Israel as the New American Frontier

On October 7th, 2023, the Islamic Resistance Movement, better known as Hamas, initiated an offense against Israel that resulted in an ensuing war with tens of thousands of deaths till date. Though both sides have been accused of war crimes, the United States has focused its attention solely on Hamas, presenting them as an imminent threat to (inter)national security that must be neutralized. This thesis examines the manner in which, as well as why, U.S. presidents have engaged in the securitization of Hamas, starting with the Bush presidency in 2001 until Biden’s term today. The purpose of this thesis is to capture the discourse presented by U.S. presidents that securitized Hamas and offer explanations for why they have engaged in such strategies. The framework used for this analysis is that of the Copenhagen School, which sees securitization as a speech act. Here, securitization refers to the manner in which political actors prioritize issues on the political agenda by rhetorically positioning them as a threat to security. Accordingly, several presidential speeches were selected, upon which discourse analysis was performed. Through an analysis of these speeches as well as other source material, this research finds that the U.S. securitization of Hamas can be understood through the conceptualization of the New American Frontier, an argument based on Frederick Jackson Turner’s American Frontier as the line between savagery and civilization. This thesis argues that the U.S. securitizing discourse of Hamas walks hand in hand with an imperial notion of Israel due to their inherent connection to Orientalism. As such, the idea of Israel being the New Frontier finds its reiteration in the securitization of Hamas. The research introduces the Imperial Trinity of Discourse as a framework vital to this reiteration; which includes how ideology, Orientalism, and hegemony have worked together to justify both the securitization of Hamas and the decades long U.S. support of Israel. As such, this research contributes to securitization studies as well as existing literature on the special relationship, by arguing that the securitization of Hamas has stood central to U.S.-Israel relations and the continued perseverance of U.S. imperialism.