Scott Adler (talk | contribs) No edit summary |
|||
Line 23: | Line 23: | ||
Check the Wikipedia entry on Jordanian Field Marshall [[Habis Al-Majali]] for his view on the siege, although his recall appears to be fuzzy due to age. (He told the same Sharon story to AFP, which swallowed it.) This entry, clearly sympathetic to the Jordanians, uses the term "besieged" to describe the Jews of Jerusalem.[[User:Scott Adler|Scott Adler]] 09:04, 23 December 2006 (UTC) |
Check the Wikipedia entry on Jordanian Field Marshall [[Habis Al-Majali]] for his view on the siege, although his recall appears to be fuzzy due to age. (He told the same Sharon story to AFP, which swallowed it.) This entry, clearly sympathetic to the Jordanians, uses the term "besieged" to describe the Jews of Jerusalem.[[User:Scott Adler|Scott Adler]] 09:04, 23 December 2006 (UTC) |
||
::There has been a siege (starting in Feb, culminating end of March) but the whole story is not a siege. After Nachshon, the city was not under siege any more. After 15 May, Jerusalem were again under siege BUT IDF and Arab Legion fought and it became a battle for Jerusalem. [[User:Alithien|Alithien]] 18:21, 25 December 2006 (UTC) |
|||
== Zionists and Arabists NPOV? == |
== Zionists and Arabists NPOV? == |
Revision as of 18:21, 25 December 2006
If you are a sympathetic to the Arab view, please do not vandalize this article. These events did occur. Instead, please enter such information that you consider important to understanding the events. 68.5.64.178 01:51, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
The very name of this article represents a one-sided point of view. A siege is when one side is inside and the other side is outside. However there were lots of Arabs living in Jerusalem and Arab neighborhoods were under attack by Jewish forces as well as the reverse. The writing so far also reflects only the Zionist viewpoint. A better name would be something like "Battle for Jerusalem (1948)". --Zerotalk 10:09, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
- I know next to nothing about this history, Is "Siege of Jerusalem" the term that is commonly or historically applied to these actions? A quick Google of - "Siege of Jerusalem" 1948 - yields 15,300 hits, - Siege of Jerusalem 70 - yeilds 44,700 hits, 9,330 hits for - "Siege of Jerusalem" 1099 OR 1186 -, - Nebuchadnezzar "Siege of Jerusalem" - gets 21,100 hits. I'm not saying you are wrong about the name being misleading however "Siege of Jerusalem" 1948 does appear to be common. I would like to read more about the naming of the article. Are you interested in contributing more from a non-Zionist viewpoint? SmithBlue 15:41, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
- I'm not sure there is a consensus English name for this. Zionist accounts tend to call it things like "Siege of Jerusalem", while Arab accounts will refer to it as the Zionist attempt to ethnically cleanse Jerusalem (and so forth). We should choose a name that reflects neither point of view as much as possible. I suggest "Battle for Jerusalem (1948)" because it does not carry an implication that one side was bad and the other was good. There is nothing pro-Arab about it at all, for example the Zionist Jewish Virtual Library uses it. --Zerotalk 07:07, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
- It is possible for a common name not to have consensus about its NPOV. And for the English language to change to reflect this. (or not) Eg; chairman to chairperson. And for that change to be partial ie Google; chairperson - 29 million, chairman - 149 million. At present Google gives - "Battle for Jerusalem" 1948 - 920 hits, compared to - "Siege of Jerusalem" 1948 - yields 15,300 hits. Which separates them by an order of magnitude.
If "Siege of Jerusalem" 1948 is the common name should we "go with it" no matter how POV it is? SmithBlue 08:56, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
- It isn't "the" common name. 15,300 hits is a really tiny number for this topic. Compare it to Jerusalem 1948 - 1,390,000 hits. I repeat, there is NO common widely-accepted name for this. That means we choose a neutral name. Neutrality is just as important as popularity, or more important. --Zerotalk 11:31, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
- In general I'd disagree strongly that "Neutrality is more important than popularity." Common useage is the basis of language. If you want to go further into generalities do you agree that "a consensus English name" and "a common name" can be very different things? SmithBlue 04:57, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
- Zero is right.
- There was 100,000 Jews and 70,000 Arabs living in the Jerusalem area. And if the siege of the jewish population during march and after Nachshon operation is one of the event of the battle for Jerusalem, there were many others, like Kilshon operation.
