Features
The British Invasion: Douglas Murray and Colonel Richard Kemp, Tel Aviv International Salon, Dec.21, 2023
By GABRIEL EMMANUEL In 1964 the Beatles were banned from performing in Israel (to the Jewish state’s everlasting shame and embarrassment). Nearly 60 years later a British invasion of a different sort took place and the crowd reaction was almost like a mini Beatlemania.
Some 600 or more twenty and thirty somethings packed themselves into a meeting room at the Carlton Hotel in Tel Aviv that was meant to accommodate only about a third of that size. The featured speakers were former Commander of the British forces in Afghanistan, Richard Kemp, and author, political commentator, Douglas Murray, whose book “War on the West”(2018) quickly became a New York Times bestseller. Both Kemp and Murray have spent the past two and a half months in Israel covering the war. “I’ve almost made Aliya” quipped Kemp as the talk was about to begin. When the charismatic Murray entered the room a little late for reasons which he would come to share, the audience broke into spontaneous applause.
While Colonel Kemp has been known for years for endorsing the IDF as the “most moral army” in the world, Douglas Murray shot to fame at the opening of the present conflict with his acerbic response to an interviewer’s question as to whether Israel’s response to the atrocities of Oct. 7 could be considered “proportionate”. In a segment on British Talk TV https://talk.tv/top-stories/31465/douglas-murray-proportionality-in-conflict-is-a-joke that went instantly viral Murray responded “There is some deep perversion in Britain whenever Israel is involved in a conflict and it’s the word you just used – proportion, proportionate, proportionality. Only Britain is really obsessed with this…Proportionality in conflict rarely exists but if we were to decide that we should have this fetish about proportionality then that would mean that in retaliation for what Hamas did in Israel on Saturday (Oct. 7, G.E.) then Israel should try and locate a music festival in Gaza for instance (and good luck with that), and rape precisely the number of women that Hamas raped, kill precisely the number of young people that Hamas killed. They should find a town of exactly the same size of Sderot… and make sure they go door to door and kill precisely the correct number of babies that Hamas killed in Sderot and shoot in the head precisely the same number of old age pensioners that Hamas shot in the head on Saturday…Proportionality in conflict is a joke,” spurned Douglas adding, “that it is only the Israelis that when attacked are expected to have precisely a proportionate response.”
Given the British gentlemens’ philo-semitic reputations the audience broke out with mixed laughter and applause when the two were introduced as the “two most beloved “Goyim” in all of Israel. Non-plussed by the off-colour moniker, Kemp stated proudly that “I am also an extremely talented “Shabbat Goy” the result of having been residing in a hotel with many displaced persons from Kiryat Shmona “who have used my services quite extensively.”
Asked by another Brit, moderator Deborah Danon, what drew each of them to supporting Israel in a topsy turvy world that was largely hostile towards the Jewish State, each had similar reasons for doing so. “I was taught when I was very young to know right from wrong,” said Kemp, “and it’s my duty to support those who are right. There is no question who is in the right in this fight,” he added.
Moreover, underscoring his 30 years spent fighting terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq Kemp felt duty bound “to do what little I can do to help fight this fight with you because it’s not just your fight it’s a fight for Western civilization; the same ideology that’s attacking you now has attacked us in the past and will intensify its attacks in the future.”
Apologizing for his late entrance for having been held up in an interview on the Piers Morgan show (“It’s quite hard to get Piers to stop talking”) Murray offered another reason responsible for drawing him over to Israel’s side. “Aside from my love for this country and its people,” he said, “I also see something which I think any writer or journalist should see and get very annoyed by, which is lies. When it’s lies about an entire nation and people, when I hear someone like this blowhard I heard earlier (on Piers Morgan, G.E.) accusing Israel of ‘genociding’ the Palestinians, I can’t sit here and not say something. I’m not going to allow these canards, smears and lies and defamation to just go on…I don’t like lies being told and Israel has been on the receiving end of some of the biggest, longest, deepest and most wounding lies of our era,” said Murray. Demonstrating his effortless ability to deftly cross over from political commentary to artful literary imagery he caps the thought with finesse: “So I believe in the simple cause of “moral hygiene” that it’s necessary to try and clean some of that up.”
The moderator then asked a pertinent question: “In a world of Tik Tok where Jesus is Palestinian, do you wonder if this is just a Myth of Sisyphus syndrome where you are just pushing that rock up the hill and do you ever ask yourself just what’s the point?”
“Never, actually,” Murray replied emphatically. “Even if it was the case what option have you got? Just to sit at the bottom of the hill and get crushed by the rock?” he asks rhetorically.
Despite the omnipresence of social media in the world, where lies are able to “rocket around the world” Murray holds fast to a different view. “if you live in a world where 99 lies are being told and one person tells the truth, the truth will win,” he asserts and gives the example of writers such as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn whose work was effective in bringing down the entire Soviet Empire. “The validity of a truth in an era of lies cannot be underestimated,” he says.
From the topic of lies it was an easy segue to Hamas battle figures. “I don’t know what the latest exaggerated figure is from Hamas about the number of people that have been killed in Gaza” says Kemp, “I just know that it has to be defeated. If it means that a very large number of people whether military or civilian have to die in that process then unfortunately that’s the case because no sovereign, democratic state can exist under this threat so it must be eliminated, it’s as simple as that,” states Kemp in a no nonsense, tell it like it is, military analysis. Despite the unreliability of figures Kemp posits that based on the figures he’s received from Israeli sources of 8,000 or 9,000 or more have been killed from Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which would represent about 30% of the total number of terrorists. “That’s a very significant proportion,” he says, “that’s in excess of 30% of their fighting capability. The whole edifice then begins to crumble and I think we’re going to see that,” he says with conviction.
