In the weeks following the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7, British journalist and political commentator Douglas Murray appeared on various news networks to defend Israel. He argued that calls for a strictly “proportionate” response were misguided, insisting that Israel needed to decisively win the war and deter future assaults.
Though not Jewish himself, Murray has visited Israel multiple times since the war began. He spoke with families of hostages, embedded with Israeli soldiers in Gaza, and reported from the field — even as rockets flew overhead. A best-selling author and contributor to outlets like The Spectator and The New York Post, Murray’s eighth book is titled “On Democracies and Death Cults: Israel and the Future of Civilization.”
In the book, Murray draws comparisons between the global response to various international tragedies. He notes that when Boko Haram kidnapped more than 260 schoolgirls from Chibok, Nigeria, in 2014, a massive international outcry followed, amplified by the viral #BringBackOurGirls campaign, which was shared by global celebrities and politicians alike. In contrast, he points out that no comparable wave of solidarity occurred after Oct. 7, even though Israel’s own “Bring Them Home” campaign, launched in both Israel and the United States, sought to raise awareness for the hostages taken by Hamas.
“There’s something about Israel that is uniquely not deserving of sympathy in the eyes of many in the world,” Murray told Unpacked. “I think it’s because they’ve been taught that there is some historical mistake or evil that must be made up for. If people are dancing and killed or Israeli women are raped, somehow the world is like, ‘Well, what do you expect?’ Much of the world has been taught a false narrative about Israel. It’s a taught bigotry which hopefully people can be taught out of.”
Tales of Horror
Murray’s book offers a searing and heartbreaking account of the aftermath of Oct. 7, laying bare the horrors inflicted on Israeli civilians. He describes scenes of blood spattered on walls — evidence that, in some cases, people may have been butchered with machetes. He recounts conversations with grieving parents, including a man named Eran Littman, whose 26-year-old daughter, Oriyah Ricardo, was murdered after fleeing the Nova music festival.
Oriyah had managed to escape in a car with two others and sent her father a photo — one of the passengers lay dead in her arms. It was the last message she ever sent. Her body was later found beneath a tree.
“How did they catch us sleeping?” Murray recounted Littman telling him. “They slaughtered our beautiful flowers.”
Murray describes seeing bullet-riddled walls and scorched homes, many of which were left empty, either because the residents were killed or kidnapped. He spoke to forensic workers tasked with the gruesome job of identifying bodies from fragments — a tooth here, a piece of burned flesh there — just enough for DNA testing.
One of the most haunting scenes, Murray said, was a visit to a mortuary. A worker there told him about covering the body of a woman who had been raped and then murdered.
Not all the victims were Jewish. Murray also spoke with a Muslim Israeli Arab man named Tariq, who recounted being tied up and shot in the leg by Hamas terrorists.
Beyond the physical violence, Murray also reflects on the erasure of Israeli suffering abroad. He notes the global phenomenon of hostage posters being torn down.
“Cities in which a poster of a missing dog would be left up with reverence seemed to have a colossal problem with allowing posters of missing Israelis to be put up in the same way,” he writes in Chapter Three.
Universities need to do more to combat antisemitism
Murray is sharply critical of how American universities have handled antisemitic harassment on campus in the wake of the Oct. 7 attacks. He points to a “moral rot” in higher education, particularly when some college presidents failed to clearly denounce calls for violence against Jews.
In widely publicized congressional hearings in 2023, university leaders were asked whether calling for the genocide of Jews violated school policies. Their now-infamous answers — stating that it would “depend on the context” — sparked national outrage. Among those questioned were Claudine Gay, then-president of Harvard University, and Liz Magill, president of the University of Pennsylvania. Both would later resign under pressure. In a more recent hearing, Haverford College president Wendy Raymond similarly struggled to articulate a clear stance, refusing to cite any disciplinary actions taken in response to antisemitic incidents on campus.
Murray said these responses expose a double standard. He sees the failure of university leadership to act decisively as part of a broader societal failure to treat antisemitism with the same urgency as other forms of hate.
“If masked agitators from outside campus or on the campus were going on, calling for lynching of Black students or celebrating lynching of Black Americans, there would be no truck with that, nor should there be,” Murray told Unpacked. “Everyone would say how wretched and rotten it was and ask what we’d come to in America. It’s the same standard. Why should Jewish students be chased across campus? Why should they be told they’re the next targets of Hamas or should go back to Poland?”
The threat of a nuclear Iran
In the opening chapter of “On Democracies and Death Cults,” Murray examines the origins of Iran’s Islamist regime, beginning with Ayatollah Khomeini’s 1979 return from exile in Paris to take power in Tehran. At the time, some Western academics — including Princeton professor Richard Falk — downplayed fears about Khomeini, with Falk writing in The New York Times that descriptions of the cleric as “fanatical” were “certainly and happily false.” History, Murray notes, proved Falk disastrously wrong.
