Accomplishments

In 2025, the Middle East Forum delivered measurable results across its three lines of effort: Operations, Policy, and Research and Publishing. From eliminating billions of dollars in federal funding to terror-linked organizations, to exposing Islamist infrastructure at home and abroad, MEF converted analysis into action at a pace and scale unmatched by any comparable institution.

MEF’s policy engagement produced concrete, verifiable outcomes at the federal level and with allied governments in 2025.

Eliminated over $3 billion in federal grants to terror-linked organizations. Through congressional testimony, executive branch engagement, and sustained public pressure, MEF identified and shut down federal funding pipelines that had been flowing to organizations with documented ties to designated terrorist groups. Congressional testimony on this effort generated over 125 million views through social media amplification, bringing unprecedented public attention to the issue of taxpayer-funded terror facilitation.

Secured new State Department terrorist designations. MEF research and advocacy contributed directly to formal U.S. government designations of terrorist entities, strengthening the legal and financial architecture for disrupting extremist networks.

Achieved Department of Homeland Security policy changes. The Washington Project’s sustained engagement with DHS resulted in policy modifications that tightened screening and enforcement mechanisms related to Islamist threats.

Shaped USAID reform. Building on MEF’s investigative exposure of the U.S. Agency for International Development’s ties to Islamist organizations in Southeast Asia, the Forum contributed to the broader federal reassessment of foreign aid distribution, ensuring that U.S. development assistance no longer subsidizes extremist-affiliated entities.

Sustained congressional engagement. MEF’s Washington Project conducted hundreds of meetings with members of Congress and senior staff, shaping letters, resolutions, and committee inquiries on Middle East policy, counterterrorism, and domestic Islamist threats.

MEF’s operational project teams executed targeted campaigns against defined threats in 2025, generating measurable pressure on Islamist networks and their enablers.

MEF Action grassroots campaigns. MEF Action mobilized tens of thousands of constituents through targeted campaigns pressing Congress and the executive branch to act on MEF research findings. Campaigns in 2025 focused on federal funding accountability, Islamist institutional influence, and foreign government financial entanglements with American institutions.

Campus Watch accountability operations. Campus Watch continued its monitoring of North American Middle East studies programs, exposing faculty misconduct, curricular bias, and institutional failures to protect students from politicized classroom environments.

Islamist Watch domestic investigations. Islamist Watch expanded its investigations into nonviolent Islamist networks operating within American institutions, producing actionable intelligence that informed both public reporting and policy engagement.

MEF’s publications and media presence provided the analytical foundation for every operational and policy success in 2025.

MEF Observer expanded reach and output: Launched in 2024, the MEF Observer grew substantially in its first full year of operation, delivering rapid analysis of developments across the Middle East and establishing itself as an authoritative source for policymakers, journalists, and allied governments.

Focus on Western Islamism investigative journalism: FWI produced in-depth investigative reports exposing the institutional infrastructure of Islamist influence in the West, with findings cited by elected officials and picked up by major media outlets.

Middle East Quarterly: MEF’s flagship peer-reviewed journal continued its three-decade record of publishing original scholarship on Middle East politics, Islamism, and U.S. foreign policy, providing the intellectual architecture that supports MEF’s operational work.

Islamist database expansion: MEF’s proprietary database of Islamist individuals, funders, and organizations grew beyond 4 million data points, serving as the most comprehensive open-source intelligence resource of its kind and underpinning MEF’s investigative and policy work.

Media and expert commentary: MEF staff and fellows made over 1,500 media appearances in 2025 across television, radio, and digital platforms, providing to Western audiences expert analysis on Middle East security, counterterrorism, and Islamist threats.

The Iran Freedom Project supported the Iranian people’s aspiration for secular, democratic self-governance by providing communications infrastructure and strategic support to the democratic opposition. MEF’s work helped sustain the protest movement’s connectivity and organizational capacity during periods of regime-imposed internet shutdowns, while MEF’s policy team pressed the U.S. government to adopt a posture of active support for the Iranian people rather than accommodation with the regime.

The Israel Victory Project advanced the principle that the Arab-Israeli conflict ends only when Palestinians accept Israel’s permanence. In 2025, MEF provided strategic counsel to Israeli officials, promoted the victory doctrine in Washington, D.C., and worked to reframe the policy conversation away from process management and toward conflict resolution through decisive outcomes.

MEF sustained its accountability campaign against Qatari financial influence in the United States, pressing American institutional investors to scrutinize their financial relationships with the Qatar Investment Authority and documenting Doha’s continued role in funding extremist movements and hostile information operations.

MEF monitored and exposed the Erdoğan government’s extraterritorial operations targeting dissidents, its support for Islamist movements across the region, and its ongoing efforts to extend political influence through Turkish diaspora institutions in the United States and Europe.

Islamist Watch and Focus on Western Islamism worked in tandem to expose and disrupt nonviolent Islamist networks operating within American institutions. Their combined investigative output identified Islamist influence operations in government agencies, nonprofits, academic institutions, and corporate governance structures, producing findings that informed both public awareness and federal policy responses.

MEF confronted campus antisemitism on two fronts: Campus Watch held universities and faculty accountable for enabling hostile environments, while the Legal Project pursued federal civil rights litigation against organizations coordinating the harassment of Jewish and Israeli students. Together, these efforts established that campus intimidation carries legal consequences.

MEF’s identification and elimination of over $3 billion in federal grants to terror-linked organizations represented the most significant disruption of state-facilitated terror financing in the United States in recent years. This work combined investigative research, congressional testimony, and sustained public engagement to permanently redirect taxpayer funds away from entities with documented extremist ties.