Last week, students and organizers held a protest on the canon green at The University of West Florida in support of a ceasefire in Palestine.
The Party for Socialism & Liberation organized a protest coinciding with a global walkout in support of Palestine that was set for Thursday, Nov. 9.
“Today is actually a day of international shutdown,” said the organizer, who declined to give their name. “Within the country, there are campuses all throughout, east to west that are also participating in the walkout. Even in the deep south of Florida, I definitely feel that we need to participate in this international movement to show our solidarity.”
Protesters also shared charged opinions on the way traditional media has been covering these walkouts and the overall support of Palestine.
“I definitely think that there has been a bias towards Israel and lack of coverage for the Palestinian people,” said the organizer, “And overall just overwhelming bias, not really reporting the full numbers of people that are coming out to support Palestine.”
“[The media] are ignoring the mass protests that have been happening every day since October 7 in the United States,” said another organizer, who wished to be anonymous. “We had a mass march on Washington D.C. last weekend [with] easily 300,000, probably more, people in the streets, and the media could not ignore us, but they said thousands, and then tens of thousands. CNN went the furthest and they said 40,000. And it was just another way for them to control the narrative about what the people in the United States believe.”
Several Palestinian protesters were in attendance as well. The recent shift in global support for Palestine among the world’s citizens has emboldened and reassured those who have been affected by this conflict for generations.
“We’ve been shouting for 75 years,” said Dana Abualoush. “I have never seen an overwhelming level of support as much as now. My grandparents are victims of the 1948 Nakba, they are survivors, and my dad is a survivor. He is looking around, he is saying ‘Wow the American people are actually with us.”
The age of social media has drastically changed the landscape of how young people view the world. More and more people are turning away from legacy media towards non-traditional news sources. This has led to a more open dialogue on the treatment of Palestinians and overall support for the Palestinian people.
“You see with the younger generations, they don’t really get their media from watching CNN or Fox News,” said one of the organizers. “Not that they completely ignore it, it’s just not their main source. They’re on the internet, they can see firsthand the reports coming out of Gaza.”
The overall message of these walkouts and protests is that Palestinians are human and deserve human decency when it comes to coverage and support.
“Coming out and showing up is the most that you can do,” said Sam, another protestor, who declined to give a last name.
Calls for a ceasefire continue to increase around the world as the death toll rises in Gaza.
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