Douglas Murray: Putin, Zelenskyy, Trump, Israel, Netanyahu, Hamas & Gaza | Lex Fridman Podcast #463

Douglas Murray 0:00 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."

Lex Fridman 0:24 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.

Lex Fridman 2:38 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?

Douglas Murray 2:50 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.

Lex Fridman 3:45 So the thing that struck you as different from the - the media turmoil is just the reality of war?

Douglas Murray 3:52 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.

Lex Fridman 4:19 When were you there? In early on in this escalated war of '22?

Douglas Murray 4:25 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.

Lex Fridman 4:45 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?

Douglas Murray 4:58 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.

Lex Fridman 5:18 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-

Douglas Murray 5:30 Right.

Lex Fridman 5:30 ... that they're going to win.

Douglas Murray 5:32 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 5:32 And the definition of what win means was, like, all the territory is going to be won back.

Douglas Murray 5:41 Yeah. And I certainly, uh, on the front lines facing Crimea, was, uh-

Lex Fridman 5:47 Right.

Douglas Murray 5:47 ... 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.

Lex Fridman 5:57 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-

Douglas Murray 6:11 Hmm.

Lex Fridman 6:12 ... the dreams, the certainty of victory has, has maybe faded from the forefront of their minds.

Douglas Murray 6:21 Well, three years of war will tire out anyone.

Lex Fridman 6:24 What did you think of the blow-up between Zelensky and Trump as you're, uh, sitting there in the dugout?

Douglas Murray 6:31 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.

Lex Fridman 6:45 Why do you think so? There's not enough actual pathways to peace on the table?

Douglas Murray 6:50 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-

Lex Fridman 6:57 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-

Douglas Murray 7:03 Yes. (laughs)

Lex Fridman 7:03 ... the history of war on the internet.

Douglas Murray 7:05 And, and now mineral deposits, obviously.

Lex Fridman 7:07 (laughs) Yes.

Douglas Murray 7:08 The... And I'm really speaking at the edge of my mineral deposit knowledge here, but-

Lex Fridman 7:13 Yeah.

Douglas Murray 7:13 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."

Lex Fridman 8:31 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.

Douglas Murray 8:59 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.

Lex Fridman 10:13 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.

Douglas Murray 10:24 Yes.

Lex Fridman 10:24 There was a dickhead of a, of a reporter that was-

Douglas Murray 10:28 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 10:28 ... asking a question about outfit-

Douglas Murray 10:30 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 10:30 ... in a way that...

Douglas Murray 10:31 I know.

Lex Fridman 10:31 Listen, Zelensky, everybody has their strengths and weaknesses. He's an emotional being, for better or for worse.

Douglas Murray 10:39 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 10:39 And there's a dumb dickhead of a reporter provo-

Douglas Murray 10:42 Marjorie Taylor Greene's boyfriend.

Lex Fridman 10:44 Right. (laughs)

Douglas Murray 10:46 He is. Yeah, yeah.

Lex Fridman 10:46 The things you know. See, you're a real journalist. (laughs)

Douglas Murray 10:49 No, no. He's, he's from one of the, the new... I'm all for opening up the White House press pool and all that sort of thing.

Lex Fridman 10:54 Yeah.

Douglas Murray 10:54 But it means that you get some people in who are sort of... Yeah, from blog land. There's, there's nothing wrong with that, but it, it means that you get somebody who will do something like that. The problem with that interaction, as I saw it, was the, that guy asked that, well, disrespectful question. And, uh, I th- I think it was disrespectful. And I'll tell you very quickly to say why. I mean, I think that... I think that when a man comes from the realm of war into the realm of peace, the people in the realm of peace should have some respect, or at least concession, that the m- the other man has come from the realm of war. And that if you're sitting in a political environment where you talk about people being destroyed and decimated and defenestrated and much more to a man who's... For whom none of that is metaphorical, I think that's extremely hard to, to accept. Um, a- and I think that probably also, at that moment, there was a sort of sense of, you know, Zelensky is being disrespected by-... being asked about what he's wearing. When, as everyone knows, you know, Churchill, during World War II, used to wear his fatigues, uh, on foreign visits. And it's sort of just that, it's to remind people that you're coming from the realm of war. And I think that probably in that, uh, in that moment, o- one of the things that would have been going through his head would be... But, I mean, if- if- if this was Putin sitting here being insulted by a journalist, you know, you'd- you'd ho- hope the host stepped in and defended you. I mean, if... Let me try this one out. I mean, if say, i- if a- if a journalist in the Oval Office, if Putin was sitting there, or a putative journalist said to Putin, you know, um, "Everyone knows you've had a lot of facial work done, and uh, word is you've used the same guy that Berlusconi used to use. Um, can you comment on- on that?" You- you'd- you'd- you'd say, "Well, that's a kind of disrespectful question for journalists to ask, and it's a little bit, um, off- off what needs to be gone over." Uh, and it- it was the same thing with Zelensky, was the outfit. I think it was just petty and- and, uh, and threw things off in a bad way.

Lex Fridman 13:20 Yeah, and it was poorly researched because I think Zelensky was... explained this like three years ago at the beginning of the war, why he wears what he wears, and he's been consistent wearing the same outfit, so.

