The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine in Israeli and Palestinian Narratives: A Discourse-Conceptual Analysis of Lexical Representation

This paper juxtaposes and examines in a fresh light the genealogy of concepts (especially the labels Nakba and War of Independence, used by Palestinians and Israelis, respectively), to conceptualize and represent the ethnic cleansing of Palestine—a process that gathered momentum in 1948, and lead to both the displacement of the Palestinian people and the transformation of Mandate Palestine into present-day Israel. The article seeks to answer the question of whether these conceptualizations or labels are accurate in what they represent, and attendant repercussions. Utilizing a discourse-conceptual analysis framework, the article demonstrates how both of these lexical representations have mystified and perpetuated settler-colonialism. The article argues for a necessary counter-discourse that would rename and restructure the world’s understanding of key events in the continued ethnic cleansing of Palestine. The article concludes that the first step towards social change and decolonization entails a conceptual and discursive change in nationalist discourse: the key carrier of conceptual dynamics and change of social reality and history.Keywords: The Palestine question, 1948, Nakba, CDA, critical discourse studies (CDS), discourse-conceptual analysis (DCA), sister concepts, ethnic cleansing, lexical representation