Read Part 1: “To Make Lies Sound Truthful”: Orwell on Political Language

By: Andrew Gavin Marshall

The one-sentence summary: Defining the characteristics of fascism using the examples of the two historical fascist regimes that came to power of their own accord, in Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany.

Part 2 – The Monster Method: Defining Fascism

One of the words that Orwell had identified in his 1946 essay as having lost nearly all meaning was that of fascism (he also said the same of democracy). If this was true in Orwell’s day, right after the end of a World War that resulted from fascist imperialism, then it is doubly true some 80 years later, when few have a living memory of what fascist imperialism looked like and what it wrought upon the world. In order to use this term while avoiding Orwell’s critique of it, I must make an effort to define it in a meaningful way.

Unlike many other ideologies, fascism has no definitive text that outlines its thoughts and ambitions in a clear, coherent, and systematic way. But we have historical examples of fascist movements, political parties, and regimes in Europe during the 1920s, 30s, and 40s. While there were fascist parties and movements in nearly every industrialized nation in the early 20^th century, fascist governments were only established in five countries: Italy, Germany, Austria, Hungary, and Romania. And only in Italy and Germany did they come to power through their own internal momentum. In the early 1920s, Mussolini led the Italian Fascists to storm Rome and physically attack its institutions until the King and conservative establishment agreed to form a government with the Fascists and Mussolini at its head. In Germany, the Nazi party attempted the route of a coup or insurrection in the early 1920s, failed spectacularly, and then pursued the route of electoral politics, coming to power in 1933 in a coalition government with mainstream conservative parties and figures. The cases of Austria, Hungary and Romania involve fascism coming to power largely through the influence of Nazi Germany. For our purposes, I focus on an understanding of fascism based upon the experiences of Italy and especially Germany as the only two countries where fascism organically took power as the result of its own internal political processes. These two fascist regimes also provide us with examples of countries that launched fascist wars of empire-building.

First, I will attempt to provide a baseline understanding of fascism. To do that I turn to several scholars of the subject. Robert O. Paxton identified fascism as: “a form of political behaviour marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external repression.”[1]

To put it in a slightly different manner: fascism is not simply a movement, political party, or governing regime (though it can be any and all of those things), but it is also a method of doing politics, or, as Paxton referred to it, “a form of political behaviour.” Identifying this nuance is important because it allows us to understand that fascism is not simply the end result of something, or the ideology of a self-identified fascist political party, but that it is a form of politics that anyone could theoretically engage in, whether or not they identify themselves or their objectives as being fascist. This is also important because unlike in the 1920s to 1940s when fascist movements, parties, and governments rose and fell, in the present day, fascists typically no longer use the word fascism or describe their movements as fascist. They use numerous other euphemisms to avoid use of a term which has often (and with good reason) been used as a kind of shorthand to describe political evil. Fascism may be back in fashion in the modern world, but its advocates and supporters do not generally embrace the terminology of fascism, nor understand its meaning. This is likely one of the reasons why fascism has been able to return to the political mainstream, due to its rebranding.

Fascism is a political method that can be used to accumulate power and use power. Part of the history of fascism is the history of numerous other authoritarian (non-democratic) states borrowing from fascist politics to help cement their own hold on power, because fascism had something most other authoritarian systems did not: a popular constituency, and thus, a degree of political legitimacy. In the 1930s, roughly half the countries of Europe were living under authoritarian regimes, but only two of them were fascist (Italy and Germany). Yet virtually all the others borrowed methods or symbols of fascism in order to give their own regimes greater legitimacy. Fascism had a mass base of support, and sought to energize and mobilize a radical base among the wider population, often across class lines. This does not mean that every fascist party had to be popular, most weren’t, and most never came close to power. But they attempted to mobilize mass bases of support to propel them through elections or in some cases coups that have a sense of popular legitimacy. Most authoritarian regimes historically and presently represent the interests of a small, largely conservative, military, religious and/or wealthy elite. Such regimes rarely generate popular support and a mass base of militant activists. But they might borrow from fascist regimes and fascist politics to appeal to some of the population, or at least appear to.

The mass politics and appeal of fascism is unique among extreme right-wing, authoritarian politics. This is a vital distinction between fascist regimes and other forms of authoritarianism, as its popular appeal and mass base can fuel radicalization of the regime.  The militant base includes paramilitary elements – that is, non-state military actors such as militias and other armed gangs. These often battle political enemies in the streets, typically from the left, and intimidate rivals. They portray their actions as an effort to establish “order” (blaming all the chaos and violence on their political enemies of the Left), which often makes them not only threatening but useful to conservative elites (who often share the same enemies as fascists). Paramilitary activities can help fascists get into power, through violence or the threat of violence, and consolidate power once they have it. Paramilitarism also provides a basis for a highly militaristic movement that praises the use of military power and violence.

Thus far we have established that fascism is a method of politics that seeks to build a mass base of support and utilize paramilitary violence and intimidation in order to accumulate and consolidate power. But that is still only part of the story. In order to mobilize that base, fascist politics inflames grievances among the population, presenting itself and its ‘group’ as being victimized and humiliated (by minority groups, elites, outside powers, historical injustices). It presents itself as being perpetually under siege and attacked by internal and external enemies who want to destroy the nation and its ‘people’. This gets to one of the most important facets of fascism: it is an extreme form of nationalism, sometimes referred to as ultra-nationalism. All its claims of humiliation and victimhood are not simply referring to a particular group or community within the nation, but to the nation itself. This has the added effect of conflating the two to a new extreme: the community or group that fascists claim to represent are then identified as the only legitimate people of the nation. This means that those who are outside of this distinct group are to be denied the privileges of being part of the nation. The group is the nation, and the nation is the group. Fascism seeks to redress their sense of victimhood by “re-taking” their nation and “re-establishing” themselves as the dominant group within it, and thus, they must exclude, remove, or otherwise repress or “cleanse” the nation of those they deem undesirable or a threat.

This fascist form of nationalism identifies the ‘in-group’ (the nation) based upon a shared race, ethnicity, or religion, and those who do not meet these criteria are no longer considered part of ‘the nation’. In fact, they are identified as its internal (and external) enemies and must be dealt with if the nation and its community are to survive and thrive. Fascists do this in order to create their true, “pure” nation and community. To achieve this, fascism needs a broad base of support, the backing of committed nationalist activists and paramilitaries. They must embrace these discriminatory, hateful prejudices and moral obscenities, often wrapped up for them in a conspiratorial fantasy world where they are always and perpetually under threat. This generates an extremism in their attitudes, actions, and objectives.

To update our evolving definition: fascism is a method of politics that embraces an extreme form of nationalism, used to build a mass base of support through emotional appeals to a sense of victimhood and humiliation, utilizing paramilitary violence and intimidation in order to accumulate and consolidate power, and the exercise of power to purify the nation and remove – or ‘cleanse’ – those considered threats or unwanted. The concepts and efforts to purify and cleanse the nation are the mobilizing aspects of fascism, those parts which aim to build a popular base of support, which, it should be noted, does not mean the support of the majority of the population, but it requires a significant minority in order to achieve power. The base of committed nationalists and paramilitary activists give the movement or party a sense of wider legitimacy, as well as often providing the basis for its radicalization. But for fascism to achieve power, and wield it, it requires cooperation and collaboration with establishment elites.

Fascism would often present itself as a ‘revolutionary’ movement, but it only ever gained power when it cooperated with elites and the existing power structures, not by overturning those structures. Mussolini got into power following arrangements with the King and established conservative leaders. Hitler only got into power after back-room deals between numerous conservative parties and Germany’s then-President Hindenberg. But it was Mussolini’s paramilitaries who stormed Rome that helped give him the political leverage to gain entry into power, while Hitler’s Nazi Party made various gains in multiple elections that gave him leverage to gain entry to power. In both cases, the first fascist governments were governments that ruled in coalition with other right-wing, conservative parties of the establishment. (Mussolini never really escaped this dynamic, while Hitler eventually subdued the establishment under Nazi rule). Without the support of elites, fascism would fail to gain political power.

This collaboration was essential for several reasons. From the perspective of the fascists, cooperation with conservative elites was the most efficient way to get into power. Removing and replacing power structures is complex and time-consuming. Fascist preoccupation was not with a social or political revolution, but a cultural one: they want to elevate and make superior their chosen community and return the nation to a place of great power and respect. They did not want to upend the established social order and its hierarchies, in fact, they typically wanted to reinforce them. Thus, fascists embraced collaboration in order to access power and reinforce existing social (religious, racial, ethnic, gender, and sexual) hierarchies.

Elites embraced fascists because they wanted to establish for themselves a more popular base of support, and thus, legitimacy. They also wanted to avoid a direct confrontation with fascists and their paramilitaries, potentially pitting the armed forces against militias which could result in mass violence and civil war. Thus, they did it to avoid confrontation and gain legitimacy, and they typically believed that – being the more experienced practitioners of power – they would be able to keep the fascists in line and subdue their more radical beliefs and objectives. Elites thought that by inviting fascists into the government they could control them, whereas fascists thought that by working with elites they could gain control of the government. Together, both fascists and conservative elites sought to dismantle their democratic systems and establish an authoritarian form of government. Democracy was increasingly viewed as unstable, unfair, and threatening. To the fascists, democracy and equality threatened their sense of racial, religious, or cultural superiority over other groups; to the conservative elites, democracy and equality threatened their control over the political and economic levers of power. Both groups found common cause in dismantling democratic systems in order to preserve and protect existing hierarchies.

In pursuit of this goal, fascists and elites also needed each other to avoid provoking a revolution, coup, or civil war. In other words, if elites pursued authoritarianism without fascist support, they would risk a popular backlash or revolution; if fascists pursued authoritarianism without elite support, they would provoke a coup or civil war. Thus, fascism can achieve power in a society only when enough of the established elites have given up on democracy and are willing to cooperate with fascists. This also reveals another important, but overlooked, fact about fascism: it is a product of democratic societies and democratic politics, though its success in those political systems is dependent upon those democratic structures being weak or failing. Historically, fascism rose in Italy and Germany in collapsed empires that were relatively new and weak democracies. Presently, fascism arises in America and Israel – two declining empires that are relatively older, and increasingly weakened democracies.

Once in power, fascists pursue their goals of redeeming the ‘community’ and the ‘nation’ from their perceived humiliations. They seek to “cleanse” the nation of all its impurities, whether they are defined as cultural, ethnic, religious, racial, gendered or sexual. They also seek to elevate the “pure” community to a politically and culturally superior status. Italian Fascism was more preoccupied with establishing a culturally superior ‘new man’ and community, whereas Nazi German fascism was more preoccupied with creating a racially superior community. In both cases, Italians and Germans made claims to mythical pasts to justify their redemptive pursuit of ‘purity.’ The Italians invoked ancient imperial Rome, and Hitler invoked an ancient Nordic and Germanic ‘Aryan’ mythical past. Mussolini once declared, “Rome… is our point of departure and reference; it is our symbol, or if you wish, our myth… Much of what was the immortal spirit of Rome, resurges in Fascism.”[2] Hitler also, incidentally, made claims to ancient Rome as well, not as a mythical past for the Germans but in terms of an imperial example worth following. Hitler stated that the Germans were the “Nordic Romans,” and praised their military organization and methods of war and peace. He once observed: “In every peace treaty the next war is already built in. That is Rome! That is true statesmanship!” As Hitler said in 1941 to his chief of the SS, Heinrich Himmler, “Even today… the Roman empire never had its like. To have succeeded in completely dominating all neighbouring peoples! And no empire has spread so unified a civilization as Rome did.”[3] Though there are an endless litany of reasons as to why ancient Rome differed from Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany (not least of which was because it was a racially and culturally diverse empire), but it was its mythical grandeur, its symbols and impressive architecture, and its vast empire and ruthless ways of war that appealed to the fascist imagination.

Fascism thus also embraced empire-building. While there were certainly fascist movements and parties around the world that professed to be anti-imperialist, the examples we have of fascist regimes in power, Italy and Germany, were distinctly imperialistic. These were two countries that had both become unified nation-states only as recently as the 1860s and 1870s, relatively young by European standards (to note: Canada was formed as a confederated nation-state in 1867, roughly four years before Germany unified into a single nation-state in 1871). Germany was also explicitly founded as a nation and empire, and Italy too took on an imperial agenda. World War I left the German empire collapsed, its possessions (colonies, such as those in southwest Africa) taken away, its national territory reduced in size, its access to resources and industry strictly regulated, its economy devastated, its military defanged and demobilized. To nationalists and many citizens alike, Germany was left humiliated and victimized by the outcome of the war, a war they were told they were winning right up until the moment of unconditional surrender in 1918. Italy, which was on the winning side of the war, did not get any of the spoils of war, despite apparent promises that it would gain new territories, and so was also left rather humiliated and disparaged. The Great War, as it was known at the time, left much of Europe in a major economic, social, and political crisis.

Those soldiers who were not among the millions killed returned to their home countries in a state of economic crisis and social chaos. Economies tanked, unemployment soared, prices rose, mass protests, labour unrest and even revolutionary movements emerged. Russia had experienced a revolution during the Great War, which then turned into a civil war. Brief communist revolutions also took place in Hungary and Germany in 1919, but were ultimately violently crushed by new paramilitary right-wing militias formed by former soldiers. But in Germany, the result was the formation of the Weimar Republic, the country’s first experiment with mass democracy, which lasted from 1919 until the Nazis took power 14 years later in 1933.

Extreme nationalists were able to capitalize on post-War conditions, and paramilitary organizations formed the backbones of many of these movements. In Italy, Benito Mussolini’s paramilitaries behind his Fascist movement crushed labour unrest and battled leftists, eventually marching on Rome and attacking government buildings in 1922. The Italian King Victor Emannuel III, instead of authorizing the government to declare a state of siege and mobilize the armed forces to crush the fascists, potentially igniting a civil war, opted to dismiss the sitting government and appoint a new cabinet of right-wing conservative figures, with Mussolini as prime minister. It would be another eleven years before fascism would take power in another country.

Nationalism played on the sense of humiliation brought by the war and its aftermath. While a German sense of victimhood resulted from the loss of territories, the Italian sense of victimhood derived from their not gaining any new territories, despite prior understandings that they would. Italy was a nation humiliated by its own allies in the war, and a relatively minor imperial presence in the world (hence, its allies treating it with little deference). Germany was a once great and powerful nation and empire, now deprived of its empire and reduced as a nation. One of the enduring German myths that helped propel the fascists into power was the belief – also widely shared among nationalists and the public at large – that Germany didn’t lose the war, but was betrayed – “stabbed in the back” – by traitors in the home front: liberals, socialists, leftists, Jews and women! It was not that the German imperial and political leadership, the army, and the aristocracy were consistently lying about the progress of the war until they succumbed to it (though they were!); it was that leftists and Jews had “betrayed” the armed forces and the emperor and surrendered on Germany’s behalf (even though it was literally German generals who officially and directly surrendered, and then who personally helped invent this myth to cover up their own actions). This came to be known as “the stabbed in the back myth,” and was a foundational ideology not only of the Nazis, but much of the German right and society more broadly. It also helped to infuse German nationalism with imperialism, becoming mutually reinforcing: a powerful nation can create and maintain a vast empire, and an empire can feed and fuel a strong nation. If one declines, so too does the other. And in the post-War German Weimar Republic, a large, strong nation and expansive empire were reduced to a smaller, weaker nation, with no empire; and in its place, a new, relatively weak democracy was established. Therefore, nationalists who were aggrieved by the loss of territory and empire – and internalized the humiliation and victimhood it represented – also extended their hatred and humiliation to the system of democracy itself. Fascism and imperialism were thus intertwined from the beginning.