“I’ve been in Gaza on a number of occasions. I’m deeply impressed by the IDF combat effectiveness. This is going to come down at some point,” Kemp says quite bluntly.
Kamp makes regular visits to the soldiers in hospital and knows the tragedy of war from close up. “Tragically, many Israeli soldiers will die and have died already,” he concedes, “but they will undoubtedly prevail in the end.” He contrasts the irony with Hamas: “They want the I.D.F. to kill their civilians. They want as many civilians killed as possible because that then provokes the inevitable international demand for ceasefire, condemning Israel for War Crimes,” he concludes while shaking his head at the anticipated perversion of justice.
Asked about pressure from the United States, Douglas Murray elucidated his view that “You should be courteous to your allies but not subservient to them,” earning a strong round of applause. “The future of this State, of the Jewish people must be in the hands of the Jewish people,” he continued.” It cannot be in the hands of anyone else. It cannot be in the hands of people who, for instance say the day after the massacre of October 7th that this is why we need to double down on the two state solution. It just can’t be in the hands of people going at that kind of slow speed”, he says.
Had the events of Oct.7th happened in the U.S.A., Murray points out, proportionately over 120,000 Americans would have been massacred on one day. “Nobody can tell me that the Americans would have listened to anyone then, nor should they, “he adds. The one potential outcome of the war that Murray absolutely rejects is that the situation might return to the status quo ante of October 6th. “Israel must be allowed to win,” he asserts. “It cannot simply always be encouraged to fight for a stalemate.” Regarding the as of yet unresolved situation with Hezbollah, Murray poked fun at the thought that we will all have to relearn the map of the North and become experts again on the Litani River. “Since 2006 it’s just been a replay of the same thing,” he says. “It just feels like Groundhog Day,” he quips to the amused young people in the room. And then in a more somber tone: “Anything other than actual victory by the Israelis in this conflict is unacceptable because all of these efforts to make Israel fight into a stalemate will simply prepare the groundwork for the next war and this country deserves not to be forced into perpetual war,” he emphasizes.
According to Colonel Kemp’s analysis much of what has transpired in the world in terms of instability with the Ukraine and now Gaza has to do with a weak image projected by President Joe Biden. On the other hand, Kemp considers that Biden has been strongly in favour of Israel and the U.S. unlikely to pressure Israel to desist its military operations. For this dichotomous view Kemp actually earned applause from both Biden supporters and detractors.
The moderator brought up the tragic issue of the three hostages who had been mistakenly killed by Israeli troops. Douglas Murray reflected on the incident and said that he was genuinely shocked by “the lack of empathy for Israel internationally”. A glaring example of such a lack of empathy he suggested could be found with the posters of the hostages in various cities around the world. What followed was another of Murray’s innovative insights: “If you put up a poster of a missing cat or dog in your neighbourhood you would not expect anyone to rip it down,” he matter of factly suggests. “And if anyone did rip it down you would think that person was subhuman. You would think what kind of a sick person are we dealing with here?” he asks. “And this wasn’t dogs or cats. These were Jewish children. And in city after city sociopaths tore down these posters…This lack of empathy has been there since the day (Oct.7th G.E.) itself. And the media treats it as more evidence of the brutality of the Israeli soldiers – they even kill their own! Imagine the lives of those soldiers who shot those three hostages, how they must have felt. And yet instead of recognizing what a tragedy that is for everybody involved they use it as a weapon against Israel!” Murray’s damning condemnation resounds through the packed but quiet room. “That really has slightly startled me in this conflict,” he continued to reflect in an afterthought.
The door was left open for a little humour when the Moderator, in her last question, asked about the Day After. Colonel Kemp was first to pick up the gauntlet: “I think we need a two state solution with the United Nations supervising it,” he said without flinching and with a stiff British upper lip to boot which held tightly in place until the audience stopped laughing. And then more seriously his sober insight: “The I.D.F. has no option, whatsoever, apart from to stay in control of Gaza from now on. It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks; it doesn’t matter what President Biden might wish to happen…What is absolutely certain is that the I.D.F. must maintain security control of Gaza. It means either a permanent IDF presence inside the whole of Gaza or it means the creation of a one or two mile buffer zone on the inside of the Gaza border which no one is allowed to go into and which the I.D.F can police.”
Kemp had nary a kind word to say about the folks on the other side:”The reality in Gaza is that the vast majority of the population of allegedly innocent civilians support Hamas, even when they see the horrors that Hamas has brought on them, they still support Hamas . And there will be efforts to have a Hamas 2,” the Colonel warned.
Murray concurs that it is a “very bleak necessity” but that Israel will need to stay in Gaza. For how long? “Call me a pessimist,” says Kemp, “but I would say forever.” Like his colleague, Murray also spends some of his days visiting the wounded in hospitals. On a recent visit he met one of the victims, a farmer, from a border Kibbutz who had lost his wife, son and both of his legs in the Hamas attack of Oct.7th . “He said something that has really stuck with me,” Murray recalled, “He said, ‘I have been a leftist all my life. I now want to look out on nothing but potato fields from here to the Mediterranean.’ Who can risk living beside these people? Nobody else in the world would be expected to have to put up with that. I don’t think the Israelis have to be an experiment test case either. I think you should have the right to live in peace and to know that the border you have does not contain genocidal maniacs on the other side who wish to kill you all.”
