It doesn’t matter if the Netanyahu coffee video is real. We are screwed no matter what

A visit by the Israeli prime minister to a coffee shop shows how the truth is now up for grabs.

[Photos: Joe Raedle/Getty Images, Sarah/Adobe Stock]

Is Benjamin Netanyahu dead? According to this video posted on March 15 by the Israeli prime minister’s office, he’s alive and thriving. You may have seen it online, along with a rabid debate between the crowd who claims it is fake (it is not) and the people who say it is real (which is correct, as determined by fact checkers and independent intelligence analysts).

But we are not here to debate about what is true or not. What matters is the debate itself. It’s another point of proof in our new normal: Since AI can make up believable new realities, people now doubt reality itself, using that claim to support their beliefs and push their agendas.

The rumors of Netanyahu’s demise caught fire after the U.S. and Israel executed strikes on Iran on February 28. Following those attacks, the prime minister’s public appearances at military bases and targeted towns were heavily restricted, creating an information vacuum that Iranian state broadcasters eagerly filled with claims of his death. To squash the noise, his office dropped a casual clip on Telegram and X showing him grabbing a drink with an aide at The Sataf café on the outskirts of Jerusalem.

To mock the assassination conspiracists, as Reuters pointed out later, he leaned into a Hebrew linguistic pun where the slang for “dead” translates to being “crazy about” something. Referencing a past video in which bad compression made him look like he had six digits, he tells his aide: “I’m crazy about coffee. I’m crazy about my people. They are behaving phenomenally. Do you want to count my fingers? You can. Here and here. See?”

His bad puns and show-and-tell didn’t matter. Within minutes, the internet mobilized to declare the footage a forgery synthesized by artificial intelligence. Conspiracists pointed to the café’s cash register screen, falsely claiming it proved the footage was from 2024. 

“Got some serious questions about the validity of this blatantly obvious AI video…” one X user wrote.

“Close up blur shot which looks more AI than the last one. Even the clothes look sketchy,” said another. “Credit where due though, they gave some good prompt this time.”

Expedia CEO Ariane Gorin on Turning AI Into a Competitive Advantage

© Fast Company