Talk:Black Sunday (1937)

Tendentious editing and misrepresentation of sources

The following edit was made with a summary that says "give better sources that explain the vague term "in principle": [1]. Note that the edit removes the sentence that said "the Zionist Organization accepted " (which was sourced), and replaces it with "The Zionist Organization was strongly divided on the proposal, but finally rejected". Now let's look at what the "better source" introduced by the editor actually says: "The Jews were not happy either, but the Jewish Agency, the political umbrella organization that included Haganah, accepted it as a step toward the Jewish state." This is disgraceful . Editors doing this should not be allowed to edit this article. Epson Salts (talk) 23:15, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

You cut off the sentence at "rejected" - the full sentence is "rejected Peel's specific plan and empowered the executive to continue negotiating with the British." Both things are true: the specific plan was rejected but the idea of partition was accepted by the mainstream Zionists. The Arabs rejected partition altogether, as did the revisionist Zionists. I have fixed the characterization, and added another couple of sources. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 00:10, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

The original cited source as well as the newly introduced and supposedly "better" source explicitly said the plan was accepted. I have no access to the other sources in full, but at least the abstract of one of the other sources says "The resolution of the Zionist Congress in August 1937 was to adopt partition on principle ". Instead of saying this, our misleading editor changed this into a statement, in wikipedia's neutral voice, that the proposal was rejected. This is disgraceful and editors doing things like this should not be allowed to edit this article. Epson Salts (talk) 00:19, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

Did you read the text of the Zionist resolution which is cited as a source? Point 6: The Congress declares that the scheme of partition put forward by the Royal Commission is unacceptable.. Point 7: The Congress empowers the Executive to enter into negotiations with a view to ascertaining the precise terms of His Majesty's Government for the proposed establishment of a Jewish State. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 01:32, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

I did read the text, and it should be obvious to you that it is a primary source, which we should not be using, when we have secondary sources that describe it. One of the reasons we should not be using primary sources is that it is very easy to mislead users with them , as Zero000 is repeatedly doing. Specifically, the cited text is the response to the Woodhead Commission, not the Peel plan. Woodhead rejected the borders proposed by Peel, and substanatialy reduced the territory proposed for the Jewish state, so it was rejected. But we have multiple sources that state that Peel's plan was accepted - in principle- and an editor who instead of writing what his own sources say, removed any mention of acceptance, and wrote that the plan was rejected. This is disgraceful and editors doing things like this should not be allowed to edit this article. Epson Salts (talk) 02:36, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

Look, both things are true: the specific plan was rejected, while the principle of partition was accepted - or at least not rejected outright (with varying degrees depending on the faction). This is given in the secondary sources I cited as well. I don't have anything further to say here: go open a request on WP:AE if you think Zero shouldn't be editing here. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 02:53, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

I have little faith that WP:AE will sanction an administrator, and I've seen all too well what happens when his band of merry tag-teamers join the action , so no, I won't be availing myself of that option. The fact remains that he misrepresented his own sources to remove something supported by them, and presented the situation as if it was completely opposite, without any nuance or caveat. As you concede above "the principle of partition was accepted " - this is what I wrote, and what zero0000 removed. And he presented a primary source dated a year AFTER this event as if it was the Jewish Agency response to the Peel plan (apparently fooling you into accepting that, per above). Either one of these should be enough to disqualify him from editing this page. Your edits are an improvement, but I will be tweaking them further to more accurately reflect what the sources say - that the Peel plan's principle of partition was accepted, while the specific borders were to be negotiated over. Epson Salts (talk) 03:05, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

Here is another source in 1937 with the same text. The resolution was adopted in 1937, not 1938. As I say below, the confusion only comes because the 1938 report is cited for the text of the resolution. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 03:21, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

The text of the resolution is also quoted in full in Galnoor's paper. Zero^talk 03:44, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

I have a further comment: I think you are mistaken in saying that the Zionist resolution is a response to the Woodhead commission. It refers specifically to the "Royal Commission" which is the Peel commission, not the Woodhead commission. The text appears in the Woodhead commission report, that's all. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 03:00, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

