News Media | Philosophy

Palestine’s Suffering: An Analysis of The Economist Magazine

How does The Economist report on the genocide in Gaza?

Published in

The Ugly Monster

22 min readFeb 15, 2024

“That’s a succinct summary of humankind, I’d say. Who needs tomes and volumes of history? Children are dying. The injustices of the world hide in those three words.”
‘Deadhouse Gates’ by Steven Erikson

[Note: This article focuses on the print edition of The Economist. The online edition often titles its pieces differently.]

Introduction

According to Vladimir Lenin, writing in 1915, The Economist was: “a journal that speaks for British millionaires”. This is no longer true. Instead an amended statement — which better reflects the current values of The Economist — would be the following: “The Economist is a journal which appeals to the average moderate, and is fundamentally uncritical”.

Why does it matter that a magazine, which is read by a little over a million people, went from a prestigious journal read only by the elite to one which speaks to the moderate?

This prestige still exists, except it has shifted from an explicit intent found within the text to a performative guise of respectability and prestige. It presents itself as a neutral party advocating for free market values. Its agenda is not below the surface.

In their November 11th issue ‘How scary is China?’, in the article ‘In Praise of Daredevil Economics’ they are explicit with their agenda. The Economist spends 80 or so pages every week arguing and advocating for a very precise agenda. This agenda is neoliberalism.

I use the word “agenda” in its neutral term and not its clouded pejorative term used by conspiracy theorists online. I am using it to describe the ideas and values which The Economist wishes to communicate to its audience.

But that is not what this essay is here to do. Here, I wish to explore and explain how The Economist reports on, and discusses, the war in Gaza. I will use three key theories to explain how The Economist does this.

The first theory will be Gramsci’s theory on Hegemony. This will help us to explain how The Economist assumes the agency of Israel (and importantly the United States of America) over the people of Palestine. The Economist cannot consider the self determination and self organizing of the Palestinians. Gramsci’s theory on Hegemony explores not only how this happens politically and philosophically, but also why. Gramsci helps us to understand why The Economist cannot imagine a different outcome for the Gaza conflict beyond what the current administrations (both American and Israeli) are proposing.

The second key theory which helps explain all of this is Herman and Chomsky’s theory on Manufacturing Consent. This will help us to look in detail on the exact language that The Economist is using to communicate its above mentioned agenda. It will give us insight into titles like ‘Israel’s Agony and its Retribution’ (Oct 14), and ‘America’s Test’ (Oct 28), and how this use of language connects to Gramsci’s Hegemony theory, and in turn shows us that The Economist is far from impartial. It could even be argued that The Economist is a proxy for imperialist propaganda, but that might be taking it too far.

The third key theory which will be useful for our analysis is Edward Said’s concept of Orientalism as it applies to Palestine and the construction of “the Other”. This will help us to understand the construction of the Other as a concept, and how this other is wielded materially. The imperial core forms the hegemonic power structure which decides the ontological nature of the Other, and this Othering can influence the real material conditions of those living within the imperial periphery. And we will see how The Economist Others Palestinian’s autonomy and agency, only giving autonomy and agency to Hamas.

After looking at the three theories we will see how they apply to The Economist, connecting this to the provocative title proposed for the essay: “Palestine’s Suffering and its Genocide”. Finally, I will end by proposing a reflection on the real material harm that news media like The Economist inflict on the world.

Explaining Gramsci’s Hegemony, Herman and Chomsky’s Manufactured Consent, and Said’s Orientalism

Before tackling the articles by The Economist on the War in Gaza, we need to explain the three concepts mentioned; Gramsci’s concept of Hegemony, Herman and Chomsky’s concept of Manufactured Consent, and Edward Said’s concept of Orientalism. With these three concepts we can understand how The Economist constructs a narrative around current events.

Antonio Gramsci’s Cultural Hegemony

The theory of Cultural Hegemony began as a tool to explain how the ruling class exert their influence over the working class. It seeks to explore and explain how values, concepts, ideas and even the construction of reality itself is influenced and led by the ruling class. The ruling class exerts this power in all facets of reality. Our focus will be the media, but it is important to note how this influence can be socially reproduced within the people.

