Crisis at Columbia: Nadia Abu El-Haj--When Jew-Hatred passes for "archeology."

FrontPageMagazine.com ^ | October 10, 2005 | Hugh Fitzgerald

[SJackson]

Nadia Abu El-Haj, an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Barnard, is listed among the members of the MEALAC faculty at Columbia. A graduate student at Duke University, she turned her doctoral thesis into a book: “Facts on the Ground: Archeological Practice and Territorial Self-Fashioning in Israeli Society.” One admiring reviewer (from the University of Chicago) said the book offers “an anthropology of colonialism and nationalism, which follows Foucault and Said” in which “she points to the convergence of archeology’s project with that of colonialism.” Others have not been so kind.

For this book is not really about archeology at all. Rather it is a relentless attack on how and why Israelis, Jews really, have done archaeology in the land they have the audacity to call Israel. For the past, like the present, is merely a cruel and daring fiction foisted on the world at the expense of Palestinians, a social construction, as the orotund phrase has it. Ignoring or destroying whatever got in their way, Jewish archaeologists have been relentless in their pursuit of the Jewish past to claim the land and its history for modern Israel, and of course to dispossess Palestinians and their “claim” to the past.

But El-Haj, it seems, is not really an archeologist. There is not the slightest evidence that she has ever seen the work of Israeli archeologists, ever visited a dig, ever studied the history of the development of Israeli archeology, ever inquired as to how Israeli archeologists choose the sites they do choose for digs (do they get instructions from the Jewish Agency? The ZOA? The Mossad?). She appears not to have any record of the kinds of artifacts the Israeli archeologists, often working with Western, non-Israeli and non-Jewish colleagues, have discovered, catalogued, and meticulously studied.

Shabby or pseudo or nonexistent scholarship disguises a naked political assault. Israel is guilty. Its crime: daring to dig, under the soil of Israel, on land where Jews lived from perhaps 1000 BCE until this very day. And built temples, and wrote on pottery and left scrolls on parchment, and fashioned menorahs, and cups for drinking, and dishes for eating – in short, a rich variety of artifacts for uses sacred and profane. But to demonstrate a connection between Jews past and Jews present is unacceptable, an abuse of archaeology, serving the cause of a “construct,” a Western imperial falsehood. That is, a Jewish state.

Is it surprising, is it illegitimate, is it deplorable, that in once again having a restored Jewish state, that the Jews of Israel should not have dug into the earth, not attempted to study the past, including – and this must be emphasized for it is left entirely out of El-Haj’s account – artifacts from every period, and not only artifacts of the Jewish past? Israeli archeologists have, often with foreign colleagues, discovered Roman coins and mosaic floors and temples, have uncovered Byzantine artifacts, and those of the Islamic conquest, both of the Arab period, and of the period of Ottoman rule. Many of the Islamic artifacts have, in fact, been meticulously and scrupulously catalogued, studied, and preserved – all serious students know about the Islamic Museum in Jerusalemand its exceptional collection. Does Nadia El-Haj? El-Haj seems to think that the study of the Jewish past by Israeli archeologists, observing the highest professional standards, known for the meticulousness, is an outrageous political act, an act of “Jewish settler-colonial nation state-building” (that phrase itself deserves analysis, for the hysterical confusion of its English).

El-Haj’s political fulminations may attempt to hide behind the rhetoric of “scholarship.” Is there a single example of attempts by Israeli archeologists to either hide the past, or destroy the past, or to create a false past? If so, she has failed to mention it in her book – which, by the way, relies entirely on quite recent, English-language publications, as critical reviewers noted. And since she is a Palestinian nationalist, how does her charge sheet compare with the treatment toward ancient sites by the Palestinian Arabs and by the Arabs more generally?

As is well known, in Islam there has been an almost total indifference to the non-Islamic or pre-Islamic world. Many of the artifacts of that world have been destroyed over 1350 years of Muslim conquest and subjugation of Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians, Hindus, Buddhists. In India, the Muslim conquerors destroyed as much of the Buddhist and Hindu heritage as they could, sometimes in order to quarry the stone, sometimes to destroy statuary. The Indian historian K.S. Lal has provided a meticulous list of tens of thousands of identified Hindu temples destroyed by the Muslim invaders, for example. The recent destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas was not an aberration; those Buddhas were virtually the last remnants of the Greco-Buddhist civilization that Afghanistan had once possessed.

The systematic assault by the Palestinian Arabs on all sorts of significant sites, some of them regarded as holy, was on display again in 2002, when the systematic and complete destruction of Joseph’s Tomb in Nablus (that destruction can be seen on-line), took place. This was no aberration. Even El-Haj had to mention the matter in her book (knowing that if she omitted it altogether, reviewers might notice), but she justified it as the uncharacteristic, but understandable reaction of desperate people, brought to the end of their collective tether by the diabolical behavior of the Israelis.

