The Trinity Long Room Hub at Trinity College Dublin welcomes Professor Rashid Khalidi, eminent historian and Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University, as a Heyman-Hub Fellow. During this two-month fellowship, Professor Khalidi will explore the parallels between Ireland and Palestine and their colonial histories:

“'To understand Palestine, you have to understand more about British colonialism generally and how it starts here”, says Professor Rashid Khalidi, author of The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917- 2017 (2020), who says he hopes his study comparing the two experiences“might be useful for understanding current problems, and perhaps gesturing towards solutions in Palestine drawn from the rich Irish experience.'

Examining Ireland and Palestine as the 'first and last laboratories where the British state experimented with settler colonialism,' Professor Khalidi argues that 'Ireland served as a template for the expansion of the British Empire over its long history' and that many of the tactics we see being deployed in Palestine were first tested and implemented in Ireland.

As part of his project, Professor Khalidi is meeting with many experts within Trinity’s Departments of Histories and Humanities, English, and Middle Eastern Studies, and in the University of Cork, UCD, and Maynooth, and will continue to engage with colleagues throughout the island’s universities for the duration of his fellowship which lasts until April 2022."

Read Prof. Khalidi's full profile in the Trinity Long Room Hub website.