We could stop funding the Israeli assault on Gaza and fund real community needs right here in Grand Rapids
We know that the US Government has been providing $3.8 billion in military aid to Israel on an annual basis. $3.8 billion in US military aid to Israel makes Israel the largest recipient of US military aid, which has been the case for decades.
We also know that the $3.8 billion of US military aid to Israel is primarily used to bomb Gaza and to arrest, detain, torture and kill Palestinians, as the human rights group B’Tselem – The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, has methodically documented.
Now, according to the fabulous tool that the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights has created, which allows you to type in your city or state, which provides an amount of the $3.8 billion annually in US military aid to Israel that could stay in your community. On top of that, this tool provides an example of how the money that leaves Michigan or Grand Rapids on an annual basis, how that money could be used in our communities.
For example, when I type in Michigan, it says that of the $3.8 billion of US military aid that goes to Israel, $89,397,606 of it comes from Michigan. If that amount of money were to stay in Michigan on an annual basis it could fund:
- 10,627 households with public housing for a year.
- 31,105 children could receive free or low cost healthcare.
- It could cover the salaries of 976 elementary school teachers
- 254,512 households could be powered by solar electricity for a year.
- 2,365 students could have their loan debt cancelled.
- 77,737,049 N95 respirator masks could be provided to the public.
If we type in Grand Rapids, we find that on an annual basis, $2,815,720.00 of the $3.8 billion in US military aid to Israel could stay in our community. That is almost 1 million more than is currently being used for the Grand Rapids Participatory Budgeting project ($2 million). Again, this tool provides a breakdown of how $2,815,720.00 could be used in Grand Rapids:
- 334 Households with public housing for a year.
- 979 children could receive free or low-cost healthcare.
- It would cover the salary for 30 elementary school teachers.
- 8,016 households could be powered with solar electricity for a year.
- 74 students could have their loan debt cancelled.
- 2,448,452 N95 respirators masks could be provided for the community.
This is what we call Radical Imagination. If we can imagine it, we can then organize to win these kinds of transformative campaigns. This is what Rep. Scholten, Senators Peters and Stabenow, what State Legislators, County officials and Grand Rapids City Commissioners need to embrace. However, we k ow they won’t unless that are pressured into doing so. By not sending $2,815,720.00 in federal tax money from Grand Rapids to fund the Israeli occupation, we would not only stop being complicit in Israeli war crimes, we would re-direct that amount on an annual basis to fund vitally important community needs right here in Grand Rapids. Sounds like an organizing campaign to me.
On Tuesday, there was coverage of former’s GOP Gubernatorial candidate Ryan Kelley’s sentencing, for his role in the January 6th riot/insurrection in Washington, DC.
MLive and all three Grand Rapids TV stations ran stories on Ryan’s sentencing. However, the three TV stations all used the same Associated Press (AP) article that appeared on their websites. Here is a link to the WOODTV8 story, so you can read what the AP article had to say.
The MLive article was actually written by an MLive reporter, with the headline, Ex-Michigan gov. candidate Ryan Kelley gets 60 days in prison for Capitol riot role.
The MLive article talks about the sentencing, some comments from the judge, Kelley’s Gubernatorial candidacy in 2022 and the day that the FBI arrested him. MLive also promoted some previous posts they had done about Kelley, but only after the January 6, 2021 riot/insurrection and his candidacy in 2022.
What is unfortunate about this coverage, it that it omits Kelley’s role with the American Patriot Council that came into existence in 2020 at the same time that the COVID pandemic was happening. I understand that Ryan Kelley was just sentenced for his role on the January 6, 2021 riot/insurrection in Washington, DC, but his involvement in Far Right Politics beginning just 10 months before then laid the groundwork for him to participate in the January 6, 2021 riot/insurrection.
In April of 2020, Ryan Kelley and the American Patriot Council were involved in the protest at Gov. Whitmer’s home and they were the lead organizer for the large protest at the Lansing State Capitol a week later.
In May of 2020, Ryan Kelley and the American Patriot Council announced protests in Lansing and in Grand Rapids that same month. The American Patriot Council referred to the May 14th rally as Judgement Day at the Lansing State Capitol. In the GRIID May 12 post, we acknowledged that Ryan Kelley was in communication with State Senator Mike Shirkey during the April 30th protest in Lansing, while the protest was happening. However, you will notice that in our GRIID article some of the hyperlinks no longer work, because the American Patriot Council had removed some of their posts at the same time that several people were charged in a plot to kidnap Gov. Whitmer.
