Douglas Murray is a British journalist, political commentator, associate editor at The Spectator, and an international bestselling author. His award-winning titles include "The War on the West" (2022) and "The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity" (2019). He regularly appears in international media to discuss his views and reports from the ground on regional conflicts.
Murray has covered several wars, including the Russian invasion of Ukraine. For the last few months, he’s been in Israel, closely covering the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. Israel launched Operation Swords of Iron following Hamas’ atrocious Oct. 7 terror attack in which over 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were brutally killed, and some 250 were abducted as hostages.
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In between talking with the families of Israeli hostages and survivors from the Nova music festival, which was attacked on Oct. 7, Murray sat down with The Media Line’s Aaron Poris in Tel Aviv.
The following is a transcript of that conversation.
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British journalist Douglas Murray, pictured here in Gaza, has spent the last several weeks in Israel covering the war with Hamas in Gaza
(Photo: Moshe Mizrachi)
Thank you so much for joining me. Douglas, you’ve been here in Israel for a little over two months now, covering the Israel-Hamas war, following the atrocities of October 7. Why do you think you’ve had the access that you’ve had? Many journalists would be quite jealous to be in your shoes given your meetings with the people you’ve spoken with and the places you’ve gone…
Douglas Murray: I don’t know, I’ve been here trying to cover the story in the round, which includes on-the-ground reporting and interviews with political figures, soldiers, families of hostages, and others. I don’t know if my access is unique, but I just try to get the story in the round.
As a non-Jew, why do you think you’re so driven by the Israel-Palestinian conflict?
Douglas Murray: Well, I don’t like lies. That’s one thing. I don’t like lies in particular when they’re huge lies being told in front of my face. And I think there are a lot of lies told about this conflict, this region… and I’ve seen them all my life and in multiple conflicts involving Israel. It’s the same this time. It always falls into the same pattern. The Israelis are accused of doing things they haven’t done, and Israel’s opponents are said not to have done things that they have done. And so, it’s very important to be able to see first hand and on the ground what actually happened.
It doesn’t mean you can stop the sort of Holocaust denial in real time, which I think is going on at the moment in much of the Western media, and certainly Arab media. But you can do something to hold back the lies.
I also think that, in general, I’ve covered a lot of conflicts. I was in Ukraine last year, and I’ve covered many others as well. But there’s something about conflicts involving Israel that I find especially galvanizing. I suppose for two reasons: One is that I feel it strongly for reasons I can’t quite put my finger on. The attempts to existentially wipe out the Jewish State is not something I can sit back and watch. And secondly, I’m always struck by the way in which people who seem totally demotivated or unmotivated to raise their voice about all sorts of terrible things around the world, suddenly get all chatty when it involves anything to do with Israel. And I think there’s something very [deep] whenever there’s something to do with Israel. I think there’s something very deep going on in that.
You’ve interviewed quite extensively in international media, particularly in Europe. Do you think that most of – even many of – the interviewers lack the knowledge to approach the subject with nuance?
Douglas Murray: Almost everyone lacks knowledge, particularly today. We have this amazing tool, the Internet, which gives you lots of information. But it doesn’t give you wisdom or context for things. Most European journalists and British journalists look at anything involving Israel and they look for maybe 12 hours at, for example, an atrocity like October 7—and then they immediately go onto: “What will the Israeli retaliation be, and how can we immediately condemn them for overreacting?” And that’s the normal cycle in every conflict involving Israel.
A barrage of rockets comes from Gaza or Lebanon. Israel responds. And everyone goes into whether Israel over-responded. That’s the game the Western media plays because they don’t really understand any of the wider context, and they also enjoy being able to accuse the Israeli state of doing things it hasn’t done; which for all sorts of psychological reasons involving Europeans in particular, they want to indulge in. It’s a pattern.
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British journalist Douglas Murray with Israeli President Isaac Herzog in Jerusalem, Israel, Dec. 7, 2023.
