Land Acknowledgements ‘Globalize the Intifada,’ Take Them Down

By Dexter Van Zile

Kevin Doherty, a fifty-six-year-old father living in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, was shot to death on Thursday, Aug. 28, 2025, after walking one of his children to school. His accused killer, Snehal A. Srivastava, 26, allegedly shot Doherty during a confrontation over graffiti Srivastava was spray-painting on wooden bridge adjacent to Jordan Pond, a popular conservation area in the town. A photo of the graffiti taken (by this author) the day after the killing indicates that Srivastava was calling for the United States to give land back to indigenous peoples. Srivastava, a young man who wears women’s clothing and whose family hails from India, apparently spray-painted another message on a nearby piece of pavement declaring that the Jordan Pond and the surrounding property belonged to the Ayodyan tribe in India and should be returned.

The message ended with the phrase “On CC”—an apparent reference to a website promoted in the window of Srivastava’s house—ColonialCrip.com, which, in addition to displaying a photo of the alleged shooter’s home, includes an unhinged discussion of “Palestine As An Ayodhyan State,” indicating a clear linkage between the alleged shooter and the graffiti near Jordan Pond. Predictably, Srivastava’s home is emblazoned with “Free Palestine” graffiti.

With his calls to give back the land to a mythical tribe, Srivastava was riffing on “land acknowledgements” that have been all the rage on the Woke Left and the institutions they dominate, most especially colleges and universities in the United States. Such acknowledgements declare that the institutions and the events they host are taking place on land that was taken from indigenous people who lived in North America (sometimes referred to as “Turtle Island”). The irony is that many of the so-called indigenous peoples in North America drove out tribes who lived here before them, just the Bantus invaded, conquered and took the land from people who lived on African soil before them.

These acknowledgements, which falsely portray white settlers in North America as uniquely violent and aggressive, are not well-intentioned recitations of the historical sins of Western civilization. In fact, they are part of a campaign to “Globalize the Intifada” and justify hostility toward U.S. citizens, especially the descendants of white settlers who came to North America from the during and after the 1600s. They are the equivalent of the chants of “From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will be Free!” repeated by anti-Israel activists intent on inciting hostility toward Jews on college campuses in the aftermath of October 7.

In particular, the ritualistic land acknowledgements offered at colleges and universities and posted on museum walls—like this one on the walls of the Morgan Museum and Library in New York City—delegitimize the U.S. republic just as chants of “From the River to the Sea” delegitimize the Jewish state. Not only do such messages promote unreasonable guilt on the part of inhabitants of both Israel and the United States, it legitimizes violence against them. If the events of the past two decades have proven anything, it’s that if you demonize a country, you legitimize violence against its citizens. Kevin Doherty didn’t know it, but he was a target of the “land acknowledgement” ideology—and paid for it with his life.

Despite the hostility land acknowledgements promote against U.S. citizens, numerous non-profit organizations and public institutions offer them on a regular basis. The Mount, the museum established at Edith Wharton’s home in Lenox, Massachusetts has one on its website as does the Boston Landmarks Orchestra, which hosts concerts on the Esplanade. Even the Community Shakespeare Company, which performs annual plays on Boston Common has one on its website and put one on its program for the 2023 season. The UMASS system, where young people have been indoctrinated to hate the U.S., Israel, and the West in general for a long time, has a land acknowledgement on its website.

Coming from respected institutions such as these, such land acknowledgements will be interpreted by anti-Western extremists as a license to perpetrate acts of violence against current U.S. citizens in retribution for the sins of their ancestors. It will also incite guilt on the part of these descendants, rendering them vulnerable to foreign influence operations.

American tax dollars should not be spent on messaging that undermines the U.S. republic and incites hostility toward its citizens. It’s time to stop promoting a distorted view of American history and build a better future for U.S. citizens.

Stop the land acknowledgements, now.

Dexter Van Zile, Middle East Forum’s Violin Family Research Fellow, is managing editor of Focus on Western Islamism.