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Yes, someone actually recently has created a whole article on this minor incident. Seems like POV pushing to extreme. If you agree, feel free to call for WP:AfD. CarolMooreDC (talk) 00:03, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
- Comment Please feel free to contribute to the article, and/or discussion on its talk page. Thanks. Ism schism (talk) 01:13, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
- Obviously I'm not going to work on an article which, doing more research, I see is not in compliance with various aspects of Wikipedia:Notability and Wikipedia:Notability (events). Busy right now but will put up for AfD in a few days, unless someone else does. CarolMooreDC (talk) 16:19, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
- Someone else nominated this article for deletion here writing: It's not appropriate for Wikipedia to have an article on this transient and relatively minor controversy. We're giving readers the impression that this story was much more important than it actually was. CarolMooreDC (talk) 14:39, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
- No consensus to delete. Hmmm, does that mean we can now do an article about what Ariel Sharon meant when he allegedly said on radio - often quoted by numerous Arab and Muslim WP:RS - that Israel controlled America?? :-) CarolMooreDC (talk) 14:47, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
- No, because -- irrespective of the merits, or lack thereof, of this article -- Sharon actually never made the alleged comments, and the radio broadcast cited in so-called "reliable sources" never took place. RolandR (talk) 15:02, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
- Then it needs an article to debunk the rumor. :-) CarolMooreDC (talk) 15:10, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
- You mean, like Alleged Ouze Merham interview of Ariel Sharon? RolandR (talk) 15:39, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
- Then it needs an article to debunk the rumor. :-) CarolMooreDC (talk) 15:10, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
- No, because -- irrespective of the merits, or lack thereof, of this article -- Sharon actually never made the alleged comments, and the radio broadcast cited in so-called "reliable sources" never took place. RolandR (talk) 15:02, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
- No consensus to delete. Hmmm, does that mean we can now do an article about what Ariel Sharon meant when he allegedly said on radio - often quoted by numerous Arab and Muslim WP:RS - that Israel controlled America?? :-) CarolMooreDC (talk) 14:47, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
- Someone else nominated this article for deletion here writing: It's not appropriate for Wikipedia to have an article on this transient and relatively minor controversy. We're giving readers the impression that this story was much more important than it actually was. CarolMooreDC (talk) 14:39, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
- Obviously I'm not going to work on an article which, doing more research, I see is not in compliance with various aspects of Wikipedia:Notability and Wikipedia:Notability (events). Busy right now but will put up for AfD in a few days, unless someone else does. CarolMooreDC (talk) 16:19, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
There is a current discussion on whether this institution is in the Palestinian Territrories or not. Pleasecome and express your views.--Peter cohen (talk) 10:45, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
General discussion on Israeli-occupied territories.
I think that we need a broad discussion on use or lack of use of Israeli-occupied territory. It is likely that it will end up as an RfC but I think it would be valuable for us to discuss it less formally first. My understanding is that there is no dispute in serious sources that this is an appropriate description.
- government organizations like:
- US Dept. of State [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8].
"U.S. Policy toward the establishment of Israeli settlements in the occupied territories is unequivocal and has long been a matter of public record. We consider it to be contrary to international law and an impediment to the successful conclusion of the Middle East peace process, Article 49, paragraph 6, of the Fourth Geneva Convention is, in my judgment, and has been in judgment of each of the legal advisors of the State Department for many, many years, to be. . .that [settlements] are illegal and that [the Convention] applies to the territories.” Secretary of State Cyrus Vance before House Committee. on Foreign Affairs
- US Dept. of State [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8].
- legal courts such as
- International Court of Justice[9][10].
78. The territories situated between the Green Line (see paragraph 72 above) and the former eastern boundary of Palestine under the Mandate were occupied by Israel in 1967 during the armed conflict between Israel and Jordan. Under customary international law, these were therefore occupied territories in which Israel had the status of occupying Power. Subsequent events in these territories, as described in paragraphs 75 to 77 above, have done nothing to alter this situation. All these territories (including East Jerusalem) remain occupied territories and Israel has continued to have the status of occupying Power.
- Supreme Court of Israel[11][12],
- European Court of Justice[13]
The assertion made by the Israeli authorities that products manufactured in the occupied territories qualify for the preferential treatment granted for Israeli goods is not binding upon the customs authorities of the European Union
- International Court of Justice[9][10].
Now, it is true that there are some who argue either that the land was not occupied from another extant country so the term doesn't apply, or that the military presence in the territories doesn't meet the threshold for an occupying force. But such arguments are clearly not recognized by the US Dept of State, International or European courts or the UN. In light of this consensus it seems that we must treat such arguments as fringe and we certainly shouldn't let our articles reflect them as being widely recognized. Your opinions on this matter are solicited. Unomi (talk) 10:37, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
- Question - what sources "argue either that the land was not occupied from another extant country so the term doesn't apply, or that the military presence in the territories doesn't meet the threshold for an occupying force"? It's hard to do an apples-to-apples comparison without reviewing such sources as well. ← George talk 10:42, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
- Please refer to International_law_and_the_Arab-Israeli_conflict#Settlement_in_territories - that particular article is a bit messy and could use better use of particular attribution. That particular claim is sourced to an Israeli government website which states
As for the other argument, I am honestly not sure if anyone is forwarding it anymore. Unomi (talk) 10:59, 5 April 2010 (UTC)The West Bank and Gaza Strip are disputed territories whose status can only be determined through negotiations. Occupied territories are territories captured in war from an established and recognized sovereign. As the West Bank and Gaza Strip were not under the legitimate and recognized sovereignty of any state prior to the Six Day War, they should not be considered occupied territories.
- Please refer to International_law_and_the_Arab-Israeli_conflict#Settlement_in_territories - that particular article is a bit messy and could use better use of particular attribution. That particular claim is sourced to an Israeli government website which states
- If that single source, representative of the views of Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), is the only one that disputes the term "Israeli-occupied territory", then I see no reason to avoid using the term, provided it's not overused just to make a point. Mentioning that the Israeli MFA disputed the status makes complete sense, in an article about settlements in such areas, but as a tiny minority view it wouldn't belong in every article where the term "Israeli-occupied territory" is used. If editors have other sources that dispute the term, I'd have to review those as well to see if the view is held more widely than by just Israel's MFA. ← George talk 11:25, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
- I should note that it is my intention to have areas that qualify as Israeli-occupied territories be noted as such, not with the intent of proving a point, but in order that we accurately reflect consensus opinion of sources per WP:GEVAL and WP:FRINGE not dissimilarly as our practice when editing articles related to pseudoscience, that is, failure to note that these are Israeli-occupied territories constitutes a NPOV failure. Unomi (talk) 12:01, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
- The definition of what constitutes "occupation" is unclear. There are other ways of addressing it that is not so POV, such as Israel-controlled. There are plenty of RS that use that terminology. Stellarkid (talk) 20:19, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
- I should note that it is my intention to have areas that qualify as Israeli-occupied territories be noted as such, not with the intent of proving a point, but in order that we accurately reflect consensus opinion of sources per WP:GEVAL and WP:FRINGE not dissimilarly as our practice when editing articles related to pseudoscience, that is, failure to note that these are Israeli-occupied territories constitutes a NPOV failure. Unomi (talk) 12:01, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
- This is an issue that I've wanted addressed for some time. I agree with the general thrust of what you say, but please clarify your links. I can't see any mention of the occupied territories in the Knesset link you give.--Peter cohen (talk) 20:03, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
- It is not possible to link to directly, here under "Public activities" it states He was in confrontation with Arik Sharon, the Agriculture Minister, regarding settlements in the occupied territories. It is a minor mention and I have removed it as being inconsequential and possibly distracting. By the way, on my talkpage I have more sources, but I have chosen to focus on the higher quality ones here. Unomi (talk) 21:16, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
- In 1949, the Mediator accepted an armistice agreement on behalf of the UN that granted a joint Israeli-Jordanian committee "exclusive competence" to develop any future plans and agreements (see article VIII).[16] It also instructed UNTSO to enforce whatever plans and agreements the Israeli-Jordanian committee provided (see article IX). The Security Council adopted that arrangement, cited article 40 (Chapter VII of the Charter), and dismissed the Mediator (see Security Council resolution 73).[17] Israeli Ambassador Abba Eban explained the Israeli POV regarding Jerusalem and the rest of Palestine at that time: "Israel holds no territory wrongfully, since her occupation of the areas now held has been sanctioned by the armistice agreements, as has the occupation of the territory in Palestine now held by the Arab states." see "Effect on Armistice Agreements", FRUS Volume VI 1949, 1149 In its 2004 judgment, the ICJ reviewed the terms of the Oslo Accords, the Israeli-Jordanian Armistice Agreement, and the Israeli-Jordanian peace treaty. The Court said that plans and agreements concluded pursuant to the Armistice Agreement remained valid. See paragraph 129 of the judgment [18]
- After the Arab Palestinian Congress at Jericho and the 1950 elections, many states including the US, UK, France, and Russia considered the West Bank to be Jordanian territory. When the Security Council adopted Resolution 228 (1966), the Council observed that, "the grave Israeli Military action which took place in the southern Hebron area on 13 November 1966... constituted a large scale and carefully planned military action on the territory of Jordan by the armed forces of Israel". The subsequent assurances regarding "the territorial integrity of all the states in the region" were interpreted in accordance with the terms of the earlier Security Council resolutions (e.g. cf resolution 228 and 242). See Chapter II Background, Written Statement of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan: [19] Article 3(2) of the Israeli-Jordanian peace agreement preserved the status of any territories that came under Israeli military government control in 1967. [20]
- The Israeli MFA website has a page which says that the Fourth Geneva Convention and certain parts of Additional Protocol I reflect applicable customary international law. [21] Several reliable sources have reported that the Israeli government knew at the outset that it was violating the Geneva Convention by creating civilian settlements in the territories under IDF administration. As the legal counsel of the Foreign Ministry, Theodor Meron was the Israeli government's expert on international law. On September 16th, 1967 he wrote a top secret memo to Mr. Adi Yafeh, Political Secretary of the Prime Minister regarding "Settlement in the Administered Territories" which said "My conclusion is that civilian settlement in the Administered territories contravenes the explicit provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention." - cited on page 99 of Gorenberg, Gershom, "The accidental empire: Israel and the birth of the settlements, 1967-1977", Macmillan, 2006, ISBN 080507564X.
- Wikipedia has many articles that contain material on the "disputed territories"/Fourth Geneva Convention, such as United Nations Security Council Resolution 446. That material is really nothing more than MFA material presented in the neutral voice of the encyclopedia. That particular article says that the government's arguments regarding the status of the territories were first advanced by Moshe Dayan in 1977. Yet when he authored a secret memo in 1968 proposing massive settlement in the territories, (then) Defense Minister Moshe Dayan wrote, “Settling Israelis in administered territory, as is known, contravenes international conventions, but there is nothing essentially new about that.” See Israeli State Archives 153.8/7920/7A, Document 60, dated October 15, 1968 - also cited on page 173 of Gorenberg's "The accidental empire". The arguments that settlement was legal came after the fact in an unsuccessful effort to blunt international criticism. I believe that NPOV requires that the declassified Meron and Dayan memos be mentioned in relevant articles. harlan (talk) 12:12, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
Its really quite simple, all nations on earth (except Israel) and vast majority of international organs consider the Palestinian territories and Golan as occupied, and not part of Israel. So that is what we should call them in the articles. To not classify these regions as occupied is against npov and undue weight.--Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 23:11, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
- That makes WP:SENSE. Tom Reedy (talk) 19:46, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
- It would hardly be considered a "fringe" or a "tiny minority view" considering it is one-half of the conflict. At least that is how us Israeli-supporters see it. While I appreciate the invite over at the Israel project, so far this page is only representative of one view. To classify these regions as "occupied" is to take a position. Use of the word "disputed" shows respect for the alternate view, and does not take a position in law and thus is neutral. Again, we can say this or that RS says "occupied" and this or that RS says "disputed" but in the WP voice we do not take a position. Stellarkid (talk) 04:12, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
- That is like saying that the flat-Earth idea is "one-half of the conflict" in whether or not the Earth is flat. The overwhelming majority of scholarly sources do take a position and emphatically state that these territories are "occupied". nableezy - 04:22, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
- See WP:GEVAL. This is about mandatory compliance with an absolute and non-negotiable policy. Sean.hoyland - talk 04:31, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
- Not at all. The borders are yet to be determined and they are supposed to be determined by negotiation. As such they are disputed. Many secondary RS avoid using the term "occupied territories" altogether, for example [22] - [23] etc. I suggest WP and the IP collab society try to do the same. To do otherwise is taking a position in a conflict. And Nableezy, since your user page encourages the use of force against Israel as an "occupier" you really ought to bow out of this discussion as a WP:COI. Stellarkid (talk) 05:01, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
- Whaw. Shall we also then demand that anyone who has served in the IDF should be excluded from this discussion, as they could also be said to have a COI? And, back to the issue in question: In addition to all the other sources, see also BBC´s Israel and the Palestinians: Key terms "It is advisable to avoid trying to find another formula [than "occupied territories"], although the phrase "occupied West Bank" can also be used." Regards, Huldra (talk) 05:32, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
- Sorry but a soldier does not shoot Palestinians because they are occupying land they want for themselves. The job of a soldier is to protect his country when it is threatened. Nableezy is talking about shooting people because of where they live. Not the same thing at all. To the issue at hand, the BBC is hardly what I would call a "collaborative" source with respect to the I-P issue. I am sure you are aware of that, Huldra. Stellarkid (talk) 06:06, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
- Uh, multiple noes. Unless you have some sort of magic glasses that allow you to see words that are not there I dont see where you find my "talking about shooting people because of where they live" and to say that is blatantly disingenuous. And I have absolutely no conflict of interest here, unless you mean my presence conflicts with your interest to force minority views and present them as fact. nableezy - 06:18, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
- (edit conflict)I haven't been follow most of this discussion. Can you point out what on Nableezy's user page talks about "shooting people because of where they live"? And why do you imply that a "collaborative" source is somehow desirable? Collaborative, user-generated sources are specifically frowned upon, and generally not considered reliable. ← George talk 06:22, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
- Sorry but a soldier does not shoot Palestinians because they are occupying land they want for themselves. The job of a soldier is to protect his country when it is threatened. Nableezy is talking about shooting people because of where they live. Not the same thing at all. To the issue at hand, the BBC is hardly what I would call a "collaborative" source with respect to the I-P issue. I am sure you are aware of that, Huldra. Stellarkid (talk) 06:06, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
- 'Avoid' is a little disingenuous isn't it ? Scientific papers that examine/discuss specific instances of life on earth won't bother to mention the term 'Modern evolutionary synthesis' either. They aren't avoiding it. Absence of the term 'occupied' doesn't count as a negative instance to be subtracted from the total number of instances. It's simply an absence of information about the status in that particular source instance. If you wanted to avoid COI you should have posted it on the Venezuelan Football Collaboration page. Sean.hoyland - talk 05:45, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
- In fact not using the term does not mean that it is absence of information. It may mean that people chose not to use it for a particular reason, eg they do not believe it is accurate or appropriate for whatever reason. As I do not believe it either accurate or appropriate for use in the WP voice. It is an unnecessary push of (disputed) "information" into an article. I assure you that this is not an example of I-P collaboration as it stands. Stellarkid (talk) 06:18, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
- Not at all. The borders are yet to be determined and they are supposed to be determined by negotiation. As such they are disputed. Many secondary RS avoid using the term "occupied territories" altogether, for example [22] - [23] etc. I suggest WP and the IP collab society try to do the same. To do otherwise is taking a position in a conflict. And Nableezy, since your user page encourages the use of force against Israel as an "occupier" you really ought to bow out of this discussion as a WP:COI. Stellarkid (talk) 05:01, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
- It would hardly be considered a "fringe" or a "tiny minority view" considering it is one-half of the conflict. At least that is how us Israeli-supporters see it. While I appreciate the invite over at the Israel project, so far this page is only representative of one view. To classify these regions as "occupied" is to take a position. Use of the word "disputed" shows respect for the alternate view, and does not take a position in law and thus is neutral. Again, we can say this or that RS says "occupied" and this or that RS says "disputed" but in the WP voice we do not take a position. Stellarkid (talk) 04:12, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
Consider this search of Google Scholar -- legal briefs and journals: Legal opinions and journal
- [26] "occupied territories" & israel 2290
- [27] "disputed territories" israel 110
- [28] "Contested territories" 19
- [29] "israeli-controlled territories" 5
- [30] Include "territories" and "Israel", exclude "occupied" 14,800.
