ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a detailed discourse analysis of the news media corpus, utilizing the theoretical and methodological approach detailed in Chapter 1. We illustrate, through significant empirical data, the dialectics of how specific central societal values can be utilized in the service of occupation normalization and estrangement. We illustrate that both occupation normalization and estrangement co-depend upon one another, as they position themselves as embedded elements within central societal values. Occupation normalization strategies attempt to construct the occupation as an expression of certain central societal values, while estrangement strategies attempt to distance the occupation from these same values. Specifically, we show how the central societal values of social justice, liberalism, Jewish sovereignty, and state as both the expression of a mythic, historic process and as a secure home for the Jewish people can be employed in service of both Occupation Normalization and Occupation Estrangement Discourses. We illustrate that normalization strategies break down dichotomies between Israel and the territories, but without taking into account Palestinian claims. Estrangement strategies both distance the occupation from Israel and disconnect the occupation from the conflict itSelf. Thus, through dialectic discourse analysis, we see that both normalization and estrangement strategies are based on Other-denial.
