The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A History of Settler-Colonial Conquest and Resistance, 1917-2017

Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses ethnic cleansing, war crimes, the Holocaust, and anti-Muslim and anti-Arab racism and xenophobia.

Khalidi begins The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine by discussing his great-great-great uncle, Yusuf Diya al-Din Pasha al-Khalidi. Yusuf Diya was an Ottoman government official, accomplished scholar, and mayor of Jerusalem. As mayor, he witnessed the beginning of friction between Palestinians and European Jewish settlers (who were members of the proto-Zionist movement) beginning in the late 1870s and 1880s. This friction worried Yusuf Diya. On March 1, 1899, Yusuf Diya wrote a seven-page letter to Theodor Herzl, the founder of the Zionist movement. Yusuf Diya opens the letter by expressing admiration for Herzl, his respect for Judaism and Jewish people, and condemnation of the persecution Jewish people faced in Europe. He then tells Herzl that he believes that the Zionist movement, particularly its goal to create a sovereign Jewish state in Palestine, would cause unrest and conflict.

Yusuf Diya, who deeply respected Judaism, writes “who could contest the rights of the Jews in Palestine? My God, historically it is your country” (5). Khalidi notes that people use this sentence in isolation from the rest of the letter to argue that Yusuf Diya accepted the Zionist movement’s goals for Palestine. Khalidi describes the letter in full, illustrating that this is not the case. Rather, Yusuf Diya tries to persuade Herzl against encouraging Jewish settlers from Europe. He emphasizes that the indigenous people of Palestine (who would later become known as Palestinians) would not allow another group to take over their country. Yusuf Diya also argued that Herzl’s plan endangered Jewish communities throughout the Middle East. He pleads with Herzl to, “in the name of God, let Palestine be left alone” (5).

Herzl quickly replies to Yusuf Diya’s letter. He ignored all the concerns outlined by Yusuf Diya. Instead, Herzl states that “Jewish immigration would benefit the indigenous people of Palestine” (6). Khalidi notes that colonizers around the world use similar justification to support their attempts at dominating the indigenous population. Herzl also alludes to the desire to move the indigenous people out of Palestine through the following statement: “You see another difficulty, Excellency, in the existence of the non-Jewish population in Palestine. But who would think of sending them away” (7). Herzl explicitly discusses this sentiment in his diary. A charter he helped write in 1901 also includes the idea of removing the indigenous people from Palestine. Khalidi emphasizes that “such radical social engineering at the expense of the indigenous population is the way of all colonial settler movements” (9).

Khalidi notes that there is a body of scholarship that tries to prove that Palestine was barren and empty before Zionist settlers arrived. Khalidi also reminds readers that there were indigenous Jewish Palestinians who peacefully lived alongside indigenous Arab Palestinians before the Zionist settlers. These Jewish Palestinians “saw themselves as Jews who were part of the indigenous Muslim-majority society” (19). Erasure of Palestinian identity makes it seem as if the Palestinians did not actually exist as a people and thus Palestine is not truly their homeland. Zionists use this narrative to support their claims over Palestine. Khalidi also emphasizes that most scholarly works about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict do not include the Palestinian perspective. Through his book, Khalidi tries to rectify this exclusion. He believes that by adding the first-person dimension, he can tell a more complete story about the conflict from a Palestinian perspective. Khalidi then describes the layout of his book. He will focus on six turning points in the fight over Palestine, which he also considers declarations of war against the Palestinians.