Talk:Naeim Giladi

I have already found sources that indicate the man's significance to the Mizrahi and anti-Zionist communities. For example, Ella Shohat, the academic and scholar who identifies herself as an "Arab Jew" notes that "Naeim Giladi, a former Zionist activist in Iraq, gradually came to change his outlook after living in Israel, and has become an anti-Zionist activist. He left Israel in the early 80s and settled in New York, renouncing his Israeli citizenship. (From my diverse conversations with Naiem Giladi taking place in New York, in the late 80s)."[1] Giladi wrote a book entitled, "Ben Gurion's Scandal: How the Haganah and the Mossad Eliminated Jews" that was self-published in the US in 1992, and subsequently banned from both the US and Israel. Dandelion Books released a revised edition of the book in 2003. [2] The book is listed for sale at Amazon.com UK [3] but is listed as not available at Amazon.com in the US. [4]

One of his articles is cited as a source in Operation Ezra and Nehemiah on Wikipedia itself.

I will reformulate this information and incorporate into the existing article. It should not, however, be deleted. Just because one doesn't like his views, doesn't mean he is insignificant. Tiamut 01:20, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

This book is available from Amazon in other countries, and is recommended by them. Giladi is highly critical of the British tactics in Iraq, believing they manipulated the worsening news from Palestine to cause trouble in 1941. Later, the Zionists bombed their own people to get them to flee and populate Israel (some were also caught doing this in Egypt). He went to Israel and found it very discriminatory of "Arab Jews" like himself. PalestineRemembered 14:48, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

His article is not cited as a source in the Operation Ezra and Nehemiah article, it's just an external link there. okedem 10:18, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

biased article

from what I understand, all the info on his life come from his book .. not examining everything yet, obviously this telling shouldn't be presented as a fact on what happened to him. this is what he says. Amoruso 22:39, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. This article is ridicules. It treats whatever this guy says as absolute truth, not a critical word in the whole article, and almost all sources are his own book/article. In it's current form, it's unfit to appear in an encyclopedia. okedem 23:12, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Hi Amoruso, Okedem! You are most welcome to introduce new sourced material or further improve upon the article in other ways. I noticed it was very poorly sourced and totally uninformative when I first came across it. So I did a little research and expanded it. While there are other sources besides his own work cited in the article, it is true that it is lacking other sources on his life experience, besides of course, Ella Shohat's mention that she spoke to him about his experiences in many conversations - being a respected academic in her field and identifying as an "Arab Jew," we could expect that if she doubted him or the legitimacy of his experiences, she might have mentioned that. In any case, should you feel the need to stress that his autobiographical account is indeed autobiographical, you can do so. I believe I note that his work is autobiographical in the article already, but perhaps you have a formulation that is better. Just a heads up to do a quick read up on WP:BIO to inform your editing changes, since the policy on living persons is quite strict, due to the threat of libel or other legal problems. Source all doubts or aspersions so as not to fall into the trap of original research. These remarks may seem pedantic, but I detect a note of hostility towards the man and his experiences from the two of you (forgive me is I'm being presumptious). Finally, I am going to remove the neutrality notation. The content is taken directly from the sources cited and I could not find sources that have a disparaging thing to say about the man. It is an assumption of your parts that his story in not credible (an unsourced assumption at that) and that is not enough to keep the label in place. Respect. Tiamut 05:50, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

I fixed some of the pov but there's still some inherhent in it, leave it for others... Amoruso 07:08, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

The POV that you find "inherent" is due to the fact that Naeim's views have a POV and they are faithfully represented here. We cannot just change what he lived and experienced so that it ceases to offend people who do not share his views. However, as I mentioned above, you are welcome to find sources that challenge his story or writings. So far, I keep finding more and more sources that support most of what he says. I did include however, the view of Mordechai Ben-Porat of Naeim's thesis regarding the Iraq bombings which he views as totally false. In short, there is no POV in the way the article is written. At least, not in my edits, which had formed the majority of the article to date. Tiamut 08:24, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

The problem is that the wording of the article makes it look as though whatever he says is true. We don't know that, we don't have corroborating evidence. He makes strong claims, but brings forth no proof but his own words. The words "He wrote about his experiences...", the title "Experiences in Israel", the sentence "In short time, he realized that those Palestinians that were signing such documents were doing so under duress", all of these make it seem as though he truly wrote about what happened, and this is all fact. That may be the case, but we don't know that. The article should make it clear that these are only his claims. Even the sentence "He gradually became disillusioned with Zionism" is badly worded - it implies that Zionism is an illusion, and now he knows better.

