In 1899, Yusuf Diya al Khalidi, the mayor of Jerusalem, wrote to the founding father of Zionism, Theodor Herzl, after learning 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 start of the deadliest 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). The Edward Said Professor of Arabic Studies at Columbia University and adviser to the Palestinian delegation at the Madrid peace negotiations in 1991 warns of the danger that lies ahead if Europe and the US continue to unleash Israel on 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.
It describes a century of "war" against Palestine in six episodes: from the Balfour declaration (1917) to the second intifada (2000). Can there be another comparable event?
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 more severe, rigorous and draconian anti-Palestinian policy that this new government of Benjamin Netanyahu has promised to implement. As a consequence, we are facing another phase of the Palestinian resistance.
How do you explain the escalation of violence at the beginning of the year?
The West Bank and East Jerusalem, occupied Arab territories, have lived without law, under the boot of military occupation, since 1967. Israeli soldiers are never punished if they kill Palestinians, who are always sentenced by military courts. It's intolerable. 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 the history of Israel?
On his last visit to Palestine, US Secretary Antony Blinken could not have been more effusive, friendly and 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 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 very difficult for the Palestinians, of complicating their legal conditions and residence permits in such a way that the population decreases. This obsession with demographics has been characteristic of modern political Zionism since its inception. 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.
