Opening Event: Dr Sheree Trotter’s Speech
It’s a great honour to be here today for the opening of the indigenous embassy Jerusalem.
I pay tribute to Deputy Mayor Fleur Hassan-Nahoum, who caught the vision of the indigenous embassy and has played a key role in opening the door to tonight’s opening. We acknowledge too, Dr Mike Evans and the Friends of Zion Museum for generously providing a space in this beautiful building. We are grateful too, for your hosting of this event.
I stand here on the shoulders of many of our peoples who have gone before, who have carried a deep commitment to the Jewish people and who greatly desired to see the establishment of an indigenous embassy in Jerusalem. And I link arms with other indigenous peoples around the world who have also held this vision.
It seems that at this point of history, the time is right for this embassy to be established. We’ve all witnessed post October 7 an horrific rise in antisemitism and victim-blaming. Part of the reason for that, is the way that the modern form of antisemitism, anti-zionism, has taken hold of the popular imagination. Jews have been divested of their rightful place as the indigenous people of the land.
Following 7 October, westerners were almost immediately bombarded with the message “75 years of colonial oppression”, the implication being that Israel somehow deserved to be attacked.
This narrative was so powerful that it quickly overwhelmed the empathetic response to what was arguably the most depraved frenzy of violence in the modern period. And within days, some of Israel’s opponents fell into “Hamas atrocity denial”. In contrast, Holocaust denial took years to rear its ugly head in the West.
It is my firm conviction that the dominant colonialist narrative is a dangerous political construct devoid of explanatory power. The popular rendering states that foreign Jewish Europeans invaded Palestine, dispossessed the indigenous Palestinians of their lands and that they engage in oppression to this day. Israel is accused of the worst evils of the day - apartheid, ethnic cleansing and genocide.
The superimposition of this fraudulent and simplistic colonialist ideological model on the Israel-Palestinian conflict, twists and rewrites history, ignoring facts, evidence and context.
Settler colonialism adopts a binary vision of the world that is divided into the oppressor and oppressed, painting the former as all evil and the latter totally innocent. The oppressed lose all agency in this formulation and all responsibility for any evil they may commit. Every action is justifiable as “resistance” to evil colonial oppressors, no matter how depraved the acts of “resistance” may be.
This false narrative has percolated for decades within academia, and filtered out to activist circles, politics and media through a powerful propaganda campaign, developed in the 1960s and 70s through an Arab-Soviet alliance of the Cold War era. The Soviet propaganda and disinformation campaign was exported globally and found a warm reception in the Middle East, in leftist circles and even animated activists in Aotearoa New Zealand.
The truth is, that Jews are the indigenous people of the land of Eretz Yisrael. It is the place where their identity as a nation was forged, their language and sacred literature developed, their beliefs, customs, and traditions began. It is the most sacred place in the world for Jews — it is the place where ancestors and prophets lie buried. Jerusalem is mentioned around 700 times in their sacred scriptures. This deep connection to a particular land and its ancestors are defining features of indigeneity.
The restoration of the Jewish people to their ancient homeland and the revival of their indigenous language, after centuries of persecution in the diaspora, is a prime example of decolonisation. It is an inspiration to indigenous peoples everywhere.
We stand here with you today, in your eternal city and declare that as indigenous peoples we recognise that Jews are the indigenous people of this land and we stand with you in your struggle.
We are grateful for the opening of this door for us to strengthen our relationship with Israel, to tell the story of our indigenous friendship and we look forward to developing many mutually beneficial projects.
Today is merely a beginning.
The Indigenous Embassy Jerusalem is a tangible expression of indigenous peoples’ support for Israel and affirmation of the Jewish people’s indigenous status. It will provide a symbolic doorway, a place of welcome and an information hub for indigenous peoples visiting Israel.
We will establish an international network seeking to galvanise indigenous support for Israel. We will foster relationships and mutually beneficial collaborative projects in education, business and innovation.
We will develop a production department and make full use of media and social media channels to tell our stories and change the narrative.
We will host academic symposia on indigenous topics pushing back on the predominant colonialist narrative.
The Indigenous Embassy Jerusalem will become a tourist attraction that tells the stories of Jewish-indigenous connections and histories, and will display indigenous arts.
IEJ will not purport to be an official representative of any of the governments of the host nations of the respective indigenous peoples.
We plan in time to have an NGO presence at the United Nations, to express indigenous solidarity with Israel and respond to many of the false charges from an indigenous perspective.
We can not achieve any of these goals alone. We invite you to join us in this exciting venture.
May this embassy be a forerunner for the day that all tribes and nations will come up to Jerusalem, extending a hand of friendship and seeking her peace.