Rashid Khalidi

En 1899, Yusuf Diya al-Khalidi, alcalde de Jerusalén, alarmado por el llamamiento sionista a crear un hogar nacional judío en Palestina, escribió una carta dirigida a Theodor Herzl: el país tenía un pueblo indígena que no aceptaría fácilmente su propio desplazamiento. Advirtió de los peligros que se avecinaban y terminó su nota diciendo: «En nombre de Dios, que se deje a Palestina en paz». Así, Rashid Khalidi, tataranieto de al-Khalidi, comienza esta amplia historia, el primer relato general del conflicto contado desde una perspectiva palestina. Palestina: Cien años de colonialismo y resistencia pone en entredicho las interpretaciones habituales del conflicto. Khalidi traza cien años de guerra colonial contra los palestinos, librada primero por el movimiento sionista y luego por Israel, pero respaldada por Gran Bretaña y Estados Unidos, las grandes potencias de la época. Destaca los episodios clave de esta campaña colonial, desde la Declaración Balfour de 1917 hasta la destrucción de Palestina en 1948, desde la invasión israelí del Líbano en 1982 hasta el interminable e inútil proceso de paz. Original, autorizada y significativa, Palestina: Cien años de colonialismo y resistencia ofrece una nueva y esclarecedora visión de un conflicto que continúa hasta nuestros días.

Khalidi critically assesses the narratives that make up Palestinian history and identity and examines the ways in which the Palestinian national consciousness has come full circle.

This foundational text now features a new introduction by Rashid Khalidi reflecting on the significance of his work over the past decade and its relationship to the struggle for Palestinian nationhood. Khalidi also casts an eye to the future, noting the strength of Palestinian identity and social solidarity yet wondering whether current trends will lead to Palestinian statehood and independence.

'Riveting and original ... a work enriched by solid scholarship, vivid personal experience, and acute appreciation of the concerns and aspirations of the contending parties in this deeply unequal conflict ' Noam Chomsky The twentieth century for Palestine and the Palestinians has been a century of denial: denial of statehood, denial of nationhood and denial of history. The Hundred Years War on Palestine is Rashid Khalidi's powerful response. Drawing on his family archives, he reclaims the fundamental right of any people: to narrate their history on their own terms. Beginning in the final days of the Ottoman Empire, Khalidi reveals nascent Palestinian nationalism and the broad recognition by the early Zionists of the colonial nature of their project. These ideas and their echoes defend Nakba - the Palestinian term for the establishment of the state of Israel - the cession of the West Bank and Gaza to Jordan and Egypt, the Six Day War and the occupation. Moving through these critical moments, Khalidi interweaves the voices of journalists, poets and resistance leaders with his own accounts as a child of a UN official and a resident of Beirut during the 1982 seige. The result is a profoundly moving account of a hundred-year-long war of occupation, dispossession and colonialisation.

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.

UM DOS GRANDES LIVROS SOBRE A QUESTÃO ISRAELO-PALESTINIANA «Em nome de Deus, que a Palestina seja deixada em paz.» É desta forma que o presidente da câmara de Jerusalém termina a carta enviada em 1899 a Theodore Herzl, pai do movimento sionista, onde explicava que a Palestina tinha habitantes nativos e advertia para os perigos que se aproximavam. E é com este relato que Rashid Khalidi, o maior historiador do Médio Oriente nos Estados Unidos e sobrinho-neto do autor da dita carta, inicia a sua narrativa sobre os palestinianos e a guerra contra eles travada. Original, envolvente e marcante, Palestina – Uma Biografia cruza eventos históricos, materiais de arquivo nunca antes explorados e relatos de gerações, tratando de forma simultaneamente sóbria e emotiva os factos de um confronto trágico entre dois povos que reivindicam o mesmo território. Esta não é uma crónica de vitimização, uma tentativa de branquear os erros dos líderes palestinianos nem a negação da emergência de movimentos nacionalistas de ambos os lados. É, antes, uma nova e esclarecedora visão de um conflito com mais de um século, uma história de colonização e de resistência de um povo que não abdica de existir. Inclui prefácio exclusivo do autor para a edição portuguesa. «Uma obra fascinante e original, a primeira a explorar a guerra contra os palestinianos com base numa profunda imersão na sua luta…» Naom Chomsky

At a time when a lasting peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis seems virtually unattainable, understanding the roots of their conflict is an essential step in restoring hope to the region. In The Iron Cage, Rashid Khalidi, one of the most respected historians and political observers of the Middle East, homes in on Palestinian politics and history. The story of the Palestinian search to establish a state begins in the mandate period immediately following the breakup of the Ottoman Empire, the era of British control, when fledgling Arab states were established by the colonial powers with assurances of eventual independence. Mandatory Palestine was a place of real promise, with unusually high literacy rates among men and a relatively advanced economy. But the British had already begun to construct an iron cage to hem in the Palestinians and the Palestinian leadership made a series of errors including their overwhelming support of Hitler and the genocide of the Jews, that would eventually prove crippling to their dream of independence.