Their visions of empire were not simply about expanding their power, but also their territory, whether through annexing neighbouring land or colonizing lands further away. Fascist imperialism sought to redress the perceived humiliation and victimhood of their nations by establishing themselves among the great powers, redrawing borders and colonizing and settling new conquered lands. This is clearly not exclusively fascist, as this describes most imperial or colonial powers. But fascist imperialism is perhaps distinct in its speed and destructive and murderous power. With paramilitarism so important to fascist movements, fascism has a deeply ingrained admiration for violence to demonstrate, exercise, and consolidate power. At the global level, this translates into a highly militaristic and violent process of empire-building, pursued with great rapidity. Fascists are impatient and want to build their empires quickly, and thus, see violence or the threat of violence as the most efficient and effective tool to pursue their international political objectives. Additionally, their hyper-nationalistic goals of ‘internal cleansing’ and ‘purifying’ the community and nation extend to the imperial sphere. Internal threats to the nation are reimagined as external threats to the empire. Empire and nation are inextricably linked, and the revival or greatness of one, requires the revival and greatness of the other. The threats to one become the threats to the other.

Where fascists conquer new territories, their methods of cleansing and purification reach previously unseen levels of violence and destruction. And because they are pursuing these objectives in conquered lands and colonies, they are unrestrained by the existing laws and competing power centers that restrain fascists at home. (It’s harder to get away with shooting your own citizens in the streets than it is to mass murder tens of thousands of citizens of some conquered territory elsewhere). As such, it is within conquered territories that fascists are free to engage in their most radical and violent experiments to create their ‘pure’ communities and do away with those deemed unworthy or enemies. Mussolini sought to build Italy’s empire in Ethiopia, Somalia and the Balkans. While many point to the differences in regimes between Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, often noting that Italy was not repressive of its Jewish population (until later pressure from Germany) or particularly brutal within Italy itself; it was in places like Ethiopia where one saw the true face of Italian Fascism in its genocidal war of conquest that killed several hundreds of thousands between 1935 and 1936 (three years before World War II). Nazi Germany, while certainly more discriminatory and oppressive on the home front than Italy was, expressed its greatest violence and brutality in its empire to the east. It is noteworthy that most concentration camps and death camps were not inside Germany itself, but in Nazi conquered lands in Eastern Europe; that the greatest victims of Nazi Germany’s genocidal policies were not simply German Jews, but Eastern European Slavic Jews in the lands Germany conquered. There would have been no Holocaust if the Nazis hadn’t conquered new lands and built a vast empire. It was more challenging for the Nazis to officially discriminate against the Jews in Germany than it was for them to exterminate the Jews in Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe.

These ruthless and rapid forms of empire-building sought to dramatically alter the existing global hierarchy of states and empires. Not only did they want a place at the top for themselves, but they wanted to redesign the world political map, to change the established global order. They would build for themselves regional and global spheres of influence. Italy was interested in establishing its empire in north and east Africa and around the Mediterranean (reminiscent of the Roman Empire), whereas Hitler and the Nazis were most interested in building a vast agrarian empire to the east, ultimately taking over much of the then-Soviet Union. Their eventual alliance with Imperial Japan complimented this objective as Japan sought to expand its own empire rapidly and ruthlessly across east and southeast Asia, replacing many of the European colonial powers that dominated that region at the time, and establishing its own ‘New Order’ in Asia. This is what is referred to as a ‘revisionist power’, a country that seeks to ‘revise’ or redesign the global political order, by placing themselves at the top and center of it. Not all revisionist powers are fascist, but all fascist powers are revisionist in that they seek to change the global system to their benefit, and they do this through the pursuit of empire-building, through deal-making, onerous trade agreements with weaker powers, threats, intimidation, and outright violence and brutality: the ultimate destructive and murderous power of the state.

I would like to return now to updating and completing our working definition of fascism. To be clear, there is no one accepted definition of fascism among scholars of the subject. But I began this section with a lengthy quote from one of those scholars, Robert O. Paxton, from his 2004 book, The Anatomy of Fascism, because I felt it provided the best single comprehensive definition of fascism I have read. But I didn’t want to just drop that quote and move on; I felt it necessary to dissect and explore the ideas within it, perhaps add in a few additional ones, and rephrase it for the purposes of this essay, to just explore and understand the language better (after all, academic language – much like political language – can often be more vague than enlightening). So I will attempt to summarize our review of fascism above into a specific definition, and afterwards I encourage the reader to return to the Paxton quote at the start of this section and see if you don’t get more out of it.

Our descriptive definition: Fascism is a method of politics that emerges in weakened democracies and declining or collapsed empires, that attempts to build a mass base of support and utilize paramilitary violence to intimidate and gain access to power, which requires collaboration with established elites in a shared project to dismantle democracy and establish an authoritarian system of government, to return‘greatness’ to the nation, expand its borders, and build or rebuild a great empire, requiring militarism and imperialism; and which invokes as its primary ideology an extremist nationalism and mythical past, infused with an overriding sense of grievance, humiliation and victimhood, for which the solution is to purify and cleanse the nation: to elevate its chosen community to a superior status (to ‘purify’) while dominating, excluding, expelling, imprisoning or killing (to ‘cleanse’) or otherwise remove internal enemies, threats, or those unworthy of status in the nation, defined along racial, ethnic, religious, sexual or gendered categories.

This definition is so specific that it can only historically apply to our two principal examples of Italy and Germany in the post-World War I era. But this is what returns some meaning to the word fascism, because it can’t be applied so easily to so many countries, parties or movements without losing its meaning again. For our purposes, we define fascism essentially by the examples of Italy and Germany alone, which is to say, by the “success stories” of fascists coming to power as a result of their own political momentum. Thus, in applying this definition to present day, we also limit our use of the term to countries that are experiencing fascism as a part of its governing apparatus, where it has already made its way into the halls of power (though has not yet fully dismantled democratic structures and established an authoritarian system), which, coincidentally, also happens to be just two countries, Israel and the United States.

Fascism is important to identify and understand as distinct because it was distinctly destructive and murderous. To achieve their goals of national revival, internal cleansing, and external expansion, the two historical fascist regimes upended the global order and launched a clash of empires that resulted in the most violent and destructive war the world has ever witnessed, with the most rapid and industrialized form of genocide ever witnessed. Fascist extremism did not stay within its own borders, but sought to redraw and expand borders, and with it, accelerate and expand its extremism. Thus, fascism is distinctly radical and destructive, which makes it not only a major threat to those deemed to be ‘undesirables’ within a fascist society, but a threat to the world as a whole.

It is fascist imperialism that poses such a threat to the world. So, what do scholars of fascism have to say about the expansionist, imperial and territorial components of fascism?

[1] Robert O. Paxton, The Anatomy of Fascism (Vintage Books, 2004), 218-219.

[2] Krishan Kumar, Visions of Empire: How Five Imperial Regimes Shaped the World (Princeton University Press, 2017), 39-40.

[3] Krishan Kumar, Visions of Empire: How Five Imperial Regimes Shaped the World (Princeton University Press, 2017), 42.

Andrew Gavin Marshall is a researcher and writer on issues of political and economic history, empire, war, oligarchies, and resistance movements. He has been studying in and out of school and writing for 20 years, published in various journals, papers, think tanks, and online publications, and is currently getting a degree in History and Political Science at the University of Toronto. His website is empireandeconomics.com, which has a YouTube channel, and you can listen to his podcast, ‘In This Mad World,’ or follow him on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter.

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Andrew Gavin Marshall

Monsters and Machines: The Political Language of Fascist Imperialism

Part 1 – “To Make Lies Sound Truthful”: Orwell on Political Language

By: Andrew Gavin Marshall

The one-sentence summary: Applying George Orwell’s concept of “political language” to understand empire, fascism, and fascist imperialism in the context of present-day Israel and the United States.

“Political language… is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.” – George Orwell, Politics and the English Language

“War is Peace,
Freedom is Slavery,
Ignorance is Strength.”
– George Orwell, 1984

When Israel and the United States launched a war of aggression against Iran on February 28, 2026, they initiated a new, dramatic and dangerous phase in modern world history. It was the manifestation of an alliance of two governments pursuing extremist anti-democratic agendas at home and empire-building abroad, not simply the continuity of a decades-long relationship between countries, but a new fascist alliance. Israel’s most extreme right-wing government in its history came to power at the end of 2022, and has driven its colonial and ethnic cleansing policies in the occupied West Bank, its genocidal war in Gaza, and its expansionist wars and occupations into Lebanon and Syria. The second term of the Trump administration, starting in January of 2025, marked the most right-wing extremist government in modern American history. Both of these governments represent or contain elements of what we would historically identify as fascist parties and political movements. Once in power, they pursue their deranged fantasies of “cleansing” society of its undesirables, dismantling democracy to establish an authoritarian dictatorship, and to establish a new empire abroad. It is the latter concept, that of fascist imperialism, and in particular, the political language of fascist imperialism, that is the focus of this essay.

Eighty years ago, in the aftermath of World War II – the last great war caused by the exploits of fascist imperialists – and just a few years before the publication of the famed dystopian novel 1984, George Orwell wrote an essay on “Politics and the English Language.” He outlined the ways in which language was distorted and deprived of meaning in the pursuit of justifying or obscuring horrible acts committed by states and empires. This was the language of machines. This language has dominated political discourse through the 45 years of the Cold War and the decades of the post-Cold War world. It is the language of the political establishment and global imperial structures; the language of empire: designed to justify and obscure the realities of empire.

But eighty years on from the end of World War II, and a century on from the rise of fascism in Europe, memories of fascism and the ravages it brings the world have faded. The generations who lived through it are largely gone. In recent years it has made a resurgence in western – and indeed, global – political movements. The last time fascism was embedded in two governments (Italy and Germany), the most destructive and deadly war in human history was the result. Now that fascism has become embedded in two governments once again, Israel and the United States, this makes it essential to understand what fascism is and why fascist imperialism is uniquely dangerous to the world. To do this, I apply Orwell’s insights on political language to identify and understand the system of empire – the language of machines – which paved the way for the return of fascism and the legitimation of its hateful, violent rhetoric – the language of monsters.

The political language of empire is deliberately vague and obscure, while the language of fascism is often violent and visceral. But the relationship between these two forms of political language is not linear – one does not simply lead to and is replaced by the other – but is interactive and mutually reinforcing. Whether their rhetoric is obscuring or evocative – they both rely on a form of political language that creates a different reality through which they are able to exercise and accumulate power. The political language of empire attempts to hide the atrocities of empire, while the political language of fascism attempts to celebrate and elevate the violence of fascism. One wants to obscure the violence, and the other to praise it. This may seem a contradiction, and it is, but it is reflective of the contradictions inherent to empire and fascism, and to the contradiction in how they serve each other.

This essay will begin by looking at George Orwell’s writing about political language and its historical role in relation to Israel and the United States as imperial powers. After establishing an understanding of political language, we examine the meaning of fascism itself – drawing from historical examples and noted scholars of fascism – and then identify the concept of fascist imperialism. Then we examine the language of fascist imperialism in Israel, starting with the genocide in Gaza that began in October 2023, through the wars on Lebanon, expanded occupation in Syria, and ethnic cleansing in the West Bank up to the 2026 war on Iran. Then we look at the US example, the role of War on Terror in altering the political language of empire and opening the floodgates for fascism, culminating in the US launching its first fascist war with its “model ally” Israel.

This is not a comprehensive history or examination of these wars, empires,  governments, or political movements, but is focused on the role of language in perpetuating these political forces. This essay is intended to arm you with understanding: to identify political language and when it is being used to deceive, hide, and justify horrifying acts of brutality, and to raise the alarm for the serious situation we are in where we have now witnessed the launching of a fascist alliance of Israel and the United States, both seeking radical transformations at home and abroad. Fascist imperialism is derived from and propelled forward by the language of monsters and machines.  

George Orwell is best known for writing the most famous dystopian novel of all time, 1984, published in 1949, with a lasting impact upon popular culture, introducing to our collective lexicon terms and phrases like “Big Brother,” “Thought Police,” “newspeak,” “doublethink,” and “thoughtcrime.” Even his name serves as a description of a dystopian forms of surveillance and control, for something to be Orwellian. Three years before he published 1984, he wrote an essay entitled, Politics and the English Language, establishing some of the concepts behind his dystopian novel. It reflected an understanding of how power worked in the world, and how those with power accumulated more of it. Orwell understood this not only intellectually, but through his own experiences. Born to a British colonial middle class family in India, he volunteered to serve in the imperial police force in the British colony of Burma (now Myanmar), which led him to be disgusted by what he witnessed of colonialism. In the 1930s he volunteered to go fight the fascists in the Spanish civil war. And during World War II he worked for the BBC, which gave him an education in propaganda. Through his experiences and studies, Orwell (real name Eric Blair) came to expertly understand war, colonialism, fascism, authoritarianism, and propaganda.

Orwell began his essay on political language by asserting that, “the English language is in a bad way… it is clear that the decline of a language must ultimately have political and economic causes,” but, he added, “an effect can become a cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing the same effect in an intensified form.” He offered the example of a man who drinks because he feels like a failure, and who then fails because he drinks. “It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language… It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.” However, “the process is reversible.” Orwell turned particular attention to the role of politics in the decline of language, noting that words like Fascism and democracy had become almost meaningless as definitional terms, instead meaning things like “something not desirable” (fascism) or praising a country (by calling it democratic). “Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way,” he wrote: “That is, the person who uses them has his own private definition, but allows his hearer to think he means something quite different.”

“In our time it is broadly true that political writing is bad writing,” he wrote, adding that where this was not true, “the writer is some kind of rebel” expressing their opinion and not a “party line.” Orthodoxy, he continued, “seems to demand a lifeless, imitative style,” in which speakers of this style may appear to be turning into “a machine.” Citing examples such as British rule in India, the Russian purges, and the dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan, he went on: “In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible,” as such things “can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of the political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness.” He provided some examples: “Defenseless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification. Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry: this is called transfer of population or rectification of frontiers. People are imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of the neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is called elimination of unreliable elements. Such phraseology is needed if one wants to name things without calling up mental pictures of them.”

“The great enemy of clear language is insincerity,” Orwell wrote. “When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms… In our age there is no such thing as ‘keeping out of politics.’ All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia. When the general atmosphere is bad, language must suffer.” But, he added, “if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.” In his conclusion, Orwell wrote: “Political language… is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”

It is from the ideas that Orwell articulates here about “political language,” its use of euphemism, vagueness, and insincerity to hide true intentions and brutality, which I will attempt to apply to our recent experiences of war, empire, fascism, and genocide. The examples will be drawn from the United States and Israel, two countries who have perhaps done more than any others to destroy the meaning of words and whose use of political language attempts to justify or erase the most brutal of crimes of state violence. Virtually all western nations long ago embraced the misleading political language offered up by these two countries, a language common to a shared imperial system. In other words, it’s not only Israel and the United States that have for decades had a shared political language when it comes to empire, but it was embraced by most of the Western world, notably the G7 countries (US, UK, Germany, France, Italy, Canada, Japan), as well as most of the EU and NATO countries. The use of political language, especially on the subject of ‘Israel-Palestine’, has been used to great effect since the founding of Israel, and especially since the Israel-US relationship became so important following the 1967 war. Popular deception and ignorance on the subjects of Israel and Palestine is a long-standing and intentional outcome of the widely shared used of political language among Israel and its western backers.

