In May 2024, the German translation of Rashid Khalidi’s The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine was published by the Zurich-based Unionsverlag, four years after being published in English. Khalidi succeeded Edward Said at Columbia University as Professor of Modern Arab Studies. Said’s 1978 work, Orientalism, remains a cornerstone of postcolonial studies, and Khalidi’s professorial chair was named in honour of him. Khalidi, like Said, is Palestinian-American. Said was born in Jerusalem in 1935, while Khalidi was born in New York City in 1948 following his parents’ emigration.

Given the international success of the English-language original and the critical praise it garnered from major outlets such as the Financial Times and Foreign Affairs, one might have reasonably assumed that a major German publishing house would have swiftly published a translation, with much debate to follow in the organs of the German intelligentsia. Yet the translation of Khalidi’s book was released with considerable delay by a smaller publisher specializing in international and Arabic literature.

The first German-language review, a translation of an article by Benny Morris from 2020, appeared in the Antideutsch flagship Jungle World a month after the publication of the German translation. The review, titled «The War Against History», accused Khalidi of distorting history. Morris, an Israeli historian and Nakba-apologist, has repeatedly argued for Israel’s use of nuclear weapons against Iran. Shortly thereafter, emeritus professor of Islamic studies Reinhard Schulze panned the book in a review for the Süddeutsche Zeitung as the «modernization of a myth», reiterating five times that Khalidi presents the Palestinians as victims of a «conspiracy». The daily cultural digest Perlentaucher subsequently published a brief summary of Süddeutsche Zeitung’s review that accused Khalidi of propagating a historical account based on conspiracy theories.

A month passed before more level-headed responses emerged. Alexander Flores, professor of Arabic studies, discussed the book soberly in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. On Germany’s public radio station Deutschlandfunk, Stephan Detjen saw in the German translation «the opportunity to shake up [Germany’s] sclerotic discourse and narrow perspectives on the Middle East conflict, thereby creating the conditions for a difficult yet necessary conversation». Apart from a short review in the Neue Züricher Zeitung, which accused Khalidi of «selective perception» and «double standards», the German-language discussion of the book appears to have since reached its conclusion.

Germans living overseas who follow the debate on the Middle East at home find themselves in an odd situation. Once your field of reference becomes the predominantly English-language academic and journalistic international discourse, you realise that in Germany, many foundational texts – Edward Said’s Zionism from the Standpoint of its Victims (1979) or Zeev Jabotinsky’s The Iron Wall (1923) – are not read or even available in translation. While influential works by Jewish and Israeli historians of various political persuasions, such as Tom Segev, Michael Wolffsohn, and Moshe Zuckermann, are available in the original German or in translation, German translations of Palestinian intellectual voices are few and far between. The impression is one of general contentment with one-sided, anti-intellectual, and polemical discourse across large swaths of the major newspapers’ editorial boards, not to mention the broader political and media debate. To give just one example, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung was perfectly happy to accuse the Palestinian co-founder of the Arab-Israeli musical initiative for peace West–Eastern Divan Orchestra of having affinities with the Nazis («Edward Said and the Jewish Question»).

In this context, Khalidi’s analytical framing of the Israel-Palestine conflict has provoked the German consensus to twist itself up in extraordinary contortions. Consider, for example, the comments of Süddeutsche Zeitung journalist Ronen Steinke on the Maybrit Illner TV show on 16 May 2024. Steinke argues that analysing the conflict through an anticolonial lens, which he claims is popular in left-wing circles, is «wrong», «shameful», and «ignorant of the historical facts». Steinke asserts that the early Israeli settlers were refugees who did not arrive in Palestine with the intention of «looting or getting rich», while remonstrating that claiming «Israel is a colonial entity» implies demanding that «the colonists must go home».

It may be that some supporters of the Palestinian cause share these mistaken conclusions, but Ronen Steinke has yet to present an authoritative source from the postcolonial academy that makes such simplistic claims. The «shameful» academic debate examines and considers the historical facts, searching for an appropriate analytical approach to structures as well as historical ruptures and continuities. Yes, historical findings can be vulgarised in such a way that they can be used to support political demands that are worthy of criticism or even outright rejection. But no such instrumentalization can refute the findings – and certainly not the legitimacy – of robust research and analytical tools.

A Critical Historical Reading of Israel’s State Power

Contending with Khalidi’s Hundred Years’ War is essential for the German discussion precisely because the author draws on extensive primary sources to detail the settler-colonial and imperial origins, links, and continuities of the Zionist currents that ultimately came to dominate Israeli politics without questioning the Israeli people and state’s existence or right to exist. Anticipating critique, Khalidi writes: «Many cannot accept the contradiction inherent in the idea that although Zionism undoubtedly succeeded in creating a thriving national entity in Israel, its roots are as a colonial settler project (as are those of other modern countries: the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand)».

Khalidi recalls that the settlers in settler colonialism can be displaced persons, such as the politically and religiously persecuted settlers who immigrated to the United States, Canada, and Australia. An analysis of settler colonialism per se therefore in no way negates the history of suffering of persecuted Jews. It does, however, attempt to understand the ongoing power structures that emerged to the detriment of the indigenous population living in the settled area, which continue to perpetuate their oppression and displacement.

Khalidi’s analysis leads him to be committed to a «solution» to the Israel-Palestine conflict that may now be (or has long been) dismissed as unrealistic. However, it is precisely the solution that both the German and US governments insist on: peaceful coexistence between two peoples, even as their toothless diplomatic proclamations rarely do more than pay lip service to the idea while preserving the status quo. Khalidi’s motivation is not to expel Israelis, but to ensure that the historical injustice of the Palestinians’ expulsion, dispossession, occupation, and oppression is recognised and redressed and that its current manifestations are ended: «What we need», declared Khalidi in an interview with the Tagesspiegel in May 2024, «is a just solution with equal rights for all. Whether in one state, in two states, in a confederal or a binational model».

Khalidi is not a spokesperson for the German government, however. His book offers a critical reading of the Israel-Palestine conflict rooted in historical analysis. It refutes the assumption dominant across German educational organisations, editorial offices, and anti-antisemitism initiatives that the most accurate description of the Israel-Palestine conflict is of «a rivalry between two competing narratives», which, despite their opposition, are ultimately equal. From this perspective, it follows that each side’s mutual recognition of the other side’s narrative constitutes the most important step towards ending the conflict. Khalidi does not deny that the conflict as it unfolded during the twentieth century took the guise of «a national confrontation between two new national entities, two peoples» and their narratives. Nevertheless, placing primacy on narratives can obscure an analysis of material, political, economic, colonial, and imperial structures and power differences, not to mention questions of international law. Once again, studies of this sort have long been a part of Anglophone research on Israel-Palestine. (Khalidi’s historical survey focuses particularly on colonial and imperialist structures.) While some experts in Germany discuss such perspectives, they are rarely included in the public debate.