Douglas Murray 13:30 It's also, by the way, it's- it's an example of the frivolity of a lot of the- of the attempts to u- "attempts" to understand what's going on. I mean, my view is that- is that since actually most people, in fact, everybody cannot be an expert on everything, one of the things that we always do is to seize on minor and really quite unimportant things. I mean, for e- I mean, every side does it. Look at the way in which the American right for years talked about the Churchill bust leaving the White House Oval Office in the Obama years. I- I didn't want to hear another darn thing about the Churchill bust after eight years because it just- it was in lieu of trying to understand and actually critique Obama's foreign policy. It was just a easy shorthand. And I think it's the same. We- we're- w- we're always tempted to that.

Lex Fridman 14:20 But the thing is, I think you mentioned Putin. I think Putin would have been able to, uh, respond himself to that journalist effectively and he would've done it in Russian.

Douglas Murray 14:33 Oh yeah, the- the language thing was-

Lex Fridman 14:35 Yeah. So I wanted to sort of lay out several just unfortunate things that happen in these situations and I think it happens in all peace negotiations, and it's funny how history can turn in moments like this. I do think there was a dickhead reporter, combined with the fact that the... You know, with all due respect, but Zelensky's English sometimes is not very good.

Douglas Murray 14:55 Yes, and apart from anything else, if he had agreed to have not done it in English, he would have bought himself the extra seconds in some of his replies that he needed. Yeah.

Lex Fridman 15:02 Yeah, and have the wit. Uh, the guy is funny, witty, intelligent. Y- you know, he could do that in the native language of whether it's Ukrainian or Russian, to be able to respond and get the interpreter. So all of that is really unfortunate because I think on those little moments it's- it's a dance and there's an opportunity there. You know, the Republicans, the- the right wing in the United States have a general kind of skepticism of Zelensky and- and... But that doesn't mean it has to be that way. It can turn, it can change, it can evolve.

Douglas Murray 15:37 It's very interesting why it has happened. Why do you think it's happened?

Lex Fridman 15:41 I th- (sighs) It, uh, politics in the United States is so dumb that at the very beginning it could just be reduced to, "Well, the left went Putin bad, Zelensky good. Rah, rah, Ukrainian flags. Therefore, the right must go the opposite."

Douglas Murray 15:59 Mm-hmm. Yeah, that-

Lex Fridman 15:59 It sometimes is literally as dumb as that.

Douglas Murray 16:01 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 16:01 "Let's each pick a side and call the others dumb."

Douglas Murray 16:04 I- I had a- a line I used recently, uh, um, the necessity of people who live too long online to try to wade their way out of the memes.

Lex Fridman 16:13 (laughs)

Douglas Murray 16:14 Because it is sort of like that, isn't it?

Lex Fridman 16:15 Yeah.

Douglas Murray 16:15 Because yes, I mean, I can understand the people who find it very i- irritating that so many people who had put BLM flags or pride flags or, you know, trans flags in their bio then put Ukrainian flags in their bio despite n- almost certainly not knowing where Ukraine was, and, uh, if that happens, the inevitable instinct of a lot of people who aren't really thinking is to say, "That's really annoying. These people are really annoying, I'll sock it to them." But that's where you've got to try to rise above that and say, "Actually, funnily enough the fate of a country doesn't depend on my tolerance for memes online today."

Lex Fridman 16:49 Yeah. So I think the memes can be broken through in meetings like the one that happened between Zelensky and Trump. There can have been real comradery. I've seen the skill of that just recently having, uh, researched deeply and interacted with, uh, Narendra Modi.

Douglas Murray 17:08 Hmm.

Lex Fridman 17:09 Here's somebody who-

Douglas Murray 17:10 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 17:10 ... has the skill of, you know, for his country, for his situation being able to somehow be friends with Putin-

Douglas Murray 17:19 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 17:19 ... and friends with Zelensky and friends with Trump and friends with Biden and friends with Obama.

Douglas Murray 17:25 That's great skill for him.

Lex Fridman 17:26 And that... While still being strong for his country and f-

Douglas Murray 17:32 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 17:32 ... like, fundamentally a- a nationalist figure.

Douglas Murray 17:36 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 17:36 Who's like, you know, very not globalist, not, uh, anything but pro-India, India first, nation first. In fact, nation first with a very specific idea what that nation represents.

Douglas Murray 17:51 Cool.

Lex Fridman 17:52 And that, you know, Zelensky could do all of those things-

Douglas Murray 17:55 Hmm.

Lex Fridman 17:56 ... but have the skill of navigating, uh, the Trump room because every single leader has their own peculiar quirks that need to be navigated.

Douglas Murray 18:06 Yes, the obvious o- o- o- one, I mean, I don't want to make it sound like it was all Zelensky's fault, but I mean, the obvious one was at the beginning of the meeting to say yet again, as he has done for three years, "Thank you" to America and the American people and-... American politicians from across the aisle for your support for my country in its hour of need. We're deeply grateful. And because he, for once, forgot to say that.

Lex Fridman 18:27 I, I think it's not that simple. I think there's a-

Douglas Murray 18:29 It's not that simple is one reason.

Lex Fridman 18:30 I think saying thank you, he didn't need to say thank you. There is just-

Douglas Murray 18:33 Well, that was why Vance... That was what Vance leapt in on.

Lex Fridman 18:36 He, he's just picking a thing-

Douglas Murray 18:38 Hmm.

Lex Fridman 18:38 ... to leap on. There's a whole energy. You have to acknowledge in your way of being that you have been very Biden, buddy-buddy with the left for the last four years. There's ways to fix that. Listen, these people are complicated narcissists, all of them, Biden, Trump. You have to navigate the complexity of that.

Douglas Murray 19:01 Hmm.

