Anti-Palestinian disinformation and propaganda is used as a "weapon to justify crimes that are being committed," said Jalal Abukhater, policy manager at 7amleh, the Arab Center for Social Media Advancement. The center, a non-profit that trains Palestinian and Arab civil society activists to use digital media in advocating for human rights, has been monitoring the rise in online hate toward Palestinians. 

The Hamas-led attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023, killed nearly 1,200 people. Israeli military actions have reportedly killed at least 68,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the enclave's Health Authority. A UN commission of inquiryand the International Association of Genocide Scholars have found Israel's conduct to be a genocide.

What is anti-Palestinian racism? 

Anti-Palestinian racism is a contested term, heavily criticized among scholars and Jewish institutions. The most common and widely adopted definition of it is the one made by the Arab Canadian Lawyers Association: "Anti-Palestinian racism is a form of anti-Arab racism that silences, excludes, erases, stereotypes, defames or dehumanizes Palestinians or their narratives."

Multiple organizations that track reports of anti-Palestinian racism say incidents have skyrocketed in the wake of the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, terror attacks. For example, a report by the Islamophobia Research Hub at York University in Toronto states that "in the aftermath of October 7, 2023, Canada saw a rise in anti-Palestinian racism (APR), Islamophobia, anti-Arab racism (AAR), as well as a rise in antisemitism."

The historical roots of anti-Palestinian racism

Though alarming in scope in recent years, experts note that the phenomenon of anti-Palestinian racism is not new. 

"This has its roots in colonial and Orientalist discourse," Asmaa El Idrissi, a lawyer and lecturer at Bochum University of Applied Sciences, told DW. "If you look at literature from 100 years ago, you will find exactly the same stereotypes that are now resurfacing against Palestinians: Arabs or Muslims as irrational and backward."

According to El Idrissi, one of the most critical historical contexts for understanding anti-Palestinian sentiment is the denial of the Nakba. On May 14, 1948, the State of Israel was declared on the land of then-Mandatory Palestine, a British-administered territory. Arabic for "catastrophe," the Nakba refers to the mass displacement and dispossession of Palestinians during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. 

In one prominently publicized instance, Israeli Ambassador to the United Kingdom Tzipi Hotovely stated in a speech in late 2020 that the Nakba was "a very strong and very popular Arab lie."

According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, more than 800,000 Palestinians were driven out of their homeland, and at least 15,000 were killed in the Nakba. "The denial of the Nakba [serves] as a core narrative for delegitimizing any demand for equal rights and a free life," El Idrissi explains.

False equivalence: Not all Palestinians are Hamas

While Hamas is a political party with a military wing and is classified as a terrorist organization by the EU, Germany and other countries, the party was elected in the last regional election in 2006, although without a majority of the vote. Since then, no regional elections have been held due to unresolved political splits between Hamas and Fatah, a political party that controls the Palestinian Authority in the occupied West Bank, and due to ongoing Israeli occupation and blockades. 

One of the most persistent false narratives in recent years is the conflation of all Palestinians with Hamas. Although there are videos showing Palestinians celebrating the Hamas attack from October 7, 2023, it does not mean that all Palestinians support Hamas. There have been several instances of Palestinians protesting Hamas in the past two years, also verified by DW Fact check. In a recent poll, 54% of Palestinians in Gaza claimed the Hamas decision to launch its attack on October 7, 2023, in Israel was not correct.  

The narrative of equating all Palestinians with Hamas is misused to justify collective punishment, which violates international law, El Idrissi says.

A poll of Israeli citizens conducted by the Accord Center in August 2025 found that 62% of respondents agreed with the statement that "there are no innocent people in Gaza." 

Both experts interviewed by DW say one outcome is that civilian deaths in Gaza are often downplayed and underreported. Abukhater gives an example: "When a car or a tent in Gaza gets bombed or targeted, someone would say that maybe there was a Hamas person in that vehicle where five children have been killed."

