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indigenous rights
The US Must Understand: The Story of the Gaza Genocide Did Not Begin on October 7
When those who seek to help resolve a conflict are captive to one side’s definitions and perspective, it’s a recipe for continued tension and ultimately disaster.
Aug 05, 2025
Our understanding of an historical event’s meaning is a function of two factors. The first is what we choose to identify as the starting point leading up to the event. The second is the lens through which we view it. This should be obvious, but unfortunately it is not, and the failure to acknowledge or understand it has consequences in everything from public policy to personal relationships.
This truth can be ignored due to thoughtlessness, blindness to one’s biases, or just plain ignorance. On some occasions there can be malign intent, including efforts to deliberately hide what one knows to be an event’s antecedents for political or personal reasons.
Before examining the issue that prompted this column, I want to share an example. The comedian Dick Gregory once noted that despite what we were taught in school, “Columbus didn’t discover America, because it wasn’t lost.” His point seems simple enough, but upon closer examination it reveals deeper truths.
“Columbus discovered America” erases the history, civilization, and contributions of the Indigenous groups who populated the lands that Europeans came to call the New World. Even the term “New World” was a thinly veiled masking of their imperial self-understanding and intent. “We discovered these lands, and they are ours to take, name, and exploit.”
U.S. reporters appear to be required to include a line in their stories that reads, “The hostilities began on October 7, 2023, when Hamas militants attacked Israel killing 1,200 and taking 250 hostages.”
The American history we were taught was an extension of European history. It began with Columbus. Then moved to the Spanish, British, and French colonialists, culminating in the Revolutionary War and the birth of the United States. The native peoples were treated as bit players in the unfolding story—at times, a footnote, at others an inconvenient obstacle.
This story of American history results from choosing Columbus as the starting point and using a lens so Eurocentric that it only sees the Indigenous peoples who populated this land as less than human and therefore less deserving of defining their own history or even remaining on their land. They were removed and massacred, their humanity was ignored, and their treatment was justified because they were of less worth than the Europeans who displaced them.
This reflection was prompted by the way Israel’s war on Gaza continues to be reported in the press and discussed in policy circles. U.S. reporters appear to be required to include a line in their stories that reads, “The hostilities began on October 7, 2023, when Hamas militants attacked Israel killing 1,200 and taking 250 hostages.” It isn’t accidental that this line (or something very close to it) occurs in almost every U.S. print story.
We all must agree that what happened on October 7 was traumatic for Israelis. It was a shock that their security was breached and that some horrible and condemnable atrocities were committed by Hamas and others who joined in their attacks. But history didn’t begin or end on October 7.
Recall that just a few weeks before that the Hamas attack, then-U.S. President Joe Biden’s national security adviser noted that the Middle East was the calmest it had been in years. This statement gave short shrift to the Palestinian reality and made clear the biased lens through which he saw the region. He was ignoring Israel’s continued economic strangulation of Gaza (which made Palestinians increasingly dependent on Israel or Hamas for their livelihood) and the growing threat of settler violence, settlement expansion, and land confiscations in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
A few weeks after October 7, I met with this same individual and listened to him describe the pain and fear of Israelis and how October 7 evoked the traumas of their history. I told him that I completely understood and agreed that Hamas stood rightly condemned for what they had done. I cautioned him, however, not to ignore the trauma of the Palestinians—their pain and fears—and their history of dispossession. He became angry, waving off my comments as “what aboutism.”
As the weeks and months wore on, when I would write a comment about: the growing Palestinian civilian casualty toll; or the bombing of hospitals; or the denial of water, food, medicine, and electricity; or the deliberate destruction of more than 70% of Gaza’s buildings; and the repeated forced expulsions of families—the responses I would receive invariably included “Hamas started it,” “What about the hostages,” or worse. In other words, Israeli lives were all that mattered. And the Israeli narrative became the only acceptable one. In other words, since the story began on October 7, what followed was a justifiable response.
The Israelis’ ability to control the narrative has long characterized the conflict. They would say: “The Balfour Declaration gave Israel a legal right to Palestine”; or “In 1948, tiny Israel was attacked by all surrounding Arab armies”; or “In 1967 Israel was only defending itself.” All of these Israeli-defined “starting points” are fictions that ignore everything that led up to them and the stories they tell are seen only through the biased lens of those who have imposed them.
This problem of false narratives based on biased histories isn’t just a problem for Israel or the U.S. It is unfortunately all too common, especially in conflict situations. When those who seek to help resolve a conflict are captive to one side’s definitions and perspective, it’s a recipe for continued tension and ultimately disaster.
