#a lot of (if not most) indigenous people support palestine because what has largely happened to them for centuries is happening in palestin

[limpwristssavelives]

There was also this episode on the WTF with Marc Maron Podcast (roughly 1:03:00-1:05:00) posted 11/20/23 where he (indirectly) says this about palestine

I couldn’t reblog with the clip but i posted it here and also the transcript of what was said below

Marc: “I think a lot of times what you know is relative to your personal history. And then the rest is sort of like, you know, you pick and choose. Or somebody contextualizes something.”

Taika: “That is interesting because like, you know, especially like, I have no idea what this is, but like, around the world there’s this idea that like you must know about everything. You must have a comment. You must have an opinion and know about every single thing going on. And I’m like, okay, how many of you know about the things the Māori have gone through in New Zealand? How many of you know about, you know, the land wars in the 1800s and what we went through? How many of you know that it was illegal to speak our language in school? How many of you know about what we lost? No one.”

Marc: “Of course not.”

Taika: “But you’re expected to jump on someone's side, you know, whenever something's on Instagram or when something's like, you know, you need to be on the-”

Marc: “Right, when the global culture decides, when the momentum picks it, when the algorithm that dictates what we're supposed to know is important, decides collectively what is important and all of a sudden everyone's up in arms. I live in, this is an Armenian neighborhood and they've gone through horrendous history. I'm not real clear on it, but I respect the fact that like, all right, something bad happened.”

Taika: Yeah. Asking minorities to care about other minorities is, yeah, we should, but it's just a funny thing where it's like, You know, I understand a little bit like why some minorities. They go. Oh, okay. You're making a big deal about that. What about us?”

broke: criticizing taika for supporting israel or getting guz fired or being an absent father or [insert other thing there's no evidence of].

woke: criticizing him for executive producing the show that's been melting my brain for two years.

bespoke: criticizing him specifically for suggesting "this woman's work" for the soundtrack and thus making me cry every time i think about that scene.

[jewish-sideblog]

hey, so im Palestinian and a strong activist for my people's liberation. i wanted to ask for some info/advice on avoiding antisemitism in my activism for Palestine. im on anon bc i don't want to be called a racefaker for caring about Jewish ppl. i know antisemitism is on the rise right now (and generally over the past few years) and i want to make sure i'm not unintentionally contributing to it.

Hey there! I wanted to start by genuinely thanking you for asking this question. Partially because I don't actually get any well-intentioned or helpful questions in my inbox anymore, but also because I understand the amount of bravery it takes to reach out with a question like that at a time like this.

Next, I want to apologize to all my followers who hate long posts. Judaism is a very complicated ethnoreligious group, antisemitism is a very complicated form of bigotry, and the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is arguably the most complicated international issue that has ever existed. I'm going to try to go through everything as succinctly as possible below the cut-- I am also going to ask other Jews to contribute to and make edits to this list as needed.

And finally-- I'm writing this as though I were speaking to someone with very little knowledge of the subject. I understand that as a Palestinian, you probably know a lot about what's going on here. But I want to make sure that I'm covering bases for anybody else who might need to use this post. So if you're like, Yeah, Obviously I Knew That. Please remember that a fuckton of people on tumblr are engaging in Israeli criticism without obviously knowing that.

There are two primary forms of antisemitism in anti-Zionist spaces-- antisemitic conspiracy theory, and criticism of Israel that no other country receives. The first kind is the easiest kind to pick out, and it makes a nice bulleted list, so we'll start there.

Dual Loyalty. A global stereotype that has skyrocketed since the establishment of Israel, but it's been around for a lot longer than that. Simply put, it's the idea that Jews are more loyal to Israel (or some global secret kabal) than we are to the countries we currently reside in. With I/P, it manifests as the idea that All Jews are directly responsible for Israel or the idea that All Jews secretly support Israel. If you see a Jew who isn't directly engaging in I/P topics, don't ask them what their stance is. Plenty of us have never even been to Israel, and it's fucked up to assume that we're all experts in geopolitics.

The Holocaust was a Fabrication or a Lesson. The idea that Jews made up the Shoah has been around since the Shoah was still happening, and it's always been ridiculous. Today, you'll see three primary lines about this. Either it's that Jews made up the Shoah as an excuse to establish Israel, that the Jews deserved the Shoah because of what's happening in Israel today, or that the Jews "should have learned their lesson from the Holocaust" because now Jews are "the new Nazis". Frankly, I wish goyim would stop treating the deaths of millions of Jews like a TV show. Palestinian deaths are genuinely horrible, but this isn't some kind of "narrative parallel" to the Shoah.

