By Musalam Kanafani
Participants at the “Arab Symposium to Counter Normalization with the Zionist Enemy,” which concluded its proceedings in Amman late Tuesday, proposed the formation of “one Arab front to resist normalization,” among other recommendations based on the rejection of normal relations between the Arab World and Israel.
The Amman’s meeting came under the banner “Resisting normalization is a religious and pan-national duty.” Panelists called for conducting studies that expose the “discriminative nature of Zionism and the Israeli school curricula.”
An array of Arab and foreign intellectuals and politicians, including the French scholar Roget Garodi, took part in the two-day forum. They voiced “their absolute refusal of the peace treaties [between Israel and Arab states] and the ongoing peace negotiations.”
The panelists called on the Jordanian government to release Ahmad Daqamseh, the soldier who killed seven Israeli young women in 1997, and is serving a life sentence.
Jordan was also asked to allow the return of the Hamas leaders who were deported to Qatar last year.
At the Arab level, the symposium urged institutions of the civil society not to accept financial assistance from foreign sources, and urged Arab states to reconsider legislations that “facilitate foreign domination of national economies.”
In the last session of the meeting, three Arab anti-normalization activists presented their countries’ experiences with fighting against normalization with Israel.
In his paper, Bassam Shakaa, former mayor of the Palestinian city of Nablus, stressed that “normalization is a Zionist motto inherent in bilateral peace agreements,” aimed at transforming the attitude of the targeted Arab peoples from hostility and conflict to that of “succumbing to the Zionist entity.”
Shakaa, who lost his legs in a bomb planted by Israeli extremists in his car in 1980, said that for the first time an anti-normalization committee has been formed in the occupied territories, to promote awareness among the people and play a role in the national revival in Palestine.
Head of the anti-normalization committee at Jordan’s professional associations Ali Abu Sukkar said in his presentation that “normalization is one of the most dangerous objectives of the peace process,” explaining that “it’s the key and the gateway to penetrate the Islamic world, and dominate its [political] decision and material and human resources.”
The Egyptian experience with fighting normalization with the Jewish state was the topic discussed by Mustafa Bakri, editor-in-chief of the Osbou newspaper.
Bakri emphasized that the conspiracy of normalization of Arab-Israeli relations and the international embargo imposed on Iraq are two sides of the same coin.
Head of Jordanian Writers’ Associations, Fakhri Kawar, told Albawaba.com that the symposium has achieved a number of goals, with a focus on practical steps to be taken in the direction of curbing normalization, rather than rhetoric – Albawaba.com
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
