Facts on the Ground: Archaeological Practice and Territorial Self-Fashioning in Israeli Society
Encyclopedia
Facts on the Ground: Archaeological Practice and Territorial Self-Fashioning in Israeli Society is a 2001 book by Nadia Abu El Haj
based on her doctoral thesis
for Duke University
. The book has been praised by some scholars and criticised by others.
Controversy over the book intensified five years after its publication, after news emerged in 2006 that Abu El Haj was under consideration for tenure
at Barnard College
where she served as an assistant professor. Barnard alumnae mounted a campaign to deny tenure to Abu El Haj that centered around what they described as the book's anti-Israel bias, prompting a counter-campaign in support of the book and Abu El Haj. The University ultimately granted Abu El Haj tenure in November 2007.
and the construction of the social imaginations and political orders in the Israeli State
and what she characterizes as the "formation and enactment of its colonial
-national
historical imagination and...the substantiation of its territorial claims". She argues that facts generated by archaeological practice have fashioned "cultural understandings, political possibilities and 'common-sense' assumptions".
In her introduction, Abu El Haj sympathetically cites critics who reject "a positivist commitment to scientific method
whereby politics is seen to intervene only in instances of bad science," favoring various approaches such as "post-structuralism
, philosophical critiques of foundationalism
, Marxism
and critical theory
" with "a commitment to understanding archeology as necessarily political."
for outstanding publishing in Middle East studies. Jere Bacharach
, a MESA member and historian at the University of Washington
, described the book as a "nuanced, nonpolemic work".
The book has received both accolades, particularly from Abu El Haj's fellow anthropologists, and denunciations, from some archaeologists, whose colleagues' work she criticizes. According to Jane Kramer
, writing in The New Yorker
, "the book was praised by colleagues who responded to the critical tropes that were Abu El Haj's legacy from scholars like Michel Foucault
, Ian Hacking
, Bruno Latour
, and Edward Said
, and dismissed by colleagues with a theoretical or a political or simply a turf interest in dismissing it."
, writes that Abu El Haj's "use of the sociology of science as a perspective in her research is both clever and refreshing. It further elevates research about Palestine to new heights, by placing it squarely in current social science literature and debates. We need more such studies."
Edward Said
wrote of being "indebted" to the book and work of Abu El Haj, in Freud and the Non-European (2003), offering that:
In her review of Facts on the Ground for American Ethnologist, Kimbra L. Smith professor of anthropology at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs
, writes that "Abu El Haj provides an important and timely look at some of the politics of self-representation behind the Israeli government's
public face, within a broader argument about science's capacity for political involvement and for maintaining and even advancing colonialist policies. However [...] 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."
Apen Ruiz, a graduate student in anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin
, writes in H-Net
that "Facts on the Ground offers a unique and pioneering approach to examine the politics of archaeological research." He explains that, "Inspired by cultural and social studies of science, El-Haj puts archaeology under an ethnographic
lens and examines its practices: excavating, surveying, cataloguing, naming, mapping, and exhibiting," noting that it is this, "focus on archaeological practices as the main object of study," that is the "primary contribution of the book".
Aren Maeir
, professor of archaeology at Bar Ilan University, writing in Isis
, calls the book "a highly ideologically driven political manifesto, with a glaring lack of attention both to details and to the broader context." Regarding Abu El Haj's criticism of methodology in Israeli archeology, Maeir writes, that in contemporary archeology in Israel, "only marginal elements act in accordance with or identify with the non-scientific agendas that she attempts to delineate." Maeir argues that the major reason for the lateness of Israel to adopt modern techniques was not a "hidden colonial agenda," but rather a result of the "European classical archeology" from which it developed.
James Gelvin
, a UCLA historian, describes Facts on the Ground in his book The Israel-Palestine Conflict: One Hundred Years of War, as "probably the most sophisticated presentation of Israel's archaeological obsession and its relation to nationalism and 'colonial knowledge'".
Alexander H. Joffe
, an archaeologist and past director of the academic watchdog organization Campus Watch
, writes in the Journal of Near Eastern Studies
that "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."
