Talk:Nakba denial

Huge NPOV Fail

The article doesn't even come close to passing NPOV. -Ad Orientem (talk) 14:29, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

I have opened a discussion at WP:NPOVN. -Ad Orientem (talk) 14:42, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

@Ad Orientem: In what sense? Please provide an example of a reliable source discussing this topic and the perspectives in it that are not covered on this page. Claims of POV must be substantiated. Iskandar323 (talk) 18:28, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

Please, continue the discussion in WP:NPOVN as it has already begun there. Marokwitz (talk) 18:41, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

I would like an explanation for the tags here, where it is relevant. Iskandar323 (talk) 19:02, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

This (my edits except for one or two by Dimadick) and this (which you did at my behest) are all I really have to say. This is the worst abuse of Wikipedia by an established editor that I've ever seen. —DIYeditor (talk) 12:14, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

Maybe it would've been better to just leave your article the way it was for anyone to see rather than even make minor fixes lest anyone not realize your version. —DIYeditor (talk) 12:27, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

There seems to be severe biases in the article that warrant action as soon as possible in my opinion.

This is also in light of a recent discussion regarding the 1948 exodus in the Israel lead. Homerethegreat (talk) 14:20, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

@Ad Orientem, Marokwitz, DIYeditor, and Homerethegreat: - regarding NPOV problems (1) are there any specific reliable sources explicitly discussing Nakba denial that are missing from the article? Or, (2) is there any misrepresentation of reliable sources already in the article? starship.paint (RUN) 07:30, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

Feedback from New Page Review process

I left the following feedback for the creator/future reviewers while reviewing this article: I have reviewed the article. I cannot see the deleted article from the 2011 AfD but this article appears to be acurate based on the references. It appears from the previous AfD that the article was called out as synth and OR; I do not see that issue in this article. Well done, thanks for the article.

Lightburst (talk) 15:26, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

Maybe you should stop reviewing articles. —DIYeditor (talk) 12:16, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

Notability

@Horse Eye's Back: I've added a some more news-y stuff (May 2023 legislative development) to the bare bones academic structure (and in addition to the 2011 legislative development) - hopefully this helps clarify that this is a topic with not just academic, but real world currency. I've also added a number of external links, including several from Middle East relations or research institutes, i.e. [1][2][3] that should help clarify how this is a very real topic in public discourse. Some of these external links may be viable sources in their own right, but I haven't really sorted through them yet. My priority at this initial stage was on creating a basis for the topic from peer-reviewed content. Iskandar323 (talk) 19:39, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

All quotes need to be attributed in text

Per this. Otherwise it is not clear quote is being quoted. The reader should not be left to deduce whether it is the next citation's author who is being quoted, someone that author is quoting themselves, or some other of the many uses of quotation marks. See MOS:QUOTEPOV and WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV. Not understanding this and edit warring over this by Iskandar323 and Trilletrollet is mystifying as I don't see how any editor of Wikipedia could not realize quotes could not be used in the fashion they had been in this article, which blurs the line between Wikipedia's voice and the quote. —DIYeditor (talk) 20:14, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

This is the exact same issue in ongoing nakba. Dazzling4 (talk) 22:44, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

Sol Stern via City Journal

@DIYeditor: You've edit warred without discussion and argued that "City Journal is a notable paper, has a track record of bringing facts to light, and is not listed on perennial sources. The Sol Stern is a notable person and is reliable for an opposing point of view in an editorial and actually has published (widely cited) this very field of Middle Eastern issues and history. What would you prefer to represent opposing points of view?" But City Journal isn't a paper at all, are you getting it confused with the Wall Street Journal published in the same city? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:29, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

Sorry, magazine. Why do you say it is not a reliable source for the opinions of a published scholar? Even X/Twitter could be, but it is a magazine with a sound history, even if it has a conservative agenda. The magazine is only being used to show the opinions of Sol Stern. —DIYeditor (talk) 21:32, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

Scholar? I thought they were a journalist. City Journal is generally not reliable, note that in recent years Sol Stern has been absolutely savage in tearing into the reliability and editorial independence of City Journal (they had a falling out). Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:34, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

They are being relied on only for reporting what he said. https://cir.nii.ac.jp/crid/1130000794198881920 is cited 209 times according to Google Scholar. What other opposing views can we find? Should there be any, as if nobody disagrees with the narrative presented in the article? —DIYeditor (talk) 21:49, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

In this article Stern describes the Nakba as an intentionally distorted interpretation of history that functions as an instrument of Palestinian radicalization so that they would perpetually be against the two-state solution and instead only be satisfied with "undoing of the historical crime of Zionism—either eliminating Israel or submerging it into a secular democratic state called Palestine". By its very nature, it is not a serious analysis of the events of 1948, and of the Palestinian experience, but a promulgation of a pragmatic and particularist political position, that warns of the Nakba "narrative" as a threat to Israel. —Alalch E. 22:26, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

Because any serious analysis would take the side of Palestine? He's a published scholar on middle eastern politics and has an opinion on Nakba and its denial. It doesn't need to be a good opinion or the right opinion. —DIYeditor (talk) 22:34, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

It isn't that he isn't actively taking the side of Palestine, it is that he is actively taking the side of Israel by denying the notion Nakba not from a scholarly, but from a pragmatic position. —Alalch E. 22:44, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

Is he a published scholar on middle eastern politics? Nothing on his wikipedia page indicates that. I thought he was a journalist? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 22:52, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

In the link it says he was one of two translators, but not the author. "by Matti Golan ; translated by Ruth Geyra Stern and Sol Stern" Horse Eye's Back (talk) 22:54, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

Some more sources to be used

I found the following sources which can be used to further develop the page content:

• "A Tale of Two Narratives: The Holocaust, the Nakba, and the Israeli-Palestinian Battle of Memories" by Cambridge University Press
• "Although Israel's strategy of control, erasure of memory and Nakba denial, through the combination of military rule, repression, fear, segmentation and patronage, looked fairly effective in the 1950s, today it looks as though Israel's efforts at encouraging the Palestinian citizens to embrace the Zionist ideological discourse of 1948 have largely ended in failure." [4], P.31
• "Nakba Denial: Israeli Resistance to Palestinian Refugee Reparations", which is chapter 12 of "Time for Reparations: A Global Perspective" by PENN Press [5].

--Mhhossein ^talk 19:38, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

The last one is already used. --Mhhossein ^talk 15:38, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by AirshipJungleman29 talk 17:08, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

(

• Comment or view
• Article history

)

• ... that the denial of the Nakba is central to Zionist narratives of 1948 and was largely facilitated by Israeli historiography up until the late 1980s? Source: Mori, Mariko (July 2009). "Zionism and the Nakba: The Mainstream Narrative, the Oppressed Narratives, and the Israeli Collective Memory. Kyoto Bulletin of Islamic Area Studies.
  • ALT1: ... that there exists a form of historical negationism pertaining to the 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight known as Nakba denial? Source: Nassar, Maha (2023). "Exodus, Nakba Denialism, and the Mobilization of Anti-Arab Racism". Critical Sociology.
  • ALT2: ... that Nakba denial has been described as still prevalent in both Israeli and US discourse and linked to various tropes associated with anti-Arab racism? Source: Nassar, Maha (2023). "Exodus, Nakba Denialism, and the Mobilization of Anti-Arab Racism". Critical Sociology.
  • Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Doman (Khoikhoi)

Created by Iskandar323 (talk), Alalch E. (talk), Freedom4U (talk) and Starship.paint (talk). Nominated by Iskandar323 (talk) at 09:02, 27 October 2023 (UTC). Post-promotion hook changes for this nom will be logged at Template talk:Did you know nominations/Nakba denial; consider watching this nomination, if it is successful, until the hook appears on the Main Page.

