By Fareed Khan
The following was previously published on Rabble.ca here.
Each morning, I wake with a leaden weight in my chest, a dread as
familiar as my own pulse. Outside my apartment balcony, the world
hums—the sound of cars, children playing, the city breathing. But my
mind is on Gaza, the way it has been since October 2023, tethered to a
place where humanity is being obliterated on a daily basis.
I hesitate before turning on my computer, or unlocking my phone,
knowing the horrors awaiting me on their screens, another page written
in blood of Israel’s relentless genocide of Palestinians. Yet I force
myself to look, to bear witness to images of skeletal children, parents
cradling lifeless bodies, and a society, the length and breadth of which
has been turned into a post-apocalyptic hellscape. To turn away would
betray the humanity I cling to, a humanity my family’s history demands I
defend.
My late father-in-law was one of only four survivors from his
sprawling Jewish family in Poland, the rest consumed by the Holocaust’s
brutality. My parents, as children, endured anti-Muslim pogroms in
India, losing dozens of relatives to faith-fuelled slaughter. Their
stories of loss and survival are carved into me, making the fight for
Palestinian justice deeply personal. No one spoke for my father-in-law
or his family as they tried to flee from Nazi death squads, nor for my
parents as their communities were burned because they belonged to the
“wrong” faith. I speak for the Palestinian cause because I know the cost
of silence in the face of crimes against humanity and genocide, the
agony of being erased while the world watches and does nothing.
Opening the news and social media feeds feels like stepping into a maelstrom. I scroll through the posts where raw truths cut through the mainstream media’s sanitization of Israel’s horrors—a girl with bloody stumps where her legs use to be screaming in agony, a father clutching and weeping over the body of his dead son, the bloody face of a woman visible under the buried rubble. Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor reports that over 70,000 Palestinians have been killed as of the end of July, a number that barely hints at the evil that the world has allowed to happen. Meanwhile, Israeli academic Yaakov Garb, in a Harvard-published study using data from Israel’s military, estimates that the true death toll could be 377,000 to 400,000—a monstrous loss that will echo in infamy like the Holocaust. These are not just numbers. They are lives, stories, futures annihilated by an Israeli government and society that has forsaken its humanity, committing acts of evil with a level of cruelty that sears the soul.
The weight of these horrors has taken its toll on my mental health, as it has on other activists like me. Some nights, I lie awake, haunted by images of emaciated children and blood-streaked bodies. Rage surges when I think of Western leaders—politicians, media, corporate elites—who enable this slaughter with their silence, arms shipments, complicity, and hollow platitudes. Like others who have embraced our humanity as the evil in Gaza has unfolded I write and comment—op-eds, blogs, analyses, media statements, social media threads—to expose Israel’s genocide, educate the public, and to name the complicity of those who fund and arm it (including Canada). My words are my rebellion, a desperate cry against the apathy of those who could do something to stop the slaughter but don’t. For the past 22 months it is my declaration that I refuse to let Israel’s evil go unchallenged.
Canada’s leaders, from Justin Trudeau to Mark Carney to Pierre Poilievre, offer empty calls for “peace” and yet do nothing to stop the export of Canadian made arms components to Israel used to slaughter the residents of Gaza. The quick suspension by Canada of funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in Gaza in early 2024, based on Israeli lies (but later reversed) shows the truth held in the hearts and minds of Canadian leaders. The International Court of Justice’s rulings on genocide are essentially ignored, as are comprehensive reports by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Israel’s B’Tselem which have declared that Israel is committing genocide.
Western media is also complicit, for decades framing Palestinian resistance to Israel’s brutal occupation as “terrorism”, echoing Israeli talking points that dehumanized Palestinians and rationalized their mass murder again and again, much like Nazi-era propaganda dehumanized Jews. A 2024 New York Times memo banned the use of terms like “genocide” or “occupied territory” in their stories, erasing Palestinian suffering in a way that mirrors history’s darkest chapters. Similar decisions were taken by executives, editors and producers in Canada at CBC, CTV, Global News, The Globe and Mail, and the Postmedia chain of newspapers. This racism, embedded in headlines and news stories, strips Palestinians of their humanity, rendering their deaths invisible.
Anti-Palestinian racism is normalized in Canada and the West, and for years I have added my voice to those of other human rights activists in raising alarms about the treatment of Palestinians. I’ve watched as those voices, including myself, have been attacked by the racist trolls of the pro-Israel lobby for defending the human rights of a brutally oppressed people.
