non-profit name	Middle East Media Research Institute
non-profit logo
non-profit type	501(c)(3) non-profit
founded date	1998
founder	Yigal Carmon
location	Washington, D.C.
key people	Yigal Carmon (President)
product	Translation and original analysis services.
focus	Arabic and Persian media.
method	Media monitoring
non-profit slogan	Bridging the language gap between the Middle East and the West
homepage	www.memri.org
footnotes	}}

The Middle East Media Research Institute, or MEMRI for short, is a Middle Eastern press monitoring organization with headquarters located in Washington, DC. MEMRI was co-founded in 1998 by Yigal Carmon, a former colonel in the Israeli military intelligence and Meyrav Wurmser, an Israeli-born, American political scientist. MEMRI distributes free English language translations of material published in Arabic, Persian, Urdu, Pashto, and Turkish, publishes analyses and reports on its website and offers specialized content for a fee.

The organization's translations are regularly quoted by major international newspapers, and its work has generated strong criticism. Critics have accused MEMRI of often producing inaccurate translations with undue emphasis and selectivity and disseminating the most extreme views from Arabic and Persian media while ignoring moderate views that are often found in the same media outlets.

Staff

Based in Washington, DC with branch offices in Jerusalem, Berlin, London, Rome, Shanghai, Baghdad, and Tokyo, MEMRI was founded in 1998. MEMRI's founding staff of seven included three who had formerly served in military intelligence in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). MEMRI president and founder Yigal Carmon states that MEMRI's current staff includes "people of the Jewish, Christian and Muslim faiths [who] hold a range of political views."

Yigal Carmon — MEMRI's founder and President. Carmon is fluent in Arabic. He served as Colonel in the Military Intelligence Directorate (Israel) from 1968 to 1988. He was Acting Head of Civil Administration in the West Bank and the adviser on Arab affairs to the civil administration from 1977 to 1982. He advised Prime Ministers Shamir and Rabin on countering Palestinian militants from 1988 to 1993. In 1991 and 1992 Carmon was a senior member of the Israeli delegation at peace negotiations with Syria in Madrid and Washington.

Steven Stalinsky — Executive Director of MEMRI. Stalinsky holds a M.A. in Middle Eastern Studies and a B.A. in Religious Studies.

Dr. Nimrod Raphaeli — Senior Analyst and editor of MEMRI's Economic Blog. An Iraqi-born U.S. citizen, Raphaeli has a Ph.D. in development planning from the University of Michigan.

Professor Menahem Milson — Board of Advisors chairman. Milson has been a professor of Arabic literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem since 1963.

Tufail Ahmad — Urdu-Pashtu Media Project Director. A British journalist of Indian origin, Ahmad studied Social Systems for an M.A. at New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University and received an M.A. in War Studies from King's College London.

Mansour Al-Hadj — Director of MEMRI’s "Reform in The Arab and Muslim World project." A Saudi Arabian journalist.

Stephen D’Ettorre — Director of Government Affairs. D’Ettorre is MEMRI’s liaison for U.S. Federal agencies, U.S. military, international government agencies and NGOs. D’Ettorre holds a B.A. in U.S. History.

The Board of directors and advisors of MEMRI includes Elie Wiesel, John Bolton, Ehud Barak, Norman Podhoretz, Paul Bremer, Nathan Sharansky, Edgar Bronfman.

Objectives and projects

MEMRI's current mission statement states the organization "explores the Middle East through the region's media. MEMRI bridges the language gap which exists between the West and the Middle East, providing timely translations of Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and Urdu-Pashtu media, as well as original analysis of political, ideological, intellectual, social, cultural, and religious trends in the Middle East." Until 2001, its Mission Statement stated that the institute also emphasizes "the continuing relevance of Zionism to the Jewish people and to the state of Israel." MEMRI's goals and emphasis have evolved over the years; it originally translated articles in both Arabic and Hebrew.

Concerning this change in their ‘mission statement,’ Political Research Associates (PRA), which studies the US political right, notes that it occurred three weeks after the September 11 attacks, and considers MEMRI "was previously more forthcoming about its political orientation in its self-description and in staff profiles on its website." PRA considers that “MEMRI's slogan, ‘Bridging the Language Gap Between the Middle East and the West,’ does not convey the institute's stridently pro-Israel and anti-Arab political bias.” It further notes, that MEMRI's founders, Wurmser and Carmon, “are both hardline pro-Israel ideologues aligned with Israel's Likud party.”

The organization indirectly gained public prominence as a source of news and analysis about the Muslim world, following the September 11 attacks and the subsequent "war on terrorism" by the Bush administration. According to MEMRI, its translations and reports are distributed to "congresspersons, congressional staff, policy makers, journalists, academics, and interested parties." According to PRA, MEMRI's translated articles and its commentary are routinely cited in national media outlets in the United States, including the New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times, while analyses by MEMRI staff and officers are frequently published by right-wing and neoconservative media outlets such as National Review, Fox News, Commentary, and the Weekly Standard. PRA writes that both critics and supporters of MEMRI note its increasing influence in shaping perceptions of the Middle East. It has maintained longstanding relations with law enforcement agencies.

According to MEMRI's website, most of the translations and analyses that it conducts fall under several main projects, including:

''Jihad and Terrorism Studies Project''

''U.S. And the Middle East''

''Reform in the Middle East and North Africa''

''Arab-Israeli Conflict''

''Inter-Arab Relations''

''Antisemitism Documentation Project''

Starting in October 2006, they added ''The Islamist Websites Monitor Project'' focusing on the translated news, videos, and analysis of "major jihadi websites".

Languages

MEMRI monitors primary sources in Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Urdu/Pashtu and Dari media and other material from the Middle East, Asia, North Africa, and Arab and Muslim communities in the West. These include newspaper articles, sermons, speeches and interviews, websites, TV broadcasts, and schoolbooks.

MEMRI provides translations and analyses into: English, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Spanish, Polish, Russian, Chinese, Japanese.

