User talk:Nishidani/Archive 33

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Doggerel for Zero on Noah's Ark

Re

I cut up a length of cardboard into a square
Running a yard or so along each side,
And piled on blobs of plasticine here and there
To tizzy the flat with hills, and when it dried

I filled a pot with water and began to pour
A flood of H₂O swimmingly over the map.
Most of the wash though leaked onto the floor
As I kept on filling the pot from the kitchen tap

And splashing the model to submerge it under the drink.
"Bugger those edges and corners", I swore. "They drain
All of the water away",and as I began to think
That yarn the nuns spun at bubs was bloody inane

A scream broke up my experiment. It was my mum
Weeping a flood of tears, a deluge of woe
As, slipping on her kitchen floor, she kicked my bum,
Saying, "it’s even filthier here than what you leave in the po."

I was only five years old, and wet behind the ears.
But it taught me a lesson: the bible’s bullshit for one,
And as for my prospects in science, my mother’s jeers
Meant, like my religious teachers, that I had none.
Nishidani (talk) 10:15, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

Very good, old chap. But enough of yer doggerel, how about a real poem?

Su Hui's Xuanji Tu palindrome poem in simplified characters (left) and in the original traditional characters (Sorry for editing your file. I can't stand the sight of simplified Chinese characters, which destroy the aesthetics and ideogrammatic games in the traditional script)

琴清流楚激弦商秦曲發聲悲摧藏音和詠思惟空堂心憂增慕懷慘傷仁

芳廊東步階西遊王姿淑窕窈伯邵南周風興自后妃荒經離所懷歎嗟智

蘭休桃林陰翳桑懷歸思廣河女衛鄭楚樊厲節中闈淫遐曠路傷中情懷

凋翔飛燕巢雙鳩土迤逶路遐志詠歌長歎不能奮飛妄清幃房君無家德

茂流泉情水激揚眷頎其人碩興齊商雙發歌我袞衣想華飾容朗鏡明聖

熙長君思悲好仇舊蕤葳粲翠榮曜流華觀冶容為誰感英曜珠光紛葩虞

陽愁歎發容摧傷鄉悲情我感傷情徵宮羽同聲相追所多思感誰為榮唐

春方殊離仁君榮身苦惟艱生患多殷憂纏情將如何欽蒼穹誓終篤志貞

牆禽心濱均深身加懷憂是嬰藻文繁虎龍寧自感思岑形熒城榮明庭妙

面伯改漢物日我兼思何漫漫榮曜華雕旂孜孜傷情幽未猶傾苟難闈顯

殊在者之品潤乎愁苦艱是丁麗壯觀飾容側君在時巖在炎在不受亂華

意誠惑步育浸集悴我生何冤充顏曜繡衣夢想勞形峻慎盛戒義消作重

感故昵飄施愆殃少章時桑詩端無終始詩仁顏貞寒嵯深興后姬源人榮

故遺親飄生思愆精徽盛翳風比平始璇情賢喪物歲峨慮漸孽班禍讒章

新舊聞離天罪辜神恨昭感興作蘇心璣明別改知識深微至嬖女因奸臣

霜廢遠微地積何遐微業孟鹿麗氏詩圖顯行華終凋淵察大趙婕所佞賢

冰故離隔德怨因幽元傾宣鳴辭理興義怨士容始松重遠伐氏妤恃凶惟

齊君殊喬貴其備曠悼思傷懷日往感年衰念是舊愆涯禍用飛辭恣害聖

潔子我木平根嘗遠歎永感悲思憂遠勞情誰為獨居經在昭燕輦極我配

志惟同誰均難苦離戚戚情哀慕歲殊歎時賤女懷歎網防青實漢驕忠英

清新衾陰勻尋辛鳳知我者誰世異浮奇傾鄙賤何如羅萌青生成盈貞皇

純貞志一專所當麟沙流頹逝異浮沉華英翳曜潛陽林西昭景薄榆桑倫

望微精感通明神龍馳若然倏逝惟時年殊白日西移光滋愚讒漫頑凶匹

誰雲浮寄身輕飛昭虧不盈無倏必盛有衰無日不陂流蒙謙退休孝慈離

思輝光飭粲殊文德離忠體一違心意志殊憤激何施電疑危遠家和雍飄

想群離散妾孤遺懷儀容仰俯榮華麗飾身將與誰為逝容節敦貞淑思浮

懷悲哀聲殊乖分聖貲何情憂感惟哀志節上通神祗推持所貞記自恭江

所春傷應翔雁歸皇辭成者作體下遺葑菲採者無差生從是敬孝為基湘

親剛柔有女為賤人房幽處己憫微身長路悲曠感生民梁山殊塞隔河津

--NSH001 (talk) 11:20, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

Thanks N also for endlessly mopping up after me on articles. I think I first encountered Su Hui's extraordinary poem in 1972-3, finding a copy of it in, I think it was, Hockett's The State of the Art in the Chinese faculty library. Poems can, if they are great, be read, as Empson outlined in his Seven Types of Ambiguity, several ways. Su Hui's lends itself to several thousand construals, which takes the cake.

Since I'm in your debt, I guess I'll have to pay out your request. Perhaps this, written in a train in 1968, while coming home, and occasioned by (a) having read Ezra Pound on the haiku verse form in class that morning, to stave off the boredom of being forced to study English and (b) watching a hippie in a whinge-binge mouthing off to everyone in the compartment, between disgruntled lapses into silence, while they diligently buried their heads in their newspapers.

Suburban Antichrist

He lounges by the train door -

Arms slung on opposite baggage-racks

A figure of indifferent crucifixion.

I don't write poetry, or rather when I am prompted to try to, the result fails my sense of elementary criteria for that vein of composition. So just occasional verse when I get tired of prose, which is often. Cheers Nishidani (talk) 13:21, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

One shouldn't put down verse, the fun and reflexive side of the same instinct that stumbles up the foothills of Helicon. The point also is that versifying helps you get a minimum of a poem into another language- Poems can't be translated, but a rhymed gloss at least carries more of their jouncy thrust than paraphrase. Here's Catullus 5, which perhaps you read in school in Latin, and which I was reminded of while looking up the file of juvenilia for the haiku above.

Viuamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus,

rumoresque senum seueriorum

omnes unius aestimemus assis.

Soles occidere et redire possunt:

nobis cum semel occidit breuis lux,

nox est perpetua una dormienda.

Da mi basia mille, deinde centum

Dein mille altera, dein secunda centum,

deinde usque altera mille, deinde centum

dein, cum milia multa fecerimus,

conturbabimus illa, ne sciamus,

aut ne quis malus inuidere possit,

cum tantum sciat esse basiorum.

Lesbia sweet, let the life of our love

Put no reserve-price when desire calls.

Pennycheap's the rumour-mongering of

Oldtimers, bankrupted of sex by aged balls.

Dawns rise, dusks fall, and the light

In those hours that scurry inbetween

Is all too brief, before that big night

We all must sleep through shuts us in the obscene

Dreamlessness of eternity. Kiss me once more!

Kiss me, kiss me, again and again.

Count all our kisses, multiplied by a score,

Then kiss me the total in multiples of ten.

And when our bill's run up a hefty sum

Let's bungle the figures nicely just

To flummox the fiscal eyes of the dumb

Oglers who tax bigspenders with their lust.
Nishidani (talk) 14:29, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

Finally, verse is an amiable way to respond heuristically to real poetry, the thoughts and experience behind it. Take Philip Larkin's powerful This Be The Verse.

Reading that once spurred a reflective chime.

Perhaps they fuck you up: who knows?

For victimhood prefers to rate

Especial value to what shows

Some foreignness in our self-hate.

That they were fucked up in your case

Is possible: I know that most

Are hardly saints - they have to face

Each day the dangers of that coast

No one prepared them for, or taught

What sudden tides await them there,

Whèn love dives, wild, into the fraught

And deeper waters of despair.

The misery's passed on. Each child

Shies at the sea beyond his shore.

Most learn to trust, plunge into the wild

Surges of doubt, survive, and ask for more.

Because, perhaps, they find at last

The strength to venture on their own,

Beyond the footholds of the past,

The tender-treacherous shallows of home.

I don't think this can quite allow me to it call quits for the debt I've incurred with your constant help over the years with my wikiwork, but . . Best regards Nishidani (talk) 15:08, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

Ps. How does one put a space between two quatrains. Those above are too distant?Nishidani (talk) 16:06, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

An eerie email from the afterworld wafted in mocking my verse reply to Larkin's poem. Honesty demands that I add the put-me-down from the ouija-like spirit who signed off as PLarkin-

They fuck you up, oh yes, they do!

Though the evidence would hardly sway

A half-baked littératurd like you

Dead-eared to rhyme and tragedy.

They may not mean it, but their love

Works on margins, on life's brink.

You say the child must leap. A shove

Was all I got, and 'swim or sink!'

My life lay inland, no one taught

Me how to chance my timid arm.

And when I glanced back all I caught

Was hatred's laughter at the harm

A father's worship of pure force

Bequeathed his son, a life of blight.

Luck chose your's differently, of course,

But then again, you cannot write.
Nishidani (talk) 08:45, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Wow, I thought that would get you going! Very impressive.

On Latin, I've forgotten almost everything I learned at school – which was only a 2-year introduction course. Basically rote learning of endless declensions and conjugations, and that was about it. Not the way to learn a language properly. Our Latin teacher spent a lot of his lessons moaning about his having to do National Service. His was the last year group to be required to do NS before it was abolished, which really annoyed him. Moaned a lot about the pointlessness of army life and the incompetence of the officers. He did say that he much preferred classical Greek to Latin. As you know I was forced to drop Latin in order to do German along with the science course, though I would have preferred to continue Latin. The head of the classics department was the only woman head of department (other than "domestic science"), and the only teacher at the school to hold a PhD. Everybody held her in very high regard.

No need to apologise for anything, little Asha just loves to tidy up after her beloved "Onki Nishi", and she saves me a lot of time. Did you know that while you were away she was put in prison for 30 days by Microsoft because (a) I changed something I shouldn't have done, and Microsoft didn't like it (b) I had stupidly neglected to set up a proper backup system (c) Microsoft is able lock you out of YOUR OWN COMPUTER (so after you've set up a new computer, switch from using a Microsoft Account, to using a local one) I'm a terrorist, apparently (= I hate the genocide being perpetrated by Israel)? Only kidding, but I think you'll get the point. Lesson: when and if you get a new computer to replace your dinky one, I recommend setting it up to use a local account. Probably best to allow it to set itself up using the defaults (which means using a Microsoft A/c), but then get someone who knows what they're doing to set you up with a local a/c ASAP.

"How does one put a space between two quatrains. Those above are too distant?" comme ci:

Perhaps they fuck you up: who knows?
For victimhood prefers to rate
Especial value to what shows
Some foreignness in our self-hate.

That they were fucked up in your case
Is possible: I know that most
Are hardly saints - they have to face
Each day the dangers of that coast

No one prepared them for, or taught
What sudden tides await them there,
Whèn love dives, wild, into the fraught
And deeper waters of despair.

The misery's passed on. Each child
Shies at the sea beyond his shore.
Most learn to trust, plunge into the wild
Surges of doubt, survive, and ask for more.

Because, perhaps, they find at last
The strength to venture on their own,
Beyond the footholds of the past,
The tender-treacherous shallows of home.

The trick is simply to use a pair of poem.../poem tags. Which I strongly recommend, since you then don't have to bother typing out all those ugly </br> tags at the end of every line. Not only that, it has the effect that the lines, and line spacing, appear in the rendered text the same as you typed them. Much easier, and more elegant.

--NSH001 (talk) 18:41, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Thanks mate. I can only repay you with another variation, imagining for example how Sylvia Plath would have written a chime to concur with Philip Larkins.

I second that, Philip. Nishi is,

Like Ted my husband, somewhat prone

To see the brighter side and miss

The Nazi side of life at home.


The brutal Fascist- German who

Lurked behind my father's smile

Treated his daughter like a Jew,

With jackboot love in cosy style.


I got my own back on him, though,

And snuffed his memory out when I

Turned on the gas, and watched his slow

Tortured image fade and die.

Best regards as always Nishidani (talk) 19:47, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Hmm, a bit grim that one, but nothing compared to the genocide going on in Gaza, which is overwhelming me at the moment. My turn to tell you off now: ye didnae read and construe what I wrote. Perhaps we have a different sense of elegance: those </br> tags offend my sense of elegance, in addition to being redundant when you're using poem.../poem tags. Save yourself a little effort, and don't bother typing them. --NSH001 (talk) 21:21, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Grim, but obligatory, if the task is to achieve some pastiche of a tone that tries to capture something of the immense manic pain of her final great poems. Perhaps I'd better ask the Big Chief uptop, unless the tetragrammaton's got tired of competition from the Bard, what Will of Stratford, sorry, Eddie de Vere, would quip, reviewing all of the above. Tomorrow. Yes, I caught your point, and promptly forgot to stop applying the endline 'brakes'. You ought to know by now I've got a technical memory as retentive as an incontinent arsehole, um, nah, um, sieve for UCOC wokeishly gimleted eyes. CheersNishidani (talk) 23:17, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Neil. Bit late but here's the chime from Shagspere I promised, as it came through the noise disturbances of the email line from edenville. That may account for the curious running enjambment in a sonnet form:)

Desist from this miscarriage of rude minds
Dis-pairing spirits in a wasteful shame.
Parents are various as the lesser kinds
Which nature's bounty breeds. Those who complain

Perhaps have merit in their suit; yet life
Bridles at monotony, and, often will
Paint her stage outrageously, for strife
Is dramaturgic nature's way to thrill

The Lord of her creation, that sovereign king
Who, settled in eternity's chair, looks on
While art sifts man’s travails and joys to bring
Fresh entertainments from His motley throng.

Our snatch of time from eternity’s all too brief
But better than naught: live it, in grace or grief.
Shagspere aka Nishidunny~~~~

It just occurred to me while writing my latest reply to MSchwartz that this couplet could read in a variation:

We must play our puppet parts: that is the fee
For our brief purchase on eternity.~~~~

Heads up

Hi, you are probably aware already but if you weren’t you are probably going to have an arbitration case request filed against you. v/r - Seawolf35 ^T--C 20:28, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

That is, if they have the competence to put it in the right place. v/r - Seawolf35 ^T--C 20:52, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

I yawn once or twice when I rise, and sometimes this coincides with some objective correlative. No, I'm not aware of any such AE complaint, though this year was beginning to look anomalous since so far the annual ritual of trying to have me banned there seems to be suspended.Making the like seems to function as a kind of self-barnstar in certain quarters.Nishidani (talk) 08:27, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

This stuff, and now the sequence) bores me intensely. It means that everyone's right to a fair and productive working day actually learning something or adding some information to pages is going to be taxed by some bureaucratic request to drop everything and address one's time to what is a non-issue, (organized harassment of both people like myself and Arbcom) that will promise to devour a huge amount of energy by many editors. Well, count me out.

Did not arbs reading that mislocated tirade look into it to examine the quality of the evidence? I mean it's so egregiously bad or silly that the editor cites as evidence of my 'antisemitism' the fact that I cited Eran Elhaik's calculation that the Middle East component of the Ashkenazi genome is roughly 3%, just slightly above the median Neantherthal component of the genome of homo sapiens sapiens (I.e. by this kind of illogic, anyone can claim that we are Neanderthals, not homo sapiens sapiens). I.e. Eran Elhaik, an expert in molecular biology must be a self-hating Jew, and I, by citing him, antisemitic. Good grief. Or stating that I offend Jews in asserting Zionism is a heresy of Judaism. All that means is that the plaintiff is totally unfamiliar with the topic: inn the 1900s Zionism was received with widespread hostility in orthodox Judaism as heretical. These are issues of (a) content (b) knowing something of the topic's scholarship. To express 'offense' on behalf of some abstract 'Jewish community' is bizarre when the scholarship of that community has no problem with these things (if restricted to books and journals apparently. Wiki's error must be that it doesn't protect itself sufficiently from scholarship that upsets communitarian clichés)

In short, an anonymous editor representing an organization which has apparently targeted me, has fudged up a j'accuse which substantially complains that for six years (why not 18?) an antisemite like myself had not been permabanned. Since the material cited has almost all been exhaustively reviewed at AE and turned down, this new case, and the exceptional license accorded this MSchwartz (I may not be too strong on wiki policy but does not editing on behalf of an organization amount to meatpuppetry?) amounts not to opening the doors to double jeopardy, but triple, quadruple jeopardy. Any group, organization or individual with zero actual contributions to wikipedia can pressure this place ad infinitum, by creating the chimaera of a public scandal unless its offline concerns are addressed, in the hope that the screws even on this democratic venue for knowledge must be tightened towards 'political correctness' (a right form of wokeism).

Seeing what is happening at Harvard and on campuses, and in Germany, with even more severe measures being taken to place increasingly formal restrictions on free speech in this area, I'm not surprised.Nishidani (talk) 16:10, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

It's like they don't see the door they are opening here. Ah well. nableezy - 16:17, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

That's where poetry helps. This was foreseen in Auden's lines ('The Door).

