Rationalization of Evil through Media: A Twitter Discourse Analysis on Israel's Genocide against Palestine after October 7

Abstract

Israel, which has settled in Palestinian territories since 1948 and has continued its expansionist policies for years, does not recognize the right to life for Palestinians in the region. Most recently, Israel declared war and killed forty-four thousand people in Gaza, citing the deaths and hostage-taking of Israelis in what Hamas called the “Aqsa Flood” attack on October 7. Israel insists that it will continue this war until the hostages are taken back. This study aims to reveal how the tension between Israel and Palestine, which has reached the level of genocide since October 7, has been transformed into a discourse in the Israeli media. The bureaucratic and rational presentation of Israel's conflict with Palestine through antisemitism is effective in legitimizing Israel's victims and actions in the mainstream media. For this reason, since October 7, the tweets of B. B. Netanyahu and US President Joe Biden and the official X accounts of the Office of the Prime Minister of Israel and Israel Defense Forces will be subjected to discourse analysis, limited to October-November. Israel has used many adjectives to appeal to humanitarian sentiments over the Israeli hostages, demonstrating that its security is in danger. Israel emphasized the threat of radical Islam by mentioning ISIS and Iran in addition to Hamas in a way to mobilize past sensitivities. By dehumanizing Hamas with labels such as “terrorist, human-animal”, Israel legitimizes everything done to them. With this discursive background, it practices a systematic brutality unique to modernity. Thus, reality is distorted by the discourse constructed by Israel on social media and the world public opinion is forced to look at the Palestinian issue from the framework built by Israel