Abstract
This article conducts social network and topic analyses of German-language posts on X that discuss genocide and terrorism in Israel and Gaza in the first six months after the October 7 attacks and compares these to broader English-language discourses on the platform. The comparison reveals subtle differences in how Israeli violence and governance and Palestinians are discussed and who is seen as complicit in supporting violence. Markedly, German-language posts discuss what constitutes antisemitism more and employ a more restrained language towards Israel as a state and its political actors than English-language posts. We tie these findings back to the idiosyncrasies of the German memory culture.
First Page
38
Last Page
61
Acknowledgements
Funding: The authors acknowledge the financial support received for this research from dtec.bw - Center for Digitalization and Technology Research of the German Bundeswehr. dtec.bw is funded by European Union - NextGenerationEU.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.5038/1911-9933.20.1.2083
Recommended Citation
Williams, Timothy and Dafnos, Andreas
(2026)
"Genocide in Gaza? Social Media Discussions of Violence in Israel and Gaza,"
Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal:
Vol. 20:
Iss.
1:
38–61.
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5038/1911-9933.20.1.2083
Available at: https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/gsp/vol20/iss1/5
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License
Included in
Comparative Politics Commons, Holocaust and Genocide Studies Commons, Politics and Social Change Commons, Social Media Commons