Stellarkid (talk) 06:12, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
- Consider this. Issues like this never seem to get resolved and come up again and again. Surely we have better things to do ? For example, in 1937 a bunch of exceptionally talented and hopelessly idealistic Jewish artists from Chicago produced a book of superb woodcuts called A Gift to Biro-Bidjan to raise funds for Stalins Jewish autonomous region in the Soviet Union...just before the war, just before Stalin's purges of the Oblost. And yet we don't have an article about it. We endlessly discuss terminology and manufacture controversies instead....sulk. Sean.hoyland - talk 06:15, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
- Alright but what exactly is your point...? Drop this discussion? I'm for it. Stellarkid (talk) 06:19, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
- Maybe because Stalin's little Birobidzhan experiment is perceived by many people in the know as a somewhat cynical plan with little real connection to Jewish aspirations -- in fact, largely motivated by a desire to get Jews out of the cities of European Russia (thereby partially reviving the old Czarist Pale of Settlement). I'm sure the people who wrote the book were "idealistic" in a way, but there's a very high probability that many of them were sycophantic toadying flunkies to the brutal mass-murdering Stalinist regime, and their little "idealisms" were proven to be somewhat pathetic when Stalin turned to vicious bigoted antisemitism (or "anti-Cosmopolitanism", as the Soviet government preferred to call it) in his latter years, and most manifestations of Jewish culture in the Soviet Union were crushed like a small animal under a polished shiny jackboot.
- In any case, by this point it's simply faintly absurd to try to set up Birobidzhan or Uganda or whatever as a supposed Jewish homeland in contrast to Israel -- that train left the station almost a hundred years ago. AnonMoos (talk) 06:33, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
- Yes, well, you make some interesting contextural points that you could add to an article about the book if there were an article about the book. It's a book of woodcuts, it's a beautiful piece of work produced at a interesting point in time in support of a place that has an interesting history. My point is, it's much more interesting than the terms 'occupied' or 'disputed'. Sean.hoyland - talk 07:16, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
- I'll take your word for it that the book is visually aesthetically beautiful, but its main current notability would appear to be as a somewhat futile monument to historically failed dreams, and certain attitudes and opinions which are far out of the mainstream nowadays -- which may explain why people are not rushing to create a Wikipedia article about it... AnonMoos (talk) 08:34, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
- Yes, well, you make some interesting contextural points that you could add to an article about the book if there were an article about the book. It's a book of woodcuts, it's a beautiful piece of work produced at a interesting point in time in support of a place that has an interesting history. My point is, it's much more interesting than the terms 'occupied' or 'disputed'. Sean.hoyland - talk 07:16, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
- That is a ridiculous comparison to try to use a google search for. You need only actually look at the first few sources to see why. nableezy - 06:21, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
- Nableezy, you find everything I say or write ridiculous or silly or stupid or nonsense. You have an immediate negative opinion on virtually everything I say and almost anywhere I might say it. It's a bit tiresome, really, and so predictable. This isn't collaboration, it's pure negativity. Stellarkid (talk) 06:27, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
- (edit conflict)It seems pretty clear, after reviewing the sources above, as well as Stellarkid's misleading Google results, that the view that the areas in question are considered "occupied territories" is the majority view, the view that they are not occupied is a tiny minority view, and the view that the areas and the country of Israel are all occupied territories is an extremely minority view. ← George talk 06:28, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
- The first result in the last search is US Supreme Court ruling in Alfred Dunhill of London, Inc. v. Republic of Cuba which actually does not contain the word Israel in it one time and does not discuss the territories occupied by Israel at all. The second result is another USSC ruling in El Al Israel Airlines, Ltd. v. Tsui Yuan Tseng in which the Court discusses an "intrusive" search conducted on the plaintiff at JFK airport in NYC. The decision discusses the Warsaw Convention which deals with air-travel. The case does not once discuss the territories occupied by Israel. The third result is another USSC decision in Yick Wo v. Hopkins in 1886. Do I really need to keep going? nableezy - 06:34, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
- You noticed that the searches Stellarkid linked were only in the "Legal opinions and journals" subsection of Google Scholar, eh? Unsurprisingly, more standardized Google searches yield much less misleading results. ← George talk 06:37, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
- Even a general search would be misleading. There will be a ton of articles that contain the words "Israel" and "territories" without discussing any of the territories that we are. To pretend that such a comparison means something is silly, this is the type of thing where we actually need to examine the sources, not just google random phrases. nableezy - 06:40, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
- You noticed that the searches Stellarkid linked were only in the "Legal opinions and journals" subsection of Google Scholar, eh? Unsurprisingly, more standardized Google searches yield much less misleading results. ← George talk 06:37, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
- The first result in the last search is US Supreme Court ruling in Alfred Dunhill of London, Inc. v. Republic of Cuba which actually does not contain the word Israel in it one time and does not discuss the territories occupied by Israel at all. The second result is another USSC ruling in El Al Israel Airlines, Ltd. v. Tsui Yuan Tseng in which the Court discusses an "intrusive" search conducted on the plaintiff at JFK airport in NYC. The decision discusses the Warsaw Convention which deals with air-travel. The case does not once discuss the territories occupied by Israel. The third result is another USSC decision in Yick Wo v. Hopkins in 1886. Do I really need to keep going? nableezy - 06:34, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
I agree that this is a complete waste of time, the occupied territories are occupied territories, as the sources in the beginning of this section amply demonstrates. Ever since I came on wp nearly 5 years ago I have seen these attempt at trying to impose a minority view on wp. In the meantime, the sources have just added up, and added up. Stellarkid: please stop waisting our time. Thank you. Huldra (talk) 06:49, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
- Huldra, that would be "wasting." How typical of the Israel-Palestine Collaboration group to gang-bang the only pro-Israel editor to contribute to the conversation with an alternate view. Why am I not surprised? Stellarkid (talk) 15:48, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
- Thank you for correcting my spelling (I´m not a native English speaker). I´m not sure I like you language though ("gang-bang"), perhaps because I´m female. Having said that: I realize that the "disputed territories" -wording might not be an extreme minority view in Israel (and parts of US?); but in the rest of the world: it is. And this is not a project just for the involved parties in the Middle East. So, if your "alternate view" represents an extreme minority view...well, expect some serious opposition if you try to push it on wp. And yeah; that really should not surprise anyone, Cheers, Huldra (talk) 16:18, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
- Huldra if you had read my post you would have seen that I did not make a case for using "disputed" territories. In fact, I said that most RS avoid calling it "occupied" since it is a loaded and judgmental term. Thus you will see that the vast majority of links with respect to this were "Israel" & "territories" and EXCLUDING the word "occupied." Most serious scholars and RS news will simply avoid using the term because of the political implications. Stellarkid (talk) 16:37, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
- I don´t know what country you live in, Stellarkid, but I can assure you that around my part of the world (=Scandinavia) every single serious scholar on the Middle East use the word "occupied". Every one. So do the all the national radios/tv-stations. The only ones who do not use it, are some religious people, who mostly call the whole area "The Holy Land", and whose whole argument is that "God gave The Holy Land to the Jews". I´m not kidding...;) Cheers, Huldra (talk) 16:51, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
- Huldra, during WWII the Jews' view was also considered a "fringe" and "tiny minority" view and their pleas were ignored by the vast majority, with devastating consequences. This point is not lost on the Israelis, to be sure. To insist on naming the territories "occupied" is to take a (majority) view that also has consequences. This is a political view. It has not been adjudicated. There are enormous questions as to what is "occupied " and what isn't. Is Gaza "occupied"? Are the West Bank cities that have been turned over to the PA as a part of Oslo considered "occupied"? Is Jerusalem "occupied"? Is the whole of the Palestinian Mandate "occupied"? What happened to negotiations between the parties? It is not us to Wiki to take a position on this across the board. And Israel's voice and her supporters should be heard loud and clear, even if it isn't determined to be the majority view. How would you like it if you went to court as a defendent and you only got to squeak something out but the prosecution got to call in every witness in the world? Small wonder Franz Kafka was a Jew. Stellarkid (talk) 19:35, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
- Ah, I was wondering when you would do "a Goodwin." Yeah, well thanks. Personally I find it rather disgusting to call territories you have conquered by force as "disputed". Very disgusting, in fact. And you say it is a political view; but it is more than that: it is the international legal view. And yes; according to international law Gaza is still occupied (didn´t you read the BBC-link I gave you?). But your views must sound great for the long-term plans of, say, Hizbollah, or people like that...I mean; conquering land by force? Guess which land *they* want to conquer? Is that the world you want to support? Power/land to those with most guns? What I wonderful world we will have. Cheers, Huldra (talk) 20:30, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
- Huldra, during WWII the Jews' view was also considered a "fringe" and "tiny minority" view and their pleas were ignored by the vast majority, with devastating consequences. This point is not lost on the Israelis, to be sure. To insist on naming the territories "occupied" is to take a (majority) view that also has consequences. This is a political view. It has not been adjudicated. There are enormous questions as to what is "occupied " and what isn't. Is Gaza "occupied"? Are the West Bank cities that have been turned over to the PA as a part of Oslo considered "occupied"? Is Jerusalem "occupied"? Is the whole of the Palestinian Mandate "occupied"? What happened to negotiations between the parties? It is not us to Wiki to take a position on this across the board. And Israel's voice and her supporters should be heard loud and clear, even if it isn't determined to be the majority view. How would you like it if you went to court as a defendent and you only got to squeak something out but the prosecution got to call in every witness in the world? Small wonder Franz Kafka was a Jew. Stellarkid (talk) 19:35, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
- I don´t know what country you live in, Stellarkid, but I can assure you that around my part of the world (=Scandinavia) every single serious scholar on the Middle East use the word "occupied". Every one. So do the all the national radios/tv-stations. The only ones who do not use it, are some religious people, who mostly call the whole area "The Holy Land", and whose whole argument is that "God gave The Holy Land to the Jews". I´m not kidding...;) Cheers, Huldra (talk) 16:51, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
- Huldra if you had read my post you would have seen that I did not make a case for using "disputed" territories. In fact, I said that most RS avoid calling it "occupied" since it is a loaded and judgmental term. Thus you will see that the vast majority of links with respect to this were "Israel" & "territories" and EXCLUDING the word "occupied." Most serious scholars and RS news will simply avoid using the term because of the political implications. Stellarkid (talk) 16:37, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
- Thank you for correcting my spelling (I´m not a native English speaker). I´m not sure I like you language though ("gang-bang"), perhaps because I´m female. Having said that: I realize that the "disputed territories" -wording might not be an extreme minority view in Israel (and parts of US?); but in the rest of the world: it is. And this is not a project just for the involved parties in the Middle East. So, if your "alternate view" represents an extreme minority view...well, expect some serious opposition if you try to push it on wp. And yeah; that really should not surprise anyone, Cheers, Huldra (talk) 16:18, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
- I personally see an astounding lack of assumption of good faith from you, which to me is even more astounding in a group that pretends to be a collaborative group. But I digress. I was using the Holocaust to make an honest point, and you see fit to make a jest of it. As to your attempt to turn your disgust instead to the territories that Israel conquered from Jordan is telling enough. Stellarkid (talk) 06:08, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
- Huldra -- I kind of agree that the search for an alternative term to "occupied" is mostly futile, but when you try to impress an Israeli with your neutral Scandinavian credentials, then you really aren't understanding what the effects of the last ten years have been, since a very large number of Israelis are now convinced that Scandinavia is one of the strongest hotbeds of pervading monolithic anti-Israeli sentiment which is not mostly motivated by malign religious bigotry (or which claims not to be, anyway). This impression dates from around that time that convicted Nazi collaborator Hanna Kvanmo started flapping her gums, issuing forth some utterances which stunned millions around the world with their asininity. AnonMoos (talk) 20:51, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
