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Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3Archive 4Archive 5

"commentary translation"

moved here from my talk page (jaakobou)

Please self-revert at [1]. The original of this article in Hebrew is at [2] of the Yediot Aharonot article on May 31, 2002. Gush-shalom provide a translation at [3]. While Gush Shalom is a campaigning web-site, it is not a blog, and would normally be considered a Reliable Source in its own right. It is certainly an RS for translation purposes. PalestineRemembered 08:33, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

the hebrew version might be an accurate copy of the ynet article, however, the english one is full of defamation and one sided "the truth!!!" style bloggish narratives that are not by any means accurate or encyclopedic. if you want, we can include some gush shalom refrence to the ynet article, but you must find the ynet article, and you must find a gush shalom article that doesn't plagerize(sp?) from ynet. you should also find a way to write things without copy-pasting. Jaakobou 09:00, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
I fail to understand the objection - unless you wish us to understand that prominent Hebrew-speaking and writing journalists (Tsadok Yeheskeli in Yediot Aharonot and Uri Avnery in Gush Shalom) cannot be trusted. Tsadok Yeheskeli's reporting is good enough for Nizkor [4] and these Israelis [5] - why is it not good enough for Wikipedia?
Furthermore, if we're going to re-write WP policy and insert a new section called "Find the original", then we'll note the 2-day old revert in this very same article [6], where the original words of a UN report were removed, and a faulty version by the BBC was inserted in preference. We'd also have to re-write policy on non-English sources (currently depreciated). Perhaps the new policy should be called UnReliable Sources. PalestineRemembered 09:11, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
Another exciting new WP policy in action for the first time "can't use source (gush-shalom) that is politically motivated" according to diff [7]. PalestineRemembered 11:58, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
Well said. ابو علي (Abu Ali) 12:17, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
(1) i don't see avneri's name on the "translation" (+blog) gush shalom page.
(2) User:Abu ali, you have the nasty habbit of not contributing anything on talk pages and then reverting.[8] Jaakobou 12:47, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
(3) User:PalestineRemembered, the political motivation is not the problem, it's the article not being a translation but it's being a blog that plagarizes ynet... why don't you just find the sourse article without the extention blog around it?? Jaakobou 12:52, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
  • (1) Uri Avneri's name is not on the "translation" page, because (although this Hebrew speaking and writing journalist founded Gush Shalom some 14 years ago) the organisation now includes many 100s of Israelis and cannot be labelled as "self-published" or "a blog". Gush Shalom is entirely adequate to verify the existence of this article (repeated in 100s of places across the web) and reliably translate it. At this stage, if you believe "Kurdi Bear" said something different, the onus is on you to prove that there's some kind of falsehood been perpetrated. (If you do this, of course, then you'll wish to reconsider the revert you made of this article 4th May, replacing the words of the UN report with a BBC quote which is clearly wrong).
  • (2) A breach of WP:AGF which I'm sure you'll want to withdraw. Equally, I'm sure User:Abu ali will graciously accept your contrition.
  • (3) You told us that "political motivation" was the problem, and reverted on that basis. If you did this wrongly, then feel free to self-revert (but on this occasion, I'll save you the effort by doing so myself). What say you we do a deal, and edit only to existing WP policies, not the new ones I know you're so keen to introduce? PalestineRemembered 14:20, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
(1) Uri Avneri, is considered an extremist leftist (and some give him even worse titles), the people of gush shalom, are not considered WP:RS best i'm aware of it... maybe if it were an official statement or release. meanning that there's no signature on the blog entry (+plagarism). and at this stage i believe that the "kurdi bear" statment should be linked the way it was written and not the way some gush-shalom blogger added his own pre-text to it.
(2) actually no, i havn't breached WP:AGF with abu ali considering our history and the way he reverted the article.
(3) i think you misunderstood, and please don't "save me the effort" in the future. just find the YNET original and we'll get this conflict over with. Jaakobou 15:24, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
The time may be approaching to insist on the editing of this article being done to WP policy, not to innovative new policies that have not been accepted, and are never going to be accepted.
In particular, nobody (including Yediot Aharonot, who would most certainly sue if their story had been mis-represented) seriously disputes the content of the "Kurdi Bear" article.[9]
Furthermore, describing living people as "extremist" (unless they're convicted of it, which Avnery has not been) is breach of yet another WP policy, risking a damaging legal case against the Wikipedia Foundation. You might choose to make that correction yourself, since it appears you take angry objection "you speaking for me is... disturbing. try not to repeat it." to my making such corrections for you. PalestineRemembered 11:06, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
there's so many things wrong with your paragraph.... in the future don't assume in my name and revert pages on my behalf. Jaakobou 11:26, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
Congratulations, it would appear you've accepted the validity of the "Kurdi Bear" interview after all. It's unfortunate you thought it so important to revert the work of others, removing good referenced information, before checking and discovering the validity of it for yourself. Perhaps all parties have learnt something and the work of writing and improving the encyclopaedia can be re-started with less time wasted. I have had to correct what you added, since referenced sources must be in English, a basic WP policy I'm sure you understand and appreciate now I've explained it to you. PalestineRemembered 11:58, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
PalestineRemembered, please avoid condecending attitudes on your "replies", i've looked into the information and found some validation to the artcile and it's proper source, something gush-shalom has left out. regardless of this, their "translation+blog" page is unnaceptable POV pushing because it does not address the text properly and adds so much out of context information in a way that does not uphold WP:RS. sadly, we are forced to trust their hebrew version of the article since a second version could not be found, while i did find some mentions of this article on blogs, however, the english version is unnaceptable for a self-respecting encyclopedia. using WP:RS is a basic wikipedia policy which i'm sure you undersatnd must be followed when writing into articles. Jaakobou 16:24, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

new film about the fight

http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasite/pages/ShArtPE.jhtml?itemNo=286481 - i'm sorry i'm only posting an interesting source rather than inserting into the article.. pehaps i'll find time for it later. Jaakobou 09:19, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

We have been round this at some length already - this is the English Wikipedia, and is not properly served by foreign-language references. That is WP policy, and your other proposed modifications to it have not yet been accepted either.
Furthermore, you earlier implied that even Hebrew-speaking and writing journalists such as Tsadok Yeheskeli in Yediot Aharonot and Uri Avnery in Gush Shalom cannot be trusted when it comes to translation. Insertion of this fresh foreign-language material, in contravention of policy, and given your previous attitude to translation, might be mistaken for disruption. PalestineRemembered 11:22, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
you'll excuse me if i disregee with how you misinterpret the policy... and please, don't talk to me about disruption when you insist on adding wierd POV links such as this edit which held within' it the insertion of this link from the media outlet which made the most (intentional?) errors in reporting this incident. Jaakobou 16:29, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Bottom Line

The bottom line about Jenin is: More Israeli soldiers died than Palestinian civilians. This is unique and unparalleled in the history of warfare. Erudil 15:51, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

widspread hatered

i really dont understand the removal of this information, not only is there a valid link from the proper timestamp as reference, but this information is also common knowledge so there's really no need to dispute this even if there were no refrence... but there is. Jaakobou 06:28, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

The problem is the CNN transcripts do not even come close to supporting the claims you have just put back in the article. Let's look at them one at a time:

The April 11, 2002 transcript

The April 11, 2002 transcript: You have used this as reference for the article text The battle attracted widespread international attention due to persistent Palestinian claims of war crimes, genocide, and inflated reports on body counts. I replaced that sentence, using the exact same transcript as reference, to read: The Israeli Defense Forces prevented journalists from entering the camp during the operation, and initially Palestinian sources reported 500 dead.
Please read the transcript and note that:
  • It says nothing about why the battle was drawing attention at the time. In fact it has hard to imagine that a major Israeli military operation in a densely populated urban area would not draw major attention, regardless of what allegations the Palestinians were making.
  • The transcript does not say any Palestinian claims are "persistent". It simply talks about what was being said at that moment.
  • The word "genocide" never appears.
  • It is true that Palestinian sources were reporting a death toll of 500 while the operation was going on. I have preserved that information in the article text. However, nothing in the transcript proves that the Palestinians deliberately "inflated" the total. Around the same time official Israeli sources were saying that "several hundred" had died [10]. Were the Israeli numbers also "inflated"? How can you prove that one was and the other wasn't? My version, which simply states what was said on CNN that night, is much more neutral and encyclopedic in tone.
  • On the other hand, the CNN transcript does state, quite clearly, that journalists were banned from the camp during the Israeli operation. (Ben Wedeman states: "In fact, we have no access whatsoever to the refugee camp....the question that we would like to know and that we would like to direct to Israeli officials is why aren't we being allowed in that camp?") You have deleted this important information. Sanguinalis 02:18, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
The ref is used to explain the inflated body count and the "rumor show", you can use it again later in the article to show that the press was not allowed to go in the camp during the fighting, the ommission was not intentional. p.s. the word genocide (and/or it's derivatives) appeared on other refs, i saw no need to muliply the usage of them.... why are you fighting these statements if you know it really happened.. or maybe you havn't watched/read any news during that period? Jaakobou 05:47, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
What, specifically, is the reference were Palestinians charge "genocide"? This would not be "repeating" references, because the CNN transcript - the ONLY reference you used - clearly does not mention the word. If you did not mean to delete the information about the IDF preventing journalists from entering the camp, put it back. I will temporarily refrain from reverting to give you a chance to do so. Sanguinalis 10:51, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

