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Introduction zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWV Two of the most important developments of the twentieth century have been the return of large numbers of Jews to Israel (and the creation of the state of Israel following that return), along with the rise of a Palestinian people. In this book, we illuminate these events through an analysis of the trajectories of Palestinian and Israeli symbol use over roughly the last century . Our thesis is that symbolic practices—speeches, essays, poetry, and other public communication—have played a crucial role in shaping each society and the conflict between them. Public communication has had influence in two ways. First, public communication often moves humans to action. When an Arafat, a Begin, a Rabin, an Ashwari, a Ben-Gurion, or an al-Hajj Amin presents an effective speech or writes a persuasive editorial, he or she may move others to act. Second, and more fundamentally, public talk both helps to create and also reflects the symbol systems through which people understand and judge the world. By looking at the public talk of Israelis and Palestinians, we can better explain how they viewed themselves and each other. From this perspective, public talk can be broken down into three closely related symbolic systems: a rhetoric that helps people understand the world, an ideology that tells the individual how to live in that world, and a myth that transcends the world. These three related symbol systems have played and continue to play a key role in the development of Israeli and Palestinian consciousness and policy. At first, the claim that "mere words" have played a key role in the conflict may seem overstated. Isn't the Israeli-Palestinian conflict primarily about competing claims for land and water? Of course it is, but those claims are enunciated within sharply contrasting symbolic perspectives. And those symbolic perspectives heavily influence how Israelis and Palestinians view the conflict. For example, both those who seek a practical agreement and those who seek pure justice through violence on the Israeli and Palestinian sides are looking at the same material reality, but they view that reality in very different ways. What is seen as a brutal act of terror by some may be viewed by others as the ultimate expression of courage or patriotism or even as doing God's will. The event is the same, but the understanding and evaluation of it are very different, due in part to sharply contrasting symbolic systems. 1 2 zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA Introduction zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPO Surprisingly, the "moral persuasion" of the Israelis and Palestinians has not received detailed analysis.1 Commentators have tended to define "the core events, processes, and issues" as occurring "in the political and military spheres" and downplay (or ignore) the importance of symbol use.2 The judgment some years ago of Myron J. Aronoff that Israeli rhetorical style "has not been given sufficiently serious treatment in the study of politics " remains true today and applies equally to the Palestinians.3 Moreover , the analyses that have touched on the symbol systems of each of the participants, in the popular media or elsewhere, often have bordered on caricature. For instance, the Palestinians frequently have been depicted as either brutal terrorists or suffering victims. Labor Zionists have been treated as pragmatic and brave pioneers who made the desert bloom, while the Revisionists have been labeled as terrorists or worse. The truth about these three movements is more complex. We will illuminate that complexity as we trace the trajectories of the movements. Our analysis of Israeli and Palestinian symbolic practices suggests several important conclusions. First, the consideration of Labor Zionist and the Revisionist symbol systems helps explain the rise and fall of these two movements both before and after the birth of Israel. In particular, we highlight the crucial importance of myth in Israeli discourse, especially in the rise of Revisionism after the Yom Kippur War. By myth, we do not mean mere false stories but instead the most fundamental stories of the society.4 Our conclusion is that a balance between the pragmatic and the mythic is required in order for an Israeli political movement to be both successful in an electoral sense and able to adapt to the shifting situation facing the nation. Second, as with the Israelis, Palestinian discourse throughout the twentieth century has been characterized by a constant struggle between the pragmatic and the mythic. A close reading of Palestinian texts reveals the gradual formation over an eighty-year period of a mythic "symbolic mold." This symbolic mold, which was...

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