How Western media manufactured consent for genocide in Gaza

Western media do not simply reflect reality they produce . . . In the context of Israel-Palestinian story telling they shape public consciousness and manufacture consent for state violence. 

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

In his seminal work Covering Islam, one of his books on the subject of “Orientalism”, Palestinian-American academic Edward Said discussed how Western news media constructs, distorts, and weaponizes narratives about Muslims, Arabs, and the Middle East. Said demonstrated that Western media do not simply misrepresent Islam and Arab societies, they also produce an entire worldview in which Muslims, and specifically Middle-Eastern societies, are rendered suspect, irrational, violent, and culturally inferior.

In his book Said showed that news media in the West through the lens of Orientalism depicts “Islam as a monolithic force”, a view shaped by ignorance, racism, bigotry, and geopolitical interests. His analysis exposed the machinery through which Western media manufacture fear, justify domination, oppression, and erase the humanity of those living under Western-backed violence. Nowhere is this structure more visible — or more lethal — than in Western coverage of Palestinian issues over the decades, and Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

The Gaza Genocide through a biased Western media lens

Said warned that Western media portray Islam and Muslims through a “hostile and belligerent” lens, reviving “discredited Orientalist views” whenever geopolitical interests demand it. That lens is now the default through which the Gaza genocide is covered. Palestinians are framed not as human beings with rights, histories, agency, and suffering, but as abstractions — “human shields,” “Hamas sympathizers,” “terrorist-adjacent populations.” Meanwhile Israeli lives are individualized, named, and mourned while Palestinian lives are recognized only through death tolls, and their narratives doubted, minimized, or erased.

This is not accidental, and has been happening for decades whenever Palestine and Israel have been discussed in the West, and more so over the past three years.  The news media have fuelled Israel’s genocide by uncritically repeating Israeli claims, suppressing Palestinian testimony, and framing Israel’s brutal violence as “self-defence” even when it has targeted hospitals, schools, journalists, and entire families. This provides credence to Said’s argument that Orientalism functions by privileging Western voices and those of its Israeli ally over those of Middle Eastern Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims. For decades since its creation the Israeli narrative has been treated as authoritative and trustworthy, while Palestinian voices are treated as emotional, biased, suspect, and dangerous.

Canadian media’s coverage of Palestinians is no exception. A study by The Review of Journalism found that the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s (CBC) flagship program The National featured more Israeli voices than Palestinian ones in its Gaza coverage, giving disproportionate weight to Israeli perspectives and marginalizing those of Palestinians. This is Orientalism in practice, where the colonizer’s voice is legitimized, and the colonized are not spoken to as people with agency, but spoken about as if they have none.

Said emphasized that Orientalism is not only about what is said, but how it is said. Language constructs reality, and Western media’s linguistic choices when talking about Palestinians or Muslims reveals a hierarchy of human worth, with Palestinians and Muslims sitting near the bottom.

Israeli deaths are described with emotional and graphic specificity — “slaughtered,” “massacred,” “butchered.” Whereas Palestinian deaths — even when numbering in the tens of thousands — are described with passive, distancing language — “died,” “were killed,” “perished,” or the most dehumanizing of all, “casualties.”

As the independent news outlet The Maple reported in 2020, there is a “devastating” pro-Israel bias in Canadian media. Stories on mainstream Canadian news outlets have repeatedly used an active voice to describe Israeli deaths while consistently using a passive voice for Palestinian deaths, subtly implying agency when Israelis are harmed and inevitability when Palestinians are deliberately killed by Israeli forces even when they are peacefully resisting occupation. This linguistic asymmetry is not neutral but rather a moral ranking mechanism. When Israel kills Palestinians, the media ask: What did Hamas do to cause this? When Israelis are killed by Palestinians the media ask: Why did Palestinians murder Israelis for no apparent reason?

This is precisely the Orientalist logic Said identified, one where the West (and its allies) act and those in the Middle East are acted upon. Israeli violence is contextualized while almost eight decades of Palestinian dispossession, oppression, suffering and death are not.

