The war that Israel has been waging in Gaza since October 2023 is of tremendous historical significance. Gilbert Achcar, a professor of Development Studies and International Relations at SOAS (University of London), will be discussing how it has become a major turning point in Palestinian and Middle Eastern history, having an impact comparable to that of the Nakba ("Catastrophe," in Arabic) in 1948, which led to the entire region's destabilization . No Arab-Israeli "peace process" can be considered in any way plausible from here on, and nearby Europe will be directly affected.

However, according to Achcar, the Gaza war is also an important turning point in the history of international relations. The fact that it is occurring at the same time as the war in Ukraine has irreparably exposed the double standards in Western attitudes. By condoning a genocidal attack on a powerless population, with the United States even taking full part, Atlanticist liberalism has lost what little credibility it still retained, thus invalidating the attempt to give the New Cold War an ideological dimension.

MADRID
Organized with the cooperation of the Master's degree in Contemporary Studies on the Arab World and Muslim Communities: Social Mediation and Conflict Management (UCM) and the Bachelor's degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (UAM). Representing both programs, Johanna M. Lems will be participating in the conference. She is a professor of Arab and Islamic Studies at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid and will be introducing the speaker and the session, along with Ángel Rodríguez García-Brazales, a professor of Economic Analysis and coordinator of the UAM bachelor's degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics, who will be providing an initial reaction/commentary after the conferences, before opening up a debate with students and the public, to be moderated by Olivia Orozco, Casa Árabe's Training and Economics Coordinator.

You can watch the session live on our YouTube channel (in Spanish only).

CORDOBA
Organized with the cooperation of the Bachelor's degree program in International Relations at Loyola University Andalucía. Representing that program, the speaker and session will be introduced by María Ángeles Alaminos Hervás, a professor of International Relations at that university. Moderating the session will be Javier Rosón, Casa Árabe's Coordinator in Cordoba.

Gilbert Achcar
Gilbert Achcar grew up in Lebanon and has worked as a researcher and professor in Beirut, Paris and Berlin. Since 2007, he has been a professor of Development Studies and International Relations at SOAS (School of Oriental and Asian Studies), at the University of London. He has authored many articles and books, including: The People Want: A Radical Exploration of the Arab Uprising (Saqi Books, 2013); and Morbid Symptoms: Relapse in the Arab Uprising (Stanford University Press, 2016). In Spanish, he has had published: El choque de Barbaries; Estados peligrosos: Oriente Medio y la política exterior estadounidense (Clash of the Barbarians; Dangerous States: The Middle East and American foreign policy), with Noam Chomsky; Los árabes y el Holocausto: La guerra de narrativas árabe-israelí (The Arabs and the Holocaust: The Arab-Israeli war of narratives); Marxismo, Orientalismo, Cosmopolitismo (Marxism, Orientalism, Cosmopolitanism); and in 2021, El pueblo quiere (The People Want, published by the Universidad Veracruzana in Mexico, at press).