Social media responds to Onion 'scoop' on Netanyahu missiles

As world leaders were busy congratulating themselves on at long last penning the Iran nuclear deal on 14 July, the satirical website the Onion went into action.

With Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fuming that a “terrorist nuclear superpower” had been born and that that fateful Tuesday would “go down as one of the darkest days in world history,” the Onion told its readers there would soon be a big upside for the Israeli leader. Hours after the deal, a headline appeared saying that the US was soothing upset Netanyahu with a shipment of ballistic missiles.

“Bibi always gets a little cranky when he sees us talking to Iran, but a few dozen short-range surface-to-surface missiles usually cheer him right up,” the Onion quoted fictional State Department spokesperson Daniel Goldman as saying. “Of course, we try not to spoil him by giving him a whole new tactical ballistics delivery system every single time he throws a fit, but our guy’s pretty good at getting his way.

“At least we’ll have a couple months of peace and quiet around here,” he added.

But unbeknown to the Onion writers and readers, a day later Israeli newspaper Haaretz followed the same line. "After Iran deal, Obama offers military upgrade to help Israel swallow bitter Iranian deal," the paper wrote.

It took a while for the coincidence to be picked up, but once it was, even Haaretz admitted that they had been out-scooped, not by The New York Times, the BBC or any other world journalistic powerhouse, but the Onion.

“There’s no other way around it: the fake newspaper broke the story,” journalist Asher Schechter wrote in the Israeli daily earlier this week.

In turn, the internet responded with hilarity.