Since the beginning of the 1990s, Italy has progressively modified its previous pro-Arab foreign policy. In particular, Berlusconi’s government has radically changed the Italian position regarding the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, becoming a strong Israeli ally. Starting
from 9/11, this trend has intertwined with an increasingly widespread Islamophobia, which ranges from the idea that Muslim immigrants are challenging Italian political institutions to the perception of a Muslim attack on Italian culture and values. Through an analysis of newspapers and weeklies,
this article intends to demonstrate that the Gaza war of December 2008–January 2009 was presented by some of the Italian press through an Islamophobic prism. In fact, the conflict was read through the lens of an Islamic war against the ‘democratic’ western-oriented Israeli
society, similar to the one Muslim immigrants are conducting against Europe.
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