In 1899, Yusuf Diya al Khalidi, the mayor of Jerusalem, wrote to the founding father of Zionism, Theodor Herzl, when he heard of his call to create a Jewish national home in Palestine. The response confirmed that the plans to colonize that land included the expulsion of the people who inhabited it. Today, after the deadliest start to the year for Palestinians in the West Bank in the last decade and a half, his great-great-grandnephew, Rashid Khalidi (New York, 1948) publishes Palestine, One Hundred Years of Colonialism and Resistance (Captain Swing, 2023). The holder of the Edward Said Chair of Arab Studies at Columbia University and adviser to the Palestinian delegation in the peace negotiations in Madrid and Washington between 1991 and 1993 warns of the danger that lies ahead if Europe and the US continue to give rein he loosens Israel while lamenting the failure of the Palestinian leadership.
You affirm that the United Kingdom and the United States have been the great supporters of Israel’s colonialism…
The idea that Israel is alone against the Palestinians or against the Arab countries is completely false. It always had the support of the greatest imperial power at the time, be it the British Empire before World War II, or the US after.
You describe the hundred years of “war” against Palestine through six episodes: from the Balfour Declaration (1917) to the Second Intifada (2000). Is it possible that another comparable event will occur in the near future?
We are probably living through another phase of the war against the Palestinians right now. The number of Palestinians killed in the occupied West Bank last year was the highest in more than 15 years. So far this year, there have been more than 50 people killed. 2023 is on track to be another very deadly year. And that is combined with the much harsher, more rigorous and draconian anti-Palestinian policy that this new government led by Benjamin Netanyahu has promised to implement. As a consequence, we are also now facing another phase of the Palestinian resistance.
How do you explain the escalation of violence at the beginning of the year?
In the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, Arabs have lived without law, under the boot of military occupation, since 1967, 56 years ago in June. Israeli soldiers are never punished if they kill Palestinians, who are always sentenced by military courts. It is an intolerable situation. It seems that the US and the West are saying that maintaining the status quo and stability should be our goal, but this means continuing violence and lawlessness against millions of Palestinians under occupation. The severity of the occupation and its brutality are growing. The impunity with which Israel acts is increasing. Nobody stops you. The situation is getting worse and nobody seems to recognize that we will probably have more problems in the future than we have today.
What can we expect from the most right-wing government in Israel’s history?
On his last visit to Palestine, the US Secretary of State (Antony Blinken) could not have been more effusive, kinder and more positive towards the most extremist government in Israel’s history, which denies the possibility of a Palestinian state. But none of his plans have provoked a serious response from the international community. Israel is a very powerful country, a nuclear power that terrorizes its neighbors: it has bombed eight Arab capitals in the last 50 years. But at the same time, it is completely dependent on external support and is very sensitive to outside criticism. The US ships $3.8 billion worth of weapons each year. And Europe is its biggest trading partner. It treats it like a normal country, but it is the longest military occupation in modern history. Israel exports goods from illegal settlements against which the EU does nothing.
Is it possible that we will see a new attempt to expel the Palestinians?
Israel was founded with the expulsion of some 750,000 people from the territory it had conquered in 1948. Most of the Arab population in those areas was expelled by Israeli forces. In the 1967 war, 100,000 people were also expelled. Since then, there has been a policy of making life so difficult for the Palestinians, of complicating their legal conditions and residence permits in such a way that their population decreases. This obsession with demography has been a Zionist concern since the beginning of modern political Zionism. You cannot create a Jewish state in a country with an Arab majority without reducing the Arab population and increasing the Jewish one. There is always the possibility of another expulsion possibly under the cover of war.
Why do you criticize Palestinian political factions?
A large part of the current stalemate is due to the failure of the Palestinian movement to unite, define a clear strategic objective and explain it to the world, including the Israelis. We have to put an end to today’s political movements: the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, led by Fatah, and Hamas, in Gaza. Neither has the will to act in the Palestinian national interest. Of course, outside forces do everything they can to keep them divided. And I don’t just mean Israel and the US, but also Iran, Turkey and each of the Gulf countries, which separately favor a faction and keep the Palestinians weakened. It is a problem that the Palestinians have faced throughout their modern history. The Palestinian Authority only cares about its own internal affairs and hardly engages in diplomacy. Something even more true with Hamas. Neither is really acting on behalf of the Palestinian cause. They just want to survive and maintain their power.
What way out is left for the Palestinians?
Colonization can create new nations, such as New Zealand, the US, Canada or Australia, where there are still indigenous populations, which in many cases have not fully achieved their rights. But the situation of the Palestinians is different; there are more Palestinians than Israeli Jews. This is not the case of the Native Americans or the populations of other countries where colonialism has involved genocide and the total destruction of the indigenous population. Hopefully, like the South Africans or the Irish, the Palestinians will overcome colonialism and learn to reconcile with the other people who live in the same country as them.
What is needed to open a new negotiation process?
First, a revitalized and unified Palestinian leadership, and a Palestinian national movement that has a vision of what it wants. Second, an adequate negotiation framework; Let it be clear that it is not a situation of equilibrium, but that there is an occupant, an aggressor, on the one hand, and the occupied population, on the other. The basic idea of ??the peace negotiations in Madrid and Washington in 1991, in which he participated as an adviser to the Palestinian delegation, was that you could bring the two parties together and simply leave them there, that they would reach an agreement. A reckless and absurd idea. Oslo created an even more oppressive structure for the Palestinians than they had before the Madrid negotiations. It did not bring peace to Palestine, it brought worse conditions, a more intense colonization and a much more rigorous and vicious military occupation. And third, a change is needed in Israel. Let him be made to understand that he cannot do what he does to the Palestinians and continue to get the current level of American and European support.
Israel has normalized relations with some Arab countries. Is Palestine more isolated than ever?
The Qatar Arab Center does a survey every year among a dozen Arab countries and each time it comes out that between 80% and 90% oppose normalization. Every year, the Arab people support the Palestinians. No, instead, their governments. You have Arab governments that have started to seal peace treaties with Israel, like Egypt and Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco, the Sudanese military junta. Let’s take a good look at those governments: none of them is democratic or represents their people. Some are absolute monarchies with police state regimes.
