National Post called for violence against NDP leader Avi Lewis, yet there’s silence from Canada’s media and political class

A columnist who calls for “forceful” action against a political leader because he disagrees with his politics should face consequences.  A newspaper that publishes such rhetoric should be legally sanctioned.  

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

The National Post has long been hostile to progressive politics, but its recent publication of Yoni Goldstein’s column targeting NDP Leader Avi Lewis marks a dangerous escalation — one that crosses from ideological disagreement into the realm of violeny political incitement. Goldstein’s piece does not merely criticize Lewis’s views on Israel’s genocide in Gaza. It invokes Jewish religious law, extremist terminology, and historical precedents for communal punishment to argue that Canadian Jews are “duty-bound” to take “forceful” action against a sitting federal party leader.

This is not ordinary political commentary, it is an incitement to violence — echoing the rhetoric long used by extremists who have carried out political attacks. Equally disturbing is the silence from Canada’s other national party leaders, the broader political class, and mainstream media, whose refusal to condemn the column is as alarming as the threat itself.

Weaponizing religious law to silence a political leader

Goldstein’s column frames Avi Lewis — a Jewish Canadian — as a threat to the Jewish community because he publicly acknowledged that Jews, collectively, had not done enough to stop Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza. Lewis’s Yom Kippur reflection was sober, moral, and grounded in Jewish tradition when he posted on social media, “This year I’m reflecting on the fact that we failed to do our part to stop an ongoing genocide committed in our name.”¹

Goldstein responded by invoking the biblical story of Korah — a dissenter swallowed alive by the earth and burned by divine fire — as a model for how Jews should treat Lewis. He then cites Leviticus, medieval rabbinical rulings, and extremist-coded terms like moser and rodef, labels historically used to justify violence against Jews deemed traitors to the community.

These are not neutral religious concepts. They were used by Jewish extremists to justify the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995.

Goldstein knows this, but he uses them anyway.

When a columnist in a national newspaper uses language historically associated with political murder, the intent is unmistakable — to mark a political leader as a legitimate target for “forceful” communal action.

If a Muslim had written this, Canada would be in an uproar

Imagine, for a moment, a Muslim columnist writing in a major Canadian newspaper that Sharia law instructs Muslims on how to “deal with” Pierre Poilievre — and then invokes religious punishments, historical precedents, and extremist-coded terms used by jihadist groups. Imagine that columnist suggesting that Muslims are “duty-bound” to take “forceful” action to stop Poilievre from saying or doing things that harm Canadian Muslims. The reaction would be instantaneous and explosive. Right‑wing media would erupt in outrage.  Politicians would demand investigations.  Police would open a file within hours of the column being published.  The columnist would be fired, denounced, and likely charged with incitement to violence.

As scholar Kjell Anderson noted in a social media post, “Imagine an op-ed titled ‘Sharia Law Tells Us How to Deal with Poilievre.’ . . . Unacceptable rhetoric.”

But because Goldstein is a right‑wing Jewish columnist writing in an American‑owned conservative media chain, the reaction has been silence — or worse, deliberate misrepresentation of Lewis’s Yom Kippur message to justify the attack.

A threat against one is a threat against all

Canada’s political leaders — Liberal, Conservative, Bloc — have said nothing since the column was published.  Corporate media has said nothing.  Only NDP voices have condemned the column.  This silence is not merely cowardice, it is dangerous.

A threat against one politician is a threat against the entire political class. When a columnist openly calls for “forceful” action against a federal party leader, using extremist religious terminology historically associated with political assassination, and faces no consequences, it signals to every would‑be extremist that political violence is permissible — even respectable — if framed as “community protection.”

This is how democracies slide toward fascism: not through sudden coups, but through incremental normalization of political intimidation.

The column fits a pattern of right‑wing political violence

Goldstein’s rhetoric is not an isolated incident. It fits a historical pattern in which most political violence is overwhelmingly committed by extremists on the right. Since 2001 over 75% of the extremist violence in the United States has been committed by right wing actors.

Canada’s recent history reflects a similar pattern of right‑wing political violence. In 2017, a white nationalist murdered six Muslim men in the Quebec City mosque massacre after being radicalized online. Four years later, in London, Ontario, three generations of a Muslim family were killed by a man who aligned with far-right and white supremacist ideology. And most recently, the Belleville synagogue shooting — carried out by a white man who is an anti‑vaccine extremist — was cynically weaponized by Goldstein to smear Avi Lewis, despite the perpetrator having nothing to do with the Palestinian movement or the Gaza genocide.

