In cooperation with the French Cultural Center in Jerusalem, the Public Relations Department organized a performance by Al-Hakawati Theatre of the well-known play by Mahmoud Darwish Memory for Forgetfulness in the Turki Bin Abdul Aziz Theater in the new campus. Hundreds of people in the audience enjoyed the performance of François Abu Salem, one of two members of Al-Hakawati Theatre who founded it in the 1970s.
The play is set in the romantic age of the Palestinian revolution and its resistance against the Israeli invasion of Beirut in 1982. Israel's 2006 war against Lebanon bears strong reminiscences of the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon to expel the PLO out of the country. The play touches upon the human essence of every citizen who lived through that era. It is a disturbing and beautifully written account of the invasion – specifically of August 6th, when land, sea, and air bombardment was at its most intense. It is not a memoir in the ordinary sense, written with the leisurely distance of time, but the embodiment of an agony in which time itself is the subject of meditation.
Memory for Forgetfulness is one of Mahmoud Darwish's more notable works. The piece is a prose poem which deals exclusively with "Hiroshima Day" during the Lebanese Civil War. Darwish uses symbolism of birth, death, coffee, and doves to discuss the fear of existence during the Civil War. In addition, the poem extensively uses the same symbols to discuss Darwish's perception of the Palestinian's loss of their homeland. It is widely regarded as a deeply beautiful and delicate work.
At the end of the play, the University Administration, represented by the Vice President for Administrative Affairs, Dr. Muhammad Hannoun and Director of the Public Relations Department, Dr. Nabil Alawi, presented François Abu Salem the University Plaque for his contribution to Palestinian and Arab culture.