US midterm elections show that Islamophobia has become normalized in American politics

If this election cycle is any indication, anti-Muslim prejudice and Islamophobia have moved far beyond the political fringe and become increasingly normalized within mainstream American politics.

By Fareed Khan
A version of this article can be found on Substack.

In two days, Americans will go to the polls in one of the most consequential midterm elections in recent memory.

Much of the public debate has centred on inflation, immigration, crime, foreign policy, economic uncertainty, and the balance of power in Washington. Political parties are competing for control of Congress, candidates are making their final appeals to voters, and commentators are focused on who will emerge victorious when the ballots are counted. Yet beneath these familiar political battles lies a more fundamental question, one that extends far beyond the outcome of any individual election: what kind of political culture is America becoming?

Elections do more than determine who holds office. They serve as moral and cultural barometers, revealing not only who citizens choose to govern them but also the values, fears, and prejudices they are willing to embrace. When politicians learn that appeals to fear and hostility bring political rewards rather than penalties, such rhetoric rarely remains confined to the campaign trail. It becomes embedded in public discourse, steadily shifting intolerance from the margins into the mainstream.

If this election cycle is any indication, anti-Muslim prejudice and Islamophobia have moved far beyond the American political fringe and become increasingly normalized within mainstream American politics. What was once considered outside the boundaries of respectable public discourse is now routinely deployed against Muslim candidates seeking public office. This pattern has emerged during both primary contests, where Muslim candidates compete against members of their own party, and general election campaigns, where Republican candidates and their allies have frequently targeted Muslim Democrats through rhetoric rooted in suspicion, fear, and religious prejudice. Rather than debating policies or qualifications, critics have often sought to portray Muslim candidates as inherently suspect because of their faith and identity.

The significance of this trend extends beyond any individual election or candidate. It reflects a broader shift in American political culture, one in which demonizing and dehumanizing members of a minority religious community has become increasingly socially acceptable and politically advantageous. The United States has reached a troubling moment with respect to Muslims, much as Germany reached such a moment with respect to Jews during the years that preceded Nazi rule.

While the US is not Nazi Germany history offers warnings. One of the most important is that mass violence rarely begins with violence itself. It begins with dehumanizing rhetoric, racist stereotypes, conspiracy theories, and the repeated portrayal of a group as inherently suspect, dangerous, disloyal, foreign, or incapable of truly belonging to the nation. Before persecution becomes policy, prejudice must first become normalized. Before discrimination becomes law, fear and suspicion must become politically acceptable. History shows that this process often begins with words long before it escalates into actions.

That is precisely what happened to Jews in Germany during the 1930s, and it is increasingly what is happening to Muslims in America today.

The framing of the current political climate in the US does not mean that Muslims occupy the same historical position at this time as Jews did in 1930s Germany. The comparison is that the political mechanisms are disturbingly familiar. Jews were accused of dual loyalty, of undermining the nation from within, of being responsible for society's problems, and of representing a hidden threat to the German people. Muslims today are routinely accused of sympathizing with terrorism, supporting foreign enemies, seeking to impose “Sharia law,” or secretly undermining Western society from within.

What makes this especially dangerous is that these accusations are no longer confined to fringe groups. They increasingly originate from elected officials, candidates for office, major media personalities, and influential political activists. When those with power endorse prejudice, prejudice acquires legitimacy. It stops being a social taboo and becomes an acceptable part of public discourse.

Twenty-five years after September 11, a remarkable paradox exists. Muslim Americans are among the most visible, educated, and politically engaged Muslim populations in the Western world, the same way that Jews were in Germany before the rise of the Nazis. They are doctors, lawyers, academics, teachers, journalists, engineers, police officers, military veterans, entrepreneurs, and elected officials. Yet despite these contributions, suspicion directed toward Muslims has become deeply embedded in American political culture.

A 2026 Pew Research Center report found that 43% of Americans believe Muslims are less patriotic than other Americans, while 42% believe Muslims have a negative impact on the country.  Those numbers should alarm every defender of democracy.

Imagine the reaction if nearly half of Americans believed Jews, Catholics, Black Americans, or any other religious or ethnic minority were fundamentally less loyal to the US than their fellow citizens. Such attitudes would rightly be condemned as prejudice. Yet when these sentiments concern Muslims, they frequently receive far less condemnation.

This normalization did not emerge overnight. The modern era of American Islamophobia began after the attacks of September 11, 2001. In the weeks and months that followed, Muslims and those perceived to be Muslim faced harassment, workplace discrimination, threats, physical assaults, and vandalism. Sikh Americans were attacked because assailants ignorantly assumed that they were Muslim. Mosques required additional security. Entire communities found themselves under suspicion because of crimes they neither committed nor supported.

Yet there was an important difference between then and now. In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, many political leaders still recognized the danger of collective blame. President George W. Bush visited a mosque and publicly declared that Islam was a religion of peace, and that scapegoating all Muslims for the actions of a handful of terrorists betrayed American values. Senator John McCain similarly rejected attempts to portray ordinary Muslim citizens as threats to the nation.

Today, many of those restraints have weakened. The racist and bigoted rhetoric directed at Muslims by politicians has become more explicit, more normalized, and more politically useful. Perhaps nowhere is this more visible than in campaigns involving Muslim candidates for public office.

The rise of Zohran Mamdani illustrates the problem. During his campaign and subsequent election as mayor of New York City, Mamdani became the target of a torrent of anti-Muslim rhetoric. Critics invoked 9/11 imagery, questioned his loyalty, suggested that his faith made him unfit for public office, and portrayed his election as a threat to American values. The Council on American-Islamic Relations documented dramatic spikes in anti-Muslim hostility after his political breakthrough. Thousands of hostile social media posts appeared as violent threats increased. Some critics openly suggested that New Yorkers had effectively voted for another September 11th attack itself.

The same pattern has emerged in Michigan’s senate race with Democrat Abdul El-Sayed. Again and again, critics have sought to tie him to terrorism, the Muslim Brotherhood, or foreign extremism, even though he was born and raised in Michigan. Evidence was secondary. The goal was not necessarily to prove wrongdoing, but to create suspicion and fear, and make facts irrelevant where his campaign was concerned.

This strategy should sound familiar to students of history. Minority populations are frequently excluded not through evidence but through insinuation. The accusation does not need to be proven. It only needs to be repeated. That was true for Jews in much of Europe before the Holocaust. They were accused of financial conspiracy, political subversion, disloyalty, and secret influence. These accusations were often wildly irrational, yet they shaped public opinion because they were repeated relentlessly by politicians, newspapers, and public figures.

Today's anti-Muslim rhetoric in the US functions in a similar manner. The Muslim candidate is transformed from an ordinary citizen with political views into a symbol of a broader perceived threat to society. He becomes a vessel onto which public anxieties are projected.