But behind the language was a reality of growing desperation, despair, and devastation among the Palestinians, millions of whom lived under Israeli blockade for decades, and many millions more living under a brutal Israeli military occupation. The language of “self defense” and an invented “right to exist” that no other nation state apparently has (states either exist, or they don’t, but no such “right to exist” is found in international law), predominated the focus of western political leaders and their largely obedient national media systems. The acceptance and proliferation of the language of Israel’s empire over the Palestinians, the language of machines, had facilitated over the course of decades the collective dehumanization of Palestinians, to obscure and justify their perpetual status of being occupied, colonized, blockaded, besieged, bombed and brutalized.

The domination, colonization and ethnic cleansing – and genocide – of the Palestinian people is being directly undertaken by Israel, but it is a collective western project, with the United States, Germany, the G7, EU, and NATO nations largely providing economic, military, intelligence, and/or diplomatic support to Israel, for decades and in recent years (though there are a growing number of countries within these blocs that are trying to challenge the pro-Israeli bias, such as Spain). It is the language of a political orthodoxy, which Orwell described in his essay as having “a lifeless, imitative style,” in which those who speak it speak like “a machine.” In effect, they are part of the machinery of empire, and so it makes sense that they adopt some characteristics of machines, appearing mechanical, unphased, unemotional, uncompromising, unconscious, unyielding. As Orwell noted, political language was “largely the defense of the indefensible.”

And by focusing on obscure concepts and non-existent rights, the discussion around Israel-Palestine also meets another key facet of political language as defined by Orwell, “to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness.” Orwell’s premise was that political language used vague, empty, and euphemistic (nice-sounding) words to justify otherwise horrific, oppressive, and destructive actions and objectives. Here, the use of euphemism is essential, and so must be properly defined and understood. This is the Merriam-Webster definition of euphemism: “the substitution of an agreeable or inoffensive word or expression for one that is harsh, indelicate, or otherwise unpleasant or taboo.” Among the many euphemisms common to everyday language are: saying ‘passed away’ instead of died, ‘made love’ instead of had sex, ‘passed wind’ instead of farted, saying ‘comfortable’ instead of rich, ‘between jobs’ instead of unemployed, ‘not the sharpest tool in the shed’ instead of saying stupid, ‘let go’ instead of fired, or ‘collateral damage’ when civilians are killed in a military attack. It’s clear that we use euphemisms frequently in all areas of our language, but it is the use of euphemism in political language that concerns us.

What does it mean for a state to have a “right to exist”? States are created by force of arms or by agreement among a broader set of states (or empires), they do not exist “by right.” Once they exist, states do have some rights, including a right to self-defense against another state that is attacking it. But more than rights they have responsibilities, to their own citizens and to other human beings under their control. None of the terminology is ever actually defined, because that would require accurately defining the “conflict” itself, as it is often euphemistically described. The issue is, fundamentally, one of colonization. Zionist activists were able to gain British imperial patronage to help colonize the land of Palestine and ultimately establish the state of Israel in 1948, and thereafter continue the process of colonization and expansion at a periodic rate, pushing forward, accepting some push back, but ever maintaining its sovereign authority over the Palestinian population, most of whom hold no political or civil rights inside Israel, which consistently described itself as “democratic” (What does it mean to be “democratic” when you rule over millions of people who have no democratic, civil, or political rights?).

Colonization has resulted in occupation, which has created a system of apartheid in the country, and not simply in the occupied territories. The settler extremists who prospered in the extreme apartheid state of the occupied West Bank have since come to take over the state itself (in close alliance with Prime Minister Netanyahu). And now this state has been driven to the persecution of an ongoing and evolving genocide and ethnic cleansing campaign against the Palestinians, and not simply against those trapped in Gaza. Words like colonization, military occupation, apartheid (or racial/religious segregation and persecution), Jewish supremacy, state terrorism, mass murder, ethnic cleansing, genocide and annihilation or extermination evoke dramatic imagery, and are entirely negative in historical context, from the conquest of the Americas and decimation of Indigenous peoples and society, to the French and US wars in Vietnam, the French war in Algeria, the British war in Kenya, the racist apartheid South African regime, or to genocidal regimes like Nazi Germany, Hutu Power Rwanda or the ethnic cleansing campaigns of the Balkan wars. The reality of what exists on the ground in Gaza and the occupied West Bank can only be accurately described using stark and extreme language, for it is reflecting stark and extreme realities. We don’t describe historical genocides like the Holocaust as “evacuation” operations, or a reasonable “final solution” to the “Jewish question,” but this was the language that the Nazis used when justifying and implementing their policies of genocide. It is one thing to use coherent and clear language to identify genocides after they have concluded, but while they are underway, political language is employed to hide, justify, and implement these programs of mass displacement, destruction, and murder. And in virtually every case of 20^th century genocide, the group or state carrying out the genocide claimed its actions were undertaken in self-defense. Given the centrality of this vague term “self-defense” to justifying Israel’s entire regional and internal imperial and colonial project over the course of decades, an extension of that language to justify and implement outright genocidal policies is not a dramatic leap.

For Israeli and western publics, the shared political language between their political establishments and societies have manifested as a shared delusional world in which Israel is the besieged victim in need of endless support and aid. This has of course been changing in recent years, a result of witnessing Israel’s (and the Western world’s) conduct during the recent years of genocide in Gaza. But it helps us to understand why, even after nearly three years of witnessing in real-time the violent brutality of a genocidal state gone mad, words like genocide and colonization are still rarely invoked in western political discourse, because they challenge our shared political delusions, and if we were to accept the images and ideas they evoke as a closer reading of reality, then the task of justifying support for Israel and its policies becomes significantly harder. In other words, if we accept that the word genocide is appropriate, then it follows that we have to do something about it; which, in the case of most western nations, would mean, in the very least, to stop arming and supporting Israel, the state committing the genocide. This would also put nations at odds with the main supporter of Israel, the United States, the most powerful state in the world. Therefore, for most political establishments, it is viewed as better to just continue to support Israel and obscure reality through political language than to actually risk challenging Israel and the world imperial power, the US, particularly with a vindictive president at its head.

The political language of an empire that has been led by the United States – though operated as a kind of ‘group project’ of the West – in which Israel has played such an important regional role, is the default setting of most western nations; it is the language of the status quo, the language of machines. Western leaders must contemplate: What is a little genocide to the whole structure of empire? And they may conclude that supporting Israel – or not actively opposing it – is the cost of maintaining the global imperial system, or at least to maintain a working relationship with the United States, to preserve their place within the existing ‘international order’ (another euphemism to describe imperial systems). They are of course wrong, and the western world’s support for Israel over the duration of the genocide has done untold damage to western credibility around the world and at home, from which it will take generations to recover, and the consequences of which have barely begun to be witnessed. This credibility destruction fuels chaos abroad and fascism at home.

As Orwell wrote, political language was largely concerned with the “defense of the indefensible,” because if one were to speak in a direct and honest fashion, it would require “arguments which are too brutal for most people to face.” As a result, the language focuses on “euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness.” We are not part of an empire; we are members of a rules-based order. We don’t engage in imperialism or seek domination; we partake in interventions to liberate others. We don’t arm and support a racist, settler-colonial, apartheid state while it’s turning fascist and committing a genocide; we support the only democracy in the Middle East to defend itself against threats to its existence. Political language obscures and justifies simultaneously; it hides the reality while legitimizing the policy. As Orwell concluded in his essay, “Political language… is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.” There is perhaps no better example of this kind of political language than that which obscures and justifies Israel’s colonization, occupation, and genocide against the Palestinians. In this sense, the language of empire – the language of machines – has always been quite monstrous, in terms of what it hides and justifies. But the language of monsters is largely a recent transformation in mainstream uses of political language. That is both a cause and result of the rise of fascism in popular political culture.

As fascist movements and parties have come to power in Israel and the United States, political language has taken on a new tone to exist alongside the familiar euphemisms. It is not simply about hiding and justifying violence and repression, but about glorifying and revelling in violence and repression, to normalize a language of brutality and celebrate the violence it produces. This is the fascist influence on language, as both Israel and the US are currently being radicalized by fascist parties in their governments. This extremism filters through our modern political language, and feeds back into fuelling more extremism, just as Orwell described in his essay when he evoked an image of a man who drinks because he thinks he is a failure, and then becomes a failure because he drinks. In this case, fascist language helps fuel fascist politics and boost fascist parties, which then further popularizes and legitimizes fascist language. But it cannot achieve this by replacing the language of machines – the standard, vague and euphemistic political language of empire and the political establishment – but by integrating with it. Fascism does not abandon the political euphemism, it makes it more extreme. For the language of monsters to become mainstream and take power, it must learn to adapt to and work with the language of machines.

The language of machines helped to create a world of unreality or obscurity, a world embracing numerous myths and fantasies as part of its political discourse. The language hides the realities of a collective western imperial system and ignores and excuses the violence we commit against others, while making claims to moral authority. The realities of empire are quite clear to those who are experiencing its blade and brutality; people being repressed, imprisoned, expelled or murdered are aware of what is happening to them, regardless of the language the perpetrators use to justify it. It is for the publics at home and optics abroad that the perpetrators create vague and largely meaningless fantasy worlds. But the acceptance of these myths has made populations more vulnerable to political ideologies and movements that both fuel and feed off of myth-making and obscuring reality, that actively construct an unreality – a fantasy world increasingly detached from the real world. This chasm gives growth to fascism.

While standard forms of political language attempt to obscure and euphemistically describe reality, they do so typically to ensure populations are submissive and passively supportive. Political language is thus generally designed to keep the machine of empire functioning without much input from or confrontation with domestic populations. Fascists, on the other hand, also create mythical worlds of unreality and fantasy, but to greater extremes, in virtually every sphere of human life, and instead of seeking to create pliant populations, fascists seek to incite, inflame and radicalize populations and societies. For fascists, political language must both obscure and inspire. The language of machines does not inspire, it subdues. But the language of monsters – a language of celebratory brutality – can inspire a great deal: of fear, hatred, insecurity, victimhood, humiliation, passion, and violence.

The language of monsters – fascist political language – is emotional and evocative. It must construct a total fantasy world, and then inspire a mass following of extremists to help make that fantasy a reality. Fascists must be both wildly deceptive and emotionally and visually evocative. They must be both eternal victims beset upon by enemies in all directions, and strong warriors capable of defeating any and all foes. Their language helps create a community of shared victimhood, while identifying the supposed cause of their victimhood (usually a racial, ethnic, or religious minority group or multiple disenfranchised communities). It radicalizes their followers with a language of brutality – of hate, racism, extremism and violence – and then provides images and actions to associate with power, revenge, redemption, and survival. Violence it not simply a means to an end, but an end in and of itself; violence becomes not merely a tool of politics, but its temple. Violence is worshipped and respected.

Fascist language is not the language of the machine managers of empire and the political establishment; it is the language of monsters: those who take pleasure in and celebrate the experience of brutality and violence. Where fascism is more successful in political systems is where they effectively integrate their language within the wider machinery of political language, and thereby give themselves and their ideas added legitimacy, institutionalizing it within the system itself. Often, to achieve this feat, fascists will vacillate between extremist hate-filled outbursts (to inspire and rally their base) and empty promises, vague expressions, and claims of ‘moderation’ (typically during election periods) in order to gain entry into the political and governing structures. Once in power, this oscillation between extremist and empty language would typically continue simultaneously, alternating according to audience and intention, but in effect normalizing both the language of fascism and its schizophrenic and hyper-deceptive style of politics. When fascist language and politics enter the mainstream, reality becomes more obscured, and brutality becomes more accepted. Fascist language is the language of victimhood, self-delusion, of humiliation (for the fascist), and exclusion, discrimination, hatred, dehumanization, violence, destruction, expulsion or elimination of those outside the dominant group.

To better understand fascist language and its uses, it is essential to better understand fascism itself.

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Thank you!

Andrew Gavin Marshall

The Wretched and the Dead

Weep for the Wretched dead.
Cry for the cancerous tumor that’s killing you.
Shed tears for the tyrant that takes your freedom.
Speak well of the ones who silence you.
And call it empathy.

Blessed are the torturers, rapists and murderers!
Make kings of killers.
Listen to the liars, whose poison words
Give growth to hate.

Defend the dehumanizers and discriminators,
For they know exactly what they do.
Ignore the indefensible,
But praise the ones who said it, and did it,
who brought this world upon us all.
And call it empathy.

Say a prayer for the Wicked,
But hope they don’t hear you.
Sing a song for the psycho,
But leave before they see you.

Believe the deceiver.
Free the jailer.
Make kings of killers,
Make worlds of monsters.
Make the wretched rule and be respected.

Mourn the ones who made you their enemy,
Simply for existing.
Speak sadly when the eaters of the world
Return to the dirt.
Feel with a heavy heart for those who would
Tear yours out.

Heap praise upon the poisoned persons.
Excuse their venom,
Erase their violence,
Ignore their actions,
And call it empathy.

Blessed are the bullies and brutes,
Glory to the rapists and ravagers!
Peace and prosperity for the war-makers and mass murderers.
Celebrate the child annihilators.
Make saints of sadists.
Feed the lies they fed us.
Be the ones they wanted you to be.
And call it empathy.

Victory to the vile, violent ones!
Hope for the horrors they unleashed,
Work for the waste they tried to bring.
Gift them the goods they sought to steal.
Be the ones they wanted you to be.
And call it empathy.

Love the Wretched and the Dead,
More than you love your own empty head.

Protect the chrysalis of cruelty.
Cradle it and keep it warm.
Make it feel safe and secure,
So it may hatch and consume the world.

Make savagery a merit,
Make a mockery of truth.
Make heroes of the horrid,
Make princes of parasites.

Love the Wretched and the Dead,
More than those they racked and ruined.

Cry for the cruel,
Shed tears for the terrible.
Mourn the malevolent.
And call it empathy.

Elevate the dangerous
And celebrate their wrath.
Speak sweetly of the beastly,
And pander to the pitiless and petulant.

Bow down to the priests of power,
And beg for the whip, then cower.
Wash the feet of the fiendish few,
Kiss the ring of the heartless, too.

Polish the chains that bind you,
Hold the hand that hits you.
Brush the boot that presses your face to the floor,
And ask your master, anything more?

Be loyal to the lynchers,
Trust the torturers, too.
Care for the callous in control,
Make virtue of their vitriol.

And call it empathy.

Love the Wretched and the Dead.

But they won’t love you when they take your head.

See my first letter here.

See Oliphant’s first reply here.

And see my second, essay-length response here.

Well now, I got a reply to my long letter with countless sources and simplified questions (since he had such a hard time with questions the first time around).

His response was brief, empty of substance, once again self-congratulatory and evasive.

This prompted an equally short and terse response from myself.

Both are posted below.

Enjoy. And, remember, these are our political so-called “leaders.”

It’s really time for a clean-sweep of this morally bankrupt political class.

Dear Mr. Marshall:

Thank you for your email of August 10. Having had many trips to both Israel and Palestine over the last 43 years, I am well aware of the recent history of the 20^th and 21^st centuries. As a Biblical scholar and theologian (as well as having worked briefly as an archeology student in the region) I am well aware of the 3000 years of history that has brought us to this point.

You have made your thoughts known to me and I thank you for that. Many hundreds of people in Don Valley West have similarly made their thoughts known to me and they cover the wide spectrum of ideas and concerns about a just and equitable outcome for both Israelis and Palestinians.

In the meantime, I will continue to call for an end to hostilities from both sides, the release of Israeli hostages, more humanitarian aid for Palestinian people in Gaza, the establishment of the Palestinian Authority in Gaza, the end of the terrorist regime of Hamas, the recognition of the State of Palestine by both Canada and all nations of the world, and lasting peace and prosperity for all people in the region.

Your points have been well expressed, and I do not feel the need for a meeting for further elaboration of them.

