How do Native Americans see the situation in Gaza: a parallel path?

by Raffaella Milandri©

The similarities, primarily related to colonialism and the concept of identity and territory, seem obvious. But to report a uniform opinion on the most debated issue, particularly since last 7 October, is difficult: many support the Palestinians, some are on Israel’s side, others have no opinion. As we will see at the end of this article, it is always the Sioux-Lakota who are the most combative.

Impending elections

The general mood is to stop what has been denounced as genocide, of which the Natives have also been victims; but the impending American elections would invite caution in expressing an opinion on such a sensitive issue, particularly in the United States. Native Americans still lack a strong political position, even though they have Deb Haaland, a Pueblo tribal member, as Secretary of the Interior in the Biden administration. Her role – supported by a Native community (and its votes) of more than 9,700,000 people, according to the 2020 census – has been overshadowed during Biden’s tenure, as has that of Kamala Harris, who only in the face of the recent Democratic nomination has been ‘resurrected’ to a prominent position and much praise.

After all, if the Dem candidate supports Israel – while lamenting the high number of Palestinian victims in her recent statements – her party has given space to Native American exponents among the political figures. On the other hand, a possible – and certainly not to be ruled out – election of Trump to the White House could mean trouble for the Native American community as well as its environmentalist struggles. Let us listen to some Native American voices.

Native American protests

Many in the indigenous community see what happened more than 500 years ago in the Americas as a ‘parallel path’ to what the Palestinians have been facing for the past 75 years. As we have seen in previous articles in this column, it is estimated that up to 56 million indigenous Americans were killed in the first 100 years of European colonisation of the Americas. Today, the remaining Native American tribes are forced to live on just two per cent of US land.

Since the beginning of the Israeli bombardment of Gaza in October, groups such as NDN Collective and The Red Nation have issued written statements calling for an end to ‘colonialism’ and genocide, adding that ‘Palestinian rights are indigenous rights on those lands and we are on indigenous land here in the United States’.

Tara Houska, Couchiching First Nation tribal lawyer and former Indian Affairs advisor to Bernie Sanders (2016), speaking to TRT World, said she had witnessed ‘efforts to remove Palestinians from Palestine’ for decades, but that the Israeli occupation has now ‘become openly genocidal in its scope and actions.’ He continued: ‘My ancestors were almost exterminated in genocide. We were dehumanised, degraded and had no rights to our homelands. We were relocated to small portions of the land we called home for generations. I see many of these same tactics being used against the Palestinian people’. Houska’s activism included chaining herself to an excavator in October at the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) in Pembroke, Virginia. The fracking gas pipeline, more than 300 miles long, has been targeted as a protest site because oil from the pipeline is believed to serve Elbit Systems in Roanoke, Virginia. The company produces Israeli weapons that have been used against Palestinians. Added Houska: ‘International diplomacy must take place with Palestine at the table as an equal and self-determined party – until then,Wiikwaji’ikog Baneshtiinanaang Palestine!’, meaning ‘Liberate the people of Palestine’ in Houska’s native Ojibwe language.

Native American support for Palestine goes back at least half a century: the Native American Movement and the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) had already supported each other in the 1970s. More recently, in 2016, Native Americans, clad in Palestinian keffiyehs, sided with Palestinian Youth Movement activists to protest the construction of oil pipelines that would destroy the Sioux-Lakota tribe’s indigenous religious and cultural sites at Standing Rock, North Dakota, as well as contaminate their water supply. James Zogby, president of the Washington-based Arab-American Institute, said that indigenous Native Americans and Palestinians ‘share the same narrative’. He added: ‘The Zionist settlers who came to Palestine in the 1920s recognised this. They sometimes referred to the Palestinian Arabs they encountered as ‘redskins’ – savages to be defeated, obstacles to their ambitions that had to be removed’.

Indigenous solidarity was not limited to street protests and social media posts. In November, the MV Cape Orlando, a US military ship believed to be carrying weapons bound for Israel, was blocked by a traditional canoe of the Puyallup Tribe, a native of Tacoma in Washington State. Activist Patricia Gonzalez said at the time: ‘We realised we had to do the most powerful thing in our culture that we know how to do. Get on the water and defend our position’.

NAISA, Native American and Indigenous Studies Association, issued a statement last April, which I quote here:

