ACTIVISM

Sheree Trotter & Alfred Ngaro

Writer and politician

In 2021, Sheree Trotter, a Maori academic from New Zealand who wroter her doctoral thesis on Zionism, and Alfred Ngaro, a Maori former member of the New Zealand cabinet, founded the Indigenous Coalition for Israel. "There have been notable indigenous supporters of Israel but in the prevailing culture they have largely gone unheard," the group has pointed out. "This has meant that a false narrative concerning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has easily taken hold amongst indigenous peoples — and this has often bled into antisemitism." In November 2024, Trotter and Ngaro led a group of 60 Indigenous representatives from around the globe who gathered at Jerusalem's Western Wall Plaza, joining hands to show their support for Israel and the Jewish people. "We really wanted to show our support for the Jews as indigenous people of this land," Trotter explained. "There is a false narrative that has taken hold of the Western world, including the country where I live, that paints the Jews as the foreign colonizers who have dispossessed the indigenous Palestinians. We want to change that narrative."