Who is the Real Victim? Narrative Policy Framework and the Israel-Palestine Conflict

• In Event: Front and Center: Violence in Politics

Abstract

The Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) contends that policy advocates utilize the language of narrative, such as heroes, villains, and plot, to motivate and persuade the public. This paper contributes to the growing NPF literature by applying it to a novel case: the Israel-Palestine conflict. Early NPF research suggested that narrative strategies and how they shape the scope of the conflict depend on a group's position as a “winner” or “loser” within a conflict. More recent studies, however, challenge this view, arguing that narrative strategies are shaped either by other contextual factors or by adherence to fixed narrative structures regardless of a group’s status. This paper analyzes Facebook posts and advertisements from two prominent pro-Israel interest groups that take differing positions on the current war in Gaza: The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) which is generally more supportive of the current government and J Street, a liberal critic. By first hand coding a sample and then training a large language model I find that despite AIPAC being a policy “winner” and J Street a “loser,” both organizations emphasize heroes, villains, and victims at similar rates as well as expand the conflict’s scope beyond Israel and Palestine. The key differences lie in who is cast in these roles and what is included within the expanded conflict. This study advances the NPF literature by contributing to a central debate within the framework and by extending its application to the domestic politics of the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Author

• Julian Morein, Syracuse University