Out of it steps the future of the poor

Enigmas, executioners and rules,

Her Majesty in a bad temper or

A red-nosed Fool who makes a fool of fools.Nishidani (talk) 16:29, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

My you are popular! You might be trying to retire, but you are still only maturing with age in terms of your ability to attract administrative scandal. Iskandar323 (talk) 20:42, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

I'd be worried if I were ever 'popular', unless you are, as is probable using the term ironically, in the sense of 'notorious/infamous', though those two would be silly as well. If as Barkeep states, the upcoming report has been under negotiation since February, it is reasonable to assume by the coincidence of dates, that this is a second go at retrying this mid-February denunciation by Drsmoo claiming I was citing Hitler because that, like several earlier complaints since 2018, didn't achieve its aim. Indeed MSchwartz's unfocused tirade cites that directly as part of the evidence. The Israeli- (I assume) advocacy organization employing MSchwartz to channel, apparently, its discontent with my presence here, given its resources can probably draw on a substantial team of edit combers to help their case. It's all rather odd, that we can now admit people to represent a lobby and argue their case. For, if, as has been stated, MSchwartz represents an organization, the case is not that made by that editor alone, so much as the group on behalf of whom he is acting to prosecute me. In all likelihood, I'll sit the forseeable shenanigans out as a bystander, because I'm curious as to how a spokesperson can complain, while the group they admittedly represent remains invisible. Setting that precedent constitutes a genetic mutation in the way Wikipedia has traditionally operated, as a workshop of peers with everything above board, visible.Nishidani (talk) 21:14, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

If the organisation involved does not become known, Arbcom proceedings will certainly have headed in a new and rather Orwellian direction. Iskandar323 (talk) 21:26, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Some reading as you sit on the sidelines of your own show. Iskandar323 (talk) 22:58, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

I'll bookmark it but yesterday I finally overcame a long-delaying resistance to reading Nonnos's Dionysiaca, and three pages into the lengthy Greek text, noted with annoyance that wikipedia's infernal bureaucratic machinery was inadvertently demanding I waste my time answering some sloppy pastiche of polemics about the evil I have been doing here for the last 6 years. The Dionysiaca is notoriously tedious, but at least it is Greek to me, whereas wikipedia, in these endless attempts via arbitration to get me to fuck off, is what Greek is to most others, with good riddance to the labour of 95,000 edits.Nishidani (talk) 23:24, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Ah, this captures the complaintiveness perfectly, barking up the wrong tree. Well done, Nonnos-

δίψιος ἀστερόεντι κύων ἐπεπάφλασε λαιμῷ

πέμπων θερμὸν ὕλαγμα,Liber 1:237-8
Nishidani (talk) 23:51, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

• One piece of advice that occurs to me, after thinking about this: You should consider the people you are most frequently in dispute in in that topic area (especially, of course, anyone who you were replying to in the presented diffs, but anyone in the topic area in general) and, if and when the case is actually filed, you should request that it be broadened in scope to examine general misconduct in that area, with those people added as parties - they will of course probably want to have people they'll add themselves, but that's for the best. Multiple people in the past have objected to the idea of ArbCom cases that name a specific individual in a controversial topic area or who has taken part in a broader dispute, since limiting the scope of a case to just that one person implicitly assumes they are at fault; and ArbCom has, in the past, been receptive to this. Additionally, insisting on broader cases avoids one of the problems people have raised about cases brought by outside groups like this - the possibility that they could result in "one-sided" scrutiny in controversial areas. Of course, anyone can request other people be added to a case (and probably will), but as the person most directly involved in the initial filing you're the logical person to bring them up and would have the most direct knowledge of who might make sense. I know that you're likely thinking mostly of defending yourself (below), as most people would if they knew an upcoming ArbCom case was likely to target them specifically; but in my experience, focusing purely on defending yourself rarely gets anywhere with ArbCom. It is more useful to broaden the scope to encompass the larger dispute so ArbCom can consider the context of the entire topic area, avoiding a situation where all the blame for every problem the topic-area faces falls on your head and every diff in your entire history is considered without that context. --Aquillion (talk) 02:56, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

Thank you indeed for that advice which as usual displays a thorough knowledge of the way things work technically here, something I lack. However, from the outset, no matter how conflictual a talk page may work out to be, or how disruptive an editor or two might strike me as being, on principle I have almost never had recourse to punitive suits against those I find myself in dispute with (I vaguely recall one recourse to AE out of sheer exasperation) I don't 'dob' them in. A 'dobber' in my formative years at school was viewed as tantamount to someone making a despicable violation of a cultural code. That was shared even by our teachers: once 6 of us were informed on for smoking. The headmaster caned each six times, and sent us off with a stern warning. He then called in the informant/delator/dobber-in and thrashed him several times. It was a very intelligent move, since (a) it affirmed the code against betrayal of a peer-group that was fundamental to that school's culture and (b) ensured that the boy who had informed was known to have been punished as well, rendering any temptation to wreak revenge on him for his disloyalty to the group pointless. I manage on wikipedia by following the codes, I believe they are grounded in commonsense and decency, I grew up under, since I cannot adapt myself to a meticulously finessed system of rules, that have technical ramifications of enormous complexity case by case, if only because I find the pages that outline these things unreadable, and my memory prefers to focus on other things, like the material I read to actually write articles. I fully expect a negative verdict, whatever I may say, in any case, and have no desire to cut a pathetic figure of a whinger desperately trying to defend my integrity in a matter that, to me, stinks of a non-wiki body weaponizing wiki rules to a political end. Best regards Nishidani (talk) 12:46, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

• Don’t think there’s any chance anything like what was filed gets accepted personally. At least I hope the arbs aren’t that gullible. nableezy - 04:49, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

I have always defended arbitrators and Arbcom. They have an impossible task, where by the nature of the rules, any complaint, however ill-founded, must be taken as worthy of serious attention. Since they are obliged never to enter into the merits of content disputes, but simply examine claims of rule-infractions like rude or discourteous language, anyone who trains themselves to be courteous can enter a dispute, refuse to even read the books or sources, and advance a contrarian opinion at great length hoping to persuade other source-disattentive editors. The most notorious example of this was at Zionism, race and genetics which I wrote. It was apparent from the beginning that the person challenging the title as WP:Synth had not read the (several hundred pages of) books where these three terms were used conjointly. This was noted, and countered by even further sources, to be evidence of nothing other than a refusal to read the sources. In the months that followed, one or two remarks of exasperation in my otherwise tediously evidential responses were fished up to make an AE complaint, which, though frail, managed to extract a balanced 'warning' (that kind of thing means in later complaints, the plaintiff, even if his evidence is again weak, can insinuate that I have been 'warned' earlier, and we are now at the tipping edge. It is fatuously frivolous to indulge in this clever, repetitious use of pressing AE to get at someone by evidence that utterly distorts the reality - which is that, 99% of the time, an indicted editor can be reading several hours a day, and responding closely and reasonably to editors who disagree on some bit of text or another, and yet end up with the stigma of being consistently discourteous, disruptive, uncollegial and therefore long overdue for suspension. And, apart from the various motivations of those who so frequently haul one to AE (whatever they may be, POVpushing, instrumentalization of a procedure to eliminate someone whose views they dislike, or sheer personal dislike etc.,) arbitrators must simply check the bits and pieces of diffs about one person from a page where up to a dozen participate, the context of what others are doing is irrelevant. Therefore, odd but understandable decisions can easily trump commonsense, which does not have a place in wikipedia guidelines. Whatever, I don't take these things personally. I chose to work under this regimen that I find, technically, inefficient: the good work I've helped write will more or less stay up, and cannot be undone facilely even after one carks it.Nishidani (talk) 12:46, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

"Dreaming"

I am not averse to trying to adjust the "dreaming" text, what would you suggest though? Selfstudier (talk) 15:00, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

It's taken me, still without success because I simply cannot research contributions through technical ineptitude, and perhaps age: 1 hr 45 minutes to try to find just one diff that would refer to something I remember doing around 2015, consulting the No Original Research Noticeboard about precisely this lead formulation. I really have to push myself to ferret and burrow into the tedious reconstruction of my wiki past. If it were a book-related issue, I'd swim through a library like a dolphin around a prow. So, really, just replying to that silly screed above is going to exhaust me spare time to the point that I lose interest in editing. Thank goodness I have a novel to read every day after the noisomeness of this kind of disruptive intrusion. Cheers and good luck with it.Nishidani (talk) 15:21, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

This? Selfstudier (talk) 16:34, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

Yes, indeed, and my heartful thanks for finding it. I could remember the discussion (independent editors confirmed the phrasing was a synth violation, while the I/P editors merely yakked. I must apologize also if it took what looked like 40 minutes out of your time. Best regards.Nishidani (talk) 20:56, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

Np ) it didn't take but a few minutes, given your NOR 2015 cue, splash of Israelites, and up she came. Selfstudier (talk) 21:02, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

That's the sort of thing I am absolutely dumb at. And why when things come to arbitration, I always flounder when obliged to dredge up diffs to establish the whole picture distorted by the diffs someone complaining about me amasses with, apparently, effortless facility. For me, that just means afternoons burnt up in a trivial pursuit not reading something interesting . So I prefer just to allow any sentence to pass, and wear the penalty whatever it may be. It means my productive working day remains safe and pleasurable. Thanks pal.Nishidani (talk) 21:11, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

Considering the complaint

Prefatory

When I saw the immense amount of time an excellent editor like Piotrus felt himself required to waste to clear his name of a patent smear in the preceding Arbcom case on articles dealing with Jews and Poland, an example I will studiously avoid, I nonetheless I thought I should respond at least to the defamatory claims against me made in that screed. My change of thought was generated this morning by reading Or Kashti, Gili Izikovich, 'The IDF Uses Revenge Poems to Boost Soldiers' Morale in Gaza,' Haaretz 26 March 2024, and in particular by one snippet of a 'poem' partially paraphrased there as part of an official anthology to supply troops with a sense that their combative mission was potentially redolent of lyrical possibilities (though a wider world, including that of scholarship, seriously queries whether the havoc visited on the Strip amounts to genocide, where some 13,000 children have been killed). The verses in question which caught my eye seemed to capture an underlying feeling of appalled estrangement from the way realities are experienced by others as perfectly normal, indeed culturally vindicated. The version of the Hebrew poem been read by soldiers in the field runs in a version of it I made as follows:-

It is written, every child’s skull

Shall be smashed upon a rock.

It is written, from Gaza’s Wall

Her palazzi will be struck

By prophetic fire to consume

All evils bred in its womb.

There are at least two direct Biblical allusions here. (a) The first is to Psalm 137, which begins with overpowering beauty:'By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept/when we remembered Zion . .' only to conclude:

Daughter of Babylon,

doomed to destruction,

blessed is he who repays you

as you have done to us.

Blessed is he who seizes your infants

and dashes them against the rocks.

(b) The second is to Amos chapter 1, 6-7.

(6)Thus saith the Lord; For three transgressions of Gaza, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they carried away captive the whole captivity, to deliver them up to Edom:

(7)But I will send a fire on the wall of Gaza, which shall devour the palaces thereof.

What startles me as a reader evidently has no such effect on the religiously orthodox writer who penned these lines, nor on the IDF editors who selected it for their morale-boosting anthology of war poetry, and perhaps they assume the same attitude for their potential readership in Israel. So I am engaged with a world which, apparently, shares none of the shaming restraints on articulating emotions which I was raised to think 'normal' and whose observed presence in oneself demanded a penitental self-examination. To the contrary, from the other perspective, my instinctive perplexity that what struck me as obscenely inhumane, voiced lyrically, is anomalous, at least in terms of the cultural code native readers there take as acceptable, 'normal'. So I am forced to ask myself wherein lies this dissonance in expectations, a dissonance I have encountered every other day while engaged with editing the I/P area. Does, as is often asserted, -most recently in MSchwartz's horrified indictment, my attempts to document that world betray some 'antisemitic' undercurrent, a fastidious repudiation of Jews?Nishidani (talk) 13:45, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

References

Parsing the overture

This user has consistently demonstrated behaviors that appear to be in violation of Wikimedia’s Universal code of conduct and general policy, especially in the form of "Psychological manipulation" and "Hate-speech”. Since at least 2018, the editor has shown a significant bias in topics related to Israel/Palestine and has expressed extreme views on Jews, Jewish heritage, and explicitly, Jewish genetics. In their editing, the user states seriously contested assertions as facts, uses judgmental language, and gives undue weight to a particular view- in this case, the anti-Israel view. Furthermore it seems that this user has also violated some of Wikipedia’s’ “five pillars”, requiring editors on Wikipedia to treat each other with respect and civility (WP:5P4) and editing from a neutral point of view (WP:NPOV). It seems that these non-neutral and sometimes offensive edits rise to harassment, therefore violating art. 3.1 of the UCOC.

Hysteron proteron. The gravamen is in the last line alluding to section 3.1 of the [Wikimedia Foundation Universal Code of Conduct]

Concretely therefore MSchwartz is claiming that my behaviour (or, as they put it ‘my behaviors’, which is an odd way of putting it. I haven’t been diagnosed for split personality disorders yet, at least to my knowledge) has been ‘consistently’ intended primarily to intimidate, outrage or upset a person,’ and that I do this consistently under any number of the indictable headings, namely Insults,Sexual harassment,Threats,Encouraging harm to others,Disclosure of personal data (Doxing),Hounding,Trolling.

Where's the evidence since 2018 (that is the date MSchwartz sets) for any of these charges? What functionally does 'psychological manipulation' mean? And whose minds have I stealthily plagiarized in Svengali fashion? The answer apparently is in UCOC 3:2:

Psychological manipulation: Maliciously causing someone to doubt their own perceptions, senses, or understanding with the objective to win an argument or force someone to behave the way you want.

One must presume from this that my argumentative style on talk pages is taken here to be primarily fueled by a devious malice dryly calculated to subvert an interlocutor's identity, and coerce them thereby to become my puppets in a form of cynical gamesmanship. In Italian law down to 1981 this was a criminal offense (Plagio) until a court deemed it in violation of Italy's constitution since, 'specifically, the substance of the crime was impossible to fully assess with logical-rational criteria, creating an intolerable risk of arbitrary prosecution and conviction.' It is quite striking that this unverifiable crime, now abolished, has reared its bizarre head in the UCOC. But there it is, and if recourse to it is jumped at, expect a humongous number of inconclusive threads to follow, because the way the policy is framed, nothing of the sort can be adjudicated and verified conclusively.Nishidani (talk) 14:46, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Hate speech? What magician's hat was that smear pulled out by its rabbity ears? If you assert another editor uses hate speech, with zero evidence to that end, that is a violation of the very principles outlined in the UCOC about editorial interactions. Indeed, if one cannot prove it, it gives grounds for laying a complaint about adventitious innuendoes aimed to smear a fellow wikipedian. Nishidani (talk) 14:51, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Since at least 2018, the editor has shown a significant bias in topics related to Israel/Palestine' expressing

• extreme views on Jews
• (extreme views on) Jewish heritage
• and explicitly Jewish genetics.

Aside from that polemically beloved term extreme why 'explicitly?' Is MSchwartz not aware that in using this of the last in a series of three claims, grammatically they are suggesting that the other two claims are 'implicit'?)

Since anyone familiar with my work and these archives could readily google up strong evidence that I take extreme exception to any kind of talk, loose or otherwise, that collectivizes 'Jews' (or any other group) and that, theoretically, I have repeatedly stated that notions of collective identity (Jewish, Israeli, Chinese, Russian whoever) are dangerous, aside from being conceptually inane, if politically and rhetorically potent, I ask myself how on earth, on what evidence, does the plaintiff claim I entertain an idea that I have 'consistently' repudiated as repugnant?

Jewish heritage. What extreme take have I adopted in writing articles extensively on that infinitely complex and variegated dominion of tradition, which includes the following articles written wholly or in good part by me.? Your scurrilous caricature is a wild smear based on a studied ignorance of the record, which includes

• Franz Baermann Steiner
• The Jew Among Thorns
• Joseph's Tomb
• Nethinim
• Qos (deity)
• Birkat haMinim
• Kaifeng Jews
• Khazars
• Albert Antébi
• Michael Astour
• Pirqoi ben Baboi
• Haim Farhi
• Raul Hilberg
• Yehuda Elkana
• Bruno Hussar
• Zvi Yehuda Kook
• Ezra Nawi
• Pierre Nora
• Simon Nora
• Yoel Palgi
• Meyer Reinhold
• David Dean Shulman
• Elio Toaff
• André Ungar
• Amiel Vardi

to name just a handful? In 18 years of contributing to wikipedia, I have yet to see even one of the hundreds of editors identifiably and legitimately editing from a 'pro-Israeli' perspective who have responded positively to my suggestion that they show their neutrality by creating articles on Palestinian history, people or culture. I have stated several times that displaying an ability to write neutrally, and yet sympathetically, about the side one may less identify with in a conflict at article length should be one of the qualifications for working in this area, other than 500 edits.Nishidani (talk) 17:03, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

'Jewish genetics'. The expression means, 'genetic studies on Jews' understood here however as 'genetic studies that essay to determine the origins of the Jewish people, and the interrelations of their various groups'. Yes, I edit those articles. Is there any evidence I have tampered with them to skew their content ideologically? No. Nishidani (talk) 15:12, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

the user states seriously contested assertions as facts, uses judgmental language, and gives undue weight to a particular view- in this case, the anti-Israel view.

• Any editor is free to express his views or opinions, esp. on talk pages. What counts is article mainspace, where I challenge you to detect edits where I might be shown to have intruded personal 'seriously contested assertions as facts, use(d) judgmental language, and give(n) undue weight to a particular view' as imputed to me here.

requiring editors on Wikipedia to treat each other with respect and civility (WP:5P4).

