A journalist who contributes to The Times has apologised after sharing a picture of Jeffrey Epstein with Israeli President Isaac Herzog. The problem? The snap isn’t real.
Gabrielle Sivia Weiniger posted that she “mistakenly posted a photo of President Herzog, without checking the source and I am sorry for that. The photograph nor the president were not mentioned in my article.”
In a second tweet, she added:
Just to clarify: the photograph was an AI fake. I can only apologise for the grave error in judgement for reposting the photo, and to the president for any harm this has caused.
One Israeli-based journalist did not hold back in their criticism, telling me:
The fake story about Herzog is a great example of how some foreign journalists’ judgment is completely blurred by an inherent loathing of Israel. Any seasoned reporter on Israel (even a junior one) would immediately recognise that the picture of Herzog and Epstein is fake. And even if they had reason to believe that the two did indeed meet, the first thing a correspondent would do would be to reach out to the president for a comment or clarification before posting the picture.
The fact that the Times reporter didn’t do that shows two things: a complete lack of moral and journalistic integrity, and a belief that “anything goes” when it comes to smearing Israel. Literally.
They added:
I cannot think of a foreign correspondent from a major British media outlet doing the same in any other case than Israel. Imagine if the Times correspondent in Berlin had casually posted a fake picture of the German chancellor alongside Epstein. First of all, it wouldn’t happen. Secondly, it would cause a major shitstorm in the media.
As far as I’m concerned, the only two media outlets that covered this were The Jerusalem Post and Jewish News. Nobody else cared — which tells you everything you need to know about how casual everyone is when it comes to top-level smears against Israel.
[Disclaimer: I contribute to the Jewish News]
Look, we all make mistakes, but this is a pretty bad one, fuelling dangerous conspiracies. The picture, now deleted from the journo’s Twitter feed, was obviously an AI-generated fake. It showed an unrealistic extended arm, and the president dropped in. To my mind, you couldn’t really see it as legitimate… unless you wanted to.
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