Israel is a supremacist colonial project founded on Theodore Herzl’s fascist Zionist ideology

Confronting the architecture of Zionist supremacy is not an attack against Jews. It is a defence of the belief that no people’s freedom can be built on the subjugation of another.

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

 

From its earliest formulations in late‑19th‑century Europe, Zionism imagined a political order in historic Palestine built around the primacy of one ethnonational group—Jews. Over the decades, that vision hardened into a state structure that leading human rights organizations now describe as a regime of systematic domination and subjugation. Human Rights Watch, B’Tselem, Amnesty International, and numerous scholars of genocide and settler colonialism have concluded that Israeli governance from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea constitutes apartheid, persecution, and—in the eyes of many genocide scholars—an unfolding genocidal process.

Crucially, this critique is not new, nor is it limited to Palestinians or contemporary human rights organizations. Some of the most influential Jewish intellectuals of the 20th century—Albert Einstein, Hannah Arendt, Isaac Asimov, and Sigmund Freud (among others)—warned explicitly against the creation of a Jewish state built on ethnonational exclusivity. They feared that a state founded on Jewish supremacy would betray Jewish ethical traditions, ignite endless conflict, and reproduce the very forms of chauvinism and racial hierarchy that had oppressed Jews in Europe for centuries.

Einstein denounced the early Zionist leaders and their militias as “fascist.” Arendt warned that a Jewish state would become “a Sparta”—a hyper-militarized, society obsessed with defence to the detriment of democratic values, and peaceful coexistence. Freud rejected the idea of a nationalist project in Palestine because he viewed religious and ethnic nationalism as a form of neurosis, and believed it would provoke Arab resentment, alienate the Islamic and Christian worlds, and fail to solve global antisemitism. And Asimov rejected the idea of Israel and ethnic nationalism, including Zionism, because he was a staunch humanist who believed humanity’s survival depended on moving past tribal divisions.

Their warnings were prophetic. They foresaw that a state built on privileging one group over another would inevitably become a machinery of subjugation that would irreparably damage Jewish society and culture, and inflict immense suffering.

This is not a claim about Judaism or Jewish identity. It is a claim about state power, ideology, and structures of supremacy—and it is a claim increasingly made by Israelis themselves.

Israeli human rights lawyer Michael Sfard captured this internal reckoning with painful clarity when he wrote in Haaretz: “I look at these young people who are poisoned with racism and hatred [towards Palestinians], and at some of their elders, who are their spiritual mentors and implant in them toxic notions of Jewish supremacy . . . How did we produce from among us the replicas of our [Nazi] persecutors?

Sfard’s question is not rhetorical. It is a diagnosis of a society shaped by decades of brutal occupation, illegal settlements on Palestinian land, and ethnonational fear—one in which Jewish supremacy has become normalized, even valued. His words echo the earlier warnings of Einstein, Arendt, Asimov, and Freud, that a political project rooted in ethnonational dominance and subjugation of indigenous Palestinians would inevitably deform the society that built it, corrode its moral foundations, and reproduce the very patterns of exclusion and dehumanization that Jews themselves had suffered at the hands of the Nazis.

The tragedy is not only that these warnings were ignored, but that the consequences have unfolded exactly as these thinkers predicted. A state built on the premise of supremacy has produced a political culture in which domination is seen as security, inequality of peoples as natural, and brutal violence as necessary for the Zionist project to succeed. The intellectual giants who opposed Zionism did so not out of hostility to Jewish survival, but out of a profound understanding of what happens when any people—especially a historically persecuted one—embraces the logic of ethnonational power.

Zionism’s racialized and fascist foundations

Zionism emerged in the same intellectual climate that produced European colonialism, concepts of racial hierarchy, and the ethnonationalism that would later culminate in fascist movements. Theodor Herzl, the movement’s founder, envisioned a Jews only state in Palestine as a “civilizing” outpost of Europe, seeing the indigenous inhabitants—Muslims, Christians and Jews—as inferior. In Der Judenstaat (The Jew State) and Altneuland (The Old New Land), Herzl described the future Jewish society as modern, rational, and European, one that would be implicitly superior to the “backward” and “barbaric” native population.

Herzl’s writings repeatedly framed Palestinians not as a people with political rights, but as an obstacle to be managed, displaced, subordinated and possibly eliminated. His admiration for European colonial models—particularly British rule in South Africa—reveals a worldview steeped in racial hierarchy.

Critics and scholars have argued that Herzl’s political imagination contained fascist elements including: a belief in demographic engineering (ethnic cleansing); a vision of a homogenous ethnonational state; a hierarchical worldview that placed European Jews at the apex of humanity; and a willingness to subordinate or remove indigenous populations by force. These elements place Herzl within the intellectual genealogy of European racial nationalism and fascism. If one removes his Jewish identity he would very easily have found a home in Europe’s fascist movements.

This is not an accusation of personal malevolence but rather a recognition that Herzl’s political philosophy was shaped by the dominant ideologies of his time—settler colonialism, racialized nationalism, and ethnonational exclusivity. These ideas later crystallized into Israeli state policies that privileged Jews over native Palestinians and forceful control over their territory and their rights.
 
