Yesterday marked Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom HaShoah). It is a somber day, marked by the blare of sirens across the land at 10am. Everything literally grinds to a halt for 2 minutes. Work and school activities cease, pedestrians stop in their tracks, and traffic stops on the streets and highways of Israel as Jews stand at attention to begin their day of remembrance.

The day gives way to a very contemplative memorial service at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Museum during the evening. PM Benjamin Netanyahu typically addresses the nation from that memorial and Holocaust survivors always have a part to play, often lighting commemorative torches and sharing their stories. It is a dignified event.

All to illustrate just how vividly the Jewish people remember the atrocities and how undeterredly committed they are, generation-after-generation, to not let it ever happen again.

Difficult lessons were learned. Namely, that when tyrants intend to kill off an entire group of people, those people and the world should take notice and resist. Early on in Israel’s history, God commanded the Israelites to enter the Promised Land and utterly eliminate every enemy. Israel failed and has paid for it ever since.

Today, Israel faces the same Hitleresque threats that evolved into genocide in the 1930-40’s. Since Israel’s rebirth in 1948, Jew-hating neighbors have tried to destroy them, Iranian leaders have vowed to wipe them off the face of the map, and Hamas literally raises their children on Mein Kampf ideology, proven by overwhelmingly large amounts of Nazi books and propaganda found in most homes in Gaza.

Holocaust Remembrance Day is marked by the words, “Never again!” Indeed, there are painfully difficult lessons to learn from the Holocaust. Here is one, articulated by Eliyahu Ben Asher, an Israeli social media influencer:

The Duty of Absolute Victory Over Tyrannical Regimes

The Holocaust teaches a fundamental strategic lesson: Some forms of evil must be completely defeated and eradicated. Even if a partial victory could neutralize the threat and save lives, certain ideologies are so dangerous that they must not be allowed to persist in any governing state.

In World War II, western Allies lost approximately 70,000 soldiers in battles on German soil, while the Soviets lost 80,000 in the Berlin campaign alone. These 150,000 soldiers might have survived had the Allies accepted a peace treaty that left Germany demilitarized, diminished, and defeated. Such an agreement would have required only one concession: allowing the Nazi state to continue existing. This could have secured a superficial peace, but the Allies rejected it.

At the war's end, the Nazi regime was willing to negotiate such a "surrender," but the Allies refused. They understood that the Nazi state's survival, in any form, was unacceptable. To achieve its complete destruction Allied leaders were prepared to sacrifice 150,000 soldiers' lives--a decision that also prolonged suffering for German civilians.

This lesson applies even more urgently to the Hamas-controlled state in Gaza.

Hamas's regime in Gaza surpasses Nazi Germany in its extremism. Its ideology, rooted in violence and intolerance, enjoys significant support among Gaza's population, arguably exceeding the support for Nazism in Germany. Hamas's actions, such as the Simchat Torah (Oct 7) attack, reflect a reckless and destructive fanaticism that outstrips even the Nazis' calculated aggression. If World War II was a brutal but strategic endeavor, Hamas's attacks are dangerously irrational by comparison.

If Nazi Germany's survival was unthinkable, the continued existence of Hamas's regime in Gaza is equally unacceptable. It must be completely dismantled as a governing entity. No other outcome can legitimately end our conflict with this regime.

PS: The point is not that America should enter another long, drawn-out war in the Middle East. Quite the contrary! Rather, the US, as a strong ally of Israel (as we should be), should provide Israel with what is necessary to do what Israel needs to do, and get out of the way and let them do it. The Promised Land is still promised to them, so they have a Biblical mandate to conquer it!

And Godly nations of the world have a mandate to stand with Israel.