User talk:Nishidani/Archive 4

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I now feel somewhat honoured by this disgrace

I would like to thank all those who intervened, and feel somewhat embarrassed. Still I take my wise young mentor, (the oxymoron is justified) Bendono's words to heart, and will withdraw for some time. One needs to reflect on experience at a distance, at times, per tirare le somme if one is to be more effective in what one does. Best regards and best wishes to you all, editorial adversaries included.Nishidani 16:08, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Sir, it has been an honor to us to have you as a colleague. I know personally that the effort here has been substantially improved by your presence. Take as long away as you want, however. I simply hope that when you do return, and I hope you will, that you will strive for accuracy and objectivity like you have before, Informed parties on some of these obscure, contentious issues are few and far between, and I hope we don't wind up losing one of the few we have here. John Carter (talk) 00:11, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Absolutely, JC has said exactly what I was going to say. Thank you, and I wish you well. --NSH001 (talk) 09:14, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Me three, Nishidani. Warm wishes are also returned to you from your friend in Nazareth. As we roast chestnuts over the fire this Christmas, I won't forget to raise my glass to you. Tiamut 20:33, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Lehi (group)

Thank you for your comments. I'm sorry to read that you're leaving Wikipedia, and I hope that you choose to come back, fully refreshed from your break. — Malik Shabazz (talk · contribs) 22:32, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Eilabun massacre

You added book citations--can you give publisher, year, etc. for those books so that they can have full bibliographies? Thanks. gren グレン 04:09, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Norman Finkelstein

.. please check the WP:LEDE. Thanks. Ling.Nut (talk) 18:36, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Your block, and etc.

Nishidani - if I had noticed your block, I would also have reported it to AN/I with a particular focus on scrutinizing the obvious lack of a review on the part of SWATJester. Admins reviewing unblock requests are obliged to provide a full review of the circumstances of the block and its reasoning, and 'You insulted me so no unblock for you' is not a considered review. I feel some responsibility for this, since I reported the seemingly escalating revert war in the Finkelstein page to WP:RPP, to which Cavalry responded. I did not intend you to be caught up, however.

On another question: Perhaps you might help with this - I'm trying to translate the phrase "I view self nominations as prima facie evidence of a hunger for power" into Latin. Is that something you can do? Thanks for your help if you are able, and hope to see you editing regularly again soon either way - Avruch^Talk 23:30, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Avruch, Nishidani's last edit was on the 6th and he indicated that he will be taking some time off. In the meantime, perhaps Wikipedia:Reference desk/Language may be of assistance. Regards, Bendono (talk) 23:40, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Bendono. I'm not in a rush, and I value Nishidani's expertise. Avruch^Talk 18:42, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

User:Avruch. I apologize. I suffered from a broken internet connection from 10-27th of December, due to a server problem. I noted your request, and did translate more meo the sentence, and asked a childhood friend, with a chair in classics, to check it. The problem, apart from my limited competence, is that the phrase has to be rethought in classical terms in order to come out nicely in Latin. He said he'd check it. If he does approve of my version or provides me with a more fluent phrasing, I'll pass it on. Regards Nishidani (talk) 12:12, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Its no problem, glad to see its fixed and you are back to being involved. Has he got back to you yet? ^Avruchtalk 16:27, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Systematic faults and bias

Nishidani is/was exactly the kind of editor that Wikipedia needs and that all believers in the project should be trying to encourage. "Neutral" administrators would be slapping down most of the (sometimes barely literate) "editors" who have systematically obstructed his (her?) efforts. "Neutral" administrators would be seeking indef-blockings of many of them.

Nishidani has actually identified something I've never bothered mentioning - that many of us now live in heavily militarised cultures, where even participation in "known" war-crimes and massacres has become either respectable or apparently admirable. (I'm not applying this tag to all who have served in Iraq, but, under the circumstances, all who've been there should be considered under suspicion).

Before people express surprise, let me point them to this, the work of one of the (the?) foremost poet/authors of the British Empire. Societies obviously have to look after their ex-servicemen, but on no account would we rate highly their opinions (or even tolerate their presence) in discussions relating to war-crimes (the subject of this particular article is highly notable for protesting these kinds of things, amongst others).

When the encyclopedia (or multiple agents of the encyclopedia) act as if German soldiers returning from Poland should be treated as perfectly respectable citizens again, entitled to refuse to answer questions, and even to white-wash strongly suspected crimes, then it ceases to be acting for general good, and becomes an agent of oppression and obstruction of justice. PR^talk 15:24, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

I see. so you feel that your categorical opposition to all military acts of certain Western cultures is not a political opinion, but is a factual position? Sorry, but i feel that any viewpoint like this falls somewhat within the realm of political opinion. thanks. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 14:14, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Is open to editing again, as the issue of "occupied" vs. "disputed" has been solved in a way I think you would agree with. Would be nice to see you there again! Cheers, pedro gonnet - talk - 19.12.2007 17:13

Agreed. thanks for spreading the word, Pedro. nice work. see you. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 20:43, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Request for Arbitration might interest you.

Dear Nishidani. Your scholarship is much missed. Even if you're not planning to come back to editing, there is an RfA you might be interested in here. PR^talk 11:30, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Weizmann quote

Hi Nishidani, great pleasure to see you back. Can you tell me which particular book you're refering to with this diff? Thankyou. PR^talk 11:09, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Not back. Only updating my file, and occasionally checking around. But if you wish to know where the Weizmann quote comes from in that diff, it's Lenni Brenner Zionism in the Age of the Dictators, Croom Helm, London 1983 p.37. The book is on the net in a free downloadable version. Best wishes Nishidani (talk) 11:20, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, jolly well hurry back! The project urgently needs scholarship, and it urgently needs ideas from some of these people on how to make the environment friendly for you lot and unfriendly for the other kind! Present your analysis and ideas to the top management at the ArbCom (when you're ready, of course).

You once told us you regretted not enabling your e-mail - but you've still not done so. I'm sure you don't want to hear peremptory demands from the peanut gallery, but it would still be useful. PR^talk 11:32, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm worried that this is not a very good example of what you want to prove, or that proving it is worth doing. PR^talk 12:40, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

I have nothing to hide, and nothing to fear, and in any case am only making a few edits, without any desire to return to work on articles. I seriously doubt this process will do anything more than add a few more dozen pages to the infinite archives of Wikipedia disputes. That dispute mechanism is defective, even if fascinating. Metaphorically, one has to seek a consensus before saying the world is round, and if someone disagrees with you, you go higher up, argue the casem, get input from flatearthers and others, and then perhaps a sanction against one flatearther advising him not to revert for more than once a day for six months. In the normal world, you do not get pulled into endless trials of justification for having reverted, say, an editor who refuses to accept that the International Court of Justice's rulings on law are to be taken as definitive, and those of Shmuel Katz are just trite personal opinions, worthy at most of a brief footnote.

It looks as though it is shaping up as a witch-hunt, and I have no intention of joining substantially in the fray. My single remark about Jayjg, which breaks a rule I have always obeyed of always withholding any personal complaint I might have with an adversary from formal arbitration, is justified because I noted late last night that he seemed, while very many good editors are lined up for scrutiny on both sides, to be singled out as above scrutiny merely because a fellow administrator preferred him not to be included.

I think it wrong to engage editors in a reciprocal McCarthyist witch-hunt, and that is what is occurring. However deep my disputes have been with several editors, the fact remains that the abuses both I and they complain of are intrinsic to the system of rules governing editing. This area is one involving a notorious case of systemic bias, the problem is the systemic bias, that the history of Palestinians is in the hands of editors predominantly affiliated with the nation that, in international law, occupies them. Since, despite it being a recognized problem with Wiki, systemic bias will not be touched on, the procedures underway will be inconclusive. Take care, and, if I may proffer a word of advice, review what you intend to post with different eyes, the eyes of someone you imagine to be honest, but who might happen to disagree with you. Nishidani (talk) 13:54, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Palestine-Israel articles

An Arbitration case in which you commented has been opened, and is located here. Please add any evidence you may wish the Arbitrators to consider to the evidence sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Palestine-Israel articles/Evidence. Please submit your evidence within one week, if possible. You may also contribute to the case on the workshop sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Palestine-Israel articles/Workshop.

On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, — Rlevse • Talk • 22:25, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

A. Material from the Arbcom review

(1)Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration&diff=prev&oldid=183486854#Statement_by_User:Nishidani

Statement by User:Nishidani

I have withdrawn from editing, tired of the futility of trying to get attested and verifiable book sources in, and internet propaganda sources out in many articles. But, since I note User:Jaakobou has named me as a contentious editor, I should like at least to jot down this one point. In my experience, User:Jayjg, whose inclusion here many editors wonder about, certainly has edited frequently in an incomprehensible, and, in my view censorious fashion, riding shotgun to keep disagreeable information off many pages because he deems it personally unwelcome. As just one example of his ignoring Wiki editing norms concerning sources in order to wikilawyer an item of information or a respectable author I could cite for example the following edit exchange with myself, [1].

The reason given was ‘remove claim attributed to an unknown and possibly non-existent rabbi'’

The quote came from an eminent authority on the region, Professor Ian Lustick. Lustick’s source was in turn the New York Times. Thus it was doubly grounded in reliable sources. Jayjg has enough experience to know that information must be grounded in verifiable and reliable sources, yet he challenged the use of this information because he doubted its truth (which is not at issue). In the subsequent exchange on the talk page [2], (Talk:Baruch Goldstein. See the present talk sect.5 'fingernail speech'), he endeavoured apparently to get me to engage in a violation of Wikipedia:OR, by trying to lure me to verify the truth of Lustik's remark.

That said, I do not think the issue is primarily one of putting up individual editors to intense scrutiny, to weed out malefactors. Given the structural problem, even the best can find themselves dragged into violations of rules, out of sheer exasperation with patent abuses of the rules by editors cunning enough to avoid, themselves, a technical breach. And in any case, a person by person examination of the record would lead to a Kafkian or Borgesian archive of unmanageable intricacy. The articles in this area perfectly fit the cruxes (cruces) outlined in Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias. The contentiousness in good part arises from the anomalousness of articles dealing predominantly with Palestinians (almost invariably entwined with Israel as occupying power). The history of the Palestinians is being written with hardly any Palestinians on board (User:Tiamut is a notable exception), by (a) complete outsiders (Westerners) who, for a variety of distinct motives, take on the task of representing a 'Palestinian perspective' as that is available in books and reliable sources, and (2) by Jewish/Israeli editors who are either present in the area or deeply committed to the country. Both are potentially defective sources, in that the Westerners who stand in as locum tenentes for the missing Palestinian voices, often have no intimate personal grounding in the area, and lack as often or not familiarity with the appropriate languages(User:RolandR provides an exception), and the Jewish/Israeli editors, some living in the West Bank, can often confuse their task with a national mission to define the people their nation has effectively colonized (after 1967), and over which Israel exercises a preponderance of legal, military, economic and, in a discursive sense, cultural power. User:Chesdovi 's home page is all for national liberation movements everywhere, for example, but in the relevant window on Palestinians, they alone effectively do not exist, since he locates their homeland in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

There is, in addition, a general Western cognitive bias against Palestinians and Arabs, one that has deep historical roots, and which is complicated by the intense politics concerning terrorism, identified in the public mind with Islam, over the past decades. A lesser one, often suspected as motivating some 'pro-Palestinian' editors, is anti-semitism. Personally I have not encountered editors whose work lends itself to this suspicion, but then again, I have relatively little experience. I judge this to be a concern among 'adversaries' because more than twice my work here has be hinted at as implying such a bias, and the innuendo is often encountered.

Several practical measures can be taken, with, I suggest a series of experiments. Here are two suggestions of many that come to mind. (a) Competitive page writing in which editors from both 'sides' (not always a valid marker, since many of us get on well with posters on the other 'side') take on an article, and compete to produce a GA/FA standard according to strict Wiki rules, while the original page is locked.*note 1)

The natural consequence will be to eliminate edit-wars between opposed groups, since say one page on Palestine will be done exclusively by Jewish/Israeli editors, the other page by 'pro-Palestinian' editors, in which the conflicts will be respectively inframural. The psychological logic of such testing would be, I should think, one that presses each group to modify internally its own natural biases, reduce ideological antagonism, and strive harder towards both neutrality and excellence in order to impress neutral arbitrators called in, at the end of the experiment, to cast a vote as to which article best fits Wiki's quality standards. (b) have a rule obliging patent and consistent violators or edit-warriors to justify their continued presence on the encyclopedia by creating, within a month or two, an article dealing exclusively and neutrally, with some event, figure or episode in the history or culture of either Israel (in the case of a 'pro-Palestinian' editor) or Palestine (in the case of a 'pro-Israeli' editor'.

Excuse my longueur. Nishidani (talk) 20:42, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

(Note 1)I note today that, independently, some time ago other editors have come to the same conclusion. E.g.

'I see many articles that are simply bad, because editors of dramatically different POVs make a mishmash trying to come up with a version that is acceptable to both sides. I think that in many cases readers would be much better served if, instead of reading one obfuscated version presuming to be NPOV, they could read two perfectly clear versions, each representing an explicit POV. Like advocacy journalism, only advocacy encyclopedianism.' User:Ravpapa on his talk page here

(2)On NPOV

Comment by others:

Proposed. One of the problems with articles related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is that we have here two diametrically-opposed viewpoints, each with frequently their own versions of historical fact, and legality. Under these conditions, it is almost impossible to write something which is absolutely neutral in the most traditional sense, since there is no genuinely neutral account. One of the best ways to achieve true consensus here is to recognize that there are two communities here, and two valid viewpoints, each with its own heartfelt concerns and genuine sensitivities.

Proponents of Palestinian views may frequently need to cite sources which in a Western political context might be seen as overly leftist, or revisionist. Similarly, proponents of Israeli views may sometimes need to cite sources which might be seen as somewhat dogmatic within a Western context. Neither side's sources should be always accepted unconditionally.

However, one of the ways to find true consensus and a positive resolution is to accept that the views of each community deserve some degree of coverage, and not to wrangle endlessly because one source or another appears to clearly have a certain opinionated political approach or an opinionated approach to history. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 22:35, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

That is, I'm afraid Steve, Sm8900, deeply problematical. Most of the literature I, for one, used to ensure a just representation of the 'Palestinian' record comes from Israeli or Jewish historians, writers and journalists, not from Palestinians. And it is precisely many of these sources which were bitterly contested or challenged by pro-Zionist editors. Your remark implies that we are dealing, in editing from the reliable literature, with two national outlooks, respectively Israeli and Palestinian. Not so. Cite sources such as Noam Chomsky, Joel Beinin, Norman Finkelstein, Baruch Kimmerling, Benny Morris, Israel Shahak, Ilan Pappé, Ian Lustick, Alfred Lilienthal, Norton Mezvinsky, Yehoshafat Harkabi, Nathan J. Brown, Uriel Tal, Tony Judt, Maxime Rodinson, Felicia Langer, Simha Flapan, Raul Hilberg, Avi Shlaim, Idith Zertal. Israel Finkelstein, Shlomo Ben-Ami Hillel Cohen, Yakov Rabkin, Livia Rokach, Lenni Brenner, and journalists such as Amira Hass, Gideon Levy, Uri Avnery, to name but a few and one, as often as not, suffers a challenge over RS or pretextual wikilawyering of the kind: Shahak is not a professional historian hence not RS (days then pass in argument as to why this disqualifies him, while it does not disqualify the unqualified historian Walter Laqueur,) etc.

The systemic bias which I think is the root problem, not addressed here, is distinct from a 'national conflict' (Macedonia, Croat-Serb Wiki etc.) because, distinctively, we are dealing with an occupying power, exercising military, legal, cultural and economic preponderance of power over an occupied people (ICJ ruling 2004), the former splendidly represented by an abundance of editors, the latter having less than a handful. The discursive interests of Palestinians are substantially represented by stand-ins, either by Jewish/Israeli or Western scholars and writers, on which 'pro-Palestinian editors then draw for most of their material. It is not therefore a matter of a conflict of two valid national perspectives, as much as an internal cognitive rift within Jewish/Israeli intellectual debates (reflecting the post-Babylonian rift between universalism and nationalism in the Jewish tradition, much written about by Arnold Toynbee and others), and Western debates, on the area. One needs quite creative methods to iron out the peculiar difficulties this situation generates.Nishidani (talk) 20:32, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Oh my gosh. My comment relates exactly to the concerns which you expressed. I don't see any need for a contentious atmosphere between us. My friend, i NEVER said that there was anything wrong with any sources which Palestinians attempt to use. I never said they rely too heavily on Palestinian sources. you're putting words in my mouth. ALL I said is that we need to show more flexibility and more tolerance in allowing Palestinian editors to use sources whom they feel represent their point of view more fairly. And you thought I was actually trying to be more contentious here. that's a little bit amazing.

People, we need to try to start learning how to take each other's thoughts a little more at face value, giving each other a little more benefit of the doubt, start assuming good faith a little more, and start trying to HEAR each other more, rather than only hearing what we THINK the other person said. let's try to all do that a little more, ok? I'll start trying to do that too. Thank you. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 00:14, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Dear Steve, Sm8900. I assure you, had I wished to be 'contentious', I would simply have drawn your attention to the biased weighting of the respective adverbs (bolded below) used to qualify the two viewpoints you identify. I.e.

'Proponents of Palestinian views may frequently need to cite sources which in a Western political context might be seen as overly leftist, or revisionist. Similarly, proponents of Israeli views may sometimes need to cite sources which might be seen as somewhat dogmatic within a Western context.'

If I have a vice, it maybe what some (User:Jaakobou) regard as an excessively finicky ear for nuance and drift. I took exception to the ambiguous implications of your statement which approaches conflict in terms of diplomacy (both parties have equally 'valid' claims) rather than forensically, (required by scholarship insouciant of who claims what, or the politics of consequences, in its focused care on the available relevant data). Your comment gave the impression that the actual work on wiki in this area is stymied by 'two communities' (pro-Israeli) and pro-Palestinian more or less commensurate with the interests/outlook of Israel/Israelis and Palestinians.

'One of the best ways to achieve true consensus here is to recognize that there are two communities here, and two valid viewpoints, each with its own heartfelt concerns and genuine sensitivities.'

I don't feel I am part of a (pro-Palestinian)editorial community, and I don't see much real evidence for a witting coalition of this kind. Many of those in the list certainly do not behave, as individuals, groupishly. I don't see the need for it, because, in my view, fidelity to the historical record is sufficient to establish that systemic bias (which you briefly mention) does exist in the way Palestinians and their history are represented generally, and, specifically, in Wikipedia. Establish that record via reliable academic sources, and not by recourse to the vast chatroom of newspaper editorializing, and readers can make up their own minds.

Check the record and you will see that within at least one, to use Benedict Anderson's term ironically, imaginary community you invoke, lively differences exist, edits are mutually contested with a certain frequency, and many good editors there will endorse contributions made by 'pro-Israeli' editors, whose POV is distinctly different from their own. I, for one, refuse to activate my email account because of the danger it leads to, of gaming edits by stacking a page with ring-ins or pals, as our notorious User:Jayjg did here, to get friends to watch one's back while entering into an editorial fray; or by allowing discretionary favours (unblocking) to be negotiated off-line between friendly administrators and editors under suspension for violations of various kinds evidence here - notable administrative abuses which this Arbcom refuses to deal with, though many examples of such arbitrary jerry-rigging of Wikipedia are readily available and infuse the atmosphere with suspicions not conducive to the equanimity you rightly ask for.

I have yet witness a similar quality of 'infra-communal' disagreement among the major 'pro-Israeli' editors on these relevant pages. No communities, real or virtual, have 'valid' viewpoints: to subscribe to that is to subscribe to the parlous doctrine, which condemns serious attempts to concur on facts, according to which 'collective' beliefs or Weltanschauungen exist, which, in so far as they are expressions of ethnic identity, must be respected as 'valid'. Many of the ideas or beliefs cited for such hypothetical outlooks are, to use Walter Lippmann's classic term, 'manufactured' by political interests, though passed off as public opinionhere. Facts are not ascertained by consensus between adversarial collective or national mindsets, nor neutrality, as opposed to interpretations, by sub-Hegelian compromises negotiated between dialectically opposed, mutually exclusive perspectives. Communities of knowledge work by agreed-on rules, a sense of the provisional character of acquired 'truths', and an awareness that metanarratives, personal, traditional and collective, are to be stringently guarded against, for the bias they inflect us with, by those individuals who wish to contribute to a deeper understanding of the world. I'm not contentious, by the way. I simply argue my points with as much energy as I may muster. Nishidani (talk) 13:39, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi Nishidani. thanks so much for your thoughtful message., however, sorry , but I do disagree. Yes, you're right that neither group of editors is a monolithic mass. there are meaningful disagreements within each . And I agree with you that no editor has the right to ignore clear facts, no matter what community they are from. however, I feel that you need to start understanding just how great a role one's viewpoint and/or cultural affiliations can play in one's understanding of a topic.

Were the first Zionist a group of idealistic, energetic volunteers, restoring their nation's rightful heritage? Or were they a group of outright manipulators, slanting facts and history to uphold their distorted claims? Are Palestinian militants a bunch of proud fighters? Or are they a group of underhanded subversives, attacking innocent people?

The answer to both question depends solely on one's point of view, one's assumptions and premises in reading history, and (perhaps) one's cultural affiliations. Yes I agree with you in advance, if your answer would be that Wikipedia should not align itself with either partisan answer, on either question. However, what are we to do if a well-meaning editor from either side shows up here, and wishes to draw attention to what they feel are genuine misdeeds by whatever side they most disagree with?

You would say we should go with the factual record. However, my point is that there are always two views on what the facts actually are. I know it is always better to try to stick as closely to factual sources as possible. However, if we never acknowledge that there is vigorous debate and controversy on some key historical aspects of this whole topic, then that is sure to keep the edit wars and disruption going.

So my point is that one way to deal with that is to have some articles which approach this by saying, "some Palestinian advocates maintain that...", for example, or similar phrasing for Israelis. that is one approach which I feel can help reach an outcome which is fair or balanced for both sides. It’s also very good of course to try to stick to simple facts wherever possible. However, I feel that we do need some procedure or method to deal with the differing views and versions of reality which have occurred repeatedly in the past, creating the current situation, and also which will probably continue to occur in the future, requiring some constructive response from us.

Thanks very much for your helpful comment. it is very good to hear all your thoughts and ideas. thanks. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 14:00, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

'I feel that you need to start understanding just how great a role one's viewpoint and/or cultural affiliations can play in one's understanding of a topic.'

I've been studying that professionally for 40 years. Perhaps it does not show in what I write. It is certainly wholly invisible in the editing approaches of a very large number of, for want of a better word, 'pro-Zionist' contributors here (as opposed to the Jewish scholars who work in the area). The epistemology of cultural bias happens to be the subject of an academic book I once wrote. But that already sounds like a trumpet blower's excursionary defence Nishidani (talk) 17:48, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Dear CasualObserver'48. Put simply, roughly a century ago, one nation (England) gave another people without a nation (Jews of the diaspora) the right to a homeland of a third people (Palestinian Arabs) who constituted 90% of the population, and who were not asked their opinion. It was, as Arthur Koestler put, it, a miraculous 'freak of history'. Arabs resisted sporadically, occasionally with riots, as the Jewish homeland, under foreign auspices, grew in their midst. After the Shoah, the UN gave the still minority Jewish pop. 56% of the land officially, over Arab protests. War ensued, in which badly armed militias, and inefficient Arab armies, mostly poorly led, battled against a powerful Western educated military organisation, with better guns, airpower,logistics and finance. Panic ensued, massacres (24) pour encourager les autres led to the dispossession of 700,000 Arabs (nakba), whose descendents live in exile. The remainder, many in Israel, but most in the residual canton of the Palestinian territories, languished under Jordanian and Egyptian rule. 1967 war broke out, Gaza and the West Bank were predictably conquered, and for two decades, against international law, settled, with land annexed or expropriated under military rule. In 1987 the Palestinians rose up, with stones, and lost thousands of dead. Oslo talks led to recognition of the PLO and their return, but with no change in the policy of incremental expropriation and squatting on what, in law, is Palestinian land. 2001, a second intifada, far more violent, of militarzied resistance to the gradual waning of prospects of real autonomy (Sharon, despite Gaza, was a great colonizer) and you have the present impasse. In 1967 education to high school level of Palestinians was significantly better than the corresponding Israeli level. Now much of the area is a grim shanty world of lost generations, deprived of peace, food, and land. History is pitiless, and this is the past. All one asks for of Wikipedia is that what happened be recounted with a neutral gaze, without, after colonizing the land, colonizing the history of its victims by hegemonizing Wikipedia articles with variants of the triumphant Zionist version, without incessantly POVving every act of resistance to this, for Palestinians, enormous historical injustice, as 'antisemitic' 'anti-Zionist' or terroristic. They behaved as all colonized peoples have behaved, and lost. But history should speak to the facts, and not mythify the tragedy as a victory of the civilized over fanatical 'donkeys'.Nishidani (talk) 18:59, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Nishidani, I also know the history, but not quite so (apparently) personally, and thanks for the info on the level of '67 high schools. Can you RS and add that? I do not dispute your version of history and have a somewhat similar outlook that Wiki events need to 'be recounted with a neutral gaze...without incessantly POVving every act...as 'antisemitic' 'anti-Zionist' or terroristic', and I'll add 'or just denying them'. Maybe that overstates my view, but I believe we have few basic squabbles; see this[3].

At the same time, however, those same events had a different cause/result/reaction on the other side. You seem to be the perfect editor to accomplish what you want to see Wiki become, so please, continue to do it; just be careful that your edits present the facts/quotes at a reasonable level of POV (rhetorical violence?). I know few specifics as to how that can be done, until I read/see them; I also want to de-mythify the current view of history, but facts are needed; how those facts are presented and accepted seems to be the major problem. I might add, that when I tried to learn something 'about you', there was little there (except your edits); I suggest that you give other editors something to chew on and maybe better understand why you edit the way you do. Regards, CasualObserver'48 (talk) 02:36, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Re educational levels, you request a source. I had in mind the following RS (the authors were, respectively, Professor of Economics at Cal-U, Davis, and Director of the Institute for Land Resource Planning, at Tel Aviv and consultant for the UN):-

'In comparison with both Israel and Jordan, the West Bank and Gaza seem to have a favourable educational basis. The age group 6-11 shows a higher participation in Israel (84.4) than in the West Bank (80.5) but, in the group 15-17 years of age, the percentage in the West Bank is considerably higher than in Israel, 44.6 compared with 22.8 in Israel.' Elias H.Tuma, Haim Darin-Drabkin, The Economic Case for Palestine, Croom Helm, London 1978 p.48.

They also point out that by 1966, Palestinian enrolment rates at university level exceeded those of all other Arab countries.

As to contributing further, No, to do so would be absurd, as long as the rules allow the nonsensical obstructionism to serious editing one has witnessed in here. I don't think by the way I edited with rhetorical violence. I mainly endeavoured to provide academic or quality sources to articles suffused with newspaper links and gossip from tertiary sources to slant views one way or another, and found the intensity of obstruction so consistent, often by editors who clearly don't read books, but only a few paragraphs of the POV tabloids and official or unofficial Israeli sources they rely on, that contributing was futile. So 90% of relevant quality material can only get in if one is ready for temporal martyrdom, since to try and post it would require a lifetime of edit-warring. Objectively this is to concede much to the warriors of obstreperous attrition, and betray others who struggle valiantly to write articles as encyclopedia articles should be written. But I am, compared to most, quite old, and lack the younger person's sense of a long future.

Too many editors have a national POV informed by material circulating from semi-official organisations' handout sheets (I've lost count of many times I have recognized a 'handout 'factsheet' of the kind typical of hasbara material, behind edits), which they take as gospel, and though I attribute much of their obstinacy to naivity and indoctrination, and to a widespread conviction that the facts external to this cultivated image are invariably nuanced with, and motivated by anti-semitic feelings, I think they edit out of a sense that Wiki, like other public venues, is a battleground, where every local patriot is fighting for a partisan version of reality, and thus any tactic is warranted on the grounds of 'existential threats' to get one's own lines (in two senses) further into enemy territory, while conceding nothing to what they take to be ther adversaries' assaults. This automatically makes 'consensus' a matter of attrition to the point of exhaustion. Wiki will, given this state, never be a reliable source for the area, unlike so many other areas where splendid articles abound. RegardsNishidani (talk) 12:06, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Nishidani, thanks for your helpful and thoughtful response. In fact i do find your thoughts articulate and interesting. However, i must be frank; if all you're doing is saying that the creation of Israel was based on imperialism and unfairness, and that the article can or should present that view as objective fact, then in fact you are doing more to perpetuate the problem than to solve it. my point isn't that we should erase that view, but that rather we should present as one part of the conflict. so that is where we disagree. I do appreciate your articulate response to me though. thanks. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 20:45, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

By the way, I understand your concerns. However, the Israeli view is that one thing which diminished the Palestinians' cause was their apparent refusal to accept Israel's existence, and peaceful co-existence. your response seems to indicates that viewepoint as well as anything. I do udnerstand the legitimate concerns behind your message though. thanks. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 20:49, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

'if all you're doing is saying that the creation of Israel was based on imperialism and unfairness, and that the article can or should present that view as objective fact, then in fact you are doing more to perpetuate the problem than to solve it'

Israel's foundation was fairly typical for one class of nations,(with which most of us are united) not exceptional, except in the sense that it tried to do in the 20th century what the emigrants to the Americas, or Australia did in the 16th and 18th centuries. Unlike the otherwise similar, more modern, colonial experiements of France in Algeria, or Italy in Libya, Jews were remarkably successful (the point was made by Tony Judt years ago, and by Ian Lustick). To state this is not ideological. Imperialism is an objective phenomenon of history, most of the world was formed via the outcome of conflict between empires. The past is not moral, events are determined, by force. We (politicians excluded) do not however consider ourselves civilized if we carry the amoralism of past history into the present, where events are not yet determined, and where our individual and group agency, as moral beings, does influence outcomes. So, it is neither moral not rational to deny Israel's right to existence, on the basis of its birth in a colonial design, any more than it would be to disrecognize many other nations, the US, Australia, etc., with similar roots. People wholly unaware of the real foundational violence of their national pasts (not rhetorical, an allusion, rather, to Ernest Renan's 1882 essay and René Girard's more modern theories) have been born there for generations, and by that fact, have entitlements, underwritten by international law. What is deeply disturbing is the idea that, in that part of former Palestine where another people, the original inhabitants, are an overwhelming majority, where they hold title, where international law concedes them a full range of rights as a people under military occupation, and where the historical outcome (based on tendentially on violence, as usual) is still undetermined, that the hegemon recycle the earlier panoramic of justificatory myth (1917-1967, now exposed by historigraphy) to complete its conquest beyond what international law now defines as the limit. I.e. exercise the old Zionist plans to further expropriate the indigenous people's land on the West Bank, on the basis not of international law, but religious charters, and dispossess the people, once more, and thereby complete the amoral visionary ultra-realism of Jabotinsky's Iron Wall before contemporary eyes that are familiar with its programmatic designs. For, unlike the past, all actors now have complete access to the historic record, and the myths that drove the expropriation are no longer tenable as justifications for what is, unlike what occurred in 1917-1948 which took place under Mandatory supervision, international law and UN deliberations, a set of practices wrought in defiance of international law and of the United Nations. We are experiencing a recycling of an old story, which was functional and persuasive under international power arrangements in a relatively primitive period informationally (and which successfully achieved its realistic end, a homeland for the Jews, a refuge from Western antisemitism), but no longer so in a world where either law, or the law of the jungle prevails, the former based on enlightened reason, the latter battening on religious myths or superannuated conditions of persecution.Nishidani (talk) 12:06, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

I happen to have just signed on this morning, just before going off to work, so I happened to see your extremely helpful and thoughtful post. However, I do have a few questions. I do appreciate all you said about the underlying legitimacy of Israel and its founding. however, you say that where Israel differs from other colonial-based countries is in its displacement of an existing indigenous majority. Ok. But let me ask you, how does this differ from the partition of India and Pakistan, where as you know the Hindus living in Pakistani territory were displaced, either voluntarily or compulsorily, and made to move back to India. How does it differ from the arbitrary partition of a dozen African and Asian nations, where various native groups were made to step aside on behalf of other cultural ethnic groups?

More importantly, there is a deeper problem. Your portray of the founding or establishment of Israel as a deep moral wrong in any way, even in a limited sense, is the same attitude which is leading Palestinians deeper and deeper into a dark endless cycle of darkness and despair, by making them believe in waging some endless war against what others have told them is an imperialist nation they must fight against.

Palestinians are not winning. this struggle is not producing any better change in well-being for them. I say not this with any sense of glee, but rather just acknowledging the material reasons for peace versus war. Your depiction of Israel as stemming from some deep displacement of Palestinians is what leads others to excuse all malicious acts of war by Palestinians, by saying "oh well, what do you expect, an oppressed people has no choice but to fight." The Palestinians have a choice as to whether to continue to wage war even in the midst of massive efforts for peace, or to accept peace and co-existence.

Is your point that peace is desirable, but Israel has committed massive wrongs, and therefore should be ready to make major concessions in the peace process? If so, you didn't seem to say that very clearly. Or is it that Israel has created the conditions for conflict, and therefore Palestinians are justified in pursuing ongoing war? that’s the message which your comment seems to apply. But it is the attitude which has led to nothing but ongoing and continual conflict, and fading opportunities for Palestinians to succeed.

I would suggest that, in addition to your justifiable concerns for Palestinian welfare, you also give some credence to the idea of these two peoples just learning how to simply accept each other and live together, instead of always declaring one to be the aggressor and the other the victim, or making it seem that only one side has committed historical wrongs. In the end, perhaps then the two peoples can find some sort of peace. thanks. didn't mean to go on and on, but I do appreciate the chance to discuss this. thanks. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 12:24, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Steve, Sm8900 You so consistently misread or read between the lines, and in doing so, raising queries I thought answered implicitly in my earlier remarks, that I must, I suppose, (suppressing natural suspicions abouot fishing expeditions) stop generating prose that unwittingly generates misapprehensions, that are then scored here, and on the Arbcom page, as Nishidani's views. I am not talking about the past, but the present. The expulsions and expropriations of 1948-1967 are history. What is going on since then on the West Bank is contemporary history still modifiable by an (improbable) Israeli decision to stop repeating the violence of ethnic cleansing and infrastructural chaos-making and adhere at last to international law. You write:-

'(I suggest . . .you also give some credence to the idea of these two peoples just learning how to simply accept each other and live together, instead of always declaring one to be the aggressor and the other the victim, or making it seem that only one side has committed historical wrongs.'

I.e. you expect that an occupied people daily deprived of the elementary rights to their own world and living under the hallucinating vexations of the occupiers, with the 4th most powerful army at their back supporting land thieves and state-backed carpetbaggers and promptly arresting or often shooting people on sight if they even feign resistance to fundamentalists explicitly on record as intending to steal Palestinian livelihoods and dignity, should evince incredible qualities of moral sanctity because, after all, they, as Palestinians, must reflect that even those other Israeli intruders, the guys down the road, beyond their bulldozed village shambles, there on dad's former olive grove, those guys with their swimming pools, schools, TV parabolas, internet connections, subsidized lifestyle, military police, medical clinics and cheap Palestinian labour bought out of inflicted poverty and expropriation, are just like them, they want a quiet life in a decent world, much like the Palestinians used to have before 1967?

If my prose above generates further confusions, then read the following report relating to events yesterday from just one of many areas under vigorous colonization. It is written with an exquisitely NPOV approach.

On Saturday 12 and Sunday 13 January, 2008, a crowd of Israeli settlers invaded the yard area of a home near the illegal Israeli settlement of Kiryat Arba, on the outskirts of Hebron. The settlers threw stones at members of the Abu Siefen family, injuring several people.

The Israeli settlers who carried out the attacks had been occupying nearby Palestinian land, in the Wadi al Nasara, since Wednesday 9 January. On Wednesday the owner of the land went to the Israeli police with legal documents (from the Israeli High Court) proving his ownership of the land. He requested that the police remove the settlers, but they refused to do so.

For five days the Israeli police and military present in the area prevented Palestinians from using the road adjacent to the occupied land, forcing them to take a detour through muddy ground. Throughout this time, the Israeli forces stood by and watched when young settlers verbally harassed and threw stones at passing Palestinians. Christian Peacemaker Team members (CPTers) and international human rights workers interceded to help Palestinians, some elderly and some with young children, to pass through the area.

The Israeli forces only intervened on a few occasions over the five-day period. On Wednesday 9 January, they stepped in when a crowd of settlers ran into the yard of a nearby Palestinian home, apparently chasing a young Palestinian boy who had taken a settler’s bag. An elderly Palestinian man ensured that the bag was quickly returned and the Israeli police removed the settlers. However, the police and military merely looked on when the settlers returned to the yard a few moments later and verbally harassed the family, CPTers and other internationals. For several hours, until the settlers eventually left, the frightened family locked themselves in their home.

On Saturday 12 January, young Israeli settlers attacked two CPTers as they stood between a Palestinian man and a group of three Israeli boys. The boys were taunting the man with rude remarks in Arabic about the Prophet Mohammad. A group of 8-10 girls pushed, pulled and kicked Jan Benvie until she fell to the ground. The boys sprayed something in Johann Funk’s face that caused eye irritation. Two Israeli soldiers stood a short distance away and watched the attacks. A third soldier came forward to intervene only when the settler girls knocked Benvie to the ground.

When the settlers attacked the Abu Siefen family on the evenings of Saturday and Sunday, the Israeli military were slow to get involved. They eventually moved the settlers away from the home. No action was taken against the settlers, but on Saturday evening the Israeli police arrested four members of the Abu Siefen family and questioned them for four hours at the police station.

At 8:00 p.m. on the evening of Sunday 13 January, the Israeli military moved the settlers and removed the structures they had built on the land.

Regards Nishidani (talk) 10:04, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Nishidani, I find your post of 12:06, 14 January 2008 to be very, good and will use the to add to my knowledge base of changes in Palestinian perceptions of systematic bias against them, or more properly, the repetition of old, historic (and now facts to be accepted) justifications, that are now being used in a modern, more enlightened time when those same justifications/reasons can not be morally justified. Do I have that right in a few words? If I do, I believe that it is somewhat similar to my post in the ArbCom workshop, noting the changing definitions of Zionism (pre- and post-1967, or for me post-'77 and Begin's election). I believe Steve did misunderstand what you said and probably read between the lines (that I can not even find). That you didnt respond to his India/Pak ref, I see as evidence, but he will speak for himself. I do find your writing eloquent, but way above my level and that of most readers, though not talk page heavies; I need a dictionary, in several languages, to make sure I understand it. Anyway, good post. CasualObserver'48 (talk) 14:50, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi. just want to let you know, I have read your posts here, and i find them extremely helpful and insightful. I will try to absorb them fully, and think about them. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 18:00, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Dear CasualObserver'48 . It's not a 'Palestinian perception' that systemic bias exists against them. It is a widespread perception among the Jewish intelligentsia/Israeli scholars who work on the history of the area, and more broadly in Western academic circles. you mention my not responding to Steve, Sm8900's enquiry about the India-Pakistan analogy. I did, but didn’t post it. I apologize for the way I write. I simply haven’t the time to compose edits. I write spontaneously, and post what comes out. If I sat down to revise what I think with an eye to an eventual reader, I’d end up with so many notes and cautions, and expansions and parentheses I’d never get to edit at all. Here, for what it is worth, is how I reacted to the query Smith, among many others, made yesterday. Hope the frankness will not be mistaken for rudeness.