The Kazars Theory, or All Jews are White. This is the DNA test nonsense. The idea is that Israel (or Jews at large) are only pretending to be indigenous to the Levant and that secretly Jews as a whole are actually indigenous to Eastern Europe. It's a lie, started by a German professor of Russian history in the early 1800s. Meanwhile, the vast majority of genetic, historical, and archaeological evidence points to Jewish origins in the Israeli/Palestinian region. There have been literal hundreds of genetic studies on this. Most of them suggest that Jews, even "white" Ashkenazim, are nearly genetically identical to Palestinians.

World Domination. The idea that Jews control the world began with the Protocols of the Elders of Zion in 1903. If you're encountering criticism of Israel that suggests that world governments, particularly European or American ones, are being controlled by Jews, you've got yourself antisemitism. White supremacists like to use the term "Zionist Occupied Government" or "ZOG" as shorthand for this conspiracy. The next two points are born out of this same ideology.

Controlling the Media. The idea that Jews are in charge of Hollywood and/or major news organizations around the world. Regarding I/P, I've seen a bunch of people say something like "Western media outlets won't cover this! (Because you know who controls them!)" only to look online and see... Western media outlets covering it. See also: "My source is tiktok! I don't trust the news!" While it's obviously a fair criticism to say that some Western news outlets certainly have a pro-Israel and anti-Palestinian bias, it's certainly not every single one of them. Reuters and the AP are once again my go-to's here.

Controlling the Financial World. I haven't actually seen this come up regarding I/P, but considering how things have been going, it's only a matter of time. We don't control the banks. We don't control the stock market. We're not in charge of American aid being sent to Israel. HaShem knows that if we controlled all the money, I'd certainly be living larger than I am now...

Those Bloodthirsty Jews. This one arguably started with Blood Libel in the 1100s, when Christians started accusing us of stealing and eating their babies. Straight up, I have met Christians who still believe this in 2023. You see this a lot with I/P-- the Al Ahli Hospital is the biggest example. More than a month later, most reliable intelligence organizations agree that a misfired Hamas rocket landed in a parking lot, killing about 100 people. But a ton of people are still saying that Those Bloodthirsty Jews intentionally bombed the hospital dead on, killing 470 people. I want to be clear-- Israel is killing a lot of civilians. But if you see a bandwagon of people focusing on the one group of deaths that Israel probably actually didn't cause? Consider why.

Causing wars, revolutions, and calamities. Hamas has straight-up got this one in their founding charter. No, the Jews are not responsible for any major global conflicts, revolutions, or counter-revolutions that don't directly involve Israel. We didn't do WWII. We didn't do the October Revolution. See above-- we're not secretly plotting massacres on Shabbat. A lot of people are saying that Netanyahu and Likud let Hamas in to justify the invasion of Gaza... I'd be shocked if that was the case. All evidence points to a classic intelligence failure. We're not orchestrating bloodbaths.

Section 2: Criticisms only levelled at Israel

It's important to recognise that Israeli civilians are no more collectively responsible for the actions of the Likud coalition than Palestinians are collectively responsible for the actions of Hamas. No Palestinian deserves to be stripped of their rights to self-determination in their ancestral lands because of the October 7th attack. Likewise, no Chinese person deserves to be displaced from China because of the CCP's human rights violations in Tibet, Uyghur and Hong Kong. No Russian person deserves to be ethnically cleansed from Russia because of the Kremlin's invasion of Ukraine. But plenty of people do believe that Jews should be stripped of their rights to self-determination in historically Jewish indigenous lands because of the actions of the Israeli government.

After October 7th, I've seen people argue that Israeli babies deserved to be kidnapped because of their national origin. I've seen people argue that Israeli women deserved to be sexually abused because of their nation of origin. I've seen people argue that the seven million Jews living in their ancestral homeland deserve death or displacement because of their nation of origin. Justifying or allowing brutal harm against people because of their national origin is hateful.

I want to make this part very clear-- I do not have an issue with calling out Israeli war crimes or crimes against humanity. But I do have an issue with treating Jewish civilians differently than civilians of other nations responsible for similar horrors. Amplifying bias against a particular group because of that group's nation of origin is called bigotry. Taking a stand against Israeli settlements in the West Bank is anti-Zionism. Collectivizing the label of "white colonialism", and forcing that label upon refugees forced to move to Israel, or Mizrahim with uninterrupted 8,000-year histories in Israel, is antisemitism.

