User talk:Eleland

You are invited to look at my user page, where I am making an attempt to start a new article on Money and the Money Supply. Your advice and suggestions are invited Martycarbone (talk) 17:05, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Middle East Textbooks Invitation

WikiProject Middle East Textbooks is looking for editors to create, expand, and maintain complete, accurate, and neutral articles on school textbooks used throughout the Middle East, with a focus on textbook controversies and textbook analyses. You can start by simply adding your name to the list of members at WikiProject Middle East Textbooks.

WP:AE#User:Jaakobou, fresh off a one-week topic-ban, on a rampage again

Just thought you might like to know... Cheers, pedro gonnet - talk - 28.03.2008 09:09

New AS mediation

The mediation im getting rolling as its been a long time waiting so i think its best to get moving. Most of the mediation will be on the talk (discussion) page. so make sure its in your watchlist. Seddon69 (talk)

todo: Abdulkarim al-Khaiwani

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The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : Issue XXX (August 2008)

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Image:Eurabia map.png

• In Image:Eurabia map.png, why is Eritrea (which is not currently member of Arab League) colored? 89.2.243.42 (talk) 13:12, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Military history WikiProject coordinator election

The September 2008 Military history WikiProject coordinator election has begun. We will be selecting nine coordinators to serve for the next six months from a pool of fourteen candidates. Please vote here by September 30!
This has been an automated delivery by BrownBot (talk) 21:51, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Jerusalem

"What you think "we all know" is hardly a basis for Wikipedia editing, especially when it relates to an irrelevant and irrational claim which isn't even true (some 30% of Jerusalemites speak Arabic, self-identify as Palestinian, and refuse Israeli citizenship - in the Old City it is more like 85%.) "Israel and West Bank" is OK with me, even though the ancient part of Jerusalem is entirely outside the Green Line. It is not clear to me why edit warring and talk-page vitriol over several months should be necessary to change "Israel and Palestinian Territories" to "Israel and West Bank," either. But I think we are (finally) done here. <eleland/talkedits> 01:01, 19 September 2008 (UTC)"

Thank you, you prove the point of ignorance you base your assertions on distortions of reality.

1) Speaking Arabic, as in the other official language of Israel?

2) Palestinian is a dubious title coined in the 1960's.

3)Arab/Muslim ethnic cleansing and occupations really shook up the demographics.

4) The Green line, go to Jerusalem and look for it in Jerusalem, but seriously people lived outside of the walls of the city in ancient times and the area is not so cut up.

5) Your assertions are entirely based upon some alternative universe in which Jerusalem the anglicization of Yerushalayim a Hebrew word makes it a non-Jewish place. Ironically the Arab designation al-Quds is in reference to the Two Temples that Arafat said never existed.

6) International law is extremely vague on many of the points, and a State's sovereignty in principle suggest that no foreign entity extends rules over its own. Whether you like it or not.

--Saxophonemn (talk) 02:16, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

"Jerusalem is Jewish" doesn't even make sense. Jerusalem is a city, not an individual. I mean, did Jerusalem pass its Bat Mitzvah when it was twelve or something? It makes sense to state "the majority of its inhabitants are Jewish", which apparently holds for the city but not for the Old City. But I don't suppose it is worth the effort to try any kind of rational approach with someone as steeped in ideology as Saxophonemn. He keeps conflating "Jewish", "Hebrew" and "Israel" as if they all meant the same thing. I mean, sheesh, I would like to feel more sympathetic for the Israeli side in all this, but people like this don't make it any easier. dab (𒁳) 07:57, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Is Paris French? Is Tokyo Japanese? Jewish/Hebrew/Israel not in quotes are the essentially the same thing, I have yet to make a Venn diagram. My ideology is Torah, not a popularity contest.--Saxophonemn (talk) 12:06, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

I never would have guessed. <eleland/talkedits> 17:27, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Zionism / Arab-Israeli conflict

"OH MY GOODNESS are you still on about this? You are nothing if not persistent. I would love to respond to your general views on Zionism and the Arab-Israeli conflict, really, I would. It would be enjoyable in a certain sense. But this is not the forum for it. Bottom line; you have said nothing of relevance to the question at hand. I refer to you my comments of 18:42, 4 September 2008 and 18:31, 5 September 2008 and leave it at that. <eleland/talkedits> 04:27, 21 September 2008 (UTC)"

I think you have skewed my views a bit. I take it you have a low esteem of Zionism and you're not the biggest fan of Israel based upon liberal/atheist view points which make Jews appear as out of place white folks in the wrong neighborhood. --Saxophonemn (talk) 05:58, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Civility

Please do not attack other editors. If you continue, you will be blocked from editing Wikipedia. In particular, [1] [2] I'd also like to remind you of Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Palestine-Israel articles#Discretionary sanctions. Be more careful in future, GDonato (talk) 12:19, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Well the horn-blower did imply he had 'no weakening of his parts'.Nishidani (talk) 14:55, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, what are you going to do about mister "You have to change this article because it's unfair to the master race," anyway? <eleland/talkedits> 17:27, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I'd strongly urge you to consider reading the civility policy: you can not argue that the diffs I provided are examples of acceptable conduct regardless of who is looking at them. Furthermore, your reply is also of borderline appropriateness. Consider this a final warning; I'm sure you are a sensible contributor and do not need to resort to incivility, GDonato (talk) 18:19, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

With all due respect,GDonato (and apologies to Eleland for barging in on a setled matter) I'd strongly urge, now that what's said has been said, and strong warnings duly and forcibly made, that some administrator drop an equally forceful reminder to Saxophonemn, that to manipulate Twain's quote, and insert 'Palestinians' into the text dealing with extinct peoples and cultures, is an extreme provocation to more than one editor here. Put me down as someone who objects most 'violently' to the innuendo in Saxophonemns' crack. We all have acute ears for the blunt anger of 4 letter words. No one, other than Eleland or myself, seems to have twigged to the intense malevolence in the remark that spurred Eleland's violent rejoinder, violent, if all too human. It happens to be what I thought too in examining Saxaphonemns' words, only, because I'm slower with age, I tend to murmur such words inaudibly, without troubling a talk page with my private disgust.

'The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then . . . passed away. The Greek and the Roman followed. [The Palestinians too.]'