In the question period which followed, Murray was asked what changes he would like to see in present day Britain. “Obviously the first thing I’d do would be to make Richard Kemp Minister of Defence,” he suggests to uproarious laughter from the crowd. “I assume you’ll be Prime Minister, will you,” Kemp shot back. Feigning humility, Murray wistfully demurred saying only, “If the nations calls…” Presumably, they may one day.
Getting more serious Murray took aim at the “appalling” pro Hamas demonstrations which took place in London and included one on Remembrance Day. “I think it’s been shameful,” he said. “I want no Hamas supporters in my country. And that’s quite easy to arrange in my view,” he added making reference to a case in point of Muhammud Sawalha, a key Hamas terrorist from the West Bank who subsequently obtained British citizenship. “To get a British passport you must, among other things sign a form that says you are a person of good character. I submit that he is not a person of good character,” said Murray, “and that he lied on his form when he said that he was. I would like to see his citizenship stripped and I would like to see him deported and to try his luck in Gaza.” On a humorous roll, Murray recalled the case of a young lady whose British passport was recalled when she returned from having joined Isis and tried to pretend – once the Caliphate fell apart – that she didn’t know that they were actually a “murderous, head-hacking group” and besides, “we all make mistakes”. She shouldn’t get her passport back argued Murray maintaining vociferously that “If you’re with an Islamist death cult you should not be allowed to be in Britain.”
Colonel Kemp fielded a question about another hot potato issue, that of missiles being fired from Yemen which no one seems to be doing anything about. “Yemen has been firing missiles into Israel since the war began including the first ever in history engagement in space when a Houthi ballistic missile was intercepted by an Israeli Aero missile outside the earth’s atmosphere. They’ve been firing numerous missiles and drones towards Israel, all of which have been shot down.” Unless a message is sent soon to Yemen and Iran by the U.S. Kemp warns that war in Lebanon will be inevitable.
A visiting American Major with a pronounced Midwestern drawl asked Colonel Kemp if he could explain the concept known as “the fog of war”. “It’s an extraordinary thing that doesn’t apply anywhere else in life,” said Kemp, “you have very often young, inexperienced soldiers in the reserves with a limited amount of recent training and then suddenly they are thrown into Gaza which I would say is one of the most treacherous and demanding battlefields that anyone has fought on in the history of warfare. And they’re expected to always make the right decision. That simply cannot happen. We all make mistakes. And that’s when nobody is shooting at us. Nobody is trying to kill us. We haven’t suffered lack of sleep for days on end, we’re not cold, hungry, we’re not terrified and yet we still make mistakes. So how can these guys not make mistakes? And the enemy is trying to fool you all the time, trying to make you think that the reality in front of your eyes is not the reality in front of your eyes. And the difference is when a soldier makes a mistake very often people die as a consequence.” The reference that was embedded on most peoples’ minds was the recent tragic killing of the three Israeli hostages by friendly fire.
Murray was asked about the effect of “hasbara” (P.R. G.E) in the current war. “I believe they should be given some credit for they have done a better job that any time previously that I have been covering since 2006”, he said. Taking the Al-Shifa hospital as an example, Murray pointed out that Israel “got on top of it very fast” like releasing the closed circuit TV footage of the hostages being led in to the hospital and showing the weapons cache that was discovered there. But at the same time, he underscores why not even the best P.R. may succeed in certain circumstances. “The minute they show that the hospital has an arms dump inside it and has a load of kalashnikovs and grenades , Jeremy Bowen of the BBC goes on and is asked about it and says, ‘well, it is not inconceivable that the kalshnikovs belonged to the hospital’s security department’. On the television the next day I said, ‘yes, and it’s possible the grenades were for the cardiology department’.” Murray’s point is well taken. No matter how strong the evidence is, it is not necessarily strong enough to overcome bias.
Kemp concurs, “This extraordinary propaganda campaign against Israel – everything that Israel does is wrong. For the past 10 years the BBC has not allowed me to speak on any program about Israel. Any other security issue, any other country I’m on all the time on the BBC just not about Israel. I got a call a few weeks back asking if I would do an interview about Israel. I almost fell off my chair,” recalls Kemp. “Then I realized what was going on. They had been heavily criticized and were under a lot of pressure for their lies about Al-Alhi hospital attack (where Israel was wrongly blamed for the bombing, G.E.) They felt we need to show how broadminded we are, so we’ll even get this extremist Kemp on to speak. So that’s how I became a human shield for the BBC”, Kemp concluded with a wry smile.
In a final story, also about the BBC, Kemp relates that he was once invited to the BBC studio in Jerusalem to do a number of interviews. In the interview which was live from London he was asked why the IDF were so keen to send in ground forces to Gaza. I explained “they don’t want to go in on the ground, they know the problems with that. So I was asked then why do the politicians want to go in on the ground. I said they don’t. I’ve spoken to them, the Prime Minister, the Defence Minister they will only go in if they have to. The interviewer was completely stumped at this and all he could say was, ‘yes, but you’re a Jew’. Now how do you answer that,” Kemp asked incredulously. Do I say in a belligerent tone, “how dare you accuse me of being a Jew!?” But instead I said simply, “I don’t have that honour.”
