Tikun Olam-תקון עולם: Make the World a Better Place

Apparently, the pro-Israel right continues the battle against Barnard College professor Nadia Abu El-Haj despite the fact that their cause is likely lost. As I’ve written often in the past here a group of right-wing Jewish groups including Campus Watch, Frontpagemagazine and “intellectuals” like Shulamit Reinharz have taken up the cudgels against Abu El-Haj, who is up for tenure this year. Both Jesse Walker at Reason Magazine and I have uncovered the unsavory nature of the campaign including fabricated quotations from Abu El-Haj’s work, reviewers hiding their affiliations with anti-Abu El-Haj groups, etc.

One of the disturbing aspects of this fight is how the right co-opts, often through subterfuge, respectable media outlets to do their bidding. So the Jewish Telegraphic Agency published a report virtually parroting the falsehoods spread about the Barnard professor without interviewing anyone to represent the academic’s perspective on this battle.

The Journal of Near Eastern Studies published a highly negative review by Alexander Joffe, who continues to insist–despite the fact that the publication’s editor has written to me that this was material–that his role as director of Campus Watch when the review was published need not have been disclosed either to the editors or within the review itself.

History New Network published a “review” of Facts on the Ground by Diana Muir, one of the early leaders of the anti Abu El Haj campaign. In the review, Muir did not disclose any of her political affiliations, which would’ve allowed HNN readers to take account of her possible prejudices in this matter. I disclosed this to an HNN editor weeks ago and his way of dealing with the issue was to link to two blog posts of mine about the Abu El-Haj smear campaign.

Now I see that HNN has published yet another piece of garbage against Abu El-Haj repeating virtually the same charges peddled earlier by Joffe, Muir, and “Hugh Fitzgerald” (at Campus Watch and Frontpagemagazine). Again, HNN displayed links to my own posts as if that somehow absolves them of any responsibility for the regurgitated lies peddled by this new reviewer. This is the height of editorial irresponsibility.

There are some authors I respect who publish at HNN like Mark LeVine. So I can’t say the entire site is characterized by this intellectual narischkeit. But there is a serious lack of editorial judgment afflicting HNN, and its readers should know that trusting the bona fides of its writers is a dubious proposition.

The new smear, Archeology and the Propaganda War Against Israel, is by one Richard L. Cravatts, listed as:

director of Boston University’s Program in Book and Magazine Publishing at the Center for Professional Education

If you’re like me you’re wondering where his credentials as a historian (presumably the subject of HNN), archaeologist (the subject of Abu El-Haj’s book) or anthropologist (Abu El-Haj’s field) are. Gone missing I guess. But that doesn’t stop Cravatts from writing on subjects far and wide about which he has dubious credentials:

[he] writes frequently on terrorism, higher education, politics, culture, law, marketing, and housing, and is currently writing a book about the world-wide assault on Israel taking place on college campuses.

That last phrase is a dead giveaway for a Campus Watch/Frontpagemagazine groupie–and whadayaknow, guess where Cravatts writes? Almost entirely in right-wing publications: Frontpagemagazine, American Thinker, Intellectual Conservative, Free Republic, the right-wing Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, and World Sentinel (affiliated with Town Hall). HNN doesn’t tell you any of that in his bio. In fact, I had to search far and wide on the web to discover that he earned his PhD in English from the University of Louisiana. For some reason, he omits this from his online bios probably because it would reveal he has no particular expertise in any of the fields listed above and has done no original research whatsoever in publishing this piece.

And what does Cravatts bring that is new to this discussion that would merit publishing his article? Nothing. The same old lies claiming that Abu El Haj doesn’t know Hebrew (she does), that she denies a link between ancient Israel and the Jewish people (she doesn’t), etc. And you’ll find the same fabricated quotation from Abu El Haj’s work which Jesse Walker and I debunked weeks ago. Here’s Cravatt’s review:

…“the modern Jewish/Israeli belief in ancient Israelite origins” is a “pure political fabrication…”

Of course, Abu El-Haj actually wrote quite the opposite:

“…the modern Jewish/Israeli belief in ancient Israelite origins is not understood as *pure* political fabrication.”

Cravatts also disingenuously quotes from archaeologist Ralph Harrington without noting that while Harrington is critical of aspects of Abu El-Haj’s work, he is also critical of the campaign against her and and does not endorse the view that she should be denied tenure. I’m afraid this is just more recycled garbage.

