Recently, claims have been made in Syria and Jordan that MEMRI president Yigal Carmon was behind the declaration of the Syrian government in exile and operates the Free Syrian Army (FSA).
On April 28, 2012, the Syrian website syriatruth.org, owned by former Syrian oppositionist Nizar Nayouf, claimed that Yigal Carmon had been among the organizers of the April 19, 2012 press conference at the Hotel Lutetia in Paris, which announced the establishment of the Syrian government in exile, headed by Nofal Ma'rouf Al-Dawalibi, a Saudi-French politician of Syrian origin. The website reported: "The press conference was organized by the Israeli MEMRI institute... which was founded by... the famous Colonel Yigal Carmon, who was an Israeli intelligence officer in 1968-1988 and who currently runs the [MEMRI] institute." According to the website, FSA representative Mahmoud Al-Ashqar declared at the press conference that, after the fall of the Assad regime, the Syrian government in exile would "sign a peace agreement with Israel and banish the Nuseiris ('Alawites) from Syria to Europe."[1]
The article included this photo of Carmon:
Yigal Carmon And MEMRI Supporting Syrian Opposition
On May 15, 2012, Jordanian journalist Dr. Hayat Al-Hwayek 'Atiya cited the syriatruth.org report in her column in the Jordanian daily Al-Arab Al-Yawm. She repeated many of the website's claims, and added: "Yigal Carmon, a name we heard after the occupation of Iraq, is the Israeli intelligence officer who was tasked with establishing the first research institute backed by Israelis in post-occupation Baghdad. This center was a direct offshoot of the Israeli MEMRI (The Middle East Media Research Institute)... Carmon and his institute were in the headlines again last week, when it was reported that a group of Syrian oppositionists met at the Lutetia Hotel in Paris to declare a Syrian government in exile... The press conference held at the end of the meeting was organized by MEMRI..."[2]
On the same day, another columnist for Al-Arab Al-Yawm, Mwaffaq Mahadin, published a similar column, in which he wrote: "The new role of Israeli intelligence officer Yigal Carmon is [handling] the Syrian [issue]. In the past, Carmon played a similar role vis-à-vis the Iraqi opposition, both before and after the U.S. invaded Iraq and destroyed it in the name of democracy. He disguised his activity... using a research institute he owns [named] MEMRI... Carmon recently organized a conference in Paris to support the Syrian opposition. It was attended by members of the FSA and by Ma'rouf Al-Dawalibi, who, together with other FSA leaders and [Syrian] oppositionists from the Istanbul council [i.e., the Syrian National Council], were trained to found the Syrian government in exile..."[3]
In a June 4, 2012 article in Al-Arab Al-Yawm, Mahadin claimed that Carmon had ties with Syrian oppositionists Ma'rouf Al-Dawalibi and Mahmoud Al-Ashqar.[4] In another article, from June 11, 2012, he wrote that Carmon was "among the most prominent Jews involved in the Syrian issue..." and that "Yigal Carmon, the coordinator of relations with the FSA, visited Tripoli in Lebanon several times under the guise of a journalist, and even lived in the Baba 'Amr [neighborhood in Homs, Syria] when it was controlled by the FSA..."[5]
Carmon, MEMRI Responsible For Car Bombs And Terrorist Attacks In Iraq
It should be mentioned that, in 2004, Hizbullah's Al-Manar TV reported that "the dangerous terrorist" Yigal Carmon was an expert in recruiting Arab agents to the Mossad and in preparing car bombs, and that he had infiltrated Iraq with Zionist units specializing in rigging such bombs. Al-Manar claimed further that Carmon owned a dangerous institute called MEMRI, and had opened a branch of this institute on Abu Nawwas Street in Baghdad on August 1, 2003. The station also claimed that Carmon had commanded the Lahad forces [South Lebanon Army] in South Lebanon, as well as "Unit 503" [sic, apparently referring to IDF Intelligence Unit 504], which specializes in preparing car bombs, and that MEMRI was responsible for the 2004 terrorist attacks in Karbala, which were intended to create internal strife in Iraq. (See MEMRI TV Clip No. 47, "MEMRI Activities in Iraq on Al-Manar TV," April 28, 2004, http://www.memri.org/legacy/clip/47).
