5 « Balancing emotion and analysis ». Entretien avec Ibrahim M. Alsemeiri

To begin and get to know you better, could you briefly describe your academic background and the main focus of your research?

I am Ibrahim M. Alsemeiri, a scholar in applied linguistics with a strong focus on translation and discourse studies. I completed my Master’s degree in Applied Linguistics at UM (Universiti Utara) in Malaysia. My Master’s thesis examined the translation of hedges in Ghassan Kanafani’s novel Men in the Sun, a work that allowed me to explore how linguistic strategies of mitigation, uncertainty, and stance are rendered across languages, and how these strategies interact with literary, cultural, and political contexts.

I subsequently completed my PhD in Applied Linguistics at UUM, also in Malaysia. My doctoral research focused on the translation of sexual kināyāh in the Holy Qur’an. This study engaged with the linguistic, cultural, and ethical complexities involved in translating sensitive meanings, highlighting the role of context, ideology, and interpretive choice in religious translation. Together, my Master’s and PhD research reflect a sustained interest in how meaning is shaped, constrained, and negotiated through language and translation.

More broadly, my research interests span translation studies, discourse analysis, and education. In recent years, and particularly in response to the war on Gaza, my work has increasingly turned toward Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). This shift is not only academic but also experiential. Having completed my graduate studies in Malaysia, I am now living in Gaza during the ongoing war, a position that has profoundly shaped both my analytical perspective and my sense of scholarly responsibility. From within this context, I have become deeply concerned with how Gaza is discursively constructed in global media, political speech, and institutional narratives.

My current research examines how language is used to frame violence, legitimize power, erase or foreground suffering, and normalize asymmetries between aggressor and victim. I draw on sociolinguistics, narrative analysis, framing theory, and metaphor analysis to trace how particular lexical choices, metaphors, and narrative structures contribute to dominant or resistant discourses about Gaza. Living through the war has sharpened my awareness of the gap between lived reality and its discursive representation, reinforcing my commitment to using CDA as a tool to critically interrogate language, challenge hegemonic narratives, and foreground marginalized voices.

Do you think the war on Gaza poses specific challenges to linguistics and language sciences, compared to more ‘traditional’ subjects of study?

Absolutely, the war on Gaza poses specific and unique challenges to linguistics and language sciences. Unlike more “traditional” subjects of study, which often involve relatively stable, neutral, or historically distant contexts, analyzing discourse in the context of an ongoing and active conflict demands heightened attention to rapidly evolving, politically charged, and emotionally intense narratives. The language surrounding Gaza appearing in media reports, political statements, social media, and even everyday conversations is saturated with ideological positioning, framing strategies, metaphors, euphemisms, and silences that can reinforce power structures, normalize violence, or marginalize certain voices. These phenomena make the analysis both methodologically complex and socially urgent.

Studying such discourse also requires awareness of the potential influence of one’s own positionality. While living in Gaza during the war naturally exposes a researcher to firsthand experiences of violence, suffering, and political pressure, my approach remains scientifically rigorous and neutral. Linguistics as a discipline prioritizes evidence, patterns, and systematic analysis over personal feelings. All observations are grounded in data, carefully cited, and subjected to critical scrutiny. This ensures that the research maintains credibility and analytical integrity, even in a highly charged context.

Compared to more traditional areas of linguistic study such as syntax, phonetics, or even historical corpus analysis of literature the war imposes additional layers of complexity. Researchers must navigate the tension between immediacy and accuracy, the contested nature of sources, and the challenge of disentangling propaganda from factual discourse. Yet, this context also offers a unique opportunity: it allows linguists to witness, document, and critically analyze how language constructs realities, frames violence, shapes perceptions, and legitimizes ideologies in real time. In this sense, the war on Gaza transforms discourse analysis from a purely academic exercise into a powerful lens for understanding not only language but also its role in society, power, and conflict.

Ultimately, while the burden of studying discourse in such a context is undeniable, the challenge reinforces the importance of methodological rigor, careful citation, and evidence-based interpretation. It reminds us that linguistics and language sciences are not only capable of explaining how people communicate, but also of uncovering the mechanisms by which discourse shapes, reflects, and even perpetuates conflict.

To what extent does language help make certain realities utterable or, conversely, unthinkable?