In each case, the perpetrators were driven by right‑wing conspiratorial thinking, racism and bigotry. Goldstein’s column uses the same logic — identify an internal enemy, dehumanize them, and justify “forceful” action to silence them.

This is the language of fascism.

The National Post has crossed a red line

Former NDP MP Charlie Angus, who himself faced religious threats when he supported same‑sex marriage, recognized the danger immediately. In response to the National Post column he wrote, “The threat against Mr. Lewis goes far beyond the bounds of any justifiable rhetoric. It is hate speech, and it is dangerously threatening.”

He is right. Goldstein’s column is not merely offensive. It is a call for communal aggression a political leader. It is an endorsement of political violence. It is an attempt to silence democratic debate through intimidation, and it is being normalized by silence.

Canada is not a theocracy, nor a state where religious law determines political legitimacy.  Canada is not a place where dissenters should fear communal punishment for speaking out against genocide. But Goldstein’s column — and the National Post’s decision to publish it — pushes Canada closer to a political culture where violence becomes an acceptable tool of ideological political enforcement.

This is how fascism grows. Not through mass rallies, but through the quiet acceptance of threats against political opponents, through the normalization of extremist rhetoric.

Avi Lewis spoke the truth, and was targeted for it

Lewis’s Yom Kippur reflection was not hateful. It was honest. It acknowledged that Jews, collectively, had not done enough to stop Israel’s genocide in Gaza — a genocide documented by human rights organizations, UN experts, and international legal scholars. For this moral clarity, he was tagged with the slurs a “moser”, a “rodef”, and compared to a biblical dissenter whose punishment was to be swallowed alive by the earth.

Goldstein’s message is clear.  Opposing genocide makes you a traitor and a threat to Jews, and ultimately a target for retribution for taking a moral stance on genocide. This is the logic of fascism.

A columnist who calls for “forceful” action against a political leader because he disagrees with his politics should face consequences.  A newspaper that publishes such rhetoric should be legally sanctioned.  A political class that ignores such threats is complicit in their normalization.

Goldstein’s column warrants condemnation, retraction, and a criminal investigation for promoting political violence, and if the legal threshold is met, charges for incitement or terrorism‑related offences

Canada must draw a line. If it does not, the next act of political violence will not be a surprise — it will be the predictable outcome of a culture that tolerated threats against a national party leader.

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

By declaring that anti-Zionism is antisemitism, Mark Carney is criminalizing those protesting the Gaza genocide

Canada’s criminalization of anti-Zionism is an act of political obedience to Israel — a nation with a decades-long history of violating international laws and the basic tenets of humanity.
 
By Fareed Khan
A version of this article is available on Substack.

Last week, the Canadian government quietly crossed a political and moral Rubicon. In its latest report on antisemitism, Public Safety Canada explicitly declared that anti‑Zionism is a form of antisemitism. With one sentence, the Mark Carney government told millions of Canadians — Palestinians, Jews, Muslims, Christians, human rights advocates, academics, and ordinary citizens — that their opposition to Israel’s three‑year‑long genocide in Gaza is not political speech, but criminalized hate.

This is not simply a dispute about the definition of a word or phrase. It is a state‑engineered distortion with profound consequences that will endanger people. By equating anti‑Zionism with antisemitism, the federal government is doing three things simultaneously:

• Criminalizing legitimate political criticism of a foreign state;
  
• Demonstrating ideological obedience to the Israeli government; and
  
• Making life more dangerous for Jews in Canada by erasing the distinction between a political ideology and Jewish identity.

This is not exaggeration. It is a sober assessment of what will happen as a government transforms legitimate political critique into racial hatred — and does so in the middle of an internationally documented genocide which is now entering its fourth year.

Anti‑Zionism is not hatred of Jews

Zionism is a supremacist political ideology developed in the late 19th century — roughly 125 years old — advocating for the ethnic cleansing of historic Palestine in order to create a Jewish state. Like any political ideology, it is subject to debate, criticism, and rejection. Anti‑Zionism is precisely that — opposition to a political ideology not hostility toward a people.

To oppose Zionism is no different than opposing communism, fascism, white supremacy, or any other ethno‑nationalist ideology. Political ideologies are not sacred, and they are not immune from critique.