For Gramsci nothing exists within a vacuum. All that which we understand and perceive is in some way influenced and manipulated by the ruling class. For Gramsci, the hegemon is the one which decides the form which our perception of reality will take. This theory also rejects conspiracy theory tendencies of a secret “cabal” which controls the world and people. Not to touch on the fact that the word “cabal” itself is an antisemitic word with uncomfortable historical connotations.

Regardless, Cultural Hegemony is not an active overt coercive power. It can take that form, but it is closer to what a Foucaltian would describe as a subtle discreet form of power. A better explanation would be a pervasive influence, one which doesn’t explicitly manipulate others into believing it, but rather presents them with a vision and understanding of existence which becomes their only vision and understanding of reality.

The current cultural hegemon is the neoliberal mode-of-being ideology. We have become so inundated by this idea that we cannot view or envision a different reality beyond this one. It is a tendency that Mark Fisher observed in his writings on Capitalist Realism, i.e. we find it easier to imagine the end of the world rather than the end of capitalism. His writings have been applied to fiction, but it is useful in contextualizing the hegemonic power of neoliberalism. It has limited our imagination and told us that we cannot escape it, because we don’t even know something exists beyond it.

Gramsci’s hegemony theory will be useful in our analysis of The Economist’s cover article from their October 28th issue ‘America’s Test’, as it helps us to understand how The Economist views America’s place on the international stage. Hegemony as a theory is also applied materially to explore where and how power resides. The Economist believes the political hegemon is America, and America’s interests must subsume over the interests and agency of other political entities. Israel’s and America’s interests are more important than Palestine’s interests, and Gramsci’s Hegemony theory will help us to understand why.

Herman and Chomsky’s Manufacturing Consent

Herman and Chomsky’s book on Manufacturing Consent covers a lot of topics and is a highly influential book in media studies. It seeks to explain the material interests that lie behind the mass media, with a focus on breaking down how mainstream media constructs, chooses and reports on stories.

Their ideas challenged the ways in which news itself was written and talked about, highlighting how material biases and interests influence the choices that media outlets make on reporting stories. Neutrality doesn’t exist for Herman and Chomsky. For them, the media is a tool that the ruling class use to (as is the title of their book) manufacture consent for their policies, both internally and internationally.

Manufacturing consent (the concept and not the book) is important in our analysis of The Economist. As stated above The Economist is a neoliberal magazine, and so believes in and advocates for democracy.

Any system of government requires the consent of people to govern. Different systems will acquire this consent in different ways. Authoritarian states use violence to gain consent from the people.

Democracies (ideally) gain consent from the people through elections and voting. In a democracy, the people are (ideally) in control of the choices that the state makes. Another way that democracies gain consent from the people is through direct consent. If a people agree with the state than they will not protest or complain about the choices the state makes.

This is where Manufacturing Consent comes in useful. Herman and Chomsky argue that the role of the mass media is to be those fabricators of consent. The mass media creates an environment whereby the people will agree to the choices the state makes, both internally and internationally, through the way that they present and discuss information. Herman and Chomsky analyze the use and distribution of information from a material perspective, explaining that the media is at the behest of the free market.

It is not, as conspiracy theorists say, that the media is a “paid shill”. Rather, the media aligns its material interests to the market, and so profit becomes its motivator. A classic example is Rupert Murdoch and his monopoly of a large part of the news media. It is not that Rupert Murdoch directly controls all of the news agencies in his ownership. Instead, the news agencies he owns must adhere to a series of material interests which influence them towards a particular outcome and decision.

This theory of Manufacturing Consent is useful when connected to the above mentioned Hegemony theory. It helps to understand how the hegemonic power uses the media to discuss and analyze the current news in such a way as to influence what is discussed and how it is discussed to suit the interests of the hegemon.

This theory will be useful to us when discussing and understanding articles with titles such as ‘Israel’s Agony and its Retribution’. Also to keep in mind is the other aspect of Manufacturing Consent: the linguistic aspect, i.e. how the written text of the media influences the perspectives of those who are engaging with the text. We will look at how this happens with the possible “smoking gun” article ‘Johnson Precise Language: Say It Like It Is’ on page 78 of their November 25th issue.

