On Democracies and Death Cults

Israel and the Future of Civilization

By: Douglas Murray

Narrated by: Douglas Murray

In his travels through Israel and Gaza, #1 International Bestselling author Douglas Murray has seen the best and the worst humanity has to offer, and he has no trouble choosing a side.

Murray is not Jewish and before October 7, he had never lived in Israel. However, he objects to being lied to, and Israel has been on the receiving end of the biggest, deepest, longest lies in history.

Israel's commitment to fundamental Western values—capitalism, individual rights, democracy, and reason—has made it a beacon of progress in a region dominated by authoritarianism and extremism. Israel’s principles vividly contrast with the ideology of Hamas, which openly proclaims its love of death over life. With incisive moral clarity, On Democracies and Death Cults exposes how the campus left and international establishment confuse this conflict by:

• Calling on Israel for restraint and proportionality, while Hamas commits genocide.
• Slandering Israelis as white colonialists, while only a third of Israelis are Jews of European ancestry.
• Framing the conflict as oppressor vs. oppressed, when it is really between a thriving multi-ethnic democracy and a death cult bent on its annihilation.

Drawing from intensive on-the-ground reporting in Israel, Gaza, and Lebanon, Douglas Murray places the latest violence in its proper historical context. He takes listeners on a harrowing journey through the aftermath of the October 7 massacre, piecing together the exclusive accounts from victims, survivors, and even the terrorists responsible for the atrocities. If left unchecked, misplaced sympathy could embolden forces that seek to undermine not only Israel, but all of Western civilization.

©2025 Douglas Murray (P)2025 HarperCollins Publishers

A passionate case made for Israel

Having read several of Murray’s previous books, I e been accustomed to his astute analysis and razor wit. But in this book, we see another side of Murray: one that has been shaken to the core by man’s inhumanity to man. We also see Murray bounce back and find new sources of hope. The book isn’t about Murray per se, but his journey is as much a part of what unfolds on these pages as the story of Israel under siege from 10/7/23 onward.

Murray is hard to argue with. He builds a steady case that the only way to deal with Hamas is to remove them from the equation and he does it with history, seating logic, and devastating real-life stories.

Powerful. Inspiring.

Douglas is the moral voice this generation so desperately needs. I wish I could send this book to everyone in America, everyone in Europe. I wish somehow they could understand how wrong and dark of a path they are on, and how profoundly the misunderstand the world around them, Israel, Jews, and their enemies. Douglas understands and communicate that understanding with perfect, searing clarity. If only everyone would listen to him.

4 stars

Enjoyed the reading. The amount of research and will explained arguments wre the highlight for me. I think Douglas Murray is a brave man for speaking up for comensense points of view. He is one of my favorite writers on social and world issues.

I hope this becomes mandatory reading for all students

Douglas (or as my friends and I have fondly dubbed you throughout the past 18 month, Dougie.

I just finished listening to your newest book. I'm sitting here weeping from the final chapter, it was the most beautiful love letter to Israel and Israelis I've ever heard (close to the poetry of Rachel, whom you might be familiar with

I have come to know you at an impossible time in the world. The first video of yours i saw probably a week or so after 10/7 was like a balm for our battered and scraped soul. I have since followed you religiously, every interview, every direct address, every bitingly witty NY Post column.

But this book, was beyond anything I could have imagined. I simultaneously devoured it and savoured it, like one would do with a sublime box of chocolates brought by a friend who traveled somewhere exotic, wanting to taste them all but not wanting it to end.

I am US born, lived in Israel for much of my formative years, back and forth like a hybrid, finally meeting my husband back in Israel and moving with our baby daughter to silicon Valley 10.5 years ago (he's an entrepreneur, I'm a Storyteller for startups)

We speak Hebrew, our friends here are Israeli and being far from home during this has been both excruciating and a relief, while at the same time being continuously tsunamied by wave after wave of hatred and Antisemitism.

Having people like yourself is one of the greatest silver (cobalt? Platinum?) linings in what is a very black, thick cloud of 1.5 years. And this book is a culmination of this devotion and dedication to standing with the Jewish and Israeli people, and humanity as well.

I am not sure this email will reach you, but if it does, just to say thank you from the bottom of my heart for who you are. From one Storyteller (and author) to another, my heart, mind and soul salute you.

I hope you win the highest prizes for this book, and I hope that it becomes required reading when they finally reach the true lessons of this bizarre time.

I hope you will consider coming to the San Francisco Bay area on your book tour. We would love to host you at the Palo Alto JCC and fill up and auditorium with grateful people. I would be front an center, and it would be an honor to shake your hand 🙏🏻

Thank you Dougie (sorry if you hate that nickname)

Toda u Be Ahava

Donna Griffit
Corporate Storyteller

Beholding Good and Evil

As always, Douglas cuts through the noise, and tells what he finds with great eloquence.

Just finished it and immediately start it over

If Douglas Murray doesn’t get a Pulitzer Prize for this book then Pulitzer a sham an empty shell. The most important book of the decade.

Indispensable.

In the tradition of the finest journalism, this book is a colossal work of deep, careful, unvarnished on-ground reporting. Douglas Murray, often reputed as a polemist, here delivers a masterwork of minutely sourced, gimlet-eyed writing that weaves together dozens of detailed stories and hundreds of interviews along with his own eyewitness testimony across months to reconstruct and chronicle the butchery of Oct 7 . At the same time he takes the reader through a kaleidoscope of his trademark insight, analysis and context, offering a damning condemnation of a world that has refused to look into the darkness of the enemies who would annihilate Israel and who are blind to or outright deny the justice and moral highground of Israel’s plight. Fools on podcasts who spew false and empirically baseless opinions derived from half-baked or flagrantly biased third-hand sourcing from across the planet: this is what constitutes journalistic expertise in the service of honestly depicting reality. This is called: bearing witness. Do the work yourself or restrict your ill informed rants to the bar. Murray has by contrast given the world and the west’s many denialists a riposte or object lesson for the ages, and so helped narrow the range of permissible lies.

Brilliant, eye opening .

The book is full of details, first hand account with
facts,
presented in a highly informative and profound matter. A must read for those who want to understand the death cult and how the West Civilization is being manipulated by radical Islam.

Truth

For those who care to know the truth--here it is. This is well-researched, presented in an organized manner, read by the author.

This is a riveting read/listen. A first person report from an actual journalist.

A very heart-felt analysis. We in the west need to let this story hit us hard.