The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood

Khalidi poses the question of why Palestinian political development is so weak, certainly not up to the standards of contemporary high-income republics.By itself, this question might not be very interesting, as the high-income countries' level of political development is so difficult to achieve that its absence hardly needs explanation. People who think that England and France set the norm may not remember those countries' internal wars of religion in the 1600s and the ruthless methods used to integrate their territories. Thus, the Palestinian experience should hardly surprise us.Khalidi's purpose in answering the question about political development, however, is to show what the Palestinians' efforts have been.Khalidi's main point is that there was no sustained effort to create a coherent Palestinian political structure in the first forty years after the early 1920s, when partition first created a territory termed "Palestine." He relates that Palestinians initially tried to work through the British rather than to set themselves up as independent. Then, after Israeli forces expelled them in the 1947-48 run-up to Israel's formal independence on May 15, 1948, Palestinians' lives were simply too disrupted for political organization.In the subsequent period from the early 1960s on, Khalidi gives the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) credit for three essential achievements in political organization: (1) winning most Palestinians' recognition of the PLO as their first-ever central point for political cooperation, (2) winning Arab countries' recognition of a Palestinian national cause, and (3) finally winning global recognition that the Palestinian nation existed.At the same time, Khalidi also identifies three failings: (1) not setting up internal democracy and efficient service bureaucracies, (2) not being categorical enough when they gave up armed resistance to the Israelis after the mid-1970s, and (3) neglecting Palestinians outside the West Bank and Gaza when Israel allowed the PLO leadership to return in the mid-1990s.Khalidi's final chapter is a separate essay on Israel's progress toward absorbing the West Bank, the role of the peace process in promoting this, and the likelihood that it has made a Palestinian state impossible.Returning to the history, it is unfortunate that Khalidi does not clarify the impact of partition, which separated Palestine from the rest of the Arab nation, including the political centers -- Damascus, Beirut, and Cairo. Khalidi points out that the Arab provisional government in Damascus opposed partition and wanted a unified nation. But Khalidi does not say what the people suddenly isolated in Palestine thought about the Arab nation. In particular, did they have the sense that building separate Palestinian political institutions would work against Arab goals and play into British hands?Indeed, given the degree of longstanding social interaction across the borders partition created, is it objectively reasonable to speak of Palestine in 1920 as a nation? Or was it rather one portion of a partitioned nation?The writing in Khalidi's historical chapters is indeed somewhat repetitive (a carryover from Arabic poetry's style?), but interested readers will persevere.

Seems like a great book so far, but I haven't read it yet. Still, it's in perfect condition. It's hard to rate here since you have to consider both the book and its content and the quality of the product and how well the provider delivers what advertises.

- and that is not an assessment of 'Jews', pro or con.What you will never ever hear your Pastor tell you, is that the 'Ishmaelites' of the ME get along just fine with Christians. Your local Muslim neighbor in the ME would more likely have a chip on his shoulder about which person should have rightly followed the Prophet in succession after his death, than anything you do as a non-Muslim.Same thing happens within the Mormon community, and countless other examples.

Content Summary: Rashid Khalidi's account provides some valuable historical context for the Palestinian struggle for Independence from the 1920s to the Revolt of 1936 to 1939. This is where is book is at its strongest (Chapter 1-4). He offers some summary analysis and very general overview of the years after the 1948 war - including some on Arafat and the Oslo accords.Analytical Review: Khalidi's book is strongest in Chapter 1-4, as mentioned. I was disappointed that he glossed over the very critical years of Arafat, the PLO, the intifada, Hamas, and terrorist attacks on Israel (be it the Olympics or the suicide bomber attacks). He lost a lot of narrative events he could have developed critically. Additionally, his opening remarks about U.S. support of Al-Qaeda and OBL seem very off-the-mark, almost implying that we directly funded both. It is one thing to say we were both supporting the war against the Soviets, another to supply concrete evidence of a link - which he implies but for which he furnishes no evidence. This made me somewhat wary of his objectivity and accuracy. After that he recovered somewhat, and his conclusion that peace is very difficult right now, is an observation most would share. I would say this book is worth the investment - but more reading is necessary to fill in the obvious gaps he leaves in the Palestinian account.

Khalidi's book is probably one of the most spotted on reading lists dealing with Israel-Palestine: well-written, concise, and essential. Khalidi has a strong historical background in the subject and is able to synthesize events and ideas seamlessly. He is also fluent in a number of languages, allowing him to draw from a wide array of primary and secondary sources. Although Khalidi's political ideology is too liberal for some tastes (and a Wikipedia search away), the book is remarkably unbiased in highlighting the transgressions of the West, Israel, and the Palestinians themselves in thwarting the push for Palestinian statehood. I found his chapter on the PLO and Arafat particularly interesting. Fair warning though, this may not be the best "introductory" book as some basic knowledge of terms and persons is kind of presumed by the author. Additionally, this book aims to look at a specific aspect of Palestinian history - the quest for statehood - and not present an overview of Palestinian history itself. In any case, a remarkably good book from a consistently-excellent academic.

