Universitas Indonesia betrayed Palestine

On 23 August, Universitas Indonesia (UI), the nation’s oldest and most respected institution of higher learning, committed a profound mistake. At the orientation for its graduate program, UI handed the podium to Peter Berkowitz — a longtime defender of Israel’s occupation and its ongoing genocide in Gaza.

Berkowitz is no neutral scholar. He has spent decades justifying Israel’s bombing campaigns, collective punishment, and illegal occupation of Palestinian land. He served as director of policy planning in Donald Trump’s State Department — a government that gave Israel carte blanche to escalate its violence. His writings, including a book defending Israel against international war crimes investigations, repeat one message over and over: Israel’s supposed right to kill with impunity.

And yet, at UI’s flagship event to welcome Indonesia’s future scholars, Berkowitz was invited to deliver an oration entitled “Education for Freedom and Democracy.”

The irony could not be sharper. This is a man who has dedicated his career to attacking students and academics in the United States who stand with Palestine. He has mocked campus activists who call for boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS). He has defended the silencing of Palestinian voices in classrooms. To hand him a platform in Indonesia — a country whose constitution enshrines the rejection of colonialism, and whose people overwhelmingly support Palestine — is not mere negligence. It is complicity.

UI’s official explanation was to apologise for being “less than careful” in checking Berkowitz’s background. That excuse is insulting. Berkowitz’s record is not hidden in obscure footnotes. A quick search reveals decades of articles defending apartheid, whitewashing war crimes, and rationalising ethnic cleansing. This was not a clerical oversight. It was a moral collapse.

By presenting Berkowitz as a legitimate authority on “democracy,” UI treated the Palestinian genocide as an acceptable subject for polite academic disagreement. It suggested that supporting or opposing colonial violence is just another opinion, worthy of equal respect. But genocide is not a matter of perspective. There is no academic neutrality when one side calls for liberation and the other justifies massacre.

The decision is also a betrayal of Indonesia’s own history. The 1945 Constitution declares that “colonialism must be abolished” because it is incompatible with humanity and justice. Indonesia has long stood at the forefront of global solidarity with Palestine precisely because its own independence was won against colonial domination. To hand a stage to a Zionist apologist is to spit on that legacy.

UI’s choice was not only tone-deaf; it inflicted real harm. For Palestinian students and scholars, the message is devastating: their people’s suffering is up for debate, their right to freedom optional. For Indonesian students, the message is equally corrosive: that those who defend empire and massacre deserve the same respect as those who resist them.

Some will argue that universities must welcome all perspectives in the name of academic freedom. But academic freedom is not a suicide pact. It does not require us to legitimise propaganda, nor to elevate voices that defend ethnic cleansing. Berkowitz is free to publish his articles and seek audiences that share his worldview. UI had no obligation to honour him — and certainly not as the centrepiece of an orientation meant to inspire the next generation.

The students who immediately condemned Berkowitz’s invitation, and the public outcry that forced UI’s apology, show that Indonesians know exactly where they stand. They know that solidarity with Palestine is not a slogan but a principle. They know that normalising Zionist apologetics is a betrayal not only of Palestinians but of Indonesia’s own anti-colonial identity.

UI must reckon with the gravity of its failure. A perfunctory apology will not suffice. The university must ask itself why it saw no problem in celebrating a man who defends war crimes. It must accept that neutrality in the face of oppression is itself a choice — a choice to side with the oppressor.

History will not remember Peter Berkowitz’s speech at UI. But it will remember whether Indonesia’s leading university chose to normalise genocide, or to stand with the oppressed. For the sake of Palestine — and for the sake of Indonesia’s own moral integrity — UI and other academic institutions must never make this mistake again.

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