Zohran Mamdani’s message to Muslim New Yorkers

“Growing up in the shadow of 9-11, I have known what it means to live with an undercurrent of suspicion. I will always remember the disdain I faced . . .”  

  

By Fareed Khan

A version of this article can be found on Substack.

It is a little over a week until voting day in the New York City mayoral election, and if polling is accurate Zohran Mamdani, the first Muslim to run for mayor, will be the victor when polls close on November 4th.

As a Muslim, Mamdani has faced an unprecedented level of hate, racism, bigotry and character assassination from those aligned with his main opponent—disgraced former New York governor Andrew Cuomo—and Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa (incumbent mayor Eric Adams has dropped out of the race).

During the campaign his opponents, their allies, and their billionaire backers, have directed an unprecedented tirade of hate, slurs and character assassination towards Mamdani, in a campaign that will be one for the history books. Cuomo’s billionaire allies have pumped well over $22 million into anti-Mamdani ads filled with lies and slurs centred on his Muslim faith, accusing him of being a terrorist sympathizer.

In a strong video message posted to social media on October 25th, in response to the litany of hate that has been directed at him because of his faith, as well as the hate the New York City’s Muslims have faced for a quarter century, Mamdani said that for more than one million Muslim New Yorkers, dignity remains conditional and acceptance still comes with pressure to mute their identity. Mamdani anchored his appeal in lived experience, including the story of his aunt who stopped taking the subway after 9/11 because she feared being targeted for wearing her hijab. He said Muslims were taught to remain quiet and grateful for whatever limited space they were allowed, even as they faced suspicion and humiliation.

The statement was measured, sincere and strong, and talked more about the place of Muslims in New York City rather than himself. It was a dignified response to a very undignified campaign against him, and by extension, all Muslim in the Big Apple.

Polls are saying that Mamdani is poised to become the first Muslim mayor of New York City. Millions in New York City will be watching on election night, as will millions across North America. Mamdani not only represents hope for the people he wants to represent, but also for those who see in Mamdani a political icon and hero who has overcome huge odds to stand on the cusp of victory.

To those who see Mamdani as a hero, his victory will be the start of something amazing if he is allowed to govern without interference, and serve the people of New York City. For those who have used every dirty trick in the book to try and defeat him, his victory will mean an end to decades of the city run by elites for elites and billionaires.

The full text of the statement can be found below and the video can be found here.

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Statement by Zohran Mamdani delivered on October 25, 2025

Six years ago, shortly after I announced I was running for assembly, a well-meaning Muslim uncle pulled me aside. He smiled softly and looked at me with care. In a quiet voice he told me I did not have to tell people I was Muslim.

His eyes kind, his beard proud, and his face heavy with the implication of the unsaid. I had not learned the lesson that he had been taught, time and again. It is the lesson that safety could only be found in the shadows of our city.

That it is in those shadows alone where Muslims could embrace the fullness of our own identities. And that if we are to emerge from them, then it is in those shadows where we must leave our faith. These are lessons that so many Muslim New Yorkers have been taught, again and again.

And over these last few days, these are the lessons that have become the closing message of Andrew Cuomo, Curtis Sliwa, and Eric Adams. Yesterday, Andrew Cuomo laughed and agreed when a radio show host said that I would cheer another 9-11. Yesterday, Eric Adams said that we can’t let our city become Europe.

He compared me to violent extremists and he lied when he said that our movement seeks to burn churches and destroy communities. The day before that, Curtis Sliwa slandered me from a debate stage when he claimed that I supported global jihad. And every day, Super PAC ads imply that I am a terrorist or mock the way I eat, push polls that ask New Yorkers questions like whether they support invented proposals to make halal mandatory, or political cartoons that represent my candidacy as an airplane hurtling towards the World Trade Center.

But I do not want to use this moment to speak to them any further. I want to use this moment to speak to the Muslims of the city. I want to speak to the memory of my aunt who stopped taking the subway after September 11th because she did not feel safe in her hijab.

I want to speak to the Muslim city worker, whether they teach in our schools or walk the beat for the NYPD. New Yorkers who all make daily sacrifices on behalf of the city only to see their leaders spit in their face. I want to speak to every child who grows up in New York marked as the other, who is randomly selected in a way that rarely feels random, who feels that they carry a stain that can never quite be cleaned.

Growing up in the shadow of 9-11, I have known what it means to live with an undercurrent of suspicion. I will always remember the disdain I faced, the way my name could immediately become Mohammed, and how I could return to my city only to be asked in a double mirrored room at the airport if I had any plan of attacking it. And since I was very young, I have known that I was spared the worst of it.

I was never pressured to be an informant like a classmate of mine. I’ve never had the word terrorist spray-painted on my garage as one of my staff had to endure. My mosque has never been set on fire.

To be Muslim in New York is to expect indignity, but indignity does not make us distinct. There are many New Yorkers who face it. It is the tolerance of that indignity that does.

Since I announced my candidacy for mayor one year ago yesterday, I’ve sought to be the candidate fighting for everyday New Yorkers, not simply the Muslim candidate. I’ve carried these indignities with me each moment of this race, doing so all the while as the first major Muslim candidate for mayor in New York City history. I thought that if I could build a campaign of universality, I could define myself as the leader I aspire to be, one representing every New Yorker no matter their skin color or religion.

I thought if I worked hard enough, it would allow me to be that leader. And I thought that if I behaved well enough or bit my tongue enough in the face of racist baseless attacks while returning back to my central message, it would allow me to be more than just my faith. I was wrong.

No amount of redirection is ever enough. In doing this, I have told the wide-eyed young boy in Jackson Heights or the first-time voter in Parkchester that they too should remain in the shadows. I am becoming that same uncle who took me aside.

No more. The dream of every Muslim is simply to be treated the same as any other New Yorker. And yet for too long we have been told to ask for less than that and to be satisfied with whatever little we receive.

No more. For as long as we have lived, we have known that no matter what anyone says, there are still certain forms of hate acceptable in this city today. Islamophobia is not seen as inexcusable.

One can incite violence against our mosques and know that condemnation will never come. Elected officials in this city can sell t-shirts calling for my deportation without fear of any accountability. The consequences are stark.

More than one million Muslim New Yorkers exist in this city only to be made to feel as if guests in our own home. No more. We stand on the precipice of an election, but that is not what today is about.

We know that in less than two weeks we will say goodbye to a disgraced former governor and our current indicted mayor. The bigger question is whether we are willing to say goodbye to something much larger. It is whether we are willing to say goodbye to anti-Muslim sentiment that has grown so endemic in our city that when we hear it, we know not whether the words were said by a Republican or by a Democrat.

We know only that it was spoken in the language of the politics of this city. In an era of ever-diminishing bipartisanship, Islamophobia has emerged as one of the few areas of agreement. And while I appreciate all who have rushed to my defense over the past two days, I think of those Muslims in this city who do not have the luxury of being the Democratic nominee. Who do not have the luxury of being deemed worthy of solidarity.

While my opponents in this race have brought this hatred to the forefront, this is just a glimpse into what so many Muslims have had to endure every day across the five boroughs that we call home. And while it would be easy to say that this is not who we are as a city, we know the truth.

This is who we have allowed ourselves to become. A question lies before each of us. Will we continue to accept a narrow definition of what it means to be a New Yorker that makes smaller the number of those guaranteed a life of dignity? Will we remain in the shadows? Or will we together step into the light? There are 11 days remaining until election day.

I will be a Muslim man in New York City each of those 11 days and every day that follows after that. I will not change who I am. I will not change how I eat.

I will not change the faith that I am proud to belong to. But there is one thing I will change. I will no longer look for myself in the shadows.