- Firstly: I have never pretended to "impress an Israeli with my neutral Scandinavian credentials". Please. But about Hanna Kvanmo, whaw! ..you must know more about her than I do. That she was convicted of treason: yes (she was 18 years old when WWII ended). But I simply cannot remember a single statement she made about Israel? It is 20 years since she was active in politics... (Jeez, you must be even older than me ;)) Are you sure you are not mixing her up with Kristin Halvorsen? ..I know there was a lot of discussion here about a year ago, as Jerusalem post reported on their web-page that Halvorsen had shouted "Death to the Jews" in a demonstration...it was of course completely false, and Jerusalem post had to withdraw it. Otherwise, I would say the opinion here is very divided on Israel, we still have a strong (mostly religious) support. This guy made headlines a couple of years ago, while he was still the leader of one of the largest political parties, by stating that "God gave Israel to the Jews". But yeah, opinion is changing. The big turning-point, I would say, was 1982, and the invasion of Lebanon. (Reading "Pity the nation" by Fisk made me understand why.) Before 1982, I think somewhere between 90-99% of the population here was 150% behind Israel. Now: nowhere near. And the Gaza war last January also really eroded support. Even the most long-lived supporter of Israel, Haakon Lie, (behind the collection for Yanuv) became critical in the end. Cheers, Huldra (talk) 22:27, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
- Nope, doubt that I've ever heard of Kristin Halvorsen -- but you could have found out echos of the Hanna Kvanmo controversy (which left millions wondering why in heaven's name a convicted Nazi collaborator was ever on the Nobel Peace Prize committee in the first place!) by simply searching for Hanna Kvanmo on English-language Google (which turns up an LA Times obit in the first ten results) or looking at the talk page of the Wikipedia article on her. Between the epic foolishness of Hanna Kvanmo, and millions of people who were cheering on Zvi Mazel for demolishing a so-called "artwork" whose sole and exclusive purpose was to praise and glorify Hanadi Jaradat for having killed over a dozen Jews etc. etc., the Scandinavians have have largely dissipated whatever reservoir of gooodwill they built up in Israel in the 1990s years ago. AnonMoos (talk) 06:40, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
- So that's why they murdered Bernadotte!RolandR (talk) 07:07, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
- Nope, doubt that I've ever heard of Kristin Halvorsen -- but you could have found out echos of the Hanna Kvanmo controversy (which left millions wondering why in heaven's name a convicted Nazi collaborator was ever on the Nobel Peace Prize committee in the first place!) by simply searching for Hanna Kvanmo on English-language Google (which turns up an LA Times obit in the first ten results) or looking at the talk page of the Wikipedia article on her. Between the epic foolishness of Hanna Kvanmo, and millions of people who were cheering on Zvi Mazel for demolishing a so-called "artwork" whose sole and exclusive purpose was to praise and glorify Hanadi Jaradat for having killed over a dozen Jews etc. etc., the Scandinavians have have largely dissipated whatever reservoir of gooodwill they built up in Israel in the 1990s years ago. AnonMoos (talk) 06:40, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
- Firstly: I have never pretended to "impress an Israeli with my neutral Scandinavian credentials". Please. But about Hanna Kvanmo, whaw! ..you must know more about her than I do. That she was convicted of treason: yes (she was 18 years old when WWII ended). But I simply cannot remember a single statement she made about Israel? It is 20 years since she was active in politics... (Jeez, you must be even older than me ;)) Are you sure you are not mixing her up with Kristin Halvorsen? ..I know there was a lot of discussion here about a year ago, as Jerusalem post reported on their web-page that Halvorsen had shouted "Death to the Jews" in a demonstration...it was of course completely false, and Jerusalem post had to withdraw it. Otherwise, I would say the opinion here is very divided on Israel, we still have a strong (mostly religious) support. This guy made headlines a couple of years ago, while he was still the leader of one of the largest political parties, by stating that "God gave Israel to the Jews". But yeah, opinion is changing. The big turning-point, I would say, was 1982, and the invasion of Lebanon. (Reading "Pity the nation" by Fisk made me understand why.) Before 1982, I think somewhere between 90-99% of the population here was 150% behind Israel. Now: nowhere near. And the Gaza war last January also really eroded support. Even the most long-lived supporter of Israel, Haakon Lie, (behind the collection for Yanuv) became critical in the end. Cheers, Huldra (talk) 22:27, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
- Huldra -- I kind of agree that the search for an alternative term to "occupied" is mostly futile, but when you try to impress an Israeli with your neutral Scandinavian credentials, then you really aren't understanding what the effects of the last ten years have been, since a very large number of Israelis are now convinced that Scandinavia is one of the strongest hotbeds of pervading monolithic anti-Israeli sentiment which is not mostly motivated by malign religious bigotry (or which claims not to be, anyway). This impression dates from around that time that convicted Nazi collaborator Hanna Kvanmo started flapping her gums, issuing forth some utterances which stunned millions around the world with their asininity. AnonMoos (talk) 20:51, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
- And as has been demonstrated the links you provided of google searches is meaningless. And most serious scholars and news organization dont "avoid" the term, they say it is occupied but Israel disputes this. nableezy - 16:45, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
And how typical and unsurprising is the view of this "collaboration" group that the position of one of the principals in a 2-way conflict is "a tiny minority view." I guess there is no difference between this group and the "real world." God forbid any real collaboration should go on! [31] Stellarkid (talk) 15:58, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
- Great job answering the problems with your assertions. You say blatantly dishonest things about my userpage, then you put up these google searches like they mean something when you apparently did not even look at the results. When somebody calls you out on either you simply say we are "gang-bang"ing you. Good luck with that. The fact is that the view these territories are not occupied is a "tiny minority view". The overwhelming majority of states, international organizations, and scholars agree that these territories are occupied by Israel. nableezy - 16:11, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
- Blatantly dishonest? I think not. Yes the "overwhelming majority" would include some 25 Arab countries, some 57 who are members of the OIC who band together in their positions against Israel, and other states who are dependent on Arab oil for their economies. The only state that that consistently stands up for Israel is Israel, and sometimes the United States. Buckets of oil money is used for spreading anti-Israel propaganda and has for decades, for demonizing and isolating Israel, not sitting at the table with Israel, etc. It is not surprising at all there you would call Israel's position "a tiny minority" view. People who are totally unwilling to view something from the position of the other side ought not to sitting at the table of a "collaboration" group. Stellarkid (talk) 16:48, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
- Yes, blatantly dishonest. There is not a single thing on my page that advocate "shooting people because of where they live" and to say that there is such a thing is "blatantly dishonest". And people who insist on a false parity between positions that have been rejected as wholly without basis by the ICRC, the International Court, and countless scholars and those that nearly the entire world agrees about ought not to be sitting at the table of a "collaboration" group. nableezy - 16:56, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
- Blatantly dishonest? I think not. Yes the "overwhelming majority" would include some 25 Arab countries, some 57 who are members of the OIC who band together in their positions against Israel, and other states who are dependent on Arab oil for their economies. The only state that that consistently stands up for Israel is Israel, and sometimes the United States. Buckets of oil money is used for spreading anti-Israel propaganda and has for decades, for demonizing and isolating Israel, not sitting at the table with Israel, etc. It is not surprising at all there you would call Israel's position "a tiny minority" view. People who are totally unwilling to view something from the position of the other side ought not to sitting at the table of a "collaboration" group. Stellarkid (talk) 16:48, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
This is what you advocate on your user page: "This user supports the right of all individuals and groups to violently resist military aggression and occupation by other parties." Since you have determined, for instance, that the contested areas are "occupied", you have given yourself permission to "violently" resist "occupation." In other words, shoot those people whom you consider "settlers" in what you consider "occupied." The way I read it, you are supporting your right to kill Israelis based on where they live. As for my position, it is the position of many Israeli supporters, and deserves a place at a "collaborative" table as such, as well as consideration and respect as the only one in disagreement with all your positions. Stellarkid (talk) 17:15, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
- No, not in other words, in your words which oddly enough arent my words. Stop repeating that mindless drivel. It is an absolute lie to say my userpage says anything close to "supporting [a] right to kill Israelis based on where they live". Stop. Now. nableezy - 19:51, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
- Well why don't you explain how you meant those words to be interpreted, then? After all, this is supposed to be a collaboration project. Please relieve me of my ignorance so that I won't repeat such "mindless drivel" in the future. If you don't want to do it on this page, feel free to elaborate on my talk page. Stellarkid (talk) 20:15, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
<- Wiki editors are simply meant to behave like cooperating wiki rule based agents with a common goal of maximising policy compliance on issues like this and on most matters. When an editor isn't wiki rule based or they don't have the goal of maximising policy compliance (for whatever reason, they don't want to, they disagree with it, they don't understand it etc) the system breaks and effective collaboration isn't possible. That is what happens in the I/P conflict topic area again and again. It isn't about willingness and ability to view things. It's about willingness and ability to follow wiki rules and maximise policy compliance. Sean.hoyland - talk 17:21, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
For the record, and since the subject arose. Nableezy's userpage preaches for violence against Israelis. One cannot interpret his words differently. For example, he brings on his userpage a short poem in Arabic saying "May I have a gun in my hand, Take me with you to Palestine, To the sad hill like Magdalena's face, To the green domes and the brown stones". This is probably a copyright violation on the part of Nableezy, but more importantly, it is a clear call for violence against Israelis. Nacnikparos (talk) 09:48, 23 April 2010 (UTC)- Drork, I already told you that is not the translation. The translation is "Now I have a gun, take me to Palestine with you", and the last line you quoted is "to the stones of the prophets". It is a song about a woman who wants to fight with the men, she later sings "O men, I wish to live or die like a man". nableezy - 14:57, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
- Here's my favorite Arabic slogan on my user page: المتبرجة خير من الإرهابي المنتحر -- AnonMoos (talk) 12:56, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
arbitrary break - General discussion on Israeli-occupied territories
Well, this section as gone nowhere. Naturally, I'm with Stellarkid on this one. It saddens me when all some people can do is yell 'the sources say, the sources say'. This collaboration project often does not show too much mature discussion and likewise this explains the lack of pro-Israel editors here. --Shuki (talk) 21:08, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
- Yeah I guess that about says it all. Collaboration-slabboration -- this project is a cover for its opposite. Stellarkid (talk) 05:11, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
- You hear yelling and you're saddened but there isn't yelling. Unomi, who opened this discussion in good faith, behaves like a wiki rule based agent. He makes policy based arguments with the objective of maximising policy compliance. He excludes personal opinions about the real world. He's rational and unemotional. Content discussions have to be source based or they're a waste of time and obviously this isn't meant to be a forum for discussing the real world (or why Stellarkid's understanding of where the world's hydrocarbons come from nowadays is rather out of date) or for making non-policy based content decisions. Editors in a collaboration project could have a mature discussion about something like why the Formation and evolution of the Solar System article apparently seeks to exclude the Australian Aboriginal Dreamtime cosmographies of the hundreds of Australian Aboriginal nations and how this is evidence of systemic bias in the sources and the editor community but there would be no point. We're meant to simply follow wiki policy on content issues. The lack of pro-Israel editors could be explained in a number of ways but personally I think it would be better for the project to have editors who self identify as pro-Wikipedia editors and who accept the potentially-unpleasant-for-them-personally consequences of taking that position. Here is an example of an unpleasant (but hilarious) consequence of following policy. I removed the addition of policy non-compliant category and asked an editor to discuss it on talk page => this message on my talk page titled "Wikipedia dictator wannabe"
- "How does it feel to be an ignorant Falun Gong fan? Do you also like Hitler (most notorious communist killer) and are a blind anticommunist too? Or are you a Scientology follower? I guess that you believe in Santa Claus and flying soccers!"
