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The Politics of Anti-Normalization among Moroccan Leftist, Islamist, and BDS Activists
Abstract
The recent normalization agreements of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco with Israel came as a surprise to the Arab-Muslim public, despite their general awareness of pre-existing informal security, intelligence, and trade relations between these states and Israel. Arab-Muslim states and populations have routinely expressed their solidarity with the Palestinian struggle for an independent state while at the same time Arab states have often been accused of raising the Palestinian issue as a means of distracting their populations from other domestic concerns. This paper explores the extent to which state and popular opinion in Arab-Muslim states are aligned when it comes to official diplomacy and recognition of Israel, and how activism related to the Palestinian cause intersects with other domestic concerns. Using Morocco as a case study, this paper specifically explores the nature of responses of three distinct Moroccan activist groupings–opposition leftists, Islamists, and boycott, divestment, sanctions (BDS) activists–to the Moroccan government’s normalization agreement with Israel. Using the concept of the two-level game that explores the relationship between domestic and foreign affairs negotiations as well as social movement theory’s concept of framing, this study comparatively examines how these different groups frame their views on normalization vis-à-vis the government in relation to their broader socio-political activism. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with key leaders and members of opposition leftists (the Unified Socialist Party (USP), the Socialist Democratic Vanguard Party, and the Democratic Way), Islamists (the Islamist Justice and Development Party (PJD), which heads the current government, the non-political Unification and Reform Movement, and the Islamist Justice and Spirituality Association), and BDS movement representatives in Morocco, the paper asks to what extent activist frames focus specifically on Palestinian rights and/or on relations between their own movements and the Moroccan state. This study aims to identify patterns in these activists’ use of economic, cultural, and political, religious, and human rights arguments to oppose normalization, and the extent to which those frames differ between Islamist and secular movements as well as between groups linked to the government or to international solidarity networks in varying degrees. The findings of this research contribute to the broader literature on social movements and the extent to which they are responsive to domestic concerns versus broader social movement goals. The paper also contributes to policy debates regarding whether state-level normalization agreements are likely to bring social peace between Israeli and Arab populations.
Discipline
Political Science
Geographic Area
Arab States
Maghreb
Morocco
Sub Area
None