Financial support

MEMRI is registered in the US with the IRS as a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. They have a policy of not accepting money from governments, relying instead on around 250 private donors, including other organizations and foundations.

MediaTransparency, an organization that monitors the financial ties of conservative think tanks to conservative foundations in the United States, reported that for the years 1999 to 2004, MEMRI received $100,000 from The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, Inc., $100,000 from The Randolph Foundation, and $5,000 from the John M. Olin Foundation.

MEMRI's U.S. income statement of June 2004 stated that its total U.S. revenue was US$2,571,899, its total U.S. functional expenses were $2,254,990, and that it possessed net assets of $700,784. Charity Navigator, an organization that evaluates the financial health of America's largest charities, has given MEMRI a four-star (exceptional) rating, meaning that it "... exceeds industry standards and outperforms most charities in its Cause" when rated on its financial health.

In August 2011, the United States Department of State’s Office of International Religious Freedom in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, awarded MEMRI a $200,000 grant.

Reception

The organization's translations are regularly quoted by major international newspapers, and its work has generated strong criticism and praise. Critics have accused MEMRI of producing inaccurate, unreliable translations with undue emphasis and selectivity in translating and disseminating the most extreme views from Arabic and Persian media, which portray the Arab and Muslim world in a negative light, while ignoring moderate views that are often found in the same media outlets. Other critics charge that while MEMRI does sometimes translate pro-US or pro-democracy voices in the regional media, it systematically leaves out intelligent criticism of Western-style democracy, US and Israeli policy and secularism.

MEMRI's work has been attacked on three grounds: that their work is biased; that they choose articles to translate selectively so as to give an unrepresentative view of the media they are reporting on; and that some of their translations are inaccurate. MEMRI has responded to the attacks of critics, stating that their work is not biased; that they in fact choose representative articles from the Arab media that accurately reflect the opinions expressed, and that their translations are highly accurate. The Washington based ''Institute for Research Middle Eastern Policy'' has criticized MEMRI for funding that is too highly concentrated (three donors account for over 58% of MEMRI’s income), lack of peer review and a reactive, tactically driven research agenda.

Accusations of bias

Several commentators, such as CNN's Arabic department, have claimed that the transcript of the April 13 show (2007) provided by MEMRI contains numerous translation errors and undue emphases.

Brian Whitaker, the Middle East editor for ''The Guardian'' newspaper wrote in a public email debate with Carmon, that his problem with MEMRI was that it "poses as a research institute when it's basically a propaganda operation." Earlier, Whitaker had charged that MEMRI's role was to "further the political agenda of Israel." and that MEMRI's website does not mention Carmon's employment for Israeli intelligence, or Meyrav Wurmser's political stance, which he described as an "extreme brand of Zionism." Carmon responded to this by stating that his employment history is not a secret and was not political, as he served under opposing administrations of the Israeli government and that perhaps the issue was that he was Israeli: "If your complaint is that I am Israeli, then please say so." Camron also questioned Whitaker's own biases, wondering if Whitaker's is biased in favor of Arabs -as his website on the middle east is named "Al-Bab" ("The Gateway" in Arabic)- stating: "I wonder how you would judge an editor whose website was called "Ha-Sha-ar" ("The Gateway" in Hebrew)?

Selectivity

Several critics have accused MEMRI of selectivity. They state that MEMRI consistently picks for translation and dissemination the most extreme views, which portray the Arab and Muslim world in a negative light, while ignoring moderate views that are often found in the same media outlets. Juan Cole, Professor of Modern Middle East History at the University of Michigan, argues MEMRI has a tendency to "cleverly cherry-pick the vast Arabic press, which serves 300 million people, for the most extreme and objectionable articles and editorials" Former CIA counterintelligence official Vincent Cannistraro also charged that "MEMRI is selective and acts as propagandists for a political point of view which follows the extreme right of Likud." Laila Lalami, writing in ''The Nation'', states that MEMRI "consistently picks the most violent, hateful rubbish it can find, translates it and distributes it in e-mail newsletters to media and members of Congress in Washington". As a result, critics such as Ken Livingstone state, MEMRI's analyses are "distortion".

Translation inaccuracy

The accuracy of MEMRI's translations are often disputed, as in the case of MEMRI's translation of a 2004 Osama bin Laden video, which MEMRI defended. Norman Finkelstein, in an interview with the newspaper ''In Focus'' compared MEMRI to the "propaganda techniques" of the Nazis.

Following the 7 July 2005 London bombings, Al Jazeera invited Hani al-Sebai, an Islamist living in Britain, to take part in a discussion on the event. For one segment of the discussion in regard to the victims, MEMRI provided the following translation of al-Sebai's words:

''the term civilians does not exist in Islamic religious law. Dr Karmi is sitting here, and I am sitting here, and I’m familiar with religious law. There is no such term as civilians in the modern western sense. People are either at war or not.'' Al-Sebai subsequently claimed that MEMRI had mistranslated his interview, and that among other errors, he had actually said: ''there is no term in Islamic jurisprudence called civilians. Dr Karmi is here sitting with us, and he's very familiar with the jurisprudence. There are fighters and non-fighters. Islam is against the killing of innocents. The innocent man cannot be killed according to Islam.''

By leaving out the condemnation of the "killing of innocents" entirely, Mohammed El Oifi writing in ''Le Monde diplomatique'' argued that this translation left the implication that civilians (the innocent) are considered a legitimate target.Several British newspapers subsequently used MEMRI's translation to run headlines such as "Islamic radical has praised the suicide bomb attacks on the capital" prompting al-Sebai to demand an apology and take legal action. He also claimed that MEMRI's translation was "an incitement to have me arrested by the British authorities."