I will find myself in the light. Thank you.

© 2025 The View From Here. © 2025 Fareed Khan. All Rights Reserved.

Canada needs to wake up to the Nazi reality in American politics, particularly in the Republican Party

Canada has always been the polite counterpoint to American bombast, but politeness won’t suffice against fascism. We must roar our defiance, and defend our democracy . . .

  

By Fareed Khan

A version of this article can be found on Substack.

A week ago, the American magazine POLITICO broke a story that should demonstrate how far along the United States is to becoming a full-fledged fascist state along the lines of Nazi Germany. From our vantage point here in Canada, watching the inexorable slide of our southern neighbour into authoritarian darkness feels less like distant history and more like a gathering storm on the horizon. A storm that echoes the lead up to America’s entry into World War Two, when Nazi sympathizers were to be found in every major city and town across the United States. Today those Nazis and supporters of fascism are to be found across the breadth of Donald Trump’s Republican Party.

The leaked Telegram messages from a private chat among Young Republican leaders—spanning 2,900 pages of unfiltered venom—reveal not just racism and bigotry, but the fetid and rotten core of a party that has fully embraced the ideology of hatred, supremacy, and violence that once defined Adolf Hitler’s regime. These are not fringe voices. They are the groomed successors to Trump’s MAGA movement, openly praising Hitler, joking about gas chambers, celebrating rape, and spewing Islamophobia, antisemitism, and anti-Black racism. If this isn’t a reincarnation of Germany’s Nazi Party in the US, then what is?

Canada’s Vulnerable Position

As Canadians, we have long prided ourselves on our multicultural mosaic, our commitment to inclusive democracy, and our polite distance from the ideological excesses south of the border. But the POLITICO revelations force a reckoning. The Republican Party’s fascist turn isn’t just an American tragedy—it’s a direct threat to Canadian sovereignty, the values that a majority of Canadians hold dear, and a way of life distinct from that in the US. These Young Republicans, including state chairs, national committee members, a state senator, and even staffers in Trump’s administration, didn’t stumble into this cancerous abyss. They were cultivated there, watered by a decade of Trump’s fascist demagoguery, which has normalized the unthinkable. From the halls of power in Washington to the chat rooms of the party’s youth wing, the Republican Party has become a machine for creating Nazis, and Canada must now confront the spill over—fascist sympathizers in our own backyard, whispering dreams of annexation by the US, and undermining Canadian society and its institutions. If the US is the new Third Reich, then Canada is Austria on the eve of the Anschluss (annexation) —vulnerable, interconnected, and in desperate need of a military defence plan to preserve Canadian sovereignty and democracy.

The Republican Party’s Descent Into a Culture of Hatred

The leaked chats, obtained by POLITICO and spanning seven months from January to August 2025, paint a portrait of depravity that echoes the early days of the Nazi ascent in 1930s Germany. Peter Giunta, the former chair of the New York State Young Republicans and a onetime chief of staff to a state assemblyman, didn’t mince words. “I love Hitler,” he texted, in a message that landed like a gut punch to anyone familiar with the Holocaust’s horrors. His colleagues piled on with Holocaust “jokes,” musing about “fixing the showers” to make them more “Hitler aesthetic” and threatening to send political opponents to gas chambers. Joe Maligno, who once listed himself as general counsel for the New York group, quipped, “Gas chambers don’t fit the Hitler aesthetic,” while Annie Kaykaty, a national committee member, added, “I’m ready to watch people burn now.” This isn’t “edgy humour” as some apologists might claim. It’s the casual dehumanization that paved the way for Kristallnacht and the Wannsee Conference, where Nazis plotted mass murder on an industrialized scale, connected to the political party that controls all three branches of the US federal government.

Racism courses through these messages like electricity through the power grid. William Hendrix, vice chair of the Kansas Young Republicans and an employee in the office of Attorney General Kris Kobach, unleashed the n-word more than a dozen times, calling Black people “monkeys” and “watermelon people.” Bobby Walker, then vice chair in New York, declared rape “epic,” while the group fantasized about sexual violence against rivals and praised Republicans they believed supported slavery. Islamophobia and antisemitism intertwined with anti-Black slurs, as Giunta warned that if your pilot is “a she and she looks ten shades darker than someone from Sicily, just end it there. Scream the no no word.” They invoked white supremacist codes like “1488“—a neo-Nazi shorthand for support of white supremacy and “Heil Hitler”—and lauded Trump for allegedly suppressing the Epstein files, with one member joking, “Trump’s too busy burning the Epstein files.” POLITICO tallied 251 uses of slurs like the f-word (dehumanizing gays), r-word (dehumanizing those with intellectual disabilities), the and n-word (racism against Black people), alongside homophobic rants and dreams of “driving [enemies] to suicide.”

America’s Response: Denial and Deflection

Public reaction has been a mix of horror and deflection, but the damning truth is that this is no anomaly—it’s the bloom of seeds sown by Trump himself. On X (formerly Twitter), voices from across the spectrum erupted in response to the POLITICO story. Don Winslow, the bestselling author, called it “everything we suspected but now have proof,” sharing the POLITICO link to over 70,000 views. Jon Cooper, a prominent Democratic strategist, highlighted the gas chamber jokes, urging, “Name and shame every last one.” Tim Wise, a leading anti-racism educator, declared, “This is who they are. All of them. Either outright bigots or people who think bigotry is funny,” amassing hundreds of likes and reposts. Even within the GOP, cracks appeared: New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, who once praised Giunta’s “tremendous leadership,” now demands resignations, though her flip-flop reeks of damage control. Vermont Gov. Phil Scott called for state Sen. Sam Douglass’s immediate ouster from the party, labelling the rhetoric “inexcusable.” The Young Republican National Federation condemned the “vile and inexcusable language,” but as Axios reported, their demand for resignations feels hollow when the chat’s architect, Giunta, was a contender for national chair just months ago.

The White House’s response? A shrug. Vice President J.D. Vance downplayed it as “pearl clutching,” while a spokesperson insisted Trump’s rhetoric bears no relation—despite the obvious lineage from his “very fine people” defence of the Charlottesville neo-Nazis to these Hitler fanboys. TIME magazine noted that the chats reveal a “culture” in Trump’s Republican Party where bigotry feels “less taboo among those positioning themselves as the party’s next leaders.” Al Jazeera framed it as a “GOP storm,” with participants losing jobs while the party’s fascist undercurrent was left unscathed. The Guardian called it “so vile it’s hard to find the words,” quoting New York Gov. Kathy Hochul: “These are the future of the Republican party.” And in The New Republic, the verdict was blunt, noting that it was “teeming with “racism, antisemitism, rape jokes, and other filth.”

Trump’s Nazi Playbook

Trump’s policies mirror Hitler’s early playbook—mass deportations targeting immigrants and racial minorities, evoking the Nuremberg Laws’ exclusion of “undesirables.” His expansion of ICE into a Gestapo-like secret police—abducting and detaining Americans without charge—recalls the Gestapo’s midnight raids where dissenters and critics were taken to prisons to be tortured, or put into concentration camps. Threats to deploy the military against “sanctuary” cities and states opposing him? That’s straight out of the Nazi Enabling Act, Hitler’s tool to crush dissent. The Republican Party, once the party of Lincoln, has devolved into a fascist entity mimicking 1930s Germany and the Nazi Party with its cult of personality, scapegoating minorities, and eroding democratic norms. As The Week observed, these chats show a “loosening of political norms” that makes cruelty acceptable. If the US is now controlled by this beast, America in 2025 looks eerily like Deutschland in 1933—book burnings reimagined as elimination of “fake news”, loyalty purges, and Republican political rallies as Nuremberg style spectacles.

