User talk:HG1/workshop/Synthesis of AoIA arguments

Feel free to use this Talk page to discuss how we can best synthesize and describe, in a neutral manner, the arguments about whether and how to change the name of Allegations of Israeli apartheid.

Please sign your comments on this page. Please do not sign your comments in the synthesis, thanks!

Not. This is not a poll. This is not the Talk page in which to discuss how to edit the article. This is not a general forum for discussing apartheid in relation to Israel.

Groundrules. Assume good faith, be civil, etc. Avoid uncivil statements, the motives of interested parties (including good faith and WP:POINT concerns), history of editing and AfD disputes, etc. If you believe that comments above might not fit these suggested groundrules, please notify that person via User Talk (preferably not here). If you come to realize you've said something outside the scope of the preceding subsections, please strike out your words and, if you choose, pursue your point elsewhere. This will benefit all parties, thanks!

To facilitate an orderly discussion, it is recommended that comments be placed under appropriate matching headings to the Synthesis page. You are welcome to change or ignore this idea.

Tentative Summary of the Synthesis

BYT -- Hi. You made a series of edits, thanks (!), but I'd like to discuss these first. Your revisions include:

Shift to a summary with "questions" and "proponents." I prefer to focus on principles and set up the summary as a single, overarching argument. This argument would draw upon an assessment of the various pro/con debate below.
Modify view of slogan/epithet. Ok, I'm open to this. But let's first work it out in the underlying Notability section. Here's a key question to be answered there: What are (3 -5 ?) reliable sources -- independent of the subject -- that give significant coverage to the actual use of the epithet/slogan.
Clarify type of evidence for the phrase. Good.
Inject some argumentation that would go better in the fuller section, below. (e.g., "compare Axis of Evil), catch-phrase (compare Swiftboating and Mission Accomplished), and epithet (compare Jewish lobby)")
Good misc edits.

If you don't mind, I'd like to revert some items above, pending further discussion, while keeping some of your clarifications and misc edits. Is that ok? Could you then discuss or propose edits here? Thanks for your time. HG | Talk 21:37, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Purpose and Groundrules

Comment - scrap the ground-rules - this is your private page, delete anything that's unhelpful and just remind the participant on their own TalkPage of what you've done. The only thing you should not be deleting is documented evidence that you are not (for instance) counted the votes or quoted participants honestly (and you're not going to cheat like that anyway!). The vital point here is to produce something easily understandable, with tabulated "proposals", "votes" and bowdlerised comments. Again, delete this my idea wot I have when you've taken on board everything wot I've told you. PalestineRemembered 22:13, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

PR -- I'm hopeful that someday this will be moved from a private page to an AoIA or CentralizedApthd Talk page, so I'd like to keep the ground-rules. I'm ambivalent about your idea of a vote and reasoning tabulation by individual user but welcome anyone else to add such a section to the synthesis. HG | Talk 14:45, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Notability Grounds for Topic(s) under the Title

Comment - no matter how unfair it might be, you cannot get away from the fact that people are now refering to Israeli Apartheid. How you treat that in an encyclopedic fashion I don't know - but I suspect you've not much wriggle-room to escape the core of what this article needs to be about. The more you write, the more I think "Not too much wrong with what we've got". PalestineRemembered 22:18, 2 September 2007 (UTC) move from synthesis page in NPOV section HG | Talk 14:45, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ok. Are you saying people refer to 'Israeli Apartheid' as a phrase, or -- more generally -- referring to the concept of apartheid in connection with Israel? From what I've seen, the phrase itself is far less notable, with fewer high quality sources, than the general comparison/analogy/association of Israel and apartheid. For this reason, I agree that B-Type titles are needed to include "apartheid" and that C-type titles (omitting the concept) won't gain consensus. Do you see what I mean? HG | Talk 14:45, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Like you, I'm not convinced that many people currently use the phrase "Israeli apartheid". But I think the concept of apartheid is firmly linked to Israel eg the hated Google test gives 18,000 hits for [israel "apartheid regime" -africa -african]. I know that doesn't sound like a huge number, but then "apartheid regime" only picks up a small number of the specifically Israel-linked occurences of "apartheid". Ultimately, I think criticism of Israel will become much more widespread than it is now, it will centre on "apartheid" and the article will be re-named "Israeli apartheid". In the meantime, "Allegations of Israeli Apartheid" is somewhat clumsy, but it's the least bad option we have (as proved in endless discussions, recently driven more by POV-disruptiveness than anything else). PalestineRemembered 08:38, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hi PR, Hi HG. Last time I checked, there were over 2 million hits on "Israel + apartheid" -- the phrase has crossed a threshold of notability, and is often used as a political lance hurled from afar by non-notable persons. That this is occurring has something to do with popular culture and the use of epithets, and we have made it a point to document such threshold-crossing at, for instance, Islamofascism.

