[MUSIC PLAYING]
RASHID KHALIDI: In this age, for
you to come together like this
is an act of courage, and
I applaud you for that.
Soon, we may not be doing
these big things anymore.
We'll be seeing each other on
screens for a little while,
so enjoy being together
while we're together.
I'm not going to talk a
great deal about the book.
What we've agreed to do
is to have a dialogue,
where Beshara will ask me
questions about the book
and I'll do my best
to answer them.
So I'll just say a few
things in introduction.
The first is that this
is a very different book
from the other seven
books that I wrote.
Every other book that I
wrote is a standard work
of history written in the
third person, rigorously based
on archival sources, and trying
to meet the highest standards
of the historical profession.
Whether I achieved that
or not is another matter.
There is no first
person in any of those.
This book is
completely different.
It was urged upon
me most insistently
by my son, who can be a very
insistent fellow, that it was
about time to stop writing
for fellow academics,
and it was about time to stop
writing scholarly boring books,
and it was about time to
use some of that knowledge
in a way that was approachable
and that people would actually
be able to want to read.
And in addition, he
and another relative
kept pushing me to include
in the history, things
that I know had happened,
or that I had witnessed,
or that I had been involved in,
and to go in a different way
into family archives
and personal materials
that I had access to.
I had written a book,
Palestinian Identity,
based on the papers
of several families
in Jerusalem that I had
privileged access to--
the [INAUDIBLE] family, the
[INAUDIBLE] family, my family,
and a couple of others.
So I had used family
archives before,
but I had used them in a
rigorous historical fashion,
excluding myself
from the narrative.
This book uses one of the
sets of private papers
that I have used before, but
in a completely different
As Beshara says,
I start the book
by talking about use of the
[INAUDIBLE] as a person,
and talk about his
correspondence with Herzl.
And then I take it in
a different direction,
and I do that in every single
one of the six chapters.
I try and either start
with a personal anecdote
or I actually describe
things that were told
to me in one case by my father.
Actually, in one
case by my father
and another case
by someone else.
So this is a completely
different book
and it was a very hard
book for me to write.
Ever since I was an
undergraduate back
in the 1960s, I graduated
from Yale in 1970,
I have been trained to
write in a certain way.
I had to untrain
myself to do this.
Beshara told me, and
I know he's right,
that this is a growing trend
in the writing of history,
inserting yourself
into the narrative.
So this is not--
I'm not by any means
a pioneer in this.
But I think that in spite of
the sort of privileged position
that I had, the
privileged position
of my family, the fact
that we were by no means
representative of
ordinary Palestinians,
using family archives,
using personal memories,
using what my cousins and aunts
and uncles told me provides
a window into the
history that you're not
going to get in a standard
historical account.
This book has a framework
which is theoretical.
I argue that what we have going
on in terms of the conflict
in Palestine is not a
struggle between two peoples,
right against right, it's much
more complicated than that.
It is actually a
war waged, not just
by the Zionist movement in
Israel, but by great powers
through declarations
of war which
were issued not by Israel,
but by those great powers
on the Palestinians.
So it was not just
an unequal struggle,
it was a struggle in which
the Zionist movement and later
on the state of Israel,
backed by the greatest
imperial powers of every age.
Great Britain at the
height of empire.
The United States and the
Soviet Union at the beginning
of the Cold War.
Britain and France in the 1950s.
And later on in the United
States up to the present
were engaged in this war in
which the declarations of war
were actually issued through
international documents
like the Balfour Declaration,
like Security Council
Resolution 242 by
international instances
that were being driven
by the interests
of those great powers.
So there is a theoretical
backbone to the book.
There's 45 pages of
footnotes for those of you
who like that sort of thing.
But I interweave this
with personal experiences,
with family anecdotes.
Some of them slightly
bowdlerize so as not
to embarrass members of my
family, but basically accurate
otherwise.
And materials taken from
memoirs of people in my family,
and other families.
[INAUDIBLE], for example.
Somebody I knew who played
an important role in the PLO.
And before that, was a
distinguished activist,
and [INAUDIBLE] was always
a distinguished economist,
has a memoir that I use in
one chapter extensively.
So I've used all
kinds of things.
But I use these things in a way
that I have never done before
in anything that I've
written, in all the books
that I've written before.
Anthropologists will look at
me, I see a couple of them
in the audience.
Anthropologists would look at
me and sort of say, "Oh, yeah.
That's what we do all the time.
That's not new."
But historians don't do that.
And so it really is--
for me, it was a departure.
I hope that if you do choose
to buy the book and read it,
you'll appreciate
it all the more.
I am telling a harsh story.
I am telling a story
of settler colonialism.
And a resistance that
as you may have noticed,
has generally not
always been successful.
I'm telling a story mainly of
defeats of the Palestinians
and of victories of
the Zionist movement.
So unless you have absolutely
no sense for the underdog,
it's not necessarily
a pleasant story.
But I tried to tell
it as dispassionately
as I can having been
myself deeply involved
in some of the events towards
the end of the book especially.
And I try and tell
it rigorously,
but I also try and tell it in
a manner that is approachable.
I talk about six
declarations of war.
I talk about the
Balfour Declaration
as a declaration of war
on the Palestinians.
It's not just a statement
by the British government
which is later incorporated
into the legal mandate--
League of Nations
mandate for Palestine,
and therefore becomes an
international document.
It is a declaration of war.
Why?
Because it talks about a
country without talking
about that country's people.
It talks about a country
in terms of somebody
who is actually not
there at the time.
It talks about Britain
favoring the establishment
of a Jewish national
home in a situation where
the Jewish population of
Palestine is around 6%
of the total.
94% of the population
is not mentioned
in the Balfour Declaration.
That erasure, that
removal of that people
verbally in that declaration
and in the mandate
is a declaration of war.
And later on, the British
empire, with all its might,
wages war on the
Palestinians in order
to guarantee the
entrenchment of that project,
that Jewish national
home, in Palestine.
They bring 100,000 troops and
police, the Royal Air Force,
armor, artillery to bear
against a population
which had about
300,000 adult males.
So you're talking about one
soldier for every three men
in the society.
Enormous weight of
repression was used.
So the British didn't
only declare war,
the British actually waged war.
And this is another
part of the argument
I make in the six
other chapters,
I won't talk about the
others, of the book.
That this is not just
a war between Israelis
and Palestinians.
Obviously they are the primary
protagonists at many stages.
This is a much bigger conflict,
and it involves bigger actors
than just Palestinians
and just Israelis.
It involves not
just great powers,
it also often
involves Arab states.
And I talk about that in
some of the latter chapters
of the book.
So I think I'll stop here
with that summary of it.
And Beshara and I will
now have a dialogue.
BESHARA DOUMANI: Yes.
RASHID KHALIDI: I
didn't see that.
BESHARA DOUMANI: All right.
Thank you, Rashid.
So Hundred Years War.
That's a catchy title,
but implies a logic.
100 years something
was driving something.
It implies a structure.
It implies a form of
continuity that had
to be reproduced at great cost.
So it's very much in
keeping with the truism
that the destruction
of Palestine in 1948
and the ethnic cleansing of the
Palestinians, most [INAUDIBLE]
of the indigenous population
at that time, was not an event.
It was part of a process.
Right?
So you organize that
process into six wars.
You really spoke
about the first one,
and I'm wondering
if you can just
give, because people haven't had
a chance to read the book yet,
a quick overview of the
other five station stops.
And then I'll follow up
something on one of them.
