This "Thanksgiving"...

A field medic at the Oceti Sakowin protest camp. Credit: Avery White

This “Thanksgiving,” Palestine Legal recalls the fact that the holiday is “a completely made up story,” “the origin story of the United States, the beginning of genocide and dispossession and constant warfare…a colonial system that was set up,” as indigenous historian Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz recently stated. 

We are now especially mindful of the ongoing colonization of land in the U.S., and the continuing resistance of its indigenous people. We stand with the courageous members of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, and all those who are organizing to resist the North Dakota Pipeline and the continued encroachment on what remains of indigenous land.  

The reaction of law enforcement and state officials to water protectors and their allies – responding with water hoses, tear gas, and rubber bullets, among other violent acts – illustrates the same reactionary, militaristic tactics that law enforcement in the U.S. used historically against civil rights activists, and now uses against Movement for Black Lives activists, and immigrant rights activists. These are the same tactics that Israel uses to intimidate and stamp out dissent.

With an impending Trump administration, we know that attacks on vulnerable communities exercising their civil rights, including those involved in the movement for Palestinian equality, will escalate. That’s why we’re here and why we recommit to protecting your right to stand up for freedom and advocate for justice.

We thank you – the activist, the scholar, the student, and all others who speak out for Palestinian rights, for justice, freedom and equality, and for human rights, even against an overwhelming effort to silence you. We will support you, and we won’t back down.