• Yes, in 18 years and over 95,000 edits, on a number of occasions mostly predating 2018, I allowed myself to be exasperated, was reported and duly sanctioned. In statistical terms, these outbursts were extremely rare. Wikipedia appropriately regulated my infractions with its usual methods and I accepted on each occasion the sanction, without appealing.Nishidani (talk) 17:24, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Inflammatory commentary on Jews/Judaism

The user recently used disrespectful, threatening language that borders anti-semitism. goody. I can't wait to peeve (slip =perve) on the discussion there when it gets to his beliefs about the genetic superiority of his own ethnic group. Dumb goyim beware.”
The term "dumb goyim" can be used to perpetuate harmful stereotypes and contribute to a narrative of a Jewish superiority over non-Jews, a theme found in antisemitic rhetoric, where Jews are sometimes falsely accused of harboring a sense of superiority towards non-Jews. This comment is uncivil and violates Art. 2.2 of Wikimedia’s UCOC. Moreover, the threatening nature of this comment’, it’s attempted “trolling”, and insulting antisemitic reference, rise to Harassment, violating article 3.1 of the UCOC. Although a complaint filed against him] for using this phrase was closed with warning, with one admin stating that “if it happened again, I would not take so charitable a view”. But this is not the first time that User:Nishidani has used this phrase.

• This is an attempt at double jeopardy. The issue was raised at AE just over a month ago (Nishidani). It was shown there that I had Philip Roth's use of the phrase in mind, and that the idea behind that phrasing is not peculiar to antisemites but refers to a genre of jokes that is rather common in Israel of non-Jews. You didn't like the outcome. It apparently jars with your conviction that only antisemites use it, despite the fact I cited it ironically in the context of a NYTs writer (and Ashkenazi), Bret Stephens, asserting his ethnic group was brighter than non-Jews. So you repeat it here. On 'inflammatory' you are raking over recent ashes and trying to restoke a fire.Nishidani (talk) 17:43, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

References

The user has also stated that the article Jews is "untouchable in its POV sacrality".

• Did you read that diff in its entirety, and did you check what I was referring to, the edit history and talk page discussions on the controversial POV-pushing incipit I alluded to? Apparently not. I'll do so for you.

This reference to the POV sacrality of the wiki page Jews occurs on the Samaritans talk page in this discussion.

An editor challenged the lead language which asserted that Samaritans ‘claim’ to be descended from the Israelites, noting that in the parallel article on Jews, the origins of Jews as descended from Israelites is not a claim but stated in wikivoice as a fact. He removed ‘claim’ to establish parity. An I/P editor stepped in (they edited for one week, with a total of 22 edits) and protested that this is taking things ‘too far’. Without asking what justified this random opinion, a compromise was reached, restoring ‘claim’ per Iskandar]] (usually identified as ‘pro-Palestinian’.)

This meant that across wiki pages, Jewish descent from the Israelites was asserted as a fact, whereas the Samaritans’ descent was described as a ‘claim’ (when historically these two groups were adversaries). To understand what was going on, one needs some degree of area competence and familiarity with the scholarship on these respective issues, something diff evaluation in arbitration does not consider important.

The POV dissonance is this. In rabbinical tradition, Samaritans (heirs of the northern kingdom) are depicted as Cuthites, not authentic Israelites but rather an imported people dumped there by Assyria to replace ‘real’ Israelites/Jews who had been expelled from Palestine. Samaritans (the dominant population in their area for a millennium until the Christian Byzantines virtually wiped them out) always rebuffed this injurious put-down. The source on the page, Peidong Shen Tal Lavi, et al., Reconstruction of Patrilineages and Matrilineages of Samaritans and Other Israeli Populations From Y-Chromosome and Mitochondrial DNA Sequence Variation 2004 supported the notion that the Samaritan patrilineal line predate the Assyrian conquest, which renders the rabbinical tradition of Samaritan inferiority suspect.

At a glance therefore, it is quite apparent that in restoring the Samaritan tradition of Israelitic descent as a ‘claim’ while describing the Jewish tradition affirming Israelitic descent as a fact on the sister Jews page, Wikipedia was inadvertently endorsing a rabbinical tradition in favour of Jews over Samaritans as the direct authentic heirs to the Israelites.

This kind of deconstruction of the context in which that single diff is embedded is, of course, not taken into account in arbitration, where etiquette and rule-compliant evaluation, not familiarity with the scholarly state of the art, is the overriding concern.Nishidani (talk) 14:41, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

The phrase 'untouchable in its sacrality' refers to the opening formulation on that page. Anyone can edit that article, obviously. Attempts to emend the lead sentence over the years come up against a wall of objections and reverts: The questionable 'sacred' phrasing is:

The Jews (Hebrew: יְהוּדִים‎, ISO 259-2: Yehudim, Israeli pronunciation: [jehuˈdim]) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites of the ancient Near East,

When I read that I recall perhaps the foremost modern historian of the history of the Jews who, writing critically of Shlomo Sand's controversial book, back in 2009, stated:

Sand’s self-dramatising attack in The Invention of the Jewish People is directed against those who assume, uncritically, that all Jews are descended lineally from the single racial stock of ancient Hebrews – a position no one who has thought for a minute about the history of the Jews would dream of taking.'Simon Schama,'The Invention of the Jewish People,' Financial Times November 13, 2009

Well for 15 years (2009-2024), most editors of the wikipedia article on Jews are 'dreaming' in their support of this view, and the passage cannot be changed. It is not offensive to suggest that this formulation, in the face of a foremost authority's dismissal of it as nonsense, has a 'sacred' quality. It is one of the many standard ideological/political POV formulations that are the curse of wiki, immovable for the number of editors who defend it whenever its crudity is questioned.

I deal in details, and when a generalization of any kind crops up, see if the statement unequivocably covers all bases. This doesn't. I raised this on the talk pages several times, notably here, with no response (see also here and here It dismissively ignores conversion to Judaism, as I noted as far back as February 2008, and further at the No Original Research page. That is a political statement, -linked to the modern doctrine of the right of Jews anywhere in the world to return to Israel as the homeland of their ancestors- not a reflection of the scholarship or of historical reality. the Inca Jews in West Bank in settlements like Elon Moreh and Alon Shvut; the Tibeto-Burman Jews in Hebron, the Ethiopian Jews, Malabar Jews are all examples of the conversion of peoples for whose descent from Israelites, for whom an 'ethnonational' identity (as opposed to a broader Semitic identity), is totally unattested and indeed defies known historical facts. Josephus himself states that 'Judaeans' refers to those who inhabit Judea, which included many other tribes and gentiles who lived there and adopted Jewish law and customs (Against Apion). In this, Jews, like any other people, emerged in formative and later periods in a culture enriched by regular intermarriage with peoples who did not descend from the biblical Israelites (links to the scholarship from Solomon Zeitlin (1953) onwards are readily available). In antiquity attachment to a Jewish lifestyle, not race or nationality, defined who was a Jew (Zeitlin). I have Goan ancesty apparently, from one great-great grandmother. This does not mean that I descend from Kokani people. Genetically, all the people in the world have a common ancestor in or around the middle of the 1st. millenium BCE. Our cultural mythologies riff endless identitarian variations on the assumption of a single ethnic origin, but historians, and more recently, geneticists, know better.

My remark, which MSchwartz considers abusive and evidence of malice, looks like that only if no one takes the trouble to examine my repeated notes on the 'Jews' talkpage about the difficulties in the WP:SYNTH argument made here. Editors won't budge on that statement. Nishidani (talk) 14:50, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

References

They also attributed the survival of Jews to what they termed "diasporic promiscuity," a phrase that reflects a deeply biased and offensive perspective on Jewish history and genetics.

• So MSchwartz personally disagrees with the massive literature on Jewish historical origins, a snippet of which I allude to just above, where conversion, intermarriage was commonplace. No evidence given. Perhaps what he defines as 'offensive' is the word 'promiscuity' in 'diasporic promiscuity'. I first began to enjoy using that term as a boy, about 15, when a religious friend took me to task for my 'intellectual promiscuity'. I read outside the narrow field of doctrinal history, written by true believers, and he found books written on his interests by non-believers offensive. In any case, the objection is religious, based on Deuteronomy 7:4. Philo of Alexandria says that the riffraff accompanying the (mythical) exodus from Egypt were the result of a 'promiscuous mixing' (in the original Greek at de Vita Mosis). The term comes from my own professional field, it being used by Sonia Ryang in her work on Koreans in Japan. There is nothing offensive in it, unless one thinks the term cannot be used metaphorically.Nishidani (talk) 16:34, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

More on genetics, the user has written that the Middle Eastern component among Ashkenazi Jews is “estimated to range from 3% upwards”, a distortion of common scholarship that half of Ashkenazi ancestry is Middle Eastern, promoting a fringe outlier instead.

• I cited on a talk page a datum given in Das, Elhaik, Wexler,'The Origins of Ashkenaz, Ashkenazic Jews, and Yiddish,' Frontiers of Genetics June 2017

MSchwartz clearly, and/or the anonymous organization he represents, in thinking this is cogent evidence for violating UCOC, has no idea of how wikipedia works. Had they wished to make a point, examining the subject closely, they would have just pointed out that I had confused there 'Levantine' with 'Ashkenazi'. To do that in my book is reprehensible, there is no excuse for disattention here. But such lapses on a talk page have nothing reportable about them. My point was that the Southern Levant/Israel-Palestine origin of the Ashkenazi is not endorsed by modern genetics, which of course has revised its earlier Levantine argument in favour of the extremely vague term 'Middle Eastern', meaning that evidence exists for a founding population hailing from in part anywhere from Turkey to Iran, but not from the southern Israelites. And, one gathers, mentioning this is distasteful for MSchwarz. Nishidani (talk) 20:24, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

According to the user, “As any rabbi competent in modern historiography will confirm, Jews have their origin in Judaism, not in an ethnos”. However, Jews have always seen themselves as a people with shared ancestry.

• It should take anyone just a few minutes to ascertain at google books that, down to the foundation of Zionism in the late 19th century and well beyond, the consensus of certainly Ashkenazi rabbis emphasized Judaism, and its followers as a religion, not an 'ethnic' matter.

MSchwartz makes a generalization about Jews, that down to the last man they have always seen themselves to share the same ancestry. The fragility of that claim is easily disproved. I mentioned above that Josephus, writing in the Ist cent.CE, stated that 'Judeans' referred also to Gentiles who lived in Palestine at that time and adopted Jewish law. Obviously, their fellow Jews familiar with such Judeans would not have believed these ex-gentiles in their fold share their own ancestry, any more than the forced conversion of the tens of thousands of Edomites by John Hyrcanus over a century and a half earlier would have meant that traditional Jews would have immediately believed that they shared the same ancestry with the newcomers (to the contrary). This is the kind of historical detail that always makes confident generalizations like the one above meaningless. Nishidani (talk) 21:34, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

The above raises serious concerns regarding genetics-related articles such as 'Racial conceptions of Jewish identity in Zionism', originally “Zionism, race and genetics”, where Nishidani has 62% authorship. The article has an essayistic tone and sparked controversy due to its synthesis of three topics that are not commonly analyzed together in existing literature.

• This is frankly incomprehensible in its lack of any logic. What is the asserted connection between the controversies over the genetic origins of the Ashkenazi to do with the article Racial conceptions of Jewish identity in Zionism which, yes, I wrote? The latter is a survey of modern scholarship's historical references to the way Zionism conceptualized the Jews, as a race, a radical innovation at the time (1900s) It is not, as three editors argued, an 'essay' unless any article written mostly by one editor is an 'essay'. Worse, in stating that it sparked controversy due to its synthesis of three topics that are not commonly analyzed together in existing literature. No. What happened that it was subject to a push for it to be deleted, and in the discussion, those who kept insisting that it 'synthesized three topics...not commonly analyzed together in (the existing literature' were comprehensively shown, particularly by a very neutral wikipedian, Levivich, to be unfamiliar with the existing literature, refusing to read it while making unsupported claims like the one MSchwartz exhumes.

User:Nishidani has stated that "The word 'settlement' is an Israeli/US euphemism born of the necessity to camouflage or underplay the fact that the old ideology is still kicking (out Palestinians) for lebensraum". This comment uses the term ‘lebensraum’ which is primarily associated with German nationalism and later with the territorial expansion policies of Nazi Germany

.

In my book, the notion of 'extreme' is already in the word 'bias'. MSchwartz appears to think that it may be okay to be 'biased against Israel' but deplorable to be 'extremely biased' against that country. These kinds of distinction are weird. If someone has a bias against Israel, then one might have good reason to wonder whether that person might harbour antisemitic feelings, in my understanding. If one is critical of a number of policies implemented by any state, Israel included, that is not evidence of bias if the critical content is grounded in a reasoned analysis. What is the first piece of evidence. On a talk page, nota bene, I expressed my view that Israeli settlements in the West Bank reflect a Lebensraum ideology.

Why this is classified as an 'inflammatory remark' about Jews or Judaism escapes me. MSchwarz confuses Israel with Jews/Judaism, evidently. To be critical of the former is to be prejudiced with regard to the latter.

Now in the literature on antisemitism written explicitly and often polemically in defence of Israel, it is quite true that a number of scholars have asserted that drawing of any analogy between Nazi and Israel practices is, ipso facto, antisemitic.

References

So MSchwartz's assertion here reflects a point of view entertained by some scholars. The problem is, both MSchwartz, and those scholars, ignore the fact that this analogy is widespread in critical views on or positive endorsements of, the policies implemented in the West Bank, which one encounters regularly in Israeli newspapers and Israeli and diasporic scholarship. Were the contention true, then not only am I an antisemite, but leading (Jewish and Israeli) scholars and journalists are also.

• ‘the calamity that overtook the Palestinian Arabs in A. D. 1948 was on the heads of the Zionist Jews who seized a lebensraum for themselves in Palestine by force of arms in that year’. Arnold Toynbee, cited Omer Bartov Israel-Palestine: Lands and Peoples, Berghahn Books 2021 ISBN 978-1-800-73130-1 p.53
• '‘There are certain people in Israel who have hinted (that) they would like Israel to retain the West Bank for Lebensraum.' Findley Burns Jr., The American ambassador to Jordan (1966-1967) speaking to Jordan's King Hussein after the Six Days War. Cited in Avi Raz, The Bride and the Dowry_:Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinians in the Aftermath of the June 1967 War, ISBN 978-0-300-18353-5 Yale University Press 2012
• ‘To me, who grew up under the Nazi occupation, the determined conquest of the Palestinian patrimony echoed Germany’s Drang nach Osten to provide its Herrenvolk with greater Lebensraum.' Milan Kubic, From Prague to Jerusalem:An Uncommon Journey of a Journalist, Cornell University Press 2017 ISBN 978-1-501-75703-7 p.231 (Kubic was a Czechoslovakian-American journalist who was head of Newsweek’s Beirut office from 1967 to mid 1971)
• ‘Israel’s Quest for Lebensraum,' section heading in Shlomo Ben-Ami's Prophets Without Honor:The 2000 Camp David Summit and the End of the Two-state Solution, Oxford University Press 2022 ISBN 978-0-190-06047-3 p.256
• Effi Eitam, IDF brigadier general and Knesset member stated in an interview 2002 interview with the Jewish-French writer Sylvain Cypel:

"The western part of Eretz Yisrael . .from the Mediterranean to the Jordan: that’s the Jewish people’s vital space. Eitam, who apparently skipped his history classes in school, didn’t seem to know that “vital space” was at the heart of the Nazi lebensraum concept. Otherwise he might have suggested another formation. But the fact remains that the idea came to him spontaneously. And in that space, only Jews would be alliowed to rule. People who talk about “human rights” and “peace” were “psychopaths,” he added.'Sylvain Cypel,. L'Etat d'Israël contre les Juifs,' La Découverte 2020 ISBN 978-2-348-04344-4.p.95('vital space'/espace vitale is the standard French translation of Lebensraum.)

• Yossi Sarid, 'Lebensraum as a Justification for Israeli Settlements,' Haaretz 26 August 2011
• 'Quite an accomplishment, considering the Settler Einsatzgruppen stealing Lebensraum and concreting Palestinians' wells.' Gideon Levy 'Israel's Next Surprise Is Coming From the West Bank,' Haaretz 16 November 2023
• Lebensraum was used just recently by the Arab Israeli lawmaker MK Ahmad Tibi in the Knesset to describe the proposals by Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich to reoccupy and settle the Gaza Strip. Sam Sokol, 'Far-right ministers call to ‘resettle’ Gaza’s Palestinians, build settlements in Strip,' The Times of Israel 1 January 2024, Nishidani (talk) 20:28, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

But, above all, if one googles Russia+Ukraine+lebensraum one obtains over 225,000 hits, the first up for me being from the German Foreign Ministry, which likened what Putin does to what its own Germany did in WW2. So it is quite acceptable to use this of a geopolitical adversary of the West like Russia, but, the assumption here is, totally unacceptable, indeed 'antisemitic' to ever use the word with regard to Israel's seizure of, and colonization of, the West Bank after 1967, though Israeli critics in Israeli sources have no problem in drawing that analogy. Nishidani (talk) 20:28, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

The user labelled Zionism "a Jewish heresy" that may generate antisemitism. He also wrote that Zionism has a "historical mission to utterly disintegrate the indigenous population of Palestine", wondering "to what degree Israel will succeed in convincing the diaspora that all this Germanic thoroughness in wiping away an authentically semitic people is for the good of the Jewish people."

Again, the evidence cited is (a) a view I expressed on my Talk page, where I respond to editors who want me to discuss material, articles or the content of this dispute (b) has nothing to do with attacks on Jews or Judaism.

