Femicide in Canada

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"It's just too easy to harm women, and there's no consequence of any meaningful significance."

Megan Walker, former vice-chair, Police Services Board, London, Ontario 

 

"[The data on female killings gathered by the Investigative Journalism Bureau is] insane."

"The difference between many killings of men and women is} Women are killed because they are mothers and they are spouses and they are sex trade workers and just for who they are." 

Heather Lachine, superintendent of criminal investigations, Ottawa Police Service

 

"[Offenders with close ties to their victims are often treated with greater leniency than other violent criminals as a result of an] intimacy or domestic discount [in sentencing]."

"Persons accused of a  homicide against someone with whom they share a close relationship may be perceived as lacking criminal intent [and viewed as the legal system to have acted on] provocation or strong emotion."

Statistics Canada report 

 

"I represent her desire to find justice in a system that failed her when she needed it the most ... The restraining order did not do its job. It was a piece of paper with meaningless words."

"[My] mission [is to have a law passed in Madisson's name that makes ankle monitors a mandatory condition of a restraining order."

"How many innocent people need to die, like my  young daughter Madisson, for legislation to change?"

"Her life was full of potential."

Jackie Cobb, mother of murdered Madisson Cobb 

Madisson Cobb was killed in a parkade near her office (Photo courtesy of the family).

 

There is an acknowledged Canadian epidemic of women being killed by their intimate partners, a phenomenon now more familiarly known as 'femicide' and which is defined internationally through the United Nations as 'the intentional killing of women because of their gender'. In 2024 when full data of the death toll of women was last tracked, a list of 221 deaths was compiled representing an increase of 46 percent over 2019, when 151 deaths were numerated.

 

The Investigative Journalism Bureau at the University of Toronto's Dalla Lana School of Public Health undertook to research the issue, tracking individual cases, and interacting with researchers, advocates and some representatives of police forces. It is an issue that has finally caught the attention of federal authorities. Canada's Justice Minister recently introduced Bill C-15: the Protecting Victims Act which among other issues looks prepared to recognize female murders involving "control, hate, sexual violence or exploitation" as 'femicide', making it a new category under Criminal Law.

 

Should the bill pass, it would mean a first-degree murder designation, in such instances, even without premeditation, to be added to the Criminal Code.  Some 1,329 women and girls have died in criminal or suspicious circumstances over the past seven years in Canada; an average of one female killed every-other day in the country. These killings have steadily grown in number over the years. 

 

The term 'femicide' has not yet been fully accepted generally, although some police forces in Canada label some deaths of girls and women as clear 'femicide'. Other police fores have stated their position that if the term were to be added to the Criminal Code, they would accept it as well. The national police force of the RCMP defines women's deaths as homicides while observing international and local law-enforcement agencies using the word to denote the deliberate killing of a woman by an intimate male.

 

Female victims are killed almost 90 percent of the time by a man and that man most frequently happens to be a current or former intimate partner. Moreover police, child services, judicial or mental health systems were 83 percent aware before the killing of the offender, as a result of previous interaction. At present, a conviction for such murder carries a 10-year sentence. Giving it a first-degree designation through naming it a 'femicide' would result in a lifetime sentence of 25 years.

 

Killed by the same man on the same day in Renfrew County, Ont., in 2015 were, left to right, Nathalie Warmerdam, Carol Culleton and Anastasia Kuzyk. Photo by Postmedia files

 

In their investigation, the Investigative Journalism Bureau researchers took over a year to examine female deaths across the country, searching public records, police reports, court documents and websites for missing persons. The details and outcomes of 1,329 suspicious female deaths taking place in Canada since 2019 represented their worksheet. The database used was that of confirmed homicides and deaths deemed criminally suspicious by police.

 

Of 687 individual cases the IJB reviewed where the accused was either a current or former intimate partner or a family member, judicial outcomes to date reached 337. Of that number, over one-third pleaded to lesser offences, were found guilty of a lesser crime, or had their charges stayed or dropped. In the past ten years inquiries to examine targeted deaths of women including female victims saw hundreds of recommendations made in prevention of root causes of gender-based violence, yet few were enacted. 

 

Most of the intimate partner homicide cases reviewed by the Ontario chief coroner's committee that reviews domestic violence fatalities included red flags that under a better system would be seen as critical alerts, according to psychologist Katreena Scott who sits on the committee: "Systems often don't listen very well. Systems don't listen to survivors -- to women, who are saying, 'Listen, this is a dangerous situation' or are asking for help."  