The April 12, 2002 transcript

The April 12, 2002 transcript: This is your sole evidence for the assertion that These allegations were aired widely in the Arab world, inciting extreme antipathy toward Israel. But it is not evidence at all, because the transcript does not even mention Jenin! I am removing this reference altogether, because it is not relevant to this article, and removing the assertion that references it because it is unsourced. It is not up to me to disprove an unsourced assertion. The Wikipedia:Verifiability policy states clearly that "Editors adding or restoring material that has been challenged or is likely to be challenged, or quotations, must provide a reliable published source, or the material may be removed."
I find the assertion doubtful on its face. There are all kinds of reasons for Arab anitpathy towards Israel. If you want to put this material in the article, you will need to find evidence from reliable sources that Arab antipathy is specifically due to Palestinian allegations of massacres during the Jenin incursion, and not for any other reason. It is not up to me to look for articles that refute this view.
I really shouldn't have to explain all this. Anyone can see that The April 11 transcript does not contain the word "genocide". Anyone can see that the April 12 transcript does not mention Jenin. Please look for sources that specifically mention the 2002 Israeli operation in Jenin, and stick to what those sources say and not what you think is "common knowledge". Sanguinalis 02:18, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
first off, the word palestine and it's derivatives are mentioned quite a lot so it's not very far fetched from jenin, which is a small place. secondly, the article mentions it's an observation on a "telethon underway trying to raise money, they say, for the martyrs in the Middle East", jenin, being dubbed "city of martyrs" by the local "resistance" movement is something i believe is even refrenced in the article, which is impressive considering this is somewhat of a local lingo. thirdly, this trasncript came on the same day that a "martyr" (a.k.a. suicide human bomb terrorist) woman detonated herself in the heart of jerusaelm, this "martyr" came from jenin according to palestinian sources... which connects the whole story again. fourthly, i don't even understand why you mention "reliable published source" in connection to this refrence.
last note: the information is well sourced and well accurate with reality and simple searches for the background of this historical event, wikipedia offcourse allows you to challenge material, but considering that it sat on the article for quite a few months without being challenged for "semantics" and considering how this shouldn't even be argued, i expect this debate done on the talk page and not by reverts. Jaakobou 06:04, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
I can't believe you are fighting this. The article clear does not mention Jenin. To assume that because the speakers referred to "martyrs" that they were specifically talking about Jenin is original research on your part. This is not an argument about semantics. The CNN transcript does not mention Jenin, so cannot be used, and that's that. Please find a source for your "incitement" claim. If it was so easy to find a source by a simple search, you could have found one faster than you typed this response to me. Sanguinalis 10:59, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Jenin comes to Lebanon

i figure we should consider adding information about media bias from this article - "Jenin comes to Lebanon" - into the battle of jenin article. i might get around to it sometime in the future. Jaakobou 06:45, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

This is an editorial, not a regular news article. If you use it for this page, it can only be used to describe a point of view, not a statement of fact. Sanguinalis 11:01, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
yes i know, thank you for mentioning that anyways. Jaakobou 12:52, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Jeningrad

It's used too ;) [11] --HanzoHattori 07:40, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

international attention - article conflict

I am reverting this edit [12] because:

  1. Journalists were banned by the IDF before any of the other events in the paragraph, so it should be mentioned first. There is no reason to more this simple statement of fact to the middle of the paragraph, nor to link it to another sentence with an "and yet" clause.
  2. You have changed the title of the Sydney Morning Herald article. Please don't do that. If an article is listed as a reference, it must be listed with the title it actually has, not the title you think it should have.

Sanguinalis 02:36, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

User:Sanguinalis,
  1. the journalists were banned from being in the camp during the fighting and yet they reported based on rumors... there's more than "room" for placing it in the proper location on the paragraph which deals with style of repot.
  2. The title addition comes to help the readers find the proper citation to the article so it would be easier to read the correct source. it's a more than welcome change regardless of the reference which is, in this case, problematic to the Palestinian cause.
  3. Please stop this incessant revert war over the materials - it is very much validated and researched. if there is something which bothers you specifically, you can raise it for debate (or find a countering source) and recieve a myriad of examples which could be inserted into the article. Jaakobou 07:29, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

gush shalom source

assuming that the hebrew reprinting is indeed 1-to-1 with the original 7 days news paper, we cannot allow a POV "translation" blogsource. using this refrence would be as NPOV as using littlegreenfootball to reference reports about lebanon. if you can come up with an accurate authoritative source english translation that doesn't add personal unsigned POV B.S. it would probably be used. until then, the only encyclopedic supposedly reliable source is the hebrew one. the 1st rule of wikipedia is reliability. Jaakobou 20:26, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

We have been all round this before, starting with commentary translation above. We can, and must, use English language sources, otherwise the encyclopaedia ceases to have verifiability, a core policy. Gush-shalom have translated the article, and they're not an organisation not a blog. Your only remaining argument is that Israelis are liars, and I don't think we need to go down that road. PalestineRemembered 21:25, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
That's completely untrue. English language sources are preferable to non-English language sources, especially when equal quality English language sources can be found, but one can certainly use non-English language sources. Please review WP:V#Sources in languages other than English. Jayjg (talk) 01:59, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
What the policy actually says is that "In principle, readers should have the opportunity to verify for themselves what the original material actually said, that it was published by a credible source, and that it was translated correctly." It's vandalism to take out the English reference. And replace a relatively well-written paragraph with a POV mess as has happened here (though it's not you who did it). Language such as "presumably in order to continue the operation without risking more Israeli deaths" has no place in the project. Calling 'Kurdi Bear' problematic, and then harping on about what was on his mind as he demolished houses with people in them is ludicrous - we should be using words from the actual source. Letting a problematic volunteer use army equipment in this fashion has all the makings of another scandal, we don't need to go there. PalestineRemembered 09:27, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
User:PalestineRemembered.
  1. as i stated, and you keep ignoring - the problem is that Gush-Shalom, a known POV organization, did not just translate the article, but added unsigned POV which renders their article unreliable
  2. can you read Hebrew?? because the article clearly describes Nissim as problematic and he further admits to this description and even notes "Kurdi always does what's in his head (what he feels like doing)":
טלפונים מהחבר'ה: 'כורדי', הם אמרו לי, 'מגייסים אותנו, אבל אותך לא'. "האמת היא שהבנתי את המפקדים שלי. תשמע, 18 שנה אני עושה מילואים, וכלום לא עשיתי שם. רק להפריע. בסדיר נכנסתי בלי סוף למעצר, כי סירבתי להיות חשמלאי רכב. גם ביחידה שלי, של הדחפורים, הייתי אמור להיות חשמלאי. אבל בפועל לא עשיתי כלום. רק ברדק. הייתי בא, ישר פותח שולחן קלפים, מביא בקבוק. כשאיזה קצין העיז לשלוח אותי לשמירה, הייתי שולח אותו קודם. כורדי תמיד עשה מה בראש שלו. כשרציתי ללכת למשחק של בית"ר או הביתה, אף אחד לא יכול היה לעצור אותי. אני מניע את האוטו ונוסע.
I really don't understand how you would like this guy to be described, and I further object to the way you portray the explanation of the interview as vandalism without the capability of reading it yourself. Jaakobou 13:23, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
We know Kurdi Bear was problematical, bordering on clinical psychosis and (he claims) drug-fuelled. We know he was completely untrained. We know he was given free reign to operate army equipment in circumstances where some/many people were likely to be killed by his actions - and he tells us this almost certainly happened. One almost wonders whether the IDF cares.
However, all of that is of less significance than the words of the interview.
As to your claim that Israelis lie to us, I'm perfectly happy to believe you. But Wikipedia is about verifiability, not truth - we have a translation that the readers of the English Wikipedia can check. It's definitely not a blog, and it's the only source that is acceptable for us to use. PalestineRemembered 18:27, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

User:PalestineRemembered, this back and forth is becoming frustrating because you simply ignore what i am saying and are repeating your narrative misinterpretation of the referencing rules. please, try to read read again about article reliability and make note of the "Self-published material may be acceptable when produced by a well-known, professional researcher in a relevant field." statement, and try to remember that the analysis added alongside the translation does not fit the "well known, professional" requirement. i would love to add a translation of the article, however, the translation must be made professionally, and not via POV blogger. Jaakobou 00:15, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

This back and forth is more than frustrating, because the removal of English language references, and putting badly written POV material back into the article is vandalism. Gush-Shalom has 100s of members and a world-wide reputation, it's ludicrous to call it a blog. Thousands turned out for it's "6 days of protest" last month alone. Unless, as I said, you wish to imply that Israelis lie to us .... really?
And it's not the first time this has happened to this very section of this article - the inclusion of this excellent material (the only eye-witness material we have) was repeatedly obstructed.
There is a lot more work needs doing on this article, such as the inclusion of material that is provably quoting the UN report wrongly. That urgent improvement was also reverted. Anyone watching this would be excused for thinking this article is suffering a determined attempt to deny an atrocity. PalestineRemembered 09:28, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
User:PalestineRemembered, (1) can you name the "well known, professional" who added his commentary to the translation? (2) could you please avoid the libelous declarations? Jaakobou 14:53, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
It would be of great value to the project if you familiarised yourself with the various policies. Some of them are a bit technical and difficult to take on board all at once, but there is no mention of "well known, professional" anywhere within Reliable Source, and nowhere else that I'm aware of - and that's because there is no reason for there to be such a mention. There's a policy called verifiability, another core policy you seem to have real trouble with. I've lost track of how many new policies you've tried to introduce into this article alone (at one point, you were proposing the opposite of what you'd been doing just 2 days earlier). It is indeed very tiresome to be going backwards and forwards, particularily over an article with such major faults eg sources which wrongly quote from the documents they're supposedly based on.
Incidentally, the only breach I can see going on here is "Ill-considered accusations of impropriety of one kind or another (cite as WP:ICA)". The only reference to libel is this one "Calling someone a liar, or accusing him/her of slander or libel. Even if true, such remarks tend to aggravate rather than resolve a dispute.". PalestineRemembered 16:20, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
User:PalestineRemembered, you can find "well known, professional" here. please lose the "Some of them are a bit technical and difficult" attitude and the claims about what i've supposedly done or havn't done. Jaakobou 16:55, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Needs more work

There are several problematical parts in this article, including unsubstantiated statements right in the section I'm trying to improve (but in the interests of cooperation, I've not taken the completely unsourced material out). There are other problems too, such as the BBC quoting the UN report wrongly.