Halim Barakat described MEMRI as a "a propaganda organization dedicated to representing Arabs and Muslims as anti-semites." Barakat claims an essay he wrote for the Al-Hayat Daily of London titled ''The Wild Beast that Zionism Created: Self-Destruction,'' was mistranslated by MEMRI and retitled as ''Jews Have Lost Their Humanity''. Barakat further stated "Every time I wrote Zionism, MEMRI replaced the word by Jew or Judaism. They want to give the impression that I’m not criticizing Israeli policy, but that what I’m saying is anti-Semitic". According to Barakat, he was subject to widespread condemnation from faculty and his office was "flooded with hatemail." Fellow Georgetown faculty member Aviel Roshwald accused Barakat in an article he published of promoting a "demonization of Israel and of Jews". Supported by Georgetown colleagues, Barakat denied the claim which Roshwald had based on MEMRI's translation of Barakat's essay.

In 2007, CNN correspondent Atika Shubert and Arabic translators accused MEMRI of mistranslating portions of a Palestinian children's television programme.

"Media watchdog MEMRI translates one caller as saying - quote - 'We will annihilate the Jews,"' said Shubert. "But, according to several Arabic speakers used by CNN, the caller actually says 'The Jews are killing us."'

CNN's Glenn Beck later invited Yigal Carmon onto his program to comment on the mistranslation. Carmon criticized CNN's translators understanding of Arabic stating: "Even someone who doesn't know Arabic would listen to the tape and would hear the word 'Jews' is at the end, and also it means it is something to be done to the Jews, not by the Jews. And she (Octavia Nasr) insisted, no the word is in the beginning. I said: 'Octavia, you just don't get it. It is at the end'". Brian Whitaker, the Middle East editor for the Guardian newspaper (UK) later pointed out that the word order in Arabic is not the same as in English: "the verb comes first and so a sentence in Arabic which literally says 'Are shooting at us the Jews' means 'The Jews are shooting at us'".

Brian Whitaker wrote in a blog for the Guardian newspaper that in the translation of the video, showing Farfour eliciting political comments from a young girl named Sanabel, the MEMRI transcript misrepresents the segment. Farfour asks Sanabel what she will do and, after a pause says "I'll shoot", MEMRI attributed the phrase said by Farfour, ("I'll shoot"), as the girl's reply while ignoring her actual reply ("I'm going to draw a picture"). Whitaker and others commented that a statement uttered by the same child, ("We're going to [or want to] resist"), had been given an unduly aggressive interpretation by MEMRI as ("We want to fight"). Also, where MEMRI translated the girl as saying the highly controversial remark ("We will annihilate the Jews"), Whitaker and others, including Arabic speakers used by CNN, insist that based on careful listening to the low quality video clip, the girl is saying "Bitokhoona al-yahood", variously interpreted as, "The Jews [will] shoot us" or "The Jews are killing us."

MEMRI defends their translation of the show, saying: "Yes, we stand by the translation by the very words, by the context, by the syntax, and every measure of the translation."

In response to accusations of inaccuracies and distortion, Yigal Carmon, said:

As an institute of research, we want MEMRI to present translations to people who wish to be informed on the ideas circulating in the Middle East. We aim to reflect reality. If knowledge of this reality should benefit one side or another, then so be it.

In an e-mail debate with Carmon, Whitaker asked about MEMRI's November 2000 translation of an interview given by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem to al-Ahram al-Arabi. One question asked by the interviewer was: "How do you deal with the Jews who are besieging al-Aqsa and are scattered around it?" which was translated as: "How do you feel about the Jews?". MEMRI cut out the first part of the reply and combined it with the answer to the next question which. Carmon admitted this was an error in translation but defended combining the two replies as both questions referred to the same subject. Carmon rejected other claims of distortion by Whitaker, saying: "it is perhaps reassuring that you had to go back so far to find a mistake ... You accused us of distortion by omission but when asked to provide examples of trends and views we have missed, you have failed to answer." Carmon also accused Whitaker of "using insults rather than evidence" in his criticism of MEMRI.

Whitaker claims that although Memri's translations are usually accurate, they are selective and often out of context. He stated: "When errors do occur, it's difficult to attribute them to incompetence or accidental lapses ... there appears to be a political motive."

Praise for MEMRI

MEMRI responds to the criticism by saying that the media had a tendency to whitewash statements of Arab leaders, and regularly defends its translations as being representative of actual ME viewpoints, even when the translations themselves are disputed: "Memri has never claimed to 'represent the view of the Arabic media', but rather to reflect, through our translations, general trends which are widespread and topical." John Lloyd has defended MEMRI in the ''New Statesmen'':

Other praise came from Thomas L. Friedman, political opinion columnist for the ''New York Times'', who credited MEMRI with helping to "shine a spotlight on hate speech wherever it appears."

One of MEMRI's strongest supporters is Jay Nordlinger, the managing editor of ''National Review'', who has written that:

Nordlinger also notes that:

According to Nordlinger, one of MEMRI's early notable successes was its exposure of Muhammad al-Gamei'a. Al-Gamei'a had served as head of the Islamic Cultural Center of New York and as Al-Azhar University's representative to the United States and frequently participated in interreligious services. However, upon returning to Egypt in October 2001, Al-Gamei'a gave an interview to a prominent Islamic website in which he stated, among other things, that:

After September 11, Arabs in America could not go to hospitals, because Jewish doctors were making them sick;

Americans knew that the Jews — not radical Arabs — were responsible for the attacks, but were afraid to speak up about it, for fear of being labeled anti-Semitic.

"[the Jews] are riding on the back of the world powers. These people always seek out the superpower of the generation and develop coexistence with it. Before this, they rode on the back of England and on the back of the French empire. After that, they rode on the back of Germany. But [Adolf] Hitler annihilated them because they betrayed him and violated their contract with him."

"on the news in the U.S. it was said that four thousand Jews did not come to work at the World Trade Center on the day of the incident, and that the police arrested a group of Jews rejoicing in the streets at the time of the incident...the Jews who control the media acted to hush it up so that the American people would not know. If it became known to the American people, they would have done to the Jews what Hitler did!"

