Published: 9 September 2022
Last updated: 5 March 2024
Following a surprising response from Indigenous senator LIDIA THORPE at Limmud Oz, ITTAY FLESCHER considers the analogies between Aboriginal, Jewish and Palestinian experience.
Senator Lidia Thorpe highlighted Aboriginal-Jewish affinities when speaking at Limmud-Oz on Sunday.
Asked to speak about the clashing Indigenous narratives of Jews and Palestinians in Israel, the proud DjabWurrung Gunnai Gunditjmara woman told the room, “We have an affinity with the Jewish Community through William Cooper. (Through him) I feel that I’m a part of your community, just as I feel part of the Palestinian community.”
“Regarding the competing narratives between Israel and Palestine, she said, “I support self-determination, I don’t support violence. Through self-determination I’m hoping for a peaceful outcome. I want to work in a way that I work with your mob, and work with the Palestinian mob to find peace in a self-determined way.”
Perhaps she just knew her audience, but I was surprised by her response. Palestinian-Aboriginal analogies are far more common than Jewish-Aboriginal analogies, especially in Thorpe’s Greens Party.
A consistent theme in the statement of almost every artist who withdrew from the Sydney Festival in February 2022 over their partnership with the Israeli Embassy in Canberra was an equation between the Aboriginal and Palestinian experience.
“As artists who work and create on unceded land, we are committed to justice for Indigenous peoples everywhere, from so-called Australia to Palestine,” one of the most widely signed statements against the festival read.
Jews also see themselves an indigenous people in Israel. In opposing the boycott, representatives from the ZFA, AIJAC and ECAJ expressed outrage at the boycotters' “denial of the indigeneity of Jews to their historic homeland Israel,” and the description of Israel as a colonial enterprise akin to South Africa or Australia.