'you say that where Israel differs from other colonial-based countries is in its displacement of an existing indigenous majority.'

I'm afraid I didn't say that. I don't believe in exceptionalist theories. My whole point is that one should cease thinking of Israel and Palestine in exceptionalist terms (as indeed is favoured by Israeli POVers). In 1948 this is what occurred, roughly contemporaneously with the India-Pakistan population exchange. That is past history, and the reasons for it, policy-induced and real fear, the natural logic of war etc., have been fairly well explored (though I do not fully share his analysis) by Benny Morris. The case illustrates my point about Zionist mythography posing as history. For well over a decade, a myth was propagated that the huge numbers of the nakba fled in response to calls by Arab leaders outside the area to clear out temporarily, in order to enable the Arab armies a clear battle zone free of potential Palestinian Arab civilians. Then Erskine Childers, a UN functionary, exposed the myth in 1961. Scholarship over the decades confirmed his analysis. By the mid-1980s it was undisputed. Two decades later in wikiworld, numerous posters engaged in editing the articles on the 1948 and 1967 war, the period, and the various Palestinian exoduses, wasted huge amounts of time blocking the writing of those pages according to the best modern knowledge, by insisting on evenly weighting old mythographic versions, and the newer scholarship as though they were nothing more than different POV opinions.

The conceptual problem with rejecting the return of Palestinian nakba refugees and their descendents is as follows. The zionist charter for colonizing that area lay in claims following from the historical fact that from 68 CE to after Bar Kochba's revolt, Judea was subject to an ancient form of cleansing, and renamed for another indigenous people. The vision of return, primarily religious throughout the ages, and harking back to Ezra's Biblical influence after the Babylonian exile, was realized in secular form under Zionism. All Jews the world over, of the galut or diaspora, qua Jews, have a right of return to what is regarded as the ancestral homeland. This, for complex causes, led to the Palestinian diaspora, and to Palestinians claiming a similar, indeed identical, right to return from the land their forefathers have been, just yesterday historically, dispossessed of, or exiled from. Technically,

Israel cannot yield on this by allowing Palestinians whom their state effectively or indirectly uprooted the same rights Israel allows to Jews whose ancestors were uprooted by Roman imperialism. For it would lead to enswampment, among other things, and no state would ever allow that. But, at the same time, it cannot assert its right of Jewish return and, at the same time, deny with an easy conscience, that Palestinians claiming on identical grounds, a right of return, are any differently from themselves. The state of things means that an ethnic prejudice inscribed in the constitution and Staatsräson, defy logic to the advantage of the victor, and to the damage to the vanquished. One obvious symbolic solution is to concede several large residential blocks built in the Palestinian territories to exiles by lottery as part of a compensation package, which includes formal recognition of an injustice wrought (states have (Willy Brandt in Poland, Australia) with the Mabo decision occasionally through wise leadership risen to such occasions), and financial assistance to the exiled, a long process of assisted repatriation to the territories or improvement of their situations in neighbouring countries.

But this historic displacement, 1948, 1967, is one thing, excluding anything but a recognition of the facts, for no viable solution for a return to the status quo ante (1947) is politically possible. My remarks rather, if you read them again, directed to attempts, now, to repeat that process of displacement. For three decades the same pattern of 1948-1967, is being applied to the Occupied Palestinian Territories where, however, the mythic legitimacy of earlier Zionism has been exhausted. In our time, and before our eyes, Palestinians with universally recognized rights, are being harassed, or driven from their land, by laws, administrative procedures, and outright theft. This is a drift in contemporary history, in the process of making, and is subject to reversion potentially. My point was to distinguish the two. I can understand empathetically the contexts that drove so many Jews to view the establishment of Israel as an ideal requiring commitment, a commitment blinding them to the hapless, ignored victims to be trodden underfoot in their own flight from persecution, down to 1948. I have zero empathy for the events post 1967. It is imperialism in my lifetime, asking for assent in a post-imperial age, and articles manoeuvered to naturalize this late aberration as though it were provoked by security exigencies against a huge Arab horde threatening a second Shoah, aren't plausible, but simply ideological recyclings of the earlier story beyond their use-by date, in order to expand one's frontiers in defiance of international law, while refusing the second time round, to take cognisance of the other who happened to be the victim of one's first, understandable flight from a hostile world. The Palestinians now, in short, are being treated, by Israel, as Rome treated the Jews in the Ist and 2nd centuries CE.

'Your portray of the founding or establishment of Israel as a deep moral wrong,'

I'm afraid it looks like our brief dialogue must end here. I said Israel, like so many nations in history, wasn't founded in innocence, but by the intrusive assertion of ethnic self-interest by an alien group over an indigenous people. Not Israel, but many Western nations, historically, were thus formed. Renan's essay famously said that nations are founded on violence and forgetfulness. Modernity in thought and culture is against the complacent somnolescence of those foundational myths which cast our origins as a battle of a just cause against such maleficent other. Palestinians remember, what Israel's politicians and many citizens, forget. And since the guerilla model of the IRA so influenced the terroristic Lehi/Stern and Irgun, (which gave Israel two Prime Ministers, Begin and Shamir), since the sons, daughters and relatives of earliler terrorists (Olmert, Livni and Netanyahu to name a few), now dominate Israeli politics and express extreme outrage at Palestinian terror (at the people whose country they occupy doing, to obtain a state, exactly what their own relatives did decades back to secure a state called Israel), I suggest you reflect on the wise words of Oliver Plunkett concerning the earlier period of Irish troubles, under conditions of English predation, to effect that the wound would never heal until the English (Israelis) begin to remember, and the Irish (Palestinians) forget, what was done to the latter in the name of civilization. Nishidani (talk) 21:20, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi. I have read all your postings. i find them extremely helpful and interesting. I am sorry if I misunderstood you in any way; if I did, i didn't mean to, but your subsequent explanations have clarified things very helpfully. Thanks for all your ideas. Hope we can continue to discuss things occasionally, in various ways. thanks. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 21:31, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

(2) Tag-team editing from Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Palestine-Israel articles/Workshop. Kicked off by reading Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Palestine-Israel articles/Proposed decision Fut.Perf. ☼

I agree that tag-team editing is a problem. I've seen it done by both "sides" of the dispute and would encourage uninvolved admins, and perhaps ArbCom, to be responsive to this problem. Perhaps the relation to 3RR needs to be clarified or expanded? Thanks. HG | Talk 16:30, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

User:HG. By posting the following, I don't mean to lay a formal complaint about the editors involved. I have exempted myself generally from recourse to arbitration procedures because I was taught as a child it is a form of whingeing, and improper. However, in looking through these pages, I was reminded of an instance which I long suspected as being emblematic, underscoring the problems, of which tag-team editing is just one, which lead to loss of temper because the procedures are all formal, when content calls by administrators with a firm understanding of academic criteria for writing articles, neutral but commonsensical, would remove much of the frustration editors on both sides feel. That doesn't bother me so much as the deeper issue - can administrators judge what measures are to be taken simply by looking at the log and ignoring the content dispute? I was drawn (no excuse) into edit-warring because I adduced three (two eminently) reputable historians (Walter Laqueur, Benny Morris and Lenni Brenner)whose content was disliked by the main editor, User:Zeq who had three days earlier suffered a suspension. He returned to find me editing what many believe he regards as 'his page', and appears to have called on another editor to help him out in countering my appearance there to edit it. I had been asked by a pro-Israeli editor, Alithien, frustrated by his own failure to remove a prejudicial reading of Amin's early career, to see if I could look in on the page and help fix it. I made a long review, polishing up poor grammar, correcting spelling and adding materials I was familiar with on the subject. This appears to have galvanized User:Zeq, who, after his suspension was lifted, called, unless I am mistaken, User:Armon to help him block me.

Sequence: (1)Zeq, on Arbcom probation, was blocked for further abuses on October 22 for 24 hourshere

(2) Alithien asks me to look at the al-Husayni page to see if I can help on October 22 ('If you have time, could you take care about Amin al-Husseini, because, he will soon become a virulent antisemite') here. I know nothing of User:Zeq, or the page history.

(3) I proceed to edit the page forthwith from October 22 here

(4) User:Zeq after some days denounces me as ‘anti-Semitic’ here, while accepting the many improvements in link-fixing, spelling. grammar etc., is irritated by my content additions, which we discuss on the talk page. I had difficulty, and admittedly impatience, because he did not appear to understand English sufficiently. In one case, in response to a query he made, I withheld detailed information he requested (based on a misreading of what I was saying) because possible third-parties might use the details I could have produced to justify from Raul Hilberg a remark I made, to buttress their anti-semitism.

(5) Tag-team request. Very early on October 26 Zeq asks User:Armon in New Zealand, long invisible on the page, to email him here. Quickly afterwards User:Armon begins to edit vigorously against my content contributions, often wikilawyering.

E.g.(7)User:Armon eliminates Walter Laqueur and Lenni Brenner

(8)User:Armon Eliminating Benny Morris

(9) I was thus drawn against the two into a 3RR violation denounced by Zeqhere

I my record is smirched by entrapment, while simply endeavouring to get quality historians, not tabloid sources or propaganda broadsheets favoured by Zeq, into this Wiki article. I get punished for adding 3 historians, and Zeq and Armon plug away without notable additions to the page, because they appear to know far more about the politics of wiki-editing than someone like myself. If humoured by the ironies, and my naivity at the time, it certainly hinted to me nonetheless that I, for one, perhaps am wasting my time on Wikipedia, if this is the way it works. Most troublesome articles could be written by one of any number of experienced hands in a few days: here they are written and unwritten by dozens for years, without noticeable quality. What T.S. Eliot would call a mug's game (without the poetry) in short.

An administrator applying the sanction will look at the log, and judge the abuse without tedious regard for circumstances. The sequence above gives one merely my impression of what was going on, and what dragged me into insisting that proper evidence be respected or restored, against recalcitrant erasures by what I regarded to be two tag-teamed posters. Administrators are not omniscient, but they often appear in their judgements to be like Joyce's god of creation, paring their fingernails on high after handing down formal judgements that ignore the dynamic substance of a dispute.

My own fault here lay in not keeping a weather eye on the clock (I believe that when I did edit Wiki probity of the material was the only thing that counted, little else, an oversight on formalism), and, allowed myself to be prepossessed by the problem, as I saw it, of irrational indeed censorious, POV-motivated removal of material. Of all ironies, this occurred while I was, at the same, strengthening the material on Amin's pro-Nazi links.

Privately, I wondered how is one to edit when one's interlocutor seems to suffer from WP:OWN; when here, as many have argued, he is sufficiently unfamiliar with English usage to misread my own caution against anti-semitism as an accusation that he is antisemitic, when indeed I knew he was an Israeli whose family suffered eviction from the antisemitic milieu of Iraq; and thirdly, how can one fix badly mauled highly POV pages (I have myself added substantial documentation there on Amin's Nazi connections) when one finds impeccably sourced material, (that nuances Amin's early anti-Zionism as in part related, in turn, to provocations by Zionist extremists likeZe'ev Jabotinsky and his Betar militants etc,) held hostage by recalcitrant editors who refuse to recognize that a Walter Laqueur, or a Benny Morris, (let us leave Lenni Brenner out for simplicity) do not need to be justified as WP:RS.

Of course one can argue through the various arbitration courts a long-winded case for days on just this nugatory point (if the point is won, no doubt a dozen more will follow in such an atmsphere), but, I thought, there must be some ground for having area-competent administrators on call to simple stop this kind of cunctatorial practice, or judgements made in patent (if not indeed blatant) ignorance, simply by an editor making a quick call, i.e. Laqueur, Brenner and Morris material - stet. I can understand squabbles about tabloid sources, but not, as here, objections to books published by major publishing houses. To ask deeply committed editors to be civil under the provocations of uncomprehending, time-consuming objections, bide their time, argue for weeks, take out lengthy arbitration, on what are ABC issues resolvable at a glance is, I think, an impediment to serious work on this area of Wiki. Academics shouldn't pull rank, of course, God forbid. But editors without a minimal grasp of basic academic or juridical principles of evidence should not be given unbridled rein to whoah up virtually anything the former adduce simply because, not having done thermselves the required homework, they are unfamiliar with it, and entertain ungrounded POV suspicions. I don't ask you to take sides, but simply to meditate on the broader issue this raises. Regards Nishidani (talk) 16:06, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

8

Per the NPOV tutorial we shouldn't be stating a political POV categorically. We don't need to take a position, but rather, let the facts speak for themselves. There was a time when there was clearly no Palestinian nation/people and there are differing definitions of Palestine and Palestinians. However, the current political consensus is that there is "a Palestinian people" in the sense of a polity or body politic, and that there should be a future Palestinian state. The article should simply trace that development without attempting to adjudicate the conflict.

1. <<-armon->> (talk) 23:38, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Current? Look at the early documents. There are any number of references in official League of Mations and British papers referring to 'the Palestinian people' as the native population distinct from the Jewish population that was to be allowed to immigrate there.

‘essential to ensure that the immigrants should not be a burden upon the people of Palestine.’ British White Paper of 1922

‘The conflict has grown steadily more bitter since 1920 and the process will continue. Conditions inside Palestine especially the systems of education, are strengthening the national sentiment of the two peoples..’ Peel Commission Report, 1937

I repeat, this is a ridiculously pettifogging argument. Weizmann in his reply to Lansing in 1919 famously spoke of 'the right to establish schools, develop institutions, and generally build up a nationality, and so make Palestine as Jewish as America is American, or England English,’ a right duly conceded (any number of sources, David Vital's Zionism: The Crucial Phase, OUP 1987 p.355, to cite but one example). The Jewish Agency subsequently set about 'building up a nationality' for Jewish immigrants, making them Jewish citizens of Mandatory Palestine, with a Jewish nationality, via instruction in Hebrew and school textbooks. That nationality was programmed, and institutionalized for over two decades before the declaration of the state of Israel (sabras had that distinct national identity), i.e. a Jewish nationality was 'built' before the state was recognized, just as in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, a school system exists, Palestinian textbooks exist, which have built up a nationality (see the work of Nathan Brown on the representation in these textbooks for 'the Palestinian national consensus' on many issues). It is immaterial that the state has yet to be declared, since the Palestinians are precisely in the position of sabras, or the immigrant Jewish denizens of Palestine before 1948 i.e. they have a national identity, constructed by schools and official institutions, without having a state embodying formally that ethnic-national identity, existing only as a promised land in the future. The Jews of April 1948 became the Israelis of May 1948 overnight, i.e. the de facto national identity became de jure in the passage of minutes. Of course what is good for the goose is never good for the gander, when the latter happens to be Palestinian. Notoriously again in Wiki, due pesi, due misure, and endless argument by editors who use coffee klatsch kibitzing to disarticulate what a mere glance at the scholarly literature would have resolved quickly Nishidani (talk) 15:31, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

9 Talk:Palestinian people

• None of the above seem complete. Whether directly or as an inference from WP policy, I would expect our encyclopedia to give some significant weight to the principle of self-identification. If so, options 1-3 strike me as quite implausible. (Why would folks identify as Palestinian if they thought the term had no separate sense of peoplehood? Arabs who agree with #1-3 might not identify themselves "Palestinian" and, logically, wouldn't be in the article.) The remainder don't tackle self-identity either. Option 7's last clause is overstated. Option 8 is useful but it's focused on politics rather than mainstream sources, which is what should get us out of this jam. Option 4 is unworkable. Options 5 and 6 -- are these mutually exclusive? Give me much of 8, toss in a combo of 5+6, garnish with sources demonstrating Palestinians' self-identifying nomenclature, and voila -- you've got my straw! Take a sip. HG | Talk 00:52, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Wonderful; how about writing that option, or options; so they can be voted for? I think when we are all finished and done; we can then start zeroing in on first and second choices which adhere to Wikipedia policies, and come to a compromise. Itzse (talk) 01:18, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

HG, in what sense is the last clause of #7 overstated? Who are the current reliable, credited sources denying a separate Palestinian identity?--G-Dett (talk) 02:36, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

G-Dett, it's my impression that there does exist a verifiable minority view which doesn't refer to Palestinians as a "nation." En-wp doesn't need to characterize this as a "dubious or discredited" view. It would be sufficient to simply give the view weight proportionate to its prevalence. (Furthermore, #7 implies that objections to "nation" are equivalent to a "denial of Palestinian identity." That's not a necessary equivalence, is it?) Hope that's a reasoned response. HG | Talk 02:53, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

OK, I guess we're reading #7's "nation or people" differently. Perhaps that clause needs to be clarified. My understanding of the compromise was that "people" was the way forward because it was a generic term signifying their separate identity, which appears to be uncontested, and is line with the phraseology of parallel articles. Also, to be clear, I don't think the article should describe such views as discredited based on our own evaluation of their marginality; we should describe them as such only if that's specifically the consensus of reliable sources. --G-Dett (talk) 03:06, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

If we are trying to select a principle to guide future edits, then clarity about using 'nation' and/or 'people' would be useful. (G-Dett, you are correct that we could use meta-sources to characterize the competing POVs, but it wasn't my impression that the Talk has discussed/investigated such meta-sources. So #7 reads more like too strong an editorializing about the data.) Anyway, I would still like to see folks agree on sources, instead of competing principles based on competing sets of sources. Let everyone answer something like: What is the dataset that supports my principle/option, and how should that dataset be analyzed to demonstrate the validity (or not) of my principle? Thanks. HG | Talk 04:10, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Reflection on the issues raised by the Arbcom review underway

Though I have formally withdrawn from editing, I am following the recent attempt to review the incessant conflictuality of the Israel/Palestine area articles with considerable interest, and, while tempted to make a few remarks there, think my style of writing inappropriate for a venue where administrators, harassed by numerous requests for intervention, prefer sweetly succinct contributions. The few contributions I have made look awkward there, and, furthermore, since I have serious doubts that the way things are being set up to review the crisis can grasp the irritable nettles of contention and devise solutions less prickly than those which have long been in place, I am considering using this page to reflect, undisturbed, and undisturbingly, on my own experience of editing this sector of Wikipedia. In particular, in looks like measures are to be taken to strengthen punitive sanctions, and to isolate, by an examination of individual records, a number of editors who are, or are deemed to be, disruptive. I share Gatoclass's view, that to invite pimping and denunciations of 'adversaries' is a parlous, and rather unfruitful approach. The fundamental problems, as I perceive them, are those of (a) systemic bias, (b) a rulebook so unwieldy in its byzantine complexities it allows for far too much pretextual editing, gamesmanship and cunctator tactics by partisan editors, and (c) a complex set of appeal processes and review tribunals which are dilatory, invite manipulation by stacking, and are themselves, often, time-consuming devices that encourage whining and politicking, things distractive of time better spent on editing, or sorting out one's difficulties on talk pages.

In this last regard, a simple suggestion. Where edit warring occurs of a 3RR type, for example, a simple rule would suffice to relieve administrators of some of the burden here. On any page where a violation occurs, the plaintiff should simple post the evidence on the talk-page, avert all recent editors of that page of the violation, and have them (obligatory) visit the talk-page, and check the evidence. If the 3RR rule has been broken (no ifs or buts) all editors, independent of partisan interests, should undersign the verdict. A non-negotiable 24-hour block on the guilty party should be imposed, for a first offence. But all those who turn up should then be obliged (those who do not should forfeit automatically posting rights on that page for a week or a month) to dedicate time on the talk page to resolving rapidly the point over which the 3RR rule was violated, within 24 hours. If an impasse occurs between the parties, an ombudsman with an impeccable record for neutrality, should be available on call to adjudicate the point on the strength of the evidence and arguments given by the disputing parties within that 24 hours period. No one foreign to the recent edit history of that page (period to be determined: 6 months if not busy, 2 months if busy?) should be allowed to turn up in the resolutory debate.

I can see of course problems, as I do in any proposal, but a self-monitoring procedure, with an obligatory character on all those who have edited a page, to work quickly and fairly on dispute-resolution among themselves, would save immense time both for editors and administrators. It would also oblige partisans to undersign a violation made by someone who they view as 'on their side'. An ombudsman of this type could even, on exceptional occasions, be invested with the power to endorse the text which the violator of the 3RR principle reinserted, or endorse the erasure, if the evidence suggests that the 3RR violation occurred on rational grounds (reinstating technically impeccable evidence from quality sources that has been systematically removed by a coalition of tag-team posters) etc.

I'm jumping the gun however. In what will follow, desultorily, as the mood takes me, I will make a series of initial reflections on the root casus belli and the way it affects the problems infesting this area of Wikipedia.Nishidani (talk) 15:54, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

My tuppence worth

Nishidani, good to see you back, though I do hope you'll feel able to edit again sometime in the future. Editors of your quality are rare, and extremely valuable. No need to rush back, though.

Your report above on the Hebron settlers has prompted me to dig out a couple of links which you (and Steve) might find interesting. They largely reinforce the points you were making, but with an emphasis on peace-building:

• Living With the Enemy
• Hebron Rehabilitation Committee

In fact, the whole set of journal letters is worth reading (but that's just my -- biased -- opinion):

• Index to journal letters

Secondly, I'd like to endorse your view on the exclusion of Jayjg from the Arbcom. Trying to confront the horrendous problems infesting Israel-Palestine articles without mentioning Jayjg is like trying to write a history of World War II without mentioning Churchill (or Stalin, or Roosevelt, or Hitler, take your pick)!
:::--NSH001 (talk) 15:55, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Dear NSH001. No one is indispensable, and certainly there's far too much talent around for justn one person to make a difference (though each would naturally be missed) I rate myself poorly compared to most of the others listed in the inquisition, for constancy of purpose, clarity of judgement, clear prose, patience with obstruction, and dedication to a punishing form of labour on behalf of the global public's quest for precise and balanced information. Thanks for the Hebron stuff. Quakers are doing a great job there and elsewhere in Palestine in monitoring the tragedies. Nothing can be done to write articles on these areas, the articles are under militant vigilance by settlers and their proxies. The real articles will be written only if, improbably, Israel decides that it is worth adhering to International law, what 22 Arab nations request, in exchange for an iron-cast peace treaty, or if, the administrators wise up, and do the obvious thing, split article pages into pro- and anti-, and see which of the two comes up with the best NPOV version. I can think of numerous pages that could be NPOVed to quality level overnight in this way.

I won't participate in making a case (it's already been decided anyhow, he and a few others are untouchable) against Jayjg. As earlier, I don't believe in whining to authorities, and indeed I don't believe in authorities, (other than proven one's in a specialized field)

I will say though that in my limited experience he is perhaps the worst editor I have encountered reading wiki, far worse than Zeq and Jaakobou, of whom, strangely, despite their obstructive antics, I am rather fond of. For Jayjg gives one the impression(and I have many odd ones, admittedly, since I can't help subjectively visualising a person behind a prose style, e.g. Jaakobou seems overweight, PR a women etc.etc!!) he is perfectly aware your edit is correct, yet at the same time perfectly confident he can spin the rulebook to cancel it. He posts far too much, far too quickly, for the good of this encyclopedia.) Best wishes.Nishidani (talk) 21:20, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Regarding this, it is not only Lustick which is not acceptable, nor is this guy according to this talk-page. (This is what is being censored away: ([4]) Regards, Huldra (talk) 05:15, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

One could make a substantial list. That I missed, thanks Nishidani (talk) 16:52, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, Nishidani. I've corrected the "index" link above (sorry for that little slip). Also another wee correction - it isn't only Quakers doing "a great job", it's people from all the churches (hence "Ecumenical Accompanier"); volunteers are selected for that difficult job on their merits, not which church they happen to belong to.

I still encourage you to continue editing, though I can well understand your frustration. It's true that no-one's indispensable, but you most definitely have made a difference, and I don't agree that "nothing can be done". You helped turn the Norman Finkelstein article from a sloppy, mendacious mess into one that now merits "Good Article" status. Similarly for many other articles. Just as important, having you around makes life easier for the rest of us who'd like to improve I-P articles.

My advice to you would be to continue editing, but maybe take a more laid-back, less hurried approach. There's no rush. Wait a day to make your next change, relax, and get on with the rest of your life in the meantime. Also has the side benefit that you're less likely to fall foul of the rule book. But keep doing it, the rest of us will make sure your edits survive. Patience and persistence are the key. I think of South Africa, where the sky didn't fall in when Apartheid collapsed. Or Northern Ireland, where I despaired of a solution -- I'd seen the visceral anti-Catholic bigotry in the West of Scotland, where I grew up, mild compared to NI, but bad enough to make me think there would never be a solution. Or pushing the disarmament message for decades here in this highly conservative part of the world to a hostile reception - it now feels quite disconcerting to find that almost everyone agrees with us over the Iraq war. All causes that seemed so hopeless for so long, but have now come (more or less) right. Best wishes,

--NSH001 (talk) 02:02, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your message. Responded on my talk page. --NSH001 (talk) 18:57, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Mattar & 1920 riots

Hi Nishidani,
I hope you are fine.
I contact you for 2 questions :

• Would you have Mattar's biography of Mufti ? I am looking for some information concerning his view on Mufti involvment in the 1920 Jerusalem riots ?
• Would have a description of the events of 1920 made by a palestinian historian ?

Thank you ! Ceedjee (talk) 10:57, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Hello Ceedjee. Sorry I'm late, a life off-line etc. No I don't have Mattar's bio of the Mufti, and am afraid I can't help you on that on. If you can access the Palin Report (is there a Wiki article on that?) it would be useful. The relative article on Amin al-Husayni is of course a dreadful mess, and having a fuller account from Mattar would be useful. But many other sources could be brought to bear (I don't because I think, if the article is owned by Zeq and co., any improvements others make will only 'tizzy up' add a veneer of learning to what is a shabby little piece of POV editorializing). If you are interested, read Meinertzagen's diaries for the period, which provide evidence for the idea that Allenby and Bols, and generally the British military, were behind the riots, the 'incitement' coming from anti-Zionists (and implicitly anti-Semites, of whom Waters-Taylor is often mentioned) working on notables like Amin, who was regarded by the British as very pro-British. I have occasionally wondered whether the publication in the Arab Palestinian press of excerpts from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (later sponsored by Amin) might be linked to copies sent on by the British army?, since Victor Marsden's English translation of that paranoid tract had just come out. The Hebrew press blamed the British military administration for the 'incitement' generally, and tended to direct its critical fire at them rather than the Arab Notables.

As to the second point. I welcome any sources on history, and couldn't care less about the ethnicity of their author if the scholarship is 'up to snuff'. One only takes this otherwise nugatory element into consideration when one discovers systematic bias, the suppression of key documents in favour of others conducive to an ethnic case, being highlighted in their stead. There are quite a few good books by Palestinians on this period of their history, which supply, esp. on the Palin report, information not contained in many other books (like Caplan's) dealing with the same period,

Regards Nishidani (talk) 13:04, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your answers !

In fact, this was not a question for wp:en but for wp:fr : fr:Émeutes de 1920 en Palestine mandataire.

I have the material concerning "la contreverse sur l'implication britannique" (I must still write this nevertheless) but I am amazed by the way Rashid Khalidi describes the events... see here. Ceedjee (talk) 19:07, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Okay. I've copied it here (to be eliminated later) and will, over the next few days, give you some pointers on my take on it. Best wishes.Nishidani (talk) 19:57, 17 January 2008 (UTC) {{Conflit arabo-sioniste en Palestine mandataire}}

Thank you !

But there is no hurry. (and it is not finished).

I copied pasted the text here : user:Nishidani/draftCeedjee (talk) 21:03, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Bonjour Nishidani,

Notre ami commun a réussi à me dégouter une fois de plus de wp:en. Un peu comme il t'a dégoutté, toi à mon avis. Puisqu'on ne veut pas le bloquer et bien que les sociologues qui veulent s'en occuper le fassent.

Pourrais-je t'inviter à prendre un compte sur wp:fr ?

Je pense que cela peut valoir la peine d'essayer...

En tout cas, je serais ravi de pouvoir dans un autre climat qu'ici, bénéficier de discussion et de la collaboration d'un éditeur aux sentiments différents des miens.

Bien coridalement,

fr:user:ceedjee

Ceedjee (talk) 20:42, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Ceedjee Alors, cher ami, je suis en retard. Malheureusement, j'ai eu des problèmes, encore une fois, avec le 'server' (?) (je dois communiquer avec le monde pour le moment à travers l'ordinateur de mon neveu). Alors il faut attendre que ce tohu-bohu ici passe , j'espère non plus d'une semaine. A bientot! Nishidani (talk) 12:20, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Jaakobou - the proof of him sock-puppeting

PR Just an outsider's word, Pr. It is simply not worth posting insinuations, especially when they are grave. You are obliged to post the evidence, or withdraw the claim. Everything else is mere gossip, and posting it should not be conditional on other matters. Regards Nishidani (talk) 17:18, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

I told User:jpgordon to remove the allegations, after all, it's his project to do with as he sees fit.

But I've provided the evidence at User:PalestineRemembered anyway. Someone else I shared it with tonight says "Wow" and points out another impossibly odd wrinkle about the sock-puppets behavior (re Pallywood), something I'd not noticed.

Now all I can do is sit back and wait while, if previous sock-puppeting is any guide, the two accounts User:MouseWarrior and User:Paul_T._Evans are deleted, removing the evidence for everyone else to see it. PR^talk 00:04, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

I at least for one don't follow everything, and am perhaps the least well informed editor in the area as regards the complex dynamics and past history. So my irritation was not only directed at you, but on your behalf. I thought it was not helpng your case to mention your suspicions to administrators without documenting them there. I'll look at what you've come up with now then. Regards Nishidani (talk) 08:22, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Nor that of dead persons, as if they were both liars and anti-semites, when they merely happened to be deeply liberal voices within the Jewish world. See this for both aspects having undue weight (Israel Shahak) in describing what most would call a classical humanist thinker, and the improper use of cheap political slurs to 'document' by innuendo what no honest biographer, enemy or friend, would incorporate into an article, except as a footnote on fringe charges.Nishidani (talk) 14:30, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

You've probably seen this, but I've compared the bio of Ayaan Hirsi Ali with that of Israel Shahak. Ali is a fine, brave woman, but she's known to have lied about Islam, we should not be quoting her virtual hate-speech about it without making that clear. Meanwhile, we treat Shahak appallingly, for no reason other than that he's exposed fundamentalism in his own religious group. PR^talk 14:45, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

RFAR

What? Anyone may comment on the proposed decision using the talk page. Thatcher 16:37, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

My apologies, I am hopelessly out of my depth in the, to me, byzantine complexities of rules, arbitrations etc., and can only admire the youthful flexibility of intelligence of so many who take to it all like fish to water. I was under, it seems, a wrong impression. Since it looks, now that you and Smith enlighten me, as though I tampered with the page, I suppose I should revert it back. But I won't for fear of doing, accidentally, collateral damage to someone else perhaps posting in the meantime. And, in any case, it is a late and,more meo rather wordy thing perhaps not worth the seriousness a salvage revert would otherwise signpost. Thanks however for the note. Regards Nishidani (talk) 16:52, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

The proposed decision page is for Arbitrators to vote on the decision and may not be edited by non-arbs, but the talk page is where any editor may discuss or comment on the proposed decision. Thatcher 17:13, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

From Arbitrators' Proposed Decision page

I don't think admins need to be knowledgeable in a particular topic area, in order to be able to determine if an editor repeatedly or seriously fails to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, any expected standards of behavior, or any normal editorial process. All they need to know is what the purpose of Wikipedia is, what the expected standard of behavior is, and what the normal editorial process is. The issue is admins who participate significantly to the topic also enforcing such a powerful discretionary sanction could contribute to a perception of bias and injustice that would only inflame the situation, not calm it down. After all, ArbCom regularly makes judgements every day about what is unacceptable behaviour without the need or even desire to know the topic content, so why is it so difficult for admins in this case? Martintg (talk) 10:57, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Comparisont doesn't work. Arbitrators have the luxury of having dozens of other people predigesting and spoon-feeding the evidence for them, and they have lots of time that they (hopefully) use for discussing among themselves. When you are a normal admin out in the trenches, you have to be quick, and you are on your own. And as for the dogma that admin (or Arbcom) surveillance should be completely agnostic as to content - well, I reject it. It's just plain wrong, and good amin work has never worked like that in practice. Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:30, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Are you suggesting that depending upon the content, the purpose of Wikipedia, the expected standard of behaviour or the normal editorial process varies? If these three things are invariable, what relevance does knowledge of content have? Martintg (talk) 11:41, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Your logic is flawed. I need understanding of the backgrounds and content in order to assess whether and to what extent a contributor's performance is incompatible with the these, especially with the "purpose of Wikipedia" (which, as you will easily understand, is impossible to assess without taking content into consideration, because the purpose of Wikipedia, after all, is to assemble good content.) Translated into a practical example: If I find somebody edit-warring somewhere below 3RR, over, say, the inclusion of a passage based on some reference, I will treat him differently if I recognise the passage is a competently worded, well structured, neutral summary of a reliable mainstream scholarly publication relevant to the article, than if I recognise it is a coatrack ripoff plagiarised from the editor's pet nationalist propaganda website written in ungrammatical English. These are content judgments, yes, and I make them in my administrative decisions every day. Arbcom, please desysop me if you don't like that. Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:52, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

You only need to understand WP:V and WP:RS to know the difference between a mainstream scholarly publication and a "nationalist propaganda" (or any other) website, as that particular passage should have a reference attached. That you may call it "nationalist propoganda" is itself your own personal political viewpoint which is colouring your judgement, hence you ought to step back from the fray. Martintg (talk) 19:58, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

(Hoping I am not intruding). I can provide an example of what Fut.Perf. appears to be suggesting, and why your reply, Martintg, mightn't strike many average editors in this area (under scrutiny or not) as anywhere near adequate, since endless useless arguments are raised about sources no person with a decent education would question in the first place, apparently as part of a wikilawyering attrition gambit.here Regards e buon lavoro. Nishidani (talk) 20:12, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Nishidani. Editors (and admins) need some reasonable latitude in order to include a full range of sources which can best represent the notable views and valid concerns of both sides in this conflict. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 20:20, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

"Tag team" editing is not unique to Palestine-Israel articles, I've seen it in my area of interest, pick any random hotspot you will find it there too. It is a pattern that is easily recognisable without having to be involved intimately in the article content. Nothing stopping Editors and Admins including a full range of sources in an article, but I'd be worried about the impartiality of that same admin issuing a discretionary sanction of up to one year in duration, particularly if it was influenced by his subjective view that the content in question was "xxxxx propaganda", where xxxx = nationalist, proletarian internationalist, zionist, anti-zionist or some other -ist. I don't think these kinds of political considerations should have any role when an admin enforces a sanction. Being an admin does not give one some special protection against adopting a particular viewpoint if he/she has been significantly contibuting to a topic area, we are all human, it is inevitable. Hence I think these admins ought to to step back and allow one of the other 1000 admins deal with the disruption. Martintg (talk) 22:06, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Although this may be futile at this point (given that there is a motion pending to close the case), I think the definition of "uninvolved" may be too narrow. (Meaning, I think that admins who are in the "grey area" should not be part of the "enforcement team.") I understand from the above discussion that there are some who feel just the opposite, and are concerned that "outside" admins may not be knowledgeable enough to enforce this decision. However, I think that the possibility of arguably-"involved" admins taking actions consistent with their POV (whether actual or apparent) is of greater concern. Now, I am not an admin, so I may not fully understand all of relevant considerations, but I do understand the "needs" of this particular area of dispute on Wikipedia, and if we are going to "err", it should be on the side of restricting the pool of those enforcing the rules. Otherwise, I think the controversy is only going to be exacerbated, which is the opposite of what the ArbCom is trying to accomplish here. Now, as I have been writing this, I have been debating with myself, how specific to be. In the interests of diplomacy, I have decided not to "name names." But let me put it this way: In keeping with my comments above about the "grey area", I think that if you are an admin who has posted in this section about the fact that some people consider you "involved" in this area, but you disagree, let's just consider you to be "involved", shall we? Of course, there are some people who I think are clearly "involved" and not in the "grey area", and you know who you are, most likely. 6SJ7 (talk) 02:37, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

It might well need clarification later on; I'd suggest that admins err very much on the side of caution on this matter, since it's so inflammatory. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 03:27, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

The thing is, though, that "involvement" is not static. Once an admin makes a comment or assesses a situation in a way that angers one "faction", then hardened WP:BATTLErs who conflate criticism of specific editors' conduct with political criticism of entire nation-states or ethnicities will spare no effort to try and disqualify that admin by casting them as fundamentally biased on all related matters. It's in the interest of particularly partisan editors to do so; if all a poorly behaved editor has to do to disqualify an admin is create FUD, then the already small pool of uninvolved admins foolish enough to consider stepping into this minefield will rapidly dwindle. I agree that in the interest of diplomacy, it's unecessary to name names. MastCell ^Talk 05:25, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

That may be true of some admins. Others may in fact be using their administrative tools to give advantage to a particular POV. I suspect we may disagree as to who is who. But what this really should be all about is an assessment of comparative risks and harms. When I compare the potential harm to an editor who is unfairly blocked or banned (even if there is an opportunity to appeal), to the potential harm to an administrator who is unfairly excluded from the "enforcement team", if we have to err on one side or the other, I would err on the side of protecting the editors, hands down. One possible answer might be to limit the authority of all admins to unilaterally impose serious consequences on editors, but obviously that isn't happening anytime soon. It is clear that the ArbCom has great confidence in the admins as a group, so we are left to haggle over which individuals should be excluded from the group in this particular area of dispute. 6SJ7 (talk) 05:59, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

The creation of FUD is, I believe, a deliberate and established tactic in this topic area. I recall a conversation I had some time ago with a contact who works in the media. He commented that Israel-Palestinian issues were extraordinarily difficult to report because of the intensely hostile lobbying of partisans. Any report that was critical of Israel or showed it in a bad light attracted floods of angry e-mails, phone calls and letters; there was a similar but less intense reaction to reports critical of the Palestinian side. He believed that the US media was largely paralysed by this phenomenon and was largely incapable of neutral reporting on the issue, as it was intimidated by predominately pro-Israel partisans. He mentioned the example of National Public Radio, which pro-Israel activists apparently regard as being anti-Israel in its reporting; they sought to bully NPR by organising demonstrations outside its stations and campaigning for NPR's supporters to withhold funds. (I recall this being mentioned in the UK press too.) In other words, there's clearly a substantial and organised group of partisans in this debate who have an ideological aversion to reporting that doesn't favour their own side, and who consciously seek to influence the issue through intimidation and pressure. We've definitely seen a similar trend here on Wikipedia. Unfortunately it seems to me that this proposal concerning "uninvolved administrators" doesn't take account of this factor. As MastCell suggests, the proposal can easily be gamed by "hardened WP:BATTLErs" mau-mauing admins if they disagree with their decisions. This already happens - MastCell and I have already experienced exactly this sort of thing, and I'm sure other admins have as well. It's a large part of the reason why most admins have steered clear of this topic area. This proposal would, in effect, amount to a heckler's veto over administrative decisions. -- ChrisO (talk) 09:15, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

The root cause of this dispute is that many editors and admins believe that an article must present a single point of view that is "neutral". This is a fallacy. NPOV is the presentation of multiple views when they exist. As explained in Wikipedia:Five_pillars: "Wikipedia has a neutral point of view, which means we strive for articles that advocate no single point of view. Sometimes this requires representing multiple points of view, presenting each point of view accurately, providing context for any given point of view, and presenting no one point of view as "the truth" or "the best view." It means citing verifiable, authoritative sources whenever possible, especially on controversial topics." Martintg (talk) 11:31, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

I beg to disagree. In my experience, admittedly limited experience, that point is well understood. The major problem, as I see it, is that a very large number of editors on topics that are historical in nature, surf the net through search engines for information to back their position. They never seem to frequent libraries, or read books. What pops up very quickly in searches are sites written from a strong POV as part of the daily informational wars to influence and pull one way or another public opinion. Most of that material consists of editorializing, by well known members of the partisan commentariat, feeding off vaguely from secondary sources, which are read simply to cull 'ammo'. Most of the serious technical-historical or academic research on the relevant issues is not yet available on the net. In consequence, we get a huge volume of sourcing to virtual tabloid, or digital ragsheet sites, and little from up-to-date academic sources. This in turn engenders RS arguments. I am not questioning net sources, but have little confidence in them as the basic sources for writing historical articles.

