I don’t know exactly when and how the word “normalisation” came to signify visiting occupied Palestinian land or dealing with Palestinians.

Ever since I can remember I have heard or read statements from professional associations lambasting one party or another for “normalising”. Of course I have yet to hear these professional associations lead a campaign on anything that has to do with their mandate as unions representing the rights of professionals, but that is another story for another day.

Back to normalisation. A trip by Jordanian journalists to the Israeli occupied West Bank has somehow been categorised as normalisation. The Jordan national football team holding friendly games with its Palestinian counterpart has also been apparently lodged under the heading of normalisation. A planned trip of Jordanian engineers to a conference in the West Bank in support of Palestinian engineering is being held contingent on the issuing of visas from the Palestinian Authority and not the Israeli embassy.

It really bothers me that the anti-normalisation camp has been allowed to indoctrinate the Jordanian people into believing that it would somehow be treason if we interacted with Palestinian institutions and attended or held events on their land.

Even if the price of maintaining that interaction and consolidating Arab presence in the West Bank does mean that we allow Israeli stamps on our passport, it is a small price to pay in return for lifting the isolation imposed on Palestinians by their occupier and now, it seems, perpetuated by, I believe, the well-meaning anti-normalisation camp in Jordan.

Why can’t Jordanian journalists visit the territories occupied by Israel and reiterate their Arab identity, and refuse to bow to the Israeli occupiers or give them the leeway to corner the Palestinians on their own without our support?

Why don’t our journalists regularly go and report on the atrocities committed against the Palestinians in the name of occupation? Why can’t our football, basketball, tennis and all other sports teams regularly visit and train with their Palestinian counterparts?

I also want to understand what would happen if instead of going to Sharm El Sheikh for the Eid holiday we went to Jerusalem and got to know exactly what is going on there and to our relatives, friends, family friends, ex-family friends, colleagues’ families and friends.

Why can’t we continue to cross over regularly and stay in their hotels, eat in their restaurants, buy their products, spend our money for them and in their support? Every single one of us, regardless of our origin, has a connection to someone who lives on Palestinian land and who would appreciate our support, whether moral or financial.

Under the headline of avoiding normalisation, we have left the Palestinians to fend for themselves for decades and have given them very little tangible moral support to help them stand fast in the face of an intimidating, racist and prolonged occupation.

We have to understand that the Palestinians are feeling strangled, isolated, shunned and alone in their struggle with Israel. It isn’t enough to maintain slogans denying Israel’s existence while burying our head in the sand so as not to see that it really does exist. Not only does it exist, it is also systematically building walls around the subjugated Palestinians to keep them apart from the rest of the world; and we appear to aid its objective by building “anti-normalisation” walls which further institutionalise their isolation.

The only way that people who want to see Palestine liberated can really contribute to the cause is by helping the Palestinians not only withstand the occupation but also flourish, morally and economically, despite the occupation. Palestinian businesses must profit, Palestinian schools and universities must educate and produce new generations of well educated and forward-looking individuals, and the Palestinian labour market must find outlets for work in Arab-owned factories and construction projects.

Palestinians must be given hope for a better future. Arabs must be the ones who give them that hope but not through a jihad that massacres more Palestinians than Israelis or by staying away from the occupied lands for fear of a stamp on our passports. We must normalise our relations with the Palestinians and their institutions.