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How Hamas lies about casualty numbers in Gaza

“Top Story” with Jonathan Tobin and guest Abraham Wyner, Ep. 136

The media narrative about Israel waging an indiscriminate bombing campaign that targets Palestinian civilians is based upon a lie. JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin points out that the deluge of unfair accusations against the Jewish state over the post-Oct. 7 war against Hamas isn’t just a matter of shocking images. It’s also a matter of falsified numbers fed to the world by Hamas that a less biased press would question rather than merely accept.

He is joined by Avraham Wyner of the Wharton School of Economics at the University of Pennsylvania, who exposed the Hamas propaganda in a recent analysis. According to Wyner—one of America’s leading experts on statistical science—the numbers produced by the terror group about Palestinians who have died since the war began make no sense. Given the large number of Hamas fighters killed by Israeli forces, the number of men in the totals should be very high; instead, they are missing as Hamas seeks to portray the casualties as being primarily women and children. He also says the way the numbers match up almost perfectly with population statistics shows that they are fake.

Wyner says that by exaggerating the number of civilians, the Islamist group hopes to be bailed out by international opinion, which it expects will stop Israel from fulfilling its goal of eradicating the terrorists who committed the atrocities of Oct. 7.

In the wake of Oct. 7, Wyner said that the campaign of delegitimization of Israel on college campuses like Penn has mainstreamed antisemitism in a way that threatens Jewish students.

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Jonathan S. Tobin is editor-in-chief of JNS, a columnist for Newsweek and a contributor to many other publications. He covers the American political scene, foreign policy, the U.S.-Israel relationship, Middle East diplomacy, the Jewish world and the arts. He hosts the JNS “Think Twice” podcast, both the weekly video program and the “Jonathan Tobin Daily” program, available on all major audio platforms and on YouTube. Previously, he was executive editor, then senior online editor and chief political blogger, for Commentary magazine. Before that, he was editor-in-chief of The Jewish Exponent in Philadelphia and editor of the Connecticut Jewish Ledger. He has won 60-plus awards for his columns, commentary, art criticism and other writing. He appears regularly on television, commenting on politics and foreign policy. Born in New York City, he studied history at Columbia University.
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