Talk:Falastin

political position of the newspaper

Filastin lasted a long time, and it is not correct to use a description of its political stance in one time period as an overall summary. Actually it changed allegiances repeatedly. More sources are needed. Zero^talk 13:28, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Name

Looking through googlebooks, and searching for "Falastin newspaper" or "Filastin newspaper", I get about 30 for the former and 40 for the latter.

However, the photo we have illustrating the article, clearly shows Falastin as being the newspaper's own spelling.

I propose to amend the article name to match the photo.

Oncenawhile (talk) 19:22, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

The name of the paper was transliterated as Falastin from its very start while the Arabic name was indeed Filastin. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ארינמל (talk • contribs) 11:58, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

Since its Arabic name was Filastin and that appears in various articles published by the Institute for Palestine Studies and elsewhere perhaps the article should be retitled Filastin and its opening changed to something like "Filastin was an Arabic-language Palestinian newspaper whose title appeared as Falastin under it's Arabic title.". Mcljlm (talk) 05:20, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

References

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Extent of influence

"Falastin... helped in shaping the modern Palestinian citizen, bringing the villages and cities together, building Palestinian nationalism and deepening and maintaining Palestinian national identity" reads the article, but UN records indicate that some 28% of Arab children in urban areas and 65% in rural areas were illiterate. --ארינמל (talk) 02:40, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

Ok?...... --Makeandtoss (talk) 03:37, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

Well, seeing as roughly 63% of the settled Palestinian (Muslim, Christian and other) population was rural, that means only one in two Palestinians could read. Keeping that in mind, together with the fact that there were several other Arab newspapers, the quote above seems like an exaggeration. Do we have any data on circulation? --ארינמל (talk) 11:53, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

Here's what I was able to find: According to a report by the Palestinian Public Information Office, Falastin's circulation was 3,500-4,000 in 1940. The chief editor was Yousif Hanna (while Issa El-Issa was the proprietor). By comparison, the Jewish daily Davar had a circulation of 25,000 and Haaretz of 17,000 at the same time (surely owing to the fact that only 2% of Jews were illiterate according to UN records, and in spite of the fact the Arab population was twice as big). Ibrahim Shanti's al Difa'a, another Palestinian daily, had the exact same circulation as Falastin. al-Liwa was slightly less popular with a circulation of 1,500-1,700.--ארינמל (talk) 13:04, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

Mr researcher, spare us the original research. Makeandtoss (talk) 05:44, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

The figures stem directly from reports of the Public Information Office and the UN committee. I did the simple calculation of applying the percentages to the corresponding populations to make a point. Could use this instead: 70.3% of Arab males and 92.3 of females were illiterate according to the 1931 census or just the census directly. Either way, it stands. 3,500-4,000 papers per 1,237,330 people cannot possibly be responsible for "shaping the modern Palestinian citizen, bringing the villages and cities together, building Palestinian nationalism and deepening and maintaining Palestinian national identity." It was second to al-Difa'a in popularity during the 1940's and in 1950 it had dropped to a circulation of 2,500 according to UNESCO. In 1965, in what appears to be its peak, it had a circulation of 8,500 in Jordan --ארינמל (talk) 15:02, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

The claim in the text is not in dispute (see [1] for a representative sample of reliable sources) and no amount of literacy statistics is going to change that. The key role of newspapers in forming national identity is not dependent on the entire nation reading them… see Benedict Anderson's Imagined Communities. This is original research to make a novel claim about Filastin. If you want to find a reliable source on Palestinian nationalism that rebuts the text in the article, you can share it here, but your own opinions or conclusions don't qualify for inclusion in the article.--Carwil (talk) 15:38, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

Very well. Is the claim that "Falastin covered sport news in Ottoman Palestine which helped in shaping the modern Palestinian citizen, bringing the villages and cities together, building Palestinian nationalism and deepening and maintaining Palestinian national identity" at all presented in the source article by Issam Khalidi? The entire part describing the newspaper sports coverage in Ottoman years (1911-1920) is just two paragraphs. "Some of the sports news appeared in Filastin before World War I. The scarcity of news was due to the modest number of sports activities which were in their infant stages," Khalidi writes. These sports news, he goes on describing, were a 70 word notice about a football match between the Beirut college and "Israeli youth" and a small club in Jaffa with "Arab and European members" which held a marathon between seven men and was accused by Falastin of advocating gambling. That's all.

Is Issam Khalidi, "an independent scholar living in Monterey, California", at all a reliable source? He references his own works six times in the footnotes for his article.

"The Palestinian Arabs have three daily papers, the largest having a circulation of 3,000. This is the Falastin of my friend Joseph Hana, who was not particularly depressed when his paper was prohibited by the Government. "When we again appear," said he, "we shall undoubtedly sell double our numbers and rapidly make up our losses." He said this in spite of the fact that the collective circulation of all the Arab papers in Palestine is less than the circulation of the Davar. The great differences between Hebrew and Arabic book and newspaper production are due, apart from the proverbial book-hunger of the Jews, to the fact that the Arabs are for the most part still illiterate; in Palestine only some 130,000 of the 1,000,000 Arabs can read and write. Of every thousand Mohammedan Arabs only 144 can read and write, as compared with the 934 per thousand of the male Jews." - Palestine at the Crossroads, 1937, by Ladislas Farago --ארינמל (talk) 21:40, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

From what I can see of Ladislas Faragos work: he is hardly WP:RS, Huldra (talk) 22:28, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

And Khalidi, who has no credentials? At any rate, the line in question has no basis in his article to begin with. I admit I tackled it from a wrong angle with what was, at first, original research. But I've proven my point either way. Also, I would like to point out how rare it is to find a source arguing for the insignificance of something like a newspaper (or almost anything for that matter) --ארינמל (talk) 16:49, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

What happened in 1933?

