Canada’s moral collapse on Gaza, and the dangerous rise of anti-Palestinian racism in Canada

Canada’s refusal to join South Africa’s genocide case against Israel is a diplomatic misstep, a profound moral failure, and a breach of Canada’s legal obligation under the Genocide Convention.

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

In late April and early May 2026, more than a dozen Canadian human rights activists — including Ko Tinmaung and Marie Tota — were abducted in international waters by Israeli forces while participating in the Global Sumud Flotilla, a civilian mission carrying desperately needed humanitarian aid to Gaza. Their boats, which were part of a 40 boat fleet crewed by over 400 activists, were intercepted more than 250 nautical miles from Gaza’s shores, far outside Israeli territorial waters, in what international law experts have described as an act of state piracy and a blatant violation of international law.

The Canadians were unarmed and posed no threat. Yet they were beaten, humiliated, sexually assaulted, and tortured. Their accounts mirror the testimony of scores of other flotilla participants and align with decades of documentation by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, UN Special Rapporteurs, and Israeli human rights organizations.

Despite repeated requests from Canadian flotilla participants for meetings with Prime Minister Mark Carney and Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand — to speak directly about the torture they endured in Israeli custody and the mistreatment Tinmaung and Tota faced at Pearson International Airport upon their return — the government has shown a consistent unwillingness to meet with these brave Canadians.

Carney and Anand did condemn a grotesque video posted by Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, in which he taunted abducted flotilla activists in custody. But beyond those social media statements — beyond the PR — the government has taken no action in response to the allegations of torture. No formal protest. No demand for accountability. No sanctions. No consular investigation. No meeting with the survivors or their families. No justice.

Thirteen Canadians were abducted and tortured by a foreign state, and one was left to drown in the Mediterranean in a boat severely damaged by Israeli military personnel, and yet Canada has done nothing.

This is not a diplomatic oversight. It is a moral failure — and a political choice.

We must ask why the Canadian government is refusing to meet survivors of Israeli torture.

The answer lies in Canada’s long‑standing political alignment with Israel. For decades, Canadian governments — Liberal and Conservative alike — have treated Israel not as a nation to be held accountable, but as an ally beyond reproach. Even as Israel has violated the United Nations Charter, the Geneva Conventions, and countless Security Council resolutions for decades, Canada has rarely wavered in its support, issuing only occasional slaps on the wrist.

Meeting torture survivors would force the government to confront the truth about how Israel is committing atrocities — including genocide — in Gaza. That conclusion has already been reached by the UN Commission of Inquiry, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, B’Tselem, Physicians for Human Rights Israel, and the International Association of Genocide Scholars.  So Carney’s and Anand’s refusal is not about diplomacy. It is about denial.

Now let’s turn to the matter of why at least two of the Canadian flotilla activists were intimidated and threatened by security officials and police when they landed at Pearson International Airport.

When Tinmaung and Tota returned home, they expected to be reunited with their families at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport. Instead, they were met by customs officers, airport security, and Peel Regional Police who subjected them to aggressive interrogation, isolation, intimidation, and threats — conduct disturbingly similar to what former UN Special Rapporteurs Richard Falk and Hilal Elver described when they were detained and interrogated at Pearson in 2025 for their pro‑Palestinian advocacy.

Anti-Palestinian racism in Canada

This is not a coincidence. It reflects a deeper, long‑standing pattern of institutional anti‑Palestinian racism in Canada — one so entrenched that even as a genocide unfolds in plain sight, our political leaders still refuse to name the crime for what it is.

Reports from the Arab Canadian Lawyers Association, Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East, York University, and The Conversation have documented systemic anti‑Palestinian racism across Canadian institutions — including policing, education, media, and government. This racism manifests as:

• Silencing Palestinian advocacy; 
  
• Treating Palestinians and their allies as security threats;
  
• Defaming activists as extremists or “terrorists”;
  
• Erasing the story of Palestinian suffering and oppression;
  
• Denying Palestinian humanity.

This is exactly what happened at Pearson Airport. Canadian authorities treated at least two of the torture survivors as threats, not victims. They were intimidated, isolated, detained for hours, with Tinmaung threated with with being charged as a “threat to public safety”, before being pressured to leave the airport on terms set by police and security officials without seeing their families — a violation of their rights and a chilling message to all pro‑Palestinian activists.

This begs the question, how deep does anti‑Palestinian racism run in Canada’s political class?

