As we near World News Day I am reminded of the adage “democracy is local” (Thomas Jefferson all the way back then); the work of journalists in their communities is nothing short of an expression of agency, citizenship and empowerment that are the building blocks of democracy. 

Everyone’s eyes focus on elections, big events and major changes when considering the viability of actions to bring about democracy.

But from where I stand it is the daily hard work of citizenship on the small scale that can eventually build sustainable understanding and commitment to effective, inclusive democracy. And the work of those committed journalists who go to work everyday to report on and for their communities are central to that process.

This is not an easy job. Building, managing and sustaining local, public service journalism capable of playing critical roles in supporting their communities is more often than not a thankless task. Across the world money has dried up as the business of journalism has been threatened by big tech, jobs have been shed, quality has been compromised, resources are fragmented and the value of journalism is constantly contested. 

Closing information spaces is an increasingly high risk. Just look at the past 11 months in Gaza where Israel has killed an unprecedented number of journalists with impunity. The latest count by CPJ documents at least 116 journalists killed in this war.  And it is not just lives we are losing; credibility too.

“Beware if you continue to lie you will grow up to be a CNN journalist” quipped a popular meme in Arabic at the advent of the carnage against Palestinians in Gaza. And there were variations: a BBC journalist, etc. The trust in Western media’s impartiality and standards has been sorely tested and not just in the Arabic-speaking world bringing back the ghosts of post 9/11 coverage, the Iraq War and even coverage of Trump and US elections. 

And it seems that  the very people we aim to serve are also increasingly jaded by mis-information/dis-information campaigns and audience mis-trust and avoidance are daily realities.

Disturbing trends

We know, from our work in the heart of communities and from the disturbing trends that have paralleled the demise of local journalism, that independent journalism is critical in exploring and upholding truth. “It is such a hard job,” confides a journalist as he mopped the sweat off of his brow in a field where he was reporting on farmers’ struggles in Egypt. And yet he stood his ground and because he did his community could find reliable information and make informed decisions about their daily lives. He is not an internationally recognized figure, people rarely know the rank and file. But his work embodies the heart and soul of what journalism is—an act of service.

We have lived firsthand the dangers to democracy posed by losing independent—particularly local—media. We are now confident in the knowledge that the survival of a diverse, proficient media sector is an essential cornerstone in that pursuit of humanity and freedom.

We can have no more doubts with regards to the threat monopolies of big tech companies pose to our profession and can think clearly about the value journalism brings to society and where we need to re-trench and set up boundaries. 

The examples of those grasping this moment are out there: journalist owned media outlets for some, print houses and products for others, community engagement for many—and that is just some of what is being done. 

The rest is up to you: our audiences and communities. Tell us what you need. Support news organizations that are prioritizing good journalism and public service. Make good and informed choices with regards to what media you consume. Because only together can we build a thriving, responsive journalism ecosystem in support of justice and truth.

Fatemah Farag is the founder and director of Welad ElBalad Media Egypt. This article was produced as part of the World News Day campaign to highlight the importance of journalism.

Read more: EJN wins SOPA Award for greenwashing collaborative reporting

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The event was announced online a few days earlier and shared by over 100 within hours. It was pegged to run from Holy Thursday to Black Saturday, but organizers decided to hold it on the day Christ was nailed to a cross and died.

The security guard at Don Antonio Heights advised me to take the long way around to get to the venue, remarking on the motor traffic quickly a-building. 

Clearly an independent effort, Our Little Gaza Kitchen had not anticipated the huge turnout and hired no additional hands. It was scheduled at 4-6 p.m.; I arrived just a little past 5. A friend messaged me that she had to leave her father for errands at the food line that was already snaking through the narrow and poorly ventilated compound mostly made of concrete and painted a dull yellow. 

Laughing children ran around waving balloons and plastic bags, shouting at each other in a mix of English, Filipino and Arabic. Perhaps they were excited by the multitude suddenly gathering in their compound on that sweltering March afternoon. They imitated the adults selling food inside: “Twenty pesos, mango juice! One fifty, chicken biryani! Masarap! Masarap (Delicious)!”

Nords Maguindanao, a bearded man in a white shirt and the event manager from the Moro-Palestinian Cooperation Team, tried to keep the crowd traffic in check, telling us that we could skip the line if we wanted to try the desserts first. He said the biryani had run out and a fresh batch was still being cooked. 

Free dates were offered to those waiting for the food replenishments.

To practice Iftar

Later I asked Nords how the event came about. He said it was more than a means to make money for rebuilding their lives. For them, it was to practice Iftar in the middle of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan: breaking their fast by giving charity to those who are fasting. At the same time, it was to help Palestinian families forced to flee Israel’s ongoing strikes on Gaza. 