MEMRI's translation of Al-Gamei'a interview were later cited by the New York Times. In order to ensure the translation was accurate, the newspaper hired had "two independent translators" which confirmed the MEMRI translation. Nordlinger noted that MEMRI's work has never been found to be anything but honest, accurate, and meticulous and that because of MEMRI's work: "the sheikh was exposed." Nordlinger also argued that MEMRI "is worth a hundred reality-twisting Middle Eastern Studies departments in the U.S.".

See also

Hasbara

Media coverage of the Arab–Israeli conflict

Palestinian Media Watch

References

External links

MEMRI website

Category:Arab media Category:Iranian media Category:Turkish media Category:Antisemitism Category:Middle East Category:American Middle Eastern studies Category:Non-profit organizations based in the United States Category:International non-profit organizations Category:Organizations established in 1998 Category:Media analysis organizations Category:Zionism in the United States Category:Propaganda organisations

ar:معهد بحوث إعلام الشرق الأوسط de:Middle East Media Research Institute es:Instituto de investigaciones de medios de comunicación en el Oriente Medio fa:موسسه پژوهش رسانه‌ای خاورمیانه fr:Institut de recherche des médias du Moyen-Orient it:Middle East Media Research Institute he:ממרי nl:Middle East Media Research Institute ja:中東報道研究機関 ru:MEMRI sv:Middle East Media Research Institute

''The Jews of Islam'' (1984) is a book written by Middle-East historian and scholar Bernard Lewis.

The book provides a comprehensive overview of the history and the state of the Jews living in the Islamic world, (as contrasted to the Jews of Christendom.) The first chapter, Islam and Other Religions, however, is broader in scope, and explains how Islamic society view the Other.

Contents

Chapter I. Islam and Other religions

Chapter II. The Judaeo-Islamic Tradition

Chapter III. The Late Medieval and Early Modern Periods

Chapter IV. The End of the Tradition

A quote from the author

The author claims that: "For Christians and Muslims alike, tolerance is a new virtue, intolerance a new crime. For the greater part of the history of both communities, tolerance was not valued nor was intolerance condemned. Until comparatively modern times, Christian Europe neither prized nor practiced tolerance itself, and was not greatly offended by its absence in others. The charge that was always brought against Islam was not that its doctrines were imposed by force - something seen as normal and natural - but that its doctrines were false."

Reviews

See also

Dhimmi

Jizya

References

Category:Books by Bernard Lewis Category:Judeo-Islamic topics

This is a list of people whose names in English are commonly appended with the phrase "''the Great''", or who were called that or an equivalent phrase in their own language. Other languages have their own suffixes such as ''e Bozorg'' and ''e azam'' in Persian and Urdu respectively.

In Persia, the title "the Great" at first seems to be a colloquial version of the Old Persian title "Great King". This title was first used by the conqueror Cyrus II of Persia.

The Persian title was inherited by Alexander III of Macedon (336–323 BC) when he conquered the Persian Empire, and the epithet "Great" eventually became personally associated with him. The first reference (in a comedy by Plautus) assumes that everyone knew who "Alexander the Great" was; however, there is no earlier evidence that Alexander III of Macedon was called "''the Great''".

The early Seleucid kings, who succeeded Alexander in Persia, used "Great King" in local documents, but the title was most notably used for Antiochus the Great (223–187 BC).

Later rulers and commanders began to use the epithet "the Great" as a personal name, like the Roman general Pompey. Others received the surname retrospectively, like the Carthaginian Hanno and the Indian emperor Ashoka the Great. Once the surname gained currency, it was also used as an honorific surname for people without political careers, like the philosopher Albert the Great.

As there are no objective criteria for "greatness", the persistence of later generations in using the designation greatly varies. For example, Louis XIV of France was often referred to as "The Great" in his lifetime but is rarely called such nowadays, while Frederick II of Prussia is still called "The Great". A later Hohenzollern - Wilhelm I - was often called "The Great" in the time of his grandson Wilhelm II, but rarely later.

Rulers

Abbas I of Persia (1571–1629), Shah of Iran

Akbar (1542–1605), ruler of the Mughal Empire of South Asia, mainly India

Alain I of Albret (1440–1522), French aristocrat

Alexander the Great (356-323 BC), King of Macedonia, Persia, Greece, Egypt, and all of Mesopotamia

Alexander I of Georgia (1386–1446), King of Georgia

Alfonso III of León (c. 848-910), King of León, Galicia and Asturias

Alfred the Great (848/849-899), King of Wessex

Antiochus III the Great (c. 241–187 BC), ruler of the Seleucid Empire

Ashoka the Great (c. 304–232 BC), Indian emperor of the Maurya dynasty

Ashot I of Iberia “the Great”(died 826/830), presiding prince of Iberia (modern Georgia),

Askia Mohammad I (c. 1442–1538), ruler of the Songhai Empire

Bhumibol Adulyadej (born 1927), King of Thailand

Bolesław I Chrobry (967-1025), sometimes called "the Great", first King of Poland

Bruno the Great (925–965), Archbishop of Cologne and Duke of Lotharingia (also listed in the following section)

Buddha Yodfa Chulaloke (1736–1809), founder and ruler of the Rattanakosin Kingdom (in what is now Thailand)

Cnut the Great (c. 985 or 995-1035), King of Denmark, England, Norway and parts of Sweden

Casimir III the Great (1310–1370), King of Poland

Catherine the Great (1729–1796), Empress of Russia

Chandragupta II (reigned 375-413/415), also known as Vikramaditya, ruler of the Gupta empire in India

Charlemagne (died 814), King of the Franks and Emperor of the Romans

Chulalongkorn (1853–1910), King of Siam (now Thailand)

Chlothar II (584-629), King of Neustria and King of the Franks

Conrad, Margrave of Meissen (c. 1097-1157), Margrave of Meissen

Constantine I (c. 272-337), Roman emperor

Cyaxares the Great (c. 625-585 BC), third king of Media

Cyrus the Great (c. 600 BC or 576 BC–530 BC), founder and ruler of the Persian or Achaemenid Empire