Edward Said’s Orientalism

Edward Said is a Palestinian. This does not consider into any of the analysis whatsoever but it is interesting to consider. His most influential work is his book ‘Orientalism’ in which he explores the concept, and use, of the Orient. It does not just explore Orientalism as a philosophical ontological concept, but applies it to all media (from traditional art to film), as well as to the study of history.

The Orient is an Othering experience. It presents those of the Orient as separate, ontologically and metaphysically, from the west and all that it values.

This Othering action robs the Other of any agency. At its core all acts of Othering rob others of agency, but Said’s concept of Orientalism is applied in particular to the peoples of “the Orient”. It is an incredibly prescient analysis when considering the War on Terror. This idea of terror itself and the Orientalist will be useful in understanding how The Economist time and time again refuses to engage with the agency of the Palestinian people, only giving agency to the “terrorists”, Hamas.

According to the great Anthropologist David Graeber: If you paint the other as a devil or as an angel, you are saying that you cannot have a conversation with them, for you are inherently dehumanizing them. By painting Hamas as terrorists, The Economist is refusing to have a conversation about the nature of the Palestinians’ agency. Said’s Orientalism will help us to understand why.

Analyzing The Economist

We will begin our analysis with the first article The Economist published on the Gaza conflict. ‘Israel’s Agony and its Retribution’ was published as the cover article in their October 14th issue.

Before we begin analyzing the article, and using the theories established above to explain it, we need to first talk about how The Economist presents its magazine. The Economist doesn’t seem to have any writers, in-so-far as its text seems to appear on the page with no individual voices behind any of the articles. Writers are almost never credited, so it is unclear which of their many staff members wrote what.

One of the reasons for omitting a narrative voice is to present an air of prestige, as if no single article is the work of a sole individual, but representative of The Economist as a whole. It’s as if The Economist presents all of its articles on the same pedestal and standing, without making distinction between the culture section and the cover article. They are all presented from the same voice, and that voice is The Economist’s voice, therefore they are all of equal value.

The second reason for the omission of the narrative voice has to do with narrative itself. It’s not that there are no writers for The Economist, but it’s as if nothing was “written”. The Economist presents the news as an objective recounting of events. By doing so they are presenting themselves as “unbiased”. This concept of prestige and unbiased reporting is important to keep in mind.

The last preamble to discuss is the Leaders section. Every issue of The Economist has its first few pages taken up by summaries of important topics, often covered in-depth by later articles in that same issue. These don’t just summarize a topic for those who don’t have time to read the whole issue and want a quick info-dump, but they also serve a second purpose, i.e. they are the main vessels for communicating the intentions of the magazine.

There is no better example than the first paragraph of the Leader ‘Israel’s Agony and its Retribution’ on page 9 of the October 14th issue.

“In a static decades-long conflict that has rotted for the past 20 years, it can be hard to believe that real change is possible. Be in no doubt, however, that Hamas’s murderous assault has blown up the status quo between Israel and the Palestinians. The coming weeks will determine whether war in Gaza sinks the Middle East deeper into chaos or weather, despite Hamas’s atrocities, Israel can begin to create the foundations for regional stability — and, one day, peace.”

Both this and the closing paragraph of the article form the basis of the following analysis.

“Israeli strategists must therefore start thinking about how to create the conditions for life alongside the Palestinians, however remote that seems today. All those elements may have a part: a short period of martial law in Gaza, a search for Palestinian leaders acceptable to both sides, and the good offices of Arab intermediaries. The only way to eradicate Hamas is for Israel and its Arab allies to create stability — and, one day, peace.”

Throughout its coverage of the Gaza war, The Economist frames the conflict from Israel’s perspective. If the writing of The Economist has a protagonist, then Israel is that protagonist. With the introduction of America we can say that it acts as deuteragonist in the narrative. So what is the narrative? And how can we use the above mentioned concepts to understand this narrative?

The narrative can be summed up in a few words: It strips the Palestinians of any agency in the conflict. Instead it places all of the agency within the hands of Israel, America, and Hamas. Gramsci’s hegemony theory explains why The Economist strips the Palestinian's of their agency and places it into the hands of Israel and America. Meanwhile, Herman and Chomsky’s Manufacturing Consent can help us understand how they do this, and Said’s Orientalism explains why they take the Palestinians’ agency and place it into the hands of Hamas and not, of course, the Palestinians themselves.