Lex Fridman 19:01 And you basically have to say a kind word to Trump, which is like showing... There's many ways of doing that, but one of them is saying, uh, feeding the ego by acknowledging that he is one of the world's greatest negotiators, right?

Douglas Murray 19:17 Hmm.

Lex Fridman 19:17 "I'm, I'm glad we're able to come to the table and negotiate together."

Douglas Murray 19:21 Hmm.

Lex Fridman 19:21 "Because I believe you are the great negotiator mediator that can-"

Douglas Murray 19:25 Hmm.

Lex Fridman 19:25 "... uh, actually bring a successful resolution to..." Like-

Douglas Murray 19:28 Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's ...as opposed to have an energy of like, it should be obvious to everybody the Ukrainian are the good guys and- Hmm.

Lex Fridman 19:36 ... Russia is the bad guys. There's this whole energy of entitlement that he brought. He forgot that there's a new guy. You gotta, like, convince the new guy that this global mission that this nation is on, this war, that is in, in many ways the West versus the East, that this, there's ideals, there's qu- uh, whole histories here. That this is a war wor- worth winning. You have to convince them, right?

Douglas Murray 20:06 Yeah. No, sure, and he obviously failed on that occasion. Um, but as I say, it must be bewildering to have landed in a place where people were seriously talking about Ukraine starting the war.

Lex Fridman 20:20 Right.

Douglas Murray 20:20 And Zelensky, not Putin, being the dictator. I, I, I did the front page of the New York Post the day after the president's comments on that, saying that, the big picture of Putin just saying, right, this is, this is a dictator. And, y- you know, I think that people can be, uh, live enough to be able to recognize that, you know, you can make criticisms of Zelensky or the Ukrainians, but it doesn't mean you have to fall for Putin. And again, unfortunately, a lot of people in our time don't have that capability.

Lex Fridman 20:54 Can we go right into it? What is your strongest criticism of Putin?

Douglas Murray 20:59 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.

Lex Fridman 22:17 What do you make for, uh... Do you think he's actually popularly elected?

Douglas Murray 22:22 No.

Lex Fridman 22:24 Do you think the, the results of the elections are fraudulent?

Douglas Murray 22:28 Yes. I mean-

Lex Fridman 22:30 Do you think it's possible that it's just that the opposition has been eliminated and he's legitimately popularly elected?

Douglas Murray 22:38 It definitely helps a chap if he's killed all of his opponents.

Lex Fridman 22:42 Something about using the term chap in that context is just, uh, marvelous.

Douglas Murray 22:46 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.

Lex Fridman 23:36 What do you think is the motivation for his invasion of Ukraine in '22?

Douglas Murray 23:40 Well, it's, it's what he's said for years, which is, uh, the basic... The reconstitution of the Soviet Union.

Lex Fridman 23:47 Do you think there is, um, empire building components to that motivation?

Douglas Murray 23:53 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.

Lex Fridman 24:23 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-

Douglas Murray 24:35 Yes.

Lex Fridman 24:35 ... and he will seek expansion, even beyond Ukraine?

Douglas Murray 24:38 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.

Lex Fridman 25:41 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-

Douglas Murray 26:02 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 26:03 ... in the region, in the cold calculation of geopolitics?

Douglas Murray 26:06 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.

Lex Fridman 26:53 I would like to meet them.

Douglas Murray 26:54 A surrealist foreign policy analyst (laughs) .

Lex Fridman 26:57 We did mention Alice in Wonderland, so...

Douglas Murray 26:59 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.

Lex Fridman 27:30 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-

Douglas Murray 27:44 Hmm.

Lex Fridman 27:45 ... 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.

Douglas Murray 27:54 And political power, yeah, more importantly in the case of China.

Lex Fridman 27:57 Political power.

Douglas Murray 27:59 Non-kinetic warfare to take over areas. Hong Kong being the obvious one.

Lex Fridman 28:05 Behind that, isn't there always a kinetic threat?

Douglas Murray 28:09 Oh, yeah, of course. Yeah, I mean, you disappear some book sellers and, uh, and, uh, students who are protesting, of course. I just... But, but to go back to this, yeah, of course. Uh, uh, okay, countries believe they have or, or would like to have spheres of influence. I do think at some point that the so-called realists on that have to try to decide w- how much leeway that allows you to give to a fairly rapacious, uh, regime. Uh, and it's not, uh, yeah, I mean, it's, it's not the easiest calculation always to make. You have to work out whether or not, for instance, it is true that if, if Russia had, if Putin had managed to go all the way to Kiev in the first weeks of the war in '22, he would have gone straight on to other places. And, you know, maybe he would have done, maybe he would have taken his time. Maybe he wouldn't have done it. I mean, and this is a very fine calculation that changes every week, let alone every year. You know, my friends in Georgia, I thought were, um, wildly off the mark when they were believing that after 2008 they could get, for instance, either NATO membership or EU membership, and I th- I thought that was completely unlikely and I still think it's unlikely and un- pro- almost certainly undesirable for Europe and for NATO. Because you, you've got to be very careful, as, and obviously this is one of the issues with Ukraine and has been, um, since the '90s, is y- you know, are you gonna set up a tripwire to start World War III? And that's not a small thing to consider.

Lex Fridman 29:44 So what do you think the, uh, the peace deal might look like? And w- what does the path to peace look like in Ukraine in, in the coming weeks and months?

