I studied with Nadia at the University of Chicago and can attest that her work speaks for itself.

When she taught the anthropology of science, just to give you one example, she did not teach her own work. Very rare for any academic! It shows that she has not sought the "fame" that campuswatch sorts have thrust upon her.

Archeologists on the faculty at the University of Chicago, as well, for that matter, as prominent Jewish anthropologists like Marshall Sahlins, Jean Comaroff, and John Comaroff, admired her work. Even when they didn't particularly admire Foucault, who inspired some of it!

At the time that Nadia was hired, moreover, a strange brand of baseless post-structuralism was sweeping archeological theory.

Stanford University, for one, had just hired someone from the U.K. who espoused the "new" archeological theory. Nadia was seen as extremely knowledgable about archeological theory and practice compared to scholars who espoused the new-fangled and unfounded theory and practice of the discipline; and, for that matter, compared to a lot of old fashioned archeologists. By established figures like Kathleen Morrison and Michael Dietler.

Moreover, why Nadia is being singled out for not knowing Hebrew is hilarious, given the poor state of many more conventional scholars' knowledge of Arabic.

I have done research with one now prominent historian at the University of California at Berkeley who studies, among other things, Jewish History in North Africa.

This scholar is well known for not having been able to do any archival research in Arabic when she had a Fulbright Hayes. She had to hire local professors to translate for her.

She has also become known as an urban historian. When I was with her in the country in North Africa which is her speciality, however, she knew nothing about urban history.

This was not that long ago. Today she is on the faculty of Berkeley. I have two degrees in urban studies/urban planning. So I know wherefrom I speak regarding her lack of knowledge about urban history.

Guess what else? She wasted tax payers' money by spending her time on her Fulbright Hayes, to a large degree, running around the South of France with an Algerian with whom she expected to marry.

Having been on the ground, so to speak, with the UCB scholar and with Nadia, I can certainly say that the former's methods are lacking while Nadia's are not.

In short, the hysteria toward Nadia should be turned toward some of the more conventional scholars in Middle East Studies. Then you would see who lacks research skills.

Can give you tons of examples in addition to the one from Berkeley...So why is Nadia getting all of the flack?

Nadia is "getting all the flack" quite simply because her book is so shoddy.

You call criticism of Nadia for not knowing Hebrew "hilarious." But this is a woman who purports to have conducted an anthropological study of Israeli society. Israelis speak Hebrew. I'm not laughing.

What truly bothered me about the book, which I read carefully, was her dishonest use of evidence. She sets out to make a case that the assertion that there were ancient Israelite kingdoms is questionable. Perhaps the most incontrovertible evidence for the existence of those kingdoms lies in the mountains of securely-dated inscriptions, graffito, and ostraca with writing in paleo-Hebraic scripts. Nowhere in her book is there a mention that this vast body of irrefutable written evidence exists. A reader unfamiliar with the archaeological data (including, apparently, the members of the Barnard anthropology department) might actually be persuaded that archaeologists are positing ethnicity based on the shape of pots.

To make it appear that the existence of the ancient Judean and Samarian kingdoms is a matter of interpretation, she has to lie. In other words, in the case of Nadia el Haj, poor scholarship is a euphemism for deliberate lying.

You defend Nadia's bad scholarship essentially by saying that there are a lot of inadequate scholars out there. There are also a fair number of liars publishing in academic places. But to say: everybody does it, is a pretty shoddy defense.

Adam does not want to admit that this woman has a political axe to grind, as much or more than those Israelis whom she criticizes. Essentially, she is vindicating --or trying to do so by means of her bigoted criticisms-- the claim in Article 20 of the PLO charter that there is no Jewish history in the Land of Israel [which the PLO charter calls "palestine," of course, although the Arabs/Muslims did NOT traditionally see this country as separate from what they called "bilad ash-Sham", that is, Syria or Greater Syria, including Israel, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon of today, grosso modo; in other words "palestine" and a "palestinian people" did not traditionally exist in the Arab-Muslim mind]. Article 20's claim is a lie, it is tendentious, bigoted, Judeophobic, etc. It is refuted by a huge mass of literary-historical writings by various peoples in various languages, including Arab historians and the Quran itself. It is also refuted by a mass of archeological discoveries, inscriptions, etc.

Meanwhile, destruction by Arabs of Jewish antiquities in Israel and elsewhere in the Middle East is not reported by Nadia Abu el-Haj, as far as I know. For one example of this, see:
http://ziontruth.blogspot.com/2007/09/arabs-in-gaza-have-destroyed-jewish.html

Giving her tenure at Columbia is meant to be an anti-Israel, Judeophobic act. The implications are genocidal.