The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917–2017
A landmark history of one hundred years of war waged against the Palestinians from the foremost US historian of the Middle East, told through pivotal events and family history
In 1899, Yusuf Diya al-Khalidi, mayor of Jerusalem, alarmed by the Zionist call to create a Jewish national home in Palestine, wrote a letter aimed at Theodore Herzl: the country had an indigenous people who would not easily accept their own displacement. He warned of the perils ahead, ending his note, "in the name of God, let Palestine be left alone." Thus Rashid Khalidi, al-Khalidi's great-great-nephew, begins this sweeping history, the first general account of the conflict told from an explicitly Palestinian perspective. Drawing on a wealth of untapped archival materials and the reports of generations of family members--mayors, judges, scholars, diplomats, and journalists--The Hundred Years' War on Palestine upends accepted interpretations of the conflict, which tend, at best, to describe a tragic clash between two peoples with claims to the same territory. Instead, Khalidi traces a hundred years of colonial war on the Palestinians, waged first by the Zionist movement and then Israel, but backed by Britain and the United States, the great powers of the age. He highlights the key episodes in this colonial campaign, from the 1917 Balfour Declaration to the destruction of Palestine in 1948, from Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon to the endless and futile peace process. Original, authoritative, and important, The Hundred Years' War on Palestine is not a chronicle of victimization, nor does it whitewash the mistakes of Palestinian leaders or deny the emergence of national movements on both sides. In reevaluating the forces arrayed against the Palestinians, it offers an illuminating new view of a conflict that continues to this day.BUY THE BOOK
Community Reviews
With the events that are extremely relevant even until today, I felt the need to discover the truth. But even without finding out the truth, the humanitarian crisis happening in both Gaza and the West Bank are hard to ignore and tears at me. As a history student for a short few years, I always thought propaganda was a thing of the past. I've learnt so much from this book, and it's opened my eyes even more of how evil this world can be. Propaganda has served the Zionists and the USA so well, it makes me sick. I'm thankful for the world of social media now, where it allows the truth to come out, to awaken some. But even with social media, there is still censorship, and it's always the bigger powers who have the capability of doing that. It makes my blood boil. What an honour to be able to read about the war in Palestine through the lens of the Palestinians, free from propaganda. Was there biasness in this? I find that it's pretty balanced. The author did not only go through the efforts of writing and blaming the Zionists, Britain and USA for all that has happened, but also notably the Arab leaders, the PLO and the lack of unity within Palestine itself all those years ago. He also mentioned the suicide bombings that Hamas had done, which I didn't even know of because I was still a wee kid back then.
Food for thought: oppression will never lead to peace. Oppression started all of this. The slogan they used 'A land without people for a people without land' says as much, and it proves how they view the Palestinians. They cannot possibly expect people to accept being oppressed and not fight back. It's absolutely sickening.
Food for thought: oppression will never lead to peace. Oppression started all of this. The slogan they used 'A land without people for a people without land' says as much, and it proves how they view the Palestinians. They cannot possibly expect people to accept being oppressed and not fight back. It's absolutely sickening.
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