Lex Fridman PodcastDouglas Murray: Putin, Zelenskyy, Trump, Israel, Netanyahu, Hamas & Gaza | Lex Fridman Podcast #463
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
155 min read · 31,420 words- 0:00 – 0:24
Episode highlight
- DMDouglas Murray
They end up chanting in front of him, "Viva la muerte." Long live death. They have their counterparts today. They are the people who s- who taunt Americans, Westerners, Israelis and others with lines like, "We love death more than you love life."
- 0:24 – 2:38
Introduction
- LFLex Fridman
The following is a conversation with Douglas Murray, author of The War on the West, The Madness of Crowds, and his new book, On Democracies and Death Cults. We talk about Russia and Ukraine, and about Israel and Gaza. Douglas has very strong views on these topics and he defends them brilliantly and fearlessly. As I always try to do for all topics, I will also talk to people who have different views from Douglas, including on the next episode of this podcast. We live in an era of online discourse where grifters, drama farmers, liars, bots, sycophants and sociopaths roam the vast, beautiful, dark land of the internet. It's hard to know who to trust. I believe no one is in possession of the entire truth, but some are more correct than others, some are insightful and some are delusional. The problem is it's hard to tell which is which unless you use your mind with intellectual humility and with rigor. I recommend you listen to many sources who disagree with each other and try to pick up wisdom from each. Also, I recommend you visit the places in question, as Douglas has, as I have. Or at least talk face-to-face with people who have spent most of their lives living there, whether it's Israel, Palestine, Ukraine or Russia. Let's try together to not be cogs in the machine of outrage, and instead to reach towards reason and compassion. There is no Hitler, Stalin or Mao on the world stage today, plus there are thousands of nuclear weapons ready to fire. Human civilization hangs in the balance. The 21st century is a new geopolitical puzzle all of us are tasked with solving. Let's not mess it up. This is a Lex Fridman podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, dear friends, here's Douglas Murray.
- 2:38 – 6:24
War in Ukraine
- LFLex Fridman
What have you understood about the war in Ukraine from, uh, your visits there? Just looking at the big picture of your understanding of the invasion of February 24th, 2022 and the war in the three years since?
- DMDouglas Murray
Well, I mean, several things. There's, uh, uh, political angles which are forever changing, but on the human level, as, as you know if you visit troops, frontline troops, you have that admiration for people defending their country, defending their homes, defending their families. I'm struck by the way in which that is at a remove from the sort of political noise and the media noise and - and much more. Um, it's very easy to get caught up in the twos and fros of today's news, but, uh, that, to my mind, is - is that's the single thing that struck me most in my visits there, uh, is just, um, the - the people I've met who - who are fighting for a cause which, at that level, is unavoidable, undeniable.
- LFLex Fridman
So the thing that struck you as different from the - the media turmoil is just the reality of war?
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah, of course. I mean, um, you know, p- people who, uh, have either lived under, uh, Russian occupation from invading armies and then come back out into the world having been liberated, as in late 2022. All the people now, when I was most recently there in recent weeks, who were just getting on with their job as soldiers, uh, whilst the world was talking about them.
- LFLex Fridman
When were you there? In early on in this escalated war of '22?
- DMDouglas Murray
Yes. First time was in, uh, I was with the Ukrainian Armed Forces when they retook Kherson, and I was back in recent weeks, and was there when the Trump-Zelenskyy blowup happened. In fact I was with a - I was in a Ukrainian dugout at the front lines when I was watching it.
- LFLex Fridman
How was the morale? How was the way, the content of the conversations you've heard different on the - from the two visits, separated by, I guess, two years?
- DMDouglas Murray
Uh, at one level, uh, I mean, nothing has changed much. Uh, you know, it's a sort of ... It- it's not a- a total standoff because intermittently each side gains territory from the others, but it's - it's not ... I mean, there've been no very significant military gains by either side in the interim period.
- LFLex Fridman
I think, uh, my experience of the - the soldiers, the people of Ukraine early on in the war, there's a intense optimism about the outcomes of the war. There's a sense-
- DMDouglas Murray
Right.
- LFLex Fridman
... that they're going to win.
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
And the definition of what win means was, like, all the territory is going to be won back.
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah. And I certainly, uh, on the front lines facing Crimea, was, uh-
- LFLex Fridman
Right.
- DMDouglas Murray
... became quite familiar with people who thought that the Ukrainians, in late 2022, would even be able to get Crimea back, and that struck me even at the time and I said I- I thought that that was an overreach.
- LFLex Fridman
And, uh, now, I think-... the people, the soldiers, at least in my experience when I visited the second time, are more exhausted. The morale-
- DMDouglas Murray
Hmm.
- LFLex Fridman
... the dreams, the certainty of victory has, has maybe faded from the forefront of their minds.
- DMDouglas Murray
Well, three years of war will tire out anyone.
- 6:24 – 20:54
Trump and Zelenskyy
- DMDouglas Murray
- LFLex Fridman
What did you think of the blow-up between Zelensky and Trump as you're, uh, sitting there in the dugout?
- DMDouglas Murray
Well, it is, huh, it was a very, uh, disturbing place to watch it from, perhaps anywhere would have been. Um... And... I mean, obviously it was a meeting that shouldn't have happened, it was far too early.
- LFLex Fridman
Why do you think so? There's not enough actual pathways to peace on the table?
- DMDouglas Murray
Well, I think for the mineral deal. I mean, I love the fact that everyone's now an expert in Eastern Ukrainian mineral deposits. But-
- LFLex Fridman
I think, uh, as I've learned, and we'll talk about Israel and Palestine, I'm learning that everybody's an expert on geopolitics and-
- DMDouglas Murray
Yes. (laughs)
- LFLex Fridman
... the history of war on the internet.
- DMDouglas Murray
And, and now mineral deposits, obviously.
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs) Yes.
