David Asper blasts museum over controversial Nakba exhibit - "Palestine Uprooted: Nakba Past and Present, set to open in the museum's Rights Today gallery on Level 5, will explore what the CMHR describes as the "ongoing forced displacement and dispossession of Palestinians" through artwork, photographs, video testimonies, and personal stories from Palestinian Canadians. For a growing number of voices, including members of the family most responsible for the museum's very existence, the silence speaks volumes. The Canadian Museum for Human Rights was the dream of the late Winnipeg media magnate and philanthropist Israel "Izzy" Asper. His family raised millions to build it, and it opened in 2014. His son, David Asper, a prominent Winnipeg lawyer and businessman, says what is unfolding at the institution his father built is a betrayal of everything it was supposed to stand for. "My dad never had a problem with telling the whole story," Asper told the Winnipeg Sun. "I think he'd be disgusted at how the telling of this story has become weaponized in the antisemitism game." For Asper, the exhibit is not simply a curatorial misstep; it is a symptom of a broader failure of institutional leadership and of a political class unwilling to take a stand. He says the exhibit perpetuates what he calls a victim-oppressor propaganda narrative, one that deliberately carves out the historical context of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. "The Palestinians were offered a state, their own state, and rejected it. Not only did they reject it, but they also attacked Israel and started a war. They lost the war. Start a war, lose a war, and now I'm going to be the victim, just like October 7." Asper is equally critical of the museum's curatorial process. He pointed to the reported involvement of Ramsey Zeid, a committee member with a public record of anti-Zionist advocacy, as evidence that the process was compromised from the outset. "It's putting the fox in the henhouse," he said. "They were all partisans. There are historical facts that are facts, not feelings. We've moved into the realm of feelings, not facts." He described the exhibit as the latest front in what he called a long-running and highly sophisticated propaganda effort, one that exploits Western democratic values against themselves. "This is a highly, highly sophisticated, organized propaganda machine that has been making the Palestinians victims for a very, very long time," he said. "And now they've got the CMHR, hook, line, and sinker, with no serious critical context or analysis." He reserved particular scorn for political leaders, he says, who have refused to intervene. When asked what he would say directly to Prime Minister Mark Carney, Asper's answer was blunt. "Goalies are never the team captain. He was a goalie when he played hockey. Goalies stop pucks, they don't do elbows up. When you say elbows up, we shouldn't be saying it about the U.S. or anything else. We should be saying it about our own bloody country." Asper said he still holds out hope for the rule of law, but acknowledged that without leadership, hope is a thin thread. "You hope at the end of the road, whether it's a judge or a politician, somebody's got the spine to stand up for Canada and for what this country is supposed to be about."... CIJA's concerns go beyond the exhibit's historical framing. Zentner says extremist anti-Israel organizations have been openly claiming a direct role in the exhibit's creation, the same groups, he notes, that organize protests outside synagogues, Jewish schools, and through Jewish neighbourhoods across the country. "This exhibit risks legitimizing and normalizing these extreme narratives, and those who use them to target Jews here in Canada," he said. Zentner also pointed to the context of sharply rising antisemitism in Winnipeg. This week, the Winnipeg Police Service released its 2025 hate-motivated crime statistics: out of 37 hate-crime reports related to religion, 32 involved Jewish victims... "The opacity surrounding the curatorial process has resulted in a serious breach of trust," Zentner said. "This matter goes to the museum's core mandate. As a national, publicly funded institution, the Canadian Museum for Human Rights is expected to contribute to the collective memory and sense of identity of all Canadians, not to serve as a vehicle for a one-sided political agenda."... "At the end of the day, it's a spineless board. The CEO supports the exhibit, and the minister and the entire government are pandering for Muslim votes, and so they stand for nothing." The controversy has also reached the museum's founding family directly. Gail Asper, David's sister and the philanthropist whose family helped fund the CMHR's construction, has publicly called for a review of the exhibit before it opens, warning that anything fanning the flames of antisemitism must be "scrupulously considered." This marks what observers say is a first on two counts: the first time a Canadian museum has been threatened with legal action by Shurat HaDin, and the first time a Canadian museum has dedicated an exhibit to the Nakba from the perspective of Palestinian Canadian survivors. With June 27, 2026, now weeks away, the community voices opposing the exhibit are running out of time and options. Some in Winnipeg's Jewish community are asking harder questions, about Canada, about its institutions, and about whether those institutions can still be trusted. Asper said the pattern of silence from politicians and museum leadership is not unique to this issue, it reflects a governing philosophy built on saying nothing and offending no one. "The liberal MO is to try to make everybody happy, say everything, and stand for nothing," he said. "You know what the recipe for failure is? That." Zentner echoed that sentiment, framing the issue in terms of the museum's institutional legitimacy and the country's commitment, under Prime Minister Carney's own Canadian Covenant, not to transpose foreign conflicts onto each other. "National institutions must be held accountable," he said. "At a time of rising antisemitism and extremism, the museum must not be instrumentalized in service of a dangerous political agenda. Its very legitimacy depends on its leadership's ability to demonstrate rigorous adhesion to the highest standards of professionalism and integrity." For David Asper, the question is not really about one exhibit. It is about whether Canadian institutions and Canadian leaders still have the backbone to stand for something."
