We Will Not Go Into the Museum

If wars can be started by lies, peace can be started by the truth. The Thanksgiving series.

“G is for Genocide,” an oil painting by Lakota artist Danielle SeeWalker. Reproduced and sold as a fundraiser for the UN Crisis Relief Fund in Gaza.

There’s no greater paradox on earth than the week(end) of Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday in America. It’s an unparalleled showcase of the nation’s essence, steeped in hypocrisy, morbidity, and violence. Nowhere else does the contradiction emerge more starkly than on a day meant for giving thanks and reflecting on gratitude, only to give way, as the weekend comes, to a chaotic celebration of consumerism and excess.

My birthday falls smack in the middle of the worst week in America. I could try to explain why I feel that way, but the tweet I read the other day expresses it better than I could: “Thanksgiving is the PERFECT American holiday: gluttony in honor of settler colonialism.”

This year’s Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and yesterday’s Cyber Monday trifecta sting particularly hard. We’re celebrating a weekend, a holiday rooted in deliberate misinformation and the genocide of Native Americans, while watching a live-streamed genocide of Palestinians unfold on our phones. We are eating ourselves stupid while watching a stampede of Palestinians, raising their empty pots, trying to get an inch of food from aid that has managed to pass through the Israeli policy of starving Gaza, or the gangs they employ to impede the aid trucks.

It’s hard to watch the Thanksgiving parade, and all the heinous attempts to rewrite history with gratitude lists or “land acknowledgments” over turkey—the “friendly feast” narrative, designed to whitewash colonization, violence, and mass murder into a peaceful, benign story. As if that weren’t enough, while the compassionate, clear-eyed world supports BDS, Thanksgiving is followed by Black Friday and Cyber Monday—a consumerist frenzy in stark contrast to Native American spirituality, reverence for creation, environmental stewardship, and the fundamental human need for communion with nature and one another.

Yes, colonial damage is far greater than Thanksgiving.

But it endures as a symbol of colonialism—nauseatingly romanticized, yet rooted in the very foundations of settler colonialism. It’s not the primary act of colonialism, but it perpetuates a distorted view of history, obscuring the true scope of colonial violence.

The American settler-colonial model has served as a blueprint for other colonial powers. Its unprecedented success in establishing a settler society while marginalizing Indigenous populations is unmatched in scale. Now, Israel, in a cynical attempt to avoid scrutiny, argues that if America could do it, why can’t they?

We’ve now witnessed 14 months of the first live-streamed genocide unfolding before our eyes, as state-sponsored terror and murder reach unprecedented levels. Meanwhile, our Western governments and their propagandists lie, fund, support, and justify these atrocities. The history told by the West, from its very beginning, is a series of distorted, whitewashed, and romanticized lies.

We have to keep banging on these truths, people.

Whether it's the past or present, the only path forward is through unapologetic, radical truth—repeated relentlessly. We must expose lies, share them, and open as many eyes as possible. The education system is rigged in favor of the establishment, and history books reflect the bias of the victors. As Julian Assange warned, social media has the power to change these narratives, which we have proven with our relentless posting about Palestine:

“Working against corrupt, powerful organizations who are producing a distorted perspective through mainstream media vehicle—has been the internet. It has allowed one person with one truth to speak to every single person who wants to hear that truth.”

The live-streamed genocide in Gaza and the unspeakable horrors inflicted on a civilian population—funded and justified by the entire West—have laid bare the corruption, insincerity, and manipulation of our governments. The situation is so dire that we no longer resemble a functioning society, but a “transnational security elite that is busy carving up the world using our tax money”—another classic Julian.

We are the Wikileaks today.

Instead of living in a humane, civilized, and democratic society, we find ourselves forced to take on the responsibilities of our government, police, and media—much like the people of Amsterdam, who had to step in when the authorities failed to protect their own citizens.

Julian, again, explains this concept:

“To combat the elite we must not petition, we must take it over, we must form our own networks of strength and mutual value which can challenge those strengths and self-interested values of the warmongers.

When we understand that wars come about as a result of lies peddled to the British public the American public and the public all over Europe and other countries, then who are the war criminals? It is not just leaders, it is not just
soldiers, it is journalists.

