We condemn Malacañang’s decision to abstain from the UN resolution which calls for humanitarian aid in Gaza and the West Bank!
The Philippine delegation has chosen to abstain from the UN resolution for a ceasefire and the provision of aid in Gaza and the West Bank amidst Israel’s genocidal assault against the Palestinian people. According to Ambassador Antonio Lagdameo, the Philippine government recognizes Israel’s right to defend itself, but such reasoning only applies if both sides were of equal footing.
As of writing, the Israeli government has cut off access to fuel, electricity, food, water, and communication lines in Gaza, depriving the people of their own basic needs as well as access to the world to report their situation. The airstrikes bombarded several hospitals across the besieged city, killing thousands of women and children. The increasing casualties also included journalists. Such senseless barbarity violates international humanitarian law.
The destruction of civilian infrastructure and basic services have forced the people of Gaza to break into in order to survive. Thousands of people suffering from starvation seized and distributed wheat, flour, and hygiene supplies found sitting in abandoned UN warehouses across the blockaded strip. The lack of urgency in providing humanitarian aid further proves the inadequacy of western-led United Nations’ “support.”
For the past 75 years, Israel has received the full support of the imperialist superpowers throughout the course of its brutal onslaught and expansion. The Nakba of 1948, which expelled the majority of the Palestinian population from their own homeland, served as a catalyst that would fuel the fire in Israel’s bloodthirsty machinery. Agricultural lands, factories, homes, entire villages and water supply were ransacked, forcibly removing the Indigenous peoples’ access to their own resources, causing mass starvation and poverty. Then came the blatant dehumanization of the Palestinian people through decades of Hasbara-funded propaganda, twisting the Zionist narrative akin to a divine right reminiscent of Manifest Destiny.
What the West considers “terrorism,” what the mainstream media outlets condemn, is nothing more but a just reaction to the violent circumstance which the Palestinian people were subjected to. For this reason, it is only right that we stand in full solidarity with the operations of the Palestinian resistance! To condemn Palestinians for their actions is to condemn the Katipuneros for their resistance against Spanish colonialism! It is only right that we, the Filipinos, stand in solidarity against genocide and imperialist aggression!
For the Philippine delegation to buy into the Zionist deception is an intentional move of reactionary diplomacy. The Marcos Jr. regime does not care about the lives of the Palestinian people for the same reason it does not care for the lives of the peasantry in our rural areas. In truth, the Philippines is one of the Israeli arms industry’s most prominent customers.
In 2020, the Philippine National Police (PNP) secured contracts for Israel-made guns and defense equipment worth nearly P1.5 billion. In 2021, according to Israeli Ambassador to Manila Ilan Fluss, the Israeli government would share its sophisticated military technologies and weapons systems with the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP). That same year, the Philippine Navy received eight fast-attack interdiction craft-missile ships in a procurement agreement which was awarded to Israel Shipyards and Rafael Advanced Defense System.
Last June, according to Haaretz, Israeli defense contractor Elbit Systems announced that it won a $114 million contract to supply two-long range patrol planes to the Philippines. This contract will be fulfilled over the course of five years, during which time the company will supply two long-range maritime patrol aircraft (LRPA) based on ATR-72–600 planes.
Despite the worsening inflation crisis in the Philippines, the AFP had managed to allocate around P6.2 billion for the planes’ purchase, with the military signing another contract to purchase an airborne SIGINT system for about P292 million. The total cost of this deal is P6.4 billion or $114 million — the same exact amount Elbit reported in the same week.
These weapons are not being purchased for the purposes of defense, however. Under the puppetry of their US imperialist masters, the sham state of Israel and the fascist regime under Marcos Jr. serve to consolidate their illegitimate position in the international community through bowing down to the military-industrial complex, but the weapons they seize do nothing more than to orchestrate state-sponsored terror bombings against the civilian population in an effort to render their own dissidents silent. In the case of Israel, there is a clear motive of genocide, the deliberate destruction of an entire population.
We can only seek out the truth ourselves and listen to what the Zionists themselves have to say. Israelis all over the Internet continue to shamelessly dehumanize the Palestinians with their racist rhetoric, calling them “animals” and “savages,” so as to deny the Palestinians of their agency and their human rights, so as to legitimize their cleansing. It is clear by now that the Israeli government is not simply defending itself; it is the main aggressor in Gaza and it has always been since the Nakba of 1948.
Artista ng Rebolusyong Pangkultura (ARPAK) reiterates its condemnation of Malacañang’s decision to abstain from the UN resolution of a ceasefire. We condemn the US-Israel-Marcos Jr. state terrorism, war profiteering, and imperialist conquest!
#FromTheRiverToTheSea
#PalestineWillBeFree
#FromPalestineToThePhilippines
#StopTheUSWarMachine
#FreePalestine
