Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Palestine-Israel articles/Evidence

Anyone, whether directly involved or not, may add evidence to this page. Create your own section and do not edit in anybody else's section. Please limit your main evidence to a maximum 1000 words and 100 diffs and keep responses to other evidence as short as possible. A short, concise presentation will be more effective; posting evidence longer than 1000 words will not help you make your point. Over-long evidence that is not exceptionally easy to understand (like tables) will be trimmed to size or, in extreme cases, simply removed by the Clerks without warning - this could result in your important points being lost, so don't let it happen. Stay focused on the issues raised in the initial statements and on diffs which illustrate relevant behavior.

It is extremely important that you use the prescribed format. Submitted evidence should include a link to the actual page diff in question, or to a short page section; links to the page itself are insufficient. Never link to a page history, an editor's contributions, or a log for all actions of an editor (as those will have changed by the time people click on your links), although a link to a log for a specific article or a specific block log can be useful. Please make sure any page section links are permanent. See simple diff and link guide.

This page is not for general discussion - for that, see the talk page. If you think another editor's evidence is a misrepresentation of the facts, cite the evidence and explain how it is incorrect within your own section. Please do not try to re-factor the page or remove evidence presented by others. If something is put in the wrong place, leave it for the Arbitrators or Clerks to move.

Arbitrators may analyze evidence and other assertions at /Workshop. /Workshop provides for comment by parties and others as well as Arbitrators. After arriving at proposed principles, findings of fact or remedies, Arbitrators vote at /Proposed decision. Only Arbitrators may edit /Proposed decision.

Evidence presented by PalestineRemembered

Jaakobou has been operating sock-puppets to revert war

I can either prove, or provide conclusive circumstantial evidence, that User:Jaakobou has been operating one or more sock-puppets in order to edit-war. He's had ample time to tell us everything he's been doing in secret. I'm withholding the evidence until Jaakobou comes clean, explanation here.

Jaakobou has misled us over his mentor

Jaakobou knows the purpose of a mentor (see his comments here, where he has bullied mine into resignation). In Jaakobou's world the mentor is there to find fault with the mentee and (presumably) encourage the community to take action against breaches. Jaakobou tells us he has a mentor - this claim is wholly and deliberately deceptive, since he clearly has some quite different relationship with her/him. Please see my polite interaction with User:Durova, re-presenting my question over the sock-puppets. (and two other questions, see next).

Jaakobou appears to have lied to the community

Separately, I have presented evidence to Jaakobous "new mentor" suggesting that he has cynically misled the community by lying over at least two other incidents (they're in the "polite interaction" link above). Failure to clarify, address/acknowledge these questions/incidents could make it appear that he may indeed have lied to the community in these cases. Even more disturbingly, he may think he can brazen out this ArbCom and continue these practices.

Jaakobou in action, just one example

This tabulation is a good demonstration of the astonishing way that Jaakobou has abused the consensual nature of other editors (including an admin) to bully and over-rule 8 other editors over a trivial (and BLP breaching) addition he has insisted on. The TalkPage on this article has been open 16 months - it is completely full of just this one incident, dramatically illustrating the way his tactics frustrate other editors and damage articles.

Jaakobou has abused process to silence good editors

There is a mass of evidence of Jaakobou abusing processes to get others sanctioned. Unfortunately, detailing this involves further identifying "his enemies" exposing them to still more unpleasantness. As best I can tell, each of his targets has been a good, productive editor having good consensual relationships with most of the rest of the community.

To call him "tendacious" barely scratches the surface

User:Jaakobou's conduct in articles and TalkPages has long been a source of astonishment. The damage he has done to articles is incalculable - leading others to claim that he's never done any good, ever, to any article. Worse than that, Jaakobou has hounded good editors, in many/all cases causing them to leave the project in frustration. Jaakobou even encourages other editors to act disruptively (one example in my questions to him above, others available).

Jaakobou was unfit as an editor all along

See this, a diff from January 2007, when Jaakobou's been an editor 5 months. In that edit, he displays attitudes which should surely render him unsuitable as an editor (at least on topics as contentious and charged as this one).