Leak reveals secret meeting between CMHR and Palestinian ambassador | National Post - "Internal emails obtained by National Post show that senior officials at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights (CMHR) had a discussion with the Palestinian representative to Canada, in which she attempted to get involved in, and was updated on, the progress of its upcoming “Nakba” exhibit, raising fresh questions about the political agendas behind the highly controversial exhibit at the publicly funded museum. In an email dated Dec. 5, 2024, Ramsey Zeid, the president of the Canadian Palestinian Association of Manitoba (CPAM) who has been a member of the Palestinian Content Advisory Network (PCAN) for the exhibit, wrote to Matthew Cutler, the CMHR’s vice-president of exhibitions, and Isha Khan, the museum’s CEO... The Palestinian General Delegation confirmed to the Post that the meeting took place, but would not disclose what was discussed... The apparent co-ordination between the museum and the Palestinian representative occurred amid repeated complaints from Jewish organizations about inadequate consultation and a lack of historical balance. And they have good reason for concern... Gaudes was asked for a list of people involved in its content advisory committee and was not forthcoming. Yet in March, the Post acquired a list of PCAN members from 2023, which was composed of hardened anti-Israel activists, including Zeid. Zeid is a controversial Palestinian-Canadian activist who has made a number of alarming public statements. After the October 7 massacre in Israel, for example, he wrote that Zionism “is a disease that must be destroyed.” Neil Oberman, a Montreal lawyer who has taken on numerous cases involving allegations of antisemitism and anti-Israel actions, said that there is a serious question as to whether the CMHR has violated its own mandate under the Museums Act, which explicitly states that its purpose is to “explore the subject of human rights, with special but not exclusive reference to Canada, in order to enhance the public’s understanding of human rights, to promote respect for others and to encourage reflection and dialogue.” Citing Canada’s Foreign Interference and Security of Information Act, he noted that, “A foreign mission engaging openly with a Canadian institution is not, without more, unlawful. The offences target conduct that is covert, deceptive or coercive. That is why the issue turns on transparency: was this an open, disclosed exchange, or was a foreign government quietly given a hand in shaping how a national museum presents history?” While this may not rise to the level of foreign interference, co-ordinating with a foreign government’s representative on content for a taxpayer-funded exhibit designed by a Crown corporation raises numerous ethical questions. The exhibit would also appear to violate ethics guidelines from the Canadian Museums Association, which emphasizes that multiple perspectives should be presented fairly and impartially, and that any biases should be made clear to the public. Emails suggesting Abuamara’s keen interest in “progress” and “assistance” would seem to go beyond a simple courtesy visit and imply an effort to shape Canadian public memory and education by a foreign government. At this point, the museum needs to reveal what was discussed with the representative regarding the exhibit. The CMHR is a national museum established under the Museums Act and receives the majority of its operating budget from the Department of Canadian Heritage, which is under the purview of Culture Minister Marc Miller, who was recently appointed chair of the council tasked with combating antisemitism. This is ironic, given that this exhibit will likely have the opposite effect and inflame hatreds toward the Jewish community."
