W

hile the world’s numerous crises will be aired at the United Nations this week, Indonesia will continue to advocate that more attention be given to the Palestinian struggle for independence.

During a week of high-level meetings under the banner of the 73rd UN General Assembly in New York, Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi held a number of bilateral talks with partner countries, calling on greater support for Palestine in the decades-long unresolved Middle East conflict.

“The world has to pay more attention to the future of a two-state solution for Palestine,” Retno said in a recorded statement in New York on Tuesday.

On Monday, she met with various partners, including Saudi Arabia Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir and the secretary-general of the Arab League, Ahmed Aboul-Gheit, as well as counterparts from Greece, the Solomon Islands and Colombia.

In contrast to the optimistic climate between the United States and Palestine in last year’s series of UN meetings, where the prospect of peace with Israel was still considered a “possible deal of the century”, Palestine now has to deal with a radical shift in US policy.

The US officially relocated its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in May, effectively recognizing the latter as Israel’s capital, a sign many took to be a step backward from the proposed two-state solution.

US President Donald Trump also cut all funding to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), causing a huge deficit at the agency that provides housing, health care, education and social services to around 5 million Palestinian refugees.

US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said the US was withholding funds because of the growing number of refugees, and she questioned their right of return to Israel, which is claimed by Palestinians as crucial to any eventual peace settlement.

The agency currently needed around US$185 million to remain operational, said Pierre Krahenbuhl, the commissioner general of the UNRWA.

“Currently, we have money in the bank [that] will last, I presume, somewhere into [...] mid-October,” he said as quoted by Reuters.

In Jakarta on Monday, Palestinian Ambassador to Indonesia Zuhair al-Shun gathered officials, religious leaders and representatives from humanitarian organizations to support Palestine President Mahmoud Abbas when he speaks before the UN General Assembly on Thursday.

Indonesia has also shown support to the Palestinian cause at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland, where Hasan Kleib, Indonesia’s resident ambassador to the UN, said the country’s support for Palestine remained unwavering.

“It has been more than 60 years that Israel has made the region a theater of tension and violence. The Palestinian people live a difficult life every day, and Israel has been stubbornly ignoring international pressure to end its illegal occupation of Palestinian land,” Hasan said in a statement issued on Monday.

He added that the use of armed violence against Palestinian civilians in Gaza, where at least 60 were killed during peaceful protests earlier this year, should be a reminder for the council to take concrete action that ensured Israel ended its inhumane policies and that it should withdraw from all occupied territories.

To that end, Indonesia welcomed the establishment of the recent Commission of Inquiry, which is tasked with investigating possible human rights violations by Israeli security forces against Palestinian civilians.

Hasan said he hoped that the commission would issue recommendations regarding the appropriate accountability mechanism for perpetrators of armed violence by Israel against Palestinian civilians.