Israeli-Palestinian struggle

Abstract

This study investigates how the struggle between Israelis and Palestinians is represented in the western news discourse through building a relationship between language and ideology. The study provides a picture of how Palestinians are depicted in the West. To achieve this aim, extracts from six articles of two western newspapers, namely the Independent from U.K and the Washington Post from U.S from the period between 2001-2012 are selected and analyzed ideologically and linguistically. The study is carried out using Van Dijk's notion of "ideological square", categorized by Us vs. Them dichotomies using qualitative and quantitative procedures. The study has concluded that Palestinians are absolutely portrayed negatively in the western newspapers. They are explicitly or implicitly seen as fighters, suicide bombers, Islamic militants, kidnappers and terrorists, which reflect their danger as compared to the Israelis. The conclusions have also proved that the two newspapers have revealed similar attitudes toward Palestinians and almost used similar language to describe them.