Danger… Stockholm Syndrome Alert!
EDITORIAL by The Spark Publication
“Marcos: PH stands with Israel in war vs. Hamas”
This headline reported by the Philippine Daily Inquirer on November 11, 2023, shook Filipinos, especially the Moro population when President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. declared his and the Philippine government’s support for Israel’s military attacks on Gaza in its “war” against Hamas. There is glaring incoherence between this political decision and the the nation’s history of being subjugated under foreign colonial rule (under Spain, the US, and the Japanese Empire) for almost half a millennium. How can a country like the Philippines stomach supporting the colonization, control, and invasion of the Palestinian land and people by Israeli forces?
On October 7, 2023, Hamas, a Palestinian militant group, launched a series of attacks and coordinated incursions against the Israel Territory intensifying the ongoing geopolitical “conflict” between both states. This consequently resulted in tens of thousands of innocent lives lost, including women and children. But all of these did not start on October 7, 2023. It all started way back in 1948 when the Resolution 181 of the General Assembly of the United Nations paved the way for the decades of fight of control over who should control what and who should control who.
United Nations Resolution 181, adopted in 1947, aimed to partition Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states, with an international administration for Jerusalem. While the resolution marked a significant step towards the establishment of Israel, its implementation has been a source of ongoing conflict and displacement for the Palestinian people. This resolution resulted in historical and humanitarian consequences, pointing to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and the challenges they face in their quest for self-determination, the fight for human and geopolitical rights, and decolonization.
Hamas’s invasion and destruction of the Israeli territories killing innocent Israelis and keeping hostages should be condemned. However, if one examines and understands their motivations and reasons, although their actions were, again, condemnable, it should be easy to see the need for the liberation of the Palestinian people. In June 1967, a six-day war occurred between Israel and a coalition of Arab states, which significantly altered Israel’s power within the Middle East and gained more military geographic, and political control over the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. According to Human Rights Watch, the Israeli army mans and monitors every entrance and exit, the imports and the exports, and the movements of both states. The Israeli government and private companies control the water, food, and electricity supply, which are three of the basic necessities every person should have free and fair access to. Israel gives them enough not to make them full but just enough to keep them alive. Gaza is Israel’s “Open-Air Prison.”
Israel does have the right to defend itself against the attacks of the Hamas militants, but they must also abide by the international laws. The Ministry of Health in Gaza and the United Nations reported that the Rantissi Children’s Hospital and the Nasser Hospital Complex had sustained damage from both direct and indirect Israeli airstrikes. Additionally, Israel had targeted Al-Shifa Hospital, the largest medical facility in Gaza where numerous individuals would seek treatment and refuge. Israel’s government also launched airstrikes on civilian neighborhoods, convoys of refugees, and a UN refugee camp costing thousands of people’s lives. Clearly, Israel failed to recognize civilians and military objectives, fatally leading them to carry out attacks that may have or may have not been intentional against the Palestinian civilians. These actions are clearly not self-defense acts. These are violations of the International Humanitarian laws; acts of war crimes and genocide.
Freeing Palestine does not mean displacing and disregarding millions of Jewish lives in Israel. Freeing Palestine would only mean that Palestinians can live with human rights and dignity–freely, with their own government, and in their own rightful land without blood, injustices, and oppression. This is something that Filipinos, with its long history of being raped by foreign colonial powers, should stand firmly behind.
The Philippine government’s support for Israel and its criminal and genocidal actions in Gaza and the West Bank should raise profound questions about historical consciousness and ethical foreign policy. The echoes their own struggles against colonization in the past must resonate deeply as they witness another state grapple for decolonization and basic human rights. The Filipinos should be the first ones to understand how hard it must have felt to live in a land controlled by foreign powers. They have already witnessed this film before. To coddle Israel is to coddle the ghosts of the country’s past — a possible case of collective Stockholm syndrome.