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