Jewish scholars, rabbis, and activists have said this for decades. In the present day groups like Jewish Voice for Peace, Independent Jewish Voices Canada, and countless academics have repeatedly affirmed that anti‑Zionism is not antisemitism, and that conflating the two is both intellectually dishonest and politically dangerous. 

Historically, some of the most influential Jewish thinkers, writers, rabbis, Holocaust survivors, and resistance fighters have opposed Zionism. Their objections were not rooted in self‑hatred or denial of Jewish identity, but in a profound ethical conviction that nationalism built on exclusion, displacement, or religious exceptionalism would endanger both Jews and Palestinians. Sigmund Freud condemned the “baseless fanaticism” driving Zionist claims in Palestine; Albert Einstein rejected the very idea of a Jewish state; Erich Fromm argued that ancient territorial claims could never justify modern political sovereignty; Primo Levi warned that similar to Nazi attitudes towards Jews, Israel was creating its own oppressed class in Palestinians; Marek Edelman, hero of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, wrote directly to Palestinian resistance fighters in solidarity; and political philosopher Hannah Arendt cautioned that Zionism relied on antisemitism as its political engine. These were not marginal voices — they were among the most important Jewish intellectuals of the 20th  century, united in their belief that Zionism was a political ideology, not a religious destiny, and that its implementation would produce endless violence.

Their warnings continued into the modern era. I.F. Stone argued that Israel’s ethnonationalism created “moral schizophrenia” for Jews worldwide; Noam Chomsky described Israel’s occupation as worse than apartheid; Isaac Asimov rejected Zionism as a form of ethnic exceptionalism; and British actress Miriam Margolyes, Israeli activist Uri Avnery, American historian Gabriel Kolko, and Rabbi Michael Lerner all publicly denounced Zionism or Israel’s policies as morally indefensible. These figures demonstrated a simple truth: Zionism has always been outside of Judaism and was a danger to Jewish safety.

Even the Israeli government itself acknowledges that Zionism is a political ideology — not a religious identity — when it describes Israel as a “Jewish and democratic state” founded on Zionist principles. If Zionism is a political ideology, then opposing it is political speech. Full stop.

Canada is doing Israel’s bidding

One thing must be clearly understood. This redefinition did not emerge organically from Canadian civil society. It is the result of years of lobbying by agents of the Israeli government whose efforts have resulted in the Canadian government mirroring Israel’s long‑standing strategy of weaponizing accusations of antisemitism to silence criticism of its policies, especially its brutal decades-long oppression of Palestinians.

The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism — aggressively promoted by Israel and its lobby organizations in the West — has been widely criticized by scholars, civil liberties groups, and even the definition’s own drafters for chilling free expression and conflating political critique with hate speech.

Public Safety Canada’s adoption of the most extreme interpretation of IHRA is not a neutral act. It is an act of political obedience to a foreign power that has a decades-long history of violating international laws and the basic tenets of humanity. It is the Canadian government aligning itself with the Israeli government’s propaganda framework at the precise moment Israel is committing mass atrocities documented by the United Nations, and confirmed by Amnesty International; Human Rights Watch; Israeli human rights group B’Tselem; Physicians for Human Rights Israel; Doctors Without Borders; Oxfam; Save the Children; the International Federation of Human Rights; the International Association of Genocide Scholars; leading Israeli Holocaust scholars Omer Bartov, Amos Goldberg, Daniel Blatman, Raz Segal, and Shmuel Lederman; as well as the 30 nations supporting South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.

When a government adopts the ideological framing of a foreign state and uses it to police domestic political dissent, it ceases to be an independent actor. It becomes a vassal — a subordinate power executing the political will of another nation.

That is what the Carney government has done.

Redefinition makes life more dangerous for Jews

Conflating anti‑Zionism with antisemitism does not protect Jewish Canadians. It endangers them.

Real antisemitism — the kind that fuels white supremacist violence, neo‑Nazi organizing, and far‑right extremism — is rising across North America. Jewish communities need clarity, precision, and vigilance to confront this threat. But when the government declares that opposing a political ideology is equivalent to hating Jews, it blurs the line between legitimate political critique and actual antisemitism. This confusion makes it harder to identify real threats, and reinforces the dangerous lie that all Jews are responsible for Israel’s actions — a core antisemitic trope.

Progressive Jewish organizations have warned repeatedly that weaponizing antisemitism for political ends increases hostility toward Jews by making them appear as agents of a foreign government. By adopting Israel’s preferred framing, the Canadian government has made Jewish Canadians less safe, not more.

