As it has each year, Casa Árabe is commemorating the most important date on the Palestinian calendar: May 15, 1948. Nakba means “catastrophe” or “disaster” in Arabic and is used to refer to the Palestinian exodus that coincided with the creation of the State of Israel. For Palestinians, whether they remain in their native land or form part of the diaspora, the date has become a day of remembrance with a national status.

After the conference, at 6:30 p.m. we will be holding a screening of the documentary Gaza, by Carles Bover and Julio Pérez (El Retorno Producciones. 2018. 18 min.), winner of the Goya Award for Best Short-Subject Documentary in 2019.

Event information sheet

Johnny Mansour (Haifa, 1960) is professor of Middle East History. He studied the history of Islam and the Middle East at the University of Haifa and completed his PhD at the University of Saint Petersburg in 1998, on the medieval Muslim and Christian manuscripts of the tenth century. His research revolves around four main fields: the history of Islam and the Middle East; Arab Christians in Palestine and the Middle East; the Arab-Israeli conflict, and Palestinian cities, with an emphasis on the city of Haifa. He has had several books and research reports published in his fields of interest. Over the next two years, he will be working on the topic of refugees in the Middle East: a research project which compares Palestinian refugees in 1948 and Syrian refugees during the current Syrian crisis, with a focus on the solidarity of local societies.