Reflections on Christmas in a fractured world

Empathy, a cornerstone of the Christmas story—where a "king" is born in poverty to uplift the marginalized—has been supplanted by apathy and self-interest. 

By Fareed Khan

A version of this article can be found on Substack.

As the twinkling lights adorn our streets and the carols echo through frost-kissed air, Christmas arrives once more like a gentle snowfall, blanketing the world in promises of peace on Earth and goodwill toward all. In its purest essence, this season commemorates the birth of a child in a humble manger—a symbol of humility, compassion, and the radical idea that love can upend empires and heal divisions. It’s a time when we’re called to pause, to extend kindness to strangers, and to envision a world where swords are beaten into ploughshares.

Yet, in the glow of our holiday hearths, one can’t help but wonder: What does this ancient message truly mean in our hyper-connected, hyper-divided, hyper-capitalist era? Amid the festive cheer, Christmas serves as a stark mirror, reflecting not just our joys but the profound dissonances of the society we’ve built and in which we live.

Consider the irony woven into the fabric of this season. Christmas carols speak of silent nights and holy nights, invoking a tranquility that feels increasingly elusive. For eleven months of the year, the world churns with discord—violent conflicts rage unchecked, political vitriol poisons societal discourse, and empathy seems a scarce commodity. Then, as December dawns, a collective mass amnesia sets in. We exchange pleasantries with people we ignore for most of the year, donate to food banks we forget by February, and preach unity while scrolling past headlines of suffering. If the figure at the heart of Christmas—a teacher who championed the poor, challenged the powerful, and preached forgiveness—were to walk among us today, what verdict might he render on our progress? Would he recognize the “goodwill” in a society where kindness is rationed, confined to Hallmark cards and holiday parties, rather than a year-round ethic?

Those of us who came of age in the latter half of the 20th century remember a different cadence to history. From the early 1970s through the late 1990s, despite the Cold War, regional conflicts, and the shadow of nuclear annihilation hanging like the sword of Damocles over us, there was an undercurrent of optimism. The civil rights movements had borne fruit, environmental awakenings like Earth Day promised stewardship of our planet, and the fall of the Berlin Wall heralded an end to the Cold War as millions behind the “Iron Curtain” experienced freedom and democracy for the first time.

We dreamed of a future where technology bridged gaps and improved lives, the economy lifted all boats, and global cooperation tamed existential threats. But the turn of the millennium brought a seismic shift. The horror of the terrorist attacks in the US on September 11, 2001, didn’t just scar a city skyline, they planted seeds of fear that have blossomed into today’s thorny vines of extremism. What began as a response to terrorism morphed into endless wars, surveillance states, and a resurgence of authoritarian impulses that echo the dark preludes of the 1930s.

Today, that once-unimaginable world stares back at us, unrecognizable and unforgiving. In the United States, the most powerful nation on Earth, democratic institutions—forged through generations of struggle—are besieged and being dismantled by forces that prioritize power and control over democracy and principle, eroding hard-won advances in equality, justice, human rights and environmentalism.

In Canada, we have a leader in Mark Carney elected as a Liberal on progressive promises and a commitment to push back against Donald Trump’s economic and political aggression, governing with a conservatism that blurs ideological lines. Across the aisle from him in Parliament the leader of the Official Opposition—Pierre Poilievre—pines to remake Canada in the mold of America’s most conservative of Republican states, where individual freedoms are suppressed, corporate interests are elevated, and cultural wars are used to advance regressive policies. This isn’t the enlightened era Boomers, Gen Xers, or Millennials envisioned growing up. It’s a landscape where fascism’s spectre looms not as a ghost but as a living threat, fuelled by rising right wing extremism, disinformation, division, and a yearning to make things “great” again.

At the core of this malaise lies a profound inversion of values. Empathy, a cornerstone of the Christmas story—where a “king” is born in poverty to uplift the marginalized—has been supplanted by apathy and self-interest. We inhabit a realm where accountability doesn’t exist for the rich and powerful, where petty offenders languish in prisons while titans of industry evade justice for crimes that span continents and affect millions.

Corporations ravage ecosystems in pursuit of quarterly profits, turning forests into wastelands and oceans into plastic graveyards, all while political leaders dither amid the flames of a climate catastrophe that has gotten worse by the year. The planet warms, droughts, floods and fire storms rage, and thousands of species vanish, yet the response is often a shrug, a denial, or a greenwashed press release. How is it that we have normalized this?

The top ten wealthiest individuals in the world hoard wealth like a dragon hoards gold, and that wealth eclipses the GDP of 147 of the least wealthy nations combined, yet they dodge taxes that could fund schools, hospitals and sustainable futures and eradicate poverty. The rest of us foot the bill, watching as inequality grows and festers like a gaping wound, and wonder how the obscenity of a single man having more wealth than could be enjoyed in a hundred lifetimes is allowed to exist.

Worse still is the moral contortion evident in global affairs. On our screens, we witness atrocities unfold in real time—a genocide that echoes the horrors of World War Two, with civilians caught in crossfires of indifference. In Gaza, for more than 800 days, Palestinians have faced horrors that we thought had been left behind in World War Two, with people being slaughtered daily, even during the season of peace and goodwill for three consecutive years, while those with the leverage to intervene opt for silence, political platitudes or complicity. Truth-tellers who decry environmental ruin, economic exploitation, or systemic oppression are marginalized, censored, or worse, by elites who guard their wealth and power. This is a world turned upside down, where humanity’s better angels are drowned out by the clamour of greed and grievance.

We scroll through a daily deluge of ugliness—poverty amid plenty, division amid diversity—and yet, where are the mass mobilizations of people to storm the political barricades? Why aren’t people flooding the streets, demanding a reckoning with these injustices? The future we once hoped for has curdled like sour milk into a dystopia, and we should grieve for the children inheriting this legacy—a planet scarred by our shortsightedness, societies slowly fracturing from our failures.