To paraphrase the original fighter against intellectual McCarthyism–Joseph Welch: Have you no shame HNN? At long last, have you no shame?

Sam Hardy has done a tremendous job of recapitulating all the arguments and evidence mustered on both sides of the argument. Anyone interested in this matter should read his meticulous work.

UPDATE: I wrote to Rick Shenkman, HNN editor, about this matter and he was most gracious. He took down the Cravatts piece until the author can back up his charges with facts. I think that shows a certain amount of class and I give him credit for that. So read what I wrote above in the light of this update.

The editor of the Journal of Near Eastern Studies (JNES), Wadad Kadi, wrote to me today expressing concern with the circumstances of Alexander Joffe’s 2005 JNES review of Facts on the Ground. I’m gratified that Dr. Kadi understands both the issue of Joffe’s potential conflict and is concerned by the misuse of the Joffe review in the campaign against Abu El Haj’s tenure process:

As Editor of the Journal of Near Eastern Studies (JNES), I am deeply disturbed to learn that Alexander Joffe’s review of Nadia Abu El Haj’s book “Facts on the Ground”…could have been written when he was in a position that creates a conflict of interest, and that his review could have had an effect on her academic appointment. At that time, the editor of JNES was my predecessor…who, I am certain, had no idea about the conflict of interest you point out in your message. I know for a fact that a number of times scholars to whom he offered a book for review wrote back declining because of a real conflict of interest or what they thought might be perceived as a conflict of interest (being a personal friend, having had a course from a person, having been on a particular dig, having seen a draft of a chapter, etc.); Joffe made no such comment, as scholars of unimpeachable integrity normally do.

You are right: it is difficult for editors to be aware of all conflicts of interest, but they should be vigilant in order to avoid such unfortunate situations in the future.

Thanking you for attracting our attention to this very regrettable situation, I remain.

Shulamit Reinharz is one of the latest academics to exploit Joffe’s review for the purpose that Kadi decries as I posted here yesterday. This should put anyone on notice who does the same that the Journal itself has distanced itself from Joffe and this abuse of his review.

Further, at least one author has come forward to decry copyright violations at the Deny Nadia Abu El Haj Tenure website. Ralph Harrington, whose own review of Facts on the Ground was appropriated in its entirely without permission at the site, wrote to me referring to this statement at his own website:

It has come to my notice that my Israeli ‘bulldozer archaeology’ essay is featured on the website of the ‘Deny Abu El Haj Tenure Committee’. I would like to make it clear that I have not given permission for my essay to be included on this site, and that its presence there represents no endorsement whatsoever on my part of that site or of the campaign of which it is part.

It is very noticeable that those behind the ‘Deny Abu El Haj Tenure Committee’ have been careful to conceal their own identities, while taking Nadia Abu El Haj’s own name and registering it as the domain for a website dedicated to attacking and denigrating her. This strikes me as questionable behaviour, coming from people who claim to be standing up for academic integrity.

I couldn’t have said it any better myself. And this is from someone who wrote a review that was critical of the book and who has no vested interest in whether or not she receives tenure. By the way, his review is still at the anti Abu El Haj site despite his public notice that he disapproves of its display there. This is now a blatant copyright violation among other sins of this site.

Apparently, one academic is pleased her work is being used in the partisan political campaign to oust Abu El Haj. And she’s none to happy with yesterday’s critique of the Barnard alumni ‘hit-man’ website. If she reads this, she may want to retract the following portion of her comment:

Judging by how I was treated, I can only assume the website owners were as careful with others as they were with my article.

Wrong, Professor. Dead wrong.

Recently, I waded into the Campus Watch campaign against Nadia Abu El-Haj, who is seeking tenure at Barnard College. Since 2005, pro-Israel academics, Campus Watch and Frontpagemagazine have been calling for her head. I was helped in my research into the Jewish neocon campaign by several academics who found the tactics of Abu El-Haj’s opponents to be odious. Scott MacEachern, in particular, made me aware that Alexander Joffe wrote the first bitterly negative academic review in the Journal of Near Eastern Studies, which was published in 2005. MacEachern pointed out that at the time of publication Joffe was the director of Campus Watch. I asked in my blog why neither the Journal nor Joffe saw fit to mention this affiliation, which created a clear conflict of interest considering Campus Watch’s harsh, ideological campaign against her tenure.