When there is a source that devotes a few words or a sentence to a topic, and other sources which are entirely devoted to studying the topic in minute detail, which sources are better? No editor here should have trouble answering this question. A genuine dispute among historians over a historical event can be reported as a dispute, but otherwise we should just search for the best sources and use them. The Congress resolution was a compromise between factions after a very bitter debate. Afterwards it was not agreed between members of the Zionist Organization whether the resolution had accept the principle of partition, or rejected it, or something between. Nobody considered that it accepted Peel's particular plan in any sense at all, as Peel's plan is explicitly rejected. Galnoor wrote a book on it; see p.220 if you can. For this article the issue is a little too peripheral for a long section. Zero^talk 02:18, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

You edit, which removed the fact of acceptance on principle, and replaced it with "rejected", in contrast to what the sources you cite say was disgraceful. You should not be editing this article , as you can't seem to rise above your partisan politics. Epson Salts (talk) 02:28, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

I'll add that I was perfectly aware that the abstract of Galnoor's paper says that the idea of partition (but not Peel's version of it) was accepted in principle. I didn't add it because I knew that Galnoor later replaced this opinion by a more nuanced judgement. I'll quote from his book published three years after his paper.

"Some opponents maintained that the executive was not authorized to conduct negotiations on partition, only on independence, or only to conduct “passive” negotiations—to hear the British government’s proposal and relay it to the Zionist bodies, or not make any commitments that would “tie the hands” of the Zionist movement. For still others, the significance of the congress resolution lay in opposition to the specific partition proposal of the royal commission, leaving all other options open, including the executive’s ability to oppose the proposal to establish a Jewish state. The range of opinion concerning interpretation of the congress resolution is more indicative than a fine analysis of the resolution text itself. Obviously, each faction tried to interpret the resolution according to its own position, but one fact strengthens our conclusion that the congress did indeed make a decision. The strong proponents and the strong opponents maintained that the resolution adopted the partition principle; the moderates on both sides and the undecided maintained that the matter remained open. No one claimed, however, that the resolution rejected the idea of partition outright." (book cited above, page 220) So Galnoor shifted from "accepted the idea in principle" to "failed to reject the idea outright". In a more expansive coverage of the subject, the difference should be expanded on, but I don't think this is the right article for it. Zero^talk 05:02, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

One might add that given the confusion (this was a battle of tactics, as all sources agree), in a follow up to the declaration the Jewish Agency Council tacked on a demand that a conference be convened between the parties in order to establish an 'undivided Palestine' along the lines of the Balfour Declaration.(Elie Podeh, Chances for Peace: Missed Opportunities in the Arab-Israeli Conflict, University of Texas Press 2015 p.28)

Methodologically, Epsom Salts, this is not about tagteaming or gaming. As usual, it is making sure that we avoid POV commonplaces, even in sources, by establishing as far as is possible the precise historical details as they are given in the specialist sources that address the issues. The I/P sourcing issue is one of either scouring for a POV from whatever source provides it, or getting the best available evidence marshaled and including its results, whatever the POV fallout may be. This distinction is particularly important because a lot of otherwise good general sources are dated or partisan, or ignore contemporary archival research. It is not lastly about primary sourcing: as others have indicated, a minute would have turned up a dozen secondary sources which cite the 'unacceptable' text in full.Nishidani (talk) 10:28, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

Someone whose travesty of an article initially ignored the mainstream Jewish/Zionist position entirely, despite it being clearly mentioned FIRST in the very source you used, and sought to create an equivalence between the position of the majority, representative Arab leadership and that of a marginal minority view on the Jewish side is in no position to lecture anyone about NPOV editing. You are simply incapable of it. You are in the unenviable position of having created this article as a blatant self-described violation of WP:POINT - according to your own words, but are now arguing to delete its mirror-image article, while arguing to keep this one. If an impartial review of your editing could be done at WP:AE, you'd be topic-banned for this. Epson Salts (talk)

You realize of course that from the beginning of this section you have attacked consistently at least 2 editors? You keep mentioning AE. Well, no one is denying you your natural right to have this issue addressed there.Nishidani (talk) 19:18, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

I have criticized the editors who misrepresented sources and violated WP:NPOV, yes. Neither you nor Zero000 should be allowed to edit this page. Epson Salts (talk) 19:21, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

Speaking of irresponsible editing, your revert back to your preferred version 'accepted' against the source 'unacceptable', ognores what, I believe, 3 editors considered to be the more accurate phrasing.Nishidani (talk) 20:20, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

