Yigal Carmon (Hebrew: יגאל כרמון; born 1946)[1] 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.
After earning a degree in Orientalism from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, he joined the IDF in 1968 and served in the Intelligence Corps until 1988, reaching the rank of Colonel.
During his term as advisor, Carmon helped Milson create the Palestinian Village Leagues as a short-lived, rural and clan based alternative to the Palestine Liberation Organization.
Following the fall of the Shamir government in 1992, he served for a year as Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's counterterrorism adviser before resigning in 1993 due to his opposition to the Oslo Accords.
[6] 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.
"[6] Carmon relates that his experience of portraying difficult realities in the Arab-Muslim world: "In 1994-5, before MEMRI was formally established, I taped TV broadcasts of [Palestinian Authority chairman] Arafat calling for jihad.
"[7] Journalist Brian Whitaker in 2002 accused Carmon of presenting false testimony to Congress when he allegedly misrepresented a Gallup poll.
As an institute of research, we want MEMRI to present translations to people who wish to be informed on the ideas circulating in the Middle East.
Once again, I must return to the deeply troubling question of the Gallup poll - which you shrug off with a facetious suggestion about spending $90 on the report.
The fact is that you gave evidence to Congress claiming that Gallup had found "a large majority of the Arab world" who believed the September 11 attacks "were the work of the United States government itself and/or a Jewish conspiracy".
Finally, in the light of your most recent remarks about me personally, I will make clear now that your nationality and religion do not bother me in the slightest.