The United States has a really bad record when it comes to regime change.

Time and again it’s sought to oust foreign leaders and replace them with more favoured replacements. The success rate isn’t great.

It was a disaster in Vietnam, at a horrendous cost in life. Cuba, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, … defeat, disappointment, debacle, take your pick. Again and again the U.S. has proved its ability to go where it wishes, overpower opponents and rid the planet of tyrants and terrorists as it sees fit, only to find the aftermath fails to match expectations.

Just four years ago the Biden administration orchestrated the most recent example, before Saturday’s dramatic events in Venezuela. The hasty and chaotic retreat from Afghanistan damaged Biden’s image so badly he never really recovered. The frantic U.S. flight was so beneficial to political opponents Trump officials are still making hay of it, just recently ordering a review of the withdrawal as “an important step toward regaining faith and trust with the American people and all those who wear the uniform.”

Yet, as the seizure of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife demonstrate, presidents have difficulty resisting the potency American military power gives them, even if it means toppling a foreign leader with no guarantee of what might come afterwards. Overthrowing a government while hoping for the best has been a hallmark of past U.S. forays; it’s the toppling that grabs their attention, the future being left for later. It’s a big reason the outcome has so often delivered disappointment.

There’s no dispute that Maduro has been a calamity for his country. By all the evidence he’s been as grasping and pitiless a despot as you could find this side of Moscow. He’s been in power since 2013, holding onto office through a mix of corruption, violence and fixed elections, driving the economy into the ground, impoverishing millions and prompting a veritable stampede of desperate Venezuelans fleeing the country.

No one outside his small circle of avaricious cronies is likely to miss him much. His support from Russia, China and Iran drew mainly from his ability to irritate the U.S. This isn’t Trump’s first attempt to impose his will on a foreign power — far from it. But it’s the first time he sent an armada to deliver the message.

What remains to be seen is whether once again it’s the toppling that’s captured Washington’s enthusiasm. If U.S. strategists have a well thought-out plan for supporting and advancing the shattered country Maduro leaves behind, they haven’t mentioned it beyond Trump’s assertion that “we’re going to run the country.” That plan didn’t start out well: while Trump told reporters Venezuelan Vice-President Delcy Rodriquez “was essentially willing to do what we think is necessary to make Venezuela great again,” Rodriquez soon after gave a speech in Caracas declaring continued support for Maduro and denouncing U.S. actions as “a barbarity.”

Trump appeared to dismiss the possibility power could pass to Maria Corina Machado, officially considered the opposition leader, although she was banned from running in the 2024 presidential election and went into hiding soon after the vote in fear for her life. As an ardent free-marketer and avowed admirer of the U.S. president she might reasonably expect to be looked on favourably, yet nothing is ever certain in the Trump administration. Machado might be a skilled activist and protest organizer, but she’s untested as a ruler and rabble-rousers have a chequered history once in power.

Besides that, Machado won last year’s Nobel Peace Prize, an honour Trump believes should have gone to him. And while Machado is “a very nice woman,” Trump said Saturday, she “doesn’t have the support” in Venezuela to lead.

It’s entirely possible others will seek to fill the void. Machado may be better known, but it’s another figure,

Edmundo González,

who headed the opposition presidential ticket in 2024 and was recognized by the U.S., and Canada, as the winner.

There is no guarantee the Maduro establishment will disappear with him. While Trump posted a photo Saturday of Maduro being moved to the U.S. in handcuffs, the rest of his government remains in place. Rodríguez was sworn in as interim leader, surrounded by Maduro’s defence minister, attorney general and top legislators and judges.

Good governance may be far from the first item on the White House to-do list. The Trump team has made no bones that it’s overwhelming concern is in doing deals viewed as profitable to U.S. interests, which in Venezuela’s case would mean ready access to its massive oil reserves. The U.S. justified it’s actions against Caracas as a war on the drug trade, but even before Saturday’s intervention Trump accused Venezuela of illegally seizing U.S. oil.

“You remember they took all of our energy rights,” he told reporters. “They took all of our oil not that long ago. And we want it back.” After Maduro’s capture, Trump announced that “we’re going to have our very large United States oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country.”

Past U.S. experience suggests the most difficult part of Washington’s Venezuelan incursion.

Iraq remains host to 2,000 U.S. troops and an array of hostile armed militias loyal to Iran, with an insecure government caught between the two, struggling to avoid an explosion. More than a decade after its “liberation,” Libya is a divided country, riven by civil war, with competing warlords and rival governments at opposite ends of the country. Afghanistan, meanwhile, is back in the hands of the Taliban, 20 years and thousands of deaths after Washington and its allies set out to evict them.

