MEMRI - About

About

Exploring the Middle East and South Asia through their media, MEMRI bridges the language gap between the West and the Middle East and South Asia, providing timely translations of Arabic, Farsi, Urdu-Pashtu, Dari, Turkish, Russian, and Chinese media, as well as original analysis of political, ideological, intellectual, social, cultural, and religious trends to the governments of the U.S. and its allies, and to their counterterrorism officials, law enforcement agencies, militaries, and other authorities. In this way, we assist them in tackling threats and fighting extremism. We also work with news organizations and media to inform their understanding of the complexities of issues and developments in all these countries, and our research serves as a valuable resource for academia worldwide. Founded in February 1998 to inform the debate over U.S. policy in the Middle East, MEMRI is an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit, 501(c)3 organization. MEMRI's main office is located in Washington, DC, with branch offices in various world capitals. MEMRI research is translated into English, French, Polish, Japanese, Russian, Spanish, Hebrew, and Portuguese. For an overview of the reach of MEMRI's research, click here.

Research & Reach

Leadership

The MEMRI Board of Advisors and Board of Directors include distinguished figures from government, media, law and academia from around the world. Among them are former prime ministers, attorneys-generals, justice ministers, legal and counterterrorism experts, and recipients of the most prestigious awards, including the Nobel Peace Prize, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the United States Congressional Gold Medal. Members of the MEMRI Board of Advisors are bipartisan and have honorably served Presidents Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump.

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Board of Advisors

GEN (Ret.) Michael V. Hayden

Four-star Air Force general, and former NSA Director and CIA Director

GEN (Ret.) Keith Alexander

Founder and CEO of IronNet Cybersecurity, four-star Army general, first U.S. Cyber Command cmdr, and fmr NSA Director and Central Security Service Chief

Gen (Ret.) Kenneth F. McKenzie, Jr.

Former Commander of the United States Central Command and current Executive Director of the University of South Florida’s Global and National Security Institute as well as of the Florida Center for Cybersecurity, also known as Cyber Florida

James Woolsey

Former Director of the CIA and former Under-Secretary of the U.S. Navy

Jose Maria Aznar

Former Prime Minister of Spain.

BRIG. GEN. (RET.) GUY "TOM" COSENTINO

Former U.S. Army Dep. Dir. for Pol & Mil Affairs; Chief of Strategy, Plans & Assessments for Multi-Nat’l Security Transition Cmd in Iraq; and 28th Commandant of National War College

Heino Klinck

Former Department Of Defense Deputy Assistant Secretary for East Asia and former Director of Army International Affairs

Ehud Barak

Former Prime Minister of Israel

Irwin Cotler

Former Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, Special Envoy on Preserving Holocaust Remembrance and Combating Antisemitism

John Ashcroft

Former U.S. Attorney General and U.S. Senator (MO)

Stuart Eizenstat

Former U.S. Ambassador to the E.U. and current State Department Special Adviser on Holocaust Issues

Deborah Lipstadt

State Department Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism and Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish History and Holocaust Studies at Emory University

Imam Hassen Chalghoumi

Imam of the Drancy mosque, Paris, Founder and President of the Conference of Imams of France

Stephen J. Trachtenberg

President Emeritus and University Professor of Public Service at George Washington University

Ambassador Adrienne S. O'Neal

Former U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Cape Verde, Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Lisbon, Portugal, and Consul General in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Christopher DeMuth

Distinguished Fellow at the Hudson Institute and former President of the American Enterprise Institute

Norman Podhoretz

Former editor-in-chief of Commentary magazine

Katrina Lantos Swett

Chairwoman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom; President of the Lantos Foundation for Human Rights and Justice

Dorothy Denning

Distinguished Professor of Defense Analysis at the Naval Postgraduate School

Douglas J. Feith

Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute; former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy

John Poindexter

Former National Security Advisor and U.S. Navy Admiral

Chin Ho Lee

Former FBI Special Agent and Senior Executive of the Hyundai Corporation

M.K. Narayanan

Former Director of India’s Intelligence Bureau, former Indian National Security Advisor and Special Advisor to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Dr. Anne Speckhard

Adjunct Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Georgetown University in the School of Medicine and of Security Studies in the School of Foreign Service

Rohan Gunaratna

Prof of Security Studies at S. Rajaratnam School of Int’l Studies, Nanyang Technology University, and Head of Int’l Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research, Singapore

Amb. Husain Haqqani

Former Pakistan Ambassador to the U.S. and a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute

Father Patrick Desbois

Head of the French Bishops Conference’s Commission for Relations with Judaism, advisor to the Vatican, and president of Yahad-In Unum

Natan Sharansky

Former chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel and current Honorary Member of the Board of Governors of the Jewish Agency

Alan Dershowitz

Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard Law School

Dr. Elham Manea

Associate Professor, Institute for Political Science, University of Zurich, and Co-Chair of the Inclusive Mosque Initiative (Swiss Branch)

Yehuda Bauer

Former Director of the International Institute for Holocaust Research at Yad Vashem, Jerusalem

Magdi Khalil

Human rights activist and Executive Editor of the Egyptian weekly Watani International

Dame Louise Ellman DBE

Former longtime British Labour party MP

Alfred Moses

Former U.S. Ambassador to Romania

William Bennett

Former U.S. Secretary of Education

Maj. Gen. (Ret.) Deepinder Singh

Decorated major-general in the Indian army

Paul Bremer

Former U.S. Ambassador to the Netherlands, former Director of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance in Iraq

Mort Zuckerman

Chairman and editor-in-chief, U.S. News & World Report

Jana Hybaskova

Former Member of the European Parliament and Ambassador of the European Union in Iraq

Dr. Jeffrey Gedmin

Senior Fellow at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and Co-Director of the Transatlantic Renewal Project at the World Affairs Institute and Journal

Anthony Julius

British lawyer who successfully defended historian Deborah Lipstadt in the libel case of Holocaust denier David Irving

Josef Joffe

Publisher of Die Zeit

PROJECTS

MEMRI TV

The MEMRI TV Project, founded in 2004, has published over 7,300 translated clips – comprising hundreds of hours of content – that have had over 100 million views online. MEMRI TV monitors over 100 channels from the Arab and Muslim world – from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf, Yemen, Iran, and Iraq to Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, Palestinian Authority, and Gaza, and parts of Africa as well as Af-Pak and Russia. MEMRI TV clips are viewed in 197 countries.

