Western Media Bias in the Israel –Palestine Conflict: A critical Discourse Analysis

Abstract

The aim of this study is to examine the ideological underpinnings of western media narratives in the conflict of Israel and Palestine by using (CDA) critical discourse analysis. It tries to investigate how language, ideology and power significantly intersect in media discourse, drawing Van Dijk’s tripartite frame work of macro structure(themes). Super structure (schematic organization) and micro structure (lexical and rhetorical strategies). The main focus of this study is to investigate how certain strategies reproduce ideological position and legitimize one view over the other. There are mainly thee sources used for data for this study between 2019 t0 2025. These are BBC (Unites Kingdom) France 24 (France) and Deutsche Welle (Germany). The data for this study has been taken from headlines, news articles, and broadcast of speeches of western political figures during both crisis and non-crisis duration. The finding and analysis show the consistent use of the word “militant” for Palestinians and the “operations” for Israeli actions which reflects the asymmetrical framing. This study argues that such discursive practices reproduce unsustainable power relations between two sides, and change the perception of European public. By highlighting these practices Van Dijk modal can uncover the bias across multiple textual levels. The study also contributes to critical media scholarship and emphasizes the need for balance reporting.