Part 3: Moving Forward

So where do we go from here? If advocating for the destruction of Israel is advocating for the elimination of Jewish self-determination in our ancestral lands, but advocating in favour of the Israeli government is advocating for the elimination of Palestinian self-determination in your ancestral lands, then we must find some middle ground. A solution that allows seven million Jews and five-and-a-half-million Arabs to share the same holy land, without fear of persecution, displacement, or death. For me, this means a few things.

First of all, the recognition that most Israelis disagree with Netanyahu's approach to Palestine, and most Palestinians disagree with Hamas's approach to Israel. And that brings up a question-- why are Likud and Hamas in charge of Israel and Gaza respectively if most people disagree with them? Without getting into the complicated intricacies of the Knesset and the PNA on an already very long post (and without explaining your own government to you), the simple answer is international funds.

Israeli crimes against Palestinians are bankrolled by American Evangelical Christians, who believe that when Palestine is gone, all the Jews will go to Israel, and Jesus will come back to kill the world's infidels. They actually fucking believe that. Meanwhile, Hamas is bankrolled by Iran, which believes that the more often Jews and Sunni Muslims kill each other, the easier it will be for Iranian Shiite Jihad to take over the world. They actually fucking believe that.

So what steps can we take during our advocacy? Not for the destruction of Israel nor the destruction of Palestine, but for America and Iran to get their noses out of our damn business. I genuinely believe that a defunded Likud and a defunded Hamas will allow Israelis and Palestinians to work together for a peaceful two-state or joint-rule solution. Something that will keep my Palestinian friends from feeling like they can't safely travel from Jaffa to Tel Aviv. Something that will allow my Jewish family to visit and pray at the Cenotaphs of Isaac and Rebecca and the Temple Mount. Something that will let Israeli children from Kibbutz Nirim and Palestinian children from Khan Yunis play on the same playgrounds together, instead of sheltering from missile fire.

Frankly, we nearly had that when the Supreme Muslim Council and the Assembly of Representatives began collaborating against the British Mandate instead of against each other. Clearly, it's possible, we just need to stop being pitted against each other by foreign powers.

[bandofchimeras]

I have to say this: the education on fascism in American education is largely limited to "Germans in 1940s." And the settler hatred and right wing extremism we are surrounded by, growing up in my privilege felt invisible as water to a fish. The first cracks in the limited America centric blinders however into international awareness came from relationship: learning about Chiapas and the Zapatistas from my ex, from my friend's education on Armenia and refugees.

It started to click in my brain because researching the situation on Instagram, even on pictures of natural landscapes or other posts not even about the genocide, you would see these accounts with the most hateful vile dehumanizing language - Azeri. And out of the American context and programming it was easier to see that for what it is, baseless aggression towards Indigenous people based on insecurity. And how insane, how strange and baseless it was. I had to block and report and argue with a few of the trolls just from commenting something harmless on an Armenian's post.

Then a few months later - that aggression erupted into white phosphorus bombs. I did not respond in the way that Palestine has been responded to, or much at all. There was less on the ground reporting but that's not really an excuse for how little the waves of pain hit me, how invisibilized Artsakh occupation and land grab was and emotionally unattended to. I was still in my own bubble of settled misery.

It's easier to share content about Palestine because there is so much content made. And the visibility is so high that propaganda can't counter it. In contrast my friend had to put in a lot of work to educate me and most people around them about Armenian history. I regret that. And the resistance and ignorance I exhibited. And I regret coming so late to awareness of colonialism's tangled roots and the history and work of resistance and persistence of indigenous peoples. However it was that particular encounter with the Azeri hatred which laid the tracks for understanding my friend, and also for this further and intense assault on Palestine. Which was already in my proximal awareness but I am ashamed to say, never fully awakened by relationships with real people here.

And meanwhile, happening, and now, people are speaking up about the Congo. About Sudan. About Tigray. About extraction and assault and bombing and execution and horrors and violence which can scarcely be out to words. About the freedom they want for their people and the immense load of pain they have been carrying for far too long as refugees, as colonized people fleeing their own lands.

About these I know even less.

And I do not think it is wise to pretend to know more. I have been called in for posturing or getting ahead of my self in ignorance, of the heart of the movement which is care for and being in community with the people who are caretakers of the land and/or doing the work of survival and fighting colonial oppression and repression.