Unless, as it again appears, MSchwartz considers Zionism as interchangeable with both the Jewish people and Judaism, and therefore to be critical of the former is, ipso facto to be hostile to both the latter. It is reasonably fair to assume that the premise here is underwritten by the highly controversial definition advocated by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance for a Working definition of antisemitism which critics argue weaponizes antisemitism as an instrument against those who criticise Israel, viewed as a Zionist state, subjecting them to a linguistic surveillance that would restrict the exercise of free speech. Nishidani (talk) 12:28, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

(1) (a) I labelled Zionism, which is, as is openly admitted, an 'ideology', a 'Jewish heresy' because (i) at the turn of the 19th-20 centuries, is was roundly and very widely condemned as such by the majority of Western orthodox rabbis, and could garner a consensus of less than 1% of the Jewish people, despite a lot of drum-beating:

Herzl’s charismatic powers had their limits. By the time of his death, less than 1 percent of world Jewry was officially affiliated with the Zionist Organization, and Herzlian Zionism provoked considerable opposition. Most Orthodox Jews dismissed it as blasphemous.Derek Penslar, Theodor Herzl:The Charismatic Leader, Yale University Press 2020 ISBN 978-0-300-18040-4 p.7

'Rabbi Elmer Berger was often seen as an heretic. A graduate of the Hebrew Union College (USA) and an enthusiastic adept of Classical Reform, he opposed Zionism naturally, as did, then, most of his peers. What distinguishes him from other Reform rabbis is that he remained loyal to his beliefs throughout his life.Jack Ross, Rabbi Outcast: Elmer Berger and American Jewish Anti-Zionism, Potomac Books, 2011 ISBN 978-1-597-97697-8

Most versions of anti-Zionism first appeared among the Jews. The first, and probably the oldest, takes Zionism to be a Jewish heresy. According to Orthodox doctrine, the return of the Jews to Zion and the establishment of a state will be the work of the Messiah in the days to come. Until then, Jews are required to accept their exile, defer to gentile rulers, and wait for divine deliverance. Political action is a usurpation of God’s prerogative. Zionist writers hated the passivity that this doctrine produced with such passion that they were called anti-Semites by orthodox Jews, who would never have given that name to their own rejection of the Zionist project.Michael Walzer Anti-Zionism and Anti-Semitism:What’s wrong with anti-Zionism is anti-Zionism itself. (With a response from Joshua Leifer.) Dissent Fall 2019

(b) This is the formal theological position of an important component of Orthodox Judaism, Haredi Judaism.Giles Fraser, For Haredi Jews secular Zionism remains a religious heresy The Guardian 12 May 2016. See also Haredim and Zionism.

I.e., MSchwartz considers that my view, informed by history, and shared by the religious leaders of 1.8 million Jews, worldwide, and who make up roughly 15% of Israel's population, is, if only because I repeated it, evidence of an inflammatory statement about 'Jews/Judaism'. Go figure.Nishidani (talk) 13:45, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

2 a second reconsideration of what I briefly wrote in response to this passage below, cited earlier.

He also wrote that Zionism has a "historical mission to utterly disintegrate the indigenous population of Palestine",

Again, this is taken from my talk page, a view I expressed when referred to read an article by Chris Hedges.

What is scandalous about expressing the view that Zionism has, throughout its history, persistently worked to displace and disperse (disintegrate) the autochthonous population of Palestine? That is remarked upon, let us say, argued in a great number of books, starting with Nur Masalha's Expulsion of the Palestinians: The Concept of "Transfer"in Zionist Political Thought 1882-1948 Institute for Palestine Studies 1992 ISBN 0-88728-242-3. I won't make a list or give the massive details, but in synthesis

It was Theodor Herzl, the founder of Zionism who, in proposing massive Ashkenazi immigration into Palestine where 95% of the historic population of the time was Arab, wrote of his hope Zionism would find a way to ’spirit the penniless population across the border.’ And this was reaffirmed time and again, not least by Ben-Gurion in 1937 writing of "the compulsory transfer of the Arabs from the valleys of the projected Jewish state...we have to stick to this conclusion the same way we grabbed the Balfour Declaration, more than that, the same way we grabbed at Zionism itself." Dispersal from their homes, villages and properties (730,000 in 1948, 150,000 in 1967) of Palestinians over the borders to a scattered refugee life in camps from Lebanon, Syria to Jordan, together with the bantustanization of those Palestinians who remain in their occupied lands in 165 enclaves, cut off from each other, and most recently compelling most of the 2.2 million inhabitants of Gaza to flee south into provisory camps on a miniscule patch of their former territory, is part of an uncontroversial record. Perhaps what MSchwartz dislikes is the word 'mission'?, in the sense that my view presumes a design, and this recurrent pattern is just a striking coincidence of haphazard events without forethought. Well, I think I am entitled to assess the evidence otherwise, without it being taken as an indication of hostility against Jews or Judaism. In any case, it is not my unique opinion.

The fragmentation of the Palestinian people is the core method through which Israel enforces apartheid.' Richard Falk, Virginia Tilley, Israeli Practices towards the Palestinian People and the Question of Apartheid, Southern Illinois University 15 March 2017 p.37 Nishidani (talk) 14:36, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

I bolded 'penniless population' because from 1896 to 1948, Jewish purchases of land in Palestinian managed to accumulate 6% in title. The outcome of 1948 was that the state ended up with 78% of the land and declared all property owned by refugees fleeing the havoc and uncertainty of war as 'enemy property' effectively with a stroke of the pen appropriating 200,000 lots of land, housing and property. After 1967, the West Bank was seized without any real resistance, and most of the area declared '(Israeli) state land', with the result that, without any transfer of money or compensation to those who owned or worked the land, Israel effectively took control of the real estate of 93% of the original country, and the Palestinians exercise legal control over about 7%, exactly the figure for Jewish land purchase down to 1948. This may be all accidental, but Herzl's population, many of whom once enjoyed the modern villas and conveniences of West Jerusalem, found themselves indeed penniless, as he hoped, if not yet 'spirited' across the borders. Nishidani (talk) 14:47, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

The user wrote blatantly inflammatory comments here, for example calling Israeli media outlets: “militant mouth organ-grinders or trumpeting blowhards for a constituency of religio-fascist landgrabbers”. Israel Hayom is Israel’s most widely distributed newspaper, while Arutz 7 has the third-largest weekend circulation in the country.

Again this is from my talk page.

• I did not speak of Israeli media outlets (generic, and nothing implied of Haaretz, Times of Israel, Ynet or Jerusalem Post etc.). I named two minor league papers, Arutz 7 and Israel Hayom.
• The former caters (notable for always pushing the meme that Barak Obama is a secret Muslim) to a constituency of settlers and has consistently written in defense of the most violent among them, Hilltop youth, which our article describes as “hardline, extremist religious-nationalist youth who establish outposts without an Israeli legal basis in the West Bank’.

References

True, my language is harsh but it is directed not against Jews, but against settlers who either engage in or support these violent expropriations, or if they murmur, do nothing to stop it and continue reading papers that endorse the violence. 15% of West Bank settlers -60,000 Americans - come from solid family homes in the United States and they are at the forefront of settler violence. So they must be perfectly culturally familiar with the Lockean compact - a core element of democracy -that property is sacred and transferred only by a negotiated sale between the parties. This awareness is congealed by the 'religious' pretext that the land is all Jewish since the year dot, and Palestinians who have dwelt there for millenia have no title, even if they do possess one under Israeli law and may be dispossessed. Very convenient if you live in Brooklyn and find buying a house too expensive in the US, as opposed to settling with a government subsidy on some WB village's lands).

David Dean Shulman, describing in detail his first hand observations of what settlers do to the poorest of Palestinian goatherds (poisoning their grazing land etc) in his classic Dark Hope (2007) called it 'absolute evil'.

Eva Illouz an Israel-French sociologist writing for Le Monde, analysing the rise to political power of the leader of Religious Zionism Itamar Ben-Gvir, who now has considerable say in West Bank settlement policy, argued that ‘(h)e represents what we must reluctantly call "Jewish fascism".' 'The third political force in Israel represents what we must reluctantly call Jewish fascism Le Monde 16 November 2022.

So, however harsh my language (and I must, to keep abreast, read articles in the Israeli press that give weekly accounts of this violence) my target was the two Israeli popular newspapers who consistently find reason to defend examples of what everyone knows is unprovoked violence) it corresponds to a documented reality, that, aside from exceptions like eminently admirable settlers like the late lamented rabbi Menachem Froman, violent landgrabbers exist, are tolerated, and never punished. In any case, I'll meet you on a compromise, by agreeing that here, and only here, I let my personal feelings get the upper hand over detached analysis on my talk page.Nishidani (talk) 13:59, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

• Nishidani edited large portions and added much content to an article titled: Animal stereotypes of Palestinians in Israeli discourse, while violating one of the main “pillars” of Wikipedia; NPOV and at times also being disrespectful and uncivil when referring to Israelis and Jews. This was after he wrote on his talk page that he will "make a wiki page on the history of this variety of subhuman stereotype as it has developed in Israeli discourse on Palestinians". In his first edit he writes that both Palestinians and Israelis tend to refer to each other by the usage of animal stereotypes, yet the title of the article and the rest of it, solely accuses the Israeli-Jewish side of this mutual practice.

So what? Where ‘at times was I ‘being disrespectful and uncivil when referring to Israelis and Jews?’ There are a very large number of articles on Palestinian rocket attacks and terrorism on wiki (look at Palestinian political violence), on none of which have I insisted that, to NPOV balance, we must add a balancing section in each outlining Jewish terrorism or the continual Israeli missile and artillery assaults on the Gaza Strip. I haven’t argued that editors who make these pages are disrespectful and uncivil to Palestinians.

While I read I write notes topically collated, and 10 years ago I had enough on animal metaphors for an article. (I might note that there is a splendid work of great erudition by Jay Geller, Bestiarium Judaicum: Unnatural Histories of the Jews, Fordham University Press 2017 ISBN 978-0-823-27560-1 which influenced my article, and would well deserve an article on its own.) When Yoav Gallant on 7 October called all Gazans ‘animals’, I voiced the idea that it might be time to write up those notes for an article. But I didn’t. Then some months later, another editor tried to do so with a poorly formatted stub, and alerted me. The stub was rejected, but I took it in hand and produced the article you see, which diligently has a prefatory remark that both sides indulge in this, but addresses the far less familiar terrain of Israeli political caricatures of Palestinians. As I said on the talk page, any one is free to write a corresponding page on Palestinian stereotypes of Israelis, but they will have difficulty getting that depth of coverage of statements from senior and influential Palestinian figures, and I certainly am far too busy in real life to do everyone’s work. I write up what I know of relatively comprehensively.Nishidani (talk) 14:20, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

• Palestinian displacement in East Jerusalem, created by Selfstudier, and Nishidani (who joined 40 minutes after the article was created), presents contested claims in WP:VOICE. Source [a], for example, is from al-Haq, a Palestinian group. Stating opinions and contested assertions as facts, rises to violation of Wikimedia’s policy of writing from a NPOV. Similar concerns arise with the Palestinian enclaves article, which seems to endorse a biased perspective and presents one-sided viewpoints in violation of WP:NPOV guidelines. The first paragraph immediately draws comparisons to the Apartheid, and then cherry-picks a quote from Amira Hass, a journalist known in Israel for her radical left opinions. Despite these issues, it is classified as a good article. Nishidani, a significant contributor to this article, has strongly resisted efforts to address concerns regarding its bias, as can be seen here, also adding personal attacks, violating art. 2.1 and 2.2 of UCOC.

So I edited a newly created article - Palestinian displacement in East Jerusalem - and violated NPOV by adding a material from, al-Haq, and citing Amira Hass. The former is a Palestinian source, and the latter is (here we go) a cherry-picked ref for a journalist known for her ‘radical left opinions’. Citing a Palestinian Human Rights source, high respected abroad, and an Israeli journalist who rather than being the daughter of Holocaust survivors and a recipient of multiple awards internationally for her defense of Palestinian human rights, is a ‘radical leftist’. It’s pointless responding, except to note that the I/P area is about two national subjects, Israel and Palestine, and to assume that the narrative should exclude Palestinian sources is bizarre for any wikipedian who know what NPOV requires.

Finally, my 'strongly resisted efforts to address concerns regarding its bias'. The article (another one, not the one on Palestinian displacements in East Jerusalem' from which this is taken) refers to my dismissal of an anachronistic tagging by Tombah of Palestinian enclaves. Now I think it fair to state that everyone interacting with Tombah knew for a year or so he was a sockpuppet. Mostly, given there was no checkuser case, one responded pretending he was a serious contributor. Shortly after that tagging, the proof was finally forthcoming. But the point is, a very substantial amount of effort and time earlier had thoroughly addressed concerns raised by several editors, Tombah included, and in that note, Tombah alone remained unsatisfied, without giving any serious evidence for a reasonable 'concern'. So I dismissed it, as did others.Nishidani (talk) 14:25, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

• The user labelled an NYT article on sexual violence during the October 7 attacks "pseudo-journalism".

The article is Jeffrey Gettleman, Anat Schwartz and Adam Sella ‘Screams Without Words’: How Hamas Weaponized Sexual Violence on Oct. 7 New York Times 28 December 2023. A wiki article was written up precisely on this piece,Screams Without Words. Read it. It was controversial from day 1. There are several competent critics, among them Ben Smith, who challenged the claim it was way below the quality to be expected from the venue in which it was published. The data weren't collected and written by competent or experienced journalists. In any case, what is wrong with expressing one's view that something written about this topic, and appearing in a mainstream source, is 'pseudo-journalism'. The NYTs published Judith Miller who extraordinary disinformation helped gain consensus for the war on Iraq, though, and I remember it well, her articles were contradicted by evidence readily available.Nishidani (talk) 14:45, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

• The user presents themselves, and another user he frequently collaborated with, User:Nableezy, as I/P specialists. When users approach them asking to pay attention for their conduct, they responded aggressively. In one example, they told one user to "stop shitstirring", to refrain from editing certain pages, and blaming them for "appalling ignorance", violating art. 2.1 and 2.2 of wikimedia's UCOC.

I have edited in the I/P area for 16 years, Nableezy slightly less. It is reasonable to note that we have some topic familiarity, indeed specialize in that area. The diff you cite referring to this heading and discussion on my talk page above does not refer to the I/P area, but to an article regarding Japan. I won't go into the details, but I read it as an attempt, in my view malicious, to out my identity, in revenge for a near block (I think he failed to get me sanctioned) and an interaction ban he had just copped, and I noted this to an administrator, giving the details in an email. Had I addressed the merits with a formal complaint, the editor in question would almost certainly have been permabanned. I preferred telling him he was a 'shit-stirrer' and not complaining, because of the principle enunciated above, that I don't use ANI or AE to conduct vendettas or 'get at' editors I disagree with.Nishidani (talk) 14:59, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

* On August 29th 2018 at 16:41, administrator named Sandstein wrote: “I will consider imposing a block or an indefinite topic ban, with or without any prior discussion, in the event of continued battleground-like conduct by Nishidani in this topic area”. A few hours later, at 20:12 the user stated he retired. Despite that, and putting a retired tag on his page, he is clearly still active.

I persist in maintaining a very high regard for Sandstein, notwithstanding that remark which I considered injurious and more a matter of impatience than the cool judgment I have long admired in him. Others of course are welcome to see it differently. In any case, he left me the possibility of appealing his decision, which, on principle, I declined. I have said: if an arbitration decision goes against me, I take it on the chin - I was brought up to regard whingeing as poor form -and sit out the consequences. For the record, my reasoning on his decision is here.Nishidani (talk) 15:27, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

:oh and by the way, you missed citing the evidence that I viciously attacked Nableezy (actually it was an injoke exchange on our user pages someone eavesdropped on) just after the Sandstein incident. I even used shit-stirrer there.Nishidani (talk) 15:38, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

• All of MSchwartz's points basically express a deep distaste for my views (which are basically those I drew from reading Israeli and diasporic scholarship), and have little to do with a case for my putative repeated infraction of wikipedia protocols. I understand the distaste, but all I can see here is unfamiliarity with the way actually editing wikipedia works.Nishidani (talk) 21:34, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

"Dreaming"

I am not averse to trying to adjust the "dreaming" text, what would you suggest though? Selfstudier (talk) 15:00, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

It's taken me, still without success because I simply cannot research contributions through technical ineptitude, and perhaps age: 1 hr 45 minutes to try to find just one diff that would refer to something I remember doing around 2015, consulting the No Original Research Noticeboard about precisely this lead formulation. I really have to push myself to ferret and burrow into the tedious reconstruction of my wiki past. If it were a book-related issue, I'd swim through a library like a dolphin around a prow. So, really, just replying to that silly screed above is going to exhaust me spare time to the point that I lose interest in editing. Thank goodness I have a novel to read every day after the noisomeness of this kind of disruptive intrusion. Cheers and good luck with it.Nishidani (talk) 15:21, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

This? Selfstudier (talk) 16:34, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

Yes, indeed, and my heartful thanks for finding it. I could remember the discussion (independent editors confirmed the phrasing was a synth violation, while the I/P editors merely yakked. I must apologize also if it took what looked like 40 minutes out of your time. Best regards.Nishidani (talk) 20:56, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

Np ) it didn't take but a few minutes, given your NOR 2015 cue, splash of Israelites, and up she came. Selfstudier (talk) 21:02, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

That's the sort of thing I am absolutely dumb at. And why when things come to arbitration, I always flounder when obliged to dredge up diffs to establish the whole picture distorted by the diffs someone complaining about me amasses with, apparently, effortless facility. For me, that just means afternoons burnt up in a trivial pursuit not reading something interesting . So I prefer just to allow any sentence to pass, and wear the penalty whatever it may be. It means my productive working day remains safe and pleasurable. Thanks pal.Nishidani (talk) 21:11, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

Considering the complaint

Prefatory

When I saw the immense amount of time an excellent editor like Piotrus felt himself required to waste to clear his name of a patent smear in the preceding Arbcom case on articles dealing with Jews and Poland, an example I will studiously avoid, I nonetheless I thought I should respond at least to the defamatory claims against me made in that screed. My change of thought was generated this morning by reading Or Kashti, Gili Izikovich, 'The IDF Uses Revenge Poems to Boost Soldiers' Morale in Gaza,' Haaretz 26 March 2024, and in particular by one snippet of a 'poem' partially paraphrased there as part of an official anthology to supply troops with a sense that their combative mission was potentially redolent of lyrical possibilities (though a wider world, including that of scholarship, seriously queries whether the havoc visited on the Strip amounts to genocide, where some 13,000 children have been killed). The verses in question which caught my eye seemed to capture an underlying feeling of appalled estrangement from the way realities are experienced by others as perfectly normal, indeed culturally vindicated. The version of the Hebrew poem been read by soldiers in the field runs in a version of it I made as follows:-

It is written, every child’s skull

Shall be smashed upon a rock.

