‘Pallywood’: Disinformation and dehumanization in the Gaza war – Gudstory

Gaza’s Health Ministry has informed that the death toll in Israel’s attack on the densely populated Gaza Strip has reached 20,000. And yet since the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, usage of the word Pellywood on microblogging site ‘X’, formerly known as Twitter, has increased to 2,20,000.

But what is Pallywood?

The Israel–Palestine war has also highlighted growing distrust among people regarding the death toll, massacres and civilian suffering.

One of the key terms used to deny or minimize human suffering in Gaza is “Pollywood”, a derogatory combination of “Palestine” and “Hollywood”.

Those who use Pellywood claim that fake or staged footage of Palestinian “crisis actors” posing as actual civilian casualties is routinely used to influence public opinion and deceive the global media. Is shared online.

A BBC analysis showed that usage of the term polywood increased during the Israeli–Palestinian conflict in 2014, 2018 and 2021. There were 9,500 or 13,000 mentions of the word in a single month on X.

However, BBC analysis shows that the number of mentions of Pollywood reached 220,000 in November, following the Hamas attack on 7 October.

The BBC report also found that the people who used the word Pellywood the most on Instagram, Facebook, X or any other social media were Israeli officials, celebrities and popular bloggers from Israel and the US.

Notably, Crisis Actor’s claims are so profound that an influential daily in Israel called the Jerusalem Post posted a photo of a five-month-old Palestinian baby in rigor mortis after his death and said it proved he was a It was a doll. Following the backlash, the newspaper removed the article from its website, and said on X (formerly Twitter) that the report was “based on faulty sourcing”.

The idea of ​​crisis actors, or people who are paid to cause a particular tragedy or disaster, is not new when it comes to war-like situations, the BBC reports.

However, the amount of dehumanizing rhetoric posted during this war has surprised even those who deal with such material on a daily basis, even when it is pointed out that the serious 10-week-old war in Gaza has resulted in at least At least 20,000 Palestinians and more than 1,000 have been killed. Israeli.

Milestone alert!
Livemint tops charts as fastest growing news website in the world Click here to find out more.

Unlock a world of benefits! From informative newsletters to real-time stock tracking, breaking news and personalized newsfeeds – it’s all here, just a click away! log in now!

Published: 22 Dec 2023, 09:05 PM IST