Talk:Karmiel

More angles on establishment?

Can someone fill in the info on the city's establishment from another angle? Info from a book by Sabri Jiryis (with a foreword by Noam Chomsky) would probably have bias.
ehudshapira 23:21, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, i will soon give some other angels. My masters degree's thesis was about the implementation of the city of Karmiel in the Beith Hakerem valley. I would bring more ressurces and will check the exactitude of the existing ones. Domozy 13:29, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Is Wikipedia devoted to creating biased, imbalanced articles? This is hardly an article about Karmiel--look at the space devoted to land apropriation. Nothing about the cultural activities, the Arab businesses in Karmiel, the accredited university, what is made in the busy industrial area, the unique layout and greenspace, etc. I am truly embarrassed (yet again) at the poor quality and imbalance of Wikipedia. And note that the designation "Palestine" was originally given to Jewish Israel as an insult. Israel has reverted back to its ancient name. Granted, a people now, modernly, do use the name, and they are certainly full and worthy members of human race, and I hope free to speak up. But you give the impression here yet again that an ancient Arab peoples called Palestinians lost their homeland to foreigners. The ancient Biblical Peleset, the Philistines, from whence the word Palestine comes, were neither Arab, nor even Semitic, and they certainly did not live in most of what was ancient or modern Israel. Frankly, an unbiased article would immediately be branded as "biased." Maybe it can't be done. (Signed: A Karmieli) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.153.94.221 (talk • contribs) 20:16, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

No. Wikipedia is devoted to giving everyone the opportunity to do the research & writing needed to create what they believe belongs here. Sounds like you have what it takes. Do it! --Rich Janis (talk) 08:17, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Birth of a town section dispute

It's amazing that several editors are edit-warring on the main page, and no one started a discussion yet, so I'm going to go ahead and start one. I was notified of the problems on this page through my talk page by User:Gilabrand (a notice which should've been made clear here, but I didn't come to argue about canvassing).

In any case, after reviewing the nature of the edits, I have to say that I mostly agree with Gilabrand's position, although the fact that all involved editors have ignored the dispute resolution process is not helpful. Here are my reasons:

• It is incoceivable, and a clear violation of the undue weight policy, to have more info about a controversy with dubious notability, than about the actual founding of the city (groundbreaking, planning, zoning, etc.), in a section meant to deal only with the founding of the city. Moving the controversy information to a 'founding controversy' section (which should not be part of history) would partly solve the WP:UNDUE problem, if the article is expanded to include more information about the non-controversial aspects of the city.
• Further strengthening the above is the dubious notability of the controversy. The fact that the only person who seems to have written about it is a Palestinian activist is clear indication that the incident is non-notable, even assuming that the activist writing about it is 100% accurate in his statements.
• Even though there are no sources disputing Jiryis on this issue (AFAIK), there is a clear conflict of interest here because he is a political figure and is/was part of the Palestinian legislature (judging by his article on Wiki). By comparison, other sources we sometimes use, no matter how disputed (especially Morris) are non-political. I think that something written by a Palestinian government official about the Arab–Israeli conflict should not be quickly taken at face value.

-- Ynhockey ^(Talk) 17:44, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

• For an article about a town this size it is not too much inf.;, if you think it is a WP:UNDUE problem, the *fill in* (start digging!) more information...don´t solve WP:UNDUE by takeing out sourced information!
• As for being an "Arab source": yes, the writer is Arab, but just about all the sources he uses are Israeli/Jewish/Hebrew. (Including writers like Uri Davis) That is why nobody have disputed Jiryis.
• If we are going to dispute/question all writers who have represented a political party (and cast doubt over them, saying they have "a clear conflict of interest"), how many Israelis would be left? Regards Huldra (talk) 18:28, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