Douglas Murray 29:56 I just thought it would be, uh, regrettably, uh, the Ukrainians ceding some territory in the east. And then, um, making sure they re-arm, uh, during whatever peace period comes afterwards.

Lex Fridman 30:14 And probably all four territories of, uh, Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson?

Douglas Murray 30:22 You couldn't lay any of that out because it has to be negotiated on, but I- I mean, I think that... And I think the ease with which non-Ukrainians are currently speaking about Ukrainian ceding territory is, is concerning because th- these territories include-... hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian citizens who do not want to live under Putin's rule and people who have families in the rest of Ukraine and, and, and much more. And, um, uh, you know, I, I recently interviewed, uh, children who had managed to get out of the Russian-occupied areas and, um, it's, it's, it's brutal for a Ukrainian to be growing up in that territory. So I... When people say, "Well, obviously, you know, Donetsk has to be given to Putin." I, I think that that is not as easy a, a thing if you're in Ukraine as it is if you're sitting in New York, say. Um, and by the way, I think that on the issue of there is a school of thought that, that is that obviously President Trump to some extent was, was floating in recent weeks, which is that if, if a deal is done, a business deal in relation to minerals or anything else, you get this great, you get a kind of buffer zone of American businesses and investment and therefore American businesspeople in the region, which would effectively warn Putin not to invade. I don't, uh, follow that idea because n- not least there were Americans in the regions that were invaded in '22 and they left fast, and we know from Hong Kong and other places just because there are international financial interests in the region does not mean that the dictatorship will not either, um, militarily or covertly take over. I, I don't th- I don't see American miners as being an effective buffer zone against Putin.

Lex Fridman 32:24 By the way, what did you learn from talking to the children, Ukrainian children-

Douglas Murray 32:30 Hmm.

Lex Fridman 32:30 ... from those regions?

Douglas Murray 32:32 Well, I mean, it's, it's, it's heartbreaking because the only schooling is, uh, Russian schooling. Uh, obviously teaching the Russian language, Putin's view of history, and effectively indoctrination and, and people can quibble with that term, but it's Putinesque indoctrination schools and any children or families that do not want that effectively have to hide and, um, not go out. And th- there were... I spoke to children and parents who'd had, school friends who'd, for instance, uh, the Russians set up in '22 and '23, uh, uh, summer camps, uh, for the children of some of the areas that had been occupied and the children went off to the camps and then they didn't come back. Uh, they were just stolen. Um, I mean, it's thought that around 20,000 Ukrainian children have been stolen in this fashion. That's not a small thing. It's not got very much attention. But, um, yes, I mean, uh, children who would hide whenever the Russian troops came to the door. Uh, one teenage boy who described to me how when his mother was out of... (smacks lips) A woman came around to the house, knocked on the door, um, and, uh, gave him his papers, uh, and said that he had to attend the next week to sign up for the Russian Army. This i- I mean, this i- this is, this is not good and that's obviously what life is like for thousands of people behind the Russian lines in Ukraine. I just, I just have it in mind when people say things like, you know, "Well, obviously these regions have to be handed over." It's not... It's, it's v- very, very hard if you're Ukrainian to concede to that.

Lex Fridman 34:20 Yeah, and even if they are as part of the negotiation to hand it over, I think it'll probably be generations or never that that could be accepted by Ukrainian people.

Douglas Murray 34:30 Absolutely, and I would've thought never.

Lex Fridman 34:33 What do we know about this kidnapping of children, the stories of the thousands of children that the, the Russian forces kidnap?

Douglas Murray 34:42 Um, some of them were in orphanages in eastern Ukraine. Not all, by any means, but some were. And it's a very complicated story actually, because many children were taken from their families, uh, many... The Russians said, "Well, look at these Ukrainians. They don't even look after their children. Therefore, we will look after them." And I was, I was recently when I was there looking into this story because it's, it's a very interesting question as to why it hasn't had more attention. You know, one thinks of, for instance, the abduction of the Chibok schoolgirls some 12 years ago now in northern Nigeria and that the m- appalling abduction of 300 girls by Boko Haram, uh, w- completely gained the world's attention. And I was very interested into why the Ukrainian children who'd been taken by the Russians have not gained similar attention. There's a slight similarity with the w- war in Israel, which I'm sure we'll come onto, but, uh, and I do think that one reason is that they were effectively hostages and the Ukrainians knew... This is, this is my estimation of the terrain on it, is that the Ukrainians knew that if they made a great deal about this or, as it were, more than they did, that the, th- the children would effectively be the most effective bargaining chip. And I do think there's considerable truth in that because if you look at, for instance, the way in which, um, pressure has been put on the Israeli government by the Israeli population about the kidnapped Israelis, you'll see that it, it's, it's a pretty effective tactic for, uh, any, uh, totalitarian regime or terrorist group t- to operate in a way that means that the population of the country you're attacking pressure their government to do something in terms of concession. It's, it's a-... it's, it's a very effective tool. And I think that story was partly played down, not just outside of Ukraine, but also within Ukraine, partly for that reason.

Lex Fridman 36:45 As a truth seeker, as a journalist, how do you operate in that world where, at least to me, it's obvious that there's just a flood of propaganda on both sides? Now, of course, when you go there and directly experience it and talk to people... Uh, but those people are still also swimming in the propaganda. So unless you witness stuff directly, sometimes it's hard to know. Like I, I speak-

Douglas Murray 37:11 Yes.

Lex Fridman 37:11 ... to people on the Russian side, and there's c- they're clearly... First of all, hilariously enough, they almost always say there's, that there's no propaganda in Russia.

