By Kej Andres, Student Christian Movement of the Philippines national chairperson
We, an ecumenical youth group, join other freedom-loving Filipinos in solidarity with the Palestinian people because of Israel’s relentless militaristic maneuvers and systemic attacks against the Palestinians.
Zionist Israel has become a truly sinful state as it heightens its attacks against the Palestinian people. With more than 7,000 killed among Palestinians, Israel has done nothing short of genocide, ethnic cleansing, and apartheid—something that peace-loving Filipinos and the international community must rightfully condemn and act against.
Last Oct. 24, 2023 more than 700 were killed by Israeli attacks within a 24-hour siege, the Ministry of Health declared. Filipinos have launched multiple protests in opposition to these attacks. Last Oct. 27, multiple youth groups marched in University of the Philippines Diliman and burned flags of Israel and the United States, Israel’s number one military donor. In response, Israeli ambassador to the Philippines Ilan Fluss said that he was “shocked” and “disturbed” with the flag-burning.
Ambassador Fluss must not be shocked with the pro-Palestinian protests. After all, we Filipinos have had a long and arduous history of revolutions against different colonizers. Of course, he cannot relate because since 1948, Israel has been the colonizer in these lands rightfully to be asserted as Palestinian. Moreover, as a Christian country, we are disturbed by the un-Christian acts of massacres by the Israeli state and the attacks on Christian churches and individuals inside Palestine. The ambassador must lack conscience for not being troubled by the sinful acts of Israel.
We refer to the Israeli airstrikes against the Church of Saint Porphyrius, said to be the third oldest church in the world, that was housing Muslim evacuees. Among those killed by Israeli forces last year include Shireen Abu Akleh, a Christian Palestinian reporter.
In the end, we vow to continue to act and show solidarity with other freedom-loving Filipinos in the assertion of a free Palestine. We vow to heighten discussions that will dispel beliefs among many conservative Christians that settling of Jews in Palestine would trigger Jesus’s second coming.
We call fellow Christians not to be blinded by literal and twisted readings of the Bible that have brought massacres and other ungodly acts in Palestine. We must be shocked with the killings and the apartheid regime that Israel imposes, and we must be compelled by our conscience to be in solidarity with the Palestinian people.