Notes from Substack Clarity.December 14,2025.
Words escape me. As someone who has interacted with and long admired the Australian Jewish community, visiting it frequently and hosting its members in Israel, the massacre at the Bondi Beach Hanukkah party has left me speechless.
Of course, I could condemn the Australian government whose shameless support for Palestinian terror has fueled antisemitism and dog whistled violence against Jews. I could mourn the passing of a nation that, since its founding, had always welcomed Jews, and offered new homes and hope to many hundreds of Holocaust survivors.
But now, I can only express profound sadness for the bereaved families, wish a complete recovery to the wounded, and remind Australian Jews we are always with you and you always have a home in Israel.
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Backed by the Singer Foundation, facilitated by the Javelin PR firm, and assisted by tireless volunteers, I’ve been able to present an informed and independent Israeli viewpoint to many millions worldwide. But that privilege has also given me a ringside seat at one of the major—if not ultimately principal—battlefields in this war: the struggle over Israel’s image.
I understand that my subscribers may not want to read about an expanded war effort. My working assumption, though, is that, sooner or later, we will also be at war with Hezbollah.
Since the start of the Gaza War, I’ve conducted dozens of interviews with the international media, including NBC, CNN, MSNBC, and Fox, and have been dismayed—indeed, sickened—by their use of the word “militants” to describe Hamas terrorists.
Israel has to destroy Hamas because the attack of Oct. 7 threatens the country’s existence. If the conflict ends in stalemate or cease-fire, the terrorists will have gotten away with mass atrocities on Israeli soil. We will never be secure from future onslaughts. Tourism and foreign investment will vanish, and many Israelis will raise their children elsewhere.
Ever since the 1970s, the entrances to many American Jewish institutions have boasted a single bust. It is not of Theodore Herzl, founder of the Zionist movement, or of Israel’s preeminent leader, David Ben-Gurion, nor even of any prominent American Jew—Justice Louis Brandeis or Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel.
“We cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass,” declared the just-inaugurated President Barack Obama in January 2009, “that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve,”
There’s no time that Israeli parents and grandparents hate more than late August. Summer programs have ended, school has yet to begin, and people still have to work. It’s then that the national cry goes up: “What are we to do with the kids?”
Fifty years ago this month, the Jewish state survived a surprise attack by its Arab neighbors. Some conflict veterans see the country’s current political divisions as no less dangerous. By Michael Oren Sept. 28, 2023 at 10:00 am ET Recently, while walking in a Tel Aviv park, I was approached by a well-dressed, elderly man…
On this Rosh Hashanah, perhaps more than any previously, Israel stands at a crossroads. In one direction lay chaos and conflict, and on the other, possible reconciliation and peace. Whether it turns away from the former path and follows the latter will depend on Israeli leaders within and outside the government. Can they overcome their…
Dangerous Delusions Michael Oren Anyone seeking to understand why U.S. policy in the Middle East keeps failing—especially on the Israeli-Palestinian issue—need only read “Israel’s One-State Reality” (May/June 2023) by Michael Barnett, Nathan Brown, Marc Lynch, and Shibley Telhami. The essay suffers from the same refusal to face facts that led the United States to launch…
Backed by the Singer Foundation, facilitated by the Javelin PR firm, and assisted by tireless volunteers, I’ve been able to present an informed and independent Israeli viewpoint to many millions worldwide. But that privilege has also given me a ringside seat at one of the major—if not ultimately principal—battlefields in this war: the struggle over Israel’s image.
I understand that my subscribers may not want to read about an expanded war effort. My working assumption, though, is that, sooner or later, we will also be at war with Hezbollah.
Since the start of the Gaza War, I’ve conducted dozens of interviews with the international media, including NBC, CNN, MSNBC, and Fox, and have been dismayed—indeed, sickened—by their use of the word “militants” to describe Hamas terrorists.
Israel has to destroy Hamas because the attack of Oct. 7 threatens the country’s existence. If the conflict ends in stalemate or cease-fire, the terrorists will have gotten away with mass atrocities on Israeli soil. We will never be secure from future onslaughts. Tourism and foreign investment will vanish, and many Israelis will raise their children elsewhere.
Ever since the 1970s, the entrances to many American Jewish institutions have boasted a single bust. It is not of Theodore Herzl, founder of the Zionist movement, or of Israel’s preeminent leader, David Ben-Gurion, nor even of any prominent American Jew—Justice Louis Brandeis or Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel.
“We cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass,” declared the just-inaugurated President Barack Obama in January 2009, “that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve,”
There’s no time that Israeli parents and grandparents hate more than late August. Summer programs have ended, school has yet to begin, and people still have to work. It’s then that the national cry goes up: “What are we to do with the kids?”
Fifty years ago this month, the Jewish state survived a surprise attack by its Arab neighbors. Some conflict veterans see the country’s current political divisions as no less dangerous. By Michael Oren Sept. 28, 2023 at 10:00 am ET Recently, while walking in a Tel Aviv park, I was approached by a well-dressed, elderly man…
On this Rosh Hashanah, perhaps more than any previously, Israel stands at a crossroads. In one direction lay chaos and conflict, and on the other, possible reconciliation and peace. Whether it turns away from the former path and follows the latter will depend on Israeli leaders within and outside the government. Can they overcome their…
Dangerous Delusions Michael Oren Anyone seeking to understand why U.S. policy in the Middle East keeps failing—especially on the Israeli-Palestinian issue—need only read “Israel’s One-State Reality” (May/June 2023) by Michael Barnett, Nathan Brown, Marc Lynch, and Shibley Telhami. The essay suffers from the same refusal to face facts that led the United States to launch…
