Hundred Years’ War On Palestine By Rashid Khalidi

Very good

This is a true history, well written and thorough. Professional ethics, scholarship, and knowledge of subject matter are apparent.

The book offers a well-referenced and brilliantly presented history of the war against Palestine from a rare and much-needed perspective: the Palestinian one. At the same time, it remains objective, with an exceptional presentation of the main events that shaped the present situation. Palestinian literature and people have long been systematically ignored, making this book a must-read.

It was so nice to finally read a book that cuts through the Israeli propaganda. This book will open your eyes to the reality of this conflict. No more whitewashing from the colonial perspective. Refreshing and informative.

It is difficult to find a completely unbiased book on Palestine and this one is no exception. Books supportive of Israel refer to the brave initial settlers and creators of Israel. Books supportive of Palestinians refer to Zionist colonizers, as does this book. The author’s inside view of Palestinian activities is very useful and insightful. He tends to paint Israelis as well organized, but with essentially evil intent. He paints Palestinians as virtuous, but lacking effective leadership. A few criticisms that perhaps illustrate the author’s bias:

1. The author talks about the grand mufti, Hajj Amin al-Husayni, of the 1930s. He does not describe how in the 1930s al-Husayni visited Hitler, had a tour of at least one Jewish camp, and spoke favorably of this as a possible solution in Palestine.
2. The author dismisses the impact of the “three nos”. However, how can there be any peace initiatives with groups that will not even recognize the right of Israel to exist and thus will not negotiate.
3. The author goes into a lot of detail over the 100-year history of this conflict. However, it is surprising that he gives little attention to the “Yom Kippur War”. He makes some reference to a “1973 war”, but provides no detail.

Yet, I recommend this book to open perspective on the issue of the conflicts within Palestine. It is important to read this book in particular if all you have read are books with a pro-Israeli stance. However, if you read this book, I’d suggest that you also read a book with a pro-Israel stance. Is there a book out there from an impartial observer? I haven’t found one to date.

Professor Khalidi’s book is passionate and informative and effectively advances his thesis that Israel is a colonial project that has been waging war on The Land’s native inhabitants, the Palestinians, for over 100 years. Despite this thesis Khalidi still puts forth the Israeli point of view sincerely. Because of the quality of Khalidi’s writing and argument “The Hundred Years’ War” deserves 5 stars.

However, this book is not a complete view of the conflict – nor does it claim to be. “Hundred Years’ War” is short and cannot cover all of the conflict in 260 pages. However Khalidi’s glaring rhetorical and historical omissions damage the work’s value and venture into dishonesty. Most importantly, Khalidi never addresses the obvious ways that Zionism is vastly different from colonial projects. Furthermore, Khalidi never discusses, even in passing, the 1973 war, Israeli’s unilateral withdrawal from Gaza (leaving it virtually entirely self-governed), and Iran’s extensive threats against Israel and involvement in the conflict. Finally, Khalidi consistently depicts Israel as a power of almost mythical proportions, a towering behemoth impervious to attack and unfazed by its enemies. This categorization is almost completely in disregard of plain fact. When he discusses the 1948 war in the second chapter of his book, for example, he describes Israeli victory as all but certain, and never mentions that the hostile Arab’s states population at the time was 20 million (Egypt) + 1.25 million (Syria) + 430,000 (Jordan) + 1.3 million (Lebanon) + 5 million (Iraq) = ~28 million while Israel’s population was roughly 800,000. Khalidi also doesn’t mention that the Arabs were far better equipped than the Israelis. The complete lack of mention of these critical facts and countless others severely degrades “The Hundred Years’ War” ‘s value.