The making of a supremacist regime
 
The Nakba of 1948—marked by mass ethnic cleansing, massacres, eradication of Palestinian towns and villages, and the permanent exclusion of refugees—was not an aberration but a foundational moment for the new Israeli state built on the blood and bones of historic Palestine’s indigenous people. Additionally, Laws such as the Absentee Property Law ensured that Palestinians who fled or were expelled from their homes could never return, while their lands and property was transferred to Jewish ownership. 

After 1967, the occupation entrenched a dual legal system. One where Israeli settlers in the West Bank lived under Israeli civil law, enjoying full political rights, and receiving state protection, and a second where Palestinians lived under military law, faced movement restrictions, home demolitions, land theft, and arbitrary detention and torture. B’Tselem concluded in 2021 that this constitutes “a regime of Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.” 

Human Rights Watch’s A Threshold Crossed reached the same conclusion, documenting policies designed to maintain Jewish demographic and political supremacy through land control, movement restrictions, and discriminatory laws. These are not fringe interpretations. They are the assessments of leading human rights institutions.

Palestinian dehumanization as policy and culture

Supremacy is sustained not only through laws but through language. Israeli political leaders have repeatedly used debasing rhetoric that strips Palestinians of humanity. Former Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked notoriously referred to Palestinian children as “little snakes,” calling for the killing of Palestinian mothers to prevent future generations. At the start of the Gaza genocide Defence Minister Yoav Gallant human animals. Israeli political, military and religious leaders have variously described Palestinians as a “cancer” and vermin to be exterminated.

Such language is not merely hateful—it is functional. It prepares the public to accept policies of collective punishment, siege, brutality, and large‑scale military assault. The Israeli-American historian of the Holocaust Omer Bartov, who did his PhD on the indoctrination of Nazi German soldiers has argued that young Israeli soldiers who have fought inside the Gaza Strip in the ongoing during the Gaza genocide display attitudes towards their enemies similar to those of Nazi troops and Hitler Youth in the Second World War in that they have internalized the view that Hamas militants are “human animals.” Settler violence, often carried out with impunity, reinforces this logic. Sfard’s comparison of extremist settlers to the Ku Klux Klan is not hyperbole but a reflection of vigilante terror used to enforce ethnic hierarchy.

This dehumanization has intensified during Israel’s repeated assaults on Gaza since the mid-2000s to today. By mid‑November 2023, Holocaust and genocide scholars—including Raz Segal, Omer Bartov, and Barry Trachtenberg—warned that Israel’s actions risked or constituted genocide. Their warnings were grounded in patterns familiar from other cases: forced displacement; destruction of civilian infrastructure; mass killing; and rhetoric invoking biblical annihilation narratives.

Holocaust survivors and their descendants have echoed these warnings with a moral authority that cannot be dismissed. Drawing on memories of Jewish ghettos, forced displacement, starvation, and the systematic stripping away of human dignity, they argue that the dehumanization of Palestinians mirrors patterns they recognize from their own histories under Nazi rule. These are not casual comparisons or rhetorical flourishes; they are the reflections of people who have spent a lifetime with memories of how atrocity begins—in language, in policy, and in the gradual normalization of cruelty. Their testimony carries a weight that is both personal and scholarly, a lived experience intertwined with decades of reflection on the mechanisms of genocide. Their testimonies cannot be dismissed, and should be seen as a clarion call to recognize the universal dangers of dehumanization before it hardens into something even more catastrophic.

Impunity as Israeli policy

For decades, Israel benefited from near‑total impunity in the international legal system for actions dating back to its founding—ethnic cleansing, mass killing, wars of aggression, military occupation, and the annexation of conquered land. However, that shield is finally beginning to crack, given that the world has awakened to the scale and visibility of Israeli state violence. The old narratives that once insulated Israel from accountability no longer hold. Proceedings before the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court have forced an unprecedented global reckoning with the legal and moral consequences of prolonged occupation, systemic discrimination, and the routine use of force against an entire civilian population.

Some Holocaust scholars who initially defended Israel’s actions in Gaza have since fallen silent. Their early endorsements of Israel’s violence—rather than of universal human rights—exposed a troubling readiness to subordinate anti‑racist principles to personal ethnonational loyalty. That scholars such as Dean Barbara Krauthamer of Emory University—a historian of African American life and the daughter of a Holocaust survivor—along with Professor Erwin Chemerinsky, the influential dean of Berkeley Law, and Professor Deborah Lipstadt, Emory’s renowned Holocaust scholar and the US Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism, have all remained conspicuously silent as the death toll in Gaza has soared—and despite genocide declarations from their own colleagues, as well as findings from the UN, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and other respected human rights bodies—reveals a profound betrayal of the very lessons the field of genocide studies was created to uphold.

Zionism is the cousin of white supremacy

Zionism and white supremacy share structural parallels that are evident in the ways they operate within the societies where they are present. Both Zionism (as practiced by Israel) and white supremacy in certain Western countries share the following: they construct a superior in‑group entitled to land and sovereignty; they justify dispossession of an indigenous population; they rely on demographic engineering (i.e. ethnic cleansing); they use narratives of civilizational superiority over other peoples; and they normalize segregation and unequal citizenship.

In the United States, “manifest destiny” justified the displacement and slaughter of millions of Indigenous peoples. In Israel, the Law of Return grants automatic citizenship to Jews worldwide while denying Palestinian refugees the right to return to their homes. Academic work in Holy Land Studies and other journals describes Zionism as a racial regime that reproduces whiteness through land control and exclusion of Palestinian and non‑European Jews. This is not metaphor. It is the lived, legal, and political structure under which millions of Palestinians are forced to exist.

