Middle East Media Research Institute

The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), officially the Middle East Media and Research Institute, is an American non-profit press monitoring and analysis organization that was co-founded by Israeli ex-intelligence officer Yigal Carmon and Israeli-American political scientist Meyrav Wurmser in 1997. It publishes and distributes free copies of media reports that have been translated into English—primarily from Arabic and Persian, but also from Urdu, Turkish, Pashto, and Russian.

Critics describe MEMRI as a strongly pro-Israel advocacy group that, in spite of describing itself as being "independent" and "non-partisan" in nature, aims to portray the Arab world and the Muslim world in a negative light by producing and disseminating incomplete or inaccurate translations of the original versions of the media reports that it re-publishes. It has also been accused of selectively focusing on the views of Islamic extremists while de-emphasizing or ignoring mainstream opinions.

History
The organization was co-founded by Yigal Carmon, an ex-Aman agent, and Meyrav Wurmser, a political scientist. It was incorporated in Washington, D.C., as the Middle East Media and Research Institute Inc. on December 1, 1997.

Objectives
The organization indirectly gained public prominence as a source of news and analysis about the Muslim world, following the September 11 attacks and the subsequent war on terror by the Bush administration. According to MEMRI, its translations and reports are distributed to "congresspersons, congressional staff, policy makers, journalists, academics, and interested parties". According to Political Research Associates, MEMRI's translated articles and its commentary are routinely cited in national media outlets in the United States, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times, while analyses by MEMRI staff and officers are frequently published by right-wing and neoconservative media outlets such as National Review, Fox News, Commentary, and the Weekly Standard. Political Research Associates writes that both critics and supporters of MEMRI note its increasing influence in shaping perceptions of the Middle East. It has maintained longstanding relations with law enforcement agencies.

Concerning this change in their 'mission statement,' Political Research Associates, which studies the US political right, notes that it occurred three weeks after the September 11 attacks, and considers MEMRI "was previously more forthcoming about its political orientation in its self-description and in staff profiles on its website". Political Research Associates considers that "MEMRI's slogan, 'Bridging the Language Gap Between the Middle East and the West,' does not convey the institute's stridently pro-Israel and anti-Arab political bias." It further notes, that MEMRI's founders, Wurmser and Carmon, "are both hardline pro-Israel ideologues aligned with Israel's Likud party". Carmon, in a public letter to Juan Cole that included a threat with a lawsuit over his comments on MEMRI, stated that he has never been affiliated with Likud. Cole answered that he had not alleged that, but that MEMRI would campaign for Likud goals such as the rejection of the Oslo peace process.

In 2012, Haaretz reported that Israeli intelligence agencies have reduced their monitoring the Palestinian media with MEMRI and Palestinian Media Watch now providing the Israeli government with coverage of "anti-Israel incitement" in social media, blogs and other online sources. The Prime Minister's Bureau has stated that before the government cites information provided by the two sources, the source of the material and its credibility is confirmed.

Projects
MEMRI's work is organized into projects, each with a specific focus. The main subjects the organization addresses are jihad and terrorism; relations between the U.S. and Middle East; pro-democracy and pro-civil rights views; inter-Arab relations; and anti-Semitism.

The Reform Project, according to MEMRI, focuses on monitoring, translating, and amplifying media from Muslim figures and movements with progressive viewpoints in the Arab and Muslim world. The project also aims to provide a platform for those sources to expand their reach. MEMRI has stated that this is the organization's flagship project.

The MEMRI Lantos Archives on anti-Semitism and Holocaust Denial, a joint project with the Lantos Foundation for Human Rights and Justice launched in 2009, is a repository of translated Arabic and Farsi material on anti-Semitism. The project is sponsored by the U.S. State Department. Through its translations and research, the project aims to document anti-Semitic trends in the Middle East and South Asia. The project provides policymakers with translations and footage of anti-Semitic comments made by media personalities, academics, and government and religious leaders. MEMRI holds an annual Capitol Hill gathering through the project, and publishes an annual report on anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial. The archives were named for Tom Lantos, the only Holocaust survivor to serve in United States Congress.

