| Origin/etymology | Portmanteau of "Palestine" and "Hollywood" |
|---|---|
| Meaning | Derogatory label used to describe supposedmedia manipulation byPalestinians |
| Context | Used in discussions related to theIsraeli–Palestinian conflict |
| Coined by | Richard Landes |
| Part ofa series on the |
| Gaza genocide |
|---|
Genocidal intent |
Intervention |
Support to Israel |
Pallywood (aportmanteau of "Palestine" and "Hollywood") is aderogatory term used to falsely accusePalestinians of staging scenes of suffering andcivilian death in theIsraeli–Palestinian conflict.[8] It has been described as aconspiracy theory and a prominent element of Israelidisinformation in the conflict.[15]Gazawood, a variant of the term,[16] refers to similar footage originating in theGaza Strip.[17]
The term gained prominence following the 2000killing of Muhammad al-Durrah during theSecond Intifada, after some pro-Israel commentators alleged that the incident had been amedia hoax.[18] Israelipundits have used the term to dismiss videos showing Israeli violence ordeny Palestinian suffering, particularly during theGaza war and theGaza genocide.[20]
The term was coined and publicized in part byRichard Landes, as a result of a 2005 online documentary video he produced calledPallywood: According to Palestinian Sources, alleging specific instances of media manipulation.[21][22] JournalistRuthie Blum describes "Pallywood" as a term coined by Landes to refer to "productions staged by the Palestinians, in front of (and often with cooperation from) Western camera crews, for the purpose of promoting anti-Israelpropaganda by disguising it as news." Landes himself describes Pallywood as "a term I coined... to describe staged material disguised as news."
InPallywood: According to Palestinian Sources,[23] Landes focuses in particular on the widely publicizedkilling of Muhammad al-Durrah, a 12-year-old Palestinian boy killed by gunfire (widely reported to have been Israeli gunfire) in theGaza Strip on 30 September 2000 at the beginning of theSecond Intifada.[11] His death was filmed by a Palestinian freelance cameraman and aired on theFrance 2 television channel. Landes questions the authenticity of the footage and disputes whether al-Durrah was killed at all, arguing that the entire incident was staged by the Palestinians.[22] Landes and pro-Israel advocates argue that the Israeli government is insufficiently robust in countering Palestinian accounts of events in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.[18] Besides the killing of al-Durrah, Landes cites the2006 Gaza beach explosion andHamas's alleged exploitation of electricity shortages during the2007–2008 Israel–Gaza conflict as incidents of Pallywood.[24]
Anat Berko, a research fellow with the conservative Israeli think-tank,International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism, and Edna Erez, head of the criminal justice department of theUniversity of Illinois at Chicago, said that "the phenomenon of manufacturing documentation about the conflict has been referred to as "Pallywood" (Palestinian Authority Hollywood)."[25][non-primary source needed] TheMackenzie Institute, a conservative Canadian defense and securitythink tank,[26] has argued that given "a long history of posing for the cameras ... the cynical 'Pallywood' nickname from once-deceived journalists for [Palestinian Authority] news services becomes understandable."[27][non-primary source needed]
David Frum alleged that pictures taken during the2014 Gaza War that showed two brothers, weeping and wearing bloodied T-shirts after carrying the body of their dead father, had been faked. The pictures, which were published byReuters,The New York Times, andAssociated Press, had been targeted for criticism by a pro-Israeli blogger.[28] Frum backtracked from his accusation, and apologized toNew York Times photographer Sergey Ponomarev, after extensive debunking by Michael Shaw, but justified his "skepticism", describing other "Pallywood" claims.[29] Frum was criticized byWashington Post media writerErik Wemple,[30] and also by fellow correspondent forThe Atlantic,James Fallows, who called Frum's tweets "a major journalistic error".[28]
In 2014, after thedeath of two Palestinian teenagers in Beitunia,Michael Oren and an Israeli army spokesman argued that the video from a security camera was manipulated and the teenagers had only pretended to be hit. The official investigation discovered misconduct by a Border Police officer, who was put on trial for his actions.[9][31] During the2021 Israel–Palestine crisis,Yair Netanyahu claimed a 2013 video from Egypt was an example of Pallywood and showed Palestinians faking their casualties.[32] A 2023BBC Verify analysis found that usage of the term increased during previous flare-ups in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, such as the2014 Gaza War, the2018–2019 Gaza border protests and the2021 Israel–Palestine crisis.[33] After the 2024 documentary filmNo Other Land, which depicts life under theIsraeli occupation of the West Bank, won the 2025Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature Film, Israeli news outletsYnet andIsrael National News published articles characterizing the film as "Pallywood propaganda".[13]
