President Biden’s animus against Israel was patent in his State of the Union Address this past Thursday evening. The White House has posted the text of his remarks as given here.
JNS editor Jonathan Tobin sets forth a rounded view of “the moral failure” of Biden’s remarks on Israel. Tobin separately addresses and elaborates on Biden’s demands on Israel, the floating harbor for Hamas, the two-state final solution, the lack of any statement on the explosion of anti-Semitism in the United States, and the appeasement of Israel haters. We have noted these deficiencies in our own way, but nothing said here does justice to the points that Tobin makes.
NRO’s Philip Klein characterized the SOTU as “the most anti-Israel presidential speech in history.” Klein posted his comments in a hot take on the evening of Biden’s speech. Among other things, he notes that “[a]fter a perfunctory mention of October 7 and the hostages, Biden then launched an extended attack on Israel’s response to the war and the conditions in Gaza that accepted, whole cloth, Hamas casualty figures that his own administration had previously questioned as unreliable.”
We have noted this point as well. Biden and others in the administration have adopted the numbers retailed by the Gaza Ministry of Health — i.e., Hamas. It represents their adoption of the Hamas point of view.
What’s wrong with this picture? Hamas is not known for the accuracy of its statements of fact. Hamas, for example, does not distinguish between the deaths of civilians and Hamas genocidaires. The Gaza Ministry of Health promotes a line that supports Hamas’s war aims.
Biden hectors Israel. He repeatedly implies that Israel violates the laws of war. This is another lie that promotes Hamas’s war aims. As Israel sacrifices the safety of its soldiers to protect civilians intentionally placed in harm’s way by Hamas, it is perversely false.
In the State of the Union Biden asserted: “More than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed — [AUDIENCE MEMBER: Says who?] — most of whom are not Hamas. Thousands and thousands of innocents — women and children. Girls and boys also orphaned.”
Abraham Wyner homes in on the casualty numbers in the Tablet column “How the Gaza Ministry of Health Fakes Casualty Numbers.” Subhead: “The evidence is in their own poorly fabricated figures.”
Wyner, by the way, is Professor of Statistics and Data Science at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and Faculty Co-Director of the Wharton Sports Analytics and Business Initiative. He knows what he is talking about. His column is worth your time, but Biden et al. don’t need his analysis. As Klein implies, they know it’s true. They lie without a conscience.
Wyner introduces his analysis this way (emphasis in original):
The number of civilian casualties in Gaza has been at the center of international attention since the start of the war. The main source for the data has been the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry, which now claims more than 30,000 dead, the majority of which it says are children and women. Recently, the Biden administration lent legitimacy to Hamas’ figure. When asked at a House Armed Services Committee hearing last week how many Palestinian women and children have been killed since Oct. 7, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said the number was “over 25,000.” The Pentagon quickly clarified that the secretary “was citing an estimate from the Hamas-controlled Health Ministry.” President Biden himself had earlier cited this figure, asserting that “too many, too many of the over 27,000 Palestinians killed in this conflict have been innocent civilians and children, including thousands of children.” The White House also explained that the president “was referring to publicly available data about the total number of casualties.”
Here’s the problem with this data: The numbers are not real. That much is obvious to anyone who understands how naturally occurring numbers work. The casualties are not overwhelmingly women and children, and the majority may be Hamas fighters.
If Hamas’ numbers are faked or fraudulent in some way, there may be evidence in the numbers themselves that can demonstrate it. While there is not much data available, there is a little, and it is enough: From Oct. 26 until Nov. 10, 2023, the Gaza Health Ministry released daily casualty figures that include both a total number and a specific number of women and children.
The first place to look is the reported “total” number of deaths. The graph of total deaths by date is increasing with almost metronomical linearity, as the graph in Figure 1 reveals….
Wyner persuasively establishes that “the Hamas ministry settled on a daily total arbitrarily.” See Figure 1 and other graphs along with the rest of the column here (data posted here).
JOHN adds: Abraham Wyner testified as an expert witness on behalf of the defendants in the Michael Mann v. Mark Steyn case. We saw his testimony when we were in D.C. for the trial. Wyner presented a statistical analysis that showed that Mann’s famous hockey stick graph was, in fact, fraudulent. His analysis was persuasive and Wyner was a great witness, but unfortunately neither his testimony nor the other evidence presented by defendants was enough to overcome the decades of propaganda that underlie climate hysteria. At least, not with a D.C. jury.
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