RASHID KHALIDI:
Each of these wars
was preceded by some kind
of declaration of war.
So the first, as
I mentioned, was
preceded by the Balfour
Declaration and the Mandate
for Palestine, and that
war continued right up
through the 1930s.
And ultimately, was really
waged more by Britain
than by anybody else.
The second war was
declared by the United
States and the Soviet
Union ramming the Partition
Resolution.
General Assembly Resolution
181 of November 29, 1947,
through the General Assembly.
There are ample
historical accounts
of the arm-twisting, the
bribery, the pressure that
was exerted on small
countries to force
them to vote for partition.
As I say, partition was
an anti-Arab resolution.
That was the declaration.
The war was then
fought, obviously,
by the militias of
the Zionist movement.
And then after May 15,
after the establishment
of the state of Israel
by the Israeli army
against the
Palestinians, but they
were not alone in the field.
In the sense that they
could not possibly have
fought this war without
the ample armament
that they received both
from the Soviet Union
and from the United States.
So I described this
as the second war.
And I make a point which
is not generally understood
which is that of the 750,000 or
so Palestinians who are driven
from their homes in
what Palestinians call
the Nakba in 1948, almost
half, over 300,000,
are forced out before
the state of Israel
is established, before
Britain leaves Palestine.
The British are there
while Jaffa is depopulated,
60,000 people.
While Haifa is
depopulated, 60,000 people.
While [INAUDIBLE],, Tiberius and
West Jerusalem are depopulated,
over 150,000 urban residents of
the major urban agglomerations
in Palestine are driven from
their homes by these militias
before the state is established,
before the British leave,
before the Arab armies enter.
So what we think of as
the Arab-Israeli part
of the conflict, Arab
states versus Israel,
starts long after the ethnic
cleansing of Palestine
is well underway.
So that's a point that I make
in so far as this first war is--
second war, I should
say, declaration of war
is concerned.
The third was a
declaration of war
that followed the war of 1967.
What I say about the 1967
war are two major things.
The first has to do with
the war itself, which
is that it was not an Israeli
war in the sense that Israel
did not decide, or the
Israeli leadership,
did not decide on one
fine, sunny day in Tel Aviv
or Jerusalem, or
[INAUDIBLE] or wherever
they were, to go to war.
They went to Washington
to get a green light
which they received and
without which they would not
have gone to war,
and which enabled
them to do what they did.
They thereupon were
instrumental to what
I described as a second
declaration, or third, sorry,
declaration of war
on the Palestinians
which is Security
Council Resolution 242.
And this is a document which
is described as the framework
for peacemaking in
the Middle East.
You might have noticed
that peace has not
come to the Middle East a
number of decades after 242
was passed in November, 1967.
It was not a framework for
peace in the Middle East.
It was a framework for bilateral
settlements between Israel
and Arab countries,
two of which world
ultimately agreed to
between Egypt and Israel
and between Jordan and Israel.
It was a framework
for management
of the conflict, vis-a-vis
the Palestinians,
along lines
determined by Israel.
And in that sense, it's a--
BESHARA DOUMANI: It's a
humanitarian, not a political.
RASHID KHALIDI: Exactly.
As with the Balfour Declaration,
the Palestinians are not there.
They are erased
from the document.
They don't exist as far
as 242 is concerned.
A just resolution of
the refugee problem
is the only thing 242
says in oblique reference
to the Palestinians.
So like the Balfour Declaration,
it is essentially, in my view,
a declaration of war
on the Palestinians.
You don't exist.
You're not the problem.
The problem is a
state to state problem
which we will resolve in the
manner laid out land for peace
in 242.
So that's-- where are we now?
The third?
OK.
The fourth declaration
of war involves
a war rather similar in one
respect to the 1967 war,
and this is the Israeli
invasion of Lebanon
followed by the siege of Beirut
starting in June of 1982.
And this is a war which,
just like the 1967 war,
is not decided upon by Prime
Minister Begin and his defense
minister, Ariel Sharon,
one sunny day in Jerusalem.
It's decided upon after
Sharon goes to Washington
and gets a green light from
Secretary of State Haig.
It is an American-Israeli war.
It is a war that
Israel could not
launch without that approval,
without that green light
like the '67 war.
And it's a war which I show
in my description of what
happens from the day that
green light is offered
until the massacres
of Sabra and Shatila
in September of the
same year, 1982,
could not have
happened as it happened
without American support.
So I'm arguing in
these, especially
in these four chapters,
that what we're looking at
is something bigger than just
a conflict between Palestinians
and Israelis.
And it's not-- it's
not just a conflict
between national
movements though there is
an element of it here already.
It is something much bigger.
And it is as lopsided,
and its results
are as one-sided because of
that big, fat imperial thumb
on the scales in favor
of the stronger side.
And so that's the fourth.
The fifth is, in my
view, the negotiations
resulting in the Oslo Accords.
As Beshara mentioned,
I was an advisor
to the Palestinian
delegation at Madrid
and at Washington,
which was attempting
to resolve this conflict.
We failed.
We were not able
to achieve anything
that came anywhere near
meeting the aspirations
of the Palestinians.
Behind our backs, without our
knowledge, Prime Minister Rabin
and PLO leader Yasser Arafat,
began secret negotiations.
I go into some of
the details of them
which I found out at the time.
And they ended up agreeing on
something, which in my view
amounts to a declaration
of war on the Palestinians.
That is not how Arafat
and the PLO leadership
understood it at the time.
They were wrong, I'm right.
Anybody who looks at the
situation of the Palestinians
since 1993 will
see that that's one
of the worst things
that has ever
happened to the Palestinians.
It was a disastrous mistake,
and I talk about how and why.
The last wars that I talk about
are also American Israeli wars,
and these are the
wars on Gaza that
began just before President
Obama was inaugurated
starting in December
of 2008, and continuing
into January 2009.
Ending just before he was
actually inaugurated later
in January, and continuing
through the last major round
of war on Gaza in 2014 in
which 3,000 people were killed,
almost 80% of whom
were civilians.
These are real wars.
And again, they're not
only Arab Israelis--
or Palestinian-Israeli wars.
They're Israeli wars
on Gaza obviously,
but they are
American-Israeli wars.
I talk about the kind of
firepower used in that chapter.
You should read
that part carefully
if you know anything about
ordnance, about military,
hardware.
Most of that stuff is American.
Most of those bombs--
20 kilotons of high
explosive were used in 2014
against the Gaza Strip, the
most heavily populated area
on earth.
There's no way to
run to when you
have 20 kilotons of high
explosive coming down on you,
almost all of it American.
From American planes.
From American artillery pieces.
From American tanks.
There's some Israeli tanks.
There are a few Israeli--
BESHARA DOUMANI: And
against American law.
RASHID KHALIDI:
And as I suggest,
in violation of US law.
So those are the six
declarations of war.
BESHARA DOUMANI: So my
question is on number five.
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
BESHARA DOUMANI:
Well, you started
in 1987, which is the Intifada.
RASHID KHALIDI: Yes.
BESHARA DOUMANI: So
it brings to mind--
all the others are actual real
wars with involved military.
World War I, '48, et cetera.
This one is an uprising
by the Palestinians
followed by a secret
agreement six years later.
RASHID KHALIDI: Right.
BESHARA DOUMANI: It
suggests that perhaps--
the temporal structuring of
the book opens up the question,
why is it that number five
begins with the Palestinian
Resistance Action while
the other ones don't?
So how is that in a way
fitting this pattern
of wars on the Palestinians?
