US President Joe Biden was spotted buying a copy of a book on Friday that documents the bloody history of Israel’s foundation and its occupation of Palestinian land.
Biden was snapped with a copy of the book The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine, written by renowned Palestinian American author Rashid Khalidi, which he seemingly purchased in a ‘Black Friday’ sale in a bookshop in Nantucket.
Khalidi is a historian and expert on Middle Eastern affairs who teaches at Columbia University, and who is known for his opposition to US policies on Palestine and Israel.
Drawing on archival sources, personal accounts and primary sources like letters, Khalidi’s 2020 work details Israel’s foundation as “a settler-colonial conquest” at the expense of native Palestinians.
“[T]he modern history of Palestine can best be understood in these terms: 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,” Khalidi writes in the book.
Khalidi’s work is scathing on both historic and more modern US policy on Israel, with him describing President-elect Donald Trump as a “mouthpiece for Israel”.
The book also takes aim at the US media for its bias towards Israel and its depiction of the Palestinian struggle.
When asked about the pictures of Biden with his book, Khalidi reportedly responded that it was “four years too late”.
On social media site X, Khalidi’s son Ismail was more scathing, writing: “Hey Joe Biden, get my father’s book out of your blood soaked hands, you genocidal maniac.”
Biden, who describes himself as a “proud Zionist”, has faced considerable backlash for his unwavering support for Israel as it wages war on Gaza, killing 44,382 people, the vast majority of whom are civilians.
Though Biden has threatened Israel with delaying arms shipments due to it deliberately stopping aid from entering northern Gaza, his administration has never followed through with such threats and has supported Israel’s brutal actions in the Strip to the tune of billions of dollars of weapons.
Biden’s position has led many of his critics to label him “Genocide Joe”.
