Scholars oppose Navajo/Israel partnership

Indigenous Scholars Oppose Navajo President 'Becoming Partners' With Israel

By Gale Courey ToensingA group of prominent scholars has written to Navajo Nation President Ben Shelly expressing disappointment at his support for Israel and urging him to pursue international relationships that mirror indigenous values and justice.

Robert Warrior, an Osage Nation citizen and Director of American Indian Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he is professor of American Indian Studies, English, and History, signed an April 3 letter to Navajo Nation President Ben Shelly on behalf of a group of American Indian, Native Hawaiian, and other indigenous scholars, taking Shelly to task for his recent trip to Israel.

“As indigenous educators, we find your support for the state of Israel to be in complete contradiction to our values and sense of justice. Israel has illegally occupied Palestine for decades,” the group wrote. “Your public and political engagement with [Israeli] Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials sends a message that you endorse the continued occupation of the West Bank, including construction of new Jewish settlements there, as well as the ongoing settler colonial situation for Palestinians residing within the 1948 boundaries asserted by the Israeli state, and exclusion of Palestinian refugees from reclaiming their homes and homeland after being violently expelled during the nakba (catastrophe) when Israel was founded.”

Shelley met with Netanyahu and other officials at the Knesset [parliament] including the Deputy Minister of Development. “I want to work with your people. I know that Israel is self-sufficient, what we need is your expertise, what can we share,” Shelly said in a Navajo Nation press release December 12, 2012. “What I read of you—you were no different than we are. How did you survive while moving forward in technology, greenhouses—I am interested in that and becoming partners.”

On February 1, 2013, Shelly met with Israeli diplomats and members of the Arizona Israel Business Council in Arizona to follow up on his December visit to Israel and in March Israeli farmers visited Navajo Nation to speak to Navajo farmers at a two-day conference.

The scholars refuted Shelly’s statement that the Israelis “were no different than we are,” asserting instead that the Indigenous Peoples’ experience parallels what has happened to the occupied Palestinians. The Diné people, like the other Indigenous Peoples represented by the scholars have suffered through the process of settlement, colonization, or militarization of their homelands, the group wrote. “Thanks to the wisdom of our ancestors, we have persisted. But our prospects as peoples will never be as full or complete as they might have been had those who colonized us been just and honest in their dealings with us. A similar process has unfolded for Palestinian people over the past half-century. Indeed, Israel demolition of the homes of Palestinian families is not all that different than the Long Walk your people endured in 1864. Your collusion with the Israeli government is a betrayal of that shared history and of the wisdom that has helped all Indigenous Peoples survive for centuries,” the scholars wrote.Comment:  For more on Indians and Israel, see Critics Slam Harjo's Trip and LaDuke on Gaza: "We Are Israel."

Palestinians endorse Idle No More

Palestinians Endorse Idle No More

By Gale Courey ToensingAmerican Indians and Palestinians have supported each other’s struggle since at least the 1970s when the American Indian Movement hosted a delegation of leaders from the Palestinian Liberation Organization.

“What the American Indian Movement says is that the American Indians are the Palestinians of the United States, and the Palestinians are the American Indians of the Middle East,” the late great Indian leader Russell Means said many times. So it is no surprise that Palestinian activists are coming out in support of Idle No More.

In little more than two weeks since the December 10 launching of the Idle No More movement by First Nations in Canada oppose a Senate omnibus budget bill that leaves them with no power over their lands and resources, dozens of organizations and hundreds of individuals supporting Palestinian liberation and human rights have endorsed the Palestinians in Solidarity with Idle No More and Indigenous Rights statement of support of the continuing Native protest that has spread across Canada, the U.S., some European countries and into the Middle East. Palestinians in Solidarity with Idle No More and Indigenous Rights calls for justice, dignity, decolonization and protection of the land, waters and resources.

“We recognize the deep connections and similarities between the experiences of our peoples–settler colonialism, destruction and exploitation of our land and resources, denial of our identity and rights, genocide and attempted genocide,” the statement says. “As Palestinians, we stood with the national liberation movement against settler colonialism in South Africa, as we stand with all liberation movements challenging colonialism and imperialism around the world. The struggle of Indigenous and Native peoples in Canada and the United States has long been known to the Palestinian people, reflecting our common history as peoples and nations subject to ethnic cleansing at the hands of the very same forces of European colonization.”

The statement goes on to recognize that the Indigenous resistance movement in Canada “includes struggles against the ongoing theft of indigenous lands, massive resource extraction and environmental devastation (including tar sands and pipelines), the continuing movement of survivors of the genocidal residential school system, and movements to demand an end to the colonial and gendered violence against Indigenous women.”
Comment:  For more on the Indian-Palestinian connection, see Critics Slam Harjo's Trip and LaDuke on Gaza:  We Are Israel.

Critics slam Harjo's trip

Two good responses to the Joy Harjo controversy deserve to be quoted in full:

Palestinian Trail of Tears: Joy Harjo’s Missed Opportunity for Indigenous Solidarity

By Sa'ed Adel AtshanEver since my childhood, I have always felt a deep connection with Native Americans. At the Ramallah Friends School, a Quaker institution established in Palestine over a century ago, we learned about our shared history as indigenous peoples who have faced ethnic cleansing by European colonists and the importance of nonviolent resistance for freedom and dignity.

Many Palestinians and those in solidarity with our struggle had hoped that Joy Harjo would be principled in heeding the calls of another subjugated people. We have been profoundly dismayed by her recent decision to accept funding from Tel Aviv University, an Israeli state institution, and to not only perform there on Monday but also to serve as a Writer-in-Residence. Soon after hearing this disappointing news, Native American peers of Harjo, including Robert Warrior, called on her to boycott the event. The Palestinian Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) sent an open letter to Harjo imploring her to honor the boycott. A USACBI petition generated over 2,000 signatures within 36 hours. Harjo disregarded these requests and announced that she would proceed with the performance. Her statement expressed sympathy for Palestinian and Jewish suffering without acknowledging that many American settlers—like their Israeli counterparts—had also faced persecution in Europe, and that Jewish and Israeli voices have been invaluable to the BDS movement. Harjo crossed the picket line. She helped provide legitimacy to an institution that sits above the ethnically cleansed Palestinian village of Shaykh Muwannis while supporting the Israeli military occupation which is illegal under international law.

In Israel/Palestine, the displacement of Native Palestinian Christians and Muslims continues in an Israeli campaign to maintain a “Jewish state” privileging one ethno-religious group and institutionalizing segregation and discrimination with impunity. Israel just announced approval for 3,000 new Jewish-only settlement units in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Each day, Israel steals more Palestinian land, bulldozes more homes, uproots more trees, and detains more children. The Palestinian cry for peace and justice continues after over six decades of dispossession. We look to people of conscience around the globe to hear this cry. Considering that Israel is the world’s largest recipient of U.S. aid, American tax dollars prolong the oppression of Palestinians.

Although this Trail of Tears continues, we have the power to stop it. The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) call was issued in 2005 by over 170 Palestinian civil society organizations. This has become a global movement that draws inspiration from the South African struggle. Israel was one of apartheid South Africa’s greatest allies. Israel adopted many of South Africa’s policies which have been fundamental to the apartheid system imposed on indigenous Palestinians. Apartheid came to an end in South Africa as a result of external pressure through a global boycott, and the movement today boycotting Israeli organizations that are complicit in segregation and ethnic cleansing has been growing dramatically. The power of this approach comes from its effectiveness, nonviolent nature, targeting of institutions rather than individuals, and our demands for basic rights and Israeli compliance with international law.

Many activists have devoted countless hours in reaching out to Harjo on her Facebook page. So many of us have written respectfully as fans. I posted a comment explaining that Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza Strip could not attend her performance because of the nature of the Israeli apartheid system, forced removal, and severe limits on mobility, including the right to travel from one Palestinian village to the next. It has been painful to see Harjo respond to various messages except those coming from Palestinian voices. She later posted: “I invite anyone here to sit at my kitchen table to speak with me.” Palestinians replied. I, too, sent a private email in addition to a Facebook message reiterating that we have limited mobility:

I understand what means to be indigenous to a land and to feel the spirit of our ancestors calling on us to return in the face of ethnic cleansing and colonization…My relatives and friends, who are now refugees in the West Bank… would all love to hear you speak, to meet you, to break bread with you on your kitchen table in Tel Aviv. Our village and ancestral lands are actually there beside you in Tel Aviv, yet we are refugees, and Palestinians are denied our right to return to homes and lands. My family and loved ones, who would be eager to accept your invitation cannot even travel freely within our own country, finding ourselves like animals behind cages, within Israeli prison cells, with a Wall three times the height of the Berlin Wall, hundreds of checkpoints between Palestinian towns, and Israeli settlements with Jewish-only roads devastating the earth.