Silencing pro-Palestinian voices is the new McCarthyism

Said wrote that Western media relies on “experts” to reinforce dominant colonial and imperialist narratives — well-known and credentialed voices who reproduce the Western worldview of power while masquerading as neutral analysts. These experts, he argued, are selected not for their insight but for their ideological reliability. That is, they tell the public the Israeli and pro-Western narrative in favourable terms, reinforcing already established Orientalist narratives. Today, this dynamic has intensified to the point of open intimidation. Journalists who are sympathetic to Palestinian narratives — especially those who report honestly on Israeli atrocities — are not merely marginalized, they are disciplined or fired. Newsrooms that once claimed to value independence and fairness in coverage now enforce ideological conformity in how Israel and the story of Palestinians are portrayed, with the rigidity of a security apparatus.

Reporters who attempt to humanize Palestinians, verify Israeli claims, or document Israeli war crimes, face investigations, suspensions, and removal from their jobs, as editors spike stories that contradict Israeli talking points. Freelance reporters lose contracts for expressing grief or sympathy over the suffering of Palestinian children or posting social media comments, and entire careers are destroyed for refusing to participate in the dehumanization of a people living under a brutal occupation for almost eight decades. This is not a marketplace of free speech as much as it is a system of control, with prejudiced and racist editors and producers controlling how Palestinian humanity is represented in stories. It is the modern incarnation of what Said identified decades ago — a media environment in which dissenting news stories are treated as threats to the dominant narrative, and truth-tellers are disciplined into silence to reinforce Israel’s anti-Palestinian propaganda.

Across Canada, journalists have been suspended, fired, or censured for expressing even mild sympathy for Palestinians or for criticizing Israeli war crimes. The Maple documents how Canadian journalists who attempted to report on the scale of Palestinian suffering were reprimanded or removed from assignments. Breach Media reports that Canadian op-ed pages have overwhelmingly published pro-Israel commentary while rejecting Palestinian perspectives long before the start of the Gaza genocide. Middle East Eye shows how Western media have “manufactured consent” for Israel’s killing of hundreds of Palestinian journalists by downplaying or ignoring these targeted assassinations.

This is not merely media bias, it is repression and censorship. It is the policing of acceptable speech by media gatekeepers, and the enforcement of a narrative that protects Israeli power and erases Palestinian humanity. Said warned that Orientalism is not merely an academic discourse but also a political weapon that promotes oppression. And that is evident today, as this weapon is being used against journalists who refuse to participate in the sanitization of Israel’s horrific crimes and the vilification of Palestinians.

The long history of Anti-Palestinian racism

Anti-Palestinian prejudice did not begin on October 8, 2023. It has been embedded in Western media and society for decades. As Rabble.ca notes, Western media have a long history of ignoring or minimizing atrocities committed by Israel, from the Sabra and Shatila massacre in 1982 to the Great March of Return in 2018 and 2019 — a weekly peaceful protest in which Palestinians in Gaza demonstrated for their right of return to the homes from which they were ethnically cleansed by Israel in 1948, 1967 and the decades since then. It is clear from the history of Palestinians since before Israel came into being that Western media portrayal of the Middle East is conducted through a lens shaped by “geopolitics and economic interests,” not by truth.

What has changed in how Western media portrays Palestinians over the past few years is not the scope of anti-Palestinian prejudice but its visibility. The Gaza genocide has exposed the depth of Western news media’s structural anti-Palestinian racism, particularly in major broadcasters and newspapers like CNN, BBC, the New York Times, Washington Post, Daily Mail, and others. It has revealed how deeply Orientalist assumptions are woven into Western newsroom culture, editorial decision-making, and journalistic norms. In Canada, newsrooms cling to “flawed notions of objectivity” that unquestioningly treat Israeli state narratives as authentic and truthful while Palestinian narratives are questioned and seen as biased. This is Orientalism masquerading as professionalism — a veneer of journalistic neutrality that conceals a racialized hierarchy of credibility. The result is a media environment where Palestinian suffering is filtered through skepticism and prejudice, Israeli claims are granted automatic legitimacy, and the very idea of Palestinian humanity becomes negotiable within the offices of Western news editors and producers.