Saddam Hussein is gone. Muammar Gaddafi is gone. Osama bin Laden’s remains were dumped at sea, all thanks to U.S. interventions. With Venezuela now in his hands, President Trump hopes to perform the difficult trick of repeating the same action over again while hoping for a different result.

National Post

• Adam Zivo: Good riddance, Nicolás Maduro
• Kelly McParland: Peacemaker Trump prepares a war

The capture of Venezuelan dictator Nicholás Maduro and wife Cilia Flores by U.S. forces is cause for global celebration, though caution is warranted so long as the Maduro regime’s remaining leadership clings to power.

Overnight strikes on the South American country were limited to

military-related infrastructure

, including the headquarters of the Venezuelan armed forces and a handful of air fields and ports. In the ensuing chaos, American special forces infiltrated Maduro’s 

fortress-like compound

, detained him and his wife, and then transported them to New York to face drugs and weapons charges.

Other high-ranking members of the regime — such as the vice president, interior minister and Attorney General — were

left untouched

.

U.S. officials, particularly Republicans, have long maintained that Maduro is 

not Venezuela’s legitimate leader,

 given his history of election fraud. They have instead characterized him as a narco-terrorist who personally leads the 

Cartel of the Suns

, a criminal organization operated by the Armed Forces of Venezuela that specializes in drug trafficking, money laundering and terror financing.

Maduro is also widely despised by Venezuelans for his economic ineptitude, corruption and cruel autocratic rule. Since he took office in 2013, the country’s socialist economy has 

shrunk by three quarters

— a collapse generally unheard of outside of wartime — and 

almost eight million refugees

 have fled abroad due to starvation and abject poverty. The country’s elections are now entirely rigged, and political dissidents 

widely jailed and tortured

.

In a press conference on Saturday morning, Trump indicated that the United States will

“run” Venezuela

 “until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition,” and that he wants American 

oil companies

to enter the Venezuelan market, which has struggled under socialist policies, and “start making money for the country.”

While Trump declared that he is not afraid to launch a second wave of strikes, and even place American boots on the ground if necessary, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that 

no further military action

is anticipated for now — so escalation will apparently depend on whether the Venezuelan government agrees to cede power.

Caracas’ remaining leaders immediately 

condemned

 the American bombings and Maduro’s detainment, suggesting that they won’t be eager to listen to Trump’s proscriptions. They benefit from the fact that, unlike other autocrats, Maduro always relied on a constellation of influential domestic allies to maintain power, and was thus never indispensable to his own regime.

But even if these residual Madurists can, in the absence of their leader, retain control over the Venezuelan state, they will likely be weakened by some degree of factionalism. Presumably, any reasonable person in their position would also think twice about resisting Washington now that it is clear just how far Trump is willing to go, and how easily uncooperative leaders can be detained and imprisoned.

So despite the regime’s structural resilience, there is good reason to be optimistic.

In his Saturday news conference, Trump

claimed

 that Rubio had been talking with Venezuela’s vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, and that she may be willing to work with the United States in some transitional capacity. Yet, 

four sources told Reuters

that Delcy had actually flown to Moscow following Maduro’s detainment — a story which the Russian foreign ministry denied as “fake” — so her candidacy remains uncertain.

Meanwhile, Venezuela’s exiled opposition leader, Maria Corina Machado, 

posted a public letter 

suggesting that she and her pro-democracy allies would be willing to take power if permitted. “Venezuelans, The time for freedom has come!… Let us remain vigilant, active, and organized until the democratic transition is complete,” went the letter, warning citizens to prepare for further communications.

They would clearly have popular support. In the country’s 2024 presidential election, which was widely-condemned as fraudulent, preserved tally sheets showed that the opposition candidate, Edmundo González, probably won with 

around 80 per cent

 of the vote before the final numbers were seemingly fudged to give Maduro a narrow “victory.”

Pushing for an opposition-led transitional government would be the ideal, and most ethical, outcome — but so much is still up in the air. It remains entirely possible that the surviving Madurists will try to preserve their power by any means necessary, including brutal crackdowns, until removed by the American military.