It is written, from Gaza’s Wall

Her palazzi will be struck

By prophetic fire to consume

All evils bred in its womb.

There are at least two direct Biblical allusions here. (a) The first is to Psalm 137, which begins with overpowering beauty:'By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept/when we remembered Zion . .' only to conclude:

Daughter of Babylon,

doomed to destruction,

blessed is he who repays you

as you have done to us.

Blessed is he who seizes your infants

and dashes them against the rocks.

(b) The second is to Amos chapter 1, 6-7.

(6)Thus saith the Lord; For three transgressions of Gaza, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they carried away captive the whole captivity, to deliver them up to Edom:

(7)But I will send a fire on the wall of Gaza, which shall devour the palaces thereof.

What startles me as a reader evidently has no such effect on the religiously orthodox writer who penned these lines, nor on the IDF editors who selected it for their morale-boosting anthology of war poetry, and perhaps they assume the same attitude for their potential readership in Israel. So I am engaged with a world which, apparently, shares none of the shaming restraints on articulating emotions which I was raised to think 'normal' and whose observed presence in oneself demanded a penitental self-examination. To the contrary, from the other perspective, my instinctive perplexity that what struck me as obscenely inhumane, voiced lyrically, is anomalous, at least in terms of the cultural code native readers there take as acceptable, 'normal'. So I am forced to ask myself wherein lies this dissonance in expectations, a dissonance I have encountered every other day while engaged with editing the I/P area. Does, as is often asserted, -most recently in MSchwartz's horrified indictment, my attempts to document that world betray some 'antisemitic' undercurrent, a fastidious repudiation of Jews?Nishidani (talk) 13:45, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

References

Parsing the overture

This user has consistently demonstrated behaviors that appear to be in violation of Wikimedia’s Universal code of conduct and general policy, especially in the form of "Psychological manipulation" and "Hate-speech”. Since at least 2018, the editor has shown a significant bias in topics related to Israel/Palestine and has expressed extreme views on Jews, Jewish heritage, and explicitly, Jewish genetics. In their editing, the user states seriously contested assertions as facts, uses judgmental language, and gives undue weight to a particular view- in this case, the anti-Israel view. Furthermore it seems that this user has also violated some of Wikipedia’s’ “five pillars”, requiring editors on Wikipedia to treat each other with respect and civility (WP:5P4) and editing from a neutral point of view (WP:NPOV). It seems that these non-neutral and sometimes offensive edits rise to harassment, therefore violating art. 3.1 of the UCOC.

Hysteron proteron. The gravamen is in the last line alluding to section 3.1 of the [Wikimedia Foundation Universal Code of Conduct]

Concretely therefore MSchwartz is claiming that my behaviour (or, as they put it ‘my behaviors’, which is an odd way of putting it. I haven’t been diagnosed for split personality disorders yet, at least to my knowledge) has been ‘consistently’ intended primarily to intimidate, outrage or upset a person,’ and that I do this consistently under any number of the indictable headings, namely Insults,Sexual harassment,Threats,Encouraging harm to others,Disclosure of personal data (Doxing),Hounding,Trolling.

Where's the evidence since 2018 (that is the date MSchwartz sets) for any of these charges? What functionally does 'psychological manipulation' mean? And whose minds have I stealthily plagiarized in Svengali fashion? The answer apparently is in UCOC 3:2:

Psychological manipulation: Maliciously causing someone to doubt their own perceptions, senses, or understanding with the objective to win an argument or force someone to behave the way you want.

One must presume from this that my argumentative style on talk pages is taken here to be primarily fueled by a devious malice dryly calculated to subvert an interlocutor's identity, and coerce them thereby to become my puppets in a form of cynical gamesmanship. In Italian law down to 1981 this was a criminal offense (Plagio) until a court deemed it in violation of Italy's constitution since, 'specifically, the substance of the crime was impossible to fully assess with logical-rational criteria, creating an intolerable risk of arbitrary prosecution and conviction.' It is quite striking that this unverifiable crime, now abolished, has reared its bizarre head in the UCOC. But there it is, and if recourse to it is jumped at, expect a humongous number of inconclusive threads to follow, because the way the policy is framed, nothing of the sort can be adjudicated and verified conclusively.Nishidani (talk) 14:46, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Hate speech? What magician's hat was that smear pulled out by its rabbity ears? If you assert another editor uses hate speech, with zero evidence to that end, that is a violation of the very principles outlined in the UCOC about editorial interactions. Indeed, if one cannot prove it, it gives grounds for laying a complaint about adventitious innuendoes aimed to smear a fellow wikipedian. Nishidani (talk) 14:51, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Since at least 2018, the editor has shown a significant bias in topics related to Israel/Palestine' expressing

• extreme views on Jews
• (extreme views on) Jewish heritage
• and explicitly Jewish genetics.

Aside from that polemically beloved term extreme why 'explicitly?' Is MSchwartz not aware that in using this of the last in a series of three claims, grammatically they are suggesting that the other two claims are 'implicit'?)

Since anyone familiar with my work and these archives could readily google up strong evidence that I take extreme exception to any kind of talk, loose or otherwise, that collectivizes 'Jews' (or any other group) and that, theoretically, I have repeatedly stated that notions of collective identity (Jewish, Israeli, Chinese, Russian whoever) are dangerous, aside from being conceptually inane, if politically and rhetorically potent, I ask myself how on earth, on what evidence, does the plaintiff claim I entertain an idea that I have 'consistently' repudiated as repugnant?

Jewish heritage. What extreme take have I adopted in writing articles extensively on that infinitely complex and variegated dominion of tradition, which includes the following articles written wholly or in good part by me.? Your scurrilous caricature is a wild smear based on a studied ignorance of the record, which includes

• Franz Baermann Steiner
• The Jew Among Thorns
• Joseph's Tomb
• Nethinim
• Qos (deity)
• Birkat haMinim
• Kaifeng Jews
• Khazars
• Albert Antébi
• Michael Astour
• Pirqoi ben Baboi
• Haim Farhi
• Raul Hilberg
• Yehuda Elkana
• Bruno Hussar
• Zvi Yehuda Kook
• Ezra Nawi
• Pierre Nora
• Simon Nora
• Yoel Palgi
• Meyer Reinhold
• David Dean Shulman
• Elio Toaff
• André Ungar
• Amiel Vardi

to name just a handful? In 18 years of contributing to wikipedia, I have yet to see even one of the hundreds of editors identifiably and legitimately editing from a 'pro-Israeli' perspective who have responded positively to my suggestion that they show their neutrality by creating articles on Palestinian history, people or culture. I have stated several times that displaying an ability to write neutrally, and yet sympathetically, about the side one may less identify with in a conflict at article length should be one of the qualifications for working in this area, other than 500 edits.Nishidani (talk) 17:03, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

'Jewish genetics'. The expression means, 'genetic studies on Jews' understood here however as 'genetic studies that essay to determine the origins of the Jewish people, and the interrelations of their various groups'. Yes, I edit those articles. Is there any evidence I have tampered with them to skew their content ideologically? No. Nishidani (talk) 15:12, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

the user states seriously contested assertions as facts, uses judgmental language, and gives undue weight to a particular view- in this case, the anti-Israel view.

• Any editor is free to express his views or opinions, esp. on talk pages. What counts is article mainspace, where I challenge you to detect edits where I might be shown to have intruded personal 'seriously contested assertions as facts, use(d) judgmental language, and give(n) undue weight to a particular view' as imputed to me here.

requiring editors on Wikipedia to treat each other with respect and civility (WP:5P4).

• Yes, in 18 years and over 95,000 edits, on a number of occasions mostly predating 2018, I allowed myself to be exasperated, was reported and duly sanctioned. In statistical terms, these outbursts were extremely rare. Wikipedia appropriately regulated my infractions with its usual methods and I accepted on each occasion the sanction, without appealing.Nishidani (talk) 17:24, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Inflammatory commentary on Jews/Judaism

The user recently used disrespectful, threatening language that borders anti-semitism. goody. I can't wait to peeve (slip =perve) on the discussion there when it gets to his beliefs about the genetic superiority of his own ethnic group. Dumb goyim beware.”
The term "dumb goyim" can be used to perpetuate harmful stereotypes and contribute to a narrative of a Jewish superiority over non-Jews, a theme found in antisemitic rhetoric, where Jews are sometimes falsely accused of harboring a sense of superiority towards non-Jews. This comment is uncivil and violates Art. 2.2 of Wikimedia’s UCOC. Moreover, the threatening nature of this comment’, it’s attempted “trolling”, and insulting antisemitic reference, rise to Harassment, violating article 3.1 of the UCOC. Although a complaint filed against him] for using this phrase was closed with warning, with one admin stating that “if it happened again, I would not take so charitable a view”. But this is not the first time that User:Nishidani has used this phrase.

• This is an attempt at double jeopardy. The issue was raised at AE just over a month ago (Nishidani). It was shown there that I had Philip Roth's use of the phrase in mind, and that the idea behind that phrasing is not peculiar to antisemites but refers to a genre of jokes that is rather common in Israel of non-Jews. You didn't like the outcome. It apparently jars with your conviction that only antisemites use it, despite the fact I cited it ironically in the context of a NYTs writer (and Ashkenazi), Bret Stephens, asserting his ethnic group was brighter than non-Jews. So you repeat it here. On 'inflammatory' you are raking over recent ashes and trying to restoke a fire.Nishidani (talk) 17:43, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

References

The user has also stated that the article Jews is "untouchable in its POV sacrality".

• Did you read that diff in its entirety, and did you check what I was referring to, the edit history and talk page discussions on the controversial POV-pushing incipit I alluded to? Apparently not. I'll do so for you.

This reference to the POV sacrality of the wiki page Jews occurs on the Samaritans talk page in this discussion.

An editor challenged the lead language which asserted that Samaritans ‘claim’ to be descended from the Israelites, noting that in the parallel article on Jews, the origins of Jews as descended from Israelites is not a claim but stated in wikivoice as a fact. He removed ‘claim’ to establish parity. An I/P editor stepped in (they edited for one week, with a total of 22 edits) and protested that this is taking things ‘too far’. Without asking what justified this random opinion, a compromise was reached, restoring ‘claim’ per Iskandar]] (usually identified as ‘pro-Palestinian’.)

This meant that across wiki pages, Jewish descent from the Israelites was asserted as a fact, whereas the Samaritans’ descent was described as a ‘claim’ (when historically these two groups were adversaries). To understand what was going on, one needs some degree of area competence and familiarity with the scholarship on these respective issues, something diff evaluation in arbitration does not consider important.

The POV dissonance is this. In rabbinical tradition, Samaritans (heirs of the northern kingdom) are depicted as Cuthites, not authentic Israelites but rather an imported people dumped there by Assyria to replace ‘real’ Israelites/Jews who had been expelled from Palestine. Samaritans (the dominant population in their area for a millennium until the Christian Byzantines virtually wiped them out) always rebuffed this injurious put-down. The source on the page, Peidong Shen Tal Lavi, et al., Reconstruction of Patrilineages and Matrilineages of Samaritans and Other Israeli Populations From Y-Chromosome and Mitochondrial DNA Sequence Variation 2004 supported the notion that the Samaritan patrilineal line predate the Assyrian conquest, which renders the rabbinical tradition of Samaritan inferiority suspect.

At a glance therefore, it is quite apparent that in restoring the Samaritan tradition of Israelitic descent as a ‘claim’ while describing the Jewish tradition affirming Israelitic descent as a fact on the sister Jews page, Wikipedia was inadvertently endorsing a rabbinical tradition in favour of Jews over Samaritans as the direct authentic heirs to the Israelites.

This kind of deconstruction of the context in which that single diff is embedded is, of course, not taken into account in arbitration, where etiquette and rule-compliant evaluation, not familiarity with the scholarly state of the art, is the overriding concern.Nishidani (talk) 14:41, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

The phrase 'untouchable in its sacrality' refers to the opening formulation on that page. Anyone can edit that article, obviously. Attempts to emend the lead sentence over the years come up against a wall of objections and reverts: The questionable 'sacred' phrasing is:

The Jews (Hebrew: יְהוּדִים‎, ISO 259-2: Yehudim, Israeli pronunciation: [jehuˈdim]) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites of the ancient Near East,

When I read that I recall perhaps the foremost modern historian of the history of the Jews who, writing critically of Shlomo Sand's controversial book, back in 2009, stated:

Sand’s self-dramatising attack in The Invention of the Jewish People is directed against those who assume, uncritically, that all Jews are descended lineally from the single racial stock of ancient Hebrews – a position no one who has thought for a minute about the history of the Jews would dream of taking.'Simon Schama,'The Invention of the Jewish People,' Financial Times November 13, 2009

Well for 15 years (2009-2024), most editors of the wikipedia article on Jews are 'dreaming' in their support of this view, and the passage cannot be changed. It is not offensive to suggest that this formulation, in the face of a foremost authority's dismissal of it as nonsense, has a 'sacred' quality. It is one of the many standard ideological/political POV formulations that are the curse of wiki, immovable for the number of editors who defend it whenever its crudity is questioned.

I deal in details, and when a generalization of any kind crops up, see if the statement unequivocably covers all bases. This doesn't. I raised this on the talk pages several times, notably here, with no response (see also here and here It dismissively ignores conversion to Judaism, as I noted as far back as February 2008, and further at the No Original Research page. That is a political statement, -linked to the modern doctrine of the right of Jews anywhere in the world to return to Israel as the homeland of their ancestors- not a reflection of the scholarship or of historical reality. the Inca Jews in West Bank in settlements like Elon Moreh and Alon Shvut; the Tibeto-Burman Jews in Hebron, the Ethiopian Jews, Malabar Jews are all examples of the conversion of peoples for whose descent from Israelites, for whom an 'ethnonational' identity (as opposed to a broader Semitic identity), is totally unattested and indeed defies known historical facts. Josephus himself states that 'Judaeans' refers to those who inhabit Judea, which included many other tribes and gentiles who lived there and adopted Jewish law and customs (Against Apion). In this, Jews, like any other people, emerged in formative and later periods in a culture enriched by regular intermarriage with peoples who did not descend from the biblical Israelites (links to the scholarship from Solomon Zeitlin (1953) onwards are readily available). In antiquity attachment to a Jewish lifestyle, not race or nationality, defined who was a Jew (Zeitlin). I have Goan ancesty apparently, from one great-great grandmother. This does not mean that I descend from Kokani people. Genetically, all the people in the world have a common ancestor in or around the middle of the 1st. millenium BCE. Our cultural mythologies riff endless identitarian variations on the assumption of a single ethnic origin, but historians, and more recently, geneticists, know better.

My remark, which MSchwartz considers abusive and evidence of malice, looks like that only if no one takes the trouble to examine my repeated notes on the 'Jews' talkpage about the difficulties in the WP:SYNTH argument made here. Editors won't budge on that statement. Nishidani (talk) 14:50, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

References

They also attributed the survival of Jews to what they termed "diasporic promiscuity," a phrase that reflects a deeply biased and offensive perspective on Jewish history and genetics.

• So MSchwartz personally disagrees with the massive literature on Jewish historical origins, a snippet of which I allude to just above, where conversion, intermarriage was commonplace. No evidence given. Perhaps what he defines as 'offensive' is the word 'promiscuity' in 'diasporic promiscuity'. I first began to enjoy using that term as a boy, about 15, when a religious friend took me to task for my 'intellectual promiscuity'. I read outside the narrow field of doctrinal history, written by true believers, and he found books written on his interests by non-believers offensive. In any case, the objection is religious, based on Deuteronomy 7:4. Philo of Alexandria says that the riffraff accompanying the (mythical) exodus from Egypt were the result of a 'promiscuous mixing' (in the original Greek at de Vita Mosis). The term comes from my own professional field, it being used by Sonia Ryang in her work on Koreans in Japan. There is nothing offensive in it, unless one thinks the term cannot be used metaphorically.Nishidani (talk) 16:34, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

More on genetics, the user has written that the Middle Eastern component among Ashkenazi Jews is “estimated to range from 3% upwards”, a distortion of common scholarship that half of Ashkenazi ancestry is Middle Eastern, promoting a fringe outlier instead.

• I cited on a talk page a datum given in Das, Elhaik, Wexler,'The Origins of Ashkenaz, Ashkenazic Jews, and Yiddish,' Frontiers of Genetics June 2017

MSchwartz clearly, and/or the anonymous organization he represents, in thinking this is cogent evidence for violating UCOC, has no idea of how wikipedia works. Had they wished to make a point, examining the subject closely, they would have just pointed out that I had confused there 'Levantine' with 'Ashkenazi'. To do that in my book is reprehensible, there is no excuse for disattention here. But such lapses on a talk page have nothing reportable about them. My point was that the Southern Levant/Israel-Palestine origin of the Ashkenazi is not endorsed by modern genetics, which of course has revised its earlier Levantine argument in favour of the extremely vague term 'Middle Eastern', meaning that evidence exists for a founding population hailing from in part anywhere from Turkey to Iran, but not from the southern Israelites. And, one gathers, mentioning this is distasteful for MSchwarz. Nishidani (talk) 20:24, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

According to the user, “As any rabbi competent in modern historiography will confirm, Jews have their origin in Judaism, not in an ethnos”. However, Jews have always seen themselves as a people with shared ancestry.