But in the meantime, there are editors apparently claiming that Israelis systematically lie to us and cannot be trusted to translate newspaper articles correctly. No alternative translation has been offered, so given we have an excellent source for the English one we've got, please can we use it? PalestineRemembered 17:37, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

The problem, is that even if it is an accurate translation, it is being included in a way that makes the quotes say something other than what they are, and that is not acceptable (for example, only the bold was inluded, but the full quote says something quite different "When I was told to bring down a house, I took the opportunity to bring down some more houses; not because I wanted to - but because when you are asked to demolish a house, some other houses usually obscure it, so there is no other way. I would have to do it even if I didn't want to. They just stood in the way." He then goes on to discuss the boobytraps in the buildings that necessitated this. I hope that you read through it before again inserting it. TewfikTalk 18:52, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
You've introduced a third possible objection - does that mean the previous two are dropped?
And this objection looks like nonsense too - some parts of that interview simply describe the way he had to work under the conditions, they're interesting but irrelevant. I've pulled out the sections where he makes it clear that he took no precautions to allow people to escape, and, although he didn't see it happen, he believes that people were killed by his actions. Israel claims to have taken precautions not to kill civilians - but it then handed 60 ton bulldozers to the totally unqualified (+ problematic + +) who used them with reckless abandon. All of that belongs in the article, with the English references. PalestineRemembered 19:32, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

This article is awful, indeed an embarrassment to Wikipedia. The unsourced assertions (e.g., "explosive charges in their schoolbags"), distortions of source material (including the UN report), flagrant POV like "Palestinian propaganda victory" in the summary box, the timeline that is not a timeline of the actual fighting at all but of the press coverage, the boldface epithets that pepper the lead: all this needs to be fixed.

Next to this, the Kurdi Bear dispute is minor, and I wouldn't want it to prevent improvement of the article. A revert war like what is going on now is just as bad as an article freeze, in my opinion, as any change to other parts of the article is likely to be tossed with the reverts. PalestineRemembered's critics have a point about relying on a translation provided by Gush Shalom. However, the alternative they have proposed, simply trusting Jaakobou to read the Hebrew for us and rely on his summary, is also bad. Jaakobou has proven that he cannot be trusted, as he has misused even Engligh-language sources in this article. As I have pointed out earlier in this talk page, he has put the word "genocide" in this article even though the source does not use the word, put in a highly inflammatory sentence about "incitement" based on a source that does not even mention Jenin, and even altered titles of news reports in citations. Unfortunately all these distortions are still in the article!

I think the best way to treat the Kurdi Bear material is to put it in its own paragraph, tell the reader that the translation is provided by Gush Shalom, a radical peace group, and then provide a few representative quotations. I don't think PalestineRemembered has misrepresented it, though he does make an important omission regarding boobytraps, which were explicitly mentioned by Kurdi Bear. I also doubt the Gush Shalom translation is really erroneous. Jaakobou has hinted that it is but he has never pointed out which passages are mistranslated and what the errors are. Furthermore, lengthy excerpts of the Gush Shalom translation have been published in Tanya Reinhart's book, Israel/Palestine: How to End the War of 1948 (Seven Stories Press, 2002). Reinhart was a columnist for Yediot Aharonot as well as a professional linguist and it is unlikely she would give so much space in her book to an erroneous translation. Let's put an appropriate POV caveat on the source, quote it directly and move on. There is plenty of material from completely undisputed reliable sources that can be used to improve this article. Sanguinalis 23:04, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

there is no point in addressing the accuracy or inaccuracy of the gush shalom translation, as long as they insist that the page is not a translation page but rather a "bloggish battle assement" and unverifiable POV pushing. i disagree with the assessment that we should include this, as we could do the same with israeli right wing websites and mention that it is written by extremist right wingers... while we're at it, we can add the reports about the battle made by al-manar and mention it is an extremist shia militia run media... even better, let's use the iranian cartoon made on the battle, that would surely be a reliable source... all we need is to mention that it's an iranian report.
btw, i agree that the children's schoolbags claim should be cited... i made a quick search for something but havn't found anything yet... i did find a number of sources who mentioned the 15000 explosives claim by kol ysrael and i've also found this page (arabic), which is supposed to be the Alharam Weekly (cairo) issue 582, 18-24 April 2002.
you can see a partial translation here google auto translator does half the page, and you can copy paste segments of the article here.
in the article there's quite an impressive testimony about "redoubling efforts in the preparation and processing exponentially" ... "some of the crews arrive at work day and night without rest, everyone tirelessly to accomplish the tasks entrusted to him what is required of him in his area of specialization." ... "As for the explosive materials necessary for the preparation of packages of different kinds, have focused our efforts in the preparation of a strong and huge quantities compared to the time factor and potential. This article urbanization of subgroups where articles were purchased nearly three tons of each article and the crew competent in this aspect, which was the hero on the head Mahmoud Tawalbeh" ... "After the preparation and processing of this article the same crew worked on the preparation of the bombs sizes and different shapes, which manufactured large-sized packages of ad hoc mechanisms and armored vehicles, was also prepared packages of various sizes and the ad hoc against individuals. This is in addition to manufacture and prepare more than one thousand small packages that were hit by hand"... a few mistranslations but overall, google does a nice job. Jaakobou 08:32, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

btw, according to a hebrew article about this source, the source also says that everyone including the children knew where explosives were being hidden. Jaakobou 08:37, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

First of all, we can use al-Manar as a source in certain circumstances, when it is properly labeled and identified as POV, and is used in an area where the viewpoint of Hezbollah is notable. If there was a transcript of an al-Manar broadcast in 2002 that claimed 50,000 people died in Jenin you would be rushing to put it in this very article in order to prove the duplicity of Israel's enemies. You're ignoring two factors that make using the Gush Shalom translation different from a random political website, which is that Gush Shalom is itself a notable group (as PalestineRemebered has pointed out), and the authenticity of the Gush Shalom translation has been endorsed by Tanya Reinhart, a notable figure and a regular columnist in the Hebrew-language newspaper in which the original article appeared. The rest of your post I can't make sense of, you seem to be saying you found a source for the "explosive charges in schoolbags" claim but don't seem to grasp that to be used, such a source must explicitly mention explosive charges in schoolbags. None of your sources mention schoolbags. And nobody should be copying and pasting Google translations into this or any other Wikipedia article. Sanguinalis 02:07, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

No. al-manar, a TV station banned in Europe for incitement of racism is not a reliable source. The only place it might be used is in an article about al-Manar itself. Isarig 02:15, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
You are wrong, Isarig. Here are two Wikipedia articles that are not at all about al-Manar, but nonetheless use material from al-Manar to illustrate a POV: Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and September 11, 2001 attacks timeline for September. The posture of many Wikipedia editors seems to be: We can't use sources from radical Arab groups, except when useful to prove what wicked anti-Semites they are. Sanguinalis 02:34, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
No, I am 100% correct, and you need to read more carefully. In the 2 articles you referenced, Al-Manar is not used as a source for anything - it is mentioned as a station that ran antisemitic conspiracy theories. It is not forbidden to comment on Al-manar- but we can not use it as a source. Do you understand the difference? Isarig 02:59, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
I think it should be clear, since I only wrote about using al-Manar as a source in "certain circumstances, when it is properly labeled and identified as POV, and is used in an area where the viewpoint of Hezbollah is notable", that I am not arguing that al-Manar be used as a source for any thing other than what the views of al-Manar are, and then only in cases where the views of al-Manar (or its sponsor, Hezbollah) are notable. I regret the blunt tone of "Isarig, you are wrong": I simply wanted to make the point that the views of al-Manar are notable enough to be mentioned outside the al-Manar article itself. To get back to this article, I still think it would be acceptable to describe the contents of an al-Manar broadcast about the battle of Jenin, so long as it is attributed to that organization, and the reader is informed of its political orientation. Sanguinalis 04:14, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

User:Sanguinalis, this is not a statement about the battle but a generic bloggish "translation+personal thoughts" POV piece about the palestinian-israeli conflict. Jaakobou 11:24, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

The Gush Shalom page that you object to consists of two things: An English translation of the 7 Days article, and a few additional paragraphs which express the POV of Gush Shalom.
  1. There is reason to believe the translation itself is accurate, as it has been endorsed by a prominent Israeli linguist. Anyway, you have never told us where you believe there are inaccuracies in the translation.
  2. As to the POV part, Gush Shalom is a significant organization. Significant enough, that their views are considered worth reporting on by the Jerusalem Post. We can certainly put in this article, for example, the statement that "The Israeli peace group Gush Shalom called Kurdi Bear's testimony 'sickening'." Sanguinalis 02:18, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

gush shalom are a noisy bunch who are allowed to express their opinions and having friends at a few high places they can also get quoted.. does not make their statements more accurate than those of ahmed tibi or avigdor liberman. regardless, their unprofessional handling of the translation is the reason i cannot accept such a blatant backdoor introduction of POV... and the wiki protocols explain this. (pun intended) JaakobouChalk Talk 02:32, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Source inadequate to support statement

"Rumors of massacres in Jenin swirled through Palestinian communities which were then echoed in the world press for several weeks, pitting world public opinion against Israel. 27" Ref 27 is a publication by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). According to the ADL, "a massacre of hundreds of Palestinians by Israel was widely alleged, reported and condemned".

The word "massacre" appears 27 times in the document. Although quotations from the international press are sprinkled throughout this document, the ADL doesn't produce a single quotation of ANY media outlet using the word except in scare quotes or preceded by some variation on the word "alleged".

In other words, we have only the ADL's word to rely on here. Is the Anti-Defamation League of the B'Nai Brith, a deeply partisan organization dedicated to advancing Israeli militarism under the cloak of anti-racism, a reliable source on this matter?

What the article should say is something like "Rumors of massacres in Jenin swirled through Palestinian communities, and the existence of these rumors was reported by international media outlets who could not confirm or deny them. Israeli authorities prevented the international press from entering the refugee camp for two weeks, which delayed the ability of the world community to assess the damage. After it became clear that no systematic massacre had taken place, supporters of Israel's actions condemned the international media for reporting on these rumors and allegations. According to The Independent, "Israel’s host of government spokesmen and its media have seized on such claims to mount an argument tantamount to saying that, as there is no proof of a massacre, there is no case to answer at all."