Despite these uncertainties, the Venezuelan diaspora, engorged by millions of refugees who recently fled Maduro’s madness, is 

celebrating

. Street parties were held on Saturday in major cities 

throughout Latin America

and Spain. “We are free. We are all happy that the dictatorship has fallen and that we have a free country,” said one Santiago-based reveller to Reuters, mirroring the joy seen in countless social media posts that have flooded online.

Within Caracas, where criticism of the government is grounds for arrest, some of Maduro’s supporters have rallied in defence of their detained president. Yet, 

footage of the event

 suggests that the crowd 

is small

, quiet and unenthusiastic, in stark contrast to the 

frenetic and bustling energy

 of the international anti-Maduro crowds.

Western policymakers, particularly American ones, also have many reasons to celebrate.

Ever since socialist populist Hugo Chavez was elected Venezuela’s president in 1999, the country has been 

a thorn in the West’s side

. A staunch opponent of Washington, Chavez propped up Cuba’s failing economy with discounted oil, established a 

strategic alliance with Iran

, purchased large volumes of 

Russian weapons

 and accepted 

oil-backed loans

 from China that gave Beijing a foothold in Latin America.

As Chavez’s protege and successor, Maduro only continued these policies which is why, last year, Russia supplied

several air defence systems

to Caracas, which were destroyed in Saturday’s American operation.

By taking Maduro out, and indirectly demonstrating the superiority of America’s military technology, the Trump administration effectively struck another blow against the global anti-western axis and showed that American power has not diminished as much as some critics would like to believe. So long as the United States follows through, and ensures that a just transition is implemented, the world will be a better place for Venezuelans and their democratic supporters alike.

National Post

New York City’s newly elected mayor, Zohran Mamdani, rang in the New Year and his term at city hall by

saying

in his inauguration speech that his administration will “draw this city closer together” and “replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.” But “rugged individualism” is the characteristic trait of Americans, especially New Yorkers. It’s this nature of individualism that makes the United States the most innovative country in the world.

The very individualistic people of New York are by no means frigid or lacking in warmth for their fellow citizens. New Yorkers regularly support each other in times of crisis. During the COVID pandemic, residents

cheered

frontline workers from their balconies. Ordinary citizens became heroes pulling together aid to help their

neighbours

any way they could.

Likewise, during hurricane Sandy, the city’s residents

came together

in solidarity to support those affected by flooding and power outages caused by the severe storm. But perhaps the most obvious sign that New Yorkers do not need lessons in solidarity from Mamdani is the great collective efforts its residents displayed in the aftermath of the horrific terror attack on 9/11.

Medical professionals, police officers, pastors, clergy and church groups

sprang

into action. Volunteers rushed to the area where the Twin Towers used to stand, to help emergency response workers, some later choosing to

become volunteers

themselves. Firefighters who searched through the rubble risked, and in some cases later succumbed to, lung diseases caused by the debris they breathed in.

This year, on the attack’s 24th anniversary, New York volunteers continued to show their collective warmth by

preparing

millions of meals for their fellow residents.

If Mamdani’s blatantly false comments suggesting that New Yorkers needed a lesson in warmth from his administration weren’t insulting enough, his actions have made it clear that his idea of collective warmth has limits and do not extend to the loved ones of 9/11 victims or Jews.

Of all the people Mamdani could choose as his legal counsel, he picked Ramzi Kassem, a lawyer who

defended

al-Qaida terrorist Ahmed al-Darbi in court. While al-Darbi did not participate in the 9/11 attacks, he was convicted in connection with the attack on a French oil tanker in 2002, and was part of the same terrorist network that made no secret of its hatred for America.

To call this move tone-deaf is an understatement. There’s no way that Mamdani is unaware of how it looks to those who lost loved ones or volunteered on 9/11.

If his history of defending an al-Qaida member wasn’t troubling enough, Kassem, who’s now 47, penned anti-Israel articles for his campus newspaper when he was a student. He also represented

Mahmoud Khalil

, who was detained by immigration authorities for his anti-Israel activities at Columbia University.

Kassem can also be seen in a video

advising

pro-Hamas protesters on a video conference titled, “Emergency Session: A Survival Guide to Arrests and Jail Support.” In the video, he counsels the students to think carefully with “fellow organizers and fellow protesters” about their “individual risk factors,” when it comes to the “consequences of arrest.”

Mamdani’s appointee for NYC’s new top attorney, Ramzi Kassem, spoke in a Zoom meeting advising pro-Hamas protesters on who should break the law, and just how far they could go, based on their immigration status and the risk of legal consequences.