Palestinian exhibit at human rights museum 'should be rectified': federal heritage minister - "Heritage Minister Marc Miller said Monday the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg has erred in how it curated an exhibit about displaced Palestinians... The museum's only Jewish trustee, Mark Berlin, resigned last week and said he was not given a chance to view the exhibit in advance."
Naturally, terrorist supporters were very upset over this and other people protesting the museum's historical inaccuracy. Of course, they love to complain about museums' historically inaccuracy when it exposes the reality of "Palestine" - so it's clear that they don't care about museum independence or accurate history: they just want to demonise Israel with lies. To say nothing about how they lobby museums or even try to destroy historical artefacts to push the left wing agenda even on non-Palestinian issues. But then, they claim Israel protesting is a foreign country interfering in a domestic affair, but meeting the Palestinian ambassador is fine
'Nakba' exhibit produced by group of hardened anti-Israel activists | National Post - " Bakan has been a member of Independent Jewish Voices. Don’t let its name fool you, as it is stridently anti-Zionist. Despite the inclusion of the word “Jewish” in its name, it is not representative of Canadian Jews. A 2024 study conducted by Robert Brym, a professor of sociology at the University of Toronto, found that only three per cent of Canadian Jews actively reject Zionism... Abdo also conveniently omits details prior to the United Nations partition plan, including the 1929 Hebron massacre, the 1936-1939 Arab Revolt and attacks during the 1947-1948 civil war that killed hundreds of Jews. She doesn’t provide a history, but a one-sided narrative that ignores atrocities committed against the Jews and the context of Israel’s actions. Abdo leaves out the fact that immediately after Israel declared its independence on May 14, 1948, armies from Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon invaded to prevent the establishment of the Jewish state. She also omits other relevant events, including the 1967 Khartoum Resolution (no peace, no recognition, no negotiation with Israel) and the numerous times that Palestinians rejected offers for statehood, making it appear as though they are completely blameless for the current situation... One would assume that a human rights museum would want its advisory committee to be historically accurate and unclouded by political bias, and that it would follow internationally recognized ethical standards, such as those put out by the International Council of Museums (ICOM). ICOM’s code of ethics states that, “Research by museum personnel should relate to the museum’s mission and objectives and conform to established legal, ethical and academic practices,” and that, “Displays and temporary exhibitions, physical or electronic, should be in accordance with the stated mission, policy and purpose of the museum.”... When I asked Gaudes, CMHR’s spokesperson, whether Jewish groups would be allowed to participate in the consultation process, she answered in the negative, saying that “these are (Palestinian Canadians) stories,” and that “the exhibit is neither a historical retrospective nor an examination of the founding of the State of Israel or current Israel-Palestine relations.” Finally, the code of ethics says that, “It is a professional responsibility to consult other colleagues within or outside the museum when the expertise available in the museum is insufficient to ensure good decision-making.” Yet if the CMHR relies on a committee comprised predominately of activists, without any broader consultations with other stakeholders, which has been offered by Jewish groups but not accepted, the taxpayer-funded museum is failing to perform its due diligence. Canadians deserve better."
