It might have been mistaken for a rock concert as hundreds of 20- and 30-somethings streamed into Tel Aviv’s Carlton Hotel last week. But these young adults weren’t there for any music. Instead, they were clamoring to hear the perspectives of two prominent advocates for Israel.
The featured speakers at the International Salon were the former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, Col. Richard Kemp; and author and political commentator Douglas Murray, who has become a social media star since Oct. 7 and whose book War on the West (2018) quickly became a New York Times bestseller.
Both Kemp and Murray have spent the past two and a half months in Israel covering the war. “I’ve almost made aliyah” quipped Kemp.
When the charismatic Murray entered the room a little late, for reasons that he would later share, the audience broke into applause. While Kemp has been known for years for endorsing the IDF as the “most moral army” in the world, Murray shot to fame at the opening of the current conflict with his acerbic response to an interviewer’s question as to whether Israel’s response to the Hamas atrocities of Oct. 7 could be considered “proportionate.”
In a segment on Britain’s Talk TV, which went instantly viral, Murray responded: “There is some deep perversion in Britain whenever Israel is involved in a conflict, and it’s the word you just used – ‘proportion,’ ‘proportionate,’ ‘proportionality.’ Only Britain is really obsessed with this.
“Proportionality in conflict rarely exists. But if we were to decide that we should have this fetish about proportionality, then that would mean that in retaliation for what Hamas did in Israel on Saturday [Oct. 7], then Israel should try and locate a music festival in Gaza, for instance (and good luck with that), and rape precisely the number of women that Hamas raped, kill precisely the number of young people that Hamas killed.
“They should find a town of exactly the same size of Sderot, and make sure they go door to door and kill precisely the correct number of babies that Hamas killed in Sderot and shoot in the head precisely the same number of old-age pensioners that Hamas shot in the head on Saturday.
“Proportionality in conflict is a joke,” spurned Murray. “It is only the Israelis that, when attacked, are expected to have precisely a proportionate response.”
Given both British gentlemen’s philosemitic reputations, the audience broke out with laughter and applause when they were introduced as the “two most beloved goyim” in all of Israel.
Nonplussed by the off-color moniker, Kemp stated proudly that “I am also an extremely talented ‘Shabbat goy, the result of residing in a hotel with many displaced persons from Kiryat Shmona who have used my services quite extensively.”
Asked by British moderator Deborah Danon what drew them to supporting Israel in a topsy-turvy world that was largely hostile toward the Jewish state, each had similar reasons for doing so.
“I was taught when I was very young to know right from wrong,” said Kemp, “and it’s my duty to support those who are right. There is no question who is in the right in this fight.”
Underscoring his 30 years fighting terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq, Kemp said that he feels duty-bound “to do what little I can do to help fight this fight with you because it’s not just your fight – it’s a fight for Western civilization. The same ideology that’s attacking you now has attacked us in the past and will intensify its attacks in the future.”
Apologizing for his late entrance, having been held up in an interview on [the TV talk show] Piers Morgan Uncensored (“It’s quite hard to get Piers to stop talking”), Murray offered another reason that drew him over to Israel’s side.
“Aside from my love for this country and its people,” he said, “I also see something that I think any writer or journalist should see and get very annoyed by, which is lies. When it’s lies about an entire nation and people, when I hear someone like this blowhard I heard earlier [on Piers Morgan Uncensored] accusing Israel of ‘genociding’ the Palestinians, I can’t sit here and not say something.
“I’m not going to allow these canards, smears, lies, and defamation to just go on. I don’t like lies being told, and Israel has been on the receiving end of some of the biggest, longest, deepest, and most wounding lies of our era,” Murray said. “So I believe in the simple cause of ‘moral hygiene’ that it’s necessary to try and clean some of that up.”
The moderator then asked: “In a world of TikTok, where Jesus is Palestinian... do you ever ask yourself ‘What’s the point?’”
“Never, actually,” Murray replied emphatically. “Even if it were the case, what option have you got?”
Despite the omnipresence of social media, where lies “rocket around the world,” Murray holds fast to a different view. “If you live in a world where 99 lies are being told and one person tells the truth, the truth will win,” he asserted. “The validity of a truth in an era of lies cannot be underestimated.”
ON THE topic of lies, it was an easy segue to Hamas’s battle figures. “I don’t know what the latest exaggerated figure is from Hamas about the number of people who have been killed in Gaza,” said Kemp. “I just know that [Hamas] has to be defeated. If it means that a very large number of people, whether military or civilian, have to die in that process, then unfortunately that’s the case.
“No sovereign, democratic state can exist under this threat. So [the threat] must be eliminated. It’s as simple as that.”
Kemp, who has been in Gaza several times, noted that he is deeply impressed by the IDF’s combat effectiveness. Regarding Hamas, he said: “They want the IDF to kill their civilians. They want as many civilians killed as possible because that then provokes the inevitable international demand for ceasefire, condemning Israel for war crimes.”
Asked about pressure from the United States, Murray said: “You should be courteous to your allies but not subservient to them,” earning him a hearty round of applause.
“The future of this state, of the Jewish people, must be in the hands of the Jewish people,” he continued. “It cannot be in the hands of anyone else. It cannot be in the hands of people who say the day after the massacre of Oct. 7 that this is why we need to double down on the two-state solution. It just can’t be in the hands of people going at that kind of slow speed.”
Had the events of Oct. 7 happened in the US, Murray pointed out, proportionately over 120,000 Americans would have been massacred on one day. “Nobody can tell me that the Americans would have listened to anyone then, nor should they,” he said.
The one potential outcome of the war that Murray absolutely rejects is that the situation might return to the status quo ante of October 6.
