Letter from Bill Narvey, Winnipeg, to Rev. Don James, National Director of Bridges for Peace Canada, Isha Khan, CEO, Canadian Museum of Human Rights, and MP Marc Miller

Dear Reverend Don James, Ms. Isha Khan and Minister Marc Miller;

Re:   A Travesty of pro-Palestinian Misinformation and Bigoted anti-Israel Lies CMHR Plans to Unveil in Its Upcoming June Exhibit  Palestine Uprooted: Nakba Past and Present | CMHR

I begin by forwarding herewith, Rev. Don James’ video statement to CMHR sent to you and all others noted in the CC. line yesterday, April 26th, 2026.  I do so  because I wholeheartedly concur with Rev. James’ video statement to CMHR regarding its Nakba exhibit planned to open this coming June.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g01MGoBjWOg

I am also Bcc’g many within our national Canadian Jewish community and friends of our Jewish community who share the same very serious concerns and objections to CMHR’s Nakba exhibit as was conveyed  to CMHR by the Jewish Heritage Centre of Western Canada, Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs – CIJA and B’nai Brith Canada in November 2025 shortly after CMHR announced its intention to open the Palestine Uprooted Nakba exhibit in June 2026.

Rev. James’ truth video message to you Ms. Khan, your CMHR executive and to Marc Miller MP, Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture, whose role includes overseeing CMHR and thus CMHR’s new Palestine Uprooted: Nakba Past and Present exhibit scheduled to open this coming June, is that this Palestine Uprooted Nakba story exhibit will be based not on truth, history, facts and realities, but rather on what Palestinians for the past 78 years have come to believe, that Israel is to solely to blame for their plight.  The truth however, is that only they, not Israel are responsible for their plight, a truth they refuse to admit.

That your Nakba exhibit is not historical, but based on self serving stories that Palestinians tell themselves and believe, can be ascertained from descriptive and explanatory statements within the Nakba exhibit website Palestine Uprooted: Nakba Past and Present | CMHR and by what Rev. James' concludes from the advice of CMHR’s Amanda Gaudes’ statements to the Winnipeg Jewish Review that this Nakba exhibit is not intended to be historical.

Both sources of such information leads one to conclude that this exhibit will be based not on history and reality, but rather on the lived hate-filled anti-Israel-anti-Zionist-antisemitic lies Canadian Palestinians and Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) have been indoctrinated with by their leaders, which lies they have been telling themselves from cradle to grave since 1948.

That assessment is reinforced by what has since become known of the roles played by consulting anti-Israel activist individuals and organizations to CMHR in the development of this Nakba exhibit.  Terry Newman of the Winnipeg Sun in his article of March 10th, 2026 reports and identifies a number of these consultants: PressReader.com | Nakba Exhibit Con­sult­ants Are Anti-israel Act­iv­ists

Ms. Khan and Minster Miller, we Jews have known of steadily rising antisemitism in Canada for a great many years.  As a religious based hatred, our crime statistics have shown antisemitism to be vastly greater each year than discrimination/bigotry against other religious groups.

The IHRA definition of antisemitism that Canada joined 34 nations to adopt as a non-legally binding definition of antisemitism includes anti-Israelism-anti-Zionism that is premised on demonizing and/or delegitimizing Israel and Zionism and in so doing, applying  what is known as a double standard in judging Israel’s actions – ie. a standard of conduct applied to no other nation.

Things took a dramatic turn for the worse for us Jews soon after October 7th, 2023.

Since October 7th, 2023 Canadians have witnessed, and a great many have experienced first hand, the skyrocketing pro-Hamas/Palestinian-anti-Israelism-anti-Zionism-Antisemitism carried out on campuses, public places and streets of major Canadian cities by hordes of loud and aggressive Palestinian/Muslim and left wing antisemitic bigots.  They do so by holding signs and screaming slogans/messages that echo Hamas and 'West Bank Palestinians’ false propagandized revisionist historical claims and false accusations and outright lies against Israel, that inferentially means Jews.

The fact that such hatred incited some to assault a number of  individual Jews, to try to vandalize synagogues, to disrupt synagogue attendees, and to assault/damage Jewish businesses added greatly to Canadian Jews, young and old, feeling ever more intimidated, fearful and insecure.