Murray connects the West’s failure to understand regimes like Iran’s to today’s geopolitical dangers. For more than two decades, both American presidents and Israeli leaders have warned that Iran must not be allowed to obtain nuclear weapons. Yet despite these vows, and the fact that Iran’s leaders have repeatedly called for the destruction of Israel, the regime is now said to be in renewed negotiations with the Trump administration.
“I think Israel needs to do whatever it needs to do to keep itself safe, and I hope America would help it,” Murray said. “The timing and the manner are up to the leaders who have to make very difficult decisions. My one thing is President Trump said it won’t happen on is watch. I believe him. But I also think it shouldn’t happen under any American president’s watch.”
In the book, Murray argues that Iran’s accusation that Israel is colonialist is an example of dangerous projection. While claiming to oppose imperialism, Iran has spent years turning Gaza, Lebanon, and parts of Syria into proxy zones—installing its own influence through terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, and effectively treating these areas as colonies to be used against Israel.
Douglas Murray takes on misinformation — and Joe Rogan — in a battle for truth
As antisemitism surges worldwide, fringe figures have discovered that slandering Israel or pushing antisemitic conspiracies can be a fast track to virality — especially when amplified by platforms with massive reach. Few platforms are more influential than “The Joe Rogan Experience,” widely considered the most popular podcast in the U.S., if not the world. With over 19.8 million YouTube subscribers, more than 14 million Spotify followers, and nearly 20 million followers on Instagram, Rogan’s show has launched unknown guests into national prominence and, some argue, shaped political outcomes, including boosting Donald Trump’s appeal.
But with that reach has come controversy. Rogan has been criticized for allowing conspiracy theories and falsehoods to go unchallenged, and in some cases, legitimizing dangerous rhetoric.
One example was conspiracy theorist Ian Carroll, who falsely claimed on Rogan’s show that Israel was responsible for the 9/11 attacks and likened the Jewish state to child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
“Jeffrey Epstein was the world’s most prolific and evil sex trafficker that we know of so far, ever and he very clearly was a Jewish organization of Jewish people working on behalf of Israel and other groups and so that’s a dark stain on Israel and the Jewish people if you own it,” Carrol told Rogan.
Epstein, who was Jewish, died by apparent suicide in a Manhattan jail cell in August 2019 before standing trial on federal sex trafficking charges. There is no verified evidence that he was acting on behalf of Israel or any foreign government. Rogan later told Douglas Murray that Carroll didn’t present himself as an expert, but the damage was already done.
An even bigger firestorm followed the appearance of Holocaust revisionist Darryl Cooper. Cooper, previously little-known, had already appeared on Tucker Carlson’s show, where he made inflammatory and historically false claims, including calling Winston Churchill “the chief villain of World War II” and suggesting Churchill was manipulated by Jewish financiers. Cooper also implied Hitler was distressed by the scale of Kristallnacht — a claim thoroughly debunked by Holocaust historians.
His appearance on Rogan’s show sparked widespread outrage. All 24 Jewish members of the U.S. Congress issued a joint statement condemning Cooper as a “Nazi apologist” and a “Holocaust denier.” Yad Vashem Chairman Dani Dayan called his remarks “one of the most repugnant forms of Holocaust denial in recent years.”
Despite that, Rogan introduced Cooper as “honest” and “nuanced,” defending him as misunderstood.
Then came Douglas Muray
Into this fraught landscape stepped Douglas Murray, who was invited by Rogan for a joint appearance with comedian and podcaster Dave Smith. Smith, who has a sizable following from “Part of the Problem,” has repeatedly made false claims about Israel — labeling it an apartheid state, denying it’s a democracy, and accusing it of genocide. Though Smith identifies as Jewish and as the grandson of a Holocaust survivor, he drew sharp criticism for appearing on Jake Shields’ podcast — where Shields questioned whether six million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust. Smith did not challenge the claim, a silence Murray found damning.
During the Rogan episode, framed as a debate, Murray challenged not just Smith’s misinformation but the broader trend of unqualified voices dominating complex conversations. He asked Rogan directly why the show hadn’t hosted more pro-Israel or pro-Ukraine voices.
Rogan admitted it was “a good question,” admitting many of his guests “tilt toward the idea that perhaps the way [Israel has] done it is barbaric.”
Murray pushed back on the platforming of misinformation under the guise of “just asking questions.”
“If you throw a lot of sh-t out there, there’s some point at which ‘I’m just raising questions’ is not a valid thing,” Murray said on the podcast. “You’re not raising questions. You’re not asking questions. You’re telling people something.”
Murray also took aim at Smith’s credibility, pointing out that Smith, as a comedian with no regional expertise, had never visited Israel or its borders, despite commenting on it extensively for over a year. When Murray asked whether he planned to go, Smith retorted, “Have you ever been to Nazi Germany? Are you allowed to have feelings about them?”
