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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Twice a week, Dr. Michael Oren and I get together to record a new podcast episode of Boundless Insights that aims to make sense of the headlines affecting Israel and the American Jewish communities. Recently, we addressed the question, “Is Israel winning the war(s)?” The answer to that question, as Michael put it, “is dependent on how…
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Dear Clarity reader, A little more than a year and 81 articles ago I opened Clarity. With your support, we quickly became one of the largest Substacks in Israel. Clarity is where I share my honest – and sometimes controversial – perspectives, free from censorship or special considerations. Here on Clarity, I have a community of readers who value my most sincere,…
President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration this January will signal a tectonic shift in American foreign policy unmatched by any since Ronald Reagan’s swearing in 43 years before. With his understanding that diplomacy, to be effective, must be backed by power, Reagan succeeded Jimmy Carter who acted as if words alone could prevent the overthrow of the Shah of Iran…
Ancient antisemitic tropes have now thoroughly, if often unconsciously, entered acceptable daily discourse. Part I of The Altneu Antisemitism introduced the process through which this pernicious trend progressed. Now, in Part II, I’ll provide further examples of old forms of Jew-hatred are reappearing in seemingly innocuous forms. Previously, we’ve seen how, according to the mainstream press, Jews…
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Twice a week, Dr. Michael Oren and I get together to record a new podcast episode of Boundless Insights that aims to make sense of the headlines affecting Israel and the American Jewish communities. Recently, we addressed the question, “Is Israel winning the war(s)?” The answer to that question, as Michael put it, “is dependent on how…
The IDF has acted swiftly and effectively in responding to the fall of the Assad regime in Syria. It has bombed Assad’s chemical arsenal, destroyed his armored and missile forces, and sunk his navy. Israeli troops have reoccupied the buffer zone around Quneitra and retaken the Syrian Hebron. These measures greatly reduce the risk of…
While Iran battles Israel directly or through its proxies, another, more discreet but no less fateful war is raging throughout the region. It is a war with deep historical resonances, a war so potentially destabilizing that even the most dispassionate observers hesitate to revive its name. Read More
Dear Clarity reader, A little more than a year and 81 articles ago I opened Clarity. With your support, we quickly became one of the largest Substacks in Israel. Clarity is where I share my honest – and sometimes controversial – perspectives, free from censorship or special considerations. Here on Clarity, I have a community of readers who value my most sincere,…
President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration this January will signal a tectonic shift in American foreign policy unmatched by any since Ronald Reagan’s swearing in 43 years before. With his understanding that diplomacy, to be effective, must be backed by power, Reagan succeeded Jimmy Carter who acted as if words alone could prevent the overthrow of the Shah of Iran…
Ancient antisemitic tropes have now thoroughly, if often unconsciously, entered acceptable daily discourse. Part I of The Altneu Antisemitism introduced the process through which this pernicious trend progressed. Now, in Part II, I’ll provide further examples of old forms of Jew-hatred are reappearing in seemingly innocuous forms. Previously, we’ve seen how, according to the mainstream press, Jews…
The spike in antisemitism globally is hardly news. And yet, there is something about contemporary antisemitism that sets it apart from its earlier and even ancient versions Antisemitic Der Stürmer edition from 1934 (public domain) The spike in antisemitism globally, and most piercingly in the United States, is hardly news. Neither is the realization that the Jew-hated…
Speaking on a Pod Save America podcast last November 7, former President Barack Obama urged listeners to “take in the whole truth” about the war in Gaza. “What Hamas did was horrific and there’s no justification for it,” he said, but then added, “and what is also true is that the occupation, and what is happening to…
Israel’s destruction of Hezbollah’s drug empire could not be timelier or less controversial. Back in 1997, at the height of Hezbollah’s relentless campaign to drive the IDF out of Israel’s security zone in southern Lebanon, I made an out-of-the-box suggestion. Along with attacking the terrorists head-on, I gave an opinion in The Jerusalem Post that Israel should strike at one…
This article originally appeared in The Jerusalem Post on February 17, 1997. The search for ways to get back at Lebanon for all the terrible things Hizbullah has done to us and that we seemingly can’t do back to Hizbullah has yielded an arsenal of nasty proposals for revenge. These run from bombing Lebanon’s power…