A society shaped by supremacy

The internal consequences of supremacy are not confined to the Palestinians who live under its control, they reverberate through Israeli society itself. Haaretz has documented in painstaking detail how the normalization of Jewish supremacy has fractured Israel from within, empowering extremist settler factions and far‑right movements that now sit at the center of national political life. What was once dismissed as the ideological fringe has become the gravitational core of Israeli politics. The settlers who torch Palestinian homes, uproot olive groves, and assault children now shape cabinet portfolios, dictate coalition terms, and define the boundaries of acceptable public discourse. Supremacy, once a tool of domination over Palestinians, has metastasized like a cancer into a governing ethos in Israel.

The depth of this transformation is starkly reflected in Israeli public opinion. A Haaretz poll published on June 3, 2025, revealed findings that lay bare the mainstreaming of exterminationist ideology within Israeli society. According to the survey, 47% of Israeli Jews supported “killing all Palestinians in Gaza," including infants; 82% supported the complete ethnic cleansing of all Palestinians from Gaza; and 56% supported expelling all non‑Jews from every territory under Israeli control—all of which are crimes under international law. These numbers, reported directly by Haaretz, do not represent fringe extremism but a chilling portrait of a society in which supremacist ideology has penetrated deeply into the public consciousness. They expose a political culture in which mass expulsion and even mass killing are no longer unthinkable but openly endorsed by large segments of the dominant ethnonational group.

It appears that the post-Oslo era did not moderate these supremacist forces but instead entrenched them. After the world celebrated handshakes on the White House lawn in September 1993, Israel accelerated its political, with the promise of a negotiated peace masking a deeper structural transformation—the consolidation of a system designed to ensure permanent Jewish political and territorial dominance over the Palestinian people and the land that was meant to be their nation.

Critics writing in Mondoweiss, Middle East Eye, and Al Jazeera argue that what is described as “Jewish self‑determination” has, in practice, evolved into a system of Jewish supremacy that denies Palestinians any equivalent political, civil, or human rights. They point out that a state cannot claim to be both democratic and permanently structured around the dominance of one ethnonational group. The contradiction is not theoretical; it is lived daily by millions of Palestinians who experience military law, checkpoints, home demolitions, land theft, and the denial of basic freedoms, while Jewish settlers living beside them enjoy full civil rights, state protection, and political representation. 

This critique is not limited to journalists or activists. It is increasingly echoed by scholars of settler colonialism, apartheid, and ethnonationalism, who argue that Israel’s political order exhibits the defining characteristics of a supremacy-based regime not unlike Apartheid South Africa, where differential citizenship, territorial fragmentation, demographic engineering, and the systematic devaluation of the rights of the indigenous population was the norm. Far from being a fringe interpretation, this analysis has become the emerging consensus across multiple academic fields. 

In this sense, the crisis facing Israeli society is inseparable from the crisis it has imposed on Palestinians. Supremacy is an unstable organizing principle that demands constant enforcement, constant fear, constant mobilization against an imagined demographic threat. It produces a politics of paranoia, a culture of dehumanization, and a public sphere in which violence becomes not only permissible but inevitable. To understand contemporary Israel, then, is to understand a society shaped—indeed warped—by the structures of supremacy it has built. And to understand the Palestinian condition is to recognize that these structures are not temporary distortions but the defining architecture of the state.

Toward a future beyond supremacy  

Recognizing the supremacist structures embedded in Israeli governance does not diminish the reality of Jewish suffering, nor does it erase the profound and enduring trauma of antisemitism. It does not question the legitimacy of Jewish collective identity, cultural continuity, or the aspiration for safety in a world where Jews have historically faced persecution. What it does is insist on a truth that should be self‑evident—the memory of historical trauma cannot be used to justify the infliction of trauma on another people.

To confront the architecture of supremacy is not an attack against Jews. It is a defence of the universal principle that no people’s liberation can be built on the subjugation of another. History shows, again and again, that domination is not a path to security but a guarantee of perpetual conflict. A political order that relies on the permanent disenfranchisement of millions cannot produce lasting safety for anyone, including the group it claims to protect.

Ending the occupation, dismantling apartheid structures, and recognizing Palestinian political and human rights are not acts of hostility toward Jews or threats to Jewish survival. They are acts of fidelity to the very principles that many Jewish thinkers, activists, and Holocaust survivors have championed for generations: justice, equality, and the recognition of people’s humanity. A political order grounded in equality is not a danger to Jews—it is the only durable guarantee of their safety.

Michael Sfard’s haunting question—How did we produce replicas of our persecutors?—demands an answer that goes beyond individual prejudice or political miscalculation. The answer lies in the corrosive power of ethnonational supremacy itself. Any ideology that elevates one group’s rights above another’s, will inevitably reproduce the very patterns of domination it claims to reject. Supremacy is not a shield; it is a poison.

A future beyond supremacy requires more than policy reform. It requires a dismantling of the structures that created it and a transformation similar to what took place after World War Two in Germany and Japan. It demands the courage to envision a shared future rather than a zero‑sum struggle, to replace domination with equality, and to recognize that the humanity of Palestinians is not a threat to Jewish existence but a precondition for a just and lasting peace. The path forward is not easy, but it is clear that only by dismantling the structures of supremacy can Israelis and Palestinians alike reclaim their full humanity. 