There are multiple points of view in the historical literature, but at least one knows that each viewpoint emerges from archival work and peer review, something that, on the other hand, does not occur with the POV junk from internet hearsay produced and fine-tuned to sway a mass audience. The distinctions customarily made on RS itself, with internet sites, is often one based on corporate size and throwweight in the informational wars, and not on quality. Counterpunch, for example, has proven to have been much better informed on the politics of staging the Invasion of Iraq than the New York Times. The latter is unchallenged (though User:Jayjg did manage to eliminate it as a source because he disliked the content, on at least one occasion) the former dismissed mechanically as 'fringe'. Fox News is, to an historian, an horrific place to source reliable information from. But it's a major News organization so . . . being big, quoted on the stock exchange, and widely followed, its material on an issue can be deemed more reliable that say some article by Uri Avnery, who is endlessly challenged because he only posts on minor 'fringe' news outlets. Yet Avnery is not under instruction from Rupert Murdoch to follow a line, was a pro-Zionist, has written powerful memoirs of his years as a terrorist, was elected to the Knesset, boasts 50 years of experience as a journalist, engaged politicians, knows personally everyone relevant to the inside world of world politics. Even as the rules stand, huge systemic bias can intrude, often preicsely because the rules inadvertently favour as 'mainstream' what are corporate 'news'-factories over minority voices with far better records for integrity, but not being widely read or quoted on the stock exchange, can airily be dismissed as 'fringe', 'undue weight' (Undue weight is often given to what are sources that have a high public profile, but represent highly partisan interests). Nishidani (talk) 12:35, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

I share most of Nishidani's analysis.

But that is also true that "many editors and admins believe that an article must present a single point of view that is "neutral".

If you add some editors "believe they defend the interests or the points of view of their community", it is not possible to work any more.

Ceedjee (talk) 18:38, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Notes on strange things, particularly linguistical

From the Talk:Israeli-Palestinian conflict

'clear minority Israelis promote the occupation narrative.'

When facts become a narrative here, wikiworld reels at the discovery that our Jaakobou is now subjecting Israel's colonial history to the rigours of post-modernist analysis! Has the man been reading Jacques Derrida, Edward Said, Tzvetan Todorov, Jean-François Lyotard, in the interim, while waiting for the Arbitration Committee to publish its deliberations? Will everything now have to be recast in terms of 'narratology' theory, which so bemused us three decades ago? I can imagine its extension in articles on Namibia. Lothar von Trotha's Vernichtungsbefehl as a mission civilisatrice as opposed to the Herero's genocide narrative, etc.Nishidani (talk) 18:12, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Soon it will be a rumor due to New Historians... The occupation rumor...

I wonder what must be written on wp:he and how they deal conflicts there. It must be sociologically fascinating...

Don't worry. There is no hurry. Wp must remain a pleasure.

Ceedjee (talk) 18:33, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

'I wonder what must be written on wp:he and how they deal conflicts there. It must be sociologically fascinating.'

I expect it to be far better than the English version. Much more freedom of expression on these issues is available in Israel than abroad. 'Fixing' the English version has a central role in controlling public opinion within which political decision-making affecting US and generally, Western policy with regard to the area takes place. When inframural debates are translated for outsiders, the complexities widely admitted quickly evaporate in dilettantish simplifications.Nishidani (talk) 09:12, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi, I am responsible of this. You are of course right. I didn't know the existence of the article 1929 Palestine riots.

Concerning the control of us media, I don't know. I would hope this not. Ceedjee (talk) 11:16, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

'Control of media'. There is nothing scandalous in this, in the sense that all powers struggle to secure the best coverage for their own political slant on the world in order to push a perception onto the public, and then retroactively cite that 'manufactured consensus' in order to justify the 'democratic basis' of their highly tendentious position. Walter Lippman's 'Public Opinion'is readily available on line, and showed the logic of how this functions. Israel, as Japan, is very well organized, at an official level, in monitoring and using pressure, in academic and 'mainstream' news outlets, to get its line over, and discredit adversary opinions (often by Israeli and Japanese academics). GWB's adminstration, just yesterday, was the subject of two studies which showed that a senior cabal of administration officers lied consciously on some 950 odd occasions to promote the Iraqi war. They lied, misled the public, and, moulding consensus, then proceeded to invade another country. 'Mainstream' news outlets repeated the lies as serious opinions, and not just, as experts and insiders knew, farcial manipulations of the truth, and as a result we have to deal with one more quagmire. It's the Leo Straussian approach to the world, or, modify Habermas's words, the age-old issue of 'knowledge and state interests'. Quite normal, then, that Hasbara agencies closely monitor Wiki, and have their lads in here, working to keep in strong view the official political line, as opposed to the 'objective' record of events, uppermost on the page. To note this is to state the obvious (editors are tracked down, as I proved to myself with an experiment in here, whenever they assume a profile of critical weight in a controversial area). Knowledge is power, but so is disinformatsiya. Nothing to do with paranoia, or antisemitism, since it is a nigh-universal practice of powerful states with a controversial politics of interfering with other, weaker states.Nishidani (talk) 11:41, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't deny that could be possible but I wonder if the importance given to wp in this reasonning is appropriated. I don't have the feeling that wp has the weight to forge opinions. Opinions are forged by journalists and lobbies which work around men with power (such as politicians). Here, there is nothing as such. I see more a big mess of uncompetence or internet's geeks. Ceedjee (talk) 11:52, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Oups... Are you sure that Haj amin kept his status of Grand Mufti until '48. I would guess he lost this in '37. I have read something about this somewhere but cannot remember where... I am sure of nothing here. Ceedjee (talk) 11:55, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia is the lazyman's prop for instant omniscience. Not only journalists, but, I've had frequent occasion to note, even academics read the relevant pages before talking or writing about issues they are not quite au fait with.

No, I'm not sure on that date, but I didn't put it in there. I was just cleaning up the grammar. It's the span, I now note, assigned to him on the Wiki mufti of Jerusalem page but as we know, Wiki is not a reliable source. I was sure of the 1895 date, Pappé gives it and whatever else you might think, he uses Arabic sources. I am happy to see you have now corrected it, I didn't have time to research it thoroughly. All I knew was that the 1893 date was pushed by Perlman. Good edit. Nishidani (talk) 12:56, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Shaw Report in a large variety of articles

Just a note. Fiddle with it as one will, the only proper way round the impasse (the article is a disaster by the way) is to find some good up-to-date historical works specifically dealing with the Mandatory policy papers and reports and their review in the League of Nations' Commission. As they stand those papers do not reflect the facts, but the politics and prejudices of the age. The fundamental difference between the two reports is that the Shaw Report was looking for formal legal proof of the Arab Executive and Muslim Clergy's responsibilities, and found none. It found evidence for incitement on both sides (most Wiki articles highlight Arab incitement alone). The Mandatory Commission said this was not adequate since the events deal with Arabs, and in an Eastern country where feudal conditions of life still existed, effective proof against the traditional religious and other leaders of the people would very rarely be found.

In other words, members of the Mandatory Committee said legal proof wasn't required, because Arabs are Orientals who characteristically hid the required proof.(Mr van Rees, reiterating this twice). Van Rees 'had not the least doubt that the responsibility for what had happened must lie with the religious and political leaders of the Arabs.' Van Rees' argument relied for its general premises on an article about the 'Arab Fellahins' Mind' written by M. William Martin for the Nouvelle Revue Juive , April 1930 p.22. I.e. as spokesman for the Commission he accepted the verdict of the Jewish Agency and articles written for the Jewish press. We know know, thanks to Israeli historians, that van Rees had almost no indepth knowledge of the complex intertwining causes, but was guided predominantly by the prejudices and sympathies of the age concerning 'civilized people' and 'primitive' orientals. Take the following remark:-

The Arab peasant is distinguished, not only in Palestine, but also in the other neighbouring countries, by the fact that he can always be induced to attack his true friends by his true enemies, who are the landowners.(translation. The Arab fellahin obeyed their enemies, the Arab ruling class, and killed their friends, the Zionist immigrants. The point of view is that Jewish immigration will improve the lot of the Arab poor, by wresting the land from its feudal owners and hiring Arabs with better wages and conditions, and that all Arab protests against Jewish immigration are excuses for continuing to exploit the Arab proletariat. In this the Mufti and other leaders were as responsible as Gandhi was in India for creating havoc!)

This is of course highly ideological, as are many primary sources. Contemporary historians can deconstruct that and contextualize the judgements (British desire for impartiality as a political requisite in order not to add fuel to the fire of Arab sentiments of betrayal vas. Mandatory commissioners, who had a colonial cast of mind and constantly pushed the British about subordinating their duties to the majority of population in order to fulfil the Mandate policy of allowing Jewish immigration)Nishidani (talk) 16:23, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Agreeing that a historical/secondary source would be preferred, let me know if you find one. Thanks. HG | Talk 17:15, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Nishidani, greetings. If you don't mind my asking, why put all this text on your talk page? It's unnecessary. You can just keep a set of links. Or copy it off-line, if you wish. Or maybe on a user subpage if you plan to edit it for future use. Otherwise, well, it's not quite what the Talk pages are meant to be. From an occasional correspondent of yours, HG | Talk 18:57, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Age, young man, age. Keeping tracks of edits scattered about numerous pages like a mad (wo)man's excrement, edits that reflect things I wish particularly to keep in a doddery mind's eye, difficulties finangling up diffs, and doing back page researches, mean I post odd bits back here. I've eliminated the background, in respect to others participating on the relevant page. Here I will be mainly talking with myself. RegardsNishidani (talk) 20:25, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Excuse me, where can we see a copy of the Shaw Report, or was it suppressed? The document we've seen is the minutes of the League of Nation meeting and looks like an occasion for Van Rees (in particular) to ignore the result of the investigation and claim the 1929 riots were nothing more than a security lapse for which it was necessary to scape-goat the locals. He comes out with statements such as "... represented that the screen was not deliberately intended to annoy the Arabs", but that Muslim calls to prayer were intended to annoy the Jews. He engages in wholesale verbal trickery over the first demonstration at the wall of 15th Aug, managing to imply that the "extremist members of Betar, carrying batons" (Morris, Victims, p.112) did not threaten violence. The demonstrators have flown their national (Israeli?) flag at the Wall, a day after 6,000 of them were demonstrating in Tel-Aviv with cries of "The Wall is ours" - yet Van Rees brazenly claims that "the right of ownership of the Wailing Wall had never been contested by any one" and speaks of the "absurdity" of allegations about ownership of the Wailing Wall. Van Rees even attempts to deny that Jabotinsky is a Zionist!

Actually, I'm very puzzled what any of these guys are doing contributing to the hearing. Rappard and Palacios are named only as "Rapporteurs" presenting petitions. Rappard is to present petitions IV and V from the Supreme Muslim Council, which is strange indeed when his contributions are so partisan. All three play a significant part in the hearings, but do not present their petitions.

Note how these 11 meetings were held between the 3rd and 9th June, before the evidence of the Shaw Report itself could reach Geneva - "It is hoped to send copy of Shaw Commission evidence to Geneva June 14 and to publish here June 16." I think we need to see what the Shaw Report itself said. And perhaps need to see "Annex 2", the Government statement, which is refered to repeatedly. But this is probably useful, paragraph 43 summarises the conclusions of the Shaw Report. PR^talk 13:43, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Pedro has ordered a copy of the Shaw Report. No, it wasn't repressed, just filed in archives, like so many White Papers. Without APPENDIX 2, the net report is pretty useless, except for underlining how out of touch van Rees and others were with the nitty-gritty of everyday events and polemics in Palestine. That is why contemporary historians should be used in preference to these primary sources, for documenting the period. The official documents, like most bureaucratic bumf, reflect political turf-fights and clashes of interest, not the facts. Van Rees did not have access to the kind of information later authorities like Benny Morris, Ilan Pappé, Walter Laqueur, or Anita Shapira have. RegardsNishidani (talk) 14:45, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

+1

This is very important to point out what Nishidani has just written.

We don't have the competences to work on primary sources because this is a work that requires to perfectly know the topic. Historians when they deal with primary sources cross check all of them, try to find bias, investigate about the autors etc.

As wikipedian editors, we must mainly report relevant information from reliable secondary sources.

WP:V -> WP:NPOV -> WP:undue. That is in fact extremelly easy if we are not disturbed in our work by any sort of editors whether without know-how of the topic or who try to analyse the reliability of a scholar or who doesn't make the difference between their own belief and what they can or could read in reference books. Ceedjee (talk) 22:19, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Ceedjee. Thanks for the input. There does appear, at least in terms of our own dialogue, to be a 'dyscrasia' between what I have now said regarding the British Gov. League of Nations reports, and my attitude to the UN documentation on the Qibya Massacre. There you pressed for highlighting Benny Morris, and I availed myself of the primary reports. The ostensible incongruency is explained by the fact that the UN reports on borders contained a mass of statistical information, reflecting what impartial UN observers monitored directly, bearing on the breakdown of the very generic picture of the circumstances of the period given in secondary historians. Morris in my view was far too synthetic. The Shaw Report is a political balancing act which is highly synthetic; the Mandatory Commission Report sets forth a series of conclusions that are of the kind an historian would not easily accept, since there, the pronounced prejudices of the external analysts (van Rees, Rappard) etc., are highly visible. It is more like a novel, than an historical account, because the Brit. Representative Drummond Shiels, must negotiate a problem politically, defending the practical policy of his government as on-site guarantor of the interests of both parties, against the Mandatory Commission which insists more or less that the British stick to the letter of that part of the Balfour Declaration which favours Jewish interests against Arab interests. This theatrical scenario, of a conflict over interpretation of evidence informed by different political interests, is not what you get in the UN documentation on Qibya. Those with training in historical method will appreciate the problem. We cannot do OR, but if we are serious, we often shall be forced to do so to inform ourselves more deeply of what both primary and secondary sources are about.Sometimes secondary sources are simply not sufficient, or we cannot access them. I still believe for example that Benny Morris' book Righteous Victims is often essayistic, and falls down according to strict methods of in-depth historical documentation, and his border war studies likewise does not address many lacunae.

This would not be problematical if editors understood the problem, had some training in historical methods, and weren't so obsessed with taking everything as a POV battle when commonsense would indicate we are mostly trying to ascertain the verifiable facts, and relevant cirumcstantial contexts. For onlookers, Ceedjee and myself have strongly opposed positions on the general nature of the conflict, but more often than not, do not have problems with each other's evidence because there is a mutual recognition of what constitutes method.Nishidani (talk) 09:24, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi Nishidani,

About Qibya massacre, I suggest we discuss this deeper at another time when thinks will be quieter. Please, check once again the article fr:massacre de Qibya. I don't use Benny Morris as a sacralised reference (see doc here). I cross checked all my secondary sources and I also used all the primary sources from the UNO website. But never mind :-)

And anyway I don't share your analysis of Morris's work ("Morris in my view was far too synthetic" etc) because he wrote Israel's Border War concerning this topic and he based his work on all the primary sources. There is no doubt that he read all the uno reports we have an even more. And whatever his mind, it is a relevant mind. Ours not... From the level of our know-how on the topic, he is no more and no less reliable when he writes The Birht... revisited or Israel's Border War...

Amicalement, Ceedjee (talk) 19:22, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I have requested few times

Please stop refereing in your comments to my age, professional standing, knowldedge of english or make any condesending remarks. Let's stick to the subject we edit not the editor. Zeq (talk) 20:24, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

If an editor evidently cannot understand what I am saying, I can attribute the understanding to his lack of knowledge of English, not to a lack of bad faith. I therefore raise the topic in order to remind you that you are, as all of us are, obliged to make an effort to understand the second language you are writing in before responding to your interlocutors who use it as a mother tongue. This is not a matter of condescension, as much as a matter of asking you to respect the intelligence and experience of others who have professional training in an area, people whom you constantly condescend to by saying 'please do this' 'please do that','please revert' as if they had committed peccadillos they cannot perceive (as a group) but which you alone insist have been committed (I think again because you do not understand completely what they mean when they write complex sentences). Amicably nonetheless.Nishidani (talk) 22:28, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

All I can do at this point is request that you refrian from commenting on me, my understanding, my English etc...Focus on the edits and the edits alone. It is your right to disagree with edits and you can rspond to what is in the edits themselfs. When you start discussing the editor, his/her understanding, english level and other you create an environment that goes against the colaborative effort which this encyclopedia is. Editors who do not tolarate colaboration with other editors - even those who are less qualified - should seriously consider writing their own books where they should not have to deal with ideas that they don't agree with.

As for the condescending toward those you see as less expert than yourself: The simplest way for you to avoid condescending writing about other editors is to stop commenting on those editors. Zeq (talk) 06:29, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Zeq I won't comment on your English, if you reply to my remarks intelligibly, and not attribute to me, as in the past, 'antisemitic' slurs, WP:OR errors. I am focused wholly on the text, which has seen a large amount of effort wasted because some editors do not understand, evidently, what is required to write an NPOV article. The text as it stands is an attempt to confuse two things, indigenous opposition to Zionism (wholly natural) with Nazism. People who defend their homelands are not, because the immigrants coming in happen to be Jews, intrinsically Nazis or irrational fanatics. Amin became a fanatic, and sided with the Nazis, but his opposition to Zionism in the 20s was not inspired by antisemitism. He was acting exactly as honest analysts like Ze'ev Jabotinsky and Menachem Begin said people in those situations would naturally react. If you can understand that simple distinction, then much of the editorial squabble will disappear.Nishidani (talk) 08:03, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Question of translation

Hi Nishidani,
Hope you are fine.
I don't know but maybe you could help or advice me for a translation from English to French.
How would you translate Israeli settlement policy : Politique de peuplement israélienne ou Politique de colonisation israélienne when refering to the settlements of immigrants in the territories inside the Green line "borders" between 1949-1953...
I quite automatically translated by Politique de colonisation israélienne because that is the way it is usually translated in French but concerning settlement outisde the Green line (ie in West Bank). Here, it refers to territories inside Israel's today borders. An editor on wp:fr complained and explains that calling the "settlement" of "Israeli citizens" inside Israel's borders a "politique de colonisation" is extremelly pov. I don't think he is wrong but I can hardly justify to me to translate same English word differently according to "circumstances" and personal analysis (even if pertinent from my point of view). Thx. Amicalement, Ceedjee (talk) 07:54, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Fascinating, Ceedjee. Another example of how language ineludibly cocks a POV. If we are dealing with the period 1939-1953, one looks at the juridical situation at the time regarding the UN borders 1948 and the area acquired during the 48 war. It depends how international law defines the juridical status of those areas acquired manu militari, I would think. Comnplex, because a deal of the land behind the 67 borders was formerly 'demilitarized land' whose ownership was to be determined through bilateral negotiations that never took place, and became Israeli territory by the law of customary usage (we say in English, and it is well understood in Israel and the West Bank, 'possession is nine-tenths of the law'). This I do not know. One does have public statements by Dayan (1976) in which he admits for example that in the demilitarized zones, whose status was disputed, particularly with Syria, it was an informal, but collectively agreed-upon policy by the IDF and the Israeli government, to subject these 'demilitarized areas' or no man's land to creeping expropriation by provoking incidents. The technique was to send a tractor or two in, over the ceasefire lines, provoke the Syrians on the Golan to fire (often nervously, as warning shots) then claim Israelis were being shot at by terrorists, and call in the IDF to both fire back and seize the area to consolidate it for agricultural use and settlement. 80% of incidents, he calculated, at that time, occurred because of Israeli provocations to gain more land whose juridical status had not been determined by negotiation between the parties. That, objectively, would be called 'colonisation', with the rider that colonisation usually refers to taking land undisputely belonging to another people, whereas an Israeli could say the land was disputed, and therefore not quite the object of colonisation, but simply.

If the land concerned was in the demilitarized area, colonisation would be truer to the actual state of things. If it was in areas not assigned to Israel, but acquired by Israel in 48, rather than 'colonisation' one could use 'peuplement' but perhaps, I am tempted to think that perhaps 'établissement' might fit your purpose: for example Littré gives in sense 4:'Il se dit dans un sens analogue de colonies qui se fixent en une contrée' giving an example from Barthélemy: Environ deuz siècles après la guerre de Troie, une colonie de ces Ioniens fit un établissement sur les côtes de l'Asie, dont elle avait chassé les anciens habitents. (Tome 3, 1956 ed.Pauvert p.1084)

Language is never neutral, and the only way out of this impasse is to look at contemporary official documents in French, and Hebrew, determine how French diplomatic or governement usage saw the specific process, and employ that language (even here of course, political bias exists, but at least it is not a matter of personal whim). Historically what took place, everywhere, was colonisation in the classic sense. Personally I never refer to the West Bank colonisers as 'settlers' because in normal English they would be called squatters. 'Settlements' is neutral, only in that it is adopted to disguise what is a politics of expropriation: ('theft' is more POV and yet more juridically correct than 'expropriation' which is nuanced towards an appearance of objective description but, in many cases, only attenuates the fact of theft by being less familiar to users,etc) its 'neutrality' is, bref, extremely POV, and much of the language that passes for 'neutral' falls under Orwell's sanctions. Sorry I can't be of much help. Regards Nishidani (talk) 10:31, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your detailled analysis and pertinent comments.

I share your mind.

Maybe établissement is not the word because the nuance in French is different but I don't know how to explain you in English... One says : "les immigrants s'établirent" but one doesn't say "le gouvernement établit des colonies ou des implantations". In French, the word refers more to an action that is performed personnaly : je m'établis dans cette ville.

Maybe the solution is in official documents but I will never have access to official French documents of the 50's. I am an amateur averti, not have money, time or capability to visit official archives :-(.

Thanks a lot ! And see you soon. Ceedjee (talk) 12:38, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Hope you enjoy the reading

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/950373.html Zeq (talk) 14:23, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Dear User:Zeq. I almost always enjoy the jouissance of reading, except when I read Wiki entries on the Israeli-Palestinian question, which do not actually make for reading but rather dull unpaid overtime as, red pencil in hand, and mentally donning a high school history teacher's frown, one corrects line after line for errors, sloppy editing, bad syntax, naivity, and nescience. Thanks for the link. It adds a few more details to what is broadly known, but doesn't subtantially alter my understanding of events, and only upset my afternoon's serenity, after a splendid lunch of octopus and gilthead fillets washed down with red wine, when I noted Haaretz's mispelling a Latin phrase. I long ago read General de Gaulle 's,Mémoires de Guerre, 3 vols. in which in the third volume Le Salut:1944-1946(Plon, Paris, 1959) esp.pp.216 he gives a survey of the consequences for France when 'la frénésie des nationalistes arabes et la volonté des Britanniques de rester seuls maîtres en Orient s'y coalisaient contre nous'. France subsequently handed Israel the atom bomb, and only retracted its iron pact when it found Mossad had stolen all of its technical plans for the Mirage fighter, to better bomb Arab countries France was trying to maintain relations with. Hence de Gaulle's famous outburst in November 1967, which like many other comments made by astute observers of the time, foresaw the mess that victory would lead the world into. This time round, for once, the brilliant Raymond Aron got it wrong.

Nabi Musa pictures

Hi,
I found many other ones on the Library of Congress website.
They are free ! I think also that some are "nicer" than the one I added :
[5] Amicalement, Ceedjee (talk) 10:49, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks once more Ceedjee. I've put the selection of photos on a link at the page. Best regards Nishidani (talk) 14:18, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Hey Nishidani. Thanks for the invite. I'll try to take a look around to see what I can add. Tiamut^talk 18:12, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Dear Nishidani, you are most welcome. Of course, I should be thanking you for starting such an important article on a much overlooked subject. Tiamut^talk 16:10, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Soutien

Salut, j'apprécierais ton soutien ici. Merci, Ceedjee (talk) 20:04, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

"The situation of insecurity across the country affected the Arab population more visibly (this sentence does not make good sense (since implies that jewish self-defence caused Arab insecurity,and flight. Please rethink it)"

I don't understand what you mean.

I don't know how to change this.

The only idea is to write that while Jews stay, Arabs fled, without giving any reason to this.

In French, I had written :

"Tandis que la population juive a reçu des instructions strictes l'obligeant à tenir à tout prix sur tous les terrains[165], la population arabe est plus soumise à la situation d'insécurité que connaît le pays"

...

Please, feel free to fix any issue you see. :-) Ceedjee (talk) 11:33, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Let's look at the phrasing before I made my edit.

Since the Jewish population was under strict orders obliging them to hold their dominions at all costs, the situation of insecurity across the country affected the Arab population more visibly. Up to 100,000 Palestinians, chiefly those from the upper class, left the country to seek refuge abroad or in Samaria.

Since is ambiguous here, in that while it is clearly intended to mean 'from the time the order came through to hold out at all costs', the secondary sense 'in as much as, because' with its 'causative' nuance makes the sentence imply that, 'the resistance at all costs' of Jews to Arab attempts to wrest their positions from them created a diffused insecurity throughout the country that affected mainly the Arabs, inducing many to flee. It makes for a hypotactic structure, with main and subordinate clause, rather than the paratactic syntax of the French

The French does not bear this confusing double-entendre, since 'tandis que' unequivocably suggests simultaneity and not, as since, consequentiality. If you are familiar with classical Greek, then what you intended to write fits the men-de construction of contrast between two situations.

In English the French, which you have kindly supplied me, would roughly translate thus:-

'While the Jewish population had received strict orders requiring them to hold their ground everywhere at all costs/to the bitter end/ (65), the Arab population was more affected by/subjected to/ the general conditions of insecurity to which the country was exposed'

I think your point a good one. I also think Eleland's comment very sensible. I am rather leery of intervening at more than a level of stylistic and grammatical assistance, my friend, because I consider the whole narrational structure of all of these articles almost irremediably vitiated by presuppositions I do not share. My way of reading this draws on Jabotinsky's 1923 analysis. A population was to be displaced, for another population, of immigrant origin, under the aegis and authority of a third power whose imperial prerogatives, under mandate, were to sanction the expropriation, in the name of a national home for immigrants, the land of an indigenous population whose identical right, promised earlier, was cancelled, though they were the majority. As Jabotinsky understood, war was inevitable, and everything should be geared to that eventuality So periodization of conflict is deeply problematical, since informal military preparations were underway since the early 20s for what all feigned not to be aware of, the clash between a Zionist state , and native aspirations for one of their own. Morris's work was a considerable advance, and you do well to distinguish these later periods, but, as the Irgun's record itself, and Ben Gurion's written connivance with their paramilitary terrorism since mid 1945 shows, an effective, semi-official state of war existed from much earlier times (Begin's 4 fronts). Morris is a far better archival historian of the factual nitty-gritty than Pappé, but his assumptions are still profoundly Zionist, it is statist historiography, whereas, and here I side with him, Pappé has understood in depth what a probable Arab indigenous account of events would look like, a Hobsbawnian reading of the erased voices at the margins of offficial discourse. As in our earlier dispute, the issue is not of facts, but world-views. If I can offer any help, like the earlier bit, don't hesitate to call on me. Amicalement Nishidani (talk) 12:19, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Hi Nishidani,

Thank you for the explanation of the differences between since and while. The nuances are indeed important and cristal clear after your explanations.

Concerning Pappé/Morris analysis, I think our difference of world views, if real, does not matter. I can take distance between my opinion and a fair report of scholar's analysis. My only limitations are the ability to understand them and to summarize them.

I think factual articles can be improved by a section titled analysis. I think this could be added into the article 1948 Palestine War which could be dedicated to this purpose, leaving the facts to 2 other ones.

In fact, I requested your support for such thoughts as the one you gave to me. My only concern is that today, 1948 Palestine War will be deleted by Jayjg/Zeq and certainly others if it doesn't receive enough support. And whoever we refer to (Morris or Pappé), they would not agree :-)

Kind Regards, Ceedjee (talk) 13:58, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Well, I certainly agree with the point you are making. The problem was 'soutien'. I appreciate the need, given the urgency of the issue, in seeking help, it's just that I have reproved others for organising defensive lines by mustering assistance in a battle. But since we debate this before others, openly, I see no harm in your requesting me to put in my penny's worth. In fact I shall do so. Were proper procedures applied to these article, most of them would be wiped out as political negotiations over the truth, and therefore, as things stand, I certainly think one side, with a very pronounced hostility to open critical approaches, and particularly to the work of someone like yourself who is pro-Zionist, but highly amenable to the scholarly input of others who do not share these principles, but push a contrary reading, is to be prized, and, yes, defended.Nishidani (talk) 14:10, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

fr:Émeutes de Jérusalem de 1920

Hi Nishidani,
You didn't comment this article... I have modified this a little bit since we discussed this.
I hope there was nothing that upset or angried you in this one.
If you feel some points could/should be improved/neutralised, please don't hesitate to tell me.
I don't promise I will modify the article but I will take all your comments into account as much as I can.
You could make your comments on the article talk's page also. Amicalement, Ceedjee (talk) 22:58, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Look, I've allowed myself to be sidetracked into the futilia of minor Wiki stuff, ignoring my obligations to look at that text. I am also down with bronchitis, have nieces visiting, several books half-read, and roughly 11 large pine trees to cut down, and saw. Don't worry I will get round to reviewing it, as promised. I did begin, but to do this review I had to organize three large files of information on my computer's data bank for Israel, and that means several hundred pages of cross-referencing and organization to chronologize material gathered. That is basically why I am late, not foot-dragging. Be assured I will make my comments in duke horse. Amicalement Nishidani (talk) 23:19, 6 February 2008 (UTC) (I gather I give some people the impression I am angry in writing in here. Not at all. The contemporary situation angers me. The reality of the way some people write about the past gives me quite a different order of feelings, having little to do with anger, and much to do with amazement at the labyrinthine workings of incoherent minds, devoid of empathy for the past and other people !Nishidani (talk) 23:19, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Jeepers! Only just read this - I sincerely hope you didn't cut down all those trees while suffering from bronchitis. Marathoners like me tend to be well aware of the fatal consequences of hard exercise undertaken with a chest infection. Hope you're feeling better now. Best wishes, NSH001 (talk) 14:21, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

No worry.

Most important is the pleasure to contribute. It must remain a hobby and nobody has deadline or such things.

:-)

Ceedjee (talk) 10:57, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Tariq Ramadan

It is written he is a Swiss Muslim. I would have written he is a Muslim Swiss (particularly given the points of view he defends). What do you think ? Ceedjee (talk) 16:27, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Still have no connection. This from a borrowed computer. As you can see, in English usage, nationality normally preceeds religion

An American Catholic An English Protestant A French Huguenot A Canadian Muslim You may indeed place the adjective defining faith before the nationality. But that makes the adjective 'emphatic', diminishing the importance of one's nationality by comparison with one's religion. Thus what you suggest aims to affirm that one's Islamic faith comes before one's citizenship in Europe, as having a deeper allegiance. To single out Muslims like this is pretextual. Sir Thomas More and thousands of others (Campion) placed their faith above their nation, though being intensely patriotic, when the two were in conflict, and, in Sharia law, one owes fidelity to one's nation, as Ramadan himself someone affirms (from memory). I suggest you accept the first and normative usage. RegardsNishidani (talk) 13:42, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Thank you.

In English, if I write : « I am a Belgian Christian », are both "Belgian" and "Christian" names ?

In French one must be an adjective and one must be a name.

So, I thought that in English, with that order, Christian would be a name and Belgian an adjective, which would be chocking.

But if both are names, I understand why "Belgian Christian" is of course better.

Amicalement, Ceedjee (talk) 19:05, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Well, it may be shocking but , I hope, not awe-ful, that nationality supplies the adjective and religious denomination the noun or substantive. Languages are not rational, they are grammatical, and the spoiled children of immemorial usage. It appears I once more have an internet connection, at least this evening. RegardsNishidani (talk) 21:04, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Thank you !

Well. It is extremely shocking. That means in English (culturally), religion is more important than nationality.

But ok. I understand the whole issue.

Ceedjee (talk) 12:01, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Communal editing

We got off to a bad start, but I'd be interested in changing our interactions and reduce editorial stress and conflicts.

It would be nice if you could fix my grammar errors once in a while, keeping my content based corection in mind (such as the "They justify..."), rather than revert every time. And surely, I am going to try and take your suggestions (such as the water core issue), into proper consideration.

I hope we can find a way to edit more communally in the future. Cheers, Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 09:48, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

You won't have problems with me if you try to keep in mind, while editing, that Wikipedia aspires to NPOV, and therefore that, while each of us has a POV, we owe it to the encyclopedia to strive for editorial rationality and equilibrium. Anyone can plunk their own favourite material, or spin their own POV, into an edit. The best editors will strive to strike a balance between private prejudice and the responsibility to be fair to both sides. Your suggestion on Core Issues was deeply troubling because it was decidedly unbalanced. One does not arrive at consensus readily if your interlocutor perceives your rephrasings as simply attempts to secure a one-sided interpretation- There are an extremely large number of outstanding issues between the two camps, many of them having nothing to do with terrorism. I would remind you also that, independently of historical claims as to 'who started it', both camps regard themselves as subject to terror, and that no one side has a monopoly on this, as per the death statistics. Regards Nishidani (talk) 10:11, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Apology

My apologies for this edit, it was a spur of the moment blip that was worded poorly/incorrectly. If you wish to discuss the walla source [6], my comment is made here. Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 22:48, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Talk:Israeli-Palestinian_conflict#core_issues_section.2C_intro

Hi there, I am trying to coordinate some editors to help me rewrite the intro of the article. Your thoughts/additions would be appreciated. Suicup (talk) 00:41, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

It may well be the case that having an 'official' list is the best option, however in the meantime, i am trying something a little different in the hope that some progress is made. IMO any issues in the introduction don't need to be cited at all, because they are going to be detailed at length further on in the article (complete with references etc). Originally i was going to wipe the lot, however i decided that was too ambitious, so i am breaking up the task a little bit. If editors can collectively decide what issues go in the article itself, surely they can also decide which said issues go in a 2 line paragraph in the introduction. Suicup (talk) 02:32, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Asher Weisgan and Doom777

Hi,

He's been making similar edits to Eden Natan-Zada which I've been reverting. I've added Asher Weisgan to my watch list.

Cheers,

--Uncle Bungle (talk) 01:52, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Terrorism

Quite simple, if he goes into an appropriate subcat such as (assuming he was imprisoned) Category:People imprisoned on charges of terrorism it correctly attributes the POV. Simply calling him a terrorist is POV. One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 18:50, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Your fine work

		The Original Barnstar
		In recognition of your fine contributions to a number of articles, including but not limited to Palestine Liberation Organization and Nabi Musa, I am pleased to award you this barnstar. Tiamuttalk 17:02, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

For the record

User:Sm8900's idea of the sort of POV-thickened crap she believes I like.

It is accompanied by the heading: 'There, I fixed it. Is that better, Nishidani? Would you like the article to read that way? thanks.'

Here's your long-lost barnstars back again

Couldn't help noticing your request, so I restored them from here NSH001 (talk) 18:33, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

)

troopers, etc

That's what came to mind, but 'trooper' has military overtones! Sorry. Thanks indeed. Remarkble how you young people do in an 'eyelid's soundless blink' (Hardy) what an old codger like myself throws his hands up in despair at the mere thought of trying to do digital-wise. I owe you a batch of Cornish pasties! (To overcome the narcissistic tinge in lining them up there, I have decided to create also a section on suspension banners!) Cheers and best wishes. Nishidani (talk) 19:06, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

No need to apologise for the military appellation. We pacifists can have a lot of respect for military men, after all they put their lives on the line, they know what war is REALLY like, and some of them even become pacifists themselves. Not all of them deserve respect though - I contrast your nemesis Swatjester's user page with my father, who signed up the moment war was declared in 1939, served in North Africa and Burma, and spent 3 yrs as a Japanese POW. He refused to talk about the war, for him it was a necessary evil, a horrible job that had to be done, and nothing to boast about. (The only good thing about it was that it enabled him to go to university, an option normally unavailable to working-class families then.)

PS. A wee tip: when starting a new discussion on a talk page, click the little "+" at the top of the page, to the right of the "edit this page" tab. That will automatically give you a correct edit summary and section heading, and also avoid problems if someone else happens to be editing the page at the same time. Oh, and you'll have a job trying to find pasties as good as my mother used to make .