Criminalizing anti‑Zionism criminalizes criticism of Israel

Israel is a state founded on Zionist ideology, something the it’s government has proclaimed for years. If anti‑Zionism is antisemitism, then criticizing Israel’s policies — its military actions, its occupation, its apartheid system, its brutality towards Palestinians — becomes suspect, and potentially criminal. This is not theoretical. Public Safety Canada’s report is intended to shape policing, surveillance, and security policy. It is a directive to law enforcement.

The Carney government’s approach to antisemitism means that:

• Protesting Israel’s genocide could be treated as hate speech;
• Calling for sanctions on Israel could be labeled antisemitic;
• Advocating for Palestinian human rights could be investigated as extremism;
• Jewish anti‑Zionists could be targeted as dangerous;
• Palestinian Canadians could be criminalized for expressing their own history.

This is the architecture of authoritarianism and fascism — redefine legitimate dissent as a crime, then police it, and prosecute those whose words and actions don’t align with political agendas.

Mark Carney is violating the Charter of Rights

Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees freedom of expression, conscience, assembly, and political belief. Equating anti‑Zionism — a political protest movement — with antisemitism violates all of these rights and shows how little Mark Carney’s government cares about defending human rights. Legal scholars have already warned that adopting IHRA’s conflation of anti‑Zionism with hate speech would breach Canadians’ Charter protections, and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association has called the definition “overbroad, vague, and open to abuse.”

By embracing the most extreme interpretation of IHRA, the Carney government is not merely chilling political speech — it is weaponizing state power to suppress it. The Supreme Court of Canada has repeatedly affirmed that political expression lies at the core of Charter protection, yet Ottawa is now treating dissent as extremism and criticism of a foreign government as hate. This is the kind of state behaviour seen in Russia or China, where governments collapse political disagreement into criminalized disloyalty. The fact that it is happening in Canada signals a dangerous authoritarian drift, one where constitutional rights become expendable whenever they inconvenience those in power. When a government knowingly violates constitutional rights, it is not making a policy error — it is committing an abuse of power.

Carney cares little about Canadians’ rights or Palestinian lives

Mark Carney’s government has demonstrated that it does not give a damn about the fundamental rights of millions of Canadians. It does not care about the Palestinians being slaughtered in Gaza. It does not care about the crimes against humanity being committed by Israel with Canadian complicity — through arms exports, diplomatic cover, and political obedience.

Instead, Canada has chosen to criminalize dissent at home, redefine antisemitism to serve a foreign government’s interests, and endanger both Palestinians and Jews in Canada. This is not leadership. It is capitulation to a foreign power. It is moral cowardice. It is complicity in genocide.

And Canadians must reject it — loudly, unapologetically, and relentlessly.

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

Canadian governments are failing Indigenous peoples when it comes to reconciliation

Canada’s colonial and post-Confederation governments have a 263-year history of breaking promises to Indigenous peoples, and have consistently refused to honor treaty obligations or recognize Indigenous sovereignty. 

By Fareed Khan 

A version of this article is available on Substack.

Tomorrow, September 30th, will be National Truth and Reconciliation Day in Canada. The Prime Minister’s office will put out a statement talking about the importance of the day, about the important role the Indigenous people have played in the history of Canada, maybe mention the horrific way that they were treated in the past, and then possibly talk about the importance of working with Canada’s first nations as the government works to make Canada’s economy more resilient in the face of threats from the United States. But likely nowhere in the statement will there be mention about how Canada’s governments are failing Indigenous people when it comes to reconciliation, more than a decade after the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) issued its Calls to Action.

Eleven years after the TRC released its final report and 94 Calls to Action, Canada stands at a crossroads it refuses to acknowledge. In 2015, the TRC offered a roadmap for repairing the deep wounds inflicted by more than 150 years of anti-Indigenous racism, residential schools, forced assimilation, and systemic discrimination. In 2025—on the tenth anniversary of that report—only 15 of the 94 Calls to Action had been completed. Independent monitors like the Yellowhead Institute report even lower numbers, noting that progress has stalled on the most substantive reforms. Now, more than a decade after the TRC report’s release, the pattern remains unmistakable: Canadian governments are not serious about reconciliation (if they ever were). What they are serious about the appearance of reconciliation, without taking substantive actions

The evidence is overwhelming. Symbolic gestures—orange shirts, land acknowledgments, commemorative days—have advanced quickly because they cost governments nothing. But the structural reforms that matter most to Indigenous peoples remain largely untouched. Worse yet, governments continue to violate Indigenous rights in ways that contradict the very spirit of reconciliation. From resource extraction on Indigenous territories without consent to political processes that ignore treaty obligations, Canada’s actions reveal a nation unwilling to confront the colonial systems it still relies on.

