UVic faculty protested talk promoting 'Jewish indigeneity' in Israel
Māori academic Sheree Trotter argued Israel is an example of decolonization. Indigenous scholars countered that the framing erases Palestinian displacement.
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When Indigenous professor waaseyaa'sin Christine Sy learned that Māori academic Sheree Trotter was speaking at the University of Victoria on June 14, Sy decided to attend to understand the argument. Sy, an Ojibwa professor of gender studies, said she "very much see[s] Zionism and settler colonialism as... under the same umbrella."
Trotter has been giving public talks and podcast interviews arguing that Jewish people should be considered Indigenous to Israel and that the nation's founding should be seen as successful decolonization. She has founded an organization called the Indigenous Embassy Israel.
The concept of settler colonialism is typically used to describe European colonization and its ongoing effects on Indigenous peoples in countries such as Canada and New Zealand. Some pro-Palestinian activists argue that Israel's displacement of Palestinians, occupation of contested lands, and militarized structures maintaining divisions between Jewish and non-Jewish people constitute settler colonialism.
Trotter contests this framing, arguing it "divides all of humanity into a binary of oppressor and oppressed.... This simply does not fit history." She also denies that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians. However, the United Nations, Amnesty International, and two Israeli human rights organizations have all determined that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. The UN Human Rights Council recently found that Israel has deliberately targeted Palestinian children with "genocidal intent."
The Jewish Federation of Victoria and Vancouver Island invited Trotter to counter the claim that Zionism is settler colonialism. Federation president Barry Zalmanowitz said the talk was "broadly publicized including [to] many First Nations."
LJ Slovin and several other members of the Jewish Faculty Network's Vancouver Island chapter attended in solidarity with Sy and Chaw-win-is, a PhD candidate at UVic. When they unfurled protest posters silently, security asked them to leave.