Indonesia aids Gaza — but only after Israel says yes

When two of Indonesia’s C-130 Hercules aircraft lifted off from a Jordanian air base in mid-August and dropped bundles of aid over Gaza, The Times of Israel reported that “The Prime Minister’s Office has given special permission to Indonesia to airdrop humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip.” Special permission. Even as Indonesia celebrated its pilots’ bravery and its people’s generosity, the reality was stark: nothing for Gaza moves without the genocider’s approval.

Indonesia — the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation, with no diplomatic ties to Israel — could only feed starving Palestinians because Benjamin Netanyahu’s office allowed it. As if humanitarian relief were not a right, but a favor. An Israeli official even boasted: “Prime Minister Netanyahu invites all countries that request to airdrop food to Gaza to join the humanitarian effort.” In other words: you must request. You must wait for special permission.

Indeed, Indonesia expanded its flights in the following days. Three Hercules planes — tail numbers A-1339, A-1344, and A-1343 — delivered 91.4 tons of aid in 520 bundles. More flights are planned from Egypt in September. But behind every sortie lies the same humiliation: every parachute depends on approval.

On the ground, Indonesia’s National Alms Agency (Badan Amil Zakat Nasional, or Baznas) has mobilized extraordinary resources. It has already sent Rp150 billion ($9 million) for Gaza and holds another Rp230 billion ($14 million) in reserve, aiming for a total of Rp500 billion ($30 million). These funds are meant to build hospitals, schools, and vital facilities once Gaza is calmer. Baznas coordinated with the Indonesian military to deliver 80 tons of aid by air from Jordan, and it has over 700 tons stored in Egypt, ready to move. But again, although perhaps not widely reported, the entry of this humanitarian cargo seems to depend on the genocider’s permission.

Consider the indignity: vast sums of zakah — Islamic charitable giving collected from Indonesian citizens — and hundreds of tons of life-saving supplies exist, but their delivery into Gaza is never guaranteed. What should be a straightforward humanitarian act is reduced to a privilege, contingent on approval from the very power that besieges Gaza.

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This dependence strips humanitarian action of its dignity. Indonesia should be proud of its generosity and its pilots’ courage. Yet every sack of rice, every carton of medicine, every parachute in the sky carries the same watermark: “Special permission from the genocider.” The people of Gaza are fed only when their oppressor agrees.

Indonesia’s aid missions reveal more than compassion; they expose the death of the so-called “two-state solution.” For decades, Jakarta’s diplomacy has repeated the mantra of “two states living side by side in peace.” But Gaza today is not a state. It is a prison. Its airspace, borders, electricity, water, and even its humanitarian relief are controlled through a regime of special permission.

The West Bank is no different: fragmented into enclaves, hemmed in by settlements and military zones. East Jerusalem is being steadily erased. To pretend that a Palestinian state is within reach is to perpetuate a fiction that comforts Israel and its allies but condemns Palestinians to perpetual subjugation.

Indonesia, of all nations, should see this clearly. Its own independence was won against colonial partition plans that sought to keep it weak and divided. Indonesians once refused to accept half-freedoms. Why should Palestinians accept them now?

Some will argue that equality in a single state is unrealistic or dangerous. But what is truly unrealistic is imagining that Israel will ever permit a genuine Palestinian state while it holds all the keys. What is dangerous is clinging to a dead framework that masks apartheid as diplomacy.

Indonesia’s solidarity is real — in zakah, in billions of rupiah mobilized, in Hercules planes flown across borders. But let us not mistake permission slips for sovereignty, or parachuted bundles for justice. As long as Palestinians can only eat when the genocider allows it, no amount of aid will change the core truth: the problem is not logistics, it is power.

The choice before the world is not two states versus one. That mirage is gone. The choice is apartheid versus equality. And Indonesia, with its anticolonial history and moral weight in the world, should have the courage to say it: justice cannot depend on special permission.

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