Jon Skolnick

CEO at FACES SF, a nonprofit working with families in SF to raise the next generation thru high quality childcare, family support + job coaching- tweets my own

[Emily Jashinsky @emilyjashinsky]

This is the plot of Forgetting Sarah Marshall?

[Jon Skolnick @jonskolnick]

@AGHamilton29 Pretty simple — we’re just applying the @melrobbins Let Them theory to Iran.

[Nadav Pollak @NadavPollak]

@MosheELavi @NickKristof Couldn’t say it better myself. 100%

[Colin McCarthy @US_Stormwatch]

Solar in 2025 grew 19x faster than experts at the International Energy Agency predicted in 2015.

Solar is now the fastest growing electricity source in human history.

[Jon Skolnick @jonskolnick]

@nytimes The autopsy report needs an autopsy report.

[Jon Skolnick @jonskolnick]

@NYCMayor The reason Israelis were securing the road to Jerusalem and not Nablus is because Jerusalem was under siege and the Jews, who had been a majority in Jerusalem since the 1850s, were being starved and cut off from all supplies.

[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.

[Steve McGuire @sfmcguire79]

Georgetown Law students came dangerously close to having a Jew at their commencement.

[Jon Skolnick @jonskolnick]

@cindymullock @SJojo47 How many seats is Ben Gvir’s party projected to win in the next election? Answer: Zero. He is horrific, despicable, and illiberal, but he doesn’t represent maintream Zionism nor mainstream Israelis.

[Jon Skolnick @jonskolnick]

@mattyglesias @jmp_nyc @Mark_J_Ryan @MaxNordau I’d love you to read and respond to this, the best articulation of the mainstream Israeli view toward Palestinian nationalism and the occupation prior to 10/7. https://t.co/BwrVwiKcwV

[Jon Skolnick @jonskolnick]

@matthewstoller Oh right, because in Austria and Germany Jews weren’t doing well professionally before the Holocaust.

[Jon Skolnick @jonskolnick]

@mattyglesias I need a long think piece on how a show as terrible as Big Bang Theory became so popular and what that says about where we are as a society.

[Ro Khanna @RoKhanna]

Thanks for this @chamath . The tax can be paid over 5 years. There should be provisions for workarounds for founders whose stock is locked or where their company is not profitable to defer any tax until a liquidity event with no interest accrual and for adjustment on the tax due based on the valuation at liquidity (in case it drops).

Why not propose reasonable protections for founders? Are you open though to 1-2 percent wealth tax on established billionaires in our nation and in California? That's really the point of a wealth tax.

You had talked about tech billionaires needing to do more at a time when people can't afford healthcare, education, childcare. I found those comments very self-aware.

I am curious whether you'd support some form of wealth tax and social investment if well designed. In this case, it's to make up for the cuts in healthcare for working class Californians.

[Brian Allen @allenanalysis]

OBAMA: “What if I sent the National Guard into Texas and said I don’t care what Governor Abbott says… and just kind of took over?”

Imagine that.

Fox News would’ve held a 96-hour emergency broadcast with 18 split screens and a countdown to “Tyranny Day.”

But when it’s Trump doing it? Crickets.

[Jon Skolnick @jonskolnick]

@rwessman I use it all the time and it’s so much better than human drivers. Next time you’re in SF let’s take a ride!

[Hen Mazzig @HenMazzig]

Only 5% of Israelis voted for Ben Gvir and Smotrich when they ran together in 2022. Five. Percent.

And yet somehow, three years and one devastating war later, they’re the ones shaping Israel’s most dangerous decisions.

This war has shattered our global standing and cost us thousands of lives – civilians and soldiers. It’s time to go back to the people and let them choose a new path.

Instead, these extremists are doubling down. They’re pushing catastrophic policies that the IDF itself is warning against.

A full takeover of Gaza won’t bring the hostages home. It won’t restore trust between the people and the state. It won’t fix the damage to Israel’s name in the world.

It will trap us in Gaza. It will cost more lives. And it will hand Hamas exactly what it wants – more civilian suffering to use as propaganda.

This government has failed. And the price is being paid by all of us.

Please don’t confuse us – the people of Israel – with the reckless politicians who are driving this disaster.

[Jon Skolnick @jonskolnick]

@jonathanchait If nobody loses coverage, we don’t cut $1T of spending. If we cut $1T of spending, then it’s largely because millions have lost coverage. Can’t have it both ways. Why nobody just presses him on this in interviews is beyond me.

[Jon Skolnick @jonskolnick]

@sama This idea has been around and championed by Dems for 20 years. How about, like every other advanced country, we offer paid parental leave and universal child care? And what if that requires a top marginal tax rate of 40% (instead of the current 37%) on income above $400,000?

[Senator Scott Wiener @Scott_Wiener]

Another major example of antisemitism targeting a Jewish-owned business in the Mission. Manny’s has been targeted for years b/c the owner is Jewish. This vandalism calls for the death of Jews.

Antisemitism is toxic & leads to violence against Jews. It must never be tolerated. 🧵