‘We at the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association condemn in the strongest terms the Israeli genocide in Gaza and the ongoing colonial elimination against Palestinians. In accordance with international law, we demand an immediate ceasefire, immediate access to humanitarian aid, an impartial investigation into all atrocities committed, an end to the illegal occupation of Palestinian land, and the right of return for Palestinian refugees. We also call for an end to all foreign military aid to Israel. We extend our deepest solidarity to the Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, the Occupied Territories and those living in the Diaspora as they try to survive this genocidal assault by any means necessary. Colonialism and genocide should be the most recognisable forms of oppression, which should also make them easy crimes to prevent and punish. Not so. The ongoing Israeli genocide against the Palestinians is perhaps the first genocide in history to be broadcast in real time. Yet global leaders and institutions seem unwilling to stop it, despite widespread opposition. Indigenous peoples better understand what it means to be subjects of colonising states that deny, hide or try to erase their complicity in genocide and colonialism. This is why we have formed intellectual communities and professional organisations such as the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA) – to study and resist colonialism, in all its manifestations, and to focus on the intellectual abundance and diverse experiences of indigenous peoples. We understand that individual Council members and many members of the NAISA community have organised for solidarity with Palestine within their institutional and community capacities and have been the target of smear campaigns aimed at silencing academic freedom, indigenous activism and Palestinian scholars. We support the principles of academic freedom and the right to resist colonialism in all its forms. We stand in solidarity with all lecturers and students who have been threatened, suspended or dismissed for their opposition to the ongoing Palestinian genocide. We strongly condemn the use of violence and threats of violence by university administrators against students, faculty and staff who express pro-Palestinian positions. While politicians and university administrators have criminalised non-violent, student-led anti-genocide protests on university campuses – calling them ‘unsafe’, Israel has destroyed, in whole or in part, every university in Gaza, making no space safe for education. Human rights experts considered the annihilation of Gaza’s education system as ‘scholasticide’. Since 7 October 2023, the Israeli army has killed more than 5,479 students, 261 teachers and 95 university professors in Gaza, and more than 7,819 students and 756 teachers have been injured. We stand in solidarity with all Palestinian educators, students and education workers and mourn the loss of those killed and injured by this genocidal campaign. We reject the framing of this conflagration as a ‘conflict’ that began on 7 October 2023.  ‘Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza is an escalation phase of a long-standing colonial process of erasure [of Palestinian life],’ concludes a recent UN report assessing the situation. The Palestinian Nakba has been unfolding for over seven decades. Israel has suppressed all aspects of Palestinian cultural, economic and political life in an attempt to expropriate and control Palestinian land and resources. Genocide is intrinsic to settler colonialism as a process that attempts to eliminate and replace native peoples. For this reason, NAISA was an early supporter of the academic boycott of Israeli institutions and has remained a committed ally of Palestinian academic freedom in the face of Israeli repression’.

The Oglala Sioux Tribe passed a resolution in support of Palestinians in Gaza

The Tribal Council of the Oglala Sioux Tribe passed a resolution in support of the Palestinians of Gaza at the end of March. The resolution refers to the parallels between what happened to Native Americans in the United States and what is currently happening to the Palestinians in Gaza. States the Tribal Council: ‘Throughout US history, indigenous peoples have been subjected to decades of genocide driven by the federal government’s effort to uproot and forcibly assimilate Native Americans. On Monday 25 March, in a report published by the United Nations, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese, stated that there are clear indications that Israel has violated three of the five acts listed in the UN Genocide Convention. The organisation Honor the Earth stated in a press release that the Oglala Lakota are known for fighting against colonialism, and citing the history between the Palestinian and Lakota peoples, including the time when the Palestinians sided with the Native Americans in solidarity at Standing Rock and Wounded Knee (as we saw earlier). ‘Just as the Palestinians showed up for us at the United Nations, at Wounded Knee and at Standing Rock, they will show up for us again when we call them. This is the essence of being a good family member in warrior society,’ Krystal Two Bulls (Oglala Lakota/Northern Cheyenne), Executive Director of Honor the Earth, said in the press release. ‘That is why we, as Oglala, must demonstrate for them now!’.

In conclusion, there are many Native Americans who support the Palestinian cause. But as we have seen so far, the substance does not change. I can find no better way to end this article than with the words of Chase Iron Eyes director of The Lakota People’s Law Project, in his statement of 26 July.

‘It has been a crazy week in US politics. Last Sunday, President Joe Biden withdrew from the re-election race, immediately endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris to take his place at the top of the Democratic ticket. Then, a wave of endorsements from other leading semi-Democrats – including virtually all of her would-be challengers – helped make Harris the Democratic nominee. And all this took place against the backdrop of a Wednesday visit to Congress by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, reportedly boycotted by nearly half of the Democratic lawmakers. Meanwhile, before that speech, many took to the streets to protest on behalf of the innocent Palestinians who are suffering a deadly humanitarian crisis at the hands of Netanyahu’s aggressively Zionist government. And almost too predictably here in Indian Country, those who have attempted to freely express this viewpoint have been threatened at gunpoint. Lakota legal representative Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) attended Netanyahu’s speech to a joint meeting of Congress on Wednesday – in protest. We must recognise and address all forms of political violence – from systemic issues to holding perpetrators accountable. These young members of the Oglala Lakota Chapter of the International Council of Indigenous Youth should be applauded for taking a stand for humanity, and not be forced to fear for their lives. I have said it over and over again: The genocide of Palestinian families at the hands of the Netanyahu regime is no more acceptable than the killing of innocent Israelis by Hamas rockets, the historic attempts to exterminate Jews, or the US government’s attempt to eliminate natives. We stand in solidarity with all indigenous peoples and anyone who suffers, bleeds or dies when those who crave and cling to power pursue their destructive agendas. It is time to stop the killing. It is time to stop the violence. The purveyors of war (who sell ammunition and lend money to all sides in the conflict) must be neutralised, and it is time to act with all we have to oppose authoritarianism.

Wopila tanka – thank you for standing up for peace”.

Published originally in Italian in The AntiDiplomatico, 31 July 2024

“Nativi” column by Raffaella Milandri

https://www.lantidiplomatico.it/news-nativi/53237/