The answer is it runs deep enough that the Canadian government still refuses to acknowledge the Gaza genocide — even as the United Nations, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, B’Tselem, Physicians for Human Rights Israel, leading genocide scholars, along with hundreds of human rights and legal scholars, have concluded that Israel is committing genocide. It runs deep enough that Canada has condemned genocide in Myanmar, China, and by Russia in Ukraine — but not in Gaza.  It is deep enough that the  government warns that calling Israel’s actions “genocide” might provoke antisemitism, rather than confronting the reality of mass murder, starvation, and ethnic cleansing. Anti-Palestinian racism is so entrenched that Canada (conditionally) recognized the State of Palestine in 2025 — but still refuses to hold Israel accountable for destroying it.

Anti‑Palestinian racism is not a fringe phenomenon. It is embedded in Canadian political culture.

Despite decades of Israeli crimes Canadian leaders still defend them

The record of Israeli crimes over the decades is overwhelming:

• Illegal occupation and annexation of Palestinian land;
  
• Decades of a campaign of ethnic cleansing
  
• Systematic violations of the Geneva Conventions for almost eight decades;
  
• War crimes including collective punishment, targeting civilians, and starvation as a weapon of war;
  
• Apartheid, as documented by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and B’Tselem;
  
• Genocide, as concluded by UN experts, major human rights organizations, and genocide scholars.
  
• Yet Canada continues to defend Israel or remain silent. The million‑dollar question is why.

Because Canadian foreign policy in the Middle East has been shaped for decades by pro‑Israel lobby groups such as the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) and B’nai Brith Canada — organizations documented as promoting anti‑Palestinian racism, Islamophobia, genocide denial, and the conflation of anti‑Zionism and criticism of Israel with antisemitism.

CIJA’s own conferences have pushed the government to adopt definitions of antisemitism that silence criticism of Israel. Their lobbying efforts have influenced every major political party, convincing party leaders to adopt policies that effectively silence pro‑Palestinian voices within their membership. This influence is so strong that Canada’s political class often appears more accountable to CIJA, which acts as an agent of the Israeli government, than to international law.

Canada refuses to support South Africa’s genocide case against Israel

However, there are nations in the world with a moral compass that are standing on the right side of history and pursuing justice for Palestinians.  One of those nations is South Africa, which launched a genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in December 2023 over its brutal military assault on the people in Gaza.

Regrettably, and over the objections of many Canadians, the federal government has refused to join South Africa and 20 other nations supporting their case, including NATO allies Belgium, Netherlands, Spain and Turkiye. Instead, Canada has dismissed the case as lacking merit despite the ICJ stating that it was plausible that Israel was committing genocide in a January 2024 preliminary ruling.

Canada’s refusal to join South Africa is not just a diplomatic misstep — it is a profound moral failure. It is also a breach of Canada’s clear legal obligation under the Genocide Convention to prevent genocide wherever it occurs. The decision is so indefensible that it raises an unavoidable, unsettling question — has Canadian Middle East policy become so deferential to Israel that Ottawa might as well be taking instructions directly from it? While that is not literally the case, the pattern is impossible to ignore. Again and again, Canada’s positions on the Middle East — especially where Palestinians and their rights are concerned — line up almost seamlessly with those of the apartheid state.

Canada may not take its marching orders directly from Israel, but it unquestionably takes its political cues from a familiar constellation of forces — pro‑Israel lobby groups, a political culture that treats Israel as beyond criticism, and a foreign‑policy establishment that reliably elevates strategic alliances over basic human rights, while wilfully ignoring obligations under international law.

This country’s deference becomes even starker when we examine whom our officials choose to engage with most often on issues related to Israel and Palestinians. CIJA, for one, is among the most active lobbying organizations in Ottawa — a fact reflected in the federal Lobbyist Registry. Its influence is unmistakable as the organization enjoys frequent access to ministers and MPs, helps shape policy priorities, and exerts significant influence over the Canadian narrative on issues affecting Palestinians. Yet multiple Jewish scholars and human‑rights organizations have documented how pro‑Israel organizations have promoted harmful stereotypes about Palestinians and Muslims, marginalized dissenting Jewish voices, and defended Israeli actions described by critics as grave violations of international law.

So when Canadian officials make time for these groups while refusing to meet with Canadian victims of Israeli torture, the message is unmistakable — some lives count and others do not.