Cited source #1 (Pogrund) : "The Zionist Organization accepted it in principle"; Cited source #2 (Galnoor) : "The resolution of the Zionist Congress in August 1937 was to adopt partition on principle". Cited source #3 (Gannon, introduced by Zero as a "better" source): "... the Jewish Agency, the political umbrella organization that included Haganah, accepted it as a step toward the Jewish state.". That multiple editors choose to misrepresent sources is their choice, but their numerical advantage does not trump wikipedia policy. Epson Salts (talk) 20:27, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

You're unfamiliar with the topic. All this is silly because what you are trying to do is make an opposition between Arab rejectionism ( meme) and Zionist acceptance (meme), which is a caricature. You’d never guess that the British, the Saudis and Abdullah were negotiating behind the scenes to get partition accepted if the latter would renounced his claims on the Hijaz, that Abdullah in turn was negotiating under the table with the Zionists to arrive at a shared agreement on the terms of partition. (This is all in Yoav Gelber Transjordanian Relations 1921-1948: Alliance of Bars Sinister, Frank Cass 1997 pp.116ff.)

• 'the Peel Commission’s report was rejected by the protagonists.’Mark Tessler, History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Indiana University Press, 2009 2nd.ed. p.242.
• The main Zionist leaders favoured acceptance of any Jewish state, however small, but the Zionist Congress rejected it in the hope of securing improvements by further negotiation.' J.P.D. Dunbabin, The Post-Imperial Age: The Great Powers and the Wider World, Routledge 2014 p.247
• The Zionist Congress , in a canny compromise, voted to reject partition based on the borders proposed by the commission but offered to negotiate further on all issues.' Milton Viorst, Zionism:The Birth and Transformation of an Ideal, St Martin’s Press 2016 p.136
• Neither the Jews nor the Arabs accepted this proposal; the Zionists concealed their rejection by demanding further negotiations.' Haim Gerber, Remembering and Imagining Palestine: Identity and Nationalism from the Crusades to the Present, Palgrave Macmillan 2008 p.140
• The resolution reflected both the majority opinion at the Congress that rejected the Peel Commission's conclusions, but also the minority position that rejected the very idea of partition. The resolution, the notes explained, rejected the conclusion that the Mandate for Palestine could not be implemented, and the conclusion stemming from it that a new arrangement based on partition of the land had to be found. . The resolution adopted by the Twentieth Zionist Congress thus did not make a case for or against partition, but rather deferred the final decision to a later time.' Shulamit Eliash - The Harp and the Shield of David: Ireland, Zionism and the State of Israel, Routledge, 2007 p.22
• While rejecting the specific proposals of the Peel Commission, the congress expressed readiness, in principle, to consider a better partition proposal.' Itamar Rabinovich, ‎Jehuda Reinharz (eds.) Israel in the Middle East: Documents and Readings on Society,Politics and Foreign Relations, Pre-1948 to the Present Brandeis University Press 2008 p.44.
• The Twentieth Zionist Congress articulated its rejection by stating, “The partition plan proposed by the Peel Commission is not to be accepted.' Elizabeth Matthews,The Israel-Palestine Conflict: Parallel Discourses, Routledge 2011 p.67

Etc.etc.etc. So obviously you refused to read the actual Zionist Congress report, and google around to see what the general consensus of close readers of it is. What has been affirmed above reflects that scholarly consensus. What you did is search around for stuff to underwrite the standard meme through this troubled history, which runs that Zionists worked tirelessly for a compromise but, as Abba Eban seeded the cliché,'The Arabs never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.' Nishidani (talk) 22:16, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

Ah yes, I was beginning to wonder when the sanctimonious patronizing you are so fond of will makes its appearance. I am as familiar with this topic as you are, likely far more . The difference between us is that I try to represent what the sources say, whereas you misrepresent them through selective quoting. I won't bother going through your entire list, as the very first item illustrates this perfectly. You quote Tessler's "the Peel Commission’s report was rejected by the protagonists" while ignoring the following "the congress did not reject the principle of partition". This is your standard operating procedure - selective quoting, eliding over nuances or POVs which do not align with yours . As I said, you should not be allowed to edit this article. Epson Salts (talk) 22:57, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

I've bolded the use of the key term.Nishidani (talk) 11:12, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

