*Pictures from a Cayuga demo coming soon*
Well...today was my first time attending Pride Parade in downtown Toronto to show my support. I got to admit it was the most fun I've had in a long time. Some of the floats I enjoyed the most were obviously the NDP float, the best one of the political parties there...as well as the Thailand cultural float, a First Nations float and 2-spirited peoples and some others. And QAIA (Queers Against Israeli Apartheid) was present, despite the attempted repression by right-wing Zionist organizations like B'Nai Brith, who threatened to go after the parada's funding. The contingent, which was pretty big, got a huge amount of support from the onlookers.
I recall one Martin Gladstone, a lawyer who is quoted as saying that the presence of QAIA "drawns eerie parallels to Nazi Germany". This is disgusting and offensive on so many levels. Did Mr. Gladstone not know that thousands of homosexuals were murdered by the Nazis? And to compare the Pride Parada, a celebration of acceptance to Nazi Germany is an insult to all the millions of people who were murdered by the Nazi Regime. It is exploitation of the victims of the Holocaust, an action taken often by proponents of Zionism...a hidieous, insulting and disgusting tactic.
Oh, and where was B'Nai Briths float? Oh wait, they didn't have one. Of course, B'Nai Brith is the Zionist association that had ties to the Christian Right, including Rapture Right Evangelical Pastor John Hagee...the one that believes Adolf Hitler was sent from God to help Jews find their promised land. ...so, yeah, that's B'Nai Brith!
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Jews Confront Zionism
*Ok, I know this is long, in fact, probably the longest blog post ever, but it is very important and if you have the time I really hope you read it and spread the word!
Jews Confront Zionism
Daniel Lang-Levitsky
Monthly Review. New York: Jun 2009. Vol. 61
One of the main accomplishments of the Israeli government's bombing and invasion of the Gaza Strip last winter was to inspire new vitality within leftist and peace groups in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle for justice and liberation. This wave of activity has continued after the supposed ceasefire, with demonstrations and direct actions from New York to Los Angeles, Paris, Jaffa, and Tel Aviv. Most noteworthy has been a coming out of sorts of an increasingly large and vocal segment of the Jewish world that is not only opposed to the Israeli government's wars and military occupations, but critical of Zionism itself.
Blockades of the Israeli consulates in Los Angeles and San Francisco were undertaken in part by members of the recently launched International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network. The occupation of the Toronto consulate was carried out by Jewish Women for Gaza, including members of the Canadian anti-Zionist Not In Our Name network. A seven-hundredperson demonstration in New York City was organized by Jews Say No, an ad hoc group of Jewish activists, many of them longstanding critics of Zionism. The London diasporist group Jewdas used a hoax e-mail to cancel a pro-war rally called by the Board of Deputies of British Jews and received a flood of support. And the Israeli antinationalist direct action group, Anarchists Against the Wall, blockaded an Israeli Air Force base in Tel Aviv. Almost all of the most visible public events showing Jewish opposition to the latest escalation in the war on Gaza were organized and carried out largely by non- and anti-Zionist Jews (as well as those who oppose Zionism but prefer not to define their politics in relation to it).
This is no coincidence. The eight years of the current intifada have also seen the growth of the global Palestine solidarity movement and its current boycott/divestment/sanctions strategy. At the same time Jewish criticism of Zionism has grown more widespread and vocal than at any time since Israel's founding in 1948, despite the unqualified backing the U.S. government has offered Israel since 1967. That support has been explained by Israel's advocates and defenders, as well as by Washington, as the result of the overwhelming support of U.S. Jewish communities for Israel. This is, of course, patently untrue. As many analysts have pointed out - most recently Mearsheimer and Walt in their much-attacked The Israel Lobby & U.S. Foreign Policy - U.S. Jewish communities play a rather marginal role in fostering U.S. government support for Israel. Far more significant are the arms industry, which U.S. aid to Israel subsidizes; the oil industry, which sees Israel as a balance to the regional power of oil-rich Arab states; the Christian right, which believes Jewish rule over all of biblical Israel is a prerequisite for the Second Coming; and anti-Arab/anti-Muslim racism and xenophobia, particularly after the September 11, 2001, attacks and the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Where Jewish influence is significant - in the lobbying efforts of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, for instance it is the influence of a small number of wealthy, right-wing individuals whose politics in no way reflect U.S. Jewish public opinion, even as it is reflected in data collected by conservative pollsters.
The rhetoric of U.S. support for Israel as a response to U.S. Jewish interests and desires has, however, become less and less convincing over time. The recent rise to visibility of Jewish critiques of Zionism has taken place in a context of rising expression and acceptance of criticism of Israel within U.S. Jewish communities. It's very hard to gauge this in a definitive way, but stories like the following, all of which I've heard since the beginning of the most recent Israeli attacks on Gaza, have not been common at any earlier time during the decade I've spent working intensively in the Jewish side of the Palestinian solidarity movement:
* The child of an educator at a Jewish private school refuses to join their family and school at a pro-war rally.
* A rabbi's wife resigns from all congregational activity after an event on nonviolence - unrelated to Palestine or Israel - is canceled by the synagogue's board.
* A Hillel officer at Columbia University publishes an essay on the contradiction between her desire to appear legitimately progressive and her job "selling" "under duress" (her words) the Birthright Israel program.
One indication of the extent of these critiques is a poll commissioned by J Street, the allegedly liberal Zionist lobby group, which finds U.S. Jews - even with a disproportionately old, wealthy, and religiously affiliated sample - strongly opposed to collective punishment and settlements, hostile to the Israeli electoral right wing, and supportive of a Fatah-Hamas unity government as a "partner for peace."
This context of comparative openness to criticism of Israel is in large part the result of years of organizing, agitation, and education by groups and networks like Jews Against the Occupation/NYC, Jewish Voices for Peace (nationwide), Jews for Peace in Palestine and Israel (Washington, DC), Jews for a Free Palestine (Bay Area), and No Time to Celebrate (nationwide), all of which have broken with the orthodoxy of the "pro-Israel, pro-peace" position to focus on justice for Palestinians. The Zionist "pro-peace" groups, like Meretz USA, Americans for Peace Now, Tikkun, the Shalom Center, and Brit Tzedek v'Shalom, have been active primarily on paper since 2000 or as conveners of conferences with high registration fees. The "pro-justice" groups, by contrast, have been able to maintain a growing presence on the street and in the media over the nine years of the current intifada. Their structural critiques of Israeli government actions and the Zionist project have opened up space for these moderate criticisms to be spoken openly, as they were not five or ten years ago.
So why now? Why have these more "radical" voices come to the fore so strongly this winter? I believe it is because of shifts in the Palestine solidarity movement as well as in the larger political landscape of the left, and changes in Jewish thinking around identity and politics.
One source is a set of developments within the Palestine solidarity movement which have pushed the movement as a whole toward a structural analysis centered on Zionism. The outbreak of the 2000 intifada sparked a much wider awareness on the left (and beyond) of both the 1967 Occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem and the realities of the Israeli government's war on Palestinians. A closer examination of the Oslo Accords and their role as cover for further land theft and as a means of co-optation of parts of the Palestinian leadership soon led to a shift of emphasis within the movement away from a return to the status quo of 1999. Increasing familiarity with the day-to-day experience of Palestinians (under occupation, inside Israel's 1948 boundaries, and in the diaspora) showed organizers how many elements of die present situation were directly connected, not to the war of 1967, but to that of 1948 (for example, a majority of Palestinians, including a majority of those in the Occupied Territories, are refugees from the Nakba, "catastrophe," as the 1947-48 ethnic cleansing of Palestine is known in Arabic), or to the pre-state Zionist colonization effort (for example, the role of the Keren Kayemet L'Israel/Jewish National Fund as an agent of displacement and land theft).
