Informed Comment Homepage

Thoughts on the Middle East, History and Religion

Header Right

  • Featured
  • US politics
  • Middle East
  • Environment
  • US Foreign Policy
  • Energy
  • Economy
  • Politics
  • About
  • Archives
  • Submissions

© 2025 Informed Comment

  • Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
Uncategorized

Memri And Bias Many Thanks To All

Juan Cole 11/24/2004

Tweet
Share
Reddit
Email

MEMRI and Bias

Many thanks to all the readers who have written in response to my posting about the attempt of the Israel-linked MEMRI “translation service” to intimidate me with the threat of a lawsuit.

Many of the letters have been eye-opening, and I give an example, which seems to me especially instructive, below.


Dear Mr Carmon,

I regularly read Dr Cole’s weblog, Informed Comment. This is an excellent service that summarizes reports from published in the Arabic press about events about that part of the world. I was dismayed to learn that you and your organization, MEMRI, have threatened to sue Dr Cole over some comments he made regarding your selection of material from the Arabic press. In your letter to him, you indicate that his suggestion that your organization “cherry-picks the vast Arabic press” is “patently false”.

Curious, I had a look at your website and found my way to “Cartoons from the Middle East Media”. This area contained about 750 cartoons, divided into four categories essentially based on whether their targets were Israel, the USA, or both countries. After reading through a sample of these, I came to two plausible conclusions: either 1) Arabic cartoonists are a singularly unimaginative lot, and are essentially incapable of publishing anything that pokes fun at anybody in the world other than Americans, Israelis and Jews or 2) that your claims to be presenting “representative” material from the Arabic press may not be entirely based in reality.

Again, I decided to see for myself and looked at cartoons in a few Arabic papers online. What I found was a wide variety of political cartoons about people and politicians from the Arab world, Europe, the UN, and, admittedly, Israel and the USA, although the latter were in proportions far, far smaller than your website would appear to suggest. Frankly, I find your claim to being objective in selecting items for your website to be woefully at odds with what is actually presented there. In all seriousness, I don’t understand how you could expect any intelligent person to perceive it as such. Clearly Dr Cole does not, and I respectfully request that you withdraw your threat to sue him for publishing a perfectly valid viewpoint regarding MEMRI’s choice of material on its website.

Respectfully yours . . .

Filed Under: Uncategorized

About the Author

Juan Cole is the founder and chief editor of Informed Comment. He is Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History at the University of Michigan He is author of, among many other books, Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Follow him on Twitter at @jricole or the Informed Comment Facebook Page

Primary Sidebar

Support Independent Journalism

Click here to donate via PayPal.

Personal checks should be made out to Juan Cole and sent to me at:

Juan Cole
P. O. Box 4218,
Ann Arbor, MI 48104-2548
USA
(Remember, make the checks out to “Juan Cole” or they can’t be cashed)

STAY INFORMED

Join our newsletter to have sharp analysis delivered to your inbox every day.
Warning! Social media will not reliably deliver Informed Comment to you. They are shadowbanning news sites, especially if "controversial."
To see new IC posts, please sign up for our email Newsletter.

Social Media

Bluesky | Instagram

Popular

  • Israel's Netanyahu banks on TACO Trump as he Launches War on Iran to disrupt Negotiations
  • How Israeli and International Businesses and Financial Institutions Sustain Illegal Occupation
  • Israel: Will Ultra-Orthodox Jews' Opposition to Conscription Bring down Netanyahu's Gov't
  • A Pariah State? Western Nations Sanction Israeli Cabinet Members
  • Women's Cancer Rates are Rising in the Oil Gulf: is Global Heating causing it?

Gaza Yet Stands


Juan Cole's New Ebook at Amazon. Click Here to Buy
__________________________

Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires



Click here to Buy Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires.

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam


Click here to Buy The Rubaiyat.
Sign up for our newsletter

Informed Comment © 2025 All Rights Reserved