Saxaphonemn inserted the 'Palestinians'. The undisguisedly triumphant sneer here is that the Palestinians, now striving for statehood under Israeli occupation, labour under the illusion they have a future, whereas they are already extinct. It's not a 'death threat' (sanctionable). The informal message is, 'your obituary is already written, Palestinians. Our Jewish people will perdure here while you, a transient blip on history's screen, will join the rest of humanity along the path of extinction. In fact, you've no future, since you are already consigned to the past'. Eleland, as someone editing to keep the record of Palestinian claims to a national identity untarnished by the kind of suppressio veri at times engineered around I/P articles, took this personally. He admitted his error, and erased the remark within 15 minutes. Almost all of us have zero-tolerance for antisemitism. By the same token, we don't like newbie editors who have done nothing so far to read widely and deeply and edit seriously, coming forth with vainglorious insinuations that the people Israel occupies are, unlike the Jewish people, marked down to join history's dustbin of dead peoples. Regards Nishidani (talk) 19:41, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

There is a certain degree for concern regarding those words but I lack the familiarity with this dispute to know exactly to what degree some comments are inappropriate or offensive. I am willing to keep an eye on Saxophonemn (talk · contribs) if that is what you want to see if there are any policy violations there. Lastly, the removal of a comment from this page has been noted as I find it slightly concerning, GDonato (talk) 21:06, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for that reflection. I've dropped a note on your page. I hope this is settled. I need a cuppa, or a reefer of that stuff we used to get off friendly folks in Gaza in the good old days, when you could walk round there and smoke interesting herbal stuff, before someone came up with the idea they were terrorists, and weeds dangerous.Nishidani (talk) 21:38, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I removed the content, GD, because it was BASELESSLY ACCUSING ME OF ENDORSING THE PROTOCOLS OF THE ELDERS OF ZION. Ok, can you see why that might be a problem? MAYBE? JUST A LITTLE BIT?!?!?!?!? FOR FUCKS SAKE WHAT IS WRONG WITH WIKIPEDIA ADMINS <eleland/talkedits> 21:46, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

(<=) I think (and I hope) that was not his intention. Let's leave it for just now and maybe try to stay away from editors who you feel you might fall into dispute with or make sure that you are always civil when communicating with them. I'm always available by e-mail, talk page and IRC for any good faith requests or complaints about conduct. Cheers, GDonato (talk) 21:57, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

E. Wikipedia admins have an unenviable job, it ain't quite as enjoyable as editing, which is in any case, in the I/P area, mainly exasperation. Quick judgements on diffs, and often without time to check in depth (Donato stepped back, earlier,'I lack familiarity with this dispute', and took note that perhaps some things had escaped him etc). Only problem is that Saxaphonemn kibitzes away, as a newbie, on pages where you've toiled for years. To stay away from such blowin editors would be tantamount to leaving wiki, since they tend to follow serious editors about. It's late, I'm out. I'm fucked if it's worth the candle mate, at times like this. But if we don't keep our noses clean, whatever snot's wheezed our way by the Protocol spin-teamsters, who's going to look after that 22% and its people's right to representation? Nishidani (talk) 22:12, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Eleland, I came across this discussion on your talk page. Apologies for my intrusion, but I thought I would offer some advice to you and Nishidani as your friendly neighborhood admin™. It really doesn't seem appropriate to refer to people as "horn-blowers" (is that a reference to the shofar?) and "the master race". It certainly isn't conducive to a friendly editing environment, and I can't see how it can help if it results in antagonising people. Please think about the effect of what you're posting and ask yourself if your comments are going to help the discussion and what you want to achieve by posting them. -- ChrisO (talk) 00:43, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

ChrisO you would have to ask whoever made the "horn blower" comment because it wasn't me. As for "master race," that is simply a direct, accurate reading of Saxophonem's conception of how the world works. He did, indeed, post a quote about how Jews are timeless and eternal and anybody who opposes them will, to use an apropos phrasing, disappear from the pages of history, or perhaps I should say be wiped off the map. He posted this to Talk:Palestinian territories.

If you want me to take this whole kerfuffle seriously, here's what you should do. Create a pan-Arabian sockpuppet who runs around making absurd demands and posting nationalist calls-to-arms on Israel related pages (or really any page that even in passing mentions Israel, like List of oldest continuously occupied cities.) Make sure that it's suspected from the beginning as a sock-puppet, and that its edits are clearly linked to a known group of internet thugs who amuse themselves by, for example, breaking into pro-Israeli settler facebook groups and deleting all the members. Then have your sockpuppet post a quote about how all who oppose Islam will be destroyed to Talk:Israel, as an epigraph to a discussion about why the page should be renamed to "Zionist entity." Then, when people call him "you cunt" and "clearly unfit to edit," go ahead and give them your civility lecture. Then I'll take you seriously. Until then, I have to admit - I still think Saxophonem is a cunt. I mean it. He's a huuuuge douchebag. He can go fuck himself. <eleland/talkedits> 12:48, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