Analyses conducted byBBC Verify andLogically Facts found that usage of the Pallywood term had increased onsocial media platforms following theOctober 7 attacks,[1][33] with BBC Verify finding a peak of 220,000 uses onTwitter in November 2023.[33] Logically Facts also found that most usages of the term came from the United States, followed by India and Israel.[1] During theGaza war,conspiracy theories involvingonline influencers mocking victims and claiming that Palestinians are using "crisis actors" went viral on social media, often citing the "Pallywood" term.[11][1] Israel's official Twitter account accused Gazans of placing live people in body bags before deleting the Tweet, whileAIPAC promoted similar content.[11] Many of theviral videos used to "prove" that crisis actors exist have been disproven.[11][34] The term often results inanti-Muslim hate speech and was especially popular after Israel announced plans to increase itsaerial bombardment of Gaza.[11] A video showing a Palestinian child killed during an October 11 Israeli airstrike onZeitoun was falsely claimed to be staged using a doll. The claim was promoted by official Israeli government social media accounts, including the X accounts of Israel's embassies in France and Austria, as well as pro-Israel and anti-Hamas accounts.[35][1]
In November 2023,Saleh Aljafarawi, a Palestinian blogger and singer who lived in Gaza, was falsely accused by several pro-Israeli figures, including the country's official Twitter account, of being a "crisis actor".[36][37][38] The false accusation claimed that Aljafarawi pretended to be injured and hospitalised in a video while a social media post the next day showed him in good health. However, the included video actually depicted a Palestinian teenager wounded in a raid onTulkarm in July 2023, who was falsely presented as Aljafarawi.[36] In the same month, Israeli diplomatOfir Gendelman circulated a clip from a Lebanese short film, claiming that it was proof that Palestinians were faking their suffering and calling it an example of "Pallywood". Gendelman subsequently deleted the post after it was fact-checked.[33][39] In early December 2023,The Jerusalem Post published an article falsely claiming that a dead 5-month-old Palestinian baby from Gaza was a doll.The Jerusalem Post later retracted the report with a statement on X, saying, "The article in question did not meet our editorial standards and was thus removed".[40][41][33] The false claim was also promoted by others such as Israel's officialTwitter account,Ben Shapiro,Hen Mazzig,Yoseph Haddad andStopAntisemitism.[13]
Israel's 2024Rafah offensive led to a resurgence of Pallywood claims.[42] Online posts misrepresented behind-the-scenes footage from the Palestinian drama seriesBleeding Dirt as showing "crisis actors" in Rafah.[43][44][42][45] Marc Owen Jones wrote in a 2025 research paper, "As Israel'skilling of thousands of Palestinian children and babies became harder to hide, high-profile Israeli accounts and media outlets claimed that Palestinians were fabricating casualty numbers and staging the killing of babies. The so-called 'Pallywood' narrative – a derogatory term suggesting that Palestinians stage scenes of suffering for propaganda purposes – has been a recurring theme in disinformation campaigns against Gaza."[6]
In August 2025, German newspapersBild andSüddeutsche Zeitung published articles questioning the authenticity of photos from the Gaza Strip, withBild accusing Anas Zayed Fteiha, aphotojournalist working for Turkey'sAnadolu Agency, of staging his photos of theGaza Strip famine. The articles were cited by Israel'sMinistry of Foreign Affairs as evidence of Pallywood.[46] Fteiha denied the accusations and accusedBild of repeated breaches ofjournalistic ethics. He stated, "The photo they published to distort me is entirely real. It was taken during the filming of a documentary documenting the famine in Gaza, as children were scrambling for food or water. Everything in it was real, not staged or directed." Israelifact-checking organizationFakeReporter also rebutted several claims made in theBild report.[47][48]
Also in August 2025, sociologist Ron Dudai analysed the widespread denial among Israelis of Israeli atrocities in the Gaza war as being a part of the longstanding Pallywood strategy, noting that while in earlier iterations it consisted of elaborate work to create conspiracy theories to deny atrocities as in the case of Muhammad Al-Durrah, in the Gaza War era, "the intricate conspiracy theories of the past have given way to a cruder form of denialism that scholars call conspiracism — the reflexive dismissal of any evidence that contradicts one’s interests as fabricated. Documentation is simply dismissed with a single word: 'Fake'."[49] He notes the examples of the denialism about mass starvation and what he terms theongoing Gaza genocide, stating:
Israel’s ongoing genocidal campaign in Gaza may be the most thoroughly documented atrocity in recent history, measured both by the sheer volume of evidence and the speed of its circulation. Smartphones and social media — which were still a world away during the genocides in Bosnia and Rwanda — allow events to be captured instantly, from countless angles, and shared globally in real time, with traditional media still playing a not-insignificant supporting role. And yet, faced with an unending flood of photos and videos of dead civilians, starving children, and entire neighborhoods reduced to rubble, much of the Israeli public — and a significant portion of Israel’s supporters abroad — responds in one of two ways: either it is all fake, or else the Gazans deserved it. Often, paradoxically, it is both at once: "There are no dead children in Gaza, and it’s good that we killed them."[49]