As a result, by the end of 2008, a significant part of the solidarity movement began to focus its attention on Zionism as such, and shape its strategy accordingly. This has taken the form of support for Palestinian civil society's call for a combined boycott/divestment/sanctions strategy, and in a reconsideration (and often rejection) of the partition ("twostate") model for a long-term solution. These shifts have involved the Jewish participants in Palestine solidarity work no less than anyone else, and have in some cases been driven or supported by their analyses of Zionism as a colonial movement (for a recent example, see Nava EtShalom and Matthew N. Lyons's 2008 essay "'Bring on the bulldozers and let's plant trees': The Problems of Labor Zionism," http://www.scils.rutgers.edu.ezproxy.library.yorku.ca/%7Elyonsm/bulldozers.html) .
Another key element in the newly visible surge in Jewish critiques of Zionism, though one that's rarely remarked on in the liberal or progressive press, is the pivotal role that feminist and queer movements and their analyses have played in its development. This influence is most obvious in the prominence in Jewish (and non-Jewish) Palestine solidarity organizing of groups like Women in Black; Kvisa Shchora (an Israeli queer radical group, known for their eye-catching "No Pride in the Occupation" actions); New Profile (the feminist organization largely responsible for the visibility and growth of the high school conscription resistance movement in Israel); Aswat: Palestinian Gay Women; and the International Women's Peace Service's accompaniment project in the West Bank. All of these projects bring to the movement an orientation toward structural analysis, a core antinationalist and antirnilitarist position, and an eye to the ways that racial, economic, national, gendered, and sexual structures of power intersect and often support each other. Their sophisticated examinations of Israeli nationalism and Zionism have had an influence beyond their direct contact with other organizations.
Perhaps even more pervasive, however, is the presence of Palestine solidarity organizers in the U.S. Jewish sphere with backgrounds in feminist and queer movements. Veterans of ACT UP, the Lesbian Avengers, riot grrrl, Gay Shame, Fed Up Queers, and a myriad of local reproductive rights campaigns (not to mention specifically Jewish feminist and lesbian projects like Di Vilde Chayes and the Jewish Women's Committee to End the Occupation) and other specifically Jewish feminist and lesbian projects) play key roles setting the tone and political direction of Jewish Palestine solidarity groups including Jews Say No, Jews Against the Occupation/NYC, and Jewish Voices for Peace. The actions mentioned at the beginning of this article show that influence: office occupations, blockades, hoaxes - all part of the repertoire refined by ACT UP, the Women's Action Coalition (WAC), Women's Health Action & Mobilization (WHAM!), and the Lesbian Avengers during the Oslo years. This legacy is also a key source of the willingness of these groups to challenge Zionism directly rather than limiting their critiques of Israel to specific policies and actions. These same organizers are often also involved in Palestine solidarity work that's not specifically Jewish (Adalah-NY being a particularly notable example because of its wholehearted adoption of ACT UP-descended visibility tactics), further extending the reach of these activist lineages.
This grounding in feminist and queer antinationalism, structural and intersectional analysis, and direct action tactics has been supported by the broad shift among U.S. radicals, especially younger radicals, toward what might be called a new transnationalism, or a transnationalism from below. Beginning to some extent with the campaigns in support of the 1994 Zapatista uprising in Chiapas (though certainly influenced by earlier work in solidarity with revolutionary movements in Spain, Central America, South Africa, and Palestine), radicals in the United States have experimented in many ways to find strategies for carrying on effective international solidarity campaigns. These have varied widely, from the anti-sweatshop efforts of the late 1990s and the summit-targeting mass mobilizations of 1999-2003, to work focusing on Plan Colombia, Plan Puebla-Panama, and other U.S. ventures elsewhere in the Americas. All have shared, I would argue, a general approach which is now clearly visible in the current Palestine solidarity movement, including its Jewish side.
What I'm labeling as a new transnationalism is resolutely anticolonialist and anti-imperialist, ambivalently antinationalist, firmly if often inchoately anticapitalist, generally anti-authoritarian, and in no way organizationally unified. It recognizes the importance of resistance "in the belly of the beast" while affirming self-determination in an array of communities of resistance and the right of liberation struggles to choose the tactics which they find most suitable to that end. If that sounds like a lot of "anti" and not much "pro," it often is. The best journal to emerge from this part of the radical left so far is the Canadian "journal of theory and action," Uppingthe Anti (www.uppingtheanti.org), which provides a much needed space for sustained discussion of revolutionary politics across generations and between movements. The journal chose its name precisely to highUght its mission of moving from these negative positions to a positive strategic vision.
Be that as it may, this shared approach, with all its internal tensions, is deeply inscribed on current Jewish critiques of Zionism as well as die current Palestine solidarity movement more generally. Thus we see a pervasive ambivalence about the value of a Palestinian state (made largely moot by die increasing implausibility of any viable partition plan); a principled refusal to condemn armed self-defense (alongside strong critiques of specific tactics); support for local resistance committees prioritized over attention to the major Palestinian political parties; a clear analysis of Zionism as a colonial project paired with a less coherent take on Arab nationalism; a loose alignment with thie Palestinian left and a strong critique of the fiction of "left Zionism," but no clear vision for a noncapitalist regional economy; and an increasing attention to the parallels between Israeli and U.S. strategies of "security," "counter-terrorism," and militarized policing.
Finally, to return to the specifically Jewish sphere, the rise of criticism of Zionism as such is part of a broad shift in Jewish culture and thinking around identity. After over a half-century of Zionist dominance of Jewish education and community institutions, alternative voices are breaking through, in ways that are often unconnected to Palestine but ultimately support Jewish Palestine solidarity efforts. For the past few decades, diere has been a steady increase of interest in diasporic Jewish cultures and histories, especially among younger Jews dissatisfied with both the Herzl-and-Hider view of Jewish life and history presented by "mainstream" Jewish institutions, and the religious fundamentalism that is its main competitor.
This has been most visible in the United States in its Ashkenazi forms: klezmer bands now fill major venues and "Jewish music" has become a profitable and over-marketed sub-genre; the periodic human-interest headline has switched from "Yiddish is Dying!" to "Yiddish Revives!" as interest and class enrollment swells; the flagship yiddishist arts retreat, Living Traditions' annual KlezKamp, will turn twenty-five in 2009. Other Jewish communities - Sefardi, Arab-Jewish, Beta Yisrael (Ethiopian), African American, etc. - have seen similar assertions of cultural specificity as well, often in opposition to Ashkenazi dominance of putatively allencompassing Jewish spaces, as, for instance, in the work of Loolwa Khazoom (The Flying Camel [ed.]), Ammiel Alcalay (After Jews and Arabs; Memories of Our Future), Walter Isaac ("Locating Afro-American Judaism"), and Ella Shohat (Taboo Memories, Diasporic Voices; FlaggingPatriotism).
