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Analysis: To some, Prabowo’s policy on Israel is not just semantics
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France's President Emmanuel Macron (L) and President Prabowo Subianto attend a press conference at Merdeka Palace in Jakarta on May 28, 2025. (AFP/Bay Ismoyo)
W
hen 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.