Canada’s Internal Threat: The Conservative Party’s Fascist Drift

But here’s the part that should really concern us in The Great White North—fascism doesn’t respect borders. In Canada, we have our own insidious elements—the far-right agitators, the convoy conspiracy theorists, the far-right and fascist online trolls echoing MAGA bile—who embrace this ideology. Groups like the Canadian Nationalist Party and figures in the People’s Party of Canada flirt with white nationalism, Islamophobia, and antisemitism, often importing rhetoric straight from Trump’s playbook, which echoes Hitler. Recent X posts from Canadian users amplify the Young Republicans’ rot, with one lamenting the “smear” while defending “edgy comments” as prophetic against “leftist” violence. The Freedom Convoy’s legacy lingers, with those who stormed Parliament Hill in 2022 waved Confederate and swastika flags, and spouted QAnon fever dreams, now evolving into calls for “taking back” Canada from “globalists.”

These people aren’t harmless eccentrics. They’re working to erode the Charter rights of Canadians, sow division, and prepare the ground for authoritarianism. As Moneycontrol noted in covering the leak, such “hate-filled messages” normalize fascism globally, and Canada—with its proximity to the US and shared media ecosystem—isn’t immune. We should be afraid, but we can’t be paralyzed by fear. Vigilance means exposing these networks, bolstering hate-crime laws, and educating against the poison seeping in from the south.

Worse still, this fascist creep has infiltrated the heart of our politics. The Conservative Party of Canada, which under Pierre Poilievre’s leadership has morphed into a white supremacist and fascism-friendly force, echoes Trump, and as a result, fuels the rising tide of extremism on the political right wing in Canada. Poilievre’s adoption of “Canada First” as a slogan isn’t just a nod to Trump’s “America First” agenda—it’s a direct parallel to white nationalist ideologies that prioritize ethnic purity, right wing nationalism and exclusion, as Ricochet Media has warned, potentially serving as a gateway to overt racism and authoritarianism.

Over the last two years, Poilievre has built up to pushing fascist-tinged messaging in policy proposals that scapegoat immigrants and minorities, much like the Young Republicans’ venom. On immigration, he has called for “very hard caps,” negative net migration, and deportations for “lawbreaking” for those on temporary visas, tying inflows to housing affordability in rhetoric that vilifies newcomers as burdens on overburdened systems. This mirrors Trump’s mass deportation threats and stokes xenophobic fears that embolden far-right elements in Canadian society. The NDP has slammed this as “divisive rhetoric” that rejects diversity’s economic benefits, accusing Poilievre of channelling “right-wing, American-style” politics to erode hard-won rights. As The Breach reports, this anti-immigrant turn not only shifts Canadians rightward but amplifies openly racist groups, turning immigration into a wedge for white supremacist and infiltration of Conservative ranks.

Poilievre’s stance on Israel further cements this fascist alignment, as he offers unwavering support for Israel’s fascist government as it commits genocide against Palestinians in Gaza—labelling anti-genocide protests “hate marches” and “support for Hamas”, in a chilling echo of Nazi-era suppression of dissent. On the 80th anniversary of Auschwitz’s liberation in January 2025, Poilievre praised Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, which has killed over 75,000 Palestinians (more than 377,000 and 680,000 according to two recent studies), while vowing to deport temporary residents for protesting genocide, which he has labelled “antisemitic hate crimes.” This is rhetoric that weaponizes Holocaust memory to justify ethnic cleansing abroad and suppressing solidarity at home. The Maple describes this as a “war on Palestine solidarity,” with Poilievre dismissing Palestinian suffering as Hamas’s fault and refusing to acknowledge the ICJ’s plausible genocide finding, instead blaming Iran and promising to defund UNRWA. Al Jazeera calls him a “Zionist zealot” whose attacks on pro-Palestinian demonstrations as “hate rallies” fuel Islamophobia, much like Trump’s demonization of Muslims. In October 2024, Poilievre was even silenced in Parliament for accusing Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly of “pandering to Hamas supporters” over her calls to condemn protest chants, demanding she denounce “genocidal chants from hateful mobs.” This isn’t statesmanship; it’s fascist signalling that connects the Conservative Party directly to a fascist government abroad, and to rising right-wing extremism in Canada, where convoy-style radicals and white nationalists see Poilievre as Canada’s Donald Trump.

Defending Democracy Against Fascism

If the today’s US embodies Nazi Germany, then Canada must consider itself as Austria in March 1938—rich and cultured, but perilously adjacent to fascism’s grasp. Hitler’s Anschluss was sold as “reunification” of ethnic kin, much like the creeping narrative from Trump and his supporters who view Canada as the “51st state,” ripe for absorption. Trump’s offhand musings about annexing Greenland and Canada, coupled with MAGA fantasies of a North American empire under US hegemony, aren’t jokes—they’re trial balloons. Our economies are intertwined, our militaries aligned via NORAD, our populations linked by culture and trade. A fascist US wouldn’t need tanks to swallow Canada. It could use economic coercion, disinformation campaigns, or stoke border tensions over migrants fleeing Trump’s purges. Already, Canadian far-right groups parrot calls for “America First” policies here, undermining our sovereignty by idolizing Trump as a model for Poilievre or other conservatives.

Canada’s Path Forward

To defend our democracy, Canada must act decisively. First by fortifying institutions, like investing in independent media to counter US-style Fox News clones, strengthening the CRTC against foreign propaganda, and enhancing Elections Canada against interference. Second, Canada must build and strengthen alliances, by deepening ties with the EU and Commonwealth nations as a bulwark against American isolationist fascism. Third, the Canadian government must educate ruthlessly by mandating genocide and fascism studies in schools, and launch public campaigns demystifying fascist tactics, from the Young Republicans’ chat rooms to the Munich Beer Hall Putsch. And finally, Canada must prepare militarily and economically by bolstering defence, diversifying trade beyond the US, and affirming our neutrality in any American civil strife. As ABC News reported on the GOP fallout, even Republicans are calling for resignations, meaning this is our moment to isolate the disease before it spreads.

The Young Republicans’ Hitler worship isn’t a glitch. It’s the feature of a party that has lost its soul, and poses a danger to American democracy and to Canada. As the swastika’s shadow lengthens from Washington, it should terrify us, for the sake of Canadian democracy and for the sake of our children’s future. Canada has always been the polite counterpoint to American bombast, but politeness won’t suffice against fascism. We must roar our defiance, and defend our democracy with the ferocity of those who stormed Normandy beaches, and remind the world that we will not be annexed, we will not be silenced, and we will not let the ghosts of 1938 haunt 2025. The US may be marching to a fascist drum, but Canada will beat a different rhythm—one of inclusion, resilience, and unyielding freedom.

© 2025 The View From Here. © 2025 Fareed Khan. All Rights Reserved.

Who is Zohran Mamdani? A primer on the man creating a political earthquake in New York and beyond

What Mamdani has created isn't just a campaign team but a movement unseen in the city in generations.  He is charismatic, straightforward, funny, sincere, and can connect with voters on the issues. 

By Fareed Khan

A version of this article can be found on Substack.

As a Canadian, you may not have heard of Zohran Mamdani. If not here is a little primer on the man who could be New York City's first Muslim mayor on November 20th, and the political star of his generation.

Zohran Kwame Mamdani, the Democratic Party candidate for mayor of New York City, at just 33 years old, represents the fresh, unapologetic energy that New York City desperately needs—a city buckling under skyrocketing costs, growing inequality, and a political establishment that has long favoured the interests of billionaires over those of everyday people.