Douglas Murray 37:20 Of course.

Lex Fridman 37:21 (laughs) Uh, which makes me realize, I mean, you, you can be completely lied to. Maybe I am in the United States as well, and just be unaware. Um, maybe Earth is run by aliens. Maybe the Earth is flat, so I don't know.

Douglas Murray 37:38 Maybe you've taken mushrooms. (laughs)

Lex Fridman 37:40 I have before this-

Douglas Murray 37:42 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 37:42 ... and I finally see the truth, and it's you that are deluded, Douglas.

Douglas Murray 37:47 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 37:48 Okay, but, uh, back to the, our round Earth discussion, round Earth shows that we are, uh, how do you know what is true?

Douglas Murray 37:55 You, you can tell it when the bare facts become not true. Like you can tell it when somebody's willing to claim that everything caused the invasion of 2022, except for Vladimir Putin invading Ukraine.

Lex Fridman 38:16 Yeah, there's a, there's a hilarious thing that happens, and I think you've actually speak about this, that, uh, people are generally just much more willing to criticize the democratically elected leader.

Douglas Murray 38:27 Always, always.

Lex Fridman 38:28 So the interesting thing that happens is these wise sages that do the narratives of like, "NATO started the war," right?

Douglas Murray 38:37 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 38:37 Which there is some interesting geopolitical depth-

Douglas Murray 38:40 Sure.

Lex Fridman 38:40 ... and truth to that, like that NATO expansion created a complicated geopolitical context, whatever.

Douglas Murray 38:45 For sure.

Lex Fridman 38:46 But they forget to say, like, other parts of that story.

Douglas Murray 38:50 Well, yes, of course. I mean, and I mean, of course, to some extent there's, it's rather, you know that there's a, there's a, the very, the most irritating type of question asker at any event is the person who says, "I was disappointed that in your 30-minute talk you didn't address X." And I tend to say, "Well, looking forward to coming to your next talk, where in 30 minutes you'll cover everything that could possibly be covered." Um, there's always stuff that's gonna be left on the sides. There's always gonna be stuff that's left unaddressed. There's always gonna be other angles. There's always gonna be somebody else who, who, who, who has this interesting perspective and you can't cover it. Nevertheless, if you cover everything other than the central things, then it's suspicious. Many years ago, I was at a debate in London, uh, for the... Uh, there was a debate about the origins of World War II, and, uh, Pat Buchanan, talking of necromancy, was one of the, the, the, the speakers, and, um, uh, Andrew Roberts, historian, was one of the people on the other side. And at one point, you know, they got so completely stuck into issues of iron ore mining in Poland in the mid th- you know, something like this. And the moderator... I remember it was just, it was just a melee, and the moderator turns to Andrew Roberts and says, "Andrew Roberts, why did World War II begin?" And he says, "World War II began because Hitler invaded Poland." And it was a magnificent moment because everything had been amass. They were just so lost in all the intricate and clever and interesting things that you can talk about, about the origins of a war, that you've, you, you forget to mention the thing that's most important. And certainly, my experience as a journalist and writer is that one of the reasons why you need to go and see things with your own eyes, is because people are certain to tell you that what you've seen with your own eyes didn't happen, or hasn't happened, and it helps to steel you for that moment.

Lex Fridman 40:58 Yeah. It's a gradual thing that happens where the obvious thing starts being taken for granted, and-

Douglas Murray 41:03 Yes.

Lex Fridman 41:03 ... people stop saying it because it's like the boring thing to say at a party.

Douglas Murray 41:07 Right.

Lex Fridman 41:07 And then all of a sudden, over time, you just almost start questioning whether, whether, you know, like that obvious thing is even true. I don't know what that, how that happens-

Douglas Murray 41:18 I thi- I think, I, I-

Lex Fridman 41:18 ... in psychology, but it does.

Douglas Murray 41:20 ... yeah, I think it does. I've observed it in a lot of different places, which is, the important thing is the only thing you do forget. Everything else is what you remember. And some of us are, for some reason, wired in a way where we c- we don't, we try not to forget the important thing.

Lex Fridman 41:34 Remember the obvious thing, yeah.

Douglas Murray 41:35 Yes. And as you say, you know, not wanting to be the boring guy at the party who reiterates what is true, 'cause what a douchebag you'd be if you were that guy.

Lex Fridman 41:44 Nobody likes Captain Obvious at a party.

Lex Fridman 41:47 Okay, is it possible that Donald Trump is a mediator, a successful negotiator that brings a stable peace to Ukraine?

Douglas Murray 41:58 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.

Lex Fridman 43:02 I think, uh, there's not gonna be ever a guarantee that you can trust.

Douglas Murray 43:08 Hmm.

Lex Fridman 43:08 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.

Douglas Murray 43:27 All of which, uh, still suggests that if there's enough financial interests in Ukraine, uh, they would prevent another Russian invasion.

Lex Fridman 43:38 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.

Douglas Murray 44:00 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.

Lex Fridman 44:38 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-

Douglas Murray 44:49 Hmm.

Lex Fridman 44:49 ... and that being wrong, while also not doing it because they're afraid to hurt the partnerships with the West and with China.

Douglas Murray 44:59 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.

Lex Fridman 45:23 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)

Douglas Murray 45:47 Which one?

Lex Fridman 45:49 (laughs) Uh, not the Satisfaction one.

Douglas Murray 45:52 Sympathy For The Devil?

Lex Fridman 45:53 (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.