Clearly, ICOM is biased and infiltrated by "Zionists" and should be ginored
I visited the 'Nakba' exhibit, and it is as anti-Jewish as feared | National Post - "Our government is officially failing Jews and Palestinians. That’s what I came away with thinking after touring the Canadian Museum for Human Rights’ newest exhibit, Palestine Uprooted: Nakba Past and Present. At first glance, this may appear to be another disagreement over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is not. It is a question about the responsibilities of a democratic government and the values it chooses to advance through institutions that speak with its authority. A federally supported national museum is entrusted with pursuing historical truth through accuracy, balance, and scholarly rigor. It is not another advocacy organization free to advance a political narrative as settled history. That obligation is precisely what makes Palestine Uprooted so alarming. The exhibit, which opened to the public on Saturday, does far more than recount the “catastrophe” of mass Palestinian displacement during the 1948 Arab Israeli War, as the official website’s definition of the “Nakba” term states. It’s important to note that this definition has only been in popular use for about 40 years. Originally, the Arabic term was used to describe the Arab League’s embarrassing military defeat largely at the hands of Jewish socialist farmers, Holocaust survivors, and former refugees, all with little international support. Rather than inviting Canadians to wrestle with one of the world’s most complex conflicts, it teaches visitors to understand the conflict as solely a consequence of Israel’s creation. In doing so, genuine Palestinian suffering is transformed into a perpetual weapon targeting everything related to Israel, and encourages the public to view millions of Jews as the beneficiaries and defenders of an ongoing historical injustice. This is not the pursuit of historical truth. It is a toxic political instruction delivered with the authority of the Canadian state. Walking through the museum, located in the heart of Winnipeg, one design choice immediately stood out. The Nakba exhibit is physically positioned after the museum’s Holocaust gallery, meaning visitors move directly from one of history’s best documented genocides into a highly politicized presentation of the 1948 Arab Israeli conflict. That transition creates a subtle but unmistakable emotional and interpretive bridge between two entirely different historical contexts, carrying visitors from a universally recognized moral framework into a contemporary political narrative with the implication that the same categories of understanding naturally apply. While the implicit promotion of Holocaust Inversion certainly informs the conclusions visitors are invited to draw. Inside the exhibit, that framing quickly becomes more pronounced. The material is not presented as a set of competing historical interpretations or unresolved debates. Instead, it is organized around a single guiding premise: that Palestinian displacement in 1948 is not simply a historical event with several causes, but the beginning of an “ongoing” Jewish Israeli-imposed tragedy that entirely ignores Palestinian suffering when Israel cannot be blamed... Not mentioned in the exhibit are the at least 850,000 Jews who were forcibly displaced and expelled from Arab countries since Israel’s creation, most during and in the years immediately following the war. Entire Jewish communities that had existed for centuries across Iraq, Egypt, Yemen, Libya, Syria, and elsewhere were effectively erased. The pattern continues throughout the gallery. Israeli checkpoints, movement restrictions, and separation barriers are presented as evidence of oppression, while the decades of mass murder that prompted many of those policies are ignored. One panel’s vague reference to the Second Intifada, of the early 2000s, as a “Palestinian uprising” comes across as an excuse for Jewish Israelis to arbitrarily “undermine rights to housing, family life, livelihood and equality before the law.” No acknowledgement of how Palestinian terrorists and civilians alike murdered over a 1,000 Israelis or even the hundreds of Palestinian victims murdered during the colloquially termed “intrafada.” Apparently, the biggest injustice from that period is the inconvenience imposed by security checkpoints and an ugly barrier. The pattern continues. “Following the Hamas attack that killed about 1,200 people on October 7, 2023, Israel launched a large-scale military campaign in Gaza. Today, more than 240,000 people have been killed or injured, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health and UN agencies.” The meticulously coordinated terrorist attack involving mass murder, torture, and rape is flattened into an imprecise casualty figure, and the 251 hostages disappear entirely. The reader is instead directed to an anonymous figure that obscures the individual data points and conflates those killed with those injured, producing a number that far exceeds the Gaza Ministry of Health’s own public claims, all without disclosing that the ministry itself is Hamas or controversies over whether the data has been manipulated. Throughout the gallery, Arab and Palestinian agency is largely stripped away. Political decisions, rejected compromises, internal repression, and acts of violence become secondary, encouraging visitors to interpret tragedies inflicted on both peoples as chapters in a single continuing story that conveniently begins in 1948 and remains fundamentally attributable to Israel. So, the initial framing determines the conclusion, which collapses more than a century of complex and often unrelated developments into a single interpretive chain of causation. None of this comes as a surprise... This exemplifies the hollowness of the “Nakba narrative.” It cannot fully explain Palestinian history because too much of it contradicts its central premise."
Multivocality and visitor participation are bad when it threatens the left wing agenda.
