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Gaza strikes 'not religious conflict', group says
FACES OF FURY: Muslim students vent their anger with Israel’s attack on Palestine during a rally outside the United Nations’ representative office on Jl
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FACES OF FURY: Muslim students vent their anger with Israel’s attack on Palestine during a rally outside the United Nations’ representative office on Jl. MH Thamrin in Central Jakarta. The students asked the UN on Monday to stop the violence, which has claimed hundreds of lives. (JP/J. Adiguna)
Religious organizations grouped under the Inter-Religious Forum have called for Indonesians to stop viewing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a religious clash.
The group says the ongoing conflict in Gaza should be deemed a political, economic and territorial conflict, rather than a religious one, as is popularly played up here.
"We hereby call for all -- Israelis and Palestinians -- to stop committing violence under any name. And we call for the Indonesian government to proactively create peace in Gaza by prioritizing the dispatch of humanitarian missions to the area," forum coordinator Agus Zaenal Mubarok said Monday at a press conference in Bandung.
His statement was echoed by Minister Christian Oro from the Western Indonesia Protestant Church, who said all Indonesians should see the Gaza conflict from a factual standpoint.
"This is actually a matter of a power grab over a territory; a political matter," Oro said, adding the background of the conflict in Gaza had to be made clear to avoid problems in religious life in Indonesia.
Robert Suryanto from the Bandung Diocese and Willy George from the West Java Indonesia Church Union also shared Oro's concerns.
Robert said he was worried the Gaza conflict would create a social bias here, while Willy urged the media to be more careful in what it reported, saying, "Please be careful in writing sentences, to avoid misinterpretation."
Oro added that to support a peaceful settlement of the Gaza conflict, Christians in Indonesia had begun gathering financial aid to help Palestine's civilian victims of the bloody conflict.
He said Rp 7.75 million (US$720) had been collected as of Monday and that the aid would be channeled to Palestine through the interfaith forum.
In Yogyakarta, Muhammadiyah, the country's second largest Muslim organization, officially announced its condemnation of Israel's "brutal attacks" on Gaza and urged the UN to impose sanctions on Israel.
Muhammadiyah also urged the Muslim world, particularly Arab countries, to unite and take concrete measures to defend the Palestinians. The organization will send a medical team to the area.
"Arab countries have learned a good lesson from fighting Israel on their own. They are far more inferior in terms of weaponry," said Muhammadiyah deputy chairman Yunahar Ilyas.
He gave examples of "concrete actions" the countries could take, including launching joint political action, breaking off relations with Israel or imposing an oil embargo on the United States to force an end to the latter's support of Israel.
Yunahar, however, admitted it would not be easy to unite the typically authoritarian Arab governments.
"Unity can perhaps be reached if all incumbent leaders of the Arab states are replaced, because most people in these countries are actually ready to unite to fight Israel and its allies," he said.
