THE unfortunate outbreak of hostilities in Israel and Gaza City, while half a globe away from us and barely concerns our geopolitics, still strikes a sad chord in the Filipinos’ national consciousness.
This is because we have a couple of thousands overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) in Israel, and less than 50 in Gaza – and all of them are in danger of being killed or maimed because of the aggressive exchange of air strikes and bombardments by both contending parties.
It is just the first week of the war and already, two Filipinos were already confirmed to have died in the attacks on Israel, while the PH embassy is still verifying if a third Filipino also died. Total deaths in both sides of the conflict were placed at 2,000 as of yesterday.
Nuances of international geopolitics are beginning to be felt in the Middle East and West Asia, with India starting to describe Hamas as “terrorist,” a term it has not used before. Hezbollah in Lebanon has also joined the fray, sending some of their missiles and bombs to northern Israel even as President Joe Biden ordered the biggest US aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean to move closer to Israel.
‘Senator Marcos is worried, however, that as the Israeli and Palestinian conflict escalates, the Philippines might be embroiled in a foreign policy dilemma that if handled badly could redound to economic and other downsides for the country.’
President Biden has assured Israel of iron-clad support, even before the POTUS received reports that American citizens were among those who died and were captured as hostages by the Hamas militants.
In the wake of these developments, presidential sister Sen. Imee Marcos on Wednesday expressed concern about the Philippines’ close alliance with the US, which is Israel’s biggest supporter, economic and military-wise.
“As an ally of the United States (US), which has committed military support to Israel, we risk retaliatory attacks from militant Hamas sympathizers that a protracted war will likely provoke,” Marcos said in a statement.
Early on, Israeli Ambassador to Manila Ilan Fluss had asked for a statement of support for Israel from President Marcos — which was readily given — a testimony that Philippine-Israeli relations are indeed strong, going back to when President Manuel Quezon sheltered Jewish refugees during World War II, and when the Philippines gave the first vote of recognition to the new state of Israel in the United Nations in 1948, and until now.
Senator Marcos is worried, however, that as the Israeli and Palestinian conflict escalates, the Philippines might be embroiled in a foreign policy dilemma that if handled badly could redound to economic and other downsides for the country.
Conceding that striking a balance would be hard, Imee Marcos said the age-old “struggles of the Israeli and Palestinian peoples deserve equal regard and are beyond the simplistic narrative of good versus evil.”
As she foresees the Israel-Hamas conflict to be “another drawn-out war of global proportions with no certainty of prompt and peaceful resolution,” Imee asked her brother President Bongbong to be careful with foreign policy decisions and make sure that these “uphold Filipino interests now and in the future, informed by a keen sense of current events and the lessons of history.”
There is no better advice than this.