And it also brought to mind
the question of the 1936, 1939
rebellion which was a real big
war against the Palestinians
by the British military.
Like you said, over 100,000.
[INAUDIBLE] by 30% of the
Palestinian male population.
[INAUDIBLE]
RASHID KHALIDI: 10%.
BESHARA DOUMANI: 10%, sorry,
of the Palestinian male
population, which
is a heavy number.
And without a preordained
1948 to a certain extent.
RASHID KHALIDI: Precisely.
BESHARA DOUMANI: So
that's, in a way,
folded under the umbrella
of the Balfour Declaration.
While it did not get
a chapter of it's own.
Yes, while the Intifada seems
to be an exception to that
rule to a certain extent.
So how would you explain that?
RASHID KHALIDI: OK.
You're right in
[INAUDIBLE] suggestion.
BESHARA DOUMANI:
Is this working?
Here in the back?
RASHID KHALIDI: There it is.
Got it.
Sorry, I must have touched
it the wrong place.
You're right in noting that--
chapter 5, which starts with
the First Intifada which
began in December 1987, and
was a massive popular uprising
against the occupation
that had been going
on at that point for 20 years.
Is quite different to any of
the other chapters, all of which
involve real war.
You ask a subsidiary
question, which
is why is the '36, '39
revolt lumped into the first.
Let's leave that.
That's an important question,
but let's leave that.
I start with the First
Intifada because in my mind,
it sets a pattern
which I think people
should pay more attention to.
I argue that it is one of two
episodes, or sets of events,
which constituted a relative
victory for the Palestinians.
A victory that I argue was
frittered away in Oslo.
But nevertheless, was a victory.
It had a clear
strategic objective.
To a certain extent, it
achieved that objective.
It did so with a
minimum of violence.
Thereby avoiding a
problem that resistance
had faced in the past.
And it might, could, should
have had a better outcome.
I'm harshly critical of the
PLO leadership for the way
it handled the First Intifada.
So you're actually right.
In one sense, that doesn't fit
the pattern of the other five
chapters, which really have
bang, bang, shoot 'em up wars.
the Intifada was not a bang,
bang, shoot 'em up war.
It was popular uprising.
BESHARA DOUMANI:
There was one in 2000.
RASHID KHALIDI: There was.
The Second Intifada.
BESHARA DOUMANI: Yes,
the Second Intifada
which was a full-scale military
invasion by the Israeli army
of the West Bank.
RASHID KHALIDI:
And which involved
quite considerable
casualties on both sides,
especially with
Palestinians but very heavy
casualties among Israelis.
And that, I argue, in contrast
to the First Intifada,
was one of several
Palestinian defeats
that I chronicle in this book.
So I talk about some successes,
a couple of successes,
and I talk about
several defeats.
And I very consciously
set the one
against the other for
reasons that I could go
into if anybody has a question.
But that goes back
to an earlier phase
of Palestinian resistance,
Palestinian armed resistance
from bases outside of Palestine
involving armed attacks
into Israel.
And I go into that in some
depth in chapter 4, actually.
BESHARA DOUMANI: That's a great
segue to the next question
actually, which
is would you agree
that we've seen three phases
of the Palestinian national
movement so far?
RASHID KHALIDI: Which are?
BESHARA DOUMANI: Which are what
I would call the notables phase
during the mandate period.
Followed after 1948, what I
call the refugee slash guerrilla
phase.
Which reaches apex maybe
by the 1974 [INAUDIBLE]
olive branch speech of Yasser
Arafat and United Nations
in which the PLO
succeeded in becoming
the legal, and
legitimate, address
for Palestinian
nationalist [INAUDIBLE]..
RASHID KHALIDI: Sole,
legitimate representative.
Yeah.
BESHARA DOUMANI: Exactly.
Followed by what I
would call the suit
and tie technocrat phase
of the Oslo Accords.
RASHID KHALIDI:
I agree with you.
That's a perfect description.
BESHARA DOUMANI:
Where are we now?
Are we on the cusp
of a fourth phase?
Has the fourth phase
started but we're not
paying attention to it?
I mean, each one of these phases
had different constituencies,
different leaderships,
different political programs,
and different
cultures of politics.
So I'll just ask you to
reflect back on all these
three to a certain extent and
make some educated guesses
about what you see happening
now that we should pay attention
to.
RASHID KHALIDI: OK.
I mean, I think your categories
are basically accurate.
I think that the first
phase does end in 1948,
and it involves a Palestinian
national movement that
is led by an elite, an out of
touch and non-democratic elite,
largely non-democratic
elite which had, in my view,
largely mistaken
tactics and strategy
vis-a-vis the imperial patron
of the Zionist movement
and the Zionist movement itself.
And which failed and was
seen to fail by Palestinians.
And that elite lost the
material basis of its power.
It lost much of
its wealth in 1948.
And it was then
superseded by a new elite,
which grew out of the middle
classes and the refugee camps.
And which took the form of
the various movements that
ultimately took over
the PLO in 1968.
And that was a phase
which is mainly
thought of in terms
of armed struggle,
but also involved a remarkably
successful propaganda
diplomatic campaign, which
brought Yasser Arafat
to the podium of the
General Assembly in 1974.
Brought the PLO recognition
by over 100 countries.
Achieved a level of recognition
that the Palestinians
had never in the entire history
of the conflict achieved.
It was then followed,
I would argue,
it starts a little later
than you suggested,
but you're right.
It then was followed by the,
you can call it the suit and tie
phase, which is a period of an
atrophying of that leadership,
combined with attrition.
Attrition of that
leadership, not
caused by old age
or arteriosclerosis.
Caused by car bombs
and assassinations
through a campaign that
goes back to the lessons
taught to Zionist militias
by their British mentors
in the 1930s.
How to go into people's
homes and assassinate them.
How to blow up people's houses.
This was a man named
Orde Wingate who
created a group of bloodthirsty
murderers whom I will--
who are known as
the Night Squads.
And who basically
taught what later
became the Israeli intelligence
services, everything they know.
If you're interested,
a man named
Ronen Bergman has written a
book called Rise and Kill First:
A History of Israel's
Targeted Assassinations.
It's a 5-600 page book.
It's excruciatingly
painful reading.
He has interviewed
hundreds and it looks
like over 1,000 people, most of
them intelligence operatives.
But people of
every walk of life.
And it is largely, as far
as I can tell, accurate.
And so the attrition
was attrition
by the bullet, or
by the car bomb,
of a large part
of the leadership.
What was left then took us
into the coat and tie phase.
And that has been, in my view,
the least successful phase
of the Palestinian
national movement.
Are we at the end of that phase?
Now you take me
into ground that I'm
much more hesitant to tread on.
When I'm asked that
kind of question,
my standard dodge is
to say that the job
description of a
historian doesn't
include predicting the future.
I don't know what's
going to happen.
My educated guess is that
sooner or later, hopefully
sooner, yes, we are at
the end of that phase.
The bankruptcy of both wings
of the Palestinian national
movement couldn't
be more evident.
The negotiating approach, the
public negotiating approach
of the Ramallah wing of
the Palestinian national
leadership, has shown
its complete bankruptcy.
There's no more to
be achieved there.
In fact, there's
not been anything
to be achieved since
1993 in my view.
The bankruptcy of the
other wing, claiming
to be engaged in resistance
while surreptitiously
negotiating with
Israel, which is
to say what's happening in Gaza
has also shown its bankruptcy.
The war on Gaza was not
just a military war.
