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Genre
Anthropology, Colonization, History, Politics, Biopolitics, Trauma, Whiteness Studies
Theme
The author describes the Zionist claim to Palestine in the century spanning 1917–2017 as late settler colonialism and an instrument of British and then later American imperialism, doing so by focusing on a series of six major episodes the author characterizes as "declarations of war" on the Palestinian people.
Gist
Khalidi—historian and Edward Said, Professor of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University—argue that the struggle in Palestine should be understood, not as one between two equal national movements fighting over the same land, but rather as "a colonial war waged against the indigenous population, by a variety of parties, to force them to relinquish their homeland to another people against their will."
In addition to the more traditional sources and methods employed by a historian, Khalidi draws on family archives, stories passed down through his family from generation to generation, and his own experiences, as an activist in various circles and as someone who has been involved in negotiations among Palestinian groups and with Israelis.
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