Normalization and co-resistance
Protester holds sign saying ‘No to the occupation’ as Israeli forces arrest Palestinians & solidarity activists demonstrating against Israel’s illegal settlement and expulsion policies in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem, 22 September 2023
Jonathan Kuttab writes in Mondoweiss:
With the collapse of the two-state solution, it is now more important than ever for people of goodwill, struggling for justice and peaceful coexistence between Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs, to seek new ways to work together for a common future.
Before the Oslo process, it was common to have Jews and Arabs work and demonstrate together against the evils of the occupation, the creeping annexation, and the process of oppression and dispossession of the Palestinians that was most marked by the settlement movement and the oppressive policies of domination. With the Oslo process, however, there was a marked reduction in such joint activities. Many Israelis thought that progress towards a two-state solution required them to refrain from even traveling to the West Bank. The prevailing view was “We are here and they are there”.
As the Palestinian Authority began to develop its institutions, it fell into the trap of hafrada (separation), a basic feature of the apartheid system in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt). The system included the building of the Separation Wall (Geder hafrada), the elaborate parallel system of roads, infrastructure, and administrative processes, as well as different laws applying to Arabs and Jews in the oPt. Palestinians from the occupied territory could not go to Israel or even into the all-Jewish settlements without a permit. At the same time, Jews and Israelis were warned that even entering Area A, which was supposedly under Palestinian Authority control, was not only dangerous but also prohibited by law. That was usually enough to deter most Israeli liberals from even attempting to meet with Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territory and join their anti-occupation struggle, leaving them alone to confront Jewish settlers and the Israeli army. Some brave Israeli organizations like the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, Breaking the Silence, and the Circle of the Bereaved continued to come to the occupied territory and join with Palestinians in activities confronting the occupation and its apartheid system, but most Jewish Israeli liberals concentrated on fighting fascism inside Israel, trying to regain power in the Knesset and to keep alive the mirage of a possible two-state solution.
At the same time, Palestinians had become far more sensitive to how joint Jewish -Arab activities have been used to legitimize and “normalize” the current situation and blunt their anti-colonial and anti-Zionist message. Many well-meaning activities sought to bring Jews and Arabs together under highly controlled conditions, which apparently aimed at promoting co-existence without truly addressing or challenging the underlying injustice. Some of these activities openly declared they intended to support the Oslo peace process. This was seen by most Palestinians as normalizing a situation that was increasingly intolerable and unacceptable.