 

The Red Shoe Project is a global campaign inspired by Mexican artist Elina Chauvet to commemorate the women lost to gender-based violence and to advocate for change. iStock/GIANFRI958

 

The Inversed World of Palestinianism

• "The Nakba [Catastrophe] is not a political debate with 'two sides'. It is the foundational event of a continuous, 77-year campaign of displacement, military occupation, and colonization."
• "[Swipe through images] to challenge the false narratives and understand the reality of the Palestinian struggle."
• "Israeli Victim Card: As an Israeli citizen if I am accused of anything I am not criminally responsible. Any accusation against me will be fuelled by ANTI SEMITISM. If in doubt please refer to the Holocaust."
• "Four Israeli hostages were released as part of a prisoner exchange. In stark contrast, Palestinian prisoners often return home with clear signs of physical and mental abuse, a testament to the harsh conditions they endure."
• "As Israel faces humiliation on the battlefield against Iran, it turns its rage toward the most defenceless: the people of Gaza. In a display of cowardice and cruelty, it bombs homes, massacres families, and burns Palestinian children alive. This is not war -- it is a genocidal campaign by a colonial occupier desperate to maintain its grip through terror."                                               Canadian Palestinian Association of Manitoba (CPAM)

"It is standard museum protocol to work with advisory networks. This advisory network supported the museum in collecting the oral histories and artifacts of the Palestinian Canadians who will be featured in the exhibit [Palestine Uprooted: Nakba Past and Present]." Original response.

"This exhibit is the work of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights -- it is not a co-production with another association or organization. There is no agreement with any association for the development of this content." On second thought.

Amanda Gaudes, spokesperson, Canadian Museum for Human Rights

A new exhibit on the Nakba, recounting the personal experiences of Canadian Palestinians who fled or were forced from their homes in 1948, is coming to the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. However, at least one Jewish organization is concerned it will lack historical and current geopolitical context.  CBC

 

What irony, the founder of the museum, Israel Asper, visualized its purpose to speak to the world of the horrors of the Holocaust, that it never be forgotten as a signal event in the mid-20th century when state-driven genocide alongside a world war contrived to dehumanize European Jewry on their way to total annihilation. The museum has undergone a change in purpose from highlighting real instances of monumental human rights abuses to become a showpiece for propaganda against Israel, the Jewish state that rose on its ancestral geography from the ashes of six million lives -- half the world's entire Jewish population.

 

Canada, through immigration, refugee intake from war-torn Middle East and North African countries, and illegal migration, has become a cesspool of Jew-hate. Its rise accelerated by the savagery of the 7 October, 2023 flood of Palestinian terrorists into southern Israel from Gaza on a mission to destroy, sadistically terrorize and rape, mutilate and murder 1,200 mostly civilians, comprised of infants, children, the elderly, in farming communities close to the Gaza border. Slaughtered also were foreign farm workers, who were also taken hostage along with Israeli children, their parents, young adults from a music festival and soldiers.

 

Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Fatah and other terrorist operatives along with Palestinian civilians took pride in their atrocities, to the extent of documenting their acts of inhumanity on videos they later posted to social media. Their crimes included burning families alive, mass rapes, mutilation of girls and women amidst the rapes, forcing children to witness their parents being tortured and parents forced to watch their children tortured and murdered. All atrocities that Palestinians later claimed Israelis perpetrated on them.

 

Apologists for Palestinian 'victimhood' in the international community find reasons to overlook the barbarity, with claims that inhumane occupation made for desperate acts of people seeking freedom. Palestinians always had the freedom to choose their own destinies, but they mired themselves solidly in the self-serving delusion that the land on which Israel stood was theirs, resulting in constant murderous attacks on Jews at the very same time they portrayed themselves as victims and Jews their oppressors. In refusing a state alongside that of the Jews, Palestinians held out for destroying Israel and taking all the land -- ancient Judean patrimony. 

 

Gail Asper, president and a trustee of The Asper Foundation, speaks at the grand opening of the Canadian Museum For Human Rights in Winnipeg on Sept. 17, 2014. (John Woods/The Canadian Press)

 

Bringing their lurid grievances with them to Canada, Palestinians and their Muslim-Canadian supporters ply the fiction of victim and oppressor, denying that the atrocities of October 7 took place, irrespective of the much-celebrated videos depicting the horrors, and convincing a wide audience across the world of their 'cause'; being refused a Palestinian state of their own after turning down one Israeli negotiated proposal after another for a state in exchange for recognition of Israel's sovereign presence.

 

That the Canadian Museum for Human Rights has become yet another Canadian institution that supports the 'rights' of Palestinians to what they claim is theirs, and mourning the existence of the state of Israel as an instrument of Palestinian oppression, now engaged in 'genocide' after depriving Palestinians of their state, is yet another milestone for the public relations machinery that grinds away at the legitimacy of the Jewish state, along with that of Canadian Jews, monstrously slandered and threatened and isolated in the very country they have lived in for centuries.

