Human rights museum board member resigns over ‘one-sided’ exhibit on displaced Palestinians
2026/06/24 2 Comments
Of note. One sided is, of course, partially in the mind of the beholder but this is a hard issue to navigate but one that merits attention:
A trustee for the Canadian Museum for Human Rights says he has resigned from the Winnipeg facility’s board over an upcoming exhibit about displaced Palestinians.
Mark Berlin submitted his resignation in a letter to federal Heritage Minister Marc Miller and the museum’s board chair. In it, Berlin accuses the museum of putting forth “ideology” instead of an accurate history.
“Telling the story with a one-sided perspective chosen by the museum serves to deepen division and contributes to further hostility toward Jews in Canada,” Berlin wrote in his letter, shared with media outlets.
“Presenting the Palestinian displacement of 1948 without its proper historical and political context offers a narrow, one-sided argument of history that can only deepen the distrust and animosity that currently exists between Jews and Muslims in this country.”
Berlin, a professor at McGill University’s international development institute with a background in human rights law, argued the exhibit fails to explain that Arab states fought those who ultimately established the State of Israel in 1948 and then expelled Jews to Israel.
The exhibit, set to open Saturday, focuses on people affected by the forced displacement of about 750,000 Palestinians during the 1948 Palestine war — an event known as the Nakba, Arabic for catastrophe.
Source: Human rights museum board member resigns over ‘one-sided’ exhibit on displaced Palestinians
About Andrew
Multicultural Meanderings 
I am not one of those Jews who believes that the very use of the word Nakba implies insuperable bias. One people’s triumph is another people’s tragedy.
History is path dependent. Choices matter. It may be possible to create a two-sided exhibit about the Nakba, but it requires a lot of compromise and the majority of the people on “both sides” would hate the exhibit.
We’re on the same page. On the two-sided question, would be really hard to develop and you’re right that the majority on both sides would hate the exhibit. Arguably, if both sides hate it, that might be the sweet spot!