by Jay Solomon at Semafor
Israeli and American officials are alarmed that China hasn’t condemned Hamas for its terrorist attack this month, seeing in it an attempt by Beijing to use the Middle East’s violence to isolate the U.S. from its Arab and regional allies.
Chinese officials haven’t even used the word Hamas in their public statements since the militant Palestinian organization stormed into southern Israel on October 7 and slaughtered more than 1,400 Israelis. Instead, China has joined with Russia in calling for an immediate end to Israel’s military operations in the Gaza Strip and signaled its willingness to lead a new round of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians. This negotiating process, historically anchored by the U.S., has essentially been dormant for a decade.
“China calls for an international peace conference with greater authority and impact as soon as possible to galvanize a more broad-based international consensus with the two-state solution serving as its basis and formulate a timetable and roadmap to that end,” China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said last Friday. The diplomat said Beijing is working with Brazil, a leading member of the BRICS bloc of developing countries, which also includes Russia, India, China and South Africa, to pursue this diplomacy…
Continue Reading