America is the hegemonic power in Gramsci’s Hegemony theory. There are countless references in pop culture to America as the “world police”. Whether this definition is accurate or hyperbolic can be debated upon. What cannot be debated upon is that America, from the Second World War onwards, has adopted a foreign policy that places America at the center of all conflicts throughout the world.

This American foreign policy always places America as the paternalistic figure which feels like it has responsibility over the rest of the world. The reasons for this are varied and complicated, but what is clear is that America believes it is responsible for the security of the whole world, and will intervene to ensure that the world is “secure”. The exact type of “security” that it advocates for is debated. The War on Terror made it clear that “security” meant different things for different people.

The Economist assumes the nature of America as the paternalistic protective figure over Israel and reinforces this relationship that America holds over the world. This is where Hegemony theory is useful as it helps us understand why this is the case. For Gramsci, the ruling class (America) and its interests are being inserted and communicated within the media.

We can see an example of Gramsci’s hegemony when we read this Leader published in the October 21st issue “Where Will This End?”.

“How fragile are the forces trying to hold things together. Fifteen hours after the blast, President Joe Biden landed in Israel, an old man with the weight of the world on his shoulders. Mr Biden’s diplomacy is a geopolitical moment. As well as signaling grief and support for Israel, it brings into focus how much this crisis matters to the Middle East and to America (see Briefing).
For the past half-century the United States has been the only country willing and able to bring any kind of order to the region. Regardless of the many failures of American policy there, including in Iraq and Syria, Mr Biden and his secretary of state, Anthony Blinken, have once again taken up that burden. Death and disease hang over Gaza. The poison is spreading across the Arab world. They do not have long.
…
This is a tall order. Much can and will go wrong. Ordinary Arabs’ ingrained anti-Zionism will gnaw at their leaders’ willingness to help. But the alternative is the decay that feeds scavenger states like Iran and Russia. Mr Biden is the only leader who can pull things back together. If he fails, and the security of the Middle East crumbles, it will be a catastrophe for America, too.

This places the conflict as central to the interests of America, and America as central to the conflict within Gaza. The autonomy and agency of the Palestinians is mentioned but not considered. According to Hegemony theory, the agency of the Palestinian people simply cannot be considered.

The hegemonic power must exert its will over the others. Calling an end to the “war on Hamas” means catastrophe for America because America is essential to this conflict. America’s foreign policy has interested itself in Israel and its conflict with Palestine, and it has decided that siding with Israel is beneficial to its interests, so the two are inextricably linked.

We can see the way that The Economist frames America, a hegemonic power, as a key player within the conflict in the cover article ‘America’s Test’ published in their October 28th issue. In it is the damning subtitle:

“War between Israel and Hamas will define America’s role as a superpower”

There is no need to quote more from this article. This is all that is needed to present the way The Economist presents America as the hegemonic imperialist power. It places the conflict at the feet of America, not in the sense that America created the conflict, but rather due to the paternalistic responsibility mentioned above.

The Economist can only see global conflicts through the perspectives of entities which hold hegemonic power. These imperialist and hegemonic powers don’t so much “deserve” their power. Rather the influence and power that they hold is in a way “natural”. It exists, and through uncritical reproduction of their power within the pages of The Economist they are legitimizing that power. It doesn’t place any legitimacy of power in the hands of Palestinians.

The Economist as a whole cannot consider that the Palestinians could be given their own autonomy or agency. They are only shown at the receiving end of violence. The agency for the war in Gaza rests on Hamas and not on the Palestinians, therefore the focus of the narrative shifts away from the plight of the Palestinians. Their autonomy isn’t even considered.

This is where Said’s Orientalism comes in. As mentioned above, The Economist does not try to engage sincerely with Hamas and its existence. Instead any mention of Hamas is followed by a mention of their October 7th attack. This is where Manufacturing Consent shows us the way the language is being used to manipulate thought, and of course manufacture that consent.

