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‘The Neck and the Sword’ is Rashid Khalidi’s Distortion of History
Columbia University Professor Rashid Khalidi. Photo: Thomas Good / NLN via Wikimedia Commons.
JNS.org – “The Neck and the Sword” is the title of an extensive interview with the prominent Palestinian historian Rashid Khalidi in the latest issue of New Left Review, a London-based Marxist journal that, despite its name, is deep in the throes of middle age.
The interview’s title stems from one of the points made by Khalidi’s interlocutor, Tariq Ali, an aging New Leftist who used their discussion as an excuse to revisit his late 1960s heyday as a political activist.
Ali recalled that on a trip to the Middle East following the 1967 Six-Day War, he asked the Palestinian writer Ghassan Kanafani whether a negotiated settlement was possible with these “bastards”—his term for the Israeli people. “Tariq, explain to me how the neck negotiates with the sword,” Kanafani apparently replied.
Ali was, of course, thrilled with this answer, because it reinforced through a poetic metaphor one of the key elements of the Palestinian self-image: We are powerless; we are always and everywhere the victims of others, especially the Zionists; and we resist whenever we can garner the strength.
As romantic as that notion seems to the Western leftists who have adopted Palestine as the core element of their political identity, it is more properly understood as a license for Palestinian terrorist groups to carry out the sorts of monstrosities we witnessed on Oct. 7—articulated by the adulation of their outside admirers—instead of admitting and accepting moral culpability.
Aided by Ali’s fawning line of questioning, Khalidi uncomplicatedly pushes this notion of perpetual victimhood throughout the interview. In my view, it is the clearest expression of an essentially secular Palestinian nationalist standpoint to have appeared in the last nine months, which is why it’s worth reading.
A Columbia University professor who is arguably the most erudite exponent of the Palestinian cause today, Khalidi certainly sounds more nuanced and historically literate when compared to the imbecilic, expletive-laden sloganeering disseminated by violently antisemitic groups like Within Our Lifetime and Students for Justice in Palestine.
For example, rather than denying the rapes, decapitations, hostage-taking and mass murder on Oct. 7—as these vile organizations do whenever they are not celebrating them—Khalidi acknowledges that these took place. Rather than denying or denigrating the Holocaust, he concedes that the Nazi genocide “produced a kind of understandable uniformity in support of Zionism” among the Jews who survived.
But does this cursory nod to the humanity and historical experience of the Jews meaningfully alter Khalidi’s perspective? The answer to that is negative. Khalidi’s softer touch on these questions actually makes the rest of his interview all the more disturbing. He has a historian’s knack for remembering dates, names, locations and quotes, and he marshals this information into a narrative that, for those who don’t know any better, is highly compelling. But for those who do know better, what stands out are the multitude of omissions and distortions in his account.
Nowhere is this more apparent than in his claim that Palestinians were also victims of the antisemitism that culminated in the Holocaust, albeit “indirect” victims.
“Palestinians are paying for the entire history of European Jew-hatred, going back to medieval times,” he says. “Edward I expelling the Jews from England in 1290, the French expulsions in the following century, the Spanish and Portuguese edicts in the 1490s, the Russian pogroms from the 1880s, and finally, the Nazi genocide. Historically, a quintessentially European Christian phenomenon.”
This is an old and discredited line. I can remember interviewing a PLO official on the eve of the Gulf War in 1991 who told me, while wearing an obsequious smile, that “we Palestinians are the victims of the victims”—a neat formula with no historical basis.
The term “antisemitism” may have been coined in Europe by a 19th-century German pamphleteer who chose the term “antisemitismus” to distinguish his “scientific” understanding from the religiously inflected Jew hatred of medieval times—but raging hatred of the Jews is also rooted in the Arab and Muslim worlds.
As Bernard Lewis once argued, the Jews of the Middle East may not have had it as bad as their brethren in Europe, but they never had it as good either. For centuries, Jews, along with other minorities, were subjected to humiliating legal codes across the region, rendering them at best second-class citizens.
During the 20th century, there were numerous episodes of mass violence—what the Ashkenazim called “pogroms”—in Mandatory Palestine and neighboring countries. Among the worst was the June 1941 Farhud (“violent dispossession”) in Iraq, in which hundreds of Jews in Baghdad were murdered amid untold numbers of rapes and other cruelties.
These and similar episodes go entirely unmentioned by Khalidi, as does the fact that within a decade or so following Israel’s emergence as a sovereign state, nearly one million Jews across the region had been dispossessed and expelled.
To recognize that antisemitism was and remains a hard-wired feature of the region, and to perceive the legacy of the Farhud in the atrocities of Oct. 7, is altogether inconvenient for Khalidi, who clearly believes that his audience won’t do any independent research on the history he covers. To admit to its presence would upend his analysis, forcing him to confront the reality that Oct. 7 wasn’t just an explosion of anger by a colonized people who engaged in some regrettable excesses, but another milestone in the long history of Arab violence towards the Jews in their midst.