(Photo: Moshe Mizrachi)
Add to that that most people just don’t know anything about anything. I’m not being supercilious when I say that. You know, there are schoolchildren being urged to leave their lessons in order to protest for Palestine or against Israel in European countries, America, Britain… and if you look at average literacy scores, or average numeracy scores in state after state in the U.S., you’ll see that almost half in places like New York state do not leave school with anything more than basic literacy and basic numeracy. So, people in Israel are expecting an awful lot if they think these people also understand everything that’s happened since 1948, let alone before.
There are huge knowledge gaps, and I find them all the time. I’m quite often confronted by someone telling me something about the horrors of Gaza and the terrible fence and walled in people… and if I say then, “Join me in calling on the Egyptian government to tear down the wall…”, they look at me as if… they don’t even know that there’s a border between Egypt and Gaza. We have our streets in the West filled with people, young and old, chanting about rivers and seas when they don’t know the name of the river, and they couldn’t point to the sea on a map. So, it’s expecting a bit much for them to be able to unlock the key to a two-state solution, for instance.
Let’s talk more about the current war directly. You’ve spoken to many of the hostages’ families if not many of the hostages themselves, and there’s been widespread speculation that Gazans working in southern Israeli communities were connected, possibly even directly [to the Oct. 7 attacks]...
Douglas Murray: That’s not a rumor. It’s true. Many of the kibbutzim near Gaza were populated by people who, among others, wanted peace with their Palestinian neighbors. They pushed for more people from Gaza to be allowed work permits to enter Israel. And in fact, just as the Oct. 7 atrocities happened, there was meant to be an increase in the number of Palestinians from Gaza being given permission to come through the Erez Crossing and work in Israel. And lots of people in these kibbutzim were arguing for that.
In a number of those places, I’ve heard and seen myself firsthand the evidence that the Palestinians who worked on these kibbutzim helped Hamas draw up a door-by-door key to the kibbutz – a map of the kibbutz – that would, for instance, identify where the head of security of the kibbutz was, and lived. And then that allowed Hamas to go straight in and kill him and his family first, and then go door to door around everywhere else. There’s plenty of evidence of that already. It’s not a rumor. It’s a very, very unsavory fact. I think that a lot of Israelis will have learned something, a very savage lesson from that ... the worst lesson possible. I wonder if the rest of the world will notice.
I know the story that you have brought, the evidence that you’re referring to... that there were maps found on many of the [Hamas] fighters that really could only have been drawn up with some sort of insider information. Have you heard anything from somebody saying that... a positive identification or anything like that? Any serious allegations against Gazan workers who were directly involved during the atrocities themselves?
Douglas Murray: Yes, Yeah. I was speaking to somebody this morning where that was the case with his family. They had somebody who worked with them, who they danced with, became friendly with... and the only way that Hamas knew what they did about their family was because of this person. So, everyone who thinks that the Israelis just have to double down on the peace deal and everything will bloom into flowers is wildly ignorant.
The United States is facing a serious problem with its own borders at the moment. Many politicians are concerned with who to let in. You’ve spoken and you’ve researched this topic extensively. How do you feel that the United States, and indeed the world, should be approaching that issue?
Douglas Murray: Mass migration is the big story of the 21st century. It’s a massive challenge. And mass illegal migration in particular. My view is that the problems of the world cannot be solved by the developing world moving to the developed world. Otherwise, the developed world will simply more greatly resemble the developing world.
Migration... there are only three things that matter in migration. There is speed, numbers and identity. We don’t know because it’s not an exact science ... We don’t know what speed works to be able to absorb people into society. We don’t know what numbers lead to a society being overwhelmed. And we don’t really want to talk about which identities are better at integrating than not. So, all three of these things are ... We know the three factors. Everyone has studied this, but nobody knows the numbers or is willing to talk about the details.
My suspicion is that this will roll on in America, as in Europe, for a very long time to come. The question, at some point, is what is the general public’s own ability to accept this failure of the political class to simply enforce the borders? I don’t like borders, but then there’s lots of things I don’t like. Just because you don’t particularly like something doesn’t mean it’s not necessary. And I’m afraid you either have a border or you don’t, and if you don’t have a border, you don’t have a country. What’s more, particularly in Europe’s case, is you have to realize that if you have a welfare state, you can have a welfare state or open borders, but you can’t have open borders and the welfare state.
