Walid Khalidi

1925 -

Palestinian intellectual and strategist.

Walid Khalidi has devoted much of his life to research and writing on the Palestine question. In 1963 he cofounded the Institute for Palestine Studies, an independent nonprofit Arab research and publication center. He has taught at the American University in Beirut, as well as at Oxford and Harvard, and has been a research associate at the Center for International Affairs and the Center for Middle East Studies at Harvard University. He has written and edited several articles and books including From Haven to Conquest (1970); Conflict and Violence in Lebanon: Confrontation in the Middle East (1979); Before Their Diaspora, A Photographic History of the Palestinians 1876 - 1948 (1984); and All That Remains: The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948 (1992). A consummate expert on the Palestinian question and the Arab - Israeli conflict, he played an important role in shaping the Palestine Liberation Organization's (PLO) peace strategy toward Israel, and was a member of the Jordanian delegation to the peace talks with Israel (1991 - 1992). Despite Khalidi's role in developing PLO policy, he has never been affiliated with the PLO.

— MUHAMMAD MUSLIH