Wishing to pry further, I walked around the venue and found Gabes Torres, one of the contact persons mentioned in the online posters. She said the idea for the event arose when she and her friends were celebrating her birthday. Back then A Taste of Gaza, a small kitchen run by Palestinian refugees in Quezon City, had already been cooking and selling food, but Gabes and her friends thought more interaction with a wider public was needed.  

So they got the word out and raised the funds to start a bigger kitchen. The Palestinian Filipino mothers organized large-scale cookouts. 

One mother recalled that when they arrived in the Philippines—“Nung umuwi kami rito”—“we found it a bit difficult to look for the spices that we cooked with in Gaza.”

“Until, Alhamdulillah (Praise be to God), we encountered Shopee,” she said. 

I asked what adjustments they have had to make in cooking Palestinian dishes for Filipinos. She said it was mostly that Filipinos do not cook with as many spices as she and the others did in Gaza. 

“My favorite dish is mandi, which is smoke-flavored rice with either chicken or beef. My mother-in-law taught me that dish,” she said.

To fly back home

This was all jarring to me, but in a good way. In the past six months, we have been flooded with images of shattered lives, destroyed homes, and dead children in Palestine. There was not a single image of Palestinians celebrating their birthdays, ordering from Shopee, cooking for big crowds, or even just enjoying a meal.

Nords told me that if peace ever comes to Palestine, the refugees in Quezon City would want to fly back to their home. (Surprisingly, a representative of the Department of Foreign Affairs has supposedly expressed to them that the Philippine government is willing to support their repatriation.)  

Many of Our Little Gaza Kitchen’s cooks are Filipino women married to Palestinian men who came to the Philippines in the ’80s and ’90s to study. The women lived different lives in Gaza; cooking 20 meals per order is not their default expertise. It surprised them that so many Filipinos, especially non-Muslims, came to Our Little Gaza Kitchen that afternoon.

“We hope that Filipinos will get to know us and like us. Maybe we can put up more branches or pop-ups like Gaza Kitchen,” the Palestinian Filipino mother told me. “Inshallah (If Allah wills it), this would be a way for us to start anew here. Kasi, sa totoo lang po, wala na po kaming babalikan (To be honest, there’s nothing for us to go back to there).” 

The reflections of Fr. Bong Tupino for Maundy Thursday and Fr. Jomari Aragones for Good Friday centered on feet—our service to others through Christ’s washing of feet and our commitment to struggle with others, using our feet to walk and to show up for our different causes. 

When I was writing this on Easter Sunday, with the news tuned to Al Jazeera, the reports were about protesters in London calling for an end to Israel’s attacks on Gaza and protesters in Tel Aviv condemning Netanyahu for his failure to bring the Israeli hostages home; about the oldest Catholic communities celebrating Masses in a starved and darkened Palestine; and about 17 more added to the dead in Israel’s genocide in Gaza. 

Some say that there is no genocide, that there are many complexities to this war, and that we all have our own interests in it, in one way or another. But Our Little Gaza Kitchen was something that would not have even materialized had the world been fair. There is little to argue about when someone who lost their home to foreign occupation serves you food and tells you that maybe she could keep doing it until they find home again.

For orders and other news about pop-up Palestinian kitchens, follow A Taste of Gaza–Palestinian Food in Quezon City on Facebook. 

DLS Pineda is a lecturer at the University of the Philippines Diliman and the secretary general of the Human Rights and People Empowerment Center. He plays bass and rides a bike to work most of the time.

Read more: End Israeli apartheid in the West Bank and Gaza, and free Palestine

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Both the western and local media are generally pro-Israel in their reporting on the Israeli-Hamas war. That should be the Israeli-Palestinian war because both sides don’t care about civilian casualties, including children and infants. On the other hand, there is a Palestinian bias in Arab/Muslim countries although admittedly, my main source is Al Jazeera and whatever else interesting I find in my Google newsfeed. 

The most common reasons cited in justifying Israel’s right to occupy the “holy land” are from the Bible: that Israelis have occupied it since biblical times because it is the “promised land”; that the Old Testament God, the God of Jews, Muslims and Christians, gave it to them. However, a critical reading of the relevant scriptures and independent historical and archeological evidence does not support this claim.

The “promised land” is described in Genesis 12 and 15:18-21: “In the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates: 19. The Kenites, and the Kenizzites, and the Kadmonites, 20. And the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Rephaims, 21. And the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.”

