Normalization of Normalization and Other Issues

The overt call for normalizing relations with Israel no longer requires courage; the false tone of defiance that emerges from a lack of embarrassment reveals poor timing in light of the Israeli-American encroachment in the region, which emboldens the strong at the expense of literary bravery and courage. Moreover, the justifications for this support indicate ignorance (or foolishness), steeped in the illusion that normalization with Israel is the elixir of life and the solution to internal and external crises.

There is no magic in international relations, nor is there an antidote for societal and economic issues; their treatment is contingent upon economic and social policies, the nature of governing systems, and the structure of societies and the culture of their elites. The drive towards normalization reinforces an Israeli conviction that Arabs understand nothing but the language of power, encouraging Israeli investment in that stance while sticking to a policy of dictation in dealings with Arabs.

This holds true from a pragmatic, practical perspective—if we set aside ethics for the sake of argument, though sidelining them is a sin against societies, even from a practical standpoint. In times of rapid change and development accompanied by social upheaval, nothing is more important than the resilience of public ethics, or holds a higher status than the shared standards that underpin mutual trust between individuals and their ability to anticipate others' behavior and reactions.

This false daring is practiced in the repeated discourse about normalizing relations with Israel in our East to acclimate people to the idea (the normalization of normalization), while they stand at zero distance, both temporally and spatially, from committing genocide. At a time when the Palestinian issue becomes a symbol of justice and a banner for youth rebellion in the West against complicity with Israeli crime, as recently manifested in the Glastonbury Festival, where Palestinian flags waved over hundreds of thousands of young people—audience and performers alike—shouting 'Freedom for Palestine' and condemning Israeli practices in a tone devoid of apology and self-justification.

Polluting the visible and audible communication environment by repeatedly discussing normalization with Israel, coinciding with its commission of atrocities before everyone's eyes and ears, is an effort to dull people's feelings and trample on their values. The effects of this process on people's moral immunity could be detrimental in other contexts as well.

This celebratory disintegration of moral constraints follows Israel's defeat of what is known as the axis of resistance, which Benjamin Netanyahu boasts about; he claims credit for pushing back Hezbollah and disposing of the previous Syrian regime. He does so not only for the purposes of internal electoral propaganda but also to remind the opponents of this axis from among the Arabs that it is Israel that protects them and leads the region, not the alliance of regimes with America, nor the illusions of democracy held by those who supported the process of change in Arab countries from this standpoint.

The justice of the Palestinian cause is not linked to governing systems that have hidden behind it and the conflict with Israel. We must not forget that those systems have used adherence to the conflict with Israel as one of the sources of their legitimacy due to the justice of the Palestinian cause and the centrality of the conflict with Israel for their peoples; thus, the justice of the stance towards Israel precedes its use, and it is what has made this usage effective for those who practiced it.

Some who opposed those regimes (emphasizing the word some) believe that with their collapse, the call to detach from Palestine becomes permissible, meaning either that they never believed in the justice of its cause and the necessity of the struggle with Israel, or that their opposition to these regimes was not principled at all. Those who opposed a regime like Assad’s because it is oppressive and unjust to its people—not for other reasons, like those who opposed Assad’s regime and admired Saddam Hussein’s regime—are supposed to oppose injustice in general, including colonial injustice. Those who accused Assad’s regime of relinquishing the Golan cannot reasonably dismiss the Israeli annexation of the Golan after the regime’s fall and the recognition of U.S. President Donald Trump of this annexation, unless they know that Assad’s regime did not actually relinquish the Golan and that a regime can be a repugnant, oppressive dictatorship while simultaneously being genuinely opposed to Israel. However, the whole issue does not concern them; they have arbitrarily used this accusation for political defamation purposes, although tyranny is a sufficient accusation, and it does not need to be charged with the collaboration with Israel to intensify its vilification. But apparently, for some (only some of the normalization proponents), the essence of the problem lies not in tyranny, as it does for the Syrian people, but in the identity of the tyrant, and not in the occupation of the Golan or in relinquishing Syrian land, but in other matters. And the problem was not in trampling on human rights, as they have no special sensitivity to this subject, especially since Trump, the first to recognize the annexation of the Golan and Jerusalem by Israel, stated openly that he has no sensitivity to human rights, and that the regimes recognizing his global leadership can do whatever they want within their countries.

