Nur Masalha

Masalha was born in 1957.[2] A biographical reference entry identifies him as Israeli, while his 2018 author biography describes him as a Palestinian historian.[2][1] His early academic career included teaching and research at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem from 1979 to 1982, followed by a directorship at the Neve Shalom School for Peace in 1982–83.[2]

Masalha held a part-time lectureship at the University of London in 1985–86 and a Constantine Zurayk research fellowship at the Institute for Palestine Studies in Washington, D.C., from 1989 to 1992.[2] His subsequent appointments included a visiting lectureship at the University of Bristol in 1991, an honorary fellowship at Durham’s Centre for Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies beginning in 1993, and a London College lectureship in 1994.[2] An assistant professorship at Birzeit University began in 1995.[2]

His professional work has included contributions to scholarly journals and the translation and editing of academic articles and papers.[2] In 2018, he was described as a member of the Centre for Palestine Studies at SOAS and editor of the Journal of Holy Land and Palestine Studies.[1]

In a commentary on one-state advocacy, Joseph S. Spoerl identifies Masalha as one of 54 sponsors of the One State Declaration, issued on November 29, 2007; the account distinguishes sponsors from authors and does not identify him as an author.[7]

Masalha’s article “On recent Hebrew and Israeli sources for the Palestinian exodus, 1947–49” appeared in the Journal of Palestine Studies in 1988, in volume 18, issue 1, pages 121–137.[8] Its cataloged subjects include Palestinian Arab refugees, Palestinian Arabs in Israel, Deir Yassin, and the War of Independence.[8]

His Expulsion of the Palestinians: The Concept of “Transfer” in Zionist Political Thought, 1882–1948 was published in Washington, D.C., by the Institute for Palestine Studies in 1992.[4] The book concerns Jewish-Arab relations, population transfers, and Zionism.[4] Other publications from this period include The Palestinians in Israel (1993), which he edited and translated; Israeli Plan to Transfer Galilee’s Christians to South America (1996); A Land Without a People (1997); and Imperial Israel and the Palestinians (2000).[2][1]

Masalha edited Catastrophe Remembered: Palestine, Israel and the Internal Refugees, published by Zed Books in London in 2005.[9] His chapter in that volume, “The ‘Nakba’ in Hebrew: Israeli-Jewish awareness of the Palestinian catastrophe and internal refugees,” occupies pages 214–241.[9] His bibliography also includes The Politics of Denial (2003), The Palestine Nakba (2012), and The Zionist Bible: Biblical Precedent, Colonialism and the Erasure of Memory (2013).[1]

The Bible and Zionism: Invented Traditions, Archaeology and Post-Colonialism in Palestine-Israel was published by Zed Books in London and New York. The Library of Congress catalog dates it to 2006, while Masalha’s 2018 author biography gives 2007.[5][1] The catalog describes the 366-page volume as including a bibliography and index, with contents covering Zionism and the Hebrew Bible, Christian Zionism, Jerusalem, archaeology and biblical scholarship, Palestinian religious nationalism, and Edward Said.[5]

First published by Zed Books in 2018, Palestine: A Four Thousand Year History presents a history extending from ancient times to the modern era.[1] The work sets out an approach drawing on multiple perspectives, contemporary evidence, testimony, and historical sources, and advocates reading that history with attention to Palestine’s indigenous people.[1] It distinguishes Palestine’s long history as a country from the later development of modern Palestinian nationalism, which it treats as a modern phenomenon.[1]

Palestine Across Millennia: A History of Literacy, Learning and Educational Revolutions was first published in Great Britain in 2022.[6] Its contents range from ancient scribal schools and Byzantine learning to Islamic colleges and Ottoman and Mandatory-era education, followed by an epilogue on libraries, archival collections, and Sharia court records.[6] The introduction argues for a long history of learning, literary culture, and multilingual knowledge production in Palestine, challenging the view that pre-twentieth-century Palestine lacked literacy or an indigenous literary culture.[6]

With Ahmad H. Sa’di, Masalha co-authored Decolonizing the Study of Palestine: Indigenous Perspectives and Settler Colonialism after Elia Zureik, published in English by Bloomsbury in 2023.[10] The peer-reviewed, 349-page book contains 13 chapters in addition to an introduction and afterword.[10] Developing ideas associated with Elia Zureik, it approaches colonialism as both a political-economic system and a “mode of life” and consciousness.[10] Its subjects include settler colonialism, dispossession, the separation wall, surveillance technologies, decolonisation methodologies, and popular resistance.[10]

Masalha’s Expulsion of the Palestinians has been included as background reading in a Hebrew University course syllabus on the War of Independence.[11] His cataloged output encompasses both books and articles: 22 of each are listed under his name, although these figures count cataloged items rather than establish the full extent of his publications.[3]

Masalha’s work forms part of scholarly disagreements over Zionist political thought and Palestinian displacement during the War of Independence, including the intentions of Jewish forces and the reasons for Palestinian society’s collapse.[11] A 1991 article by Benny Morris, “Response to Finkelstein and Masalha,” appeared in the Journal of Palestine Studies, volume 21, issue 1, pages 98–114; it concerned Morris’s The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947–1949 and 1948 and After: Israel and the Palestinians.[12] The settler-colonial and decolonisation frameworks employed in Masalha’s later collaborative work likewise represent the book’s interpretive approach rather than an independently established consensus.[10]