Murray replied with a sharp zinger: “You can’t time travel, but you can travel.”
As expected, Smith and Rogan deflected, portraying Murray as an elitist gatekeeper, suggesting that only experts are allowed to speak. But Murray clarified that his concern wasn’t about credentials — it was about responsibility. If someone is going to amplify fringe or already-debunked views to a massive audience, those views must be balanced by facts and expertise.
Still, few are willing to confront Rogan to his face. Did Murray’s words get through?
Murray added that if Rogan wanted insight, he could have invited Arab, Druze, or Jewish Israelis, many of whom are quoted in Murray’s book and would be eager to speak. “He seeks to look for knowledge of the Middle East from comedians who have never been to the region and don’t know anything about it. I think it’s an enormous shame, and it’s Joe’s responsibility to do something other than that. But it’s his show, he can have who he wants. I was trying to make a correction that some people have deliberately misheard.”
Indeed, “On Democracies and Death Cults” emphasizes that even experts get things wrong. Murray’s argument is not that only experts should speak, but that those spreading harmful, debunked conspiracies should not be given a megaphone without accountability or context.
In recent days, Rogan has doubled down in his own way — mocking Murray’s British accent on air while calling him “brilliant,” then paradoxically dismissing him as “not an expert.”
Why Murray’s performance matters — and why few can do what he did
Douglas Murray’s appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience wasn’t just another debate—it was a rare moment in which someone with both intellectual clarity and rhetorical precision challenged misinformation in one of the largest media platforms on Earth. Murray’s presence was significant; he wasn’t only defending Israel or Ukraine. He was fighting in a broader war: the war for truth.
In today’s media landscape, fringe voices can become mainstream overnight, often by claiming to offer “the real truth they don’t want you to know.” Pundits and fringe podcasters peddle these narratives, and once they’re legitimized by platforms like Rogan’s, lies are repackaged as revelation. Few people have the knowledge, willpower, and oratory skills to push back effectively. Murray does — and he did.
Murray is no stranger to high-stakes debate. On “Piers Morgan Uncensored,” he faced off against “The Young Turks” founder Cenk Uygur in a heated exchange over the Israel-Hamas war. Murray stayed calm and composed as he dismantled Uygur’s claims, pointing out that Hamas, not Israel, was responsible for the suffering in Gaza due to its radicalization of Palestinian society. Like Dave Smith in another recent exchange with Newsweek opinion editor Batya Ungar-Sargon, Uygur struggled to offer any answer when asked: What ratio of civilian to combatant deaths would be acceptable in war? Murray forcefully pushed back on accusations of genocide, exposing them as baseless.
“It’s not easy to teach debating,” Murray told Unpacked. “You can teach it to an extent, but really, it’s something you pick up as you go along. People will learn how to do it and the dinner table on Friday nights as well as on other occasions.
How Israel can win the PR war
In what has often been referred to as a public relations war, many have criticized Israel’s messaging as being too complex and reactive in the face of viral, simplified falsehoods — accusations of genocide and apartheid being chief among them. Douglas Murray acknowledged the challenge but told Unpacked that while Israel’s PR has improved in the current war, messaging should never come at the expense of military victory.
“It’s extremely hard as there is a hostile media and a hostile world, but the most important thing to do is win the war,” Murray said. “The PR matters as well, but the main thing is to win the war. If you show strength in victory, other things follow. If you lose, you lose everything.”
How he highlights stories of heroism
While Oct. 7 was a colossal military failure, Murray’s reporting also highlights the extraordinary bravery that followed. In one account, he rides along with Israeli soldiers through the very fence that Hamas terrorists had breached. He writes about Nimrod Palmach, who — with just two companions and three handguns — rushed toward Kibbutz Be’eri and somehow survived the carnage.
“I saw Auschwitz before my eyes,” Palmach told him, describing what he found there.
There’s the story of Harel, a police officer shot by a sniper, only to be saved in the nick of time by a colleague who eliminated a terrorist perched on a nearby rooftop. Another hero, Ben Shimoni, drove survivors of the Nova music festival to safety and returned to rescue more — until he was killed trying.
These stories, Murray emphasizes, remind readers that even in the darkest moments, there are those who run toward danger.
Murray isn’t a war correspondent by trade. He’s an established journalist, author, and commentator with bestsellers to his name. So why put himself in active war zones — from Ukraine, where a sniper fired on a group he was with, to the frontlines in Israel?
“I’ve put my life on the line because I think that’s one of the things you have to do if you’re going to report back to the world about dangerous situations and places. It’s part of the job. I’m sorry there’s a certain type of person who thinks they know better, having never left their armchair,” he said.
Despite threats and ongoing attempts to discredit him—sometimes by labeling his views as “radical” — Murray remains unshaken.
“I’m not being silenced by anyone, I’m not easily intimidated, and I’m not easily demoralized because I know I’m on the right side,” Murray said.