In particular, I’ve heard you speak about the UK importing people from Hamas. Can you speak about that?
Douglas Murray: Yeah, we have quite a number of prominent Hamas leaders who’ve been given the right to be in the UK or even be made citizens. There’s one in particular called Muhammad Sawalha. He’s a former military commander in the West Bank of Hamas. He lives in North London. He bought his flat with a very large cash deposit. I wonder where that came from. ... He managed to get British citizenship in the 2000s. I’ve been calling on the British government for some time to revoke his citizenship. I think he should be deported. I don’t want to live in the same country as him.
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Douglas Murray looks at a table with shoes, purses, and other belongings left behind by festivalgoers who were murdered by Hamas at the Nova Music Festival, at an exhibit at the Tel Aviv Expo center, Dec. 7, 2023.
(Photo: Moshe Mizrachi)
He also, of course, lied to the authorities, because when you sign to agree for citizenship in the UK, you have just agreed that you’re a person of good standing, and I would submit that a former military leader of Hamas who is still a very prominent figure in Hamas and is currently, I think, in Turkey, is not a suitable person. I think we should say that he lied on his application and we must deport him.
What do you think people like him intend when they make the move to places like [the UK], is it to better their own lives? Or are they in a sense coming as a foreign agent of Hamas, as an agent of Hamas to undermine in some way?
Douglas Murray: Both of those things. I mean, people like him, of course, as you said, they undermine society. They organize protests, they organize pressure groups, they get people to protest outside Parliament, they get people to make claims of Islamophobia. They get people to pretend that they are the suffering party and that the Jews are oppressing them and much more. And then they will accuse the British of colonialism; they’ll talk about, in America, they will talk about slavery, and they’ll just muddy the waters a lot, and they will try to demoralize the host society. But I see no reason why we should tolerate that.
Speaking of demoralization and antisemitism by extension of this war, which we’ve seen massive rates of antisemitism exploding across Western countries, particularly on college campuses. There was a recent congressional hearing with the presidents of MIT, Harvard, and...
Douglas Murray: I noticed...
You noticed. Well, what do you make of the testimony where they said that it was “context-dependent” on whether or not it violated their rules when people call for the genocide of Jews?
Douglas Murray: Well, I mean, the obvious thing was, the first thing that came to my mind was I wonder if these three university presidents would have said the same thing if it was people calling for murder of all black people ... or the slaughter of all people who are trans.
It can be argued, however, for the example of Penn – I know that I believe the president of Penn has resigned since…
Douglas Murray: They discovered there are consequences...
That said, the argument made by the presidents was that they defer to the state law.
Douglas Murray: No. The argument made by the presidents was the argument of covering their own asses. The reason why they were smirking, particularly [Mary Elizabeth] Magill from Penn, the reason they were smirking was because they knew how ridiculous what they were saying was. These aren’t stupid women. They knew how ridiculous it was to be asked: “Will you condemn calls for genocide?” and for them to fall back on this legalistic answer. But they were reading out the legalistic answer because they’re trying to cover their own backsides. And specifically, they’re trying to cover themselves from future litigation by students or any outside bodies. So they read these things out.
I said to a friend after listening to the hearing, I said: “They all remind me of ChatGPT” and my friend said, “Well, let’s try the same questions that the congressmen and women asked of the heads of these three universities ... Let’s ask the same question to ChatGPT.” So we did. And the answers that ChatGPT gave were much more morally sound than the heads of Harvard, Penn, or MIT.
Well, did you give ChatGPT the position that it needs to protect itself from litigation?
Douglas Murray: No, No. But if you just asked, you know, “Is it acceptable to call for genocide?” ChatGPT says in most ethical systems it is agreed genocide is not a good thing. You shouldn’t call for it. The president of Harvard couldn’t get that sentence out. What I’m saying is, of course, that AI is more moral than the president of Harvard.
Speaking of calls for ethnic cleansing or accusations of ethnic cleansing, there’s an argument against Israel in Gaza. Two million Palestinians are now refugees. What do you make of those arguments? And where do you think their future lies?
Douglas Murray: Well, I’m sorry that Hamas has made this future for them. They ought not to have voted for Hamas in 2006. That’d be a good place to start.