Keith Whitelam, professor of religious studies
at the University of Sheffield
and author of The Invention of Ancient Israel: The Silencing of Palestinian History, told a New York Sun reporter that Facts on the Ground was a "first-rate book," which made "a very fine contribution" to the study of "how national identity is constructed and the assumptions which are then built into academic work on history and archaeology." In the same article, William Dever
, a retired professor of Middle Eastern archaeology
at the University of Arizona
, describes Abu El Haj's scholarship as "faulty, misleading and dangerous".
Alan F. Segal
, a professor of religion and Jewish studies at Barnard College, has been a vocal critic of the book. In the Columbia Daily Spectator
, he writes that Abu El Haj's work is tainted by a failure to examine primary sources in Hebrew, a reliance on anonymous sources, and a lack of breadth in its review of scholarship to date. According to Segal, Abu El Haj focuses her attention on the "extreme conclusions" of "
biblical minimalists
" who constitute "no more than a handful of scholars" out of "thousands at work (in Biblical scholarship) in the world". Segal writes that "none of the minimalist scholars she relies upon for this purpose is actually a working archaeologist," and that "pretty much every other one of the virtually countless theories about Israelite settlement in First Temple times would disprove her hypothesis about Israeli archaeology." He adds that she "does not tell her readers about" these fields, "why they are necessary", or, "how decisions are actually made in biblical studies."
In the fall 2007 issue of The Current, there was criticism of Abu El Haj from three different scholars. First, David M. Rosen
, professor of anthropology at Fairleigh Dickinson University
asks, "How can a work that apparently demonstrates an impaired understanding of the archeological sciences be regarded as good anthropology?" Answering his own question, he offers that while in the contemporary political climate, "One hardly needs to be Braveheart to be openly antagonistic to Israel at a meeting of anthropologists," the more serious problem lies in the tradition of post-colonial studies, where anthropologists like Abu El Haj can "construct their analyses with little concern for empirical or logical connectedness. Like mythology, they are masters of the found object, and pull in anything to create a story. This methodology has no connection to science. Its power lies in its politics and its aesthetics, and not in such boring ideas as validity and reliability." In the same issue, Jonathan Rosenbaum
, paleographer
and President of Gratz College
, suggests that Abu El Haj's "personal agenda" is "the furtherance of her own nationalistic ideology at the expense of decades of careful excavations and rigorous publications" establishing the historicity of much of the Biblical narrative. Finally, James R. Russell
, a professor at Harvard University
, describes Facts on the Ground as a "malign fantasy" designed to demonstrate the
"colonial essence" of Zionism by denying the history of ancient "Jewish sovereignty and long historical presence."
, British and Israeli archaeologists used "bulldozers ... in order to get down to the earlier strata, which are saturated with national significance, as quickly as possible." She noted that "among Palestinian officials at the Haram al-Sharif and the Awqaf as well as many other archaeologists ... the use of bulldozers has become the ultimate sign of 'bad science' and of nationalist politics guiding research agendas." She wrote that the incident took place "a week after [she] stopped participating in the excavations" and attributed the account to "several participants, both archaeologists and student volunteers," whom she did not name.
The dig in question was led by David Ussishkin
of the University of Tel Aviv, who responded to Abu El Haj's characterization in an open letter
published on the internet in December 2006. While confirming that the earlier strata was the main interest of the dig, Ussishkin denied that any damage was done to other strata, which he insisted were properly excavated. Ussishkin defended the use of the bulldozer at the site as being necessary to properly excavate the site, and said he did not believe it had caused any damage.
In September 2007, archaeologist Aren Maeir
, in an opinion column in the Columbia Daily Spectator
student newspaper, wrote, "In her book she attacks, harangues, vilifies and slanders respected archaeologists in the field." According to Maeir, Abu El Haj's assertions concerning Ussishkin are "analogous to accusing a surgeon of deciding whether to use a scalpel or a hacksaw according to the patient’s ethnic 'identity'" and "an attempt to prevent him from doing his work."
Abu El Haj does not mention Ussishkin by name in her book.
Nadia Abu El Haj
Nadia Abu El Haj is an American academic with a PhD in Anthropology from Duke University. She is an associate professor of anthropology at Barnard College....
based on her doctoral thesis
Thesis
A dissertation or thesis is a document submitted in support of candidature for an academic degree or professional qualification presenting the author's research and findings...
for Duke University
Duke University
Duke University is a private research university located in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present day town of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco industrialist James B...
. The book has been praised by some scholars and criticised by others.