- For me, there is little difference between this guy's response and much of the so called 'pro-Israel' complaining that goes on here in terms of its benefit to the project and it's relation to policy no matter how polite the complaining may be. Sean.hoyland - talk 05:34, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
Maybe you missed it when I first came in. If I am not mistaken, I came in in good faith, stating a position and backing it up with some references. If I recall, the first bit of lack of good faith or rudeness did not come from me. I'm not gonna "prove it" and I imagine some of you will check to see if they can prove otherwise, but Sean, please don't pretend that you are neutral, because you're not. Accusation directed at "Pro-Israel" editors; "For me, there is little difference between this guy's response and much of the so called 'pro-Israel' complaining that goes on here in terms of its benefit to the project and it's relation to policy no matter how polite the complaining may be." Right sure. The BS about the "pro-Wikipedia editors" (you) vs the "pro-Israel" complainers, here to destroy the project.. Your version is for the benefit of WP, you would have us believe. I have no doubt you believe this, as it is what you said. Stellarkid (talk) 05:56, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
- The thing is that it seems that the high quality sources state quite clearly that they are occupied, I am all for collaboration but in the end we are here to represent the sources. We cannot for the sake of collaboration simply ignore what the sources say. In many matters the compromise between a correct statement and an incorrect statement is an incorrect statement. I have not been able to elucidate just what your factual, source based arguments against their occupied status are, obviously raw ghits fail to reach that bar. Unomi (talk) 09:53, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
- I don't disagree that you have high-quality sources. Nor do I disagree that raw ghits are not. However they were a mere illustration to demonstrate that it is not necessary to use to use a loaded word like "occupied" (which essentially takes a position in advance of negotiation between the parties, which presumably both sides have signed on to), even if there are plenty of sources that support your argument. I would have expanded on that had I not been jumped on and belittled by fellow members of this group. There are plenty of RS (verifiable accuracy) that refer to "contested", "disputed," or "Israeli-controlled" territories. There are other regions that are in dispute in the world, including Kashmir, Tibet, and Cyprus. In the Kashmir article, "occupation" is mentioned only once with respect to occupation by the Chinese, (though not once in connection with the Indians or the Pakistanis) and the term "disputed" is used five times. (Note that there is no POV tag on the article). With respect to Tibet, "dispute" and "disputed territories" is used 5 times, with "occupied" used only once in an external link. Yet Tibet is arguably occupied. (note there is no POV tag on this article either). The Cyprus article mentions "dispute" several times though it does refer several time to the part of the country they call "Turkish-occupied". So there are ways of expressing situations that are in dispute without necessarily slapping an "OCCUPIED" label on everything, which is apparently the intention here. Seeking to provide an ear to both sides of an issue (right or wrong) is what collaboration is really all about. Stellarkid (talk) 17:23, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
- I haven't been involved with either Kashmir, Tibet or Cyprus, I am not familiar with what the sources surrounding them state. If there is a problem of sources not being represented fairly then that is a separate issue.
- With respect to your objection of which essentially takes a position in advance of negotiation, I have to disagree; The land is occupied precisely because its final status has not yet been negotiated. After negotiations it could change hands, it could remain occupied or it could be annexed supported by the world consensus. That is the flow dictated by changes to Right of conquest. It does not describe final outcomes, it describes current status. The problem of 'disputed' in this case is that it is only disputed by a small minority of people and replacing 'occupied' with 'disputed' will lend undue weight to their position. Still, how would you feel about 'disputed Israeli-occupied territory' or 'Israeli disputed occupied territory'? Unomi (talk) 07:03, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
Unomi, a territory with no final agreement about its status is a disputed territory. A territory populated by citizens of certain nationality and controlled by an army of another country against the population's will is occupied. This is how normal English speakers interpret these terms. There is a huge difference between legal language and common language. The word "assault" for example can refer, in the legal context, to a doctor that does his best to heal a person without his/her consent. This is not how this word is used in the common language. Nacnikparos (talk) 09:42, 23 April 2010 (UTC)- By that logic, the West Bank, which is undeniably "populated by citizens of certain nationality and controlled by an army of another country against the population's will", is clearly "occupied". While Israel within the Green Line, which is "a territory with no final agreement about its status", should be defined as "disputed". Is that what you meant to argue? RolandR (talk) 09:49, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
Nice try, but it doesn't work that way. First of all, the West Bank is indeed occupied, no doubt about it, and Israeli authorities don't deny it (though they don't often use the term "occupied" in official publications for PR reasons). Secondly, there are certain areas within Israel proper that you might call disputed, like small areas on the pre-1967 Israeli-Syrian border, which Syria claims (even though they have never been part of Syria). There were also disputed territories within Israel proper along the southern part of the Israeli-Jordanian border, but this dispute is resolved since 1994. If you define the whole territory of Israel as disputed, you will have to explain where this country lies at all. Furthermore, there is no political entity that claims the Israeli territory except Hamas, which is not exactly a legitimized organization. The PA recognizes the Green Line, and countries like Syria or Iran claim Israel should cease to exist, but don't claim its territory. Nacnikparos (talk) 10:04, 23 April 2010 (UTC)- Nacnik, I was hoping that you were a sock from a past user, but I'm already convinced that you are not. Given that, the PA does not recognize the Green Line at all and still insist on the 'right of return' over the Green line. Roland, the 'West Bank' is populated by Israeli nationals and people that don't really have a nationality except Jordanian, but Jordan has relinquished its claim to that land, so your argument does not hold water. --Shuki (talk) 11:37, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
Well, I can't get into people's minds, all I can do is read official statements. According to the PA official statements (the most recent significant one is Fayyad's plan for statehood) they claim the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, not more than that. Nacnikparos (talk) 12:11, 23 April 2010 (UTC)- Nacnikparos has been blocked as a sock of Drork. nableezy - 16:43, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
- Nacnik, I was hoping that you were a sock from a past user, but I'm already convinced that you are not. Given that, the PA does not recognize the Green Line at all and still insist on the 'right of return' over the Green line. Roland, the 'West Bank' is populated by Israeli nationals and people that don't really have a nationality except Jordanian, but Jordan has relinquished its claim to that land, so your argument does not hold water. --Shuki (talk) 11:37, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
- By that logic, the West Bank, which is undeniably "populated by citizens of certain nationality and controlled by an army of another country against the population's will", is clearly "occupied". While Israel within the Green Line, which is "a territory with no final agreement about its status", should be defined as "disputed". Is that what you meant to argue? RolandR (talk) 09:49, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
- I don't disagree that you have high-quality sources. Nor do I disagree that raw ghits are not. However they were a mere illustration to demonstrate that it is not necessary to use to use a loaded word like "occupied" (which essentially takes a position in advance of negotiation between the parties, which presumably both sides have signed on to), even if there are plenty of sources that support your argument. I would have expanded on that had I not been jumped on and belittled by fellow members of this group. There are plenty of RS (verifiable accuracy) that refer to "contested", "disputed," or "Israeli-controlled" territories. There are other regions that are in dispute in the world, including Kashmir, Tibet, and Cyprus. In the Kashmir article, "occupation" is mentioned only once with respect to occupation by the Chinese, (though not once in connection with the Indians or the Pakistanis) and the term "disputed" is used five times. (Note that there is no POV tag on the article). With respect to Tibet, "dispute" and "disputed territories" is used 5 times, with "occupied" used only once in an external link. Yet Tibet is arguably occupied. (note there is no POV tag on this article either). The Cyprus article mentions "dispute" several times though it does refer several time to the part of the country they call "Turkish-occupied". So there are ways of expressing situations that are in dispute without necessarily slapping an "OCCUPIED" label on everything, which is apparently the intention here. Seeking to provide an ear to both sides of an issue (right or wrong) is what collaboration is really all about. Stellarkid (talk) 17:23, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
- RolandR -- traditionally the Israeli government has made a point of very specifically denying that the Gaza Strip and West Bank belong to "another country" and they have a certain limited point (though not one which would appear to materially affect whether the term "occupied" can be used), since Gaza has been in a kind of extraterritorial limbo for the past 60 years and more (it was never claimed to be annexed either by Egypt or by Israel), while Transjordan's annexation of the West Bank was only recognized by 2 or 3 other countries in the world, and king Hussein formally renounced all territorial claims about 20 years ago. The question "What other country??" does not actually have a very simple legal answer.
- Nacnikparos -- If Syria is still nattering on about the 1948-1949 armistice "demilitarized zones", then that's of rather purely antiquarian interest by this point, and certainly will not have any discernible influence on any Israeli-Syrian negotiations (unless Syria chooses to dredge it up as an artificial excuse for its unwillingness to negotiate). The more substantive territorial contention between Israel and Syria is actually the British mandate ten-meter strip along the northeastern shore of the Sea of Galilee (which made the Sea of Galilee an entirely enclosed British Mandate lake, but which Syria overran in the fighting in 1948 and annexed -- even though according to a British-French agreement setting the international Palestine Mandate-Syria border, it was not Syrian). AnonMoos (talk) 12:19, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
A proposal has been made to rename Israel and the apartheid analogy. Please weigh in at Talk:Israel and the apartheid analogy#Rename proposal - first steps. Thank you. — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 20:19, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
Sami Al-Arian and Steve Emerson articles
I have added tags to both these articles and voiced my concerns on the talk page. I haven't made any edits because I'm pretty confident that any changes I make will result in a long drawn out edit war. Life is frankly too short to get involved in another one of those and I frankly just don't have the strength right now. Basically I'm posting here hoping someone will take up the cause to make both these articles better because in my opinion there both atrocious in there current form. Thanks largely to an editor named Epeefleche Sami Al Arian has been made too look like a terrorist even though it has never been proven that he was involved in anything violent. I happen to be believe that Al-Arian is one of those people who got railroaded by the American justice system in post 9-11 hysteria and I believe it's a shame that the wikipedia article on him has become so bias against him. Epeefleche has also gone out of his way to turn the article on Steve Emerson into a puff piece. I left a post on Zero000s talk page about this and he agreed with me that the article on Emerson has essentially become an advertisement for his views, but Zero000 said he was too busy at the moment to get involved with the article. I hope that by posting on this forum that a few like a few like minded souls who have more courage than I do will be willing to make both these articles better. annoynmous 08:55, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
- The critical point is that most of his federal legal troubles seem to stem from the fact that influential federal officials felt that he was lying about what he knew about Ramadan Abdullah Mohammad Shallah. Past versions of the article have somewhat skipped over this, and the article should not be rewritten in such a way as to obscure it more than it is... AnonMoos (talk) 14:47, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
Fine, he lied about knowing somebody, that isn't terrorism. So what if Federal officials believe that, the fact of matter is that the only thing they could prove is that he continued to associate with people from Palestine Islamic Jihad after they were designated a terrorist group helped some people with Visa issues. An that only happened because he agreed to a plea agreement in order to get out of jail. The article still has in that "he was alleged to have done this or that" even though all those charges have been dismissed. annoynmous 20:48, 27 April 2010
- If I recall, you removed the part in the article that said what was the charge he pleaded guilty to. You changed this:
- In 2006, Al-Arian pleaded guilty to conspiracy to help a "specially designated terrorist" organization, PIJ, and was sentenced to 57 months in prison.[1]
to-
- However Al-Arian was acquitted on 8 of the charges against and another 8 were dropped after he plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to help a "specially designated terrorist" organization, PIJ, and was sentenced to 57 months in prison. No evidence was ever offered that connected Al-Arian to anything violent.[1]
- Your change and attempted support of Al-Arian is inappropriate in this article on Emerson. Perhaps something of this nature might be correct in the Al-Arian article, but the fact of the matter is that he pleaded guilty to this charge and got 57 months. Whether there was evidence of violence is merely a red herring & the fact that he was acquitted on some charges and that others were dropped is simply POV filler. Stellarkid (talk) 22:01, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
- I simply changed it so that it was factually correct. The fact of matter is that 16 of the 17 charges against him were dropped. He was never found guilty of terrorism. He certianly was never found to be the North American Head of islamic Jihad as Emerson claimed. If you read the plea agreement all Al-Arian admitted to was to having phone conversations and to helping certain people with there visa applications. The point is that the way it was originally phrased made it seem like Emerson was right about Al-Arian when in fact he was mostly wrong. annoynmous 21:11, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
Annoynmous -- the circumstances of Al-Arian's association with Ramadan Abdullah Mohammad Shallah created great suspicion, and when he was asked about it, he maintained a blanket unwavering Sergeant Schultz "I know nothing" stance about the whole matter. As a result, some federal law enforcement officers were convinced he was lying, and that seems to have been when most of his legal troubles started to unfold. I regard it as quite likely that Al-Arian knew more than he claimed to know about Ramadan Abdullah Mohammad Shallah (though not necessarily anything very incriminating, or very "operationally useful" in an intelligence sense), and that if he had been fully open and forthcoming about Ramadan Abdullah Mohammad Shallah from the beginning, then he would have been spared most of his legal tribulations -- in which case it's hard to know whether to feel much sympathy for him, since he would appear to have brought down most of his problems down upon himself by his own actions. Of course the Wikipedia article can't speculate on counterfactuals, but it should reflect the fact that it's reasonably clear that the initial Ramadan Abdullah Mohammad Shallah investigation was the catalyst for much of what followed, as far as the federal government was concerned... AnonMoos (talk) 01:58, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
- Since when do we arrest and put in jail people we "greatly suspect". I thought we convicted people based on evidence, not suspicions. I could care less what federal authorities believed, the relevant issue is what did they prove and the answer is nothing.
- Are you seriously saying that Al-Arian deserved to be put an jail and virtually have his life ruined because he wasn't forthcoming enough to the authorities about someone he may or not have known. I don't regard that as just, I regard that as a political witchhunt that smeared a decent man who's only crime was that he was angry about the Israel/plaestine issue. In my opinion it's clear Al-Arian was persecuted for his beliefs and not for any crimes he supposedly commited.
