Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Dr. Muhammad Zulfikar Rakhmat
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IsDB chief in Jakarta: A US$2.56 billion plan with a missing climate pillar
Dr Muhammad Al Jasser, chairman of the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) Group, spent four days in Jakarta, from 7 to 10 October 2026. The IsDB is a development bank owned by 57 mostly Muslim countries. It pays for roads, hospitals and farms using Islamic finance rules, which avoid interest. He…
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El-Sisi in Jakarta: Trade promises, a Nile pledge and an outdated Palestine formula
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi landed in Jakarta on Saturday evening, 10 October 2026, at the end of an Asian tour that began in South Korea and passed through Malaysia. The route tells a story. Cairo is looking east for money, technology and friends while its own region burns. Jakarta…
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Indonesians must boycott pro-Israel singer Andrea Bocelli’s concert at Borobudur
On 31 October, Italian singer Andrea Bocelli will perform at Borobudur, the largest Buddhist temple in the world, in Central Java, Indonesia, before a second show in Jakarta on 3 November. The Indonesian government is rolling out the red carpet as if this were a state visit. The state-owned bank…
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Israel and Indonesian vice president Gibran prove the powerful can break rules and walk free
Today marks three years since Israel began its genocide in Gaza. Three years in which Israel has faced no real punishment. On the eve of this anniversary, a court in Indonesia showed the world exactly how this impunity works: the powerful break the rules, the system watches, and nobody lifts…
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What Indonesia’s new foreign minister must do in the Middle East
On October 1, President Prabowo Subianto named Arrmanatha Nasir as Indonesia’s new foreign minister. Unlike Sugiono, the politician he replaces, Arrmanatha is a career diplomat who once served as Indonesia’s ambassador to the United Nations. Analysts have said the foreign ministry was pushed aside in recent years while the president…
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Why Indonesians should boycott the Israel & New Breed concert in Jakarta
On 24 October, the American gospel singer Israel Houghton plans to perform in Jakarta with his band, Israel & New Breed. Reports say tickets are still on sale. Indonesians must not buy them. Anyone who fills that hall is giving a public welcome to a man who stood with Israel…
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Indonesia was right to walk out at the UNGA. One Palestine, not two states, is what should come next
On September 24, Indonesian diplomats walked out of the UN General Assembly hall in New York. They left their seats just as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rose to speak. They were not alone. Diplomats from several other countries left too, crowding the exit doors. Netanyahu mocked them, telling anyone…
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Yemen’s war is closer to Indonesia than it looks
Yemen, a country at the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, is about 7,000 kilometres from Jakarta. It feels far away. But this month, its war came closer to Indonesian families, workers and prices. Yemen has had a civil war since 2014. On one side is the Houthi movement, officially…
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Prabowo’s tears for Palestine are not enough
On Saturday, President Prabowo Subianto was in the middle of a speech when he stopped talking, wiped his eyes with a small towel, and apologized to the crowd. “I am sorry,” he said. “I just remembered our brothers and sisters in Palestine. They are being slaughtered, they are bombed, they…
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Indonesia’s Bandung Institute of Technology must investigate, and end, its Israel exchange link
This week, a screenshot began moving fast across Indonesian social media. It came from an Instagram account called Ganesa Space, and it showed something students did not expect to see. The image was a page from the online exchange system used by Bandung Institute of Technology, known in Indonesia as…
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Indonesia must not become a platform for Israeli business
Israeli companies are increasingly operating in Indonesia. They are using Indonesian locations, Indonesian creative talent and Indonesian commercial networks to promote their businesses in a country that does not recognise Israel and has stood with Palestine for decades. This growing commercial presence deserves far more scrutiny than it has received.…
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Macaronis Resort in Indonesia’s Mentawai Islands: The Israeli link and the ownership questions that remain unanswered
Macaronis Resort sits on a small island in the Mentawai Islands, off Sumatra, Indonesia, famous among surfers for its powerful wave. In late August 2026, it became the subject of a different kind of attention when claims spread on Indonesian social media that it was secretly owned by a man…
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Jakarta watches, waits, and weighs its options on the Mecca Pact
When Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan signed the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement on 7th August, declaring that an attack on one signatory would be treated as an attack on all three, the reaction from most of the Muslim world’s capitals fell somewhere between quiet approval and studied silence. Indonesia, the…
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If Indonesia really supports Palestine, it needs to do something about its pro-Israel politicians
Indonesia loves to tell the world it stands with Palestine. The government has no official relations with Israel. Leaders speak about Palestinian freedom at the United Nations. Millions of Indonesians, the largest Muslim population on earth, see the Palestinian cause as their own. But inside Indonesia, elected politicians openly admire…
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If Indonesia’s support for Palestine never changes, why is Israel’s ZIM shipping company still reaching its ports?
