Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz is taking an active role in fighting the anti-Israel (and anti-American) bias endemic at Columbia University: Dershowitz Says Faculty Members Work To Encourage Islamic Terrorism.

It’s not often that a professor tells a packed crowd at Columbia University that Edward Said was a political extremist and that faculty members in the school’s Middle East studies department encourage Islamic terrorism.

The professor who made those statements yesterday isn’t from Columbia but from Harvard. Law professor Alan Dershowitz showed up at the intellectual home of Said, a literature professor who was a fierce critic of Israel, to rebuke Columbia’s faculty and administration for tolerating an atmosphere on campus that he said promotes the hatred of Israel.

“This is the most unbalanced university that I have come across when it comes to all sides of the Middle East conflict being presented,” Mr. Dershowitz told hundreds of students and a smattering of Columbia faculty members.

“I have never seen a university with as much faculty silence,” he said.

At a campus already divided by a controversy that has flared for months - one that pits a handful of Jewish students against some professors in the Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures department - the appearance of Mr. Dershowitz was the latest indication that the most serious crisis of President Lee Bollinger’s tenure is far from over.

Mr. Dershowitz’s speech, which lasted about an hour, drew a few catcalls from some hostile members of the audience, who accused the lawyer of supporting torture. It also prompted frequent outbursts of applause from many in the audience, as he repeatedly expressed contempt for the Columbia scholars in the Middle East studies department who are the subject of an internal campus inquiry.

One of the best-known defense attorneys in the country, Mr. Dershowitz, who is 66, said he would help organize an independent committee to look into the student complaints if the faculty committee appointed by Mr. Bollinger came to a “biased” conclusion. Without mentioning names, Mr. Dershowitz said the external committee would include Nobel Prize winners.

Members of the New York City Council, too, have called for an outside investigation of the student complaints.

Drawing a few laughs, Mr. Dershowitz said the prospects of “peace in Israel itself are greater than they would be on this campus.”

“The kind of hatred that one hears on campuses like Columbia, and let me say especially Columbia, is a barrier to peace,” Mr. Dershowitz said. “They are encouraging the terrorists. They tell the terrorists you will have academic support even if you oppose the peace process.”