Resignation deal in Israel row case

A long-running row between a controversial US academic and his university employer has ended with him agreeing to resign.

Norman Finkelstein, who has alleged that Israel accused those who opposed its actions in Palestine of being anti-Semitic and that there is a Holocaust "industry", agreed to stand down from his post at DePaul University in Chicago.

In a joint statement, Finkelstein said he had been denied tenure because of "external pressures climaxing in a national hysteria that tainted the tenure process". The university denied this and said no information would be released on the terms of the leaving agreement.

Previously the university put Finkelstein on paid leave and cancelled his classes. He had threatened to commit "nonviolent civil disobedience" in protest. He and Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz have clashed bitterly over their views on Israel, anti-Semitism and the Holocaust.