This keynote is part of the conference, A Century of Palestinian Nationalism: Modes of Political Organization and Representation since 1919, organized by Columbia Global Centers | Amman in partnership with Institut français du Proche-Orient (Ifpo), Institute for Palestine Studies, and Al Hekma Association.
Professor Khalidi will lay out a framework for understanding the conflict over Palestine as a century-long war involving a settler colonial movement – which has succeeded in forming a national entity – that was consistently supported by several of the great powers, and on the other side stubborn resistance on the part of the Palestinian people, who have always enjoyed much less external support.
Rashid Khalidi is the Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University. He has taught at the Lebanese University, the American University of Beirut, and at the University of Chicago. Khalidi is the former President of the Middle East Studies Association and is co-editor of the Journal of Palestine Studies.
His books include The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance 1917-2017 (forthcoming, 2020); Brokers of Deceit: How the U.S. has Undermined Peace in the Middle East (2013); Sowing Crisis: American Dominance and the Cold War in the Middle East (2009); and The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood (2006). Khalidi has also written for The New York Times, The Financial Times, The Boston Globe, The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune, Vanguardia, The London Review of Books, and The Nation. He received his B.A. from Yale University and his D. Phil. from Oxford University.