The war on Gaza was a
war on the people of Gaza
through a siege, which has
been in place in various forms
since 2006, since the
Palestinian elections of 2006
were won by Hamas.
At least 14 years.
So I think that, yes,
sooner or later we
are at the end of that phase.
What the next phase will be?
I don't know.
What I think it should be I
suggest at the end of the book.
Though who am I to say?
BESHARA DOUMANI: So let me
then be a little more specific
and say that if there's an iron
law to [INAUDIBLE] question
of Palestine, even
though [INAUDIBLE]
not my favorite phrase.
It's the adamant refusal,
of both the Zionist movement
and its backers, to
recognize the Palestinians
as a political community.
RASHID KHALIDI: Right.
BESHARA DOUMANI: The
Balfour Declaration
made that very clear.
The Mandate Charter
made it clear.
The Partition Plan
made it clear.
242 made it clear.
RASHID KHALIDI: Partition as
it worked out made it clear.
Nominally, there's an
Arab state in partition.
But what happens is
what is important.
But go on.
BESHARA DOUMANI: No, no.
I think you're right.
There is a language
deficit there.
I skipped it because
the Zionist movement
was involved in negotiations
with the Jordanians
and through the British
to make sure that there
will be no Palestinian state.
RASHID KHALIDI: Right.
BESHARA DOUMANI: Yeah, OK.
So they knew what
they were doing.
But that's just
another example of--
that refusal [INAUDIBLE]
been an iron law.
It seems to have been broken at
a certain moment in time, 1974
and maybe even 1987
to a certain extent.
And yet--
RASHID KHALIDI: And
to a certain extent
1993, and I'll talk
about that in a second.
BESHARA DOUMANI: Yeah, 1993.
That's what I've [INAUDIBLE].
But after 1987, 1993.
'87, the beginning
of the Intifada. '93,
the Oslo Accords.
But ironically, that
was a recognition
that turned the clock
back to a certain extent.
There is no real now--
actual recognition
of Palestinians
as a political community in the
same way that existed earlier.
It's gone backwards, it seems.
Would you agree?
RASHID KHALIDI: I would agree.
And let me start from 1993.
What happens in 1993?
What happens in 1993 is that the
victory that the Palestinians
achieve through
the First Intifada
convinces Israeli elites that
the way in which they have
controlled the Palestinians
up to this point
is not sustainable.
It convinces the man who
becomes prime minister in 1992,
Yitzhak Rabin, and who had been
defense minister in coalition
governments and had failed
to suppress the Intifada
from 1987, onwards.
It convinces them that they
have to do something different.
Ultimately, Rabin
in the Oslo Accords
and in the secret negotiations
that preceded the Oslo Accords,
accepts two or
three propositions
that the state of Israel
and the Zionist movement
had never been really
willing to accept.
The first was that the
Palestinians are a people.
The second is that they have
a political representative.
And the third is
that Israel will
negotiate with them openly.
This was a
revolutionary departure
from the time of
Herzl until 1993.
This had never happened.
The idea that this was a
political community that
constituted a people,
which implicitly therefore
had certain rights, was
something that the Zionist
movement had never
been prepared to accept
and the state of Israel had
never been prepared to accept.
That the PLO represented
this community
was anathema to them, the idea.
And finally that
they would actually
sit down and
negotiate with them,
or bring them into
Palestine as leadership
and as military forces, and
as cadres, and as a movement,
obviously all of
this is entirely new.
Now, what were the problems?
The problems have to do with the
iron law that you talked about.
Accepting that they're
political community,
accepting that they're
a people, accepting
that that's their
representative and accepting
to negotiate with
them did not involve
conceding the right of national
self-determination statehood.
Real partition of the country,
an extension of sovereignty
to the Palestinians.
Rabin, just before
he's assassinated which
we should all know and read.
I quote from it in [INAUDIBLE]
in which he says, "This is not
going to be a state.
It's not going to
have sovereignty.
We're not going that far."
And no Israeli leader,
including Olmert
who made some moves in the
same direction much later,
has ever gone that far.
So ultimately, the iron
law you're talking about
is still in force.
And in fact, I think we've
gone further backwards
in the years since 1977
because in the Likud
party and its offshoots
which have dominated
Israeli politics and
political discourse
for almost the entire
time since 1977,
you have a much more extreme
version of that same iron
law that was always there.
BESHARA DOUMANI: So now
we're on to what I think is--
and then we'll conclude after
this, the most difficult part
of the book for
people to ensure,
which is your understanding
of the Zionist movement.
So it's clear from
the title that you
think of it as first
and foremost a settler
colonial movement.
But you also are
very careful to say,
and you do so at several
points in the book,
that it's also simultaneously
at the same time
a national movement.
RASHID KHALIDI: Becomes
a national movement.
BESHARA DOUMANI: Yeah.
Well, that's the question.
Was it always national?
Did it become national?
And what implications does this
have for understanding of the--
what are the
political implications
of this characterization
of the Zionist movement?
RASHID KHALIDI: Right.
I have no discomfort whatsoever
in describing the Zionist
movement from its
inception, and the Zionist
project up to this day, as
a settler colonial movement.
It's different from every other
settler colonial movement,
it's somewhat similar to some.
But it is by, not only
various yardsticks
we can use, by its
own self-description.
For its first 40 to 50 years,
a settler colonial movement.
All the settlements
established in Palestine,
all the colonies,
self-described,
established in
Palestine before 1948,
are established by something
called the Jewish Colonization
Agency.
That's not my--
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
RASHID KHALIDI: [INAUDIBLE] JCA.
It's not my description,
that's their description.
You read Herzl.
You read Ben-Gurion.
You read Jabotinsky, the
founder of the strain of Zionism
that develops into Likud,
they talk about this with no--
in private at least, they talk
about this with no qualms.
"We are a colonial
settler movement.
There is an indigenous
population we have to move.
That's what we have to do.
Like others have done,
we are going to--"
Now remember, they are talking
in the era of high colonialism.
They're talking in the
era where colonialism,
colonization,
settler colonialism,
are not in a bad odor.
Where they're fully accepted.
Where Britain and France
are settler colonial powers,
and Britain is protecting
the Zionist movement.
There's no shame in it.
So in this aspect, I have
no problems with this.
And you can take it
up to the present.
I mean, look at what happens in
the West Bank day in, day out.
What is it but
settler colonialism?
Look at what happened
to the land taken over
by the state of Israel
from 1948 until 1967.
Look what happened to
the Arab population.
Look what happened
to their rights.
Look what happened
to their property.
Look what happened to
the Jewish population.
Look at how the two
peoples were treated,
the two groups were treated.
This is settler colonialism.
There is no other possible
way of describing it.
It is a unique form of
settler colonialism.
I'm prepared to accept that
it has manifold differences
from South Africa, from Algeria,
from Canada, from Australia.
I'm prepared to accept that it
also has other characteristics,
I am prepared to accept.
For example, it is
not an extension
of the metropole, which
every other settler colonial
movement is.
The Dutch settlers
in South Africa
were originally extensions of
the Dutch of the Netherlands.
British settlers
in North America
were extensions of the crown.
The French in northern
Algeria were French persons,
French people.
Extensions of the metropole
Zionism wasn't like that.
It was completely different
in multiple respects.
I don't need to go
into that further.
Now, where's the hard part?
The hard part is
the national aspect.
The hard part is that successful
settler colonial projects
eventually turn
into a nation state.
We just heard a moving
acceptance of the fact
that we stand on somebody
else's land here in Providence.
