In a May 2021 interview, host Dennis Prager speaks with former Israeli ambassador to the United States and historian Michael Oren about the Hamas rocket barrage against Israel and the ensuing Israeli response. Oren explains Hamas’s strategic objectives—gaining prestige on the Palestinian street, bolstering its power base, influencing elections, and leveraging support from Iran and the UN—while noting that Hamas benefits from Israeli retaliation because it fuels propaganda and delegitimizes Israel internationally. He describes Israel’s military approach, emphasizing the use of the Iron Dome, the difficulty of targeting Hamas leaders who hide among civilians, and the effort to conduct “surgical” strikes despite losing the element of surprise. Oren also connects the conflict’s spark to the Sheikh Jarrah housing dispute in East Jerusalem, arguing that a small property‑rights issue cannot justify mass rocket attacks aimed at civilian populations. The conversation frames the Israeli‑Palestinian clash as a series of genocidal wars, highlighting antisemitism’s unique exterminationist character. Oren mentions his personal role in bringing Iron Dome to Israel and reflects on the moral and legal challenges Israel faces, including potential UN Security Council condemnation and Hague court cases. The interview briefly touches on Oren’s perspective on COVID‑19 lockdown policies, though that topic is left for a later segment.
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commentators on Israel, but if I could choose just one, it would be Michael Oren, the former Israeli ambassador to the United States, as well as a renowned historian and now novelist. To all who call in truth. I assume that's from the Psalms, to all who call you in truth, right?
You know, Dennis, you're probably the first person to actually get that reference. A lot of my very Orthodox Jewish friends.
That's interesting.
And yet Jews say that prayer one more time.
Yes, L'chol ha'shaddiq, u'hu behemet. I don't get it.
I'm so impressed.
Oh, thank you. Look, if I impressed Michael Oren, that is, that's a notch in my belt. Listen, this is really— I'm thinking about what you're saying. This is really— there's so many significant things. The part about the Israeli Arab is the one that is most painful to me, as it is to you. So let me ask some other questions about what is going on. What does Hamas believe it is gaining by raining the rockets on Israel and then having the retaliation? In other words, do they think, from what I inferred from you earlier, they are trying to get more votes from the Palestinians should there ever be an election. Do they think that they're gaining in any other way? Are they gaining with Iran? Are they gaining at the UN? What is, what is in it for them?
So much is in it. And almost everything you said and more, if you can believe it, because they gain by shooting rockets at us. And they gain by us firing back at them. The first thing they gain is prestige and stature in the Palestinian street, whether it's going to be election or whether Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority are going to be overthrown by Hamas, as happened in the Gaza Strip in 2006. They're building up that power base. And Hamas won this round. They won the battle for the Temple Mount. They won the battle for Al-Aqsa Mosque. They won the battle for Damascus Gate. And then they fired rockets at Jerusalem. So to liberate Jerusalem, they fired rockets at— that's in the Hamas, you know, weird universe. So they gained through all of that. Then they gained by having us shoot back at them and they hide behind their own civilians. So we have to unfortunately have to hurt civilians in order to get at Hamas leaders, even though we try our best not to. And so, A, we get condemned in the Palestinian and the Arab street. Hamas gets more prestige. We get condemned in the UN, we get condemned in The Hague, so we get delegitimized. And in a way, Hamas uses Iron Dome against us. I'm very proud I helped bring Iron Dome to Israel when I was ambassador. But it's a double-edged sword, Dennis. You know why? Because on our side, we have relatively few casualties. On the Palestinian side, a lot of casualties because they don't have a single bombshell, they don't have a single air raid siren. And that creates disproportionality. And what you're already hearing from the Europeans is the D word— disproportional, disproportionate. That's going to end up being a condemnation in the UN Security Council, going to end up being a court case against us in The Hague. Just watch. So they gain in all these different ways and they don't care how many people get killed on their side. You know, how many houses get blown up as long as their leaders are not touched. And that's what Israel is trying to do now. The only way we can deny victory to them is by killing their leaders. And it's difficult because the leaders are hiding under hospitals.
But they did, I assume you're aware, because I just became aware of one of the Hamas top rocket people got killed. Are you familiar with what I'm saying?
Yes, we've been taking care of several of them because we're finding them. It's not easy.
Yeah.
Again, they're hiding. They're hiding behind their own families.
Right.
And, um, and we want to avoid, uh, inflicting civilian casualties to the greatest degree possible. We warn them in advance that we're going to attack it. By the way, that costs us, uh, tactically. We lose the element of surprise. But we're willing to do that, willing to pay that price. But for us, we're threading a very narrow needle. Because we can't carpet bomb them. I mean, the IDF could destroy half of Gaza in a minute, but we don't do that. So we have to be very surgical, very pinpoint in going after these hooded death squads. The only way we can deny Hamas a victory.
What about the claims that the ultimate origins of this particular battle, war, whatever you want to say, are with regard to some housing issue in East Jerusalem.
Again, we almost need an hour just to talk about the housing issue. This relates to several houses in one neighborhood in Jerusalem, in Sheikh Jarrah. These houses are on Jewish-owned property, and the Arabs who were living on this property illegally, without paying rent, turned down an Israeli court compromise that enabled them to remain on the property if they did pay rent, but they didn't. And what happened to tenants that don't pay rent? Well, guess what? They're going to have to leave. And so this is a small number of families, and there's just no way you could, you could maybe say, oh, this isn't fair. Maybe this doesn't look good. But then how do you justify, how can you possibly use that as a justification for firing hundreds and potentially thousands of rockets at an unarmed civilian population with the singular goal of murdering the maximum number. Okay, we're talking about something that is genocidal, and they have to fall in completely, completely different categories. I mean, I have my own opinion about Sheikh Jarrah, and it's a little controversial, so I gotta speak especially— you're going to agree with me on this one, Dennis. And that is, you know, it's very rare in history when two peoples of two countries go to war for one country to seek the absolute destruction, annihilation of the other. You know, World War II, United States was at war against Japan and Germany, not to wipe Germany and Japan off the map, but to destroy their governments. But the Palestinian Arabs went to war against the Jewish people in the land of Israel not once, but twice, not to change our leadership. They went to war twice to annihilate us, giant genocidal wars. And twice they were defeated in wars that they started. They were defeated. And it seems to me that when you start two genocidal wars, there's got to be a price to be paid. And a few houses in a neighborhood in Jerusalem is not a particularly steep price to pay.
Especially if they don't pay rent. It's almost absurd, the entire thing. Well, look, this is why I wrote a book on antisemitism. Antisemitism a long time ago. The uniqueness is antisemitism is exterminationist. No other ethnic bigotry is exterminationist. That's a big deal. And that's what they want to do to Israel.
You're really hard-pressed to find another war in history that were wars of total annihilation.
Let me ask you another, one other thing that has nothing to do with this. I have no idea what you'll answer. I'm only asking out of respect for you. I have been on the side of the questioners of the lockdown all over the world. I've looked to Sweden as the only sane model. I thought Israel wildly overreacted. And when we come back, I just want to get your opinion, uh, period. Whatever you say, I will respect. Back in a moment, former Israeli ambassador to the United States Michael Oren.