- DMDouglas Murray
The... And I'm really speaking at the edge of my mineral deposit knowledge here, but-
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- DMDouglas Murray
No, I mean, I, I... If- if... From what I can see, the deal th- that, uh, the American administration was trying to, uh, get the Ukrainian government to sign was, it was sort of too early, too, um, too forced. The Ukrainians weren't... We- were ready to sign a deal, but were obviously under intense pressure. Um, and I think certainly Zelensky wasn't expecting to... Actually wasn't expecting to go until pretty much the day before. Um, w- was obviously visibly tired and, uh, exhausted again, as you are after that amount of pressure for that long a time. And, um... No, I mean, the thing that struck me, and I, I said this in my column in The New York Post from there, that, uh... The thing that struck me was I said to some of the soldiers I was with, uh, you know, "What do you make of this?" And, um, you know, o- one of them just said to me, "Well, you know, we're advised not to g- follow too closely the ins and outs of the politics of this." You know, and, um... But of course everyone has Instagram or Scrolls, and among the dog pictures and the, you know, the hot women or whatever is, um, you know, what happened in the Oval. And, uh... But what struck me was this same guy saying, "I've got a job to do."
- LFLex Fridman
Right. And, uh, there's a clarity and a wisdom to that. But, uh, your job is, is, is bigger than that, right? Is to, uh, understand the politics as well. And what do you think about the politics of that moment? Because that was a real opportunity to come together and, and make progress on peace, right? And it fr- by all accounts was not a successful step forward.
- DMDouglas Murray
I don't think by any account it was a successful step forward. Unless, to some extent, it was a play but from DC to say to Putin, "Look, we've duffed off Zelensky and, you know, now give us something." That's the only, uh, remedial idea I have about what might have been behind it. But I think it was just one of those extremely, uh... I mean, just awful, uh, political moments. Um, Zelensky was obviously deeply irritated by the, the, the interpretation of the war that he was hearing from Washington. Uh, it was only a week after the Trump comments about Zelensky being a dictator. Um, and people in the administration implying that Ukraine had started the war. And I think that's... R- that must be, for Zelensky, a pretty Alice in Wonderland situation to be in. And, uh, I had significant sympathy for him in finding it bewildering, because it would be bewildering.
- LFLex Fridman
I think the sad thing, to me, also, on the mundane details of that meeting, and just the unfortunate way that meetings happen, I think it's true that he was also exhausted.
- DMDouglas Murray
Yes.
- LFLex Fridman
There was a dickhead of a, of a reporter that was-
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
... asking a question about outfit-
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
... in a way that...
- DMDouglas Murray
I know.
- LFLex Fridman
Listen, Zelensky, everybody has their strengths and weaknesses. He's an emotional being, for better or for worse.
- DMDouglas Murray
Mm-hmm.
- LFLex Fridman
And there's a dumb dickhead of a reporter provo-
- DMDouglas Murray
Marjorie Taylor Greene's boyfriend.
- LFLex Fridman
Right. (laughs)
- DMDouglas Murray
He is. Yeah, yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
The things you know. See, you're a real journalist. (laughs)
- 20:54 – 41:47
Putin
- DMDouglas Murray
- LFLex Fridman
Can we go right into it? What is your strongest criticism of Putin?
- DMDouglas Murray
He, he's a dictator who's very bloody, as repressive as you can be of political opposition, internal opposition. He's kleptomaniac of his country's resources, has enriched himself as much as he could, uh, as he has with the cronies around him. Uh, he's not just acted to, uh, destroy internal opposition in Russia, but has gone to other countries, including my own country of birth, and, uh, killed people on their, our soil using, as it happens, weapons of mass destruction. The use of polonium in the center of London, not good. The use of incredibly dangerous nerve agents that could kill tens of thousands of people in a charming cathedral city like Salisbury, not good. If the sort of apologists of Putin and say, "Well, he's just a sort of tough man who's looking after his house business," I say, well, I don't think, even if you think he has the right to do that, that he should be doing it in third countries, deliberately using, uh, weapons that are meant to show that you could take out tens of thousands of British citizens. Yeah, I mean, that's just for starters.
- LFLex Fridman
What do you make for, uh... Do you think he's actually popularly elected?
- DMDouglas Murray
No.
- LFLex Fridman
Do you think the, the results of the elections are fraudulent?
- DMDouglas Murray
Yes. I mean-
- LFLex Fridman
Do you think it's possible that it's just that the opposition has been eliminated and he's legitimately popularly elected?
- DMDouglas Murray
It definitely helps a chap if he's killed all of his opponents.
- LFLex Fridman
Something about using the term chap in that context is just, uh, marvelous.
- DMDouglas Murray
But, you know, I know, I mean, but I mean seriously, you, you, uh, uh, uh, if, if, if people are worried about... Uh, this is another of the sort of slightly Alice in Wonderland things recently about Zelensky, is people are saying why, why hasn't... He's a dictator because he hasn't held elections during a total war of self-defense. And it's like, well, you know, if you're really, really passionate about free and fair elections in that neck of the woods, you'd at least notice that, that, that Russian elections are not free and fair in any meaningful sense. But this doesn't mean that you have to say that therefore they should have Western style elections and, and, and freedom, that Russia is, is ready to go and become a Western liberal democracy. It doesn't mean any of that at all. It's just at, at least note that this is what Putin is.
- LFLex Fridman
What do you think is the motivation for his invasion of Ukraine in '22?
- DMDouglas Murray
Well, it's, it's what he's said for years, which is, uh, the basic... The reconstitution of the Soviet Union.
- LFLex Fridman
Do you think there is, um, empire building components to that motivation?
- DMDouglas Murray
I would trust most my friends in Eastern and Central Europe who certainly do think that. There's a reason why the Baltic countries are the countries that are spending highest in percentage of GDP on defense and it's because they're very worried. I, I, I don't think they're faking it. I don't think they're faking it for me or for anyone else. I think the Lithuanians, Latvians, the Estonians and others are genuinely worried for the first time in some decades.
