The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Today…and its Impacts in North America

Recently, the news has sadly been filled with numerous hate incidents involving Jews and Muslims in Canada and the USA. I know this is not fun to think about – but given the seriousness of these accounts, it is worth a small amount of our time to consider these issues and how they are impacting people in our communities.

We are nearing three years since the surge of hostilities that began on October 7. It’s been a transformative and fraught time on so many fronts and many have suffered violence and/or hate and discrimination.

Below, we will aim to give a quick summary of where things stand amongst the Israelis and Palestinians and then reflect on how this is impacting communities back home in Canada and the United States.

We hope this is informative for you to better understand the situation and its impacts on your neighbours and colleagues (if not on you directly).

Gaza

The ceasefire since last October significantly reduced hostilities but has not led to a full peace. Israel continues to fire rockets to target people it describes as militants to prevent Hamas from rebuilding. Media accounts suggest over 1,000 Palestinians have been killed since the ceasefire.

The Israeli army has increased its occupation of Gaza since the ceasefire, from just over half of Gaza to currently occupying between 60-70% of the territory. The “Board of Peace” created by American president Donald Trump has been encouraging various parties to negotiate a more final peace agreement.

Hamas agreed on paper to disarm in return for Israel withdrawing its army. But in practice there is no deal as the Israeli government expects Hamas to disarm completely before it will retract its army while Hamas expects the Israeli withdrawal to happen first. As this article highlights, there is little incentive for either side to budge. Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, faces a late October election and any pullback will hurt his support among the right wing voters he courts (some of whom wish to establish settlements in Gaza). Hamas similarly, has little to gain by disarming first.

 

The West Bank

The situation in the West Bank has gone from bad to worse.

The West Bank is home to 3 million Palestinians but for decades, Israeli settlers have been settling there, expanding, and taking the land. They now number more than half a million and since October 7, the hostilities in Gaza drew so much attention, that there has been more free reign for settler violence in the West Bank.

According to the United Nations, 76 Palestinians have been killed this year by settlers and about 3,800 have been displaced. A well-known Israeli historian describes the violence as a “well-coordinated campaign of intimidation” including “arson against Palestinian homes, vehicles, and agricultural equipment, beatings, theft, and occasionally murder.”

More plainly, a former Israeli prime minister writing in an Israeli newspaper called the actions “war crimes and ethnic cleansing.”

A retired Israeli General said that he had been able to manage settler violence back around 2009 by coordination amongst multiple Israeli government agencies – but today, some of these agencies are led by pro-settler extremists like Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich. In addition, many members of the Israeli military (who historically ensured security for people in the area) are now drawn from settlers and are sympathetic to their cause. 

 

 

Other Neighbours

Israel’s army also maintains a presence in southern Lebanon owing to the existence there of the Iranian-supported militia Hezbollah. Attacks continue as well and there are peace talks underway but with little to report.

Israel also has a presence in a small part of Syria where it is aiming to prevent Iran’s alliance with Hezbollah from forming a base from which to attack Israel and to support Hezbollah’s attempts to rebuild its power after it was decimated by a war with Israel that began in late 2024.

 

Israel’s Upcoming Election

A big event is the Israeli national election happening on October 27. Benjamin Netanyahu has been Israel’s Prime Minister for 16 of the last 17 years but he trails in current polls. 

His lead rival is Gadi Eisenkot, a former IDF chief of staff who condemns Netanyahu’s failure to prevent October 7. Another key opponent of Netanyahu is the more centrist Naftali Bennett. Israel has a proportional representation political system so coalitions take power but current polls show the anti-Netanyahu coalition would win the majority of the seats.

While new leadership may open new opportunities, this should not be overstated. As we have explained before, the more peace-minded Israeli left is not a political force anymore, having been decimated, first, by the failure to secure peace in 2000 at Camp David and, second, by the ensuing violence of the second intifada. Cumulatively, these events shocked Israelis and convinced most that no peace was to be had. To that end, if a new leader emerges, this may offer some hope for positive changes but a dramatic two-state solution is not visible on any horizon right now.

 

Views Among Palestinians

According to People’s Company for Polls and Survey Research (often considered the most reputable pollster of Palestinians), most Palestinians today do not like their leaders. Support for Hamas has declined to 24% although Hamas does not allow elections that might see them replaced. Fatah, the party in charge of the West Bank, also polls at 24% while 44% believe neither of these parties deserves to lead.

Support for a two-state solution hovers near 50%, scoring slightly under or over based on the nuances of the question.