Along with these cultural shifts, however, has come a new interest in the politics that emerged from these same diasporic communities. Among Ashkenazim, the revolutionary socialist Jewish Workers Union - better known as the Bund - has become a frequent point of reference. In particular, the Bund's principle of doykayt (here-ness), combining Jewish cultural specificity and inter-ethnic solidarity based on shared class interests - has given definition to the locally focused efforts of Jewish social justice organizations across the country, from Jews for Racial and Economic Justice (in New York) to the Progressive Jewish Alliance (in Los Angeles). Despite the direct link between doykayt and the Bund's ardent anti-Zionism, however, even the more politicized among the people and organizations involved in this renewed engagement with the diaspora have in general actively refused to engage with the question of Zionism, presented an indistinct "pro-peace" position, or asserted an "art not politics" stance. There have been notable exceptions - from Sefardà and Arab-Jewish viewpoints, Alcalay and Shohat (most strongly in "Sephardim in Israel: Zionism from the Standpoint of Its Jewish Victims"), and from Ashkenazi or Yiddishist perspectives, the poet, activist, and essayist Irena Klepfisz (Dreams of an Insomniac and A Few Words in the Mother Tongue), and the historian of religion and culture, Daniel Boyarin (Unheroic Conduct, Dying/or God, and Border Lines).
Nonetheless, these increasingly articulate presentations of the value of diasporic Jewish culture soon come into conflict with many aspects of Zionism. And, in the end, they run directly counter to Zionism as a whole: the project of placing the state of Israel at the center of Jewish life depends on devaluing and erasing diasporic cultures and histories, reducing two millennia of Jewish life to a lacuna punctuated only by mass murder and redemptive nationalism. As central to the Zionist movement as Jewish control over the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea is the imperative of shh'lat hagalut (negation or liquidation of the diaspora), which holds that "degenerate" diasporic Jewish cultures should be eliminated in all but the most token bagels-and-Seinfeld forms and replaced by a new, militarized, and nationalist Hebrew culture. As a result, participants in what Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz has termed "radical diasporism" (in her 2007 The Colors of Jews: Racial Politics and Radical Diasporism) are increasingly seeing themselves in opposition to Zionism, standing in solidarity with Palestinians on the basis of a shared enemy as well as in the interest of justice.
"Radical diasporism," articulated as such, is far from widespread, though its influence can be seen widely in the cultural sphere. Among musicians alone, it is front and center in much of the work of artists as varied as Montreal's neo-klezmer Black Ox Orkestar, whose haunting "Ver Tanzt" deals directly with the Occupation in its Yiddish lyrics; Berlin-based Dan Kahn, whose "post-dialectic cabaret" tunes "Dumay" and "Nakam (6,000,000 Germans)" both confront the Zionist project from a historical perspective; Detroit hip-hop m.c. Invincible ("Emperor's Clothes"); New York queer rockers the Shondes ("I Watched the Temple Fall"); Bay Area vocalist and composer Jewlia Eisenberg; and riot grrrl punk legend Nomy Lamm.
The cultural dynamic radical diasporism expresses, however, is pervasive. The ardently Zionist Bronfman Philanthropies' 2007 report "Beyond Distancing" (http://www.acbp.net/About/publications.php) gives evidence of just how much so. The Bronfman survey looked past majorities diat identified themselves as "pro-Israel" and denied the existence of the Occupation, to find young U.S. Jews, regardless of their political opinions, to be less attached to Israel than their elders (with barely 20 percent "highly attached") and more likely to be actively "alienated" from the Jewish state (11 percent among "left-leaning" respondents under thirtyfive, and a surprising 21 percent among the "right-leaning," evening out somewhat at 19 to 26 percent among those under forty-nine). Perhaps most tellingly, they could not find a majority of respondents under thirtyfive who would claim that the destruction of the Israeli state "would be a personal tragedy." This "distancing," it seems to me, is in part a result of diasporist cultural work, and certainly a significant element in the story of the current rise to visibility of Jewish opposition to Zionism.
Jewish critiques of Zionism - and Jewish participation in the Palestine solidarity movement more generally - are significant beyond the bounds of Jewish communities themselves chiefly in the United States, and mainly because of the privileges given to Jewish voices in the discussion of Palestine and Israel here. Still, as Esther Kaplan wrote in her essay "Globalize the Intifada" (in Alisa Solomon & Tony Kushner's Wrestling with Zion), Jews in the United States and beyond have a role to play in the struggle for Palestinian liberation, and in some cases occupy a strategic position, but are in no way at its center. For Jews, as for everyone engaged in that struggle, the task is to work widi our Palestinian, Arab, and other friends and comrades to move from our shared opposition to Zionism into strategies of resistance that can, in the end, free Palestine.
*Initially most Jews were anti-Zionist. In fact, more were socialist than Zionist. In the next few years we'll likely see a shift away from Zionism. It is noticeable as in Toronto, for instance, the annual 'Walk for Israel' becomes smaller and smaller in numbers. Groups like Not In Our Name and Independent Jewish Voices will soon be the majority. That's why we are seeing some real craziness and desperation from the Zionists as of late...
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Barrick Gold - Canada's Shame
I've been following the Barrick Gold story personally for the past couple of months. It's a Canadian Mining Company that sets up shop throughout the world and partakes in some unethical practices, displacing indigenous peoples, terribly degrading the environment and there are many reports of their security forces abusing the peoples of the countries they set up shop in. Recently Jethro Tulin, an indigenous person from Paupa New Guinea was in Canada on a tour to bring awareness to this unfolding tragedy, various divestment plans have come to fruition since of Barrick Gold and criticism has come from the Canadian Parliament : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBcw7tht8Dg as well as other circles.
A great website (the source I first heard of this story from) is http://allan.lissner.net/ Alan Lissner is a full-time activist who is quite well-travelled and his site has loads of information on this story, as well as others from the local to the international scale.
The video features Jethro Tulin at the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues
A great website (the source I first heard of this story from) is http://allan.lissner.net/ Alan Lissner is a full-time activist who is quite well-travelled and his site has loads of information on this story, as well as others from the local to the international scale.
The video features Jethro Tulin at the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Racist Off...
Here we see Nick Griffin, leader of the British National Party, a right-wing, white-only, anti-semitic, Islamaphobic, anti-immigrant party in Britain that won seats in the European parliamentary elections recently. It is troubling that the BNP, a fascist party, would get any power, but it is relieving to see that he was shamed. All racists ought to be shamed like this.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Indigenous Tragedies and Struggles
From Turtle Island to Palestine:
Colonialism, Dehumanization and Solidarity
Jesse M. Zimmerman
May 13, 2009
*contact me for sources
Introductory Reflections:
In late 2003, aboriginal journalist for the Saskatoon Star-Phoenix, Doug Cuthand, was notified that his column was going to be pulled from the latest issue. He was not granted an official explanation as to why this was the case, but was told informally that it was due to a perceived anti-Israel bias.1 In the unpublished article, Cuthand compares the situation in Palestine, whether it be in the West Bank or Gaza, to the continuing struggle of First Nations in Canada. He makes parallels between the processes of colonization, the mentality of settler-states, and the desires of independence and resistance on part of the colonized. Cuthand goes so far as to refer to the Palestinians as “the Indians of the Middle-East”. The article was disallowed from being published without an official explanation from the editor-in-chief. This episode exemplifies the institutionalized repression that is present in Canadian society when one comes to the topic of aboriginal as well as Palestinian rights issues. Here is presented a journalist from the indigenous community of Canada seeking common cause with oppressed indigenous peoples of another land. Cuthand effectively ties the two struggles together and faced censorship in return.
The ideology of Zionism, which was manifested in the creation of the modern nation-state of Israel, could be compared and contrasted with the colonial ideology of Western European nations. European colonialism became prevalent in nearly every part of the globe, including ‘Latin’ America, Eastern and Southern Asia, Africa, Australiasia and Oceania, the Middle East and North America. This essay will focus on the latter two locations, particularly on the Zionist colonization of historic Palestine and the colonization of Canada and the United States. Zionism emerged toward the last quarter of the nineteenth century from the same origins as European colonialism itself, for it was an ideology of both nationalist and colonialist extract.
