Open advocacy for normalising Arab countries’ relations with Israel does not require audacity as it is fuelled by an opportunistic reading of the unrestrained Israeli-American onslaught in the region.
The justifications offered in support of normalisation, moreover, reveal either appalling ignorance or a form of gaslighting, and include the delusion that normalisation with Israel is a magic potion for solving all domestic and foreign issues.
But there is no magic in international relations, nor is there an elixir for societal and economic problems. This depends on sound economic and social policies, governance systems, the structure of societies, and the culture of their elites.
In fact, the rush towards normalisation only reinforces an Israeli conviction that Arabs understand nothing but the language of force—thus encouraging Israel to double down on this “language” and persist in its doctrine of issuing dictates when dealing with Arabs.
The argument for normalisation is actually invalid from a purely pragmatic standpoint, even if we temporarily set aside morality. Yet such a suspension of ethics is itself a betrayal of societies, even from a pragmatic standpoint. Indeed, in periods of rapid change, development, and social upheaval, nothing is more essential than the resilience of public morality and shared values that underpin mutual trust between individuals and enable people to anticipate one another’s actions and responses.
The brazenness in constantly repeating calls for normalisation with Israel in our region is in fact part of an effort to condition the Arab public into accepting the idea—to normalise normalisation—while they stand at or near ground zero, in time and space, of the genocide in Gaza.
This is at a time when Palestine has become a symbol of justice and a rallying cry for youth across the West rebelling against complicity in Israeli crimes—as was evident at the Glastonbury Music Festival, where Palestinian flags flew high above hundreds of thousands of attendees chanting “Free Palestine” and unapologetically denouncing Israeli practices.
Flooding the zone with repetitive rhetoric on normalisation, at a time when Israel’s crimes are livestreamed to the whole world, desensitises people, dulling their moral instincts and trampling their values. This numbing process has broader consequences, corroding people’s moral immunity on other issues too, including oppression in their own countries.
This celebratory erosion of ethical restraint comes on the heels of Israel’s triumph over what it calls the “Axis of Resistance” – a victory Benjamin Netanyahu proudly claims as his own, having “defeated” Hezbollah and “disposed” of the previous Syrian regime. His boast is not merely a rhetoric campaign for domestic consumption, but also a message to Arab opponents of the Axis, reminding them that it is Israel – not the US – Arab alliance or the democratisation dreams of the Arabs who supported changing regimes in their countries – that protects and leads the region.
But the justness of the Palestinian cause is not tied to regimes that have used it and the conflict with Israel for political expediency. It should not be forgotten that these regimes used their stance on the Israel conflict as a source of legitimacy, banking on the Arab peoples’ sense of justice and the centrality of Palestine. But the righteousness of the Palestinian cause predates such political uses and is precisely what made that political exploitation effective in the first place.
When some critics of those regimes—emphasis on “some”—suggest that with their collapse comes the opportunity to discard the Palestinian cause, they reveal either that they never truly believed in its justice, or that their opposition to those regimes was not principled.
Anyone who opposed the Assad regime because it was oppressive to its own people, not due to other motives like sectarianism, should oppose all forms of oppression, including colonial oppression. Those who accused the Assad regime of surrendering the Golan cannot, after its fall, trivialise Israel’s annexation of the Golan and Trump’s recognition of it, unless they always knew the regime never really “surrendered” it, and simply wielded the accusation for political smear.
A regime can be tyrannical and simultaneously opposed to Israel after all, and tyranny is a bad accusation enough; it does not require additional charges of collaboration with Israel to be condemned. But for some—again, only some of those promoting normalisation—the issue was never tyranny per se, as it has been for the Syrian people, but the identity of the tyrant. Nor was it the occupation of the Golan or the forfeiture of Syrian land, but other concerns. These same voices show little concern for human rights violations, echoing Trump himself, who openly stated he had no interest in human rights and welcomed regimes that do his bidding regardless of how they treat their people.
