Indonesia would never accept colonial rule—why should Palestine?

At the high-level conference on the two-state solution at the United Nations headquarters this week, Indonesia delivered a familiar but firm appeal: a sovereign Palestine, living peacefully side by side with Israel, based on the 1967 borders and international law. Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs Arrmanatha Nasir reiterated Indonesia’s unwavering commitment to the two-state vision, while pointedly urging that no country exercise its Security Council veto to block Palestine’s full UN membership.

It was a speech of hope but also of quiet desperation. Because while Indonesia echoed the diplomatic consensus, the reality is clear to many observers: the two-state solution is no longer a viable path. And to continue promoting it, especially without addressing the asymmetry of power and justice, risks enabling the very colonial violence that Indonesia, of all countries, should instinctively reject.

Indonesia’s support for Palestinian statehood is rooted in its own national history. As a nation once colonized by the Dutch, Indonesia knows too well the trauma of subjugation. Imagine if, in the late 1940s, Indonesia had been told not to fight for full sovereignty but to compromise—to share the archipelago with its colonizer, accept partial autonomy, and negotiate from a position of inferiority. That would not have been liberation; it would have been surrender under the guise of peace.

That is precisely the situation now facing the Palestinian people. A two-state solution may once have offered a fair compromise. But Israel’s ongoing occupation, settlement expansion, annexation of land, and destruction of Palestinian infrastructure have made the notion obsolete. To speak of two states today is to pretend that Israel has not already erased the conditions for such an arrangement.

READ: Indonesia is right to condemn the Knesset’s West Bank move—but it must break from the two-state illusion

And yet, the international community continues to recycle the two-state language, as though repetition might somehow create reality. The United States, a habitual wielder of the veto in defense of Israel, has made a habit of blocking meaningful accountability. Indonesia’s warning against using that veto power again—this time to deny full UN membership to Palestine—is well-placed, but it is likely to fall on deaf ears in Washington.

Let’s be honest: when the world’s most powerful nations protect Israel from consequences while preaching about peace, they are not promoting diplomacy. They are enabling colonization. The current facts on the ground—fragmented Palestinian territories, relentless military incursions, and apartheid-level discrimination—do not reflect a process of peaceful coexistence. They reflect the consolidation of power by a state that answers no one.

And yet, Indonesia still took the high road. The Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs recently thanked France for its “courageous” recognition of Palestine, and praised the UK’s conditional commitment to do the same by September—if Israel fails to halt the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza and commit to a real peace process.

It is a pragmatic move. Indonesia is leveraging moral clarity with diplomatic tact. Jakarta is also playing an active role beyond rhetoric, having co-chaired the working group on security with Italy to develop post-war stabilization plans for Gaza and the West Bank. President Prabowo even signaled Indonesia’s willingness to deploy personnel under a UN mandate to help support peace on the ground.

Still, this raises a troubling question: what happens if Israel refuses to act in good faith, again? What if the war in Gaza drags on, or ends only to be replaced by another cycle of dispossession? What if “reconstruction” becomes just another tool for managing occupation?

At some point, global diplomacy must move beyond crisis management and ask the hard question: if Israel has no intention of allowing a viable Palestinian state, what then?

Indonesia’s voice, shaped by its history and its principles, is vital at this moment. But it must also be the voice of truth. Calling for a two-state solution while ignoring the one-state reality of apartheid is no longer tenable. A more honest conversation must begin—one that centers justice over optics, and liberation over diplomacy-as-usual.

Indonesia deserves praise for pressing forward, for standing up against the veto threat, and for embracing concrete steps like supporting Palestinian youth and building institutional capacity. Its support for the UK’s September recognition, even with strings attached, is part of a wider shift—four of five veto-wielding Security Council members are now positioned to endorse Palestinian statehood. That alone is a geopolitical earthquake.

Statehood must be more than a symbolic gesture—it must reflect genuine freedom, dignity, and equal rights. The two-state framework, long held up as the international consensus, is no longer grounded in reality. It has become a convenient illusion, shielding ongoing occupation and apartheid from true accountability. The truth is, that model is dead. What remains is a single territory ruled unequally—a one-state reality that must be confronted, not denied. The task now is not to revive a failed partition, but to demand a future built on equal citizenship, justice, and the dismantling of systems of domination.

To ignore this is not neutrality, it is to endorse oppression.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.