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But the Omani people were quick to express their rejection of normalization. Thousands of tweeters launched a hashtag Omani against normalization. In addition, various newspapers and websites published positions contrary to normalization, without worrying that their owners would be arrested or harassed by the authorities. Among the critics of the welcome of normalization by the Omani government is the journalist Khaled Al-Khawaldi, who considered in an article published by the newspaper “Al-Ru’ya” that the decision to support the Emirati-Israeli normalization issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Oman “does not represent us as the Omani people, but as the official position of the state.”
In a notable initiative, a group of young people prepared, through individual efforts, an awareness-raising video entitled “I am against normalization”, which was widely disseminated, through which they launched their positions against normalization derived from the centrality of the Palestinian cause.
The positions of the participants in the video included adhering to the right to return Palestine from the river to the sea and considering the resistance to the peace accords as a moral duty: “So-called peace accords do not achieve peace. Peace that returns the land of Palestine to the children of Palestine and peace that restores a safe and dignified life. Nothing justifies normalization, we are not obliged and we will not be ”.
While one of the other participants said: “I am against normalization so that history does not record that this generation has failed in the main issue of the Arab nation”, and another that takes international law as a reference: “I am in against normalization because according to international law no one has the right to usurp lands, kill and displace their people too. The Zionists affirm ”.
In an interview with “Al-Akhbar,” writer and tweet Mustafa Al-Shaer said that popular disapproval of the tripartite agreement between the United Arab Emirates, Israel and the United States comes “from the close and emotional relationship with the Palestinian cause, which you consider a central part of whatever foreign policy they adopt and that as a people you are willing not to touch them. ”
The awareness campaign against normalization did not go without an “authoritarian” confrontation.
Some large Twitter accounts belonging to some personalities close to state institutions rushed to create justifications for the events, as the poet points out, highlighting that “the opinions of the people were very negative, as they were about Netanyahu’s visit to the country in 2018 and the previous contacts between the Sultanate and the Zionist entity, despite the belief The Omanis believe that this is part of a complex political process.
The poet starts from that opposition to say that “the freedom of opinion available in the Sultanate is different from its reality in the Gulf countries in general, since the interior of Oman differs in its terms from the other street of the Gulf, as well as Muscat’s relationship with Tehran that is completely different from its surroundings. ”
The boycott, as one aspect of the resistance, did not go unnoticed by the Omani youth, who made appeals to the concerned authorities and all Omani supporters of Palestine and its people to boycott the companies that support “Israel” and to rescind their contracts in the land of the Sultanate and seek alternatives.
Oman: preparing for standardization
On the other hand, Omani activists circulated on communication sites photographs of goods manufactured in the occupied lands, which were seized in the port of Salalah in the south of the Sultanate, forcing the authorities to draw up a seizure report against the importer to the country.
Omani public opinion has been interacting for years with the possibility of normalizing the authorities of their country with the occupying power.
In 2018, the hashtag was launched Omani against normalization It was followed for the first time in conjunction with the visit of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Muscat.
At the time, the Omani authorities confronted activists who rejected normalization with a campaign of arrests, during which they worked to forcibly conceal some of them without presenting them in court, in the context of their posts on the platforms of social networks.
It should be noted that unofficial public relations between Oman and the occupying power dates back to at least 1994, when Sultan Qaboos bin Said received the prime minister of the entity at the time, Yitzhak Rabin.