Darius the Great (550 – 486 BC), third ruler of the Persian Empire

Devapala (died 850), ruler of the Pala Empire in the Indian subcontinent

Dionysius I, Greek tyrant of Syracuse

Ferdinand I of León and Castile (c. 1015–1065), King of León and Count of Castile

Frederick the Great (1712–1786), King of Prussia

Genghis Khan (1162?-1227), founder and Great Khan of the Mongol Empire

Gero (c. 900–965), ruler of Marca Geronis, a very large march in Europe

Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden (1594–1632), King of Sweden, founder of the Swedish Empire, and noted military leader

Gwanggaeto the Great, King of Goguryeo, one of the Three Kingdoms of Korea

Hanno the Great, the name of three leaders of Carthage, in the 4th, 3rd, and 2nd centuries BC

Henry I, Duke of Burgundy (946–1002)

Henry IV of France (1553–1610), King of France and King of Navarre

Herod the Great (73/74 BC-4 BC), King of Judea

Hugh the Great (898-956), Duke of the Franks and Count of Paris

Hugh Magnus of France (1007–1025), co-King of France

Hugh I, Count of Vermandois (1057–1101)

Humphrey I de Bohun (died c. 1123), Anglo-Norman aristocrat

Ivan III of Russia (1440–1505), Tsar of Russia

John I of Portugal (1358–1433), King of Portugal and the Algarve

John II of Aragon (1398–1479), King of Aragon and, through his wife, King of Navarre

Justinian I (483-565), Byzantine Emperor

Kamehameha I (c. 1758-1819), first King of Hawai'i

Kanishka (died c. 127), ruler of the Kushan Empire in Central Asia and parts of India

Kvirike III of Kakheti (1010–1029), King of Kakheti in eastern Georgia

Kublai Khan (1215–1294), Mongol ruler in the 13th century and Emperor of China; founder of the Yuan Dynasty

Llywelyn the Great (c. 1172–1240), Prince of Gwynedd and de facto ruler of most of Wales

Louis I of Hungary (1326–1382), King of Hungary, Croatia and Poland

Mangrai the Great (1238–1317), Lanna, northern Thailand

Emperor Meiji (1852–1912), Emperor of Japan

Mircea I of Wallachia (1355–1418)

Mithridates II of Parthia (died 88 BC), ruler of the Parthian Empire (in present day Iran)

Mithridates VI of Pontus (134 BC–63 BC), ruler of Pontus and the Bosporan Kingdom

Mstislav I of Kiev (1076–1132), Grand Prince of Kievan Rus

Narai (1633–1688), King of Ayutthaya (in what is now modern Thailand)

Naresuan (1555–1605), King of Ayutthaya

Odo the Great (died c. 735), Duke of Aquitaine

Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor (912-973)

K'inich Janaab' Pakal (603-683), ruler of the Mayan city-state of Palenque

Parakramabahu I of Polonnaruwa (1123–1186), King of Sri Lanka

Peter Krešimir IV of Croatia (died 1075), King of Croatia

Peter the Great (1672–1725), Tsar of Russia

Peter III of Aragon (1239–1285), King of Aragon and King of Sicily

Pompey (106 BC-48 BC), military and political leader of the late Roman Republic, rival of Julius Caesar

Radama I (1793–1828), first king of greater Madagascar

Raja Raja Chola I (c. 947-1014), Indian emperor of the Cholas.

Rajendra Chola I (reigned 1014–1044), Tamil King of India

Ramesses II (reigned 1279 BC – 1213 BC), considered the greatest pharaoh of Ancient Egypt

Ram Khamhaeng (around 1237 to 1247-1298), King of Sukhothai (in present day Thailand)

Ramon Berenguer III, Count of Barcelona (1082–1131), also Count of Provence and various other counties

Rhodri the Great (c. 820–878), King of Gwynedd (in present day Wales)

Roman the Great (after 1160-1205), Grand Prince of Kiev

Saladin (c. 1138-1193), Kurdish Sultan of Egypt and Syria, founder of the Ayyubid dynasty, and victor over the Crusaders

Samudragupta (c. 335–375), ruler of the Gupta empire in the Indian subcontinent

Sancho III of Navarre (c. 992-1035), King of Kingdom of Navarre

Sargon of Akkad (died c. 2215 BC), ruler of the Akkadian Empire

Sejong the Great (1397–1450), Korean king

Shapur II (309-379), king of the Sassanid Empire, Persia

Simeon I of Bulgaria (864/865-927), ruler of the First Bulgarian Empire

Stephen III of Moldavia (1433–1504), Prince of Moldavia (Romania)

Stephen Uroš IV Dušan of Serbia (c. 1308-1355), King of Serbia and Emperor of the Serbs and Greeks

Taksin (1734–1782), King of the Thonburi Kingdom (Thailand)

Timur (1336–1405), better known as Tamerlane, founder of the Timurid Dynasty

Theobald II, Count of Champagne (1090–1151), Count of Blois and of Chartres as Theobald IV, Count of Champagne and of Brie

Theodoric the Great (454-526), King of the Ostrogoths, regent of the Visigoths and a viceroy of the Byzantine Empire

Theodosius I (347-395), Roman emperor

Tigranes the Great (140-55 BC), Emperor of Armenia

Tiridates III of Armenia (285-339), King of Armenia

Umar (c. 586 to 590–644), second caliph of the Muslim Empire

Valdemar I of Denmark (1131–1182), King of Denmark

Valentinian I (364-375), Roman Emperor

Vladimir I of Kiev (c. 958-1015), ruler of Kievan Rus

Vytautas (c. 1350-1430), archduke of the Lithuanian Grand Duchy

William I, Count of Burgundy (1020–1087), Count of Burgandy and Mâcon

William V, Duke of Aquitaine (969-1030), also Count of Poitou

Xerxes I (519-465 BC), King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire (Persia)