Since October 2023 we’ve all witnessed university students disciplined and expelled for protesting genocide, workers fired for posting support for Palestinians on social media, and activists smeared as “antisemitic” for supporting Palestinian rights. There have been numerous media reports of people being suspended or fired for protesting the genocide, a chilling echo of post-9/11 Islamophobia. Yet nothing changes as Canadian leaders repeat the racism of the 1930s, when they turned away Jewish refugees fleeing the Nazis with the same indifference now shown to Palestinian suffering. When we call them out, they dismiss us, our “concern” for civilians an inconvenience in the halls of power as the carnage in Gaza continues. It seems human rights are reserved for white Christians (like Ukrainians), not Palestinians or Muslims, whose suffering is deemed acceptable.
Some days, I wish for amnesia to escape the pain seared into me—a child’s limp and lifeless body, a mother’s anguish as she holds her bleeding child, a paramedic’s vacant stare amid the horror. If someone like me, who is safe in Canada, is unravelling, how must my Palestinian friends or those on the ground in Gaza feel, many having lost dozens or scores of family members? Their grief is a universe I can only imagine, yet it haunts me.
This crisis extends far beyond Gaza, creeping into the hearts of millions around the world who have witnessed it online or in media reports. Each photo, each video, each story of horror is a cut that doesn’t heal. I see it in the sad eyes of the silent despair of those who feel abandoned by the world. The Gaza genocide’s toll on those of us in Canada is psychological, threatening to scar our society as deeply as war scarred our veterans. Leaders who ignore this are failing not just Palestinians but all of us who carry this trauma, who wake daily to fight despair with action.
My writing and public commentary is my anchor, but it is also my torment. Each word forces me to relive the horrors, to hold them close, to let them sink in. I think of my father-in-law, who carried the Holocaust’s shadow until his death, and my parents, whose childhoods were stolen by pogroms. Their resilience drives me, but it deepens my grief. I write and speak out because silence is complicity, because the world must know that the Palestinian dead are not statistics but people with names, dreams, stories, now lost to an evil that we thought had been relegated to the pages of history.
The scale of this genocide demands action, yet Canada’s elites remain unmoved, issuing meaningless statements, or taking symbolic actions that do nothing to stop the horror on the ground in Gaza. They could halt arms exports, impose sanctions, support International Criminal Court rulings, but they choose platitudes and symbolism rather than meaningful action to halt what is happening on the obliterated streets of Gaza. This failure is a moral stain, marking them as history marked those who enabled past atrocities. The blood of hundreds of thousands is on their hands, fueling a mental health crisis in Canada that will echo for decades, as Gaza’s horrors imprint on our psyche.
The Gaza genocide’s infamy will endure, a scar on humanity’s conscience. I keep going because of my family’s history, the pain of my Palestinian friends, and the weight of over two million Palestinians who are enduring genocide. But it’s not enough. Canada’s leaders must act, not just for Palestinians but for our nation’s soul. The trauma of Gaza is here, in our communities, in our minds, threatening to break us. We cannot begin to heal until the killing stops, until our leaders take decisive action to stop the carnage, to make sure justice is served for the Palestinian dead, and to ensure that “never again” means never again for all peoples.
Opening the news and social media feeds feels like stepping into a maelstrom. I scroll through the posts where raw truths cut through the mainstream media’s sanitization of Israel’s horrors—a girl with bloody stumps where her legs use to be screaming in agony, a father clutching and weeping over the body of his dead son, the bloody face of a woman visible under the buried rubble. Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor reports that over 70,000 Palestinians have been killed as of the end of July, a number that barely hints at the evil that the world has allowed to happen. Meanwhile, Israeli academic Yaakov Garb, in a Harvard-published study using data from Israel’s military, estimates that the true death toll could be 377,000 to 400,000—a monstrous loss that will echo in infamy like the Holocaust. These are not just numbers. They are lives, stories, futures annihilated by an Israeli government and society that has forsaken its humanity, committing acts of evil with a level of cruelty that sears the soul.
The weight of these horrors has taken its toll on my mental health, as it has on other activists like me. Some nights, I lie awake, haunted by images of emaciated children and blood-streaked bodies. Rage surges when I think of Western leaders—politicians, media, corporate elites—who enable this slaughter with their silence, arms shipments, complicity, and hollow platitudes. Like others who have embraced our humanity as the evil in Gaza has unfolded I write and comment—op-eds, blogs, analyses, media statements, social media threads—to expose Israel’s genocide, educate the public, and to name the complicity of those who fund and arm it (including Canada). My words are my rebellion, a desperate cry against the apathy of those who could do something to stop the slaughter but don’t. For the past 22 months it is my declaration that I refuse to let Israel’s evil go unchallenged.
