Rebecca Geller

🎗️🎗️🎗️

[Rebecca Geller @tbex]

@aziz0nomics how best to message you?

[Nicole Lampert @nicolelampert]

Former pro-Palestinian activist on the @novaexhibition
‘This exhibit dismantled everything I thought I knew.’

[Aviva Klompas @AvivaKlompas]

Former Israeli hostage Ilana Gritzewsky: “one terrorist started touching me; he put his hand under my shirt and started sliding it down my leg. That’s when I fainted.” On waking, she was “surrounded by Hamas people, my shirt up here, my pants down here.” After being freed, she learned they had broken her pelvis.
https://t.co/TJmgG2eEmG

[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.

[Natalie Lisbona @NatalieLisbona]

While ordinarily newspapers censor the full horrors of such accounts from Oct 7, today the Daily Mail as hard as it is, publishes the details because unbelievably, some still question the largest slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust.  Even certain sections of the established media have suggested that the extent of sexual violence committed by the terrorists may have been exaggerated.
The UN, too, dragged its heels in recognising the atrocities committed. It seems 'believe all women' did not apply in this instance. @AndyJehring
Read the EXCLUSIVE report: online Link
https://t.co/YvO07dSDAO

[Ben Goldsmith @BenGoldsmith]

American pig farming might just be the most evil industry on the planet. There are no words to describe the shame of those members of congress who voted to make it even worse for these miserable animals.

[Yashar Ali 🐘 @yashar]

1. NEWS

Omer Shem Tov, an Israeli abducted on October 7 and held hostage by Hamas for over 500 days, spoke at UCLA early this month about his experience, and it has erupted in controversy.

UCLA’s student government slammed the decision to invite Omer to speak, saying that UCLA was engaging in “selective platforming,” that having Omer speak legitimizes and normalizes atrocities, and that it contributes to a campus climate that harms Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim students.

Now, Jay Sures, the powerful Hollywood agent and a member of the UC Board of Regents, the governing body that oversees the California university system, has responded in a letter that slams UCLA’s student government, accusing them of moral blindness, intellectual dishonesty, and a deliberate refusal to acknowledge the suffering of a 23-year-old hostage.

This is Jay Sures’ letter, presented on UC Regents letterhead.

(The next tweet in the thread will contain the UCLA student government’s statement and the UCLA administration’s statement.)

[Massimo @Rainmaker1973]

California has become the epicenter of one of the most ambitious wildlife recovery efforts in U.S. history as conservation groups work urgently to rescue the western monarch butterfly from near-extinction. The population of these iconic insects has declined by over 99% since the 1980s, dropping to alarmingly low numbers by 2020 due to habitat loss, pesticide use, climate change, and reduced milkweed availability.

Leading the charge is River Partners, which has initiated the largest single coordinated habitat restoration project ever undertaken in the western United States. The centerpiece of the plan is an aggressive goal to plant 15 million native milkweed plants—the only food source for monarch caterpillars—along key riparian corridors and agricultural edges in the Central Valley. These plantings will be complemented by nectar-rich native wildflowers to provide essential fuel for adult butterflies during migration and breeding.

To maximize impact at a landscape scale, the project is leveraging innovative partnerships through initiatives like the Highway Wildling program. In collaboration with Caltrans (California Department of Transportation) and major utility companies, teams are transforming thousands of miles of roadside verges, medians, and utility rights-of-way into continuous migratory corridors and breeding habitat. These linear strips, once mowed or left barren, are now being seeded and managed to create vital stepping stones for monarchs traveling between overwintering sites along the coast and summer breeding grounds inland.

The effort received a major boost in late 2024 when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed protecting nearly 4,400 acres of critical overwintering habitat across California under the Endangered Species Act. This federal designation, if finalized, would offer legal safeguards for the coastal groves where millions of western monarchs historically clustered each winter.

Together, the massive planting campaign, infrastructure partnerships, and potential federal protections form a comprehensive, last-chance strategy to rebuild populations and reconnect fragmented habitats. If successful, the project could help stabilize the western monarch and ensure that future generations continue to witness the spectacular orange-and-black migration that has long symbolized the American West.