OK?
So who would deny
the settler colonial
nature of this country?
Nobody in their right mind.
But who would deny that
it is a nation state?
That a national entity
has been created?
Or that the same has
happened in Canada?
Or that the same has
happened in Australia?
Or that the same has
happened in New Zealand?
Nobody in their right mind even
while accepting the settler
colonial origins of every
one of those four states.
What I'm suggesting by talking
about the national aspect
of Zionism is that a national
entity has been created.
Now, when it becomes national,
that's a hard question.
And I am not sure about that.
In one respect, the
United States and Israel
are similar in that
both separate themselves
from the metropole in different
ways and for different reasons.
And behave very
similarly thereafter.
So quite differently from
the French in Algeria,
quite differently from the
British settlers in Canada,
Americans and Israelis,
at a certain stage,
develop a national project.
Now, what stage that is
and when that happens,
I am not prepared
to say that would
require much deeper
thinking that I've
been able to do on this.
But I think you've put
your finger on something
that is not entirely clear.
Does it have a national aspect?
Yes.
When does that national aspect
take over or become important?
I'm not as sure of that.
BESHARA DOUMANI: All right.
So you've been doing Palestine
studies for a very long time.
RASHID KHALIDI: Since
I was a kid really.
I mean, I sat at the
dinner table listening
to my father who worked
at the United Nations
talking about the
question of Palestine
when I was a pre-teen.
So I've been
listening, at least--
BESHARA DOUMANI:
Not just listening.
If you read the book you'll
see that there's actually
a family tradition that you're
continuing to a certain extent.
A lot of them have
been [INAUDIBLE]
public intellectuals on
this issue for generations.
So I have to ask this
question because we
are at Brown University.
We're home to new directions
of Palestinian studies, which
has created a certain kind
of presence here and beyond.
And we're very interested
in the question
of knowledge production on
Palestine and the Palestinians.
I'm just interested in your
own personal perspective
having been doing
this for a long time.
Have you seen this field change?
Its vocabulary, its reach,
its [INAUDIBLE] frames?
RASHID KHALIDI: Yeah,
that's a big question.
BESHARA DOUMANI: Yeah.
Briefly--
RASHID KHALIDI: I'll
try and be brief.
It doesn't come naturally to
me, but I'll try and be brief.
I don't think there was such
a thing as Palestine studies
at some stage.
I don't know where I would
describe it as beginning,
but I don't think this is
a question about origins.
When the Institute for Palestine
Studies was founded in 1964,
it was a new departure.
And I was living in the
United States at the time
and I was an undergraduate
in the United States.
And I remember that
finding books on Palestine
was virtually impossible.
There were some, a
few books published
in the United Kingdom.
Almost nothing published
in the United States.
So although the institute
had started in 1964,
I would say that
somewhere around then
there was almost nothing in
the way of Palestinian studies.
Today, I don't have room on my
shelves for the publications
which I receive.
Whether monographs,
whether synthetic
works, whether personal
accounts, whether novels,
whether other forms of
literature, all of which
involve discussion of
aspects of Palestine.
And some of which are
actually academic.
Most of which are
actually academic.
Something clearly has
changed in remarkable ways
in the last few decades.
It has had an effect on academia
which is quite profound.
The kind of canards.
The kind of shameless lies.
The kind of propaganda
derived deceit
that was canonized
and worshipped
as fact for generations
made the desert bloom,
their leaders made them leave,
I could go on and on and on.
The myths that took
the place of reality.
The kinds of things
that if you ever
saw a horrible movie
called Exodus, or read
an execrable novel by Leon
Uris of the same name,
you would have learned--
were passed for fact and passed
for legitimate historical truth
in much of academia.
That simply is not
the case anymore.
So Palestine studies
has helped to demolish
a whole infrastructure of
largely false understandings,
and has established an entirely
new narrative which I wouldn't
say has hegemonic, I
wouldn't say is dominant,
but has a vigorous place in
the arena of scholarship.
Especially in certain fields
in history and Middle East
studies, and anthropology,
and a few other fields,
it is very powerful.
Now, what is it
characterized by?
I could talk about
that if you want.
BESHARA DOUMANI:
No, I think we--
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
RASHID KHALIDI: It
is a remarkable--
now, all of this, I have
to just say one more thing.
This doesn't mean that all
is rosy in Palestine studies
because the outside world
is not an academic world.
The outside world is
a political world.
The outside world
is a legal world.
The outside world
is a media world.
The outside world is a
world of public opinion.
And the things that we, as
scholars, Israelis, Arabs,
Americans, Europeans, Indians,
Chinese, know to be the case
are not necessarily shared
in the political world.
You can get resolutions
of Congress,
which speak about something
that's closer to Mars
than it is the United States
in terms of Palestine.
It's complete fantasy, and these
are our elected representatives
who will pass bills
of various sorts.
And that's also
true in the media.
You can have people pontificate
for half an hour saying things
that every scholar with a PhD on
earth, except a very few, know
is not true, and they'll
get away with it.
So we are operating in
the academy within one
set of constraints and
within one framework,
and the rest of-- much
of the rest of the world
is operating in
other frameworks.
BESHARA DOUMANI: Climate
change is a hoax.
RASHID KHALIDI: For example.
BESHARA DOUMANI: OK.
So we're not exceptional.
RASHID KHALIDI: Perfect example.
BESHARA DOUMANI: All right.
Why don't we open it up?
There's a couple of microphones.
You could just line up and--
RASHID KHALIDI: Fire away.
BESHARA DOUMANI: Fire away
as long as you keep it brief
so we can get a lot of people.
RASHID KHALIDI: We
have until when?
25 minutes.
Great.
Go for it.
SUBJECT 1: Thank you very much.
My name is Nadia [INAUDIBLE].
We just met at Columbia.
So I was wondering
if you could speak
a little bit about resistance.
We've focused on wars
and settler colonialism,
but I'm interested both in
the way you conceptualize
resistance theoretically,
but also empirically what
is contained under that rubric?
Because as an
anthropologist, I mean,
there's this whole
range of [INAUDIBLE]
from political armed
resistance to everyday forms
of resistance, steadfastness.
And I guess I'm also interested
in are you sort of including
more recent ideas
around resistance
as just politics of leisure
and pleasure, and art,
and what about
gendered resistance?
Or are you focusing
mainly on the more--
sort of political
armed resistance?
RASHID KHALIDI: Right.
Let me answer the
theoretical question.
I argue and would
argue that resistance
goes far beyond the
political, or for that matter,
the military.
And in fact, quite
frequently has nothing
to do with the military.
And I talk about the
two great successes,
or two of the successes of the
Palestinian national movement
having to do with actually
non-armed resistance.
Which is to say diplomatic and
propaganda campaign of the PLO,
and the First Intifada.
The second of which is, I
think, the most important
because it was mass-based.
As it went on, it was
largely run by women
because the men were--
the first leaders were
arrested and it ended up
being run by women.
And because it involved,
as had the '36, '39 revolt,
actually, almost the entirety
of Palestinian society.
So when I say mass-based,
it wasn't just
a part of the population.
It was almost the entire
population was engaged.
And that's, in my view, one
of several forms of resistance
that you could point to.
So it involves diplomacy
and propaganda,
it involves mass
popular resistance.
Generally nonviolent
or at least unarmed,
and it can also involve
armed resistance.
Now, having said that,
I would add two things.
The first is that there is
another form of really quite
stubborn invisible resistance,
which is what in Arabic you'd
call sumud, steadfastness.
