Op. Indigenous Resistance: America’s ‘Columbus Day’ and genocide in Gaza

By Rachel Hamdoun

Every year, on the second Monday of October, people in the United States commemorate what is known as the “Columbus Day” marking the founding of the United States of America.

Recently, it was amended – following Indigenous uproar – and named ‘Indigenous Peoples’ Day’.

So, every year, the Indigenous native tribes in the US mourn the loss of their native homelands and ancestors at the hands of European travelers who stumbled upon a land and in their Eurocentric nature and decided to call it their own.

On the other hand, Americans celebrate this genocide, which is also a holiday in the country.

This year, it coincides with the first anniversary of the genocide in Gaza, which history – again – has America to give credit to.

Italian explorer-turned-colonizer Christopher Columbus (Cristoforo Colombo) sailed from Europe across the Atlantic and “discovered” the land which he named the New World.

With the help of the Doctrine of Discovery in 1492, a document which claimed that uninhabited territory can be declared by whoever discovered it as his own; Columbus enjoyed the self-proclaimed power to encroach a land inhabited by native peoples.

This paved the way for Manifest Destiny – the idea that Euro-Americans at the time were destined to spread and conquer – justifying the ideology that validated American territorial expansion then and now.

Columbus and the rest of his followers systematically pillaged the land, raped its women, disrupted traditions, stole natural resources and enforced a full-blown scorched earth policy.

The large population of native tribes, such as the Powhatan, the Hopi and the Navajo among others ranging in the millions, were wiped off the map in days.

Does it sound familiar? Since October 7, 2023, Israel has murdered 41,272 Palestinians – excluding the bodies under the massive amount of rubble which may bring the total death toll to over 180,000, according to a study by the Lancet in July this year.

Native American survivors of US boarding schools recount abuses

Elderly survivors of federally established US boarding schools for Native Americans recount widespread atrocities at the government-run institutions in a meeting with US Interior Secretary.

The genocidal campaign against the native people of Palestine, from Akka to Al-Khalil, by the colonizing forces of Israel founded by American orders, has become the pen that is rewriting the history of the indigenous by redefining genocide, this time on different land and a different people. 

Palestinians, at the hands of Israeli occupation forces trained under American policies, have been killed, raped, pillaged, tortured, enslaved, degraded and deprived of every human right that one can possibly think of.

Where Indigenous peoples face genocide, one will undoubtedly find an American hand orchestrating the strings, and a puppet follows orders.

The ‘us versus them’ complex continues to thrive from generation to generation, from policy to policy, and government to army – to this very day.

The self-proclaimed belief of godly hegemony began 180 years ago against the native tribes in America and has turned into a doctrine that justifies all and every tactic of war as a God-sent duty to serve ‘justice’ and show the world right from wrong by being an example of a nonpareil of law and order.

This ideology is showcased by the US in every war it rubs its nose in and every fire it ignites, from Iraq to Afghanistan and from Sudan to Gaza.

Those who were once cowboys in the Wild West are now savages in organized uniforms.

When asked about the human rights violations, war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by both US troops and Israeli regime forces, the US Department of State directs its narrative to use phrases like “we’re investigating” and “we’re looking into it” or “we don’t have enough information about that yet”.

Wouldn’t it be cynical to ask the US about crimes committed against Indigenous civilians and about crimes that built the very land they call their foundation?

The saying that America pays to play has never been truer, and it is witnessed through the generous amount of cash it pays to be involved in places such as the Israeli-occupied territories and Ukraine.

Long read: 333 days of Gaza genocide and 333 reasons why mastermind is US

Israeli genocidal war on Gaza completed 333 days on Tuesday. We list 333 reasons why the United States is not only complicit in it but is the real mastermind.

So far, the US has already cashed out over $175 billion to Ukrainian forces against Russia and to the Israeli regime almost $300 billion which has all gone to the murder of Palestinian families being wiped from civil records and to the murder of Lebanese citizens in southern Lebanon and the southern suburbs of Beirut.

Average American citizens are increasingly beginning to show frustration as they become more aware of where their tax dollars are going: to foreign wars.

While America’s Indigenous and original inhabitants, the native tribes, are forced to live on reservoirs stripped of adequate healthcare, sanitation and resources, the money that could fund the sustenance of a people and their basic human rights.

This brings about the power of the global boycott campaign to stop purchasing everyday items like toothpaste or a soft drink manufactured by companies that give their profits to the Israeli occupation forces or the Israeli war cabinet.

Just one dollar used to buy a chocolate bar is one dollar more cashed into the Western stock of weapons of mass destruction against the Palestinian people.

America funds what America wants to run, and this is why the United Nations – be it the headquarters in New York, or its international bodies like UNDP and UNESCO – is constantly being threatened to have its funding cut by its main donor if it as much as recognizes Palestine or accepts it for full membership at the General Assembly.

The history of the Native Americans is being repeated against the Palestinians, through the colonial Weltanschauung of war by the West, in different spaces and forms as technology advances and new definitions of war crimes are created.

In 2030, ‘Columbus Day’ and the seventh anniversary of the genocide in Gaza will coincide on the same day. It is said that history books are often written by the victor. Now, more than ever, history lessons worldwide are no longer being taught by the colonizer or his descendants.

History is being written in ink and blood by the resistance fighters in Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen to speak of the victory of the Indigenous peoples of the land against the US-backed occupying forces of Israel.

Rachel Hamdoun is a US-based journalist and commentator.

(The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of Press TV.)

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