Despite this, in a November 23 interview with CNN, de Gucht seemed to soften this line and called for normalization without demanding prior gestures from Cuba.
Has it endorsed the Arab League's Beirut resolution, which, by calling for normalization of relations with Israel once a peace agreement has been reached, implicitly entails recognition?
In response, Clinton (who also lent his voice, last week, to the growing chorus of calls for a normalization of relations) signed the Helms-Burton Act into effect, stiffening the embargo; soon afterward, five Cuban undercover agents caught in the U.S. were arrested and convicted of espionage.
Today we have most of the Arab and even Muslim world putting forward a proposal, the "Arab Peace Initiative," which calls for a normalization of relations in return for an Israeli withdrawal back to the 1967 borders.
Unlike the Saudi initiative, Jordan's proposal dropped any mention of demands for an Israeli withdrawal to pre-1967 borders -- long the standard for peace for the Arab League -- calling instead for normalization followed by further talks.
Berlusconi's call for a "normalization" in transfer fees comes after he took the cash.
Egyptian intellectuals felt obligated to take a stand in support of Palestinians, so they called for boycotting normalization.
The Saudi ruler said to my colleague Tom Friedman that he was mulling a speech calling for "full normalization of relations" if Israel handed over the whole West Bank and divided its capital.
And much greater involvement from nonbelligerent Arab states will also be essential in order to bring on board some of the recalcitrant Arab players and to reignite the 2002 Arab League initiative that called for full normalization of relations with Israel.
To study mRNA expression levels, one needs a set of carefully selected and validated reference genes (also called housekeeping genes) for normalization purposes.
