Indonesia has voiced strong opposition to the United States’ declaration Monday that it would no longer consider Israeli settlements in Palestine illegal.

Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi said Tuesday that Indonesia was “very concerned” with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s statement that Washington believed the building of Israeli settlements in Palestinian territory was “not inconsistent with international law”.

"Calling the establishment of civilian settlements inconsistent with international law hasn't worked. It hasn't advanced the cause of peace," Pompeo was quoted by AFP as saying.

The announcement is a victory for Israel’s right wing establishment, which has seen waning support with incumbent leader Benjamin Netanyahu unable to form a government after two deadlocked elections this year.

"Of course we cannot accept this because it contradicts international law and is in conflict with every United Nations Security Council [UNSC] resolution," Retno said.

She said Indonesia had moved swiftly to discuss the contentious issue with other countries at the UNSC in response to the US policy change.

“They have chipped away at the illegal settlement issue, the status of Jerusalem, and even the refugee problem. At the end of it, what is left to negotiate? This is what concerns us,” she said.

Near the end of Barack Obama’s time in office in 2016, the US’ permanent representative to the UN allowed the Security Council to condemn the Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem as a “flagrant violation” of international law.

Prior to this, Washington had typically used its veto power as a permanent member of the council to block resolutions condemning Israel. One presidential term later and ahead of a major reelection push by Donald Trump, Washington has reversed its position once again.

Prior to Monday’s statement, US policy on the Israel-Palestine conflict was based, at least in theory, on a legal opinion issued by the US State Department in 1978 that stated that Israeli settlements in Palestinian territories captured a decade earlier by Israel were “inconsistent with international law”. The Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 on the laws of war explicitly forbids moving civilians into occupied territories.

Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat has called out Washington for threatening “to replace international law with the ‘law of the jungle’”, while others have called into question its authority to disregard international law.

“The US is neither qualified nor is authorized to negate international legitimacy resolutions and it has no right to give any legitimacy to Israeli settlement,” said Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, as quoted by Reuters.

Washington’s move puts the US at odds with other members of the international community, including the European Union, that condemn Israeli settlements as illegal.

US Ambassador to Indonesia Joseph R. Donovan Jr. said separately that the US was still committed to finding a meaningful and lasting peace that “involves Israel and the Palestinian people”.

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