This essay will illustrate the ideology of Zionism and how it can be called an off-shoot of European colonialism, and draw parallels between the colonization of Palestine and the colonization of North America (or Turtle Island). This will include the beliefs that were used to justify the colonial projects and the ideological frameworks behind them. In this particular section of the essay, the perspectives of the colonizers will be presented, as we evaluate the colonial ideologies of Primitivism and Orientalism. This paper will then examine the effects of colonization on the colonized; drawing on both the similarities as well as the differences between the indigenous North American experience and that of the Palestinians. The next section will scrutinize the sense of settler-state solidarity, a phenomenon that has become particularly unconcealed and made more overt, here in Canada, by the Harper Government. Finally, before fully concluding, I shall touch upon the relations between native rights movements and Palestinian solidarity movements in North America and how they intersect at times, unifying to oppose the settler-state solidarity, from below. There are many points of contrast between the two situations, but the theme of colonialism and occupation, dehumanization and the ‘othering’ of entire peoples and societies are present and these factors are reflected in the joining together of the two movements that is occurring on a grassroots level today.
Zionism and Colonialism
As stated above, political Zionism emerged in Europe as a nationalist revival movement. During this time, European colonialism was at its peak with the final scramble for Africa well under way. In this atmosphere, the ideology of Zionism came to be. Another factor that arguably assisted in the cementing of Zionism was the growing pressure on European Jews to make a choice between assimilating into their respective societies or to face continuing persecution. Zionism was thus an apparent third option to this predicament and this entailed founding a separate homeland for Jews. While the initial debate on where to do this displayed diverse possible destinations the land of Palestine emerged as the most commonly preferred place. Generations of Jews in Europe and elsewhere in the world had perceived historic Palestine or Eretez Israel as it was known in Judaism, as a place for sacred pilgrimage, but only with the arrival of the ideology of Zionism did it become a viable site for a future nation-state. In fact, in the tradition of Judaism, Jews are instructed to await the coming of the Messiah before they can be given a land of their own, which explains why several Ultra-Orthodox Jews are not Zionists, such as Neturei Karta. The first steps towards realizing the Zionist project were small, with relatively small Jewish migration to the region. At this time, Palestine was officially under the tutelage of Great Britain. Throughout the time of the British Mandate virtually every Palestinian Arab leader had requested the creation of an independent state in Palestine, which the British did promise to them for their help in fighting the Ottomans in the First World War. In 1917, however, the British officially promised the land to the Zionists as a Jewish Homeland in the Balfour Declaration. This decision prompted uprisings by the Palestinian leadership. The British responded by stationing more troops in Palestine than it had in the entire Indian subcontinent at the time, disbanding the resistance militias and exiling the Palestinian leaders. The Palestinian resistance had been terribly weakened and this gave the Zionist movement an advantage. Years of diplomacy granted a partition plan for Palestine to be divided into two states, an Arab and a Jewish State, yet in 1942 the Zionist leadership made its first demand for all of the land for itself.
The Zionists prepared themselves for Plan Dalet, which called for the systematic expulsion of Palestinian Arabs from their homeland and started in early December 1947. Sporadic attacks against Palestinian villages commenced, beginning the first phases of ethnic cleansing. On the 9th of January a few small units of the first Arab volunteer army from neighbouring Arab states entered Palestine to intervene. In May, Britain officially pulled out of Mandatory Palestine in order for the newly formed United Nations to oversee the partition plan, which the Arabs had rejected due to disadvantages they were given in the process. Under the cover of war, Zionist militias such as the Hagana and the Irgun, among others, committed their cleansing operations, occupying Arab villages, inducing the residents into exodus through terrorist acts and massacres. Common Zionist narrative explains the victory of the Jewish militias as a miraculous event, often likening it to a David and Goliath battle, as the precursors to the state of Israel fought off the various Arab armies. The narrative also regularly claims that the proceeding Palestinian refugee situation were merely an accidental by-product of the war. Strong evidence actually shows these two conjectures to be false, for the Zionist militias had superior firepower, numbers, organization and command, which had determined their victory, and the Palestinian refugee crisis was premeditated by the Zionist leaders.
The state of Israel was thus born over the ruins of Palestine. The indigenous people fled to the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, southern Lebanon, as well as other parts of the Arab world. In 1967, Israel through war with neighbouring Jordan and Egypt came to possess and occupy the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Although officially ‘withdrawing’ from Gaza, Israel still controls all airspace and patrols the coast. Settlements that are illegal by international law are continuing to be built in the West Bank, as well as roads that are only to be used by settlers. The Israeli state is committing actions that are being labeled as apartheid worldwide, often being compared to South Africa under the apartheid regime.
The exodus and creation of the Palestinian refugee crisis is known in Arabic as the ‘Nakba’ and it did not end once the initial ethnic cleansing operations ended. Similar to the colonization of Turtle Island, the Nakba is a continuing tragedy and the colonization of both lands continues to this day. The words of an activist demonstrate these comparisons:
"The current plight of Palestinians increasingly resembles the tragic demise of Native Americans. To have become refugees in their own land, hounded and derided by a superior military and economic entity, and to have endured mostly apathy from the outside world as well as the inevitable corruption and authoritarianism of ‘their own leaders’ are markers of both experiences."
Primitivism vs. Orientalism
The comparisons that I draw between the Zionist colonization of the land of historic Palestine and that of Europeans in North America shall begin with the mentalities and ideological frameworks of the colonizers themselves. Both ideologies were quick to marginalize the indigenous peoples of the respective lands and create justifications for the seizure of land and resources for the exclusive use of European colonizers. In North America, the European colonizers justified the conquest of the indigenous populations by employing an argument that the First Peoples were not putting their land to what they (the colonizers) deemed to be proper use. This view has its origins in modern liberal theory and colonial mainstream narrative generally downplays the many accomplishments of aboriginal civilizations. This rhetoric entails that the colonizers’ actions were beneficial for overall human progress is used to reconcile mass dispossession, genocide and ethnic cleansing. In the case of Palestine, on the other hand, a mainstream Zionist myth often insists that historic Palestine was empty at the time of the Zionist movement and that it was in fact ‘a land without a people, for a people without a land’.
This is simply untrue and no serious scholar would disagree that it is categorically false. Both North America and Palestine witnessed a conquest of foreign powers (industrialized, or in the process of industrializing) that viewed the indigenous societies as inferior, or non-existent. There is some clear contrast here, but the themes of marginalization and the overlooking of the natives are present.
The ideologies of Primitivism and Orientalism were colonial constructs that further served to justify the theft of lands and destruction of cultures that ensued. Primitivism is a colonial construct that was/is applied to various indigenous groups. It often entails a vision of pre-civilization and a direct connection to nature. This is where the patronizing image of the ‘noble savage’ is derived. Some cases of primitivism seek to romanticize the respective peoples, other times it seeks to demonize, but in all cases, it inevitably de-humanizes. The primitive person is viewed thus as one who requires a type of patriarchal guidance in the ways of civilization. The Spaniards, the very first colonizers of the Americas, exemplified a potent case of this patrimony and dehumanization. The colonizers had plans to enslave the indigenous peoples of the Caribbean, yet official policy prohibited this, as it was the Crown and Church’s intention to save the souls of the subjected peoples. A royal proclamation declared in 1503 that enslavement was only permitted in cases of peoples who practiced cannibalism. Shortly after this decree, stories started emerging from the Caribbean of rampant cannibalism, which lead to the enslavement of most peoples of the region. This case illustrates two major purposes of Primitivism: to dehumanize the people and justify their subjection by the conquerors.