Language plays a central role in making certain realities utterable while rendering others unthinkable. It is not a neutral medium for reporting facts; it actively constructs the realities we perceive, the concepts we hold, and the behaviors and judgments we adopt. In the context of the war on Gaza, this is especially evident. Words, metaphors, narrative structures, and other discursive strategies shape how events, actors, and groups are represented, influencing not only public understanding but also collective psychology and moral reasoning.

A variety of discourse mechanisms are involved. Lexical choices can normalize violence or delegitimize suffering; binary oppositions such as “us versus them” or “good versus evil” frame moral judgments; in-group and out-group constructions define who is humanized or marginalized; and silences, omissions, and erasure make some experiences linguistically inaccessible. Nominalization and passive constructions obscure agency, while repetition, intertextuality, and modality reinforce dominant narratives. Euphemisms and metaphors further shape perception by softening acts of violence or masking moral responsibility.

Through these mechanisms, language not only communicates reality but actively shapes which realities are imaginable and socially recognized. In Gaza, this means certain experiences of violence, suffering, or resistance are systematically made visible, while others are silenced or rendered conceptually inaccessible. Critical Discourse Analysis helps uncover these processes, revealing how discourse constructs social realities, legitimizes some narratives, and marginalizes others. In this way, language is both a tool of cognition and a mechanism of power, determining what can be spoken, thought, or ethically acknowledged in contexts of conflict.

How do you analyze the strategies of avoidance or erasure of Palestinian voices within dominant discourses?

The strategies of avoidance or erasure of Palestinian voices within dominant discourses are varied, systematic, and deeply embedded in the linguistic and rhetorical structures of media, political, and institutional communication. The methods used depend on the type of discourse. For example, in political speeches such as Netanyahu’s 2024 address to the United Nations General Assembly^[1], binary oppositions are employed to construct Palestinians as threats and Israel as a legitimate victim, creating a clear moral polarization that erases nuance and delegitimizes Palestinian experiences. In other contexts of media coverage, social media narratives, and statements from international institutions strategies such as lexical choices, silencing, framing, and passive constructions are frequently used to marginalize Palestinian voices. Words and phrases normalize or justify violence, obscure agency, and render suffering invisible.

In the media, for instance, selective reporting or repetition of frames portraying Gaza primarily as a site of “terrorist activity” or “security incidents” systematically masks the realities of civilian casualties, destruction, and displacement. Passive constructions such as “civilians were killed” omit the actors responsible, while lexical choices like conflict or clashes soften the reality of military aggression. Framing and intertextual references to prior official narratives further embed these portrayals, presenting Israel’s military actions as defensive and morally justified. These strategies collectively operate to make the Palestinian perspective linguistically and cognitively marginal, shaping public perception to view the oppressed as aggressors and the aggressors as victims.

From a philosophical and critical perspective, this erasure is not accidental it reflects the broader control of global and Western media by powerful actors, which allows dominant narratives to be circulated unchallenged. Language itself becomes a weapon, shaping moral judgment, legitimizing violence, and constraining what is thinkable or sayable about the conflict. A neutral researcher, aware of these dynamics, must recognize that the tools of language binary oppositions, framing, lexical selection, silencing, and passive constructions can be mobilized to systematically dehumanize victims and legitimize the actions of aggressors. By analyzing these mechanisms, Critical Discourse Analysis exposes how discourse reproduces power, constructs reality, and erases marginalized voices, making visible the processes through which language is used to control perception, justify violence, and suppress ethical recognition of suffering.

How can linguistics and the language sciences engage in a dialogue with history, sociology, and political science to analyze the discourses surrounding the war on Gaza?

Linguistics and the language sciences can engage in a meaningful dialogue with history, sociology, and political science to analyze the discourses surrounding the war on Gaza by combining the strengths of each discipline to reveal how language constructs and shapes reality. From a historical perspective, dominant discourse often selectively frames events, presenting the conflict as beginning at points convenient to those in power such as the outbreak of hostilities on October 7, 2023 while erasing earlier historical developments. Key moments such as the Zionist Congress in Basel in 1897, the Balfour Declaration of 1917, and the declaration of the occupation in 1948 are frequently omitted or reframed, allowing narratives to start at points that legitimize particular political positions. Linguistic analysis uncovers how language is used to rewrite history, legitimize power, and silence Palestinian perspectives.

From a sociological perspective, examining discourse provides insights into collective identity, social perception, and the propagation of stereotypes or misinformation. Language on social media, for example, shapes public understanding of justice, victimhood, and solidarity. Analyses of word choice, symbolic imagery, and hashtags show how discourse reinforces social hierarchies and affects group identity, enabling certain narratives while marginalizing others.