What kind of nation do Canadians want this country to be?

Canadians must decide what kind of country we want to be and convey that forcefully to our leaders. Canada cannot claim to champion human rights yet ignore the torture of its own citizens, nor wrap itself in the language of justice while turning its back on Canadians tortured by a foreign state. It cannot profess to oppose genocide while refusing to acknowledge one unfolding in real time, or claim to fight racism while enabling the most entrenched and politically sanctioned form of racism in this country — anti‑Palestinian racism.

Tinmaung, Tota, and the eleven other Canadians abducted and tortured by Israel deserve justice — not silence, platitudes, or carefully crafted political statements that maintain a business as usual attitude with the genocidal state. They deserve a government that recognizes their humanity, and that of Palestinians, without reservation. Canadians deserve leaders who confront atrocities committed by allies — not ones who decide which victims matter and which to sacrifice on the altar of political expediency.

History will judge Mark Carney and Justin Trudeau for their morally bankrupt response to the Gaza genocide and for how their governments treated Canadians who stood on the side of justice for Palestinians. That judgment will not be kind. On the most basic questions of human rights, international law, and the duty to protect the innocent, both men failed — and they failed by choice.

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

Canada's complicity in Gaza genocide shows its leaders are morally bankrupt

The current crisis is rooted in decades of a brutal occupation, peace processes repeatedly sabotaged by Israel, and repeated incidents of Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity.

 

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

 

Last week, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney issued a strong public condemnation following a social media post by Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. The post included footage of activists from the Global Sumud Flotilla—who were attempting to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza—being intercepted by Israeli forces in international waters. The video showed the activists bound and held in stress positions while Ben-Gvir taunted and insulted them. Carney stated: “The abominable treatment of civilians aboard the flotilla, including that which is documented in footage shared by Itamar Ben-Gvir, is unacceptable.”

This selective outrage exposes a glaring moral inconsistency at the heart of Carney’s foreign policy. While his government rightly condemns specific abuses against flotilla participants—including Canadian citizens—it continues to pursue policies that fuel a far broader conflict, enabling civilian suffering on a horrifying scale, including the sale of Canadian weapons to Israel. Critics rightly argue that this reveals a government that is both unacceptable and morally bankrupt—one that maintains normalized relations with a state accused of genocide, while turning a blind eye to Canadian-made weapons and components flowing to Israel as it brutalizes a helpless population.

The Gaza genocide, triggered by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attacks, has escalated into one of the deadliest episodes of mass violence in the region’s history since the Iraq War and the Syrian civil war. According to data released by Euromed Human Rights Monitor, the only organization providing independent death toll figures, it is estimated that more than 80,000 Palestinians have been killed as of the end of May 2026, with estimates that there may be anywhere from 377,000 to more than 680,000 buried under Gaza’s rubble, most of them women and children. Entire neighbourhoods have been devastated, infrastructure including hospitals, schools, and water systems lies in ruins, and mass displacement has occurred repeatedly creating a refugee population of approximately 1.9 million.

Multiple respected organizations have concluded that Israel’s actions meet the legal threshold for genocide--defined under the 1948 UN Genocide Convention as acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. These include:

• Amnesty International: Documented “sufficient basis” for genocide, citing killings, serious harm, and conditions calculated to bring about physical destruction.
• Human Rights Watch: Accused Israel of genocidal acts, including deprivation of water and essential resources.
• B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights Israel: Prominent Israeli organizations that examined policies, official statements, and outcomes, concluding coordinated action to destroy Palestinian society in Gaza.
• International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS): Declared Israel’s policies constitute genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, citing mass civilian casualties, destruction of life-sustaining systems, and targeting of children.
• United Nations bodies and experts: Various reports and special rapporteurs have highlighted patterns consistent with genocide characteristics, including starvation as a weapon and widespread destruction.

Noted Israeli Holocaust and genocide scholars, have added weight to these assessments by drawing on direct evidence from within Israeli society, including a poll published by Haaretz in May 2025 which reported that 47% of Israel Jews support the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, and 82% who support their ethnic cleansing, and 56% support ethnically cleansing all Palestinians from territories controlled by Israel. These are not fringe views but conclusions from rigorous documentation by human rights monitors, legal analysts, and scholars.

