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France’s recognition of Palestine risks helping Israel — Indonesia should rethink its applause

Activists at a solidarity march for the Palestinians in Jakarta, Indonesia, on June 15, 2025. [Agoes Rudianto – Anadolu Agency]

By Dr. Muhammad Zulfikar Rakhmat | MEMO | July 27, 2025

This week, Indonesia welcomed France’s decision to recognise the State of Palestine as a “positive step” toward peace. On its surface, this diplomatic endorsement may appear aligned with Indonesia’s long-standing support for Palestinian self-determination. But behind France’s gesture lies a deeper, more dangerous calculus—one that does not just ignore the reality on the ground, but actively entrenches it.

What France proposes is not justice. It is not freedom. It is an updated version of the same illusion that has kept Palestinians caged and dispossessed for decades: the so-called two-state solution.

In Jakarta’s official statement, the French move was praised for supporting a “sovereign and independent” Palestinian state based on 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital. But President Emmanuel Macron made clear what kind of state he envisions: a demilitarized Palestine that fully recognizes Israel. No mention of dismantling settlements, no restitution for occupied land, no accountability for war crimes in Gaza. Only submission, in return for a diplomatic label.

This is not a step toward peace—it’s a framework for permanent subjugation.

France’s position not only lacks balance, it weaponizes it. Macron calls for the “demilitarization of Hamas,” the rebuilding of Gaza, and regional stability—but with no demands for Israeli disarmament, no consequences for its mass killing of civilians, no guarantees of actual sovereignty for Palestinians. Instead, Palestinians are asked to disavow resistance, while the occupying power faces no requirement to end its occupation.

Indonesia, by praising this deal without reservation, is endorsing a framework that surrenders Palestinian rights under the language of diplomacy. In doing so, it becomes complicit in a process that allows Israel to continue its long project of expansion and erasure.

Because that is exactly what we are witnessing: not just war, but erasure.

Israel’s leaders have shed any pretense of restraint. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has declared that Gaza should be “completely flattened.” Members of the Knesset and senior military figures have called to “wipe out” the territory. Starvation, siege, and bombing are not incidental—they are deliberate. The goal is not merely to punish, but to depopulate.

And this genocidal ambition is not new. It is part of a larger ideological blueprint long championed by elements of Israel’s far-right: the “Greater Israel” project. This vision seeks to claim not just the full expanse of historic Palestine—from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea—but in some renditions, territory beyond it. It is a dream of exclusive ethnic control over a vast swath of the region. Palestinians, in this model, are not citizens or neighbors—they are obstacles to be removed.

This is the context in which France’s recognition must be understood: not as a bold shift in policy, but as a stabilizing gesture for an apartheid regime facing global criticism. And by embracing it, Indonesia—whether intentionally or not—is lending moral cover to that regime.

It is tempting, in the face of so much suffering, to welcome any sign of progress. But symbolic recognition without structural change only reinforces the status quo. A demilitarized Palestine, hemmed in by Israeli checkpoints, with no right of return and no means of defense, is not a state—it’s an open-air prison with a flag.

What is needed now is not more applause for diplomatic theater, but a refusal to accept false solutions. The two-state framework, as currently constructed, is not a path to justice. It is a political tool that enables colonization while pretending to end it.

Indonesia has long stood as a voice for the oppressed. It must not dilute that legacy by celebrating a plan that leaves Palestinians with a flag and no freedom. Instead of encouraging other nations to follow France’s lead, Indonesia should be demanding accountability: for the destruction of Gaza, for the daily violence in the West Bank, and for the decades of displacement.

This is not a time for symbolic victories. It is a time for moral clarity.

France’s vision, and Indonesia’s uncritical support of it, may win applause in diplomatic circles. But on the ground, in Gaza and the West Bank, it enables a project whose end goal is not peace, but erasure. If Indonesia truly believes in justice for Palestine, it must reject this illusion—and instead, insist on the one thing Palestinians have never been offered: freedom on their own terms.

July 27, 2025 - Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism | France, Human rights, Israel, Palestine, Zionism