“If I can just say something” interjected Murray, “about the youth of this country. So young! So brilliant! So vivacious. I met a young woman the other day of 21 who was an expert on Yemen! Why her contemporary in America is being educated to become stupid and wicked!” his observation met by peals of laughter. Then more seriously, “I have been so moved by these young people. They will be an example not just to Israel but to the people of the world. And if I may leave you with one last thought,” he continued. “I know this period is incredibly troubling, disturbing, upsetting and much more for the people of this country. I think the country is still going through a trauma, trying to work out what was done to you in October. You asked at the beginning why we do this. I would just say whether I can answer it or not, it is the honour of my life to be standing in alliance with you.”
The evening done, the young people rushed the small stage to take selfies with both fine gentlemen. Douglas Murray and Colonel Richard Kemp. Two of Israel’s most beloved friends, indeed.
Gabriel Emanuel is a former Winnipegger.
An edited version of this article first appeared in the Jerusalem Post, December 29, 2023 .
Features
Musings from Dizengoff Street – by Bruce Brown (updated Sept. 18)
(Posted Sept. 18) Just wonderin’. When a tree falls in a forest and no one’s there to hear it, does it make a sound? And if Iran says it’s not enriching uranium and no one’s there to verify it, do they develop fissile material?
Now Iran just obtained a seat on the General Committee of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s General Conference – how crazy is that. Like letting the cat guard the milk.
(Posted Sept. 15) Apparently some superheroes are against us. But not really. Whewww!!! Fortunately it’s just the progressive actors who play them in movies. Such as Benedict Cumberbatch (Dr. Strange) and Mark Ruffalo (the Hulk) as well as other minor actors not worth mentioning. What are these misinformed thespians aligning themselves with. Not sure they really know. Well. It’s with The Freedom for Marwan campaign, which pushes for the release of convicted, arch-terrorist mastermind Marwan Barghouti. Convicted in 2004 and sentenced to five life sentences plus 40 years for orchestrating various heinous shooting sprees in Israel during the Second Intifada (2000-2005). Killing and wounding too many innocent Israeli civilians including a Greek Orthodox monk outside Jerusalem. As a comic book fan, and closet Batman and Aquaman (when I swim), it saddens me that these guardians of the universe can be associated with defending evil. But then I remind myself it’s only the actors -what do they know anyway- and not really the superheroes. Unlike our own Gal Gadot (Wonder Woman), Natalie Portman (the Mighty Thor), Shira Haas (Sabra) and Liev Schreiber (Sabretooth). All firmly on the side of good.
(Posted Sept 10) Honey cakes. Honey cakes. Honey cakes. It’s that time of year. Yummy! Here comes Rosh HaShana 5787. And its…. You guessed it. Honey cake season. That light brown loaf our baba used to make. Starting a few weeks before Rosh HaShana and extending through Yom Kippur – a first bite to break the fast and usher in a sweet year- honey cakes are found throughout the country. The familiar sight of the ready-made, pre-packaged, ‘assembly-line’ honey cakes wrapped in cheap cellophane found in Grocery stores. The freshly baked honey cakes adorning window displays at local bakeries. The exorbitantly priced, gourmet honey cake desserts offered at fancy Tel Aviv restaurants. And of course, honey cakes festooning the festive, colorful, Rosh Hashana dinner tables across Israel. I bake my own honey cake which is pretty good. My wife and kids would beg to differ. But these slightly glazed honey cakes -of my own culinary, shtetl inspired creation- are heartedly enjoyed by me as I gain several honey cake induced pounds. Shana tova!
(Posted Sept. 8) Hoarding. A combination of my own little wartime PTSD and some recent headlines about Iran trying to coordinate a multifront attack (is that capability still there?!) and October 7 like rumblings from the West Bank (or Judea & Samaria, depending if you wear a kippa and if its knitted and if it tilts to this side or that side -that’s a shtetl insider joke). I digress and Yikes! And we just had a nation-wide drill of the IDF’s top-level headquarters preparedness for such scenarios. Double Yikes! So ya. I’m always checking and rechecking that we have way more than enough of some things. The thought of entering another prolonged war and some stuff no longer available, even for a short time, scares the bejeebers out of me. Just writing about it triggers the ‘go and buy’ dopamine hit. Medications. Toilet paper. Bottled water. Canned goods. Also worried about the country running out of bullets. But I can’t hoard those.
(Posted Sept. 5) An open letter to the zany and zealous mouthpieces of those delightful, anti-Israel protests held regularly in Toronto. In the heavily Jewish Bathurst & Sheppard area no less. Fear and harassment in the community? Not by the hairs of our chinny chin chins.
Dear Friends.
Are you serious.
Sincerely,
Bruce Brown, a Zionist who does not rape children. Who does not murder children. Who does not eat children. And, get this, who lives in Israel.
(Ed. note: To better understand what Bruce is talking about, go to this story on our website: Police open hate-crime investigation)
(Posted Sept. 1) Can you be more of an international embarrassment and liability? Yes talking about Israeli’s antagonist extraordinaire and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir.
Declaring that Israel should kill ’30-40 Gazans a day’. Seriously?!?! His actual statement may have been more refined and qualified. But it doesn’t really make a difference. That’s the takeaway. Like whose side is he on anyway. Talk about giving our detractors ammunition to delegitimize our little shtetl. Hello?!?!