Yes, :Epson Salts: you *do* misrepresent sources, take the example of Operation Law and Order, where you used this article as the source for the sentence: "The operation was a success, with the town's Hezbollah infrastructure destroyed". Nowhere in that article is the word "success" used, and outside observers commented: But the chilling thing is, the Israelis have accomplished what the Iranians could not: unite the Shiites.. You completely misrepresented this, Huldra (talk) 22:17, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

What on earth are you talking about? Both the text and the source were already in the article prior to my edit, I changed nothing in the text (other than to correct a spelling error), and simply reformatted the link for proper display and moved it from its incorrect placement as an external link to a place where it seemed roughly appropriate. Epson Salts (talk) 23:04, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

"Roughly appropriate"?? You took an article with a "no footnotes" template in the beginning, removed the template by putting the sources inline. Except .....the sources did not support the statement they were supposed to support at all! Are you seriously not seeing the problem with this? A templated article correctly (this time) identifies what is missing, *your* edit in effect made misleading statement "look" as if they were sourced. Huldra (talk) 23:21, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

Characterization of Zionist position on the Peel commission

This is not the page to discuss the differences in interpretation of the Zionist resolution: as Zero said above, and I agree. The matter is only mentioned for context: we are not litigating the controversy here. I have made a compromise edit following Galnoor's later source (adding "or not rejected outright") and mentioning that the Arabs and Revisionist Zionists rejected it outright. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 22:51, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

Your latest compromise edits, while technically a violation of the 1RR restriction, seems ok to me. I agree with the broader point that this article is not the place to delve into the finer details of the varying positions of Zionist factions. Alas, if we have this article only discuss items that are directly related to "Black Sunday", as Wikiepdia policy requires, we'd be left with maybe 30 words, and that's not what the original creator of this POV travesty had in mind. Epson Salts (talk) 23:01, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

The Primary source says it was 'unacceptable'. The secondary sources largely state that it was 'rejected', then qualify that statement with a variety of formulae that explain the rift in the Zionist position.Nishidani (talk) 11:40, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

We do not use primary sources. The secondary sources used in the article say the principle of partition was accepted. When one sets out to misrepresent sources, as you do, you you create the misleading list above, and I have shown exactly how you are misleading using your first item. That is why you should not be allowed to edit this article. Epson Salts (talk) 13:53, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

We do not use primary sources.

Your editing has been extremely erratic. Your knowledge of policy zero, as per the above, which oddly uses we when you are apparently talking about yourself.

WP:PRIMARY reads:-

Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published secondary sources and, to a lesser extent, on tertiary sources and primary sources.

Unless restricted by another policy, primary sources that have been reputably published may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them.[4] Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation

That condition was satisfied by the induction of secondary sources which cite the primary source and also comment on it.

As to being erratic, given the wild lashing out at editors here above, please note the way you tampered with the text without source authority or by repressing part of the source in the following examples:

• In your third edit you change the source reference to Robert Bitker. The source does note that he was an Irgun Commander, but goes on to write exactly what you elided (as a bank robber):

’Bitler's reputation was tarnished through involvement with a bank robbery staged by former members of Brit HaBiryonim in September 1937 and the unexplained death of an Irgun member whose body was found in the river Yarkon’ (Shindler p.195).

What Shindler puts vaguely is explained by Nachman Ben-Yehuda, Political Assassinations by Jews: A Rhetorical Device for Justice, SUNY Press 1992 pp.145-146, who indicates that Zvi Frenkel shot an Arab near the village of Sumeil in August. The British police worked out his involvement and went to his home and arrested his mother. Frenkel asked the Irgun to hide him. He then decided to turn himself in. Ya'acov Eliav’s memoir which we cite also fingers Bitker as responsible and regarded him as a ‘criminal’ type. They decided he was a risk, and so bound him with wire and threw him into the Yarkon river to drown him. The text states that this was Bitker’s first mistake, and the second was the Bank robbery which occurred under his command. Bitker ‘favoured robbing banks (in the tradition of Russian revolutionaries) to finance the underground’. (Louis Rapoport , Louis Rapoport Shake Heaven & Earth: Peter Bergson and the Struggle to Rescue the Jews of Europe, Gefen Publishing House Ltd, 1999 p.230.