The Palestine Gazette of 15th June 1933, p762, contains the following: "Notice is hereby given that a permit, No. S.11, has been granted on the 18th day of May, 1933, under the hand of the District Commissioner, Southern District, to MR. ISSA DAUOD EL-ISSA, residing at Jaffa, to publish six times a week at the printing press situated at Ajami Road, Jaffa, a newspaper in the Arabic language entitled "Falastin", treating of news, moral and political subjects with illustrations and under the editorship of YOUSEF EFF. IBRAHIM HANNA. — E. MILLS. Acting Chief Secretary. 7th June, 1933." I didn't add this to the article because I don't have any context as to why a permit was needed in 1933 when the newspaper already existed for a long time. Zero^talk 05:50, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

@Zero0000: Anything to with the 1933 Press ordinance? Maybe all the permits had to be reissued or something.(Publication of a newspaper in Israel is illegal without a permit from the government, which continues to implement the Press Ordinance enacted by the Mandatory Government in 1933. Mass media in Israel)Selfstudier (talk) 15:15, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

@Selfstudier: Yes, that's the most likely explanation. Certainly the permit was issued under the Press Ordinance 1933. Zero^talk 01:09, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

Looks like it was an attempt to censor the Palestine press (mainly, although it applied to all), to force publication verbatim of all gov announcements, lots of new rules, etc etc. Selfstudier (talk) 10:57, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

Albert Einstein correspondence

Still needs more elaboration, not less of it. Removing information about this correspondence is disruptive. Makeandtoss (talk) 12:55, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

@Duvasee: Do you even know what undue means, or have any arguments why you keep changing these edits? Continuing to revert without using the talk page is disruptive behavior. Makeandtoss (talk) 17:18, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

Hi. Sorry for the late response. There's nothing wrong with mentioning the Einstein letter or the Orthodox movement, but devoting entire sections for them in an article of this size is undue, as those are non-primary topics in regard to this article. Duvasee (talk) 10:26, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

@Duvasee: WP:UNDUE refers to prominence of viewpoints, not to factual content. There are dozens of dedicated sources on the newspaper's relationship with the Orthodox movement, which was the newspaper's initial aim anyway. [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7]. As for the Einstein letter, it has been widely reported on Reuters, Business Insider and the Independent [8]. Now since coverage has been demonstrated, these edits will be restored. Makeandtoss (talk) 10:49, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

UNDUE is part of our NPOV policy, which relates to all content, not just "viewpoints" and requires that content be presented according to its weight in mainstream RS narratives. The choice of which facts to report and how to frame them is of the essence to NPOV. WP:NOTABILITY is not what is meant by WEIGHT, and it is not helpful to conflate the two policies. Finally, disputed content should not be restored prior to working out consensus on the talk page. Declaring that your view is correct and that you will restore the disputed content is edit-warring. SPECIFICO talk 18:05, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

Even a cursory reading of WP:UNDUE would disabuse somebody of the notion that any of that is true. nableezy - 18:12, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

@SPECIFICO: WP:UNDUE: "Neutrality requires that mainspace articles and pages fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in those sources." WP:Notability talks about whether or not to have a standalone article.

There are no significant viewpoints that Einstein did not correspond with the Falastin newspaper, or that something happened differently.

Objecting without reason to edits by throwing in random Wikipedia guidelines is extremely problematic. Please cease from this increasingly worrisome behavior across multiple Wikipedia articles, before this behavior warrants intervention to ensure Wikipedia stays a pleasant place to edit for everyone. Makeandtoss (talk) 19:31, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

This is disputed and now involves a number of editors, so let's not impose any version without consensus first. Again and as per the above, the level of the material included about the Orthodox movement in the last edits is in fact undue and WP:OOS, with the extent before that being sufficient for an article of this size. Duvasee (talk) 23:29, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

"a number of editors" == Duvasee and SPECIFICO. And I have not seen any convincing argument for removing this, sorry, Huldra (talk) 23:35, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

How is it UNDUE? What perspective is not given its due weight here? How is it out of scope? Just saying something isnt an argument. nableezy - 00:04, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

We should not force disputed material regardless of for/against ratios per WP:CON. At any rate, the quote and the mini subsections are unessential and unnecessary, and the vendor image is best suited in the gallery alongside the other two images. Duvasee (talk) 00:39, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

Why do you feel that it is unessential and unnecessary and what policy supports that position? nableezy - 01:13, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

@Duvasee: You do realize that you are engaging in edit warring, and that your five reverts of multiple editors, and two reverts in the same hour, is a violation of WP:1RR that will get you almost immediately topic banned? Please immediately self-revert and then engage in the talk page. Consensus works by giving proper counterarguments based on Wikipedia guidelines, not just opposing for no reason. Makeandtoss (talk) 13:52, 12 December 2023 (UTC)