Israel’s efforts to advance its agenda around the Muslim world has taken another important step forward this week as the Israeli Foreign Ministry launches a website in the Indonesian language targeting the world’s largest Muslim nation.
Although Israel and Indonesia do not hold diplomatic relations, reaching a population of 200,000,000 Muslims in their own language might be a good step towards understanding and future hopes for relations and cooperation.
The website (found at http://jakarta.mfa.gov.il) will not only cover political and diplomatic issues, but will also deal with areas such as culture, science, economics, and education - areas which there is very little information about Israel.
One of the major problems the website will deal with is the fact that for many years the local population has been only informed by media sources hostile to Israel which did not paint an objective and whole picture about the situation in the region.
The website will now allow Indonesian internet surfers to receive direct information from and about Israel. The hope is that the new website will contribute to reducing the misconceptions against Israel among the Indonesian public and will allow for a real dialogue with a large and important population which is an important part of the Muslim world.