By Husam Dughman

In the 1930s, after Hitler had managed to become the leader of Germany, other powers, especially France and Britain, gradually became very worried about the possibility of yet another world war which might turn out to be as bad as, if not worse than, World War I. The people in charge of Britain and France at that time were by and large very reluctant to go through another hell like that of the First World War. That was mainly why they preferred to bend over backwards to please Hitler’s Germany. They failed. The combination of British and French appeasement, coupled with American indifference, as well as Soviet collaboration, convinced Hitler to initiate the invasion of European countries.

We now see a not dissimilar situation. Many Western countries, such as the UK, France, Germany, Canada, and Australia currently appear to be appeasing the Islamists and their sympathizers. The rest of Western countries- barring the US- seem to prefer to sit on the fence. Both Russia and China- as well as Norway, Ireland, and Spain, not to mention Turkey and Qatar- come across as actively colluding with the Islamists. Israel’s current steadfast and determined stand to defeat genocidal Islamism in the Middle East puts it on a par with Britain’s glorious stand against the Germans in World War II, long before the US or the Soviet Union entered that war. As a matter of fact, Israel’s stand at the present time against the enemies of liberty may even be more urgent than that of Britain in World War II. After all, as far as one can tell, Hitler never entertained any genocidal plans against the British. As a matter of fact, he was a great admirer of the British Empire. All he apparently wanted back then was for the British to give him a free hand in Europe. Even Germany’s aerial attacks on Britain in 1940 were primarily designed to dissuade the British from interfering with Germany’s European plans rather than because he specifically wanted to conquer Britain. His main focus lay elsewhere.

The attitude of the Islamists, as well as that of many other people in Arabic-speaking Muslim-majority countries, towards Israel is radically different from that of Hitler towards the British in World War II. What those want above all else is the demolition of Israel as a nation-state, and if that entailed Israeli resistance to such a horrific plan, as it certainly would do, then all Israelis would have to be wiped off the map. That makes Israel’s wars against its enemies existential wars par excellence. The genocidal Islamists of Iran, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Houthis, and Hezbollah, in addition to others like the Muslim Brotherhood, the Salafis, and the jihadis want nothing short of the annihilation of Israel. That is why the Jewish state will not be daunted by much of the world’s fanatical opposition to its overriding objective of finishing off Hamas and their ilk. For the Israelis, this is simply a matter of sheer survival. Do or die. The mission must be fully completed. No firemen in their right mind would put out 90% of a fire and drive away.

Israel’s objectives of destroying Hamas and recovering the hostages are to be followed by the deradicalization of Gaza. As long as the political culture of Gazans is not deradicalized, other militants and terrorists could easily replace Hamas. It was simply not enough to defeat Germany and Japan in the Second World War. A long process of deradicalization of their populations followed. For Israel, that process will be the most challenging of the three in view of the fact that the political culture of a people is generally closely intertwined with the nature of its system of political governance: An enlightened political culture gives rise to an enlightened system of governance; an obscurantist political culture gives rise to an obscurantist system of governance. In fact, fighting Islamism at various levels is going to be harder than fighting Nazism or Communism. It is true that those three ideologies have many things in common: They are all totalitarian ideologies; they do not respect individual liberty; they are strongly hostile to freedom of thought and expression; they cannot abide diversity or pluralism; they glorify their followers while dehumanizing their opponents; and they forever need enemies in order to keep the populations they control under a perpetual mental state of permanent siege.

There are, however, certain aspects of Islamism which suggest that it is actually more dangerous than Nazism or Communism: Both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union had a central authority: When Hitler was flourishing, Nazism flourished with him; when he failed and then committed suicide, Nazism essentially died with him. When the Soviet Union was doing well, Communism blossomed with it; when it collapsed, Communism mostly died with it. By contrast, Islamism has no such centralized authority: The death of an Islamist leader or the defeat and collapse of an Islamist movement, organization, or state does not bring about the disintegration of Islamism as a whole. Another factor shielding Islamism from collapse is the belief in an afterlife in which Muslims will go to heaven and infidels will go to hell. For Islamists in general, and genocidal Islamists in particular, and as indeed the Quran itself states (Al-An’am 32), this earthly life is nothing but play and amusement for the hereafter is a much better place for the pious Muslims. This means that, for them, real victory in their struggle with their opponents will be determined in the life to come, not in this life. When suicide bombers attacked Israelis in years past, they knew that both they and their victims would lose. When the hijackers of 9/11 attacked the Twin Towers, they knew that both they and their victims would lose. Yet, they saw that loss as great only for their victims; for them, the loss was largely trivial, almost insignificant, for they truly believed that they were undoubtedly going to heaven, while their victims were certainly going to hell. That, for them, was the ultimate victory, nay double victory. The task of fighting the Islamists is made even more arduous by the existence of 2 billion Muslims worldwide many of whom support, or at least sympathize with, the Islamists. The more recent alliance between the Islamists and the hordes of leftists and wokers, especially in Western countries, has rendered the struggle against Islamism very daunting indeed.

Notwithstanding the above, what now appears to be a Sisyphean mission can and will be thoroughly accomplished as long as people with sound minds, intelligence, love of liberty, grit, courage, and steely resolve rise to the challenge at all levels, be it intellectual, political, military, or otherwise. Then and only then will the free of the world proudly proclaim, as Churchill once did, “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”

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About the author

Husam Dughman is a Libyan Canadian political scientist, religious thinker, linguist, and an expert on immigrants and refugees. He received his formal education in Libya and the UK. Mr. Dughman later worked as a university professor of political science in Libya. Due to confrontations with the Qaddafi regime, he resigned from his university position and subsequently worked in legal translation. Mr. Dughman has been working with new immigrant and refugee services in both Canada and the US since 2006.

Husam Dughman has published a book entitled Tête-à-tête with Muhammad. He has also written numerous articles on politics and religion. He has just completed the full manuscript of a book which he hopes to have published in the near future. The new book is an in-depth examination of Islam, Christianity, Judaism, and the non-religious school of thought.