Jakarta Globe, Ezra Sihite & Vita A.D. Busyra, Jul 12, 2014
Jakarta. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on Friday strongly condemned the air strikes launched by the Israeli military in the Gaza Strip that have killed nearly 100 people since Tuesday.
A boy holds a toy gun — as he poses during a rally against Israeli attacks on the Palestinian territories — in Jakarta on July 11, 2014. (EPA Photo/Mast Irham) |
Jakarta. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on Friday strongly condemned the air strikes launched by the Israeli military in the Gaza Strip that have killed nearly 100 people since Tuesday.
Yudhoyono
said at a cabinet meeting at the State Palace in Jakarta that he would call
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani later on Friday to discuss what move the countries
under the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) planned to take in response to the ongoing
violence that has claimed mostly civilian lives.
“I will be
communicating with the Iranian president in his capacity as the chairman of the
NAM to discuss what the NAM countries can do to stop the violence,” Yudhoyono
said.
He called
the Israeli military’s action “too much,” and said that Indonesia would also
call on the United Nations and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to stop
the air strikes.
“Besides
condemning the overwhelmingly excessive military action, Indonesia has already
made a diplomatic approach with the UN, the OIC and the NAM countries. The goal
is to halt Israeli’s military actions,” he said.
A
cease-fire is strongly urged and must be enforced under the UN’s supervision,
the president said. He gave assurances that there would not be any retaliation
by the Palestinian side if the Israelis ended the air strikes, which were
launched in response to the firing of rockets into Israel by Hamas militants.
Yudhoyono
said he and Rouhani would also discuss the provision of aid and other relief
supplies for the Palestinians.
Din
Syamsuddin, the Indonesian chairman of the Palestine Friendship Initiative (PPIP)
and head of Muhammadiyah, Indonesia’s second-biggest Islamic organization, also
condemned the Israeli Defense Forces for what he called “attacks on innocent
Palestinian people” in Gaza.
He
encouraged people to donate money for aid for the Palestinians.
The Medical
Emergency Rescue Committee (MER-C), an Indonesian humanitarian group,
previously built a hospital in Gaza, but Din said it lacked equipment and
facilities to help treat the injured.
“The MUI
[Indonesian Council of Ulema] and the PPIP are also calling on people during
this holy month of Ramadan to give alms to help resolve the problem of the
Palestinians so that the hospital can start running,” he said on Thursday in
Jakarta.
Din
previously said he hoped to raise up to Rp 6 billion ($516,000) to be sent to
the Palestinian people.
He said the
PPIP had initially planned a charity concert for Aug. 15, to feature Indonesian
and Palestinian musicians, but had to put the plan on hold for now.
Din urged
international organizations, such as the UN and the OIC to take concrete steps
to stop the air strikes.
“There have
been many resolutions from the UN, but they were either not enforced or
ignored. So we will keep urging the UN to take immediate action,” he said.
“The OIC
has to undertake concrete measures, including providing humanitarian help to
the people of Gaza and Palestine who have been suffering from the attacks,” Din
said.
Teuku
Rezasyah, the executive director of the Indonesian Center for Democracy, a
Jakarta-based think tank, noted that many past attempts to sanction Israel at
the UN had been vetoed by its close ally, the United States, and called for a
fundamental change in the structure of the UN Security Council to better
reflect the contemporary global balance of power.
“The structure
needs to be revised so that a more democratic decision can be produced to force
Israel to halt its attacks,” Rezasyah said on Friday.
“So far
it’s always been under the US’s command. Russia always tries to defend itself.
It’s a complicated story in there,” he said, emphasizing that Israel always
managed to come away untouched by sanctions over its actions because of the way
the UNSC veto power worked.
Rezasyah
said the UN should be restructured to enable other countries, such as
Indonesia, Japan, Germany and Brazil, to as much of a say as the five permanent
members of the UNSC, especially on matters of humanitarian urgency.
He added
that another factor that rendered Indonesia unable to do more to help Palestine
was its refusal to recognize the state of Israel, saying its decision not to
have diplomatic ties with Tel Aviv had put it in a dilemma and would leave it
incapable of being a fair mediator unless it could make its voice heard by
Israel.
“Ideally we
should establish a diplomatic approach with Israel in order to discuss this
sensitive issue. But if Indonesia wants to be heard by Israel, it needs to be a
prominent voice of Asean, the OIC and the NAM,” Rezasyah said.
Andreas
Harsono, an Indonesia researcher at Human Rights Watch, said that despite the
high number of victims from the Israeli military actions, Palestine deserved as
much of the blame as Israel for the escalating violence.
“Under the
international law, both countries attacked civilians, their homes, hospitals
and schools. Innocent people risked being attacked and that violates the law
already,” he said of Hamas’s rocket strikes into Israeli settlements.
He was
quick to add, however, that this did not justify the Israeli’s own strikes in
residential areas of Gaza.
He also
said that major Middle Eastern powers such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey
were in alignment with the US, making it difficult to reach any kind of
satisfactory outcome at the UN.
Reuters
cited Palestinian officials as saying that 11 civilians were killed n Friday in
the fourth day of Israeli air strikes on the Gaza Strip, raising the death toll
in the coastal enclave to at least 96, most of them civilians.
Additional
reporting by Faisal Maliki Baskoro & Natasia Christy Wahyuni
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