Former Canadian PM Harper defends Israel in op-ed, says: 'Hamas must be eliminated or surrender'

Former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper strongly backed Israel’s right of self-defense against the Hamas terrorist organization, in an op-ed published on Sunday in the Canadian National Post.

The former Canadian premier emphasized the genocidal nature of the Oct. 7 massacres of more than 1,200 Israeli Jewish men, women and children.

“These were acts of extermination — the killing of no mere enemy, but of those who, in the killers’ eyes, were less than human, whose very existence was to be viewed as a scourge. It was, in short, the urge to commit genocide at its most evil. This may not have been a Holocaust in scale, but it was in kind. And, for the Israeli nation, born as it was in the shadow of the Holocaust, it can be interpreted no other way,” Harper wrote.

He added that unlike during the Holocaust, the Jewish people today have the means to defend themselves, and argued that the West has a duty to support Israel as it fights against genocidal threats.

Looking ahead, Harper emphasized that given Hamas’ genocidal ideology toward the Jewish people, Israel has no choice but to dismantle the Iranian terror proxy to restore its national security.

“From that perspective, Israel’s war objective — the elimination of Gaza’s Hamas regime — is essential. Leaving the job unfinished, with Hamas’s existence tolerated and its actions contained, has been tried, and it has failed. The Israeli people cannot be reasonably asked to return to the pre-war status quo. That is the position our own nations took toward the attacks launched by Nazi Germany against us. Israel has as absolute a right to absolute security now as we did then,” Harper asserted.

Addressing the issue of an eventual political settlement, the former Canadian prime minister stressed that the implementation of a two-state solution is not possible, as long as many in the Middle East, and beyond, call for the destruction of the world’s only Jewish state.

“We must stop pretending that a two-state solution can be pursued in the face of the continued propagation of such a view. Yes, we must develop a roadmap that will lead to a Palestinian state, and Israel needs to contribute to that. But Israel should not be asked to go down that path as long as such ideologies are allowed to flourish on the Palestinian side.”

Harper made a solidarity visit to Israel this week where he met with senior Israeli leaders.

I appreciated the opportunity to spend time with Prime Minister @netanyahu in Jerusalem today. I also spoke to President Herzog by phone to express solidarity at this difficult time. I witnessed these few days an Israel scarred by the unprovoked horrors of October 7, but also… pic.twitter.com/mWiHMmOJjn

— Stephen Harper (@stephenharper) February 21, 2024

The former Canadian prime minister also visited devastated Israeli southern border communities and met with survivors of Hamas' Oct. 7 massacres.

Today I visited Kibbutz Nir-Oz, Kibbutz B’eri, and the site of the Nova music festival in southern Israel. I spoke with survivors and paid my respects at sites where unspeakable atrocities were committed. Entire families murdered in their homes. Young men and women massacred at a… pic.twitter.com/Eets6RYDMB

— Stephen Harper (@stephenharper) February 19, 2024