The Rearticulating Indonesia’s Foreign Policy Identity in PresidentPrabowo Subianto Discourse on Gaza (2024-2025)

Abstrak

This study examines the rearticulation of Indonesia's foreign policy identity in President Prabowo Subianto's discourse on the Gaza crisis during 2024–2025. Drawing on constructivism, role theory (National Role Conceptions), idiosyncratic leadership, and the two-level games framework with the win-set concept, this article argues thatPrabowo's diplomacy represents a shift in Indonesia's identity from a normative solidarity maker toward an affirmative operational peacekeeper. Using a qualitative discourse analysis approach across seven key presidential speeches and a corpus of audience responses, the findings reveal three central dynamics: first, a rearticulation of the nodal point from religious solidarity toward universal anti-colonialism and global humanitarianism; second, a shift in role conception manifested through the offer of 20,000 peacekeeping personnel, the deployment of a hospital ship, and proposed Gaza reconstruction schemes; third, the idiosyncratic dimension of Prabowo's leadershipthat combines military discipline with multi-alignment diplomacy. Nevertheless, this transformation faces constraints in the form of a narrowing domestic win-set due to resistance from Islamic mass organizations, parliament, and digital public opinion, alongside structural tensions between the role of Palestinian defender and strategicmediator. The study concludes that Prabowo's approach represents an effort to re-stitch the independent and active doctrine to remain relevant in the twenty-first century, preserving the anti-colonial anchor while constructing a more institutional and operational diplomatic architecture.