The Middle East Media Research Institute (German name identical, Hebrew name המכון לחקר התקשורת המזרח התיכון, abbreviated ממר"י), or MEMRI for short, is a organization headquartered in Washington, DC, with branch offices in Jerusalem, Berlin, Brussels, Moscow, and London, and a Media Center in Jerusalem.

It was established in February 1998; its stated objective then, according to its website, was 'to study and analyze Middle East intellectual developments and politics and the Arab-Israeli conflict, with particular emphasis on its Israeli-Palestinian dimension', and is now to 'inform the debate over U.S. policy in the Middle East.' It describes itself as an 'independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit, 501 (c)3 organization'. Originally, it also said that "In its research, the institute puts emphasizes (sic) the continuing relevance of Zionism to the Jewish people and to the state of Israel"; however, this sentence was removed from its site on November 5, 2001. It was cofounded by Col. (Res.) Yigal Carmon (יגאל כרמון), its president, and Dr. Meyrav Wurmser .

MEMRI is one of the few free sources of English language translations of material published in Arabic and Persian; it can thus be seen as providing a view into Arab and Iranian media that is often otherwise unavailable to English speakers who are not literate in those languages. The technical accuracy of its translations is rarely disputed. However, the extent to which its selection is contextual or representative of Arab/Iranian media is often disputed, particularly in view of some of its founders' known backgrounds in the Israeli intelligence services. The organisation 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 abroad in early 2002. MEMRI is regularly quoted by major American newspapers, including The New York Times, The New Yorker (magazine), the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and European ones including The Guardian and Irish Times, although not always in a positive light.

MEMRI Staff

In its original website of 1998, MEMRI listed 6 staff members: its President and cofounder Yigal Carmon, cofounder Dr. Meyrav Wurmser (Executive Director), Aaron Mannes (Director of Research), Yotam Feldner (Director of Media Analysis), Stacey Lakind (Research Associate), and Aluma Solnick (Research Associate). Stacey Lakind left in late 1998, and Aaron Mannes in early 2001; the others were still MEMRI staff as of October 5, 2001, when MEMRI stopped listing its employees on its website. Dr. Meyrav Wurmser left in early 2002 to join the Hudson Institute; she was replaced as Executive Director by Steven Stalinsky .

It now has a much larger number of employees ("17, plus translators" in January 2002[1], "over 30" in August 2002 of which 20 translators, current number unknown); citing bomb threats, it provides no information on their identities, beyond stating that they are "of different nationalities" and sometimes including by-lines on reports. But see below (#List of MEMRI Staff.)

Staff backgrounds

According to MEMRI's original (1998) site, the backgrounds of some of its higher-ranking staff are as following:

Col. (Res.) Yigal Carmon is MEMRI’s President. He served in the IDF/Intelligence Branch from 1968 to 1988. From 1977 to 1982 he was the Acting Head of Civil Administration in Judea and Samaria and the Advisor on Arab Affairs to the Civil Administration. Following Col. Carmon’s retirement from the IDF he was Advisor to Premiers Shamir and Rabin for Countering Terrorism from 1988 to 1993. In 1991 and 1992 he was a senior member of the Israeli Delegation to peace negotiations with Syria in Madrid and Washington.

Dr. Meyrav Wurmser is MEMRI’s Executive Director. She received her Ph.D. from George Washington University in Washington, D.C. where she wrote on Jabotinsky and the Revisionist Movement. She has taught at Johns Hopkins University and the United States Naval Academy. She has written numerous articles about Israel, the Arab World, and Zionism. Her most recent article on the status of women in the Palestinian Authority was published in Middle East Insight.

Aaron Mannes is MEMRI’s Director of Research. In 1997, he earned an MA in Liberal Arts from St. John’s College in Annapolis, MD. His undergraduate degree, earned in 1992 from Emerson College in Boston, is a BS in Speech. He has been a stand-up comedian, an Equal Employment Opportunity Investigator, and an Associate Writer for The Hotline .

