Ismail Khalidi

Who was Ismail Khalidi?

Ismail Ragib Khalidi was a senior political affairs officer for the United Nations Department of Political Affairs.

Khalidi was born in Jerusalem, then still part of the Ottoman Empire, on 13 November 1916. He was the brother of Husayin al-Khalidi, father of Rashid Khalidi and the grandfather of the American playwright, Ismail Khalidi.

Khalidi attended St. George's School, Jerusalem and the Arab College. In 1939, he received his B.A.in political science from the American University of Beirut. He completed his studies in the United States, receiving an M.A. from the University of Michigan in 1940, and Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1955.

His Ph.D. dissertation for Columbia became the book, Constitutional Development in Libya, published in 1956, with an introduction by Adriaan Pelt. He also credits Charles Issawi and J. C. Hurewitz as having contributed to the creation of the book. At the time of publication, it was the first study conducted in English on the development of the Constitution of Libya.

Khalidi also served as the Assistant Editor, Middle East Desk, United States Office of War Information from 1942–44 and the Secretary of the Institute of the Arab American Affairs, from 1945-48. He was a member of the UN for 19 years, joining originally as a radio announcer. He died on 2 September 1968 at the age of 51 in Beirut, Lebanon.