Rashid Khalidi

The autumn of the patriarch is finally over. These are difficult times for the Palestinians, and Yasser Arafat’s death presents them with a daunting challenge. The first of their difficulties is the long-standing fragmentation of the Palestinian people. Nearly five million still live in some part of what was once Mandate Palestine, and can be divided into four distinct groups. More than...

In early June, the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip (and the Golan Heights) entered its 40th year.* The Palestinians who inhabit these territories have lived under Israeli military occupation for two full generations; before that, between 1948 and 1967, they lived under Jordanian and Egyptian regimes. The overwhelming majority of this population of more than...

Even when they have been politically united, the Palestinians have faced an uphill struggle to achieve any of their national objectives, but their prospects when they have been politically divided have been even grimmer. The period from the 1960s to the early 1980s when the PLO, dominated by Fatah, was universally recognised as representing the Palestinians, was one of repeated defeats, but...