• In your 4th edit edit you changed the source ‘Fighting reignited after Arab assassins murdered a British official in the Galilee’ to ‘by Arab gunmen on his way to church.' That’s not in the source. It is taken from the wiki article Lewis Yelland Andrews, which is as usual woefully inadequate (I've done a provisory fix).
• Your 5th edit shows you again tampering with the source by changing (a) Gannon’s ‘accepted it as a step towards a Jewish state’ to ‘accepted in principle the Peel Commission’s proposal, which was a thoroughly deceptive distortion and (b) added ‘a smaller number of Jews out of the designated future Arab territory’, which also is not in the source.

So, even of 1% of your bad faith accusations above were correct, half of your edits show a manipulation of sources indicating that your swipes at other editors are a matter of the pot calling the kettle black.

The majority sourcing I supplied suggests that reject, since it corresponds more closely to the primary source 'unaccceptable', a word which rules out the use of 'accepted', is appropriate. All that needs be done is modulate the rest, according to a comprehensive review of all the sources so far mustered.Nishidani (talk) 15:05, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

Latest edits

There are a couple of problems with the last round of edits, and the article in general.

• First of all, in the aftermath section it says Morris says something about grenades, which he doesn't as far as I can see. It's from one of the other sources probably, so kindly attribute correctly.
• Second, and more importantly, this article is beginning to look like a COATRACK. The actual events the article is ostensibly about are now less than 1/3 of the text. The aftermath section now includes things from months if not years later, and which were caused only in small part by these specific killings. I suggest cutting it back substantially. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 18:28, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

Grenades is in Hirst. The passage is based on those 4 books which, being linked, can easily be verified. The problem with sourcing each detail in a couple of sentences is that it gives the impression that the several sources involved, each mention only one detail, where they in fact may all cover roughly the same ground. If you like I can post the whole of Hirst's words in a note.

WP:COATRACK is an essay, not policy. Actually it's not for want of searching that one cannot get more detail on the several incidents of that day. For example, the operations on 14 November were standard examples of Irgun practice: each operation required a minimum of 3 agents. One took possession of a gun/bomb/grenade and delivered it to the assassin; the second carried out the killing and the third, if the armaments used (pistols/machine guns were still in the second man's keeping, relieved him of them in proximity of the targeted site, so that they could be disposed of. But, for this, we have no RS, as yet. We haven't the names of the several people who were involved that day. There is no need to cut back anything, since any event has a context consisting of a background and aftermath, as given in the sources dealing with this turning point. I might add that most of the articles dealing with this period are deeply unsatisfactory for what they leave out from RS, and why I am now getting round to putting in. Nishidani (talk) 19:30, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

The article now says that "according to Morris" grenades were thrown. That is incorrect. Please fix it. Yes, every event has a background and an aftermath. This event is mentioned in passing in several sources, and I don't mind it having an article. But putting an "aftermath" section that is completely disproportionate to the event itself, and includes stuff that happened months if not years later and that this event may have been one of many small incidents that may have influenced those later events is classic COATRACK, and if you want to get technical, UNDUE which is policy. Kindly cut that section down to size or I will. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 19:56, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

I have met you half way. Waving, in succession, one policy or essay after another, as each is answered, is not collegial. It suggests a desire to grasp for any semblance of a policy in order to cover an WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Your last words constitute, indeed, an open threat. I would remind you that you have a fairly substantial history of expressing profound antipathy for me, extending to the creation of a page implying I am an anti-Semite, and that Wikipedia in not banning me, is failing its obligations. Your return to the area, and this focusing on me, with abusive language, and now a threat, does not augur well. I tried to be reasonable on your talk page, and you erased it, speaking of harassment. So I suggest you try and drop the animosity, and allow editors who have a long record of constructing articles to get on with their work. Nishidani (talk) 20:19, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

Yawn. I mentioned COATRACK as a shortcut to explaining the problem. Your technical objection was met with policy, so now I'm "grasping at straws". Amusing. Calling my giving you an opportunity to fix the problems you created rather than just going in and having to argue with you over every little bit of unnecessary information you put in there "an open threat" is also mildly amusing.

You have not "met [me] half way", you just stuck a ref in multiple places. Morris does not mention grenades. Hirst does not say anything about "innovation" or even connect directly to this incident. What you did there is pure SYNTH. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 20:48, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

Could you please show where Hirst mentions "Black Sunday" or 14 Nov 1937? I don't think he does, which makes including at all him SYNTH. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 21:34, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

Okay. This is the second time you have reverted and broken WP:COPYRIGHT ('Superficial change of copyright-protected text is not enough. Wikipedia articles must be written in the author's own words.')