It was clear that Israel would attack Iran after its devastating blows to Hezbollah and the Palestinian resistance in Gaza, particularly Hamas, achieved at the cost of a true war of extermination against the Palestinian people. The question was only one of timing. The US administration dictated the timing of the attack, having tried to coerce Iran without going to war.
Indeed, Trump’s narcissism compels him to say whatever he pleases, expecting the mere utterance of his words to shape reality. Netanyahu, for his part, worked tirelessly since the start of this year to bring forward the assault, eager to strike after Iran’s main deterrent—its allies surrounding Israel—was pacified. He knew that the fiery Iranian rhetoric about wiping Israel off the map was not only ineffective and hollow as usual, but also beneficial: it helped him play the victim internationally and frame his premeditated aggression as defensive.
Then the war happened. The United States joined, as Israel had planned.
The attack struck Iran, a country that was supposedly on high alert and ready exactly for such a scenario for the past four decades. Yet the frailty of its internal security and the extent of Israeli penetration were laid bare—a complex story unto itself. Despite deep infiltration and Israel’s vast technological superiority—especially its cutting-edge air force armed with the latest AI-powered weaponry—the Iranian regime did not fall, nor did the state collapse.
Israel is neither the all-powerful force touted by normalisation advocates, nor the fragile, brittle entity ‘weaker than spider silk’ as depicted by propagandists who have so overused and ideologised the words “victory” and “defeat” that they have emptied them of meaning and rendered them unusable in rational discourse impossible.
Iran now faces serious internal and external dilemmas, and its options are all uncertain: reconstruction, which requires lifting sanctions; continuing its nuclear programme in defiance of US and Israeli demands; forging deeper ties with China and Russia as a possible alternative to Western economic relief— (is that realistic?); clamping down domestically in response to security breaches; or easing repression and engaging with an Iranian public under increasing strain.
Resistance movements, too, face dilemmas they knew existed but have long been in denial about—especially since 7 October—in their understanding of Israel, its society, and the Arab world. They now have no choice but to confront them, though the details are too extensive to unpack here.
Some of those now calling loudly for normalisation with Israel appear to accept the narrative that Palestine is exclusively the cause of Iran and the Axis of Resistance, as claimed by Iran, Israel, and pro-Israel think tanks in Washington with revolving doors to the U.S. State Department and White House. These voices claim the time is ripe for more Arab states to join the so-called Abraham Accords—lauded by Trump as “great” and “beautiful.” In their view, the war on Gaza has not slowed but accelerated the Abrahamic project, because force works—and there are Arab regimes willing to reward Israel for the massacres in Gaza and the countless atrocities, war crimes, and horrors.
Needless to say, this is not the view of the Palestinian whose land is occupied, nor of his Jordanian and Lebanese brethren who fear what lies ahead for their own countries, nor of the Syrian patriot whose land is still under Israeli occupation. Nor is it the view of the Arab citizen—whether from the Levant or the Maghreb—who resents the Arab world’s sidelining, the division of his region among non-Arab regional powers, and the submission of his country and its rulers to a state that sees the entire region as a threat, trusts no one who is not its agent, and believes only in brute force, that might is right. Israel has offered countless examples of its racist worldview and its disdain for Arabs.
The Palestinian in the West Bank, who fully supports his brethren in Gaza despite disagreeing with Hamas’s 7 October operation, knows that settlement expansion in the West Bank is accelerating at an alarming pace. He knows annexation is inevitable, fuelled by Israeli hubris, full US complicity, and the calls for normalisation that only embolden Israel to commit further crimes.
On the other hand, the non-Palestinian Arab who rejects normalisation with Israel is not by doing so bestowing charity on another people, nor necessarily expressing pan-Arab nationalism (though that is not in itself blameworthy), but there is a patriotic dimension to this stance. In Syria, for instance, opposing normalisation is a purely national stance that is about the unity of the Syrian people and the territorial integrity of their land. Without that, Syria has no future. These are foundational requirements for any stability or economic recovery.
