From Palestine to the Philippines, Stop the US War Machine!
By Jezile Torculas Reposted with permission by globalresearch.ca
A Culture of Impunity
For decades, Palestinians have been living under the shadow of war.
Now entering its third year on October 7, Israel’s “war on Hamas” is taking too long to finalize its victory. Israel has killed an alleged 8,900 fighters in the last 19 months, out of 47,653 people listed as active fighters (Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad) in its database. This accounts for only 16.8 percent of the total population killed in Gaza as of May 2025 (combatant-civilian mortality ratio is based on data obtained from a leaked Israeli Intelligence database). Given Israel’s formidable military with advanced surveillance technology and weapons system, how is this even remotely convincing? There is a word for it — propaganda; and it is sustained by Big Tech and the corporate media.
The unspoken objective from the very outset was the killing of civilians: a criminal act in derogation of the Four Basic Principles of the Laws of Armed Conflict (LOAC):
“In order to ensure respect for and protection of the civilian population and civilian objects, the Parties to the conflict shall at all times distinguish between the civilian population and combatants and between civilian objects and military objectives and accordingly shall direct their operations only against military objectives.” [Additional Protocol 1, Article 48]
The military objective was never the eradication of Hamas but rather mass depopulation and exodus of Palestinians from their homeland to give way to the creation of “Greater Israel” in blatant derogation of the 1948 Geneva Genocide Convention.
Article II of the Genocide Convention reads as follows. It essentially defines acts of genocide, all of which apply to Palestine.
Article II
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
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Apart from Israel, Who Are the “Actors of Genocide”? The Role of Our Governments
It is not solely Israel which is waging the genocide. Western governments have formally endorsed Israel. They have provided financial support as well as military aid. US-NATO is a partner of Israel in this criminal endeavor.
Western governments are routinely arresting citizens who are protesting against genocide. Millions of people throughout the European Union and around the world have expressed their solidarity with Palestine.
The 1948 Genocide Convention is explicit with regard to the role of our governments: it defines the notion of complicity in Articles III and IV.
“Persons committing genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in article III shall be punished, whether they are constitutionally responsible rulers, public officials or private individuals.”
In this regard, heads of State and heads of government who have formally endorsed the conduct of Genocide by Israel are categorized as “constitutionally responsible rulers” and “public officials.” The latter are “complicit in genocide” under Article III section e and can be arrested under the clauses of Article VI.
Two years on (23 months), after 65,344 deaths, 166,795 injuries, nearly one million people displaced, collapsing healthcare system, mass starvation, and unimaginable level of destruction, the Western ruling elites led by the US continue to deny the existence of genocide and stand by Israel’s “right to self-defense.”
Despite several UN General Assembly and UN Security Council resolutions, report from UN commission of inquiry, and ICJ ruling, the international community repeatedly fails to commit to a legally binding intervention aimed at ending the systemic violence and impunity for Israel’s war crimes, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing, and genocide. Such neglect permits the intensifying rampage and annihilation which will decisively culminate in the total wipe-out of Gaza.
The Vestiges of Democracy
Advocates of democracy are also the instigators of human rights violations and abuses.
What we are witnessing today is a huge wave of democratic backsliding perpetrated by governments who are simultaneously touting democratic norms and values. In a system of genocide, it is the people who carry the casket of democracy.
Notwithstanding the systematic suppression of dissent through coordinated censorship, smears, and arbitrary arrests, protest movements persist worldwide. From boycotts to mass demonstrations, people around the world refuse to be desensitized to the crimes of the genocidaires.
According to Chris Hedges, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and journalist,
these movements “are not built around the single issue of the apartheid state in Israel or its genocide against Palestinians. They are built around the awareness that the old world order, the one of settler colonialism, Western imperialism, and militarism, must end. … These protests are built around a vision of a world of equality, dignity, and independence,” (quoted from his book, A Genocide Foretold, Reporting on Survival and Resistance in Occupied Palestine).
In the Philippines, civil society groups have mounted Palestine solidarity campaigns, urging the national government to take concrete legal measures against the Zionist regime in Israel. The Philippines-Palestine Friendship Association (PPFA), a loose network of pro-Palestine groups and individuals, condemns the government of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. for “continuing to bolster its arms deals and trade ties with Israel.” In a recent statement, PPFA “denounces the continued procurement of Israeli weapons” and urges the Marcos administration to review all arms agreements with the US and Israel amid Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro’s disclosure that there will be no new contracts with Israeli arms firms. Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan), a left-wing organization, likewise demanded for the cancellation of arms sales involving Israel and the expulsion of US bases and troops in the country, highlighting US support of the illegal occupation of Palestine.
