Zionism has enabled Western complicity in Israeli crimes – The ideology must be purged from society to reclaim our souls

The West, Israel's chief enabler, must confront the deep poison of Zionism that has corrupted our politics, media, moral compass, and stolen our humanity

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

In the shadowed corridors of power, where truth is often the first casualty, our Canadian and Western society teeters on the brink of a profound moral collapse. This crisis, one of our own making, stems from the unwavering support Western nations have lavished upon Israel—a rogue state that has flouted international law since its creation on stolen Palestinian land.

For decades Israel and its Zionist agents in the West have coerced, threatened, bribed and gas lit politicians, news media outlets, and societal leaders to champion Israel’s interests while turning a blind eye to its war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. Zionism has infiltrated and corrupted the very fabric of Western democracy to the point that Western society consistently sided with Israel even when it launched wars against its neighbours and committed the most heinous of crimes. The abyss between the West’s proclaimed values and grim reality widens daily, threatening not just the Palestinian people but the soul of our society. The death of truth, as we have witnessed in the ongoing horrors of Gaza, marks the triumph of unchecked evil that should have died with the worst horrors of the 20th Century.

Our hold on objective reality frayed irreparably in October 2023, when Israel unleashed its “final solution” on Gaza—an enclave long described as an open-air Palestinian prison and concentration camp, where every facet of life is dictated by Israeli control. What has unfolded is nothing short of genocide, a crime affirmed by the United Nations, the International Association of Genocide Scholars, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, B’Tselem, renowned Israeli Holocaust scholars, the nations backing South Africa’s case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), international legal scholars. The ICJ itself ruled that Israel’s actions constitute plausible genocide. Yet, in Western media and political discourse, the word “genocide” is verboten, reporters muzzled from humanizing Palestinians or acknowledging the scale of atrocity. Major outlets in the US, Canada, the UK, and Germany—CNN, CBC, BBC, Deustsche Welle—exile this truth, mirroring the complicity of Western governments that could halt the slaughter but instead supply arms and diplomatic cover.

Birthed in 1948 amid the ashes of the Holocaust, Israel, for good or ill was supposed to be a refuge for European Jews in the Middle-East. Instead, it became a monster, perpetrating evils against Palestinians akin to those of Nazi Germany—not in sheer numbers but in the calculated intent to eradicate a people. This is not hyperbole. Israel’s founding involved the ethnic cleansing of 750,000 Palestinians in the Nakba, the destruction and physical erasure of over 500 Palestinian villages, and the seizure of Palestinian land through terrorism and force. From its admission to the United Nations in 1949 under Resolution 273, Israel’s acceptance was conditioned on fulfilling Resolutions 181 (partition plan) and 194 (right of return for Palestinian refugees). It has flagrantly failed both, refusing to allow refugees back and expanding settlements on occupied Palestinian land in violation of international law. This defiance set the stage for decades of impunity, enabled by Western patrons who prioritized geopolitical alliances over justice for Palestinians.

Prominent voices, including Jewish intellectuals who could not be dismissed as biased, have long exposed Israel as a criminal terrorist state. Noam Chomsky, the eminent linguist and political commentator, has decried Israel’s actions as genocidal, arguing that US support for its occupation threatens world peace. He has advocated for a single binational state, rejecting the ethno-nationalist framework that sustains apartheid-like conditions. Chomsky’s critique echoes a historical pattern, one where Israel’s systematic dispossession of Palestinians mirrors colonial genocides, where settlers expel indigenous populations and take over their lands.

Norman Finkelstein, son of Holocaust survivors and a scholar of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, brands Israel a “rogue state“ that violates every international norm. In his exhaustive analysis of the suffering of Gaza’s people, Finkelstein documents how Israel’s assaults—killing thousands, predominantly civilians—are flagrant war crimes, shielded by Western complicity. He asserts that Israel’s intent is not self-defence but the complete destruction of Palestinian society, a genocide in slow motion, accelerated since 2023. Finkelstein’s work underscores how Zionism’s propaganda has inverted victim and perpetrator, portraying oppressed Palestinians as aggressors, and the Israeli aggressors as victims.

Ilan Pappe, the Israeli historian exiled for telling the truth about Israel’s criminal history, chronicles the nation’s founding as premeditated ethnic cleansing. In his seminal work The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Pappe details Plan Dalet, the blueprint for expelling Palestinians, drawing parallels to genocidal campaigns. He contends that Zionism’s colonial ethos has poisoned Israeli society, leading to the current Gaza genocide where hospitals are bombed and aid blocked in defiance of international law. Pappe’s exile from Israeli academia highlights Zionism’s grip, where dissent is silenced and truth about Israeli crimes is branded as treason.

Miko Peled, born into a prominent Zionist family, the son of the renowned Israeli General Matti Peled—a hero of the 1948 and 1967 wars—has emerged as one of the most unflinching pro-Palestinian voices from within Israeli society. Despite his privileged upbringing and early military service, Peled underwent a profound transformation, particularly after the tragic death of his 13-year-old niece in a 1997 Palestinian suicide bombing in Jerusalem. This personal loss drove him to deeply examine the narratives he had inherited, ultimately leading him to condemn Israel as a “terrorist state” and an apartheid regime.

From his insider perspective, Peled exposes the Israeli military as the world’s best-equipped, best-trained, and best-fed terrorist organization, arguing that Israel’s systemic control over Palestinians—through the denial of basic rights, routine bombing of civilians, and the maintenance of concentration-camp-like conditions in Gaza—amounts to institutionalized terrorism, all sustained by Western indifference and complicity. His courageous critique shatters the enduring myth of Israel as a beleaguered democracy under constant threat, instead revealing a society where widespread public support for ethnic cleansing and genocide exposes deep-seated supremacist attitudes.

Similarly, Gideon Levy, the acclaimed Ha’aretz columnist who has long risked his life reporting from the occupied Palestinian territories, offers a searing indictment of Israel’s moral erosion. He portrays the occupation as a metastasizing cancer that festers through the daily atrocities committed by settlers and soldiers alike, while much of the Western media averts its gaze. Levy has repeatedly warned that Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza has rendered the country a global pariah, its carefully cultivated reputation now in ruins amid the flood of unfiltered images from Gaza documenting widespread horror and suffering. Through his persistent pleas for empathy and humanity, Levy works to rehumanize Palestinians in the eyes of Israelis and the world, directly challenging the Zionist propaganda that systematically dehumanizes them—often reducing them to labels like “human animals“ or terrorist threats to be eradicated. His unflinching journalism stands as a vital counterforce to the narratives that enable ongoing oppression and violence.

Even Albert Einstein, the renowned physicist and committed humanist, issued stark warnings about the dangers of political Zionism. He firmly opposed the establishment of a sovereign Jewish state, believing it would cultivate a narrow, aggressive nationalism that would ultimately inflict deep and lasting harm on Judaism itself. In December 1948, he co-signed a public letter—published in The New York Times—condemning Zionist paramilitary groups such as the Irgun and Stern gangs as “fascist” organizations whose tactics and ideology bore disturbing similarities to those of the Nazis. Einstein’s foresight proves hauntingly prescient today. The creation of Israel in 1948 resulted in the ethnic cleansing of more than 750,000 Palestinians through forced expulsions, the erasure of over 500 Palestinian villages, and widespread terror, planting the seeds of perpetual conflict that Western governments have sustained for generations through unwavering military, financial, and diplomatic backing.

