"Scholars of anthropology and of Middle East studies are rallying around Nadia Abu El-Haj, an assistant professor of anthropology at Barnard College whose tenure bid, like that of Norman G. Finkelstein at DePaul University earlier this year, has become the subject of an online skirmish in the larger conflict over research on the Middle East. Central to the controversy is Ms. Abu El-Haj's book, Facts on the Ground: Archaeological Practice and Territorial Self-Fashioning in Israeli Society (University of Chicago Press, 2001), which argues that Israeli archaeology has been shaped by Israeli national identity, and vice versa." (thanks Saba)