(2)

It was evident that Israel would attack Iran after it managed to deal harsh blows to Hezbollah and the Palestinian resistance in Gaza in general, and Hamas in particular, at the cost of a real genocide war waged against the Palestinian people. It was merely a matter of time. The U.S. administration controlled the timing of the attack on Iran, seeking to subdue Iran without resorting to war. Trump's narcissism drives him to make statements expecting things to happen simply by issuing his remarks. In contrast, Netanyahu has been trying hard since the beginning of this year to expedite the attack so as not to lose the opportunity of Iran losing the deterrent element represented by the allies surrounding Israel. He knew that Iranian and non-Iranian speeches about the annihilation of Israel were not only empty and sterile and not deterring as usual, but also beneficial to him to appeal to the international arena, presenting the planned aggression as defensive against those wishing to annihilate Israel, announcing that at every opportunity. The war broke out, and the United States joined as planned by Israel.

The attack occurred against Iran, a country that has supposedly been in a state of alert and readiness for four decades. Yet, the frailty of its internal security and the gravity of its breach became apparent—a topic that requires a lengthy explanation of its reasons. Despite the extensive security breach and the immense technological superiority represented primarily by advanced airborne weaponry equipped with the latest techniques in artificial intelligence and the deadliest weapons, which almost divides humanity into those who possess it and those who don't, the Iranian regime did not fall, nor did the state collapse. Israel is neither the all-powerful entity its normalization advocates portray, nor is it as fragile and easily breakable, weaker than spider silk, as the rhetoric that indoctrinated and ideologized both the concepts of victory and defeat suggests, ultimately damaging both and removing them from rational communication between humans.

Iran faces real internal and external dilemmas; its options are perplexing: reconstruction, which requires lifting the siege from one side, and continuing its nuclear project, challenging America and Israel's claims to subdue it from the other (does strengthening relations with China and Russia offer a real alternative to lifting American and European sanctions? Perhaps); and facing the security breach by tightening internal security from one side while empowering the reformist current and alleviating the security grip, thus opening up to the Iranian populace, who will feel the increasing pressures from the other side. Resistance movements have faced dilemmas related to understanding Israel, its societies, and the Arab states even before 'October 7.' They understood the dilemmas but lived in denial, and are now compelled to confront them. All these issues are matters worth elaborating on.

Those whose voices have risen in support of normalizing relations with Israel may view Palestine as solely Iran's and the resistance axis's cause, as claimed by both Iran and Israel, and their followers in American political analysis shops in Washington, which export personnel to the U.S. State Department and the White House, and which herald the approach of the hour of bringing new ("great" and "beautiful," in Trump's expressions) Arab states into the so-called Abrahamic peace treaties. Instead of hindering the war on Gaza, they think it has accelerated the so-called 'Abrahamic' march; simply because power pays off, and there are Arabs ready to reward Israel for the slaughter and genocide and all the atrocities committed in Gaza, the number and extent of which are uncountable.

It goes without saying that this is not the position of the Palestinian who has his land occupied, nor of his brothers in Jordan and Lebanon, who fear for the future of their countries; nor the Syrian nationalist whose land is occupied by Israel; and generally speaking, the Arab—both Eastern and Western—who does not like the marginalization of Arabs in the region, nor the division of influence in its states among non-Arab regional powers. They refuse to have their country and rulers subjected to the hegemony and uproar in a sphere of influence of a state that treats the entire region as a strategic threat and does not trust anyone unless they become an agent for it, believing solely in the logic of power. The act of settling one model after another on its racist culture and vision regarding Arabs has presented a clear picture. The Palestinian from the West Bank, who is completely in solidarity with his people in the Gaza Strip, even though he disagrees with Hamas's operation on October 7, knows well that settlement in the West Bank is expanding astonishingly, and that the annexation of parts of it to the occupying state is inevitable within the intoxication of Israeli power itself, complete American complicity with it, and the Arab normalization calls that encourage Israel to commit whatever atrocities it pleases.

