Anne Lieberman Shares This Observatio on Solomonia Blog on Nadia Abu el-Haj Tenure Situation at Barnard College

http://www.solomonia.com/blog/archives/009422.shtml

“At Barnard College they are forming a committee to consider giving tenure to a young Palestinian anthropologist who advocates destroying archaeological sites for political purposes, and who has decided — without regard to evidence — that the ancient Israelite kingdoms were mere “myth.”

Observers believe that she is very likely to receive tenure.

Abu El Haj rejects the right of the Jewish people to have a state. She vilifies Israel as an illegitimate, “colonial settler” enterprise. She has urged Columbia to “divest from all companies” that sell even defensive military supplies to Israel. In 2002 she condemned Israel in advance for an “ethnic cleansing” of Palestinians during the Iraq war — an event that was never planned and never occurred.

Her bid for tenure will be based on a single book, Facts on the Ground: Archaeological Practice and Territorial Self-Fashioning in Israeli Society. In it she denies that the ancient Jewish or Israelite kingdoms existed….”