In comparison, support for a two-state solution in Israel has declined further since October 7 with estimates now in the low 20% range (1, 2). Many Israelis see Gaza as a trial two-state solution – since Israel pulled out of Gaza 20 years ago, letting the Palestinians run things themselves – and now point to what happened. The people elected Hamas who used the time and aid dollars not to build up society but to buy missiles, launched at Israel every few years, and culminating in the October 7 attack (ironically, among the victims where many Israeli peace activists dedicated to positive relations and peace with their Palestinian neighbours). The idea of watching the same happen in the West Bank (whose geography threatens Israel much more) is deeply unpopular in Israel.

In Canada and the USA

It is deeply disturbing that this conflict an ocean way has caused a surge of hostility to both Jews and Muslims in North America who clearly have no influence over these events. The news this summer has been extraordinary.

Canada

Just this summer in Canada, Muslims have experienced the following: 

• In July, a Winnipeg mosque had windows smashed and possible gunfire damage
• An imam in Victoria was attacked by a man who fractured his jaw and tried to pull him from his car in June
• In June, graffiti was written outside an Edmonton Muslim daycare saying “protect women. Rise against Islam.”
• A fake severed hand covered in blood was thrown at a mosque in Verdun, Quebec in July
• In July, a Muslim woman in Moncton was punched in the face in a shopping parking lot

All of that is in the last 90 days. 

Jews too have faced a surge of hatred in recent years and B’nai Brith’s data suggests there have been more hate crimes in the first half of 2026 than in all of 2025. Some examples – again looking at just this summer – include:

• Verbal attacks and intimidation against 8 Hasidic Jews in Montreal in July
• A Montreal man charged with vandalism and arson for an attack on a synagogue in June
• 2 Jewish bakeries in Toronto vandalized in July with one having shots fired at it
• A Jewish real estate agent in Toronto was brutally attacked in July by a man upset at Israel’s war in Gaza
• Worshippers in Saskatoon had Shabbat services interrupted by the sounds of eggs pelting the windows in August

If we go back to the spring, three Toronto-area synagogues were shot up within days of each other in early March (Encounter takes participants to visit one of these synagogues).

It is becoming routine to hear these stories. We risk becoming tone-deaf to hearing them when people in these communities need the opposite from us – they need support and allies which we will discuss more below.

 

The United States

For Muslims, the biggest incident was an attack by two teenage gunmen at a San Diego Islamic centre. They killed a heroic security guard (whose actions saved over 100 students and teachers in the school) and two more community members.

CAIR (the Council on American-Islamic Relations) documented 17 mosque-targeted incidents in May-July in this year alone, an almost 200% increase for the same time period in 2025. These attacks included arson, threats, and intimidation.

For American Jews, the most terrifying event happened in March when a Lebanese-born US citizen rammed a truck into a synagogue in West Bloomfield, Michigan, and then opened fire with an AR-15-style rifle. Amazingly, no congregants were killed.

The Anti-Defamation League reported 2025 was the third worst year for anti-semitic crimes since the ADL began tracking in 1979.

Going Forward

There is little we can do to alter events in the Middle East. There are charities and peace initiatives that you can investigate and support if you choose.

Back here in North America, there is something which hopefully the vast majority of us can agree on – namely that Muslims and Jews in Canada and the United States are not responsible for events happening across the ocean. They deserve the same right to live in peace and safety as everyone else living here.

To that end, if you have Jewish or Muslim friends or colleagues, feel free to ask them how they’re doing, especially after some terrible event hits the news. Let them guide the conversation (how much they wish to open up or not; whether it’s impacted them significantly or not). Small gestures like just showing that you care and wish things were better can mean a lot. Hate crimes create a sense of threat but also of isolation. As ordinary citizens, countering the sense of threat our neighbours feel may be difficult but we can address the isolation by the simple act of expressing support.

If you wish, you can donate to a mosque or synagogue that suffers vandalism. Whatever the amount, it will matter that you took the time to show you care.

And in your conversations, keep an ear out for any tendencies amongst people to make sweeping comments about Jews or Muslims. If you do hear this, gently interject and offer a different perspective that every individual deserves security and the right to not be judged by some part of their identity rather than by their own deeds. This basic decency is something we all want for ourselves and should give to others.

At Encounter, we have two free guides on Islam and on Judaism that address common misconceptions and share some basic information. These guides have been popular with organizations, governments, police and others. They are partly geared to workplace inclusion but much of the information is general – you are welcome to them and welcome to share them with others.

We also give a talk on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that both Jews and Muslims have responded to positively, that helps folks better understand the situation there. We will be giving this talk as a public lecture in Guelph in November (sincere thanks to Lakeside Church for hosting this event).

The coming election might bring some fresh perspectives to the region and, one can hope, some more peace in 2027. And whatever happens there, let us do our part to ensure that Muslims and Jews in North America can live and work and pray in peace.