In the Arab and Islamic world, normalization is looked upon as the process of building open and reciprocal relations with Israel in all fields, including the political, economic, social, cultural, educational, legal and security fields. Those who reject such "normalization" are divided into two groups: one thinks that Israel was established on Islamic and Palestinian land and at the expense of the Palestinian people, the legitimate owners of the land, who consequently suffered a fate as refugees outside their country. The other group accepts "normalization," but only after Israel withdraws from Palestinian and other Arab territories it occupied in 1967 (others add that the Palestinian right of return to Israel proper should also be achieved before normalization).
While the discussion with the first group is ideological, the discussion with the second is political. It is on the one hand about the price of peace and the levels of concessions and reciprocal concessions that should be made in order to achieve such peace. On the other, it is about the peace process and whether it should include any forms of engagement and dialogue with the other side.
But can one call the current forms of engagement and dialogue between the two sides "normalization?" Normalization by definition can be achieved only between two states, and since there is no Palestinian state such normalization is still not possible. But then what are the aims of the current forms of engagement and dialogue if they are not about normalization?
The engagement process began between Marxist groups on both sides directly after the establishment of Israel. This engagement was a continuation of the relationship between comrades who were members of the same parties before 1948. The official Palestine Liberation Organization engagement with Israel began in the 1970s with what was called at the time "the progressive Jewish movements that support the Palestinian people's rights." This official engagement was subject to the change in the Palestinian national goal (beginning in 1974) from "liberating all of Palestine" to the acceptance of the "establishment of a national Authority in any area liberated" (the 1974 Palestinian National Council resolution) and finally to the "establishment of a Palestinian state next to Israel" (the 1988 Palestine National Council resolution).
Before the Israeli-Palestinian Declaration of Principles in 1993, Palestinian-Israeli engagement combined secret back channel negotiations between officials on both sides and "track II" negotiations between academics and NGO leaders. Both tracks were looking for ways to push the solution of two states forward. Thus some Palestinians considered at the time these two forms of engagement as a means of struggle for Palestinian rights.
In addition to these two tracks, there has since 1967 always been a third one, the "solidarity track," which saw and still sees left-wing Israeli organizations conduct activities in solidarity with the Palestinian people.
After the 1993 Oslo agreement, new approaches to people-to-people cooperation developed. A study by this writer found that these new approaches include people-to-people cooperation approach between academics, youth, women, etc; the "healing for reconciliation" approach, including bereaved families; and the "coordination and separate preparation of the respective publics" to build support for suggested peace agreements, an approach that led to the Nusseibeh-Ayalon document and the unofficial Geneva Initiative.
While this third category is a type of political engagement that one can accept or reject, it cannot be properly labeled normalization, especially if that term is used as an accusation of collaboration with the other side at the expense of Palestinian rights. The second approach includes bringing bereaved families together for healing. As such it may help create more understanding for the rights of people on both sides that in turn will help create peace between people and not only between leaders.
It is the first approach that has attracted the most criticism. The most commonly heard is that projects under this approach create a false image of "normal" relations (something different than the normalization defined above) as if there is no occupier and occupied and as if the two sides are somehow equal. A lot of that criticism actually came from evaluation studies made by the people-to-people initiators themselves, with the aim of modifying their future projects in order not to confuse reality but rather to work with this reality toward a solution that does not prejudice the rights of any of the sides.
Beyond the political rhetoric and accusations, most of those on the Palestinian side who are engaged in joint projects are so because they sincerely believe that this is a way of achieving the two-state solution. They also see that the groups on the other side hold the same sincere belief. As a result they feel that to boycott or avoid working with those groups would be harmful to the two-state solution.
This is not to suggest that relations between the two sides are easy. The Palestinians engaged in joint projects are proud nationalists, as are the Israelis. This often creates much tension before the two sides can find any common ground.
Despite this difficulty, this approach remains a path toward the two-state solution. The problem is not that joint activities exist but that there are not enough of them to make a crucial difference.
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