Daniel Orenstein, at The Blogs

Apr 21, 2026, 2:03 PM

Not flying the flag this Independence Day

"Revenge will not bring security". Haifa, Israel. 2024. (Source: the author.)

I've long been a proud immigrant, but while Israelis terrorize Palestinians in the West Bank and the government tolerates the crimes, I cannot celebrate my country

Jan 2, 2026, 6:48 PM

The Morning Commute Relationship Worth Saving

A sustainable relationship? (Photo credit: the author and ChatGPT).

It was a clear July morning. I ran downstairs and across the street to the bus stop. I missed it. I was one minute late for the scheduled pick-up on bus 33. Or maybe the bus never came. Or...

Dec 21, 2025, 11:40 PM

Jews, please think before you click

Professor Nuno Loureiro, z"l (photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)

The Jewish community in general, and the Zionists among them in particular, are understandably high-strung right now. Political opposition to Israel and intellectual opposition to Zionism have morphed with old-school, publicly displayed antisemitism and progressive doctrinairism to create the...

Dec 8, 2025, 2:46 PM

Israeli academia is in a maelstrom. This is how we can move forward

Israeli academia is simultaneously one of the strongest research communities in the world - and one of the most vulnerable. That contradiction is not accidental; it is the product of five interacting crises. My perspective on this contradiction comes...

Nov 21, 2025, 7:21 PM

Emigration? It’s Not the Missiles

Israelis are leaving, but not because of missiles or terror. External threats have always been part of our reality, and Israelis have always risen to meet them. What drives this exodus is not war: it is the sense that...

Jun 9, 2025, 4:32 PM

Flying Blind: The Cost of Israel’s War Without a Trusted Media

Screenshot of the Channel 12 evening news. Only sanctioned discourse in the news. (Photo credit: The author)

For the past twenty months, Israelis have lived through a devastating war, one that has touched every home and shaken our collective sense of security. Twenty living hostages and nearly thirty dead hostages are still held in Hamas’s tunnels....

May 17, 2025, 11:09 PM

Fragmented Truths: Israel, Gaza, and Responsibility

I used to get angry when people abroad – actors, professors, politicians – condemned Israel’s military actions. I saw hypocrisy, selective outrage, and a refusal to acknowledge Palestinian culpability. I believed they ignored the complex truths Israelis face every...

Jun 19, 2024, 3:28 PM

A supportive word for Israeli research students…

Dear Israeli graduate students and young researchers, Its summer time, and many of you will be traveling soon to present your research in international conferences and workshops. Congratulations! This is one of the most important aspects of your academic career,...

Jan 1, 2024, 3:50 AM

The year we defended our values and ourselves

"A little bit of light disperses a lot of darkness"

I’m not a big flag-waver. Nor do I like marching. And I’m not particularly good at demonstrating. I don’t like large crowds shouting slogans in unison – regardless of what they are shouting. For me, something about those activities...

Oct 26, 2023, 6:20 PM

Using maps to whitewash a massacre

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...

About Me

Daniel Orenstein is a professor in the Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. His research interests include human-nature interactions, transformative change for socio-ecological sustainability, and environmental policy. His general interests are much broader.

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