By Alan Dershowitz, Andrew Stein, JNS
The strategy requires that the media report Hamas-generated civilian casualty figures uncritically and without investigation.
Following the death of Yahya Sinwar, documentary evidence has emerged confirming what many observers already knew: the Hamas leader weaponized the death of Gazan civilians, especially women and children.
He understood that the media would emphasize these civilian deaths, attribute them all to Israel and increase the pressure on the Israeli government to satisfy Hamas's unreasonable demands. This is how The Wall Street Journal put it, following a lengthy investigation:
"Arab mediators hastened to speed up talks about a cease-fire ... Sinwar in a message urged his comrades in Hamas's political leadership outside Gaza not to make concessions and instead to push for a permanent end to the war. High civilian casualties would create worldwide pressure on Israel, Sinwar said."
This "dead baby strategy" has been used by Hamas for decades. Its leaders regard increasing the reported number of civilian casualties among Palestinians as necessary to victory, both in the court of public opinion and in the courts of law. Hence, they declare these dead civilians to be martyrs and encourage civilians to remain in dangerous places and among Hamas combatants.
This may be the first time in military history that leaders have admitted putting their own people in harm's way to increase the casualty figures (here, here, here, here and here).
Without the support of the media, this strategy would not succeed. It requires that the media report Hamas-generated civilian casualty figures uncritically and without investigating the underlying components of the reported figures.
So the media report approximately 43,000 dead Palestinians. Although it could easily distinguish between combatant and non-combatant deaths, Hamas refuses to do so. Instead, it distinguishes between male adults, women and those who they describe as "children." It fails to acknowledge that many of these so-called children were also combatants. Hamas lists anyone under 19 as a child, regardless of whether they are 15, 16, 17 or 18-year-old terrorists who have been recruited and trained by Hamas to murder Israelis. They do the same with women, conveying the impression that only men are terrorists.
Moreover, they fail to distinguish friendly-fire casualties that resulted from rockets fired by Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other terrorist groups whose rockets have a high failure rate, with many landing in Gaza.
They suggest that all non-Hamas members are innocent civilians. But many non-Hamas "civilians" were directly involved in the massacres, rapes and kidnappings of Oct. 7, 2023. Others cheered on these barbarians as they returned to Gaza with their live and dead hostages. Still others allowed their homes to be used to imprison hostages. Many contributed to Hamas financially and in other ways. Then there are the human shields—some voluntary, some coerced—who died as a result of deliberately being placed in harm's way pursuant to the Sinwar strategy of maximizing civilian deaths.
Accordingly, no one really knows the precise number of innocent Palestinians who have been killed. It would not be surprising if a careful breakdown of the dead resulted in a figure below 10,000 whose deaths can reasonably be attributed to Israel, rather than to the Sinwar strategy. Even double that figure would be remarkably low in comparison with casualty figures in other urban wars fought by NATO and democratic countries. It would represent an approximate ratio of one civilian killed for every combatant killed. And it would mean that approximately one percent of Gaza's civilian population died in a war started by Hamas and fought behind civilian shields. In comparable urban wars, the ratios have been worse for civilians.
Yet the media make it seem as if Israel is the worst offender in history. And useful ignoramuses on university campuses, along with bigots in international organizations, falsely accuse Israel of genocide, despite the successful efforts of the Israel Defense Forces to reduce civilian casualties to the minimum possible, consistent with achieving their military goals.
The time has come for credible investigations and evaluations of the actual numbers of Gazans in the various categories who have been killed. In the absence of an honest accounting, the media will continue to do Sinwar's nefarious work in increasing Palestinian casualties in order to increase the pressure on Israel.
The result of implementing the Sinwar strategy, even after his death, will be more Palestinian deaths, continuing warfare and the demonization of Israel. This is precisely what Sinwar asked his followers to do after his death. He should not be permitted to achieve his murderous goals posthumously. Reporting the truth will prevent that from happening, because the Sinwar strategy relies on mendacious and selective reporting by the media.
Sadly, the media's dangerous cooperation with terrorists tells us more about them than about the war about which they purport to be "reporting."
Originally published by the Gatestone Institute.
