peace negotiations with Syria in Madrid and Washington in 1991-92. Prior to that he was a counterterrorism adviser to prime ministers Yitzhak Shamir and Yitzhak Rabin from 1988-93, and the acting head of the Civil Administration in Judea and Samaria and its adviser on Arab affairs from 1977-82. Prior to that Carmon served as a colonel in IDF Intelligence from 1968-88.
  • 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, joined the Middle Media Research Institute (MEMRI)as a senior analyst in 2001.
  • 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. His book on Egypt's great humanist, Najib Mahfuz - Najib Mahfuz: The Novelist-Philosopher of Cairo appeared in 1998.

Former Staff

  • Meyrav Wurmser (founding Executive Director) left in early 2002 to join the Hudson Institute as a Senior Fellow and Director of the Center For Middle East Policy, and was replaced by Steven Stalinsky. Wurmser is a scholar of the Arab world who received her doctorate in political science at George Washington University. She has taught political science at both Johns Hopkins University and the United States Naval Academy She is a frequent guest on radio and television, and has written numerous books and articles about Israel, the Arab World, and Zionism. Wurmser also published articles in the Middle East Journal, Middle East Quarterly and Middle East Insight. She was one of the contributors to the 1996 Clean Break document.

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."

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. It has been given a four-star (exceptional) rating by Charity Navigator, meaning that it "..exceeds industry standards and outperforms most charities in its Cause" when rated solely on its financial health.

Controversy

Criticism

  • 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. As with all propaganda, that involves a certain amount of dishonesty and deception. The items you translate are chosen largely to suit your political agenda. They are unrepresentative and give an unfair picture of the Arab media as a whole." 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"
Hussein Ibish, a spokesman for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee comments that "There is of course some horrific stuff in the Arab press, but one tends to forget that the American press can also be very nasty. MEMRI performs a useful function but unfortunately they have a pro-Israel, right-wing agenda."
  • Selectivity
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." Similarly, 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."
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."
Ken Livingstone, former British MP and the current Mayor of London, has accused MEMRI of "outright distortion". In a report he commissioned to explain his reasons for meeting with controversial Muslim scholar Yusuf al-Qaradawi, he stated of MEMRI that: "The translation and selection of quotes tend to portray Islam in a very negative light."


  • Translation disputes
MEMRI was involved in a controversy over the 2004 Osama bin Laden video in which bin Laden says "...every state that doesn't play with our security has automatically guaranteed its own security." MEMRI used 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), to translate "wilayah" as "U.S. state". Al-Jazeera translated the expression in question as "every state". Ramona Smith wrote in the Philadelphia Daily News that "Juan Cole said the Arabic word used by bin Laden does appear to be an archaic usage but that the research institute's other assumptions made no sense." Robert Fisk wrote 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".


In another case, several parties alleged mistakes in MEMRI's translation of a video clip from the controversial Palestinian children's program Tomorrow's Pioneers. Editors at CNN said they had found "massive problems" with the translation, and Brian Whitaker called it "misleading". The translation disputes were related to several sentences said by a child by the name of "Sanabel" who was a caller to the TV program shown in the video. In one case, where the sound quality on the clip is not very good, MEMRI heard ("We will annihilate the Jews") where other translators heard ("The Jews will shoot us"). In another instance, Whitaker wrote that the MEMRI transcript misrepresented the segment, by attributing a sentence said by one of the show's hosts ("I'll shoot") to the child, and ignoring the child's statement ("I'm going to draw a picture")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

Yigal Carmon, MEMRI President, has responded to various claims of critics:

  • On claims of bias
"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
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 unreliability
MEMRI asserted that: "the U.S. media in general mistranslated the words" ay 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. 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.
MEMRI asserted that its translation of the Tomorrow's Pioneers video clip is correct. Yigal Carmon stated that CNN editors were not able to dispute more than one word in the MEMRI translation, and that because the word "Jews" was at the end of the Arabic sentence, it meant that the word was the object of the action in the sentence, and that the context of the video clip meant the words that the CNN staff translated as "to shoot" could be interpreted as "to annihilate"

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. The Islamist Websites Monitor No. 1, Memri.org, accessed January 28 2006
  3. ^ 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).
  4. ^ One on One with Yigal Carmon: If MEMRI serves... Cite error: The named reference "jpint" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  5. Meyrav Wurmser
  6. ^ Whitaker, Brian (15 May 2007). "Arabic under fire". The Guardian. Retrieved 16 May 2007.
  7. Thanks for the MEMRI (.org) Jay Nordlinger, National Review, September 13 2004, accessed July 23 2006
  8. Charity Navigator, Charity Navigator Rating - The Middle East Media Research Institute
  9. ^ Brian Whitaker, Selective Memri, Guardian Unlimited, Monday August 12, 2002
  10. , Marc Perelman, No Longer Obscure, MEMRI Translates the Arab World: But Detractors Say a Right-Wing Agenda Distorts Think-Tank's Service to Journalists, The Forward, December 7, 2001.
  11. Brian Whitaker, Language matters, Guardian Unlimited, September 28, 2005
  12. Leila Hudson, "The New Ivory Towers: Think Tanks, Strategic Studies and 'Counterrealism'," Middle East Policy 12:4 (Winter 2005) p. 130.
  13. "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)
  14. Mayor of London Press Release
  15. ^ Glenn Beck Radio Show Archives: May 09, 2007.
  16. CNN Transcript pointing out dispute of MEMRI translation
  17. Cite error: The named reference MemriBinLaden was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  18. Robert Parry, CIA: Osama Helped Bush in '04, Consortiumnews.com, July 4, 2006
  19. Giving the Hatemongers No Place to Hide reprinted in Der Spiegel Online
  20. Jay Nordlinger, Thanks for the MEMRI (.org) National Review May 6, 2002

See also

External links

MEMRI Web sites

Other Middle-east Translation Services

Other External Links

Categories: