Fear & Loathing in the New Jerusalem

by Darryl Cooper

The conflict between Israel and Palestine can often seem like a permanent feature of the global order. The wars, intifadas, refugees camps, suicide vests, UN resolutions, and peace talks have been painfully burned into our collective consciousness. But how could this have happened? Was it always this way? That’s what we’ll seek to find out in Fear & Loathing in the New Jerusalem, a multi-part series exploring the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Politics

Audiobook

About the author

Darryl Cooper is a storyteller of shadows and fault lines, weaving history, ideology, and human nature into long-form narratives that feel both ancient and urgent. Through his podcast MartyrMade, he unearths the buried tensions beneath revolutions, religions, and empires—inviting listeners into the minds of true believers and the heart of collective memory. His work is as much meditation as it is investigation, drawing listeners down the dark corridors where ideas ignite and civilizations tremble.

Reviews

[Mert Hussein · Rating 5 out of 5]

This tome is incredible. Written down, it would be a difficult read but in spoken form, weaving in and out as though someone is telling you this gruesome history around a campfire makes the details far more memorable, the story hit much harder and the truth a bitter pill to swallow.

Thank you Darryl, a lot of demystification occurred during my listen. 30 hours well spent that I may just spend again.

[Pallavi Madan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The detail was amazing and Darryl tried to provide a very unbiased view. The problem with such ongoing issues is that they can't be entirely without bias.

Difficult subject to tackle in a podcast and yet done very well!

[Cody · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an amazing, empathetic, in depth look into the origin of the state of Israel with NO BIAS. Everyone on any side of this conflict should listen to this and put yourself in the shoes of the people involved.

[Sean · Rating 5 out of 5]

I feel like I understand so much more about the world.

Darryl does an impeccable job making sure that you're able to put yourself in the shoes of either side at the end of each phase in each chapter. And he really does kind of push it into a "what else could they have done" sort of angle, and it generally tracks on both sides for most of the way.

The way he starts the entire series painting the worst picture where you're woken up in the middle of the night and you have to protect your family and there's all this chaos going on.... And then immediately ties it into that directly happening to both sides throughout this entire conflict historically, and overlays that into modern society. Flawlessly executed.

He's also incredible at being like... "This part of history is not unique to this conflict... Here is when the US is doing it in modern times. Or when the Brits did it to them." And then basically taking that conglomeration and being like "this is how war is, this is how humanity is".

This is so much more than the "who, what, when and where" we are taught in schools - and plumbs all the depths of the "why" and "how".

[Reviewer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unbelievably good history of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict from the beginning of Zionism until the creation of Israel. Cooper constantly asks the listener to put themselves in the position of both sides to really understand what motivated certain actions. The podcast is so well researched, he clearly read dozens of books and had tidbits I have never heard in popular histories from both sides. I can’t recommend this highly enough. Worth the commitment!

[Tristan McGonigal · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you're looking for a contemporary reflection on a conflict for those who live outside the bubble of the levant, look no further.

Cooper is fair and empathetic in his historical tour of the Israeli Palestine conflict through the eyes of those who lived it.

[Andre · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very worthwhile! Highly recommend

[Jack Truman · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellently researched and incredibly empathetic and level headed analysis of a conflict that no one wants to be reasonable about. Darryl Cooper is a hero.

[Brenda Harrison · Rating 1 out of 5]

Darryl Cooper is not a trained historian, he is not a professor of history at a university, he is not using conventional historical methods because he is actually pseudo-historian. He is a very unreliable narrator because he comes to everything from an extremist far right perspective, the conservative historian Niall Ferguson referred to what Darryl does as "anti-History". This is because Darryl is a holocaust revisionist, he has significantly tried to downplay the holocaust claiming it was the most humane response and the Nazis did it because they were unable to feed the prisoners, and rather than let them starve they killed them, basically Darryl reduces the holocaust to a form of euthanasia. He has also been a Hitler apologist by making claims like Hitler was against the Kristallnacht, which is absurd, also he called Winston Churchill the chief villain of WW2, a war which included fascists like Hitler and Mussolini, that is a pretty extraordinary claim and is obviously Hitler apologia, he also posted a picture of the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics which featured drag queens juxtaposed with a picture of Hitler in Paris after the invasion and said, to paraphrase, that living under Hitler would be preferrable to living under the current democratic French system. Everything that Darryl says should be taken with a grain of salt. It is one of those things where there are many grains of truths mixed with untruths, or mixed with interpretations of the truth which intentionally mislead, or he lies by omission. Even though this podcast is not about WW2 which is where his more radical claims have been made it should not be trusted. There are many many other places to get good analyses of the conflict, for example Norman Finkelstein is great, Ilan Pappé is a famous Israeli historian who is good, he is one of the so called "New Historians" who helped overturn the foundational myths of Israel and brought to light the crimes of the Nakba, another new historian is Benny Morris, and though Morris has an increasingly clear bias towards the state of Israel his historical work is still important and I would trust it more than Darryl . The YouTuber GDF has some really good takes on the conflict and he discusses the Nakba and many other elements of the conflict. Al Jazeera has a lot of really good documentaries about every part of the conflict, from documentaries about the Nakba to a three part documentary about the 1973 October war, to documentaries about the Intifadas alongside much more recent history as well. There are many places where you can cover the very same material covered by Cooper without a) having to worry about such an unreliable and extremely biased narrator steering you the wrong way and b) you don't support such a vile character like Daryl Cooper. Again, Daryll Cooper is not a real historian, he is just a guy with a podcast who has become famous in the current right wing media ecosystem, he isn't famous because of his actual work he just became famous because of a twitter thread he made which entertained 2020 election denial, his podcasts were unknown at that time and only after his tweets went viral did he get any attention. Since then he has become very well liked on the right and he is an example of the insidiousness of very extreme far right ideology seeping into mainstream right wing discourse. This guy, a holocaust revisionist, was on the Joe Rogan Experience, which is probably the most famous podcast in the world, meaning you are a right wing celebrity now, so again, he should be dismissed entirely.

[Christian Anderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Technically a podcast and not actually a book. Daryl Cooper tells the extremely detailed and unpleasant history of the creation of modern day Israel from 1870-1948. It's obviously not feasible but the world be a better place if everyone could be aware of this stuff.

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

I appreciate DC's reporting on history and the way he manages to tell both sides of the story. I now have a better understanding of this situation, but will continue to learn. It is just such a complex issue.

[Stephanie Gerber · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent. Highly recommend to everyone. Gives great context and history to present day Israeli/Palestinian conflict.

[Jen Smyth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent

[Jon · Rating 4 out of 5]

30+ hours but i finally did it

[Blake Giusti · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the best piece of literature I️ have consumed.

[Kevin Keating · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a very well-told history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with empathy and blame for both sides. Highly recommend it, though you have to commit to 30+ hours. I learned a lot and it has affected my opinions on the war in Gaza.