Legal action looms over Nakba portrayal at CMHR in Winnipeg

Aerial view of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, on April 28, 2024. Photo by SEBASTIEN ST-JEAN /AFP via Getty Images

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A prominent Israeli legal organization is threatening legal action against the Canadian Museum for Human Rights over an upcoming exhibit on the Palestinian Nakba, alleging the Winnipeg museum is promoting a politically one-sided narrative that could fuel antisemitism and violate federal law.

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Shurat HaDin – Israel Law Center announced this week it has formally sent a legal demand letter to the museum’s board of trustees and senior leadership over the exhibit Palestine Uprooted: Nakba Past and Present, scheduled to open next month at the CMHR in Winnipeg.

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The organization alleges the federally funded museum is abandoning its mandate as an educational institution by presenting what it describes as an unbalanced portrayal of the 1948 creation of Israel and the displacement of Palestinians.

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“Publicly funded institutions have a responsibility to approach contested historical issues with fairness, balance, and intellectual integrity,” Shurat HaDin president Nitsana Darshan-Leitner said in a statement included with the legal filing.

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“A national human rights museum cannot become a platform for politicized narratives that risk contributing to division and misunderstanding, including here by erasing Jewish history, delegitimizing Jewish self-determination, or contributing to hostility against the Jewish community.”

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The seven-page legal letter, dated May 14, gives the museum 14 days to respond or face potential legal proceedings.

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The exhibit focuses on Palestinian accounts of the Nakba — Arabic for “catastrophe” — referring to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war surrounding the creation of the State of Israel.

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According to the CMHR’s public description, the exhibit explores “ongoing forced displacement and dispossession of Palestinians” through artwork, artifacts, photographs, videos and personal stories from Palestinian Canadians.

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Shurat HaDin argues the exhibit presents a one-sided political narrative while omitting key historical context, including Jewish historical ties to the region, Arab rejection of the United Nations partition plan, the broader regional war in 1948 and the displacement of Jewish refugees from Arab countries.

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“The creation of the State of Israel pursuant to international legal and diplomatic processes is not, in itself, a human rights violation,” the letter states.

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The legal group further alleges the exhibit could create a “hostile or poisoned environment” for Jewish Canadians at a time of rising antisemitism across the country.

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The filing also raises concerns about the museum’s advisory process, alleging the exhibit’s consultation network includes activists and academics with openly anti-Zionist views while mainstream Jewish organizations were excluded from meaningful participation.