Political science contributes by highlighting the power relations embedded in discourse: who is allowed to speak, whose voices are heard, and whose experiences are silenced. Official statements, media coverage, and political speeches reveal strategies used to justify military actions, influence international opinion, and control global narratives. A striking example is Netanyahu’s speech before the U.S. Congress, where he was framed as a hero while serious allegations and warrants against him were ignored. Such speeches rely on binary oppositions, framing, and selective omissions to present Israel as the victim and Palestinians as aggressors, demonstrating how language legitimizes power and obscures accountability.

Integrating these approaches allows linguistics to analyze texts, word choice, grammatical structures, and framing; history to provide chronological depth and context; sociology to examine social effects and identity formation; and political science to interpret ideological strategies and information control. Examples from media headlines, UN statements, political speeches, and social media demonstrate how dominant discourse systematically marginalizes Palestinian voices while legitimizing actions of power. This interdisciplinary perspective reveals not only how language constructs reality and erases voices, but also how discourse shapes perception, moral judgment, and collective understanding of the conflict.

How does linguistic analysis complement the work of historians in narrating the Palestinian past and present?

Linguistic analysis plays a crucial role in complementing the work of historians in narrating the Palestinian past and present by revealing how language frames, silences, or reconstructs historical realities. While historians provide chronological accounts of events and socio-political developments, linguistics examines the discursive strategies, structures, and devices that shape how these events are represented, interpreted, or forgotten. For example, the Zionist declaration of the establishment of Israel in 1948 is often described in official documents and media as “independence,” whereas Palestinians refer to the same events as the Nakba, a period marked by ethnic cleansing, displacement, and dispossession of land. Linguistic analysis shows how lexical choices, metaphors, analogies, binary oppositions, and framing shape ideological perspectives, legitimizing one group’s narrative while marginalizing the other. Similarly, terms such as antisemitism are strategically deployed to silence criticism of Israeli policies, while critics are delegitimized or personally attacked, illustrating how discourse constructs moral and political authority.

Beyond lexical choices and metaphors, a comprehensive analysis includes a wide range of discursive strategies. Metaphors and analogies represent events or actors symbolically to influence perception, while polarization and binary oppositions construct “us versus them” or “good versus evil” narratives. Cause-effect reasoning is used to justify actions or attribute responsibility, whereas nominalization and passive constructions obscure agency, hiding the actors behind events. Presuppositions embed assumptions that frame reality as natural, and euphemisms soften violence or oppression. Framing emphasizes certain events while omitting others; while silencing and erasure systematically exclude Palestinian voices. Intertextuality references prior narratives or authorities to legitimize the present, and in-group/out-group constructions define moral and social boundaries. Modality and hedging express degrees of certainty or authority that shape perception and judgment.

Applying these strategies to historical texts, media coverage, political speeches, and UN statements uncovers both intentional and systemic erasure of Palestinian voices. Historical events such as the Balfour Declaration of 1917, the Zionist Congress in Basel in 1897, and the 1948 declaration of occupation are often reframed or omitted, allowing dominant narratives to start at points that legitimize Israeli political objectives. Linguistic analysis helps reveal these silences, showing how language is used to erase history, normalize violence, and marginalize collective memory.

At the same time, linguistic tools allow researchers to recover and reconstruct Palestinian narratives, making visible experiences and perspectives that have been historically suppressed. For example, analyzing metaphors, binary oppositions, and framing in Palestinian testimonies, social media posts, or UN reports highlights both civilian suffering and resistance, countering dominant narratives that cast Palestinians solely as aggressors.

By integrating linguistic analysis with historical scholarship, researchers gain a richer, more nuanced understanding of both past and present. Historians provide the chronological and socio-political context, while linguistics exposes the ideological mechanisms embedded in language that shape public perception, moral judgment, and collective memory. Together, this interdisciplinary approach illuminates not only the events themselves but also how they are narrated, contested, and remembered, ensuring that Palestinian voices, perspectives, and experiences are neither erased nor silenced.

How are digital social networks transforming forms of Palestinian or pro-Palestinian expression?

