The Israeli / Palestinian conflict is always in the newspapers and the US always supports Israel. I figured it couldn't be this black and white. After reading "Lawrence in Arabia" I wanted to read more about the Balfour Declaration and the origins of Israel. After some research, I turned to Rashid K ...more
In the Introduction (pp xxxiii) Khalidi claims that the invading Arab armies, except for Egypt, did not cross into the territory designated by the U.N. as Israel. So begins a series of dissembling remarks that permeates this book, Firstly one should note that al ...more
A concise overview of the conflict, focused on Palestine. Would highly recommend this book to someone with knowledge of the conflict’a history, as it does not dive into the details of key events, but rather explains what was going on within Palestine and within Palestinian leadership at the time. ...more
I decided to read this book after hearing this Democracy Now program, which had a debate between Khalidi and Ali Abuminah from the Electronic Intifada: http://www.democracynow.org/2006/11/2...
It was a fascinating book, although a bit dry in parts. It is a very detailed and well-researched history of ...more
This was a hard book to read. Not simply because it's a thorough, academic work but because the egoistic and imperialist causes that have such severe repercussions for the Palestinian people are laid bare here. This is uniquely presented as emanating not just from Israel and the US, but the Palestin ...more
Typical blame game from an anti-Israel mouthpiece for the former PLO. Still, one will learn a few things after reading this book. This book is ONLY worth reading in a broader context of other history books, because without reading Efraim Karsh, Benny Morris, Martin Gilbert, Bernard Lewis, Walter Laq ...more
I had not read any significant material on the Arab-Zionist conflict prior to this book. It served as a good introduction, exploring concepts in considerable, well-researched depth while being fairly short and reasonably unbiased. In order to accomplish this, the book limited its scope to the fairly ...more
This is a good book for those who want to read a more scholarly overview of what things have looked like from the side of the Palestinians from the time of the Mandate until 2006, when the book was released. If you want a video review I broke the book into two parts, before 1948 and after:
Americans are typically impatient with the insistence on historical claims, especially by the debating sides in Mid-East conflicts. Who cares about history, we tend to think; what matters is now. No doubt there's some value to that position. However, Khalidi's book makes a very strong case for why n ...more