I still have not received a response from Harjo.

We also drew her attention to those who have joined the boycott movement such as Alice Walker, Angela Davis, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Naomi Klein, Judith Butler, Roger Waters, Jewish Voice for Peace, among many others. We shared our recent victory with Stevie Wonder. We posted about our work with Palestinian Queers for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions and an LGBT delegation from the U.S. to Palestine who endorsed BDS. The Indigenous and Women of Color delegation also called for BDS. We cited the Russell Tribunal on Palestine which included Dennis Banks from the American Indian Movement. We also posted that South Africans are helping to lead the global boycott struggle including Mbuyiseni Ndlozi. We shared the African National Congress’ official support for BDS and the statement by Baleka Mbete after her visit to Palestine that the Israeli regime “is far worse than Apartheid South Africa.”

No amount of pleading could move Harjo. She was persistent on accepting funds from—and granting legitimacy to—an institution complicit in Israeli colonization of Palestinian lands. Sarah Schulman, an esteemed writer and activist, who is lesbian, Jewish, and a supporter of the BDS movement also reached out to Harjo in an effort to convince her that the trip could instead engage Israelis and Palestinians in Tel Aviv and in the West Bank at venues that abide by the boycott guidelines. Schulman, too, had previously been invited to speak at Tel Aviv University and declined in order to honor the BDS call and used that as an opportunity for a solidarity visit that she chronicled in her recent book. Harjo refused Schulman’s request.

Academics and artists are not exempt from ethical responsibility. Just like with Sun City in apartheid South Africa, we saw the importance of musicians refusing to perform in solidarity with blacks and whites who expected action, not just words, in support of equal rights. Today, Palestinians and people of conscience around the world, including Israelis who are members of Boycott from Within are leading the struggle against ethnic cleansing and colonization despite the Israeli government’s criminalization of BDS activism. Though I am filled with sadness by Harjo’s actions, I am also filled with gladness that our movement will ultimately prevail because the arc of history bends toward justice. As Kahlil Gibran reminds us, “The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.”Joy Harjo ‘Didn’t Know’

By Richard LightbownI didn’t know about Joy Harjo until she had crossed the picket line.

I didn’t know that a “human rights supporter” (her words) would dare to write “I didn’t know about the boycott [of Israel].”

I didn’t think anyone associated with the struggle for universal human rights would be able to ignore a military assault on an urban area where 1.6 million people are trapped and unable to flee to safety when advanced technology weapons are targeted at them.

I didn’t think there were people so hypocritical that they could continue with a concert for the nation which has just killed more than 30 children in Gaza in “self-defence” and then write “I have always stood in support of human rights, and the Palestinian cause has always been close to my heart.”

“I didn’t know.” History has heard that excuse before. From the Germans who didn’t know what the Nazis were doing. Or the English that didn’t know that four million Irish were dying of starvation even as food was still being exported from the Emerald Isle. But it sounds particularly lame in the 21st century world of instant communication when the last Israeli full scale assault on Gaza was only a couple of weeks ago.

I didn’t know or I didn’t want to know?

How much longer can you not know? As you step on stage and hand your victory to the criminal oppressor and give succor to the people who said that Israel should flatten Gaza on top of its inhabitants, will you still not know?

Will you still lie to yourself like you did earlier today when you wrote “I admire and respect the scholars and artists who have backed the boycott. I stand with their principles [sic (or should it be sick?)].”

But you can’t have it all ways you know. You can’t have your soul and the thirty pieces of silver. You can’t be all things to all people and be “in support of justice and compassion.” No you can’t; because supporting justice and compassion means opposing oppression and injustice. And you have just shown that you won’t oppose it. You’ve took the pieces of silver. You’ve just sold your soul and flaunted your lack of integrity to the whole world.

I didn’t know a Native American poet, musician and writer could ever show solidarity with an apartheid state, a terrorist state, a neo-colonial state and then claim to be doing so in support of justice and compassion. So what does that make me?Comment:  A couple of points:

1) It sounds like Tel Aviv University is an especially bad place to give a boycott-busting performance. If Harjo felt she had to honor her commitment, she could've insisted on a different location. Perhaps one where Palestinians as well as could freely attend.

2) If she's a Writer-in-Residence, she's probably living in Tel Aviv for a school term--three months, or something like that. A couple of performances is one thing, but a lengthy stay puts that much more of a burden on her.

She should've researched what a lengthy stay would mean in terms of the worldwide protest against Israel's actions in Gaza. And either a) canceled or cut short the trip, or b) set the terms of her stay. For instance, she'd hold Israel-Palestinian discussions three times a week during her stay.

If she's merely going to perform and write and talk about herself, her feelings, or vague hopes about peace and love, that's not much help. Moreover, as her critics have said, it helps to legitimize Israel's actions. The only way her presence doesn't legitimize Israel's actions is if she actively challenges them. By holding debates, questioning the Israel orthodoxy, and making sure Palestinian concerns are heard.

For more on the subject, see Harjo Performs Despite Palestinian Criticism and Harjo Faces Boycott of Israel.

Harjo performs despite Palestinian criticism

Rejecting Palestinian calls, Native American poet Joy Harjo entertains apartheid at Tel Aviv University

By Ali AbunimahDespite appeals from thousands of people all over the world, Native American peers, and Palestinian civil society, poet and musician Joy Harjo has rejected pleas to cancel her performance at Tel Aviv University and respect a Palestinian call for boycott.

Since plans of her performance became known a few days ago, Harjo heard appeals to heed the boycott from prominent Native American scholars, and 2,300 people signed a petition launched by USACBI, the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel.

On 8 December, PACBI, the Palestinian group spearheading the boycott campaign worldwide, added its voice in an open letter:Tel Aviv University, as other Israeli academic institutions, is notorious for its deep and well documented collaboration with the Israeli military and intelligence establishment, its racially exclusivist university policy towards Palestinian citizens of Israel, and its refusal to acknowledge its past and to commemorate the destroyed Palestinian village on which grounds it was built.Listing the prominent international artists who have heeded the Palestinian call, including U2, the Pixies, Gorillaz Sound System, Gil Scott Heron, Elvis Costello, Roger Waters and Alice Walker, the letter urged:We hope that you will not be persuaded by the argument that music builds bridges and can bring smiles to people’s faces, thus hopefully spreading a message of peace. Any message of peace you hope to bring will be drowned by Israel’s well-oiled publicity that will use you to rebrand itself as a normal state that promotes music and culture and present your appearance as an endorsement of its policies.Invisible “support” for Harjo’s performance

But in a message on her Facebook page this morning, Harjo justified her decision to go ahead with the performance. Her message read in part:I will perform at the university as I promised, to an audience that will include Palestinian students. The students have written in support of me being here. I will let the words and music speak for that place beyond those who would hurt and destroy for retribution, or to be right. It is my hope that my choice will generate discussion and understanding for many paths to justice.Harjo also condemned what she called an “atmosphere of censure” around her decision. But in contrast to the outpouring of Palestinian calls on Harjo to cancel her performance, her claim that some Palestinian students supported it could not be substantiated.

Of the dozens of comments left on her Facebook page over recent days by users identifying themselves as Palestinians, messages supporting her performance were not immediately apparent. Most messages seemed to be calling on her to heed the boycott.

A comment by Facebook user “lamisfalasteen,” in response to Harjo’s message this morning, was typical:You acknowledge that the Palestinian situation is similar to that of your people, and yet you ignore calls for support. Palestinian civil society has asked that people of conscience heed their call for cultural and academic boycott. It is our non-violent way to resist the occupation.

Over 2,000 people asked you to cancel your performance, and you cite a few Palestinian students in your audience voicing their support for you being there as a justifiable reason to break the boycott?“When someone like you performs for Israel, it allows people to interpret your performance as a political statement supporting the occupation,” lamisfalasteen concluded.Harjo's justification

Here is Harjo's full statement on why she's performing:I sit in a hotel room in Tel Aviv. I am far from my tribal home in Oklahoma. In eternal time, each is a room in the same heart.

I was invited to perform and speak here at Tel Aviv University several months ago. I was a guest here nearly twenty years ago and remembered this place with a great fondness. I recalled the open discussions and the cultural mix of students. I accepted the invitation.

I am aware of the nearly unbearable political strife here. These lands are in the heart area of this Earth. The Jewish people consider these lands their homelands. They have survived countless persecutions and suffered as they made their way home. The Palestinian people are captive in their own homes. There are checkpoints to enter and leave. They do not own title to a country. They are not free. This situation is much like that of my people. We were force-marched from our homelands. Then our lands of resettlement were stolen again.

