Peloni: Including such advocates against Israel’s interests as the Indonesian forces into an organization intended to maintain the peace between Israel and the radical belligerents of Gaza demonstrates the clarity with which the so called International Stabilization Force lacks credibility to pursue much less achieve its intended mission of providing stability to the region. Note that Indonesia has voted against Israel in 100% of the 185 resolutions raised against Israel in the UN over the past decade. Nothing demonstrates bias more than such consistency.
By: Fern Sidman | TJV News | Feb 18, 2026
Indonesian Soldiers prepare for Bastille Day Parade July 9, 2025. Screengrab via Youtube
As deliberations intensify over the composition of a future international stabilization presence in the Gaza Strip, a prominent pro-Israel advocacy organization has issued a stark and uncompromising warning: any deployment of foreign troops must be anchored in political realism as much as in humanitarian aspiration. Americans for a Safe Israel (AFSI), one of the longest-standing pro-Israel organizations in the United States, has publicly opposed proposals to include Indonesian soldiers in a prospective “International Stabilization Force” for Gaza, arguing that states which refuse to recognize Israel’s existence cannot plausibly serve as neutral guarantors of security in a post-conflict environment.
The controversy was ignited by remarks from an Indonesian army spokesperson indicating that Jakarta stands ready to deploy troops to Gaza as early as April, should an international framework be established. The statement, intended to signal Indonesia’s willingness to participate in what is being framed by some diplomatic quarters as a multilateral effort to stabilize the territory, was received with deep skepticism by AFSI. The organization contends that such a deployment would not merely be imprudent, but structurally incompatible with the foundational premise of peacekeeping: that forces tasked with maintaining order and safeguarding civilians must be regarded as legitimate and impartial by all relevant parties.
Moshe Phillips, the chairman of Americans for a Safe Israel, articulated the organization’s objections in unusually forthright language. Indonesia, he observed, does not recognize the State of Israel, has never maintained diplomatic relations with it, and has consistently positioned itself in opposition to Israel and the United States in multilateral forums, including the United Nations. In Phillips’s view, these political realities are not incidental details that can be bracketed out in the name of international cooperation; they are dispositive facts that speak directly to the question of trust. A peacekeeping force, he argued, is only as credible as the political orientation of the states that comprise it. Where that orientation is overtly hostile to one of the principal parties to the conflict, the very notion of neutrality becomes untenable.
At the heart of Americans for a Safe Israel’s critique lies a broader indictment of what it perceives as a recurrent tendency in diplomatic circles to conflate procedural inclusion with substantive legitimacy. The impulse to assemble large, multinational coalitions is often motivated by a laudable desire to internationalize responsibility and diffuse the burdens of post-conflict stabilization. Yet, as Phillips and his colleagues insist, such coalitions risk becoming performative exercises if they are not grounded in a sober assessment of the political commitments and ideological dispositions of their participants. In the volatile and highly securitized context of Gaza, where trust is a scarce and fragile commodity, the presence of forces drawn from states that reject Israel’s legitimacy is unlikely to be experienced as stabilizing. On the contrary, it may be perceived by Israeli decision-makers and the Israeli public as a provocation, or at best as an impractical experiment in wishful thinking.
The organization’s intervention is also notable for the way in which it situates the Indonesian proposal within a wider pattern of international posturing. Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation, has long positioned itself rhetorically as a champion of the Palestinian cause. Its refusal to establish diplomatic relations with Israel is framed domestically as a principled stand rooted in solidarity with Palestinians. Americans for a Safe Israel does not dispute Indonesia’s right to articulate its foreign policy preferences. What it contests is the assumption that a state which has so consistently aligned itself against Israel can, in the next breath, present itself as a disinterested arbiter in a security mission whose success depends upon Israeli cooperation and confidence.
Phillips underscored this point by invoking the core operational logic of peacekeeping. Such missions are predicated not only on the consent of the host population but also, crucially, on the acquiescence of neighboring states and the belligerents themselves. In the case of Gaza, any stabilization force would inevitably operate in close proximity to Israel’s borders and in coordination with Israeli security structures. To imagine that Israeli authorities could repose confidence in troops drawn from a country that formally denies Israel’s existence is, in Phillips’s assessment, to indulge in a dangerous abstraction. The problem is not merely one of symbolism; it is one of practical coordination, intelligence-sharing, and mutual confidence, without which peacekeeping forces are reduced to passive observers rather than effective guarantors of order.
Beyond the immediate question of Indonesia’s participation, Americans for a Safe Israel’s statement gestures toward a deeper unease with the evolving discourse around international involvement in Gaza. The organization has long warned against what it characterizes as the erosion of clear-eyed assessments of security realities in favor of gestures designed to signal moral concern without grappling with political complexity. In this reading, the enthusiasm with which some diplomats have greeted offers of troop contributions from states with overtly anti-Israel policies reflects a troubling prioritization of optics over outcomes. A stabilization force that lacks the confidence of Israel, the principal regional power most directly implicated in Gaza’s security environment, is unlikely to achieve more than a superficial calm, and may even exacerbate tensions by introducing new layers of mistrust.
Americans for a Safe Israel’s critique is further informed by its institutional history and ideological orientation. Established in 1970, the organization has consistently positioned itself as a bulwark against rising currents of anti-Israel sentiment in international discourse. Through advocacy and educational initiatives, it seeks to counter narratives that delegitimize Israel’s right to defend itself and obscure the asymmetries of responsibility in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The organization’s nonpartisan stance, encompassing both American and Israeli political contexts, has allowed it to cultivate a reputation as a voice of principled constancy rather than transient political expediency. Its opposition to Indonesian troop deployment thus reflects not an ad hoc reaction, but a continuity of concern regarding the ways in which international interventions can be structured in ways that disadvantage Israel’s security interests.
The question raised by this episode extends beyond Indonesia alone. It invites a reconsideration of the criteria by which contributors to peacekeeping and stabilization missions are selected. If neutrality is to be more than a rhetorical flourish, it must be anchored in demonstrable political commitments to the legitimacy and security of all parties involved. In conflicts as deeply entrenched and emotionally charged as that between Israel and its adversaries, the identities and declared positions of peacekeepers matter profoundly. The presence of troops from states that have not merely criticized specific Israeli policies but have rejected Israel’s very existence risks importing into the mission the ideological conflicts that the mission is ostensibly designed to ameliorate.
For diplomats seeking to craft a viable international framework for Gaza’s stabilization, Americans for a Safe Israel’s warning functions as a bracing reminder that peacekeeping is not an abstract moral exercise, but a practice embedded in the concrete realities of power, perception, and political alignment. The aspiration to mobilize broad international participation must be tempered by the recognition that not all contributions are equal in their capacity to foster trust. In this sense, the organization’s call to exclude Indonesia from any such force is less a repudiation of international cooperation per se than a demand that cooperation be calibrated to the exigencies of the conflict it seeks to address.
Whether policymakers will heed this admonition remains an open question. The impulse to assemble diverse coalitions often carries its own momentum, driven by institutional incentives within multilateral organizations and by the desire of individual states to signal engagement on the global stage. Yet, as the debate over Indonesian participation illustrates, the composition of such coalitions is not a neutral technical matter; it is a profoundly political choice with direct implications for the perceived legitimacy and operational efficacy of any stabilization effort. In the fraught terrain of Gaza, where every gesture is freighted with symbolic and strategic significance, the stakes of such choices could scarcely be higher.
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