This “innovation” soon found Arab imitators and became something of a “tradition”; during the coming decades. (Morris)

an innovation . . .soon adopted by the Arabs themselves and became a "tradition" in coming decades.(NMMGG)

You are abusing the reading of WP:SYNTH it reads:

Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources. Similarly, do not combine different parts of one source to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by the source. If one reliable source says A, and another reliable source says B, do not join A and B together to imply a conclusion C that is not mentioned by either of the sources.

Morris does not mention 'Black Sunday'. He does specify that the phenomenon he generalizes about, the breaking of self-restraint' (havlagah) by the Irgun with a choice of terrorist mass bombing of Arab crowds in this period, including 14 November, introduced an innovation that was to characterize the I/P conflict for decades.

Hirst does not mention 'Black Sunday'. He analyses the repute about havlagah, and contextualizes who broke it, following the British example.

'The British put down the Rebellion, often with such cruel and brutal methods that, as one of their doctors confided to his diary, they could 'probably (have) taught Hitler something he didn't know about running concentration camps.' And the Zionists joined in:‘the Arabs may have begun the violence, but they (Zionists) imitated and, with their much improved techniques, far outdid them. All of them – not just the ‘terrorist’ undergrounds, the Irgun and the Stern Gang of future prime ministers Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir, but the official, mainstream, Hagana – abandoned ‘self-restraint’, if they had ever really practiced it. A policy of indiscriminate ‘reprisals’ took its place. These, wrote the official historian of the Irgun, ‘did not aim at those who had perpetrated acts of violence against Jews, and had no geographic connection with the places where they had done so. The principal consideration in the choice of target was first accessibility, and then the (maximum) number of Arabs that could be hit. At the climax of their anti-Arab rampage, with bombs in market-places or mosques, grenades hurled into buses or the machine gunning of trains, they killed more Palestinians, 140, in the space of three weeks than the Palestinians had killed Jews in the year and a half since the Rebellion began, an achievement over which the Irgun’s National Bulletin openly exulted’.

That, and the incidents cited, covers exactly the same period and ground Morris covers.

A (Morris) and (B)Hirst are not combined in my edit to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources. Both Morris and Hirst deal with the havlagah's breakdown during the period of the Arab revolt 1936-1939, the terrorist methods used in this period and for the future by the Irgun and others, the tactical choice of target, and the details of the number of victims. If you can show me where my additions of Hirst to Morris 'reach or imply' a conclusion neither in Morris, Hirst, (and Gannon and Caplan) you may just have a case. Otherwise you have misconstrued the policy, just as you ignored cautions not to plagiarize sources.

The suppression of one source that bears on this period's aftermath in Arab casualties, while introducing a source that makes much of Jewish casualties, shows a decided POV manipulation. Morris's comment 'The amount of casualties matched, for the first time, the number of Jews murdered by Arabs in 1929 and 1936 attacks,' goes in, the paraphrase from Hirst, a parallel comment,'this approach resulted in the death of some 140 Palestinians in a three week period, a figure exceeding the total number of Jews killed in the one and a half years from the start of the Arab revolt,' goes out I.e. a patent WP:NPOV violation. Your objection is not to the fact that both are dealing with the casualties following on the dropping of the self-restraint policy, but to the fact that Arab deaths are mentioned, when only Jewish deaths are noticeable, apparently.Nishidani (talk) 22:44, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but that's ridiculous. Saying that "aftermath" includes any event that happened after the date of this event will not fly. The material you're trying to insert here is appropriate on the Irgun article, Havlagah article and/or Arab Revolt article. It does not belong here because the author does not connect it to this event. That's the SYNTH, or generally OR if you prefer. Sticking Hirst's words in the middle of something that is attributed to Morris is even worse, but I'm not sure what the wikipedia term for that is.

Morris connects the casualties to this specific event, Hirst does not. That's not POV manipulation by any strech of the imagination. Your accusation of POV manipulation is hilarious, by the way, considering some of the corrections I had to make on this and other pages in the last couple of days. I actually laughed out loud.

