ilana Bittner

Wife • mom • intellectualOmnivore • documentaryStoryteller • socialTriathlete • aspiringMensch • mischiefMaker

[ilana Bittner @ilanabit]

The world needs a little more #MrRogers

[Moshe Emilio Lavi @MosheELavi]

Much has been written about @NickKristof's latest NYT opinion column over the past 24 hours, most of it focusing on the specific claims and their sourcing, but what I think deserves most attention is something broader: how this kind of journalism, whatever its intentions, ultimately makes accountability harder to achieve rather than easier, and harms the very people it claims to champion.

The principle that Israeli abuses should be investigated and condemned is not in dispute, and nobody serious is arguing otherwise. Israel is not above scrutiny, and in fact it operates under more intense international scrutiny than almost any country on earth, routinely held to standards applied nowhere else.

The problem here is something different entirely: the complete collapse of evidentiary standards the moment Israel is the subject.

This piece reads less like rigorous reporting and more like a catalogue of hearsay, unverifiable allegations, and activist claims stitched together into a sweeping moral indictment. Its sourcing leans heavily on Euro Med Human Rights Monitor, an organisation repeatedly criticised over extremist ties, disinformation, and deeply questionable methodology, yet treated throughout as a credible authority while its leadership openly engages in pro Hamas propaganda on X.

Worse, the same ecosystem of activists and self appointed “experts” that amplifies Euro Med’s claims online increasingly feeds narratives into more established organisations and media outlets, laundering deeply contested allegations into the appearance of institutional credibility.

The most severe claims are anonymous, uncorroborated, and presented in the emotional register of established fact rather than allegation, despite lacking meaningful evidentiary backing. Yet Kristof largely adopts them without serious scrutiny, publishing the piece in the Opinion section because even the already diminished evidentiary standards often applied to reporting on the Israeli Palestinian conflict would likely not suffice for it to pass as straight news reporting.

This approach doesn't strengthen accountability, it actively destroys it. When every allegation is immediately inflated into systematic rape and "standard operating procedure" before any serious verification, genuine investigation becomes harder rather than easier.

Real abuses, if they occurred, get buried beneath maximalist narratives so extreme that large portions of the public simply stop trusting any of it, and the people who actually suffered pay that price.

It also alienates the vast majority of Israelis and Jews worldwide, including the many who are perfectly capable of criticising Israeli policy and supporting investigations into misconduct, but who understandably recoil when accusations begin resembling modernised blood libels dressed up as human rights reporting. The framing matters enormously, and so does proportionality, and so does evidence.

Nor does any of this serve Palestinians. Atrocity inflation entrenches both sides deeper into defensive tribalism, and every dubious claim amplified by a prestigious outlet makes legitimate criticism easier to dismiss when it actually matters.

The timing compounds everything. On a day when documented reporting on Hamas sexual violence was again circulating, the NYT chose to run an opinion column built substantially on unverifiable anonymous testimony asserting that Israelis are conducting systemic rape campaigns, not as a rigorously evidenced investigative report but as an opinion piece with the imprimatur of the paper of record.

Kristof is not a naive bystander in any of this. In 2014 he used the full credibility of the NYT to repeatedly platform Somaly Mam, a Cambodian anti-trafficking activist whose harrowing personal story he championed across multiple columns, until it emerged that her backstory was substantially fabricated and he was forced to issue a public correction. When challenged this time around on his sourcing, corroboration, and methodology, he defaulted to bad faith engagement on social media rather than addressing the underlying concerns seriously.

It is the same pattern, playing out again in a different context. Real journalism requires skepticism, corroboration, and restraint applied consistently regardless of the subject, and when those standards disappear the moment Israel is involved, what remains is not human rights reporting but narrative activism wearing a journalist's costume that does far more harm than good to everyone it claims to serve.

[Chef José Andrés 🕊️🥘🍳 @chefjoseandres]

The @WCKitchen team were busy prepping dinner for the hostage families waiting for the loved ones to return home….#ChefsForIsrael people in Gaza and Israel wants peace, respecting each other….is the only way! lets hope this is a new beginning for all! What is good for me must be good for you!

[Ahmed Al-Khalidi @khalidi79397]

As a Palestinian who refuses to parrot our leadership’s lies, I have to say it bluntly: Telling Mizrahi Jews - Jews from Iraq, Yemen, Egypt, Morocco, Syria, and the rest of the Arab world, that they are doing “ethnic cleansing” to us is the gaslight of the century.

Let’s start with facts. Mizrahi Jews didn’t “come from Europe.” They lived in the Middle East for thousands of years, long before Islam, long before Arab conquest, long before any modern state. Their ancestors spoke the same ancient Hebrew mentioned in the Qur’an’s stories, they prayed facing Jerusalem, and their communities in Babylon, Damascus, and Sana’a existed for over 2,500 years. They are as indigenous to this region as the olive trees, as native to the Middle East as we are.

When Arab states turned against them in the 20th century, after Israel was established, they were ethnically cleansed: homes looted, businesses seized, citizenship revoked, synagogues burned, people lynched. Nearly a million Jews were expelled from Arab lands. Most fled to Israel with nothing.

