The American historian of Palestinian origin Rashid Khalidi, who specializes in the Middle East, brings the history of his people to DNA. His grandfather was mayor of Jerusalem, and his father, a diplomat at the UN. He was born in New York in 1948, when Israel proclaimed its creation and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were expelled from their lands. The holder of the Edward Said Chair in Arab Studies at Columbia University and Palestinian advisor to the Madrid peace negotiations in 1991, he recently published Palestine, cien años de colonialismo y resistencia (Capitán Swing). Khalidi, who has part of his family in Gaza, claims that the attack by Hamas has meant a paradigm shift for an "arrogant" Israel.
It's about genocide. Is that a good term?
It is a legal concept. I think there are experts in international law who think what Israel is doing against civilians in Gaza fits the term. I believe that the death of over 10,000 people is a horrific war crime that may well rise to the level of genocide.
Do Hamas attacks end the Israeli idea that it could control the Palestinian problem?
For a long time, Netanyahu argued that no political initiatives or concessions to any Palestinian demands were necessary. That dividing the Palestinians and treating Hamas as a partner in Gaza would be enough and Israel could continue to improve its relations with Arab countries and ignore the problem. This theory has collapsed.
Netanyahu even refused to meet with members of the intelligence before the attack.
Netanyahu thought his analysis was superior to that of the military and intelligence services. But they too made mistakes. The attack caught the military forces around Gaza completely off guard. Several bases were invaded.
The Israeli Defense Minister referred to the Palestinians as “human animals”. What is the purpose of this language?
It is a racist and supremacist attitude that may have been caused by the high number of victims in Israel, but it has deep roots. Many Israelis had assumed, like the leaders, that the conflict was contained, that Israel could do as it pleased. The expression mowing the lawn that the Israeli army uses to refer to the periodic attacks against Gaza to contain the conflict comes from the same kind of arrogance and racism.
Besides revenge, what is Israel's strategic goal? Is it possible to eliminate Hamas?
Hamas has a military wing that Israel may or may not defeat. But it is a political movement not only in Gaza. They are supported by millions of people. Destroying Hamas as an ideology, as a social, cultural, religious movement... is impossible without genocide. This Israeli operation in response to the Hamas attack lacks strategic clarity. The military are frustrated because they have not been told what the objectives are. How is Hamas defeated? What can be done to control the streak? What will happen the day after the war? They have no answers.
Could the conflict expand to the West Bank or the entire region?
Neither Hezbollah nor Iran seem to have any intention of escalating the conflict. There are clashes on the border with Lebanon and there have been some missiles fired from Yemen or Syria, but if it stays at this level, it will not lead to an escalation. Now, there can be unexpected calculation errors. In the West Bank, around 120 Palestinians have died since October 7. There are Israeli operations throughout the territory. Bombings, raids, thousands of arrests and numerous attacks by armed settlers in isolated villages with the intention of removing them from their lands. This could go further and is the intention of the dominant factions in the Israeli Government, dominated by the extreme right, neo-fascist and supremacist determined to absorb the West Bank.
With the paralysis of Fatah and Hamas as pariahs, does he see a new Palestinian leadership as possible?
One of the most important problems that the Palestinian national movement has had since the creation of Hamas has been division, which Israel has worked on incessantly. The Palestinian leadership has fallen into this trap and is helping Israel achieve its goal of keeping the Palestinians divided and weak. It is a problem that the Palestinians must solve and that external actors have exacerbated. But if the Palestinian leaders are so stupid as not to understand that they are playing the Israeli game there is no way to solve this.
After years of rapprochement, the attitude of the Arab leaders seems to have changed. Has Israel gone too far this time?
Those who said that the Arabs no longer care about the Palestinians can shut their mouths. The tendency between the dictatorial and kleptocratic elites had been that of a rapprochement, but this did not represent public opinion. For the first time in a long time, public outrage has led these governments to fear the reaction of their peoples. Bahrain has severed relations, Jordan has expelled the Israeli ambassador... Each Arab country in its own way has distanced itself from Israel.