Canada’s leaders, from Justin Trudeau to Mark Carney to Pierre Poilievre, offer empty calls for “peace” and yet do nothing to stop the export of Canadian made arms components to Israel used to slaughter the residents of Gaza. The quick suspension by Canada of funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in Gaza in early 2024, based on Israeli lies (but later reversed) shows the truth held in the hearts and minds of Canadian leaders. The International Court of Justice’s rulings on genocide are essentially ignored, as are comprehensive reports by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Israel’s B’Tselem which have declared that Israel is committing genocide.
Western media is also complicit, for decades framing Palestinian resistance to Israel’s brutal occupation as “terrorism”, echoing Israeli talking points that dehumanized Palestinians and rationalized their mass murder again and again, much like Nazi-era propaganda dehumanized Jews. A 2024 New York Times memo banned the use of terms like “genocide” or “occupied territory” in their stories, erasing Palestinian suffering in a way that mirrors history’s darkest chapters. Similar decisions were taken by executives, editors and producers in Canada at CBC, CTV, Global News, The Globe and Mail, and the Postmedia chain of newspapers. This racism, embedded in headlines and news stories, strips Palestinians of their humanity, rendering their deaths invisible.
Anti-Palestinian racism is normalized in Canada and the West, and for years I have added my voice to those of other human rights activists in raising alarms about the treatment of Palestinians. I’ve watched as those voices, including myself, have been attacked by the racist trolls of the pro-Israel lobby for defending the human rights of a brutally oppressed people.
Since October 2023 we’ve all witnessed university students disciplined and expelled for protesting genocide, workers fired for posting support for Palestinians on social media, and activists smeared as “antisemitic” for supporting Palestinian rights. There have been numerous media reports of people being suspended or fired for protesting the genocide, a chilling echo of post-9/11 Islamophobia. Yet nothing changes as Canadian leaders repeat the racism of the 1930s, when they turned away Jewish refugees fleeing the Nazis with the same indifference now shown to Palestinian suffering. When we call them out, they dismiss us, our “concern” for civilians an inconvenience in the halls of power as the carnage in Gaza continues. It seems human rights are reserved for white Christians (like Ukrainians), not Palestinians or Muslims, whose suffering is deemed acceptable.
Some days, I wish for amnesia to escape the pain seared into me—a child’s limp and lifeless body, a mother’s anguish as she holds her bleeding child, a paramedic’s vacant stare amid the horror. If someone like me, who is safe in Canada, is unravelling, how must my Palestinian friends or those on the ground in Gaza feel, many having lost dozens or scores of family members? Their grief is a universe I can only imagine, yet it haunts me.
This crisis extends far beyond Gaza, creeping into the hearts of millions around the world who have witnessed it online or in media reports. Each photo, each video, each story of horror is a cut that doesn’t heal. I see it in the sad eyes of the silent despair of those who feel abandoned by the world. The Gaza genocide’s toll on those of us in Canada is psychological, threatening to scar our society as deeply as war scarred our veterans. Leaders who ignore this are failing not just Palestinians but all of us who carry this trauma, who wake daily to fight despair with action.
My writing and public commentary is my anchor, but it is also my torment. Each word forces me to relive the horrors, to hold them close, to let them sink in. I think of my father-in-law, who carried the Holocaust’s shadow until his death, and my parents, whose childhoods were stolen by pogroms. Their resilience drives me, but it deepens my grief. I write and speak out because silence is complicity, because the world must know that the Palestinian dead are not statistics but people with names, dreams, stories, now lost to an evil that we thought had been relegated to the pages of history.
The scale of this genocide demands action, yet Canada’s elites remain unmoved, issuing meaningless statements, or taking symbolic actions that do nothing to stop the horror on the ground in Gaza. They could halt arms exports, impose sanctions, support International Criminal Court rulings, but they choose platitudes and symbolism rather than meaningful action to halt what is happening on the obliterated streets of Gaza. This failure is a moral stain, marking them as history marked those who enabled past atrocities. The blood of hundreds of thousands is on their hands, fueling a mental health crisis in Canada that will echo for decades, as Gaza’s horrors imprint on our psyche.
The Gaza genocide’s infamy will endure, a scar on humanity’s conscience. I keep going because of my family’s history, the pain of my Palestinian friends, and the weight of over two million Palestinians who are enduring genocide. But it’s not enough. Canada’s leaders must act, not just for Palestinians but for our nation’s soul. The trauma of Gaza is here, in our communities, in our minds, threatening to break us. We cannot begin to heal until the killing stops, until our leaders take decisive action to stop the carnage, to make sure justice is served for the Palestinian dead, and to ensure that “never again” means never again for all peoples.
© 2025 The View From Here. © 2025 Fareed Khan. All Rights Reserved.
