Michael: Most people think the conflict in Palestine is an ancient religious war. It's not. According to our book today, it's a modern colonial war, and its tragic outcome was predicted with stunning accuracy... in a letter written in 1899. Kevin: A letter from 1899? That's... incredibly specific. What book are we talking about? Michael: We're diving into The Hundred Years' War on Palestine by Rashid Khalidi. And what makes Khalidi's perspective so powerful is that he's not just any historian; he's the Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia, and this history is also his family's history. He uses his own family archives, which is why he has access to a letter like that. Kevin: Ah, so it's personal. That adds a whole different layer. The book has been widely acclaimed but also stirred up some controversy for its framing, right? Michael: Exactly. It was shortlisted for the prestigious Cundill History Prize, but its core argument—that this is a story of settler colonialism—definitely challenges the mainstream narrative. And it all starts with that letter, which sets the stage for everything that follows. Kevin: Okay, I'm hooked. A prophecy from over a century ago. Let's hear it.

Michael: Alright, so picture this. It's 1899. The author's great-great-great uncle, a man named Yusuf Diya al-Din Pasha al-Khalidi, is a former mayor of Jerusalem. He's a well-educated Ottoman official, he speaks multiple languages, and he's watching the rise of a new political movement called Zionism with growing concern. Kevin: And this is the movement led by Theodor Herzl, the one aiming to create a Jewish state. Michael: Precisely. So, Yusuf Diya decides to write a letter directly to Herzl. It's a seven-page letter, and it's incredibly respectful. He says he admires Herzl, he respects Judaism, and he understands the historical Jewish connection to the land and the motivations for Zionism, given the persecution of Jews in Europe. Kevin: That sounds surprisingly conciliatory. He’s not just shouting "no." He's trying to engage. Michael: He is. But then he gets to the heart of the matter. He delivers a stark warning. He essentially says, 'The idea of Zionism is beautiful in theory. But the reality on the ground is that Palestine is already inhabited.' He uses this powerful line: "Palestine is an integral part of the Ottoman Empire, and more gravely, it is inhabited by others." Kevin: "Inhabited by others." That's such a simple, devastating fact that seems to get lost in so many discussions. Michael: It is. And he pleads with Herzl. He says, "in the name of God, let Palestine be left alone." He foresees that trying to impose a new state on top of the existing population will only lead to bloodshed and constant resistance from the indigenous Arabs. Kevin: Wow. So he's not just being territorial; he's predicting the entire conflict. What was Herzl's response? Michael: Herzl's response is the crux of the whole colonial argument. He writes back and is, frankly, dismissive. He says, "You see another difficulty, Excellency, in the existence of the non-Jewish population in Palestine. But who would think of sending them away?" Kevin: Hold on. "Who would think of sending them away?" That sounds like a denial, but it feels... slippery. Michael: It's incredibly slippery. Because as Khalidi points out, while Herzl was writing that publicly, his private diaries were filled with plans for how to "spirit the penniless population across the border" and expropriate their land. He was saying one thing to the world and planning another in private. Kevin: That is chilling. So the response was basically, 'Don't worry your little heads about it, this is for your own good. We'll bring you prosperity.' Michael: Exactly. It's the classic colonial justification. The colonizer insists their project will benefit the natives, all while planning their displacement. Khalidi argues this exchange is the entire conflict in miniature. On one side, a clear-eyed warning from the indigenous population about the inevitable violence of dispossession. On the other, a colonial mindset that erases the people already there, or sees them as a problem to be managed. Kevin: And this wasn't just Herzl's private thought. Other Zionist leaders were open about this, right? Michael: Oh, absolutely. Khalidi quotes Ze'ev Jabotinsky, a major figure in right-wing Zionism, who was brutally honest about it. Jabotinsky wrote that "Every native population in the world resists colonists." He said it was naive to think the Arabs would just sell their homeland. His solution? The Zionist project could only succeed behind an "iron wall" of force, protected by an external power—first Britain, then the United States—that the native population could not breach. Kevin: An "iron wall." So the need for overwhelming force and foreign backing wasn't a bug; it was a feature of the plan from the very beginning. Michael: It was the entire plan. Khalidi's central point is that this wasn't a conflict that tragically spun out of control. It was a colonial war, designed from the outset to displace a population, and that population's resistance was not only expected but planned for. The hundred years' war was declared, in a sense, in that exchange of letters in 1899.