Western media do not simply reflect reality they produce it claimed Said. In the context of Israel-Palestinian story telling they shape public consciousness and manufacture consent for state violence. If one looks closely at news stories in Western media about the Gaza genocide, they have played a role that is structurally analogous to the role the tabloid Der Stürmer played in Nazi Germany, not in ideology, but in function.

Der Stürmer dehumanized Jews, justified state violence, and normalized atrocity. Western media today dehumanizes Palestinians, legitimizes Israeli violence, and normalizes genocide. Western media have become a weapon in the Gaza genocide, shaping public opinion to enable mass killing, and have systematically suppressed images, testimonies, and evidence of Israeli atrocities.

When media systems consistently dehumanize a people, erase their suffering, and amplify the narratives of their oppressors, they are not neutral observers. They are participants and criminally complicit.

There needs to be accountability

If international law is to have any meaning, then institutions that materially contribute to atrocity crimes must face scrutiny and be held legally accountable. This includes media institutions whose coverage enables, rationalizes, or sanitizes genocide. While media systems — as institutions — can be complicit in mass violence, such complicity does not arise spontaneously. It is shaped and enforced by people — executives, editors, and senior decision‑makers — who determine which narratives are amplified and which are suppressed. The precedent is clear. At the Nuremberg Tribunals, Nazi propagandists were tried and convicted because their media apparatus played a structural role in enabling the Holocaust. Similarly Western media executives have played a significant role in the atrocities carried out by Israel in Gaza. The principle established at Nuremberg — that propaganda and disinformation can constitute participation in atrocity — remains relevant today. Western media have spent three years repeating Israeli talking points, reiterating its claims without verification ignoring Palestinian testimony, and denying that genocide is taking place. In effect, Western outlets have adopted Israeli military language, framing mass killing as “precision strikes” and ethnic cleansing as “evacuations,” thereby laundering and legitimizing Israeli state violence through their framing of genocidal acts.

Said taught that knowledge is never neutral and that media power always constitutes political power. When that power is mobilized to facilitate or obscure genocide, the question becomes unavoidable: what forms of accountability are necessary for institutions that help enable mass atrocity? His critique of Western media bias, once dismissed by some as academic overreach, now reads as prophetic. The analytical framework he developed is not merely relevant to the present moment, it is indispensable in understanding how the Gaza genocide has been narrated, justified, and normalized in the West.

The atrocities committed by Israel in Gaza have revealed the true nature of Western media, not as watchdogs of power, but as instruments of it, not as defenders of truth, but as manufacturers of consent, not as neutral observers, but as structural participants in atrocity. The patterns Said identified decades ago — the privileging of colonial narratives, the erasure of Indigenous voices, the racialized hierarchy of credibility — have all re-emerged with devastating clarity. They shape which deaths are to be mourned, which claims are to be believed, and which atrocities are to be rendered invisible.

Said warned that Orientalism was not a relic of the past but an active system of thought that would continue to shape Western perceptions of the Middle East unless confronted directly. The world did not listen and for the past three years, a genocide has unfolded in real time, with Western media helping to make it possible — through distortion, through silence, through selective empathy, and through the steady reproduction of the narratives that justify the dehumanization of Palestinians.

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

OP-ED -- A personal testament of grief and resistance: Why I speak out about the Gaza genocide

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.

 

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

Canada’s moral failure around the Gaza genocide has fuelled anti-Palestinian racism and Islamophobia in this country

History will judge Canadian leaders harshly for refusing to take action to stop the Gaza genocide. They will be seen as no different than 1930s leaders who refused entry to Jews fleeing the Nazis.

   

By Fareed Khan 

   

Canada’s leaders have long positioned themselves as champions of human rights and the international legal order, yet their response (or lack thereof) to the ongoing genocide in Gaza reveals a stark absence of moral courage. Despite overwhelming evidence of Israel’s atrocities—68,000 Palestinian deaths by July 2025, and more than 370,000 by some estimates—Canadian political leaders have failed to unequivocally condemn Israel’s actions or take tangible steps to halt the violence. This inaction, coupled with on-going trade and diplomatic support for Israel, not only enables anti-Palestinian racism and Islamophobia at home but also further harms Canada’s already tarnished global standing. The contrast with Canada’s robust response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine underscores a troubling double standard, revealing a political class more concerned with appeasing a foreign government than upholding justice. 

