The article next segues into Jewish opposition to Norman Finkelstein. A prominent supporter of El-Haj notes that people are particularly angered by the fact that her tenure issue comes “on the heels of the DePaul case.” Two issues, coincidental timing, yet now you have the image of a McCarthyite campaign. About Finkelstein, the article only says, in an anodyne fashion, that “he has written that Israel and Jews have used the Holocaust for their own purposes, including to oppress Palestinians.”

Next you have the president of the MESA [Middle East Studies Association] saying that Middle Eastern Studies is “a very conflicted field, given the passions about the Middle East, and there are a lot of people outside academe who have very strong feelings.” Hint, hint...we’re just dealing with feelings here, not a solid case against El-Haj.

Then the article states that MESA chose Abu El-Haj’s book in 2002 as one of the year’s two best books in English about the Middle East, carefully noting that the other book to win the award was written by Israelis [albeit with a strange title about being Israeli and multiple citizenship].

Do you see what’s going on here? The article sets up Abu El-Haj as an excellent scholar who merely has a thesis that Jews don’t agree with, so she is under pressure, on the heels of the persecution of another scholar, Norm Finkelstein. The article says nothing about the many academics who see their methodologies as plain demagoguery, and who point out her incompetent handling of archeological issues.

But wait...it gets worse.

There are also quotes from those opposing Abu El-Haj. The New York Times is being even-handed, after all. But here it starts with a reference to a professor of religion and Jewish studies at Barnard, Alan Segal, who says that the quality of her work isn’t up to par. But there is no explanation as to why or how her work isn’t very good, only this: He was particularly troubled, says the article, by her suggestion that the Israelites had not inhabited the land where Israel now stands. Segal is quoted as saying: “She completely misunderstands what the biblical tradition is saying. She is not even close. She is so bizarrely off.”

Then Segal is said to claim that he had been asked by Barnard College administration to provide names of non-Jewish people for commentaries on Abu El-Haj’s work, and that he refused to do so. This is quickly followed by a comment from a Barnard spokeswoman that his contention is untrue.

So there you have it: opposition motivated by biblical beliefs; and voiced by someone who is Jewish, is into Jewish religion, and who was caught in a lie. By mentioning the perhaps non-existent request for names, the article discredits Segal, yet at the same time still gets the point across that all or most opponents are probably Jewish.

Later on, the article mentions that many academics, “particularly in her field,” think Abu El-Haj’s book is “solid, even brilliant.” The article gives a fuller, still respectful version of her thesis: “Dr. Abu El-Haj says Israeli archaeologists searched for an ancient Jewish presence to help build the case for a Jewish state. In their quest, she writes, they sometimes used bulldozers, destroying remains of other cultures, including those of Arabs. She concludes her book by saying the ransacking by thousands of Palestinians in 2000 of Joseph’s tomb, a Jewish holy site in the West Bank, “needs to be understood in relation to a colonial-national history” of Israel and the symbolic resonance of artifacts.”

Then comes a real zinger. We are treated to another example of the opposition:

“As Dr. Abu El-Haj’s tenure deadline approached, Paula R. Stern, a 1982 Barnard graduate who lives in a Jewish settlement in the West Bank, began an online petition…”

Stop right there! The minute you read “lives in a Jewish settlement in the West Bank,” you cease to give Stern any credibility. No one, but no one, will take a West Bank settler seriously, even if she is a Barnard graduate.

The whole article seems to revolve around the theme of objections by pro-Zionist Jews against a solid scholar who’s being persecuted for criticizing Israel and for being Palestinian. In case you didn’t get it, the article makes the point again as its conclusion:

“Dr. Abu El-Haj’s supporters say that she has come under attack partly because she is a Palestinian-American and that her opponents often quote her out of context to distort her arguments. ‘She is a scholar of the highest quality and integrity who is being persecuted because she has the courage to focus an analytical lens on subjects that others wish to shield from scrutiny,’ said Michael Dietler, an anthropology professor at the University of Chicago, “and because she happens to be of Palestinian origin.”

That’s it! There’s the point of the article.

There were other issues mentioned in the piece, including questions about maintaining the integrity and independence of an academic tenure process (against pressure by you know whom), and a dismissive reference to a case at Columbia where Jewish students protested a professor’s anti-Israeli bias. But the whole piece seems to center on the view that Abu El-Haj is a good scholar and that the objections against her are ideologically driven.

Where are the prestigious non-Jewish academic opponents? We have heard from them elsewhere, especially when it came to her research methods, her ignorance of archeology, and her untrue depiction of Israeli archeologists. Why aren’t they quoted sympathetically and at length?

This article shows two forms of bias that will not be easily detectable to a reader who has not been following the case.

First, look at the balance of the people quoted pro and con:

An apparent balance hides a hidden slant. The major quotes against El-Haj come from one opponent whose credibility is undermined (at first because he is a Jewish professor of Jewish religion and so obviously partial, then because he's possibly caught in a lie), and from another who has no credibility in the first place (West Bank settler!!).

El-Haj’s supporters, meanwhile, are shown to be solid and non-partisan academics, and their quotes are allowed to stand unchallenged. Indeed, sometimes their quotes carry the narrative of the article. So, you come away with the impression that the supporters of El-Haj are more distinguished, more unbiased, more credible, and more numerous than her opponents. But is that true?

The article emphasizes this point by briefly mentioning a scholar—-who doesn’t like El-Haj’s book—-referring to the “rank amateurs” among her opponents. But a lot of the opponents are not amateurs!! And get the deft touch: Even one of El-Haj’s opponents calls her opponents amateurs. But did he refer to ALL her opponents as such, or just some of them? The article fudges that point. Very deft, indeed!

Speaking about amateurs: Why didn’t the journalist who wrote the article go to archeologists for comments? Why are we only hearing from Middle East historians, anthropologists, a linguist and some college administrators? Note, the article says that many in her field support her. But her field is anthropology, not archeology! Now maybe, just maybe, her supporters might be ideologically driven.

Second, look at what’s left out:

El-Haj’s methodology has been severely criticized for being thoroughly unacceptable. She knows no Hebrew, knows nothing about Israeli society, knows nothing of archeology, and didn’t even know that what she thought were bulldozers weren’t actually bulldozers. She didn’t know that Israeli archeologists are respected worldwide for their fairness and care. She gathered her data by visiting one dig and speaking to only a few unnamed people. And so on. These substantive charges came from non-Jewish scholars who seem to know what they were talking about. Yet the only objection shown in the article was that she was anti-Zionist and that the book was anti-Zionist.

With coverage like this, never mind Amazon, El-Haj’s book will probably make the New York Times best seller list!