In a time of normalized apathy, it is crucial to stay engaged with media surrounding global issues
By THE EDITORIAL BOARD
As the year continues on, headlines about Palestine seem to grow more and more devastating while empathy toward Palestinians seems to stay stagnant or even decrease. As of March 2025, the conflict has resulted in at least 48,981 Palestinians being killed, at least 112,603 combatants wounded and 90% of the population — up to 1.9 million people — being displaced from their homes at the conflict’s peak.
Pro-Palestinian student activism
University students who speak up have become subject to criticism or even university-sponsored consequences, including recent New York University graduate Logan Rozos, who used his platform as the prestigious university’s student commencement speaker to denounce the school’s contribution to the ongoing conflict in Gaza. His diploma has since been withheld. At George Washington University, graduating Cecilia Culver also spoke advocating for university divestment, after which a statement was released barring her from the university’s campus and any events held there indefinitely.
While college universities have historically been celebrated as sanctuaries for political advocacy, protesting instances of occupation and apartheid have gained increased opposition in recent years. This advocacy has historically been protected by university jurisdiction and bylaws, but attitudes toward student protesting have changed drastically in the face of the pro-Palestine movement.
For example, during the height of opposition to South African apartheid in the 1980s, the mass movement for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) was advocated for at over 150 universities nationwide. A similar number of encampments were erected over the last year at American universities, including one on the UC Davis campus — a practice that has since been banned at many universities.
More student groups have found new forms of protest to engage in following the banning of encampments. Many students are participating in hunger strikes at universities like UC Los Angeles, Stanford University and multiple state universities including San José State, Sacramento State, San Francisco State and California State University Long Beach.
The reaction to contemporary protests for the freedom of Palestine seem to have been met with a very different attitude in opposition to them. Students are being punished by their universities, who are meant to protect their freedom of speech and right to protest, and a widespread attitude calling these student movements radicalized or ‘woke’ seem to be at an all-time high. It is a true shame that so many of these student protesters have been equated with terrorist organizations or groups, when in reality their advocacy intends to call out the very same.
The Editorial Board commends these students for taking advantage of their platforms to advocate for humanitarian causes, especially in the face of so much systemic backlash. Student activism is more important than ever in the face of a presidential administration that is so keen on censoring student opinions — those who speak up for the rights of others at the risk of their own access to education are beyond admirable.
Ongoing escalation in Gaza
These strikes are in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza currently experiencing borderline famine after Israel instated an 11-week blockade of all food, water and humanitarian aid from entering the region — which was only slightly amended to allow some aid to enter after Israel received harsh criticism from its supporters.
Despite the allowance of some aid trucks to re-enter the territory, aid has not yet been distributed, according to the United Nations.
“Since the beginning of the war, we said that in order to achieve victory — to defeat Hamas and to free all our hostages, two missions that are intertwined — there is one necessary condition: We must not reach a situation of famine, both from a practical and a diplomatic standpoint,” Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.
Netanyahu’s point is clear: Their government intends to provide the bare minimum amount of aid to enter the Gaza Strip so that the situation cannot technically be called a famine, thus preventing their allies from intervening. Netanyahu has made the Israeli Defense Force (IDF)’s goals abundantly evident — there is no concern for any loss of human life, only for absolute control over the Gaza territory.
“In order to achieve victory, we must somehow solve this problem,” Netanyahu said. “Until we establish those distribution points, and until we build a sterile area under IDF control for distributing food and medicine, we need to provide a minimal, basic bridge — just enough to prevent hunger.”
Accountability
International accountability is another aspect being frequently discussed as the situation continues. The question must be asked: How long must these events continue before they are publicly labeled as a genocide? The United Nations has thus far refused to label the conflict between Israel and Hamas a genocide, despite the fact that Israeli officials are more on-the-record than ever about their intentions for the Palestinian people: to eradicate them from the territory completely. Calling it a genocide would call for mandatory intervention by many states, which would effectively elevate the situation — something that is very blatantly being avoided by international institutions.
A jarring new interview from Middle East Eye depicted an Israeli activist spreading the sentiment that regardless of one’s enemy in a war, all of those involved in the enemy group should be destroyed.
“When there is a war, it doesn’t matter who your enemy is,” Israeli activist Sofia Emuna said in the interview. “You need to destroy their offspring to prevent them from creating more offspring.”
This attitude embodies what a genocide truly is: an attempt to completely eradicate a group of people from existence. There does seem to be a special exception granted to the actions carried out by Israel that no other country has been able to get away with. United Nations experts, including Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territory Francesca Albanese, have continually advocated for Israel to be held accountable for continuing to commit such atrocities against Palestinians, citing that “it is important to call a genocide a genocide.”
As the conflict in Gaza continues on, the attitude prioritizing the removal of all Palestinians from the territory is becoming increasingly normalized in the eyes of the public. It is crucial to remember that acts of intentional displacement, or the intentional eradication of a group of people, should not be tolerated or considered “normal” on the global stage.
This is a particularly brutal stage of Israel’s ongoing siege of the Gaza strip that does not seem to be lessening; Netanyahu, who at one point claimed that a ceasefire deal would hold if all Israeli hostages were returned, outlined the end goal himself in a quote just earlier this month.
“[Retrieving the hostages is] a very important goal,” Netanyahu said. “The war has a supreme goal, and the supreme goal is victory over our enemies, and this we will achieve.”
Take his words at face value: This “supreme goal” of “victory” does not include allowing Palestinians to remain in their homeland. In the face of such complicated ongoing conflict, ask yourself whether you can continue to justify ignoring this global crisis. It’s time to recognize the hypocrisy within the words and to address the devastating reality millions of people are facing every day.
Written by: The Editorial Board
