“Selective MEMRI”

A few days ago a call-in to C-Span’s Washington Journal claiming to have recently returned to the U.S. from Iraq accused Iran’s Red Crescent org. of sending insurgents into Iraq under their cover.

Though they don’t come right out and name the Red Crescent Society, one ‘reliable’ source I’ve found that’s piping this opinion into the mainstream is the mysterious org. MEMRI which describes itself as an “independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit, 501 (c)3 organization” that “bridges the language gap which exists between the West and the Middle East, providing timely translations of Arabic, Farsi, and Hebrew media, as well as original analysis of political, ideological, intellectual, social, cultural, and religious trends in the Middle East.”

Excerpted from Selective Memri by Brian Whitaker:

Evidence from Memri’s website also casts doubt on its non-partisan status. Besides supporting liberal democracy, civil society, and the free market, the institute also emphasises “the continuing relevance of Zionism to the Jewish people and to the state of Israel”.

That is what its website used to say, but the words about Zionism have now been deleted. The original page, however, can still be found in internet archives.

The reason for Memri’s air of secrecy becomes clearer when we look at the people behind it. The co-founder and president of Memri, and the registered owner of its website, is an Israeli called Yigal Carmon.

Mr – or rather, Colonel – Carmon spent 22 years in Israeli military intelligence and later served as counter-terrorism adviser to two Israeli prime ministers, Yitzhak Shamir and Yitzhak Rabin.

Retrieving another now-deleted page from the archives of Memri’s website also throws up a list of its staff. Of the six people named, three – including Col Carmon – are described as having worked for Israeli intelligence.

Among the other three, one served in the Israeli army’s Northern Command Ordnance Corps, one has an academic background, and the sixth is a former stand-up comedian.

Col Carmon’s co-founder at Memri is Meyrav Wurmser, who is also director of the centre for Middle East policy at the Indianapolis-based Hudson Institute, which bills itself as “America’s premier source of applied research on enduring policy challenges”.

The ubiquitous Richard Perle, chairman of the Pentagon’s defence policy board, recently joined Hudson’s board of trustees.

Ms Wurmser is the author of an academic paper entitled Can Israel Survive Post-Zionism? in which she argues that leftwing Israeli intellectuals pose “more than a passing threat” to the state of Israel, undermining its soul and reducing its will for self-defence.

In addition, Ms Wurmser is a highly qualified, internationally recognised, inspiring and knowledgeable speaker on the Middle East whose presence would make any “event, radio or television show a unique one” – according to Benador Associates, a public relations company which touts her services.

Nobody, so far as I know, disputes the general accuracy of Memri’s translations but there are other reasons to be concerned about its output. read more>

Red Crescent director found dead in Iraq

The director of the Iraqi Red Crescent in the Kurdish city of Arbil and his wife, who also worked for the organisation, have been found dead in the main northern city of Mosul.

A Red Crescent official has described the murders as a “terrorist operation” carried out by gunmen.

In an earlier attack in Mosul, two people were wounded when a convoy carrying members of a security firm working with the US-led coalition was attacked.

U.S. Forces Want Al-Jazeera Out Of Fallujah

CAIRO, April 9 (IslamOnline.net) – The United States asked al-Jazeera team to leave Fallujah as one of conditions for reaching a settlement to the bloody stand-off in the besieged western Baghdad town Friday, April 9.

“American forces declared al-Jazeera must leave before any progress is made to settle the Fallujah stand-off,” al-Jazeera director general Wadah Khanfar told IslamOnline.net, citing sources close to the Iraqi Governing Council.

Khanfar, the former Baghdad bureau chairman of the station, declined to speculate on reasons for putting al-Jazeera departure as “part of solving the crisis”.

He also denied receiving “any threats or notification statements” from the U.S. occupation forces recently. read more>

Updated @ 10:57am:

Top Aid Worker Killed In Iraq

The head of the Red Crescent’s Irbil office, Barzan Umer Mantik, and his wife were killed in the nearby city of Mosul, Nada Doumani, spokeswoman of the Iraqi delegation of the ICRC, told The Associated Press office in Egypt in a telephone interview.

“He was in a car with the emblem of the Red Crescent … when he was apparently shot,” Doumani said from the ICRC’s Amman, Jordan, office.

“I don’t know (if the killing) was (over) personal or professional reasons, but this is very sad news.”