 

The world is willing to acknowledge the 750,000 Palestinians who fled with the re-establishment of Israel in 1948, yet is totally disinterested in the 850,000 Arabized Jews who lived for a millennia and more in Muslim countries in the Middle East and North Africa who were exiled, their properties and goods taken from them in 1948. The Jews were never considered refugees, were never compensated, never given assistance from the United Nations. The Arab Palestinians, on the other hand, were given the eternal status of refugees, fully financially and politically supported by the United Nations.

 

Isha Khan, CEO of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, said the Palestine Uprooted exhibit is still in development and will get the same academic and curatorial rigour as all exhibits. (CBC)

 

"Our recent victories 4 Palestine: 

• [PM Carney's recognition of a Palestinian state 
• Manitoba raising the Palestinian flag
• Nakba exhibit to "give space to stories long ignored ensuring that the truth of the Naka is taught, remembered and recognized"
• And we are just getting started

"[We are] honoured to contribute through the Palestinian Content Advisory Network ensuring this exhibit [at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights] reflects authentic Palestinian experiences."

Canadian Palestinian Association of Manitoba  

'Nakba' exhibit, Canadian Museum for Human Rights ... Displaced Palestinians walk along a road in Jabalia, as they leave areas near Gaza City, January 19, 2025. Photo: Omar Al-Qattaa, Getty Images

Toronto, Violating Jewish Residents' Trust and Security

"I don't think that three years ago, anybody would dream that such a thing would happen."

"The idea that a person that lives at Bathurst and Steeles [in the heart of the Jewish community in Toronto] would say, 'I don't know if I want you to put a menorah back because I'm afraid', is terrible, and obviously more has to be done." 

"They feel violated, that such a thing should happen literally at the door of their home." 

Rabbi Mendel Zaltzman 

 

"There is no excuse for targeting people because they are Jewish." 

"Toronto cannot look the other way while seniors are intimidated in their hallways."

"[The incident was] an act of hate directed at Jewish residents -- seniors who deserve safety, stability, and dignity." 

City Councillor James Pasternak 

 

"The permissive nature of the City's response to the rising levels of incitement and intimidation aimed at the Jewish community continues to embolden those who wish to target Jewish Torontonians."

"Now, it is a group of Jewish seniors who appear to be paying the price for the inaction of our municipal leaders."

"The inability to protect our elderly is a sign of the further decay of our society."

B'nai Brith Canada

 

"This is a public supportive housing building for seniors. They deserve to live in peace without fear of being targeted for being Jewish." 

"I will be reaching out to TSCH [Toronto Seniors Housing Corporation]leadership to investigate how this could happen."

Olivia Chow, Mayor of Toronto

Toronto police say they received reports Sunday that about 20 mezuzahs had been stolen over the weekend from a Toronto Seniors Housing Corporation building near Bathurst Street and Steeles Avenue W. (Robert Krbavac/CBC)

 

Mayor Chow need not trouble herself with this kind of sanctimonious statement. There is no need for her to 'reach out' to the  housing corporation. If she were truly concerned over the incident where someone ripped mezuzahs from the doorways of senior citizens who happen to be Jewish, living in a supportive housing complex in her municipality, she need go no further than the nearest mirror. In that mirror she would see reflected the face of authority who has gone out of her way to leave Jewish Torontonians to their own protective devices.

 

While mouthing the usual tch-tchs about antisemitism, she has displayed it amply on her own account. As the highest elected authority in the municipality whose job it is to ensure equality of security of all residents, she had but to instruct the Toronto Police Force to act in accordance with the law in reacting to  'protest' gatherings clearly flouting civil law, that target Jews. As Mayor of all the people of Toronto she might have thought it a requirement to attend not only Muslim events but those of the Jewish community as well; certainly including a memorial for the 7 October tragedy.

 

Rabbi Zaltzman, the CEO of the Jewish-Russian Community Centre of Ontario explained that the seniors targeted at the  North York apartment building are for the most part members of the Russian Jewish community. Residents were shocked and dismayed and fearful when they realized that their mezuzahs, an icon of their faith, had been ripped off their doorways. They were left with the impression of having been violated; their trust in their security, in the acceptance of the larger community betrayed. 

 

Pro-Palestinian protestors wave flags and signs in Toronto, Ontario, on September 10, 2025. (illustrative)

(photo credit: VALERIE MACON/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES)

 

Since the 2023 October 7 terrorist attack in southern Israel when Palestinian terror groups from Gaza led by Hamas rampaged through Israeli farm communities, shooting people at will, raping, torturing, destroying and looting, in a massacre that claimed over 1,200 lives of Israeli civilians; infants, the elderly, foreign farm workers, butchering young Jews attending a Nova music festival and taking 250 children, families, the elderly, soldiers captive into Gaza as hostages, Canadian cities, and in particular Toronto and Montreal burst into a celebration of 'Palestinian' rights.

