On Democracies and Death Cults: Israel and the Future of Civilization

by Douglas Murray

In May 2024, one of the leaders of Hamas, Khaled Mashal, addressed a conference in Istanbul hosted by the Muslim Brotherhood. The conference was called “Flood of the Free.” During his remarks the Hamas leader made sure to thank the “great student flood” that had emerged at American, British, and other Western universities. Mashal also spoke of the multipronged international strategy that he and his colleagues in Hamas were pursuing. In his words there needed to be a “financial flood” to supply the Palestinian people with weapons. He called for an even greater “media flood” to spread the narrative that Hamas endorsed. He called for a “legal flood” involving moves such as those already afoot at the International Criminal Court (ICC) to prosecute Israel’s leaders. He reminded his audience that there should also be a flow of blood, specifically a “jihadi flood,” from holy war. In the words of Hamas’s own leadership, what students on Western campuses were doing was all part of Hamas’s plan. A plan that led direct from campus demonstrations in America to jihad on the streets of Israel.