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

by Douglas Murray

Avida had, by his own admission, always been a man of the left. He had believed in the idea of peace. But now he felt differently. “The enemy has changed,” he said. Even between two enemies “there is a contract: what you can do and what I can do. And the contract was broken. Something changed.” As he saw it, there was nothing Israel could do about Egypt or Lebanon. But the country could choose if they wanted to live beside Gaza. Because the residents of Gaza had changed. “The young people burn us, the others shoot us, and the old ones kidnapped us.” He could see no way in which Israel could live beside Hamas-run Gaza. “We need potatoes. We need peanuts. We need orchards. And we need avocadoes. Until the sea. All the way.” It is hard to say how many people from the community would feel that way now, or would say what Avida did—even in the aftermath of what happened to the community in Be’eri. But as the story came out—of the number of people from this small place who had been killed, injured, or kidnapped—some of the most telling testimonies were from the people who could no longer speak.