I am not so naïve as to think art is beyond politics. The arts are and have been used in the regeneration of the spirit of the people. They carry blood, memory and cultures. The arts can also be co-opted for political gain or loss. I am in the service of the source of the poetry and music. With that spirit there is no bargaining with governments, religions or ideologies.

The morning after I left on my journey I received an email from a friend and colleague. He asked me to reconsider my trip. This was the first I learned of the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel. I was puzzled at this request at such a late hour because this colleague had known of my plans to go to Tel Aviv for while.

I came here for the opportunity to speak with and hear the voices of the people, especially the young. I came to be in support of justice and compassion. I don’t believe that the majority of the people in these lands or anywhere in the world are in support of the killings. Now my social media pages and message boxes are filled with a campaign to force a boycott, with messages of polarization, as if there is one way to poetry, resistance or empowerment. There are also messages of support.

I will never forget being on stage the opening night of a large poetry festival in Durban, South Africa. Then U.S. President George Bush was bombing the Gulf and everyone hated the Americans. Each participating poet was given an elaborate introduction, except for me. I was introduced: “This is Joy Harjo. She is an American.” The heavy silence that followed was filled with hate. I was an object of contempt no matter what I sang or what I said for the rest of the conference. I was not in support of the killings on my behalf by the U.S. government. I had actively opposed them, but in the collective audience mind, I was implicated.

I feel that same atmosphere of censure now in the ultimatum that I am being given to boycott. I admire and respect the scholars and artists who have backed the boycott. I stand with their principles, but they will not see it that way.

I refused an invitation to the White House because I disagreed with George W. Bush and his politics. I stepped down from a tenured university position with security and benefits to register my disapproval of unethical practices involving a colleague and students and the persecution of other faculty members who objected. I have always stood in support of human rights, and the Palestinian cause has always been close to my heart.

I will perform at the university as I promised, to an audience that will include Palestinian students. The students have written in support of me being here. I will let the words and music speak for that place beyond those who would hurt and destroy for retribution, or to be right. It is my hope that my choice will generate discussion and understanding for many paths to justice.

Joy Harjo
December 10, 2012 Tel AvivComment:  Actually, she didn't quite say that Palestinian students support her. She said the audience will include Palestinian students, and the [unspecified] students have written in support of her. The second group of students could be different from the first group. It could consist entirely of Israelis.

Harjo refused an invitation to the White House and stepped down from a tenured university position. What made her respond differently to this conflict than to those conflicts?

Is it because she promised, and she considers her word inviolable? I could almost see that, though upholding a promise to defy a boycott isn't the place to stand on principle.

What did Harjo say?

It also would be interesting to hear what she said to the mostly Israeli audience. Did she challenge them on the issues?

She was vague about her intent. "I came to be in support of justice and compassion," she wrote, but "I will let the words and music speak for that place beyond those who would hurt and destroy for retribution." Does that mean she addressed the injustices of the present situation? Or did she speak and sing "beyond" them, which means avoiding them?

To me that's a key issue. If you're defying a boycott to engage in a dialogue, then it should be a real discussion of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Singing about peace and love in the abstract won't cut it. That's not standing in support of justice and human rights, it's ignoring them.

For more on the Indian-Palestinian connection, see Harjo Faces Boycott of Israel and LaDuke on Gaza:  "We Are Israel."

Harjo faces boycott of Israel

Acclaimed feminist author, musician Joy Harjo lands in Tel Aviv to find boycott calls from Native American peers

By Ali AbunimahAcclaimed poet, musician, author and playwright Joy Harjo landed in Tel Aviv today to find appeals from prominent American Indian and indigenous scholars and peers to pull out of a performance at Tel Aviv University scheduled for Monday.

Harjo posted early this morning on her Facebook page that she was boarding a flight to Tel Aviv, which alerted activists and colleagues about her trip.

“Joy is a valued friend and colleague, but I disagree with her decision to go to Tel Aviv to perform. I regret not reaching out to her sooner in this regard, which might have changed her mind,” Robert Warrior, Director of American Indian Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, told The Electronic Intifada.

Warrior, who is founding president of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association, has himself signed on to the call for academic and cultural boycott of Israel.And:Given that she was en route to Tel Aviv, Harjo had not responded to an email asking for comment, but soon after landing she posted this message on her Facebook page:I didn’t know about the boycott until it was too late. My trip was posted here for a month. A person made it their campaign to question my integrity and notify others without speaking with me. I am a Mvskoke person living on occupied lands. I am in support of human rights. My music and poetry take me into the world to speak and sing a compassion that is still beyond me. I am learning yet. Mvto cehacares.Harjo would have found, on her arrival, several messages including one from playright Ricardo Bracho, which he shared with The Electronic Intifada.

“Please cancel your Monday night event at Tel Aviv University. Do so to honor indigenous and anti-colonial practice and vision worldwide. Do so because Gaza is the world’s largest open air prison. Do so because Palestinians have no Right of Return to their homelands. Do so for the land, the poets, the grandmothers, the children,” Bracho wrote, concluding his note with a verse from Mahmoud Darwish’s poem “Under Siege.”Comment:  With the Israel-Gaza conflict going on, it's a little naive to say you didn't know about the boycott. You could guess that any trip to Israel would be problematical, and investigate whether people would mind. Accepting the invitation without thinking about it is questionable at best.

If Harjo made an informed choice, that would be different. Then we could challenge her motives and she could defend them. But saying "I didn't know" is weak.

For more on the Indian-Palestinian connection, see LaDuke on Gaza:  "We Are Israel" and Parallels Between US and Israel.

LaDuke on Gaza: "We are Israel"

Winona LaDuke, Reflecting on Gaza, Gets Misunderstood at Mondoweiss

By Edward TellerWinona LaDuke is a powerful voice in the global fight against a host of evil actions and ideas. She is as progressive as progressive gets. In my actions and ideals, I find her as an ally in many areas. Currently, that has to do mostly with our unconnected fights against insane coal development projects.

On November 16th, she posted this at her main Facebook niche, Honor the Earth:

“…euro-americans in the United States can’t talk about Gaza, because we can’t talk about Israel. Because we can’t talk about the fact that the world is not suffering from a Israeli/Palestinian conflict, but that the world is suffering from the fact that Europe has never been able to deal with it’s ‘Jewish Question’ without some sort of intense barbarity and horror from the Inquisition to the Holocaust. And that Europe, in particular ‘Great’ Britain, the masters of divide an conquer ‘solved’ the problem by supporting the radical, terrorist, extremist Zionists and their mad plan to resettle the ‘homeland.’ We can’t talk about Israel because we can’t talk about Wounded Knee. Because we can’t talk about Sand Creek or Carlisle ‘Boarding School.’ Because we can’t talk about forced sterilization or small pox blankets or Kit Carson and his scorched earth policy in the Southwest. Because we have Andrew Jackson on our twenty dollar bill. Because we are one huge settlement on stolen land. We can’t talk about Israel because we are Israel.”

Comments at the Facebook post were dominated by a couple or few people who were hostile to anything that might be critical of Israel’s actions in Gaza this past week.For more on the Indian-Palestinian connection, see Parallels Between US and Israel and Mass Murder in Gaza and Hiroshima.

Parallels between US and Israel

On Pilgrims and Zionists

Why I’m thankful America didn’t turn out like Israel.

By Rosa BrooksIt's Thanksgiving, which means it's time to think about Israel.

That's not as nonsensical as it may sound. The Pilgrims who established our American Thanksgiving ritual thought about Israel a great deal: both they and the larger group of Puritan settlers who followed them a decade later saw themselves as New Israelites, forced into the wilderness by religious persecution.

Given that history, Thanksgiving is a good time to contemplate the parallels between the United States and Israel. After a week of front-page news about Israel and the violence that has increasingly come to define it, this is also a good time to count our blessings--for despite many parallels, the United States is, thankfully, not Israel. Not yet.

"Empty Land"

Tradition tells us that the first Thanksgiving feast took place in the autumn of 1621, as the Pilgrims celebrated their first harvest. On December 12, 1621, Robert Cushman preached the earliest surviving sermon to the Pilgrims. God, said Cushman, had opened "a way...for such as have wings to fly into this Wilderness," so that "as by the dispersion of the Jewish church through persecution...a light may rise up in the dark." A New Israel had sprung up in New England.

If the early American setters saw parallels between themselves and the ancient Israelites, we modern Americans can also find parallels between the American Pilgrims and the Jewish Zionists who settled in Palestine between the late 19th and mid-20th century.

After all, America and Israel share similar origin tales: the Pilgrims who set sail from Plymouth, England in 1620 did so against a backdrop of European religious wars, massacres, and persecution; while the Jews who founded the modern state of Israel fled centuries of European anti-Semitism and the unprecedented horrors of the Holocaust.