The Islamophobia and the Political Rise of Zohran Mamdani report produced by Georgetown University's Bridge Initiative documented how familiar anti-Muslim stereotypes were mobilized against Mamdani. His Muslim identity was framed through tropes portraying Muslims as dangerous, foreign, disloyal, and fundamentally incompatible with Western society. Even criticism of Israeli government policies is increasingly used to portray politically active Muslims as inherently extremist or antisemitic. Rather than engaging with specific policy arguments, critics often seek to disqualify Muslims from participation in public life altogether.

What is perhaps most alarming is the degree to which these attacks are now conducted openly and unapologetically. In earlier eras of American politics, overt religious prejudice was widely recognized as disreputable and often carried significant political consequences. Politicians therefore tended to disguise such sentiments or avoid expressing them publicly. Today, however, anti-Muslim rhetoric has become both more common and more extreme. The racist and bigoted narratives targeting Muslims are no longer confined to the political fringe. Instead they increasingly circulate through mainstream political discourse with little fear of consequence.

Several elected officials have publicly declared that Muslims do not belong in American society, suggested restrictions on Muslim immigration because of religion, or argued that fear of Islam is rational rather than prejudicial.[11] Others have shared social media posts placing images of Muslim politicians beside pictures of the September 11 attacks or describing Muslim public officials as enemies within American institutions. Such statements would likely end political careers if directed at virtually any other religious group. Yet when they are directed at Muslims, the consequences are often minimal. The significance of this development cannot be overstated.

Political rhetoric of this sort functions as social permission. When leaders repeatedly characterize a religious minority as dangerous or alien, they communicate that hostility and violence toward that group is acceptable, as was the case when Jews were targeted in Nazi Germany. Citizens receive the message that prejudice is not only tolerated but justified, and that violence against the group will be tolerated.

Researchers have repeatedly warned about the relationship between inflammatory rhetoric and real-world violence, with considerable amounts of academic research coming to the conclusion that spikes in anti-Muslim rhetoric during the 2015-2016 presidential campaign coincided with increases in harassment, threats, vandalism, and violence directed against Muslims and Islamic institutions.

History offers numerous examples of this pattern. Before discrimination becomes law, it is normalized through speech, and rationalized through stereotypes. Before a minority becomes a target, public figures teach society to view that minority with suspicion. Political rhetoric does not automatically lead to violence, but it creates the environment in which violence becomes easier to justify. This is one reason comparisons with 1930s Germany deserve careful consideration.

The most important lesson from that period is not what happened after authoritarian power was consolidated. It is what happened before. Long before concentration camps, long before deportations, long before genocide, there were years of speeches, media campaigns, conspiracy theories, and political movements portraying Jews as a dangerous problem that had to be addressed. The normalization of prejudice preceded the implementation of violent persecution.

Democratic societies often fail to recognize danger because they focus only on the final outcome rather than the warning signs that precede it. Many Muslim Americans believe they are witnessing those warning signs today.

Again, the issue is not disagreement. Political disagreement is essential in a democracy. The issue is collective suspicion. A democracy cannot function when religious minorities are treated as threats and enemies, as guilty until proven innocent.  And evidence suggests the climate is worsening rather than improving.

Muslims have endured decades of profiling, surveillance, employment discrimination, threats, hate crimes, and political hostility. Anti-Muslim hate crimes remain substantially higher than they were after 9/11. Yet the tragedy is that this hostility is directed at a community that has been part of the American story for centuries. Muslims were present in America before the founding of the republic, including among the enslaved Africans brought to its shores, and have helped build the nation alongside their fellow citizens ever since.

Over the centuries, Muslims have served in public office and the armed forces, taught in universities, worked in hospitals, operated businesses, raised families, paid taxes, and volunteered in their communities. Like other Americans, they mourned the victims of 9/11 and shared in the nation's grief. Yet for many, that tragedy also marked the beginning of an era in which they became objects of suspicion because of their faith.

What too many political leaders learned from 9/11 was not the importance of solidarity but the political utility of fear. It became a resource to be exploited for political gain, and Muslims became convenient targets onto whom broader social and political frustrations could be projected. More than two decades later, that dynamic continues to shape American political discourse, including during the current election cycle, as candidates and commentators continue to invoke anti-Muslim narratives for political advantage.

The United States therefore faces a choice. It can continue down a path in which Muslims serve as convenient scapegoats for social anxieties and political grievances, or it can reaffirm a principle that should never require defending in the first place: that citizenship is not determined by religion and that equal rights do not depend on a person’s faith. That choice matters not only for Muslims but for America itself. Whether Americans choose to recognize these warning signs may help determine whether the country strengthens its democratic ideals or continues eroding them, a decision whose consequences will extend far beyond the Muslim community.

© 2026 The View From Here. © 2026 Fareed Khan. All Rights Reserved.

What we leave behind: Patrick Stewart, Jean-Luc Picard, and the future to which we should aspire

The measure of a life is not the fortune accumulated, the power wielded, or the fame acquired. It is whether we left the world a little better than we found it. 

By Fareed Khan
A version of this article can be found on Substack.

Late yesterday afternoon the world learned about the death of British actor Patrick Stewart, best known for his role as Captain Jean Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation, and as Professor Xavier in the X-Men film franchise.  And surprisingly the news has affected me more than I expected.

Since news of his death began to spread, social media has been flooded with tributes from former colleagues, friends, and fans. For millions of people who knew him through his television and film roles, the sense of loss feels surprisingly personal, as though someone they were close to for years has suddenly passed. There is something remarkable about the way certain people become companions on our journey through life, even when we never meet them. Patrick Stewart was one of those people for me. He was among the very few actors I genuinely admired, and news of his passing awakened a familiar feeling, one I have experienced repeatedly over the past two decades as I have lost loved ones, friends, and others whose presence once seemed as permanent as the passing of the seasons. 

Every loss forces me back to the same place. It makes me think about time, about how quickly decades pass, about how faces that once filled our days become memories, how conversations become echoes, and how entire chapters of our lives gradually transform from lived experience into stories we tell ourselves. The older I get, the more aware I become that time is the only thing any of us truly possess, and the one thing we can never keep. 

Patrick Stewart's death felt like another reminder that an era is passing. The people who accompanied many of us through our younger years are leaving one by one, and with each departure I become more conscious that I am travelling the same road. 

When I think of Stewart, I inevitably think of the role for which he will be remembered the most--Jean-Luc Picard, captain of the starship USS Enterprise D.

Like millions of others, I spent countless hours watching Star Trek: The Next Generation (ST: TNG). As a sci-fi fan, I was drawn to the adventure, the exploration, and the wonder of the unknown. As an older man, I have come to appreciate something deeper.  Star Trek: The Next Generation was never really about humanity's adventures in space in a fictional future, it was about humanity.

