W

hile Indonesia is fixated on the independence of Palestine, other problems in the Middle East also deserve Indonesia’s attention as a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), experts say.

Habibie Center vice chairperson Dewi Fortuna Anwar pointed out that the conflicts in Syria and Yemen had received little attention from the government, even though they were among the biggest humanitarian tragedies happening in the world today.

“Indonesia cannot ignore this. With its membership in the UNSC, Indonesia can hopefully encourage UN member states to find solutions in Yemen and Syria,” she said during a discussion on Wednesday.

At a UNSC open debate on the situation in the Middle East on Tuesday, Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi reiterated Indonesia’s support for the Palestinians, saying that the issue of Palestine’s UN membership deserved the full attention of the council.

She drew attention to three main issues required to encourage the resolution of the Palestine-Israel conflict: compliance to international law, a legitimate peace process and an end to the ongoing humanitarian crisis.

As a staunch supporter of Palestinian statehood, Indonesia has vowed to promote the Palestinian agenda as part of its 4+1 list of priorities in the UNSC.

“Basically, what we spoke about in the meeting mostly centered on the Palestinian issue,” Retno said in a recorded statement received on Wednesday.

On Syria and Yemen, Retno stated that Indonesia welcomed the continued efforts for peace, saying: “Indonesia stands ready to contribute.”

Meanwhile, on Lebanon, she highlighted the deployment of 1,308 Indonesian peacekeepers to the country as Indonesia’s contribution to the UN’s peacekeeping mission.

Dewi said the government saw Israel’s occupation of Palestine as an issue of colonialism, which according to a preamble of the 1945 Constitution, must be abolished.

“Palestine has been part of Indonesia’s foreign policy priority agenda for decades. There is a kind of obsession over unfinished business that must be resolved.”

She added that in the 1950s and 1960s, then-president Sukarno was a champion for the struggle of independence, and in the Asian African Conference in 1955, Palestine was included on the list. But decades on, it has yet to gain its independence.

Furthermore, there was a sense of sympathy and religious solidarity among the general public, she said, resulting in the perception that Palestine’s struggle was not merely an issue of independence, but that of a Muslim community living under the tyranny of a non-Muslim group.

As Yemen has become a proxy conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran as an extension of the Sunni and Shia conflict, Dewi said Indonesia must continue to present itself as an honest broker with Arab countries, as it has maintained a good relationship with both Tehran and Riyadh.

According to Hamdan Basyar, an expert on the Middle East at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), Indonesia’s neutral stance on the Yemen conflict was not the case in the Israel-Palestine conflict.

However, he said the neutral stance would be tested in the UNSC when presented with various resolutions on the issues and Indonesia must tread lightly among concerning parties.

“We should support the government, not the Houthis, but still keep Iran close. Or we should push for the groups in Yemen to resolve their own problems and make their own agreement. But until they reach an agreement, we should support the legitimate party,” he said.