A decade of neglect, by the numbers

The TRC’s Calls to Action were meant to be implemented rather than being aspirational. Yet independent tracking shows that work on 41% of the Calls to Action have not been started or are stalled as of 2026. The federal government’s own reporting paints a rosier picture, but Indigenous-led organizations—those closest to the impacts—consistently show that progress is slowest where change matters most: child welfare, justice, health, education, and land rights.

The Gord Downie & Chanie Wenjack Fund’s 10-year anniversary review in 2025 confirmed that only 15 Calls to Action had been completed. These were overwhelmingly symbolic or administrative—establishing the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, appointing an Indigenous Languages Commissioner, creating Indigenous language programs, and updating archival policies. These are important steps, but they do not address the systemic inequities that continue to harm Indigenous communities.

The Yellowhead Institute’s multi-year analysis is even more damning. Between 2019 and 2024, researchers found that only five Calls to Action were fully completed. In two of those years, none were completed. Their conclusion is blunt: Canada has not demonstrated the political will to implement the TRC’s recommendations, especially those requiring structural change or significant investment.

Symbolism over substance

Canada excels at symbolic reconciliation. “Orange Shirt Day” is now a statutory holiday. Government buildings fly Indigenous flags. Public institutions host ceremonies and workshops. These gestures matter, but they are not substitutes for justice.

As Yellowhead Institute researcher Eva Jewell argues, reconciliation has become a “spectacle”—a performance meant to soothe settler consciences rather than transform systems. Governments have embraced the parts of reconciliation that are easy, while avoiding the parts that require confronting racist and colonial power structures.

The Calls to Action most directly tied to ending ongoing harms—funding equity, justice reform, child welfare transformation, and land rights—are precisely the ones where progress is weakest. This is not a coincidence. It is a political choice by governments which falsely claim to be committed to reconciliation

The broken promise of clean water

One of the most glaring examples of Canada’s failure to deliver meaningful change is the ongoing crisis of boil‑water advisories on First Nations reserves. In 2015, former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised to eliminate all long-term boil‑water advisories within five years. It was a clear, measurable commitment—one that spoke directly to basic human dignity. Clean drinking water is not a luxury, it is a fundamental human right.

Yet eleven years later, boil‑water advisories still exist in multiple First Nations communities across Canada, with 40 advisories in place as of May 2026. While progress has been made—many advisories have been lifted—Indigenous families continue to live in conditions comparable to the developing world. Children grow up unable to drink from their taps. Elders must boil water to bathe. Communities rely on bottled water shipments as if they were disaster zones, and have so for years.

The persistence of these advisories tells a story about Canada’s priorities. The federal government has repeatedly claimed that reconciliation is a national project, yet it has failed to deliver the most basic requirement of public health. The Auditor General has repeatedly warned that federal infrastructure funding for First Nations water systems is inadequate, inconsistent, and plagued by delays. Indigenous leaders have emphasized that the failure to provide clean water is not merely a policy shortfall—it is a violation of human rights, and yet the pace of the government’s response has been criminally slow.

Trudeau’s promise was not symbolic. It was concrete, measurable, and achievable. The fact that it remains unfulfilled more than a decade later reveals a profound lack of commitment to Indigenous well‑being. If Canada cannot deliver clean water—one of the simplest and most essential public services—it cannot credibly claim to be advancing reconciliation.

Alberta’s referendum ignores Indigenous rights

One of the clearest examples of governments disregarding Indigenous rights is the Alberta government allowing a referendum to begin a process for Alberta to secede from Canada. Alberta sits entirely on treaty land, and under Canadian and international law, unilateral secession without Indigenous consent would be illegal. Yet the Alberta government refused to consult First Nations before launching its referendum process.

Alberta’s failure to respect Indigenous treaty rights is not a minor oversight. It is a direct violation of treaty relationships and the principle of free, prior, and informed consent (FPIC), which Canada claims to uphold under the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). Indigenous leaders across Alberta have condemned the government’s actions, noting that any discussion of secession must begin with the treaty partners whose lands and sovereignty are at stake.

