History has a striking capacity to intrude on the present day, as it does when I meet Rashid Khalidi. The Palestinian American professor’s retirement from his position as the Edward Said chair of modern Arab history at Columbia University was imminent, and that morning he has received alarming news: a gang of extremist Israeli settlers had stormed a house on Silsila Road in Jerusalem, a property that had been in his family’s possession since the time of his great-great-great grandfather in the 18th century.
The property had recently been briefly uninhabited after a cousin living there had died. The plan was to convert the house into an extension of the Khalidi library, just across the road, which houses more than 1,200 manuscripts, some dating back to the early 11th century.
Khalidi says he believes the settlers were being strategic, that they had been watching the property, or perhaps the obituaries, and were ready to act. While his family has the ownership documents relating to the property, Khalidi says he is full of doom: “We had a court decision in our favor, saying that we own the property, but these people trample all over legality, law and courts, and they are supported by the police and the government.”