Well, they voted for Hamas to have a plurality of the vote, but Hamas took the rest in a coup.
Douglas Murray: Absolutely. But then you have to ask why they voted them in. Why did they let Hamas get away with the coup? Why were the Fatah Palestinians murdered and paraded through the streets by Hamas? And why [is it] Hamas never had another election?
You’ve got to ask why when Israel tore Jewish families from Gaza in 2005 and handed over Gaza to the Palestinians, the Gazans trashed everything that was left behind. And you’ve got to ask them why the tens of billions of dollars that countries like America, the EU, Britain and others handed to the Hamas authorities seem to have gone into the pocket of Ismail Haniyeh and company. It massively enriched him and the other heads of Hamas. But why? Why has the situation for Gazans been so bad?
So, all of this stuff Hamas ... to my mind ... it could have all been completely different. It could have all been completely different. I remember there was some optimism, not much but some optimism, among Israelis and even in Washington at the time of the 2005 withdrawal and, you know, a hope that a sort of Palestinian state would be created. The claim that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza is one of the most outrageous calumnies, not least, of course, because it’s provably stupid as a claim because of course, the population of Gaza has risen by about a million since the Israeli withdrawal. So either it’s a total lie or the Israelis are trying to commit genocide in Gaza but are the worst genocidists ever and actually increased the populations of places they’re trying to commit genocide in. And so none of that makes any sense.
And as for the allegation that they’re ethnic cleansing? No, I mean, I’ve been in Gaza and seen with my own eyes – they [Israelis] are trying to find the heads of Hamas and kill them, which is a completely legitimate aim. And secondly, they tried to get the hostages that Hamas stole from their families on the 7th of December [sic, October]. That’s why this is happening. And Hamas could have a cease-fire tomorrow if it handed over the hostages.
If we draw a parallel between the citizens of Gaza who voted for Hamas, and the citizens of Germany who voted for the Nazi Party, it doesn’t incriminate, per se, the citizens of Germany. Are they not still worthy of human rights that are afforded to them, and self-determination?
Douglas Murray: Well, we didn’t take that view in World War II. We didn’t take that view at all. When [Arthur] Bomber Harris came up with a campaign to demoralize the German population, it was deliberately to target civilian centers. When the order was given by Winston Churchill to bomb Dresden, it’s said that his ... that late in the night or the early morning, his aide came into his office, and Mr. Churchill said, “And what of Dresden?” and the reply came: “There is no Dresden, Mr. Prime Minister.” Well, that’s what happens in war. That’s what happens in total war.
Now, the Israelis don’t do that. They could carpet-bomb Gaza tomorrow. They could drop a nuclear device on Gaza tomorrow if they didn’t care at all. But they don’t do that. They risk their own soldiers. They risk these young men and women every day, house by house, every house, in order not to do that. And I think the inability or unwillingness of many people outside to realize what the Israeli way of war is, is preposterous. And in any case, the last time that we had a major intervention in this area, which wasn’t even very major, but the destruction of ISIS in the 2010s—Britain and France and America and the other NATO and Allied powers decided we had to destroy ISIS because they were sending people to kill people in our own countries, among other things.
What was the bombing campaign on Raqqa [in Syria]? What of Mosul [in Iraq]? Well, among other things, we don’t know. We don’t even know how many civilians were killed. We don’t know what the proportion was of civilian-to-ISIS [deaths]. But that’s because there weren’t cameras all over the place. And everybody agreed that we couldn’t live with ISIS. Well, Israel has decided it can’t live with Hamas. And I think that’s a perfectly reasonable conclusion to arrive at. So, you have to destroy Hamas. And all these problems have been brought on the people of Gaza by Hamas.
There has been a great connection drawn between UNRWA and Hamas. But as of today, UNRWA is the UN’s refugee agency for the Palestinians. And as we just discussed, whether they voted for Hamas or not, there are now upwards of 2 million newly made refugees within Gaza…
Douglas Murray: Displaced people...
Displaced people. Correct. Where do you see UNRWA’s role?