On May 18, I attended and wrote about the American Patriot Council rally in Grand Rapids, where Ryan Kelley spoke and advocated again for the arrest of Gov. Whitmer, the Attorney General and the Secretary of State. Another important thing about that rally was the fact that there were several armed men who were on stage with Kelley for the rally, men who were initially charged in the plot to kidnap the Governor.
Later that summer, Ryan Kelley was involved in efforts to keep the Civil War Statue in Allendale, and used that issue as a rallying point for the American Patriot Council, which also organized a rally in Allendale in October of 2020, claiming that there would be freedom protests happening all over the country.
A few weeks later, the American Patriot Council urged people to go to Detroit to the site of a one of the election polling centers to contest the validity of the vote count process, primarily through intimidation.
All of this backstory to Ryan Kelley’s participation in the riot/insurrection on January 6, 2021, in Washington, DC, not only is relevant information regarding Kelley’s political evolution, but it is information that should have been included as part of the legal case against him for his participation on January 6, 2021. Ryan Kelley, like so many others who participated in the January 6, 2021, riot/insurrection, did not do so in a vacuum, the January 6th action was merely the culmination of what they had been hoping for several years prior.
When you use an I Stand with Israel flag on social media, what are you really standing for?
When Hamas attacked Israel earlier this month, US President Joe Biden stated that he stands with Israel. Soon after that, I started seeing several people using an I Stand with Israel flag that was part of their Facebook identity.
I get it, the attack by Hamas took innocent Israeli lives, so we often want to respond to acts of violence by standing with, supporting or being in solidarity with those who have been victimized. I get it.
However, what those who now have I Stand with Israel flags or symbols on their social media sites are actually doing is omitting 75 years of history, where the Palestinians have been victimized by the Israelis, beginning with the Nakba, where thousands of Palestinian families were displaced from their land. See Ilan Pappe’s book, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine.
Having an I Stand with Israel flag or symbol on your social media means that you endorse and support the internationally recognized illegal Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands, an occupation that has lasted 55 years.
Having an I Stand with Israel flag or symbol on your social media means that you support Israel’s oppression of Palestinians, which meets the definition of the crime of Apartheid that is set out by the 2002 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. For more on the Israeli system of Apartheid, go to this link.
Having an I Stand with Israel flag or symbol on your social media means that you support the decades-long detention, torture and killing of Palestinians by the Israeli government. See the numerous reports and publications on these issues that has been methodically documented by B’Tselem – The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories.
Having an I Stand with Israel flag or symbol on your social media means that you support the Blockade imposed by Israel on those living in the Gaza. The Blockade limits the movement of people and goods to and from Gaza. There have been numerous Israeli initiated blockades of Gaza, but the most recent one began in 2008.
Having an I Stand with Israel flag or symbol on your social media means that you support the expansion of Israeli settlements, which happens in part because the Israeli government promotes settlement expansion that happens on Palestinian lands and often means the destruction of Palestinian homes. For more information see the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD).
Having an I Stand with Israel flag or symbol on your social media means that you support the ethnic cleaning of Palestinians by the Israeli government. The most recent mandate that all Palestinians living in Gaza must leave is a clear form of ethnic cleansing and a War Crime.
Having an I Stand with Israel flag or symbol on your social media means that you support the Israeli murder of Palestinian children. Since Israel began bombing Gaza after the attacks against Israel by Hamas, there have been at least 1,000 Palestinian children that have been killed.
Having an I Stand with Israel flag or symbol on your social media means that you support the US decision to provide $3.8 Billion in military aid to Israel on an annual basis.
There is certainly more that I could add to this list, but I think you probably get the point. I also understand that some of this information might be new to you, considering that the US commercial news media has never really questioned US policy when it comes to Israel and Palestine, as the group Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting has documented since the 1980s.
Most people have been led to believe that the US has always tried to be a peace negotiator between Israel and Palestine or even a broker of peace. This is complete non-sense, as is well documented in Nassar Aruri’s book, Dishonest Broker: The Role of the United States in Palestine and Israel.
Therefore, if you don’t want to be a supporter of war crimes, ethnic cleansing, the murder of Palestinian children, Apartheid or the illegal Israeli occupation, you might want to remove the I Stand With Israel flag or sign on your social media page(s) and start investigating for yourself why the US government has unconditionally supported the Israeli government.
Rep. Scholten endorses Israeli War Crimes in Gaza
In that same article, I wrote that Rep. Scholten had planned to visit Israel with other US politicians, so I suggested that she do the following, when I stated:
Also, if Rep. Scholten is planning on visiting Israel, they should meet with the Israeli Human Rights group, B’Tselem, along with spending time at Israeli check points, Israeli prisons and the Israeli Settlements, which the United Nations have deemed as illegal. In fact, the only two countries that consistently vote against claiming that the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land, are the US and Israel. The rest of the world supports the claims of the Palestinians.