Often, i think, people use the phrase "Israeli apartheid," but they may also use "apartheid" as a synonym for "objectionable in a profound way" in a context involving Israel that does not connect to a rigourously thought-out parallel with historical "apartheid." This phenomenon, as well as the debate/controversy/conflict over whether apartheid conditions actually exist, is worthy of note, and should be reflected in the title we choose. BYT 13:50, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks BYT. Let me comment on data and then, like you, distinguish the notability of the phrase vs. the more general phenomenon of discourse on the comparison. As Tiamut recently noted on the AoIA talk, the ghits for "Israeli apartheid" phrase itself is about 140,000. But even there we need to be savvy about google -- my browse ended at 675 hits, followed by that googlespeak "In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the 675 already displayed." I.e., numerous multiple hits in various versions of these webpages. Google scholar shows 90 hits.

However, I'm not sure ghits show the notability of the phrase per se because people may be using this as a description, not as a term of art (or epithet). Better proof of the phrase itself as notable would be articles about the phrase, i.e. the usage of the term (not the concept or the allegations themselves). Cf. articles describing how the N-word is used, its meaning, discourse dynamics, etc. Without such articles, the notability of the phrase per se may border on an original research based on compiling/synthesizing quotes. (I'm not making up this argument, it's culled from what I heard about AoIA, AoA-China, etc.) Therefore, in my assessment, the jury is still out on this aspect of notability.
Still, the data does directly demonstrate the notability of the general level of discourse against Israel pertaining to apartheid. This might be called political rhetoric, mere controversy and allegations. A much smaller portion, yet perhaps more notable for WP, is that there are more reliable academic and policy sources arguing about what is factually or conceptually known about Israel. This debate (controversy?) is about knowledge and most suitable for an encyclopedia. I will add these distinctions to the Notability section, for comment, revision, etc. Your input is appreciated and more would be welcome! Thanks. HG | Talk 15:39, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Points taken. My larger issue, to which I return concisely and perhaps boringly. is that people were pretty darned certain that "Islamofascism" was notable with 524,000 (gross, if you will, rather than "net") hits.

"Israeli apartheid" (without quotes) delivers 1.89 million "gross" (not net) hits. Try it.

