Indigenous Solidarity with Palestine

By Demetrius Johnson

Whether it’s settlers shooting guns towards Indigenous people in bordertowns of New Mexico, or across the world in Gaza and the West Bank, we all suffer from the disease of settler colonialism and imperialism. It’s been one year since the act of resistance by Palestinians against their settler oppressor, Israel. When I first saw the footage of these Palestinian uncles fly over the apartheid walls that cage Gazans on their own land, and then use bulldozers to demolish those walls, I knew the world was going to change. The footage released as my comrades and I returned from a ceremony done for us due to the September 28, 2023 shooting in front of the Rio Arriba County administrative building in Española, New Mexico.

I want to emphasize something that happened that September 28th. For those who do not know, it was a day of celebration for those of us who do not want to honor and glorify colonizers and genociders. We, The Red Nation, the Pueblo communities, and non-Native supporters had already won the battle of taking down statues that honor colonizers in the summer of 2020, which was catalyzed by the Black Lives Matter and George Floyd uprisings. Statues of Juan De Oñate—who led the first Spanish expeditions in Pueblo and Diné territories in what is now known as New Mexico in the late 1500s— were taken down in both Española and Albuquerque, New Mexico. We had to fight again to prevent Rio Arriba County officials from spending more of the county’s money to take the toppled statue from 2020 out of storage to be erected again, while Rio Arriba County was facing a fentanyl crisis that made it the highest rate for fentanyl-related overdoses in the New Mexico.

On the day of celebration, The Red Nation drove two distinguished relatives who have battled and resisted settler-colonialism— elder Maurus Chino from Acoma Pueblo and Mohammed El-Kurd from Shiekh Jarrah, Al-Quds— from Albuquerque up north to Española. They spoke to the crowd on why it is important to tell our stories of resistance as Indigenous people, and to not let the settler celebrate colonialism and genocide on lands that are not theirs. Everything seemingly was a beautiful and powerful celebration. That was when a shot was fired from Ryan Martinez, a settler who lives in a wealthy and prominent New Mexico area named Sandia Park with his parents, that struck Jacob Johns.

In the immediate aftermath, Jacob had been taken to the hospital and we were still waiting in the parking lot waiting to leave by order of the police, I heard from my comrades that it was Mohammed El-Kurd who escorted the many children that were there at the celebration towards safety from the gunfire. When we asked Mohammed, he graciously denied and proclaimed that it was actually the children who escorted him away from danger.

I believe that it was meant to be that Mohammed was there to help our children at that moment. To give them strength, safety, and guidance in a traumatic moment. But since that moment in Española, how many Palestinian children have experienced the shooting of guns towards them a millionfold? It is going to take the fierce resistance of all Indigenous and colonized people to protect our children— the future— and our planet from settler empires like Israel and the United States. After all, settlers only know violence, destruction, and death.