Sanders statement on Palestinians ‘could not have been spoken anywhere in Dem Party, ever, in 60s’ — Khalidi
Philip Weiss
Mondoweiss
Fri Nov 22 2019
Nearly 70 people crowded a room at Columbia University yesterday to hear a talk on historical divisions on the left over Palestine, and the news of the day was celebrated. Rashid Khalidi enthused over Bernie Sanders’s unprompted embrace of Palestinian rights to the Democratic debate the night before as a sign of progress. And Dorothy Zellner celebrated Benjamin Netanyahu’s indictment that morning as a “happy day,” and teachable moment about Israel in the United States.
The gathering at the Center for Palestine Studies was for an important new book by Michael Fischbach,“The Movement and the Middle East,” about how the Israeli Arab conflict divided the American left in the 1960s and 1970s.
Khalidi, the Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies, introduced Fischbach by telling of protesting when Golda Meir spoke at Yale University Law School in the 1960s. “There were four of us,” he said. Fischbach’s book reports that American public opinion was then 95 percent in favor of Israel. “I think that exaggerated support for the Palestinians in the 60s,” Khalidi quipped....
