Several readers emailed about this unbelievable whitewash of radical Arabist, Israel-hating Columbia University professor Joseph Massad, at (where else?) the New York Times—the same newspaper that made a shamefully unethical back room deal with the Columbia administration to suppress the opinions of students abused by this lunatic: At the Center of an Academic Storm, a Lesson in Calm.

Who’s intimidating whom here? Or, to borrow the title of an article Professor Massad wrote for Al-Ahram Weekly as the campus brouhaha reached a boiling point, spurred by “Columbia Unbecoming,” a film produced in Boston by the pro-Israel David Project: “Semites and Anti-Semites, That Is the Question.” Sort of.

According to Professor Massad, any self-respecting scholar of Middle East studies knows that “Israel is the party most responsible for the oppression of the Palestinian people.” He has issues with the Palestinian national movement, too.

He seems, if anything, ingratiating, not intimidating. The perfect host, perfectly attired, right down to the opalescent links binding his French cuffs. The reading material on his coffee table is decorative propaganda, apolitical: “The World Atlas of Wine”; a pictorial of a favored destination, Amberley Castle in Sussex, England; and a catalog in which he excitedly points out the brass chandelier, a handmade reproduction of 18th-century Islamic/Egyptian design, he recently purchased in Cairo. What a novelty: a politically pugnacious professor - he insists he won’t stand for anti-Semitism or anti-Palestinianism in his classroom and packs scholarship to combat both - with a metrosexual gloss.

Gag.

UPDATE at 4/13/05 2:26:23 pm:

Daily Scorecard has also been all over this story from the beginning: NYTimes Romanticizes Belligerent Professor Joseph Massad.