Peacemaking requires that an effort be made to rise above false narratives, self-serving starting points and the biased perceptions of one or another side. That’s not “what-aboutism”—it’s leadership. And it’s been sorely lacking in the U.S.
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Fighting Together for Life, Water, and Land: From Line 5 to Gaza
The deep connections between Line 5 and Gaza serve as a stark reminder of the urgent need for united, organized resistance to defend justice, the land, and human and nonhuman life.
Jul 17, 2025
In the United States, we are fighting a rapid descent into authoritarianism that is already having disastrous consequences for people, communities, and the environment. At the same time, grassroots movements across the globe are fighting to defend life, water, and land. These fights may seem worlds apart, but they are in fact intertwined at their roots. Here we will explore two examples that are not unique, but have been chosen because they make visible the underlying structural and political forces that link seemingly disparate struggles across the world. We believe that recognizing these links is necessary for building the powerful coalitions we need to resist in these critical times.
In Wisconsin, the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa—a sovereign Indigenous nation—is leading a battle that resonates far beyond its borders. In coalition with local, national, and international organizations and activists, the Band is saying no to the exploitation of its land and people by fossil fuel giants; saying no to pipelines that endanger waterways, wetlands, and wild rice beds essential to their culture and survival; and saying no to fossil fuel extraction that accelerates the climate crisis.
At the heart of this struggle lies Enbridge’s Line 5—a 645-mile pipeline transporting crude oil and natural gas liquids from Wisconsin to Ontario. Line 5 does not stand alone but is linked to a much larger network of pipelines that begin in the tar sands fields of Canada and transport one of the dirtiest forms of fossil fuel. The aging Line 5 cuts directly through the Bad River Band’s reservation, but easements for this pipeline expired in 2013. Enbridge now plans to reroute the pipeline around the reservation despite years of legal battles and overwhelming public opposition. Enbridge has a well-documented history of spills and environmental destruction and, as an investor in the Dakota Access Pipeline, supported the violent attacks on Indigenous activists at Standing Rock. Enbridge’s reroute of Line 5 remains a direct threat to fragile ecosystems and Indigenous sovereignty.
At the same time, thousands of miles away, millions of Palestinians are being displaced and tens of thousands killed by an all-out military assault in Gaza that targets the entire population and infrastructure for life. This is accompanied by accelerating state-supported violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank. The relentless bombings, mass displacement, deliberate starvation, and destruction of civilian life carried out by Israel and the U.S. against the Palestinian people amounts not to a conventional war but to genocide. The U.S. and Israel are now openly discussing a plan to permanently remove Palestinians and take over Gaza and the West Bank, completing a process of ethnic cleansing that has been ongoing for over 100 years.
What links a battle over a pipeline in Wisconsin to the crisis in Gaza and the West Bank? Everything. The fight against Line 5 isn’t merely about fossil fuels—it’s a stand against a global system of colonialism, militarism, and capitalism that drives the climate crisis. The ethnic cleansing and genocide directed at Palestinians represent the advancement of a long-term colonial project that uses violence and militarism to secure access to land and resources. In a critical moment when we face a rising tide of fascism in the U.S. and abroad, the deep connections between Line 5 and Gaza serve as a stark reminder of the urgent need for united, organized resistance to defend justice, the land, and human and nonhuman life.
Colonialism and Control: From Wisconsin to Gaza
Colonialism is about dominance and control. Whether imposed on Indigenous nations in the United States or on Palestinians abroad, its purpose is to grant powerful states and corporations unfettered access to land and resources, fueling profits and increased power for ruling elites.
In Gaza—and increasingly in the West Bank, southern Lebanon, and Syria—the brutal legacy of settler colonialism is on display. Since at least 1947, Israel has pursued colonization in Palestine, displacing native inhabitants and instituting an apartheid system to control those who remain. Military force and state-sponsored violence have systematically stripped Palestinians of their land, water, property, and freedom, a process bolstered by political, financial, and military support from Western powers. In particular, Israel is critical to strategic U.S. military and political presence in the Middle East; in other words, it is central to U.S. imperialism. The current crisis in Gaza is an escalation of this long-term project.
Climate justice movements in the U.S. must recognize not only the moral imperative but the strategic necessity of centering struggles for immigrant rights, Indigenous and Palestinian sovereignty, and struggles against militarism and fascism.
The systems at work in Gaza are the same as those that drive projects like Line 5. The history of the U.S. is one of colonial expansion, of violently appropriating land and resources from native inhabitants and transferring it to the U.S. government and settlers. Even now, the U.S. government and powerful corporate interests ignore the rights of Indigenous sovereign nations and ram through pipelines, mines, and other projects despite their environmental and social dangers and opposition from tribes. Projects like Line 5 are a continuation of a multi-century colonial project that stretches from from the Indian Wars in the 19th century to the militarized response to the Indigenous-led resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline at Standing Rock.
