Douglas Murray, a journalist, author, and thinker, has played a major role in pro-Israel hasbara in the international arena over the past year. About a year and two months after the massacre, Channel 14's Libby Alon met him for an emotional interview at the memorial complex for the Nova Festival.
"It's a horrible mix of emotions, just to remember the horror that took place here," Murray tells me, "In my case I also always think of the people who acted heroically that day, I think of the hostages who are still in Gaza, and of the soldiers who have been working hard for the past 14 months."
During Douglas' stay in Israel, he visited Gaza and, more recently, Lebanon. In response to the question of what he thinks about the ceasefire, he answers: "I have always said since the beginning of the conflict that I want it to be the last Gaza war and the last Lebanon war, I don't see any possibility other than a total victory, I don't want to see the elimination of 90% of Hezbollah, I want to see the elimination of 100% of the organization."
"I'm not sure I believe in the ceasefire, I don't think Hezbollah will be able to restrain itself," the author said, "I'm thinking of all my friends in northern Israel, who have spent the past year and beyond outside their schools and homes and I don't know if they feel safe to go back there."
"They're ridiculous, it's like saying that at the end of World War II we will put the Nazi leaders on trial, but also Winston Churchill (British Prime Minister) and Harry S. Truman (President of the United States)," the journalist says in connection with the orders from the International Criminal Court in The Hague against Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Galant, "but all the Nazi leaders died, so we just put the British Prime Minister and the American President on trial, It's disgusting."
I asked Douglas what he thought of the statements made by former senior Israeli officials in politics and the defense establishment that Israel was carrying out "ethnic cleansing and genocide.
"There have been people who have made these slanderous accusations against Israel and the IDF since the beginning of the war and even before that, I think the first people to claim that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza said it on October 8," Douglass stated.
"All these accusations are only intended to delegitimize the country in which we are sitting now, they want to claim that this country is committing genocide when it is not doing so," explains Murray. "They want to claim that this country is carrying out ethnic cleansing, when it is doing the exact opposite, they want to claim that it is an apartheid state when the opposite is true, These accusations must be uprooted."
To sum up the idea, I asked Douglas how it felt to receive so much love and applause from the Israeli audience after an event he held with journalist Ben Shapiro. "I say all the time that I am moved by the reactions I received from the Israeli public, I feel that many Israelis have brought me into their hearts and I have brought them into my own," Murray concluded. "To the people of Israel I say – stay strong, the world needs you, and good people are on your side."
