A senior presidential advisor and Middle East expert indicated yesterday that the government should, in his words, "support UN resolutions that call for Israel to withdraw from Palestinian-controlled areas."
Parsing his words carefully, Deputy Secretary-General to the President Joseph Wu (
"Taiwan, as a country that aspires to fulfill its obligation as a member of international society, should support UN resolutions that call for Israel to withdraw from Palestinian-controlled areas," Wu said.
Wu also expressed a few thoughts on Palestinian statehood.
"Taiwan should also express its sympathy and support for the Palestinians' aspiration for establishing their own state," Wu, a former scholar, told the press yesterday afternoon.
Wu's statement marked the first time a Taiwanese government official has publicly voiced a position on the recent escalation of violence in the region.
"Although the conflict in the Middle East is serious, the fight has little to do with Taiwan and perhaps we could choose a hands-off policy," Wu said.
"But if we remain hands-off, how can we expect others, during a possible outbreak of a crisis across the Taiwan Strait, to support us?"
Wu said he has told "some of his good friends" in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that Taiwan should take the initiative and express its views on the conflict, so as to emphasize Taiwan's role as a responsible member of the international community.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has done little but issue travel warnings to Taiwanese nationals. The warnings advise Taiwanese not to travel to the region in the wake of rising tensions.
On March 29, in the wake of a series of suicide bomb attacks on Israel by Palestinians, the Jewish state launched a broad military sweep into Palestinian-controlled areas of the West Bank.
According to the Israeli army, as of Sunday the operation had caused the deaths of about 200 Palestinians and 13 Israelis and had left 1,500 Palestinians wounded.
Ignoring UN and US calls for a withdrawal, Israel continued its offensive into Palestinian areas yesterday, pounding a West Bank refugee camp and engaging in gun battles with armed Palestinians inside Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity.
Analysts view the recent escalation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as the most serious since the Palestinians launched the intifadah some 18 months ago. The second intifadah was triggered largely by Sharon's controversial visit to the disputed holy site known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as Haram al-Sharif, observers noted.
According to related estimation, more than 1,300 Palestinians and around 400 Israelis have lost their lives in the past 18 months of conflict.
Francis Chang (張添能), director general of the foreign ministry's Department of West Asian Affairs, said 67 Taiwanese nationals currently residing in Israel are safe, although Taiwan's representative office in Tel Aviv advised them not to travel to danger zones such as Jerusalem and Bethlehem, among others.
"It has been our stance to maintain neutrality in the conflict and to urge both sides to reach a peaceful resolution," Chang told the Taipei Times.
Wu offered his observation, saying: "Just as President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) has urged Beijing to resolve the cross-strait impasse on the principle of peace, equality and democracy, such a principle should be universal."
Wu said that Taiwan under KMT rule adopted a stance that slanted toward Israel, as the government then "fantasized" about how Israel was able to fight off the military forces of the Arab countries surrounding the Jewish state.
That stance was "wrong," Wu said, as state propaganda in Taiwan at the time accomplished little more than leaving an overly-simplified impression in the public mind that, "the Israelis are the good guys while the Arabs are the bad guys."
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