Yours sincerely,

The Hon. Rev. Dr. Robert Oliphant, P.C., M.P.

Don Valley West

Rob,
This was an absolutely unacceptable answer. 

You claim to know the history, yet everything you’ve said to me is barely a grade above repeating Israeli talking points.

I wonder, how much of your views and how many of your trips to the region were paid for by Canada’s main Israel lobby?

I know you are one of the most heavily lobbied Canadian MPs by the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA), I have counted about 21 different meetings with this schill of a lobby group since 2016.

Since you were clearly too cowardly and self-important to answer ANY of my questions, let alone agree to a face-to-face conversation (what are you afraid of, Rob? Not being able to defend your indefensible positions?), just answer me this one simple question:

How many meetings have you had with the Canadian Israel lobby, CIJA?

Also, I will never vote for you again, and I really look forward to canvassing, organizing, and mobilizing efforts to support literally anyone else other than you, and to get you out of office. It’s clear to me and every Canadian I know and speak to that our political class are a bunch of spineless, useless, sycophantic, self-important blow-hards collecting checks from the people they claim to represent but won’t in any way actually be accountable to. 

Disgraceful. 

As you wrote, my points were “well expressed” and you “do not feel the need for a meeting for further elaboration of them.” The request, of course, was to give you a chance to explain your points, which were not well expressed, cookie-cutter talking points, and of course, so that you couldn’t cherry-pick which questions you were comfortable to answer (i.e. lie or repeat empty rhetoric about). And the reason you “do not feel the need” to elaborate or defend them is because there is nothing there to be defended. They are empty words from an empty politician. 

Go on patting yourself on the back while LYING about continuing to send weapons to a genocidal state, while you LIE about caring about international law or the ICJ decisions, or about having any values or political courage whatsoever. 

It’s clear that you just lie to and deceive your constituents based upon who you are speaking to, changing your colours like some sort of political chameleon. 

I will not be silent about your cowardice and lies.

Sincerely,

Someone who will never vote for you again. 

AGM

If you have any thoughts to share with Rob Oliphant, his email is:

Rob.Oliphant@parl.gc.ca

Constituency phone number: 416-467-7275

Parliamentary phone number: 613-992-2855

If you haven’t read my first letter to my Member of Parliament, Rob Oliphant, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, see my original letter here.

If you haven’t read Mr. Oliphant’s response to my letter, view it here.

The following is my essay-length reply to his letter, which I concluded with a list of ACTIONS that Canada could take (apart from simply reciting statements or announcing symbolic gestures). Additionally, I not only requested that he reply to my letter, but I extended an invitation to him to engage in a face-to-face conversation (in person or online) and to be a guest on my podcast, In This Mad World, in order to have an honest and direct discussion on the subject.

Dear Rob Oliphant,

Thank you for replying to my previous email. However, your response, to say the least, was immensely disappointing (at best), and in truth, was just a repackaging of various talking points that I quite emphatically requested to be left out of the discussion. In addition to this email response, I also request a face-to-face meeting with you, in person or online. You selectively answered about 2 or 3 of the roughly 13-15 questions I put to you. I gave you my background so that you would know that superficial answers to serious questions will not be sufficient. So, let’s try this again, shall we?

You stated that you have been “resolute in [your] calls for a complete ceasefire, for increased access to humanitarian aid.” That’s all very well and good, and easy, as it requires saying a few words, akin to offering “thoughts and prayers” after a tragedy. But I’m not interested in thoughts and prayers, nor in empty calls for a “ceasefire” after 22 months of genocidal warfare. It’s simply not good enough, by any stretch of the imagination.

Your deflection, so common among your colleagues in Canada and in other G7 nations, to answer every question related to Israeli criminality with yet another recitation of “on October 7,” as if this conflict began on that date, or began with Hamas, when I stated quite clearly to you my background in history, and thus, that my memory and knowledge goes back beyond 22 months. You began your response noting that this issue is one you have “taken extremely seriously” even before entering Parliament, so I must assume that you, too, know better than to recite these mantras that make it seem as if this all began with Hamas or in October of 2023. In particular, I found your statement that, “Hamas has been holding Gazans hostage for decades,” to be a particularly egregious propaganda talking point, equating power and responsibility on equal weight between Israel and Hamas, an absurd notion.

This is a good opportunity for a little history.

We know that 80% of Gaza’s pre-October 7 population were refugees or descendants of refugees from the 1948 Nakba. Gaza City existed long prior to the establishment of Israel, but the ‘Strip’ as an entity was invented by Israel in order to enclose the refugee population within, then under Egyptian territorial control (as the West Bank was under Jordanian authority). Then, of course, there was Israel’s 1956 invasion and occupation of Gaza and the Sinai in Egypt, alongside the British and French colonial powers, which were all subsequently forced to withdraw under US and Soviet pressure. (If only we had such courage in the world today!)

Following the 1967 war and occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, and the start of the religious extremist settlement enterprise and establishment of military occupation (legally deemed “temporary” but now in its 58^th year), Gaza was further enclosed, and its inhabitants held captive by Israel. This, incidentally, was 20 years before the founding of Hamas, as I’m sure you are aware.

In 1987, after 20 years of military occupation and settlement expansion and colonialism, along with the criminalization of secular Palestinian resistance groups under the umbrella of the PLO, most especially Fatah under Yasser Arafat, and in the midst of the 18-year occupation of southern Lebanon (1982-2000), Israel itself helped to found Hamas – a religious movement turned political resistance force – as a counterweight to the secular resistance of Fatah. Eventually, it backfired on Israel (clearly), in a similar fashion as to how the US support of the Mujahideen in Afghanistan backfired on the US with the establishment of al-Qaeda. Again, I am sure you are aware of this, which makes it doubly incredible that you make and endorse statements that appear to be ahistorical.

The year 1987 was also the start of the First Intifada, sparked in Gaza itself. The 1980s was thus a period of time in which more of the world began to see Israel for its actions in Lebanon and in the illegally occupied territories of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem. The IDF response to what were largely peaceful protests was one of absolute brutality. The Prime Minister was Yitzhak Shamir, a former Lehi (Stern Group) terrorist leader of a pre-1948 Zionist militia embracing pseudo-fascist ideology, and his Defense Minister was none other than Yitzhak Rabin, a longtime general who became infamous for his “broken bones” policy of instructing the IDF to crush the protests “with force, power and blows,” and told his commanders to, “Go in and break their bones… If they will be beaten, it will hurt them, and the demonstrations will stop.”

Rabin, of course, would go on to become the great “peacemaker” prime minister who signed the Oslo Accords in 1993, which betrayed the Palestinian people who were subjected to continued and enhanced military occupation, rapid colonization through expanded settlements, but now had the new invention of the Palestinian Authority, largely reviled by the Palestinian people for its function as a subcontractor of the Israeli occupation. As settlement expansion served as the primary impediment to peace and reaching a final deal on potentially establishing a two-state solution, the so-called ‘peace talks’ fell apart. (Of course, this was blamed on the Palestinians)

Then, Israel helped to ignite the Second Intifada, first with the trip by Ariel Sharon to al-Aqsa, sparking protests that were met with immense force, which then exploded across the occupied territories. We know from the Israeli press reporting on the findings of Military Intelligence officials at the time, that the claims that there was no “partner for peace” among the Palestinians was a lie, but was rather a slogan made up by the Israeli political leadership that was repeated ad nauseam to the point of becoming “common knowledge” in Israel, and generally accepted and repeated by Israel’s western allies, including Canada.

Following roughly five years of the Second Intifada, during which time roughly 1,000 Israelis and 4,000 Palestinians were killed, Sharon pursued his so-called Gaza “disengagement” plan. To this day, it is often repeated that this was a gift or gesture for peace from Israel, framed as an “end” to the occupation of Gaza. We know this is false.

The withdrawal of the military and 21 settlements in Gaza in 2005 was not an end to the occupation, it was a repositioning of occupation forces to the external borders of Gaza, to effectively surround and contain Gaza. As the top aid to PM Sharon, and one of the key architects of the disengagement plan, Dov Weisglass, openly admitted even before it went into effect, “The significance of the disengagement plan is the freezing of the peace process.” The unilateral decision to remove Israeli forces and settlements from within Gaza and reposition around it was ultimately about ending the growing global criticism of Israel’s conduct during the Second Intifada and its refusal to negotiate in good faith with the Palestinians. Additionally, it created a further division between the West Bank and Gaza, treating them as two separate units instead of one single political territory to be a future Palestinian state. As Weisglass elaborated: “And when you freeze that process, you prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state, and you prevent a discussion on the refugees, the borders and Jerusalem. Effectively, this whole package called the Palestinian state, with all that it entails, has been removed indefinitely from our agenda. And all this with authority and permission. All with a presidential blessing and the ratification of both houses of Congress.”

Additionally, following the disengagement in 2005, the fiction that Israel had ended the occupation of Gaza was consistently and emphatically denied by the UN and various human rights organizations. As even the US establishment think tank, the Atlantic Council, acknowledged in 2023: “many prominent international institutions, organizations and bodies—including the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, UN General Assembly (UNGA), European Union (EU), African Union, International Criminal Court (ICC) (both Pre-Trial Chamber I and the Office of the Prosecutor), Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch—as well as international legal experts and other organizations, argue that Israel has occupied Palestinian territories including Gaza since 1967.”

Seeing as how you, in your response to my first letter, stated that Canada belongs “to an international order of nations, institutions, and organizations” and that, “Canada stands up for international law and abides by all the regulations and rulings of the international courts,” you can recognize that the 2005 disengagement was not an end to the occupation. Further, as per your stated respect and adherence to the decisions of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), we must also acknowledge the July 2024 decision of the ICJ to rule that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories was “illegal” under international law, and even noted that following the 2005 disengagement, Israel legally remained the occupying power of Gaza. As the ICJ summary position noted, “for the purpose of determining whether a territory remains occupied under international law, the decisive criterion is not whether the occupying Power retains its physical military presence in the territory at all times but rather whether its authority has been established and can be exercised.” As such, the ICJ ruled that, “the Court considers that Israel remained capable of exercising, and continued to exercise, certain key elements of authority over the Gaza Strip, including control of the land, sea and air borders, restrictions on movement of people and goods, collection of import and export taxes, and military control over the buffer zone, despite the withdrawal of its military presence in 2005.” I would add to this list, control over the currency used in Gaza, which is the Israeli shekel, and without Palestinian representation in the governance of the Central Bank of Israel.

So, since we both acknowledge and have respect for international law, we must recognize that Israel never ended its occupation, but simply reorganized and repositioned occupation forces and structure.

But of course, the story and evidence is not yet complete without a discussion of the Palestinian elections and subsequent Palestinian civil war, coup, and Israeli blockade.

Following many attempts by the Palestinian Authority President Abbas to postpone elections, due to PA and Israeli fears of a Hamas victory, the elections were ultimately slated to take place in early 2006. The Bush administration ultimately pressured Israel and the PA to allow the elections to take place.

Hamas even amended its charter in January 2006 to drop its call for the destruction of Israel (though this has never stopped being used as a talking point to silence critics of Israel). Instead, Hamas de facto recognized Israel and accepted the objective of moving towards a two-state solution, both of which were preconditions for its participation in Palestinian legislative elections, which were held across occupied Palestinian territories, not simply in Gaza.

Growing support for Hamas was not driven by an ideological affinity for the group, but by a widespread hatred and distrust of Fatah and the PA, which in its then-12 years of administration of Palestinian occupied territories, was seen as ineffective, corrupt, and beholden to Israel.

In late January 2006, Hamas scored a political victory in legislative elections by winning 76 out of 132 seats, deposing Fatah, which won only 43 seats. Then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert immediately declared that, “The state of Israel will not negotiate with a Palestinian administration if even part of it is an armed terrorist organization calling for the destruction of the state of Israel.”

Of course, not only Israel, but the US, UK, and other western allies who had pushed for free elections immediately dismissed the results and refused to engage with any Palestinian government that included Hamas because it had an armed wing. (Negating the unfathomable level of hypocrisy of engaging with Israel, despite the IDF existing, with the Israelis never even discussing the concept of refusing their apparent right to use force, a demand that is only ever imposed upon colonized peoples, and not the colonizers).

Behind the scenes, the US and Israel immediately began to strategize how they could destabilize the Palestinian government and remove Hamas from power, which of course reflects a lack of respect for the democratic will of the Palestinian people (unless they vote the way we want them to, which in this case, was to vote for the corrupt Fatah party, beholden to Israel and the US). The US and other allies withheld aid to the Palestinian government and were attempting to convince US-backed Arab dictatorships to support their efforts to undermine and remove the Hamas-led government.

Israel proposed a plan in February of 2006 “to restrict the movement of money, people and goods into and out of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank,” reported the NYT. Dov Wesiglass, then an adviser to PM Olmert, explained in a meeting with top Israeli officials that, “We need to make the Palestinians lose weight, but not to starve to death.”

Since Hamas had won approximately 45% of the legislative votes, and Fatah with 41%, Hamas had the ability to form a government under its authority (though Abbas of Fatah would remain as President, following the 2005 presidential elections). Nevertheless, Hamas opted to pursue talks with the other Palestinian parties and factions, including its main rival, Fatah, to work together to try to form a unity government.

By late March, Gaza was having to ration food and other supplies that Israel had cut off from entering the Strip. This predictably resulted in some Palestinian militant factions firing homemade rockets toward Israel. The response from Israel was typically beyond any degree of proportionality, firing 300 shells into Gaza daily by April 2006. Despite these actions, Hamas had maintained its then-16 month ceasefire with Israel. In late May, Israeli forces even invaded Gaza in targeted operations against various Palestinian militant groups.

In early June, Israel bombed and killed seven civilians on a Gaza beach, all members of the same family, including killing a mother, a teenager, and two young children, aged 6 months and 18 months. Another Israeli airstrike killed a senior commander in the Hamas government, yet another continued violation of the ceasefire. At this point, Hamas officially announced an end to the ceasefire that they had adhered to for the previous 16 months, stating that, “we the Palestinians, including Hamas, have the right to respond and defend ourselves.”

Since you declared in your letter to me that Israel deserves to live “free from terror and the threat of terror,” surely, so too should the same hold for Palestinians, to be free from Israeli terror and threat of terror. Between late-March and mid-June, the Israelis had launched 5,700 shells at Gaza, killing 47 Palestinians, including 11 children and five women, compared to just over 50 imprecise, homemade rockets fired at Israel.

This of course resulted in an escalation on both sides, and eventually with the kidnapping of IDF soldier Gilad Shalit in late June, following two weeks of Israeli attacks that killed 14 Palestinian civilians. In response, Israel threatened to undertake massive retaliation against Hamas and Gaza, with Israeli tanks even moving inside Gaza’s territory.

While Hamas held captive one 19-year-old IDF soldier, at the same time, Israel held captive 95 Palestinian women and 313 Palestinian children in Israeli prisons, out of a total Palestinian prison population of 9,000. More than 1,000 of those prisoners were held captive by Israel without charge.

Israel bombed Gaza’s only power plant, knocking out electricity supply to roughly half the population of Gaza, which also resulted in water shortages and sewage flooding.

Behind the scenes, there was a plot being hatched and carried out by the Americans and Israelis, with the collusion of certain Arab dictatorships. Following the January 2006 elections, and the attempt to strangulate the Hamas-run government through economic sanctions and blockade, the Bush administration pursued a covert operation to remove Hamas from power. This was extensively detailed in a 2008 Vanity Fair expose, based upon confidential documents obtained by the magazine, corroborated by sources in the U.S. and occupied Palestine.