The language used to describe the October 7 attack is the same language that was used and weaponized by George W. Bush in his War on Terror, i.e. it is a language of terror. For The Economist, and the hegemonic core of America, Hamas poses an existential threat to Israel, rather than a material threat. The disparity in material power between Hamas and Israel is rarely brought into question, and if it is, it is used to discuss how Israel can better get rid of Hamas. Once more, this reinforces the focus on Israeli agency over the conflict.

Said doesn’t talk about terror in his book, as the book was written before the War on Terror, but his concept of the Orient helps to explain the ontological terror. Terrorism is an act wielded by the Islamic Extremists. By its very nature terrorism exists outside of the state and is an ontological mode-of-being. One is a terrorist, and a state can engage in terrorism, but you cannot get rid of terrorism the same way that you get rid of a corrupt leader or government body. The fight against terrorism is constant. By its very constant nature it imbues fear into the very existence of those who are at the receiving end of terror.

Terrorism is weaponized not by those who use terrorism, but rather by those who fight terrorism. The Economist talks about getting rid of Hamas as an existential threat. Sometimes it clouds it in materialist talk about the “finance” of Hamas or the “combat tactics” of Hamas. In the November 4th issue’s Leader ‘Why Israel Must Fight On’, we can see an example of the Orientalizing force of The Economist upon Hamas and in turn the Palestinians.

By removing all autonomy and agency from the Palestinian people The Economist justifies violence being committed against them. By Othering them and robbing them of humanity, one can execute violence and frame it as neutral:

“… while Hamas runs Gaza, peace is impossible. Israelis will feel unsafe…”
“That starts with new leadership for both sides.”
“The Palestinians need moderate leaders with democratic mandate…”
“… for peace: a force to provide security in Gaza. Israel cannot supply it as an occupying force.”
“… a war to degrade harms enough to enable something better to take its place. How Israel fights this war matters.”
“A ceasefire is the enemy of peace because it would allow Hamas to continue to rule over Gaza by consent or by force with most of its weapons and fighters intact.”
“Nobody can know whether peace will come to Gaza. But for the sake of Israelis and Palestinians it deserves to have the best possible chance. A ceasefire removes that chance entirely.”

In the opinion of The Economist, the end of the war cannot happen if not at the hands of Israel. With the words “for the sake of Israelis” we can see the linguistic side of Manufacturing Consent and how it is used to completely denounce any other solution beyond one that places Israeli and American interests at their center.

A two-state solution is considered only in-so-far as it is the most inoffensive option, but this can only arise for them if Hamas as an ontological terrorist threat is no longer there, and if Israel finds the right leaders for Palestinians. By framing and platforming figures in positions of power from Israel and America, The Economist is legitimizing their agency over the conflict and delegitimizing the agency of Palestinians. It gives the legitimacy to state power. They present the solution through the eyes of state powers, not taking into consideration the fact that the same system which commits genocide cannot be the same system which advocates for peace.

I want to end on a seemingly innocuous article published in their November 25th issue. The article I want to focus on is “Johnson Precise Language: Say It Like It Is”. It is one of the few articles within The Economist with a writer attached to it. This article, found on page 78, talks about the way language should be used.

The article begins by citing George Orwell and his 1946 essay: “Politics and the English Language” to discuss the way that Hamas’s attack on Israel has been discussed in the public consciousness. It is a long-winded excuse to defend Israel from accusations of genocide. The final two paragraphs are the “smoking gun” of what The Economist has been trying to communicate about the conflict within Gaza:

“The worst crime imaginable — “genocide” — is also being bandied about more often. The word is use correctly when describing the Arab militias in Sudan who are rounding up black African tribes, such as the Masalit, murdering men and boys, raping women and saying “the baby will be an Arab”. But those using the term “genocide” to characterize Israeli attacks on civilians in Gaza are not hewing strictly to what the word’s definition is, which is the intentional destruction of people for the mere fact of their ethnicity.
So here is a suggestion to writers. You cannot outshout the crowds. So distinguish yourselves by choosing accurate, vivid words between the evasions of euphemism and the temptations of exaggeration. Crimes against language, in the long run, make it harder to describe crimes against humanity.”

