Who We Are
Welcome to Indiana Center for Middle East Peace (ICMEP), a 501c3, independent, non-sectarian organization.
Our Mission
We are a voice of conscience for peace, justice, human rights, and intercultural understanding.
What We Do
To achieve our mission, ICMEP:
Breaks down stereotypes and challenges intolerance, injustice, prejudice, and racism in all its forms, including Antisemitism and Islamophobia.
Provides critical analysis of the cultures, movements, and concerns in the Middle East and around the globe, focusing on justice and human rights.
Promotes strategies of non-violent conflict resolution, social transformation, and sustainable peace.
Supports the liberation of Palestine and self-determination of Palestinians, with full civil, political, and human rights.
Our History
Indiana Center for Middle East Peace was established in 2004 from an informal group begun in 2001 by Dr. Michael Spath. Michael spent the 1998-99 academic year as a Fulbright and Boren Graduate Scholar at the Royal Institute for Inter-Faith Studies in Amman, Jordan, under the patronage of HRH Prince El Hasan bin Talal (King Hussein’s brother). During that year, Michael traveled to Palestine and Israel a number of times, meeting with Palestinians and Israelis working for a just peace. Upon his family’s move to Fort Wayne, he decided to “introduce his friends here to his friends there,” thus beginning his “study and solidarity tours.” These tours became the foundation of his educational efforts to educate participants to both the injustice faced by Palestinians as well as their resilience and resistance to the ethnic cleansing perpetuated by a settler-colonial Israeli regime. Trip participants meet with Jews, Christians, and Muslims, Palestinians and Israelis working for a just peace, human rights, and non-violent social change. Michael has established a wide network of individuals and organizations working for non-violence, a just peace, and inter-cultural understanding around the world. He is a member of the Global Kairos for Justice Coalition, based in Bethlehem, and is co-chair of the Israel Committee Against House Demolitions.
In 2004, other interested individuals joined with him to more systematically plan events, raise funds, and create a formal organization. These grew into monthly programs that have featured scholars, activists, diplomats, artists, performers, and others from around the globe – Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, and others, religious and secular – whose goal is supporting full rights for Palestinians, the promotion of justice, non-violent conflict resolution, and the promotion of environmental care and sustainability.
Since 2004, more than 250 pilgrims and activists have traveled on Michael’s “solidarity tours,” and ICMEP has hosted more than 230 programs.