So what I have to say from where I stand is: the future is coming. If you do not know the survivors of this generation you do not know how strong they are, and their vision of the future. Beyond all the trauma and the need for care and support, this strength is not arguable. The ancestors are with people now.

There will be a future and Armenians, Palestinians, all of these nations will be in it. I choose to believe that, believe in them but not to hope for it because there is an absolute chasm of work to be done, reconciliation and listening and conceding and fighting. And hope can let us get off easy. No, but the work is joyous if you surrender to it.

Do not lose heart, do not be afraid to sacrifice and do not lose yourself in fear, guilt and doubt. They are a maze I've been lost in for years. And only finding my way out through the hands of these friends, having done harm and been corrected in it, witnessing the meaning of pain but also spirit, of God, of joy of true undying Love. This is what revolution is and requires is a total eclipse and regeneration of the heart, the ego, the mind.

I have only taken the first baby step but already despite the horrors laid out before us, the future is glimmering. The evils of settler colonial rabid fury are stains on the world that cannot be washed out. Every second they are allowed to persist kills the collective soul of humanity. Especially the souls of those of us complicit in settler states. We must release our fears, and fall in line with the call for reparation and return.

And our time is running thin but i do believe it is here. The road ahead is very dark, very brutal and very long. But we have the strength to walk it side by side because we must. Or stand aside.

[jyndor]

You’re so right about West Papua. Javanese colonizers are in the comments of the original tweet like “you don’t understand, these guys were arrested because they had weapons :( “ while celebrating the Palestinian right to armed resistance. You can’t say that you stand against genocide while ignoring or justifying the one that you happen to benefit from. The West Papuans should be able to resist Indonesian colonization in any way they see fit.

anon, this is one of the most bitter truths about all this, and I'm sorry I don't want to speak out of turn but I think perhaps for a lot of people in the west it can be odd to realize that for many people in the world Palestine is an issue that transcends ideology for the most part.

so even though we in the so-called west are used to solidarity with Palestinians being a leftist thing because ain't no centrist or conservative here giving a shit about them, that's not the norm globally.

obviously the Arab and Islamic worlds are largely in solidarity because they see Arabs and Muslims having been colonized by a western proxy, a settler colonial project that is also very hostile to most of them, even though of course Palestinians are not oppressed because they are Muslim (and Christian) but because they are Palestinians. and Palestine is very diverse - many people racialized in many ways. and as we see with the treatment of Sudanese people in Egypt and other largely non-Black Arab countries, people may hold onto solidarity with one group sincerely while failing another group going through similar brutality.

I think conversations like this are best left to communities to have because they have a better understanding of their communities and these issues than I ever could, but also if we are going to ally ourselves with anti-colonial struggles for self-determination and liberation, that means ALL of them. all peoples, all cultures, no matter what what the governments occupying their homes and oppressing them are doing for Palestine or any other oppressed people.

I am so happy that so many countries are standing up for Palestinians but let's not be fooled into thinking they're just doing it because they care about liberation period - if they do at all, it is because of internal pressure from their peoples. I appreciate South Africa's work on this matter and the decades of solidarity they have had with Palestinians - but South Africa abstained from a vote condemning Russia for its annexation and invasion of Ukraine, which notably puts indigenous Crimean Tatars at significant risk. this is about geopolitics of course, not just morality... and people need to understand that.

a lot of the global south has been... not terribly great on this issue, and I mean I get it because Ukraine hasn't exactly fostered great solidarity with the global south but tbh if people are going to care about liberation, anti-imperialism and indigenous rights it really should not matter if for once the US is actually on the right side of that issue, which is really what it comes down to lbr. Ukraine is a western, white-racialized country that has benefited from white European supremacy (never gonna forget that English reporter going ~bUt ThIs iS EuRoPe~~~ lol) and that is not something that can or should be overlooked by supporters of Ukrainian self-determination as it often is. and then there's the overwhelming support for Israel from Ukraine, which is abhorrent and I know there is also support for Palestine there too. But it's very telling that when push comes to show, that solidarity is lacking.

when it comes to Indonesia and West Papuans, there is no room for ambiguity - it is genocide, it is colonialism, it is occupation. one thing I have learned through this is that cognitive dissonance is a hell of a drug.

