Indonesian parliamentarians have called on the government of President Joko Widodo to cancel a recent decision by the Immigration Department allowing holders of Israeli passports to apply for entry visas to Indonesia.

Hedayat Nour Waheed, deputy speaker of the People's Consultative Assembly, asked about the president's position, and whether this step is part of the soft policy that is heading towards normalizing relations with Israel, as he put it.

He recalled the position of the former Indonesian president on the boycott of Israel, and stood firmly in support of the Palestinian people and their struggle.

Hidayat Noor Waheed, a leader in the opposition Justice and Welfare Party, said that in "2016 the president in a heroic position called for the OIC countries to boycott Israel, and it is assumed that this call remains in its implementation by the Indonesian government, and not activating an entry visa." (Cooling Visa) for Israelis, "as he described it.

He expressed his concern that granting the Israelis entry visas to his country would pave the way for the normalization of diplomatic relations between Indonesia and Israel, which had been rejected since the era of the late President Ahmed Sukarno.

He also said, "Sukarno has emphasized that as long as Israel occupies Palestine, Indonesia will not establish relations with Israel," adding that this position of Sukarno is understood within the context of the introduction to the country's 1945 constitution, which affirms that "independence is a right for all peoples, and therefore it must be All forms of occupation will disappear on the face of this earth, because it conflicts with the principles of humanity and justice. "

Hidayat Noor Waheed reminded of a previous statement by President Joko Widodo, in which he considered his country owed to Palestine because it is the only country that has not yet gained independence from the countries that met at the Asia-Africa Summit in the Indonesian city of Bandung in 1955.

Therefore, the opposition leader called on the Indonesian government to activate its role in international and international forums, and to stand with calls for boycotting any Israeli products, calling on President Joko Widodo to issue orders to the Indonesian Immigration Department to cancel its decision.

He warned that the normalization of relations with Israel would not contribute to the independence of Palestine, in contrast to the campaign calling for normalization, referring to the outcome of the normalization of other countries, the most recent of which is the UAE, and that did not support the Palestinian people and did not change the positions of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he said.

A previous demonstration in Jakarta to denounce US President Donald Trump's decision to recognize occupied Jerusalem as the capital of Israel (Reuters)


A betrayal of principles


on his part, said Fazli Zoon, a parliamentarian from the "Great Indonesia Movement" party led by Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto;

Allowing visas to the Israelis is a decision that "hurts the feelings of the Islamic nation in Indonesia," and considered the move a "betrayal of the right to political struggle of Indonesian diplomacy over the past years," calling for the decision to be immediately reversed for violating the constitution, as he put it.

A similar position was issued by TB Hasanuddin, the parliamentarian of the Struggle for Democracy party - the party of President Joko Widodo - who said that granting visas to Israelis contradicts the philosophy of the Indonesian people.

He pointed out that Indonesia does not have diplomatic relations with Tel Aviv, while the Indonesian bonds with the Palestinians are strong, and go back to the positions of the first leaders of Indonesia before its independence.

He also indicated that all the Indonesian people bear the responsibility to support the Palestinian people's struggle for their independence, and considered granting visas to the Israelis inconsistent with the Indonesian foreign policy stances and the five principles or ideology of the state, and demanded that the decision to grant visas to Israeli passport holders be canceled.

A surprising decision.


A statement issued by the Immigration Department at the Indonesian Ministry of Justice and Human Rights a few days ago indicated that, starting from Monday, holders of 8 countries' passports will be allowed to apply for a special "Cooling Visa", after a pause during the epidemic.

Irvine Gumilang from the media department of the department said that holders of passports of Israel, North Korea, Somalia, Nigeria, Guinea, Liberia, Cameroon and Afghanistan will be allowed to apply for this type of visas through the ministry's page on the Internet, noting that experts or investors from these countries want to apply for visas to enter Indonesia. As he put it.

According to this classification, these eight countries have unstable conditions, or have an ideological, political, economic, cultural, defense or security situation, which makes the access of their citizens dependent on the approval of a joint committee convened to consider applications for obtaining visas.

The committee includes representatives of the Ministries of Justice, Foreign Affairs, Interior, Labor, Police, Public Prosecution, General Intelligence and Strategic Military, and the Drug Enforcement Agency.

Where the joint team from those official bodies considers granting a visa to the person applying or not, according to each case.

The decision by the Indonesian immigration authorities may enable Israelis to obtain visas to enter the country (Getty Images)


Timing of the decision


It is remarkable that this statement was issued days after the return of Minister of Investment and Maritime Affairs Lohut Pangaitan from Washington.

The Indonesian minister said that he visited the White House 4 times during 3 days, during which he met US President Donald Trump, on the 17th of this month, and he also met his deputy, Mike Pence, his advisor Jared Kushner, and other officials, including Adam Seth Boehler, CEO of "International Development Company". Finance Corporation (IDFC).

Minister Pangaitan is known to be the man who closely follows the file of the Indonesian-Emirati relations, and has a relationship that he has always talked about in the media with the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Mohammed bin Zayed.

The minister had confirmed that the talks in Washington were in investment fields;

Such as the pledge of new US investments worth two billion dollars, after his meeting with a number of managers of major American companies, and joint work in the field of Corona virus vaccine between American companies and other Indonesian government.

It was noticeable that the "Voice of America" ​​website, in its Indonesian version, noticed that the White House did not disclose some details of the Indonesian Minister Luhut's meetings with American officials in the White House.

It is noteworthy that the talk about granting visas to Israeli passport holders was raised in the media more than once during the rule of Indonesian President Joko Widodo, including in June 2018, when the former Indonesian Minister of Justice and Human Rights Yasuna Lawley spoke about the refusal to grant visas to 53 Israelis. Without explaining the reasons.

At that time, the minister affirmed his country's right to accept or refuse to grant a visa to any foreigner, just as the name Israel had appeared years ago among the list of countries whose citizens could obtain entry visas to Indonesia, which sparked widespread controversy in the political and popular circles at the time, because there was no Official diplomatic relations between the two countries.