Arabic-L:GEN:MEMRI news translation site
Dilworth Parkinson
Dilworth_Parkinson at byu.edu
Mon Jan 20 22:18:35 UTC 2003
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Arabic-L: Mon 02 Jan 2003
Moderator: Dilworth Parkinson <dilworth_parkinson at byu.edu>
[To post messages to the list, send them to arabic-l at byu.edu]
[To unsubscribe, send message from same address you subscribed from to
listserv at byu.edu with first line reading:
unsubscribe arabic-l ]
-------------------------Directory-------------------------------------
1) Subject:MEMRI news translation site
2) Subject:MEMRI news translation site
3) Subject:MEMRI news translation site
4) Subject:MEMRI news translation site
5) Subject:MEMRI news translation site
-------------------------Messages--------------------------------------
1)
Date: 20 Jan 2003
From:moderator
Subject:MEMRI news translation site
I try pretty hard to keep politics off this list. I should not have
posted the note about the MEMRI site, it turns out, since it is a site
with a clear political ax to grind. However, I didn't check the site
before posting the message. I have chosen to post, below, the messages
I have received about the site to this point, but will not post any
more. If you are not interested in politics, do not read on.
Dil
------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
2)
Date: 20 Jan 2003
From:
Subject:MEMRI news translation site
I think the following article about the MEMRI project (see the posting
to Arabic-L at the end) by the _Guardian_'s Brian Whitaker will be of
great interest to Arabic-L subscribers, if they haven't already seen
it. According to the article, MEMRI is run by several people with
direct ties to Israeli military intelligence, a fact that was not
mentioned in the original posting to Arabic-L.
I have pasted the article below or it may be accessed from
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/Print/0,3858,4480174,00.html>.
With best regards,
Kris
Kristin Peterson-Ishaq
---Forwarded Article---
World dispatch
Selective Memri
Brian Whitaker investigates whether the 'independent' media institute
that translates the Arabic newspapers is quite what it seems
Brian Whitaker
Monday August 12, 2002
The Guardian
For some time now, I have been receiving small gifts from a generous
institute in the United States. The gifts are high-quality translations
of articles from Arabic newspapers which the institute sends to me by
email every few days, entirely free-of-charge.
The emails also go to politicians and academics, as well as to lots of
other journalists. The stories they contain are usually interesting.
Whenever I get an email from the institute, several of my Guardian
colleagues receive one too and regularly forward their copies to me -
sometimes with a note suggesting that I might like to check out the
story and write about it.
If the note happens to come from a more senior colleague, I'm left
feeling that I really ought to write about it. One example last week
was a couple of paragraphs translated by the institute, in which a
former doctor in the Iraqi army claimed that Saddam Hussein had
personally given orders to amputate the ears of military deserters.
The organisation that makes these translations and sends them out is
the Middle East Media Research Institute (Memri), based in Washington
but with recently-opened offices in London, Berlin and Jerusalem.
Its work is subsidised by US taxpayers because as an "independent,
non-partisan, non-profit" organisation, it has tax-deductible status
under American law.
Memri's purpose, according to its website, is to bridge the language
gap between the west - where few speak Arabic - and the Middle East, by
"providing timely translations of Arabic, Farsi, and Hebrew media".
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.
Retrieving another now-deleted page from the archives of Memri's
website also throws up a list of its staff. Of the six people named,
three - including Col Carmon - are described as having worked for
Israeli intelligence.
Among the other three, one served in the Israeli army's Northern
Command Ordnance Corps, one has an academic background, and the sixth
is a former stand-up comedian.
Col Carmon's co-founder at Memri is Meyrav Wurmser, who is also
director of the centre for Middle East policy at the Indianapolis-based
Hudson Institute, which bills itself as "America's premier source of
applied research on enduring policy challenges".
The ubiquitous Richard Perle, chairman of the Pentagon's defence policy
board, recently joined Hudson's board of trustees.
Ms Wurmser is the author of an academic paper entitled Can Israel
Survive Post-Zionism? in which she argues that leftwing Israeli
intellectuals pose "more than a passing threat" to the state of Israel,
undermining its soul and reducing its will for self-defence.