people BELIEVE there is a real substantive difference between whatever resistance movement they support and whatever groups that their own governments are oppressing, or that are not geopolitically "aligned" with their politics. as if their politics shouldn't be informed by liberation PERIOD.

every time there is a big post about multiple genocides/atrocities in general, there's always people in the comments going "Well actualllyyyyy x is not being genocided because y" and it's like... how do you know that? how do you know that the uyghur cultural genocide* is not happening???? we literally say all the time that genocide doesn't always mean the complete murder of every single person in a group, why are we being like this??? cultural genocide is genocide, and it can easily escalate into mass murder. how is this up for fucking debate.

anyway, I have to go to work but yeah anon I get it. people need to unlearn nationalism and learn how to critically engage with their governments' histories. all of us. sorry it's coming from a us american but I think I know a little something about that.

*I understand the US is full of shit on this and has pushed some propaganda but that does not mean I do not have solidarity with the Uyghurs.

[hero-israel]

Jews are obviously indigenous to the Levant. But if we consider the foundation of Israel and Zionism as a whole as a Land Back Movement, or an indigenous sovereignty movement or what have you... yes it would be the most successful example of that in history. But it was also be such a success due to large scale violence organized by a modern Western style nation state that is heavily militarized, industrialized, and practice capitalism.

I can see how the average Land Back advocate, who is statistically speaking some kind of leftist who is usually against violence or who rejects this Western style model of nationstatehood, would balk at Israel. A somewhat common approach seems to be to disavow Jewish indigeneity because surely no real indigenous group would "sell out" for lack of a better term.

I do think that especially in the West, or at least America and Canada... indigeneity is strongly associated with preconceived notions about the First Nations here. Indigenous groups from outside the New World tend not to be thought about, which isn't too surprising. So to them and their supporters, who might not have thought of Jews as an indigenous group, seeing a capitalist nation state with an army and industry and an active role in modern global politics and trading and alliances, it might not "feel" like the natural outcome for Land Back/Sovereignty. They wouldn't recognize Israel as a legitimate indigenous nation with its own sovereignty.

I would counterargue that this might just be the price for sovereignty. I've seen a lot of Hawai'ian sovereignty activists (a lot also tend to be strong antizionists). I'm sorry to say but Hawai'i will never be independent again. The American hegemony sees no use or advantage for it, and the Hawai'ian people are not numerous or powerful enough to wage war on America and win their sovereignty. Because that's the only way that could realistically happen. So they're stuck.

I recognize the tragedy that an indigenous group, characterized by a unique People with their own culture and legal system etc. that survived contact with various Empires, had to incorporate Empire into some of their Nation, in order to beat the Empires. It's also ironic that a lot of Land Back activists and their allies scoff at Israel but have no reflection on how their own strategy of negotiating with the Empire is still legitimizing the Empire. The idea of Sovereignty meaning you disavow a State and are at the mercy of a larger imperial state who graciously decides to grant you autonomy in your ancestral homeland... that seems like the actual selling out to me.

Anyway I've met a lot of indigenous people who love Jews and recognize Jewish indigeneity and who are respectful critics of Israel's government while not being antizionist. I've met lots of of indigenous people who are also Jewish! It's clear we're all natural allies with each other so I don't mean to talk bad about anyone. I just think Jewish indigeneity is complex and has some interesting implications for the sovereignty movements of other nations.

This is a great ask and covers a lot of very important ground!

Definitely true that Israel is a victim of its own success. As a real country with a real army and real body count, it stacks up poorly next to theoretical Land-Back outcomes and even more poorly against a mythological / potential country of Palestine. Castles in the air don't have dirty floors. It is precisely because the Jews are indigenous - because there is no empire of origin to decamp back to - that they have had to stay and fight so tenaciously.

"Leftists who reject the entire model of nationstatehood".... they don't, not really. Their politics include engaging with nation-states all the time and they envision other nation-states in the future. Certainly a nation-state of Palestine. When they talk about Israel, they immediately leap to destroying it, then only reluctantly backpedal into being "against all countries," when, again, by their own words and deeds they plainly are not. If someone said voting is bullshit, all elections are scams, both parties are the same, nothing ever really changes, it's all just an oppressive oligomilitarist patriarchal war machine yadda yadda yadda and that's why black people shouldn't vote, I should hope the rhetorical bait-and-switch would be just as obvious.

