No bridges with genocide: Why Indonesians must reject the Israel–Indonesia Futures Program

The Israel–Indonesia Futures Program, scheduled for January to May 2026, is promoted as a leadership initiative linking Indonesians and Israelis through seminars, workshops, and team-based projects. Its brochures describe weekly sessions on politics, culture, innovation, and economic potential, as well as mentorship by entrepreneurs and policy figures. Participants are placed in mixed Israeli-Indonesian teams to design collaborative projects across fields such as culture, media, business, education, technology, and policy. The program frames itself as an opportunity to build long-term networks and shape future cooperation between the two countries.

Behind this initiative stands the Israel-Asia Center, the organiser of the program. The Center describes itself as an Israeli independent not-for-profit institution committed to shaping a secure, prosperous, and sustainable future in the Asian Century. It presents itself as the leading educator for strengthening Israel-Asia relations, offering leadership programs to produce future force multipliers, and conducting public education initiatives aimed at creating Asia-informed Israeli decision-makers. This architecture reveals the program’s deeper strategic function: developing individuals, networks, and narratives that advance Israel’s long-term diplomatic, economic, and reputational interests in Asia.

The program is therefore not a neutral cultural exchange. It is part of a broader apparatus seeking to integrate Israel into the region’s political and economic landscape, including countries that previously held strong positions against occupation. The brochures lean heavily on recent history, referencing the Abraham Accords and the normalization of relations between Israel and several Muslim-majority states. They suggest that Indonesia is a natural next step in this progression and frame moments of diplomatic contact as signs of an emerging pathway toward normalization.

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This narrative collapses entirely under the weight of current events. Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. Civilians are being killed in staggering numbers, neighborhoods flattened, hospitals destroyed, and essential supplies deliberately blocked. The breakdown of the latest ceasefire has been followed by intensified violence and deepening humanitarian catastrophe. No program promising leadership training or cross-cultural cooperation can exist in moral isolation from this reality. Promotion of partnership in the midst of genocide transforms cultural exchange into political camouflage.

The brochures claim that dialogue can open minds, foster understanding, and reveal potential for co-innovation. But meaningful dialogue requires equality, and equality is structurally absent. One side represents a state carrying out genocidal actions. The other side is asked to ignore those actions in the name of regional connectivity and opportunity. Workshops on effective teaming or stakeholder engagement cannot compensate for the absence of justice. Team projects designed to strengthen bilateral relations cannot neutralize the violence that defines the present.

The program’s content, no matter how extensive or educational, is built on a flawed and dangerous premise. It assumes that relationship building can proceed independently of the political context. It assumes that personal encounters can be detached from structures of domination. It assumes that economic opportunity can overshadow mass suffering. Such assumptions do not produce peace. They produce normalization without accountability.

The Israel-Asia Center’s mission further exposes the political intent. By preparing future leaders to advance Israel-Asia relations and creating Israeli opinion-shapers informed about Asia, the Center seeks to cultivate voices capable of softening regional resistance to engagement with Israel. Involving Indonesian participants becomes a powerful asset. Their participation can later be cited to suggest Indonesian openness to cooperation, even while genocide continues. This turns Indonesian involvement into an instrument of reputation management rather than a contribution to justice or peace.

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Real ethical engagement must confront the violence that defines the present. It must acknowledge that any future between peoples living between the river and the sea depends on transforming the structures that sustain dispossession and inequality. A future grounded in equal rights and shared belonging cannot emerge from initiatives that refuse to name or challenge the system responsible for mass suffering.

Indonesia has long insisted on a principled position regarding Palestine, rooted in anti-colonial commitments and solidarity with the oppressed. Participation in the Israel–Indonesia Futures Program would contradict that history. Leadership seminars cannot replace justice. Economic insights cannot replace accountability. Cross-cultural dialogue cannot replace freedom.

Exchanges with a perpetrator of genocide do not build peace. They erase the victims. There is no justification for such engagement. Not now. Not ever.

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