Nadia Abu El Haj
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Nadia Abu El Haj is an assistant professor at Barnard College who became the center of a controversy over archaeology in the land of Israel.
Her 2001 book, a version of her Duke University doctoral thesis, Facts on the Ground: Archaeological Practice and Territorial Self-Fashioning in Israeli Society is a post-colonial analysis of Israeli society a settler-colonial community that she says has invented an ancient history in the region by the use of archaeology. She attempts to demonstrate how "(social) science generates facts or phenomena, which refigure what counts as true or real,”[1] and concludes that the existence of the ancient Israelite and Hebrew kingdoms should be considered “a pure political fabrication.”[2]
In her introduction, Abu El Haj explains that she "reject(s) a positivist commitment to scientific methods” and that instead, the book is “rooted in ... post structuralism, philosophical critiques of foundationalism, Marxism and critical theory and developed in response to specific postcolonial political movements.”[3]
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[edit] Criticism
Writing in Inside Higher Ed, Scott Jaschik summarized criticism of the book: “The book's aim is to undermine the historic connection between the Jewish people and Israel... The critique of Israeli archaeology is poorly researched and written, and ... the author's anti-Israel bias undercuts her work.”[4]
In a review of Facts on the Ground, Kimbra L. Smith of the University of Notre Dame criticized Abu El Haj's methodology. Smith wrote that “Abu El-Haj speaks not with archaeologists who are excavating, but with archaeologists on tours given in conjunction with international archaeological congresses."[5]
A subsidiary controversy arose when Abu El Haj charged a prominent archaeologist, David Ussishkin of the University of Tel Aviv, with “bad science” on the grounds that “bulldozers are used in order to get down to earlier strata which are saturated with national significance, as quickly as possible” because of "nationalist politics guiding research agendas." Abu El Haj based her charges on the word of anonymous “archaeologists and student volunteers” who “recounted [the incident to her] after the fact.”[6] In an open letter published on the internet, Ussishkin denied the accusation.[7] His denial was supported by archaeologist Aren Maeir of Bar Ilan University, who wrote in his blog that “despite what Abu el-Haj repeatedly states, Israeli archaeologists do not only excavate archaeological remains relating to 'their heritage'. In fact, as any one can see from the excavations at Tell es-Safi/Gath for example, we deal with, excavate, study, publish and relate to finds from various periods, including 'Pre-Israelite', 'Post-Israelite' etc.”[8]
[edit] Reception by Anthropologists
Reviews by anthropologists were mixed. Kimbra Smith wrote, “Abu El-Haj provides an important and timely look at some of the politics of self-representation behind the Israeli government's public face... However, I reiterate that her failure to present either official Palestinian or public Palestinian/Israeli opinions and attitudes within the context of Israel's (settler) nationalist-archaeological discipline means that answers to the excellent questions she raises are never made clear.”[5]
In his review of Facts on the Ground, Apen Ruiz of the University of Texas at Austin wrote that Abu El Haj examines how the issue of the nation enters the arena of scientific practices. "This is probably the primary contribution of the book in relation to other studies of nationalism and archaeology: the focus on archaeological practices as the main object of study. Nadia Abu El-Haj highlights the continuities between the colonial and the national periods in terms of archaeological reasoning, and claims that there is a 'dynamic relationship between empiricism and nationalism ... and the former gave credible form to the latter, not just in narrative, but, even more powerfully, in material cast... Facts on the Ground offers a unique and pioneering approach to examine the politics of archaeological research."[9]
[edit] Negative reviews by historians and archaeologists
Jonathan Burack, an educator who produces history curriculum materials, criticized Abu El-Haj's lack of experience. He wrote that “El-Haj is not a practicing archaeologist. She hardly knows the Hebrew in which many Israeli archaeological debates are conducted. She has taken part in very few actual digs."[10]
In their review of Facts on the Ground, historian Diana Muir and Avigail Appelbaum, a graduate student in archaeology, wrote that “the huge amount of evidence and scholarship demonstrating that ‘an ancient Israelite social collectivity emerged,’ becomes in her hands ‘a tale best understood as the modern nation’s origin myth ... transported into the realm of history.’”[11]
The New York Sun reported that William Dever, retired professor of Middle Eastern archaeology at the University of Arizona, said that Abu El-Haj seems intent on writing Jews out of ancient Middle East history, and demonizing a generation of apolitical Israeli archaeologists in the process. He described her scholarship as "faulty, misleading and dangerous.”[12]
In his review of Facts on the Ground, archaeologist Alexander H. Joffe of the State University of New York at Purchase wrote that "at the heart of [Abu El-Haj's] critique is an undisguised political agenda that regards modern and ancient Israel, and perhaps Jews as a whole, as fictions... Abu El Haj's anthropology is undone by her ... ill-informed narrative, intrusive counter-politics, and by her unwillingness to either enter or observe Israeli society... The effect is a representation of Israeli archaeology that is simply bizarre... In the end there is no reason to take her picture of Israeli archaeology seriously, since her selection bias is so glaring..." [13]
Archaeologist Aren Maeir of Bar Ilan University wrote that Facts on the Ground is "a deceptively well-written, well researched monograph that superficially bears all the signs of a state-of-the-art contemporary social science study.." The book "is the result of faulty and ideologically motivated research." Perhaps the most astonishing part of the book is a discussion on the last page of the text (p. 281). Abu el-Haj describes and condones the attack, and subsequent ransacking, by a Palestinian mob on what is known as 'Jacob's Tomb' in Nablus in 2001. Several people were killed as a result of this attack; the gleeful tone in which she describes this act of vandalism exemplifies how her political agenda completely overcame her duties as a social scientist." [14]
Jacob Lassner, professor of history and religion at Northwestern University, wrote that "discussing Israeli archeology as a cultural phenomenon requires... an a working knowledge of scholarly Hebrew. Abu el-Haj indicates she studied Hebrew in a desultory fashion... she appears to have invested lightly in the multitude of Hebrew sources that could have informed her study and made it compelling... As it stands, Abu el-Haj's reading of Israeli academic culture and its relationship to the politics of statehood politicizes the work of Israel's scholarly establishment in a way that can be misleading. Abu el-Haj misrepresents the Israeli passion for archeology. Its purpose is not to legitimize the national ethos. To the contrary: archeology appeals to Israelis because it offers a visual dimension to a past otherwise firmly anchored in oral and literary traditions. For professionals and amateurs alike, the archeology of the land of Israel is not a vehicle to authenticate the nation's existence or its distinctively Jewish character or the passionate attachment of Israelis to the land they claim as their state. All that is taken for granted by Israel's Jewish citizens and by most of the world as well. Rather it is only those who deny Israel's right to exist or contest the legitimacy of its current borders who deny altogether or compromise Israel's links to the historic past."[15]
[edit] Work in Progress
According to her colleague Joseph Massad, Abu El Haj is at work on “a book about the "Zionist movement('s)…desperate contemporary search for Jewish 'genetic markers' " as part of its "continued investment in the racial separateness of the Jews." [16]