Each of the two groups imagined themselves to be settling a mostly empty wilderness: "We found the place where we live empty, the people being all dead and gone away," reported Cushman in 1621. Three hundred years later and almost 5,000 miles away, Jewish Zionists sought "a land without a people, for a people without a land." Palestine "remains at this moment an almost uninhabited, forsaken and ruined Turkish territory," enthused Israel Zangwill, an early Zionist, in 1902. He later realized his mistake ("Alas... The country holds 600,000 Arabs"), but by then the idea of a Jewish homeland in Palestine had picked up unstoppable momentum.

Both the Pilgrims and the Zionist settlers--separated as they were by centuries and miles--underestimated the staying power of the local inhabitants. In the "New Israel" of New England, Cushman observed that the natives who initially appeared were "very much wasted of late, by reason of a great mortality that fell amongst them three years since." (Though Cushman probably didn't know it, the "great mortality" stemmed from smallpox, typhoid, and other diseases unwittingly brought by European fishermen.) With regard to the "poor heathens," wrote Cushman, "Our care hath been to maintain peace amongst them."

The Native Americans turned out to have opinions of their own about the European "errand into the wilderness," however, and over the next decades, European encroachment onto Native American land increasingly led to conflict. New England saw the Pequot War of 1637, for instance, followed by King Phillip's War of 1675-6, which killed hundreds of settlers and thousands of Native Americans.

The Zionists who settled in Palestine found themselves similarly mired in conflict. As the region's Jewish population increased from just over 10 percent in the early 1920s to about 33 percent after World War II, tensions with the Arab majority went up as well. By the late 1930s, attacks on Jewish settlements by Arab militants were matched by retaliatory attacks on Arabs by Jewish paramilitary groups.

Diverging paths

Here, however, Israel's path began to diverge from that of early America. The Native Americans were already badly weakened by epidemic disease and internecine conflict by the time European settlers arrived in force. Although bloody skirmishes between Europeans and Native Americans continued until well into the 20th century, by the mid-1700s the native population had ceased to pose an existential threat to the European colonists, and the emerging nation could turn its attention to other matters. To the colonists, all this was a sign of God's providence. To the Native Americans, it was just a tragedy.

In Palestine, things were different: the Arab inhabitants declined to die out of their own accord, leaving the Jewish settlers surrounded by displaced, aggrieved locals. Escalating attacks and counter-attacks embroiled the Israelis in a cycle of violence and retaliation. In 1948, when David Ben-Gurion declared the establishment of a Jewish state, war immediately broke out with Egypt, Syria, Transjordan, and Iraq. Israel prevailed--but in the nearly seven decades since then, Israel has remained in a state of intermittent war.Brooks says she's thankful for these "diverging paths":This Thanksgiving, I'm thankful for all the mundane but vital blessings: happy children, a loving husband and family, work that I love, the health to enjoy it. I'm also thankful that we Americans still live in relative peace and prosperity. And this year, I'm particularly thankful I don't live in Israel, that America is not Israel, and that America's path long ago diverged from Israel's.

That it did so is hardly to our credit, since the American Republic was built upon the virtual destruction of the Native Americans. Our peace and prosperity owe much to happy accidents of geography--how lucky to have oceans on two sides!--and more to the suffering of others (slavery, too, casts a long shadow).Comment:  So she's thankful Americans killed enough indigenous inhabitants to end the state of war, while Israelis haven't...yet. Yay for us?

In other words, Americans should be thankful their ancestors were more successful at genocide than Israelis have been? Hmm.

For more on the Indian-Palestinian connection, see Mass Murder in Gaza and Hiroshima and Gazans, Indians Have Right to Resist.

Mass murder in Gaza and Hiroshima

I posted the following quote from an article as a Facebook status:

‎"We need to flatten entire neighborhoods in Gaza. Flatten all of Gaza. The Americans didn’t stop with Hiroshima--the Japanese weren’t surrendering fast enough, so they hit Nagasaki, too."

In other words, kill all the brown-skins. Mass-murder them. If it takes genocide to secure Israel's illegal occupation of Palestine, so be it.

A decisive conclusion is necessary

By Gilad Sharon

There is no middle path here--either the Gazans and their infrastructure are made to pay the price, or we reoccupy the entire Gaza Strip.

This led to a discussion. First Samantha:Why is it that America never self-examines what happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki? And even more than that, why does it seem Japan never calls us on that hypocrisy?Conservatives shout down anyone who re-examines Hiroshima, or Native American history, or the Founding Fathers. Etc. They're all about about upholding the myth of white Euro-Christian supremacy. Not assessing the facts rationally.

The Enola Gay Controversy

Then Mike:my uncle John was in the South Pacific training for a land invasion of Japan when Truman nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We were expecting a million casualties. It was expected the Japanese would have suffered far higher losses.

Uncle John did not second guess the dropping of the bombs.

Apparently your uncle wasn't aware of the huge controversy surrounding the bombing and our possibly fictional "expecations." He should've questioned authority, like me, rather than swallowing it blindly.

Debate over the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and NagasakiSupporters of the bombings generally assert they caused the Japanese surrender, preventing massive casualties on both sides in the planned invasion of Japan: Kyūshū was to be invaded in October 1945 and Honshū five months later. It was thought Japan would not surrender unless there was an overwhelming demonstration of destructive capability.

Those who oppose the bombings argue it was simply an extension of the already fierce conventional air raids on Japan and, therefore, militarily unnecessary, inherently immoral, a war crime, or a form of state terrorism. At least one historian states that the Soviet declaration of war on Japan had more of an effect than the two nuclear bombings (cf. Tsuyoshi Hasegawa).For instance, what did your uncle say to the alternative of threatening Japan with offshore explosions until they realized our resolve? If successful, that would've prevented the casualties on both sides. I guess we'll never know since the US went straight for mass murder rather than trying a moral alternative.

Debate over the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki--Militarily unnecessary

Most Americans also didn't second-guess the attempted extermination of the American Indian. Most Americans like to kill brown-skinned people at the drop of the hat.Uncle John was just happy to survive. War is a damn terrible business, but it is a stretch to compare the American Holocaust that befell the American Indian and the dropping of the bomb on Japan.

And not all stood by quitely as America's First People were dispossessed and slaughtered.As I tweeted: For our "national security," the US killed innocent American Indian, Japanese, Vietnamese, and Iraqi civilians. Apply to Israel and Gaza.

It's a stretch to myopically claim that America's documented racism had nothing to do with the callous disregard for brown-skinned life in the cases above.

Israelis are white, not brown?

Oh, and if anyone's wondering about associating Israelis with America's white-skinned mass murderers, here's why it's legit:

Ashkenazi JewsAlthough in the 11th century, they composed only three percent of the world's Jewish population, at their peak in 1931, Ashkenazi Jews accounted for 92 percent of the world's Jews. Today they make up approximately 80 percent of Jews worldwide. Most Jewish communities with extended histories in Europe are Ashkenazim, with the exception of those associated with the Mediterranean region. The majority of the Jews who migrated from Europe to other continents in the past two centuries are Ashkenazim, Eastern Ashkenazim in particular.Ashkenazis are not the descendants of the Ancient IsraelitesAshkenazim, the Ashkenazim are the Jews whose ancestors lived in German lands...it was among Ashkenazi Jews that the idea of political Zionism emerged, leading ultimately to the establishment of the state of Israel... In the late 1960s, Ashkenazi Jews numbered some 11 million, about 84 percent of the world Jewish population.

--Encyclopedia Americana (1985)Who are the Ashkenazi Jews?At the founding of Israel in 1948, Ashkenazim made up 80 percent of its Jewish population. However, due to the large intake of Jews from Arab states and higher birth rate among them and Sephardim, the proportion of Ashkenazim in the Israeli Jewish population had fallen below 50 percent by the mid-1960's. Nowadays, due to the large-scale emigration of Jews from the former Soviet Union from 1990-99, Ashkenazim have acquired a narrow majority in Israel.

--Dilip Hiro, author and journalist, in his 2003 book The Essential Middle East: A Comprehensive GuideIsrael's founders and a majority of today's Israelis are Caucasian rather than Semitic. 'Nuff said.

For more on the Indian-Palestinian connection, see Gazans, Indians Have Right to Resist and Gaza = "Largest Indian Reserve."

Gazans, Indians have right to resist

Obama Weaves Web of Deceit on Gaza War

At a press conference, the president painted a picture that Israelis are the victims.

By Ira ChernusWhen Barack Obama finally spoke out publicly about the Israeli assault on Gaza, at a press conference, he wove an astonishingly thick web of deception and distortion.

I’m no Obama-basher. But when I see him bashing and trashing the truth so blatantly, I have to speak out. I have to express my pain, because I know that his misleading words will increase the risks to my loved ones and fellow Jews in Israel and the much greater risks to the victims of Israeli aggression in Gaza.