• It should take anyone just a few minutes to ascertain at google books that, down to the foundation of Zionism in the late 19th century and well beyond, the consensus of certainly Ashkenazi rabbis emphasized Judaism, and its followers as a religion, not an 'ethnic' matter.

MSchwartz makes a generalization about Jews, that down to the last man they have always seen themselves to share the same ancestry. The fragility of that claim is easily disproved. I mentioned above that Josephus, writing in the Ist cent.CE, stated that 'Judeans' referred also to Gentiles who lived in Palestine at that time and adopted Jewish law. Obviously, their fellow Jews familiar with such Judeans would not have believed these ex-gentiles in their fold share their own ancestry, any more than the forced conversion of the tens of thousands of Edomites by John Hyrcanus over a century and a half earlier would have meant that traditional Jews would have immediately believed that they shared the same ancestry with the newcomers (to the contrary). This is the kind of historical detail that always makes confident generalizations like the one above meaningless. Nishidani (talk) 21:34, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

The above raises serious concerns regarding genetics-related articles such as 'Racial conceptions of Jewish identity in Zionism', originally “Zionism, race and genetics”, where Nishidani has 62% authorship. The article has an essayistic tone and sparked controversy due to its synthesis of three topics that are not commonly analyzed together in existing literature.

• This is frankly incomprehensible in its lack of any logic. What is the asserted connection between the controversies over the genetic origins of the Ashkenazi to do with the article Racial conceptions of Jewish identity in Zionism which, yes, I wrote? The latter is a survey of modern scholarship's historical references to the way Zionism conceptualized the Jews, as a race, a radical innovation at the time (1900s) It is not, as three editors argued, an 'essay' unless any article written mostly by one editor is an 'essay'. Worse, in stating that it sparked controversy due to its synthesis of three topics that are not commonly analyzed together in existing literature. No. What happened that it was subject to a push for it to be deleted, and in the discussion, those who kept insisting that it 'synthesized three topics...not commonly analyzed together in (the existing literature' were comprehensively shown, particularly by a very neutral wikipedian, Levivich, to be unfamiliar with the existing literature, refusing to read it while making unsupported claims like the one MSchwartz exhumes.

User:Nishidani has stated that "The word 'settlement' is an Israeli/US euphemism born of the necessity to camouflage or underplay the fact that the old ideology is still kicking (out Palestinians) for lebensraum". This comment uses the term ‘lebensraum’ which is primarily associated with German nationalism and later with the territorial expansion policies of Nazi Germany

.

In my book, the notion of 'extreme' is already in the word 'bias'. MSchwartz appears to think that it may be okay to be 'biased against Israel' but deplorable to be 'extremely biased' against that country. These kinds of distinction are weird. If someone has a bias against Israel, then one might have good reason to wonder whether that person might harbour antisemitic feelings, in my understanding. If one is critical of a number of policies implemented by any state, Israel included, that is not evidence of bias if the critical content is grounded in a reasoned analysis. What is the first piece of evidence. On a talk page, nota bene, I expressed my view that Israeli settlements in the West Bank reflect a Lebensraum ideology.

Why this is classified as an 'inflammatory remark' about Jews or Judaism escapes me. MSchwarz confuses Israel with Jews/Judaism, evidently. To be critical of the former is to be prejudiced with regard to the latter.

Now in the literature on antisemitism written explicitly and often polemically in defence of Israel, it is quite true that a number of scholars have asserted that drawing of any analogy between Nazi and Israel practices is, ipso facto, antisemitic.

References

So MSchwartz's assertion here reflects a point of view entertained by some scholars. The problem is, both MSchwartz, and those scholars, ignore the fact that this analogy is widespread in critical views on or positive endorsements of, the policies implemented in the West Bank, which one encounters regularly in Israeli newspapers and Israeli and diasporic scholarship. Were the contention true, then not only am I an antisemite, but leading (Jewish and Israeli) scholars and journalists are also.

• ‘the calamity that overtook the Palestinian Arabs in A. D. 1948 was on the heads of the Zionist Jews who seized a lebensraum for themselves in Palestine by force of arms in that year’. Arnold Toynbee, cited Omer Bartov Israel-Palestine: Lands and Peoples, Berghahn Books 2021 ISBN 978-1-800-73130-1 p.53
• '‘There are certain people in Israel who have hinted (that) they would like Israel to retain the West Bank for Lebensraum.' Findley Burns Jr., The American ambassador to Jordan (1966-1967) speaking to Jordan's King Hussein after the Six Days War. Cited in Avi Raz, The Bride and the Dowry_:Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinians in the Aftermath of the June 1967 War, ISBN 978-0-300-18353-5 Yale University Press 2012
• ‘To me, who grew up under the Nazi occupation, the determined conquest of the Palestinian patrimony echoed Germany’s Drang nach Osten to provide its Herrenvolk with greater Lebensraum.' Milan Kubic, From Prague to Jerusalem:An Uncommon Journey of a Journalist, Cornell University Press 2017 ISBN 978-1-501-75703-7 p.231 (Kubic was a Czechoslovakian-American journalist who was head of Newsweek’s Beirut office from 1967 to mid 1971)
• ‘Israel’s Quest for Lebensraum,' section heading in Shlomo Ben-Ami's Prophets Without Honor:The 2000 Camp David Summit and the End of the Two-state Solution, Oxford University Press 2022 ISBN 978-0-190-06047-3 p.256
• Effi Eitam, IDF brigadier general and Knesset member stated in an interview 2002 interview with the Jewish-French writer Sylvain Cypel:

"The western part of Eretz Yisrael . .from the Mediterranean to the Jordan: that’s the Jewish people’s vital space. Eitam, who apparently skipped his history classes in school, didn’t seem to know that “vital space” was at the heart of the Nazi lebensraum concept. Otherwise he might have suggested another formation. But the fact remains that the idea came to him spontaneously. And in that space, only Jews would be alliowed to rule. People who talk about “human rights” and “peace” were “psychopaths,” he added.'Sylvain Cypel,. L'Etat d'Israël contre les Juifs,' La Découverte 2020 ISBN 978-2-348-04344-4.p.95('vital space'/espace vitale is the standard French translation of Lebensraum.)

• Yossi Sarid, 'Lebensraum as a Justification for Israeli Settlements,' Haaretz 26 August 2011
• 'Quite an accomplishment, considering the Settler Einsatzgruppen stealing Lebensraum and concreting Palestinians' wells.' Gideon Levy 'Israel's Next Surprise Is Coming From the West Bank,' Haaretz 16 November 2023
• Lebensraum was used just recently by the Arab Israeli lawmaker MK Ahmad Tibi in the Knesset to describe the proposals by Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich to reoccupy and settle the Gaza Strip. Sam Sokol, 'Far-right ministers call to ‘resettle’ Gaza’s Palestinians, build settlements in Strip,' The Times of Israel 1 January 2024, Nishidani (talk) 20:28, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

But, above all, if one googles Russia+Ukraine+lebensraum one obtains over 225,000 hits, the first up for me being from the German Foreign Ministry, which likened what Putin does to what its own Germany did in WW2. So it is quite acceptable to use this of a geopolitical adversary of the West like Russia, but, the assumption here is, totally unacceptable, indeed 'antisemitic' to ever use the word with regard to Israel's seizure of, and colonization of, the West Bank after 1967, though Israeli critics in Israeli sources have no problem in drawing that analogy. Nishidani (talk) 20:28, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

The user labelled Zionism "a Jewish heresy" that may generate antisemitism. He also wrote that Zionism has a "historical mission to utterly disintegrate the indigenous population of Palestine", wondering "to what degree Israel will succeed in convincing the diaspora that all this Germanic thoroughness in wiping away an authentically semitic people is for the good of the Jewish people."

Again, the evidence cited is (a) a view I expressed on my Talk page, where I respond to editors who want me to discuss material, articles or the content of this dispute (b) has nothing to do with attacks on Jews or Judaism.

Unless, as it again appears, MSchwartz considers Zionism as interchangeable with both the Jewish people and Judaism, and therefore to be critical of the former is, ipso facto to be hostile to both the latter. It is reasonably fair to assume that the premise here is underwritten by the highly controversial definition advocated by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance for a Working definition of antisemitism which critics argue weaponizes antisemitism as an instrument against those who criticise Israel, viewed as a Zionist state, subjecting them to a linguistic surveillance that would restrict the exercise of free speech. Nishidani (talk) 12:28, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

(1) (a) I labelled Zionism, which is, as is openly admitted, an 'ideology', a 'Jewish heresy' because (i) at the turn of the 19th-20 centuries, is was roundly and very widely condemned as such by the majority of Western orthodox rabbis, and could garner a consensus of less than 1% of the Jewish people, despite a lot of drum-beating:

Herzl’s charismatic powers had their limits. By the time of his death, less than 1 percent of world Jewry was officially affiliated with the Zionist Organization, and Herzlian Zionism provoked considerable opposition. Most Orthodox Jews dismissed it as blasphemous.Derek Penslar, Theodor Herzl:The Charismatic Leader, Yale University Press 2020 ISBN 978-0-300-18040-4 p.7

'Rabbi Elmer Berger was often seen as an heretic. A graduate of the Hebrew Union College (USA) and an enthusiastic adept of Classical Reform, he opposed Zionism naturally, as did, then, most of his peers. What distinguishes him from other Reform rabbis is that he remained loyal to his beliefs throughout his life.Jack Ross, Rabbi Outcast: Elmer Berger and American Jewish Anti-Zionism, Potomac Books, 2011 ISBN 978-1-597-97697-8

Most versions of anti-Zionism first appeared among the Jews. The first, and probably the oldest, takes Zionism to be a Jewish heresy. According to Orthodox doctrine, the return of the Jews to Zion and the establishment of a state will be the work of the Messiah in the days to come. Until then, Jews are required to accept their exile, defer to gentile rulers, and wait for divine deliverance. Political action is a usurpation of God’s prerogative. Zionist writers hated the passivity that this doctrine produced with such passion that they were called anti-Semites by orthodox Jews, who would never have given that name to their own rejection of the Zionist project.Michael Walzer Anti-Zionism and Anti-Semitism:What’s wrong with anti-Zionism is anti-Zionism itself. (With a response from Joshua Leifer.) Dissent Fall 2019

(b) This is the formal theological position of an important component of Orthodox Judaism, Haredi Judaism.Giles Fraser, For Haredi Jews secular Zionism remains a religious heresy The Guardian 12 May 2016. See also Haredim and Zionism.

I.e., MSchwartz considers that my view, informed by history, and shared by the religious leaders of 1.8 million Jews, worldwide, and who make up roughly 15% of Israel's population, is, if only because I repeated it, evidence of an inflammatory statement about 'Jews/Judaism'. Go figure.Nishidani (talk) 13:45, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

2 a second reconsideration of what I briefly wrote in response to this passage below, cited earlier.

He also wrote that Zionism has a "historical mission to utterly disintegrate the indigenous population of Palestine",

Again, this is taken from my talk page, a view I expressed when referred to read an article by Chris Hedges.

What is scandalous about expressing the view that Zionism has, throughout its history, persistently worked to displace and disperse (disintegrate) the autochthonous population of Palestine? That is remarked upon, let us say, argued in a great number of books, starting with Nur Masalha's Expulsion of the Palestinians: The Concept of "Transfer"in Zionist Political Thought 1882-1948 Institute for Palestine Studies 1992 ISBN 0-88728-242-3. I won't make a list or give the massive details, but in synthesis

It was Theodor Herzl, the founder of Zionism who, in proposing massive Ashkenazi immigration into Palestine where 95% of the historic population of the time was Arab, wrote of his hope Zionism would find a way to ’spirit the penniless population across the border.’ And this was reaffirmed time and again, not least by Ben-Gurion in 1937 writing of "the compulsory transfer of the Arabs from the valleys of the projected Jewish state...we have to stick to this conclusion the same way we grabbed the Balfour Declaration, more than that, the same way we grabbed at Zionism itself." Dispersal from their homes, villages and properties (730,000 in 1948, 150,000 in 1967) of Palestinians over the borders to a scattered refugee life in camps from Lebanon, Syria to Jordan, together with the bantustanization of those Palestinians who remain in their occupied lands in 165 enclaves, cut off from each other, and most recently compelling most of the 2.2 million inhabitants of Gaza to flee south into provisory camps on a miniscule patch of their former territory, is part of an uncontroversial record. Perhaps what MSchwartz dislikes is the word 'mission'?, in the sense that my view presumes a design, and this recurrent pattern is just a striking coincidence of haphazard events without forethought. Well, I think I am entitled to assess the evidence otherwise, without it being taken as an indication of hostility against Jews or Judaism. In any case, it is not my unique opinion.

The fragmentation of the Palestinian people is the core method through which Israel enforces apartheid.' Richard Falk, Virginia Tilley, Israeli Practices towards the Palestinian People and the Question of Apartheid, Southern Illinois University 15 March 2017 p.37 Nishidani (talk) 14:36, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

I bolded 'penniless population' because from 1896 to 1948, Jewish purchases of land in Palestinian managed to accumulate 6% in title. The outcome of 1948 was that the state ended up with 78% of the land and declared all property owned by refugees fleeing the havoc and uncertainty of war as 'enemy property' effectively with a stroke of the pen appropriating 200,000 lots of land, housing and property. After 1967, the West Bank was seized without any real resistance, and most of the area declared '(Israeli) state land', with the result that, without any transfer of money or compensation to those who owned or worked the land, Israel effectively took control of the real estate of 93% of the original country, and the Palestinians exercise legal control over about 7%, exactly the figure for Jewish land purchase down to 1948. This may be all accidental, but Herzl's population, many of whom once enjoyed the modern villas and conveniences of West Jerusalem, found themselves indeed penniless, as he hoped, if not yet 'spirited' across the borders. Nishidani (talk) 14:47, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

The user wrote blatantly inflammatory comments here, for example calling Israeli media outlets: “militant mouth organ-grinders or trumpeting blowhards for a constituency of religio-fascist landgrabbers”. Israel Hayom is Israel’s most widely distributed newspaper, while Arutz 7 has the third-largest weekend circulation in the country.

Again this is from my talk page.

• I did not speak of Israeli media outlets (generic, and nothing implied of Haaretz, Times of Israel, Ynet or Jerusalem Post etc.). I named two minor league papers, Arutz 7 and Israel Hayom.
• The former caters (notable for always pushing the meme that Barak Obama is a secret Muslim) to a constituency of settlers and has consistently written in defense of the most violent among them, Hilltop youth, which our article describes as “hardline, extremist religious-nationalist youth who establish outposts without an Israeli legal basis in the West Bank’.

References

True, my language is harsh but it is directed not against Jews, but against settlers who either engage in or support these violent expropriations, or if they murmur, do nothing to stop it and continue reading papers that endorse the violence. 15% of West Bank settlers -60,000 Americans - come from solid family homes in the United States and they are at the forefront of settler violence. So they must be perfectly culturally familiar with the Lockean compact - a core element of democracy -that property is sacred and transferred only by a negotiated sale between the parties. This awareness is congealed by the 'religious' pretext that the land is all Jewish since the year dot, and Palestinians who have dwelt there for millenia have no title, even if they do possess one under Israeli law and may be dispossessed. Very convenient if you live in Brooklyn and find buying a house too expensive in the US, as opposed to settling with a government subsidy on some WB village's lands).

David Dean Shulman, describing in detail his first hand observations of what settlers do to the poorest of Palestinian goatherds (poisoning their grazing land etc) in his classic Dark Hope (2007) called it 'absolute evil'.

Eva Illouz an Israel-French sociologist writing for Le Monde, analysing the rise to political power of the leader of Religious Zionism Itamar Ben-Gvir, who now has considerable say in West Bank settlement policy, argued that ‘(h)e represents what we must reluctantly call "Jewish fascism".' 'The third political force in Israel represents what we must reluctantly call Jewish fascism Le Monde 16 November 2022.

So, however harsh my language (and I must, to keep abreast, read articles in the Israeli press that give weekly accounts of this violence) my target was the two Israeli popular newspapers who consistently find reason to defend examples of what everyone knows is unprovoked violence) it corresponds to a documented reality, that, aside from exceptions like eminently admirable settlers like the late lamented rabbi Menachem Froman, violent landgrabbers exist, are tolerated, and never punished. In any case, I'll meet you on a compromise, by agreeing that here, and only here, I let my personal feelings get the upper hand over detached analysis on my talk page.Nishidani (talk) 13:59, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

• Nishidani edited large portions and added much content to an article titled: Animal stereotypes of Palestinians in Israeli discourse, while violating one of the main “pillars” of Wikipedia; NPOV and at times also being disrespectful and uncivil when referring to Israelis and Jews. This was after he wrote on his talk page that he will "make a wiki page on the history of this variety of subhuman stereotype as it has developed in Israeli discourse on Palestinians". In his first edit he writes that both Palestinians and Israelis tend to refer to each other by the usage of animal stereotypes, yet the title of the article and the rest of it, solely accuses the Israeli-Jewish side of this mutual practice.

So what? Where ‘at times was I ‘being disrespectful and uncivil when referring to Israelis and Jews?’ There are a very large number of articles on Palestinian rocket attacks and terrorism on wiki (look at Palestinian political violence), on none of which have I insisted that, to NPOV balance, we must add a balancing section in each outlining Jewish terrorism or the continual Israeli missile and artillery assaults on the Gaza Strip. I haven’t argued that editors who make these pages are disrespectful and uncivil to Palestinians.

