Crises have a way of editing memory. They narrow the lens until only the latest missile trail is visible. What disappears is usually the cause.

This is the point China's ambassador to the United Nations, Fu Cong, made in his speech at a UN Security Council open debate on the Middle East situation on Tuesday: no military adventure will solve the region's problems; sovereignty matters; humanitarian law matters; the Palestinian question remains central; and the two-state solution is the only workable political framework.

Israel's campaigns have not merely targeted armed groups; they have redrawn the areas of control. Gaza's misery has become ambient background noise. Washington declared it has been informed by Tehran of Iran being in a "state of collapse". Each escalation is said to be a temporary necessity. Each so-called "limited strike" enlarges the map of future conflict.

Tel Aviv has been the most adept practitioner of this politics of perpetual emergency. Since Oct 7, 2023, the stated war aims have shifted with remarkable elasticity: destroy Hamas, rescue hostages, pacify Gaza, confront Hezbollah, expand settlements in the West Bank, deter Iran, reshape the region.

None address the key issue: Palestinian statehood.

Fu's insistence that the Palestinian question "must not be marginalized" is an empirical observation. Every attempt to bypass it has failed. The Abraham Accords did not dissolve it. Siege did not dissolve it. Settlement expansion did not dissolve it. Regional "normalization" did not dissolve it. War certainly has not dissolved it.

Indeed, the more it is ignored, the more violently it returns.

Many Western capitals often speak as though the region's recent history began with Hamas' attacks on Israel on Oct 7, 2023. But history did not begin there. Nor did morality end there. The Oct 7 attacks cannot be used to justify an endless chain of violence under the guise of "revenge".

If Oct 7 must be remembered — and it must — then so too must occupation, dispossession, blockade, settlement expansion, and the lack of progress toward Palestinian sovereignty.

This is where Beijing's stance gains traction. China's emphasis on sovereignty, a ceasefire, reconstruction and political settlement contrasts sharply with the West prioritizing military means while lamenting the humanitarian consequences.

Fu's warning that the region should not become an arena for major-power rivalry is especially apt. The peoples in the Middle East must not become chess pieces in someone else's strategic game.

Washington's instinct is to view every flare-up through the prism of maximalism and transaction. Even Gaza is considered a site for future vacation resorts.

Israel, a country that defines "security" in military terms and regards its neighbors' land as its own buffer zone, has become trapped by this approach. Tactical victories accumulate; strategic peace recedes. It can degrade Hezbollah, assassinate commanders, conduct sweeping military operations, and still wake up to the same unsolved question: What political order allows Israelis and Palestinians to live in dignity and safety?

If that fundamental question remains unanswered, Israel's actions will eventually boomerang. No nation, however developed, can ensure its long-term security by sacrificing its neighbors. When the children of Gaza grow up playing in the rubble and holding mock funerals, the prospects for lasting peace become more distant.

There remains only one serious answer: two states, however bruised the phrase may be.

It is fashionable for some to declare the two-state solution is dauntingly difficult. But to say something is difficult is not to say its alternatives are better. The alternatives are visible already: recurring war.

So the world watches the next exchange on the Lebanese border, the next blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, the next rejected proposal from Tehran, the next tactical triumph advertised as strategy. Meanwhile, the original problem sits untouched at the table like an unwelcome guest.

Fu called the Middle East a cradle of civilization standing at a historical crossroads. He is right. But crossroads imply choice. The region can continue down the road of managed catastrophe, where each war justifies the next. Or it can return to first principles: ceasefire, law, sovereignty, reconstruction, and Palestinian statehood beside Israel.

Until then, every new crisis will be merely another diversion. And the ghost at the feast will remain the Palestinian question.