Andy Ngo on X - "London (June 14) — A man was seen wearing a variation of the Antifa logo with the Palestine flag incorporated in the design at a protest out the Edgware United Synagogue. Antifa claim to be revolutionary anarchists against all borders, but they riot for Palestinian nationalism. Five people were arrested for violent disorder at the direct action. One of them was also arrested on suspicion of assaulting an emergency worker."
Another way to read it is that Palestinianism is self destructive like anarchism
Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib on X - "Does Norway support terror? Walking through downtown Oslo, I came across a disturbing mural – apparently sponsored by the Oslo National Academy of Arts, a publicly funded institution – glorifying the iconography of violent extremism. The display featured Hamas’s inverted red triangle, a rifle, a keffiyeh, and the image of a Lufthansa civilian aircraft placed in front of a Marxist militant from the PFLP, a group responsible for multiple plane hijackings. Behind it all: smoke plumes meant to evoke an Israeli airstrike on Gaza. This was not “solidarity.” It was a celebration of terror against civilians, presented as if it were synonymous with the Palestinian cause. It is a perfect snapshot of what has gone wrong in parts of Western Europe: the normalization, and even celebration, of grotesque symbols that collapse Palestinian identity into plane hijackings, rifles, and failed communist militant fantasies from the 1970s and the contemporary Islamist disasters from the present. Who benefits from repeatedly associating Palestinians with plane hijackings, AK‑47s, and washed‑up extremists? Why would a major Norwegian arts institution choose to elevate these images when countless Palestinian humanitarians, thinkers, and community leaders embody a far more compelling vision of dignity, freedom, and a future beyond blood merchants who have sold “armed resistance” as a path to liberation? Instead of recycling sick, dehumanizing symbols that reinforce the stereotype of Palestinians as terrorists, imagine highlighting the humanity of Palestinians in Gaza and beyond; their love of life, their desire for peace, opportunity, and relief from decades of failed “resistance” narratives that Western radicals and diaspora Arab and Palestinian voices refuse to let go of. Oslo is saturated with “pro‑Palestine” stickers, flyers, and signs. But if “solidarity” manifests as the glorification of terror and the reduction of Palestinians to violent caricatures, then this support does more harm than good. In that case, Norway’s sympathy is not solidarity at all; it is a disservice to the very people it claims to champion."
Yves Engler | Facebook - "Canada is facing a crisis of genocidal Jewish supremacy. Anyone who suggests there’s a crisis of antisemitism at this moment when Israel is trying to use that claim to change the narrative about its genocidal actions is enabling a racist lawless state. As Israel tortures Western activists and slaughters Lebanese in the hopes of scuttling the Iran ceasefire, genocidal Jewish supremacists are swinging their ideological stick wildly. And The Breach is berating leftists for not playing to those enabling Israel’s West Asia holocaust. In an unprecedented event, on Monday Mark Carney bemoaned the plight of a generally prosperous Canadian community. The prime minister’s racist message was on the front of Tuesday’s Globe and Mail, Toronto Star and National Post as well as in international media like Haaretz, Reuters and the New York Times (“Carney Says Canada Faces a ‘Crisis of Antisemitism’”, noted the NYT). After the initial reports, there was a slew of commentary such as “Conservatives slam Mark Carney’s speech on antisemitism” (Toronto Star), “Time for Carney to finally tackle the growing antisemitism in Canada” (Toronto Sun) and “The truth that Mark Carney avoided saying: Israel has become the International Jew” (Globe and Mail) As per usual, the National Post took the racist, imperial, frenzy even further. A banner atop Wednesday’s front page described “Canada’s Jew-Hate Crisis” with that edition of the paper devoting seven articles to the topic, including “It’s simple. Islamic extremism is behind all the Jew hate.” On X National Post columnist Tristin Hopper was honest about the politics underlying the frenzy, noting “If Mark Carney wasn’t a colossal pussy, he would say ‘there's no Gazan genocide, there’s never been a Gazan genocide, and the purveyors of this obvious lie are destroying this country, Canada, before our eyes.’” As the dominant media hyped the anti-Palestinian/Lebanese/Iranian hysteria, The Breach published “The left’s opposition to antisemitism must be unconditional”. Almost entirely