- LFLex Fridman
Do you think there's a possibility-... that, uh, the war continues indefinitely. Even if there's a ceasefire and a peace reached, the war will resume-
- DMDouglas Murray
Yes.
- LFLex Fridman
... and he will seek expansion, even beyond Ukraine?
- DMDouglas Murray
Yes. And, uh, the most obvious thing is that if Trump manages to negotiate a ceasefire, it'll be a temporary pause and whoever comes in as president after Trump, uh, Putin will use the opportunity to advance again. Uh, yes. A- a- again, one of the things that I have heard from parts of the American right and others is that all he wants is Ukraine. That that's all he wants, and that he has no history or, of rhetoric or actions that suggest anything else. And, uh, again, it's one of the reasons why it's useful traveling to places and seeing things with your own eyes, because I very much remember being in the country of Georgia, uh, after Putin tried to invade in 2008. So I- I- I just... Again, people don't have to be the greatest supporters of the Ukrainian cause just to recognize that, that it doesn't seem to be the case that, that Ukraine is the only thing in Putin's vision.
- LFLex Fridman
Do you see value and, uh, maybe depth and power to the realist perspective of all this? You know, somebody like, uh, John Mearsheimer's formulation of all this, that, uh, in these invasions of Georgia, of Ukraine, it's using military power to expand the sphere of influence-
- DMDouglas Murray
Mm-hmm.
- LFLex Fridman
... in the region, in the cold calculation of geopolitics?
- DMDouglas Murray
It's interesting. One of the in- one of the fascinating things about the last few years is there's been an act of sort of necromancy, of sudden figures were totally, totally debunked, uh, um, in the area of Ukraine, Mearsheimer and, uh, in the case of Israel, people like Finkelstein and, uh, it's been interesting because these are people that one hadn't heard of for some years because, um, they were not listened to, for, usually for good reason. But, by the way, first of all, I'm very skeptical of the term realist in foreign policy because most people, to some extent, will say that they are a realist in foreign policy. Very few people are surrealists in foreign policy. Very few people are unrealists.
- LFLex Fridman
I would like to meet them.
- DMDouglas Murray
A surrealist foreign policy analyst (laughs) .
- LFLex Fridman
We did mention Alice in Wonderland, so...
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah, I mean may- (laughs) maybe we should introduce the term. But, uh, uh, uh, I mean, if you wanna say, if you want to look gimlet-eyed out across the world, you're, you're, you're a realist. I think the steel man there argument would be... Russia has or believes it has a sphere of influence and it is regrettable, but there's very little we can do about that. That would be about the best version of that argument you could make.
- LFLex Fridman
Well, to expand on that steel man, isn't this how superpowers operate? In the dark, realist/surrealist way? Meaning, the United States uses military power-
- DMDouglas Murray
Hmm.
- LFLex Fridman
... to, uh, have a sphere influence over the whole globe, really. Uh, China appears to be willing to use military power to expand its sphere of influence.
- 41:47 – 51:38
Peace
- LFLex Fridman
Okay, is it possible that Donald Trump is a mediator, a successful negotiator that brings a stable peace to Ukraine?
- DMDouglas Murray
It's possible. We'll have to see. I think it's just too early and complicated to tell. That he wants to bring a peace seems to me to be obvious. He's stated it a l- a lot of times. Um, whether he can, we're just gonna have to see. It's extremely hard to see some of the parameters of the peace still. And I would suggest that the most... One... Not the, the most difficult, but one of the most difficult is that there is no peace guarantee on paper that the Ukrainians can possibly believe. Uh, I, I just... It doesn't matter because we've, we've... We in the West, we... Some of the countries in the West have said it before that we'd secure their-... their peace, and we haven't. And so what other than NATO membership, which is not possible in my view, what other than NATO membership would reassure the Ukrainians that they are going to have their borders secured and the peace of Ukraine secured? I- I can't see.
- LFLex Fridman
I think, uh, there's not gonna be ever a guarantee that you can trust.
- DMDouglas Murray
Hmm.
- LFLex Fridman
I think the way you have a guarantee, implicit guarantees by having military and economic partnerships with as many partners as possible, so you have partnerships with, uh, the M- uh, uh, the Middle East, you have partnerships with India, perhaps even with China, with the United States, with many nations in Europe.
- DMDouglas Murray
All of which, uh, still suggests that if there's enough financial interests in Ukraine, uh, they would prevent another Russian invasion.
- LFLex Fridman
There would be financial pressure, yeah. There would be, uh, you know, Russia needs to be friends with somebody, either China or the West. Um, I- I think a world that's flourishing would have Russia trading and being friends with the West and the East.
- DMDouglas Murray
It all would be ideal. It'd be ideal if- if- if they w- if, uh, the regime in Moscow wanted it, but that's that, not... I mean, though again, you get into the thing of, you know, uh, people accused of Russophobia but, I mean, um, the- the- the- I- I do believe that after the fall of the wall, uh, Russia was ill-treated by the West, not treated with the, uh, some of the courtesy that it required. I do think that. And at the same time, that doesn't justify, uh, the actions of Russia in the last 20 years.
- LFLex Fridman
Right. But let's (laughs) descend from the surrealist to the realist. It's very possible for Russia to, uh, be on the verge of military invasion of these nations-
- DMDouglas Murray
Hmm.
- LFLex Fridman
... and that being wrong, while also not doing it because they're afraid to hurt the partnerships with the West and with China.
- DMDouglas Murray
It's possible, but the alliance they've formed with this sort of rogue all- alliance with China to a considerable extent, North Korea, not useful, uh, and Iran, is, um, something they seem to find bearable. It's not a very, it's not a very good alliance in most people's analysis, but it's an alliance.
- LFLex Fridman
It's bearable but I don't think, maybe you disagree with this, I don't think the Russian people or even Putin, uh, wants to be isolated from the West. I think they wants to be friends with the West and with the East and with everybody. He just also wants Ukraine, right? And there's w- uh, how does the Rolling Stones song go? (laughs)
- DMDouglas Murray
Which one?