Monitoring over 100 channels, MEMRI TV has published nearly 8,000 translated clips, with over 100 million views online. Founded in 2004.

Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor (JTTM)

The JTTM monitors imminent and potential threats posed by terrorist and violent extremist organizations – such as ISIS and Al-Qaeda and their affiliates, as well as emerging jihadi groups – and by individuals. These threats may be to national security and public safety in the U.S. and the West, or to their vital interests and assets worldwide. It also examines and analyzes the ideological motivations behind these threats. Its archives of exclusive content go back over 15 years.

Monitoring threats by ISIS, Al-Qaeda, and other jihadi groups and individuals, and examining jihadi ideologies.

The Reform Project

The Reform Project aims to provide reformists with a much-needed platform that will enable them to reach out to their societies and to religious, political, and educational leaders while also providing cogent suggestions to Western policy makers constructing long-term strategic plans in support of the reform effort. The project focuses on: democratization, women's rights, counter-radicalization, education, separation of religion and state, religious minorities' rights, LGBTQ rights, and combatting antisemitism.

Providing reformists with a platform enabling them to reach out to their societies and leaders, and informing Western policy makers.

The Tom Lantos Archives

The Tom Lantos Archives on Antisemitism and Holocaust Denial, which document antisemitic content and themes in Arabic, Farsi, Urdu-Pashtu, and Turkish media – print, broadcast, and online, are the largest archives in the world of translated material on this subject from the Middle East from the past decade. It provides governments, legislatures, media and academia, organizations, and the public at large with documentation on which to base legal and other initiatives to fight these phenomena. The Archives, previously the Antisemitism Documentation Project, were dedicated in 2009.

Documenting antisemitism in Arabic, Farsi, Urdu-Pashtu, and Turkish media – world's largest archives of this translated content.

Imams' Sermons in the West

The Imams' Sermons in the West project identifies extremism, incitement, and jihadism, as well as antisemitism, propagated by clerics in mosques across the U.S. and West. Its research has in many cases led to extensive media coverage and condemnation from politicians and the public, as well as remedial and even legal action – in a dozen U.S. states as well as in Denmark, Germany, Spain, Italy, France, Australia, and other countries.

Identifying extremism, incitement, jihadism, and antisemitism, propagated by clerics in mosques across the U.S. and West.

Domestic Terrorism Threat Monitor

The Domestic Terrorism Threat Monitor project tracks and monitors online hatred and incitement against Jews, Muslims, blacks and other people of color, women, and the LGBTQ community. It covers the promotion of neo-Nazi ideologies, dissemination of the writings of known white supremacists and perpetrators of hate crimes such as mass killings at synagogues, churches, and mosques, and alerts authorities to threats when necessary. The project utilizes research methods and approaches developed by MEMRI for the JTTM.

Tracking and monitoring online hatred by domestic terrorists against Jews, African-Americans, immigrants, and others

Russian Media Studies Project

The methods and approaches of MEMRI's research in the Arab and Muslim world are applicable to other global areas. In January 2016, MEMRI launched the Russian Media Studies Project, expanding coverage to Russia by launching the Russian Media Studies Project. This project publishes translations from Russian media in addition to original analysis, focusing on the discourse within the Russian political and defense community as the country further expands its role and influence throughout the Middle East.

Translations from and original analysis on Russian media and institutions, as Russia expands its role across the Middle East.

The Cyber & Jihad Lab

The Cyber & Jihad Lab monitors, tracks, translates, researches, and analyzes cyber jihad originating from the Middle East, Iran, South Asia, and North and West Africa. It innovates and experiments with possible solutions for stopping cyber jihad, advancing legislation and initiatives federally – including with Capitol Hill and attorneys-general – and on the state level, to draft and enforce measures that will serve as precedents for further action. It works with leaders in business, law enforcement, academia, and families of terror victims to craft and support efforts and solutions to combat cyber jihad, and recruits, and works with technology industry leaders to craft and support efforts and solutions.

Monitoring, tracking, translating, researching, and analyzing cyber jihad; collaborating with legislators and business community to stop it.

South Asia Studies Project

The South Asia Studies Project (SASP) is vital to understanding this region. It translates and analyzes primary source content from Dari-, Pashtu-, Urdu-, and Hindi-language media – print, broadcast, and online, including websites, social media, and forums – tracking and analyzing, on a day-to-day basis, trends and emerging developments in these countries. It examines cultural and religious freedoms, the spread of jihadism in the region, and emerging threats to international security, seeking to inform Western governments, legislatures, academia, and the media, as well as the public at large.

Translating and analyzing primary source content from Dari, Pashtu-, Urdu-, and Hindi-language media

Chinese Media Studies Project

The Chinese Media Studies Project monitors, translates, and analyzes primary source materials, from printed and online Chinese media, videos from Chinese TV channels, schoolbooks, and official government documents and transcripts. The project aims to analyze China's ideology and foreign policy under President Xi Jinping.