 

Where crowds of Palestinian-inspired Canadian Muslims, leftist groups and pure unadulterated Jew-haters occupied the streets with loudspeakers vilifying Israel, calling for a global Intifada, shouting at Canadian Jews to 'go back to Poland', chanting 'Final Solution', and 'Palestine will be free from the river to the sea'; code for the destruction of Israel. Jewish students from elementary to high school to universities were harassed, Jewish shopkeepers had their buildings vandalized.

 

And Mayor Chow, at a speech to the National Council of Canadian Muslims at a fundraising gala, referenced "the genocide in Gaza". This, at a time when 40 percent of all hate crimes in Toronto, according to a police report, targeted Jews. Toronto is the site of 60 percent of antisemitic incidents in Ontario schools, according to a government report. The Kehillat Shaarei Torah synagogue was attacked for the  tenth time.  

 

Residents Shoshana Pellman (left), Miguel Camacho, whose mezuzahs were each stolen from the doors of their apartments on the weekend, commiserated with Rabbi Yirmi Cohen, who remembers when his father originally put up those mezuzahs years ago. (Ellin Bessner photo)

 

The religious/cultural symbolism of mezuzahs bring comfort to Jews who usually place them on an upright beam of a doorway, signifying that 'a Jew lives here'. Devout Jews may kiss the mezuzah entering and leaving a home. These are small metal hollow lozenges with Hebrew letters and design impressed on their surfaces, and within the hollow of each one is a sacred scroll with a prayer. Their theft strikes a blow to those elderly people whose doors and themselves were targeted.

 

Because mezuzahs were so commonly identifiable that many non-Jews during the first year of the pro-Palestinian, pro-Hamas 'protests', left many Jewish families living in fear of violence potentially perpetrated against them as the protesters' threats implied, that they themselves removed their prized symbols, hoping to avoid threatening encounters. That fear had subsided to an extent, but the recent theft of the symbols of Judaism have reminded Canadian Jews of their vulnerability in a city which once meant security and inclusion.

 

Rabbi Yirmi Cohen inspects the post of one of the missing mezuzahs taken off the doors of at least 20 apartments inside the seniors' complex sometime before Sunday morning Dec. 7 in what police are calling a hate-motivated theft. (Credit: Ellin Bessner )

 

DEI, Woke, Critical Race Theory -- Canada's Identity Politics

"Some of the pilot data that has been collected tells us that food security, along with access to culturally preferred food items, continues to be problematic for this population."

"There is a lot of work to be done to strengthen marginalized voices and collectively dismantle barriers being experienced by BAC [Black, African, Caribbean] groups." 

"We want to better understand what is impacting the availability, accessibility and utilization of food for this community."

"The ultimate goal is to use what we learn to inform equitable food programs and policies that meet the needs of all people."

Cayley Velazquez, Canada Research Chair in Race, Food and Health, Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Surrey, British Columbia 

 

"When we're talking about food insecurity a lot of the time the narrative is you've got at least something that should be good enough."

"You should have the availability of food that would be appropriate for your culture and as well as your body and your health."

"Black and Indigenous households have a higher rate of food insecurity. Specifically, they are 3.5 times more likely to be food insecure."

"When we're talking about food insecurity, a lot of the time the narrative is you've got at least something that should be good enough. But there's dignity in your food and access to nutritious and cultural food is, and should be, a right." 

Anna Spyker, Kwantlen's 'Race, Food and Health' program

A grocery store in North Surrey, where many culturally specific food items for African and Caribbean communities are sold. (Sohrab Sandhu/CBC)

 

A press statement announcing that a Vancouver-area researcher had been given a federal grant worth $600,000 to determine how to ensure greater accessibility to African food becomes available in major cities in Canada to serve a growing population of African immigrants, as Black and Caribbean immigrants are migrating to urban centres in Canada, discovering that it is difficult for them to secure 'culturally preferred food', such as cassava and yams.

 

In Surrey, British Columbia, Kwantlen Polytechnic University has inaugurated a position for the study of "cultural, social economic and environmental factors" to determine why this shortage of African-appropriate-diet exists. There is a relatively small Black population in Vancouver and throughout British Columbia, compared to Toronto, Edmonton, Montreal or Ottawa. The most recent census reveals that 41,870 people of African descent represents the total in the entire Lower Mainland of B.C. Of that total, 12,870 were resident of Surrey, where the study is taking place. 

 

A group of volunteers from Surrey are taking on a project to research a lack of cultural foods, an initiative to understand and address food insecurity among Surrey's Black immigrant population.