- At the very least if we criticize Al-arian for associating with some shady people, we should at least say that it's wrong to through someone in jail for that and basically ruin there life. annoynmous 03:45, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
- Dude, there's a significant likelihood that when Al-Arian got caught up in the FBI investigation of the Ramadan Abdullah Mohammad Shallah affair, Al-Arian started his interactions with federal law-enforcement officers by lying to them pretty much the first thing (you yourself have admitted that this is a possibility). If this was the case, then independent of all considerations of morality and law, it was a really stupid decision which came back around to bite him on the ass. The feds couldn't prove that Al-Arian was criminally obstructing the Ramadan Abdullah Mohammad Shallah investigation, so eventually they convicted him on another charge (just like they got Al Capone on tax evasion). AnonMoos (talk) 15:21, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
- So Sami-Al Arian is Al Capone now. They didn't convict him on anything, he plead guilty to one count after they failed to prove the case on all the other counts. From what I can gather Al-Arian has basically said he only plead guilty so he could get out of prison. Yes the FBI suspected him of something and there supicions turned out to be wrong. All I admitted to was that Al-Arian may have had some associations with some shady people, thats not criminal. It's like saying that if you grow up in a neighborhood with gangsters and some of them become your friends and later in life you help one of them with a lone to by a business, that somehow that means your a gangster two. Even if you know that there gonna use this lone for illegal activities, okay that's bad judgement, it's not criminal. Know if it turned out that you ran a business that laundered your friends dirty money that's a different matter, but no one ever proved Al-Arian did anything like that.
- Plus I don't like this idea that Al-Arian deserved to be locked away in solitary confinement for many years because he didn't answer the FBI's questions right. annoynmous 20:42, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
Annoynmous on Epeefleche
As a follow up the post above it appears that the situation is worse than I thought. Epeefleche is and editor with over 40,000 edits and until recently all his edits were sports related. He did make some edits to articles dealing with middle east issues when he first started out, but over the last 6 months sense the Nidal hassan shooting he's contributed a huge amount to articles dealing with Islam and middle eastern issues. Just about every article I can find that he's edited is in my opinion greatly slanted against muslims and islamic issues. You take your pick from the two I listed above to Moazzam Begg and the Islamic Society of North America and theres probably dozens more that I'm not aware of at this moment.
I'm engaged with him on the two articles mentioned above, but this is a crisis that can't be solved by one editor. I need help from like minded souls otherwise I'm going to give up because I don't feel like engaging in another nasty edit war. They leave you in a depressed state and aren't worth the trouble if nothing is gonna come of it. I'm sounding the alarm that people need to aware of Epeefleche's edits. I think everyone who wants a wikipedia that gives a balanced view of the Israel/Palestine debate will be as concerned as I am about this matter. annoynmous 08:46, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
- First best not to use people's names/handles in subject lines and especially to draw comparisons, as frustrating as this might be. Feel free to just delete the line, and make it part of previous post, especially in light of the following.
- I agree with your concern, having run into this editor on a couple of pages and I think this might be a matter to report to Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Arbitration_enforcement per Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Palestine-Israel_articles. However, you have to have a tight, factual case citing the 2 or 3 worst examples from each article. It could lead to a temporary or permanent ban from the subjects he's most biased on. If you want comments on making it more effective, make a draft talk page from your home page and ask for comments.
- If others think there is someplace else to go first, do tell. But given it is the same issue over a number of articles, that would seem best thing to do. I'm sure there have been people sanctioned for less. CarolMooreDC (talk) 15:10, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
- The title of this section, the way the content is presented, and the fact that it is presented here, could be taken as a personal attack or pre-emptive smear against Jayjg and Epeefleche. I would highly suggest it be removed and brought up in a more appropriate place, like AN/I. Just my two cents. --nsaum75¡שיחת! 19:39, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
I'm not intending as a smear, I'm simply stating it as my opinion. I simply feel that Epeefleche has biased many articles on wikipedia dealing with Middle East issues that I felt I should warn people. I haven't accused him of violating wiki policy, I'm just stating my opinion of his edits.annoynmous 20:48, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
I got rid of subject line per suggestions above. While I feel Epeefleches edits are biased, I agree that the subject line could be seen as inflammatory. annoynmous 20:58, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
I've decided to replace the previous heading with one that just simply mentions his name.annoynmous 21:05, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
- This belongs at AN/I or A/E. Using a Wikiproject talk page to "warn people" about certain editors is still a personal attack. Project talk pages should be used to discuss content, not other editors. Discussions about other editors belong on their own talk pages or on the respective administrative action noticeboards. --nsaum75¡שיחת! 02:17, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
- Look I posted here because I have problems with Epeefleches edits on a great many articles and I wanted to alert people to them. I'm not advocating any vendetta against him, I'm only hoping that others who have the same problems I do with some of the articles I do will go to those articles and try and improve them.
- A problem with wikipedia is that often times if you have a problem with an article your often alone in your efforts because other editors don't know about it or don't want to get involved in the hassle that will result from getting involved. I can sympathize because editor wars I've been involved in have left in a depressed state and have made me want to quite wikipedia altogether. That's why I'm doing this so I'm not alone in these efforts. I not advocating that epeefleche be banned or anything, I'm just saying that other editors may want to look at his edits. annoynmous 03:54, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
- Comment This belongs at AN/I or A/E, and not here. Thanks. Ism schism (talk) 08:30, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
- I agree that Anonymous' "warning" is inappropriate. Try WP:RFC or WP:3O. Further, anytime you do something like this, you should notify the other editor. Maurreen (talk) 08:37, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
- The other editor knows about it now. Plus I'm not trying to ban him or discipline him in any way. I'm merely trying to draw attention to his edits in the hope that others would take a look at the articles he's edited.
- I want to ask, If I remove the title heading and make this discussion part of the one above, would that solve the problem? annoynmous 20:51, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
- I think you are showing good faith in that you are "not trying to ban him or discipline him in any way." This should be a place for dialogue. Thanks. Ism schism (talk) 01:47, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
As I said above, the title and reference to Jayjg inflammatory. However, the issue of whether an editor's edits across a number of articles is something that should be brought to Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Arbitration_enforcement per Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Palestine-Israel_articles is something that someone should free to ask here; or to ask for help in doing it the right way. This project arose out of the Arbitration. It is recommended on Wikipedia:WikiProject_Israel_Palestine_Collaboration that if people can't otherwise resolve and issue they consider Arbitration enforcement. Therefore asking for help with recalcitrant editors (especially over several articles) and discussing the possibility of enforcement on specific issues is appropriate here, IMHO. CarolMooreDC (talk) 02:38, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
- Reply The ad hominem attacks must stop. Thanks. Ism schism (talk) 03:33, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
- I don't feel I've made any ad hominem attacks. I acknowledge I made a mistake with the Jayjg heading and I apologize for that. The strongest I've ever gotten in describing epeefleche is that I once on a talk page referred to his editing habits as a "crusade". If some people consider that offensive than I'll say I'm sorry and promise not to use such statements in the future. Other than that all I've ever done is criticize what I feel is a biased editing pattern. My opinion, I'm not claiming it as some devine truth.
- As I understand it the noticeboards mentioned above are usually for discplining an editor. As I've said I'm not looking to do that. annoynmous 05:27, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
Epeefleche has basically restored the Steve Emerson article to a previous version that both I and John Z rejected. John Z is busy and says he won't be available till the weekend and I'm on the edge of a 3rr and can't make any edits right now. I'm at the point where I feel this isn't worth it anymore because Epeefleche has Stellarkid supporting him and I don't feel like getting ganged up on by two editors. annoynmous 12:38, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
West Bank template image
An editor has raised concerns about the image used in Template:West_Bank.
I've uploaded a potential alternative, CIA interpreted SPOT 5 coverage of the West Bank.
See Talk:West_Bank#request_for_change for details.
Sean.hoyland - talk 11:19, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
RfM: List of national parks and nature reserves in Israel
I have proposed a move since it contains areas in the occupied territories: [32] --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 18:14, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
UN Res 194
United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194 contains the Nakba template. I believe this is inappropriate as the res is about more than that with implications on both sides. I brought it up at the talk page but have got no reply. User:Dailycare has been working on a template specific to UN resolutions that might be more appropriate. I would in the meantime like to delete the template that is there as inappropriate and POV. Stellarkid (talk) 17:31, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
Multiple articles - the founding myths of Israel
A number of articles recite well-known Zionist viewpoints in the neutral voice of the encyclopedia. Attempts to add opposing viewpoints contained in works marketed by the textbook divisions of Routledge, Cambridge University, and MacMillan-Palgrave have resulted in reverts and bizarre claims that the authors of the textbooks are misquoting sources, lying, promoting fringe theories that are out-of-the-mainstream, or have nothing new or interesting to say on the subject. The authors in question include Ilan Pappe, Avi Shlaim, Eugene Rogan, Benny Morris, and many others. There is clear evidence regarding the acceptance of their views by mainstream groups and academics outside Israel that are independent of their theories.
The published Wikipedia policy says that articles should describe all significant views in accordance with their prominence, and fairly weight the authority accorded each view in the relevant scholarly community with the aim of providing neutral, encyclopedic coverage about the issues and the positions of all the interested parties. Wikipedia policy requires editors to document the level of acceptance within the relevant academic community with reliable sources. See Wikipedia:Fringe theories, Reporting on the levels of acceptance. Wikipedia:ARBPIA requires that they utilize reliable sources to document their disputed or contentious assertions. It appears that a centralized community discussion on the New Historians and Critical Sociologists is in order. Here are some relevant sources which indicate mainstream acceptance:
- L. Carl Brown, reviewed the controversy between Israel's old and new historians. He criticized historians who had claimed that the new historians' "point of departure was political and moralistic rather than academic." According to Brown, "One would have thought that orthodoxy and heterodoxy share politicizing and moralizing about equally." See State of Grace? Rethinking Israel's Founding Myths in Foreign Affairs Magazine [33]
- Prof. Sanford R. Silverburg, reviewed Simha Flapan's The Birth of Israel: Myths and Realities in The Library Journal and said "Though bound to create controversy, this is essential for those interested in Middle Eastern history or the politics of the Arab-Israeli conflict."[34]
- Neil Caplan wrote a review article: "Zionism and the Arabs: Another Look at the 'New' Historiography", in the Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 36, No. 2 (Apr., 2001), pp. 345-360. The works he reviewed were: Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881-1999 by Benny Morris; The Israel/Palestine Question by Ilan Pappe; and The Politics of Partition: King Abdullah, the Zionists and Palestine, 1921-1951 by Avi Shlaim. He noted that the views of Baruch Kimmerling, the late Simha Flapan, Benny Morris, Tom Segev, Avi Shlaim, Gershon Shafir, Uri Ram, Ilan Pappe and Zeev Sternhell had been incorporated into mainstream textbooks. He said that no serious student of the history of the Zionist-Arab conflict can ignore these publications; that they are important and impressive; and cannot be dismissed simply because of their unpleasant revelations or political slant.
- Elie Podeh has written articles that appeared in the Journal History and Memory, and a book length treatment of "The Arab-Israeli conflict in Israeli history textbooks, 1948-2000" [35] which illustrated that the views of the New Historians and Critical Sociologists had been incorporated in Israeli textbooks.