If a scholar like Khalidi can’t summon the honesty and humility to address this history, one can hardly expect keffiyeh-draped protestors to do so. Yet this isn’t simply a question of intellectual integrity: The Palestinian and broader Arab refusal to reckon with the persecution of their Jewish communities has for nearly a century been an immovable obstacle in the quest for a peaceful solution to the Israeli-Arab conflict.
As the historian Martin Kramer noted in an excellent piece on another aspect of this problem—the legacy of the pro-Nazi Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al-Husseini—Palestinians continue to ignore the skeletons in their closet. The mufti, Kramer writes, “personified the refusal to see Israel as it is and an unwillingness to imagine a compromise. Until Palestinians exorcise his ghost, it will continue to haunt them.”
Khalidi’s interview with Tariq Ali demonstrates that other, no less significant ghosts need to be exorcised as well. Until that happens, if it ever happens, Ali’s “bastards”—the government and people of Israel, along with the vast majority of Diaspora Jews who support them—have no choice but to remain on a war footing. The alternative is a sword on our necks.
The post ‘The Neck and the Sword’ is Rashid Khalidi’s Distortion of History first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Hamas Warns Against Cooperation with US Relief Efforts In Bid to Restore Grip on Gaza
Hamas terrorists carry grenade launchers at the funeral of Marwan Issa, a senior Hamas deputy military commander who was killed in an Israeli airstrike during the conflict between Israel and Hamas, in the central Gaza Strip, Feb. 7, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed
The Hamas-run Interior Ministry in Gaza has warned residents not to cooperate with the US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, as the terror group seeks to reassert its grip on the enclave amid mounting international pressure to accept a US-brokered ceasefire.
“It is strictly forbidden to deal with, work for, or provide any form of assistance or cover to the American organization (GHF) or its local or foreign agents,” the Interior Ministry said in a statement Thursday.
“Legal action will be taken against anyone proven to be involved in cooperation with this organization, including the imposition of the maximum penalties stipulated in the applicable national laws,” the statement warns.
The GHF released a statement in response to Hamas’ warnings, saying the organization has delivered millions of meals “safely and without interference.”
“This statement from the Hamas-controlled Interior Ministry confirms what we’ve known all along: Hamas is losing control,” the GHF said.
The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza in late May, implementing a new aid delivery model aimed at preventing the diversion of supplies by Hamas, as Israel continues its defensive military campaign against the Palestinian terrorist group.
The initiative has drawn criticism from the UN and international organizations, some of which have claimed that Jerusalem is causing starvation in the war-torn enclave.
Israel has vehemently denied such accusations, noting that, until its recently imposed blockade, it had provided significant humanitarian aid in the enclave throughout the war.
Israeli officials have also said much of the aid that flows into Gaza is stolen by Hamas, which uses it for terrorist operations and sells the rest at high prices to Gazan civilians.
According to their reports, the organization has delivered over 56 million meals to Palestinians in just one month.
Hamas’s latest threat comes amid growing international pressure to accept a US-backed ceasefire plan proposed by President Donald Trump, which sets a 60-day timeline to finalize the details leading to a full resolution of the conflict.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump announced that Israel has agreed to the “necessary conditions” to finalize a 60-day ceasefire in Gaza, though Israel has not confirmed this claim.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to meet with Trump next week in Washington, DC — his third visit in less than six months — as they work to finalize the terms of the ceasefire agreement.
Even though Trump hasn’t provided details on the proposed truce, he said Washington would “work with all parties to end the war” during the 60-day period.
“I hope, for the good of the Middle East, that Hamas takes this Deal, because it will not get better — IT WILL ONLY GET WORSE,” he wrote in a social media post.
Since the start of the war, ceasefire talks between Jerusalem and Hamas have repeatedly failed to yield enduring results.
Israeli officials have previously said they will only agree to end the war if Hamas surrenders, disarms, and goes into exile — a demand the terror group has firmly rejected.
“I am telling you — there will be no Hamas,” Netanyahu said during a speech Wednesday.
For its part, Hamas has said it is willing to release the remaining 50 hostages — fewer than half of whom are believed to be alive — in exchange for a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and an end to the war.
While the terrorist group said it is “ready and serious” to reach a deal that would end the war, it has yet to accept this latest proposal.
In a statement, the group said it aims to reach an agreement that “guarantees an end to the aggression, the withdrawal [of Israeli forces], and urgent relief for our people in the Gaza Strip.”
According to media reports, the proposed 60-day ceasefire would include a partial Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, a surge in humanitarian aid, and the release of the remaining hostages held by Hamas, with US and mediator assurances on advancing talks to end the war — though it remains unclear how many hostages would be freed.
For Israel, the key to any deal is the release of most, if not all, hostages still held in Gaza, as well as the disarmament of Hamas, while the terror group is seeking assurances to end the war as it tries to reassert control over the war-torn enclave.
The post Hamas Warns Against Cooperation with US Relief Efforts In Bid to Restore Grip on Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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UK Lawmakers Move to Designate Palestine Action as Terrorist Group Following RAF Vandalism Protest
Police block a street as pro-Palestinian demonstrators gather to protest British Home Secretary Yvette Cooper’s plans to proscribe the “Palestine Action” group in the coming weeks, in London, Britain, June 23, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Jaimi Joy
British lawmakers voted Wednesday to designate Palestine Action as a terrorist organization, following the group’s recent vandalizing of two military aircraft at a Royal Air Force base in protest of the government’s support for Israel.