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs) Uh, not the Satisfaction one.
- DMDouglas Murray
Sympathy For The Devil?
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs) That's the one. You got me on that one. No, like there- there's interests, uh, th- whether it's expanding the sphere of influence, that's one thing on the table, but that can be put aside if you want to maintain the partnerships with these nations, and, uh, if Ukraine has strong economic partnerships with those nations, then that prevents Russia from invading.
- DMDouglas Murray
I think the premise is one that I've seen before. Um, there was a famous, uh, what was his name? Norman Angell. He wrote this book which was a fantastic bestseller in his day, where he believed that Europe would be in a period of endless Kantian peace because the prospect of European powers going to war was so economically unviable. The book was reissued, uh, after World War I, um, and I never got the second edition, but I assume it was significantly rewritten.
- LFLex Fridman
That's a very kind of cynical take that just because the book is wrong-
- DMDouglas Murray
I'm not saying just the book's wrong. I'm saying that the- the- the idea that f- that cooperation on an economic and other levels is any significant preventative device to madness breaking out, is- is not something I see. Uh, could deter some people.
- LFLex Fridman
Right.
- DMDouglas Murray
It could deter some very, very rational, economically-driven actors, but it t- d- it fails to take into account all of the other things that motivate people to go to war and to invade and to go mad.
- LFLex Fridman
Okay. Well, I would argue that in the 21st century, one of the reasons we have much fewer wars is because of the-
- DMDouglas Murray
Well-
- LFLex Fridman
... much more gl- well, so there's a few tools here on this- on the geopolitical stage. One of them is that you were just much more interconnected economically, globally interconnected. And that- that is always a present pressure on the world to keep peace. There's a lot of money to be made from peace. There's also a lot of money to be made from war.
- DMDouglas Murray
Mm-hmm.
- LFLex Fridman
There's ju- there's a lot of, uh, interest attention, and I- I'm just presenting one of the tools that a leader should be using. The alternative is what? Military force? That is an interesting one-
- DMDouglas Murray
Mm-hmm.
- LFLex Fridman
... sometimes a useful one, but unfortunately, it has its downsides also. And after three years of war-
- DMDouglas Murray
Mm-hmm.
- 51:38 – 1:06:17
Zelenskyy
- DMDouglas Murray
- LFLex Fridman
Can you state your manly case for and then against Zelensky as the right leader for Ukraine at this moment? Is he the right person to take it to the, the, the point of peace?
- DMDouglas Murray
We'll see. If, if, if, if he can, then he, then of course he is. Uh, y- you know, he deserves enormous respect for galvanizing his people, for being elected in the first place, for galvanizing his nation at a time of incredible peril, um, for playing the international game of getting support for his country well. Um, and sometimes the person who does that, not that there are many people like that, can be the person who also brings about a peace deal and sometimes not.
- LFLex Fridman
I think there's a degree to which he may have seen too much suffering of the people of the land he loves to be able to sit down at a table-
- DMDouglas Murray
Hmm.
- LFLex Fridman
... with a world leader who, uh, did the destruction, and to be able to-
- DMDouglas Murray
That is very hard.
- LFLex Fridman
... compromise on anything.
- DMDouglas Murray
Well, that's, that's possible. Again, it puts the onus on him though. It sort of slightly presupposes that Putin doesn't have the same human instinct on that. It is extremely hard. I've noticed this in a lot of conflicts. It's extremely hard the way in which outsiders come in, and others who haven't seen what you've seen or gone through what you've gone through, and say, "You know, it's time to get around a negotiating table and just..." You know, and you think, "You didn't see what I saw. You didn't go through what I went through. Who are you to tell me?" It goes back to that thing with the, the visitor from the land of war and the visitor from the land of peace. The v- uh, visitor from the land of peace can easily talk about getting around negotiating tables, but the visitor from the land of war has seen other things. And, um, it's- it's very hard for somebody who hasn't seen it to tell the person who has that they should act differently.
- LFLex Fridman
And the sad thing about humanity is both the, the person from the land of peace and the person from the land of war are right.
- DMDouglas Murray
Yes, so that's a struggle. That's definitely a struggle. It's ext- it's, it's like asking somebody to forgive. I've seen that at a lon- lot of ends of conflicts. People say, "Now, the important thing is that we forgive and move on." And then the other person says, you- y- you know, "Your child didn't die of shrapnel wounds."
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah, this is... You know, I got a lot of heat for an interview I did with Zelensky. By the way, people privately, the people that message me is, is all love and support, even the people that disagree in Ukraine, soldiers. Uh, people online are ruthless. They're misrepresenting me. They're lying about-
- DMDouglas Murray
People online are ruthless-
- LFLex Fridman
I know.
- DMDouglas Murray
... and misrepresenting and lying?
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- DMDouglas Murray
Good God, Lex. You discovered a new, uh, phenomenon.
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs) I'm a real radical intellectual.
- DMDouglas Murray
(laughs) Nothing misses your eye.
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs) I see the truth and I'm unafraid to point it out. Uh, no, there's a degree...... this, this idea that you need to compromise with the person, with the leader of a nation you're at war with, and in so doing, to some degree are forgiving their actions. Because the actual feeling you have is you want it to be fair, and the definition of fair when you've seen that much suffering-
- DMDouglas Murray
Mm.
- LFLex Fridman
... is for him and everybody around him, and maybe even all of the people on the other side, to just die, because you've seen too much suffering.
- DMDouglas Murray
Mm-hmm. Sure.
- LFLex Fridman
But the, the other side of that is yes, there's children that have died-
- DMDouglas Murray
Mm.
- LFLex Fridman
... but you go, coming to the negotiation table-
- DMDouglas Murray
Would stop other children from dying. Yes, of course.
