The only way to resolve the Palestine-Israel conflict is to apply the two-state solution — that is, Israel for the Jewish people and Palestine for the Palestinian people — which the Israeli government and the Palestine Liberation Organization agreed to in 1993 as part of the Oslo Accords. And the international community should make sincere efforts to ensure the two-state solution is implemented, because too much blood has been shed, too many families ruined, too many children orphaned or killed on the relatively tiny strip of land in the Middle East since the 1948-49 Arab-Israeli war.

This is China’s stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and this is exactly what Zhai Jun, special envoy of the Chinese government on the Middle East issue, told an Egyptian Foreign Ministry official on Tuesday.

While talking with Osama Khedr, assistant minister of the Palestine Department in the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, on the phone, Zhai expressed deep concern over the escalating fighting between Israeli forces and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, which has already claimed more than 2,100 lives.

China, Zhai said, is opposed to and condemns acts that harm civilians, and calls for an immediate cease-fire.

Indeed, a cease-fire is the immediate need, and the international community, especially major countries, should try to push the two sides to cease hostilities. Given the long history of conflict and animosity between the two sides, it will not be possible to broker peace by playing the blame game.

Israel may be justified in retaliating against Hamas’ massive, unprecedented assault on southern and central Israel from land, sea and air, killing hundreds of Israeli citizens on Saturday. But that will not resolve the conflict. Instead, it will further intensify it.

Due to the vicious circle of attack and counterattack between Israel and Palestine, people on both sides have to live in constant fear and cannot hope for peace even after three quarters of a century of violence.

Palestinian militants, Hamas in particular, need to realize that killing Israelis or firing missiles into Israel will not secure peace for them. As for Israel, however strong its military may be, it must refrain from targeting Palestinian sites in either the West Bank or the Gaza Strip with missiles at the slightest provocation, or further encroaching on Palestinian land.

To live and let live should be the rationale for both sides, and the international community should convince the two sides to implement the two-state solution to end the fighting once and for all.

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