October 08, 2026
The Philippines-Palestine
Friendship Association (PPFA) calls the attention of Naga
City Mayor Leni Robredo for officially welcoming Israeli
Ambassador Dana Kursh during her October 5 visit to Naga
City. The gesture is nothing short of complicity, made even
more glaring by the Naga City Tourism office’s decision to
publicly post the engagement on October 7, coinciding with
the third anniversary of Al-Aqsa Flood, a mark of the
escalation of Israel’s genocidal war and devastation
against the Palestinian people.
Kursh’s visit to
Naga, where she met local officials to discuss agriculture,
food security, and disaster preparedness, is part of the
Israeli Embassy’s broader diplomatic offensive in the
Philippines—courting local and national governments to
embed Israeli interests in Philippine policies and programs.
Such engagements deserve scrutiny.
At a time when
Palestinians continue to face a grave and unprecedented
humanitarian crisis, such official diplomatic engagements
cannot simply be treated as ‘business as usual’. They
carry political significance, particularly when they involve
representatives of the Israeli government which has faced
widespread international condemnation over war crimes and
violations of international humanitarian
law.
“Friendly” diplomatic gestures toward Israeli
officials while Palestinians suffer dismiss the human cost
of Israel’s policies. Public officials cannot hide behind
“diplomacy” while giving platforms to the Israeli
“state” institutions and ignoring the consequences for
the people they represent. This is a responsibility they owe
to the public.
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We have seen similar gestures before:
in 2025, Quezon City Mayor Joy Belmonte joined former
Israeli Ambassador Ilan Fluss and Israeli Economy Minister
Nir Barkat in a wreath-laying ceremony and symbolic awarding
of a “key to the city” at the monument of President
Manuel Quezon, while Filipino-Palestinian refugees are
struggling to survive in the city.
In Siargao,
Ambassador Kursh dismissed reports of Israeli tourists
harassing locals, many identified as former IDF, calling
them simply “natural Israeli people” who are “loud.”
The Israeli Embassy has also defended the Chabad House amid
concerns over its promotion of Zionist narratives
reinforcing Israeli entitlement at the expense of the
Siargao local community. In August, 19 Filipino journalists
were flown to Israel on an Israeli government-sponsored
propaganda junket basically aimed at whitewashing the war
crimes of Israel.
Under Marcos Jr., the Philippine
government continues to tighten military and economic ties
with Israel becoming its third-largest arms buyer from
2022-2024. Filipino taxpayers’ money funds these deals
with Israeli defense companies, whose weapons and
technologies are also used in the militarization of the
Philippine countryside.
The Marcos government has
courted Israeli and IDF-linked tech companies for the
U.S.-led Pax Silica initiative, marketed as
“development” but posing threats of Aeta displacement
and the extraction of Philippine resources. While
Palestinians and Filipinos face devastation and deprivation,
the government continues to do business with Israel as
usual.
Across the world, mass protests and growing
solidarity have broken the silence around Israel’s
atrocities in Palestine. The world can no longer look away.
And there should be no sacred cows when it comes to
accountability. If we hold public officials in high regard
for their supposed record on governance or progressive
positions, they must be held to the same basic standard of
humanity.
For Filipinos who have long endured the
violence and injustice of U.S. militarism and wars of
aggression, Palestine is not a distant issue. It is a
question of humanity. Silence and complicity are
unacceptable as Palestinians continue to suffer one of the
most brutal genocides of our time.
History will
remember where these leaders stood, and what they chose to
ignore.