Eleland 19:53, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

The standard on WP is verifiability, no truth. I appreciate the effort you put into researching the validity of the ADL's claims, but this original research can't be part of the article. Isarig 21:47, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
So now reading the sources given to support a claim is "original research"? The ADL is too partisan to be a reliable source on its own. So I read the source material, looking to see if perhaps the ADL citation could be converted into citations of more trustworthy sources. Finding none, I believe that the cited information should be removed altogether, unless a better (ie, non-partisan) source can found. Failing that, the claim should at least be attributed within the text -- "According to the Anti-Defamation League, an American Zionist organization, rumors of massacres..." Eleland 21:56, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
The Anti-Defamation League is an American Human Rights organization, not an American Zionist organization. Jayjg (talk) 17:49, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
The ADL is both. However, their claims that world media were unfair to the Israeli military is clearly Zionist advocacy, not human rights advocacy. Eleland 19:03, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
Reading the source is not original research. Reading the source and concluding that "the ADL doesn't produce a single quotation of ANY media outlet using the word" and subsequently that the article should say that "international media outlets ... could not confirm or deny" is. Isarig 22:14, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
Well, the statement about "could not confirm or deny" was not based solely on the ADL link. But you're right, it is something of a synthesis of sources, so it shouldn't be included. The phrase "who could not confirm or deny them" shouldn't be included, just the other language. Eleland 18:01, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

We should handle the Anti-Defamation League the same as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and other organizations. That is, their views and conclusions should be presented, but not treated as undisputed fact. Sanguinalis 10:44, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

As far sa I can tell, absolutely NONE of the media organizations you cite actually claimed there was a massacre. They only claimed that "reports", "rumours" or "allegations" of a massacre existed. So I think it's totally consistent with the language that I've proposed. Eleland 18:01, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
You're far to focussed on the word "massacre"; the ADL doesn't say the sources used the specific term "massacre", but when they're reporting hundreds of civilians killed, bodies being buried in mass graves, etc., they are clearly talking about a massacre. Jayjg (talk) 18:04, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
Also, the world press didn't report on "the existence of these rumors"; rather, they repeated them. Jayjg (talk) 18:06, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
Jayjg, every link you gave me featured Palestinian allegations reported as: allegations! The current wording implies that international press credulously passed on rumours as if they were true, when in fact, they simply reported that these rumours existed. This is a major difference. Even the sources you provide take pains to downplay the credibility of the rumour, noting that it could not be verified, that burying victims in Jenin would not serve to hide a "massacre" at all, etc etc. Eleland 18:59, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
So what exactly is your point? The European press was filled with these stories - i.e. they echoed them, and they didn't, in fact, call the "rumors" as your edit claims. Jayjg (talk) 02:47, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure how my edit implies that the world press specifically used the word "rumours". They were in fact called "rumours", "allegations", or sometimes "reports". Furthermore, can you tell me what "sourced information" your last edit restored, and what "original research" was deleted? Eleland 03:05, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
I used direct quotes from the sources, rather than various unsourced POV statements. The different is quite easy to see. Jayjg (talk) 03:09, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
A direct quote from the Independent was removed, leaving the only source as the Anti-Defamation League, a highly partisan group with zero credibility on this issue. And an unsourced statement, tagged as unsourced, but which supported Israeli POV, was restored. Oops! I'll correct this apparent error. Eleland 12:53, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
There was no citation for the Independent quote, and its placement appeared to be original research. Please review WP:V, which doesn't say at all what you seem to think it does. Jayjg (talk) 22:34, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
So, if I properly cited the Independent quote, you would be fine with it? And please explain how its inclusion is "original research". I've noticed in the past that some people use "original research" to mean "anything I don't like". Eleland 16:39, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

massacre 30-50

we deem the netanya bombing as masscre, because it is the indiscriminate killing of 30 people sitting at a dinner table while the perpetrator had the racist intention of killing as many jews as possible and the brainwashed mindset of thinking that this will get him into heaven. the jenin battle is not deemed a massacre, because it was fighting between two armed forces, one of which was victorious, yet with many casualties (that are not registered as massacred either).

p.s. i agree that it was a palestinian propaganda victory, considering they got their "500 killed!" message out in prime time and the "ok, maybe it was 50" message was barely noticable due to the lack of media interest in letting the public know they were wrong/lying/spreading libel. to top things off, many arabs/muslims still use the term "jenin massacre" which shows this was successful propaganda. JaakobouChalk Talk 08:12, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Fine. I know I'm stupid for even trying to make even the smallest amendments to articles on Israeli-Palestinian issues when there's a whole gang of editors who'll jump in and revert them (I assume you are also referring to this gang when you talk about the "we" who "deem" things). Good to know as well that we can describe it as a Palestinian propaganda victory on the basis that you personally "agree" that it was one. Terrible of course as well that the Palestinian authorities didn't know at first how many people had been killed and overstated the death toll (as in fact is common in situations of this sort, see September 11th). I do understand your point about motive - but I'm always reminded of a comment I saw at the time along the lines of "if a bunch of soldiers came into my town, flattened all the houses around me and killed 50 of my neghbours, I'd call that a massacre".--Nickhh 08:27, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
The infobox is hardly the place to discuss naming, but in this case the '50 neighbours' were mostly armed combatants killed in battle, while the 30 in Netanya were civilians killed by a suicide bomber with the stated aim of killing civilians. I'll grant you that there isn't currently an explicit source for the outcome listed, but I believe that can be easily remedied, and a {{cn}} tag would be far more reasonable in such a situation. TewfikTalk 09:02, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
Of course it's easily remedied. All one of you needs to do is go through back issues of the New Republic or the Jerusalem Post, find a comment to this effect by one of their writers, and there you are - OR and personal opinion suddenly becomes reliably sourced Wikipedia fact.--Nickhh 09:20, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
One final thought from me on this point - regardless of the accuracy of the phrase, do you have any idea how offensive it is to describe the deaths of 50 people as being a "propaganda victory" for those people? Probably not I guess --Nickhh 09:52, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
(1) disagreement on the "propaganda victory" is something i don't mind and we surely can discuss this and work on some references. (2) i explained why the generic wikipedian who works on this article (and the general public) deems the netanya bombing a massacre while the 50 fighters (most of them fighters) who died at the jenin camp are not deemed as massacred. (3) your explanation about your "50 neighbours" fits the netanya bombing, not the situation at the camp that just launched 28 successful suicide bombings and managed to place explosives everywhere including kitchen cupboards and under cushions of couches! - and according to one of the captured they were waiting in anticipation on such a battle their whole lives. to be honest, I found your comparison insulting but apparently you only care for dead militants, comparing them to your neighbors, and not for people who are unsuspectingly targeted while they eat their holiday meals. JaakobouChalk Talk 13:54, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
The Palestinians killed in the camp were not all militants. Even Israel acknowledges that some innocent civilians were killed, even though they say it was by mistake. Sanguinalis 14:20, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
read my note again, notice the "most of them fighters". JaakobouChalk Talk 16:40, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Please do not post untrue and offensive accusations about other editors on article talk pages. It's rude and it's irrelevant. I have responded to what you have said on your user talk page, although I'm not sure your comments deserve a reply. --Nickhh 14:12, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

please don't compare terrorist militants to your neighbors and act as though people who are unsuspectingly targeted, while they eat their holiday meals, are not massacred just because "only" 30 people wound up dead; and we won't have this problem. i was the one insulted - and suddenly you get insulted in return when i note this insult to you?! JaakobouChalk Talk 16:40, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
your posts also say "50 fighters" and that I compared my neighbours to militants (twice, now), the implication of the latter being that only "militants" were killed. That is not the case - civilians were killed too, and if I lived in Jenin they would have indeed been my neighbours. Hence the comparison. And where did I "act as though" people were not massacred at Netanya, or use the word "only" alongside the number killed? I simply queried why one event was called a massacre and one was not. We wouldn't have this problem if you didn't attribute opinions to me that I don't hold, or suggest I made statements that I never made --Nickhh 16:50, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
you just selectively quoted my text. just try not to compare the martyr's capital populace (militants and human shields in a bomb filled batteground) with people who celebrate passover, as though they are on the same innocence level. JaakobouChalk Talk 16:59, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
I did not selectively quote your text. I quoted part of your text, and acknowledged, by my use of the words "your posts also say ..", that another part of it did say something different, ie that the victims weren't all fighters. However now you seem to be arguing anyway that the civilians who were killed in Jenin are on a different level of innocence from other victims of violence. I think you need to be very careful about what you are suggesting with that comment --Nickhh 17:24, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
"Human shields"? Sir, the only documented evidence of human shields in Jenin relates to Israeli forces ordering Palestinians to walk in front of them, open potentially booby-trapped doors for them, etc. Jenin was "bomb-filled" in order to make its capture s as difficult and costly as possible for the invader. It was a "battleground" because Israel invaded it. You're talking as if Jenin was some kind of giant bomb factory where civilians flocked to become human shields, and not a densely populated town where some militant groups made bombs. Nicknh is right, this article is still littered with anti-Palestinian bias, and adopts the completely false accusation that the media were grossly unfair to Israel and reported a massacre that didn't exist. In fact, the media simply passed on what fragmentary reports they receieved, for a while, and then ignored the massive human rights violations by Israel in favour of this bogus question of "massacre". Eleland 13:43, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

proposed tidy up to intro

On a more constructive note, I'd like to make some changes to the intro. In particular some of the cited sources and the interpretation of them needs to go. However I'd like to suggest them here first, to avoid the usual revert war

1. These allegations were aired widely in the Arab world, inciting extreme antipathy toward Israel.[14]. This may be true, however a) the cited reference doesn't provide evidence for either of these points and doesn't mention Jenin at all; and b) I think it's fair to say there's quite a lot of antipathy towards Israel in the Arab world anyway - it's not solely dependent on what did or didn't happen in Jenin.

2. Due to this activity, critics in the West name the events as the "Big Jenin Lie".[15][16]. All these sources show is that a couple of US opinion pieces had the phrase as a headline. Having this in the intro slightly overstates the significance of the criticism and the phrase - it's better off just staying in the media reaction section.