All very well to say "Yeah, but we're working on THIS article, and we can't fix the rest of the encyclopedia even if Islamofascism breaks the self-identification policy...." Maybe it does break that policy, and maybe this is a different discussion, but you will grant, I think, that some appropriately retitled article would eventually surface to document the epithet/common usage phenomenon there -- a phenomenon, in Googlegross, that is roughly one-quarter the size of the "Israeli apartheid" phenomenon. BYT 15:50, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks BYT. Pls see the synthesis, now referring to subtopics I policy discourse, II public discourse, and III phrase or epithet. If you don't mind my saying so, don't overemphasize ghits, experienced WP editors seem to prefer other ways to establish notability and content. (Also, maybe off-topic, but as I've said before, I personally would want to fix the the rest of WP via self-identification. However, even here my understanding of self-identifying has faced decent policy-based arguments that I cannot, in all fairness, ignore.) HG | Talk 16:21, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I should think Carter's book on its own is sufficient to establish notability for the debate over whether apartheid exists on the ground.
As for the notability of the use of the term as an epithet or slogan, consider Blankfort, "The slogans that have been advanced by various sectors of the Palestinian solidarity movement, such as 'End the Occupation,' 'End Israeli Apartheid,' 'Zionism Equals Racism,' or 'Two States for Two Peoples," while addressing key issues of the conflict, assume a level of awareness on the part of the American people for which no evidence exists." [1] ...
and Steinberg, "Soft Powers Play Hardball, in Israel Affairs: "The Durban conference crystallized the strategy of de-legitimizing Israel as ‘an apartheid regime’, through international isolation based on the South African model. This political warfare based on ‘soft power’ has been conducted through a number of frameworks...In many of these campaigns, powerful non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are the main actors, providing the platform, the funds, and the political slogans." [[2]].
What exactly are these people saying if they're not saying that the term is being used pejoratively?
Re: Self-identification. The point has been made repeatedly that we're not out to fix the whole of the WP. I'm cool with that. Let's focus on this article.
My point is -- once again -- that the title must make room for both "Carter's" discussion (Carter: "I think there is apartheid on the ground, because A, B, C" // Someone Who Disagrees with Carter: "Oh, no, there isn't, Mr. President, because X, Y, Z")...
'and the pejorative uses people like Blankfort and Steinberg identify. The slogan "Israeli apartheid regime" tends to bubble up, blissfully free of specifics, in much contemporary political debate. That's an example of what we're dealing with.
Right? BYT 17:36, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks BYT. It sounds like there's at least one source (Blankfort) that deals with 'Israeli apartheid' as a slogan and at least one about the attack rhetoric through such slogans. Are you citing these to document what I called subtopic III ('Israeli apartheid' as epithet)? Or to characterize much of the speech in subtopic II, which may or may not use the specific phrase? Or, maybe you would suggest a different breakdown of the subtopics that have been argued over AoIA? (After all, we're mostly trying to synthesize the existing arguments. Are most folks talking about I, II and III, or is there another way to characterize the wikipedians' debate over notability? HG | Talk 17:59, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I am citing these because the term Israeli apartheid is a notable epithet, and because people (not you) keep changing the subject, for some unfathomable reason. whenever I bring this up.
So I will bring it up here. * And on the talk page of AoIA. * As often as necessary. * This is an independent encyclopedia. * It is not beholden to any political entity. * People in the real world are using terms like "Israeli apartheid" and "apartheid regime" as political epithets. * And controversy is intensifiying over the use of those epithets. * That fact needs to be reflected in WP. * Yes, the cites I just gave you should go in the summary that we are putting together. (Looks like subtopic II to me.) * Ignoring such epithets, or whitewashing them, may be popular with certain editors, but doing that would be counter to WP's independent status, and woefully unencyclopedic.
Here's another one: "To call Israel a Nazi state, however, as is commonly done today, or to accuse it of fostering South African-style apartheid rule or engaging in ethnic cleansing or wholesale genocide goes well beyond legitimate criticism." -- Alvin H. Rosenfeld, " 'Progressive' Jewish Thought and the New Anti-Semitism" [3]
And here's another one: "At Durban a large contingent wore T-shirts emblazoned 'Occupation = Colonialism =Racism, End Israeli Apartheid.' " -- Jerusalem Post, 8/22/07, Stop Durban II. [4]
These people are all complaining about something, and the something that they are complaining about deserves to be covered in an article whose title isn't manipulated by partisans into, say, Calumnies against the divinely ordained Jewish state. BYT 18:30, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ok -- it's a ~~notable~~ epithet/slogan, but maybe what I called II and III can be combined into one subtopic. So there's the I. Policy analysis, and III. Political discourse (including pejorative rhetoric). Sound good? (Hey, and BYT, maybe condense your text?!) Thanks for spending time on this... HG | Talk 18:38, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds good. Sorry about rambling on. :) BYT 18:52, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I wasn't clear above. Looks like we do agree about combining II and III into one subtopic, as was done on the Talk:Allegations of Israeli apartheid recent outline. However, I still want to press you to provide the evidence for notability of discourse usage of the epithet. (Per WP:N) What are (3 -5 ?) reliable sources -- independent of the subject -- that give significant coverage to the actual use of the epithet/slogan? The JPost article above mentions the epithet in passing, but it's not really about the use of the epithet, is it? Aren't most of these sources more generally about the 'apartheid' political charges against Israel, not the slogans themselves? HG | Talk 21:54, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What do you mean by "independent of the subject"? And why, specifically, is a reference to the epithet in JPost not, um, kosher in your view when it comes to establishing notability? BYT —Preceding unsigned comment added by BrandonYusufToropov (talk • contribs) 00:23, 6 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

