what a goal right well the the basic goal is strategic. israeli palestinian conflict is not the product of ancient ethnic hatreds nor is it the tragic clash between 2 peoples with claims to the same land it is rather a manufactured conflict the outcome of a 100 year old colonial occupation by jewish zionists and israel backed by major imperial powers starting with the british and a century later with the united states this project from its inception has always been about the forest and often violent displacement of palestinians from their land the seizure of that land by the colonisers and the rendering of the palestinians as non people as if they never existed this century long the so 1st by the zionists and later by israel has always been waged against in the digitas people to force them to relinquish their homeland to another people against

their will yet to state this incontrovertibly fact of jewish colonization supported by a numerable documents official statements exhaustive reports at historical records and events sees israel's defenders leveled charges of eddie semitism and racism against those who speak this truth joining me in the studio to discuss this colonial project is rashid holiday the edward cited professor of modern arab studies at columbia university and the author of the 100 years war on palestine the history of settler colonization and resistance 1917 to 2017 so you pull from the historical record from documents and make i think absolutely compelling case that from the moment of scientist settlement in palestine. they knew exactly

what they were doing they knew what the end gold was which they've largely achieved and that was surprising for me as you know from what you dug up in their store of whole record how frank you know how clear sighted they were from the beginning haim weissman and others and so talk about that well they were clear sighted and they were fraying but they were more frank in private than they well public because in public they were quite disingenuous really right i mean the british restricted them to a formulation called a national home for the jewish people in palestine that was not there or a valid objective which was a sovereign jewish state right control over immigration which would have a jewish majority in all of palestine right would imply that entailed ethnic cleansing because at the beginning think you have a figure in the early 20th century jews were 6 percent to 6 percent 917

yeah and 94 percent i mean what's always i lived in israel what always has struck me is this historical amnesia where from the 7th century when. palestine becomes part of you know in a muslim entity all the way up to 948 is utterly a racist for the historical record. well that's that's i mean there's a manufactured forgetting if you want there's a creation of an alternative narrative part of it related to the biblical narrative and part of it just manufactured with the plant that the that was empty precisely there's no way to lend lend without a people for people without a land and so on and so forth you make i think a very important point that that is always. part of colonisation exactly right i mean if you read what the earliest zionist leaders say but in the end they were

only any project if you read what the earliest zionist leaders say they are talking the language of every settler colonial project you point. jabotinsky hurtful they sound like i quote lord curzon here i quote this or that french or british colony colonizer there and it is exactly the same rhetoric the same language the same logic precisely and but there's a striking difference as you point out on this project of colonization which is really at its inception done on behalf of the british the the zionist become a tool they venture a break with the british right well they use the british and the british use them yes although at the end the british have had enough of them although in the end they decided they got the 1st of all they have had enough they've gotten what they need from the british secondly the british have decided as you say that they've had enough of them that they need to fight world war 2 in the arab world and they can have all the arb's running them and finally they have bigger and better patrons in the united states russia soviet union what's interesting is that you say that this

. project of colonization has an important difference in terms of the indigenous population what's the difference well there are a couple differences the 1st is unlike some settler colonial projects which which are based on the utter elimination of the native population or its complete subjugation of north america australia and so on and unlike others where the idea was exploitation of the indigenous population zionism had no use for the palestinians right it also didn't entirely eliminate them there was no genocide there was ethnic cleansing as you suggest because to turn a majority arab country into a majority jewish country had to get rid of a large proportion as much as possible of the arab inhabitants the other difference is that unlike other settler colonial movements this was not an extension of the metropole. zionism was a project for the jewish people it's also a national project at the same time it's a settler colonial project and unlike say the french in algeria were just an

extension of france or the 1st british settlers in north america or an extension of the british crown these were people who had a connection to britain they use britain britain use them but britain was not their metropole in fact they were able to move from metropole to metropole zionism is based so in multiple places in carrying out this project of settling palestine. so that relationship with the british which. the early scientists understood i forget who it was you were quoting whether it was weissman or other they knew that they needed an imperial force behind them they all knew that hurts all knew that and that's why he met the kaiser and that's why he went to the french and that's why you went to supplant the out of insult on vice minister that's why he went to the british war cabinet i think the person you're thinking of is jabotinsky who said we can't do the only honest one among them well he was i'm sorry to be frank in public he was frank in public and in private right right then go in and vitamin and hurt