Douglas Murray 46:17 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.

Lex Fridman 46:53 That's a very kind of cynical take that just because the book is wrong-

Douglas Murray 46:56 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.

Lex Fridman 47:18 Right.

Douglas Murray 47:18 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.

Lex Fridman 47:31 Okay. Well, I would argue that in the 21st century, one of the reasons we have much fewer wars is because of the-

Douglas Murray 47:38 Well-

Lex Fridman 47:38 ... 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.

Douglas Murray 48:00 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 48:00 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-

Douglas Murray 48:14 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 48:14 ... sometimes a useful one, but unfortunately, it has its downsides also. And after three years of war-

Douglas Murray 48:21 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 48:22 ... and the hundreds of thousands dead-

Douglas Murray 48:24 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 48:25 ... you have to start wondering what are the options on the table?

Douglas Murray 48:28 I agree. Uh, I'm- I'm obviously for economic cooperation, but, oh, my only caveat is not to think that that is something which is of ultimate interest or even at the top of the list of interests-... of, uh, despots, tyrants, extremists who want something else.

Lex Fridman 48:55 Yeah. Uh, but, uh, can you read the mind of Vladimir Putin?

Douglas Murray 49:00 No.

Lex Fridman 49:02 A lot of the ideas I hear about peace is, "Putin bad. Victory must be achieved. NATO membership required."

Douglas Murray 49:14 Yeah, well -

Lex Fridman 49:14 There's this kind of like... Uh, but what's the, uh, what's the alt- there, you have to come to the table-

Douglas Murray 49:20 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 49:20 ... to, to end the killing-

Douglas Murray 49:22 Hmm.

Lex Fridman 49:22 ... is one. And, uh, two, have different ideas of how to, uh, have a non-zero chance of peace. So that-

Douglas Murray 49:32 Well-

Lex Fridman 49:33 You know, the options are, it seems to me, the only option... (sighs) not the only option, but the likeliest option is a lot of strong economic partnerships. There's, of course, other radical options.

Douglas Murray 49:44 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 49:45 There's, uh, (sighs) there's, uh, Russia joining NATO or something like this, or there's, um, giving, you know, doing, flirting with World War III essentially, giving nukes to Ukraine or something like this.

Douglas Murray 49:58 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 49:58 There's, like, crazy stuff. Or a totally new military alliance with France and, and, and Britain and Germany and, uh, European nations and Ukraine.

Douglas Murray 50:09 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 50:10 Or some weird network-

Douglas Murray 50:11 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 50:12 ... of military power that threatens Russia in some way, or maybe some big breakthrough partnership between India, China, and Ukraine, something like this.

Douglas Murray 50:23 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 50:23 Just some really out there ideas.

Douglas Murray 50:26 Sure.

Lex Fridman 50:26 And I think that's how the world, tha- that's how the world finds a balance and realigns itself in interesting ways. And-

Douglas Murray 50:33 Look, it could be. I, I, I, I hope your, uh, I hope your idea is right. Um, I think it's about the, well, certainly the most peaceful way, uh, for this to be resolved. My only caveat, as I say, is... And also never forget to factor in that people want different things in this world, and some people don't dream as you dream.

Lex Fridman 51:02 I think we'll talk about this in your new book, Death Cults. That one is an easier one for me to understand, to the story that you're describing. I am more hesitant to assign psychopathy to w- uh, l- leaders of major nations.

Douglas Murray 51:19 Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm, I'm, I'm not by any means urging you to regard Vladimir Putin as a millenarian madman who cannot be in any way understood.

Lex Fridman 51:30 I think he could be negotiated and reasoned with.

Douglas Murray 51:35 From your lips to God's ears.

Lex Fridman 51:38 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?

Douglas Murray 51:48 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.

Lex Fridman 52:20 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-

Douglas Murray 52:30 Hmm.

Lex Fridman 52:30 ... with a world leader who, uh, did the destruction, and to be able to-

Douglas Murray 52:37 That is very hard.

Lex Fridman 52:38 ... compromise on anything.

Douglas Murray 52:41 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.

Lex Fridman 53:45 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.

Douglas Murray 53:55 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."

Lex Fridman 54:18 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-

Douglas Murray 54:33 People online are ruthless-

Lex Fridman 54:35 I know.

Douglas Murray 54:35 ... and misrepresenting and lying?

Lex Fridman 54:36 Yeah.

Douglas Murray 54:37 Good God, Lex. You discovered a new, uh, phenomenon.

Lex Fridman 54:42 (laughs) I'm a real radical intellectual.

Douglas Murray 54:44 (laughs) Nothing misses your eye.

Lex Fridman 54:48 (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-

Douglas Murray 55:20 Mm.

Lex Fridman 55:21 ... 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.

Douglas Murray 55:30 Mm-hmm. Sure.

Lex Fridman 55:30 But the, the other side of that is yes, there's children that have died-

Douglas Murray 55:35 Mm.

Lex Fridman 55:35 ... but you go, coming to the negotiation table-

Douglas Murray 55:39 Would stop other children from dying. Yes, of course.

Lex Fridman 55:41 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.

Douglas Murray 56:11 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.

Lex Fridman 56:20 Sure.

Douglas Murray 56:21 If there's a clear shot of winning, and that's a v- the most important, the most important thing in wars is not, uh, final negotiations or anything like that. It's simply winning and losing. And if you have a clear shot of winning and you can take it, and you're near it, um, then having somebody else come in and saying, "Uh, why not, uh, stop just before victory?" is, is, is very hard. That's one of the complex, one of the many, many complexities of the conflict we're talking about here.

