Muslim protestors burned Israeli and American flags, as well as posters of Netanyahu and Trump, in the fourth day of protests in Jakarta.
Several hundred Islamic youth gathered Monday in front of the American embassy in Indonesia’s capital of Jakarta to continue the protests that have taken place in the world’s most populous Muslim country since President Donald Trump announced his formal recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
They waved banners proclaiming their loyalty to the Palestinians and burned Israeli and Americans flags, as well as pictures of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Trump.
This demonstration was considerably smaller, however, than the protests that took place in Jakarta over the weekend, when several thousand people rallied by the US embassy, and similar protests took place in several other Indonesian cities. Those protests were arranged by an Islamic political party, the Prosperous Justice Party, which is a member of the opposition in Indonesia’s parliament.
President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo also came out against Trump’s announcement, which he claimed was a violation of U.N. resolutions. Indonesia has no diplomatic relations with Israel, and strongly identifies with the Palestinian side in the conflict.
There have been a number of demonstrations over the last few days in many Muslim-majority countries in Asia, including Malaysia, Bangladesh and Pakistan, as well as in Arab countries. Palestinians in both Judea and Samaria as well as the Gaza Strip have displayed more extreme behavior, with hundreds of rock- and Molotov cocktail-throwing incidents, aimed at both Israeli security forces and civilians traveling on the country’s roads.
The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), comprising 57 member states, is meeting Wednesday in Istanbul, Turkey, in an extraordinary summit to discuss the ramifications of President Trump’s announcement. Turkish President Recep Erdoğan has been among the most vociferous critics of the American move, threatening to break off diplomatic relations with Israel. It should be noted that almost no members of the OIC have diplomatic relations with the Jewish state, although not all of them have Muslim majorities in their countries.
By: Beth Stern, United with Israel
With files from AP.