• Comment not review this article was nominated for deletion on 21 October here, so per WP:DYKCOMPLETE the nomination needs to go on hold until the deletion discussion is concluded. TSventon (talk) 09:32, 27 October 2023 (UTC)
  • The result of the deletion nomination was "keep with a caveat" so this can come off hold again. TSventon (talk) 00:22, 29 October 2023 (UTC)
• @Iskandar323: I moved a citation to support the hook under "In Zionist and Israeli statehood narratives". It is tough article to maintain neutrality but I think the article is as neutral as it can be. The QPQ is done and the article is new enough and long enough, being nominated 7 days after creation. The article is referenced and uses the correct inline citations. I find ALT1 is the most interesting. I do not find evidence of plagiarism. I am unsure if the statement in ALT1 needs to be attributed "According to some historians and academics". Article appears stable now, and the only edits I see for the last two days are fussing with minor details. Lightburst (talk) 23:02, 3 November 2023 (UTC)
• Comment this article still has significant neutrality and POV issues; it makes extensive use of less-neutral language (the first proposed hook is an example) and provides none of the balancing context of Nakba, itself already by definition a particular POV of 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight. If the article is stable it may be because people are tired. – SJ + 03:12, 4 November 2023 (UTC)
• as long as there's a dispute tag on the article, it's on hold; if the article hedges to "some historians and academics", the hook should too. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 23:42, 8 November 2023 (UTC)
  • @Theleekycauldron: - the POV tag has been removed by another editor, and before that I solicited for reliable sources to prove POV issues but I haven't heard any response. I think reviewer-approved ALT1 is uncontroversial enough to not require hedging. starship.paint (RUN) 03:36, 24 November 2023 (UTC)I don
• Comment this article was recently discussed in NPOV noticeboard Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view/Noticeboard/Archive_107#Nakba_denial and I personally feel the concerns were not handled. terms 'Nakba' and 'Israeli Independence' represent two competing narratives of the same historical events surrounding the founding of the State of Israel in 1948. Each term encapsulates deeply held beliefs and interpretations that are important to different communities. 'Nakba'—Arabic for 'catastrophe'—is the lens through which many Palestinians view the mass displacement and loss that accompanied the 1948 war. Conversely, 'Israeli Independence' symbolizes a monumental achievement for the Jewish people, marking the establishment of a sovereign state after centuries of persecution.

Labeling the Israeli perspective as "Nakba Denial" unequivocally violates Wikipedia's Neutral Point of View (WP:NPOV) policy. This term "denial" is not merely descriptive; it's prescriptive, dictating how the narrative should be interpreted rather than offering a balanced viewpoint. By embedding an accusation within the label itself, the discourse is preemptively skewed, stifling any potential for nuanced discussion. The term 'Nakba Denial' not only accuses one side of refusing to recognize a historical event or human suffering but also inherently delegitimizes any competing narratives. Once such a term is introduced into an encyclopedic context, it doesn't merely tilt the balance; it obliterates it. Readers are not presented with a spectrum of perspectives to form their own conclusions; instead, they are led down a pre-defined path that reaffirms existing biases. Marokwitz (talk) 18:57, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

@Marokwitz: I do not think your opinions have not been validated by the various community discussions - including an AfD. We have a variety of "denial" articles including Denial of atrocities against Indigenous peoples and Denial of the genocide of Serbs in the Independent State of Croatia. And of course Holocaust denial. You say that the word Nakba signifies a deeply held belief and interpretation: but it is in the same way the word "Holocaust" is a deeply held belief and interpretation of events. I am in no way trying to compare or imply that the holocaust is the same as Nakba - just comparing the words as both convey catastrophe. The RS supports the term "Nakba denial" and the article is notable and encyclopedic based on community discussions. I think that we are left with an WP:IDONTLIKEIT argument so we should proceed: the article has met our requirements for DYK. Lightburst (talk) 17:56, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

@Marokwitz: on 21 November [6], I invited you on to present specific reliable sources explicitly discussing Nakba denial that are missing from the article or present examples of misrepresentation of reliable sources already in the article. You did not respond. Again, I invite you to do so. Otherwise, it seems that your opposition is not based in reliable sources. starship.paint (RUN) 01:52, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

I believe there is some confusion. My objection isn't based on the lack of sources, but rather on the inherently and fundamentally non-neutral framing of the topic, which precludes the inclusion of sources that don't use the term 'denial' to describe the phenomenon. This results in unavoidable bias in the selection of sources. Marokwitz (talk) 07:29, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

If sources do not even mention the term 'denial', even with a view to dismissing the notion, then they are clearly not engaging with the substance of the topic. Iskandar323 (talk) 07:58, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

See WP:NDESC. The term "denial" is judgmental, delegitimizing other viewpoints that may be equally valid. Consequently, the framing of the topic in this manner is not neutral, leading to a biased selection of sources that view Israel's narrative as a form of 'denial' of historical facts. Marokwitz (talk) 08:31, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

@Marokwitz: - Lightburst has mentioned the existence of multiple "denial" article titles on Wikipedia, starting with Holocaust denial, not mentioned but also existing is Denial of Kurds by Turkey, Denial of the virgin birth of Jesus, Temple denial, Holodomor denial, Bosnian genocide denial (Good Article), and Armenian genocide denial (Featured Article). It seems that the term "denial", while judgmental, is not automatically disqualifying for articles. On the other hand, if you have reliable sources that say something along the lines of "we have analysed the narrative of the Nakba and it is inaccurate or distorted", that may also remedy the supposed biased selection. Are there such sources? starship.paint (RUN) 12:21, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

Denial of the virgin birth of Jesus is a good example. It should be renamed to Debate Over the Virgin Birth of Jesus for neutrality. The current name is akin to naming the Atheism article "Denial of God's Existence." Regarding series of genocide denial articles, specifically Holocaust Denial, both terms involve a rejection of historical narratives. However, Holocaust denial is a WP:FRINGE and widely criminalized position, as it rejects a globally acknowledged genocide. In contrast, "Nakba denial" primarily refers to contesting the intentions or responsible party behind the Palestinian exodus (not its actual existence), a debate that is part of the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This debate is not between a fringe position and a globally accepted one but has two sides actively debated by reliable sources and respectable academics. According to WP:NPOV, neutrality requires that articles fairly represent all significant viewpoints published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in those sources. However, this is made impossible by the current naming. The same is not true for "Holocaust denial" since, per the same policy, "Views held by a tiny minority should not be represented except in articles devoted to those views." Reliable sources and academics denying the Holocaust fall into that category. Marokwitz (talk) 06:29, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

@Marokwitz: - again, you are bringing a lot of assertions to the table (which may be true, or false), but no sources to back your claim regarding the Nakba. I've repeatedly asked you for sources, but nothing. starship.paint (RUN) 00:15, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

I an not sure why sources are needed here as I'm making nothing more than obvious assertion that Nakba denial is judgmental term against a particular non-fringe viewpoint. For example, Michael R. Fischbach defines Nakba denial as a "Nakba counternarrative", and see also "Golani, Motti; Manna, Adel (2011). Two Sides of the Coin: Independence and Nakba, 1948: Two Narratives of the 1948 War and its Outcome." The point is that Nakba and the Israeli national narrative are two counternarratives, and labeling one as "Nakba denial" creates a POV fork of Nakba that discourages or prevents inclusions of reliable sources that don't use judgmental language. Marokwitz (talk) 08:43, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

Fischbach source has already been added to the article, and quite extensively. I've now added Golani & Manna to the article, though I can't read the entire source, it seems rather sympathetic to the Nakba. Some parts which I did not add to this article but were in the source: Palestinians ... loss of homeland ... Palestinian tragedy that turned most of the Palestinian Arabs ... into refugees [...] Nakba is a concept that is present on a daily basis for all Palestinians in one way or another. In some ways, the Nakba of 1948 is still going on today. [...] This Palestinian recovery from the events of the Nakba ... Thus, I don't see how the article is still violating NPOV. We have been adding the sources presented, and the above one does not seem to be that out of line with what we are writing here. starship.paint (RUN) 16:25, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Comment ALT0 is unacceptably non-neutral. ALT2 is objectively true, and good. Zanahary (talk) 07:06, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

@Iskandar323, Alalch E., Freedom4U, and Starship.paint: What is the status of this neutrality tag? If this topic is too contentious, should we withdraw this nomination and re-nominate it for DYK if it achieves GA status? Z1720 (talk) 18:49, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

There's not a currently extent tag? Iskandar323 (talk) 20:04, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

@Iskandar323: There's an orange NPOV banner at the top of the "In Israeli historiography" section. Z1720 (talk) 20:08, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

Ah ok, had missed the lingering level-3 section one. Iskandar323 (talk) 22:34, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

Hold up a bit, I'm going to take a look again at including any sources that have been brought up. starship.paint (RUN) 01:40, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Sources already added. starship.paint (RUN) 00:37, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Comment It appears to me to be prone to bias. I have raised a point regarding neutrality in the article page, however other editors dismissed my objections and removed the pov label. I did not pursue course because I personally felt quite attacked there and at other places for having tried to present objections. However I still believe the current version does not follow NPOV and the DYK options presented are also problematic. Indeed the Nakba lead seems to be one sided and when one may try to add information for example on what some call the "Nakba law" is and is about and it's purposes; it is dismissed for not including the word denial. The text presented on the law is I believe is misinforming since it only presents a single viewpoint. I think it is best first to resolve the different issues, address some of the issues above, possibly rename the article or have a deep discussion regarding this, though personally it has been taxing to deal with the page. Kind regards. Homerethegreat (talk) 20:18, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

