2025

Security and Defence Quarterly

Rocznik: 2025 | Numer: Online first

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EN This study investigates how states use public diplomacy to defend their legitimacy following contested military actions. Focusing on Israel’s airstrike on the Al-Jalaa Tower during the 2021 Gaza conflict, the research examines how rhetorical strategies were employed to manage international criticism and sustain normative legitimacy. Unlike prior research that addresses entire conflicts, this study narrows its focus to a single high-profile event involving protected objects. Drawing on Ben D. Mor’s rhetorical defence framework, the study applies qualitative discourse and rhetorical analysis to a dataset of 57 official statements, including government press releases, speeches, media briefings, and verified social media posts issued within 5 months after the incident. Each statement was coded thematically into three rhetorical strategies, blame avoidance, blame imposition, and moral differentiation, and analysed across temporal distribution, source diversity, and target orientation. The findings reveal that Israel’s public diplomacy reflected a layered rhetorical defence dominated by blame avoidance and blame imposition, often deployed in tandem to deflect criticism, justify actions, and redirect moral responsibility towards Hamas and third-party critics. Moral differentiation served as reinforcement for Israel’s self-presentation as a rule-abiding democracy acting within legal and ethical bounds. The study concludes that in contested military action, public diplomacy functions less as a means of persuasion and more as a communicative mechanism for managing reputational risk and contesting narratives of legitimacy. By demonstrating how rhetorical strategies evolve and interact under normative pressure, the research contributes to a deeper understanding of the strategic role of wartime communication in asymmetric warfare and legitimacy management.

28.12.2025

https://securityanddefence.pl/Israeli-public-diplomacy-following-targeting-campaigns-A-rhetorical-analysis-of-the,211794,0,2.html

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28.12.2025

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