Peacekeepers or Political Pawns?
Zoom out for a second: ABC News reports that Indonesia is 'readying' up to 8,000 troops for a Gaza 'peacekeeping' force. This commitment, reportedly the first from a Muslim-majority nation, comes as the US floats a vague multinational plan to address the catastrophe it helped engineer. One might wonder why, after months of industrial-scale slaughter that has claimed over 37,000 lives, including
15,000 children, the spotlight suddenly shifts to 'peacekeeping' just as calls for accountability intensify. This isn't humanity's first rodeo with 'peacekeepers' in conflict zones. In 2011, the 'humanitarian intervention' in Libya, spearheaded by NATO, led directly to widespread chaos and the re-emergence of open-air slave markets, effectively dismantling a sovereign nation. Fast forward, and a
similar narrative of 'stabilization' is being spun for Gaza, a territory not just besieged but deliberately depopulated. Indonesia’s military, which received $284 million in U.S. arms transfers between 2008 and 2018, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, is now being positioned to 'secure' an outcome for the very powers that facilitated the devastation. The pattern is,
regrettably, familiar: the same international community that fails to enforce international law against an occupying power often proposes 'peacekeeping' missions that conveniently secure the occupier’s gains. This isn't about protecting the victims; it’s about managing the fallout in a way that minimizes political embarrassment for Western patrons while leaving the root causes of conflict —