How the Media Manufactured a 'Genocide'

Key Findings:

This article criticizes the Western media’s amplification of the term "genocide" in reference to Israel’s military operations in Gaza. This framing fundamentally departs from the term's original legal and historical meaning. 

The author suggests that this is part of a broader phenomenon known as “concept creep,” in which emotionally potent terms—such as “racism,” “trauma,” and now “genocide”—are applied to an increasingly wide range of situations.

While media coverage may not directly determine what people think, it strongly influences how they think about issues by shaping moral and emotional narratives. In this case, framing Israel’s actions as a genocide casts the conflict in absolute moral terms, which discourages nuance and encourages a binary view of victim and perpetrator. This has had real consequences in shaping public sentiment, particularly in the U.S. 

Pew and Gallup polls show a significant decline in favorable views toward Israel among Americans—especially Democrats—since the start of the Gaza war. Sympathy for Palestinians has risen concurrently, marking a sharp shift in public opinion.

The article also examines how this framing benefits activist and political movements on both the left and right. Progressive pro-Palestinian groups use the genocide narrative to pressure governments and institutions, while certain far-right and Christian nationalist figures have adopted the same language to frame the conflict as a religious war or to stoke anti-Jewish conspiracy theories. In both cases, the “genocide” label serves as a political weapon rather than a legal judgment. 

Such rhetorical strategies have a broader societal cost, namely a rise in antisemitic incidents and a degradation of informed public discourse. The media’s casual use of the term “genocide” undermines the credibility of international law and contributes to a polarized, emotionally charged environment in which honest debate becomes nearly impossible.