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Algemeiner ‘J100’ Honoree Douglas Murray on the IDF: ‘The Civilized World Owes Them Everything’
British author Douglas Murray speaking at The Algemeiner’s 11th annual “J100” gala in New York City on Jan. 14, 2025. Photo: FotoBuddy
At The Algemeiner‘s 11th annual “J100” gala in New York City on Tuesday, acclaimed British author and journalist Douglas Murray — one of the evening’s honorees — defended Israel’s conduct during the war in Gaza and called on the West to maintain moral clarity when judging a conflict that, he argued, is fundamentally one between good and evil.
“I just wanted to mention two truths tonight,” Murray said. “The first is that a number of people have already mentioned tonight something very important which is an undeniable fact, which is that the events, the atrocities, of Oct. 7 were the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.”
“But the great Ruth Wisse, emeritus professor at Harvard — and perhaps one of the very people left who adds any luster to that ancient name — said in a podcast on the anniversary of Oct. 7 last year, she said there was something very interesting about that phrase,” Murray continued. “She said it’s right and it’s right to mention the victims, but here’s what’s interesting: Some people in our society here in America and elsewhere have had the courage — why it should require courage, I don’t know — but the courage to identify that fact, identify who the victims were. Yet what’s almost entirely absent in our society is anyone with the courage to identify who the Nazis are, to say ‘why are they among us?’”
Murray asked, “What has gone wrong here in America and the West that there are people playing, playing — I am being generous — with the most dangerous, evil imaginable? What does it say about us and the society which we’ve allowed to emerge?”
Calling the situation today “a deep challenge for us,” Murray then described the second truth he wanted to mention, citing his time spent over the last 15 months with soldiers in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
“The real warriors are very clear. We all know who they are,” Murray said. “They are these remarkable young men and women. And we owe them everything. And the civilized world owes them everything. It’s often said that the sign of growing old is that policemen look young, but I can tell you that when soldiers look like teenagers you really know you’re getting on a bit.”
Murray described visiting IDF troops during the wars in Gaza and Lebanon and made note of specific groups he encountered.
“One is the group of soldiers of the Golani Brigade. It seems wrong perhaps to single out any division or company because if I kept going I’d go on all night and we don’t have all night,” Murray said. “I was with the Golani Brigade quite a lot in the past year, and on one occasion I was in Lebanon with them and two things happened that made a particular impression on me that day. The first was a rather embarrassing one which was a young soldier in the battlefield recognized me and saluted me and I was simultaneously deeply moved and deeply mortified.”
Continuing, Murray said that “later that night the brigade returned to one of their headquarters in Binyamina and a UAV drone came through the ceiling of the dining hall as they sat down to their dinner. And I was there as the wounded were being brought out and my cameraman was helping tend to the wounds, the minor wounds, four young men were killed. I was speaking at one point to a young — he looked [like a] 19-year-old soldier — and his friend recognized me.”
“And we started talking, Murray added, “and this young soldier said to me in rather broken English, ‘You’re a writer, you’re a journalist.’ I said, ‘Yes.’ And he looked at me, blood on his neck, and he asked, ‘Are you on our side?’ And I said, ‘Of course I’m on your side.’ And he said to me that it seems like ‘a lot of the world thinks we’re the bad guys.’ And it just was heartbreaking. So I sat down with him and explained to him that although there are evil people in the world who think that, all the good people are on his side.”
The crowd applauded.
The post Algemeiner ‘J100’ Honoree Douglas Murray on the IDF: ‘The Civilized World Owes Them Everything’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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US House Members Ask Marco Rubio to Bar Turkey From Rejoining F-35 Program
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio attends a cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, DC, US, April 10, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Nathan Howard
A bipartisan coalition of more than 40 US lawmakers is pressing Secretary of State Marco Rubio to prevent Turkey from rejoining the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program, citing ongoing national security concerns and violations of US law.
Members of Congress on Thursday warned that lifting existing sanctions or readmitting Turkey to the US F-35 fifth-generation fighter program would “jeopardize the integrity of F-35 systems” and risk exposing sensitive US military technology to Russia. The letter pointed to Ankara’s 2017 purchase of the Russian S-400 surface-to-air missile system, despite repeated US warnings, as the central reason Turkey was expelled from the multibillion-dollar fighter jet program in 2019.
“The S-400 poses a direct threat to US aircraft, including the F-16 and F-35,” the lawmakers wrote. “If operated alongside these platforms, it risks exposing sensitive military technology to Russian intelligence.”
The group of signatories, spanning both parties, stressed that Turkey still possesses the Russian weapons systems and has shown “no willingness to comply with US law.” They urged Rubio and the Trump administration to uphold the Countering American Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) and maintain Ankara’s exclusion from the F-35 program until the S-400s are fully removed.
The letter comes after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan claimed during a NATO summit in June that Ankara and Washington have begun discussing Turkey’s readmission into the program.
Lawmakers argued that reversing course now would undermine both US credibility and allied confidence in American defense commitments. They also warned it could disrupt development of the next-generation fighter jet announced by the administration earlier this year.
“This is not a partisan issue,” the letter emphasized. “We must continue to hold allies and adversaries alike accountable when their actions threaten US interests.”
