By Rashid Khalidi
Palestinian history and colonial resistance
Subject
Themes
Rashid Khalidi presents a century of Palestinian history through the framework of six pivotal "declarations of war" against the Palestinian people, beginning with the Balfour Declaration of 1917 and extending through the early 21st century. Through personal family archives, official documents, and extensive historical research, Khalidi demonstrates how the Palestinian experience represents a continuous colonial encounter in a postcolonial age.
Rashid Khalidi presents a century of Palestinian history through the framework of six pivotal "declarations of war" against the Palestinian people, beginning with the Balfour Declaration of 1917 and extending through the early 21st century. Through personal family archives, official documents, and…
Rashid Khalidi's work represents a significant intervention in contested historiography of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Published in 2020, the book arrives at a moment when the two-state solution appears increasingly unviable, Israeli settlement expansion has created facts on the ground that…
Khalidi's central argument positions the Palestinian experience as a unique historical anomaly: a settler-colonial project that began precisely when the colonial era was ending elsewhere. The Zionist movement, whilst responding to genuine persecution of Jews in Europe, imported a nineteenth-century…
A central paradox defines Palestinian history: despite facing overwhelming military, economic, and political power arrayed against them, Palestinians have persistently maintained their national identity and resistance. Khalidi argues that this tenacity represents one of the most remarkable phenomena…
Khalidi demonstrates that Palestinian dispossession could not have occurred without sustained backing from external imperial powers, first Britain and then the United States. This support has been crucial to enabling a colonial project to persist long after such endeavours became internationally…
The Nakba, or catastrophe, of 1948 represents the foundational trauma of modern Palestinian history. During Israel's establishment, over 750,000 Palestinians were expelled from or fled their homes, transforming a majority population into refugees and a dispersed diaspora. Khalidi argues that…
Khalidi provides a devastating critique of the various peace processes that have dominated international approaches to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since the 1970s. Rather than representing genuine attempts at just resolution, he argues, these processes have functioned to manage the conflict…
The first declaration of war against the Palestinian people came in the form of the Balfour Declaration of 2 November 1917, in which British Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour pledged support for establishing 'a national home for the Jewish people' in Palestine. This seemingly diplomatic…
The second declaration of war culminated in the Nakba of 1948, the catastrophic dispossession that transformed the Palestinian majority into a scattered refugee population. This was not an accidental consequence of conflict but rather the deliberate outcome of systematic planning to create a Jewish…
The third declaration of war came in June 1967, when Israel launched a devastating military offensive that resulted in its occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Golan Heights, and Sinai Peninsula. This war fundamentally transformed the conflict, placing the remaining 22% of historic Palestine…
The fourth declaration of war came in 1982 when Israel invaded Lebanon with the explicit goal of destroying Palestinian political infrastructure and eliminating the PLO as a political force. This war, which Ariel Sharon planned and executed with American acquiescence, culminated in the horrific…
The fifth declaration of war paradoxically took the form of a peace process. The Oslo Accords, celebrated internationally as breakthrough towards Palestinian statehood, actually institutionalised Israeli control whilst granting Palestinians only limited autonomy. This period saw the transformation…
The sixth declaration of war emerged from the collapse of the Oslo process and the eruption of the Second Intifada in 2000. This period witnessed intensified Israeli repression, accelerated settlement expansion, the construction of the separation barrier, and the siege of Gaza. It demonstrated that…
By Rashid Khalidi
Subject
Themes
Rashid Khalidi presents a century of Palestinian history through the framework of six pivotal "declarations of war" against the Palestinian people, beginning with the Balfour Declaration of 1917 and extending through the early 21st century. Through personal family archives, official documents, and extensive historical research, Khalidi demonstrates how the Palestinian experience represents a continuous colonial encounter in a postcolonial age.