Lex Fridman 56:50 You know what's the, uh, the other big complexity of that? Because the clear shot at winning is like a, a man walking through the desert seeing water. Uh, it could be a, a ... during war, it really is an illusion. So here's what happens. The really complicated aspect of negotiation is in order to negotiate peace from a place of strength, you have to have victory in sight.

Douglas Murray 57:18 Yes.

Lex Fridman 57:19 And so the temptation from that position is to not negotiate-

Douglas Murray 57:23 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 57:23 ... is to keep pushing forward-

Douglas Murray 57:25 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 57:25 ... to achieve victory. And this I would say, uh, hindsight is 20/20, but this is the failure in '22 in two occasions to achieve, to negotiate a ceasefire and peace. One in the spring, because there was a, Ukraine was in a real big, I would say, position of strength, hav- having fended off the Russian forces around Kyiv. That's one. And then as you mentioned, in the fall of '22 with, with Kherson and Kharkiv-

Douglas Murray 58:01 Mm.

Lex Fridman 58:01 ... had a lot of military success. They were in a place of strength.

Douglas Murray 58:04 Mm.

Lex Fridman 58:04 And from that place, they've decided to keep going, because victory was in sight, but that was also an opportunity to make peace.

Douglas Murray 58:12 That's perfectly possible, yes.

Lex Fridman 58:14 That's the hard thing.

Douglas Murray 58:15 It's very hard. It's, it's all hard, but I'm just, uh, again, it's, uh, uh, victory can be won in wars and is often won in wars. Uh, and you're right, they can also grind on because nobody has the capability to make a breakthrough. Uh, there's a case, I mean, the, the wisdom about civil wars tends to be that they sort of burn out after about 10 years or so, uh, for similar reasons.

Lex Fridman 58:44 When you're in the war, can you actually know that a victory can be won?

Douglas Murray 58:49 It's a very good question, and um, you mean tr- troops on the battlefield or military leaders or political leaders?

Lex Fridman 58:56 Military and political leaders. Uh, it just feels like, like I said, man in the desert seeing water. I think there's a sense that victory is so close. There are times.

Douglas Murray 59:08 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 59:08 There's times in a war when you feel like victory is close.

Douglas Murray 59:11 Hm. Yes. No, you're right, it's, it's an interesting insight.

Lex Fridman 59:12 And then it just slips away, right?

Douglas Murray 59:14 Yes. It's an interesting insight. It's like the way in which, um, there's a, there's a force in nature which is that if you amass an army, um, you, amassing it will pull you in-

Lex Fridman 59:29 Yeah.

Douglas Murray 59:29 ... to using it.

Lex Fridman 59:30 Yeah.

Douglas Murray 59:31 Extremely hard to amass an army somewhere and then say, "Let's go back." Which is, it's, uh, yes, you're right, no, it's, it's one of many, many interesting aspects to warfare.

Lex Fridman 59:42 I think the sad thing about successful wars, at least in the modern day, is it takes a great military leader, which I would argue that Zelensky really unified Ukraine in this fight in the beginning of the war.

Douglas Murray 1:00:00 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 1:00:01 You have to be that and, like you said, after you do amass the army and have military success, to be able to step back-

Douglas Murray 1:00:09 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 1:00:09 ... and make peace. That, th- those two just don't often go hand in hand, because-

Douglas Murray 1:00:16 Mm.

Lex Fridman 1:00:16 ... again, as a wartime leader, especially one who's seen the suffering firsthand-

Douglas Murray 1:00:21 Mm.

Lex Fridman 1:00:22 ... yeah, walking away is, uh, is tough, especially also combined with that just the realities of war where there is probably corruption, that there is things, you know, once the war ends, there has to be investigations. Because the war wasn't won, you might not t- turn out to be, when history looks at it, the good guy, and a leader doesn't wanna... a leader always wants to be the good guy. So there's just all psychological complexities that are-

Douglas Murray 1:00:52 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 1:00:52 ... and you look at this whole picture, uh, in, in the basic sense, if you want Ukraine to flourish, if you want humanity to flourish, y- you just ask the question, "Okay, so what..."... is the thing I would like to see.

Douglas Murray 1:01:08 There's so many historical analogies you, you can give, but just surely not rewarding Putin's actions in any way would be a good way to deter him and other dictators from trying to grab land in the future.

Lex Fridman 1:01:34 So yeah, and but it's, it's nuance, because like you, it's very probably good to be the boring person at the party that says, "Dictatorships are bad. Uh, democracies are good." Many of the ideas of the West are good.

Douglas Murray 1:01:49 Democracies are better.

Lex Fridman 1:01:50 Better? Yes, uh. (laughs)

Douglas Murray 1:01:52 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:01:53 That sounds like Animal Farm, but yes. Two legs, better. No, but yes, democracy's better. (laughs) And, uh, invading countries is bad. Uh, but World War III is bad too. So after you say something is bad, what's the next step? 'Cause military intervention, in a lot of these conflicts-

Douglas Murray 1:02:14 It'll be about deterrents.

Lex Fridman 1:02:16 Yeah, but what's, what's effective deterrents?

Douglas Murray 1:02:19 That, we're gonna have to keep going over for a long time to come.

Lex Fridman 1:02:22 My question is, how can we achieve peace in April? In May, right? Not like ... The adults at the table all seem to tell me, "Well, it's a process, it's complicated," you know? There's, it just feels like this is a thing that might go into the next winter, and they're still, um, maybe initial ceasefire, and then the ceasefire is broken and there's more people dying.