These prominent critics—Jewish intellectuals, historians, and activists of conscience—are far from outliers. Together, they form a powerful chorus exposing the toxic influence of Zionism, which has fuelled endless violent conflicts across the Middle East. Since its founding in 1948, Israel has systematically violated the United Nations Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Geneva and Hague Conventions, the Genocide Convention, and the most fundamental tenets of humanity—all in pursuit of its national and geopolitical ambitions.

Yet Western leaders continue to recite the tired mantra that “Israel has a right to defend itself,” even as this racist apartheid state bombs schools, razes hospitals, engineers starvation in Gaza, and assassinates journalists with complete impunity. This unwavering complicity has poisoned Western societies from within. The United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Canada, and their allies have pour billions in military hardware into Israel—arms that have been used to slaughter innocents—while organizations like AIPAC in the US (now widely regarded as a politically toxic organization) and similar pro-Israel lobbies in other countries, exert relentless pressure to silence dissenting political voices.

The toxicity of Zionism permeates far beyond the halls of government, seeping into the core of Western institutions and everyday discourse. Universities routinely suppress pro-Palestinian voices through disciplinary measures, event cancellations, and funding threats, stifling academic freedom and open debate. Major Western news outlets engage in pervasive self-censorship, marginalizing or outright dehumanizing Palestinian suffering by avoiding terms like “occupation” or “genocide,” framing reporting to align with pro-Israel perspectives, and downplaying civilian casualties. Societal leaders—politicians, influencers, and public figures—cynically conflate legitimate criticism of Zionism with antisemitism, a dangerous tactic that deflects scrutiny from Israel’s criminal actions and shields it from accountability.

This infiltration has been insidious and pervasive, embedding Zionist ideology deep within Western minds and structures over generations. Relentless pro-Israel propaganda has indoctrinated populations, consistently portraying Israel as the eternal victim besieged by existential threats, while systematically vilifying Palestinians as inherent aggressors unworthy of empathy, rights, or even basic humanity. This narrative inversion has taken firm root, profoundly shaping public opinion, driving policy decisions, and dictating media framing across the United States, Europe, and beyond—ensuring that Israel’s violations of international law are met with silence or justification rather than condemnation.

Recent polling data from Israel itself lays bare the extent of extremist radicalization within Israeli society. A March 2025 survey of Jewish Israelis, commissioned by Pennsylvania State University and published by the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz, revealed shocking levels of support for extreme measures against Palestinians. Fully 82% of respondents endorsed the forced expulsion of all Palestinians from Gaza—often framed as “transfer” but amounting to ethnic cleansing, a clear war crime under international law. Even more disturbingly, 47% agreed that the Israeli army should emulate the biblical conquest of Jericho by killing every inhabitant of captured enemy cities, effectively supporting the total extermination of all men, women and children in Gaza. This mirrors the dehumanization tactics once employed by the Nazis against Jews, reducing an entire people to existential threats that justify total eradication—yet the Western alliance continues to provide Israel with political, military, and financial support.

These attitudes among Israelis are not fringe outliers but reflect a broader societal shift, compounded by decades of Zionist indoctrination, occupation, settlement expansion, and impunity. The United Nations has passed repeated resolutions condemning Israel’s actions—more than against any other member state—yet these are routinely ignored, actions supported by the US. Israel’s admission to the UN in 1949 came with explicit conditions, including acceptance of the partition plan and the right of return for Palestinian refugees. It agreed to the resolutions but has fulfilled neither, instead perpetuating a brutal, decades-long occupation and committing genocidal acts with utter disregard for human life and international norms. Western complicity in this defiance not only enables ongoing crimes but erodes the credibility of global institutions and the rule of law itself.

The poison of Zionism is clearly evident in Gaza over the past 27 months, where the ideology has allowed Israel to justify genocide, and commit mass murder with a true death toll far exceeding the underreported official figures that dominate mainstream narratives. Independent analyses of Israeli crimes paints a far more harrowing picture of the scale of devastation inflicted since October 2023. Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor has documented more than 75,000 Palestinians killed, underscoring the relentless toll on civilian life.

However, there are other analyses of Palestinian casualties that are far higher. Drawing directly from Israeli military data, Ben Gurion University professor Yaakov Garb’s rigorous spatial and demographic study estimates at least 377,000 Palestinians dead or missing—presumed dead—amid the rubble, and widespread disappearances, with roughly half believed to be children. Even more starkly, a 2025 study by Australian academics Richard Hill and Gideon Polya, building on epidemiological projections from The Lancet and accounting for both direct violence and indirect deaths from engineered famine, blockades, disease, and a collapsed healthcare system, places the total dead and missing at over 680,000. These staggering figures reveal a deliberate strategy of deprivation as a weapon of war, where starvation and denial of aid compound the horrors of bombardment, eroding the foundations of international humanitarian law and human rights. Western governments’ continued military, financial, and diplomatic backing sustains Israeli crimes, allowing violations to proceed with near-total impunity and further undermining the “international legal order” they claim to defend.

When truth is assaulted and twisted in such an Orwellian fashion, monsters are inevitably created. Israel’s leaders and their Western agents, armed with some of the loudest and most well-funded propaganda machinery in the world, have seized control of Western narratives for far too long. But cracks are now widening in this facade, especially in the midst of the unfolding genocide in Gaza. Since October 2023, millions around the globe—from Tokyo to London to New York—have cast off the Zionism’s blinders, pouring into streets in unprecedented protests, numbering in the hundreds of thousands, to demand justice for Palestinians, and an end to the slaughter in Gaza.

The moment has arrived for the West, Israel’s chief enabler, to confront the deep poison of Zionism that has corrupted our politics, media, and moral compass. We must insist on real accountability from our own governments by halting the flow of military hardware and trade that sustains the violence, rigorously enforcing the ICJ’s rulings on plausible genocide, and press for Israel’s suspension or expulsion from the United Nations until it finally honors the conditions of its 1949 admission, which it has defied for decades by denying Palestinian refugees their right of return and expanding illegal settlements on occupied land.

We must expose and challenge those politicians who have been coerced, lobbied, or outright bought by pro-Israel groups, holding them to account for their complicity in Israeli crimes. Similarly, we need to confront media executives and outlets that perpetuate anti-Palestinian bias through selective reporting, language restrictions, and the erasure of Palestinian humanity. These entrenched structures of prejudice—built on decades of Zionist indoctrination—must be dismantled if we are to reclaim an honest public discourse.

Only by wresting truth back from distortion and denial can we pull back from the moral abyss into which we are sliding. Zionism’s adherents have infiltrated and degraded our societies, turning empathy into suspicion and justice into taboo. Rejecting this toxic influence is the path to restoring our shared humanity. The monster we helped birth and sustain through arms, aid, and silence must be starved of support, not continually nourished. For the sake of Palestinians enduring unimaginable suffering, and for the sake of our own souls, the cloak of complicity and darkness must finally be shed.