3. Many Arabs and Palestinians still use the term "Jenin Massacre" (ar:مجزرة جنين) regardless of the results of the investigations.. Sorry but second part here just strikes me as being a bit unnecessary, and being little more than a "but they're wrong of course" POV insert. If the phrase is still widely used (are there sources that suggest that?) then it should be noted as a standalone fact, to reflect the fact that some people in the region do use different words to describe what happened. There's also a slight contradiction as well with the recently-changed first sentence, which says "previously dubbed as .." --Nickhh 16:34, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

  1. (a) this report is taken out of a CNN day dedicated to the Jenin fighting. (b) true, however, this was yet another factor to strengthen these racist feelings which are found for the most part on misinformation and lies. regardless, a "hate telethon" for the "massacre" is certainly something worth mentioning.
  2. you made an interesting point, however, if you look up in the talk page, you'll find that there's quite a lot of people who used this and similar phrasings, hence it was notable enough.
  3. i agree that we should add a citation to this, however, it was not added on a whim.
-- JaakobouChalk Talk 16:51, 22 July 2007 (UTC)


Hmm. I kind of read all this as meaning you want it to stay as it is, but you will add one source to tighten it up. Maybe other editors will have a view (as they did when the Jenin Lie issue came up previously, in the section you referred me to). Oh and as usual you immediately reverted the one change I did make, where I had clarified that Israeli sources also initially referred to 100s of casualties. Working with the existing text did make it come out a bit clunky, but you were wrong to say in your revert summary that my wording suggests Israel admitted to a massacre - it says, as it did before, that some media began reporting a massacre .. but changed the following section so it said that those reports were based on [a combination of] the Israeli & Palestinians accounts.--Nickhh 17:07, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
That Israeli estimates were originally higher is noted, but your edit changes the meaning to say that Israeli reports claimed there was a massacre. TewfikTalk 17:59, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
As I explained above, my edit didn't say that if read carefully. But equally, as I admitted, it ended up being somewhat confusing. I'll add it to my list of things that I think need changing and see if anyone else has any views about how it should best be written up. Currently the intro suggests that the only reason for the high casualty figures (and use of the word massacre) is because the Palestinians tried to hoax the world and slander Israel, and that the western & Arab media fell for it. As ever the reality is a little more complicated than that - yes the Palestinian spokespeople and witnesses made exaggerated claims about the numbers killed, but I imagine that's as much because, at senior official level, they simply didn't know what was going on in the camp in the first days of the assault. The IDF, who probably had a better idea, were also talking about 100s of casualties. The media were therefore faced with both sides at times offering similar estimates (albeit each of them describing the situation in very different terms) - and as they were barred from sending reporters into the camp themselves, that was all they had to go on and report. In the early stages of events like this, there is always genuine confusion and contradictory or incorrect reporting about the detail of what is happening. --Nickhh 18:22, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
User:Nickhh, the reason i changed your phrasing was because international reports were based on the reports of the palestinians, not on a cross-check between israeli and palestinian reports. if a couple of israeli sources echoed the "palestinian narrative" (citation is needed), the source still remains palestinian and not israeli. the way you originally phrased it, allowed for the misinterpretation that the international media followed israeli reports - which is wholly inaccurate and misleading. JaakobouChalk Talk 22:07, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
What you'[re saying about "a couple of israeli sources" is factually incorrect. Israeli Defence Force spokesmen did, in fact, offer casualty estimates in the hundreds. Shimon Peres was quoted using the word "massacre" (he later said he was misquoted), and a number of IDF officers were quoted anonymously in a major Israeli paper saying "when the world sees what we have done here, our reputation will suffer immense damage". This was in no way "echoing the palestinian narrative". Eleland 22:15, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
Everyone: don't forget all the (pro-)Palestinian claims about the supposed secret burials in mass graves or what-not. --HanzoHattori 23:48, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Um, they're still there. In the intro. As for whether Israeli actions and comments affected the reporting, even one of the sources cited, one of the CNN reports, includes an individual reporter querying whether the IDF has something to hide, and whether that's why they're not letting journalists into the camp. I watched a lot of media reporting at the time and this was in fact a common reaction - the Palestinians say 100s of civilians are being killed, some IDF spokespeople appear to be confirming a large number of deaths and they're not letting people in to see what's happening. That all helped feed the reporting frenzy. You might want to blame it all on deliberate Palestinian misinformation, but that's not even what the sources 10-13 cited here say. My edits clarified all this, without inserting any judgemental emphasis. --Nickhh 09:32, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

More inadequate references

The claim that Jenin was called "the martyrs' capital" is supported by "The Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center opened in 2001. It is part of the Israel Intelligence Heritage & Commemoration Center (IICC) , an NGO dedicated to the memory of the fallen of the Israeli Intelligence Community and it is located near Gelilot , north of Tel Aviv. It is headed by (Col. Ret.) Dr. Reuven Erlich ."

Please acknowledge that NGO's closely, and openly, linked to one side of the combat are not reliable sources on their enemies. This is equivalent to citing a Hamas-linked NGO for information on an Israeli city. If Jenin was, indeed, called "the martyts' capital", and this was, indeed, a reference to suicide bombings, then there ought to be more reliable sources which can back up the claim. In any case, this claim does NOT belong in the very first sentence of the article; that is a clear attempt to push the Israeli line that the refugee camp was somehow the essential keystone of the suicide bombing campaign and therefore a legitimate target. Eleland 22:10, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

it is simply the current reference to a known fact/nickname, there are links with a scans of documents written in arabic and references - try inspecting them please. this is a fairly WP:RS for referencing a known fact that has been noted on several other sources also.. i don't mind more citations being added, however, there's no reason to feel the given source is unreliable in this matter. secondly, while there is no room to expand on this in the intro, i think it certainly merits a mention. JaakobouChalk Talk 23:16, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
So provide these other sources that make it a known fact. Eleland 00:13, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
unless you have reason to believe this reference is a fraud, the duty of coming up with more references lies with you. JaakobouChalk Talk 00:41, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
Um, no, statements which are not properly attributed to reliable sources may be remvoed at any time. No question of "duty" or "fraud" enters in to it. Read the relevant WP policies. Eleland 00:57, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
the text is referenced to a WP:RS source. did you inspect the scanned documents? JaakobouChalk Talk 01:32, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
I take it you do not have a source both RS and verifiable by "any reader" of the encyclopedia. The reference should come out (especially from the lead!) PalestineRemembered 08:57, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
actually, this issue was fixed allready (see martyrs' capital on talk). JaakobouChalk Talk 16:15, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Incorrect edit summary 24th July

Jaakobou you claimed you had tidied up some unreferenced claims & a few incorrect phrasings. This untrue for two reasons - in fact you more or less simply reverted several edits by good-faith editors to a previous version you approved of; also you actually removed sourced material and re-introduced OR and editorial speculation that does not belong in an introductory paragraph. To be more specific -

1) You re-inserted the statement that Palestinians had claimed "genocide" was taking place, which has a footnote referring to a CNN report/transcript. I had removed the word for the simple reason that it is not mentioned once in that article. Even if you can find a source for that, it'll have to be quite a bit better than one individual merely using the word once in a live TV interview if it's going to get into the introduction (which I have no doubt you can find, given the type of language people can use when discussing massive military invasions of densely populated towns).

2) You reverted the quote from the allegedly authentic Fatah document so that it says Jenin is called the martyrs capital "by Palestinians". I can't see that in the source: quite aside from any - wholly valid - debate about its reliability, the document itself just says "is termed". It doesn't say by whom, and yet again you are also trying to suggest one (alleged) quote can be presumed to be the view of a siginificant part of a population.

3) You re-inserted the word "vastly" to describe the extent to which Palestinian officials inflated the body count figures. This is a far too value-loaded phrase for an introduction, and is unnecessary. I'd even rather not use the word inflated.

4) You reverted changes that had tried to make clear journalists were NOT simply relying on the wrong figures given by Palestinian officials and witnesses when they reported on what was happening. However, as I have pointed out before, even the currently cited sources say that it was a combination of factors that led them to talk about a higher death toll. For example if you actually read the two CNN pieces cited from 11th & 12th April at notes 10 & 11, you will see the following - Ben Wedeman says "we have no way of confirming [the Palestinian claims about a massacre]", because journalists are not being allowed in the camp(ie he is not simply taking the claims at face value); he also says "international relief sources are saying possibly as much as 200 [dead]" and that because the IDF is barring access "the feeling is, is that they are hiding something .. that there's something they don't want the world to see".

5) On the same point, The Telegraph piece cited as footnote 13 says Israeli sources put the death toll at 200. The Sydney Morning Herald article cites two different Israeli quotes, one talking about "100s" of dead, another 250 dead. Other media sources also quoted similar Israeli estimates. However you removed the words from the introduction that had flagged this point up.

I am sorry but it seems you have no interest in making the introduction a balanced piece of writing that sets out the very broad facts, with reference to the sources being cited in it. Instead you seem to want to highlight every point that makes the IDF look noble and victimised, while minimising any real reference to what did happen in the camp, and also highlighting every point that appears to make (to you at least, presumably) the Palestinians appear as vicious and mendacious people who probably deserved what they got. Some of your comments on this talk page corroborate that (ie talking about the different "levels of innocence" for Palestinian civilians as compared to that of Israeli civilian victims). Added to that you insert a false description of what you are actually doing in your edit summary. Whether I can be bothered to change any of this back is another matter. It all gets very tiresome. --Nickhh 20:49, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

You have now reverted again, claiming in your - as usual - fictional edit summary that you have included a proper reference for the genocide claim, and alleging that I vandalised the article
1. The Telegraph piece, like the CNN piece also make no mention of "genocide". Can you actually read?
2. You presumably saw the VERY long post above in which I clearly explained what I did. Even if you do not agree with the reasoning (which is absurd, given that that most of my comments relate to whether certain words or events are mentioned in the references or not), my revert was clearly not vandalism. --195.92.40.49 12:47, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
(forgot to log in for the above post due to lack of time - when i have more will consider how to pursue the blatant abuse being perpetrated here --Nickhh 12:51, 25 July 2007 (UTC))
  1. if you keep your objections short and to the point, i might be able to actually address them properly.
  2. some of your objections are argumentative beyond response as though you insist of "proove it!" polemics once a statment has been proven well enough.
  3. feel free to start a separate subsection here on talk for each objection and i will answer them as best as possible. JaakobouChalk Talk 15:14, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
My objections were to the point - I numbered them, explained clearly what the issues were, and yet you did not respond to any of them, you just reverted the article. It is still open to you to respond to them one-by-one. There are quite a few of them because there are so many problems with the current wording of the introduction. First time round my objections were not short, unfortunately, because it seems to be a struggle to explain to you the concept of "this source does not use the word you say it does .. therefore I have removed it from the main text". If I point out that a source simply doesn't say what you say it does, or says something that you choose to ignore, of course you have to "prove" that my specific changes are wrong before reverting them, rather than making a vague assertion that everything you say is "well proven". And don't forget we are not talking about complex interpretation of these sources, it is a simple point of checking whether certain words and phrases are in them or not. I find this process rather easy. You clearly prefer to rely on filibustering on a talk page. --Nickhh 15:54, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

i'll address the first one: plasetinians made numerous versions of genocide claims, some used the word genocide, and most just used boundless exaggerations that amount to genocide, it you are displeased with the references, note it with the [citation needed] tag, not by reverting information which is both factual and also fairly well cited. JaakobouChalk Talk 16:49, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

