Achmad Sukarsono, Jakarta – Street rallies slamming Israeli military actions against Palestinians hit at least three major Indonesian cities on Wednesday while a minister said Jakarta would not let local groups send fighters to join in the conflict.
Around 150 Muslim students marched through Jakarta's main streets to protest in front of the United Nations representative office and the US embassy where they tried unsuccessfully to ram through a police cordon.
Three of the protesters wore masks representing US President George W. Bush, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, each saying "Hell is the place for me". Other demonstrators burned makeshift Israeli flags. "Until the end, Israel will be our eternal enemy," chanted the student protesters who included white-veiled women.
In the world's most populous Muslim nation, hundreds of other demonstrators lambasted the Jewish state on the streets of Java's old royal city Yogyakarta, and of Makassar, the capital of South Sulawesi province in the eastern part of the world's most populous Muslim nation.
Indonesia has officially condemned Israeli military action against towns and cities in the West Bank including the headquarters of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat in Ramallah.
At least two militant Indonesian Muslim groups have said they plan to send fighters to the Middle East to join the Palestinians in a holy war against the Israeli troops, but a Jakarta minister said the government would not condone the action and called on Muslims to show their solidarity in more peaceful ways.
"Indonesia must express solidarity not in a hurried fashion ... not by physically altogether head[ing] for Palestine to stand for what is right there," chief security minister Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono told reporters at the parliament. "So don't twist this [and say] the government is letting this [deployment] happen," he said.
Although most Indonesian Muslims and major moderate Muslim organisations have condemned the Israel aggression and strongly sympathise with the Palestinian cause, calls to join a holy war in the Middle East have met muted response.
[Additional reporting by Telly Nathalia.]