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

by Douglas Murray

Unlike some Western democracies, in Israel military service is not something that other people do. It is something that everybody who can be conscripted does, and means that for people in the war cabinet or the Knesset, war is something that all of them know about, and deaths in battle are not something that only affects other people. I happened to be in Jerusalem just after Gal’s death was reported. I was due to meet a senior figure in the government to get background on the war and the international situation. When I entered the office, the man had his head in his hands. “We’ve just had the news about Gadi Eisenkot’s son.” I could see that he was about to have to call the minister and give his condolences. Through his grief he said simply to me, “I’ve known him since his bar mitzvah.” There seems to me to be all the difference in the world between these two griefs: the grief of a society that mourns for its sons and friends, and a society that is happy to hear of the deaths of their own family and other people’s family.