A Battle of Names: Hamas and Israeli Operations in the Gaza Strip

This paper addresses the phenomenon of military operation-naming, that is, the act of giving names to war practices. Based on the four strategies of War Normalizing Discourse theory, I argue that, like nation-states, violent non-state actors also use the tool of naming to disseminate their wartime perceptions and mobilize public opinion for their own interests. Moreover, I argue that in its war-naming efforts the violent non-state actor seeks to defy and undermine the official names of its enemy state, using its own names to expand the physical battlefield to other fields of war and to present itself as an equal and legitimate player. To establish the above arguments, the article presents the case study of Hamas—specifically, the movement’s naming of rounds of fighting against Israel since the beginning of its rule in the Gaza Strip in 2007.