The task now is to build an Israeli political and societal culture that is grounded not in the ideology of Zionism—the domination of Jews over Palestinians—but one founded on the principles of human rights, equality of peoples, inclusion and co-existence.

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

Gaza is not an aberration - Israel planned this genocide decades ago

I don’t usually repost the writings of others. But the article published yesterday (June 11, 2026) by British journalist Jonathan Cook tells the story of anti‑Palestinian hatred and Israeli brutality in a way I never could. It needs to be shared widely. Send it to your Member of Parliament, or to any politician whose eyes you want opened to the level of evil we are witnessing as Israel commits atrocities against Palestinians.

Cook lays out, with devastating precision, how the Gaza genocide was not spontaneous or accidental but planned by Israel decades ago. The horrors we see today—mass murder, rape, the killing of children and babies, the deliberate starvation of an entire population—are not exceptions. They are standard operating procedure for an Israeli military that has acted with impunity for generations, all in full view of world leaders and the global media.

Drawing on testimony from former Israeli soldiers, Cook describes a nation behaving with the same cold, dehumanizing cruelty that the Nazis once inflicted on Jews. His reporting exposes a political and military culture, and a society built on the systematic denial of Palestinian humanity. It reveals a leadership and an army whose goal is nothing less than the eradication of Palestinians from Gaza and from every territory under Israeli control.

If this is not the height of evil in the world today, then the word has lost all meaning. 

 

~ Fareed Khan 

Fighting Zionism and criticizing Israel is not antisemitic

Antisemitism is evil, as is anti-Palestinian racism. But the Holocaust must never be used to silence critics of Zionism or the criminal actions of Israel, and take away the voice of Palestinians or their allies.

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

This must be said again and again until it is heard: opposing Zionism or criticizing Israel—its policies, actions, or ideology—is not antisemitism, which is the hatred of Jews.

In any morally serious discussion of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, clarity of language is not optional. It is essential. Conflating legitimate opposition to a political ideology or state policies with hatred of an entire people or faith is a profound disservice to truth, justice, and the safety of everyone involved. Such deliberate blurring poisons discourse and escalates real dangers on all sides.

Let’s be clear. Antisemitism is a vile, ancient hatred that targets Jews solely for being Jews. It has taken the form of hostility, discrimination, exclusion, and violence against Jewish individuals, communities, synagogues, and the Jewish faith itself. Originating in Europe, its roots run deep from medieval times, through the Renaissance and into the modern era, where entrenched prejudices among Christian and Caucasian populations cast Jews as perpetual outsiders and scapegoats. Jews were not only pushed into an underclass—they were blamed for plagues, famines, and natural disasters, triggering waves of pogroms across the continent. This long history of demonization culminated in the industrialized genocide of the Holocaust, an unparalleled crime against humanity that must never be trivialized or exploited.  

Anti‑Zionism, by contrast, is opposition to Zionism—a supremacist political ideology created roughly 125 years ago that elevates Jewish national claims above those of others and served as the ideological foundation for Israel’s establishment on Palestinian land. Criticizing the policies of the Israeli government—including its illegal occupation of Palestinian territory, illegal settlement expansion, its brutal treatment of Palestinians, its actions in Gaza, and the dehumanizing rhetoric of its politicians—is a legitimate exercise in political discourse, no different from critiquing the conduct of the United States, China, its leaders or those of any other nation. Equating criticism of Zionism or Israel with antisemitism distorts reality, shields those responsible for Israel’s crimes from accountability, and undermines genuine efforts to combat actual hate and racism.  

Zionism emerged in the late 19th century amid rising European antisemitism and Jewish aspirations for self‑determination. Theodor Herzl, an Austrian‑Jewish journalist, lawyer and atheist, is widely regarded as its founder. Shocked by events like the Dreyfus Affair—a scandal in France where a Jewish artillery officer was framed for treason—Herzl published Der Judenstaat (The Jew State) in 1896, arguing for a sovereign Jewish homeland as a solution to perpetual persecution. The First Zionist Congress in 1897 formalized the movement’s goal—establishing a home for the Jewish people of Europe secured by public law. Palestine was only one of several locations considered. Others included British colonial Uganda, Argentina, Dutch Guiana, Cyprus, and Sinai, before Britain’s Balfour Declaration offered support for a Jewish “national home” in Palestine without any consultations with the indigenous peoples of that territory.  

While rooted in Jewish historical and religious connections to the land, Zionism was fundamentally a modern ethno‑nationalist political project shaped by European nationalism movements. It is not synonymous with Judaism or Jewish identity, and its earliest proponents, like Herzl, were atheists. Many Jews historically opposed it on religious, cultural, or political grounds, and today Jewish voices span the full spectrum—from ardent Zionists to passionate anti‑Zionists.  