- LFLex Fridman
And so like, there is just, you had this kind of way of speaking about it, embodying that perspective, the, that it's naive to say to come to the negotiation table. And it is, for a person from the land of war. But the very smart, intelligent, and not naive person from the land of peace, that is often right in some deep sense about the long arc of history, for them it does, it is the right thing to come to the negotiation table to end the more killing.
- DMDouglas Murray
The one thing I would s- add to that though is, you know, don't forget that it, it also depends on whether or not there's a clear shot of winning.
- LFLex Fridman
Sure.
- 1:06:17 – 1:17:04
Israel-Palestine
- LFLex Fridman
right. Let's go from one complicated conflict to, uh, perhaps an even more o- complicated one, Israel and Palestine. Can you, uh, take me through what happened on October 7th, as you understand it, and as you outline at the beginning of the book?
- DMDouglas Murray
Well, the book on democracies and death cults is a mixture of first-hand reporting and observation, interviews and a wider reflection, not just on the war that's been going on since the 7th of October, but the war that's been going on a lot longer. And also, I suppose, on the, what for me is one of the overwhelming questions, which I'm sure we'll get to, which is the reaction in the rest of the world.... obviously on the 7th itself, it was a brigade-sized attack on Israel from Gaza. Uh, Hamas broke through the security fence and attacked all the softest targets they could. Uh, they swiftly overwhelmed things like the observation base in Nahal Oz. They ran through the communities in the south, uh, very peaceful, peacenik, in fact, three communities of the kibbutzim, as they're called, the communities, um, and murdered and raped and burned and kidnapped and, of course, they, from their point of view, had the great good fortune of also coming across hundreds of young people dancing in the early hours of the morning at a dance party and rampaged through that with RPGs and Kalashnikovs and grenades and hammers and more. And, uh, got within, well, 20 kilometers into Israel, um, places like Ofakim and Sderot, you know, important towns, and carried out their massacres there as well. We now know that the plan was that Hezbollah did the same thing from the north. Hezbollah joined in the war within 24 hours by starting firing rockets again in very large numbers into northern Israel from southern Lebanon. But the plan was that they would do the same thing from the north and carry out similar massacres there, and effectively be able to meet in the middle and garrote Israel from the center. The interesting reason why I think, it'll be found out in the future, but why they didn't coordinate better was that Hamas didn't trust any line of communication to Hezbollah to, to let them know exactly when they were gonna do it that wouldn't be infor- that wouldn't be intercepted. The Iranian revolutionary government in Tehran, which obviously funds Hamas and Hezbollah and trains the arms, knew of the plan. It was a very successful attempt to annihilate the state but they didn't get close to that, but they got worryingly closer than people might have thought they were capable of. I think from the Israeli side, uh, it was obviously one of the most, if not the most catastrophic intelligence and military failures since the foundation of the state, and I think there are several reasons why. One is a perception problem. What a lot of military commanders and others described to me as the conception, the conception that had prevailed in Israel for some years in security and military establishment was that Hamas were content with being corrupt and governing Gaza and, you know, lining their pockets and living in, uh, Qatar and becoming billionaires. But that like many other terrorist groups and, you know, cults that they would end up becoming just corrupt and not losing their ideology, but the ideology becomes secondary. That's the first thing, was there was just a m- massive error of the conception in Israel. And th- then, then there are the multiple manifold security and military failures of the day, and leading up to the day. Um, and there will be a, there already have been quite a lot of people held to account for that, and there doubtless will be in the future as well. Um, the, the single, uh, thing I heard which I heard most and which was most distressing in a way, was the number of people who described to me, you know, who survived the massacres in the south, who said that, you know, they'd said to their children, "Don't worry. The army will be here in minutes," and they weren't, you know. In many places it was many hours till the army got there, um, and there are reasons for that. There are some reasons that will be military failings, leadership failings. Other things were very, I, I discovered, were very human failings. I don't want to over-stress the failure of the army because actually, certain units and things got down very fast. There was a unit of Divan who got down to the junction, you know, by, within about an hour, 90 minutes of the massacres starting, and joined in the fight. And then there were self-starters who I write about in the book, extraordinary people who just, like, broke orders and just realized the magnitude of what was happening and said, "We're needed in the south. Go," And fought very hard for hours, days, in some cases. But the complexities on the ground were unbelievable. I mean, as, as usually happens in warfare, but what they call the fog of war is a very real thing. You, you, you know what it's... You can see it in hindsight, but you can't see when you're in it. And one of the things that made it very complicated was, for instance, Hamas coming in, uh, taking uniforms off dead Israelis, uh, wearing them, uh, coming in with Israeli style, um, apparatus on them. There's a Muslim doctor I quote in the book I interviewed who describes how he was going to his... He's an Israeli Muslim Arab, and he was going to... He's a doctor. He was going to his shift at the hospital at 6:30 in the morning. The rockets start coming in because the rockets started first and then the, the full invasion. And he described to me how, um...... you know, he was one of the members of this group, Hatz... The United Hatzalah, which is a first responder's group. And, um, they sort of, you know, they get an alert that tells them that, you know, a car has crashed nearby and they, they, they put on their, uh, you know, first aid kit and someone had go. And he got one of those alerts at one of the junctions and, uh, realized there was a car that something had happened and there were some dead bodies. And he, he stops and he, uh, sees these men dressed as soldiers (laughs) . Uh, and they just start... And he's wearing his Hatzalah gear, and they start firing at him and he just thinks, "What the hell? What the hell is going on?" And, uh, they turned out to be Hamas dressed as, uh, Israeli soldiers. They, uh, used him as a human shield to try to protect from any air assault and, uh, in the end, they shot him and left him and he survived. He's a very, very brave man. Um, so there was a lot of confusion like that. There was a girl whose father, uh, I interviewed. She was at the Nova party and, uh, I met him at one of the reunions of the party in the weeks after, and the reunions of the survivors and family and so on. And he described how in the last moments of his daughter's life, she phoned him on her phone, like a lot of people, and he reassured her the army would get there and so on. And, and her boyfriend was shot in the head and was lying on her lap, and she was obviously panicked. And they managed to get into a car and escape the party, but they went to a, uh, a community where they thought they'd be safe in the south of Israel and they were told to stay where they were by somebody who she said was a policeman, and he wasn't a policeman. He was Hamas dressed as police. And, uh, she died, uh, she was shot and, and killed as well. And, um, so there was a lot of confusion like that. Uh, it, it... Hopefully we're, we're... You know, the world will find out exactly what went wrong. Israel will find out exactly what went wrong that led to this catastrophe. But I mean, it, it, it was a, a complete catastrophe.