Stewart’s Star Trek represented a vision of what humanity could become if we chose wisdom over fear, cooperation over tribalism, and reason over hatred. In Captain Picard’s century, humanity had not become perfect, it had simply matured. Greed no longer defined society, and wealth no longer determined a person's worth. Human beings sought self-improvement, knowledge, discovery, and service to others. Conflicts still existed, but humanity had learned, through terrible mistakes, that it either rose together or perished together. As a young man, that optimistic vision felt realistic. 

When I was in my twenties, the world was far from perfect, but there were reasons for genuine optimism. Humanity had survived the Cold War without destroying itself in a nuclear armageddon. Environmental disasters that once seemed unstoppable were being confronted through science and collective action. The ozone layer was recovering, acid rain was being reduced, more nations were evolving into democracies, and human rights issues were being advanced. It felt as though humanity, however unevenly, was learning, and history seemed to bend toward progress. 

Looking back now, I realize that many of the stories told in ST: TNG were really warning labels attached to the future. Episodes such as "The Drumhead" showed how fear, paranoia, and the search for hidden enemies could corrode democratic institutions from within. The story began with a legitimate security concern and ended with a witch hunt. Watching it today, I cannot help but think about societies increasingly divided by conspiracy theories, political extremism, and manufactured outrage, where suspicion often matters more than evidence. 

"The Wounded" explored the scars left by war and how people can become trapped by old grievances and inherited hatreds. Its lesson was simple but profound: unresolved trauma can become a prison, and today's enemies are often the ones that create tomorrow's wars.

"Chain of Command" offered perhaps the most chilling warning of all. During a covert mission, Picard is captured by the Cardassians, representatives of a deeply authoritarian state, and subjected to relentless torture. Yet the objective is not merely to extract information or compel obedience. His captors are attempting something far more sinister—to break his grasp on reality itself. They seek to force him not only to submit, but to deny what he knows to be true and accept a falsehood imposed by power. 

The episode reaches its climax when Picard is finally freed. Throughout his imprisonment, his interrogator repeatedly demands that he acknowledge the existence of five lights when only four are visible. Picard's defiant declaration, "There are four lights!", has since become one of the most memorable moments in Star Trek history because it captures a timeless truth about tyranny. Authoritarian systems rarely seek obedience alone. Their ultimate ambition is to control reality itself, to make people reject the evidence of their own senses and accept whatever version of the truth those in power decree. That lesson feels no less relevant today than it did when the episode first aired. 

The older I become, the more I appreciate that these stories were never really about distant planets or some fictional future. They were reflections of our own fears, flaws, aspirations, and moral struggles, projected into the future so that we might recognize ourselves more clearly in the present. That is precisely why they continue to resonate decades later. The questions they explored were not about alien civilizations, but about the kind of people we choose to be and the kind of world we choose to build. Yet when I look around the world today, I cannot escape the feeling that we are moving further away from the future Jean-Luc Picard hoped humanity could achieve, and closer to many of the dangers that ST: TNG warned us against. 

Today we are witness to Israel's genocide against Palestinians, a label that has been confirmed by the UN, multiple international human rights organizations, and Jewish Holocaust scholars.  For several years we have witnessed Russia's brutal war against Ukraine. Since February of this year we have watched and wondered whether the war launched against Iran by the US and Israel will push an already volatile region closer to catastrophe. Uyghurs continue to face genocide at the hands of the Chinese state, the Rohingya continue to suffer the consequences of Myanmar's genocide against them, Sudan remains devastated by violence fuelled in part by outside powers, and across the globe, countless innocent people are being displaced, imprisoned, starved, wounded, or killed.

What troubles me most is not simply that these horrors are occurring. It is that they are occurring while all of us watch. Previous generations could often claim ignorance because information travelled slowly, and atrocities could be hidden behind borders, censorship, and distance. We do not have that excuse today because we carry the evidence on devices in our pockets.

Every day we witness bombed neighbourhoods, grieving parents, starving children, desperate refugees, and communities reduced to rubble. Never before in human history have so many atrocities been documented so thoroughly and disseminated so widely in real time. And yet they continue.

At the same time, another development has fundamentally changed our world. The rise of a global billionaire class has concentrated wealth on a scale that they couldn’t spend in a hundred lifetimes. Many of these individuals possess enough wealth to transform societies and dramatically reduce human suffering. Yet too often accumulation of wealth becomes an end in itself. Fortunes continue to accumulate while homelessness, poverty, hunger, and preventable disease endure. The irony is difficult to ignore.

In the world of Jean-Luc Picard, humanity had largely transcended the pursuit of wealth. In our world, wealth has become one of the defining obsessions of civilization. Now we live in an age where the world's most powerful billionaires command greater influence than many governments. We celebrate those who speak of colonising Mars while often neglecting the urgent work of repairing the Earth. The dream of escaping our problems increasingly seems more attractive than the responsibility of solving them.

The contrast between Picard's future and our present could not be more stark. His world was built upon moral progress. Ours often seems trapped by moral stagnation.  And so I find myself wondering how future generations will judge us.

The generations that followed the Second World War looked back at the Holocaust and asked haunting questions: How could they have allowed this to happen? Why did so many remain silent? Why did so few act? 

Increasingly, I suspect future generations will ask the same questions about us. How could they witness suffering on such a scale and do so little? How could they tolerate such inequality? How could they watch authoritarianism grow and fail to resist it? How could they know the scale of atrocities committed and yet remain indifferent? 

That thought stays with me.  Perhaps because the older I become, the more conscious I am of time.

When I was twenty-five, ten years felt endless. Now entire decades seem to pass in the space between memories.

And despite everything, despite our ambitions, conflicts, and achievements, our lives remain astonishingly brief. We are here for a few decades in a universe nearly fourteen billion years old. Against that backdrop, our existence is almost insignificant. Entire civilizations rise and fall in less time than it takes our sun to complete a fraction of its journey around the Milky Way galaxy.

One day every nation, every empire, every billionaire, every politician, and every one of us will be gone.

Our lives, which are relevant and gorgeous to us and those who know us, will be momentary blips in the cosmos.  For a while, everything will matter, and then eventually nothing will. Our time in this universe is both forever and achingly finite. 

Yet perhaps that is precisely why our choices matter so much. Because our time in this planet is limited, we have a responsibility to use it well. Not perfectly. Not heroically. Simply well.

The measure of a life is not the fortune accumulated, the power wielded, or the fame acquired. It is whether we left the world a little better than we found it. Whether we eased suffering. Whether we defended the vulnerable. Whether we showed kindness when cruelty was easier, courage when silence was safer, and humanity when the world seemed determined to abandon it.

We have lived a worthy life if we have made an effort to improve the character of human society, whether in our little corner of the world or far beyond it. In a universe of unimaginable vastness, that may seem like a small accomplishment. Yet for the people whose lives were touched by our actions, it is everything.

