Institute for Middle East Understanding

Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU) is a 501(c)(3) Pro-Palestinian[1] non-profit advocacy organization.

Founded in 2005, it received a grant from the Jerusalem Fund( which is an american-Jewish fund) in 2006 for Education and Community Development which was used to undertake the first compilation of profiles of Palestinian-Americans in the fields of the arts, literature, academia, business and community service, which were then disseminated to news media and on the Internet.[2]

The Anti-Defamation League has called IMEU a "pro-Palestinian Group".

As an example, the IMEU sent a letter to news outlets in November 2007 that provided the names and profiles of Palestinian-Americans who could be contacted to discuss the upcoming Annapolis conference. The names included, Samar Assad, Executive Director of the Washington,[3] DC–based Jerusalem Fund for Education and Community Development, Diana Buttu, a Ramallah-based attorney and former advisor to Palestinian negotiators, Omar Dajani, a San Francisco–based law professor and former legal advisor to United Nations Special Envoy Terje Roed-Larson, and Nadia Hijab, a Senior Fellow at the Washington, DC–based Institute for Palestine Studies.[4]

One of the organization's co-founders is Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, who is also a member of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) Seattle chapter. As Secretary and Treasurer of the IMEU, she and the organization were featured in the Non-Profit Spotlight of the e-magazine The Mideast Connect.[5] The IMEU also publishes 'Letters from Palestine' (2006),[6] which were cited as a good resource for first-hand testimonies from Palestinians about their daily lives by Deborah Pike in the Borderlands journal.[7]

  1. ^ Los Angeles Times (28 April 2014). "Kerry draws fire for reported comment about 'apartheid' and Israel". Los Angeles Times.
  2. ^ "Past Humanitarian Grant Recipients: 2006 Grantees". Archived from the original on December 3, 2008. Retrieved 2008-03-10.
  3. ^ "Samar Assad | C-SPAN.org". www.c-span.org. Retrieved 2023-02-02.
  4. ^ "Unmasking Israel's Intentions at Annapolis". Booman Tribune. 13 November 2007. Retrieved 2008-03-10.
  5. ^ Interview by Ani Zakarian and Kaiser Shahid (2006-07-10). "The Non-Profit Spotlight". Retrieved 2008-03-16.
  6. ^ "Letters from Palestine". Encompass. 2021-10-08. Retrieved 2023-02-02.
  7. ^ Deborah Pike (2006). "Sharon's Wall and the Dialectics of Inside/Outside". 5 (3). Borderlands. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)