Just staying there.
Staying on the land.
If Herzl said in his diaries,
"We will spirit the population
across the frontiers."
Now, they didn't do a
lot of spiriting in 1948.
They did a lot of killing,
and massacring, and raping,
and blowing up of houses.
But throughout the
process, the objective
was to get the people from here
to there, as many as possible.
OK?
Just resisting that process--
Everybody understood
this, everybody
understood there was
a demographic element
to this conflict.
From the very beginning,
Zionists, Palestinians.
Everybody understood it.
Simply staying
put, holding fast,
sumud is a form of resistance.
Now, does that have dimensions
that include leisure
and so on and so forth?
To be very blunt
with you, I think
that this can involve a
trivialization, frankly,
of sumud.
Sumud can involve living your
life and so on, and so forth.
It has to involve because if
you're going to stay there,
you have to live.
You have to earn a living, you
have to educate your children,
you have to protect your family.
You have to do
things that society
has to do to protect itself.
But at the same time, to talk
about every time everybody
gets in a taxi is resistance
to my way of thinking
is, frankly, meaningless.
Now, I don't mean
to insult a scholar
who may have written this.
But I have to say, I don't
see that as resistance.
BESHARA DOUMANI:
We know who it is.
RASHID KHALIDI: I don't
see that as resistance.
I see it in terms of the
forms that I mentioned.
Does it involve
gendered resistance?
Of course it does.
It has to partly because
in order for this society
to survive, in order
for the society
to succeed in achieving
its objectives,
it has to overcome some of
the internal problems that
have prevented it from
succeeding in the past.
Why are the energies of
women not tapped in the way
that the energies
of children were
tapped at different
stages of resistance?
By which I mean demonstrations
of high school kids,
which had an enormous impact
during the First Intifada,
and at other stages
of Palestine.
And in the 30s for that
matter, before even the
'36, '39 revolt. So there are
all kinds of elements to this.
It certainly
doesn't just involve
guns and an armed struggle.
It certainly
doesn't just involve
diplomacy and propaganda.
It certainly doesn't just
involve mass popular uprisings.
It has multiple.
And in many ways,
I think that if you
look at the Palestinian
population inside Israel,
you see some of the most
innovative forms of resistance
by the people who've
been the most affected
in some ways by the
Zionist project.
And that involves things
that are subtle in many cases
and involve ways of making
a living and ways of making
your way through a maze that
was created to prevent you
from getting from a to b.
And I think those
deserve a lot more study
than they're getting actually.
Long answer, sorry.
BESHARA DOUMANI:
It's no problem.
Please.
SUBJECT 2: I wonder how you view
the historical and future role
of the [INAUDIBLE]
administrations in Syria,
Jordan, Egypt [INAUDIBLE].
And you're probably [INAUDIBLE]
1979 would probably be
a betrayal by Egypt, I guess.
RASHID KHALIDI: You're talking
about the peace treaty?
BESHARA DOUMANI: Yeah.
RASHID KHALIDI: Yeah.
The book actually goes
into this at some length.
I mean, there are phases of
the war on the Palestinians
that are waged by Arab armies,
or Arab militias in Lebanon
in particular, and
also in Jordan.
The role of the Arab
regimes, the governments
that you're talking about,
has largely been negative.
One of the dichotomies
in the Arab world
is between Arab public
opinion and the position
of the Arab governments.
Arab public opinion has
been enormously supportive
of the Palestinians
since the 1930s.
In fact, since before
that I've written
about newspaper articles
being written by the dozens,
by the hundreds before 1914
talking about Palestine
in Damascus, in Cairo, in an
Arabic newspaper in Istanbul
called [INAUDIBLE].
Arab public opinion was
supportive of the Palestinians
before World War I, and this
continues through the 20s,
the 30s, the 40s.
In [INAUDIBLE],,
before this building
was destroyed by the Hafez
Al-Assad regime in 1982,
there was a regional
museum in the basement
of which were pictures, or
names, of literally scores,
maybe hundreds of [INAUDIBLE],,
people from the [INAUDIBLE]
region who went to Palestine.
Volunteered under
the French mandate.
So the French didn't send them.
There was no Syrian
government to send.
They went on their own
volition to fight in Palestine.
And that support
continues to this day.
I cite twice in the book
a public opinion poll
taken by the Arab
center in Doha,
in Qatar, which talks about
the very high level of support
of the Palestinians.
By contrast, people
will tell you
the Arabs don't care
about Palestine.
What do they mean?
They mean the kleptocratic,
undemocratic monarchs,
absolute monarchs of the
Gulf, and the dictatorships
of other parts of
the Arab world.
They don't care about Palestine.
They care about making
themselves rich,
staying in power, staying on
the good side of the superpower.
And if that means that
the road to Washington
goes through Tel Aviv, so be it.
OK?
Those are not the Arabs,
those are the governments.
So the governments have played
a largely negative role.
I talk about this in the 30s,
I talk about this a little bit
in the 40s in the
book, and it's the case
right up to the present.
SUBJECT 2: And in the future?
RASHID KHALIDI: [INAUDIBLE].
I don't know what's going
to happen in the future.
I will say one thing.
Since 2011, it is quite clear
that in many Arab countries,
there is a broad popular
thirst for democracy.
It is clear that there is also
a massive reactionary, powerful
bloc which will do everything
possible, Arab block,
to prevent democracy.
It will spend unlimited
amounts of money.
It will support any
kind of government
to prevent that popular trend
from achieving democracy
in Arab countries.
And we--
SUBJECT 2: By
administrations or by people?
RASHID KHALIDI: Pardon me?
SUBJECT 2: By
administrations or by people?
RASHID KHALIDI: What
by administration--
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
SUBJECT 2: You said
there is an Arab bloc.
RASHID KHALIDI:
Yeah, governments.
The undemocratic regimes of
the Gulf and other places
will fight the idea of popular
sovereignty everywhere.
It's sort of like
the 1848 revolutions.
Who put the 1848
revolutions down?
Vienna and St. Petersburg.
Riyad, Abu Dhabi.
Enough said.
SUBJECT 2: Thank you.
BESHARA DOUMANI: Alex.
SUBJECT 3: Thank you Rashid.
I want to apologize
in advance because I
think my question will also
be a little bit about what
the future holds.
RASHID KHALIDI: It's OK.
SUBJECT 3: But I was
struck in thinking
about how you kind of
frame this as not simply
a kind of question
of Israel-Palestine,
but the massive foam
of great powers.
And then thinking about Beshara
talking about these three
phases, which in
many ways line up
with the phase of British
imperialism, the Cold
War, and the post-Cold
War, US neoimperialism.
RASHID KHALIDI: You're
right, actually.
Yeah.
SUBJECT 1: And so I'm curious
about this kind of broader
kind of geopolitical
balance of powers,
and whether there's any
kind of shift happening?
Or what kind of--
what a potential shift
might look like that
could change things.
RASHID KHALIDI: I get
that question every time
I talk about this book.
BESHARA DOUMANI: What's
your quick answer?
RASHID KHALIDI: My quick
answer is I don't know,
but we do still have
a single hegemon.
It appears that we're
moving towards a more
multilateral global
system, and that might have
a positive effect on Palestine.
It might not.
Because one of the
enormously inventive aspects
of the Zionist movement has
been its constant search
for external support,
which led them
to the German Kaiser, Abdul
Hamid, the French Republic,
and ultimately
Britain, and later
on to Moscow and Washington.
And back to Paris and London,
and then back to Washington.