Last month, members of the UK-based anti-Israel group Palestine Action broke into RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, a county west of London, and vandalized two Voyager aircraft used for military transport and refueling — the latest in a series of destructive acts carried out by the organization.
Palestine Action has regularly targeted British sites connected to Israeli defense firm Elbit Systems as well as other companies in Britain linked to Israel since the start of the conflict in Gaza in 2023.
Under British law, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has the authority to ban an organization if it is believed to commit, promote, or otherwise be involved in acts of terrorism.
Passed overwhelmingly by a vote of 385 to 26 in the lower chamber — the House of Commons — the measure is now set to be reviewed by the upper chamber, the House of Lords, on Thursday.
If approved, the ban would take effect within days, making it a crime to belong to or support Palestine Action and placing the group on the same legal footing as Al Qaeda, Hamas, and the Islamic State under UK law.
Palestine Action, which claims that Britain is an “active participant” in the Gaza conflict due to its military support for Israel, condemned the ban as “an unhinged reaction” and announced plans to challenge it in court — similar to the legal challenges currently being mounted by Hamas.
Under the Terrorism Act 2000, belonging to a proscribed group is a criminal offense punishable by up to 14 years in prison or a fine, while wearing clothing or displaying items supporting such a group can lead to up to six months in prison and/or a fine of up to £5,000.
Palestine Action claimed responsibility for the recent attack, in which two of its activists sprayed red paint into the turbine engines of two Airbus Voyager aircraft and used crowbars to inflict additional damage.
According to the group, the red paint — also sprayed across the runway — was meant to symbolize “Palestinian bloodshed.” A Palestine Liberation Organization flag was also left at the scene.
On Thursday, local authorities arrested four members of the group, aged between 22 and 35, who were charged with conspiracy to enter a prohibited place knowingly for a purpose prejudicial to the safety or interests of the UK, as well as conspiracy to commit criminal damage.
Palestine Action said this latest attack was carried out as a protest against the planes’ role in supporting what the group called Israel’s “genocide” in Gaza.
At the time of the attack, Cooper condemned the group’s actions, stating that their behavior had grown increasingly aggressive and resulted in millions of pounds in damages.
“The disgraceful attack on Brize Norton … is the latest in a long history of unacceptable criminal damage committed by Palestine Action,” Cooper said in a written statement.
“The UK’s defense enterprise is vital to the nation’s national security and this government will not tolerate those that put that security at risk,” she continued.
The post UK Lawmakers Move to Designate Palestine Action as Terrorist Group Following RAF Vandalism Protest first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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US-backed Gaza Relief NGO Vows ‘Legal Action’ Against AP Claim Group Fired on Palestinian Civilians
Palestinians collect aid supplies from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, June 9, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Hatem Khaled
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a US-backed nonprofit operating aid distribution centers in the Gaza Strip, is pushing back forcefully against an Associated Press report alleging that its contractors opened fire on Palestinian civilians.
The GHF is accusing the AP of withholding key evidence and relying on a “disgruntled former contractor” as a central source.
“In response, we are pursuing legal action,” the organization said in a statement released Wednesday.
GHF said it conducted an “immediate investigation” after being contacted by the AP, reviewing time-stamped video footage and sworn witness testimony. The group concluded that the allegations were “categorically false,” stating that no civilians were fired upon at any of their distribution sites and that the gunfire heard in the AP’s video came from Israeli forces operating outside the vicinity.
“What is most troubling is that the AP refused to share the full video with us prior to publication, despite the seriousness of the allegations,” the statement read. “If they believed their own reporting, they should have provided us with the footage so we could take immediate and appropriate action.”
The nonprofit’s public rebuttal raises sharp questions about the AP’s reporting process, suggesting the outlet declined to engage with the organization in good faith and instead leaned on a source GHF describes as having been terminated “for misconduct” weeks prior. The group also claimed the AP’s recent coverage of its activities had begun to “echo narratives advanced by the Hamas-controlled Gaza Ministry of Health.”
The AP has not yet responded publicly to the GHF’s accusations or provided clarification about its decision not to share the video footage before publication. The original report alleged that American contractors employed by GHF had fired weapons near or toward civilians.
The GHF statement confirmed that a contractor seen shouting in the AP’s video had been removed from operations, though the group insisted this was unrelated to any violence and did not constitute evidence of wrongdoing.
GHF, which describes its mission as delivering food to Gaza “safely, directly, and without interference,” said it remains committed to transparency but would not allow its operations to be “derailed by misinformation.”
The dispute highlights the fraught information environment in Gaza, where limited access and competing narratives frequently complicate the verification of on-the-ground events.
The post US-backed Gaza Relief NGO Vows ‘Legal Action’ Against AP Claim Group Fired on Palestinian Civilians first appeared on Algemeiner.com.