Analyzing the Role of Islam in Indonesia's Approach to the Palestine Issue; Implications for Iran

Islam, within diverse cultural and political contexts, manifests in varied forms in shaping foreign policy towards regional and international issues. The approach of Muslim-majority countries to the Palestine issue serves as the most compelling research testament to this proposition. For instance, while in the Islamic Republic of Iran, support for Palestine is institutionalized at the governmental and ideological levels, in Indonesia, this support is the product of an interplay between pressures from civil society, the state's anti-colonial identity, and realist calculations within the international system. Accordingly, the central question of this article is: How does Islam explain Indonesia's persistent perspective and stance in supporting Palestine? While elucidating the dimensions of this question as the article's core focus, the authors ultimately, by comparing the approaches of Indonesia and Iran, offer recommendations for the foreign policy of the Islamic Republic. The research findings, framed within a qualitative approach and utilizing a descriptive-analytical method with library data, indicate that at the civil level, the influence of Islamic movements, and at the governmental level, the need to sustain anti-colonialism as a national symbol, have resulted in a consistent approach to preserving and supporting the Palestine issue as a priority in Indonesia's foreign policy.