At an Iran Crisis simulation held at the Inter Disciplinary Center in Herzelia this week, a star studded cast of ambassadors, former generals, experts and professors representing State and non-State actors played out the ‘responses’ to a flare up between Iran and Israel. I was asked to play the Chinese position in such a scenario, affording a front row view of some of the worryingly outdated attitudes of the Israeli (and American) participants. It was embarrassing to observe how out of touch the players were with the fast changing geo-political and economic fault lines underscoring the tensions. It was concerning that all seemed to misunderstand, did not care enough to understand, or chose to ignore Chinese interests and influence in Iran and the Middle East.

Consumed by an almost drug induced US-centric psychosis and unshakeable faith in the infallibility of a US led track, several decades of failure to bring about a ME game changer has not prompted the sages of Israeli diplomacy to review its veracity or consider other options and tracks. Despite the incredible energies Israelis spend on integrating with the American consensus; sending students to Harvard and MIT, scholarly hob knobbing and shoulder rubbing with policy institute doyens in Washington and political back scrubbing, no such effort or even the signs of interest are invested in developing Israel relations with China.

Israel has become bound in the service of US conceptual frameworks, while not understanding the nuances of other conceptual frameworks and the fault lines of other geo political and economic realities.

No alternative horizons or different models of thinking  are proposed by the iconoclastic Israeli strategist. The prospect that a home grown Asian entity, the emerging economic giant, a local resident to the continent, could actually play an important role in resolving a regional problem, has not occurred to the brilliant Israeli political advisor.

For those who don’t have time to read more suffice to internalize a short message.  China’s role in resolving the ME stalemate is overlooked as if it didn’t exist. Perhaps too many political advisors have their careers built on the Israel-American relationship they are loathe to kick another ball over to the Chinese court. China’s influence over Iran and the Arab world is many times greater than that of the US. It has massive, unprecedented investments, hundreds of thousands of workers, engineers, professionals on the ground. China consumes and underwrites a huge percentage of the ME and Iranian GDP. Iran and Arab world economies are dependent on China’s continued engagement. Impressive, regular and hi level exchanges between the country are continuous. Thousands of students, delegations, trade and investment groups travel between the countries. From Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Pakistan, Lebanon, Egypt and so on. China does not like to acknowledge the full extent of its influence in the region because of the obvious ramifications this would have on its international obligations if it were recognized as a Middle East game changer. In reality it is, and must be recognized. Furthermore, attention must be paid to how to steer China’s interest toward reconciling the problems in the region instead of benefitting from them, as it does at present.

I was asked by several parties at the simulation to vote in favour of regional peace, something which, despite all good will, I could not do, because the peace and stability of the region were designed to bring maximum benefit the US and reduce the benefits to other national players. In reality China is benefiting from the present tension and cherry picking the oil, gas and resource deals while selling its goods to a captive market.

Unless Israel understands the Chinese interests and decides to design a situation where the Chinese can benefit from regional stability and cooperation, it cannot expect to bring China over as a partner to its vision. This work must be done by Israel alone. It cannot expect the Americans to understand that Israel’s interests may lie elsewhere.

A short example of how Israel can work with China for regional stability is demonstrated in the recently reported expression of interest from Doha (Qatar) to reestablish diplomatic relations in return for rights to rebuild Gaza.

Constructing a Chinese –Israeli-Arab understanding for large construction and infrastructure programs across the ME may be of sufficient interest to the Chinese for it  to use its influence to halt tensions between the parties. The reconstruction of Gaza is an excellent opportunity to bring in the Chinese.

It is time for policy makers to wake up to some conceptual game changes which have taken place in the world over the last decade and turn our thoughts to carefully constructing Israeli policy towards China.

Professor Avrum Ehrlich is the Executive Director of the Israel-China Institute www.israelchinainstute..com which builds multi leveled relations between the two nations. He lives between Jerusalem and Shandong province.