US, Allies refused to make deal in WWII. Israel must do the same with Hamas | George Korda

Adolf Hitler’s Nazis, and descendants of Japan’s military dictatorship, might still be in power in Germany and Japan if the U.S. and the Allied coalition had conducted World War II in the way some people insist Israel should carry out its war against the terrorist group Hamas.

The calls for a cease-fire in Gaza – calls that have been echoed in Knoxville – began shortly after Israel’s response to the Oct. 7, 2023, surprise attack in which Hamas terrorists massacred 1,200 to 1,400 people. Savage sexual assaults occurred as well, according to the New York Times: “A Times investigation uncovered new details showing a pattern of rape, mutilation and extreme brutality against women in the attacks on Israel.”

Furthermore, Hamas has no intention of stopping its terrorist raids, report many sources, including MSNBC: " 'No place on our land': Hamas official vows to repeat attacks on Israel ‘again and again’ until it’s destroyed.”

Casualty reports from Gaza fighting are eye-opening, with people killed in the tens of thousands; however, the figures are released by the Gaza Health Ministry – run by Hamas. Their accuracy is suspect, but people are indeed dying. It’s an ongoing tragedy.

Calls for cease-fire miss the bigger picture

But anyone calling for a cease-fire in the wake of the murderous raid that precipitated Israel’s response misses a bigger picture. In the Hamas Covenant of 1988, titled "The Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement," it says, “There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors.” The Merriam-Webster Dictionary says jihad is “a holy war waged on behalf of Islam as a religious duty.”

How does one negotiate with someone else sworn to kill them?

Hamas became a U.S. State Department-listed designated foreign terrorist organization in 1997, during the Bill Clinton presidency, and it has remained on the list under succeeding Republican and Democratic presidents.

Nevertheless, pro-Palestinian protesters in Knoxville, the U.S. and the world have accused Israel’s retaliation as “genocide” against the people of Gaza, and said that Israel’s actions are war crimes. In Knoxville, City Council member Amelia Parker introduced a resolution supporting a cease-fire. She tried to equivocate but failed: "Rather than take a side between Israel and Hamas, Knoxville would stand with the Palestinians facing a genocide and all innocent victims of this ongoing conflict,” she told Knox News. Parker’s motion died for lack of a second.

Someone is taking sides if they say Israel is committing genocide and fails to condemn in the strongest terms the acts of murder, rape, mutilation and hostage-taking that led to Israel’s response. Apart from Parker, there are those whose hatred of Israel and its Jewish people is so intense, no condemnation can fall on Hamas, and condemnation enough can’t be heaped on Israel. This is although Israel previously occupied Gaza, then walked away.

Israel held Gaza from 1967 to 2005, even allowing people to build settlements there. But Israel withdrew, on its own initiative, dismantling the settlements. Israel handed Gaza over to the Palestinian Authority, which gave way to Hamas. Hamas turned Gaza into a terrorist rockets-and-raids launching site. After Oct. 7, Israel has apparently decided that "never again," used in relation to the Holocaust, is now.

The challenge the Allies faced in World War II

The Hamas-Israel conflict is like the World War II challenge faced by the the Allies, only that war’s impacts were on an infinitely larger scale. The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum explanation: “There was a fast-growing humanitarian and refugee crisis across Europe during World War II. Nevertheless, the United States and the other Allied forces prioritized the military defeat of Nazi Germany and the other Axis powers.” The Allies had a two-word message to Germany and Japan: unconditional surrender.

Early on in the war, when England stood alone against the Nazis, many prominent English leaders wanted a negotiated peace with Hitler’s Germany. In a speech broadcast on Jan. 20, 1940, Winston Churchill, then England’s First Lord of the Admiralty, called out countries also equivocating in the face of the Nazi threat. “Each one hopes that if he feeds the crocodile enough, the crocodile will eat him last. All of them hope that the storm will pass before their turn comes to be devoured.” Five months later, when he became prime minister, Churchill held to his refusal to make a deal with the devil, and the world was ultimately saved from Nazism.

The Allies facing Germany and Japan embarked on a campaign to starve, bomb and invade their enemies’ military and civilian facilities and territory, all to end the war. Israel’s critics by extension identify as war crimes the strategy and tactics of American, British, Canadian and other Allied nations. However, without destruction of the Nazi and Japanese states, a cease-fire for humanitarian reasons would have left the Hitlerites and Japanese warlords in charge – and as a lasting threat.

From Israel’s perspective, the same is true if Hamas remains in Gaza. It’s possible that many Gazans wish Hamas would disappear, as they are no doubt terrorized themselves by the terrorists. The civilians are caught in the middle, something about which Hamas didn’t care when it launched its Oct. 7 attack.

After the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, President Harry S. Truman, who gave the order, received a telegram from the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America. It said, “Many Christians deeply disturbed over use of atomic bombs against Japanese cities because of their necessarily indiscriminate destructive efforts and because their use sets extremely dangerous precedent for future of mankind … Respectfully urge that ample opportunity be given Japan to reconsider ultimatum before any further devastation by atomic bomb is visited upon her people.”

Truman’s answer: “Nobody is more disturbed over the use of atomic bombs than I am but I was greatly disturbed over the unwarranted attack by the Japanese on Pearl Harbor and their murder of our prisoners of war. The only language they seem to understand is the one we have been using to bombard them. When you have to deal with a beast you have to treat him as a beast. It is most regrettable but nevertheless true.”

It’s indeed regrettable, and indeed, too often true.

George Korda is a political analyst for WATE-TV, hosts “State Your Case” from noon to 2 p.m. Sundays on WOKI-FM Newstalk 98.7 and is president of Korda Communications, a public relations and communications consulting firm.

This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: George Korda: Israel must demand the unconditional surrender of Hamas