Oppositional Discourse in Israeli Media: Reflections of Multiple Cultural Identities in Coverage of the Rabin-Arafat Handshake

Abstract

Israeli media coverage of a well-known event, the 1993 handshake between Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat, provides a glimpse into the nature of competing collective identities held by Israelis. The potential for multiple interpretations (and therefore multiple perspectives) of the largely nonverbal event allows for these identities to be presented and, in many cases, contrasted. To assess competing identities in the mediated discourse, we reviewed 191 articles/transcripts in the Hebrew-language Israeli media that had been translated into English and in the English-language Israeli media. These texts provided an array of what we argue are dialectics or oppositional forces present in the discussions. Most notable of these dialectics were those that characterized the handshake and the accompanying negotiations as inevitable or impossible, as opening or closing opportunities for Israelis, as resulting in feelings of euphoria or betrayal, and as splintering or unifying the relevant parties. The authors argue that these dialectics, sometimes presented as both/and rather than either/or(L. A. Baxter & B. M. Montgomery, 1996), reflect a larger, complex negotiation of collective cultural identity for the Israeli people.