Decolonizing Native America and Palestine with Dr. Steve Salaita

This week, we catch up with the prolific and thoughtful Palestinian-American scholar-activist, author, and speaker Dr. Steve Salaita and do a deep dive into settler-colonialism. What is happening in Palestine is often reduced to unexplainable cycles of violence in a “conflict” between two sides who both make good points (the liberal zionist narrative) and between "chosen" people and terrorists (the zionist zionist narrative). Neither frameworks are rooted in the historical reality. Dr. Steve Salaita helps us understand Israeli settler-colonialism in Palestine by explaining its deep ideological connection to settler-colonialism in America. We also discuss the notion of indigeneity and its implications as well as the US and Israel's philosophical justifications for their policies and the ways in which Palestinians and Native Americans have been and are responding to systematic land theft and ethnic cleansing. Steve describes the basis of Native-Palestinian solidarity starting in the 1960s which mirrors the solidarity between Black Power and Palestinian activists in the same time period and offers a solid basis for continued solidarity today. This conversation also explores the role of reparations and how (if at all) it may fit into the broader conversation on justice in Palestine. Steve offers a word of the wise to oppressed peoples calling on them never to concede a right in an attempt to advance the cause. Lara points out that this approach as always failed to yield any results in the struggle for justice in Palestine. This conversation is an essential primer on the source of the so-called "conflict" in Palestine. It provides the historical context needed to understand the plans of early Zionist leaders to arrive as "settlers" in the land of Palestine and establish a Jewish colony at the expense of the native population - the Palestinians. It also allows us to make sense of all Israel's polices today towards Palestinians including the apartheid system, house demolitions, the building of Jewish settlements on stolen land, the uprooting of olive trees, the forced expulsions, restrictions on movement, the brutal violence committed against Palestinians in Gaza (and more) as all parts of the settler colony's ongoing policy to rid Palestine of its native population to the benefit of a foreign settler population. In doing so, this conversation centers the "setter-colonial" framework in the discussion around the Zionist movement and is especially useful for understanding the most recent efforts by Israel to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from occupied East Jerusalem, including Silwan and Sheikh Jarrah. #SaveSheikhJarrah #FreePalestine