Perhaps that is why the death of Patrick Stewart affected so many people, including me. Through his portrayal of Captain Jean-Luc Picard, he gave voice to ideals that often seem in short supply in our own age: integrity, compassion, intellectual curiosity, moral courage, and an unwavering belief that humanity could become better than it is. At a time when the world often appears to be moving in the opposite direction, those ideals remain worth defending. 

In the end, Patrick Stewart’s Jean-Luc Picard will not be remembered only because he commanded a starship. He will be remembered because he reminded us of what human beings are capable of becoming at their best. If there is a legacy worth leaving behind, it is not wealth, power, or status, but the quiet conviction that every generation has a responsibility to push humanity a little further toward justice, wisdom, and kindness than it was before. And if we can do that, however imperfectly, then perhaps we will have helped bring into existence the future that Captain Picard showed us was possible.

© 2026 The View From Here. © 2026 Fareed Khan. All Rights Reserved.

The Rogue Axis: The United States and Israel represent the greatest threats to world peace

The United States and Israel have created an architecture of global hypocrisy, demanding adherence to international law from others while systematically violating it themselves. 

By Fareed Khan 
A version of this article can be found on Substack.

In the decades since the Second World War, the international community has repeatedly confronted states that violate global norms, destabilize regions, and undermine the foundations of collective security. Yet no two countries have done more damage to the post‑1945 international order than the United States and Israel. Their actions—spanning illegal wars, covert coups, assassinations, brutal occupations, and systematic defiance of international law—form a pattern so extensive and so destructive that it demands a global reckoning. The world once united to confront Nazi Germany when its aggression threatened international peace. Today, many critics argue that the United States and Israel present a serious threat to global peace and stability—two states that have repeatedly acted with disregard for international law, without meaningful accountability. Their record of military interventions, occupations, targeted killings, and violations of international norms has led some political analysts and human rights advocates to characterize them as rogue actors operating beyond the constraints that govern other nations. Were comparable crimes attributed to private individuals rather than states, they contend, they would likely face prosecution and imprisonment rather than continuing to exercise power with impunity.

The United States emerged from World War II as the world’s dominant military and economic power. Initially it used that position to create the global institutions that are the foundations of the international rule of law.  However, it then embarked on a decades‑long campaign of interventionism that destabilized entire continents. In Latin America, the US repeatedly undermined democratic governments, orchestrated coups, and installed authoritarian regimes aligned with its geopolitical and economic interests. The 1954 overthrow of Guatemala’s Jacobo Árbenz, engineered by the CIA, plunged the country into a civil war that killed hundreds of thousands. In Brazil, the US supported the 1964 military coup that ushered in two decades of dictatorship. In Argentina, Chile, and elsewhere, Washington backed juntas that tortured, disappeared, and murdered tens of thousands of civilians.

The 1973 coup in Chile remains one of the most infamous examples of US interference. The CIA helped topple Salvador Allende, Latin America’s first democratically elected socialist president, replacing him with General Augusto Pinochet, whose regime carried out mass executions, disappearances, and widespread torture. Declassified documents show that the US actively destabilized Chile’s economy and political institutions to pave the way for the coup, demonstrating a willingness to destroy democracy in the name of ideological conformity.

This pattern was not confined to Latin America. In 1953, the US orchestrated the overthrow of Iran’s democratically elected prime minister, Mohammad Mossadegh, after he nationalized the country’s oil industry. Operation Ajax, carried out jointly with British intelligence, installed the Shah, whose brutal secret police, SAVAK, tortured and executed dissidents for decades. The coup not only violated Iran’s sovereignty but also sowed the seeds of long‑term instability, contributing directly to the 1979 Islamic revolution and the adversarial relationship that has persisted with the West ever since.

The US has also repeatedly manufactured pretexts for war. The Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964—used to justify full‑scale US military involvement in Vietnam—was later revealed to be largely fabricated. The resulting war killed more than three million Vietnamese, devastated Cambodia and Laos, and destabilized Southeast Asia for generations. The pattern repeated in 2003, when the US invaded Iraq based on carefully orchestrated lies it presented at the UN about Iraq possessing weapons of mass destruction. The war, launched without UN authorization, killed more than a million Iraqis, created millions of refugees, and fractured the Middle East, creating the conditions for the rise of ISIS and other extremist groups.

The “War on Terror” that followed the September 11 attacks expanded US military operations into dozens of countries, often without congressional approval or international legal justification. Drone strikes killed tens of thousands of civilians in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and Afghanistan. Secret US torture sites operated in prisons across Europe and the Middle East. The US justified these actions under an elastic interpretation of self‑defence, effectively claiming the right to kill anywhere, anytime, without accountability.

Israel’s record, though geographically concentrated, is no less alarming and destructive. Since its establishment in 1948 on Palestinian land, Israel has engaged in systematic violations of international law, beginning with the ethnic cleansing of more than 750,000 Palestinians during the Nakba, and the murder of thousands more. Over the decades, Israel has launched pre‑emptive wars, expanded settlements in occupied territory, assassinated diplomats and political leaders, and repeatedly defied UN Security Council and General Assembly resolutions. It has started or escalated nearly every major conflict in which it has been involved, including the 1956 Suez Crisis, the 1967 Six‑Day War, multiple invasions of Lebanon, and the Gaza genocide.

Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza violates the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits the transfer of an occupying power’s civilian population into occupied territory. Yet Israel has built hundreds of Jews only settlements, home to more than 700,000 illegal settlers, in direct defiance of international law. The UN Security Council has passed dozens of resolutions condemning these actions, but Israel has ignored them all, shielded by US vetoes.

The humanitarian consequences of Israel’s actions have been catastrophic. In Gaza, repeated Israeli assaults have killed tens of thousands of civilians, destroyed hospitals, schools, and infrastructure, and created conditions that human rights experts describe as meeting the legal definition of genocide. Israel’s blockade of Gaza, now in its third decade, constitutes collective punishment, another violation of the Geneva Conventions. The UN has repeatedly declared the blockade of Gaza illegal, yet Israel continues to enforce it with impunity.

Israel has also carried out extrajudicial assassinations of Palestinian leaders, diplomats, and activists across the Middle East and Europe. The 1973 Lillehammer affair, in which Mossad agents killed an innocent Moroccan waiter in Norway after mistaking him for a Palestinian militant, exemplifies Israel’s willingness to violate international sovereignty. More recently, Israel has assassinated Iranian scientists and officials, actions that have led to war.

Both the United States and Israel have repeatedly violated the UN Charter, which prohibits the use of force except in self‑defence or with Security Council authorization. They have breached the Universal Declaration of Human Rights through torture, extrajudicial killings, and collective punishment. They have violated the Genocide Convention by engaging in actions intended to destroy, in whole or in part, national or ethnic groups. They have undermined the International Criminal Court, refusing to recognize its jurisdiction while demanding accountability for others.

