Talk:New Movement – Meretz

Meretz and Yachad

What does "Meretz" and "Yachad" mean? --Checco (talk) 12:54, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Meretz Vitality and Yachad Together respectively, - C mon (talk) 20:05, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

The New Movement

We should get more information specifically on The New Movement (Hatnua haHadasha). Here are some links. A section should be made in the article describing their principles.

• As Israel’s Labor Party Declines, a Rival Emerges on the Left
• New dovish faction shaping up in Israel
• As Labor fades, new leftist movement steps into the breach
• Leftists say 'no choice' but to seek new political leadership
• Meretz and Hatnua Hahadasha unveil their joint Knesset list

--Shamir1 (talk) 05:56, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

• Feted author Amos Oz says new leftist party will replace Labor
• Barak to Haaretz: I was hurt by Amos Oz's words
• Meretz chief looks to galvanize left wing with new political party

--Shamir1 (talk) 05:35, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Far left label

is trying to insert the claim that Meretz is "far left". To support this claim he brings four opinion pieces that used the label. Of these the ynet piece appeared in a general media outlet - the others in more or less biased outlets. Establishing whether a party should be labeled as left or far left is a tricky business and it not clear whether Wikiepdia should engage in it and what is the value of such a label. Just for comparison, in the Hebrew Wikipedia Meretz is characterized as "left". Mashkin (talk) 16:09, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

The article now describes Meretz as "far left" and "social democratic". Rather contradictory as social democracy is an ideology leaning towards the centre.--Autospark (talk) 16:34, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Sources were provided by two non-partisan sources and two other sources that are nonetheless RS from Ynet (mainstream Israel), IsraelNationalNews (Jewish), CBN (Christian), and the National Post (mainstream Canada). I'm not trying to insert a label, and the sources are news articles not opinion pieces as you claim. Establishing the label is not the business of you or me, especially to construe that from the news, unless is it explicitly used as in the sources provided. --Shuki (talk) 13:30, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Exactly. It is not your business to put labels on the party, but give the best possible description. Therefore source that are opinion pieces (that is exactly what they are) are not appropriate. Please do not insert the claim until the end of the discussion. Mashkin (talk) 13:44, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Three of those four sources have a clear right-wing bias (INN is very right-wing). The real test is if left-leaning media sources also describe the party as far-left (this is the criteria I used for far-right parties - i.e. did a right-wing source (e.g. the Jerusalem Post) desrcribe them as far-right). пﮟოьεԻ 57 13:46, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

The Jerusalem Post is a right-wing paper? I don't see too much weight for that right label in its article. If you are going to use the litmus test (your POV OR litmus test only) that only 'like' organizations can describe like-parties, then you will have to find right-wing sources for your 'far-right' claims as well since you brought that subject up. WP is about equal conventions. --Shuki (talk) 14:04, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

The Post is well-known to be right-wing in the same way that no-one with any sense of credibility could deny that Haaretz is left-wing. пﮟოьεԻ 57 14:20, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Jpost is not well-known to be right-wing at all so I brought an additional source written by an Arab journalist. Are you going to claim that he is right-wing? --Shuki (talk) 14:30, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Jpost is very well known to be right-wing; either you are deliberately lying to try and win an argument, or your clear rightist bias is showing through again. And are you seriously trying to claim all Arabs are left-wing. Anyway, I've asked for a couple of editors who are able to keep their POV in check to comment here. пﮟოьεԻ 57 14:34, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Number57, how can you claim that I am lying. I don't think Jpost is a right-wing joint. I wish it were. I am not claiming that all Arabs are left-wing, why do you put words in my mouth? I am bringing multiple RS to source the article and it is YOU who is getting quite hyped up about your baby. How else is one to explain your abuse of your admin permissions to protect the page so quickly? Many pages that are suggested at WP:RFPP never get approved with much more frequent and on going vandalism. It's your POV that your are denying RS.--Shuki (talk) 14:43, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

I didn't state that you were definitely lying, I said lying or allowing your bias to show through.