ChrisO, why I should reply to this idiotic sand-in-the-eyes insinuation by Eternalsleeper over the shofar, when the joke was obvious, is beyond me. Saxophonemn touts his love of wind-instruments, ‘horns’ in jazz slang. He wears this in his own ID handle. He trumpeted, via Twain, the peerless immortality of Jews, and the death of Palestinians, and all other peoples. Malik, with whom he was in conflict, has now asked him to refactor his comment since ‘the Talk page is not a forum for theories of national superiority’. Eleland put this, if I may rhyme the offensive word, in blunt terms, but he was correct in seeing here, as I and Malik have also, a foul recycling, where it should never appear for obvious historical reasons, of clichés about ethnic supremicism. The result? Saxophonemn’s page is silent, Eleland is warned by an administrator, both he and I are accused of anti-semitism, I because in punning on Saxophonemn’s handle, I called him a ‘horn-blower’. I hardly need to tell you of all people that to ‘blow one’s horn’ is to ‘trumpet one’s own virtues’, something Saxophonemn, with his love of wind-instruments, was doing in saying he, like the Jewish people in Twain’s vignette, will outlast all the rest of us, and consign the Palestinians to the dustbin of history. As William Empson taught us, language speaks more than the intentions of conscious use might allow. ‘Horn-blower’ can sound indeed Clintonian, though I had primarily in mind Horatio Hornblower, for private hermeneutic reasons. To ‘blow the horn’ might well allude to the shofar, but why not then to the qerem (the horn/hill. 'To lift up the horn (qerem) of Salvation' is Biblical language for 'exalt oneself in resistance'.Gerard Manley Hopkins alludes unwittingly to this in his diary entry for September 24, 1863, in noting an analogy to the word herna (horn) and the Hernici of Switzerland, ‘rock (Lt.saxum)-people’ because they dwelt on horn-like crags)? Of course, now that shofar is mentioned, one does recall that when Betar rallied at the Wailing Wall in the 1920s, a shofar was blown, as demonstrators shouted ‘The Wall is Ours’, and the right to challenge those at al-Aqsa in this way became a hallmark of extremist agent provocateurs, which is how I regard Saxopphonemn. The Irgun threatened the British with retaliation for criminal behaviour if they interfered with Jewish worship at the wall, since the latter had banned the blowing of the shofar after the 1929 riots (J. Bowyer Bell, Moshe Arens, Terror Out of Zion, (Dublin, 1977) Transaction Press reprint, 1996 pp.121f.(A the authors are wrong here: it was the International Commission for the Wailing Wall that recommended the ban in 1930)). Moshe Segal defied the ban on Yom Kippur 1931 (Anita Shapira, Land and Power:The Zionist Resort to Force, 1881-1948, tr. William Templer, Stanford UP 1999 p.201). Blowing the shofar is, in revisionist Zionism, emblematic of Israel’s crushing of indigenous aspirations to the land. In that sense, yes, I cannot deny that, in my mind, Saxophonemn was also blowing a shofar, and trumpeting down into non-existence the walls of Palestinian aspiration. I’m not like Horatio Hornblower who ‘restrained himself from pointing out the obvious too didactically to his superior officer’ (C. S. Forester, Lieutenant Hornblower(1952) in The Young Hornblower, Penguin Books reprint 2004 p.259.) So just for the record, as Eleland invites the usual administrative measures to get himself banned by allowing his understandable repulsion for ethnic supremicists to be voiced here, while Saxophonemn smiles from the wings in silence, and can notch this up as a scalp from the enemy to do his newby record proud in the eyes of his fellows, I’ll put down my personal reconstruction (early this morning, but not posted) of what happened, and why both Eleland and I are, to put it mildly, pissed off that someone who has done nothing for this encyclopedia, except militate ideologically, provoked a sharp and vulgar quip, quickly withdrawn, and in the labyrinths of judgement, is now ignored for his behaviour, while those who responded are summoned to judgement for not ‘creating a civil environment’. Regards Nishidani (talk) 15:24, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

(2) ChrisO Like the young midshipman Horatio ‘’Hornblower’’, you enjoy the benefits of a classical education. You will recall that when Captain Keene mocks this cultural boon in the apprentice sailor as a drawback, he does so by upbraiding him on the use of ablative absolutes, which do not serve the ends of wars of Empire, unlike the study of sines and cosines. The point was, pure math is a more serviceable tool of destruction than a capacity to construe Cicero. A classical education tunes the vagrant ear to allusive nuance in language, but what’s the point of that when curt formulaic orders, (‘clear the forward raffle!’, ‘snug the brig down’) and their instantaneous execution are the pared down staple of verbal exchanges on board a man of war. The vignette suggestsan analogy with certain tendencies in Wiki administration that privilege being a stickler for form: that and execution is all that matters: what counts in the’’ litterae humaniores’’, i.e., the subtextual world of meaning, can be ignored, and in ignoring it, the message is, ‘stuff the content’ when disputes arise.

The kerfuffle (pure coincidence I now note that Eleland uses the same word) we have witnessed illustrates the contrast. An editor yet to prove himself, with a record for nuisance declarations, whinges about being the victim of a ‘with hunt’ (sic) , returns and nitpicks on the way the term Palestinian Territories (the whole article is a useless fork, and can be summed up as 'an Israeli expression for the Occupied Palestinian Territories) is treated as a single term, like the ‘United States’, whereas, in his view, it designates as a plural, plural topological realities. The adjective (not a ‘proper’ adjective: one only speaks of proper nouns) is POV, since it implies the territories are ‘Palestinian’, which is moot. One might remark that calling ‘The Palestinian Territories’ a plural reality, (is the ‘United States’ to be similarly dismembered on the strength of a similar equivocation?) not only defies standard usage, but is itself POV, in that in a certain Israeli perspective, there’s much to be gained tactically by defining the two as distinct geopolitical realities, in disregard of standard international language, (‘’divide et impera’’) than by accepting that the final status of the area must recognize them as a political and cultural unity. Malik made a revert, with his customary succinct and neutral incisiveness, and the rejoinder was a rather odd stab at being either comical or ironical:-

’Malik, they is coming to take you away, is good English.'

Well, not only Freud, but Empson would have said that to illustrate a point with this phrasing, to someone whose handle indicates a gesture of identitarian affinity with the Islamic Afro-American hero, Malcolm X, is in extremely crude taste. ‘They is coming to take you away’ is in fact a parody of black dialect (‘They’z cumen to take you away, man’). Why, of all imaginable examples, did Saxophonemn think up one that sounds either like a veiled threat to a black man, or a prophylactic warning (a tip off)? He also asserted that an exquisitely neutral comment on grammatical proprieties by Malik, reflecting a consensual viewpoint weeks back, struck him as ‘bullying’. Malik, in his view, was abusing his ‘authority’ and menacing him. This is what Saxophonemn says. On a deeper Empsonian level, the phrase can even be taken to imply, ‘who are you to correct my English? Yeah, you are Jewish, but identify with Islamic blacks, and blacks don’t speak proper English. And you, in saying ‘a plural noun can take a verb in the singular’ sound like you hang out with people who speak black dialect, rather than educated folks who speak correct English’. In this sense, it was just possibly a tribalistic reminder to stick to Malik’s ‘proper’ Jewish identity, and not get confused by associating with blacks. This is not just a matter of the hermeneutics of suspicion. In an earlier exchange on Eleland’s page here , Saxophonemn remarked:

liberal/atheist view points which make ‘’’Jews appear as out of place (as) ‘’white folks’’ in the wrong neighborhood.’’’

I.e. secular criticism of what Saxophonemn thinks as Torah-based Zionism makes ‘Jews’ (not Israel) as out of place as white folks in a black neighbourhood’ (black neighbourhoods are ‘wrong’), and Malik therefore, in S’s understanding, is a Jew out of place in a black’s world, and in not supporting a fellow-Jew on an edit.