Of course to hear Obama tell it, it’s the Israelis who are the victims. “The precipitating event here that’s causing the current crisis … was an ever-escalating number of missiles” fired from Gaza into Israel, he said. “And there’s no country on Earth that would tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens from outside its borders.”

This is the same old tale Americans have been getting from their presidents, politicians, and press for decades: Those nasty Arabs, attacking Jews out of the blue for no good reason that we can see.

Not a word about Israel’s economic blockade, which has inflicted so much misery on the people of Gaza for so many years. Israel has turned Gaza into what Noam Chomsky (who just returned from the Strip) calls “the world's largest open-air prison,” where the only relief from suffering comes from materials brought (or smuggled) across the border from Egypt.

From the Israeli side, there is only a systematic plan “to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger," as one cynical Israeli official put it.

And that’s literally what the Israelis have done. Israel controls all the transport bringing food into Gaza, “an average of only 67 trucks--much less than half of the minimum requirement [for basic nutrition],” according to Jonathan Cook, a journalist based in Israel, who notes that more than 400 trucks a day were coming in before the blockade began. The result is chronic malnutrition. According to Middle East scholar Juan Cole, over half of schoolchildren and two-thirds of infants suffer from anemia.

Medicines and medical equipment are in terribly short supply too. People die for lack of treatment. They are not allowed to make the short trip to Israel, with its high-quality medical facilities. Hospitals cannot be built (or rebuilt, after the massive 2008 Israeli attack on Gaza) because building materials are systematically kept from entering Gaza, too.

So the Palestinian victims of a stream of Israeli air attacks--targeted assassination efforts that too often strike innocent bystanders--cannot get the treatment they need either.

In 1967 Israel justified its preemptive attack on Egypt by claiming that Egypt’s blockade of one Israeli port was an act of war. How much more, then, is Israel’s ongoing blockade of the whole Gaza Strip an act of war. If Gazans shoot rockets in return it’s a result, not a cause, of the conflict.

4 Most Common Myths About Israel and Gaza--Debunked

What you need to know about the Israeli offensive.

By Pam BaileyAs Israel continues to pound the Gaza Strip, and factions within the beleaguered territory retaliate as best they can, there are many myths and stereotypes dominating mainstream media coverage, and many conversations.

Here are a few of the most common misunderstandings:

Myth: Hamas started the round of fighting that led to Israel’s “Operation Pillar of Defense.”

Fact: This myth represents a common error in mainstream–and even much progressive–media coverage. The “truth” all depends on when you start the timeline. What is clear is that while both Israel and resistance groups in Gaza bear responsibility for keeping the warfare going, Israel is more often the precipitator.

In an analysis that has received very little attention by Western audiences, Nancy Kanwisher (the Walter A. Rosenblith Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology) asks, “As Israel and Palestine suffer a hideous new spasm of terror, misery and mayhem, it is important to ask how this situation came about…How did the (last) ceasefire unravel?”

President Barack Obama and the mainstream media in the United States and Israel place the blame squarely on Hamas. It is true that a barrage of Palestinian rockets have been fired into Israel, and that ending this rocket fire is the stated goal of the current Israeli invasion of Gaza. However, this simplistic summary leaves out crucial facts. Consider this chain of events, which followed a “lull” of sorts over the previous couple of weeks: (The details of what took place during these days vary somewhat from one media outlet to another. However, the broad strokes are the same.)

· Nov. 4: Israel killed a mentally ill Palestinian walking near the Israeli-imposed “no-go zone” inside the Gaza Strip–an event that triggered a rocket from Gaza into southern Israel, which did not cause any deaths or injuries.

· Nov. 8: Four Israeli military tanks and a bulldozer entered Gaza, fatally shooting a 13-year-old boy who had been playing soccer by his family’s house.

· Nov. 10: In retaliation, two rockets were fired from Gaza into southern Israel, and an anti-tank missile injured four soldiers, when it hit an Israeli army jeep that had crossed over into the territory. Meanwhile, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights reported the killing of five more Palestinians, four of whom were civilians–including two soccer players age 16 and 17 and two young men (18 and 19) who ran to the scene. Forty-nine others were wounded, including 10 children.

· Nov. 11: Amid talks of a truce, six more Palestinians (all but one were civilians) were wounded and another was killed by both air strikes and troops on the ground.

· Nov. 12: With Israeli air strikes continuing, two rockets from Gaza hit Israel.

· Nov. 13: After two mid-afternoon air strikes, news services announced a truce had been agreed-upon.

· Nov. 14: Israel ignored the nascent truce and assassinated Hamas military chief Ahmad al-Jabari. (It is questionable whether Israeli officials ever really wanted a truce. As Phyllis Bennis from the Institute for Policy Studies wrote in The Nation: “Earlier this year, on the third anniversary of the Gaza assault of 2008/9, Israeli Army Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz told Army Radio that Israel will need to attack Gaza again soon, to restore what he called its power of ‘deterrence.’ He said the assault must be ‘swift and painful,’ concluding, ‘we will act when the conditions are right.’ Perhaps this was his chosen moment.”)

A fact not known by most Americans, who see Jabari as merely a leader of “terrorists,” is that Israeli activist Gershon Baskin confirmed that Jabari was engaged in peace settlement negotiations with Israel. In fact, he was due to send Hamas’ version of a draft agreement to Baskin on the Wednesday evening before he was killed. It’s worth asking: Did Israel intend to torpedo those efforts?

The rest of the story is tragic history. Jabari’s killing triggered Operation Pillar of Defense, and it continues to unfold.

It's Palestinians who have the right to defend themselves

The US and Britain stand behind Israel's onslaught on Gaza. Justice requires a change in the balance of forces on the ground

By Seumas MilneSo after six days of sustained assault by the world's fourth largest military power on one of its most wretched and overcrowded territories, at least 130 Palestinians had been killed, an estimated half of them civilians, along with five Israelis. The goal, Israel's interior minister, Eli Yeshai, insisted, had been to "send Gaza back to the middle ages".

True, the bloodshed hasn't so far been on the scale of Operation Cast Lead in 2008-9, which left 1,400 Palestinians dead in three weeks. But the issue isn't just who started and escalated it, or even the grinding "disproportionality" of yet another Israeli military battering (even before last month's flareups, 314 Palestinians had been killed since 2009, as against 20 Israelis).

It's that to portray Israel as some kind of victim with every right to "defend itself" from attack from "outside its borders" is a grotesque inversion of reality. Israel has after all been in illegal occupation of both the West Bank and Gaza, where most of the population are the families of refugees who were driven out of what is now Israel in 1948, for the past 45 years.

Despite Israel's withdrawal of settlements and bases in 2005, the Gaza Strip remains occupied, both effectively and legally–and is recognised as such by the UN. Israel is in control of Gaza's land and sea borders, territorial waters and natural resources, airspace, power supply and telecommunications. It has blockaded the strip since Hamas took over in 2006-7, preventing the movement of people, materials, and food supplies in and out of the territory–even calculating the 2,279 calories per person that would keep Gazans on an exemplary "diet". And it continues to invade the strip at will.

So Gazans are an occupied people and have the right to resist, including by armed force (though not to target civilians), while Israel is an occupying power that has an obligation to withdraw–not a right to defend territories it controls or is colonising by dint of military power.Comment:  The image above suggests why this posting is relevant to Indians. Change the wording and the same logic applies to the Native resistance against the United States:So Indians are an occupied people and have the right to resist, including by armed force (though not to target civilians), while the US is an occupying power that has an obligation to withdraw–not a right to defend territories it controls or is colonizing by dint of military power.For more on the Indian-Palestinian connection, see Gaza = "Largest Indian Reserve" and No Right of Return for Palestinians, Indians?

Palestinians and Indians "invented"?

Along with Rick Perry bashing gays, we recently heard Newt Gingrich bashing Palestinians.  He claimed they were an "invented" people--with no right to statehood, presumably.

Several postings rebuked Gingrich for his ignorance of Middle Eastern history.  Here's the best one I've read so far:

Newt Gingrich: ignoramus, cheat, cynic or all three?

By Uri Avnery
From its very beginning, the Zionist movement has denied the existence of the Palestinian people. It's an article of faith.

The reason is obvious: if there exists a Palestinian people, then the country the Zionists were about to take over was not empty. Zionism would entail an injustice of historic proportions. Being very idealistic persons, the original Zionists found a way out of this moral dilemma: they simply denied its existence. The winning slogan was "A land without a people for a people without a land."

So, who were these curious human beings they met when they came to the country? Oh, ah, well, they were just people who happened to be there, but not "a" people. Passers-by, so to speak. Later, the story goes, after we had made the desert bloom and turned an arid and neglected land into a paradise, Arabs from all over the region flocked to the country, and now they have the temerity--indeed the chutzpah--to claim that they constitute a Palestinian nation!