Journalists are war criminals. While one might think that should lead us to a state of despair, that the reality around us is constructed by liars; it should also lead us to an optimistic understanding—because if wars can be started by lies, peace can be started by the truth.

So that is our task, and it is your task—go and get the truth, get into the ballpark, get the ball, and give it to us and we'll spread it all over the world.”

Let’s start with debunking Thanksgiving myths.

Children in schools have been taught a Thanksgiving myth: friendly Indians, unidentified by tribe, welcome the Pilgrims to America, teach them how to live in this new place, share a meal with them, and then disappear. They handed off America to white people so they could create a great nation dedicated to liberty, opportunity, and Christianity for the rest of the world to profit.

That’s the story—a tale of Native people quietly conceding to colonialism. It’s a bloodless narrative and an extension of Manifest Destiny, the belief that white Americans were divinely ordained to expand across North America. This ideology justified westward expansion and fueled policies like the Trail of Tears, forced relocations, violent conflicts, and the systematic destruction of Native cultures, all cloaked in the language of destiny and divine right.

Manifest Destiny / We Are The Chosen People?

In 200-300 years, when all of us eyewitnesses are gone, along with our children to whom we’ll pass down the stories of the first live-streamed genocide in history, will Israelis invent warm, fuzzy tales about sharing falafels with Indigenous Palestinians in Gaza, before the latter peacefully decided to leave, so Israelis could create a great nation dedicated to liberty, opportunity, and Zionism, for the rest of the world to profit?

The history of the West continually repeats its crimes, again and again. And they’re allowed to do so, even in 2024, because we have become complacent. We fail to challenge the power structures enough; we’ve accepted their gaslighting, their consumerism that forces us into compliance. Instead of speaking radical truths whenever and wherever possible, we’ve allowed ourselves to be silenced.

The people of Palestine have woken us up from this propaganda-induced coma—a term by Caitlin Johnstone, a much-needed voice tirelessly working to lead us out of the matrix. She also chose these apt, albeit fighting, words:

“The deck is stacked so heavily against truth, peace, and justice. You will watch powerlessly as your government backs genocides, starts wars, and unleashes nightmare after nightmare upon the global south.

We live in a tyrannical dystopia that’s driving humanity to its doom, and we need to wake up from the propaganda indoctrination and egoic delusions which keep us complying with the status quo so that we can use the power of our numbers to overthrow our oppressors and create a healthy world.”

A radical truth at every turn must become everyone's mission.

The ‘First Thanksgiving’ didn’t unfold as history tells you. The Wampanoag tribe taught the English settlers (Pilgrims) how to grow crops, leading to a successful harvest. However, the Wampanoag weren’t invited to a “peaceful feast”, otherwise known as First Thanksgiving. In fact, 90 armed Wampanoag warriors arrived at the feast after hearing gunshots, coming not to celebrate but to protect their people. This occurred only months after the Pilgrims had robbed their graves and stolen food meant for Native families. The so-called ‘First Thanksgiving’ marked the beginning of violent conflicts, with the colonists later seizing land and imprisoning, enslaving, and executing Native people.

While the legacy of colonialism spans centuries, Thanksgiving perpetuates a narrative that oversimplifies and sanitizes the violence and dispossession endured by Indigenous peoples. Are you even aware of the scale of devastation the European settlers inflicted on Native American populations? It's one of the most depraved, evil, and violent crimes in history. And what stings the most—it worked. It was successful.

Look at the numbers:

While Americans celebrate and indulge in turkey feasts, Native Americans mourn this day. Since 1970, many Native Americans have participated in a "National Day of Mourning" on Thanksgiving Day, often held at Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts, to commemorate their ancestors and advocate for indigenous rights.

For many Native Americans, Thanksgiving marks the beginning of their oppression, the loss of their land, and the erasure of their culture.

Witnessing a live-streamed genocide for over a year, with daily massacres landing on your phone as soon as you open your eyes in the morning, and the reality that America's past violence mirrors what Israel is currently attempting, makes Thanksgiving and its associated history feel even more nauseating to participate in.