• @Homerethegreat: - please provide relevant reliable sources to substantiate your objections. starship.paint (RUN) 21:51, 1 January 2024 (UTC)
• @Homerethegreat: - if you think an article is not neutral, you need to add content from reliable sources to balance per WP:BALASP. Or if it is the tone or title you think is not neutral, then please see WP:POVNAMING and bring alternatives to modify the title or make edits to the tone to make it more factual, nonjudgmental, avoiding stating opinions as fact. I don’t know enough about these topics to know if they are neutral or not.Wh15tL3D09N (talk) 22:50, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

At this moment there are no NPOV tags on the article. starship.paint (RUN) 22:40, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

• • @Z1720: - notifying you of the above. starship.paint (RUN) 00:34, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

• @Lightburst: as the original reviewer, can you indicate if this is re-approved? Z1720 (talk) 01:48, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

@Z1720: Thanks, I think we are good until someone hangs another maintenance tag. We do have 46% Earwig but I think it is quotes and titles and not CLOP. I still like ALT1 and will leave it to a promotor to decide if it needs attribution. Lightburst (talk) 01:59, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Still clear neutrality and POV issues

I'm not sure we need three articles for this topic. (Though @Levivich: I did read your thoughtful take on that.) Incorporates inappropriate epithets characterizations and one-sided presentation of issues treated more thoughtfully in both 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight and Nakba. POV language, stereotyping, generalization, and implied scholarly consensus around what are not consensus views, are embedded pretty uniformly throughout. The article also takes care not to indicate that any of these views are the least bit controversial. I couldn't see a way to improve it w/o a lot of work.

The idea that this is being put up for DYK given the issues above (which were recently raised in the deletion discussion) suggests that the free reign to present a less-balanced narrative here is being swiftly leveraged to give those particular views more visibility. That seems a reason to try to merge into Nakba for context, even though it would be a sizeable section in that article. – SJ + 02:34, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

There's a structural problem that far surpasses this article. Someone who disagrees with the existence of this form historical negationism is not someone who will say: "The 'Nakba denial' construct is false or adresses a marginal phenomenon because in Israeli society and academia there isn't much of a denial that the Palestinians underwent / are undergoing the Nakba"; instead it will be someone who will say: "What happened and is happening to the Palestinians, and which some call the 'Nakba', was not and is not their Nakba, it was and is something else", and will not be stupid to even give recognition to accusations that they are a negationist, but will keep presenting their non-Nakba-affirming scholarship as much of a mainstream view as possible. So they will not directly adress the validity of the Nakba denial allegation. They will address the trueness of the Nakba notion, such as by calling it a distortion, as not-seeing-the-whole-picture, etc. This means that scholars who write about Nakba denial and those who write about the history of the region in a non-Nakba-affirming way are not transparently in direct discourse when it comes to Nakba denial itself. By putting one as a seemingly relevant counterpoint to the other we would possibly be fabricating this discourse.

This might be tough for Wikipedia to handle because we would need a source that treats the "whole debate" (if that's an actual "whole debate") synthetically, in a way that covers Nakba denial, and the opposing current that, while not directly addressing Nakba denial, and maybe not even addressing the same authors, is still, refuting their underlying arguments, and, conversely, the "Nakba denial side" may be using "Nakba denial" to reinforce, supercharge, weaponize (whatever, I'm inventing here, have mercy) their arguments, and all of those arguments belong to the same pool of arguments, as arguments about the same thing. There's no amount of putting things in context that will perform this research that we are not allowed to perform ourselves.

So let's, for the time being, maybe, if you don't mind, thought-experimentally merge this whole article into Nakba verbatim: How would that balance out the narratives? What is there in the Nakba article that serves as a relevant counterpoint to the views covered in this article? —Alalch E. 03:52, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

You are right. And yes, I would merge verbatim (and then resolve POV-language issues in that article, which has generally managed to avoid them). This is a challenge for any article about "X denial", especially early in the popularization of such a concept. (And while discussions about how the displacement was described, acknowledged, or named in various histories have been around for a long time, the current use of the phrase 'Nakba denial' only quite recently became mainstream e.g. in Abbas's speech this year.) Nevertheless, any such article can and should address that challenge, the relative novelty of the term, the lack of standard definitions (across the above parties) for Nabka itself, for 'denial' in this context vs competing narratives that work from the same facts, &c. – SJ + 04:44, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

@Sj Hey - these are some pretty strong POV charges you are levelling at this article. You mention inappropriate epithets - this is quite worrying but I couldn't identify what you were referring to. Are you able to give an example of this? Concrete examples of POV language, stereotyping, generalization would also be appreciated. Given the article begins "According to some historians and academics..." and the preponderance of attributed quotations, I don't understand how you see an implied scholarly consensus.

It would also be really beneficial to the article if you could provide some sources that would help to create a more balanced view. The sourcing at the moment is quite robust coming from academic sources mainly but if there are mainstream views you feel are missed it would be great to include them.

In terms of merging to Nakba for context, readers can always...click on the Nakba article!

Funnily enough, I had the exact opposite interpretation of this article. I saw it as one of those hopeless contentious topic articles that hedges too much and overly relies on qualified direct quotations so that it ends up saying almost nothing. Vladimir.copic (talk) 03:57, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

The over-reliance on direct quotations is a problem (especially without clarity in some cases that the source is notable or representative among potential quote-sources). I don't have time or inclination to extensively improve sources here as I don't think this division is a structurally healthy one. But I've pulled out some specific sentences to highlight the sorts of issues, below. – SJ + 04:44, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

I note with thanks that you identified two issues below. Hopefully we can get this addressed - I'll need to have a look through the sources again. I'm removing the (now deleted) systematic bias template as you haven't really provided any specific issues with this and the sources are from a variety of authors (Israeli, Arab, European, North American etc) Vladimir.copic (talk) 05:43, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

(doing a quick Scholar search for sources with available full-text, this looks like a thoughtful overview of how the narrative in histories, and used for politial action — drawing largely from the same raw facts — changed over the decades in different contexts. including things like Israeli documentaries from the 60s and 70s – SJ +)

That looks like an interesting and useful article. I'll have a look through it when I get a bit of time. Vladimir.copic (talk) 05:46, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

• In 2011, Israel enacted the Nakba Law which authorized the withdrawal of state funds from organizations that discuss the Nakba.
• While the original bill proposed to criminalize individuals who disputed the state's reading of history, &c

  Here the 'Nakba law' was misrepresented in two places, as visible in reading the law itself or the article we already have about it. (Mischaracterized w a particular refrain that numerous unreliable sources used at the time, but mischaracterized all the same. Suggesting all of these refs should be checked.) Replaced with more precise and less inflammatory content from that article.

• The denial of the Nakba is central to Zionist narratives of 1948 and was largely facilitated by Israeli historiography.

  The idea that there's a shared notion of "denial" of a single "the Nakba" which can take the definite article, is idiosyncratic and at best modern. So is the idea of coherent 'Zionist narratives of 1948', at which point those modern concepts even if they had common meaning now, would be an anachronism. Not sure what weight 'largely facilitated by' is meant to carry, but the balanced histories of the record of the war over time seem to split histories into those in the Arab world and those in the rest of the world, which included a wide range of histories in languages and countries that were not overly solicitous of Israel.

There is more in most paragraphs, mainly pulling out one of various competing narratives (from the language used in other articles, or in potential sources), dropping all nuanced context, and writing it as though that's the understood shared narrative about a nuance-free event; or caricaturing the work of a large group over an extended period of time with a simple negative gloss. Just compare the language used here to language used to describe the exact same events and discourse on other older articles. – SJ + 05:01, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

@Sj: Ok, so what is the problem with the current presentation of the "Nakba law" (a law so heavily intertwined with a crackdown on remembrance of the Nakba that it has become eponymously nicknamed after it)? And what exactly is the problem with summarization of the shift in Israeli historiography in the 1980s? This shift is well known, and documented at New Historians, which is all about the scholars that overturned the obfuscatory early histories. Iskandar323 (talk) 06:24, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

@Iskandar323 pings don't work when edited into an existing comment, they only "trigger" when included in a new comment (beginning with a new paragraph / indented element and ending with a signature). —Alalch E. 09:43, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

Oh really? Good to know. Wasn't very clear on the details. Iskandar323 (talk) 10:09, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

@Sj: Per the above, some further feedback would be appreciated. Iskandar323 (talk) 10:10, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

What is unclear in the above description? I applied specific fixes to the descriptions of the law, which you reverted to language that is specifically wrong. You have since continued to make changes to the lede that make the article more biased, contrary to existing coverage in linked articles. – SJ + 01:38, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

I've again corrected some of these, for clarity. The article is full of problems like this. E.g., few sources and almost no reliable sources call anything a 'jewish nakba law', and non-notable academics referencing it as 'aggressive denial' of anything is a coatrack sort of trivia to include. – SJ + 23:16, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

