Zionist discourse has specific characteristics, the most important of which is evasiveness, stemming from the multiplicity of audiences it addresses:

1. Zionism is a dependent movement supported and funded by Western colonialism, and thus, Zionist discourse is directed toward the colonial patron states.

2. Zionism does not address these states alone, nor merely their elites, but also the non-Jewish public opinion within them—public opinion that may not grasp the strategic dimensions of the alliance between Israel and Western civilization.

3. Zionist discourse must necessarily address the targeted human material, meaning those Jewish communities around the world that belong to diverse cultural, civilizational, and social formations.

4. Zionism draws from divergent cultural, religious, social, and class origins, which means that each Zionist faction has a different vision and priorities. It is worth noting that Zionist movements left some fundamental issues unresolved. No agreement was reached on the identity of a Jew—indeed, not even on the identity of a Zionist. Nor was the social or economic orientation of Zionist ideology ever settled.

The problem Zionist discourse faced was how to address all these sectors simultaneously. The Zionist state had to present itself as:

• A democratic state arising from a liberal ideology and belonging to rational Western civilization, while at the same time expelling Palestinians, demolishing their villages and homes, and waging expansionist wars reminiscent of states like Sparta or Prussia, rather than Athens.
• An extremely secular state in its secularism, yet at the same time deeply religious in its religiosity; hyper-capitalist in its capitalism, yet hyper-socialist in its socialism.
• A movement that accepts the assimilation of Jews in Western Europe (so as not to provoke the resentment of Jews in those countries or their governments), while simultaneously demanding the emigration of Jews from Eastern Europe.

To accomplish this—and to achieve its goal of seizing Palestine, expelling its people, and mobilizing Jews worldwide to support its project and supply it with the necessary human material—Zionism developed an ambiguous, deliberately inconsistent discourse characterized by a high degree of incoherence and containing many gaps, all aimed at obscuring the victim and distorting their image.

Herzl once wrote that he had "achieved something nearly impossible: the firm union between radical modern Jewish elements (i.e., assimilated Jews in Western Europe and non-Jewish Jews) and conservative Jewish elements (i.e., Eastern European Jews and religious Jews), and this was done with the consent of both sides without any concessions or ideological sacrifices."

Herzl also boasted of another reconciliation he had achieved—between Western civilization and the Jews of the world.

Herzl was entirely correct in his claims. The evasive Zionist discourse (of which he laid the foundation) succeeded in concealing all contradictions and addressing all relevant sectors—each in a voice that pleased them. It also completely ignored the Arabs, neither mentioning them favorably nor unfavorably. This discourse retained its core orientation by adhering to the fundamental (and Judaized) Zionist formula while largely obscuring it, allowing it to express itself through variations hidden under a thick cloud of diverse rhetorical strategies and tricks—which we will study in order to decode Zionist discourse.

1. Attempts to Ignore or Falsify Historical Origins

One of the fundamental tricks of Zionist discourse is the attempt to isolate phenomena and signifiers from their historical, social, and cultural origins, making reality appear as though it were merely a series of processes and procedures with no clear history or defined context—and thus, no known cause or direction.

The Arab-Israeli conflict, for example, is not framed as the product of a silent Zionist pact between Western civilization and the Zionist movement, under which imperialist powers implanted an alien human bloc in the heart of the Arab and Islamic world—a bloc that then became a functional state maintaining its isolation and attacking the native population and neighboring countries in service of its imperial patron.

All of this is conveniently forgotten, and the Arab-Israeli conflict is instead presented as the result of the Arabs' rejection of the partition plan and their "unprovoked aggression" against "peace-loving Jews"—without any clear or understandable reason. Zionism is not presented as a colonial-settler replacement movement but rather as an expression of the Jewish Messianic dream of returning to Zion or the Promised Land—or as a movement to rescue Jews from the attacks of the goyim (non-Jews).

Within this framework, resistance becomes a form of irrational, incomprehensible terrorism, while Israeli attacks on Arabs are framed as understandable and legitimate self-defense. Thus, the Israeli army is the "Israel Defense Forces."

This trick has been called "true lies"—true in the sense that Arab attacks are an undeniable material fact (they did indeed happen), but lies in the sense that the Arab assault on Israel and their rejection of the partition plan were not the result of irrational stubbornness but rather a legitimate defense of rights affirmed by international conventions and moral values.

This framework helps explain other Zionist rhetorical tricks. The insistence on "face-to-face negotiations" as the only viable solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict is an insistence on procedures devoid of any moral or historical reference—as though the conflict were an incomprehensible event with no origin, as though there were no underlying condition of inequality and injustice resulting from invasion.

The same applies to American calls for both Arabs and Zionists to exercise restraint and show willingness to make concessions. The partition plan is often cited as an example: the Zionists showed moderation by accepting more than half of Palestine, while the Palestinians showed extremism by rejecting what was offered to them.

But "moderation" and "extremism" in this context are defined by ignoring historical origins—namely, that the Zionist settlers were usurpers who came to Palestine armed, occupied parts of it, and then had their act of usurpation legitimized by the partition plan, which granted them even more land to establish their state.

Since the establishment of Israel, this trick has continued to be employed, culminating in slogans like "land for peace," which can be simply translated as: "Some of the villages and cities seized by Western military force will be returned in exchange for peace—meaning the cessation of resistance and surrender."

In essence, this means "land without a living people capable of resistance and without historical memory"—in other words, "forgetting the injustice of the past and imposing peace on Zionist terms."

This tendency to deny history and prioritize space over time transforms "Palestine" into "land," the "Arab homeland" into a "region," and leads Israel to seek "secure borders" defined purely by geography, with no regard for history.

Israeli security theory reflects this extreme bias toward geography and complete disregard for history. Thus, any Arab movement that reminds the Zionists of the element of time—as past, heritage, and memory; as present conflict; or as future possibility, freedom, and movement—generates intense panic among the Zionist settlers. Such a movement is then labeled "terrorism."

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- Source: "Encyclopedia of the Jews, Judaism, and Zionism" Book

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