Open Letter

To: Delegates to the U.N. World Conference on Indigenous Peoples

From: Martin Edwin Andersen
Re: Unleashing Avatar: Indigeneity as a paradigm for peace for the peoples of Israel and the
Occupied Territories
Date: September 17, 2014


"One of the things my parents taught me, and I'll always be grateful for the gift,
is to not ever let anybody else define me." Wilma Mankiller
Already promising to be a rich and vital historic opportunity, the path-breaking high-level plenary
meeting of the United National General Assembly to which you are a delegate next week offers a
unique chance to highlight the possibility that the UNs own definition of indigeneity can serve to
restart the terribly-stalled two-state peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian people
seeking a secure and recognized homeland on sacred common ground.

Once again, a developed world bereft of hopeful answers needs the wisdom and far more
knowledge about the experiences of Mother Earths native peoples as a bridge to greater mutual
understanding and, eventually, reconciliation by Israelis and Palestinians, making the two-state
scenario not only viable, but critical to containing the threat of terrorist organizations such as
ISIL and al-Qaeda.

Despite the many reasons for dismay after the most-recent 50-day war in Gaza, the focus must
necessarily remain on the fact that successf ul peace negot i at i ons coul d end t he
suff eri ng of both peopl es. What is lacking up to now in the discussions and debates is a clear
understanding of the modern rights and needs of indigenous peoples, and how that knowledge
can go a long way in eliminating what critics rightly deem the "vacuousness" of current
discussions about a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians.

Your deliberations will take place as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian
Authority President Mahmoud Abbas both address the assembly. While the media is sure to focus
on their remarks, stale, highly polemical "negotiating" positions from each side still stymie any
real progress towards peace. The seemingly intractable problem can be overcome only with a
fresh (but already fully legitimized) perspective that both illuminates and eventually creates
commonalities in the just demands of all the peoples in a region that is known as the Holy Land
by three of the largest world religions.

Until this year, irresponsible partisans in both Israel and the Occupied Territories have claimed
indigenous identity for only one or the other peoples involved, whenfollowing on Jos R.
Martnez-Cobo's authoritative definition of who makes the grade as true indigenous peoplesan
historically correct interpretation shows that both are. The continued zero-sum gaming of
arguments is creating one of the world's most difficult human rights challenges.

As the special rapporteur of the U.N. Subcommission on the Prevention of Discrimination and
Protection of Minorities, Martnez-Cobo defined indigenous communities, peoples and nations as
those which, having a historical continuity with pre-invasion and pre-colonial societies that
developed on their territories, consider themselves distinct from other sectors of the societies now
prevailing in those territories, or parts of them. They are determined to preserve, develop and
transmit to future generations their ancestral territories, and their ethnic identity, as the basis of
their continued existence as peoples, in accordance with their own cultural patterns, social
institutions and legal systems.
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Prospects of a resumption of violent conflict within and between societies is ever-present, as
alienated individualsleft without hope and possibilitiesbecome young recruits who find
purpose and a sense of belonging through causes far larger than themselves but no less dangerous
to themselves and our mother earth. In the wake of the hundreds of public beheadings by ISIL
seen around the world, it should be remembered how in his book Terror in the Mind of God: The
Global Rise of Religious Violence Mark Juergensmeyer described performance violence as being
a public, theatrical, symbolic statement aimed at providing a sense of empowerment sans a
strategic goal. (Italics added.) What leads young people down a road of unspeakable violence,
then, is a perverse appeal of empowerment, whose absence is rooted in a peoples long-standing
inability to be heard and cherished as well as respected.

In the case of the Jewish state of Israel and the Palestinian people the paradigm of indigeneity
can:

help prevent a deterioration of conditions on the ground that would further stall a
renewal of the desperately-needed diplomatic track;
reinvigorate public support both in Israel and in the Occupied Territories (IOT)
for non-violent initiatives including but not limited to diplomacy;
empower IOT publics with those outlets and tools needed to overcome rising
tensions and conflict-driving conditions that are at least a century old, and
build bridges and relationships within and among communities, reflecting the
concerns of two of the major indigenous groups but respecting and promoting the
needs of the others as well.

A workable, permanent, and just solution to the seemingly intractable problem between Israel
and the Palestinians is urgently needed. Writing about the emerging threat throughout the Levant
posed by ISIL, the respected former U.S. Ambassador Gary A. Grappo was absolutely correct
when he observed earlier this month that "extensive on-the-ground work among indigenous
peoples and local tribes ... would be critical to any effective campaign" [against ISIL] in the
region and that an "anti-terrorist alliance must be prepared to ensure that marginalized groups
are fully integrated into governing structures." (Italics added.)