The call was titled “Emergency… pic.twitter.com/MriSTclh8s

— Canary Mission (@canarymission) January 2, 2026

He advised them that riskier roles, where they are more likely to get arrested, should be filled by “U.S citizens, as opposed to green-card holders or visa-card holders or brothers and sisters who may be undocumented.” Everyone has a right to a legal defence, but Kassem is counselling students about who should commit the most serious crimes in order to avoid the most severe consequences.

Not only are Kassem’s interests niche, they raise serious questions about his ability to provide legal counsel to Mamdani that serves the best interests of all New Yorkers.

There are other signs Mamdani is not interested in a warm, fuzzy collective of New Yorkers living in solidarity with Jews. On Day 1, he

revoked

the widely recognized International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism.

Even more troubling, not 24 hours after being sworn in as mayor of the city that boasts the largest Jewish population in the world outside of Israel, Mamdani began

scrubbing social media posts

that acknowledged rising antisemitism and the city’s commitment to address it from the mayor’s official X account, in a move that may be illegal, as the posts are considered part of the public record.

The two tweets Mayor Mamdani deleted https://t.co/skBS2DBVG2 pic.twitter.com/ZrHZryTOzH

— Eitan Fischberger (@EFischberger) January 2, 2026

One of the now-deleted posts discussed the creation of the Mayor’s Office to Combat Antisemitism “to make fighting hate a policy priority.”

Another now-scrubbed post once read: “New York City isn’t just talking about the rise in antisemitism — we’ve taken action. Today, we released the first-ever municipal report on our efforts to combat antisemitism. It’s bold. It’s detailed. It’s a blueprint for 2026.”

The removal of these posts caused the National Jewish Advocacy Centre to write Mamdani a letter expressing alarm: “It is difficult to overstate how disturbing it is that one of your very first acts as mayor of New York City, on your very first day in office, was to delete official @NYCMayor tweets addressing the protection of Jewish New Yorkers.…

“At a moment of unprecedented antisemitic intimidation, violence and exclusion in the city the decision to erase official statements affirming the safety and protection of Jews is not merely tone-deaf, it is shameful. It sends a message, whether intended or not, that Jewish New Yorkers are uniquely (undeserving) of continuity, clarity or reassurance from their own government.”

Mamdani’s insensitive choice of counsel, as well as the immediate scrubbing of his predecessor’s posts, suggests he has a revised blueprint for Jewish New Yorkers in 2026 that already appears more frigid, and is not in the interests of the collective.

National Post

tnewman@postmedia.com

Twitter.com/TLNewmanMTL

• Jesse Kline: Netanyahu trolls the world with Somaliland recognition
• David Kaufman: Mamdani puts Israel — and the Jews who support it — in the cross-hairs

It took less than 24 hours for Zohran Mamdani to prove he is the worst possible nightmare for already nervous New York Jews. Mere hours after becoming New York’s new mayor on Thursday, the 34-year-old Democratic Socialist began enacting the strident anti-Israel (and, many insist, antisemitic) ideological agenda that fuelled his election victory.

Two key executive orders implemented by outgoing mayor Eric Adams

have been scrapped

since Mamdani took office. The first barred municipal agencies from boycotting or divesting from Israel. This is a tactic that Mamdani has championed since his college days as essential to his quest to dismantle Zionism.

The second revoked the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism, which equates elements of anti-Zionism with antisemitism.

Mamdani has long been opposed to Israel’s status as a Jewish state. And revoking both Adams-era orders so early in his tenure signals a no-holds barred approach to Israel.

Make no mistake: Zohran Mamdani knows exactly what he is doing. Rather than ban the two initiatives on their own, for instance, Mamdani ordered an end to all executive orders issued by Adams since he was indicted on federal corruption charges in September 2024.

This provided him with the cover of a “fresh start” — as his office described it in

a press release

— for his administration from Day 1. This is true. But what is equally true is that Mamdani insists that any “fresh start” must include placing Israel directly in his cross-hairs.

The reaction to Mamdani’s moves was swift and predictable — yet impressively strident. Israel’s Foreign Ministry

described them

as pouring “antisemitic gasoline on an open fire,” while former mayor

Adams declared

that Mandani’s “new era … isn’t new … and isn’t (the) unity” he promised to deliver as a candidate.

Coun. Inna Vernikov, meanwhile,

wrote

on social media that, “the pro-Hamas antisemites emboldened by” the mayor “are coming,” in the wake of Mamdani’s dubiousness on Day 1.