This large area of the “promised land” from eastern Egypt (Wadi of Egypt) to the Euphrates River is the same land area of the “Garden of Eden” (Genesis 2:11-14). No surprise, the ancient Hebrews didn’t know about Europe, India, China, and America; otherwise, they would have included them. 

But what is important is what the Lord specified: It is the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, etc., but no land of the Philistines! The Lord cannot make mistakes; he excluded Palestine. 

It was just a promise. While the Israelites settled in Canaan after escaping from Egypt, Moses hoped to be given the whole area if they were obedient to the covenant—a conditional agreement (Deuteronomy 19:8-9). God will give them the whole promised land if they follow all his rules, commandments. 

Did they? NO! Take adultery, which was punishable by death. The most prominent violators were Israel’s leaders, David and Solomon.

The real meaning of the “rule of law” has a biblical basis: The poor and the weak should follow rules or they go to jail or become victims of extrajudicial killing, while the powerful and rich are exempted from the rules. Remember, God could not find even 10 honest men in Sodom and Gomorrah, so everybody was killed by fire. With Noah, no questions asked, everybody was wicked and drowned. 

What about today’s Israelis? Do they deserve the promised land? NO! They violate all the rules; many don’t even believe the Jewish God (see Pew Research surveys). Consider also Exodus 22:20-26: “You shall not molest or oppress aliens, for you were once aliens in the land of Egypt. You should not wrong any widow or orphan … if you wrong them, I will kill you.” Consider the Israelis’ indiscriminate bombing. Killing Palestinian widows and orphans is a crime punishable by death, by their own rules.

That part of the “holy and promised land” has always been called Palestine since biblical times 1450 BCE, or before the ancient Hebrews (Jews) under Abraham migrated from Ur in southern Iraq to 1948 when Israelis occupied it by war. The area was under Egyptian pharaohs who named it Peleste/Philistia after the Philistines. After the Assyrian defeat of the Egyptians, it was conquered by the Greeks, about 300 BCE, and the Greeks named it Palestine. 

Archeological data indicate that the Philistines originated from the Aegean Sea, thus their Greek affinities. The Greek historian Herodotus had a map of the known world at that time, with Palestine. 

The next occupier was the Roman Empire from about 60 BCE, retaining the name Palestine (Syria Palestine, to be exact). Thus, Jesus was a Palestinian Jew (and not white like Europeans). But the longest occupiers were Muslims, from about 600 CE until 1917 under the Ottomans, who were defeated by the British during World War I. 

At this point, 90% of the population is Arab; the rest are Christians, more than the Jews. While the British government prevented illegal Jewish immigration from Europe, this continued with the help of British and US Zionists—like President Harry S. Truman—arming and training them. Thus, when the Palestinians disagreed with the two-state partition plan, war ensued. 

Note that the hostilities were preceded by Jewish terrorism and landgrabbing, which are considered illegal under international laws, the Geneva Convention and UN resolutions. 

One can’t blame the Palestinians. Israel got 55% of Palestine, more than the original owners since biblical times. Thus, the Palestinians became refugees in their own homeland.

Romy S. Aquino is a consulting geologist.

See: End Israeli apartheid in the West Bank and Gaza, and free Palestine

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A bit of recent CNN footage on Gaza partially shows three children laid out on their back, their tiny legs and feet looking vulnerable. It takes only seconds—blink, and you miss it—but the fleeting footage of the small corpses is a graphic display of Israel’s relentless moves to wipe Hamas off the face of the earth, the same relentlessness that has marked Israel’s brutal occupation of Gaza and that has trapped Palestinians in an “open-air prison” on their own partitioned land.

CNN’s reportage on the Israeli air strike on Tuesday on the “densely populated” Jabalya refugee camp in northern Gaza, which killed “dozens,” including women and children, adds to the observer’s mounting anguish. The attack was condemned by B’Tselem, a human rights organization in Israel; a spokesperson of the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) said it was a “tragedy of war” and had as target a ranking Hamas leader.

At this writing, the number of the dead in the weeks since Israel turned its full military might on Palestinians in retaliation for Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack that, per Israeli officials, resulted in 1,400 slaughtered and more than 200 taken hostage, is, per Gaza health authorities, 8,485, including women and children. It’s said that the number of children killed in the weeks of Israeli attacks is now more than the number in varying places of conflict in three years.

There appears no immediate stop to this calamity that is grinding ever forward (and that, along with Russia’s war on Ukraine, is keeping the West’s war industry flourishing). In the face of the killing, dislocation and suffering of civilians in Gaza—the bombings and ground operations exacerbating Israel’s blockade on food, water and fuel—Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected all calls for a ceasefire. It “will not happen,” he declared on Monday. 