As Laurie Arnold, the director of Gonzaga Universitys Native American Studies Program, noted
of the first peoples of the United States in a comment that is reflective of the essence of your
plenary meeting: Contemporary tribes are dynamic political and economic actors, and have
emerged as leaders in areas such as sustainable environmental practices and endangered
language restoration. Native Americans are not peoples of the past, but instead apply their unique
worldview to their professional work, including business, law, art, education, and health care.

At the same time, "the extent to which indigenous peoples are able to participate in decisions
affecting their lands, cultures, traditions and the allocation of natural resources, and assess the
extent of protection of their civil and political rights"part of U.S. law governing foreign
relationsremains ripe for a real and exhaustive examination for the IOT. As noted in the just-
released World Bank report, Investment Climate Assessment: Fragmentation and Uncertainty,
failure of the Israel-Palestinian peace talks has meant the latters enterprises are hostage to
unceasing conflict, military rule, political division and the lack of free movement and access,
particularly harmful to a sector upon whose success the Palestinian nation largely depends.

The paradigm of indigeneity fully establishes not only the right of Israel to territorial sovereignty
under international law but also supports the factual narrative of the long history of Jewish
presence in the region. Not, as some well-placed advocates in Israel claim, a "stronger" right than
those of the Palestinians (as both peoples clear the bar in terms of UN standards as indigenous
peoples), but one that which also destroys root and branch the denial of Israel's right to exist.

The observation by Elza S. Maalouf, an emerging thought leader in Middle East issues, is key for
making sure the indigenous peoples of the Levant receive the specifically tailored help they
deserve but have not gotten from the developed West:

The Middle East is not a place that forgets about cause and effect or the tribal
mores of revenge and pride. Our leaders should know better. Most of all it seems
that the West hasn't learned from 100 years of failed policies in the region. From
the arbitrary carving of nations by the British and the French to the blind support
of dictators. It seems that the region has always been an afterthought in our
foreign policy. There have been no sustainable strategies to help the region build
nations or build the right institutions that fit each society.

Please see the essays attached, Pyrrhic victories and glass houses: The Palestinians, the Jewish
State of Israel, and the Wobbly Ceasefire, "Common Lands, Common Ground: The indigenous
agenda, Israel, Palestine and breaking the post-Oslo Accords logjam," and "Indigeneity: Opening
the Door to the Path of Peace Between the Jewish State of Israel and the Palestinians" (also
@ http://goo.gl/kyn1u4 , @ http://goo.gl/XZIKoa , @ goo.gl/wAJgOJ respectively).

Together they give added insight into the possibility that your deliberations can, to paraphrase the
French writer Andr Malraux, "leave a gentle scar on the map" in favor of indigenous rights in the
Levant while protecting Mother Earth and the nations living there.

When I was very young, I came to understand that among many U.S. tribes there was no direct
translation of the English verb to learn, the closest being the phrase to stand byyou learn by
watching the example of those around you.

Please stand by the peoples of the Levant now, in this time of continuing crisis, as both sides have
much to learn from you.

With best regards,

Martin Edwin Andersen



Martin Edwin Andersen, a former assistant professor of national security affairs at the National
Defense University, is the author of Peoples of the Earth; Ethnonationalism, Democracy, and the
Indigenous Challenge in Latin America. He is also the Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff
author of the "Cranston Amendment," the 1992 law requiring the State Department to include a
section on indigenous peoples in the annual human rights country reports.


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Using the definition by Martinez Cobo, found online at http://www.iwgia.org/sw310.asp, Israel can be seen as
perhaps the worlds first modern indigenous nation state. Its belonging to the world community of indigenous
peoples is fully warranted given its peoples determination to preserve, develop and transmit to future
generations its ancestral territories, and its ethnic identity, thus ensuring its continued existence as a people in
accordance with its own cultural mores, social institutions and legal system. In favor of the Jewish nation-state's
membership are the following facts: Its lands were occupied first by the Romans, then by the Arabs; it shares
common ancestry with previous occupants; its "Jewish culture" can be traced directly to the Levant, while even
though various communities have slightly different traditions, they all share the same unique root culture; its
traditional language, Hebrew, has been resurrected as its primary language; it has spiritual ties to the land,
which play an unquestionably important role in their traditions as a people, and archaeological evidence of the
Tabernacle exists in the modern Israeli city of Shilo.