The enduring conflict between Israelis and Palestinians is not merely a territorial dispute; it is fundamentally a battle of competing narratives, each seeking to establish moral and historical legitimacy on the international stage. The perception that Israel can easily shift blame onto Muslim entities, thereby deflecting scrutiny from its own policies, stems from a well-established mechanism: the strategic framing of the conflict through the lens of security, existential threat, and the integration of these themes into the mainstream Western media narrative.
A primary factor contributing to this perceived ease of blame assignment is the securitization of the Israeli state’s actions. Securitization, in political science, is the process by which an issue is presented as an existential threat, justifying extraordinary measures. Israel’s geopolitical discourse consistently frames the conflict as an uncompromising struggle for survival against external, often religiously motivated, aggression. By effectively defining the actions of groups like Hamas and others as purely terrorism rather than as a form of political or military resistance rooted in occupation, the Israeli narrative simplifies a complex, historical struggle into a clear-cut confrontation between a democratic state and extremist forces. This powerful framework allows the state to cast any defensive or military operation as a necessary, reactive measure, functionally assigning the initial blame for violence to the opposing group and absolving the state of responsibility for the cycle of escalation.
This narrative is amplified by the alignment of many Western mainstream media outlets, which often prioritize the Israeli security perspective due to shared cultural ties, common democratic values, and historical sympathy following the Holocaust. Academic studies in media analysis have frequently demonstrated a bias in the quantity and tone of coverage, highlighting Israeli casualties with personalized, humanizing detail, while sometimes reducing Palestinian casualties to impersonal statistics or abstract concepts of collateral damage. This dualistic framing—what some scholars term the us vs. them ideological square—serves to subtly construct a hierarchy of grievability. By focusing heavily on the threats faced by Israeli citizens and emphasizing the religious and ideological aspects of Palestinian opposition, this coverage reinforces the image of Palestinian actors as inherently antagonistic, thereby making the blanket assignment of blame more palatable to a Western audience.
The rhetorical effect of this framing is precisely the washing away of responsibility for the costs of long-term occupation, settlement expansion, and systemic grievances. By constantly associating its opponents with broader, de-contextualized themes of Islamic extremism and global terrorism, Israel’s government strategically utilizes the deep-seated fears and preconceptions prevalent in Western post-9/11 societies. This maneuver effectively shifts the debate away from the specifics of international law, human rights violations, and the status of occupied territories, focusing instead on the immediate, moral imperative of national self-defense. This strategy not only serves to antagonize Muslim communities by linking political resistance to religious hate in Western eyes, but also successfully mobilizes international political and financial support by positioning Israel as a frontline state in a wider clash of civilizations.
The capacity to assign blame in this conflict is not inherent but is a carefully constructed political achievement. It results from successfully embedding a security-first narrative into Western discourse, leveraging historical and ideological affinities, and using media framing techniques to define adversaries in antagonistic and often essentialist terms. This narrative mechanism, while powerful, is increasingly contested as digital platforms and diverse international media challenge the traditional Western monopoly on the story.