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, and Russian media, as well as original analysis of political, ideological, intellectual, social, cultural, and religious trends. 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 and Hebrew. 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

Marine Lt. Gen. Vincent Stewart

Chairman of MEMRI's Board of Advisors, former Deputy Commander of the U.S. Cyber Command and former Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency.

GEN (Ret.) Michael V. Hayden

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

GEN (Ret.) Keith Alexander

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

Ileana Ros-Lehtinen

Former U.S. Representative (R-FL) sworn in in September 1989 and retiring in January 2019, and previously a Florida State Senator and Florida State Representative. In Congress, she chaired the House Foreign Affairs Committee and its Subcommittee on The Middle East and North Africa, and was a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

James Woolsey

Former Director of Central Intelligence Agency and Under-Secretary of the Navy.

Jose Maria Aznar

Former Prime Minister of Spain.

Ehud Barak

Former Prime Minister of Israel.

Natan Sharansky

Rights activist and former Israeli cabinet minister.

Irwin Cotler

Former Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada.

Peter Hoekstra

Ambassador to the Netherlands, former Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and 9-term member of U.S. House of Representatives from Michigan.

John Ashcroft

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

Paul Bremer

Former head of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq.

Stuart Eizenstat

Former Ambassador to the European Union.

William John Bennett

Former Secretary of Education.

Imam Hassen Chalghoumi

French-Tunisian Imam of the Drancy mosque, Paris.

Stephen J. Trachtenberg

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

Christopher DeMuth

Former President of the American Enterprise Institute.

Norman Podhoretz

Former editor-in-chief of Commentary Magazine.

Josef Joffe

Publisher-editor of Die Zeit.

Katrina Lantos Swett

President of the Lantos Foundation for Human Rights and Justice, former chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.

Dorothy Denning

Distinguished Professor of Defense Analysis at the Naval Postgraduate School.

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.

Judge Ted Poe

Juris Doctor and Former Representative of Texas’s 2nd Congressional District, Serving on Committee on Foreign Affairs and Committee on the Judiciary, and as Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade.

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

Professor of Security Studies at S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technology University, and Head of International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research, Singapore.

Amb. Husain Haqqani

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

Father Patrick Desbois

Head of the French Episcopal Committee for Relations with Judaism, advisor to the Vatican, and president of Yahad-In Unum.

Deborah Lipstadt

Historian, Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish and Holocaust Studies at Emory University.

Dr. Khaleel Mohammed

Professor of Religion at San Diego State University (SDSU) and faculty member of SDSU Center for Islamic and Arabic Studies.

Alan Dershowitz

Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law, Emeritus, at Harvard Law School, and author of numerous bestselling books.

Yehuda Bauer

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

Magdi Khalil

Human rights activist, Executive Editor of the Egyptian weekly Watani International, and founder of Coptic Solidarity.

Dame Louise Ellman DBE

Former Labour and Co-operative MP for Liverpool Riverside from 1997-2019.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

White Supremacist Threat Monitor

The White Supremacist 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.

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.

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.

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.