I, alongside countless USC students, am tired of President Carol Folt’s “gentle and kind” approach to the United States and Israel’s modern massacre of Palestinians, which is only a continuation of the decades of Israeli apartheid and occupation of Palestinian territory. 

Apartheid refers to a system of legalized racial segregation, which is exactly what Israel is doing, as it restricts Palestinians from having any freedom of movement through laws, force and barricades. 

“Solidarity is about showing unequivocal support for the people that are being oppressed. Unequivocal. So in doing that, you have to take a side,” a student who attended the protest Tuesday on campus for solidarity with Gaza told me. 

Some USC students and student groups have been fundraising for Israel Defense Forces soldiers — when Israel already happens to have one of the highest military spending per capita. However, if these students truly care about humanity or terrorism, they should start by looking at the belly of the beast: Israel’s ongoing history of settler colonialism.

Since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, which killed more than 1,400 people, Israel has officially declared war against Hamas (which, in my opinion, is really a war on Palestine) — continuing the mass displacement, genocide and ethnic cleansing that gravely intensified during the State of Israel’s formation in 1948. Palestinians call this Nakba, a tragic time when the IDF killed at least 15,000 people, and forced 750,000 more to leave their native lands. And yes, it is genocide — “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group,” as the United Nations defines it, which is exactly what is happening in Gaza, and what Palestinians have suffered for the past half century.

Western media has been spreading massive amounts of misinformation, including the widespread claim that Hamas uses Palestinian women and children as human shields, an unsubstantiated claim aimed at eliciting intense anger. Palestinians have been dehumanized; Israel’s own defense minister said Israel is “fighting human animals” in an effort to rally the public to support their genocide. 

Gaza — a small strip of land densely packed with 2 million civilians — has become the punching bag for Israel’s violent urges and is being punished for Hamas’ rejection of Israel’s violent occupation. According to Al Jazeera, 6,000 bombs have been dropped by Israel in Gaza and the West Bank since the beginning of the war. At the time of publication, more than 3,000 Palestinians have been killed, 12,490 injured and 1.1 million displaced since Oct. 7 — that is, under the false Western premise that there has been a point in time since 1948 when Palestinians weren’t displaced. 

Earlier this week, an explosion at a Gazan hospital killed 500 Palestinians in one attack alone. This is after Israel issued an evacuation order to the more than 2,000 Palestinians that were in 22 hospitals in North Gaza, a violation of international law that the World Health Organization called a “death sentence.” 

Despite Western reporting on Israel’s assertion that this attack was a stray missile fired by a terrorist group, based on its inhumane history of attacks on Palestinian people, I have no doubt the missile was Israeli. This is the collective punishment of Palestine for resisting their own genocide. 

While Gaza is blown into rubble and dust and littered with dead bodies, the advanced media propaganda systems of Israel and the U.S. are doing countless things to suppress the truth. (People interested in learning about this should research “the “propaganda model” developed by Noam Chomsky — which explains how corporate media doesn’t actually act as a check on power.) 

In support of defense companies profiting off war, corporate media is selectively highlighting Hamas’ counterattack and obfuscating what exactly Hamas was attacking against: the violent occupation of Palestine by the Israeli State, which has killed 7,065 Palestinians since 2000. 

They are calling it the Israel-Hamas war, rather than calling it what it is: a mass displacement, killing and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. History is being removed from its context, and the oppressed are somehow becoming the oppressors. 

Let’s center the facts: Since the State of Israel’s formation in 1948, the U.S. has given $158 billion in aid to Israel, the vast majority of which has been through military aid. Any reasonable person would ask, what’s this being used for?

The truth is that the U.S. has been propping up Israel as a defense mammoth. The state, which was founded through the occupation of Palestinian Territories, is described by the Congressional Research Service as a “global leader in certain niche defense technologies.” Israel has been building technologies of mass violence since its formation, and the U.S. — its money-hungry partner in war — has given them anything and everything they might need. 

The gifts are bombs. As partners in what the U.S. State Department has called a “variety of security-related exchanges, including joint military exercises, research, and weapons development,” Israel and the U.S. find allyship in the capital and technology they build from violently displacing people. 

This is how American “democracy” works. The U.S. gets together with global powers to decide which regions they want to excavate for their own strategic profit, and then they let the corporate-led media do its magic: lie. 

And we must not forget that this war machine is profitable and defense companies are a boy’s  club. Lockheed Martin’s stock price, for example, has risen by 12% since Oct. 5. 

There is one problem, though: This machine is cracking, and the truth is slipping out — in drips of blood. Globally, millions are speaking out condemning this colonial genocide. Tens of thousands of people have protested in hundreds of cities like Los Angeles, Dublin, Jakarta and London. At an L.A. event, Mexicans, Indians, Jewish people and members of every group imaginable showed solidarity against Israel’s vile actions. 

When the media tells lies and lets brown people die, we must make our own media. 

Students from all backgrounds should use their social media and voices in person to condemn this genocide and tell the truth about Israel’s history of violence against Palestine since its inception, not just since Oct. 7.

“One, two, three, four, occupation no more … ”

This isn’t just a Palestine issue — it’s a human rights issue. Queer people, Indigenous people and climate activists should all be conscious of how our struggle for liberation is united — and intertwined — with that of Palestinians. 

“Issues that are happening in Palestine and specifically Gaza are never just for the Arab world to talk about, never just for the Muslim world to talk about. It’s a humanitarian issue,” said the student at the protest, who also spoke out for Armenian rights during the ethnic cleansing in Artsakh. 

The time to act is now. Post. Protest. Don’t pretend to be powerless. Disrupt violence. Disrupt Western hegemony. Call your elected officials to demand a ceasefire and the opening of the Rafah Border Crossing to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza. Free Palestine. 

“ … Five, six, seven, eight, Israel is an apartheid state.”