Bahrain Mirror (Exclusive): After the announcement of signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the "This Is Bahrain" campaign and the Washington-based Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), a massive scandal emerged.

The claimed attempt to sign this agreement came as a move to attain the support of the Israeli Lobby in the United States in order to whitewash Bahrain's reputation in the West and polish up its image after the increasing accusations of repressing the Shiite majority in the country raised against the regime. What was MEMRI's response and the first steps of this alleged MoU?

The Zionist MEMRI organization published a few days after the Bahraini delegation left, an article entitled "Bahrain and the Politics of Deceit," in which it attacked the Bahraini regime and accused it of dishonesty regarding the supposed signing of a MoU with the institute and a Washington D.C. synagogue and also pointed out that the the most prominent cleric in the extremist ISIS organization is a Bahraini.

It's interesting that the article based its information on a number of sources including Bahrain Mirror, and maybe this matter itself represents one of the major failures of "This Is Bahrain" campaign goals.

The beginning of the article mentions that MEMRI recently "hosted a delegation from the Kingdom of Bahrain" at its main offices in Washington, D.C., also pointing out that "briefing visitors is a regular thing" the institute does.

The Bahraini delegation was described in the article as different adding that being "ostensibly a private group, it came accompanied by a camera crew and photographer from the Bahrain state media and a handler from the Bahrain government."

The MEMRI article further exposed the Bahraini delegation as it said: "Although most Bahrainis are Shi'a Muslims, the delegation was assembled to give an impression of remarkable diversity and included a Hindu priest, an Anglican cleric, a Coptic priest and a handful of actual Bahrainis among a mostly expat crew."

Zionist MEMRI Speaks of Turki Al-Binali!

MEMRI described the campaign leader's comments as odd, stating that "Instead of a dialogue about serious matters - say, for example, the challenge of Salafi jihadist extremism (the most prominent ISIS cleric [Turki Al-Binali] is a Bahraini) or of Iranian subversion in the Gulf, or of the challenges of sectarianism - we heard a potted public relations song and dance guaranteed to deceive only the unwary."

The Zionist institute which they resorted to turned against them and mocked the delegation and its statements on religious freedom and respect for women saying: "One could only recall how miserable third world dictatorships like Cuba boast of their healthcare to distract attention from their lack of basic freedoms."

MEMRI also pointed out that the campaign leader, an expat businesswoman, as the meeting ended, mentioned in passing the idea of signing a Memorandum of Understanding and that they responded diplomatically that "this is something that can be talked about in the future," without going into the details.

"Imagine our surprise the next day when we saw public remarks from this expat businesswoman that MEMRI had signed a MoU with Bahrain! An idea suddenly raised by one individual is transmogrified into a signed document? A photo from the same MEMRI meeting was used to illustrate the supposed signing of still another MoU, this time with a Washington D.C. synagogue. It is not clear whether that was also an imaginary signing or perhaps it was an imaginary synagogue," MEMRI added.

MEMRI: Bahraini Government Is Behind This

Despite its complaints to the organizers of this visit, and to the media in Bahrain that has carried this false story, it slowly spread, the article stated.

MEMRI also accused the Bahraini government of being behind the whole incident and embracing all the campaign's activities: "But it is clear that the ‘This is Bahrain' roadshow is an attempt at public diplomacy embraced by the Manama government. The problem it reveals is a larger one not limited to this particular island kingdom in the Middle East."

MEMRI further mocked Bahrain's strategies and said that "Gone are, in all too many cases, the faltering steps at much needed reform and openness. Regimes feel threatened existentially and intimately and respond, not by prioritizing reform or change, but by increasing repression and, in the world of the media, by making the lie and the gap between reality and the truth greater rather than lesser. This is a dangerous, high-stakes, short-term, and even reckless strategy, in Bahrain and beyond."

"Bahrain's representatives" went to have their pictures taken inside the Zionist institute's headquarters and then announced the signing of a MoU yet everything rapidly evaporated. Journalist Alex McDonald pointed out in his article posted on the Middle East Eye website that "Bahrain has itself been the target of MEMRI a number of times - a clip from April 2014, for example, shows a Bahrain cleric warning his congregation that Jews and Christians were trying to destroy the "beautiful, close-knit fabric of the family."

MEMRI Institute's Zionist History

The Middle East Media Research Institute (Known as MEMRI) was co-founded in 1998 by Yigal Carmon, a former Israeli military intelligence officer and a former adviser to Israeli prime ministers, and Meyrav Wurmser, an Israeli-born American political scientist.

British journalist Brian Whitaker had stated that "an early version of its website also said it aimed to emphasise ‘the continuing relevance of Zionism to the Jewish people and to the state of Israel' but this was later deleted (though preserved in an internet archive)."

Whitaker had also described MEMRI as an "Israeli propaganda outfit" and as having an agenda to "find the worst possible quotes from the Muslim world and disseminate them as widely as possible."

Ehud Barak, MEMRI Board of Advisors Member & Former Adviser to Israeli PMs Is MEMRI President

MEMRI's main office is located in Washington, D.C., with branch offices in various world capitals.

Yigal Carmon, the president and cofounder of the institute, was a former adviser to Israeli prime ministers Yitzhak Shamir and Yitzhak Rabin during their wars against the Palestinian resistance from 1988 until 1993.

What is noteworthy is that one of the members of MEMRI's board of advisors is Ehud Barak, a former Israeli PM and former Defense Minister from 2007 until 2013.

According to Whitaker, the other cofounder of the institute, Meyrav Wurmser, was an adviser to Dick Cheney when he was US vice-president and was closely involved with the group pushing for war with Iraq, which eventually happened in 2003, and her publications and research papers posted on Israeli websites reflected her enthusiasm to defend the Zionist entity.

Besides the public relations work, the organisation frequently releases translated clips from Arab and Iranian media outlets, often highlighting anti-Israeli comments from politicians, activists and religious figures.

MEMRI is a well-known institute in the United States and is used as a source by many US newspapers such as the New York Times. It infuriates Arab media outlets and activists and is considered one of the most significant Zionist institutes in the world.

MEMRI & Policy of Falsifying Translations

In addition to serving Israel's goals and the Zionist lobby in Washington, MEMRI has been accused of falsifying and misinterpreting the translation of many articles and reports. One of the accusations was made by the Arabic department of the CNN and matters were stirred up after the institute translated an article by an Arab professor at Georgetown University.

Also, according to the French Le Monde newspaper, MEMRI's translations in some cases clear the texts of their content or add Arabic terms that weren't even mentioned in the original text in order to make the statement sound more controversial.

Arabic Issue