At the end of that article, I noted that even though Rep. Scholten had only been in Congress for the past 10 months, she had already been the recipient of $95,728.00 from Pro-Israel PACs, based on data collected by OpenSectrets.org.
Therefore, it was no surprise that after the Hamas attack on Israel some 10 days ago, Rep. Scholten has been a zealous supporter of Israel. In her weekly newsletter of October 7, here is what Rep. Scholten wrote:
As I write this, Israel has declared that it is going to war following an attack by Hamas. This is no time for the U.S. House to be in disarray. I stand ready–as I have been–to work with my Republican colleagues on a way forward.
In her October 14 newsletter, Rep. Scbolten made it clear how she ready to work with the Republicans to do the following:
I co-sponsored a bipartisan bill to allocate an additional $2 billion in funding for the Iron Dome defense system to help protect the region.
-I signed a resolution reaffirming the United States’ strong allegiance with and support for Israel.
-Both in DC and through the team back home, we attended vigils to mourn the victims and acknowledge that their loss is what propels us to seek a resolution to lasting peace in the region.
To be clear, what Rep. Scholten considers to be a move towards “lasting peace in the region,” is to provide Israel with $2 Billion for the Israeli Iron Dome, which is on top of the already $3 Billion they have received from US taxpayers for 2023 already. In addition, signing a resolution re-affirming the US support for Israel really means that Rep. Scholten affirms:
- The 50 year Israeli occupation of Palestinian land, which has been determined to be illegal by the international community.
- The detainment and torture of Palestinians who are in Israeli jails,
- The expansion of Israeli Settlements, which have been deemed illegal by the United Nations,
- The decades long Israeli economic blockade of Gaza, which has created tremendous hardship and suffering amongst the Palestinians,
- The existence of the Apartheid Wall in Israel,
- And now, the retaliation by the Israeli military, which is bombing Gaza. On Thursday, the Israeli Air Force announced that over the last five days it had dropped 6,000 bombs, hitting more than 3,600 targets in Gaza. That’s more than the United States dropped during any month of the five-year-long US air campaign against ISIS in Syria and Iraq.
- Plus, the Israeli government wants the the roughly 2 million Palestinians who live in Gaza to leave, which is essentially forced displacement and would legally be a form of genocide, as was recently stated by Raz Segal, an Israeli expert in modern genocide, who wrote a piece entitled, A Textbook case of Genocide.
If one looks at Rep. Scholten’s Facebook page, since October 7 she has made 16 different posts about either the Hamas attacks on Israel or how US citizens can get out of Israel, but not one word condemning the 50 year illegal Israeli occupation of Palestinian land, the apartheid system in Israel and nothing on Israel’s bombing of Gaza and their call to forcibly remove nearly 2 million Palestinians from Gaza!
It is unacceptable that Rep. Scholten unconditionally supports Israel. People should be challenging her on her unconditional support for war crimes and the ongoing brutalization of the Palestinian people. At a minimum people should call her at (616) 451-8383 or send her message via Facebook, but other actions are warranted.
Yesterday several hundred people turned out for a rally in solidarity with the Palestinian fight against the Israeli occupation.
The only commercial news agency to report on the rally, was WOODTV8. Channel 8 posted the story they broadcast during the evening news yesterday, but they also included a written story, which was a more accurate reflection of the rally’s message.
There were numerous things about the WOODTV8 story that were deeply problematic. First, the graphic that channel 8 used as a backdrop to the story about the rally was inaccurate. Above is a still frame of the graphic used by WOODTV8, which frames the issue as a war between Israel and Hamas. Israel is a country and Hamas is not, even though the graphic suggests otherwise. It is true that Hamas carries out the attacks against Israel on October 6th, but the issues between Israelis and Palestinians is much older. In fact, you could say that the root causes of the problem between Israel and Palestine are the 1948 Nakba, when the Israeli military displaced thousands of Palestinian families from their homeland. In addition, the historical context is rooted in the longstanding Israeli occupation of Palestinian land and the Apartheid system that Israel imposes on Palestinians.
Second, the channel 8 newsreader begins the narrative about the rally by saying “dozens of people marched throughout downtown Grand Rapids.” By my estimate there were at least 200 people, which is a far cry from “dozens of people.” The newsreader goes on to say that many people carried Palestinian flags and signs. The newsreader quotes some of the signs, but the signs they quote were the more vague signs, as if to avoid talking about the signs that included words like End the Israeli Occupation or Stop US Military Aid to Israel.