In addition, Ms Wurmser is a highly qualified, internationally
recognised, inspiring and knowledgeable speaker on the Middle East
whose presence would make any "event, radio or television show a unique
one" - according to Benador Associates, a public relations company
which touts her services.
Nobody, so far as I know, disputes the general accuracy of Memri's
translations but there are other reasons to be concerned about its
output.
The email it circulated last week about Saddam Hussein ordering
people's ears to be cut off was an extract from a longer article in the
pan-Arab newspaper, al-Hayat, by Adil Awadh who claimed to have
first-hand knowledge of it.
It was the sort of tale about Iraqi brutality that newspapers would
happily reprint without checking, especially in the current atmosphere
of war fever. It may well be true, but it needs to be treated with a
little circumspection.
Mr Awadh is not exactly an independent figure. He is, or at least was,
a member of the Iraqi National Accord, an exiled Iraqi opposition group
backed by the US - and neither al-Hayat nor Memri mentioned this.
Also, Mr Awadh's allegation first came to light some four years ago,
when he had a strong personal reason for making it. According to a
Washington Post report in 1998, the amputation claim formed part of his
application for political asylum in the United States.
At the time, he was one of six Iraqis under arrest in the US as
suspected terrorists or Iraqi intelligence agents, and he was trying to
show that the Americans had made a mistake.
Earlier this year, Memri scored two significant propaganda successes
against Saudi Arabia. The first was its translation of an article from
al-Riyadh newspaper in which a columnist wrote that Jews use the blood
of Christian or Muslim children in pastries for the Purim religious
festival.
The writer, a university teacher, was apparently relying on an
anti-semitic myth that dates back to the middle ages. What this
demonstrated, more than anything, was the ignorance of many Arabs -
even those highly educated - about Judaism and Israel, and their
readiness to believe such ridiculous stories.
But Memri claimed al-Riyadh was a Saudi "government newspaper" - in
fact it's privately owned - implying that the article had some form of
official approval.
Al-Riyadh's editor said he had not seen the article before publication
because he had been abroad. He apologised without hesitation and sacked
his columnist, but by then the damage had been done.
Memri's next success came a month later when Saudi Arabia's ambassador
to London wrote a poem entitled The Martyrs - about a young woman
suicide bomber - which was published in al-Hayat newspaper.
Memri sent out translated extracts from the poem, which it described as
"praising suicide bombers". Whether that was the poem's real message is
a matter of interpretation. It could, perhaps more plausibly, be read
as condemning the political ineffectiveness of Arab leaders, but
Memri's interpretation was reported, almost without question, by the
western media.
These incidents involving Saudi Arabia should not be viewed in
isolation. They are part of building a case against the kingdom and
persuading the United States to treat it as an enemy, rather than an
ally.
It's a campaign that the Israeli government and American
neo-conservatives have been pushing since early this year - one aspect
of which was the bizarre anti-Saudi briefing at the Pentagon, hosted
last month by Richard Perle.
To anyone who reads Arabic newspapers regularly, it should be obvious
that the items highlighted by Memri are those that suit its agenda and
are not representative of the newspapers' content as a whole.
The danger is that many of the senators, congressmen and "opinion
formers" who don't read Arabic but receive Memri's emails may get the
idea that these extreme examples are not only truly representative but
also reflect the policies of Arab governments.
Memri's Col Carmon seems eager to encourage them in that belief. In
Washington last April, in testimony to the House committee on
international relations, he portrayed the Arab media as part of a
wide-scale system of government-sponsored indoctrination.
"The controlled media of the Arab governments conveys hatred of the
west, and in particular, of the United States," he said. "Prior to
September 11, one could frequently find articles which openly
supported, or even called for, terrorist attacks against the United
States ...
"The United States is sometimes compared to Nazi Germany, President
Bush to Hitler, Guantanamo to Auschwitz," he said.