The first two corrections did not lend clarity, they violated WP:ISATERMFOR (policy). Beyond that obvious issue, I've left the Nakba law changes and re-worked some others. Iskandar323 (talk) 07:53, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

@Alalch E. and Sj: - both on you agree on the structural problem of omitting reliable sources who essentially state: "What happened and is happening to the Palestinians, and which some call the 'Nakba', was not and is not their Nakba, it was and is something else", ... non-Nakba-affirming scholarship ... the trueness of the Nakba notion, such as by calling it a distortion, as not-seeing-the-whole-picture, etc. Could you present evidence here (or point to me where in the Nakba article) that reliable sources are doing so? starship.paint (RUN) 07:45, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

Those are Alalch's words, I can't speak to them. I elaborated a bit on what I meant in #POV problems, November 2023. There are many sources that write about changing and competing narratives about the Palestinian expulsion and flight, that talk extensively about how the events in 1948 and their consequences have been referenced by different groups over time, and how this has affected changing narratives of Israeli identity, Palestinian identity, and histories of the region, and don't use the language of 'denial'. Israeli and Palestinian Memories and Historical Narratives of the 1948 War is one. It's not clear where that fits in an article such as this, where the frame presents 'denial' as a specific coherent recurring thing. – SJ + 21:17, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

Legislation problems, lack of term w/ commonly shared meaning

A 'disputed' tag was recently readded and removed. A sense in which this article remains disputed is that there's no shared meaning around what the phrase means; making an article for it that does not address this ambiguity (and immediately promoting it into navboxes) suggests a clarity and reification as a persistant noun [and not an action that might be described as 'becoming more or less prominent in certain discourse'] that it may not have.

Example: Very few people use the phrase 'jewish nakba law'. Please stop re-adding it here. I removed the following quote which is a particularly fringe view; whatever is meant by this sentence has nothing in common with the other definitions of 'denial' presented by the rest of the article.

Academics Yasmeen Abu-Laban and Abigail B. Bakan, writing in The Political Quarterly, argue that this law was an example of "aggressive [Nakba] denial" which is "aimed at blurring and confusing the memorialising" of the Palestinian Nakba.

– SJ + 10:48, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

• there's no shared meaning around what the phrase means - according to who? According to you?
• a particularly fringe view - ditto, according to who? Based on what metric of fringe, and what sources?

Iskandar323 (talk) 11:38, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

For example: this book by Bashir Bashir and Amos Goldberg, p. 2: In this context, many Jews, in Israel and abroad, employ various strategies to deny the Palestinian catastrophe. In 2011, for example, the Israeli parliament passed the “Nakba Law,” which among other things authorized the Ministry of Finance to refrain from funding Israeli institutions that commemorate the Nakba. Many, perhaps most Jews in Israel, claim that the Nakba is not an event at all. It doesn't use the phrase "Jewish Nakba Law" but it does say that the Nakba Law is an example of Nakba denial. Levivich (talk) 04:13, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

Another: this chapter by Nadim Rouhana and Areej Sabbagh-Khoury: It is hard to overestimate the centrality of Nakba denial in Israel ... Levivich (talk) 07:03, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

Added both, thanks Levivich. starship.paint (RUN) 06:49, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

I understand when less experienced editors make such omission with regard to evidence need to validate their claim, but SJ obviously does not fall into that category. These personal opinions and reinterpretations are irrelevant when used as if they are evidence by and/or in itself. ౪ Santa ౪^99° 21:15, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

Duplicate paragraph

Can someone delete the first paragraph of the first section/heading. It's a reduplication of the article's introductory paragraph. IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 01:10, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

 Done and the real content that section used to start with has been restored.—Alalch E. —Alalch E. 04:21, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

NPOV issues in misrepresenting claims as fact.

I understand that given the nature of the topic itself it will be nearly impossible to avoid Palestinian-leaning POV issues, but at the least we should be avoiding sentences like: "The denial of the Nakba is a core component to Zionist narratives of 1948 and was largely facilitated by early Israeli historiography" when citing one source that claims that the denial is becoming a core component of Zionist narratives, and using a second source written by Nur Masalha who is obviously not a BALANCED author who you can simply quotes as fact. Dazzling4 (talk) 23:03, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

What is a "BALANCED author" (what part of WP:BALANCE is about authors?), and why isn't Masalha one? Levivich (talk) 00:44, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

You are right that linking WP:BALANCED was incorrect, thanks for pointing that out. I should have linked to the subsection "Bias in sources" which does not have a shortcut. The overall point being that Nur Masalha's thoughts cannot be presented a priori without including authors who disagree with him. As it says, "a neutral point of view should be achieved by balancing the bias in sources based on the weight of the opinion in reliable sources and not by excluding sources that do not conform to the editor's point of view." Nur Masalha is obviously a biased source, which does not make him a poor choice for this article but does mean we should be looking to counterbalance it with the thoughts of other biased authors. Dazzling4 (talk) 15:41, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

You can't just requests balancing sources on the assumption that they exist without evidence. You need to produce some to illustrate the perspectives that are being neglected or ignored. Iskandar323 (talk) 15:52, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

Why is Masalha an obviously biased source? Levivich (talk) 15:56, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

Is that a serious question? From his wikipedia article:

Nur Masalha is the author of many books on Palestine-Israel, including Theologies of Liberation in Palestine-Israel: Indigenous, Contextual, and Postcolonial Perspectives (2014), Palestine: A Four Thousand Year History (2018), The Zionist Bible: Biblical Precedent, Colonialism and the Erasure of Memory (2013), The Palestine Nakba: Decolonising History, Narrating the Subaltern, Reclaiming Memory (January 2012), The Bible and Zionism: Invented Traditions, Archaeology and Post-Colonialism in Palestine-Israel (2007), Catastrophe Remembered (2005), A Land Without a People (1997), Expulsion of the Palestinians: The Concept of "Transfer" in Zionist Political Thought, 1882–1948 (1992), Imperial Israel and the Palestinians: The Politics of Expansion (2000) and The Politics of Denial: Israel and the Palestinian Refugee Problem (2003).

The titles of his books alone take the concept of Israel as a Western colonizer a priori, which is not an unbiased and universally accepted view of the situation, especially not in Israel. Dazzling4 (talk) 17:07, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, I didn't think you had any actual basis for calling Masalha biased. I don't even understand what your issue is with the titles. Masalha is one of the single most widely-cited scholars in the field. Zionism as colonialism (or, more specifically, settler colonialism) is a mainstream view, it's not biased, it's history, and while it's not universally accepted, it is widely accepted, including in Israel (not that that matters). Levivich (talk) 17:15, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

That's, like, your opinion. What we need is evidence that author is biased and that authors claims are not widely accepted among other scholars. Unless you can provide such evidence, this author is credible and should be used, and tag removed. ౪ Santa ౪^99° 21:04, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

@Dazzling4: Agreed that sentence doesn't belong as it stands, and bears editing + qualification. (Even if, in the context of a Masalha passage, it has been written elsewhere.) We should reference the 1948 Arab–Israeli War by its local name, not a year; the use of direct articles is inappropriately specific, and the last clause overlocalizes to Israeli historians a broader trend. Masalha is a fine source, used properly, but balancing sources are always welcome.

As discussed here previously, a challenge for any article like this about a less-mainstream concept is that people using the phrase (here "Nakba denial", which many historians who have written about changing narratives about Palestinian expulsion and flight during the war do not use) tend to be on one end of a spectrum, and those on the other end use different terms, perhaps not even recognizing a new phrase enough to rebut its definition and usage, making search harder. Statements from a couple such sources shouldn't be presented as fact, although you might imagine qualifying with "Scholars who use the term X say...". Compare how this topic is already addressed in the expulsion and flight and New Historians pages. – SJ + 10:19, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

The events of 1948 comprise both the 1948 Arab–Israeli War and 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight. Iskandar323 (talk) 10:25, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

• @Dazzling4: - which sources that we should include discussing Nakba denial are missing from the article? starship.paint (RUN) 07:47, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

  @This tag is weakly grounded in Dazzling4 personal representation - I don't see any evidence, such as reviews or research of this author's, they call "unbalanced", work and/or stance, except their own evaluation. It is quite obvious that the rest of the participants do not agree with editor, so tag should be removed - pronto. ౪ Santa ౪^99° 20:51, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

   Done I see no reason to keep a tag that hasn't been justified. M.Bitton (talk) 00:17, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

  ... and I expect to see evidence from anyone who restores it. starship.paint (RUN) 08:18, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

Lede and refs

Lede should be cleared from refs, while statements that exist only in lede should be moved to body and refed there and then extrapolated into lede as short version without refs.౪ Santa ౪^99° 10:05, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

Refs are optional in the lead, but specifically advocated where the topic and/or contents of statements are sources of controversy, per MOS:LEADCITE - so there is no need to cull them just because. Iskandar323 (talk) 08:14, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

Lentin 2010 cite

I can't figure out what's wrong with it, why the sfn link isn't linking to the reference. If anyone else figures it out, please tell me :-) Levivich (talk) 03:59, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

Fixed, |ref = none prevented linking. Hameltion (talk | contribs) 16:33, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

Thank you! Levivich (talk) 19:40, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

POV problems, November 2023

previously: Noticeboard (10/20); AfD (10/21); talk page

There remain three areas of POV: with the framing, the allegations, and the legislation section.

