On Democracies and Death Cults: Israel, Hamas and the Future of the West by Douglas Murray (2025); Harper Collins; 240 pages
This book should not be necessary, but it is. Murray asks two questions at the beginning of the book about the world’s response to Islamist terror attacks, such as that of Hamas on Israel on October 7, 2023.
What is the world to do against such groups of death—such cults of death? For many people in the West, the answer seems to be to ignore it or wish it away…I also wondered why the citizens of Israel seemed so unique among victims. Why they seemed to be the only people on earth who, when savagely attacked, either didn’t gain the world’s sympathy or gained it only for a matter of hours—if that.
The deep international isolation of Israel since October 7 is what makes this book necessary. Many in the West have already allowed the memory of the Hamas savagery to fade and be replaced with the consequences of that attack for the people of Gaza. Murray’s book is a graphic reminder of what happened that day and why the Israeli response was and remains necessary.
Witness
Douglas Murray went to Israel soon after the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, and stayed, in his words, “not just to work out what had happened, but to become a witness.” And witness he has been. Witness to the grief of those who lost friends and family in the Hamas massacre. Witness to the suffering of relatives of those taken hostage and, crucially, witness to the concerted fightback against terrorism from the Israeli people. Murray explains why releasing the hostages is so vital to Israelis, and why keeping them is such a powerful weapon for Hamas. Israelis believe, as Murray puts it, that “‘no person shall be left behind… to take hundreds of hostages is to have a strategic advantage over Israel that is incalculable.”
His quest to “work out what happened” took him into Gaza, one of only a few Western journalists allowed to enter. It took him to where the leader of Hamas, Yahya Sinwar, died in the bombed-out city of Rafah, to a top security prison where he looked into the eyes of captured terrorists, to the northern Israeli cities under constant rocket attack from Hezbollah in Lebanon. It took him into the army barracks and kibbutzim where Hamas ran amok on the murderous rampage of October 7. His moving account of what happened at the Nova festival site includes not just the accounts of rape and murder, but also the stories of heroes, often unarmed, rescuing people form the hands of Hamas.
And the heroism and resilience shown by ordinary Israelis is probably the most important element of this book for us non-Israelis to learn from. As Murray says, “In Israel on 7 October, almost every part of the state failed. The intelligence services failed. The military failed. The politicians failed.” But the people did not fail. Israelis suffered a terrible loss on October 7. It was not just the dead, wounded, and kidnapped that hit Israelis so hard, it was a shock to their existential security. Israelis have always had great faith in the Israeli Defence Force (IDF). Before October 7, Israel had not suffered an armed invasion for 50 years, since the Yom Kippur War in 1973. The last internal uprising of Palestinians, or intifada as it is known, was from 2001 to 2005. More Israelis died in one day on October 7 than in the five years of the Intifada. As one man in Kibbutz Magen, where they resisted the Hamas invaders until the IDF arrived, said to me last year, “We thought of the army as our mum and dad, always there to look after us, but not anymore.”
Yet within 15 months of October 7, Israel had rallied to inflict significant damage, not only on Hamas, but also on Hezbollah in Lebanon and on Iran, the main sponsor of Islamist terror in the Middle East. This was made possible by the mobilization of hundreds of thousands of young Israelis into the IDF and support services. Before the war, many older Israelis feared that younger people—who had not experienced war themselves and had been seduced by consumerism and a pacifistic yearning to avoid conflict with their Arab neighbours—would be reluctant to fight when necessary. But as one military veteran put it to Murray, “I owe the younger generation an apology. I thought they had become weak… but I was wrong. They have stepped up. They are magnificent.’’
What we can learn from Israel
We in the West, as Murray points out, have preferred to play down the threat of Islamic terrorism, even when it has led to mass casualties in our own cities. We have seen mass demonstrations against Israel and in support of Hamas on our own streets. Sections of our youth have fallen prey to an ideology that denigrates our own history and elevates “the oppressed” death cult of Hamas against “the colonialist” Israel, the only functioning democracy in the Middle East.
As Murray says, many young people in the West “have a historically low view of the virtues of their own country.” Our support for Israel should begin by challenging this interpretation of our own history as one characterized by colonialism, while standing up for Israel against Hamas. We are entering a new world, the post-1945 state of permanent peace is no longer, and we must be prepared to fight for the defence of our borders, our democracies, and our liberties, as Israel is already. We should be inspired by the example of Israel, and hope, as Murray does,
that Canada, Britain, Europe, Australia and America should be so lucky as to produce a generation of people like Israel has.
If you wish to be inspired and to inspire others, read this book. It is the best and truest account of life in Israel post 7/10 by any non-Israeli.
