Al-Quds newspaper, the oldest Palestinian newspaper (founded in 1951), conducted an interview with Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman. The interview filled the entire seventh page of the newspaper’s Oct. 24 issue. During the interview, Liberman attacked Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and issued threats against the Hamas movement. This angered many Palestinians, who accused the newspaper of normalizing relations with Israel and called on the paper to offer an apology for its actions.

This was the first time a Palestinian media outlet conducted an exclusive interview with an Israeli minister.

Social networking activists launched a campaign to boycott the newspaper. They started a hashtag in Arabic that translates to #TheMediaOfNormalization. According to the activists, the interview dealt a blow to all of the efforts aimed at boycotting Israel across the world.

The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate strongly condemned the newspaper’s interview and said in an Oct. 25 statement that the interview is a “normalization with the occupation that is rejected. This is even tantamount to harmonization with the occupation.”