NEW YORK, Sept. 10 A controversial work of scholarship on the Middle East is a tenure fight at New York's Barnard College.
Opponents don't want to see anthropology Professor Nadia Abu El-Haj receive tenure because of her criticism of the methods of Israeli archaeologists in a work based on her doctoral research, The New York Times reported Monday.
Her book, "Facts on the Ground: Archaeological Practice and Territorial Self-Fashioning in Israeli Society," has made her a lightning rod, setting off warring petitions opposing and supporting her candidacy for tenure at Barnard.
El-Haj wrote that Israeli archaeologists sometimes used bulldozers, resulting in the destruction of other cultures, in their quest to establish an ancient Jewish presence in order to build the case for a Jewish state.
Barnard officials have approved her for tenure and forwarded its recommendation to Columbia University, its affiliate, which has the final say.
Copyright 2007 by UPI