In many ways, the “pro-Hamas” antisemites are already here and, as evidenced by

the synagogue melee

Mamdani so poorly failed to condemn in November, they’re already bolder than ever. The question is: what happened next?

Mamdani showed unanticipated restraint in his decision to spare New York’s Office to Combat Antisemitism, which Adams established in May. This makes sense: retaining the office allows Mamdani to claim a Jewish safety “win” — one that appears leadership-like but avoids direct engagement with Israel.

This, ultimately, is the new mayor’s main goal: to decouple Israel from Judaism — along with antisemitism from anti-Zionism. An Office of Antisemitism operating within an administration that separates Israel-hate from Jew-hate does just that.

The executive order roll-back wasn’t the only move Mamdani has made that has raised the ire of already suspicious New York Jews. The first was Mamdani’s appointment of

Ramzi Kassem

as his chief counsel on Wednesday.

Kassem rose to fame last year for defending detained Columbia University campus organizer Mahmoud Khalil during his extradition battle with the Trump administration. Kassem will now help develop legal strategy for New York City.

Then, on Thursday, Mamdani’s office deleted posts from the mayor of New York’s official X account about combating antisemitism.

The posts were originally made by Mayor Adams as part of his effort to calm Jewish New Yorkers enduring high levels of antisemitic hate crimes — prompting questions about Mamdani’s motivations for removing them. A suitable explanation has yet to be delivered.

Finally, there was Mamdani’s

bellicose inauguration speech

, in which he promised that, “Palestinian New Yorkers … will no longer have to contend with a politics that speaks of universalism and then makes them the exception.” Most would be hard-pressed to encounter these supposedly silenced Palestinians, but such sentiments are certain to sit well with Mamdani’s pro-Gaza base.

The scrubbing of executive orders and social media posts further added to the feeling many New York Jews have that Mamdani in oblivious — if not outright indifferent — to their concerns. Many, of course, had anticipated a Mamdani attack on the overtly pro-Jewish agenda that anchored Mayor Adams’ four years in office.

Indeed, while Mamdani has made clear that he will never visit Israel — and has threatened to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he were to step foot in New York City, home of the United Nations General Assembly — Adams has made repeated trips to Israel, including in November, when he met with Netanyahu .

But even the most cynical skeptics could not have anticipated such severe Mamdani measures so early in his mayorship. Packed with dozens of functionaries so hostile to Israel that the Anti-Defamation League launched a dedicated “

Mamdani Monitor

” to keep tabs on them, the new administration has taken its first shots — and Israel and the Jews who support it now clearly understand there is nowhere to hide.

National Post

David Christopher Kaufman is a New York-based journalist and former New York Post editor and columnist. Sign up for his Substack newsletter, Counterintuitive.

• David Kaufman: Will Zohran Mamdani condemn jihadists before New York is attacked?
• Terry Newman: AI campaign ad warns Zohran Mamdani will turn New York into Canada

As 2025 began, federal records showed that there were 4.9 million visas set to expire in the coming 12 months, with Conservatives pressing the Liberal government on how it would deal with those who didn’t leave willingly.

“The vast majority leave voluntarily, and that’s what’s expected,” was the 

official committee testimony

of then Immigration Minister Marc Miller.

As to how many ended up doing so, the short answer is that Ottawa doesn’t really know.

Despite Statistics Canada noting a slight contraction of the Canadian population at the end of 2025 – and border authorities reporting an uptick in “enforced removals” – Canada does not keep exit statistics on foreign visa holders.

In 2023, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada estimated that between “20,000 and 500,000 persons” were

living illegally in Canada

. Known officially as “undocumented migrants,” these were foreign nationals with “no authorization to reside and/or work in Canada.”

“Some may have overstayed their temporary status, while others may have remained in Canada following a rejected asylum claim,”

read a backgrounder

submitted to the House of Commons Committee on Citizenship and Immigration.

In 2024, meanwhile, the immigration minister estimated that the population of foreigners living illegally in Canada

could be as high as 600,000

.

At the close of 2024, an order paper question by the Conservatives confirmed that a total of 4.9 million visas and immigration permits were set to expire by the end of December 2025.

At the time, the Liberals noted that this figure included everything from tourist visas to temporary work permits for visiting performers.

“We are talking about 4.9 million documents, sometimes many that apply to one person. They are tourists. The vast majority of the people leave the country, including artists who come to this country, such as Bruce Springsteen and others,” Miller told the House of Commons in November 2024.