Third, the newsreader then talks about the number of Israelis who dies because of the Hamas attacks, then juxtaposes that number with the number of Palestinians that have died since Israel started bombing Gaza a few days ago. However, the noticeable difference in the numbers of dead that were provided is that there was no source offered in the number of Israelis killed, but they did cite the Gaza Health Ministry as a source on Palestinian deaths.
The WOODTV8 story then shift to talking with people who attended the rally. The newsreader stated, “we questioned people who attended the rally about their thoughts on the ongoing conflict.” Framing the issue as a conflict between Israelis and Palestinians is disingenuous, since the real issue is the Israeli occupation. By calling it a conflict, you automatically frame it as two groups of equal standing, which is definitely not the case between Israelis and Palestinians. As Jeffrey St. Clair stated in a recent article on CounterPunch:
Yes, there are two sides to this war. But only “one side” has an air force. Only “one side” has a Navy. Only “one side” has guided missiles. Only “one side” has phosphorous bombs. Only “one side” has tanks. Only “one side” has an air defense system. Only “one side” has nuclear weapons. Only “one side” controls the water supply, electrical power and food supplies of the other. Only “one side” has freedom of movement. Only “one side” gets $3 billion a year from the US government and an “unwavering” pledge to refill their stockpiles of depleted munitions.
We then get to hear from 2 people that channel 8 interviewed, someone who identifies as Irish and a white woman, both of who have important things to say. However, it would have been better the hear from the Palestinians who attended the rally, not just because they are Palestinians, but because they and their families have a direct lived experience of living under the Israeli occupation and the Israeli system of Apartheid.
The newsreader then ends the story by saying that, “the US has pledged its support to Israel as the conflict continues.” This is a gross misrepresentation, since it again provides no historical context. The US government has always supported Israel, since it was created in 1948. More importantly, the US has provided $124 Billion in Military Aid to Israel since the early 1970s, averaging a little over $3 Billion a year in the past few decades. In addition, the US is continually passing resolutions in support of Israel, like the resolution it adopted in July, which states that Israel is a racist or apartheid state.
Lastly, it is worth noting that what WOODTV8 aired during the newscast, doesn’t even acknowledge the group that organized the rally, the Grand Rapids Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, which was mentioned in the print version of the story on their website. The bottom line is that this kind of news coverage is not only misleading, it perpetuates a larger narrative that is in step with US foreign policy, which GRIID believes is a propaganda narrative.
Pro-Israeli PACs fund members of Congress and influence US Policy on Israel/Palestine
When US President Joe Biden said in a statement on October 7th, “In this moment of tragedy, I want to say to them and to the world and to terrorists everywhere that the United States stands with Israel. We will not ever fail to have their back,” he demonstrated that money influences policy.
Since 1990, the group OpenSecrets.org has been tracking how campaign contributions and lobbying has influenced public policy. On the matter of almost unanimous US support for Israel, the collective group of Pro-Israel Political Action Committees (PACs), have contributed a total of $227,209,019 to members of Congress or those running for seats in Congress.
When it comes to President Joe Biden, who has been a member of Congress since before 1990, the Pro-Israel PACs have contributed $4,228,614 to Biden’s coffers, making him the number 1 recipient of Pro-Israeli PACs since Open Secrets started tracking campaign contributions in 1990.
In the graph above, you can see the top 20 recipients of Pro-Israel PAC money since 1990. Notice that there are 14 of the top 20 Pro-Israel PAC campaign contributions are Democrats. In fact, for every election cycle since 1990, Democratic Party candidates have garnered more contributions from the Pro-Israel PAC groups that the Republican, as you can see in the graphic here below.
Now, the influence of Pro-Israel PACs are not the only reason that the US Congress unconditionally supports Israel, but it is a major contributing fact. In their seminal work on the Pro-Israel Lobby, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, authors of the book, The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy, make it clear that the role of the Pro-Israel Lobby is an integral part of why US policy not only supports Israel, but makes Israel the number one recipient of US Military aid on an annual basis. Other, more recent books on this topic, which are well worth reading are How Israel Made AIPAC: The Most Harmful Foreign Influence Operation in America, by Grant Smith, and Architects of Repression: How Israel and Its Lobby Put Racism, Violence and Injustice at the Center of US Middle East Policy, by Walter Hixson.
The next graph to look at here below, shows that since 1990, the Pro-Israel PAC groups have only increased their contributions to those running for Congress, with a significant increase beginning in 2020. Part of this increase is due to the Pro-Israel PACs funding candidates that are challenging the most progressive members of Congress, BIPOC members known as The Squad. The Squad currently includes Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, Rashida Tlaib, Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush.