I also dispute your accusation of COPYVIO but will of course defer to any uninvolved editor/admin who deals with this sort of stuff. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 23:01, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

By the way, I did not introduce Morris. You did. I just added some information you neglected to mention despite it being between two things you did feel should be included. Thanks for explaining why you added Hirst though. Your idea of NPOV is very far from Wikipedia's ideal. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 23:05, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

Answer my question. The policy you cite says WP:SYNTH occurs when one combines material from multiple sources to imply a conclusion that is neither. This is the second time I have asked you to illustrate where in my edit I combined Morris and Hirst to arrive at a conclusion not present in either Morris or Hirst. Nishidani (talk) 09:39, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

I have answered, and here it is again: everything you took from Hirst and put in the sentence that starts with "according to Benny Morris" that Morris doesn't actually say is SYNTH (or worse). All the stuff you put in the aftermath section and the authors did not explicitly connect to this event is OR. An RS has to say it's related to this specific event, your thinking it is not enough. Clear? No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 18:10, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

(a)Since I did that at your request, and you object, there was an easy solution. All one needed to do is to leave the paraphrase from Morris as it was, add what Hirst says 'grenades' after wards, with attribution. You have not answered my query: the event concerned is the turn to terrorism of Irgun in late 1937, alluded to by Hirst when he writes ' the year and a half since (April 1936) the Rebellion began'. There fore, where is it written in wikipolicy that 'an RS had to say it's related to this specific event'. (b) where is the conclusion I drew that is neither in Hirst nor Morris? Please address the issue.Nishidani (talk) 19:42, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

I don't recall requesting you SYNTH Hirst into Morris. Could you tell me where that happened?

'the year and a half since (April 1936) the Rebellion began' is the exact opposite of "explicit". Maybe he meant something that happened 5 days earlier? Maybe a month later? Who knows. Assuming he is connecting to this specific event is OR. Sprinkling his conclusions within other sources that do connect to this event is SYNTH. I gave you 3 different articles you can put Hirst stuff in without running afoul of OR, but for some reason you insist on this one. Not sure why. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 21:07, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

Another problem with Hirst, beyond the obvious WP:SYNTH violation mentioned by No More Mr. Nice Guy is that it actually says the opposite of what it was being used for, namely - that the Arabs "innovated" and began using this tactic, and were later imitated (with greater success) by the Zionists: "And the Zionists joined in: the Arabs may have begun the violence, but they imitated and, with their much improved techniques, far outdid them". This kind of source misrepresentation is so common in his work that nothing this editor (Nishidani) puts in the article should be trusted until the references are double and triple checked. Epson Salts (talk) 23:45, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

There is no such problem, and you have invented an objection by misreading Hirst. Since arguing here appears to consist in frivolous hairsplitting: Hirst nowhere says the Arabs innovated and Zionists imitated them: Hirst says what Morris says: in a period of violence, the Zionists introduced an innovation. I have outlined the problem and asked for external input at the appropriate WP:NOR board here.Nishidani (talk) 09:36, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

I've quoted Hirst verbatim, above, and even bolded the relevant words for you. If you claim I am misreading him, you simply don;t understand English well enough to be editing this encyclopedia. If you can't see the bolded "imitated" above, you should not be allowed to edit this article. Epson Salts (talk) 13:47, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

Don't persist in being silly. You are making an elementary confusion between two distinct terms in English, treating them as synonyms when they have an antonymic relationship. To 'imitate' means to be a copycat; to 'innovate' means to do what others have so far not thought of doing, by introducing something new. I guess at this point I have to explain even this obvious fact by illustration

Morris says

(a)'In September the (Arab)rebellion was resumed with renewed vigour . . ..Meanwhile Britain’s problems in Palestine were aggravated by the advent of Jewish terrorism. Until mid-1937 the Jews had almost completely adhered to the policy of restraint. But the upsurge of Arab terrorism in October 1937 triggered a wave of Irgun bombings against Arab crowds and buses’ '.)

(b)Until that time, Arabs and to a lesser extent Jews had occasionally lobbed a grenade killing some bystanders.

(c)Now for the first time an innovation occurred ‘with massive bombs placed in crowded Arab centers’ indiscriminately maiming and murdering dozens of people

(d)This was an 'innovation'/ a 'new dimension'

Hurst says

(a)the Arabs began the violence,

(b)but they (Zionists) imitated(i.e. the violence of Arabs)

(c)But they used superior techniques outstripping those used by Arabs.

