Talk:As'ad AbuKhalil

Bot report : Found duplicate references !

In the last revision I edited, I found duplicate named references, i.e. references sharing the same name, but not having the same content. Please check them, as I am not able to fix them automatically :)

• "Silverstein" :
  • <ref>[http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2008/05/legacy-of-rafiq-hariri-dahlan-plan-for.html The Angry Arab News Service/وكالة أنباء العربي الغاضب<!-- Bot generated title -->]
  • [http://harpers.org/archive/2006/07/sb-a-statue-to-reason-1152745267 “A Statue to Reason”, By Ken Silverstein (Harper's Magazine)<!-- Bot generated title -->]

DumZiBoT (talk) 17:33, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Problem Templates: Primary Sources, Self-Published Sources

9 out of the 17 references on this page are to AbuKhalil's self-published blog. This situation has to be remedied and improved. Plot Spoiler (talk) 01:07, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

Edit War - Alleged Statements on Israelis

I've reviewed the two posts by AbuKhalil that are in question. While they certainly can be interpreted as being extremely offensive, any such interpretation by a Wikipedia editor would constitute Original Research. In addition, given that this article is a WP:BLP, making interpretations like this is a definite red flag.(Hyperionsteel (talk) 03:31, 9 March 2013 (UTC))

I agree. Secondary sources would be needed to include the blog posts. — Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 03:40, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes, this is clearly original research synthesized by an editor and no evidence in the form of reliable secondary source coverage has been presented to demonstrate that this information is notable at all. Sean.hoyland - talk 03:50, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Due to the repeated insertion of this material without discussion on the talk page, it may be necessary to place this article under semi-protection.(Hyperionsteel (talk) 04:30, 26 March 2013 (UTC))

The edits should stay. It's just a quotation of something on his blog, something done on dozens upon dozens of blogger bios that I've seen. Examples: PZ Meyers. Rebecca Watson, Markos Moulitsas, — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tyrion12 (talk • contribs) 03:06, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

You are still applying your own interpretation of AbuKhalil's remarks from Primary Sources (in this case, two one-line posts from AbuKhalil's blog) to support your conclusion about AbuKhalil intentions. Yes, your interpretation is certainly plausible, however, Wikipedia:PSTS clearly states that "All interpretive claims, analyses, or synthetic claims about primary sources must be referenced to a secondary source, rather than to the original analysis of the primary-source material by Wikipedia editors." In addition, this article is a WP:BLP, which means that there is also a serious risk of libel. To ensure accuracy (and to avoid lawsuits), interpretations such as these do not belong in Wikipedia unless they are supported by a secondary source.{Hyperionsteel (talk) 22:44, 27 March 2013 (UTC)}

All the accounts adding this material are the same person. You dont need to spend the time arguing against them, there isnt an argument to be had here. nableezy - 03:14, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Pretty difficult to argue that quoting someone's statements are libel. Also, the man's opinions are quoted elsewhere on the page, so it's not like that is against the rules.Bazinga139 (talk) 18:30, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

If you want to discuss it and follow the rules, self-revert your edit. If you don't self-revert or don't want to follow policy, it will be reverted. There needs to be consensus for material to be included in BLPs. This is cherry picked primary sourced material with no evidence of notability. If there is more material that doesn't comply with WP:ABOUTSELF, remove it rather than add more. Sean.hoyland - talk 19:03, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

What counts as evidence of notability? If one requires an outside source, I'm going to delete a number of things from this article. Then I'm going to go to every article about a person and apply the unreasonable standard and tell them to ask why sean.hoyland wants to protect As'ad Abukhalil from being quoted on his own page.Bazinga139 (talk) 18:53, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

It's not an unreasonable standard. The policy is described at Wikipedia:Due#Due_and_undue_weight. Disrupting a charity is wrong. You should not edit disruptively as you did here, here and here just because I have edited the articles in question. In the first two cases the material comes from the cited sources as you could easily verify for yourself. In the third case you could have easily added sources yourself rather than remove well known uncontroversial facts about a famous artist's work. What I want is for all editors to follow the rules, and if they are unable to follow the rules despite having them explained to them, I want them blocked. For your interest, I know nothing about As'ad AbuKhalil and I have not read his blog a single time other than in connection with editing this article. That should give you a clearer understanding of what I want when I edit Wikipedia. Sean.hoyland - talk 14:07, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

