Where is Palestine in the Anzacs’ Palestine Campaign? Israel and the Struggle for Indigeneity in Commemorative State Practice

Abstract

At the end of the second decade of the twenty first century, Israel has sought to align itself with a range of Indigenous struggles both to conceal the ongoing nature of settler-colonialism and to attempt to position the Zionist-state project as an indigenous one. This article examines one instance of this trend, in the recent commemorative events surrounding the centenary of the Palestine Campaign, a military campaign fought by Australian soldiers during World War I. The article argues that official Israeli commemoration of this campaign, and the recent foregrounding of the role of Aboriginal servicemen in it, is an example of Israel’s indigenous diplomacy, which aims to occlude Palestinian presence and history in their ancestral lands. It argues that this practice ultimately does not serve the purpose it is intended to fulfil, but merely delays the work of imagining a just future in Israel/Palestine.