Throughout the book, Khalidi underscores the power of Palestinian resilience and agency. He traces the start of this agency and resiliency to the Balfour Declaration in 1917, when Arthur James Balfour (British secretary of state for foreign affairs at the time) publicly pledged to create “a national home for Jewish people” in Palestine (24). Palestinians did not immediately learn of the Balfour Declaration, partly because the Ottoman Empire shut down local newspapers during World War I (WWI). Once this bombshell reached Palestinians, Palestinian elites tried to push back. They wrote letters to the British government protesting the declaration. Palestinian leaders grew increasingly concerned about the way Jewish settlers were removing indigenous Palestinians from their land. As one example, Palestinian poet and journalist Isa al-Isa wrote in his newspaper Filastin about “a nation threatened with disappearance by the Zionist tide in this Palestinian land, […] a nation which is threatened in its very being with expulsion from its homeland” (26-27). When these letters failed to halt Zionist aspirations, Palestinians revolted. The revolts became more militant in the 1930s when the younger, more educated Palestinians grew frustrated at the unsuccessful, conciliatory approach of Palestinian leaders.

Since the Balfour Declaration, Palestinians have tried to advocate for their national self-determination.