That's utter BS. If you were so damn concerned about "undue weight", you would have removed the other parts of the article which cited AbuKhalil from his own blog. Instead, you only deleted the embarrassing quotes. You and other anti-Israel editors are protecting AbuKhalil from looking bad because of some nasty things he said. You'll lose eventually.Bazinga139 (talk) 18:43, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

I didn't I say I was concerned. If I were concerned you would already be blocked and this article would already be semi-protected. I'm implementing the content rules according to my understanding of them. I haven't looked at the other parts of the article you are referring to. My concern is disruption by people targeting the article. I have looked at your edits, earlier edits that appeared in my watchlist that also didn't comply with policy and the 2 subsequent edits to add more Wiki-editor sampled primary sourced material. So, your conclusions are invalid. Maybe one day I will look at the rest of the article and change things, or you could do it yourself as I have already told you, but right now I am looking at your edits. I'm not an anti-Israel editor but I do donate time to deal with a variety of disruptive and dishonest ethno-nationalist extremists who make Israel supporters look bad, if that is what you mean by anti-Israel. I see it as protecting a charity from disruption. If the subject of the article said something you regard as embarrassing and there is evidence, in the form of reporting of that information by a reliable secondary source, that someone that matters cares about it i.e. not you, it can be added to the article, as long as there is consensus for inclusion. The only thing that matters to me is that it complies with policy. Sean.hoyland - talk 19:48, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

You and other editors did not care about the article quoting Asad's own words until his words embarrassed him. (Consider the quote about the ways an Israeli could "redeem" himself in Asad's eyes; this was just a quote from his blog.) Therefore, you cannot argue that you're *only* concerned about complying with policy, because you (and/or other editors) didn't care about the policy until it hurt Asad's reputation. Selective enforcement of policy is bad for wikipedia. You're the one hurting it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bazinga139 (talk • contribs) 20:18, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

Clearly I can argue that I'm *only* concerned about complying with policy because that is exactly what I did. When I say something, I mean it. Whether you believe it or not doesn't matter in the slightest to me. You are free to consider all of the policy violations in the other 4.3+ million articles, many thousands of which are on my and other editors' watchlists, and derive any conspiracy theory you like to explain why we haven't fixed those. It's your life. Sean.hoyland - talk 06:22, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

Request for Comments

There is an RfC on the question of using "Religion: None" vs. "Religion: None (atheist)" in the infobox on this and other similar pages.

The RfC is at Template talk:Infobox person#RfC: Religion infobox entries for individuals that have no religion.

Please help us determine consensus on this issue. --Guy Macon (talk) 09:17, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

On BDS

As'ad's position on the BDS is quite clear. From his personal blog:

• "PS And for the umpteenth time, I never said that the real aim of BDS is to tend the existence of Israel, I said that it should be that. I wish it is the case but it is not. BDS has not officially endorsed that aim of ending Zionism in Palestine."

http://angryarab.blogspot.ca/2014/06/roseanne-and-bds-and-me.html

• "I added that: "the real aim of BDS SHOULD BE (I never said "is") to bring down the state of Israel". That statement was distorted to make me say that the real aim of BDS is to bring down the state of Israel, which isn't true, and I wish if it were true. "

http://angryarab.blogspot.ca/2015/06/netanyahu-lies-in-citing-something-i.html

• "I am making it clear that it is about how BDS should be and not about how it is now. I meant that FOR ME, BDS is about ending the Zionist occupation of Palestine completely. "

http://angryarab.blogspot.ca/2015/06/regarding-citation-by-netanyahu-of-my.html

Al-Andalusi (talk) 16:07, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

I don't think anyone disagreed with you in the first place that AbuKhalil wants Israel to go the way of the Dodo Bird.(Hyperionsteel (talk) 23:41, 16 July 2015 (UTC))

The source given for his position on BDS is this - http://english.al-akhbar.com/blogs/angry-corner/critique-norman-finkelstein-bds. This source reads: "Finkelstein rightly asks whether the real aim of BDS is to bring down the state of Israel. Here, I agree with him that it is." It does not get any clearer than that. Obviously, when the clear genocidal intent of his statements became public he tried to walk it back, but there you have it clear as day : "Finkelstein rightly asks whether the real aim of BDS is to bring down the state of Israel. Here, I agree with him that it is." Brad Dyer (talk) 15:55, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

First of all, the text on the Wiki page is not a quote, rather it is a summary of Abu Khalil's views, which in light of other statements like the ones above, confirms that the initial version is indeed true. Your version is a play on the words to insinuate something that was not implied by the author.

