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According to United States code, Genocide is defined in Section 1091 of Title 18 and includes violent attacks with the specific intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group, and is prohibited whether committed in time of peace or time of war. It is the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group. In a July 15th, 2022 report by the Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations, so-called President Joe Biden has affirmed that atrocity prevention and the promotion of respect for human rights are central to U.S. national security, stating, “I recommit to the simple truth that preventing future genocides remains both our moral duty and a matter of national and global importance…. When hatred goes unchecked, and when the checks and balances in government and society that protect fundamental freedoms are lost, violence and mass atrocities can result,” so why then, Joe, would you abandon this commitment while the world witnesses the blatant genocide of Palestinians on their own homelands? When you are commander in chief of a nation built off the genocide of Indigenous Peoples of the Americas, it becomes clear that you will conveniently turn a blind eye on an occupier state committing the same genocidal acts in Israel, and we know it is not up to the occupier state to name it what it is. Genocide is named by those experiencing it, and by descendants of those who carry its burden through genetic memory.

First established in 1897 and emerging from Central and Eastern Europe, Zionism as a nationalist movement could not exist without racism, settler colonialism, white supremacy, and apartheid. By it’s very nature, Zionism is the occupation and removal of Indigenous Peoples to form a new state, under the guise that non-Arabic Jews have a right to their own homeland in a place Arabs of multiple faiths have lived for thousands of years. In 1948, just a few short years after the end of Word War II, European Jews who survived the holocaust immigrated to the Middle East where Zionist settlers under British authority systematically occupied and removed Palestinians from their lands and homes. Since then, the occupation and theft of the land has been sustained by a system of violence, human rights violations, ethnic cleansing, forced sterilization, torture, extreme mental and emotional abuse, imprisonment, starvation, and control of natural resources and economic opportunity, among others. For Indigenous Peoples of the so-called United States, we have historically seen these same tactics written into law through Manifest Destiny, where the federal government justified their violence and steeling of the land with the claim they were divinely ordained by God to settle the entire continent of North America. Through intergenerational trauma and genetic memory, we are the descendant survivors of those ancestors who witnessed the same extreme violence and genocide the world is now seeing in Gaza. While the Israel government “encourages” Palestinians to move south, they will try and convince the world that displacing them is an attempt to save civilian lives, and we know better. We know through our own history that this is a diversion, one big genocidal push to occupy the entire state.

As Indigenous Peoples Power Project, our partners, allies, activists, organizers and the world bare witness to the ongoing genocide of Palestinians on their own homelands, in Gaza and the West Bank, we recognize that the images we see daily are extremely traumatizing; near unbearable to watch. However hurtful they may be, we must remind ourselves no matter how uncomfortable we are that there are thousands of children losing parents, parents losing children, entire families and communities bombed; innocence, hopes and dreams shattered. While Zionists will claim to be the victim, casually throwing around the word “antisemitic” for standing against genocide, we recognize our efforts are lost on arguing with the ignorant. Where as so-called president Joe Biden reneges on his commitment to preventing future genocides, we double down on our commitment to Palestinians, Indigenous and marginalized people the world over, and they need us now more than ever. Let us continue raising Palestinian voices, and let us never forget that our liberation is Palestinian liberation. No matter how helpless we may feel, things you can do to show up for our Palestinian relatives include connection, divestment, taking action, resisting false narratives, never stop talking about it, stand up and repeat! As long as the occupation and genocide remain, this can never again be business as usual. This is why we protest, and the world is listening. While we can never say enough to end this occupation and genocide, at least you’ll know that we forever stand with Palestine.

In Solidarity,

Indigenous Peoples Power Project