The Rhetoric of Victimization: An Analysis of the Coverage of Intifada El-Aqsa in the Israeli Press

Abstract

Using a number of concepts from John Best's work on the rhetoric of claims making, this article analyses the Israeli press of the Intifada EI-Aqsa. It revolves around two major themes — the severity of the Palestinian terrorist attacks and the undeserved fate of the Israeli victims. Reporters repeatedly engaged in the dramatization of injury and the dramatization of innocence. Bearing in mind the influence of the press on public perceptions of the conflict between the two peoples, it is clear that the extent and nature of the coverage, together with the almost total lack of attention to Palestinian casualties, reduces the chances of breaking the mutual cycle of victimization. The adoption of a non-monolithic stance and a dual-concern model, it is suggested, would help overcome the egoism of victimization that typifies this and other relationships between traumatized national groups.

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