- Note that the title is a problem but also the content of the article, which is, a little bit (cough cough) pov. Alithien 20:23, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
Yes, it was a siege
Okay guys how's this, from http://www.palestinehistory.com/history/war/war1948.htm, a Palestinian site:
- "Battle of the Roads". The Arab League sponsored Arab Liberation Army, composed of Palestinian Arabs and Arabs from other Middle Eastern countries, attacked Jewish communities in Palestine, and Jewish traffic on major roads. The Arab forces mainly concentrated on major roadways in an attempt to cut off Jewish communities from each other. Arab forces at that time had engaged in sporadic and unorganized ambushes since the riots of December 1947, and began to make organized attempts to cut off the highway linking Tel Aviv with Jerusalem, the city's only supply route. The Arab Army cut off supplies and controlled several strategic vantage points overlooking the sole highway linking Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, enabling them to fire at convoys going to the city. By late March 1948, the vital road that connected Tel Aviv to western Jerusalem, where about 16% of all Jews in the Palestinian region lived, was cut off and under siege. (emphasis mine)Scott Adler 08:42, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
If you want a contemporary account, read John Roy Carlson's "From Cairo to Damascus" (Knopf, 1951). An American of Armenian birth, Carlson joined Egyptian adventurers besieging the city. He often slipped away to report on the war from the other side -- one of these chapters, chapter 14, is called "Life in the Besieged City." In that chapter, on page 262, he described British shell fire directed at Jewish civilian areas long after British forces were supposed to have left. Another useful contemporary account is that of Dov Joseph, the Israeli military governor during the siege. In "The Faithful City'" Joseph describes the stringent rationing the siege imposed, including a limit of five liters of water per person per day -- for eight months.
Check the Wikipedia entry on Jordanian Field Marshall Habis Al-Majali for his view on the siege, although his recall appears to be fuzzy due to age. (He told the same Sharon story to AFP, which swallowed it.) This entry, clearly sympathetic to the Jordanians, uses the term "besieged" to describe the Jews of Jerusalem.Scott Adler 09:04, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
- There has been a siege (starting in Feb, culminating end of March) but the whole story is not a siege. After Nachshon, the city was not under siege any more. After 15 May, Jerusalem were again under siege BUT IDF and Arab Legion fought and it became a battle for Jerusalem. Alithien 18:21, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
Zionists and Arabists NPOV?
Just wanting to check how fellow editors see these two terms; Zionists and Arabists. How do they go for NPOV? SmithBlue 01:02, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
- I would prefer to use neither. The term "Arabist" originally referred to a scholar specializing in Arab history and cultire AND to a school of diplomacy within the US State Department that is now in decline. The term "Zionist" originally referred to a person who supported Jewish national self-determination. It is now used more as a nasty, de-humanizing, insult, as in "you filthy dirty scum-sucking supporter of the unprovoked massacre of helpless Palestinian innocents".Scott Adler 03:50, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
Narratives and notability
I'm suggesting that what is most notable about these events is the POV narratives pinned on them. Can we combine disparate narratives, show the historical events that underpin them and present the various narratives in their absolute world defining fullness or do the narratives become weak shadows showing so little of their power over people in the real world as to be unrecognisable? Please point me to a Wikipedia entry that successfully shows both the power of these narratives and the historical underpinnings. SmithBlue 04:52, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
- I would, if I could understand what you just said. ;) Are you referring to the sources? I will also use many others. I chose those because they dealt directly with the issues of the existance of the siege. I would love to include my interview with Anwar Nusseiba, the Palestinian commander who succeeded Abd-el Kadr al-Husseini, but alas, it is original material. The best source of third party quotes is "O Jerusalem" by Collins and LaPierre, mainly because of the extensive interviews the two writers did with participants on both sides, including the normally reclusive Grand Mufti -- those who were still alive in 1970.
- The main controversy in this narrative is the fact that it happened at all. The fact that it happened makes one side very upset. Thus if Jews were forced to counter Iraqi soldiers attacking them from inside the St. Simeon Monastery, the fall of Katamon was a strictly military event rather than a drive to expell helpless civilians as the Arab side usually contends. It is not without reason that there is no Wikipedia article for the St. Simeon Monastery. I hope to correct this imbalance. It's all about balance and context. If you eliminate the siege, there is no context.Scott Adler 23:56, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
- I forgot to mention, the quote from palestinehistory.com is from a pro-Palestinian site, but one that acknowledges that the siege happened.Scott Adler 23:58, 23 December 2006 (UTC)