 

A recent Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) report noted a thriving district of African grocery stores located in North Surrey (Greater Vancouver). In the immediate vicinity of Surrey's Gateway SkyTrain station alone, at least eight retail locations offer Caribbean and African foods. It is the fact that these stores are concentrated in one specific area of Metro Vancouver (which is where, incidentally, the African immigrants are themselves concentrated) is seen by researchers as a 'barrier' to be studied by the Kwantlen program.

 

The definition of 'food insecurity', it was noted in the CBC report, should not be interpreted of necessity that a lack of food exists; it can in fact, refer to food that is unfamiliar. Health Canada refers to food insecurity as "the inability to acquire or consume an adequate diet quality or sufficient quantity of food in socially acceptable ways"; perhaps that means poking about for discarded food in dumpsters. 

 

In most places where immigrants from abroad enter to live, they learn to use the food staples in the current markets. In time when sufficient numbers from any given foreign location appear, local food marketers notice and begin importing immigrant-culture foods.

 

The Kwantlen research saw a federal government write-up, noting a lack of inexpensive, readily acquired African and Caribbean food as a net drain on health and success achievable within Black communities. "Their findings will fill critical gaps in race-based data and reveal how systemic structures create or intensify inequities", it concluded. 

 

The Canada Research Chair program is the funding body for these selected research areas. The CRC program is among the largest sources of federal funding into the Canadian university system. While the recently released 2025 federal budget proposed broad cuts across federal government operations, the elimination of tens of thousands of civil service positions, the CRC program saw no decrease in its funding. And so the distribution of $311 million annually goes out to 2,000 full-time researchers at Canadian universities.  

 

Members of Seeds of Change Surrey's Black, African and Caribbean advisory group visit a local grocery store as part of their research into access to culturally specific foods. (Sohrab Sandhu/CBC)

 

The Canada Research Chairs program is subject to a series of federally mandated quotas on race and ethnicity where recipients of Canada Research Chair funding are expected to meet strict guidelines of race and identity of research appointees. "Equity targets" must see 33.2 percent of Canada Research Chairs 'racialized'; 53.1 percent must be women or a member of a 'gender equity-seeking group'.

 

The result can be seen in Canadian universities publishing job positions limiting candidates based on race or sex. For example, University of British Columbia advertised a Canada Research Chair in Medical Physics; the posting excludes white, able-bodied male applicants. The post advertisement reads: "UBC is currently restricted in the recruitment, selection, and nomination of [Canada Research Chairs]". 

 

Moscow's "Massive Missile-Drone Attacks" on Ukraine

"Ukraine can count on our unwavering support. That is the whole point of the efforts we have undertaken as part of the Coalition of the Willing."

"We will continue these efforts alongside the Americans to provide Ukraine with security guarantees, without which there can be no robust and lasting peace."

"For what is at stake in Ukraine is also the security of Europe as a whole."

French President Emmanuel Macron

 

"Ukraine is determined to keep working in good faith with the American side to genuinely achieve peace." 

"[There was a] substantive phone call [with U.S. officials engaged with a Ukrainian delegation in Florida." 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy

Investments are being made across Europe to shore up its defence capabilities in the face of increased Russian aggression and an uncertain defence alliance with the United States.  Images provided by The Canadian Press, Reuters and Getty Images

 

Another overnight into Saturday major missile and drone barrage hit Ukraine from Russia, even as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy continues ongoing peace negotiations with the Trump administration, hoping to end the close-to-four-years conflict. No fewer than 653 drones and 51 missiles hit overnight in a wide-ranging attack triggering air raid alerts across the country, at a time when Ukraine was marking its Armed Forces Day.

 

Ukrainian forces managed to shoot down and neutralize 585 drones and 30 of the missiles during the attack, striking 29 locations across Ukraine. According to local officials, a handful of people were wounded in the Kyiv region. As far west as the Lviv region, there were drone sightings. Russia's intention is to carry out "massive missile-drone attacks" on power stations and assorted energy infrastructure in a number of regions in Ukraine, according to its national energy operator Ukrenergo.

 

The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant temporarily lost off-site power overnight. Located in an area under Russian control since the early stages of Moscow's Ukraine invasion, the plant is not in service, but requires reliable power to cool its six shuttered reactors and spent fuel in avoidance of potential catastrophic nuclear incidents. One of the missiles penetrated part of a roof covering of one of the plants and this occurrence aroused condemnation by Rafael Mariano Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency.  

