How many Jews live in Israel?
This is one of the more-interesting datapoints I've seen regarding the current situation in the Middle East:
One reason Hamas may call for genocide is that they will believe it be easy, because Palestinians are by and large extremely confused about how many Jews live in Israel. pic.twitter.com/RhD5dITgv3
— Lyman Stone 石來民 🦬🦬🦬 (@lymanstoneky) October 17, 2023
As the original source notes census data suggests about 7.4 million, but 50% of Gazans think the correct number is a million or fewer. Here's an interesting quote from the piece on how it impacts the prospects for peace in the region:
Lacking basic knowledge of Israeli society is also correlated with support for attacks on its civilians; in TWI polling conducted in the West Bank, there is a twenty two percentage point increase in those who say that attacking ‘all Israeli Jews’ is a bad thing among those West Bank residents who have a more realistic perception of Israeli Jewish demographics.