In the News: Osamah F. Khalil

Osamah Khalil, professor of history and expert on the modern Middle East, says it’s untrue that Obama or Biden “held a personal animus toward Israel, especially Biden. Indeed, both administrations oversaw expansions in U.S. military assistance and coordination with Israel.”

“Unless the decision is followed by a renewed and robust peace negotiations that bring an end to Israel’s war in Gaza as well as the settlement and annexation policies in the occupied West Bank, recognition will be too little and far too late,” says Osamah Khalil, chair of the International Relations Undergraduate Program.

“This is not post-war planning. This is a continuation of Netanyahu's war,” says Osamah Khalil, chair of the International Relations Undergraduate Program. “This is what experts like I and many others have warned about for 22 months All of this was about expanding, annexing Gaza and the West Bank and expelling Palestinians.”

The situation is escalating in ways we have not seen before, says Professor of History Osamah Khalil. With Israeli airstrikes, rising tensions in Gaza, and now a strong U.S. military response, the risks are higher than ever. He warns Iran may try to disrupt global oil supply chains, which could have a domino effect. “If that’s the case, we could very rapidly see the global economy collapse.”

“The director [of the new aid group] has already resigned and there's an interim director in place. And the director who resigned said it was because the attempts to deliver aid could not be done so with a humanitarian purpose, and that shouldn't be surprising. The United Nations is the only major organization on the ground, as well as several other NGOs, that can provide the necessary aid,” says Osamah Khalil, chair of the International Relations Undergraduate Program.

The meeting between Trump and al-Sharaa “represents a remarkable shift in U.S. policy toward al-Qaeda and its affiliates. More than 23 years after the 9/11 attacks and the declaration of the Global War on Terror, the United States is developing relations with a former leader of the organization who now declares himself a moderate,” says Osamah Khalil, professor of history.

“Now the Trump administration is claiming this is an attempt to pressure Iran but it's unclear to me, quite frankly, by bombing a port, killing paramedics and port workers, is somehow going to pressure Iran in negotiations,” says Osamah Khalil, professor of history. “If the United States wants to neotiate with Iran, it should negotiate with Iran. There's no reason to be bombing Yemen to do that.”

“The same terms that were agreed to by Hamas and Israel were available at least eight months ago and likely a similar deal could have been achieved late last year...Instead, the Biden administration’s vociferous support for Israel’s 15-month military campaign has had a profound impact on America’s standing in the world,” says Osamah Khalil, professor of history.

“What really needs to happen here is for the Biden administration to work with and ensure—with its European allies, with its Arab allies—Syria's territorial integrity, ensure transition to a democratic government, and ensure that all Syrians will be protected,” says Osamah Khalil, professor of history. 

“There are 1.4 million Palestinians now who have been displaced for the second or third time in seven months. ...They're living in camps, disease is rampant, we have famine spreading throughout Gaza, and the reality is unless the international community, led by the United States, steps in and brings a halt to this, we could be looking at a major disaster,” says Osamah Khalil, professor of history.

"The public hand-wringing versus the actual demonstrative support for Netanyahu's government, politically, diplomatically, militarily is going to be difficult for Biden," says Osamah Khalil, professor of history. "It would be very difficult for him to explain that to the base and energize the base to come out in November," he says.

“It is unprecedented in part because of who Senator Schumer is. He’s not only the Senate majority leader, he’s a democrat, but he’s also the highest-ranking Jewish official, the first Jewish Senate majority leader. So there’s a number of aspects here that are really important to and that add weight to what he’s saying,” says Osamah Khalil, professor of history.

Osamah Khalil, professor of history and chair of the International Relations Undergraduate Program, has written “A World of Enemies: America’s Wars at Home and Abroad from Kennedy to Biden” (Harvard University Press, 2024).

The delegation was led by Maxwell students Lily Collins, Alana Auchmoody and Chenglu Jiang.

With little indication that the U.S. will attempt to assert leverage over Israel, Blinken’s latest trip to the Middle East is fundamentally “performative,” says Osamah Khalil, professor of history. “There is a face-saving domestic consumption element for [the Biden administration] and a separate face-saving element to allow Israel to claim some kind of victory,” he says.

“As this continues over the next few weeks, you’re going to see even greater distance between the U.S. and its allies, and the U.S. and Israel increasingly isolated,” says Osamah Khalil, professor of history and chair of the International Relations Undergraduate Program.

"The Abraham Accords did not achieve peace in the Middle East or help resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict," says Osamah Khalil, professor of history. 

“At several different levels, this is just a pure pipe dream,” Osamah Khalil, professor of history, says of handing Gaza to the Palestinian Authority. Khalil says the Biden administration is facing mounting pressure over its support for Israel, due to the atrocities it is accused of committing in Gaza.

"These are the youngsters on campus who are protesting against the war," says Osamah Khalil, professor of history. "And then some of them start to look at Israel's role in the Middle East and say, are we seeing kind of the same dynamic here about U.S. foreign policy?"

"The reality is a ceasefire is needed now and that's not something the United States is willing to agree to. The most the United States is willing to do is a humanitarian pause, but that's not nearly sufficient. And on this, the United States and Israel are an outlier in the international community," Osamah Khalil, professor of history, tells BBC News.