The issue of the Palestinian architectural renaissance in the west side of Jerusalem new city (the area defined by the 1949 Israeli-Jordanian Armistice Agreement) is a phenomenon that existed and was documented in other Palestinian cities such as Jaffa, Haifa, Safad and others.
Before the Nakba, they were flourishing and populated with valuable and advanced Arab architectural houses and dwellings, which attracted many admirers from other Middle Eastern states such as Beirut, Damascus, Amman and others.
This book presents: first, a review of the various significant periods in which meaningful geographic, demographic, and architectural changes occurred; second, the impact of western colonialism and Zionism; and third, the fate of these Palestinian cities after the Nakba, particularly the looting by Israelis and their occupation by Jewish immigrants, the Israeli army and its officials, whereby the expelled owners and landlords of these houses and properties thereafter become refugees.
At this book launch event, the author Adnan Abdelrazak was in conversation with Raja Khalidi.
Adnan Abdelrazak has published many books and articles on the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Jerusalem, Jerusalem refugees, occupied Jerusalem, the Jewish quarter in the Old City.
Raja Khalidi is the author of many works on the Palestinian economy and an administrator of the Khalidi Library in Jerusalem.
This was a joint event between the Kenyon Institute, the Educational Bookshop, Dar al-Tifl al-Arabi, and the Khalidi Library; and it took place on 9 May 2018 at Dar Isaaf Nashashibi in East Jerusalem.