An Israeli X account named Gazawood was created in November 2023.[17] The account attempts to discredit Palestinians by claiming that they are exaggerating or faking their casualties,[50][17] and uses out-of-context videos of cafés and restaurants to insinuate that the Gaza Strip famine is a hoax.[16] An investigation of the account byForbidden Stories,The Seventh Eye andRadio France Internationale found that it is run by Idan Knochen, anultra-Orthodox Jew and fantasy novel author fromJerusalem. Richard Landes andYossi Kuperwasser, former Director General of Israel'sMinistry of Strategic Affairs, were also identified as being associated with the Gazawood account.[17] FakeReporter researcher andOSINT specialist Ghassan Mattar said that only 5.75% of the account's content was legitimate fact-checking, adding, "The other content is just finding the most ridiculous information inside the video to claim it's fake, which is not how fact-checking works."[17]
Ruthie Blum wrote in 2008 that Richard Landes's claims, which she calls "pretty harsh", have led to him being labeled as a right-wingconspiracy theorist in certain circles.[24] Chrisoula Lionis writes that Landes's language related to Pallywood "has all the hallmarks of conspiracy theory", but that the term nonetheless "does tap into a genre of Palestinian victim reportage", whichT. J. Demos calls "clichéd and thus all too easily dismissed ... intended both to expose the truth of the traumatic suffering that has resulted from Israel's political and military policies and to elicit the audience's emotional sympathy as a way of mobilizing support for Palestinians".[10][51]
In 2014, Larry Derfner described Pallywood in+972 Magazine as "a particularly uglyethnic slur".[52] In 2018,Eyal Weizman, whose work withForensic Architecture has been called "Pallywood" in Israel, replied that "the bastards' last line of defence is to call it 'fake news'. The minute they revert to this argument is when they've lost all the others."[53] In an article published byMondoweiss,Jonathan Cook argued that "Pallywood" was a convenient excuse used by Israelis to dismiss filmed evidence of brutality by their soldiers.[54]
In 2024, French historianJean-Pierre Filiu compared Pallywood claims of staged deaths to "the lies spread by the Kremlin when Russiastruck a maternity hospital in March 2022 in the besieged Ukrainian port ofMariupol."[55] Marc Owen Jones wrote that Pallywood "served to cast doubt on any evidence of Israeli attacks on civilians, framing such reports as manipulations or fabrications. By discrediting Palestinian voices and visual evidence, this narrative undermines the legitimacy of Palestinian grievances and attempts to shield Israeli actions from international scrutiny."[6] In 2025, journalistLaila Al-Arian said that Pallywood was no more credible than the crisis actor conspiracy theories used to dismissmass shootings in the United States, and said, "If you paint Palestinians as irrational, obsessed with martyrdom, you shift the conversation away fromsettler colonialism, land theft,ethnic cleansing."[13]
In recent weeks, social media users have repeatedly misrepresented videos to falsely accuse Palestinians of being "crisis actors" in the war, as part of a conspiracy theory dubbed "Pallywood."
The so-called 'Pallywood' narrative – a derogatory term suggesting that Palestinians stage scenes of suffering for propaganda purposes – has been a recurring theme in disinformation campaigns against Gaza.
Aside from dehumanising and diluting Palestinian suffering, the spread of disinformation like Pallywood has tangible consequences, not only on the lives of those who fall victim to it, but also on larger efforts for peace.
These and countless other right-wingers have popularized the idea that whenever a video shows Israelis battering or killing Arabs without cause, the video is a fake, either staged or doctored. They come up with all sorts of seeming 'discrepancies' to make their case, just like conspiracy freaks do to 'prove' that the CIA killed Kennedy, or that Israel was behind 9/11, or that no one ever walked on the moon.
Some of the comments we found referred to the video as an example of "Pallywood," a conspiracy theory that Logically reported is used to dismiss various forms of media showing civilian harm in Gaza and the West Bank.
This conspiracy has been around for years, but mentions of Pallywood spiked dramatically after Oct. 7, 2023, far surpassing previous peaks for the term during past Israeli military offensives in Gaza and the West Bank.
But pro-Israel media-watchdog advocates have gone further, arguing that the footage is a prime example of what has been dubbed "Pallywood" - media manipulation, distortion and outright fraud by the Palestinians (and other Arabs, such as the Reuters photographer caught faking photos during the Second Lebanon War), designed to win the public relations war against Israel.
I've been writing for years against the "Pallywood" theory – the right-wing notion that videos showing Palestinians getting killed by Israelis are really elaborate fakes meant to blacken Israel's name. Yet it's only this morning I realized that the term "Pallywood," which was coined by Boston UniversityProf. Richard Landes, is an ethnic slur, and a particularly ugly one.
In the early 2000s, at the dawn of the social media revolution, Israelis used to dismiss filmed evidence of brutality by their soldiers as fakery. It was what they called "Pallywood" – a conflation of Palestinian and Hollywood. In truth, however, it was the Israeli military, not the Palestinians, that needed to manufacture a more convenient version of reality. ... It emerged that a government minister, Michael Oren, had even set up a secret committee to try to prove that Ahed and her family were really paid actors, not Palestinians, there to "make Israel look bad". The Pallywood delusion had gone into overdrive.
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