Douglas Murray on the scapegoating of Israel, the fascism of Hamas and the moral disintegration of the West.
‘Anti-Semitism is an early-warning siren for a sickness in society’
Has the West failed the moral test of 7 October 2023? From the moment news emerged that Hamas terrorists were tearing through southern Israel, butchering, raping and kidnapping civilians, a sizeable proportion of Westerners, including among the elites, failed to understand what was at stake. Here was a Western liberal democracy under attack by an army of Islamist anti-Semites, hell-bent on the destruction of the Jewish State. Yet every attempt by Israel to defend itself has been cast as an act of unjustified aggression – or worse, an attempt at genocide. Instead of inspiring solidarity, the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust fuelled a wave of anti-Semitism across much of the West, with self-described progressives at the forefront. Jihadism marched under the banner of social justice.