Language is a mode of communication between a transmitter and a receiver.
It is also a vehicle for thought, fantasy and dreams. The reality we attempt to describe is not immune to the emotional and political dynamics we project on it. Rather, in our linguistic representations of reality, we transform language into a system for encoding, at both the individual and collective levels. As the purpose of communication develops and as the features of reality increase in complexity and grow ever more intricately intertwined with present interests and historical and social ramifications, the more convoluted become the masks that we affix upon reality and the more difficult becomes the task of freeing it from attempts to alter or obliterate it. The purpose of this article is to analyse the linguistic signs in Palestinian and Israeli discourse concerning the creation of the state of Israel in 1948.