Yu the Great (c. 2200-2100 BC), legendary ruler in ancient China

Religious figures

Abraham the Great of Kashkar (ca. 492-586), monk and saint of the Assyrian Church of the East

Abraham Kidunaia (died c. 366, hermit, priest, and Christian saint of Mesopotamia

Albertus Magnus (1193/1206–1280), medieval German philosopher and theologian

Anthony the Great (c. 251–356), early Christian saint of Egypt

Babai the Great (c. 551–628), Assyrian church leader

Basil of Caesarea (330-379), Greek bishop and theologian

Bruno the Great (925–965), Archbishop of Cologne and Duke of Lotharingia (also listed in the previous section)

Euthymius the Great (377-473), abbot and Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox saint

Gertrude the Great (1256-c. 1302), German Benedictine, mystic, theologian and Roman Catholic saint

Pope Gregory I (c. 540-604)

Hiyya the Great, 3rd-century rabbi, Palestine

Pope John Paul II (1920–2005)

Pope Leo I (c. 391 or 400-461)

Macarius of Egypt (c. 300-391), Egyptian hermit

Pope Nicholas I (c. 800-867)

Photius I of Constantinople (c. 810–c. 893), Eastern Orthodox saint and Patriarch of Constantinople

William of Maleval (died 1157), founder of the Catholic congregation of Williamites

Other

Beli Mawr, a figure in medieval Welsh literature and genealogies

Emmy the Great, folk singer

Matteo Rosso the Great, Roman politician and father of Pope Nicholas III

Prokop the Great, Hussite general in Bohemia

See also

Epithet

List of monarchs by nickname

List of nicknames of European Royalty and Nobility: G-I

James, son of Zebedee, also known as James the Greater, one of the twelve apostles of Jesus

Ajax (mythology), called Ajax the Greater

Notes

Category:Monarchs Great, List of people known as The Category:Greatest Nationals Category:Epithets

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While the term ''Holocaust victims'' generally refers to Jews, the Nazis also persecuted and often killed millions of members of other groups they considered inferior (''Untermenschen''), undesirable or dangerous.

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) states: “The Holocaust was the murder of six million Jews and millions of others by the Nazis and their collaborators during World War II."

In addition to Jews, the targeted groups included Poles (of whom 2.5 million gentile Poles were killed) and some other Slavic peoples; Soviets (particularly prisoners of war); Romanies (also known as Gypsies) and others who did not belong to the "Aryan race"; the mentally ill, the Deaf, the physically disabled and mentally retarded; homosexual and transsexual people; political opponents and religious dissidents. Taking into account all of the victims of Nazi persecution, they systematically killed an estimated six million Jews and mass murdered an additional eleven million people during the war. Donald Niewyk suggests that the broadest definition, including Soviet civilian deaths would produce a death toll of 17 million.

Despite often widely varying treatment (some groups were actively targeted for genocide, while others were mostly not), these victims all perished alongside one another, some in the concentration camps, some as victims of other forms of Nazi brutality, according to the extensive documentation left behind by the Nazis themselves (both written and photographed), eyewitness testimony (by survivors, perpetrators, and bystanders) and the statistical records of the various countries under occupation.

Ethnic criteria

The paramilitary campaign to remove certain classes of persons, but above all Jews from Germany using methods of extreme brutality, is known as the Holocaust. The Holocaust was carried out primarily by German forces and certain collaborative persons, both German and otherwise. As the war started, millions of Jews were concentrated in ghettos. In 1941, massacres of Jews took place; by December Hitler had decided to exterminate the European Jews. In all, more than 60% of the Jews in Europe were murdered in the Holocaust. The world's Jewish population was reduced by a third, from roughly 16.6 million in 1939 to about 11 million in 1946. Even sixty years later, there are still fewer Jews in the world today than there were prior to 1940.

In January 1942, during the Wannsee conference, several Nazi leaders discussed the details of the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question" (''Endlösung der Judenfrage''). Dr. Josef Bühler, the State Secretary for the Central Government, urged Reinhard Heydrich, the conference chairman, to proceed with the Final Solution in the General Government. They began to systematically deport Jewish populations from the ghettos and all occupied territories to the seven camps designated as ''Vernichtungslager,'' or extermination camps at Birkenau, Belzec, Chelmno, Majdanek, Maly Trostenets, Sobibór and Treblinka. The author Sebastian Haffner, published the analysis in 1978 that Hitler, from December 1941, accepted the failure of his goal to dominate Europe on his declaration of war against the United States, and that his withdrawal thereafter was sustained by the achievement of his second goal—the extermination of the Jews. Even as the Nazi war machine faltered in the last years of the war, precious military resources such as fuel, transport, munitions, soldiers and industrial resources were still being diverted away from the war towards the death camps.

Poland, home of the largest Jewish community in the world before the war, had had over 90% of its Jewish population, or about 3,000,000 Jews, killed. The penalty imposed by the Germans for hiding Jews was death and this was carried out mercilessly. Some Poles hid Jews and saved their lives despite the risk to them and their own families. Although detailed reports on the Holocaust had reached western leaders, public awareness in the United States and other democracies of genocidal mass murder of Jews in Poland was extremely poor at the time; the first references in ''The New York Times'' in 1942 were not front-page news, these articles were more in the nature of 'unconfirmed' reports.

Greece, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Lithuania, Bohemia, the Netherlands, Slovakia, and Latvia each had over 70% of their Jewish population destroyed. Belgium, Romania, Luxembourg, Norway, and Estonia lost around half of their Jews, the Soviet Union over one third; even countries such as France and Italy had each seen around a quarter of their Jewish population killed. Denmark was able to evacuate almost all of its Jews to nearby Sweden, which was neutral during the war. Using everything from fishing boats to private yachts, the Danes whisked their Jews out of harm's way. Some Jews outside Europe under Nazi occupation, were also affected by the Holocaust.