Arab and Iranian television programming is monitored, translated, and analyzed through the MEMRI TV Monitoring Project. The project's translated video clips are available to the media and general public.

Activity by terrorist and violent extremist organizations is tracked through the Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor (JTTM). The project disseminates jihadi-associated social media content and propaganda released by various Islamic State media companies.

The organization's Cyber and Jihad Lab (CJL) tracks cyberterrorism. According to MEMRI, the CJL's goal is to inform and make recommendations to legislators and the business community about the threat of cyberterrorism. Initiatives have included encouraging social media companies to remove terrorist accounts and sought legislation to prevent terrorist entities from using their platforms.

MEMRI's other projects include the Russian Media Studies Project, which translates Russian media and publishes reports analyzing Russian political ideology, the Iran Studies Project, the South Asia Studies Project, and the 9/11 Documentation Project.

Financial aid
MEMRI is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. MEMRI has a policy of not accepting money from governments, relying instead on around 250 private donors, including other organizations and foundations.

MediaTransparency, an organization that monitors the financial ties of conservative think tanks to conservative foundations in the United States, reported 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 $5,000 from the John M. Olin Foundation.

MEMRI recognized US$6,292,683 of revenue and incurred US$6,247,476 of expenses during the twelve months ended June 30, 2018. Charity Navigator, an organization that evaluates the financial health of America's largest charities, has given MEMRI three stars out of a possible four.

In August 2011, the United States Department of State's Office of International Religious Freedom in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, awarded MEMRI a $200,000 grant.

Reception
The organization's translations are regularly quoted by major international newspapers, and its work has generated strong criticism and praise. Critics have accused MEMRI of producing inaccurate, unreliable translations with undue emphasis and selectivity in translating and disseminating the most extreme views from Arabic and Persian media, which portray the Arab and Muslim world in a negative light, while ignoring moderate views that are often found in the same media outlets. Other critics charge that while MEMRI does sometimes translate pro-US or pro-democracy voices in the regional media, it systematically leaves out intelligent criticism of Western-style democracy, US and Israeli policy and secularism.

MEMRI's work has been criticized on three grounds: that their work is biased; that they choose articles to translate selectively so as to give an unrepresentative view of the media they are reporting on; and that some of their translations are inaccurate. MEMRI has responded to the criticism, stating that their work is not biased; that they in fact choose representative articles from the Arab media that accurately reflect the opinions expressed, and that their translations are highly accurate.

Accusations of pro-Israel bias
Brian Whitaker, then the Middle East editor for The Guardian, wrote in a public email debate with Carmon in 2003, that his problem with MEMRI was that it "poses as a research institute when it's basically a propaganda operation". Earlier, Whitaker had charged that MEMRI's role was to "further the political agenda of Israel." and that MEMRI's website does not mention Carmon's employment for Israeli intelligence, or Meyrav Wurmser's political stance, which he described as an "extreme brand of Zionism". However, Whitaker also wrote that "nobody, so far as I know, disputes the general accuracy of Memri's translations."

Carmon responded to this by stating that his employment history is not a secret and was not political, as he served under opposing administrations of the Israeli government and that perhaps the issue was that he was Israeli: "If your complaint is that I am Israeli, then please say so." Carmon also questioned Whitaker's own biases, wondering if Whitaker is biased in favor of Arabs – as his website on the Middle East is named "Al-Bab" ("The Gateway" in Arabic) – stating: "I wonder how you would judge an editor whose website was called "Ha-Sha-ar" ("The Gateway" in Hebrew)?

In 2006, MEMRI released an interview with Norman Finkelstein on Lebanese Al Jadeed in which he discussed his book The Holocaust Industry which made it appear as if Finkelstein was questioning the death toll of the Holocaust. Finkelstein said in response that MEMRI edited the television interview he gave in order to falsely impute that he was a Holocaust denier. In an interview with the Muslim-American newspaper In Focus in 2007, he said MEMRI uses "the same sort of propaganda techniques as the Nazis" and "take[s] things out of context in order to do personal and political harm to people they don't like".