Nevertheless, it also included a record high number of temporary migrants who had entered the country on student visas or as temporary foreign workers – and were now actively being told those visas would not be renewed as part of an effort to “turn off the taps” on migration numbers.

At the start of 2025, Statistics Canada said there were 3,138,129 temporary migrants in the country; more than double the 1,413,706 the agency had charted only three years prior, at the start of 2022.

As everyone from

the Bank of Canada

to

the OECD

has recorded, this influx was unlike anything in Canada’s history. It made Canada the fastest growing country in the G7, with the Bank of Canada

noting it represented

an “unprecedented surge in immigration” composed primarily of low-skilled migrants from the developing world.

As of the most recent figures, Canada’s population of temporary migrants

has dropped to 2,847,737

. This was

largely credited

for a 0.2 per cent drop in the Canadian population charted in the third quarter of 2025.

But it means that of the 1.5 million migrants who surged into the country following the end of COVID lockdowns, approximately 1.3 million are still here.

At the close of 2025, the Canada Border Services Agency released figures showing that their officers were removing record rates of unauthorized foreign nationals from the country.

Although deportation orders didn’t quite hit the highs charted during the first months of COVID lockdowns, the CBSA broke records for what it called “enforced removals.” This is a category that includes deportations, as well as foreigners who left following a deportation order, or who were turned away at the border and given an exclusion order.

For 2025, the total “enforced removals”

came to 18,785

, as compared to 17,357 the year prior, and 15,207 in 2023.

Throughout 2025, a common critique of the Conservatives was that if even a small portion of Canada’s record-high temporary migrant population refused to self-deport, the feds lacked capacity to remove them by force.

As one example, in October Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada told a House of Commons committee that 47,175 people who had entered Canada on student visas were “non-compliant.” Meaning that they had never registered at a university as promised, and their current location remained unknown.

Even if CBSA could find them, at current rates of enforced removals it would take more than two years just to account for this one category of delinquent migrants.

In June, Conservative immigration critic Michelle Rempel Garner told the House of Commons “by the end of this year, nearly five million people will be in Canada with expired or expiring visas, and the government has no plan for how it is going to get them to leave.”

This prompted a reply from Immigration Minister Lena Diab, who said “we take our immigration system very seriously on this side of the aisle, as I know all Canadians do.”

She added, “for that reason, we are strengthening the integrity of our system while maintaining the humanitarian ability that we have in this country.”

• Tristin Hopper: Liberals are bringing back the Harper policies they reversed
• Man accused of plotting kidnappings with terror suspect entered Canada as an illegal border-crosser

Last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered the ultimate Boxing Day troll by

recognizing

the state of Somaliland — a country that few people have heard of, and even fewer have given a passing thought to — provoking widespread international condemnation.

There are

legitimate strategic reasons

for Israel to recognize the fledgling statelet. Somaliland’s president announced his intention to join the Abraham Accords, which would expand the list of countries that have normalized relations with Israel. The country is close to Yemen and could allow Israel to attack Houthi targets if it were allowed to establish a military presence there. It is also located at the mouth of the Red Sea, which is often used to deliver weapons and fighters to Israel’s enemies.

But it’s hard not to see the move as a troll directed at world leaders who are still patting themselves on the back for recognizing a nonexistent Palestinian state in the fall.

Israel and Somaliland do share some commonalities. Like Israel, Somaliland is a byproduct of the collapse of the British Empire following the Second World War. It became

a British protectorate

in 1884 and a Crown colony in 1920. It briefly gained independence in 1960 before joining with the Trust Territory of Somalia, which was governed by Italy under a United Nations mandate, to form the Somali Republic.

In 1991, as the Soviet Union was breaking apart like a jigsaw puzzle in an earthquake, Somaliland once again declared its independence. But unlike the alphabet soup of Soviet republics that were welcomed into the community of nations, Somaliland was universally shunned.

Despite this, it has operated with de facto independence since Bryan Adams’ “(Everything I Do) I Do It for You” was topping the charts. It holds democratic elections that have

been praised

by western observers. It operates its own police force and

judicial system

, has its own army, its own currency and issues its own passports. It has

a constitution

asserting its sovereignty that was overwhelmingly adopted in a democratic referendum.

While the border between Somalia and Somaliland is in dispute, most of its territory is clearly defined. And, despite its problems, it is far more stable and

free

than neighbouring countries, including Somalia.

