Legitimizing Dispossession
A CDA of Settler Colonialism in Zionist Texts
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15776897Abstract
This paper employs Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) to investigate how Zionist discourse contributed to the formation and legitimization of the State of Israel. It aims to investigate and detail how Zionist ideology as a discursive practice underpinned the foundations of the State of Israel. To this end, the research adopts a dialectical approach analyzing key foundational texts exploring the link between language, ideology, and power. The analysis follows Norman Fairclough’s three-dimensional model, examining the linguistic and rhetorical strategies, the conditions of discourse production and consumption, and the broader sociopolitical context within which Zionist ideology was constructed. The findings reveal that Zionist discourse functioned as both a legitimizing narrative for Jewish statehood and a mechanism of exclusion and erasure of the Palestinian presence. By aligning itself with European colonial and liberal-nationalist ideologies, Zionism was discursively positioned as a modern, civilizing force while constructing Palestinians as either absent or other. This discursive formation facilitated international recognition, policy justification, and the normalization of displacement, contributing to the geopolitical entrenchment of settler-colonial dynamics in Palestine. The study contributes to the growing body of literature that critically interrogates the role of language in conflict and identity formation.
Keywords:
Zionism; Critical Discourse Analysis; Ideology, Identity, discourse; discursive legitimization
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