For many years after the founding of the state of Israel, this was the official line. Golda Meir famously exclaimed: "There is no such thing as a Palestinian people!" (To which I replied in the Knesset: "Mrs Prime Minister, perhaps you are right. Perhaps there really is no Palestinian people. But if millions of people mistakenly believe that they are a people, and behave like a people, then they are a people.")

A huge propaganda machine--both in Israel and abroad--was employed to "prove" that there was no Palestinian people. A lady called Joan Peters wrote a book (From Time Immemorial) proving that the riffraff calling themselves "Palestinians" had nothing to do with Palestine. They are nothing but interlopers and impostors. The book was immensely successful--until some experts took it apart and proved that the whole edifice of conclusive proofs was utter rubbish.And:Nationalism is a relatively recent historical phenomenon. When a community decides to become a nation, it has to reinvent itself. That means inventing a national past, reshuffling historical facts (and non-facts) in order to create a coherent picture of a nation existing since antiquity. Hermann the Cherusker, member of a Germanic tribe who betrayed his Roman employers, became a "national" hero. Religious refugees who landed in America and destroyed the native population became a "nation." Members of an ethnic-religious diaspora formed themselves into a "Jewish nation." Many others did more or less the same.

Indeed, Newt would profit from reading a book by a Tel Aviv University professor, Shlomo Sand, a kosher Jew, whose Hebrew title speaks for itself: When and How the Jewish People was Invented?

Who are these Palestinians? About a hundred years ago, two young students in Istanbul, David Ben-Gurion and Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, the future prime minister and president (respectively) of Israel, wrote a treatise about the Palestinians. The population of this country, they said, has never changed. Only small elites were sometimes deported. The towns and villages never moved, as their names prove. Canaanites became Israelites, then Jews and Samaritans, then Christian Byzantines. With the Arab conquest, they slowly adopted the religion of Islam and the Arab culture. These are today's Palestinians. I tend to agree with them.

Parroting the straight Zionist propaganda line--by now discarded by most Zionists--Gingrich argues that there can be no Palestinian people because there never was a Palestinian state. The people in this country were just "Arabs" under Ottoman rule.

So what? I used to hear from French colonial masters that there is no Algerian people, because there never was an Algerian state, there was never even a united country called Algeria. Any takers for this theory now?

The name "Palestine" was mentioned by a Greek historian some 2,500 years ago. A "Duke of Palestine" is mentioned in the Talmud. When the Arabs conquered the country, they called it "Filastin", as they still do. The Arab national movement came into being all over the Arab world, including Palestine--at the same time as the Zionist movement--and strove for independence from the Ottoman Sultan.

For centuries, Palestine was considered a part of Greater Syria (the region known in Arabic as "al-Sham"). There was no formal distinction between Syrians, Lebanese, Palestinians and Jordanians. But when, after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the European powers divided the Arab world between them, a state called Palestine became a fact under the British Mandate, and the Arab Palestinian people established themselves as a separate nation with a national flag of their own. Many peoples in Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America did the same, even without asking Gingrich for confirmation.

It would certainly be ironic if the members of the "invented" Palestinian nation were expected to ask for recognition from the members of the "invented" Jewish/Israeli nation, at the demand of a member of the "invented" American nation, a person who, by the way, is of mixed German, English, Scottish and Irish stock.Comment:  Pundits have noted that many nations in Africa, Asia, and eastern Europe didn't consider themselves states until they became states in the 20th century.  No one has given a reason we should consider the Palestinians different from other people.

I've noted the similarities between the Palestinians and Indians before.  This is another area they have in common.  Right-wingers routinely claim that recently recognized tribes were "invented" to foist gaming on us.    Indeed, if they're fighting Indian rights as a whole, they claim all Indian "nations" were invented.  Not that Indians didn't exist, but that they weren't sovereign entities with well-defined governments or territories.  They were just primitive nomads wandering aimlessly like animals.

Steve Newcomb explains the root of this thinking:

Theologian Francisco de Vitoria and International Law

In the chapter “Francisco de Vitoria and International Law” Anghie points out that Vitoria dealt with such topics as divine and natural law, sovereignty and culture, particularism and universalism. With these elements Vitoria conceptualized an international jurisprudence, and in the context of that thinking Vitoria treated idealized Spanish practices as “universally binding,” and hence binding on the Indians.Anghie says that “Indians are excluded [by Vitoria] from the realm of sovereignty, and Indian resistance to Spanish incursions becomes aggression which justifies the waging of a limitless war by a sovereign Spain against non-sovereign Indians.“ The “crucial issue,” according to Anghie, is the basis of the decision that the Indians were not sovereign: “Vitoria bases his conclusions that the Indians are not sovereign on the simple assertion that they are pagans.” In other words, Vitoria’s judgment was that the Indians were not sovereign because they were not Christians.Never mind that the Founding Fathers recognized Indian tribes as foreign nations and their rulers as kings.  And signed treaties with them exactly as if they were sovereign entities.  These right-wingers are so intellectually dishonest they don't even mention the word "treaty."

Clearly they don't consider tribal sovereignty a historic fact.  To them, it's a plot to take America away from the white Christians who founded it and give it back to the heathens and savages who wasted it.  And that's what pseudo-Zionists like Gingrich think about Palestinian statehood.  It's a plot to take Israel away from the white Jews who founded it and give it back to the Muslim heathens and savages who wasted it.  

In short, liberals who support indigenous rights for Indians and Palestinians are basically fighting a cultural war against the Biblical God.  The same Bible-based bigotry motivates the hatred of Indians and Palestinians.

America the invention

Comparing the Palestinians to Africans, Asians, eastern Europeans, or American Indians is one thing.  But why stop there?  The most telling comparison is between Palestinians and Americans.  Consider:

They were part of another empire for a century or two.

They spent decades establishing their own institutions and identities.

They finally got fed up and declared their independence as a sovereign state.

Which act of invention am I describing:  the founding of an American or Palestinian state?  What's the difference between the two?

If anything, America is the much bigger "invention."  The British had no claim to North America before they invented one out of thin air.   Unlike the Indians and Palestinians, they hadn't occupied the land for thousands of years.  

When the British did establish a foothold, they thought of themselves as colonists and subjects of the British Empire.  The idea of an American identity didn't occur to them until the last few years of colonization.  Indeed, the American nationality didn't exist until the Founders invented it on July 4, 1776.

So the Palestinian aspirations for statehood are just like the American aspirations for statehood.  And Gingrich is a stupid idiot for not understanding this.

For more on the Indian-Palestinian connection, see Rick Perry Promotes Christian Bigotry and Gaza = "Largest Indian Reserve."

Gaza = "largest Indian reserve"

Lovelace:  ‘Democracy and Colonialism Cannot Walk Hand in Hand’

By Gale Courey ToensingA First Nations leader, who was jailed for protesting uranium mining claims on his people’s territory, is now standing up against Israel’s illegal sea blockade of Gaza.

Robert Lovelace, former chief of the Ardoch Algonquin First Nation and a professor of Indigenous Studies at Queen’s University in Canada, is a passenger on Canada’s Boat to Gaza. The boat attempted to leave Greece for Gaza on July 4 but was stopped by the Greek coast guard. The U.S. Boat to Gaza was the first to attempt to leave Greece on July 1 and was also stopped by the Greek authorities.

The boats are participating in the second international Freedom Flotilla that aims to break Israel’s illegal blockage of the tiny Palestinian territory on the Mediterranean coast that is sandwiched between Israel and Egypt. The flotilla is a coalition of nonprofit, nongovernmental organizations from more than half a dozen countries that will soon sail through international waters to Gaza to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza. The first flotilla which sailed last year ended in tragedy when Israeli commandos boarded the Turkish boat, the Mavi Marmara, and killed nine activists, including an American citizen.

Israel imposed the sea blockade on Gaza in 2006 after Hamas candidates won a sweeping victory in what was certified as a clean, democratic election by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, who was an election monitor.And:Lovelace linked the Palestinian struggle for freedom and liberation with the worldwide struggle of indigenous peoples against colonialism.

“We need to open the port, we need to open the gates for the Palestinian people and allow civil society to grow and prosper. It is the only salvation from the effects of colonialism,” said Lovelace, who described colonialism as a “worldwide scourge.”

“The blockade of Gaza is just another extension of cold war politics that go back into the 17th and 16th centuries. It’s a scourge on the environment and the relationship of human beings to the earth. Democracy and colonialism cannot walk hand in hand!” Lovelace said, receiving a round of thunderous applause from the several hundred people who packed the union hall where the press conference took place.
And:“In response to the U.S. State Department’s comment that the flotilla is just a provocative act and that the activists should just ask Israel for permission to deliver aid, as indigenous people one of the things we learned about colonialism is that you never ask the oppressor for permission,” Lovelace said to another round of thunderous applause.