“Palestine,” on the other hand, does not have clearly defined borders or an established government. It is split between Gaza and the West Bank. Half of Gaza is controlled by a genocidal terrorist organization that has so far refused to disarm, while Israel controls the other half. The West Bank is also split into

three areas

, with Israel and the Palestinian Authority, a weak authoritarian government, having varying degrees of control over each. And the West Bank’s borders have yet to be settled under international law.

Somaliland is, in other words, much closer to the

internationally accepted definition

of what constitutes a state than “Palestine” is, or ever has been.

Nevertheless, Netanyahu’s announcement was bitterly condemned by regional and global powers, resulting in a

hastily planned

UN Security Council

meeting

on Monday, where only the United States was willing to stick up for the Jewish state.

A

joint statement

issued by numerous countries — including Qatar, Jordan, Egypt, Algeria, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Turkey and Yemen — unequivocally rejected and condemned the move “in the strongest terms,” claiming it would have “serious effects on international peace and security,” and is a “grave violation of the principles of international law.”

Yet these countries were saying very different things when France led the charge to recognize a Palestinian state earlier this year. Qatar

praised Canada

for recognizing a Palestinian state in September and called on other countries to “take similar steps that reflect their commitment to international law.”

Saudi Arabia also

said

that such recognitions “confirm the international consensus on the inherent right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, the establishment of their state, the ability to live on their land in security and peace, and the fulfillment of their aspirations for stability and prosperity,” while claiming that it would lead to “lasting security and peace.”

For those keeping track: Palestinians have a right to self-determination, but the Somalis of Somaliland do not; recognizing Somaliland is a violation of international law that threatens peace and security, while recognizing Palestine is in keeping with international law and will lead to peace and harmony.

International law, however, is not so clear cut. Articles 1 and 2 of the

UN Charter

discuss the need to maintain “international peace and security” and prohibit using force to subvert the “territorial integrity or political independence” of member states. But Israel is not threatening to use force and it’s not at all clear that recognizing a country that has existed for more than three decades will lead to violence.

The issue of international law as it applies to the Palestinian territories is also a matter of intense debate. Israel’s presence and settlements in the West Bank are often cited as violations of international law. But the fact is that the West Bank’s borders have yet to be settled under the Oslo Accords, the relevant international legal statutes, largely due to Palestinian resistance.

Moreover, some international legal experts make a compelling argument that Israel is not an occupying power at all.

Natasha Hausdorff

, a British lawyer who specializes in international law, summarized the argument nicely in a 2020 article published in the

Jewish Chronicle

.

Hausdorff argues that, “The universal rule for determining borders for emerging states, ‘uti possidetis juris,’ dictates that such states are established with the same boundaries of the prior administrative entity in that land, unless otherwise agreed.…

“Under this principle of international law, as the only state to emerge from the British Mandate, on 14 May 1948 Israel automatically inherited the mandatory boundaries as its own borders. The eastern border ran along the Jordan River all the way south to the Red Sea, originally dividing the British administrative units of ‘Palestine’ and ‘Transjordan.’ ”

Thus, Hausdorff argues, the West Bank and Gaza have been sovereign Israeli territory since 1948, even when they were occupied by Jordan and Egypt, respectively. “Since the application of this fundamental principle to determine Israel’s borders at the moment of independence in 1948, there has not been a single agreement to alter territory or borders,” she continues. And, in the “absence of a final settlement” of the Oslo Accords, “sovereignty and borders have remained unchanged.”

By recognizing Somaliland, Netanyahu is forcing Israel’s detractors to confront the hypocrisy of their own arguments in favour of conjuring a Palestinian state out of thin air. I do hope that one day we will see a Palestinian state existing side-by-side with Israel in peace and prosperity. But that’s not going to happen until world leaders, including our own prime minister, recognize the complexities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and confront their own biases against the Jewish state.

National Post

jkline@postmedia.com

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In September, the British Columbia Supreme Court threw private property into

turmoil

. Aboriginal title in Richmond, a suburb of Vancouver, is “prior and senior” to fee simple interests, the court

said

. That means it trumps the property you have in your house, farm or factory. If the decision holds up on appeal, it would mean private property is not secure anywhere a claim for Aboriginal title is made out.

If you thought things couldn’t get worse, you thought wrong. On Dec. 5, the B.C. Court of Appeal delivered a different kind of upheaval. Gitxaala and Ehattesaht First Nations claimed that B.C.’s mining regime was unlawful because it allowed miners to register claims on Crown land without consulting with them. In a 2-to-1 split decision, the court

agreed

. The mining permitting regime is

inconsistent

with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People (UNDRIP). And B.C. legislation, the court said, has made UNDRIP the law of B.C.