or very frank in their private diary hurtful says we're going to spirit the population of crawled across the borders he never says that in a letter to one of my ancestors where he says oh we're not going to do anything to be lation but jabotinsky was blunt in public and in private and he said we need an iron wall behind which we can create this this this project of ours they all i'm quoting from your book they all knew perfectly well that there was no way to reconcile zionism's claims on palestine and its explicit aim of jewish state hood and sovereignty there with the rights and well being of the country's indigenous inhabitants. even when i was when i lived in jerusalem. they paid lip service to those rights but right here you're talking about from the moment from a very inception to well i quote a letter that hurts all wrote to one of my ancestors

a great great great uncle at the beginning of the book which you weave throughout the book which may write effective right and i mean it's very clear that they completely ignore the idea that there's a people there right they assume that they can either fool them or get rid of them so some way or other and the letter is full of the same disingenuous propaganda that you hear from his reza we're going to make their lives better or their lives are better than anywhere else or whatever at the same time as their pop help puppy lation is being displaced it's a debt that is being denied it is its resources are being taken it's completely disingenuous but unfortunately i think but believed by many people well one of the themes that runs throughout the history is the the essential the turning of the majority population into non people you know and this brings up another thing that i try and stress throughout this book this is not just a war by the zionist movement on the palestinians it's a movement it's

a war i should say really declared by great powers you know the ratio of the palestinians is really the work of the british in the 1st instance and later of the united states and other powers at a later stage what it why i mean so what the british of course occupy palestine which is part of the ottoman empire and world war 1917 now and be marches on drew sloan. what is what is the british to because they certainly have colonies in india and everywhere else. what is it that the british are attempting to do to kind of you know with the zionist movement what is it all right well the basic goal is strategic the british want a buffer on the eastern border of egypt they want a connection between the mediterranean and the gulf as strategic and this is a decision that they reached before world war one in fact this was my doctoral dissertation back in the early seventies i figured this out but to achieve this it was very difficult for them to simply say the other imperialist powers like the

french and the russians were just going to take it so for them zionism was a useful tool it was they figured this would be a colonial settler project which they could say were were supporting for you know charitable reasons but which would in effect be that buffer on the eastern border of egypt and which would be a sort of a stronghold for british power and yet it's more a little more complicated because the british do the british mandate i mean they do control palestine directly in the same way the french controlled lebanon up until 48 right so you do have british control. and and yet this zionist movement becomes the tool to do what. well to establish a a. national home for the jewish people which will in effect be a sort of a garrison which the british the british had the illusion that the zionists would

always be grateful to them in $139.00 that you lose that illusion because when they change their policy and they stop favoring the zionist zionists turn against them yet another patron yet as you point out in the book during world war 2 the british build jewish military units and they although many. palestinians actually fight in the british army there they they never. coalesce in a unit of their own right which. in the in contrast of the jewish brigade run british create and and so by 948 the british despite their distance from the zionist movement have given them the military knowledge and organization and weaponry precisely eventually take over in fact i mean you put your finger on a key episode which is the creation of the jewish brigade but even before that in putting down the great great revolt of 136 talk about that because i wasn't aware

until i read your book of the extent how bloody it was i mean what you say 10 percent of 10 percent of the adult male population is wounded exiled or the president of the house staying in error and so you have essentially a coalition between would have 100000 british troops 100000 british troops against about 300000 adult males so one soldier or policeman for every 3 palestinian adult males armed jewish well that's the with that's the point i was getting to exactly what they did world war 2 is crucial but even before that in putting down the revolt they arm and train the vast numbers of zionist militiamen some of them into commando units called night squads headed by a man called ord wingate who is a hero in israel he was and who is described he later on exactly was in burma he is later on described as a psychopath yes he is the one who carries out targeted assassination was not carried a bible like a fanatic it was you know a nasty character much beloved in israel and according to the website of the israel

defense forces his spirit animates the israeli are well that might be true i think it is actually targeted assassinations murdering people at night blowing up their houses over their heads or when gate taught them all of that and you you argue in the book that the the so this was a popular uprising not well organized exactly a popular uprising 3637 by up to 39 to 39 by palestinians who kind of figured out. what was happening a little belatedly the only revolts against the british empire that succeed are the ones right after world war one the irish get their independence the iraqis and the egyptians and the iranians managed to limit british power and in fact the iranians pushed the british out of iran the egyptians and the iraqis similarly limit british power britain's force to grant the symbol of independence the palestinians for

reasons that i go into in the book don't really get to that point until much too late by the eve of world war 2 britain is not going to allow a rule of revolt to succeed which is why they bring in divisions of troops and there are a.f. to put down this revolt very very bloodily when we come back we'll continue our conversation about the colonial roots of the israeli palestinian conflict with professor rashid khalidi. we go to work so straight home.