Canada’s Role: Arms Exports and Complicity

Despite these findings, Canada under Prime Minister Mark Carney (as well as former PM Justin Trudeau) has maintained elements of military cooperation with Israel. While direct export permits to Israel were paused, loopholes persist which allow components routed through the United States. Reports from civil society and parliamentarians indicate ongoing flows of Canadian-made weapons and technology, contradicting claims of a full embargo.

This is unacceptable. International law, including the Arms Trade Treaty and Canada’s own Export and Import Permits Act, imposes obligations to halt transfers where there is a clear risk of use in serious violations of international humanitarian law or genocide. Continuing such sales—directly or indirectly—implicates Canada in prolonging the suffering. Critics, including NDP voices and groups like Oxfam and Unifor, argue this breaches both domestic commitments and international duties.

Carney’s government singles out figures like Ben-Gvir for sanctions while sustaining the broader military relationship with Israel. Ben-Gvir is an extremist, but focusing solely on him distracts from systemic issues: the 19 year blockade of Gaza (deemed collective punishment by many), illegal settlement expansion in the West Bank (a violation under international law), and the human toll in the Gaza genocide. Official Israeli statements invoking “erasing” threats or total destruction, combined with operational outcomes, fuel the genocide determinations of international voices.

Historical Context and Moral Failure

The current crisis did not emerge in a vacuum. It is rooted in decades of a brutal occupation, peace processes repeatedly sabotaged by Israel which has voted against the creation of a Palestinian state, and repeated incidents of Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity. Israel’s right to security after October 7, 2023 is clear. However, international humanitarian law requires that any response respect the principles of proportionality, distinction between combatants and civilians, and the prohibition on collective punishment. Critics argue that Israel has disregarded these obligations. The immense scale of destruction in Gaza—death toll estimates of up to 30% of the population, the erasure of entire family lines, and the devastation of cultural and educational infrastructure—has prompted serious questions about whether the campaign goes beyond legitimate self-defence and reflects an intent to inflict indiscriminate harm on an entire society.

A morally coherent policy for Canada would be to impose a comprehensive two-way arms embargo, push for accountability for Israel at the ICC and ICJ, suspend the Canada-Israel free trade agreement, call for an end to the occupation, and support a viable political solution that pursues freedom and justice for Palestinians. Instead, Carney’s selective statements and dangerous comments about a “Zionist Palestinian state”, and continued arms exports project ignorance and hypocrisy. Condemning flotilla abuses while enabling the larger machinery of war undermines Canada’s claimed commitment to human rights and the so-called “rules-based international order.” This is not mere policy disagreement. It is moral bankruptcy. When a government prioritizes alliances and trade over halting contributions to alleged genocide—despite warnings from Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Israeli NGOs, the UN, and genocide scholars—Canada forfeits ethical legitimacy. Canadians deserve better--a foreign policy grounded in consistent principles, not selective indignation.

The flotilla incident is abominable but not surprising given Israel’s criminal leadership. Far more so is the tolerance of policies enabling mass death and destruction. Prime Minister Carney must end all Canadian military support and cooperation with Israel, lead in international accountability efforts against a state committing genocide, and align pro-human rights rhetoric with actions that uphold universal human dignity. Anything less remains unacceptable.
  
© 2026 The View From Here. © 2026 Fareed Khan. All Rights Reserved.

Israeli acts of piracy and torture against Canadian Sumud flotilla activists require a meaningful response by PM Mark Carney

The Canadian government has already condemned Israeli actions. But words without actions that have meaningful consequences risks becoming complicity.

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

The illegal interception of the Global Sumud humanitarian aid flotilla to Gaza by Israeli forces in international waters south of Cyprus in mid-May 2026 is not an isolated “incident.” It is the latest expression of a decades-long pattern in which Israel uses overwhelming military power, systematic and deliberate abuse, and flagrant disregard for international law to punish Palestinians and those who stand with them in their struggle for freedom from Israeli occupation and oppression.  It is an act of piracy and terrorism that requires action by the nations of the people who were abducted and tortured while in Israeli custody.

While the flotilla activists have now been released and are on their way home they are not returning unharmed. After being given medical examinations upon being deported to Turkiye—the starting point of the flotilla—they reported being subjected to severe abuse and torture in Israeli custody, including documented evidence of physical violence—beatings, use of tasers, sexual assault, torture—psychological torment, and degrading treatment that constitute clear violations of international humanitarian law.

