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.