Yigal Carmon, Founder and President of MEMRI, is a prominent authority on current developments in the Arab and Muslim world and on the Middle East media. Between 1988 and 1993, Mr. Carmon served as Chief Advisor on Counter-Terrorism to Israeli Prime Ministers Yitzhak Shamir and Yitzhak Rabin. In this capacity, he was chief coordinator of Israel’s national counter-terrorist defense deployment, including cooperation with other governments. In the field of diplomacy and peace negotiations, he served on the delegation to the 1991 Madrid peace conference as the deputy head of the Israeli team negotiating with Syria, and in the subsequent negotiations in Washington DC. Between 1983 and 1988, he was a senior staff member of Israel’s National Defense College, where he taught courses on the Middle East and the Arab-Israeli conflict. Since 1998, when he founded MEMRI, Yigal Carmon has served as President of the Washington-based institute, which explores the Middle East through the media of the region. MEMRI bridges the language gap that exists between the West and the Middle East, providing timely translations of Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and Urdu and Pashtu media, as well as original analysis of political, ideological, intellectual, social, cultural, and religious trends in the Middle East. Mr. Carmon has briefed governments and leaders worldwide on these issues. In the United States, over the past two years, he has given testimonies on Capitol Hill and has conducted briefings at the State Department, the Pentagon, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Justice Department, among others, as well as European parliaments as well as the EU Commission. Mr. Carmon is frequently interviewed by the Western and Arab TV and press. He is a retired colonel of the Israeli military intelligence.