Namecalling begins over reports that Massad has tenure at Columbia

The New York Post is enraged by the the report that Palestinian prof Joseph Massad has gotten tenure at Columbia. So is the Daily News, in a very angry editorial today, which smears a lot of folks and calls the wonderful As'ad Abu Khalil a "crackpot" –while urging Columbia not to promote "the bullying" Massad out of respect for the Jewish community in New York. Here is Martin Kramer, stirring the pot. And Kramer again, trying to stoke "controversy" about Massad as someone outside the pale of upright scholarship. Myself I'm weary of this culture war. It's all about the Israel lobby, which is beginning to feel passe. I gather that the Financial Times refers to it today as the Likud lobby. So does Chas Freeman. When they call it the Likud lobby, they mean that the lobby is no longer monolithic, that there is a liberal lobby alive in the land. We shall see. Who is applauding Massad's right to a job, having met the standards of his fellow faculty?