One last graph shows that since the late 1990s, the Pro-Israel Lobby has been spending millions annually to influence US foreign policy. This is due in part to the growing foreign and domestic opposition to the ongoing illegal Israeli occupation, the ongoing brutalization of Palestinians by the Israeli Military and the system of Racial Apartheid that Israel has created against the Palestinian population.
Like any issues that the US Congress deals with, whether it is energy policy or US Foreign Policy, we all need to get in the habit of following the money. Politicians don’t act independently, they often do the bidding of those who contribute the most money to their campaigns. And this is certainly a major contributing factor in the near unanimous US government support of Israel.
Bipartisan Resolution in the Michigan House to condemn Hamas is the focus of the DeVos-created group Michigan Freedom Fund’s ridiculous post
On Thursday, the DeVos-created and funded organization, the Michigan Freedom Fund (MFF), posted an article entitled, Michigan House Democrats Join Tlaib in Refusal To Condemn Hamas.
It is important to point out from the get go, that several Michigan House Democrats have co-sponsored the resolution to condemn Hamas, so the headline for the MFF post is misleading.
The MFF post begins by stating:
Michigan House Democrat leadership join the ranks of extremists like US Rep. Rashida Tlaib by refusing to condemn the horrifying Oct. 7 attack on innocent Israeli citizens. State Representative Bill Schuette introduced a Resolution condemning the attacks that claimed over a thousand lives, including 25 Americans, and left thousands more injured. The resolution also calls for the release of all hostages held by Hamas. The resolution was blocked by House Democrat Leadership in defiance of some of their own caucus members who signed on to the resolution.
This is an interesting post for numerous reasons. First, the MFF post in primarily interested in condemning the Michigan Democratic Party leadership, specifically Rep. Joe Tate. Second, the MFF post also mentions Michigan’s Congressional Representative Rashida Tlaib, who has been an outspoken supporter of the Palestinians since she has been a member of Congress. However, Tlaib stated on Wednesday, in a comment quote in Michigan Advance:
“I do not support the targeting and killing of civilians, whether in Israel or Palestine,” Tlaib first told the Advance on Wednesday. “The fact that some have suggested otherwise is offensive and rooted in bigoted assumptions about my faith and ethnicity.”
Therefore, it seems that the MFF post is not honest and not accurate about what they are claiming about Michigan Democrats. It is true that House Majority leader Joe Tate chose to send the resolution to the Government Operations Committee, but that doesn’t mean that the resolution is dead.
Another point worth making has to do with Rep. Bill Schuette, who proposed the resolution condemning Hamas. In a statement he wrote last week, Schuette said,
“There can be no equivocation here. Broad and watered-down statements do not suffice. An atrocity occurred in Israel last weekend. Hamas, a terrorist organization targeted civilians, children and U.S. citizens. Hundreds are dead, hostages remain in captivity. To not speak on this issue is an abdication of our moral responsibility.”
It is always instructive to see such statement made, especially when they invoke the notion of “moral responsibility.” Rep. Shuette, like the Republican Party as well as the majority of the Democratic Party, has never condemned the Israeli terrorist attacks against Palestinians living in Gaza, not in 2008-2009, 2012, 2014 or 2021. These attacks by the Israeli military not only targeted civilians, but destroyed hospitals and other civil society structures, which according to International Law are war crimes.
It’s always about the other side
The Michigan Freedom Fund Communications Director, Mary Drabik, who wrote the post for the MFF on October 11th, that Michigan is home to “over 85,000 Jews and around 2,500 Israelis,” although she doesn’t source those numbers. What Mary Drabik fails to mention is that Michigan is also home to thousands of Arab Americans, including Palestinians.
Having said all of this, the issue of some Democratic politicians not outright condemning Hamas is instructive, especially since the Democratic Party is also unhappy with members of Congress like Rep. Rashida Tlaib and Rep. Cory Bush. In an article in The Intercepted, it notes that Democratic Party members who are closely aligned with largest Pro-Israel lobby group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), are the ones going after Tlaib and Bush. You will recall that one of the challengers to Rep. Tlaib, Janice Winfrey, had “secured contributions from United Democracy Project, a super PAC tied to American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the pro-Israel lobbying group.”
This is the dilemma of the Democratic Party, which has consistently supported Israel, both in principle and with billions in military aid. This blind support for Israel is not reflected in the growing number of Americans in recent that support the Palestinian struggle. When the Democrats attack their own for not standing with Israel, it further underscores the hypocrisy of US foreign policy in the Middle East.
From Columbus Day to Indigenous People’s Day: Why white people need to learn about Settler Colonialism in the past and the present
In know that many people celebrated Indigenous People’s Day on Monday, October 9th. This was partly due to the federal government’s previous designation of Columbus Day on the Monday before October 12.
