Why do so many Indigenous groups align with Hamas and the Palestinians?

One of the common questions I’ve been asked following the opening of the IEJ is,

Why are so many Indigenous groups hostile toward Israel, aligning so readily with Hamas and the Palestinians?

For example, in Aotearoa New Zealand, the Māori Party has been extremely vocal in its opposition to the Jewish state. Likewise in Australia, some Indigenous groups have aligned themselves with the anti-Israel cause.

Many Indigenous groups have readily co-opted the Israel-Gaza war for their own agenda. There’s a readiness to see the Palestinians as their brown brothers suffering oppression and the Israelis as foreign white colonizers.  However, this narrative re-writes history and ignores the many geo-political factors at play. It is a narrative that shows no regard for the reality that the Jews are indigenous to Israel with more than 3500 years of continuous connection to the land. Further, it ignores the fact that the majority of Jews in Israel are in fact dark-skinned and many were themselves refugees after 1948, expelled from Arab lands where they had resided for centuries. 

The ideology that drives this false narrative is one that views the world, its structure and systems, through the prism of power relationships. This simplistic model divides the world into the oppressor and oppressed. Radical Islamist theology and Hamas’ own words and atrocities are ignored. A genocidal assault on the Jewish people is recast as an Indigenous struggle against a white colonialist oppressor. 

To see naive, uninformed rangatahi (young people) adopt the mantra and language of radical Islamists in their attempt to identity with what they see as a Palestinian “indigenous” struggle, is truly disturbing. 

A recent example is the protest of a Māori couple walking through the iconic Art Deco festival in Napier, shouting the consecutive slogans, “This is Māori Land. Free Palestine.” One can only hope we do not ultimately witness the full fruit of this radicalised deception. Are they going to follow the Hamas example and perpetrate horrific attacks on those they perceive to be colonisers of their land?

There’s a dire lack of historical knowledge and the vacuum is readily filled with the falsehoods of anti-Israel propagandists.

Their narrative has become dominant: that the plight of the Gazan people is entirely the fault of Israel.  There is no recognition that the war would stop today if Hamas released the hostages, surrendered and committed to live in peace with a Jewish state. Sadly, the propaganda machine has succeeded in dehumanizing Israelis, in the same way that Goebbels did the Jews in Nazi Germany. 

Many do not understand or are not willing to acknowledge the ways in which this war is different from previous conflicts. Israelis are simply not willing to risk their sisters, mothers, babies, husbands, fathers and grandparents being again subject to the sadistic cruelty and violence as perpetrated on their peaceful communities on 7 October. 

The Indigenous Embassy Jerusalem aims to educate and inform, and to facilitate Indigenous delegations to Israel. One of the best ways to combat the ignorance and lies is to take people to Israel to see the realities for themselves.