This audio conversation features Mansour Nasasra, whose research revisits Jerusalem between 1948, when Israel was established, and the 1967 War. His work focuses on what came to be known in this period as Arab Jerusalem under Jordanian rule, a period often described in scholarship as politically stagnant or historically marginal. Through sustained research, he challenges that framing and instead presents a city that was socially active, regionally connected, and institutionally dynamic.
At the center of this discussion is Jerusalem Airport (commonly referred to as Qalandiya Airport), which Nasasra examines not simply as infrastructure but as a defining element of the city’s post-1948 fabric. The airport functioned as a regional gateway, linking Jerusalem to Arab capitals and international destinations, facilitating education, commerce, tourism, and diplomatic exchange. In his interpretation, the airport became both a material and symbolic anchor of a metropolitan Jerusalem that continued to evolve despite the city’s division.
The research behind this interview is grounded in a multilayered methodology developed over several years. Nasasra combines extensive oral history interviews with archival investigation across multiple sites. He conducted interviews with Palestinians and Jordanians who lived in Jerusalem during the period, as well as displaced Jerusalemites who resettled in Amman after 1948 and 1967. Former students who used the airport to pursue higher education abroad, along with diplomatic and regional officials who were connected to the city, also formed part of the oral record.
These testimonies are cross-referenced with Palestinian family archives, preserved school records, municipal documents, period newsletters, and diplomatic correspondence housed in overseas repositories. By reading personal narratives alongside administrative and diplomatic documentation, the research reconstructs a textured portrait of Jerusalem’s political life, urban development, and regional networks during the nearly two decades before 1967.
This interview invites listeners to reconsider a period often overshadowed by rupture. Rather than a dormant, marginalized piece of a city awaiting Israeli occupation, Jerusalem emerges here as a place in transition—actively rebuilding, reorganizing, and asserting its place within a wider Arab geography, until the closure of the airport and the events of the 1967 War fundamentally altered that trajectory. It is a story that has lain dormant and untold until now, but Nasasra is working to change that.
In this audio interview, Jerusalem Story’s Amina Abdulhaq speaks with Nasasra about Arab Jerusalem (1948–67), exploring how the Jerusalem Airport functioned as a regional gateway that shaped the city’s political, economic, and urban life before 1967.
Mansour Nasasra is a senior lecturer in the department of politics and government at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.
For more, see Mansour Nasasra, “Materializing an ‘Arab Jerusalem’: Narrating the Jerusalem Airport 1948–1967,” Space and Polity 28, no. 3 (2024): 338–71.
To learn more about the airport, see the video Five Minutes from Home.