Xi pledges Chinese support for Palestine at UN meet
November 25, 2014, 8:45 am

Ambassador Riyad Mansour, Permanent Observer Mission of Palestine to the United Nations speaks on International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People on 24 November 2014 [Image: UN/Twitter]

Xi made the appeal in a message lauding a meet held Monday at the United Nations to mark the “International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People”.

“China firmly supports the just cause of the Palestinian people to regain their legitimate national rights,” Xi said in a message to the UN.

China will work with unremitting efforts with the international community to achieve the goal of peace between Palestinians and Israelis, he added.

Israel’s 50-day-long offensive against Gaza this summer killed more than 2,100 Palestinians, mostly women, children and the elderly.

The International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People is observed by the United Nations on or around Nov. 29 each year.

The Solidarity Day aims to help the international community focus its attention on the fact that the question of Palestine is still unresolved, and that the Palestinian people have yet to attain their rights as defined by the UN General Assembly. The United Nations declared 2014 as the “International Year of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.”

Earlier in July, China sent its special envoy on Middle East affairs, Wu Sike, to Israel and the Palestinian territories to mediate the conflict there.

China alongwith other members of the BRICS bloc voted in Geneva in July in favor of a Palestinian draft submitted to an emergency session of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) to investigate alleged war crimes committed during Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip.

Meanwhile, Palestine President Mahmoud Abbas will begin a state visit to another BRICS nation, South Africa, on Wednesday.

Abbas and his South African counterpart Jacob Zuma will sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on political consultations.

“The primary objective of the MoU is to create a mechanism that will allow South Africa and Palestine to hold political consultations twice a year, to deliberate on issues of mutual interest, particularly the question of Palestine,” a South African Presidency statement said.

Palestine President Abbas last week warned against places of worship becoming points of conflict, amid Israeli right-wing activists agitating for Jewish prayer rights inside Jerusalem’s Haram al-Sharif.

“This is a crucial time, there’s terrorism, religious conflict and violence. It is us who pay the price, the blood of our children. I am warning against turning a political conflict into a religious one. Let’s talk about politics not religion,” said Abbas on Friday. Jerusalem is sacred to all three Abrahamic faiths, Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

Earlier in September at the UN General Assembly meet this year, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said the Palestinian issue is “a wound on human conscience” and called on Israel and Palestine to sustain a durable ceasefire. Wang also urged Israel to lift its blockade on the Gaza Strip and stop building settlements. At the same time, the legitimate security concerns of Israel should be respected, he said.

TBP and Agencies