Alberto M. Fernandez

Alberto M. Fernandez (@AlbertoMiguelF5) is Vice President of the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), a position he held from 2015 to 2017. He previously served as President of Middle East Broadcasting Networks (MBN), a US-funded Arabic-language news organization, from 2017 to 2020.  Prior to joining MEMRI, Ambassador Fernandez was a Foreign Service Officer from 1983 to 2015 and served as the State Department’s Coordinator for the Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications from 2012 to 2015. He also served as U.S. Ambassador to Equatorial Guinea and U.S. Charge d’Affaires to Sudan. He held senior public diplomacy positions at the U.S. embassies in Afghanistan, Jordan, Syria, Guatemala, Kuwait, and in the Department’s Near East Affairs (NEA) Bureau. He speaks fluent Spanish and Arabic in addition to English.

 

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Securing a Core Group of Near East Allies to Counter Iran

The United States must cement a core group of allies in the Middle East as the basis for stability in a long-unstable region

Artsakh: Obsessions and Distractions in the Wake of the War in Ukraine

As the West is distracted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, another conflict simmers in the Caucasus.

Cuba Day of Freedom is Approaching, but the Challenge is Daunting - Protests
Cuba’s Day of Freedom is Approaching, but the Challenge is Daunting

Cubans deserve lives of dignity and freedom that have been so long denied them. The day of liberty is not quite at hand, but it is coming.

Erdogan’s Turkey and the American Guilt Gap
Erdogan’s Turkey and the American Guilt Gap

The odd thing about Bashir and Erdogan is how little they understand the West, and particularly the United States. There is no condemnation of America, its history, and its actions that foreign regimes can make that Americans did not make first, still make, and made more convincingly.

Beware Playing the Counterterrorism Game at Home
Beware Playing the Counterterrorism Game at Home

As shocking as the January 6 lawlessness was, I was surprised how quickly people who should know better switched gears and called for some version of the Global War on Terror to be fought—not on some distant desert or foreign mountain top—but inside America against American citizens.

Artsakh: The Lonely Christian Mountain
Artsakh: The Lonely Christian Mountain

It would truly horrific if once again another historic Eastern Christian people were to be ethnically cleansed and obliterated from their homeland as the world did nothing.

Jocelyne Khoueiry: A Life for Lebanon
Jocelyne Khoueiry: A Life for Lebanon

Jocelyne Khoueiry (1955–2020), who died on July 31, was a resistance fighter in the Lebanese Civil War but later created charitable organizations.

Where Statues of Slavers and Imperialists Still Stand in the Middle East
Where Statues of Slavers and Imperialists Still Stand in the Middle East

The Middle East is not overloaded with statues of historic figures, but they do exist. Some are of imperialists and slavers.

America’s Arabic-Language Media in the Middle East: A Conversation with Alberto M. Fernandez

In lieu of Providence’s regular social hour talk, Editor Mark Tooley spoke via Skype with Amb. Alberto M. Fernandez, president…

The Bold and the Free: Waging Media War in Arabic - Middle East Broadcasting Networks (MBN) - Al-Hurra
The Bold and the Free: Waging Media War in Arabic

Given the alarming trends in the Middle East, America should fashion agile media platforms that influence audiences in the region and—even more importantly—say something compelling.