1.3.3. Delegitimizing the Palestinian Struggle and Shrinking Palestinian Civil Society Space In the last few years, there has been an international shift from the human rights paradigm to a paradigm of humanitarianism regarding the Palestinian question, thus depoliticizing the Palestinian struggle from its context of ongoing colonialism while also delegitimizing Palestinian human rights within a frame of counterterrorism and International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) allegations and campaigns. Israel has intensified its efforts to criminalize the Palestinian struggle and shrink the space within which they can demand their individual and collective rights through the following tactics. 156 Lara Jakes, Isabel Kershner, Aida Alami and David M. Halbfinger, ‘Morocco Joins List of Arab Nations to Begin Normalizing Relations with Israel’ (New York Times, 10 December 2020) <https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/10/ world/middleeast/israel-morocco- trump.html> accessed 3 October 2022. 157 For more, see Tareq Baconi, ‘A Palestinian Response to Global and Regional Trends’ (Al Shabaka, 29 June 2022) <https://al-shabaka.org/commentaries/a-palestinian-response-to-global-and-regional-trends/> accessed 3 October 2022. 29 1 Chapter latter is authorized to remain in control despite the Palestinian people’s dissatisfaction with the respective leadership. Secondly, international actors, particularly the US, have successfully recreated a conception of regional stability in the Middle East that is not dependent on resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The feasibility of this is explained by the Arab states’ departure from the “land for The signing of the Abraham Accords, September 15, 2020. (Source: al-ayyam.ps) peace” strategy, evidenced by the Abraham Accords signed in 2020 – deals that normalized relations between Israel and all of Bahrain, United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Morocco.156 Creating alliances between Israel and Arab states is accordingly no longer attached to Palestinian liberation, and neither is the desired stability of the region, elucidating to reduced relevance of the Palestinian cause to international players with interests in the region. Rather, this new vision of regional stability is described by its proponents as founded on economic development and growth, stability, and religious tolerance. At the core of the said vision is, in actuality, sharing invasive surveillance and military technology that entrenches population control in already despotic states.157

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