Poles

The Nazi occupation of Poland was one of the most brutal episodes of the war, resulting in more than two million deaths, not including some three million Polish Jews. The five million Poles killed, Jewish, Roman Catholic and Orthodox, accounted for 14% of the country's population. Poles were one of Hitler's first targets of extermination, as outlined in the speech he gave to Wehrmacht commanders before the invasion of Poland in 1939. The intelligentsia and socially prominent or influential people were primarily targeted, although mass murders were committed against the general Polish population, as well as against other groups of Slavs. Hundreds of thousands of Roman Catholic and Orthodox Poles were sent to Auschwitz and the other concentration camps, the intelligentsia were the first targets of the ''Einsatzgruppen'' death squads. The anti-Polish campaign culminated in the near-complete destruction of the capital Warsaw, ordered by Hitler and Himmler in 1944.

Soviet Slavs and POWs

During Operation Barbarossa, the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union, millions of Red Army prisoners of war (POWs) were arbitrarily executed in the field by the invading German armies (in particular by the Waffen SS), died under inhuman conditions in German prisoner of war camps and during death marches, or were shipped to concentration camps for execution. The Germans killed an estimated 2.8 million Soviet POWs through starvation, exposure and summary execution, in a mere eight months over 1941 and 1942. According to the US Holocaust Museum, by the winter of 1941, "starvation and disease resulted in mass death of unimaginable proportions". Up to 500,000 were killed in the concentration camps.

Soviet civilian populations in the occupied areas were also heavily persecuted (in addition to the barbarity of the Eastern Front frontline warfare manifesting itself in episodes such as the siege of Leningrad in which more than 1.2 million civilians died). Thousands of peasant villages across Russia, Belarus and Ukraine were annihilated by German troops. During the occupation, Russia's Leningrad, Pskov and Novgorod region lost around a quarter of its population. Some estimate that as many as one quarter of all Soviet civilian deaths (five million Russian, three million Ukrainian and 1.5 million Belarusian) deaths at the hands of the Nazis and their allies were racially motivated. The Russian Academy of Science in 1995 reported civilian victims in the USSR, including Jews at German hands, totaled 13.7 million dead, 20% of the 68 million persons in the occupied USSR, including 7.4 million victims of Nazi genocide and reprisals; 2.2 million deaths of persons deported to Germany for forced labor; and 4.1 million famine and disease deaths in occupied territory. There were an additional estimated 3.0 million famine deaths in the territory not under German occupation. These losses are for the entire territory of the USSR in its 1946-1991 borders, including territories annexed in 1939-40. The deaths of 8.2 million Soviet civilians including Jews, were documented by the Soviet Extraordinary State Commission

Romanies (Gypsies)

The Nazi genocide of Gypsies was ignored by scholars until the 1980s, opinions continue to differ on its details. Some say that, proportional to their population, the death toll of Romanies (Roma (Romani subgroup), Sinti, and Manush) in the Holocaust was the largest of any group of victims. Others say that the genocide of these groups began later than the genocide of the Jews and that a smaller proportion was killed. Hitler's campaign of genocide against the Romani population of Europe involved a particularly bizarre application of Nazi "racial hygiene" (or a type of selective breeding). Despite discriminatory measures, some Romani groups, including some of the Sinti and Lalleri of Germany, were spared deportation and death, the remaining Romani groups suffered much like the Jews. Between one quarter and one half of the Romani population was killed; 500,000 to 1,500,000 people. In Eastern Europe, Romanies were deported to the Jewish ghettos, shot by SS ''Einsatzgruppen'' in their villages or deported and gassed in Auschwitz and Treblinka.

Disabled people

Following a eugenics policy, the Nazis believed that the disabled were a burden to society because they needed to be cared for by others; they were also considered an affront to Nazi notions of a society peopled by a perfect, superhuman Aryan race. Around 375,000 individuals were sterilized against their will because of their disabilities.

People with disabilities were also among the first to be killed by the Nazis; the United States Holocaust Memorial museum notes that the T-4 Euthanasia Program, established in 1939, became the "model" for future exterminations by the Nazi regime, and set a precedent for their attempted Jewish genocide. The T-4 Program was established in order to maintain the "purity" of the so-called Aryan race by systematically killing children and adults born with physical deformities or suffering from mental illness; this included use of the first gas chambers. Although Hitler formally ordered a halt to the T-4 program in late August 1941, the killings secretly continued until the war’s end, resulting in the murder of an estimated 275,000 people with disabilities.

Non-Europeans

The Nazi regime promoted xenophobia of all "non-Aryan" races. African (black sub-Saharan or North African) and Asian (i.e. East Asian and South Asian) residents in Germany, and black prisoners of war (like the French colonial troops captured during the Battle of France), were also victims. Japan signed the Tripartite Pact on September 27 1940, with Germany and Italy and was therefore part of the Axis Pact; no Japanese people were known to be deliberately imprisoned or killed. South Africans and white Europeans of non-Jewish ancestry from other continents were exempt, as were many Latin Americans of "evident" Germanic or "Aryan" ancestries, but not mestizos.

German homosexuals

Homosexuals were also targets of the Holocaust, as homosexuality was deemed incompatible with Nazism because of their failure to reproduce the "master race". This was combined with the belief among the Nazis that homosexuality could be contagious. Initially homosexuality was discreetly tolerated while officially shunned. By 1936 Heinrich Himmler led an effort to persecute homosexuals under existing and new anti-homosexual laws. More than one million homosexual Germans were targeted, of whom at least 100,000 were arrested and 50,000 were serving prison terms as convicted homosexuals. An additional unknown number were institutionalized in state-run mental hospitals. Hundreds of European homosexual men living under Nazi occupation were castrated under court order. It is estimated that between 5,000 and 15,000 homosexual men were imprisoned in concentration camps, but it is difficult to put an exact number on how many perished in them. According to Heinz Heger, an Austrian survivor, homosexual men "suffered a higher mortality rate than other relatively small victim groups, such as Jehovah's Witnesses and political prisoners." Male homosexuals in Nazi concentration camps were identified with a pink triangle on their shirts. Lesbians were not normally treated as harshly as homosexual men: they were labeled "anti-social", but were rarely imprisoned for engaging in homosexuality.