Controversy over the book intensified five years after its publication, after news emerged in 2006 that Abu El Haj was under consideration for tenure
Tenure
Tenure commonly refers to life tenure in a job and specifically to a senior academic's contractual right not to have his or her position terminated without just cause.-19th century:...
at Barnard College
Barnard College
Barnard College is a private women's liberal arts college and a member of the Seven Sisters. Founded in 1889, Barnard has been affiliated with Columbia University since 1900. The campus stretches along Broadway between 116th and 120th Streets in the Morningside Heights neighborhood in the borough...
where she served as an assistant professor. Barnard alumnae mounted a campaign to deny tenure to Abu El Haj that centered around what they described as the book's anti-Israel bias, prompting a counter-campaign in support of the book and Abu El Haj. The University ultimately granted Abu El Haj tenure in November 2007.
Contents
In the book, Abu El Haj uses anthropological methods to study the relationship between the development of scientific knowledge in Israeli archaeologyArchaeology of Israel
The archaeology of Israel is the study of the archaeology of Israel, stretching from prehistory through three millennia of documented history. The ancient Land of Israel was a geographical bridge between the political and cultural centers of Mesopotamia and Egypt...
and the construction of the social imaginations and political orders in the Israeli State
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
and what she characterizes as the "formation and enactment of its colonial
Colonialism
Colonialism is the establishment, maintenance, acquisition and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. It is a process whereby the metropole claims sovereignty over the colony and the social structure, government, and economics of the colony are changed by...
-national
Nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
historical imagination and...the substantiation of its territorial claims". She argues that facts generated by archaeological practice have fashioned "cultural understandings, political possibilities and 'common-sense' assumptions".
In her introduction, Abu El Haj sympathetically cites critics who reject "a positivist commitment to scientific method
Scientific method
Scientific method refers to a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge. To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on gathering empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of...
whereby politics is seen to intervene only in instances of bad science," favoring various approaches such as "post-structuralism
Post-structuralism
Post-structuralism is a label formulated by American academics to denote the heterogeneous works of a series of French intellectuals who came to international prominence in the 1960s and '70s...
, philosophical critiques of foundationalism
Foundationalism
Foundationalism is any theory in epistemology that holds that beliefs are justified based on what are called basic beliefs . This position is intended to resolve the infinite regress problem in epistemology...
, Marxism
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
and critical theory
Critical theory
Critical theory is an examination and critique of society and culture, drawing from knowledge across the social sciences and humanities. The term has two different meanings with different origins and histories: one originating in sociology and the other in literary criticism...
" with "a commitment to understanding archeology as necessarily political."
Reception
Facts on the Ground has been widely reviewed in both scholarly and popular publications. It was one of the winners of the 2002 Albert Hourani Book Award, granted by the Middle East Studies Association of North AmericaMiddle East Studies Association of North America
Middle East Studies Association of North America is a learned society, and according to its website, "a non-political association that fosters the study of the Middle East, promotes high standards of scholarship and teaching, and encourages public understanding of the region and its peoples...
for outstanding publishing in Middle East studies. Jere Bacharach
Jere L. Bacharach
Jere L. Bacharach is Professor Emeritus, Department of History, University of Washington, Seattle, WA. Born in New York in 1938, Bacharach attended Trinity College, CN [B.A., 1960], Harvard University [M.A., 1962], and the University of Michigan [Ph.D., 1967]. He has been a member of the U.W...
, a MESA member and historian at the University of Washington
University of Washington
University of Washington is a public research university, founded in 1861 in Seattle, Washington, United States. The UW is the largest university in the Northwest and the oldest public university on the West Coast. The university has three campuses, with its largest campus in the University...
, described the book as a "nuanced, nonpolemic work".
The book has received both accolades, particularly from Abu El Haj's fellow anthropologists, and denunciations, from some archaeologists, whose colleagues' work she criticizes. According to Jane Kramer
Jane Kramer
Jane Kramer is an American journalist who is the European correspondent for The New Yorker; she has written a regular "Letter from Europe" for twenty years. Kramer has also written nine books, the latest of which, Lone Patriot , is about a militia in the American West...
, writing in The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
, "the book was praised by colleagues who responded to the critical tropes that were Abu El Haj's legacy from scholars like Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault , born Paul-Michel Foucault , was a French philosopher, social theorist and historian of ideas...
