Steven Erlanger
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
Publishers Weekly
Historian Khalidi (Resurrecting Empire), a leading expert on the Middle East and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, brings vital perspective to Palestinian attempts to achieve independence and statehood. Admirably synthesizing the latest scholarship and concentrating on the period of the British Mandate (1920-1948) established by the League of Nations after WWI, Khalidi describes the process by which a newly arrived European Jewish minority overcame, with help from its imperial ally, the claims and rights of the native Arab majority in what became Israel and the occupied territories. Khalidi shows Palestinians under the mandate facing comparatively severe systemic, institutional and constitutional obstacles to the development of any para-state structure contrary to British promises of Arab independence and Article 4 of the Covenant of the League of Nations. Meanwhile, the Jewish minority could count on a system biased in its favor to develop the structures that became those of the Israeli government in 1948 amid violent expulsion of over half the indigenous population. In bringing this narrative up to the present, Khalidi rigorously details the missteps of the Palestinians and their leadership. Khalidi curiously refrains from drawing any detailed proposal of his own to resolve the ongoing conflict, but his first-rate and up-to-date historical and political analysis of the Palestinian predicament remains illuminating. (Oct.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Foreign Affairs
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.
From the Publisher
At heart a historical essay, an effort to decide why the Palestinians . . . have failed to achieve an independent state.—Steven Erlanger, New York Times
"A first-rate and up-to-date historical and political analysis of the Palestinian predicament."—Publishers Weekly's 100 Best Books issue
"In a refreshing contrast to the yammering bazaar of complaint and allegation that has dominated American public discussion of the Middle East since Sept. 11, 2001, The Iron Cage is a patient and eloquent work, ranging over the whole of modern Palestinian history from World War I to the death of Yasser Arafat. Reorienting the Palestinian narrative around the attitudes and tactics of the Palestinians themselves, Khalidi lends a remarkable illumination to a story so wearily familiar it is often hard to believe anything new can be found within."—Jonathan Shainin, Salon
"Khalidi uses history to provide a clear-eyed view of the region and assess the prospects for peace. He strives successfully for even-handedness."—Anthony Lewis, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Gideon's Trumpet and Make No Law
"A work of forceful historical analysis written in a spirit of self-examination."—Bashir Abu-Manneh, The Nation
"Magisterial in scope, meticulous in its attention to detail, and decidedly dispassionate in its analysis, The Iron Cage is destined to be a benchmark of its genre." —Joel Schalit, Tikkun
"Khalidi, tackling 'historical amnesia,' brilliantly analyses the structural handicap which hobbled the Palestinians throughout 30 years of British rule . . . Khalidi restores the Palestinians to something more than victims, acknowledging that for all their disadvantages, they have played their role and can (and must) still do so to determine their own fate." —Ian Black, Guardian
