For years, Western media outlets maintained a largely consistent narrative on Israel, prioritising Israel's security concerns and right to self-defence while relegating Palestinian suffering to the margins of their coverage.

Despite reports estimating between 77,000 and 109,000 Palestinian civilian deaths in Israel's military campaign since October 7, those publications only recently began questioning Israel’s immorality during the war and started to pull back their longstanding support for Israeli military actions.

Since last week, publications including the Financial Times and The Economist, ran searing indictments of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's war plan and of Washington's reluctance to intervene.

Thomas Friedman, an opinion columnist of The New York Times, who had long been a supporter of Israel, now warns that “this Israeli government is not our ally” and accuses it of undermining American interests in the region.

In the same week, an editorial by Financial Times condemned “the West’s shameful silence on Gaza” and The Atlantic linked Netanyahu’s promised “absolute victory” to the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.

The Economist declared that the war “must end” and urged President Donald Trump to compel a “ceasefire”.

What explains this sudden surge in pointed commentary, critical of Israel, from major media players? Does it signal a fundamental realignment in the international discourse surrounding Israel?

“Netanyahu is not our friend”

The recent noticeable shift in Western media on Israel does not seem to be random. 

There are timely editorials mirroring several elements, including public rifts between the White House and Netanyahu over the Gaza strategy and Iran and mounting evidence that Israel’s offensive has stalled militarily and backfiring politically, with more than 60 percent of Israelis opposing a fresh ground push and reservist call-ups going unanswered.  

As civilian deaths soar,  editorials have warned that Israel’s ongoing Gaza invasion is turning into “genocide”.

According to polls cited by the BBC, only 46 percent of Americans now express support for Israel — the lowest in 25 years — while Palestinian support has reached an unprecedented 33 per cent.

The recent media realignment also coincides with growing tensions between Netanyahu and the Trump administration, detailed in Shalom Lipner's Foreign Policy article about a potential “collision course” between Netanyahu and Trump. 

The piece focuses on how the Israeli prime minister is “fast discovering that his ability to manoeuvre in that political minefield has been curtailed dramatically” in Washington, where Republican support now “operates under the binding spell of Trump”. 

This point has been amplified by the US president skipping Israel on his Middle East tour because “there’s nothing he can get from a visit to Israel at the moment.”

Friedman's NYT piece, on the same day, directly addresses President Trump, saying, “this Israeli government is behaving in ways that threaten hardcore US interests in the region. Netanyahu is not our friend”. 

It argues that the Netanyahu government's priority is not peace but "the annexation of the West Bank, the expulsion of the Palestinians of Gaza and the re-establishment there of Israeli settlements". 

However, the shift does not only concern political reasons but also military struggles. 

Considering a lone Houthi missile slipped past Israel’s US-made THAAD defences in early May and forced Ben Gurion Airport to close and ground all flights, the Yemeni group’s breach has revealed an unexpected weakness in the American-supplied missile shield. The dangers were compounded by the loss of 3 fighter jets and 7 Reaper drones. 

Together, these setbacks are undercutting Washington’s interests in the region and can help explain why newsrooms are rethinking their stand on Israel’s war.

Trying to limit the damage, the United States has since signed off on a “truce between Washington and the relevant authorities in Sanaa” that constrained Houthi attacks on American ships while leaving Israel out in the cold.

Same old story

Former CNN international correspondent and founder of International Network for Aid, Relief and Assistance (INARA) Arwa Damon thinks the current shift in Western media's approach to Israel recalls a familiar pattern of the post-2003 Iraq coverage.

“This is similar to what we saw post 9/11 when the Western media outlets who jumped on the Bush administration's war train began to become more critical of the US-led invasion of Iraq, questioning and criticising the administration whose presented narrative did not match what the media was witnessing firsthand on the ground,” she tells TRT World.

The same pattern, she argues, has played out far more slowly in Gaza because outside reporters are kept out and the only consistent eyewitnesses are local journalists whose work many editors have hesitated to trust. 

“In the case of Israel and Gaza, this shift has taken longer. Foreign media is not permitted by Israel for this very reason into Gaza and unfortunately Palestinian journalists who have been doing an incredible job are still viewed through a lens that questions their credibility,” Damon says.