--NSH001 (talk) 21:47, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, again. So your dad was in Burma? not with Orde Wingate, I suppose (Palestine connections). I've read quite a bit about that war and indeed once did a lengthy study of Japanese war literature on it. Probably then your father knew Louis Allen, who, aside from fighting there, wrote a brilliant account of the Battle of Sittung?(I usually think in terms of the 6-links-to-any-person-in-the-world theorum) I met him him Durham in 1988. As to war, I chose to work in Israel because the air was thick with news that war would break out, and having been expelled from a public school for refusing cadet service over the Vietnamese war, and then subsequently charged (with a five year sentence) for refusing to put my name down in the conscription lottery, I wished to test my pacifism (not of an absolute variety). When asked where I would like to work I told the Jerusalem office 'any kittbutz near the most dangerous zone!' Nothing happened of course, other than getting a chance to sneak past military barriers to walk through the city of Gaza, where I was warned I would probably be shot, and instead spent a nice afternoon in Palestinian sweet and coffee shops, speaking French in deference to possible dislike of English or American-accented foreigners. Best regards then.(ps. even my own sister, a wonderful cook) sought me out to ask me how to cook Cornish pasties. I was the only one to memorize our mother's recipe)Nishidani (talk) 22:44, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

About Wingate or Allen, I have no idea, and it's too late to ask him now. To say that he was reluctant to talk about the war is an understatement. I know he worked on the Burma Railway; according to my grandmother he weighed only 6 stone on return home after 3 months recuperation in India (the military authorities had learned not to overfeed starvation victims after the Holocaust). He would sometimes joke that "the Japanese cured me of my stammer". While he recovered physically (he was a very fit and healthy man up until a few months before his death), the war undoubtedly had a profound psychological effect on him. I witnessed him reliving some of the prison camp horrors in a delirious fashion on his deathbed.

--NSH001 (talk) 21:45, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Our family tailor worked the same railway line. The rule was, as Albert Coates, a surgeon there through the war, put it:“The lower the total weight, the less food need be supplied." The more you worked, the less you were given to eat. A similar principle operated in Nazi workcamps.Nishidani (talk) 13:08, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Please make talk not edit war

Nishidani, it would be nice if you would actually participate in the discussion on the talk page (Specifically, this section here, rather than making unsupported claims as you did in your edit summary here: [7]. If you did, you would note that the edit you reverted came from the Encylopedia Britannica and is the same source and paragraph that your prefered POV version is purported to cite. Please review WP:RS and WP:POV . If you still object, please outline your objection in the section I've linked above, so that we can discuss how to move towards a consensus version. Failure to do so, makes the revert disruptive, rather than constructive. Thanks, Doright (talk) 00:39, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

You made, from out of the blue, 11 edits in a 'couple of days', amongst which a comprehensive change to the intro. which are usually the hardest things to negotiate, and the text was the result of long work. (2)You have been inactive for a long time and have suddenly jumped at this page, saying, while requesting outside assistance from an excellent editor User:MPerel, that because others have requested you to slow down, because edits you have not discussed are challenged, this 'miserable' page is suffering from WP:OWN, which, practically means that a newcomer with no record in the area, making a dozern changes, is disconcerted that several experienced editors disagree with his unilateral edits (3) Your edits were often technically faulty, as Eleland indicated (4) Effectively the edit you were pushing replaced a complex rich summary statement of much recent scholarship on the formation of Palestinian identity with a bare quote from one source: the effect was to impoverish the terxt (5) the talk you engaged in to justify this significant alteration of the lead was minimal (6) I follow this and many other pages closely (7) YOur revert was unilateral and disruptive (7) With significant alterations in negotiated leads one should, in respect for those who have a long tradition of having worked on a page, vet their opinion before hazarding your own preferred material (8) The EB is one source, and not the only reliable source because you alone happen to prefer it. (9) To accuse practiced editors of a page of edit warring when they have made just one or two changes, independently, on a page you seem ready to rtewrite singlehandedly, is calling the kettle black. You appear to me at least to be conducting a one-man show edit war with several people. Show a willingness to justify before others your own take on this line, and achieve consensus, and perhaps you will find your actual edits less troubled by challenges. I have not edit-warred.Nishidani (talk) 08:34, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

You have not addressed the issue I raised above and on the article talk page. Specifically, your unsupported claim that the edit "cancels, with one quote, a formulation that reflects a good deal of recent scholarship on early 20th cent.Pal nationalism" and the fact that this quote came from the very same source and paragraph that your preferred POV version is purported to cite. Again, I ask please address the article content issue that I initiated on the article talk page as you can see I had previously done here. I suggest that it is more helpful to the WP project than a flame war that I have no interest in. Ironically, your comments here are both self-contradictory and provide additional evidence that some editors may be going too far in "defending" the article. You complain that I do not engage in discussion on the talk page, while in fact I have, for example right here, then you refuse to do so yourself even when I specifically created a talk page section to address your concern. You complain about my requesting a second opinion from an editor by asking them to "take a look at the article," even though we both agree she is an excellent editor. One would think that my seeking input from an excellent editor would be encouraged. And, your characterization of her as an "outside" editor, in this context, only furthers one's concerns that there are "ownership" issues at play here. Interestingly, the excellent editor seems to agree with my assessment of the editorial environment on that page. She says, "Oh gosh Doright. And a miserable corner it is." Apparently, this is not as "extraordinary" of a remark as you think. Rather, it is the assessment of an excellent editor, so much so, that the excellent editor is discouraged from even participating because of the "lack the energy required to involve myself there. That article belongs to a subject area that draws out the worst in people." This seems to provide further evidence that the editorial environment that you seem to covet discourages contributions from even excellent editors. I trust that the irony of your generalized and unsupported claims with respect to the content of my edits are not unnoticed. For example, the WP:RS quote that you reverted came from the Encyclopedia Britannica and is from the same source and paragraph that your preferred POV version is purported to cite. Again, the place to address concerns about the content of edits to the article is at the article discussion page. Please do so. Future rants to this talk page will be ignored when deemed of no material benefit to the Encyclopedia. Regards, Doright (talk) 21:10, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

'This seems to provide further evidence that the editorial environment that you seem to covet discourages contributions from even excellent editors.'

In covet your meaning is clear, in that it suggests you view my behaviour as one indicative of a sexual impulse, which cathects itself in environments that lend themselves to conflict, conflicts I require to satisfy some unconscious perversity. This is quite fascinating, and I take, as usual, no offense. I will add it to the list of accusations, such as that I am an antisemite, because I refused to divulge information that antisemites might misuse, etc.

As for the rest, I and other editors have already stated what is problematical, and your replies have been niggard. My impression, which I permit myself to express, because of your 'covet' insinuation, is that you suffer from an 'imperial' approach to editing. I.e. come to a page, expunge something, put something else from another source and require of the several editors who ask you to explain what you are doing that you have no need to vindicate your editorial choice but that they, who have written the page, are required to seek your consensus before they challenge it, on the talk page, where you have hardly troubled yourself to press your case vigorously. I rant? you, sir, are extremely lazy Nishidani (talk) 22:11, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Building a case

Building a case for antisemitism by coded language full of innuendos based on caricatures of one's arguments

Note particularly the following:-

'At vario(p)us times, you asserted that Israel had "Stolen" Palestinian land, that Israel had continually deceived the world community, and had constituted a direct conspiracy aimed at deceiving and dispossessing Plaestinians.'

That is very close to picturing me as a believer in a 'Jewish conspiracy' to 'deceive the world' for the purposes of self-enrichment. Language straight out of the Protocols, whose concepts are thus clunk-handedly attributed to me. One presumes that this sort of provocation constitutes another of the fishing expeditions. Take the bait, and whatever you say in self-defence will be examined for more evidence to make further bad inferences that they build up the required picture. Interesting in a way, even if sublimely tedious Nishidani (talk) 15:58, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Hello, how am I accusing you of anti-Semitism? I do appreciate your obvious antipathy to anti-Semitism. However, there have been many nations which have engaged in underhanded campaigns of mass deception, to displace indigenous peoples; in fact, that's one major feature of the history of most Western countries. So that is what i felt you had accused Israel of doing. There is nothing outlandish about stating that you had made this claim. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 19:53, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

There is no muscle in your prose, no thew of cogent thought, and you, in short, waffle, lounge about commenting vaguely. No harm in that. But on several occasions you have grossly misinterpreted my remarks, in a way that would appear malicious, unless one assumes, as I now assume, that you have very little understanding of the issues, almost no background reading, and simply edit from a vague post X-Generation feelie-approach to the world's complexities. To anyone versed in the literature, the words, and concepts you mucked about with in describing what I said (in terms of Walter Lippman's famous thesis, which I agree with) are uncannily close to the classic phrases used by antisemites. I know that: you may not. Your not knowing what the way you talk/write sounds like to people attuned to the history of controversies, is part of the problem. You may think you are using English, but what, evidently has happened in these instances, is that you have been used by the English language, which has undertones and auras of allusion that will, by the record, have you say things unwittingly that you may not, as an impèromptu jotter, think you are saying, but which the language you use so loosely and unwarily has you say. I was taught to listen to that witless drift in the jargon of the everyday world by, among many influences, great Jewish masters, through reading them as they analysed the seemingly innocuous if racy chitchat of their somnambulant fellowmen, men in obtuse lockstep towards the shambles of WW2, which those masters foresaw, because they had their ears to the ground, and not their eyes glued to the dumbed down, hallucinated world of televised soundbites and googled snippets of disinformatsiya. Goodbye. Please don't reply. And pardon me my offensiveness, which your insistent baiting has succeeded in eliciting Nishidani (talk) 20:21, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

on several occasions you have grossly misinterpreted my remarks, in a way that would appear malicious, unless one assumes, as I now assume, that you have very little understanding of the issues, almost no background reading, and simply edit from a vague post X-Generation feelie-approach to the world's complexities. ...You may think you are using English, but what, evidently has happened in these instances, is that you have been used by the English language, which has undertones and auras of allusion that will, by the record, have you say things unwittingly that you may not, as an impèromptu jotter, think you are saying, ...Goodbye. Please don't reply. And pardon me my offensiveness, which your insistent baiting has succeeded in eliciting .

sounds like a fairly negative depiction of and comment on my abilities. or is that me "grossly misinterpreting" again? Anyway, i will respect your request, and will not pursue this further. thanks. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 20:37, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Israeli-Palestine intro

thanks for all your help on this. Would you agree it is much better now? lets hope it lasts. I see there are now multiple pointless tangential arguments going on about placement of the word 'the'. Frankly I wouldn't bother. The majority of the editors there seem happy to let the article degenerate into crapness. I mean, they're happy to ensure it is has a virtual real time feed of every bombing etc, but key structural holes like the history section (and 90% of the rest of the article) remain untouched. That's the definition of missing the forest for the trees. Its not worth the time and effort IMO. I'm into actually writing real stuff on Wikipedia, not arguing on the internet - plenty of forums for that. And you know what they say about arguing on the internet - its like the special olympics, even if you win, you're still retarded. cheers Suicup (talk) 13:27, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Dear User:Suicup, I for one would like to thank you for that scrupulous review and revision of the page's introduction. I'm afraid I have not been as directly helpful as I should have liked to have been. Seeing an even-handed editor at work for once, I thought it best to stay my own hand, viewed by many as intemperate and thus automatically reversible, and deal with the talk issues as they arose. I shall do my best to honour the stability and objectivity you have tried to introduce on that page, not least because it is a mode of acknowledging the unpaid efforts of the person who stepped it to fix the mess. Best regards (I have no illusions about 'winning arguments' on the net. Working here is a self-imposed tithe on a fortunate life, to secure at least verbal justice and equity of representation to a small piece of land whose people history has chosen to wipe its arse on).Nishidani (talk) 14:34, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

No problem. I dont think i'm going to edit this article for a long time now as frankly i've become disillusioned and tired of arguing. I really hope you keep up the good work in there because otherwise the whole thing is going to go to shit. Hell, maybe i'm wrong, maybe there isn't anything anyone can do. Good luck, I think you are a very wise member of this website! Suicup (talk) 14:07, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Kudos

I just wanted to say I've appreciated your recent commentary on Talk:Palestinian people and elsewhere. Your literate sincerity is a welcome change from the typical WP practice, which is to string together fallacy and triviality with wikilinks to random policy papers. Cheers. <eleland/talkedits> 00:47, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Easy peasy

I have on my page (Nishidani) a list of violations under 'Bodkin). Of the three there is one I seem unable to transfer. The template is below from the archives (May-Sept 2007). It should be inserted between the other two chronologically. If you can manage the time to get it to show, of course wipe out the template I've pasted here. Sorry for the trouble . Nishidani (talk) 13:22, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Done. The problem was a hidden comment, which was missing its final ">", (I've no idea how that happened) so that all the following test was also commented out. This symptom is familiar to anyone who's done any serious programming (as I have had to do in the past, as part of my job).

I have also reduced the header levels to keep them together in one section. Hope this is OK.

--NSH001 (talk) 20:56, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

PS again

I mentioned above (pedant that I am) about the advantages of using the "+" button on talk pages to start new discussions. One of the advantages is that it automatically gives you correct edit summaries that show in talk page history and user contribution pages. For example, your request to me appears to be about "Earlham College", when in fact it is about something else entirely. In any case, I think it's an easier way anyway of doing the same job. Go on, give it a try!
--NSH001 (talk) 20:56, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

The usual, usually unreported news

Frederick, Martens, Pritchard, and Wendeln and other internationals visited a Palestinian family that lives between the Kiryat Arba and Givat Ha’avot settlements. In July Sami Jaber was shepherding on his land when Israeli settlers attacked and shot at him and members of his family. When he attempted to defend himself, Israeli military arrested him and two of his sons. The Israeli authorities did not inform him of his arrest. They told him, 'Come to [the police station] to make a complaint'. Jaber and his son spent 14 days in jail and paid a fine of 2,000 shekels. His other son spent one month in jail and had paid a 3,050 shekel fine. Settlers accuse him of throwing stones at settler guards, despite the eyewitness of an Israeli activist who can attest otherwise. Referring to settler harassment, Jaber said, 'You have to video everything', as settler harassment is unpredictable.

Then the CPTers and other internationals watched a video of a Palestinian family living in a valley below the Kiryat Arba settlement. On 12 January, settlers attacked the family. The military did little to prevent Israeli settlers from throwing stones, but physically restrained Palestinians from retaliating. The settlers injured twelve Palestinians. Four went to the hospital, and two of them required stitches. The Israeli authorities arrested two seriously injured Palestinians and denied them medical treatment. Nishidani (talk) 12:23, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

One note

Hi Nishidani. I sincerely hope you are planning to continue a positive relationship with me. I felt that your recent comments might be slightly questioning that, but it's also possible I simply misunderstood you. i find your comemnts generally rather articulate and insightful. in the spirit of WP:GRUDGE, WP:AGF and WP:CIVIL, I think we should plan to have an onoging positive relationship, although I have no actual evidence to think you were planning to do otherwise. i did want to lay these thoughts on the table though. hope all is well. thanks. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 13:45, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't plan anything, and I left my capacity for grudge matches in the graves of my Irish ancestors. In my small world, fierce argument and even slanging matches are normally reserved for people I trust, i.e. people who treat me the same way, and are extremely frank, and have no fear that the vehemence of a dispute might in any way register lack of esteem (to the contrary). I was treated to lunch the other day by a person whom I had publicly humiliated, before 200 people, at a wedding-feast a decade back because I overheard him whisper an intolerable smear concerning Jews. He never took the raucuous vehemence of my public lecture as a proof of my personal malignity. To the contrary, from wary acquaintence, we now enjoy a degree of familiar regard. Unless one is forceful, and open to forceful challenge, where logic and evidence however are shared premises, often the result is waffle, equivocation, and a lack of insight. In the virtual world, I generally take people as they appear to me, from edit to edit, which means the liberty to side with an antagonist, or disagree with those I otherwise often find myself in agreement. Our tiff was a matter of what I saw to be a caricature of views I entertain. Perhaps my expository style, which is old-fashioned, accounts for some misunderstandings. Perhaps it is age, which tends to make the world look far more weird than the facile protean adjustments of early maturity allow to be the case. As a happily maladjusted person, whose inability to accept at face value the way things are 'normally' represented grows with age, I may well appear cantankerous, when I think myself merely dedicated to precision. Let's forget the tiff then, and get on with the work. Regards Nishidani (talk) 15:09, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Sounds good to me! I appreciate all your input here, with your usual variegation and multiformity, and attention to human quirks, both your own and others'. :-) thanks for your reply. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 16:36, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Civility, and those who frequently remonstrate with with me for a lack thereof

User:Jaakobou on WP:CIVIL, for example. Also Here

Since edited out

What the heck. This is how it unfolded, adjusted for parts edited out (as is his right) on User:Jaakobou's talk page.

Mockery
I asked you last week to remove your "joke" regarding Tiamut's notice above and you deleted my comment. I informed you at the time I would take it further, but as I wished to avoid confrontation I delayed doing so in hopes you would do the right thing and take it down yourself. Since you've declined to do so, I have made good on my word and taken this up at AN/I. Regards, Gatoclass (talk) 14:43, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

It also documents your poor grasp of English, apart from the sadistic contempt you apparently entertain for those who mourn their fellow men when they do not happen to belong to your own ethnic group, but suffer from violent occupation. Remonstration on the latter is perhaps futile, but I do not think it wise to flaunt (meaning 'brandish triumphantly') your lack of linguistic tact. The English word 'mourn' refers to 'past events'. It cannot be used of the anticipated results (failure) of future events (your exams, English?) except in conditional phrasing. Nishidani (talk) 14:58, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

I've removed the boxes from your user and talk pages because it's obvious that you're poking Tiamut with a stick here. Not only is it disgraceful disparagement of another user, but you have already been approached regarding this and decided to shake it off. Before continuing on, please consider whether any comments or actions you make will be working towards or against a healthy and productive colloborative environment. If the answer isn't the right one, don't click "Save page" and move on. east.718 at 17:18, March 14, 2008

east718,

I was quite sad with my upcoming exams and that I wouldn't be able to edit Wikipedia, and Tiamut's box gave me inspiration for describing my feelings. Both Gatoclass and Nishidani have a history of trolling around me looking to make a fuss and unless Tiamut complains to me personaly, I can't take these derogatory personal attack "complaints" from two editors who soapbox against Israel frequently and also tried to reduce the death toll of the 1929 Hebron Massacre as anything but trolling. With all due respect, I'm reverting your removal back until such time as Tiamut comes to me and makes the request that I change my page for her. Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 18:20, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

You insult a person by sarcastic mimicry, and then when third parties intervene to remonstrate on grounds of decency, refuse to reconsider the offense unless the party you directly insult asks you to withdraw? What code of ethics is this? I think, at this point, you should be reported. Nishidani (talk) 18:53, 14 March 2008 (UTC)Above edited out =(rm comment by a decent and ethical editor who so happens to soapbox against Jewish people "on occassion". Please stop "getting insulted" for others on my userpage.) 19:04, 14 March 2008 Jaakobou (Talk | contribs) (48,915 bytes)

Please do not restore the contentious bit again, or the consequences will be severe. Thanks. El_C 19:20, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, even though Tiamut has not addressed me and Gatoclass made his own assumption -- that my user-box offended her -- without being approached by her also. I take this comment to apologize to Tiamut who may have been offended by my use part of her phrasing to her time off wikipedia.:I've rephrased the text and removed the word 'mourning' which I'm sure was the reason Gatoclass took offense. Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 19:44, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Last chance. Anything up there even remotely resembling the notice it is copied from, will earn you a significant block. And I'm off to note it on the arbitration enforcement broad. In case you haven't noticed (and inexpl;icably, it appears you haven't), we are taking a very tough stand against bood blood at the Israeli-Palestinian disputes, in all areas. Thanks again. El_C 19:49, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) Hi, Jaakobou and I have been chatting about this. I've just become aware of the problem. He's shown me a draft that looks unobjectionable. The basic idea of a notice about exam delays is a pretty standard thing and the image is really something special: he put huge amounts of time into restoring it and getting it featured. I had taken a stab on restoration of that photograph before he tried it and his crop is brilliant. There were some subtle problems at high resolution, particularly with the faces, and he actually stitched together two different archival files to make this work. He has every reason to be proud of the result. The word choice was an afterthought and not well chosen, I agree. Let's do our best to create a more positive atmosphere--there's a whole lot more to this site than the Israeli-Palestinian disputes and Jaakobou's been doing quite well at broadening his horizons lately. With respect toward all concerned, Durova^Charge! 20:13, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

What? I'm not following that. Again, anything that will even remotely resemble in appearance the notice which was originally copied, will be viewed most severely. El_C 20:16, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Even after the offending words are removed? Really, that's carrying things a bit far. We're talking about a simple exams notice that posts an editor's recently featured picture. Jaakobou has accommodated feedback and offered an apology. What would be the basis for objection--the shade of the border color? If somebody tried to block him for that I'd post the unblock request myself. If there's something I'm not understanding, please explain. Durova^Charge! 20:30, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

It's not going far. It should not resemble to original notice, because it comes across as mocking it, by placing the mourning of people on par with Exams. That I need to explain something that obvious, is, not a good sign. El_C 20:41, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Request

Please stop "getting insulted" for others on my userpage. Thank you. Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 19:05, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Request denied. I saw that incidentally when it went up, and though I deeply deplored it, and thought of remonstrating with you, I refrained from so doing in order to give you time to reconsider. I thought indeed that friends would have nudged you to remove what was, to put it generously, extreme bad taste. When you act disgracefully towards someone else, and particularly a woman, and especially if that woman is Palestinian, an editor of great patience and equilibrium, one who refuses to lower her dignity by taking the bait and asking you to desist from what was an abhorrent piecen of sarcastic mimicry of a person in mourning, I will step in. You should be reported for this. I am not an expert of these manners, but that sneering contempt at a person's pain disqualifies you from editing collegially articles dealing with Palestinians. I am not insulted. I was simply taught as a child that one does not stand by when the innocent are mocked by bullies. I don't think in this, that my rearing in ethics was exceptional. Your behavior certainly is proof of extreme callousness. Nishidani (talk) 19:26, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Reported

I have informed east.718 that Jaakobou restored his offensive notices. If east.718 doesn't block him, I think I will take it to AE. I might take it to AE anyhow because Jaakobou seems bent on asserting his right to insult and humiliate another user. Gatoclass (talk) 19:23, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Apropos [8], I note you remark

On 2nd March, User:Tiamut, who I believe is a Palestinian, placed a notice on her talk page stating that she is "in mourning" regarding the latest Israeli incursion into Gaza in which 100 people were reported killed over a number of days. She amended the notice a couple of days later. Normally a prolific contributor, Tiamut did not start editing again until the last couple of days. A couple of days after Tiamut placed her message, I happened to notice that User:Jaakobou placed a message on his talk page stating that he is "in mourning" over "upcoming exams". He used exactly the same template as Tiamut and the same format. Where Tiamut embedded a photo of "Gazans in better days", Jaakobou embedded a photo of Native Americans "in better days". It is clear this comment is intended as a parody of Tiamut's notice. To make sure that no-one missed the joke, he placed the notice at the top of his user page as well.'

I now note User:Durova on Jaakobou's page praises his effort on the Indian image. I suspect what has gone missing is the equation of Palestinians with Red Indians, a people to be wiped out or kicked off into reservations by a superior immigrant people, a trope which has been fairly constant in the literature since the 1920s.

The conception of the Palestinians as primitive “natives” who can easily be bought off has deep roots in Zionist history, and is a natural concomitant to “Weizmann’s legacy,” as expressed by Ben-Gurion and others (see chapter 3, section 2.2.2, and for more detail, the next chapter). It was observed long ago by visitors to Palestine. The American journalist Vincent Sheean, for example, arrived in Palestine in 1929 as an avid Zionist sympathizer, and left a few months later as a harsh critic of the Zionist enterprise. He found that the Jewish settlers “had contempt [for the Arabs] as an ‘uncivilized race,’ to whom some of them referred as ‘Red Indians’ and others as ‘savages’,” and felt that “We don’t have to worry about the Arabs” who “will do anything for money.” They looked upon the indigenous population as “mere squatters for thirteen centuries” so that it should “be feasible for the Zionists, by purchase, persuasion and pressure, to get the Arabs out sooner or later and convert Palestine into a Jewish national home,” an attitude which he thought was “from their own point of view…perilous in the extreme.”N Chomsky, Fateful Triangle

It has long been current in Israeli military slang:-

‘The Israeli editor Yigal Schwartz, on completing his tour as a reserve officer in the West Bank, described the prevailing attitude among the military as based on the assumption that they are dealing with “primitive people, Indians, whom it is our duty to educate and discipline,” teaching them that “they are children and we are parents who educate them,” with the rod if necessary. “From right to left,” disorder is taken to show that “we are bad teachers,” that “if we had beaten them properly at the beginning they would be properly trained,” so that it is necessary now to beat and humiliate them, even when three soldiers beat a helpless woman, as he describes.’N Chomsky Fateful Triangle ibid.

The point of Jaakobou's intense work on the Indian image, mounting that image of Indians in better days is obvious. User:Tiamut mourns for dead Palestinians. User:Jaakobou replies showing 'live indians',(a trope for those lucky Palestinians who are still alive). Thank your lucky stars you're still alive, User:Tiamut, even if you remain an 'Indian', relegated to your tribal enclaves in Gaza and the West Bank. Just as the Indians here disappeared as an autonomous people, swamped out by America's triumphant conquest of the West, so will you and you kind be swamped out by our triumphant conquest of the West Bank. In either case we will have 'nice photos' to recollect the quaint folksy ways of this onetime people etc. The innuendos are many. I'm dumbfounded that Durova misses all this, and sits back marvelling at Jaakobou's technical genius at fixing the image, while completely missing its burying the Palestinians historically, if not at Wounded Knee, then in the ruins of Gaza, while sneering at one of them, a fellow editor, for her mourning over what are only 'Indians'. In short, as Jaakobou's confreres of the American frontier's days of glory used to say, 'the only good injun's a dead injun'. Nishidani (talk) 20:52, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes the connotations of Jaakobou's image were not lost on me Nishidani, and I think you have given expression to them eloquently. It should not be overlooked however, that even without the offensive and indeed, covertly racist message embodied in the image, that equating distress over deaths, maiming and trauma inflicted on a particular community with worry over an upcoming exam is a clear attempt to trivialize the former and disparage both the individual in question and her community. And I too am suprised to see that Durova apparently missed this. Gatoclass (talk) 07:06, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Thank you Nishidani for noticing the political subtext as well. I didn't want to say anything about it for fear that people would say I was being paranoid. And it's entirely possible that Jaakobous is oblivious to the implications so I didn't want to make it the main issue either, since what is most offensive about what he did is that he parodied and mocked the template but is claiming complete innocence saying that he was simply "sad" about his exams. That beggars belief and it's this repeated provocative and tendentious behvaiour (and editing) followed by claims of innocence of intent and ignorance as to the effects that behvaiour that I find most disturbing. Tiamut^talk 03:15, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Next time Jaakobou comes online I'll ask him about this. I can affirm a few facts right now. Namely, he worked on that image long before Tiamut posted her notice and selected it for as a technical and esthetic challenge at my suggestion. Please note that the featured picture candidacy opened on February 28.[9] When it got promoted ten days later he was very happy about the achievement. At any rate, he has a second featured picture now, and I hope it would give no offense if he displayed that instead in a box about his university commitments. Next time I communicate with him I'll be sure to ask if there was any other subtext. Please extend my condolences and sympathy for any hurt feelings. Durova^Charge! 00:27, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply,User:Durova. The fact that Jaakobou was working on that image long before Tiamut posted her note is immaterial, since most editors specializing in this area will know that '(Red) Indian' is a pejorative trope for 'Palestinian' in historic Zionist usage. Why do you think Jaakobou would take such an intense interest in the image, if not also because of its obvious implications and potential uses? The second point is equally obvious. One cannot 'mourn' for a future event. The use of 'mourn' and Tiamut's template constitutes concrete evidence for the fact that he wished to target and 'mock' Tiamut's grief. User:Jaakobou has a lucky life in here. He obviously needs mentoring, and I have never called for bans on anyone, but when he oversteps the line and tramples on human dignity and sensitivities as here, he should, at least privately, be hauled over the coals. One can be passionate about a cause, Zionist or Palestinian, without ever feeling that the 'other' in the dyad thereby warrants contempt or mockery. This is a tragedy, not a football match in which one cheers or boos one side. Monitoring is an added burden and difficult, and those who undertake the task are to be admired, however one might disagree on one or two calls. Regards Nishidani (talk) 08:00, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

What on earth are you talking about?! Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 09:46, 15 March 2008 (UTC) Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 10:07, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

If what I am on about is unclear, I suggest you reread my remarks. Apparently you haven't. It is simply a matter of the straightforward construal of English. But, I'll give you the gist, if, as is possible, you really haven't got it. Feinting ignorance is not a virtue, especially before examiners. Teasing those who grieve by maliciously allusive parody is abhorred by most cultures, and you dishonoured a great and noble ethical tradition, that of Judaism, by your mockery. Best wishes for your exam. Let us now drop the matter and turn to serious work. Nishidani (talk) 09:57, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Hi again. I checked with Jaakobou and he really doesn't understand the problem you're articulating in this thread. He was thinking of impending exams when he wrote that image caption, and feeling nostalgic for carefree vacations when he could enjoy the open air. Yes, in another part of the template he made a highly inappropriate dig at Tiamut, and the context was ambiguous enough that I see how it could look like an elaborately crafted insult. Please trust that this wasn't the work of a sadist. More like a young guy being proud of a featured picture, and worried about exams, and thoughtlessly tacking something onto that which gave much more offense than he intended. I'm not excusing that choice; it was way out of line. I've had several (very) long chats with him over the last twelve hours. He's going to do his best to make amends and ensure that this doesn't happen again. Durova^Charge! 11:53, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

memoranda

1) Talk:Second Intifada User:Jaakobou 15:19 17th March 2008

'I find those suggestions insulting advocacy. The Arab world, Islam inspired cultural structure is the main cause of the Arab-Palestinian 91 year racist terror campaign against the Jewish-Palestinians. The 2000 campaign was instigated, not by the common man seeking freedom from his oppressive job within the green line, but rather by an indoctrinated public looking for killing as many Jews Israelis as possible. If you want to mention the Palestinian narratives for |why "it's ok" to killing innocent pizza eating Jews (and Arabs), you should also include that Israelis view it exactly as what it is... as a racist campaign to clear the middle east of Jews and their history that calls it's Arab victims "martyrs for the cause".More Lye-boxing than Soap boxing

Nishidani (talk) 17:53, 17 March 2008 (UTC) cf.also

and [10]

Thank you Nishidani for your post to WP:AE. I was in the process of drafting this:

summary of the issues here

• This is not a page for complaints and counter-complaints. It's a place to discuss enforcement of Arbcomm provisions.
• Per the Arbcomm decision, [11] any admin may impose discretionary sanctions on an editor who after receiving a final warning fails to "comply with Wikipedia policies such as assuming good faith of all editors including those on the other side of the real-world dispute, writing with a neutral point of view, remaining civil and avoiding personal attacks, utilizing reliable sources for contentious or disputed assertions, and resorting to dispute resolution where necessary."
• Jaakobou received just such a warning from Rlevse on 7 February [12].
• After this, a thread was opened here regarding his mockery of my mourning template and closed on March 15[13]. Note that Jaakobou's mentor, Durova, was the last to comment, saying, "Let's chalk this up as one ugly misunderstanding. Sensitive subjects + sleep deprivation are the bane of harmonious editing. Now it's high time I got to those Maori textiles (and some other things). Best regards, DurovaCharge! 18:30, 15 March 2008 (UTC)"
• The issue that prompted this current report is his soapboxing, which include racist comments, at Second Intifada: [14], [15].
• Note further that in the original Arbcomm case, evidence presented by Number57 [16] (among other editors) singled out Jaakobou for disruptive editing. Number57 also wrote: "The fact that Jaakobou requests discussing his problematic behaviour off-wiki (in the e-mails he sent he said that he "can probably explain my overall position to you by instant messaging") suggests that he is attempting to sweet-talk editors into overlooking his misdemeanours instead of facing up to his actions."
• Note that Durova spent 12 hours on instant messaging with him after the last WP:AE report was filed and without her intervention, he would likely have been sanctioned since he had already received a final warning. Further, Durova has refused to comment in this WP:AE report as to what solutions she sees as appropriate in this case.
• My question is, if this is not the place for enforcement of Arbcomm decisions, am I to assume that Jaakobou's behaviour is in fact acceptable? May I conclude that mocking my adversaries grief, and making polemical, even racist soapboxing comments only two days afterward is okay? What message is this board sending to people exactly? That the Arbcomm decision was a joke?

Thankfully, Addhoc had intervened to issue a week-long block before I had the chance to post it. I saw your message below the archived debate thereafter.

I cannot believe how much energy had to be expended to get a very simple one-week topic ban issued after two very egregious violations of WP:SOAP and WP:NPA in one week. I think your comments are quite sadly right on the mark. Bombarded by mainstream media images which demonize Muslims and Arabs, we are perhaps the only people left in the world about whom it is acceptable to make racist and stereotypical remarks based on gross generalizations that are passed off as "political analysis" or justified in the name of "free speech". I am very happy to see that there is at least one admin out there with some sense of equity and the need for consistency in civility and soap guidelines. I was sitting here quite despondently thinking that if nothing was in fact done, I would leave Wikipedia once and for all. There are limits, after all, to how much sh*t one can swallow before becoming seriously ill. Thanks again for your empathy and insight. Tiamut^talk 14:40, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

You are too wonderful, my wiki-friend. Thank you for the only barnstar of its kind. You really do understand. It honestly brings tears to my eyes. Tiamut^talk 14:46, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Dear Nishidani. Your words honour me,1 and do not embarass me at all. Besides sumud, a related Arab concept I hold dear to my heart is that of karameh ("dignity"). The two work hand in hand, for without karameh, there can be no sumud and without sumud, all would have been lost long ago. I am so thankful for the growing awareness one can feel budding in the air (aaah, springtime) around our world and for people like you who remind me that there are many with whom deep empathy and understanding can be shared despite the supposed geographical, gender, and temporal divides. It's something very easy to forget in the MSM world of CNN and BBC that does nothing to represent the trials and tribulations of so many in this world not privileged enough to form part of the global "Western" elite. Thank you for sticking around, and for reminding me so directly why it is important to carry on. Tiamut^talk 15:38, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

And now...

I wanted to ask you if you could check out Thursday of the Dead. I was wondering if you knew anything about it or where I could find more information. It seems to be related to the Nebi Musa festival, since it occurs at around the same time and is listed as part of a series of spring festivals, but I can't find anything on the direct link between them. If you do know of something, please let me know. Reconstructing parts of the culture and traditions we lost/are losing as a result of wars and upheavals are part of the process of healing/hanging on upon which I place high priority. Thanks. Tiamut^talk 15:46, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Also, please see Sumud. It was inspired by your comments, I can't believe there was no article on the subject before today. Cheers my friend. Tiamut^talk 17:20, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Memoranda 2

(1) 'It is our presence, our power, our arrogance, our refusal to learn from history and our terror--yes, our terror--of Islam that is leading us into the abyss. And until we learn to leave these Muslim peoples alone, our catastrophe in the Middle East will only become graver. There is no connection between Islam and "terror". But there is a connection between our occupation of Muslim lands and "terror".' Robert Fisk, 'The Hell-Disaster of Iraq', Counterpunch, 19/3/2008

(2) Alison Weir, ‘Funding Our Decline,’ Counterpunch Apri1 4, 2008

(3) Kobi Ben-Simhon Days of atonement Haaretz 12/April 2008

(4) Lobbying

(5) Gideon Levy, ‘One swift kick’, Haaretz 6/6/2008

(1) To be checked against a RS.
‘Over the last year, Palestinian civilian casualties outnumber Israeli civilian casualties nearly 400 to 1’. Greg Kafoury, 'Is Obama Turning (Further) Right?’, Counterpunch 27/5/2008

Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2008-03-18 Second Intifada

Just notifying you, that as you have been involved in the discussion regarding the Second Intifada article, which is now the subject of a MedCab case, I'm notifying you of this as you may wish to partake in this case to discuss a resolution to this dispute. Feel free to leave a comment on my talk page. Regards, Steve Crossin (talk) 23:29, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

1920 events

Hi Nishidani,
I hope you are fine and cooler than me these days on wp:en ;-)
For your information, the article fr:émeutes de Jérusalem de 1920 has been elected FA. It will be harder to modify this but if you see in the last version some points to improve and/or neutralize, don't hesitate to write the issues to me.
Good health and good work !
Amicalement, Ceedjee (talk) 18:27, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm delighted with that news, Ceedjee, (I congratulate you on a well-rewarded effort), and at the same time suffer from a twinge of remorse, that I have not yet honoured my obligations to you and that page. I did check some weeks back, in several files and couldn't find precisely the information I thought I had, it must be in one of a couple of dozen other files, and that is why I haven't yet acted. Whatever if I do find it, I will post it to your page, and you can look at it and evaluate it as you think appropriate. I tend to perspectivise more than Wiki allows. Those riots were absolutely nothing compared to what was happening to Jews at that time in Eastern Europe, where major pogroms were a daily occurrence, amounting to hundreds of deaths often. Andd yet, if I recall, Shapira's 1992 book does underline how the Jewish community in Palestine read the riots in terms of the Ukrainian massacres, and this (if natural) misreading considerably complicated things. The Arabs had been fully informed they were to lose their land under imperial auspices, and actually, in comparative historical terms, the outbreaks of anti-Jewish violence were very low. Zionist literature at the time read everything nervously as premonitory of what actually occurred among the profoundly antisemitic populations of the East, but this was a different world. I've been relaxing writing the English page on Homer, my favourite author bar several, which was in a dreadful state, and that is rather time-consuming. But no excuses: je suis un vieux con! Amicalement Nishidani (talk) 19:49, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Hi,

Thank you for your reply.

You are perfectly right. This is nothing in comparison with what was happening in Europe and the same time.

You are not "un v.... c....". You are "un sage". And writing an article about your favourite author instead of losing precious time in quarrel (like I have just done) proves this !

Amicalement, Ceedjee (talk) 21:17, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

bibliography

hi there, may i invite you to add some of the books/references you have been using in the lengthy talk page discussions to the newly created Bibliography of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? It replaces the Further Reading section of the main article, and was designed to make that article smaller. regards Suicup (talk) 06:18, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

I-P conflict

Salut,
I agree they wanted a state and even more, a nation-state. But that doens't mean they were not ready for compromise (what some were) and were not discussing these issues (what they did)...
I cannot answer all your comments. Just this one :

"Specifically, regarding Pappé, I find the man intensely 'pragmatic'. Living on the backdoor of a huge Arab neighbourhood, he learnt the language, had his kids raised bilingually, and worked hard to see their point of view, (...)"