Antisemitism and anti‑Zionism are distinct, and efforts to conflate them amount to propaganda and misinformation. Antisemitism essentializes and demonizes Jews collectively. Anti‑Zionism challenges a specific political ideology—one many consider racist—and its implementation. One can oppose Italian fascism without being anti‑Italian, or criticize Saudi theocracy without hating Muslims. Similarly, legitimate criticism of Israeli policies—such as settlement expansion in the West Bank, the siege of Gaza, or Israel’s repeated violations of humanitarian and human rights law for decades—does not inherently target Jews, especially given that the majority of Zionists worldwide are Christian. And while the controversial International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism has been adopted as the official definition of antisemitism by 40 countries, the man who drafted it Kenneth Stern, says it is dangerous because it is being weaponized by Zionists to shut down criticism of Zionism and Israel, and oppose support Palestinians’ struggle for freedom from Israeli oppression.  

Palestinians and their allies who resist Zionism are not inherently antisemitic. For Palestinians, Zionism is not an abstract philosophy but the ideology underpinning their dispossession and decades of brutal occupation. The 1948 Nakba (“catastrophe”) saw over 750,000 Palestinians—roughly 75% of the population—displaced, and tens of thousands killed in a campaign of ethnic cleansing by terrorist Zionist miltias. Subsequent decades of occupation, illegal Jewish‑only settlements, and military rule have entrenched a system that many human rights organizations, including Israel’s B’Tselem, describe as apartheid or as involving severe violations of international law and the UN Charter.  

Branding Palestinian resistance (or the actions of their allies) as antisemitism effectively tells Palestinians they may only narrate their suffering in terms acceptable to their oppressors. It demands they mourn Jewish trauma while muting their own lived experience of displacement, home demolitions, dispossession, torture, and murder by Israeli forces and settlers. No other people have been historically required to sanitize their narrative of subjugation to spare the feelings of those who are subjugating them.  

Human rights advocates face a similar bind. Policies may be critiqued cautiously, but the ideological foundation—Zionism as embodied in the Israeli state—often becomes off‑limits. In Canada, for example, political leaders have sometimes framed robust criticism of Israel as unacceptable, even as the government maintains arms sales and diplomatic support to a genocidal state, raising questions of complicity in alleged violations of international law. This is not democracy but enforced orthodoxy. A genuine commitment to human rights requires scrutinizing all parties without sacred cows.  

A serious conversation must hold multiple truths simultaneously. All life is sacred. Jewish lives matter, and Palestinian lives matter equally. Antisemitism is unequivocally evil, as are apartheid systems and anti‑Palestinian racism. Jewish historical trauma, including the Holocaust, is profound and must never be minimized, yet it does not justify or erase Palestinian dispossession, ethnic cleansing, or what genocide and Holocaust experts—including Israeli Jewish academics—have identified as genocidal acts in Gaza. Organizations including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, B’Tselem, the International Association of Genocide Scholars, and Israeli Holocaust scholars have documented patterns of domination, collective punishment, and intent to destroy Palestinian life in Gaza and the West Bank in whole or in part, as defined under the Genocide Convention.  

B’Tselem has explicitly described a single regime of Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have also labelled it apartheid and, in Gaza, genocide—a systematic crime against humanity defined by domination, oppression, and mass murder in an attempt to wipe out Palestinians as a people and a society. Extensive reports document how Israeli settlement policies fragment Palestinian territory, how separate and unequal legal systems entrench discrimination, and how Israel’s response to the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack unleashed unprecedented civilian casualties, widespread destruction, and a devastating humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Meanwhile, the Knesset has repeatedly passed motions rejecting any Palestinian state, while Netanyahu’s government prioritizes perpetual control and security dominance over negotiation or any agreement establishing a Palestinian state along the internationally recognized 1967 borders.  

Prominent voices—including Israeli scholars who lost family in the Holocaust—warn that silencing criticism of Israel betrays core Jewish ethical traditions and, in a tragic reversal, echoes the very historical traumas Jews endured. They emphasize that Palestinian freedom does not threaten Jewish security, and that a just political resolution—whether two states, a binational framework, or a confederation—can protect both peoples without one dominating the other. Claims that Palestinian self‑determination inherently endangers Jews often functions as a justification for perpetual occupation, yet no people’s safety can ever rest on another’s subjugation or denial of dignity. History makes this plain: oppression breeds resistance, and unresolved injustice fuels recurring cycles of violence. Today’s leaders would do well to remember President John F. Kennedy’s warning that “those who make peaceful change impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”  

Conflating anti‑Zionism with antisemitism does not protect Jews. It protects the Israeli government and its political and military leaders from accountability and fuels real antisemitism by reinforcing the false notion that Jewish identity is inseparable from Israel and its actions. This alienates potential allies, stifles honest dialogue, and foments hatred among those who conflate Jewishness with the state of Israel.  

Jews have long debated Zionism and the colonization of Palestine internally, with some of the fiercest anti‑Zionists being Jews themselves, including Albert Einstein and Hannah Arendt. Forcing a monolithic equation ignores this diversity and denies Palestinians the right to oppose the ideology that displaced them and has oppressed them since the day Israel was created.  

The path forward demands clarity, not blurred language that turns legitimate political criticism into “hate speech.” It requires speaking truth to power on all sides, rejecting collective punishment and expansionism, and insisting on upholding universal human rights standards. Palestinians have the right under international law to resist occupation, including through armed struggle, and to seek self‑determination without being smeared as racists. Jews have the right to security without using it as license for the indefinite subjugation of the Indigenous people of historic Palestine.  

