Protesters denounce controversial exhibition at rights museum

More than 200 people demonstrated outside the Canadian Museum for Human Rights Friday evening to protest the exhibition about the mass displacement of Palestinians in the 1940s during the Arab-Israeli war.

Outside the museum at The Forks, the sidewalk was lined with people wearing white and blue clothing while waving Israeli flags and holding placards that denounced the display.

Palestine Uprooted: Nakba Past and Present focuses on the Nakba, in which an estimated 750,000 Palestinians were displaced between 1947 and 1949. The exhibition documents Palestinian Canadians’ experiences through art, photos and text.

One protester said she worries students and other groups who visit the exhibition will get a one-sided version.

“They’re going to go, “Oh my god, look at Israel, they’re so bad,’ and that’s not right,” said Simone, who declined to give her last name.

The exhibition opens to the public on Saturday. A sold-out, ticketed preview of it was being held during the protest.

Simone said she won’t take in the exhibition, which runs until Nov. 30, 2028.

During the hour-long protest, unmarked police cars were parked near the museum and members of the Winnipeg Police Service’s new rapid response unit monitored the crowd. A handful of counter-protesters gathered across the street.

Amanda Gaudes, a spokesperson for the museum, said security protocols were in place and the museum had communicated with police to co-ordinate additional security measures given the heightened awareness about the exhibition. People protesting on both sides of the street were doing so peacefully when the Free Press was there.

Tensions between supporters of Israel and Palestine have remained high in Winnipeg since 2023, when Hamas militants launched an attack on Israeli soil, killing more than 1,000 civilians.

The exhibition has caused international controversy. The Israeli legal rights organization Shurat HaDin — Israel Law Center threatened legal action against the museum if it did not pause the exhibition.

The group said the exhibition risks presenting a “one-sided, politicized, and historically incomplete narrative.”

Groups have called for more curatorial oversight of the exhibition and the inclusion of more Jewish voices.

Gail Asper, whose father, Israel Asper, was the driving force behind the museum’s inception, expects formal complaints about the exhibition to be filed.

Asper was not privy to the display before its public opening, but was sent photos of it by a visitor.

“This museum was supposed to be a place of information, good, bad and ugly truths that would bring people together respectfully to debate and discuss and enlighten. And this has just caused division and concern and worry because of a concerted effort to suppress the Jewish voice in this historical conflict,” she said.

Charles Levkoe, a member of the Jewish Faculty Network, an advocacy group made up of Jewish academics and scholars, called the controversy surrounding the exhibition ironic, given that it hadn’t yet opened to the public ahead of the protest.

Levkoe said one of his fellow members was part of the consultations for the exhibition and provided regular updates to the group.

“As Jews, as members of the people that have experienced lots of discrimination and persecution over the centuries … I think as a group we collectively were very excited about it, because we know how important it is for people who’ve been marginalized to tell their stories and have their perspectives heard,” Levkoe said.

The story of the Nakba is not often told because of its controversy, but Levkoe did not expect the exhibition to be the subject of such backlash.

“It’s like this knee-jerk reaction to just try to shut this thing down without even saying, ‘Well, let’s give it a chance, let’s see it first,’” he said.

Delegates from the Canadian Palestinian Association of Manitoba planned to attend Friday’s exhibition preview. President Ramsey Zeid said the stories within it need to be told.

“This is something that happened, and unfortunately we can’t change the past, but we can change the future and make sure that this never happens again, not just to us, but to anybody,” he said.

He wasn’t aware of any planned counter-protests to the rally.

Zeid said he hopes the exhibition opens the door for conversations between Israelis and Palestinians, and for people who know little about the Nakba.

Asper said the exhibition and the resulting controversy make her worry about the curatorial process for other areas of the museum.

“I’m hopeful that this incident will actually have the board pay a lot more attention to how exhibits come to be,” she said.

The museum has said the Nakba exhibition is grounded in a rigorous process of research and curation, and included input from an advisory group made up of scholars and community leaders.

nicole.buffie@freepress.mb.ca