Political criteria

Political prisoners

Another large group of the victims were various German and foreign civilian activists opposed to the Nazi regime from all over the political spectrum, as well as captured WWII resistance fighters (a great many of whom were executed during or immediately after their interrogation, especially in Eastern Europe); sometimes also their families. German political prisoners were, for example, a substantial group among the first Dachau inmates, (the prototype Nazi concentration camp). The political People's Court became infamous for the enormous number of death sentences handed down.

Leftists

German communists were among the first people to be sent to concentration camps. They concerned Hitler due to their ties with the Soviet Union and because the Nazi Party was intractably opposed to communism. Rumours of pending communist violence were started by the Nazis as justification for the Enabling Act of 1933, the law which gave Hitler his original dictatorial powers. Hermann Göring later testified at the Nuremberg Trials that it was the Nazis' willingness to repress German communists that prompted Hindenburg and the old elite to cooperate with them. Hitler and the Nazis also hated German leftists because of their resistance to Nazi racism. Many leaders of German leftist groups were Jews who were especially prominent among the leaders of the Spartacist Uprising in 1919. Hitler referred to Marxism and "Bolshevism" as a means of "the international Jew" to undermine "racial purity" and survival of the Nordics or Aryans (sometimes of all white Europeans), as well as stirring up socioeconomic class tension and labor unions against the government or state-owned businesses. Within concentration camps such as Buchenwald, German communists were privileged in comparison to Jews because of their "racial purity." Whenever the Nazis occupied a new territory, members of communist, socialist, or anarchist groups were thus normally among the first to be repressed, including summary executions. An example of this is Hitler's infamous Commissar Order in which he demanded the summary execution of all political commissars captured among Soviet soldiers.

Freemasons

The Nazis claimed that high degree Masons were willing members of "the Jewish conspiracy" and that Freemasonry was one of the causes of Germany's defeat in WWI. The preserved records of the RSHA (''Reichssicherheitshauptamt'' - Office of the High Command of Security Service pursuing the racial objectives of the SS through Race and Resettlement Office), show the persecution of the Freemasons. The number of Freemasons from Nazi occupied countries who were killed is not accurately known, but it is estimated that between 80,000 and 200,000 were murdered.

Enemy nationals

Thousands of people (mostly diplomats) belonging to certain nationalities associated with the Allies (e.g. Formosa [now Taiwan] and Mexico), as well as Spanish Civil War refugees in occupied France, were also interned or executed. After Italy capitulated in 1943, many Italian nationals, including partisans and Italian soldiers disarmed by the Germans, were sent to concentration camps.

Religious persecution

The Nazis also targeted some religious groups, (about 2,000 Jehovah's Witnesses perished in the concentration camps), they were held for political and ideological reasons. Thousands of Christian clergy were killed by the Nazis either because of a Jewish background (as in the case of Edith Stein), or as part of the Nazi's campaign against the Polish intelligentsia; others were killed in a general campaign against the Catholic Church in Poland. In the countries in which Roman Catholic bishops and even Catholics themselves had openly protested and attacked Nazi policies. For instance, in the Netherlands and Poland, where bishops and priests had protested the deportation of Jews, the clergy was either threatened with deportation themselves and kept in custody (as in the case of German bishop Clemens von Galen), or directly deported to concentration camps (as in the cases of the Dutch Carmelite priest Titus Brandsma and Polish Fr. Maximilian Kolbe, who was later canonized). The Catholic Church was particularly suppressed in Poland: between 1939 and 1945, an estimated 3,000 members (18%) of the Polish clergy, were murdered; of these, 1,992 died in concentration camps. In the annexed territory of ''Reichsgau Wartheland'' it was even more harsh: churches were systematically closed and most priests were either killed, imprisoned, or deported to the General Government. Eighty per cent of the Catholic clergy and five bishops of Warthegau were sent to concentration camps in 1939; 108 of them are regarded as blessed martyrs. Religious persecution was not confined to Poland: in Dachau concentration camp alone, 2,600 Catholic priests from 24 different countries were killed. Some dissenting German Protestant clergy, such as those who founded the anti-Nazi Confessing Church, were also persecuted.

Others

In Eastern and Southern (and later Western) Europe, the SS and police troops often unleashed mass actions against civilians with alleged links to resistance movements. In numerous cases resulting in wholesale slaughter of entire villages, such as in the infamous cases of Lidice, Khatyn, Sant'Anna and Oradour-sur-Glane (in Poland, one whole district of Warsaw was massacred). In Poland, Nazi Germany formally imposed the death penalty on anybody found sheltering or helping Jews. "Social deviants" - prostitutes, vagrants, alcoholics, drug addicts, open dissidents, pacifists, draft resisters and common criminals - were also often imprisoned in concentration camps. The common criminals frequently became Kapos, the inmate-guards policing other prisoners.

In the late 1930s, the Nazi program to punish many rich German persons as "enemies of the state" confiscated properties and placed thousands of them in concentration camps. According to Nazi policies formulated in part by Joseph Goebbels, the rich elite manipulated the German economy and held seditious liberal views. The Nazis had targeted other groups to be imprisoned for their political views deemed threatening by Hitler or the party; such as the members of women's rights groups (now referred to as feminists), who were accused of spouting "communist-socialist" dogmas of gender equality. Some of the Germans and Austrians who had lived abroad for a significant proportion of their lives were also deemed to have too much exposure to foreign ideas, many were put into concentration camps. These prisoners were called "Emigrants" and marked with a blue triangle.

See also

List of victims of Nazism

References

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