Born in Kampala, Uganda, to an Indian family with deep roots in scholarship and filmmaking, Mamdani embodies the immigrant dream that has always defined New York. His father, Mahmood Mamdani, is a noted academic of Gujarati Muslim descent, born in Mumbai, India and raised in Uganda. While his mother, Mira Nair, is an award-winning filmmaker of movies such as Salaam Bombay, Mississippi Masala and Monsoon Wedding, and hails from a Punjabi Hindu background in Odisha, India. This interfaith heritage, blending Muslim, Hindu, and African influences, has instilled in Mamdani a profound ability to bridge divides and connect with diverse communities.

Moving to New York at age seven after a brief stint in South Africa, Mamdani grew up in the city's public school system, graduating from the Bronx High School of Science and earned a degree in African Studies from Bowdoin College. His Iranian origins through his father's Muslim heritage—tied to the broader South Asian diaspora that includes Persian influences—further enriches his perspective, allowing his campaign style to resonate with immigrants from the Middle East, South Asia, and beyond who are part of New York's vibrant cultural mosaic. As the first Muslim candidate to win a major party's nomination for mayor in the city's history, Mamdani's rise is not just personal triumph but a beacon for Muslims, immigrants, visible minorities, and all marginalized groups who see in him a leader who understands their struggles intimately.

What sets Mamdani apart from other politicians is his focussed vision to make New York City affordable again, particularly for the working class that has been crushed by decades of neglect. Running under the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) banner while securing the Democratic primary nomination, he has pledged to raise the city's minimum wage to $30 an hour by 2030. This is a bold move to ensure working New Yorkers can live with dignity rather than scraping by. He wants to freeze rents on all rent stabilized units in the city, preventing the displacement of families in a city where nearly a quarter of residents in his assembly district spend half their income on housing. In addition, he is proposing free city buses to ease the commute for millions reliant on public transit, provide universal childcare allowing parents to work without fear of bankruptcy, and even city-run grocery stores in each borough to combat "halalflation" and food deserts that prey on low-income neighborhoods.

These aren't pie-in-the-sky ideas but ones that are rooted in Mamdani's legislative record as a member of the New York state assembly, where he secured over $100 million for increased subway service, a fare-free bus pilot program, and participated in a hunger-strike alongside taxi drivers to win $450 million in debt relief for taxi owners. He plans to fund his programs through progressive taxation—hiking corporate taxes to 11.5% to match New Jersey's, adding a 2% income tax on millionaires to generate $20 billion for tuition-free attendance at the City University of New York and State University of New York, and shifting property taxes from overtaxed outer-borough homeowners to luxury homes in wealthier areas.

For the working class, this will mean real relief—200,000 new affordable, union-built homes over 10 years, fully funded public schools with green retrofits to combat climate change, and a Department of Community Safety that invests in violence prevention without gutting the NYPD. Despite what his detractors claim, Mamdani's platform isn't about handouts, it's about reclaiming a city for its people, echoing the legacy of the city's public housing pioneers while addressing modern crises like the housing shortage that has left 400,000 New York Cith Housing Authority tenants in disrepair.

In a broader sense, Mamdani's policies speak directly to the bread-and-butter issues that working and middle-class families face every day—childcare, and rents that drain pocketbooks and force people to make tough choices between essentials. As a Canadian, we might recognize these struggles all too well—the squeeze on affordability in cities like Toronto or Vancouver, where housing prices have soared beyond the reach of many and investment in public transit has failed to keep up with population growth.

Whether it's in the US or Canada, politicians hoping to lead cities, provinces/states, or the country should look to Mamdani as an example of how politics should be done. When one compares Canadian leaders to Mamdani the vast majority of our leaders fall short. We deserve politicians like Mamdani, who has prioritized these pocketbook concerns over corporate interests in his campaign, and promises to deliver tangible relief through a bold, people-first agenda.

For the last two generations Canada has been devoid of mayors, premiers, or prime ministers who can connect with average voters in the way Mamdani can, and who seem sincere about addressing their issues. The only exception might be Calgary’s former mayor Naheed Nenshi, who came out of nowhere to defeat a sitting councillor and held the post for a decade. However, what we see in the approach of Canadian politicians generally is not surprising given how many of them prioritize trade deals over affordable housing, or elite tax cuts over programs that benefit the vast majority. Mamdani shows that sincerity in action, proving that a leader can galvanize change by focusing on what truly matters to the working class, the people who make society function.

Mamdani's ability to galvanize broad support across the boroughs of New York City is historic, drawing crowds and volunteers in numbers unseen in many election cycles. His primary election victory on June 24, 2025, saw him defeat former New York governor Andrew Cuomo 56% to 44% in ranked-choice voting, despite Cuomo's $35 million war chest and backing from moneyed elites and New York City billionaires. It was a stunning upset fuelled by over 50,000 volunteers knocking on a million doors and 20,000 small donors, the most since 2001. Polls now show him leading the general election field with 43%-46% support against Cuomo (24%-28%), Republican Curtis Sliwa (10-15%), and scandal-plagued incumbent Eric Adams (6-9%), a margin that widens among young voters and those prioritizing affordability.

What Mamdani has created isn't just a campaign team but a movement unseen in the city in generations.  His charisma, straightforwardness, humour, sincere personality, and ability to communicate clearly on the issues important to the city’s voters, has mobilized millennials, Gen Z, and working families, from viral social media videos on "halalflation" to town halls with Senator Bernie Sanders railing against the oligarchy that has controlled New York City for decades. Endorsements from unions like the New York City Central Labor Council, representing over a million workers, underscore his appeal to organized labour, promising a "100% union city" where economic growth benefits everyone. In a city weary of recycled and bought politicians, Mamdani's grassroots surge—flipping even Trump-voting neighbourhoods—signals a rejection of the status quo, much like Fiorello La Guardia's progressive era but updated for today's crises.

Charismatic politicians like Mamdani who can connect with voters only come along once in a generation. His ability to inspire, to turn frustration into action, and to connect on a human level hasn't been seen in New York for decades. He's not just running on policy, he's building a coalition that has drawn in young people, immigrants, Muslims, Jews, the LGBTQ2 community, working families and others who feel ignored by the establishment that has run New York City for decades. In an era of deep political cynicism this generational appeal is what makes his candidacy so electric.  His campaign has reminded voters that leadership can be both visionary and relatable, a rare blend that could redefine urban governance, as others look at his campaign as a case study on how to connect with disaffected voters who feel they have no real voice in a political system that is broken.

Yet, this historic candidacy hasn't come without fierce opposition. Mamdani's detractors—led by Cuomo, Adams, and billionaire-backed super PACs—have unleashed a barrage of smear campaigns, designed to tarnish his reputation and stoke fear. President Trump labeled him a "100% communist lunatic," while right-wing figures called for his deportation and denaturalization, falsely claiming he's not a true citizen despite being naturalized in 2018. Islamophobic attacks against him have flooded social media, with doctored images exaggerating his beard and skin tone to portray him as a "terrorist," and mailers accusing him of participating in "global jihad" or ties to Hamas—claims debunked as baseless yet amplified by outlets like the New York Post and even some Democrats like Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand. Critics dredge up his past DSA affiliations to paint him as anti-police, citing 2020 calls to "defund the NYPD" (which he now clarifies as reallocating funds for community safety, not cuts) and support for decriminalizing sex work.