The Bush administration opposed efforts by the various Palestinian factions to form a unity government with Hamas. The US even made aid to the Palestinian Authority dependent upon PA President Abbas, long considered a close ally of the Americans, dissolving the government and calling for new elections. But he refused to do so. Still, the Americans were working closely with the security forces of the Fatah faction under Abbas’ apparent authority. The US emphasized that they would support Fatah and Abbas politically and militarily in a confrontation with Hamas. Though Hamas had won the election, Fatah maintained control over the 16 branches of security forces under the command of the Palestinian Authority, and the US was working to build them up for a conflict with Hamas, which was itself attempting to build up its own security forces, knowing it couldn’t rely upon the Fatah-led forces. By the fall of 2006, it was apparent that the US strategy was to foment a civil war between Palestinian factions.

Violent confrontations between Hamas and Fatah were erupting in the streets, particularly in Gaza. By late December, PA President Abbas bowed to US pressure and attempted to dissolve the Hamas-led government and call for new elections, a move that was decried by Hamas as “a real coup.” The result was a predictable flare-up of violence. The violence continued into January of 2007.

At the same time, Hamas’ political leader in exile, Khaled Meshal, issued a draft outline of a proposal that would have Hamas officially recognize Israel in return for recognition of a Palestinian state. Yet, the US-backed and covertly supported forces of Fatah were escalating their violence against Hamas, notably inside Gaza.

Nevertheless, negotiations between the factions resulted in an agreement in early February 2007, brokered by Saudi Arabia, to finally form a unity government between Hamas and Fatah, despite the outbreaks of violence. The Americans were not pleased. But the US insisted on continuing with Plan B, to again force a confrontation between the factions and remove Hamas from power, even in a unity government.

Israel, for its part, was increasing attacks on Palestinians in both the West Bank and Gaza. Fighting between Palestinian factions continued and escalated, despite the unity agreement. By late April, the US plan to foment a Fatah-led coup against Hamas had been leaked to the Jordanian press. By mid-May, the Saudi negotiated truce between factions had completely fallen apart and extreme violence had erupted in the streets. Fatah was backed by the US, Israel and Egypt in its civil war against Hamas.

Fighting between the factions escalated, especially in Gaza. But in mid-June 2007, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas finally did what the Americans had demanded of him and issued a decree disbanding the coalition government and declared a state of emergency, attempting to orchestrate a coup against Hamas, with Hamas militants on the verge of taking control of the Gaza Strip.

The following day, however, on June 15, Hamas fighters officially took complete control in the Gaza Strip, effectively leaving Fatah in charge of the West Bank only, and splitting the political control between the two territories.

As Wikileaks cables later revealed, the head of Israel’s military intelligence at the time, Amos Yadlin, told American officials on June 12, 2007, just three days before the Hamas takeover of Gaza, that “Israel would be ‘happy’ if Hamas took over Gaza because the IDF could then deal with Gaza as a hostile state.” This, he claimed, was preferable “to deal[ing] with Hamas as a non-state actor.” Another cable revealed that Fatah had actually asked the Israelis to attack Hamas in Gaza in June of 2007.

It was this final act by Hamas to effectively pre-empt the US and Israeli-backed Fatah coup with a coup of its own that is commonly referred to in present day as the “Hamas takeover of Gaza,” as if it occurred in a vacuum and was singularly responsible for the circumstances that led to it.

Following the Hamas takeover, Israel sealed its border with Gaza and imposed a brutal blockade that allowed “only the minimum amount of goods required to avert a hunger or health crisis among its 1.5 million people, and prohibiting most exports.” Egypt, for its part, worked with Israel in imposing a similar blockade on Gaza’s southern border.

Indeed, in September of 2007, Israel officially declared that the Gaza Strip was a “hostile entity,” threatening further cuts to fuel and electricity supplies.

In early 2008, again according to leaked Wikileaks cables, Israeli officials told American diplomats that they were aiming to keep Gaza’s economy “on the brink of collapse” just short of creating a major humanitarian disaster. As an American diplomat summarized his meetings with Israeli officials, he wrote that, “As part of their overall embargo plan against Gaza, Israeli officials have confirmed to (U.S. embassy economic officers) on multiple occasions that they intend to keep the Gazan economy on the brink of collapse without quite pushing it over the edge.” The cable, from November 2008, reported that Israel wanted Gaza’s economy “functioning at the lowest level possible consistent with avoiding a humanitarian crisis.”

It was later revealed that Israel even calculated the minimum number of calories per person in Gaza required to keep the Palestinian population just short of malnutrition. The Israeli document, which was made public after three years of a legal battle through the courts, revealed that the Israeli government assessed that Palestinians of Gaza should be subjected to no less than 2,279 calories per day, requiring a minimum of 170 truckloads of food per day, five days a week.

Then, of course, we had the horrific 2008/09 Israeli military assault on Gaza known as Operation Cast Lead. This 22-day war resulted in the Israeli murder of 1,400 Palestinians in Gaza, including 300 children and hundreds of other innocent civilians.

For details on Israel’s criminality during this operation, see the reports on the war compiled by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and even the UN’s own fact-finding mission.

Then, of course, there was the 2012 Israeli military onslaught on Gaza, named Operation Pillar of Defense, an eight-day war that also resulted in numerous war crimes committed by Israel. The operation resulted in war crimes and the killing of approximately 167 Palestinians.

In 2014 there was the 50-day Israeli war on Gaza known as Operation Protective Edge, killing about 2200 Palestinians, including more than 500 children (this was considered to be a substantial figure prior to 2023, after which Israel has murdered more than 18,000 children in Gaza).

Then there was the 2018-19 Gaza ‘March of Return’ protests in which Palestinians caged inside Gaza by Israel staged mass, non-violent protests simply by congregating and walking toward the fence surrounding the Strip, which Israel responded to, typically, with overwhelming force. IDF forces responded with live fire, killing 223 Palestinians, including 46 children, and injuring more than 8,000. Even a UN inquiry into the events found that Israel had committed grave violations of international and humanitarian law, including by the deliberate targeting of children and journalists.

In May of 2021, yet another Israeli assault on Gaza took place, lasting just over two weeks, during which time Israel carried out numerous war crimes, killing 250 Palestinians, including 66 children.

When you compile these stats of casualties from Israeli military operations, war crimes and killings in Gaza between December 2008 and May 2021 (and leaving aside Israeli killings of Palestinians in the West Bank), we get a figure of 4,240 Palestinians killed by Israel in Gaza, including 912 children (which is higher than the total number of Israeli civilians killed on October 7, 2023). Across the same duration of time and conflicts (2008-2021), also confined to the Gaza wars and crises listed above, there were approximately 106 Israeli deaths.

I provided this documented history to address your statement in your email response to me that, “Hamas has been holding Gazans hostage for decades.” Your statement is no more true than claiming that the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority has been holding Palestinians in the West Bank hostage for decades. They may both be corrupt, violent enforcers of internal administration, but we can only make such spurious claims by ignoring the larger power dynamics at play; namely, that Israel is the only nation-state and major military power maintaining effective occupation over both territories (as well as East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights in Syria).

To claim that “Hamas had been holding Gazans hostage for decades,” while ignoring the very real fact of Israeli occupation, enclosure, blockade, and repeated bombing and mass murder of Palestinians in Gaza, is, quite honestly, insulting and absurd. It has been Israel that has been holding the Palestinians of Gaza hostage. Israel’s ongoing blockade and occupation of Gaza was made obvious by the fact that, following October 7, they were able and willing to cut off supplies of food, fuel, electricity, and water, as was announced by then-Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, when he added that, “We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly.”

Now to your point about Canada apparently “stand[ing] up for international law” and abiding by “all the regulations and rulings of the international courts.” Rhetoric aside, our actions are more important in determining if we actually, as you claim, stand up for international law and respect the rulings of the international courts. Indeed, our actions indicate quite the contrary.  

As I mentioned before, the July 2024 ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which you claim to support and uphold, ruled emphatically and without doubt, that “Israel’s continued presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory is illegal because its policies and practices violate the prohibition of the acquisition of territory by force and impede the right to self-determination.” As such, Israel was legally obligated “to bring to an end its continued presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory ‘as rapidly as possible’,” which clearly it has not done and has no intention of doing.

In fact, in addition to the Israeli government’s August 2025 announcement that it would formally take over and occupy Gaza City, in May 2025 it approved the establishment of 22 new settlements in the occupied West Bank, further expanding and entrenching the illegal occupation, with the Knesset in July 2025 passing a non-binding resolution calling for Israel to officially annex the West Bank.

In other words, Israel is doing everything it can to not only ignore the orders of the ICJ, but to actively undermine them.

Further, the Court found that Israel’s illegal occupation and “discriminatory laws” were “tantamount to the crime of apartheid.”

Of course, this is nothing new, as Palestinian rights groups had been accusing Israel of apartheid for years and decades. However, in January of 2021, Israeli human rights group, B’Tselem, issued a report confirming that Israel has imposed “a regime of Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea” which amounts to “apartheid.”

Human Rights Watch issued a report in April of 2021 concluding that, also between the river and the sea, an area in which roughly 6.8 million Jewish Israelis and 6.8 million Palestinians live, that, “Throughout most of this area, Israel is the sole governing power; in the remainder, it exercises primary authority alongside limited Palestinian self-rule,” in which “Israeli authorities methodically privilege Jewish Israelis and discriminate against Palestinians.” This system, the report noted, has resulted in “deprivations” that “are so severe that they amount to the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution.”

And in February of 2022, Amnesty International issued a report concluding that Israel was guilty of the crime of apartheid, noting that, “Israel imposes a system of oppression and domination against Palestinians across all areas under its control: in Israel and the OPT [Occupied Palestinian Territories], and against Palestinian refugees, in order to benefit Jewish Israelis. This amounts to apartheid as prohibited in international law.” As Amnesty noted: “Apartheid is a violation of public international law, a grave violation of internationally protected human rights, and a crime against humanity under international criminal law.”

Of course, all three of these human rights groups (and others) have since issued reports accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza, facts and evidence I put to you to address in my previous email, which you did not address and instead simply replied, “I await their [ICJ] ruling.” Yet, your record the relevant 2024 ICJ ruling does not create cause for hope, as far as the Canadian government or yourself are concerned, in respecting international law and the rulings of the top legal court in the world, despite your claims to the contrary.

Finally, with the July 2024 ICJ ruling that Israel was guilty of apartheid, and the occupation itself was “illegal,” you now have the opportunity to back up your claims to support the Court and its rulings.

So, Mr. Oliphant:

• Do you recognize that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands amounts to the crime of apartheid, as defined under international law, and as concluded in the July 2024 ICJ ruling?
• As per the same ruling, do you acknowledge that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands – including Gaza – is illegal under international law?

Since you claim to support the Court and its decisions, I must assume that you accept these facts (unless of course you suspend your basic principles, positions, and your own statements when it comes to the subject of Israel). However, giving you the benefit of the doubt that you adhere to your own words and accept the Court’s conclusions:

• What are you going to do to pressure Israel to adhere to international law and the decision of the Court?
• What form of pressure, beyond mere rhetoric, are you willing to impose upon Israel to adhere to the decisions, and dismantle its systems of occupation and apartheid?

However, if you invent some sort of qualifier to justify ignoring the Court’s decisions [when it comes to Israel] and backtrack on your stated support for the Court and its rulings, please provide an explanation for why you refuse to respect and uphold international law, specifically with respect to the July 2024 ICJ ruling.

After all, you represent Canada, particularly on the subject of foreign affairs. And yet, despite your claims to respect the Court, in September of 2024, when the United Nations General Assembly voted on a resolution on the Advisory Opinion of the ICJ to hold Israel accountable for the Court’s decision, Canada abstained from voting. Pathetically, Canada merely called for Israel to “respond” to the Court’s decision.

Of the UN General Assembly, 124 nations voted in support of the resolution that called for Israel to adhere to the Court’s decision and end its occupation of Palestinian territory within a year, a clear majority of the world’s nations voting to uphold and enforce international law. There were 14 countries that voted against, obviously the US and Israel among them. And then there were 43 cowardly abstentions, Canada among them.

The full extent of Canada’s response to the Court’s ruling, was to call on Israel to “respond” to the decision, and signing a joint statement with Australia and New Zealand, politely asking Israel to “ensure accountability for ongoing acts of violence against Palestinians by extremist settlers, reverse the record expansion of settlements in the West Bank which are illegal under international law, and work towards a two-state solution.” This was of course little more than a political deflection to appear to say something while ignoring our own refusal to comply with the Court’s decision and uphold international law, and instead to selectively choose which illegal violations we would publicly push back on. Of note is the fact that the joint statement did not demand an end to the full occupation, which the ICJ ruling demanded, nor to demand an end to the system of apartheid that Israel has constructed over decades, also demanded by the Court.

But seeing as how Israel responds to any and all criticism with the same hysterical apoplectic indignation, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu responded saying, “The Jewish people are not conquerors in their own land — not in our eternal capital Jerusalem and not in the land of our ancestors in Judea and Samaria.” Ignoring international law and instead invoking Biblical sentiments, which do not have any standing in international law, Netanyahu went on to fully dismiss the world’s top Court, saying, “No false decision in The Hague will distort this historical truth and likewise the legality of Israeli settlement in all the territories of our homeland cannot be contested.”

I know that you, Mr. Oliphant, are a former United Church minister, but surely you must accept that international relations cannot be conducted along the lines of “my Bible says,” and instead must adhere to international law. Having said that:

• Can you justify Canada’s decision to abstain and avoid upholding international law, specifically the July 2024 ICJ decision?

Given Canada’s official stance on this (which could be codified as non-compliance to uphold international law), and your statements to me that you believe that “Canada stands up for international law and abides by all the regulations and rulings of the international courts”:

• How can I – or anyone else, whether your constituent or a citizen of this country – believe you, or our government, when they make claims like that which you made, that Canada “stands up for international law and abides by all the regulations and rulings of the international courts,” when it is entirely self-evident that WE DO NOT?

Along those lines, your response to the question of genocide was clearly inadequate. As in this present email, I provided extensive citations and supporting evidence for my claims. The question of Israel committing genocide in Gaza has essentially been settled, and the Court’s decision may simply be a retrospective one, in several years’ time. But, given you and your government’s response – or silence – in relation to the previous ICJ ruling on Israel’s illegal occupation, it’s challenging to assume that an even more damning ICJ decision on Israel’s genocide in Gaza would be met with anything but more deflections, evasions, abstentions, if not outright silence or rejection.

• What reason should I or anyone else have to believe you will actually “await their ruling” and do something afterwards? (even if the ruling comes after the genocide comes to a conclusion, in which case, it would be far too late to take a principled stand).

I am particularly shocked at your answer, considering that you had said directly to a constituent in February of 2024, “Do I believe there’s genocidal activity on the part of Israel?… Probably yes, from what I have seen.”

So, how is it possible that in February of 2024, just four months into the war, you acknowledged to a constituent that you considered Israel to “probably” be engaging in “genocidal activity,” and yet, more than a year and a half later, 22 months into the war and genocide, with numerous international and Israeli rights groups and experts classifying it as genocide, you now backtrack to saying anything remotely concrete about it, apart from, “I await their ruling.”

• Could you please account for this intellectual and/or political discrepancy?
• What changed?
• Was it that you had assumed your previous conversation was in private, and were more willing to engage honestly or openly?
• Or, perhaps, was it that you shaped your answer according to the audience?

And now moving on to your claim about Prime Minister Carney’s announcement about Canada’s supposedly impending (conditional) recognition of the State of Palestine. As you wrote: “Statements, like Prime Minister Carney’s announcement regarding Canada’s intention to recognize Palestine, and Canada’s joint statement on July 21st regarding Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories, are not mere rhetoric.”