Selective focus on Islamic extremists
Several critics have accused MEMRI of selectivity. Juan Cole, a professor of Modern Middle East History at the University of Michigan, argues 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... On more than one occasion I have seen, say, a bigoted Arabic article translated by MEMRI and when I went to the source on the web, found that it was on the same op-ed page with other, moderate articles arguing for tolerance. These latter were not translated." Former head of the CIA's counterintelligence unit, Vincent Cannistraro, said that MEMRI "are selective and act as propagandists for their political point of view, which is the extreme-right of Likud. They simply don't present the whole picture." Laila Lalami, writing in The Nation, states that MEMRI "consistently picks the most violent, hateful rubbish it can find, translates it and distributes it in email newsletters to media and members of Congress in Washington." As a result, critics such as UK Labour politician Ken Livingstone state that MEMRI's analyses are distortion.

A report by Center for American Progress, titled "Fear, Inc.: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America" lists MEMRI as promoting Islamophobic propaganda in the USA through supplying selective translations that are relied upon by several organisations "to make the case that Islam is inherently violent and promotes extremism."

MEMRI argues that they are quoting the government-controlled press and not obscure or extremist publications, a fact their critics acknowledge, according to Marc Perelman: "When we quote Al-Ahram in Egypt, it is as if we were quoting The New York Times. We know there are people questioning our work, probably those who have difficulties seeing the truth. But no one can show anything wrong about our translations."

In August 2013, the Islamic Da'wah Centre of South Australia questioned the "reliability, independence and veracity" of MEMRI after it posted what the Islamic Da'wah Centre called a "sensational de-contextualised cut-and-paste video clip ... put together in a suggestive manner" of a sermon by the Sheikh Sharif Hussein on an American website. According to the two-minute video, which was a heavily condensed version of the Sheikh's 36-minute speech delivered in Adelaide on 22 March, Hussein called Australian and American soldiers "Crusader pigs" and stated "O Allah, count the Buddhists and the Hindus one by one. O Allah, count them and kill them to the very last one." According to MEMRI's translation, he also described U.S. President Barack Obama as an "enemy of Allah, you who kiss the shoes and feet of the Jews" and predicted that "The day will come when you are trampled upon by the pure feet of the Muslims." MEMRI's rendition moved Liberal senator Cory Bernardi to write to the Police Commissioner charging that under Australian anti-terrorism laws, the video clip was "hate speech", and requesting that action be taken against Hussein. The South Australian Islamic Society and the Australian Buddhist Councils Federation also condemned Hussein's speech. Widespread calls from the public for the deportation of Hussein and his family followed news reports of the video. A police spokeswoman stated "Police will examine the entire content of the sermon to gain the full context and determine whether any crime has been committed." Hussein himself declined any comment on the contents of the video. However, the Da'wah Centre charged that by omitting the context of Hussein's statements, MEMRI had distorted the actual intent of the speech. While admitting that the Sheikh was emotional and used strong words, the Centre stated that the speech was delivered in relation to rape cases in Iraq, the birth defects due to use of depleted uranium, and the Burmese Buddhist massacre. This, the Centre said, was omitted from the edited MEMRI video.

Translation accuracy and controversy
MEMRI's translations are considered "usually accurate" though occasionally disputed and highly selective in what it chooses to translate and in which context it puts things, as in the case of MEMRI's translation of a 2004 Osama bin Laden video, which MEMRI defended, which it said indicated that any individual US state that did not vote for President George W. Bush "guarantees its own security," implying a threat against those states that did vote for him; outside translators, and the original article that the MEMRI alert claimed to correct, indicated that Bin Laden was threatening nations, not individual US states.

Following the 7 July 2005 London bombings, Al Jazeera invited Hani al-Sebai, an Islamist living in Britain, to take part in a discussion on the event. Al-Sibai is listed as a Specially Designated National by the US Treasury Department because of alleged support for al-Qaida. For one segment of the discussion in regard to the victims, MEMRI provided the following translation of al-Sebai's words:

"The term 'civilians' does not exist in Islamic religious law. Dr Karmi is sitting here, and I am sitting here, and I'm familiar with religious law. There is no such term as 'civilians' in the modern Western sense. People are either at war or not."