Pro-Israel groups like the Anti-Defamation League have twisted his criticism of Israel's criminal actions in Gaza—calling it apartheid and genocide—into accusations of antisemitism, despite his endorsements from Jewish leaders like Comptroller Brad Lander and rabbis from Jews for Racial and Economic Justice (JFREJ), who praise his commitment to fighting hate crimes against all communities. These attacks, often laced with racist tropes about the "cheerful brown man" threatening the establishment, reveal more about the fear of change than any real threat from Mamdani, who has consistently affirmed Israel's right to exist as a secular state with equal rights for all. Even within his party, figures like New York governor Kathy Hochul withheld endorsements until recently, pressured by billionaire donors panicking over his tax plans. But New Yorkers have seen through the noise. Polls show 37% believe a socialist mayor would be good for the city, rejecting the fear mongering.

Mamdani's Iranian-influenced roots and multicultural upbringing give him unparalleled ability to connect with minority communities, including immigrants, Blacks, Jews and LGBTQ2 individuals, fostering unity in a divided city. As a Muslim, he has galvanized immigrant and Muslim voters by pledging legal representation for all in detention and enforcing sanctuary city laws, drawing massive turnout from South Asian, Middle Eastern, and African neighbourhoods. His cross-endorsement with Jewish Comptroller Brad Lander—urging voters to rank each other second—built a powerful Jewish-Muslim alliance, with Mamdani winning significant Jewish support (polling second among Jewish voters) through commitments to combat antisemitism and fund hate crime prevention. An endorsement by 38 Rabbis and JFREJ members, hailing him as a "Jewish act" of justice, embraced his plans to protect synagogues and promote interfaith dialogue.

For LGBTQ2 communities, Mamdani proposes making NYC a full sanctuary city with an Office of LGBTQIA+ Affairs, funding gender-affirming care, and addressing homelessness tied to identity—policies that align with his universal affordability agenda, ensuring no one is left behind. Even conservative mosques have warmed to him for his economic focus, overlooking differences on issues like marijuana legalization because his vision unites working people across socio-economic lines. This broad coalition—from Black voters in Harlem to Asian communities in Chinatown—has propelled his campaign, proving that Mamdani's empathy transcends labels. His support among Jewish voters, for instance, stands at a 17-point lead over his opponents in recent polls, a testament to his genuine outreach and rejection of divisive smears.

If Mamdani wins in November, as current polling indicates, his victory won't just be a win for New Yorkers, it will be a seismic shift for immigrants, Muslims, and all who identify with his story of resilience and inclusion across the US and beyond. In a city where one in three residents is foreign-born, his pledge to fight Trump's deportation machine and expand immigrant services will aim to provide hope to millions facing ICE raids and family separations. For Muslims, long sidelined by post-9/11 suspicion, a Mamdani mayoralty would signal that their voices matter, countering rampant Islamophobia with policies that protect mosques and promote cultural equity. New York’s Jews—the largest Jewish diaspora community outside Israel—are realizing that he is an ally against rising hate, as evidenced by his alliances and plans to boost funding for all faith-based security initiatives. Members of New York’s LGBTQ2 community, from Pride marchers to Trans youth, will benefit from his sanctuary city expansions and anti-discrimination blueprint, making the city a true haven for diverse communities. And for working-class minorities across the board—Black, Latino, Asian, etc.—his affordability initiatives will mean homes they can afford, jobs with living wages, and a government that finally prioritizes people over the interests of the city's rich. A Mamdani win would echo globally, the way Sadiq Khan's victory in London did, inspiring marginalized communities from Toronto to Kuala Lumpur. It would signal that bold, inclusive leadership can triumph over entrenched power.

For Canadians, who are watching the race in New York closely, it's a reminder that the fight for equity transcends borders.  Mamdani's model of addressing pocketbook issues with sincerity could inspire some Canadian politicians to reinvigorate our own politics, where leaders have too often failed to connect with the average voter on the things that matter most.

Mamdani's candidacy is historic because it challenges the very foundations of American urban politics.  A socialist, Muslim, immigrant son rising against billionaire-backed political machines in the world's financial capital. Despite attacks and smears from Trump, Cuomo, and their allies—accusations of communism, antisemitism, and extremism that have only backfired, as New Yorkers rally to his side—he has proven that authenticity and vision win out. With endorsements pouring in, from Gov. Kathy Hochul to unions and progressives, his path to victory is slowly being cleared of hurdles.

Come election night in November, Mamdani could usher in a new political era in New York and be a shining example of how to overcome cynicism in politics, and do things in a way that brings those who haven't seen their interests represented in politics into an expanding tent.  A Mamdani victory would open the doors on a city where the working class, immigrants, Muslims, Jews, LGBTQ2 folks, and all minorities stand taller, because they would have a vested interest in his success as mayor. In all of this observers outside New York should understand that Mamdani’s campaign is not just a race to be mayor, it's a revolution for inclusion and dignity for the vast majority whose interests are too often overlooked by political elites. 

Canadian politicians should watch closely should Mamdani make history, and adopt his strategies on creating winning campaigns that make voters want to vote for someone rather than against candidates who are seen as the greater "evil".  His political star is just beginning to rise, and as a possible future mayor he would be a prime example and object lesson on what a good politician should be. In an age where we see very few candidates like Zohran Mamdani, his example urges us all to demand more of our political leaders, and demand that they follow the example of someone who seems to truly care about the bottom 95% of voters who comprise the working and middle class.  It’s time for all of us to demand that people who run for public office exude sincerity and follow through on their promises, something we've been missing for far too long, but something we all deserve.

© 2025 The View From Here. © 2025 Fareed Khan. All Rights Reserved.

The true death toll in Gaza is over 680,000, a number the West wants to ignore

To name the true death toll—680,000 and climbing—is to pierce the veil of Western denial of how acutely horrific Israel’s genocidal crimes are . . . Independent investigators must swarm Gaza, sifting the rubble for corpses and DNA, piecing together the stories of the vanished. 

By Fareed Khan

A version of this article can be found on Substack.

As Western media heralds tentative hope in the agreement between Israel and Hamas to halt Israel’s military campaign and secure the release of remaining Israeli hostages, the true cost borne by Palestinians over two years of genocide demands reckoning. In history’s shadowed corridors, genocides are measured not just by the screams of the dying, but also by the silence shrouding the dead. For two relentless years, Since October 8, 2023 (the day after the Hamas attack) Israel has waged a ruthless campaign of annihilation on the people of Gaza, a strip of land about half the size of the City of Toronto, and home to 2.3 million souls (before October 2023).

 

 

The “official” death toll, dutifully parroted by Western media, hovers around 67,200 as of October 8, 2025—figures sourced from the Gaza Health Ministry, dismissed with a casual “Hamas-run” qualifier that implies the number is a fabrication. However, this number is but a shadow of the truth, a small fraction of the catastrophe Palestinians in Gaza have endured. Peer-reviewed studies, epidemiological models, and analyses by experts who determine casualty numbers in armed conflicts, reveal a toll ten times greater—680,000 lives extinguished (mostly women and children)—through bullets, bombs, missiles, starvation, and the slow rot of disease and untreated wounds. This is not mere under counting. It is the erasure of an entire people, a genocide the scale of which rivals the Rwandan slaughter of 1994, where over 800,000 perished in 100 days of genocidal madness.

The thousands of Gaza’s dead, buried under 41 million metric tons of rubble, demand that we confront and acknowledge this reality, an evil unseen since the Holocaust, a calculated extermination of a helpless people that shatters the myth of “international rule of law”, or Israel as a self-proclaimed “moral” nation. The Gaza Health Ministry’s death toll, far from being inflated, is a testament to the suffering of a people that the West seems to want to forget. It tallies only those bodies that reach overwhelmed medical facilities or are reported by grieving relatives—direct deaths from Israeli airstrikes, artillery, and gunfire.