Perhaps worse, in the same diff, he has apparently attempted gross historical fabrication. Explanation available, regular RSes speak of trucks and moving bodies. This is not an innocent error, since Jaakobou displays an almost obsessive interest in this incident - see previously mentioned Saeb Erekat, where Jaakobou demands the article be filled with accusations that Erekat lied over it.

There is a close connection between hate-sources and historical fabrications (think David Irving). This one diff (evidence of both behaviors), was likely an indef-blocking offence when Jaakobou wrote it, before we start examining his editing record. PR^talk 14:03, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Sm8900

Reply to Palestine Remembered

PR, i don't know whether I necessarily agree or disagree with your valid points above, but this is one reason why I gently suggested (to all, not just you) an individual case-by-case approach to all matters here. It would be a relatively simple matter to institute indivdual proceedings against the editors whom you mention. I don't personally have a single thing against either one of them, but in the long run an individual case might be healthier in either clearing their names, or addressing any problems, than the massive quagmire which we might potentially open here. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 15:23, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Number 57

Jaakobou is a tendentious editor

Jaakobou displays many of the characteristics of problem editors as defined at WP:TE:

• He Has been blocked more than once for violating the three revert rule
  • Blocked four times: [1]

• He repeatedly undoes the "vandalism" of others
  • [2][3][4][5][6][7]
• and was recently de-Twinkled for using it in edit wars.
  • [8]

• He regularly accusese other editors of "suppressing information", "censorship" or "denying facts"
  • [9][10][11][12][13][14][15]

• He often breaks inserts sections of WP:UNDUE undue weight into articles.
  • Repeated reinsertion of huge criticism section to article on left-wing journalist Gideon Levy: [16][17][18][19][20]

Jaakobou is a revert warrior

Jaakobou constantly reverts the input of other editors. Aside from the evidence presented above under "reverting vandalism of others" and being detwinkled, his contributions list is quite clear.

Jaakobou is deceitful

Despite constantly labelling me as a POV pusher or someone with "POV issues"[21], once Jaakobou realised that he is in trouble, he changed tact and sent e-mails describing me as "sensible" "reasonable" and "neutral" (I can forward them to anyone who wants proof). Whether this makes him a liar or just two-faced I shall leave you to decide.

The fact that Jaakobou requests discussing his problematic behaviour off-wiki (in the e-mails he sent he said that he "can probably explain my overall position to you by instant messaging") suggests that he is attempting to sweet-talk editors into overlooking his misdemeanours instead of facing up to his actions.

Reply to Jaakobou's evidence

I don't see what the point is of Jaakobou's evidence regarding my edits beyond attempting to discredit me, as I am not an involved party in this RfAr. I am not proud of it, but unfortunately as I am one of the few non-partisan editors who is willing to deal with dedicated POV-pushers on Israel-related articles, on occasion this kind of thing will happen. I hope that this RfAr will actually lead to either blocks or behavioural directives for the problematic editors so that I have a basis for dealing with them in a more direct manner in future.

Evidence presented by Jaakobou

Comment regarding Number 57 statement

• On Shlomo Ben-Ami, Number 57 violated 3RR (removing: "Israeli died of...") but admitted that the information has a place on the article after edit warring to keep it out.
  • 2007-12-27 14:16
  • 2007-12-28 09:50
  • 2007-12-28 10:51 <- admin rollback tool in a content dispute.
  • 2007-12-28 10:55 <- and again.
  • 2007-12-28 11:37 <- adding the information on the article. ("death of a Jewish Israeli.")

• My edit history had problems, as most of the people involved. Following two deserving blocks (above 3 hours) I've obtained mentorship and pledge to improve my conduct. Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 19:30, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Comment regarding Tariqabjotu statement

• Singling me out (excluding others) with my talk page articles, assumes conflicts with fellow editors (some POV warriors) are my fault.
• My statement, "admit... together with User:Eleland" was not meant as "not edit-warring at all" and I haven't issued an unblock request.
• Diffs Tariqabjotu been notified about (such as: [22][23][24]-3RR:P), regarding the Eleland issue, are missing from his statement.
• Following the block by Tariqabjotu, I've obtained mentorship and taken upon myself to improve my conduct.

-- Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 00:00, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Tariqabjotu

Caveat: The following evidence is not intended to be exhaustive; I don't have the time or the energy to put forth evidence regarding each editor. I'm simply going to stick with the most blatant violations for now, and leave things to others (especially those who added extra names) to fill in the gaps.

Jaakobou edit wars often

At the top of User talk:Jaakobou, Jaakobou notes that during this RfArb case, he will refrain from participating in controversies on nineteen articles. Perhaps unsurprisingly, he has been disruptive on many of the those articles. Most notably (refer to the histories of the respective articles):

• Saeb Erekat (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views): edit waring in mid-October 2007, mid-November 2007, and early-December 2007
• New antisemitism (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views): edit warring in mid-December 2007
• Israeli-Palestinian conflict (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views): late-November 2007
• Gilad Shalit (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views): early-December 2007
• Palestinian Fedayeen (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views): early-January 2008
• Occupation of the Gaza Strip by Egypt (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views): late-November 2007
• Second Intifada (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views): late-December 2007
• Definitions of Palestine and Palestinian (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views): late-December 2007, early-January 2008
• Carlos Latuff (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views): mid-November 2007, late-November 2007, late-December 2007
• October 2000 events (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views): late-December 2007, early-January 2008
• Bat Ye'or (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views): early-December 2007

And, also:

• House demolition in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views): late-December 2007

Take note that the above instances of edit-warring come primarily from November, December, and January, as that's where I limited my investigation. However, given prior blocks for edit-warring, I would not be surprised if edit-warring was an issue even prior to October.

Jaakobou believes his edit warring can be justified

After I blocked Jaakobou at the end of December for his continuous edit warring, he posted a response in which he said his recent reverting on Definitions of Palestine and Palestinian, Second Intifada, and Islam: What the West Needs to Know was justified, and not edit-warring at all.

Evidence presented by Gatoclass

I don't want to get into accusations about specific editors. The only thing I want to say is that it's become abundantly clear to me, and surely to many others, that Wikipedia simply doesn't have policies that are adequate to dealing with the problem of editors promoting a particular national or ethnic viewpoint. The result is that pages involving national or ethnic disputes are in many cases woefully and chronically substandard, and bring the whole of Wikipedia into disrepute. No-one is ever going to take Wiki seriously until these problems are addressed.

It's also clear that just banning one disruptive editor here and there is not nearly enough to fix the problem. What this project desperately needs are tighter policies for dealing with contentious topic areas. The community needs to think hard about what steps can be taken to clean up the pages in question. While it's obviously not arbcom's brief to propose new policies for the project, perhaps it would be a start if arbcom were to recommend that the community set its collective mind to seriously addressing this hitherto intractable problem. I really don't think we can kid ourselves any longer that the current policy framework is adequate. Thanks, Gatoclass (talk) 10:35, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Evidence presented by {ThuranX}

{assertion one: I have no clue why I'm here.}

My first source is my brain. I woke up, and realized, nope, still no clue why I was named. I previously experienced this in prior diffs on friday morning, thursday morning, and on back to monday or so. I can't provide URLs, nor can I provide lobotomy samples, so I realize this make be an argument from special knowledge, and I apologize, but I assure you, my brain's mixed up.

{assertion two: Tell me why I'm here, or i'll stay confused.}

IF no one tells me what my percieved involvement is, beyond the AN/I thread and a couple edits made by travelling from there, I will stay confused. I made some basic statements both at An/I and on the RfAr page about what I'd seen, but beyond general opinions, I'm genuinely not sure why I'm here. This is humor, but really, please tell me why I was named, and what's expcted of me in this case? Thank you. ThuranX (talk) 22:41, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Evidence presented by User:Eleland

Armon and Tewfik uncivilly and disingenuously push POV against consensus

1. Around 1 October an edit war flared up on List of massacres committed during the Second Intifada. One group favoured a list of all mass killings, including Israeli killings of Palestinians by military action. The other group favoured a list showing only those attacks carried out with an utterly undeniable intent on maximum innocent death. (e.g. d1 d2 d3 d4, last revert is mine, and I'm equally culpable.) No discussion took place on talk. On 13 October I requested protection (d5) and pasted the entire edit-summary-debate into talk, asking to start proper discussion. (d6)
   
   
2. Support quickly formed for a compromise (d7), retitling the list to "List of attacks on Israeli noncombatants" and keeping the content as it was. This exchange sums up the reasoning: (d9)
   
   
3. Armon (d10) dissented, vaguely. I asked for clarification, he responded with insinuations about my motives and flat incivility. (d11) I tried to engage him substantively on the topical point but it was not fruitful. (d12) I would urge the ArbCom to ask whether responding to an on-topic, 3,000+ byte comment (d13) in this (d14) manner is in any way conductive to dispute resolution.
   
