February 7 marks the 27th anniversary of the creation of the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). As it has often proved to be, MEMRI is a highly valuable tool in our fight against Islamic fascism.
They not only translate the words of terrorist leaders … but also translate the sermons of radical Islamist preachers in several countries, including the United States.
Aggregating English language news is a huge task, but MEMRI aggregates the news in a number of languages including Arabic, Pashtu, Turkish, and others. When terrorists and Islamic radicals talk, MEMRI listens and translates what they hear into English. They do it quickly and accurately.
I first became aware of MEMRI shortly after it began publishing its work. That knowledge was expanded greatly when I began writing my book, In the Words of Our Enemies. I was amazed by the results that my research assistant had obtained in English translations of speeches by Usama bin Laden, Iran’s then-president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, many of our other enemies. When I asked her how she got them, she credited about 90 percent to MEMRI.
Since then, I have become friends with MEMRI’s founder and president, Yigal Carmon and its executive director, Steve Stalinsky. Their dedication to MEMRI’s task is deep-seated and admirable.
MEMRI is an essential resource. Their translations, updated daily, are an essential tool to understanding Islamism and the threat it poses to the West. Now that we have grownups in charge of our government again, I expect they will rely more and more on MEMRI, as will our intelligence agencies. They should.
MEMRI bridges the gap between what Arab, Iranian, and Turkish leaders tell their own people in their own languages and the mollifying speeches and statements they use to gull the West. MEMRI’s translations are essential to learning how large that gap really is.
MEMRI has an enormous archive in which much of the radicalism of the Muslim world is catalogued. In it, our policy makers can find, among other things, statements of Turkish President Erdogan that prove his nation should be thrown out of NATO.
In that archive our new policymakers can also find conclusive proofs that our faux ally, Qatar, has sympathies that are more coincident with those of Hamas, Hizballah, and other terrorists than they are with any democracy. We should, on that basis, move our Al-Udeid airbase (which we share with the Brits) to another country.
There is more, much more, that our policymakers — Messrs. Hegseth, Rubio, and Ratcliff — should think hard about and rely on.
I asked Carmon how hard it was to get MEMRI going. He said, “In 1998, we had just a handful of people and not even a website. We distributed our earliest reports via fax.”
He added: “Today, every time we release something on our website, we send it out to our mailing list and post it on social media so that it reaches an immediate audience of over 500,000 people, not counting shares and reposts.… Our videos have been viewed over 350,000,000 times.”
U.S. policy has already been affected by MEMRI. For example, in September 2024, the Justice Department indicted the Hamas terrorist network and six of its leaders for crimes against American citizens in Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel. That attack left 1,200 dead, and during it, Hamas took over 240 hostages. The indictment included 43 quotes from MEMRI reports and videos.
MEMRI’s archive and daily reports contain a wealth of knowledge. They not only translate the words of terrorist leaders in many countries but also translate the sermons of radical Islamist preachers in several countries, including the United States. Reading and watching those from U.S. Islamists is profoundly disturbing.
For example, in a Juneteenth celebration, an imam in Alabama preached that the world cannot be saved unless Muslims save it and Muslims should prepare to run the world. There are examples, in the MEMRI archive, of many other states including Michigan, Texas, and California where Islamic preachers said the same, and worse.
In an October 2024 report authored by Steve Stalinsky, we found out that Dearborn, Michigan imams in local mosques and Islamic Centers commemorated, held rallies, and held vigils for U.S.-designated terrorist Hizballah leader Nasrallah, top Hizballah commanders, and fighters killed In Lebanon.
A Wall Street Journal op-ed, also authored by Stalinsky, hails Dearborn as America’s capital of jihad. As he wrote, in part, “Imams and politicians in the Michigan city side with Hamas against Israel and Iran against the U.S.” He wrote that in Dearborn, “Thousands march in support of Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran. Protesters, many with kaffiyehs covering their faces, shout ‘Intifada, intifada,’ ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,’ and ‘America is a terrorist state.’ Local imams give fiery anti-Semitic sermons. This isn’t the Middle East. It’s the Detroit suburb of Dearborn, Michigan.”
As his op-ed concluded, this isn’t a Democrat or Republican problem, it’s a significant threat to national security that both need to address.
There are hundreds of other examples — all available in the MEMRI archive — of U.S.-based imams preaching anti-U.S. and anti-Israel sermons around the nation.
On its 25th anniversary, MEMRI published a video on its global impact. It’s very much worth the seven minutes of our time to watch.
MEMRI is more than just a resource. It can and should be used as a weapon against terrorism both here and abroad. Congratulations to MEMRI and all its folks on their 27th anniversary.
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