Middle East Forum

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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.

Politics and ideology

MEF reflects the extreme politics of its founder and 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.[1]

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.[2]

Activities

On its website MEF declares it seeks to 'help shape the intellectual climate in which U.S. foreign policy is made'.[3]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 regularly on US and foreign television and radio.[4]MEF also publishes the Middle East Quarterly which it declares to be “the only journal on the Middle East consistent with mainstream American opinion.”[5]

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.”[6]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”.[7]

Legal Project

The Middle East Forum's Legal Project was reportedly established to 'protect the right in the West to freely discuss Islam, radical Islam, terrorism, and terrorist funding'.[8] It has provided financial support to 'critics' of Islam and Counterjihad activists facing prosecution and those convicted to facilitate appeals. Dutch Party for Freedom leader Geert Wilders and French anti-Muslim activist Christine Tasin are among those who have received funds, according to right-wing news site Breitbart.[8]

In May 2009 the Legal Project, presented a Washington DC conference on 'Islamist lawfare', in collaboration with the Federalist Society Center for National Security Law, and the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression. [9]

The director of the Legal Project during this period was Brooke Goldstein.

Funding and finances

Known funders

Organisations that MEF funds

Summary from the Economic Research Institute

Revenue: $2,267,173
Assets: $1,029,240[11]

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

Donations

Personnel and Board Members

Middle East Quarterly

List of Experts

Board Members

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

Affiliations

Contact

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

Notes

  1. ↑ Homepage of the Middle East Forum website, (accessed 30 May 2008)
  2. ↑ Middle East Forum website, About the Middle East Forum: Mission (accessed 30 May 2008)
  3. ↑ Middle East Forum website, About the Middle East Forum: Mission (accessed 30 May 2008)
  4. ↑ Middle East Forum website, About the Middle East Forum: Mission (accessed 30 May 2008)
  5. ↑ Middle East Forum website, About the Middle East Forum: Activities (accessed 30 May 2008)
  6. ↑ Christopher Hitchens, ‘Pipes the Propagandist’, Slate.com, 11 August 2003
  7. ↑ Islamist Watch Homepage (accessed 30 May 2008)
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Oliver Lane, COURT OF APPEAL OVERTURNS CONVICTION OF WOMAN PROSECUTED FOR INSULTING ISLAM, Breitbart News, 22 December 2014, accessed 3 February 2015
  9. ↑ Conference on Islamist Lawfare - May 19, Washington DC, The Legal Project, 8 May 2009, accessed October 2015
  10. ↑ Gatestone Institute, Conservative Transparency database, accessed 3 March 2015
  11. ↑ Economic Research Institute, Middle East Forum Nonprofit Organization Information (accessed 30 May 2008)
  12. ↑ The Counterjihad Movement: the global trend feeding anti-Muslim hate, Hope Not Hate, 2011, p61.
  13. ↑ Source: CAP research based on the seven foundations’ Form 990s files with the U.S. Internal Revenue Service from 2001 to 2009, Center for American Progress, Donors to the Islamophobia network, Fear, Inc, p.14
  14. ↑ Robert Spencer,Resisting Stealth Jihad, Middle East Forum, January 2009
  15. ↑ Haras Rafiq, [Detoxifying Islamists], Middle East Forum, 27 January 2010
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