   
4. Armon continued to block consensus. On 22 October, he proclaimed that the editors who disagreed with him (Burgas00, G-Dett, IP198, PalestineRemembered, TheFearGod and arguably Okedem, with DBWikis on the fence) were only "repeating failed arguments", being "disruptive", and acting "against consensus" (him and Tewfik) and invited us to instead "discuss the options". (d15) His "option 1" was basically the same one we were arguing against and was ignored; Burgas added an "option 2", "List of suicide bombings..." which obtained qualified support from myself, DB, and G-Dett. (d16) Armon dismissed option 2 and added an "option 3" which only changed "massacre" to "mass murder," (d17) which G-Dett called simply, "Ridiculous," since it openly ignored the objections raised to the last title. (d18)
   
   
5. Thus, by 23 October, Armon concluded that "we should stick to the consensus version", meaning the version favoured by him and Tewfik alone against almost everybody else. (d19) Burgas gave up and just moved the article to the "suicide bombings" version (d20) which was reverted by Tewfik (d21), rinse, repeat. This touched off another sterile move-war, with the now-familiar pattern of sincere, if heated, argumentation from everyone else being met with unsupported personal accusations from both Armon (d22, d23, d24, d25, d26,) and Tewfik (d27, d28).
   
   
6. Finally the page was move-protected. I posted a "Neutrality of title disputed" template; Armon removed it accusing WP:POINT disruption. (d29)
   
   
7. On 9 November I filed an RFC. (d30) previously uninvolved editors arrived:
   
   • Terraxos: "The best solution here might be to create two lists [Palestinian & Israeli]" (d31)
   • CasualObserver'48: "The current list is absolutely one-sided", favours a combined list but will accept two (d32)
   • Rjecina: "I support Eleland's proposal [to title list as Israeli-only and create parallel Palestinian list]" (d33)
   • Bless sins: "I support Eleland in the proposition" (d34)
     
   • Beit Or: Don't know, seemed to lean towards Armon & Tewfik; he had previously commented (d35) but never expressed an opinion on the core dispute (d36)
   • Number 57: List should include terror attacks by Israeli settlers (d37)
   • Agamemmon2: Word "massacre" is divisive; (d38)
   • Kyaa the catlord: ibid (d39)
   • Xoloz: "I support eleland's proposal" (d40)
     • Note: this comment is especially interesting, because Xoloz had previously closed an AfD on the case, and Armon had been continually asserting that this AfD represented a strong consensus for his preferred version, ignoring refutations of this claim - see my d24 and d26 above.
   • Carlossuarez: "I think that Eleland's and Xoloz's title has merit" (d41)
   • DGG: Basically abstained (d42, d43)
   • The Evil Spartan: "Overly-POV name", a pox on both your houses (d44)
     
     
8. This takes us up to 19 November, about a week after move protection expired. Burgas00 moved the page to the "Attacks on Israeli non-combatants" title; Armon reverted him within twelve minutes. (d55) Within one hour he broke 3rr enforcing this title. (d56) Others picked up the slack, effectively ending productive discussion. Tiamut took to adding IDF attacks described by human rights sources as targeting civilians. Tewfik summarily reverted. (d59). This shifted the move war back into an edit war, where both !sides fought over whether events like October 2000 events and what Human Rights Watch called "Israeli forces ... causing civilian deaths by firing indiscriminately into Hebron's Palestinian neighborhoods." Suffice it to say that affairs devolved into mutual incivility (d57, d58, sorry, et al.) and edit-warring.
   
