Indonesia and Israel: What now?

Indonesia and Israel: What now?

Emanuel Shahaf, Jerusalem

Now that the easy part, the first publicly acknowledged
meeting between FM Hassan Wirayuda and his Israeli counterpart
Silvan Shalom is behind us, we are looking ahead at the truly
difficult part -- developing a relationship under considerable
political constraints.

Indonesia has come a long way by making this meeting public
and showing willingness to deal with the potential internal
public and political fall-out, which as it turned out, was a lot
smaller that many analysts would have predicted. This is a
promising development indicating yet again that the public is
often a lot more attuned to reality than the political
leadership. The fact that members of parliament in Jakarta are
discussing ties with Israel and that they are willing to consider
commercial links without the trimmings of a full diplomatic
relationship bodes well for the future.

What now has to be the order of business for both sides is to
make sure that this new stage Indonesia and Israel have reached
(actually have come back to since in the days of President
Soeharto we were there already), will be filled with content
giving both sides tangible benefits. These could include making
access to Indonesia easier for Israeli businessmen, make it
possible for Israeli companies to participate in some of the
Indonesian infrastructure projects, possibly not directly,
establish links between academic institutions and consider joint
research and training in agriculture and medicine.

There is no lack of possibilities but the important thing is
to start moving however slowly and carefully. And this brings me
to the most critical point: Channels of communication. Until some
kind of Israeli representation can be opened in Jakarta, channels
of communication should be established between Israeli and
Indonesian officials in Singapore who could then work on the
ideas suggested above, in close vicinity but away from the
immediate pressures of Jakarta. And it would be nice if President
Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and/or FM Hassan would visit Jerusalem
when their visit to Palestine materializes.

We have finally come back close to where we were in 1993, the
year of the visit of the late Israeli PM Yitzhak Rabin to
Jakarta. The last 12 years were in many ways wasted years. Let's
not miss this second opportunity.

The writer is a retired (Israeli) diplomat who served in South
East Asia from 2000-2003.