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US Lawmakers Urge Treasury to Investigate Whether Irish Bill Targeting Israel Violates Anti-Boycott Law
A pro-Hamas demonstration in Ireland led by nationalist party Sinn Fein. Photo: Reuters/Clodagh Kilcoyne
A group of US lawmakers is calling on the Treasury Department to investigate and potentially penalize Ireland over proposed legislation targeting Israeli goods, warning that the move could trigger sanctions under longstanding US anti-boycott laws.
In a letter sent on Thursday to US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, 16 Republican members of Congress expressed “serious concerns” about Ireland’s recent legislative push to ban trade with territories under Israeli administration, including the West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights.
The letter, spearheaded by Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-NY), called for the US to “send a clear signal” that any attempts to economically isolate Israel will “carry consequences.”
The Irish measure, introduced by Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister Simon Harris, seeks to prohibit the import of goods and services originating from what the legislation refers to as “occupied Palestinian territories,” including Israeli communities in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Supporters say the bill aligns with international law and human rights principles, while opponents, including the signatories of the letter, characterize it as a direct extension of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement, which seeks to isolate Israel as a step toward the destruction of the world’s lone Jewish state.
Some US lawmakers have also described the Irish bill as an example of “antisemitic hate” that could risk hurting relations between Dublin and Washington.
“Such policies not only promote economic discrimination but also create legal uncertainty for US companies operating in Ireland,” the lawmakers wrote in this week’s letter, urging Bessent to determine whether Ireland’s actions qualify as participation in an “unsanctioned international boycott” under Section 999 of the Internal Revenue Code, also known as the Ribicoff Amendment.
Under that statute, the Treasury Department is required to maintain a list of countries that pressure companies to comply with international boycotts not sanctioned by the US. Inclusion on the list carries tax-reporting burdens and possible penalties for American firms and individuals doing business in those nations.
“If the criteria are met, Ireland should be added to the boycott list,” the letter said, arguing that such a step would help protect US companies from legal exposure and reaffirm American opposition to economic efforts aimed at isolating Israel.
Legal experts have argued that if the Irish bill becomes law, it could chase American capital out of the country while also hurting companies that do business with Ireland. Under US law, it is illegal for American companies to participate in boycotts of Israel backed by foreign governments. Several US states have also gone beyond federal restrictions to pass separate measures that bar companies from receiving state contracts if they boycott Israel.
Ireland has been one of the fiercest critics of Israel on the international stage since the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, amid the ensuing war in Gaza, leading the Jewish state to shutter its embassy in Dublin.
Last year, Ireland officially recognized a Palestinian state, a decision that Israel described as a “reward for terrorism.”
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US Families File Lawsuit Accusing UNRWA of Supporting Hamas, Hezbollah
A truck, marked with United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) logo, crosses into Egypt from Gaza, at the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, during a temporary truce between Hamas and Israel, in Rafah, Egypt, Nov. 27, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh
American families of victims of Hamas and Hezbollah attacks have filed a lawsuit against the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, accusing the organization of violating US antiterrorism laws by providing material support to the Islamist terror groups behind the deadly assaults.
Last week, more than 200 families filed a lawsuit in a Washington, DC district court accusing the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) of violating US antiterrorism laws by providing funding and support to Hamas and Hezbollah, both designated as foreign terrorist organizations.
The lawsuit alleges that UNRWA employs staff with direct ties to the Iran-backed terror group, including individuals allegedly involved in carrying out attacks against the Jewish state.
However, UNRWA has firmly denied the allegations, labeling them as “baseless” and condemning the lawsuit as “meritless, absurd, dangerous, and morally reprehensible.”
According to the organization, the lawsuit is part of a wider campaign of “misinformation and lawfare” targeting its work in the Gaza Strip, where it says Palestinians are enduring “mass, deliberate and forced starvation.”
The UN agency reports that more than 150,000 donors across the United States have supported its programs providing food, medical aid, education, and trauma assistance in the war-torn enclave amid the ongoing conflict.
In a press release, UNRWA USA affirmed that it will continue its humanitarian efforts despite facing legal challenges aimed at undermining its work.
“Starvation does not pause for politics. Neither will we,” the statement read.
Last year, Israeli security documents revealed that of UNRWA’s 13,000 employees in Gaza, 440 were actively involved in Hamas’s military operations, with 2,000 registered as Hamas operatives.
According to these documents, at least nine UNRWA employees took part directly in the terror group’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel.
Israeli officials also uncovered a large Hamas data center beneath UNRWA headquarters, with cables running through the facility above, and found that Hamas also stored weapons in other UNRWA sites.
The UN agency has also aligned with Hamas in efforts against the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), an Israeli and US-backed program that delivers aid directly to Palestinians, blocking Hamas from diverting supplies for terror activities and selling them at inflated prices.
These Israeli intelligence documents also revealed that a senior Hamas leader, killed in an Israeli strike in September 2024, had served as the head of the UNRWA teachers’ union in Lebanon, where Lebanon is based,
UNRWA’s education programs have been found by IMPACT-se, an international organization that monitors global education, to contribute to the radicalization of younger generations of Palestinians.