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

Trump’s presidency is ruining American society, and now he’s chosen to inflict chaos on Venezuela

The Venezuelan attack is the beginning of a tragedy which could impact the globe, a reminder that power left unchecked has the potential to inflict danger and chaos on the world.

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

In the chaotic theatre of Donald Trump’s second presidency, the curtain has risen on a spectacle of hubris and hypocrisy. Just one year into his second term, Trump has orchestrated an illegal military raid on Venezuela, violating international law by capturing President Nicolás Maduro in a brazen act of gunboat diplomacy that reeks of 19th-century imperialism.

Trump crowed about the operation from his Mar-a-Lago lair, declaring that the United States would “run the country” until a “safe transition” could be engineered—presumably one that hands Venezuela’s vast oil reserves to American corporations on a silver platter. But why now? Why expend energy and resources to meddle in a sovereign nation’s affairs when Americans are buckling under the weight of Trump’s disastrous economic policies? The answer is as cynical as it is transparent. This fiasco is a desperate smokescreen to distract from the Epstein files, those damning documents that threaten to expose Trump’s sordid ties to the notorious sex trafficker and pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

Trump’s re-election in 2024 was sold on the promise of “America First”—a slogan that evoked isolationism and a focus on domestic issues. What Americans have gotten instead is a deranged president who struts like a would-be emperor, now threatening Colombia with invasion on the same pretext he used to abduct the Venezuelan president, while musing about using military force to annex Greenland. This isn’t remotely close to the leadership for which Americans voted. It’s a reckless grab for resources that endangers global stability and betrays the very voters who put him back in the White House. At a time when tariffs have ignited inflation, gas prices are far higher than he promised they would be, and the economy teeters on the brink of recession, Trump’s foreign adventurism is not just irresponsible, it’s an epic betrayal of his MAGA base.

On the economy Trump’s tariff policy, hailed by the president as a masterstroke to punish foreign competitors, has boomeranged into a punishing blow for everyday Americans. Economists warned that these levies would act like a hidden tax, and they’ve been proven right. Inflation, which dipped to 2.3% in April 2025, climbed as high as 3% by September 2025, fuelled directly by higher import costs. Gas prices, averaging US$2.94 a gallon in December 2025, are up from pre-tariff levels, with Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell attributing the spike to Trump’s policies. The effective tariff rate has ballooned to 18%, pushing consumer prices higher across the board—coffee, bread, appliances, electronics, you name it. Goldman Sachs estimates that tariffs could add 0.3 percentage points to core inflation in 2026, with households bearing up to 70% of the US$1.2 trillion cost.

Trump claims that managing the economy has been one of his crowning achievements. But that claim has been proven to be a bald faced lies with economists and experts refuting the assertion. Economic growth projections have been slashed, unemployment is ticking up as tariffs hammer industries reliant on imports, and the Tax Foundation warns that these policies will shrink America’s GDP by 0.5% before foreign retaliation affects the US. Trump’s boastful claims that prices are “coming down tremendously” are pure fiction. Core inflation peaked at 3% year-over-year in September 2025. Meanwhile, nearly 60% of Americans—about 24% of households—are living pay cheque to pay cheque, a figure that has risen steadily under Trump’s watch. Lower-income families have been hit hardest, with 29% scraping by as wage growth stagnates. This isn’t a “winning” scenario, it’s lousy, incompetent economic stewardship by a president who has left millions one missed pay cheque from disaster.

Yet instead of fixing this domestic debacle, Trump turned his gaze to South American, proclaiming he’ll “run Venezuela” like it’s some sort of Trump business franchise. The Venezuela fiasco isn’t about democracy or halting drug trafficking, it’s an attempt to distract the American public’s attention from the Epstein scandal which is festering like an open wound.

During his 2024 campaign, Trump repeatedly promised to declassify and release the full Epstein files, vowing transparency on the late pedophile’s web of elite enablers. He signed the Epstein Files Transparency Act in November 2025, mandating full release by December 19 in a searchable format. But deadlines have come and gone. As of January 2026, the Justice Department has admitted that less than 1% of the documents have been released, citing endless redactions to “protect victims” as the reason. But what is really being protected are revelations about Trump’s close connections to Epstein that could rupture his Republican base.

The files, heavily blacked out and incomplete, hint at Trump’s deep ties to Epstein. They include flight logs, grand jury testimony, and communications that could unravel his carefully curated image. Reports reveal Trump was briefed in May 2025 that his name appeared in the files multiple times, prompting a pivot from promises of full disclosure to downplaying their importance. Victims and bipartisan lawmakers have decried the stonewalling as a cover-up, a stunt orchestrated just as speculation mounted that the files would implicate Trump in Epstein’s depravity. This isn’t a coincidence? This is deflection and misdirection on steroids, a wag-the-dog maneuver to shift headlines from Trump’s deep ties to Epstein to an act of imperialism out of the darkest chapters of the colonial era.

In addition, Trump’s threats against Colombia—calling President Gustavo Petro a “sick man” involved in cocaine trafficking and hinting at military action—echo his Venezuelan aggression. Petro, a leftist leader, has pushed back fiercely, deploying troops to his country’s borders and vowing to take up arms if invaded. Meanwhile, Trump’s renewed obsession with annexing Greenland, citing “national security,” has escalated to White House discussions of military options. Denmark’s leaders have condemned the “threats,” along with their European allies France, Germany, the UK, Spain, Italy, Poland, Austria, Finland, Norway, Sweden and Iceland rallying against this neo-colonial fantasy. This isn’t isolated blustering by Trump, but rather part of a pattern tying aggression against other nations to an agenda of evading transparency on a domestic crisis that could destroy Trump politically.

Furthermore, the attack on Venezuela is unconstitutional to its core. The US Constitution vests Congress with the sole power to declare war, a check on executive overreach that Trump has shredded. He launched this military attack without consulting members of Congress or Senators, let alone securing authorization—a blatant violation of the War Powers Resolution of 1973, which requires presidential notification within 48 hours and withdrawal after 60 days absent congressional approval. Congress neither knew nor approved this raid, making it illegal under domestic law. Trump’s flimsy justification—drug charges from a 2020 indictment against Maduro—doesn’t hold water. You don’t invade a nation to arrest its leader based on domestic US law.

While there’s no argument that Maduro is a corrupt thug, the same can be said of Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman, North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, Russia’s Putin, and Egypt’s Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. And there have been no invasions launched against those countries and neither have their leaders been abducted to stand trial in the US. Disliking a leader doesn’t grant the US or any other nation the right to overthrow governments or abduct heads of state.

Internationally, Trump’s actions are a grotesque breach of the UN Charter. Article 2(4) prohibits the use of force against another state’s territorial integrity, a cornerstone of global order that Trump has spit upon. Legal experts decry the invasion as the “crime of aggression,” no different than Russia’s assault on Ukraine or Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait. By ignoring international law, Trump has made the world exponentially more dangerous. Vladimir Putin can now point to American actions in Venezuela to justify escalating Russian aggression in Ukraine, while Chinese leader Xi Jinping could cite it as justification for moving on Taiwan. Additionally any terrorist group or rogue state might invoke “Trump logic” to launch attacks on those they deem to be threats or enemies. What Trump has done isn’t a demonstration of strength or an act of self-defence, it’s recklessness that invites global chaos and armed conflict.

