Talk:Battles of the Separation Corridor

Sources still not used

• Gelber, Independence vs. Nakba, pp. 312–325
• Ayalon (1963), Givati Against the Egyptian Invader, pp. 421–534
• Hashavia, 53rd Battalion in the War of Independence, pp. 235–254
• Bar-On, 55th Battalion in the War of Independence, pp. 255–274
• Givati, In the Path of Desert and Fire, pp. 209–230
• Kimche, On Both Sides of the Hill, pp. 230–241
• Gerges, "The third round of fighting, 15 October – 5 November" (part of Shlaim, The War for Palestine), pp. 163–165
• Morris (2004), Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited, pp. 465–467(468?)
• And many more

POV issues

I've read a number of the articles you have composed for DYK and have held off on commenting. However, they all suffer from the same general problem, which also applies here specifically once again.

1. While Israeli dead and wounded are mentioned more than once, the dead and wounded of the forces who they are fighting are never mentioned. Did no Egyptians die? Were there no wounded? Are they are invincible fighting force? The reader has no idea, because there is zero information about the fate of their soldiers.
2. The battle took place in areas populated by Palestinian Arab villages. The names of these villages are mentioned, but there is no mention of whether or not they are inhabited, how their inhabitants were effected by the battles raging around and in their villages, if any of them died, were expelled, left, etc.
3. This article relies on three books for its sources, all of whom are Israeli historians, and two of which are written in Hebrew. I suspect this is part of the reason that there is a paucity of information regarding anyone but the Israeli actors in these battles and why the article reads as though it is a personal account by an Israeli soldier of the events of a battle rather than an account that represents mutliple perspectives.

In short, there is a serious POV issue here, and in most of the other articles you have composed on battles. I think the article should be tagged until these addressed, but as I do not want to derail the DYK nomination, I'mm simply going to ask that you attempt to introduce more diverse sourcing here and elsewhere and keep in mind that there are at least two sides to this story and the others you are writing. Tiamut^talk 15:37, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Tiamut, please keep in mind that Wikipedia presents the information from the sources relative to the prominence of those sources. Throughout my series of articles on the war this year, I have used mostly a combination of three key sources about the war—three books that encompass the entire war and have been published a lot by comparison. These sources are a volume of Carta's Atlas of Israel, edited by military historian and TAU professor Jeuda Wallach; the History of the War of Independence, a book reprinted over a dozen times (including in English, but I don't have the English version, plus it's an outdated edition which has been revised) by military historian Netanel Lorch; and the recent best-seller 1948 by historian and BGU professor Benny Morris. These are what I like to refer to as "ultra-reliable" sources, which have been (in the first two cases anyway) examined by dozens of historians and cited by everyone who writes about the military history of 1948.

I am not aware of any other secondary source encompassing the 1948 war which goes into any detail about battles such as this—Arab or Israeli. Some books about 1948 focus on specific aspects of the war, or multiple aspects, for example the Avi Shlaim-edited book The War for Palestine and The Birth of the Palestine Refugee Problem Revisited by Morris. Of course, I have a few dozen books about the war, some of which deal with these battles. However, again, I decided to first focus on a small number of key sources because included all possible sources would take a very long time, allowing me to write no more than 2 or 3 articles per year (like Operation Pleshet, where precisely this was attempted).

Unfortunately, Arab historiography of the war is almost non-existent, and almost 100% of what does exist deals with the Palestinian Arab population, which has little relevance to this battle or indeed any other that I wrote about (more on that in a minute). I have in fact gone out of my way to try to acquire Arab secondary sources relevant to Israel–Egypt battles, but so far came up with almost nothing. Primary sources exist, but I try not to use them until the wealth of secondary sources has been exhausted; plus, most Israeli sources going into detail about the battles do extensively quote primary Arab sources (Nasser, Naguib, ash-Sharif, etc.), making further use pointless anyway. If you have any Arab sources that are relevant, feel free to present them. I am afraid however, that you are confusing neutrality with balance. If the Israeli side is represented more because there are more sources from the Israeli side, creating an imbalance, that doesn't mean that there's a neutrality issue.

To address your points one by one:

1. The "three key sources" do not have information on Egyptian casualties in these battles, probably owing to the fact that not all were Israeli victories, and in some the Egyptians made an organized retreat. If I find figures, I will add them, or you can feel free to do the same if you find them.
2. None of the villages were populated, and they served only as military positions, as presented in the article. More background on the villages will be added as the article is expanded, but it doesn't seem important at this point and would create an undue weight problem.
3. See the explanation above. Again, if you know of any Arab secondary sources that can be used here, please let me know (again, even if you know of such sources, please tell me).

—Ynhockey ^(Talk) 15:04, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

1. If the three sources you are using record Israeli casulaties but fail to record Egyptian ones in these battles, then they are clearly failing to tell the whole story. Building articles based on these three sources can only lead to POV articles.
2. Some of the Arab villages in the area of the battles were populated and were depopulated during these events. For example, Bayt Tima was depopulated in October 18-19, 1948, after being aerially bombarded and hit with artillery, and the remaining inhabitants of al-Faluja and Iraq al-Manshiyya were under siege with Egyptian troops througout the battles described. I don't see how mentioning these facts would consitute an undue weight problem, as you have suggested.
3. Regarding the lack of Arab or non-Israeli sources, that's simply untrue. Of course its difficult to find sources for an article entitled "Battles of the Separation Corridor" since this seems to be a purely Israeli name for these events. However, there are many other books that discuss the battles that took place during Operation Yoav. See for example: pp. 163-165 here, pp. 20-22 here, pp. 173-174 here, pp. 465-467 and there are many others. You will not find them by looking for the information under a name used only by Israeli historians.

In short, my concerns about the lack of NPOV remain. I suggest that in the future, you try to look at books outside of the three you have decided are authoritative sources for information on how to name and contextualize the events being described. Failure to do so will lead to a serie one-sided articles on the 1948 that reflect only the Israeli perspective and no one else's. Tiamut^talk 21:42, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

The concerns you raise are far from the accusations of "failing to tell the whole story". As I said, I have not used all the sources available to me when writing this article and every other in the series (read my previous comment again please). However, I have selected three comprehensive sources that deal with the 1948 Arab–Israeli War as a whole, but at the same time go into enough detail to write such articles. The articles will be expanded.

About Arab sources, you have so far provided one (Fawaz Gerges), which is part of Avi Shlaim's book and I have used this source in the article Operation Pleshet. It has very little detail (and makes many claims that are simply incorrect and contradict every other source) and is mostly valuable as a source for the historiography of the battles. When such a section is added, you can be sure that I will use the Gerges source extensively. The other two sources you provided are not Arab.

—Ynhockey ^(Talk) 00:38, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

P.S. Aside from the above, I will create a section of "sources still not used" shortly (as I did in other articles in the series) and include the relevant stuff you provided. —Ynhockey ^(Talk) 00:45, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Visuals

I am immediately struck by the lack of maps. NickWagg (talk) 14:00, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Likewise; this article could really use several maps to show the locations and movements described. I (and many others) just don't have the familiarity with local geography to be able to follow the descriptions.--Piledhigheranddeeper (talk) 16:12, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

The problem is known, and I am planning a number of maps for the series of articles I have written so far. It may take a while though, maybe a matter of months, but I hope to make the maps as part of any future GA effort. —Ynhockey ^(Talk) 02:14, 2 March 2010 (UTC)