Presumably, the reference to the July 21, 2025, statement is to the joint letter signed by 28 nations, saying, “the war in Gaza must end now,” and acknowledged “the drip feeding of aid and the inhumane killing of civilians, including children, seeking to meet their most basic needs of water and food.” The statement said Israel’s “denial of essential humanitarian assistance to the civilian population is unacceptable,” and called on Israel to “comply with its obligations under international humanitarian law.”

That letter did reflect a change in rhetoric and tone from many western states, I will concede that point. But as to your claim that this joint statement, alongside Canada’s highly conditional recognition of the State of Palestine, were “not mere rhetoric,” because they, as you wrote, “create a uniform position on the ongoing conflict” and “have the power to change the way governments around the world think and act,” is kind of like saying that, it’s not just rhetoric because it might inspire someone (else) to act, eventually, maybe. This is not really an adequate or moral position to take in the midst of such extreme circumstances. Put simply, it’s not even remotely good enough.

Again, let’s address the evidence, and some of the questions I put to you in my previous email which you failed to address or respond to. The statement was signed by 28 countries, though lacking the signatures of the two largest arms dealers to Israel, the US and Germany (providing 66% and 30% of Israel’s arms imports, respectively), but included the other G7 nations of the UK, France, Italy, Japan, and Canada. So, one would think that if this wasn’t “mere rhetoric,” and the combined “uniform position” had, as you claimed, “the power to change the way governments around the world think and act,” then we might assume there would have been some positive developments.

Well, how did Israel officially respond to this joint statement?

The Israeli foreign ministry said the statement was “disconnected from reality and sends the wrong message to Hamas.” Incidentally, the statement was issued as Israeli forces were entering Deri al-Balah, which had previously not been invaded by IDF ground forces, therefore expanding the war without consequence. Not only did the Israelis reject the statement with their words, but actively defied it with their actions.

As the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs noted in their official response to the joint letter, “Israel rejects the joint statement,” and suggested that the only statements that should be made should be directed toward Hamas, as if western nations have any influence on the organization (let alone any influence comparable to that which we have on Israel). The Israeli statement claimed that “Hamas is the sole party responsible for the continuation of the war and the suffering on both sides.”

In other words, Israel claims that it is never responsible for its own actions or their consequences, despite the immense power disparity between the parties to the conflict. Such a statement should be treated with little more than absolute disdain and incredulity, akin to how we view statements of innocence and evasion of responsibility on the part of the Russian government and armed forces for their actions in Ukraine. The key difference being that Gaza is not a free and independent nation like Ukraine, surrounded and supported by powerful allies, but is an imprisoned, enclosed, besieged and occupied territory of 2.2 million stateless people who are surrounded by their powerful oppressor, which is in turn backed up and supported and armed by the world’s most powerful military and financial powers.

So, I suppose my question is this:

• If Israel is going to have the same incendiary, irrational, hysterical reactions that are, ironically (considering its statement), “disconnected from reality,” why not do something more substantial that can actually have a tangible effect?
• In other words, if Israel is going to reject whatever you say and claim you support Hamas (or whatever nonsense) after just issuing a very basic statement, why not take concrete actions that sanction Israel for its actions and let it make the same absurd statements? If it’s going to act like a petulant lunatic over nothing, it may as well act like a petulant lunatic over something more substantial and meaningful.
• What is there to lose in taking actions beyond mere rhetoric?

Again, I push back on your claim that the joint statement of Carney’s conditional recognition of the State of Palestine as “not mere rhetoric.” Clearly, we see the joint statement had zero impact. It was reported in the media, and discussed in the public sphere for a few days, but the atrocities continued, and now, Israel of course has recently announced its intention to completely occupy Gaza City.

I don’t particularly want to repeat myself, but seeing as how you didn’t address the numerous issues and questions I previously raised regarding recognition of Palestine, particularly the conditions imposed upon the Palestinians, which were completely detachment from reality (such as demanding Palestinian elections in 2026), I must again repeat certain points.

You claimed that Carney’s statement has “the power to change the way governments around the world think and act.” However, before the British/French/Canadian positions changed on recognizing Palestine, there had already been 146 countries in the world that recognized the State of Palestine, a qualified majority. In other words, Canada – along with France and the UK – are followers, not leaders (despite our self-congratulatory rhetoric), and yet we only do so as a form of rhetorical and symbolic pressure on Israel in the midst of it committing a genocide. Clearly, an inadequate response given the gravity of the situation. Additionally, we bizarrely add conditions on the Palestinians for recognition, which include the demand to hold elections in 2026, as if this would be possible in the midst of war and genocide, or even a post-war occupation and mass destruction, and of course, ignoring the fact that Israel would absolutely not allow any elections to take place. Israel is emphatically and categorically opposed to the recognition, let alone creation, of a Palestinian state.

In fact, in July of 2024, the day before the ICJ issued its ruling on the Israeli occupation being illegal and ordering it to end the occupation and its stifling, denial and rejection of Palestinian self-determination, the Israeli Knesset voted overwhelmingly in support of a resolution rejecting Palestinian statehood outright. The resolution was co-sponsored not only by Netanyahu’s Likud and other extremist right-wing parties, but even by the so-called centrist party of former IDF chief of staff, Benny Gantz. The so-called liberal-leaning parties of Yesh Atid and Labor simply left the Knesset to avoid having to vote (something which I suppose Canada should relate to in terms of our cowardly and inexcusable September 2024 UN General Assembly abstention). The only parties that opposed the measure were the few Arab-Israeli parties. But the entire spectrum of Zionist Israeli political parties either voted in support or abstained from the resolution. The vote was 68 to 9 in rejection of a Palestinian state, even one that came about from a negotiated settlement with Israel.

The resolution itself read that, “the establishment of a Palestinian state in the heart of the Land of Israel would constitute an existential threat to the State of Israel and its citizens, perpetuate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and destabilize the region.” Then-Likud Party chairman, and now Israeli Foreign Minister, Gideon Sa’ar, said that, “the resolution decision is intended to express the blanket opposition that exists among the [Israeli] people to the establishment of a Palestinian state, which would endanger Israel’s security and future. [The resolution] signals to the international community that pressure to impose a Palestinian state on Israel is futile.”

There you have it. Israel’s entire Zionist political establishment declared their “blanket opposition” to a Palestinian state, and any attempt to pressure them to accept one is “futile.” And that was more than a year ago. Let it never be said or taken seriously that the Palestinians have been the impediment to peace when we all know the truth: it is and has always been Israel that is the greatest, most consistent impediment to peace. The real question has never been whether the Palestinians “recognize Israel’s right to exist,” as Israel exists as a fact, but rather, the question has always been whether or not the Israelis – and their Western backers – accept the right of the Palestinian state to exist, which they not only do not accept as a right, but actively work against. As Prime Minister Netanyahu himself boasted in February of 2024, “everyone knows that I am the one who for decades blocked the establishment of a Palestinian state that would endanger our existence.”

Of course, the only “existence” truly being threatened, is that of the Palestinians’ state, society, and population. As is typical, Israel inverts reality to construct its absurd talking points. And western politicians may have gotten away with reciting them like prayers over the past several decades, but these words now ring empty and obscene and will never be an acceptable or respectable part of the discourse again.

So, we return to your claims about Canada’s conditional recognition of a Palestinian state not being “mere rhetoric” and that it could, maybe, someday, possibly, inspire someone (else) to act, or as you put it, it could have “the power to change the way governments around the world think and act.” Clearly, Israel itself has no intention of bending to the polite or even stern finger-waving of western states. It is a state and government that only responds to power. And it is long past time that Canada uses what little power it has.

The fact is, we are 22 months into a brutal war and genocide against the Palestinian people of Gaza, expanding to the West Bank, committed by a country that is a nuclear power and a major military threat to its neighbours, having undertaken numerous airstrikes against Iran, Yemen, Syria and Lebanon, the latter two of which it has also expanded illegal occupations within. We are long past the time where joint statements and conditional symbolic gestures can be seen as anything beyond a desperate attempt to placate domestic public opinion, which, as I also noted in my prior letter to you (also unacknowledged), half the country believe Israel is committing a genocide (including a majority who identify with your Liberal Party), and are strongly opposed to Israel’s actions. This, clearly, puts you both in the minority of the country, of your own party members, and of your constituents.

This government’s and your own statements seem to be a response to a crisis of legitimacy and an attempt to appear to be doing something, without actually threatening our economic and security (imperial) relationships with Israel or the United States. But much like how Israel responds to even the smallest of slights as if we have threatened invasion, so too does Trump respond to any deviation from total subservience to his ego with the aplomb of a petulant child throwing a tantrum in desperate need of a long time-out. Indeed, after Canada said it would (conditionally) recognize a Palestinian state, Trump issued a raving response announcing that such recognition “will make it very hard for us to make a Trade Deal with them [Canada].” Parroting Israel’s own statement, Trump claimed such recognition would be akin to “rewarding terrorists.”

So again, much like with Israel, if we are going to be faced with irrational hysterics and outright threats to our economy as a result of mere rhetoric, why not take action that could have an actual impact, and do more than appear to be doing something, and then take the hit on the chin anyway? In short, if we are going to be denounced and punished for merely saying something, we may as well DO something.

In fact, once again reflecting your government’s distance from Canadian public opinion, which it is supposed to represent as a democracy, according to an Angus Reid poll published on August 1, Canadians supported taking a hard stance toward the US in trade talks, with a strong majority of 69%. Additionally, in the same survey, Canadians addressed Trump’s trade threat over our possible recognition of Palestine, with 63% of Canadians saying that Canada should recognize a Palestinian state even if Trump opposed it, with only 20% suggesting that we should reverse course if Trump demanded.

It becomes quite hard to believe that Canada’s stated positions are little more than an attempt at placating Canadians while attempting to avoid as much friction as possible with Israel and the United States, both of whom are doing little else than creating as much friction (or fracturing) in their relationships with as many countries as possible. I wonder when Canada will seemingly get the memo and start acting accordingly.

The idea that we are still only operating in the area of rhetoric and symbolic gestures, now 22 months into a genocide, is wholly inadequate and, quite frankly, disgraceful.

I will briefly address your comments to me regarding your own role in and Canada’s aid support to Gaza and the Palestinians.

You claimed that Canada was in a leadership role on “delivering humanitarian aid to Gazans and the eventual rebuilding of Gaza,” along with our continued support of UNRWA, the Palestinian refugee agency. Regarding your trip to Egypt in December 2024, where many world leaders discussed increasing aid to Gaza, you wrote, “At the conference, I was proud to announce $50 million in funding for humanitarian assistance addressing the acute needs of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank,” and added that Canada had “committed” (as opposed to actually delivering) over $355 million on international assistance for Palestinians, along with $10 million for the PA’s “role in stabilizing and governing the West Bank.”

I won’t belabour these points, but will make some observations:

• Canadian support for UNRWA is commendable, but Israel outlawed the agency in January of 2025, seriously affecting its operations.
• Canada’s provision of aid to Palestinians is good and urgent, but cannot have a positive impact so long as Israel continues to block and massively restrict that aid from getting into Gaza.
• Canada – and your own direct – participation in the December 2024 Cairo Conference was positive, as far as making statements and announcing more funding commitments to aid Palestinians, but again, did nothing to pressure or force Israel to allow more aid in, which ultimately undermines any potential positive impact, apart from its public relations impact (which was no doubt a primary motive in Egypt’s decision to host the meeting).
• I would additionally like to pre-empt any more self-congratulatory rhetoric regarding Canada’s role in providing airdrops of aid into Gaza, as I just the other day watched video of one such airdrop crush and kill a young Palestinian boy desperately seeking aid. It is common knowledge that this is the least effective, most expensive, and inefficient way to deliver aid. What is needed is not potentially deadly airdrops that cause chaos on the ground, but to force Israel to open its crossings and allow unlimited aid inside.
• And of course, announcing support for the PA to help stabilize the West Bank, at a time when Israel is rapidly expanding settlements and carrying out ethnic cleansing and military operations across much of the West Bank, once again ignores the role of disparity in power between parties. To assume that the PA can “stabilize” the West Bank while the IDF freely invades territories within the West Bank that are supposed to be exclusively under the purview of the PA (Area A), and continues settlement expansion across the occupied territory, is as naïve as assuming Israel will allow Palestinian elections in 2026.

Finally, I would like to address your evasion of the evidence I cited and linked to you in my previous email, regarding Canada’s ongoing delivery of weapons parts, ammunition, and other potentially lethal materials to Israel while it commits a genocide. You claimed that, “Canada is strict, purposeful, and rigorous in our efforts to prevent items from being sent to Israel that could be used in the conflict.” You noted that since January of 2024, “Canada has refused any export permits for materials that could be used in the war in Gaza,” and that Canada also “suspended all existing export permits for items that could be incorporated into that conflict.” This strikes me as disingenuous, and you failed to address the ongoing shipments of weapons to Israel, though I suppose your refusal to acknowledge should be taken as a denial(?).

As I had previously noted and referenced, four NGOs compiled research derived from entries in the database of the Israel Tax Authority which revealed that Canadian goods described by the Israeli government as weapons parts and ammunition were consistently sent to Israel, right up until present. The NGOs also compiled data from publicly available shipping documents, including tax records, which documented military equipment being sent to Israel from Canada. An examination of the data by CBC news found confirmation of “imports of Canadian ‘bullets’ and other military hardware of a kind that Ottawa has said are not being, and cannot be, shipped to Israel.” Additionally, “shipping data gives detailed tracking of military equipment that traces back to the door of one of Canada’s biggest arms companies, as recently as [late July 2025].”

CBC quoted a Global Affairs Canada spokesperson who said, much like your own denial/deflection to me, that “Canada has not approved any new permits for items to Israel that could be used in the current conflict in Gaza” since January 2024, and added that, “approximately 30 export permits for items destined to Israel that could have conceivably later been incorporated into items that could be used in that conflict.” However, the CBC noted, “most other permits were allowed to stand, including a number of large dollar-value approvals granted in the three months following Oct 7, 2023.” Thus, while the GAC issued only two permits to Israel in 2024, “Canadian government figures show that Israel was Canada’s fourth-most frequent customer for military equipment that year [2024], with 164 permits used.” This is presumably because previously issued permits are valid for up to three to four years, and the government has effectively lacked any transparency about which permits are still active, while claiming that no new ones have been issued.

In April of 2025 alone, both Canadian and Israeli tax data noted, Canada exported 175,000 units of “bullets” or other “arms and ammunition” to Israel. In June of 2025, Canada exported 15,000 units of “parts and accessories of military weapons” to Israel. As CBC noted, and you demonstrated in your response to me, “There is as yet no explanation from the government of Canada for the discrepancy between data showing arms transfers [that] occurred and continue to occur, and the government’s denials that it is happening.” In fact, in September of 2024, then-Foreign Minister Melanie Joly stated, “We will not have any form of arms or parts of arms be sent to Gaza, period,” exactly one week before a shipment of arms were sent to Israel from Canada.

Clearly, you need to address and answer this evidence and information with more than a cookie-cutter press release statement that simply reiterates the government’s now disproven position. Ignoring the evidence raised and reiterating previous statements of innocence or denial is not good enough. As the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, both under Minister Joly, when she blatantly misled the public, and under the current Minister Anand, who has also misled the public on this issue [link below], it is your responsibility to be held to account for these damning revelations, and your answer was, to put it lightly, wholly inadequate, if not outright evasive and untrustworthy. I hope for and anticipate a more honest and direct response this time around, as I laid out only some of the available evidence.

