The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood by Rashid Khalidi (Beacon Press, 281 pages)
Both a rapid-talking native New Yorker and the scion of an established Jerusalem Arab family, Rashid Khalidi is widely considered one of today's preeminent historians of the Palestinians. In his important new book, The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood (Beacon Press), he examines the failure of Palestinian attempts to establish their own state. He slams the "weak and ineffective" Palestinian leadership from the pre-Israel era up to the present day, while also remaining highly critical of Israeli and U.S. policy in the region.
Khalidi holds the Edward Said Chair at the Middle East Institute at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs. He was an advisor to the Palestinian delegation to the 1991 Madrid Conference that preceded the Oslo Accords, but is nevertheless quite critical of the peace process's ramifications. In two interviews conducted in his New York office and by email (when he was in Cairo), he answered questions about his book and the current political situation in the Middle East
Your book is about the failure of the Palestinians to establish a state in 1948 and ever since. Briefly highlight key points in the history...
The important turning points were the rise of the Nazis and the 1936 -1939 [Arab] revolt and after that, it was pretty much over for the Palestinians. I don't think that you can blame the Palestinians that much after 1939, because they have taken an enormous hit due to British repression -- a huge percentage was killed or imprisoned by the British or, like my uncle, [who was] in the top leadership, sent off to the Seychelles or Malta or Uganda.
Another turning point comes in the 1970s and 1980s, when there is a clear understanding on the part of the PLO leadership that the entire international environment has changed, that the Arab environment has changed, that the whole way that Palestinian aspirations are pitched is out of sync with everything else in the universe -- and they change ... I think they probably could have done more to build themselves up as a credible state actor, a para-state actor.
As I say in the book, I think that a huge opportunity was missed in the early 1990s in the wake of the first Gulf War and in the wake of [former Secretary of State James] Baker's opening up the first and only conference [in Madrid] bringing all the parties to the table -- a unique diplomatic achievement in the entire history of the conflict. The Palestinians actually had much more leverage than they realized they had. They were weak due to disastrous, foolish decisions made by Arafat, in terms of aligning the PLO with the Iraqis explicity or implicitly, and they were weakened in various ways in consequence. But in looking back ... Oslo was one of the worst things that they could have done in several respects, in terms of permitting with Palestinian assent the doubling of the settler population in the decade of the 1990s, and in terms of consecrating a much higher level of control over the Palestinian population in the territories.
Is that because the settlements were not put on the table immediately?
Partly … Dennis Ross [a Middle East advisor in the first Bush White House] saw to it and Baker backed him up, and it continued through Clinton. The Palestinians weren't allowed to talk about anything important -- Jerusalem, refugees, settlements water, borders … sovereignty, statehood. Those were made final status issues, in the never-never land of the future, which turned out to be a take-it-or-leave-it offer by the Americans on behalf of [former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud] Barak in the summer of 2000. These issues were briefly discussed, and then what happened, happened. This actually had to do not only with what you suggest -- the architecture, structure [framework] of Oslo negotiations -- but also with the Americans' failure to live up to their letter of assurance to the Palestinians, which had been that during the negotiations nothing that predetermined or prejudged the outcome was to be allowed … If that stuff is not stopped in 1992, there is no point in negotiating. What are we negotiating about?
From a historian's perspective, do you see a pendulum swinging back from Islam to the secular movement among the Palestinians?
I don't do future predictions. I would, however, say a couple of things. All the standard, traditional secular alternatives are burnt out, have failed. And I don't think that one can look there for repetition of something from the past.
The second thing is that I would look very carefully at what purports to be Islamic. It's true that in some of its social provisions -- take Hamas -- it is clearly Islamic in orientation, but anybody who looks carefully at what Hamas actually says has to accept that this is a nationalist movement with a great deal of flexibility, obviously in an Islamic guise … Yes, there is more public piety certainly in terms of social stuff, no question; I'm not suggesting those things are unimportant, but I would not overemphasize the degree to which it means these are really truly Islamic political movements, in the sense of trying to completely restructure politics. They are not talking about a Caliphate, they are not really even talking about an Islamic state of Palestine, they are not even talking about one Islamic state in Palestine, they are talking about some kind of Palestinian state which -- and here's the important part -- which they would dominate, and an Israeli state, So what is so extremely radical or Islamic about that? There are more radical Islamic movements in the world, obviously, but we are talking about Palestine.
You argue in your book and in interviews that, regretfully, the two state solution is becoming eclipsed by events. Assuming there is some movement to negotiate now between Mahmud Abbas and Ehud Olmert, what are we really talking about in terms of the viability of achieving a two-state solution?
I don't know about a timeline. I know what the trends that have to be reversed are, and I don't see them being reversed myself. You don't just have to dismantle settlements, although you have to do that, and you don't just have to dismantle all the other physical structures that hem in and constrain and limit and control and dominate -- and by physical structures I mean checkpoints, barriers, by-pass roads, and so on. You also have to dismantle the structure of control whereby economic agreements signed in the 1990s -- entrance and exit, passport arrangements, birth and death registrations, everything important -- is still controlled by Israel.
The suffocating control of a massive bureaucracy over aspects of Palestinian life has to be ended, and that requires a mentality change probably more important and more difficult than physically dismantling the settlements. Because most Israelis would probably be happy, I think, to dismantle a lot, if not all, of the settlements if they thought something else would happen, but I think that you have to have a thoroughgoing change in the mindset of the Israelis who have been taught to believe that the only way they can get what they want is by massive domination of these other people and that massive force needs to be applied until these people say uncle. … <. it="" no="" small="" endeavor.="" then="" you="" have="" to="" convince="" yourself="" that="" your="" security="" doesn="" depend="" on="" control="" of="" their="" every="" movement="" which="" is="" going="" be="" a="" very="" hard="" thing="" do.="">And the U.S. role in the region?
Everything is now connected. It's not just Palestinians and Israelis … it's much bigger than that now, for good or for ill. It involves the Lebanese crisis, which is in a critical state now … The Syrians don't just want something in Lebanon or to have influence in the Palestinian arena; they also want to do a deal in Iraq. The Iranians don't just want to have influence in Iraq; they also want an end to American hostility. …The problem with that is it requires a 180 degree shift on behalf of people whose feet, as far as I can tell, are entrenched in solid concrete. By that I mean the president and vice president. [Deputy National Security Advisor] Elliot Abrams hasn't gone anywhere. One can go on and on….
That to me is the $64,000 question, which is not to say that I think that the U.S. is key to everything. But I really do think that if the U.S. plays a negative role in two or three-let's say Lebanon or Iran, or Iraq, let's say they refuse to talk to the Sunni insurrectionists or they refuse to give Iran what it sees is its due or they refuse to …allow Israel to talk to Syria, or,or, or--- because the hip bone is connected to the back bone, etc.
Jo-Ann Mort writes frequently about Israel for TAP online, The Forward, tpmcafe.com and elsewhere. She is co-author of Our Hearts Invented a Place: Can Kibbutzim Survive in Today's Israel? She is an officer of Americans for Peace Now, affiliated with Israel's Peace Now movement.