Framing

We have three articles about the topic.

• 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight -- shared historical context. Balanced sources and views, mentions all narratives resulting from the events.
• Nakba -- Palestinian narrative, broad range of sources using that term (as primary analyses) and broader range discussing the use of the term (as secondary analyses)
• Nakba denial -- The phrase suggests any other narrative is a 'denial' of some unspecified sort. Unlike articles such as Denial of atrocities against Indigenous peoples and Denial of the genocide of Serbs in the Independent State of Croatia, there is no specific denied claim. Sources that use the term are limited, share a POV, and are not yet notable enough to have a body of secondary analyses.

In this setup it's hard for the "denial" article to avoid being maintained as a POV fork even though, as noted at AfD, there's enough material for an article that does not have this problem. However as it currently stands, this article has significantly more-skewed sources, since most sources discussing the Nakba don't use the phrase "Nakba denial", and includes non-notable claims by people who do use the term, often to apply to things that are not historical negations of anything, but simply different analyses.

This general challenge has been raised at the noticeboard and at AfD without being addressed, and persists. Unlike other articles about historical denial, there is no articulation in the lede of any particular historical facts being denied. It suggests a primary spur for new histories was the official declassification of historical archives by the Israeli government, not the usual arc of a 'denial' topic. All of which makes it hard to determine whether scholarship that doesn't use the phrase (which could balance the sources and perspectives included) is about the topic.

Any discussion of denial of historical facts, or the concept of 'Nakba denial' as used in 21c activism and scholarship, should note the origin of the phrase and better contextualize the lack of denial of basic facts about the expulsion and flight. Contrast e.g. with Temple denial (or anything else in the category), in which two successive political leaders and two successive religious leaders make ahistorical claims, contest historical ones, and publicly criticize other officials for noting the historical ones.

Allegations

If this article is meant to be about historical negation (denial of historical facts, or promotion of ahistorical ones): many of the allegations are about other things. Many paragraphs are synth that reframes source material about "denial of [moral] responsibility" for outcomes as "Nakba denial". Elsewhere groups that are positively commemorating past events are described as 'countering Nakba denial'.

Legislation

The 2014 legislation to recognize Mizrahi Jews who fled to Israel does not really pertain to this article. The quote used is a POV and not terribly notable gloss on the law, and it neither referenced or claimed any contested historical facts, nor was a denial of anything. It has been removed from the article multiple times and put back each time without discussion, again speaking to the point that it hard for an article like this to remain neutral.

– SJ + 20:44, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

I disagree that "We have three articles about the topic". Those are three different topics. The Nakba is the parent topic, of which the 1948 flight is a sub-topic, and Nakba denial is another sub-topic.

I also disagree that "most sources discussing the Nakba don't use the phrase 'Nakba denial'." Most sources I've read say that Nakba denial (or "denial of the Nakba") is a part of the Nakba. Like almost every source I've read about Nakba -- including the dozens cited at Nakba -- say that Nakba denial / coverup is an integral part of the Nakba.

It's really hard to argue otherwise, given the revelations that have come in the last 40 years of scholarship since Israeli archives were opened. Some aspects of Nakba denial, or covering up of the Nakba, are undisputed historical fact, like: the sealing of archives, the planting of forests to cover up destroyed villages, the removal of "Nakba" from textbooks, the Nakba Law, and about 40 years of Israeli politicians saying massacres and expulsions didn't happen, before the archives opened and everyone learned that massacres and expulsions were planned and documented, and then covered up via the sealing of the archives. The sources already in this article back up the above, as do the sources in the Nakba article. The current scholarly consensus is that Nakba is the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and its cover-up. Levivich (talk) 21:13, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

Hello @Levivich:, nice to see you here as always. a) I'm not sure about that conceptual hierarchy, insofar as there is scholarship about the expulsion and flight that uses different frames and language. Of course these topics are not identical, but they draw from increasingly less-neutral subsets of historical scholarship.

b) I agree that the sorts of things covered in a section on denial in Nakba are part of it, matching what is commonly described as 'denial' in other histories and contexts. This includes anyone saying that something didn't happen when it did, and targeted censorship. (Planting trees and sealing/unsealing archives can be classified differently, but that's in the weeds.) I don't see anyone arguing otherwise. If the article's scope were limited to these topics, we wouldn't have most of the POV concerns raised on this page.

But this article includes a much wider net of allegations. When the definition of disaster is extended to any part of an "ongoing Nakba", and the definition of denial extended to any alternative historical narrative (even revisionism is not negation), we run into contention. I don't think we should need to find sources that explicitly say "denial of responsibility for is not denial of existence of" to keep out some of the claims. – SJ + 22:42, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

If the sources about Nakba denial say denying ongoing Nakba is Nakba denial, then that's what they say. And that's what we say they say. If there are other scholarly sources that say something different, we should include those, too, and all the sources should be given appropriate weight, etc. I don't see any sources in the sections you tagged that we should exclude (do you?), and I'm sure there are more sources that we could include. Levivich (talk) 01:45, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

This seems the heart of the issue. That doesn't seem like good practice, on a couple of counts.

Concept drift: Wikipedia shouldn't be used to give undue weight to neologisms or modern glosses, or to suggest a single author's use of a term is shared by others using the same term. Wikipedia shouldn't be where people come to make new uses of controversial terms stick.

Contextualizing claims in POV sources: especially for contentious topics where discourse is full of parties misinterpreting one another's words, we have no obligation to give weight to mention or give weight arguments whose premise is widely discredited and is itself part of the POV. As a minor but recurring example on this page: the law withholding state funds from state-funded orgs holding certain events (using language now included verbatim in various articles to avoid misrepresentation-by-mischaracterization), is regularly strawn as "banning mention of the Nakba". It doesn't; the primary source material and a diversity of secondary sources point that out; we don't include the mischaracterization on the article about the law itself (no surprise, since the overwhelming majority of all sources mentioning the law either don't make the mistake or note its inaccuracy). In the much smaller and POV-filtered set of sources using the phrase "Nakba denial", this mischaracterization is more common and persists, still a minority view but perhaps a more visible one. It is still inaccurate, and we don't need to give it weight on this page either. (the page no longer does; I used it as an example as it doesn't seem to still be in contention.)

Increasingly narrow subsets of a topic naturally become POV forks even when editors don't mean them to, partly because once you end up with a phrasing and definition that few people have written about, and few are critical of, "just add more countervailing sources" doesn't suffice to counter even obvious POV. Likewise we have no obligation to let an article or section become a coatrack for every use of a phrase. That's always going to be an overhead cost of maintaining a full article vs an expanded section. – SJ + 18:51, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

I agree about "banning mention of the Nakba" not being an accurate summary of what the sources say about the Nakba Law, and like you, I'm glad that the article doesn't say that anymore. What is still in the article currently that is giving undue weight to neologisms or modern glosses, or suggesting that a single author's use of a term is shared by others using the same term? Levivich (talk) 18:59, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

Specific examples: in Historiography, Lentin's summarization of Sa'di's list of three 'strategies of denial' should be a paragraph, and only the first strategy is something generally referred to under the banner of denial. One of Sa'di's statements is an odd characterization of Gur-Ze'ev's work, where the latter is not generally characterized by denial at all and more notable than Sa'di's work on I-P relations. An example of the sort of balanced source missing from this article is the GZ/Pappé collab on "Beyond the Destruction of the Other’s Collective Memory"[7]. Not referencing the latter, while giving three paragraphs to the former, isn't a good weight distribution. More generally, there is a whole line of scholarship about collective memory that expressly talks about memory, recognition, [re]framing, and the evolution of collective understanding [including everything from denial to acknowledgement and emphasis to revisionist explanations], but intentionally focuses on terms that can serve as umbrellas over the entire cycle of reframing across two or more parties [so: does not focus on a monopole term such as 'Nakba denial'], which is underrepresented here; Bashir-Goldberg the only example. – SJ + 20:23, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

