The Mutability of Rhetoric: Haydar 'Abd al-Shafi's Madrid Speech and Vision of Palestinian-Israeli Rapprochement
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Date
2000-08
Authors
Frank, David A.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Routledge
Abstract
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.
Description
20 p.
Keywords
Black, Edwin, Palestinian, Idioms, Mutability, Rhetoric
Citation
Quarterly Journal of Speech 86 (2000): 334-353