The Canadian Museum for Human Rights' Nakba exhibit can serve as a site for solidarity

Yasmeen Abu-Laban is professor and Canada Research Chair in the Politics of Citizenship and Human Rights at the University of Alberta. Abigail B. Bakan is professor of social justice education at the University of Toronto's Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. Both served as members of the Palestinian Content Advisory Network for the Canadian Museum for Human Rights.

Originally published in The Globe and Mail, June 30, 2026.

Much attention and controversy has surrounded the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg and its exhibit “Palestine Uprooted: Nakba Past and Present.” Indeed, there was a veritable tsunami of criticism before the exhibit even opened.

But as Canadians who actually attended the opening on June 26, we witnessed a different story: one of deeply meaningful relationships between the Palestinian and Jewish communities in Canada. Through our work on the museum’s advisory network, and informed by experiences and knowledge rooted in both Jewish and Palestinian contexts, it was a privilege to witness these relationships flourish through the significant labour and care put into this common project.

The exhibit addresses the human rights of Palestinians in the context of their forced dispossession in 1948 and the repeated waves of displacement they have endured since then. The factual evidence about the Nakba (Arabic for catastrophe) is decisive: Palestinians remain one the largest groups of stateless refugees in the world.

The exhibit illuminates not only suffering, but the creativity and resilience of Palestinians. We found it moving to see “Think of Others,” the work of Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, displayed in English, French and Arabic. The exhibit’s immersive experience invites visitors to hear the voices of Palestinian Canadians, to feel traditional fabric featuring tatreez (Palestinian embroidery), and to see the deeds and keys to properties from which Palestinian-Canadians were displaced.

The fact that a Nakba exhibit at a federally funded Canadian human rights museum has been made into a controversy speaks to what scholars have referred to as the Palestine exception. This is a documented pattern of targeted discrimination of Palestinians and those who study, advocate for, or include Palestinian experiences.

But Palestinian-Canadian voices are centred in this exhibit, which is a welcome and essential development. In addition, over the course of a four-year process that included rigorous research, painstaking design and deep community engagement led by the museum’s dedicated staff, Jewish organizations across a wide spectrum were involved in conversations about this exhibit. Some Canadian Jewish organizations cited their understanding of Jewish culture and ethics in making it a priority to support the exhibit and centre Palestinian-Canadian voices.

Like all communities, the Jewish community in Canada holds a range of diverse opinions. There has been consistent support against anti-Palestinian racism born from the long-standing tradition of Jewish solidarity and social-justice activism, just as Palestinians in Canada have also opposed antisemitism. This is how effective anti-racism works.

The exhibit’s historic opening was an occasion for people from the Palestinian and Jewish communities in Canada to convene. There were many shared meals and receptions in the museum, Winnipeg restaurants and local community halls where Nakba and Holocaust survivors and their descendants broke bread together.

Having seen the exhibit and the processes behind its creation, the opening of this exhibit in a major human rights institution feels historic. It is a breakthrough for challenging the Palestine exception, and a stepping stone to deepening solidarity across difference.

To that end, all Canadians owe a debt of gratitude and respect to the Canadian Museum for Human Rights for sharing this exhibit. It may have been difficult, but it validates Palestinian experiences, and, in so doing, reaffirms the first article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: that all humans are born free and equal in dignity and rights.