• That's not entirely accurate. Karmiel is a small city with a short history, so even if everything reasonable to write about its history is written in an encyclopedic manner (see example GAs Ashdod, Arad, Israel), this particular controversy would still take up a large, and clearly undue, chunk of the section. Again, I don't think the controversy should be removed entirely, just significantly toned down and summarized (as well as introducing reliable sources). In any case, if the controversy is as prominent and important as you say, surely some real historians like Benny Morris or Yoav Gelber (or even Khalidi) have written about it? Morris brought to light information on most of the 1948 war massacres of Arabs by Jews, so there's no reason he wouldn't write about major land confiscations, unless those confiscations were non-notable.
• I never said anything about Arab, Jewish or Japanese sources. I said that Jiryis was a politician in the Palestinian legislature, so it was a conflict of interest. You don't see me citing books by Golda Meir, Menachem Begin or Meir Kahane as factual information about the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, so I expect you not to cite books written by Palestinian politicians. Especially, I expect reliable/authorative sources to be cited, i.e. historians for historical information, etc. Jiryis is not an historian, and neither is Uri Davis (again though, not sure how he is relevant).
• See the above point.

-- Ynhockey ^(Talk) 18:41, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

• I´m not sure what is "not entirely accurate" here. Yes; Karmiel is a relatively small city with a short history; that surely doesn´t mean it cannot have a long article? And that is was banned for non-Jews was (and is) the most well-known fact about it, at least outside Israel (AFAIK). Its history has been treated in several books, it seems as if it is "compulsory history" when it comes to the history of Israeli Arabs (together with Nazareth Illit) (just as when anybody mention depopulated 1948 villages, there are mostly 3-4 names that are mentioned again and again). I am not familiar with Yoav Gelber, but I am familiar with Benny Morris and he has AFAIK written very little about post 1950s. What he is excellent in is digging through newly released archives from the 1940s-early 1950s. I doubt Karmiel would have interested him much, as I assume most archives are still closed for the town (as you say: it has a short history.) The ones that I know of who have written about the town are those who have written about Arab-Israelis. If you only want "certified" historians quoted on this page I´m afraid you will not have any history. But then that will be the same for very, very many other Israeli cities. Do you really want to take away all history that isn´t written by certified Israeli historians? How much post-1960 history will then be left? This is an absurd demand.
• The article now say: "Arab claims". I strongly object to this. You could just as well have said that "Jews claims". You said that Jiryis was a politician in the Palestinian legislature, so it was a conflict of interest. Well, in that case Meron Benvenisti has a conflict of interest (he was an Israeli politician, Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem), do you agree with that? Uri Avnery of course also has conflict of interest (former Knesset member) and so on, and so on. I think you should look at what Sabri Jiryis has published, and realise that he has worked for a research institute most of his life. Shall we dismiss everything say, Zbigniew Brzezinski ..and other American politicians/academics write (out of office), because they have/have had "a conflict of interest"? You have a big job ahead of you, if you try to enforce that as a policy..... But you want to enforce it for a Palestinian? No go. ....My point is that there is a fundamental difference between those with an academic background, who has worked with/in research institutes and then "free-lance" for a while in politicks (people like Jiryis, Benvenisti, and at a much higher scale; Zbigniew Brzezinski), and those without academic background, and/or those who are politicians their whole life (like Begin, Meir). We can both agree that the second group should not be used as an academic source. I do not agree if you say we cannot use the first group as a source. If we cannot use Jiryis, then we cannot use Benvenisti either. Do you agree? If you want, we can go to the WP:RS noticeboard and get a "judgement", or better, I think: bring it to to Pal/Israel -colaberation-board (More knowledgeable people..)
• I think the way forward here is to dig up information about other sides of the history, (and there are many!), say, where did the immigrants come from? What did they work with? How was the town planned? etc, etc. Start adding stuff. not removing it. Regards, Huldra (talk) 20:32, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Removal of sourced information

Firstly, a very pro-Israeli editor, Gilabrand, object to facts in the history-section of this article and deleted them, (facts which have been in the article for more than two years(!)). Since I reversed Gilabrandts reversions, he the goes to another well-known pro-Israeli editor, Ynhochey, for help. Therefore, Ynhockey comes here and removes supports the removal of most of the history of Karmiel. And he they do NOT move deleted material to the talk-page, instead he they just completely burries it(!) However, this was what the history-part looked like:

History

Birth of a town

In 1956, about 1,275 acres belonging to the Israeli Arab villages of Deir al-Asad, Bi'ina and Nahf were declared as "closed areas" by Israeli authorities. This area, situated next to the main road between Acre and Safed, included some of the finest marble quarries in Israel. Five years later, in 1961, the Israeli authorities were able to expropriate the land (giving the reason that the land was not in use) for the building of Karmiel. The expropriation met with strong resistance from the Arab villagers who offered the government other land which was more suitable for building a town. The government refused, offering instead "equally good land" in the same area.

