Let Gaza Change You

Narrating a grounded humanity in the Kanaka Maoli-led movement to defend Mauna Kea in Hawai'i against the Thirty Meter Telescope project, we can see how mutually constituted life outside the Euro-American humanism of the colonial here-and-now substantively challenges the status quo of white supremacist settler colonialism and its diffuse yet connected materializations of occupation, apartheid, and genocide. This article argues that a radical relationality arose and continues rising, even across the pages of this special issue, between Kānaka Maoli and Palestinians in the shade, protection, and authority of Mauna Kea. Three critical points of encouragement for the field of Native American and Indigenous studies concerning the question of Palestine are offered here to unsettle exclusionary and prescriptive ideas about global indigeneity, hegemonic notions of Indigenous politics, and liberal concerns with resistance and decolonization. Although the field has been constituted through courageous interventions by scholars comparing U.S. and Israeli settler colonialisms, and forwarding analyses and arguments about transnational and international solidarity between Native peoples subjected to and resisting settler-state regimes, this intersection is still peripheral. There remains an elephant in the room: What is Native American and Indigenous studies going to do about the Palestinians

Ancient history · Gaza strip · Palestine · Political science · Global Peace and Security Dynamics · Health and Conflict Studies · History