Morphed Image of Zuckerberg With Israel PM Netanyahu Goes Viral

The photo is altered and Zuckerberg’s face is morphed on top of IDF chief of Staff Aviv Kohavi’ face.

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

A photograph of Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sitting with Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg dressed in Army attire is doing the rounds on social media.

However, The Quint’s WebQoof team found that the photo is altered and Zuckerberg’s face is morphed on top of Israel Defense Forces (IDF) chief of Staff Aviv Kohavi’s face. The original picture dates back to November 2019 and was taken at a press conference held in Tel Aviv.

CLAIM

The photo, with a caption in Hindi claims, “आतंकी संगठन हमास समर्थक ईमान वाले बायकॉटियों इजरायल के विरोध में फेसबुक कब छोड़ रहे हो.”

(Translation: When are terrorist organisation Hamas’ supporters, who are against Israel, going to boycott Facebook?)

An archived version of the post can be found here.

The same claim has been widely shared on Facebook and Twitter. An archived version of some posts can be found here, here, and here.

WHAT WE FOUND

Upon a reverse image search on Yandex, we across a similar photo published in an article on ‘InterPressNews’, a news agency based in Georgia.

The article, dated 12 November 2019, read that Prime Minister Netanyahu held a press conference alongside Israel Defence Forces (IDF) Chief of Staff Aviv Kohavi and Shin Bet chief Nadav Argaman.

The photo of Zuckerberg is morphed onto the photo of the IDF chief. We found similarities in both the photos, including the army dress.

The Facebook logo has also been added in the viral photo, and the original picture has no such background.

We found more pictures from the event on ‘The Times of Israel', which, too, mentioned that it was from a press conference held in Israel.

The caption in the image read, “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (right) and IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kohavi during a press conference at the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv on November 12, 2019.”

We found the image of the press conference on Getty Images.

We also looked for any recent news reports on Zuckerberg’s meeting with Netanyahu, but didn’t come across any.

Clearly, a morphed image has gone viral in the backdrop of the Israel-Palestine tension, which saw a ceasefire on 21 May 2021. This was 11 days after over 250 people were killed from both sides.

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