Continuing Arab normalisation during genocide, serves it

Many countries around the world that have normalised relations with Israel have adopted positions on its crimes in Gaza, and on its policies inside the Occupied Territories, by expressing their rejection of the settlement policies, aggression and crimes of genocide in Gaza. From time to time, they call for imposing sanctions on ministers such as Netanyahu, Ben-Gvir and Smotrich and on the leaders of the settlements, considering them to represent the fascist line in the occupying state that is turning towards an apartheid system, destroying the idea of ​​peace from its foundations. There are other countries that see the crimes of genocide and the policy of ethnic cleansing that Israel is adopting against the Palestinian people as an opportunity for them to express a punitive position against Israel by taking measures to sever relations with it, recall their ambassadors, stop supplying it with weapons, boycotting settlement goods, escalating its diplomatic tone by describing the Occupation’s actions as war crimes and genocide, and by joining the lawsuit filed against Israel before the International Criminal Court.

Many regimes in the Arab world have been establishing “peace” and normalised relations with the occupying state for decades, some of which hopped on the normalisation bandwagon a few years ago, under the slogan of enhancing the chances of peace in the region, in a way that serves the aspirations of the Palestinian people. The reality of Israel’s relationship with the Arab world, or the normalising regimes and those allied with it, revealed an inferior Arab relationship in the form of a “friendship” with the Zionist mentality. The Arab use of normalisation had the deliberate goal of destroying the foundations on which inter-Arab relations are established and their relations with their central cause in Palestine and its consequences on the Arab world.

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While normalised Arab regimes today use the pretext of common interests that unite them with the Occupier to establish peace, this pretext has been refuted by the owners of the cause themselves since the signing of the Oslo Accords, and until today. This is due to the Zionist mentality that maintains a narcissistic, arrogant, aggressive relationship with the Palestinians and with the Arabs, in general, to maintain a goal achieved by the crime of genocide in Gaza and growing aggression in Jerusalem and the West Bank.

Within this unique Arab case that is out of the ordinary due to the continuation of the relationship with an Occupier who commits crimes and massacres around the clock against their Palestinian brothers, falls the Arab relationship with the Zionist establishment, after a year and several weeks of its continuous crimes of genocide in Gaza, and their tendency towards continuing the relationship, rather than severing it. This is Arab “generosity” towards Israel that history will record in its pages of shame, as the crime of war and genocide committed by the Occupation does not anger the Arab official, nor does it disturb his relationship with the Occupier. There has not even been any tension in the relationship or a reprimand between friends, even if the balance of the relationship is always tilted in favour of the Occupier. This gives the Occupier the feeling that it will not be punished and, therefore, is not deterred from continuing its aggression and attacks. This opens the discussion about the nature of this normalisation and the relationship with the Occupier that leads to the official Arab acceptance of the Israeli reality.

At least for a year now, Arab politics has been confronting the aggression in a very painful and sad manner in the eyes of the Palestinian victims. The compassion and sympathy that the Zionist establishment receives from the Arab normalisation countries, in the form of food aid convoys, security coordination with them to continue its attacks, deter the Resistance and demonise it using the terrorism mould, has surpassed every shameful definition of normalisation and even went beyond Western hypocrisy in its empty talk about human rights.

The Arab ally of the Occupier is intentionally helpless, and paralysed by design and will, due to the defeat of a will that contradicts its helplessness and paralysis. The Arab ally of the Occupier has lost any political, security or moral value in its eyes and the eyes of their people who are watching under the destruction, oppression and cruelty taking place in Gaza. The Arab street is watching the positions of many countries towards the Occupation and its leaders and praises and rejoices over them. At the same time, it bitterly recalls the Arab positions and decisions made at the Riyadh Summit in November last year to break the siege on Gaza and provide it with humanitarian and health aid. The failure to implement them restored the balance of the Arab-Israeli relationship to an even heavier side in favour of the Occupation and its interests. Neither the normalised Arab countries have the ability to invest in what they promoted as being the reason for its alliance with the Occupier, nor do the rest of the Arab policies have any effectiveness on the Arab and international levels.

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When the position against the crimes committed by the Occupation is expressed by Nicaragua, Scotland, Ireland, Chile, Colombia, Norway or Spain, the question is: Why is its effectiveness and resonance higher than any Arab position? When the French President, for example, told the Occupation’s Prime Minister that his country was established by an international resolution, the Zionist circles become angry with him, or when the UN Secretary-General expressed his position on the crimes of the Occupation. On the other hand, all these phrases disappear from the dictionary of Arab officials who meet with their Western counterparts, and they do not express such phrases to them, such as saying that any occupied nation has the right to resist its Occupier, that the deception, lies and crimes of the Zionist establishment are what aborted everything related to peace and the two-state solution or that anyone promoting the false and demonising Israeli narrative cannot do so in the Arab world, after experiencing the lies for more than seven decades.

We know why courage is absent from the Arab dictionary when it comes to the Americans, Westerners and Israelis. It is because there is a collective conviction among these people that regimes based on tyranny are illegitimate. There is no doubt that the positions that concern justice, humanity and the rights of the Palestinians are not translated on the ground in the Arab world with the courage to implement what the Arab official says. Therefore, Western and American visitors to the Arab region leave with a predetermined impression of the similarity of ideas with their Arab counterpart regarding loose terms about peace and security in the region and calling on all parties not to escalate. This is considered a win for the Zionist mentality, as it employs deceit in its official Arab relations in a manner that does not contradict the official Arab union with the Zionist narrative, after it constantly fails to market its narrative in the Arab street, and serves it in its genocide against Palestine.

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This article appeared in Arabic in Arabi21 on 29 October, 2024.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.