I will take The Economist’s suggestion. I will choose accurate and vivid words, and avoid euphemisms and exaggerations. Israel is doing a genocide, not only through the United Conventions definition, but more importantly in the original definition of genocide. Raphael Lemkin is a Jewish Polish writer who coined the term genocide. His definition and exploration of Genocide as it applied to Nazi Germany was explored in two of his articles published in 1946–47.

Lemkin’s definition of genocide is much broader than the one currently in use by the UN conventions. By citing the use of the word genocide The Economist is bringing into discussion Raphael Lemkin. There is only one problem. The Economist never cites Raphael Lemkin’s definition of genocide. Instead they are railing against the use of the word genocide. For them, the word has been used too loosely to describe what is in their eyes not genocide.

This is a great example of Manufacturing Consent, both as it applies to its linguistic branch and its political branch. Here The Economist is in a subtle way policing language by creating the boundaries for acceptable language. The Economist swims in a sea of politeness and respectability. Their own critiques of politics are always shrouded in being respectful to those they are criticizing. Strong language is something The Economist doesn’t appreciate, and so here they are explicitly communicating their own agenda. They are also allowing us a glimpse into how they write their own articles, and in turn talk about the news.

By saying “suggestion for writers” we can assume that this is also a suggestion that The Economist themselves follow. At least it should be if they don’t want to be called hypocrites. And so far, from what I have been able to gather and present here, they have been following their own rules. They do not use euphemisms or exaggerations, and always choose clear and precise language so as to communicate their message.

And that final part is important here. It is a message. Their writing is digestible to the masses. As stated at the start, The Economist has evolved into a magazine which appeals to the widest audience possible, not only the millionaires of the UK that Lenin said they appealed to.

Their message reaches millions, and so in this communication they need to use clear and concise language. They avoid provocative language. Their aim is to write in a way that sounds neutral and impartial, and yet by refusing to call Israel genocidal they are far from impartial. By choosing not to use the word they have chosen a side, and it is the side that says that Israel is not committing genocide.

This is where we must address the material harm of news agencies like The Economist. Beyond the hegemonic focus on American and Israeli agency, and the Orientalizing and Otherizing of Hamas and Palestinians, and the constructing of language around delivering their agenda, we have the material harm.

At time of writing, 27,708 Palestinian's have been killed and 67,317 injured since October 7th, and 300,000 at risk of famine. Meanwhile, 1,139 Israelis were killed on October 7th. The International Criminal Court has ruled that Israel might be committing a genocide.

While this is happening, Palestinians are dying under Israeli bombs. We can discuss whether a mainstream magazine is crafting a narrative to defend the state of Israel and its attacks on Gaza and Palestinians all we want, but we are forgetting one key fact. The state of Israel is killing Palestinians in Gaza. At the moment nearly 2 million Gazans have been displaced since the conflict and over 20,000 Palestinians have been killed by the state of Israel. Whether the International Criminal Court decides to hold a trial on whether to find Israel guilty of genocide or not, it will be indifferent to the current material reality of Palestinians.

Conclusion

This research began with a desire to explore the nature of The Economist as a magazine, and to use the way it talked about the Gaza conflict as a whole. This is a case study to discuss and explore theories from three key concepts: Hegemony, Manufacturing Consent, and Orientalism. I hope that by the end you have understood the scope of this research and the aims of this essay. The aim was not to convince you of anything, but rather to show how The Economist as a magazine functions, and to stimulate thought on the way we talk about and understand news.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Harvey, David, A Brief History of Neoliberalism, Oxford University Press, 2007

Herman, Edward S., Chomsky, Noam, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, Pantheon Books, 1988

Gramsci, Antonio, Prison Notebooks, Columbia University Press’s, 1929–1935 (written), 1991–2011 (published)

Said, Edward W., Orientalism, Pantheon Books, 1978

Lemkin, Raphael, an Article in the Issue of FREE WORLD, April 1945

Lemkin, Raphael, American Scholar, Volume 15, no. 2 April 1946

The Economist: October 14th-20th issue — October 21st-27th issue — October 28th-November 3rd issue — November 4th-10th issue — November 11th-17th issue — November 25th-December 1st issue — December 16th-22nd issue