Today, Joffe replied to my charges and apparently he’s oblivious to any ethical issue:

I wrote and submitted the review in question in 2003, and began working for MEF [Middle East Forum--a Daniel Pipes group related to Campus Watch] a year later. It appeared in the journal in 2005.

My assessment of the book has nothing whatsoever to do with politics and everything to do with scholarship. This should be evident to those who have actually read the review.

The issue is not institutional affiliation, identity, or demanding that editors change lines in pieces that have gone to press. it is the content and coherent of the critique.

So his answer is essentially, I wrote the review before working for Campus Watch, therefore I’m home free. The fact that he was working for Campus Watch WHEN it was first published doesn’t faze him in the least. And the fact that Campus Watch’s campaign against Abu El-Haj was anything but “scholarly” also doesn’t phase him. In his world, you can lead a bifurcated existence as director of an ideologically driven propaganda outfit while also being a dispassionate scholar.

I replied thus to this e mail:

You were intellectually & politically dishonest in not reporting yr affiliation to the publication & asking them to note it so that readers could put into context your vested interest in trashing her work.

And by the way, how did Campus Watch come to be interested in trashing her work to begin with? Through your own interest in her possibly? And who is the real Hugh Fitzgerald, whose hatchet job on Abu El Haj in Campus Watch & Frontpagemagazine published around the same time your review was published & while you were director?

And any time you ever write about any academic subject on which Campus Watch has campaigned (including attacks on Arab researchers) I will expect you to note your former affiliation and if you do not I will do my best to ensure it is noted for you. I will also circulate this information in the archaeology field among your peers who will have more opportunity than I to monitor your publications.

I didn’t expect Joffe would like reply and he didn’t disappoint:

Fortunately I do not have to satisfy your expectations in any sphere of endeavor, nor append my life history to everything that I write. Writing and analyses stand on their own merits, something which you evidently cannot comprehend– rather than on the presumed politics, identity or motives of the writer. Sadly, academia operates almost exclusively on your principles, and this is another reason I am glad to no longer be wasting my time in that area.

I have some sympathy for those who’ve left academia without fulfilling their ambitions as I’m one of those people myself. But to blame one’s failures or dissatisfaction on the alleged political machinations or vendettas of other scholars seems downright bitter and just plain sad. You’ll also note that Joffe condemns my allegedly poisoned political principles while denying that he has any such principles that might be relevant to what he writes on this subject.

And this, it seems to me, is precisely the subject of Abu El-Haj’s book: that archaeologists like Joffe do their work in a vacuum that ignores the political, national, and historical assumptions they bring to that work. And these assumptions often unconsciously inform their judgments and decisions. But I wouldn’t expect someone as obtuse as Joffe to begin to understand this.

I also note that Joffe did his doctoral disseration under William Dever who, it should be noted, is another one of the archaeologists to call for Barnard to deny Abu El Haj tenure. And where did Prof. Dever make his views known? In the pages of the neocon New York Sun, which served as a willing media conduit for the charges of Campus Watch. Do I detect a unifying theme here?

A commenter notes below that Joffe currently serves as director of research for the David Project, a Jewish ultra-Israel group which also monitors campuses for alleged Islamist hate. The David Project spearheaded the attack on Columbia Arab studies professors like Joseph Massad and Rashid Khalidi. The attacks against Abu El-Haj (who teaches at Columbia-affiliated Barnard College) fit in nicely with the David Project/Campus Watch MO.

Oh and here are some of the distinguished academic achievements of the professor accused of “junk scholarship” by one of her academic detractors (not an archaeologist of course):

She held fellowships at Harvard University’s Academy for International and Area Studies, the University of Pennsylvania Mellon Program, and the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. She is, in addition, a former Fulbright Fellow and a recipient of awards from the SSRC-McArthur Grant in International Peace and Security, the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, and the National Endowment for the Humanities among others. Professor Abu El-Haj has lectured widely at the New York Academy of Sciences, New York University, the University of Pennsylvania, the Institute of Advanced Study at Princeton, the University of Cambridge, the London School of Economics (LSE), and the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) of the University of London