On independent (and quality) sources, see WP:N, WP:RS and WP:V. And JPost gives an incidental documentation of the use of the term. But JPost is not writing about the phrase itself, and its usage, the way that N***er: The Strange History of a Troublesome Word by Randall Kennedy does. It's this kind of language scholarship (or other RC) that establishes that the N-word term in itself as a noteworthy subject. See also WP:N on trivial (I said "incidental" above) vs significant coverage. Thanks for your open-mindedness about all this! HG | Talk 01:13, 6 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't recall people having to find articles about the term Swiftboating itself in order to establish notability for that term. You and I are reading WP:N differently. I will provide examples of usage. (P.S.: By my lights, "independent of the subject" means I can't cite BYT's website to prove that BYT, the person, is notable. This portion of WP:N doesn't apply to terminology, so I'm not sure why you quoted it.) BYT 10:37, 6 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Below is my overall conciliatory response. P.S. I'd argue that Swiftboating actually fits my interpretation. The word is jargon that is making it's way into lexicography (e.g., political dictionary) and enough sources focus on it's use in discourse (e.g., "Swiftboating has become a hate term," R. Emmett Tyrrell on CNN Politics). Until shown otherwise, it's possible that "Israeli apartheid" is just a convenient way to carry out (II) Political rhetoric against Israel, not a notable lexical term in itself. HG | Talk 12:56, 6 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

BYT -- Fine. I'm trying to facilitate progress, not decide it. So let's go with your assessment, absent others' objections. For this Notability section, we'll say the slogan/epithet is notable. Please be sure to put in the synthesis a list of sources as evidence. I've been trying here to reflect counter-arguments about such sources. For the tentative summary, I'd like to have a synthetic statement that fairly reflects the relative strengths of pro/con arguments. The question is whether the "epithet" should be considered as notable as the political rhetoric in general (whose notability I think is unquestioned) and the scholarly debate (whose notability has strong evidence, but not unquestioned, so I called it a rebuttable presumption). If you want the Tentative summary to put the epithet on similar footing to subtopic (I), I'm willing to go with your approach, noting my disagreement here in Talk and absent others' objections. In short, I defer to your view and only ask you to put clear (non-editorialized) referencing for notability, per your interpretation of the WP:N requirements. Ok? —Preceding unsigned comment added by HG (talk • contribs) 12:44, 6 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Neutrality Grounds to Change the Title

Question for BYT (and others). Hi. You deleted the Tentative Summary sentence: "there is no doubt that the phrase "Israeli apartheid" reflects a particular point-of-view (POV)" with the comment "Personally, I can't back this as an objective fact. Several participants in the debate have held that Israeli apartheid is in fact the best title." (italics added) Yes, I've certainly seen many folks say AoIA is the best title or, in effect, the best we can agree on. Many say it tells it like it is, Israel has/is apartheid and this names it. But they aren't questioning that the Israeli government and most pro-Israelis disagree.* They aren't doubting that it's a POV wording or that some folks find it offensive, after all -- they know the heat that the phrase generates both here and in the real world. That's why there are so many counter-arguments to defend a POV title. So there's a difference between what a Wikipedian might say is the best title and what they say is neutral. Anyway, even if somebody asserts that "Israeli apartheid" is neutral, can you find a well-reasoned way to back up such an assertion? (*I think the argument that some Israelis use the phrase is irrelevant, those Israelis just happen to stand on the other POV side. Israelis can be anti-Zionist etc., but that doesn't make it a neutral view.) So I'd like to restore the basic notion that "Israeli apartheid" is widely recognized as a point-of-view. Feedback? HG | Talk 20:38, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In respect to its use as an epithet, which I believe I've demonstrated here and on the AoIA talk page, POV is irrelevant. What POV is being expressed at N-word? It is on these grounds, by the way, that the simplest, if not the most popular, solution to the controversy is to be found. Call the article Israeli apartheid and limit the scope of the article strictly to the use of the term. BYT 01:40, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What POV is expressed? Ok, to spell it out. In interactional discourse, there are implied questions as to the speaker's relation to the addressee. In white-black interactions, one question is: What is the character of the African-American addressed? Then the N-word implies the answer: The addressee is contemptible and bad. This answer is POV. However, a more NPOV interactional mode would imply: The addressee is human (i.e., on par w/the speaker). Similar analysis for Israelis. One implied interactional question is: What is the character of Israelis and their actions? (Or, if you prefer, "Are Israeli leaders and their policies like South African leaders and their apartheid policies?") The phrase "Israeli apartheid" implies the answer: "Israelis are motivated by racism and Israeli policies are unjust." This is a POV answer. Israeli leaders do not self-identify as racist and there are various competing POVs about the merits of their policies. So the term intrinsically contains a one-sided answer to a neutral question about the motivations and justice of Israeli policies. This is what we mean when we say that the phrase presupposes the conclusion, i.e. the answer to an implied question. Now do you see why the phrase is POV? Some Wikipedians have justified allowing a POV title, but I haven't seen any well-reasoned argument that the phrase is not implicitly POV. HG | Talk 06:56, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Right. My point is that we don't pretend that Nigger should be called Allegations of subhuman characteristics among individuals of African descent. We acknowledge that the word itself is painful -- in fact, notable precisely for its capacity to cause pain, among other things. We even make clear within the content of the article that its use is cruel, insensitive and, in many settings, forbidden. The question of what to call the WP article, though, doesn't enter into it.

