First Nation in Solidarity with McGill Students
Indigenous Solidarity with Palestine
The past two weeks [in October 2023] of horrific violence in Gaza resulted from 75 years of Israeli settler colonial dispossession, 56 years of military occupation, and 16 years of an open-air prison for 2.2 million people, half of whom are children. The atrocities of the Israeli apartheid regime in Palestine are relentless, illegal under international law, and consistent with settler-colonial projects globally.
It has been heartbreaking and unsurprising to see the colonial powers in Canada, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and Europe line up behind this genocide. Israeli settler colonialism, apartheid, and occupation are only possible because of international support.
The settler states that dispossess and occupy our lands support Israel in dispossessing and occupying Palestine.
We see and feel the strength of Palestinian families in the face of the quotidian violence of the Israeli apartheid regime. Colonized peoples have the right to defend themselves and to resist colonial violence. We support Palestinian liberation and their right as an oppressed people to resist colonialism and genocide.
We amplify the immediate demands of people in Gaza as the bare minimum, including:
1. An immediate ceasefire to halt more state-sanctioned Palestinian death, to allow for dignified burials for the deceased in overflowing morgues and under rubble and to prevent outbreaks of disease.
2. The urgent restoration of water, food, fuel, medical supplies, and humanitarian aid.
3. Immediate protection of medical facilities and reversing the illegal and inhumane evacuation orders for hospitals.
4. The facilitation of safe passage for casualties and critically ill individuals in need of medical treatment.
5. While the people of Gaza vehemently reject forced displacement, we insist on opening the crossings for those seeking to evacuate and permitting the entry of medical and rescue teams, along with their equipment.
And:
6. An end to all foreign military aid from the United States and Canada to Israel.
As Indigenous peoples, we condemn the increase in anti-Palestinian, anti-Islamic, and anti-Arab violence everywhere. We condemn the increase in anti-Indigenous violence everywhere. We condemn anti-Jewish violence everywhere. We condemn punishing workers, students, artists, politicians, and academics for supporting Palestinian liberation. We recognize that Zionism is a form of racism and a colonial ideology that does not represent the views of all Jewish people throughout the world.
We encourage Indigenous peoples worldwide to uplift additional demands from Palestinian organizers, to commit to the Palestinian call to Boycott, Divest, and Sanction (BDS) Israel and all institutions complicit in Israeli apartheid and settler colonialism, to issue solidarity statements and mutual aid for Palestine and organize mutual aid for Gaza, to demand freedom for political prisoners, and to support Land Back and the right of return for Palestinians.
Stop the genocide. End the siege. End the occupation. Dismantle apartheid. Decolonize Palestine. •
See list of signatories at The Red Nation website.
