Anti-Racism Program of the CJPME Foundation (ARPCF) Welcomes Report on ‘Palestine Exception’, Calls for Systemic Reform

As concluded by report authors from the Islamophobia Research Hub, this suppression has created a dangerous "Palestine exception" to democratic rights where advocacy for Palestinian rights is stigmatized as illegitimate or terroristic. In this way, Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism have converged to silence and vilify Muslim, Palestinian, Arab, and allied communities through incidents of censorship, doxing, bullying, disciplinary actions against students and educators, and biased media silencing. These patterns reveal a climate of repression rooted in institutional biases and power imbalances.

The ARPCF underscores that Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism are structural phenomena, not isolated incidents. The documented cases—from youth facing retaliation in schools to journalists censored in newsrooms—are symptoms of entrenched institutional discrimination. Anti-Palestinian racism is uniquely tied to histories of colonization and apartheid, manifesting when Palestinians are "silenced and slandered" for advocating their rights in Canada. “Effective anti-racism must confront these systemic roots and historical forces, rejecting superficial reactions in favour of addressing underlying power structures and settler-colonial narratives that sustain oppression,” said Jamila Ewais, lead researcher of the ARPCF.

The ARPCF demands that all levels of government—federal, provincial, and municipal—urgently integrate anti-Palestinian racism into their official anti-racism strategies and definitions. While recent acknowledgements, such as the federal Islamophobia guide, are a welcome step forward, they are insufficient without formal and consistent recognition of anti-Palestinian racism as a distinct and systemic harm. The ARPCF insists that this form of racism be explicitly defined, with its structural dynamics clearly outlined in all relevant anti-racism frameworks. This inclusion is critical to closing gaps in existing policies and to ensuring the protection of Palestinian, Arab, Muslim, and allied communities who face increasing hostility and marginalization. The ARPCF joins civil society in demanding that authorities stop treating anti-Palestinian racism as peripheral, and instead confront it as a core issue of systemic injustice.

Finally, the ARPCF calls for a shift from reactive responses to sustained structural transformation. This must include robust enforcement of Charter-protected freedoms of expression and conscience, the defense of academic freedom, and the creation of strong accountability mechanisms to respond to hate crimes, surveillance, workplace reprisals, and institutional censorship disproportionately targeting Palestinians and their allies. Crucially, the ARPCF emphasizes that combating Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism demands more than representational inclusion—it requires dismantling the underlying systems of political repression, settler-colonial ideology, and racial hierarchy that normalize these injustices. As a matter of human rights and democratic integrity, the Canadian state must transition from denial and complicity to principled, equity-driven action that affirms the dignity, safety, and rights of all communities.