Yet even in this bleak tableau Christmas whispers a counter-narrative, one that refuses to surrender to despair. The season’s enduring message isn’t mere nostalgia, it’s a clarion call to reclaim what we’ve lost. Peace on Earth isn’t a passive wish—it’s an active pursuit, demanding we extend goodwill beyond December’s borders. Imagine if we harnessed the fleeting kindness of the holidays as a catalyst for lasting change. What if the energy we muster for Christmas family gatherings was extended year-round to the homeless in our streets, the single parent working two jobs to just get by, or the generosity of gift-giving fuelled campaigns against inequality?

History teaches us that progress isn’t linear, it’s forged in moments of collective awakening. The same generations that marched for civil rights and environmental protections can inspire today’s youth to rise against fascism’s tide, to hold leaders accountable for catering to corporate elites, and to innovate solutions for a warming world.

In the manger’s shadow, there’s hope in humility—the recognition that no empire is eternal, no injustice invincible. We’ve seen glimmers in grassroots movements amplifying voices against genocide, youth-led strikes demanding climate action, and communities bridging divides through dialogue. The rich might hoard wealth but they can’t monopolize compassion or activism.

As we “deck the halls” this year, let Christmas be more than ritual, let it be revolution. By embodying its spirit daily throughout the year—choosing empathy over enmity, accountability over apathy—we can weave a new tapestry for tomorrow. The world may seem uglier now, but in the quiet miracle of a single act of kindness lies the seed of redemption. This season, we should do more than celebrate the light, we should become it. Let’s illuminate a path toward the peace we’ve long desired but most of us have seldom pursued. In that pursuit, perhaps we’ll find the just and peaceful world we always imagined—not perfect, but progressing, one hopeful step at a time.

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

Christmas in Gaza doesn’t mean peace or goodwill, only genocide with Canadian complicity

Refusal of Canada's leaders to condemn Israel, or aggressively prosecute Canadians for genocide, betrays the very essence of Christian ethics—love thy neighbour, defend the oppressed.

By Fareed Khan

A version of this article can be found on Substack.

As Canadian families, including our political leaders, gather around festively decorated trees to celebrate the Christmas season with their children and grandchildren, exchanging gifts and sharing meals in warmth and security, a profound and tragic disparity unfolds half a world away in the Holy Land. In Gaza, a mere 75 kilometres from Bethlehem—the birthplace of Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace—there is no semblance of holiday joy, no “peace on earth, goodwill toward men.” Instead, the historic Christian communities of Gaza teeter on the brink of extinction, ravaged by Israel’s ongoing genocide against Palestinians. Imagine the anguish of families huddled in bombed-out churches, their prayers drowned out by the whine of Israel drones and the thunder of artillery near the very sites where Christ once walked, turned into testaments of despair. 

For Palestinian Christians in Gaza and the West Bank, the Christmas season doesn’t bring celebration, but a soul-crushing despair, as relentless violence, displacement, and deprivation strip away any reason to rejoice, leaving behind only echoes of shattered lives and a faith under assault. This Christmas, like the two before it since October 2023, serves as a grim reminder that the message of hope embodied in Christ’s birth has been utterly eclipsed by unimaginable human cruelty in the very land where it originated.  

The suffering in Gaza is not abstract, it is a visceral, heart-wrenching nightmare that pierces the soul. Palestinian children and their families endure repeated bombings, sniper attacks, weaponized starvation through deliberate blockades of humanitarian aid, lack of sanitation, and inadequate shelter—all orchestrated by the Israeli government. Picture innocent toddlers, their tiny emaciated bodies shivering in the cold December temperatures, eyes wide with terror as explosions light up the night sky, their cries blending with the wails of grieving mothers. This has persisted for over 26 months, turning what should be a time of reflection and renewal into an endless cycle of agony. As we approach Christmas 2025, the supposed ceasefire declared on October 10 has proven illusory, violated by Israel more than 730 times through airstrikes, artillery shelling, sniper fire, and demolitions.

These breaches have claimed at least 394 Palestinian lives and injured 1,075 others, predominantly women and children, according to the Gaza media office. United Nations experts have documented at least 393 violations by late November, resulting in 339 deaths, including more than 70 children. Beyond the direct violence, Israel has systematically obstructed humanitarian aid, defying the ceasefire’s provisions and exacerbating misery through hunger, disease, and exposure to the elements—acts that scream of deliberate cruelty, designed to break the spirit of an entire people.

This calculated inhumanity was exacerbated in early December when Storm Byron battered Gaza, killing at least 14 people, including vulnerable children who succumbed to hypothermia and flooding amid inadequate shelter. Among the heartbreaking victims were eight-month-old Rahaf Abujazar, whose family tent flooded in Khan Younis; 33-day old infant Taim al-Khawaja in Shati camp; and a two-week-old Muhammed Abu Al-Khair who perished after heavy rains inundated his family’s makeshift home. How can one not weep at the thought of a newborn, barely entered into the world, freezing to death because blankets and tents are banned? Israel’s prohibition of essential winter items like tents, blankets, and building materials has weaponized the winter cold against Gaza’s population, who have already endured more than 800 days of genocide. United Nations officials report that Israel has rejected over 100 aid coordination requests since October, allowing fewer than 200 aid trucks daily—well below the agreed minimum of 600. This is not mere negligence. It is a deliberate strategy to increase suffering, to make every moment a struggle, every day a testament to survival against overwhelming odds.

The toll of this genocide is staggering, a mountain of grief that defies comprehension. Euromed Human Rights Monitor, the only independent organization still providing casualty figures for Gaza, places the death toll at over 75,000 Palestinians since October 2023, but experts suggest the true number is far higher when accounting for indirect deaths from starvation, disease, and lack of medical care. Professor Yaakov Garb of Ben Gurion University estimates the total dead could exceed 377,000, including those “disappeared” and presumed dead. Australian academics Richard Hil and Gideon Polya, in their detailed study, push the figure even higher, to over 680,000 dead, factoring in excess mortality from imposed deprivation.