Ultimately, enforcing orthodoxy around Zionism and criticism of Israel hinders peace. True security for Israelis and justice for Palestinians are intertwined. Recognizing that opposing a 20th‑century political project is not equivalent to hating Jews or Judaism opens space for empathy, historical reckoning, and coexistence. Democracy thrives on debate, not taboos, and suppressing criticism of any ideology or state policy in the name of protecting a people risks moral contradiction and perpetuates tragedy. All parties must be held to the same standards of humanity, law, and ethics. Only then can the sacredness of all lives guide us toward a future beyond endless conflict.  

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

Alberta’s separation referendum is a threat to Canada’s national unity and economic stability

Critics have rightly characterized Alberta’s behaviour as that of a “spoiled child of Confederation” throwing a temper tantrum to extract concessions from the rest of Canada. 

 

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

Premier Danielle Smith’s decision to include a question on Alberta’s October 19, 2026 referendum—asking whether the province should remain in Canada or begin the legal process toward a binding separation vote—represents a dangerous escalation of regional grievances. Though framed by Smith as non-binding and exploratory, this move risks normalizing secessionist rhetoric, creating profound economic uncertainty, straining Indigenous relations, and undermining Canadian unity at a moment when Canada is engaged in a low grade economic conflict with United States, which is already testing the federation’s resilience. Far from a principled stand for Alberta’s interests, the initiative appears primarily designed to pacify the separatist wing of Smith’s United Conservative Party (UCP), a politically expedient but foolish strategy that could ignite a fire the rest of Canada would be forced to deal with.

Smith has positioned herself as a defender of Alberta’s autonomy, yet the referendum’s timing and structure betray internal party management as the driving force. A vocal separatist faction within the UCP has long demanded stronger action against perceived federal overreach on energy, equalization, and resource development. By advancing this multi-part ballot, Smith offers symbolic concessions without immediate commitment to independence, allowing her to rally the base while claiming personal loyalty to Canada. Polls consistently show most Albertans oppose separation, with roughly 60% indicating they would vote to remain. Yet the premier’s maneuver keeps fringe demands alive, prioritizing short-term UCP cohesion over long-term provincial and national stability.

This approach echoes the cautionary tales of the 1995 Quebec sovereignty referendum and the 2016 Brexit vote. In Quebec, the “Yes” side came within 54,000 votes (a razor-thin 49.42% to 50.58%) of victory, plunging the province and country into years of uncertainty, market volatility, and constitutional wrangling. The near-miss forced federal responses like the Clarity Act, which set strict conditions for any future secession negotiations, and highlighted how even non-binding or ambiguous votes can legitimize division and erode investor confidence.

Brexit provides an even starker parallel. Then-Bank of England Governor Mark Carney, now Canada’s Prime Minister, witnessed firsthand how a referendum sold as a “bluff” or negotiating lever produced profound, unintended consequences. Promises by pro-Brexit forces of an easy divorce from the European Union gave way to years of negotiation, supply-chain disruptions, regulatory divergence, and reduced growth. Studies estimate Brexit reduced UK GDP by 6-8% by 2025, with business investment falling 12-18%, employment and productivity each declining 3-4%. Uncertainty depressed capital formation, diverted management attention, and prompted firms to relocate. Carney has explicitly warned that Alberta’s vote risks similar “dangerous bluff” dynamics where voters may support it expecting better terms, only to unleash protracted economic instability.

Alberta’s economy, which contributes approximately 15% to Canada’s GDP, is heavily reliant on energy exports and foreign investment making it particularly vulnerable. Heightened constitutional uncertainty would deter long-term capital commitments in the oil and gas sector and related infrastructure. Business leaders and advocacy groups like Alberta’s Voice have already signalled concerns about reputational damage. In a global investment landscape wary of political risk, even exploratory secession talk shifts focus from productivity-enhancing reforms in health care and inter-provincial trade barriers to constitutional unpredictability. This occurs as Canada faces economic pressures from the US, making internal division especially self-defeating.

The referendum also threatens relations with Indigenous communities, on whose treaty lands much of Alberta sits. Courts have twice rejected separatist initiatives on constitutional grounds, citing failures to consult First Nations whose treaties are with the Crown, not the province. In May 2026, Justice Shaina Leonard quashed a citizen initiative petition, affirming that separation would infringe Constitutional rights under Section 35 and that the province breached its legal duty to consult affected First Nations, including the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation and Blackfoot Confederacy groups. The decision made clear that Alberta cannot unilaterally redraw borders or abrogate treaty rights with The Crown. Pursuing this path despite these rulings risks protracted litigation, eroded trust, and legal invalidation—further inflaming tensions rather than resolving grievances.

Critics have rightly characterized Alberta’s behaviour as that of a “spoiled child of Confederation” throwing a temper tantrum to extract concessions from the rest of Canada. While Alberta has long been a net contributor to federal equalization and fiscal transfers, holding the country to ransom over resource revenue sharing and policy imbalances is not the way to get results. Framing separation—or the threat of it—as leverage resembles blackmail rather than legitimate negotiation. This alienates other provinces and Canadians who view Alberta’s economic wealth as intertwined with national infrastructure, markets, and stability. The rest of Canada would bear significant costs in any breakup scenario, and Alberta itself would face isolation, currency questions, trade barriers, and loss of federal programs and other national and international benefits that come from being part of Canada.

