Yigal Carmon

Yigal Carmon is the president of the Washington-based Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) which he co-founded with Meyrav Wurmser in 1998. Carmon holds Israeli-American citizenship and held several positions in the Israeli government prior to founding MEMRI. According to his MEMRI profile Carmon has

briefed governments worldwide on issues ranging from jihad and terrorism to reform in the Arab world...and conducted briefings before Congress as well as at the State Department, Pentagon, Department of Homeland Security, Justice Department, Library of Congress, FBI, National Security Council, and NYPD counterterrorism division, and is frequently interviewed on a variety of Western channels, as well as on Arab TV.

MEMRI's board members include well-known neoconservatives Elliott Abrams, Bernard Lewis, John Bolton and Norman Podhoretz.

Career

A former servant in the Israeli Military Intelligence, Colonel Yigal Carmon served in the Israeli Defense Forces Intelligence between the years of 1968 to 1988, during which time he was the Acting Head of Civil Administration in the West Bank as well as an Advisor on Arab Affairs for the Civil Administration. His appointment as head of the administration in the West Bank came in 1982, when his predecessor, Menachem Milson, resigned in protest at the Sabra and Shatila massacres.

He was formerly an advisor to Israeli Prime Ministers Yitzhak Shamir, Yitzhak Rabin, and Benjamin Netanyahu. Although Carmon argues that MEMRI is a "research organization that doesn't engage in operational recommendation," he frequently engages in policy analysis in the media and at policy meetings and has written several articles on US mideast foreign policy issues in right-wing publications.

Carmon emerged in the mid-1990s as one of a number of critics of the Oslo peace process who sought to promote an alternative narrative to the mainstream media. During 1994-1995 he was rebuffed in attempts to publicise his records of Yasser Arafat's TV speeches. According to political scientist, Ofira Seliktar:

Yigal Carmon, who had already published an expose on the Oslo talks, started his own monitoring effort that eventually led to the creation of the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) in 1998. In a March 7, 1996 interview on Arutz 7, Carmon accused the then Prime Minister Shimon Peres of denying knowledge about the PA-Hamas agreement before the Knesset FADC, but again, there was no reaction from the mainstream media.

MEMRI

Carmon founded MEMRI to "monitor" mid-east media with a heavy emphasis on Arabic and Farsi because he believes that Western outlets don't accurately portray the correct message:

Because what we have seen is that what comes to the West from there is sometimes lacking in terms of what is being -- you have from the Arab world almost a double message.

In a 2002 debate with author and Electronic Intifada founder Ali Abunimah, Carmon was accused of using MEMRI to selectively translate particularly offensive pieces from middle east media outlets in an attempt to portray the messages as representative of the region as a whole:

NIMAH: and find racist anti-Arab, anti-Muslim expressions, it's very, very easy. In fact, you find them every day, and what they're doing with this so-called think tank, MEMRI...My point is that what they're trying to do is to pretend that the effect of the conflict is the cause of the conflict. The cause of the conflict is the fact that 4 million plus Palestinians do not have basic freedom and human rights, and no amount of spin...no attempt to pretend...that it's just media spin will take that away.

Debate with Brian Whitaker

After The Guardian Middle East editor Brian Whitaker questioned the impartiality of MEMRI, Carmon engaged Whitaker in an email debate. Whitaker's criticism of MEMRI can be summarized as follows:

My problem with Memri is that it poses as a research institute when it's basically a propaganda operation. As with all propaganda, that involves a certain amount of dishonesty and deception. The items you translate are chosen largely to suit your political agenda. They are unrepresentative and give an unfair picture of the Arab media as a whole.

Whitaker's specific criticisms of MEMRI include:

• "Dishonest editing" and "textual manipulation" which includes misrepresenting statements and questions and omitting and rearranging answers to paint a specific picture.

• Citing polls and making claims without providing evidence. This criticism was aimed specifically at Carmon who during a congress testimony cited "polls" that show "a large majority of the Arab world" believed the September 11 attacks "were the work of the United States government itself and/or a Jewish conspiracy without providing adequate referencing information. According to Whitaker what Carmon "said is untrue, and Gallup has confirmed that"

In response to Whitaker Carmon alleged that Whitaker did not want to accept the image of the Arab media that MEMRI was providing and that was why he was criticizing MEMRI:

Brian Whitaker appears to feel that holding up a mirror to the Arab world will reflect badly on them. Moderate and courageous elements in the Middle East might disagree...You offer no justifications for your quite serious attacks.

Carmon's specific rebuttals include:

• Arguing that the Gallup "polls" he referenced during a congress testimony were in fact part of a "major project, The 2002 Gallup Poll of the Islamic World, full details of which are available at www.gallup.com" but not providing any specific referencing.

• Responding that MEMRI's only "agenda" is to "present translations to people who wish to be informed on the ideas circulating in the Middle East. We aim to reflect reality. If knowledge of this reality should benefit one side or another, then so be it."