And a few days later. Showing off in front of a gallows site under construction at a high security prison. Seriously?!?! The death penalty for terrorists. Right or not – I think the former. But like can you give us reason to be compared to an extremist state. That’s the takeaway. Like whose side is he on anyway. Talk about giving our detractors ammunition to delegitimize our little shtetl. Hello?!?!
Serenity now!
(Posted August 28) Kites. Color. Childhood. Hamas and friends should watch Mary Poppins with the final kite flying scene. Remember that song, Let’s Go Fly A Kite. Ya, I know. Somewhat ethnocentric. But still…. I have fond memories of flying kites with my kids. Down the Mediterranean shoreline in Tel Aviv. At the Ness Tziona kite flying festival. Along the green grounds of the Weizmann Institute. Laughing and running. Looking to the sky with awe. Multi-shades and fancy. Kites.
With your fist ‘olding tight
To the string of your kite
…oh, oh, oh!
Lets go fly a kite
Kites. Fun. Laughter. Innocence.
Kites. Not an instrument of war.
(Posted August 25) How principled can you be! Ireland -one of the most anti-Israel and foggiest countries in the EU- insisted that its government’s new, 60$M executive jet NOT be equipped with Elbit’s FalconEye navigation system, which helps pilots navigate in fog -how ironic- and other difficult weather conditions. Without this unique system the plane must be diverted to alternative airports. This a part of the government’s official boycott of Israeli goods. So good luck to Prime Minister Michael Martin in landing his aircraft in Dublin.
And despite some negative sentiment towards everything Israel, Elbit achieved over 32$B in backorders with Europe driving much of its export growth. On a more personal muse. The morning after Iran’s first attack on Israel (April 13 2024), I woke up not with fear and panic. Well. Okay. Some of that. But also great excitement regarding an investment opportunity which developed overnight. Actually it was the wife’s suggestion. After Israel successfully intercepted over three hundred missiles and drones – showcasing the strength of Israel’s defense industry- my wife had a eureka moment. What better public relations for Israel’s defense industry. Let’s buy stock in Elbit, a key player in that ecosystem. We did. And about eighteen months later we cashed in. With about 150% profit. This is not an endorsement to buy… blah, blah, blah….
Again. Good luck to Prime Minister Martin.
(Posted August 21) Sometimes musings are terribly sad. But should be shared.
Happy belated birthday beautiful Ariel. Turned seven on August 5th. Thought about him and his younger brother Kfir and mother Shiri. All murdered by Hamas shortly after their unbelievable and surreal abduction on Oct 7 2023.
As I was driving home today. “I Thank You Child” by Zakk Wylde shuffled onto my Spotify. Always kills me, this song. It was played by Yarden, the father who himself was held hostage, at the funeral of his family. For Ariel and Kfir. The lyrics chilling. The frequent drum rolls haunting.
It was you who made living all worth the while
Oh, I thank you, my child
Comfort in your eyes
For the warmth inside your smile
Faith’s done gone astray
It was you who made living all the while
All my fears repressed
Oh lovin’ you child it’s the best
This song. Written almost thirty years ago. Finds its devastating meaning today. With the Bibas family tragedy.
How.
Listen to the song here:
(Posted August 18, 2026) And the beat goes on in the strait. A bit quieter lately although may be heating up again with the 60day ‘ceasefire’ officially expired. And while Iran occasionally lashed out over the last two months, they did not attack Israel. How do you spell deterrence. According to my Yiddisha mama, its spelled ‘Pftt. Pftt. Pftt‘.
(August 14, 2026) Despite three years of varying degrees of warfare. Moody’s biannual report of the Israeli economy was quite positive. Basically, the report saw no pressures on Israel’s credit rating. While the macro data remains strong, Israel still faces a complex geopolitical situation further complicated by upcoming elections (we pondered about how crazy that is in an earlier muse). And Israeli’s inflation rate for the first half of 2026 fell to a historic five year low of 1.2% (vs Canada’s 2.6%). As for my own pocketbook. Haven’t had an infamous Israeli bank overdraft in years. So all is fine.
If that’s not enough economic voodoo talk for one musing. According to one famous barometer. Israel moved to second place in the Economist’s Big Mac Index. Introduced in 1986, this tasty indicator compares the purchasing power parity across countries by measuring the price of a McDonald’s Big Mac -which most can relate to- against the benchmark U.S. burger. So while a Big Mac in the U.S. costs $6.22. In Israel it costs $7.67, the second most expensive place to buy the hamburger in the world, Switzerland being the most pricey at a whopping (no reference to Wendy’s) $9.04. While the cheapest Big Mac can be enjoyed in Indonesia at only $2.38. Canada ranked 22nd of the fifty-four countries considered, at $5.85. Parity. Smarity. I’m going for my Big Mac fix. Just after I finish writing this muse….
(August 11, 2026) Bravo Boy George. We certainly will dance again! And what better way than with his new reggae tune. Now Boy George is dealing with a hostile backlash against his just stand for Israel. Having to withdraw from London’s East End production of Jesus Christ Superstar where he was going to play – guess it. King Herod. Never a big Culture Club fan, but I am anyway -as a sign of support- going to download his greatest hits to my Spotify library. And hoping to have a chance to buy a concert ticket should Boy George perform in Israel. Kind of reminds me of Bob Dylan’s 1983 song Neighborhood Bully. Also in defense of Israel. I’m going to download that song as well. Although don’t think he was hounded the way Boy George is now. Sign of the times I guess.
