Denies The Mystical Reason, Hasto Reveals 6 Reasons PDIP Rejects Israel At The U20 World Cup

Secretary General of the PDI-P (PDIP) Hasto Kristiyanto. (Tsa Tsia-VOI)

JAKARTA - Secretary General of the PDI Perjuangan (PDIP) Hasto Kristiyanto emphasized that his party's stance on rejecting Israel's presence at the 2023 U20 World Cup was based on an understanding of Bung Karno's thoughts and scientific studies.

"So, we emphasize, what all PDIP cadres believe in Bung Karno is not occult, but rather as a dialogue in the mind's eye on all the threads of Bung Karno's thoughts which remain relevant in analyzing various national and world issues," said Hasto, in his statement on Jakarta, Tuesday, April 4, as reported by Antara.

This was also conveyed by Hasto to refute the opinion of University of Indonesia lecturer Ade Armando who considered the attitude of PDIP cadres to reject Israel's presence at the U20 World Cup as occult by calling it Bung Karno's inspiration.

Furthermore, Hasto conveyed six reasons for PDIP's rejection of the presence of the Israeli national team at the U20 World Cup based on an understanding of Bung Karno's thoughts.

The six reasons include considerations of ideology, constitution, history, international law, universal humanity, and Israel's right-wing power.

In fact, he added, PDIP had also discussed with the Governor of the National Resilience Institute (Lemhannas) Andi Widjajanto, and several international relations experts in considering their stance on the presence of the Israeli national team at the 2023 U20 World Cup which was ultimately canceled in Indonesia.

"Then there will be three rounds of lobbying from 2022 to 2023. So, there is no occult. I think Bung Ade's attitude, which usually encourages rational thinking, why does it seem irrational?" Hasto said.

Hasto then revealed that on August 17, 2022, his party had a discussion at Lemhannas to discuss Israel's qualification for the U20 World Cup. The discussion concluded that this has the potential to become a serious problem because survey data in May 2022 from SMRC showed that 67 percent of respondents had negative sentiments towards Israel.

Apart from that, the discussion also concluded that when the Indonesian government decided to take part in the bidding to host the U20 World Cup, it had absolutely no idea that Israel would qualify and participate.

Furthermore, on 23 August 2022, Hasto met with the Minister of Foreign Affairs (Menlu) Retno Marsudi to explain the various political risks if the Israeli national team was present in Indonesia.

"Our stance at the same time emphasizes that support for Palestine is not based on religion. On that basis, we proposed to the Minister of Foreign Affairs to lobby Singapore so that the Israeli match would be held in Singapore and Indonesia would still be the host," said Hasto.

Next around November 2022, PDIP representatives met State Secretary Minister Pratikno to convey the same attitude towards Israel's presence at the U20 World Cup.

The effort was all the more serious because, in the same month, there was a regime change in Israel with a right-wing leader becoming the ruler in the country.

Hasto also said that his party continues to move. Lobbying continues to find a way out amidst the increasingly massive rejection of Israel. At that time, there were also many studies related to this problem.

"Then on Wednesday, March 13, 2023, the expression of the same attitude was all done secretly because we did not want opportunists to clash PDIP with the government. It rolled on until suddenly brother Arya Sinulingga announced the cancellation of the draw without consulting FIFA and blaming letter from the Governor of Bali I Wayan Koster," said Hasto.

He then emphasized that PDIP continues to support the U20 World Cup, but without Israel. "This is also evidenced by the party's planned commemoration of Bung Karno Month, which was originally June 1, 2023, to be postponed to June 24, 2023, after the completion of the FIFA agenda," he stated.