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

In Chapter 6, Khalidi focuses on four episodes between 2000 and 2014. The first is the rise of Hamas (an acronym that stands for Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiya), a militant organization and rival of the PLO. Hamas rejected diplomacy, the end to armed conflict, and the Oslo accords. Hamas rose in popularity in part because of Palestinians’ frustrations with the PLO.

The second episode is the failure of the 2000 Camp David Summit, where Palestinians and Israelis tried to negotiate the two-state solution. Israeli negotiators wanted control of the Jordan River Valley, Palestine airspace, and water resources in the West Bank. They also wanted to annex several new areas of the West Bank and exclusive rights to Jerusalem. Palestinians refused to accept these terms since they infringed on Palestine being a truly sovereign nation. US President Bill Clinton blamed Arafat for the summit’s failure, even though he pledged not to do so before the summit.

The Second Intifada (2000-2005) represents the third episode. In contrast to the First Intifada, violence marked this campaign. Khalidi argues that “the Second Intifada constituted a major setback for the Palestinian national movement” (214). The Israeli army damaged and occupied many parts of the Occupied Territories. They also laid siege to Arafat’s headquarters. He fell mortally ill during this siege and subsequently died. Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazin) replaced Arafat as the PLO leader. Hamas used suicide bombings on Israeli civilians during the Second Intifada. News agencies broadcast these scenes of death and destruction around the world. Khalidi notes that “Israelis ceased to be seen as oppressors, reverting to the more familiar of victims of irrational fanatical tormentors” (215).

While Khalidi does not condone suicide bombings, he expresses frustration with the biased media coverage. As one example, he points to the wars on the Gaza strip. Over the course of the three wars, nearly 4,000 Palestinians were killed (minors represent one-quarter of these deaths). In contrast, less than 100 Israelis were killed, with the majority being military personnel. Khalidi emphasizes that “the lopsided 43:1 scale of these casualties is telling, as is the fact that the bulk of the Israelis killed were soldiers while most of the Palestinians were civilians” (222). US media coverage never reported the lopsided casualties. Rather, their coverage focused on Hamas rocket fire at civilian targets in Israel. As a result, some Americans once again came to see Israelis in a more favorable standing than Palestinians. Khalidi does note that public criticism of Israel increased among younger, more liberal, more ethnically diverse, and less religious Americans.

Khalidi underscores throughout the book that the Israelis have been far more successful at controlling the narrative surrounding the conflict than the Palestinians. This success continues to hurt the Palestinian national movement and shield Israel’s unjust and discriminatory behavior.

Palestinians felt deep frustration with the PLO in the aftermath of the Second Intifada. Due to this sentiment, Hamas won parliamentary elections in January 2006. Khalidi underscores that “exit polls after the vote showed that the result owed more to the voters’ great desire for change in the Occupied Territories than to a call for Islamist governance or heightened armed resistance to Israel” (219). Palestinian political figures realized that the conflict between the PLO and Hamas would only continue to hurt the Palestinian people. The two groups tried to form a coalition government with members of both parties, but they failed in part because of machinations from outside forces including the US and Israel. Hamas set up its own Palestinian Authority in Gaza and the PLO maintained its base in the West Bank.

Hamas’s control of Gaza led to the final episode: three brutal wars on the Gaza Strip, which took place in 2008-2009, 2012, and 2014. Khalidi argues that Israel once again responded with heavy-handedness. While it is true that Hamas launched its own deadly attacks on Israel, these attacks do not compare. As just one example, Israel fired over 49,000 tank and artillery shells on Gaza in 2014. However, Khalidi believes that both Israeli forces and Hamas committed war crimes.

Khalidi shows frustration with US President Barack Obama, who many believed would handle the conflict in a different manner. These hopes were quickly dashed. President Obama did not stop the flow of American weapons to Israel during any of the three wars on Gaza. He also did not try to counter the Israeli narrative that their “ferocious onslaughts were a righteous response to terrorist rocket fire aimed at Israeli civilians” (234-35). Obama’s administration also abstained from voting on a UN Security Council Resolution that said Israeli settlements in the West Bank violated international law. Khalidi believes that if Obama cared more about the Palestinian cause he could have enacted real change.