On Jews and Indigeneity: What Does Colonialism Have to Do with It?

The category of "Indigenous" has come to justify any measure of violence wrought by the Israeli state. Why has this identity been evoked as a central defense, particularly in North America, of Israel's response to the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023? Intrinsic to this discourse is the denial of Palestinian indigeneity. If there is no Palestinian nation, there can be no occupation, dispossession, or colonization. In this light, Zionism is shaping the discourse of Indigenous politics through its claims to Jewish indigeneity, as it cosplays colonialism as Land Back. The task is to disentangle the meaning of roots and the traffic of identity as they pertain to nations—in dismantling the apparatus of settler states.