Palestine and Palestine Studies: One Century after World War I and the Balfour Declaration

In this overarching March 2014 inaugural lecture at the newly established Center for Palestine Studies at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), Palestinian historian Walid Khalidi, while reminiscing about the genesis and evolution of the new narrative on the 1948 war, provides fresh analyses of both the Balfour Declaration and UN Security Council Resolution 242. He also addresses such pressing Palestinian issues as the one-state/twostate debate, Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS), and the Hamas/Fatah relationship. He concludes by highlighting the potentially catastrophic nature of the disputes centering on Jerusalem’s Muslim holy places and the threat to the Middle East posed by the policies of Benjamin Netanyahu, “the most dangerous political leader in the world today.”