Remembering Walid Khalidi (1925–2026)

It is with deep sadness that we note the passing on 8 March of Walid Khalidi, a towering figure in Palestinian historiography whose work fundamentally reshaped scholarly understanding of Palestine and its modern history. His meticulous documentation of the Nakba and his commitment to preserving Palestinian historical memory have left an enduring imprint on the field. 

Born in Jerusalem in 1925, Khalidi was educated in Ramallah before continuing his schooling at St George’s in Jerusalem. He later pursued higher education at the University of Oxford, graduating in 1951. 

Khalidi’s academic career spanned several decades and institutions. He taught political studies at the American University of Beirut until 1982, where he influenced generations of students and scholars. He later joined Harvard University as a research fellow at its Center for International Affairs, continuing his research and mentorship.

In 1963, Khalidi co-founded the Institute of Palestine Studies, an independent research institution that has become central to the production and dissemination of scholarship on Palestine and the Arab-Israeli conflict. As its long-serving general secretary, he helped shape its intellectual direction and ensured its role as a vital scholarly resource. The institute’s flagship publication, the Journal of Palestine Studies, remains a cornerstone of the field.

Among Khalidi’s many contributions, his book All That Remains (1992) stands as a monumental achievement. By documenting the destruction and depopulation of hundreds of Palestinian villages in 1947-1948, at the hands of Zionist military forces, it combined archival research, cartography, and oral histories to preserve a record that might otherwise have been lost. His earlier work, Before Their Diaspora, offered a powerful visual archive of Palestinian life prior to 1948, underscoring the richness and diversity of a society too often reduced to narratives of displacement.

Beyond academia, Khalidi was engaged in diplomatic and political efforts related to the Palestinian question.

For BRISMES members, Khalidi’s passing marks not only the loss of an eminent historian but also of a scholar who helped define the contours of Palestine studies as a field. His work exemplified a commitment to rigorous, evidence-based scholarship in the face of contested histories, and it continues to inform teaching, research, and public discourse across disciplines.

At a time when Palestinian educational and cultural institutions face systematic erasure, Khalidi’s legacy carries renewed urgency. His insistence on documentation, preservation, and critical inquiry serves as both a scholarly foundation and a call to sustain and protect knowledge production under conditions of ongoing catastrophe.