Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organisation, not aligned to any political or government organisation. It was founded by Americans and describes its mission as entailing working "with journalists to increase the public's understanding about the socio-economic, political and cultural aspects of Palestine, Palestinians and Palestinian Americans." [1]
Since its founding in October 2005, IMEU's commentaries have been published in mainstream media, introducing journalists to Palestinian spokespeople.[2] In 2006 it received a grant from the The Jerusalem Fund for Education and Community Development which was used to undertake the first compilation of profiles of prominent 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[3]
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, 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), which are cited as a good resource for first-hand testimonies from Palestinians about their daily lives by Deborah Pike in the Borderlands journal.[6]