Another illuminating read about the history of the oppression of the Palestinian people, which goes back to 1917. A little less accessible than the Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, though that’s perhaps because I read the audio and Khalidi delves deep into politics both within Palestine and Israel but also internationally, so there are a LOT of names to keep track of. But besides that, Khalidi offers an incredibly forthright explanation of how we’ve ended up where we are today - witnessing the genocide of Palestinians in real time while western leaders endorse it. 

Anyone posting on social media in support of Palestine will have been subject to the ‘but what about Hamas?’ question, and in this book Khalidi does indeed address the fact that Hamas carry out what likely amounts to war crimes, but nowhere near the scale that Israel does. I have also heard the nugget floating around that at one point Israel funded Hamas, but it was astonishing to hear that confirmed - they wanted to weaken the Palestinian Liberation Organization, so funded Hamas in an effort to divide and rule. Truly… no words. I also have no words for the role the US plays in all of this. It makes so much sense that Americans just constantly parrot the ‘self defence’ line, since they are the ones supplying Israel with their insane amount of arms. But any weapons supplied by America must be used in self defence - anything else (i.e. what Israel are doing) will leave the US open to being complicit in war crimes. It’s all just a sickening tangle of money and power - white men in suits playing politics with people’s lives. 

This book was published in 2020, and towards the end Khalidi talks about how much of what occurred in 20th century was able to be carried out due to lack of widespread internet/slower pace of news cycle etc. He seemed optimistic that Israel wouldn’t seek to continue their ethnic cleansing procedures with how connected the world is now. Absolutely devastating to read that now when we are literally watching genocide unfold in real time. 

Less of a review and more of a thought dump, but I highly recommend seeking this one out to understand more about the Palestinian plight.