Well... In that case he must be daltonien and doens't see orange. And he must also not have expertise in history, having forgotten the 100 years of mutual hate between the 2 nations that fight for that same land... Today 100,000 deaths.
One state solution ? Right of Return ? Justice ? ...
Why not ? But I didn't expect that somebody could hate his nation that much and promoting the establishment of the context - again it ;-) - that will create a spiral of violence that will lead Israel's citizens to commit a genocide on Arabs. Because, that is what will happen if Palestinians come back or if they share the same "state". Because Hamas and Likud are still there, aren't they ?
If Pappe is 'pragmatic', than I think he is more vicious than Stalin. And I wonder who is the racist in the story... I prefer thinking he is an idealist (and not too much clever).
His action just prevents "the center" to take the direction of the 2-state solution (I mean, the solution of a Palestian state, because Israel already exists).
... Ceedjee (talk) 16:02, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

NoCeedjee it wll not do to make commercial caricatures, esp. of people.(likening Pappè to Stalin, i.e. stentorian hyperbole). When I think of our differences, a passage often comes to mind from Raymond Aron. He said English intellectuals tend to reduce conflicts that are often ideological into technical matters, Amrican make moral disputes of controversies that concern means rather than ends, while French intellectuals often exacerrbate problems proper to their nation by a wilful pride in thinking on behalf of humanity.(L'opium des intellectuels' p.274) From a French context of this kind, it is natural you are attracted to the kind of English empiricism Morris's work exemplifies, and are nauseated by Pappé whose ideological caste of mind would remind you of the stalinist left Aron so neatly anatomised. But I hail from the empirical tradition, and understand how important ideological understanding is, something that the European tradition had a flair for, as opposed to my own. I think you have thrown out the baby with the bathwater, in renouncing that exquisite if fallible tradition for 'empiricism' which is, I assure you, profoundly naive.best regards Nishidani (talk) 19:06, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Hi,

I am not a French, I am a Belgian. Please, don't mix both cultures. In Belgium, there are 3 nations with 2 cultures and 3 different languages for 10,000 km^2 and 10,000,000 people only. We have been roman, spanich, french, austrian and under german control during numerous years...

I don't compare him to Stalin. I say that *if* he was clever, he *would be* more vicious than Stalin... and therefore I prefer thinking he is stupid, which he is.

• if tomorrow Palestinians are offered to come back to Israel, what would happen ? If you don't agree with me, then tell me what...
• today, how Israelis react when they read Pappe's theories in Ha'aretz ? They would think about this ? That is constructive ? No. They are just even more convinced in their paranoia.
• today, what do they think when they see even Morris (the hated) says Pappé is a propagandist ? He did a good job and what is funny is that he doesn't care politics. He is an historian.

I don't throw the baby with the bath... Which baby ? Please tell me ? Do you mean the fact that he is a real and profound humanist, which is true.

It is easy to be humanist with the blood of others, particularly Palestinians... Great theories. The problem with those guys is that their reason of living is that... the ones they defend suffer...

Don't be silly. That man is today responsible of the death of hundreds of Palestinians because he gives support to extremists of both sides.

Some Palestinian scholars are today aware of the damages that al-Husseini's behaviour caused to the Palestinian people (eg Mattar and R. Khalidi). What is crazy (funny) is that they don't realize the damage due to a Pappé. "Those who doesn't know history are condemned to live it again". That is Pappé.

Ceedjee (talk) 21:24, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Background to Reminder below

On the Second Intifada talk page, in response to both User:MBisanz’s request for clarifications and to User:Jaakobou's attempt to propose a third version of an introd. when a consensus was developing that narrowed down the choices to two. This third version exploited one recent statement by a Palestinian dissident in order to suggest the whole 2nd Intifada was a terroristic plot organized directed by Yasser Arafat, I wrote:-

In response to User:MBisanz's request, I think I have listed already, earlier in the discussion, the results one can obtain by examining the O.E.D. For simplicity's sake I will repeat what I remarked earlier. It is established that, in the academic literature, 'uprising' is standard, a point which was challenged by User:Michael Safyan and several others. Faced with this challenge, I came up with authoritative sources. Can it be replaced? Well, it could but only because of some unexplained scruple which would have Wiki substitute a standard term for some other non-standard term, and a decision to use language here that is not current in very many sources would be highly questionable. As to replacing the word, I have already remarked that uprising appears to be the most neutral term:-

'Check the OED 20 volume edition. 2nd edition vol.19 pp.312-313 ad loc. and one will immediately perceive that its use is historically the most neutral term for describing an event like the intifada. The word was predominantly used of (1) resurrection (2) getting up from one’s bed (3) getting up from one’s knees (4) the rising of a woman from her confinement (5) picking oneself up after a fall (6) advancement in place or power and (8) coming into existence and only (7) as ‘a popular rising against authority or for some common purpose’. Any other available term in the English language rebellion, insurgency, insurrection, revolution, revolt, jacquerie. will colour the facts with strong emotive language'.

Secondly, of the several quoted sources I have adduced to underline the normality of uprising for describing the phenomenon, I would remark particularly on the statements by Ovendale, Anthony Cordesman and Rex Brynen. Cordesman is a conservative analyst of distinction.Ovendale is a distinguished historian of international relations whose book is noted for its balance. Brynen himself is one of the major experts on the region, with a very impressive record of publishing including a monograph on the PLO's Lebanese years (that is by no means tender), and a comparativist historian of these movements. When 'right', 'centre' and 'left' (useless designations) concur on language, I think it only proper to acquiescence in their shared, and standard usage.

My major disagreement is with those who contest this one word. Versions 1 and 2 can be sorted out in a just merging, but I would insist that whatever version we settle on must contain the word 'uprising'. It should never have been the subject of contentiousness, and that is why I side with Tiamut's version.Nishidani (talk) 10:18, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

As for the emended 3rd version, I don't think it worth consideration, since the effort there to cog the text hysterically is self-evident. The uprisings occur because a huge part of the Palestinian population has suffered variously from relentless dispossession, destruction of property (a typical daily example of how the system operates can be read here http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/971504.html), harassment, starvation, arrest and wounding while under military occupation for 4 decades, on their own land, as that has been determined by international law. Terror begets terror, until all causal attempts at establishing unilateral blame become meaningless Nishidani (talk) 10:52, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

This last remark, directed at User:Jaakobou’s POV-charged suggestion for an actual edit, moved him to complain to an administrator.

On administrator PhilKnight ‘s talk page the following request, headed,’’ 7 day ban referendum’’, was posted by User:Jaakobou

I suppose you remember the fuss over my "Arab funded violence" commentary which led to my being topic banned for 7 days.

As I've previously mentioned, "I've let things get under my skin, and made a few posts that could be better phrased. If that means a week long topic ban I'll take my lumps. What I'd like to demonstrate here is that, from my viewpoint, a number of other editors were acting provocatively. ... I'm not requesting an unblock but believe other editors' activity, specifically Tiamut, Nickhh, Sm8900 and Nishidani, should be given proper examination and possible sanctions should be considered when their activity is placed in comparison with my own." [17]

User:Nishidani is (still) persistently advocating anti-Israeli opinions; an issue which I requested an inspection upon.

• "a huge part of the Palestinian population has suffered variously from relentless dispossession, destruction of property ... harassment, starvation, arrest and wounding while under military occupation for 4 decades, on their own land ... Terror begets terror" Nishidani, 10:52, 5 April 2008

Previous comments were,

• "Palestinians and IDF actions (the latter's massive expenditure of ammunition over the first weeks was notorious)" Nishidani, 21:02, 13 March 2008
• "indescriminate bombings in which on average half the victims are innocent civilians, house demolitions, land theft, property theft" Nishidani, 17:11, 16 March 2008

With respect, Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 11:39, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi Jaakobou, I'm not sure that you understand the ArbCom ruling - it doesn't suggest that editors should be sanctioned purely for being pro-Israeli or pro-Palestinian. However, it does allow for sanctions to be applied in order to achieve the smooth running of the project. The "terror begets terror" stuff is soap boxing, so I'll leave a reminder on his talk page, but in all honesty, I don't envisage that a 1 week ban is required. PhilKnight (talk) 12:23, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

This generated the following exchange

Reminder

Hi Nishidani, your recent comments, in which you said "Terror begets terror, until all causal attempts at establishing unilateral blame become meaningless" were possibly an infringement of the policy on soapboxing. In future, please be more careful. PhilKnight (talk) 12:30, 5 April 2008 (UTC) grammar corrections PhilKnight (talk) 16:57, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

G'day, PhilKnight. I'd appreciate it if you call a spade a spade, and not use 'possibly'. If something is 'possibly' an infringement of policy, it is, by rights, equally, possibly not an infringement of policy. An administrator should act to counsel when he is sure, not when he is in doubt, unless of course the use of 'possibly' here is a gentle nod towards policies on WP:AGF and WP:CIVIL, whereby you mask your judgemental self-assurance in the courtesy of the dubitative. I'd appreciate it again if you are unsure of English usage, to refer your doubts to the Oxford English Dictionary. I say this advisedly because to brand as 'soapboxing' a remark, wholly legitimate on a talk page, that happens to be a cliché in the technical literature, is to classify what discursively is a brief reference to a commonplace as a tantamount to an 'harangue'(soapbox).

'Just as love begets love, so terror begets terror. If one thinks the doctrine of deterrence through to its logical conclusion, it not only plumbs the depths of human instinct on a time scale of perpetuity, but is a frustrating exercise in circularity from a logical point of view. . If terror and security are in a symbiotic relationship with each other, then security, must breed terror just as terror breeds security. All civilization will then depend on intimidation for its continuance, and all the finer instincts and achievements of man will need to function within this framework of terror.’ C. G. Weeramantry, Universalising International Law, Brill, Leiden 2004 p.501

I won't therefore be able to oblige you in the future by 'be(ing) more careful', since, perhaps arrogantly, I think my mode of contributing to Wiki is already one of care for precision of statement, and readiness to underpin what I say by reference to reliable books. What I said was both true, verifiably commonplace, and obvious, and that you take exception to this one nanosecond of commentary by me in an extensive thread full of misapprehensions and personal assertions by others ungrounded in any evidence or logic surprises me. As an old man, I take you admonition as well-meant, but also as suggestive of a certain hurried reading which lacks the circumspection of trained regard for contexts.

Youth's fervour is its own excuse

for errors that it may induce'

to quote a rather sloppily translated distich from Pushkin in Babette Deutsch's version of his great poem. The context was a lamentable attempt to over-egg-the-POV-pud by User:Jaakobou, and waste serious editorial time.

I have several other examples from the technical literature of the phrase 'terror begets terror', if you still doubt that the expression is a commonplace in scholarly quarters. Regards Nishidani (talk) 15:03, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

p.s.if anything, I would have appreciated being hauled over the coals for the lamentable expression 'causal attempts', which is nonsensical. Read:'until all attempts at establishing a causal logic assigning unilateral blame become meaningless'. That your repeating my own hurried remark here has made me reflect is cause enough for gratitude. Nishidani (talk) 15:10, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Hello Nishidani, I apologize for the grammatical errors in my posting, however I'm unconvinced that your statements are especially precise. If they were, you wouldn't express opinions about the world, only articles. If you are making lengthy statements about the world, especially if they resemble political speeches, then you are open to charges of soapboxing. Please focus more on articles in future. PhilKnight (talk) 16:27, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

I will continue to explain in detail on the talk pages why I favour one edit over another. I would remind you I did not, as your remarks imply, express opinions about the world in the post you objected to. User:Jaakobou asserted a conspiracy by a clique to be the cause of the 2nd intifada, in a proposed edit for an article. I, on the talk page gave my reasons why that edit was wrong, in summary fashion, based on extensive reading. This is normal, and I am rather perplexed that, after some years of my editing, you are the first administrator to take exception to it. That is your right, however, and I take no offense, even if I question your judgement Regards Nishidani (talk) 17:49, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for reminding me of policy, Phil. I am familiar with it, having read that page closely. One small point however should be clarified, I think, in order to keep things completely clear and above board. On User:Jaakobou's request, complaining about my 'soapboxing', you rightly investigated his complaint, and laid a reminder warning about 'soapboxing'. In our subsequent exchange, unless I am mistaken, you were careful to use the grammar of hypothesis (if, then) and it emerged that in the specific passage which engendered Jaakobou's complaint I wasn't soapboxing, but alluding to a series of facts which, I assume Jaakobou dislikes, but which are facts that have to be taken into consideration. I defended my right, on talk pages, to detail my motivations for opposing edits that tend to prime the text with a unilateral POV. You took my talk page remarks as expressive of my personal opinions about the world.

'I'm unconvinced that your statements are especially precise. If they were, you wouldn't express opinions about the world, only articles. If you are making lengthy statements about the world, especially if they resemble political speeches, then you are open to charges of soapboxing'.

For the record, I was not, unlike User:Jaakobou (in his notorious edit ascribing all Palestinian resistance against Israeli occupation and expropriation of land with native title, to an Islamic antisemitic mindset), stating my 'opinions about the world'. You further make an association I am perplexed by in arguing that 'precision' (by which I mean detailed close argument) excludes 'expressing opinions about the world'. I'm afraid I do not see the connection. If one is required at times to remind one's interlocutor, on a talk page, of facts being ignored, this does not constitute making opinions about the world. It constitutes precise clarification as to why one's interlocutor's editorial judgements are deemed by others to me dangerously lob-sided. To state a series of facts, allude to common technical judgements and information all editors should be duly familiar with, is, in my view, part of the process of editorial rectitude. It does not constitute 'soapboxing', a word Jaakobou invariably uses in my regard when I remind him that conflicts are complex confrontations, involving two narratives, and that attempts to erase one perspective (Palestinian) to favour unilaterally the other narrative (Israeli), which is then promoted as the only true version of the facts, is not conducive to the neutrality to which an encyclopedia must aspire. I happen to edit in this area only to conserve that other perspective's legitimacy in articles that require balance. Nothing User:Jaakobou cites as examples of my 'soapboxing' can be reduced to a 'personal view' on the world, since I take care to use descriptions ('theft', 'dispossession', 'harassment') that reliable sources like Amnesty International, the International Court of Justice, UN resolutions, B'tselem, Human Rights Watch, and distinguished Israeli and Jewish authorities (David Shulman most recently, see the Israeli Settlements talkpage) have consistently recorded as customary facts of the Occupation of the West Bank. It is perfectly legitimate for my interlocutors to refuse to accept these facts. It is not legitimate to run to an administrator everytime they are adduced as a reminder of the other perspective, and complain of rule infringements like 'soapboxing'. This is a very tough area in which to edit, and that I find myself, unlike most other areas where I edit (Japan, Greek Literature, or Jewish intellectuals), constrained to expatiate at length on talk pages, is not indicative of a yen for political speech-making. It merely shows that, unlike many others, I do not edit an article directly (on which I am highly focused) unless I have managed to achieve consensus on the talk page. I might well lament my inability to edit articles directly, without endless reversions and challenges, (what you call 'focusing on articles'), but the highly conflictual nature of the area means extensive argument on the talk pages is required, often on the most commonsensical edits, in order to avoid edit-warring. My experience here is one of having material culled from highly reliable sources, mostly Jewish, edited out simply because editors dislike that material. Therefore to go back to the talk pages and argue at length for a proposed edit is not 'soapboxing'. It is reminding my interlocutors of facts and perspectives their editing, not only in my view, tends consistently to ignore, or hold hostage, or silence. Regards Nishidani (talk) 10:18, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Nishidani, thanks for the explanation. I agree that Jaakobou doesn't appear to understand the difference between soapboxing, and expressing an opinion about how an article should be phrased. Nevertheless, I honestly think your "terror begets terror" comment was a very mild form of soapboxing, and hence my reminder. PhilKnight (talk) 10:07, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, I won't drag this on. Administrators are overloaded as it is with trivial pursuits, apart from the normal onerous duties, and to press my point might only add annoyance to what is a difficult function. Frankly Phil I think you did made a slight mistake - I note, with some consolation, that my amiable adversary User:Ceedjee, with whom I have clashed and collaborated most productively on several articles, can't see the point of the admonition, and neither can I. But rather than contest the legitimacy of your call, I assume my share of responsibility, for you clearly had no idea of the technical literature I was alluding to, and it is not apparent in my original text. As my quotation showed (I collect them, having a long interest in the philosophical distinction between 'terror' and what is deemed to be legitimate state violence), my terror begets terror remark, in that it alludes to an opinion widely shared in the technical literature, can't be soapboxing. It's not quite nice to see oneself as under monition, but I think the new Arbcom rules have functioned in a salutary fashion to make editors far more attentive to the perils of edit-warring and nuisance editing, and there is no harm therefore in being formally registered there as a possible nuisance-editor. I'd of course be happier if the same warning were to be given to all actual or potential editors in this area. But that's neither here nor there. Buon lavoro, then, and regards Nishidani (talk) 11:16, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Query

Hi PhilKnight,
I am not sure to understand. Do you mean that when Nishidani wrote : "terror begets terror", that could be understood as (soapbox) promoting the use of terror ? I think it is the contrary, no ? Ceedjee (talk) 21:43, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi Ceedjee, I concur his eloquent statement certainly wasn't promoting the use of terror. PhilKnight (talk) 21:49, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi PhilKnicht,

Thanks for your reply !

But then I don't understand what you reproached to his statement.

English is not my "mother tongue" and maybe I missed a nuance ???

(I copy/paste) this message on Nishidani's talk page.

Regards,

Ceedjee (talk) 09:34, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Palestine-Israel articles

As a result of the above-named Arbitration case, the Arbitration committee has acknowledged long-term and persistent problems in the editing of articles related to Israel, Palestine, and related conflicts. As a result, the Committee has enacted broad editing restrictions, described below.

• Any uninvolved administrator may, on his or her own discretion, impose sanctions on any editor working in the area of conflict if, despite being warned, that editor repeatedly or seriously fails to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, any expected standards of behavior, or any normal editorial process.
• The sanctions imposed may include blocks of up to one year in length; bans from editing any page or set of pages within the area of conflict; bans on any editing related to the topic or its closely related topics; restrictions on reverts or other specified behaviors; or any other measures which the imposing administrator believes are reasonably necessary to ensure the smooth functioning of the project.
• Prior to any sanctions being imposed, the editor in question shall be given a warning with a link to this decision; and, where appropriate, should be counseled on specific steps that he or she can take to improve his or her editing in accordance with relevant policies and guidelines.
• Discretionary sanctions imposed under the provisions of this decision may be appealed to the imposing administrator, the appropriate administrators' noticeboard (currently WP:AE), or the Committee.

These editing restrictions may be applied to any editor for cause, provided the editor has been previously informed of the case. This message is to so inform you. This message does not necessarily mean that your current editing has been deemed a problem; this is a template message crafted to make it easier to notify any user who has edited the topic of the existence of these sanctions.

Generally, the next step, if an administrator feels your conduct on pages in this topic area is disruptive, would be a warning, to be followed by the imposition of sanctions (although in cases of serious disruption, the warning may be omitted). Hopefully no such action will be necessary.

This notice is only effective if given by an administrator and logged here. PhilKnight (talk) 20:46, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Second Intifada

Hello, Nishidani. I thought perhaps we could discuss this matter more cordially on your talk page. There are basically two main reasons why I object to saying that the Second Intifada was an uprising. One of them is that I think it is simply untrue and inaccurate to describe the grotesque murder of innocent teenagers at restaurants, cafes, and discoteques with bombs packed with nails and all forms of shrapnel as an "an act of resistance or rebellion; a revolt", to quote the Oxford English Dictionary. From the Israeli perspective, this is nothing but terrorism, and it is wrong to present the Palestinian point of view while silencing the Israeli one. While you note that the International Community supports the use of the term "uprising" just as it supports "Occupied Palestinian Territories", this does not necessarily mean that the term is neutral. One should not treat a political source, such as the UN General Assembly and other UN agencies -- which are frequently accused of anti-Israel bias --, as a scholarly one; however, the opinions of the UNGA and these UN agencies, certainly both prominent and notable, deserve mention.

The other reason why I oppose the use of the term "uprising" is that I truly do think that it connotes justification. You are correct in that the first association I have with the word "uprising" is with the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, and this is probably the foremost reason why I perceive the word to have such a connotation. However, I have not viewed the inclusion of "uprising" as an attempt at "establishing a spurious analogical congruence between the situations of Jews besieged by Nazis, and Palestinians under siege by Israelis", but as a subtle suggestion that Palestinian actions were justifed. That said, I hope we can leave Norman Finkelstein and Noam Chomsky, who are both notorious post/anti-Zionists and who are widely perceived by the Jewish community to be "self-hating," out of this matter. Also, I do not think that "uprising" must be used exclusively in connection with the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, as you seem to suggest; however, I have major reservations using the term in connection with violence directed primarily against innocent civilians rather than against the military of an oppressive or perceived-to-be-oppressive government.

Michael Safyan ^(talk) 21:44, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Michael. I assure you that whatever the apparent tone of my remarks to you, I have not written them intemperately. I am deeply perplexed by the rtenacity of a position held against what appears to me to be both logic, method and evidence, but whereas, with some other editors in the past, I have been curtly dismissive of their approaches, I haven't with yours because I admire the tone of your writing, which is responsive to debate and, most importantly, shows a sensitive ear to what your interlocutor is saying. We are in fundamental disagreement here though, and it is best to put forth our positions as vigorously as possible. We are on personal talk pages, and no one I hope will take exception to our exchange.

You write:-

I think it is simply untrue and inaccurate to describe the grotesque murder of innocent teenagers at restaurants, cafes, and discoteques with bombs packed with nails and all forms of shrapnel as an "an act of resistance or rebellion; a revolt",

I disagree, though I share your judgement that such incidents are grotesque. They are as grotesque as the fact that 159 Palestinian children below the age of 16 were killed in the First Intifada, mostly shot by fully protected soldiers shooting at kids throwing stones at them. In the Second Intifada from Dec 29 2000 to March 31 2008, 913 Palestinian children have been killed by Israeli security forces, by sniping, or bombing and shelling densely populated towns. 84 Israeli minors have been killed in Israel by Palestinians in the same period. The fact that Palestinian children aren't killed in restaurants, cafes and discoteques, but rather in their villages, homes, and schools, and Israeli children have been, does not make the latter incidents more appalling than the former. From a Palestinian perspective what most of them, formal fighters discounted, die from is terrorism. From my perspective, most of the victims, Israeli and Palestinian, die from terrorism. The only difference is, 10 times more Palestinians have died from Israel's terrorism than have Israelis from Palestinian terrorism. Perhaps I expect more from Israel than from Palestinians, because Plato wrote that the only test of true justice is the way a man behaves to those he can wrong with impunity (The Laws roughly 778). For 2 decades, 1967-87, the Israeli occupation wronged the Palestinians with impunity, esp. after 1980. There was a huge popular explosion of rage and revolt, an uprising, and Rabin gave his infamous order to break their bones. If my memory does not play me false, it only stopped when someone managed to film a boy having his two femoral bones smashed by three soldiers while on the ground, and get it aired abroad. From 23,600 to 29,900 children required medical treatment for injuries from beatings by IDF soldiers in the first two years of the intifada. A third of those were under 10. By 2000, with more land taken, more trees uprooted, and no visible results from interim agreements, those children were adults with powerful memories. Whenever an Israeli dies of violence, it gets prime coverage here. No one I know has much knowledge of Palestinians who have been on the receiving end of such structural violence. From your post I get the impression that Jewish life is sacred, and urbane, whereas Palestinians are just, well, unmotivated terrorists.

(2)'While you note that the International Community supports the use of the term "uprising" just as it supports "Occupied Palestinian Territories", this does not necessarily mean that the term is neutral.'

I'm afraid you're wrong. On the first term, scholars of all political colours, specialists in the analysis of conflict, call it an 'uprising'. This is not journalese, and scholars are careful about language use. You are wrong re Occupied Palestinian Territories. It is not the UN or political bodies which justify that usage, but the highest world authority on international law, the International Court of Justice, in a 14-1 almost unanimous verdict. That determination was not 'political'. It was a judgement based on a scrupulous analysis by the finest legal minds in international law on the standing of those territories according to the lay of international conventions, treaties to which Israel is a signatory, customary law, etc. If that Court is not 'neutral' nothing is, and you can throw away the wiki book on NPOV, since it is a quixotic ideal to con idiots.

Just a matter of curiosity. Have you ever actually read, for example, a work like Noam Chomsky's Peace in the Middle East?. Why is it that so many 'pro-Israeli' editors refer me to the gossip about Chomsky and Finkelstein planted on their wiki pages, while demonstrating no direct knowledge of what Chomsky and co. write. (By the way, permit me a sly dig. You made my day today in writing: Normal Finkelstein!)

As to 'uprising', look, uprisings can, by their very nature, flow out to express the most sanguinary violent, atrocious behaviour imaginable.I haven't mentioned this but the Mau Mau uprising (thus called) consisted of terrible slaughter of the most inhumane kind. It was driven by, analysts now say, demographic growth outstripping land productivity in the areas left over to the indigenous people, who resorted to an insurgency to terrorize the British landowners who had seized the best land, though a very small minority. I have a very clear recall of that period, as recounted by people I've known (my uncle even ventured to 'build an empire' there over 'savages' asnd bear the white man's burden, till, some months later, he came back courtesy of the Salvation Army he picked him off the streets and paid his trip back). It was an 'uprising' and that is how it is called even now, though the British preferred to call it 'the Kenya Emergency'. In their analysis of the ethnic and national bases of terrorism, James Lutz and Brenda Lutz, in their Global Terrorism, Routledge, London 2004 p.96 treat it as a case example. They also call it an 'uprising'. Ask any New Zealander about his country's history and it won't be long before they descant on the savage Maori 'uprisings' of the 1840s and 1860s. etc.etc.

Generally then, my problem is that I can see you know your own mind and 'community' intimately. I see no trace of an awareness that here there are two narratives, and that, from the days of Cain and Abel, terror is what the other tribe does, justice what one's own metes out in reprisal. Those statistics about Palestinian injuries in the First Uprising constitute evidence of terror, inflicted by a regular army against a relatively unarmed population. The men behind Deir Yassin are honoured as heroes and great men in the Zionist narrative: they murdered civilians. They even became PMs. I don't approve of them, but I understand the logic of their strategy. I don't approve of the Al-Aqsa strategies or their movers either, but it is in the same tradition. Perhaps both peoples should learn less from each other's vices, and more from their respective virtues. Regards as always 151.49.85.6 (talk) 17:44, 9 April 2008 (UTC)Nishidani (talk) 18:43, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

My heart goes out to the Palestinian the victims of the conflict, not just the Israeli ones. The murder of Palestinian children is just as abhorrent as the murder of any other children. I beg your forgiveness if anything I have said or done gives you an impression to the contrary. With that said, one tragedy cannot in any way take away from or justify another tragedy, and it would be inappropriate for Wikipedia to describe the actions of either side as "reprisal", "defense", "resistance", "revenge", "retaliation", "retribution", or any other term which seeks to justify or to delegitimize the violence or actions carried out by one side or the other.

Regarding the International Court of Justice, the ICJ -- and especially its advisory opinions -- are indeed controversial. The ICJs ruling on Israel's security barrier was, indeed a highly controversial matter [18][19][20][21] [22][23][24]. Furthermore, it should be noted that the use of term "Occupied Palestinian Territory" by the ICJ in its ruling could be easily attributed to the use of the term in the highly controversial question which was put before the court, namely "What are the legal consequences arising from the construction of the wall being built by Israel, the occupying Power, in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including in and around East Jerusalem, as described in the report of the Secretary-General, considering the rules and principles of international law, including the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, and relevant Security Council and General Assembly resolutions?" The situation was less of a legal proceeding than it was a political battle consisting of South Africa, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh, Belize, Cuba, Indonesia, Jordan, Madagascar, Malaysia, Senegal, and Sudan against Israel and the U.S. The ICJ's rulings on other matters have also been described as controversial (e.g. the legality of nuclear weapons) [25].

Regarding Norman Finkelstein and Noam Chomsky, it is undeniable and well-sourced that they are controversial. It would be just as inappropriate to cite Dore E. Gold (pro-Israel), Mitchell G. Bard (pro-Israel), Ilan Pappe (pro-Palestinian), or Ali Abunimah (pro-Palestinian) on Wikipedia as it would be to cite Norman Finkelstein or Noam Chomsky on Wikipedia -- except when discussing their individual opinions or statements.

Regarding these other examples of "uprisings", and also your comments on the Second Intifada talk page. I recently had a revelation about you, much has you had a revelation about me. It occurs to me that when you have described "uprising" as the term preferred by the "specialist literature", that perhaps "uprising" takes on a particular meaning among historians which would otherwise be lost on lay readers -- myself included. If that is the case, then there is no reason to not use "uprising" provided that it is wikilinked to a page such as Uprising (historical jargon), explaining this technical usage. ← Michael Safyan ^(talk) 01:59, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Michael. Before going into other issues, I’d appreciate it if you explained why you gave me that extensive series of links. Your references to the ostensibly controversial nature of the ICJ ruling perplex me. None of your links support your contention, so I fail to understand why you took the trouble to derail our discussion with irrelevancies?

You're right. That was silly of me to do. I think the primary reason was to back my position that, while the positions of the UN and ICJ are notable and deserve prominent mention in Wikipedia articles, that does not render their positions apolitical, uncontroversial, or neutral. But nevermind, that's not what we're discussing. ← Michael Safyan ^(talk) 21:39, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Note 18 =International Court of Justice Advisory Opinion Finds Israel’s Construction of Wall “Contrary to International Law”. Thjis simply registers that it is an advisory opinion, but says that under international law, therefore, as the paper lies, Israel is ‘obliged’ to take a number of steps, like all states which violate international laws. This report is completely neutral and nowhere mentions controversy

Background info. ← Michael Safyan ^(talk) 21:39, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Note 19 is an inaccessible link for me, and probably defective or virus-laden since it causes my computer to shut down.

This is "A Fence Goes on Trial" by "Time". It explains that the issue was controversial: "But despite that vote [by the E.U. that Israel should stop and reverse construction of the barrier] and Israel's continued work on the fence, the E.U. doesn't see the ICJ as the right venue to challenge the fence. The court usually acts as an arbitrator when two states agree to abide by its decision. Israel will not. In this case, the U.N. has asked for the ICJ's nonbinding opinion on whether the barrier breaches international law. The General Assembly itself was sharply divided on whether it even wanted that opinion. In December, 90 nations voted to ask the ICJ, but 74, including all the E.U. states, abstained....Without Israeli participation, critics say, the hearings have little point other than to provide the Palestinians with a forum for their well-known complaints." ← Michael Safyan ^(talk) 21:39, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Note 20 is a New York Times article written when the verdict was delivered. It simply notes the reaction of Raanan Gissin, Ariel Sharon’s advisor who said typically that the ruling would be trashed in the garbage can of history. That is neither an argument, an informed legal response, nor an opinion worth citing. All it is, is a statement of contempt for international law. It also cites Scott McClellan, who simply said what the court determined is best resolved by political negotiation. McClellan does not say it is 'controversial'.

"The United States reiterated Friday its belief that the barrier's fate should be determined by diplomatic and political negotiations rather than court decisions.'We do not believe that that's the appropriate forum to resolve what is a political issue,' the White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, said aboard Air Force One as President Bush traveled to Pennsylvania.", "Judge Buergenthal, the American, said in his dissent that the court should have declined to hear the case because it lacked sufficient information and evidence 'for its sweeping findings.'... Leaving open the possibility that some or even all sections of the barrier in the West Bank violate international law and acknowledging that 'the wall is causing deplorable suffering to many Palestinians,' the judge said the court should not have ruled until it had considered 'all relevant facts bearing directly on issues of Israel's legitimate right of self-defense' He said the impact of 'repeated deadly terror attacks' was something 'never really seriously examined by the court.'" , and "Israel chose not to make oral arguments to the court earlier this year, saying the body lacked jurisdiction in the matter." ← Michael Safyan ^(talk) 21:39, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Note 21. Pieter G.F.Bekker’s piece is a dry, sober paper for The American Society of International Law It backgrounds the fact that ‘According to the latest report of Special Rapporteur John Dugard of the UN's Commission on Human Rights, over 200,000 "Palestinians living between the Wall and the Green Line will be effectively cut off from their farmlands and workplaces, schools, health clinics and other social services," likely leading to "a new generation of refugees or internally displaced persons".' This is a statement of background fact, no more controversial than the judgement. It also says, ‘Although the U.S. voted against the December 8 resolution, the Bush Administration has repeatedly called on Israel to cease construction of the Barrier and announced in November that it would reduce loan guarantees to Israel in retaliation for its continued construction of the Barrier. I.e. whatever McClellan says, in general the Bush Administration's own actions indicate that the wall, as contructed, a land grab under the pretext of warding off terrorism, is extremely controversial. Bekker’s paper is an impeccably neutral description, and does not speak of the decision as ‘controversial’

Oops. Wrong link. I meant to give this one, which shows the highly political nature of the decision, given that it was more or less a showdown between "South Africa, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh, Belize, Cuba, Indonesia, Jordan, Madagascar, Malaysia, Senegal, and Sudan" along with the "League of Arab States, the Organization of the Islamic Conference, and Palestine" and Israel. Not very good odds, I might say. The ICJ "noted that the Security Council had repeatedly failed to exercise its primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security as a result of a negative vote (veto) of one of its permanent members", which is completely irrelevant and clearly a jab at the U.S. That there was an "argument advanced by the U.S. and certain other states that [the ICJ's] opinion could impede a political, negotiated solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and could undermine the scheme of the Roadmap", shows that their decision to even take on the case was highly controversial. ← Michael Safyan ^(talk) 21:39, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Note 23. is a piece of propaganda by a useless Web site ‘Honest Reporting’, where ‘Honest’ appears to be a codeword for pro-Israeli news (11 July 2004). It simply says places like Malaysia did not give full coverage of Justice Thomas Buergenthal’s dissenting opinion, and adds snippets comments from American officials like Colin Powell. It is written anonymously, and shows no signs of being drafted by a competent legal expert in international law. It is what it is, one of those endless comments by anonymous defenders of everything Israel does, on a pro-Israel site..

The last several articles, by pro-Israel organizations, was not to prove anything, only to give exposure to that viewpoint. ← Michael Safyan ^(talk) 21:39, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Note 23. A snippet by the Anti-defamation League, the usual bluster, addressing not the technical issues but seeding conspiracy theories (‘For over fifty years, a campaign of manipulation and abuse of the United Nations system has been waged by those who seek to isolate and delegitimize the State of Israel.’) to delegitimize an opinion that was not manipulated by the UN.

Note 24 Simon Wiesenthal Center . Excuse me, but this scrap is crap as well. ‘That this decision exposes the anti-Israel mindset rampant in the international community, mocks the thousands of innocent people killed and maimed by Palestinian suicide bombers’. I would, as any rational man, defend the wall if it ran strictly along the Green Line. That would have been unbeatable proof of Israel’s ‘’bona fides’’ in constructing a defensive wall against terrorist assault. It doesn’t. It nabs a huge swathe of land over which the Palestinians have legal title, and does so as part of Israel’s long-term annexationist projects for the West Bank.

Note 25. This is the only reference where the word ‘controversial’ is used by someone competent to judge. In referring me to Fujita Hisakazu, I’m again on familiar terrain . One of my friends in Japan was a colleague of Fujita’s. Fujita has very strong views on this issue, since Japan itself was, uniquely, bombed by nuclear weapons. He finds only one point in the ICJ’s ruling on the legality of threatening to use nuclear weapons ‘controversial’. Fujita says the controversial aspect resides in the implicit ambiguity of that section of the judgement, an ambiguity which will give rise to controversy. The ambiguity arises from, what is, in the Court’s opinion, the existing terms of international law which are not adequate to making a firmer ruling. IN any case, you miss the point. That the United States Supreme Court makes here and there a ‘controversial ruling’ does not mean all judgements made by the United States Supreme Court can therefore be challenged as therefore ‘controversial’.

A point on the word ‘controversial’ as it functions in Wiki9 articles on Israel-Palestinian relations. It is a codeword planted to suggest subliminally to passing readers that the person whose remarks are quoted, or the facts cited, are ‘subjective’, ‘polemical’, ‘rhetorical’, ‘partisan’ or indeed in bad faith. The other day I had to correct the entry on Robert Malley because someone had seeded the idea into the page that his views were 'controversial' and then referred to a one-man campaign by Martin Peretz to brand him as a 'rabid hater of Israel', whose articles are 'deceitful'.

Well, in that case, you should correct the ICJ article, which notes that its advisory opinions are "controversial". It would be inappropriate to state that a matter is controversial if only a handful of otherwise unnoteworthy people dispute it; however, it is perfectly valid to state that an issue is controversial if numerous people, a particularly notable individual, or a High Contracting Party disputes it. For example, there are numerous individuals who dispute the positions held by Alan Dershowitz, and it is perfectly reasonable to describe him as controversial. ← Michael Safyan ^(talk) 21:39, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Now, what did the person who planted that ‘controversial’ adjective intend by this? It allowed him to cite rubbish smearing Malley, implying there might be some truth to the innuendoes. As I noted in my edit, 5 very senior Jewish negotiators took the trouble to condemn Peretz’s little smear game as ‘scurrilous’ and stood by Malley for his integrity. The adjective still stands in there. I won’t remove it yet. I will note that Dennis Ross's views, or Martin Indyk's views, could be described equally as ‘controversial’ by the same token, but I don’t edit their pages to that effect, because I do not wish to mirror the game played by a clique in here, a game which works over every page dedicated to critics of Israel’s policies against Palestinian to leave the insinuation that somehow they are ‘Jewish self-haters’, ‘neurotic’ ‘controversial’, ‘dishonest,’ ‘antisemitic’, holders of ‘fringe’ views, etc. This is a widespread habit by many practiced editors here. It doesn’t work with Chomsky, nor Finkelstein, who, please note, probably get their facts wrong far less than ‘mainstream’ scholars. For very few of those who dislike them challenge their facts: they challenge their interpretations of those facts. No one has ever, to my knowledge, documented that Finkelstein systematically gets his facts wrong, as do both Joan Peters and Alan Dershowitz. What worries many of you is that their facts are indisputable, but their interpretations of those facts are abhorrent. To avoid those facts being cited from their books, therefore, they are called ‘controversial’ polemicists, as if being controversial, as most public intellectuals are, were a disinvalidation of the ideas a controversialist argues for. Nishidani (talk) 13:16, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

If their facts are verifiable, then why not simply cite that source? Why cite a source which mixes undisputed fact with disputed interpretations of those facts, when a source which provides purely the facts is readily available? With regard to actual argumentation, it is obviously argumentum ad hominem to dismiss an argument on the basis of its authorship; if we were to debate this material in another forum, I would not attempt to "disprove" Finkelstein's argument with this logical fallacy. However, in terms of Wikipedia, there is some -- but not much -- leeway with regard to evaluating the merits of an argument, and the issue does come down to "who has authority?" and "who is generally considered or accepted to be neutral?" ← Michael Safyan ^(talk) 21:39, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Anyway, please ignore that digression. What is your opinion with regard to using uprising in an unquoted form, but wikilinking it to Uprising (historical jargon)? ← Michael Safyan ^(talk) 21:40, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

No, Michael. Or rather, fine by me, but only if uprising is accepted into the text now, and then perhaps retroactively linked to the kind of page you propose writing (a huge enterprise). To rush up a skeletal page just to 'link' uprising as problematical looks too much like a ruse, though it is, diplomatically, an intelligent gambit. In several decades of using my mother tongue, I have never heard of 'uprising' bearing the connotations uniquely attributed to it here. I do not wish to appear to be uncompromising. It's just that, on linguistic issues at least, I can't compromise both my Sprachgefühl, and all the available evidence I have since gathered to corroborate the empirical propriety of the judgement I make. I hate political correctness, admittedly. I hate tampering with language by stressing it, in certain contexts, with unnatural tinkerings. I haven't gone the extra mile to prove my case: I've done a marathon, on something that I really believe would be visible after two or three paces, all in order to respect my interlocutors' diffidence. I will go another few marathons on this one, if necessary. In Plato, often the disputant beaten by Socrates' logic looks genially foolish. In that beautiful dialogue, Gorgias, Callicles, stumped for an answer, walks out into the silence of eternity beyond the historic text, and therefore teases the reader with an hermeneutic mystery. We are not at such etherial levels of high discourse. We are in the mundane ephemeral give and take world of Wikipedia, where you win some, you lose some (and I've done more than my share of yielding on things where my evidence is not adequate to my interlocutor's rule-governed scepticism). I really do think, on this one, that there is no substantial case for an objection to 'uprising' as normative. You may take it further up, since there appears to be no compromse in sight. But I think, since both your and Tiamut's general statements (1,2) differ substantially only in this, to yield here is not to suffer a defeat, but to make a strong gesture towards honourable closure. There is much work to be done on that article. To waste such an extraordinary amount of time on an hermeneutic cavil is a fine exercise for the mind (I've enjoyed it), but a poor service to the histories we are trying to write. Regards (p.s. I will add a few answers to your earlier remarks some time later) Nishidani (talk) 15:26, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

New Message

Hello, Nishidani. You have new messages at Steve Crossin's talk page.
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Tribute?