(d)aiming to ratchet up 'the (maximum) number of Arabs that could be hit . . . with bombs in market-places or mosques, grenades hurled into buses or the machine gunning of trains.

The passages are identical in substance. One is time specific, the other a generalization. You have failed to understand not only simple English but the fundamental cognitive rift between the two forms of learning. 'Overall, innovation was rare: only 12.4% of children innovated by discovering at least one novel reward exit. Children's prioritisation of social information is consistent with theories of cultural evolution indicating imitation is a prepotent response following observation of behaviour, and that innovation is a rarity; so much so, that even maladaptive behaviour is copied.'Nishidani (talk) 15:00, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

The passages are not identical in substance with regards to who imitated who. Morris says the Zionists innovated and the Arabs later copied them, Hirst says the Zionists imitated the Arabs. These are two opposite things. If you don't understand that, then you lack the basic competence to edit Wikipedia. If you understood that they are saying different things, yet decided to put Hirst as the source for what Morris says, you are guilty of source falsification, and should be blocked from further editing. Epson Salts (talk) 00:27, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

Reread the analysis. You haven't grasped it. Also read WP:WIKILAWYERING and absorb the point made there.Nishidani (talk) 07:32, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

Comments:

• There is no discrepancy between the two sources: Nishidani's analysis is correct. The sequence being discussed is the following: Arab violence (April riots in Jaffa, Arab revolt etc.). The Zionists kept largely to Havlaga, though becoming more aggressive in their patrols (they tried to differentiate "guilty" from "innocent"), while the British tried to suppress the revolt (see Morris, Righteous Victims, pages 135-148). Starting from Black Sunday, the Irgun abandoned restraint and started their own terrorism. They started using indiscriminate means such as bombs in crowded public areas: marketplaces, buses and so on. This is what Morris refers to as an "innovation" and a "new dimension". Arabs then picked up the tactic and used it for many decades both inside Palestine and then in the newly created state of Israel. The mainstream Haganah also changed their tactics when the Irgun did: creation of Special Night Squads, changes in intelligence methods and other means, calling it "aggressive defence".
• Hirst does not use the term "Black Sunday" (neither does Morris for that matter), but it's pretty clear they're both talking about this topic. The clues are "abandoned 'self-restraint'", "indiscriminate reprisals", "bombs in marketplaces and mosques" and many other things. It is not WP:OR to use both sources to try to illuminate different aspects of the topic, or to add more detail.
• About SYNTH concerns, I don't really find any SYNTH. But some of the prose might be confusing and might be considered SYNTH. Also, the references in Nishidani's version mixed up statements attributed to Morris and those attributed to Hirst. I have rewritten the prose somewhat to alleviate SYNTH concerns and lay out clearly which source is being cited for which part. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 09:22, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

Re WP:SYNTH- this is already being discussed at the Wikipedia:No_original_research noticeboard, where uninvolved experts have already commented that not only is the above SYNTH, but there are numerous other SYNTH issues with it. Your rewrite repeats many of the issues: Morris does not mention grenades, Hirst (who does mention grenades) says that it was the ZIonists who were imitating the Arabs, not the other way around. Please wait for consensus to emerge before re-inserting this material. Epson Salts (talk) 13:54, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

@Epson Salts: Ok, let's remove the grenades sentence? The other part of the sentence is repeated in the previous sentence, so it's redundant anyway. What else is SYNTH? Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 14:13, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

Take a look at the discussion over at the Wikipedia:No_original_research noticeboard,numerous other issues are mentioned there. Epson Salts (talk) 14:28, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

Incorporating the suggestion at the NORN board, (this comment), I have added an introductory line about the violence in October 1937 triggering a change in tactics by the Zionists. Then I reproduce the passage I proposed at the NORN board. Hopefully there's no SYNTH now. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 14:08, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

Havlagah

The other article is woefully sparse on any details about the topic and when it was ended. It is largely a collection of statements by various sides, with no indication of how it was carried out. The references are also woefully inadequate (one JPost article for a historical topic). Perhaps some of the material in this article belongs there or should be also mentioned there. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 09:36, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

'Shortly after March 2002, when 130 Israeli civilians were killed by terrorist attacks, Israel commenced Operation Defensive Shield,' with no source and no reference to havlagah, etc. I guess someone will get round to it one of these days.Nishidani (talk) 12:59, 2 September 2016 (UTC)