These are not just statistics. They represent shattered families and destroyed hopes and dreams. They represent mothers burying their children, fathers carrying lifeless bodies through rubble, and orphans wandering aimlessly in a landscape of destruction. In Gaza, the ancient Christian community, once a vibrant part of Palestinian life, has been decimated, with churches gutted, congregants displaced or killed, and their presence all but erased by Israel’s policies of ethnic cleansing and apartheid. The survivors, fewer than 500 now from an already dwindling population, cling to their faith amid ruins, their Christmas hymns choked by sobs of loss.

Meanwhile, in the West Bank, Palestinian Christians face an escalating deluge of terror that threatens to wash away 2000 years of heritage. Land seizures, settler violence, and restrictions on movement prevent pilgrimages to sacred sites like Bethlehem, turning the journey to the Church of the Nativity—where tradition holds Christ was born—into a gauntlet of humiliation and danger. Since October 2023, Jewish settler attacks have surged to unprecedented levels, with over 150 incidents documented during the 2025 olive harvest season alone, the highest in recent years. Extremist Israeli settlers, often armed and emboldened by government inaction and backed by the Israeli military have torched olive groves, vandalized homes, and assaulted villagers with impunity, displacing entire communities and instilling a pervasive fear that chokes daily life.

In July 2025, a wave of violence reached the Christian village of Taybeh, where settlers attacked residents, destroying property and leaving families traumatized, their sense of security shattered like broken shattered glass. Just recently, a new settlement near Bethlehem was announced, further encroaching on Christian lands and accelerating the erosion of Palestinian presence in the area. As one Palestinian mayor noted, these actions exploit global distractions to hasten annexation, while UN reports highlight more frequent home demolitions, property seizures, and arrests of innocent Palestinians that compound the suffering. For Palestinian Christians, Christmas is not a time of peace but a painful vigil, their churches standing as fragile bastions pushing back against a tide of Zionist hate, their prayers laced with pleas for survival in a land governed by an ideology hostile to their existence.

Yet, as Canadian leaders like Prime Minister Mark Carney bask in the glow of holiday lights with their loved ones, they appear to give scant thought to this misery. They will sing carols of “Joy to the world” while ignoring the cries of Palestinian children buried under rubble or starving in tents. One has to ask how their hearts remain unmoved by such profound human tragedy? This wilful blindness is particularly galling for those who profess the Christian faith, including Carney himself, who has positioned himself as a leader guided by ethical principles. But what of the Sunday School lessons on Christ’s teachings? The Sermon on the Mount, with its calls to bless the peacemakers, the merciful, and the persecuted? The parable of the Good Samaritan, urging compassion across divides? These seem forgotten in the corridors of power in Ottawa and across the country, replaced by political expediency that betrays the core of faith and supports an evil unseen since the Holocaust.

Since October 2023, Canadian politicians have steadfastly supported Israel, refusing to unequivocally condemn its apartheid regime or the genocide commenced in the fall of 2023. Since then Canada has continued arms transfers, maintained diplomatic ties, and upheld economic relations without imposing any meaningful sanctions. This stance renders Canada complicit in violations of the “rules-based international order” that our leaders so often invoke. As a signatory to the Genocide Convention and supporter of UN resolutions, Canada is legally obligated to prevent and punish such atrocities. Instead, under both former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and now Carney, the government has dragged its feet, offering political platitudes while allowing military exports to flow, including through loopholes that route weapons via the US. This is not Christian mercy; it is moral abdication, a stain on the nation’s soul.

In fact, the behaviour of these “Christian” leaders mirrors the complicity of German Christians who stood silent during the Nazi genocide against Jews and others. Just as ordinary citizens and officials in 1930s and 1940s Germany claimed ignorance or powerlessness while trains carried victims to death camps, Canadian politicians today avert their eyes from Gaza’s horrors. They rightly condemn antisemitism but fail to recognize the parallels between the Nazi genocide and Israel’s systematic extermination of Palestinians. History will judge those who enabled genocide through inaction, and future generations will view Carney, Trudeau, the Liberal Party and the Pierre Poilievre Conservatives as enablers of unspeakable evil. Their refusal to unequivocally condemn Israel, impose a two-way arms embargo, apply sanctions akin to those on apartheid South Africa, or aggressively prosecute Israeli leaders for genocide, betrays the very essence of Christian ethics—love thy neighbour, defend the oppressed.

This lack of a moral compass extends to domestic enablers. Canadian supporters of Israel, including domestic Zionist organizations who claim to speak for all Jews, which through words and actions, have committed hate crimes by endorsing genocide, yet face no repercussions. Leaders like Carney have failed to decisively act against such incitement, allowing it to fester under the guise of free speech. Meanwhile, humanitarian groups in Canada—Doctors for Humanity, Humanity Auxilium, Independent Jewish Voices, Justice for All Canada to name a few—have lobbied Parliamentarians, held media conferences and issued scores of media statements urging Canada to comply with its obligations under international law. They have called for enforcing the Genocide Convention and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, halting arms sales, divesting public funds from Israeli-linked companies, arresting Canadian citizens who joined Israel’s military during the genocide, and advocating for UN-led humanitarian corridors. The calls to action by these organizations, grounded in morality and law, go unheeded, drowned out by the silence of power.

As a nation that claims to be a defender of human rights, Canada must confront its hypocrisy as Christmas looms. While families here unwrap presents, Palestinians in the Holy Land unwrap nothing but grief, their dreams crushed under the weight of occupation and the inhumanity of genocide. In committing its atrocities Israel has also silenced truth-tellers by killing over 270 Palestinian journalists since 2023 (more than all the major wars since World War One combined), and blocking Western media from entering Gaza to tell the truth untainted by Israeli propaganda. This censorship nsures the world sees only sanitized versions of the horror, further enabling complicity and allowing the cycle of suffering to continue unchecked.

