Language:
English
Year of publication:
2011
Titel der Quelle:
Contemporary Islam
Angaben zur Quelle:
5,1 (2011) 1-17
Keywords:
Arab-Israeli conflict
;
Mass media
;
Anti-Zionism
;
Islam Relations
;
Judaism
;
Antisemitism
;
Jewish-Arab relations History 1945-
;
Indonesia Foreign relations
;
Israel Foreign relations
;
Gaza Strip
Abstract:
The ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a well-established part of religio-political discourse in Indonesia, a country in which Islam is an increasingly salient factor in political life. Anti-Zionism if not outright antisemitism is foundational in Indonesia. Partisan conflict narratives are socially, politically, and religiously constructed and reflect "cosmological archetypes". The Indonesian media construe conflicts in the Middle East in religious terms, as struggles between Muslims and a coalition of Christians and Jews. Reflects on Indonesian responses to and interpretations of the 2008-09 war in Gaza, and the ways in which they are framed by more general understandings of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as an aspect of a global struggle between Zionism and Islam. Focuses on the newspaper "Sumatra Utara Pos" (The North Sumatra Post) from the city of Medan, the third largest city in Indonesia, as well as on a set of collages depicting the Gaza conflict made by children and posted on a bulletin board at a Muslim school in Central Java. On 7 January 2009 the front page of the Medan newspaper read "Israel Uses Nuclear Bomb". The use of such an allegation, as well as images of Palestinians who meet Israeli tanks with stones and slingshots, not only demonizes Israel but also depicts the Gaza war as an asymmetrical conflict in which one participant, Israel, has an overwhelming military and technological advantage and symbolizes the horror of modern technological warfare. Such a depiction also helps to justify the Palestinian violence as defensive.
DOI:
10.1007/s11562-010-0145-4
URL:
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