Indonesia calls for cease the military support and arms trade with Israel

• The conference, established in 1979, is the world’s sole multilateral platform for disarmament negotiations.
• She also emphasized Israel’s human rights violations in Gaza and advocated against double standards within the international community.
• UN experts urged for an immediate halt to arms exports to Israel, citing the risk of violating international law.

As the current president of the UN Conference on Disarmament, Indonesia has advocated for terminating military support and arms sales to Israel. Established in 1979, the Conference on Disarmament comprises 65 member states, including permanent members of the UN Security Council, and serves as the world’s sole multilateral platform for disarmament negotiations.

Indonesia, currently holding the rotating presidency for a four-week term until March 15, is spearheading the high-level segment of the conference in Geneva this week. During the ministerial-level meeting, Indonesia’s Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi urged for a halt to arms shipments to Israel.

“At the end of my statement, I conveyed condemnation of Israel’s plan to use nuclear weapons to threaten the residents of Gaza. I also urged a stop to weapons shipment to Israel to prevent more fatalities,” Marsudi said in a video briefing on Tuesday.

During her time in Geneva, she also participated in a side event on Palestine, where she emphasized Israel’s human rights violations in Gaza and advocated against double standards within the international community.

“With the current situation in Gaza and Palestine, I asked if we will remain silent. Ideally, the answer should be no … In closing, I conveyed how we need to remain united, we must continue to work together to fight against the injustice that has gone on for so long against the nation of Palestine.”

Since October, nearly 30,000 Palestinians have perished in Gaza, while approximately 1.9 million people have been displaced in the besieged enclave. Intense Israeli bombardment from air, land, and sea has persisted for the last four months.

On February 23, UN experts urged for an immediate halt to arms exports to Israel, stating that “given the facts or past patterns of behavior,” any weapons or ammunition transferred there would be used to violate international law.

“Such transfers are prohibited even if the exporting State does not intend the arms to be used in violation of the law — or does not know with certainty that they would be used in such a way — as long as there is a clear risk,” the UN experts said.

“The need for an arms embargo on Israel is heightened by the International Court of Justice’s ruling on 26 January 2024 that there is a plausible risk of genocide in Gaza and the continuing serious harm to civilians since then,” the experts said. “All States must refrain from being complicit in international crimes through arms transfers. They must take action to promptly halt the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza.

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