I noted this, reading quietly, with disquiet before this brouhaha flared up. It was covert, intangible, but subtly resonant in the words and associations Saxophonemn’s remarks conjured up. I also noticed that my intuition was not quite peregrine, for Saxophonemn suddenly followed this up with a familiar quote from Mark Twain, tampering with it ever so slightly. Saxophonemn laments the difficulties he is experiencing, as a newby, in not having established an ‘authority’ to get his own way as an editor.

What was one to make of this MollyBloomsian flow of apparently illogical thoughts? We have an admired and experienced editor, whose identity is influenced by a regard for an Islamic Afro-American, berated for being a bully, and vaguely, if ham-handedly, informed he should mull over the meaning of the menacing black dialect phrase: ‘They is coming to take you away’ (even if intended on another level to illustrate a problem of grammatical concordance). Of course given Saxaphonemn’s musical interests, it’s the sort of allusion Christopher Ricks, aficionado of Bob Dylan's lyrics, would pick apart, since it is obviously a reminder of Napoleon XIV’s song, They're Coming To Take Me Away, Ha-Ha!. The allusion only compounds the doubts about Saxaphonemn’s game, since by substituting ‘you’ for ‘me’, the innuendo is that Malik is ‘insane’, like the fellow in the original lyric.

Light was thrown on it by the following citation from Mark Twain, representing a viewpoint Saxaphonemn says he can’t wait to edit in, so that he can put over with acquired editorial authority something along the lines of Mark Twain, when he wrote:-

’The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then . . . passed away. The Greek and the Roman followed. [The Palestinians too.] The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts. … All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?"

Distilled down to its conceptual attar, Saxophonemn says here, in effect: ‘The Palestinians are a dead people who have had their day, like the Egyptians, Babylonians, Persians, Romans and Greeks. The Jews beat them all, have beaten once more the Palestinians. They Jews are immortal’.

Contextually it is a reprise of the implicit point made earlier, about ‘Palestinian Territories’. They are at the moment, ‘territories’ but it is POV to call them ‘Palestinian’ and in any case, ‘we’ Jews will eventually own them, since the Palestinians are doomed, like all other peoples save ‘us’, to extinction.

Several paragraphs to bring into overt clarity the obscure innuendoes embedded in Saxaphonemn’s messages. One intuits all this, without troubling to construe it, at a moment's glance, and, if one has an ethical nature, and a certain sympathy for the plight of Palestinians, one swears under one’s breath a four letter word, and words to the effect of ‘shove your ‘ethnic supremicism’ crap'. Eleland violated the code by writing briefly what he and many others would think, true but, to his credit, almost immediately reverted.

What was the consequence? An admin (notified?) looked at the diff (actually, in haste, he made two diffs of the one remark, as if Eleland had been repeatedly offensive), and called him for incivility. As I said to Eleland, one shouldn’t take it badly that admins simply don’t have time to go into the details, the contexts, and the history: the rules privilege formalism over substance. Were they to waste their time, as I have mine, going into the intricate history of each contretemps, they’d never manage to exercise even a minimum amount of control, since it would require one admin on constant surveillance for each wiki page. Donato himself, when his attention was drawn to the lack of deeper oversight, properly allowed he may not have looked as closely at this as the problem demanded.

Then I intruded, with a crack, formulated to suggest to Eleland that, if one is outraged, perhaps an innocuous but pointed piece of repartee, rather than an exasperated and futile, because sanctionable, four-letter word of abuse was the way to handle this kind of crass racism.

Eleland is understandably exasperated, and caps a few effs. Rightly so from a modern ethical perspective, but highly improper from a wiki editorial slant. Rightly, because much ado about virtually nothing was being made over his angry response to racist language, no hullabaloo was made about the racist vaunt that provoked it, a remark which said Palestinians are a dead people, they’re ‘history’, and are history because their ‘ethnic’ rivals are, uniquely, immortal, a position that elicits spontaneously the conclusion that Saxophonemn believes in Jewish racial superiority, or what Eleland was to call a ‘master race’ complex.

At this, an editor of Lebanese origin who apparently thinks all Arabs outside of Saudi Arabia are intruders, (and therefore the Orient should have remained Jewish and Christian as it was in the good old days) came out with a strong pro-Zionist sympathy: the land that has invaded his own homeland several times in the last several decades, is Eretz Israel, where all Arabs are intruders, aliens, all of it belongs to the Jews, and people like Eleland and myself are antisemites. Eleland, because in using the word ‘Master race’ he was not (as indeed he obviously was), alluding to the language of Mein Kampf, where ‘’Herrenvolk’ is employed several times, but to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, (where that wording does not recur, at least in Marsden’s translation), and I because in calling Saxophonemn a ‘horn-blower’ I was mocking the shofar. One provocation leads to another, but in an Humean similitude, people seem to be fixated on the pocketed billiard ball, and not at the cue-wielders. I wish for Chrissake, one could do without these endless quibbles, esp. over a 15 minute edit that disappeared down the tube as its author thought better of it. Best regards Nishidani (talk) 15:48, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

September 2008

You have been temporarily blocked from editing in accordance with Wikipedia's blocking policy for incivility after warning and discussion. Please stop. You are welcome to make useful contributions after the block expires. If you believe this block is unjustified you may contest this block by adding the text {{unblock|your reason here}} below. Toddst1 (talk) 00:51, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

I won't ask that you unblock me conditionally so I can do it myself; but please post this to ANI under the thread EternalSleeper started to get me blocked. Or at least link here.

Let me confess; not only did I knowingly violate Wikipedia's various "civility" and "personal attacks" and "play nice in the sandbox, kids," policies, I did it with the very deliberate intention that it cause what we euphemistically call "disruption" here. Quite simply, I was, and am, at wits end, and I have neither the patience nor the passive-aggressiveness to work through the normal WikiPolitical methods that EternalSleeper has so evidently mastered. The slickly packaged, though utterly ridiculous, allegation of antisemitism on mine and User:Nishidani's part was a nice touch, if a predictable one, since is impossible to disagree substantively with the extremist Jewish element (we're supposed to call them "pro-Israeli") on Wikipedia without facing such nonsense.