   
9. The Hebron question really deserves close analysis. Tewfik and Armon insisted that HRW's report didn't describe attacks on civilians. To my eyes, no literate person could read this source and conclude that. At the least, they showed extreme partisanship to the point of Orwellian doublethink. ArbCom should sanction editors who show long-term inability to represent their sources accurately.
10. Finally, by 29 November, the article was protected (d59) as was List of Israeli civilian casualties in the Second Intifada, ([25]) the sister article which another editor had taken to vindictively blanking.

Summary

A problematic article title caused a move war. After protection, the debate resolved to 5 editors favouring a new title with Armon & Tewfik favouring the old title. After a heated discussion, Armon essentially declared that he would block the majority solution from being implemented, no matter what. (See my section 4.) He continued, for thirty-eight days, to do so, even as an influx of un-involved parties eroded his side from a minority to a tiny minority. Tewfik reverted constantly, with only desultory and often disruptive comments on talk. Three hundred thousand bytes of discussion accomplished nothing. Only full-protection resolved the situation.

I believe that I could document how Armon and Tewfik deploy almost identical tactics to other pages, for similar reasons, but this evidence is over-long as is.

A note on moral equivalence

I am quite sure that this evidence will be met with the response that "the other side" also edit-warred and acted incivil. I admit that I did both - and I have even shown diffs of this. But the context matters. Assuming WP:OWNership of articles will lead to uncivil responses. Pushing POV with disingenuous arguments will cause edit wars. ArbCom will not take sides in a content dispute; ArbCom can and must take sides against complex forms of abuse and disruption, including those forms detailed above.

<eleland/talkedits> 23:28, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Evidence presented by User:Cla68

Bad faith participation

Although much evidence is being presented here on bad faith editing by the parties involved, this conflict has also extended outside of article space. In Number 57's RfA, it appeared that some of the pro-Israel POV group attempted to use canvassing to rally oppose votes to torpedo Number 57's bid for adminship, apparently in retaliation for his not being on their side in content disputes. A couple of the parties' names mentioned in this case are present in that RfA, including GHcool and Tewfik in which evidence of on-wiki canvassing was presented. Off-wiki canvassing may have also been used, supporting evidence being Jayjg's now infamous email he mistakenly posted to the Wikien message board calling on several other editors to "watch his back" as he attempted to fix an Israel-related article. Cla68 (talk) 00:22, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Jayjg's email and the implications for this case

Jayjg's email [26] (acknowledged by Jayjg here: [27]) is evidence of a deep-rooted problem affecting not only the Israel-Palestine conflict related articles, but any article dealing with Judaism. Only casual inspections reveals that the intended recipients of that email: Avi, PinchasC, and User:Humus sapiens are heavily engaged in editing Judaism related articles, of which the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is but one area. Perhaps former arbitrator Kelly Martin said it best when she stated, with regard to this evidence, "Anyone with any doubt that Jay is one of a "cabal" of editors who seek to control the content and tone of articles about Judaism needs to put that doubt to rest, now. Wikipedia's articles about Judaism are embarrassingly biased, and Jay's convenient little slip-up is just the smoking gun that proves it." [28].

{Write your assertion here}

Place argument and diffs which support the second assertion; for example, your second assertion might be "So-and-so makes personal attacks", which should be the title of this section. Here you would show specific edits where So-and-so made personal attacks.

Evidence presented by HG

Tag team editing

For evidence to support Malik's tag- team editing principle, here are two incidents I reported:

A tag team reverting incident at Battle of Jenin, involved Armon, Eleland, G-Dett, Tewfik on Oct 17-18th. The page was protected. While we subsequently worked out a compromise over the disputed sentence with the four parties, the disputatious edit was disruptive.

In an edit dsipute at Arab citizens of Israel (10-19), Zeq made what Roland considered a disruptive edit, so Roland and Tiamut made tag team reverts. (Zeq was on probation and did not violate 3RR.) Here's the AN/3RR page with the diffs.

You'll see also that the noticeboard that day (10/19/07) has 3RR reports on 1929 Hebron massacre, Second intifada, Causes of the 1948 Palestinian exodus.

This kind of tag team editing/reverting has occurred before and after these cases. However, I found that reporting such cases is an unpleasant drain on my time, as is this battleground for many other less involved or less combative editors. Thanks. HG | Talk 12:49, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Evidence presented by {your user name}

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