Source: West Asia and Africa, No. 5, 2025

Abstract: Hostile discourse is an important dimension for exploring the conflict between Israel and Iran. Since the Iranian Islamic Revolution in 1979, the political discourse between Israel and Iran has changed from moderate to hostile. The hostile discourse between Israel and Iran has led to three types of hostile discourse mirroring mechanisms with low to high coupling degrees, namely, uncoupling, loose coupling, and complete coupling, which correspond to the three images of ideological competitors, degenerating competitors, and implacable enemies. The higher the degree of coupling, the more obvious the mirroring effect of Israel and Iran' s confrontation around the ' basic discourse'. In the state of complete coupling, Israel and Iran attack each other through identity ' imitation ' and representation 'projection' symbols in the context of 'choice - myth - trauma' narratives, constantly subverting each other' s discourse and maintaining their own legitimacy. Although the hostile discourse and confrontational practices of the two countries are not completely consistent and have a certain performative and irrational nature, as the mirror coupling is maintained as a normal state, the mirroring hostile discourse integrated into daily political and social life gradually becomes a reference to one' s own situation, inevitably carrying the dimension of real political domination, stimulating and promoting the escalation of conflicts and even military confrontation between Israel and Iran.

Keywords: relations among Middle East countries; mirroring hostile discourse; Iran; Israel; mirror coupling