In the case of the al-Jazeera satellite channel, he added, "the
overwhelming majority of guests and callers are typically anti-American
and anti-semitic".
Unfortunately, it is on the basis of such sweeping generalisations that
much of American foreign policy is built these days.
As far as relations between the west and the Arab world are concerned,
language is a barrier that perpetuates ignorance and can easily foster
misunderstanding.
All it takes is a small but active group of Israelis to exploit that
barrier for their own ends and start changing western perceptions of
Arabs for the worse.
It is not difficult to see what Arabs might do to counter that. A group
of Arab media companies could get together and publish translations of
articles that more accurately reflect the content of their newspapers.
It would certainly not be beyond their means. But, as usual, they may
prefer to sit back and grumble about the machinations of Israeli
intelligence veterans.
The following correction was printed in the Guardian's Corrections and
Clarifications column, Wednesday August 21 2002
In an article headed Atrocity stories regain currency, page 13, August
8, and in an article headed Selective Memri on the Guardian website, we
referred to Dr Adil Awadh, an Iraqi doctor who alleged that Saddam
Hussein had ordered doctors to amputate the ears of soldiers who
deserted. Dr Awadh has asked us to make it clear that he has no
connection with Memri (Middle East Media Research Institute), and that
he did not authorise its translation of parts of an article by him. He
is no longer a member of the Iraqi National Accord (INA). He is an
independent member of the Iraqi National Congress (INC). His reference
to orders by Saddam Hussein to cut off the ears of deserters has been
supported by evidence from other sources.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003
---End of Forwarded Article---
------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
3)
Date: 20 Jan 2003
From: "Robert R. Ratcliffe" <ratcliffe at tufs.ac.jp>
Subject:MEMRI news translation site
Memri is a propaganda organization. It's background and goals were
described in an article in the Guardian in August, which can still be
found on the web:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/
0,7792,773258,00.htmlIf
you are interested researching how perceptions of the Arab world in the
U.S. press and politics are shaped, it is worthwhile researching
organizations like this, but their web-site shouldn't be taken at face
value.
Best Wishes,
Robert R. Ratcliffe
Associate Professor, Arabic and Linguistics
Tokyo University of Foreign Studies
Asahi-machi 3-11-1, Fuchu-shi, Tokyo 183-8534 Japan
------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
4)
Date: 20 Jan 2003
From: Benjamin Troutman <bentroutman at yahoo.com>
Subject:MEMRI news translation site
Regarding the subscriber who criticized MEMRI of translating obscure,
non-mainstream Arab media, the institute, in fact, translates texts and
cartoons from Al-Hayat and Ash-Sharq Al-Awsat, two of most widely
distributed Arabic language newspapers on newstands internationally.
Furthermore, among their excepts of Friday sermon speakers, we listen
to Yusif Qardhawi, a personality whom many students of Arabic find in
their intermediate and advanced classrooms thanks to Rammuny's Advanced
Standard Arabic through Authentic Texts (Univ of M,1994).
It is impossible to argue against, or much less 'play down', the Arabic
media's incitement of Anti-Semitism and how it goads its audience into
an angry and vexed reaction toward the United States and Israel for
every last catastrophe having occurred in Arab countries.
MEMRI is an invaluable service of information, even if its
translated discourse is repugnant.
Benjamin D. Troutman
------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
5)
Date: 20 Jan 2003
From: dwilmsen <dwilmsen at aucegypt.edu>
Subject:MEMRI news translation site
I should have posted this sooner.
This is the URL to a sharply critical review of the Memri site in the
Guardian
newspaper.
http//www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/
0,7792,773258,00.html
Here is a quote from the article:
"Memri's purpose, according to its website, is to bridge the language
gap
between the
west - where few speak Arabic - and the Middle East, by "providing
timely
translations of
Arabic, Farsi, and Hebrew media".
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."
Suffice it to say that Thomas Friedman relies upon this source for his
news of
the Arab
world.
David Wilmsen
Arabic and Translation Studies
American University in Cairo
------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
End of Arabic-L: 20 Jan 2003
More information about the Arabic-l
mailing list