The February 2026 joint US‑Israeli assault on Iran—launched without provocation or UN authorization—illustrates the ongoing danger posed by this rogue axis. Airstrikes targeted civilian infrastructure, nuclear research facilities, and government buildings. The assassination of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, marked a dramatic escalation, violating international prohibitions on political assassination. UN experts condemned the attack as an act of aggression, yet both countries dismissed the criticism, insisting they were acting in the name of “regional stability.”

The consequences of these actions extend far beyond the Middle East. When powerful states violate international law with impunity, they weaken the entire global system. Other nations, observing the US and Israel’s behaviour, increasingly disregard international norms themselves. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, China’s crackdown in Hong Kong, Turkey’s incursions into Syria—all occur in a world where the leading violators of international law face no consequences.

The United States and Israel have created an architecture of global hypocrisy. They demand adherence to international law from others while systematically violating it themselves. They lecture the world on democracy while undermining democratic norms around the world. They speak of human rights while committing egregious abuses that dwarf those of many states they condemn. Their actions erode trust in international institutions, fuel radicalization, and destabilize entire regions.

The world once united to confront Nazi Germany when it threatened global peace. Today, the international community faces a different but equally dangerous challenge—two states whose conduct consistently undermines the foundations of international peace and order. Confronting this threat requires collective action—sanctions, diplomatic isolation, arms embargoes, and international prosecutions of American and Israeli leaders. It requires supporting domestic elements within both countries that seek to dismantle structures of militarism, occupation, and imperialism. And it requires a renewed commitment to the principles of the UN Charter, which were designed to prevent exactly the kind of lawlessness and impunity the United States and Israel now embody.

The survival of a rules‑based international order depends on confronting these rogue actors. Without accountability, the world will remain trapped in a cycle of aggression, instability, and impunity. The time has come for nations to act—not out of hostility, but out of necessity. Peace cannot be built on exceptions. It must be built on universal principles, applied equally to all.

© 2026 The View From Here. © 2026 Fareed Khan. All Rights Reserved.

Is Canada’s sovereignty safe in an age of US fascist aggression? Don’t bet on it.

Canada cannot afford complacency. Its future depends upon strengthening its economy, diversifying international relationships, deepening democratic institutions, and upgrading military capabilities. 

By Fareed Khan 
A version of this article can be found on Substack.

The decisive rejection of Alberta separatism should remind Canadians that the overwhelming majority of citizens, including Albertans themselves, remain committed to Canada as a united, sovereign, and independent country. It is also a result that was likely greeted with disappointment in certain political circles south of the border. Reports and allegations regarding contacts between American figures and leaders within Alberta's separatist movement raised legitimate questions about whether external actors were attempting to influence a domestic Canadian political debate. Whether those efforts were significant or largely symbolic, Alberta voters delivered a clear message: Canada's future will be decided by Canadians, not by outsiders seeking to advance their own interests.

Yet if there is one broader lesson to be drawn from that episode, it is that threats to sovereignty do not always originate from distant powers. Canadians frequently concern themselves with Russian aggression, Chinese influence operations, and geopolitical instability elsewhere in the world, while often overlooking the possibility that the most significant long-term challenge to Canadian sovereignty may emerge from the country that has been our closest neighbour, ally, and trading partner for more than a century.

This is not to suggest that an American invasion is imminent, nor is it to imply that most Americans harbour hostile intentions toward Canada. Rather, it is to recognize that many Canadians have not fully appreciated the extent to which American political culture, particularly within segments of the Republican Party and the broader MAGA movement, has changed during the past decade. That transformation has called into question assumptions that governed Canada-United States relations throughout much of the post-war era. Principles that Canadians once regarded as settled, including respect for alliances, international institutions, and the sovereignty of close partners, can no longer be treated as permanently secure.

Nor is the issue simply Donald Trump. The larger concern is the emergence of a political movement that increasingly views international affairs through the lens of power rather than partnership. Within this worldview, alliances, trade agreements, and even the sovereignty of neighbouring countries are often evaluated in terms of how effectively they serve American interests. From that perspective, Canada risks being viewed less as an equal partner deserving respect and more as a strategic asset, a source of natural resources, a captive market, and a territory that falls naturally within a broader American sphere of influence.

When combined with repeated rhetoric about Canada becoming the "51st state," such attitudes should prompt Canadians to think far more seriously about the future of their country's independence than many have in the past.

The greatest threat to Canadian sovereignty may not be a military invasion. It may instead be the gradual normalization of a political culture that increasingly views allies, trading partners, and neighbouring countries through the lens of leverage, coercion, and strategic advantage rather than cooperation and mutual respect. If that worldview continues to exert influence long after Donald Trump leaves office, Canada could find itself facing sustained economic, political, and strategic pressure from a neighbour that no longer regards Canadian sovereignty as beyond question.

The end of an assumption

For most of the twentieth century and into the early decades of the twenty-first, Canada and the United States enjoyed one of the most stable and successful bilateral relationships in modern history. Disagreements certainly occurred over trade, lumber, agriculture, defence spending, energy policy, and foreign affairs. Yet these disputes unfolded within a broader framework of mutual respect, shared interests, and a common understanding that both nations benefited from the relationship.

Since the first Trump administration, however, that framework has shown visible signs of strain.

Following his return to office in January 2025, Donald Trump repeatedly revived rhetoric suggesting that Canada should become the "51st state." He argued publicly that Canada depends more on the United States than the United States depends on Canada and suggested on numerous occasions that annexation would solve various bilateral disputes. Statements that once might have been dismissed as provocative humour took on greater significance because they were repeated so frequently and by the most powerful political figure in the United States.

History demonstrates that ideas repeatedly introduced into political discourse often become normalized over time. What begins as a joke, provocation, or rhetorical flourish can gradually evolve into a subject of serious debate once influential political and media figures begin repeating the same themes. While rhetoric alone does not constitute policy, it can help reshape public assumptions about what is politically acceptable.

Trump's treatment of Greenland is equally revealing. He repeatedly argued that the United States should acquire the Danish territory and at various points refused to rule out economic or military pressure to achieve that objective. Even when moderating some of his language, he continued to insist that American ownership of Greenland was a strategic necessity tied to national security concerns.

The significance of this rhetoric is not that Canada and Greenland occupy identical positions. Rather, the significance lies in the fact that senior American political leaders have demonstrated a willingness to discuss acquiring territory from allied countries in ways that would have been almost unimaginable only a few years earlier. The barrier that once separated democratic competition from great-power territorial ambition appears less rigid than many had assumed.

Power rather than partnership

The Trump administration's trade policies offer another warning sign.

