Argumentation Strategies and Linguistic Means for Contextualizing the Necessity for Military Action in Gaza Analyzing Israeli Authorities' Discourse

Trajcheski, Mihajlo and Neshkovska, Silvana (2024) Argumentation Strategies and Linguistic Means for Contextualizing the Necessity for Military Action in Gaza Analyzing Israeli Authorities' Discourse. Bok of Proceedings Information, Media and Truth in the Post-Truth and Artificial Intelligence Era.

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Abstract

The tragic events of October 7th, 2023, have resulted in the deadliest iteration of the conflict
between Israel and Gaza to date. Israel’s response to this attack has drawn ire from the
international community due to the scale of its military actions. This paper seeks to answer how
Israeli politicians contextualize the necessity of their military actions to an international,
predominantly Western audience. The corpus collected and analyzed for this study consists of
press releases, statements, interviews, and Q&A sessions by PM Benjamin Netanyahu, President
Isaac Herzog, IDF Spokesperson Daniel Hagari, and UN envoy Gilad Erdan. Using Fairclough’s
framework of critical discourse analysis (1989, 1995), the research focused, first, on identifying
the argumentation strategies Israeli politicians use, and second, on analyzing the linguistic means
they employ to strengthen their arguments. A qualitative descriptive approach is adopted in
analyzing the corpus. The insights gained from this study reveal that the argumentation strategies
of Israeli officials rest mainly on establishing a common identity with the audience, legitimizing
their position while delegitimizing the Palestinian side, and using loss and gain framing to
support their arguments. Moreover, the analysis points to a heavy reliance on metaphors,
analogies, and juxtapositions, as well as repetitions, interpersonal markers, and positively and
negatively connoted words and collocations, as linguistic means purposefully used to strengthen
their arguments and reinforce the existing power structures based on ideological pretenses.
Keywords: political discourse, press releases, language strategies, military conflict

Item Type:	Article
Subjects:	Scientific Fields (Frascati) > Humanities > Languages and literature
Divisions:	Faculty of Education
Depositing User:	Prof. d-r Silvana Neshkovska
Date Deposited:	12 Feb 2025 06:59
Last Modified:	12 Feb 2025 06:59
URI:	https://eprints.uklo.edu.mk/id/eprint/10563

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