Orientalism is a separate subject but carries on a very similar theme. It is a perspective on the Orient from the eyes of the Occident, or the West. Edward Said once called it “particularly valuable as a sign of European-Atlantic power over the Orient that it is as a veridic discourse about the Orient”. This ideological framework has its origins in the Greco-Roman tradition, viewing the East (often the Near East) in terms of an ‘otherness’. Geographical boundaries thus divided the world and the human race into supposedly fixed categories in terms of society and culture. Distance creates an ‘other’, an opposing ‘them’ in direct opposition to a familiar ‘us’. Orientalism became widespread in Western academic discourse during the colonial era, when European powers, primarily Britain and France began to appropriate colonies in the Middle East. Along with the dehumanization of the Arabs and the Islamic World, arrived the colonial item of patrimonial domination and a sense of the colonizers comprehending the interests of the colonized more sufficiently than they themselves could do.
There is some contrast between these two concepts. Primitivism envisions a state of pre-civilization whereas Orientalism presupposes a symmetrical but inferior counterpart to the Occident. In both cases, we find the assumption of a Eurocentric chronological view, as well as definition of civilization. Despite their differences, it is clear that both the discourses of Primitivism and Orientalism cause a dehumanization and an ‘othering’ of the subjugated peoples and create suppositions that the colonizers ultimately have the best interests of those peoples at heart, even more so than the peoples themselves. Orientalism, it is arguable, came from the same origins and mentality as Primitivism. Orientalism became prominent in use among the British and French and is carried on through the policies and views of the United States and Israel.
Common Loss of Culture & Identity
The indigenous peoples of North America and the Palestinians both experienced an immense loss of culture, but the ways in which this occurred vary. Native languages of Turtle Island have largely been erased whereas Palestinians still speak their native tongue of Arabic. Remnants of the indigenous character of the land remain in North America, in place names for instance, whereas in Israel proper place names were purposely changed to rub out any evidence of the previous residents. Indigenous peoples in Canada experienced a cultural genocide, exemplified by the government residential school systems. Palestinians, on the other hand, are commonly denied recognition as a unique culture and a people. In two very different ways, both experiences yield similar results: denial of culture and identity.
In both cases of brutal dispossession, the state itself refused responsibility for some of its worst excesses. Two cases that I shall contrast to illustrate this are the Sand Creek Massacre committed by the United States cavalry in 1864 and the Deir Yassin massacre in 1948. Quite often, the responsibility for the massacre at Sand Creek is attributed to the individual of Colonel Chivington, whereas Deir Yassin is commonly, even today, attributed to an over-zealous militia commanded by Menachem Begin. These two instances were not the cause of individual judgments but rather part of a larger picture of colonial ideologies, whether Manifest Destiny or Zionism. Another notable similarity is the use of warfare to increase the frontiers of the colonial constructions. The War of 1812 was used as a means of expansion into Indian territory, as the Israeli wars of 1948 and 1967 were similarly used to push its own boundaries by taking Arab lands. On a similar route, the American state encouraged landless whites to move westward towards the frontier, serving as a buffer between the Eastern seaboard and the native nations, forcing these settlers to become dependent on the U.S. government for protection whilst displacing the indigenous peoples at the same time. The Israeli state used the kibbutzim movement to settle territory and safeguard Israel proper from the Arab territories, paving the way for further incursions and land grabs.
A particular case that is both ironical and produces a glimpse of a greater link is that of the uranium that is mined on stolen land in Pine Ridge, then made into uranium tipped missiles, sold to Israel and dropped in Gaza. Thus far, this paper has illustrated the methods and ideals of the colonizers and the contrasting yet thematically similar effects of the colonized. Next, I shall describe themes of linking the two struggles into a larger picture and the solidarity that takes place from both above and below.
Solidarity: From Above and Below
Before delving into the relations between natives and Palestinians in Canada and the United States, it is important to mention an institutionalized form of solidarity that I dub ‘settler-state solidarity’. Recently four nations voted against the United Nations Declarations on Rights of Indigenous Peoples: Canada, the United States, Australia, and New Zealand—all European-based settler-states. Representatives from these four nations and others, including Israel, walked out during the United Nations Conference on Racism. Canadian policy in regards to the Israel/Palestine issue is particularly telling, with Canadian complicity in the current apartheid system quite overt to any discerning citizen. The barrier wall that bisects the West Bank to protect encroaching Israeli settlements and pave the way for more annexations is technically considered legitimate by Canada, so long as Israel builds it on its own territory. Of course, with such an unsettled border definition it is impossible to measure this. The Canadian government of Stephen Harper and the Conservatives demonstrated its settler-state solidarity with Israel when it was the first country in the world to vote for sanctions against the people of Gaza in response to their electing a government headed by Hamas. This vote was followed by the United States and other settler nations, in another example of settler-state solidarity from above.
The First Nations actions and reactions toward the case of Palestine has been largely a mixed bag. Jim Miles, a Canadian activist/journalist, in an article entitled Canada Report – Reaching for Subnation Status, details the instances of settler-state solidarity. Miles details episodes of indigenous communities in Canada declaring solidarity with Israel, which has surprised him. Miles describes an article on a program that enabled twenty-three Inuit to travel to Israel in a spirit of camaraderie and to conduct cultural exchanges. Furthermore, he observes a website from the Assembly of First Nations that depicts another program that allowed First Nations leaders to learn how their Israeli counterparts have successfully preserved their historic culture and language. Miles explains his apprehension at these discoveries, perhaps
understanding why there would be a sense of understanding with Jewish Holocaust survivors, but faulting them for their lack of comprehension of the struggles of the Palestinians. Miles notes the similarities between the Palestinian struggle and that of the indigenous peoples of North America, most of which I have already covered above. More radical and grassroots indigenous organizations take a different perspective. The American Indian Movement makes the direct comparison between the two cases. AIM makes the connections between the two settler-states, the criminalization of the resisters and the corruption of the supposed leaders, making comparisons with AIM and Hamas while comparing the corrupt native leaders with the PLO, as well as the vilification of resisters and dehumanization of both peoples in the media. AIM also makes the necessary comparisons between ideologies such as Manifest Destiny and Zionism.
Canada itself has an indigenous movement that takes on various forms, depending on the location and the situation of the respective indigenous nations. In many parts of the country, these communities face land dispossession and degradation. Like the Palestinian Nakba, the theft of native lands did not end after the initial colonization projects but continues into the present day. Aboriginal communities resist cases of land theft and strive for self-governance from coast to coast to coast. Cases in point are the various struggles faced by the peoples of the Six Nations here in Ontario.
On February 28th 2006, members of this community fought to maintain land that was appropriated by a construction company that had been given the permission of the Canadian government. Many of these resisters now face charges in Canadian courts due to their stance against further colonization of their lands. This example is detailed on a North American-based solidarity group’s website that focuses primarily on the Palestinian cause called Stop The Wall. This group makes a direct link between the two struggles:
500 years ago empires and their missionaries spread Christianity and civilization with their swords. Today, these empires and their TV channels spread their so-called “freedom” and “democracy” with cluster bombs. The truth behind this ‘democratization’ became clear when we practiced their democracy, albeit under Israeli occupation and apartheid. The international community imposed on us a brutal siege for not choosing their candidates to lead us...After the swords, in the Americas came the agreements. Agreements were to settle land “disputes” for lasting peace. The violations and renegotiations of these agreements by the colonizers – in other words the continuation of land theft – are proverbial today. Here in Palestine, we are facing the same colonial tactics.