- LFLex Fridman
Do you have a sense of how such an intelligence failure could have happened? So there's a, a bit of a temptation to go into conspiracy land because it's such a giant intelligence failure, it seems that there was, um, some manipulation on the inside for political reasons or for-
- DMDouglas Murray
Yes. You don't need to go into conspiracy land. I mean, I think there are people who say that there were parts of the intelligence network and so on that were trying... That were withholding the information. I don't know. Again, people will find out. Um, there's an awful lot of politics inside Israel (laughs) . And, uh, it's, it's, it's hard to know that at this stage. I think that most people are sort of still, uh, Israeli and not Israeli, including people who are anti-Israel, who just believe that, you know, Israeli military and particularly intelligence dominance is so, so strong that, you know, there must've been some kind of conspiracy, otherwise how could this have happened? I don't think you need to go into that. I think that... I mean, for instance, some of the young women at the observation base have, are on the record, they've s- said, I've spoken to them myself, and they... Who said that they had been warning in the weeks running up to the 7th that they were seeing, uh, maneuvers and training by the border which suggested that Hamas was, was going to do something like this. And, and they say that they were ignored. Though you speak to some of the more senior commanders about that and they say, "The thing is, this stuff was happening all the time." So it's very hard to, it's very hard to know at the moment.
- 1:17:04 – 1:31:37
Hamas
- LFLex Fridman
Can you talk through your understanding of who and what Hamas is, its history, and, um, the governing ideology of this group?
- DMDouglas Murray
Well, Hamas in a way, quite easy to understand because they, they say what their ambitions are. They say what their beliefs are. They're saying it... Said it from their governing charter onwards. And you also have the advantage with Hamas that they, as it were in trying to understand them, is that they, they tend to do what they say and, um, act on what they believe. The primary aim of Hamas is to destroy the state of Israel and then see. They're not an unusual group, sadly. The, the bit of it that is hard for some people to understand, I think, is that, is that they really do mean what they say, and that they really do mean what they say they want to do. And I give a number of examples in the book of this, but I mean, the most, uh, obvious is the case of Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader who is generally regarded as having orchestrated and, and, um, arranged the 7th of October. He, uh... We know a fair amount about him because he was in prison in Israel in the 2000s for murdering Palestinians in Gaza, and, uh, he was released in the prisoner swap for the... He's one of the more than 1,000, uh, Palestinian prisoners inside Israel who was released in his... In a swap for Gilad Shalit, the abducted Israeli soldier. And, uh, Yahya Sinwa, in prison in Israel, um, talked to, among others, a dentist who ended up saving his life because Yahya Sinwa had a brain tumor, and, uh, this, this dentist identified this and, uh, actually sent him to hospital. And the Israelis famously, uh, removed the tumor and, and saved Sinwa's life, but this dentist used to speak to him in, in the prison very regularly and has related, not the least to The New York Times, his conversations with Sinwa. And, uh, Sinwa said in one of those conversations, he said, you know, he said, "At the moment, you, Israel, are strong."...um, but one day you'll be weak and then I'll come. And, uh, that's, that's what he did.
- LFLex Fridman
Is it a hatred of Israel or is it a hatred of Jews? Is it on the level of nations or the level of, uh, religion?
- DMDouglas Murray
Both. It's both. I mean, it, it originates from a religious mindset but it's of course political as well. Um, I mean the Hamas charter of course, some (laughs) people sort of think the Hamas charter is of no significance and I, I often notice this s- sleight of hand that, that, that people do. Again, it goes back to what we were saying earlier, um, forget everything other than the most important basic things. But the Hamas charter, uh, among other things quotes the Hadith that, you know, the end times will not come until all of the, the, the, the, the rocks and the trees shout out, "Oh, oh, oh Muslim, there's a Jew behind me. Come and kill him." And, uh, that, that is, so Hamas is both obviously anti-Israeli, obviously, and anti-Jewish, obviously. Um, it's, it's, uh, uh, and by the way, I mean, um, one of the many painful stories I tell in the book is of the fact that so many of the people in the communities that they attacked, it's not as if there'd be a right community to attack and a wrong community to attack, but the, many of the communities they attacked were communities which deeply, deeply dreamed of the idea of living in peace with their Palestinian neighbors. Uh, there's a woman who, whose name has become relatively famous since, certainly is famous inside Israel, Vivian Silver, who was a peace activist who spent every weekend, um, driving Gazan children from, uh, the border to, if, if they had very, like, rare medical needs that could not be seen, attended to within s- inside Gaza would drive them to Israeli hospitals, and she spent every weekend doing that. Worked for all of the sort of left-wing peacenik organizations in Israel and, you know, for a l- for a while after the 7th, uh, her neighbors and others thought that, uh, she had been taken captive into Gaza and that she... There was a hostage poster for her and there were appeals by the various peacenik organizations for Hamas to hand her over. But, uh, it turned out she'd been burned alive in her home and this wasn't discovered for quite a long time because there was so little DNA left of her, that it was very hard to identify the remains as being hers. Um, so there were, there were a lot of, just a lot of people in the Gaza envelope, as it's, it's called in Israel, in the area around Gaza who, who would have been the people who w- you know, wanted to live peacefully with, uh, the Gazans some day, and those, there's a certain among the many, it's not an irony but just among the sort of pains of the day is that, is that, so, so overwhelmingly these are, these were the people that, that Hamas brought hell to.
