Palestine in Visual Representation: A Visual Semiotic Analysis of the Nakba

Abstract

Since its de facto creation, Israel has endeavoured to legitimize its existence and mystify the ethnic cleansing it perpetrated in 1948, systematically working to efface historic Palestine from the Arab and global public memory. Visual discourse plays a constitutive role in the construction and preservation of national themes. This paper, a critical discourse analysis of a corpus of visual representations, aimed to examine how visual representation serves to memorialize and reconstruct national themes, and so how this semiotic mode of representation can act as a form of counter-hegemonic discourse against attempts at the memoricide of the other and mystification of history. Using Kress and van Leeuwen’s(2006) grammar of visual design as a framework for visual analysis, this social semiotic research analyzed the visual structure of a number of Nakba images to examine the role of visual representations in the memorialization of key Palestinian national themes, and so the reconstruction of historic Palestine. The study shows how national themes visually represented, such as ethnic cleansing and Right of Return, serve as a constant reminder of the Nakba, stressing their sociopolitical and emancipatory role in shaping the Palestinian collective consciousness about their past, present and future. Exploration of further visual signs can reveal more the function of visual and multimodal communication in the preservation of important national themes and role in national liberation.

Unmasking Media Bias and Religious Zionism’s Impeding Political Influence on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

“…Recent studies have expanded the scope to include Arab media. It should come as no surprise that analyses of Al Jazeera and the Middle East press revealed that their framing prioritize Palestinian experiences and interpretations above Israeli ones (Amaireh, 2024;Majzoub, 2021;Taha, 2017). However, this also highlighted the asymmetry, as Western audiences have far greater exposure to prominent international outlets like CNN, BBC, and major newspapers with documented pro-Israeli leanings (Hearns-Branaman & Bergman, 2022).…”

Pre-service teachers' views on using English comics to improve pupils' English language skills

“…This further led to an increase in L2 N. Pazaer & A. Assaiqeli, Pre-service teachers' views on using English comics to improve pupils' English language skills | 208 reading speed. Indeed, such intersemiotic complementarity, as indicated by Assaiqeli (2021), would have a collocational relationship between the visual and verbal elements of the text that reinforced the message communicated -intersemiotically (verbalvisual intersemiosis).…”

“…It can also teach students the importance of deciphering the messages behind an image that may encapsulate and signify a culture depending on the material used. Assaiqeli (2021) demonstrated how Palestinian visual language, for example, works to record and express significant Palestinian national themes, thereby contributing to the preservation of Palestinian national identity and the revival of Palestinian nationalism and national consciousness. This study established that people could transmit sentiments and invoke memory despite historical oblivion just through visual language.…”