This brutality against unarmed humanitarian workers is yet another criminal act in Israel’s decades-long campaign of state terror—alongside its genocide in Gaza, the routine torture of Palestinian and international detainees, and its entrenched system of brutal domination against those who oppose them. Such conduct is more evidence marking Israel as a rogue, criminal state that uses terrorist violence and impunity against civilians and aid workers alike.

In these circumstances, Canada (along with other nations) has both a moral and legal obligation to respond with concrete measures, including broad sanctions, arms restrictions, and accountability mechanisms targeting the Israeli leaders criminally responsible for these actions.

Piracy and terrorism at sea

The Global Sumud flotilla set sail with approximately 50 boats and more than 400 activists from over 40 countries, carrying food, baby formula, and medical supplies to a besieged Gaza Strip facing catastrophic deprivation and famine. The vessels were intercepted hundreds of kilometres from Israel’s coast, in clearly international waters, as multiple reports and UN experts have emphasized.

According to Turkiye’s Anadolu Agency and other news outlets, Israeli forces attacked the flotilla volunteers with rubber bullets and boarded the ships, detaining around 428 activists and transporting them to Israeli ports and prison facilities. Amnesty International described the interception as “shameful and inhumane,” stressing that the flotilla was attempting to break an illegal Israeli blockade and deliver life‑saving aid to a population in Gaza subjected to mass atrocity crimes, apartheid and genocide.

Under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the forcible seizure of civilian vessels in international waters, absent a lawful basis such as piracy suppression or UN Security Council authorization, is widely viewed by legal experts as a flagrant violation of the freedom of navigation. The UN experts’ statement on the Global Sumud flotilla explicitly called the interception “a blatant violation of international law, including the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea,” and demanded the immediate release of the activists.

When a state uses armed force on the high seas to abduct civilians engaged in a humanitarian aid mission, many scholars argue that this conduct is the very definition of state piracy and state terrorism.

This is not the first time Israel has done this and it won’t be the last given how Israel’s leaders see their nation as above the law. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) case study on the 2010 Mavi Marmara flotilla notes that Israeli forces killed nine activists in international waters while enforcing the Gaza blockade, raising serious questions under international humanitarian law and the law of the sea. The Global Sumud operation thus fits a long‑standing pattern. Israel uses its navy to project coercive power and unwarranted aggression far beyond its territorial waters to prevent humanitarian aid from reaching Gaza, and to send a message of deterrence through fear and terrorist violence.

Torture, sexual violence, and humiliation in Israeli custody

The testimonies emerging from the 2026 flotilla participants are harrowing and remarkably consistent. Reports by news media noted that activists were subjected to “humiliation and violence,” including forcing women to remove their hijabs, keeping detainees in painful positions, shooting them with rubber bullets, beatings and other forms of torture. One news report recounts how New Zealand activist Mousa Taher was stripped naked, bound with zip ties so tight he cried out in pain, stomped on, beaten unconscious, and forced to crawl on the ground “to make us feel like we are nothing.” 

Newsweek quotes Australian activist Juliet Lamont describing a boat where 180 people were “systematically bashed and beaten” resulting in 40 with broken bones and ribs, people being “tasered in the face,” and multiple incidents of sexual assault. Al Jazeera, NBC and other major news outlets all report that flotilla organizers documented at least 15 cases of sexual assault, including rape, humiliating strip searches, groping, pulling of genitals, and even “forcible penetration by a handgun” on a converted prison vessel lined with barbed wire and shipping containers.

Associated Press and NBC‑syndicated reports describe activists being punched, kicked, dragged by their hair, held in containers, shackled with iron chains, and surrounded by attack dogs. Canadian activist Ehab Lotayef from Montreal told CBC he was beaten for days, had his ribs injured, glasses broken, and his hand stabbed by a guard while trying to distribute water to other detainees. 

Israel’s prison service has denied all allegations, calling them “false and entirely without factual basis.” Yet the convergence of testimonies—from Canadian, Turkish, Italian, Brazilian, Australian, French, and other activists, documented by rights groups like Israel’s Adalah and scrutinized by prosecutors in Italy and elsewhere—strongly suggests systematic abuse and torture rather than isolated misconduct. UN officials have called these accounts “disturbing” and insisted that those responsible must be held to account. 

