War-normalizing dialogue (WND)

This article has the main purpose of introducing the war-normalizing dialogue (WND), a set of discursive strategies aimed at blurring the anomalous character of war by transforming it into an event perceived as ‘natural’, a ‘normal’ part of life. WND results from a continuous dialogue between leaders and citizens, serving the interests of both sides. The ‘global market of WND’, that is, the fact that the components of WND are exchanged in an imaginary global discursive market, is another dialogic aspect of WND.By exposing the Israeli WND, its components and its various manifestations, this article demonstrates the role of the Israeli war discourse in the initiation and preservation of a situation of repetitive wars. WND is also proposed as an analytic tool for a comparative analysis of ‘local’ and ‘global’ dialogues surrounding the initiation of new wars.