A job for someone ...

Rashid Khalidi, Plagiarism, and Me
The author wishes to remain anonymous.

I was fishing. Googling for silly statements about national continuity between the ancient Philistines, Jebusites, or Canaanites and modern Palestinian Arabs when I came upon this:

“According to a number of historians and scholars, many of the Arabs of Jerusalem today, indeed the majority of Palestinian Arabs, are descendants of the ancient Jebusites and Canaanites.”

The byline read Rashid Khalidi. Whoa.

The article was posted on the web page of the American Committee of Jerusalem. I wanted a better reference than a web page, so I googled a particularly absurd phrase: The simple fact is that the majority of the Arab people of Palestine are not descendants of those that arrived as part of the wave of Islamic-Arab conquest in the seventh century.

The search produced a nearly identical sentence, but this one was from a 1994 article on the history of Jerusalem written by the late Kamil Jamil el Asali of the University of Jordan. [i] The two articles share more than bad scholarship. They are alike. Very alike. Like, plagiarism.

Entire sentences appear in both articles: “The names of the two oldest rulers of the city, Saz Anu and Yaqir Ammo, were identified by the American archaeologist W. F. Albright as Amoritic.”

Khalidi uses the same sources and quotations used by Asali.

Kahalidi: In 1902, the British anthropologist Sir James Frazer wrote in his book The Golden Bough: "The Arabic-speaking peasants of Palestine are the progeny of the tribes which settled in the country before the Israelite invasion. "

Asali: In The Golden Bough, the British anthropologist Sir James Frazer (1854-1941) stressed that, "the Arabic-speaking peasants of Palestine are the progeny of the tribes which settled in the country before the Israelite invasion."

Khalidi: The Israeli historian Zev Vilnay, in his Encyclopedia for Knowledge of the Land of Israel, and Ephraim and Menachem Tilmay in their book Jerusalem agree that the age of the city is 5,000 years.

Asali: It is well-known that the correct age of the city, according to historical accounts, is five thousand years. This estimation is given by the Israeli historian Zev Vilnay, among other sources, in his comprehensive work in Hebrew, The Encyclopedia for the Knowledge of the Land of Israel, in the chapter titled "Jerusalem, the Capital of Israel.''[l] The same age is given by the Israeli historians Ephraim and Menachem Tilmay at the end of their book, Jerusalem.

Finally, Khalidi condenses Asali's analysis, lifting strings of phrases from Asali to make the same point.

Khalidi: In the second millenium BC, Jerusalem was inhabited by the Jebusites, a Canaanite tribe, and the culture of the city was Canaanite. The Jebusites built a fortress, "Zion", in Jerusalem. Zion is a Canaanite word meaning "hill" or "height." Jerusalem was also known as Jebus. Canaanite society flourished for two thousand years, and many aspects of Canaanite culture and religion were later borrowed by the Hebrews.

Asali: In the second millennium, Jerusalem was inhabited by the Jebusites. In the Bible the Jebusites are considered to be Canaanites. It was the Jebusites who first built the fortress Zion in the town. Zion is a Canaanite word which means "hill" or "height." The second name of Jerusalem was "Jebus". The culture of Jebus was Canaanite, an ancient society which built many towns with well-built houses, in numerous city-states, in industry and commerce and in an alphabet and religion which flourished for two thousand years and were later borrowed by the primitive Hebrews.

True, the Khalidi article was not in a refereed journal. It was on a web page. But it was the web page of the American Committee on Jerusalem, an organization of which Khalidi was President when the article was published in 2001 and for some years before and afterwards. [ii] The President of an organization is certainly responsible for articles published by that organization under his byline. Even on a web page.

I phoned a colleague on the Columbia faculty with the suggestion that she take it to Dean Quigley, the ordinary procedure in cases of plagiarism. She immediately pointed me to Appendix E in the Faculty Handbook. The relevant section reads:

“In the event that the committee should find that an individual or individuals have made charges against a researcher for malicious reasons, or were otherwise not acting in good faith in making such charge, the dean will take appropriate action.” [iii]

Malicious reasons… Hmmm…

Suppose a scholar not only believes in the right of Israel to exist – Khalidi denies the Jewish nation this right – but further believes, as many scholars do, that Khalidi’s work is replete with half-truths and the selective use of evidence to make a political case against the Jewish State. Such a scholar might prefer to see an opponent of the existence of Israel take a fall. Is that malicious? If it were your career on the line, would you take the risk of making a complaint that others might characterize as maliciously motivated when the Faculty Handbook directs the Dean to “take appropriate action” in such an instance?

Call me a coward.

I sent both articles to a reporter at a major metropolitan daily. The reporter first contacted a plagiarism expert, who called it a clear case of plagiarism. He then phoned Rashid Khalidi, who refused to return the call. And he contacted the American Committee on Jerusalem, told them he was doing a story on plagiarism in the Khalidi article, and asked for a comment.

Then his editor killed the story, on the grounds that the plagiarized article was merely an occasional piece on a web site. Not in a printed periodical. Some of these print guys haven’t noticed yet that the
world has changed.

I contacted a reporter at another paper, who told me that there was no Khalidi byline on the article. I went to the web page. Sure enough. The byline has disappeared. Someone at the ACJ changed the byline to read “Compiled by ACJ from a variety of sources.” [iv]

For such situations does Wayback Machine exist. Entering the original URL[v] into this time travel machine[vi] reveals that the article with the plagiarized material was posted with the byline “by Rashid Khalidi” by Feb. 27th 2001, and remained on the site under that byline for four years during much of which time Khalidi continued to serve as President of the ACJ.

I found it there on May 10, 2005.

Will somebody please tell Dean Quigley.

Austin Quigley
Dean of the Faculty of Columbia College
Associate Vice President for Undergraduate Education
Phone: (212) 854-2441
Fax: (212) 854-7984
email: aeq1@columbia.edu

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[i] (http://www.al-bushra.org/jerusalem1/jerhist.htm)

[ii] (http://www.acj.org/briefings/4_05_2001.htm)

[iii] http://www.columbia.edu/cu/vpaa/fhb/main.html Faculty Handbook, Appendix E

[iv] http://www.acj.org/resources/khalidi/c_history.htm

[v] http://www.acj.org/resources/khalidi/c_history.htm

[vi] http://www.waybackmachine.org/