- Ethan Bonner has worked as the Jerusalem corespondent for the Boston Globe, Reuters, and the New York Times. He also served as the Education Editor for the New York Times. He wrote about the adoption of textbooks containing the views of the New Historians and said that Israel's State archives contain clear evidence of double deals, schemes to transfer Arabs out of the country and rebuffed gestures of peace by the Arab states. Bonner said Morris book was a first-class work of history, bringing together the latest scholarship and that there is no question that Shlaim presented compelling evidence for a revaluation of traditional Israeli history. See Israel: The Revised Edition [36] harlan (talk) 21:44, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
- Harlan -- does this mean that you're going to stop pushing your own "fringe" historical revisionism, which involves you eternally coming up with new and innovative personal theories to somehow try to overturn the basic facts of history as accepted by the mainstream consensus of reputable scholars in the field (such as that the Arabs -- in formal public statements issued by Arab governments and the recognized representative institutions of the Arabs of the British mandate of Palestine -- REJECTED the November 29th 1947 UNGA 181 United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine in 1947 or early 1948, while the formal public statements issued by the recognized representative institutions of the Jews of the British mandate of Palestine ACCEPTED the United Nations Partition Plan for November 29th 1947 UNGA 181 Palestine in 1947 or early 1948)[2]? In any case, much of the school whose works you're pushing is really a phenomenon of about 15 years ago -- and since then, Benny Morris has significantly revised some of his findings, while there have been challenges to some of the conclusions of other works of the school. AnonMoos (talk) 22:54, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
- AnonMoos, Wikipedia says "Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment." I'd settle for a project where we can cite the material in my college-aged kid's Middle East Studies textbook without you throwing a tantrum. harlan (talk) 23:57, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
- That's nice high-flown abstract idealistic sounding verbal rhetoric -- but in your concrete actions, you seem to be trying to deny the right of "every single human being" to "freely share in the... knowledge" that the mainstream consensus of basic historical fact as accepted by reputable scholars in the field is that the Jews accepted the 1947 partition plan, while the Arabs rejected it... AnonMoos (talk) 00:37, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
- AnonMoos I'm not removing that viewpoint from the article, I'm trying to add the opposing view that it was a myth that the Jewish leadership accepted the plan and that it was a myth that the Arabs rejected the plan and prepared for war. You cite Wahlid Kahlidi here, but removed the background material and cites to his journal articles which discussed the partition plan: Revisiting the UNGA Partition Resolution and Plan Dalet Revisited. Sami Al-Arian doesn't have anything to do with this topic and I haven't edited any articles about him. Are you acting out again or what? harlan (talk) 02:00, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
- That's nice -- however, Wikipedia is not "neutral" between the "opposing views" that the earth is round and that the earth is flat. As I said long ago, somewhere near the beginning of all the nonsense connected with the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine article, if "revisionist" historiography has achieved some degree of prominence, then it can be mentioned in the proper place in the article -- but that proper place is not the lead section of the article up at the top, and there can be no phoney symmetry or "balance" between what is accepted by the mainstream consensus of reputable scholarship and what is not accepted. I downloaded the first PDF file that you linked to ("Walid" is not spelled with an "h" by the way), and it contained a completely unscholarly ranting propaganda tirade without the slightest pretensions to objectivity or any form of serious study of history. The first 15 pages (or 3/4ths) of this document consist solely of a Jeremiad Philippic on how eeeeeeeevil the UN partition plan was, and how eeeeeeeeeeevil the Jews were continuously from 1897 to 1947, without one single moment's cessation. In the remaining 3 pages where he actually touches on matters relevant to the main point being discussed here, he nowhere says that the Arabs accepted the 1947 partition plan (and he's clearly of the opinion that the Arabs never should have considered even for a millisecond the possibility of accepting the 1947 partition plan), and he clearly says that the Jews DID actually accept the 1947 partition plan. So he actually provides no support whatsoever for your position with respect to the central issue which has been generating most of the endless tedious tiresome discussions on the talk page of United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine (as I would have predicted from what he said in the Encyclopedia Britannica article subsection which I've referenced). I'm afraid that the rather cavalier attitude you take toward "sources" (which often seem to be of rather dubious quality anyway) — as shown again by this little incident — is exactly why I haven't taken the piling on of bibliographic citations by you very seriously for a long time now... AnonMoos (talk) 08:50, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
(outdent) The New Historians are not saying the earth is flat. There are policies and procedures in place that you can use if you want to establish that they are advancing a "fringe theory". Do you in fact have any reliable sources to support the claim that their views are not accepted by mainstream academics or that they deserve less weight? harlan (talk) 14:16, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
- Harlan -- the so-called "new historiography" (which is not actually all that new anymore, as I mentioned above) is not in general equivalent to a flat earth theory, but your own personal theories that the Arabs somehow supposedly did not reject the 1947 UN partition plan and/or that the Jews somehow supposedly did not accept the 1947 UN partition plan ARE in fact equivalent to a flat earth theory. There's no use in trying to move on to advanced points connected with the so-called "new historiography" until you first stop trying to push your personal fringe flat-earth theories -- a futile attempt at historical revisionism which has already generated hundreds of kilobytes of tiresome, tedious, monotonous discussions on the talk page and talk page archives of the partition plan article. AnonMoos (talk) 09:08, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
- A few points:
- First, the fact that the Arabs rejected the plan while the Jews accepted it is the absolute mainstream view. A sampling of sources to this can be found in State of Palestine#Background; a great multitude of them can be easily found by searching, for instance, Google books. I'm not going to bother citing dozens of books here; everyone can review this themselves.
- Second, even the "New historians" (Flappan, Morris, etc.) don't challenge the basic point - Jews said yes, Arabs said no. This much is clear fact, known to everyone, present in all historical and contemporary sources.
- Third, what the new historians claim is that although the Jewish leadership said 'yes', they really planned to prevent the creation of an Arab state. However, this amount to crystal-balling, a 'what-if' scenario. The basic premise is that had the Arabs accepted, it 'wouldn't have mattered'. But here it doesn't even matter if their views are accepted - their claim is irrelevant. No one can know for sure what might have happened, and all of the Jews' actions were taken in light of Arab rejection. It boiled down to a simple 'yes' and 'no' on November 1947. Thus, when saying the Jews accepted and the Arabs rejected, there's no question of mainstream and minority views. This is unquestionable fact. Had we said "the Jews lovingly embraced the plan, and had every intention of helping the Arabs establish a state, acknowledging their right to one", we might have had to mention other views.
- Fourth, and this is a major one - it isn't even important whether harlan's claims are completely irrelevant (as I've explained in section three), are fringe, are merely minority. In the article about a subject, we need to mention the significant viewpoints. We do not need to do so in every single article where something is mentioned (or every article would be some 10MB in length). When a subject is mentioned in another article, we merely need to use the mainstream view. okedem (talk) 07:39, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
(outdent) Okedem, nobody is removing the viewpoint that the Arabs rejected the plan while the Jews accepted it from articles or adding 10MB to them. Here are three mainstream viewpoints that you removed from the State of Palestine article:
- "Simha Flapan said it was a myth that Zionists accepted the UN partition and planned for peace, and it was also a myth that Arabs rejected partition and launched a war. The Birth of Israel: Myths and Realities, by Simha Flapan, Pantheon, 1988, ISBN 0-679-72098-7, Myth One pages 13-54, Myth Two pages 55-80.
- James Crawford said Israel was created by the use of force, without the consent of any previous sovereign and without complying with the partition plan. Guy S. Goodwin-Gill, and Stefan Talmon, eds., The Reality of International Law: Essays in Honour of Ian Brownlie (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999) 108
- According to Clea Bunch, President Truman viewed Israel and Jordan as twin emergent states. Clea Lutz Bunch, "Balancing Acts: Jordan and the United States during the Johnson Administration," Canadian Journal of History 41.3 (2006) harlan (talk) 14:16, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
- Harlan wrote: "Wikipedia:ARBPIA requires that they utilize reliable sources to document their disputed or contentious assertions." And that's why this is relevant here because this is being done at a number of articles. While it's news to me that Arabs accepted the plan, Zionist leaders from the 19th century expressed their desire to kick the Arabs off their land and expand Israel to a much larger size than the UN partition plan. But looking at the two most relevant articles Ethnic Cleansing and Greater Israel one would think that only fringes or the Likkud had promoted those views. I'm sure anyone daring to add WP:RS info on mainstream Zionist leaders expansionism would have a hard time. Anyway, have you tried WP:RSN and WP:NPOVN??? CarolMooreDC (talk) 21:18, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
- It's news to you because it's Harlan's own personal innovative theory, and it's complete historical nonsense. We can discus how generally eeeeeeeeeeeeeeevil the Jews were on some other occasion, but right now this is about trying to prevent Harlan from overturning the basic accepted facts of mainstream historical scholarship (i.e. that the Jews accepted the UN partition plan in 1947 / early 1948, while the Arabs rejected the UN partition plan in 1947 / early 1948) and replacing it with his own original research fringe theory. AnonMoos (talk) 09:15, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
- AnonMoos, we cannot discuss how generally "eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeevil" the Jews were, and I'd appreciate you cease using that phrase in this discussion, because its not relevant and comes off as soapboxing.
- What is relevant is that many historians have put forward the notion that while the Zionist leadership publicly accepted the partition plan, they had other intentions, and privately expressed their reservations and disappointments with it, looking to it as a steeping stone to larger territorial gains in Palestine. As for the Arabs, privately some in that multifaceted leadership were privately indicating their acceptance of partition to gain their own leadership advantages in the "carve-out-a-country" and "put-in-a puppet-government" colonial sale the European powers had on offer at the time.
- Harlan is right to try to include these well documented and significant POVs in relevant articles on the subject. What is wrong is giving this discussion too much space is remotely related articles which becomes an issue only when some people try to pretend there is only one legitimate POV here and express it in Wiki's neutral voice. Tiamuttalk 07:17, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
- Tiamut, what's you're saying has nothing to do with POVs or new notions by new historians. It is a matter of level of detail.
- The discussions and different views within the Jewish leadership regarding partition are well known and documented (yes, by "old" historians). Some opposed partition, but the majority supported it, understanding the need to compromise. It doesn't mean that every single Jew, or every single Zionist leadership member loved the notion, or even supported it, so you can always find quotes of this person or that against partition (often as a larger argument for it, actually) but that majority did support, and that was the official position. Some may have indeed viewed it as a "stepping stone", but that is of little importance, and their future actions are merely conjecture. All we know for sure is their actions (saying 'Yes'), not their possible intentions.
- Naturally, the Arab response was not completely monolithic, though it was way more uniform than the Jewish position, and dissenters very rarely, if ever, voiced support for partition (you used the adjective "privately" twice, and "indicating" instead of "supported"). No one claims every single Jew supported, and every single Arab opposed. The question is the majority or the leadership.
- Now, the complexities are certainly of interest, but in the article about the plan itself. In other articles, where the plan is mentioned, there no need or justification to go into this level of detail. Similarly, when we mention the official British (for example) position on something, we don't discuss the opinion of every single opposition member, or dissenting cabinet member. It is obvious that decisions and position are generally not supported by 100% of the people, or of the leadership (which is why we specifically mention when some resolution is passed unanimously). okedem (talk) 09:11, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
- Tiamut -- I really don't see what saying that there were deep-laid Machiavellian conniving aggressive expansionist secret scheming plans pursued consistently over decades is, if it's not demonization of Jews. And yes, Harlan can include references to actual real "new" historiography in the article, if he does so in a manner which reflects that some of the conclusions of the "new" historiographers have not gone unchallenged, and that not every off-hand remark by a "new" historiographer is always to be presented as absolute unassailable 100% Gospel truth. What Harlan CAN'T do is do include in Wikipedia articles his own personal version of the "new" historiography, where by means of introspective meditation on the texts of primary source documents, Harlan comes up with his own personal innovative metaphysical speculative hypothetical counterfactual theories, which attempt to overturn basic facts of history as accepted by the mainstream consensus of reputable scholars in the area -- such as that in all relevant public official or quasi-official pronouncements, the Arabs rejected the UN 1947 partition plan, while the Jews accepted it... AnonMoos (talk) 12:56, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
- AnonMoos, assuming good faith is incompatible with an assumption that everyone who offers a less than glowingly complimentary assessment of the Zionist leadership's aims in Palestine (i.e. tends to be skeptical of their publicly stated aims) is secretly out to demonize the Jews. It is often the case that the political leadership of various national groups says one thing when they mean another. To point this out does not necessarily imply that the national group they represent is inherently dishonest. It would greatly help this discussion if you would stop insinuating that your fellow editors are anti-Semites. Tiamuttalk 14:34, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
- "Unflattering" has very little to do with it -- they can be as "unflattering" about the Yishuv leadership as they want, as long as such unflattering assertions have some kind of remote basis in fact and/or some remote relationship to improving a Wikipedia article. However, maintaining that there was some deep-laid Machiavellian aggressive expansionistic Master Plan which the cunning conniving scheming Jews consistently followed over decades is a purely nonsensical conspiracy theory, which I'm not going to pretend is anything else other than a nonsensical conspiracy theory... AnonMoos (talk) 22:40, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
- I have great difficulty understanding why, when your fellow editors point out problems in your comments, that instead of heeding their requests for you to abide by the policy, you instead to choose to continue to repeat the offensive statements in question. No one is using the phraseology you have used. Everything actually said has had source material presented (in abundance) to back it up. This is a discussion page for people interested in collaborating collegially with one another to solve longstanding problems in the I-P arena - and is not a place for hurling thinly veiled insults based on existing prejudices and inferences. Please stop. Tiamuttalk 07:32, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
- "Unflattering" has very little to do with it -- they can be as "unflattering" about the Yishuv leadership as they want, as long as such unflattering assertions have some kind of remote basis in fact and/or some remote relationship to improving a Wikipedia article. However, maintaining that there was some deep-laid Machiavellian aggressive expansionistic Master Plan which the cunning conniving scheming Jews consistently followed over decades is a purely nonsensical conspiracy theory, which I'm not going to pretend is anything else other than a nonsensical conspiracy theory... AnonMoos (talk) 22:40, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
Ṛ
Original discussion about content restrictions
I would only point out that every time AnonMoos cites an actual example of one of my "personal theories", it invariably is contained in one or more published sources in a talk page discussion he has participated in.
The central discussion I'm trying to start deals with whether or not the final decision in [Wikipedia:ARBPIA]] constitutes a content restriction that requires editors to utilize reliable sources to document their disputed or contentious assertions. In other words, Can editors engage in endless editorial conflict across multiple articles; assert there is only one mainstream viewpoint; remove other well-sourced material that represents opposing views; and then refuse to cite reliable published sources which prove that those views are actually considered fringe theories by the relevant academic communities?
- The Peel Commission had recommended the partition of Palestine between a Jewish State and an Arab State, including Transjordan, with a British administered Corpus Separatum. The US Consul General at Jerusalem told the State Department that the Mufti refused the principle of partition and declined to consider it. He said the Emir Abdullah of Transjordan urged acceptance on the ground that realities must be faced. The Consul also noted that Nashashibi side-stepped the principle, but was willing to negotiate for favorable modifications. See the FRUS [37] and H. Eugene Bovis, The Jerusalem question, 1917-1968, Hoover Press, 1971, ISBN 0817932917, page 26 [38]
- Joseph Heller wrote that Ben Gurion and Shertok discussed a plan similar to the Peel proposal with members of the Grady-Morrison Commission. Heller said that Sasson went to Egypt, and that with the exception of Saudi Arabia there was unanimous support for partition among the Arab League. Sasson proposed a union of the Jewish state with Transjordan under Abdullah. See Joseph Heller, The birth of Israel, 1945-1949: Ben-Gurion and his critics, University Press of Florida, 2000, ISBN 0813017327, pages 82-83 [39]
- On page 2 of Refabricating 1948.pdf, Benny Morris says that entire issues or large parts of serious academic journals had been devoted to New Historiography and that books and articles by the New Historians are taught in all of Israel's universities and in a variety of courses and disciplines (history, sociology, political science, etc.), not to mention in most universities outside Israel.