I suppose language itself is POV. (United States of America presumes the POV that nation-states exist as topics of discussion and inquiry, no doubt a "controversial" and "biased" position in someone's world.) But sometimes the question of POV is simply not relevant. Because we're talking about what to call the article. Right?

Anyway the problem is that you stated there was "no doubt" among any of the editors in the discussion that the use of the two words "Israeli apartheid" reflects a particular point of view. In wikispeak, that means all editors agree, as a starting point, that there is inherent bias in any title incorporating those two words, including, say, Israeli apartheid (term) That's not my perception of the events on the talk page. Let's face it. Nobody agrees on anything unanimously there. BYT 13:40, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You're right about no overstating the level of mutual understanding. Nonetheless, and I think your words indicate agreement, so our text needs to tighten up the distinction: Folks basically agree that the phrase "Israeli apartheid" expresses a one-sided POV, the disagreement is whether such a phrase is nevertheless suitable for an Article Name.HG | Talk 21:48, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't agree that it represents a one-sided POV. In my view, the very best title for the article would be simply Israeli apartheid. That describes both the term being used and the outcome Carter and others have identified on the ground in Gaza and the West Bank. We don't have Alleged Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse; it is rather Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse, and was known by that title before any convictions were obtained. BYT 10:54, 6 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You've persuaded me .... I've simply been sick of these discussions about the title of articles (or sick of this one, anyway). I really don't think the title has all that much influence. People arrive here because they put "Apartheid & Israel" into Google, and as long as those two words are in there, we'll get hits and visitors (that's what we're working for, isn't it?). Some people (before my time) seem to have decided a slight "softening" was in order, and this title was decided on as the "least worst". I'm really perfectly happy with it as it is.

However, reading what you've said, I think you're right, its bound to end up being an article called "Israeli Apartheid" (especially since the Carter book). We might just as well change it now and be finished with it. (Failing which, wake me up in 12 months time, and I'll help push it over the edge to its permanent name then). PalestineRemembered 20:17, 6 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

BYT, I'm still a bit confused by your responses. Above, I said: "Some Wikipedians have justified allowing a POV title, but I haven't seen any well-reasoned argument that the phrase is not implicitly POV." You replied "Right."

The tone of my keyboard strikings may not have registered the sarcasm I was feeling at the time.

Hey, by the way, look at this. The text translates as, "Welcome to the Az-Za'ayyem / Adumim crossing-point. The crossing-point is intended for use by Israelis only. It is prohibited for a non-Israeli person to cross or to be transported across this crossing-point!!"
Whether or not you consider that a well-reasoned argument that apartheid is in fact the best objective word to describe what is actually taking place is, frankly, not up to me, so I'm not going to worry about it. BYT 02:06, 7 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