Successive rounds of tariffs imposed on Canadian steel, aluminium, automobiles, and other exports were frequently justified on grounds that many economists, trade specialists, and policy analysts regarded as politically motivated or economically dubious. Canada responded with countermeasures while attempting to preserve the broader trading relationship. Yet the deeper concern is not the tariffs themselves. It is the mindset that made them possible.

For decades, many policymakers in both countries viewed trade between allies as a mutually beneficial enterprise. Increasingly, however, sections of American political discourse have begun treating economic interdependence as a source of leverage. Integration is valued not merely for the prosperity it creates but for the influence it provides.

Within this framework, economic relationships become instruments of coercion. The central question is no longer how trade benefits both countries but how economic power can be used to secure political or strategic advantages. Shared values become secondary to calculations of national gain.

This logic extends well beyond Canada. Similar patterns can be observed in disputes with European allies, debates surrounding NATO burden-sharing, pressure campaigns against trading partners, and rhetoric surrounding Greenland, Panama, and other strategically significant territories. When relationships are increasingly evaluated through the lens of dominance rather than cooperation, smaller states inevitably find themselves in a more vulnerable position.

Trump is not the entire problem

Many Canadians comfort themselves with the belief that everything will return to normal once Donald Trump eventually leaves office. That assumption may prove dangerously optimistic.

Political movements frequently outlive the individuals most closely associated with them. All you have to do is look to how Nazism still exists more than 80 years after Hitler’s death.

Trumpism did not emerge from a political vacuum. Rather, it reflects broader changes within American political culture that developed over decades. The growth of populist nationalism, increasing political polarization, declining confidence in international institutions, and resentment toward globalization all predate Trump himself. Trump became the most visible embodiment of these trends, but he did not create them alone.

Many of his closest advisers, media allies, ideological supporters, and political successors remain committed to a more nationalist and confrontational vision of American power. While they may differ on tactics, many share the belief that America's interests should take precedence over traditional diplomatic constraints and that international institutions should serve American objectives rather than limit them.

Even if Trump vanished from the political landscape tomorrow, many of the forces that elevated him would remain. Protectionist sentiment would persist, and nationalist politics would continue. The perception that allies have benefited disproportionately from trade with American and its military protection would still exist among substantial segments of the US electorate.

The question Canadians should therefore ask is not whether Trump will eventually leave office. The more important question is whether the political and cultural forces that produced Trump are likely to disappear with his departure from the White House. At present, there is little evidence to suggest that they will.

A Democratic victory may not restore the status quo

Nor should Canadians assume that a future Democratic administration would automatically restore the pre-Trump status quo. The United States is undergoing a broader structural transformation that transcends partisan politics. Canadian policymakers must recognize that the political environment shaping American foreign policy is changing in ways that neither party can entirely reverse.

Since the pandemic years, American policy debates have increasingly focused on supply chains, industrial policy, strategic industries, critical minerals, advanced manufacturing, and competition with major powers. These concerns are not confined to Republicans. Democrats generally frame them differently, but both parties are responding to growing public demands for economic security and national resilience.

The United States that emerged after the Second World War largely saw itself as the chief architect and guarantor of a rules-based international order. Today, politicians across the political spectrum face increasing pressure to pursue narrowly defined national interests, even when doing so creates friction with allies or long-established international norms. This shift did not begin with Donald Trump, and it is unlikely to end with his departure from the political scene.

Canadians should therefore recognize that the assumptions which governed bilateral relations for the past 80 years may no longer apply. The deeper economic and political forces reshaping American society remain intact, regardless of which party occupies the White House.

The Austria analogy

History never repeats itself exactly. Nevertheless, it often provides important warnings. Some commentators have compared contemporary developments in American politics to aspects of Europe in the 1920s and 30s, when fascism was on the rise. But while the US is not Nazi Germany the parallels can’t be ignored. While  intense political polarization and growing strains on democratic norms are increasing in the US it still remains a constitutional democracy with powerful institutions, an independent judiciary, a vibrant civil society, and vigorous political opposition.  However, history still offers lessons worth considering as Canada watches democracy under siege south of the border.

During the 1930s, many Europeans struggled to take seriously the increasingly aggressive rhetoric emanating from Berlin. Expansionist statements were frequently dismissed as posturing intended for domestic audiences. Each escalation was rationalized. Each warning sign was minimized. Many assumed that long-established norms would ultimately restrain more extreme ambitions.

Within this context, Austria occupied a uniquely vulnerable position. It shared language, culture, economic ties, and deep historical connections with Germany. Many believed those common bonds would provide security. Instead, they provided opportunities for political pressure and coercion. By the time Austria was annexed by Nazi Germany in 1938, its options had narrowed considerably.

The comparison to Canada has obvious limits. The circumstances are fundamentally different. Yet one lesson remains relevant. Familiarity and integration do not automatically guarantee security. Like Austria, Canada exists beside a much larger and more powerful neighbour. Like Austria, it is deeply integrated with that neighbour economically, culturally, and socially. And like Austria, Canada sometimes assumes that those close connections are all the protection it requires.

History suggests otherwise.  Some of the loudest voices within contemporary American nationalism increasingly speak about North America as though it were a naturally integrated geopolitical space that should be organized under American leadership. Within that worldview, Canada possesses resources America desires, territory America values, water resources that may become increasingly important in the future, and strategic Arctic access that is growing in significance as climate change reshapes the region.

Greenland is often discussed in similar terms because of its geography and mineral wealth. Mexico is frequently framed less as a sovereign partner than as a security challenge requiring unilateral American solutions. None of this means annexation is official American policy. But it does reveal an underlying mindset in which power increasingly creates a perceived entitlement to influence, shape, or direct the affairs of others.

History teaches that when powerful nations begin thinking this way, smaller neighbours should pay attention.

What Canada must do

Most Canadians still see ordinary Americans as friends, allies, and partners. Canada's prosperity remains deeply connected to the United States, and that relationship will continue to matter enormously in the decades ahead. Friendship, however, does not eliminate the need for prudence.

The government of Prime Minister Mark Carney has taken important steps toward diversifying Canada's economic relationships. Expanding trade with Europe, the Indo-Pacific region, and emerging markets is no longer simply a matter of seeking new opportunities. It has become a strategic necessity.

However, a country that depends too heavily upon a single market inevitably becomes vulnerable to political and economic pressure. Greater diversification provides Canada with more freedom to pursue independent policies and defend its interests without fear of excessive economic retaliation.

Canada must also move much more quickly to remove internal trade barriers that continue to fragment its own domestic economy. These barriers increase costs, reduce productivity, limit competitiveness, and undermine national economic resilience. Strengthening east-west economic integration should be treated as both an economic and a nation-building priority.