CNN footage of Palestinians raiding a United Nations warehouse of food and other basic supplies indicates the level of despair among the civilian population. Only a trickle of trucks vis-a-vis the crippling need  has been allowed into Gaza through the Rafah crossing to deliver essential assistance, excluding fuel, of which overcrowded hospitals are reported to be running out.

“Hell on earth” is how Gaza is described in its current circumstances. 

Anguish over the apocalyptic developments in Israel and Palestine runs deep in Filipinos—or should. Four Filipinos are among the dead, three killed in Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack and the fourth days later; two of those missing are believed to be among its hostages. There are Filipino Palestinians and their families in dire straits in Gaza and the West Bank. Filipinos in Tel Aviv and elsewhere in Israel are community pillars who serve as caregivers, from reports even over and beyond the call of duty.

As elsewhere on the planet in the course of the Philippines’ labor export policy that was established during Ferdinand Marcos Sr.s presidency, Filipinos have become entrenched in Israel, building a reputation as “efficient” and “loyal”caregivers. They give of themselves to a foreign country in a manner and method now lost to their motherland, spending their most productive years providing care and attention to that country’s elderly,  away from their own aging parents and their spouses and children—and, in the crunch, loath to wrench themselves from the area of conflict.

On ANC shortly after the Hamas attack, a Filipino caregiver in Israel said she was not particularly desperate to register for repatriation and would, if obligated to do so, seek assurance of hassle-free return. Many were conflicted but ultimately availed themselves of official efforts to pull them out, after the Department of Foreign Affairs finally raised Alert Level 4 (for mandatory evacuation and repatriation). Another caregiver, praised for having protected her elderly employer and herself by offering her own money to  the Hamas attackers, tearfully relayed to her anxious child the message that she was coming home. 

Their hesitation to leave Israel despite the war that threatens to spread in the region is not incomprehensible: Most of them found employment there that, despite their diligent efforts, they could not find at home—employment that has allowed them to put food on the table for the loved ones they left behind and, among other filial obligations, to put family members through school. In reports, the Israeli ambassador to the Philippines acknowledged the dead Filipinos’ contribution to his country and promised assistance to their grieving families. 

Still the conflict rages, with the IDF expanding its ground operations in Gaza to complement its bomb strikes, leading to the sight of rows of corpses wrapped in white sheets when the dust cleared in Jabalya. Unthinkable as it may seem, there will be more dead innocents in Palestinian territory—not that all Israeli civilians demand it—with Israel and its allies led by the United States rejecting late last month the UN General Assembly’s adoption of a resolution for an “urgent, durable and permanent humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza.” The resolution drafted by 22 Arab countries was adopted by a vote of 120-14, with 45 nations including the Philippines abstaining.

This “neutral” stance may be perplexing for those who profess to abhor war and the killing of civilians, but it behooves Filipinos to be aware of the nuts and bolts of the Philippines’ alliances with Israel and the United States. 

Surigao del Sur Rep. Johnny Pimentel, for example, recently offered specific figures concerning Filipino employment in Israel. “The Philippines risks losing some P7.4 billion in cash remittances from thousands of migrant Filipino workers, mostly caregivers and private duty nurses, in the event of an escalation in the war between Israel and the Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas,” Pimentel’s office quoted him as saying. “Our best estimate is that Filipino workers in Israel send to their families in the Philippines around $131 million (or P7.4 billion) in cash transfers on an annual basis,” coursed through banks and other remittance channels.

And then, of course, the Philippines is now looking to the United States to back its newfound spine against China’s incursions in the West Philippine Sea, toward which the past administration exhibited the most benign tolerance.  

How long before the Philippines finds its true voice? How long before the war against humanity in Gaza ends?

See: End Israeli apartheid in the West Bank and Gaza, and free Palestine

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I am 82, I deserve to retire. Words don’t flow freely anymore. Political passions have to make way for naps and junk novels. But political events have a way of stirring passions. More than 7,000 Palestinians dead from 6,000 bombs raining down their heads! 

I can’t stay quiet in the face of this. Many profound, angry things have been written about the situation in Palestine. I can’t do the research necessary to add substantially to the analyses. What I can do is put some order to my feelings.

I want to start by saying I am pro-Palestine. I am not anti-Israel, though I am definitely against the Netanyahu right-wing government. I am not antisemitic. My son Diego is a Jew; he has a Jewish mother. I certainly am not a holocaust denier, though the moral authority of the Jewish people from the holocaust is being eroded by what is happening in Palestine.

