Larry Haiven reflects on how childhood lessons in empire, whiteness, and settler-colonial loyalty shaped his subconscious sympathies during the Siege of Vienna. Using historical and personal narratives, he explores why Western nations support Israel, revealing the intertwining of race, empire, and inherited biases in both individual perspectives and global politics.

Public opinion across the West is shifting decisively against Israel as polls show growing recognition of its campaign in Gaza as genocide. Once dismissed as fringe, sympathy for Palestinians is now mainstream. This historic turn raises questions about Israel’s future legitimacy—and whether changing sentiment can reshape entrenched policy.

By refusing to deliver accurate, comprehensive, and contextually rich reporting on Israel’s assault, Canada’s public broadcaster, the CBC, has denied Canadians the information they need to act on conscience and to pressure their government to help end the savagery. In effect, the CBC has made Canadians complicit in genocide.

The West may now be finally waking up to the full enormity of the horrors Israel has inflicted in Gaza. It needs also to wake up to the evils it has nurtured not just for the last two years, but for over a century. It is time we started listening to Palestinian voices, while there are still Palestinians left alive to speak truth to power.

As the Palestinian death toll surpasses 60,000 human beings, Manitobans deserve to know which side their leaders are on: the side of the oppressor, or the oppressed. For those paying attention, anything short of the premier’s clear and unequivocal condemnation of the genocide unfolding in Gaza is cynical, calculated pandering.

What’s unfolding in Gaza is not just a humanitarian crisis—it’s a deliberate, systematic campaign to destroy a population. Mass killings, starvation, and attacks on aid efforts are part of a broader strategy. Western governments, through their support and silence, are complicit. This is not only Israel’s genocide. It is enabled, justified, and sustained by the West.

Canada must act. This means enacting an immediate ban on the import of goods from illegal settlements, in line with Ireland’s example, and working toward a broader policy that rejects economic support for violations of international law. If Canada is serious about human rights, the rule of law, and peace in the region, it cannot remain a silent partner in occupation.

How can the Canadian Jewish left urge faith leaders and institutions to publicly stand against Israel’s genocide? As more and more Jews are realizing that Israel’s unrelenting war on Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank is not being waged to keep Jews safe, either in Israel or around the world, they are supporting the growing calls for aid and a ceasefire.

This is the end. The final blood-soaked chapter of the genocide. It will be over soon. Weeks. At most. Two million people are camped out amongst the rubble or in the open air. Dozens are killed and wounded daily from Israeli shells, missiles, drones, bombs and bullets. They lack clean water, medicine and food. They have reached a point of collapse.

Toronto’s new bubble zone anti-protest bylaw is both more and less dangerous than it may appear at first glance. Less because the bylaw’s enforceability and constitutionality are shaky, more because this provision needs to be understood as an example of the lawfare being wielded against pro-Palestinian solidarity and other left movements.