Facing Protests and Political Pressure, Canadian Humans Rights Opens Palestine Exhibition 

The leader of Canada’s New Democratic Party (NDP) has criticized Heritage Minister Marc Miller for suggesting the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg should alter the language of its exhibition on Palestinian displacement. The backlash against Miller—who had previously vowed not to intervene in the exhibition—comes as a Jewish trustee of the museum resigned and museums worldwide grapple with the framing of Israel’s ongoing military assault on Gaza. 

Miller told the Canadian Press on Monday that it was “regrettable” the curators of
“Palestine Uprooted: Nakba Past and Present” did not “identify Hamas as a terrorist organization” or mention the Jews killed during Hamas’ 7 October attack on Israel. He added that he was “surprised” by reports that the museum’s board had not reviewed the exhibition before it opened, describing the alleged oversight as “an error in governance.”

Responding to Miller’s comments, a spokesperson for the Museum for Human Rights told Ocula that his concerns would be addressed through the museum’s “established content revision process.” The spokesperson added that the museum has referred to Hamas’s October 7 attack as terrorism “on numerous occasions” and had been transparent with the museum’s board about the exhibition’s content throughout its development.

The exhibition, which opened to the public on Saturday, centers on the displacement and dispossession of approximately 750,000 Palestinians during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, which followed the partition of Palestine and the establishment of the State of Israel—an event known in Arabic as al-Nakba, or “the catastrophe.” 

The exhibition’s website says the show explores “the human rights violations related to the ongoing forced displacement and dispossession of Palestinians” through “personal stories” shared by Palestinian Canadians. Together, the video testimonies, photography, visual art, and text “reveal enduring patterns of loss and resistance,” according to the website, which adds that the exhibition was developed in collaboration with an advisory network of scholars. 

The exhibition, however, has been a source of controversy since the state-funded museum announced it in late 2025. In May, an Israeli legal organization threatened the museum with litigation over the show’s alleged use of federal funds to “politicize” history and potentially fuel “hostility against the Jewish community.” The museum’s sole Jewish trustee, Mark L. Berlin, a professor at McGill University, resigned from the board on June 22. In an op-ed published by The Hub, Berlin accused the museum of “intellectual dishonesty” and called Palestine Uprooted and “incomplete exhibition”  that will “inevitably promote a one-sided, unbalanced interpretation of Israeli history, Zionism, and the Arab-Israeli conflict”. The exhibition’s opening five days later drew a pro-Israel demonstration outside the institution.

Jewish organizations elsewhere have voiced support for the exhibition. Last week, the Independent Jewish Voices Canada, the Jewish Faculty Network, and the United Jewish People’s Order Canada jointly published an open letter titled Dear Museum, with Love, praising the museum for its “commitment to this exhibition and continuing to tell the stories of marginalized communities.”

The letter continued: “Despite significant pressure and attempts to challenge or undermine its inclusion, the museum has remained committed to presenting Palestinian perspectives and engaging the public by sharing their experiences, histories and ongoing realities.”

In comments to local media ahead of the exhibition’s opening, the museum’s chief executive, Isha Khan, defended its framing of the 1948 Palestinian displacement and its historical legacy. “I think people want to see this work as a binary, as one side versus the other, and it isn’t,” she said. “It’s human rights work. It’s about asking: How do we find our shared humanity through our storytelling?”

ARTnews has contacted the museum for comment.