While I read I write notes topically collated, and 10 years ago I had enough on animal metaphors for an article. (I might note that there is a splendid work of great erudition by Jay Geller, Bestiarium Judaicum: Unnatural Histories of the Jews, Fordham University Press 2017 ISBN 978-0-823-27560-1 which influenced my article, and would well deserve an article on its own.) When Yoav Gallant on 7 October called all Gazans ‘animals’, I voiced the idea that it might be time to write up those notes for an article. But I didn’t. Then some months later, another editor tried to do so with a poorly formatted stub, and alerted me. The stub was rejected, but I took it in hand and produced the article you see, which diligently has a prefatory remark that both sides indulge in this, but addresses the far less familiar terrain of Israeli political caricatures of Palestinians. As I said on the talk page, any one is free to write a corresponding page on Palestinian stereotypes of Israelis, but they will have difficulty getting that depth of coverage of statements from senior and influential Palestinian figures, and I certainly am far too busy in real life to do everyone’s work. I write up what I know of relatively comprehensively.Nishidani (talk) 14:20, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

• Palestinian displacement in East Jerusalem, created by Selfstudier, and Nishidani (who joined 40 minutes after the article was created), presents contested claims in WP:VOICE. Source [a], for example, is from al-Haq, a Palestinian group. Stating opinions and contested assertions as facts, rises to violation of Wikimedia’s policy of writing from a NPOV. Similar concerns arise with the Palestinian enclaves article, which seems to endorse a biased perspective and presents one-sided viewpoints in violation of WP:NPOV guidelines. The first paragraph immediately draws comparisons to the Apartheid, and then cherry-picks a quote from Amira Hass, a journalist known in Israel for her radical left opinions. Despite these issues, it is classified as a good article. Nishidani, a significant contributor to this article, has strongly resisted efforts to address concerns regarding its bias, as can be seen here, also adding personal attacks, violating art. 2.1 and 2.2 of UCOC.

So I edited a newly created article - Palestinian displacement in East Jerusalem - and violated NPOV by adding a material from, al-Haq, and citing Amira Hass. The former is a Palestinian source, and the latter is (here we go) a cherry-picked ref for a journalist known for her ‘radical left opinions’. Citing a Palestinian Human Rights source, high respected abroad, and an Israeli journalist who rather than being the daughter of Holocaust survivors and a recipient of multiple awards internationally for her defense of Palestinian human rights, is a ‘radical leftist’. It’s pointless responding, except to note that the I/P area is about two national subjects, Israel and Palestine, and to assume that the narrative should exclude Palestinian sources is bizarre for any wikipedian who know what NPOV requires.

Finally, my 'strongly resisted efforts to address concerns regarding its bias'. The article (another one, not the one on Palestinian displacements in East Jerusalem' from which this is taken) refers to my dismissal of an anachronistic tagging by Tombah of Palestinian enclaves. Now I think it fair to state that everyone interacting with Tombah knew for a year or so he was a sockpuppet. Mostly, given there was no checkuser case, one responded pretending he was a serious contributor. Shortly after that tagging, the proof was finally forthcoming. But the point is, a very substantial amount of effort and time earlier had thoroughly addressed concerns raised by several editors, Tombah included, and in that note, Tombah alone remained unsatisfied, without giving any serious evidence for a reasonable 'concern'. So I dismissed it, as did others.Nishidani (talk) 14:25, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

• The user labelled an NYT article on sexual violence during the October 7 attacks "pseudo-journalism".

The article is Jeffrey Gettleman, Anat Schwartz and Adam Sella ‘Screams Without Words’: How Hamas Weaponized Sexual Violence on Oct. 7 New York Times 28 December 2023. A wiki article was written up precisely on this piece,Screams Without Words. Read it. It was controversial from day 1. There are several competent critics, among them Ben Smith, who challenged the claim it was way below the quality to be expected from the venue in which it was published. The data weren't collected and written by competent or experienced journalists. In any case, what is wrong with expressing one's view that something written about this topic, and appearing in a mainstream source, is 'pseudo-journalism'. The NYTs published Judith Miller who extraordinary disinformation helped gain consensus for the war on Iraq, though, and I remember it well, her articles were contradicted by evidence readily available.Nishidani (talk) 14:45, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

• The user presents themselves, and another user he frequently collaborated with, User:Nableezy, as I/P specialists. When users approach them asking to pay attention for their conduct, they responded aggressively. In one example, they told one user to "stop shitstirring", to refrain from editing certain pages, and blaming them for "appalling ignorance", violating art. 2.1 and 2.2 of wikimedia's UCOC.

I have edited in the I/P area for 16 years, Nableezy slightly less. It is reasonable to note that we have some topic familiarity, indeed specialize in that area. The diff you cite referring to this heading and discussion on my talk page above does not refer to the I/P area, but to an article regarding Japan. I won't go into the details, but I read it as an attempt, in my view malicious, to out my identity, in revenge for a near block (I think he failed to get me sanctioned) and an interaction ban he had just copped, and I noted this to an administrator, giving the details in an email. Had I addressed the merits with a formal complaint, the editor in question would almost certainly have been permabanned. I preferred telling him he was a 'shit-stirrer' and not complaining, because of the principle enunciated above, that I don't use ANI or AE to conduct vendettas or 'get at' editors I disagree with.Nishidani (talk) 14:59, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

* On August 29th 2018 at 16:41, administrator named Sandstein wrote: “I will consider imposing a block or an indefinite topic ban, with or without any prior discussion, in the event of continued battleground-like conduct by Nishidani in this topic area”. A few hours later, at 20:12 the user stated he retired. Despite that, and putting a retired tag on his page, he is clearly still active.

I persist in maintaining a very high regard for Sandstein, notwithstanding that remark which I considered injurious and more a matter of impatience than the cool judgment I have long admired in him. Others of course are welcome to see it differently. In any case, he left me the possibility of appealing his decision, which, on principle, I declined. I have said: if an arbitration decision goes against me, I take it on the chin - I was brought up to regard whingeing as poor form -and sit out the consequences. For the record, my reasoning on his decision is here.Nishidani (talk) 15:27, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

:oh and by the way, you missed citing the evidence that I viciously attacked Nableezy (actually it was an injoke exchange on our user pages someone eavesdropped on) just after the Sandstein incident. I even used shit-stirrer there.Nishidani (talk) 15:38, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

• All of MSchwartz's points basically express a deep distaste for my views (which are basically those I drew from reading Israeli and diasporic scholarship), and have little to do with a case for my putative repeated infraction of wikipedia protocols. I understand the distaste, but all I can see here is unfamiliarity with the way actually editing wikipedia works.Nishidani (talk) 21:34, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

The world's foremost authority on Gaza

here Norman Finkelstein Nishidani (talk) 14:26, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

In recent weeks, Norman Finkelstein on his blog has been providing additional context and insights into Gaza. Ijon Tichy (talk) 04:28, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

Thanks indeed. I try to avoid checking his blog frequently, and do so only once a month. I refrain because he anticipates most of what I would think, and reading him before I thought things out myself would be economical, but an inducement to mental laziness. It is very rare to encounter a brilliant mind informed by a moral passion which however never muddles the lucid analysis of the facts. There have been two Holocaust voices that stand out, that, formerly, of Elie Wiesel and that of Norman Finkelstein. One made a fortune out of it, the other had his career destroyed and his life ghettoized because he absorbed in the marrow of his being the experiences in the Warsaw ghetto, Auschwitz and elsewhere of his parents, and drew a general, not an ethnic, lesson for how to read history, all history and empathize with its silenced victims.Nishidani (talk) 10:33, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

I have a great deal of respect and admiration for Norman Finkelstein, exactly because of the reasons you have so beautifully articulated.

I was going to write more about both Elie Wiesel (a sellout) and Finkelstein, but my cat is persistently demanding my attention, he is ready for his dinner followed by our customary evening walk in our neighborhood. He sends his love to his granpa Nishidani. Ijon Tichy (talk) 04:25, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

Israel’s Kristallnacht, by Bruce Neuburger. ---- Ijon Tichy (talk) 04:25, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

Every morning over here in Normandy I watch from the kitchen a plump band of collared doves pecking for breakfast under the spreading boughs of a huge copper beech. Their smooth grey-milky plumage always leaves me floundering for adjectives that might capture the exquisite tonality of their feathered forms. They are now especially thick on the ground, after I spent some time the other afternoon wheeling the tractor’s blade over the groundcover to churn and shred the thick falls of beechmast. Now and then, a couple of tough black crows land with a thump, quickly shouldering their way in that thuggishly assertive gait of theirs, to elbow in on the rich turf. The doves quickly shy out of their way, keeping to the grazing patches that the intruders don’t broach. My host has a quaint phobia about them and often shoos them away, despite my reminder to her that nature is where birds fly round uncooked. Some time back, I suddenly imagined, analogically while looking on, Ostjuden life in a stetl, where the rowdy rhythm of routinized life would be abruptly ruffled by loutish incursions from the outside, foreboding to the wary a possible intimation of pogroms in the air, and, consequently, of those that took place along Gaza’s eastern rim in the kibbutzim. Observing the scene this morning, I suddenly thought of a favourite passage from William James:-

‘We divert our attention from disease and death as much as we can; and the slaughterhouses and indecencies without end on which our life is founded are huddled out of sight and never mentioned, so that the world we recognize officially in literature and in society is a poetic fiction far handsomer and cleaner and better than the world that really is.” (William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience 1902, Fontana ed.1960 p.103)

A man once tried, apparently, to murder me in Kfar Aza. I was due to leave in the morning so the night before, having bought 50 small bottles of beer, I ‘shouted’ a farewell party for 10 friends, located away from the kibbutz in a thickly wooded eucalyptus forest, where there was a hut in a clearing. We drank and chiakked for several hours, one after another of the invited mates trailing off as the booze got the better of them. By 3.30, only I and an Englishman stood our ground, refusing to budge until we’d see who would turn the last bottles into empties. He went outside to pee, didn’t come back, and all I could hear was the rustling of leaves, and some movement in the wood as I listened to a strange full-throated wolf-cry. I called out his name for ten minutes, then felt something like a small onset of anxiety. I knocked down the last bottle, walked out and headed for the trail back to the kibbutz, and, as I did, a burr of rushing footsteps and the howling voice came up behind me. I took to my heels, and the panic drained away as, confident in my fleetness – I was a long distance runner at school –I ran fast back to the kibbutz, squiggled under a concertina-wired fence and dodging Druze guards, got back to our rooms where a light was still burning. I found the missing person’s wife, and several others, sitting up worried for us, and told them what had happened. She suddenly revealed that her husband Had manic psychotic episodes associated with the full moon. A half an hour later, as we mulled the prospect of alerting the guards to allow us to make a search party, there was a knock on the door: he entered smiling and dismissed his wife’s asking him if he’d had one of his attacks. After a few minutes, he collapsed on a bed, began frothing at the mouth and howling like a wolf, his eyes lit up as he mumbled: ’He’s got the wind up all right. He’s shitting himself. I’ll kill the bastard, kill him…’, ostensibly reliving the episode I described.

This was before the long process of what Sara Roy, the world’s foremost expert on the Gazan economy, called Israel’s political economy of De-developing the Strip, before the endless assaults that use the most sophisticated armaments in the world to regularly raze to the ground, at a secure, eagle’s eye distance, its dense urban infrastructure, and, it is said ‘collaterally’, murder several thousand civilians over the last 20 years while taking out several hundred Hamas militants; long before snipers could, every Friday for 18 months, systematically target and shoot dead, with superb nonchalance, pour encourager les autres, 230 youths marching to the separation fence to protest their fatal incarceration in a strip of land where even the little water they drink is toxic. Another 9,000 were wounded or gassed. So though horrified by the beserkers’ butchery, the triumphant cries of Idbah al yahud, I can’t help recall Auden’s line in 1 September 1939:-

I and the public know

What all schoolchildren learn,

Those to whom evil is done

Do evil in return.

And so many scenes witnessed by a generation growing up in Gaza, of children with their heads blown off, or fathers wandering deranged from the rubble clasping bits a pieces of their children’s bodies in their hands, long before this bloodbath.

I’ve never been comfortable with that apophthegm in Torquato Tasso (is it?): ‘was wir verstehen, das können wir nicht tadeln’ (We can’t lay blame when we have understood something), if only because evil resists exhaustive understanding. But if by chance one grows up with an ear close to the ground (and grind) of a colonial history full of adventurous yarns about how in the good ol’ days the men would go out after a splendid lunch at a bush station (ranch) with families and friends, for a bit of leisurely hunting, creeping up to some reported riverbed where stray families of dispossessed aborigines were last reported camping, to wipe them out, or, as one of my ancestors did, befriending Wurundjeri who had occasionally stolen sheep from his flocks when he squatted their tribal lands, by regular gifts of flour to make damper and then, when they accepted the custom as a form of payment, lacing it with strychnine that wiped out several members of one clan, then one can never read of these modern instances without thinking of the point William James made. We in the customized ease and comfort of modernity simply cannot grasp the real, immiserated world either beyond our Western suburban civilization or beneath it, in its dark history.

I was taught as a child to murmur to myself: ’there but for the grace of God go I,’ whenever tragedy struck, and maturity extended this even to murderers. Moral outrage, with its eager henchman, revenge, comes easy to us all, while pity suffers from the attrition of the ever more abundant violence of history.* Frisk the cat grandfatherly under her chin. Best Nishidani (talk) 14:57, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

• I am now deeply moved to learn that Yesh Din’s Ziv Stahl, a Kfar Aza resident who survived the massacre, publicly opposed revenge and spoke of the tragic plight Palestinians were suffering over the border. Orly Noy Listen to Israeli survivors: They don’t want revenge +972 magazine 25 October 2023.

• Coincidence as usual. I make an edit about the destruction of bakeries in Gaza, then return to my reading, totally unconnected to any wiki interest, and immediately come across this note re de Gaulle in his first stay in Poland after WW1. ‘Notre civilisation tient à peu de chose, dit-il, toutes les beautés, toutes les commodités, toutes les richesses dont elle est fière auraient vite disparu sous la lame de fureur des masses désespérées . .Il ne peux oublier ces ‘’interminables files de femmes, d’hommes et d’enfants hagards attendant des heures à la porte du boulanger municipal le morceau de pain noir hebdomadaire’’ Max Gallo, De Gaulle, Robert Laffont 1998 volume 1 p.172.

Israeli Damage to Archives, Libraries, and Museums in Gaza, October 2023–January 2024. "A Preliminary Report from Librarians and Archivists with Palestine." --- Ijon Tichy (talk) 15:23, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

Well, in 1948 the sacking of West Jerusalem enabled notable collections of books and manuscripts on Palestine to be plundered as war booty and shifted to the emergent libraries of Israel. That has continued sequentially in 1967, in 1982-5 (Palestine Research Center) etc., and now most thoroughly in the meticulous bombing of everything in the Gaza Strip smacking of higher learning institutions from Universities down, to the core archives, now scattered to the wind and little better than toilet paper for those having to keep clean in the midst of the estimated 50,000 tons of shit now flooding the streets.Nishidani (talk) 01:10, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

• Israel's Relentless Bombing Erases Gaza's Heritage Sites (8 February 2024). By Hesper Cane for Sidewalls magazine. "Once a testament to a rich cultural history, Gaza now lays in ruin, rubble, and debris, with more than 200 heritage sites damaged and destroyed." Ijon Tichy (talk) 01:01, 12 February 2024 (UTC)
• The war in Gaza is wiping out Palestine’s education and knowledge systems (8 Feb 2024). By Chandni Desai for The Conversation. "Scholars say Israel is intentionally destroying education and cultural institutions in Gaza." Ijon Tichy (talk) 01:21, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

Most of these sources (including several further above added recently) appear in 'marginal' sources and therefore, whatever their cogency, 'fly under the radar,' and, if mentioned more broadly at all, can be dismissed as just catering to a cantankerous fringe. As my father once said to me, as a realist with a deep understanding of how things get done outside the hefty world of voluminous theories, 'It's not what you know that counts, but who you know.' In the lazily contrafactual world of the mainstream 'commonsensical' representation of geopolitics, even the turbulent impetus of the obvious barely stirs more than a rapid ripple on the serene surfaces of our acclimatised complacencies. For at least a century it has been understood,'in the proper quarters', that under the institutional arrangements of democracy, that the classical three estates can be suborned by the fourth Estate, with its massive powers of persuasion, be that a matter of a totalitarian 'engineering of souls' or the 'democratic' manufacturing of consensus as theorised by Lippmann (and quickly picked up by Bernays). Zionism won through with its febrile, to me hysterical, vision of a solution to the non-issue of the so-called 'Jewish Question' by mass expatriation to an Arab country, by an intense reticular working at every venue, at any opportunity, of Jewish communities to win them over to the 1dea of a distinctive 'Jewish' politics, corresponding to the antisemitic politics of their adversaries. Despite understanding the reverence, infle tdx by the retrospective' post-holocaust assessment of Herzl as a profoundly, uncannily percipient 'realist', a reading of his biographies and the extraordinary figure that emerges from his diaries, has never altered my earlier view that he was cast in the Elmer Gantry mode, a snake oil chandler. Time and again in entry after entry recounting meetings and sketching politics of networking, I at least see his figure pacing feverishly up and down his rooms, just a few steps from his near neighbour Freud's home, as, well, Chaplinesque, twirling and retwirling the ball of his thoughts to spin a yarn that would globalise his own narcissistic self-inflation and allow him to have the secular Jewish world at his messianic fingertips. Oops, I meant to respond simply by suggesting you follow recent contributions to the Journal of Genocide Research where the majority of people who actually know their history have now no hesitation in calling a spade a fucking shovel. I must rush. My siblings sill be back from their walk and if they find me out of bed, ignoring my Covid exhaustions, they'll go ballistic which, contextually, means refusing to serve me any more of my daily ration of dim simsNishidani (talk) 04:47, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

Wishing you a quick and full recovery from your Covid exhaustions, and hoping you will continue to enjoy plenty of dim sim. Regretfully I have not yet had a chance to enjoy dim sim, looks like they are delicious based on articles and videos online. In the past I enjoyed a variety of tasty dim sum from various restaurants in California, including in lovely Chinatown, San Francisco. ---- Ijon Tichy (talk) 18:05, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

It was a lapse into the most complacent narcissistic vulgarity to even allude to the minor discomfort of Covid, a trivial sense of slight fatigue every time I'd read any of 50 pages of the many engrossing books I am reading through during this idle sojourn in a Lucky Country. I thought as much catching sight of a brilliant cartoon in today's Age picturing a mass of people huddled in a tight corner of a barb-wire-topped, walled in area, otherwise in its length and breadth stacked with smoking rubble. Emblazoned on the walls were signs reading'No Exit', while a megaphone sited on a corner above blared:'In our efforts to minimize civilian casualties, would 1.4 million of you please move to a safe zone.(The Age 14 February 2024 p.25)

That kind of image cannot but remind one of Raphael Eitan's now eerily prophetic remark back in April 1983:

'When we have settled the land, all the Arabs will be able to do about it will be to scuttle around like cockroaches in a bottle.'

