Walid Khalidi (; born July 16, 1925) is a Palestinian historian who has written extensively on the Palestinian exodus. He is a co-founder of the Institute for Palestine Studies, established in Beirut in December 1963 as an independent research and publishing center focusing on the Palestine problem and the Arab–Israeli conflict, and was its general secretary until 2016.
Khalidi's first teaching post was at Oxford, a position he resigned from in 1956 in protest at the British Suez Crisis. He was Professor of Political Studies at the American University of Beirut until 1982 and thereafter a research fellow at the Harvard Center for International Affairs.[Hirsch & Housen-Couriel, 1995, p. 98.] He has also taught at Princeton University.
He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has been influential in scholarship, institutional development and diplomacy. His academic work in particular, according to Rashid Khalidi, has played a key role in shaping both Palestinian and broader Arab reactions to the loss of Palestine, and in outlining ways for the former to ensure that they remain visible as a presence within the Middle East map.[Rashid Khalidi, 'Walid Khalidi,' in Philip Mattar, Encyclopedia of the Palestinians, Facts on File, rev.ed. 2005 pp.280-284.]
Life and career
Khalidi was born, one of five children, in Jerusalem on July 16, 1925.
His father, Ahmad Samih Khalidi, was dean of the Arab College of Jerusalem, and hailed from a family with roots in pre-Crusader Palestine. His step mother, Anbara Salam Khalidi (4 August 1897–May 1986), was a Lebanese feminist, translator and author, who significantly contributed to the emancipation of Arab women. Khalidi's early tutor was the director of Education in Palestine, G. B. Farrell.
[Rashid Khalidi, 'Walid Khalidi,' in Philip Mattar (ed.), Encyclopedia of the Palestinians, Infobase Publishing, 2005 pp.280-284.] His half-brothers are the historian
Tarif Khalidi and biochemist
Usama al-Khalidi.
Khalidi graduated with a B.A. from the University of London in 1945, then studied at the University of Oxford, gaining an M.Litt. in 1951. He then taught at the Faculty of Oriental Studies in Oxford, until he resigned, after the trilateral British, French and Israeli assault on Egypt in 1956, to take up teaching at the American University of Beirut. In the 50s he wrote 2 essays on Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulsi, a Syrian Sufi scholar who had written on tolerance, and who practiced this in regard to Jews and Christians he encountered.[Camille Mansour and Leila Fawaz (eds.), Transformed Landscapes: Essays on Palestine and the Middle East in Honor of Walid Khalidi, American University in Cairo Press, 2009 pp.ix-xiii.]
Under his guidance the Institute of Palestine Studies, established in 1963, produced a long series of monographs in English and Arabic and several important translations of Hebrew texts into Arabic: 'The History of the Haganah', David Ben-Gurion and Moshe Shertok's diaries—texts that still await translation into English.[See for example See translation by Walid Khalidi here] He has also produced ground-breaking work on the fall of Haifa and Deir Yassin. His best known works are Before Their Diaspora, a photographic essay on Palestinian society prior to 1948 and , the encyclopedic collection of village histories which he edited. He became a senior research associate at the Institute of Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard in 1982.
Khalidi was critical of the Palestinian involvement in the Lebanese Civil War, recalling an argument with Yasser Arafat in which he told the Palestinian leader that the PLO "had no business" taking sides in the conflict.
Position on the Palestine question
Khalidi's stated position on the Palestine question is for a two-state solution.
Khalidi wrote in
Foreign Affairs in 1988: "A Palestinian state in the occupied territories within the 1967 frontiers in peaceful coexistence alongside Israel is the only conceptual candidate for a historical compromise of this century-old conflict. Without it the conflict will remain an open-ended one."
[Khalidi, Walid. "Toward Peace in the Holy Land", Foreign Affairs , Spring 1988.]
Khalidi was a Palestinian representative to the Joint Palestinian–Jordanian delegation to the Middle East peace talks launched at the Madrid Conference, prior to the Oslo Agreements. He holds no office in the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) or any of its bodies.[ Hansard Records, 13 April 1983 vol 40 c407W.]
Awards
At the Palestinian Heritage Foundation's 15th Anniversary banquet, Khalidi was presented with an award for his commitment to the Palestinian cause, the Arab-American community, and the Arab nation.
Reviews
Moshe Brawer, professor of geography at Tel Aviv University wrote that Khalidi's encyclopedic work
All that Remains suffers from "inadequate field research." Brawer criticized Khalidi's over-reliance on a modified version of the Village Statistics, which Khalidi acknowledged provide only rough estimates, while not making use of other sources such as the
Village files or RAF aerial photographs which would have yielded more accurate estimates.
Ann M. Lesch of Villanova University wrote that "As scholarly documentation, All That Remains will become the definitive source for research into the Palestinian displacement in 1948."
Published works
Books
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(1974) Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict: An Annotated Bibliography. Institute for Palestine Studies.
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(1987)
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(1983) Conflict and Violence in Lebanon: Confrontation in the Middle East. Harvard University Press.
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(1984) Before Their Diaspora: A Photographic History of the Palestinians, 1876–1948. Institute for Palestine Studies.
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(1987) From Haven to Conquest: Readings in Zionism and the Palestine Problem until 1948.. Institute of Palestine Studies, Washington DC.
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(1989) At a Critical Juncture: The United States and the Palestinian People. Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, Georgetown University.
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(1992) All That Remains: The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948. Institute for Palestine Studies.
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(1992) Palestine Reborn. I. B. Tauris.
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(1996) Islam, the West and Jerusalem. Center for Contemporary Arab Studies & Center for Muslim–Christian Understanding, Georgetown University.
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(1998)
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(1999)
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(2000) The Ownership of the U.S. Embassy Site in Jerusalem. Institute for Palestine Studies.
Articles
See also
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Depopulated Palestinian locations in Israel
Notes
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Hirsch, Moshe and Housen-Couriel, Deborah (1995). Whither Jerusalem?: Proposals and Positions Concerning the Future of Jerusalem. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers.
External links
- * Journal of Palestine Studies, Institute for Palestinian Studies
- * Vol 18 no. 1, (Aut. 88): pp. 51–70. Erskine Childers, Walid Khalidi, and Jon Kimche 1961 Correspondence in The Spectator on "Why the Refugees Left" [Originally Appendix E of Khalidi, Walid, "Plan Dalet Revisited: Master Plan for the Conquest of Palestine".
- * Journal of Palestine Studies Vol 21, no. 1 (Aut. 91): pp. 5–16. Khalidi, Walid "The Palestine Problem: An Overview".
- * Journal of Palestine Studies Vol 2 no. 2 (Win. 73): 3–32 Nasser's Memoirs of the First Palestine War Author(s): Gamal Abdul Nasser and Walid Khalidi
- * Walid Khalidi, , 2014.
