Personal Info
- Country of residence: United States
Information
Rashid-KhalidiBorn in New York City to a father of Palestinian origin and a Lebanese-American mother, Rashid Khalidi grew up in New York where he attended the United Nations International School. In 1970, he received a BA from Yale University and in 1974 a D. Phil. from Oxford University. His teaching career began at the Lebanese University and the American University of Beirut; returning to America, he has held positions at the University of Chicago, Georgetown University, and at Columbia University, where he currently serves as Edward Said Professor of Modern Arabic Studies and Chair of the History Department. He served as an informed and expert Palestinian resource for foreign journalists in Beirut during the Lebanese War, and was an important commentator in the US during the 1990-91 Gulf War and before and after the 2003 US invasion of Iraq.
Khalidi has been a research fellow at the independent Institute for Palestine Studies and is editor of its Journal of Palestine Studies, and was director both of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies and of the Center for International Studies at the University of Chicago; he is a member of the National Advisory Committee of the US Interreligious Committee for Peace in the Middle East which describes itself as a national organization of Jews, Christians, and Muslims dedicated to dialogue, education, and advocacy for peace based on the deepest teachings of the three religious traditions. Khalidi is member of the Board of Sponsors of The Palestine–Israel Journal, a founding trustee of The Center for Palestine Research and Studies, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Achievements and Awards
In Resurrecting Empire: Western Footprints and America's Perilous Path in the Middle East (2004), Khalidi takes readers on a historical tour of Western involvement in the Middle East, and argues that these interactions continue to have a colonialist nature that is both morally unacceptable and likely to backfire. Khalidi's book, Sowing Crisis, places the United States approach to the Middle East in historical context. He is sharply critical of U.S. policies during the Cold War, writing that Cold War policies "formulated to oppose the Soviets, consistently undermined democracy and exacerbated tensions in the Middle East".
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