James M. Redwine

Little Big Horn

Ever Again

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Maybe it is because I was born and grew up on an Indian reservation and had many Native American friends, including my Osage Sunday School teacher, but there are things involved in the Gaza Peace Plan claimed by President Trump that remind me of the treaties between the United States government and numerous American Indian peoples. In general, those treaties put Indians out of sight and white people in possession of Indian lands. Although many of those peace plans did contain magnanimous conditions and gratuitous language such as, “As long as the rivers flow, etc.” It turned out those were a secret code that meant, until gold, silver or whatever thing the dominate culture wanted was discovered, say Riviera type real estate along the Mediterranean Sea or lush farmland along the West Bank of the Jordan River or holy sites in East Jerusalem.

While the Zionists of Israel assert the destruction and occupation of Gaza was a response to an attack by Hamas, Palestinians believe the initiation of the current invasion by Israel began in 1917, resulting in a Nakba (a catastrophe) in 1948 and became a full-blown Israeli occupation in 1967 that was exacerbated in 1973 and continues to today. For many Palestinians, October 7, 2023 was an act of resistance to Zionist occupation and oppression.

Many Jewish people feel a deep connection to that part of the world called Palestine. The reasons are historical and cultural and, for most, do not require a genocide of the original inhabitants. However, as with many non-Native Americans in the United States from 1492 until contemporary times who believed Indians were an impediment to Manifest Destiny, many Zionists see Palestinians the same way.

Peace negotiations in such an atmosphere may bring a momentary pause, but the conflict will never resolve until all Palestinians are eliminated or they have their own, fully functioning and self-governing state. It is a moral imperative upon all of us to recognize this reality and guarantee Palestine’s establishment. President Trump’s Peace Plan is a poorly disguised effort to accomplish only Israel’s objectives. A true, lasting peace in the Middle East must start by the U.S.A. recognizing the autonomous, independent, self-governing and self-securing State of Palestine along the borders set forth in 1948. If President Trump makes such a declaration, a real peace process can succeed. If not, the current peace plan is a chimera designed to accomplish Israel’s dreams of a country “from the river to the sea” without any Palestinians but one in eternal turmoil with its neighbors.

As our American Founders discovered, being some other country’s colonies leads to permanent second-class status and “taxation without representation”. America, better than most of the 157 countries that have already officially recognized the State of Palestine, should recognize President Trump’s peace plan “… is full of sound and fury, signifying nothing…” but more endless conflict. It is like ice cream on a hot day, momentarily sweet and cool, but soon melted into a faint memory and maybe a sop to the forgotten “noble savages” whose aspiration for freedom and independence have gone the way of the Little Big Horn and the Trail of Tears. Or for Palestinians, the Nakba and genocide.

 

Souls In Jeopardy

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Societies of people, including nationalities, often have histories that help form a country’s culture. The members of a group may not realize their contemporary behaviors are a product of or are, at least, influenced by these shared histories. They also may fail to recognize similar Volksgeists in other societies.

American college students today may be puzzled by the reaction of their federal government to the wars between Israel and its neighbors. While Israel may have been created mainly by Great Britain and the United States in 1948, many Israelis and even certain fundamentalist religious Americans have been taught it was created by a Hebrew god just for Jews over two thousand years ago.

A great number of Americans of European ancestry believed their cultural god, Manifest Destiny, was offended by what was seen as a sinful sloth and fallowness by Native Americans. Therefore, it was morally justified to take and use the land the indigenous peoples had inhabited for thousands of years but failed to develop. Contemporary Jewish “settlers” use the same justification to squat on property owned by Palestinians.

For both Israel and the United States, the mantra was, “A land without people, for a people without land”. It is difficult for many Americans to fault Israel for taking Arab lands when we have generations of subliminal cultural evidence that we would not have the sweet lives we enjoy had our European ancestors not done the same thing. One might dream that the expiation of our national guilt could be somewhat assuaged by refusing to aid Israel to behave similarly. However, hope is a poor plan when it comes to seeing ourselves as others might. In today’s America we may not realize our conclusions and prejudices concerning conquest and settlement of Palestinian lands by Israelis are subconsciously determined by our own cultural history of genocidal actions towards Native Americans.

Another interesting phenomenon occurs when one culture not only does not learn from the ills cast upon it by another morally corrupt society but instead emulates and repeats it. Such is the juxtaposition of Zionist Israel and Nazi Germany. Reason calls for a culture that never forgets the Holocaust to be ever mindful of unfettered power coupled with unaware depravity. Thinking Israelis know the war in Gaza was not started by Hamas on October 07, 2023, but by Israel that began to eliminate Palestinians in 1948. This is much like thinking Germans in the 1930’s and 40’s knew Jewish people in post-WWI Germany were not responsible for the hardships suffered by their country regardless of what the Nazis preached as justification for a Jewish genocide.

To many Zionists in Israel, Hamas and even Palestinian civilians are an evil that should be destroyed even if countless innocents are slaughtered in the process. But to many Palestinians, Israel has been an occupying, oppressive evil throughout the past seventy-seven years. To the oppressed peoples of Gaza, October 07 was a desperate act of resistance. We should recognize the similarity between Palestinian resistance and that of Native Americans at the Little Big Horn and other acts of desperation that brought down the wrath of the United States against many other innocent Native Americans.

Israel may not see itself as a pariah among nations in its genocide against Palestinians any more than our European ancestors saw their desire to take Indian lands as genocide. After all, both Israel and America had their god on their side. However, America does have an opportunity to somewhat atone for our past sins and to help Israel put an end to their present ones. If gods truly are involved, we better do both for Israel’s salvation and our own.