UNDRIP is a declaration of the United Nations General Assembly. It consists of pages and pages of Indigenous rights and entitlements. If UNDRIP is the law in B.C., then Indigenous peoples are entitled to everything — and to have other people pay for it. If you suspect that is an exaggeration, take a spin through

UNDRIP

for yourself.

Indigenous peoples, it says, “have the right to the lands, territories and resources which they have traditionally owned, occupied or otherwise used or acquired … to own, use, develop and control, as well as the right to “redress” for these lands, through either “restitution” or “just, fair and equitable compensation.” It says that states “shall consult and cooperate in good faith” in order to “obtain free and informed consent prior to the approval of any project affecting their lands or territories and other resources,” and that they have the right to “autonomy or self-government in matters relating to their internal and local affairs, as well as ways and means for financing their autonomous functions.”

The General Assembly adopted UNDRIP in 2007. At the time, Canada sensibly voted “no,” along with New Zealand, the United States and Australia. Eleven countries abstained. But in 2016, the newly elected Trudeau government

reversed

Canada’s objection.

UN General Assembly resolutions are not binding in international law. Nor are they enforceable in Canadian courts. But in 2019, NDP Premier John Horgan and his Attorney General David Eby, now the Premier, introduced Bill 41, the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (

DRIPA

). DRIPA proposed to require the B.C. government to “take all measures necessary to ensure the laws of British Columbia are consistent with the Declaration.” The B.C. Legislature unanimously passed the bill. (The Canadian Parliament passed a

similar bill

in 2021.)

Two years later, the legislature passed an amendment to the B.C.

Interpretation Act

. Eby, still B.C.’s Attorney General, sponsored the bill. The amendment read, “Every Act and regulation must be construed as being consistent with the Declaration.”

Eby has expressed

dismay

about the Court of Appeal decision. It “invites further and endless litigation,” he said. “It looked at the clear statements of intent in the legislature and the law, and yet reached dramatically different conclusions about what legislators did when we voted unanimously across party lines” to pass DRIPA. He has promised to amend the legislation.

These are crocodile tears. The majority judgment from the Court of Appeal is not a rogue decision from activist judges making things up and ignoring the law. Not this time, anyway. The court said that B.C. law must be construed as being consistent with UNDRIP — which is what Eby’s 2021 amendment to the Interpretation Act says.

In fact, Eby’s government has been doing everything in its power to champion Aboriginal interests. DRIPA is its mandate. It’s been making covert agreements with specific Aboriginal groups over specific territories. These

agreements

promise Aboriginal title and/or grant Aboriginal management rights over land use. In April 2024, an

agreement

with the Haida Council recognized Haida title and jurisdiction

over Haida Gwaii

, an archipelago off the B.C. coast formerly known as the Queen Charlotte Islands. Eby has said that the agreement is a

template

for what’s possible “in other places in British Columbia, and also in Canada.” He is putting title and control of B.C. into Aboriginal hands.

But it’s not just David Eby. The Richmond decision from the B.C. Supreme Court had nothing to do with B.C. legislation. It was a predictable result of years of Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) jurisprudence under

Section 35

of the Constitution. That section guarantees “existing” Aboriginal and treaty rights as of 1982. But the SCC has since championed, evolved and enlarged those rights. Legislatures can fix their own statutes, but they cannot amend Section 35 or override judicial interpretation, even using the “notwithstanding clause.”

Meanwhile, on yet another track, Aboriginal rights are expanding under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. On the same day as the B.C. Court of Appeal decision on UNDRIP, the Federal Court released two judgments. The federal government has an actionable duty to Aboriginal groups to provide

housing

and

drinking water

, the court declared. Taxpayer funded, of course.

One week later, at the other end of the country, the New Brunswick Court of Appeal weighed in. In a claim made by Wolastoqey First Nation for the western half of the province, the court

said

that Aboriginal title should not displace fee simple title of private owners. Yet it confirmed that a successful claim would require compensation in lieu of land. Private property owners or taxpayers, take your pick.

Like the proverb says, make yourself into a doormat and someone will walk all over you. Obsequious devotion to reconciliation has become a pathology of Canadian character. It won’t end well.

National Post

Bruce Pardy is senior fellow with the Fraser Institute, executive director of Rights Probe and professor of Law at Queen’s University.

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