The Representation of 'Others' in Israeli Schoolbooks : A Multimodal Analysis

Abstract

The article uses social semiotic methods of inquiry and multimodal tools of analysis in order to analyse the multimodal texts of Israeli textbooks in the school subjects of History, Geography and Civics. The article's argument is that both non-Jewish 'minorities' and Jewish 'ethnicities' are represented, both verbally and visually, in a racist manner, as stereotypes and not as individuals. Palestinian citizens and those who live under a military regime in the Palestinian occupied territories are presented – if at all as vile, primitive and dangerous. Jewish 'ethnicities', which include mainly Arab-Jews and Ethiopian Jews, are represented in an 'anthropological' way, mostly as under-developed 'sector'. Both groups are culturally and socially marginalized in textbooks as they are marginalized in Israeli society. The multimodal analysis allows a unified perception of this representation, which reveals ideological undertones and interests. Introduction: the Zionist narrative Every form of social communication and interaction needs a common ground, says critical discourse analyst Fairclough (2003:55). Common grounds are construed of 'shared assumptions', which are presented as given and irrefutable. The shared assumptions of Israeli schoolbooks are as follows: 1) Assumptions about what exists: a) A Jewish democracy in Israel b) Jewish historical rights to the Land of Israel/Palestine. c) Arab threat and hatred and global anti-Semitism. 2) Propositional assumptions: what can or will be the case: a) Palestinian citizens constitute a demographic problem, which can expand into a ‘demographic threat’ unless controlled. b) Palestinians in the occupied territories are a constant threat and must be controlled. 3) Value assumptions: What is good and desirable? (Or what ought to be): a) A Jewish state, Jewish majority, Israeli control. These convictions stem from the Jewish collective memory summarized by Daniel BarTal and Rafi Nets-Zehngut (2008) , a memory which finds anti-Semitism to be the norm, the natural response of the non-Jew [...] [and] is based on a prevailing belief according to 115CICE Hiroshima University, Journal of International Cooperation in Education, Vol.14 No.2 (2011) pp.115~ 130