That image, I then recalled, reemerged in October 2023 as the Israeli counter invasion got underway, in cartoons like this.('Palestinians as cockroaches' cartoon should prompt boycott of antisemitism conference' CJPME 16 October 2023)

Checking Norman Finkelstein's website later, I noted a recent blog on the incipient invasion of Rafah, a scenario alluded to in the Age's cartoon. He writes:

'The serial ethnic cleansing of the people of Gaza, to culminate with the expulsion of 1.4 million people trapped in Rafah (half of them children) to either al-Musawi, a forlorn desert area the size of Los Angeles Airport, or into the Egyptian Sinai, reminded me of something my late mother said to me about her experience during the Nazi Holocaust.'It was not a war. It was an extermination. We were like coacmroaches, scurrying this way or that, whenever the light shone on us.'

(By way of balance the Age also carried a half-page reflection by Ramona Koval, former host of the ABC's Book Show, whingeing/complaining of how deeply uncomfortable Australian Jews now feel, in the midst of 'overbearing cultural enforcers' and pro-Palestinian activists). I shook my head, realising how, like myself mentioning my bout with Covid, a sense of shame should cut in and tell us at least to shut up, rather than indulge, as there, in the obscenity, contextually, of likening one's suburban anxieties about status-harm through association with an eternally victimized Israel and identitarian discomfort to what a German Jew would have felt reading Der Sturmer in the 1930s. Nishidani (talk) 07:26, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

I see that Israel's Kan TV channel is reporting an interview with a functionary of Mossad's assassination bureau, in which he states only Gazan children under 4 have a right to be fed, since everyone over that age is guilty of supporting Hamas.Nishidani (talk) 08:33, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

• Smoke and Mirrors: How Israeli Agitprop Lies Become Fact (15 March 2024). Daniel Beaumont, Counterpunch. "That coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the US mass media is distorted by a bias in favor of Israel is hardly news to people more or less in command of their faculties. But events since October 7 have brought to light examples that go well beyond the usual daily distortions to outright lying—lies that rival those of the WMD fabrications used to justify the US invasion of Iraq." Ijon Tichy (talk) 18:35, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

• The United Kingdom: Zionism's covert nerve center (5 March 2024). Kit Klarenberg, The Cradle. "Britain's century-long commitment to Zionism and collaboration with Israel today plays a frequently overlooked role in perpetuating the oppression and genocide against Palestinians." Ijon Tichy (talk) 22:12, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

• Words Besides ‘Genocide’ U.S. News Outlets Use To Describe Genocide (7 March 2024). The Onion. ---- Ijon Tichy (talk) 00:25, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

These three sources would be unacceptable in wiki terms, however interesting or even compelling. It is of course obvious to anyone who analyses these things with detachment but rigour, that Israel is intentionally engaged in a programme of what we would normally call genocide. But what counts is the judgment of an international court of law - as Israel knows- and proving intent there remains difficult for the technical reasons outlined by A. Dirk Moses, Norman Finkelstein and many others, given the leeway for ambiguity created by the adoption of Lemkin's published definition (as opposed to his posthumous reasoning in his Nachlass (1959)).

This however is no longer the case with the induced famine Israel is carefully engineering, as was pointed out in the Guardian yesterday. The mounting factual evidence for deliberate starvation of the whole population to achieve its ends is so cogent, and the fact that Israel has formally underwritten the legal protocols that determine starvation as an instrument of war is a war crime, that, were this to come to a trial in an international court, the possibility of a not-guilty verdict for Israel is highly improbable. That is the Achilles heel, for while 'genocide' can be equivocated, the consensus of the best scientific work from such neutral bodies as World Health Organization, Insecurity Insight and so many other authoritative bodies is that 100% of the population is starving, in territory occupied and controlled by Israel. Rather than make gestures towards ameliorating the access to food, even if only to keep Gazans on the famous 1,600 calory per diem 'formaldehydization' formula set forth after 2007, Israel's response is to persist with its restrictions while mustering a formidible team of specialists in international law specifically to counter that eventual accusation. In the meantime, 21% of households are carrying someone who has been historically disabled by this decades-long regime of occupational control, and half the children there have bodies eating their own residual bodyfat and muscle protein to eke by day by day. It took two years to convince Western leaders that the Nazis were engaged in a Holocaust, and the same lag in the face of diffidence will apply here.Nishidani (talk) 09:32, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

But in the meantime let us rejoice:

• (1)Amichai Friedman, the chief rabbi of the IDF’s Nahal Brigade base. In a video from early November, Friedman proclaimed that the month since the October 7 massacre had been “the happiest month of my life since I was born. The people of Israel rise in stature, rise in rank, we finally find out who we are … We are telling the world what good, and justice, and morality, and values are, and therefore we will shut down evil, and eradicate Hamas, and eradicate the enemies, and destroy everyone.”
• (2) And Rabbi Uzi Sharbaf proclaimed that the events following on 7 October testified to: “A holy nation, the virtue of nations, the lion cub of Judah, awakened from his long slumber to claim his inheritance.” Meron Rapoport, The Israeli public is dispirited. So why is the right euphoric? +972 magazine 20 March 2024

Hamas has sure made a lot of Israeli religious people exultantly happy. Rapoport gives several other examples of this messianic exhilaration at the spectacle of genocide. Nishidani (talk) 15:14, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

It seems the designated role of these particular religious figures in Israeli society is to communicate the daily Two Minutes Hate. ---- Ijon Tichy (talk) 11:15, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

• The War Biosphere: A Lecture by Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah (23 March 2024). Posted by Internationalist 360°. By Ghassan Abu-Sittah.   "... One of the most significant phenomena that alters the war biosphere is the growth of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, which Israeli hospitals are complaining about when treating Israeli soldiers returning from Gaza. One of the causes for the bacteria to transform from antibiotic-susceptible to antibiotic-resistant is the heavy metals present in weapons, like cobalt, selenium, and tungsten. The external coating of artillery shells contains these heavy metals. When these shells explode, they release these metals into the environment which induces genetic changes in bacteria leading them to evolve into antibiotic-resistant strains. Effective antibiotics for common bacterial infections cost around $5 per bottle. However, treating antibiotic-resistant bacteria requires specialized medications, with a single dose costing $300." Ijon Tichy (talk) 21:19, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanksindeed. I have been thinking much of Raul Hilberg recently. At this point, the only focus must be on getting the dry (if bloody) facts rights - the numbers killed, the technology of their deaths, the way the machinery works, the hard science of genocide.This kind of thing as well. Les Roberts,The Science Is Clear. Over 30,000 People Have Died in Gaza,' Time Magazine 15 March 2024Nishidani (talk) 23:08, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

Major perils to global society associated with Washington’s New Cold War projection of military and financial power aimed at stopping China’s economic rise

• The U.S. threat of a “new Opium War against China” found in the pages of the US Air Force’s Journal of Indo-Pacific Affairs. (1 December 2023). By the editors of Monthly Review. "Fearful of losing its imperial hegemony over the world economy due to the rise of China as a major economic power, the United States is seeking to translate its military ascendancy into renewed economic domination, resulting in unparalleled dangers for humanity as a whole." Ijon Tichy (talk) 07:57, 1 December 2023 (UTC)
• Another Major War in 2024? (21 December 2023). By Michael Klare for TomDispatch. "The U.S. and China at Year’s End - Still Treading on the Precipice." Ijon Tichy (talk) 19:44, 22 December 2023 (UTC)
• Contrasting Strategies of the US and China (27 December 2023). by Roger Harris in CounterPunch. Ijon Tichy (talk) 20:27, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

I'm prepared, I guess, having picked up for 3AU$ at a country recycling bookshop the other day Neville Shute's On the Beach, with Rowland's original jacket intact, in what was the third reprint, and read it yesterday.Nishidani (talk) 03:28, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

Hahaha. What did you think about the book? Hope you liked it. I like the film based on the novel, I bought the DVD many ago and have been re-watching it every few years. The full film is also freely available on YouTube. Hope you will enjoy the film.

My cat and I are now fixing to go on our customary evening walk. On our walks, he freely and happily walks or runs by my side without a harness or leash. He sends his love to his Granpa Nishidani. Ijon Tichy (talk) 04:37, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

Well, having read Shute's Round the Bend a week earlier, which I really enjoyed because his flatness of style was nicely compensated for by an engineer's precision of technical detail in the description of planes, I found it a dutiful read rather than a page-turner. Naturally enough, because I saw the film 60 years ago and in so far as there was a plot, it held no surprises. And, since my purpose here is just living the landscape, I was struck by his failure to capture its beauties, or even sight them. I have delighted relatives in Europe by showing them photos of breakfast on the verandah here, where we are joined by king parrots who perch on the table and eat cashew nuts from one's hand, while magpies await their turn, and a pair of satin bowerbirds vie with currawong, topknot pigeons, butcherbirds and galahs to assert their ascendency over the backyard garden. The best Shute could do was make something of the merits of a fly over a spinner in fishing for rainbow trout on the Jamieson.

It's interesting that in a small upcountry town like this, with no more than 2,600 people, one can pick up off the shelves things like The New Yorker. I bought the October edition this morning and read something thematically linked to what is alluded to above. I.e.

Trump recently made an appearance in which - even as he was calling Biden "cognitively impaired" - he suggested that we were headed toward "World War Two".' p.10

It's great that you have a companionable walking cat. I raised mine (temperamentally I'm a dog person) as a canine, and so for 17 years it walked, ran, responded to whistles etc, as dogs would. The autistic kitten we saved several years back now responds similarly, but limits her excursions to waiting for me at dusk halfway down the bottom of the incline that leads up to my villa, and then racing me back home when I return from my evening sundowner in the local bar. Give her an avuncular caress. I don't mind the extinction of man. It will give the world time to get back on its evolutionary feet. There are 1 million invertebrates in Australia, and only about 15% have been classified till now, most of them disappearing under climate and anthropo-obscenic changes. 'Full many a March fly is born to swarm unseen, and waste its sweetness on the desert air.'Nishidani (talk) 06:20, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

• Why the US is the Warring State in Israel (8 February 2024). by Stephen Reyna for Counterpunch. "The point at issue here is a general one. The are many states that participate in wars -provide troops or supply weapons and funding. Currently, Israel is one; Ukraine another. But they are not warring states useless they supply the sufficient conditions for the violence to occur. Rather, they are useful idiots in another state’s designs; in this case, US global supremacy. The importance of this position is twofold ..." Ijon Tichy (talk) 17:52, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

• Imperialism, Lenin, and US Wars Abroad (3 Feb 2024). By Rob Urie for The Journal of Belligerent Pontification. "Liberals, the American left, and yours truly, perceive current US actions with respect to the Israelis in Gaza to be ‘fascist,’ in the sense of committing a racist genocide against the Palestinians. However, the Israelis plan an economic benefit from exiling Palestinians from Israel. They want the land for additional Israeli settlements, and possibly oil and gas extraction from the sea just off the coast of Gaza. The Americans want business for the MIC, a place to land and refuel fighter jets, control of the wider Middle East, and continued American domination of the world." Ijon Tichy (talk) 18:14, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

I enjoy reading about your travel and outdoor experiences as well as your various interactions with domestic and wild animals. And thanks for your reference to the beautiful, moving Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard by Thomas Gray. Moreover, my cat sends a big thank-you to his beloved granpa Nishidani for all the pets and caresses you sent him, he enjoyed them. Ijon Tichy (talk) 17:52, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

• Our (the U.S.'s) Real National Security Budget -- $2 Trillion, Here We Come (14 March 2024). Andrew Cockburn, Spoils of War. Ijon Tichy (talk) 11:18, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

• Notes from the Editors (2 April 2024). Monthly Review. A discussion of the extremely belligerent, war-mongering, dangerous views of Richard N. Haass.   "On the Chinese front, the United States, Haass insisted, must declare that it is willing, ready, able, and committed to go to war with China over Taiwan (Haass, “A World in Disarray?”; Richard Haass, “What Friends Owe Friends,” Foreign Affairs, October 15, 2023)."     "Israel’s full-scale assault on Gaza, Haass explained to the Wall Street Journal, is a major foreign policy disaster for the United States, but one in which Washington simply has no choice but to back “Netanyahu and his colleagues” at all costs, supporting Israel’s “one-state nonsolution” with its no-holds-barred war on Hamas and the continued movement of settlers into the West Bank. “They [the Israeli forces] are causing an awful lot of civilian casualties and deaths in the process,” Haass acknowledged, while indicating that this “is a separate conversation,” one with which he has no intention of engaging. After Hamas is “degraded” — it cannot, he said, be destroyed — Gaza will have to be ruled by Israel directly with continued U.S. backing. There is no viable regime change strategy, no real endgame, only the sheer exercise of force, viewed as necessary to maintain Israel as a “democratic Jewish state.”" Ijon Tichy (talk) 11:50, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

Well, after his first meeting with Netanyahu, Bill Clinton laughed to his advisors that it would appear Netanyahu, even nearly 30 years ago, though that his country, Israel was the 'superpower' not the US, and Haass more or less states that the U.S. dog has no option other than to yield and be wagged by its tail. I 'like' Haass's aside that genocide is 'another conversation' (as we approach 40,000 dead and 75,000 wounded). In any case, I like the sobriety of Patrick Wintour. See for example,

When Biden assumed the US presidency he recruited a team of prodigious foreign policy talent, perhaps the most venerated ensemble of such experts in modern US history. They were given a clear mission: to rebuild US alliances, repair America’s damaged reputation abroad and prepare for the challenge in the South China Sea. The Palestinian issue had not been a White House priority but at best something to be managed. . .Biden misread how Israeli society had changed over the last two decades, and consequently how best to influence Netanyahu’s response to the Hamas attacks. Biden “lives with an Israel in his head which probably never existed and certainly doesn’t exist today,” said Daniel Levy, a former Israeli negotiator in peace talks with Palestinian leaders. Patrick Wintour, The new world disorder: how the Gaza war disrupted international relations The Guardian 6 April 2024

So like the 1960s, with Robert McNamara's 'best and brightest', we drift into war, under the flag of outstanding 'intelligence'.

My own quote for the day is the following, after the total material and physical structure of Gaza's most sophisticated hospital, al-Shifa, was gutted, with all of its medical technology destroyed. The oversdeer of the two-week long raid stated that it killed 200 Hamas militants, without a single civilian casualty and that this kind of 'surgical' (as opposed to medical) operation will be

'one that ‘will be studied at top military academies like West Point in the U.S. and Sandhurst in the U.K. as the "gold standard for urban warfare". (Aya Batrawy, Omar El Qattaa, Here's what we found after Israel's raid on Al-Shifa, Gaza's biggest hospital NPR 6 April 2024)

I.e.while obliterating a structure with 800 beds serving 250,000 patients, and 17,000 surgical operations conducted every year, shooting up all of its computers, and scanners, generators and operating equipment and spaces, had no civilian casualty though 21 patients alone died, along with the chief engineer of the maintenance department, the head of pharmaceuticals and a reconstructive surgeon (killed with his mother (also a doctor)). Nishidani (talk) 16:50, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

There seems to be some sort of competition out there from within the highest echelons of the Ministry of Silly Talks. Rear Admiral John Kirby when asked, after the Kitchen Workers massacre, whether the U.S. should organize a protective force for aid workers, replied that there was no need for that because already “Israeli Defense Forces were providing that protection.” He's only 61 so the sort of condition that might afflict someone of my age can't explain it.Nishidani (talk) 19:50, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

• US Economic Decline and Rise of Greater Eurasia (30 March 2024). Michael Hudson, Alexander Mercouris & Glenn Diesen. "MICHAEL HUDSON: Well, just to comment on what you just said, that there’s a new Cold War underway, and the United States has started it against China, and again, because it’s against China, it’s against Russia, and because it’s against Russia, it’s against Europe. So there has to be a recognition that does Europe really want to be a part of this new Cold War, or does it want to have a different direction? That’s really what we’re talking about." Ijon Tichy (talk) 11:53, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

I've been a long-time admirer of Hudson's work, particularly on finance and the history of money. But this is a gross simplification of a very complex multipolar world. and despite the palmary role the U.S. has played in undermining the very principles of democracy it formerly appealed to in exercising its postwar imperial role, the other two empires have and will arrogate to themselves the right to do whatever they think necessary to consolidate their own neo-imperial ambitions, which in their case happen to coincide with a decided ethnocentric tradition.Nishidani (talk) 13:16, 7 April 2024 (UTC)