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'Anti-Normalization'
Is an Assault on Israelis and Palestinians Alike
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Originally published under the title "The Anti-Israel
Movement's 'Anti-Normalization' Campaign."
Anti-normalization
activists loathe coexistence organizations like the Parents
Circle - Families Forum (PCFF), which brings together
Israelis and Palestinians who have lost family members in the conflict.
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The basis of any negotiated settlement is compromise. But what if one
of the parties to the conflict simply refuses to talk?
Some Palestinian factions and the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions
(BDS) movement have engaged in what's known as an
"anti-normalization" campaign: they are demanding that all
contact between Palestinians and Israelis be severed, lest they
"normalize" the existence of Israel. The reciprocal response by
Israelis and American Jews is denial.
The idea of anti-normalization originated with Arab nationalists
during the 1970s and was then picked up by Islamists like Hamas and
radical Marxists like the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
At every stage of normalizing Palestinian relations with Israel —
especially during the 1990s, when negotiations were taking place —
extremist factions opposed the very idea of talking with Israelis. It is
now a mainstay of the BDS movement.
That anti-normalization is first and foremost a Palestinian strategy
against other Palestinians cannot be denied. Gaza BDS activist Haidar Eid
recently complained that the Palestinian Authority was "authorizing
pro-normalization American organizations, such as One Voice, Seeds of
Peace or the Peace Alliance, which was established after the Geneva
Accord, which gave up the right of return of the Palestinian
refugees" to operate in Gaza.
BDS leader (and Tel Aviv University graduate) Omar Barghouti went
further and lamented that the Palestinian Authority, as well as other
Arab states, were not toeing the line against Israel: "If official
Palestinian normalization had not reached this level, nobody would have
dared to host Israeli delegations in Saudi Arabia, sports delegations in
Qatar, trade delegations in the UAE, and delegations in Bahrain, Morocco
and so on. Official Arab normalization has reached critical
proportions."
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BDS
leader Omar Barghouti laments that "official Arab normalization
has reached critical proportions."
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In an era when Syrians have died by the hundreds of thousands and Iran
is poised to develop nuclear weapons, BDS activists are upset that Arab
states have moved on from their cause.
Perhaps because anti-normalization is having no success in the West
Bank or the Arab world, it has become the official policy of the BDS
movement in the U.S. The National Students for Justice in Palestine
(SJP), whose parent organization, American Muslims for Palestine, was
recently shown to be connected to the same American Muslim Brotherhood
supporters who funded Hamas through the Holy Land Foundation, has long
trained its activists in "Countering Normalization of Israeli
Oppression on Campus."
The New York City SJP chapter's manifesto states, "We reject any
and all collaboration, dialogue and coalition work with Zionist
organizations through a strict policy of anti-normalization and encourage
our comrades in other organizations to do the same."
BDS activists in New York have taken this to heart by, among other
things, crashing faculty meetings to demand "Zionists off
campus." Their continual harassment of Jewish students and
disruption of campus life has prompted New York state legislators to call
for their suspension and helped push Governor Andrew Cuomo to ban the
state from doing business with companies that boycott Israel.
Even informal contacts are off limits. Palestinian poet Remi Kanazi
made the position perfectly clear in his poem, Normalize This: "No,
I don't want to normalize with you I don't want to hug, have coffee, talk
it out, break bread, sit around the campfire, eat s'mores and gush about
how we're all the same."
The anti-normalization strategy plays out time and again as SJP
chapters have exercised a hecklers' veto over campus events organized by
Jewish and Israeli organizations, including those that highlight
Israeli-Palestinian co-operation. Without communication, and
normalization, peace is impossible. And that's precisely their goal.
To see Israeli denial over anti-normalization in action, consider a
recent incident where members of the Israeli leftist group Two States,
One Homeland entered Ramallah during Ramadan to share an Iftar meal with
Palestinians, only t0 have rocks thrown at them and their cars torched.
In response, the group issued a statement saying, "One of the
vehicles was apparently set on fire and slightly damaged while it was
empty. The Palestinian security services quickly took control of the
incident and helped us file a complaint. Despite the reports, we did not
at any point feel threatened and our Palestinian friends were horrified
by the incident. The scariest thing for those who wish to maintain the
status quo is Palestinians and Israelis speaking and working
together."
If rocks and burned cars don't
convince these people that anti-normalization is real, what will?
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If rocks and burned cars don't convince these people that
anti-normalization is real, what will?
This co-dependent relationship — Palestinians refusing to engage in a
dialogue with Israel, in order to make it disappear, and Israeli Jews
denying that this is actually a Palestinian strategy — works against
communication and peace. That it has spread to American campuses, along
with low-level violence against Israeli and Jewish groups, is ominous.
Recognizing anti-normalization for what it is — repression against the
majority of Israelis and Palestinians who genuinely want peace — is the
first step toward resuming what has been necessary all along: an honest
dialogue that's free of guilt and threats.
Asaf Romirowsky is the executive
director of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME) and a fellow at
the Middle East Forum. Alexander H. Joffe, a Shillman-Ginsburg fellow at
the Middle East Forum, is a historian and archaeologist.
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