Kevin: Okay, so if that was the blueprint—the colonial framework, the "iron wall"—how did it actually play out? How do we get from that letter to the mass displacement of 1948, what Palestinians call the Nakba, or the Catastrophe? Michael: That's the second major part of the book. Khalidi shows how the blueprint was put into devastating action. And he does it through these incredibly painful, personal stories that show it wasn't just a simple military victory for one side. It was a total societal collapse, engineered by a perfect storm of factors. Kevin: What kind of factors? Michael: Let's start with the political failure and the role of supposed allies. Khalidi tells a story about his uncle, Ismail al-Khalidi, in late 1947. The UN is about to vote on partitioning Palestine. Ismail is sent on a mission to King 'Abdullah of Transjordan, a powerful neighboring Arab ruler. Kevin: To ask for help, I assume? Michael: The opposite, actually. The Palestinian leadership sent Ismail to deliver a very delicate message: they appreciated the King's offer of "protection," but they couldn't accept it. They wanted independence, not to be absorbed into the King's territory after just escaping British rule. Kevin: That's a bold move. Standing up for your own sovereignty. How did the King take it? Michael: He was furious. His face went red with anger, and he abruptly ended the meeting. And at that exact moment, a servant runs in with the news: the UN has just voted in favor of partitioning Palestine. As the King is storming out, he turns to Ismail and says something absolutely bone-chilling. He says, "You Palestinians have refused my offer. You deserve what happens to you." Kevin: Wow. "You deserve what happens to you." That's not an ally. That's a rival. It shows the Palestinians were completely alone. Michael: Completely. They were caught between the Zionist movement on one side and ambitious, unreliable Arab rulers on the other. This story perfectly illustrates the inter-Arab rivalries that crippled any unified response. Then there was the organizational and financial disparity. Kevin: I remember reading a stark example of this in the book. Michael: It's just devastating. In 1946, the Palestinians create something called the Arab National Fund, basically their version of a state treasury to try and compete with the highly organized Zionist institutions. The director, Yusif Sayigh, works tirelessly. By mid-1947, they've managed to raise 176,000 Palestine pounds. A board member proudly boasts about this to the press. Kevin: That sounds like a decent sum for a grassroots effort. Michael: It does. Until the next day, when Sayigh and his colleagues open the newspaper and read that a single, rich Jewish widow from South Africa had just donated one million Palestine pounds to the Jewish National Fund. Kevin: One million. That's almost six times what the entire Palestinian national fund had raised. It’s like bringing a knife to a gunfight. Michael: It's not even a knife. It's a toothpick. It just shows the monumental gap in resources, organization, and international support. The Palestinians were building institutions from scratch under occupation, while the Zionist movement had a global fundraising machine and decades of institutional development behind it. Kevin: So you have political betrayal and a massive resource gap. And then, of course, there's the human cost of the blueprint being executed. Michael: And this is where Khalidi makes it deeply personal. He tells the story of his own family in 1948. His grandparents lived in a large stone house in a neighborhood that's now on the outskirts of Tel Aviv. As the fighting intensified, the family fled for safety, but his grandfather stubbornly refused to leave. Kevin: Why did he stay? Michael: He was a scholar. He couldn't bear to leave his library, his books. He stayed alone in the house for weeks. Finally, a family friend braved the fighting to go and retrieve him. He left unwillingly, lamenting that he couldn't take his books. Khalidi writes that neither his grandfather nor his children ever saw their home again. The ruins of that house are still there today, abandoned. Kevin: That's heartbreaking. It's not just about territory or politics. It's about a lost home, a lost library, a lost life. It makes the term "Nakba" feel so much more real. Michael: Exactly. And that's Khalidi's ultimate point. The Nakba wasn't just a war that was lost. It was the culmination of this hundred-year process. It was the predictable outcome of a colonial plan that was foretold in 1899, executed with the help of the world's greatest power, and compounded by Palestinian disunity, Arab state weakness, and a complete disregard for the people who already called the land home.

Michael: So when you put it all together, Khalidi's argument is that for a hundred years, the conflict has been defined by this colonial dynamic. It's not about two equal sides who just can't get along. It's about a powerful, externally-backed project displacing an indigenous population, a reality that has been consistently ignored by the great powers, from the Balfour Declaration in 1917 right up to the present day. Kevin: And what's so powerful about the book is how it makes that abstract idea so personal. It’s not just theory; it’s his grandfather’s lost library, it’s that chilling conversation with the King. It forces you to see the human faces behind the headlines and the deep historical roots of the power imbalance we still see today. Michael: It completely reframes the narrative. Instead of asking, "Why can't they make peace?", Khalidi forces us to ask, "What does peace even mean when one side's national existence was built on the negation of the other's?" Kevin: That's a much harder question. It implies that any real solution has to start with acknowledging that foundational injustice. Michael: Exactly. And it leaves us with a profound question to ponder: If the foundation of the conflict is this deep-seated inequality, can there ever be peace without first acknowledging and addressing that century-long history of dispossession? Kevin: That's a heavy question to sit with. It completely reframes the conversation. We'd love to hear what you all think. Does this perspective change how you view the conflict? Find us on our socials and let's discuss. Michael: This is Aibrary, signing off.