Since the 2017 Quebec City mosque massacre and the 2021 London, Ontario attack that claimed a Muslim family, Canadian leaders have paid lip service to combating Islamophobia. Prime Ministers Justin Trudeau and now Mark Carney, alongside Liberal and Conservative MPs, have attended community forums, issued statements condemning hate, and pledged to protect Muslim Canadians. Yet, these gestures ring hollow when viewed against their refusal to substantively address the genocide in Gaza, a crisis that disproportionately affects a racialized, predominantly Muslim population. This hypocrisy has fueled anti-Palestinian racism and Islamophobia, alienating communities and emboldening bigots, while Canada’s inaction on the global stage undermines its credibility as a defender of international law.

 

The scale of the crisis in Gaza is staggering. Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor reports that, as of July 2025, Israel’s assault has killed at least 68,000 Palestinians, with over one-third being children, and displaced nearly two million people.  A 2025 study by Israeli academic Yaakov Garb, published by Harvard, estimates the death toll could be as high as 377,000, based on Israeli data, highlighting the catastrophic human cost. Social media posts by Israeli soldiers, openly celebrating the murder of civilians, including babies, provide chilling evidence of genocidal intent. A 2025 poll published in Ha’aretz further reveals that 82% of Jewish Israelis support ethnically cleansing Gaza, with 47% endorsing genocide against all Palestinians. Despite these horrors, Canada’s leaders have refused to impose sanctions on Israel, halt arms trade, or support international efforts to hold Israel accountable, such as South Africa’s genocide case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

 

Canada’s failure is not merely a diplomatic misstep, it is an abdication of moral and legal responsibility under the Genocide Convention and the UN doctrine of “Responsibility to Protect”. Canada’s leaders have defended Israel’s actions as “self-defence”, even as UN officials and global leaders have condemned the targeting of civilians, hospitals, and schools. Canada’s antipathy for Palestinians is evident in the more than 150 times it has voted against UN resolutions supporting Palestinians over the past decade.

 

Moreover, the Canadian government has opposed ceasefire resolutions at the UN in past Israeli attacks on Gaza, run interference for Israel, and vilified pro-Palestinian protesters as “terrorist sympathizers” or “Hamas lovers,” since October 2023. Such rhetoric, echoed by politicians like Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, his caucus, and some Liberal MPs, conflates criticism of Israel with antisemitism, a tactic that stifles dissent and fuels both anti-Palestinian racism and hatred against Jews.

 

As well, The Maple and The Breach, independent Canadian media outlets, have documented pervasive anti-Palestinian bias in mainstream news coverage, noting how Palestinian voices are sidelined, and their suffering downplayed. This bias reinforces a narrative that dehumanizes Palestinians, portraying them as threats rather than victims of a brutal Israeli occupation of historic Palestine that has lasted for well over seven decades.

The contrast with Canada’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could not be more stark. When Russia invaded, Canada (and its allies) swiftly imposed sanctions, halted trade, and provided military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine, positioning itself as a staunch defender of international law. Yet, in Gaza, where the ICJ has ruled Israel’s actions constitute a “plausible genocide,” and where far more people have been killed by Israel than in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Canada continues to engage in two-way trade with Israel, including arms deals, and refuses to sanction all the Israeli officials implicated in war crimes and genocide.

 

This double standard exposes a selective application of justice, where white, Christian, Ukrainian victims of Russia’s war are prioritized, but brown and largely Muslim, Palestinian lives are dismissed as unworthy of a similar robust response. The Canadian government’s failure to act—despite calls from over 400 organizations, including the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM), for sanctions and an arms embargo—signals criminal complicity in Israel’s atrocities.

