The Conversation: The Canadian Museum for Human Rights finally grapples with the Nakba

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Estimated Read Time:
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Al Nakba (Arabic for “the catastrophe”) refers to the massive dispossession of Palestinians that was created by the founding of the state of Israel in 1948.
Al Nakba (Arabic for “the catastrophe”) refers to the massive dispossession of Palestinians that was created by the founding of the state of Israel in 1948.
Estimated Read Time:
1 minute

As written in the Conversation Canada by Jonah Corne, associate professor, Faculty of Arts.

Even as it claims to champion the stories of global injustice, the Canadian Museum for Human Rights (CMHR) has struggled, if not refused, to meaningfully acknowledge Palestine for more than a decade.

Its newly announced exhibition to launch in the summer of 2026 — Palestine Uprooted: Nakba Past and Present — marks a significant reversal for an institution that has often been criticized for its silences.

The omission of Palestinian history dates all the way back to before the museum’s official opening in Winnipeg in 2014, when Palestinian-Canadian community advocate Rana Abdulla replied, fruitlessly, to the museum’s call for suggestions for content.

After years of continued advocacy from the Palestinian community in Winnipeg and across Canada — and in the midst of so much tragedy and what a UN commission of inquiry has called genocidal violence in Gaza — the announcement comes as a remarkable sliver of good news.

Read the full story in The Conversation