Notes on a Visit to Israel and Palestine By CPAFFC Vice President Li Xiaolin And

It was midwinter in Beijing in January with piercingly cold north wind blowing. When people had completed a year of busy work and were preparing to greet the arrival of the Spring Festival of the Year of the Rat, a CPAFFC delegation headed by its vice president Li Xiaolin paid a goodwill visit to Israel and Palestine, countries that were both familiar and mysterious to us. The visit was made at the invitation of the Council for the Promotion of Israel-China Relations and the Palestine-China Friendship Association.

The City of Peace Yearns for Peace

Jerusalem, a name attracting much attention of the world, means “city of peace” in Hebrew. But it has been linked to war, conflict, violence, terror and bloodshed since ancient times. Peace seems to be only a beautiful dream.

Jerusalem is a hilly city. Vice President Li Xiaolin and her party stayed at a five-star hotel in downtown Jerusalem. Looking out of the windows, we saw rows upon rows of yellowish and white houses circled by roads scattered beyond in graceful disorder. The Al-Aqsa Mosque regarded as the sacred mosque by Muslims of the whole world and the Temple Mount longed for by all Jews the world over were visible in the distance.

Arranged by our host, we visited the Old City of Jerusalem. The atmosphere there was not as tense and horrifying as we had imagined. The streets were swarmed with people, where pedlars hawking their wares and foreign tourists bargaining for better prices. It was a bustling and peaceful scene. Walking passed us were Muslims wrapped up from head to toe in their long garments, Jews wearing the long black coat and hat and sporting their special side-whiskers, and a group of Christians carrying a cross filing towards a church. They walked by with hurried steps, busy with their own business. We heard from time to time the chime of church bells and the call to prayer from minarets. We were only reminded that we were in Jerusalem when we came across heavy and cold roadblocks and police armed with loaded guns.

Going through the bustling Arab market, we arrived at the Wailing Wall where Jews came to pray. We saw many men and women praying there piously. I believed that many of them must be praying for the realization of final peace between Israel and Palestine. We also wrote down our best wishes for the people of all countries and our aspirations for world peace on a strip of paper and put it into a crack in the wall.

Strive for Peace

A Palestine-Israel conflict, the largest in recent years, broke out in Gaza the next day of our arrival in Israel. Dozens of Palestinians including Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar’s son died in the conflict, which enraged the Palestinians who pledged to revenge. The situation was very tense.

At his meeting with Vice President Li Xiaolin and her party, Israeli President Shimon Peres who is also honorary president of the Council for the Promotion of Israel-China Relations looked solemn and expressed his worries about the loss to both Israel and Palestine caused by the conflict and the negative effect it would bring to the Middle East peace process. This Nobel peace laureate, referred to as the architect of the Middle East peace process, was 85 year old. He still took as his ceaseless pursuit the promotion of Middle East peace process to achieve peace between Israel and its neighbour. He said, though Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat who share the Nobel Peace Prize with him had passed away, he would continue his efforts and strive for the realization of peace.

President Peres is an old friend of the Chinese people. He has made unremitting efforts to promote the friendly and cooperative relations between Israel and China during his tenure of office as prime minister and foreign minister of Israel. In April 1998, he led a delegation of the Council of the Promotion of Israel-China Relations to visit China at the invitation of the CPAFFC and was received by Chinese President Jiang Zemin. He said to Vice President Li Xiaolin, as the most important people-to-people friend ship organization in China, the CPAFFC has made untiring efforts over the years to enhance understanding and friendship between the people of Israel and China and cooperation in various fields between the two sides, which has achieved great success. He expressed the hope that the CPAFFC would make greater contributions to the realization of world peace and the strengthening of friendship among the people of the world. Li Xiaolin said, youth are the future of the world. The CPAFFC would host, at an appropriate time in China, a world youth friendship and peace forum with the aim of increasing understanding and friendship among the youth of all countries and expressing to the world the aspirations of the youth for regional and world peace. Students from various countries including Israel and Arab countries would be invited. Through such interaction among youth, we hope to remove misunderstanding and further exchanges among them. President Peres expressed his appreciation and said that he would pay a visit to the CPAFFC when he came to Beijing to attend the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games.

No Appointment Needed

The tight itinerary gave us only half a day in Palestine. Our friends in the Palestine-China Friendship Association arranged for us many meetings including those with Nimer Hamad, political adviser to the Palestinian National Authority President, Abdallah Al-Frangi, general commissioner of Foreign Relation Commission of Fatah, Dr. Said Abu Ali, governor of Ramallah and Al-Bireh Governorate, and Janette Nicholas Michael, mayor of Ramallah. We did not expect to meet Palestinian National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas as a large-scale bloodshed had taken place just a short time before and he must have a lot of pressing affairs to attend to. No sooner than we arrived in Ramallah, the seat of the Palestinian National Authority, we were informed that President Abbas would meet with the delegation.

Upon arriving at the office of the Palestinian Authority President, we learned that President Abbas’ office was located in the building where the late President Arafat had lived and worked and where he had been held under virtual house arrest by Israel. Walking into the simple reception room, we saw portraits of President Arafat and President Abbas on the wall in front of us. “Where are our Chinese friends?” a sonorous voice reached us before we got seated. With it, a hale and hearty old man with grey hair entered the room. He was Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian National Authority whom we often saw on television.

President Abbas extended welcome and thanks to Li Xiaolin for leading the delegation to visit Palestine under such circumstances, saying that this was the concrete embodiment of the Chinese people’s support for the Palestinian people. He spoke highly of and expressed gratitude to the Chinese Government and people for their consistent support and selfless assistance to the Palestinian people’s struggle for the restoration of their legitimate rights, and thanked the CPAFFC for organizing activities marking the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People designated by the United Nations on November 29 every year for decades on end. President Abbas also happily spoke about his good feelings towards China and what he had seen and heard in China. When talking about his friendship with several generations of Chinese leaders, his face beamed with excitement and happiness. He seemed, for the moment, forgetting the bombing, death and bloodshed happened shortly before. Time flied quickly. The scheduled half-an-hour meeting proceeded for almost an hour. As we stood up to take our leave, President Abbas, holding Li Xiaolin by her hand, said: “China is the most sincere friend of Palestine. Please tell our Chinese friends that the door of my office is always open to them and that no appointment is needed when they want to see me.”