As for accusing me of abusing my admin status, I suggest you actually look at the article logs.[5][6] I started semi-protecting the article a long-time ago (along with several other articles on left-wing parties like Hadash and Maki) because it is constantly attacked by sockpuppets of User:Runtshit if left unprotected. This article is not "my baby". Yes, I support Meretz, but I haven't really contributed much to this article beyond an expansion of its history section; I'm far more interested in historical parties and MKs than trying to fluff up this article.

Anyway, as noted in an edit summary, this far-left category looks like a pathetic response to my insistence that Kach et al are kept in the far-right parties category. There are a few far-left parties in Israeli political history (e.g. Progressive List for Peace and Meri), but Meretz is not amongst them (it's not even communist for a start). пﮟოьεԻ 57 14:59, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

I think "left wing" is probably the best description. Meretz is a Zionist party and is social-democrat. This makes it more centrist than radical. Hadash or Balad would be considered far left on the Israeli political spectrum. Citing op-eds on political labels is problematic. Also, those labels are not purely factual, but are partly analytical (WP:ASF). -- Nudve (talk) 15:39, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Comment: I was asked to comment here by Number 57 after also being asked to do the same on the article about Likud. I have only read the most recent discussion (this section), so maybe some of the things said here are lost with me. Having said that, I would suppost saying that the party is left-wing in the lead/infobox, but with a clear explanation that it's also often considered far-left in the article (similarly to how it worked with Yisrael Beitenu).

The reason for the 'left-wing' label is that it's more common, and also that Meretz is the only pure left-wing party in Israel—Avoda and Kadima are center-left, and Hadash is clearly far-left. Meretz's policies are all universally left-wing, and it claims to be the "true left", but it's hard to call it far-left today because its current members are Zionist, support military service, etc.

The reason that it should be explained clearly about the far-left opinion is that, firstly, there is a significant number of individuals and secondary sources calling it far-left (Shuki provided some sources, such as Ynetnews, which are not 'right-wing'), and secondly, because in the past the Meretz party was clearly far-left (especially with Shulamit Aloni as leader). Notably, it was against mandatory military service, which is widely considered far-left and anti-Zionist in Israel.

On a side note, The Jerusalem Post is not inherently right-wing like Haaretz is left-wing, and it's incorrect to say that it is. Haaretz is staffed by left-wingers and publishes only the columns of those who agree with a left or extreme-left point of view. On the other hand, JPost publishes columns from both sides of the spectrum. IIRC they even published an OpEd from the Hamas-affiliated Norwegian doctor who was accused of staging a medical treatment (along with a Palestinian doctor) to create sympathy for the Palestinians. It's also the only major English-language newspaper in Israel, so it has to be mainstream and can't really afford to take sides on most issues, while Haaretz (offline) is in Hebrew-only and has catered primarily for leftists in Israel for many years now. -- Ynhockey ^(Talk) 23:20, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Not sure why you think Haaretz only publishes columns by left-wingers - today's has a piece by Moshe Arens, hardly a dove I'm sure you'll agree! пﮟოьεԻ 57 09:32, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

FWIW, the term is used worldwide by different writers and editors. It can't be claimed that it was a slip up by a partisan source. --Shuki (talk) 07:53, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

These opinions are not appropriate for the lead (where a succinct description of the party should be given) and do not deal with a significant enough issue to be included anywhere. Also in general these sources do not give reasons and hints as to how they diefne the term "far left". Mashkin (talk) 08:41, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

That's a poor argument. Neither do the references for 'left' describe what makes Meretz 'left'. And we are not asking for your POV, the discussion is about RS describing the party with a certain term. Please provide a RS why Meretz is not left or far-left.--Shuki (talk) 09:47, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

