wo hundred and fifteen unmarked graves with no names and no causes of death, were revealed by ground-penetrating radar at a former Indian Residential School in Kamloops, British Columbia. Canadians across the country are shaken by the chilling discovery of these mysterious graves from decades ago. As they protest, tear down statues, and cry out with grief over deaths of these children from as of yet undetermined causes, despite the footage of destruction from Israeli air strikes and military brutality, Canadians are not nearly as distressed by the ongoing slaughter of Palestinian children today.
“I would like to acknowledge the traditional, ancestral, unceded territory of the…
…Palestinians.” Every Canadian will recognize the start of that phrase (even if they are startled by the end of it). Almost all land acknowledgements begin the same way. Land acknowledgements like these are one of many gestures individuals and institutions in Canada have adopted to make progress on the long path to reconciliation with Indigenous peoples. Acknowledging history is the foundation of reconciliation anywhere.
While many Canadians are committed to acknowledging and healing past harm to Indigenous peoples from settler colonialism in Canada, they are too often complicit in—if not actively supportive of—that same harm done to the Indigenous population of the Palestinian territories. Canadians recognize that before the arrival of Europeans hundreds of years ago, North America was not just an unpopulated land mass. Rather, it was inhabited by Indigenous communities from coast to coast. However, they often do not acknowledge that there were similar communities of indigenous people living in Palestine for ages before 1948.
While attempting to shape the populations of the “New World”, the British and French ran programs to offer free land and other incentives so their subjects would establish and expand settlements across the Atlantic. There were programs like the Filles du Roi that sponsored unmarried women to settle in New France under Louis XIV. The Dominion Lands Act of 1872 flooded the prairies with hundreds of thousands of European settlers. Many Canadians decry these historical programs as land theft but say nothing about similar programs active today in Palestine.
Just like the British and French imported populations to crowd out competition for their North American conquests, Israel has been importing foreign populations to Palestinian territory through aliyah programs for over 70 years. The World Zionist Organization sponsors travel and offers free land to settlers. In an extreme effort to expel the indigenous population from Palestinian territory, Peruvian Indians have been offered free land if they immediately convert to Judaism. An occupation is supposed to be temporary. The tactics used by Zionist actors in Palestinian territory today are the same land appropriation tactics of settler colonialism that devastated indigenous communities in Canada in the past.
Settler colonialism in Canada dismantled indigenous governance, subjugated their culture, and even diminished their mother tongues. Just as the residential school system in Canada sought to “kill the Indian in the child”, schools controlled by the Israeli occupying power teach material from a Zionist perspective to eliminate the Arab Palestinian identity. In Canadian Residential Schools, Indigenous children could not learn or speak their mother tongues. In 2018, Arabic—the native tongue of one fifth of all Israeli citizens— was abolished as an official language of Israel. Most shocking of all, neither Christian nor Muslim citizens or even legislators have an equal say to their Jewish counterparts in Israel’s governance after the “Nation-state Law” was passed in 2018. One cannot help but think of Canada’s 1876 Indian Act which institutionalized colonialism and enabled the human rights violations, cultural damage, and trauma that the country is still healing from.
Fair access to resources is a struggle shared by Indigenous peoples in Canada and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. While Canada has made progress in addressing water issues on reserves with investments of $3.69 billion since 2016, the opposite is happening in the “Holy Land”. In 2009, Israel bombed Gaza’s water treatment and wastewater facility. Israel’s ongoing draining of the West Bank aquifer for lavish water use in illegal settlements—to the exclusion of Palestinians—creates a strange patchwork of lush gardens and sparkling swimming pools for some, and parched, anthropogenic droughts for others.
The right to make a living through fishing is another shared struggle of Indigenous peoples in Canada and the Palestinians. While First Nations such as the Mi’kmaq and Wolastoqiyik have had their treaty rights to pursue a moderate livelihood through fishing reaffirmed by the Supreme Court, the people of Gaza remain under a military blockade that severely restricts their ability to secure enough fish to feed their families. Sailing further than Israel’s ever-changing limits on Palestinian fishing could result in a violent or fatal attack by the Israeli navy.
Land appropriation, cultural destruction, dismantling local leadership, unequal rights under the law, and unfair access to resources are issues that Canadians have come to denounce and remedy. When Palestinians are facing the very same abuses, as well as a repressive military occupation—many Canadian “allies to Indigenous peoples” make excuses to justify it. While these Canadians are willing to questionably use terms from international law to describe Canadian history, they use only delicate euphemisms to describe what is happening to the Palestinians—despite the analyses by human rights organizations like B’Tselem, Human Rights Watch, and Yesh Din. While these Canadians supported the crippling 2020 rail, port, and highway blockades by First Nations that brought the essential movement of people and goods to a halt across the country, they are against peaceful actions to censure or withdraw support from the Israeli occupation like sanctions and informed economic choices.
When the parallels between settler colonialism in Canada and Palestine are so clear, it is shocking that more Canadians are not more strongly allied with the Palestinians. If Canadians really believe that settler colonialism is wrong, then they need to apply the same standards abroad. There can be no reconciliation without truth.
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No Reconciliation Without Truth
Image by Christian Wiedi via Unsplash.