+++++
Coming clean. I sometimes find myself chanting, to no one in particular, that snappy little ditty ‘from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.’ Now why can’t we come up with something as catchy. With such an impressive gene pool of great Jewish songwriters. George Gershwin. Irving Berlin. Burt Bacharach. Carole King. Neil Diamond. Leanard Choen. Paul Simon. Gene Simmons, Amy Winehouse. Bob Dylan. And yes, even the Buddhist Boy George. And still… gurnish! No wonder we’re losing the global PR battle
(August 8, 2026) Outside Basimta Café in Central Jerusalem. Love the red shirt against a tiny sea of black. Not sure I am shrugging because of the ultra-orthodox uproar over a Jerusalem café operating on Shabbat or the lack of an ultra-orthodox uproar over a Jerusalem café operating on Shabbat. For the last six weeks Israeli headlines shouted about the cafe chaos. With the ultra-religious blocking entrances and storming the café. While shouting ‘Shabbos! Shabbos!’ Upsetting the secular amongst us just wanting to enjoy our Saturday iced matchas. So the wife and I thought we would check it out. And. Yes. Buy something to support the business. Uproar. Not. Blocked entrances. Not. Storming the café. Not. Albeit there were police barriers separating the devout protesters from the coffee drinkers. The protesters being just a few dozen black clad, pious Jews. Mostly teenagers. And yes. Shouting ‘Shabbos! Shabbos!’ Certainly underwhelming in its reported mayhem. Reminds me of the famous saying misattributed to Mark Twain – “If you don’t read the newspaper, you’re uninformed. If you do, you’re misinformed.” But I did enjoy my iced matcha.
(August 6, 2026) Here we go again. Another round of forever negotiations. As someone who negotiates for a living. The way things are going in the straits. If I had to recommend a book on the subject to a new hire. Between The Art of the Deal, A Presidential Edition by Donald J. Trump or The Real Art of the Deal by the Mullahs of Iran with a special forward by the IRGC. Well. I would choose the latter.
(August 3) Bravo Yoav Segalovitz, Liberal Yesh Atid MK and Monsour Abbas, United Arab Ra’am MK and party head. For breaking a glass ceiling where a Jewish lawmaker joins an Arab political party. No less a political earthquake in my little shtetl. Which can significantly impact coalition block arithmetic and posturing and strategy in the upcoming elections. Now Ra’am can be considered a legitimate ‘Zionist’ partner when forming coalition blocks and potentially pushing the ‘center left/right’ party over the 60 seat majority threshold. In our crazy parliamentary democracy defined by a multi-party (about fourteen!!), proportional representation system. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, Israel’s proportional representation model of governance is the best parliamentary democracy system except for all other forms of working democracies. Stay tuned for more amateurish political musings as we move towards Israel’s 26th national election – five of them held since 2019.
(August 1) Although both sides say they are open to diplomacy. Neither really trusts the other. And American military action, or its threat, continues. I read headlines in the middle of the night -it’s a nervous habit lately– that the Dynamic Duo of Trump and Netanyahu may again strike in unison. Possibly this weekend. Yikes! Prompting me, at 2:30 AM, to dash around the house stocking my safe room. Bottled water. Canned food. Medicines. Documents. The beat goes on….
If it’s crazy here. It’s insane in Italy. With a recent online ‘Jew Hunt’ in the Milan area. Before being removed, the digital forms urged reportings of Israelis and Italian Jews staying in local hotels. The infamous Global Sumud Movement -yes, the one coordinating ‘peace and humanitarian’ flotillas to Gaza- was somehow connected. Although they deny involvement?! This deranged decree was looking to identify Zionist tourism and Zionist neo-colonization in Italy. I’ll stick with stocking the saferoom.
Then there’s New York Mayor Mamdani, a Global Sumud Movement supporter, threatening to arrest Prime Minister Netanyahu if he comes to New York. But since discovered he has no legal right for such a grandstanding, antisemitic, anti-Israel, anti-Western, anti-democratic antic. Maybe Mandami should be arrested! Or at least impeached. For being a grandstanding, antisemitic, anti-Israel, anti-Western, anti-democratic mayor.
Here’s a post Bruce sent us Friday, July 31:
WARTIME MUSINGS
Should credible threats against FLOTUS and ‘FSOTUS’ (first son..) not be justification to attack first.
As for yesterday’s summit. Netanyahu really can’t win. Explainer. If Trump now attacks without victory its ’cause of Netanyahu. If Trump now attacks with victory its ’cause of Trump. And, in Israel, if Trump doesn’t attack -victory or not- Netanyahu failed in his eighth meeting with Trump. And if Trump does attack -victory or not- half the country will vilify Bibi anyway. Missing a permutation?
Ya. I know. Kinda’ need a definition of victory for that musing to work.
And here in my little shtetle. We go to sleep unsure if there will be a code red in the middle of the night. And if not. We wake up thinking it will be tonight. How do you define stress?
Seemed like an appropriate way to end this musing.
Bruce Brown is a former Winnipegger who made aliyah to Israel over 35 years ago. Bruce first began writing for us – in his own inimitable style, in 2012, during what was known as “Operation Pillar of Defense.” His occasional musings on aspects of life in Israel that were far from what you’d typically read in other reports from Israel were hugely popular – both in the print Jewish Post & News and on this website.