These practices mirror long‑documented patterns of torture and ill‑treatment of Palestinian prisoners—stress positions, beatings, sleep deprivation, sexual humiliation, denial of medical care, and abuse of minors. Human rights organizations have for years concluded that such treatment violates the Convention against Torture and the Geneva Conventions’ protections for detainees. The flotilla activists, in effect, were briefly exposed to the perverse justice regime that Palestinians have endured on a chronic basis for decades. 

Decades of occupation, apartheid, and Gaza’s strangulation 

To understand why many now describe Israel as a rogue state that uses terror as an instrument of policy, the flotilla must be placed in the broader context of Israel’s rule over Palestinians since 1967. 

In July 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued an advisory opinion concluding that Israel’s prolonged occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza was unlawful, and that its Jews only settlements violate Article 49(6) of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits an occupying power from transferring its civilian population into occupied territory. The Court emphasized that Israel’s policies breach Palestinians’ right to self‑determination and require third states not to recognize or assist the illegal situation. 

Human Rights Watch’s 2021 report “A Threshold Crossed” found that Israeli authorities are committing crimes against humanity, apartheid and persecution, through systematic discrimination, land confiscation, movement restrictions, and fragmentation of Palestinian territory. Amnesty International has similarly concluded that Israel’s settlement project and legal regime amount to apartheid, and that the settlements themselves are illegal under international law. 

Gaza, under a land, air, and sea blockade since 2007, has been described by the ICRC and UN bodies as being subjected to collective punishment, prohibited by Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. The blockade severely restricts movement of people and goods, crippling the economy and health system (which is now destroyed during the genocide). The UN Fact‑Finding Mission on the 2008–2009 Gaza conflict (the Goldstone Mission) documented attacks on civilians, homes, schools, hospitals, and UN facilities, concluding that serious violations of international humanitarian law and possible war crimes had been committed. Subsequent operations—2012, 2014, 2021, and the post‑October 2023 assault—have repeated the same patterns of disproportionate force and targeting of Palestinian civilians and civilian infrastructure. 

In the current phase, the ICJ, in the case brought by South Africa, has found that there is a plausible risk that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza and has ordered provisional measures requiring Israel to prevent genocidal acts and enable humanitarian aid—all of which Israel has ignored. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has warned that Israel’s assault on the foundations of international law “must have consequences,” stressing that starvation of civilians as a method of warfare is unlawful. The International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor has opened a file on the “Situation in Palestine,” investigating alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity by all parties, and has sought arrest warrants for senior Israeli and Palestinian leaders. 

Taken together, Israel’s decades-long list of crimes—unlawful occupation, apartheid, collective punishment, repeated large‑scale attacks on civilians, and now a case of genocide—this record depicts a state whose leaders systematically violate core norms of humanity and the international order and rely on impunity guaranteed by powerful allies like the US. The violent attack on participants in the Global Sumud flotilla is a microcosm of that larger system.

Israel as a rogue state using state terror

“Rogue state” is not a formal legal category, but it captures a political reality—a state that persistently defies international law, disregards UN resolutions and court decisions, and uses violence against civilians to achieve political ends.

When a state:
*  Maintains an unlawful occupation and apartheid regime despite ICJ and UN findings;
*  Enforces an illegal blockade that starves and impoverishes a civilian population;
*  Conducts military campaigns that UN bodies and respected human rights voices say amount to war crimes and genocide;
*  Intercepts humanitarian flotillas in international waters, abducts hundreds of civilians, and subjects them to torture and sexual violence;

it is reasonable for advocates, scholars, and affected communities to argue that such a state is acting as a rogue actor and employing terrorism as a weapon. The purpose of the flotilla abuses was not military necessity, but rather to terrorize activists and deter future attempts to break the blockade. As one activist put it, this felt like a “planned campaign of violence” designed to ensure they never return.

This is why many Palestinians and their allies describe Israel not merely as a state committing isolated violations of international law, but as a rogue, terrorist state whose policies are structurally violent. Whether one adopts that terminology or not, the legal and moral implications for third states like Canada are profound.

Canada’s legal and moral obligations

Canada is not a neutral bystander in all of this. It is a party to the Geneva Conventions, the Genocide Convention, the Rome Statute of the ICC, and UNCLOS. It has domestic legislation—the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act—that incorporates international crimes into Canadian law and allows for prosecution on the basis of universal jurisdiction. 

