CPS co-Director Rashid Khalidi writes for The Nation on Donald Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital and what this means for the peace process.

"But in plunging the Middle East into what may be a prolonged crisis, and saddling future generations of American policy-makers with the burden of dealing with the mess he has made, Trump may have inadvertently cleared the air. He may have smashed a rotten status quo of US “peace processing” that has served only to entrench and legitimize Israel’s military occupation and colonization of Palestinian land for a quarter-century, which has made more difficult a just, lasting peace between the Palestinian and Israeli peoples."

CPS co-Director Rashid Khalidi for The Guardian, on Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital .

"Trump, who was warned against this step by Arab, Middle Eastern and European leaders, has now made resolving the conflict over Palestine much harder, even as he has brought joy to his friends, and to their dangerous, extremist soulmates in Israel. Far from ushering in the “deal of the century”, as he boasted, with this foolish move Trump may usher in the debacle of the century."

"Something about P is for Palestine touched a nerve. When does a children’s book get coverage in the New York Post (“Page Six,” no less), the Forward, Ha’aretz, the New York Daily News, and Breitbart? ... Children’s books aren’t merely precious entertainment; we imagine them to be conduits for the transmission of certain values. P is for Palestine makes manifest something Zionists fear but cannot control... The book provides an ocular target for their existential anxiety." — Steven Salaita

The Center for Palestine Studies at Columbia University’s Middle East Institute is pleased to announce that the competition for the 2018-2019 Ibrahim Abu-Lughod Post-Doctoral Award is open. This year-long post-doctoral fellowship seeks to recognize and foster innovative and ground-breaking scholarship on issues related to Palestine and Palestinians. The deadline for full applications including supporting letters is February 28, 2018. Apply here.

CPS was recognized as "Bethlehem Ambassador" by Open Bethlehem, and was accorded with an honorary citizenship of the city of Bethlehem, formally conferred with the granting of a Bethlehem Passport.

In the picture, the filmmaker Lila Sansour with CPS faculty holding their Bethlehem passport, which acknowledges their contribution and confirms their pledge to act as an Ambassador for the city.

Read more about Open Bethlehem here. Full event description here.

CPS hosted an evening of Break the Wall plays to commemorate the hundredth anniversary of the Balfour Declaration.

Break the Wall aims to provide a continually growing collection of short, free theatrical works that illuminate the central dynamics of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and cut through the fog of deliberate distortions while challenging complicity, complacency,  and ignorance in mainstream discourse on Palestine/Israel.

Full event description here.

The session was organized as a workshop during which the participants discussed the Balfour Declaration and the US Immigration Act, as well as other supplemental readings. The workshop was led by Prof. Darryl Li of the University of Chicago and Pro. Maryanne Rhett of Monmouth University.  
The workshop took place at Knox Hall on November 10, 2017.

CPS co-Director Rashid Khalidi participates in a roundtable organized by Al-Shabaka - The Palestinian Policy Network in occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, the British statement that paved the way for the state of Israel.

Were there any points during the past century when the Palestinians could have influenced the course of events for a different trajectory? Al-Shabaka’s historians and analysts identify six forks in the road where things might have gone differently, and draw lessons for the future.