Douglas Murray 1:02:50 For sure.

Lex Fridman 1:02:50 And it, it's that mess, it seems like civility and politeness ignores the fact that people are dying every single day.

Douglas Murray 1:02:59 I mean, of course, like we were all ev- ev- almost everybody, not everybody, but almost everyone would like the killing to stop immediately. Of course.

Lex Fridman 1:03:06 No, like I, I think that is the boring thing at the party. Yes, but they don't say it often enough. Not of- there has to be a frustration.

Douglas Murray 1:03:13 Well, hey, they should say it more.

Lex Fridman 1:03:13 There has to be a frustration. I don't understand why Putin, Zelenskyy and Trump can't just meet in a room together without signing anything. Leaders meeting and dis- discussing, and like the human connection, there, there's so many layers of diplomats. It's the problem I have with the managerial class. I don't, they don't, they schedule meetings really well.

Douglas Murray 1:03:34 Sure.

Lex Fridman 1:03:34 They don't get shit done. And I, I would love it if people got sh- shit done. So the soldiers get shit done. They have, they're fighting the reality of the war.

Douglas Murray 1:03:45 Mm.

Lex Fridman 1:03:46 And then the leaders have the capacity to get shit done on the, on the scale of nations and geopolitics. But like these diplomatic meetings and-

Douglas Murray 1:03:55 No, I ag-

Lex Fridman 1:03:56 ... it's just-

Douglas Murray 1:03:56 ... look, I share your frustration about it. At the same time, I think, um ... Look, I share your frustration because I've seen it all, a lot of it, you know, with my own eyes. I mean, there was a battalion I was with the other week and they were hit just after I left their base, and y- you wouldn't believe what a thermobaric bomb can do to the human body. And I share your frustration with that. At the same time, one of the things that happens if you are rushing is that you do, and I've s- I've seen this elsewhere, you, you w- you will put pressure on the people you can pressurize, and you will not put enough pressure on the people you can't pressurize. And that is one of the worrying things that could happen with this. Simply, you can put, America can put extraordinary, uh, diplomatic, financial, intelligence, military res- uh, p- pressure on Ukraine. And it can put significant pressure on Putin, but it's much easier to pressure Zelenskyy. And that's one of the many things that makes it harder, is that the temptation to rush for peace, accepting that peace is the most desirable thing and accepting the horrors of war, which, uh, you know, we can linger on, but y- you, accepting all that, if somebody says, "We've got to get peace today," and the three of them are round the table, the most likely thing is that it'll be, th- that it'll be the person who you can pressure most easily who will be the person that you pressure, and as a result have an outcome which, yes, might stop the killing s- as soon as possible, but might also set up a situation which rewards the aggressor and effectively punishes the victim. And that's an extremely ugly and common thing to happen.

Lex Fridman 1:05:57 Yeah, and that's the other boring thing to say, the boring truth, that, uh, the easy shortcut here is-

Douglas Murray 1:06:04 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:06:04 ... uh, is to punish Ukraine, and-

Douglas Murray 1:06:08 You bet.

Lex Fridman 1:06:08 ... uh, you just have to not do it.

Douglas Murray 1:06:09 Let's keep being the boring people at the party.

Lex Fridman 1:06:11 Yeah. Well, nobody's gonna invite us.

Douglas Murray 1:06:15 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 1:06:16 All

Lex Fridman 1:06:17 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?

Douglas Murray 1:06:44 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.

Lex Fridman 1:15:23 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-

Douglas Murray 1:15:41 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.

Lex Fridman 1:17:05 Can you talk through your understanding of who and what Hamas is, its history, and, um, the governing ideology of this group?

Douglas Murray 1:17:15 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.

Lex Fridman 1:19:39 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?

Douglas Murray 1:19:49 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.

Lex Fridman 1:22:42 The response to October 7th by Israel. Can you steel man the case that Israel went too far?

Douglas Murray 1:22:48 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.

Lex Fridman 1:24:53 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-

Douglas Murray 1:25:16 Mm.

Lex Fridman 1:25:17 ... 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...

Douglas Murray 1:26:09 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 1:26:09 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.

Douglas Murray 1:26:26 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.

Lex Fridman 1:31:38 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.

Douglas Murray 1:31:56 It's certainly corrupt. Every Hamas leader who's, uh, now dead, died a billionaire.

Lex Fridman 1:32:07 With a B?

Douglas Murray 1:32:08 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.

Lex Fridman 1:33:51 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-

Douglas Murray 1:34:00 By the American taxpayer and by the European taxpayer as well, yes.

Lex Fridman 1:34:03 Yeah.

Douglas Murray 1:34:03 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-

Lex Fridman 1:34:12 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.

Douglas Murray 1:34:26 Yes, a cynicism certainly, yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:34:29 Okay. And then with the money they do spend on the Palestinian cause, they're not doing that to, uh, build up-

Douglas Murray 1:34:38 No.

Lex Fridman 1:34:38 ... Gaza. They're doing it to, uh, strengthen the militaristic capabilities-

Douglas Murray 1:34:43 Yes.

Lex Fridman 1:34:44 ... of the terrorist organization of Hamas.

Lex Fridman 1:34:48 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.

Douglas Murray 1:35:03 Yes.

Lex Fridman 1:35:03 Because they've elected them.

Douglas Murray 1:35:04 They