Talk:1956 Rafah massacre

Significant coverage in reliable sources

Looking at both Khan Yunis massacre and Rafah massacre shows very few reliable historian sources that report on these events and, at least on Rafah, there's too much weight for one hearsay-based (read: "filled with distortion, bias and hyperbole."[1]), cartoon book done 50 years after the fact. Please list down sources below so we can establish notability.

Sources

• Sacco, Joe (2009). Footnotes in Gaza. Metropolitan Books. -- Comic book, interviews Arabs from Hamas-controlled Gaza 50 years after the original events.
• Special Report of the Director of UNRWA (1956) [2]
• Haaretz reports about Joe's book: [3]
• Haaretz's own Amira Hass reporting history and the book: [4]
• (insert sources which discuss "Rafah massacre")

Discussion

• Sacco's book -- have not read it but it is a comic book (for cryin' out loud). A medium for storytelling, distortion, bias, and hyperbole. "all sorts of subtle ways" to manipulate the reader. [5]

It is hearsay from 50 years after the fact.

His desperate characters - fugitives, widows and sheiks - mix long past fact with fiction. "What I show in the book is that this massacre is just one element of Palestinian history ... and that people are confused about which event, what year they are talking about," he said. - [6]

• Haaretz reports about the book - Reasonable sources for encyclopedic content (historians are preferable). "Of course, we hear many rumors of atrocities, much of which we can discount, but a small percentage are probably factual," (Quote from November 13, 1956) [7]
• UNRWA Director - can (and should) be mentioned -- but hopefully, through secondary historian written sources.

Not even sure these sources merit an article. But let's assume they do, it is not this article. Whatever content is deemed worthwhile, should be merged into a larger article. -- MarciulionisHOF (talk) 10:23, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Hamas didn't exist 50 years ago. The quote from Haaretz is not that "it is filled with distortion, bias, and hyperbole", but that "detractors say" it is. Please read Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources#Biased_or_opinionated_sources. Sources are not required to be objective or neutral. If you find other sources contradicting the facts, feel free to include them. Please also read Footnotes in Gaza before dismissing it as a "comic book". It was published by Metropolitan books, an imprint of Henry Holt and Company. Take it to WP:RSN if you feel it is not reliable.

Please read the entire Amira Hass article not the silly summary that "Of course, we hear many rumors of atrocities, much of which we can discount, but a small percentage are probably factual". The next sentence is "The "small percentage" was detailed in a special report by the local UNRWA director, covering the period from November 1 through mid-December, and submitted to the UN General Assembly on January 11, 1957". It is useless to respond to the rest. Kingsindian (talk) 10:52, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

I said the UNRWA Director report is good. The comic story, collected 50 years after the fact, under Hamas rule (published in 2009), has "survivors" mix long past fact with fiction.[8] -- MarciulionisHOF (talk) 12:03, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Half of discussion, many repeated points, is going on here. Kingsindian (talk) 12:09, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

There is a discussion going on about this at WP:RSN. Since the editor is new, I will make allowances and add this here myself. Kingsindian ♝♚ 18:27, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

RSN on Sacco's book

While there's some argument that my post was imbalanced. I do believe there's a consensus that this source should not be used in the voice of history. I argue that an overly heavy use, even with citation, is unbalanced. Please let me know your view and reasons in favor of using this source heavily (if there are no other suggestions, I will move it to a new section titled 'Testimonies published in 2009' adding proper citation and a couple minimal 'disputed' sentences. MarciulionisHOF (talk) 19:07, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

The one starting a discussion is not best placed to evaluate the consensus (neither am I, for that matter). My view of the consensus is that most people, disregarding these who thought it was a fictional narrative because of the "graphic novel" moniker, agreed that the book can be used as one source about the masacre, not as the only one or even the dominant one. Completely moving it out of the main body and gicing it a separate section was not really discussed or supported though. Fram (talk) 19:20, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

I see 6 editors are suggesting removal/"according to comic artist Joe Sacco..."/this single source is probably WP:UNDUE/Not reliable for history, Could be added to Further reading/<concern> for statement of fact in an encyclopedia, could be used as a reference as long as great care is taken/The source is controversial, we can devote a section to the Sacco source. Three of these (myself included here) explicitly promote a separate section or 'further reading'. I'm having trouble following Nishidani. If you can summarize his point of view on this issue (alongside yours) that will be helpful. Regardless, we have clear consensus that this source should not be used in the "neutral voice of history" and it is clear that people are concerned about its current usage. How do you see best use of this book in the article? (Have you read any of it?) MarciulionisHOF (talk) 22:56, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

It would be better if you just removed yourself from this discussion, and let uninvolved, neutral editors decide what to do with it (I'm involved by participating in the RSN discussion, I'll not edit this article). You are not the best judge of what the consensus or conclusion is of a discussion that you started and skewed from the very beginning. Let others deal with it. Fram (talk) 06:27, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

I assure you I am uninvolved as it comes to the contents of this article. Would you be interested in discussing the content, raise the RSN for re-evaluation, suggest another way of fixing the lack of neutrality in the article? MarciulionisHOF (talk) 00:01, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

To avoid getting on the wrong page, I am asking further input from the people involved on the RSN. MarciulionisHOF (talk) 00:09, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

