“For many indigenous people, support for Israel is faith-based,” Sheree Trotter, the director of the Indigenous Embassy Jerusalem, told JNS on Tuesday at the Indigenous Embassy Jerusalem Academic Symposium 2025, held at the city’s Bible Lands Museum.

Trotter, who is a Maori (Te Arawa) from New Zealand, said the purpose of the symposium was to push back against academia, which promotes a false narrative about Jews being foreign colonizers in their ancestral land.

“This is our second annual symposium, designed to put a stake in the ground, to push back on the false narratives, to point to the truth and to build a body of material that can be used by others to address these issues,” she said.

Trotter said that as devout Christians, she and her husband, Perry, have been involved with the Jewish community for about 30 years. This includes the establishment of a Holocaust Foundation in New Zealand, sharing interviews and photographs of more than 70 Shoah survivors.

Part of the stated mission of the Indigenous Embassy Jerusalem is “to stand against antisemitism and provide a tangible expression of indigenous peoples’ support for Israel and affirmation of the Jewish people’s indigenous status.”

“Because of our Christian faith, we began to see and understand the uniqueness of Israel and the Jewish people and have developed a real respect for the heritage coming from this land. So, we owe a debt in a sense to the Jewish people for what we enjoy in our faith,” Trotter said.

Trotter shared that a day before the symposium, the Indigenous Embassy Jerusalem, with the participation of indigenous people from all over the world, organized a march of solidarity with Israel through Jerusalem’s Old City.

She said the goal was to tell Israelis, “Hey, we’re here, we’re indigenous. We love Israel. We stand with you. We see you. We understand your struggles. We know what it’s like to be marginalized, discriminated against.”

Trotter earned her Ph.D. in history from the University of Auckland with a thesis on Zionism. She is the author of Zionism at the Ends of the Earth: A Story of Humanitarianism and Identity (2025). The book tells the story of Zionism in New Zealand, from early settlement to the rebirth of Israel in 1948.

The indigenous peoples of the world support Israel and recognize that the Jewish people have returned to their roots, Hebrew University Emeritus Professor Wayne Horowitz declared on the sidelines of the symposium on Tuesday.

The event was titled “Zionism and Indigeneity versus Settler Colonialism and Historical Revisionism,” with the goal of affirming Zionism and Jewish indigeneity, responding to false narratives and building relationships. Horowitz, an archaeologist specializing in the ancient Near East and Assyriology, served as the event’s Israel coordinator.

He told JNS that indigenous groups around the world view the Jews in Israel as the prime example of a nation that kept its roots alive throughout thousands of years of Diaspora living and succeeded in returning to its homeland.

“Whether the First Nations Aboriginal peoples of Australia, the Maori in New Zealand, the natives of Africa, American First Nations (formerly called Indians) and others, they are seeing the dry bones [of Israel] coming back to life [per the Prophet Ezekiel’s biblical vision].”

The Jews’ indigenous status in Israel doesn’t get canceled just because they were expelled from the land by colonial powers, including the British Empire, the Roman Empire, the Babylonian Empire and the Assyrian Empire, Horowitz said.

“From the earliest days of Diaspora, the Jewish people have maintained their indigenous ties and love for the land of Israel. We have kept Hebrew alive, which has been resuscitated as a living day-to-day language in our own days. For generations, we have celebrated the agricultural, seasonal holidays based on the calendar of the Land of Israel,” he said.

Therefore, he suggested Israel must terminate the false and vile accusations that somehow the Jewish people are colonizers in their own land.

“That has to be absolutely rejected. Part of that is working with our allies, the other indigenous peoples in the world, who have the same types of problems of having their heritage and language under threat, and speaking together in one voice about these issues,” he said.

Horowitz said that only once the Jewish nation’s indigenous status is recognized, and the concept that Jews are “white colonialists” is disavowed, can Israel make progress on outstanding issues with other nations.

Australian Olympic field hockey gold medalist Nova Peris spoke at the symposium. Peris is a proud Aboriginal woman of Yawuru, Lunga Kitja and Bunitj Gagadju descent who has dedicated her life to building bridges of understanding and advancing equality for indigenous Australians.

Peris was also in Israel in June, to receive the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology’s President’s Award, recognizing her unwavering commitment to combating antisemitism and her advocacy for Israel.

During her symposium talk, she said she came to Israel “to honor truth in all its forms.” She said that 2,000 years ago, the Romans tried to erase Jewish identity, but failed because truth can’t be destroyed.

“History, archaeology and scriptures tell the truth—the Jewish people are indigenous to the Land of Israel,” she said.

Peris took the mainstream media to task for promoting false narratives and headlines regarding Israel’s defensive measures since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas onslaught. “Every lie feeds antisemitism, the world’s oldest hatred.”

She stressed that the Oct. 7 attack was not about politics or “resistance,” but pure evil, which she said was supported by 72% of Palestinians. 

Peris drew a comparison between the plight of the indigenous Aboriginals in Australia and Jews in Israel, who both have their unique language, history and connection to their land.

“Both peoples know survival, resilience and truth,” she said. “The indigenous and Jewish peoples stand shoulder to shoulder.”

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