Palestinian Canadians are in an interesting and what some might call a contradictory state, being exiled from their own indigenous homeland yet being part of a settler-state on someone else’s indigenous land. Despite, or perhaps because of this, connections between groups in both movements are being created. Grassroots organizations like Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid (CAIA) and its strictly campus-based subgroup Students Against Israeli Apartheid (SAIA) make these links as well. A common theme that unites both causes is the desire of autonomy in the face of an overwhelming power. In Tyendinaga, Mohawk Territory, not far from Belleville, Ontario, a cultural resurgence has followed a bold stance of resistance on the part of the community. The Mohawks from Tyendinaga have been resisting encroachments on their land by often erecting roadblocks on rail lines and highways and have sought autonomy from the economy of the Canadian state with an alternative economy based on a traditional tobacco industry. This has lifted many members of the community out of poverty and has assisted in the development of the community as a whole. These trends also led to the building of a new Longhouse, a central point of the community, and the first one in over a hundred years. Members of Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid helped fund this project, solidifying a solidarity base from below. These are just a few examples of how, on the ground in many communities, the struggles of the Palestinians and the indigenous peoples of Turtle Island are becoming linked and a greater global movement is currently being forged. It is a common bond in a uniting front against worldwide colonialism and racism.
Concluding Reflections:
This paper closes where it began, with Doug Cuthand’s banned article, a particular episode that makes the bonds between these two struggles so clear:
"Over the years I have maintained a sympathetic point of view toward the Palestinians. I see them as the Indians of the Middle East. The history is hauntingly familiar. The Palestinians lost their land. They were placed in camps similar to reservations and they have been colonized and controlled by an outside force. As a First Nations person in Canada I see in them an enormous parallel. . . . The Israelis also built their nation on other people’s land but they regard any sign of dissent as terrorism. . . . The demonization of a people and their leadership is a blunt instrument used to get the public on side. As First Nations people we have witnessed the attacks on our leadership. . . . Over the years the United States has supported the State of Israel alienating it from the larger Middle Eastern community. American and Canadian media carry a definite bias toward Israel and at times it can be racist in its condemnation of the Palestinians. . . .
Overcrowding continues in the Palestinian camps and people live in poverty with no hope for the future. The very use of the word ‘settler’ indicates a Wild West mentality and strengthens the parallel between our two groups . . . I’ll probably be accused of being anti-Semitic and that’s not the case. I am against any group of people pushing another nation off their traditional land. It is a story my people have lived for seven generations."
It is clear that these struggles share a common theme in their implementation, effects on the colonized and justifications and ideologies espoused by the colonizers. These two instances of struggle and resistance are only two of many that can be linked in the global system of domination, subjugation and repression. Through these twin struggles first came the common resistance chant “From Turtle Island to Palestine: Occupation is a Crime”.
Colonialism, Dehumanization and Solidarity
Jesse M. Zimmerman
May 13, 2009
*contact me for sources
Introductory Reflections:
In late 2003, aboriginal journalist for the Saskatoon Star-Phoenix, Doug Cuthand, was notified that his column was going to be pulled from the latest issue. He was not granted an official explanation as to why this was the case, but was told informally that it was due to a perceived anti-Israel bias.1 In the unpublished article, Cuthand compares the situation in Palestine, whether it be in the West Bank or Gaza, to the continuing struggle of First Nations in Canada. He makes parallels between the processes of colonization, the mentality of settler-states, and the desires of independence and resistance on part of the colonized. Cuthand goes so far as to refer to the Palestinians as “the Indians of the Middle-East”. The article was disallowed from being published without an official explanation from the editor-in-chief. This episode exemplifies the institutionalized repression that is present in Canadian society when one comes to the topic of aboriginal as well as Palestinian rights issues. Here is presented a journalist from the indigenous community of Canada seeking common cause with oppressed indigenous peoples of another land. Cuthand effectively ties the two struggles together and faced censorship in return.
The ideology of Zionism, which was manifested in the creation of the modern nation-state of Israel, could be compared and contrasted with the colonial ideology of Western European nations. European colonialism became prevalent in nearly every part of the globe, including ‘Latin’ America, Eastern and Southern Asia, Africa, Australiasia and Oceania, the Middle East and North America. This essay will focus on the latter two locations, particularly on the Zionist colonization of historic Palestine and the colonization of Canada and the United States. Zionism emerged toward the last quarter of the nineteenth century from the same origins as European colonialism itself, for it was an ideology of both nationalist and colonialist extract.
This essay will illustrate the ideology of Zionism and how it can be called an off-shoot of European colonialism, and draw parallels between the colonization of Palestine and the colonization of North America (or Turtle Island). This will include the beliefs that were used to justify the colonial projects and the ideological frameworks behind them. In this particular section of the essay, the perspectives of the colonizers will be presented, as we evaluate the colonial ideologies of Primitivism and Orientalism. This paper will then examine the effects of colonization on the colonized; drawing on both the similarities as well as the differences between the indigenous North American experience and that of the Palestinians. The next section will scrutinize the sense of settler-state solidarity, a phenomenon that has become particularly unconcealed and made more overt, here in Canada, by the Harper Government. Finally, before fully concluding, I shall touch upon the relations between native rights movements and Palestinian solidarity movements in North America and how they intersect at times, unifying to oppose the settler-state solidarity, from below. There are many points of contrast between the two situations, but the theme of colonialism and occupation, dehumanization and the ‘othering’ of entire peoples and societies are present and these factors are reflected in the joining together of the two movements that is occurring on a grassroots level today.
Zionism and Colonialism
As stated above, political Zionism emerged in Europe as a nationalist revival movement. During this time, European colonialism was at its peak with the final scramble for Africa well under way. In this atmosphere, the ideology of Zionism came to be. Another factor that arguably assisted in the cementing of Zionism was the growing pressure on European Jews to make a choice between assimilating into their respective societies or to face continuing persecution. Zionism was thus an apparent third option to this predicament and this entailed founding a separate homeland for Jews. While the initial debate on where to do this displayed diverse possible destinations the land of Palestine emerged as the most commonly preferred place. Generations of Jews in Europe and elsewhere in the world had perceived historic Palestine or Eretez Israel as it was known in Judaism, as a place for sacred pilgrimage, but only with the arrival of the ideology of Zionism did it become a viable site for a future nation-state. In fact, in the tradition of Judaism, Jews are instructed to await the coming of the Messiah before they can be given a land of their own, which explains why several Ultra-Orthodox Jews are not Zionists, such as Neturei Karta. The first steps towards realizing the Zionist project were small, with relatively small Jewish migration to the region. At this time, Palestine was officially under the tutelage of Great Britain. Throughout the time of the British Mandate virtually every Palestinian Arab leader had requested the creation of an independent state in Palestine, which the British did promise to them for their help in fighting the Ottomans in the First World War. In 1917, however, the British officially promised the land to the Zionists as a Jewish Homeland in the Balfour Declaration. This decision prompted uprisings by the Palestinian leadership. The British responded by stationing more troops in Palestine than it had in the entire Indian subcontinent at the time, disbanding the resistance militias and exiling the Palestinian leaders. The Palestinian resistance had been terribly weakened and this gave the Zionist movement an advantage. Years of diplomacy granted a partition plan for Palestine to be divided into two states, an Arab and a Jewish State, yet in 1942 the Zionist leadership made its first demand for all of the land for itself.