Besides, the idea that Abu Khalil flipped his views is laughable really, considering that he is just a supporter of BDS, and not one who is part of it in anyway for his views to matter. So there is practically no reason for him to switch his views. More importantly however, is that Abu Khalil is among the few scholars who wouldn't stop stating his clear and unequivocal position towards Israel. Visit his blog anytime and you'll know. Al-Andalusi (talk) 21:06, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

The text in the article is not a quote, but its source says "Finkelstein rightly asks whether the real aim of BDS is to bring down the state of Israel. Here, I agree with him that it is." So our article needs to reflect that. We can add that afterwards, AK claimed to not have said that, and base it on his blog entries. Brad Dyer (talk) 20:01, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Frist of all, it is quite misleading for the Wiki page to state that he "says that the real aim of BDS is to bring down the state of Israel".

But is he saying that *now*? becuase the multiple references from his blog explicitly reject that position and state otherwise (which is why the previous version of the wiki page described his position more accuratly). Secondly, I understand that you really believe that he held held a particular view at one point (at least during the time the article in al-akhbar was written) and then changed his view later on (perhaps in the face of intimadation from Zionist thugs on the internet), but the question is, do you have a proof to any of this? Because, let me tell you, I've actually come across one of his blog posts from 2010 that confirms that he indeed held the same position since the beginning: http://angryarab.blogspot.ca/2010/02/judith-bulter.html Al-Andalusi (talk) 21:22, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

I can change "he says" to "he wrote", if that makes you feel better. And yes, I have proof that he held a particular view in 2012 - he published it in Al-akhbar. I have added to the article that he now says he didn't write anything like that. We base the article on published sources, and readers can decide what to believe. Brad Dyer (talk) 21:32, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

I would "feel better" when I know you have read my posts properly. I wrote earlier that AbuKhalil's "BDS should be" position is not a new one as you claim, and that I found a reference from 2010 where he says exactly that. Which means, you are dead wrong in your claim that he switched his views following angry accusations from Zionist distortionists. I have now rewritten the section to reflect his consistent position on BDS. Al-Andalusi (talk) 22:51, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

I have don't know why he switched his views (perhaps more than once), though I think I have pretty good guess, which I've articulated above. I do have indisputable proof that in 2012, he wrote that the real aim of BDS is the elimination of Israel. And our article needs to reflect that, no matter how uncomfortable that makes BDS supporters feel. We can add AK's denial that he wrote those things, as I have done. Your current framing of the issue, as something that was only brought to light by opponents of BDS supporters is misleading , to say the least, and I will fix it in due course. Brad Dyer (talk) 22:58, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Well, we work with facts here, not your "good guess". Al-Andalusi (talk) 23:05, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Indeed, and my good guess is not now, nor was it ever, part of the article. The facts are that in an editorial he wrote for Al Akhbar, AbuKhalil stated that the real aim of BDS is to bring about the end of Israel. Our article needs to state this fact, unambiguously, and without excuses. It is also a fact that in subsequent blog posts, AbuKhalil denied writing those things and claimed 'I never said such a thing'. I don't think those denials, which are easily proven false , cast Ak in any better light, but our article should reflect the fact of the subsequent denials as well. Attempts (such as your recent rewrite that does not have consensus) to frame this as 'BDS opponents misrepresenting what Ak wrote' are not going to fly. Brad Dyer (talk) 23:21, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

• The article includes the editorial quote as is, haven't you checked?
• What do you really mean by "without excuses"? what are the "excuses" in the current version? do you consider his POV to be "excuses"? if so, are you against the inclusion of AbuKhalil's response?
• BDS opponents are saying this is the official goal of the BDS. AbuKhalil replies 'I never said such a thing'. What is so troubling about this part.
• Just rememeber, this section is named "Israel/Palestine" and falls under the parent "Political views". Therefore, it should list first and foremost his own views and as direct as possible. The critical POV comes later, and obviously AbuKhalil's response. This is what the current version has right now. It starts by listing his own view that the BDS aim "should be" to bring down Israel (you can't deny this is his position now), and then goes on to talk about the Zionist lies.
• You're gonna lecture on editing policies now? It was you who (1)rewrote the section (2) with a very misleading edit summary that says undo, when in fact you did a lot more, and (3) dismissing all concerns on the talk page, and (4) carefully gaming the system around 1RR.
• Al-Andalusi (talk) 00:14, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