Thank you for choosing to withdraw and let us all get on with it.. would you also consider to remove the tribute limerick you wrote for me and your assertion that I'm "taken with proving Erekat is a liar"[26] Cordially, Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 16:50, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

You are, really, seriously misreading the tone of everything I have written over these past several days. I have been playfully defending myself against your attempt to worry these pages with charges that my work on these Wiki articles camouflages an 'existential threat' to the state of Israel. Let's not be hyperbolic. Where's your sense of humour gone? As to the poem, it is not a limerick (note spelling), which only has five lines, but a piece of mischief with my favourite poet to cajole you into being a bit more ironic, and less anxious, about our exchanges. We do, young man, have to learn to live together on these pages. This is what a limerick goes like, and with it, I'll get out.

Nashashibi Nishidani

Poked some fun that wasn't funny

His old adversary decreed,

And mindful of the rotten deed

Will make it known on Wiki's ANI.

Loosen up,Jaakobou and buon lavoro. Nishidani (talk) 17:11, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Translation

Hi Nishidani, sorry it took a couple days to get back to you. Its no problem on the translation - I have a use for it, but not one that is at all crucial, so the wait was perfectly fine. Thank you very much for the (revised) translation, its appreciated! Your Latin is far, far superior to mine (mostly confined to pithy phrases, I'm afraid, although now that I rent from Jacques Bailly perhaps I'll learn a bit more in time). Thanks again, Avruch ^T 19:42, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Email

Hello, I have an email for you - can you set up email in your preferences? Thanks! Steve Crossin (talk) (anon talk) 03:14, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

This isn't about me trying to speak to you off-site about something I don't want to see. A member of the Arbitration Comittee has suggested that I send a message to all disputants, and get their opinion. Additionally, my Anon Talk page is only for users who are anonymous, and is used when my page is semi protected. So, I'd ask again, could you please enable email? Cheers, Steve Crossin (talk) (anon talk) 11:36, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, I simply clicked on the talk link appended to your monicker, which is a logical procedure. If there's a message to send to all disputants, fine. Just copy and paste it here. Email, talk page, it makes no difference surely? There is absolutely nothing private about wiki procedures, it is a public forum, and everything, I repeat everything, should be up front, and above board. Regards Nishidani (talk) 13:22, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Fine. And, there are two links. The (talk) and (anon talk). Surely you noticed the difference. Anyway, here is the message.

I notice at the moment, we seem to be going in circles of sorts. We seem to be having trouble reaching a consensus in the case. I've been thinking about this.

Hopefully we can all agree that neutrality and impartiality are the most important things in the article, which is what we are trying to discuss.

Sometimes it can be hard to reach a decision if the only people involved are oneself and a person one's arguing with, because it's hard to know if the view that's suggested is actually neutral and fair, or biased. Sometimes that's a real problem.

So I have an idea, if you are interested.

What I'm thinking is, let's get some impartial advice. There are many experienced editors on the wiki, but especially, there are some groups that are nominated because they all have very high levels of trust. For example, bureaucrats and arbcom members are two examples. All are very experienced at decisions. More to the point all have passed extremely strict elections by the community for trust and high quality. Bureacrats need about a 90% approval from the community - very few pass that level. Arbcom members must get around 85% in an open election for 5 place a year, in Wikipedia's most intense and probing election process of all. Both would be good at this kind of important decision.

What I'd suggest, if you are willing, is we see what they have to say. For example, if you choose one crat (or arbcom member), the other party chooses another, and the Mediators will nominate a third, and ask each of the three to give a neutral decision. I can explain how important it is to them, and see if they reach a majority decision.

Would you be roughly okay with that? If they did reach a majority decision, would that be okay, so we'd all know it was impartial? ArbCom judge hard cases all the time, I'm sure they would be willing to help on this one.

Let me know, and

Thanks for your time, Steve

Steve Crossin (talk) (anon talk) 13:50, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I've absolutely no objection to that. Since this farce is based on a linguistic quibble, I suggest we all ask for three or five bureaucrats or Arbcom members who have a strong background experience in the linguistic side of the English wiki, to come in, ignore the political stuff, and just look at the linguistic evidence, pro and con. The linguistic evidence can be clipped out, each side looking back at the record for its evidence on this question, and pasted into a page. Once this is done, get native users among the higher bureaucracy or Arbcom, with a special interest in the English language, and no position one way or another on the specific politics of the area, to look at the meaning of 'uprising'. Let them vote on it. That shouldn't take more than a few hours, if people are cooperative. Regards Nishidani (talk) 13:59, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Hello, Nishidani. You have new messages at Steve Crossin's talk page.
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Hello, Nishidani. You have new messages at Steve Crossin's talk page.
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Wikipedia as a reliable sauce

'A well-circulated myth is that the candiru is capable of swimming up the stream of urine in mid-air to a victim standing on shore or a boat. This is physically impossible as the maximum swimming velocity of the fish is opposed by the downward velocity of the urine stream, and the further impossible act of the 5–14 mm wide fish maintaining position and thrust within a 2–7 mm wide column of fluid. They are also probably not attracted to urine as commonly thought.[4] However they are capable of jumping and entering the urethra of a man standing thigh-deep in the water and urinating. They are also probably only able to enter a human urethra when it is expanded during urination.[7]'Candiru.

I think this is just about as NPOV as one can get: we have the candiru's point of view, the urine's point of view, and the human male's pointed view, etc.Nishidani (talk) 16:11, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Neighborhood with Irgun fighters' names

Can you please point me to this neighborhood on a map? I have several maps of Jerusalem with me, spanning from the early 1990s to 2007, and don't see a single neighborhood anywhere close to where Deir Yassin was that bears such names. The neighborhoods in question - Har Nof, Kfar Shaul and Giv'at Shaul, all have streets bearing the names of famous (I guess) rabbis. Here is a breakdown of other neighborhoods in the vicinity:

• Light industrial zone - random street names related to light industry
• Giv'at Broshim - forest-related street names
• Kiray Moshe - names for famous Zionists, etc.
• Yefe Nof - also tree-related street names
• Romema (not really on that location anyway) - mainly names for localities in Israel, also Hebrew kings and other random names

So as you can see, no matter what Chomsky says, it doesn't seem correct at all. I think there are neighborhoods in Jerusalem which have names of famous soldiers, military operations, etc., but it's in Pisgat Ze'ev, and other completely far-away neighborhoods from where Deir Yassin was. I'm now trying to acquire a digital copy of Chomsky's book to see what it's all about, but I wouldn't pay it too much heed in light of these facts. If you don't believe my words, I will get as many other Hebrew-speaking users as you want to confirm it through the online map at maps.walla.co.il or www.emap.co.il. Tomorrow I will try to find an English map for your convenience.

In case you do find such a neighborhood anywhere near to where Deir Yassin was, please point me to it and I will stand corrected. -- Ynhockey ^(Talk) 21:12, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

After a slightly more careful search, I have found a neighborhood which answers the description of having streets named for Etzel and Lehi fighters! It's called Talpiot East and can be found in the eastern part of Jerusalem, about 8 km (aerial line) away from the former location of Deir Yassin. -- Ynhockey ^(Talk) 21:15, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps a case of benign wiki-stalking Nishidani, but after crossing paths at WP:AE I spotted your query on this and looked up Chomsky's TNCW footnote. It's quite long but then I also discovered an online version of the relevant chapter, with footnotes. Text and link below. Obviously this doesn't prove that what he says is (or was) correct, but it does identify how he sourced it.

Perhaps the last word should be left for Deir Yassin, scene of the most atrocious single massacre, conducted by the armed forces commanded by the current prime minister, who is quite eloquent in his denunciations of crimes against Jews. A report in Middle East International (August 1, 1980) describes how bulldozers are "busily erasing the last traces of Deir Yassin" to prepare the ground for a new settlement for Orthodox Jewish families, where "streets will be named after units in both the Irgun and the Haganah" -- perhaps in memory of the fact that, contrary to what is commonly assumed, the attack on Deir Yassin was authorized by Haganah, and units of Palmach (the kibbutz-based strike force of Haganah) participated in the attack (see the accounts based on eyewitness and participant reports in Yediot Ahronot, April 4, May 5, 1972; see also [Res.] General Meir Pail, an eyewitness, who reports that the slaughter of the 250 victims by Irgun and LEHI took place after the departure of Palmach forces that "completed the capture of the village"; Yediot Ahronot, April 20, 1972).

Further details appear in the Ha'aretz supplement (Kol Ha'ir), June 6, 1980, where it is reported that the prime minister's office had received a letter from a private citizen requesting that one of the streets in the new housing development in Deir Yassin be named after his uncle, who "was one of the commanders of the Deir Yassin operation." But "the request had to be rejected" because the Jerusalem municipality "had decided that only the names of entire units [of Palmach and the Irgun] would be immortalized on the site." Cited in Israeli Mirror, June 27, 1980.

http://www.ditext.com/chomsky/armageddon.html

Hope this helps with the debate, --Nickhh (talk) 17:23, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

When I self-suspended myself yesterday, I meant I would withhold comment, reflections etc., from this page as well, for a month. Rereading it to round off things early this morning, I noted I had overlooked, most ungraciously in appearance, your invaluable note responding to what User:Ynhockey and I were discussing, over a week ago I see. When I see a new message I usually only check te bottom of the page. I've therefore broken the rule of silence once to thank you for the trouble you took on this. Perhaps the text, if I may ask one more favour, could be put on the Deir Yassin Talk page for Ynhockey's attention. A note to Al Ameer son also might save him redoubling the trouble (while redoubling yours). And now I will shut up. Thanks indeed. I am very much in your debt. Best Nishidani (talk) 13:17, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Jaakobou RfC

Please see Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Jaakobou. I'm especially interested in any evidence you may have of Jaakobou compiling tendentious "evidence" against you and shopping it around to various forums, admins, etc. <eleland/talkedits> 20:17, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the note. I'm in two minds. I know our mutual friend has a remarkable knack for turning tiffs into long-term battles with administrators and admit that I dislike the time wasted in these tribunals. The moment also is rather untimely. I may sound like a finicky prig in saying this, but I think it inopportune, given the other case now under discussion concerning CAMERA, to raise also what is otherwise a legitimate cause for grievance with a warrior poster. I've no doubt that what he is doing in your case mirrors exactly what he endeavoured to do in my case, i.e. go behind someone's back with a privately edited, and highly selectively edited dossier to 'frame' a case against another editor with an influential senior administrator. So far there are two documented instances of this, the material he has laid with jpgordon, and the material he has laid with philknight. I think the proper thing to do is to warn Jaakobou that this sneaky gaming of the system is unethical, in that he systematically disregards an obligation to those with whom he is in conflict to inform them of the complaints he lays against them with administrators. Then, I should think, one should make the practice known, and inquire of others if he has replicated this conduct with them. If several others come up with similar material, which has likewise been placed with administrators without the necessary warning, then certainly a formal complaint, undersigned by all those affected, should definitely be laid. Either he is someone with an enormous amount of free time 24/7 to waste on maniacal nitpicking over archives to get the goods on editors he dislikes, or he draws on resources we do not know about for waging such assaults.

I will add my link to the PhilKnight page certainly, in such a case. For the moment, I think it inopportune. I don't want to give even the slightest impression that I might be profiting from a structural difficulty in general some Israeli editors are having on the Camera investigation, as though one wanted to sink the boot in. Justice, and the appearance of justice etc. Unfortunately, acting now, creates this (false) impression because of the potential overlap. I doubt very much you would wish that impression to be created either. I think, and I have no difficulty in admitting to the belief, that Jaakobou's mode of editing creates huge and needless problems when an intelligent sobriety (as illustrated by some excellent and strongly pro-Israeli editors and administrators) would resolve the conflicts he tends to generate. It's late: I've already missed half of an important programme I was supposed to watch, and will give this more thought overnight. So for the moment, this is my off-the-cuff response. Regards Nishidani (talk) 20:37, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Re:Book request

No bother at all! I probably won't be in the library until next week or possibly the following. Hopefully they'll have a copy of the book there. Glad to be of service! --Al Ameer son (talk) 17:22, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Ah, see above response .. --Nickhh (talk) 17:25, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks chaps. I won't pull this one on either of you often (once a decade's just under indecent). If there's anything info wise, or otherwise, where I can appear to afford possible help and save you time, Robert's a close relative here also, so call anytime. Best wishes Nishidani (talk) 18:49, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Eretz Yisrael

Refers to the land of Israel, it's a land, not a religious term. It's defined by the borders of Caanan, and sometimes refers to the whole "Promised Land". But usually it's defined as the same borders Caanan were. It's not religous, although you have to follow certain religous duties in Eretz Yisrael if you're jewish and religious. But it's the name of the region for the Jewish people and was defined as Palestine Eretz Yisrael in modern times. Amoruso (talk) 08:33, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

This was discussed in extenso several weeks ago. Check the record. You are confusing modern Hebrew usage with themillenial rabbinical usage which defined Eretz Yisroel's boundaries in several different ways over the centuries, and for example excluded cities, towns and areas often which were however, for centuries, considered to belong to Palestine (Haifa). The Zionist movement's official publications spoke of going to Palestine. The Hebrew word in the text transliterates 'Palestine', it does not gloss the word 'Palestine' with 'Eretz Yisroel'. I have retained however your change on the Palestine Mandate 1921 passage, which is scrupulously correct and is rightly substituted for the earlier, rather POV, version.Nishidani (talk) 08:41, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

No you are mistaken my friend. The Zionist movement called the Region "Palestine-Eretz Yisrael". See the link I provided in discussion. This appeared on every document and stamp and official record. This was the most basic principle of the Zionist movement. The Land of Israel is the name of the land. This was named also in the Declaration of Independence of Israel. The state of Israel is founded in the Land of Israel. Your confusion stems from the fact that the Land of Israel's name originated from the bible perhaps. Amoruso (talk) 08:55, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Fine. Provide me with the documentation that in the programmatic Zionist literature in English and other European languages, as distinct from the Eastern-European religious literature on Aliyah, the term Eretz Yisrael was the standard term. No one has yet, and I have requested this repeatedly. I am not confused. I find a large volume of generalizations running a standard point-of-view, lacking any nuanced understanding of a complex linguistic and toponymic situation. Please don't tell me about some desultory 'postage-stamps' Nishidani (talk) 09:05, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Btw, Palestine in Hebrew Wikipedia is Eretz Yisrael http://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%A4%D7%9C%D7%A1%D7%98%D7%99%D7%A0%D7%94 As for your question see here: [27] [28] if you want quotes (just random on the internet and not in many books, i.e. all zionist books) see Ber Borochov's speech in Kiev: " But times have changed. The difference between our Party and the others is sufficiently clear. No one will mistake our identity. It is therefore an opportune time to introduce a newer and richer terminology. Now we can and must employ an emotional terminology. New we can and must proclaim: "Eretz Yisrael [4] — a Jewish home!"[29] or Meir Dizengoff here [30] ... As for the postage stamp, this is simply what was written on british mandate stamps. it's in wikipedia too in the british mandate article. Amoruso (talk) 10:44, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

The text is about 'Palestine'. In Hebrew, this word is rendered 'פלשתינה', not by ארץ ישראל. In linguistics, no two words in one language, even if often, in some periods, used synonymously, mean exactly the same thing. As to the Hebrew Wikipedia,that is written for a Hebrew audience. This article is for a global audience. You must be very careful not to confuse the one with the other. We must aim for an article which both a Jewish person and an Arab person can read with absolute equanimity, as dealing with equal weight to the perspectives of both parties, aside from striving to go beyond their cultural perceptions to achieve an NPOV encyclopaedic and global article. This principle is almost always ignored in these articles, because of interference to spin one version or another. I know about postage stamps. But why then elsewhere, in defining Palestinian, is it noted that Jewish people in Mandate Palestine, were called 'Palestinian Jews' and not 'Eretz Yisraelis'? Nishidani (talk) 11:26, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

RE Second Intifada.

You all got the same message, I just delivered it to you, and the others by email. I have fully responded here. Regards, Steve Crossin (talk) (review) 10:40, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Good Advice

Thanks for this wise counsel. It truly would be a waste of everyone's time, and enough time has been squandered responding to his complaint as it is .. I'm assuming someone's waiting for everyone to wear themselves out before quietly closing the section. I think the best thing to do when confronted with serial litigants who've missed the point that their behaviour is equally as questionable (and in fact probably more so), is to simply sit back, keep quiet and recall the fate of Jonathan Aitken. --Nickhh (talk) 15:26, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

An idea worth trying?

Hi, here's a thought that might do some good. Today I was chatting with an editor from Serbia. Mentioned the Serbian-Croatian ethnic disputes on en:Wiki and he surprised me by telling me the Serbian and Croatian Wikipedias actually get along pretty well. Basically what happened was some guys packed into a car, drove to Zagreb, and shook some hands. Then some other guys packed into another car, drove to Belgrade, and shook some hands. Once they saw that they were all pretty normal people, things calmed down a lot.

Maybe there's a way we can replicate that. Would you be willing to try a voice chat on Skype? I've noticed that when Wikipedia editors get into a conference call, with voices instead of just text, it's easier to find common ground. Wishing you well, Durova^Charge! 06:27, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

That's not a bad idea, Durova. I'm the sort of bloke who jumps planes to meet people - I once flew from Tokyo to Toronto merely to honour an undertaking to have a cup of tea with a person on a certain date 5 years after the promise was made - but hates telephones. The only function of a telephone line at my age is to have an internet connection (and of course to call an ambulance if my ticker plays up, which it probably will shortly if these endless recriminations of kindergarten-level bitching don't end!). I hope some of the younger people in here think it over. I don't have Skype. Still, I hope you and a few other admins haven't taken the extensive, and for my part wholly frank, outlining of deeper problems surrounding these conflicts too badly. I have seized on that particular suit with some recklessness in order to talk, indirectly, to Jaakobou and about him, before other editors he is in constant conflict with, and before some admins or ex-admins, in the confidence that when a problem is recurrent, it is wise, as in all forms of negotiations, to drop the extreme niceties of formal etiquette and get things off one's chest. This is my form of telephoning. Just one more ruling, punishment, victory or defeat is not going to help. I don't know if you are familiar with the role Omar Sharif plays in James Clavell's 1969 film, The Last Valley, but the message was: when tit-for-tat warring and defence is the problem, deciding for one side is not going to solve the problem, but only feed the inertial momentum of attrition. One must use a higher logic, expect tensions, but see a way round the reciprocal logic of aggression and defence that lies at the heart of this darkness. The point is true of the conflict whose history we are editing, as it is true of the editing-conflicts that mirror these realities. Etiquette is essential, (but not the prerequisite, as the rules often suggest to harassed administrators, since that is too often a lip-service formality belied by a certain cold ambition to 'win'). Rather a change in the logic of aggressive pushing of a unilateral vision, by whomever, is the key.

I don't think our mutual aquaintence has yet the slightest idea of the impact both his treatment of Tiamut, who is a very fine, precise and accommodating editor indeed, and his general outburst on the Islamic-culture of violence responsible for all the woes of Israel, had on many people here. The former spoke of a cast of mind I have documented on Nickhh's page, the latter of a fixed mindset that has absolutely no ear for the 'Other'. One doesn't lose one's wariness with others by a change in their formal tone, but when one observes a change in outlook, from self-assured personal conviction to attentive listening to others who cannot understand you. If he checks my record, he will see that I do work well with many other editors 'on his side', some with strong Zionist commitments, and have devoted quite a lot of effort to improving pages on the great thinkers and scholars from his particular tradition. Hardly evidence then that I have some animus for his country, as opposed to the very strong interests I have in human rights and justice, for which Jewish thinkers and activists have long been in the forefront. Thirdly, writing these dossiers did him great harm. Whatever our differences, the rest of 'us' (I presume) hail from a cultural and historical context where profiling and dossiers are regarded with extreme reserve, as abuses one associates with the degradation of civil society by authoritarian power-mongers. I think had I pursued, in formal arbitration, the way he got off that 3RR rap by contacting User:Swatjester offline, it would have shown him in a very poor light and the administrator as well. It certainly worries other editors that he, who complains much of minor transgressions of procedural formalities, lives a charmed life, by now notorious, when he himself has infringed them, whereas others, less enamoured of litigiousness, usually take a hard rap. Administrators, caught up in endless cases, can't be expected to note what editors on a page see. They will tell you, 'take it up in a formal complaint'. But a lot of us dislike complaining. I didn't pursue the case because I hate whingeing, and I should think that he would do well to renounce this kind of administrative option himself, except when some serious, I mean, serious abuse of wiki editing procedures occurs that damages the growth of the pages he is working on. These finicky recourses to 'the law' are fascinating - they read like new episodes in Kafka's The Trial, where recourse to justice is constant, and nothing but the weirdest outcomes result. Ultimately, it all sounds to many like political gaming. He must be tough to edit with the intensity he does. If he learnt to wear a tough hide as well (and listen closely to what others argue for - they are not irrational) things would run improve notably. I have no illusions, this place ranks among the hardest to edit, and the pages are, both sides concur, shamefully riven with textual politicking (compare any article with the Encyclopedia Britannica) but every now and then, surprises do occur, and the world changes. Like it or not, these articles have to be written so that a rationally-minded Israeli and Palestinian would not take exception to them. That is the rule he, like the rest of us, must keep ever-present when editing. Take this also as a public email to Jaakobou, in lieu of a Skype monologue! p.s. Serbians and Croats have their own countries, share a common language, more or less, share a similar religion, and often, can offload their differences on the third group in the area, which happens to be Muslim (and unfortunately they don't drink as often as the former!). Still, point taken. Best regards Nishidani (talk) 07:50, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

1929

Hi, I answered on the talk page.
I wonder if Morris blew a fuse : (http://www.tnr.com/story.html?id=0e100478-298c-438c-a994-e1800474ad19&p=1 Benny Morris, 'The Tangled Truth', The New Republic, May 07, 2008) or if he has been asked to perform such analysis...
But it never minds much. I am more concerned by May 07, 2008 Ceedjee (talk) 07:05, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, I wasn't surprised at the (to me) usual Morris Dance! Actually Hillel Cohen's book looks like a very useful one. I'll look opver to the other page for your comment. Regards as usual Nishidani (talk) 07:35, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Self-suspension for flagrant violation of WP:CIVIL to save administrators the hassle

Duration: at least 1 month|This user has undertaken to block himself from editing, a practice he deeply enjoys, for a period of one month, mindful of the samurai practice of remonstrative suicide (for which, oddly enough, Japanese lacks an appropriate word ?User:Bendono?), though not infrequently practiced in the past. The closest term is ‘’funshi’’ (憤死), ‘irate’ suicide as an act of protest. I am however not in the least angry). Call it a suicidally remonstrative silence when all other means of remonstration have failed. The object is to protest against the systematic profiling of wiki I/P editors he dislikes by Jaakobou, his habit of laying these dossiers stealthily for review with administrators of his (not their) choice, his habit of editing difficult articles bearing on Palestinians from a declared belief that their Arab cultural world is responsible for a 91 year-old racist terror campaign, from an apparent belief that any resistance by Palestinians to the Israeli occupation constitutes, not a legitimate struggle to have their own state, but a form of racist terror to expunge Israelis and Jews from the Middle East: his inability to take an example from his textual adversaries, who have often chosen not to exercise a right to take his behaviour to arbitration: His habit of wasting huge amounts of editors’ and administrators’ time in litigation: His habit of canvassing administrators: His habit of appearing ‘cordial’ while editing polemically and ideologically, and hauling before arbitration productive and reasonable editors who on occasion lose their temper, and violate, with a word or two, WP:CIVIL out of pure exasperation. If administrators are persuaded to restrict even further the freedom of frank debate, vigorously conducted and in ‘’bona fides’’, by making even more exacting our wording of otherwise harmless exchanges, in deference to these chronic appeals over WP:CIVIL, the project of bringing these articles up to snuff is doomed. Civilty is also about a capacity for empathy with others, and not simply a matter of polite posturing while running an ideological battle. These articles, for those who know all sides of the argument are in a lamentable state, and require equilibrium, comprehensive knowledge, empathy with all sides, and not preconceived and exclusive POV-pushing by someone who admits to thinking the people he writes about are praeternaturally, by cultural formation, racist-terrorists. Those who cannot edit with an empathy for their adversaries' culture should not be allowed to edit articles on them. (p.s. for the suspicious, no I am not going on vacation, and using some inevtiable absence as a pretext to make my point) Nishidani (talk) 20:10, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Consider this an unblock request (to you, since your sanction is self-imposed). This is much too chivalrous an action on your part, in an age where chivalry is dead (having been subjected to mutliple homicides by twisted serial killers that are a product, I think, of hypercapitalism and our disposable society mentality). So, please do come back to editing, long before your one-month block expires. Signed, a Palestinian damsel in distress. ;) Tiamut^talk 15:32, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

I must say, that's the longest block notice I've ever seen :) Steve Crossin (talk) (review) 15:35, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

However, this could be considered a personal attack against Jaakobou. Keep that in mind. Steve Crossin (talk) (review) 15:36, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

And that is why he has auto-blocked himself for one month...

I think this is rather a second degree attack on the bullshit unefficient wp:system.

Ceedjee (talk) 18:29, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

When your ban will be over, it will be a pleasure to work with you on al-Husseini's article.

To avoid misunderstanding, I didn't claim any quote was not right. That's rather "la rose rouge" who did...

Amitiés, Ceedjee (talk) 15:44, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Cher ami, of course you didn't. I really do think that we two, at least, should now get together shortly and go thoroughly through this article. It has voluminous information badly organized at times, and, with quick incisive collaborative editing I think we could well sort out the longstanding problems, and indeed, bring it up to GA status, and nudge it towards a potential FA status. My understanding is that the earlier strongly Zionist framing of the narrative, which got at Arafat and his PLO through the Husseini-Hitler connection, has withered under the evidence. That the anti-Zionism as opposed to anti-semitism element can be clarified, by concentrating the evidence for the latter from the war period (by the way, the recent edit from Husseini's Arabic diary on his talks with Himmler omits the crucial context in which Husseini introduced those remarks). One piece of evidence I would supply could help explain this distinction: the page fails to note that Husseini studied at the Alliance Israélite Universelle school in Jerusalem, and gained his fluency in French from the young and extraordinary director of that school (from 1897-1913) Albert Antébi (a great pity we have no wiki page on him, and his extraordinary family. His own grandfather was accused of blood libel in the notorious Damascus affair). Now Antébi was a passionately Jewish-palestinian antizionist, who worked for Rothschild in negotiating landsales with the notables, Khalidis, Husseinis and Nashashibis, who were large property owners ready to sell bits and pieces of land for Jewish settlement and development. So in his formative years, Husseini came under this great man's influence: he was on very friendly terms with the Husseini family. Antébi was a passionate francophile, and at the same time very critical of Herzl-type zionist emigration from anywhere east of Germany, he thought this would grievously imperil the natural judaisation of Israel by the brashness of its ideology, confrontational tactics, and ashkenazi lack of sympathy with, empathetic mastery of the Arabic-levantine culture which Sephardis like himself wore like a secunda natura. You know the literature on Husseini far better than I do, and if your sources on him throw some light here, that would help. What I know is just intuitive guesswork from the facts outlined above. I.e. he studied for years with this Antébi, and one should think, given what we know of Antébi, that Husseini's own ideas with regard to Zionism cannot but have been influenced by that mentor's. A great tragedy that Antébi died so early (1919). Had he survived, had he been able to impress the executors of the Balfour Declaration with his profound, astute knowledge of the ground realities of Arab and Palestinian life, and mediated between them and the Arab notables like his ex-student, who knows what might have eventuated? But, as they say in the classics, if my uncle had tits, he'd be my auntie. If you could find the time to reflect on an overall structure, with your proven sense of logical historical emplacement by chronology and theme, it would be even simpler? I should add that Pappé, whom you dislike, counts 4 distinct bids from 1918 onwards by Jewish interests to buy the wailing wall. Knowing your dislike, I have tried to get independent verification. Actually, Pappé misses two earlier bids, or proposals from the 1840s and 1870s. But that this was commonly known in Jerusalem Muslim circles in the 1920s seems well-documented by now. So the various Official Papers which note Arab claims and Zionist official denials are problematical in the text as we have it, since they ignore what we now know from fairly strong documentation. A bientot Nishidani (talk) 17:17, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

p.s. the spelling Husayni reflects British documentary usage. The family itself referred and refers to itself, in transcription, as the al-Husseini family. I take it, as with similar problems in the Orient (Japanese reading of family names) that the family's choice of transcription trumps the vagaries of foreign transcription?Nishidani (talk) 15:42, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Y'know, there have been several successful attempts to have blocks lifted a bit early. If we can talk the blocking admin into lifting the block, of course, I for one would probably support doing so. I haven't quite figured out who that blocker is, but I'm working on it. John Carter (talk) 15:57, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm guessing that there shouldn't be any problems unblocking at the expected time. Regarding Harry Potter being dead, good. I hate to say how many times I've been referred to by hat nickname for no good reason that I've ever been able to determine. John Carter (talk) 18:34, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Harry, it's that bastard Nishidani who's done in our mate Nishidani. Hear he has him on bread and water in solitary at that terrible prison. Don't listen to anything he says on your page, it's Nishidani, not Nishidani, who's talking. Never trust the filth. Been trying to arrange a break-out, but he's broken him so he won't hear of it. Well, when we get him in a dark alley some day...John Z (talk) 19:04, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Hi Nishidani. When you are unblocked :-) , we can try to solve the issues on the article.

I don't have much documentation concering this but some anyway.

Regards, Ceedjee (talk) 06:50, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

AE thread

I have closed Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Arbitration enforcement#Eleland issues persist. Please read the closing note. If you have any questions or if there any problems, please feel free to drop a line on my talk page or send me an email. Vassyana (talk) 02:44, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Second Intifada

I just need you, to put a comment under where you accepted the proposal, to just write that you're aware that the decision will be binding. As the mediation has gone on for over two months, it really needs to press on, I need you to do this ASAP. Thanks. Steve Crossin (talk) (review) 00:42, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Sorry about the delay. Comment here. Steve Crossin (talk) (review) 13:40, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Hi & suggestion

Hi, Nishidani. Our minds have been moving along the same grooves with respect to the second intifada article, so I haven't said much. (I was the anon that mentioned using the OED for "uprising" just before you did, and I realized at about the same time why Michael felt that word had a positive connotation when it just plain doesn't.) Here to suggest some additions to your huge catalogue of examples that might be particularly useful in convincing Michael that he is just plain wrong about this point - fascist, in particular Nazi uprisings -e.g. The Beer hall putsch and the Nazi uprising after the war ended (I can't remember what they called it) that the Allies feared would happen and carefully prepared for, although it never did. I was sure Crusade in Europe had something on it and used the word "uprising", but I couldn't find it. Maybe something will instantly spring to your capacious mind. I disagree that uprising and insurgency / insurrection have very different connotations, look at the etymology - but don't know whether that is too helpful. Cheers, and I hope your admin-self will be kind to your blocked-self and will let him off early for time served because of good behavior.John Z (talk) 05:08, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks John Z. I'll edit from the beginning of next month. No harm in dropping a reply to your note, since writing here is hardly editing wiki.

Were Michael's mind open to rational persuasion, he would have yielded on this long before. His objection is, at this point, ideological. More examples will not convince him. That we all get things wrong at times is easy for others to see. What is more difficult to understand is why we get things wrong, and why we persist in error. On the Israeli/Jewish side of this common problem, there are two elements, one cultural (Jewish/Israeli editors raised within a certain ideological framework (exceptionalism) of national and ethnic identity), one a matter of the politics of image-forging to win a global consensus by influencing the way events and history are perceived (informal and formal hasbara teamworks). I think Michael's error is to be classified in the former, which is basically rooted in a long tradition of thinking in terms of Jewish exceptionalism, and therefore any analogies that may arise from the kind of descriptive language used to characterise Palestinian realities that might remind one of similar Jewish realities, is repressed. Michael dislikes 'uprising' because there is the possibility that it might create a subliminal nexus with the Warsaw uprising. There is a deeper analogy. The Romans crushed Bar Kochba's revolt (which in the historical literature is often described as an 'uprising'), and under Hadrian set out to Romanize Judea. The creation of Israel vindicates Bar Kochba, but also, in rejudaising Palestine, creates an implicit structural analogy between the fanatic resistance of Bar Kochba, and the PLO/Hamas/the Al-Aqsa type violence, esp.sacred violence in the name of national restoration. This analogy is naturally repugnant to a cast of mind rooted in the myths of Jewish exceptionalism, since those who evoke the myth of Masada must at the same time war down a native people who are battling from the redoubts of their rocky bantustans against the judaisation of their native and sacred territory, very much as Bar Kochba himself did. Rabbinical schools after the failure of Bar Kochba developed a doctrine of submission to foreign states, one which lasted until the creation of Israel redeemed the earlier foundational myths of the Book of Joshua, and dispelled cringing accommodation by recurring to the heroic, divinely covenanted militancy of the first invasion of Canaan. Ironically, what is expected of Palestinians is that they cringe before the power of Israel's occupation (Michael objects to the violent aspect of the second Intifada, and this violence, running parallel to the hi-tech violence of the IDF's repression, provides him with the excuse for denying that the Al-Aqsa intifada can be regarded as an uprising. He expects from Palestinian 'uprisings' a sort of accession to the rabbinical wisdom which followed the failure of Bar Kochbaì's revolt)

Any phenomenon bearing a generic resemblance to the sicarii, or zealotism, is thus dismissed as an appalling 'Arab cultural trait', wholly extraterritorial to the hoovered or Potemkin village beauties of the modern Judeo-Christian world of civilization, though in fact it resonates, mutatis mutandis, with analogies to strikingly similar events in Jewish history under the Roman empire from Titus to Hadrian, where militant fanaticism and zealotism in the name of national autonomy flourished. The early Zionists from Jabotinsky and Ben-Gurion to Moshe Dayan and Menachem Begin were perfectly aware that their policies bore these ironic resonances. Being thorough realists, they didn't have to kid themselves, though they weren't beyond conning the public. Today we live in the fog of public opinion myths, where these ironical analogies are elided from consciousness. People are raised on the standard clichés, endlessly recycled by hasbara machines or the mindless world of shameless Bushisms, and underwrite them sincerely, because they no longer have much of a sense of history. Much could be said of this, especially on what I call privately the Susskind Factor But this is not the place.Regards Nishidani (talk) 16:31, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

English woes

I'd appreciate it if you stop taking pot shots at my English woes on talk pages (see also: Wikipedia:CIV#Engaging_in_incivility).
With respect, Jaakobou ^{Chalk Talk} 09:48, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Please don't raise Wikipedia:CIV#Engaging_in_incivility), every time you drop me a note. To draw attention to loose language that gives rise to misunderstandings is not civil. It is a corrective, a caution, and thus civil. It's for 'its' is all over Wikipedia, and unless one reminds editors of the mistake, it risks contaminating the edited pages as well. It is not a matter of taking 'pot shots'. I really do not understand, often, what you are getting at in talk page comments, when you phrase things obscurely, at least syntactically. Your English is almost exemplary in, especially arbitration proceedings, Jaakobou, but tends to be very slack in articles you have otherwise significantly contributed to (Haim Farhi, for example), which is a shame. I'd be quite happy if you would have sufficient confidence in my editing to ask me, from time to time, to look over some of the pages you edit. If you like, I'd gladly copyedit the Haim Farhi page.Nishidani (talk) 10:04, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

I have no problem with you correcting my English in article when it's got nothing to do with a content dispute between us. When you use the talk page space to discuss my grammer rather than the topic, it just clogs up the page with redundent material and is indeed quite uncivil. A civil approach would be to note me either by mail or on my talk page with examples to my text and examples on how to correct this error in the future. To make your "Jaakobou's English" argument on a topical dispute on article is indeed uncivil and I would appreciate it if you stop doing that and focus on the raised issue/concern than on my tendancies to make grammatical errors. I have no objection to a note on my talk page regarding English errors, I'm certainly open to improving my errors in that department.

With respect, Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 10:23, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

You miss the point. I suspect many of our content disputes arise also because I have difficulty at times understanding the objection you are making. The objection to the wholly innocuous remark I edited into the King David Hotel Bombing is still not clear to me. I can find no wiki grounds for rejecting it, and I do not understand your objection, and part of this relates to the way you have phrased your objections. I don't use email in editing relations, on principle. Surely there is no harm in this. Were I to have to change pages, make special notes, etc., as you suggest I'd waste more time than I do. I write impromptu below what I read from others. And if I find a difficulty in expression, I raise it, irrespective of who wrote whatever causes me perplexity. It's nothing personal, then, I assure you.Nishidani (talk) 10:33, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Nishidani,

I haven't missed your point and perhaps I should have noted that I understand your concerns before noting mine. I understand that we have communication lapses, mostly due to my grammar woes and your strict reading of grammar (I'm willing to take up-to 60% of the blame.. 70% max). However, instead of "angrily" treating me like an idiot -- correcting my English rather than reply to the issue I was talking about -- you can either ignore the English error and address the raised issue (perhaps by asking for clarifications) or explain the error to me on my talk page where it would not disrupt the content discussion.

If you want, I'll create a "Jaakobou English tutoring" page just for this issue.

