The Enemy as Victim: Israeli Media Coverage of Mass Crimes Against Palestinians in Gaza

Abstract

This article examines how mainstream Israeli media cover military actions in Gaza that international legal bodies have classified as war crimes and crimes against humanity. Focusing on three widely read online outlets - Mako (center), Israel Hayom (right-wing), and Channel 7 (far-right) - it combines quantitative content analysis with qualitative discourse analysis to explore how reporting balances the framing of these actions as legitimate state violence against an "enemy" with the destabilizing implications of acknowledging them as crimes and portraying Palestinians as victims. Drawing on Herman and Chomsky's propaganda model, settler-colonial theory, and scholarship on nationalism, the study situates Israeli journalism within structural constraints shaped by military censorship, ethnonationalism, and the alignment of media agendas with state and military objectives, particularly during what is perceived as wartime. The analysis shows that mainstream outlets routinely omit, justify, or reframe Israeli military actions in ways that preserve Israeli moral legitimacy while denying Palestinians legitimate victim status. Even when international criticism or alternative accounts are reported, they are often delegitimized, reframed as politically motivated, or used to reinforce a defensive national posture. In this framework, recognition of Palestinian suffering is treated as a threat to national cohesion, while Israeli victimhood remains central and unquestioned. By exposing the mechanisms through which the media uphold the symbolic and political boundaries of the Jewish ethnonational and colonial state, the article demonstrates how such journalism contributes to the radicalization of public discourse, the further normalization of dehumanizing rhetoric, and the undermining of journalism's democratic role.