Lovelace described Gaza as “the largest concentration camp in the world.” The 1.5 million Palestinians living in Gaza are subject to a tight Israeli siege that controls the borders, air space, and sea approach. Gazans do not have the freedom to leave their territory for medical treatments, to visit family abroad, to study or for any other reason without the permission of the Israel government, which is most often denied. A recent U.N. study found Gazans have an unemployment rate of 45 percent.

“Gaza is the largest Indian reserve that I’ve ever seen. It’s time to recognize that the Palestinian people have the right to self determination,” Lovelace said.And:The Palestinian people also come under the protective umbrella of the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, because they are the indigenous people who have lived there and cared for the land for so long, he said.

“The Palestinians fit the definition of indigeniety. Some people will argument that the Old Testament gives property title to only one group of people, but that land has been the homeland of many peoples who can lay claim to owning the land. I think that may be the solution to the peace process that those people who have cared for the land and are willing to care for the land and treat it as Mother Earth, and respect the replenishing cycle of the land–those are the people who should be considered the indigenous people of that land,” Lovelace said.Comment:  For more on the subject, see Palestinians = Na'vi and Indians, Palestinians Have "Deep Parallels."

Leno jokes about Israel's occupation

Jay Leno told this joke on The Tonight Show Thursday:Earlier today, President Obama gave a speech outlining his vision for peace in the Middle East. He suggested that Israel go back to the pre-1967 borders. And, of course, Native Americans jumped right on this. They said, 'Why stop there? Let's go back to the pre-1492 borders right here in America? Oh, let's push it all all back.Comment:  This joke raises a valid point. "Why stop there," indeed? The main answer is that there was no governing body of international law in 1492. This kind of law may not have come into existence until the 19th or 20th century. But it was firmly in place in 1967.

If there had been a governing body of international law, the Indians could've made their case before some kind of adjudicator. Sure, the adjucator probably would've ruled against the Indians because of racial bias. But at least the Indians would've been on the record with their objections. A later adjudicator could've overturned the earlier decision on legal grounds.

Something like this has happened in the last couple centuries. The tribes have signed treaties protecting their rights. They've gone to American courts and even to UN forums demanding the US uphold their rights. They rarely win--but that's because of the US's superior political and economic power. It's not because of the merits of their cases.

In purely legal terms, untainted by outside considerations, the Indians often present an incontestable case. Namely, that the treaties are still valid. If the US obeys its own laws and Constitution, it must uphold them. Whether it actually does or not is another issue.

For more on the subject, see No Right of Return for Palestinians, Indians? and Educating Stephen About Israel's Occupation.

UN declaration "could wreak havoc"

The Rights of Indigenous Peoples

By Shoshena BryenApplied to American Indian tribes, before which the president made his announcement, this may take the form of reparations and mineral rights. The Executive Director of the Indian Law Resource Center said, "International human rights law now recognizes...rights of self-determination, property and culture." It is unlikely to involve having Indian tribes secede from the Union.

But applied to Palestinians and Kurds, not to mention minorities from Azeris in Iran to Uighurs in China to Armenians, Hmong tribesmen and Guatemalan Indians, it could wreak havoc.

The Kurds form a tribal/national grouping that spans Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria. They are unquestionably an "indigenous people" with a distinct language and culture. Is the United States prepared to support border changes to allow them the right of self-determination? American lives were expended in the quest for a unitary Iraq, and we supported Turkey's determination not to allow Kurds to secede during the PKK war. But how can we deny the Kurds while supporting a Palestinian "right to self determination"?Comment:  Bryen is grossly overestimating the UN declaration's effect. As I said to someone, I'll doubt it'll affect a single decision in Congress or the courts.

The answer to Bryen's question about the Kurds is: We can't deny the Kurds, morally speaking. They, the Palestinians, and the other indigenous groups all deserve more freedom.

What kind of freedom? At a minimum they should have a quasi-sovereign status like America's Indian nations. Even better would be to have quasi-independent states with the option to leave the country by a popular vote. Canada has done this with Quebec and it hasn't destroyed the country.

For more on Palestinians, see No Right of Return for Palestinians, Indians? and Palestinians = Na'vi. For more on the UN declaration, see UN Declaration = Status Quo and Obama Will Give US to Indians?!

No right of return for Palestinians, Indians?

The Native American analogy doesn’t work

By Ali AbunimahEarlier today Weiss did a post mentioning Native Americans and the argument that American historical sins immunize the Israelis from the Palestinian right of return.

Citing the ethnic cleansing of Native Americans as a way to justify not recognizing the Palestinian right of return, as I've often heard people do, is usually disingenuous. The situation is comparable up to a point and then breaks down. Native Americans were ethnically cleansed as Palestinians were and are being ethnically cleansed. As a percentage of the US population today, Native Americans constitute less than one percent. We should support doing everything possible to recognize and support their rights, including returning traditional land as has happened to greater or lesser degrees in other settler-colonial countries including Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

The main reason people can flippantly say "well if you support the Palestinian right of return then you should support Native Americans returning to their land" in order to justify Israel not recognizing the Palestinian right is that there are simply so few Native Americans that the question does not really arise. Native Americans in the United States are struggling for survival, justice and recognition, but generally not by seeking the return of land that is now, say, a neighborhood of Chicago. Their struggle came poignantly to light recently in the affair of the US refusal to recognize tribal passports of the Iroquois Lacrosse team that was supposed to travel to the UK.

But imagine if the situation were more analogous to Palestine today in terms of numbers. Imagine if Native Americans constituted 30, 40, or 50 or even 20 percent of the population of the United States and that they lived in sealed reservations in conditions similar to those in the Gaza Strip or refugee camps in the West Bank or Lebanon?

If there were 30, 70 or 100 million people who identified as Native Americans and existed in such conditions, no one would be able to so flippantly dismiss either their right to return to their original lands or any challenge they would make to the legitimacy of the United States. The United States would have a legitimacy crisis and bloodbath on its hands.Comment:  While a huge number of Natives certainly would increase the legal and moral pressure on the American system, that's far from the only issue. Even without the huge numbers, the Native situation is different in several ways.

On the positive side, Natives have documented claims of land ownership and occupation going back thousands of years. More recently, they signed binding treaties giving them "permanent" rights under British and US law. Palestinians don't have anything resembling this treaty right to the land.

On the negative side, the US "legalized" its theft of Native land with myriad congressional and court decisions. Natives have no "right of return" because two centuries of American law have effectively eliminated this possibility. Israel doesn't have anything resembling this edifice of law to justify its occupation of foreign territory.

So Palestinians have less of a right to return and Israel has less of a right to block their return. Roughly speaking, the situation is a wash.

But the point of this posting is correct: that the Native analogy doesn't work. Not just because of the different population sizes, but for several reasons.

For a similar claim, see Zionists:  Occupied Territories = Manhattan. For more on the subject, see Palestinians = Na'vi and Indians, Palestinians Have "Deep Parallels."

Stephen's bigotry against Muslims

In last year's Educating Stephen About Islam, I tried to do just that: educate reader Stephen about Islam. Evidently it didn't take. Stephen continued to proclaim Islam a "religion of hate."

(To be clear, this posting refers to reader Stephen M., not blogger and reader Stephen B.)

In the comments to Indian Mounds in P. Allen Smith Gardens, Stephen essentially challenged me to prove his bigotry against Muslims. Ask and ye shall receive, buddy. Here are your quotes from Armenian and Indian Genocides:There are no inferior races but there are inferior cultures and religions; Islam is nothing more than a barbaric [culture or religion]. And frankly I'm sickened by Obama's 'respect' for a religion that preaches hatred, bigotry, misogyny and so on.Although you left out the word after "barbaric," it's clear what you meant. Islamic religion is barbaric and so is Islamic culture.

Islamic culture is a product of many forces besides Islamic religion. By saying the culture is inferior and barbaric, you're indicting more than just the religion. You're indicting the people and their social, economic, and political institutions. You're indicting everything they think and do.

To reiterate, if a culture is barbaric, the people who produced and practice it are barbaric. No other meaning is logically possible.Unlike Muslims the Norse didn't conquer because of religious beliefs but because they lived in misery.Here's evidence that you don't believe your phony distinction between Islam and its believers. As you just implied, Muslims conquer(ed) others because of their religious beliefs. Islam didn't conquer people in some abstract, philosophical way; the Muslims who practiced it did. According to you, Muslims are evildoers.

