| On Saturday, January 3, the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette published a Letter to the Editor from Pam Etheridge, ICMEP Board Chair, on behalf of the entire board, responding to a previous op-ed by Steven Greenberg, who describes himself as “a Fort Wayne native and a Tel Aviv-based novelist and writer.” Greenberg criticized a picture he saw on Facebook of ICMEP members creating a sign that said, “Globalize the Intifada.” In his op-ed, Greenberg stated, “… when you call out or write ‘Globalize the Intifada,’ you are literally calling for the mass murder of Jews.” ICMEP immediately submitted an Op-Ed reply, urging the Journal Gazette to give equal treatment to our Op-Ed in response to Greenberg’s. While we appreciate the Journal Gazette printing our response, they made the decision to edit it and publish it as an abbreviated Letter to the Editor. Below is our full (submitted) Op-Ed. Thank you to Pam Etheridge and the entire ICMEP Board for weighing in with our important and necessary response to Greenberg’s defamatory accusation and setting the record straight. Michael |
| Steven Greenberg (December 17 op-ed) criticizes Indiana Center for Middle East Peace (ICMEP) for some of its activist members creating the sign “Globalize the Intifada,” suggesting it means “Murder Jews.” Greenberg’s accusation is mistaken on many levels. First, context is ignored. According to the United Nations, 70,000+ Gazans killed, 170,000+ injured, 1.9 million displaced, hospitals, schools and universities, churches and mosques destroyed, famine throughout, humanitarian aid denied. Also ignored, the International Court of Justice, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Doctors without Borders, the International Association of Genocide Scholars, Pax Christi, and US Jewish groups, IfNotNow, Rabbis for Ceasefire, Jewish Voice for Peace, and Israeli human rights groups, B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, and many others all accuse Israel of genocide. Second, ICMEP stands foursquare against antisemitism, Islamophobia, and racism and prejudice in all its forms. We deeply grieve the loss of all life, including those Jewish lives in Sydney and the other places Greenberg mentions. Third, he conflates Zionism and support for Israel with Judaism, the Jewish faith. The Christian nationalism that progressives, including many Jews, criticize in our country and Jewish Christian Zionism are two sides of the same coin, both ethnonationalist movements, one in the US, the other in Israel. Fourth, Jewish people are not a monolith, politically nor theologically. ICMEP is a proud partner with an increasing number of anti-Zionist Jews, especially young Jews, as well as the anti-Zionist Jewish Voice for Peace, and its regional affiliates JVP-Detroit and JVP-Indianapolis. His mischaracterization of “Globalize the Intifada,” like “From the river to the sea,” serves as a distraction from, as Jewish Voice for Peace puts it, “the efforts of the Israeli and U.S. governments to turn Jewish grief into a justification for genocide.” Fifth, “Globalize the intifada” is not a call for violence against Jews (again, he equates anti-Zionism and criticism of Israel with antisemitism), rather a shorthand for many pro-justice organizations for a “shaking off” (the literal meaning of “intifada”) the illegal Israeli occupation and resisting Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza and the West Bank. Sixth, as Jewish Voice for Peace states, “We know that this genocide is not an aberration of Israeli policy, but the result of the political logic of Zionism: an expansionist project seeking the maximum amount of land for Israel through cleansing Palestinian and Lebanese peoples, and willing to commit unimaginable horrors to achieve this goal.” We don’t usually engage in this kind of tit-for-tat with our critics, but Mr. Greenberg’s defamatory accusation compels us to respond. In short, ICMEP stands firm in our solidarity with the people of Palestine and their struggle for liberation, and we do so with the many US Jewish, Israeli, and other human rights organizations mentioned above, as well as countless other voices of conscience around the world. Pam Etheridge, Chair For the Board of Indiana Center for Middle East Peace |