TEHRAN – Normalization is not merely reopening an embassy, resuming direct flights, a few handshake photos, or a handful of diplomatic signatures.

Normalization may be the final step in the process of occupying a country; occupation would be complete when the record of Israeli crimes fades from the memory of the world and the suffering of the Palestinian people is pushed to the margins.

When suffering is forgotten, the map of occupation is completed. This is the real meaning of normalization: not a signature on paper, but the manipulation of the collective conscience of the peoples of the region.

Before October 7, the region was heading precisely in that direction. The Abraham Accords began with the UAE and Bahrain, and Morocco and Sudan joined the path; a package of economic and security cooperation intended to make Israel a “daily reality” for Arab states.

The final piece of the puzzle—Riyadh-Tel Aviv ties—was being set in place when events intervened.

The Al-Aqsa Flood broke that line. The main project—the “forgetting of Palestine”—collapsed. Palestine returned to the top of the agenda of the world’s nations.

Meanwhile, streets across the Western world became stages for recalling Palestinian suffering and the injustice of Israel. From London to Sydney, hundreds of successive demonstrations shifted from momentary, shallow protests into an informed, sustained movement.

In London, New York, and Paris, people came to the streets with Palestinian flags and keffiyehs to show that public opinion is no longer willing to see the suffering of the people of Gaza as “normal.”

Once the streets moved, the wave of recognizing the State of Palestine after the Al-Aqsa Flood gained speed: 2024 began with Spain, Ireland, and Norway, and in 2025, more countries joined in.

The peak of this trend came when London, Ottawa, and Canberra announced in September that they recognized the State of Palestine, a clear move to pressure Tel Aviv and to relieve their own public-opinion pressures.

Today, more than 150 countries have accepted Palestine as an official state. This means the normalization of Israel is no longer a one-way street, even at the level of non-regional governments.

Alongside this, in November 2024, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant; a decision that raised the political cost of those once-costless handshake photos and further exposed any sham “peace” projects.

On the ground itself, what Tel Aviv called the condition for peace—complete disarmament of Gaza and of Hamas—did not occur. Even analysts close to the regime wrote that no one can disarm Hamas.

The case of Gaza, together with the recent overt and documented crimes of the Zionist forces in Lebanon, Syria, Iran, and Qatar, shows that Israel can no longer present itself as an “ordinary” element in the region. With each passing day, this reality becomes clearer to the nations of the region — a reality that the founder of the Islamic Republic, Imam Ruhollah Khomeini, warned about: “This is a cancerous tumor in a corner of the Islamic lands, and it will not be content with only al-Quds (Jerusalem).”

Source: Sedaye Iran, the online newspaper of the Institute of the Islamic Revolution of Iran — 17 October 2025