Palestinian land

Israel is built on Palestinian land when 700,000 Palestinians were expelled from their farms going back to the nakba in 1948. Since then, Palestinians have been scattered in refugee camps in Lebanon and other Arab countries. At least 5 million live in the West Bank and Gaza. Since the 1967 war, the West Bank has been under Israeli occupation. Palestinians have to go through hundreds of checkpoints. 

In South Africa this was called a system of apartheid.

There are 680,000 Israelis living in 300 settlements in the West Bank who are given priority access to water and other basic services. Settlers are officially backed by military and police in attacking Palestinians to expand settlements in violation of international law. 

I experienced the indignity of having to go through checkpoints when I visited Ramallah in the West Bank. In a lecture I gave to university students, I asked them who would participate in demonstrations in the intifada, where they might be shot by Israeli soldiers. Every single one of them, men and women alike, said yes, they would.

Pressure has been particularly intense in Gaza where another 2.4 million Palestinians live in a narrow 41-square-mile sliver of land. Hamas, which was elected government in 2006, has maintained a militant stance in contrast to the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. The Netanyahu extreme-right government has emboldened settlers who have intensified attacks on Palestinians. With the support of police they have harassed pilgrims visiting the sacred Al-Aqsa mosque. It is telling that Hamas has called its Oct. 7 attack the Al-Aqsa Flood. 

Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack was unprecedented. Nothing in Israeli history matches its severity. Among the 1,400 Israeli dead were women and children—a violation of international humanitarian law. 

The Hamas attack has been called a terrorist attack. What should we call the Israeli response, with 6,000 bombs and over 7,000 victims and counting, the majority women and children, and supplies of food, water and fuel blocked? This is “collective punishment” and this goes way beyond self-defense. 

Asymmetrical war

It is difficult to predict which way this war will go. In an “asymmetrical war,” civilians on both sides are going to be victimized. The two sides are grossly unequal. Israel has the most powerful military in the whole Middle East. Hamas has two advantages: the terrain and its estimated 200 hostages. When Israeli soldiers enter Gaza, they will be fighting in an urban terrain with which Hamas is more familiar. And roughhouse tactics by the Israelis will endanger the hostages. 

It’s been three weeks and as of this writing (Oct. 24), the Israelis have not entered Gaza despite daily threats. They fear that Hamas has prepared traps and unknown weapons. Then there is the threat of Hezbollah, a more powerful ally of Hamas in Lebanon which has threatened to join the war if the Israelis enter Gaza. Hezbollah is a much more powerful force and would alter the terms of the war. 

Israeli tactics are obvious. Threaten entry into Gaza every day. Meanwhile, prepare the ground, bomb indiscriminately. Prevent food from entering so people starve. The expectation is that if the people are hungry enough, they will do what the Israelis are pushing: They will move to the south and only Hamas fighters will be left. Yet, few people are moving even with conditions getting worst by the day.

The propaganda of the United States and its allies, France, Germany and the United Kingdom, is that people are not moving because the nearest countries, Lebanon and Jordan, are refusing to accept Gaza refugees. But why should Jordan and Lebanon accept refugees? They know it is an Israeli tactic. Already they host hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in refugee camps. Besides, everyone remembers nakba, when Israel refused to accept the return of those it had kicked out. 

Simple solution

To lessen the impact of the humanitarian crisis, direct aid through the Egyptian border has finally started, but after a week of waiting, less than 40 truckloads have been allowed in by the Israelis—a drop in the bucket. The solution to the humanitarian crisis is simple and obvious: a ceasefire and Israel’s lifting of its blockade on food. The reason the United States and its allies refuse to make the call is this: Hunger, and moving people out of the north of Gaza, is a crucial part of the Israeli game plan.

Despite intense attempts to suppress the pro-Palestinian movement—in France and Germany it is banned outright—it is growing. In England, where the Sunak government is supporting Israel, over 100,000 turned out for a pro-Palestine rally. Even in the United States, university students—and quietly, State Department staff—are critical of the Biden administration’s support of the Israelis. 

The longer the crisis lasts, the greater the support for a solution that ends apartheid in Gaza and the West Bank.

A one-state solution is a non-starter. The Israeli ruling groups will never agree to a state where Jews are not given privileged status. A genuine two-state solution requires a number of things. The demolition of the 300 settlements in the West Bank. This is not impossible; this was done in Gaza. The release of hostages and political prisoners held in Israeli prisons. The end of Israeli control in both Gaza and the West Bank. 

Only this solution will gain the support of neighboring Arab states. It might be the only way Israel will survive.

This piece was first run in the author’s Facebook account. —Ed.

See: Sinistral in a dextral world

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