Sending troops under the ISF risks making Indonesia complicit in Gaza’s occupation |
Indonesia is being invited not to keep the peace in Gaza, but to help launder an injustice.
The proposed International Stabilization Force (ISF), a centerpiece of President Donald Trump’s Gaza plan, is presented as a humanitarian intervention: temporary, multilateral, and necessary to stabilize a shattered territory. But stripped of its rhetoric, the ISF is something far more dangerous. It is an attempt to internationalize the management of Israel’s occupation while absolving Israel of responsibility for the devastation it has inflicted.
If Indonesia sends troops under this framework, it will not be a neutral peacekeeper. It will be an accessory.
Gaza does not suffer from a lack of international supervision. It suffers from siege, bombardment, and occupation. Since Israel’s genocidal war began, more than 70,000 Palestinians have been killed. Entire neighborhoods have been flattened. Aid has been throttled, delayed, and politicized. Israel has violated the current cease-fire hundreds of times since it took effect on 10 October 2025. Yet none of this is what the ISF is designed to confront.
Instead, the force’s central mandate—made explicit by the United States—is to disarm Palestinians.
Mike Waltz, Washington’s ambassador to the United Nations, has stated plainly that the........