Beyond trade, Canada’s move to deepen strategic partnerships with democratic middle powers that share an interest in preserving a rules-based international order is also a step in the right direction. Economic resilience and diplomatic diversification are essential. But they are not sufficient on their own.

Additionally, a sovereign country cannot indefinitely maintain full strategic independence if it lacks the capacity to defend itself. Canada must therefore begin treating national defence as a genuine priority once again, and it must be acknowledged that, in its current configuration, the Canadian Armed Forces could not defeat the United States in a conventional military conflict. Matching American military capabilities would require expenditures and levels of mobilization not seen since World War Two.

Fortunately, deterrence has never depended upon parity. Throughout history, smaller countries have preserved their independence not by matching the military strength of larger powers but by ensuring that aggression would carry unacceptable costs. Deterrence works when conflict becomes too expensive, too uncertain, and too risky to justify.

Recent confrontations involving Iran illustrate this principle. Although Iran possesses only a fraction of America's military capabilities, policymakers in Washington have repeatedly had to weigh the substantial costs that a large-scale conflict would entail. Military superiority alone does not guarantee favourable outcomes if an adversary retains the capacity to impose meaningful costs. That is the essence of deterrence.

Canada does not need a military capable of conquering the United States. It needs a military capable of making coercion costly, unpredictable, and politically unattractive. The objective is not victory in an offensive war but the preservation of sovereignty through credible defensive capability.

The danger of complacency

The greatest threat to Canadian sovereignty is not thousands of US soldiers and tanks crossing Canadian land borders or an armada of US military jets controlling the skies over Canada. It is the persistence of outdated assumptions. For generations, Canadians assumed that economic integration guaranteed security, that shared values guaranteed respect, and that American power would always operate within predictable bounds. Recent developments suggest those assumptions deserve far greater scrutiny than they once did.

Repeated discussions of Canadian annexation, escalating tariff disputes, coercive trade measures, territorial ambitions regarding Greenland, and a broader political culture that increasingly equates power with entitlement should compel Canadians to rethink old certainties. The issue is not whether every provocative statement made by Donald Trump represents concrete policy. The issue is whether Canada is prepared for a world in which such statements are no longer politically unthinkable.

The reality is that a sovereign nation cannot afford complacency. Canada's future depends upon strengthening its economy, diversifying its international relationships, deepening its democratic institutions, and maintaining credible military capabilities. The lesson of history is straightforward: countries that assume powerful neighbours will remain permanently benevolent often discover their mistake too late. Canada should not be one of them.

© 2026 The View From Here. © 2026 Fareed Khan. All Rights Reserved.

NAZA documentary illustrates Hanna Arendt’s “banality of evil” in Israel’s genocide in Gaza

Evil usually arrives in the form of ordinary people who have stopped seeing the humanity of those they have been taught to fear, hate, and dehumanize, even if they’re children. 

By Fareed Khan 
A version of this article can be found on Substack.

One of the most important moral lessons of the twentieth century is that evil is not confined to a particular nation, religion, ethnicity, or people. The Holocaust did not occur because Germans were uniquely evil. It occurred because enough people embraced evil ideas of racial superiority, supported evil policies, obeyed evil orders, or looked away while evil was being committed in their name.

That lesson is universal. It applies to everyone, to every society. And if we are unwilling to apply that lesson universally, then we have to accept that in the face of the evil being committed by Israel in Gaza, we have learned nothing from history.

The growing significance of the documentary NAZA, written and directed by Israeli filmmakers Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, lies not merely in its allegations about the crimes committed in Gaza, but in the profound moral questions it raises about the individuals who designed, managed, justified, and implemented the destruction of an entire people and society. According to published reviews, the film draws on testimony from 24 Israeli intelligence officers and soldiers who describe the operation of AI-assisted targeting systems and the bureaucratic machinery used to facilitate mass killing on an industrial scale. What emerges is not simply a portrait of military violence, but a disturbing examination of how evil can become normalized, routinized, and embedded within institutions, allowing ordinary people to participate in extraordinary crimes while convincing themselves they bear no personal responsibility. In that sense, NAZA is not only a film about the Gaza genocide, it is a film about the mechanisms through which human beings become agents of evil.

The importance of the Israeli testimony is not merely evidentiary but rather philosophical. It forces us to confront a question that many would prefer to avoid: What happens when ordinary people become participants in extraordinary crimes and acts of evil?

The German-Jewish philosopher Hannah Arendt confronted exactly this question while reporting on the trial of Nazi official Adolf Eichmann. Her famous phrase, “the banality of evil” did not mean evil was trivial. It meant that some of history’s greatest evils were committed not by obvious monsters but by ordinary people who surrendered their moral judgment to ideology, authority, institutions, and career advancement. During his trial Eichmann repeatedly portrayed himself as a man who was merely doing his job and “following orders”. Arendt found that explanation profoundly disturbing because it revealed how easily human beings can participate in acts of evil while convincing themselves they bear no responsibility.

The testimonies described in NAZA evoke similar questions. According to reports of the film, Israeli military personnel discussed targeting systems, civilian casualty calculations, surveillance technology, and mass killing with a striking degree of bureaucratic detachment. Palestinian civilians became numbers, entire families became data points, and inflicting death and destruction became an administrative exercise.  The horror lies not only in what was done by Israeli officials but in how easily it was normalized.

Genocide doesn’t occur overnight

History demonstrates that genocidal atrocities rarely begin with killing. They begin with the dehumanization of a targeted population in a process that takes years.  Before people can tolerate mass suffering inflicted upon a defenceless population they must first be taught that those others are less human, less deserving of protection, less worthy of empathy, somehow collectively guilty, or an existential threat to the dominant population. Once that process begins, moral barriers collapse. Violence that would once have been unthinkable becomes acceptable, cruelty becomes state policy, and indifference becomes a virtue.

That process was visible in Nazi Germany beginning in the early 1930s, and it has appeared in numerous genocides and campaigns of ethnic cleansing throughout history.  And many critics, including Jewish scholars, Holocaust survivors, Israeli human-rights advocates, UN investigators, and genocide scholars, have argued that similar patterns of dehumanization and collective punishment are visible today in attitudes toward Palestinians.  What makes this argument especially significant is that some of the strongest warnings are coming from Jewish voices themselves.

The late Holocaust survivor Hajo Meyer spent years warning that the lessons of the Holocaust were being betrayed when they were applied selectively. For Meyer, “Never Again” was not a slogan reserved for Jews alone. It was a universal moral principle.

Holocaust survivor Stephen Kapos has publicly spoken about similarities he perceives between aspects of Palestinian suffering and experiences he witnessed as a child during the Second World War. He has criticized attempts to weaponize Holocaust memory as a shield against criticism of contemporary Israeli policies that justify genocide, and has insisted that survivors and their descendants have a duty to speak against injustice wherever it occurs.

