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

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.

People claiming to be Barnard-Columbia alumni have sunk to a new low in their campaign to deny Nadia Abu El Haj tenure. Last month, they created a website attacking Abu El Haj and urging people to sign Paula Stern’s scurrilous petition. Nothing new in people creating websites attacking others. But what is especially pernicious about this website (whose existence was reported to me by an indignant reader) is that its URL essentially appropriates Abu El Haj’s own name: nadiaabuelhaj.com. I find this shocking and my reader had this to say:

How ethical is it to take someone’s actual name and use it as the domain for a website attacking them? This strikes me as disgusting, verging on personal violation.

I think this site is a disgraceful, shabby exercise in cowardly intellectual terrorism.

“Intellectual terrorism.” I like the phrase. Sorry I didn’t think of it myself.

But stealing Abu El Haj’s name is par for the course for the campaigners against her. They have fabricated quotations from her work, mischaracterized her arguments and lied about her through their teeth. What would stop them from stealing their enemy’s own name to do a hatchet job on her? They probably think it’s a terribly clever thing to do.

The second most sleazy thing about this site is its complete anonymity. Again hear my reader:

Who is behind it? No names, affiliations or backgrounds are given. How can they be contacted? There is no e-mail or other address for this ‘campaign’.

Here is what the site owners say about themselves:

We are a committee of Barnard and Columbia graduates who have never stopped caring about our alma mater.

But don’t ask how to contact them because you can’t as my reader wrote. So why the secretiveness? What are these people afraid of? If they are a committee why can’t they name themselves? If there’s is a public campaign why are they incommunicado?

Does Ralph Harrington approve of his work endorsing the anti Abu El Haj campaign?

The third most sleazy thing they do is feature at their site in their entirety copyrighted articles written by authors from whom they have largely not received permission to reproduce their content. I could find only one article which specifically states they have the author’s permission to republish. I have written to several of the other authors making them aware that their material is featured at this site and asking whether they approved publication at a site which advocates denying Abu El Haj tenure. Have these people agreed, in effect, to lend their names to this campaign? Are these authors aware of the unsavory tactics of both this site and the entire anti-tenure campaign?

For example, does Sondra Rubenstein know that this site has appropriated her work and featured it under the banner “Deny Nadia Abu El Haj Tenure?” Does Ralph Harrington know they have done the same to him? I find it laughable that the website has a copyright notice when they so flagrantly flaunt copyright in appropriating the material of others. Do all the scholars quoted know they their words have been used to serve the machinations of an anonymous committee in its holy war against Abu El Haj?

No doubt, owners of the anti-Abu El Haj site may read this and alter their site accordingly. Personally, I hope they don’t. But I want others to see the site as it is now to confirm what I write here.

If this is all that the anti-Abu El Haj forces can muster then they are indeed a morally and intellectually discredited lot. They only make it that much easier for Columbia to finally approve Abu El Haj’s tenure application by their antics.