Islam infects Muslim world?I disagree as evidenced by those verses (only a few examples of how putrid Islam is) and what's currently going on in the Muslim world I'd say Islam is a serious problem.What is going on in the Muslim world, in your opinion? Democratic movements in places such as Iran and Egypt? Or more hatred and terrorism against the West? Let us know so we can see how biased you are.

If you were attacking only Islam, you wouldn't have used the phrase "the Muslim world." It's clear you think the Muslim world--i.e., the world's Muslims--is turning evil. Although a few Muslims may escape your scorn, you're basically indicting them all.So the 'Islam is alright it's just a few fanatics twisting it' myth is just that; a myth, Islam is a religion of hate.You don't believe "just a few fanatics" are twisting Islam. Then you must believe those who regularly practice Islam accept its message of hate. In other words, Muslims are hateful.

And not just a few of them. The opposite of "a few" is "most." If "a few fanatics twisting it" is a myth, then you believe most Muslims aren't twisting Islam. According to you, it's a religion of hate and they believe in its hatefulness.Hitler actually wished that Germany was Muslim rather than Christian (since it would have made the holocaust easier).Did you mean to write "Germany was Muslim" rather than "German was Islamic"? Once again you failed to distinguish between the religion and its believers. Hitler wanted to equate his country with the barbaric, hateful Muslim world and so do you. You agree with him that Muslims are basically Nazis.

More examples of Stephen's bigotry

In a recent e-mail, Stephen helpfully provided more examples of his bigotry against Muslims. First, when comparing the national aspirations of the Palestinians and America's Founding Fathers, he wrote:Apart from the fact that comparing the founding fathers to hamas goons is downright insulting....We were talking about all Palestinians, bright boy, not "Hamas goons." You're the only one who compared Palestinians to Hamas goons. That's because you're bigoted against millions of Palestinians whether they're part of Hamas or not.

And that's because you're bigoted against Muslims, not just Palestinians or "terrorists." To you, almost every Muslim and Palestinian is a gook goon.[T]here are already no shortage of Arab states that can easily accomadate the so called palestinians, do you really yet another Arab dictatorship?So the Palestinians will inevitably form another Arab dictatorship? Even though they have a quasi-democratic government now? Because that's what Arabs inevitably do: form dictatorships?

So you're bigoted against Arabs as well as Muslims, eh? No surprise there.[Y]es I am opposed to the existence of a palestinian state; merely because I have no desire for yet another Arab terroist state.Right, because Arabs inevitably form dictatorships and terrorist states. Because they're inherently evil, according to you.

Why would (a few) Palestinians continue terrorizing people after they get a state when a state is their primary reason for terrorizing people? Because they're inherently evil, according to you.

Muslims form terrorist states?

There's your bigotry for you. It lies in your failure to distinguish between Islam and its 1.3 billion adherents. According to everything you've said, you believe the vast majority of Muslims are as evil as their religion. All they want to do is live in dictatorships and terrorize the rest of us.'Palestinian' ideology isn't islamic at all it's secular; just like how the Ba'ath party and PLO was secular, so my objections to the palestinian movement have very little to do with religion.Apparently you believe Palestinians practice an "ideology of hate" as well as a "religion of hate." In other words, you're bigoted against Palestinians whether or not they're Muslim and Muslims whether or not they're Palestinian. Why doesn't that surprise me?

If Palestinians have a secular ideology that has little to do with Islam, why are they so filled with hate, according to you? Why are they goons and terrorists, according to you? Why are they incapable of forming anything but dictatorships and terrorist states, according to you?

Is it just an incredible coincidence that the Palestinians' "secular ideology" is exactly as hateful as Islam? That it leads to exactly the same dictatorships and terrorist acts? I'm stunned that two groups that don't overlap (secular Palestinians and religious Muslims who aren't Palestinians) have produced almost identical results.

Just a coincidence? Sure it is, bigot.

Incidentally, the questions above aren't rhetorical. If you're not too afraid, I expect you to answer them. While you're at it, try harder to disguise your bigotry, because it's virtually transparent now.

Questions Stephen can't answer

If you think I've misstated your position, feel free to clarify it. Here are some helpful questions to guide your "thinking":

If Islam is a "religion of hate," why are the vast majority of Muslims peaceful? Alternatively, if the vast majority of Muslims are peaceful, how can you call Islam a "religion of hate"?

Roughly what percentage of the world's 1.3 billion Muslims a) hate the West, b) want to conquer or destroy the West? Don't bother with weasel-words like "some" or "many" unless you're as cowardly as you seem. If you don't know the answer, give me your best numerical guesses.

If Islam is different from Christianity, why did Europe and the US form "terrorist states" that killed, conquered, and enslaved the world's indigenous populations? If both religions are "terrorist," what's your excuse for singling out Islam? Because its practitioners are generally brown rather than white?

Whew. You've spewed a lot of bigotry for one comment and e-mail. I'm pretty sure you say equally bigoted things whenever you talk about Islam, Muslims, Arabs, or Palestinians. I'll be glad to post more quotes as needed.

I look forward to your clarification about which Arabs and Muslims are filled with hate and which aren't. Your estimate of how many Muslims believe in and practice their hateful religion. And your explanation of all the hateful acts of terrorism committed in the name of Christ. Good luck with your answers...you'll need it.

Relevance of this posting

With Muslims and the interfaith community center near Ground Zero in the news recently, this subject is especially timely. If anyone's wondering, here's why this subject is relevant to this blog:

1) We should fight racism and prejudice wherever they exist. People who are prejudiced against one group are usually prejudiced against others. For more on the subject, see Stereotypes Beget Stereotypes and Native Stereotypes Increase Other Stereotypes.

2) Stephen is using the same arguments against Muslims that his ancestors used against Indians. They're violent, they're barbaric, they're evil, they can't be reasoned with, they want to destroy us. This kind of thinking usually leads to a final solution: We must kill them before they kill us.

For more on Stephen's ignorance, see Educating Stephen About Israel's Occupation and Educating Stephen About Palestinians.

For more on the similarities between Muslims and Indians, see:

Bigots protest brown-skins on 9/11
Conservative bigotry against Islam
Muslim "tribes" = Indian tribes?!
"9/11 mosque" = "devil worship"
Yesterday's Cherokees = today's Muslims

For more on the subject in general, see Understanding Islam and Highlights of the US Report to the UN on Racism.

Palestinians = Na'vi

Bil'in weekly demonstration reenacts the Avatar filmThe village of Bil’in reenacted James Cameron’s new film Avatar during today’s weekly demonstration. Five Palestinian, Israeli and international activists were painted blue, with pointy ears and tales, resembling the Avatar characters. Like Palestinians, the Avatars fight imperialism, although the colonizers have different origins. The Avatars’ presence in Bil’in today symbolizes the united resistance to imperialism of all kinds.

Today’s non-violent demonstration was again met with excessive violence by the Israeli army. Sound bombs and tear gas were used, leaving four people directly injured by the canisters. The canisters were shot directly at the protesters, which is in violation with the IOF’s firing regulations. Many other activists suffered from tear gas inhalation. Comment:  Palestinians have dressed up like Indians before to protest Israeli colonialism. This way is better.

Both approaches--dressing up as Indians or Na'vi--are valid ways of criticizing government oppression. Dressing up as Indians goes back to the Boston Tea Party, if not earlier. But dressing up as stereotypical Indians--in headdresses, buckskins, and warpaint--is wrong as far as I'm concerned. The negative stereotypes negate the positive message.

Why not a slave auction?

You could put black shoe polish all over your body and pretend you're a slave on the auction block. But no one uses that approach. Why not, if you think the government is enslaving you? Because blacks and others would denounce a mock slave auction, and rightly so. It would send the message that it's okay to remind blacks of their tragic history. That it's okay to reenact slavery if the cause is important enough.

Dressing up as faux Indians, even for a non-Indian political protest, sends the same kind of message. Blacks were slaves and Indians were savages, and it's okay to treat that as if it's normal. Well, obviously it's not okay, so we should condemn both kinds of protests.

Therefore, dressing as the Na'vi is an improvement. Since they're fictional, no one will get upset if they're used in a non-Na'vi context. Moreover, the whole point of Avatar was to send an anti-imperialist message. James Cameron created the Na'vi for precisely that purpose. So it seems a extension of his work to use the Na'vi for related purposes.

Cinema's profound influence

Incidentally, once again we see the influence of movies. Halfway around the world from any Hollywood studio, someone dresses as a giant Smurf and people instantly get the message. The Palestinians are being oppressed just like the Na'vi.

So much for the asinine claim that movies are just movies. Yeah, right. The Bible is just the Bible, the Qu'ran is just the Qu'ran, and Avatar is just Avatar. No human endeavor involving words and pictures has ever moved anyone to act.

For more on the subject, see Indigenous Themes in Avatar and The Indian-Palestinian Connection.