Immediate cease-fire needed to end suffering

People check buildings destroyed in Israeli airstrikes in the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis, Oct 23, 2023. [Photo/Xinhua]

This is an editorial from China Daily.

After talking with his counterparts from both Israel and Palestine on the telephone, Foreign Minister Wang Yi has made China's position on the Israel-Palestine conflict clear: China stands for peace.

To Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen, Wang said the current Israel-Palestine conflict affects the whole world, and the warring sides should choose peace over war. Wang's diplomatic discourse is what the world needs to restore peace in the region. The discourse is in stark contrast to the only superpower's promise of material and military help for Israel to punish Hamas, and by default all the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, which would protract the conflict, even risk spreading it across the Middle East.

To Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad Al-Maliki, Wang said that China strongly condemns and opposes all acts of violence targeting civilians and violating international law, and called for an immediate cease-fire. Palestine, being the weaker side, has lost a disproportionately higher number of lives and suffered much more destruction than Israel in the ongoing conflict.

To both sides, Wang appealed in the name of humanity to cease fire, reminding them that preventing the situation from further worsening is a necessity given the humanitarian crisis that has already emerged.

The conflict is not about which side is stronger. It is about preventing the further loss of lives and material destruction in Gaza by persuading the two sides to declare an immediate cease-fire. It is about restoring lasting peace.

In 2009, upon receiving the Jerusalem Prize in one of the holiest cities for Jews, Christians and Muslims, Japanese author Haruki Murakami famously said: "Between a high, solid wall and an egg that breaks against it, I will always stand on the side of the egg."

Murakami is a writer of conscience. But an egg breaking against a wall, so to speak, will not resolve the conflict. Rather it can be resolved by ending the hatred between the two sides, so the egg can survive and the wall can be left in peace. The international community should not allow the Israel-Palestine conflict to continue any further.

And the only feasible way of resolving it is to implement the two-state solution, and ensure the Palestinian people's right to subsistence and statehood.

The international community has a role to play in the process, which is why Wang said the United Nations Security Council should shoulder its responsibility, and the international community should not allow countries outside the region, especially major powers, to add fuel to the fire and instead ask them to play a constructive role in de-escalating the crisis.

China stands with neither side. It stands for peace. It's time all the other countries did the same.