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TORONTO — A downtown Toronto church has cancelled a youth scholarship event hosted by a Palestinian group that was condemned as “the open glorification of terrorists and murderers.”

The Ghassan Kanafani Resistance Arts Scholarship launch party was cancelled after complaints from members of the Jewish community and a decision by the directors of Trinity-St. Paul’s United Church that the event was “inconsistent with church policy.”

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Originally scheduled for July 13, the launch party was to feature spoken word, music and food “to celebrate the artistic and cultural contributions of Palestinians in the diaspora,” organizers said in promotional material, and showcase winners of an annual scholarship contest. Written works from the scholarship contest were published in an online anthology entitled We Feel a Country in Our Bones.

The event was organized by the Toronto chapter of the Palestinian Youth Movement, which describes itself as “a transnational, independent, grassroots movement of young Palestinians in Palestine and exiled worldwide as a result of the on-going Zionist colonization and occupation of our homeland.”