How These Notes Are Made

Purpose and Audience

MEF Policy Notes give congressional staff a two-page summary of what published Middle East Forum research and primary government records show on a policy question. They are educational. A note may name a bill so readers can find it; it does not ask anyone to vote for or against legislation and does not support or oppose any candidate. Each note ends with questions for oversight.

Sources

• Middle East Forum articles. 41 MEF-written articles, reports and analyses published on meforum.org between January 4, 2025 and September 22, 2026, read in full from MEF’s local archive of meforum.org. Sections used: Middle East Forum Observer, Middle East Forum Online, MEF reports, Middle East Quarterly, Campus Watch, Focus on Western Islamism, and press releases. Every footnote links to the article on meforum.org.
• Federal Register. Executive orders and State Department designation notices, retrieved from the Federal Register API (federalregister.gov) on 2026-10-04.
• Congress.gov. Every bill listed under “Related bills” was verified by number and title against the official congress.gov API (api.congress.gov) on 2026-10-04, and links to its congress.gov page. Listing a bill describes it; it is not a view on the bill.
• U.S. Department of Education Section 117 data. Qatar-origin figures in Note 01 are MEF calculations from the Department’s cumulative foreign gift and contract file dated September 30, 2026, published at foreignfundinghighered.gov. Institutions self-report these entries, and contract entries can carry values for future years.

Checks

• Claim check. Every sentence group in a note ends with a footnote. A script compares each number and multi-word name in that group with the full text of the sources cited for it; every flag is reviewed by hand before release.
• Educational screen. Each note’s full text passes MEF’s Hill Desk compliance screen for references to legislation, views on legislation, calls to action, and candidate or election language. A HIGH flag blocks the build.
• Two-page limit. The PDF build fails if a note runs past two pages or if any footnote fails to print.

Footnotes and Style

Notes follow the Chicago Manual of Style (notes and bibliography): a full note at first mention of a source, a short form after that, numbered in order of appearance. Statements marked “analysis” are the stated judgment of the named MEF author.

Audio

Each note has a narrated MP3 of its In brief and body sections (24.1 minutes across 6 notes). The voice is synthetic, generated with ElevenLabs text to speech from the published text. Questions for oversight and source notes are in the text and PDF versions.

License and Republishing

Note text is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International. Republishers credit the Middle East Forum with a link, run the text without edits, and keep the footnote links. This site uses no cookies, analytics, or tracking pixels, and does not record who republishes.

Versions and Corrections

Each note carries a version number and a version history table. When facts change, we issue a new version and record the change. Send corrections to info@meforum.org.

Coverage

This edition covers six topics: Qatari funding of U.S. universities, Iran’s shadow fleet, Muslim Brotherhood designations, Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping, Hezbollah finance, and Turkey and Hamas. Sources run from January 4, 2025 to September 22, 2026; primary records were retrieved in October 2026.