But now you say it's not POV. Even though you think that it describes what is "on the ground," surely you agree that there are reliable sources that deny that? I.e., there are reliable sources with a POV that deny apartheid. Therefore, there are 2 POVs, and you happen to think that the "Israeli apartheid is reality" POV is correct. What am I missing here? HG | Talk 23:57, 6 September 2007 (UTC) PS I glanced at Abu Ghraib -- I don't evidence of any point of view that denies the abuse, and the whole question could be proven with some photos. So there only 1 POV to cover.[reply]

(Otherwise it could be "Treatment of prisoners...") But whether or not Israeli policies are apartheid is quite more complicated and has significantly competing POVs. HG | Talk 00:12, 7 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well. Bush has repeatedly stated that the United States does not engage in the systematic abuse or torture of detainees, so there's another POV to consider, I suppose, and, I daresay, a "notable" one by definition. Then again, he simultaneously lobbied for laws authorizing same. I am still waiting for a plausible answer to Senator McCain's question about who provided the hoods and gave the orders, but the answer, officially, appears to be "nobody," so that seems more like a Taoist point-of-no-view. Not sure how we're going to quantify that.

Professional doublethink of this kind implies maintaining competing points of view within the same orthodox skull. Anyway, I see ample evidence of big-league doublethink both in that article and AoIA, which should be IA. Facts, I like to believe, are facts. Mine may not correspond with yours, of course. It's a complicated world.

My dictionary says apartheid is not only connected to South Africa circa 1948-1990, but also a generic description of "A policy or practice of separating or segregating groups" or "The condition of being separated from others; segregation." (Dictionaries don't count, though, presumably for the same reason that what we decided to do in other articles that touch on precisely the same issues don't count.)

Aaaaaaanyway, as we've now discussed ad nauseum, lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of people are, by an extraordinary coincidence, using the term in a way that comports precisely with "generic" definitions two and three here, and they are often doing so in a manner, and with a level of frequency, that constitutes the recognizable emergence of a notable political epithet and/or slogan. "Palestinians fear the apartheid wall will become a de facto border..." Against Israeli Apartheid." The Nation, July 15 "...border is moved (at Israel's expense) to include these Arabs in the "Palestinian democracy" rather than in the "Israeli apartheid"... BYT 02:06, 7 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, BYT, you've been very responsive and spent time on this. Let's try to wrap our discussion up. I sense we're both losing our patience, but we've done quite well, so let's try to stay courteous. Here's what I sense is going on: There seem to be three opinions about the neutrality of "Israeli apartheid" in Wikipedia and beyond.

Some wikipedians, like yourself, believe that "Israeli apartheid" is a demonstratively correct phrase or title, verifiable, and hence sufficiently neutral.
Some wikipedians believe that "IA" is demonstratively incorrect, so they might like a title such as "The justice of Israeli policy toward Palestinians" or the like, which they consider verifiable. Or they would want to qualify IA with "allegations."
Some wikipedians, like me, believe that both opinions #1 and #2 are verified by reliable sources, so that neither title #1 nor #2 would be sufficiently neutral. Instead, a title is needed that would allow content from those holding #1 as well as those holding #2.

Therefore, when laying out the arguments over neutrality, we need to shift to the formulation you (BYT) yourself suggested (albeit for the summary). That is, something like: Some say #1, others say #2, etc. This can be accomplished with 3 different proposals about the neutrality of "Israeli apartheid," each deserving its own counter-arguments and rebuttals. How does that sound? (And I can't blame you if you feel fed up and would rather not reply right away. I'll be on wikibreak anyway until Monday. HG | Talk 03:05, 7 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

We also need to include the fact that some editors maintain, and have (at last count) six citations in support of the contention, that it has crossed a threshold of notability to become notable political epithet. Right? BYT 11:42, 7 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

BYT -- Hi. Yes (& you'll concisely list the supporting citations for the synthesis section, at your convenience) but this belong above in notability. For neutrality, I'm not trying to rush you to wrap up, it just looks like you and I are a bit played out and could benefit from some kind of interim mutual understanding. Be well. HG | Talk 11:55, 7 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Info on "allegations" in title

Apparently, there was a village pump policy WP:VPP discussion regarding "allegations" in titles. Approx 16 March 2007 (UTC) but it was archived and then deleted. Can be retrieved from history, but not easily. Also, some disc at the AfD on AoChinaA and its Talk. HG | Talk 16:39, 19 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There also has been discussion of whether "apartheid" is a "word to avoid" in article titles. See Wikipedia_talk:Words_to_avoid#Apartheid. 6SJ7 18:19, 19 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Self-identification & the phrase "Israeli apartheid"

