No One Is Talking About Palestine
Eli Styles | April 25, 2024
To the Warren Wilson College (WWC) community at large and anyone else this may reach:
No one is talking about Palestine.
That is not an entirely true statement — a handful of people are. A handful of people are talking about it daily, screaming it to each other, showing up to protests, educating others, making zines, sharing mutual aid funds and reposting the news on their social media. A handful of people carry the weight of the genocide on their shoulders with every step they take around campus.
There are teach-ins being held in Sage Cafe and a boycott, divestment, sanctions (BDS) movement gaining traction among the student body. Select students help organize and advertise Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) protests in downtown Asheville, though WWC student turnout is noticeably lacking.
It is necessary to acknowledge to tireless efforts of students at this school to fight the occupation in Gaza. I hold a deep appreciation and respect for these efforts.
But the fight against imperialism, apartheid, ethnic cleansing and genocide is not an individual one. If WWC is a school that “empower[s] graduates to pursue meaningful careers and lead purposeful lives dedicated to a just, equitable, and sustainable world,” why is there not an outcry from the collective student body about the more than 30 thousand Palestinians murdered by Israel, about the 200 days of bombing that Palestinians have endured?
Political art by Mx. Papaya (@agitateandeducate on Instagram)
Why are we not taking action? Why are we not talking about it?
The Echo Newspaper has published exactly two articles about the Palestinian genocide — one in November and one in March, with two other articles mentioning Palestine one to two times in passing. None of these articles are particularly educational on the genocide. I would also like to acknowledge that nothing I could possibly say in this piece would cover the scope of abject horror happening in Gaza and I will, unintentionally, leave out important details. I am not an expert.
We are silent — a silence which I am complicit in. No matter which way it is spun, neither I, The Echo Newspaper or WWC as an institution are doing enough.
“Enough” will always be subjective when rooted in reality. What is “enough” when students are dealing with burnout from classes, lack of access to life-sustaining needs, discrimination, long shifts and neverending finals? What is “enough” when our words cannot change the fact that Israel has occupied Palestinian territory since 1948, when Israel will not stop taking what is not theirs? What will “enough” ever be?
The answer is that we will never be doing enough. Activism cannot be served on a silver platter. People need to care. Activism comes from pain driven so deep it drives you near to insanity. It comes in the middle of the night, staying up until three or four or five writing and pleading for someone to simply care for your cause.
Activism will never be easy. It may feel like dragging the last of your life force from your body just to give an inch so they take a mile, but that is what has to be done.
No one is free until everyone is free. We need collective liberation and we need it now.
I would be remiss not to mention the barriers to traditional methods of activism, such as Disability, lack of transportation and busy schedules. However, true community care does not come easily and there are other ways to show up. The revolution can happen from bed. The only prerequisite to activism is the willingness to make the world a better place — the rest can be figured out later.
Political art by Mx. Papaya (@agitateandeducate on Instagram)
Approximately one of every 30 people in Gaza has been injured by Israel’s nonstop attacks. This amounts to at least 77,143 people total injured.
The population of Gaza, the most populated city in the state of Palestine, was 590,481 in 2017. Rafah is the southernmost province of Gaza, where Palestinians were instructed to evacuate for safety. Before the war, the population of Rafah was 280,000. It now holds over 1.5 million people.
The oversaturation of people in such a small area — 25 square miles, to be exact — has caused disease to spread rapidly. Palestinians are dying or becoming Disabled from upper respiratory infection, meningitis, chickenpox, COVID-19 and more. Malnutrition running rampant amongst Palestinians increases the risk of these diseases due to suppression of the immune system and lack of energy to fight off infection. This is especially harmful to children, in whom malnutrition stunts growth and the diseases can have long-term effects on development.
Palestinians are dying of starvation. More than 500,000 people are at risk of famine in Gaza. Not only that, but events such as the flour massacre — where Israel specifically targeted Palestinians waiting for aid to arrive by opening fire as they approached the trucks — further push these people into sickness, pain and death. Israel is attempting to edge Palestinians out into the margins of life.
This cannot stand. At least 112 Palestinians were murdered in the flour massacre and 750 were wounded. That was not the last time that mass murder was carried out in this way by Israel.
It is impossible to look at these statistics — statistics that deserve to be individual stories about the people who have been murdered and the lives they led — and call the situation anything other than a genocide. Israel has blood dripping from their hands. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is swimming in it.
The issue occurring at WWC and beyond is that the action that needs to be taken is a collectivist issue being posed to an individualist society. The “community” here at WWC is dysfunctional. The majority of us were raised to be independent. Community care is difficult for the community to achieve because we have no idea what it looks like.
Many activists can have an unconscious tendency towards self-importance — again, I am not excluding myself from this group — resulting in a lack of delegation and the idea that if someone says you are not doing enough, you have to fight back. You have to defend yourself.
Why, instead, do we not self-evaluate? Why do we not focus on improving the areas in which we are lacking? Why do we not push ourselves to learn that, while we cannot do it all ourselves, collaboration with others will ultimately bring a better outcome to us all? Maybe one person can never do “enough”, maybe a group of people can never do “enough”, but the group is likely to come a lot closer.
I believe it is especially important for The Echo Newspaper to cover this issue due to the prevalence of journalists in Gaza being targeted for spreading the news of what is actually happening to Palestinians. As reports come out less and less due to the murder of those equipped to do them, we have a responsibility to continue covering the Palestinian genocide until Palestinians are free.
Not only that, but every university in Gaza has been systematically targeted and bombed. When Gaza is free — and as hope is a practice, I must believe it will be free — there will be no education to go back to. Palestinians will rebuild. They have proven to be some of the most resilient among us.
We are a privileged group at WWC to be able to access the education we have and we should use it to our advantage. Students at oOther universities such as Columbia, UNC-Chapel Hill, Yale and more have spoken out against their schools’ associations with Israel and protested against the ongoing genocide. Students have faced persecution for this, including being arrested, facing institutional discrimination and even being called out by far-right politicians.
The ultimate question here is, what do we do? I know we are all tired and overwhelmed by circumstances currently beyond our control. How do we end a genocide from behind our computers here in Swannanoa? What impact can WWC really have?
But then again, the administration, while potentially understaffed, is being paid to work here at this “progressive” school. Why do they not use their paid time to speak out against the Palestinian genocide, to condemn Israel for the war crimes they have committed?
President Joe Biden called for an “immediate ceasefire” in Palestine on April 4, 2024, 180 days too late. WWC does not have anywhere near the political and social impact that the President of the United States does, but the institution can speak out anyway.
If Aaron Bushnell can self-immolate outside of the Embassy of Israel in Washington, D.C., and Bisan Owda can continue posting about and documenting the genocide despite experiencing it on the ground and children can take on the responsibility of taking care of their entire families, then WWC can speak out. WWC can find its voice. After all:
The Palestinian genocide is a human rights issue.
The Palestinian genocide is a worker’s rights issue.
The Palestinian genocide is a Queer rights issue.
The Palestinian genocide is a Disabled rights issue.
The Palestinian genocide is a WWC issue.
The responsibility for Palestinian justice does not just fall into the hands of those currently experiencing the apartheid. The responsibility is on every single one of us with the ability to work towards a free Palestine and see the Israeli occupation removed from land that does not belong to them.
Respect existence or expect resistance.
From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.
Political art by Mx. Papaya (@agitateandeducate on Instagram)