Douglas Murray: No One Tells Ukraine ‘Don’t Win Too Much’ Like They Do Israel

On Friday’s broadcast of HBO’s “Real Time,” columnist and The Spectator Associate Editor Douglas Murray stated that Israel is “never allowed to win.” And there’s a double standard at play, because no one tells Ukraine, “hold on, don’t win too much.”

Murray said, “I can’t speak to whether anyone is starving. It’s a bad situation in Gaza, because Hamas started a war. And Israel is stuck in this very, very strange position of having to supply food to the area controlled by its enemy. … There are food trucks going through all the time, but, of course, the situation is terrible, because the situation could end at any point if Hamas did what they’ve been asked to do repeatedly, for six months, which is to give back the hostages. And now, my view is that there’s — and I’ve seen the conflict up close, and I still believe that, first of all, you can’t just put out 80% of a fire, you have to put out the whole thing. You can’t destroy 80% of Hamas, you can’t not get the leader who masterminded [October 7], Sinwar, and that’s all in Rafah.”

He continued, “And the second thing is, I don’t think there’s any law of war that says you can start a war and then, when you begin to lose it, you say, let’s pretend we didn’t start it.”

Host Bill Maher then said, “But that is always what Israel faces.”

Murray responded, “Sure. It’s very strange. A year before, I was in Ukraine and I was with the Ukrainian armed forces when they were re-taking land from the Russians, and nobody was saying, hold on, don’t win too much. Everyone was egging them on. Every Western leader gets a shot of testosterone whenever they talk about the Ukrainian armed forces. And yet, the Israelis, never allowed to win. Very strange.”

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