- In pages 7-14 Morris says there was an agreement between the Yishuv and the Hashemites to partition Palestine between themselves. Morris says that British Foreign Secretary Bevin had given the green light for the Arab Legion to occupy the territory allocated to the Arab state, after the Prime Minister of Transjordan explained that Abdullah had received hundreds of petitions from Palestinian notables requesting protection upon the withdrawal of the British forces. Morris says Abdullah honored the agreement.
- Eugene Rogan says that petitions requesting protection, from nearly every town and village in Palestine, are preserved in "The Hashemite Documents: The Papers of Abdullah bin al-Husayn, volume V: Palestine 1948 (Amman 1995)". see Chapter 5, Jordan and 1948, in "The war for Palestine: rewriting the history of 1948", By Eugene L. Rogan, and Avi Shlaim, Cambridge University Press, 2001.
- Benny Morris, Simha Flapan, Shlomo Ben Ami & etc. cite statements made by Ben Gurion, Weizmann and other Zionist leaders who said they had no intention of abiding by the terms of the partition proposals that they were advancing. They also say that Ben Gurion had been meticulously preparing for war ever since the Arab Revolt and that he personally ordered the development of the Avner Plan and its successors, like Plan Dalet, in order to pursue territorial expansion beyond the borders of the partition plans in conjunction with the British withdrawal. Ben Gurion told the Zionist Executive "After the formation of a large army in the wake of the establishment of the state, we will abolish partition and expand to the whole of Palestine" See Simha Flapan "The Birth of Israel, Myths and realities, page 22.
- Flapan and Morris both cite a letter Ben Gurion had published as evidence of his intentions to use partition as a tactic in the conquest of Palestine. Ben Gurion told his son that he was in favor of partition because he didn't envision a partial Jewish state as the end of the process. According to Ben Gurion "What we want is not that the country be united and whole, but that the united and whole country be Jewish." He explained that he was organizing a first-class army that would permit the Zionists to settle in the rest of the country with or without the consent of the Arabs. See David Ben-Gurion, Letters to Paula and the Children, translated by Aubry Hodes, University of Pittsburg Press, 1971, page 153; Simha Flapan "The Birth of Israel, Myths and realities, Pantheon Books, 1987, ISBN 0-394-55888-X, page 22; Benny Morris "Righteous victims: a history of the Zionist-Arab conflict, 1881-1999", Knopf, 1999, ISBN: 0679421203, page 138.
Here are a small sample of the historical documents that are cited by Simha Flapan, Benny Morris, Elmer Berger, Avi Shlaim, Eugene Rogan, & etc.
- The US Minister in Saudi Arabia told Secretary Marshall that the Saudi's and Abdullah had warned the other members of the Arab League in March of 1948 that the partition was a civil matter and that the Arab states shouldn't take any action that the Security Council might interpret as aggression.
- Sir Arthur Creech Jones, assured Moshe Shertok that Abdullah might enter the Arab portions of Palestine, but that the British led and subsidized Arab Legion would not seek to penetrate Jewish areas of Palestine. Shertok told Secretary Marshall that Colonel Goldy of the Arab Legion had made contact with the Haganah in order to coordinate their respective military plans and "avoid clashes without appearing to betray the Arab cause." Under Secretary Lovett reported that the Jewish Agency was no longer interested in a truce, but counted on the "behind the barn deal" with Abdullah.
- Abdullah explained to the Security Council: "we were compelled to enter Palestine to protect unarmed Arabs against massacres similar to those of Deir Yasin."
- On the 1st of December 1948 the US Consul cabled the State Department saying that the governments of Israel and Transjordan had started conducting negotiations under the guise of implementing a truce in order to protect Abdullah from criticism from the Arab League that he accepted partition and had entered into direct negotiations with Israel. see the FRUS footnote [40] harlan (talk) 17:52, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
- Harlan, against, attempts to confuse by throwing as many irrelevant points as possible. As Efraim Karsh explained it better, I'm not going to repeat his words, but simply refer the readers here to his paper, discussing the level of accuracy and veracity of some of these theories (warning to weak-hearted readers - some of the examples might be truly outrageous). Crystal-balling the Jews' intentions is absurd; and example of Morris' distortions can be read in the Karsh paper, under "Pushing out the Arabs".
- The Peel plan isn't being discussed here, nor is Abdullah personal position. As I've explained, the question is the response of the official leadership, not every single member of it.
- Grady-Morrison is also not the topic here, and the Arabs ended up opposing it anyway.
- Naturally Morris claims his views are widely accepted; would he concede he's fringe?
- The Yishuv-Abdullah collusion is a very old idea, but lacks evidence.
- "protection" - irrelevant.
- The Ben Gurion quotes - a wonderful example of Harlan's tactics - we're discussing the 1947 partition plan, so the naive reader might assume these quotes refers to it; in fact, both of these quotes are dated 1937. I don't know if they're accurate or out of context, but they're not even claimed to be remotely related to the 1947 plan. For all we know, Ben Gurion might have completely changed his mind in the ten years between the plans. Many leaders changed from side to side, turning from hawks to doves (and vice versa). Remember - when you read Harlan's quotes, never take them at face value; never assume anything about them, and always check them yourself. okedem (talk) 18:59, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
- Okedem, we don't delete material on Wikipedia because Daniel Pipes and Efram Karsh hold an opposing view. The Morris article above is a response to Karsh's article. WP:NPOV requires that all significant views be included.
- We've discussed this before, but it is Morris, Flapan, and Ben Ami who say the Ben Gurion quotes are relevant to 1947, not Harlan. The cites from Ben Ami and Flapan say he repeated the remarks to the Zionist Executive in May of 1947. So, there is no crystal-balling involved.
- By the way, Ben Gurion's biographer, Shabati Teveth, said that economic, social, and geographical partition were inherent in Ben Gurion's conception of Zionism. See for example pages 10, 12, 43-44, and 179-184 of Ben-Gurion and the Palestinian Arabs. Even he quotes the letter Ben Gurion wrote to his son on the subject. The idea that Ben Gurion changed his mind is your unpublished thesis.
- The Yishuv-Abdullah connection doesn't lack evidence unless you can't read the links to the FRUS I provided above. The CAB files in the British Archives are just as revealing.
- You are still not addressing the actual topic of this discussion. The New Historians books are being marketed by the textbook divisions of Routledge, Cambridge University, and MacMillan-Palgrave. Elie Podeh published studies about the adoption of their views into Israeli textbooks on the subject "The Arab-Israeli conflict in Israeli history textbooks, 1948-2000" [41]. Members of the academic community not connected with the theory like Neil Caplan, L. Carl Brown, and Sanford R. Silverburg say they are serious scholarly works that are essential reading. The New York Times has even discussed the inclusion of the New Historians views into textbooks and says they are first rate works of history.[42]. Do you have any evidence those are fringe theories? Because I think that is sufficient evidence to demonstrate their views are accepted by mainstream academic circles not connected to the dispute. harlan (talk) 20:46, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
- Harlan, all of these claims are incredibly irrelevant. We're not discussing partition in general, or people's possible motives or plans, but their actual response to the 1947 partition plan, which was Jewish acceptance, and Arab rejection. That's it.
- I'm not suggesting we ignore the claims of these "new historians". In their own articles - sure. In the article about the partition plan - perhaps. But we're talking about other articles, like State of Palestine, which only mention the plan for background. None of the new historians actually challenge the fact that Jews accepted and Arabs rejected. They only claim there's some stuff beyond it. Fine. But irrelevant for the background, especially considering I've shown what the mainstream view is.
- I'm not doubting the claim that the new historians' claims are commonly discussed, but they have a whole lot of them, and even if most of what they were saying would be mainstream, that still does not imply everything they're saying is mainstream. In this case, it is blindingly obvious that the partition claims are not mainstream, and even if they would be, they still don't change the basic 'yes'/'no' responses of the sides.
- As I've explained above, in response to Tiamut, at this point this isn't an NPOV issue at all, but a level of detail issue. Oh, and inferring, from comments before the partition plan, what the post-plan actions might be (had the Arabs accepted the plan) is still crystal balling. Also, I highly doubt that Ben Gurion "repeated the remarks to the Zionist Executive in May of 1947". People don't usually say the exact same thing after ten years. okedem (talk) 06:27, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
- If one oversimplifies the response in such black and white terms when things were actuallhy more grey, it does the reader a disservice. I'm not suggesting we go into a detailed breakdown of who said what about the partition plan everytime it comes up. I do suggest however that we avoid the old "The Arabs rejected and Jews accepted" summary as it is POV in that it leaves out most of story. Its a old, tired propaganda line that as Harlan's sources point out, has since been neatly dismantled. Tiamuttalk 07:37, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
- Sorry, but it simply doesn't "leave out" sufficient "of the story" to be factually wrong, while the contrary assertions (i.e. Harlan's claims that the Arabs supposedly accepted, and his apparent sporadic claims that the Jews supposedly rejected) are simply factually false. Frankly, in 1947 the Palestinian Arabs pretty much had handed to them on a silver platter the possibility of a strongly externally internationally-guaranteed independent state whose land area would have been much larger than the subsequent 1949-1967 Gaza Strip and West Bank combined, and which would have confined the Jews within an area which was completely militarily indefensible. The Arabs chose to flush all of these international guarantees straight down the crapper because their inflexibly rigid narrow political mind-set would not allow them to publicly admit or recognize any slightest form of Jewish sovereignty in the slightest degree for even one millisecond -- so of their own free will, with eyes fully open, they deliberately and intentionally decided to risk their future on the uncertain outcomes of war, making a "double or nothing" gamble that they would gain everything if they conquered in the war that they chose to start, or lose almost everything if they lost the war that they chose to start. In the end, they lost, and their own poor decision-making and poor-quality leadership were largely to blame... AnonMoos (talk) 08:09, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
- Tiamut, it's perfectly alright to discuss the complexities of the response to partition, on both sides. The discussions leading to Jewish acceptance were long and hard, and signified the rise of pragmatism (especially in the wake of WW2) over idealism; the almost complete lack of meaningful and open discussions among Arabs are also noteworthy - the Arabs of Palestine didn't really create any "state-like" institutions or governing bodies to facilitate such discussions.
- However, the claim that "Jews accepted, Arabs rejected" is "old, tired propaganda" is such a complete fallacy, that any fourth grader with an internet connection can debunk in two minutes. I'm not sending you off to dank libraries and microfilm collections for this; we have lovely tools, such as Google books, that mostly spare us such tiresome procedures. I've provided such a variety of sources using this formulation, to make your claim obviously false, but I'll add another one, just because it's interesting to read - this article by John Bagot Glubb, better known as Glubb Pasha, commander of the Arab Legion. I guess he's also struck by propaganda.
- That Glubb source is interesting, but here's one a little more informative, that should end this discussion. The UN working paper, titled "The Future of Arab Palestine and the Question of Partition", dated 30 July 1949.
- Section 5: "In accepting the Partition Plan, the Jews accepted indirectly the status of a future independent Arab State of Palestine to be its partner in an economic union. Commenting on the Partition Plan, Dr. Abba Hillel Silver, member of the Jewish Agency executive, in October 1947 expressed the following opinion on the future relations of the Jewish and Arab Palestine: "With the removal of political friction which we hope will eventually result from the setting up of these two independent States, each people master in its own home, it should be possible to usher in an era of progress and regeneration which would be a boon to all the peoples in that important part of the world. The Jewish State, when it is established, will respect the sovereignty of its neighbour states as fully as it will defend its own." (Article in "Palestine and the Middle East", Tel Aviv, Sept. Oct. 1947)"
- Also in section 5: "The Arabs rejected the United Nations Partition Plan so that any comment of theirs did not specifically concern the status of the Arab section of Palestine under partition but rather rejected the scheme in its entirety."
- Section 6, 7 - 27 June 1948 - A UN mediator suggests an economic union of two states in the whole of Palestine, one Jewish, one Arab (including Transjordan). The Jordanians PM rejects the idea of any such union with a Jewish state, and states their purpose is to prevent the creation of a Jewish state. The Secretary of the Arab League also rejects, demanding a unitary Arab state in Palestine, and opposing union with Transjordan. Israel supports an independent Arab state in Western Palestine, and opposes having a complex of Transjordan with the Arab state.
- Section 9, 18 Sep 1948, the mediator writes: "As regards the parts of Palestine under Arab control, no central authority exists and no independent Arab State has been organized or attempted. This situation may be explained in part by Arab unwillingness to undertake any step which would suggest even tacit acceptance of partition, and by their insistence on a unitary State in Palestine. [...] There now exists in Palestine a form of partition, though an Arab State for which the Partition Plan provided has not materialized and there is no economic union."
- Section 14, "To follow the recent Israeli thinking on the future of Arab Palestine, several official declarations are worth nothing. During the session of the Zionist General Council in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv between 22 August and 3 September 1948, Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett made the following statement on the position of Arab Palestine: We are faced with the problem of what is going to happen to the rest of Eretz Israel. That part has no definite borders yet. Even if we suppose that no revolutionary changes occur, which is not impossible, a certain part of Palestine will stay outside the State of Israel. The political fate of the Arab part of Palestine, its annexation by any state whatsoever, the flag that it will fly and the regime it will be subjected to are all matters with which we are directly concerned. It may not be possible for us to stem every new development in that connection. There are contingencies which we shall have to oppose, or they will become a threat to us. We shall have to fight against splitting up the Arab part and annexing its fractions to various countries. We shall have to consider carefully whether the annexation of any part to any state does not constitute a danger for us, which could be avoided by a different solution. We shall have to consider carefully whether we should not prefer this Arab part to form a state of its own, if possible."