- LFLex Fridman
The response to October 7th by Israel. Can you steel man the case that Israel went too far?
- DMDouglas Murray
Well, the case that, that started from very early on that, that critics of Israel had, was the, the claim that, um, I think I first heard it on about the 8th of October before Israel had done anything in response, was the claim that, uh, Israel must act proportionately in response and I've, I have a critique of this that I've often expressed which is that there is such a thing as proportionality in warfare. Um, and at the same time Israel is always accused of acting disproportionately and th- the proportionality that the rest, though much of the rest of the world seems to think Israel should express in warfare is to, is to have an equal, um, an equal level of suffering or killing on both sides. Uh, I don't think there's any, um, uh, law of war that says that, you know, if you kill 1,200 people and you kidnap another 250 that, as it were, the other side's allowed to do the same back. But th- that's what a lot of people think and then when they see the death toll escalating on the Gazan side, they say Israel has acted disproportionately and has overreacted. Th- th- that one is a, is a, is, is tricky because y- you know, it's, it's, it's my belief that, I mean, again this is a basic thing but it has to be stated that nine million citizens of Israel, if you extrapolate that out to what the 7th of October would have meant in American terms, y- you'd be talking about, uh, a day on which, if i- if the attack had happened in America, where 44,000 Americans were killed in one day and 10,000 American citizens taken hostage, nobody can tell me that if such an atrocity occurred, th- that America would not do whatever it needed to destroy the groups that had done that and to retrieve the hostages who'd been taken.
- LFLex Fridman
So just on that point, I agree with you 100%, America would do, would hit hard back and I think a lot of Americans would feel justified in that. But it's also possible that, uh, the military-industrial complex and the politicians would do something like the war in Iraq and Afghanistan which means extend far beyond hitting back-
- DMDouglas Murray
Mm.
- LFLex Fridman
... and actually do a thing that's destructive to everybody including America, financially, and the flourishing of America and the flourishing of humanity broadly and the region and the stability and the war on terrorism, uh, if that's a real thing. Uh, the war in Iraq and Afghanistan did not-... maybe succeed in defeating terrorism, or even making progress. It probably made more terrorists than not. So there's a justified feeling of hitting back and, uh, going after somebody like Bin Laden in the case of 9/11. And then there's just the actual implementation. And it seems like the implementation can sometimes, um, un- intended or unintended, have consequences that are bordering on war crimes, if not downright war crimes. Now this...
- DMDouglas Murray
Mm-hmm.
- LFLex Fridman
This is a general statement. And now we look at Israel, where things are small land, everything is very compact. There's a lot of complexities that are well studied that we've talked about extensively.
- DMDouglas Murray
Well, the two stated aims of the Israelis after the 7th were, uh, to get the hostages back and to destroy Hamas. And many people said that you could do one but not both. Um, and, uh, I actually think they've gone a long way to doing both. By no means everything. There were still hostages, as we're speaking, held in Gaza, including a young American, um, and Hamas is not completely destroyed. It's very, very significantly degraded, but it's not completely destroyed. But those are the two aims. Um, I believe that... I mean I've seen as much of the war as any outside observer. W- I don't know. There might, there are some exceptions maybe. But... And so I think I can say with considerable certainty what the Israelis have and haven't done. Um, the, the oper- there, there were various operations at the beginning, various, uh, plans which didn't happen, like storming straight in and getting, for instance, as many hostages as possible out of the Shifa complex, which is called a hospital but it's a... Al- also, at the very least, a Hamas command headquarters. And, um, there was a, there was a plan to maybe go and uh, um, do that fast but it was, it was s- avoided because of the number of deaths on all sides that would be likely to happen. The Israelis did actually hold back at the beginning. There was a, a period of making sure that when they went into Gaza, they didn't do so in any way blind. But Gaza is a very built up area and population wise is, is, is, um, is densely populated. Something, by the way, which the people who, who c- claim frivolously that Israel has been committing genocide never take account of, which is the fact that the Gazan population has boomed since the Israeli withdrawal in 2005. It's almost doubled. Um, but yeah, it's a d- it's a densely populated area and it's an incredibly difficult place for the train of war because of w- one thing in particular, which is that Hamas... It goes back a bit to our conversation earlier, but this is a much more extreme example. I mean, Hamas really don't play by the rules. In fact, they, they use the rules of war, the laws of war completely to their own advantage. You know, it has to be reiterated. You are not meant to, uh, disguise your army as civilians. You're not meant to use places of, uh, care like hospitals as bases for your military operations. You're not meant to use schools and places of worship as operating centers of war. And Hamas does all of these things and has always done so. And it does so with the very obvious reason that for them the whole thing is a two for one offer. You, you, you get to operate everywhere and if the Israelis operate anywhere you claim that this is a war crime because how could they attack this group of civilians? These people who are dressed as civilians? These people merely fighting from a mosque and so on. And that's why, that's why everybody who's been to Gaza who's seen the fighting knows the same thing, which is this is just incredibly difficult, difficult warfare of a kind that, that American troops have seen in the last 20 years in Fallujah and elsewhere. Uh, Kurdish, uh, militias, the Peshmerga saw when they were fighting m- as our frontline troops in the war against ISIS, similar house to house but by no means with the same entrenched, uh, uh, bases. Uh, you know, again, it can't be stressed enough that Hamas has used the years since the Israeli withdrawal from 2005 to build this vast underground tunnel network and again, it's obvious, but it has to be r- remembered. When is... W- and I quote one of the Hamas leaders in the book saying this in an interview, "When they build their tunnels, they do so in order... Their tunnels are used by them, Hamas, to store their weaponry, to secure their fighters and to hold hostages." They do not build their underground tunnel networks for the safety of Gazan civilians avoiding aerial bombardment. And, you know, the, the, every difference in the world seems to me to exist between a country which does build, uh, bomb shelters for its citizens and, um, a government which builds bomb shelters for its bombs.
