Jakarta’s jitters over Jerusalem
Why Indonesia feels obliged to resist any shift in Australia’s policy on the Israeli capital.
It was only a few months ago that Australia looked set to end the year with one of its most important bilateral relationships at a historic high, with an Indonesia-Australia free trade deal on the cusp of being signed and an agreement to forge a strategic partnership sealed.
Instead, the relationship is under fresh strain, the trade deal is on ice and Canberra is facing the prospect of mass protests outside its Jakarta embassy — even a boycott of Australian products — should it forge ahead with a plan to leave its Israel embassy in Tel Aviv but formally recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s legitimate capital.
It is unclear whether that recognition will be restricted to West Jerusalem or include Jerusalem more broadly — a move that would disregard the UN’s longstanding position that East Jerusalem remains an occupied settlement since Israel’s 1967 annexation and that Jerusalem’s status will remain disputed until resolved by negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.
But any hopes that a compromise over the issue — a sensitive topic throughout the Muslim world — may ease tensions with Jakarta were dashed this week when Islamist groups reacted furiously to reports of the face-saving solution proposed by a high-level government review panel.
With Canberra expected to announce its decision within days, some of Indonesia’s most hardline Islamic groups say they will be ready.
The 212 Brotherhood and firebrand Islamic Defenders Front (FPI), the main groups behind the successful push to jail former Jakarta governor Basuki Tjahaja “Ahok” Purnama for blasphemy and this month’s million-strong reunion rally held to celebrate that victory, described Canberra’s reported proposal this week as “worse than the embassy move”.
“This is an outright recognition of Israel’s claim for Jerusalem, Islam’s third holiest city and the home of al-Aqsa mosque,” FPI spokesman Novel Bamukmin told The Australian, vowing rolling demonstrations outside the Australian embassy in Jakarta should Canberra go ahead and implement the proposal.
“The FPI and other Muslim groups will not stay quiet, not only in Indonesia but around the world. We will call for a boycott of Australian products and we will call the Indonesian government to cut all ties with Australia.”
Slamet Ma’arif, the chairman of 212, echoes those threats. “We will do whatever it takes,” he says. “We will stage rallies, we will call for a boycott. We will even call for Indonesia to cut ties with Australia. It is time to test the government’s claims that they will prioritise Palestine’s interests and fight for Palestine’s independence.”
Even Nahdlatul Ulama, Indonesia’s largest and arguably most moderate Muslim organisation, has expressed concern.
NU executive chairman Robikin Emhas told The Australian the organisation would not support mass protests or boycotts “at this moment”, but would encourage the Indonesian government to persuade Australia against any decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
“All countries should respect the UN resolution on the two-state solution, which states that the issue of Jerusalem needs to be resolved bilaterally between Palestine and Israel,” Emhas says. “Until the issue of Jerusalem is resolved between the two countries, no one must unilaterally recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
“Indonesia must remind Australia that such a move would be in violation of the UN resolution and could threaten peace and stability, and persuade Australia to reconsider any such decision.”
Senior Indonesian government figures have told The Australian they will not comment until Australia makes its decision known.
In Canberra, there is cautious optimism that deferring any embassy relocation will suffice to prevent Indonesia walking away from the trade deal. In Jakarta, less so.
It had all been going so well.
Indonesian President Joko Widodo had set aside his disappointment over his friend Malcolm Turnbull’s ignominious ousting as prime minister to give his successor a warm welcome and a foreign policy fillip any Australian leader would be grateful for.
The trade deal, worth up to $15 billion, would allow Australia to reduce its trade dependence on China and would help Indonesia signal to global markets that it was open to foreign trade and investment — a critical measure if it is to stem the plummeting rupiah and address its current account deficit.
For Australia, it was also reassurance of the strengthening relationship with a neighbour that presents both the greatest opportunities for economic prosperity and security, and potentially the greatest threat.
But with the two countries poised to sign the deal, Scott Morrison stumbled into a diplomatic face-off with Jakarta — in the process setting in train a reverse Midas touch — by dangling the potential relocation of Australia’s Israel embassy ahead of the critical Wentworth by-election.
Widodo responded by deferring the anticipated November signing of the Indonesia Australia Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement in the hope of persuading Canberra against a move that would set the two nations’ foreign policies on a collision course. He had little choice.
Indonesia’s strident defence of the Palestinian cause is written into its constitution, which emphasises the modern nation’s support for anti-colonial causes.
The issue is also one of the only dependable vote winners for Widodo, now in election mode, with a growing constituency of conservative Muslims who are not his natural support base.
Wedged between the demands of his own government’s conservatives and the broader strategic imperative of maintaining good relations with Australia’s largest and most important neighbour, Morrison promised Widodo a decision before Christmas.
But Australian National University Indonesia expert Greg Fealy says there has been surprisingly little understanding of the forbearance Jakarta has shown over the issue, given Indonesian support for Palestine underpins its entire foreign policy and Morrison’s announcement came without warning, just as Indonesia was hosting a Palestinian delegation.
In the face of some strident domestic politicking, including accusations that Indonesia was trying to dictate Australian foreign policy, Jakarta has kept its responses diplomatic.
It was only leaked phone messages from Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi to her Australian counterpart, Marise Payne, that betrayed the depth of alarm in Jakarta at the possible move. The move would “slap Indonesia’s face” and “harm bilateral relations”, Retno wrote in a series of urgent texts.
Australia’s potential policy shift on Israel comes at a difficult time for Widodo, who faces an April election coloured by Islamic politics and rising nationalism.