When Moshe Sneh (Maki) and Yusef Khamis (Mapam) brought the case to the Knesset on behalf of the villagers, and as it turned out, there was no "equally good land" in the area. Following the debate the villagers arranged a protest meeting in March 1962. The military Governor of Galilee, however, declared the villages "closed areas" on the day of the protest, so nobody could contact the villagers and the meetings were therefore cancelled. The same happened with a protest meeting planned for January 1964.

After the first part of Karmiel was finished and Jews had started moving in, some local Arabs applied for permission to move into the town, but were denied. The Minister of Housing, Yosef Almogi, refused in a Knesset debate in 1964 to answer whether it was forbidden for Arabs to live in Karmiel. He only replied that "Karmiel was not built to solve the problems for the people in the surrounding area."

Many Jewish Israelis were upset by what they saw as discrimination against Arabs and in February 1965 about 400 people walked from Tel Aviv to the "closed-off" areas around Karmiel, protesting against "discrimination of a group of our citizens". Representatives of the protesters went to a local police station, informing the police that they were staying in the area without permission. Nobody was arrested immediately, but as soon as things had quiet down the perceived leaders were arrested and put before military tribunal.

In January and February 1972 an Israeli Arab entrepreneur offered to invest money in building industry where both Jews and Arabs could work in the town. The offer divided the town, but those who opposed won, and the offer was rejected.

References

---

Well, I can agree with Ynhochey (and Gilabrand) that there was material missing (especially missing is (IMO): who were the immigrants settling there? I understand they were mostly from Eastern Europe; I would much like to see more about that demographics). BUT uneven coverage isno excuse for burrying well-sourced material.

Also: calling one sections "Arab claims" is rather insulting IMO; what if we started to call everything which is only based on Jewish sources as "Jewish claims"? And calling it "Arab claims" when it is based on Knesset references, and Maariv, a Hebrew newspaper?!

And finally, the irony; if Ynhochey or Gilabrand had bothered to do their "home-work" before they did their mass-removal; they would have found that the people who have written the most critically about Karmiel are......Jews. See what Israel Shahak wrote back in 1975 in The Racist nature of Zionism and of the Zionistic State of Israel The Link, volume 8, issue 5 Winter 1975: "Another example in the same area can be given if we remember the case of Mr. Mohammed Maáruf, an Israeli citizen from the village of Dir El-Assad, who wanted to open a factory in the town of Carmiel. This was officially prohibited to him because of the official reason that Carmiel is "out of bonds" to non-Jews, and surely enough, at the end he had to build his factory outside the "pure" boundaries of Carmiel.....I can dwell or open a business in any place of my choice [ ] but only because my mother was a Jewess. An Israeli citizen whose mother was not a Jewess can not enjoy this right."

