The question of Palestine: from racial capitalism to media complicity

This thesis examines the ongoing Nakba through the lens of race, settler-coloniality, and racial capitalism, foregrounding the role of racialization in sustaining the Israeli state and its structures of domination over Palestinians. Building on Lentin’s theorization of race and on Cedric Robinson’s framework of racial capitalism, and settler colonialism, the analysis explores how Zionism emerged as a modern colonial project that reconfigured Jewish identity through the invention of whiteness, the production of white-Jewish property, and the exclusion of non-white Jews and Palestinians alike. Race and racial hierarchy thus become central to understanding how land expropriation, citizenship, and sovereignty are legitimized. It further interrogates the complicity of Western media in reproducing these dynamics through critical discourse analysis (CDA). Drawing on Said’s Orientalism and theories of symbolic colonialism, it examines the representation of Palestinians and Israelis in leading English-language outlets such as BBC, The Guardian, CNN, and Al Jazeera. By comparing “neutral” and politically aligned sources, the study highlights how news structures shape public perceptions of the conflict, reinforce racialized hierarchies, and obscure Palestinian suffering and resistance. In conclusion, this thesis argues that the persistence of the Nakba cannot be disentangled from racial capitalism, white supremacism, and the global media order, where racialized narratives both naturalize settler-colonial violence and delegitimize Palestinian claims to land, life, and sovereignty.