A December 2024 article in British medical journal The Lancet by Johns Hopkins scholars affirmed the accuracy of the Gaza Health Ministry’s numbers, finding no evidence of exaggeration despite the chaos of a society under siege. The Economist echoed this in May 2024, calling the figures “legitimate” and a floor, not a ceiling, for the number of Palestinian dead. Yet, the Gaza ministry’s ability to accurately count the dead crumbled as Israel pulverized the territory’s 36 hospitals, leaving just a handful of health facilities limping barely able to function on generators. Entire family lines— 902 documented by the Al-Jazeera as of October 2024—were vaporized in Israeli strikes, leaving no survivors to report their deaths or utter their names. Tens of thousands of bodies fester under Gaza’s pulverized buildings, uncounted, as rescuers try to dodge sniper fire to retrieve the ones that are accessible. The Gaza health ministry’s release of a 1,516 page document on March 23, 2025, listing the names of 50,021 victims, with 350 pages of the list children under 16 years old, captures only those that can be identified. In a land where civil records have been destroyed in bombed out administrative and government offices, the nameless multiply into the hundreds of thousands.

To grasp the true magnitude of the carnage inflicted on Gaza, one must look beyond the official numbers. A July 2024 study by The Lancet, determined that after eight months of carnage the death toll could exceed 186,000—7.9% of Gaza’s population. To get to this number the researchers factored in direct deaths from Israeli bombs, missiles and bullets, as well as indirect fatalities from famine, epidemics, and medical collapse. This methodology mirrors accounting from The Holocaust, where deaths from gas chambers and firing squads were tallied alongside those who starved to death or died from disease. By June 2025, Israeli academic Yaakov Garb, analyzing data collected by the Israeli military, released a report published by Harvard’s Dataverse that mapped a demographic void. From a pre-October 2023 population of 2.23 million 377,000 Palestinians vanished—nearly half children—presumed dead, likely lying buried under Gaza’s destroyed buildings or interred in mass graves.

A London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine analysis pegged violent Palestinian deaths at 64,260 by June 2024, 41% above the Gaza health ministry reports, with projections soaring past 70,000 by October. Australian scholars Richard Hil and Gideon Polya, in their July 2025 Arena report, applied conservative ratios from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars—four indirect deaths per direct death—yielding a total of 680,000 dead by April 2025—136,000 from Israel’s military assaults, 544,000 from engineered deprivation. Of these, 479,000 were children, 380,000 under five, their tiny frames succumbing to hunger’s grip. Ha’aretz, Israel’s leading newspaper, cited Michael Spagat, a world-class expert on mortality in violent conflicts, in a June 2025 article, where he estimated nearly 100,000 dead, 56% women and children, outpacing the wars in Kosovo or Syria in civilian casualties.

This under count is no accident. It is complicity in the Gaza genocide. Western outlets, from CNN to BBC to Canada’s CBC and CTV, cling to the Gaza ministry’s conservative 67,200 figure, ignoring The Lancet’s multipliers while amplifying Israeli denials. Ralph Nader, in a scathing letter directed at leading news media platforms and voices in August of this year, lambasted them and pointed out that “. . . unlike other armed conflicts in the world, the vast under count of fatalities and injuries in Gaza is a vastly under reported story.” Israel, like a cornered murderer, has contested every casualty figure, but its own intelligence quietly relies on the ministry’s data.

Gaza is a vast crime scene spanning 365 square kilometres, demanding thousands of investigators to exhume the truth. Yet, Benjamin Netanyahu’s fascist regime bars independent media on the ground to conduct their own investigations, lest the rubble and stories from Palestinians yield evidence for The Hague. This refusal to allow journalists, let alone forensic teams, anthropologists, and war crimes experts into Gaza, is a deliberate act to obscure the scale of the atrocity, ensuring the dead remain voiceless and that the guilty get away with committing genocide.

The echoes of Rwanda resound in Gaza. In 1994, Hutu extremists murdered over 800,000 Tutsis in 100 days, a frenzy that outstripped Gaza’s pace but mirrored its intimacy of horror. Gaza’s toll, at 680,000 over 730 days according to Gil and Polya, nears that neighbourhood, with 28% of its population, the vast majority women and children erased. But Gaza’s genocide is industrialized and militarized, with 2,000-pound bombs regularly dropped on anywhere Gaza’s refugees set up tent camps, Israeli snipers firing indiscriminately on Palestinians lining up for food, with more than 6,100 dead since the beginning of July according to Euromed Human Rights Monitor. The UN’s September 2025 report confirmed that Israeli actions in Gaza meets the Genocide Convention’s criteria—killings, harm, life conditions contrived for destruction, birth prevention via bombed medical clinics. The systematic nature of this violence—targeting hospitals, schools, mosques, and water facilities—reveals an intent not just to kill, but to erase a culture, a history, and the future of a people.

Deeper still, Gaza evokes the Holocaust’s spectral machinery. Six million Jews perished not just in gas chambers but through the Nazis’ “slow death” arsenals—soldiers gunning down families in pits, as Nazi SS death squads did to 1.5 million; starvation in Jewish ghettos, where people withered; diseases rampant in overcrowded concentration camps, claiming 500,000 more. Gaza mirrors this Nazi triad. Israeli troops, following orders from their political and military masters, have gunned down civilians in “safe zones”—over 2,600 slain at aid sites since May. Starvation, declared a weapon by the United Nations-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), has felled 62,000, mostly infants, as 1.8 million face “catastrophic” hunger. Diseases—polio, hepatitis—surge in sewage-flooded ruins, untreated wounds festering with 80% of Gaza’s doctors dead or missing.

Like Auschwitz’s “showers”, Israel’s “humanitarian” corridors funnel desperate Palestinians to slaughter, with 450 killed en route to fortified “aid” choke points, surrounded by military installations set up for surveillance and gunfire. The Holocaust’s evil was bureaucratic banality. Gaza’s is algorithmic, with the use of AI to target “Hamas operations” that are, in truth, schools, health centres, destroyed mosques, and other civilian centres. Both forged death from the mundane—Zyklon B gas used to kill Jews in Nazi death camps, US-supplied bombs and missiles for Palestinian tent camps and “safe zones.”

This level of depravity, unseen since Hitler’s ovens and gas chambers, indicts every cog in the Israeli machine. Israeli leaders—Netanyahu, whose biblical Amalek quote sanctioned genocide; Gallant, architect of the “complete siege”, and every Israeli military leader that followed orders—bear responsibility for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. Warrants by the International Criminal Court issued November 2024, demand they spend the rest of their lives inside prison cells. And we can’t forget the soldiers and pilots who pulled the triggers and pressed the buttons that unleashed hell on Palestinian civilians, killing scores at a time in what were supposed to be “safe zones.” The tank gunners who pulverized Jabalia, entombing thousands, the drone operators who picked off children, they are no different than the Nazis who only claimed to be “following orders”—an excuse that the Nuremberg Trials rejected. Every trigger pulled, every sortie flown, was a choice in the chain of extermination. They knew what the laws of war say about attacking civilians but they ignored them. They must face trials, convictions, life imprisonment for their acts of depravity. Not vengeance, but justice, lest impunity breed the next genocidal abyss.

Western refusal to prosecute these criminals would seal this infamy. The US, UK, Germany, Canada—arms pipelines to the genocide—have shielded Israel, caving to the political power of the Zionist lobby, as they funded the bombs and bullets. If genocidal crimes go unpunished because the perpetrator flies the Israeli flag, the “international rules-based order” will crumble and the world will slowly fall into anarchy as leaders with criminal agendas realize there will be no accountability or punishment for any atrocities they may commit. The tribunals at Nuremberg and for Rwanda were born of resolve. Gaza will be the ultimate test that will determine if international law will be bent for Israel, as it has been for decades at the UN by its US patron. Impunity here will invite tomorrow’s criminal leaders and tyrants into a world where might and alliances determines who gets prosecuted for their heinous crimes, and the dead are left to rot where they are buried without seeing justice.

