US President Joe Biden has been criticised after being photographed walking out of a bookshop carrying a book that accuses Israel of settler-colonialism and of being an instrument of British and American imperialism.
Biden has maintained a multifaceted relationship with the Jewish State since becoming a senator in 1972, once referring to Israel as “the single greatest strength America has in the Middle East.”
He has opposed anti-Israel boycott movements, supported substantial financial and military aid packages for the country including for funding of Israel’s Iron Dome, and has more recently resisted appeals from within his party to call for an immediate ceasefire to the war.
He declared himself to be a Zionist twice in the two months following October 7, but his administration’s “ironclad” support for Israel has diminished in recent months as Palestinian civilian casualties in Gaza have risen.
But with only one month left until President-elect Donald Trump assumes office, the outgoing president was seen leaving the shop in Nantucket, Massachusetts on Friday with a copy of The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917-2017 by Rashid Khalidi, Edward Said Professor Emeritus of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia.
The book, a history of the conflict as told from the Palestinian perspective, drew both praise and criticism when it was published in 2020, sparking debate among historians, academics and policymakers.
The history of the Israel-Palestinian conflict, according to the book, can best be understood when viewed as “a colonial war waged against the indigenous population, by a variety of parties, to force them to relinquish their homeland to another people against their will.”
The book’s critics argue that it presents the Palestinian perspective in an overly sympathetic way, minimising Palestinian political violence and portraying Israel as a ruthless European colonial project.
Well-known Israeli historian Benny Morris described the book as “simply poor history” and said it portrays Zionism as only a European “colonialist enterprise” instead of a national movement in itself.
US President Joe Biden walks out of a bookshop carrying Rashid Khalidi's 'The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine', November 29, 2024 (Credit: MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)AFP via Getty Images
It is unclear whether Biden purchased the book himself or whether he was gifted or recommended it whilst in the shop. The book’s Palestinian-American author reportedly responded to the New York Post’s request for comment that Biden’s purchase was “4 years too late”.
The White House did not respond to other publications’ request about whether the president’s choice of reading material would influence his administration’s approach to policy in the Middle East.
John Kirby, the White House national security communications advisor, defended the purchase. He told a reporter that it was not surprising that Biden would “go into a bookstore and get a book of history, particularly about the Middle East, to try to imbibe and keep learning.
“It reminds me of what Mark Twain said, that a man who refuses to read good books has no advantage over a man who cannot or won’t read those books.
“I can’t speak to why the president made that particular purchase. Wasn’t with him, haven’t had a chance to ask,” he said. “But he reads broadly, and he’s fascinated by history and the lessons of history, and where that can take us going forward.”
Biden’s outing to the bookshop came just three days after the US announced it had brokered a ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel in Lebanon.
