What Native Americans and Palestinians Have in Common

Witness November 23, 2023

WHAT NATIVE AMERICANS AND PALESTINIANS HAVE IN COMMON

Today, we’re reflecting on the similarities between the respective struggles of Native Americans and Palestinians, two Indigenous communities who have endured unconscionable violence at the hands of their colonizers.

Despite these difficult and painful realities, these communities continue to fight for the right to live on their land in safety and freedom and stand in unwavering solidarity with one another.

Native Americans and Palestinians are both indigenous people fighting to survive the violent theft of their land AKA colonization.

While both their experiences are unique, as victims of colonization, their struggles have many similarities.

Both have been the victims of massacres and genocide.

In North America, European settlers killed up to 90% of Native Americans through massacres, stealing their resources, and biological warfare.

Right now, Israel is carrying out a genocide in Gaza that is strikingly similar to the Nakba of 1948, when Israeli militias massacred thousands of Palestinians, violently forcing over 75% of Palestinians to flee in order to establish the state of Israel.

Both have had nearly all their land stolen.

The US has stolen over 98% of Native American land.

Israel has stolen over 85% of Palestinian land.

Both have endured deliberate attempts to erase their identities and culture.

The United States and Israel have tried to rid Native Americans and Palestinians respectively of their languages, histories, traditions, foods, sacred sites, and more in order to disconnect them from one another and their lands.

Both continue to endure violence from their colonizers today.

Native Americans are one of the racial groups most likely to be killed by police in the US.

In the past 6 weeks, Israel has killed more than 13,300 Palestinians, including at least 5,500 children.

Both are forced to live in unequal, unsafe living conditions.

The US has pushed Native Americans into small, siloed areas of land called reservations where they're deprived of equal housing, healthcare, economic opportunities and more.

In addition to subjecting Palestinians to a brutally violent apartheid system, Israel has forced Palestinians into crowded, walled-off neighborhoods in order to steal their land so that Israeli settlers can illegally take over.

Both are deprived of their natural resources & basic necessities.

On reservations, Native Americans are often deprived of clean water, electricity, internet access, and other basic resources.

In Gaza, Israel is depriving Palestinians of clean water, food, electricity, fuel, internet access, life-saving medical supplies, and more.

The US and Israel have the same goal: to oppress & kill Indigenous people in order to steal their land.

"We are seeking to colonise a country against the wishes of its population, in other words, by force."
- Vladimir Jabotinsky, founder of the Israeli militia that massacred Palestinians to found the state of Israel

"I have come to kill Indians, and believe it is right and honorable to use any means under God's heaven to kill Indians."
- Col. John Chivington, whose soldiers killed -230 Cheyenne and Arapaho people in the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864

Today and everyday Indigenous people from North America to Palestine and beyond are resisting ongoing colonization.

We stand with all Indigenous people fighting to live in freedom on their own land.

- Sources : Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice, Amnesty International, Al Jazeera.
- Creadits : theimeu, Reuters, AFP, Daily Mail, Visualizing Palestine, IITC.

Comment Below What We Should Talk About Next, Your Requests Are Our Priority🤝

Click Here for Market Place/+Buy Organic Products