The Zionists prepared themselves for Plan Dalet, which called for the systematic expulsion of Palestinian Arabs from their homeland and started in early December 1947. Sporadic attacks against Palestinian villages commenced, beginning the first phases of ethnic cleansing. On the 9th of January a few small units of the first Arab volunteer army from neighbouring Arab states entered Palestine to intervene. In May, Britain officially pulled out of Mandatory Palestine in order for the newly formed United Nations to oversee the partition plan, which the Arabs had rejected due to disadvantages they were given in the process. Under the cover of war, Zionist militias such as the Hagana and the Irgun, among others, committed their cleansing operations, occupying Arab villages, inducing the residents into exodus through terrorist acts and massacres. Common Zionist narrative explains the victory of the Jewish militias as a miraculous event, often likening it to a David and Goliath battle, as the precursors to the state of Israel fought off the various Arab armies. The narrative also regularly claims that the proceeding Palestinian refugee situation were merely an accidental by-product of the war. Strong evidence actually shows these two conjectures to be false, for the Zionist militias had superior firepower, numbers, organization and command, which had determined their victory, and the Palestinian refugee crisis was premeditated by the Zionist leaders.
The state of Israel was thus born over the ruins of Palestine. The indigenous people fled to the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, southern Lebanon, as well as other parts of the Arab world. In 1967, Israel through war with neighbouring Jordan and Egypt came to possess and occupy the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Although officially ‘withdrawing’ from Gaza, Israel still controls all airspace and patrols the coast. Settlements that are illegal by international law are continuing to be built in the West Bank, as well as roads that are only to be used by settlers. The Israeli state is committing actions that are being labeled as apartheid worldwide, often being compared to South Africa under the apartheid regime.
The exodus and creation of the Palestinian refugee crisis is known in Arabic as the ‘Nakba’ and it did not end once the initial ethnic cleansing operations ended. Similar to the colonization of Turtle Island, the Nakba is a continuing tragedy and the colonization of both lands continues to this day. The words of an activist demonstrate these comparisons:
"The current plight of Palestinians increasingly resembles the tragic demise of Native Americans. To have become refugees in their own land, hounded and derided by a superior military and economic entity, and to have endured mostly apathy from the outside world as well as the inevitable corruption and authoritarianism of ‘their own leaders’ are markers of both experiences."
Primitivism vs. Orientalism
The comparisons that I draw between the Zionist colonization of the land of historic Palestine and that of Europeans in North America shall begin with the mentalities and ideological frameworks of the colonizers themselves. Both ideologies were quick to marginalize the indigenous peoples of the respective lands and create justifications for the seizure of land and resources for the exclusive use of European colonizers. In North America, the European colonizers justified the conquest of the indigenous populations by employing an argument that the First Peoples were not putting their land to what they (the colonizers) deemed to be proper use. This view has its origins in modern liberal theory and colonial mainstream narrative generally downplays the many accomplishments of aboriginal civilizations. This rhetoric entails that the colonizers’ actions were beneficial for overall human progress is used to reconcile mass dispossession, genocide and ethnic cleansing. In the case of Palestine, on the other hand, a mainstream Zionist myth often insists that historic Palestine was empty at the time of the Zionist movement and that it was in fact ‘a land without a people, for a people without a land’.
This is simply untrue and no serious scholar would disagree that it is categorically false. Both North America and Palestine witnessed a conquest of foreign powers (industrialized, or in the process of industrializing) that viewed the indigenous societies as inferior, or non-existent. There is some clear contrast here, but the themes of marginalization and the overlooking of the natives are present.
The ideologies of Primitivism and Orientalism were colonial constructs that further served to justify the theft of lands and destruction of cultures that ensued. Primitivism is a colonial construct that was/is applied to various indigenous groups. It often entails a vision of pre-civilization and a direct connection to nature. This is where the patronizing image of the ‘noble savage’ is derived. Some cases of primitivism seek to romanticize the respective peoples, other times it seeks to demonize, but in all cases, it inevitably de-humanizes. The primitive person is viewed thus as one who requires a type of patriarchal guidance in the ways of civilization. The Spaniards, the very first colonizers of the Americas, exemplified a potent case of this patrimony and dehumanization. The colonizers had plans to enslave the indigenous peoples of the Caribbean, yet official policy prohibited this, as it was the Crown and Church’s intention to save the souls of the subjected peoples. A royal proclamation declared in 1503 that enslavement was only permitted in cases of peoples who practiced cannibalism. Shortly after this decree, stories started emerging from the Caribbean of rampant cannibalism, which lead to the enslavement of most peoples of the region. This case illustrates two major purposes of Primitivism: to dehumanize the people and justify their subjection by the conquerors.
Orientalism is a separate subject but carries on a very similar theme. It is a perspective on the Orient from the eyes of the Occident, or the West. Edward Said once called it “particularly valuable as a sign of European-Atlantic power over the Orient that it is as a veridic discourse about the Orient”. This ideological framework has its origins in the Greco-Roman tradition, viewing the East (often the Near East) in terms of an ‘otherness’. Geographical boundaries thus divided the world and the human race into supposedly fixed categories in terms of society and culture. Distance creates an ‘other’, an opposing ‘them’ in direct opposition to a familiar ‘us’. Orientalism became widespread in Western academic discourse during the colonial era, when European powers, primarily Britain and France began to appropriate colonies in the Middle East. Along with the dehumanization of the Arabs and the Islamic World, arrived the colonial item of patrimonial domination and a sense of the colonizers comprehending the interests of the colonized more sufficiently than they themselves could do.
There is some contrast between these two concepts. Primitivism envisions a state of pre-civilization whereas Orientalism presupposes a symmetrical but inferior counterpart to the Occident. In both cases, we find the assumption of a Eurocentric chronological view, as well as definition of civilization. Despite their differences, it is clear that both the discourses of Primitivism and Orientalism cause a dehumanization and an ‘othering’ of the subjugated peoples and create suppositions that the colonizers ultimately have the best interests of those peoples at heart, even more so than the peoples themselves. Orientalism, it is arguable, came from the same origins and mentality as Primitivism. Orientalism became prominent in use among the British and French and is carried on through the policies and views of the United States and Israel.
Common Loss of Culture & Identity
The indigenous peoples of North America and the Palestinians both experienced an immense loss of culture, but the ways in which this occurred vary. Native languages of Turtle Island have largely been erased whereas Palestinians still speak their native tongue of Arabic. Remnants of the indigenous character of the land remain in North America, in place names for instance, whereas in Israel proper place names were purposely changed to rub out any evidence of the previous residents. Indigenous peoples in Canada experienced a cultural genocide, exemplified by the government residential school systems. Palestinians, on the other hand, are commonly denied recognition as a unique culture and a people. In two very different ways, both experiences yield similar results: denial of culture and identity.
In both cases of brutal dispossession, the state itself refused responsibility for some of its worst excesses. Two cases that I shall contrast to illustrate this are the Sand Creek Massacre committed by the United States cavalry in 1864 and the Deir Yassin massacre in 1948. Quite often, the responsibility for the massacre at Sand Creek is attributed to the individual of Colonel Chivington, whereas Deir Yassin is commonly, even today, attributed to an over-zealous militia commanded by Menachem Begin. These two instances were not the cause of individual judgments but rather part of a larger picture of colonial ideologies, whether Manifest Destiny or Zionism. Another notable similarity is the use of warfare to increase the frontiers of the colonial constructions. The War of 1812 was used as a means of expansion into Indian territory, as the Israeli wars of 1948 and 1967 were similarly used to push its own boundaries by taking Arab lands. On a similar route, the American state encouraged landless whites to move westward towards the frontier, serving as a buffer between the Eastern seaboard and the native nations, forcing these settlers to become dependent on the U.S. government for protection whilst displacing the indigenous peoples at the same time. The Israeli state used the kibbutzim movement to settle territory and safeguard Israel proper from the Arab territories, paving the way for further incursions and land grabs.