The wording is libelous toward Israel and the Zionist officials, in accusing them of serious crimes, without proof, and without counterbalance. okedem 09:00, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

I have scoured the web, trying to find any evidence for his claims. I've tried finding someone who says he's speaking the truth. I've tried finding something simpler - details about why his book was "banned" in the US and Israel (a very strong thing to do) - why was it banned, by who? The only mention I could find was the publisher, calling it "the banned book", and now it appear oh so exciting.

All of the references I could find about his claims are just interviews with him, or people talking excitedly about his book. One of those site, quite typical, talks about the book, and then links to a file called "Hoax or Holocaust. The Arguments" (which is of course a holocaust denying essay). I know this is guilt by association, but I can't find any serious site saying anything useful about this whole matter! okedem 09:56, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Prove to me that claims made by people in their published autobiographies are ever subject to the kind of character assassination that appears to be going on here.

My reading of WP:BLP suggests it is taboo to imply him to be a liar, or to slur him by reference to Holocaust denial. He's Jewish, for goodness sake!

If I wasn't personally involved in this article, I would revert your changes and take further advice about behaviour potentially so damaging to the encyclopedia.

I'm totally not interested in "edit-warring", despite the cavalier way my work has repeatedly been treated (including the re-writing of entire new articles like this one that I created). I've actually become nervous of making edits, for fear of apparent attempts to get me into fights (or simply to waste my time).

PalestineRemembered 10:29, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

PS - the use of "disillusioned" in the article was the correct use of an English word. More time-wasting as I research evidence to defend my use of it (it should be up to you to prove I've mis-written and share proof with us before removing the work of others). However, have a look at Watergate Babies. Are you telling me that this article (about a term invented by the Republicans themselves) means that the "Republican Party" is an illusion?

PPS - on this book being "banned in the US and Israel", note that it is available on www.amazon.co.uk. This is despite it being quite harsh on the British, and despite the fact that AmazonUK is a recent, smallish off-shoot of AmazonUS. But the book is *not* available in the US (or not from Amazon), meaning that one of his claims (and one that initially sounds pretty unlikely) is proven. (I love your "tried to find reasons" for it being banned - since when did the black-mailers or just unofficial censors ever give reasons for this kind of action? We know why it was banned - certain people wish to obstruct freedom of expression and cover-up their crimes.)

You seem to have gotten a little confused, as I've made only one change to this article, and that's the "disillusioned" bit. Even in the example you bring, the voters become "disillusioned" with the republican party because it committed a crime - and that's a proven fact, unlike the claims this guy makes.

He makes very strong and controversial claims, and it needs to be clear that these are only his claims, not proven fact, not widely agreed upon by historians. I can publish a book saying I saw Arabs eat babies - will you write an article about me, saying "Okedem writes of his experiences watching Arabs eat babies"?

I didn't say that he has anything to do with "Holocaust denial", and wouldn't write anything like that in the article.

That Amazon lists the book as unavailable is your proof? That means a lot of old sci-fi books I wanted are also banned. Can you prove it was banned? Can you bring forth any evidence to that end, or are Amazon availability details all you have?

You should be more careful when making weak arguments like that, especially since yours is 100% false! The very same book the article links to in AmazonUK is available in AmazonUS [5]. The link the article gives (to the US) is to the old edition (from which you can easily click through to the 2nd edition - I guess you missed that), which probably just went out of print. The 2nd edition is available in the US and the UK. okedem 10:47, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

To editor Tiamut -> this article seems to have acquired a crop of "alleged" and "supposedly" and "he argues", implying that Giladi's words cannot be trusted. I know of absolutely no reason to treat him in this fashion.

There are other highly objectionable elements that have appeared - it is shameful to add a section "Use by anti-Zionists", and positively slanderous to link the guy to neo-Nazis simply on the basis that he is quoted by them. Nobody does this to supporters of Zionism - how come it keeps appearing in articles on critics of Zionism? What chance have Palestinians, if even non-aligned Jews get this horrid treatment?

Surely there must be some way of treating Giladi fairly? As far as I'm aware, nobody reputable (in fact, nobody atall) casts any doubt on his words. The encyclopedia has no business doing so.

PalestineRemembered 08:13, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

PS - crazy references at the bottom of the page have appeared, I don't know how to fix them. Nor why they've been added.

