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Middle East Media Research Institute

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The Middle East Media Research Institute is a organization headquartered in Washington, DC, with branch offices in Jerusalem, Berlin, and London, and a Media Center in Jerusalem. According to its literature, it was established in 1998 to 'inform the debate over U.S. policy in the Middle East'. Memri translates Arabic and Persian media. It describes itself as an 'independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit, 501 (c)3 organization'.

Critics of MEMRI charge that its choice of articles is intended to portray Arabs and Muslims in a bad light, or to further the interests of Israel. They note that of the six major staff members listed on MEMRI's original website (MEMRI's site no longer includes a list of staff members), three - Aluma Solnick, Yotam Feldner, and its president and cofounder Colonel Yigal Carmon - are listed as having worked for Israeli intelligence in the past, and a fourth, Stacey Lakind, had been National Coordinator for the Student Department of the World Zionist Organization, while cofounder Meyrav Wurmser is also on the board of Ariel Center for Policy Research, an organization dedicated, according to its website, to preventing "a peace which will force Israel to its pre-1967 borders" and intending to "help crystallize a strategic design for the State of Israel". Only one, Aaron Mannes (at MEMRI 1998-2001), is not described as having done anything that would imply a strong previous commitment to Israel. Furthermore, its original self-description on its site included the sentence "In its research, the institute puts emphasizes (sic) the continuing relevance of Zionism to the Jewish people and to the state of Israel." (See links below.)

MEMRI now has a much larger number of employees than the original 6 listed (17 in January 2002, over 30 in August 2002); it provides no information on their identities beyond stating that they are "of different nationalities". They include Ezra Dalumi (.)

However, MEMRI is one of the few sources of English language translations of material published in Arabic and Persian, and the technical accuracy of its translations generally appears not to be disputed. It thus provides a view into the intra-Arab and intra-Muslim dialog that is often otherwise unavailable to English speakers that are not literate in Arabic or Persian.

Translations from MEMRI have sometimes been used by the The New York Times.

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