Now that we are doing away with celebrating Columbus, who personifies genocide and settler colonialism in what is now called the Americas, we can embrace and celebrate Indigenous People’s Day.
However, acknowledging Indigenous people for one day is ridiculous, since the harm done to Indigenous people in the Western hemisphere alone is so vast that it is difficult to quantify. Europeans and Euro-Americans have slaughtered millions of Indigenous people since Columbus got lost in 1492, along with the theft of the majority of their lands, the attempted suppression of their languages and culture, forcibly removing Indigenous children from their communities and placing them in so-called boarding schools, and in more recent decades extracting fossil fuels and minerals from their sacred lands to fuel the system of Capitalism.
In an excellent article I read recently, entitled, Dismantling Columbus’s Legacy Requires More Than Changing a Holiday’s Name, the author writes:
Colonialism is a structure, not an event. Dismantling that structure and creating different relationships with each other requires material actions because abolition and decolonization are not metaphors. When we say we need to end what Columbus stands for, we mean it. But there is a deep resistance in environmental and climate activist circles to embrace even the most basic action that would dismantle the logic of Columbus, which is to support Indigenous refusal of the extraction and desecration of sacred sites, waters and homelands. Instead, there are calls for “consultation” without the right to refuse and prevent development projects. Environmental activists proclaim, “leave fossil fuels in the ground” while also promoting false greenwashing technologies such as electric vehicles that require destroying sacred sites with polluting mining, supporting a new gold rush with the same structures of genocide.
If we are to take these words to heart (which we should), then we need to do a great deal of unlearning and learning at the same time. We have to unlearn what we think we know about the past 500 years of Settler Colonialism, learn the truth about what the US was founded on, and how US policy continues to do tremendous harm to Indigenous people right up until the present. In order to do so, we need to learn directly from Indigenous people themselves, so I am going to include a variety of sources that we all need to look at in order to come to terms with this history in order to move forward and work towards be an accomplice with Indigenous people right now.
The above working definition of Settler Colonialism comes from Indigenous scholar Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz. Some resources I would suggest on the history of Settler Colonialism are:
The Canary Effect: Kill the Indian, Save the Man. This documentary film was produced in 2006 and provides an excellent introduction to Settler Colonialism and its last impact on Indigenous people. You can watch the film online here.
Books
- The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of US History, by Ned Blackhawk.
- A Little Matter of Genocide: Holocaust Denial in the Americas 1492 to the Present, by Ward Churchill.
- An Indigenous People’s History of the United States, by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
- Unsettling Truths: The Ongoing Dehumanizing Legacy of the Doctrine of Discovery, by Mark Charles and Soong-Chan Rah
- Not “A Nation of Immigrants”: Settler Colonialism, White Supremacy, and A History of Erasure and Exclusion, by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
Last year, the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) released its historic Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative Investigative Report, which serves as a formal investigation into federal Indian boarding school policy. The report identified 408 federally-run Indian boarding schools. Also, read War Churchill’s book, Kill the Indian, Save the Man: The genocidal Impact of American Indian Residential Schools.
In the 1970s, the US Federal Government, including the FBI, sought to suppress the American Indian Movement, particularly through the program known as COINTELPRO, which counter-intelligence program to eliminate and destabilize domestic threats to systems of power in the US. Read the book, The Cointelpro Papers: Documents from the FBI’s Secret Wars Against Domestic Dissent, and watch the documentary film entitled, COINTELPRO 101, which you can watch here. Another excellent documentary film on this topic is Incident at Oglala, which centers on the Federal Governments suppression of AIM activists at the Pine Ridge Reservation and the case of Leonard Peltier. You can watch that documentary here.
This brings us to more contemporary matters, such as the massive efforts of fossil fuel companies working with state and federal agencies to extract resources from Indigenous lands and how Indigenous communities are resisting the extraction of resources from Native communities. Here are some excellent books that investigate this topic:
- The Militarization of Indian Country, by Winona LaDuke
- Our History is the Future: Standing Rock versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance, by Nick Estes
- To Be A Water Protector: The Rise of the Wiindigoo Slayers, by Winona LaDuke
- Standing With Standing Rock: Voices From the #NODAPL Movement, edited by Nick Estes and Jaskiran Dhillion
It is worth noting that the resistance to the extraction of resources on Indigenous land is ongoing and that the Indigenous Resistance has been deeply impactful. According to a report put out by the Indigenous Environmental Network in 2021, Indigenous-led resistance campaigns against pipelines in the US and Canada have reduced greenhouse gas pollution by at least 25% annually since these campaigns began.
