INDONESIA MUST REJECT MOSSAD’S GAZA EVACUATION SCHEME

Mon 21 July 2025:

On 18 July 2025, Axios reported a deeply troubling revelation: the head of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, David Barnea, has contacted Indonesia as part of a plan to resettle hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from Gaza. In a meeting last week in Washington, Barnea told White House envoy Steve Witkoff that Israel had approached Indonesia, Ethiopia, and Libya—countries it claimed were “open” to accepting displaced Palestinians. According to the report, Israel is now actively seeking US incentives to push this plan forward, despite international legal experts warning that such “voluntary relocations” could constitute a violation of the laws of war.

To be clear, this is not a humanitarian offer—it is a political maneuver by a government determined to erase Gaza’s population. It is an effort to outsource the consequences of its own siege and bombardment to third countries, all while branding it as rescue.

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Indonesia must reject this plan in the strongest possible terms. Not merely because it comes from Mossad—a spy agency that has operated for decades in the shadows of Israel’s regional domination—but because it fundamentally undermines the rights of the Palestinian people to live, resist, and rebuild on their own land.

Even the US Congress isn’t buying it. Senator Chris Van Hollen, a leading Democrat, called Israel’s request “outrageous and sickening.” He warned that it amounted to ethnic cleansing and stated unequivocally that “the U.S. should not be complicit in or use any governmental, American taxpayer resources to aid and abet what amounts to the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian civilians from Gaza.”

Why then, would Indonesia—a country that has historically stood with Palestine at every turn—entertain such a morally bankrupt proposal?

Unfortunately, this plan is not arriving in a vacuum. Earlier this year, President Prabowo Subianto announced Indonesia’s own plan to evacuate 1,000 Gazans to Indonesia, citing humanitarian concerns. While framed as temporary and coordinated with Palestinian authorities, the initiative was immediately criticised by leading Indonesian scholars and rights groups as dangerously aligned with Israel’s longer-term strategy of depopulating Gaza under the guise of aid.

Vice Chairman of the Indonesian Ulama Council (MUI), Buya Anwar Abbas, warned of the overlap between Prabowo’s proposal and historical efforts to force Palestinians from their homeland. Other religious leaders, including Cholil Nafis of Nahdlatul Ulama and Din Syamsuddin of Muhammadiyah, echoed these concerns. They emphasised that the root of the crisis is not Gaza’s population—but Israel’s military aggression and occupation.

The United Nations agrees. Secretary-General António Guterres has repeatedly stated that any attempt to move Palestinians out of Gaza—even temporarily—violates international law. Forced displacement is not humanitarianism. It is a war crime. What Gaza needs is not evacuation—it needs protection, reconstruction, and an end to occupation.

Indonesia’s government must ask itself: Is it truly helping the people of Gaza by flying them thousands of miles from their homeland, or is it simply making their erasure more palatable?

Every well-meaning evacuation risks becoming a permanent exile. The Palestinian people know this story too well. Since 1948, millions of refugees have been forced to flee, promised the right to return—and then barred from ever going home. Generations have grown up in camps in Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan. Gaza is one of the last pieces of Palestinian land still under Palestinian control, however limited. To empty it now, even partially, is to do the occupier’s work for them.

Yes, Indonesia has a long and proud record of standing with Palestine. But true solidarity does not mean relocating victims—it means resisting the systems that victimize them. It means calling for a ceasefire, rebuilding the Indonesian Hospital in Gaza destroyed by Israeli bombs, sending doctors and supplies to Rafah, and demanding accountability and justice. It also means promoting a one-state solution as the only viable path forward.

This is not just about what Indonesia does for Palestinians—it’s about what kind of nation Indonesia wants to be. A nation that speaks truth to power, or one that quietly plays along while others rewrite history and borders in blood.

Let us not be naïve. Mossad’s outreach is not driven by empathy. It is a strategic move to sanitize a decades-long project of occupation and displacement. Israel wants to say: Look, even Muslim countries are helping us relocate Palestinians—they don’t want them either. Indonesia must refuse to play that role.

Helping Palestine means helping them stay. Not go. Gaza does not need to be emptied—it needs to be defended, rebuilt, and preserved as a home. And Indonesia must not allow itself to become a silent partner in its erasure.

The world is watching. And Indonesia must be on the right side of history.

Say no to Mossad. Say no to forced relocation. Say no to complicity.

Author

Dr. Muhammad Zulfikar Rakhmat

Dr. Muhammad Zulfikar Rakhmat is the Director of the Indonesia-MENA Desk at the Centre for Economic and Law Studies (CELIOS) in Jakarta and a Research Affiliate at the Middle East Institute, National University of Singapore. He spent over a decade living and traveling across the Middle East, earning a B.A. in International Affairs from Qatar University. He later completed his M.A. in International Politics and Ph.D. in Politics at the University of Manchester.

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