Activists in Tunisia are renewing pressure on their government to introduce the anti-normalisation bill in parliament for voting. The bill would criminalise relations with Israel, and is something they have been campaigning for, for many years.

Their movement, called ‘One Million Signatures to Criminalise Normalisation’, is led by prominent pro-Palestinian groups, including the Coordination Committee for Joint Action for Palestine, the Tunisian Boycott Campaign, and the Anti-Normalisation Campaign.​

Tunisia: Activists are campaigning to outlaw normalisation with the Israeli occupation

The concept of ‘normalisation’ presents Israel’s oppressive policies — such as occupation, apartheid, and settler colonialism — as being normal or acceptable. According to the Palestinian BDS National Committee, normalisation involves participating in any project or activity that brings Palestinians and Israelis together without meeting the following two key conditions: the Israeli side must publicly recognise Palestinian inalienable rights, and joint efforts must actively oppose Israeli oppression through co-resistance. If these conditions are not met, the activities are considered normalisation and should be boycotted because they serve to whitewash Israel’s regime of injustice and undermine Palestinian resistance.​

Organisers in Tunisia are gathering signatures to push for legislation that makes these normalisation activities criminal offences, arguing that they attempt to make the ongoing starvation, displacement, settler colonialism, and genocide appear normal, instead of the crimes that they are. They say that engaging in joint projects with Israelis, without addressing the root causes of injustice, and without Palestinian-led resistance, continues the ongoing cycle of oppression and apartheid. The campaign specifically targets activities like cultural festivals, conferences, or artistic collaborations that bring together Palestinians and Israelis without fulfilling the two essential conditions of recognition and resistance.​

Several countries already maintain strong positions against normalisation with the Israeli occupation. Algeria’s Constitution explicitly supports a full Palestinian state and forbids normalisation efforts with the Zionist regime, while Iran continues to support armed Palestinian resistance and has also refused diplomatic ties, instead maintaining its position of anti-normalisation. Yemen and Iraq have also passed anti-normalisation laws.

Normalisation means complicity in the Israeli occupation’s oppression and many crimes

But the vast majority of countries, the UK included, while claiming to uphold international law, have maintained complicity in systemic violence and genocide against Palestinians by continuing their normalisation of relations with the Israeli regime. Despite the occupation’s policies of displacement, settlement expansion, military aggression, and genocide, they have signed trade agreements and increased diplomatic ties, legitimising the actions of this rogue state. Their support provides cover for war crimes and crimes against humanity, allowing the occupation to persist without international accountability.​

The public in Tunisia are deeply opposed to normalisation with the Israeli occupation. Earlier this month, protesters gathered outside the U.S. embassy in Tunis, demanding the expulsion of the American ambassador and the passage of laws criminalising normalisation with the Israeli occupation. Demonstrators accused the U.S. of supporting genocide, while organisers announced they would continue protesting until the authorities enact anti-normalisation laws and cut all military and political ties with the Israeli regime and the US. Several weeks earlier, crowds again gathered outside the US embassy, while hundreds of activists marched through Tunis, calling for laws that stop all forms of cooperation with the Israeli terrorist state.

BDS criteria

According to the Palestinian BDS movement, normalisation — meaning participating in joint activities without addressing underlying injustices — is a tool of colonial and oppressive regimes and serves to cover up Israel’s apartheid and settler colonial policies, weakening the global solidarity needed to end these systems.​

The campaign to criminalise normalisation represents a broader resistance movement for justice and human rights and the struggle against colonialism, and while most countries — both Western and Arab — continue to normalise relations with this pariah state, Tunisian citizens see this as perpetuating injustice and delaying liberation for Palestinians, and they are demanding action from their government.

Tunisia’s Parliament debated similar legislation in November 2023, which prohibited the ‘recognition of the Zionist entity or the establishment of direct or indirect ties’ with it’, and would have banned any interaction between people from Tunisia and Israel, irrespective of the context. ‘Normalisation’ would have resulted in six to 10 years in prison and a fine equivalent of up to £23,000. But Tunisian President Kais Saied used his veto power, indefinitely postponing the voting on the bill, so the law was not passed.

Moral and legal duty to act against the Israeli regime

Bringing an end to the illegal occupation, and stopping, preventing and punishing genocide remain a moral and legal duty for all countries. In 2024 the International Court of Justice’s advisory opinion stated that Israel’s occupation of Palestine was illegal and, in September 2025, a UN International Commission of Inquiry said the Israeli occupation was committing genocide. Why are our governments not taking action to stop a regime that is responsible for an illegal occupation, a system of apartheid, an illegal siege and a genocide?

Tunisia’s anti-normalisation campaign comes at a time when the international community has failed to uphold international law and protect Palestinian rights. As Tunisian activists intensify their push to criminalise normalisation with Israel,Yemen has stood alone as the only country fulfilling its legal obligations to resist the genocide against Palestinians, but it has been pounded by bombs, as a result. By enforcing a blockade on Israeli occupation linked vessels in the Red Sea, making their way to Eilat, Yemen was legally asserting its right to prevent genocide. This blockade has been a concrete action upholding international law in the face of Israeli war crimes and a humanitarian catastrophe.

Yemen’s courageous enforcement of the blockade, despite facing devastating bombing and sanctions, underscores the urgent need for all countries to honour their legal and moral duties, not just to perform symbolic solidarity with only words and no actions.

As Tunisia demands that its government passes essential anti-normalisation laws, the world must wake up, to ensure that normalisation is never accepted as normal and that Palestinian rights to freedom and dignity are fully defended. For peace and justice to occur, the illegal Israeli occupation must be dismantled, not normalised.

Featured image by Mohamed Jamil Latrach on Unsplash

By Charlie Jaay

This post was originally published on Canary.