I saw Native Americans at every anti-genocide protest I attended. I’ve seen pictures of them standing in solidarity, in other cities across America. There is a unique bond between Native Americans and Indigenous Palestinians. They understand the pain of cultural erasure, having witnessed it firsthand, while the same attempt is now being made against Palestinians. The parallels are unavoidable, especially since the erasure of Native Americans succeeded, whereas, for 76 years, Palestinians miraculously have resisted being erased.

"We are not Red Indians."

In his last interview before he died in 2004, while in a state of near confinement and exhaustion, Yasser Arafat reflected upon his incapacity to move without the immediate threat of assassination, about the Palestinian right of return, about American elections, and his achievements. Among these achievements was the fact that "the Palestine case was the biggest problem in the world" and that Israel had "failed to wipe us out."

As a final mark of that success, he added the declarative, comparative, and final point of distinction: "We are not Red Indians."

November 11th marked the anniversary of Yasser Arafat's death. The same day marked Veterans Day in the United States, coinciding with the 20th anniversary of Yasser Arafat’s death. The irony of this coincidence initially left me flabbergasted, but then I saw it for what it was—a fitting tribute that the United States organized in Arafat’s honor. As well as countless homeless US veterans who died for the imperial pursuits of their government, otherwise known as spreading freedom and democracy.

Yasser Arafat and US veterans lie side by side as victims of the same perpetrator.

Do you not see the sameness?

On the same day, I eagerly waited for The Mother of All Talk Shows by George Galloway, knowing that, as a close friend of Yasser, he would pay tribute to him.

George Galloway and Yasser Arafat

And what a tribute it was!

If you aren’t already following George Galloway’s show, I highly recommend it. His analysis of world affairs is unmatched by most political analysts. The vast geopolitical knowledge, sharp rhetoric, humanity, and articulate style he brings to his shows create a curriculum worth making time for.

The tribute he pulled out was spectacular:

“My good friend Yasser Arafat died 20 years ago. I was there, at his deathbed, in the Percy Military Hospital in Paris, and when I came out into the early morning light, I was confronted by battery of Television cameras, the largest such battery I have ever seen. There must have been 500 or a thousand television cameras outside that hospital, and I got to thinking how amazing an achievement that this physically small man from, in population terms, a small nation of Palestine had so captivated the attention of the world—that every television station in the whole world was there outside the hospital in which he had just passed away. 

And I took a few moments, 20 years ago tomorrow, contemplating the great achievement of my friend Yasser Arafat. 

He had made the Palestine question eternal and central to world events. And so it has remained. The Holy Land is not the Holy Land for nothing. It’s an important land. It’s Terra Santa, Holy Land. And Yasser Arafat always used to say to me — “We will not go into the museum”. Rather impolitely, he'd say — “We are not the Red Indians”, who were neither red nor Indian. “We are not the Red Indians, we will not go into the museum. We are a live people with a live cause, that we will carry with us until the end, until victory.” 

He used to say that to me hundreds of times, and it came true. Palestine is the number one issue on the international political agenda. Imagine, it is the moral center of the world.”

Twenty years later, Palestine is still the moral center of the world.

For 76 years and counting, the plight of the Palestinian people has remained at a standstill, and that’s purposeful, as maintaining the status quo is necessary for the existence of the state of Israel.

But what’s truly fascinating, and surely Israel’s Achilles' heel after decades of attempting to erase the Palestinian people—their culture, customs, and even their very existence as a nation—is this: a man, small in stature, yet with a distinct appearance and huge international appeal, became more known to the world than any Israeli figure combined. He made Palestine—stateless, yet undeniably famous—known to every corner of the earth.

Arafat always stressed the inherent evil of Zionism. In his view, the Zionists were the successors of the Nazis. Seeing all the atrocities they have committed for the past 423 days, knowing what we know today, was he wrong?

He led the Palestinian struggle for statehood for nearly 40 years using everything from armed resistance to international diplomacy, to capture global attention. He became a symbol of Palestinian resistance seeing armed struggle as the key to liberation.

Again, knowing what we know today, can you blame him?

His obsession with avoiding the fate of ending up in a museum like the Native Americans—then inappropriately called Red Indians—seemed justified. After witnessing a year of carnage and the relentless brutality of the Zionist regime determined to erase the Palestinian people and seize their land, his belief in armed struggle as the key to liberation appears to have been an evaluated assessment. He clearly understood the nature of his adversaries.

