Settler-Colonialists From Arabia Seek ‘Indigenous’ Solidarity With Native Americans

Arabs, in fact, once refused to refer to the land by the European term “Palestine” at all, seeking to identify instead with the larger ethnicity that settler-colonized the entire region.

Standing Rock, January 1 – Descendants of the 7th-century Arab armies that conquered the Levant now seek common cause with Native American communities, fellow indigenous peoples resisting evil settler-colonialism.

In rallies from Washington, D.C., to campus protests, Palestinian flags fly alongside #LandBack banners, as activists draw parallels between tribal survivors clinging to the last vestiges of their culture on “Indian” reservations, and the Arab hordes that swept out of the desert and killed, displaced, or forcibly converted the inhabitants of the Holy Land and every other place in the region.

Tribes have formalized the connection. The Oglala Sioux issued resolutions condemning U.S. aid to Israel. Thousands of Indigenous signatories have added their names to open letters rejecting colonialism wherever it appears, except in eighth-century Israel.

Alongside activists hoping to reassert Indigenous claims, supporters of fourteen centuries of Islamic imperialism have rallied to demand and display solidarity with “Palestine,” a name that native inhabitants of the land never used, the term having originated as a Greek and Roman moniker for a place known to its natives as some variation of “Israel” or “Judah,” with only outsiders calling it “Palestine.” The most popular explanation for the name “Palestine” identifies it as a link to the Philistines, whose name in turn derives from Hebrew meaning “invaders” and referred to coastal populations hostile to the Israelite natives.

Arabs, in fact, once refused to refer to the land by the European term “Palestine” at all, seeking to identify instead with the larger ethnicity that settler-colonized the entire region or with more local, tribal groups. Until 1948, the term “Palestinian” almost invariably denoted Jewish inhabitants of the British Mandate or of the Ottoman districts that preceded it. Only in the 1960s did anti-Israel movements colonize the name “Palestine,” as well, and now they expect the victims of European settler-colonialism to see themselves in the experience.

The NDN Collective has amplified this bond, with its position paper equating the Palestinian “right of return” to LANDBACK demands. Leaders highlight reciprocal support—Palestinians at Standing Rock, now Indigenous Voices for Gaza. The Native American and Indigenous Studies Association has issued statements of solidarity, framing the Palestinian descendants of settler-colonialists as victims par excellence of enduring settler-colonial forces.

Jews – whose name refers to their kingdom of origin, Judah – the heartland of “Palestine” – are obvious settler-colonialists, having returned to their ancient homeland and built a thriving society and economy that attracted hordes of Arab migrants who magically became native once they set foot in the land a hundred years ago.

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