Hi PalestineRemembered. I fully agree that it is unfair to try to link Naeim Giladi to neo-Nazis. I will investigate what policy there is regarding that kind of thing. Tiamut 08:24, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Hi there. The last edit was mine, got logged out by accident and don't know how to put my name in place of the anonymous IP. Just so there's no confusion though, it's me. About the neo-nazi citation, I don't really see the relevance. The article was posted at an open thread at an obscure site and there are no comments posted to the article in response or any commentary on the part of the poster. It doesn't seem to be an important article to the neo-nazi community and that Amoruso changed the heading of that section, which was originally "Revelance to the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict" to "Use by anti-Zionists", then appending that neo-nazi link seems very POV to me. It a) needlessly slanders anti-Zionists by associating them with neo-nazis, b) it slanders Naeim, considering Naeim's personal history as an Iraqi Jew and a part of the Israeli Black Panthers, I'm pretty damn sure he's not a neo-Nazi, c) it makes an assumption about the popularity of the article within the neo-Nazi community that is not borne out by the one link to an open thread discussion list with no comments, d) it's just not relevant. I changed the heading for now, but I would like to delete the reference and citation. I'm asking first to hear the arguments for inclusion, but failing a really really good one, I'm going to have to go with no. Tiamut 10:13, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your input, I'm still struggling to understand the ways of the encyclopedia!

I think the integrity of the encyclopedia would be protected, while remaining fair to Giladi, with a section "Controversy", as follows:

Rename the section "Relevance to the 1948 Arab-Israeli Conflict" to "Controversy".

To have it mainly include:

1. Giladi writes [6]: "I write this article for the same reason I wrote my book: to tell the American people, and especially American Jews, that Jews from Islamic lands did not emigrate willingly to Israel; that, to force them to leave, Jews killed Jews; and that, to buy time to confiscate ever more Arab lands, Jews on numerous occasions rejected genuine peace initiatives from their Arab neighbors. I write about what the first prime minister of Israel called 'cruel Zionism'. I write about it because I was part of it."
2. Giladi further claims that:"pressure was exerted on the Iraqi parliament, including the use of bribes, to secure the passage of a bill allowing Jews to emigrate to Israel. (Giladi notes that this was also the conclusion of Wilbur Crane Eveland, a former senior officer in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) who outlined that allegation in his book "Ropes of Sand", whose publication the CIA opposed).
3. Giladi also mentions the name of Mordechai Ben-Porat, a former Israeli Member of the Knesset and a key figure in the Zionist underground, as having been cited as one the figures responsible for the bombings by one of the Iraqi investigators into the bombings, in a book entitled "Venom of the Zionist Viper". (This book is unavailable in English). Mordechai Ben-Porat has vigoursly denied this allegation, which he characterizes as akin to "blood libel", and which prompted him to write his 1998 book, "To Baghdad and Back." [7]. In it, Mordechai contends that the false charge against him was conceived in at Iraq police headquarters. [8].
4. Giladi's book was originally self-published in the United States of America in 1992. He claims that the first edition was banned in both the US and Israel, though the revised 2003 edition by Dandelion Books is now available [9].

This way we're not guaranteeing any of what he says, but neither are we directly impugning his integrity. (Note - I'm calling him Giladi, I don't know what Wikipedia prefers).

PalestineRemembered 13:44, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

That is much better. I have no problem with reporting his claims, but it has to be done in an objective manner. I'll try to find some sources for other POVs, and I hope we can find something about this supposed "banning". I just find it very hard to believe. For a book to be banned in Israel is extremely rare, and quite unheard of when it wasn't even published in Israel. Most bannings I can think of were of books written by former military men, that supposedly revealed classified information. I'm not aware of such book-bannings in the US. And yes, we should call him Giladi, just as we would say "Bush said...", and not "George said...". okedem 14:00, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

In fact, the more I read about this, the more I become convinced that it wasn't banned. I could not find one instance of a book being banned in the entire US. I don't even think that's legally possible, though I could be wrong on that one. All books I found were banned by a local library, or a school, under pressure from parents or religious leaders. I couldn't find even one reference to this book being banned in any of the many lists I found of challenged and banned books (again, banned not on the national of state level, but on one school or local library). okedem 14:17, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Giladi's claim book was banned in Israel and in the US

(I'm placing here a longish clip from the forward of this book, but I think this much is necessary for context and to prove that the book was definitely banned in Israel and effectively banned from publication in the US too. Giladi seems to have left Israel in 1980, already chafing that he couldn't publish. He eventually did so only in 1992, still unable to get the support of any publishers. Even this edition from Dandelion Books is prefaced with dire warnings and a "Readers Agreement for Accessing this Book").