The Alberta referendum is a microcosm of a broader pattern across Canada. Amnesty International Canada has issued a report expressing concern about the roll back of Indigenous rights in Canada under Mark Carney’s government. Whether at the federal or provincial level governments had adopted a patter where they treat Indigenous people and first nations as stakeholders rather than rights holders. Consultation is treated as optional. Consent is treated as inconvenient.

Resource extraction without consent

The most persistent and harmful violation of Indigenous rights comes from federal and provincial support for oil, gas, and mining projects on Indigenous lands. Across the country, governments continue to approve and expand resource projects without securing the consent of affected First Nations.

Human Rights Watch’s 2025 report highlights multiple cases where Indigenous communities face environmental harm, policing abuses, and criminalization for defending their lands. The Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs’ opposition to the Coastal GasLink pipeline is one of the most prominent examples. Despite clear opposition from traditional leadership, governments approved the project, and police forces were deployed to enforce injunctions against land defenders.

The UN Human Rights Committee has repeatedly warned Canada about its failure to respect Indigenous land rights, noting that governments continue to impose unwanted decisions on Indigenous territories despite favorable Supreme Court rulings affirming those rights.

This is not reconciliation. It is the continuation of colonial resource extraction under a new name.

New federal legislation is a step backward

Recent federal legislation—Bill C‑39 (Building Canada Strong Act) and Bill C‑5 (One Canadian Economy Act)—has raised alarm among Indigenous leaders and human rights organizations. These bills grant the federal government extraordinary powers to bypass existing laws, including Charter rights, in the name of “national interest” economic projects.

Amnesty International warns that Canada’s legal frameworks increasingly erode First Nations’ ability to assert their rights, particularly in the context of resource development. The concern is clear: these laws could allow governments to override Indigenous rights to expedite pipelines, mines, and other extractive projects. If reconciliation means respecting Indigenous sovereignty, these bills move Canada in the opposite direction.

Canada’s failures are not only recognized domestically, international human rights bodies have repeatedly criticized Canada for its treatment of Indigenous peoples. The UN Human Rights Committee’s report on Canada calls for fundamental changes to law and policy, citing violence against Indigenous women, violations of land rights, and the failure to implement the TRC’s recommendations. The Committee was so concerned that it ordered Canada to report back within one year on progress—an extraordinary measure reserved for serious human rights concerns.

Human Rights Watch similarly documents systemic racism, service gaps, and failures in policing, housing, and health services for Indigenous communities. The Auditor General of Canada has confirmed chronic underfunding in First Nations housing and policing, while the Assembly of First Nations estimates the infrastructure gap at $350 billion—a gap that continues to grow.

These findings reinforce what Indigenous peoples have said for decades: Canada’s systems are designed to produce inequity, not reconciliation.

The legacy of broken promises

The TRC was not Canada’s first attempt at reconciliation. The Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (RCAP) issued 440 recommendations in 1996. Almost none were implemented. The pattern is clear. Canada commissions reports, expresses regret, and then fails to act.

Indigenous Watchdog notes that Canada’s colonial and post-Confederation governments have a 263-year history of making and breaking promises to Indigenous peoples. From the Royal Proclamation of 1763 to modern land claims, governments have consistently refused to honor treaty obligations or recognize Indigenous sovereignty.

The TRC was supposed to break this cycle. Instead, it has become another chapter in the long history of failures by the Canadian government to act in the name of justice for Indigenous people.

Governments cannot be trusted on reconciliation

The evidence of the last decade makes one truth unavoidable. Canadian governments cannot be trusted to implement meaningful reconciliation. Their actions reveal a pattern that Indigenous people have recognized for generations.

Governments consistently prioritize economic interests over Indigenous rights. Resource extraction projects continue to override free, prior, and informed consent, treaty obligations, and environmental protections. When oil, gas, and mining profits are at stake, Indigenous sovereignty becomes an obstacle rather than a principle.

Governments also embrace symbolic reconciliation because it is easy. Statutory holidays, land acknowledgments, and ceremonial gestures require no structural change, no redistribution of power, and no challenge to the systems that uphold racist colonial domination. Symbolism becomes a substitute for justice.

Additionally, governments avoid accountability whenever possible. The National Council for Reconciliation — promised as a mechanism to track progress — was delayed for nine years, and even now its mandate remains narrow and constrained. It is designed to observe, not to compel.