For more analysis of how Indigenous people are leading the fight for Climate Justice, check out the online resources at the Indigenous Environmental Network, along with the book, The Red Deal: Indigenous Action to Save Our Earth, published by The Red Nation.
Lastly, for white people, if you really want to be part of the contemporary Indigenous struggles, then I would encourage you to read this excellent zine entitled, Accomplices Not Allies: Abolishing the Ally Industrial Complex.
Worthy and unworthy victims: The US, Israelis, and Palestinians
In Ed Herman and Noam Chomsky’s seminal work, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, they discuss the function of what they name as worth and unworthy victims.
The main example that Herman and Chomsky provide in their book is a comparison of the amount of news coverage that one Polish Priest who was killed by communists, compared to a hundred religious workers in Latin American in the early 1980s. In looking at the major US news media, they determined that there were more stories about this one Polish Priest, compared to 100 religious workers being killed in Latin America.
Arguably, a similar dynamic is occurring right now with the recent Hamas attack against Israel, which resulted in estimates of up to 900 dead Israelis. Since last week’s attack by Hamas, Israel has retaliated, with the number of Palestinian deaths rising by the hour, especially since the violence being pretreated by the Israeli military has been constant, especially in the Gaza Strip.
Of course, what is not regularly reported on in the US media or uttered by most US politicians is the fact that:
- Israel has been illegally occupying Palestinian lands for decades.
- Israel has been bombing Gaza on and off for decades.
- Israeli Settlements have expanded, despite the fact that the settlement expansion is happening on Palestinian lands and because settlement expansion has been condemned by the United Nations.
- The US has since the mid-1970s provided military aid to Israel, with recent decades averaging $3 Billion annually.
The cumulative number of Palestinians killed by the Israeli military, tortured by Israel and displaced from their lands by Israel is overwhelmingly disproportionate to how many Israelis have been killed, tortured or been displaced from their lands by Palestinians.
However, despite the statistical differences, Israel is seen as a worthy victim, while Palestinians are unworthy. In fact, not only are Palestinian deaths unworthy, they are consistently labeled as terrorists, or as one Israeli military leader recently referred to them as “human animals.”
US government position on Israel/Palestine
US President Joe Biden, in a statement he released on Saturday, stated in the first three sentences:
THE PRESIDENT: Good afternoon. Today, the people of Israel are under attack, orchestrated by a terrorist organization, Hamas.
In this moment of tragedy, I want to say to them and to the world and to terrorists everywhere that the United States stands with Israel. We will not ever fail to have their back.
Four days ago, 3rd Congressional Representative Hillary Scholten posted these words on Facebook:
To our strong ally, Israel–we are with you in the face of these horrific attacks. We pray that you feel our unity surrounding you and your loved ones. We mourn the dead, pray for the wounded and afraid, and rise to meet this challenge together.
Scholten has not issued a similar statement about the Palestinians who have been killed in the past two days.
On Monday, Rep. Scholten wrote:
Hamas terrorism has claimed thousands of innocent lives and continues to devastate and destabilize the region. I’m joining a bipartisan resolution to condemn this terrorist group and reaffirm our nation’s commitment to providing support to our ally, Israel.
The bipartisan resolution that Scholten is referring to can be viewed here. As of this writing, there have been 392 US House members that have already signed on to the resolution, including Rep. Scholten. This is consistent with the 50 year bipartisan US support for Israel. It is also due to the millions of dollars that pro-Israeli PACs have contributed to members of Congress. In fact, if you are an elected official or a candidate and you speak challenge the US narrative about Israel, there will be a campaign to discredit you.
News Media Bias
The national media watchdog group, Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), has been documenting the biased coverage by the larger national news agencies for nearly 40 years. Their documentation has shown a clear bias in favor of Israel, but they have also documented how the national news media has internalized the official US government narrative on Israel. In an August post, they encourage US news consumers to look out for 6 tropes on Israeli/Palestine coverage, with the 4th trope affirming Chomsky and Herman’s analysis, Newsworthy and Unnewsworthy Deaths.
For additional media analysis of how the US News Media reports on Israel/Palestine, see the following documentaries:
Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land: U.S. Media & the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict https://shop.mediaed.org/peace-propaganda–the-promised-land-p117.aspx
The Occupation of the American Mind: Israel’s Public Relations War in the United States https://shop.mediaed.org/the-occupation-of-the-american-mind-p198.aspx
As a counter to the US Government/Media Narrative, I would encourage people to check out the site Electronic Intifada, which was begun by a Palestinian activist/educator Ali Abunimah. A group that I was involved with in 2002, Brough Abunimah to Grand Rapids to speak. When the Grand Rapids chapter of the Jewish Federation found out that Abumimah would be speaking in Grand Rapids, they applied pressure to Aquinas College, where we were hosting a teach-in and almost got the event cancelled. Here is an excellent example of the kind of analysis that Ali Abunimah brings to this critical issue.