Al-Sebai subsequently claimed that MEMRI had mistranslated his interview, and that among other errors, he had actually said:

"There is no term in Islamic jurisprudence called 'civilians'. Dr Karmi is here sitting with us, and he's very familiar with the jurisprudence. There are fighters and non-fighters. Islam is against the killing of innocents. The innocent man cannot be killed according to Islam."

By leaving out the condemnation of the "killing of innocents" entirely, Mohammed El Oifi, writing in Le Monde diplomatique, argued that this translation left the implication that civilians (the innocent) are considered a legitimate target. Several British newspapers subsequently used MEMRI's translation to run headlines such as "Islamic radical has praised the suicide bomb attacks on the capital" prompting al-Sebai to demand an apology and take legal action. In his view, MEMRI's translation was also "an incitement to have me arrested by the British authorities".

Halim Barakat described MEMRI as "a propaganda organization dedicated to representing Arabs and Muslims as anti-Semites". Barakat claims an essay he wrote for the Al-Hayat Daily of London titled "The Wild Beast that Zionism Created: Self-Destruction", was mistranslated by MEMRI and retitled as "Jews Have Lost Their Humanity". Barakat further stated "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." According to Barakat, he was subject to widespread condemnation from faculty and his office was "flooded with hatemail". Fellow Georgetown faculty member Aviel Roshwald accused Barakat in an article he published of promoting a "demonization of Israel and of Jews". Supported by Georgetown colleagues, Barakat denied the claim, which Roshwald had based on MEMRI's translation of Barakat's essay.

In 2007, CNN correspondent Atika Shubert and Arabic translators accused MEMRI of mistranslating portions of a Palestinian children's television program:

"Media watchdog MEMRI translates one caller as saying – quote – 'We will annihilate the Jews',' said Shubert. 'But, according to several Arabic speakers used by CNN, the caller actually says 'The Jews are killing us.'"

Naomi Sakr, a professor of Media Policy at the University of Westminster has charged that specific MEMRI mistranslations, occurring during times of international tension, have generated hostility towards Arab journalists.

In an email debate with Carmon, Whitaker asked about MEMRI's November 2000 translation of an interview given by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem to Al-Ahram al-Arabi. One question asked by the interviewer was: "How do you deal with the Jews who are besieging al-Aqsa and are scattered around it?" which was translated as: "How do you feel about the Jews?" MEMRI cut out the first part of the reply and combined it with the answer to the next question, which, Whitaker claimed, made "Arabs look more anti-Semitic than they are". Carmon admitted this was an error in translation but defended combining the two replies, as both questions referred to the same subject. Carmon rejected other claims of distortion by Whitaker, saying: "it is perhaps reassuring that you had to go back so far to find a mistake ... 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." Carmon also accused Whitaker of "using insults rather than evidence" in his criticism of MEMRI.

In 2008, The New York Times wrote that "no one disputes their translations."

Response by MEMRI
MEMRI responds to criticism by saying that the media had a tendency to whitewash statements of Arab leaders, and regularly defends its translations as being representative of actual ME viewpoints, even when the translations themselves are disputed: "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."

Positive reception
In 2003 John Lloyd defended MEMRI in the New Statesman:

"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. The most powerful medium for this is (naturally) a Washington-based think-tank, the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), started in 1998 by the former Israeli intelligence officer and Arabist Yigal Carmon. MEMRI aimed to bring the previously largely enclosed and unknown Arab talk about the west to western eyes and ears: 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."

In a 2005 piece Thomas Friedman, a political opinion columnist for The New York Times, praised MEMRI, and credited MEMRI with helping to "shine a spotlight on hate speech wherever it appears". Friedman has written in The New York Times that "what I respect about Memri is that it translates not only the ugly stuff but the courageous liberal, reformist Arab commentators as well." In addition, he has cited MEMRI's translations in his op-eds.

In 2002 Brit Hume of Fox News said, "These people tell you what's going on in pulpits and in the state-controlled TV. If you have indoctrination, it's important to know about it."

Jay Nordlinger, the managing editor of National Review, wrote in 2002: "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."