Israel’s unexpected aggressive bombardment of military sites near the Syrian capital last week has complicated matters both regionally and internationally, raising serious doubts about the intentions of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who, immediately after the raids on Friday and Sunday, left directly for Beijing for talks with new Chinese leaders.

Netanyahu’s trip followed immediately after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas had concluded his talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping, who revealed a four-point proposal for settling the decades-long Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The proposal endorsed full Palestinian sovereignty on the basis of the 1967 armistice lines and occupied East Jerusalem serving as the Palestinian capital, underlying the fact that this “is an alienable right of the Palestinian people and the key to the settlement of the Palestinian Question”. At the same time, the four-point proposal said: “Israel’s right to exist and its legitimate security concerns should be fully respected.”