I signed up to speak at my town's Board of Commissioners meeting in response to last month's meeting when several women from out of town urged my town to issue a proclamation to stand with Palestinians against Israel's response to October 7, 2023.

I prepared a slideshow of eyewitness testimonies, interviews, and raw (but censored) images in support of my counterargument to not issue a proclamation at all. Several families walked out of the chamber when I started the slideshow. What I said at the meeting is below:

"Last month, the Board heard individuals who advocated for the Town to formally issue a proclamation in solidarity with Gaza and Palestinians.

I am here today to advocate you to NOT do so.

To be clear, we all want peace for humanity. Everyone should be sympathetic and compassionate for those who are authentically suffering under corrupt governments. The situation with Israel and Palestine is complicated, and I lack the time for minutiae. I genuinely feel and pray for those under the haze of war.

Additionally, the video that was showed last month failed to illustrate an accurate picture of what's happening in Gaza. Parental discretion is advised for the video I am starting.

The current governing authority in Palestine is a terrorist organization called Hamas. On October 7, 2023, Hamas entered Israel from Gaza. Families were bound and set on fire, women, men and children gang-raped and their genitals mutilated, infants beheaded and burned in the cradle, stripped corpses paraded in trucks, and they ripped unborn babies from their mothers wombs. Hamas took hundreds of hostages inside Gaza. Hostages from many nations, including America, were and are being held in places such as Al-Shifa Hospital, private Palestinians' homes, and subterranean tunnels. Eight months later, many of these hostages are either dead or missing.

The question is, how do Palestinians feel about this? The Palestinian Center for Policy Survey and Research surveyed Palestinians in Gaza and found that 3 in 4 Gazan Palestinians support Hamas' actions on October 7. The Palestinian Center for Public Opinion's study found that 89% of Gazan Palestinians support firing missiles from Gaza into Israel. Arab World for Research and Development's study found that 3 in 4 Palestinians, between Gaza and the West Bank, support Hamas' actions on October 7, and 87% of Palestinians want an Islamic Jihad. Since 1997, the United States has recognized Hamas, the Palestine Liberation Front, the Palestine Islamic Jihad, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine as terrorist organizations.

If that's what Palestinians think over there, what about half a world away, here in America? Students for Justice in Palestine, Students Against Israeli Apartheid, and other organizations have openly announced their support of Hamas and are calling for 'Intifada,' a summons for violent Islamic revolution, to occur here on United States soil. These organizations have also chanted, "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free." The river is the Jordan on the eastern border of Israel. The sea is the Mediterranean, Israel's western border. "From the Jordan to the Mediterranean, Palestine will be free" literally calls for the annihilation of Israel and the mass genocide of Jews.

This is happening here in North Carolina, too. Rania Masri, who organized pro-Palestinian protests that blocked Durham Highway on October 30, 2023, and blocked Fayetteville Street in downtown Raleigh on November 8, told WRAL that he will quote "continue to escalate and escalate and escalate until the genocide (of Palestinians) stops." At UNC-Chapel Hill on October 12, their Students for Justice in Palestine chapter promoted a protest using imagery of a Hamas paraglider. SJP has removed that image from their Instagram, but other sites on the internet have screenshots. On April 30th of this year at UNC, Students for Justice in Palestine protestors pulled down the campus' American flag and replaced it with the Palestinian flag. For over an hour, several members of the UNC Pi Kappi Phi fraternity honorably kept the American flag from touching the ground while the protestors threw drinks, bottles, curses, and rocks at the fraternity and nearby police.

A ceasefire in Gaza can only be issued from Israel or Hamas, the Palestinian authority. It doesn't help when Hamas regularly and often breaks those ceasefires and puts their own people and homes in the crossfire.

We should stand as individuals for peace and the right for other individuals to exist in peace. Anything less is inhumane. Thank you for your time."