Yigal Carmon
Yigal Carmon (Hebrew יגאל כרמון) (born 1946) is the president and cofounder of the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), an organization which monitors and translates Arabic and Persian publications; radio and TV broadcasts; and religious sermons into many languages and circulates them over the Internet.
Career
Colonel in the Israeli defence force, IDF Intelligence from 1968–88
Acting head and adviser on Arab affairs, Civil Administration in Judea and Samaria, 1977–1982
Counterterrorism adviser to prime ministers Yitzhak Shamir and Yitzhak Rabin 1988-93
Delegate, Israeli peace negotiations with Syria in Madrid and Washington in 1991-92
Founder and President, MEMRI, 1998–present
Carmon is fluent in Arabic. He has also testified before the US Congress and European parliaments.
Views
On reporting "difficult realities"
According to Ruthie Blum, writing in the Jerusalem Post, Carmon and MEMRI's translations of material appearing in the Arabic and Persian media, "have been received with a combination of angst and ambivalence on the part of the press and politicians who don't like what they're seeing."