Compounding these risks are reports of Alberta separatist consultations with US State Department officials, which some Canadians interpret as bordering on treasonous outreach to a foreign power amid bilateral economic tensions. While details vary, such engagements feed narratives of disloyalty and invite foreign interference risks, as security analyses have noted exploitation of Western grievances by external actors.

Politically, the move normalizes secessionist discourse. What begins as Alberta-specific discontent could inspire parallel autonomy or sovereignty debates in other provinces, other than Quebec where separatism has been an issue for more than 50 years.  It would create a domino effect that would fragment Confederation and impact political stability and the finances and job prospects of Canadians. At a time of external economic attack, Canada can ill afford self-inflicted wounds like Alberta’s that weaken negotiating leverage, deter investment, and distract from unified responses on trade, energy, and security. 

The path Smith has chosen is dangerous and short-sighted. It risks economic decline through capital flight and stalled projects, damages Indigenous relations, fosters political instability, and threatens the national unity that has underpinned Canada’s prosperity. History shows referendums on existential questions rarely deliver clean outcomes.  Instead they amplify divisions, create uncertainty, and deliver consequences far beyond initial expectations—as Quebec and the UK learned painfully.

Albertans deserve better than performative politics that prioritizes pacifying a radical base over pragmatic governance for the vast majority in the province. True leadership would seek to address critical issues like health care funding, overcrowded classrooms, affordable housing, and deteriorating infrastructure through constructive federal-provincial negotiations, not by gambling with the federation’s future. The October referendum may not be legally binding, but its political and economic ripples could prove costly for Alberta and Canada alike. Canadians outside Alberta will inevitably have to deal with its negative repercussions, highlighting why this fire should never have been lit. 

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

Canadian leaders fail Muslims amid rising Islamophobia as Canada marks fifth anniversary of Afzaal Family murders

Islamophobia in Canada is systemic, persistent, and worsening. Statistics Canada has documented sharp increases in Islamophobic hate crimes in recent years, with one report noting an 1,800% increase year over year.

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

On June 6, 2021, in London, Ontario, a white supremacist deliberately drove his pickup truck into a Muslim family out for an evening walk, killing four members of the Afzaal family: Madiha Salman, Salman Afzaal, Talat Afzaal, and 15‑year‑old Yumnah Afzaal. Nine‑year‑old Fayez survived but was orphaned in an instant. The attack was quickly recognized as an act of Islamophobic terrorism, rooted in a climate of rising anti‑Muslim hatred across Canada and the West. Five years later, as communities gather to honour “Our London Family,” the conditions that enabled this atrocity have not only persisted—they have intensified.

Despite vigils, marches, and public statements, Canadian political leaders continue to offer symbolic gestures while failing to enact the structural changes Muslim communities have long demanded. This failure is especially stark given that Muslims remain the only faith group in Canada to have experienced multiple mass‑casualty hate‑motivated killings in recent memory, including the murder of a Muslim volunteer outside a west end Toronto mosque in September 2020, the 2017 Quebec City mosque massacre along with the 2021 London attack.

A rising tide of Islamophobia

Islamophobia in Canada is not episodic. It is systemic, persistent, and worsening. Statistics Canada has documented sharp increases in police‑reported hate crimes targeting Muslims in recent years, with one report by the National Council of Canadian Muslims marking an 1,800% increase between October 2023 and September 2024. Scholars note that these numbers significantly undercount the true scale of the problem due to chronic underreporting, fear of retaliation, and mistrust of government and policing institutions.

The rise in Islamophobia is part of a broader global trend. Gallup polling shows that anti‑Muslim sentiment remains deeply entrenched across Western societies, shaped by decades of narratives centred around national security, and media portrayals that cast Muslims as threats. Research from the University of Chicago’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies highlights how Western media routinely deploys negative stereotypes, framing Muslims through a lens of violence, extremism, and cultural backwardness.

This pattern has intensified in the wake of global events—the Persian Gulf War, the Iraq War, the Afghanistan War, the Gaza genocide, US and Israeli attacks on Iran. Studies from Georgetown University’s Bridge Initiative show that Western media coverage of pro‑Palestine campus protests has fueled Islamophobic narratives by portraying Muslim, Palestinian and Arab students as dangerous or extremist. Similarly, analyses from The Conversation demonstrate how disinformation ecosystems are responsible for manufacturing Islamophobia and anti‑Palestinian racism, often blurring the line between legitimate political expression and alleged extremism.

These narratives do not remain confined to media—they shape public opinion, public policy, and ultimately contribute to acts of hate motivated violence.

The political retreat from combatting Islamophobia

Consequently, with Islamophobic hate on the rise it came as a shock to Canadian Muslims when in February 2026, the federal government eliminated the Office of the Special Representative on Combatting Islamophobia (as well as the special envoy to combat antisemitism), and created a broader Ministerial Advisory Council on Rights, Equality and Inclusion. This decision was widely criticized by Muslim organizations, including the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM), which argued that dissolving a dedicated office at a time of rising hate against Muslims signaled a dangerous deprioritization of Muslim safety.

The original office had been created in response to the Quebec City mosque attack and the London murders, recognizing that general anti‑hate frameworks had repeatedly failed Muslims. Its elimination represents a retreat from targeted protections precisely when they are most needed, and portrays a government that is less interested in protecting a community that has been the victim of deadly hate-motivated crimes.

