The Indigenous support for Palestine around the world has been overwhelming, and Aotearoa is no exception. Week after week, Tangata Whenua have shown up in support of Palestine. This alone is a mark to the depth of feeling New Zealanders have about this matter, not just that they show up, but that they KEEP showing up, every week. In an age where wrong-doers rely on the public to get bored and move on – that hasn’t happened. Quite the opposite, actually – with every week passing, more and more Tangata Whenua are committing time and effort to understanding and opposing the genocide being carried out by Israel, first and foremost as a matter of their own humanity, but also as a matter of Indigenous solidarity. Still, as we’ve seen here in Aotearoa (and in so-called United States/Canada and Australia as well), there are always a few Indigenous outliers who are co-opted into colonial agendas, and try to paint their colonialism as being Indigenous.
In Aotearoa, those outliers have names, they are Destiny Church (and their political arm, the “Freedom and Rights Coalition”), and the “Indigenous Coalition for Israel”.
If this is as far as you want to read then here’s the takeaway:
This is not Indigenous support for Israel. It is Indigenous people, recruited into colonial support for Israel. It is easily debunked by the following facts:
– Israel is a product of western colonialism
– Both groups are centered on Euro-Christian conservatism
– Both groups are affiliated with the far-right and white supremacists
– Maori have made it very clear, on our most important political platforms, that we stand with Palestine.
When you see media profiling these groups as “Indigenous support for Israel“, it’s important to note that a hallmark of Western domination is the tendency to see Indigenous Peoples as a homogenous group. Even the smallest cohort of Indigenous peoples are, within a Western colonial mind (and to Western media), cast as representative of the whole.
Equally important to note is that Indigenous people, through the process of colonialism, are regularly co-opted into colonial agendas, and this is often platformed by media to suggest Indigenous support for colonialism. The most energy-efficient model of colonialism is Indigenous people carrying it out upon each other, and New Zealand’s colonial project has relied heavily upon a strategy of aggressive assimilation and recruitment.
So it’s important, when we see Indigenous peoples holding a particular position, that we look beyond how they name and present themselves, and interrogate who they are, what mandate they have, and what they stand for.
In spite of the co-option and assimilation, Indigenous Peoples have a long history of working collectively in the shared cause of dismantling colonialism. We are the second largest political movement in the world, numbering over 500million. Those involved in Indigenous rights know who other Indigenous groups are, we know the legitimate forums, we know our shared issues and many of each others’ distinct issues, we know our political histories and our political figures. The language of Indigenous rights is a shared language.
We also know colonial political language and tactics. So when it comes to Indigenous people who support Israel – while they, themselves may present as Indigenous, their politics are most certainly not.
It takes Indigenous critical analysis to identify this – that being a knowledge of:
- Indigenous rights issues and movements
- Colonial narratives and indicators
- An understanding of the Indigenous and colonial political landscape at a local, national and global level
in order to understand what we are looking at.
We will look a little closer at Destiny Church and the “Indigenous Coalition for Israel”, and their white supremacist connections soon, but first, a number of objective red-flags about support for Israel that makes it impossible to exist as an Indigenous rights issue.
The most obvious issue is that the nation-state of Israel is a product of Western colonialism, which is the source of all Indigenous oppression around the world. Were it not for the systems of Western colonial domination put in place through the Doctrine of Discovery, Israel would not have been able to establish itself as a nation-state. Israel and their Zionist supporters themselves consistently point out that Israel’s genocide project is in service to “Western civilization” – which, for any Indigenous activist – is a clear red-flag, given that “Western civilization and values”, outside of Western Europe, is code for colonial conquest. No Indigenous group worth their salt would ever claim to be protectors of Western values.
The fact that Israel is a colonial aggressor is articulated perhaps most clearly by Ben Gurion, the very first president of Israel, as pointed out by Gabor Mate:
Of course, this was before Indigenous rights was placed on the global rights agenda, and so it was relatively safe for the Israeli president to be more honest about their coloniality. Since then, Indigenous rights have progressed, and colonialism is rightfully reviled for the harmful, entitled, objectively evil force that it is, which is exactly why Israelis are now trying to cloak their colonial violence by claiming Indigeneity. They are, quite simply, too late. The wealth of historical and current documentation of them openly and proudly claiming their status as Western colonizers is overwhelming.
It’s clear that Israel’s claims of Indigeneity are unpracticed, clumsy, unconnected to the global Indigenous struggle and unconnected to the global Indigenous community. This is a natural consequence of the fact that they are colonizers, and up until very recently, proudly claimed that title.
Unsurprisingly, Israel did not participate in the vote to endorse the Declaration for the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which, if they were so passionate about their Indigenous status, you’d imagine they would. Israeli groups have, in fact, never participated in the United Nations Permanent Forum for Indigenous Issues (unsurprising seeing as Israel is a colonial ethno-state and is not under occupation of a colonial force). You know who DOES have a record of showing up at the United Nations as Indigenous Peoples? Indigenous Palestinians and Bedouin, both of whom have decried the colonial oppression of Israel.