And is leading them today to New
Delhi and Beijing, and Moscow.
And so on and so forth.
So I don't know what the
multilateral, how multipolar
the world will become.
I do know, however, that
because it is essentially,
in its essence, a
settler colonial project,
it depends on external support.
That's not to say that Israel
is not in and of itself
a superpower, regional,
a nuclear power.
It's not to say that
Israel doesn't have
a huge margin of independence.
It's not to say that it doesn't
have all kinds of assets,
but it is dependent.
It is much more
dependent in many ways
than any other state
in that region.
That means-- And that dependence
is to this day largely
on Euro-America.
As Israel changes,
as the project
becomes more and more
ethnocratic, less
and less democratic, less
and less liberal, more
and more discriminatory,
the nation state law of 2018
is an extraordinary
step in that direction.
Its values and the values
of liberal democracy
are completely incompatible.
That's one reason we have what's
happening in the United States.
The changes that are happening
in the United States.
It's not just because
younger people are smarter,
yes they are.
It's not just because
young people have access
to information that my
generation didn't, yes they do.
It's not just because other
changes are taking place
inside the Jewish community.
It's because this
clash of values
is becoming
increasingly apparent.
What is being done
to the Palestinians
is unacceptable in terms
of the values that,
nominally at least, sustain
this country and Western Europe.
And that's a problem.
And that's one reason that you
have this hysterical campaign
to smear as anti-Semitic any
opposition to Israeli hegemony,
any effort to support
Palestinian rights.
They have no other argument.
It's the cry of
anti-Semitism of scoundrels.
If you have nothing else to
say, say your opponents are--
go ad hominem, and that's
what they're doing.
Because you cannot defend
the nation state law.
You cannot defend the
discriminatory nature
of the state otherwise.
BESHARA DOUMANI: Can you
defend the very notion
of the nation state?
RASHID KHALIDI: That's
a whole other issue.
BESHARA DOUMANI: No, the
reason I ask this is it
has to do with not the
geopolitical aspect,
but back to the
resistance question.
If the fourth phase, let's
just for the sake of argument,
say is going to be
a rights-based, not
a state-based phase.
RASHID KHALIDI:
And I [INAUDIBLE]
at the end of the book.
BESHARA DOUMANI: You do.
Rights-based doesn't make
the self-determination
or achievement of a Palestinian
state the central goal,
it makes dignity, equality,
justice, et cetera,
the central goals.
Regardless of where you find
yourself as a Palestinian,
it kind of reframes
the question to cover
the entire Palestinian
population instead
of maintaining the focus
just on '67 borders,
and so on and so forth.
And this rights-based phase,
nation states are not--
are not the goal,
which is really
bad news for
everyday Palestinians
because they do need water,
electricity, and a police
force, and jobs, and all sorts
of things that until now,
only governments can do.
And it also means that they
cannot be free until the whole
world is free.
Right?
Because--
RASHID KHALIDI: At least
the whole Middle East.
BESHARA DOUMANI: Because
they are not powerful enough
to do it by themselves.
Intersectional politics with
other rights-based movements
might bring a
change, but it means
that they all have
to change together
and the Palestinians will be
part of a larger global, which
basically stretches the time
scale of thinking pretty wide.
And I want--
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
RASHID KHALIDI: Do you
expect me to respond to this?
BESHARA DOUMANI: No,
I'm just happy to talk.
No, there is a punchline here.
The punchline is, how do
you sustain such a movement
and the current balance of power
in which it's very difficult?
RASHID KHALIDI:
This is a question
I get from often younger
members of the audience
when I talk about this
book because they all
end up at the same place
that you've just ended up at.
So how long is
this going to take
and how are we
going to get there?
And I go back to
this old slogan that
back in the Maoist
days, [INAUDIBLE]..
Long-term people's war.
A Maoist slogan.
And the key part of
it is [INAUDIBLE]..
Long-term.
I mean, we've been at
this for a century.
That's to say the conflict.
The conflict has been
underway for over a century.
SUBJECT 4: [INAUDIBLE].
RASHID KHALIDI: [INAUDIBLE].
Same thing.
And actually, if
you look carefully
at the ways in which the
Palestinians have operated,
they haven't been at it
as long as the Zionists.
Zionists started
a little earlier.
This is not an origins claim.
This is just a claim about
Ben-Gurion was in New York
for three years starting in
1916, working to build up
a base, an independent,
financial, and organizational
base for the Zionist movement.
He and yet [INAUDIBLE],,
the two first--
first prime minister.
Sorry, second
president of Israel.
Two of the key figures
in Zionist history.
When did the Palestinian start
working in the United States?
Not yet.
In other words, when did
the PLO or Palestinian
leadership that [INAUDIBLE]?
Those guys had no idea
where America was.
None of them had
ever been there.
They didn't understand America
at which point as I mentioned,
Ben-Gurion, [INAUDIBLE],,
Golda Meir, born in Milwaukee,
were senior leaders of
the Zionist movement.
They spoke American English.
They were busy at it.
So it's going to be
a long-term thing
to get to where you
need to be in terms
of any of these aspects.
Whether the rights-based
aspect, whether in terms
of mobilization, and
so on and so forth.
That's all I'll say.
You had a question, and
that may be the last one.
SUBJECT 5: Welcome back.
I was going to ask you
about your sources.
I was really struck
that you were apparently
using a lot of personal
family sources.
And I was wondering if you
can share with us something
that you found
particularly surprising,
or maybe just something that
really you weren't expecting
[INAUDIBLE] with
what you thought
was your family's position
in this long story.
In other words, I'm just doing
free publicity for this book
so that everyone will go and buy
it because there's stuff in it
that I don't think is
in your bookshelves
already because
it's also a really
personal story of your family.
And I'm just
wondering if there's
a particular person, or
a source, or a letter,
or a diary thing that you'd
like to share with us that you
weren't expecting to find
or that in some ways,
that you'd like to leave us.
And then everyone
should buy the book.
RASHID KHALIDI: Yeah.
Actually.
SUBJECT 6: She's your agent.
RASHID KHALIDI: She's
doing a good job.
Thank you.
You'll get a small
percentage of sales.
SUBJECT 5: [INAUDIBLE].
RASHID KHALIDI: The one that
immediately springs to mind
is actually not something
from a family archive.
I mean, I found a lot of things
in either family archives
or I use extensively in one
chapter of my uncle's memoirs,
which I was sort of obliged
to write an introduction to
by my 94-year-old cousin.
She made me do it, basically.
And I'm deeply grateful to
her, my cousin, [INAUDIBLE]..
Because she-- I
couldn't say no to her.
And I was forced to read
this thing in manuscript
and I said, oh my god, I've
never seen some of this stuff.
So I could give you stuff
from my uncle's memoirs,
but that's not the thing that
immediately leaves to mind.
It's something from
[INAUDIBLE] memoirs.
His description of the mufti.
I have never seen
anything like that.
I mean, I've talked to people--
BESHARA DOUMANI: [INAUDIBLE].
RASHID KHALIDI: The
Grand Mufti of Palestine,
[INAUDIBLE] Amin Al-Husseini.
The leader of the
Palestinian national movement
up until 1947, '48.
A much reviled figure.
He ends up in Germany
during World War II.
That's been used to paint the
whole Palestinian national
movement as one huge
anti-Semitic endeavor
from beginning to end.
An interesting and
strange figure.
I actually met him, the
mufti, because he came
to my father-- the [INAUDIBLE].
