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| − | The '''Middle East Forum (MEF) ''' is a right-wing Zionist think-tank based in Philadelphia, USA. It was founded by [[Daniel Pipes]] in 1990. | + | The '''Middle East Forum (MEF) '''is a think-tank based in Philadelphia, USA. It was founded by [[Daniel Pipes]] in 1990. |
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| − | ==Politics and Ideology== | + | ==Resources== |
| − | Unsurprisingly given the political persuasions of its founder, MEF has an explicitly right-wing and Zionist agenda. Its homepage states:
| + | Neocon Europe, [http://www.neoconeurope.eu/index.php/Middle_East_Forum Middle East Forum], Accessed 13-March-2009 |
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| − | <blockquote style="background-color:beige;border:1pt solid Darkgoldenrod;padding:1%">'''The Middle East Forum''', a think tank, seeks to define and promote American interests in the Middle East. It defines U.S. interests to include fighting radical Islam, whether terroristic or lawful; working for Palestinian acceptance of Israel; improving the management of U.S. democracy efforts; reducing energy dependence on the Middle East; more robustly asserting U.S. interests vis-à-vis Saudi Arabia; and countering the Iranian threat. The Forum also works to improve Middle East studies in North America.<ref>[http://www.meforum.org Homepage] of the Middle East Forum website, (accessed 30 May 2008)</ref></blockquote>
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| − | MEF’s declared '''Mission''' restates the above and adds that:
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| − | <blockquote style="background-color:beige;border:1pt solid Darkgoldenrod;padding:1%">MEF sees the region, with its profusion of dictatorships, radical ideologies, existential conflicts, border disagreements, political violence, and weapons of mass destruction as a major source of problems for the United States. Accordingly, it urges active measures to protect Americans and their allies.<ref>Middle East Forum website, [http://www.meforum.org/about.php About the Middle East Forum: Mission] (accessed 30 May 2008)</ref></blockquote>
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| − | ==Activities==
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| − | On its website MEF declares it seeks to “help shape the intellectual climate in which U.S. foreign policy is made”.<ref>Middle East Forum website, [http://www.meforum.org/about.php About the Middle East Forum: Mission] (accessed 30 May 2008)</ref> This is achieved through “public outreach” to US and foreign media, and through programmes seeking to intimidate opponents of its ideology.
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| − | ===Public Outreach===
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| − | MEF’s public outreach is directed primarily at US intellectual elites through articles in influential newspapers such as the ''Los Angeles Times'', ''New York Times'', ''Wall Street Journal'' and ''Washington Post''; and through lectures and speaking tours in Philadelphia, New York City, Seattle, and Boston. MEF scholars produce a weekly newspaper column which runs in the ''New York Post'' and the ''Jerusalem Post'', and they appear regular on US and foreign television and radio.<ref>Middle East Forum website, [http://www.meforum.org/about.php About the Middle East Forum: Mission] (accessed 30 May 2008)</ref> MEF also publishes the ''[[Middle East Quarterly]]'' which it declares to be “the only journal on the Middle East consistent with mainstream American opinion.”<ref>Middle East Forum website, [http://www.meforum.org/about.php About the Middle East Forum: Activities] (accessed 30 May 2008)</ref>
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| − | ===Intimidation of opponents===
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| − | MEF founder [[Daniel Pipes]] is notorious for smearing and bullying his opponents. The pro-war journalist Christopher Hitchens writes that Pipes “confuses scholarship with propaganda” and “pursues petty vendettas with scant regard for objectivity.”<ref>Christopher Hitchens, [http://www.slate.com/id/2086844/ ‘Pipes the Propagandist’], Slate.com, 11 August 2003</ref> Two MEF projects pursue Pipe’s “propaganda” and “petty vendettas”; [[Campus Watch]] focuses on US academia whilst [[Islamist Watch]] “combats the ideas and institutions of lawful Islamism”.<ref>Islamist Watch [http://www.islamist-watch.org/ Homepage] (accessed 30 May 2008)</ref>
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| − | ==Funding and finances==
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| − | ===Known funders===
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| − | *[[Bradley Foundation]]
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| − | *[[Chisholm Foundation]]
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| − | *[[Dextra Baldwin McGonagle Foundation]]
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| − | *[[Federation Foundation OF Greater Philadelphia]]
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| − | *[[GBRG Inc]]
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| − | *[[The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation Inc]]
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| − | *[[Metopolitan Philanthropic Fund Inc]]
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| − | *[[Svetlana and Herbert M Wachtell Foundation]]
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| − | *[[William H. Donner Foundation]]
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| − | ===Summary from the Economic Research Institute===
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| − | :'''Revenue''': $2,267,173
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| − | :'''Assets''': $1,029,240<ref>Economic Research Institute, [http://www.eri-nonprofit-salaries.com/index.cfm?FuseAction=NPO.Summary&EIN=237749796&Cobrandid=0 Middle East Forum Nonprofit Organization Information] (accessed 30 May 2008)</ref>
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| − | ===Tax Returns===
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| − | :[[Media:Middle East Forum Tax Returns 1999.pdf| Tax Returns 1999]]
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| − | :[[Media:Middle East Forum Tax Returns 2000.pdf| Tax Returns 2000]]
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| − | :[[Media:Middle East Forum Tax Returns 2001.pdf| Tax Returns 2001]]
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| − | :[[Media:Middle East Forum Tax Returns 2002.pdf| Tax Returns 2002]]
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| − | :[[Media:Middle East Forum Tax Returns 2003.pdf| Tax Returns 2003]]
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| − | :[[Media:Middle East Forum Tax Returns 2004.pdf| Tax Returns 2004]]
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| − | :[[Media:Middle East Forum Tax Returns 2005.pdf| Tax Returns 2005]]
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| − | :[[Media:Middle East Forum Tax Returns 2006.pdf| Tax Returns 2006]]
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| − | == Personnel and Board Members ==
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| − | === List of Experts ===
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| − | [http://www.meforum.org/experts.php Source]
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| − | *[[Ziad Abdelnour]], Managing Partner, TechCapital Access LLC; [http://www.freelebanon.org/articles/zkaresume.htm Bio].