On 14 August 2026, the Speaker of Indonesia’s People’s Consultative Assembly, Ahmad Muzani, stood before parliament in Jakarta and said something Indonesians have heard many times before. He said that Indonesia’s support for Palestine has never wavered. He tied it to Indonesia’s own history of colonization and to the country’s…
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The Israel ties Indonesia’s Bogor Agricultural University once had
Inside a greenhouse in Bogor, an Indonesian student watched an Israeli engineer explain how to make water disappear into soil, drop by drop. No one in the room thought to ask where the technology, or the expert, had come from, or what it meant to learn irrigation from a company…
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Prabowo’s false claim about Iran’s nuclear weapons will cost him in the Middle East
On 1 August, at a business forum in Jakarta, President Prabowo Subianto told a room of executives that Iran already has nuclear weapons, and that a chain reaction was now underway across the region. His exact words, as reported, were: “It is said that Iran already has nuclear weapons. Now…
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Can disability become the next soft power tool in Indonesia-MENA ties?
A ministerial meeting in Amman last week barely registered outside Jordan’s own newswires. An Indonesian government delegation sat down with Jordan’s Minister of Social Development to compare notes on how each country supports people with disabilities. On its own, it looks like a courtesy visit. Set against Indonesia’s fast-growing ties…
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Prabowo keeps lying on Palestine
This week, at the 28th anniversary celebration of the National Awakening Party (PKB) in Jakarta, President Prabowo Subianto reached for a line he’s reached for many times before. Indonesia gets along with everyone, he said, but backing Palestinian independence is the one thing nobody can talk him out of. The…
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Indonesia’s decision to deport a Palestinian activist is a moral failure
On July 16, Indonesian authorities arrested a Palestinian activist named Abdul Karim Raed Miqdad. By the next morning he was on a plane to Cyprus. Human rights monitors now warn he could end up in Israeli custody. Indonesia can probably point to paperwork that justifies each step along the way.…
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Monuments without a country: Indonesia’s empty gesture to Palestine
Madrid played host this week to a strange piece of theater. Ministers gathered to talk about rebuilding Palestinian culture — its cinema, its archives, its museums — at a conference bearing the bloodless title “International Conference on the Reconstruction of Cultural Sector in Palestine.” Indonesia’s culture minister, Fadli Zon, came…
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Indonesia’s half-hearted response to Khamenei’s funeral undermines its own foreign policy
Indonesia eventually sent Foreign Minister Sugiono and MPR Speaker Ahmad Muzani to attend the funeral of Iran’s late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. It was the correct decision. But the way Jakarta arrived at that decision revealed a troubling lack of confidence in its own foreign policy. The problem was…
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Inside Indonesia’s growing market for fake Middle Eastern doctorates
For generations, Indonesian Muslims have looked to the Middle East as the highest destination for Islamic learning. A degree from Cairo, Medina or Riyadh has never been simply an academic qualification. It has represented years of mastering Arabic, studying under respected scholars and earning recognition from institutions whose reputations were…
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Luhut’s BlackRock outreach legitimises genocide in Gaza
Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan, chairman of Indonesia’s National Economic Council and one of the most influential figures in the country’s economic policymaking establishment, recently revealed that he had been encouraging BlackRock to invest in Indonesia. Speaking at Indonesia Summit 2026, Luhut described how executives from the world’s largest asset manager questioned…