BESHARA DOUMANI: The mourning.
RASHID KHALIDI: The morning from
when my father died in 1968.
He's a tiny little man.
You could hardly hear his voice.
You could see the charisma,
though, of the guy.
I've talked to many people
who met him and knew him,
and so on.
But [INAUDIBLE] description
of him is amazing
and it is a perfect description
of Yasser Arafat in some ways.
And [INAUDIBLE]
wrote this, I know
that he was thinking
of both of them
because he'd served
on the PLO executive.
I didn't put this in
the book, actually.
He'd served on the PLO
executive committee
and he was inordinately
frustrated by Yasser Arafat.
That, I knew from
[INAUDIBLE] telling me.
And so the description
in the book
is the best description
I've ever seen
of the mufti, of his methods.
And also one of the best
descriptions of Yasser Arafat's
[INAUDIBLE] from someone who
knew both of them very, very
well.
SUBJECT 6: They were related.
RASHID KHALIDI: Who?
[INAUDIBLE] and the mufti?
SUBJECT 6: No, no.
Arafat and Husseini.
RASHID KHALIDI: Oh, yes.
Arafat any Husseini were through
Arafat's mother's family.
Yes.
SUBJECT 7: [INAUDIBLE].
RASHID KHALIDI: In his old age.
In his 70s, I think.
SUBJECT 8: [INAUDIBLE].
RASHID KHALIDI: Yes.
BESHARA DOUMANI: Yeah, the one--
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
RASHID KHALIDI: Yes, Rosemary
edited the English version.
But there's an Arabic
and an English,
and then she also published an
article based on the English.
She edited and probably did
more to the English, I'm sure.
BESHARA DOUMANI: Please, yes.
RASHID KHALIDI: [INAUDIBLE].
Use the microphone.
SUBJECT 9: [INAUDIBLE].
BESHARA DOUMANI: Because
we're recording and streaming.
SUBJECT 9: [INAUDIBLE]
history a century [INAUDIBLE]..
I mean, [INAUDIBLE].
Are there any aspects of the
book that you disagree with?
RASHID KHALIDI: You really
put him on the spot.
Didn't you?
I'm gonna enjoy this.
BESHARA DOUMANI: Yeah, right.
RASHID KHALIDI: Actually,
you already talked about one.
BESHARA DOUMANI: I--
Rashid [INAUDIBLE]
Professor [INAUDIBLE]
was kind enough to
come speak to my class
just before this
event, and I think
I was clear in a couple of
instances where that was.
So yeah, I'll leave it there.
RASHID KHALIDI: Actually,
his first question
embodied one of the areas
where he has [INAUDIBLE]..
BESHARA DOUMANI: We do different
kinds of history sometimes,
and it's really great to--
I was never really interested in
political history, for example.
And what I think
Nadia's question raises
is the issue of the
social question, not just
a political question.
And how resistance
can be refracted
through the internal
contradictions
of Palestinian society.
And then we cannot speak about
one form of resistance or one
way of thinking.
And how important is
it for us to understand
these internal contradictions,
these internal forms of agency.
And admit that with agency
comes responsibility
in a way to rethink the entire
narrative of these 100 years.
So for example, somebody
like a social historian
who hasn't really been
writing on the 20th century.
But if I did write
on the 20th century,
I think the points for me would
include, for example, the 1987
as a distinct stage,
but all the other stages
will be from the bottom
up that way as opposed
to what's being done from
the top down to them.
Not that it doesn't matter.
It matters a huge deal.
I think you convince
me more than anyone
how tremendously
[INAUDIBLE] the odds are
against the Palestinians.
It's a fact.
But yes, it would be a
different kind of emphasis
and a different kind of
timeline and structure.
RASHID KHALIDI: Different
kind of historian.
BESHARA DOUMANI: Different
kind of historian.
And there's many different
historians, and both of us too.
RASHID KHALIDI: Four of them
that I can see in the room.
BESHARA DOUMANI:
Yeah, I can see here--
RASHID KHALIDI: People who are--
whose work we know.
BESHARA DOUMANI: Exactly.
And so what's wonderful
about the whole thing
is it's very rich.
The Palestinian condition
is a global condition.
And I don't think
we can understand
the Palestinian condition
without understanding
the world, or the
other way around.
And that's source of power
and it's also a huge weakness
at the same time.
RASHID KHALIDI: Vulnerability.
BESHARA DOUMANI: Yes,
[INAUDIBLE] vulnerability.
Can I, just before we leave,
ask you a personal question?
Which is how has writing
this book changed you?
Because it's one thing to write
a book with a personal element
that witnesses.
Right?
You witness 1982.
You can tell us through
your own eyes, or the eyes
of the letters of your
relatives, what they witnessed
and that adds a
beautiful, wonderful,
and imaginative dimension.
But part of writing
a personal narrative
is also introspection,
also trying
to ask yourself existential
questions like who am I?
Why am what I am?
What brought me to this point?
What does my life really about?
And I'm just wondering if
you focus on the second part
of the personal, how
has writing this book--
you said it was hard so
it must have left some--
RASHID KHALIDI: Yeah.
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
RASHID KHALIDI: It was hard.
I think I mentioned that
here and I mentioned it
to your class.
It involved unlearning
decades and decades
of rigorous training
to do things one way
and doing them another way.
But behind your question
is another question.
And the thing that I
felt when I finished it,
and once I realized
that it more or less did
some of the things
I wanted it to do,
was that I felt I'd gotten
something off my chest.
In the sense that I had been
sort of holding myself back,
restricting myself
in, especially as I
wrote in previous
books about things
that I knew a lot about
because I was there,
and I couldn't put myself
into the narrative.
I couldn't use that
experience that I
had as yet another datum,
as yet another whatever, yet
another piece of evidence.
And so I let myself go in this.
I mean, there's stuff I
didn't say in the book.
There are a lot of things I
didn't talk about that I could,
and maybe should
have talked about.
But where I felt I
needed to and that I
thought [INAUDIBLE] I
unburdened myself by doing it,
I did it here.
In a bunch of
places in this book.
And so I now feel that if people
actually get to read the book,
there are things that I never
was able to say that now I've
said it.
It's In the book.
And I can talk
about it if people
ask me questions about the book,
I can talk about it freely.
So in that respect,
I feel better.
On another level, I'm
dissatisfied because there
are many other things
that I could have
and maybe should have added.
But I don't have
the kind of ego that
makes me want to write
an autobiography.
I just don't think
that's something
I'm going to do or want to do.
I wanted to enrich the
historical record in ways
that I thought only I
could do it, and do it
in ways that, as I said,
got something off my chest.
You can feel it, I
think, the most strongly
in the 1982 chapter.
But you can also feel
it in the Oslo chapter.
I'm really angry about Oslo.
I witnessed, we witnessed, we
went through stuff in Lebanon
especially in '82,
which I never really was
fully able to get out there.
And there are accounts
of it, and there
are versions of
what happened which
go nowhere near touching on it.
And I don't think I even did go
as far as one would have to do.
I mean, [INAUDIBLE] book
on [INAUDIBLE] takes you
where you really need to go.
If you really want to
know what happened,
read [INAUDIBLE] book.
It's available in English.
It's available in Arabic.
It's harrowing.
And there are other
accounts of other things
that I talk about that are
far better than anything
I will ever write.
But I got my part
of it out, I felt.
And so that made me feel better.
BESHARA DOUMANI: Well, with
that, we thank you very much.
RASHID KHALIDI:
You're very welcome.
Thank you.
