As the movement for Palestine has grown exponentially since late 2023, it is important to understand where part of Israel’s model of occupation comes from: right here in so-called Canada.
As Gabor Maté, a Holocaust survivor, explains: "They're both countries founded on the extirpation of Indigenous cultures and the displacement of Indigenous people."
As Azeezah Kanji, jurist and journalist critical of international law from an anti-colonial and anti-racist perspective, states in her Yellowhead Institute (Indigenous-led research and education center) report: “In states like Canada and Israel, there is also a settler colonial contract: in which land, wealth, and political rights for colonizers require the dispossession and eradication of the colonized.”
Indeed, the colonial plan of so-called Canada was to brutally push First Peoples onto reserves and impose a pass system to control their comings and goings until the 1940s. Pursuing this genocidal aim, as demonstrated in the article “Private property and dispossession in so-called Canada”, the Indian Act dictated First Nations' status and, until recently, forced “enfranchisement”1 to deny treaty rights, in addition to marginalizing women by preventing them from occupying roles of power within imposed structures.
Evidence exists to show that the reserve system implemented by so-called Canada was a model for the South African bantustans2 , which also served as inspiration for Israeli apartheid. British land law and title registration regimes were transplanted to the colonies, from Australia to Canada to Palestine, reaffirming the myth of terra nullius and enabling the conversion of Indigenous territories into colonial “property”. This process made it so that Indigenous peoples became “illegal occupiers” of their own lands.
Colonial repression, from Kanehsatà:ke to Gaza
The fate of the Kanien'kehá:ka people from 1717 to the siege of Kanehsatà:ke (the so-called Oka Crisis3) in 1990 and beyond, is an example of colonial oppression that bears many similarities to the current genocide in Palestine: “In 1717, Louis XIV, the King of France, granted the Sulpician missionaries title to the land of Kanehsatà:ke. Two centuries later, in 1917, the British government gave its support to the World Zionist Organization’s project of establishing a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine, which was then under British occupation. In the late 1800s, the Sulpicians established the town of Oka by forcibly expelling Ellen Gabriel’s ancestors from their homes, leaving them with nothing but the clothes on their back. In 1948, the Zionists did the same across most of Palestine, forcing 750 000 people from their homes during the Nakba.”
This comparison is also shared by Kanien'kehá:ka artist and activist Ellen Gabriel who was a community spokesperson during the siege of Kanehsatà:ke in 19904. Indeed, she argues that the parallels between the two states are manifold. In particular, the 1990 siege revealed the links between the repression of Kanehsatà:ke and Palestinian activists.
During the 1990 Siege of Kanehsatà:ke, the Kanien'kehá:ka land resistance became a standoff between the Sûréte du Québec and the Canadian military over unceded land, land that some wanted to expand a golf course.
The police and the army used all kinds of techniques to abuse, dissuade and discourage Kanien'kehaka activists:"We were denied food, medicine, free passage for our people," said Gabriel.
"They tortured men.The Canadian army and the SQ [Sûreté du Québec] tortured Mohawk men, and for what? For a golf course."
Moreover, the dominant institutions have tried to legitimize, even invisibilize, the violence of the colonial authorities by stigmatizing the tactics used by the Kanien'kehá:ka, such as blockades. Gabriel, as well as other land defenders such as the Mohawk Warrior Society were labelled as terrorists.
If you find this reminiscent of the open-air prison that is Gaza, it’s by design.
According to Gabriel, the paramilitary police force that invaded Kanehsatà:ke in 1990 was the first in North America to have trained in Israel (they even carried Israeli-made weapons).
To this day, exchange programs between police departments and the Israeli military maintain a cycle of violence that allows for tactics developed over the course of decades, if not centuries, to be incubated, innovated and tested out on Palestinians by the Israeli Occupation Force (IOF). These tactics are then sent back to Turtle Island for the cops to use against Black, Indigenous and accomplice bodies. Standing Rock's water cannons and Ferguson's heavy-handed use of tear gas being two examples of this.
