In today’s era of information and technology—a time marked by the exertion of soft power by certain governments and institutions—the narrative being presented has become increasingly important. Nowhere is this narrative-shaping more prevalent than in Western mainstream media’s reporting and portrayals of Israel’s war on Gaza.

In the wake of two incidents over the past several weeks—the shooting involving Israeli embassy staff in the United States and the attack on a pro-Israel rally in Colorado—Western media outlets rapidly mobilized to frame these events with language steeped in urgency, condemnation, and moral clarity.

Headlines labeled the incidents as “horrific,” “terror attacks,” “targeted violence,” and “hate crimes,” with victims named and mourned, and perpetrators immediately criminalized. Politicians and media figures alike denounced the assaults as part of a larger pattern of rising antisemitism, reinforcing a familiar narrative of Israeli victimhood and global hostility toward the state.

Yet this rhetorical intensity and personal framing stand in stark contrast to how the media report on the daily reality in Gaza, where civilian massacres, bombings of hospitals, and attacks on refugee camps often receive passive headlines like “clashes erupt” or “Palestinians killed in airstrikes.”

Rarely are the Palestinian dead named or humanized, and seldom is the violence described with the same moral language or urgency. These two incidents—and the language surrounding them—exemplify a long-standing asymmetry in Western reporting, where Israeli and pro-Israel suffering is individualized and amplified, while Palestinian pain is diluted, decontextualized, or erased altogether.

Killed, or Simply Died?

Declassified UK reported in January 2024 that, after a day in which two incidents in Gaza resulted in high casualties for the IDF, mainstream Western media described it as the “deadliest day” for Israel since October 7th.

In stark contrast, that same day saw more than 150 Palestinians killed—many of them women and children—yet these deaths were described in far more muted terms.

Headlines referred vaguely to “clashes” or “ongoing fighting,” and the victims were often not named, not humanized, and not given the same narrative weight.

The discrepancy in language—Israeli soldiers being “slain” or “massacred” while Palestinians simply “died”—illustrates a systemic double standard in how Western outlets frame Israeli and Palestinian loss, with the former portrayed as tragic individuals and the latter reduced to faceless statistics.

Disparities in Reporting

This disparity isn’t just anecdotal—it’s quantifiable. According to an analysis by DAWN MENA, during the early weeks of the war, between October 7 and October 22, coverage in major American newspapers revealed a stark imbalance.

On average, every one Israeli death merited one news article—a one-to-one ratio. But for Palestinian deaths, that coverage rate was four times lower.

In The Wall Street Journal, the gap was even more extreme: for every 17 Palestinians killed, there was only one mention of their deaths. The implication is clear—Israeli lives are treated as inherently more newsworthy, more grievable, and more deserving of public empathy than Palestinian ones.

Similarly, The Intercept carried out its own analysis, in which over a thousand articles from The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and The Washington Post were reviewed and counted. The analysis revealed a pattern of gross disparity in reported figures that favor Israel over those that highlight Palestinian suffering.

The Intercept also found that as the death toll among Palestinians in Gaza increased, mention of Palestinians in related articles from these newspapers decreased. It was further noted that the word “slaughter” was attributed to Israeli deaths compared to Palestinian deaths at a ratio of 60 to 1, and the same was true for the word “massacre,” at a ratio of 125 to 2.

Retaliation or Unprovoked Aggression?

Another striking dimension of Western media bias lies in how violence is contextualized—if at all. Israeli military actions, regardless of scale or civilian death toll, are overwhelmingly framed as acts of “retaliation” or “self-defense.”

This terminology not only implies justification but also preemptively absolves the Israeli state of initiating violence. For example, when Israel launched intense bombing campaigns in response to Hamas rocket fire—often days after imposing deadly restrictions or conducting raids—headlines frequently read: “Israel strikes Gaza in retaliation.”

The cause-and-effect chain is selectively highlighted to portray Israel as reacting, not provoking.

In contrast, Palestinian actions—whether in response to occupation, settler expansion, or military aggression—are rarely afforded such contextual framing. Terms like “attack,” “assault,” or “terrorism” dominate the coverage, suggesting malicious violence divorced from any political or humanitarian grievance.

This discrepancy constructs a moral hierarchy: Israeli violence is framed as strategic and regrettable, while Palestinian violence is portrayed as irrational and criminal.

The result is a deeply skewed public understanding—one where the legitimacy of resistance is erased and the machinery of occupation is normalized.

The Power of Language

In conflict, words are not neutral—they are weapons wielded as deftly as drones and missiles. The Western mainstream media’s selective use of language in reporting on Israel and Palestine is not simply a matter of semantics; it is a powerful tool of narrative control.

Through emotive disparity, selective framing, and asymmetrical moral language, Israel is consistently positioned as the victim or justified actor, while Palestinians are cast in the role of aggressors, collateral, or anonymous statistics.

This bias does more than distort public perception—it actively shapes policy, legitimizes violence, and sustains an imbalance of power. In an age where language drives politics, the responsibility of the press is not merely to report, but to do so with clarity, conscience, and consistency. Anything less becomes complicity.