The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood

by Rashid Khalidi

Overview

In Resurrecting Empire, Rashid Khalidi dissected the failures of colonial policy over the entire span of the modern history of the Middle East, predicted the meltdown in Iraq that we are now witnessing with increasing horror, and offered viable alternatives for achieving peace in the region. His newest book, The Iron Cage, hones in on Palestinian politics and history. Once again Khalidi draws on a wealth of experience and scholarship to elucidate the current conflict, using history to provide a clear-eyed view of the situation today.

The story of the Palestinian search to establish a state begins in the era of British control over Palestine and stretches between the two world wars, when colonial control of the region became increasingly unpopular and power began to shift toward the United States. In this crucial period, and in the years immediately following World War II, Palestinian leaders were unable to achieve the long-cherished goal of establishing an independent state-a critical failure that throws a bright light on the efforts of the Palestinians to create a state in the many decades since 1948. By frankly discussing the reasons behind this failure, Khalidi offers a much-needed perspective for anyone concerned about peace in the Middle East.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807024157
Publisher:	Beacon Press
Publication date:	05/05/2026
Series:	Beacon Classics , #18
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Rashid Khalidi is the author of seven books about the Middle East, including Palestinian Identity, Brokers of Deceit, Resurrecting Empire, The Iron Cage, and Sowing Crisis. His writing on Middle Eastern history and politics has appeared in the New York Times, Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, and many journals. For his work on the Middle East, Professor Khalidi has received fellowships and grants from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the American Research Center in Egypt, and the Rockefeller Foundation, among others. He is the Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University in New York and is editor of the Journal of Palestine Studies.

Table of Contents

Preface to the Paperback Edition     ix
Introduction: Writing Middle Eastern History in a Time of Historical Amnesia     xv
Arab Society in Mandatory Palestine     1
The Palestinians and the British Mandate     31
A Failure of Leadership     65
The Revolt, 1948, and Afterward     105
Fateh, the PLO, and the PA: The Palestinian Para-State     140
Stateless in Palestine     182
Notes     219
Acknowledgments     264
Index     267
The Palestine Mandate, July 24, 1922     282

Editorial Reviews

"In his new book The Iron Cage Rashid Khalidi uses history to provide a clear-eyed view of the region and assess the prospects for peace….He strives successfully for even-handedness…He’s fair to both sides, and in particular, he’s knowledgeable not only about Palestinian history but about what he has called ‘tragic Jewish history.'" —Anthony Lewis

From the Publisher

While his book is more of an analysis than an exercise in original research, Mr. Khalidi provides another service for Western readers. He gives a relatively dispassionate description of Palestine in the periods of Ottoman and British rule, and of the nature of Arab society before the combination of Zionism and Nazism led an increasing flow of European-born Jews to settle in the Holy Land…This is not to say that Mr. Khalidi…is without passion. His book is bound to stir angry responses from those who think that any Palestinian effort to fight the soldiers of the Israeli occupation represents terrorism, or from those, Muslim or Jew, who think that their divinity gave all of Palestine exclusively to them.
—The New York Times

Steven Erlanger

The larger conceptual framework into which The Iron Cage mustbe fitted is a history of two contending nationalisms that have not yet reached an acceptable accommodation. Zionism resulted in Israel, but the Palestinian struggle for statehood got off to a shakier start and remains unfinished. These two unequal contenders, moreover, have always been caught up in regional and international politics. Khalidi concentrates on the Palestinian side of this complex sui generis case. His image of the "iron cage" is meant to demonstrate how the Palestinians faced and still face unusually imposing obstacles — an argument that can hardly be denied. Yet Khalidi's book is no exercise in victimology. He is tough on the British, the Israelis, and the Americans, but he is scarcely less hard-hitting in appraising the Palestinians, including such leaders as Haj Amin al-Husseini, the mufti of Jerusalem, and Yasir Arafat. The final chapter provides an excellent critique of the Palestine Liberation Organization's labored moves toward the recognition of Israel and of the idea, increasingly bruited, that a two-state solution is no longer feasible.

Foreign Affairs