A particular case that is both ironical and produces a glimpse of a greater link is that of the uranium that is mined on stolen land in Pine Ridge, then made into uranium tipped missiles, sold to Israel and dropped in Gaza. Thus far, this paper has illustrated the methods and ideals of the colonizers and the contrasting yet thematically similar effects of the colonized. Next, I shall describe themes of linking the two struggles into a larger picture and the solidarity that takes place from both above and below.
Solidarity: From Above and Below
Before delving into the relations between natives and Palestinians in Canada and the United States, it is important to mention an institutionalized form of solidarity that I dub ‘settler-state solidarity’. Recently four nations voted against the United Nations Declarations on Rights of Indigenous Peoples: Canada, the United States, Australia, and New Zealand—all European-based settler-states. Representatives from these four nations and others, including Israel, walked out during the United Nations Conference on Racism. Canadian policy in regards to the Israel/Palestine issue is particularly telling, with Canadian complicity in the current apartheid system quite overt to any discerning citizen. The barrier wall that bisects the West Bank to protect encroaching Israeli settlements and pave the way for more annexations is technically considered legitimate by Canada, so long as Israel builds it on its own territory. Of course, with such an unsettled border definition it is impossible to measure this. The Canadian government of Stephen Harper and the Conservatives demonstrated its settler-state solidarity with Israel when it was the first country in the world to vote for sanctions against the people of Gaza in response to their electing a government headed by Hamas. This vote was followed by the United States and other settler nations, in another example of settler-state solidarity from above.
The First Nations actions and reactions toward the case of Palestine has been largely a mixed bag. Jim Miles, a Canadian activist/journalist, in an article entitled Canada Report – Reaching for Subnation Status, details the instances of settler-state solidarity. Miles details episodes of indigenous communities in Canada declaring solidarity with Israel, which has surprised him. Miles describes an article on a program that enabled twenty-three Inuit to travel to Israel in a spirit of camaraderie and to conduct cultural exchanges. Furthermore, he observes a website from the Assembly of First Nations that depicts another program that allowed First Nations leaders to learn how their Israeli counterparts have successfully preserved their historic culture and language. Miles explains his apprehension at these discoveries, perhaps
understanding why there would be a sense of understanding with Jewish Holocaust survivors, but faulting them for their lack of comprehension of the struggles of the Palestinians. Miles notes the similarities between the Palestinian struggle and that of the indigenous peoples of North America, most of which I have already covered above. More radical and grassroots indigenous organizations take a different perspective. The American Indian Movement makes the direct comparison between the two cases. AIM makes the connections between the two settler-states, the criminalization of the resisters and the corruption of the supposed leaders, making comparisons with AIM and Hamas while comparing the corrupt native leaders with the PLO, as well as the vilification of resisters and dehumanization of both peoples in the media. AIM also makes the necessary comparisons between ideologies such as Manifest Destiny and Zionism.
Canada itself has an indigenous movement that takes on various forms, depending on the location and the situation of the respective indigenous nations. In many parts of the country, these communities face land dispossession and degradation. Like the Palestinian Nakba, the theft of native lands did not end after the initial colonization projects but continues into the present day. Aboriginal communities resist cases of land theft and strive for self-governance from coast to coast to coast. Cases in point are the various struggles faced by the peoples of the Six Nations here in Ontario.
On February 28th 2006, members of this community fought to maintain land that was appropriated by a construction company that had been given the permission of the Canadian government. Many of these resisters now face charges in Canadian courts due to their stance against further colonization of their lands. This example is detailed on a North American-based solidarity group’s website that focuses primarily on the Palestinian cause called Stop The Wall. This group makes a direct link between the two struggles:
500 years ago empires and their missionaries spread Christianity and civilization with their swords. Today, these empires and their TV channels spread their so-called “freedom” and “democracy” with cluster bombs. The truth behind this ‘democratization’ became clear when we practiced their democracy, albeit under Israeli occupation and apartheid. The international community imposed on us a brutal siege for not choosing their candidates to lead us...After the swords, in the Americas came the agreements. Agreements were to settle land “disputes” for lasting peace. The violations and renegotiations of these agreements by the colonizers – in other words the continuation of land theft – are proverbial today. Here in Palestine, we are facing the same colonial tactics.
Palestinian Canadians are in an interesting and what some might call a contradictory state, being exiled from their own indigenous homeland yet being part of a settler-state on someone else’s indigenous land. Despite, or perhaps because of this, connections between groups in both movements are being created. Grassroots organizations like Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid (CAIA) and its strictly campus-based subgroup Students Against Israeli Apartheid (SAIA) make these links as well. A common theme that unites both causes is the desire of autonomy in the face of an overwhelming power. In Tyendinaga, Mohawk Territory, not far from Belleville, Ontario, a cultural resurgence has followed a bold stance of resistance on the part of the community. The Mohawks from Tyendinaga have been resisting encroachments on their land by often erecting roadblocks on rail lines and highways and have sought autonomy from the economy of the Canadian state with an alternative economy based on a traditional tobacco industry. This has lifted many members of the community out of poverty and has assisted in the development of the community as a whole. These trends also led to the building of a new Longhouse, a central point of the community, and the first one in over a hundred years. Members of Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid helped fund this project, solidifying a solidarity base from below. These are just a few examples of how, on the ground in many communities, the struggles of the Palestinians and the indigenous peoples of Turtle Island are becoming linked and a greater global movement is currently being forged. It is a common bond in a uniting front against worldwide colonialism and racism.
Concluding Reflections:
This paper closes where it began, with Doug Cuthand’s banned article, a particular episode that makes the bonds between these two struggles so clear:
"Over the years I have maintained a sympathetic point of view toward the Palestinians. I see them as the Indians of the Middle East. The history is hauntingly familiar. The Palestinians lost their land. They were placed in camps similar to reservations and they have been colonized and controlled by an outside force. As a First Nations person in Canada I see in them an enormous parallel. . . . The Israelis also built their nation on other people’s land but they regard any sign of dissent as terrorism. . . . The demonization of a people and their leadership is a blunt instrument used to get the public on side. As First Nations people we have witnessed the attacks on our leadership. . . . Over the years the United States has supported the State of Israel alienating it from the larger Middle Eastern community. American and Canadian media carry a definite bias toward Israel and at times it can be racist in its condemnation of the Palestinians. . . .
Overcrowding continues in the Palestinian camps and people live in poverty with no hope for the future. The very use of the word ‘settler’ indicates a Wild West mentality and strengthens the parallel between our two groups . . . I’ll probably be accused of being anti-Semitic and that’s not the case. I am against any group of people pushing another nation off their traditional land. It is a story my people have lived for seven generations."
It is clear that these struggles share a common theme in their implementation, effects on the colonized and justifications and ideologies espoused by the colonizers. These two instances of struggle and resistance are only two of many that can be linked in the global system of domination, subjugation and repression. Through these twin struggles first came the common resistance chant “From Turtle Island to Palestine: Occupation is a Crime”.
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