Digital social networks have profoundly transformed forms of Palestinian and pro-Palestinian expression, offering new platforms for communication, mobilization, and resistance. Platforms such as TikTok, which initially provided a relatively open space for content dissemination, allowed users to share textual posts, hashtags, memes, images, videos, and live streams documenting life under siege, civilian suffering, and acts of resistance. Through these multimodal expressions, individuals could bypass traditional media filters, amplify marginalized voices, and create a global audience for narratives often ignored or silenced in mainstream reporting. Hashtags such as #GazaUnderAttack have been used to unify digital campaigns, increase engagement, and foster solidarity, allowing pro-Palestinian activists and ordinary users to speak directly to the world. In this way, social networks empower Palestinians and their supporters to bypass traditional media and political authorities, ensuring that humanity speaks louder than governments and that the realities on the ground are documented and disseminated globally.

These platforms also provide global engagement and digital archiving, creating permanent records of events, images, testimonies, and articles. Such archives help preserve the collective memory of historical and contemporary experiences, giving future researchers and audiences access to firsthand narratives that might otherwise be erased or marginalized. Symbolic imagery, videos, and viral posts documenting genocide, starvation, and siege conditions circulate widely, influencing perception and eliciting moral and political responses from international audiences.

At the same time, digital social networks are not neutral spaces. Platforms increasingly face control, censorship, deletion, disinformation, and algorithmic suppression, which can limit the visibility of pro-Palestinian content. The spread of fake news or misleading images also poses challenges, sometimes distorting public understanding and creating additional hurdles for authentic narratives. Despite these constraints, social media continues to function as a site of resistance, enabling creative expression through metaphors, euphemisms, binary oppositions, and symbolic imagery. These tools allow users to challenge dominant narratives, document atrocities, and reclaim agency in the global discourse about Gaza.

By analyzing social media content, scholars can trace how language, imagery, hashtags, and multimodal expression interact with social and political realities, shaping collective understanding, mobilizing support, and contesting hegemonic framings. Digital networks thus represent both a tool for empowerment and vulnerability, amplifying Palestinian voices while exposing them to censorship, manipulation, and suppression. These dual dynamics underscore the importance of integrating linguistic, sociological, and political analysis to understand how contemporary digital discourse transforms visibility, memory, and narrative control in the context of the Gaza conflict.

Do you think our discipline bears a particular responsibility in the face of this event?

Our discipline bears a profound responsibility in the face of the war on Gaza, encompassing ethical, scientific, social, and political dimensions. From an ethical perspective, researchers play a critical role in exposing attempts to marginalize or silence Palestinian voices, examining how language in media coverage, political speeches, UN statements, and social media selectively frames events to favor dominant powers. For instance, civilian testimonies are often ignored, euphemized, or reframed as “security incidents” or “clashes,” minimizing the human suffering experienced on the ground. By analyzing these patterns, linguists make visible the hidden power relations embedded in discourse and restore agency to the voices that have been historically silenced or marginalized.

Scientifically, linguists are responsible for maintaining credibility, rigor, and accuracy, carefully documenting the language used in testimonies, translations, media reports, and digital hashtags. Tools such as Critical Discourse Analysis, narrative analysis, framing, metaphor, lexical and grammatical analysis, and other discourse strategies allow researchers to systematically uncover mechanisms of erasure, ideological framing, and bias. This meticulous approach ensures that research is both credible and ethically grounded, avoiding distortion, oversimplification, or unintentional complicity in disinformation.

Socially and politically, linguistics is not limited to describing language; it can actively raise awareness, inform public understanding, and contribute to justice. By analyzing how discourse shapes public opinion, constructs moral and social boundaries, and circulates symbolic imagery, researchers can reveal the ideological strategies that normalize violence, marginalize victims, or frame aggressors as justified actors. Pro-Palestinian social media campaigns, for example, document the realities of siege, starvation, and civilian suffering, allowing voices from Gaza to bypass traditional media filters and speak directly to global audiences. This digital activism highlights how humanity often speaks louder than governments, emphasizing the moral and communicative power of language in shaping collective awareness.

At the same time, scholars face significant challenges in fulfilling this responsibility. Maintaining academic neutrality while acknowledging the political impact of research requires careful balance, especially when studying highly sensitive topics where ethical, social, and political stakes are high. Researchers must also navigate personal and professional risks, including political backlash, censorship, or restrictions on access to information. Despite these challenges, linguists have a unique position to bridge scholarly rigor with ethical engagement, ensuring that their work both contributes to knowledge and honors the lived realities of affected communities.