Holocaust survivor Marione Ingram, who lost family members to Nazi persecution, has likewise condemned the devastation in Gaza and publicly called for an end to the violence.

These individuals are not arguing that history is repeating itself in identical form.  The Holocaust was a unique event without historical precedent. But they are saying that there are parallels between what the Nazis did to them and other Jews and what Israel is doing and has done to Palestinians.

History matters

The purpose of studying history is not merely to catalogue differences, it is to recognize recurring patterns. These include: dehumanization, collective punishment, exterminationist rhetoric, the treatment of an entire population as expendable, the rationalization of mass suffering, and the replacement of morality with immoral obedience.  These are patterns that appear repeatedly throughout the history of human atrocity.

Since late 2023, a growing number of respected organizations, international legal experts, genocide scholars, and human-rights bodies have concluded that Israel’s actions in Gaza either constitute genocide or display characteristics consistent with genocide under the Genocide Convention. These include the UN Independent Commission of Inquiry, the UN Special Committee, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, B’Tselem, Physicians for Human Rights Israel, the International Federation of Human Rights, and the International Association of Genocide Scholars. In addition, Prominent Jewish and Israeli Holocaust and genocide scholars, including Omer Bartov, Amos Goldberg, Raz Segal, Daniel Blatman, and Shmuel Lederman, have voiced similar concerns.

People may disagree with those conclusions. Ongoing legal proceedings and historical debate will continue for years. But it can no longer be credibly argued that such assessments come only from political activists or ideological opponents of Israel. Some of the most authoritative voices making these warnings are Jewish scholars, Israeli academics, genocide specialists, and Holocaust survivors themselves.

The most troubling aspect of the present moment is that the evidence of Palestinian suffering has been visible to the entire world.  It has been called “the most transparent genocide in human history.”  No one can plausibly claim ignorance. The destruction has unfolded live on social media, in photographs, in videos, and through the testimony of humanitarian organizations, journalists, doctors, aid workers, and survivors. Yet even amid this devastation, large numbers of people have continued to justify, excuse, minimize, or celebrate the suffering.

That reality demands moral scrutiny. If an individual supports the extermination of a people, that is evil. If a religious leader justifies the annihilation of a people, that is evil. If a political leader advocates the destruction of a people, that is evil. If a military commander orders actions intended to destroy a population, that is evil. And if citizens knowingly support such objectives, they are embracing evil.

This principle of human rights is universal. It does not matter whether the victims are Jewish, Palestinian, Armenian, Tutsi, Bosniak, Rohingya, or members of any other people. The moral standard must remain consistent. Indeed, one of the central lessons of the Holocaust is that no society is immune from moral corruption, that historical victimhood does not confer permanent innocence, and that the suffering endured by one people does not eliminate the possibility that some among them may one day inflict grave suffering on others. The tragedy of history is that persecution does not automatically produce wisdom, compassion, or justice. Many Holocaust survivors and Jewish scholars have warned precisely against this danger—that the memory of oppression can be transformed from a universal call for human dignity into a justification for denying the dignity of others. If the same processes of dehumanization, collective punishment, and indifference to mass civilian suffering reappear, they must be confronted and condemned regardless of who the victims are or who the perpetrators may be.

That uncomfortable truth is exactly why so many Holocaust survivors and scholars have chosen to speak out. They understand that memory has value only if it informs present conduct. The real question raised by NAZA is therefore not whether Israelis are uniquely evil. The question is whether individuals who knowingly participate in, justify, or support the destruction of another people have crossed a moral line that should be recognized for the evil that it is.

The answer is yes. Because if genocide is evil, then those who incite it, facilitate it, normalize it, celebrate it, or participate in it are engaging in evil. If ethnic cleansing is evil, then those who advocate, implement, or support it are engaging in evil. If mass killing, dehumanization, and collective punishment are evil, then those who knowingly carry out such acts are engaging in evil.

The lesson of history is not that evil belongs to one nation. The lesson is far more frightening.

Evil can emerge anywhere. It can emerge in technologically advanced societies, among educated people, within democracies, and among those who regard themselves as civilised and moral.  When it does, it usually arrives not in the form of obvious monsters, but in the form of ordinary people who have stopped recognizing the humanity of those they have been taught to fear, hate, and dehumanize.

That was Hannah Arendt's warning. It is also what makes the testimony presented in NAZA so profoundly unsettling. The film is not simply a record of what has happened in Gaza during more than three years of genocide. It is a mirror held up to humanity itself. It forces viewers to confront how easily moral boundaries can erode, how ordinary people can become indifferent to the suffering of others, and how individuals and institutions can participate in immense human tragedy while continuing to see themselves as righteous, civilized, and justified.

The message of NAZA extends far beyond Gaza. History's greatest atrocities are not merely stories about the past. They are warnings written in the blood of their victims, cautioning future generations about what happens when hatred is normalized, when human beings are stripped of their dignity, and when conscience is surrendered to ideology, fear, tribalism, or blind obedience to an ideology.  We’ve seen this in Nazi Germany and we’re seeing it again today in Zionist Israel.

The events documented in the film remind us that mass atrocities do not begin with mass killing. They begin with words that dehumanize, stereotypes that demonize, and narratives that deny the humanity of an entire people. They begin when suffering is rationalized and when violence is reframed as necessity, security, revenge, self-defence, or historical destiny. As Arendt understood, evil rarely presents itself as evil. More often, it disguises itself as duty, patriotism, or moral necessity.

This is why NAZA is not simply a film about the victims of Gaza. It is a challenge directed at the conscience of the entire world. More than three years of death and destruction have unfolded before a global audience connected by unprecedented technology, instant communication, and constant access to information. Future generations will not be able to claim that humanity did not know. The more troubling question is what people chose to do, or chose not to do, with that knowledge.

Remembering history alone has never been enough to prevent atrocities. Humanity has repeatedly pledged "Never Again" since World War II only to watch new horrors emerge under different names, in different places, and against different victims. The price of those failures has always been paid by the vulnerable, the defenceless, and the dead. NAZA therefore stands not only as a testament to suffering but as a moral challenge to the living. It calls on us to reject indifference, to resist the normalization of injustice, and to defend our common humanity before cruelty becomes accepted as ordinary and atrocity becomes routine.

Ultimately, NAZA’s warning is not only about what happens to those who are targeted by violence and oppression. It is also about what happens to the societies, institutions, and individuals who tolerate, excuse, or ignore it. When conscience is silenced and injustice is allowed to flourish, the damage does not remain confined to its victims. It spreads outward, corrupting moral judgement, degrading human values, and diminishing the humanity of all who become complicit through action, silence, or indifference. That is the enduring lesson of NAZA, and it is a lesson the world ignores at its peril.

© 2026 The View From Here. © 2026 Fareed Khan. All Rights Reserved.