Friendly fire: war‐normalizing metaphors in the Israeli political discourse

Abstract

Combining principles of peace education and political discourse analysis, this study dwells on one powerful metaphorical mechanism engaged in by Israeli political leaders: war‐normalizing metaphors, a mechanism for framing war as part of human nature and normal life. Six core semantic fields were identified as particularly useful ‘raw material’ in creating war‐normalizing metaphors: women’s work, commerce, child’s game, sport, nature and tourism. The case study is based on the rhetoric employed by Israeli politicians during the years 1967–1973, a period during which Israel participated in no fewer than three wars. During those same years, several peace initiatives were initiated but eventually failed. The contribution of this article is dual. First, it looks at the role of the discourse as either facilitating or obstructing achievement of a culture of peace or the converse – a culture of violence. Second, it demonstrates the importance of peace education, especially for political leaders, in an attempt to heighten their awareness, refine their sensitivity and improve their rhetorical skills regarding war and peace discourse in addition to their general responsibility for the language they use.

Keywords:

• peace education
• metaphors
• war metaphors
• peace metaphors
• political metaphors
• political leaders
• Arab–Israeli conflict
• 9/11

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank the members of the workshop Truth, Representation and Politics, held in the framework of the Joint Sessions of Workshops, ECPR (Nicosia, 25–30 April 2006) for their inspiration.

Notes

1. The phrase ‘friendly fire’ is used by the American army when referring to incidents of fire coming from allied or friendly forces, as opposed to fire coming from enemy forces. This oxymoron usually euphemizes and even conceals the causes of erroneous instances of injury and death by putting the blame on vague sources of the shooting. In Hebrew, the popular term is ‘our forces’ fire’ (esh kohoteynu). Unlike ‘friendly fire’, the Hebrew phrase takes responsibility and points to the human causes of the tragedy. However, in the 2008 Gaza War, this attitude began to change with ‘our forces’ fire’ being replaced by the term ‘bilateral fire’ (esh du tzdadit). Like the American ‘friendly fire,’ this phrase conceals the human volition behind the act by placing the blame for the outcomes solely on the act, the ‘firing’ of weapons.

2. As used here, the concept ‘political discourse’ is limited to a discourse initiated by political leaders.

3. ‘War’ is defined here in its broadest sense, and is meant to include military and political preparations, results (especially conquest of enemy territory) as well as low‐ and high‐intensive warfare, including terrorist acts.

4. For more references see: Gavriely‐Nuri, D. The idiosyncratic language of the Israeli ‘peace’: A cultural approach to critical discourse analysis (CCDA) of political peace discourses. Manuscript submitted for publication b.

5. This specific metaphor is heard for example, in The war after the war, a 1969 documentary (producer: Micha Shagrir). Use of the metaphor in a documentary demonstrates dissemination of the source domain ‘child’s game’ from the leadership discourse into wider socio‐political circles.

6. Yedioth Aharonot, 10 October 1969, p. 23. [Hebrew]

7. Buchbut, A. ‘Learning the principles of a land war – it’s beyond you’, Nrg, 11 September 2006 [Hebrew].

8. Sofer, R. and Grinberg, C., ‘Don’t pit us against a stop watch’, Ynet, 16 July 2006 [Hebrew].

9. Sofer, R. Ynet, 20 August 2006 [Hebrew].