The Canadian government has already put out statements condemning the flotilla abuses. Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand condemned the “appalling abuse” of Canadians and summoned the Israeli ambassador after videos showed Israeli cabinet minister Itamar Ben‑Gvir taunting kneeling, zip‑tied activists. Prime Minister Mark Carney called the treatment “abominable.” But condemnation without actions that have meaningful consequences in response to Israeli crimes risks becoming complicity. 

Given the evidence and the findings of international bodies, a strong case can be made that Canada has at the least the following obligations:

Implement targeted sanctions on Israeli political and military leadership:
Under its Magnitsky sanctions legislation and in light of declarations by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, B’Tselem, the United Nations, the International Association of Genocide Scholars, and the ICJ’s findings on the illegality of the occupation and the plausible risk of genocide, Canada can and arguably must impose asset freezes and travel bans on all senior Israeli political and military officials responsible for the crimes committed against Palestinians, the Gaza blockade, large‑scale military assaults against civilians, and the flotilla interdictions.

Criminal investigations and universal jurisdiction:
Canada’s Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act grants it universal jurisdiction to investigate and prosecute individuals present on its soil for war crimes, crimes against humanity, or genocide—regardless of where those acts occurred. Given the scale of alleged violations in Gaza and the flotilla incidents, Canada has both the legal authority and the moral responsibility to open investigations into any Israeli officials or soldiers within its territory when credible evidence links them to such crimes. A bolder step—such as automatically detaining anyone who has served in the Israeli military since 2023, including Canadian citizens—would send a clear signal that Canada is serious about enforcing its own laws and upholding international humanitarian standards.

Closing loopholes for arms and dual‑use exports:
Canada has obligations under the Arms Trade Treaty and customary international law not to transfer weapons where there is a clear risk they will be used to commit serious violations of international humanitarian or human rights law. In light of ICJ and UN findings, and declarations respected human rights organizations, continuing any form of arms or dual‑use exports that could support Israeli military operations in Gaza or enforcement of the blockade is increasingly difficult to reconcile with those obligations. Closing loopholes and imposing a full embargo on military exports and technology transfers to Israel would be a concrete step toward compliance.

Diplomatic measures: expulsion and recall of ambassadors:
Expelling the Israeli ambassador and recalling Canada’s ambassador from Tel Aviv would signal that the relationship cannot proceed as normal while Israel defies the ICJ, the ICC, and UN bodies, and while Canadian citizens are tortured and sexually assaulted in Israeli custody. Such measures have precedent in responses to other states accused of atrocity crimes (like Iran). 

Support for international accountability mechanisms:
Canada should fully support the ICC’s Palestine investigation, refrain from political pressure on the Court, and actively cooperate with any arrest warrants issued, including against Israeli officials. It should also back UN mechanisms documenting violations in Gaza and the flotilla incidents, and endorse the ICJ’s advisory opinion and genocide case orders, as well as join South Africa’s genocide case at the ICJ which now has 20 nations supporting it, including NATO members Belgium, Iceland, Netherlands, Spain and Turkiye, as well as trading partners Mexico and Ireland. 

These steps are not radical. They flow from Canada’s own treaty commitments and its self-professed support for a rules‑based international order. To continue business as usual with a state credibly accused of apartheid, war crimes, and genocide, and now documented torture and sexual abuse of Canadian and international activists, would be to erode those very rules.

From outrage to responsibility 

The Global Sumud flotilla was a simple proposition. Civilians from around the world sailing to deliver food and medicine to a population deliberately starved and bombed. Israel’s response—armed interception in international waters, mass abduction, beatings, torture, and sexual violence—lays bare the nature of its regime and the depth of its depravity.

Whether one chooses the language of “rogue terrorist state” or prefers strictly legal terminology, the core reality is the same. Israel has, for decades, violated fundamental norms of international law with near impunity, and the flotilla abuses are part of that pattern. For Canada, the question is no longer what is happening, but what it is prepared to do about it, especially after more than two and a half years of genocide in Gaza where a conservatively estimated 200,000 Palestinians may have been killed by Israel as of April 2026, according to international medical specialists, Israeli academics, and others. 

Silence and symbolic statements will not protect Palestinians, nor will they protect Canadians and others who risk their lives to bring them live saving aid. Sanctions, arms restrictions, criminal investigations, and diplomatic downgrades are the minimum steps consistent with Canada’s legal obligations and moral claims. Anything less is a choice to live with atrocity—and to be remembered as being on the side of those who watched and did nothing to hold Israel accountable for its criminal actions.

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