Ben-Gurion's Scandals [How The Haganah and The Mossad Eliminated Jews], Naeim Giladi. Foreword p.xii

........... saw fully-armed soldiers under the command of Ariel Sharon cross the border in the direction of Qibyah that very same night. David Ben-Gurion had indeed ordered the operation in spite of his denials. He also denied subsequent cover-ups, such as the massacre of the passengers of a bus near Maaleh Ha'akrabim. The Israei government wrongfully accused Arabs, while it was a Jewish gang that committed the massacre. With much research, I later found evidence proving the involvement of yet another massacre sponsored by the Israeli government. It was at this point that I decided to write what I had discovered because I knew the truth couldn't be hidden without damaging what I believed at that time to be the refuge for the Jews.

I learned that before one could publish a book in Israel, permission had to be granted by the censors of this so-called democracy. If the censors deemed that a story could be harmful to the state, they would withhold permission to publish it. If one still persisted and gained permission to publish, censorship would make so many deletions, the book would be unreadable. If one managed to publish without the permission of the censors, one would be liable to arrest and incarceration for as long as the authorities would decide.

When I was contemplating writing and publishing this book, two of my colleagues and well known Israeli journalists were arrested and put in jail for exposing the involvement of the Israeli secret police (Mossad) in the kidnapping in Paris of Mehdi Ben-Barka, a popular Moroccan socialist leader. The foreign press throughout the world had already disclosed this information. Maxim Gilan and Samuel Mour were nonetheless charged with crimes against national security and were locked up for six months. Moreover, the Israeli media were gagged and not even allowed to mention that the two journalists had been arrested. If the authorities had wished, the two men would have been kept in jail for the rest of their lives.

My friends advised me to wait until I was out of the country before publishing my book, thus avoiding a confrontation with the Israeli censors. Before making my decision, I contacted a number of foreign reporters based in Israel and asked them if they could publish without being checked by the Israeli censors. They told me that everything they wrote had to be cleared by Israeli censors who were the only ones who could fax their material out of the country. If they tried to circumvent the Israeli censors, they would never be allowed to work in Israel again.

Years later, I immigrated to the United States. I contacted some important American publishers and I found a great deal of interest and willingness to publish my work. But when it was time to sign a contract, the publishers demanded that I give them the right to delete or change any part of the book they wished. For me, this constituted a form of censorship. I turned down their offers even though it meant a substantial loss of income. However, I never regretted my decision. Thanks to the help of many friends, I managed to publish in its integrity the first edition of this book. Now, at last I have found a publisher, Dandelion Books, whose mission is to deliver the truth, uncensored, because they understand the full implications of living in deception and self-denial. Hence, the second edition of my book with additions and revisions.

-Naeim Giladi

1. His claim is not true. I actually live in the same house with a publisher, who has never had to deal with the military censorship in any way. There's no general requirement for censorship clearance. The thing is, there's a law against revealing state secrets (like in most democratic countries), and if you think your book has such secrets (mainly books written by former military men), you should clear it with the military censorship. If you publish secrets without getting permission, you can be charged with revealing state secrets, again, as is the case with most countries. Foreign reporters can fax whatever they want, they're not limited in that. Note, if you will, that he doesn't say he contacted the censorship and his request denied, according to his own words he never even tried to talk to them! So how can we claim his book was banned?
2. So it seems his claim of a US ban is completely false. What he says is basically the standard for publishing - most publishers want such editorial privilege. It has nothing to do with banning, and nothing to do with the state. He did eventually just publish it himself, and it is available for sale, thus disproving his claims of censorship. I can also purchase the book in Amazon and have it shipped to Israel - there are no limitations on that. okedem 15:54, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Because of the preceding arguments - no ban in Israel, and definitely no in the US, I'm removing that claim. okedem 16:22, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Very true.... books are only "banned" in non democratic states such as the Arab states. Amoruso 16:27, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

if this is just an article

it shouldn't be this long. one can simply link to the article. at any case, it can be quoted directly. if it's "quoted" this way, one can not report his claims as facts like it did. Cheers. Amoruso 16:23, 29 October 2006 (UTC)