Indonesia cannot claim solidarity with Palestine while it maintains ties with Elbit |
A photograph is circulating from the Farnborough International Airshow in England, held from 20 to 24 July. It shows Lieutenant General Rui F.G.P. Duarte, a senior Indonesian defence official, posing in front of the stand of Elbit Systems. Elbit is Israel’s largest privately owned arms company, and one of the main manufacturers arming the assault on Gaza.
Duarte was there representing Indonesia’s defence minister. The visit itself came through Indonesia’s Ministry of Defence, which confirmed that Duarte attended Farnborough from 20 to 24 July on the minister’s behalf. The photo of him at the Elbit stand was then posted by the ministry itself, on its own Instagram account. Nobody forced this photograph into existence. Jakarta published it, proudly, as if there were nothing to hide.
Here is a simple test. A government cannot claim to stand with Palestine while its own defence establishment maintains ties with Elbit Systems. Not quiet ties. Not “diversified supplier” ties. Any ties at all. This photograph shows Indonesia failing that test, in public, on its own Instagram feed.
Here is a simple test. A government cannot claim to stand with Palestine while its own defence establishment maintains ties with Elbit Systems. Not quiet ties. Not “diversified supplier” ties. Any ties at all. This photograph shows Indonesia failing that test, in public, on its own Instagram feed.
This is the point the photograph proves: solidarity and Elbit cannot coexist. A government that poses beside this company’s logo, however briefly, has already answered the question of where its real loyalties lie.
Indonesia has no diplomatic relations with Israel. Its passports carry travel restrictions to Israel. Its foreign ministry never stops repeating its support for Palestinians. Indonesian students, Islamic mass organisations, and ordinary citizens have spent two years organising boycotts of companies tied to the genocide in Gaza. Indonesia’s public image is built on the Palestinian cause more than almost any other country outside the Middle East. That is exactly why this photograph is a betrayal, not a footnote.
Start with what Elbit actually is. Elbit is not on the sidelines of this war. It is one of the companies that makes the war possible. According to Campaign Against Arms Trade, Elbit is Israel’s leading supplier of tank and artillery munitions, through its land division, which absorbed the formerly state-owned Israel Military Industries after Elbit acquired it in 2018.
Elbit makes the Hermes drones that have hunted Palestinians in Gaza for more than fifteen years. Leaked documents showed British intelligence, GCHQ, intercepting Hermes drone video feeds as far back as 2009 — proof of just how long this surveillance machine........