“Israel must be allowed to win,” he asserted. “It cannot simply always be encouraged to fight for a stalemate.”
Regarding Hezbollah, Murray poked fun at the thought that we would all have to relearn the map of the North and become experts again on the Litani River [in Lebanon].
“Since 2006, it’s just been a replay of the same thing. Anything other than actual victory by the Israelis in this conflict is unacceptable because all of these efforts to make Israel fight into a stalemate will simply prepare the groundwork for the next war, and this country deserves not to be forced into perpetual war,” he stressed.
Israel's lacking friends
RESPONDING TO the issue of the hostages, Murray said that he was genuinely shocked by “the lack of empathy for Israel internationally.”
A glaring example, he said, was the tearing down of posters of the hostages around the world. “If you put up a poster of a missing cat or dog in your neighborhood, you would not expect anyone to rip it down,” he asserted.
“And if anyone did rip it down, you would think that person was subhuman. This wasn’t dogs or cats. These were Jewish children. In city after city, sociopaths tore down these posters. This lack of empathy has been there since [Oct. 7].”
Addressing the tragic incident in which three hostages were mistakenly killed by Israeli troops, Murray said: “The media treats it as more evidence of the brutality of the Israeli soldiers – ‘they even kill their own!’
“Imagine the lives of those soldiers who shot those three hostages, how they must have felt. And yet, instead of recognizing what a tragedy that is for everybody involved, they use it as a weapon against Israel! That really has slightly startled me.”
When asked by the moderator about “the day after,” Kemp said: “The IDF has no option whatsoever, apart from to stay in control of Gaza from now on. It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks; it doesn’t matter what President Biden might want to happen.
“What is absolutely certain is that the IDF must maintain security control of Gaza. It means either a permanent IDF presence inside the whole of Gaza, or it means the creation of a one- or two-mile buffer zone on the inside of the Gaza border that no one is allowed to go into and that the IDF can police.”
About the general population of Gaza, Kemp said: ”The reality in Gaza is that the vast majority of allegedly innocent civilians support Hamas. Even when they see the horrors that Hamas has brought on them, they still support Hamas. And there will be efforts to have a Hamas 2.”
Murray concurred that it is a “very bleak necessity” for Israel to stay in Gaza. For how long? “Call me a pessimist,” Kemp said, “but I would say forever.”
Both Kemp and Murray spend time visiting the wounded in hospitals. On a recent visit, Murray met a farmer from a border kibbutz who had lost his wife, son, and both his legs in the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack. He told Murray: “I have been a leftist all my life. I now want to look out on nothing but potato fields from here to the Mediterranean.”
Commented Murray: “Who can risk living beside these people? Nobody else in the world would be expected to have to put up with that. I think you should have the right to live in peace and know that the border you have does not contain genocidal maniacs on the other side who want to kill you.”
A future in politics?
THE AUDIENCE also had an opportunity to question the speakers. What changes would Murray like to see in present-day Britain? “Obviously the first thing I’d do would be to make Richard Kemp minister of defense,” he suggested to uproarious laughter. “I assume you’ll be prime minister, will you?” Kemp shot back. Feigning humility, Murray demurred, saying, “If the nations calls…”
On a more serious note, Murray condemned the “appalling” pro-Hamas demonstrations that have taken place in London. “I think it’s been shameful,” he said. “I want no Hamas supporters in my country. And that’s quite easy to arrange,” he added. He was referring to Muhammud Sawalha, a key Hamas terrorist from the West Bank who subsequently obtained British citizenship.
“To get a British passport, you must sign a form that says you are a person of good character. I submit that he is not a person of good character,” said Murray, “and that he lied on his form when he said that he was. I would like to see his citizenship stripped, and I would like to see him deported and to try his luck in Gaza.”
Murray also cited the case of a young woman whose British passport was recalled when she returned from having joined ISIS. She tried to pretend that she didn’t know that they were actually a “murderous, head-hacking group” and besides, “we all make mistakes.”
Murray contended that she shouldn’t get her passport back. “If you’re with an Islamist death cult, you should not be allowed to be in Britain.”
He was also asked about the quality of Israel’s hasbara (public diplomacy) in the current war. “I believe they should be given some credit,” he said.
He cited Al-Shifa Hospital as an example, pointing out that Israel released closed-circuit TV footage of some hostages being dragged into the hospital, as well as showing the weapons cache discovered there. But at the same time, he underscored why not even the best PR may succeed.
“The minute they show that the hospital has an arms dump inside it, and has a load of Kalashnikovs and grenades, Jeremy Bowen of the BBC is asked about it and says, ‘Well, it is not inconceivable that the Kalashnikovs belonged to the hospital’s security department.’”
Murray said that the following day, he responded on television by saying sarcastically, “Yeah, and it’s possible the grenades were for the cardiology department.”
Murray’s point is well taken. No matter how strong the evidence is, it is not necessarily strong enough to overcome bias.
Kemp concurred, saying, “This extraordinary propaganda campaign against Israel – everything that Israel does is wrong. For the past 10 years, the BBC has not allowed me to speak on any program about Israel. Any other security issue, any other country I’m on all the time on the BBC. Just not about Israel.”
Murray stressed how moved he is about the young people of this country. “They will be an example not just to Israel, but to the people of the world.
“I think the country is still going through a trauma, trying to work out what was done to you in October,” he continued.
“You asked at the beginning why we do this. I would just say it is the honor of my life to be standing in alliance with you.”
When the evening concluded, the young adults in the audience rushed to the small stage to take selfies with both men. Douglas Murray and Col. Richard Kemp – two of Israel’s most beloved friends, indeed.