Douglas Murray

Commentator, critic, journalist.

In the last decade, Douglas Murray has become one of the world’s most popular and heralded cultural commentators; a writer whose works shape the political conversation more than arguably any other of his generation. His 2017 book The Strange Death Of Europe: Immigration, Identity & Islam stoked an eruption in the discourse surrounding the continent’s changing graphies, before The Madness Of Crowds (2019) and The War On The West (2022) achieved similar notoriety on the topics of race, gender and anti-Western revisionism. Since October 7th, Douglas has established himself as one of the West’s fiercest Israel advocates. Today, he is on the precipice of the release of his latest book: On Democracies & Death Cults: Israel & The Future Of Civilization.

Why did we invite him back?

We’ve been lucky enough to be joined by Douglas several times before. Our last interview, published in the weeks following Hamas’ attack on Israel in 2023, went on to be, for a time, the most popular in the history of the channel. 18 months on, we wanted to catch up, see what’s changed, and how recent events inspired him to write his new book, as well as get his thoughts on the long-term response to the massacre. We got that, and we got more.

What did we talk about?

Looking back on October 7th, questions continue to loom. How did Hamas, with its relatively unimpressive resources and unsophisticated skill sets, manage to enact a horrific invasion on Israel, with its enviable military intelligence and substantial Western support?

Douglas explains that there is no one failing that allowed for the attack. Technical blunders, blind spots, but, perhaps most crucially, there was a growing belief that Hamas had outgrown its violent rhetoric. Its leaders now billionaires, the fury that had animated their rise to power had subsided enough to render the terrorist organisation inert. This, we now see, was a fatal error.

”[The belief was that] that Hamas had reached the point many terrorist groups reach where they don’t mind being corrupt and getting on with their lives … living in Qatar in penthouse apartments … There was a perception that the Hamas leadership had stopped believing the ideology, they were happy just being corrupt and rich. That was wrong in the case of Hamas - they really meant it.”

To Konstantin, this mistake illustrates the fundamental difference between Hamas and other, seemingly similar dictatorships. In much of the world, we aspire to have money, success, comfort, and security - once these are achieved, we lose the will to fight. But “these people are billionaires, and they are willing to die.”

Douglas soberly responds: “When they say ‘we love death as much as you love life', they really mean it.”

In the haze of political bluster we’ve seen in the 18 months since, it’s easy to forget what actually happened on that day. Douglas walks us through some of the most harrowing stories of that day. They serve to remind us of the brutality and savagery enacted, to resist patronising those responsible. As Douglas explains, “there were some things they did that were quite clever”, and we must not allow it to happen twice.

Some of the stories Douglas shares are new to us - they likely will be to anyone outside of Israel. Ignorance is forgivable, but deliberately pretending atrocities didn’t occur? That, Douglas has no time for. He spares on mercy for Owen Jones, the fiercely pro-Palestine activist and Guardian writer who cast doubt on some of the claims surrounding that day.

”He comes out of seeing the atrocity videos, and [basically] complains that there’s not enough rape in it … ‘Sorry that the snuff video wasn’t to your liking.’”

Expanding on the subject, he turns his gaze to the protestors and students across the Western world who rose up in opposition to Israel in the wake of the brutality. He notes that protest groups staged their demonstrations mere hours following the massacre, almost as an attempt to have it quickly hushed and assigned to history. But Douglas won’t allow that, and his incisive breakdown of Israel’s critics is as pointed as any you are likely to hear: