Middle East Media Research Institute

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The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) is an organization for monitoring Islamic media in the Middle East . As an independent non-governmental organization , MEMRI was founded in 1998 in the USA with its headquarters in Washington, DC by the Jewish American Meyrav Wurmser and the Israeli Yigal Carmon. Media centers are located in Jerusalem and offices in Baghdad and Tokyo .

Work and goals

English and, to a lesser extent, German translations and analyzes of texts and videos from Arabic and Persian-speaking media are created, which are made available free of charge on the company's website. MEMRI reproduces and interprets caricatures from Arab and Iranian newspapers. The focus of the work is the region of the Near and Middle East . According to its own account, the organization “does not pursue the goal of depicting the media landscapes between Cairo and Tehran in a representative way”, but rather focuses “on opinions and comments that are published in the relevant media in the region on key issues”.

Among other things, the organization wants to document “radical nationalist , anti-Semitic and Islamist ” positions. On the other hand, it is the “moderate, liberal and progressive forces” whose voices within the Arabic- and Persian-speaking media landscape MEMRI considers to be significant. The aim is to counter stereotypes about “ Islam ” or the societies of the region and to give Arab reformers a better hearing in the western public.

According to its own information, the US military , the White House , the US Department of Defense , the US State Department , the US Department of Justice, etc. and more than 500 academic institutions worldwide benefit from the services of this non-governmental organization . The translations are also used by many leading news networks, including CNN , FOX , the BBC and ZDF .

MediaTransparency stated that MEMRI received large donations from conservative American think tanks such as the Randolph Foundation.

Other Projects

The MEMRI sends out free translations and analyzes from Arabic and Iranian media three times a week via a mailing list. In many cases, these are documents and publications that would otherwise have no echo in the Western public or only indirectly find their way into Western reporting, or which would even be completely ignored.

The organization also runs the Arab TV Monitoring Project , which deals with the most important Arab and Iranian state television programs as well as the multitude of satellite channels that have been on air in the region in recent years. Subtitled recordings are also available in broadcast quality for journalists and other multipliers.

criticism

Critics question MEMRI's neutrality and sometimes also its competence.

The journalist Brian Whitaker published an article in the British Guardian in 2002 , in which he held the institute's senior staff relations with the Israeli military and right-wing US think tanks. He also accuses MEMRI of anti-Arab biases and a commitment to Zionism. The translations of the MEMRI, especially from Arabic and Persian , are correct, but the choice of text and media is one-sided and quotations are placed in distorted contexts. Whitaker refers to the background of MEMRI's founder Yigal Carmon, who had a high rank in Israeli military intelligence, and Meyrav Wurmser, a leading collaborator in right-wing American and Israeli think tanks such as the Hudson Institute and the Ariel Center for Policy Research .

The organization rejected the allegations: The selection of texts was representative, Whitaker himself could not speak Arabic and quoted an Islamist against MEMRI; even the Palestinian Authority has already published translations of MEMRI on its website.

Various observers criticize the selection of the texts translated and distributed by the institute as not being representative. These are usually extreme, hateful, inflammatory articles. With this selection, MEMRI would (deliberately) create the impression that the media landscape of the “observed” region consists only of such articles.

The Moroccan-American author Leila Lalami points out that comparable articles in the Israeli media or statements by Israeli politicians are almost never translated and distributed by the institute, for example when the right-wing Israeli politician and multiple minister Effi Eitam described Palestinians as a "cancerous tumor" . It is countered that, even if MEMRI takes a pro-Israeli position, it is not the case that no messages are translated that criticize Israel; MEMRI is also not directed against Arabs.

The accuracy or correctness of the translations is questioned. Errors in translations tend to make statements even more “controversial”.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Caricatures for September 11th with comments ( memento of the original from August 5th, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www2.memri.org
  2. ↑ Yigal Carmon, Steven Stalinsky: Urgent Appeal ( Memento of the original from November 11, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. MEMRI; accessed on November 17, 2008. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / memri.org
  3. ↑ outlets.jpg. Retrieved April 10, 2016 .
  4. ^ Middle East Media & Research Institute ( Memento June 14, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) In: mediatransparency.org
  5. ↑ Brian Whitaker: Selective MEMRI. In: guardian.co.uk. August 12, 2002, accessed March 15, 2016 .
  6. ^ Brian Whitaker: US think tanks give lessons in foreign policy. In: guardian.co.uk. August 19, 2002, accessed March 15, 2016 .
  7. ^ Yigal Carmon: Media organization rebuts accusations of selective journalism , The Guardian , August 21, 2002; accessed March 15, 2016.
  8. ^ Leila Hudson: The New Ivory Towers: Think Tanks, Strategic Studies and 'Counterrealism'. In: Middle East Policy 12: 4 (Winter 2005) p. 130 ( online version , accessed March 15, 2016).
  9. ↑ Juan Cole : Bin Laden's Audio: Threat to States? , November 2, 2004; accessed March 15, 2016.
  10. ^ Brian Whitaker: Language matters. In: guardian.co.uk. September 28, 2005, accessed March 15, 2016 .
  11. ↑ Mohammed El-Oifi: disinformation à l'israélienne. In: monde-diplomatique.fr. September 2005, accessed March 15, 2016 .
  12. ^ Leila Lalami, The Missionary Position , The Nation , June 1, 2006; accessed March 15, 2016.
  13. ↑ Ephraim Kahana: Historical Dictionary of Israeli Intelligence. Scarecrow Press, 2006, ISBN 978-0-8108-6500-6 , p. 57. Limited preview in Google Book Search
  14. ↑ Gained in translation - Le Monde diplomatique - English edition. In: mondediplo.com. October 11, 2005, accessed December 31, 2014 .
  15. ↑ Richard H. Curtiss, Meyrav Wurmser: The Neocons' Den Mother , Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, May 2007, pp 17-18; accessed March 15, 2016.