In this season of supposed peace and goodwill, Canadian leaders must rediscover their moral bearings, or risk being remembered as those who turned away from the light. Anything less dishonours Christ’s birth and perpetuates injustice. Peace and goodwill demand action by ending complicity, imposing broad sanctions, and standing in defence of basic humanity. Only then can the Holy Land—and the world—glimpse true joy, healing the wounds of a people crying out for mercy.

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

The price paid for Western enabled Zionist supremacy in historic Palestine is a region denied peace and stability

Zionist ethno-religious supremacy results in a region denied peace, fuelling a cycle of violence that undermines global security, breeds extremism, and erodes the principals of justice and human rights.

 

By Fareed Khan

A version of this article can be found on Substack.

In societies across the West, where Jewish individuals have been fully integrated—rising to elected office, leading major corporations, and contributing profoundly to cultural and intellectual life—a stark contradiction persists. These same open democracies, which have repeatedly demonstrated that Jewish citizens thrive without need for ethnic exclusivity, often extend unwavering support to a system abroad that enforces precisely such exclusivity.

 

Zionism is the ideology that has driven this system for generations. It has transformed the Middle-East into a perpetual flash point of conflict, fuelling tensions that exacerbate divisions far beyond the region. In the absence of this ideology and the apartheid state—Israel—founded on this racist, ethno-supremacist ideology, the Middle East could have evolved toward shared prosperity, with historic Muslim, Jewish, and Christian communities coexisting as they did for centuries prior to the imposition of a state defined by racism, ethnic exclusion, demographic engineering and territorial expansion.

If we are being honest with ourselves then we have to acknowledge that the state of Israel is not a legitimate democracy defending itself from external enemies but rather a settler-colonial project sustained by a regime of state terrorism and an incremental genocide, enabled by the United States and its allies and shielded by a sophisticated propaganda apparatus. This is not a specious argument, but a documented history, with legal precedent, and political analysis demonstrating that Israel is an apartheid state.

From the 1948 Nakba, which involved the systematic expulsion of over 750,000 Palestinians and the destruction of hundreds of villages, to the ongoing brutal occupation of Palestinian territories, the pattern involves land confiscation, illegal Jewish settlement expansion, and the maintenance of Jewish supremacy through legal and military means. In Gaza, this has escalated into an overt genocidal campaign since October 2023, characterized by relentless aerial bombardment of densely populated areas, the deliberate targeting of hospitals, schools, shelters, and entire neighborhoods, the imposition of a total siege blocking food, water, medicine, and fuel, and the destruction of 90% of civilian infrastructure, while ethnically cleansing Palestinians into shrinking “safe zones” in Gaza that are subsequently attacked.

These actions extend far beyond any plausible claim of “self-defence”, revealing a calculated effort to dismantle Palestinian society. Israeli forces have repeatedly struck designated evacuation routes, humanitarian convoys, and medical facilities, including multiple assaults on health care facilities resulting in the complete dismantling of Gaza’s healthcare system, resulting in no operational hospitals capable of treating the wounded amid outbreaks of disease and trauma. 

Starvation has been systematically employed as a method of warfare, with aid deliveries deliberately obstructed, agricultural lands bulldozed, fishing restricted, and water infrastructure destroyed, leading to acute malnutrition—particularly among children—and thousands of preventable deaths from disease. The explicit statements from Israeli officials about wiping out Gaza’s population or rendering it uninhabitable, combined with the scale of destruction and deprivation, align directly with the international legal definition of genocide—acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. The International Court of Justice has been focused of this matter since South Africa filed its genocide case against Israel in December 2023, with ongoing proceedings examining plausible evidence of genocidal intent and acts, reinforced by findings from UN commissions and human rights organizations Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Israeli group B’Tselem. 

Death toll figures reveal the true magnitude of this ongoing catastrophe, far surpassing official counts that rely solely on recovered bodies. Independent analyses indicate far higher casualties than often reported in mainstream accounts. A data-driven study by Ben Gurion University professor Yaakov Garb, published via Harvard Dataverse, estimates that between 377,000 and 400,000 Palestinians are unaccounted for and presumed dead, with nearly half believed to be children. This suggests a death toll substantially exceeding official counts, which ignore deaths resulting from anything other than direct Israeli violence. Similarly, research by Australian academics Richard Hil and Gideon Polya, factoring in both direct violence and imposed deprivation such as famine and disease, projects totals reaching hundreds of thousands, with estimates up to 680,000 Palestinian dead by mid-2025 when accounting for the full demographic impact. As of December 2025, Gaza’s health authorities report over 70,000 direct deaths, predominantly women and children, but these figures exclude the vast indirect toll from collapsed services and ongoing deprivations. These numbers reflect not isolated incidents but a sustained assault that has erased entire family lineages, killed or maimed tens of thousands of children, and inflicted generational trauma on survivors, while winter conditions and flooding exacerbate vulnerabilities in makeshift shelters. 

Western nations, positioning themselves as steadfast guardians of the “international rule of law,” exhibit profound inconsistency in addressing these violations. In 2011, these powers authorized a robust military intervention in Libya, deploying airstrikes and enforcing a no-fly zone under UN auspices to protect civilians from threatened mass atrocities during a civil uprising. By contrast, in the face of overwhelming evidence of mass civilian casualties in Gaza, engineered famine, and widespread destruction of civilian infrastructure in Gaza, responses remain limited to verbal condemnations, with arms supplies continuing unabated and vetoes by the US blocking meaningful UN action. This selective enforcement fosters a clear indication of Western support for Israeli impunity, where a disproportionate military response, collective punishment, and attacks on protected sites proceed without substantive repercussions, even as international bodies affirm the genocidal nature of the campaign. 