 

The NCCM also cancelled meetings with former prime minister Justin Trudeau, and said that MPs would be unwelcome at mosques across the country until they called for a ceasefire and met other conditions that were published in a letter released in early 2024. Essentially, this and other statements by Canadian Muslim leaders, make it clear that Canadian Muslims no longer have a partner in the federal government when it comes to meaningfully addressing the Gaza genocide, combatting anti-Muslim hate, and address the explosion in anti-Palestinian racism in the public and private sectors. This sentiment is echoed by Canadian Muslims, Palestinians and Arabs who feel betrayed by political leaders who claim to champion diversity while ignoring their demands for justice. In the last quarter of 2023, the NCCM released numbers showing that hate targeting Muslims or Palestinians increased by 1,300%, while the Muslim Legal Support Centre had seen a 400% rise in intake on issues ranging from employment discrimination to improper treatment in schools related to support for Palestinian rights. Annually, the January 29 anniversary of the Quebec City Mosque attack serves as a painful reminder of this growing hostility, yet politicians offer little beyond platitudes and band-aid measures, failing to address the systemic racism embedded in their policies.

 

Moreover, anti-Palestinian racism and Islamophobia are not confined to the streets. They also permeate Canada’s political, media, and corporate spheres. The Maple has highlighted how Canadian media outlets like CBC skew coverage against Palestinians, often framing Israel’s actions as justified while ignoring the occupation’s context. The Breach has documented cases of journalists and academics being fired or blacklisted for criticizing Israel, reflecting a chilling Neo-McCarthyism. Pro-Palestinian protesters face harassment, doxxing, fines, and arrests, despite exercising their Charter rights to free expression. In contrast, Canada has not prosecuted Canadian citizens who have travelled to Israel to join that nation’s military, even as it commits documented war crimes and genocide, further entrenching the perception that Palestinian lives are expendable.

 

This moral failure has domestic and international repercussions. At home, it risks shredding Canada’s social fabric, alienating Muslim, Palestinian and Arab communities who feel their government prioritizes Israel’s interests over their rights. The Senate Human Rights Committee’s 2023 report underscores that Islamophobia remains a persistent problem, exacerbated by political inaction. Internationally, Canada’s refusal to uphold its obligations under the Genocide Convention—unlike its decisive response to Russia—undermines its reputation as a principled actor. The EU and UK are reevaluating trade with Israel, while Canada lags behind, clinging to a free trade agreement that indirectly funds Israel’s military machine.

 

Ordinary Canadians, however, are not silent. Since October 2023, hundreds of thousands have protested weekly across Canada, demanding a ceasefire, an arms embargo, and sanctions on top Israeli political and military officials for their genocidal crimes. These voices, representing diverse communities, reject the elite narrative peddled by pro-Israel groups like the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, which equates criticism of Israel with antisemitism. Yet, the government’s inaction suggests it values geopolitical alliances over the will of its people and defending human rights, a stance that echoes the indifference of pre-World War II leaders to Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany.

 

To restore Canada’s moral and global standing, leaders must act decisively by imposing a comprehensive arms embargo, suspend the Canada-Israel Free Trade Agreement, and sanction Israeli officials complicit in genocide.  Similar demands were made in a letter to Prime Minister Mark Carney signed by over 400 academics, lawyers, former ambassadors, ministers, human rights experts, and civil society, labour and faith leaders to which the government’s response has been to sanction only two Israeli politicians.  Far more needs to be done if Canada wants to repair its tattered international reputation, including recognizing anti-Palestinian racism in the national Anti-Racism Strategy, as urged by the Arab Canadian Lawyers Association. Failure to do so will deepen divisions at home and further erode Canada’s credibility abroad, cementing its complicity in one of the worst human rights crises of our time.

 

The genocide in Gaza is not a “two-sided” conflict, as some Canadian politicians claim. It is asymmetric warfare by one of the most powerful military forces in the world against a helpless people without an army, navy or air force, and systematic assault on Palestinians who have been subjected to the longest and most brutal occupation in modern history. Canadian leaders must choose: either uphold the international legal order which they claim to defend, or continue enabling racism and genocide through their actions and inaction. 

 

The world is watching, and history will not only judge Canada and its leaders harshly for their silence, it will put them in the same box with those pre-World War Two politicians who, when asked how many Jewish refugees fleeing the Nazis Canada would accept, responded with the words “none is too many.”
  

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