As the Globe and Mail reminded readers, in March of 2024, the Parliament voted in support of a non-binding motion to halt new arms permits for Israel, and to review existing permits. The NGOs that released the reports noted that Canada should impose a two-way arms embargo, neither purchasing nor selling weapons or weapons parts and ammunition to and from Israel, instead of continuing “to arm Israel and mislead the public with vague statements about permit regulations.”

When the ICJ almost certainly rules that Israel committed a genocide in Gaza (assuming it won’t by then be ongoing or have expanded beyond Gaza), Canada’s supply of weapons, weapons parts, ammunition, or other equipment that supports the genocidal apartheid state of Israel in its genocide, war, repression and occupation (the latter which is declared internationally illegal already by the Court you claim to support), will make us criminally liable for supporting such a state while it was in the midst of its most violent, brutal, and illegal activities.

At the very least, Canada will suffer reputational damage from this travesty of our rhetorical or symbolic support of the Palestinians while actively supporting Israel, if not simply maintaining economic, political and security ties with the country while it commits a genocide, in addition to the numerous other illegal wars and occupations it has recently engaged in (in Lebanon, Yemen, Syria and Iran). This reputational damage will be extended not simply to the state and government of Canada, but to you as well, Mr. Oliphant. In fact, it clearly already has. Just the other day, I saw a video on social media of you attending a public event where you were consistently confronted by activists, angry constituents, and citizens who were challenging you on Canada’s failure to respect international law and the ICJ, the failure to acknowledge and name the genocide taking place, and failure to be honest about ongoing weapons and weapons parts shipments to Israel. I believe the video ended with you being escorted away into your vehicle by your security detail. I think it is safe to assume that, given your past and present stance, and from what I read in your response to me, you can likely expect more of this to continue.

This is not an issue that is losing relevance with Canadians, it is increasing in importance. And that is because it is a defining moral question upon which history will be a very harsh judge: where did you stand, and what did you do?

This is a time for political courage, not party loyalty.

You concluded your written response to me with some nice-sounding words: “As someone who has been engaged in this work for many years, I will keep advocating for human rights, peaceful coexistence and positive change that brings people together and stops conflict.”

I say to you: PROVE IT. Do it.

Don’t just congratulate yourself for having said and announced nice-sounding things to date, start actually doing things to change the situation, by which I mean, beyond mere rhetoric, or conditional symbolic gestures. (Let alone deceiving the public about ongoing arms shipments).

Instead of concluding, as I did in my previous email to you, with numerous specific questions that went unanswered, I will instead reframe those questions and add in some new ones, putting to you a list of options that exist, beyond mere rhetoric or symbolic gestures, of tangible actions that Canada can and should take in order to force Israel to allow in aid, end the war, stop its genocidal activities, respect international law, and remedy the seemingly endless list of internationally criminal activity in which Israel is heavily and daily engaged.

• Accept and acknowledge that Israel is committing a genocide (while this is yet another statement, it’s one that comes with legal liability to do something about it, since all nations are obligated to respect the Genocide Convention)
• Stop sending weapons, weapons components, ammunition, or any other repressive or potentially lethal materials to Israel
• Impose a comprehensive two-way arms embargo on Israel
• Suspend the Canada-Israel Free Trade Agreement
• Immediately suspend all trade with Israel, imports and exports, including all pre-existing permits
• Force Canadian companies to divest from any investments in Israeli companies or in Israel itself
• Freeze all Israeli assets held in Canadian financial institutions
• End Visa-free travel from Israel to Canada
• Sanction the IDF
• Designate the IDF as a terrorist organization (which would legally require all government agencies and Canadian companies and institutions to end any relationship they may have with the IDF)
• Impose official sanctions on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
• Impose sanctions on his political party, the Likud, along with the other extremist political parties of Bezalel Smotrich (Religious Zionism) and Itamar Ben-Gvir (Jewish Power)
• Suspend Canada’s participation in the F-35 fighter jet global supply chain, thus putting pressure on the United States to force Israel’s hand
• Suspend Canada’s arms purchases from the United States until the US forces Israel to stop committing a genocide, stop its war, and adhere to international laws and the rulings of the ICJ
• Arrest suspected Israeli war criminals in Canada and send them to The Hague in the Netherlands (including if wanted war criminals Netanyahu or former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant ever set foot on Canadian soil, as both are wanted by the International Criminal Court for the crimes of using starvation as a weapon of war)

To put it simply: you must disrupt, abandon and suspend the bilateral relationship between Israel and Canada, and accept the economic and political consequences of this decision. It is not simply a moral imperative, but a legal one.

Finally, in addition to the above measures that Canada can and should take, preferably in conjunction with other nations who have a desire to adhere to and respect international law, including the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and the ICJ rulings, Canada should also begin discussions with other nations, including NATO members and regional partners in the Middle East, on the possibility of undertaking a humanitarian intervention to meet our obligations under the Responsibility to Protect (R2P), a political commitment endorsed by the United Nations General Assembly at the 2005 World Summit, specifically designed to prevent genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity, all of which Israel is presently committing against the Palestinians (and not simply in Gaza).

In fact, Canada played a significant role in pushing for the Responsibility to Protect to be adopted by the United Nations, even if just in a non-binding resolution. It would be commendable if we adhered to resolutions and humanitarian concepts that we helped to craft. If Canada could manage to create an R2P coalition of the UK, France, Spain, Turkey (all NATO members), along with Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan, it could establish a military force that could be capable of protecting the coastal and land borders of Gaza and the West Bank, and establish no-fly zones for Israeli aircraft over both territories, maintaining a protective military force until such time as Israel ends its genocide and war, complies with international law, ends its numerous occupations in Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, the expanded Golan Heights occupation in Syria and southern Lebanon, withdraws all settlements from the occupied territories, and ends its illegal system of apartheid over the Palestinian people between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.

Either we as a nation stand up for and support international law, or we help destroy it, and our reputation in the process. We in the West must apply our declared principles consistently instead of “cherry-picking international law,” as Norway’s foreign minister recently warned in an interview with the Financial Times.

I conclude by asking you to respond to the questions I posed directly to you throughout this letter, and not to cherry-pick which ones are convenient to respond to.

Additionally, and perhaps even in lieu of an official written response to this letter, I would like to invite you to a face-to-face discussion, either in person or online via webcam, and to invite you onto my podcast (In This Mad World), to discuss or debate this topic. Given your recent public appearances being disrupted by protesters, I am offering you a chance to have a calm, direct, one-on-one discussion with a constituent (who, in fact, voted for you). Ultimately, I hope for both a written response and an agreement to discuss face-to-face, as that would be the best way of continuing this discussion, and ensuring that questions asked are, in fact, answered.

Thank you for taking the time to read this letter, Mr. Oliphant, and I await your response.

Sincerely,

Andrew Gavin Marshall

After numerous phone calls to his constituent office, I finally received a response. Needless to say, it was immensely unsatisfactory, answered perhaps two or three of my dozen or so questions, all of which were pretty much standard politician word jumble answers that amounted to, ‘Canada (and I) are doing all we can and we’re doing a great job’.

On the question of genocide, he is choosing to wait years for an ICJ ruling before developing enough courage or spine to call it as such (even though he privately acknowledge to a constituent in February of 2024!!! that he would consider it “probably, yes, a genocide”). So, in other words, waiting until it’s over before calling it out? And then, no doubt, patting himself on the back yet again for such outstanding “courage.”

And he completely sidestepped the issue of Canada’s ongoing arms shipments to Israel by repeating the talking points about there being “no permits issued” in further weapons sales, while completely ignoring the ACTUAL issue, which is the ONGOING weapons shipments from Canada to Israel, fulfilling prior weapons deals with a genocidal state, which should all be cancelled and shipments stopped. Notice his wording about all “permits” being suspended, and not actual WEAPONS. Typical political double-speak.

And of course, he simply ignored ALL of my questions regarding taking action against Israel, on questions of sanctions, boycott, divestment, suspension of a free trade agreement, basically everything tangible, and instead opted to simply address the point of Canada’s (conditional) recognition of Palestine as a state (ignoring my points about how our conditions – on the Palestinians, not Israelis – make this irrelevant if not impossible), and asserted that it was not “mere rhetoric” because it could, maybe, someday, have an impact on how other states “think and act.” Very tangible. Sure.

I WILL be replying, and post my reply online as well. These answers are totally unacceptable and, frankly, pathetic. Our political class needs to be tossed out of office, as far as I’m concerned.

Perhaps it will come as no surprise to readers that this MP is one of the most heavily lobbied parliamentarians by Canada’s own Israel lobby, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA). In fact, I counted about 21 instances of direct lobbying by the CIJA of Rob Oliphant between 2016 and 2025. But I’m sure that has nothing to do with his completely myopic, self-important, cookie-cutter responses to this devastating situation, which included the claim that, “Hamas has been holding Gazans hostage for decades.” Yes, I guess that is a unique way to describe Israel’s decades-long blockade and bombardment of Gaza. Truly warped.

Read his full response below.

Dear Mr. Marshall, 

Thank you for taking the time to write to me. I agree that innocent Gazans have suffered far too much, and I continue to stand with them. The violence endured by civilians has been unimaginable. This is an issue I have taken extremely seriously as an elected official and even well before getting elected to Parliament. As you may be aware, I have been resolute in my calls for a complete ceasefire, for increased access to humanitarian aid, for the release of Israeli hostages and for long term solutions so Gazans can live in peace and safety. 

The terrorist attack by Hamas on October 7, 2023, was a horrendous attack, not only on Israel and Israelis but on all who believe in democracy, the rule of law and human decency. Israel deserves to live in peace, as do all of us, free from terror and the threat of terror. Even while holding Israeli hostages, Hamas has been holding Gazans hostage for decades. Canada will continue to work for a just and viable two-state solution with Hamas playing no role in the governance of the new state of Palestine. 

That being said, Canada cannot achieve this on its own. We belong to an international order of nations, institutions, and organizations, working together towards a credible plan for a lasting peace. 

As a founding member of the ICC and ICJ, and a member of the United Nations, Canada stands up for international law and abides by all the regulations and rulings of the international courts. As the question of genocide is before international courts, I await their ruling. Regardless of this decision, Palestinians are suffering immeasurably, and Canada is committed to continuing its leadership within the international community to fight for justice.

Statements, like Prime Minister Carney’s announcement regarding Canada’s intention to recognize Palestine, and Canada’s joint statement on July 21^st regarding Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories, are not mere rhetoric. They, in coordination with international parties, create a uniform position on the ongoing conflict. Declarations such as these have the power to change the way governments around the world think and act. 

Further, Canada is committed to taking on a leadership role in delivering humanitarian aid to Gazans and the eventual rebuilding of Gaza. I have personally worked to ensure that Canada remains a principal backer of UNRWA. And, in December, I represented Canada at the Cairo Ministerial Conference to Enhance the Humanitarian Response in Gaza, where I met with world leaders to discuss how to increase humanitarian assistance into and throughout Gaza. At the conference, I was proud to announce $50 million in funding for humanitarian assistance addressing the acute needs of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. Since October 7, 2023, Canada has committed more than $355 million in international assistance to respond to the humanitarian and resilience needs of Palestinian civilians, including $10 million to support the Palestinian Authority’s role in stabilizing and governing the West Bank. 

In addition to our humanitarian response, Canada is strict, purposeful, and rigorous in our efforts to prevent items from being sent to Israel that could be used in the conflict. Since January 2024, Canada has refused any export permits for materials that could be used in the war in Gaza. And, last year, Canada suspended all existing export permits for items that could have been incorporated into that conflict. Those permits remain suspended today.

Every Palestinian and every Israeli deserves to live in peace and security. As someone who has been engaged in this work for many years, I will keep advocating for human rights, peaceful coexistence and positive change that brings people together and stops conflict.

Thank you again for writing to me. Please do not hesitate to reach out in the future with your thoughts.

Sincerely,

The Hon. Robert Oliphant, P.C., M.P.

To read my initial letter to my MP, click here.

What is the current situation in Gaza? How far has the destruction gone? What is the legal definition of ‘genocide’ and why does it apply to Gaza? This episode is a deep dive into the escalating Gaza genocide, debunking some of the talking points used to silence critics, and finishes with an examination of things we can do every day to try to stop this insanity.

The following is a letter I wrote and sent to my Member of Parliament, Rob Oliphant, who happens to be the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Anita Anand, a role he also held for the previous Liberal government of Justin Trudeau, for then-Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly. This position gives him an enhanced role (and salary) to speak on behalf of the Minister of Foreign Affairs and help shepherd her bills through Parliament.

Dear Hon. Rob Oliphant,

As a member of your constituency, I have some concerns and questions I would like to raise with you. However, before doing so, I would like to give you a bit of background on myself, so that you are aware of where I am coming from with my concerns.

My name is Andrew Marshall, I’m 38, a mature student at University of Toronto where I am studying Political Science and History. I have studied these subjects not only at U of T, but at SFU in Vancouver and Concordia in Montreal. Reviewing your own biography, I see that you have also attended UofT and even lived and studied in Vancouver as well.

I don’t have a singular area focus in my studies, which I have pursued both in and out of school for the past 20 years, though among the many areas of interest are: international relations/geopolitics, state formation and collapse, imperial history, economic history, colonialism, fascism, revolution, occupation, and war. This has included a broad focus on the Global South, including Middle Eastern history and politics, and notably that of Israel-Palestine.

I say all this to note that my questions and concerns do not simply emanate from what I have witnessed via social media over the past nearly two years – though that has doubtless contributed – but to add that I have read countless scholarly journals, books, histories, regularly read the Israeli and international press, reports from human rights groups and other international organizations. I have read Israeli historians and taken courses by Israeli political scientists.

I say this to preface that the usual talking points put forward by numerous politicians and pundits will not stand as an acceptable response. And seeing as how you are the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, both under the previous and current Canadian governments, I think we can both communicate in a way that assumes we know better than to repeat Israeli government or IDF talking points and engage in a discussion that respects each other’s intelligence.

Additionally, I would like to note that I have never been a Liberal, but this prior election was the first time I have ever voted for a Liberal (yourself), not because I believe in the party, but because I am revolted by the Conservatives and their willingness to play the MAGA game in Canada. I was exceedingly disappointed with the prior government, and despite advocating for many others to vote for the Liberals/Carney in this past election, I maintained no illusions about who he (Carney) is or what he believed in and yet have already become heavily disillusioned with him and this government, on many issues.

My main concern here is Canada’s stance and responsibility toward the genocide and ethnic cleansing unfolding in Gaza, and with its potential to expand to ever-more extreme levels, and potentially even beyond Gaza’s own borders.

I would like to begin with acknowledging the leaked phone call you had with a constituent in February of 2024, roughly a year and a half ago, in the wake of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) interim ruling that stated Israel was “plausibly” committing genocide. I commend you in your comments to the constituent that you were willing to politely denounce the government’s response to the ICJ case, calling it a “communication disaster,” and even saying, “Do I believe there’s genocidal activity on the part of Israel?… Probably yes, from what I have seen.” Additionally, you recognized the absolute madness of the decision to (temporarily) cut funding to UNRWA over Israeli allegations that ultimately proved spurious, to say the least. So, kudos to you for that.

However, according to a video with another constituent, recorded in early January 2024 and reported in the National Post (which I generally consider a rag, but nevertheless), you reportedly referred to two colleagues of yours who took a more public stance on the matter of genocide as “arrogant” for backing South Africa’s case at the ICJ. In the video, you stated that, “I would never declare genocide unless I was in a court of law and I have all the evidence,” and added that you put “the blame squarely on Hamas” for the deaths in Gaza. According to the same article, you reportedly said you had lived in Ramallah in the West Bank; I’m curious if this is accurate and in what capacity? Finally, you stated that “if the court determines” genocide has been committed, “will I agree with it? Yes, absolutely.”

