More than two months after a Springfield man spoke on campus about his experience traveling to Israel with a Christian
peacemaking group, debate is still simmering.
Matt Chandler spoke at a Pacifica Forum meeting April 21, and was critical of Israeli settlers (“Member of Christian group recounts recent trip to Israel,” ODE April 25).
University student Matt Peterson said he was at the EMU amphitheater listening to members of the Jewish Student Union read Holocaust victims’ names when the story grabbed his attention in a big way. In response he wrote his own guest commentary to the Emerald.
Peterson said he considered Chandler’s remarks about Israel to be inaccurate and anti-Semitic.
“I was literally sitting there listening to them read the names and I thought how great it is to live in a time where we read the names of Holocaust victims,” Peterson said. “Then I opened the paper to this article and was inflamed.”
Peterson said he had been considering writing a pro-Israel commentary for some time, making the article an easy “jumping-off” point.
Peterson’s commentary (“Christian group member made false assertions about Israel.” ODE May 12), was published more than a month ago, but inspired the Pacifica Forum to continue the debate.
The organization, which sponsored Matt Chandler’s talk, describes itself as “concerned with the plight of the Palestinians.” While the group has been in existence since 1994, it has devoted much of the past three years to studying the condition of the Palestinian people under Israeli occupation, group member Orval Etter said.
The group decided to make Peterson’s commentary the topic of this week’s meeting, in part because members of the group did not believe Peterson’s arguments were entirely valid, he said. Peterson was not invited to the meeting to participate.
“We don’t think numerous points in this (Peterson’s commentary) hold water,” Etter said. “Because it had features that make it a good lesson in argumentation we decided to hold
a session.”
During the discussion, members of the group suggested that Peterson’s commentary was an “expertly written” lesson in argument designed to evoke emotion by referencing the Holocaust and the Ku Klux Klan as well as quoting Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr. One man, who did not wish to be identified, suggested that the commentary was so well-written, it could not have been the work of just one college student.
Peterson, who has spent over six months in Israel and has traveled to Egypt and Jordan as well, said his commentary was a solo effort driven by his passion for the topic.
“I did not have help from anyone. In terms of politics, other than environmental issues, I spend time trying to convince the world that Israel has the right to exist,” he said. “This is my one contribution to world peace.”
Forum members also questioned Peterson’s reference to Chandler’s comparison of Israeli settlers to the Ku Klux Klan members. Peterson, who did not attend Chandler’s talk, said the Emerald article reported that Chandler made the comparison. Another group member who wished to remain anonymous said he heard Chandler speak twice and did not recall hearing a comparison to the white supremacy group.
That group member said that Peterson’s ability to bring the KKK into the discussion was “clever.”
Peterson said all the assertions made in his own article were valid and based on quotes from the Emerald article.
“If they (the Pacifica Forum) think Matt Chandler is a good example of someone trying to create world peace, let them stand by his statements,” Peterson said.
Peterson said his commentary was not “a lesson in argumentation,” as Etter suggested Friday, and added that he did not intend to create a “lesson in rhetoric,” nor did he draw connections to the Holocaust and the words of Dr. King simply to evoke emotion.
While he believes everything he wrote was valid and in context, Peterson said he does regret incorrectly attributing King’s statement that anti-Zionism equates to anti-Semitism which was noted in a letter to the editor.
Peterson said he has researched the King quote and it did come from the speech at Harvard in which King was criticizing members of the Black Panthers for supporting civil rights while being anti-Israel. He said the quote was printed in a December 1969 Encounter magazine article by Seymour Martin Lipset titled “The Socialism of Fools: The Left, the Jews and Israel.”
While Peterson admits he should have researched the King quote more thoroughly, he says the quote was still used in the correct context and he does not regret using it.
“I brought that up to show that I am not anti-Christian – my dad is a Christian – because many Christians follow the teachings of Dr. King,” Peterson said. “I’ve found nothing to discredit the idea that King was a livelong pro-Zionist.”
Peterson emphasized that everything he wrote was based on his past research and passion for the right of Israel to exist.
“What I wrote I laid out there for everyone to read and whether they agree or disagree, I made my point and I stand by it,”
Peterson said.
Etter, who chaired the meeting Friday, said the forum has been often characterized as anti-Semitic for its pro-Palestine stance and lost more than one venue to hold meetings before it found a home at the University through Etter’s privileges as an emeritus professor. The group also formed a second organization known as the Campus Civil Liberties Circle to create a forum in which any topic could be freely discussed.
“This University has a commendable tradition of free speech so in our small way we want to contribute to that,” Etter said.