A review by drdreuh
The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917–2017 by Rashid Khalidi, Rashid Khalidi

challenging informative slow-paced

4.0

The information density of 'The Hundred Years war on Palestine' is immense. Chapters 1 and 2, especially, are critical reading for understanding how we got where we are today, 7 months past the October 7th 2024 Hamas attack on Israel. Despite re-listening multiple times over, chapters 3 and 4 include so many people and organizations and countries - and Khalidi jumps back and forth in time, and between reporting and familial anecdote - that it's a bit hard to track the main thread. I would have felt skeptical of chapters 5 and 6 had I not witnessed (through media) the past 7 months of seeming ceaseless slaughter by Israel on the people living in the Gaza strip.

Although no doubt slanted or worse, "Hundred Years" is important for being a fairly succinct presentation of the Palestinian perspective on history from partition to the near present. Given the frequency with which I've seen it on the reading lists of people in my social milieu, "Hundred Years" and books like it seem to be helping to turn public opinion and fuel pro-Palestine protests around the world. The author is in fact Professor of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University, which staged one of the most vociferous pro-Palestine student protests in April 2024.

Post-October 7 essay - and sort of epilogue - by the author: https://pca.st/episode/1cc3ea46-9a57-487d-a36f-33678499cd31