 

People in the town of Slobozhanske, in Ukraine's Dnipro region, take in the wreckage on Saturday following Russia's attack. (Mykola Synelnykov/Reuters)

 

Energy facilities, while remaining the main targets of the attacks, a drone strike, noted Ukrainian President Zelenskyy, had "burned down" the train station in Fastiv, in the Kyiv region. In a giving-as-good-as-it-gets enterprise, Ukraine had sent 115 Ukrainian drones over Russian territory, during the same time frame, all of which Russia's Ministry of Defence claimed had been shot down by its air defences.

 

Of more serious concern to Russia, its Telegram news channel Astra reported that Russia's Ryazan Oil Refinery had been struck by Ukraine Armed Forces. Video footage aired to show a fire breaking out and plumes of smoke rising above the refinery.  According to the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Ukrainian forces struck the refinery.

 

A residential building was damaged in a drone attack, reported Ryazan regional governor, with drone debris falling on the grounds of an "industrial facility". Ukrainian long-range drone strikes on refineries for months on hand have a well-defined purpose, to deprive Moscow of revenue from oil exports which fund its war in Ukraine. 

 

Nataliia Malashok and relatives look at her house that was damaged during a night of Russian missile and drone strikes on Ukraine, in Novi Petrivtsi, outside Kyiv, on Saturday. (Thomas Peter/Reuters)

 

 Russia's goal this winter, as in three winters past, has been to cripple the Ukrainian power god to impact the civilian population, denying it heat, light and running water. Ukrainian officials name the tactic as "weaponizing" the seasonal winter cold. Some progress was made on finding agreement on a security framework for postwar Ukraine between the U.S. advisers and Ukrainian officials, planning to meet again in Florida.

 

Following discussions on Friday, the two sides agreed that any "real progress toward any agreement" ultimately will depend "on Russia's readiness to show serious commitment to long-term peace". And that fond hope is belied by Moscow's rapacious ongoing pursuit of more Ukrainian territory to reach its goal of violently recapturing enough of Ukraine to satisfy its appetite for territorial expansion. 

 

A railway hub near Kyiv burnt down after being hit by Russian strikes. (Reuters: Valentyn Ogirenko)

 

Ukrainian negotiators Rustem Umerov and Andri Hnatov reached that inevitable conclusion following their second meeting with U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff. Loathe to commit to offering statements respecting any progress they claim have been reached, while President Trump engages Kyiv and Moscow to an agreement with the U.S.-mediated proposal to end the war, only vague descriptions of possible progress were alluded to.

 

Perhaps one of the issues of progress might be an agreement that the leaders of the U.K., France and Germany would be welcome to participate in a meeting with President Zelenskyy on Monday. That will offer the embattled Ukrainian president a little breathing relief, receiving ongoing assurances from his country's supporters, relieving the tension of having to cope with unrelenting pressure from President Donald J. Trump. 

 

The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant temporarily lost all off-site power overnight. (Reuters: Alina Smutko)

 

 

That Elusive Peace Between Totalitarian Islam and Israel

"[International mediators, led by the U.S. are working] to force the way forward [to the second phase to cement the deal]. What we have just done is a pause. We cannot consider it yet a ceasefire."

"A ceasefire cannot be completed unless there is a full withdrawal of Israeli forces, there is stability back in Gaza, people can go in and out, which is not the case today."

"There is a root for this conflict. And this conflict is not only about Gaza."

"It's about Gaza. It's about the West Bank. It's about the rights of the Palestinians for their state."

"We are hoping that we can work together with the U.S. administration to achieve this vision at the end of the day." 

Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, Qatari prime minister 

Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani shakes hands with White House Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, as they speak with President Donald Trump before a state dinner at Lusail Palace in Doha, Qatar, May 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

 

In actual fact, this conflict is about Israel refusing to depart from its resumed geographic seat on a mere portion of its ancestral homeland. It is about surrounding Arab/Muslim countries apoplectic at the presence of a Jewish state reborn on land that the Arab conquest consecrated to Islam. It is about over four millennia of historical existence of Jews being wiped off the slate of history to argue that 'Palestine' is a deserved homeland for Arabs who migrated from Syria, Lebanon and Egypt in the last century to claim it as their own, when 'Palestine' always denoted a Jewish presence.

 

It is about repetitive bouts of conflict forced on the Jewish state by hostile, aggressive neighbours in a sectarian-tribal-clan tradition of competition and conflict. And it is, above all, the collective Middle East Arab councils of those governments inciting Arab Palestinians to believe that the land in question is theirs and theirs alone. The Arab Palestinians in fact, serve as a device to convince the international community that a human rights violation of immense proportions took place when Arab Palestinians were displaced when Jews reclaimed their patrimony.