Secondly, look to who is backing Israel. As many wise folk have said – if you want to know a person’s character, look at who they surround themselves with. In this case, Israel’s strongest support to date comes from the world’s greatest neo-imperial brute, the United States, along with history’s most prolific colonizer, Britain. Look to the governmental support Israel has enjoyed from the “tight 4” anti-Indigenous nations of United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand (who were the only nations to oppose the Declaration for the Rights of Indigenous Peoples).
Notwithstanding the incredible testament to material solidarity shown by Yemen, if you look at who have been Israel’s most vocal critics on the world stage, well you have the deeply anti-colonial Republic of Ireland, and who can look past the incredible work of South Africa and their genocide case against Israel brought to the International Court of Justice, a support rooted in the legacy of the anti-apartheid and anti-colonial stances of Mandela and the ANC.
Similarly, we can understand the character of these two groups, Destiny Church/Freedom and Rights Coalition and the Indigenous Coalition for Israel, if we look beyond their performative Indigenous costumery to the company they keep. Destiny Church, for instance, is well-known in Aotearoa as a conservative evangelical, and I’d go so far as to say fundamentalist Christian organisation who courted their members down deeply far-right anti-vaxx rabbit-holes during the Covid pandemic, blamed Tūranga and Heretaunga porn-use for Cyclone Gabrielle, blamed gay sex for the Christchurch earthquake, regularly attack migrant, Muslim, LGBTQI+, takatāpui and ia whakawhiti rights, are anti-abortion, and have politically aligned themselves with far right nationalist, conservative and conspiratorial groups such as the NZ Outdoors Party, Groundswell (fashioned after similar conservative farming interest movements in Canada and the EU), white supremacist extremist group Action Zealandia and infamous white supremacist Julian Batchelor. Destiny Church are not an Indigenous rights movement, they are a conservative, fundamentalist Christian supremacist cult.
If it seems that this is the furthest thing from progressive, anti-colonial Indigenous rights interests you could get – well stay seated, let’s look at the “Indigenous Coalition for Israel”.
Based in Aotearoa, the coalition is dominated by people who are not Indigenous to Aotearoa. As of November 2023, their governance consisted of one Māori Co-Director Sheree Trotter, a Kuki Airani (self-governing nation) Co-Director Alfred Ngaro, who is a self-described Christian Zionist, and also an anti-LGBTQI marriage rights, pro-conversion therapy, anti-abortion, ex-National MP who left the National Party because it wasn’t conservative enough for him. They had one Māori advisor on council, one Zimbabwean who lives in South Africa, a Samoan & a Tongan. After receiving loud online criticism, they have shifted their membership, still holding onto the same conservative co-leadership, but losing the Zimbawean, and gaining a Māori, and still retaining the member from self-governing Tonga and the Samoan-Niuean-Cook Island member, who happens to be the wife of Alfred Ngaro. Nobody on the panel has a public record of defending Indigenous political rights in Aotearoa, nor in the lands which they are Indigenous to. So while Destiny Church are certainly colonial and conservative in their views, they are largely, at least, Indigenous to the land they are on. To my knowledge, none of this group have a record of trans-national advocacy for Indigenous rights causes.
But that’s just the beginning. Co-founder Sheree Trotter is married to Perry Trotter, pākeha Christian bible teacher and director of the Israel Institute of New Zealand alongside fellow Christian conservative Ashley Church and Auckland academic David Cumin (the one Jewish director). One might guess that it’s Zionism (either Christian or Jewish) that brings them together, but then a closer look at Ashley Church reveals he is also a former National party candidate, founding member of the Free Speech Union and former chair of the Tax Payers Union, both far-right conservative lobby groups closely linked to the tobacco and oil industries, and both heavily criticised for being Anti-Māori. The Tax Payers Union is also an official partner of far-right think tank The Atlas Network who have worked around the world to suppress Indigenous rights.
If you need the corkboard version, here:
It’s a little bit of a spaghetti bowl of connections, but one thing is consistent – it’s not about Indigenous rights.
It’s not surprising, but it does leverage off and exploit decades of work to raise Indigenous rights in the human rights agenda. Authors like Naomi Klein have studiously detailed the “mirror world” of political doubling where people and groups assume paradox-personas (eg abusers as victims, human-rights violaters as human-rights advocates) in her book “Doppelganger”… Israel is just doing that as a nation, as are their supporters.
When all is said and done, though – Indigenous people do see each other, we recognise Indigenous struggle, and we recognise colonialism. We stand together for Standing Rock, We stand together for Mauna Kea, We stand together for West Papua, and We stand together for Palestine.
The Palestinian struggle has had Māori support not just now, but for generations. The Palestinian liberation movement, alongside other liberation movements from overseas, significantly influenced the Māori sovereignty movement over the years. THAT is why, in the most political site for Māori in Aotearoa (Waitangi), on our most political day of the year (Waitangi Day), you saw Palestinian solidarity on the agenda (there was no agenda item for Israel solidarity). That also explains the sea of Palestinian flags at Waitangi every single day (and the absence of Israeli flags).
That’s why Kahungunu put forward an entire bracket dedicated to Palestine at their kapa haka regionals where we take our political statements to the stage (and there were none for Israel).
That’s why we keep showing up every single weekend across the country, in solidarity with Palestine, even as we are embroiled in the fight for our own rights.
Because we know colonial injustice when we see it, and we will continue to stand against it.
Tangata Whenua stand with Palestine.