It was only 80 years ago that the Allied Powers, Canada included, fought to defeat Nazi Germany. And yet today, as Israel – the world’s only Jewish state – faces a threat posed by another genocidal ideology, radical Islamic terrorism, carried out by Hamas, Hezbollah and other proxies of the Iranian regime, news outlets must stop demanding that Israel surrenders to those who seek its destruction.

The Jewish people know too well that a genocidal ideology seeking to murder Jews cannot be negotiated with or reasoned with, and it’s time that the world recognize the threat posed by Islamic terrorism, not just against Israel, but which threatens the West, too.

In the National Post on September 9, HRC Executive Director Mike Fegelman argued that eighty years after victory in WWII, our media must stop demanding that Israel surrender to another genocidal enemy.

In what has become regarded as one of the greatest speeches ever delivered in the English language, on June 4, 1940, during the Battle of France, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill addressed Parliament, in an attempt to encourage the United Kingdom as it fought the menace of Nazi Germany.

Near the close of his address, Churchill said that, “We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.”

Churchill’s speech was in sharp contrast to the words of his predecessor, Neville Chamberlain, who in 1938 returned from meeting Adolf Hitler and proclaimed that he had achieved “peace in our time” by allowing Germany to annex Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland, after being assured that was the end of Hitler’s territorial ambitions.

Yet Churchill understood the deadly threat that Nazi Germany posed, and the moral necessity in combating it. No amount of negotiations or appeasement could possibly quench the blood thirst of an ideology that was dead-set on murdering its opponents.

That same clear-headedness appears to be in short supply these days. Today, another fascist ideology runs rampant in many parts of the world: radical Islamism. And in recent months, its bloodthirsty worldview has been on full display for the world to see.

On October 7, 1,200 Israelis were massacred by Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic terrorist group that seeks to perpetuate a genocide against the Jewish people with the violent destruction of Israel, just as the Nazis attempted 80 years earlier.

Although Hamas has made no effort to hide its genocidal intentions — and, in fact, actively shares it with anyone who will listen — far too many news outlets in Canada and abroad have framed the terrorist group as a “resistance” movement, whose dispute with Israel is purely territorial in nature, not existential. In this view, Jerusalem simply needs to vacate some of its historic lands and the conflict will abate.

This is pure fantasy. Hamas, in both deed and word, makes clear that it will stop at nothing until the State of Israel — home to nearly half the world’s Jews — is utterly destroyed. Hamas makes no distinction between civilians and combatants, nor between children and adults: they are all marked for death in the eyes of this terrorist group.

Hamas is just one cog in a much larger wheel, all originating in the Islamic Republic of Iran, which arms, funds and trains terrorist groups, including Lebanon’s Hezbollah and the Houthis in Yemen.

There is, quite literally, absolutely nothing Israel can do that would possibly pacify Hamas, but that has not stopped countless pundits, commentators and columnists from demanding that Israel effectively surrender to a demonic death cult that seeks the genocide of millions of people.

Over the last 19 years, since Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from Gaza, which left zero Israelis in the coastal enclave, Hamas’s rocket capacity has drastically improved; its tunnel system, which has been used to smuggle in huge amounts of weapons, is a marvel of engineering that rivals any world-class subway system in length; and the group boasted tens of thousands of active fighters prior to its October 7 massacre.

Against such a fanatical enemy, driven not just by its extremist religious ideology, but a growing military ability, Israel simply has no choice but to combat Hamas, and to seek its destruction. Over the past 11 months, Israel has sought to do just that, while also setting a new standard in the protection of civilians in war, despite Hamas’s heinous use of its own people as human shields — points that have been widely ignored by the Canadian media.

Just as the United Kingdom and the Allies, including Canada, were morally permitted — and indeed required — to fight the violent menace of Nazi Germany, so too is Israel similarly obligated to fight the scourge of Hamas and other genocidal Islamist terrorist groups, which together threaten its very existence.

The violent threat of radical Islam is hardly a problem isolated to Israel. In recent weeks, an Islamic State plot to attack a Taylor Swift concert in Austria was foiled, suspected terrorists were arrested in Richmond Hill, Ont., allegedly preventing an imminent attack, and an Islamic State terrorist murdered multiple people in Germany. The list goes on.

Next year will mark 80 years since the defeat of Nazi Germany and the end of the Second World War. But it also marks the defeat of Nazi ideology. Since 1945, there have been individuals and groups that profess neo-Nazi ideologies, but they remain on the fringes of society, widely condemned and without any political power. Furthermore, Nazism no longer has territory over which to preside, nor the means and infrastructure to carry out its genocidal ambitions.

Similarly, although Hamas’s hateful ideas may never go away completely, Israel has a duty and a responsibility to ensure it no longer controls territory or maintains a fighting force capable of killing mass numbers of people.

As Churchill said in his first speech as prime minister about what Britain’s policy was against the Nazis, “I can answer in one word: it is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.”

Although our enemies differ, Hamas’s goals are no less existential than the Nazis. Israel and the world’s objective, therefore, must be no different than Churchill’s: victory, victory at all costs against the terrorists of Hezbollah, Hamas and their puppet masters — the Iranian regime.

National Post

Mike Fegelman is the Executive Director of HonestReporting Canada, a non-profit organization ensuring fair and accurate Canadian media coverage of Israel.