Lawmakers from the same left-wing group as Bayan recently filed House Resolution No. 231 before the House of Representatives urging the government of President Marcos Jr. to cut military and trade ties with Israel. This occurred after Representatives from Akbayan and Dinagat Islands filed House Resolution No. 195 urging the termination of the procurement of Israeli defense equipment.
“Through this measure, we demand that the Philippine government not only speak out against the genocide but also cut all forms of complicity—end military ties, arms deals, and intelligence-sharing that strengthen Israel’s occupation. Our resources must never be funneled, directly or indirectly, toward Zionist aggression,” the lawmakers said in a joint statement. (Inquirer.net)
Sen. Robinhood Padilla also filed Senate Resolution No. 1366 “condemning inhumane treatment, deliberate starvation, and mass killings of Palestinian civilians.”
Amid the reiteration of support for a Palestinian statehood and for permanent ceasefire in Gaza, the Philippine government under President Marcos Jr. still refuses to call the reality for what it is: a genocide. An acknowledgement of the commission of genocide is crucial and necessary in properly addressing the urgency of the crisis. Still, despite the ongoing famine and enforced starvation resulting from the blockade of humanitarian aid, Foreign Affairs Assistant Secretary Germinia Aguilar-Usudan declines to apply pressure on Israel saying,
“Our position is always consistent, that we support the two-state solution, … I think pressure is not the solution to this, but dialogue and understanding.” (Philstar.com)
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President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. met with Israeli Ambassador Ilan Fluss in Malacañang Palace in October 2023 (Source)
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Parallels with Filipino Struggle
Riddled with their own struggle for justice, the Filipino people understand the suffering of the Palestinians and recognize the need for urgent action. As both nations are united by a shared resistance to neocolonialism and imperialism, their aspirations are thus one and the same, that of liberation.
While the Israeli military occupation of the Occupied Palestinian Territories provides a textbook example of settler-colonialism, the growing presence of US military in the Philippines, on the other hand, reinforces the neocolonial status of the latter. Israel is consistently America’s top military aid recipient. In other words, the US is an active enabler of Israel’s atrocities in the OPT that systematically advance forced displacement and dire humanitarian catastrophe. Moreover, the US is leveraging the ongoing crisis in the South China Sea to bolster its military footprint in the Philippines.
The neocolonial projects in both countries are cut from the same imperial cloth. The Zionist vision for “Greater Israel” is “an integral part of US foreign policy, [whose] strategic objective is to extend US hegemony as well as fracture and balkanize the Middle East.” Similarly, the militarization of the Philippines is a component of America’s strategy to contain China whose military and economic strength effectively threatens US hegemony.
From Palestine to the Philippines, the US war machine breeds a culture of militarism which fuels cycles of injustice and inequality. Namely, the augmentation of Philippine national security pushed for a 50.8 percent increase in the defense budget from 2024 to 2025. The prioritization of defense programs over the health sector (among others), whose budget allocation is 24 percent shy of the total defense expenditure, is daylight robbery. And the US and Israel are the leading sources of military imports — a clear manifestation of empty rhetoric. In this regard, poor social services, derived from budget misappropriation and misallocation, instigate a cycle of poverty and inequality — a measure of structural violence that ordinary people need to overcome daily.
Following the report of the UN commission of inquiry that finds Israel guilty of genocide in Gaza, the Philippine government under President Marcos Jr. needs to recalibrate its bilateral approach toward Israel if it is indeed committed to a lasting peace and has respect for international law.
“The Philippines is deeply concerned by recent developments, including the Israeli government’s planned full military takeover of Gaza, the continuing restrictions on access to life-saving humanitarian aid such as food and water, large-scale displacement, attacks affecting civilians, and reports of settlement expansion in the West Bank,” the DFA said in August. “The Philippines, therefore, strongly calls on Israel to heed the ceasefire proposal as a crucial step to protect civilians and revive the path to peace,” it added.
“The international community must reject, without reservation, any proposals that bear even the faintest shadow of ethnic cleansing. While such actions clearly constitute violations of international law, the pressing question remains: who will step in to prevent them? We must focus on meaningful, sustainable solutions that pave the way for a just and stable future, grounded in the principles of international law,” Sen. Loren Legarda stated.
Further, it needs to heed the demands of its people to cancel existing and future defense contracts with the criminal state and abolish military agreements with the US, because to affirm solidarity with Palestine is to secure the liberation of its own.
Conclusion
The Palestinian struggle for liberation rests on the collective intervention of the international community and the global protest movement. Echoes from public opinion should surround the crescendo of genocide, for a free and independent Palestine is the gateway to a world free from the shackles of neocolonialism and imperialism.
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Jezile Torculas has a graduate degree in International Studies. She is an Associate Editor at Asia-Pacific Research and Global Research.
