A PIECE I wrote two weeks ago featuring Benjamin Franklin’s anti-Semitism–alleged anti-Semitism, that is, as portrayed in a repulsive 1935 Nazi forgery lately recycled in the Egyptian government press–drew a response from an editor in Saudi Arabia. He objected to my citing the work of MEMRI.org, which publishes English translations of articles from the Middle Eastern press. MEMRI, in his view, is a partisan organization “whose sole purpose is to make the Arabs look bad in the West.”

But that isn’t true. MEMRI actually has an entire “Reform Project” dedicated to liberal voices in the Arab and Muslim world. If you’ve been wondering whether September 11 precipitated any constructive soul-searching in the cultures that produced Osama bin Laden and Mohammad Atta, these snippets from articles translated by the Reform Project will be a breath of fresh air: