Filipino and Palestinian Peasants: Intersecting struggles and shared (battle)fields

Filipino and Palestinian Peasants: Intersecting struggles and shared (battle)fields
Photo credit: Sama-samang Artista para sa Kilusang Agraryo (SAKA) via FB

October is a special month marking the 2nd anniversary of the Al Aqsa Flood and is also celebrated as Peasant Month. This convergence is a powerful reminder of the intersections between the struggles of Palestinian and Filipino peasants, connected by the unifying force of anti-imperialism that both movements embody. 

Both peoples face land dispossession, state violence, and militarization under imperialist forces, notably US imperialism in the Philippines and Zionism in Palestine, which undermine peasant rights and sovereignty. Military forces continue to oppress peasants through violent suppression and enforcement of harsh policies, keeping both peoples in a cycle of exploitation and resistance.

Historically, peasants have played crucial roles in revolutionary movements in both Palestine and the Philippines. These revolts reflect the resilience of rural working classes against oppressive landlordism and imperial control.

Palestinians face imposed starvation as a deliberate tactic of genocide by Israeli occupation forces, including severe restrictions on farming and fishing in occupied territories. Palestinian farmers defy militarized blockades by reviving traditional agricultural practices, seed banks, water harvesting, and agroecological techniques to reclaim their food sovereignty and resist displacement.

The Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP), a militant peasant organization, aligns with these struggles, emphasizing genuine land reform, national sovereignty free from foreign domination, protection of peasant and fisherfolk rights, and solidarity with global anti-imperialist movements, including Palestinian farmers. They highlight the shared cause against imperialism and neocolonial exploitation as central to the liberation of peasants everywhere.

Colonial and Imperial Roots of Land Dispossession and Militarization

In both Palestine and the Philippines, US imperialism and Zionism have inflicted deep wounds on peasant communities through land seizures, economic dispossession, and militarized oppression. Zionist settlers initially allied with large Palestinian feudal landowners, who dispossessed small fellahin peasants through exploitative practices including usury and heavy taxation, facilitating the transfer of land to colonial settlers. 

Similarly, Philippine peasants are subjected to feudal exploitation under local landlords protected by the state and foreign agribusiness interests. The military acts as an enforcer of this system: Israeli forces violently control Palestinian land and prevent agricultural activities, while in the Philippines, state forces suppress peasant protests and enforce landlord interests. Both peoples endure state violence that targets peasants as key resistors to imperial and landlord domination.

Shared Histories of Peasant Uprisings

The Palestinian Great Revolt (1936-1939) was a large-scale peasant-led uprising against British colonial rule and Zionist colonization. The peasants mobilized rural and working-class communities, confronting the world’s preeminent colonial power with limited arms but fierce resolve, becoming a formative moment for Palestinian national identity. 

Filipino peasants have a parallel legacy in the Sakdal Uprising (1935) and the Pampanga sugar peasant uprisings (1937-1941), where landless peasants rebelled against oppressive tenancy and landlordism, expressing deep frustration with systemic exploitation. Both histories reveal peasants as vital revolutionary subjects who challenge colonial and neocolonial rule, asserting their rights and dignity through collective resistance.

Hunger, Starvation, and Food Sovereignty

Food sovereignty is a critical and shared battlefield. Filipino peasants suffer hunger despite producing food for the nation, a paradox rooted in landlessness, poverty, and exploitation by landlords and foreign agri-business. Policies such as the Rice Tariffication Law, which KMP condemns for increasing peasants' dependence on imported rice, undermines local production and food sovereignty. KMP calls for the repeal of this law and for prioritizing domestic food production.

In Palestine, Israel employs starvation as a weapon of genocide, imposing harsh restrictions on farming, fishing, and access to water, leading to catastrophic food insecurity and malnutrition among Palestinians in Gaza and occupied territories. 

Palestinian farmers respond with resistance rooted in food sovereignty: preserving indigenous seed varieties, using rainwater harvesting, dryland farming, and agroecological methods. This defiance challenges imposed dependency and asserts the right to food and dignity under siege. Their struggle exemplifies food sovereignty as a core pillar of liberation from imperialism.

Ecocide as a Weapon of War

The devastation of Gaza’s agricultural landscape goes beyond the loss of individual fields; it’s an intentional campaign of ecocide. Israeli bombardments have razed greenhouses, shredded irrigation networks, and reduced orchards to ash, turning once-fertile terrain into barren wasteland. According to the Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC), a member organization of La Vía Campesina, nearly half of Gaza’s farmland has been destroyed. The loss of soil fertility, the contamination of groundwater, and the burning of livestock collectively erase how Palestinian families have historically secured their food and livelihood.

Strategic Environmental Destruction

Far from being incidental collateral damage, this systematic targeting of agricultural infrastructure is a calculated strategy. By crippling the very ecosystems that sustain Palestinian communities, the Israeli regime weaponizes environmental degradation to deepen food insecurity, deprive residents of clean water, and force dependence on external aid. The destruction of irrigation systems and the poisoning of wells leave farmers unable to cultivate crops or raise animals, effectively stripping them of the capacity to feed themselves and their neighbors.

Solidarity Through Food Sovereignty

Recognizing agriculture as a frontline of resistance underscores why solidarity with Palestinian and Filipino farmers is essential. Which is why supporting Palestinian and Filipino farmers is inseparable from championing the broader struggle for food sovereignty worldwide. 

As La Vía Campesina and the UAWC have highlighted, defending the right to land, water, and a viable means of production is not merely a humanitarian appeal, it’s a demand for justice against a policy of ecological annihilation. Standing with Palestinian growers and Filipino peasants therefore means opposing both the immediate violence and the longer-term project of erasing their agricultural heritage.

By aligning their own fight against dispossession with the plight of Palestinian cultivators, Filipino farmers not only reinforce a shared vision of self‑determined agriculture but also models a global peasant solidarity that transcends borders. Such reciprocal support strengthens food sovereignty for both peoples, turning isolated grievances into a united front against imperialist and neoliberal forces that seek to weaponize land and water as tools of oppression.

The Global Peasant Struggle

Together, the struggles of Palestinian and Filipino peasants illuminate the global fight against imperialism, colonialism, and capitalist exploitation. The Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas continues to advocate for genuine land reform, sovereignty, and social justice for peasants in the Philippines, standing in solidarity with Palestinian farmers and peasants. 

Observing October as both the anniversary of the Al Aqsa Flood and Peasant Month is a powerful opportunity to deepen solidarity and strengthen the resolve against imperial domination, militarization, and land grabbing that threaten the very survival of peasant communities worldwide.

Sources and Further Reading

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