The Illusion of Self-Evidence in the Discourse of Arab Jews Supporting Immigration to Palestine in the 1930s: A Critical Organizational Analysis

Abdel- Raouf Ahmad, Nourhan

doi:10.21608/qarts.2025.412093.2289

The Illusion of Self-Evidence in the Discourse of Arab Jews Supporting Immigration to Palestine in the 1930s: A Critical Organizational Analysis

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Nourhan Abdel- Raouf Ahmad

10.21608/qarts.2025.412093.2289

Abstract

This study analyzes selected examples of the discourse of Arab Jews in the 1930s that supported the Zionist project and advocated the immigration of world Jews to Palestine. The study investigates the discourse linguistic means with which this discourse sets its concepts and boosts its representations with a view of restoring its rhetorical dimension and challenging the illusion of self-evidence. The corpus consists of some journalistic texts from the first three issues of the Jewish newspaper "Al-Chams", published in Egypt in 1934. The study follows the dispositive approach of the Duisburg School, one of the basic approaches in critical discourse analysis, studying the discursive organizers that govern the interrelationship between discursive and non-discursive practices and their resulting changes in reality. The analysis proceeds in two stages: a theoretical part outlining the premises and procedures of the organizational approach, followed by a practical investigation of the corpus. Two major discursive strands are analyzed: the question of the newspaper’s identity and affiliation, and the theme of Jewish civilizational distinctiveness. The study highlights several discursive-linguistic phenomena, both literal and figurative, including intertextuality; lexical choices in naming groups, shaping roles, and representing places; collective symbols and metaphors; as well as strategies of solidarity and persuasion.

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