Yotam Feldner is MEMRI’s Director of Media Analysis. He was born in Kibbutz Gazit , Israel and served in the IDF in Military Intelligence where he acquired fluency in Arabic and familiarity with Arab media. He earned a BA in History and English Language and Literature from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Aluma Solnick is a Research Associate with MEMRI. She was born in Jerusalem and served in the IDF in Military Intelligence. She earned a BA in Arabic Language and the History of the Middle East from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. She is presently completing her MA in Arab Language and Literature from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Dr. Meyrav Wurmser is also a "Contributing Expert" for Ariel Center for Policy Research , an organization dedicated, according to its website[2], to "stimulating and informing the national and international debates concerning all aspects of security policy - notably those policies which are an outcome of the political process started in Oslo and subsequently called the Peace Process" and "help(ing) crystallize a strategic design for the State of Israel", and according to which "A peace which will force Israel to its pre-1967 borders... will not be but a recipe for war.".

Dr. Nimrod Raphaeli , Chief Analyst, is an Iraqi-born Israeli and former World Bank employee. He is described by the Middle East Review of International Affairs (September 2003[3]) as:

Nimrod Raphaeli received his Ph.D. in development planning from the University of Michigan. He has spent most of his professional career at the World Bank. Since his retirement from the bank, he has served as an occasional consultant to both the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Dr. Raphaeli joined the Middle Media Research Institute (MEMRI) as a senior analyst in 2001.

Prof. Menahem Milson (Academic Advisor[4]), a professor at Hebrew University, is described by the World Jewish Congress as follows:

Menahem Milson is a professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and has been teaching Arabic literature there since 1963. He has also served as head of the Department of Arabic Language and Literature and as Dean of the Faculty of Humanities. Professor Milson is the academic adviser of the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). 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.

It lists Oliver Revell as its unpaid director. While a coincidence of names is possible from the limited information available, the most well-known Oliver Revell, previously associated with Carmon[5], is a former FBI agent described by Middle East Quarterly as follows:

Oliver Revell is the founder and president of Revell Group International , Global Business and Security Consultants, Dallas, Texas. He served for thirty years as an agent and senior executive in the Federal Bureau of Investigation (1964-94).[6]

External contractors

According to its US tax returns, MEMRI spent $585,000 in 2002 on the translation services of "Yesodot Shalom" (Foundations of Peace), based in Jerusalem.

List of MEMRI Staff

List of MEMRI staff, excluding Research Associates (not necessarily complete):

List of Former MEMRI Staff

Notes:

1. Aluma Solnick appears to have married and hence changed her name to Aluma Dankowitz .
2. "Adam Pashut" means "simple person" in Hebrew, and is presumably a pseudonym.

MEMRI Funders

MEMRI says that it is funded exclusively by private money from some 250 donors, including various foundations[29]. Notable among these is the Lynde & Harry Bradley Foundation, which has donated at least $100,000 dollars[30]. Smaller funders include the Ronald & Mary Ann Lachman Foundation , which has donated a total of $7,500[31]. In the year 2000, three donors accounted for 58% of MEMRI's US income[32].

GuideStar , a national database of nonprofit organizations, gives MEMRI's US tax returns for the year 2002. (PDF). From this, it appears that the US branch's total yearly revenue in gifts, grants, and contributions has steadily increased from $242,959 in 1998 to $1,171,940 in 2001.

MEMRI Projects

MEMRI runs several press monitoring projects on specific topics. Its currently ongoing projects are called: "Arab Anti-Semitism Documentation Project", "Jihad and Terrorism Studies Project", "US and the Middle East", "Reform in the Arab and Muslim World", "Arab-Israeli Conflict" (all since 1998), "Inter-Arab Relations" (since 1999), "Economic Studies" (since 2001). In 2004, it is launching the "Arab TV Monitoring Project".

In addition to press translations, it regularly publishes media analyses and "in-depth studies" relating to Middle Eastern affairs. It "distributes them, free of charge, by fax and email" (current site) to (according to its 1998 website) "Congresspersons, congressional staffers, policy makers, journalists, academics, and interested parties."

Accuracy

The accuracy of MEMRI's translations is occasionally disputed; for example, Brian Whitaker, in an email debate with Yigal Carmon, accuses the institute of making "annoying, dishonest little tweaks" in its translations and presentations thereof. More recently, a controversy arose over its claim that "wilaya" in the 2004 Osama bin Laden video should be translated as "state" in the sense of a US state rather than in the sense of "country".[33][34].