Plainly and indisputably: the editor who I called a "cunt" and a "huge douchebag," User:Saxophonemn, is a religious-nationalist fanatic, incited (to use the kind of loaded term his ilk will force into any discussion of the Middle East,) to edit Wikipedia by a group of Internet criminals called the Jewish Internet Defense Force who make a hobby out of spamming, disrupting, and harassing sympathizers of Palestinian rights wherever they may be found. His very first edit here was the replacement of "Israeli capture of East Jerusalem" with "Israeli liberation of East Jerusalem;" his edits have continued in the same vein, being so frankly idiotic that he faces resistance not only from us usual suspects but from his fellow Jewish/Zionist editors - see Talk:Palestinian territories#Captured/Liberated.

Oh, perhaps I should rush to clarify, given the general tenor of the discussion so far; I just used the word "resistance," which of course is what the Hamas bombers call their actions, so I must now disavow any advocacy of antisemitic genocidal terrorism rather than make my point like a normal civilized person. Because, apparently, it's essential whenever Israel is involved to hunt down any possible fourth-hand link to anti-Jewish sentiment, no matter how creatively paranoid a mind it takes to come to it. Do you think I'm kidding? Let me tell you what EternalSleeper's "racism" boils down to.

In the midst of a series of discussions, all of which Saxophonemn himself initiated, and in all of which the was the sole advocate, even among "pro-Israeli" editors, of an incredibly extremist, religious-nationalist view on Talk:Palestinian territories, randomly declaimed that of all who dared to oppose him, including the Palestinians, "The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts. … All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains."

In response, I basically flew off the handle. I'm not ashamed to admit it; ethnic supremacism really does make my blood boil, and unlike some others, I don't believe that all racists are racists but some racists are more racist that others. In a subsequent comment I described Sax's actions as advocacy for a "master race;" this is undoubtedly harsh language, but more importantly, it is an accurate description of Sax's worldview as reflected by his actions on Wikipedia. Please study my contribution history. I do not resort this kind of language at will, even with people I profoundly and even violently disagree with. The bare fact is that Sax is an absolute mirror-image of a Nazi antisemite; he believes that "The Jew" is a singular, powerful force, "The Jew" is eternal and lies outside history, "The Jew" has a special and terrifying power, "The Jew" destroys entire nations and peoples for the crime of slighting him, etc.

So, yeah, good block on me. I did, after all, say "fuck" and "cunt" and this is a major sin on Wikipedia. "Your people are inferior and my people will destroy you utterly, in fact, you never even existed to begin with," on the other hand, is just the kind of sentiment that encourages rational dialogue and compromise, as is "we have to ignore international law and the views of mere humans if it contradicts my preferred Holy Books," and such views must be respected in the name of open and frank academic discourse.

No, no. Sarcasm isn't good enough here, and I apologize. To lay it bare: People like Saxophonem, (and before you start it has nothing to do with race or ethnicity or creed, I mean people with a committed right-wing-authoritarian psychological mindset and a national-religious axe to grind,) people like him are absolutely toxic to Wikipedia. They drive out the good editors. They wear us down and they exhaust us. It is simply not possible to debate rationally with someone who thinks in such a fashion; you can refute, up to a point, after which, if you can't revert, block, and ignore, vitriolic mockery becomes, apart from mute surrender, the only reply. I don't apologize. I'd do it again happily. Lengthen my block to indefinite if you must. I was getting tired of this game anyway. <eleland/talkedits> 02:16, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

You have been blocked indefinitely from editing in accordance with Wikipedia's blocking policy for reasons exemplified in your talk page comments. You have become a deliberately disruptive account, flaunting your disregard of Wikipedia's rules. If you believe this block is unjustified you may contest this block by adding the text {{unblock|your reason here}} below. Toddst1 (talk) 03:16, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Have I any right of appeal? The usual rather hopeless cry to ArbCom? Or is this apparent snap decision issued by a random passer-by, without any evident examination of the issues, all I get? <eleland/talkedits> 03:19, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

"I think we're done here folks. Nothing to see. Please move along. Toddst1 (talk) 03:19, 28 September 2008 (UTC)" Well, that inspires confidence. <eleland/talkedits> 03:21, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Apparently I'm not allowed to participate in my own trial (or whatever this is,) but I must say that "Baseball Bugs's" reading of the situation is quite bizarre. Of course it was something I said; I deliberately chose the most hostile and abusive language possible, with the pretty strong suspicion that it would get me in trouble. Heck I even made sure to use cross-cultural profanity; the worst four-letter-word on either side of the Atlantic! Of course it was inappropriate and incivil and personal-attacking and all that. Here's the rub: I really do think that enthusiastic Nazis deserve pretty much whatever I can throw at them, and the user I swore and cursed at is politically indistinguishable from an enthusiastic Nazi. And he was getting away with it. And he still is getting away with it. And frankly, if an ornery-but-generally reasonable internationalist, anti-racist, humanist editor who throws around four-letter-words when deeply provoked is considered worse than a goose-stepping loon who doesn't use phrases like "fucking cunt" -- well then, I'm not sure I want to hang with that crowd, anyway. Toodles. <eleland/talkedits> 03:51, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Oh, and one more thing. Take the damned "Resolved" banner off my ANI thread, O wise and mighty admin. I don't care how right you think you are, you don't get to knock off a contributor who's been here for six years and then pretend it's a settled issue, no matter how many admin points you've racked up by reverting vandalism on Lindsay Lohan's biography. This is not "Resolved." This is not even close to being "Resolved." The only thing that's "resolved" here is that nothing, in fact, has been "resolved," except that I am increasingly "resolved" not to put up with this idiocy. <eleland/talkedits> 03:58, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

For the record...

The quotation you are so incensed about, "The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts. … All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains.", was actually penned by Mark Twain, not by a Jewish partisan, either now nor during his lifetime. Nothing in it says the Jew destroys nations for the crime of offending "The Jew", it is simply an observation that all nations [regardless of whether or not they've persecuted the Jews, although there are very few that haven't] pass, yet the Jews remain Jews. The quotation is actually quite well known...the fact that you mischaracterize its intention, and use it as an excuse to violate pretty much every Wikipedia policy and guideline governing interaction with other editors, is, to me at least, a pretty good indication that, at least until you're sufficiently familiar with the subject matter you present yourself as something of an authority on, and can edit with a level head, preventing you from editing is a sound decision. Tomer ^talk 04:05, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

For the record, I underwrite everything Eleland has said here, even the turpiloquy employed to dismiss an evident agent provocateur, with one fundamental disagreement. The augury to a 'c***' to 'eff itself' is a logical non-sequitur, since the organ denoted by the former lacks the tool employed in the latter verb, and thus cannot engage in the autobinetic activity suggested. binein is, for the perplexed, classical Greek for 'to screw').

