Amnesty International Canada held a workshop "Working Together for Peace and Justice the Middle East" at their Annual General Meeting on June 13-15, 2008. This one-sided event featured speakers referring to Israeli independence as "Naqba, the Palestinian Holocaust." Jim Joyce, Amnesty Canada’s coordinator for Israel/PA, accused Israel of "arbitrarily" killing Palestinians and engaging in “collective punishment”, and demanded that Israel “lift immediately the arbitrary and disproportionate blockade” in Gaza.  Joyce criticizes those who “espouse balance” in Amnesty’s reporting, while his own statement ignores the thousands of Palestinian rocket attacks aimed at Israeli civilians and the widespread use of human shields by terrorists in Gaza.

On June 28, 2008, the Canadian-Palestinian Educational Exchange (CEPAL) sponsored a conference on "60 Years of Exile: The Palestinian Right of Return," commemorating ‘Naqba’ and demonstrating "solidarity with the Palestinian people." The conference promoted the "right of return" as the "antithesis of racism and ethnic cleansing".  Jim Joyce of Amnesty International also spoke at the CEPAL conference.