At its heart, the US attack on Venezuela is blatant imperialism in support of America’s oil companies. The oil in that nation belongs to Venezuelans, not US corporations salivating over potential profits, oil that Trump has claimed belongs to the US. As the world pivots to renewable and green sources of energy, propping up fossil fuels is economic idiocy and climate suicide, an energy strategy that would fuel catastrophic climate change.

This hypocrisy guts Trump’s campaign persona, the one where he ran as the “no more wars” candidate, slamming endless foreign interventions and pledging “America First.” But in his first year since being re-elected he has launched attacks on Iran, Yemen, and Venezuela, with Colombia and Greenland now in America’s cross-hairs. With 60% of Americans living month to month amid rising inflation and a wobbly economy, Trump should be laser-focused on addressing domestic issues. Instead, he’s destabilizing Venezuela while he bungles the management of domestic affairs in the US, proving again that he’s inadequate and ill equipped to manage one country, let alone two.

Americans and the global community deserve far better than this imperialistic farce. Trump’s dangerous and sociopathic leadership has impoverished Americans, eroded democracy in the US, and endangered the globe—all to dodge accountability for his ties to Epstein. For the sake of the world it’s time for the US Congress to reclaim its war powers, for the international community to sanction American aggression, charge Trump at the International Criminal Court, and for US voters to demand a leader who puts their interests first, rather than feeding his own ego. The Venezuelan attack isn’t triumph, it’s the beginning of a tragedy that is the first domino falling which could impact the globe, a stark reminder that power left unchecked has the potential to destroy nations and inflict danger and chaos on the world.

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

US attack on Venezuela echoes 1930s Nazi Germany and lead up to World War Two

Nazi Germany’s pre-war expansionism was characterized by a step-by-step erosion of the international order. Since returning to office Trump actions have been following a similar pattern.

 

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

In the early hours of January 3, 2026, American military forces launched airstrikes across northern Venezuela, capturing President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, in an operation codenamed “Absolute Resolve.” President Donald Trump swiftly declared that the United States would “run the country” until a “safe, proper, and judicious” transition could occur, framing the action as a necessary strike against narco-trafficking, and critical to the security of the US.

This military action, executed without the approval of the US Congress or sanctioned by the United Nations Security Council, has drawn sharp international condemnation and ignited debates about parallels to historical aggression in the 1930s. Critics argue that the move mirrors the expansionist tactics of Nazi Germany in the lead-up to World War Two, where Adolf Hitler annexed Austria in 1938 and the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia later that year, under pretexts of protecting Germans and restoring national greatness.

While the contexts differ—the US operation in Venezuela was justified as targeting a “narco-state” rather than ethnic unification—the underlying pattern of unilateral territorial intervention, disregard for sovereignty and international law, and rhetorical emphasis on national security and an American revival evokes eerie similarities to Hitler’s justifications for his actions. As Trump escalates threats against other nations, including Greenland, Canada, Panama, and Iran, the world faces its most precarious moment since the 1930s, with US actions destabilizing global norms and risking broader conflict in the same manner that Germany did in the 1930s.

Nazi Germany’s pre-war expansions were characterized by a step-by-step erosion of the international order, beginning with an exit from the League of Nations in October 1933 and the Anschluss of Austria in March 1938. Hitler portrayed the former as way to get out from under the domination of World War One victors, and the latter as a voluntary union to protect German-speaking populations that was enforced through military pressure and propaganda. Similarly, the annexation of the Sudetenland in October 1938 followed the Munich Agreement, where European powers appeased Hitler to avoid war, allowing Germany to seize territory under the guise of resolving ethnic grievances. All these moves were part of Hitler’s broader vision to “Make Germany Great Again,” a slogan that emphasized racial purity, German nationalism, economic revival, and territorial expansion.

Trump’s Venezuela operation, while not a full annexation, involved airstrikes and the abduction of a sitting head of state, with a subsequent announcement that the US would oversee Venezuelan affairs, including plans to invest in extracting its oil reserves, which he said were “stolen” from American interests. Trump has justified this by labeling Maduro a “narco-terrorist” and emphasizing benefits like reduced drug flows and energy security for America. This echoes Hitler’s pretexts, where perceived threats to Germany justified aggression. Furthermore, Trump’s threats since returning to office to “take back” the Panama Canal—citing violations of neutrality and Chinese influence—resemble Hitler’s claims on the Sudetenland as rightful German territory. In December 2025, Trump reiterated plans to reclaim the canal, which the US handed over to Panama in 1999, drawing rebukes from its government. Such rhetoric undermines post-World War Two treaties and norms, much like Hitler disregarded the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, to which Germany acceded in 1919.

At the helm of these actions is a leader whose style and ideology invites direct comparisons to Hitler. Trump, like the Nazi leader, positions himself as an infallible figure with a divine mandate to restore national glory to the US. Hitler’s cult of personality revolved around his self-proclaimed role as the savior of Germany, promising to “Make Germany Great Again” after the humiliations of World War One. Trump has echoed this with his “Make America Great Again” mantra, surviving an assassination attempt in 2024 that he attributes to divine intervention, which reinforced his messianic self-image. Both Hitler and Trump vilified minorities and immigrants as threats to the nation’s purity and security. In the US, minorities—particularly Latinos—have been targeted through inflammatory rhetoric and racist policies. Trump has described immigrants as “poisoning the blood” of America, a phrase reminiscent of Nazi eugenics propaganda. This has manifested in aggressive immigration enforcement, where Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operates with expanded powers, detaining thousands, including US citizens, in operations critics liken to actions of an “American Gestapo.”

Reports indicate that ICE has detained over 170 innocent Americans in 2025, with the vast majority being detained based on racial profiling. A Supreme Court decision in September 2025 lifted restrictions on ICE using race, language, and employment as factors in stops, enabling sweeps that echo Nazi roundups of “undesirables.” Thousands of US residents have been sent to detention centers, including facilities like Fort Bliss, where accounts of abuse and inhumane conditions have surfaced. These actions sideline due process, much like Hitler’s Enabling Act of 1933, which centralized power and targeted Jews and political opponents.

Trump’s consolidation of power further amplifies these parallels, sidelining democratic institutions in ways that recall the Nazi regime’s erosion of checks and balances. In Germany, Hitler used the Reichstag Fire Decree to suspend civil liberties and the Enabling Act to bypass the Reichstag, allowing dictatorial rule. In the US, Trump has bypassed Congress and issued over 400 executive orders in 2025 alone, more than any president in modern history, covering tariffs, immigration, and federal restructuring, essentially governing by decree, as would a dictator. Congress has been effectively marginalized, with Trump vetoing Two bipartisan bills in December 2025, including one for water infrastructure in Colorado, asserting executive prerogative. Key decisions, such as the Venezuela operation and strikes on Iranian nuclear sites in June 2025, were made without legislative consultation, drawing criticism for violating the War Powers Resolution.