• Arguing that rather than attempting to present an all-encompassing "view" of Arab media MEMRI aims to " reflect, through our translations, general trends which are widespread and topical"

• Alleging that Whitaker's main problem with Carmon and MEMRI is that Carmon is an Israeli and that Whitaker in fact harbors a Arab-favoring bias:

If your complaint is that I am Israeli, then please say so. Is being an Israeli enough for you to consider me inevitably biased and anti-Arab? I note your website is "Al-Bab", ("The Gateway" in Arabic). Would I be justified in concluding that you are not, in fact, completely neutral about the Middle East, even though you are Middle East editor of a national newspaper? I wonder how you would judge an editor whose website was called "Ha-Sha-ar" ("The Gateway" in Hebrew)?

Views

Muslim Anti-semitism

In September 2010 Carmon "prepared" a "written statement" for an NGO called the Association for World Education which was sent to and circulated at the UN General Assembly Human Rights Council. In it Carmon argued that "new trends" in Arab media show "Arab-Muslim Judeophobia/Antisemitism" and include the following "three major components:"

• Anti-Jewish views derived from traditional Islamic sources.

• Antisemitic stereotypes, images and accusations of European and Christian origin.

• Holocaust Denial and equating Zionism with Nazism.

The 3 points above which Carmon characterized as "new trends" and much of the text in the statement first appeared in a 2008 MEMRI lectureby chairman of MEMRI's board of advisors and Hebrew University of Jerusalem professor Menahem Milson.

Criticism

In a CNN debate with Electronic Intifada founder Ali Abunimah, Abunimah argues that while these views exist they are reactionary rather than inherent:

NIMAH: and find racist anti-Arab, anti-Muslim expressions, it's very, very easy. In fact, you find them every day, and what they're doing with this so-called think tank, MEMRI...My point is that what they're trying to do is to pretend that the effect of the conflict is the cause of the conflict. The cause of the conflict is the fact that 4 million plus Palestinians do not have basic freedom and human rights, and no amount of spin...no attempt to pretend...that it's just media spin will take that away.

Palestinians

Carmon alleges that Palestinians educate their children with violence:

The Palestinians, on the other hand, continue to educate their children to jihad by the sword, while telling their critics that jihad has many meanings.

Torture

A Washington Post article on Palestinian Abdel Zamed Hassan Harizat, who died after being interrogated by the Shin Bet, quoted Carmon:

"If a certain person knows that a bomb is ticking somewhere, is his physical situation more important than people who would lose their lives in a matter of hours? Is his blood more red than theirs? But it should not be his life, it should only be some physical pressure," he said.

Asked whether he would justify the infliction of pain to extract information, Carmon replied: "Pain is not taking life. Pain comes and goes. Pain disappears. You know, everyone experiences that. Unwillingly, of course."

Muslims Living in Western Societies

Carmon argues that France's policy towards Muslims which demands "real integration" is a better approach than his example of Germany which advocates multiculturalism, something which Carmon characterizes as "hypocritical as it is racist":

We need to examine European policy, which is divided generally into two types. One type - the German model - is based on multiculturalism. Instead of striving to achieve integration, the attitude is to avoid dealing with the pain of this process, and leave immigrants in their closed world, calling this "respect." This is as hypocritical as it is racist. It's as though the host country is saying: "Stay in your own neighborhoods; circumcise and kill your women; we respect you and your culture as you are." It's a way of distancing themselves from the immigrant population, rather than trying to incorporate it, and help solve its problems. The other type - in France - is one of real integration. According to this approach, Muslims have to adapt to French culture and the principles on which the Republic is based, even while remaining Muslims. Imams who wish to be on the government payroll have to take three-year courses to learn the French language, culture, history and the political system. An attitude like this initially results in more violence, because the police and other governmental institutions have to break into the Islamic traditional system to impose the Republic's rule of law. In this endeavor, they are confronted by the Islamist sheikhs, who fight to keep their own control over the Muslim population. But this kind of integration is the only chance for Europe to spare itself and the Muslims a major clash. During last year's riots, [French Interior Minister Nicolas] Sarkozy wrote an article in Le Monde in which he clarified the dilemma to the French public: "Are these immigrant neighborhoods of Paris the slums of North Africa or [part of] the French Republic?" The answer was obvious. It is extraordinary that many people in the US hold the view that multiculturalism is better for all concerned.

Affiliations

• Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) - Intelligence Member
• Israeli Government - Advisor to Shamir, Rabin and Netanyahu Administrations
• MEMRI - Co-founder, President
• Steven Emerson, associate
• Institute for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence - Former Director, 1994-1997
• International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation - Conference Participant

Contact

• Email: yearmon@memri.org
• Phone: 202-955-9070
• Mobile: 202-251-2108