In his own words:

“Are our Arab people out of all peoples of the earth destined to surrender? Why do they surrender? A people who are supposed to pay the sacrifice. People who didn’t surrender to the Crusaders, not to the Tartars, why did they surrender to Zionism?”

Besides being obsessed with avoiding the fate of the Native Americans, Arafat often spoke of the need to create a mass movement, warning against abandoning resistance against occupation:

“Our people fought more than once. In 1939, they fought and were deceived by sweet words, so they abandoned their weapons. Our Palestinian people fought in 1948 and were deceived, so they abandoned their weapons. This time is the last time, and our people will not abandon the weapon.

For our movement, armed struggle means waging a mass revolutionary war. Therefore, the first stage of our work is to attract the masses. The first thing is to attract the masses of our people and make them live in a revolutionary atmosphere, that will put the people in their right place bearing the responsibility and consequences fully under the leadership of a revolutionary vanguard, the general command of the storm forces.”

He envisioned a state for people of all religions, with Jerusalem as its capital:

“Our goal is to liberate our homeland Palestine from the Israeli occupation, remove the Zionist colonial presence, and establish an Arab Palestinian state in which all religions coexist. We are facing an enemy with the mighty capabilities of global Zionism. Behind it are all the forces of imperialism and colonialism. Let them plan what they want. Our planning stems from this, from the gun. Nothing else.”

Twenty years later, Yasser Arafat's legacy remains contested.

He became the first representative of a non-member body to address the UN General Assembly 44 years ago on 13 November 1974:

"Today I come bearing an olive branch in one hand, and the freedom fighter's gun in the other. Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand."

The Guardian published some interesting words ten years ago, on the 10th anniversary of his death:

“Arafat and his supporters strongly believed that without armed struggle, the Palestinian issue would have remained no more than yet another refugee problem alongside the many other displacements lingering on the periphery of the world’s conscience.

He saw himself as part of a global movement and as a member of an international revolutionary fraternity against injustice – part of the global struggle of oppressed peoples for freedom and liberation.

The kaffiyeh Arafat wore came to symbolize revolution, not just the Palestinian struggle.

The Guardian continues, in 2014:

“The political future of Palestine appears bleak. True authority has been depleted by long years of struggle, by death, detention, occupation, and the seemingly fruitless search for freedom and restitution.

The diaspora, in which the majority of Palestinians live, has never been so marginalized or voiceless, and the refugees, the heartland of Arafat’s revolution and the core of the struggle—have never faced such denial and deprivation.”

And look at the diaspora now!

The whole world has become the Palestinian diaspora.

Remember what Arafat said: “For our movement, armed struggle means waging a mass revolutionary war. Therefore, the first stage of our work is to attract the masses. The first thing is to attract the masses of our people and make them live in a revolutionary atmosphere.”

The Guardian, 2014:

“As the memory of his achievements and misdemeanors, real or imagined, fade, today’s dire circumstances evoke a popular Palestinian nostalgia for the era of genuine leadership. The next leaders for better or for worse, will not be in Arafat’s mould.”

Imagine what Yasser Arafat would say if he knew someone like Yahya Sinwar was coming along. And imagine how full his heart would be, seeing millions of people around the world rallying for Palestinian liberation. Picture his face, after all he and his people have endured, witnessing a sea of Palestinian flags flying across the globe.

We are a live people with a live cause, that we will carry with us until the end, until victory.”

We will not let the Palestinian people go into the museum, Yasser.

Rest easy.

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Editor’s Note: The oil painting below is—“G is for Genocide,” by the Native American Lakota artist Danielle SeeWalker. The painting was reproduced and sold as a fundraiser for the UN Crisis Relief Fund in Gaza. Danielle was headed for an artist residency in Vail, Colorado, which offered the painter and muralist a studio and stipend. However, after she shared an image of “G is for Genocide,” Vail canceled the residency program for the artist following complaints about her artwork’s political message referencing Gaza. Visit Danielle’s Instagram and show her some support, as she has also filed a lawsuit against the city of Vail.

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