op-ed: Normalization from different angles

On the issue of normalization, we are facing a state of "unconsciousness", in which the Arabs seem unaware of its dimensions, dealing with the matter lightly and naively, and at best not with sufficient seriousness.

Normalization, and before it is a position on Israel, is a position on oneself. A position on the nation, on its existence, on its past and present, and most importantly... on its future, and on its "national" security. It's going from dependency to more dependency. Rather, in the end, he joined Israel and its project, which apparently is not understood at all by those who are "concerned."

Normalization is a strategic "projection" of the region. He is the declared and "proud" stand on the side of the enemies. Rather, it is a strange expression of a strange "case" to understand enemies and friends, to which neither the laws of nature nor the laws of logic apply. By normalization, we reconciled Israel and lost our national security... The patient was killed to avoid the disease... The operation succeeded and the patient died, as it is said.

four parties to normalization; America (and the West) and Israel, who prepared the scene, and the Palestinians and the Arabs, who played the "heroic" role in it. Below we will try to shed some light on that.
American normalization
America is almost more keen on normalization than Israel itself, as it is indeed its godfather, with which no one can compete. This is natural, as it employs it strategically in its struggle with China and Russia, and in its battle to preserve its "dominance" over the world. President Biden was clear in this regard when he said that the United States will not leave the region in a vacuum "filled by China and Iran."

The need for America to devote itself to the conflict with China and Russia necessitated the “handing over” of the Middle East, which is an important arena, over which Western control must be maintained because of its strategic location first, and its private gas and oil resources second, to a reliable “agent”, who has no form of responsibility. The reservation, in order to "sponsor" the region and manage it on behalf of the required form, and the best person to play the role of the "exclusive" agent for the West in the region is, undisputedly, Israel.

In order for the process of "handing over" the region to the agent to be successful, a normal relationship must be established between him and its countries. Here, the United States had to use its influence with the regimes of those countries, temptation or pressure, in order to accelerate the process of normalization, and promised the new Sudanese regime to remove it from the list of terrorism and to assist it financially, and pressured in various forms on others, as happened in pressure on some governments to participate in Rabin's funeral was held at the highest levels, as stated by Sheikh Hamad, the Qatari prime minister at the time.

Preparing the region’s arena to accept normalization with Israel, which the United States made as a “yardstick” for the relationship with it, required a lot of American and Israeli effort, represented by working to weaken the countries of the region, especially the powerful ones, whether through the “Arab Spring”, civil wars, or threats Direct Israeli, or through the regime of sanctions and economic pressure imposed by the United States, whether on entities or individuals.

Israeli normalization
Israel seeks complete control over Palestine, and hegemony over the Arab world and the East as a whole. It thus achieves the objectives of its project, which was clearly expressed by Ben-Gurion, when he said that Israel's goal is to achieve Zionism, not peace, and it also fulfills its "duty" as a tool to achieve the goals of the Western imperialist project.

This requires the normalization of its relations with the Arab countries, as it is difficult for it to "work" in light of the boycott of the countries of the region. By normalization, it dismantles its political, economic as well as moral isolation, has a greater margin of movement in all fields, integrates more into global markets, and most of all, in direct line with its role, makes others part of its security system, whereby its primary mission is as a state and as a project.

Israel cannot play its role as an effective agent in the region, without normal relations with its countries and, if possible, with its people. For it, normalization means the Zionization of the region, and the establishment of a Zionist “empire” that is an Arab and Islamic Israeli front, which it leads, and acts as a “rhythm” for it, to carry out its strategic missions, globally against China and Russia, regionally against Iran, and locally against any party that resists. her project.

Israel uses all methods for smooth and lasting normalization, politics, economics, media, psychology and, more recently, religion, which culminated in the Abrahamic peace. It thereby confirms its leadership of the region religiously, and acquires a sanctity through which it aspires to reach out to the peoples whose religion, over a long period of time, constituted perhaps their "strongest" line of defense against colonialism and Zionism.

Once the "principled" approval of normalization by any Arab or Islamic country, Israel takes its "glory" in the game it has mastered, the "mastery" of blackmail and wit, and playing on the various parties in order to achieve the maximum gains from that. For example, Israel's recognition of the Sahara as a Moroccan land  was the "achievement" that Morocco considered the most important in its normalization with it, but Israel procrastinated to the maximum before making that recognition, in order to "force" Morocco to host the "Negev Forum" conference, and in my estimation as well to work on the possibility of "selling" this to Algeria, not to Morocco.

