On Democracies and Death Cults, a Review of Douglas Murray’s Book on the Conflict in Israel
Murray spends a year and a half in Israel and Gaza, delivering first hand experiences in this war with existential consequences for Western Civilization
We love life and they love death.
I came away from reading Douglas Murray’s book, On Democracies and Death Cults, thinking that this is an accurate statement to describe what Western Civilization is fighting when faced with what Hamas is doing. And I purposefully use “we” instead of Israel because it is framed as not just Israel’s fight, but a fight for our civilization as well. A sort of proxy or dress rehearsal as seen by those who are supporting Hamas financially or in words.
That’s the predicament. Fighting a force that has such an incredibly different framework for how they see humanity makes the rules your civilization plays by something for them to exploit.
Interestingly enough, Douglas Murray, a self-described atheist, refers to a Bible verse in describing the posture Jewish culture takes towards the world. Deuteronomy 30:19 states that “This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live.”
This theme towards life is consistently woven throughout the Bible from creation in Genesis onwards, and it is evident in the disparity between how humanity is viewed prior to and after the spread of these ideas. “Now choose life, so that you and your children may live” and God creating a world that is repeatedly described as “good” stands in stark contrast to the view of life that Hamas preaches and acts upon.
Long before a discussion about the intricate details of who did what to whom and when, there is an underlying philosophy of humanity that precedes any action taken now or then. That is what I see Murray pointing towards which is a better and deeper framework for this conflict. How can any agreement be made between two groups who have such fundamentally different views of life and death?
When leaders of a group proudly and publicly state their intentions to use their civilian population as human shields and propaganda in order to gain public sentiment for the destruction of Israel and its people, that is not choosing life. It’s not as if they are even using this inhumane and evil tactic to get attention in order to force peace onto the land. For them, peace is only achieved if and when there are no more Jews to kill. To deny that this is their intention is to ignore their own words and actions. So first, Murray rightly takes them at their word.
Hence the title of Murray’s book, On Democracies and Death Cults. This is not simply a far off war that needs a ceasefire so we can all move on. It is a preview to a battle of civilizations. This is why the leaders of this movement refer to Israel as the little Satan and the United States as the big Satan. For them, battling Israel is a step towards a larger civilizational conflict. It is a dress rehearsal.
“one must deter the enemy or any future enemy from trying to achieve their aims in a similar way.” — pg. 72
It’s easy to understand not wanting to support a conflict that produces so much death and destruction. But this quote above helped me start to piece together why Murray believes Westerners should support Israel’s efforts to destroy Hamas and its chances at any type of victory.
Once Israel stops, it gives Hamas a victory. It is telling Hamas that their tactics will work. It is telling the rest of the world that this tactic will work against any Western Civilization they wish to destroy. It’s a small experiment that will give the keys to our destruction to any enemy across the world.
Once we decide that we will not fight and win against enemies who massacre civilians, kidnap our people, then hide behind their own innocent civilians, we essentially tell them how to destroy us. We tell them that our respect and love of life is our Achille’s heel that they may exploit to our own detriment.
We tell them that our desire to maintain our civilization is less than their desire to destroy it.
The facts on the ground and how we discuss this issue are also important. Murray goes into several key ideas that reveal and expose numerous double standards that only apply to this conflict and Jews in particular. I’ll briefly outline one that I found compelling.
Apartheid
I’ve heard this claim that Israel is an apartheid state shouted not only at protests but from otherwise intelligent people in my life, which tells me it’s not just street fanatics. But for both of these parties, defining apartheid and then pointing to it in Israel quickly demolishes that claim.
Apartheid is “a policy or system of segregation or discrimination on grounds of race.” Policy is the key word here. It’s like Jim Crow laws in America’s south after slavery that put into law rules based on race. But nothing of the kind exists in Israel. In fact, compared to Arab run countries or areas, Israel is the most diverse and equal country in the area, especially as compared to Gaza where no Jews live or are allowed to live.
“Tell me what you accuse the Jews of, and I’ll tell you what you’re guilty of.” — Vasily Grossman
In this supposed apartheid state, Murray points out that the non-Jewish population in 1948, the year of Israel’s independence, was 156,000. By 2024, it had grown seventeen fold to 2,653,000. This is a really weird way to “ethnically cleanse” non-Jews in a supposed apartheid state. And no policy in Israel exists that gives Jews and non-Jews different rights. Everyone gets the same civil rights for housing and healthcare, which is largely supplied by non-Jews.
Murray also points to data published in 2021 that reveals Arabs and Druze, who make up only twenty percent of Israel’s population, have forty-six percent of all medical licenses, make up half of all nurses and more than half of all dentists. An Arab, Khaled, Kabul is currently on the Israeli Supreme Court, and they have their own Arab Muslim party in parliament.
Arabs in Israel serve on the IDF, many of them running to stop the massacres of October 7th, and they make up a significant part of the national soccer team.
Now this doesn’t mean there is never any racism or inequality to point to, but that is very different than apartheid. Apartheid does not provide free healthcare and equal rights to people who make up half of your healthcare staff and protect your borders with more than four hundred mosques at which you can practice your faith.
Introspection
When people lie about something that is so easily falsifiable, it makes me wonder what else is going on in their thought process. What is the motivation? And maybe that’s why they are so aggressive. The aggression is a substitute for truth.
We tend to think that we gather facts and create ideas based on those facts. But that’s not how our minds work. We have ideas we gather from our cultures and overall environments, then we use introspection (some of us, sometimes) to examine those ideas. Because we see those ideas as part of our identity, we tend to preserve those ideas with facts that fit the things we already think.
So, for the most part, it’s probable that people accepting such easily falsifiable claims already had it in their mind that there was a right side to be on and then uncritically latched onto any idea that supported their previously held conclusion.
We have to expect this process of all of us. That’s how our minds work. All I would ask is that we agree to open our minds to information we did not previously have, and soften the manner in which we examine it. Remember that your ideas are not you, and the death of bad ideas can hurt, but is redemptive.
Murray’s book was full of this type of information. Spending two years in Israel, interviewing victims, their families, and even meeting some of the perpetrators of the October 7th massacre brings a very personal and first hand account of this horrible and monstrous attempt at genocide.
Israel was created in order for the Jewish people to protect themselves in a world that has repeatedly failed to protect them. That genocidal ethos created and perpetrated by the Nazis found its way into the hearts and minds of their neighbors while it was nearly extinguished in the rest of Europe.
Murray draws the distinct and straight line from the Nazis, to Haj Amin al-Husseini who met with Hitler and promised to assist in the extinguishing of Jews in the Middle-East in order that Hitler would have no territorial claim on Arab lands. Then to the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan al-Banna who praised Mein Kampf and Haj Amin’s return to Arab lands as a hero, and Yasser Arafat, who lead the PLO and proudly claimed to be a relative of al-Husseini.
We thought we extinguished the Nazi ethos in World War II, but it lives on and has festered and is spreading throughout the conflict zone and in the minds of many Westerners who think they are fighting the exact opposite.
Murray convincingly puts forth that this conflict is much more than a tit for tat argument over who did what to whom and when. The posture with which we approach it could determine how and if the West as a whole will act, if and when faced with a similar challenge.
Will we fight for our civilization, or will we wilt in the face of this existential challenge to our love of life?
Very well laid out and thought-provoking. Thank you for this snapshot of Murray's book and the powerful message of warning.