, Ian Hacking
Ian Hacking
Ian Hacking, CC, FRSC, FBA is a Canadian philosopher, specializing in the philosophy of science.- Life and works :...
, Bruno Latour
Bruno Latour
Bruno Latour is a French sociologist of science and anthropologist and an influential theorist in the field of Science and Technology Studies...
, and Edward Said
Edward Said
Edward Wadie Saïd was a Palestinian-American literary theorist and advocate for Palestinian rights. He was University Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University and a founding figure in postcolonialism...
, and dismissed by colleagues with a theoretical or a political or simply a turf interest in dismissing it."
Academic reviews (chronologically-ordered)
In the MIT Electronic Journal of Middle East Studies, Elia Zureik, a professor of sociology at Queen's UniversityQueen's University
Queen's University, , is a public research university located in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Founded on 16 October 1841, the university pre-dates the founding of Canada by 26 years. Queen's holds more more than of land throughout Ontario as well as Herstmonceux Castle in East Sussex, England...
, writes that Abu El Haj's "use of the sociology of science as a perspective in her research is both clever and refreshing. It further elevates research about Palestine to new heights, by placing it squarely in current social science literature and debates. We need more such studies."
Edward Said
Edward Said
Edward Wadie Saïd was a Palestinian-American literary theorist and advocate for Palestinian rights. He was University Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University and a founding figure in postcolonialism...
wrote of being "indebted" to the book and work of Abu El Haj, in Freud and the Non-European (2003), offering that:
What she provides first of all is a history of systematic colonial archaeological exploration in PalestinePalestinePalestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....
, dating back to BritishBritish EmpireThe British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...
work in the mid-nineteenth century. She then continues the story in the period before Israel is established, connecting the actual practice of archaeology with a nascent national ideology - an ideology with plans for the repossession of the land through renaming and resettling, much of it given archeological justification as a schematic extraction of Jewish identity despite the existence of ArabArabArab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...
names and traces of other civilizations. This effort, she argues convincingly, epistemologically prepares the way for a fully fledged post-1948 sense of Israeli-Jewish identity based on assembling discrete archaeological particulars -scattered remnants of masonry, tablets, bones, tombs..."
In her review of Facts on the Ground for American Ethnologist, Kimbra L. Smith professor of anthropology at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs
University of Colorado at Colorado Springs
The University of Colorado Colorado Springs is a campus of the University of Colorado system, the state university system of Colorado....
, writes that "Abu El Haj provides an important and timely look at some of the politics of self-representation behind the Israeli government's
Politics of Israel
The Israeli system of government is based on parliamentary democracy. The Prime Minister of Israel is the head of government and leader of a multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in the Knesset. The Judiciary is independent of the executive...
public face, within a broader argument about science's capacity for political involvement and for maintaining and even advancing colonialist policies. However [...] her failure to present either official Palestinian
Palestinian people
The Palestinian people, also referred to as Palestinians or Palestinian Arabs , are an Arabic-speaking people with origins in Palestine. Despite various wars and exoduses, roughly one third of the world's Palestinian population continues to reside in the area encompassing the West Bank, the Gaza...
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."
Apen Ruiz, a graduate student in anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin
University of Texas at Austin
The University of Texas at Austin is a state research university located in Austin, Texas, USA, and is the flagship institution of the The University of Texas System. Founded in 1883, its campus is located approximately from the Texas State Capitol in Austin...
, writes in H-Net
H-Net
H-Net is an interdisciplinary online discussion forum for scholars in the humanities and social sciences that consists of over 180 topic- or discipline-specific listservs. Many of the lists deal with various areas of historical study...
that "Facts on the Ground offers a unique and pioneering approach to examine the politics of archaeological research." He explains that, "Inspired by cultural and social studies of science, El-Haj puts archaeology under an ethnographic
Ethnography
Ethnography is a qualitative method aimed to learn and understand cultural phenomena which reflect the knowledge and system of meanings guiding the life of a cultural group...
lens and examines its practices: excavating, surveying, cataloguing, naming, mapping, and exhibiting," noting that it is this, "focus on archaeological practices as the main object of study," that is the "primary contribution of the book".