With respect, Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 11:03, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Loosen up, Jaakobou. Discerning tone is important in reading, and to see a hint of 'anger' in my various remarks is to grossly misread them. You have nothing to fear from me. I take advice when it is sensible, and ignore it when impertinent. I've been back barely a day, and have received three notes on 'civility' and 'anger' when I am writing refreshed from a wiki break, with, I assure you, equanimity. Nishidani (talk) 11:25, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

I've made my request and if I'm reading your response correctly, you are saying you are planning to ignore it. Is this assesment correct or will you, in the future, take up English concerns to my talk page? Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 11:58, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

If on a talk page you do not express your intended meaning clearly, I will, as always, ask you, or whoever, to clarify what you mean on that talk page. I will not treat this as a 'particular' problem requiring particular solutions. Your request is inappropriate, but you have succeeded in transmogrifying a query on syntax and thought into some sort of suggestion of uncivil assault, presumably for some dossier. Wiki must have some page on mountainous molehills - read it. Loosen up, I repeat. I prefer to edit, and not to engage in querulous pettifogging over non-existent issues.Nishidani (talk) 12:09, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

No one else on Wikipedia misunderstands me as often as you and no one makes it their habit to pick my grammar apart repeatedly. I request that you avoid making a point of breaking each word into context and subcontext even after I explain myself and the linguilical misunderstanding is no longer pertinent to the content issue. Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 12:57, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

It's not a matter of misunderstanding. It is a matter of trying to understand what another person is saying when their language is not clear. Your grammar can be very good, as I noted, here and in especially, your representations to arbitration pages. Sometimes, on talk pages you write in a very erratic fashion, and I have no way of knowing precisely what you mean. I therefore request you to clarify what you mean. This is quite appropriate, normal, not fussy, and a sign of attention to your words. That you are troubled by this to the point of launching a major exercise in innuendo, as though this were some form of idiosyncratic personal niggling on my part, amazes me. I have been forced to spend several weeks just arguing with Michael Safyan on his tendentious abuse of, and misreading of, the word 'uprising'. He never complained of my elaborate demonstrations of his, to me, arbitrary construal of the connotations of that word. You are the only person on wikipedia who appears to find my forensic semantic probing problematical. As I say, I'm not particularly annoyed that you are making a mountain over this molehill, but I would suggest it is time to move on.Nishidani (talk) 13:21, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

This response[31] seemed to lecture me that I'm an idiot for not understanding English and that it the most obvious assumption to make that my comment[32] was intended to the qualifications of the authors. I don't know how you could come up with that assumption unless you haven't read that comment but the main problem is that this is not a one time issue but as you are aware, a recurring one. I don't know how else to phrase my request in words that you will understand - it might be my English woes acting up again, but I still request that you avoid making commentary about them when the discussion is about content issues.

Cordially, Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 14:01, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't mind you wasting my time. You are certainly wasting yours. In the meantime I have thoroughly copyedited Haim Farhi, to bring it up textually to snuff. As to your remarks, our respective positions are adequately documented, and there is no need to needle the nittygritty for further archival ballast.Nishidani (talk) 14:28, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

cn vs. fact

There's a few different tags when the text is poorly cited.

1. {{cn}} ->
2. {{fact}} ->
3. {{bogus}} -> {{Template:bogus}} (apparently, recently deleted)

If I use the 1st one, it means that I believe the text to be true, but that it needs a citation. If the 2nd, it means that this text has some doubt, if the 3rd, it means I believe the text to be bogus but did not want to remove it for some reason... I guess the 3rd one was decided as redundant, although I did use it once-twice in the past.

I hope this ends the 'cn' discussion from KDHB - you may add a source or not, I don't really care that much about it.
With respect, Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 09:09, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Jerusalem as the capital of Israel

Nishidani, nothing of what you say will change Okedem's mind, please read my comment here. Imad marie (talk) 15:49, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Oh, if I entered into any discussion with the naive conviction I might convince my interlocutor, I would shut up to avoid a sense of futility. I do hope other readers will however take some note of what I or someone else may say when a commonplace is challenged. I comment where I think things that are obvious are not being said. Most obvious things are never said in I/P articles, since every statement is either committee-reviewed for its possibile political fallout, and contested to that end, or challenged because (and this is frequent) the reader is so drenched in the entrenched perceptions of his ethnic group that he cannot think outside of that framework, and views those who do not share it, as out of touch with reality, when they simply do not share that monocular vision. Though I am as pro-Palestinian as you will get, most of the problems I encounter here have nothing to do with 'defending a Palestinian cause': they are simply matters of getting people to stop thinking in terms of newsprint, and thinking in terms of thick history, the implications of the clichés we use, and conceptual consistency. Nishidani (talk) 16:06, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, you make wikipedia a better place :) Imad marie (talk) 19:56, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Nishidani, you might want to take a look at Jerusalem Law and the Lustick paper cited therein. Contrary to a common impression, e.g. in the huge discussions about Jerusalem as capital, this law was essentially content-free, and did not annex East Jerusalem.John Z (talk) 03:05, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks indeed John. I am ever in debt to those who can refer me to some illuminating article or book by a trenchant analyst that can sweep the minefield of our conceptual and linguistic confusions by mapping the terrain with precision. My gratitude, once more. Regards Nishidani (talk) 10:25, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

I guess it's not easy to break previous consensus's. Personally I don't see any compromise in the current version, I see it as one side of the story. In all cases, you have done a great effort :). Imad marie (talk) 17:30, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

"Jew Crew"

I noticed your comment that you hoped that the user of that phrase was suspended. Have you actually reported him? Do you know if it is happenned. It won't happen until it is brought to an admin's attention.--Peter cohen (talk) 21:44, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

On principle I hate reporting people: they called it 'pimping' when I was a boy, and punished the pimp as much as the person reported. But I make an exception for things like antisemitism, where the use of ethnophobic slang is directly correlated historically to death. Still, I don't know how to report people, make diffs, etc. In civil society, decent people just punch people out for that kind of language, here it is all redtape. I think at the least that some administrator on the site (and there are several) should have made a severe note on that person's page, and at least slapped a notification on the I/P editors page dealing with infractions.Nishidani (talk) 08:03, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. Incidents of all kinds need to be drawn to administrators' attention. There are a series of noticeboards for the purpose. In this case, someone has now started a thread at WP:Administrators noticeboard/Incidents.--Peter cohen (talk) 10:51, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Nishadini, thank you for stepping forward regarding this incident. It helps make the site a better place when editors from both sides of a national/ethnic dispute demonstrate that certain behaviors are out of bounds. Your conscientious conduct here earns my thanks and respect. Warm regards, Durova^Charge! 20:37, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes. Thanks from me too.--Peter cohen (talk) 09:34, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Apologies

Then, appreciating the irony, I did indeed misread you, and there are no excuses. I sincerely apologize. I would just add (by no means in exculpation of my misprision), that we grow up in, and are exposed to, language, customary expressions and newspaper consensus on how the world is described, which people, like I.M. (Jordanian) hailing from another cultural milieu and accustomed to different descriptions for the land, take exception to. I haven't checked that person's record. But systemic bias is something we all have. And that huge swathe of discussion was really just over the refusal to put in an adjective or a locative particle that would have left the Islamic reader satisfied. But I won't blog the issue here on your page. Regards Nishidani (talk) 10:10, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm unsure if you're suggesting that we should have added an another word or two to the first sentence of Jerusalem to "[leave] the Islamic reader satisfied", but if you were, I'm going to have to disagree with you to the greatest degree. First, of course, I'm sure there are many Muslims that don't care about this wording, and think it's accurate. But more on point, this reminds me of what was happening at the Muhammad article a few months ago. As you may have been aware, there was an online petition demanding that the images of Muhammad be removed from that article. It snowballed out of control until we had arbitrary IP users removing images from the article and ranting on the talk page about this supposed inappropriateness. I understand that we should be cognizant of cultural differences, but this is an encyclopedia. Further, it seems we are expected to bend over backwards to tailor to Muslim interests -- for Israel-Palestine topics, that means highlighting the Palestinian point-of-view and drawing sympathy toward their causes -- and acting like the world revolves around Arabs and Muslims. Some nerve. And this is obviously not an issue limited to Wikipedia.

Case in point, the Israel article on the Arabic Wikipedia is absolutely atrocious, repeatedly using "Zionist" where "Jewish" is more accurate (and less, as is often intended, ederisive), discussing a Palestinian perspective of the 1948 war and Israel's beginnings. Pure bias, as indicated by the some of the comments on the talk page. On the talk page, one editor even, insofar as I can tell (I can't really read Arabic), suggests that it's okay to present the Israel-Palestine conflict from the Arab perspective. I'm sure Imad, after he's finished spreading his bundle of neutrality across the English Wikipedia, will head to the Arabic Wikipedia next, and eliminate the excessively pro-Arab sentiment. But somehow, I'm not holding my breath. Like I said, it's politics. Civil POV pushers do not deserve to be rewarded. -- tariqabjotu 11:39, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

If you are hostile to nationalism, and paying lip-service to any sign of it, you won't find me disagreeing. The subject matter here, nationalist bias, is something I have a professional interest in, and (to judge by reviews a highly reputable one). I find your hostility to the fact that many Muslims find in an encyclopedia a reference to what they call Al-Quds as the capital of Israel, unqualified, rather curious. I like conceptual tidiness and semantic precision to avoid national advantage, by whatever side. I note your examples deal exclusively with Arabic bias, as though it was not a (1) universal problem and (2) particularly evident in I/P articles. I have no illusions about the probable bias of an Arabic wiki. I suspect the Hebrew wiki would be more sophisticated in that regard, but would be surprised if it were not, itself, deeply influenced by Zionist historiography. I am flabbergasted you think there are signs of bending over backwards to cater to Muslim interests (the problem you highlight refers to political correctness, which should never be yielded to). I don't know how many articles I have had to quietly readjust because they have been lifted straight out of a Jewish encyclopedia which suppressed much relevant information, and gave a Jewish perspective (legitimate) but not a global and neutral perspective on some figure. The other day I stumbled on the wiki article on 'Annexation' and found the entry on Israel stating, innocuously, that after it was annexed, Israel 'awarded' Arabs with citizenship. I find that kind of assertion frequent on less visited pages I happen on. Your interests, background and experiences are clearly profoundly different from mine. And your conclusions diametrically oppposed. Since we are both in good faith, the question is, why the difference in evaluation? I don't see many Palestinian or Arab contributors on the articles in this area I edit. I do see a very large number of Israeli or Jewish editors. Quite a few are very very good. Not a few are biased, but reasonable (the norm for most of us). Some are polite, but absolutely unremovable in pushing what is a 'Zionist' POV. Several, very active, are intransigent. There are many many books by Israeli scholars documenting in detail the way the landscape and the history of Arab Palestine was programmatically wiped out, erased and rewritten over during the first decades of the foundation of that state. Many editors in here seem to think that any endeavour to recall that status quo ante, and the longue durée of history that is far more complex, offensive. I blame it personally on the fact that many are very young, and simply can't remember physically much beyond their birth dates, other than what googling brings up. As to Muhammed, fair enough. But try to edit articles on Biblical Israel, which are often skewed towards the Biblical account, which is not historical, and almost completely challenged by archeology and history, and you will see that this is by no means an Arab problem. Many Jewish editors there are religiously attached to the mythistory of the Bible, and challenge secular input Nishidani (talk) 12:06, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

I find your hostility to the fact that many Muslims find in an encyclopedia a reference to what they call Al-Quds as the capital of Israel, unqualified, rather curious.

I'm not really interested in what Muslims (or Arabs, or Israelis, or Jews, or any other ethnic group) think about what the first sentence says. If anyone says that Jerusalem is not the capital of Israel -- and indeed I'm sure there are many pro-Palestinian people who would say just that -- they are wrong. We are here to provide facts, not soothe any particular group. The facts compel us to say Jerusalem is the capital of Israel (but, of course, talk about the controversy over the city). If anyone -- Muslim or otherwise -- comes to the Jerusalem article and is appalled by the phrase "Jerusalem is the capital of Israel", that's too bad for them... they can go read the Arabic Wikipedia, where I'm sure they will be treated to, as I already noted, a perspective that suits their sensibilities.

I didn't say there were signs that we were bending over backwards for Muslims. Simply, there are people who want us to. It just about always fails, in the same way that requests for us to tailor to other groups fail. However, considering the area in which I have edited in the past and present, I see more pro-Islam / Arab tendentious editors than pro-Judaism / Israel tendentious editors. While writing the Israel and Jerusalem articles, there was a lot of attention from certain people who may have been considered Israeli nationalists in some manner (I'm thinking of someone in particular) and, although it was extraordinarily frustrating at the time, these people have stopped. We don't see recurring month-long discussions beckoning that the Jewish or Israeli perspective be further enhanced, although I have no doubt that this happens in other subject areas (or on the Hebrew Wikipedia). However, regarding the Jerusalem and Israel articles (you know... what we're actually talking about here), I don't see it at this time, and thus have no reason to mention it. -- tariqabjotu 12:39, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Any editor, and particularly one with administraive functions, who, faced with a technical problem on a page, requiring a technical definition from the serious academic literature on an issue like annexation, runs and gets the information he wants from 'answer.com' clearly isn't seriously interested in the issue, but merely casting about for something to confirm his POV. So I suppose there's no point in us continuing this chat. I'm disappointed. You have been shown that a text is defective, have had a RS cited for you which indicates why it is defective, and what is your reply, an abuse of administrative fiat, i.e. a threat to revert the person who drew your attention to the error in the text, a threat even more comical because I have openly said I myself would not interfere with that page, but merely note some of its errors. Nishidani (talk) 13:17, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Plan D

Hi Nishidani,
Thank you for your comment.
I will bring the quotes asap. Nevertheless, as you know, I am highly opposed to the use of primary sources in such topics. I will bring the info asap. I have them under hand at home and I know precisely what to say. I need also to read precisely what Pappe writes (I have his book at home) because there is something strange. Two facts are claimed (that the order was sent to Haganah commander AND that excerpt from BG's diary) and this is done only by 1 primary sources (BG's diary). That is not proper work...
I would highly appreciate your support to discuss with our colleagues (I didn't know Ashley was feminine in English).
Amitiés, Ceedjee (talk) 16:27, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Salut Nishidani,

I don't know how I can thank you for your too kind comments ;-)

Sorry for the misunderstanding. Anyway, if the way we see life is different between us, I think there are many thinks on which we agree :-)

I answered here to Ashley. I hope I was not too rude : [33].

Rgds, Ceedjee (talk) 19:48, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

moniker

Thanks for the comment - you're the first person to "get" its meaning (or say so, anyway); it is also a play on words, see homoskedasticity. As for Lustick - I fear that some participants in this discussion don't quite understand what you are saying. Thus the limits of wikipedia - truly, anyone can edit... cheers, Nomoskedasticity (talk) 21:19, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

'Nómos' will be obvious to all. skedánnûmi (σκεδάννυμι), to disperse, shiver (into fragments). It's not that many don't understand: they are, many of them, highly intelligent techies: it's just that a genetic mutation has occurred, and the older style of learning looks like fossilized tomfoolery. For one thing, the old dinosaur world in which I was reared, was comfortable navigating its way through several levels of meaning. They are accustomed to a binary world, of simple choices, and quick economic 'solutions' that sweep complications under the carpet. I'm not playing 'the age card' as one remarked. It's just that I bumbled like a garrulous geezer into a youth culture that takes subtlety as a symptom of old-codgery, the doddering dialectics of oldsters maladapted to their world, which is the only 'real' one they think exists.Nishidani (talk) 08:14, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Convoluted English

Hi Nishidani, 'Eight Palestinians were killed — including multiple family members of seven-year-old Huda Ghaliya' is indeed strange. The natural parsing would be to take "members" as a noun and drop the adjectives and agree that arms and legs are the only members that Huda has. (One hopes she still has those at least.) Even if one took "family members" as a compound noun, it just sounds strange. Even taking other senses of "family, "stoats, otters and badgers are family members of the weasel" is weird.

"Eight Palestinians were killed, including several members of one family of which only seven-year-old Huda Ghaliya survived." would be better and clearer English.

And, yes, Oxford philosophy was definitely inguistic when I was there. The philosophy don in my college was Michael Hinton. He would complain about people being over-literal with grammar. Meinong was a particularly hobgoblin of his. Michael complained about people seizing hold of adverbs as qualifying the way in which soemthing is done. So that they claim not only that "I went quickly" qualifies how someone went, but so does "I went not"! Michael spoke about "non-affirmative qualifiers." which could be either "neutralising" or "negating". "Not" is the most obvious negator. "Israelis claim that" or "Palestinians claim that" are neutralising expecially around topics such as Jerusalem. --Peter cohen (talk) 13:58, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

G'day

Good Day Brother, I have unfortunately been rather absent from wikipedia for personal reasons as of late, but want to thank you ever so much for keeping an eye on a number of the pages you have been relating to the israel/palestinian conflict, and ensuring that they conform to wikipedia NPOV policy. Though I am from Australia, truth and accuracy in such politically contentious matters in this region are of great concern to me, especially in an area as politically, culturally, and religiously significant as Jerusalem. I will hopefully be back to my usual daily activity soon, so if there is anything I can do or there is some pages you would like me to keep an eye on in your absence, please let me know. Cheers. Colourinthemeaning (talk) 19:03, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

PS: Sorry i put this here, instead of below the following section but it did not seem to work.

Haim Farhi

Thanks for your continued assistance on this page, Neil. It's looking pretty good now, though I can see where further work would be required (I need a better library to top off obscure points). Still, though not a FA candidate, it should have GA status (if it hasn't gained it yet. I note it failed the test back in January). One thing. Is there a template that enables one to reorganize the books cited in the refs., according to the standard wiki format? Regards Nishidani (talk) 16:39, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Certainly it's a lot better than it was, but I think it still has a long way to go before it merits GA status. I have more or less reached the end of the improvements I can make without further discussion, and have been thinking of drafting a (quite lengthy) list of items to put on the talk page. Probably the most important of these has to do with the "flow" of the article, which I think is currently very poor. There are also some long and clumsy sentences which need to be improved. Among many other smaller points which have been bothering me, "al-Jazzar" is a better transcription of the Arabic than "al-Jazar", and I think should be changed, unless "al-Jazar" is the predominant transcription in all the relevant sources. The other main fault, instantly disqualifying it from GA status, is that large chunks of the article still require citation - although, again, it's a helluvalot better than it used to be, thanks to you.

Regarding templates, what you have done so far is perfectly OK, and doesn't need to be changed for GA status. But FWIW, my preference is to have, near the end of the article, a "Notes" section consisting ONLY of either <references/> or {{reflist}} or {{reflist|2}} (depending how many refs there are), followed immediately by a "References" section, containing a bulleted list of books, in alphabetical order by author (and by date within author if more than one book by the same author). The advantage of this scheme is that, in the text, you need only write <ref>Smith, p. 123</ref> or <ref>Smith (1985) p. 123</ref>, making the text a lot easier to follow when editing it. It then makes sense to use templates in the bulleted list. Again, there is more than one way of doing it, but you can find my personal preference at User:NSH001/citation.

You may need to be patient for my list of improvements (too many other things to see to!).

--NSH001 (talk) 17:54, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Take all the time you need. There's no rush at all. I agree on all of what you say. I'm in no hurry on this, either. I've always looked at and mused over what it ought mean, but lacked the technical curiosity to frig round with it and twig its function, so your explanatory note clears things. Thanks again. It is a mystery to me why my 4 tildes do not translate into a signature and dating?!!

problem

Looks like a glitch in the wiki software to me. I get the same problem on my own page.

Seems to be swallowing up newline chars before parsing the wiki markup. We'll probably have to wait until the developers in the US wake up and fix it.

No need to apolgise - I enjoy helping people out!

However I have a pressing job which is going to take most of my time over the next week or two, so I won't be around much.

It probably is time that your talk page is archived, though. I've never had to archive my own talk page yet. I'm happy enouh to take the risk of messing up my own page, but I'd rather not mess your up page in the process of educating myself. I suggest you post

{{helpme}} on your talk page, followed by a request to archive your page, and specifying where you'd like the cut-off point to be. That should bring a technical expert to your help quite soon. Good luck, NSH001 (talk) 09:40, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

{{helpme}} Nishidani. When I sign off the 4 tildes do not translate into my user name and (2)People posting on this page can no longer edit in the 'new section' area. See immediately. Suggestions would be appreciated (talk) 10:16, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

• I think someone forgot to close a "nowiki" tag. It seems to be fixed now. Ten Pound Hammer and his otters • ^{(Broken clamshells•Otter chirps)} 10:23, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

yinaal abuk

there were no plastinein people before the turks in land of israel and the land belong to israelis and aza or ghaza is place of hara! land of israel not palestine! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.80.97.18 (talk) 08:45, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Just a footnote on your interesting, sweetly finnesganswakesque use of the English language. Plastinein can mean, I presume, a syncopated 'Palestine+nein' in which a German voice of audibly intolerant tone negates Palestine. Or, thinking in terms of wider indo-european linguistics punupmanship, plastos (Greek for 'moulded, formed)+ nein (no), presumably 'no-formed'. This is about the sum total of what passed through my mind in reading your remarks.Nishidani (talk) 10:34, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Al-Husayni

Good news, I found the Arabic transcript of Husayni's memoirs [34] :). Any specific information you're interested in? Imad marie (talk) 16:56, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

That's marvellous Imad. Now there's no need to rush with things like this. What would be helpful if someone like yourself could read his memoirs carefully, and see what in them might be helpful to round off, or, if needs be, correct, the page we have on him (it needs substantial reworking in other regards in any case). A few points however do come to mind. A close examination on his account of his relations with the Nazis during the war (one point that we need to know is what was the precise word he used in expressing his surprise/astonishment at Himmler's remark confiding to him that the Nazis had exterminated 3 million Jews. Does he say he was anything more than surprised?, for example. One text I have read, but cannot locate, (unless my memory is playing tricks) is he recounts Himmler asking him how he would deal with the Jews, and he is supposed to have replied, 'I would send them back to their countries', and Himmler said 'Not to Germany'? If this can be sourced to the memoirs it would be of advantage. He has, mind you, a huge case to answer for, and not only for falling into the embrace of Nazis. I just think we need to thresh the chaff from the text, because a lot of early writing on him did confuse his original national-patriotic resistance to the Zionist takeover of Palestine with antisemitism, whereas his antisemitism, in the strict sense of the word, appears to develop decades later, according to several sources, and should not be confused with the former defence of the watani, which was shared by a great many of his compatriots, and wholly normal. The Nuremburg testimonies are apparently fictions, but that he did embrace virulent antisemitism in WW2 seems beyond doubt. Anything on his knowledge of the Farhud or Golden Square incident would be useful. What happened after 1948, until his death in exile, is worth noting. Well, there, I've been rather exigent. Take your time, peruse the work, and anything you yourself think pertinent to the page can be referred here. No rush, think in terms of months. Thanks then for looking into this. Regards Nishidani (talk) 17:15, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Hello Nishidani, you were right about Al-Husayni's response, this is the translation:

"Himmler told me that they killed 3,000,000 Jews, I was surprised to hear this number and I knew nothing about it before, then Himmler asked me, how do you plan to solve the Jewish case in your country?, I replied: we want nothing from them but to return to their original country, he said: we will never allow them to return to Germany."

It is a very interesting document indeed, I have much to read in the coming weeks. Imad marie (talk) 06:49, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

This should definitely be added after the Schwanitz statement, as representing al-Husayni's own memory of the episode. We just need the Arabic text to be posted on the al-Husayni page with the suggested translation below it, so all editors can have an opportunity to review it. RegardsNishidani (talk) 13:33, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for the changes you made to my translation. Just one thing I think must be fixed: "for our Palestinian and Arab causes" refers to the "sincere", and not to "cooperate with Germany". Thanks Imad marie (talk) 13:57, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Shulapa

Hello Nishidani,

I've read the aritcle about the Palestinian people (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_people) and found it as one of the most informative in what can be a tricky subject to handle (especially in this political situation).

I am writing an article for uni about the the origins of the palestinian nationalty as they are presented by the palestinian themself and wanted to see if I could recieve some help from you on this subject which you seem to have similar interest:

1. In the article is writen "Some modern Palestinians claim ancestral and cultural connections to the ancient populations that dwelled in Palestine, particularly the Canaanites, an issue of contention within the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict." - can you direct me into such claims made or citation from politicale/intelctual leader?.

2. In footnote 39 there is a citation reference to "Khalidi, W., 1984, p. 32" - I couldn't find from where was this taken can you help?

3. Can you think about more directions where to find information about where do the palestinians find there national origins which part from the panarbic history - including if do they make the connection to the 1830 revolts against muhamad ali's conscirpts or other revolts against the empire.

I would appriciate all the help you could provide - Eyal —Preceding unsigned comment added by Shulapa (talk • contribs) 08:50, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

shulapa2002@gmail.com

Hi, Shulapa. Thanks for your enquiry but I am nowhere near an expert on these matters, but simply an amateur with strong curiosity and some extensive reading.

A note of caution. Generally, Universities do not accept papers that source their information from wikipedia, understandably and rightfully so.

Wikipedia's articles do however have considerable bibliographical sources in their references section. Rather than take leads from a wiki text like this, you do well to consult directly those sources in a decently-furnished University library.

I haven't checked the exact reference but any W.Rashid on the page refers to the fine scholar Walid Rashidi, and if the date is 1984, I presume the reference is to that scholar's Before Their Diaspora: A Photographic History of the Palestinians, 1876-1948. Institute for Palestine Studies.

The claim of continuity between the Palestinian population and the Canaanite population of antiquity was one fashionable in PLO histories. The standard line in PLO documents from the 1960s was to stress a continuity and identity between the Canaanite population (Jebusites, Philistines etc) and the modern Palestinian population. This is not simply however a PLO political fiction (though like all concepts of identity it has those elements and instrumental functions), since it was also a very widespread view held by travellers from the 17th century, and is all over the ethnographic reports of various Biblical investigators in the Victorian period who studied the peoples, topology and culture of the ‘’qutr’’ of Palestine long and hard. These are discussed by Rashid Khalidi, in his book Palestinian Identity,pp.35-62, cited on that page. The construction of Palestinian identity parallels the Zionist construction of Israeli identity, in some sense imitates it. Indeed in the 1950s there was a cultural-political movement in Israel also that constructed Israeli identity in terms not of the Bible, but of the presumed Canaanite origins of many Jews themselves. They were called, if memory serves me correctly, the Canaanites.

There are extensive sources on the revolt against Muhammed Ali's conscription (one might remind oneself that there was an inflow of Jews from Russia into Palestine at that period who in part had emigrated to avoid being conscripted into the army of the Tzarist empire, after a law was passed in 1827 which compelled Jews to serve). Specialists on Palestinian identity do regard resistance to Ibrahim Ali's conscription policies (and many other measures, several of them very intelligent) as germinal for the development of a wider sense of communal identity (one element in this identity formation is that the Egyptians created consultative bodies (majlis al-shura) that allowed both Christians and Jews an equal footing with Arabs). One further point. the revolt against conscription broke out in May 1834 (not 1830).

In any case, identity is a construct, under constant change, and there were several Palestinian identities (as there were many distinct Jewish identities), not distinct or isolated but is osmosis with other social groups. Both Napoleon's invasion, and Ali's invasions, in so far as they were experienced as impositions from the outside, naturally tended to unify sentiments across tribla, clan and caste lines. The old adage is always true. There is no better way to consolidate national unity than to have, or conjure up if one is lacking, the spectre of a foreign enemy. This is rather wobbly, and not much help. But if you read the key texts in the bibliography of that page, you'll learn far more about the subject than I can tell you. Good luck Nishidani (talk) 09:57, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Alexandroni Brigade 33 Battalion

as noted from al-Tantura

• Golani Brigade 11th 12th 13th 14th 15th
• Carmeli Brigade 21st 22nd 23rd
• Alexandroni Brigade 31st 32nd 33rd 34th
• Kiryati Brigade 41st 42nd
• Giv'ati 51st 52nd 53rd 54th
• Etzion Brigade 61st 62nd 63rd.....hope that answers your question.... Ashley kennedy3 (talk) 23:19, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

In fact, these are the number of batalions at the end of the war.

In May, when Tantura occured, there were at max. 3 batalions per brigade.

Regards, Ceedjee (talk) 18:15, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks to both of you. The vast ocean of my ignorance has suffered, gratia vobis, a slight but important ebb.Nishidani (talk) 18:21, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Muslims/Arabs and violence

Nishidani, I was honestly touched by your comment. I didn't imagine I would hear such a comment from a European(?).

I always ask this question when people accuse Palestinians of violence or terrorism, did those phenomenons exist before 1948? It's not like I cannot be self-critical of Muslims/Arabs, actually I'm always self-critical but only where it applies, and only when it's fair.

Thank you wikipedia for giving me the chance to communicate with people from Europe and all over the world. Imad marie (talk) 15:06, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Award of a Barnstar

		The Barnstar of Diligence
		The Barnstar of Diligence is hereby awarded in recognition of extraordinary scrutiny, precision, and community service, especially in regard to article improvement. Awarded by PhilKnight (talk) 16:48, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Morris/Pappe

The peanuts quote is from the J Post, as per the reference. While Gilabrand is using POV to try to belittle the use of Pappe then surely the opposite should also be used? It's not my fault that Benny said that killing 800 in war crimes is peanuts and it does put the rest of Morris' quotes into perspective....Ashley kennedy3 (talk) 17:28, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Hence I'm doing lots of co-ords, tidying etc. away from the run of the mill....Ashley kennedy3 (talk) 18:06, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Morris: Israel's Border Wars

Hi Nishidani! Google Books doesn't allow the preview of pages 214 and 215 of the book, which probably has a lot of relevant info to the Beit Jala raid. It appears that you have this book. Can you e-mail me these pages (scan/camera) or something? It will enable me to make many positive changes to the aritcle. Thanks, Ynhockey ^(Talk) 21:15, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

There's nothing useful on the actual incident on p.214. I've excerpted the gist of the relevant pages as quickly as I can, hoping I haven't missed anything important. That newfangled technology which you mention'd be nice, but beyond my feeble wits to invest in.

‘The rape-murder of Leah Feistinger (see chapter 2*) in December 1951 sparked calls for revenge against the suspected perpetrators, refugees from Walaja who had committed a similar crime the previous February and were living in Beit Jala, near Bethlehem. The reprisal took place on the night of 6/7 January 1952,Christmas Eve in the Eastern churches. An IDF platoon attacked three of Beit Jala’s outlying houses with light weapons and grenades, and then blew up two of the huses while their occupants were still inside. Six people, including two p.215

(When Morris points to chapter 2 he's referring to pp.61ff. of same book, with details about the Mansi gang. Intruding note by Nishidani).

n 16 p.215‘Western diplomats were not convinced that the Feistinger rape-murder was the work of infiltrators. In Apr.1953 the US consul-general in Jerusalem wrote: ’It was never shown that the act was not committed by her Israeli boy-friend’

p.216 girls, aged 7 and 12, and two women, were killed, and three persons, including an 8-year-old by, were seriously injured. The raiders left behind leaflets, in Arabic, saying:

‘On 4/12/ 1951 some persons from among the inhabitants of Beit Jala killed a Jewish girl in the neighbourhood of Bayit VeGan, after committing against her an unpardonable crime. What we have done now is the penalty for that ugly crime. We shall not stand idly by in the face of such crimes. In our quiver there are always arrows for (such criminals). Let those who can, heed this warning…’

The chairman of the IJMAC, Colonel Bennett de Ridder, privately called the Beit Jala raid ‘a shameless act of terrorism’. In the ensuing emergency meeting of the IFMAC on 8 January, Ramati proposed four measures to alleviate the situation: (1) The passage by Jordan of a law making infiltration illegal and punishable with stiff prison sentences. (2) The removal of refugee communities from the border area, and their orderly rehabilitation and employment. (3) Demarcation of the frontier.(4) The return of the Jordanian authorities of stolen Israeli property. He went on to say that the only adequate answer to terrorism during the past fifty years had been counter terrorism, and if an 18-year-old girl is raped and carved up, we (should not) be surprised if those who knew her decide to respond, especially when the criminals are known to them . . We would not be surprised if you find that the (perpetrators) live in the houses that were attacked’

But he denied IDF involvement ‘in this sad affair’. The alleged perpetrators of the rape-murder were named as Said Salah Jam’an, Jamil Muhammed Muharrab, and Muhammed Mansi. (Non died in the Israeli raid – though at least three of the dead and two of the wounded were Mansi family members). Israel voted with Jordan and de Ridder in condemning the raid.

The Jordanian authorities believed that the Beit Jala raid highlighted a ‘divergence of policy’ in the Israeli government, between Moderates and hardliners. As Ahmad Bey Touqan, the Jordanian delegate to the IJMAC, put it: ’The Israeli Foreign Minister (Sharett) wished to follow a relatively moderate policy but . . the army had the opposite intention . .(and) the army policy appeared in the ascendant’. But the British ambassador to Tel (page break, end of 215) Aviv disputed the idea of any rift between Moderates and hardliners, Foreign Ministry and IDF:

‘I have the impression (he wrote in July 1952) that the (Foreign)Ministry . .the army . . the (Israeli)MAC delegation, the police and all the others concerned on the Israeli side work very close together, are subject to co-ordinated policty instructions which they carry out to the letter . .’

But despite the obvious efficiency of the raiders and the apparent synchronization of the raid with the January 6 raid on the Bedouin encampment near Bureiji in the Gaza Strip and a smaller raid against a house in Imwas, in the Latrun salient, in which one Arab villager was injured, Beit Jala left a spoor of uncertainty about its authorship among Western observers. As the counsellor at the British Embassy in Tel Aviv wrote: ’’If (the raids) are not carried out by Israeli troops (and we are inclined to think they are not), they must be carried out by the inhabitants of the defensive border settlements..’ p.217

‘There seems to be no evidence to support the Jordan contention that “all the attacks are by regular military forces”.’ Wrote another British official. The raid prompted speculation among foreign observers about the purposes of Israel’s border policy. De Ridder thought that Israel was trying to provoke full-scale hostilities with Jordan, perhaps with the aim of territorial aggrandisement. Glubb, taking a more Machiavellian tack, believed that Jerusalem wanted a ‘somewhat disturbed frontier’ in order to persuade its public to accept the rigours of Israeli life by ‘constantly’ crying ‘that the enemy is at the gates’. Moreover, he argued, the Israelis had a psychological need to bully their weaker neighbours. p.217

p.218 = The British Embassy in Tel Aviv seemed to accept the raids at face value ‘as simple reprisals, designed to make Arab infiltration unpopular in the Arab villages’, to force the Jordanians to agree to a proper demarcation of the frontier, and, perhaps, to agree to ‘a settlement’. The ambassador, implicitly defending Israel’s policy, cited the Israeli comparison of IDF raids with British reprisals against Egyptian terrorists in the Suez Canal zone. . .

Yet Whitehall was unhappy with Israel’s retaliatory policy. ‘’Their belief that toughness pays in their dealings with the Arabs is based on a misunderstanding of the Arabs character. Their raids may temporarily have cowed the infiltrators but if repeated will provoke . .counter measures.’p.218

Washington, on the other hand, went ahead with formal representations to Tel Aviv, the American consul in Jerusalem called the raid ‘open, organized and provocative brutality’. The State Department told Israel that, while the US understood its difficulties stemming from infiltration, the ‘military incursions by Israel into Jordan or other neighbouring states (for the) purpose (of) shooting people or destroying property appeared to dept as (end of 218)

p.219=extremely grave violations Armistice Agreement which c(ould) not be justified under any circumstances.’ Dean Acheson spoke of ‘brutal . .terror tactics’ US Ambassador Tel Aviv Monnett Davis initially said IDF got upper hand over avowed policy of government, since the ‘dominant military clique’ held a cynical view of moderates’ efforts to make peace.

But Davis was told by unrepentant Sharett reiterating ‘(the) familiar doctrine that (the)language of reprisals is (the) only one Arabs seem to understand. ’ ‘But, at least in the short term, the Beit Jala raid considerably diminished Arab infiltration along the J-I frontier and cooperation increased between their security forces. Six weeks after infiltration decreased 75 % Washington acknowledged results but they were still ‘unwarranted methods (of)dealing with infiltration’p.219

Hope this is enough. I think Ceedjee has a copy at hand as well.Nishidani (talk) 21:45, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Thank you very much Nishidani! Actually I only needed p. 215 (Google Books has 216-218), but it's nice you included everything in normal text without me having to OCR the Google Books version anyway. On a personal note, I didn't care too much about digital cameras in the past, but after buying one a year and a half ago, I absolutely can't imagine living without one. It's possibly the best purchase I've ever made :) -- Ynhockey ^(Talk) 16:11, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

On rereading Benny Morris's Border Wars. A Reflection

'Families in Wadi Nasara under attack from two sides,' Christian Peacemaker teams 23 June 2008

The Palestinian families of Wadi Nasara--a valley on the outskirts of Hebron next to which the Kiryat Arba settlement has expanded--have had to put up with increasing amounts of settler harassment over the years. But in March 2007, when Israeli settlers occupied a Palestinian building across the road bordering Wadi Nasara, families in the valley, most belonging to the al-Ja’abari clan, began facing attacks from two sides.

The homes of three al-Ja’abari families lie literally within a stone’s throw of Kiryat Arba. The eighty people (including fifty children) living there face almost daily harassment from neighboring settlers. On 6-7 June 2008, settler youth entered the families’ property and smashed large rocks against the Ja’aberis’ rooftops, seriously damaging ceilings in two homes, and a solar water-heating panel on another. When CPTers David Martin and Kathleen Kern visited the area the following week, M. al-Ja’aberi* told them, “They have thrown stones at us for years. They even attacked Israeli peacemakers who visited our homes. But when they set our home on fire a year ago, we knew we needed to seek the help of international peacemakers in the area.” CPT has since begun daily patrols in the area, along with two other international groups working in Hebron.

On 13 June 2008, a group of eight to ten settlers from the “Occupied House,” as local Palestinians refer to it, crossed the road and entered the home of a multi-family dwelling. They shouted threats and attempted to attack people in the home; however Al-Ja'aberi family members managed to push them out. Settlers also regularly throw trash in the families’ yards and “target” the homes with red laser sightings. When asked whether they called the police during altercations, H.* Al-Ja'aberi, the father of one of the families, told Martin, Kern, and Marius Van Hoogstraten, that the police and army always help the settlers when called during such attacks.

“If I am in the yard, settlers will walk by without looking, but if only children are out, they will attack them,” he told the CPTers. “The kids grow up thinking everyone is equal,” al-Ja’abari continued. “My son doesn’t know there’s an occupation. If he is hit by a settler, he thinks it’s okay to hit back.”

Children learn however, that when Palestinians respond in kind to settler assaults, the Israeli authorities will arrest them and not the Israelis.