thousands of american men and women choose to serve in the country's military a decision that has shattered lives every bunking to a complete. mystery to be instructive if you hold a shot what they'd kill me and i see how it destroyed my life any screamed at me any mimi coming any grandma. even means birthing kiri if you take into account that women don't report because of the extreme retaliation and it's probably somewhere near about half a 1000000 women have no. i've been sexually assaulted in the u.s. military rape is a very very traumatizing tapping but i've never seen trauma like i've seen from women who are veterans who have suffered military sexual trauma reporting rape is more likely to get the victim punished than the offender and almost 10 year career which i was very invested in and i gave up to report a sex offender who was not even put to justice or put on the registry this is

simply an issue of our in violence male sexual predators for the large part of target whoever is there to prey upon whether that's men or women. welcome back on contact we continue our conversation about the israeli palestinian conflict with professor rashid khalidi so we're talking before the break about that post-war period right after the end of world war 2 and there's a huge well i would say you know animosity. between the zionist movement and their what have been their british sponsors well this is because of the white paper of the 39 explained. the british have until this point unceasingly favored the zionists the terms of the mandate essentially empower them

to create a para state a state elected assembly a foreign ministry a government control of education it's a hold over her native government structures that the palestinians are denied the passenger precisely so one side is given political and national rights the other side is given civil and religious rights i.e. nothing in the way of self-government at the same time the british as we just mentioned have armed especially in the $3639.00 period arm the zionists so comes the. comes world war 2 and the british suddenly realize we're going to have to fight this war in the arab world right just like we fought a large part of world war one right here we have people who really hate us because they have been following in their press encouraged of course by the italians and the germans the atrocities that our soldiers have been committing in palestine against the palestinian arabs. the arabs might actually be helpful if we win them

over to our side so the british the british and the active typical hypocrisy switch from unlimited support for the zionists to they promises to the palestinians they'll be independence in 10 years they'll be limits on immigration and so far that's the white paper the sign is of course were infuriated and understandably they were given to understand that a national home for the jewish people meant as soon as you're a majority you get self-determination and statehood and all you have to do will hold the doors of immigration open you become a majority and then you will drown them with numbers you'll be stronger and richer and so on and so forth and the country is yours suddenly the british are telling them no not quite we have to fight world war 2 we need to stop the arabs and so the zionist movement in its in its ingenuity goes in search of new allies where they find they find the united states and the soviet union and that's the genesis of the partition but you're right i thought he had failed to read this shift in global power precisely as they had as they did in subsequent periods 48. huge

campaign of ethnic cleansing. acts of greed just genocide. i wouldn't call it genocide i would call it ethnic cleansing with let's call the massacres massacres repeated massacres executed massacres are better than that and just one point about this that the key. population and the key ethnic cleansing takes place before the british that's right takes place before the state of israel is there before an arab soldier sets foot in palestine 300000 people the entire population of haifa 60000 where you have your family jaffa truck tire population of jeff where my grandfather right right another 60000 people the entire population of arab west jerusalem large part of us are some is jewish large part was our 30000 all these people are expelled before you know the 15th before the british leave before the state is created before the arab armies enter and so the exodus of

palestinians under bombardment and after a few key massacres like deadliest seen in april this is take a while and then wiped out a whole village was a i forget the number they killed about 100 ppi 100 people mostly women and children exactly exactly so what happens in 48 is it is it ethnic cleansing over over a longer period of time starting in the spring as i said before the british leave and continuing a during the war between israel and the arab armies that enter palestine and become involved although just to carry out because you talk about in the book that's kind of a misnomer because the arab armies of israel likes to mythologize that they've fought off how many was a 7 years or why don't you argue that most of them didn't enter. saudi arabia and yemen didn't have real modern armies lebanese army never cross the frontier the jordanian in iraq your army is are under jordanian control and jordan has come to an agreement with the zionist movement before the war king abdullah the king

abdullah has met with musharraf and with gold in my ear and has and has been told by his british people who pay and. officer his army you cannot go beyond the boundaries of the arab state under partition so the jordanian iraqi army is never invade israel they enter the area allocated to the arab state under partition and defend what is now the west bank which is what you have as honest complicity precise well at the beginning exactly they end up fighting over the road to jerusalem and some other areas but it's essentially owing to the throw that in there that the israelis got shellacked by the way. jordanian army happened to be a very well trained well in the militia british run british officers pasha they had combat experience in world war 2 and the officers at all fought in world war 2 so it was like a modern army a modern european army up against the israeli army which was a very competent force but not of the same level so let's go on 48 but you know. you you've laid the foundation i think you know it's incontrovertibly the

