Middle East Forum

The Middle East Forum (MEF) is a right-wing Zionist think-tank based in Philadelphia, USA. It was founded by Daniel Pipes in 1990.

Politics and Ideology

Unsurprisingly given the political persuasions of its founder, MEF has an explicitly right-wing and Zionist agenda. Its homepage states:

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.

MEF’s declared Mission restates the above and adds that:

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.

Activities

On its website MEF declares it seeks to “help shape the intellectual climate in which U.S. foreign policy is made”. This is achieved through “public outreach” to US and foreign media, and through programmes seeking to intimidate opponents of its ideology.

Public Outreach

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. MEF also publishes the Middle East Quarterly which it declares to be “the only journal on the Middle East consistent with mainstream American opinion.”

Intimidation of opponents

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.” 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”.

Funding

Summary from the Economic Research Institute

Revenue: $2,267,173

Assets: $1,029,240

Tax Returns

Tax Returns 1999

Tax Returns 2000

Tax Returns 2001

Tax Returns 2002

Tax Returns 2003

Tax Returns 2004

Tax Returns 2005

Tax Returns 2006

Personnel and Board Members

List of Experts

Source

• Ziad Abdelnour, Managing Partner, TechCapital Access LLC; Bio.
• Mitchell G. Bard, Executive Director, American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise (AICE); Bio.
• Ilan Berman, Vice President for Policy, American Foreign Policy Council
• Patrick Clawson, Deputy Director, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy; Bio.
• Gil Elan, Associate Director, Northwest Region, Middle East Forum; Bio.
• Khalid Durán, Director, Council on Middle Eastern Affairs; Bio.
• John Eibner, Director of Human Rights, Christian Solidarity International (CSI); Bio.
• Joseph Farah, Editor and Chief Executive Officer, WorldNetDaily.com; Bio]
• Gary Gambill, Editor, Middle East Intelligence Bulletin; Bio.
• Martin Kramer, Editor, Middle East Quarterly; Bio.
• William Kristol, Editor, the Weekly Standard; Bio.
• Habib Malik, Professor of history, Lebanese American University; Bio.
• Laurent Murawiec, Analyst, Hudson Institute
• Daniel Pipes, Director, Middle East Forum; Bio.
• Robert Satloff, Director of Policy and Strategic Planning, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy; Bio.
• Jonathan Schanzer, Soref Fellow, Washington Institute for Near East Policy; Bio.
• Tashbih Sayyed, Editor and Publisher, Pakistan Today; Bio.
• Meyrav Wurmser, Director, Center for Middle East Policy, Hudson Institute; Bio.

Board Members

Source: Juan Cole, Informed Comment, Dec. 8, 2004. (Comments below by Cole)

• 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.
• Jack Bershad, (here identified as legal adviser to Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs).
• Irwin Hochberg, (Irwin Hochberg, 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.")
• Albert Wood, (Prominent philanthropist connected to the Zionist Organization of America)
• Steven Levy
• Daniel Pipes, President
• Scott Rosenblum, (Member, Golden Circle of far rightwing U.S. Committee for a Free Lebanon that unites Likud supporters and Phalangist brownshirts)
• Lawrence Gould
• Lawrence Grodman
• Jerry Sorkin

Contact

1500 Walnut Street
Suite 1050
Philadelphia, PA 19102
TEL: (215) 546-5406
FAX: (215) 546-5409
E-Mail: info@meforum.org

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