The Hundred Years' War on Palestine

A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917--2017

By: Rashid Khalidi

Narrated by: Fajer Al-Kaisi, Rashid Khalidi - introduction

This program includes an introduction read by the author.

A landmark history of 100 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.

Cover photograph © Amnon Bar Or--Tal Gazit Architects Ltd

©2020 Rashid Khalidi (P)2020 Macmillan Audio

critical history for all

crucial history not taught to the American public. we need to understand American interventionism and it's role in an unstable middle east

A concise history of the Conflict

An easy to understand summary of the region and the conflict. A very good book. 👍🏽

An Actual History from the Beginning

A sweeping history. Often difficult to follow the intricate factions, but well worth the effort to try.

Brilliant!

This work is an excellent account of the history of Israeli apartheid. It is great as an introductory text but also as a piece of historical scholarship.

Nice

Could have been longer. Could have been more pointed. But interesting history plus first hand account.