focused on criticizing selfless internationalists, Jordy Cummings’ column about Carney’s speech and the Zionists manufactured ‘crisis’ ignored how the rabbi who introduced the prime minister’s speech described the audience as “lovers of Israel” and said, “when Canadian leaders publicly condemn Israel, Canadian Jews pay the price.” Nor was there anything in The Breach piece about Carney (racistly) declaring “When you come to Canada, you bring your faith, your tradition, your language, your story. You leave behind your wars and your animosities.” That statement was made standing next to the synagogue’s Israeli flag. Nor was there anything about Israeli diplomats interfering in Canadian affairs by hyping antisemitism. The ambassador recently claimed Canada was “one of the centres of antisemitism globally” (we are an importer and “centre” of the prejudice). Nor did Cumming mention this weekend’s Walk for Israel where tens of thousands of mostly Toronto Jews will march for genocide. Nor was there anything about the private Jewish schools promoting the Zionist death cult. Or the summer camps that will soon take over the indoctrination process. But Cummings explicitly exculpated Canadian Jewry. He noted, “It is true that many Canadian Jewish people—for reasons having far more to do with false consciousness, fear, and indoctrination than having a murderous racist sensibility—see Israel as core to their Jewish identity in spite of, not because of the continued attacks on Palestine, Lebanon, and Iran.” A highly educated community in which almost all the institutions actively promote a supremacist genocidal faraway state simply has “false consciousness”. I guess parents paying $25,000 a year to send their kids to a private Toronto high school organizing “IDF Days” are just “fearful”. And that those marching this weekend in support of a state that’s killed dozens of colonized people basically every single day for three years are just expressing their “Jewish identity” not “a murderous racist sensibility”. A professor at York University, Cummings has been slagging the left about antisemitism for at least a decade (While the latest bugaboo is some leftist retweeting Tucker Carlson on genocide, ‘respectable’ leftists have been berating the Palestine left on “antisemitism” for decades). While Cummings doesn’t define what he means by “unconditional” opposition to antisemitism, one can surmise his position. He takes a gratuitous shot at well-known Leftist CUPE local 3903 for not joining the “antisemitism” frenzy. When the NDP brass blocked me from running in the party leadership race on a comprehensive anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist platform, Cummings published “No Defense of Yves Engler, Con Artist and Antisemite”. His screed began with “Really, fuck that guy”. A decade or so ago Jordy posted something to Facebook that stuck with me. He wrote something to the effect of “any notion of Jewish power is antisemitic”. While it’s not uncommon to see someone make such an absurd statement, it stood out because Montreal’s main Jewish community centre, which regularly advertises events in the Montreal Gazette, is named the Cummings Centre. In other words, Jordy’s family name represents an important institution of Jewish power in the city. Since then, I’ve wondered if he was related to the namesake of the institution and, apparently, he is. A Google search of “Jordy Cummings family background” came back with: “He is the grandson of the prominent Montreal Jewish philanthropists Jack and Norma Cummings. His grandmother, Norma Reitman Cummings, was a daughter of the family behind the historic Canadian clothing retailer Reitmans.” The AI mode response linked to an article about his grandma’s death that noted Jordy’s relation to former Senator Marc Gold. A former chair of the Canada-Israel Committee and Jewish Federations United Israel Appeal, Gold was appointed by Carney on Monday to the new Ministerial Advisory Council on Rights, Equality and Inclusion. Jordy probably should have mentioned this apparent familial connection when writing about the new Equality Committee, but I understand why he wouldn’t draw attention to his family ties. Who would take seriously someone berating anti-genocide leftists as “antisemitic” who hasn’t even publicly criticized his family’s extensive funding of anti-Palestinian initiatives? The Breach should be embarrassed about publishing Jordy Cummings genocidal enabling hypocrisy."
Just when you thought the NDP couldn't sink any lower. He doesn't even bother to use the "Zionist" dog whistle here, but is honest that he's just anti-Semitic
Why are left wingers so threatened by human rights and fighting racism? Surely it cannot be because they are the real racists