In Egypt, members of the Muslim Brotherhood even muttered about destroying the Pyramids, but cooler heads prevailed. It was not out of Egyptian nationalism, save among the Copts and a small sliver of the Egyptian elite, nor out of any respect for the pre-Islamic past, but rather the fact that too many Egyptians depend for their livelihood on tourist dollars, that managed to prevent attacks. Similarly, the tourist attraction of Petra seems safe, precisely because it is a money-maker, not out of some deep conviction that these Roman-era ruins are otherwise of note.

In Iraq, the old Sunni elites, trained by Gertrude Belland others, did acquire a certain taste for preserving the pre-Islamic artifacts, and that seems to be the one exception – and an exception only among a very small sliver of Iraqi society – to the general indifference to any artifacts except those representing the time of Islam, not that of the pre-Islamic Jahiliyya.

Indeed, many Muslims oppose even Muslim sites which would distract from worship of Allah. When the Wahhabi under Abdul Aziz ibn Saud conquered Mecca, they razed to the ground virtually every old building then standing. An old Ottoman fort was one of the few buildings spared. In 2002, overnight, that Ottoman fort was also destroyed.

Like her distant mentor, the presiding genius domus over so much of Middle East matters today, Edward Said, El-Haj seems incapable of understanding that other societies, the representatives of other civilizations, are capable of studying the past as something other than a political project, and in Israel, as something other than working hand-in-glove with “Jewish settler-colonial nation state-building.”

That such a book was written, and published, is a disgrace. That its author was, at a time when hundreds or indeed thousands of worthy graduate students in this and related fields cannot find employment, was given a job at Columbia, is deplorable.

[dennisw]

IT stinks to high heaven how so many of these foreign born parasites with their Islamism and leftism have come to dominate some university departments. It's a welfare program for these America hating, Israel hating loudmouths.

Mid East studies departments are full of Muslims and foreigners. They are the majority, whereas 25 years a go American scholars were the Mid East professors.

[SunkenCiv]

Ping!

[Convert from ECUSA]

Nailed it! Spot on!

[Piranha]

ping

[blam]

The people calling themselves Palestinians should pack up and go back home to Jordan.

[SunkenCiv]

Islamicism should be grounds for deportation, and for blocking immigration.

[js1138]

Isn't it the Columbia school of journalism that maintains the CBS/Bush memos to be authentic?

[ScaniaBoy]

There is not the slightest evidence that she has ever seen the work of Israeli archeologists, ever visited a dig, ever studied the history of the development of Israeli archeology, ever inquired as to how Israeli archeologists choose the sites they do choose for digs.........

Facts are so pre-modern, aren't they?

As is well known, in Islam there has been an almost total indifference to the non-Islamic or pre-Islamic world. Many of the artifacts of that world have been destroyed over 1350 years of Muslim conquest and subjugation

My own experience when travelling through western China along the Silk Road(s) was that many more artefacts (mainly Buddhist temples and graves) had been destroyed by local Islamic tribes during periods of religious fervor, than were destroyed during the Cultural revolution.

Luckily, a lot of the historical records were rescued (or stolen, depending on one's view) by pre-WWI and inter-war European and American archeological expeditions. (For those who are interested see "Foreign Devils on the Silk Road" by Peter Hopkirk).

.... those Buddhas were virtually the last remnants of the Greco-Buddhist civilization that Afghanistan had once possessed.

In Iraq, the old Sunni elites, trained by Gertrude Bell and others, did acquire a certain taste for preserving the pre-Islamic artifacts, and that seems to be the one exception – and an exception only among a very small sliver of Iraqi society – to the general indifference to any artifacts except those representing the time of Islam, not that of the pre-Islamic Jahiliyya.

The author may be correct about Afganistan (and Iraq) but he forgets to mention Pakistan. In the Swat valley in the Northwest Frontier Province Pakistani archeologists and historians have done a grerat job excavating, protecting and documenting the sites of the Greeco-Buddhist civilization which unfortunately has been erradicated in nearby Afghanistan. A dozen years ago I spent an unforgetable afternoon being guided by the curator of the Swat Archeological Museum, dr Ashraf Kahn, around a number of excavations in the area of Gilgit.

I pray that he and his co-workers and these sites haven't been hit by the recent earth-quake. (Although the epicentrum was quite close to Rawalpindi / Islamabad it seems from the scattered news reports that most of the damage has been in Kashmir and not along the Swat valley. However, I have long since given up hope that the MSM will províde correct and factual information...)

PS: Thanks for posting the article. The whole thing is of course disgusting, but we haven't come to expect anything else from the "academia" these days.

[rmlew]

Oh great, I have to submit a review Said's Orientalism for class next month...

You poor bastard. (I had to review Michele Focault in french. I ended up dropping the course after positively enraging the teacher.)
Shoudl you feel the urge to confront the lunacy, I suggest that you deconstruct Orientalism as a piece of establishment political propoganda meant to impose Arabism, Cultural Marxism, and Occidentalism.