Aren Maeir
Aren Maeir
Aren Maeir is a professor at Bar Ilan University and director of the Tell es-Safi/Gath Archaeological Project . Born in 1958 in Rochester, New York, USA, he moved to Israel in 1969 and has lived there since...
, professor of archaeology at Bar Ilan University, writing in Isis
Isis (journal)
Isis is an academic journal published by University of Chicago Press. It focuses on the history of science, history of medicine, and the history of technology, as well as their cultural influences, featuring both original research articles as well as extensive book reviews and review essays.It was...
, calls the book "a highly ideologically driven political manifesto, with a glaring lack of attention both to details and to the broader context." Regarding Abu El Haj's criticism of methodology in Israeli archeology, Maeir writes, that in contemporary archeology in Israel, "only marginal elements act in accordance with or identify with the non-scientific agendas that she attempts to delineate." Maeir argues that the major reason for the lateness of Israel to adopt modern techniques was not a "hidden colonial agenda," but rather a result of the "European classical archeology" from which it developed.
James Gelvin
James L. Gelvin
James L. Gelvin is an American scholar of Middle Eastern history. He has been a faculty member in the department of history at the University of California, Los Angeles since 1995 and has written extensively on the history of the modern Middle East, with particular emphasis on nationalism and the...
, a UCLA historian, describes Facts on the Ground in his book The Israel-Palestine Conflict: One Hundred Years of War, as "probably the most sophisticated presentation of Israel's archaeological obsession and its relation to nationalism and 'colonial knowledge'".
Alexander H. Joffe
Alexander H. Joffe
-Biography:Dr. Joffe graduated from Cornell University with a B.A in History and received an M.A. and Ph.D. in Near Eastern archaeology from the University of Arizona.-Academic career:...
, an archaeologist and past director of the academic watchdog organization Campus Watch
Campus Watch
Campus Watch is a web-based project of the Middle East Forum, a think tank with its headquarters in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. According to its website, Campus Watch "reviews and critiques Middle East studies in North America with an aim to improving them." Critics of Campus Watch say that it is a...
, writes in the Journal of Near Eastern Studies
Journal of Near Eastern Studies
The Journal of Near Eastern Studies is an academic journal published by the University of Chicago Press, devoted to examination of the ancient and medieval civilisations of the Near East. Appearing in its pages are contributions from scholars of international reputation on archaeology, art,...
that "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."
Keith Whitelam, professor of religious studies
Religious studies
Religious studies is the academic field of multi-disciplinary, secular study of religious beliefs, behaviors, and institutions. It describes, compares, interprets, and explains religion, emphasizing systematic, historically based, and cross-cultural perspectives.While theology attempts to...
at the University of Sheffield
University of Sheffield
The University of Sheffield is a research university based in the city of Sheffield in South Yorkshire, England. It is one of the original 'red brick' universities and is a member of the Russell Group of leading research intensive universities...
and author of The Invention of Ancient Israel: The Silencing of Palestinian History, told a New York Sun reporter that Facts on the Ground was a "first-rate book," which made "a very fine contribution" to the study of "how national identity is constructed and the assumptions which are then built into academic work on history and archaeology." In the same article, William Dever
William G. Dever
William G. Dever is an American archaeologist, specialising in the history of Israel and the Near East in Biblical times. He was Professor of Near Eastern Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Arizona in Tucson from 1975 to 2002...
, a retired professor of Middle Eastern archaeology
Near Eastern archaeology
Near Eastern Archaeology is a regional branch of the wider, global discipline of Archaeology...
at the University of Arizona
University of Arizona
The University of Arizona is a land-grant and space-grant public institution of higher education and research located in Tucson, Arizona, United States. The University of Arizona was the first university in the state of Arizona, founded in 1885...
, describes Abu El Haj's scholarship as "faulty, misleading and dangerous".
Alan F. Segal
Alan F. Segal
Alan F. Segal was a professor of religion and Ingeborg Rennert Professor of Jewish Studies at Barnard College.Segal was born in Worcester, Massachusetts...
, a professor of religion and Jewish studies at Barnard College, has been a vocal critic of the book. In the Columbia Daily Spectator
Columbia Daily Spectator
Columbia Daily Spectator is the daily student newspaper of Columbia University. It is published at 112th and Broadway in New York, New York. Founded in 1877, it is the oldest continuously operating college news daily in the nation after The Harvard Crimson, and has been legally independent of the...