In the long introduction to his very repetitive book in which he sets out to explain why the Palestinians have failed in their struggle for statehood, Professor Khalidi of Columbia University explains how the odds were stacked against them as the result of the policies of Britain, the United States, the surrounding Arab states and of course of the yishuv and then of Israel. All of this, he says, is well known, though not as well-known as it should be. However, he writes that he would focus on the role the Palestinians played themselves, and will `put the Palestinians at the centre of their own story'.To what extent does he manage in the main part of the book to fulfil that aim? The first chapter does indeed look at the internal weaknesses of the Palestinians compared with the Jewish immigrants: they were less educated (though better than the Arabs in the neighbouring countries); they had fewer economic resources; the majority was rural rather than urban; they were less united; and they failed to build up the infrastructures of future statehood.But then in the second chapter, he places the blame for this latter failing on the British Mandate. The Mandate for Palestine incorporated the entire text of the Balfour Declaration, which recognized the national character of the Jews, while failing to mention the national character of the Palestinians. The mandatory authorities insisted in all the encounters with Palestinian nationalists that acceptance of the Balfour Declaration was a prerequisite if the Palestinians were to be given representative institutions and the kind of status that the Jewish Agency enjoyed. The Palestinians never would provide such acceptance, and as a result, the author says, the British would not recognize any representative body such as the Palestinian Arab Congress, and they always denied the Palestinians the same status as the Jewish Agency enjoyed and which enabled the Jews to build up the infrastructure of the future state. In Egypt, Transjordan, or Iraq, the British had installed native rulers and officials through whom they ruled these territories, but who would provide an infrastructure and a focus for there future independence of these states. The Palestinians, by contrast, did not have even that.At this stage the reader might ask, `What about the Supreme Muslim Council, which was recognized by the British, was an elected body, and whose leader, the Mufti, did in fact become the spokesman of Palestinian nationalism?' Professor Khalidi presents the Mufti as, for the most part, a British stooge, until, in the mid-1930s he could no longer contain the political passions of his followers. Throughout the second chapter, Professor Khalidi mocks the claim that the British tried to be even-handed, and portrays them as pro-Jewish and anti-Palestinian. He even describes the `alliance' between the British and the yishuv growing `stronger and more determined as the situation of the Jews of Europe worsened dramatically' during the 1930s. All of this will read oddly to those who recall that from the Churchill White Paper of 1922 onwards, the British steadily whittled down their interpretation and implementation of the Balfour Declaration.The third chapter, headed `A Failure of Leadership', explains the rivalry, dating back to Ottoman times, between different Arab notables, but again emphasises how the British played on these rivalries, putting many of them on their payroll, to prevent Arab unity; and anyway these notables, even if they wished the British out, were unwilling to mobilize the Arab masses and they were eager to discredit such leaders as emerged.These divisions still operated during the great Arab Revolt against the British from 1936 to 1939. The British were so hard pressed by the Revolt that they armed the Zionists to help them. In the end the Revolt was crushed: some 5,000 fighters were killed (sources I have read put the figure at 2,850), their leaders were imprisoned or deported to the Seychelles, and factions within the Arab movement assassinated their rivals. Professor Khalidi sees the events of 1947-49 as `in an important sense no more than a postlude, a tragic epilogue to the shattering defeat of 1936-1939' .In May 1939, with war approaching, the MacDonald White Paper offered the Arabs an independent multiracial state within ten years. The notables and the neighbouring Arab rulers (who for the first time were drawn into the Palestinian Question, from which time onwards they played a key role in frustrating Palestinian ambitions) were for accepting the White Paper; but the Mufti, fearing to lose control of the militants still in the field, rejected it. Khalidi blames him for this, though he does say that there was little hope that, given the certain resistance of the Zionists who by now made up 30% of the population of Palestine, the proposal could ever work. In any case, the Mufti's flight to and alliance with Nazi Germany contributed to the fact that after the war none of the victorious powers would support the Palestinians against the State of Israel.The trenchant analysis in the last two chapters shows how the high hopes placed in Arafat and the PLO (who for the first time were internationally recognized as the representatives of the Palestinian people) were dashed by a long series of mistakes, first by the collective leadership and then, after 1991, by Arafat personally . High among these Professor Khalidi places the Oslo Agreement, negotiated secretly by inexperienced Palestinian representatives behind the backs of the more sophisticated negotiators (who included Khalidi) who were involved in the Madrid-Washington Conferences from 1991 to 1993. The decade of negotiations that followed the Oslo Agreements led to the Palestinians `negotiating for an end to Israel's occupation while Israel reinforced it' by further settlements and appropriations of Palestinian land, culminating with the Wall, intended to keep the Palestinian terrorists out of Israel proper, but in fact being the symbol of the Iron Cage in which the fragmented Palestinians areas are trapped.

masterpiece of rashid khalidi.

本書の前半では、オスマン・トルコ崩壊後のイギリスのマンデート時代に、パレスチナ人が他のアラブ人と比べていかに不利な戦い・状況を強いられてきたのかが論じられており、著者は当初はこれをIRON CAGEと呼んでいる。後半では主にPLOの功罪を論じているが、著者は1991年のマドリード会議にパレスチナ人のアドバイザーとして参加しており、その後のオスロ合意から2000年のキャンプデービット会議に至る和平プロセスの間に、いかにパレスチナ人の状況が悪化したのかが大きな論点となっている。ブッシュ大統領のパレスチナ政策についてはその矛盾を鋭く批判している。（但し、本書がカバーしているのは2006年半ばまで。）パレスチナ人である著者のパレスチナ人の不甲斐なさに対する怒り、それは仕方のないことだったという弁護、あの時こうすれば少しはましだったはずという悔しさなどが入り混じり、論旨が混乱しているところもあるが、それがかえってパレスチナ人の置かれてきた苦しい状況をよく表していると思う。その中でPLO内部の矛盾や問題点の由来などもよく説明されており、貴重な一冊だと思う。