[rmlew]

Use of the terms "BCE" and "CE" are not indicative of political correctness. Rather they are neutral usage of the Western calandar without usage of the religious terms "BC" and "AD".
These later terms are religious assertions and articles of faith for Christians. "Before Christ, (before the Messiah), and Anno Domini (In the Year of Our Master/Lord) are terms that cannot be used in good faith by non-Christians. (For that matter, Unitarians cannot honestly use "AD".)

At any rate, use of these religious terms in the Middle East is explosive. Use of them is Israel is condecending to Jews and Samaritans.

Of course if you would preffer that people think of "BC" and "AD" as meaningless terms, then that is your right. Still, were I Christian, I would be quite more by a profane utterance of a religious statement, the belief of which is a foundational tenet of my faith.

[rmlew]

Mid East studies departments are full of Muslims and foreigners. They are the majority, whereas 25 years a go American scholars were the Mid East professors.

Well the left used the charge of Orientalism to cleanse these departments. Orientalism is the charge that western studies of Eastern (particularly Mulsim) cultures as a inversion of Western culture. This "otherness" imposed on these non-Westerners supposedly forms the legitimacy of colonialism. Moreover, even supposedly "objective" study of these cultures merely creates propoganda or other tools for domination.

You must understand that to these people, objective facts and historical truths do not really exist (Deconstructionism). They are merely social constructs of the ruling class, meant to create cultural hegemony and preempt proper analysis by the intelligentsia or even self-awareness by the cultural proletariate. Hence, there is a need to free people from the false objectivity by means of Marcuse's Intolerent Tolerence. All sorts of revolutionary garbage and even deviationalism was and is allowed, so long as education can be a tool to mold students into the vanguard, and destroy the bonds of Western Society that have imposed a false social and cultural consciousness on the lower classes.
Effectively it is the charge of "Orientalism" that is the moral inversian and projection that allows the left to cleanse departments of their enemies by claiming that their opponents commited intellectual racism and cultural genocide, even if they do not realise it.

[Triggerhippie]

It is impossible to take religion out of the calendar. We still honor Roman Emperors (worshipped as gods) in our months and our weekdays are named after Norse gods. The Western (Gregorian) calendar was named after POPE Gregory XIII. Western civilization's singular commonality is (or at least was) Christianity.

"neutral usage of the Western calandar"?

Christ's birth is the FOCAL POINT of the Western Calendar, whether or not you are a Christian. The fact remains that BCE and CE are an attempt, largely by the left, to dishonor the one whose birth is reckoned as Year 0. I suspect most Christians don't care whether anyone else uses the terms A.D. and B.C. in "good faith."

If I wanted to go to China and insist on them renaming their calendar system so it doesn't offend MY sensibilities, I would expect someone to tell me to go to hell (and rightfully so!) Likewise, if I were to go to a synagogue in Jerusalem and expect them to make changes to suit MY tastes, I would also expect to be rebuffed. Further, if I were to try to tamper with the calendar in Mecca, being chastised would most likely take the form of the traditional "religion-of-peace" beheading.

We, in the Christian west, do not require that anyone believes in our Savior; we do expect, however, that OUR religious beliefs and traditions should be equally respected regardless of the outsider's belief system.

[rmlew]

Columbia Ping

PS. If any alumni are in town for homecoming and are willing to participate in activism, please Freepmail me.

[Rodney King]

I won't be in town for homecoming, especially since they banned tailgating.

[Katya]

" Christ's birth is the FOCAL POINT of the Western Calendar, whether or not you are a Christian. The fact remains that BCE and CE are an attempt, largely by the left, to dishonor the one whose birth is reckoned as Year 0. I suspect most Christians don't care whether anyone else uses the terms A.D. and B.C. in "good faith."

I agree, succinctly put. Common era to me denotes it as just some date we all agreed upon as the year Zero.
Like it or not, there was no agreement, what happened was:

Our culture won.

[wildbill]

The barbarians are inside the gate. The Melac program would be a joke if it weren't so dangerous to serious academic study.

What's next, a department of Nazi studies funded by anonymous donors?

[Grampa Dave]

Thanks for the ping.

[Triggerhippie]

Our culture won.

Amen and amen.

Keep your powder dry, though. Other cultures aren't yet aware that we've won.

[SunkenCiv]

update:

More than 800 people have signed a petition seeking to deny tenure to a Barnard College professor accused of shoddy scholarship and a pro-Palestinian agenda. Professor Nadia Abu El-Haj, an assistant professor of anthropology, is under from her book "Facts on the Ground." The book attacks the field of Israeli archaeology, arguing that it has produced knowledge central to the creation of Israel's foundational myths and therefore is complicit in Israel's supposed crimes against the Palestinians. Paula Stern, a 1982 Barnard graduate and the organizer of an online petition calling on the college to deny tenure to El-Haj, claims the professor's scholarship is shoddy and her claims unsubstantiated. "We are embarrassed that Columbia would consider granting tenure to a scholar who is so patently ignorant about the subject of her only book," the petition reads. Neither Barnard nor its institutional parent, Columbia University, would confirm the status of El-Haj's tenure application.