[Zac Goldsmith @ZacGoldsmith]

If ever there was a cause for western feminists and liberals to back it’s this. A women’s football team collectively standing up to a brutal islamofacist regime - risking all of their lives in the process. It’s the kind of story of extraordinary courage that will one day be told in a Hollywood movie. But there’s been barely a peep from them. Why? Is their activism nothing more than safe performative signalling? Will none of them break ranks?
It’s awful

[Rolling Stone @RollingStone]

Commentary: Inside Tel Aviv’s “bomb-shelter raves,” where Israelis gather during missile alerts and dance to electronic music — a defiant act of survival. https://t.co/VFZW0QXRFN

[Ruthie Rousso רותי רוסו @ruthlessrousso]

I accuse.
I accuse the international women’s community of a betrayal so profound it has become its own form of violence.

I accuse you of looking at Israeli women in the eyes and demanding "more proof." More graphic details. More "context."

I accuse you for standing by as some
of the victims were subjected to systematic, extreme sexual assault.

I accuse you for choosing to remain silent because of their nationality.

I accuse you for refusing to believe the testimonies, ignoring the truth, avoiding the screams.
You didn't just fail us, you became the shadow of the oppressor. You are the oppressor!

Arbel Yehud’s pain and tears are a mirror to your moral bankruptcy and hypocrisy.
Please, don’t ever use the phrase #MeToo again.

https://t.co/7ejrJQACGc

[Heidi Bachram @HeidiBachram]

'I tried to end it three times,' Arbel says. 'I felt like I couldn’t go on. There were moments when I thought it was the only way out.' I cannot imagine the horror of this.

We are with you Arbel.

✍️ @NatalieLisbona

https://t.co/rz4pUq2QRz

[Rebecca Geller @tbex]

After 843 days, the body of Ran Gvili, the last Israeli hostage held in Gaza, has been home for burial.

It was an honor to work with the Hostages Families Forum in the formidable fight to bring every last hostage home. I hope the families can finally begin to heal now.

[Yashar Ali 🐘 @yashar]

When I get yelled at for talking about Jew hatred too much (which I don’t care about —keep yelling), I always remind people that one of the reasons I talk about it is because it spreads like no other form of hatred.

Like an untreatable virus, once it works its way into an issue, a culture, etc., it cannot be eradicated.

Now we are seeing it with the revolution in Iran.

Atrocity denial.
Denying Iranians any agency.
Conspiracy theories that would boggle the mind.

I used to have neo-Nazis I track — and who know me — DM me when something was happening in Iran with “hope your family is okay.”

Now they’re suggesting my family members are fighting for their freedom because they’ve been ordered to do so by Jews.

[Natalie Lisbona @NatalieLisbona]

Her name was Robina Aminian, her dream was to study fashion in Milan. She was 23 from a Kurdish region in Iran. She had an Instagram account where she proudly showed off her Kurdish fashion and designs.

Now we discover she was shot at close range in the back of her head by Iranian Regime forces just because she was protesting for a better life . Hundreds of youngsters are said to have been massacred, but we don’t know the full extent because the regime has imposed a communication blackout.

The same murderous regime that executed these youngsters are the same murderous regime that backed Hamas’ massacre at the Nova festival. Killing youngsters doesn’t seem to be a problem for these guys . #Iran #IranProtests #IranMassacre @PahlaviReza

[Natalie Lisbona @NatalieLisbona]

Defiant women protesting against Iran's tyrannical regime told me that they have 'nothing left to lose' and will not return home until 'Iran is free’
Each time the phone went quiet there was a genuine jolt of fear, knowing they were risking their lives to speak to the media outside Iran.
The next day the regime blacked out the internet.
https://t.co/KC2N5hpqn7 @PahlaviReza

[Omid Djalili @omid9]

An image Iranians have shared as a symbol of freedom. It was a photo. Many of us didn’t know there was a video. Here it is. As a British-born Iranian with health & safety always at the forefront of my mind, my moral imperative is to add: ⚠️’please do not try this at home’

[Rolling Stone @RollingStone]

Oct. 7 Hostages Reveal the Music That Helped Them Hold On

From Frank Sinatra to Avenged Sevenfold, songs brought refuge, connection, and sanity to their time in captivity.
https://t.co/8XxWb7T0Jk

[Telegraph Politics @TelePolitics]

🔴 NEW: Boiling live crab and lobster is to be banned in Britain as part of an animal rights crackdown by Labour.

Find out more ⬇️
https://t.co/HSQqMFGhzI

[Oren Kessler @OrenKessler]

Spotted on December 18, 2025 in Jaffa's Greek Market:

Your trusty correspondent indulging in wine, chat, latkes and Hanukkah spirit with friends old and new: @Jessica_KJacobs, @jkirchick, @ShMMor, @Gilad_Halpern and more

https://t.co/vbo3iQDRu2