On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas orchestrated a terror attack against Israel during the Nova Music Festival. In a matter of hours, Hamas took the lives of more than 1,200 people and captured 250 hostages.

Over the past year, Israel has waged an asymmetrical “war” of terror against Palestinians in Gaza, largely funded by United States taxpayers.

Al Jazeera reports that Israel has directly taken the lives of 41,870 people in Gaza. In addition, more than 97,000 people are injured and more than 10,000 remain missing. A study by The Lancet, an independent medical journal, predicted that as many as 186,000 deaths caused by disease and starvation can be attributed to Israel’s current aggression.

This year, the US  sent more than $17.9 billion in military aid to Israel, by far the most aid the country has received in one year. Israel is the largest recipient of US military aid in history – totaling $251.2 billion since 1959.

As fellow students take tangible steps toward university divestment in Israel’s military, Student Body President Allison Markert ultimately vetoed efforts made here at NC State.

In September, Markert vetoed a bill that called for an immediate ceasefire, made educational material accessible to all, pressured the university to divest from Israel’s military and generated avenues of support for all students negatively affected by the violence.

Instead of standing in solidarity with fellow students working to make change and support those impacted, NC State will remain complicit, painted red by its investments.

Before continuing, I give all my love to Palestinians and Israelis who are mourning. To our Palestinian and Israeli friends and readers, you are seen and embraced. I love you and I hope you have someone with whom you can share your grief and frustration; no one should bear that weight alone. You are living an experience I can never claim. I ask for your forgiveness as I attempt to communicate my frustration with my country, university and peers in 1300 words or less.

I am an ally – an outsider – and could never capture the depth of your life over the past year in any finite number of words. But, I have been blessed with a platform and I will have failed in my responsibility to the student body by keeping my mouth shut. Take my opinion with a grain of salt: I am an unwavering supporter of Palestine and this article will reflect that support.

I am privileged enough to have watched a year of tragedy unfold from the safety of the news and social media; odds are, you’ve done the same. Some may view this as a positive – living in the imperial core should afford you that safety. I am; however, revolted by this privilege.

Our money slaughters tens of thousands, displaces millions and destroys hospitals and universities. At the same time, we have the option to put our phones down – escape the genocide we’ve seen unfold before our eyes.

Are we expected to go about learning and socializing, politely abstaining from trauma, as not one university remains standing in Gaza? No, that is unacceptable.

As a community of learners and educators, we should all feel ashamed of our silence. You probably haven’t done enough (I know I haven’t) and you should feel the total weight of that guilt.

Our guilt is but a sliver of the pain that people in Gaza and the Occupied West Bank feel, and when you compound guilt with silence, we actively harm Palestinians.

Ultimately, all of this guilt is less than meaningless; it’s a liability if you aren’t recycling it. Unless you actively address and use that guilt to fuel your resistance, you have let it go to waste.

However, guilt is but a crude oil. We must supplement our guilt with love, empathy and forgiveness to generate a renewable, revolutionary energy source.

On Saturday, Oct. 5, I attended a march from campus to downtown Raleigh. Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), the Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA), Students for Decarb, The Dissenters and 15 other student organizations gathered to call all students, faculty and alumni together to support a free Palestine.

I intended to cover the march as “breaking news,” but this account necessitated an opinion.

When I arrived, I was focused on capturing the story: an emergency march for Palestine. It was fulfilling to see Technician Correspondent Elliott Jackson and Student Media photographers also covering the march.

A mild awkwardness filled the air as protestors waited for directions from organizers. The plan was to march from the Bell Tower to Moore Square. “It’s been almost a year, in a few days, since the genocide started,” said one organizer of the march. “Our institutions have stayed complicit and we’re not going to stop until we get divestment from every institution that funds the war machine.”

Of course, NC State, being an institution that funds the war machine, is not just complicit but an active participant. As recently as Sept. 19, 2024, NC State led an initiative that raised $19 million for military projects.

So, how do you resolve the cognitive dissonance required to justify our university’s participation in genocide? You don’t! You should resist it with your entire being. As a student body, we should be unified in our condemnation, especially when there is a historical precedent for student-led divestment initiatives – see the Soweto Uprising during the South African Apartheid.

NC State’s own Student Government organized an apartheid divestment march from the African American Cultural Center to the Bell Tower in 1987. Our current legislature; however, has failed to live up to its own history.

Here we were: a diverse slice of the student body, gathered under the Bell Tower, unified to condemn our country, university and student government for its crimes in Palestine. Love was in every direction and we were ready to make some noise.

Then, a truckful of Trump supporters drove past the roundabout, shouting their admiration for Israel, and in the same breath, they called us “f*ggots.” We drowned out the hatred and vitriol with chants of our own: “Free! Free Palestine!” and “NC State, you’re painted red! Allison Markert, you’re painted red!”

Immediately, almost instinctively, I was brought back into my body. I couldn’t simply “capture the story;” I needed to support it. My role as a student journalist wasn’t enough at that moment.

I wouldn’t sit quietly or take notes and interviews, knowing I was privileged to be able-bodied and could push myself to do more. I would spend the remainder of the march passing out water bottles to protestors with Isaac and Luca, members of the YDSA, and capturing videos of police-student interactions.

But, the real work was done before I even arrived. While most of NC State remains disturbingly and disappointingly silent, the revolutionary sentiment is alive and well in its student activists, the most passionate and dedicated people I have ever met.

The liberation of Palestine is connected to liberation movements everywhere – Latin America, Sudan and the Congo – and we have more than enough voices to command our legislature’s attention.

To Student Body President Allison Markert and the 18 senators who upheld your veto of R 29, you’ve governed this university with vapid complacency at best and sinister egotism at worst. You had the opportunity to help clean our tuition from the dirt and blood of genocide – a drop in the bucket, but a drop nonetheless. You have failed us, and I hope we, as a student body, never give you the chance to fail us again. Thanks to you, NC State will stay painted red.