He did, and it was careless of him. He has stated that he will agree to provide a correction when he is provided with the actual amount.

As I posted on Brad DeLong's site, one should not assume that the $1.7 million of support reported by MEMRI on its 2002 Form 990 is the group's total support. Donations of services are not reportable. MEMRI had a payroll of about $350,000, half of which was for just two employees. That leaves $175,000 for all other staff of an organization that has offices in D.C., Berlin, Brussels, Israel, London, and Moscow. It is quite possible that there are people in those offices providing services to MEMRI, but compensated by a third party. But not anything near enough to equal a $60 million organization, I'd bet.

Cole claimed that MEMRI was a PR arm of Likud.  It is not.

No, Cole said "MEMRI is one of a number of public relations campaigns essentially on behalf of the far right-wing Likud Party in Israel." The language is clear, just as it is clear in the following statement: The Swift Boat Veterans for the Truth was a public relations campaign essentially on behalf of the Bush/Cheney campaign.

MEMRI was founded by a retired Israeli colonel from military intelligence, and co-run by Meyrav Wurmser, wife of David Wurmser. David Wurmser is close to the Likud Party in Israel and served in Douglas Feith's Office of Special Plans in the Pentagon, where he helped manufacture the case that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and was linked to al-Qaeda.  . . .

MEMRI is funded to the tune of $60 million a year by someone, and it is a sophisticated anti-Arab propaganda machine. The organization cleverly cherry-picks the vast Arabic press, which serves 300 million people, for the most extreme and objectionable articles and editorials. It carefully does not translate the moderate articles. I have looked at newspapers that ran both tolerant and extremist opinion pieces on the same day, and checked MEMRI, to find that only the extremist one showed up. It would sort of be as though al-Jazeera published translations of Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, and Jerry Falwell on Islam and the Middle East, but never published opinion pieces on the subject by William Beeman or Dick Bulliet.

MEMRI is enormously popular with strong Jewish nationalists in the United States . . . the main objection is the selectiveness of the material. MEMRI is one of a number of public relations campaigns essentially on behalf of the far right-wing Likud Party in Israel that tries to shape American perceptions of Muslims and the Middle East in a negative direction.

Lets look at the "three strikes".

1.  I think we've agreed that his funding number was incorrect.  As I said, I would be interested to know the origin of his figure.  I doubt it was made up out of thin air or deliberately, but it might have been from another inaccurate source, or a number for another group, or even from shoddy research.  In any case, it would be useful to know why it was wrong.  The statement was false in the sense that it was inaccurate - but mere inaccuracy does not demonstrate deception or malice.

Moreover, Cole writes today:

MEMRI Funding

I have received several emails from people who looked up the funding for MEMRI in the internet guide to charitable organizations, and found that it reported income of a little less than $2 million a year.

But that is only the United States. MEMRI is an international organization. It has, for instance, a Berlin branch, which has also brandished lawsuit threats.

Does it have an Israel office? If so, housed where? How much of its work is done offshore? Why did Brian Whitaker find that three of its Washington staff was ex-Israeli military intelligence?

In fact, MEMRI's website lists several international bureaus, including its main Media Center in Jerusalem, and it largely silent as to whether these other bureaus are independent or are also financed out of the budget for the US 501(c)(3) organization.  $500K to $1 is good money for a Washington lobbying shop; for an international translation service (offices in at least three countries, services in 8 languages!), it seems a bit low.  I'm not sure how many people it would take, but that kind of money isn't going to pay very many translators in Washington or Berlin.  Still, I have no additional information so I would like to see some light shed on the origin of the $60m number, or some information that perhaps MEMRI's US budget does not account for its overseas operations.

2.  Cole says that when there are moderate and extreme Arab columnists, MEMRI nearly always translates only the extreme columns.  You agree he is cherry-picking.  As Cole states in his response, he is addressing the problem that MEMRI ignores moderate religious voices in the Arab press - and so the fact that it offers translations of secularists is not relevant.  I think those secular translations are somewhat relevant, but still his point that the moderate religious voices are being omitted is important.  

Much the same happens in the US when conservatives marginilize and ignore moderate Christians, prefering to cast political and social struggle between only a pious extreme Evangelical Christianity and the evil Secular Humanists.  The fact that there is a Christian Left, and that many Catholics are opposed to war and the death penalty is left out.

3.  Cole did NOT say MEMRI is part of the Likud political party, as his correspondent suggests.  You claim he used "weasel words", but their meaning is not weaseling: MEMRI and Likud party pursue some similar political goals.  MEMRI works to support its agenda, and that agenda is also supported by Likud.  Likud supporters use MEMRI research.  MEMRI was co-founded by the spouse of someone "close" to Likud.  Cole did NOT say that Likud finances MEMRI, that MEMRI has made improper political contrbutions either in Israel or America, the MEMRI acts at the direction of Likud, or vice versa.  Cole at no time stated or implied that MEMRI was "affiliated with the government", "received government funding", or that Col. Carmon was part of the Likud Party.

So one strike - and the most inconsequential of the three.  And since only one of his statements was false, I'm not sure that MEMRI gets anything out of this other than a reputation for hypersensitivity.