The Supreme Court, with a 6-3 conservative majority including three Trump appointees, has consistently sided with the administration, overturning blocks by lower courts on policies like mass deportations, federal employee firings, and protections for hundreds of thousands of immigrants under Temporary Protected Status. This has enabled the restructuring of critical agencies and placed limits on nationwide court injunctions, consolidating executive authority, further empowering Trump to execute his anti-democratic agenda. Lower courts have been bypassed through the “shadow docket,” where the Supreme Court has granted emergency relief in about 90% of Trump cases as of late 2025. These judicial wins echo how Hitler stacked the German judiciary to give legitimacy to his regime, and pursue his agenda.

Internationally, US actions under Trump exploit America’s veto power in the UN Security Council, allowing violations of the UN Charter with impunity, much like Germany’s withdrawal from the League of Nations gave Hitler license to violate of the League’s rules based order with impunity. The attack on Venezuela has been condemned globally, with historians decrying the “naked imperialism” mimicking Nazi Germany’s actions in the 1930s, violating sovereignty norms established post-World War Two, to prevent another global conflagration.

Trump’s threats extend beyond Venezuela as he has renewed calls to annex Greenland for “national security,” prompting Denmark’s prime minister to calling or him to “stop the threats.” He has mused about making Canada the 51st state since shortly after his election in November 2024, and “taking back” the Panama Canal. Additionally, in 2025, US forces bombed Iranian nuclear sites escalating tensions in the Middle-East and setting back Iran’s program by years, while not ruling out further strikes. Such actions without a forceful response destabilizes entire regions, and possibly the world, echoing how Hitler’s annexations without international pushback emboldened aggression, leading to the invasion of Poland in 1939 and World War Two.

The cumulative effects of US actions places the world on its most dangerous path since the 1930s. Back then, appeasement allowed fascism to spread unchecked, eventually resulting in more than 70 million deaths. Today, American unilateralism risks similar escalation, with Russia’s and China’s condemnations of the Venezuela action possibly provoking proxy conflicts, while threats to Iran and Cuba heighten regional war risks.

Domestically, policies targeting minorities and sidelining government institutions erode democracy, fostering division and potential political unrest. Historians warn that Trump’s administration exhibits “increasingly relevant” parallels to the rise of Nazism in Germany, including attacks on truth and the legitimacy of public institutions. As Former vice-president Al Gore noted in 2025, lessons from Nazi Germany’s “emergent evil” apply to efforts by the Trump administration to distort reality and consolidate power in the US. Without robust international pushback and strong domestic resistance, these actions could unravel the post-1945 order, inviting calamity on a scale not seen since World War Two.

While the US under Trump is not identical to Nazi Germany—lacking the same scale of war crimes or totalitarianism—the patterns of expansionism, leader worship, targeting minorities, attacks on the institutions of democracy, and international impunity are alarmingly similar. The US attack on Venezuela, coupled with broader threats to other nations, makes the US a destabilizing force that imperils global peace. The world must heed lessons from the 1930s and 1940s before the violent history of that era repeats itself and we all suffer. 

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

Invasion of Venezuela proves again that the US is a rogue superpower and a threat to world peace and stability

The Venezuela invasion is part of a long, bipartisan US pattern of unlawful military interventions that has made America the most destabilizing nation on Earth.

By Fareed Khan

A version of this article can be found on Substack.

On January 3, 2026, mere days into the new year, the United States launched a shocking military assault on Venezuela code named “Operation Absolute Resolve.” American forces conducted airstrikes on key sites in Caracas and surrounding areas, including military bases like Fort Tiuna and La Carlota airbase, before special operations teams—reportedly including Delta Force—captured President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, extracting them and confining them aboard the USS Iwo Jima.

President Donald Trump announced the operation triumphantly, stating that the US would temporarily “run” Venezuela and be “very strongly involved” in its oil industry again, given the nation’s vast reserves of over 303 billion barrels—the largest in the world. This blatant act of aggression, justified vaguely as a response to “narco-terrorism,” reveals the US once again as the world’s most dangerous rogue state, a nation that habitually violates international law, invades sovereign countries for strategic and economic gain, and destabilizes the world while preaching a “rules-based order” for all other nations.

The American military operation constitutes clear violations of multiple pillars of international law. It directly contravenes Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter, which prohibits the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state. The airstrikes on Venezuelan soil and the forcible removal of a sitting head of state lack UN Security Council authorization and do not meet the strict criteria for self-defence under Article 51 of the Charter, as no imminent armed attack on the US was evident. Prominent legal experts, including Geoffrey Robertson—a former president of the UN war crimes court in Sierra Leone—have called it a “crime of aggression“—the planning and execution of unlawful force, deemed the “supreme international crime” since the Nuremberg trials. Similarly, Chatham House analysts and others describe it as an “unlawful use of force” without any genuine basis in self-defence or UN resolution.

The capture of Maduro and Trump’s explicit intentions to control Venezuela’s oil resources further breach principles of state sovereignty and non-intervention, enshrined in international law and the 1970 UN Declaration on Principles of International Law. Preceding actions, such as strikes on Venezuelan vessels in international waters and seizures of oil tankers, raise concerns under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), involving unauthorized lethal force and extraterritorial actions without jurisdiction.

Global condemnation has been swift. The UN Secretary-General expressed deep alarm, stating that the action sets a “dangerous precedent“ and that “international law hasn’t been respected.” Countries including Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Cuba, Russia, China, Iran, France, and Spain denounced the strikes as flagrant violations of sovereignty and the UN Charter. Even allies expressed concern, while enforcement remains blocked by the US veto in the Security Council.

This aggression is indistinguishable from Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Both involve unilateral military force against a sovereign neighbour, justified by contrived pretexts—Russia’s claims of “denazification” and threats, versus US allegations of drug trafficking without proof of imminent harm—and both aim at regime change with an underlying focus on natural resources or strategic interests.

The US vociferously condemned Russia for breaching the UN Charter and sovereignty principles, imposing sanctions and rallying global support. Yet now, America commits the same acts in Venezuela. If China were to launch a similar operation in Taiwan, citing “security threats” from US arms sales or alliances, the United States and its allies would thunderously decry violations of international law and the rules-based order. This glaring double standard exposes US disregard for international law, and its actions for what they are—a license for imperialism, where the rules bind everyone except the US and its allies.

The Venezuela invasion is not an outlier but part of a long, bipartisan US pattern of unlawful interventions that has made America the most destabilizing force in the world. Under President Dwight Eisenhower the CIA tried to pressure Egyptian King Farouk I into embracing political reforms favourable to American interests, and when he resisted they worked with disaffected members of the Egyptian military to overthrow him in a 1952 coup. In 1953 the CIA was also integral to helping install Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of as Shah of Iran, after removing the democratically elected Prime Minister, Mohammad Mosaddegh, who had nationalized Iran’s oil resources.

Under President Lyndon Johnson, the US massively escalated its involvement in the Vietnam War by orchestrating the Gulf of Tonkin Incident on August 2, 1964 to justify deeper American involvement. For the next decade the US bombed and invaded North Vietnam without UN approval, resulting in over a million Vietnamese dead, along with hundreds of thousands more in Laos and Cambodia. The devastation from the war in North and South Vietnam was widespread and now more than 50 years later the nation is still recovering, and has yet to heal. 