If I'd put in a cn tag, you'd presumably just have done what you did previously anyway, and added another reference which also doesn't use the word. And I think you should be able to work out that including the claim in the article because some Palestinians used "boundless exaggerations that amount to genocide" is what we call Original Research round here. For the tenth time, the information about the genocide claims may or may not be "factual" - it is certainly not currently "fairly well cited" in this article.
In turn, and by your own reasoning, you should not remove the part of the text that talks about the impact of the IDF barring entry to the camp, or the IDF's own initial casualty assessments - you should tag them cn. Except of course they ARE ALREADY included in the directly cited references, and also noted further down in the article itself. I quoted some of the relevant parts above. Do you want another one just to make it clear? "The greatest impediment to establishing the truth of what happened in Jenin is the Israeli insistence, on safety grounds, on keeping the camp closed" from the Sydney Morning Herald piece. --Nickhh 17:37, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
A final clarification before I give up and leave you to perfect your Likudipedia. The media sources cited refer, several times each to a) Palestinian claims of 100s dead, allegations of a massacre (although not specifically genocide) etc; b) Israeli statements about 100s killed; c) the IDF's sealing off of the camp. "My" version of the intro references all three, with much more weight still being given to the Palestinian quotes, and use of the word subsequently rather than consequently, in order to avoid inferring direct causation (as I'm sure you'd prefer on both counts - although my own POV is that all three factors contributed to the massacre claims gaining some currency). Your preferred version removed any references to Israeli statements or actions. If you don't see the gaps and lack of neutrality in that, I'm afraid I'm a little lost. I am not trying to make this "pro-Palestinian" instead of "pro-Israeli", since that is not where I am coming from - I am just trying to present what the cited sources say --Nickhh 18:06, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
thank you for that redundant personal attack on how i phrase myself (on the talk page) to describe a phenomenon of exaggerations and lies that included claims of mass graves, bodies being repeatedly mangled by tanks, and more than 3000 dead by some "eye witnesses". JaakobouChalk Talk 20:35, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

genocide

i figure, since people are perhaps naive to the claims made in the global media, that we should start digging up a few of the references for the word genocide that's reverted out so many times even though it was used on many occasions, sometimes with the word itself and sometimes bluntly implied with "figuratively descriptive eye witnessing".

i present this source as a starting point: http://www.honestreporting.com/articles/45884734/reports/Jeningrad_What_the_British_Media_Said.asp

feel free to explain why you consider the use of the word genocide in this paragraph not usable.

The battle attracted widespread international attention due to Palestinian claims of war crimes and genocide and also due to vastly inflated reports on body counts by Palestinian officials.

--JaakobouChalk Talk 20:54, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

I am trying to stay away but it gets very hard. I certainly won't bother trying to edit some accuracy or balance into the introduction any more, let alone the rest of the piece. Whether there were significant contemporaneous Palestinian claims of genocide or not is the least of the problems with this article, and there are far more important issues over what happened in Jenin (like the verified killings of civilians and the physical destruction of large parts of the camp); however I can't let your latest bit of research pass without comment - the only reference to "genocide" claims in the above link is a second-hand one to an AN Wilson column in the Evening Standard. Here is a link to the original piece - http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-446185-details/A+demo+we+can%27t+afford+to+ignore/article.do
Please note - 1) He is not a Palestinian, hence it does not justify an assertion of "Palestinian claims"; 2) he is clearly referring to the combined effect of the overall IDF operation at the time in the West Bank & Gaza, presumably including - but not limited to - the assault on Jenin. Feel free to say he's talking nonsense, but it doesn't support the statement that you want to put in this introduction. I even started to do some more of your work for you, and did a Google search for "Jenin genocide" .. I didn't spend too long trawling through the results, but it actually bought up zero sources showing Palestinians - ANY Palestinians - claiming at the time that what happened in Jenin was genocide, let alone any that showed that they had done so in a wicked bid to defame the IDF. It did, however, bring up quite a few US or Israeli sources alleging that the Palestinians had alleged genocide, but without offering any actual examples. That is a very different thing. --Nickhh 20:45, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
please note, you disregarded the 3000 deaths first claimed combined with the mass graves claim which lead to a single concept - genocide. i'm not saying we have enough sitations at this moment, i'm saying the word is most fitting and we simply should work for finding the sources for it because i wouldn't be pushing this issue had i felt it was not a major part of the way israel was presented in the international media. JaakobouChalk Talk 21:19, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
Contentious claims must not be cited with "starting points"; they must be fully cited or not cited included at all. What we have is a rightist commentary site alleging a quote from a British newspaper that "we are talking of ... genocide", it's completely inadequate for the charges you mean it to support. At most, it could support the charge that "pro-Israel websites quoted a British Weekly Standard columnist discussing genocide in the context of Jenin", but that kind of statement is pretty much useless. You should find the original Weekly Standard piece, or not include this information at all. And in any case, whether a Weekly Standard columnist used the word genocide is not the same as whether Palestinians made claims of genocide. Eleland 22:14, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
In addition Jaakabou you seem to misunderstand what the point of an encyclopedia is - the idea is not that editors flag up their highly personal and speculative interpretations of events, and then declare an intent to trawl around for sources, any sources, that will even vaguely back them up. Nor did I disregard the "3,000 deaths" claim. As I keep saying, I know several Palestinian witnesses and officials made what turned out to be incorrect claims about the death toll. These claims remain in the introduction, and I have never suggested they should be removed. What is in dispute beyond that is a) why they made those claims (confusion? ignorance? panic? a bid to slander the Israelis with some kind of vicious blood libel?); and b) whether any of them specifically made the highly-loaded claim of genocide
ps Eleland, the piece is in the Evening Standard, the main London regional newspaper, in a column by a writer who usually covers a broad range of social & cultural topics, and is not particularly known as a "heavyweight" political columnist. The link to the original is above. Of course, not only does it not provide any evidence for Palestinian claims of genocide, but it is hardly evidence either for any suggestion that genocide claims took over the UK press (there are ten national newspapers here [and thousands of regional newspapers. --Nickhh 07:47, 27 July 2007 (UTC)] - as I said, this is one opinion piece in one regional newspaper) --Nickhh 07:44, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

agreed, i will take a deeper look into sources/origins of this issue before/if i make another suggestion to insert the term genocide again. i will start a new subsection on talk about the other issues soon. JaakobouChalk Talk 10:49, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

They always cry about genocide and compare 6 million deaths (which they deny btw) to their "we lost the war and you're evil" casualties which don't even amount to 20K, maybe you and a couple others got confused. i don't think you can add genocide here. Kalisto89 11:05, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

i will give it a deeper look and won't force the issue if it does seem like it's only an exaggeration by the british media. JaakobouChalk Talk 16:49, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

martyrs' capital

i first became aware of the number of succesful suicide attacks from jenin and the term "martyrs' capital" while watching a pro-palestinian documentry on the israeli channel 8, in this documentry, it was deemed that palestinians in general called the place "martyrs' capital" and not only fatah members. currently we only have a citation from a fatah source and therefore it's written as "called ... by fatah", which is minimizing what we are supposed to report on only to the citation provided. i believe we should perhaps find a second source so we can expand this to "called... by palestinians", which is a more complete/accurate phrasing. JaakobouChalk Talk 10:56, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

It's not more accurate of course unless those sources actually exist. And "martyr" of course is a phrase used to describe anyone killed in the fighting - it may well be that many Palestinians do indeed refer to Jenin as the "Martyrs' Capital", quite possibly not because of the numbers of alleged suicide bombers that came from there before the battle, but because of the numbers killed by the IDF incursion. Which would put quite a different meaning on it --Nickhh 11:29, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
the term was not mentioned to allege "suicide bombers" but rather noted right after some text about the militants operating at the camp in recent years, to note the high stature of the city among the palestinian "resistance jihad" movement... take a look at my last version. JaakobouChalk Talk 15:44, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
is there any objection to reinserting this material under "called... by palestinians" with a note that more refrences should be used along with the fatah one? JaakobouChalk Talk 10:56, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
nevermind, i found a source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3015814.stm JaakobouChalk Talk 10:58, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
Here we go again - you freely admit you want to "find a second source so we can expand .. to a more accurate phrasing". As ever, you know what you want to say and then trawl for something, anything to back it up. And has it not also occurred to you that maybe the magic new source that you have found is actually, in effect, the same source as the one you are already subtly misrepresenting? That is, this BBC journalist is just relying on the disputed IDF-supplied document for his (very brief) comment? That is the way the modern media works you know, with stories and claims going round in circles from one outlet to the next (see the pre-Iraq WMD reporting farce for an obvious example of this). This reference doesn't offer any genuine independent verification for the claim that "the Palestinians" refer to Jenin this way, let alone what they mean by it --Nickhh 14:38, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
I don't believe Jaakobou's motives are relevant, or at issue. While you may well be correct about BBC getting the information from the same partisan sources, making this call on our own is original research. In the absence of sources which specifically dispute the martyrs' capital claim, a BBC citation is enough. This being said, mentioning the "martyrs' capital" information so prominently early on seems a little POV for me. I'm going to rephrase it slightly. Eleland 19:38, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
no offense, but your change in this matter made the paragraph broken. JaakobouChalk Talk 14:29, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Explaining my revert