 

And while most of those surrounding states -- who forcefully exiled a greater number of Jews who had lived in Arab countries for millennia, greater in number than the Palestinians who fled 'Palestine' in 1948 -- have now softened their stance and are prepared to accept that the Jewish presence which predated their own is permanent and its presence can enhance future prospects for peace and prosperity, the Palestinians themselves see the imperative of denying Israel's presence as cast in stone. They have, of course, had great assistance from Aryan-Muslim-Shiite Iran and from Qatar and their satellite Shiite militias. Iran has provided the theological impetus and Qatar the funding for terrorist groups dedicated to Israel's annihilation.

 

The Hamas charter pledge of destroying Israel alongside that of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Fatah and Palestinian Islamic Jihad are the Palestinian instruments of terror that Iran and Qatar rely upon to produce the coveted goal of Jewish annihilation. Hezbollah, Yemen's Houthis and Shia militias loyal to Iran have collectively done their utmost in that direction. Despite all odds, Israel's military has met them all in combat and remains immovable. Even so, Qatar, aided by Turkey, has no intention of allowing Israel to defeat the combined forces of Islamist jihadists.

 

US President Donald Trump hosts a trilateral phone call with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani of Qatar in the Oval Office, September 29, 2025. (The White House)

 

Qatar is alerting the United States, Israel's powerful backer, that the Trump peace plan is in a 'critical moment' with the first phase 'over', and the second soon to begin. Actually, it is not over until it is over; the first phase is incomplete, not only because the last of the Israeli hostages held in Gaza has not yet been returned, but critically, Hamas will not, as 'agreed upon' surrendered its arms. It has actually been busy in the interval between 'phases' of the peace plan, rearming, recruiting, reordering priorities and digging in as it resumes its control over that portion of Gaza it still occupies.

 

And this not-unexpected turn of events is being engineered and supported by Qatar, Iran and Turkey, for Gaza to remain in Hamas control, despite powerful rival clans in Gaza opposing Hamas's return to power and the conflict in that sector is ongoing. Gaza 'health officials' -- which is to say Hamas health sector operatives -- warn the international community of Palestinians still being targeted by the Israeli military, but further elaboration explains that these are Hamas operatives approaching Israeli troops in areas off limits to them as per the agreement.

 

The second phase relies upon the deployment of an international security force in Gaza, formation of a new technocratic government, disarmament of Hamas which would in theory lead to an eventual Israeli forces withdrawal. There are no expectations that such an international security force will deploy to Gaza; no foreign countries are anxious to have their military personnel placed in the kind of danger facing Hamas would entail. And since Hamas leaders have stated time and again they will not surrender their arms, Israeli troops will not withdraw.

 

People walk amid the rubble of destroyed buildings as the Cold Moon, the last supermoon of the year, rises over the Nuseirat camp for displaced Palestinians in the central Gaza Strip on December 4, 2025.   Eyad BABA / AFP

 

 

U.S. National Security Strategy (NSS)

"[European allies risk] civilizational erasure [as a result of their migration and free speech policies]."

"[Economic stagnation in Europe] is eclipsed by the real and more stark prospect of civilizational erasure."

"[Ending the war in Ukraine is a core U.S. interest to] reestablish strategic stability with Russia." 

"[Europe is enfeebled by its immigration policies, declining birthrates], censorship of free speech and suppression of political opposition [along with a] loss of national identities and self-confidence."

"Should present trends continue, the continent will be unrecognizable in 20 years or less. As such, it is far from obvious whether certain European countries will have economies and militaries strong enough to remain reliable allies. Many of these nations are currently doubling down on their present path. We want Europe to remain European, to regain its civilizational self-confidence." 

"[As for the Middle East], America's misguided experiment with hectoring [countries in the Middle East, especially monarchies in the Gulf, about their traditions and forms of government]."

"[The Arab nations are] emerging as a place of partnership, friendship, and investment. We should encourage and applaud reform when and where it emerges organically, without trying to impose it."

"[The U..S. strategy] is motivated above all by what works for America -- or, in two words, 'America First'."

U.S. National Security Strategy 

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks at an event in Washington, D.C., on Saturday. Trump's new national security strategy was welcomed by Moscow, according to a Kremlin spokesperson on Sunday. (Julia Demaree Nikhinson/The Associated Press)

 

"The adjustments that we see correspond in many ways to our vision."

"[The current U.S. administration is] fundamentally different from the previous ones." 

"President Trump is currently strong in terms of domestic political positions. And this gives him the opportunity to adjust the concept to suit his vision."  

Dmitry Peskov, Kremlin Spokesman  

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, left, speaks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow.(Sergei Ilnitsky/The Associated Press)

 

"This NSS is a real, painful, shocking wake-up call for Europe. It is a moment of cavernous divergence between Europe’s view of itself and Trump’s vision for Europe."

