On February 8, the LWVSP Evening Book Club read The Hundred Year's War on Palestine by Rashid Khalidi, covering the period from 1917 - 2017.
Being a Palestinian-American historian with family ties in the region, we recognize that the author has a certain point of view. The group felt, however, that most of our media has been overbalanced in favor of Israeli and pro-Israel perspectives. One thing that surprised most of us was the fact that the British planned on moving Jews into Palestine as early as the end of the 19th century. Jews, Muslims and Christians lived together in a vibrant society in the region during Ottoman rule. They area was occupied by the British after WWI when the population was 94% Arab and 6% Jewish.
Between 1909-14, 40,000 Jews immigrated to Palestine. Palestinians were hostile to the migration and riots took place while Zionist leaders were preaching the takeover of Palestine. After WWI, other national groups in the former Ottoman Empire were treated differently; the Turks, Iranians, Syrians, Egyptians, and Iraqis were given some measure of independence, but not the Palestinians. The League of Nations gave the British government a mandate to govern Palestine and only Jews residing there received national rights and citizenship. The Jewish population rose from 6% to18%. In 1935, 60,000 Jews arrived from Germany; Jews made up 30% of British Palestine's population by 1939.
Something the group found interesting was that the Palestinian Arabs, since they historically were divided by clans, had no effective government and there were inter-Arab differences with other countries. Arab leaders at this time, in general and among the Palestinians in particular, lacked negotiating expertise and global awareness. So there was no coherent Arab voice or support for Palestinian interests from other Arab nations. In 1947, the UN partitioned the land and gave 56% to the Jews; Arabs were expelled from those territories in what Khalidi describes as an ethnic cleansing.
The following years involved struggles by the Palestinians to be heard and the rise of FATAH, which was non-ideological but focused on the Palestinian national cause. Resistance groups took prominence after the Six Day War of 1967. Peace negotiations resulted in UNSC Resolution 242, which does not even mention the Palestinians, as was the case with future peace efforts which did not include them. The U.S. played Arabs against each other. People got tired of warfare, and the PLO lost support.
Over all these wars, revolts, and negotiations, Khalidi argues, Palestinians by-and-large did not educate themselves about the West to provide a basis for success; they did not start with a collective identity; and other Arab countries did not want to get involved. Khalidi tells a very sad story of a people who were abandoned on all sides and now are facing destruction again.
Our group had a very lively discussion of the book and we were glad that we read it.
