Israeli Discursive Mechanisms and the Deconstruction of Palestinian National Identity (2023-2025): A Critical Qualitative Analysis of Official Narratives

Abstract

This study offers a critical and in-depth analysis of Israeli official discourse from 2023 to 2025, within the context of the ongoing conflict over Palestinian national identity. It argues that Israel is not only engaged in military and territorial confrontation but also waging a deliberate narrative and linguistic war aimed at dismantling the symbolic and political foundations of Palestinian identity—namely, the Right of Return, resistance, Jerusalem, statehood, sovereignty, and cultural heritage. Employing a dual framework of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and cultural critique, the research draws on a comprehensive qualitative dataset of 510 official documents issued by various Israeli state institutions. The findings reveal a systematic deployment of strategic lexical triggers that delegitimize Palestinian claims and reconstitute Zionist narratives as the dominant interpretive framework. The discourse emerges as a comprehensive discursive regime that redefines legal and historical realities: recasting Palestinians as demographic threats, transforming occupation into self-defense, and framing Judaization as historical reclamation while labelling resistance as terrorism. The originality of this work lies in its ability to capture a decisive discursive shift under a radical right-wing Israeli government and in its methodological synthesis of language critique with power deconstruction. This study ultimately contributes to intellectual resistance, such as the one that counters symbolic domination by deconstructing language, reviving erased narratives, and asserting the legitimacy of Palestinian identity as a struggle for justice, memory, and dignity..