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

challenging informative reflective slow-paced

2.0

khalidi, like a true academic, has written written a book for other academics which is lacking the through-line and penetrable language the average reader would need to actually understand the history he wants to share. the first 150 pages of the book are built near entirely on cited data points that trace the history of palestinian-israeli relations in what khalidi claims to be an unbiased history. however, it’s next to impossible to write an ethnographic historical piece on palestine that lacks bias; especially when Khalid’s frame of reference for first hand accounts is a mixture of his family’s journals from the period. so it's particularly biased and highlights or conveniently misses events that help promote a specific perspective (which is to be expected for an ethnography or history book written by someone who is part of the subject culture). ultimately, all of this ends with an incomplete history of palestine, written from the perspective of a descendant of a bygone ruling class in mostly impenetrable language. khalidi's personal stances on the solution, entities like hamas, and where to lay the blame—leave a bad taste in the mouth with lacking contextualization and a heavy dose of victim blaming. overall it’s acceptable reference material, but not comprehensive or a good place to start if you want to learn about palestine and the genocide palestinians have endured.
Expand filter menu Content Warnings