I wouldn't have any objection to reducing the 3 Sa'di paragraphs to one paragraph, and/or to adding the 2003 GZ/Pappe article. I'm not sure that Nakba denial is in GZ's area of expertise, but it's certainly within Pappe's. But there are better works on this from Pappe, like his 2006 The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine has a chapter or two entirely about Nakba denial, and he has published more recently about it, e.g. [8] (p. 37: "Continuing to collect, share, and publicize such documents is an important part of the ongoing struggle against Nabka denial and the attempt to depoliticize the Palestine issue."). Even on the specific subtopic of Holocaust denial/Nakba denial comparisons (the subject of GZ/Pappe 2003), I think there are better, newer sources (eg Bashir/Goldberg 2018), but still, no objection to adding GZ/Pappe 2003 or reducing Sa'di. (There are other scholars that could be added to this article, as well, like Nur Masalha and Rosemary Sayigh.) Levivich (talk) 21:36, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

@Sj: - reading the issues you have raised, I infer one theme (to quote you: non-notable claims by people who do use the term, often to apply to things that are not historical negations of anything ... many of the allegations are about other things ... neither referenced or claimed any contested historical facts, nor was a denial of anything) The theme is that you seem to have a view of what Nakba denial is, like negationism or denial, and if scholarly sources discuss something that is not negationism or denial, it is simply not Nakba denial and should be removed. I disagree with this approach, we should be building our article from the scholarly sources, Nakba denial is what our academic sources says it is. We should not be imposing our own views to argue against scholarly sources, instead we should use other scholarly sources. Separately, I thank you for providing the source of GZ/Pappé. I have read the source and while it does discuss Nakba denial and I will include it in this article, I find that that is not the main focus of the source, which focuses far more on Palestinian Mainstream Responses to the Holocaust Memory (including Palestinians' Holocaust denial) and what can be done to avoid the Destruction of the Other’s Collective Memory. starship.paint (RUN) 02:15, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

@Sj I believe I've addressed your point regarding the legislation section in this edit. Are there any remaining concerns that you feel haven't been addressed? ~ F4U (talk • they/it) 19:28, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

So what is Nakba denial ?

At present, the lead doesn't actually say what Nakba denial is. It characterises Nakba denial (a form of historical negationism pertaining to the 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight). So, in plain English, Nakba denial is a form of 'denying the truth' concerning Palestinian flight in 1948. … Errr … that doesn't tell me much about what truth(s) about Palestinian flight in 1948 is/are/were being denied?

Next para starts "Some historians claim that the denial of the Nakba has become a core component of Zionist narratives" - so this denial is central to Zionist narratives, but again what denial? The 'About' at the head of the page is even more vague "An analysis of the discourse around the Nakba" … any particular analysis or kind of discourse?

Most similar articles about forms of denial start with very clear statements about the subject - Holocaust denial is obviously the archetypal example, but Armenia, Bosnia and other subjects follow a similar pattern: Holocaust denial is an antisemitic conspiracy theory that asserts that the Nazi genocide of Jews, known as the Holocaust, is a myth, fabrication, or exaggeration. So after a brief characterisation (antisemitic conspiracy theory) we are told clearly that claiming the holocaust didn't happen, was faked, or is exaggerated is what holocaust denial is - clear.

That page then continues: Holocaust denial involves making one or more of the following false claims: it then lists main kinds of false claims about the holocaust.

For a variety of reasons, it almost certainly isn't possible to be as comprehensive as the Holocaust denial article here, and I presume the main topic here is something like "denying Zionist responsibility for the Nakba", rather than asserting that nobody left in 1948, or nobody was expelled in 1948, but at present the topic is implied but isn't really defined AFAI can see. Pincrete (talk) 13:50, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

Good point, I've tried my best to incorporate text from the body into a coherent sentence in the lede. Looks much better ~ F4U (talk • they/it) 07:40, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

Concerns regarding Neutrality

I am concerned regarding the neutrality of the article. Seems to be presenting some pretty serious POV related issues that do not show enough of the Israeli perspective.

In particular is the discourse around the mention of the Nakba Law "In 2011, Israel enacted a law colloquially referred to as the Nakba Law that authorized the withholding of state funds from organizations that commemorate Israel's Independence Day as a day of mourning."

This is not a manifestation of Nakba denial; instead, it involves withholding financial support from organizations that observe Israel's Independence Day as a day of mourning, without necessarily rejecting historical facts.

Furthermore the lead fails to summarize the Israeli view point as I said above. Failing to reveal the different perspectives is in violation of WP:LEAD. Homerethegreat (talk) 14:53, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

You are making a good point. The source that is cited in the lead [9], explains the goal of the law is to allow the state to stop funding organizations that the use of the word Nakba (catastrophe) in relation to the creation of the state, and it doesn't seem to be related at all to historical denialism related to the facts of the 1948 exodus.

Indeed the law stipulates that

Minister of Finance is authorized to withhold transfer of state funds, if the primary goal of the funds spent was to do one of the following:

1. Denying the existence of the State of Israel as a Jewish and Democratic State
2. Incitement of racism, violence, or terrorism
3. Supporting armed conflict or acts of terror, of an enemy state or a terror organization, against the State of Israel
4. Referring to the Israeli Independence Day or the founding day of the country as a day of mourning
5. An act of vandalism or physical debasement of the flag or symbols of the state

The only sentence linking the law to 'Nakba Denial' in the cited source is an accusation by Arab MP Hana Sweid, however the lead uses wikivoice to promote the POV that the law is a denial of historical facts, with no attribution.

I agree that the lead fails to correctly represent the Israeli point of view about the Nakba. This is probably due to the title of this article. Recently, I noted in another discussion (see above in this talk page) that the term "denial" in the title is not merely descriptive; it's prescriptive, dictating how the narrative should be interpreted rather than offering a balanced viewpoint. Marokwitz (talk) 15:23, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

Guys if you start claiming that Nakba Law isn't part of Nakba denial, you will probably end up TBANed from this topic area for POV pushing. This isn't even a question. More broadly, NPOV isn't about presenting the Israeli POV or Palestinian POV -- those are not the two POVs that need to be balanced. It's about accurately presenting the POV of RSes, not of two sides to a conflict. Any suggestion that RSes say that Nakba Law is not part of Nakba denial is a huge misrepresentation of those sources.

Have you read enough scholarship about Nakba denial to be able to participate here? That's up to you to do. Newspapers aren't scholarship, and there's lots of scholarship already cited in this article. Neither of your comments talks about any scholarship, which makes me wonder whether (a) you've read the scholarship cited in this article but are not mentioning what scholars say, or (b) you've not read the scholarship. Both are seriously disruptive. Also, this has been discussed here before, but you're not mentioning the earlier discussions, and the sources earlier discussed. Again, makes me wonder if it's an A or B situation.

Be careful because I am not the only editor whose patience is running out. If you want to talk about Nakba denial, you'd better have read some history books about Nakba denial, or you're wasting other editors' time.

I strongly suggest you amend your comments to start citing to scholarship that supports your argument, or else drop it. Levivich (talk) 15:58, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

You are being very hostile. It is very possible that you are indeed the world's leading expert on Nakba denial, and I am utterly uninformed. However, I strongly recommend that you review WP:Disparaging and consider retracting your previous, non-constructive response. Marokwitz (talk) 19:03, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

Homere wrote that Nakba Law "is not a manifestation of Nakba denial," and you responded with "You are making a good point ... it doesn't seem to be related at all to historical denialism related to the facts of the 1948 exodus ... The only sentence linking the law to 'Nakba Denial' in the cited source is an accusation by Arab MP Hana Sweid, however the lead uses wikivoice to promote the POV that the law is a denial of historical facts."

There is an entire paragraph in the body of the article citing scholarship that directly links Nakba Law to Nakba denial, it's Nakba denial#In Israel. There is discussion on this page about Nakba denial and Nakba Law, all you have to do is CTRL+F "Nakba Law." Neither of you even mention the body content or the talk page discussion. How is it even possible that you missed the text on the article and its talk page that contradicts what you are saying?

I am not an expert in Nakba denial or anything else, and you don't need to be a subject matter expert to edit a Wikipedia article, but you do need to read the article, and its talk page, and the sources cited therein, before asserting that the sources don't support the content. As I said, I don't know whether you two didn't read it, or read it and decided not to mention it, but either way, it's not a good faith content issue you're raising, it's disruptive to misrepresent the article content (by not mentioning the body text) and the sources cited in the article and its talk page.

Homere wrote "the lead fails to summarize the Israeli view point" and you also wrote "the lead fails to correctly represent the Israeli point of view about the Nakba," but there is no such thing as "the Israeli point of view." What is that even supposed to refer to? Don't you know many of the sources cited in this article are Israeli? Did you not look at the citations? I mean, many of the Israeli authors used in this article are linked to their BLPs... how can you possibly miss this when it's right in front of us on the page we're all editing?