Arab normalization
First of all, it must be acknowledged that the Arab regimes would have preferred that their normalization with Israel remain "secret", except in the case of Sadat, who reached a degree of delusion and illness - if we deal with the matter psychologically - and considered that his "visit" to Jerusalem was in the manner of Omar accepting Islam, a clear conquest, courage and a source of pride. The others - with some exceptions - treated it more or less as a shame.
Although Israel achieves most of its goals from normalization before announcing it, "publicity" and the accompanying ceremonies and rituals remain a basic Israeli demand, as it thus transfers it from the status of the forbidden to the permissible, and Israel, as it is known, "does not enter into the forbidden." Therefore, the normalized parties are brought to the White House, under the auspices of the American President, and the participation of predecessors among the normalized ones and the international media, to announce it.

This scene does not inaugurate a "different" state in Arab-Israeli relations, but rather shows the state of the "nation" for what it is, losing its identity, ignoring its project, a victim of its weakness, and happy with its defeat.

Normalization constitutes a crushing blow to Arab national security, the essence of which is that the only strategic enemy of the nation is Israel. By normalization, the nation places itself on the side of its enemy, and forms with him and under his leadership a front to carry out the American tasks in international conflicts.

Israel achieves what it wants from normalization, while the Arab countries hardly achieve anything, because they do not have any strategy even in the matter of normalization, so their normalization seems random, individual, improvised and "naïve".

No Arab country that has normalized relations with Israel has achieved a goal that can be described as strategic. Rather, it may not have had any such demand; Those countries, for example, did not ask Israel to clarify their borders that should be recognized, so they were recognized within vague borders left to the balance of power and the "Israeli tank" to determine. It did not demand, even just a request, the dismantling of the Israeli nuclear arsenal. Rather, some of them took the initiative to express their desire to possess a nuclear program, which would only be meaningless militarily in light of the abandonment of national security, and economically due to the massive availability of other energy sources.

Israel has rejected the "Arab peace initiative", which represents an Arab offer for normalization, not only because this initiative calls for the establishment of a Palestinian state in exchange for "collective" normalization with it, but also because it does not accept any collective Arab action, even if that is normalization with it. She wants them individually because that matches her strategy of separating them, and being alone is usually more comfortable and more profitable.

Acceptance of "individual" normalization with Israel goes beyond acceptance of it "in principle", to acceptance of it according to the Israeli method, in form and content. It is practically more than normal. It is a political, economic and security alliance that requires the regimes to completely deny the will of their people, clearly comply with the American and Israeli will, deny the Palestinian cause, and engage in the Israeli project to "demonize" the Palestinians as a prelude to finish off their cause.

Palestinian normalization
Palestinian normalization came as a result of full involvement in the illusion, or at least, of the uncalculated bet on the possibility of achieving peace and obtaining a minimum level of Palestinian rights, resulting  with an increased attachment to the Israeli reality, and an increasing involvement with the Western-Zionist project in the region.

The Palestinians bet on influencing Israeli society through normalization. It was a failed bet, as that society accelerated its tendency towards more Zionism and persistence in the occupation, and  continued to "tame" the Palestinians to identify with Israel and its project, and used the Palestinian "dealing" with Israel as a "permission"  to Arab normalization with it, as it withdrew that "moral" deterrent that some Arabs felt the enormity of normalization.

The Israelis used the normalization of the Palestinians with them, and the Oslo Accords in general, as a bridge to reach the Arab countries, where the Palestinians were “comfortable” with this role, which they believed would give them “weight” in a comprehensive peace process in the region, but the Israelis quickly turned around that bridge and built their direct bridges towards the Arabs. And Israel has moved to be the bridge that connects them to some Arabs and to the United States as well.

The Israeli "recognition" of the PLO as the legitimate representative of the Palestinians was the ultimate goal of the Palestinian leadership, and after years of intransigence regarding that, the Israelis realized that they could achieve many of their goals in return for granting the Palestinians that "achievement", after it had been emptied of all its national implications.

Through normalization, the Palestinians tried to prove their serious desire for peace, but in reality, they severed their ties with all the reasons of their strength, and there was nothing left for them but to persevere in pursuing the illusion of Israeli peace.

Normalization, regardless of intentions, appeared as a manifestation of Palestinian weakness, that weakness that the Palestinians must work to change, if they want to return their cause to its natural state, as an axes and a beacon for the forces of liberation in the region and perhaps in the world.