George H.W. Bush’s 1989 invasion of Panama was condemned by the UN General Assembly as a violation of the UN Charter, with not a single American government official being held legally accountable for American crimes. George W. Bush initiated illegal wars in Afghanistan (2001) and Iraq (2003), causing over one million deaths through violence and ensuing chaos and the destruction of civil society infrastructure. American’s “War on Terror” saw the US also violate the sovereignty of Somalia and Yemen, all without proper Security Council authorization. In total it is estimated that America’s post-9/11 wars have resulted in the death of more than 4.5 million Arabs and Muslims.

Barack Obama perpetuated these conflicts while adding unilateral interventions in Libya (2011, transforming a stable state into a failed one rife with slave markets and militias), and authorized airstrikes in Syria. Joe Biden maintained ongoing operations in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and Somalia. And in his two administrations Donald Trump ordered strikes in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and Iran, frequently bypassing congressional oversight. Now, in 2026, Venezuela becomes the latest victim of America’s criminal foreign policy where any nation that doesn’t bow to US demands becomes a target of economic warfare or military assault.

This history includes dozens of coups and regime changes since 1945—from the 1953 overthrow of Iran’s democratically elected prime minister, to the 1954 Guatemala coup protecting United Fruit Company interests (sparking a civil war killing 200,000), to the 1973 coup in Chile which overthrew Salvador Allende, and installed Augusto Pinochet  as dictator. The early 20th-century “Banana Wars” in Central America also installed regimes compliant with America’s agenda, earning the derogatory term “banana republics.” Additionally, with over 750 military bases in 80 countries—far exceeding any historical empire—the US sustains “forever wars” that have killed 13-23 million deaths in at least 28 nations, while sanctions have crippled economies in Iran, Cuba, and Venezuela.

Every such violation and illegal act by the US breeds instability. The Iraq invasion birthed ISIS, Libya’s intervention fragmented the region and empowered warlords, Afghanistan’s occupation ultimately revived the Taliban. In the Global South, America’s insatiable hunger for resources—oil in the Middle East, minerals in Africa and Latin America—sacrifices national sovereignty and violates the UN Charter repeatedly, fuelling resentment, causing refugee crises, and energizing terrorism. Venezuela’s enormous oil wealth makes it a prime target, and Trump’s open declarations of control echo the fabricated pretexts for Iraq in 2003, where lies about weapons of mass destruction masked desires for oil dominance.

The prelude to this invasion involved months of escalation—a massive US military buildup in the Caribbean with 15,000 personnel and 150 aircraft, strikes on over 35 vessels killing at least 115 people, and seizures of oil tankers—actions already criticized as potential acts of aggression and violations of maritime law. This campaign, framed as an anti-narcotics operation but escalating to direct attacks on Venezuelan soil, underscores how the US manipulates domestic legal pretexts to bypass international norms, setting precedents that weaken the global order.

Despite Maduro’s authoritarian flaws and contested elections, Venezuela under the Chavismo ideology achieved remarkable social gains, including over 95% literacy rates and expanded healthcare access for millions lifted from poverty. Regime change here primarily opens doors for US firms like ExxonMobil and Chevron to reclaim assets nationalized years ago, prioritizing corporate interests over genuine democratic or humanitarian concerns.

Under Trump, this imperial recklessness reaches alarming heights, reviving the hegemonic shadow of the Monroe Doctrine over Central and South America. Each US transgression erodes the post-World War Two international order, encouraging lawlessness where power trumps principle. The Venezuela crisis risks wider regional conflict, akin to the sectarian spillover from Iraq, potentially drawing in allies of Venezuela like Russia or China.

The human cost is already emerging with reports of civilian and military casualties in Caracas, power outages, and fears of refugee influxes prompting border mobilizations in Colombia. This deliberate and unnecessary violence, inflicted without congressional authorization or broad international support, highlights America’s overreach alongside global illegality.

For genuine global stability, the world must work to dismantle the US empire by shutting down overseas military bases, end the sale of arms to rights abusers, lift sanctions that punish civilians, and restrain the military-industrial complex profiting from perpetual conflict. The Global South watches apprehensively, aware that any resource-rich nation defying Washington could be next in line. Until the US confronts its history of predation disguised as liberation, it remains the paramount threat to world peace—a rogue state perpetuating cycles of violence that endangers the world.

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

Why Canada needs to nurture leaders like Zohran Mamdani, and to embrace democratic socialism

Neoliberalism’s deregulation, privatization, corporate tax cuts, and austerity have only made Canadians poorer and more vulnerable. Democratic socialism could reserve this decline.

By Fareed Khan

A version of this article can be found on Substack.

As Canadian begin the New Year, many were watching New York City yesterday, and were electrified by Zohran Mamdani’s inauguration speech, following his swearing in as New York City’s new mayor.

Mamdani, the city’s first Muslim mayor, defied the odds by winning the 2025 election against both Democratic and Republican establishments, including former governor Andrew Cuomo running as an independent and Republican Curtis Sliwa, despite millions poured into anti-Mamdani campaigns by New York City’s billionaire class. His victory speech, delivered amid a Lower Manhattan crowd, bracing against the frigid temperatures, and broadcast widely, wasn’t just rhetoric—it was a blueprint for leadership that spoke directly to the struggling masses, the bottom 95% who’ve been sidelined by elite-driven politics for decades.

In Canada, from Vancouver to Halifax, we have endured generations of leaders who have prioritized corporate interests over the everyday hardships of ordinary Canadians, with few exceptions. Mamdani’s words reminded us what we’ve been missing—politicians who stand unapologetically with workers, immigrants, and the precariously employed, the people who make society function, leaders who wield government as a tool for the collective benefit of the vast majority rather than for the private gain of the powerful, the privileged and the rich.

Mamdani’s address opened with a powerful declaration of solidarity, positioning himself not above but “alongside” New Yorkers—from construction workers in steel-toed boots to halal cart vendors with aching knees, from people working in cramped kitchens, to neglected hospital workers. He acknowledged the city’s unsung heroes--neighbours sharing food with the elderly, strangers helping mothers with strollers on subway stairs. This inclusivity extended to skeptics and opponents, promising to serve all regardless of how they voted or their political views, vowing to “protect you, celebrate with you, mourn alongside you.”

He thanked labour leaders, activists, even his predecessor outgoing Mayor Eric Adams (with a humorous nod to their elevator rapport). He thanked congressional mentors Nydia Velázquez and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and his idol, Senator Bernie Sanders, who swore him in. He expressed personal gratitude to his immigrant parents from Uganda and India, his family, and wife Rama, underscoring his roots as a Muslim kid who grew up eating bagels and lox every Sunday.