We’re now glad to report that Bruce is back writing for us – this time on a regular basis. We will post Bruce’s reports as they arrive – with the date of each post at the beginning of that post.
Here’s some information about Bruce – and awards he’s received for his writing:
Bruce Brown. Canadian born. Now living in Israel (for a long time). Bruce works in Israel’s hi-tech sector by day and, in spurts, is a somewhat inspired writer by night. He received the American Jewish Press Association’s award for writing excellence in 2019 and 2025. And wrote the1998 satire, “An Israeli is….”. Bruce’s visuals are AI-assisted and created with ChatGPT under his inimitable visual concept and creative direction. Bruce’s musings are political, social, economic and personal. With lots of biting, contrarian, sardonic, irreverent and mischievous insights.
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Why NBA Teams Start Defending Before Half Court
An NBA defender who meets a ball handler near the opposite baseline is trying to interfere with the possession before the offense gets organized. The immediate reward need not be a steal. Making a guard change direction, protect the ball, or find another receiver can interrupt the route into a play. But pressure has several possible results, and slowing that first journey does not necessarily slow the whole game.
In Logan Murdock’s November 2025 report on full-court defense, Phoenix Suns guard Jordan Goodwin described his aim: “Try to make them take at least six seconds off the clock.” That was his target, not a measured average. Indiana Pacers coach Rick Carlisle described another purpose: getting opponents to play faster than they prefer. Both approaches interfere with timing, though one delays the setup while the other hurries decisions.
The shot clock helps explain the difference. In a normal NBA possession following a made basket, the offense has 24 seconds, with the countdown starting when the inbound pass is legally touched on the court. It must also advance out of the backcourt within eight seconds. Crossing half court does not start a fresh shot clock. Time spent getting there leaves less time to create a shot. A defensive deflection that stays inbounds does not restart the countdown.
Defensive pressure also needs careful interpretation in basketball betting. An NBA matchup on the Bovada website cannot be reduced to whether one team presses: the combined score depends on how often both sides get the ball and what they do with their chances. A defender delaying the first pass into an offense can leave less time for a good attempt. A turnover followed by a quick basket has a different effect.
Those possibilities make defensive intensity an incomplete description of a scoring outlook. A team can force its opponent to work harder while creating quick attacking chances for itself. It can also concede an easy chance when pressure fails. Understanding the tactic means separating its purpose from its outcome, rather than treating an aggressive defender as evidence that the game must produce fewer points.
Pressure does not always mean a trap
One defender following the ball is different from two defenders closing around it. The first can contest the dribbler while teammates remain with their own assignments. A trap commits another player to the ball, so teammates elsewhere must cover the passing options and protect the basket.
A stopped dribble changes the contest. Once a player voluntarily picks up the ball, he cannot simply start dribbling again. He can still pivot, pass, or shoot, but moving away from pressure with another dribble is no longer an option. A defender can therefore restrict movement without taking possession. This is also why a guard’s choice to keep the dribble alive deserves attention: it preserves a way to move while searching for a pass.
Watch where the ball goes next. A trap can succeed by forcing an awkward pass that another defender intercepts. The players surrounding the ball do not have to be the ones who take it away. Reaching for a steal also differs from keeping the ball handler contained; abandoning position can give the guard a route past the pressure.
The offense has answers. In the Murdock report referenced earlier, Golden State guard Brandin Podziemski described using his body to shield the ball against smaller defenders and quickness to get beyond longer opponents. Beating the first defender can leave that player trailing, creating a temporary advantage farther upcourt. The remaining defenders then have to respond to an attack before their teammate has time to recover.
The work before a highlight
Former NBA guard Keith Bogans gives a defender’s perspective in his conversation with Vernon Maxwell. Discussing Jaden McDaniels, Bogans says that seeing a defender pick up a superstar across the court gets him excited in the way a dunk or crossover excites other viewers.
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His reaction focuses on the challenge being accepted. The scorer has someone to deal with before reaching a preferred attacking position. Bogans also describes the recognition that such defensive work receives from teammates and coaches, even when it attracts little attention elsewhere.
The assignment does not end when the scorer passes. The defender still needs to follow the play and be ready for the ball to return. Early pressure can force a star to give up the ball without removing him from the possession. Watching the next pass shows whether the defense has actually disrupted the attack or merely moved it.
When defense creates offense
Indiana scored 19 points off turnovers in Finals Game 6 against Oklahoma City on June 19, 2025. The figure does not isolate full-court pressure.
A change of possession ends one team’s opportunity and begins another’s. The team winning the ball can attack immediately or organize its offense, depending on the space and defenders ahead. Pressure therefore cannot be assessed only by the time an opponent spends bringing the ball forward.
Look beyond the pickup point. Does the offense arrive late but still organized? Does it make a hurried pass? Does the ball handler escape and make the remaining defenders cover extra ground? The first defender can use up time without winning the ball. If the guard gets past him, watch whether the other defenders can stop the drive without leaving someone open.
Features
In new ‘Fauda’ season, the aftershocks of Oct. 7, without a thought for Gaza
By PJ Grisar September 8, 2026
This story was originally published in the Forward. Click here to get the Forward’s free email newsletters delivered to your inbox.
When Fauda Season 4 ended an eternity and a devastating war ago, our hero was at death’s door, reciting both the central prayer of Judaism, the Shema, and the Muslim Fatiha.