@Fram:, you've still haven't responded to the query if you are in favor of using this source heavily? MarciulionisHOF (talk) 00:17, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

• (Sidebar: strongly disagree with Fram that involved editors should stay out - of course involved people should weigh in, this is a complex issue, why does anyone expect that we who didn't care enough about the issue to have edited the article before would somehow understand it better than those who did?) Anyway, as an uninvolved but experienced editor from RSN, I stand by my points that since this is a controversial issue, we should not let any disputed source be our standin for the voice of truth; we should use the source, but as that, one source out of many. Where the source says something that is disputed, we should say "According to Sacco" or something similar; and we should provide as many sources as we can. --GRuban (talk) 02:02, 18 October 2014 (UTC)
  • Oh, involved editors should definitely weigh in, but they shouldn't start a discussion at the RSN, weigh consensus as they see it, and implement the results as if they have been approved by consensus. Otherwise, I agree with your position and believe I have defended the same conclusion at the RSN discussion. Fram (talk) 09:10, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

Could editors note that Sacco was the only source, until. in response to objections, Filiu, Laurens and other sources were provided. Those scholarly sources in no way jar with Sacco's accounts, which are essentially oral memories of incidents which, as incidents, the historians agree on occurred. Sacco simply supplements this with survovors' memories, which are relevant. The objection to Sacco was not that he is lying, misrepresenting, or creating fictions: the objection was that he used a comic book format to visualize what his oral testimony, and his research in archives, told him. Nishidani (talk) 13:30, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

@Fram: do you agree with Nishidani's summary? MarciulionisHOF (talk) 19:14, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

My knowledge of the other sources is insufficient to agree or disagree with Nishidani. I see nothing in his summary that immediately strikes me as wrong though. Fram (talk) 08:16, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

This issue is very simple. The points on RSN (Meir Pail, methodology et al) were enough to raise a consensus against using this source in the voice of history. I will not object to minimal use of it with attribution (and minor mention of objections to this material). However, the book is heavily narrative driven and should not be used heavily. I'm open to suggestions and views of others, but keep your mind on NPOV. MarciulionisHOF (talk) 14:09, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

You can hardly use Meir Pail on the one hand, and demand NPOV on the other. For this matter Meir Pail is not a neutral critic and historian (like you presented him to get your consensus), but someone who was there at the side of the accused (for want of a better word). His opinion is noteworthy and may be included in the article, but as a point against the use of Sacco it is basically worthless (if A says that group B has done this, and C says that he was part of group B and that no such thing was done, then both sides can be given in the article, but C should not be used to dismiss A (nor A used to dismiss C). Anyway, I think GRuban's summary is the best so far, so why not let editors follow that? Fram (talk) 14:22, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

@Fram: We've discussed your opinion (and the accompanied BLP issue) regarding Pail. You take the wrong meaning from "I was there", but I'm done explaining this matter. Moving forward, I also support GRuban's view of the matters. Due to the highly disputed nature of the testimonies, I suggested giving it room under 'testimonies published in 2009'. Have you read any of this book by now? Do you know what "dilettanitism" (pg.173-174) means? MarciulionisHOF (talk) 16:08, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

(a)There was no consensus (b) as ther RSN discussion developed (it concluded inconclusively) various recommendations were made (c) the article was substantially revised using new cutting-edge area historians (d) the facts they describe are more or less those given by Sacco (e) Sacco's reports are oral history, and since history is also composed of oral accounts there is no intrinsic reason for them to be challenged as unhistorical, any more than one would challenge Yad Vashem accounts of the Holocaust because much of the content is collected from survivors (e) Sacco is a trained journalist whose work (f) was widely praised (g) we have a problem with WP:Systemic bias and WP:NPOV here since the events were undereported and only Sacco seems to have taken the trouble to conduct indepth ground interviews with survivors which (h) may be challenged, but certainly any challenge should be free of any suspicion that a desire to remove his material is part and parcel of a general interest in downsizing any evidence that might reflect poorly on the other party in that disputed world, which documents and publishes its grievances in all imaginable venues, but is not known (except for its scholars) to document any incident in which Palestinians are the victims. That suspicion, that technical objections to remove Sacco would override NPOV in order to void the article of significant content, usable with attribution as oral historical material, remains.(i) The book arose out of an original request by Harper's magazine to cover Gaza. When Harper's got Chris Hedge's and Sacco's report, they excised the section dealing with the 1956 massacres. No one knows why, but when you have proof, as this is, that mainstream sources don't want material like this reported in material they otherwise commissioned, one must exercise extreme care in repeating that exercise in censorship on an open, if cautious, encyclopedia like wikipedia. We don't take sides. We strive to air all reliably documented material regardless of the national interests affected. Cockburn in his New York Times review, spoke of the 'editorial bias against history' in this case.

The simplest way to handle this is therefore to point to passages, Marciulonis, which you think shouldn't be there. Make a list, and let's see concretely what you are proposing to excise, and on what grounds. A generic complaint against the use of Sacco is not helpful, in fact, dubious since Sacco's book quotes many official sources, which are not readily available. No reviewer I am familiar with has charged him with altering or tampering with those sources which formed one of the pillars of his book.Nishidani (talk) 16:35, 21 October 2014 (UTC)