On the other hand, the non-Palestinian who rejects normalization with Israel does not offer a humanitarian mercy to another people, nor does he necessarily transcend nationalism to Arabism, although there is nothing wrong in that per se. There is a national dimension to this stance; in Syria, for instance, there is a pure national issue concerning the unity of the Syrian people and the unity of its lands. Without that, it is impossible to think about the future of Syria; these are prerequisite conditions for any stability and economic prosperity. Let us set democracy aside and talk about building the modern Syrian state! It is impossible to build a modern Syria without Syrian nationalism based on Syrian citizenship that transcends the foreign sectarian political divisions, and is reinforced by the Arab belonging for the majority of its inhabitants, as well as recognition of the Kurdish national identity and living with it under equal citizenship and one Syrian homeland.

One of the most important elements of all this is belonging to the Syrian homeland and adherence to the sovereignty of the state and its territorial borders, which includes the Golan Heights occupied by Israel. Giving up on that is not a marginal matter; rather it is an expression of the fragility of Syrian nationalism, the fragility of belonging to the homeland, and putting political and regional sectarianism above national belonging; these are the calamities that hinder the building of a modern state in Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon (and I do not see anyone willing to undertake this, hence there is a search for alternatives that do not require such an concession).

A modern Syria cannot be built on the basis of preference for sectarian loyalties politically over national belonging and equal citizenship in a modern state. The issue of the state, which is raised by sectarian politics and various forms of tribalism, is at the heart of the misfortune of the Arab East, particularly the arc of Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon, which is relied upon for the renaissance of the East, plagued by all forms of political sectarianism. This political sectarianism produces political sects that transcend the borders of national states and undermine them from within and outside.

Those who think that the struggle with Israel is the barrier to economic growth and prosperity need only reflect a little on the opposite side in this struggle that lives in a state of continuous war even after achieving peace with two Arab states and enduring stability on the Syrian border. Israel's economy flourishes despite the wars it fights, maintaining a state of institutions, and democracy at least for the Jews. Adversarial states do not find agents within the structures of the occupying state, which is difficult to penetrate, because there is a consensus on national security. Of course, there are numerous competing interests and numerous uncountable conflicts, but they do not transcend national security. Some ease the challenge posed by saying that it is due to American support and the alliance with the West. Undeniably, Israel would not withstand any war for more than a few weeks without American support, and Western adoption of Israel is an essential component of its strength. But the foundation is the resolution of the state issue and the construction of modern institutional state that surpasses the consensus it enjoys over sectarian affiliations, and even over religious-secular polarization. Based on this, Western aid is beneficial; without it, money is of no use to anyone, as it has proven in many Arab cases.

For those who are not satisfied with scrutinizing the Israeli side in the conflict, a glance at the Egyptian side in peace suffices, assessing how peace with Israel has contributed to solving its problems, or how much it has narrowed the technological gap between Egypt and Israel. The militarized Israel that is constantly at war thrives and progresses; the gap between it and Egypt, which has not fought a war since 1973 and clings to the peace treaty despite the massacres committed against its Palestinian brothers just a stone's throw from its borders, continues to widen, even though it could have stopped them.

(3)

There is no call for war here; wars are catastrophic for everyone. Instead, there is talk of the alleged 'benefits' of normalization. Arab states are not required to fight Israel according to a timeline set by the Palestinian resistance or others, nor to launch wars generally; rather, they are expected to reject Israeli hegemony and prevent it from exterminating a brotherly people. There are many means to do so.

The war on the Palestinian people and the peoples of the region has been ongoing since 1948, and the call for normalization with Israel is not a call for the fair peace that the peoples of the region, including the Palestinian people, accept; rather, it is, in fact, a call to ally with Israel as a party in this ongoing war in the absence of a fair peace.

The end goal must be to realize that the last thing Arab societies need is the collapse of the customs and ethical standards that govern interactions among people in a civilized society. Building the nation on the basis of citizenship (without relinquishing the national identity of the majority), establishing modern institutions, combating sectarianism in all its forms, and eliminating the militia mentality and factionalism that elevate themselves over national societies, as well as arbitrariness and enmity towards the law and the sovereignty of the law—these are all factors capable of achieving stability, advancing the economy, earning the respect of the world, and opening the doors to investment and interaction with other countries. This requires adherence to sovereignty over lands occupied by Israel by force, for which the youth of the homeland have sacrificed their lives in defense (youth from the entire Arab homeland in the case of Mount Sheikh), demonstrating faith in just causes, and distinguishing between the state and the homeland on the one hand, and the government and the changing authority on the other; for the state and national constants do not fluctuate with the succession of authorities. No state exists without authority, but without this distinction between power and state, modern states cannot be built.