Now that we are more than a year and a half later, and the ICJ has yet to issue a final ruling, and I have not seen any statements from you in the interim on this specific question, are you willing to declare Isarel’s actions in Gaza a genocide, or are you still standing by the claim that only a court can make such a decision, and only then would you be willing to take a political stance?

I ask because of course, the Genocide Convention itself was established three years after the Holocaust, but naturally did nothing to stop it or oppose it, because it was all after-the-fact. My concern here is that if the only criteria for acknowledging and denouncing a genocide is to wait until the ICJ rules it as such, and this can often take years of litigation, it is most likely that we will once again be engaging in post-mortem denunciations and “moral” stances.

The purpose of calling out and denouncing genocide is first, to try to prevent it by warning that there is a risk of genocide, which the Canadian government has not done (your private, leaked comments aside); and then to stop it once it has commenced if we fail in the first objective. Clearly, we have failed on both counts. Canada, like every nation, has not only a moral but legal obligation to do everything in its power to stop a genocide.

As I am sure you are aware, a genocide is not the result of the flicking of a light switch: it evolves and goes through phases. This was true in the case of Nazi Germany as it was in regards to Armenia, the Herero in Southern Africa, the Tutsi in Rwanda, and of course, the current situation in Gaza. Presently, we see the strategy moving into its blatant and openly stated ethnic cleansing phase with plans for a concentration camp in the former city of Rafah in the south, which is now rubble. Even former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, once a Likud member himself, acknowledged this with the term “concentration camp.”

We now have an extensive collection of evidence, reports, and statements from human rights organizations, genocide scholars and experts establishing that there is a consensus: Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian population of Gaza. Nearly a year ago, the two most well-established human rights organizations in the world put out detailed reports affirming that Israel is committing a genocide (Amnesty International) or engaged in genocidal acts of extermination (Human Rights Watch).

Omer Bartov, an Israeli-Jewish scholar and one of the world’s leading experts on genocide, wrote an op-ed in the New York Times affirming his belief, held since May of 2024, that Israel was committing genocide.

The NYT permitted a counter argument written by Bret Stephens, a non-expert who is simply an opinion piece columnist whose argument essentially amounted to, ‘if it was genocide, Israel could have killed everyone by now’, which of course obscures that this is not the definition of genocide, and ignores the historical truth that no genocide has successfully killed the entire target population (meaning that by his definition, the Holocaust was not a genocide because the Nazis didn’t kill all of the Jews). I make this point just to pre-empt any response along these lines to the question of genocide.

Additionally, the Dutch publication NRC conducted an interview in May 2025 with seven leading scholars of genocide in which they all affirmed that Israel was committing genocide, and added that virtually all of their colleagues in the field agreed.

And finally, coming to the past week or so, two of the leading Israeli human rights organizations whose decades of good work I am sure you are aware, B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights – Israel, released a joint 88-page report called “Our Genocide,” affirming that Israel is committing genocide, detailing their evidence and conclusions.

I don’t feel the need to go through all the extensive evidence of genocide, starting with statements of incitement to genocide from Israeli leaders from October 7, 2023, to present, as I am sure you are aware of many of them, and they are amply documented in South Africa’s case at the ICJ, as well as in all the reports and scholarly accounts listed above.

So back to the question of your stance on this issue, and not simply a privately-expressed view, but a public one: in light of all the vast data and evidence from human rights groups and scholars – including Israeli human rights groups and genocide experts – in addition to the vast wealth of damning evidence put forward by international aid and humanitarian organizations operating on-the-ground in Gaza, are you willing to acknowledge that Israel is committing a genocide in Gaza?

Assuming you are able to acknowledge and respect this ever-growing consensus, could you please advance several points of action that you are willing to take to pressure your own government to not simply acknowledge this reality, but take measures to stop it?

Given the recent damning report of the previous and present Liberal government’s complicity in continuing to send weapons to Israel while it is committing a genocide, something which the previous Foreign Minister to whom you served as Parliamentary Secretary, Melanie Joly, publicly denied (aka: lied about): are you willing to acknowledge these weapons shipments? Are you willing to denounce them, publicly? And again, how will you pressure the current Foreign Minister, Anita Anand, to whom you serve as Parliamentary Secretary, to acknowledge and end this policy? At present, she appears to be terrified of her constituents and will not address this topic and won’t even go to her own office for fear of being confronted by constituents or protests. I hope and assume you will display more courage and honesty than our Foreign Affairs Minister.

On the subject of Canada’s recent announcement about recognizing a Palestinian state (maybe), if the oppressed party meets numerous criteria, including holding elections while at war (a demand we do not impose upon Ukraine), what are you willing to do to move beyond mere words that come with endless conditions and criteria, many of which we both know are impossible (as if the Israelis would allow for Palestinian elections to take place)?

The three conditions Carney & Co. put forward for Palestinian recognitions were, as you know:

• For the Palestinian Authority (PA) to implement reforms to its governance
• To hold elections in 2026 with no Hamas participation
• And to “demilitarize” the Palestinian state

Seeing as how Israel is the occupying power in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza (in addition to expanding its illegal occupations in southern Lebanon and in Syria), why is the onus for recognition on the party with no power?

Where are the conditions on Israel? And notably, conditions beyond mere rhetoric, or threats merely to “recognize” a Palestinian state?

In truth, we in Canada should be imposing extensive conditions on Israel – particularly as it commits genocide – not only in return for aid (which we have to first actually STOP), but we should be taking actions to fully boycott, divest, and sanction (BDS) the Israeli state, leadership, and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) – not just a few settlers in the West Bank or a couple of the most racist and vile members of the government. At this point, NATO should in fact be invoking R2P (Responsibility to Protect) and begin mobilizing for a military intervention against Israel. But, seeing as how we are painfully hypocritical and our foreign policy is one endless double standard, our “threats” are mere words and symbolic gestures.

Assuming this government develops a spine and adheres to the principles that we in Canada and the West claim we believe in and support, and at a bare minimum block all additional aid and trade with the genocidal state of Israel, we should put forward a series of demands in return for ever returning to aid or trade with Israel, in addition to the obvious first requirement to stop committing genocide:

• Israel must undertake fundamental governance reforms – including by halting their efforts at judicial reform, which is clearly designed to undermine what little remains of Israel’s already-weak democratic standards
• Israel must hold new elections in 2026, but without the participation of Netanyahu’s Likud party, the Otzma Yehudit/Jewish Power party (of Itamar Ben-Gvir), and the Religious Zionism party (of Bezalel Smotrich)
• Israel must become a demilitarized state that stops threatening and attacking its neighbours and the wider region

If any of these demands seem unreasonable or unlikely, perhaps we should apply that same standard to our demands upon the Palestinians, who clearly do not have the power to realize our demands (unlike the Israelis, where the issue is will, not power). To apply a higher standard on an occupied people, currently being subjected to ethnic cleansing and genocide, as opposed to the one with all the power and responsibility for committing those crimes, is obscene and insulting.

If Canada ever wants to be taken seriously in the world again, particularly in relation to issues of human rights, democracy, or so-called ‘liberal’ values and respect for basic human decency, we cannot and must not continue with our present policies toward the State of Israel and the genocide in Gaza. As I am sure you know, Canada and other G7 members have, since the start of the war and genocide back in October 2023, been aware of the rapidly plummeting reputation of the West throughout the Global South. An October 18, 2023 article in the Financial Times noted this problem, quoting a senior G7 official saying: “We have definitely lost the battle in the Global South… All the work we have done with the Global South [over Ukraine] has been lost… Forget about rules, forget about world order. They won’t ever listen to us again.” The senior official continued: “What we said about Ukraine has to apply to Gaza. Otherwise we lose all our credibility… The Brazilians, the South Africans, the Indonesians: why should they ever believe what we say about human rights?”

That was said less than two weeks into the war. Nearly two years later, it is safe to assume our reputations are almost irreversibly damaged if not totally destroyed. And considering the wider geopolitical environment of a resurgent and aggressive Russian empire, a rising China with its eyes on Taiwan, and growing regional powers across the globe while the US is actively destroying its own ‘soft power’, the very future of the West itself is at stake. If Canada’s leaders have any hope of securing a strong and stable place for Canada in the world of the 21^st century, we cannot continue operating as if we are stuck in the mid-20^th century.

Gaza is not simply one of many issues – it is the defining issue: it is a microcosm of the Global North and South, of colonialism and resistance, of empire and resistance, the past and present. It is a test – a test of whether or not we believe in and uphold real, genuine values, and follow them up with policies and actions (not simply words).

I ask you, not simply as a constituent, not simply as a Canadian, but as a human being who actually believes in the values of human rights, dignity, freedom, equality, and yes, peace: please do something!

The Carney-Liberal government, like the one before it, is stuck on words and symbols, and isn’t even willing to be honest with those words or follow through with hypothetical symbolic gestures. Our rhetorical and symbolic support for the oppressed party is made conditional upon their taking extensive actions. It’s not simply a disconnect between, ‘we talk and they act,’ but that it conditions our ‘talk’ upon their ‘act’. This is unacceptable, particularly given the severity of the situation, and especially in light of the damning revelations of Canada’s ongoing complicity in supplying weapons to Israel while it commits a genocide. Our words become a mere public relations exercise.

As I stated at the start of this letter, I am not a Liberal, and my vote for you in the recent election was my first time voting for a Liberal in a federal election. I am sad to say that if you continue to merely accept the government line, it will be the last time I ever cast such a vote (and I am aware that this is your job, but I am also cognizant of the fact that in your February 2024 leaked phone call, you suggested that you had considered resigning in protest of the government’s position on this issue back then!), so what are you willing to say AND do now, today, and tomorrow?

We can start with words, but it’s not enough.

Polling data published in early June 2025 notes that 49% of Canadians believe Israel is committing genocide, an additional 21% saying they disagreed with that premise, and the remaining 30% refused to answer. When it came to Liberal, NDP, Green Party, and Bloc Quebecois voters, more than 60% agreed that Israel was committing genocide. Only Conservative voters remain beyond reality (shocker, I know), though to be fair, 37% of them agreed that Israel was committing genocide and only 33% disagreed (the remainder didn’t answer), so even among Conservatives, more agreed than disagreed with that premise.

These trends are clearly accelerated among younger generations of Canadians, including my own generation of Millennials and the Gen-Z that follows.

If the Liberal Party, or any party for that matter, wants to maintain legitimacy among its own base or the citizens of Canada as a whole, how they act – or change their actions NOW – will define their future. But I can honestly say that not only will the Liberals never get another vote from me for the rest of my life, but I will actively campaign against them every opportunity I get. Canada and the West have lost the Global South basically on day one of this “war,” and it seems as if the government is doing everything it can to lose the youth of this country. Such a crisis of legitimacy in the political establishment is exactly how fascist parties and movements grow and gain power. Don’t help them. Please.

As Canadians, we are supposed to stand for something – for peace, equality, freedom, opportunity, and to uphold basic human rights – rights that come with responsibility. We have unequivocally failed to meet our responsibilities.

As the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, you are in a position to not only speak, but act in accordance with Canadian values and responsibilities.

Our political, rhetorical, diplomatic, military and other forms of support for Israel as it commits a genocide against the Palestinians of Gaza, will be an eternal stain on this country and on your party.

Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians of Gaza – a genocide which could easily expand to the West Bank, where Israel is already rapidly expanding its ethnic cleansing efforts, a genocide which could expand to target the Palestinian citizens of Israel (note: Ben-Gvir’s armed “security squads” are set up in hundreds of locations across Israel as a kind of paramilitary army under the leadership of the Jewish Power party, which controls the police and prisons), or even extend into Palestinian refugee camps in neighbouring countries like Lebanon, Jordan and Syria, which Israel has already shown a tendency to attack, invade, and occupy. This didn’t start in Gaza, and it won’t end there.

I do understand the geopolitical reality that Canada can only do so much, that there are limits on our influence and power, and that ultimately it comes down to what the United States says and does. But Canada is not absolved of its power or responsibility. We are a G7 member, a NATO member, a G20 member, an OECD member, and we are also part of the F-35 supply chain.

I know I put forward numerous questions and comments for you to respond to, and will greatly appreciate your responses. I would just like to again preface to avoid talking points and platitudes, particularly those that pretend as if Israeli policy and actions are all the responsibility of Hamas (as if they dictate Tel Aviv and Jerusalem’s policy, or have F-35 fighter jets, drones, artillery, tanks, armoured vehicles, naval warships and occupation forces). Additionally, we can avoid straw men arguments about genocide that claim that Israel is innocent because it hasn’t exterminated the entire population (yet). These, as I’m sure you would agree, are disingenuous and deeply disturbing arguments unworthy of regurgitation.

Israel is responsible for its own actions, even – and especially – in times of war. As you are well aware, international law does not absolve one party of having to adhere to international law because it suffered an attack like October 7^th. In fact, Israel has even more responsibilities under international law due to the fact that it is the occupying power. Israel must be held to account. And so must our own government, role, and responsibility in this genocide.

For the sake of brevity (I know, ironic, considering the length of this letter), I will summarize my questions to you below:

• Do you accept that Israel is committing genocide?
• If so, will you publicly acknowledge it in Parliament and to the press?
• If so, how will you pressure the government to acknowledge it?
• If the government fails to do so, will you resign?
• Beyond rhetoric, what actions and policies are you willing to advocate for or take in order to apply pressure on Israel to stop its war and genocide?
• Will you take a stand against and stop arming Israel?
• Will you move to sanction the Israeli government, all its ministers, including the Prime Minister, and the political parties that make up their coalition?
• Will you move to sanction the IDF?
• Will you take efforts to designate the IDF as a terrorist organization? (as Canada did for Iran’s IRGC in 2024, an institution that is responsible for far less death and destruction than the IDF)
• Will you support Boycott and Divestment from Israel? (in addition to sanctions)
• Will you work to suspend the Canada-Israel Free Trade Agreement?
• Will you support and advocate for unconditional recognition of a Palestinian state?
• Will you put forward conditional demands upon Israel in return for resumption of any aid, removal of any sanctions, or the end of any other restrictions that might be imposed?

Please share with me your responses and any other comments, suggestions, or actions you are willing to take to address and work to stop Israel’s genocide.

I would appreciate a response in writing. But I will also be following up, in writing, by phone, and in person. I am happy and willing to maintain an ongoing conversation if desired, so long as there is movement towards recognizing basic reality, and taking actions (beyond mere words) to do something about it.

I thank you, sincerely, for your time, and in advance for your reply.

Andrew Gavin Marshall

In this episode, we take a look at where the Russia-Ukraine war is at presently, with record-level drone and missile attacks by Russia, a growing death toll, stalled “peace talks,” and Russia’s evolving nuclear doctrine. We put the war in its historical context, from the end of the Cold War to the Russia-NATO rivalry, the 2013 Maidan uprising in Ukraine, to Russia’s annexation of Crimea, the 2014 war and finally, the outbreak of full-scale war in 2022, and its potential consequences.

In this episode, recorded on July 12, we examine the first six weeks of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s so-called “aid distribution” program in Gaza. We place this program in the wider context of the Israeli strategy to undermine and dismantle the existing UN-run aid system in Gaza, as part of the overall Israeli plan to ethnically cleanse Gaza, pushing the population further south into a planned concentration camp in the ruins of Rafah City. It’s called “humanitarian aid,” but it operates like Squid Game or the Hunger Games, and has led to the murder of over 800 desperate, starving Palestinians.