In a vacuum, nothing you’re saying is inherently off; the Middle East is full of a mishmash of cultures from around the world; there are Armenians in Iran and Palestine, there are people of African descent across the Middle East (because of slavery) who are considered Arabs by the local populations, Iranians who aren’t themselves Arabs are also interspersed throughout the Arab Middle Eastern countries, etc.

When (Moroccan?) muslims were driven from Spain and into (Morocco?), Jewish people apparently asked if they could join them to escape persecution and they did, and even if people were to say these are Spanish Jews, no one was saying it to hold it against them or say they weren’t welcome; again, in a vacuum nothing you’re saying is inherently off; the problem is we live in a world scarred by settler colonialism which I genuinely say is as evil as the holocaust.

It’s one thing to hear an Armenian christian speak of being Armenian in Iran (I keep bringing them up cause I saw a clip of an Armenian christian who spoke with Kirk), and another thing to listen to a white, blonde, blue eyed woman with white kids speak about being native to ‘Israel’ (and to then both say that they’re not engaged in colonialism, and to also in the same breath say she doesn’t see anything wrong with colonialism); saying I’m native to America while the indigenous population has been viciously driven into reservations and still horrifically mistreated is sickening. Our not so distant ancestors (250 years is NOT distant) could’ve tried to live in peace with the local populations, but they didn’t, and no settler colony country today is trying to engage in reparations and land back procedures. We are, even without our own direct actions, recipients of the fruits of colonialism just as the indigenous population today are the recipients of the rot of colonialism.

While we say we are our own individuals, everyone acknowledges we’re originally from different Euro countries; are there people who say they’re only American and have zero ties with Europe? Sure, but they’re not the majority, they’re only a very small minority. Let’s also not disregard Latin America, where populations of Spanish and Portuguese descendants commit absolutely horrific crimes against the indigenous populations until recently, if not still ongoing. Our own governments TODAY choose to align with white, unpopular political parties throughout Latin America rather than the indigenous parties.

We literally CHOOSE not to drop the behavior of colonizers who even have solidarity with other colonizers; the British and ourselves supported colonial nations in Africa rather than the local African peoples.

Am I or yourself personally guilty of anything I’ve said? No, but there isn’t an ideology today you can point to in America that is OF colonialism and say ‘I am not that’ and to fight it; Zionism is an ideology you CAN point to and both measurably distance yourself from and fight. No one here has any beef with anti-zionist Israelis who want to live in peace with Palestinians in a single equal state; we would embrace them even more if they were of the mind to do as much to correct the evils of the past and give (equitable?) treatment to Palestinians.

What you’ve said in a vacuum is no issue, but settler colonialism is not only a real thing with deep, monstrous issues: we are recipients of its fruits and our nations have solidarity with it. If you tried to engage in reparations today and land back movements, you’d be fought every step of the way; the idea of reparations TODAY is being viciously argued as you can see when you turn on the news.

Throughout China you have had historical wars all throughout their history across that gigantic land, but the invaders in most if not all those circumstances absorbed the people they invaded, they didn’t wipe them out or try to destroy their culture. In many different provinces in China, you’ll see them with their own local cultural items, mixed with cultural items of the ones who’d invaded them. In Ireland they were invaded by the vikings but the vikings chose to live in peace as one nation with the local Irish population, which is why Ireland has inherited both Celtic and viking historical culture.

Do you consider being native to a country to mean that your distant ancestors are also from that country?

That is quite literally what native or indigenous means. Becoming indigenous is a multi-generational process when it comes to any species.

If so, how distant is distant enough?

This isn’t a fixed number of generations or timescale even if we just limit the scope of this discussion to humans. It has to do with how long it takes for the immigrant population, any existing indigenous populations, and the broader environment to adapt to each other and prosper harmoniously.

I believe that everyone is an individual and should not be intrinsically tied to the actions or birthing location of their ancestors.

This is pure idealism, the idea that we aren’t a product of our enviroment. Our family and the culture we are raised in is a powerful force in shaping us as people. Of course we are all individuals, but that is what a population is: a group of connected individuals. And for individuals who break with their family, their culture, or the broader population they are part of, of course over time they will become part of a different family and culture.

These kind of moral statements-in-a-vacuum make me very suspicious when they are bought up in a context. Perhaps you could explain how you intended this to apply to the examples of i.e. Israelis or non-indigenous Americans being discussed here?

I will go ahead and say that as Israel is still in its genocide phase of settler-colonialism, and that the populace broadly and enthusiastically supports this, it would be facetious to ignore an Israeli’s nationality when looking at their individual actions and values. Also a quirk there that is not usually present is the many Israelis who immigrate from other countries around the world and proclaim Israel their native land!

For USA, I think that given our history of mixed European immigration and whitewashing of ethnicity it’s not unreasonable for a white USAian to consider their ethnicity to be “American”. But clearly in the USA context native means descended from indigenous people, American Indians if I may use that term.