Today, Emanuel Fabian, a journalist for the Times of Israel, recounted how people placing bets with Polymarket as to whether Israel would intercept all Iranian missiles led to death threats being issued against him. His simple factual report that an Iranian missile had succeeded in hitting an isolated area of Israel triggered rounds of pressure put upon him just to change the story, graduating to death threats. It is just one small story in a country being driven crazy.
A week ago, he reported that one missile had landed in a forested area just outside Beit Shemesh, near Jerusalem. Today’s story, “Gamblers Trying To Win a Bet on Polymarket Are Vowing to Kill Me,”, explained that Polymarket established a betting pool for March 10, whereby one could bet that an Iranian missile could successfully avoid Israeli defense systems and hit land in Israel. Fabian unknowingly published the accurate report that a missile had done so. A group that had bet close to a million dollars that no missile would get through unscathed began pressuring him to recant his report.
First, there was a series of seemingly innocent messages that called on him to change his article. Then, a phony entry was posted, supposedly quoting him as saying: “I checked with the IDF Spokesperson and it was indeed intercepted. I sent it now for editing, it will be fixed shortly.” However, he explained: “To be clear, I wrote no such thing.” Then the death threats began:
“Shortly after midnight between Saturday and Sunday, I started to receive threatening messages in Hebrew on WhatsApp from someone called Haim. ‘You have exactly half an hour to correct your attempt at influence,’ he wrote. “'Despite the fact that you received countless inquiries—you insist on leaving it that way’” and “‘If you do not correct this by 01:00 Israel time today, March 15, you are bringing upon yourself damage you have never imagined you would suffer.’” The last ones included: “You have no idea how much you’ve put yourself at risk. Today is the most significant day of your career. You have two choices: either believe that we have the capabilities, and after you make us lose $900,000 we will invest no less than that to finish you. Or end this with money in your pocket, and also earn back the life you had until now.”
