There was a time when museums sought to elevate culture above politics. Today, at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, that line appears to have collapsed.
In an extraordinary author’s note accompanying the exhibition framing around Sūmud, the Palestinian ideology and strategy of everyday “resistance” against Israel, senior MFA curator Kristen Gresh presents one of the most incendiary accusations of our era—that Israel is committing “genocide”— not as a contested political claim, but as a moral and intellectual consensus.
That is not curation. That is activism wearing the mask of culture.
Museums occupy a unique place in public life. They are trusted institutions, granted credibility precisely because they are expected to illuminate rather than indoctrinate. When a senior curator uses that authority to elevate deeply disputed political narratives as unquestioned truth, the institution itself becomes politicized.
Words matter. “Genocide” is not a slogan or artistic metaphor. It is among the gravest accusations possible under international law. Yet inside one of America’s most respected museums, the term is deployed without balance, without context and without acknowledgment that the claim itself remains fiercely contested internationally.
Even major international reporting has raised serious questions about the politicization surrounding legal campaigns against Israel. Recent reports, including in The Wall Street Journal, detailed allegations that Qatari officials sought to influence International Criminal Court proceedings involving Israel, including claims that ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan was offered support and protection in connection with pursuing cases against Israeli leadership.
Whether fully substantiated or still under investigation, the allegations underscore a critical reality: the “genocide” narrative is not a universally accepted legal conclusion. It is a highly contested and deeply politicized accusation. Yet visitors entering the MFA are not presented with debate. They are presented with ideological certainty. And that certainty is deeply misleading.
The numbers themselves do not support the simplistic “genocide” narrative being promoted in activist spaces. Civilian casualties in war, however tragic, do not automatically constitute genocide. Intent matters. Context matters. Hamas embedding itself within civilian infrastructure matters. The reality of urban warfare matters. Yet nuance disappears the moment ideology takes control of the narrative.
And once these narratives are legitimized by elite institutions, they do not remain confined to gallery walls.
They spread outward into universities, activist circles and public discourse.
Just a few miles from the MFA, the city of Somerville, Mass., next to Cambridge, has become one of the clearest examples of this ideological pipeline. Activism is rooted in slogans rather than complexity, increasingly dominating the public conversation: “genocide,” “resistance,” “colonialism.” These words are repeated endlessly, often stripped of history, stripped of context and stripped of accountability.
And the overlap between institutional messaging and activist rhetoric is difficult to ignore.
Kristen Gresh’s daughter, Leyla Abarca-Gresh, founder of Somerville High for Palestine, has been publicly associated with activist efforts promoting many of the same narratives and slogans now echoed inside elite cultural spaces. The continuity is striking. What appears in the museum as “interpretation” quickly re-emerges in activist spaces as unquestionable dogma. The language is the same. The framing is the same. The moral certainty is the same.
This isn’t coincidence; it’s cultural reinforcement.
Most revealing is Gresh’s framing of the word “resistance.” In her writing, resistance is elevated into something poetic and morally enlightened—a philosophy, a cultural identity, a form of perseverance. But history does not allow the word to exist in a vacuum.
In the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, “resistance” has repeatedly manifested through intifadas, suicide bombings, rocket attacks, kidnappings and the rejection of Israel’s legitimacy as a Jewish state. To invoke the language of “resistance” without confronting that history is not nuance but selective moral framing.
Dressing ideology in the language of art doesn’t make it less ideological. It merely makes it more socially acceptable.
This is how modern anti-Zionism increasingly crosses into something darker. Not criticism of Israeli policy, which exists vigorously within Israel itself, but the normalization of narratives that portray the Jewish state as uniquely illegitimate, uniquely criminal and uniquely deserving of moral condemnation.
As I work on my documentary, “Ashes of Identity,” examining the post-Oct. 7 explosion of antisemitism and information warfare, I have had the opportunity to interview leading Israeli voices, including journalist and author Ben-Dror Yemini. His book, Industry of Lies, explores how repetition transforms distortion into perceived truth.
His warning is clear: Repetition of falsehoods and misinformation can transform distortion into perceived reality. What begins as institutional framing becomes public belief—and public belief, left unchallenged, becomes hostility. That insight feels painfully relevant now.
Once institutions repeat accusations often enough, they stop being treated as claims and begin functioning as accepted reality. That is precisely why this matters.
The MFA will likely argue that it is simply presenting perspectives and encouraging dialogue. But dialogue requires intellectual honesty and complexity. It requires acknowledging that serious people can disagree about contested issues. What we are witnessing instead is ideological packaging disguised as cultural interpretation.
And there is a profound difference between presenting art and weaponizing art in service of a political narrative.
No one is arguing that museum curators are forbidden from holding political views. They are citizens and entitled to their opinions. But there is a critical distinction between personal advocacy and institutional authority.
If someone in a position as influential as a senior MFA curator wishes to engage in activism surrounding one of the most divisive geopolitical conflicts in the world, that is their right. But they should not do so through the institutional voice of a major American museum.
Art should challenge audiences. It should provoke thought. It should not become a mechanism for laundering ideology through cultural prestige.
Boston deserves better from its institutions.
And institutions entrusted with public credibility have an obligation to remember the difference between curating culture and campaigning through it.
