Rashid Khalidi: “Israel Is Acting With Full US Approval”
After 12 months, there’s no end in sight to Israel’s relentless onslaught against Gaza, now extended to Lebanon. Historian Rashid Khalidi explains how Israel and the US are working together to destroy all constraints on violence against civilians.
Palestinians mourn their loved ones after an Israeli attack in Deir al-Balah, Gaza, on October 11, 2024. (Ashraf Amra / Anadolu via Getty Images)
Israel’s onslaught against Gaza has now continued for more than a year; it shows no sign of ending, and Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has now expanded the war into Lebanon, resulting in more carnage. At time of writing, we are still waiting to see whether and in what way Israel will strike Iran, as it has promised to do.
Rashid Khalidi is one of the leading historians of modern Palestine. He spoke to Jacobin about the implications of the slaughter in Gaza for the world, and about his perspective on the US university system as he retires from his position teaching at Columbia. This is an edited transcript from Jacobin’s Long Reads podcast. You can listen to the interview here.
Daniel Finn
We spoke last October, during the opening weeks of the Israeli onslaught against Gaza, and I think many people would have found it difficult to believe that twelve months later, we would be looking at this onslaught continuing at such a level of intensity, now also extending to the West Bank and Lebanon. Could you give us a sense, from a historian’s perspective, of how the death and destruction of the last year stands out, in particular when compared with the experience of the Nakba in the 1940s?
Rashid Khalidi
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