A prominent author, associate editor of the British magazine The Spectator and regular contributor to The Times and The Daily Telegraph, Murray in an interview with JNS justified Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to keep fighting until Hamas’s dismantlement, and downplayed concerns that it would leave Israel isolated.

“Anything short of victory is defeat,” Murray told JNS at a conference organized by the European Jewish Association in Madrid on combating antisemitism.

Israel’s decision this month to intensify the fighting until Hamas is removed from power in Gaza has triggered a coordinated effort within the European Union and beyond to punish the Jewish state for what its critics call war crimes.

On Monday, the leaders of the United Kingdom, France and Canada published a joint statement threatening “concrete actions in response” to the war. The European Commission on Tuesday decided to review its trade agreement with Israel, citing concerns of human rights abuses.

According to some reports, the war is also straining the U.S.-Israeli alliance, though officials from both countries have denied this. Pressure to end the war short of achieving its main goal is mounting, also internally in Israel. Yair Golan, the leader of the far-left The Democrats party, on Tuesday implied that Israel was insane, as “a sane country does not kill babies as a hobby.”

But “the reality is that Israel must see this war through. Anything less invites the next one,” Murray said in Madrid, where the director of the European Jewish Association, Rabbi Menachem Margolin, presented him with an award honoring his fact-finding missions in Israel and his support of the Jewish state.

Murray had covered the war in Ukraine intensively when, on Oct. 7, 2023, war broke out between Israel, Hamas and several other Iranian proxies. The British journalist subsequently spent weeks in Israel, where he documented atrocities committed by Hamas.

On April 10, Murray defended Israel on the podcast of Joe Rogan, where he challenged Rogan, the world’s most listened-to pundit, on perceived unfairness and laziness in discussing Israel’s war. That exchange had more than four million listeners.

Murray does not believe in continuing the war regardless of its cost, but rather that this cost is still manageable, despite attempts to raise it for Israel.

“Not at any cost,” Murray told JNS about the terms for continuing the war. As it appears now, the cost of not dismantling Hamas may end up exceeding that of terminating its reign, he argued. “Keeping Hamas means another war at some point. So anything short of victory is defeat—and we can’t afford a defeat. It’s unaffordable,” Murray said.

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