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Abstract
Since the inception of the Zionist movement in the 1890s, Zionist‐Palestinian relations have been characterized by a long and continuous conflict. A dominant perspective through which these relations have been articulated is modernization. Zionism and the Jewish population in Palestine/Israel have been presented as a modernizing agent; they assist the Palestinians in progressing from backwardness to modernity. This article traces the origins of this discourse, identifies its assumptions, internal rules and structure. Moreover, it demonstrates the articulation of this discourse in various fields of knowledge, and explores the relations between this discourse and a Marxist concept of ideology. It also examines the causes which made reproduction of this discourse possible over a long period of time.