Selectivity

MEMRI claims to aim to reflect "main trends of thought and when possible general public opinion" [35] of the Middle East. Nevertheless, the institute has often been accused of selecting only the very worst of the Arabic press, thus showing the Arab media in a far worse light than a broader sample would reveal. For example, Tim Cavanaugh, in the Online Journalism Review , asserts "That MEMRI has a bias against Arab societies can hardly be disputed... The picture of Arab media presented by MEMRI is a slanted, ridiculous cartoon", despite adding that "they're providing a pretty valuable service in the process". He also states that MEMRI is one of the few news organizations willing and able to deliver a steady stream of articles translated from the Arabic press and that "its translations of articles - particularly unhinged, rabid articles - from the Arabic media" fill "a crucial spot in the media food chain". He argues that "Whatever you think of its story-selection process, MEMRI is filling an important gap in our understanding of the Middle East", and asserts that its translations represent the views of a certain segment of the Arab world: "Anybody who has spent any time in the Middle East, or even stayed alert to Arab politics, knows that MEMRI doesn't need to travel very far to cherry-pick offensive comments". Ibrahim Hooper of the Council on American-Islamic Relations echoes this view, stating "They look for the absolute worst, most inflammatory rhetoric they can find in the Arabic press."[36]

Palestinian Media Watch ¹ describes MEMRI as a "propaganda arm of the Israeli PR machine", noting its founder's background in Israeli intelligence. Juan Cole writes that MEMRI selects the Arabic equivalent of comments on Islam by the likes of Jerry Falwell, Rush Limbaugh and others considered to be outside of the mainstream [37]. Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London, stated ".. The Middle East Media Research Institute, run by a former colonel in Israeli military intelligence, which poses as a source of objective information but in reality selectively translates material from Arabic and presents Muslims and Arabs in the worst possible light"[38]. MEMRI has made no claim that its translations are a representative selection of Arabic media coverage; its project list gives some idea of what it looks for. It does claim that its critics are playing down the extent to which its coverage is representative. Exact statistics are unavailable.

Some dispute supposed claims that MEMRI translates a disproportionate number of articles by Islamists, citing the fact that MEMRI has translated over 800 articles in their "Reform Project" which highlights Arab modernizers, reformers and liberals. See MEMRI's Reform Project. Critics counter that the articles they choose to translate for their Reform Project, like those they translate elsewhere, are disproportionately those that paint a poor picture of the Arab world, whether by criticising it or by representing extremist views.

Lawsuit threats against critics

In January 2003, MEMRI threatened the small German quarterly Inamo with a lawsuit, following its publication of an article by the editor Christopher Hayes about the work of MEMRI's Berlin branch in Winter 2002. They reached a settlement out of court, in which Inamo printed MEMRI's response.

In November 2004, MEMRI threatened blogger Juan Cole with a libel suit over claims made by him regarding its funding and political alignment, which Cole sees as a SLAPP.

Notes

1. The "Palestinian Media Watch" cited in this article, http://www.pmwatch.com, is a Palestinian site which monitors the western media and not the Arab media. It has no connection with the "Palestinian Media Watch " run by Itamar Marcus , which is an organization which monitors the Arab media, with an emphasis on Palestinian media. Its website is http://www.pmw.org.il/.

External links

MEMRI Websites

• MEMRI Official Site, also at [39]
• MEMRI Jerusalem (Hebrew)
• MEMRI Berlin (German)
• MEMRI.JP (Japanese, Washington-based)
• MEMRI TV
• "http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.memri.org" - snapshots of the MEMRI site from its inception onwards (the staff list was under "About MEMRI", until removed), from the Wayback Machine

Articles on MEMRI

• Selective Memri Brian Whitaker's Guardian column about the organization, Yigal Carmon's rebuttal and their subsequent email exchange
• Debate between Yigal Carmon and Ali Abunimah
• RightWeb's profile of MEMRI
• dKosopedia - MEMRI
• A portrait of Yigal Carmon (German)

Blog and lawsuit-related issues

• Abu Aardvark addresses its selectivity
• A lawsuit threatened by MEMRI against a German quarterly, Inamo
• Lawsuit threatened by MEMRI against Prof. Juan Cole
• Blogger's response to the threat against Cole

Political organizations on MEMRI

• Arab Media Watch on MEMRI

MEMRI also refers to the Michigan Electronic Medical Record Initiative ([40]).