Such exceptionalism reinforces a conviction among Israeli leaders that violence against Palestinians can always be cloaked in self-defence rhetoric, regardless of their impact on civilian lives. In the West Bank, punitive home demolitions, administrative detentions without charge, and unchecked Jewish settler violence persist alongside settlement growth, entrenching dual legal systems that afford Jewish settlers full rights while subjecting Palestinians to military courts and restricted freedoms. Checkpoints, barriers, and permit regimes fragment Palestinian communities, stifling economic life and daily movement in what has become one of the most prolonged and brutal occupations in contemporary history, compounding the humanitarian crisis across the Palestinian territories. 

Notably, numerous Jewish leaders who have attained prominence in Western pluralistic societies—serving in parliaments, heading major corporations, and leading major academic institutions like Harvard—frequently lend support to and justify Israel’s racist regime. Their achievements in environments valuing equality and diversity illustrate that communal security need not depend on ethnic supremacy elsewhere, yet this recognition seldom informs calls for consistent application of human rights principles across borders. Harnessing such influence toward advocacy for dismantling exclusionary mechanisms could significantly hasten progress toward justice and reconciliation.

The entrenched nature of Israel’s occupation, now spanning six decades, has normalized the suffering and hardship of Palestinians, diverted resources from social development to militarization and perpetuated resentment that feeds broader regional instability. Without the commitment to Jewish ethno-religious primacy through ethnic cleansing, land theft and occupation by Israel, viable alternatives like confederated arrangements or a one state solution with equality for all might have taken hold long ago, averting immense loss and fostering mutual respect and growth amid shared historical ties.

The price paid for Zionist ethno-religious supremacy in historic Palestine, enabled by unwavering Western political, military and economic support, is a region denied peace and stability, fuelling a cycle of violence that undermines global security, breeds extremism, and erodes the very principals of justice and human rights that Western societies claim to uphold. Additionally, from the standpoint of Western societies that have embraced Jewish participation without qualification, the path towards peace and stability in historic Palestine demands unwavering commitment to universal standards. Ending complicity—through arms embargoes, broad economic sanctions, and, where necessary, military interventions to protect the innocent parallel to historical precedents—would ensure that no state stands above legal accountability for its criminal actions.  

Palestinians, enduring dispossession and oppression since the Nakba are now confronting the existential threat of genocide as Israel continues to slaughter people barely surviving in Gaza despite a ceasefire. They merit the same safeguards to live in peace and dignity extended to others. Enforcing a single standard of law would alleviate the current suffering, deter future atrocities, and cultivate enduring stability, liberating the Middle-East from cycles of violence rooted in Jewish supremacy while honouring the inclusive values that have enriched Western democracies through contributions by people of all faiths and ethnicities.

The price paid for Zionist supremacy in historic Palestine, enabled by unwavering Western support, is a region denied peace and stability for decades in a cycle of violence that undermines global security, breeds extremism, and erodes the very principles of justice and human rights that Western societies claim to value. 

From the standpoint of Western societies that have embraced Jewish participation without qualification, the path forward demands unwavering commitment to universal justice. We must end complicity in Israeli crimes through arms embargoes, broad sanctions, and, where necessary, military interventions parallel to historical precedents that would affirm that no state stands above accountability. The cost of continued inaction is not merely the ongoing suffering of the Palestinian people but a world increasingly fractured by hypocrisy and double standards that make it a more dangerous place, and crushes the hope and dreams of millions of innocent people.

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

800 days of genocide in Gaza and little action by “moral” Western nations to stop the slaughter

The West's apathy towards Palestinians today mirrors the 1930s treatment of Jewish refugees on the MS St. Louis fleeing Nazis in 1939, who were denied entry by Cuba, the US, and Canada. 

By Fareed Khan

A version of this article can be found on Substack.

Today, December 16, 2025, the world marks a sombre milestone—800 days since Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza began on October 8, 2023. What was initially framed as a defensive response to the October 7th Hamas attack has morphed into a relentless campaign of death, destruction, and displacement, that international legal experts, Holocaust scholars, human rights organizations, and the United Nations have described as the crime of genocide. And despite a tenuous ceasefire established in early October 2025, daily violations by Israel continue, and the humanitarian catastrophe persists unabated. Palestinians in Gaza, trapped in what was already the world’s largest concentration camp, now face existential annihilation, their plight met with global indifference that underscores their status as the most persecuted minority in the world today.

The evidence of this systematic persecution lies not only in the staggering loss of life but in the West’s deliberate refusal to intervene and its aggressive efforts to muzzle voices condemning Israel’s actions. Western governments—the so-called defenders if the “international rule of law’—including the United States, Canada, and European nations, have provided billions in military aid to Israel while offering Palestinians mere platitudes and minimal humanitarian support. This double standard, coupled with systematic suppression of pro-Palestinian activism, reveals a profound anti-Palestinian bias embedded in Western policies, governments, and institutions.

Consider the words of former US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on November 10, 2023: “Far too many Palestinians have been killed.” At that point, mere weeks into the conflict, the death toll was already deemed excessive. Now, over two years later, the death toll as reported by Euromed Human Rights Monitor, one of the only international organizations able to verify Palestinian casualty figures, places direct deaths at over 75,300, with more than 173,800 wounded. These numbers, however, are widely acknowledged as underestimates due to the total collapse of Gaza’s civil infrastructure—hospitals bombed, morgues overwhelmed, and bodies buried under rubble without identification.

Independent analyses of Palestinian casualties paint an even grimmer picture. A study by Ben-Gurion University professor Yaakov Garb, utilizing Israeli military data and published by Harvard Dataverse in June 2025, estimates that between 377,000 and 400,000 Palestinians are unaccounted for, presumed dead or buried under Gaza’s rubble. This figure aligns with reports of mass graves and unrecovered bodies under destroyed buildings. Even more alarming is the epidemiological assessment by Australian scholars Gideon Polya and Richard Hil, who, in their July 2025 report “Skewering History: The Odious Politics of Counting Gaza’s Dead,” project a total death toll exceeding 680,000 by mid-2025 when including indirect deaths from starvation, disease, and deprivation. This estimate, which factors in a ratio of four indirect deaths per direct violent one by Israel, draws from precedents in conflicts like Iraq and Afghanistan, and has been referenced by UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese. In a September 2025 briefing, Albanese suggested that if verified, this could mean 380,000 deaths among children under five alone, describing the situation as “apocalyptic” and a “collective crime.”

