https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/06/08/anti-semitism-is-an-early-warning-siren-for-a-sickness-in-society/
Has the West failed the moral test of 7 October 2023? From the moment news emerged that Hamas terrorists were tearing through southern Israel, butchering, raping and kidnapping civilians, a sizeable proportion of Westerners, including among the elites, failed to understand what was at stake. Here was a Western liberal democracy under attack by an army of Islamist anti-Semites, hell-bent on the destruction of the Jewish State. Yet every attempt by Israel to defend itself has been cast as an act of unjustified aggression – or worse, an attempt at genocide. Instead of inspiring solidarity, the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust fuelled a wave of anti-Semitism across much of the West, with self-described progressives at the forefront. Jihadism marched under the banner of social justice.
Douglas Murray’s new book, On Democracies and Death Cults: Israel, Hamas and the Future of the West, looks at how we got here, the real meaning of 7 October and how we should respond. This week, he joined spiked’s Brendan O’Neill on his podcast, The Brendan O’Neill Show, to discuss all this and more. You can watch the whole thing here.
Brendan O’Neill: At what moment after 7 October did you know the West had lost its mind?
Douglas Murray: There was a very specific moment on 8 October, which I describe in the book. I saw a pro-Hamas demonstration taking place in Times Square. At that time, the massacre was still ongoing in the south of Israel. Yet here were hundreds of people in New York, all celebrating and waving placards saying things like ‘by any means necessary’. I just thought, what is happening?
Of course, it’s possible to favour the creation of a Palestinian state. But why would you choose the moment when Hamas’s massacre is still going on to support the people doing the killing? This was before Israel had even done anything in response. I knew something had gone wildly wrong, and that I had better gear up. I realised too that we were about to enter an era of denial. Of hearing statements like ‘it didn’t happen’ and ‘it would be good if it did happen’ spoken simultaneously.
O’Neill: Did it make you think we were in more trouble in the West than you had initially believed?
Murray: Yes. It occurred to me that there is something about the Israelis in the minds of some of the general public which makes them uniquely undeserving of empathy. Survivors of the Nova festival – young people who were dancing in the early hours of the morning, and who were set upon by Hamas terrorists, massacred and raped – are treated wherever they go as if they themselves are the culprits. It’s totally different from the way in which Britain remembers things like the Manchester Arena bombing of 2017. We would be amazed and horrified if two young women who had survived the suicide bombing at the Ariana Grande concert travelled elsewhere in the world and were treated as if they’d done it. Nobody would tolerate that. But for some reason, the Israelis are uniquely undeserving of understanding.
