Nas Daily Visits Indonesia, MER-C: This is Israel’s Strategy

Jakarta, MINA – Chair of the Presidium of the Medical Emergency Rescue-Committee (MER-C) dr. Sarbini Abdul Murad said that the entry of a blogger, Nas Daily to Indonesia was Israel’s strategy to embrace Indonesian people.

“This is Israel’s strategy to be able to welcome the hearts of the Indonesian people by sending this vlogger,” said dr. Sarbini to MINA via telephone on Sunday.

Sarbini also reminded the Indonesian government to be careful in accepting Israeli citizens even though they use passports from other countries.

“Don’t let this undermine the Palestinian fighters’ trust in us, don’t let it undermine our dignity and worth,” he said.

Denied Entry to Indonesia

As quoted from CNN Indonesia, Nas Daily, who is a content creator with an Israeli passport, was initially refused entry to Indonesia in 2018. According to the immigration authorities, the refusal at that time was due to a discrepancy between the document and the purpose of the activity at that time.

Nas Daily expressed his disappointment with a video recording, after being refused entry to Indonesia at that time via his personal Facebook social media account on 31 August 2018.

“I do not know why. I suspect this has something to do with my Israeli passport. Even though I am a Palestinian Muslim, I am still not allowed to enter (to Indonesia),” said Nas Daily at the time.

Now, Nas Daily could enter Indonesia and visit Bali and even meet with the Minister of Tourism and Creative Economy (Menparekraf) Sandiaga Salahuddin Uno.

According to the Public Relations Sub-coordinator of the Directorate General of Immigration Achmad Nur Saleh, the vlogger with 3.9 million followers was not included in the prevention list so he was allowed to enter Indonesia.

“The person concerned is not included in the prevention list, so there is no immigration authority to ban entry to Indonesia,” said Achmad on Tuesday.

Residents of Israel with Dual Citizenship

After investigating, the immigration authorities stated that Nas Daily actually entered Indonesia using the passport of the Federation of Saint Kitts and Nevis. It’s no secret that many Israelis have dual citizenship.

This fact was disclosed by the Spokesperson for the Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Teuku Faizasyah, in August 2022. Israeli citizens can use a second citizenship to apply for a visa to a country that has no ties to the Zionist Country.

Indonesia does not have diplomatic relations with Israel. Apart from dual citizenship, Indonesia and Israel do have trade and tourism relations. Thus, Indonesian citizens can also visit Israel using a pilgrimage visa.

“In practice, business relations [business to business] and relations between people [people to people] are already running,” said Faizasyah.

In 2020, Indonesia’s Directorate General of Immigration also opened an electronic visa service (e-visa) for citizens of Israel and seven other countries.

The e-visa service is specifically for family unification, business, investment and work purposes. The subject of this calling visa is a country with a certain level of vulnerability.

Calling visa countries are considered to have a certain level of vulnerability in terms of ideological, political, economic, socio-cultural, defense, and security aspects.

Pro-Israel influencers

Quoting Langit7 from The Islamic Information, Nas Daily is known as an influencer or a pro-Israel public figure. He often makes videos that try to normalize normalization agreements between Israel and Arab countries with a narrative of peace.

Nas Daily even openly opposed the boycott call The Palestinian Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) in a video entitled “Beware of Losing Arabs”. He called BDS, who condemned his efforts, “the enemy of success”.

Nas claims 30 million people followed his steps which are considered calling for peace. Thus, he decided to reveal some positive aspects to those followers.

The man born in the village of Arraba, Israel prefers to label himself as a Palestinian-Israeli. However, Israelis or Jews prefer to think of it as Arab-Israeli. (T/RE1)

Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)