Canadian Museum for Human Rights, Winnipeg

 

"The Museum has allowed itself to become the tool, or dupe, of only one side of the story ad thereby betrays its duty as a national institution to provide a common and inclusive meeting and educational space on the matter of human rights."

"I think what you're seeing with the Jewish Heritage Centre is the manifestation of a fundamental breach of trust by the Canadian Museum of Human Rights."

"The factual, historical context of events surrounding the 'Nakba' are not just one story."

"In my father's founding vision of the purpose of the Museum he never had a problem with the telling of the whole story, which includes the displacement and expulsion of over 800,000 Jews who were living in Arab countries and, perhaps most importantly, that a lot of what happened was triggered by the fact that many Arab countries declared war and tried to conquer and eliminate Israel in 1948." 

David Asper, Winnipeg lawyer, businessman, trustee, Asper Foundation 

Palestine Uprooted: Nakba Past and Present  opening June 2026, Canadian Museum for Human Rights

 

The Canadian Museum for Human Rights has gone the way of all public institutions in Canada -- from the very Liberal-led government itself, to all its constituent arms of public service, from academia to unions, news media and museums throughout the country, to portray Palestinians as victims of a cruel apartheid occupation. Taking their cue from the United Nations which designated Palestinians and their offspring as perpetual refugees, the Palestinian narrative of victimhood has resonated in its pathos everywhere that kind hearts and malevolent sentiments fall victim themselves to an ongoing parody of human rights.

 

Arab Palestinians have from the very moment the United Nations announced its Partition Plan in 1947 refused the offer of a state of their own, just as they refused to acknowledge Israel's inherited ancestral right to accept that offer of two states side by side. With encouragement and incitement from the Arab world in the Middle East that refusal has lasted a lifetime and for generation after generation. Simply put all the countries of the Middle East, Islamic to the core, refused to tolerate the presence of a Jewish state in their midst, ancient and authentic as it is.

 

Bearing in mind that many Palestinians did not leave Israel, preferring to remain to this day where they have full citizenship, voting rights, occupy positions in the judiciary, in Israel's parliament, in the medical and law professions, making up 20 percent of the entire population. Circassians, Druze, Bedouin, Christians, Kurds, B'hai, and other minority groups are part of Israeli citizenry with full and equal rights. In contrast, no Jews are welcome in Palestinian areas of the West Bank or Gaza to the point of death. Palestinian leaders have over the years and continue to refuse to recognize Israel's right of existence.

 

Over the years countless opportunities arose for negotiations between Israeli and Palestinian authorities to reach an agreement for the side-by-side existence of two states; Israeli and Palestinians. While Israel has time and again made conciliatory concessions, the Palestinian side has made no concessions whatever. Instead Palestinian governments have incited their populations to hatred of Jews and Israel, infusing in them a raging will to violence, convinced that only by destroying Israel and taking possession of the entire geography will a Palestinian state be feasible. 

 

None of which makes them legitimate candidates for human rights victimhood to be forever memorialized in a museum whose function is to educate and highlight for the public at large authentic instances of human right abuses and the victims thereof. The new exhibit set to become permanent at the Museum for Human Rights in the spring of the coming year is entitled 'Palestine Uprooted: Nakba Past and Present'. Its purpose is to focus on the Palestinian 'experience' during the creation of Israel and the following Arab-Israeli war. 

 

The exhibit is an insult to reality and an assault on historical accuracy.

 

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)

 

As for the estimated 750,000 Arab Palestinians who fled in anticipation of returning once the fledgling Jewish state was pummelled into nothingness by the combined Arab armies that marched to destroy it but failed, they have swelled in numbers to 6 million over the years, with their diaspora settling everywhere in the West engaged in slandering the State of Israel and infecting the minds of the populations wherever they settle against Jews, offering the poisoned chalice of antisemitism everywhere. 

 

And while the UN and popular opinion fixate on the 750,000 Arabs who fled with Israel's 1948 declaration of statehood, the 850,000 Jews that forcibly became refugees from Arab lands at Israel's reappearance are ignored.  

"[When the CIJA learned about the museum's intention to profile the experiences of refugees from the 1948 Arab-Israeli War], we immediately engaged with the Museum's leadership."

"We offered to convene leading experts to help ensure that any exhibit presents a balanced, fact-based, and comprehensive narrative, one that reflects the experiences of all refugees, including the more than 850,000 Jews forcibly displaced from long-established communities across the Middle East and North Africa." 

"As currently framed, the proposed direction will deliver an incomplete and unbalanced narrative, one that omits Jewish refugee experiences entirely and will carry reputational consequences for the Museum."

"To ensure the Museum fulfills its mandate, we have requested information from its leadership about the exhibit's content, framing, objectives, and development process, before any further steps are taken."

"We are actively working with our community and with partner institutions across Canada to demand accountability."

Gustavo Zentner, vice-president, Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs