Raoul Wootliff, at The Blogs

Raoul Wootliff

Mar 8, 2026, 12:32 AM

Is the aim of the attack on Iran deterrence? Regime change? Liberation? How can Israel win the battle if its goal is not clearly defined?

Sep 9, 2025, 4:25 PM

The October 7 War: Remember, Remember Not

There is a moment in 1948: Remember, Remember Not when the film’s basic wager becomes clear: if you stitch together the words people wrote while Israel’s formative history was taking place – brief unvarnished lines from letters and diaries,...

Sep 5, 2025, 11:55 AM

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Unilateral folly, again

On this 700th day, Netanyahu's threat of annexation condemns Israel to a pattern of delusion and inevitable disaster, just when it needs to do better

Aug 4, 2025, 8:53 AM

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Who cares if they say it’s genocide?

"Stop The Genocide, Free Palestine" rally in Helsinki, Finland, October 21, 2023. (Wikimedia Commons CC BY 2.0)

The question for Israelis is not whether we are heroically fighting terrorism or committing the world’s worst crime. That's a false binary

Jul 25, 2025, 1:11 PM

They waited. And they are still waiting

They waited in line for food.For the queue to thin.For the trucks to arrive.For the bags not to be empty.For the bread not to be rotten.For the line to hold. They waited for water.For the tap to drip.For the barrel...

Jun 22, 2025, 4:41 PM

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The silence after the sirens

The scene where a ballistic missile fired from Iran hit and caused damage in Tel Aviv, June 16, 2025. (Erik Marmor/Flash90)

It's a single, piercing note of purpose. No nuance. No ambiguity. No past, no future. Just now. Just them and us. Just clarity.

Jun 16, 2025, 4:12 PM

What we must be asking about the war with Iran

Israel’s strike last week on hundreds of Iranian targets was stunning in its scale, precision, and clarity of message. Nuclear enrichment sites, missile factories, IRGC headquarters, and senior military scientists were all hit in a single coordinated wave. The...

May 27, 2025, 4:53 PM

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What we did, and why

A Palestinian walks past destroyed residential buildings damaged by the Israeli air and ground offensive in Bureij, central Gaza Strip, January 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

We were told victory was, finally, just around the corner. We were told total victory meant total destruction.

May 18, 2025, 4:35 PM

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Paradox lost

Israeli demonstrators are seen through Israel's national flag during a protest against plans by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government to overhaul the judicial system, in Caesarea, Israel, March 17, 2023. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

Our tradition never taught us to mistake power for righteousness. The Torah calls not for blind allegiance, but for moral accounting.

Apr 6, 2025, 10:41 AM

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Israel tariffs wreck the US trade model, along with Netanyahu’s economic legacy

View of the Tel Aviv skyline in a dense sandstorm, September 08, 2015. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)

The economic model Netanyahu championed is now being dismantled by the very man he helped normalize and legitimize on the world stage

About Me

Raoul Wootliff is head of strategic communications at an international strategic, research and communications consultancy. He was formerly the Times of Israel's political correspondent and producer of the TOI Daily Briefing podcast.