An Indigenous Zionist Speaks Out

I am a Native woman from Peru and my opinion about what is happening in Israel right now is that people have a double standard because people love dead Jews.

When Hamas kills its own civilians, you don’t see anyone on the street saying anything. When Israel attacks Gaza, everyone takes to the streets to chant “Free Palestine,” regardless of whether Israel ordered the evacuation of civilians or whether Hamas forced civilians to stay in their homes, in order to blame Israel for a higher death toll.

When Hamas kills, rapes, beheads babies, and burns Israeli civilians alive, supporters of Palestine celebrate. It’s horrendous.

Jews deserve to live free in their ancestral homeland. And whether individual Israeli Jews are Indigenous to a particular part of the land or not, they do not deserve to be dehumanized. It is heartbreaking to see Hamas atrocities on social media every day.

I think people in general don’t have critical thinking skills. They react impulsively, according to their prejudices, so it’s easy for the Gaza terrorists to make people think that Jews are evil and that we need to get rid of them. This is how the Holocaust started. What begins with words ends in validation by deeds.

What people have to understand is that this war is not about Israel vs. Palestine or Jews vs. Muslims. It is a terrorist group against humanity, not only against Israelis and Palestinians. Israel is fighting for all mankind – including Indigenous people like me.

The reactions I have received for being openly Zionist and Native confirm the nature of the enemy in this fight, and the nature of the people who sympathize with them. I have received repeated death threats and gang rape threats. I have been called a “Zionist pig,” “Zio-Kike,” “fake Native,” “White Spanish colonizer,” “potato face,” etc. The mentality of these people is expressed in the language that they use.

I have also lost friends or people I thought were my friends because I saw them celebrating the mass murder of Jews. Even many Natives (my own people) support Jewish genocide, although Hamas also wants to wipe us off the face of the earth. I have also gained new friends and a lot of support from Zionist Jews and non-Jews. I have received many messages of gratitude and Shabbat dinner invites.

I greatly admire the Jewish people, the resilience and unity they have. I admire that Jews are an Indigenous people who achieved the impossible: they decolonized their homeland and revived their native language, Hebrew. They built a modern high-tech state with a strong army by which they can defend themselves. They are an example to Indigenous people everywhere that our dreams can become reality.

I feel that if I lose my own home for being a Zionist, I will have a new home waiting for me in the Middle East.

October 7 was the biggest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, yet people are still quiet or trying to justify it. I choose not to be like one of them. I am not a Jew, but I stand with my Jewish friends, I stand with Israel. Never again is now.

The only thing that people who are supportive of Hamas have achieved is making me feel more inspired to continue advocating for Israel and to shout out loud: “The People of Israel Live!” The Indigenous people of Israel, the Jewish people, are my people, too.