Xi Jinping Pushing for Monumental Change in Israel, China Joins Multiple Nations Now Looking to Fracture Holy Land
Editor’s Note: Our readers responded strongly to this story when it originally ran; we’re reposting it here in case you missed it.
Chinese President Xi Jinping opened a summit with leaders of Arab nations May 30 with a call for Palestinian statehood.
Xi told Arab leaders at the China-Arab States Cooperation Forum in Beijing that China “firmly supports” the idea of an independent Palestine and suggested that the hypothetical new state should also joint the United Nations.
“China firmly supports the establishment of an independent State of Palestine that enjoys full sovereignty based on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital,” Xi said, according to a translation of his remarks by The Associated Press.
“It supports Palestine’s full membership in the U.N., and supports a more broad-based, authoritative and effective international peace conference,” he added, in an only slightly veiled jab at the United States, which has been working with Hamas and Israel to negotiate an end to the fighting in Gaza.
“War should not continue indefinitely,” he said, as though infinite war were in Israel’s plans.
Israeli national security adviser Tzachi Hanegbi, in fact, said in an interview on Israeli public broadcasting cited by Al Jazeera that he expected that it would take through the end of the year to complete destroy Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad as military and political factions.
“[W]e are expecting another seven months of fighting,” he told the Kan public broadcasting outlet.
Seven months is not “indefinitely,” it need hardly be said.
Nor is it “forever,” though that was the next time reference Xi used in his remarks.
“Justice should not be absent forever,” he said. “Commitment to the two-state solution should not be wavered at will.”
One could argue that justice isn’t even absent now, in fact, and that Hamas is receiving justice at the hands of the Israel Defense Forces for its barbaric and cowardly attacks on civilians on Oct. 7, 2023.
Xi promised another $69 million in “emergency humanitarian assistance” at the conference, as well as another $3 million to UNWRA, the U.N.’s agency for Palestinian refugees, according to Al Jazeera.
China has “repeatedly” expressed its support for the so-called “two-state solution,” the outlet reported, though it noted that much of China’s recent rhetoric was an attempt at “flexing its diplomatic influence” in the Middle East.
And it’s doing so because of what has been perceived as the U.S.’s inaction under President Joe Biden’s administration, Al Jazeera said.
“Beijing sees the ongoing conflict as a golden opportunity to criticise the West’s double standards on the international scene and call for an alternative global order,” said Camille Lons, a policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, according to a report from the AFP news agency cited by Al Jazeera.
Meanwhile, Slovenian lawmakers voted June 4 to recognize a so-called Palestinian state, according to The Associated Press.
That announcement followed just days after Ireland, Norway and Spain joined together in a show of support for the Palestinian people the previous week.
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