Frank, David A.2007-12-042007-12-042000-08Quarterly Journal of Speech 86 (2000): 334-353https://hdl.handle.net/1794/530520 p.This essay draws from Edwin Black's Rhetorical Questions to illuminate the role of mutability in rhetoric, consciousness, and social idiom as it is displayed in Haydar 'Abd al-Shaji's speech delivered at the Madrid conference on October 31, 1991. Shafi's speech represents a significant mutation in Palestinian discourse. In this speech, the symbolic mold and the hereditarian social idioms that had controlled the Palestinian narrative until the intifada, yielded to a mixed idiom that retained the hereditarian values essential for Palestinian identity but opened up spare for the convictional values necessary for negotiation and rapprochement with Israel. This essay demonstrates that rhetorical critical theory could benefit from a close reading and application of the themes in Rhetorical Questions.1523486 bytes457038 bytesapplication/pdfapplication/pdfen-USBlack, EdwinPalestinianIdiomsMutabilityRhetoricArticle