Short answer: No. Rashid Khalidi is a Palestinian-American historian who has spent his career criticizing Israel's founding and policies as "settler colonialism," has backed the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement, and has no Jewish-identity connection. He is living, as of August 2026.
What Rashid Khalidi has actually said and done
March 9, 2016: Khalidi was among roughly 40 Columbia University faculty who signed a petition endorsing the academic boycott of Israel under the BDS movement, according to the Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago.
2020: Khalidi published "The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917-2017," which frames the Zionist claim to Palestine across that century as an instrument of British and then American-backed settler colonialism rather than a conflict between two national movements, per a secondary summary of the book (published by Metropolitan Books).
Late 2023: Khalidi told The New Yorker that the assault on Israeli civilians was a war crime, saying: "If a Native American liberation movement came and fired an R.P.G. at my apartment building because I'm living on stolen land, it wouldn't be justified... You either accept international humanitarian law or you don't." The remark is quoted again in a later Portside piece.
October 2024: Khalidi retired from his post as Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University after 22 years, saying the university had put financial interests ahead of its educational mission. He holds emeritus status, according to Columbia University's Emeritus Professors directory, and remains active in public commentary.
December 2024: In an interview with The New York Review of Books, Khalidi described Israel's military campaign in Gaza as revenge rather than legitimate self-defense, calling it disproportionate and saying that if it did not fit the description of genocide, "just throw out the Genocide Convention."
December 6, 2024: Khalidi spoke at a private Upper West Side salon to an audience of mostly Orthodox and observant Jews, describing his family's centuries-long roots in Jerusalem, using the words "apartheid" and "genocide" to describe Israeli policy, and dismissing concerns that campus pro-Palestinian protests were making Jewish students feel unsafe, according to The Forward.
August 1, 2025: Khalidi withdrew from teaching a Columbia fall course, announced in a Guardian op-ed, after the university's $200 million settlement with the Trump administration and its adoption of the IHRA antisemitism definition, which he said "conflates Jewishness with Israel" and is used to suppress criticism of Israel. He moved the course to a free format at The People's Forum in New York instead, as reported by Democracy Now!.
Who is Rashid Khalidi, and where does he come from
Rashid Khalidi was born in 1948 in New York to a prominent Jerusalem family, with roots he traces on his father's side back to the Crusades era; his mother was Lebanese-American. He holds a B.A. from Yale (1970) and a Ph.D. from Oxford (1974), and taught at Columbia University from 2003 to 2024 as the Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies, retiring with emeritus status. No public record ties him to Jewish ancestry, conversion, or Jewish community membership; his 2024 appearance at the Upper West Side salon was as an invited outside speaker addressing an Orthodox Jewish audience, not evidence of any personal Jewish identity. His public record consistently frames the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through the lens of Palestinian dispossession and settler colonialism, and he has supported the BDS boycott movement since at least the mid-2010s. He condemned the October 7 attack on civilians as a war crime under international law, but has also argued Israel's military response was not justified, and has used terms like "apartheid" and "genocide" to describe Israeli conduct.
The bottom line
Rashid Khalidi does not support Israel. His scholarship and public statements consistently characterize Israel's founding and policies as settler colonialism, he has backed the BDS boycott movement, and even his one condemnation of the October 7 attack was paired with a rejection of Israel's right to respond militarily. He has no Jewish-identity connection; his family background is Palestinian Muslim and Lebanese Christian.
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Last updated August 2026. We update these profiles as the record changes.