Whether it manifests through violent repression of protest or the displacement of entire ethnic groups, the same colonial logic is at work. Israel’s occupation and blockade of Gaza aims to secure access to land, water, and offshore natural gas reserves for themselves and their corporate and political allies. The same drive for control and access to resources underpins Line 5, linking these two struggles in a broader fight against colonialism, exploitation, and global corporate power.
Militarism, Capitalism, and Global Solidarity
Militarism fuels colonialism. It is also essential to the fossil fuel industry, the core driver of the climate crisis. The U.S. military extends across an estimated 750 overseas bases in 80 countries. This web of influence props up transnational fossil fuel networks that depend on protection and the threat of force to extract and transport oil and gas around the globe. The paramilitary response to activists protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline and Line 3 in Minnesota are local examples that illustrate this relationship. The U.S. invests $800 billion into the military each year, money that could be spent on the public good but is instead used to underwrite a global system of extraction and exploitation.
The U.S. military also contributes to the climate crisis in more direct ways. The U.S. Department of Defense is the world’s largest institutional consumer of fossil fuels and is responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than many nations. Wars and conflict contribute significantly to carbon emissions and also drive widespread environmental devastation that destroys local livelihoods. U.S. military bases are ranked as among the most polluted in the world, damaging land and water in surrounding areas with past nuclear testing and toxic chemicals.
Militarism is also deeply intertwined with corporate interests. Big defense contractors such as Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Oshkosh Defense, and Raytheon profit from the devastation in Gaza. Such contractors are also deeply intertwined with private security firms like Blackrock. These security firms are deployed by fossil fuel companies to protect fossil fuel infrastructure projects like Line 5, harming Indigenous communities and intensifying climate collapse. In short, the U.S. military reinforces a system that prizes profit over human life.
The struggles in Gaza and against Line 5 are two sides of the same coin. Palestinians resisting occupation and Indigenous nations opposing pipelines face the same force: militarized, transnational government-corporate alliances. Their fight is not solely for their own physical and cultural survival—it is a battle for justice and freedom for all people and the planet.
Climate Chaos, Fascism, and Migration
The climate crisis is inseparable from the forces of militarism, colonialism, and capitalism. Climate change is also contributing to a related crisis—the rise of fascism and the demonization of immigrants.
As global temperatures climb, environmental disasters and unpredictability increase, contributing to economic destabilization and a general sense of uncertainty and fear. This creates an ideal breeding ground for fascist ideologies that promise greater security (for some) through the exercise of state control, brute strength, and the scapegoating of the vulnerable—all while siphoning money and power to corporations. Climate change also drives the displacement of people, as extreme heat, flooding, drought, and other environmental disasters force entire regions into unlivable conditions. In 2022 alone, over 43 million people were displaced by climate-related events, from hurricanes and floods to shifts in agricultural viability. This number is set to grow, creating an ever-growing wave of climate refugees.
Indigenous and Palestinian struggles confront the same systems that aim to strengthen corporate and elite interests at the expense of everyday people and vulnerable populations, further deepening global inequality.
Rather than addressing the root causes of climate change, developing plans for adaptation that serve the public good, or offering refuge to those forced to migrate, many governments worldwide are responding with authoritarian measures. Fascist leaders paint climate refugees as threats, blaming migrants and marginalized communities for crises they did not create. In the U.S., we see this in the criminalization of immigration, mass deportation, the expansion of border walls, and the deployment of surveillance technologies—many of which were first developed in Israel and tested on Palestinians. These policies only worsen human suffering while deflecting attention from the real culprits: fossil fuel corporations, militarism, and capitalist greed.
These rising authoritarian impulses are deeply linked to the fight against Line 5 and resistance to Israel’s expansion. Indigenous and Palestinian struggles confront the same systems that aim to strengthen corporate and elite interests at the expense of everyday people and vulnerable populations, further deepening global inequality.
A Call to Action: Building Power to Fight Back
The November 2024 election and turn toward fascism in the U.S. have underscored the urgency of grassroots resistance. Corporate and right-wing forces are aligning in unprecedented ways, fueled by economic inequality, xenophobia, fear, and disinformation. Authoritarian regimes in the U.S. and abroad, including Israel, are poised to further expand corporate power, fossil fuel extraction, militarism, and state oppression in frightening ways. This convergence poses an escalating threat to human communities and the natural world.
