The Hundred Years' War on Palestine
A landmark history of one hundred years of war waged against the Palestinians from the foremost US historian of the Middle East, told through pivotal events and family history In 1899, Yusuf Diya al-Khalidi, mayor of Jerusalem, alarmed by the Zionist call to create a Jewish national home in Palestine, wrote a letter aimed at Theodore Herzl: the country had an indigenous people who would not easily accept their own displacement. He warned of the perils ahead, ending his note, “in the name of God, let Palestine be left alone.” Thus Rashid Khalidi, al-Khalidi’s great-great-nephew, begins this sweeping history, the first general account of the conflict told from an explicitly Palestinian perspective. Drawing on a wealth of untapped archival materials and the reports of generations of family members—mayors, judges, scholars, diplomats, and journalists—The Hundred Years' War on Palestine upends accepted interpretations of the conflict, which tend, at best, to describe a tragic clash between two peoples with claims to the same territory. Instead, Khalidi traces a hundred years of colonial war on the Palestinians, waged first by the Zionist movement and then Israel, but backed by Britain and the United States, the great powers of the age. He highlights the key episodes in this colonial campaign, from the 1917 Balfour Declaration to the destruction of Palestine in 1948, from Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon to the endless and futile peace process.
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What Hacker News says
- I appreciate you sharing these links and pushing back. It’s clear you’re coming from a place of deep conviction about the historical injustices here, and I respect that.
The Nakba is undeniably a catastrophe for Palestinians, involving mass expulsions, village destructions, and profound human suffering that shapes their identity to this day.
Plan Dalet, as outlined in the Wikipedia article you linked, was indeed a Haganah blueprint that shifted to offensive operations, leading to the depopulation of hundreds of villages and the flight or expulsion of around 750,000 Palestinians.
Historians like Ilan Pappé (in “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine”) argue it was a systematic plan for ethnic cleansing, with tactics like sieges, bombings, and forced removals. That’s not something to downplay or excuse: it’s a dark chapter, and comparing elements to other atrocities (while avoiding direct equivalences) highlights the moral weight.
That said, I think the full picture is even more layered, and understanding both sides means grappling with the context without absolving anyone. The Arab states’ intervention in May 1948 wasn’t purely defensive; it was also driven by their own territorial ambitions and opposition to the UN Partition Plan (which, as you note, was flawed and rejected by Palestinians and Arabs for giving 55% of the land to a Jewish minority that owned ~7%). But Plan Dalet was finalized in March 1948 amid escalating civil war violence; after the UN vote in November 1947 sparked attacks from both sides, including Arab irregulars blockading Jewish areas and the Haganah responding in kind. Benny Morris (a “New Historian” who revised much of the traditional Israeli narrative) describes it as a response to anticipated Arab invasions, though he acknowledges the expulsions were often brutal and opportunistic. The plan’s text emphasizes securing Jewish areas and borders “in anticipation of” invasion, but in practice, it went beyond that, capturing territory outside the UN-allotted Jewish state.
You’re right that this wasn’t explicitly sanctioned by the UN, and the partition itself violated self-determination principles (as the Arab Higher Committee argued). But the “retconning” happened post-facto through armistice lines and international recognition of Israel. It’s tragic that Palestinians paid the price for European colonialism, the Holocaust’s aftermath, and Zionist aspirations; all while Arab leaders failed to unify or protect them effectively. My original point wasn’t to defend Israel as “legitimate” in every action (far from it: they’ve committed wrongs that demand accountability). It was to urge empathy for how each side’s trauma fuels the cycle: Israelis seeing 1948 as survival against existential threats (five Arab armies invading a nascent state), Palestinians as the theft of their homeland. Both narratives have truths, and dismissing one entirely risks perpetuating the divide. If we’re serious about peace, we need to hold space for that complexity; maybe starting with works like Morris’s “1948” or Rashid Khalidi’s “The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine” for balanced views.
Thanks for engaging thoughtfully; these conversations are hard but necessary.
- >The "promised land" narrative and relation between Jews and Israel is in the Quran and Bible.
This false narrative is the very root cause of the current problems in Israel and Palestinian conflict.
I'm not anti-immigration as you accused me of, far from it but I think you need to accept the fact that emigration en mass to any part of the world is not natural and will definitely causing instability. The situation in Israel cannot be justified similarly as if the Muslim want to emigrate en mass back to Spain. However you never answer my questions what's your personal opinions regarding this similar hypothetical situation?
I'd really appreciate if you can provide the valid references of the verses for the dubious promised land narrative in the Quran and Bibles with respect to modern Israel (not ancient Moses time).
The original promised land narrative was for the Moses Jewish followers at that specific time and it has been fulfilled at that particular time although not without much bruhaha. Ironically it's reported in the Quran that the Jews at the time famously and cowardly refused to enter and fight alongside Moses into Jerusalem and God caused them to be lost in the wilderness for 40 years as a punishment from God [1]. Not until after Moses death that the Jews can later enter Jerusalem for good and any learned Jews should know these very facts.
Another interesting potential fact is that most of the current Palestinians are actually the descendents from the original Jewish people living in the ancient Judea time that have converted to Islam. I think Israel govt can and should check the Palestinian people ancestry based on DNA test accordingly. If that's true it will make the current Israel govt as self-hating Jews or self-hating Semite. Potentially, some of the Palestinians may have higher Jews ancentors percentage from the ancient Judea Jews population than the emigrants themselves. This will be very ironic and very sad situations at the same time, after all these series of deadly conflicts over hundred years. I'd like to know your honest opinions on this matter as well since it's a very highly likely situation.