Three people have endorsed racist sentiments, and telling them to eff off, has resulted in Eleland's ban, by people either incapable of understanding cause and effect, or too lazy to check. As to the quotation, Tomer has completely misunderstood it. Saxophonemn, for the nth time, did not quote Twain tout court: he used that quote, which was harvested from a brilliantly timely article Twain wrote in defence of the Jewish people when they were under assault, in France with the Dreyfus trial, and in Vienna after Karl Lueger and his Christian Social Party, with its intensely antisemitic platform, came to the fore. Twain neatly turned the stereotype of the Jews on its head. In context, it was a powerful smack at the intolerance of his times (while, if you read it fully, also a warning against Herzl's Zionist project in Palestine). So, Tomer, all your remark documents is an incapacity to read. Both Eleland and I protested at Saxophonemn's tampering with Twain's quote to 'get at' Palestinians, and put them down as a dead, historically extinguished, people. In context, he was pushing a settler expulsionist position, telling editors here that that rabble ought to high-tail it off Jewish land, since they don't exist.

Saxophonemn harvests the quote a century later, after Israel has been established, a national refuge against hatred and insecurity secured, when the Jewish people, as Eric Hobsbawm himself has written, enjoy the most spectacular success and security in their history. Saxophonemn does this for a purpose wholly at odds with Twain's original intent, as is shown by his insertion of the Palestinians among the dead and 'beaten' peoples of the past. In that he loiters about I/P articles, the message was not Twain's, but Saxophonemn's:'these people you lot edit to see represented are a beaten people, much like the dead Romans and Egyptians of the past, and belong properly to 'history', not to contemporary articles'. It vaunted an ethnic supremicism. Twain, one should recall, rather constantly in his novellas assimilates the plight of 'negroes' to the travail of the Jewish people, a situational identity that lived vibrantly on within the American Jewish community right down to the 70s. Saxophonemn dislikes blacks (see above) and Palestinians (a 'beaten' people), and trumpets Jewish supremicism (by the way an extreme minority view in the United States, and I believe in Israel, as opposed to the Occupied Territories, where the strength of militant racism among religious 'settlers' has been authoritatively documented).

Saxophonemn's message is contextually one that mocks Palestinian pretensions to conserve their part of the land his own 'Torah-based nationalism' insists is exclusively 'Jewish' territory. If he has that opinion, that is his right. He has no right to jump around wiki articles brandishing his personal beliefs, and using them to push the ultramontane settler-imperial, religious-nationalist, racialist triumphalism that particular personal view of his undisguisedly embraces. Eleland is perfectly correct in finding here a repulsive mirror-reflection of classical anti-semitism, with the Palestinian replacing the Jew as scapegoat. Saxophonemn is, in this sense, 'anti-semitic' in so far as Palestinians are a semitic people.

I concur that the rules must be applied, and a ban of some sorts imposed. What is appalling, is that the person who defended universal human dignity, in a long and, for Wiki, productive editorial role, is now punished for his sense of outrage, while those who spit on it, and provoked his outburst, are idling out there, unpunished, hanging round Wiki pages for more whingeing stabs at controversy. Saxophonemn, Einsteindonut (who by the way just told me on my page to 'get fucked' when I declined to chat with him)and several others are a clique drifting in to disturb the composition of this encyclopedia, just as Amoruso, Shevashalosh and several others were. They rant on about the Muslim hordes, and vaunt themselves as defenders of Irgun+Torah-based neonationalism, instead of reading useful sources to find information of value for Wiki articles. They do this, apparently, as part of some belief, which one can see, for example, on the farcical Jewish Internet Defence Force thread, that one must stir up the hornets in wiki in order to fossick for material to prove, on the JIDF's website and in other extremist organisations of that stamp, the thesis that wiki is anti-semitic, and validate their claims to be 'in the frontline' of defending the Jewish people against a parlous and antisemitic world. It's a shoe-string operation by two-bit extremists, and their game is obvious, of course, and yet not a word can be said about it, for fear of playing their game. Eleland hasn't. He called one or two of them, and told them to their faces they were, in effect racists, when he should have ignored their witness of contempt for other peoples. They are, and would be dangerous, were they not pathetic. They are dangerous, since they do succeed in wasting much of our editorial time, and driving off editors of proven fidelity and accomplishment like Eleland. Nishidani (talk) 10:13, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Block amended

I've adjusted your block to three months, as indefinite is (in my view) somewhat excessive. I understand your unhappiness at Saxophonem's views but I would suggest that if he's being disruptive, you should report that to WP:AN/I or start a user conduct RfC to get some community feedback. If there is a persistent problem it may be worth an arbitration case. But abusive language doesn't help anyone, I'm afraid. Don't forget that Wikipedians come from all walks of life and philosophies, including some that we might find repulsive. You might not like their points of view, but as long as they're editing in accordance with Wikipedia's requirements, they're not causing problems to the encyclopedia.

I know you will probably be feeling rather sore right now; might I suggest that you take a few days off and let tempers on all sides cool down? Sandstein has posted some sensible suggestions about resolving this issue. I would advise you to consider what he says. -- ChrisO (talk) 10:11, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

I share ChrisO comments here above.

Even if I don't agree with your block, a few days off could only be good for you.

I suggested on wp:an/i you are unblocked as soon as you ask this.

Ceedjee (talk) 13:23, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

The original block was for a week, before my "hit me again I love it" type comments got it to indef and then three months. I'll see how I feel in two weeks.

In the meantime we should maybe address EternalSleeper's adduction of "racism" on ANI, a follow-up to his provocative attack made right on this page, which I was then tsk-tsked at by an admin for deleting and calling "bullshit."

