Indigenous Americans understand Palestinian occupation more than anyone

Tara Houska marches for Palestine because she knows all about genocide, displacement and loss.

Houska is an award-winning tribal attorney from the Couchiching First Nation, one of more than 600 remaining Indigenous tribes in the US, although the government officially only recognises 574 tribes.

There used to be more than 1,000 tribes until Italian explorer Christopher Colombus landed on the shores of the Americas in 1492 and European colonisation of the land accelerated.

Many in the Indigenous community consider what happened more than 500 years ago in the Americas to be a "parallel path" to what the Palestinians have been facing for the last 75 years.

Since the latest Israeli bombing of Gaza began in October, groups such as NDN Collective and The Red Nation have issued written statements calling for an end to "settler colonialism" and genocide, adding that "Palestinian rights are Indigenous rights to those lands and we’re on Indigenous land here."

Speaking to TRT World, Houska, who also served as a former advisor on Native Affairs to Senator Bernie Sanders (2016), said she has been watching "efforts to displace Palestinians from Palestine" for decades, but that Israeli occupation has now "turned openly genocidal in its scope and actions."

The civil rights activist and a long-time supporter of global Indigenous rights said she was so outraged by the destruction and killings in Gaza that she travelled more than 1,000 miles to a protest in Washington, DC in November to show Palestinians, "We see you, we are with you."

"What is happening in Palestine right now goes beyond depopulation, it’s genocide," said Houska, who is based in Koochiching County, Minnesota. Over the years she's also delivered talks at Princeton University, Dickinson College, and most recently Harvard University, on Palestinian and Indigenous rights.

"My ancestors were nearly genocided out of existence - they came for our food, our ability to freely move, our cultures, and ultimately our lands and waters.

"We were dehumanised, degraded, and held unequal rights to our own homelands. While waging campaign after campaign massacring, starving, blockading and attempting to forcefully assimilate and reprogram our peoples, we were moved onto tiny portions of the land we called home for generations. I see many of these same tactics being waged on Palestinian people."

Up to 56 million Indigenous Americans were said to have been killed in the first 100 years of European colonisation of the Americas. Today, remaining Native American tribes have been forced to live on just two percent of US land.

Although recent protests may have spurred the largest Palestinian movement in US history, Indigenous Native American support for Palestine goes back at least half a century.

The Native American Movement and the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) supported one another in the 1970s, as both campaigned and fought for their stolen rights.

More recently in 2016, Native Americans draped in Palestinian keffiyehs stood shoulder to shoulder with Palestinian Youth Movement activists in protesting against the construction of oil pipelines that would destroy Indigenous religious and cultural sites of the Sioux tribe at Standing Rock in North Dakota, as well as contaminate their water supply.

In writing about the action, James Zogby, president of the Washington, DC-based Arab-American Institute, said that Indigenous Native Americans and Palestinians "shared the same narrative."

He added, "The Zionist settlers who came to Palestine in the 1920s recognised this. They sometimes referred to the Palestinian Arabs whom they encountered as 'Red Indians'—savages to be defeated, obstacles to their ambitions who had to be removed in order to pave the way for the realisation of their dream of creating a Jewish enterprise in Palestine."

After the last Israeli attack on Gaza in 2021, pro-Palestinian protests in the US started to include more support from Indigenous activists, as well as other community groups such as Black Lives Matter, according to Counting Crowds, a site that documents protests across the US.

But Indigenous solidarity hasn’t been limited to street protests and social media posts.

In November, the MV Cape Orlando, a US military ship believed to be carrying arms bound for Israel, was blockaded by a traditional canoe of the Puyallup Tribe, natives of Tacoma in Washington state.

Activist Patricia Gonzalez told reporters at the time, "When we saw that that's what was going on, we knew we had to do the most powerful thing in our culture that we know how to do and for us that was warrior up. Get on the water and stand your ground and that’s exactly what we went out there to do."

Days earlier, after the House of Representatives passed a bill to provide $14 billion in military aid to Israel, two Indigenous artists announced they’d take down their work from The Land Carries Our Ancestors exhibition at the National Gallery of Art (NGA) in Washington, DC.

Nicholas Galanin (Tlingit and Unangax tribes) and Merritt Johnson (no tribal affiliation) displayed a sculpture titled Creation with her Children, which they describe as "a reflection on survival, resistance against colonisation, the importance of continuum and connection to Land."

Releasing a statement on social media, they explained their decision: "It is with deep regret that we must ask for our work be removed from the National Gallery due to US government funding of Israel’s military assault and genocide against the Palestinian people.

"We’re calling on the Federal Government to demand an immediate ceasefire, cut military aid to Israel, and lift the siege on Gaza."

Houska's activism meanwhile included chaining herself to an excavator in October by the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) in Pembroke, Virginia. The 300-plus mile, fracked gas pipeline was targeted as a site of protest as the oil from the pipeline is believed to serve Elbit Systems in Roanoke, Virginia. The company manufactures Israeli weapons that have been used against Palestinians.

Last month, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued an emergency ruling, ordering Israel to take measures to prevent genocide in its war on Gaza.

Although Houska says she hoped the ICJ verdict would have called for an immediate ceasefire, she remains optimistic about a safe and peaceful future for Palestinians.

"I believe the ICJ decision lays the groundwork for recognition of Palestine as a nation-state, deserving of all rights afforded to nation-states," she said. She added that US President Joe Biden must call for a ceasefire, "immediately."

"After that, international and binding diplomacy must take place with Palestine at the table as an equal, self-determined party – until then, Wiikwaji’ikog Baneshtiinanaang Palestine!"

Which means "Free the people of Palestine" in Houska’s native Ojibwe language, still spoken and held onto, 500 years after colonisation.