"If Europe had any doubt that the Trump administration is fully committed to a tough love strategy, it now knows for sure. The administration is asking—demanding, really—that Europe polices its own part of the world and, most importantly, pays for it itself."

"The most worrying parts of the strategy are the ones that chastise Europe for losing its European character. The sentiment behind the words seems to stoke fear of migrants and an adherence to an idealized, old-world Europe that is questionable at best. Modern Europe is vibrant, evolving, and—largely—pretty happy."

"The majority of Europe’s reaction to this NSS is likely to be the same aghast shock as met Vice President JD Vance’s Munich speech."

Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) 

Released on Friday, the Trump administration's new national security strategy will give no comfort whatever to its heretofore allies in Europe, while Russia has already expressed its cautious pleasure, and China will be satisfied to an extent; Latin America has more to puzzle over, and the Middle East will feel somewhat gratified and no little relieved, for the most part. America's erstwhile partners in Europe stand to wallow in discomfort and uncertainty, not quite recognizing its place in this new America First reality imposed upon the world.

 

A disconcerting pivot from the role of controlling, stabilization empire of the globe to a new hands-off policy which allows other nations the pleasure of going it alone when it comes to stability and self-defense. With the second election/administration of Donald J. Trump to the presidency of the United States of America a new world order came into effect. On the other hand, Mr. Trump remains dedicated to 'peace' and peace-making, still counting on the Nobel Committee to come to its senses in 2026 -- which hasn't given it pause in striking 'terrorist' boats in the Caribbean Sea trafficking drugs to the U.S.

 

This is a document required by law that the administration must release; and it presents a break from former president Joe Biden's Democratic administration's course of intent which implemented a campaign to reverse Mr. Trump's first administration's trajectories. In brokering an end to the four-year-stagnant conflict in Ukraine, the first shock was the virtual abandonment of Ukraine's sovereign rights and a surprise embrace of Moscow's territorial imperative. An end to the war is not designed to liberate Ukraine but rather to consolidate a rapprochement with Russia.

 

As for America's European allies, their intransigence in supporting Ukraine and expecting the United States to continue the previous administration's commitment to that end, has left those expectations adrift and discombobulated. Trump's position in a drive to "reestablish strategic stability with Russia", when Europe's concerns are the Kremlin's yearning to restore the Soviet bloc to its former glory and NATO is stuck in a position of unease when its member-states are forced to cope with mysterious drones flying over their airports and military bases, flounders with its most powerful ally scorning its utility.

 

Jewish population of greater New York reaches 1.4 million. JNS

 

The United States, of course, faces no issues of immigration/migrant/refugee instability where Congress is faced with elected Representatives from Somalia and 'Palestine' backgrounds along with other Muslim Arab-Americans whose loyalties to the United States are not always evident. The U.S. 'melting pot' has installed imams in mosques whose Friday sermons don't exactly praise democracy and love of their fellow-man. New York electing an avowed Socialist, Muslim extremist whose contempt for America's ally in the Middle East has him broadcasting his intention to 'arrest' Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should he come to New York City, the major home of Jewish-Americans.

 

The world at large is extremely well aware of the presence of Donald J. Trump in the White House. It is still reeling from the economic blows of trading with the United States where former free-trade agreements have been swept into the dust heap of the past as economy-crippling tariffs have taken their place. The sovereignty of nations called into question when U.S. national security under Mr. Trump eyes Greenland and Canada as potential extensions of the United States. It's Mr. Trump's very own version of How to Win Friends and Influence People.  

J.D. Vance and Donald Trump   Getty Images

"That strategic clarity is entirely missing from the new NSS, which is more polemic than policy. The north star of great power competition with China and Russia—around which the first Trump administration built bipartisan consensus—is gone."

"Rather than describing the scope and scale of China’s systemic challenge to the United States and our allies and partners, the 2025 NSS makes clear that economics are “the ultimate stakes.” The new paramount objective of Washington’s China policy is a “mutually advantageous economic relationship with Beijing.” 

"The discussion of Russia is mealymouthed at best: The document declines to characterize the threat Moscow poses to U.S. interests. It instead opts for the bizarre formulation, “many Europeans regard Russia as an existential threat.” 

"And while the 2017 NSS highlighted Iran and North Korea as second-tier threats, the new NSS does not mention North Korea at all and downplays the danger posed by Iran after Operation Midnight Hammer."

"Vance’s speech in Munich could have been interpreted back in February as the ideological views of just the vice president and parts of the radical MAGA base. But now, these views have become the administration’s official policy, which will only accelerate Europe’s efforts to hedge against the United States and to build up its own autonomy."

Council on Foreign Relations  

The Pentagon, headquarters of the U.S. Department of Defense, seen from the air in Washington, DC. (Photo by J. David Ake/Getty Images)