To name the true death toll—680,000 and climbing—is to pierce the veil of Western denial of how acutely horrific Israel’s genocidal crimes are. It demands an accounting not just of the bodies of the dead, but of intent. The deliberate starvation, the so-called “precision” strikes on hospitals and refugee encampments, the blockade choking life from a people, these are all being documented and will go down in the annals of history as an evil equivalent to what the Nazis did during the Holocaust.

Independent investigators must swarm Gaza, sifting the rubble for corpses and DNA, piecing together the stories of the vanished. Without this, the world would be in collusion with Israel’s erasure of Palestinians, burying evidence with the dead. The UN, ICC, ICJ, nations that want to see justice for Palestinians, and global civil society, must break through the barbed wire fences and military perimeter around Gaza, not for reconstruction, but to uncover the truth—a ledger of Palestinian lives that will shame the complicit and galvanize those seeking justice. This is not a call just to record statistics, but for a reckoning that restores the humanity of those reduced to mere numbers quoted in news reports, ensuring that their stories are told and their killers named, shamed, and prosecuted like Nazis were at Nuremberg.

Everyone should also note that this genocide’s architects extend beyond Israel’s borders. Western leaders—US president Joe Biden, UK prime ministers Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer, German Chancellors Olaf Scholz and Friedrich Merz, Canadian leaders Justin Trudeau and Mark Carney—who green lit arms shipments to Israel, attempted to deflect ICC probes, parroted “Israel’s right to self-defence” excuse, while 479,000 children perished, are complicit. They are all accomplices and deserve to face ICC judges. American and British intelligence agencies—CIA and MI6—shared targeting data with Israel, while their corporations, like Lockheed Martin, Allianz and BAE Systems profited from Israel’s blood lust in Gaza. These enablers must face tribunals alongside Netanyahu’s cabinet and his military leaders, charged with aiding and abetting genocide. The Nuremberg precedent holds—those who arm and shield the executioner share in the guilt. Failure to prosecute them would dismantle the legal and moral scaffolding of international law, inviting a free-for-all where power absolves the slaughter of innocents. The complicity of Western capitals, cloaked in diplomatic platitudes, mirrors the silence of those who watched cattle cars filled with innocent people roll to Auschwitz, knowing their ultimate fate.

Acknowledging the actual number of casualties is a call to speak truth to power, seek justice, and a clarion call to humanity to ensure that the truth is not buried. Every Israeli soldier who fired a bullet or tank shell, every pilot who dropped a bomb, every Western official who authorized the arms deals, must stand in the docket at the ICC. This court, born to end the impunity of political leaders and their sycophants, must expand its warrants, hauling in not just commanders but also the foot soldiers and foreign backers who made Gaza a graveyard for almost a third of the Palestinians who use to live there.

If the West shields its allies, it voids the post-World War Two pledge of “Never Again,” already rendered week by two years of ongoing genocide. Gaza’s 680,000 ghosts—children clutching empty bowls, mothers buried with their infants—demand trials that echo Nuremberg’s resolve. Without them, the international legal order is a lie and a hollow promise that gives licence for anarchy to reign where justice fails. The world must act, not with tepid resolutions and weak diplomatic statements, but with resolve to achieve justice for the victims, through the courts that bind the guilty, ensuring that the scale of this horror—680,000 lives, a third of Gaza’s population—ignites a global demand for accountability that no veto or Western political shield can silence.

© 2025 The View From Here. © 2025 Fareed Khan. All Rights Reserved.

Marking two years of Israel’s genocide against Palestinians and the West’s complicity in genocidal crimes

The cry of "never again" rings hollow from Gaza’s rubble strewn streets, where the West’s hypocrisy lies buried alongside an estimated 377,000 Palestinian dead.

 

By Fareed Khan

A version of this article can be found on Substack.

  

On October 7, 2023, Palestinian resistance group Hamas, designated a terrorist organization by many Western nations, launched an attack on southern Israel, resulting in 1,195 deaths—736 Israeli civilians, 79 foreign nationals, and 379 security personnel—and the abduction of 251 hostages. While this act of violence was labelled as an act of terrorism by Western nations, it cannot be equated with the catastrophic genocide Israel has inflicted on Gaza’s 2.3 million Palestinians over the subsequent two years. Presented by Israeli officials as a campaign to dismantle Hamas and secure hostages, this operation is instead a meticulously orchestrated effort to annihilate Palestinian existence in Gaza through mass slaughter, starvation, and ethnic cleansing.

 

Over the two years of genocide, well over 74,000 Palestinians have been killed according to official numbers—almost 50% of them women and children. However, estimates from recent studies suggest that the actual toll, including those buried under Gaza’s rubble or lost to disease and famine, could be between 377,000 and 400,000. Nearly 99% of Gaza’s population has been forcibly displaced at least once amid the systematic destruction of 80% of homes, hospitals, schools, and farmland. This is not a measured response of a nation that adheres to international law, but that of a nation implementing the final solution of a genocidal settler-colonial agenda, the intention of which is to erase Palestinians existence. 

 

The Western alliance, which cloaks itself in the mantle of the “rules-based international order,” stands as a willing accomplice to the horrors Israel has committed. The US alone has shipped more than $21 billion worth of arms to Israel, with the US, Germany, the UK and Canada funnelling billions more since October 2023, all the while preaching human rights and international law.

In January 2024, in their first response to the genocide case against Israel filed by South Africa, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) found a plausible risk of genocide in Gaza, issuing provisional measures to halt genocidal acts, ensure humanitarian aid, and called on Israel to cease offensive actions in Gaza. Israel defied these orders, and instead slashed humanitarian aid deliveries to Gaza by half and bombed designated “safe routes,” killing scores of fleeing civilians. This defiance was a deliberate choice, enabled by Western powers—particularly the United States and its European allies. They could have imposed sanctions or arms embargoes to enforce Israeli compliance, as urged by UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese. Instead they chose to shield Israel, exposing their hypocrisy as a betrayal of the very international legal frameworks they frequently claim to champion.

Israel’s actions systematically violate the foundational treaties of the post-World War Two order, established to prevent atrocities like those of the Holocaust. When admitted to the United Nations in 1949, Israel pledged to implement UN General Assembly Resolution 181 (1947), which partitioned Palestine and mandated minority rights, and Resolution 194 (1948), guaranteeing the return of 750,000 Palestinian refugees displaced during the Nakba—the ethnic cleansing that birthed Israel. That pledge was immediately broken in 1948 when Israel refused the right of return to Palestinians and began implementing policies that violated the rights of non-Jews.

Then in 1967 Israel occupied Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem contravening the UN Charter’s Article 2 (4), prohibiting the use of force against territorial integrity. The ICJ’s July 2024 advisory opinion declared Israel’s occupation unlawful, demanding its immediate cessation, yet Israel persisted in its criminal actions. In addition, over 40 UN Security Council resolutions, from 242 (1967) calling for Israel’s withdrawal from occupied territory, to 2334 (2016) which condemned illegal Jews only settlements, have been ignored. These are all binding obligations under Article 25 of the UN Charter which were rendered meaningless by the West’s support for or silence about Israel’s illegal acts. This pattern of impunity underscores a broader truth—that the international legal order is selectively enforced, a tool to be wielded by Western powers against adversaries like Russia but abandoned for Israel, a favoured ally. 