As was seen in and around Unist’ot’en Camp, erected to block the construction of the CGL pipeline, as well as in many cities across Turtle Island and through the devastating photos of Gaza and the West Bank, the denial, displacement and destruction of encampments, homes and shelters is a searing example of “domicide,” the destruction of Indigenous peoples' homes to expell them from their homeland.
Turtle Island and Palestine - same struggle
The genocide in Palestine is often played off as a “foreign policy” issue, far removed from us. But, “it is as close as the stolen words of justice on our tongues, the stolen lives mourned in our hearts, and the stolen land beneath our feet.”-Azeezah Kanji. A blatant example of this is Canadian companies exporting weapons, components and military technology to Israel. So-called Canada also buys military technology from Israel and authorizes its import, which was tested in Gaza and the West Bank.
Another element that opresses colonized people is the imposition of colonial borders. In the case of Palestine, we can think of the armed border of Gaza or the West Bank. For the Kanien'kehà:ka, borders serve to separate the communities of Kahnawá:ke, Tyindenega, Kanehsatà:ke and Akwesasne, while making Akwesasne, which partially ends up in the so-called United States, one of the most closely watched communities in all of Turtle Island: Kanien’kehà community members often report being profiled, questioned, and detained by border agents with no explanation, or having their property searched and confiscated.This is a well-publicized parallel with life in occupied Palestine.
We can see a clear parallel between the continuous colonial violence of removal of Palestinians from their ancestral relationships with wild olive and akoub trees in Gaza and the artificial border that separates the Kanien'kehà:ka of Akwesasne from their material, traditional, inter-generational and cultural link to the St. Lawrence River. Colonial efforts to add a cultural aspect to the genocide are worldwide.
Indigenous peoples from Turtle Island to Palestine have and continue to put their lives on the line to expose and lay bare the injustices and dehumanization caused by colonial domination, as well as to obtain and insure their freedom and safety. As with the liberation movements emerging through solidarity work, they have also shown the possible beauty of a world built on mutual aid. Whenever we hear, feel or repeat that these situations are too “complex” or “unclear” for us to act in solidarity, we are are once again falling into the colonial innocence trap.
“Palestine’s freeing is simultaneously entwined with the freeing of Indigenous and Black people in Turtle Island. To end Palestinian occupation, the bewitched American/Canadian false dream must fall and be replaced by a genuinely decolonial enchanting else. ” - Mohamed Abdou
1. The process of ending a person's legal status as an "Indian" under the Indian Act.
2. Bantustans were territories set aside for Black inhabitants of South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) as part of the apartheid policy. The term "Bantustan" is a combination of the Bantu word Bantu, meaning "people", and the Persian word -stan, meaning "land". Source : Kanji, Azeezah. Canada and Israel: Partners in the « Settler Colonial Contract ». Yellowhead Institute. 21 Mai 2021. https://yellowheadinstitute.org/2021/05/21/canada-andisrael-partners-in-the-settler-colonial-contract/
3. Although many Canadians perceived this as a “crisis”, for the Kanienʼkehá꞉ka, “Oka” was only the most recent event in a nearly 300-year struggle to protect their lands from colonial and capitalist development.
4. In 1990, the Kanienʼkehá꞉ka of Kanehsatà:ke erected barricades on a secondary road to prevent the Oka Golf Club from expanding its 9-hole golf course and building luxury condominiums on unceded territory, including a cemetery and pine forest. On July 11, a paramilitary squad from the Sûreté du Québec attacked the peaceful blockade, triggering a 78-day siege, commonly known as the Oka Crisis. Fundamental human rights were violated by the SQ and the Canadian army, with the approval of all levels of government. While the pine forest was saved, the question of Kanehsatà:ke's historic lands was never resolved. The struggle continues.