June 14, 2021
While Canadians are largely committed to healing past harm done to Indigenous peoples in the colonization of Canada, they are often complicit in or actively supportive of similar harms being done to the Indigenous population of Palestinian territories.
T
wo hundred and fifteen unmarked graves with no names and no causes of death, were revealed by ground-penetrating radar at a former Indian Residential School in Kamloops, British Columbia. Canadians across the country are shaken by the chilling discovery of these mysterious graves from decades ago. As they protest, tear down statues, and cry out with grief over deaths of these children from as of yet undetermined causes, despite the footage of destruction from Israeli air strikes and military brutality, Canadians are not nearly as distressed by the ongoing slaughter of Palestinian children today.
“I would like to acknowledge the traditional, ancestral, unceded territory of the…
…Palestinians.” Every Canadian will recognize the start of that phrase (even if they are startled by the end of it). Almost all land acknowledgements begin the same way. Land acknowledgements like these are one of many gestures individuals and institutions in Canada have adopted to make progress on the long path to reconciliation with Indigenous peoples. Acknowledging history is the foundation of reconciliation anywhere.
While many Canadians are committed to acknowledging and healing past harm to Indigenous peoples from settler colonialism in Canada, they are too often complicit in—if not actively supportive of—that same harm done to the Indigenous population of the Palestinian territories. Canadians recognize that before the arrival of Europeans hundreds of years ago, North America was not just an unpopulated land mass. Rather, it was inhabited by Indigenous communities from coast to coast. However, they often do not acknowledge that there were similar communities of indigenous people living in Palestine for ages before 1948.
While attempting to shape the populations of the “New World”, the British and French ran programs to offer free land and other incentives so their subjects would establish and expand settlements across the Atlantic. There were programs like the Filles du Roi that sponsored unmarried women to settle in New France under Louis XIV. The Dominion Lands Act of 1872 flooded the prairies with hundreds of thousands of European settlers. Many Canadians decry these historical programs as land theft but say nothing about similar programs active today in Palestine.
Just like the British and French imported populations to crowd out competition for their North American conquests, Israel has been importing foreign populations to Palestinian territory through aliyah programs for over 70 years. The World Zionist Organization sponsors travel and offers free land to settlers. In an extreme effort to expel the indigenous population from Palestinian territory, Peruvian Indians have been offered free land if they immediately convert to Judaism. An occupation is supposed to be temporary. The tactics used by Zionist actors in Palestinian territory today are the same land appropriation tactics of settler colonialism that devastated indigenous communities in Canada in the past.
Settler colonialism in Canada dismantled indigenous governance, subjugated their culture, and even diminished their mother tongues. Just as the residential school system in Canada sought to “kill the Indian in the child”, schools controlled by the Israeli occupying power teach material from a Zionist perspective to eliminate the Arab Palestinian identity. In Canadian Residential Schools, Indigenous children could not learn or speak their mother tongues. In 2018, Arabic—the native tongue of one fifth of all Israeli citizens— was abolished as an official language of Israel. Most shocking of all, neither Christian nor Muslim citizens or even legislators have an equal say to their Jewish counterparts in Israel’s governance after the “Nation-state Law” was passed in 2018. One cannot help but think of Canada’s 1876 Indian Act which institutionalized colonialism and enabled the human rights violations, cultural damage, and trauma that the country is still healing from.
Fair access to resources is a struggle shared by Indigenous peoples in Canada and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. While Canada has made progress in addressing water issues on reserves with investments of $3.69 billion since 2016, the opposite is happening in the “Holy Land”. In 2009, Israel bombed Gaza’s water treatment and wastewater facility. Israel’s ongoing draining of the West Bank aquifer for lavish water use in illegal settlements—to the exclusion of Palestinians—creates a strange patchwork of lush gardens and sparkling swimming pools for some, and parched, anthropogenic droughts for others.
The right to make a living through fishing is another shared struggle of Indigenous peoples in Canada and the Palestinians. While First Nations such as the Mi’kmaq and Wolastoqiyik have had their treaty rights to pursue a moderate livelihood through fishing reaffirmed by the Supreme Court, the people of Gaza remain under a military blockade that severely restricts their ability to secure enough fish to feed their families. Sailing further than Israel’s ever-changing limits on Palestinian fishing could result in a violent or fatal attack by the Israeli navy.
Land appropriation, cultural destruction, dismantling local leadership, unequal rights under the law, and unfair access to resources are issues that Canadians have come to denounce and remedy. When Palestinians are facing the very same abuses, as well as a repressive military occupation—many Canadian “allies to Indigenous peoples” make excuses to justify it. While these Canadians are willing to questionably use terms from international law to describe Canadian history, they use only delicate euphemisms to describe what is happening to the Palestinians—despite the analyses by human rights organizations like B’Tselem, Human Rights Watch, and Yesh Din. While these Canadians supported the crippling 2020 rail, port, and highway blockades by First Nations that brought the essential movement of people and goods to a halt across the country, they are against peaceful actions to censure or withdraw support from the Israeli occupation like sanctions and informed economic choices.
When the parallels between settler colonialism in Canada and Palestine are so clear, it is shocking that more Canadians are not more strongly allied with the Palestinians. If Canadians really believe that settler colonialism is wrong, then they need to apply the same standards abroad. There can be no reconciliation without truth.
