Genocide is occurring before our eyes, and there is no time to look away. There is no time for hesitation on whether to act or not. There is no time for the “nuance” of the liberal bourgeoisie. The just struggle of the Palestinian people for land and liberation requires our unwavering solidarity, now and for the turbulent days to come, all the way until victory. BAYAN USA calls on all Filipinos, and all people who profess to be against exploitation and oppression, to join the mass resistance in support of Palestine in your households, in your work places, on your campuses, in your organizations, and in the streets.
The fascist state of Israel has made its genocidal intentions clear in both word and action. It has indiscriminately dropped more than 6,000 bombs in one week, killing over 2,000 Palestinians and injuring almost 10,000 more. It told Palestinians to seek refuge in Egypt, and then bombed the only way there. It promised a “safe road” for Palestinians to evacuate, and then bombed that too. Electricity and water supplies have been cut off, endangering the lives of over 2 million people, especially the tens of thousands of injured who now crowd Palestine’s hospitals.
The US-imperialist state and the monopoly capitalist class of war manufacturers, oil magnates, and mainstream media have thrown in their shameless support to the genocide. They know all too well that a free Palestine is a threat to the imperialist world order, that the victory in Palestine will inspire victories in countless other nations and countries the world over. But the Filipino people’s movement for national liberation and genuine democracy knows this too. And it is in our joint struggle with the Palestinian people for total victory over imperialism and its reactionary ideology of Zionism that we draw boundless inspiration, perseverance, and revolutionary optimism.
The masses and the masses alone are the makers of history, and that history has always been one of revolution. This is a fact that our own history teaches us in the over 300 years of armed resistance leading up to the victorious 1896 revolution against Spanish colonization, in the fierce battles against fascist Japanese occupation during World War II, and in the revolutionary groundswell against the US-backed Marcos regime, which continues to the present.
This is a fact that the Palestinian masses have been showing us since the Balfour Declaration in 1917, since the Nakba 75 years ago, in the First and Second Intifada, and in every single year between. The Palestinian masses are making history today with their blood, defiance, and unyielding desire to be free.
We must struggle alongside them to write the history that must be written: an immediate end to the siege, an end to the brazen political repression of Palestinian and pro-Palestine activists currently happening across the world, an end to all support — whether political, material, financial, or cultural — for the Israeli state, and ultimately, the defeat of imperialism and its tentacles of Zionism and all reaction.
End the siege on Gaza now!
From Palestine to the Philippines, stop the US war machine!
Free Palestine!