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), adopted in 1948 to affirm the inherent dignity of all peoples, has also been rendered a charade in Gaza. The right to life guaranteed under Article 3 has been obliterated by decades of Israeli violence against Palestinians, and certainly since October 2023, with Amnesty International’s December 2024 genocide report documenting 15 attacks that killed 334 civilians, including 141 children, in a deliberate targeting of families. Article 25’s promise of adequate food, shelter, and health care has been erased by a blockade that, according to Human Rights Watch’s “Extermination and Acts of Genocide“ report, has weaponized thirst and hunger, killing thousands through dehydration and disease after destroying over 100 water and sanitation facilities, and food distribution locations. Article 5’s prohibition on torture has also been repeatedly violated for years by the arbitrary detention and sexual violence against thousands of Palestinian men and boys, their bodies marked as targets for death. Statements from Israeli leaders—Defense Minister Yoav Gallant’s labeling of Palestinians as “human animals“ and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s vow to reduce Gaza to “rubble”—reveal a chilling intent to dehumanize and destroy all things Palestinian. Western signatories to the UDHR, with the power to enforce it through sanctions, diplomatic pressure or military force, instead chose to supply bombs and bullets to Israel, their silence and actions a betrayal of the UDHR’s ethos, which was crafted in part by Holocaust survivors to ensure universal dignity. 

The 1948 Genocide Convention, born from the imperative to prevent another Holocaust, has been desecrated daily in Gaza over the past two years. Article II of the Convention defines genocide as acts committed with intent to destroy a group, in whole or in part, through killing, serious harm, inflicting life-destroying conditions, or preventing births—all evident in Gaza. According to Euromed Human Rights Monitor, the Palestinian death toll was 74,100 as of September 6, 2025, with more than 165,000 injured, famine gripping over a third of the population, and 80% of reproductive health facilities lying in ruins. The ICJ’s 2024 rulings affirmed plausible genocide, yet Israel’s response was to intensify its siege, with Amnesty International documenting over 102 official statements calling for Gaza’s “erasure.” Western states (particularly the US) obligated under Article I to prevent and punish genocide, instead vetoed UN actions targeting Israel at the Security Council, ensuring Israel’s impunity. Albanese’s “Anatomy of a Genocide“ report (March 2024) frames this as a “settler-colonial erasure,” with corporate complicity—such as Microsoft’s AI targeting systems—amplifying the slaughter. The Convention’s Article VIII mandates states to intervene to stop genocide where and when it occurs. The West’s failure to do so, while arming Israel, implicates them under Article III(e). 

The Geneva Conventions, cornerstones of humanitarian law, have also been shredded by Israel for almost 60 years. Common Article 3 mandates humane treatment of occupied peoples in conflicts. Yet Israel’s indiscriminate bombing of civilian targets, and 700 attacks on hospitals, destroying 94% of Gaza’s medical facilities, constitute war crimes under Additional Protocol I. The Fourth Convention’s Article 49 prohibits population transfers (ethnic cleansing), yet 90% of Gazans have been forcibly displaced repeatedly, herded into so-called “safe zones” that Yaakov Garb’s Harvard Dataverse analysis reveals as kill corridors, with “aid” compounds designed to expose civilians to lethal force. Article 33 bans collective punishment, but Gallant’s “complete siege“ declaration, issued on October 9, 2023—cutting off water, electricity and fuel to all of Gaza’s residents—is a textbook violation. Euromed Human Rights Monitor documents dozens of field executions, including six family members in December 2023, alongside systematic targeting of medics and journalists. These acts are not aberrations but official Israeli policy, rooted in a colonial, genocidal mindset to erase Palestinian existence, as noted by B’Tselem’s July 2025 genocide report, which details a “coordinated destruction” now spreading to the West Bank. 

Top Israeli genocide and Holocaust scholars have also issued scathing condemnations, their voices cutting through the state’s weaponization of Jewish suffering. Raz Segal, an Israeli historian at Stockton University, labelled the campaign a “textbook case of genocide” in October 2023, noting how the siege escalated very quickly into annihilation, with rhetoric echoing historical preludes to mass murder. Amos Goldberg, a Hebrew University genocide scholar, came to the conclusion that “this is exactly what genocide looks like.” He called it an “eliminationist assault” that betrays the ethical lessons of Jewish history. Omer Bartov, a Holocaust expert at Brown University, decried Israel’s actions and came to the inescapable conclusion that “Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people.” In public statements he called it a “catastrophic moral failure,” warning in open letters of ethnic cleansing masquerading as defence, urging Jews worldwide to confront this betrayal.

Additionally, nearly 800 scholars, jurists, and practitioners signed an October 2023 letter warning of a “serious risk of genocide,” citing killings, siege, and incitement as violations of the Genocide Convention. By September 2025, 86% of the members of the International Association of Genocide Scholars affirmed that Israel was committing genocide, pointing to more than 50,000 child casualties reported by UNICEF as evidence of systematic intent. Furthermore, over 1,100 jurists endorsed the May 2025 Lawyers’ Letter, demanding states cease complicity under the Convention. Jewish healthcare professionals also added their voices to the condemnation of Israel in their September 2025 letter, citing 64,656 dead, hundreds of attacks on Gaza’s health care facilities, citing “deliberate harm,” and invoking the Hippocratic Oath to condemn silence as ethical failure. These voices expose a state perverting Holocaust memory to justify the annihilation of historic Palestine’s indigenous population, while claiming to be victims of Jew hatred.

The October 7th context further indicts Israel’s moral collapse. Ha’aretz investigations reveal that the Hannibal Directive—a protocol to kill Jews to save them from captivity—resulted in the death of many dozens of Israelis: 13 hostages in Kibbutz Be’eri killed by tank fire, dozens of festival-goers struck by Israeli helicopter attacks, and kibbutz residents caught in crossfire. This reckless disregard for life—prioritizing Israel’s military objectives over human lives—extended to Gaza, where Palestinians have been dehumanized as “human animals,” thereby justifying their mass murder. The Directive’s use underscores a broader Israeli mindset. Life, whether Israeli or 

We also have to acknowledge that the West’s complicity and hypocrisy is a stain on its moral and legal claims of being a defender of international law. In the 1970s and 80s it rightfully sanctioned apartheid South Africa into submission. Yet for decades it has funded Israel’s apartheid regime, despite over 40 ignored UN resolutions and more recently, ICJ rulings. The US vetoing of UN Security Council action against Israel, while nations like Germany, the UK and EU weakly condemn Israel as they continued to ship arms to them while they slaughtered Palestinians, is a clear violation of the Genocide Convention’s Article VIII, which requires states to prevent genocide. The West’s selective enforcement—condemning Russian violations in Ukraine while excusing Israel’s crimes—reveals a hollow commitment to the “rules-based order” it touts, and a deeply embedded anti-Palestinian racism that facilitated genocide.

Two years after October 7, 2023, Israel’s genocide in Gaza remains a festering wound on humanity’s conscience. The West’s inaction—its refusal to leverage its immense diplomatic, economic and military power—betrays the very laws it claims to uphold. An immediate ceasefire, arms embargoes, and the end of Israel’s unlawful occupation are legal imperatives. Without them, history will judge not only Israeli perpetrators of genocide but also American, British and European leaders, and their allies as enablers of this century’s gravest crime. The cry of “never again” rings hollow from Gaza’s rubble strewn streets, where the West’s hypocrisy lies buried alongside an estimated 377,000 Palestinian dead.

© 2025 The View From Here. © 2025 Fareed Khan. All Rights Reserved.