To some, Prabowo’s policy on Israel is not just semantics

When President Prabowo Subianto said Indonesia will open diplomatic ties with Israel if it recognizes the state of Palestine, he was paraphrasing a long-held policy in which Jakarta categorically says “no” to any relationship with the Jewish state until Palestinians gain their independent and sovereign state. Same meaning, but he just put it differently.

There is nothing new in his statement delivered during a joint media conference with visiting French President Emmanuel Macron in Jakarta on May 28. Yet, some in Indonesia got upset, concluding that Prabowo’s statement went beyond existing policy, as if to suggest Indonesia is ready to open diplomatic ties with Israel. They did not read the conditions stipulated.

By advocating the two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians to co-exist side by side in peace, it already implies that the country with the world’s largest Muslim population is ready to recognize the Jewish state. It is no longer a question of if, but of when.

The suspicion about Prabowo’s statement, however, is well-grounded.

For one, it was made at a joint conference with Macron, who has supported uncritically, at least until recently, Israel’s killings of Palestinians on a large scale in the Gaza Strip on the pretext of the right to defend itself. Prabowo and Macron discussed Gaza, but the content was never disclosed, prompting all kinds of speculation.

Second, there have been rumors of unofficial contacts between Indonesian and Israeli officials to explore opening relations. These apparently stopped after the Oct. 7, 2023, attack in Israel by the Hamas resistance force, which triggered the massive retaliation by the Israeli Defense Forces, killing more than 58,000 people, mostly women and children.

The United States under President Donald Trump also has been pushing Muslim-majority countries, including Saudi Arabia and Indonesia, to join the Abrahamic Accords, which are a series of peace agreements normalizing relations with Israel. The United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan have signed on. Now back in power since January, Trump is pushing the concept again.

There is also the question of timing, with critics saying it is insensitive for Prabowo to openly talk about diplomatic ties, even with conditions, when Israel is committing genocide, and now it is starving the 2 million Palestinians in Gaza into famine.

Hidayat Nur Wahid, the deputy speaker of the House of Representatives, said it was premature for Prabowo to discuss relations with Israel. Several Arab countries that have normalized ties with Israel are disappointed that the condition of Palestinians has gotten worse, said Hidayat, the senior politician of the Islamist Prosperous Justice Party (PKS).

Sudarnoto Abdul Hakim, the head of international relations at the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI), said he opposed Indonesia opening relations with Israel and that Prabowo should not have discussed such a sensitive issue in public given the current situation in Gaza. He retracted an earlier statement which was widely construed as endorsing Prabowo’s statement about opening ties with Israel with the conditions.

Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), Indonesia’s largest Islamic mass organization, supported Prabowo’s statement, stating that it was consistent with the long-held policy for Indonesia supporting the creation of an independent Palestinian state.

Any open discussion of ties with Israel always receives a huge backlash from the public.

In 1999, then-president Abdurrahman Wahid was forced to cancel his plan to open trade ties as a prelude to opening diplomatic ties.

In 2023, FIFA, international soccer’s governing body, canceled Indonesia’s right to host the under-20 tournament in Indonesia after growing public opposition to the participation of Israel, including from two provincial governors who were to host the matches. The tournament was relocated to Argentina.

In the press conference, Prabowo, who served as Indonesia’s defense minister in 2019-2024, went a little bit further from the standard Indonesian foreign policy on ties with Israel when he stressed that once the two-state solution is signed, “we [Indonesia] should state that we will have to recognize and guarantee the right of Israel to exist as a sovereign country and that we also have to guarantee its security.”

In various speeches at home and abroad since assuming the presidency in October, Prabowo has called for the end of colonialism and the occupation of Palestinian land, and for unity among Muslim-majority nations to act for the creation of a Palestinian state.

Addressing the Parliamentary Union of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (PUOIC) in Jakarta in May, he urged members to act together to end the suffering of the Palestinian people. “The time has come. We should not just discuss the issue or draft resolutions. The Palestinian people have long been victimized. They want to see us on their side, they want to see clear action.” He never spelled out what that action might be.