For decades, “Middle East peace plan” has been Washington’s polite term for “expensive fantasy that goes nowhere.” Every administration gets one. Most collect dust before the ink dries. But something different is happening with Trump’s, and this week Indonesia proved it.
The world’s largest Muslim-majority nation is preparing to send up to 8,000 troops to Gaza as part of Trump’s International Stabilization Force. Not a UN resolution. Not a strongly worded letter. Boots. Actual soldiers, drawn from units with real combat-zone experience, getting ready to deploy to one of the most volatile patches of dirt on the planet.
That’s not symbolism. That’s commitment.
The Numbers Game
Indonesia’s officials spent Tuesday tripping over each other with competing figures, which is what happens when a country is genuinely working out the details instead of just posturing. Army Chief General Maruli Simanjuntak said 5,000 to 8,000. State Secretary Prasetyo Hadi echoed 8,000. Deputy Defense Minister Donny Taufanto scaled it back to an initial deployment of around 600.
The real number will land somewhere in between, and President Prabowo Subianto is expected to sign the paperwork by the end of February. He’s already been invited to Trump’s Board of Peace and is tentatively scheduled at the White House on February 19.
At the UN General Assembly last September, Prabowo went big — offering “20,000, or even more.” That was aspirational. But even the conservative estimate of several thousand troops makes Indonesia the first nation to put real military assets behind Trump’s 20-point plan. That matters more than every UN vote on Gaza combined.
Why Indonesia?
Prabowo sees an opening that smarter leaders recognize and weaker ones miss. Trump’s Board of Peace isn’t the United Nations, where Indonesia’s voice gets lost in a chorus of 193 countries all saying the same nothing. It’s a smaller table with actual decision-making power, and Prabowo wants a chair.
The Jakarta Globe’s editorial laid it out plainly — joining early gives Indonesia leverage to shape the reconstruction, influence governance standards, and position itself as the Global South’s credible humanitarian actor. Sitting on the sidelines means following decisions made by others. Prabowo chose the table over the bleachers.
For a country that’s spent decades punching below its weight diplomatically, it’s a bold play. And it carries domestic risk. Indonesian public opinion generally favors immediate Palestinian statehood, and sending troops to participate in a plan that doesn’t guarantee that outcome is a hard sell. Prabowo has been meeting with Muslim leaders and foreign affairs experts to make the case that the Board of Peace is Gaza’s best realistic shot at ending the war.
The Fine Print
Indonesia isn’t going in guns blazing. Their Foreign Ministry made it clear that participation will focus on humanitarian operations — engineering units, medical teams, stabilization work. They will not participate in disarming Hamas. That’s a red line Jakarta isn’t crossing, and it’s a smart one for a Muslim-majority nation navigating the optics of participating in a Trump-led initiative in Palestinian territory.
The troops will come from units with UNIFIL experience in Lebanon — soldiers who’ve operated in conflict zones before and know the difference between peacekeeping theory and peacekeeping reality.
Israeli broadcaster KAN reported that preparations are already underway between Rafah and Khan Younis to receive the Indonesian contingent. Housing and support structures are being built. The area is expected to be ready in several weeks. This isn’t a planning document. It’s construction.
What This Means for Trump’s Plan
Every peace plan lives or dies on participation. You can draw up the most brilliant 20-point framework in history, but if nobody shows up to implement it, it’s wallpaper. Indonesia showing up — with thousands of troops from the world’s largest Muslim-majority country — gives the plan something no amount of American diplomacy alone could provide: legitimacy in the Islamic world.
That’s the piece critics said Trump could never get. A Muslim nation willing to put soldiers on the ground in Gaza under an American-led framework. Not because they agree with every point, but because they calculated that being at the table beats shouting from outside the room.
The Jakarta Globe warned about mission creep, and that’s a legitimate concern. Gaza has a way of swallowing good intentions. But the alternative — another decade of UN resolutions, aid packages that fund terrorism, and peace processes that process nothing — is worse.
Trump built a framework. Prabowo is staffing it. And for the first time in a long time, a Middle East peace plan has something most of them never get — momentum.