The fight against Line 5, led by the Bad River Band, and the global solidarity movement for Palestine both stand at the forefront of grassroots resistance to these converging forces. Broadening our lens, we can see such resistance taking place all over the world: in the anti-pipeline struggles in East Africa, the efforts of Indigenous communities in the Amazon to protect their land and way of life, and the bravery of anti-mining activists in El Salvador, to name just a few examples. These movements remind us that these battles in specific places are part of a broader struggle against interconnected systems of oppression—something that has long been recognized by local communities and Indigenous-led organizations worldwide.
Our organizing must be both intersectional and international. We must connect struggles that have too often been treated in isolation. The same forces that drive the expansion of Line 5 and the attacks on Palestinian life are at work in militarized occupations and conflicts abroad, the construction of border walls and the criminalization of migrants, and the climate crisis itself. By challenging these forces at home, and acting in solidarity with those abroad, we strike at the roots of a global system of exploitation and oppression.
Climate justice movements in the U.S. must recognize not only the moral imperative but the strategic necessity of centering struggles for immigrant rights, Indigenous and Palestinian sovereignty, and struggles against militarism and fascism. We must forge alliances with diverse movements from Wisconsin to East Africa to the Philippines, recognizing that we succeed or fail together. Despite these dangerous and difficult times, a different world is possible when we unite and act as one.
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Environmental and Indigenous Groups Mobilize to Stop 'Alligator Alcatraz'
"This scheme is not only cruel, it threatens the Everglades ecosystem that state and federal taxpayers have spent billions to protect," said Eve Samples, executive director of Friends of the Everglades.
Jun 30, 2025
As Florida's Republican government moves to construct a sprawling new immigration detention center in the heart of the Everglades, nicknamed "Alligator Alcatraz," environmental groups and a wide range of other activists have begun to mobilize against it.
Florida's Republican attorney general, James Uthmeier, announced last week that construction of the jail, at the site of a disused airbase in the Big Cypress National Preserve, had begun. According to Fox 4 Now, an affiliate in Southwest Florida, construction has moved at "a blistering pace," with the site expected to be done by next week.
Three environmental advocacy groups have launched a lawsuit to try to halt the construction of the facility. And on Saturday, hundreds of protesters flocked to the remote site to voice their opposition.
Opponents have called out the cruelty of the plan, which comes as part of U.S. President Donald Trump's crusade to deport thousands of immigrants per day. They also called out the site's potential to inflict severe harm to local wildlife in one of America's most unique ecosystems.
Florida's government has said the site will have no environmental impact. Last week, Uthmeier described the area as a barren swampland. He said the site "presents an efficient, low-cost opportunity to build a temporary detention facility because you don't need to invest that much in the perimeter. People get out, there's not much waiting for 'em other than alligators and pythons," he said in the video. "Nowhere to go, nowhere to hide."
But local indigenous leaders have said that's not true. Saturday's protest was led by Native American groups, who say that the site will destroy their sacred homelands. According to The Associated Press, Big Cypress is home to 15 traditional Miccosukee and Seminole villages, as well as ceremonial and burial grounds and other gathering sites.
"Rather than Miccosukee homelands being an uninhabited wasteland for alligators and pythons, as some have suggested, the Big Cypress is the Tribe's traditional homelands. The landscape has protected the Miccosukee and Seminole people for generations," Miccosukee Chairman Talbert Cypress wrote in a statement on social media last week.
Environmental groups, meanwhile, have disputed the state's claims that the site will have no environmental impact. On Friday, the Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Everglades, and Earthjustice sued the Department of Homeland Security in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida. They argued that the site was being constructed without any of the environmental reviews required by the National Environmental Policy Act.
"The site is more than 96% wetlands, surrounded by Big Cypress National Preserve, and is habitat for the endangered Florida panther and other iconic species. This scheme is not only cruel, it threatens the Everglades ecosystem that state and federal taxpayers have spent billions to protect," said Eve Samples, executive director of Friends of the Everglades.
Governor Ron DeSantis used emergency powers to fast track the proposal, which the Center for Biological Diversity says has left no room for public input or environmental review required by federal law.
"This reckless attack on the Everglades—the lifeblood of Florida—risks polluting sensitive waters and turning more endangered Florida panthers into roadkill. It makes no sense to build what’s essentially a new development in the Everglades for any reason, but this reason is particularly despicable," said Elise Bennett, Florida and Caribbean director and attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity.
Reuters has reported that the planned jail could hold up to 5,000 detained migrants at a time and could cost $450 million per year to maintain. It comes as President Trump has sought to increase deportations to a quota of 3,000 per day. The majority of those who have been arrested by federal immigration authorities have no criminal records.
"This massive detention center," Bennett said, "will blight one of the most iconic ecosystems in the world."
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