Talk:Sabra and Shatila massacre

85.65.99.40 edits

Hi, There are edits that are made by 85.65.99.40 that in the the edit summary says (these are edits that improve the bad English in this article) but in fact are deletes of major sourced informations that help us to understand the massacre.The IP is ready for a war edits. we do really need the point of view of admin. I used Wikipedia:BRD to make the last revert, and I invite any one to join the discussion. Here is the famous grammar correction [1]. --Helmoony (talk) 18:15, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Some of the IPs changes are not bad. However, their refusal to discuss them is unacceptable. --ElComandanteChe (talk) 22:08, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Hi, I think it is wrong to blanket revert these contributions, most of which seems positive. I'm selectively re-adding some of the non controversial and well sourced material. Marokwitz (talk) 09:33, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

I added back some of the better contributions. I also tagged a number problematic sentences which should be discussed. Please let me know if you have any comments. Marokwitz (talk) 09:46, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

As a general comment, there seems to be a lot of unsourced material that is either lacking a ref and/or a non-POV voice. Often both. And some of it could easily attract a dubious tag. I would suggest that especially when an article might contain contentious material, sourcing is helpful and unsourced contentious statements are unhelpful.--Epeefleche (talk) 13:07, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

responsible or involved

Probably we have to use the term used in the report which is Israel is responsible [2]. --Helmoony (talk) 01:28, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Media and Public Reactions

There are a number of problems with this section. First of all, the title of the section is extremely misleading, as the section discusses neither media nor public reactions, just the reaction of Bernard Lewis. The second problem is that there is not a single citation in the section. I have added citation needed tags, and would appreciate if someone could find where these statements came from. If nothing more can be found, I think it would be more accurate to remove the entire section altogether, as it is presenting only one viewpoint; a truer section name should be "Bernard Lewis' reaction" and that is not acceptable.

dynam001 10:00, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Referenced text commented out; could be (partially) reincluded elsewhere

I've commented out the following paragraph from the "Events" section:

The massacre is regarded as a reprisal for the Damour massacre by Palestinians a few years earlier , which personally impacted Elie Hobeika . The view of the Sabra and Shatila killing as a revenge for the Damour massacre was asserted by the prominent writer Samir Khalaf, by New York Times writer Thomas Friedman , and by author B. Gabriel who wrote that "Palestinian militiamen started the killings in 1976, long before the 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacres. Beit Mellat, Deir Achache, Damour." In the Damour massacre, Yasser Arafat's PLO killed nearly 600 Christians. The Damour massacre, however, had been a response to the Karantina massacre, which had taken place earlier in 1976. In the Karantina massacre, Phalangists killed an estimated 1500 Muslims.

If this, or parts of it, belongs in the article, they clearly are not part of the "Events." I would submit that the "Background" section adequately includes the events of 1975-76 in context. Jd2718 (talk) 19:57, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Source does not implicate Syria in Hobeika's assassination

I will be removing a line, cited to the Jerusalem Center for Political Affairs, that suggests Syria may have been behind Hobeika's assassination. The cite in our article is a part of a sentence, and makes a stronger claim than the reference.

• Original: Hobeika may have been interested in testifying in Belgium in order to clear his name with Lebanon's Christian community, which came to view him as a Syrian agent. Yet there were those, like Syria, that might have been concerned where Hobeika's testimony could lead. It is noteworthy that Hobeika was careful not to accuse Sharon. A Belgian senator, Vincent Van Quickenborne, who visited Hobeika just before his death, told Qatar's satellite television network al-Jazira on January 26, 2002, that Hobeika had specifically stated that he did not plan to identify Sharon as being responsible for Sabra and Shatilla (IMRA, January 27, 2002).
  
• Our article: The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs on the other hand suggests that rather Syria "might have been concerned where Hobeika’s testimony could lead".
  

The original drops the hint, but makes no claim. Even the "like Syria" draws back from the assertion that our article now makes. The original does not say "Syria might have been concerned..." The hint or insinuation (not a claim), is too weak to be worth including. Jd2718 (talk) 00:19, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Schabas / UN

Is there a reason to quote the UNGA abstentions in detail, while only referencing the (more numerous) "for" votes very briefly? Also, would it not be appropriate to note that Schabas advocates a restrive definition of genocide, by which e.g. Cambodia, Ukraine, former Yugoslavia do not qualify? (Maybe offtopic: I see where Schabas is coming from... but the analogy to Srebrenica seems extremely close, and the ICC has ruled that as a genocide, right...?) TiC (talk) 00:29, 23 October 2011 (UTC)