Cenk Uygur and Douglas Murray Go At It in Knock-Down, Drag-Out Fight Over Israel: ‘Neocon, Warhawk, Nazi, Racist!’

The Young Turks’ Cenk Uygur and British political commentator Douglas Murray had a knock-down, drag-out fight over Israel on Piers Morgan Uncensored Thursday, with the two hurling insults and accusations at each other over the course of a long debate.

In one particularly tense moment, Murray described Uygur as a “low-rent racist” and “low-grade thug” after Uygur called him a “monster” who “doesn’t care” about Palestinian lives.

“Your other guest, I mean, I don’t know what kind of a creature he is. He’s a kind of low-grade thug, as far as I can see. He’s listened to nothing I’ve said,” insisted Murray after weathering Uygur’s allegations of apathy toward the Palestinians.

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Because I’m Muslim, that’s what you call all Muslims,” interjected Uygur.

“No, it’s not that at all. I just think that you’re very, I think you’re just a very low-rent racist. But anyway, let me just get onto you say you say, first of all, you say I don’t care about the death of Palestinian children. Yes, I do care. I care very deeply about it,” replied Murray. “But I also know that the responsibility for their deaths lies on Hamas, which has misgoverned their society for the last 16 years and now has been leading the country into being in a war with Israel. So, yes, it’s on Hamas.”

He continued:

As far as I can see, you’re very ill-traveled as well as rather ill-lettered and ill-spoken. And I mentioned that I cover wars and go to wars because I happen to think myself that it’s worth seeing things with your own eyes, including things that you don’t particularly like. But you report the truth. I don’t know if you even leave your own bedroom, and I can tell already that you don’t because you’ve already said something that demonstrates you know nothing about this conflict.

You have just demonstrated it in the following terms. You said that this is why we need to push for a two-state solution and give legitimacy to the Palestinian Authority. I’ll tell you something you don’t know, because I guess you spent no time in the West Bank, have you? I’ll tell you something, you probably don’t know. The Palestinian Authority, Fatah celebrated the 7th of October massacres. I’ll give you another fact which demonstrates you know nothing about this and clearly haven’t ever visited any Palestinians in the West Bank as I have. If there was an election tomorrow in the West Bank, the reason why there isn’t one is because if there was an election tomorrow in the West Bank, Hamas would win.

So your idea of a two-state solution, I’m afraid you are so out of date and you really should leave your bedroom, because in this region nobody thinks there is a two-state solution on the table because there is not a viable negotiating partner.

But I just want to make one other main point. You have gone on and on tonight throwing accusations out against the Jewish state, against me. It’s the sort of thing you do. I know you’re a sort of online pugilist and think you can run for office and good luck with that. But I’d just like to point out that you only really get animated if the Jews are involved. And I can tell that for the following reason. I mean, your surname’s Uygur, isn’t it? One million Uyghur Muslims in China have been put in concentration camps in the last decade. And, you know, people of your ilk never really care about that, do you? Because it’s not the Jews doing it. It’s the Chinese Communist Party.

At the moment, one million people who are in Pakistan at the moment, who are your fellow Muslims and who happen to be Afghan, and I don’t think you care about them, do you? One million Afghans are currently being forcibly deported from Pakistan to Afghanistan. You don’t care about that. You’re not riled up about that. You’re not riled up about what the Janjaweed are currently doing in Sudan, where thousands and thousands of people are being attacked by Islamist militia. You don’t care about any of that. You get exercised and you rile up what little base you have of malcontents because you’re riled up when the Jews do anything. It’s perfectly obvious.

“First of all, my last name is Uygur, we were named after the Uyghur Turks in China, and we’ve talked about that on The Young Turks.” shot back Uyghur.

“I’d have thought you’d have spoken up then,” interrupted Murray.

“Yes, Yes, we’ve talked about it endlessly. But you don’t know that. And you don’t watch the show,” replied Uygur.

“Nobody does watch your show,” asserted Murray.

Then Uygur got to respond in full:

Well, okay, again, you’re interrupting me when I was kind enough to let you go on with your mad ramblings. So nobody watches the show? We have 5 billion views a year. I don’t know what piddling off you’re on or what little Substack or whatever the hell you write on. So the reason we’re incredibly popular is we fight for all — shut up! We fight for all innocent civilians. So yes, we’ve covered all of those conflicts. Yes, I’m against fundamentalist Islam, no question about it. I’m against fundamentalist religions of all kind.

In terms of every right wing supporter of Israel. their only tactic is, “Hey, don’t look at the 8,000 murdered children. Don’t look at the 6,400 murdered women. Don’t look at the fact that all the hospitals in northern Gaza are being shut down. Don’t look at the fact that four out of five people in northern Gaza are starving right now and half of the people in southern Gaza are starving.” Instead, “Anti-Semite, anti-Semite!”

Now, wait a minute. I just told you how much I want peace and security for Israel, how much I hated what happened on October 7. What you don’t know is I started The Young Turks with two Jewish friends. And so the whole program is both Jews and Muslims. You know nothing, you know nothing. I have Jewish family and friends. Why in the world — as they go to Israel, I want them to be safe, okay? So I have shown empathy for all civilians throughout everything I have ever done.

But all you have is hatred. “Oh, he’s an anti-Semite. Kill the Muslims, kill the Palestinians. And once we kill them, by the way, we’ll blame them for it. We had to. Israel had to murder all those babies in Palestine because Hamas made us do it.” Then why are you listening to Hamas? Why are you letting Hamas drive your agenda? Well, you don’t have to kill those civilians. It’s a mass assassination factory.

Civility was suspended again at the end of the the debate when Uygur started shouting at Murray again, insisting that he doesn’t “care about dead Palestinian babies” because he doesn’t “care about human beings!”

“All you want is some sort of warmongering Israeli state, U.S. state, etc.! Neocon, warhawk, Nazi, racist!” he yelled.

Watch above via TalkTV.