Did I indeed call Jews "the master race?" If I had, I should think it grounds for a very long block indeed. But of course I did not, and EternalSleeper, even if he is the world's most hyper-vigilant antiracist (which I doubt) knows that I did not. In the context of savagely putting down another editor I accused him, more or less accurately, of claiming that Jews were a kind of master race. EternalSleeper then jumped in to turn the accusation around from an awful belief which I accuse someone of holding, to his shame to a belief which I myself hold, at the sames time making an even more preposterous accusation against Nishidani. He added that "many edits both make tries to portray Jewish Zionists as the crux of the world's problems," he does not cite these edits of course, because there are none, he simply made it up. He lied. He did, yes, bullshit everybody who read those words, and I'm of the mind that making bullshit accusations is rather more troublesome than calling bullshit accusations "bullshit." To say nothing of his Parthian shot at "the Islamic occupiers of Eretz Israel," which ought to put paid to any notion that he gives a damn about racism or anti-racism; it is as if one were put on the defensive by a Serbian nationalist who decries one's lack of attention to "the Papist and Islamo-fascist occupiers of Greater Serbia" that doubtlessly reflects racist anti-Orthodox bigotry of the most troubling kind.¹

Oh, and as for my use of the word "cunt" reflecting a secret deep-seated misogynism, can we give it a rest people? I didn't devise English profanity myself or decide which word we're going to agree is "the big one" at the top of the scale. You might as well claim that my use of "fuck" shows a pathological fear of an actually rather wonderful mammalian instinct, and "bullshit" exposes my shocking disregard for what is not only a necessary part of animal metabolism but even a useful organic fertilizer. Thank goodness we're in English here and not Quebec French or we'd have to debate solemnly about why I'm so bigoted against the Church. All this political correctness is enough to make even a pinko like me yearn for some right-wing talk radio (no, not really - Carlin, pbuh, would be a better choice.) <eleland/talkedits> 14:57, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

1: For whatever reason, admins here seem astonishingly insensitive to this kind of language when it comes to Arab-Israeli issues; some even seem to believe that loose talk of "Islamic occupiers of Eretz Israel" is simply the mirror image of loose talk of "Israeli occupiers of the Palestinian territories," and let the "Islamic occupation" POV pushers slug it out with the "Zionist occupation" POV pushers, an impression they may well get from American television news reports and newspaper editorials (the same ones that will tell them about the controversial and oft-criticized "[Just a] theory of evolution" and the deep and abiding controversy over whether there is such a thing as "global warming," etc.) But the bare fact is that there is no controversy whatsoever about "whether" Israel does indeed militarily occupy areas in the Middle East; even Israel's own courts acknowledge that it is a belligerent military occupation, whatever a desultory few English press-releases from the MFA, and their avid fans in CAMERA et al., might say about "disputed territories." And this is in terms of the admittedly somewhat arbitrary standards of international law; if you go by what people colloquially associate with an "occupation," namely tanks and guns and swaggering well-armed men with foreign accents who slap and curse and mock the locals and sometimes shoot them and blow them up, the situation is even more black-and-white. (Shall I put an asterisk there to note that I mean "starkly defined" rather than "race relations?" In dealing with Wikipedians like EternalSleeper I almost feel I should be read a Miranda declaration first, anything I say can and will be used against me, etc...) By contrast, talk of "Islamic occupiers" in "Eretz Yisrael" rests on a belief that an arbitrary and ill-defined parcel of land has been assigned, by the creator of the universe, to a single national group, and therefore anybody outside this group is an "occupier," an interloper, a trespasser - footnote to a footnote, one might say a stranger, but then the Torah is full of injunctions never to oppress the stranger isn't it so we'll call them something else. EternalSleeper, who paints himself of late as an anti-racist deeply troubled by these disturbing bigoted comments made by the dread anti-Zionists, in fact openly believes that the very existence of non-Jewish people in what he considers Jewish land is an "occupation" comparable in terms of moral outrage to a real occupation, you know, the kind with tanks and guns. He doesn't say where exactly his Eretz Yisrael ends but I'd be shocked if he drew the boundaries even at the Jordan river, let alone the 1948 ceasefire lines. And yet here I am having to refute his baseless accusations of racism - hence the analogy.

However this plays out, I owe you an apology. I now suspect that if I hadn't made my cruising quip about hornblowers, this would have stopped in its tracks, and blown over. So I'm probably responsible for the troubles that ensued. My sincerest apologies. I'd say I'll stay out for as long as you have to wear a suspension, by way of admitting my responsibility, only my prior undertakings to piss off look pretty shaky, since I've drifted back despite them. Best wishes Nishidani (talk) 15:02, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

No, no, no I do not think that you need to apologize at all. Nishidani, I chose to curse out the guy in the most profane possible manner, and only retract it by way of "I can't say that but I still think it," and then when pressed to go back and say yes, I said it, I meant it, here I'll repeat it for you and I'll probably say it again. Rather a serious meltdown, I admit, and one that seems to have laid bare a martyr complex I wasn't aware I had.

But then in the present climate of this discussion, I'm sure that some cunning sleuth would reason "martyr complex" -> "martyrdom operation" -> "suicide bombing," and ANI would hear that Eleland, the vulgar antisemitic woman-hating madman, now proclaims himself as a potential suicide bomber, and admins would debate over whether to call the RCMP to report this terrorism threat. (Oh, guys, while you're on a tear here, let me remind you that I didn't just call him a cunt, I told him to "shove it," which of course is a veiled and bowdlerized reference to anal sex, which indicates that I hate the gays, too - yep, I'm just a seething mass of senseless bigotry, quite a head case, aren't I, you should be glad to be rid of me, so that kind and gentle souls like EternalSleeper and Saxophonemn can proceed unmolested...) <eleland/talkedits> 15:20, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

You've left out the 'pinko' admission, which means you're a sleeper agent for the ex-KGB, which is now supplying missiles to Iran and thus supports Ahmed the jihadist, and is destroying Georgia's role in defending Lisbon as part of the NATO pact, etc. Son, you're in deeper shit than that chap in Dante's Inferno with his tristo sacco che merda fa di quel che si trangugia.Nishidani (talk) 15:40, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Sense of entitlement?

I'm not sure where you came up with the idea that since you've been editing here for a few years you can't be blocked without a whole lot of drama and that it's ok to denigrate the admin who blocked you. I'm ok with the reduction of your block but I can assure you I would not have reduced it.