- Section 15, "On 16 November 1948, appearing before the Political Committee of the General Assembly considering the Mediator's Report, Israeli Foreign Minister Sharett again stated Israel's views on the future of Arab Palestine: Concerning all these territorial questions, Israel would welcome the creation of an independent Arab State in Palestine..."
- Similar quotes are in following sections, including: "Sharett declared that Israel had proposed to the Conciliation Commission to organize a plebiscite in Arab Palestine to determine whether these regions should be attached to Transjordan or become an independent Arab State...pointed out the reasons why Israel would prefer an independent Arab State...".
- Sorry for the length, but I think this document is quite conclusive, on several issues. 1 - Jewish acceptance; 2 - Arab rejection; 3 - Jewish support for an independent state, and opposition to a Transjordanian take-over. I think this is the time to close this case of revisionism. okedem (talk) 13:03, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
<--back> To Tiamut, what language would you suggest in stead of "The Arabs rejected and Jews accepted" and is there a way of linking to the article that would explain the view most clearly? Like I said, it's news to me and I would like to easily find more info - or be reminded of the "grey" area if I run across it six months from now when I've completely forgotten this discussion :-) CarolMooreDC (talk) 19:32, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
- Hi Carol. Sorry for the delay in responding ... real life stuff. But I've given it some thought and have a few a proposals:
- add "publicly" to preface remarks on Arab rejection and Jewish acceptance, or "tactical" or some other qualifier to preface the Jewish position. Reasoning? – privately, there were Arabs who favoured the plan ([43] [44], and Jewish acceptance has been described as tactical or begruding (While the Zionists begrudgingly accepted the partition plan, working on the principle that half a loaf was better than no loaf at all … The Jewish community's leadership knew that they did not have enough power to control the entire territory of Palestine and to expel or to rule its Arab majority so they accepted the partition plan but invested all their efforts in improving its terms and maximally expanding their boundaries while including as small an Arab population as possible within them. It was accepted with misgivings by the Jews and rejected by the Arabs. Jewish acceptance was superficial and misleading: the Jews were willing to accept publicly ...)
- provide some context for why there was public Arab rejection and Jewish acceptance. Reasoning? partition was not voluntary but forcible, and there was a strong Arab reaction considering that Jews only owned 6% of the land in Palestine but were being accorded 55% ([45])
- avoid issue in articles where it is not the main subject by writing, along the lines of this source : “In 1947 the UN recommended partition of Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state. The partition plan proved to be unworkable, and in May 1948 Israel declared itself an independent state.” Reasoning? Oversimplifications mislead the reader into thinking the situation is more straightforward than it was, and tend to favour the Zionist POV (those belligerent Arabs unreasonably rejected a fine solution ...). It is more NPOV to give full space to the spectrum of views and considerations on both sides in the article on the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine and simply link to that page while avoiding the whole acceptance/rejection narrative, which as the sources I provided here and those provided by Harlan above indicate is much more complex than what that one sentence portrays. Tiamuttalk 07:59, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
- "accepted" and "rejected" says nothing about the internal beliefs of the parties, but simply what their response was - 'yes', or 'no'; this is inherently a public issue. (Oh, not to mention the dancing in the streets of Tel Aviv when the plan was approved, and the Arab proclamations of the coming massacre of all Jews.) As I've said before, you can obviously find some Arabs who privately favoured the plan, and even if it wasn't privately, it still isn't important here. We don't say "All Arabs unanimously rejected the plan"; the overwhelming majority did, the leadership did, and the few who might have supported it mostly kept their mouths shut. We're not here to discuss their innermost thoughts, but their actions and responses. It is clear to any reader that there's always a minority, that unless the text says "unanimously", some people thought otherwise. This much is obvious. Similarly, the reason the Jews accepted isn't relevant - saying "the Jews accepted" does not imply in any way that they accepted because the loved the Palestinian Arabs and wanted them to have a state. It just means they said 'yes'; additionally, I'd like to point out that a pragmatic approach ("better a bird in the hand") isn't inferior to any other; you seem to be judging the Jews on some moral scale, ruling them not pious enough ('oh my god, they were just being pragmatic!'). This is not our job. The reasoning that led the Arabs to reject and the Jews to accept, as well as possible minorities within each group are interesting, in the article about partition.
- Again, level of detail. Mentioning partition and acceptance/rejection does not imply one side is good and the other bad. A reader wishing to learn more about this can go read the article about the partition plan.
- "Unworkable"? That's a very misleading euphemism. It became "unworkable" because the Arabs rejected it on principle. Had they accepted it, we might have had two states in Palestine, celebrating their 62nd birthday these days.
- Sorry, but your argument is a mess of level-of-detail issues, wrong interpretations (saying "accepted" does not imply motives or unanimity), and wholly false claims ("Its a old, tired propaganda line"). Like it or not, a vast number of sources happily use the "accepted / rejected" phrasing, including the fascinating UN document I've quoted above. The Arabs might have thought rejecting the plan was the right thing to do, but in hindsight, they were wrong. They made a mistake. Rewriting history to make them look better is not a proper goal for an encyclopedia. okedem (talk) 12:57, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
Original discussion about ARBCOM content restrictions (once again)
Okedem and AnonMoos, at the top of this thread I said this discussion was not about removing the POV you are describing. The discussion is about the removal of other mainstream POV's based upon the controversial assertion that they represent "fringe theories" and attempts to utilize Wikipedia to endorse one particular POV. Wikipedia describes positions, it does not endorse them.
- There is no "level of detail" issue involved with including a simple sentence which says "According to Simha Flapan, it is a myth that Zionists accepted the UN partition and planned for peace, and that the Arabs rejected partition and launched a war." -- Simha Flapan, "The Birth of Israel: Myths and Realities", Pantheon, 1988, ISBN: 0679720987, page [v]
- Citing your own unpublished analysis of a July 1949 Palestine Conciliation Commission (PCC) "working document" which reflect Israel's desire to renegotiate the terms of the Economic Union that had been set-down in UNGA resolution 181(II) simply begs the central question. Neil Caplan writes that the very first "working document" of the PCC was the Lausanne Protocol (12 May 1949). It was a signed agreement between Israel and all of the Arab states to use the map from the 1947 UNGA Partition plan as the basis of their negotiations. See Futile Diplomacy: The United Nations, the great powers, and Middle East peacemaking, 1948-1954, Routledge, 1997, ISBN: 071464756X, page 82 [46]
- Your unpublished analysis does not address the published works of actual historians on that topic, or the level of acceptance of their works by the relevant academic community. The working paper that you mention cites Israeli newspaper accounts and material obtained from information organs of Zionist agencies. Those accounts were written by individuals who had no knowledge of the on-going secret negotiations between the governments of Israel and Transjordan. That has nothing to do with revisionism. The declassified records of those negotiations have been available for decades and the published primary and secondary literature on that topic is quite abundant.
- The PCC ground rules limited its activities to submitting questionnaires, eliciting position papers, and conciliating to bridge the gaps between the positions held by the parties "upon their request". Historians have written that the mediation efforts of the PCC left behind a treasure trove of material reflecting political philosophy, diplomatic stratagems, and the images each side had of the other. See Simha Flapan, "The Birth of Israel: Myths and Realities", Pantheon, 1988, ISBN: 0679720987, page 213-215; and Caplan's "Futile Diplomacy", page 81 [47]
- Neil Caplan writes that Security Council resolution 62 and General Assembly resolution 194(III) authorized the parties to seek an agreement by negotiations conducted either directly or through the Mediator and the PCC. See "The Lausanne Conference, 1949: A case study in Middle East peacemaking" page 14. Caplan, Elmer Berger, Giora Goldberg, and others cite declassified archival documents from the US, UK, and Israeli archives which say that Israel and Transjordan opted for direct negotiations that were conducted in secret. The parties decided to present the results of their agreements as fait accomplis and not to keep the UN Mediator, the Palestine Conciliation Committee, members of the Knesset, UN Secretariat, and etc. informed about the details. For example:
- According to Simha Flapan, in November of 1948 Israeli negotiator Sasson asked Abdullah to accelerate his annexation of the West Bank and to present the Arab states with a fait accompli. At that time Abdullah was organizing the Jericho Conference. The conferees issued a proclamation naming Abdullah King of Arab Palestine and demanding that a joint kingdom be established with Transjordan. [48] On December 13, Sasson told Abdallah al-Tal, the Transjordanian negotiator and commander of Jerusalem, that annexation should be implemented under the guise of "saving the Palestinian Arabs." Flapan cites Sasson's own account in the official Documents on the Forign Policy of Israel (DFPI), volume 3, doc 181, pp331-332, December 14, 1948. See Simha Flapan, "The Birth of Israel: Myths and Realities", Pantheon, 1988, ISBN: 0679720987, page 145
- By 25 March 1949 Moshe Dayan thought UN Mediator Ralph Bunche should be advised about the secret armistice agreement, since he would be tasked to implement it in early April. Dayan's superiors in Tel Aviv decided to go on concealing it from Bunche. The US State Department and UK Foreign Office knew about the secret negotiations, but they also decided not to tell the UN Mediator. Berger's account cites the official Documents on the Forign Policy of Israel (DFPI), Companion Volume (C.V.) and documents from the official Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS). [49]
- Israel insisted that the Lausanne and Rhodes Conferences be conducted as affairs concerning existing states and refused to recognize any Palestinian delegations. See Neil Caplan, "A Tale of Two Cities: The Rhodes and Lausanne Conferences, 1949", Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 21, No. 3 (Spring, 1992), page 16. The Foreign Relations of the United States says that Mark Etheridge of the UN PCC held preliminary discussions with Ben Guurion in April of 1949 in which Ben Gurion proposed that the status of Arab Palestine be recognized in the settlement through a federal union with Transjordan. [50]
- Ben Gurion did not inform the Foreign Affairs or Security committees of the Knesset about the armistice agreement with Jordan in advance. See Giora Goldberg, Ben-Gurion against the Knesset, Routledge, 2003, ISBN: 0714655562, page 71 [51] he also refused to allow the Knesset to debate the armistice agreements before they were ratified. [52]
So once again, do you have any evidence to present which says these are fringe theories that are not accepted by the relevant academic communities? harlan (talk) 21:13, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
- Harlan, surely it's up to you to prove that Encyclopaedia Britannica is wrong, not up to us to show that it's right. You have your standard little spiel, which you regurgitate over and over again -- but after your past actions consistently over the last year and a half, your dubious "sources" really don't impress me, and they appear to impress Okedem (who has a greater degree of stoic patience and stolid fortitude to slog through the tedious details of your dubious "sources" than I do) even less. Frankly, after I wasted half an hour of my life reading through the Walid Khalidi ranting propaganda tirade (which did NOT say what you clearly implied that it would say), my formerly very limited remaining degree of patience with your dodgy manipulated "sources" has finally definitively expired. As for the rest, Wikipedia is not "neutral" between the "POV"[sic] that the earth is round and the "POV"[sic] that the earth is flat, and there is no requirement for such pseudo-neutrality or phoney "balance" in any Wikipedia policy, as previously explained above. -- AnonMoos (talk) 23:26, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
Template:Controversies related to Israel and Zionism has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Thank you. -- Avi (talk) 20:09, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
Non-lethal and less-lethal weapons
Are rubber bullets non-lethal weapons?
Please see:
- Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2010 April 29#Category:Less-lethal weapons.
- Talk:Non-lethal weapon#Requested move. Non-lethal and less-lethal weapons.
--Timeshifter (talk) 03:48, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
Ambiguity of “village lands”
Please can I have some input at Ambiguity of “village lands”. Thanks. Chesdovi (talk) 11:55, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
Sockpuppet discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (development)
Please participate:
Sockpuppets have long been a problem in the editing and discussion of Israel-Palestine articles. Also, this project talk page is semi-protected due to "Excessive sock puppetry." --Timeshifter (talk) 03:46, 17 May 2010 (UTC)
Jerusalem Post. Israeli-Palestinian conflict rages on Wikipedia
"Israeli-Palestinian conflict rages on Wikipedia". May 16, 2010 article. Jerusalem Post:.
When I have looked at Israeli-Palestinian (IP) articles I notice an overall pro-Israeli POV instead of an NPOV expressed. Same as in the mainstream U.S. media overall. And then there is this Wikipedia IP history:
Israeli Foreign Ministry's organized campaign on Wikipedia.
Please see:
- Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive278#Organised POV-pushing campaign on the way?
- WikiEN-l. Conflict of Interest and lobbyists for foreign governments.
- Hasbara Fellowships Newsletter for May 31, 2007. Section titled "Wikipedia.org"
- About Hasbara Fellowships - IsraelActivism.com
Related administrator arbitration, actions, incidents, etc.:
- Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Palestine-Israel articles
- Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Statement re Wikilobby campaign
DMI Comparison between Anonymous Palestinian and Israeli Wikipedia Edits.
Using WikiScanner the Digital Methods Initiative (DMI) site has an analysis called:
Israeli anonymous edits outnumbered Palestinian anonymous edits several times over.
And then there is the unresolved problem of sockpuppets everywhere. --Timeshifter (talk) 19:54, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
- The comments after this article include an appeal for readers to emulate the Runtshit vandal (and one comment purportedly by me, but actually by the same stalker). This is likely to lead to a spate of vandalism; keep alert! RolandR (talk) 20:13, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
References for above
- ^ a b MegLaughlin, In his plea deal, what did Sami Al-Arian admit to?, St. Petersburg Times, April 23, 2006.
- ^ Article "History of Palestine", Encyclopaedia Britannica (2002 edition), article section written by Walid Ahmed Khalidi and Ian J. Bickerton.