You can take my comments as hostile or disparaging if you want to, but assuming good faith only goes so far. A good faith comment would be something like, "content X in this article is contradicted by source Y," or something like that, but to pick out one source, a newspaper, while ignoring all the scholarship cited in the same article... that's beyond AGF, that's disruptive.

Claiming that the Nakba Law is not related to the Nakba is particularly egregious because the law is called the "Nakba Law." Like, how do you think it got this name? Because it's not related to the Nakba? How can anyone, with a straight face, claim that the law that punishes celebrating Nakba Day is not a manifestation of Nakba denial? That is absolutely nonsensical. It's not my goal to be hostile or disparaging, but it is my goal to say that editors should not have to spend their time dealing with such nonsensical arguments. Making that argument while completely ignoring the article body text--and tagging the article--is what moves this from nonsensical waste of time to disruptive waste of time. Levivich (talk) 20:32, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

You are continuing to cast aspersions. Editors are not required to be experts on the topic, read all academic sources on the topic (some of which are behind paywalls), or be familiar with everything ever written on this talk page. They are also allowed to be wrong and make mistakes without being accused of bad faith. So, I'm asking you once more to cool down.

It is clear that there are scholars and politicians who see the Nakba Law as a manifestation of Nakba denial - I'm not arguing that. However, this is not a universal view. I don't think it would be easy to find reliable sources that explicitly argue 'The Nakba law is not Nakba denial', for a reason I'll explain, but it is easy to find sources explaining the rationale of that law from other perspectives.

There is a fundamental problem with this article, which is that the term 'Nakba Denial' contains an inherent bias. If I tell you you are "In Denial," that is not a good thing. This results in a systemic bias in the selection of sources. For example, it is similar to having an article called 'God Denial', a title that excludes sources that use the more neutral term 'Atheism'. Atheists do not see themselves as 'denying the existence of God', and Israeli legislators opposed to state-sponsored commemorations of the Nakba do not see themselves as "denying the Nakba"; they use other terms to explain their reasoning and motives. That's one of the reasons why I suggested merging this article into 'Nakba'.

The lead of this article defines Nakba denial as a form of historical negationism (which is illegitimate falsification or distortion of the historical record) pertaining to the 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight and its accompanying effects'. The Nakba law is about revoking state funding from commemoration of the Nakba, which does not seem to fall under this definition - perhaps there are other definitions to the term.

The 'Guardian' source quoted in the lead, which I referenced, is not academic, but it is a good model for (more or less) neutral point-of-view reporting since it shows different points of view and uses attribution to avoid taking a specific side in the debate. When I said "Israeli Point of view" I meant "the view of those who were in favor of the law", not Israelis in general. Marokwitz (talk) 21:45, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

I'm perfectly clam and I'm not casting aspersions; WP:Casting aspersions is accusing an editor of misbehavior without evidence; I have specified the evidence in detail, including quotes. Don't confuse my calling out misbehavior with evidence for my being angry; I'm not at all angry, I'm just out of patience for repeated assertions about this topic that contradict the sources already discussed in the article.

What you have written in your reply about Nakba denial is still not based in sources, it seems to be your own opinion of Nakba denial. If the sources say Nakba Law is part of Nakba denial (and they do), then that's what Wikipedia will say they say in its summary of the sources. If the sources say Nakba denial is a form of historical negationism (and they do), then that's what Wikipedia will say. You're entitled to hold whatever opinion you want of it, but unless you have sources that say something different than what the article says, there is no NPOV problem.

The POV of "those who were in favor of the law" is not a POV that is WP:DUE for inclusion. The only POVs that matter are the POVs of WP:RSes. In order to show that there is an NPOV problem in the article, one must bring RSes that have a POV different than the POV of the sources in the article.

I made this same point to another editor a month ago on this same page about ongoing Nakba. The month before that, it was discussions at NPOVN and at the AFD (mentioned below), same point was made there, too. Back then, it was more understandable, because not as many sources were in this article at the time. Today, after two months of discussion and many, many sources being brought forward in put into the article, I think it's perfectly reasonable to expect the editors who participated in those prior discussions to be aware of the sources that were brought forward, quoted, added to the article, etc. Neither the article nor this talk page are very long. Levivich (talk) 23:47, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

All I have done is reply to a message on the talk page, and you are personally attacking me. Calling my reply "seriously disruptive" and reporting me on the administrator noticeboard, by another editor, is an exaggeration, deeply offending, and a violation of our community standards, particularly in a discussion that revolves around the silencing of viewpoints. I'm once again asking you to retract these words.

You are misrepresenting the NPOV policy. The statement, "The only POVs that matter are the POVs of WP:RSes," is incorrect. The policy says that NPOV is about "representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources" - not the "POVs of the reliable sources." Yes, this includes also views that are not academic, if they were published by reliable sources in context of a specific topic that is being discussed, in this case, "The Nakba Law".

In this case, I am saying that the lead presents only one side of the story and fails to represent the viewpoint of those who support the law, an opinion that was published by reliable sources. You are trying to exclude this because the opposing view does not use the term "Nakba denial." This is a form of editorial bias, resulting from a biased selection of the title for this article.

A more nuanced view of the law that presents both the critics and supporters is required to meet the NPOV requirements. Marokwitz (talk) 06:21, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

WP:FALSEBALANCE. IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 06:37, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

If sources do not articulate any thoughts on the law with regards to the denial of history or historical negationism, even if only to rebut the supposition of a relationship, then they are clearly not pertinent to the topic. Sources capable of having an entire discussion about the law without mentioning the issue of denialism that has been clearly articulated are either acting in ignorance of it, and therefore naturally irrelevant to the specific subject here, or they are actively ignoring it, in which case they are participating in the denial of the denial and are unlikely to be of any scholarly merit whatsoever. Iskandar323 (talk) 13:14, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

I agree with Levivich that the editing of Homerethegreat and Marokwitz is disruptive. This exact topic has already been discussed here previously at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view/Noticeboard/Archive_107#Nakba_denial and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Nakba_denial, where both Homerethegreat & Marokwitz participated. IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 21:05, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

No two things are exactly the same, but being exactly the same has never been the criterion for inclusion in an article. Denying that the Nakba happened and punishing those who commemorate it are so closely related that it would be a big surprise if no sources connected them. Suppression of history and denial of history are two sides of the same coin. All that is required for inclusion is a reliable source which makes the connection. Zero^talk 02:28, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

• Beyond that, multiple high-quality sources directly relate the Nakba Law to Nakba denial; Shalhoub-Kevorkian in particular has an entire section devoted to it (we already have and discuss that source in the body, but I added it to the lead to make it more clear that the connection isn't synthesis.) --Aquillion (talk) 05:40, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

@Zero0000, I am not opposed to inclusion in the article and acknowledge the existence of sources making the connection. However, I am saying that a more nuanced presentation of the law is required to maintain a neutral point of view. The lead currently implies that the law is an example of historical negationism, making it appear that there is only one side to this story. It selectively cites "The Guardian" source, which presents the story in a more balanced way. Also, as an administrator, I expect you to recognize that my voicing my opinion on this talk page is not "disruptive editing." It is not acceptable that I am being personally attacked and disparaged. Marokwitz (talk) 06:02, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

@Marokwitz: Since ARBPIA is my principle editing area, the rules say that I cannot use my admin authority here (common sense excepted, such as squashing vandals). So I am here with the rights and powers of an ordinary editor only. Zero^talk 09:07, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

This doesn't mean you can't advise editors to behave properly, without pulling rank. Personal attacks and disparaging are not how consensus is built. A simple talk page message has turned into a scene of wild accusations and complaints to ANI. Marokwitz (talk) 19:52, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

@Zero0000@Levivich@IOHANNVSVERVS I'm not you guys understood exactly. An issue regarding neutrality was raised. I do not understand why some have jumped to conclusions. Please try and read the text written, I understand this may induce emotions, but let's deal with this calmly. I see @Marokwitz also replied and further spoke of issues. I will note that I have no opposition to inclusion in article of sources relating to nakba denial. It is merely the raising of a point of neutrality. To be honest, it is rather disconcerting that there is a jump to conclusions and as said above we must be cautious in selectively taking quotes without broader context. On this note Merry Christmas and I hope in real life everyone is having a great holiday! Homerethegreat (talk) 07:59, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

You're not listening.

You put the POV tag on an article without following the instructions, which inform:

"Please also explain on the article's talk page why you are adding this tag, identifying specific issues that are actionable."

and

"An unbalanced or non-neutral article is one that does not fairly represent the balance of perspectives of high-quality, reliable secondary sources. A balanced article presents mainstream views as being mainstream, and minority views as being minority views. The personal views of Wikipedia editors [...] are irrelevant."

You need to "err on the side of caution" when editing pages of contentious topics. You don't seem to understand or care that you are wasting other users' time.

IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 08:19, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

This isn't an article about the Nakba law - that page is there to be improved separately. This page is only about the Nakba law insomuch as it pertains to Nakba denial; unrelated material on the law is naturally off-topic. Iskandar323 (talk) 13:57, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

The article isn't solely about the Nakba law but prominently features it in a negative way, making the point that it is illegitimate and represents denial of historical facts. A neutral point of view is required not only for the subject of the article but also for every section and argument presented within it. Marokwitz (talk) 19:46, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

Is there a source that discusses the positive side of the Nakba law with regard to the Nakba denial? M.Bitton (talk) 19:50, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

There are many sources mentioning the rationale of the law as well as its criticism and the outrage it provoked, but they rarely use the term "denial" to describe this criticism since it is a biased term, used only by opinionated sources.

I already mentioned the "The Guardian" source cited in the lead, as a model for a relatively neutral way this controversy could be described, and suggested this could be a model for how to fix this problem.

Remember, WP:NPOV explains that reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective, and the Shalhoub-Kevorkian article that was now added to the lead is an example for a heavily opinionated one. Such sources should be used only with attribution. Marokwitz (talk) 20:37, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

The Shalhoub-Kevorkian source does not stand alone in any case, but who says it is heavily opinionated? All I see is a thoughtful, academically published source from a professor of law at the Hebrew University. Iskandar323 (talk) 21:10, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

• First of all, we do attribute individual scholars when discussing their opinions in the body. But the basic connection isn't an opinion - we can't define a term, perspective, or an entire area of study as biased ourselves. Doing that would be circular logic that would end up inserting our own POV into articles - it would effectively mean that any source could be dismissed as biased by an editor. "No neutral source uses this term for the topic, so we have to attribute any sources that discuss it and avoid giving it too much weight!"; "here's a dozen high-quality academic sources discussing it!" "ah, but they use that term, which is non-neutral, so they can be discounted." In any case, here's a bunch of other academic sources discussing the Nakba law in the context of Nakba denial: [10][11][12][13][14]. It's clearly a closely-related topic, sufficient to have a section discussing it here and a mention in the lead. --Aquillion (talk) 22:28, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

  I'd go further: it's not only a closely-related topic, but Nakba Law is like the #1 example of Nakba denial given by the sources. For example, over a month ago, up above, in response to another editor, I quoted Bashir & Goldberg 2018 p. 2: In this context, many Jews, in Israel and abroad, employ various strategies to deny the Palestinian catastrophe. In 2011, for example, the Israeli parliament passed the “Nakba Law,” which among other things authorized the Ministry of Finance to refrain from funding Israeli institutions that commemorate the Nakba. Nakba Law is literally the first example given of Nakba denial. Levivich (talk) 19:09, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

  The Nakba Law is an official Nakba denial, so no wonder it's a prime example of Nakba denial. M.Bitton (talk) 19:14, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

  And not to put too fine a point on it, but Professor Goldberg from Hebrew University of Jerusalem is what I would call an "Israeli point of view." Levivich (talk) 19:38, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

Is there any relevant reliable source out there that can improve the NPOV of this article? I do not see any being raised in this section by editors claiming bias. Is there any relevant reliable source that pertains to the orange tag at Nakba_denial#In_Israeli_historiography? starship.paint (RUN) 21:59, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

None that I can see, therefore, I removed it. It's the job of the the editor who adds the tag to justify it by explaining what significant views that have been published by RS are missing. M.Bitton (talk) 22:20, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

NGOs

Someone with more time than myself might consider adding the role of groups like Im Tirzu in Nakba denial. Their pamphlet "Nakba Bullshit" published a few years ago is a perfect example, with all the old canards. Zero^talk 03:13, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

Historical negationism

If there are plenty of citations calling this historical negationism, then it should be easy to fill in the citation needed. I couldn’t find many via internet search. Wafflefrites (talk) 19:39, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Seriously? Did you look in the body of the article? Like in the section called "historical negationism"? Levivich (talk) 19:41, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Do those sources actually call it “historical negationism”? I didn’t see that phrase in the Mori source unless I missed it. Wafflefrites (talk) 19:44, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Historical "negationism" is also known as historical denialism. Obviously Nakba denial is a form of historical denialism. IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 19:48, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

I see, I am very confused about the Wikipedia:No original research. I have seen comments from editors on other articles saying exact phrases and words need to be in sources otherwise it is considered original research? For example, there was a Greater Palestine article that got deleted and one criticism of that article talk page was that the sources did not use the term “irredentist.”Talk:Greater Palestine Wafflefrites (talk) 19:55, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Also it seems scholars have conflicting definitions of what Nakba denial is. If sources differ, then all definitions should be presented equally? This sentence in the lead : “ Underlying assumptions of Nakba denial cited by scholars can include the denial of historically documented violence against Palestinians, the denial of a distinct Palestinian identity, the theory that Palestine was barren land, and the theory that Palestinian dispossession were part of mutual transfers between Arabs and Jews justified by war” is made from three scholars viewpoints. But there is another scholar’s viewpoint in the body that actually defines Nakba denial (rather than list its assumptions) and says Nakba denial is a counter narrative. Wafflefrites (talk) 19:47, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

If you haven't read the references and you only added the citation needed tag based on an "internet search" then you should probably self-revert. Your concerns can be discussed here on the talk page, the citation needed tag doesn't belong. IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 19:55, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

I have self reverted, but that first sentence is using a Times of Israel source that does not say “historical negationism” Wafflefrites (talk) 19:58, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

There are many sources for the information in this article. Every single statement doesn't require an inline citation. IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 20:00, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

When you must use inline citations. IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 20:03, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

I see what you're saying, Waffle. ToI is a frankly substandard source for this topic -- news media, not scholarship -- and you're right that it doesn't actually verify the whole sentence in the lead. My solution would be to just take the cites out of the lead per WP:LEADCITE, this isn't a BLP. Or replace the cites as needed.

More broadly, the topic of this article is the historical negationism of the Nakba, which could be the title of this article. "Nakba denial" is another alternate title for the same thing. "Nakba memoricide" is a third possibility. Here are the google scholar searches for each: [15] [16] [17]. While (first link) almost no sources use both the phrases "historical negationism" and "Nakba," there are plenty of sources that use "Nakba" and "negationism": [18]. The sources use different words for the same thing ("denial," "memoricide," "negationsim," etc.). The point is: Nakba denial is the denial that the Nakba happened, which included hiding the evidence and distorting the history. Nevertheless, perhaps the article should use the phrase "historical negationism" less, and instead use other terms that are more prevalent in the sources.

(BTW I have a theory about why "historical negationism" isn't used that much in sources: it's not historical negationism, it's a current event.) Levivich (talk) 20:09, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

@AirshipJungleman29 Please read through this thread to understand why I added that source. The other sources don’t actually say “historical denialism” and that was the only source I was able to access and find that says it. It would be helpful you could find the source that actually says “historical denialism” or similar. Wafflefrites (talk) 19:11, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

Or we could just read WP:LEADCITE and move on, Wafflefrites. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 19:14, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

MOS:LEADCITE says “ The verifiability policy states that all quotations, and any material whose verifiability has been challenged or is likely to be challenged, must include an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports it.”

I have just challenged all editors of this page to provide a citation, none where able to other than me. I provided the citation, and you reverted it. If the citation I provided for “historical denialism” is not acceptable, can others find another one? or I will place in in line citation again in the article? Wafflefrites (talk) 19:18, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

Per MOS:LEADCITE, I will be adding back the source that I found that directly supports the “historical denialism” portion, until it can be replaced with a better source. I am not sure if I need to add a better source needed tag. Wafflefrites (talk) 19:23, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

More forthright lede

As of right now, Nakba denial is vaguely described as "historical denialism" as opposed to what it really is - a racist conspiracy theory promoted by Zionist political groups. The article for Holocaust denial describes it as an "antisemitic conspiracy theory" - similar terms should be used for Nakba denial, as it is an anti-Palestinian conspiracy theory. Additionally, the Holocaust denial lede paragraph also describes the most popular forms of Holocaust denialism - a similar format should be employed in this article. Etsaloto (talk) 23:33, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Updated edition of Pappe chapter on Nakba denial

Pappe, Ilan (2024) [2013]. "Chapter 2: The State of Denial: The Nakba in the Israeli Zionist Landscape". In Loewenstein, Antony; Moor, Ahmed (eds.). After Zionism: One State for Israel and Palestine (New ed.). Saqi Books. ISBN 978-0-86356-739-1.

New edition of this book came out in January of this year, which includes a chapter by Pappe about Nakba denial. I won't have time to get into this myself for a while, but I have the ebook and if anyone wants to borrow it, hit me up on my talk page. Levivich (talk) 00:59, 22 April 2024 (UTC)