Daniel Orenstein, at The Blogs

Oct 26, 2023, 6:20 PM

Recep Tayyip Erdogan gives a history lesson to his political party in Ankara on October 11, 2023. (Adem ALTAN / AFP)

Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, recently made an impassioned speech to his political party expressing his support for Hamas, whom he defined not as terrorists, but as freedom fighters. He did so while waving a set of maps...

Oct 20, 2023, 12:58 AM

Are we rushing into a trap?

Kfir Brigade Soldiers Practice Urban Warfare (Photo by Pvt. Eden Briand, IDF Spokesperson's Unit, under Attribution-Non-commercial license)

This week's headlines have been fairly consistent: “The IDF continues pummeling Hamas targets amid preparations for a ground operation in Gaza” and that we are “completing preparations to strike Gaza ‘from air, sea and land’”. It appears that an...

Jul 29, 2023, 11:57 PM

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I asked AI how to turn Israel into a dictatorship. We are on our way

When ChatGPT agrees with the real live expert in democratic regimes that have fallen to dictators

Jul 18, 2023, 1:04 AM

Sustainability, Resilience, and a Minister of Minor Nuisances

Israel's most urgent environmental nuisance? Bereaved families demonstrating for democracy in Haifa. 22 April 2023. (Photo by the author).

It must be difficult to be the Minister for Environmental Protection in today’s government. As minister, you are essentially responsible for asking passengers of the Titanic not to litter or make excessive noise. All the while, your captain and...

Jul 4, 2023, 9:46 PM

We have pro-democracy allies – they should roar

"We need allies". Tel Aviv. Photo by Guy Shachar.

Early last May, I wrote to a prominent US-based historian whose daily political updates are read by more than a million readers each day, with a plea to write about the protest movement in Israel and our struggle to...

Mar 26, 2023, 12:53 AM

Academia on the firing line?

Protest of Haifa University, Oranim College, and Technion professors and teachers (5 February; Photo by the author).

Outside. My country is raging. Riding the train through Tel Aviv last Thursday from a research meeting in the south to teaching in the north, I filmed demonstrators who had closed down both directions on Israel’s largest highway. One of...

Feb 11, 2023, 12:58 PM

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For a sustainable future, protest the ‘reforms’

Israel and a sustainable future (credit: PikiWiki)

The changes will shrink accountability and eliminate safeguards that protect the environment and public health

Aug 13, 2022, 11:53 PM

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A sacred silence

We're assaulted by horn-honking, leaf-blowing, motorcycle-revving, jack-hammer operating noise almost everywhere, every day of the week – except one

Jul 13, 2022, 1:21 AM

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To save Haifa, cull!

Wild boar in Haifa (photo by the author)

My plan to remove this noisy species, with its reckless behavior and impudent free reign of the city, and stop the wildness in our streets

Jan 2, 2022, 11:07 PM

Academic Freedom or a Theater for the Absurd?

An anti-science lecture I had been anticipating the lecture “Climate crisis - Is It Really?” for a couple of weeks. The lecture was being offered in one of the Technion’s engineering departments. The university logo on the announcement offered an...

About Me

Daniel Orenstein is an associate professor in the Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. His research interests include human-nature interactions, environmental issues in Israel and globally, and public engagement in environmental policy. His general interests are much broader.

Contact Me