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

by Douglas Murray

On American soil. But this seemed to be an intervention in American society at least as brazen as these acts, and markedly more successful. It was striking from the outset that the same misunderstanding seemed to have broken out. This misunderstanding centered on the idea that the university in question was somehow involved in the purported Israeli “genocide” that was taking place. It was a claim that was almost never explained. In what way were these campuses “investing” in or “supporting” genocide? In the search for someone to blame for the funding of a foreign war, an Ivy League campus in another country seems like a surprising place to start. And while the claim was never explained, the delusion that America’s universities were somehow part of Israel’s war machine emerged almost everywhere. Perhaps some of the students—and certainly those who were directing them—knew that their institution was not in any way involved in supporting Israel’s war against Hamas. But they wanted to protest the war and so pretending their university was somehow central to the conflict gave them something close to home at which they could direct their rage.