- 1:31:37 – 1:34:47
Corruption
- LFLex Fridman
Can you discuss the flow of money here? So how does Hamas, how does Hamas, the leadership use the money? So you started to talk about the tunnels, but how much corruption is there? Can you just lay it all out? Uh, because I think that's an im- that's an important part of the picture here.
- DMDouglas Murray
It's certainly corrupt. Every Hamas leader who's, uh, now dead, died a billionaire.
- LFLex Fridman
With a B?
- DMDouglas Murray
With a B. To say that they used Gaza's resources, or the, the resources that came into Gaza for their own ends is to just vastly understate matters. Um, Hamas used everything that came in to build the infrastructure of terror that allowed them to do the seventh and everything since. Um, they militarized the whole of the Gaza. They, um, by the estimations of troops I've been with there, they... Every second to third house had weaponry stashed there. Bombs, RPGs, Kalashnikovs, rockets, tunnel entrances. Uh, the network th- that, that they just embedded all these years was, was total. They, they, they... You know, one of the many, many tragedies of this is, that whatever you're reading of the rights and wrongs of the Israeli withdrawal in 2005, it was an opportunity for the Gaza to become something else. It could have become a thriving state-led. It could have been a thriving Palestinian state. It's just that Hamas, like the PLO before them, decided that they wanted to destroy Israel more than they wanted to create a Palestinian state. And that is to the great, great detriment of the Palestinians of Gaza, to put it at its mildest.
- LFLex Fridman
So just to outline here. Leadership of Hamas are stealing the money they get sent by Qatar, by everybody. So they're putting in their pocket and then, uh-
- DMDouglas Murray
By the American taxpayer and by the European taxpayer as well, yes.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- DMDouglas Murray
Well, yeah, but I mean, it's not just about the stealing of money. It's, it's about using the, the money and the infrastructure to annihilate your neighbor. I mean that's really-
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah. Th- those, those two things. But the corruption is, uh, a signal from an economic perspective, but it's sh- also a signal of deep moral corruption because they're screwing over the Palestinian people.
- DMDouglas Murray
Yes, a cynicism certainly, yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
Okay. And then with the money they do spend on the Palestinian cause, they're not doing that to, uh, build up-
- DMDouglas Murray
No.
- LFLex Fridman
... Gaza. They're doing it to, uh, strengthen the militaristic capabilities-
- DMDouglas Murray
Yes.
- LFLex Fridman
... of the terrorist organization of Hamas.
- 1:34:47 – 1:55:25
Gaza
- LFLex Fridman
You have, maybe you can correct me on this, um, have said that the people of Gaza have some significant responsibility for the actions of Hamas.
- DMDouglas Murray
Yes.
- LFLex Fridman
Because they've elected them.
- DMDouglas Murray
They elected them. The what ifs are endless, but very unwise (laughs) of the George W. Bush administration to push for elections in Gaza, um, after '05. But Hamas were elected and they then, in 2007, killed the other Palestinian faction that was their main challenger, Fatah. Uh, killed them, threw them off rooftops, dragged their bodies behind motorbikes through the Gaza and from that point, they had total control. And, you know, this, it is difficult because y- you, you can get into the realm of being accused of advocating or in any way justifying collective punishment, uh, if you talk about this. But it should be borne in mind that, you know, Hamas had effectively 18 years to run the Gaza. And that's, that's th- the time that it takes from the birth of a child to the end of their formal education. And in 18 years, they could have presided over and produced a generation of young Gazans who were productive, productive for their people, for their society, for their neighbors, for the rest of the world. And they didn't. They spent 18 years indoctrinating the children of Gaza into a death cult and into a genocidal hatred, which obviously is, was most dangerous to the Israelis. But it was obviously disastrous for the people of Gaza. And, you know, there is, um, there's just... If you speak to soldiers who were th- there in 2014 when Hamas started a war again, um, one of a set of rounds of war since 2005. If you speak to the soldiers who were there in 2014 going house to house and who were also involved in the war since 2003, they all say the same thing, which is the marked radicalization of the Gazan population. The marked increase in just, I mean, the most, I mean, it's so banal in a way to even recite it, but, you know, like, uh, the numbers of copies of Mein Kampf in Arabic in an average Gazan household, the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion. There are so many what ifs and other paths that Hamas could have taken, but that was the one they took. They decided to take the path of using their time in power to build up their infrastructure, radicalize the population-... and encourage them to believe that they could destroy the state of Israel. And then on October the 7th, they gave it their best shot. Uh, and by the way, there is no organized collective punishment of the citizens of Gaza. Collective punishment would just be dropping bombs with no purpose across civilian areas, carpet bombing, this sort of thing. This is simply not what the IAF and the IDF have done since the 7th. Um, they have been fighting a house-to-house war against this terrorist group. They do do aerial strikes. Gaza is, is, is very, very badly beaten up. Uh, the, the buildings, I mean, uh, the, the infrastructure that, that existed, um, it's, uh... There aren't many buildings standing. But this is not the result of just wild and imprecise bombing by the Israelis. It's been extremely, uh, concerted. It's extremely, uh, difficult. But when people say, "Well, this must be collective punishment," I think that the people who say that, simultaneously that's not true, and also, you know, there is not a hostage who's come out who ... Donald Trump made this, President Trump made this point recently. There is not a hostage who's come out, who I've spoken with, who found any Gazan Palestinian who expressed even the slightest human kindness to them. If you, uh, if you look at the footage from the 7th, the Hamas recorded themselves, of them taking young Jewish women into Gaza and so on, you will notice that the trucks and the motorbikes and so on are not stopped by horrified Gazan civilians saying, "Why have you got this, this Israeli girl who you've, whose tendons you've cut and why are you bringing her here?" It's all celebration. It's all celebration, and it's the same with... There's a couple of cases of hostages who managed to escape from the civilian houses they were being held in, who were immediately returned by the citizens they met.
Episode duration: 3:09:04
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