The agreement between the UAE and Israel, dubbed the Abraham Accord, was facilitated by the United States and includes an Israeli commitment to suspend plans to annex Palestinian territory in the occupied West Bank. The policy shift was the most significant development since Washington unveiled its “deal of the century” early this year.

 

Retno had said that such a move would destabilize the region and undermine efforts to reach a lasting solution to the Middle East conflict.

 

She restated her position last week to UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah Bin Zayed Al Nayhan and Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Prince Faisal Bin Farhan Al-Saud.

 

“I reiterated Indonesia’s position that the solution to the Palestinian-Israeli [conflict] must be based on relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions and internationally agreed-upon parameters, including the two-state solution,” she wrote on Twitter.

 

Indonesia has struggled to insert itself into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, even as the world’s largest Muslim-majority country.

 

Some experts suggest that the country is simply too far away from the region to hold any sway. Others say the conflict is for the Arab nations to solve among themselves.

 

The Organization for Islamic Cooperation (OIC), of which Indonesia is a member, has been criticized by some for adhering too rigidly to Saudi Arabian policy, which experts believe is partly shaped by the kingdom’s ties with the US.

 

As the UAE normalizes ties with Israel, Indonesia’s influence in the region seems minimal, even as the country has been working closely with the UAE for business and development financing.

 

While they have pledged to support Palestine, the UAE and Saudi Arabia are also close allies of the US, a staunch supporter of Israel.

 

Yon Machmudi, a scholar from the University of Indonesia, said the UAE’s policy shift had reshaped Middle Eastern politics and that countries in the region appeared to be leaving Palestine behind as they accepted assistance from the US. This had put Indonesia in a difficult position.

 

“We don’t want Indonesia just to appear reactive – issuing statements without being able to anticipate what will happen in the future and what actions to take [next],” he told The Jakarta Post recently.

 

Support for Palestine is one of Indonesia’s most consistent foreign policies and has had the support of the government, Muslim grassroots organizations and the general public for more than seven decades.

 

“The policy has always been to support a two-state solution and to defend Palestine [in its efforts] to become a fully independent state with its own territory and government,” Hamdan Basyar, a Middle East expert from the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), told the Post recently.

 

Indonesian diplomats maintain that the country’s support for Palestine was mandated by the 1945 Constitution, in line with the spirit of the anticolonial solidarity movement that flourished after World War II.

 

As the only participant in the 1955 Asia-Africa Conference that has not gained independence, some politicians and diplomats consider Palestine Indonesia’s unfinished business.

 

This has put the nation in opposition to others whose positions fall closer to those of Israel and the US.

 

At the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), Indonesia has endorsed nearly every roll-call resolution related to the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

 

According to a Harvard Dataverse repository of roll-call votes in the UNGA between 1946 and 2019, Indonesia has voted “Yes” to 1,000 UNGA draft resolutions on the dispute, with six abstentions and six "No" votes. About one fifth of the resolutions were related to the occupation, making it the most-debated conflict at the UNGA.

 

Indonesia’s advocacy for Palestine has proven more successful in multilateral negotiations than in bilateral efforts. No Indonesian leader or foreign minister has set foot in Palestinian territory.

 

But at the popular and civil society levels, support for Palestine remains significant.

 

Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah, Indonesia’s largest Islamic organizations, have voiced consistent support for Palestine.

Some 225 million Indonesians identify as Muslim, so the issue remains close to the hearts of many of the country’s citizens. Many think the city of Jerusalem, the site of the Al-Aqsa mosque, Islam’s third-holiest site after Mecca and Medina, should belong to Palestine.

 

From the government’s perspective, the conflict is also an issue of land and politics. “We support Palestine not just because of Islam but also not just because of anticolonialism – both are [valid] reasons,” Hamdan said.