Douglas Murray Weighs in on Viral Joe Rogan Interview, His New Book, + MORE!
Douglas Murray, National Review Institute Fellow and author of the new book On Democracies and Death Cults: Israel and the Future of Civilization , joined The Guy Benson Show to discuss his travels through Israel and Gaza and why he believes the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a battle between Western values and violent extremism. Murray explained how Israel's commitment to individual rights, democracy, and reason makes it a clear contrast to Hamas, which he describes as a death cult openly embracing destruction over peace. He also detailed how Western institutions, including universities, dangerously mischaracterize the conflict as one of oppressor versus oppressed. Plus, Murray talked about his recent appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience and his fiery debate with comedian Dave Smith. Listen to the full interview below!
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19 minutes ago
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One in 67 people worldwide remains forcibly displaced: UNHCR report
At least 123.2 million people, or one in 67 individuals worldwide, remain forcibly displaced, according to a report released by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) today. The number of displaced people has increased by seven million people, or 6 percent, compared with the end of 2023. This continues a 13-year trend which has seen a year-on-year increase in the number of displaced people globally. However, the UNHCR estimated that forced displacement fell in the first four months of this year, to 122.1 million by the end of April 2025. 'We are living in a time of intense volatility in international relations, with modern warfare creating a fragile, harrowing landscape marked by acute human suffering. We must redouble our efforts to search for peace and find long-lasting solutions for refugees and others forced to flee their homes,' said UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi. Of the 123.2 million total forcibly displaced, 73.5 million are internally displaced within their own countries due to conflict or other crises. This is an increase of 6.3 million compared with 2023. Internally displaced people (IDPs) account for 60 percent of the majority of those who have been forced to flee globally. In Gaza, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) estimates that about 90 percent of the population, or more than two million people, have been displaced by Israel's continuing assault. As of 2024, the number of refugees stood at 42.7 million, a decrease of 613,600 from the previous year. Of this number, 31 million are under the UNHCR's mandate, 5.9 million are Palestinian refugees under the mandate of UNRWA, and another 5.9 million need international protection. According to the UNHCR, the lower number of refugees in 2024 reflects lower estimates of Afghan and Syrian refugees and updated reporting on Ukrainian refugees. However, the number of Sudanese refugees increased by nearly 600,000 to 2.1 million. The number of asylum seekers – people seeking protection in another country due to persecution or fear of harm in their home country – waiting for a decision stood at 8.4 million, an increase of 22 percent from the previous year. This puts the number of displaced people globally at one in 67 people. In 1951, the UN established the Refugee Convention to protect the rights of refugees in Europe in the aftermath of World War II. In 1967, the convention was expanded to address displacement across the rest of the world. When the Refugee Convention was born, there were 2.1 million refugees. By 1980, the number of refugees recorded by the UN surpassed 10 million for the first time. Wars in Afghanistan and Ethiopia during the 1980s caused the number of refugees to double to 20 million by 1990. The number of refugees remained fairly consistent over the next two decades. However, the invasion of Afghanistan by the United States in 2001 and that of Iraq in 2003, together with the civil wars in South Sudan and Syria, resulted in refugee numbers exceeding 30 million by the end of 2021. The war in Ukraine, which started in 2022, led to one of the fastest-growing refugee crises since World War II, with 5.7 million people forced to flee Ukraine in less than a year. By the end of 2023, six million Ukrainians remained forcibly displaced. The number of IDPs has doubled in the past 10 years, with a steep incline since 2020. Conflict in Sudan between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces has triggered the world's largest displacement crisis, with a total of 14.3 million Sudanese remaining displaced at the end of 2024. This was 3.5 million more people than 12 months prior. In 2024, more than one-third of all forcibly displaced people globally were Sudanese (14.3 million), Syrian (13.5 million), Afghan (10.3 million) or Ukrainian (8.8 million). In 2024, 1.6 million refugees returned to their home country. 'However, many of these refugees returned to Afghanistan, Syria, South Sudan or Ukraine, despite the fragile situations in each,' Matthew Saltmarsh, UNHCR's media head, said. 'Returns to places in conflict or instability are far from ideal and often unsustainable.' In 2024, 8.2 million IDPs returned to their area of origin. The UNHCR estimates that nine in 10 refugees and IDPs returned to just eight countries, which included Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Ethiopia, Lebanon, Myanmar, South Sudan, Syria and Ukraine. 'Large IDP returns during the year were also registered in several countries that simultaneously saw significant new displacements, such as the DRC (2.4 million), Myanmar (378,000), Syria (514,000) or Ukraine (782,000),' Saltmarsh said. 'Even amid the devastating cuts, we have seen some rays of hope over the last six months,' Grandi said. 'Nearly two million Syrians have been able to return home after over a decade uprooted. The country remains fragile, and people need our help to rebuild their lives again.'
