Evolving Folks Project

The attack on Israel on October 7th changed things forever. Hamas spoke the language they learned from over 70 years of violent repression of IDF forces occupying the land of Palestine and the creation of an apartheid state. Israel could have strategized their response to ensure justice for those responsible for October 7th the would have resulted in little to no bloodshed.  

Instead, the response of Israel’s far right-wing Netanyahu government has turned most of the Gaza Strip into rubble. Displacing millions and resulting in countless deaths in both Gaza and the West Bank. Even so-called safe zones like Rafah are facing bombardment from IDF forces as I write these words. The death toll includes over 35,000 innocent people and counting. It would be far higher if IDF forces let in aid workers and the U.N. in to provide support to the people of Gaza. Experts are calling the situation in Gaza bleak as famine and mass starvation will indeed become the norm. Mothers won’t be able to feed their babies, families will starve, and more death and pain will be inflicted on the People of Palestine. This is a man-made disaster. The U.S. President and Congress have pledged billions of our tax dollars to Israel. A foreign agent known as AIPAC holds an outside influence over U.S. politics. The powerful pro-Zionist AIPAC lobby has compromised both major U.S. political parties. This isn’t a war in Gaza going on. This is a systematic massacre. 

Over the last few weeks, students at Columbia University made the nation’s first encampment in solidarity with the people under siege in Gaza. Young people are watching a live-streamed genocide on TikTok, Twitter, and Instagram. Countless brave Palestinian citizens and journalists have live-streamed the damage, death, and destruction being inflicted upon the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. The media has done everything in its power to discredit the student protestors since the police crackdown on many college campuses across the nation. Students across the country and across the world are using their Free Speech to call for divestment from Israel and pro-Zionist forces. The U.S. media has called protestors un-American, terrorists, anti-Jewish, troublemakers, or outside agitators. 

Student protests have always been on the right side of history. Time will prove that the students of this generation are right again. From the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s to the Vietnam student protests in the 1970s, and from the Anti-Apartheid movement in the 1980s to the anti-war movement against President George W. Bush in 2003, these movements profoundly impacted society. All these movements were led by young people. These students are urging universities and colleges to stop investing in a state that is actively involved in the killing of innocent people in Gaza. The same universities that will trap these students in mountains of student loan debt thanks outrageous tuition and fees that continue to raise. 

The protest again shows that the United States is a police state. You’ll have freedom of speech until you upset the powers that be. Funny that police never show this zeal to crush right-wing protests and rallies, but that’s probably because many of their colleagues are in attendance at those same rallies. Yet, these same cowardly cops stood around in Uvalde, Texas, back in 2022 and waited hours to stop a mass shooter from slaughtering little kids in a school. College youth in the United States and Europe have been violently arrested and assaulted by police forces for protesting their schools’ role in the killing of innocent black and brown people in the Middle East. The police have always played the role of the right hand of the oppressors since their unholy beginnings as the slave patrols in the Antebellum South. 

The U.S. media and political leaders have used these student uprisings to distract and provide cover for their complicity in genocide. Israel continues its onslaught on Gaza. Our political leaders and our media are covering for a foreign government as it commits war crimes against the Palestinian people. The United States and the West have been critical of the Chinese government over its treatment and repression of their Uyghur Muslim population. Yet, the West has shown its hypocrisy in allowing Israel to continue its slaughter against the Muslim population of Gaza and the West Bank. 

Imagine how Faux News, CNN, and MSDNC would react if Chinese or Russian governments were violently quashing student and youth protests on college campuses across those nations. They would claim that this is further proof that Russia and China are repressive regimes that don’t allow their citizens free speech and then throw U.N. sanctions on them. However, brutal police tactics are being used on college campuses in the United States and now Europe to crush peaceful student protests. The violence only occurs when Pro-Zionist counter-revolutionaries and police engage in these student encampments. The universities can’t claim they care about student safety when police move in violently, attacking and arresting students exercising their 1st amendment rights.  

We at the Evolving Man Project stand with the brave and courageous students across the United States and the world organizing for peace. As a U.S. military veteran, I support free speech and peaceful protest. I also advocate that people have a right to defend themselves from state-sanctioned violence from the police and brutality from pro-Zionist counter-revolutionaries. We stand with the heroic people of Palestine as they deal with the IDF’s violent assault. Peace and liberation be upon the people of Palestine!