Other recommended resources that challenge the US/Israeli narrative on Israel/Palestine are:
B’Tselem – The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories https://www.btselem.org/
Occupation 101: Voices of the Silenced Majority https://shop.mediaed.org/occupation-101-p120.aspx
The International Boycott, Divestment, Sanction movement, known as the BDS Movement. https://bdsmovement.net/
The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, by Ilan Pappe
Internationalism: Decolonizing Native America and Palestine, by Steven Salaita
Dishonest Broker: The US Role in Israel and Palestine, by Naseer H. Aruri
The New Intifada: Resisting Israel’s Apartheid, edited by Roane Carey
The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering, by Norman Finkelstein
Ten Myths About Israel, by Ilan Pappe
The Battle for Justice in Palestine, by Ali Abunimah
BDS: The Global Struggle for Palestinian Rights, by Omar Barghouti
On Palestine, by Noam Chomsky and Ilan Pappe
Challenging the US/Israeli narrative is not popular and it is very risky, since you will often be labeled as anti-Semitic. This tactic is meant to silence or marginalize people. However, if we study history, critically examine this issue and not get stuck in ideological positions, it is my belief that people will embrace the Palestinian struggle.
News coverage of the proposed soccer stadium fails to ask the more important questions that will impact the public in Grand Rapids
On Friday, during the Grand Rapids-Kent County Convention/Arena Authority (CAA) meeting, the proposal to have a soccer stadium in downtown Grand Rapids became more formalized.
A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was agreed upon by the Grand Rapids-Kent County Convention/Arena Authority (CAA) and Grand Action 2.0. The MOU states in part:
That the CAA determines to enter a Third Memorandum of Understanding with GA2.0 for the purpose of reaching an agreement regarding the development, funding, construction, ownership, and operation of the Soccer Stadium, and the Chairperson of the Board is authorized and directed to execute said agreement, in a form approved as to substance by the Board Chair, and as to form by CAA legal counsel, contingent upon the CAA’s authority as set forth in the CAA’s Articles of Organization and Operating Agreement, as amended, and as may be amended.
To read the entire MOU between Grand Rapids-Kent County Convention/Arena Authority (CAA) and Grand Action 2.0, you can go here. (pages 33 – 38)
The major news entities that reported on the Friday Grand Rapids-Kent County Convention/Arena Authority were, MLive, WOODTV8 and Crain’s Grand Rapids.
The reporting is what we have come to expect from the local news media, especially when it has to do with major development projects like the outdoor amphitheater, and now the proposed soccer stadium, which is that local news agencies don’t even question what such a project means, who benefits and who will have to pay for it. Most of the local news coverage focuses on superficial details, like where the soccer stadium will be located. However, the Crain’s Grand Rapids article, there is a more honest comment from Doug Small, who is the president and CEO of Experience Grand Rapids. Small states:
“Any professional sport that we have here allows us to continue carrying on the Grand Rapids brand throughout the nation and the world, hopefully. It’s just another opportunity to get our name out there, so I’m excited for that. I think we’ve got a very robust soccer fan base here. It’s nice to see that the fanbase get rewarded with a team of the caliber they are looking to bring in here.”
However, the most important part of the Crain’s Grand Rapids article was this sentence, “Developing a soccer stadium has long been discussed by Grand Rapids officials as a way to drive economic development.” The question we need to be asking ourselves is, economic development for whom? In addition, we need to be asking questions like:
- How much public money will be used to support such a project and will the public have any say in the use of public money for a private project?
- Who will own the soccer stadium and the team, once all of this is in place?
- Why can’t the City of Grand Rapids adopt a model of community ownership, which would not only allow for potentially thousands of people to own shares in the stadium/team – which is a model that the Green Bay Packers use – or an ownership model where the City manages the soccer stadium/team, with an oversight board represented by people other than the usual suspects, and profits generated from the operation of the soccer stadium/team be used to support housing costs for families who are housing insecure.
Unfortunately, we cannot rely on City or County officials to raise these kinds of questions or propose alternate models of ownership, or the idea that we don’t even need a soccer stadium and that truly affordable housing or other of the many pressing issues this city faces should be prioritized. Imagine what it would be like to live in a city where housing security, dismantling racism and promoting environmental just were prioritized over such things as the branding of Grand Rapids, promoting tourism and the transfer of public funds to members of the Grand Rapids Power Structure (reflected in the graphic above that GRIID created over a year ago.)
Grand Rapids Institute for Information Democracy 