The RCAP was an honest look at the conditions created by Canada’s colonial policies and made bold recommendations for their reversal and establishing a healthier relationship between First Nations and the Canadian government, complete with budget projections. In a nutshell the report admitted that all of the prior Canadian policies aimed at forced assimilation had not only not worked, but were in fact to blame for the atrocious socioeconomic conditions plaguing First Nations communities. Unfortunately, the author notes, 10 years later the Assembly of First Nations issued a report card for how well the recommendations had been implemented and found almost no implementation whatsoever.

Perhaps the most salient point the author makes is that most of the hard work of proposing solutions has already been done, and the “wheel need not be reinvented.” In other words, the Harper government should listen up and stop ignoring what his country’s government has already proposed instead of moving backwards and perpetuating its behavior as a colonial imperialist instead of the treaty partner that it is.

Apparently the BDS movement was completely off the radar of both Harjo and Shelley. It turns out that in Harjo’s case, her scheduled performance was the kickoff for a month-long writer in residence program she is undertaking. Critics contend that her actions are equivalent to crossing a picket line and are tantamount to tacit support of the Israeli apartheid state. She claims that she had no knowledge beforehand of the boycott (really? Given her sophisticated knowledge of world affairs, life as an academic, and sensitivity to oppression?). She acknowledged the history of oppression of Jews, claiming that “the Jewish people consider these lands their homelands” and stated that “the Palestinian cause has always been close to my heart.”

It is hard to know what Harjo is thinking and where her loyalties lie in the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. It is also hard to know how President Shelley would justify his alliance with Israel in light of its ongoing genocide and theft of Palestinian lands. But one thing is clear, not all American Indians are making the connection between the Palestinian struggle against the Israeli apartheid settler colonial state and their own experience with settler colonialism. The problem with someone as high profile as Joy Harjo collaborating with an institution like Tel Aviv University (which is built on top of an ethnically cleansed Palestinian village) is that it sends a message that she as a Native American represents all Native Americans in support of apartheid Israel’s domination of Palestinians. I, for one, don’t want to be associated with that.