Associate Professor Wang Suolao began to run a new course on Arabia-Israel conflicts and peaceful talks earlier this year at the School of International Studies of Beijing University.

He did not expect more than 200 students chose to attend the lectures in a classroom of only 120 seats.

The students kept asking why the bloody conflicts between Palestine and Israel last without any sign of stop, a question that has become the focus of attention among peace-loving Chinese.

"I've tried my best to give answers from different angles, but they still raise the same question," he said at the Public Forum in Support of Middle East Peace held in Beijing Thursday.

The Forum, jointly sponsored by the United Nations and Beijing University, is linked to the two-day United Nations Meeting for Asia and the Pacific on the Question of Palestine which ended Wednesday.

The question of Palestine, the center problem in the Middle East, has also aroused great concern among Chinese scholars as thousands of people had lost their lives in the bloody conflicts between Palestine and Israel since September 2000, said Zhao Guozhong, vice president of the Chinese Association for Middle East Studies.

According to Zhao, who is also a member of the China-Arab Friendship Association' council of directors, Chinese scholars have published a series of works and theses on the question over the last several decades, and held symposiums on it in the past few years.

Like Wang's students, Chinese scholars are eager to know when and how can the question be settled peacefully, he said.

Professor An Weihua from Wang's school said the Chinese people harbor friendly emotion to both Palestinian and Israeli peoples.

By tradition, the Chinese value harmony between individuals and nations, and they sincerely hope the two sides can stop conflicts and embrace peace as early as possible, he said.

Now An and other Chinese seem to have seen a beam of light in realizing peace in the Middle East with the offering of the roadmap peace plan and the Geneva Initiative, which are accepted by the international community for the spirit of mutual trust and mutual concession.

"With this spirit, people can find out a final solution to the problem, no matter how difficult it is," said An, who wants to see a policy change from "blood for blood" to "peace for peace."

Wang Suolao hopes to see less and less students come to his class. He said, "When nobody cares the conflict between Palestine and Israel, it might mean that real peace has been achieved."

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