American website: The people of Gaza will not allow the Turtle Island scenario to be repeated

The Palestine Chronicle website published an article by university professor Benay Blind, in which she discussed US President Donald Trump’s proposal to forcibly displace Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.

Blind said the plan faces resistance from the Palestinian people, who are defying attempts to eliminate them, just as indigenous peoples around the world have done in their struggle against attempts to erase their identity and existence.

She added that Trump formulated his plan in line with previous colonial settlement agendas.

The most expensive thing

Responding to Trump’s comments that Palestinians deserve better than their bad luck and that the entire Gaza Strip is now in “real chaos,” Fathi Abu al-Saeed, 72, looking out over the now-ruined al-Katiba neighborhood of Khan Younis, told Blind: “See this useless pile of rubble? It’s worth more than the United States and everything in it.”

Commenting on this, Blind, who works as an assistant professor of Native American history at the University of New Mexico Community College in Albuquerque, New Mexico, noted that displacement is not strange to Abu Saeed, his family and many Palestinians now living in Gaza.

After witnessing many disturbances, Abu Al-Saeed refuses to leave again, "Do you know what will never happen again? Our departure," a statement that - according to the article - indicates the Palestinian people's connection to their land.

According to the American Academy in its article, forcing Palestinians to constantly move to another place is not only a means used by the Israelis to seize more land, but it is also a reflection of the policy of “divide and rule” adopted by colonial settler states to facilitate their control over peoples.

Indigenous population removal

In the article, the writer reviews forced displacement policies throughout history, such as the American Indian Removal Act of 1830, and links them to the reality of the Palestinians today, stressing that the displacement of the indigenous population and the Palestinians was a tool of control, but their steadfastness prevented their erasure.

Abu Al-Saeed explains that such policies are what shaped Palestinian awareness early on, which reinforced the collective awareness that displacement is not an accident but rather a deliberate approach, “and for this reason resistance has always been a collective act and not an individual one.”

The article also stresses that the Palestinians are united despite the occupation's attempts to divide them, pointing to the growth of anti-colonial movements worldwide.

Blind acknowledged that US history is indeed a record of settler colonialism, as is Israeli history, “both of which are driven by ideologies of white supremacy, genocide, and land theft.”

turtle island

The writer pointed out that the Indian Removal Act, which was passed by the US Congress on May 28, 1830, during the administration of President Andrew Jackson, stipulated the removal of the indigenous Indian tribes on Turtle Island several times to make way for settlers who wanted to obtain free land, and to eliminate the tribes living there.

Turtle Island is a term used to describe various areas of the northeastern forests of North America inhabited by Native American tribes, who are its original inhabitants.

President Jackson had at that time authorized negotiations with the Native American tribes known locally as Red Indians, spread across the southern United States, to remove them to federal lands west of the Mississippi in exchange for giving up their original lands.

The Palestine Chronicle article concluded that the era of forced displacement for Palestinians and others around the world will end thanks to the steadfastness and courage of the global anti-colonial resistance.

Source: Palestinian press + websites