Douglas Murray: UNRWA’s role? These UN agencies are totally compromised. I wrote about this this week in The Spectator, and it’ll be published in the Daily Mail on Sunday. But look, the UN has always had a problem with Israel since it set it up; since it voted for the creation of the state in 1947. And of course, the creation of a Palestinian state. The Palestinians refused and rejected [a state] in favor of statelessness and war. But that aside, certainly since 1967, and ‘73 in particular, the United Nations has been very anti-Israel; and of course, there are things like the 1975 Resolution 3379, that “Zionism is Racism” resolution where that great hero of human rights, Idi Amin, led the condemnation of Israel at the United Nations; and of course, had a party thrown for him and the other successful people who have smeared the Israeli state at the United Nations, they had a great party thrown for him by Kurt Waldheim, formerly of the [Nazi] SS. So...
It [the resolution] was rescinded later…
Douglas Murray: It was rescinded later, but it’s [the UN] not the most Israel-friendly entity. And that’s partly because you have a lot of Muslim states and other sorts of partners, and non-aligned states and revolutionary states and others who just sort of want to poke the West or who are just racist countries.
And the UN’s agencies as you can see from the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, it’s a laughingstock. Just last month, Iranians were given the chairmanship of one of the human rights bodies. They didn’t actually kill any woman for not wearing a hijab during the session. But anybody who knows what the Iranian government does should know how preposterous it is to have them in charge of any human rights body. UNRWA, UNICEF ... all these organizations have been totally compromised.
And by the way, even I, as cynical as I am of the United Nations having seen them in action in many places – it isn’t to say they don’t sometimes do good work. Some parts of the UN inevitably do. But if you’d ever told me until the past week that a UN employee will have a Jewish hostage in their attic in Gaza, I would have thought: “That’s a bit strong.” Yet here we are. One of the returning hostages testifies that it was a UN official that had them in their house. Not good, is it?
Why do you think that the United States, which has been paying the lion’s share of UNRWA’s funding, continues to do so?
Douglas Murray: Because it looks like a good thing to do. Because they’re lazy. I think the Trump administration was right in defunding many of these bodies. But it’s the same reason why, you know, (U.S. Secretary of State Antony) Blinken and company can, with a straight face, say, you know, “What Hamas did on the 7th of October is terrible and that’s why we need to double down on a two-state solution.” That’s something you do if you don’t know what else to do... If you’re too lazy to accept the reality of what is on the ground.
The United States did veto a UN resolution essentially calling for an end ... for a cease-fire…
Douglas Murray: They called for a cease-fire without concomitant dedication to demanding that Hamas release the hostages. It’s been reported as if the United States is against cease-fires, and therefore the United States is against peace. No. One of the many problems with the resolution was it wouldn’t even call for the return of the hostages.
And don’t forget, again, this is the United Nations, who, within a month of the massacres, did have a vote put forward to try to condemn the Hamas atrocities of the 7th of October; the UN would not do that. And when the announcement came in the chamber in New York that there would not be a condemnation of Hamas, the chamber of the United Nations burst out into whoops of applause. So...
In your best estimation to the end of this conflict... What does the best outcome look like?
Douglas Murray: Best outcome is that there’s no more Hamas.
But realistically?
Douglas Murray: I’m saying that’s the best outcome. Maybe it’s realistic, maybe it isn’t. Maybe it, say, would be done in two months, or say it could be done in eight months. All I know is that Israelis cannot live beside Hamas. And anyone who demands a cease-fire until Hamas is destroyed or has no ability to govern Gaza is not being serious about this. No Israeli can live beside Hamas, just like no Jew can live beside a Nazi. No black family should be expected to live beside an active wing of the KKK. It’s totally intolerable. Totally intolerable.
Do you think that the war effort has had a positive net effect so far?
Douglas Murray: Well, it clearly has. It massively depleted Hamas’ resources. It’s significantly reduced rocket fire into Israel. I mean, Hamas has run out of everything other than rockets by their own claims.
You could argue that in the process, they’ve created more Hamas members.
Douglas Murray: You could do, but then whenever anyone makes that argument, you fall into a circular logic, which is you cannot fight against terrorism, or you will create terrorism. So, what do you do? Lie back and put your legs up?