And if they had done their home-work, they would have known that Jiryis got much of his information from Uri Davis; his book: Deir al-Asad: The Destiny of an Arab Village in Galilee, in Palestinian Arabs in Israel: Two Case Studies, Ithaca Press, London 1977, (as co-editor, with Hasan Amun, and Nasr Dakhlallah San´allah) ISBN 0-903729-32-6 details the development of Karmiel (which took place on land which used to belong to Deir al-Asad ...and the removal of their land plunged many (most?) of the people of Deir al-Asad into poverty.) I can basically rewrite the whole history, saying the same, but using only Jewish sources. However, the Jewish sources normally express themselves far stronger than what Jiryis did..I can also, if you want me to, quote the false letter written by the Knesset Subcommittee to the villagers in 1956, assuring them that their land would not be confiscated.. (p. 11-12 in Davis´s book), etc, etc. Now, do you want to reverse the edits, or do I have to do it myself? Regards, Huldra (talk) 16:32, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Just noting that all of my non-minor edits to this article have been content additions, not removals. Not sure where you got the notion that I 'removed sourced content', so please look at the page history before insulting other editors. Other than that, I'd be happy to debate with you on the merits of using Jiryis as a source, if you reply to the points I raised above (no point in going in circles). Cheers, Ynhockey ^(Talk) 17:48, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Ok, sorry that you feel my comments were insulting, they were not meant to be. And I see that it was mostly Gilabrand who did the actual deleting, you did "the supporting"; and I have changed the text accordingly (from "he" to "they"). That does not change my main point: the deletions are completely unacceptable. Pease get hold of the Uri Davis book, if you do not believe me. Also take a look at the Nazareth Illit-article: it had very much a similar history. Thank you. Regards, Huldra (talk) 18:14, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Huldra, I didn't do 'the supporting', as you imply, I came here in order to start a discussion which both you and Gilabrand ignored in favor of edit-warring—and after my post, it took you over 2 weeks to come to this page, and Gilabrand has yet to reply at all. The content removed by Gilabrand was entirely cited from Jiryis's works, so I'm not sure how Uri Davis is relevant to this argument. Please reply first to the points I raised on 11 October about this very issue, and then we can commence with a civilized debate. Until that is done, I'm afraid I don't see a point in shooting off in a completely new direction. -- Ynhockey ^(Talk) 18:21, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

• Ynhockey: As I stated earlier, I have been away, in fact since the 11 of October. The first thing I do when I come back is to respond here.
• You say you come here to start a discussion (*after* one part notified you), and then you just "happened" to agree with him. Yeah. Right. You have been around here for some time, Ynhockey: if it was only a discussion that was wanted/needed then you know as well as I do that one notify the wiki-projects involved, one does not solicit help from editors which one is normally in agreement with. It is of course not "illegal", but it isn´t NPOV either. You know this as well as I do, Ynhockey.
• you write: "The content removed by Gilabrand was entirely cited from Jiryis's works, so I'm not sure how Uri Davis is relevant to this argument". And that is the problem. You want to "start a discussion", but you are not familiar with the case, neither with what Jiryis nor with what Uri Davis writes about Karmiel. Short version: Uri Davis did most of the research for his book ("Two case studies"), Jiryis quoted the original sources as given by Davis. Ok? So just about everything that is sourced to Jiryes, could also be sourced to Davis. (When I added the information I only had the Jiryes -book, at the moment I only have the Davis-book, but can get the Jiries -book when the library open tomorrow.) And I am replying to the stuff above, as fast as I can type, which admittedly isn´t very fast. Regards, Huldra (talk) 19:14, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure I made myself clear with the original post, but I'll reiterate: Gilabrand's note to my talk page was not appropriate. Even so, that in no way prevents me from coming to this page as a result of the note and providing my opinion (whether in support or opposition of Gilabrand). I am in fact quite glad that I was informed, as an editor who is interested in the articles on all 76 Israeli cities, even though the note should've been different and posted on WP:Israel and not my talk page.

Secondly, my argument was based on my opposition to using Jiryis as a source, as well as WP:UNDUE concerns (see my latest reply above). Uri Davis is an entirely different argument, and if you believe that information sourced to him is more reliable than to Jiryis (which it is not, because Davis isn't an historian, but for the sake of argument), then you should try preparing a draft with the new refs, and we will discuss that. So far, you clearly stated that you wished to restore your original version, which didn't contain a single reference to Davis, and I am strongly opposed to such a restoration (again, read latest points above).

Lastly, please do not feel pressured to type as fast as you can. Thought-out replies are better than quick replies and if it takes you an extra day to reply, that is completely fine with me and no one has the right to demand that you reply faster.

Cheers, Ynhockey ^(Talk) 19:25, 28 October 2008 (UTC)