I made two recent edits on this article, spaced more than 5 days apart. I'd appreciate some insight into how this constitutes "Carefully gaming the system around 1RR." be sure to explain how that differs from your two edits , on the same days as mine, with nearly identical (though slightly shorter) spacing. Brad Dyer (talk) 20:11, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Denials that he said BDS's aim is to eliminate Israel

The two blog posts by AK that are provided as a source for this are pretty clear. In the first one he writes "I never said that the real aim of BDS is to tend[sic] the existence of Israel" , and in the second one he writes "They allege that I have said that the real aim of BDS is to "bring down the state of Israel". I never said such a thing" and " (I never said "is")". Only after initially denying it, did he concede he actually did write this, and clarified that he meant it as a personal position. Brad Dyer (talk) 16:58, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

I agree with Brad Dyer here. The sequence of events was

• AbuKhalil denied that he said the aim is, but should be
• Someone pointed out to him the Al-Akhbar post on Norman Finkelstein, where he does say is
• He accepts that he did say is, but clarifies that it is for him, not BDS as a whole.

Whether this is important enough to be included is a separate matter, but the facts are pretty clear. By the way, I have read AbuKhalil's blog for years, and still do. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 08:56, 25 December 2015 (UTC)

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Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 18 August 2017

change:

Political views

AbuKhalil describes himself as "a former Marxist-Leninist, now an anarchist", a feminist, and an "atheist secularist".

to

Political views

AbuKhalil describes himself as "a former Marxist-Leninist, now an anarchist", a feminist, and an "atheist".

because:

Mr. AbuKhalil publishes his political views on the following two facebook pages: https://www.facebook.com/asadabukhalilPage2/ https://www.facebook.com/asad.abukhalil

(these two pages are identical)

In these pages he constantly criticize countries, organizations, and specific people that politically are not part of his political directions. He specifically supports: Hesbollah and Iran in their political views and activities in the middle east. Knowing that Hesbollah is political party based on religious institution, and Iran is a state that is based on religious institutions, supporting such direction is direct violation of Secularism as it is defined in Wikipedia as follows: "Another manifestation of secularism is the view that public activities and decisions, especially political ones, should be uninfluenced by religious beliefs or practices" http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Secularism

Moreover, Mr. AbuKhalil never criticize sectarian activities if the party that perform these activities is either Hesbollah or Iran. I asked Mr. AbuKhalil on his Facebook page, in two separate occasions to declare his opinion about specific sectarian activities by Iran, he answered, but his answer was impossible to be classified as Secularism, rather it could be classified as answers from person who has a list of political objectives that has high priority, Secularism is not in that list, and there is no problem if it is violated. Please see this example that is extracted and translated from https://www.facebook.com/asadabukhalilPage2/: I asked: "Mr. AbuKhalil, what is your opinion regarding political activities that are based on religious-sectarian foundation? Are you secularist?" He replied: "Of course, I'm not with confusion, but if someone wants to resist the Israeli enemy, I welcome that, even if he is wearing a turban on his head or wearing a Nido milk can." End of quote.

From his answer we see that he does not treat Secularism as a serious topic that need commitment by itself, rather, he treat it as marginal topic that can be violated if other more important objectives are to be achieved. Even, it is a topic to make funny jokes, such as the one he told by making comparison of Nido milk can and turban. A true Secularist will never make such a joke.

Based on that I hope you agree to remove the adjective: secularist from his political views section. Best Regards, ali hassan PhD in Computer Science France Ahassan01 (talk) 19:41, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. By providing a self-published source, you may have revealed a possible conflict of interest. jd22292 (Jalen D. Folf) (talk) 01:21, 21 August 2017 (UTC)

jd22292, I wonder if we've got this backwards. The assertion that the BLP self-identifies as a secularist is not apparently supported by any source. The subject seems to have rejected that self-identification, according to the comments above.

I think this request falls into the category of "remove immediately any contentious material about a living person that: 1) is unsourced", so I have followed WP:BLPREMOVE and removed it. Anyone who wants to include this material needs to cite a reliable source (which could include a self-published source by the subject himself, but not a self-published source by anyone else), but the removal of uncited information does not require producing a source to justify its removal. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:22, 21 August 2017 (UTC)

References