documents and the historical records that you cite they know what they're headed for. how does that play out once the state of israel is created when 1st of all according to partition was a zionist are only supposed that was a 17 percent of us to have 55 percent 55 of the total by arab state was supposed to be 40 something and they were supposed to be a corpus separate of that and that is not the way it worked out no they end up with 70 percent by the end of the war having soundly defeated the 2 major arab armies that are really fighting the major dainian in the egyptian i mean you cite in the book which we don't have time to go through you know of what you call kind of seminal moment the royal road 67. except but just lay out what happened since so they know what they have to do which is. displace or marginalize the palestinians how does that all roll forward from 48 when israel was created well 2 things firstly the superpowers

that were responsible for the partition resolution united states soviet union are mainly interest in the creation of a jewish state that partition plan calls for americas there's throw in there yes i did know from the book that stalin thought said that the jewish you know socialists were all going to align with moscow and then when he woke up and realized they weren't here years later through it a little too late exactly. the stalin was obsessed with the british and saw the arab states as aligned with britain is obsessed with the british since the russian civil war well it was another story good reasons that's another story they sent troops in iraq troops they sent money they sent they financed the white armies and so on and so. so he was he was obsessed with the british as as churchill was obsessed with bolshevism right i mean the 2 of them were in that respect what what happens is that the 2 superpowers that had basically rammed the partition

resolution through the general assembly cared only for the creation of a jewish state why. that jewish when the arab state that's mandated by the partition plan is strangled in its cradle by the british the jordanians and especially the israelis they don't lift a finger there's no provision for forcing these powers to leave back off there's no implementation provision in the general something resolution an arab state isn't created because these 3 countries don't want it in the 2 superpowers don't care they want a jewish state i mean truman i quote truman in the book is talking to american diplomats talking to american diplomats and say i have a lot of people a lot of the statue and care about this and stalin as you say had his own i don't concern so the palestinians are again disappeared as they were disappeared by the balfour declaration and then 17 there disappeared there they are disappeared in the wake of the 48 war and during the war when they're there physically 2 thirds of them are physically driven out there are fully disappear from the historical record

exactly people turning to drone peter's mythical you know from time immemorial which was a foundational text before that for many quote unquote scholars of huge by israel which claim that the land was empty it's still in print is it you know it's one of the great fabrications of the 20th century still in print. protocols of the elders of palestine you could call it in this enormous. so what we see when i lived in jerusalem today colic was the mayor he was building sewers and he jerusalem there did seem to be i mean maybe i'm wrong i knew abi bommel in the old zionist figures there was a kind of keep them happy down at the farm kind of attitude. certainly they didn't have full rights are anything right which appears not appear which has shifted dramatically with a racist like netanyahu it would you say that's a fair. characterization it is fair but i think that most labor zionists of course

was a labor as honest as was. the color. most labor zionists didn't really believe in 2 states for 2 people in one know without question so as you say i think they had a more benevolent idea of how to rule over the arabs that certainly was to have color i mean there were instances in which color and people who worked for him like miron ben ministry actually helped arab families and in the case of a property of ours that they were someone was trying to take over actually. the ashkenazi chief rabbi was trying to take some of our property to attach to a yeshiva he was building and when he did build collects people helped us so there was a much more benevolent attitude but the idea of the equality yeah the idea of the 2 national entities with equal rights never occurred to any any of them whether labor zionists and certainly not to the revisionists who become we could then of course 67 they take gaza the israelis on the west bank. and.

what happens since is a kind of administrative ethnic cleansing they make life especially if you have the financial wherewithal to get out there out there right and then they create the end let's call them what they are ghettos in the west bank gaza is often called an open air prison it is it is a ghetto or a large ghetto in the world one of the most have populated and one of the most heavily populated but the the. the israeli state begins to damascus begins to fall all right well several things happen 1st of all the colonize ation of the west bank is a reprise of the whole policy of taking land and pushing the people you know out as best possible and that's happening in the west bank as we speak it isn't happening really since 967 without interruption under different regimes with different objectives but the same process has been underway the 2nd thing that happens is

that over time in the war in 1902 when israel invaded lebanon during the 1st intifada starting in 1987 it becomes clear that the myth that israel is david and the arabs are glad now is in fact a reversal of roles the palestinian side and israel is go on well we still saw that last fall so we've got to stop there but it's still this idea that that israel's existential existence is under a rat from right palestinians in gaza or anywhere else anyway thanks thank you that was columbian university professor rashid holiday about his new book 100 years war in palestine the history of subtler colonization and resistance 1917 to 2007. secs.

you can't be both with the yeah you like. and. you were. part of the way for.

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