Muslim groups have long advocated for the Our London Family Act, which includes measures such as anti‑Islamophobia education, stronger human‑rights protections, and support for victims of hate. Yet political leaders have stalled or diluted these proposals, offering condolences while avoiding substantive action.

This selective listening reflects a broader pattern sending the message that while all communities deserve protection, Muslim concerns are often treated as secondary or subsumed under generic “anti‑hate” initiatives that fail to address the specific dynamics of growing Islamophobia across Canadian society.

Media ecosystems and the normalization of hate

Hate targeting the Muslim community does not emerge in a vacuum. It is produced and amplified through media, rhetoric from right wing political voices, and hate propagated on social media networks. Research from Berkeley’s Center for Race and Gender maps an “Islamophobia industry” in Canada—an ecosystem of think tanks, commentators, and advocacy networks that generate and circulate anti‑Muslim narratives, which often intersect with geopolitical discourses.

Analyses from Mondoweiss and Al Jazeera show how Islamophobia is intertwined with foreign policy debates, particularly around the Middle East, where Muslims are frequently portrayed as threats to Western interests. Studies from the Insan Center and Al Jazeera’s media institute document how Western media coverage of foreign policy issues related to Muslim countries has reinforced ugly stereotypes that cast Muslims as inherently violent or irrational.  This environment shapes public perception. Angus Reid polls show that negative views of Muslims remain widespread across Canada, particularly in Quebec, where debates over secularism and Bill 21 have normalized suspicion toward visibly Muslim individuals. Scholars argue that this “national amnesia” about past anti‑Muslim violence allows prejudice to fester unchecked.

Islamophobia is not only a social phenomenon—it is embedded in public and private Canadian institutions. A Senate Human Rights Committee report exposed systemic Islamophobia within the Canada Revenue Agency, where Muslim charities were disproportionately targeted for audits and sanctions. Muslim communities have also raised concerns about discriminatory practices within CSIS, CBSA, and other security agencies. These institutional biases contribute to a climate where Muslims are automatically viewed through a lens of suspicion, reinforcing the very narratives that fuel hate crimes.

The human cost: Violence, fear, and alienation

The consequences of Islamophobia are devastating. The London attack was not an isolated incident but part of a pattern of escalating violence. The Tyee has documented how Islamophobia in Canada is “deep, deadly, and growing,” with Muslims facing threats ranging from vandalism and harassment to physical assaults and murder. Additionally, Canadian Muslims report daily microaggressions, employment discrimination, and fear for their safety and that of their children. The Walrus has explored how alienation among Canadian Muslims can arise not from inherent cultural differences but from a society that marginalizes and stigmatizes Muslim identities. 

These experiences are compounded by global events. Reports from Al Jazeera and US civil‑rights groups show that Islamophobic rhetoric surges during international crises, leading to spikes in hate crimes and online harassment.

Studies and investigative reports have documented how well-resourced advocacy networks—often aligned with Zionist or Israeli geopolitical interests—have played a significant role in promoting anti-Muslim narratives. These networks have supported and amplified portrayals of Muslims as inherent threats, influenced policy debates, and worked to marginalize Muslim voices in public discourse. Because they typically enjoy far greater access to political decision-makers than Muslim community organizations, their perspectives often carry more weight in shaping government priorities.

This imbalance has been evident in several high-profile campaigns targeting Muslim communities. Two prominent examples of anti-Muslim campaigns include the early 2000s effort in Boston to block construction of the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center and the intense opposition to the Cordoba House project (later rebranded as Park51) in lower Manhattan, which critics pejoratively dubbed the “Ground Zero Mosque.”  The same disparity appears in security funding allocations. Muslim communities have repeatedly pointed out that the resources provided to them are not proportionate to the threats and risks they face, especially when compared to the substantially higher funding directed toward Jewish community security.

Why the fifth anniversary matters

The fifth anniversary of the Afzaal family murders is not merely a moment of remembrance—it is a test of political courage. Honouring the victims requires more than vigils and speeches. It demands that Canadian leaders confront uncomfortable truths about how Islamophobia is produced, normalized, and institutionalized in in this country.

To tackle the growing hate that Muslim communities dealing with they are calling for:

• Implementation of the Our London Family Act;
  
• Restoring or strengthening of dedicated anti‑Islamophobia initiatives with appropriate funding;
  
• Comprehensive anti‑hate education in schools;
  
• Proportional security funding for Muslim institutions given the much larger population;
  
• Accountability for those spreading anti-Muslim hate; and
  
• Structural reforms in institutions where systemic Islamophobia has been documented.

These are not radical demands—they are necessary steps to protect a vulnerable community that has already suffered lethal violence, and Canada’s political leaders need to listen to a community whose political and economic clout has increased by 400% since the year 2000.

Canada prides itself on being a pluralistic and multicultural nation. But this ideal is hollow if political leaders fail to protect those most targeted by hate. Islamophobia threatens not only Muslim communities but the integrity of Canada’s social fabric, and when leaders ignore or minimize the concerns of more than 2.2 million Canadian Muslims, they signal that some lives matter less than others.

The Afzaal family’s memory demands action. The choice before Canadian leaders is clear: continue offering performative gestures while Islamophobia continues to expand across the country, or commit to meaningful, targeted measures that ensure Muslims can live, worship, and walk down the street without fear.

The future of a truly pluralistic Canada depends on how governments across the country respond.

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