The 212 Movement’s reunion rally in central Jakarta this month was a potent symbol of the growing power of political Islam in Indonesia, and the ability of Islamists to rally mass support for whatever cause they choose to throw their weight behind.
Writing in the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s online forum The Strategist this week, Evan Laksmana, from Jakarta’s Centre for Strategic and International Studies, says whoever wins the coming election may need to accommodate the “growing complexities of religious sectarianism” in Indonesia’s foreign policy.
“Palestine could be one issue that the foreign ministry could use to engage domestic Islamic groups,” he writes, noting the ministry has already sought to raise Palestine in various platforms during the past year and was holding back on signing the free trade deal with Australia over its Israel embassy review.
Championing the Indonesia-Australia trade deal, and facing down strident opposition from within his own cabinet to an agreement that concedes a lot more than many Indonesian policymakers would have liked, entailed a considerable political risk for Widodo.
Fealy says the Indonesian President pushed for it because he “is convinced the deal is good for Indonesia. But he didn’t want there to be any controversy as he was signing off on this.”
Nonetheless, Indonesia has waited patiently for its neighbour to deliver its “Christmas present”, as one senior official recently described to The Australian the hoped-for rollback on an issue guaranteed to ignite sparks in a country that has long been one of the most strident defenders of the Palestinian cause.
Although a compromise decision may not be as damaging as an immediate relocation, Fealy predicts that the Widodo government “won’t be pleased about Australia recognising Jerusalem as the capital” of Israel.
“We will soon know how strongly the Jokowi government feels about this by whether they stall on signing IA-CEPA.”
Already there is disquiet in Indonesian parliament over the deal, which proposes opening Indonesian markets to Australian majority-owned hospitals, universities and training centres, telecommunications companies and mines, and eliminating tariffs on beef and other agricultural exports.
Last month a lead campaigner for Widodo’s presidential rival Prabowo Subianto and his running mate Sandiaga Uno published a scathing attack on the trade deal, describing it as “ridiculous, over the top and out of line for allowing foreign ownership of 67 per cent”, and demanding it be cancelled.
Members of Indonesia’s parliamentary committee for trade, industry and investment also have told The Australian the agreement is too heavily weighted in Australia’s favour.
“We learned a very painful lesson with the ratification of our trade agreement with China, which caused our market to be flooded with cheap Chinese goods and hurt local producers, who could not compete,” deputy committee chairman Azam Azman Natawijana says. “We don’t want to make the same mistake.
“I cannot say whether we will ratify the deal or not at this stage. As it stands right now, there are many unanswered questions.”
But the Jerusalem issue could also have repercussions for the Indonesia-Australia relationship beyond the trade deal.
Hendri Satrio, a political science professor at Jakarta’s Paramadina University, says Australian recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital is likely to become an election issue that will force Widodo and Prabowo to take strong positions against Canberra.
“If this is true then it is really serious, even more serious than the embassy relocation, which is something more symbolic rather than an actual formal recognition,” he tells The Australian.
“Everyone will race to gather the sympathy of Muslims, particularly so close to the election.
“What that transpires to is anyone’s guess — it could be calls to cut ties or to boycott.
“I don’t think it will affect current co-operations and agreements but it will definitely affect future ones, including the IA-CEPA. I think there will be security risks as well.”
Earlier this month a series of small rallies outside Australia’s Jakarta embassy, organised by the little-known Indonesian Muslim League, sparked security concerns at a mission where memories are still fresh of the deadly 2004 car bomb attack outside the old diplomatic compound, which killed nine people and injured at least 170.
The demonstrations revealed an interesting domestic political dimension to the issue after it became clear protest organisers were pro-Widodo activists who were at least as keen to wedge Prabowo on the Jerusalem question after he was misquoted as saying he had “no problem” with the move.
Nanang Kosim, who not only organised the protests but also chairs the Widodo-Ma’ruf Amin national network of campaign volunteers, denied the rallies were encouraged or financed by the President’s campaign, though admitted “one or two” Widodo backers had contributed towards the cost of the demonstrations.
Although the new Jakarta embassy was constructed with security in mind, terror experts say a mass rally organised by hardline Islamists, as opposed to partisan political volunteers, represents a security challenge.
Deakin University terror expert Greg Barton says mass Islamist action presents obvious risks given the “biggest concern in Australia is not from some ambitious, complex, mass attack plan but rather some lone actor”.
“One or two people acting on short notice by themselves — that is the sort of thing that might emerge in a series of emotional confrontations,” he says.
Adhe Bhakti from Jakarta’s Centre for Radicalism and Deradicalisation, a terror expert who also monitors extremist online activity, says provocative chatter has already been picked up within pro-Islamic State groups on the encrypted Telegram messaging system.
One post late last month called for “lone wolves to make Christian Australian citizens and Australian assets or places of interest in Indonesian and Malaysian cities targets of terror as punishment for Australia’s support for God-forsaken Zionist Israelis”.
Bhakti says while no one in the chat group has openly volunteered to do so, “you must remember that inside the groups there could be lone wolves who are shopping for issues, looking for reasons to launch their attacks and looking for targets”.
“The decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital would give justification,” he adds.
“It all depends on how quickly the Indonesian government responds to the issue.
“If the government is quick to condemn Australia’s position there will be little justification for the jihadists. At least it will minimise the threat.”
Bhakti says the best-case scenario would be a similar reaction to the US announcement earlier this year that it was moving its Israel embassy to Jerusalem.
Jakarta condemned the decision, Islamist groups staged large protests outside the city’s US embassy and called for boycotts of US products — and then the issue died down.
“There were no real security threats towards US citizens or businesses after the relocation decision,” Bhakti says.
“I hope that is what happens with the Australian decision.”
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