As a human I am ambidextrious, I write with my left and throw a ball with my right. When it comes to politics I am neither right nor left. Neither are my peoples the Kanienkehaka and the Potawatomi – maybe we are beneath, above or both. Some might call me a walking contradiction but I believe in high speed internet and saving the environment. I believe in the right to bear arms, hunting and also the ethical treatment of animals. I also believe in the power of good conscience and common sense which some call the Kaienerekowa.
When speaking about the history of my people the greatest misconception I deal with is the argument that we were defeated ‘in the war’. I often ask “which war?” and I get replies like “you know, the Indian war”. Maybe they are referring to the black and white war John Wayne won but there was not a climatic battle lost by the Haudenosaunee at any time. We may have lost a Biological War to the smallpox virus or perhaps a Legislative War to the Indian Act but otherwise we have never been defeated.
Therefore it is hard for me to support Palestinian claims to the middle-east because in the 1948 Palestinian expulsion over 700,000 of them fled their territories which were then annexed to form a Jewish state. The permanence of the Israeli state was cemented by the 6 Day War in 1967 after a “miraculous” victory by the colonizers. It was also a victory for the United Kingdom and the United States of America because they were the ones who funded Israel, $233.7 billion to date from the USA alone. The Palestinians were clearly defeated but it wasn`t a fair fight.
Admittedly as an indigenous person I cannot help but being pro-Palestinian. Being forcibly removed from your land sounds familiar. There are certain discrepancies which I bring up when talking to my right wing friends who blindly support Israel because of their religious convictions. To their ears I sound like a Quran carrying pro-Hamas terrorist.
Yes, Jerusalem belongs to the Jews, but which ones? The Turkish-Khazarian ones who converted to Judaism in the middle ages? These Jews may be descendents of the Beowulfian Skjöldr more so than the Biblical Moses if we consider blood quantum here.
Does Jerusalem belong to the Zionists? There are at least 10,000 Jews in NYC who don’t think so according to a video on YouTube (http://youtu.be/nMQ9C6vni0w) in which respected rabbis and elders publicly list their reasons for rejecting the “secular” State of Israel. I guess it doesn’t help that the Israeli flag is emblazoned with the Seal of Solomon a magical hexagram of antiquity.
A Jewish friend of mine who is living in Israel tells me that 16% of the Jewish Israeli population does not believe in Israel’s right to exist before the Mashiach comes. According to the Torah, Israel is supposed to be a Theocracy.
When I look at the resurgence of the Jewish people I feel ambivalent. Someday I hope that my people the Haudenosaunee will retake our homelands and form our own country which already exists in our hearts and minds. Perhaps we will be funded $233.7 billion by a foreign world power. By then the people of Canada and the United States will probably feel like the land is theirs and that they are indigenous in some way or other. My prayer is that we will not destroy them or advocate genocide as Times of Israel commentator Yochanan Gordon did on August 1st.
The 10,000+ Jews against Israel declared that the land does not belong to Benjamin Netanyahu but to the Creator of Heaven and Earth. In our ancient ways the Haudenosaunee say that we do not own the land but we borrow it from the coming faces, our descendents. Maybe we are both saying the same thing.
Jonathan Garlow
Publisher