Put democracy aside for a moment—how can one even begin to build a modern Syrian state without Syrian nationality based on equal citizenship and transcending sectarian political divisions? This nationality is reinforced by the Arab identity of the majority and the recognition of Kurdish national identity, with full equality and shared citizenship. And central to all of this is the sense of belonging to Syria, and the defence of its sovereignty and borders—including the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
Relinquishing this is not a marginal issue. It would signal the collapse of Syrian nation- and prioritise sectarianism and regionalism over national belonging—the very afflictions hindering state-building in Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon (though it is doubtful that anyone will openly cede the Golan, hence the search for alternatives that don’t require such surrender).
A modern Syrian state cannot be built on the basis of sectarian loyalties trumping national identity and equal citizenship. The crisis of modern state-building and the threat to it from political sectarianism and all forms of tribalism, lies at the heart of the Arab East’s tragedy—especially in the arc of Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon, once the hope of an Eastern renaissance, now plagued by transnational sectarian factions that erode the state from within and without.
Anyone who believes that the conflict with Israel is the obstacle to economic growth need only reflect on the other party in that conflict—a country that has lived in a state of war even after signing peace with two Arab states and enjoying sustained calm along the Syrian border. Indeed, Israel’s economy thrives despite its wars. It maintains state institutions and a democracy, at least for Jews. Enemy agents are nearly absent from its state apparatus due to a national security consensus. Yes, there are endless internal conflicts and competing interests—but none of them supersede national security.
Some explain this by citing US support and Western alliances. No doubt, Israel cannot survive any war more than a few weeks without American backing. Western sponsorship is a core pillar of its strength. But the foundation of Israeli success is their resolution of the state-building question—the establishment of modern institutions with a consensus stronger than sectarian or ideological divides. On that basis, foreign aid becomes effective. Without it, money alone helps no one—as many Arab examples prove.
And if this contrast is not enough, consider Egypt, which signed peace with Israel long ago. How much has that peace helped resolve its problems or narrow the technological gap between it and Israel? Israel, though hypermilitarized and constantly at war, grows and prospers. Egypt, which hasn’t fought since 1973 and clings to its peace treaty despite the massacres being committed just beyond its border, which it could have stopped, finds itself falling further behind.
This is not a call for war—war is a catastrophe for all. Rather, it is a questioning of the alleged “panacea” of normalisation. Arab states are not expected to go to war on a timetable dictated by Palestinian resistance or anyone else. Nor are they expected to wage war at all. But they are expected to reject Israeli hegemony and prevent the annihilation Palestinians. There are many means to do that.
The war against the Palestinian people—and against the peoples of the region—has been ongoing since 1948. The call to normalise with Israel is not a call for just peace, the kind that the region’s peoples, including Palestinians, have accepted. It is, in fact, a call to ally with Israel as a belligerent in an ongoing war, in the absence of any just peace.
All must understand that the last thing Arab societies need is the collapse of moral norms and values that govern human interaction in a civilised society. Nation-building based on citizenship (without abandoning the Arab identity of the majority), the creation of modern institutions, combating all forms of sectarianism, dismantling militia and factional mentalities that treat national communities with contempt and violate the rule of law—these are what foster stability, economic growth, global respect, investment, and engagement with other nations.
But this requires upholding sovereignty over territories occupied by Israel. It requires maintaining faith in just causes. It requires distinguishing between the state and the nation on the one hand; and the changing political authority and government on the other. Indeed, the foundations of a state and its national principles should not change with governments. There is no state without authority. But without this distinction between a changeable authority and a state with profound roots, no modern state can be built.
Dr. Azmi Bishara is a Palestinian intellectual, academic and writer.
Follow him on Twitter: @AzmiBishara
This is an edited translation from our Arabic edition. To read the original article click here.
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