As for Muslim anything in the Old Testament and New Testament (both directly sent to Jews and not for other races) are dubious in its contents veracity and some of the original verses had been changed illegally to suite the Jewish community. Hebrew as a language is mostly forgotten for several thousands of years and even in Jerusalem at the time of Jesus back in the very 1st CE, the Jerusalem people were speaking Aramaic (a Semitic Syrian language closer to Arabic than Hebrew) [2]. God's words in holy books are not supposed be changed and apparently all previous holy books sent by God (to Jews or other races) were not guaranteed their contents except Quran.
>Third mistake. When Jews started immigrating to Israel they bought lands en-mass. 7% of the land was purchased until Palestinian leaders and the British put a stop to that.
According to reluable sources only a few percents or around less than 3% of land properties were legally bought by the Israel Jewish community from the Palestinians.
But honestly, even if we take your inflated claim of legal land purchases at 7%, do you honestly think the Palestinian would sell the Jews the remainder of the 93% land if the British and the Palestinian authority had not stop the land purchasing exercises?
>In the occupied territories you could try and argue an apartheid based on that definition.
The proof is in the pudding. You can ask the remaining survivors of the apartheid regime from South Africa to visit Gaza and West Bank, and ask them is their apartheid version is worst or better than what the Palestinian are experiencing right now. I cannot recall any incidents where the South Arican black news broadcasting stations, people houses, schools, hospital, house of worships, etc were indiscriminately and systematically decimated from the air by the South African govt at the time. Israel really took the definition of apartheid to the next level /s.
Do you not know that throughout history for over more than a thousand years never ever have any Muslim authorities totally expelled or decimated the Jewish population. This is because together with Christian, Jews are considered and respected as the people of the Books. The same cannot be said to the Nazi and the Spain Inquisition, just to name a few. Not sure you know about this fact, at one time all Jews were banished altogether from the entire British islands and the current Jews now in British Islands are the descendants from later emigrants.
Under the Muslim empires, the Jews not only surviving but were thriving. The fact that Jewish current canonical versions of Jewish holy books or Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, namely the 10th-century medieval Masoretic Text compiled by the Masoretes (currently used in Rabbinic Judaism), were brought back and edited during the Islamic Caliphates period as the Hebrew language has been unspoken for several thousand of years as I've mentioned earlier [2],[3]. If the Muslim authorities want to get rid of the Jews as did the Nazi, the Spanish and the British, it's not certainly beyond their means and capabilities, it's a matter of won't not can't. You are the living proof and testament to this fact since your ancestors were from Morocco where it's a predominantly Muslim community and Jewish community have been continously living in Morocco (and many other muslim majority countries) for more than a thousand years.
I'd strongly suggest you read the The Hundred Years' War on Palestine book, from the academic perspective of the situations. The author Rashid Khalidi is the Editor of the reputable Journal of Palestine Studies based in the US. His relative was once the mayor in Jerusalem a hundred years ago, and the book begins with an examination of correspondence from 1889 between his relative Yusuf Diya ad-Din Pasha al-Khalidi, mayor of Jerusalem, and Theodor Herzl, father of modern political Zionism [4],[5].
[1] Musa Reminds His People of Allah's Favors on Them; The Jews Refuse to Enter the Holy Land:
https://quran.com/al-maidah/20/tafsirs
[2] Hebrew language:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew_language
[3] Hebrew Bible:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew_Bible
[4] The Hundred Years' War on Palestine:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hundred_Years%27_War_on_...
[5] A new abyss’: Gaza and the hundred years’ war on Palestine:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/11/a-new-abyss-ga...
- I highly recommend the book by Prof. Rashid Khalidi, The Hundred Years' War on Palestine, from the academic perspective of the situations. His relative was once the mayor of Jerusalem and he's the Editor of the reputable Journal of Palestine Studies based in the US. The book begins with an examination of correspondence from 1889 between his relative Yusuf Diya ad-Din Pasha al-Khalidi, mayor of Jerusalem, and Theodor Herzl, father of modern political Zionism [1],[2].
Although the book was published back in 2020 prior to the current conflict, he correctly labeled the many years siege on Gaza by Israel as the act of war against Palestinian people, and it turn out to be manifested in the all out war in 2024.
1] The Hundred Years' War on Palestine:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hundred_Years%27_War_on_Pa...
[2] A new abyss’: Gaza and the hundred years’ war on Palestine (2024):
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/11/a-new-abyss-ga...
- "The civilians should be evacuated." They don't want to leave and Israel uses these "evacuations" to make sure Palestinians never return, as they did in 1948, 1967, etc[1][2]. This is whitewashing genocide and is an extremely violent view, packaged in reasonable sounding words. Israel has a long documented history of using terrorism to build its state. If you truly oppose terrorism I recommend starting with the books I've sourced.
[1] The ethnic cleansing of Palestine by Ilan Pappé
[2] The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917–2017 by Rashid Kahlidi
- A quick check of your recent HN comments proves to me that you have only ever researched / trusted a single narrative and talking about this with you won't be very productive.
I think you would find it useful, even for supporting your current arguments more substantially, to read any of the following (in order of recommendation):
I also used to justify or overlook Israel's history and military actions in the same way but once you allow yourself to hear from scholars on both sides, you can't really go back to who you were before.- The Hundred Years' War on Palestine - The Holocaust Industry - Except for Palestine - It’s worthwhile learning the history of intervention in this conflict by the US and UK. It’s not just two groups fighting amongst themselves. It’s western governments putting their thumbs on the scales to massively help one side destroy the other. The Hundred Years War on Palestine by Rashid Khalidi is an excellent book on the subject with a good audiobook on audible. It’s remarkable how one sided this conflict has been with western support since the beginning.