I and other admins will hold you to the same standards that we hold others to. I can assure you that you are not entitled to edit here. We and I will block you without warning for any repeat behavior after the expiry of your block. Good day. Toddst1 (talk) 20:06, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Eleland is not being held to the same standards that you say administrators hold everyone to. He was defamed, and no administrator troubled even to note to the defamer that this smearing is totally unacceptable. What we have here is administrative oversight or undersight or double standards. Eleland is convicted of punching someone out after being slapped in the face. The slapper's there, idling around. Double standards, in fact I/P editors see it every day. It's definitely a 'West Bank' phenomenon. Eleland, you've become an honorary Palestinian.Nishidani (talk) 20:14, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Report the defamer. End the drama. Toddst1 (talk) 20:18, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Want me to join the whingers? Squeal and grass on an idiot, and maliciously enjoy the sight as he's hauled over administrative coals? Sorry, unlike those who exploit wiki rules to get at people, I, and I think Eleland in a recent instance, just don't dob people in like that. Kids used to play that tit-for-tat game, and built a competitive air in the I/P area for squaring off each other's 'enemies'. Things had much improved, until mid this year, when, for obvious but unspoken reasons, a new tide of shysters started floating in to play the old mischief all of us, on both sides,have learnt to avoid.

It's an ethical difference, in any case, that one takes a certain pride in, not to behave as cynically as the other side, but to call a spade a spade and cop the rap.

A ban needs a report of course. Going to a defamer or racist's page and dropping a severe notification that this behaviour will not be tolerated, does not require that the person be reported. All it requires is for an admin who notes unacceptable remarks to put the fool in his place by a remonstrative note on his page. That won't diminish the injustice done to Eleland, but it would certainly raise several notches his respect for the qualitay of people administering this place.Nishidani (talk) 20:59, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

This is appalling. I'm going on a solidarity strike. Good luck, Eleland. You deserved a kick up the coit, and a pat on the back. Sorry couldn't be of much help. Nishidani (talk) 17:36, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, here I am again, using my own talk page to respond since the ban denies me (rightly or wrongly) a direct response on ANI. Recent comments by Jaakobou and IronDuke have seriously and maliciously distorted my own remarks in what can only be described as a smear campaign.

"(A) My history with Eleland includes him suggesting I'm a war criminal." (Jaakobou)

My comment was, in fact, "Now, on a related matter: Do you have a potential conflict of interest related to the Battle of Jenin? Were you a participant in the event? Although you have devoted much bandwidth to decrying this question, you have not answered it, which would be the most sensible way to deal with the issue." He has now been spreading this utterly false and discredited smear for more than thirteen months. See User_talk:Jaakobou/Archive_3#Re:_WP:CIV for yourself; then ask Jaakobou if he has even a shred of supporting evidence to support his claim.

Comment by Jaakobou:

Evidence for allegations: Supporting evidence can be viewed here: User:Jaakobou/War Criminal Insinuations. Not sure I should run up old diffs to further prove I had a valid reason to complain about Eleland back in April -- after he was awarded an unblock for promising to behave -- but I've decided to cite the war criminal issue because it shows a fragment of the situations I've had to put up with while Eleland's friends were defending him, or should I say, prodding each other to continue.(Minor sample: [3]) It might be worth mention that Eleland's first defender there was PhilKnight (talk · contribs) - See relevant diff: [4].

Provocative and racist commentary Another important point that I wish to make is that the image at the bottom of the page portrays Jewish settlers in an inaccurate and antisemitic manner and it's creating "artist" is most notable for his participation in the Iranian Holocaust denial "show" and has been often cited in this book which deals with antisemitic imagery masquerading as anti-Israeli criticism. To use this comic as a means to informally request an unblock is a pretty big provocation.

With respect, Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 11:01, 30 September 2008 (UTC) clarify 11:03, 30 September 2008 (UTC) clarify link 11:13, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

"[Eleland] Claims that I worship people he views as extremists" (Jaakobou)

No diff, and such a vague claim that I can't possibly be expected to know. From Jaakobou's past re-imaginings of my remarks, it seems likely that he is referencing comment, not directed personally, to the effect that Israeli politicians of the far-right, and their "adherents," (not, for g-d's sake, "worshippers,") do not hold a "veto" over Wikipedia's presentation of facts in the encyclopedia. This comment was no arbitrary snark, but rather the conclusion to a long and extensively-sourced posting which specifically, clearly, and civilly argued that what Jaakobou was presenting as "the Israeli view," the kind of "significant" view that WP:NPOV requires us not to discount, was in fact not "the Israeli view," but the view of a hard-right fringe within Israeli politics - the kind that WP:NPOV cautions should not be presented as prominently as other views, if even presented at all. To prove this point I quoted three center-right Israeli sources (well, arguably the JCPA is not "center" right but I'll let that go) all of which disagreed with Jaakobou's claims. Then to summarize and re-state my argument, I made the remark that far-right politicians and their adherents do not hold a veto.

This is what, in the grown-up world, is called "debate" and "disagreement," and not even particularly rancorous debate. Because the debate was clearly focused on the question: "What is the weight of reliable-source evidence behind this particular view being advocated for inclusion in the article text," it was also precisely the kind of debate that Wikipedia is supposed to thrive on. I would have welcomed an intellectually and academically serious response; instead I am greeted with aread Talk:Palestinian_people#Majority and tell me that I'm the abusive one there.

"[Eleland has made] an icky antisemitic comparison of Jews to Nazis" (IronDuke)

Again, this is simply false. The plain meaning of my comment was to accuse, plausibly, Saxophonemn of having a Nazi-like attitude on questions of national supremacy. This in response to a triumphal proclamation, twisting the meaning of a Twain quote, that "The Jew" will "beat" all who oppose "him." Only the latest in his long line of his racially charged comments; he compares the Third World Non-Aligned Movement to a White Power rally, [5], he subtly likens an RFCU against him to the Dreyfuss affair, [6] he rhetorically claims to speak on behalf of "the Jewish people," [7] on his fourteenth ever edit to WP he likens CJCurrie to a backer of the Aryan Nations and mocks the Palestinian "pseudo land" as inferior to a "real country" like Israel. [8] Nota bene, these are not snippets extracted from an enormous body of Talk comments, including many long and heavily sourced comments which are effectively miniature essays (these are the ones that Jaakobou mines) - these are straightforward and direct ethnically charged comments which Saxophonemn cranks out consistently.

IronDuke knows, full well, that I have snarkily, rhetorically, and indirectly likened the comments of one single Jewish editor to Nazi-style rhetoric - an analogy which was, given the circumstances, not a great stretch. Yet he prefers to tell people that I've "ickily compared Jews to Nazis." The motivations for this are not hard to perceive.

<eleland/talkedits> 02:55, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Block shortened (again)

I've reduced the block to a week based on the AN/I discussion. PhilKnight (talk) 06:56, 30 September 2008 (UTC)