Walid Khalidi, the esteemed Palestinian historian and diplomat renowned for his meticulous documentation of the Nakba and his contributions to Palestinian scholarship, has died at the age of 100 in Massachusetts, United States. His death was announced in an obituary issued by the Institute for Palestine Studies (IPS), a research center he co-founded in 1963.
Born in Jerusalem in 1925 into an intellectual family, Khalidi received his early education in Ramallah before attending St George’s School in Jerusalem. He graduated from the University of Oxford in 1951 and pursued an illustrious academic career, teaching political studies at the American University of Beirut until 1982, and later serving as a research fellow at Harvard University’s Center for International Affairs.
Khalidi is best known for his landmark book, "All That Remains," published in 1992, which catalogued the destruction or depopulation of over 400 Palestinian villages during the first Arab-Israeli war in 1948, combining historical research, maps, and testimonies. Another major work, "Before Their Diaspora," used archival photographs to document Palestinian society before 1948, offering a rare visual record of daily life across the country.
Beyond academia, Khalidi played a significant role in Palestinian diplomacy. After the 1967 war, he served as an adviser to the Iraqi delegation at the United Nations, joined an Arab Summit delegation to the British government in 1983, and acted as a special adviser to the Arab League secretary-general in the mid-1980s. He was also part of the joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation to the 1991 Madrid peace conference.
Tributes from Palestinian officials and scholars have highlighted Khalidi's legacy. Palestinian Ambassador to the UK Husam Zomlot described him as "a national treasure, a guardian of memory, and a mentor to generations." The Institute for Palestine Studies noted that Khalidi was one of the most prominent historians of Palestine, whose work helped build the foundation for modern scholarship on the region.
Source: www.aljazeera.com