(i) The claims made by Dr. Zangen and the IDF officials are contentious, and should not be presented as undisputed fact, (ii) we should provide information on the actual damage done to the Jenin camp, as well as the subsequently refuted claims of a massacre. CJCurrie 08:26, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

agreed on this one, i don't mind the phrasing "said" anymore. JaakobouChalk Talk 09:04, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
actually, i changed my mind - this is not a civilian being interviewed, but an actual report by an official medic on the scene. the word reported is far more valid than "said". JaakobouChalk Talk 09:17, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Kalisto89: I agree with Jaakobu

    • I don't particularly care if the wording is resolved as "said" or "reported". I'm more concerned about presenting IDF claims as uncontested fact, as the current wording still does. CJCurrie 21:32, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
Part (ii) is the more serious point. It is equivocation bordering on fraud to describe the devastation to Jenin as a "Palestinian claim" rather than an objective fact. The camp was bombarded heavily by tanks and helicopters, and subsequently some 10% of its area was deliberately razed to the ground by Israeli bulldozers. These are not merely allegations, but widely reported facts. The bulldozing, indeed, was proudly confirmed by official Israeli sources, who were eager to point out that they'd "merely" flattened a tenth of the camp, not the entire camp. Can we address this serious problem? Eleland 01:22, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
It is equivocation bordering on fraud to describe the devastation to Jenin as the result of the IDF "deliberate bulldozing" leaving out that everything was deliberately rigged with explosives, in order to kill as many IDF soldiers as possible. JaakobouChalk Talk 15:40, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
I think it is time this article was edited to WP policy. The devastation was carried out by the IDF - actually, much of it by an untrained "problematical" volunteer whom they let free on IDF equipment. Kurdi Bear told us exactly how he did it, with reckless disregard for the safety of civilians, and believing he killed people in the rubble. It's also high time the "verifiable" reference was put back so that "all readers" can verify what he said. PalestineRemembered 09:30, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
PalestineRemembered, statements like - The devastation was carried out by the IDF, would be OR. WP policy is not to base articles on such OR, if you read the actual article, you'll notice there's nothing there about IDF being the sole body responsible. JaakobouChalk Talk 16:20, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

IDF reporting 250

i request a citation for this text that the IDF at some point reported 250 killed in the jenin attack... otherwise, it seems incorrect.

the current text:

"The IDF barred journalists from entering the camp during the fighting on safety grounds and at one point reported casualties as high as 250, yet many journalists...."

-- JaakobouChalk Talk 11:10, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

It's cited in the body text to an Australian newspaper [13]. Eleland 11:43, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
seems like a "3rd person" report that doesn't quite meet WP verifiability standards. JaakobouChalk Talk 13:16, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
The source, a major Australian newspaper, clearly and unambiguously states that an IDF spokesperson reported 250 dead. Your objections are unfounded and, frankly, nonsensical (all newspaper stories are written in "3rd person" and this has no bearing on verifiability.) Eleland 15:32, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
And why do you insist on inserting text that is not justified by the cited sources, yet query text that is? Is it simply because what it says doesn't accord with your POV. I think most of the contemporaneous media sources cited claim IDF casualty estimates in the 100s - this is presumably because the journalists asked the IDF for their estimates, and various spokespeople gave them those estimates, either in individual or official briefings, or in media interviews. Those figures were wrong, as were the Palestinian claims. The other depressing thing about all this is that, going back up the talk page, it seems another editor had very similar debates with you back in May/June this year, for example about the inclusion of the word genocide in the intro, and other examples of your general misuse/misreading of sources and references. --Nickhh 14:48, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
(1) i don't think that an australia news source should vouch for IDF spokepersons. (2) i have a pretty strong recollections of the events in question and i see documentaries relating every week on our channel 8. (3) please refrain from POV accusations as they testify to your own POV also.
i request you come up with proper citations on this one. JaakobouChalk Talk 23:03, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
These objections are nonsensical. Furthermore, they seem to hinge on whether you personally like the claim at issue. You sourced the "martyrs' capital" claim to the BBC (after a laborious explanation of why Israeli propaganda websites are not WP:RS). If a British TV station reporting claims about what Palestinians say (without specific attribution) is perfectly reliable, is not an Australian newspaper reporting claims about what Israelis say (with attribution) also reliable? Whether you remember seeing it on a Channel 8 (whatever that is) documentary that you think was "pro-Palestinian", or whether you have a pretty strong recollection, is completely irrelevant. Provide sources for your claims or stop making them.
On a personal note, you would do best to leave this issue to one of Wikipedia's many competent Israeli hasbara-pushers. Your broken English, and your manifest ignorance of Wikipedia policy, make you look really silly. Eleland 03:21, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
(1) User:Eleland, i think you should take a good hard look at WP:AGF, WP:CIV and WP:NPA.
(2) please note that i'm not forcing the issue when a reasonable explanation to an objection is given.
(3) please address this issue properly - either we find a reliable reference to give this this alleged spokesperson some credibility or the hearsay statement should be removed. JaakobouChalk Talk 14:21, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia is about verifiability, not truth - the Australian article gives us an estimate of 250 dead from an IDF source, and that is perfectly adequate to be included. However this article is not written to the WP standard of verifiability, since English-language sources of the Kurdi Bear interview were removed - I believe you can explain how this happened. And this article is laced with other inaccuracies, including a BBC report ("52 dead") which clearly conflicts with the source they're quoting ("at least 52 dead"). Perhaps it would be better if you edited the Hebrew WP rather than the English one, since it's clear you're having some difficulty with the language in use here. PalestineRemembered 22:26, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Just to clarify the point - one way governments feed a lot of information to the public is via anonymous briefings to the media (either officially via a press office, whose staff in the UK at least do not give out their names, or unofficially in off-the-record briefings by other staff). This happens either because the journalist has contacted a press office for a comment, or because the government is trying to pro-actively push a point out. That journalist, and other media, may then report what they have been told. That is the way the system works, and it happens in addition to more direct and public methods such as government press conferences, officially released statements etc. We cannot just exclude any information that comes out this way on the basis that it is "3rd hand" - it is still attributed by the journalist to the government collectively, and is certainly not hearsay. What matters is whether the media organisation in question is considered to be a reliable or professional one (which of course is a separate point from whether it is considered biased or not). Any mainstream media outlet saying "the IDF said last night that ..." should be a reliable source for the content of that IDF statement. --Nickhh 07:53, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

that assessment may become valid once we get a couple hebrew sources (or some valid english ones) that repeat this information. we cannot base this information on a single 3rd party source from another country who's giving this information almost indirectly to it's own article. JaakobouChalk Talk 09:01, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
And yet, we can, when the information is something you want known ("martyrs' capital"). Here [14] is Ha'aretz approvingly quoting an Arab-Israeli filmmaker on the IDF estimate of 250, without printing any kind of correction or retraction. Here [15] and [here www.aijac.org.au/review/2005/30-9/jenin30-9.html] is a soul-searching "why does the world hate us" editorial of an IDF Captain published by The National Review Online ("Worse still, the IDF was releasing what turned out to be erroneous, highly inflated estimates of Palestinian casualties ... While our office was saying around 150 Palestinians were killed, I heard very senior generals say up to 200, and the press quoted defense officials with numbers ranging as high as 250. These estimates made the Palestinian claims of 500 dead seem reasonable.")
Do you realize that you are, concurrently, arguing that a single report in a free Jewish-community weekly in San Fransisco be treated as received wisdom without even attributing the claim to its sources, arguing that a single background line on the BBC is enough to label an entire city as the suicide bombers' capital, and arguing that a single 3rd party source from another country isn't adequate to report on Israel? How can you sustain this apparent contradiction? Do you even recognize that the contradiction exists? Eleland 12:21, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

kalisto89 I've never heard about an IDF official stating we killed 250 people, a rumors on a semi-paragraph in Australia is not a good source. Kalisto89 10:56, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

These aren't "rumors on a semi-paragraph", but a report in a major Australian daily. Their correspondent was undoubtedly in Israel which obviates any question of Australia somehow being too far away to report on Israel. Explain why they are not a good source. Eleland 12:21, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
that sounds like a lot of OR to support this statement and i really don't understand why you ask for an explanation when one has been given. just find some proper source for it so we can get rid of this discussion or get rid of this rumor. JaakobouChalk Talk 16:47, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

seems to me that the current phrasing of:

The battle attracted widespread international attention due to Palestinian claims that war crimes were committed (these claims were repeated in the HRW report), and as a result of inflated reports on body counts by all parties.

simply avoids the issue of the 500+ claims by palestinian officials on international broadcasts (saeb erekat on CNN for example) and tries to equate it with one australian report about an unknown israeli source who supposedly claimed up to 250 were injured. i believe this issue needs to be addressed properly so we can phrase it in better accordance to validated facts. JaakobouChalk Talk 11:13, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

The BBC reports... in the fighting

Two problems with this line. Firstly, the destruction was an objective fact rather than a "report". Everyone involves agrees that about 1/10 of the camp was bulldozed to the ground. Israel proudly reported this to the world! Their spokesmen went on TV to tell us about it! [16] [17]

