There was a time when war correspondents helped readers understand the complexities and contradictions of war-ravaged areas by reporting from the overseas sites of hostilities. Journalists like Michael Kelly, Daniel Pearl, and P.J. O’Rourke had such courage and honesty. That time seemed lost in recent years, but perhaps it’s reappeared.
Bestselling author Douglas Murray refuses to write about any troubled area he hasn’t visited personally. Readers of his latest book, “On Democracies and Death Cults: Israel and the Future of Civilization,” are richer for the experience he shares after spending months in Israel, Gaza, and Lebanon, where he reported on Israel’s infamous Nova Music Festival massacre of Oct. 7, 2023. Murray says he wanted to do more than write about what happened. He wanted to be a witness to the largest slaughter of the Jewish people since the Holocaust.