These figures represent an average of hundreds of deaths per day over 800 days, even during the nominal ceasefire. Over 30% of identified victims are children and 20% women, a disproportionate toll that far exceeds civilian casualties on the Israeli side during the October 7 attack—where the reported 1,200 deaths include military personnel and those killed by Israeli troops under its controversial Hannibal Directive, which prioritizes preventing capture over saving lives. The deaths of Palestinian children, potentially in the hundreds of thousands under broader estimates, have become the emblem of this horror, with images of lifeless bodies in the rubble fuelling global outrage. Yet, this outrage is met with inaction, implying to many that there exists an “acceptable” threshold of Palestinian suffering—a perverse calculus that echoes the dehumanization seen in the actions of Nazis towards Europe’s Jews.

If Blinken’s early assessment was “far too many,” what phrase captures the current reality? The scale rivals the Holocaust in the systematic nature of Israel’s brutality, though differing in the number of dead. Palestinians today are the most persecuted people globally, their oppression evidenced by the West’s complicity. Unlike Ukraine, where Western nations swiftly provided over $330 billion in military, economic, and humanitarian aid, allowing Ukrainians to defend themselves, Palestinians—lacking an army, navy, or air force—receive paltry levels of aid and no military assistance by comparison. The US alone has funnelled at least $21.7 billion in military aid to Israel since October 2023, including $4 billion expedited in March 2025, while aid to Gaza is restricted or blocked by Israel, exacerbating famine and disease. This disparity highlights a racialized hierarchy of victimhood, where brown and Muslim lives (Palestinians) are deemed expendable, while white and Christian lives (Ukrainians) are worth saving.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has repeatedly intervened, issuing provisional measures in January 2024 and beyond, ordering Israel to prevent genocide, ensure humanitarian access, and halt incitement. In an October 2025 advisory opinion, the ICJ declared Israel’s occupation unlawful and called for its end, noting plausible risks of genocide in Gaza. Yet, Western powers, including the US with its veto power at the UN Security Council, have shielded Israel from enforcement, allowing violations to continue unchecked.

This inaction is compounded by active suppression of dissent. Western governments have waged a sustained assault on pro-Palestinian voices, using smear campaigns, legal restrictions, and police to silence criticism. In the US, legislation equates anti-Zionism with antisemitism, leading to job losses, doxxing, and investigations of activists. Universities have fired professors and disbanded student groups for Gaza solidarity. In Europe, Germany has banned pro-Palestine conferences, like the April 2025 Palestine Congress in Berlin, ruled unlawful by courts but emblematic of broader crackdowns. France and the UK have imposed disproportionate restrictions on protests, weaponizing terrorism laws against anti-genocide demonstrators.

A 2025 report by the International Federation for Human Rights documented this trend, warning that such actions erode democratic freedoms and violate fundamental rights. Social media platforms, have also censored Palestine-related content, banning accounts and removing posts. This orchestrated silencing ensures that Israeli narratives are given priority while those calling for justice for Palestinians are marginalized, and narratives that call out Israeli war crimes are suppressed.

There are historic parallels that amplify the tragedy. The West’s apathy towards Palestinians today mirrors the 1930s treatment of Jewish refugees. The MS St. Louis, carrying nearly 1,000 Jews fleeing Nazis in 1939, was denied entry by Cuba, the US, and Canada, leading to over 250 of them being killed during Holocaust. Canada’s infamous “none is too many” policy epitomized this racism. Today, Palestinians face similar abandonment with refugees denied asylum, aid convoys bombed, and pleas for intervention ignored.

In Canada, this moral failure is acute. Despite acknowledging its genocidal history against Indigenous peoples—residential schools, forced assimilation, and land theft—the political establishment repeats the pattern with the Indigenous people of historic Palestine. Governments under Justin Trudeau and now Mark Carney have prioritized ties with Israel, ignoring the designation of the nation as an Apartheid state by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch years before the start of the Gaza genocide. Weekly protests in major cities across Canada, which have drawn tens of thousands, demanding sanctions and justice, have been systematically ignored. An August 2025 Angus Reid poll revealed 52% of Canadians believe Israel is committing genocide, with 61% agreeing aid is deliberately blocked—a sharp rise from prior surveys. Yet, leaders dismiss these voices, complicit in what has been labelled “the most transparent genocide in human history.”

The commitment of ordinary Canadians and global citizens is unwavering. Over two years, millions have marched worldwide, horrified by Gaza’s transformation into a post-apocalyptic wasteland, with more than 90% of infrastructure destroyed, farmland poisoned, water contaminated. Daily life is a struggle against starvation, with children scavenging amid rubble. This has galvanized a new wave of activism, including hunger strikes and boycotts, bridging divides and sustaining resistance.

Canadian politicians—Mark Carney, Justin Trudeau, Pierre Poilievre, Mélanie Joly, Anita Anand, and others—must heed history’s judgment. Unless aggressive action is taken to intervene and halt Israel’s action, their legacy will be one of criminal complicity in genocide, war crimes, and the oppression of a people brutalized for over 75 years. The blood of innocents stains their hands, and Canadians will not forget this moral crisis. Until the West enforces accountability, lifts the blockade, and amplifies suppressed voices, Palestinians remain the world’s most abandoned minority. The 800 days of transparent genocide demand not just words, but transformative action demonstrating that being Palestinian is not a crime.

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

From Bondi Beach to our streets, we must all rise against the poison of hate

In the shadow of a religious celebration undone by racist gunfire, let us resolve to speak fiercely, act boldly, and love without borders. 

 

By Fareed Khan

A version of this article can be found on Substack.