• Please continue discussion on the Israel project page here. This is going nowhere without more visibility. --Shuki (talk) 09:55, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
  • Quite the contrary, we have had four editors (myself, Nudve, Ynhockey and Mashkin) state that left-wing is the best description for the party , and only one editor (yourself) thinking that far-left is appropriate for the introduction. пﮟოьεԻ 57 16:49, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Oy vey, so if you want to be nitpicky, yan did remark that he thinks that Meretz was far-left. 3 against one? How come no one else you invited came to support you? --Shuki (talk) 17:08, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Are you suggesting that I only invite editors I know will support me? Perhaps you should look at the Likud talk page, where Yan offered an opposing opinion to mine after I invited him. In fact I invite Nudve and Yan to discussions because they are amongst the few editors in this sphere who are knowledgeable and able to stick to NPOV. As I said on the WP Israel page, I'm fine with it being mentioned in the article, but not in the introduction as you seem to insist on. пﮟოьεԻ 57 18:27, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Relax, not suggesting that at all. There is a term for that on WP, and I did not mention that or even now. --Shuki (talk) 18:42, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Just to clarify, I don't think think that it is in place to discuss whether there are people who label Meretz "far left". As I sadi, such a discussion should entail the definitions of the terms and is just too long and unrelated to the article. In any case the "source" that Shuki is using are really not to the point, since they just mention it in passing and do not explain how they arrived at the claim. (Several of Shuki's edits suffer from this problem.) Mashkin (talk) 18:41, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Using that opinion, we should remove all left/right adjectives from articles because it is rare to find an academic paper explicitly labeling as such and justifying it. So we are relegated to pulling this description from the way the party is referred to in the media and dependant on their POV. The discussion is definitely not suitable in the article, that is why there are articles for left, far-left, as well as ultra & radical left as well. I suggest you read them all. --Shuki (talk) 22:28, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

You are making it very difficult to discuss things with you. You asked for a general discussion in the Israeli page and I voiced my opinion. Now you want a repetition here? First, the purpose of the labels is to give a quick mapping of the views of the party and therefore there is little point in delving too much on the subject. Specifically in the Israeli case I described what I think is the separator between left and far left (Zionism). so when you write a sentence some ... are you saying that they are claiming that Meretz is non Zionist? Maybe there are some who claim that, but I doubt that there the sources you are trying to insert claim it (it is hard to tell, since they are mentioning it in passing). Mashkin (talk) 05:42, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

A) the discussion there is meant to be general. B) You gave your opinion. So? I gave mine. I included sourced information that is relevant to describing the party. You disagree. I understand. Again, information from the international and local media no less is sourced, I am not making this up. Please stop removing it. --Shuki (talk) 19:17, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Stop trying to insert it until the end of the discussion. This is pretty elementry. Please addres the points I raised. Mashkin (talk) 21:20, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

If you haven't noticed, the discussion is over. I have inserted legitimate info that is directly relevant to giving a proper background to the article that is sourced to various different media from different countries and times. The info is not majority or the main item, yet significant enough nonetheless. If you insist on continuing to oppose this, please bring up the WP policies that you think might be relevant. In the meantime, the onus is on you now. Thank you. --Shuki (talk) 23:12, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

The discussion is not over and it is not clear why you suddenly make this claim. You are violating various guidelines for editing articles in your behavior. Please do not insert the disputed sentence until the end of the discussion. Mashkin (talk) 23:16, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Ain't it kind of funny that even here, there are six sources (including the NYT) and you refuse to accept it, while on another article you are editing, a lone partisan Ynet source seems to be enough for you. Is this another one of the articles you have assumed WP:OWNERSHIP --Shuki (talk) 23:17, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

You have turned this into a personal issue and this is not helpful for Wikiepdia and point out that you edits are not good faith.

The reason that all these sources are not worthy of mentioning in this context is that there are off the cuff comemnts where the reasoning behind the label is not given.

We had a long discussion and all these points were made. Mashkin (talk) 23:29, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Should secularism be added as an ideology

Meretz, and their mythological leader Shulamit Aloni are known for their secularism, they even had a religious-secularist MK. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Scarfac3 (talk • contribs) 01:56, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

The Congressional Research Service includes its secular ideology as part of the party's basic platform, as well as the fact that it represents peace activists. I have added both. --Shamir1 (talk) 06:46, 8 June 2010 (UTC)