Then Mamdani pivoted to talking about transformation, decrying past squandered opportunities where “moments of great possibility” yielded to “small imagination and smaller ambition.” Rejecting advice to lower public expectations, he reset them upward—”We will govern expansively and audaciously.” He revived the idea of “big government” as a force for good, demanding excellence from public servants akin to Broadway stars or Knicks players. Central was the question in his remarks, “Who does New York belong to?” For too long, he noted, the city has belonged to the “wealthy and well-connected,” leaving the city with crowded public school classrooms, broken elevators in public housing, roads filled with potholes, delayed buses, stagnant wages, and corporate exploitation of those people who actually work to create the wealth and make New York City what it is. He invoked past progressive mayors like Bill de Blasio, David Dinkins, and New York City political icon Fiorello La Guardia, pledging to resurrect their legacy with an agenda of “safety, affordability, and abundance.” Mamdani pledged that government will reflect its people, fight corporate greed, and tackle complex challenges.

Quoting Nelson Mandela’s Freedom Charter, Mamdani asserted that New York “belongs to all who live in it,” envisioning a story of “eight and a half million cities”—diverse New Yorkers speaking Pashto, Mandarin, Yiddish, Creole and a multitude of other languages; praying in mosques, synagogues, churches, gurdwaras, mandirs, or not at all. He highlighted immigrants from Brighton Beach to Woodhaven, young people in shaky apartments, Black homeowners overcoming redlining, and Palestinian New Yorkers no longer persecuted or exceptionalized.

Embracing voters who backed Donald Trump before him, he critiqued civility masking as cruelty and promised to meet betrayed communities’ needs, fostering community solidarity over rugged individualism. Specific policies he mentioned included reforming property taxes, establishing a Department of Community Safety for mental health (freeing police to address actual crime), confronting bad landlords, easing bureaucracy for small businesses, universal childcare via taxing the rich, rent freezes, and free, fast buses. These, he said, aren’t just cost reductions but “lives filled with freedom,” echoing the ideals of the New Deal.

Mamdani rooted all of this in personal anecdotes—razor scooter races, pizza slices, hunger strikes, stalled trains, citizenship oaths. After the election he spent 12 hours listening to 142 New Yorkers, listening to stories of heartbreak and hope, uniting around “new politics.” Expect a City Hall of “how?” not “no” he stated, accountable to people, not billionaires. As a democratic socialist, he quoted Sanders--”What’s radical is a system which gives so much to so few.” He called for standing together, sustaining the movement that put him in office beyond the election, overcoming challenges with ambition, not austerity. New York City will exemplify that “anyone can make it,” proving the left can govern and solve struggles, reigniting hope worldwide he told the crowd.

From our vantage point in Canada, watching Mamdani present what his detractors have labelled a “radical” vision for New York City, this is the leadership we have craved but haven’t seen for generations. Since Canada turned from the progressive liberalism of the Pierre Trudeau years in the 1970s and early 80s with interventionist governments, to the dawn of the neoliberal era in the mid-80s, with Prime Ministers Brian Mulroney, Jean Chrétien, Paul Martin and Stephen Harper, our policies have mirrored those of the US—deregulation, privatization, corporate tax cuts, and austerity to address the government’s financial challenges. The result? Income inequality has surged, with the top 40% holding 64.8% of disposable income in late 2023, while the bottom 40% held just 18.8%, a gap widening annually since the pandemic. Real incomes for the bottom 50% grew only 28.7% since 1982, lagging GDP per capita growth and inflation, leaving 15 million Canadians poorer on average by $6,450 in 2022 if growth had been equitable. Younger Canadians under 44 have seen median incomes stagnate or fall, while seniors fare better. Canada’s affordable housing crisis, precarious gig work, and crumbling public services and infrastructure echoes Mamdani’s New York woes, but our leaders—whether Liberal or Conservative—tinker at edges rather than addressing the issues in a decisive manner, taking their cues from Bay Street and international elites.

Canada once flirted with democratic socialism—the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) in 1932, our first major socialist movement, birthed universal healthcare under Premier Tommy Douglas in Saskatchewan. The New Democratic Party (NDP), influenced by social democracy, pushed for workers’ compensation, minimum wage, old-age pensions, unemployment insurance, and family allowances, which all benefitted Canadians and helped create the middle-class. Yet, these gains were co-opted into a neoliberal framework in the last few decades of the 20th century and into the 21st century. Recent NDP governments, like those in Alberta and British Columbia, diluted socialist principles with corporate concessions and tax cuts. Canadian leaders have lacked Mamdani-audacity to tackle big problems with big policies rooted in movements, that are unashamedly socialist, defying billionaires and corporate elites.

What is the path to a better future? The answer is to embrace democratic socialism wholeheartedly—collective ownership of key sectors, progressive taxation and higher tax rates on corporations and elites, universal services like childcare and pharmacare, a reinvestment in public health care in Canada, rent controls, free public transit, mental health investments—all funded by taxing the ultra-rich and corporations which don’t pay their fair share of taxes to begin with. Neoliberalism’s “trickle-down” myth has enriched the top 1% six times more than the bottom 50%, fostering stagnation. It’s time to toss this failed ideology in history’s trash bin, one that has bred inequality, eroded democracy, and left us struggling.

As 2026 dawns, amid economic instability spurred by Trump’s destructive tariff policy, an ever worsening climate crises. and the dawn of AI which will disrupt society, Canadians deserve politicians in the style of Zohran Mamdani--progressives who listen, act boldly, and build solidarity. His win shows it’s possible—defying establishment elites, mobilizing the bottom 95%, and building a government that serves the needs of the vast majority. Let’s demand it in Ottawa and in every province. Let’s elect leaders who make Canada belong to all, not just the privileged few. The work, as Mamdani says, has only just begun, and it’s time for Canadians who want a better Canada to take cues from him and build our own democratic socialist society, on that does not exists only to make the rich richer and give more power to the already powerful. If we want this it’s in our hands to begin this transformation in 2026 for all of Canada. 

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

As 2025 ends Israel's violence in Gaza during sacred holidays reveals more of their inhumanity

Gaza's ancient Christian community—dating back to the time of Christ—is now on the brink of extinction due to decades of Israeli oppression, attacks, displacement, and the destruction of holy sites.

By Fareed Khan

A version of this article can be found on Substack.

 

As the world marked the sanctity of Christmas and Hanukkah in late December—a season traditionally devoted to peace, reflection, and family—the Gaza Strip faced unrelenting violence at Israeli hands into the year’s final days. Reports from the region depicted ongoing Israeli military operations that showed no pause, turning potential moments of respite into further devastation.

For example, air strikes continued across Gaza during the holiday period, with attacks reported in areas like Shuja’iyya and other neighbourhoods, resulting in civilian casualties and underscoring a disregard for humanitarian norms, despite a ceasefire which Israel signed with Hamas in October. These were not isolated events as Israel’s unrelenting assault on Gaza over the holidays killed dozens, including children, in locations throughout the enclave. Such actions shattered any holiday spirit and heightened the existential threat to Gaza’s ancient Christian Palestinian community—one of the world’s oldest—now on the brink of extinction due to decades of prolonged conflict, displacement, and the destruction of holy sites.