, he writes that Abu El Haj's work is tainted by a failure to examine primary sources in Hebrew, a reliance on anonymous sources, and a lack of breadth in its review of scholarship to date. According to Segal, Abu El Haj focuses her attention on the "extreme conclusions" of "
biblical minimalists
The Copenhagen School (theology)
Biblical minimalism is a term used by its detractors to refer to a tendency in biblical exegesis which stresses a heavily skeptical approach to archaeological evidence when establishing the history of Ancient Israel and Judah...
" who constitute "no more than a handful of scholars" out of "thousands at work (in Biblical scholarship) in the world". Segal writes that "none of the minimalist scholars she relies upon for this purpose is actually a working archaeologist," and that "pretty much every other one of the virtually countless theories about Israelite settlement in First Temple times would disprove her hypothesis about Israeli archaeology." He adds that she "does not tell her readers about" these fields, "why they are necessary", or, "how decisions are actually made in biblical studies."
In the fall 2007 issue of The Current, there was criticism of Abu El Haj from three different scholars. First, David M. Rosen
David M. Rosen
David M. Rosen is an American anthropologist. Rosen holds a J.D. from Pace University School of Law and a Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Illinois. He is Professor of Anthropology, at Fairleigh Dickinson University...
, professor of anthropology at Fairleigh Dickinson University
Fairleigh Dickinson University
Fairleigh Dickinson University is a private university founded as a junior college in 1942. It now has several campuses located in New Jersey, Canada, and the United Kingdom.-Description:...
asks, "How can a work that apparently demonstrates an impaired understanding of the archeological sciences be regarded as good anthropology?" Answering his own question, he offers that while in the contemporary political climate, "One hardly needs to be Braveheart to be openly antagonistic to Israel at a meeting of anthropologists," the more serious problem lies in the tradition of post-colonial studies, where anthropologists like Abu El Haj can "construct their analyses with little concern for empirical or logical connectedness. Like mythology, they are masters of the found object, and pull in anything to create a story. This methodology has no connection to science. Its power lies in its politics and its aesthetics, and not in such boring ideas as validity and reliability." In the same issue, Jonathan Rosenbaum
Jonathan Rosenbaum
Jonathan Rosenbaum is an American film critic. Rosenbaum was the head film critic for the Chicago Reader from 1987 until 2008, when he retired at the age of 65...
, paleographer
Palaeography
Palaeography, also spelt paleography is the study of ancient writing. Included in the discipline is the practice of deciphering, reading, and dating historical manuscripts, and the cultural context of writing, including the methods with which writing and books were produced, and the history of...
and President of Gratz College
Gratz College
Gratz College is a general college of Jewish studies founded in 1895 offering a broad array of credentials and programs in virtually every area of higher Judaic learning to aspiring Jewish educators, communal professionals, lay people and others seeking to become more knowledgeable of...
, suggests that Abu El Haj's "personal agenda" is "the furtherance of her own nationalistic ideology at the expense of decades of careful excavations and rigorous publications" establishing the historicity of much of the Biblical narrative. Finally, James R. Russell
James R. Russell
James Robert Russell is a scholar and professor in Ancient Near Eastern, Iranian and Armenian Studies. He has published extensively in journals, and has written several books....
, a professor at Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
, describes Facts on the Ground as a "malign fantasy" designed to demonstrate the
"colonial essence" of Zionism by denying the history of ancient "Jewish sovereignty and long historical presence."
Bulldozer use
One controversy related to the book came from a passage in Facts on the Ground in which Abu El Haj wrote that during a dig in JezreelJezreel Valley
-Etymology:The Jezreel Valley takes its name from the ancient city of Jezreel which was located on a low hill overlooking the southern edge of the valley, though some scholars think that the name of the city originates from the name of the clan which founded it, and whose existence is mentioned in...
, British and Israeli archaeologists used "bulldozers ... in order to get down to the earlier strata, which are saturated with national significance, as quickly as possible." She noted that "among Palestinian officials at the Haram al-Sharif and the Awqaf as well as many other archaeologists ... the use of bulldozers has become the ultimate sign of 'bad science' and of nationalist politics guiding research agendas." She wrote that the incident took place "a week after [she] stopped participating in the excavations" and attributed the account to "several participants, both archaeologists and student volunteers," whom she did not name.