Furthermore, the government resists structural reforms that would actually shift power. Calls to Action requiring funding equity, justice reform, land restitution, or the recognition of inherent Indigenous jurisdiction remain largely untouched. The reforms that matter most are precisely the ones governments refuse to implement.

And finally, governments continue to violate Indigenous rights in real time. Alberta’s referendum on independence proceeded without consulting First Nations whose treaty lands would be directly affected. Federal legislation such as Bill C‑39 and Bill C‑5 grant extraordinary powers to bypass legal protections — including Indigenous rights under the Charter — in the name of “national interest.” These actions show that Indigenous sovereignty is not respected, and Indigenous rights are routinely sacrificed on the altar of political expediency.

Indigenous people across the country see these contradictions clearly. They see governments claiming to “work on” dozens of Calls to Action while simultaneously advancing policies that undermine their rights. They see the widening gap between rhetoric and reality. They see that reconciliation, as practiced by Canadian governments, is not a path toward justice but a strategy for managing public perception while maintaining power.

Reconciliation requires ending harm, not managing optics

Reconciliation is not a branding exercise. It is not a holiday, or a flag. It is the hard work of dismantling colonial systems and honouring Indigenous sovereignty. Canada has not stopped the harm. It has not even slowed it.

Eleven years after the TRC, Indigenous communities continue to face systemic discrimination, underfunding, land dispossession, and political exclusion. Governments continue to prioritize resource extraction from Indigenous territories over Indigenous rights, and symbolism over substance.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission offered Canada a chance to transform its relationship with Indigenous peoples. Canada chose not to take it.

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

Standing with Israel after three years of genocide in Gaza means standing with evil

Siding with a rogue, terrorist, genocidal state is no different than standing with the worst criminal states of the last century that have inflicted inhumane crimes on an unimaginable scale.

By Fareed Khan
A version of this article is available on Substack.

In two weeks, the Western world will hold official ceremonies and issue solemn government statements to mark the third anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel — an event in which 1,200 Israelis were killed, including more than 300 Jews who were killed by the Israeli military under the controversial “Hannibal Directive.” As Western politicians prepare to centre their grief on those deaths while ignoring the genocide Israel launched in response, it is worth asking a simple, unavoidable question: What does it truly mean when someone says they “stand with Israel” or a government says they support Israel?

What it means is: I stand with shooting children, killing babies, raping women, demolishing homes, and bombing hospitals. It means supporting the torture of Palestinian detainees, the burning of families in tents, and the execution of unarmed civilians. It means endorsing leaders who openly orchestrate and advocate the genocide of Palestinians. It means supporting mass starvation, the use of illegal weapons, and the assassination of hundreds of journalists. It means ignoring state‑sponsored sexual violence and the total disregard for international law. It means defending crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide.

This is what it means. It means supporting and defending the actions of a racist, apartheid, fascist, genocidal state that has violated international law with impunity for decades. And it means that those who “stand with Israel” and support it are choosing to stand with the sort of evil not seen since World War II — because there is no other word that can describe a state that commits genocide with impunity, and uses the same language when referring to Palestinians that the Nazis used when talking about Jews during the Holocaust.

For decades, Israel has violated the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Fourth Geneva Convention, the Hague Conventions, the Genocide Convention, the Vienna Conventions, and the UN Charter — not occasionally, not accidentally, but systematically, deliberately, and without apology. It has done so while killing tens of thousands of Palestinians since its creation, ethnically cleansing hundreds of thousands more, and entrenching a regime of racist apartheid recognized by leading human rights organizations.

Since October 2023, Israel’s assault on Gaza has been described as genocide by dozens of respected international institutions, legal bodies, human rights organizations, and Jewish genocide and Holocaust scholars. This is not hyperbole but rather a legal determination grounded in evidence about mass murder, mass starvation, deliberate destruction of civilian infrastructure, and explicit statements of genocidal intent by Israeli political, military and religious leaders.

Since the fall of 2023, a broad and authoritative consensus has emerged: Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. This conclusion has been reached by the UN Independent Commission of Inquiry; the UN Special Committee; the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights; the UN Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories; Amnesty International; Human Rights Watch; Israeli human rights group B’Tselem; Physicians for Human Rights Israel; Doctors Without Borders; Oxfam; Save the Children; the International Federation of Human Rights; the International Association of Genocide Scholars; leading Israeli Holocaust scholars Omer Bartov, Amos Goldberg, Daniel Blatman, Raz Segal, and Shmuel Lederman; as well as the 30 nations supporting South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice. Together, these bodies, experts, and states represent the most significant legal, humanitarian, and scholarly institutions in the world, and they have all reached the same devastating conclusion.