Disinformation and racism: A dangerous alliance

Anti-Palestinian bias is fueled by racist media coverage, which in turn promotes anti-Palestinian bias, the interviewed experts say. Palestinian researcher Hanan Sahmoud highlights how European media have often dehumanized and "depicted Palestinians as savages." 

This is regularly seen in comments under news stories about Gaza shared on social media. DW also observed this on its social accounts, as seen in the screenshot below. 

The experts agree that such dehumanization reduces empathy towards others. "All of this leads to what is known as an empathy gap, which in turn leads to a justification for unequal treatment," said El Idrissi. 

There are also examples of prominent Israeli officials using dehumanizing terminology to describe Palestinians. Two days after the October 7, 2023, attacks, Yoav Gallant, then Israel's defense minister, said, "I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel. Everything is closed. We are fighting human animals, and we act accordingly."

Dehumanization and propaganda go hand-in-hand, the experts interviewed by DW said, pointing to the misinformation campaigns on the famine in Gaza in the summer of 2025. While both sides have been accused of spreading disinformation, DW research found that the volume and scale of misleading content from the Israeli side were greater.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed that there was no famine in Gaza and that children only appeared malnourished because of pre-existing illnesses and not because of his government blocking humanitarian aid and food from entering Gaza. 

Some widely circulated photos did indeed depict children with severe underlying health issues, but doctors and nutrition experts have said the food shortages compounded their existing health problems, as DW Fact check mentioned in its report. 

Lack of independent sources

International journalists have been denied access to Gaza since the beginning of the war. That leads media worldwide to rely heavily on Hamas on the one hand, and the Israeli military and government on the other and without the ability to independently verify claims made by either side or to access local sources for information in Gaza.  

A study looking at German media analyzed nearly 4,853 headlines between October 7, 2023, and January 19, 2025. It shows that many leading German media outlets rely primarily or exclusively on official Israeli sources for their reporting on the Middle East. 

The August 2025 killing of 28-year-old journalist Anas al-Sharif in Gaza provides an additional example. Israel's military claimed that al-Sharif had led a Hamas cell; numerous German media repeated the claim as fact, despite a lack of proof.

When presented with evidence by the IDF, the Committee to Protect Journalists  (CPJ) released a statement saying that it "does not regard as credible the social media images... which are clearly not original documents. The IDF has a longstanding pattern of making unsubstantiated claims that many of the journalists they have deliberately killed in Gaza were terrorists."

Social media's role in amplifying propaganda

Social media platforms play a significant role in boosting anti-Palestinian content. Disinformation appeals to emotions, and algorithms often promote extremist content designed to promote engagement.

"We know that right-wing extremist content or extremist content is pushed by the algorithm," El Idrissi says. 

Paid propaganda and one-sided ads are also accepted and spread by social media platforms. An investigation by DW Fact check and members of European News Spotlight revealed in September that Israel had spent at least €42 million ($49 million) on anti-Palestinian propaganda ads.

On August 22, as the UN announced that large parts of the Gaza Strip were experiencing a "man-made famine" and that "starvation is present and is rapidly spreading." The Israeli Government Advertising Agency launched a new campaign denying the famine.

A report by 7amleh show that Meta's ad systems approved and profited from violent and inciting content in 2023 and 2025 by accepting it as paid advertising.

What can be done?

What can societies do to combat anti-Palestinian propaganda and racism? Abukhater, the 7amleh researcher, says people must give Palestinians room to tell their own stories.

"Palestinians are often spoken about, and Palestinians don't speak for themselves," across many media outlets, Abukhater said. In addition to improving representation, the media must examine personal and structural biases.

"There should be more discussion on anti-Palestinian racism, recognizing it as a concept, looking at the semantics and how it's used generally to dehumanize, to accuse all Palestinians."

Edited by: Rachel Baig, Shani Rozanes

Editors' note: Since initial publication on October 29, 2025, this article was corrected and extensively revised due to an error, and context and additional sources were added.