Ma'na an-Nakba

Ma'na al-Nakba (Arabic: معنى النكبة), transl. The Meaning of the Catastrophe, is an anti-Zionist and pan-Arabic book by Constantin Zureiq published by Dar al-Ilm lil-Malayeen in Beirut in 1948. The book defines the conceptual parameters of the Arab tragedy, which Zureiq terms al-Nakba, to describe the Arab defeat of the War of 1948. It was the first of many works by Arab intellectuals to analyse the reasons behind the Nakba. Many have claimed that the book took great courage to write, as intellectual freedom was challenging at the time.