If Native Americans or Hawaiian islanders ever actually did have the chance to do an Israel-style retaking and fortification of sovereignty, they absolutely should. Even if it were achieved at my expense, even if upon seeing my own looming personal displacement I were to start to want them to lose out of pure base selfishness, I'd like to think I wouldn't have this affronted, shocked sense of HOW DARE YOU, HOW DARE THOSE PEOPLE which is not even the undercurrent but just plain the current of discussions of Zionism.

"Selling out and legitimizing Empire" - this I see as an inherent contradiction within the people who are against the concept of Jewish indigeneity and sovereignty. If we're not indigenous to the Levant, if the butcher's bill isn't worth it, and we're supposed to be happy as diasporists living on the good graces of America and France and however long our luck holds out... we're really just continuing to benefit from someone's empire and military violence, from someone's air force, from someone's corporate power structure. But now we get to hide behind an excuse that no one like us is actually doing it, we merely benefit from it. Impotently saying impotent slogans like "Not in my name!" while it absolutely is being done in our name is to modern leftists what buying indulgences was for Catholics 500 years ago. By having Jews responsible for their own government, their own state, we can have the greatest chance of minimizing any damage it causes. I honestly think that is one of the reasons why the I/P bodycount is so very low - because the Jews in the Jewish state can't blame someone else for what it did.

A very relevant point here is the stifling of the Kurdish national project, and how some Kurdish regions in otherwise hostile countries have shown warm ties to Israel at least as a concept. It's sadly ironic that Israel has to prioritize its ties with Turkey over the Kurds who live there, and used to prioritize ties with pre-revolution Iran the same way; likewise how it is more important that it be on good terms with Azerbaijan than that it take a principled moral stance about Armenia. This again is what happens when politics go from dream to reality. And that's what actual criticism of Israel looks like.

[script-a-world]

If a whole ethnic group were to be driven from their home and trapped in a cave, would it be plausible for them to regain sovereignty status once they were freed? An entire kingdom was banished, and then sealed away. Their former holdings are all taken. I looked it up with micro-nations and the cheapest way for them to get land on which to stake a kingdom would be to actually Build it like the Palm Deira. Would it be possible to instead retain sovereignty while integrating with society?

Lurelay: Possible? Yes. Plausible? Not really, unless they have some powerful and influential outside help on their side. Most of all it would just be incredibly difficult.

Let's start with some definitions first, both from Wikipedia:Sovereignty defines itself as “the authority of a state to govern itself or another state." / "supreme power or authority."

Now what is a state? “A state is a compulsory political organization with a centralized government that maintains a monopoly on the legitimate use of force within a certain geographical territory.”

The point "geographical territory“ is of real importance here. Unless a very kind outside power with an affluence of land decides to grant them their own territory in their own right, they would have to either stay in their cave or reside in a foreign land which may or may not grant them the right to self-govern to at least some extent but with no hint of sovereignty. Or they would have to take territory by force, which seems unlikely in this scenario.The other issue is that one of the key factors that make a state a state is the acknowledgement of other nations. A real life example to look into here would be Taiwan. Taiwan fulfills pretty much every single textbook requirement for a state – if it weren't for the fact that most other nations simply don't acknowledge it as a sovereign state and instead group it in with the territory of the peoples republic of China. 

All questions about building an island aside – most countries still claim some part of the sea along a certain radius of their coasts as their own territory. No one would be too happy if a random group of forgotten cavemen suddenly started building their land right behind their harbors.  

Where would they get the resources to build an island from in the first place?  

These are all questions you would have to consider in order to make this scenario plausible. 

Saphira: The answer isn't No. There is a way to do it, but not because any of us know of a way.

The answer can't be No because there has to be a way. From there, it stops being world building and starts being Character Growth, Plot and Moral Expression.

Feral: So the closest thing to why you are describing from history, as far as I can think, is the establishment of the State of Israel after WWII and some North American indigenous tribes.

In general throughout history when invaders come in and exile a people, the exiled have not been able to reestablish sovereignty there or elsewhere.

The establishment of Israel in 1948 was complicated and controversial and still is. Major factors in the founding of the state were the British Mandate following WWI and the attempt by the British, with the support of the US, to maintain control in the region after WWII. I recommend  learning more about Mandatory Palestine and the State of Israel.

