Indigenous Perspectives from Turtle Island

There are indigenous Canadian and Native America voices that are pro-Israel and other voices that are pro-Palestinian. In academia pro-Palestinian indigenous view points have recieved a fair amount of lime light. Here we balance this by highlighting pro-Israel indigenous voices.

Perspective 1

Indigenous lawyers Harry LaForme from the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation and Karen Restoule from the Dokis First Nation have the following to say:

"Some have suggested correlations between Hamas and Israel in the Middle East and the reconciliation work led by First Nations here in Canada in the West. We hear the words “colonizer,” “settler” and “decolonize” to justify terror, violence, kidnapping, rape and targeted civilian massacres. These words are used to assert revolutionary violence “by any means necessary” and that “all forms of resistance” are justified. We unequivocally reject these assertions and any allyship with those who hold such views."

We strongly recommend reading their entire Opinion piece in the National Post: Opinion: We are Anishinaabe Zionists. Hateful anti-Israel camps disrespect our lands: We reject using the words 'colonizer,' 'settler' and 'decolonize' to justify terror, violence, kidnapping and rape

Perspective 2

Chris Sankey is a former elected Councilor for Lax Kw’alaams Band and Senior Fellow for the Macdonald-Laurier Institute. Mr. Sankey decries professors who compare violent Palestinian terrorism to the peaceful struggle of Canadian Indigenous groups. He singles out a course on "so-called ‘anti-colonial resistance’ in Israel and Canada" taught at the University of Toronto as especially offense together with academic papers such as the 2021 paper in Palestinian Studies entitled "Disrupting settler-colonial capitalism: Indigenous intifadas and resurgent solidarity from Turtle Island to Palestine" published by a professor from the same institution. Instead Chris Sankey sees Israel as an indigenous success story. He states,"The State of Israel, even with notable flaws, is one of the greatest examples of indigenous reclamation in the world."

Read the full version of Mr. Sankey's views on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict on the Macdonald-Laurier Institute website: Stop comparing Palestinians to Indigenous Canadians: Chris Sankey for Inside Policy

Perspective 3

Jason Watson is from the Chickasaw Nation. He lives in Israel and has the following to say about re-indigenizationa and self determination:

“As an indigenous person, I look at what the Jewish people have done in Israel, and I see something that, even though the Chickasaws have had so much success, we will never have our homelands back the way the Jewish people do in Israel… We will never have our own state… We will never have our own military… our very own anything. We are a nation within a nation. And when I look at what the Jewish people have done with their self-determination, it is something for all indigenous people to look up to and to honor and to say, ‘Look, this is what it could be, this is where self-determination could take us.’”

Read the full version of Mr. Watson's views from the Jerusalem Post: The Native Americans who back Israel against Hamas