Normalization and the One State Solution

There's a few things that have happened recently that I think deserve some comment. The first is the new film on Netflix about the Nakba called Farha. It is, as far as I know, the first film about the ethnic cleansing by Zionists in 1948, made from the Palestinian perspective. Now this event has to be understood at least partially in the context of Netflix strategy for expansion, which has included partnering with a Saudi Arabian production company, and it includes their desire to, produce content and to provide content that has appeal to the Arab world and the Muslim world. I mean, they also, purchased the Malaysian film, Matt Kilaau, about the Malay struggle against British colonialism.

So clearly, they are interested in reaching a Muslim audience. Of course, that's for financial reasons, but they're interested in reaching a Muslim and an Arab audience. Now the next interesting thing is the recent EU suspension of cooperation with the Israeli police. The EU and Israel were set to enact a new agreement on intelligence sharing that was drafted last September, but that agreement is indefinitely on hold over the EU's concerns about the nature of the new government that is expected to be formed by Benjamin Netanyahu and the potential human rights abuses that would follow from that government. Now another important development is the recent vote by the United Nations General Assembly in a vote that was 149 to six stating that Israel must abandon its nuclear weapons program.

This is a program that Israel has never admitted that they even have, but the United Nations has said that they must dismantle it. And then the last thing that I wanted to mention is the somewhat startling pivot by j street, which is one of the main pro Israel lobbies in The United States. Now this lobby has always been considered dovish quote unquote, but they have always pushed for American support for Israel. Well, now their CEO has declared that American support for Israel actually poses a threat to the American Jewish community because the continuous human rights abuses of Palestinians by the Israeli government contradict Jewish values. So they're actually now advocating for a restriction on US support for Israel.

Take note of that. Now I would posit that all of these developments are directly or indirectly connected to the normalization movement that we have witnessed since the Abraham Accords. Now bear with me. I know that peace agreements and normalization with Israel on a guttural level for Muslims is extremely distasteful, but let me explain. Now I've explained on this platform and on many others for years now that the main justification for US support and Western support for Israel has always been that the Israelis are facing a continuous existential threat from the Arabs.

That claim is becoming increasingly difficult to make with a straight face. They have peace agreements with almost all of their neighbors and fully normalized relations with more and more Muslim countries around the world. Israelis are going in their tens of thousands to Dubai on holiday and courting Emirati investors. They're flying directly from Tel Aviv to Doha to watch the World Cup. Bahrain has even launched a project to refurbish an entire historically Jewish neighborhood in Manama precisely to make Jewish and Israeli tourists feel welcome and to have their heritage recognized.

Good relations with the Arab world and with the Muslim world are becoming increasingly important to the Israelis. Zionist lobbies in Washington do not and cannot compete with the spending of Saudi Arabia and The UAE on lobbying. The combined total of spending by all of the pro Israeli lobbies in Washington over the last two years is only roughly $8,000,000. Between the Saudis and the Emiratis, over the last two years, they have flooded Capitol Hill with close to $100,000,000. Groups like j street can see which way the wind is blowing.

Even IPAC, perhaps the most virulently Zionist lobby in Washington can't help but applaud the over $4,000,000,000 worth of bilateral trade between Israel and The Gulf States. And Netflix can also see which way the wind is blowing and so can the EU and so can the United Nations. Normalization, particularly with an astronomically wealthy and enthusiastic arms purchaser like The UAE is rapidly making Israel redundant as the West's strategic partner in the Middle East, and it is disincentivizing anti Arab, anti Muslim, Zionist rhetoric. It's also creating a space for Arab, Muslim, and Palestinian voices to be heard in the mainstream media. The whole world, for instance, has been watching the World Cup in Qatar and unavoidably seeing the deep well of pro Palestinian support and sentiment that exists in that region.

And this matters when that region is pumping billions of dollars into your economy. Look. At the end of the day, there's only one way for the Israel Palestine situation to go, and that is for Israel to normalize its relations with the Palestinians, which means to convert the occupied into citizens with equal socioeconomic and political rights. It is the one state solution. Now you should understand that when you accept the argument as many of us do that Israel is an apartheid state, you are implicitly accepting the one state solution because you are referring to the occupied territories as essentially part of Israel, which is accurate in practice.

So let the five and a half million Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank just be integrated and granted citizenship. I believe that this outcome is only accelerated by normalization and not hindered by it. I don't see normalization as a betrayal. I see it as establishing practical effective influence. I mean, example, we just saw sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed, the foreign minister of The UAE, cautioning Benjamin Netanyahu not to grant a ministerial position to Ben Gavir, is a rabid far right racist Zionist extremist.

And then Netanyahu failed to form a government precisely over this issue. Abdullah bin Zayed warned Netanyahu that if Ben Gavir and other racist extremists were granted positions in the government, in the cabinet, this would impact Israel's relations with The UAE. It's even been speculated and highly possible that if Ben Gavir is granted a cabinet position, The US might boycott him. And you can't separate that position from The UAE's influence in Washington because The US never cared before whether or not a vicious racist was granted a position in the Israeli government. They never cared before, but they care now.

I wonder why. Now these are still early days in cultivating influence. Will it take time to achieve the one state solution? Of course, it will. It will take years, maybe decades.

But the policy of hostility and isolation and boycott prevailed for over seventy years and achieved nothing. And I believe that we have seen more advancement towards that goal in just the last two years than over the previous seven decades combined.