This responsibility applies both locally in Gaza, where documentation of everyday experiences under siege and wartime violence is crucial, and globally, where linguistic analysis can challenge hegemonic narratives, amplify marginalized voices, and inform international audiences. By integrating ethical, scientific, social, and political perspectives, linguistics demonstrates that careful, critical study of language is inseparable from moral engagement, revealing the human consequences of conflict, uncovering hidden structures of power, and contributing to a more just and informed understanding of reality.

In your view, what does a linguistic and discursive approach offer that other disciplines do not?

A linguistic and discursive approach offers unique insights that other disciplines cannot fully capture, because it focuses on language as both a constructor of reality and a vehicle of power, revealing how meaning is produced, contested, and controlled. While history, sociology, and political science provide essential context, they are often mediated by ideology, national interests, or funding structures, which can influence how events are narrated, documented, or interpreted. Historians may consciously or unconsciously frame events to support particular narratives, while political science often prioritizes strategic, institutional, or economic considerations over the lived experiences of affected populations. Linguistics, in contrast, examines how discourse itself operates, uncovering the subtle mechanisms through which realities are framed, truths are silenced, and power is exercised.

One of the central contributions of a linguistic and discursive approach is unveiling the linguistic structures of ideology. By analyzing words, phrases, and stylistic choices, researchers can reveal how political ideas and power are embedded within texts. For example, the use of the term collateral damage instead of killing civilians manipulates language to deflect responsibility and frame violence in a politically acceptable manner. Linguistic analysis also allows us to identify who is heard and who is ignored, revealing absences that historical or political studies may overlook. Media analyses, for instance, show how the testimonies of Palestinian civilians are marginalized while the narratives of the dominant party are amplified, highlighting systematic silencing and inequality in representation.

Another key strength of linguistics is framing analysis, which clarifies how events are presented to shape public perception. Describing an incident as a “military operation” rather than an “attack on civilians” significantly influences the way audiences interpret responsibility, legitimacy, and morality. Beyond framing, linguistic analysis helps us understand symbols and deeper cultural meanings, capturing the emotional, national, and ideological significance of language that statistics or historical facts alone cannot convey. Studying Palestinian poetry, political slogans, or social media expressions, for example, reveals collective pain, resistance, and identity, offering insight into dimensions of experience that other disciplines might overlook.

A linguistic perspective also enables the study of dynamic changes in discourse over time and across platforms, such as shifts between traditional media, political speeches, and social media campaigns. Digital networks, hashtags, and viral content illustrate how discourse evolves, how marginalized voices find new channels for expression, and how ideologies are adapted or contested in real time. This capacity to trace discourse evolution complements historical and sociopolitical analysis by showing not only what is said, but how it is said, how it is omitted, and how audiences interpret it.

In conclusion, linguistics and discourse analysis provide a unique lens for understanding reality. They reveal not only events themselves, but also how they are narrated, concealed, and understood. They expose power, ideology, and linguistic discrimination embedded within texts, highlighting inequalities in voice and representation. While they complement the broader frameworks of history, sociology, and political science, they offer intricate insights into language, symbolic representation, and meaning-making that these disciplines cannot fully capture. Linguistics acts as a monitor and observer of language, a tool for measurement, judgment, and critical reflection, allowing scholars to analyze the construction of reality, the shaping of collective consciousness, and the moral and political implications of discourse.

Which Palestinian discursive forms (testimonies, slogans, narratives, scholarly writings, digital productions) do you consider especially important today to analyze or to circulate?

Today, all forms of Palestinian discourse are important to study and circulate, but some carry particular weight due to their immediacy, reach, and impact. Among these, oral testimonies interviews and personal accounts from Gaza residents and Palestinians living under siege offer a direct window into human experiences during wars and blockades. These testimonies document events, complement official media statements, and preserve the lived realities of individuals, providing evidence that counters erasure and misrepresentation. While all forms of discourse are valuable, the most influential for shaping global opinion today is social media, which is particularly effective among younger generations. Although fewer people read academic works, these writings remain essential for archiving facts, preserving detailed analysis, and influencing elite and scholarly audiences worldwide.

Political slogans, such as resistance chants and popular movement slogans like “The Right of Return” or “Free Palestine,” are concise, powerful expressions of collective identity and political demand. Their brevity makes them highly shareable on social media, enabling rapid dissemination and engagement. Palestinian narratives, including literary works, stories, and articles, illuminate daily life, resistance, and national belonging. They provide nuanced cultural and human perspectives that challenge stereotypes and enrich understanding of Palestinian experience. Academic writings by Palestinians or about Palestine offer systematic, reliable analysis of political, social, and historical realities, supporting global discourse with rigorously documented knowledge.