When someone says they “stand with Israel,” they are standing with all of this — with a state whose actions have been identified as genocidal by the world’s most respected human rights institutions and genocide scholars. They are standing with a system of violence that extends far beyond the battlefield and deep into the daily lives of Palestinians.

They are standing with settlers who burn Palestinian homes, destroy olive groves tended to for generations by Palestinian families, kill Palestinian livestock, and attack Palestinian villages with firearms — crimes documented extensively by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and B’Tselem. They are standing with settlers who murdered 19‑year‑old Qusai Matan in 2023, who torched homes in Turmus Ayya, and who carried out pogroms in Huwara. And they are standing with a state that protects these settlers, arms them, and integrates them into its military operations — a state whose violence is not incidental, but systematic, sanctioned, and central to its occupation, domination and oppression of Palestinians.

They are standing with a government that has ignored every UN Security Council resolution demanding an end to settlement expansion, every ruling of the International Court of Justice, every obligation under the Geneva Conventions, and every principle of international humanitarian law. They are standing with a state that has situated more than 750,000 illegal Jewish settlers into the West Bank, many of whom terrorize Palestinians with impunity.

They are standing with a state that has bombed hospitals, schools, refugee camps, UN shelters, ambulances, journalists, and aid workers — all documented by international monitors. They are standing with a state that has deliberately starved more than two million people in Gaza, blocked humanitarian aid, and used starvation as a weapon of war — a war crime under international law. They are standing with a state whose leaders have repeatedly declared their intent to destroy Gaza, “erase” entire neighborhoods, and “eliminate” the Palestinian people — statements that meet the legal definition of genocidal intent.

And they are standing with Western governments whose performative condemnations — like the August 20, 2026 joint statement by Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, and the United Kingdom — are nothing more than public relations exercises designed to create the illusion of moral concern while ensuring that nothing changes.

These governments have armed Israel, funded Israel, protected Israel diplomatically, and shielded Israel from accountability for decades. They have watched Israel violate every major international legal instrument meant to keep the peace and protect human rights, and responded with statements of “grave concern” instead of sanctions, arms embargoes, or diplomatic isolation. Their complicity has enabled Israel’s crimes, and continues to do so.

The hypocrisy of these and other Western governments is staggering. When Russia invaded Ukraine, Western governments unleashed sweeping sanctions, froze assets, expelled diplomats, mobilized international institutions, and poured military aid into Ukraine within days. But when Israel commits genocide, ethnic cleansing, war crimes, and apartheid, those same governments retreat into the familiar language of “concern” while continuing business as usual.

This selective application of international law exposes the racial and geopolitical biases at the core of the so‑called “rules‑based order.” It reveals that Western governments do not oppose genocide as a principle — they oppose genocide only when committed by their enemies. When committed by their allies, they tolerate it, excuse it, and enable it. 

So yes — standing with Israel means standing with evil. And as Western governments prepare their anniversary speeches, their candlelight vigils, their choreographed displays of solidarity with Israeli victims, they will once again erase the more than 80,000 of thousands of Palestinians killed since October 2023. They will mourn 1,200 Israelis while refusing to acknowledge that Israel has killed more than fifty times that number of Palestinians, many of them children, and that hundreds of Israelis died not at the hands of Hamas but under Israel’s own Hannibal Directive. Standing with Israel today means choosing to sanctify one group’s suffering while denying another group’s humanity. It means choosing to defend atrocity rather than defend life.

So yes — standing with Israel means standing with sheer evil. And as Western governments prepare their anniversary speeches, their candlelight vigils, their choreographed displays of solidarity with Israeli victims, they will once again erase the more than 80,000 thousand Palestinians killed since October 2023. They will mourn 1,200 Israelis — 300 of them killed by Israeli forces — while refusing to acknowledge that Israel has killed more than fifty times that number of Palestinians, a third of them children, and that hundreds of Israelis died not at the hands of Hamas but under Israel’s own Hannibal Directive. Standing with Israel today means choosing to sanctify one group’s suffering while denying another group’s humanity. It means choosing to defend atrocity rather than defend life.

Standing with Israel, especially in this moment, is not a moral position. It is the abandonment of morality and humanity itself.

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