Gaza’s Christian Palestinians, numbering fewer than 600 today, trace their roots back over 2,000 years, predating many modern religious and political boundaries. The ongoing bombardment, combined with Israel’s 16 year long siege and blockade, has drastically reduced their numbers, with churches damaged or destroyed and family lineages wiped out. Holiday periods in prior years witnessed attacks on sacred sites, including church compounds that resulted in deaths and injuries. This pattern points to Israel’s systematic erasure of cultural and religious heritage in Gaza, pushing Palestinian Christians toward oblivion amid actions widely described by international human rights organizations, genocide scholars, Jewish intellectuals, and international bodies like the United Nations and the International Court of Justice as carrying genocidal intent. The irony during the holiday season is stark. Hanukkah celebrates light triumphing over darkness and resistance to oppression, yet the self-proclaimed Jewish state’s policies contravene these principles, oppressing a vulnerable population in ways that contradict Jewish scriptural commands—such as the Torah’s 36 exhortations not to oppress the stranger and the Talmud’s teaching that destroying one life is akin to destroying an entire world.

These developments occurred against more than 800 days of genocidal violence by Israel, with the Palestinian death toll exceeding 75,000 as of mid-November, with more than 30% of the victims being children and 20% being women. In addition, the humanitarian crisis has worsened due to restrictions on aid crossing into Gaza, resulting in famine, disease, and severe winter hardships. Even as leaders worldwide shared holiday messages, Israel’s military assault continued in violation of international law, including the Genocide Convention, prompting widespread condemnation from human rights groups. This continuation of military attacks during sacred holidays exposes an unwillingness to heed universal pleas for mercy, demonstrating again Israel’s utter disregard for Palestinian lives and international law.

In Canada, diverse voices have raised alarms about these events. On December 23, 2025, advocacy groups gathered on Parliament Hill in Ottawa in a media conference to highlight the crisis, drawing from religious, ethical, medical, Indigenous, and human rights viewpoints. Organizations like Independent Jewish Voices, Doctors for Humanity and others urged stronger action, stressing Canada’s duties under international law. Since the beginning of Israel’s assault on Gaza Jewish Canadians opposing the violence have also voiced profound distress, contending that Israel’s conduct abuses power and contradicts core ethical tenets of Judaism, including Hanukkah’s emphasis on justice. Indigenous leaders, via the Assembly of First Nations—representing over 600 chiefs and hundreds of thousands of First Nations citizens—have also expressed solidarity with Palestinians, drawing parallels to colonial experiences of genocide against Indigenous people in Canada and have criticized Canada’s complicity in Israel’s crimes.

As 2026 approaches, Canadian leaders must respond to the millions of citizens who, over more than two years, have demanded resolute steps to address the crisis in Gaza. Polls indicate growing consensus with over half of Canadians viewing Israel’s actions as genocide, with figures around 52% in recent surveys linking aid restrictions and military operations to such crimes. Another poll showed similar concurrence near 49%, signalling increasing frustration with Ottawa’s restrained approach. Protests, petitions, and parliamentary initiatives have reinforced these calls for alignment with human rights standards.

Prime Minister Mark Carney’s silence amid Israel’s holiday attacks echoes the failure of his predecessor Justin Trudeau to fully acknowledge Palestinian suffering or uphold international human rights norms, which jeopardize Canada’s international moral standing. To stand on the right side of history, the government must move beyond its mealy mouthed rhetoric, that does nothing to change the reality on the ground in Gaza, into policy and action. The fact that Canada labelled Russian violence in Ukraine as “genocide” in a unanimous April 2022 parliamentary resolution but refuses to do the same for Gaza, despite comparable atrocities by Israel, like targeting civilians and destroying infrastructure, speaks volumes about the embedded anti-Palestinian racism of Canada’s political elites. Without direct intervention by Western democracies, including Canada, which are the only ones with the power to halt Israel’s atrocities, this nation and others in the Western alliance will be remembered for abandoning the rule of law and enabling horrific crimes on par with what Nazi Germany committed during the Holocaust.

Ending this violence also requires reclaiming compassion and independence from external pressures. Zionist lobbying has long influenced Canada’s Middle East policy, with legacy Jewish organizations acting as agents of the Israeli government. In caving to their pressure Canada has abandoned its international legal obligations under the UN Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Genocide Convention. But Carney and his government must resist the pressure of these lobbies to restore national autonomy and empathy. Nations like Ireland, Norway, and Spain provide a blueprint for the path Canada should follow. They have recognized Palestinian statehood without conditions (unlike Canada), denounced Israel’s military actions as genocide, and implemented measures like trade reviews and arms restrictions. Ireland has pushed for broader European Union trade sanctions and supported South Africa’s ICJ case alleging genocide under the Convention. Norway and Spain have also indicated their intention to intervene in the case, and Spain has labelled Israel’s actions as genocide halting arms exports and barring arms from other nations heading to Israel from transiting its territory.

These steps—halting preferential trade, sanctioning officials, and backing accountability—prove that ethical positions can reinforce international law without undermining security or sovereignty. In contrast, Canada’s ongoing arms transactions with Israel constitute criminal complicity in its crimes in Gaza. To stop the suffering and align with the principles of universal justice, Ottawa should implement a comprehensive two-way arms embargo, apply targeted sanctions on Israeli leaders, implement a broader trade embargo, and enforce a lasting ceasefire—standing in solidarity with Palestinians being subjected to horrors the rest of us can only imagine.

Inaction by Canada would cement this nation’s position as criminally complicit in another erasure of Indigenous peoples. Palestinians, as the historic inhabitants of the land with ancient ties to historic Palestine, endure dispossession reminiscent of Canada’s genocidal legacy with First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples. The residential school system, assimilation policies, and land seizures amounted to policies of genocide, the effects of which continue to be felt to this day. Supporting or ignoring similar patterns with Palestinians—mass displacement, cultural destruction, community obliteration, land theft—would make a lie of Canada’s support for the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, as well as its reconciliation commitments to its own Indigenous people. Indigenous voices in Canada have highlighted these connections, advocating solidarity with Palestinians to avoid repeating past wrongs. By partnering with principled nations and fulfilling its international legal obligations, Canada can safeguard its international standing and aid the cause of justice and freedom for Palestinians.

In this pivotal moment, with the holidays receding and as the New Year begins, the choice is clear. Israel’s unchecked criminal actions over decades, and especially during sacred holidays for Christians and Muslims, exposes a profound and deliberate moral failing, one that Canada can no longer excuse or ignore. Listening to Canadians, pushing back against external pressures from Zionist agents of the Israeli government, and joining global efforts to end the genocide will not only save Palestinian lives but redeem this nation’s soul. The alternative—complicity—will condemn future generations in this country to grapple with yet another enduring moral failure and damage this country’s international reputation beyond measure.

Yet, as 2026 dawns, there remains a profound reason for hope for the Palestinian people. Their extraordinary resilience—evident in the enduring spirit of families attempting to rebuild amid ruins and ongoing Israeli attacks, communities preserving ancient traditions, and a global movement growing ever stronger in solidarity—affirms that no amount of violent oppression by Israel can extinguish the quest for justice, freedom, and dignity. With increasing voices worldwide demanding accountability and change, the New Year carries the promise that sustained international pressure will finally pave the way for a just peace, allowing Palestinians to reclaim their rights, rebuild their homeland, and hopefully achieve a lasting peace.

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