 

As the sun hung low on the horizon over Sydney, Australia’s iconic Bondi Beach on December 14, 2025—the first night of Hanukkah—joyous families and friends gathered for a public celebration of light, resilience, and Jewish heritage. Laughter mingled with the crackle of menorah flames, as the salty ocean breeze carried a symbol of hope, of light pushing back the darkness. Then, in an instant, the unthinkable shattered the moment. Two gunmen opened fire on the crowd, turning an occasion of unity into a scene of unimaginable horror. As the hours passed the death toll had climbed to 15, including one of the attackers, with 40 more wounded, and a community forever scarred.

This was no random act of violence. Australian authorities swiftly declared it a terrorist attack explicitly targeting the Jewish community, a brazen assault on people simply for being who they are. The images emerging from Bondi are gut-wrenching--bloodied sidewalks where families once strolled, survivors clutching each other as first responders arrived to help those injured and count the dead. As more details pour in the weight of this tragedy presses upon us all. It’s a stark reminder that hate doesn’t lurk in shadows, it marches boldly into our public spaces, emboldened by those who amplify its venom.

This atrocity didn’t erupt in isolation. Hate festers in fertile soil cultivated by demagogues with megaphones—politicians who stoke division for votes, influencers who peddle conspiracy theories for clicks, and tech titans who prioritize profits over people. Platforms once hailed as connectors now serve as echo chambers for extremism, where algorithms reward outrage and shield the architects of division. In Australia, as elsewhere, we’ve watched anti-Jewish hate surge, often linked with geopolitical flash points, but rooted in ancient prejudices. The gunmen, likely radicalized online, didn’t act alone. They were enabled by a digital ecosystem that normalizes the dehumanization of Jews, Muslims, and anyone deemed “other.”

We need only look at places like Canada, the US and New Zealand to see the pattern repeat with devastating familiarity. On January 29, 2017, a white supremacist stormed the Islamic Cultural Centre in Quebec City, gunning down six Muslim worshippers in prayer, injuring 19 more in a hail of bullets fuelled by hate. On October 27, 2018 a man attacked the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh during Shabbat morning services, killing 11 and wounding six. On March 15, 2019 a white supremacist gunman walked into two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand spraying the worshippers with gunfire killing 51 Muslim worshippers and injuring another 40. And in June 2021, in the quiet streets of London, Ontario, a white supremacist plowed his truck into the Afzaal family who were out for a walk, killing four representing three generations and leaving a nine-year-old orphaned.

These weren’t isolated incidents. They were symptoms of a rising tide of hate, where extremists find validation in unchecked online vitriol and political dog-whistling. We reflexively call such violence “senseless,” a word that absolves us of deeper scrutiny. But to the perpetrators and their enablers, it makes perfect sense. For them, it’s a twisted fulfillment of ideologies that paint entire communities as threats—Jews as puppet-masters, Muslims as invaders. These prophets of poison sow seeds in forums, feeds, and rallies, watching them bloom into real-world carnage. And too often, our leaders respond with platitudes—”thoughts and prayers,” task forces producing recommendations in reports that gather dust, funding for security that feels like a band-aid on a gaping wound.

Meanwhile, tech billionaires, those self-anointed visionaries, tweak algorithms not to curb hate but to keep users scrolling, turning outrage into revenue. They are joined by right wing political figures, chasing populist applause, flirting with conspiracies that embolden the fringes. The result? No corner of our world—no beach side festival, no house of worship, no quiet neighbourhood walk—is safe from the creeping cancer of hate.

Make no mistake, the massacre at Bondi Beach transcends borders and politics. Regardless of one’s stance on Israel, Zionism, or the genocide in Gaza, the victims were targeted for their Jewishness alone—lighting candles, sharing stories, embracing life. It’s no different from the carnage unleashed in Pittsburgh in 2018 or what happened in Christchurch in 2019. These were people gunned down for their faith. Hate unites against minority communities, whether on a beach in Sydney or a London, Ontario suburb.

We’ve seen parallel horrors in anti-Palestinian attacks in the West Bank, attacks against Muslims in North America and Europe, anti-Jewish attacks in the US and France. Each echoes the same refrain—sowing division and hate begets carnage.

Yet herein lies our power—and our peril. If hate thrives on silence, it crumbles under a collective roar. Therefore, it is incumbent on each of us, as individuals and communities, to dismantle this poisonous machinery before it claims more lives. As individuals we can start small but we must start now. We must call out the casual racism we witness in our lives, and in our social media feeds. We must amplify those voices that speak out against hate of any sort, and demand accountability from social media platforms that do nothing to shut down hate speech. We must urge leaders to fund not just security but public education, and promote empathy-building programs that inoculate youth against extremism.

As communities, we must weave safety nets of solidarity through cultural sensitivity training, and schools that teach media literacy alongside math, workplaces that enforce zero-tolerance for prejudice. Governments can’t legislate hearts, but we as individuals and communities can model change—voting for politicians and parties that commit to investing in immigrant integration, promoting digital ethics, and investing in public education programs that show the benefits of diversity. And let’s reject the false comfort of “it can’t happen here,” because it already has, from Bondi to Christchurch to Pittsburgh to Quebec City, and it will again unless we act.

What happens next is dependent on how we respond. Silence is complicity, inaction is an invitation to more horrific events like Bondi Beach and Christchurch. In the shadow of a religious celebration undone by racist gunfire, let us resolve to speak fiercely, act boldly, and love without borders. For in unity, we don’t just mourn the lost—we honor them by ensuring their light continues to shine. The prophets of hate may howl, but our chorus of compassion will drown them out because there are more of us. The time to act is now. The duty to act is ours. So what are we waiting for?

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

On Human Rights Day let’s reflect on Canada’s complicity in the Gaza Genocide

Under both the Justin Trudeau and Mark Carney governments, Canada has authorized the sale of weapons components to Israel, directly fuelling Israel's genocidal death machine. 

