HR Op-Ed: About Those Incredible Rumors

HonestReporting's CEO Joe Hyams has an op-ed published on the brand new Times of Israel site: We all love to…

By Simon Plosker February 23, 2012

HonestReporting’s CEO Joe Hyams has an op-ed published on the brand new Times of Israel site:

We all love to read about the incredible. But what happens when the incredible just isn’t credible?

The Internet is an incredible tool for spreading information across the global superhighway. Yet, there is a darker side. Israel has been the victim of countless smears and big lies propagated by enemies intent on delegitimizing and demonizing the Jewish state.

Only in the last week, one of these big lies has reentered the news a whole decade since it caused immeasurable damage to Israel’s image. The Mohammed al-Dura incident sparked a wave of violence and terror. The image of a Palestinian boy crouching next to his father caught in the crossfire became the icon of the so-called Second Intifada.

The passage of time and a trove of new evidence in Israel’s favor have done little to mitigate the al-Dura myth, which continues to live on thanks to the accumulated repository of anti-Israel material that is stored online. Dr. Yehuda David has just been acquitted of libel in a French court after publicly exposing the lies of al-Dura’s father, who falsely claimed old injuries were inflicted by Israel during that fateful Gaza firefight.

David’s challenge to the false yet widely accepted narrative should give us all encouragement to double our efforts to defend Israel’s credibility.

Sometimes, however, Israel’s friends fail to differentiate between the credible and the incredible. How many times have we forwarded a chain email based only on an empty promise of wealth and winnings for doing so? Most likely, if it’s that incredible, it isn’t credible.

Read the rest of the op-ed here. Please consider clicking +1, Tweet, Like or linking to this op-ed on your blog or website. This op-ed is only effective when it reaches a large readership, especially through the Google search engine. Creating a link to this page with the text “Joe Hyams about those incredible rumors” helps this article reach the first page search results for the term and ensures that HonestReporting’s material spreads online.

© Divuach Ne’eman R”A, 2025

Simon Plosker

Simon Plosker

With over two decades of experience in various non-governmental organizations in the UK and Israel, Simon Plosker returned to HonestReporting in October 2022 as Editorial Director having previously been part of the organization’s management team from 2005 to 2020.

Prior to his first spell at HonestReporting, Simon worked in Israel for NGO Monitor, BICOM, and served for a short period in the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit. He was Managing Editor of the Geneva-based NGO United Nations Watch for two years before moving back to the frontline defending Israel from media bias.

Simon has a BSoc.Sc in International Studies and Political Science from the University of Birmingham and an MSc in History of International Relations from the London School of Economics. He immigrated to Israel in 2001 from London.

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