(Geo)culture and the West’s War Against Gaza

Abstract

This paper examines the challenges to the dominant Western geoculture of the modern world-system posed by the ongoing war on Gaza. Historically, the West’s geocultural power has seen it successfully construct, maintain, and defend a self-image as one in which it represents an international community which adheres to universal liberal values: human rights, international law, and the use of force in international relations only when sanctioned by law. However, the ongoing war on Gaza (which is best viewed as a war undertaken by the West, not simply Israel) has exposed the West’s actions to unprecedented critical scrutiny. The paper argues that the traditional mechanisms by which the West has built and maintained its geocultural dominance (media, education, intellectual culture) have been undermined in the digital age by the proliferation of new media forms. In short, the West has struggled to control the narrative that Israel is defending civilization against barbarism. The reality, as many critics have noted, is the opposite—the West defends barbarism against civilization.