Secondly, the houses were indeed "systematically razed to the ground" not "destroyed in the fighting". Destroyed in the fighting is, frankly, a lie. Most of the bulldozing was done after the fighting [18]. The current wording falsely implies some kind of "crossfire" or "collateral damage", and misrepresents what the sources actually say. Eleland 03:03, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

i reverted because information from the intro was removed, and the "facts phrasing" was based on inappropriate references. JaakobouChalk Talk 06:36, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
btw, i saw images of the destruction, and to me "the facts" looked much closer to 3% destruction of the camp and not 10%. JaakobouChalk Talk 06:38, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
i guess if you mix my own bias and the BBC bias, you get the proper number (6 percent), as i just added to the article. havn't removed the BBC, they are still a large news body, bias and all. JaakobouChalk Talk 08:42, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
I provided two sources, the BBC and the UN report, for the fact that tanks and helicopters shelled the camp. These are manifestly reliable published sources. Yes, I know that many people, yourself included, believe that the BBC and the UN are out to get Israel. This is irrelevant. Unless reliable, published sources not constituting a tiny minority dispute the fact that tanks and helicopters shelled the camp, this fact should not be removed or changed to a "claim".
On the percentages: GlobalSecurity.org may not be a reliable published source by our standards. I don't know. In any case, the percentage they gave referred to the "stadium", the large demolished area in the centre of the camp. The 10 percent figure given by the BBC, the EU report on Palestine, and the "pro-Israeli" group CAMERA, includes other areas of demolition.
"Mixing" one's own bias and the perceived bias of reliable published sources is not a recognized procedure on Wikipedia. Vague references to half-remembered television programs you saw personally are not useful in resolving content disputes. Please accept this. Eleland 20:01, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
User:Eleland, please don't make claims about me beyond what i state, if you have better sources than BBC, feel free to share with us. JaakobouChalk Talk 07:37, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
You might be interested to read the English-language version of the "Kurdi Bear" interview, it's here. That reference was deleted and replaced by the Hebrew version of the same thing (and all the wrong clips from it put into the article). We were told that verifiability (supposedly one of the core principles of the encyclopaedia) now only meant that "all readers" were expected to understand Hebrew.
You might also note that both the UN and HRW state that "at least 52" were killed, not "52 in total". The UN weren't allowed in atall - but one group of International observers discovered[19] that "bodies were still being recovered from under the rubble as late as early August", over 3 months later. PalestineRemembered 20:29, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
User:PalestineRemembered, you should consider linking not only to the problematic sources, but also to all the talks relating it. JaakobouChalk Talk 07:37, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
No, it is time this article was edited to WP policy, whereby we reference or quote what was actually reported. It's a bit late to tell us you have problems with the observations of International volunteers, when you've previously told me you reject what Israeli observers say. The IDF told the UN that they would not be allowed to visit Jenin unless Israeli soldiers were indemnified for war-crimes (UN and HRW reports say that these were committed). It's the IDF that is rendered a totally unreliable source for everything about this incident, because they prevented investigation, and told us why they were doing so. PalestineRemembered 09:38, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
  1. why "No"? quite a lot of words have been made about this.
  2. please don't use wiki as a soapbox blog; anyone can come up with their "figurative speech" version and write them on the talk pages claiming WP is no good. JaakobouChalk Talk 16:24, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Propangada

For those editors who are unaware of it, propaganda generally frowned upon by Wikipedia, even if it consists of true statements. Both sides in any conflict commit atrocities, even the Palestinians and the Israelis, imagine that. On Wikipedia, however, history is not written by the winners. Pro-Israeli editors; innocent civilians tend to die in battles, and nothing can be gained from whitewashing that fact. Pro-Palestinian editors; it is not necessary to wring every last drop of propaganda value from the deaths of your innocent civilians. unsigned by IP 129.252.87.183

innocence is easy to claim when you do guerrilla warfare using civilian support to provide human shields, try watching "death in gaza" sometime (it's slightly anti-israeli film because israelis don't explain their perspective, but in general a fair film). JaakobouChalk Talk 06:42, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
That's right, erode your own soul by devaluing your enemy. All people are more or less innocent. You've tied yourself in a knot over this, a pathetic dry patch of land that an old book says God gave to you. Speciate 09:04, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
Israel was founded to be "A Light unto the Nations", this from Ha'aretz[20]. PalestineRemembered 16:39, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
i remind you both to keep it civil, there's obviously many ways to look at things, but i don't think that i should use the talk page as a blog or an ideological discussion forum. JaakobouChalk Talk 18:38, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
Is it civil to vandalise my TalkPage, as you've now done at least three times? PalestineRemembered 20:10, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
I agree with the argument against propaganda completely. You all (meaning both sides) need to stop your warring. Stop tossing conflicting allegations around and conflicting sources. Simply state the allegations held by each side, and stop this wasteful bickering and arguing. --Steve, Sm8900 16:26, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Grammar

This has been bothering me for some time. The "Evil Zionist POV Version" is written in atrociously broken English. So I made a completely content-neutral edit which only shuffled clauses around. Due to an edit conflict, I then self-reverted. O Tendentious Editors, if you must revert, consider reverting to the version that does not make my head hurt just to scan it. Eleland 18:55, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

User:Eleland, these type of pharsings, even when encapsulated with parenthesis, are simply unhelpful to the project, putting it mildly. JaakobouChalk Talk 19:56, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
I wanted to put the trademark symbol after it, but it's not in the box at the bottom. It was indeed farcing and not pharsing, let alone phrasing. Eleland 20:20, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
that would not make it less offensive. JaakobouChalk Talk 20:35, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
But it would be funnier. Eleland 20:58, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

"Massacre"

There is no hard and fast definition of this term. Would editors please stop adding things like "claims of a massacre were debunked".

To take an extreme example, the killing of a single soldier involved in combat, in one case in American history, is called a "massacre". To take a more pertinent example, the killing of 17 people, at least 13 of which were soldiers riding a civillian bus to their military base to take part in military operations, is listed as a "massacre" over at List of massacres committed during the Al-Aqsa Intifada.

Reliable published sources report that people who are not an extreme minority viewpoint (ie, the entire Arab world) regard what happened in Jenin as a massacre. Claims of a systematic house-to-house campaign of deliberate mass killings of noncombatants were debunked. Claims of a systematic house-to-house search in which civilians were forced to serve as human shields, and some were arbitrarily and randomly murdered, were confirmed. Claims of a massacre were made, rejected by some, and accepted by others. Whether you reject or accept them is irrelevant; they were made, and not by an extreme minority. Stop contradicting them, or sneeringly mocking them, in the text because you personally disagree. Eleland 01:08, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Just noted this conversation as a link to the Buffalo Grove article linked above. I came upon the article as Buffalo Grove massacre. Massacre is a term which can imply POV, and in the case of the aforementioned article I was concerned with its title from the beginning, pertinent discussion can be found here and here. In the end I moved that page to Buffalo Grove ambush.
As a note Merriam-Webster's defines a massacre as: the act or an instance of killing a number of usually helpless or unresisting human beings under circumstances of atrocity or cruelty or a cruel or wanton murder so depending on how that is applied I guess the Buffalo Grove incident can be called a massacre, maybe, but it seemed a bit much to me in that case. I settled with following whatever reliable sources say, if they don't say anything about nomenclature of the event go with the most accurate NPOV description (which can be "massacre" sometimes). Hope that helps, sorry to butt in. : ) IvoShandor 07:57, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
I appreciate your comment as a non-involved editor. The definition you provided sums up the problem perfectly. It's not agreed whether these were "circumstances of atrocity or cruelty" - some POVs say yes, some say no. That's why we should not contradict or mock those claims, although we should contradict claims of a systematic house-to-house execution squad massacre. Eleland 12:12, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
IvoShander, well done for making that change. "The Boston massacre" was 5 killed in a threatening crowd, so the number of deaths can be quite small - but it was absurd to use the word for one!
We can be satisfied that there was indeed a "killing of helpless/unresisting people under conditions of atrocity", because we have the verifiable words of one of the chief perpetrators (even Jaakabou accepts those words are genuine). Under such circumstances (and given there are 100s of millions, if not billions of people who believe there was a massacre), then this article should be so entitled - it's insulting to call it anything else. The fact that parts of it were "a battle between 2 forces" should not conceal the fact that it's most memorable as a massacre. PalestineRemembered 12:26, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
User:PalestineRemembered,
  1. i believe i told you already that you speaking for me is... disturbing. don't do it yet again.
  2. the name "massacre" is no longer mainstream for this article and only stands as a past name or as a reference to how some pro-palestinians still call it.
-- JaakobouChalk Talk 12:43, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
After edit-warring to keep the "Kurdi Bear" story out of this article, you then told us you accepted that the story was genuine.
I don't know what you mean by "mainstream", but "massacre" is clearly the word used by large sections of opinion. Even the IDF admit to killing 20 or so civilians, and the ways that they died (shot at or crushed) clearly match the meaning of "atrocity". PalestineRemembered 15:46, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
User:PalestineRemembered, could you try to reference your claims? JaakobouChalk Talk 18:32, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
User:Jaakobou when you learn how to behave on other people's TalkPages (you've already been taken to AN/I and blocked for harrassing people on them), then we can start having sensible discussions. PalestineRemembered 19:30, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
Wait, are you saying that the main title should be "Jenin massacre"? I don't agree. While you are correct that Kurdi Bear's actions met the Merriam-Webster definition of a massacre by any logical standard, making this association ourselves is WP:OR#SYN, I have learned this elsewhere the hard way. Virtually the entire English-language professional media denies that a massacre occurred, so we should not contradict them outright. Sadly, the fact that their denial was transparently a pernicious, propagandaistic device designed to obscure war crimes — doesn't matter. We should just report the various viewpoints, and the readers can figure it out for themselves. Eleland 17:23, 6 August 2007 (UTC) (belatedly)
It is interesting that you bring that up Eleland because while I have been researching the Black Hawk War I have come across a number of historical discrepancies (granted it is because of how long ago this was not because it involves controversial issues) but it still has some applicability here. I am often stuck between one source saying one thing and another saying something completely different. I took Eleland's suggested approach and just noted the discrepancies to be fair, people who look up individual battles and wars on Wikipedia are smart enough to figure out what something ought be identified as. IvoShandor 18:01, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
Eleland - I've googled Jenin + massacre and I get at least 20% saying "massacre". On the first page, there's one from the very early period (so I'm not counting it), and one is our article. So it's 2 from 8 say "massacre", or 25%/75%. That's quite substantial enough to be given credence in our article. - 4 August 2002 (compares Jenin to 'no massacre' Tiananmen square) and "History of Israeli aggression". And some of the 75% dispute "massacre" but speak of "crimes". I think the balance is 30%/70% on the second page of Google.
Furthermore, despite asking for the reference, I can only find the Washington Post (rather unconvincingly) claiming that the PA has announced only 56 killed. The actual story says "PA official list of 50 named + 6 bodies" (and this is on 1st May, long before there's time for a proper accounting). PalestineRemembered 19:30, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Malam Report (Hebrew)

I found this very interesting source, i thing we should add info from this to the article.. maybe i'll find time to do this soon, but i can't do it today.

main article: martyr city Attachments main: UNRWA terror supporter image sample attachment: translation and original

Jaakobou 16:43, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

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