not in their own words
Selective Memri
Brian Whitaker investigates whether the 'independent' media institute that translates the Arabic newspapers is quite what it seems
Despite these high-minded statements, several things make me uneasy whenever I'm asked to look at a story circulated by Memri. First of all, it's a rather mysterious organisation. Its website does not give the names of any people to contact, not even an office address.
The reason for this secrecy, according to a former employee, is that "they don't want suicide bombers walking through the door on Monday morning" (Washington Times, June 20).
This strikes me as a somewhat over-the-top precaution for an institute that simply wants to break down east-west language barriers.
The second thing that makes me uneasy is 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. I am not alone in this unease.
Ibrahim Hooper of the Council on American-Islamic Relations told the Washington Times: "Memri's intent is to find the worst possible quotes from the Muslim world and disseminate them as widely as possible."
Memri might, of course, argue that it is seeking to encourage moderation by highlighting the blatant examples of intolerance and extremism. But if so, one would expect it - for the sake of non-partisanship - t o publicise extremist articles in the Hebrew media too.
Although Memri claims that it does provide translations from Hebrew media, I can't recall receiving any.
Evidence from Memri's website also casts doubt on its non-partisan status. Besides supporting liberal democracy, civil society, and the free market, the institute also emphasises "the continuing relevance of Zionism to the Jewish people and to the state of Israel".
That is what its website used to say, but the words about Zionism have now been deleted. The original page, however, can still be found in internet archives.
The reason for Memri's air of secrecy becomes clearer when we look at the people behind it. The co-founder and president of Memri, and the registered owner of its website, is an Israeli called Yigal Carmon.
Mr - or rather, Colonel - Carmon spent 22 years in Israeli military intelligence and later served as counter-terrorism adviser to two Israeli prime ministers, Yitzhak Shamir and Yitzhak Rabin.
Selective Memri
Brian Whitaker, the Middle East editor for
The Guardian newspaper at the time, 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".
[10] 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".
[8] 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's 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)?
[10]
Norman Finkelstein has described MEMRI as "a main arm of Israeli propaganda". In 2006, Finkelstein accused MEMRI of editing a television interview he gave in Lebanon in order to falsely impute that he was a Holocaust denier. In an interview with the newspaper
In Focus in 2007, he said MEMRI uses "the same sort of propaganda techniques as the Nazis" and "take
things out of context in order to do personal and political harm to people they don't like".[63]
Middle East Media Research Institute - Wikipedia