Comment - "apartheid" is an Afrikaans word that describes the system that South Africa operated from 1948 until 1993. But it's essential nature, "apart-hood", is directly translateable into English (there may or may not be a similar meaning in Hebrew, hafrada). Apartheid involves dividing your population up by the "community" to which each individual belongs, and issuing different identity cards to each group. The consequences might be benign (though we suspect they're not, and in fact we suspect they're oppressive in every possible situation - eg "seperate but equal"). However, discussing the effects in terms of "bantustans" or "settler roads" or whatever is a side issue - the fundamental meaning of apartheid is "identity cards linking people to their race/colour or religious community". For better or worse, Israel is probably the best known practitioner of this system - perhaps more significantly, Israel is the only one in which the "allegation" itself of apartheid comes up (rather a lot). There are other likely candidates (the Russians over the Chechens, Han people colonising Tibet and Chinese peasants unable to move to cities?). However, documenting it for other nations is a problem, since we'll apparently be dependent on primary sources, as what we should avoid. PalestineRemembered 22:42, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Other Grounds when Changing the Title

Analysis of specific alternative terms and titles

List of candidates for a new title

Thanks to Jd2718 for the new section, "Focus on differences amongst Type-B titles." This is a helpful start. It would be good to see some supporting evidence for this finding: "The groups of titles without "South Africa" included, ie (B1), would seem to best match the way the analogy has become notable." This finding suggests that those who make the analogy do not mention South Africa, which surprises me but may well be verifiable. What are the verifying sources? Thanks! HG | Talk 03:24, 16 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The first place I looked is the article in its current version. With all its problems, etc, etc... ok there are a lot of quotes. And I was a bit surprised to find a bit over half of them make some reference to South Africa. (maybe someone else can count) Hardly a RS, but certainly a start. I am not going to eliminate my edit, but this gives me pause. In favor of letting it remain: even if a substantial minority of those (notable only) figures using the analogy reference an abstract "apartheid" and not South Africa in a specific way, that would be enough to leave a title involving "South Africa" non-descriptive of the article. But clearly to be discussed and considered. Jd2718 03:45, 16 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. I wouldn't overstate the difference(s). Any use of 'apartheid' alone, even in the 2nd meaning, still implicitly alludes to South Africa -- because the 2nd connotation means "analogous to South African apartheid." So a title that uses "South Africa" cannot really be "non-descriptive of the article" (as you suggest above). I think it's just a question of how explicit to be. For instance, the (B1 title) "Israel and apartheid" can mean either "Israel and South Africa's apartheid policies" or "Israel and policies analogous to South African apartheid" both of which are not deeply altered by relying on 'South Africa' in a B2 title. Make sense? HG | Talk 04:16, 16 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Let me think about that. I certainly find the B3's a bit confusing (I mean, I know what they mean, but they might tend to be confusing, not a reasonable trade-off imo for their brevity). Would you agree on the B3s? But the B2s? I am less happy with them, but I could see leaving B1's and B2's in play at this moment. Still, if we report on, for example, a discussion of roads through the West Bank, we will not find a direct counterpart in South African apartheid, but we can and we do find notable figures referring to this as an apartheid feature or policy. So I think we are looking at a small-a use of 'apartheid' at least in some instances, and I would be concerned that popping South Africa into the title would give it an almost explicit big-A implication (with implications for straw men, etc, etc). That's how I would lean, but do you think others are watching and will be drawn to continue and comment? Jd2718 04:35, 16 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Personally, I think B1,2,3 can cover roughly the same semantic range. I fear the nuances will be blown out of proportion due to the intensity of conflict over the article. If folks can lighten up, perhaps their renaming votes could be tolerant of both B1 and B2 (e.g., vote: "This B1 title or, failing that, this B2 title"). I don't think many folks are watching this page. Here's a way we might reintroduce the renaming discussion, any thoughts? Meanwhile, we're looking into restructuring the subheadings at Talk:AoIA. HG | Talk 05:05, 16 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think that's fair. Jd2718 05:19, 16 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]