And now, decades later, our leadership dares to call them the colonizers? The same families who were driven from Baghdad, Aleppo, and Tripoli - who rebuilt their lives from refugee camps in Israel, are accused of committing the same crime that was done to them. That’s not just hypocrisy; it’s historical amnesia.

If we truly want justice, we have to stop gaslighting our neighbors and start acknowledging that their story is Middle Eastern too.
Our liberation won’t come from denying theirs.

[Ezra Klein @ezraklein]

In the last few years we've seen:

- The plot to kidnap Gretchen Whitmer
- The Storming of the Capitol and pipe bombs left at the RNC and DNC
- The break-in to kidnap Nancy Pelosi and the brutal on Paul Pelosi
- Multiple assassination attempts against Trump
- The assassination of Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband and the shooting of on State Senator John Hoffman and his wife
- Luigi Mangione's assassination of Brian Thompson
- The assassination of Charlie Kirk

Political violence is contagious. It is spreading. It is not confined to one side or belief system. It should terrify us all.

The foundation of a free society is the ability to participate in it without fear of violence. Political violence is always an attack against us all. You have to be so blind not to see that.

[Nuseir Yassin @nasdaily]

Last year, thousands of people sent me death threats because i said "yes to peace".

now the people of Gaza are screaming it too. what happened?

our message last year was not popular. everyone was poisoned by aljazeera. and the online mob has no independent thought.

times are changing.
2025 is our year to take back the narrative.

i can't wait to see aljazeera, its financiers, the online mob, and hamas be thrown away to the dustbins of history.

[UW_JewishAlumni @UW_JewishAlumni]

🚨 BREAKING: Jewish and Israeli students at @UWBothell were AMBUSHED by Professor Alka Kurian with propaganda—told to attend a MANDATORY lecture on "genocide" and "starvation in Gaza" & write a paper on it, or risk their grades. A thread on what happened. 🧵⬇️ 1/6
@UW

[ilana Bittner @ilanabit]

It’d be great if @Richard_Schiff would re-record his TWW dialogue with some minor changes, “I'll bet all the money in my pockets against all the money in your pockets, that it was ELON. Who no one elected!”

[Columbia Jewish & Israeli Students ✡️🇮🇱 @CUJewsIsraelis]

On the first day of classes, anti-Israel protestors interrupted @Columbia’s “History of Modern Israel” class and handed out flyers showing a boot crushing a Star of David. Columbia is out of control. And to be clear, there is no “academic freedom” to disrupt classes.

[Liz Cheney @Liz_Cheney]

This is how dictators destroy free nations. They threaten those who speak against them with death. We cannot entrust our country and our freedom to a petty, vindictive, cruel, unstable man who wants to be a tyrant. #Womenwillnotbesilenced #VoteKamala

[ilana Bittner @ilanabit]

@Doctor_N_masih If I had the power, I would vanish all the hate in your heart.

[ilana Bittner @ilanabit]

@Doctor_N_masih Sounds like it’s actually you

[ilana Bittner @ilanabit]

@Doctor_N_masih Explain to me again who exactly is genocidal?

[ilana Bittner @ilanabit]

@DisneyScoopGuy Is he Team Tiana or Team Splash??

[ilana Bittner @ilanabit]

The abject bigotry toward Jews that is acceptable in the country is really disheartening.

[Joni Kletter @JoniKletter]

Elisa Albert, https://t.co/TR9ghSssie, award winning feminist writer, just had her Albany book event cancelled b/c 2 panelists wouldn’t appear w/a “Zionist.” The talk was about coming of age! Organizer was “nonplussed”but cancelled anyway. Shame on these authors & shame on @nyswi

[The Telegraph @Telegraph]

"A new report exposes the severe deficiencies in its coverage of Israel" | Telegraph View https://t.co/kWvLKvOiAp

[ilana Bittner @ilanabit]

SHOCKING (not)

[The Telegraph @Telegraph]

The front page of tomorrow's Sunday Telegraph:

'BBC 'has breached rules 1,500 times' over Gaza war'

#TomorrowsPapersToday

Sign up for the Front Page newsletter
https://t.co/x8AV4OoUh6

[Ritchie Torres @RitchieTorres]

Newsflash for the media:

Hostages like Hersh Goldberg Polin did not just “die.” They were murdered by Hamas.

Hostages like Noa Argamani were not just “released.” They were rescued by Israel.

The rockets did not just “land” on Druze children and civilians. They were fired by Hezbollah.

Words matter because the truth matters.

[ilana Bittner @ilanabit]

@EylonALevy Because people don’t realize how much they just hate Jews

[Aviva Klompas @AvivaKlompas]

Rachel Goldberg-Polin: "Ok sweet boy, go now on your journey. I hope it's as good as the trips you dreamed about because finally, my sweet boy, finally, finally, finally, finally you are free.

I will love you and I will miss you every single day for the rest of my life, but you're right here. I know you're right here. I just have to teach myself how to feel you in a different way.

And Hersh there is one last thing I need you to do for us. Now I need you to help us stay strong and I need you to help us survive"

[ilana Bittner @ilanabit]

@washingtonpost Do better, WAPO