You might hear that some Native American tribes are "sovereign" from the United States government and that they are also fully enfranchised citizens of the United States. According to various treaties, this is generally the law, giving "sovereignty" to reservations, which really means joint jurisdiction between the tribal government and federal government. (Of course it's important to remember that the tribes did not choose to live on reservations; it is a form segregation and oppression). In practice, Native American communities tend to be the most impoverished and disenfranchised communities in the country. See recent news on Standing Rock and the suppression of Native American voters in North Dakota during the 2018 election.

So, yeah, if you're looking for historical examples of this happening successfully, you're not gonna find a lot. As for whether you can write a people taking back their native land and reestablishing their sovereignty as a plot... that depends wholly on you.

Tex: Something this big is rarely able to be accomplished without outside help, especially if they're cut off from their physical resources such as land. However, that level of action is usually political in nature and has a social cost - there is rarely, if ever, genuine, random kindness from political powers, especially in situations where an entire nation is forced out of their home.

The scenario you're giving us looks to be near the end of a dispute between... I'm assuming only two entities? What led up to this situation? Was this completely out of the blue? How quickly did this conflict escalate? What are the primary factors that led up to this scenario? Are other entities (governments, mercenaries, provocateurs, etc) involved in this conflict? To what degree? This kind of large-scale, physical reaction doesn't happen randomly or abruptly, and the lead-up is the majority of the context that determines how the rest of this situation plays out.

I'm going to err on the side of caution and assume this was an act that occurred during a war campaign, and that this might or might not have been one campaign during the course of an entire war, which might have been preceded by an escalation of conflict that presumably stemmed from some disagreement that was attempted by at least one side to resolve diplomatically. Because... diplomacy is way cheaper than war, and a popular option between feuding governments because war means raising taxes and it takes a lot of effort to convince your taxable population to empty the coffers and send people outside their home. (The topics of standing armies, ally formation/maintenance, and organization of campaigns with multiple entities are pertinent but too long to discuss for this question.) 

Is the cave on their land? Someone else's? If someone else's, are they neighbors? Allies? Or enemies? Was anyone else a witness to this act? How does the conquering of these people - and I'm assuming their corresponding lands - affect international relations? Because you can't just up and shove people out of their home (which... must be a tremendously coordinated and expensive effort, by default) without somebody noticing. There's going to be a huge economic shift that, depending on who did this conquering and how influential these conquerees were, can have a ripple effect to people that have barely interacted with the conquered group on any level. And realistically speaking, it's cheaper for the conquerors to kill the population off, enslave them, sell them, let them retain a degree of autonomy but raise taxes that benefit the conquering nation, or some combination thereof in order to sufficiently recuperate the costs of such a large-scale invasion and make the venture profitable for their own people. 

Speaking of somebody noticing this, the ethnic group might or might not be able to rally others to their cause. Unless these others are solidly allies - with no blemishes upon the ethnic group's record that might be brought up - they would need to convince others that this cause is a profitable idea somehow. If they can talk fast enough and make enough promises (negotiation of new trade policies, the marriage of some daughters in the royal family, taxes, etc), then the idea of loaning out an army, a diplomatic envoy, or something even cheaper like weapons/other supplies is possible. The amount of preexisting goodwill, combined with what the ethnic group can promise in recompense - as well as how well their potential allies might believe they can carry through on them - is an important context to consider.  

I mention the above for several reasons. For one, those are the traditional methods for both conflict and conflict resolution (of a sort) on large scales such as the one you're mentioning. For two, micronations are generally unstable due to lack of global recognization and are economically dependent on their neighbors/host nations. For three, Palm Deira is physically connected to a preexisting kingdom, to which it is legally the property of that kingdom - it's not just floating out there in the middle of some body of water that's up for the taking. For four, unless you're willing to upend nature to create brand new landmasses, it would take way more technology and other resources than is available to most people - something that has the potential for causing major ecological damage that will make a lot of people very, very angry with you. It's a lot easier to take less destructive political routes to retake one's lands - in almost any era of human history - than it is to just... make new land. 

As for retaining sovereignty while integrating with (another's) society - while possible, it's usually politically counter-productive and will cause friction with the host nation(s), which will sour relations between the two groups and if left unmitigated will result in another conflict that will push your ethnic group out. Some integration is expected, and as many nations are also built and bound by their own cultures, similar cultures mesh better than non-similar ones. The more commonalities there are between the two groups, the better it is for everybody involved. Historically speaking, integrations between significantly different ethnic groups are difficult to succeed at unless sacrifices of some cultural nuances are made on both ends, and if there are frictions between major cultural norms, resentment eventually builds into a conflict that may escalate into a war.