I note that Rev. James included in his CC recipients, Itamar Marcus who has long operated Palestine Media Watch  Palestinian Media Watch | Home .  Marcus has for years documented countless variations of Palestinian self serving false historical revisions and the Palestinian self serving false propaganda accusations and lies against Israel, Zionists and Jews, all intended to blame Israel, Zionists and Jews for their plight, but which plight is in reality on them alone.

Marcus also has documented the history of how Arab and  Palestinian leaders have steadily for many decades indoctrinated their people in Jew-Israel hatred and the history of how their statements were designed to incite Palestinians to commit murderous terrorism against innocent Israelis time and again over decades.

The fact is that our federal, provincial and city councils and Police departments since October 7th have been tolerating the Jew-Israel hatred spread by those anti-Israel-anti-Zionist-Antisemitic hordes.  That tolerance was expressed by their doing little to nothing to denounce the hording bigots, to protect our Jewish community from these Jew-Israel haters and to hold these lying propaganda bigots to account.  That has further added to the fear and insecurity that our Jewish communities continue to experience to this day.

I concur with Reverend James that from all that we know, your Palestinian Uprooted Nakba exhibit, if you proceed to open it as you plan in June 2026, will be giving credence to Palestinian self serving false historical revisionism and false Palestinian anti-Israel-anti-Zionist propaganda that falsely portrays Palestinians as victims of Israel when in fact whatever Palestinians have suffered over the years, is not on Israel and Jews, but only on them.

One such common slogan by the hordes of Palestinian/Muslim and left wing antisemitic bigots aforesaid is ‘from the river to the sea, Palestine must be free’ which refers to all the land of Israel.  It is that same genocidal  objective of the five Arab armies that attacked Israel on May 15, 1948 to take all Israel’s land for themselves and eradicate the Jews, a goal then lost, but apparently that goal is still alive in the minds of a great many Palestinians. Again Palestine Media Watch has been reporting on that for years..

One further point in this regard concerns the slogans of  these bigoted Palestinians/left wing pro-Palestinian-anti-Israel hordes calling for Palestinians to have their own independent state.  Israel within the context of making the two state solution happen, made a number of offers to enable Palestinians to have their own independent nation.  Former Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, and later the current Palestinian Authority leader Mahmood Abbas, summarily rejected Israel’s offers.

Why? Obviously because the Palestinians to this day dream of ultimately becoming powerful enough to destroy Israel, eradicate the Israeli Jews, and take the land for themselves, just as was the goal of the 5 Arab armies that attacked Israel on May 15, 1948, the day after Israel declared herself an independent Jewish state.

The defeated Arab nations that attacked Israel on May 15, 1948 were responsible for the very large majority of Palestinians leaving their homes.  This is stated by Rev. James in his noting those Arab nations refused to take in and grant citizenship to that very large majority of Palestinians that voluntarily left their homes at the request of the attacking Arab nations.  On losing that 1948 war, those Arab nations refused to take the Palestinians into their own nations to give them refuge and citizenship.  The already politically minded pro-Arab-anti-Israel UN, in response to the Arab nations refusing to help the Palestinians,  established UNRWA to support and presumabley to provide refugee settlement homes in various areas for the Palestinians until such time as the UN hoped, Israel could be forced to absorb all the Arabs who chose to leave. No settlement was actually priorized and to this day, the Arabs who left Israel are the only fake refugees, having been kept in limboland as foil by their neighbors, to be used against Israel.

Ms. Khan and Minister Marc Miller, we Canadian Jews are a very small minority in Canada, about 1% or less of the Canadian population.  As a minority Canadian community, we Jews are entitled to the same level of protection from bigotry and discrimination that Canada provides to other Canadian minorities.  We have not been getting the same level of protection that other Canadian minorities get, protection from verbal or other attacks against them.

Based on the foregoing, if our national CMHR still insists on going forward with this Palestine Uprooted: Nakba Past and Present exhibit to enable Canadian Palestinians to tell Canadians of their self serving dishonest stories, their historical revisionisms,  false accusations, and outright lies against Israel, by falsely blaming Israel for their plight, it will be yet another slap in the face to all of us Canadian Jews, this time by our national CMHR museum and the government that funds it.

I therefore am joining Rev. Don James Canadian National Director of Bridges for Peace in appealing to you to reconsider and cancel the opening of your planned Palestine Uprooted: Nakba Past and Present exhibit now and forever.

Sincerely,

Bill Narvey