Gość: sp;lit
IP: *.nas32.tukwila2.wa.us.da.qwest.net
03.11.04, 18:36
http://www.memri.org/ Anty-arabska propaganda ,... Komu sluzy ? Kto sie za
nia kryje ? Kto finansuje i z niej korzysta ?
uklony
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Selective Memri
Brian Whitaker investigates whether the 'independent' media institute that
translates the Arabic newspapers is quite what it seems
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 l