The case of debating Israeli-western propaganda regarding the outcome of the October War, 1973. An anatomy of the “Valley of Death” metaphor: I may say here that there is a virtual room to say that the source component of this metaphor refers to: 'The Valley of Kings' or actually the valley of dead kings, which is a metaphor for a well-known tourist site in Egypt. The target component of the metaphor could be ex-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and the other Israeli commander, who led what the Israelis called “the counter victory” crossing of the Canal in 1973. Sharon was hailed in Israel in the early phases of his crossing operation as 'the king of Israel'. Some Israeli tanks were sprayed with slogans that read 'Arik, King of Israel'. The mapping of the metaphor may rest in substituting the word 'king' with 'death' to form the new metaphor (the valley of death) to describe the situation of all the encircled Israeli forces west of the Suez Canal. In providing a cross-cultural analysis of this metaphor, I should also mention that the 'valley of death' metaphor was specifically used by the Israeli Colonel Ammnon Reshef to confirm "how the Israeli troops suffered heavy casualties as a result of interlinking fire from meticulously prepared Egyptian defensive positions and that part of the attacking force became trapped and overrun by the Egyptians…By the morning of October 16, 1973, Reshef's brigade had lost 60 tanks and more than 120 men…" However, it seems to me also that the Israeli choice of the term 'Valley of Death' was meticulously chosen, for it includes a deep mobilising religious meaning, for the Israeli propaganda has been targeting about 60 million Christian Zionists in the US. The original biblical verse that includes the metaphor 'the Valley of Death' is: "Yea, though, I walk through the valley of death, I will fear no evil: For thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff they comfort me." [King James Bible] According to Matthew Concise Commentary 'the meaning of the verse is to have confidence in God's grace and care…the valley of the shadow of death may denote the most severe and terrible affliction, or dark dispensation of providence, that the psalmist ever could come under…' The choice of the Israeli leaders of the 'Valley of Death', which is originally a religious term, is intended to be compatible with an entire religiously based propaganda metaphoric system to justify Israeli military operations to secure the huge support of the big Christian Zionism movement. Metaphor studies have recently become very central in recent political discourse analysis and cognitive linguistic studies. Moreover, metaphor studies grew popular in the studies of logic and in political sciences. Such an interest, especially in political sciences, is covered by the new term of 'rhetorical turn'. The above cited examples show that metaphors and metaphoric systems need to be studied to understand the deep levels of conflicts. Elena Semino, in her book Metaphor in Discourse, asserts this trend of metaphor studies for metaphor is the phenomenon where we talk and, potentially, think in terms of something else…from informal interaction to political speeches." A recent study that asserts 'the rhetorical turn' in political science and relevant to the literature reviewed throughout this study, is entitled (Friendly Fire: War-Normalising Metaphors in the Israeli Political Discourse), by political scientist Dalia Gavriely-Nuri. The abstract reads: "…This study dwells on one powerful metaphorical mechanism engaged by Israeli political leaders: war-normalising metaphors, a mechanism for framing war as part of human nature and normal life. Six core semantic fields were identified as particularly useful 'raw material' in creating war-normalising metaphors: women's work, commerce, child's game, sports, nature and tourism. This case study is based on the rhetoric employed by Israeli politicians during 1967-1973…" Gavriely-Nuri's study “looks at the role of the discourse as either facilitating or obstructing achievement of peace or the converse a culture of violence”. Gavriely-Nuri's study on 'war-normalising metaphors' needs to be expanded to address many other files (After 1973 war) pertaining to the Arab-Israeli conflict to understand its deep 'logic' and test its core orientation and to measure its impact on managing or mismanaging the Arab Israeli conflict. This effort should not be only confined to the political discourse of the leaders, who managed the Arab-Israeli conflict but should also deal with the language of those who tried to act as mediators. To be continud next week Wageih is a professor of linguistics of negotiation, Chairman of the English Department, Faculty of Languages & Translation, Al-Azhar University, and a PhD holder from Georgetown University [email protected]