The dig in question was led by David Ussishkin
David Ussishkin
David Ussishkin is an Israeli archaeologist. Now retired as Professor of Archaeology at Tel Aviv University, Ussishkin has directed and co-directed important excavations at a variety of sites, including Lachish, Jezreel and Megiddo....
of the University of Tel Aviv, who responded to Abu El Haj's characterization in an open letter
Open letter
An open letter is a letter that is intended to be read by a wide audience, or a letter intended for an individual, but that is nonetheless widely distributed intentionally....
published on the internet in December 2006. While confirming that the earlier strata was the main interest of the dig, Ussishkin denied that any damage was done to other strata, which he insisted were properly excavated. Ussishkin defended the use of the bulldozer at the site as being necessary to properly excavate the site, and said he did not believe it had caused any damage.
In September 2007, archaeologist Aren Maeir
Aren Maeir
Aren Maeir is a professor at Bar Ilan University and director of the Tell es-Safi/Gath Archaeological Project . Born in 1958 in Rochester, New York, USA, he moved to Israel in 1969 and has lived there since...
, in an opinion column in the Columbia Daily Spectator
Columbia Daily Spectator
Columbia Daily Spectator is the daily student newspaper of Columbia University. It is published at 112th and Broadway in New York, New York. Founded in 1877, it is the oldest continuously operating college news daily in the nation after The Harvard Crimson, and has been legally independent of the...
student newspaper, wrote, "In her book she attacks, harangues, vilifies and slanders respected archaeologists in the field." According to Maeir, Abu El Haj's assertions concerning Ussishkin are "analogous to accusing a surgeon of deciding whether to use a scalpel or a hacksaw according to the patient’s ethnic 'identity'" and "an attempt to prevent him from doing his work."
Abu El Haj does not mention Ussishkin by name in her book.
See also
- Ancient Near EastAncient Near EastThe ancient Near East was the home of early civilizations within a region roughly corresponding to the modern Middle East: Mesopotamia , ancient Egypt, ancient Iran The ancient Near East was the home of early civilizations within a region roughly corresponding to the modern Middle East: Mesopotamia...
- Biblical archaeologyBiblical archaeologyFor the movement associated with William F. Albright and also known as biblical archaeology, see Biblical archaeology school. For the interpretation of biblical archaeology in relation to biblical historicity, see The Bible and history....
- History of ancient Israel and JudahHistory of ancient Israel and JudahIsrael and Judah were related Iron Age kingdoms of ancient Palestine. The earliest known reference to the name Israel in archaeological records is in the Merneptah stele, an Egyptian record of c. 1209 BCE. By the 9th century BCE the Kingdom of Israel had emerged as an important local power before...
- History of the Jews in the Land of IsraelHistory of the Jews in the Land of IsraelThe history of the Jews in the land of Israel can be traced from the first appearance of the name "Israel" in the historic record, an Egyptian inscription of c.1200 BCE where it refers to an ethnic group apparently located in the northern part of the central highlands between the Mediterranean and...
- History of the LevantHistory of the LevantThe Levant is a geographical term that refers to a large area in Southwest Asia, south of the Taurus Mountains, bounded by the Mediterranean Sea in the west, the Arabian Desert in the south, and the Zagros Mountains in the east. It stretches 400 miles north to south from the Taurus Mountains to the...
- History of PalestineHistory of PalestineThe Southern Levant is the southern portion of the geographical region bordering the Mediterranean between Egypt and Mesopotamia . A narrow definition would take in roughly the same area as the modern states of Israel, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and Jordan, while a wider definition would...
- Pre-history of the Southern LevantPre-history of the Southern LevantThe prehistory of the Southern Levant includes the various cultural changes that occurred, as revealed by archaeological evidence, prior to recorded traditions in the area of the Southern Levant, also referred to by a number of other largely overlapping historical designations, including Canaan,...
- Syro-Palestinian archaeologySyro-Palestinian archaeologySyro-Palestinian archaeology is a term used to refer to archaeological research conducted in the southern Levant. Palestinian archaeology is also commonly used in its stead, particularly when the area of inquiry centers on ancient Palestine...
External links
- Archaeology and National Identity in Israel, limited preview
- Archaeology and National Identity in Israel Excerpted from pages 99–105
- An excerpt from Facts on the Ground.