Connecticut College, like many college campuses, is a place where student activism can really mean something. It is a place where student protest can and should strive not only to make the college a better home for its students but also to make positive change in the world as a whole. In recent months, however, I have noticed that on this campus we have become reluctant to acknowledge protest, and we have striven to balance controversy with normalization.
“Normalization” as a broader term can be defined as any attempt to neutralize a situation by failing to acknowledge the power dynamics at play and the historical, political or other contexts of a subject. This is problematic because it allows for those power dynamics to overshadow attempts at positive change. Normalization occurs when we accept as fact, for instance, that two groups of people “simply cannot get along,” when in reality, a power structure exists that systematically advantages one group over the other. In order to make any strides toward full peace and equality, this power structure must be acknowledged and resisted.
The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) has defined normalization specifically in a Palestinian and Arab context “as the participation in any project, initiative or activity, in Palestine or internationally, that aims (implicitly or explicitly) to bring together Palestinians (and/or Arabs) and Israelis (people or institutions) without placing as its goal resistance to and exposure of the Israeli occupation and all forms of discrimination and oppression against the Palestinian people.” This definition is also endorsed by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (BNC).
What do resistance and exposure mean? The definition refers to a recognition of the rights of the Palestinian people and a commitment to ending all forms of oppression against Palestinians. This commitment entails ending the occupation, establishing full and equal rights for Palestinian citizens of Israel and advocating for the right of return for Palestinian refugees.
I would like to clarify that this call to discuss and refrain from normalization is not a call to refrain from understanding Israelis, their society and polity. Instead, it is a call to “condition any such knowledge and any such contact on the principles of resistance until the time when comprehensive Palestinian and other Arab rights are met.” So, I’m not saying all Israelis are bad people or that Palestinians and Israelis should not strive for a peace process, or that students on college campuses like Conn can’t discuss the conflict. I am saying that when we talk about Israel and Palestine, we must talk about the occupation.
Events that strive to promote ‘dialogue’ instead of resistance only serve to morally or politically equate the oppressor and oppressed and present the relationship between Palestinians and Israelis as “symmetrical.” But Israel and Palestine are simply not on an equal playing field. The state of Israel, as oppressor and occupier, is in a completely different position than the state of Palestine. This power dynamic must be acknowledged in discussions or events held referencing these two states. Otherwise, the oppressor’s reality comes to be seen as the only reality, and oppression is accepted as a status quo, a fact of life with which the oppressed must cope.
This doctrine of anti-normalization, let’s call it, does not seek to de-legitimize Israel’s existence. It seeks to de-legitimize Israel’s occupation of Palestine and oppression of Palestinian people. It seeks to raise awareness about the encroachment of fundamental human rights.
Criticism of anti-normalization presents the argument that two conflicting parties cannot empathize with each other’s narratives if neither side “has the opportunity to learn of the other’s struggle on a personal level” or seeks to end “the victim-perpetrator identities,” as Joel Braunold and Huda Abuarqob note for The Jewish Thinker. However, this criticism is unfounded. It reinforces the (false) idea that the conflict between Israel and Palestine is a “clash of cultures” where the solution lies in bringing people together and helping them to understand one another. Once again, the reality of the conflict is one of colonization and resistance. Individual Israelis are not necessarily agents of the state of Israel, just as Palestinians are not necessarily actors of the state of Palestine. Braunold and Abuarob’s critique fails to recognize the difference between the state as the oppressor and the individual who, either Israeli or Palestinian, has the ability to resist and to stand up for human rights.
So, I urge you, the members of this campus community, to speak up and speak out. When we talk about Israel and Palestine, we must talk about resistance. We must talk about liberation. We can have cultural events where we share meals together, and we can have political events where we discuss different perspectives At those events, we must discuss normalization; we must discuss how we can come together as a community and promote the fundamental human rights that most of us are allowed here in the United Statesbut that many people in the world lack. •
