When the article first appeared on the ACJ website in 2001, the byline attributed it to Khalidi, then the organization’s president. Today, archived versions of the page have the byline “Compiled by ACJ from a variety of sources.” The change was allegedly made after a reporter called the organization with the plagiarism charges. Khalidi and the ACJ have labeled the original attribution a mistake.

Dershowitz told the Jewish Advocate: “It sounds to me like an open and shut case. As I understand the facts as they appear on Solomonia, he allowed an article to appear with his own byline for almost four years, that was copied almost word for word from an article by a different person. It’s classic plagiarism.”

Khalidi, Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies and Literature at Columbia, responded in an email to the Jewish Advocate: “I never wrote any such article, never claimed it as mine, and indeed it was never ‘published’ in any real sense of the word. It was a compilation of material that was mistakenly ascribed to me on the defunct website of a defunct organization.” He added: “This story is being disseminated by people ignorant of scholarly standards who have been peddling this story as a means of slandering me.” Rafi Dajani, executive director of the American Task Force on Palestine, explained: “The article was compiled from a variety of sources by people working in the ACJ office, one being Asali’s book. Khalidi contributed to it and it was mistakenly labeled written by Khalidi.” He added the information on the website has not been updated in three to four years, since the organization no longer exists, but the Khalidi byline was changed after the mistake was pointed out. Dershowitz responded that the ACJ’s explanation is “an after-the-fact excuse.” He said: “A mistake can happen once. For a mistake to survive on a website for nearly four years is more than a mistake. And it would be plagiarism even if it was [labeled] ‘compiled’ without crediting the one main source.”