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.

Quotes about MEMRI

• 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.'
  • CNN correspondent Atika Shubert. Church, Rosemary; Clancy, Jim; Shubert, Atika; Wedeman, Ben; Connery, Neil; Vause, John; Yoon, Eunice; Anderson, Becky; Dougherty, Jill (May 9, 2007), "Recruiting Next Generation of Militants: Mickey Mouse-Like Character Reaches Out to Palestinian Children", Your World Today (transcript), CNN. [1]

• 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.[18]
  • Nordlinger, Jay (September 14, 2004). "Thanks For The Memri (.Org)". The National Review. Archived from the original on December 19, 2021. Retrieved October 26, 2016. [2]