To understand what is happening in Israel and Palestine, let’s look at a conflict somewhere closer to home – the South China Sea.

What? Ano’ng kinalaman ng South China Sea sa Israel?

Let’s just say Israel’s claim over Palestine has many similarities to China’s arbitrary, illegal, and ahistorical claim over the entire South China Sea. 

Let me explain.

Ancient history clashes with present-day reality

The Chinese government says China’s claim over practically the entire South China Sea is historical, dating back to the Han Dynasty more than 2,000 years ago, when their emperors ordered explorers to conduct expeditions outside the Chinese mainland.

By the second century AD, the period of the Song Dynasty, China was supposed to have named and claimed the Spratly Islands (Nansha) and Paracel Islands (Xisha). Chinese officials say their historical records prove that the succeeding Chinese dynasties had total control over the waters inside what they would later designate as the “nine-dash line,” a fictitious border covering the entire South China Sea.

Whether this historical claim is factual or not, by the 19th century, other powers had emerged to lay claim and control various parts of the South China Sea. There was the Nguyen Dynasty of Vietnam that challenged China in Southeast Asia in the 19th century. The British, Dutch, Portuguese, and French empires also set up colonies in Indochina and Southeast Asia, controlling their surrounding waters.

By the early 20th century, Japan emerged as a colonial power, seizing parts of the Korean Peninsula and China, including the waters formerly claimed by China. The United States also flexed its imperialist powers, colonizing the Philippines and treating the Pacific Ocean as an American lake. The emergence of new independent states after World War II radically changed who had claims and/or actual control over the waters comprising the South China Sea.

To settle such complicated matters, the United Nations came up with Convention on the High Seas in 1958 and the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) in 1982. Both conventions tended to dilute, and later practically disregarded, whatever historical claims China had over the South China Sea. Most significant was UNCLOS’ definition of a state’s territorial sea as those waters within 12 miles of its baseline, and exclusive economic zone (EEZ) as those waters within 200 nautical miles from its coastline.

UNCLOS left China with only a 12-mile territorial sea and 200-mile EEZ along its coast, in effect making its nine-dash line illegal and legitimizing the rights of several Southeast Asian countries, including the Philippiens, over their territorial waters and EEZs.

Despite its self-serving historical claims and with no legal grounds to stand on, and despite the reality that other countries were already occupying islands and exercising legitimate rights over their EEZs within the South China Sea, China has chosen to revive its old claims and now treats the entire South China Sea as its territorial waters, asserting “indisputable sovereignty” over the whole area, including almost the entire Philippine EEZ. It has built several artificial islands and military bases in the area, bullies its neighbors, and prevents us from exploiting our rich marine and mineral resources. 

In a way, China’s ridiculous assertions over the South China Sea can be compared to Israel’s bogus claim over Palestine.

Palestine: Israel’s South China Sea

Like China over the South China Sea, Israel claims historical right over Palestine, stretching back to the Jewish kingdoms of Israel and Judah. Much like the Chinese dynasties, these were conquering kingdoms, annexing territories and constantly at war with other tribes and peoples in ancient Palestine.

Just like China’s dynasties ending and eventually losing control over the South China Sea, the Jewish kingdoms eventually lost control over Palestine. While China’s dynasties were swept away by revolution, the Jewish kingdoms were decimated by a succession of more powerful empires, including the Roman and Turkish empires, resulting in the Diaspora. 

By the 18th century, the Jews had all but left Palestine, with only very small Jewish communities remaining, comprising around 3% of the population. The majority population was composed of Arab Palestinians, with Christians comprising the other minority. It was only later, in the late 19th century, that Zionism emerged as a political ideology among the Jews in Europe that pushed for the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine based on historical and religious grounds. 

Thus, much like China’s nine-dash line, the Zionist’s claims over Palestine had been overtaken by history and by the very fact that Arab Palestinians were already occupying the land for generations.  And very much like China today, such existing realities did not stop the Zionists, with much help from the British and later American imperialists, to forcibly claim and occupy Palestine, in the process making Palestinians refugees in their own land. 

The use of such ancient, historical claims in pursuit of territory, wealth, and strategic advantage, lie at the root of the conflicts in Palestine and the West Philippine Sea.

A common struggle against foreign occupation and colonial rule

As a nation with a long history of resisting colonial rule, it should be easy for Filipinos to relate to the Palestinian people’s fight for self determination against US-backed Israeli occupation and oppression. 

After all, just like Filipinos who fought against Spanish colonialism, US imperialism, and later Japanese occupation, Palestinians have been resisting the annexation of their lands by a foreign-backed Jewish state.  

Add to this is our present-day resistance to China’s illegal and unreasonable claims over the West Philippine Sea. A claim that, not unlike Israel’s, is based on self-serving interpretations of ancient history that have long been superseded by subsequent events. 

For the last 75 years, Israel has been engaged in a brutal war of occupation and subjugation against the Palestinians. Surely, we Filipinos can and should relate to the Palestinian resistance to that.

But why are many Filipinos pro-Israel or, at best, indifferent to the plight of Palestine?

Perhaps what hinders many of us from standing in solidarity with the Palestinians is our belief in the Old Testament’s declaration of the Jews as God’s chosen people and Israel as their promised land. The New Testament supersedes this, for sure, but that is a matter better left to theologians. 

Perhaps many of us confuse God’s covenant with Abraham with Zionism, not realizing that God would never approve of an apartheid state founded on genocide and ethnic cleansing. – Rappler.com

Teddy Casiño served as Bayan Muna representative from 2004-2013. Prior to his stint in Congress, he was secretary-general of the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan.