The Israel Palestine conflict which is a conflict over land between Palestinians who claim to be the true inhabitants of Palestine and Israeli’s who also claim to be the true and original inhabitants of Palestine is the complex conflict of our times. Such is the complexity of this conflict that international relations experts call Palestine “A center of international rivalry intermittently since the beginning of human history”. As a student of political science interested in international relations and conflict studies, i am thoroughly analysing the narratives and stands which each side is presenting to the outside world to assert their truthfulness in being on right side of the conflict. I found that these narratives and the support they get have kept the conflict violent and growing instead of resolving it. Here is the elaboration of all these facts.
Divine and religious narratives
Since the beginning of Palestine Israel conflict, both Jews and Arabs have put forth their respective narratives to claim ownership of Palestinian land and historical religious places inside it. While Jews claim They are original inhabitants of the land of Palestine and are People of the Book (Called Ahli Kitab), so they deserve the land of Palestine as their legacy and homeland. The Arabs too have claimed that “Arabs and muslims have religious significance for Palestine because of Al-Aqsa mosque located inside it and prophetic legacies”.These religious and divine based narratives are always put forth by leadership of both Israel and Palestine in both peace and war times. With the arrival of social media these narratives are louding more and more.
Self defence and occupation state narratives
The other narratives which are being given attention are the self-defence narrative by Israel and occupation state narrative by Palestine. Since the establishment of Israeli state, its leaders have claimed that they face survival threat from Palestinians there by justifying occupying and oppressing Palestinians. On the other side Palestinians have claimed that Israeli state has been forcibly established on the stolen land of Palestinians there by justifying resisting Israeli occupation and oppression. Both these narratives have been considered well by international community which is led by west but unfortunately it has effectively done nothing to slove the conflict.
Terrorism and liberation narratives
With the emergence of war on terror by US, some legitimate resistance movements were being viewed as terrorism in the policy circles of Europe and US. The Palestinian movement for liberation and establishing state too became victim of this powerful “War on Terror” policy. Israeli leadership took full advantage of the situation and blamed Palestinians as terrorists who want to erase Israel from the map of the world. It also tried to justify killing palestinians and occupying more lands through this narrative. The Palestinians countered this by accusing Israel as Occupation and Zionist state who want to erase Palestine and establish Greater Israel in the middle east there by trying to display Israel as threat to whole middle east. The narrative battle is too becoming intense in this dimension.
The recent war between Palestine and Israel which started after october 7 incursion into Israel by Palestinian group Hamas and israeli retaliatory air strikes and ground invasion of Gaza has lead to increase in their war of narratives also. Immediately after the breakup of Gaza siege by Hamas and their entry into Israel both through air and ground Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu announced that “Israel is under attack, we have launced Operation Swords Of Iron to fight Hamas and win the war”. On the other side Hamas’s late political bureau chief Ismail Haniya who was killed in Tehran announced that “The Operation Al-Aqsa Storm is resistance fight to free Palestine from occupation and drag Israel to pay the price of its years of occupation and oppression”.The Hamas incursion into Israel lead to deaths of hundreds of military and civilian israeli’s and hundreds of israeli’s were taken as hostages to Gaza including women and children. Israeli and western media quickly blamed Hamas as terrorists who took citizens as hostages and attacked a dance festival in Israel. Social media got flooded with videos showing hostages crying. This gave Israel lot of public support to launch war on Gaza to destroy Hamas and bring hostages back. Israeli PM saw a good opportunity to erase Gaza with the pretext of destroying Hamas. Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant called Palestinians as “Human animals” and denied supplying food, electricity and water to sufferring Gazans.The relentless Israeli bombing on Gaza killing thousands including kids and women and destroying hospitals, houses and schools within few days lead to humanitarian disaster in Gaza which needed urgent action from international community and shifted the public sympathy from Tel Aviv to Gaza. With israeli air strikes and ground invasion leading to deaths of thousands of Gazans and destruction of almost all infrastructure of Gaza including hospitals, protests started all over the world especially in western countries in favour of Palestine and slogans like “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” were being raised in powerful capitals of western countries. This immediate swing in public opinion support from Israel’s right to self-defence war to Palestine’s right to resist occupation war lead some leaders, analysts and observers to comment that “Palestine has won the public opinion and is gaining ground towards liberation and statehood”. Even US president Joe Biden declared that Israel is losing support of its war due to Tel Alvi’s indiscriminate bombing of civilians and infrastructure. Commenting on the bombing of Palestine’s hospitals one of the analyst wrote in a column that “It will be true if it is said that this war is against hospitals not Hamas”.
Narrative war on social media
Social media is being used not only to share information and entertainment, it is increasingly being used by both states and citizens to share their opinion on events like conflicts, climate change, human rights violations, liberation struggles etc. It is also used as propaganda tool to spread fake news and misleading information. Both Israel and Palestine have shared their humanitarian tragedies on social media to gain global sympathy and support for their respective stands. While Israel shared the images of its murdered citizens by Hamas through october 7 attacks, Palestine is sharing the brutal massacre of its people by Israeli military. Both Israel and Palestine have depicted themselves as victim of the other. Since the military operation of Israel has led to more human losses in Gaza as compared to losses of Israel inflicted by Hamas on october 7, this led to more sympathy for Palestinians in the hearts of people all over the world.
Modern wars not only need massive supply of armaments and economic backup , they also need narratives and propaganda to keep the wars going and resist public opposition to wars and conflicts in this so called highly democratic world. Will the rising public opinion be able to stop this Israel Palestine war and other wars of military intervention by US , Russia, NATO etc. has to been seen carefully and objectively.
About Author: Farooq Ahmad Lone, The author has completed BA through IGNOU.