Yahoo
19 minutes ago
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Milei says Argentina to move embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in 2026
Argentinian President Javier Milei has announced that his country will move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem next year, as the populist leader signalled his support for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's increasingly isolated government. Argentina's embassy is currently located in Herzliya, just outside Tel Aviv. But in a speech to Israel's parliament on Wednesday, staunchly pro-Israel Milei said he was 'proud to announce' his country will move its 'embassy to the city of west Jerusalem' in 2026. 'Argentina stands by you in these difficult days,' Milei said. 'Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about a large part of the international community that is being manipulated by terrorists and turning victims into perpetrators,' he told the Knesset. The Argentinian leader, currently on his second state visit to Israel since taking office in 2023, said Buenos Aires will continue to demand that Israeli captives held in Gaza be released, including four with Argentinian citizenship taken during the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attack. Milei also criticised Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, who was detained and deported by Israeli authorities this week after being taken with other activists from a Freedom Flotilla Coalition ship attempting to break Israel's naval blockade on Gaza. Thunberg has been a vocal critic of Israel's war crimes in Gaza and deliberate starvation of the territory's Palestinian population. '[Thunberg] became a hired gun for a bit of media attention, claiming that she was kidnapped when there are really hostages in subhuman conditions in Gaza,' Milei said, according to a translation of his remarks from Spanish provided by the Knesset. Israel is facing mounting international pressure over the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza, with the overall death toll after more than 20 months of war surpassing 55,000 had pledged to move Argentina's embassy during his first visit in February 2024, in which he also prayed at the Western Wall, a revered religious site for Jews in Jerusalem. Speaking in advance of Milei's address to parliament this week, Prime Minister Netanyahu said 'the city of Jerusalem will never be divided again'. The status of Jerusalem is one of the most delicate issues in the Israel-Palestinian conflict, with Israel claiming the entirety of the ancient city as its capital, while Palestine claims its occupied eastern sector as the site of any future Palestinian state. Israel first occupied East Jerusalem during the 1967 Six-Day War, before unilaterally annexing it in 1980 in a move rejected by the United Nations Security Council. Due to its disputed status, the vast majority of the 96 diplomatic missions present in Israel host their embassies in the Tel Aviv area to avoid interfering with peace negotiations. Currently only six countries – Guatemala, Honduras, Kosovo, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay and the United States – have embassies located in West Jerusalem. During his first term in 2017, President Donald Trump made the shock decision to unilaterally recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital before moving the US embassy there a year later, prompting Palestinian anger and the international community's disapproval. This status was not revoked under the Biden administration and Washington continues to recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital today.
Yahoo
28 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Netanyahu survives opposition bid to dissolve parliament
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's hard-right government survived an opposition bid to dissolve parliament on Thursday, as lawmakers rejected a bill that could have paved the way for snap elections. Out of the Knesset's 120 members, 61 voted against the proposal, with 53 in favour. The opposition had introduced the bill hoping to force elections with the help of ultra-Orthodox parties in the governing coalition angry at Netanyahu over the contentious issue of exemptions from military service for their community. While the opposition is composed mainly of centrist and leftist groups, ultra-Orthodox parties that are propping up Netanyahu's government had earlier threatened to back the motion. The results of the vote Thursday morning, however, showed that most ultra-Orthodox lawmakers ultimately did not back the opposition bill, with just a small number voting in favour. The opposition will now have to wait six months before it can try again. Before the vote, Yuli Edelstein, a lawmaker from Netanyahu's right-wing Likud party, announced that after lengthy discussions, parties had agreed on the "principles on which the draft conscription law will be based". Edelstein, who chairs the foreign affairs and defence committee, did not specify the terms of the agreement. "As I said all along -- only a real, effective bill that leads to an expansion of the (Israeli military's) recruitment base will emerge from the committee I chair," he wrote on social media platform X. "This is historic news, and we are on the path to real reform in Israeli society and strengthening the security of the State of Israel." Edelstein had earlier put forward a bill aimed at increasing the number of ultra-Orthodox conscripted, and tightening the penalties for those who refuse to serve. Opposition leader Yair Lapid, meanwhile, said the government was seeing the beginning of the end. "When coalitions begin to fall apart, they fall apart. It started and this is what it looks like when a government begins to collapse," he said. Ultra-Orthodox parties had been given a choice between losing a law on their exemption from military service, or losing their place in the government, and they chose exemption, Lapid added. "The government helped them... organise the exemption of tens of thousands of healthy young people," he said, referring to ultra-Orthodox Israelis. Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi hit back, saying the coalition government was "moving forward" and "stronger than ever". Earlier on Wednesday, opposition leaders had said their decision to bring the dissolution bill to the Knesset for a vote was "made unanimously and is binding on all factions". They said that all opposition parties would freeze their lawmaking activities to focus on "the overthrow of the government". Netanyahu's coalition is one of the most right-wing in the country's history. It includes two ultra-Orthodox parties -- Shas and United Torah Judaism (UTJ). The two parties had threatened to back the motion for early elections. - 'Existential danger' - Military service is mandatory in Israel but, under a ruling that dates back to the country's creation when the ultra-Orthodox were a very small community, men who devote themselves full-time to the study of Jewish scripture are given a de facto pass. Whether that should change has been a long-running issue. Efforts to scrap the exemption have intensified during the nearly 20-month war in Gaza as the military looks for extra manpower. Netanyahu is under pressure from his Likud party to draft more ultra-Orthodox men -- a red line for parties such as Shas, who demand a law guaranteeing their constituents permanent exemption from military service. Ahead of the vote in the early hours of Thursday morning, Israeli media reported that officials from Netanyahu's coalition were holding talks with ultra-Orthodox leaders hoping to find common ground. In an apparent bid to allow time for those negotiations, Netanyahu's coalition filled the Knesset's agenda with bills to delay the vote. Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said that bringing down the government during wartime would pose "an existential danger" to Israel's future. "History will not forgive anyone who drags the state of Israel into elections during a war," Smotrich told parliament, adding that there was a "national and security need" for ultra-Orthodox to fight in the military. Netanyahu's government is a coalition between his Likud party, far-right groups and ultra-Orthodox parties, whose departure would leave it without a parliamentary majority. bur-gv/jxb/sco/kir