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| − | *[[Mitchell G. Bard]], Executive Director, [[American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise]] (AICE); [http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/mbbio.html Bio].
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| − | *[[Ilan Berman]], Vice President for Policy, [[American Foreign Policy Council]]
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| − | *[[Patrick Clawson]], Deputy Director, The [[Washington Institute for Near East Policy]]; [http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/senior/clawson.htm Bio].
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| − | *[[Gil Elan]], Associate Director, Northwest Region, Middle East Forum; [http://www.meforum.org/press/492 Bio].
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| − | *[[Khalid Durán]], Director, [[Council on Middle Eastern Affairs]]; [http://www.benadorassociates.com/duran.php Bio].
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| − | *[[John Eibner]], Director of Human Rights, [[Christian Solidarity International]] (CSI); [http://www.genocide.am/genocide/karabakh/caroline/jeibner.htm Bio].
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| − | *[[Joseph Farah]], Editor and Chief Executive Officer, WorldNetDaily.com; [http://www.acpr.org.il/people/jfarah.html Bio]]
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| − | *[[Gary Gambill]], Editor, ''Middle East Intelligence Bulletin''; [http://homepages.nyu.edu/~gcg209/ Bio].
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| − | *[[Martin Kramer]], Editor, ''Middle East Quarterly''; [http://www.ivorytowers.org/pages/832318/ Bio].
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| − | *[[William Kristol]], Editor, the ''[[Weekly Standard]]''; [http://www.weeklystandard.com/aboutus/bio_kristol.asp Bio].
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| − | *[[Habib Malik]], Professor of history, Lebanese American University; [http://www.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/9709/forums/beirut_bio.html Bio].
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| − | *[[Laurent Murawiec]], Analyst, [[Hudson Institute]]
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| − | *[[Daniel Pipes]], Director, Middle East Forum; [http://www.danielpipes.org/bios/ Bio].
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| − | *[[Robert Satloff]], Director of Policy and Strategic Planning, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy; [http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/senior/satloff.htm Bio].
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| − | *[[Jonathan Schanzer]], Soref Fellow, Washington Institute for Near East Policy; [http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/senior/schanzer.htm Bio].
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| − | *[[Tashbih Sayyed]], Editor and Publisher, ''Pakistan Today''; [http://www.benadorassociates.com/sayyed.php Bio].
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| − | *[[Meyrav Wurmser]], Director, [[Center for Middle East Policy]], [[Hudson Institute]]; [https://www.hudson.org/learn/index.cfm?fuseaction=staff_bio&eid=Wurmser Bio].
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| − | | |
| − | === Board Members ===
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| − | Source: Juan Cole, [http://www.juancole.com Informed Comment], Dec. 8, 2004. (Comments below by Cole)
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| − | *[http://www.jinsa.org/about/adboard/adboard.html David P Steinmann], Chairman, Steinmann is also President of the [[Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs]] (JINSA), a pro-Likud warmongering organization that seeks "total" war against Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the Palestinians, and which helped drag the United States into its current Iraq quagmire. The Pentagon's [[Douglas Feith]] is a long-time JINSA activist.
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| − | *[http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:pRnqlOlVkE8J:www.jfpsnj.com/voiceonline.asp%3FintCategoryID%3D79%26intArticleID%3D101+%22Jack+Bershad%22+Israel&hl=en Jack Bershad], (here identified as legal adviser to Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs).
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| − | *[[Irwin Hochberg]], (Irwin Hochberg, [http://www.zoa.org/pressrel2000/20000919b.htmthe national campaign chair of Israel Bonds, chairman of the International Commission of the Anti-Defamation League, and former chairman of the Jewish Federation of New York]; Board Member of the Zionist Organization of America, which has steadfastly supported Israeli colonization of the West Bank and the dispossession of its Palestinians. Of the recent proposed peace plan worked out by Israeli and Palestinian doves at Geneva, [[Morton A. Klein]], the president of ZOA said: "It is outrageous for individuals acting in opposition to the democratically-elected government of Israel to negotiate an 'accord' that undermines Israel's security by putting pressure on Israel to retreat to indefensible borders and divide its own capital, Jerusalem.")
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| − | *[[Albert Wood]], (Prominent philanthropist connected to the Zionist Organization of America)
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| − | *[[Steven Levy]]
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| − | *[[Daniel Pipes]], President
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| − | *[[Scott Rosenblum]], (Member, [http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig4/barry-tom2.html Golden Circle] of far rightwing [http://www.freelebanon.org/gc-f.htm U.S. Committee for a Free Lebanon] that unites Likud supporters and Phalangist brownshirts)
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| − | *[[Lawrence Gould]]
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| − | *[[Lawrence Grodman]]
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| − | *[[Jerry Sorkin]]
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| − | == Contact ==
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| − | 1500 Walnut Street<br>
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| − | Suite 1050<br>
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| − | Philadelphia, PA 19102<br>
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| − | TEL: (215) 546-5406<br>
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| − | FAX: (215) 546-5409<br>
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| − | E-Mail: info@meforum.org<br>
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| − | ------------
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| | ==Notes== | | ==Notes== |