Digital productions social media content, videos, memes, hashtags, and podcasts have become especially critical. They offer a fast and effective way to reach a global audience, conveying reality directly and generating media and political momentum. Viral videos, visual testimonies, and hashtag campaigns allow marginalized voices to bypass traditional media filters, shape public perception, and mobilize international solidarity in ways that were impossible before the digital age.

Analyzing and sharing these forms is essential today for several reasons. They document events and amplify marginalized voices, preserving evidence of atrocities and everyday life under occupation. They reflect Palestinian identity, resistance, and lived experience, creating both cultural continuity and a sense of collective belonging. They also help researchers and the wider public understand the social and political context more deeply, revealing how power, ideology, and discourse shape perception and memory. Importantly, digital productions and slogans extend the reach of awareness globally, making it possible to mobilize support and influence opinion rapidly, while scholarly and narrative works ensure that detailed knowledge and historical accuracy are preserved for long-term study. Together, these diverse forms of Palestinian discourse provide a comprehensive, multi-dimensional understanding of the conflict, the lived realities of Gaza, and the ongoing struggle to have voices heard and histories acknowledged.

How do you reconcile academic distance and subjective involvement in your work within the context of a war that directly affects your people?

Reconciling academic distance with subjective involvement is one of the most delicate challenges for researchers studying a conflict that directly affects their own community. While it is essential to maintain methodological rigor and scholarly neutrality, acknowledging the emotional and personal impact of the war provides both human depth and intellectual insight. One of the first steps in achieving this balance is acknowledging subjectivity: clarifying one’s personal position as a Palestinian living through the events does not diminish the credibility of the research; instead, it adds a critical dimension, allowing readers and scholars to understand the context from which observations are made. Personal experience offers an immediate awareness of subtleties in discourse how euphemisms soften violence, how certain voices are silenced, or how digital campaigns mobilize global opinion that an outside observer might easily overlook.

Maintaining methodological rigor is equally crucial. Accurate documentation of sources, systematic text analysis, and the application of robust analytical tools such as Critical Discourse Analysis, framing, narrative analysis, metaphor analysis, and lexical and grammatical scrutiny ensure that the work is scientifically sound despite the researcher’s personal connection. This rigor allows researchers to transform subjective engagement into structured insight, producing findings that are both credible and analytically robust. Balancing emotion and analysis is essential: personal experience enriches the understanding of testimonies, oral narratives, social media posts, and digital productions, highlighting subtle linguistic and cultural elements, yet these insights are always framed within an evidence-based analytical structure. For instance, analyzing Palestinian civilian testimonies benefits from attentiveness to tone, repetition, and metaphor, which convey suffering and resilience, while remaining anchored in methodological clarity rather than emotive storytelling alone.

Transparency with the scientific community further reinforces credibility. By openly recognizing the ethical, emotional, and psychological challenges inherent in studying a war that directly affects the researcher, it becomes possible to clarify how personal experience informs choices of texts, analytical focus, or interpretive lens. This transparency demonstrates reflexivity, a hallmark of responsible scholarship, showing that personal engagement is acknowledged and accounted for, rather than disguised as neutral objectivity. Additionally, leveraging personal experience as an advantage allows the researcher to uncover cultural and symbolic meanings embedded in discourse insights that may elude outsiders. Understanding local idioms, metaphors, and collective references, or recognizing the significance of certain slogans and digital campaigns, provides depth and nuance that enhances scholarly interpretation.

At the same time, a researcher must recognize the tension between human emotional response and academic discipline. Living in Gaza, witnessing devastation and violence, or feeling the weight of collective suffering naturally impacts perception. However, a dedicated scholar channels these experiences into rigorous, systematic study, ensuring that personal involvement becomes a tool for insight rather than a source of bias. In this way, the research achieves a dual purpose: it remains scientifically credible, offering verifiable and analyzable findings, while also retaining ethical and human sensitivity, honoring the lived realities of the affected community. Ultimately, reconciling academic distance with subjective involvement transforms personal proximity into an asset, allowing the researcher to produce work that is intellectually rigorous, morally aware, and socially relevant, capturing both the linguistic and human dimensions of the conflict.

Gaza, février 2026