It was a cliffhanger with monumental implications for Doron Kavillio (Lior Raz), an Israeli Jew who spent his days undercover as a Muslim Arab — an identity crisis long in coming. Zoom out and you can see the doomed duality of Israel and Palestine, Jew and Muslim, connected in a cycle of death and more alike than they may seem.
Season 5 begins bilingually, with Hebrew and Arab definitions of the Arabic word Tha’r, blood revenge, “restoring violated honor or avenging injustice.” This concept is now the point of commonality — not how men pray, but how they seek revenge.
Welcome to a post-Oct. 7 Israel. Doron is in therapy, struggling to recall eight missing hours of his life on the day of Hamas’ attack on the Gaza envelope.
Comrades have left the country — Steve (Doron Ben-David) is protecting oligarchs in London, Sagi and Nurit are in Australia. Eli (Yaakov Zada-Daniel) is now Orthodox, living in a settlement and reeling from the murder of his wife and stepchildren at his now-torched kibbutz. When a Bedouin friend, Salem (Bian Anteer) who lost his son in the raid on Eli’s home, approaches him with a tip on the Nukhba fighter responsible, they depart for Marseille to answer the call of Tha’r.
It would hardly be Fauda if this act of vengeance didn’t give way to a much larger plot. Marseille is the staging ground for Saeed el Hatib (French-Algerian actor Hakim Djaziri), “the Sinwar of Europe,” who is recruiting sympathetic, white continentals for a fresh massacre in Israel.
Fauda has always made some viewers uncomfortable. Massively entertaining, bingeable to those of us who stream it in the Netflix aftermarket, its existence was premised on ongoing injustices in the West Bank and Gaza and the violence that bursts through their borders. (The BDS movement labelled it a “war-crimes glorifying” series;” Haaretz called it “morally dubious.”)
And yet as late as the last season it contained very real criticism of Israel’s conduct, including its costly campaigns to recover captured soldiers and the torture used to extract information on their whereabouts. The show always alluded to real operations — Cast Lead, Brother’s Keeper — in dialogue. But because it can’t merely mention an attack as raw and monumental as Oct. 7, and because it has no desire to question the response to it, it chooses to recreate its savagery.
Episodes 7 and 8, flashbacks to that day, are front-loaded with a trigger warning and a disclaimer that you can skip them and still be able to follow the main plot.
It’s hard for me to recommend those episodes. If not exactly atrocity porn, their central, race-against-time set piece is too anchored in recent events and constructed too much like an action movie. It feels in a sense exploitative, even if intended as a tribute. (To give them credit, both Lior Raz and his co-creator Avi Issacharoff, who said they “wrote from their trauma,” were on the ground helping the south of the country evacuate in the aftermath.)
The new season starts with the promise of complexity. It opens on a grieving Muslim father and shifts to a milksop accountant who worked for Hamas, seemingly tortured by Eli in a blind rage for a crime he didn’t commit. Could an excessive devotion to Tha’r, a tribal code of retribution, be the diagnosis of the show’s creators of Israeli society at this moment?
If it is, it’s not a critical one. The villains are the villains, and, most revealingly, they now number people with no connection to the conflict.
Hatib’s enlistment of white Europeans for a mass-casualty terror attack services a trite narrative of postcolonial guilt finding an outlet in the pro-Palestinian cause. It works on another level too: This fighting force is squaring off against Doron’s corps of Mizrahi Jews, whose mere presence dismantles the lie that Israelis are themselves all white colonizers, and that Israel and the European empire of yore are in any way analogous.
When, back at mission control, the counterterrorists speak of “suspicious-looking Europeans” who are “in their 30s,” the derision for this type of fellow traveller is palpable. Their standard bearer, Mélanie Laurent, formerly Tarantino’s “face of Jewish vengeance,” plays Anne, a blonde, “high middle-class Catholic French woman” who straps up with C-4, a keffiyeh ever-draped around her neck. Through her, and in a quite literal way, the show suggests the Western love affair with Palestinians — which in this season’s logic means Hamas — is misguided.
All the while, we never see Gaza, where much of Season 3 was set, with some among its population humanized. We never reckon with the destruction there. We hear about it, and a kind of lip service is paid to the crime of collective punishment — the sort that we hear at the end of almost every season — but it’s secondary to storytelling as elegy and justification. One could just have easily placed the Hebrew word Zachor before that first cold open: Remember what they did to us.
At one point, after a shootout with more blood spatter than I ever recall seeing on the show, Doron empties his clip into an enemy with the words “this is for October 7.” Seconds later, in a Shin Bet command room his handler Gabi (Itzik Cohen, whose between-seasons weight gain is a running joke) quips, a la Danny Glover in Lethal Weapon, “I’m too old for this.”
He’s not the only one.
In the past week I’ve chatted with some folks older than me — they don’t know each other and are largely to my right on Israel — who don’t relish the thought of another season. Not just because they don’t want to watch Oct. 7 reenacted, but because following the exploits of Israeli security agents has vastly different optics after the Hamas-Israel war, unprecedented settler violence and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s recently-stated ideal scenario of killing “30 or 40” Palestinians in Gaza each night.
This may well be the privilege of the diaspora, but the fatigue points to a shift in attitude that’s worth paying attention to. If these horrors are out of sight, out of mind this season, they’re top of mind to many who are watching — and many others who might have once tuned in.
PJ Grisar is a Forward culture reporter. Read full bio →
This story was originally published on the Forward.