By Fareed Khan

A version of this article can be found on Substack.

This article can also be found on Rabble.ca.

As the world commemorates International Human Rights Day on December 10th, we pause to reflect on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Genocide Convention, both adopted in 1948 by the United Nations. In addition, December 9th was the International Day to Commemorate Victims of Genocide, a solemn reminder of humanity's pledge to prevent such horrors from recurring. These days were meant to symbolize our collective commitment to dignity, justice, and the sanctity of life. Yet, in 2025, Canada's adherence to these ideals feels like a cruel farce.

For more than two years, Israel's brutal and devastating campaign in Gaza—widely described as genocide by experts, the UN, the International Court of Justice, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch—has exposed the hollow core of Western nations' self-proclaimed role as guardians of human rights. Canada, once a beacon of rule-of-law and moral leadership, stands accused of criminal complicity in the systematic destruction of Palestinian lives. 

The scale of the atrocities in Gaza defies comprehension. According to the Geneva-based NGO Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, by early November 2025, over 75,000 Palestinians had been killed, with 30% of them children, and more than 173,200 wounded. These numbers, staggering as they are, may understate the true Palestinian death toll. An analysis by Australian scholars Gideon Polya and Richard Hil, published in the summer of 2025, estimates over 680,000 Palestinian deaths from Israeli violence, starvation, and disease—a figure echoed by UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese. These are not mere statistics. They represent shattered families, obliterated communities, and futures erased. Since the fall of 2023, Canada has enabled this carnage through inaction and active support, betraying the very principles it claims to uphold.

What makes this even more chilling is the apparent societal endorsement within Israel. A June 2025 poll by Ha'aretz revealed that 82% of Jewish Israelis support the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, while 47% back the mass murder of all Palestinians, including children. This echoes the dehumanizing rhetoric of the Nazis toward Jews during the Holocaust, perverting "Never Again" into a selective shield that protects Jews while condemning Palestinians to annihilation. It's not just Israel's political and military elites perpetrating these crimes, nearly half of its Jewish population appears to endorse genocidal ideologies and acts.

Where is Canada's outrage? Our government's silence on this genocidal racism is deafening, especially when contrasted with its swift condemnation of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. This double standard reeks of the same white supremacist and racist logic that fueled Canada's own historical genocide against Indigenous peoples. Today, that racism manifests as anti-Palestinian hatred, permeating our government, academia, corporations, and mainstream news media.

Canada's refusal to label Israel's actions as genocide, despite overwhelming evidence, further underscores this bigotry. Organizations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have condemned it unequivocally. The United Nations, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), and even Holocaust scholars have decried the perversion of "Never Again," arguing it must apply universally, not just to Jews. These experts see Israel's military assault in Gaza as a textbook case of genocide, yet Ottawa turns a blind eye. The only plausible explanation for Canada’s inaction is a deep-seated anti-Palestinian animus and racism that prioritizes geopolitical alliances over human lives and upholding international law. 

Even the fragile October 2025 ceasefire has done little to stem the violence, exposing the West's—and Canada's—indifference to Palestinian suffering. While Israeli hostages have been released, Israel's murder spree continues unabated. Hundreds have died since the truce took effect, including 33 civilians killed in a November 19 military incursion on Khan Yunis as they queued for food. Just this past week, two brothers—aged 8 and 10—were killed by and Israeli drone for crossing an invisible line near where Israeli troops were situated, only to be posthumously framed as "terrorists" by Israeli forces. These incidents are not anomalies, they are part of a pattern of unchecked Israeli brutality. In the face of this, Canada does nothing to enforce the Genocide Convention it once championed. Instead, it enables the horror. 

Under both the Justin Trudeau and Mark Carney governments, Canada has authorized the sale of weapons components to Israel, directly fuelling Israel's genocidal death machine. Our leaders are reluctant to arrest or charge Canadians who have travelled to Israel to join the Israeli Occupation Forces, effectively greenlighting participation in genocidal acts. Moreover, the government has failed to move quickly to revoke charitable status from dozens of Canadian Jewish organizations that funnel funds to Israel, supporting racist and genocidal entities. These policies are not oversights, they are deliberate choices that make Canada an Israeli accomplice.  If we persist on this path, Canada risks plunging into a moral abyss that will scar this society for generations.

As children, we were taught that monsters lurked in fairy tales—shadowy figures defeated by heroes. As adults, we confront a harsher truth. Monsters are real.  They wear suits and ties, wielding power in political back rooms and corporate boardrooms. Disturbingly, some are our own political leaders, steering the nation toward complicity in yet another genocide. Their actions stain Canada's soul with the blood of innocent Palestinians, echoing our dark history of Indigenous dispossession and racial injustice. 

But despair need not define us. Those with intact moral compasses—ordinary Canadians from all walks of life—must unite to reclaim the just society envisioned by former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. If our leaders falter, it falls to us to ignite a political revolution to challenge them or replace them. We must demand immediate action--an arms embargo on Israel, comprehensive sanctions, divestment from complicit entities, prosecutions of war criminals—including Israeli political and military leaders—and restitution for Palestinians whose lives have been devastated. 

Beyond these measures, we need systemic change. Our government must purge the influence of Israeli agents and lobbyists who pull the strings behind the scenes. We require politicians with unwavering moral integrity, who defend human rights equally for all, regardless of ethnicity or faith. Canadians once played a critical role in drafting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Genocide Convention.  It's time to honor their legacy by channelling the morality of those visionary Canadians who dreamed of a world free from oppression and injustice. 

On this Human Rights Day, let us not merely commemorate ideals but live them. By opposing genocide unequivocally and championing the rights of all people, we can avert the abyss of inhumanity. Courage and unity can forge a Canada that truly stands as a global exemplar of justice. The choice is ours--complicity or redemption. For the sake of Palestinians—and our own humanity—let us choose the path that defends human rights equally and upholds justice for Palestinians and all oppressed peoples.

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