On top of the additional violence and harassment that the Occupied House has brought to the people of Wadi Nasara, the Israeli military apparatus protecting settlers living in the house has caused significant hardship. A checkpoint now forces H. al-Ja’abari’s family to walk 600 meters down a treacherous, winding path to gain access to a car (The main paved road in the area runs right by the family’s house, but the Israeli army permits only settlers to use it.) He was forced to take this path after undergoing abdominal surgery; the Israeli military would not allow the ambulance to take him home. “Even if I were dying, I would have to walk,” al-Ja’abari said.'

something you added in the lehi page

Hi, see in in talk page I propose removing the sentence about Israeli government from the lead since it appears with the same ref further down. The way it is now, it doesn't make much sense, since it seems that they both declared them terrorists AND honored them with the ribbon... the thing was, like you know, that after Israel was already independent, Lehi still existed in some form, and they murdered Bernadotte. This pissed the government off and they called them terrorists obviously... you see why this is Berndaotte related issue and should be discussed there and not in the lead, I'm sure. I don't want to RV fight. I know you're reasonable and I respect your opinions, we had some good arguments in the past. Amoruso (talk) 01:20, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, on this we shall have to disagree. Your objection seems to be that the Israeli government cannot appear to act irrationally, by branding a group terroristic, and later awarding its members an honour. The problem with this objection is that it is not grounded in history. History is not logically or morally coherent, anywhere. The honours were accorded when large numbers of the former Irgun/Lehi dissidence had been absorbed into the government. Secondly, no where in the lead is any reference made to Bernadotte's assassination. If one wants to expand on the background and clarify why the Israeli government branded Lehi terrorist, one can do so in the relevant section below, pointing out the Bernadotte circumstances. I have never mentioned Bernadotte in the lead, and would automatically erase any attempt by anyone to insert his name, on good technical grounds. The lead sentence as it stands is succinct, well sourced, and above all, coherent, in listing three instances in which Lehi was condemned for its terrorism. I'm sure you will recall that the whole designation terrorist has been frequently challenged in the lead, with numerous attempts to remove the Bunsche citation, for example. Any removal of the Israeli citation will, given these precedents, look like an attempt to downplay the facts, and eventually remove all references to these designations. Lastly, my edit was challenged vigorously before, in a wild defiance of the fact it comes from a very reliable source. The person subsequently withdrew the objection. If you like call in an independent mediator on this, but I will strongly oppose attempts to cancel that note.Nishidani (talk) 07:53, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

You should stick to the point. The reference already appears further down. There is no reason to duplicate it. By duplicating it out of context, it is distorted. Amoruso (talk) 10:03, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Who introduced it? It's quite simple. The lead has a series of sources on the terrorist designation. Why the UN and the other source can be named, but the internal Israeli government designation elided is wholly obscure. To remove the third notice, in a series, cannot be justified. If you wish to persist on this, let's take it, as is proper to a mediator. Nishidani (talk) 10:37, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Ok. Look, it simply doesn't make sense. if it doesn't bother you, fine. Amoruso (talk) 11:14, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

It doesn't make sense to you, and I have great difficulty understanding your objections, which are not based on Wiki's standard operative rules. It makes perfect sense to others. So we have an edit conflict. Take your case to arbitration.Nishidani (talk) 11:19, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

No, it doesn't make sense in the English language, to any neutral reader of the article. The lead simply is nonsensical, and self contradictory. Amoruso (talk) 11:23, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Okay, since I will be in hospital this afternoon, I'll ask the psychiatric department to check if I, a native speaker of English, with several decades of academic use of the language, am suffering from Altzheimer's disease impairing my instinctive and acquired knowledge of my mother tongue. As to 'neutral reader', I presume, since few have had their opinions vetted, that you are referring to yourself. Still, being scrupulous, I'll check again, before returning with a psychiatrist's report on the state of my linguistic competence.Nishidani (talk) 11:33, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Actually I was referring to you. I don't know why you want to pretend that the paragraph makes sense, perhaps it's an ego thing. Amoruso (talk) 11:37, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Tell me how many edits you've done for the Palestinian perspective, I'll compare them to the many I've done for the Jewish/Israeli perspective, and we'll make a quantitive analysis of who is more neutral. As to my 'ego', yes I tend to edit from a conscious perspective, and not from the promptings of my tribal 'id'. Thus, with my attempt at dialogue classing with your monologue's provocative insinuations, ends our brief if entertaining exchange.Nishidani (talk) 16:36, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm not impressed. Remember to be civil. [35] Oh and don't be ashamed of your bias :( [36]. Cheers, Amoruso (talk) 17:02, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, if we are in the business of providing each other advice, please read Othello, and study the language of Iago's innuendo. You seem, at a very lower register, familiar with the trick, but reading a classic on it might elucidate obscurities in your mode of address, which, from the outset, was provocative in tone (not that this worries me) while rehearsing the surface ritual of civility.

I'm quite aware of my bias, in fact when editing I keep it clearly in view, so that I can erase its susurrus from the edits I intend to make. Your bias is, in my humble view, in everything you edit, a proud blatancy of POV that damages this encyclopedia. Don't worry, I don't undertake Sisyphean tasks like impressing unimpressionable and, if I may add, unimpressive editors. Let's close this exchange on this polite note.Nishidani (talk) 17:20, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

See WP:SOAPBOX, although you're entitled to write any drivel in your discussion page. By saying I'm biased you're in violation of WP:AGF. I simply quoted you. Amoruso (talk) 13:03, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Kurt Vonnegut. p.s. Thanks for the soapbox, I'll wash out my ears, and bathe my sullied eyes. They hear far too much drivel, and read far too much dreck, as per above. Nishidani (talk) 13:16, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Such name calling also constitutes a personal attack. Amoruso (talk) 13:19, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

It's not naming, it's an allusion to a well-known phrase. But keep up your listing of all the massive and unconscionably rabid violations of Wiki rules I am to be indicted for. water off a duck's back. I won't even protest your using my page to this end, for, as Horace says, de te fabula narratur.Nishidani (talk) 13:47, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Right, "dreck" is a well known phrase. Please continue, your choices of phrases and idioms are fascinating, but the excessive use probably suggests an inferiority complex. Cheers, Amoruso (talk) 14:46, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Well make up your mind. Yesterday I had an ego problem, and now I have an inferiority complex. (2) Dreck is not a phrase, it is a word. (3) Don't post on this page unless, improbably, you have something intelligent to communicate to me about an article. Your record suggests you enter wiki from time to time to try and provoke me into some violation of the rules and earn a ban. It only leaves me yawning as I find this puerile gamesmanship rather boring. Thank youNishidani (talk) 14:52, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

"Dreck" is not a phrase, and which is why I began with "Right," in sarcasm. Superiority and inferiority complexes are often found together as the different expressions of the same pathology and the two complexes can exist within the same individual. Your last sentence suggests paranoia too. Amoruso (talk) 15:14, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, I suffer from an insufferable 'egotism'. I have an inferirority complex. There is no contradiction, since the egotism can be symptomatic of a superiority complex, and inferiority and superiority complexes often go hand in glove. As a consequence of remarking as an analysand on the interim results of my improvised psychoanalyst's diagnosis, I am now told I have paranoid traits.

The present results of Amoruso's diagnosis of Nishidani's pathology can be listed as follows:-

(a)I am an egotist.

(b)Suffering from an inferiority complex

(c)Which betrays lineaments of its obverse, a superiority complex

(d)And, more disturbingly, paranoid features.

I guess the next move is to brand me a fairy, since one of the few hypotheses in the Freudian schema to have found some empirical confirmation is the relationship of paranoia and homosexuality, the former being a defensive projection of the latter (Seymour Fisher and Roger P.Greenberg, The Scientific Credibility of Freud's Theories and Therapy, Basic Books, New York, 1977 pp.255-270)

That a Lehi aficionado can appropriate such techniques as part of what appears to be a wiki-warrior strategy is itself quite a dazzling spectacle. Yet I don't wear glasses, and look the soleil noir of these melancholic glarings in the eye (itself, come to think of it, a paranoid trait, as Freud argued in his diagnosis of Schreber) Nishidani (talk) 16:03, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Mufti and 1929 events

Hi Nishidani
I agree that this part of the article is too long ! Much should be moved.
I am not sure to understand what you ask me exactly. Do you want me to move the material concerning the 1929 events in a subpage ? Or is it something else ?
Ceedjee (talk) 17:47, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Moving on

I thought I'd let you know that I honestly appreciate this edit but I've grown tired of that page and it's arguments so I'm not going to follow up on the discussions. I hope to, in the future, give the page a look and not find something that annoys me, but Wikipedia has a cyclic tendency where disputes occur.
Cheers, Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 18:02, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

I appreciate that Jaakobou. Agreements are to be honoured, and that was the point of my defending the edit. On second thought, instead of waiting for you to turn up, I should have contacted you to join me on the defending the consensus. If I can be of use in any copyediting on historical articles you're working on, don't hesitate to ask me. I won't meddle, but just stick to stylistic problems. (p.s. the Ba'al Shem Tov 1777 pilgrimage certainly deserves a page, if it doesn't already exist)Nishidani (talk) 19:02, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

AfD

Your mind is welcome Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Palestinian Exodus 1949 to 1956 here. Ceedjee (talk) 08:50, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Hi,

Even if this is not my philosophy, I understand your point.

Freedom of speech is a very important value.

But you know, on the other side, I am very sensitive to this too when diffamation is concerned : I discussed with Ilan Pappé, Benny Morris, Yoav Gelber... I can tell you that the last two are far from the racists that the freedom of speech and echoing of the first one made believe about them. And I am aware of the nuances we can find in the word racism.

I hope Ashley can understand the richness there is in understanding the other side's point of view; far more better than fighting for one's own rights...

Amitiés, Ceedjee (talk) 10:10, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

King David Hotel bombing

Just to let you know the reason why I've just edited the change you just made to the article's introduction. There's no evidence that the hotel's manager or the British authorities had any reason to think that a bomb might have been planted in the hotel's basement until less than a few minutes before it went off. To talk about a 'failure' to clear the hotel implies that they had an opportunity to do it, which is not certain. Regards -- ZScarpia (talk) 12:55, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Enjoy the sport!

Pah, who cares about Wimbledon or Formula 1? [37] - Chrissie's the gal! - from the race ticker:

Chrissie Wellington freut sich mehr über den Sieg als über einen lächelnd vergebenen Weltrekord
Chrissie Wellington: „Es ist eine unglaubliche Erfahrung hier in Frankfurt zu gewinnen. Ich bedanke mich bei allen, die herkamen, um zuzuschauen. Es war ein perfekter Tag. Ich wusste nicht genau, wo der Weltrekord lag. Ich habe aber lieber diese wahnsinnige Atmosphäre genossen.“

Chrissie Wellington verschenkt Weltrekord
Die Britin lässt sich im Zielkanal feiern und verschenkt beim Kusshand-Werfen und Abschlagen den Weltrekord um wenige Sekunden: 31 Sekunden fehlen Chrissie Wellington bei der Siegerzeit von 8:51:24 Stunden am historischen Rekord.

Four out of four wins, and a massive sub-9, bloody brilliant! (I think she'll break the World Record soon enough anyway)

Off to watch Federer-Nadal now --NSH001 (talk) 14:11, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Ghadi Karmi

Hi Nishidani,
Thank you for your words on my talk page. Concerning Ghadi Karmi :

p.s. Ceedjee, I must however dissent emphatically from your remarks on Ghada Karmi. She is very well known, sought out as a commentator (I have heard her speak on several occasions, and her thought is precise and exceptionally well-phrased), deeply informed, with a professional background in medicine, but also a lecturer on her own country. Walter Laqueur is everywhere considered a reliable source: I use him myself. But he is not a qualified historian. Ghada Karmi is an extremely well informed person, and knows more by intimate family experience about certain things than what you will find in books written by fine scholars born after 1948. Please reflect a little on this. Those remarks, on Roland's page and elsewhere, sound, to English ears, more than intemperant, (offensive).Nishidani (talk) 11:56, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't know her (which is not at all a good point for me). I therefore trust you and rely on you to admit she is a clever and advised woman and even scholar in her fields. On the other hand, reading her entry, I cannot see in her contribution on the 1948 Palestinian exodus more than a witness account (what she admits to be) and concerning in her contribution to the 1948-1988 exodus more than a political apology (when it is written she defends the palestinian cause).
So, for my point of view, Ghadi Karmi can only be a reference in wp articles talking about political analysis or in her specific field of competences.
You may be right and it could be possible that she has the real and only right vision on the issue (and that historians are wrong). But this is not the issue : between an historian (or better a panel of historians) who studied a difficult issue, gather all witnesses reports, check documents, cross-check material, study and think about the context and... a testimony of a people that lived -directly- the events, it may be she is true and they are wrong, but the probability is little and therefore, her mind irrelevant for wikipedia concerning history. And even more given she has been spoliated by the events.
About this : "[she] knows more by intimate family experience about certain things than what you will find in books written by fine scholars born after 1948".
Indeed like eg Ariel Sharon except that he was not just 9 years old girl in 1948 but was 20 and active on the battle field. I am currently reading his autobiography : he is very clear, well-phrased, extremelly clever in his analysis even if -I think- dishonnest. If anybody would have taken Ariel Sharon account as a wp:rs source, how would people react ?
Without the filtering of an historian, a sociologist or a political scientist, it is very hard to use wp:rs source.
Anyway, sorry if I offended you concering my comments on her. My only point is that she has no PhD in history and political science, which I don't have either. Any other comment from me concering her would be no more than an hypothesis...
We both (and many many) agree that Palestinians suffered and still suffer far more than Israelis (even if some claim that suffering cannot be compared). But this doesn't prevent us from telling the truth and doesn't prevent us from trying to give honnest pictures to facts. Here is an interesting article : [38] that mutatis mutandis shows why oral history is hardly reliable. Ceedjee (talk) 13:07, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Ceedjee, you'll never catch me saying anyone or any source has 'the real and right vision' on anything (well, I'm old and have my homeric nodding sessions, so if you do find me thinking so, thwack me). I took exception to what reads like a sneer about her qualifications (knowing your record I don't think you meant that, but it read like it was). I appreciate your technical point, but wiki also has a page on a deeper problem, which is 'systemic bias', and in this area (1948 etc), systemic bias tends to emerge in the limited number of high quality RS sources. Morris did a huge amount of work in the Israeli archives, his book is a brilliant piece of research, the best to date, but he has no narrative imagination, i.e., his work to an outsider like myself looks, within the context of history-writing at the highest level today, curiously mechanistic. (I am reminded of one of the greatest historians of the 20th.century, Raul Hilberg, whose work I deeply admire. Morris is in good company, in that sense). The lives of over a million people are described, caught up in the lumbering mechanical harvester of seismic events, and like an engineer, he takes all measurements recorded by scientists at the time, it is not his brief to see the havoc from inside. From Simon Schama to Max Hastings, from William Dalrymple to Felipe Fernández-Armesto, we are accustomed to history that does precisely this. It is not written only with a theodylite, but with a sweep of evidence from diaries, political reports, newspapers, academic sources, contemporary gossip, period memoirs. It's not that 'the historian' in this case is wrong, it's the fact that we have a very small number of historians who have worked comprehensively on that period, nearly all Israelis, and the works they have written are exemplary, but idiosyncratic in the privilege they accord to statistical data and archival notes (mainly from one side), or material important from an Israeli perspective. Morris's view is not what 'historians' think. It is what a brilliant historian with unparalleled experience especially in Israeli archives reconstructs of the minutiae of orders, intelligence memoes, etc.etc.

The parallel with Sharon is not quite proper. Sharon's memory, as Morris shows, was notoriously self-serving, and he wrote with a very strong eye to political ends, as part of his self-promotion within the world of Israel's politics. Ghada Karmi is cut from a different cloth. She has no historical record, as does Sharon, for consistent mendancity. That doesn't mean that what she writes is 'true'. All memoirs have to be used with care.

Perhaps I can illustrate this with Keith Windshuttle, one ofn those boringly brilliant Communists of the 60s who drifted on to become a brilliantly boring neocon in the 1990s. Now, he set about writing the definitive history of the White occupation of Australia, and the first thing on his agenda was to dispel the 'myth' that genocide occurred. His first volume deals with the Tasmanian aborigines, the last pure blood of whom died in 1873. His cites in great detail the archives, and systematically uses them to deny 'genocide' which is a leftist myth, a fiction, based on oral histories. If it isn't in the archives, it is not 'historical'. If it is 'oral' history, not being recorded at the time on paper, it is doubtful evidence. You can conduct this operation virtually throughout the whole world's communities and come up with a beautiful picture. Anyone, like myself, who comes from a very old pioneering family knows Windshuttle's history is archival and mad. The archives simply did not record what was going on. Most pioneering families can tell you in detail about the murder of tribes, and what they say corresponds more or less to what descendants of those tribes say. In Morris's 24 massacres, we know almost nothing of the details, because survivors weren't interviewed, and many cases hushed up in Israel. So if you tell me Morris has greater credibility because he is an archival historian than a Palestinian doctor narrating what she and her family experienced, I think that you are asserting a very simplistic approach to the nature of history.

It's not Palestinian suffering in the past that motivates me to get facts right. It is the fact that that suffering has been so thoroughly disremembered while celebrating the triumph of a people securing themselves from a European holocaust, that the heirs of that triumph still keep thinking of the Holocaust, to justify what is a structured nightmare occupation of the heirs of the nakba. Orphanages are being shut down in Nablus and Hebron, catering to hundreds of children, and defended by now only by Christian peacekeepers, with funds seized, computers taken or smashed, and all educational means expropriated by the IDF, simply because the 'charity' comes from foreigners who gave it to Hamas, who run these institutions. A fish-farmer who couldn't use his fields because piped water was cut off, and his harvests destroyed by settlers, asked Tony Blair the other day to protect his fish-tanks. Blocked from water, he dug wells and found a saline water that could support seafish, and produced for the Israeli market. Huge investment, and if the IDF dislikes it, and settlers have excellent IDF contacts, it can be bulldozed. Israelis are full of the history of Jews being persecuted, and cannot see the analogy they are creating. Neither can Morris. When a few eloquent Palestinians like that woman come up, they get the usual harsh treatment. 'Not competent', 'not qualified'. Until their testimony is taken into the historical record, and its grief absorbed, Israeli will remain what it is, a deeply maimed democracy which, in its persistent colonial adventurism, makes 'ghettoized' Jews out of those Palestinians who refuse to take to the diaspora their administrative masters want them to join. Someone will denounced this as a violation of WP:SOAP. The historians will dismiss this by citing the Zionist maxim, morals have nothing to do with history (and historical writing). History is not only a Gradgrindian enumeration of facts, and if wiki articles are to be such, I must conclude my contributions to it. Martin Sicker is a 'reliable source', and is consistently unreliable, etc.etc. Amitiés.Nishidani (talk) 14:14, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Still so long ;-)
>Israelis are full of the history of Jews being persecuted, and cannot see the analogy they are creating. Neither can Morris
Refering to the exemples you give here above : you are right about Israelis.
But you are wrong for Morris. 1. He is perfectly aware of what happens. You know, he is one of the 1st refuzniks. 2. It is not difficult to read in his works the reasons (arguments) that, at his eyes, justify and explain why the Israelis do not "see the analogy they are creating". I am amazed you didn't notice this. Don't you remember the preface of Victims : who they are and what they do ???
In fact, he already wrote 10 years ago what I have just pointed out of your text.
Please, let me add what I underlined was not naievely technical. wp:npov is the only way for people to collaborate at wp BUT it is also the only way for people to understand each other...
See you, Ceedjee (talk) 20:19, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Cher ami,I am not, unlike you, an expert on Morris, apart from reading three of his books. His late interviews disturbed me. As I said in a recent edit to my remarks above, I consider Morris close in technique to one of the men I admire most, whom I think ranks among the great historians of all time, up there with Thucydides,Sima Qian, Gibbon, Marc Bloch and the like, namely Raul Hilberg. Hilberg was coherent in his principles all his life, and espoused views that I don't share, a Republican, a conservative. But his analytical rigour before a violent world became itself a moral lesson: he never let his understanding be compromised by political, ethnic or cultural affinities. There I think Morris has problems that tarnish the promise of his initial path to greatness. Once I have thoroughly mastered Henry Laurens 3 (the fourth is à paraitre) volumes, I will go back and closely reread Morris's masterpiece, since I have many remarks I would like to develop on it (if I only have time - this is a hobby, time taken off my major interests).

On NPOV you will always find me an ally. I doubt it is however the only way for people to understand each other. A lot of people, unlike yourself, pay lip-service to it, indeed insist on it, while behaving in an incorrigible partisan fashion. I think a few recent run-ins you've had arise from the failure of other editors 'on my side' to understand the philosophical underpinnings of your commitment to sources (we once exchanged notes on empiricism).

It's not technical, but the problem behind it, and your comprehension of the rule is precise, is philosophical. I'm sufficiently Hegelian to think that NPOV is a momentary Aufhebung, incomplete but better, being a more comprehensive synthesis of opposed concepts pre-existing it. One must allow for, on talk pages at least, a certain margin for vigorous engagement in which the assumptions of one's respective POVs emerges. I know the rules say sdtick to the text, but many people who just edit, and never discuss, are deeply POV-minded. Some of the most productive (in terms of edit quantity) people in here seem to be to be intensely monocular and obsessively political in their rigorous use of the rules to exclude edits, purely because of WP:IDONTLIKEIT. I have seen a good many edits by precise, rule-bound editors which I shake my head at, regard as callously insensitive to observable and documentable realities. This is hard work for all of us here, and, while our differences will persist, I do not think they will trouble the strong collaborative work we have and can undertake together. I trust your bona fides, something rare for myself here, and hope I continue, in my own work, to retain your confidence in my own good will. Sorry to be long-winded. It's been a long day. I hope my frankness on your page is taken in the light intended, a remonstration from a friend. If I err, which I will do, by all means, take the same liberty to reprove me. Amitiés.Nishidani (talk) 21:05, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Two antisemite smears. The fourth and fifth since I began editing

(1) diff
Nishidani has an agenda here, and obviously he shouldn't be editing the article. He even tries now to equate Lehi with the antisemitic Mohammad Amin al-Husayni who he regularly supports in its article, because they both share the same views. Amoruso (talk) 16:53, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I didn't say that. You share the same anti-zionist views. It's you who says I'm a terrorist. Amoruso (talk) 17:28, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Let me construe your remark for you, since you appear not to understand what your own words mean, in English prose, and in logical entailment.

Mohammad Amin al-Husayni is antisemitic

Nishidani supports Mohammad Amin al-Husayni

They both share the same views.

The logical entailment here is that since

(Mohammad Amin al-Husayni's views included antisemitism)

Nishidani shares Mohammad Amin al-Husayni's views

it follows that

(Nishidani is an antisemite)
Nishidani (talk) 17:40, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Note 1. It does not help, except to humour me, that Amoruso, in a few sections above, also endeavoured to 'psychoanalyse' me.

Note 2. Amoruso is now seeding rumours on another editor's page that I called him a 'terrorist fanatic'Nishidani (talk) 07:06, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

(2)diff' proof of anti-Semitism? how about The Protocols of the Elders of Zion - the fraudulent antisemitic document that was one of the reasons that my family along with other 6 milion Jews were murdered in The Holocaust. I read one of your conversetions on wiki - that you beli(e)ve in it.

Just a bystander !?

--Shevashalosh (talk) 17:39, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Let me explain the logic of your remarks.

The Protocol of the Elders of Zion is an antisemitic document (true)

'I (Shevashalosh) read one of your conversations on wiki - that you believe in it'

Nishidani believes (in) the antisemitic document.

Logical entailment

(If you believe an antisemitic document, you subscribe to its tenets/arguments, you too are antisemitic).

I subscribe to the logic of this entailment, it's just that it has nothing to do with me, and the said conversation does not exist, and was invented by Shevashaloch to defame me.Nishidani (talk) 18:09, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

No. I'm sure you understand Logics.

Mohammad Amin al-Husayni is antisemitic

Mohammad Amin al-Husayni has different views: he likes dogs, the color blue, and he is an anti-zionist. He is also an antisemite.

They both share views: While Nishidani likes cats, he also likes the color blue and he is an anti zionist. He's not an antisemite though. Amoruso (talk) 17:46, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

The formatting of this section is almost impenetrable, but in my experiences with Nishidani I've never encountered anything remotely like anti-Semitism from him. I think the claim that he supports the Protocols is absurd, and I'd caution anyone against making such broad claims against the character of a fellow editor without extremely convincing evidence (as opposed to no evidence, which is what we apparently have here). Additionally, as I'm sure you've been notified, articles about Israel and the Israel-Palestinian conflict are subject to sanctions and probation from the Arbitration Committee. While this appears to be tantengtial to that, its safe to assume that poor conduct will be dealt with expeditiously. Avruch 20:42, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Mufti and 1929 events (2) - WW2

I am not sure you saw this [39] or I missed the answer :) Ceedjee (talk) 10:20, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Hello,

Here is it : User:Nishidani/Mohammad Amin al-Husayni's ties with the Axis Powers durging World War II

There is no problem to copy/paste material there and it is wise to work on this topic in your own space. 1st because of potential accusations of wp:own but also because numerous go and back will be needed and this could amaze (asnotish) contributors. This is also sensitive and people could become upset very fast, not understanding the article is under work.

My personal feeling is that it will be very difficult to sort the "factual" from the "fantasy". For once, I think here 2nd sources are not enough (and even not good) and that as much as possible work should rely on 2nd sources (or at least on 2nd sources the precisely quote 1st sources or refer to them).

I don't know if you have Zvi Elpeleg and Philip Mattar's books about the Mufti. They would not be bad. I expected to be disappointed from Moshe Perlman, Mufti of Jerusalem: The Story of Haj Amin el Husseini, V Gollancz, Londres, 1947 republié sous le titre Mufti of Jerusalem: Had Amin el Husseini, A Father of Jihad, Pavilion Press, 2006, ISBN 1-4145-0698-8. but in fact, he uses numerous primary sources in his study (even if propaganda remains the aim).

I will keep this page in my "watch" and give my comments (if any).

Good work.

Ceedjee (talk) 11:31, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Your worries are exactly mine. This requires great tact and precision, and I don't even want to consider suggesting a complete, revised ordering of the material, until I, and anyone else interested, have reworked it into a viable alternative that can then be placed before fellow editors for close review and criticism. I'm once more in your debt, my friend. No I do not have those two books, but may be able to consult them in December (one must think in the long term). Clearly they are indispensable. I'm no expert on al-Husayni, (my father, who fought in Syria-Palestine in WW2 and had vivid memories of Gaza which prompted me to travel through it later, occasionally spoke of the mufti as a seditious figure). Had it not been for your prompt I wouldn't have worked the page. I have found in any case ample sources in French and Italian historical books that none of these authors, esp. Nicosia, seems to have harvested. As you say, secondary sources are the thing (Note however, that I have retained the primary sources which have been cited most effectively against al-Husayni, such as the otherwise inaccessible report on his testifying to the Shaw Commission with a copy of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Technically, this could be eliminated by anyone as hailing from a primary source that no one can access. I strongly defend its retention. This is a very important piece of information which may just help in clarifying when his antiZionism began to assume antisemitic colours as a result of Western influences. I don't know whether it is true, but we need it in the text somewhere, in order to keep it in mind for corroboration while reading the secondary literature). Best Nishidani (talk) 17:17, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Reminder

Nishidani, I'm surprised. Whenever you raise a complaint about other editors, you should notify them on their talk pages. I've notified Amoruso for you, and Shevashalosh has been warned by an admin (though you might still want to draw his/her attention to the thread). Best wishes (and commiserations about Federer),
--NSH001 (talk) 21:50, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I have a long history of complaining about complaining. I have thrown my hat into the ring in egregious cases when the system is being rigged to get at someone, but I think one should just slug it out on the talk page. I really haven't the faintest idea what to do, because I haven't made a complaint in the past, and I have no intention of doing so in the future. It's just I dislike intensely this antisemitic slur in argument, and got fed up. All I wanted was for someone to note a problem and tell the culpable to back off. No Guantanamo trial. Thanks however, Neil, for catching my oversight. I've posted an apology to Amoruso's page. I've told Shevashalosh I appreciate his withdrawal of his remarks, on the Lehi page. Nishidani (talk) 21:58, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

No problem, I was just surprised, given that you yourself have been the victim in the past of other editors complaining about you behind your back, and I know you have an acute sense of "fair play". Sometimes we have to report crimes to the police, in the hope that that will reduce crime in the future (sorry, not a very good analogy). Regards,

--NSH001 (talk) 22:23, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

In retrospect, ignorance is no excuse, and my oversight was indeed unfair. I'd never noticed much. Come to think of it, someone else tipped me of Zeq had dobbed me in for a 3RR trap infringement he'd organized with a pal, which I walked right into. I'm glad you picked it up. The only time I reported a crime to the police was a burglary at 4 am in a shop underneath my apartment. I phoned the cops and even jumped out the door and chased the car to get the number plate. The cops arrived, and didn't know what to do, dithering, while I was telling them to phone headquarters to get surveillance on such and such a freeway for a car of such and such a description with the first three letters of the number plate. I walked off for a stroll and a smoke, came back to go to bed, after 40 minutes, and was stopped by two detectives who tried to grill me as a suspect. They didn't like my attitude, and were just about to arrest me, and I was just about to kinghit one of them who tried to push me up against the wall, when a young cop came up and told them I was the bloke who'd tipped them off. :) Nishidani (talk) 22:33, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Couldn't you just tell them that you're the one who tipped them off? Looks like when you need to fend for yourself, you loose your toungue. Take it in jest. Itzse (talk) 22:46, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I did, and that's what made them even more suspicious. They thought the truth was an alibi, and evidenced guilt. It happened near a University, and they jumped at the chance to harass an academic. Just a small pointer. 'fend for yourself' is not the mot juste for this context, since the reflexive form of 'fend' loses in this idiom its archaic sense of 'ward off'.Nishidani (talk) 12:00, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Nishidani; if you know me somewhat yet; do you think that I put that word there by chance? think deeper.

BTW, being able to speak a few languages; and enjoy speaking in puns across many languages; gives me lots of opportunities to speak in riddles; but except from my wife I mostly receive blank stares. Itzse (talk) 18:37, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Blank stares? My friend, the ear is what

Decides the matter, when you pun.

Eyes can't catch the soundshapes that

Tease tympana with their tapping fun.

Fend, my friend, lacks 'r', like fiend,

Its phonic fellow;'o' for 'e' yields fond.

'Fond' means mad, mad enough to spend

Wit fondling ears that won't respond.

In this, you're lucky. My sweet spouse

Casts quizzical glances when I riddle.

Wooing words, not her, about the house

Looks like she's playing second fiddle.

And left to shift alone for punning I

Fend for myself before a jealous eye.Nishidani (talk) 20:25, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Pun-de-mentally punny; as de-fend was meant in spite, not fiend or fond or feint or freint. A blank stare reflects how the mind pairs what the ear hears. Lucky I am, a Wikipedian Yidel, as who would indeed put up as second fiddle? What bothers me so much Nishdani my friend, is why, oh why, no f r i end to the very end? Itzse (talk) 21:49, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

ganz finnegansprachlich gesprochen

Oi, sink nacht, so laila tovarishly late

To feind sich a tolutiloquent spate

Uff zauber-zubrerant spreech, even the Brocken

On Valkyripurgis neight nerva herd

Hat peaks ears 2 twig each branching whirred!
Nishidani (talk) 22:57, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

I ran it through one of the transaltion services available on the internet and this is what I got.

completely finnegansprachlich spoken

Oi, sink nacht, thus laila tovly late

To feind to itself a tolutiloquent spate

Uff magic zubrerant speech, even the lumps

On Valkyripurgis neight nerva herd

Has peaks ears 2 twig each branching whirred!

Can you embellish it? Although I can read basic German and understand it, as a third of it is close enough to Yiddish; I still need to apply thrice translation, once of the word, another for its meaning; and another for its hidden meaning. Itzse (talk) 17:33, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Hey friend, this really is the end, you the poor maleficiary of my last edit in here. Its called Joycespeak (Finneganswake (how language thinks while we sleep)). Some hints eg.oi (I/exclamation of slight pain = It's uncomfortable to be self-conscious), nacht (nicht/night), sink (sink, and German pronunciation of English 'think') = Ah, sinks night (citation of Sappho's famous lyric on the Pleiades/I think not). Laila tov (Good lie, in both senses, esp. 'diplomats lie abroad for their country' cf.'nacht'. good night (thinking of Dylan Thomas's poem to his father, and 'acht' in 'achtung', take care not to lose consciousness at night). tovarishch = Russian for 'friend' ('tovar' its root means 'goods' and friends are a good), with a hint of 'Irish' (my ethnic identity) in 'arish'. Feind =find/feind/fend. sich (Scots for 'such', German 'sich'). Tolutiloquent, a word beloved of James Joyce and Sir Thomas Browne, canting at the cantering rhythm of a horse, no doubt Swift's Houyhnhnms. Uff =French exasperation/German auf/English of/off. zubr Arabic for 'cock', +exuberant(ex+uber+rant) (uber(Latin) means 'breast/udder', and udder is 'utter' childspeak+ueber in German) in English. Spreech = speech, preach, each, with an assonantal echo of 'screech' (name of a fine writer on Montaigne, and Hegel's owl that flies at dusk, cf night above). Brocken = the mountain (in the Harz (hearts) Range in Faust (but also 'broken' as in 'broken hearts') where the Walpurgis night took place. Valkyrie Norse myth's equivalent of the houris (itself a mishearing in Arabic of the Aramaic word for 'grapes', some sour grapes greet the suicidal soul) that attend the shahid+Val (valley)-kyrie ('the Lord'('kyrie eleeison'lord have pity on us) also 'rabbi', Christ) in classical Greek, 'sir' in modern Greek, the Lord of the Valley in James Clavell 's 1971 screenplay of The Last Valley with Omar Sharif and Michael Caine)+Walpurgis(will purge us night/whelp+purges+urges)in the Brocken myth. neight = night/neigh/nay(say)it. nerva (Latin nerva, 'nerve' 'penis' also Nerva (called Cocceius), a good emperor comparatively, taxing the rich to help the poor, refusing to waste money on statues to himself etc., + 'never' (neigh in Christmas bell songs+ 'neve' snow (on the mountain). herd =animals/heard/hurt in dialect. peaks = pigs' (as in the comic idiom 'pig's ear'+ peak of mountain (Pisgah's peak from which Moses saw the promised land through a cleft (pisgah) (the cleft foot of the devil, who plays on Walpurgis eve). Hat (had) witch's cap. 2 for 'two' in figures to allude to gematriya, which influences, I'm sure, your reading; twig = intuit/ part of a branch('twi' =double, as in twilight, but also t(o)wig 'make fun of': branching as in linguistics, the arborescent stemmae of words' connotations as they branch out from the originative (you would say 'Adamic') root; whirred (word, as heard on the swirling windswept (effect of my gasbagging) peak alluded to earlier, with assonantal proximity to 'weird' which is what this, and I am). This is the short version, whatever you make out from crisscrossing the hints is what I was hinting about, among other things). Best regards (ps. there's no such thing as a 'hidden meaning'. All that means is a lack of concentration by the reader, which of course is our normal state of mind). Remember the Palestinians in your prayers (sincerely, no irony intended, if I need add this apotropaically)Nishidani (talk) 20:05, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

BTW, stick up for GHcool and show that you're a mentch. Itzse (talk) 21:49, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm not a 'mensch' in the strict shtetl-yiddisch meaning of the word, but honoured you think I might aspire to be, or qualify as, one.Nishidani (talk) 23:20, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your input regarding GHcool; although I disagree with you. I think his home (user page) is his castle, and he should be allowed to write anything he wants there, short of what is forbidden by law; law of the land, that is. Itzse (talk) 17:15, 9 July 2008 (UTC). That is what I think too. I have abused mine, and if I hadn't be allowed, I would never have edited in here.Nishidani (talk) 20:05, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Just stopped by to say, I admire your civic-mindedness, especially in trying to get further details like license plate. amazing that they then tried to suspect you. weird stuff. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 16:56, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Not weird. It's happened to me more than once. Perhaps it's some criminal cast in my features. I must check my mug against those in Cesare Lombroso's volume. I had to hire a lawyer some years ago to stop myself being arrested, because the policeman interrogating me (for cutting down a tree) was outraged that I behaved as though I were his equal. :). Perhaps my editorial adversaries have surer instincts for the delinquent type than I give them credit for!Nishidani (talk) 17:26, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

No, we just like to be annoying. :-) so feel free to oppose us. :-) :-) just kidding. :) all kidding aside, seems like you tried valiantly to do the right thing. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 17:30, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

different editors

Thank you for both you notes !!! That is very sympathetic and wp:civil :-) !
I agree with your point concerning some of the editors who contribute on the same article as him. I am aware of that.
Please, be aware that user:Gilabrand, despite several disagreements with her, asked me to come and discuss with Ashley. This, at least, shows she wanted to try to reach compromise or mutual understanding.
I cannot discuss with him. I think it is cultural. He doens't answer the question he is asked and we cannot enter in any dialogue. The way I perceive this is as if logic was a matter of bargaining and the more you say, the more you are right ???
But never mind. I am currently working on maps are have other more important topics.
Note I am not at all a specialist of the post-48 period. If I had to claim about speciality, that would only be for physics and the '48 war.
Amitiés, Ceedjee (talk) 11:26, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Response

I reported you here [40]. Amoruso (talk) 13:39, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

no personal attacks

This was a personal attack. Please stop. This is your last warning. If you carry on with making personal attacks you will be blocked. Gwen Gale (talk) 17:06, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Nonsense. It is no such thing. It is an impersonal assessment of what occurred on that page. No need to exercise the usual administrative action. I'll do your work for you, permanently, without a grudge. Good luck.Nishidani (talk) 20:08, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

For the record, posthumously. I checked Amoruso's log ban, two month suspension for using several sockpuppets. Two weeks later Shevashalosh emerged, editing around desultorily until, a few days after the expiry of Amoruso's ban, he started complaining of problems in Amoruso's favourite page, the Lehi page. Amoruso emerged, followed me around several pages (King David Hotel Bombing, Tali Hatuel, the Lehi page etc.) then together with Shevashalosh worked to get the Lehi page back to where Amoruso wanted it. Shevashalosh's English, on the pages he created, is much better than his first English contributions in dialogue with me. It has suddenly improved notably (with syntactical forms and phrasing that imply, despite misspellings, a command of English not evidenced in his earlier posts), now that he has an administrator editing the page in consultation with him. Note that since they came, they have not adduced any textual references from the relevant literature to justify the alterations requested. Amoruso just looks on, having won his scalp, i.e., my exit. These are things one remarks on, but, according to the rules, cannot raise. They may not be the same: they certainly act in concert, and the result is, unknown to the administrator, several key elements that are standard in the academic literature on Lehi are now being cleaned off. Nice operation. Because this has occurred frequently, and this is now the third time I have, in combating these abuses, been the only one warned, my decision not to edit Wiki is only rational, since insistence on textual integrity has twice resulted in my suspension, and I do not wish this to be repeated a third time. One doesn't need an arbitration review to twig to this sort of gaming of the system.Nishidani (talk) 19:30, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

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