Palestine and Israel, each now with their own strong and vocal supporters in the United States, are at the center of competing narratives about people groups seeking sovereignty over their own destinies. Is there room for both in the heads and hearts of Americans?

 

Rashid Khalidi is the Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University, an endowed chair named for Said, a professor, public intellectual, and a founder of the academic field of postcolonial studies. Khalidi has written a number of books on the history of Palestine and the Middle East. With his latest effort - The Hundred Years War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance: 1917-2017 - Khalidi heeded the advice of his son and sought a more personal approach in his work. The result is an approachable account of a Palestinian people that has long been defined in the American consciousness, the author contends, by a narrative it didn’t write. Inserting himself into the story, Khalidi uses archival accounts of generations of family members from the region – mayors, judges, diplomats and journalists, to insert a Palestinian perspective into his chronicle of the last century of conflict. Governing Editor-at-Large Clay Jenkinson recently spoke with Khalidi about the book and the need, the possibilities, and the probabilities for a new Palestinian narrative. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.