True Talk 3/7/2020: An Interview with Rashid Khalidi by Samar Dahmash Jarrah

Samar talks with Rashid Khalidi who is a Palestinian American historian of the Middle East, the Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University, and director of the Middle East Institute of Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs.. Today we’re talking to him about his book ‘The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917–2017’

Samar starts off by asking why he wrote this book to begin with. This book is different than the academic books he wrote before. It was time to write something that was accessible to those who aren't academics. In the book he also summarizes the 6 wars that were launched on Palestine from 1917 to 2017. The purpose of the book is to change the perception of the Palestinian- Israeli issue. It shows that this is not a struggle between two people it is a struggle to implant a new group mainly Europeans to supplant the indigenous population.

Samar then talks about the jumping board of the book which is that the Zionist movement constantly needed the support of superpowers to succeed with their colonization and wouldn’t have been able to do it without their support. This was realized from the very beginning where at first got the support of France, Germany and the ottoman empire, later Great Britain with the Belfour agreement, and then the USA and Soviet Union.

Samar then asks Khalidi about the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people during the British rule and later on during the creation of the state of Israel. When the Palestinians revolted against British rule in 1936 100,000 British troops were assigned in Palestine and wiped out 1/10 of the male Palestinian population which crushed the resistance by 1939. Israel continued this ethnic cleansing ultimately forcing the majority of the 1.3 million Arabs to leave their home country and weren't allowed to re-enter the country.

Khalidi then goes on to talk about the transition from Britain to the US as a superpower. Before the second world war Britain starts withdrawing from the region to focus on the war with Germany and issued the White Paper which limited Jewish immigration among other things. This triggered the Zionist movement leadership to start looking for new supporters or sponsors and the United States and the Soviet Union replaced the British. Khalidi then talks about Resolution 242 and states that even though the international community believe that the Palestinians should have accepted the resolution Khalidi believes that it is in fact a sanction and an eraser of the Palestinians.

Khalidi moves onto the Oslo accord and Trump’s ‘Deal of the Century’. The concessions of 1978 in Camp David had already decided the fate of the Palestinian people. It showed that the Israeli occupation is legitimate, the Palestinians had no control over water, airspace, land etc. therefore the Oslo accord did not push the Palestianian cause forward. He moves on to talk about how the ‘Deal of the Century’ is a joint declaration of war by US and Israel. It signifies a formal public approval by the American people and allows the Israelis to maximize their objectives.

Finally, Samar asks Khalidi if he thinks the Palestinians have lost hope and if the resistance will continue. The Israeli colonial movement is not linked to a mother country, different from British colonial rule for example. It is also unlike the US, Australian, New Zealand and Canadian colonies where the original indigenous population became overwhelmed with a new population. The Palestinians are still there and constitute a large portion of the population, therefore the resistance still continues.