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NPA 3 warning

Please do not attack other editors. If you continue, you will be blocked from editing Wikipedia. Your personal attacks, such as this, against Jaakobou, are unacceptable. Even if you honestly believe the statement, which I don't consider supported by the evidence, it's inappropriate. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 16:54, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, you're wrong, and your warning shows poor judgement. There is no attack here whatsoever. This has nothing to do with what I believe, but with what Jaakobou is on record as believing.

• (a)The remark was a reminder to Jaakobou, after Tiamut complained recently of being harassed by him, that his remark that he had absolutely nothing against Muslims or Arabs was not true, for the record says otherwise.
• (b) The diff referred to a remark, made while Jaakobou was coediting a page with Tiamut, who happens to be a Palestinian Arab, to this effect

The Arab world, Islam inspired cultural structure is the main cause of the Arab-Palestinian 91 year racist terror campaign against the Jewish-Palestinians

• (c)In any construal of the English language, Jaakobou, contextually, was telling his fellow editor, a Palestinian Arab, that her world (Arab world) and its cultural structure (essence), in so far as it is infused by Islamic civilization, is responsible for a nigh century long campaign of both terror and racism against the Jewish people in Palestine.
• (d)To make a diff. for editors who may not know this background, but who are called on to 'read' a recurrent quarrel between the two, is not to attack Jaakobou. Nor, to cite it as a reminder, when he affirms he is free of prejudice, is not an attack on Jaakobou.
• (e) This contextual attack on Tiamat as someone with a racist and terroristic Islamic culture was struck out, not because Jaakobou thought it untrue but because he reflected it might be possibly offensive.
• (f) If Jaakobou can provide me with a diff from his record in which he states that he has recanted on the belief he expressed there, and no longer subscribes to that idea, then I will not, if such incidents arise in the future, remind him of his past beliefs by using this diff.
• (g)Your warning effectively means you are using your administrative powers to forbid me from ever using that specific diff, even if circumstances (improbably) might require me to do so to remind wikipedians of the fact. I take it therefore operatively to risk turning out to be a preemptive form of censorship whose objective, as opposed to intended, effect is to elide this information from being used in wikipedia, whenever disputes between parties on I/P articles, where Jaakobou is involved, arise. For the record I do not throw it about, but have used it twice, strictly to protect what I see as possible harassment of the only Palestinian woman editor we have here.
• (h) In the meantime, I affirm once more the contextual propriety and appropriateness of making the remark you characterise, wrongly, as a personal attack. If I happen to be wrong in my review and judgement, by all means proceed with a sanction, since clearly this would mean I am not possessed of a level of understanding of the rules required for editing wikipedia with equanimity and respect. Regards Nishidani (talk) 17:55, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Sorry for butting in, but I watch this page and felt it indirectly involved me. Nishidani, I'm not sure you why you disagree with the warning, but it appears that you are directly accusing Jaakobou of racism based on a single statement from March, which he was blocked for and the statement was clearly retracted. Didn't you yourself tell us all (and me in particular) to uphold a 'collegiate atomsphere', keeping such accusations (bad faith of the worst kind) to ourselves? I further feel that the warning is justified given your history and apparently retracted (?) self-block for a very similar issue. Again, please keep up the collegiate atmosphere and let's actually collaborate.

P.S. If you're going to reply to this, please for my sake make a shorter comment than the previous one. Cheers, Ynhockey ^(Talk) 18:43, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

No need for apologies, and any comment you may wish to make here is always welcome. I don't blame Arthur Rubin for misreading things, because as his note on Jaakobou's page shows, he has not interacted with him in the past, except to respond here to Jaakobou's complaint, and may not be familiar with details, contexts and histories of interaction. Specifically, I challenge anyone to construe the diff as an attack, let alone an accusation that Jaakobou is a racist. I said Jaakobou expressed the idea, offensivem, that Tiamut hailed from a racist world.

'I have absolutely nothing against Muslims and/or Arabs' (Jaakobou's comment).

My reply.

'Please note, Jaakobou, that even when, on second thoughts, you reined in your remarks, you didn't see them as 'offensive', but, as one can see in this diff, possibly offensive. That your outburst proves you think Tiamut is heir to a terrorist and racist culture is obvious. You may have had second thoughts, but history is as the records state it, not as we would now rewrite it.

This is very straightforward, isn't it? I am reminding Jaakobou that he is on record as saying Arab culture is racist and terroristic, not that Jaakobou is racist, as both you and Rubin aver inexplicably. He made that on a page while interacting with Tiamut, who is a Palestinian Arab, and who lives within a culture that is historically infused with Islamic civilisation. All I added is the obvious 'heir'. We are all heirs to the culture we grow up in, and the one Tiamut grew up is was characterised as terroristic and racist. I did not say Jaakobou was a racist. I took him to task for asserting that his interlocutor was heir to a racist civilisation. You're a commendably close reader, and I think should appreciate the distinction, which is patent. A final point. If Jaakobou has a grievance, he should contact an editor who has absolutely no links to the I/P world, as editor, administrator, or potentially interested party. Let him argue his case there. I undertake not to oppose him, and stay silent. My announced withdrawal from wikipedia by the way reflected exasperation at poor behaviour over ChrisO's treatment in the Persian articles. My offense (uncivil) consisted in remarking, 'I'm fucked if it's worth the candle', as this warning once more underlines the superficiality and arbitrariness that characterize so much vexation for people who come here to edit to content, and not bicker endlessly for some provincial political POV. I have never been anything but collegial, and have a good record for remonstrating and reverting people whom many associate with my own POV. Cheers Nishidani (talk) 19:07, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't think you're being quite fair here. Even if you don't think you're accusing Jaakobou of racism, and/or if you don't think your comments are offensive, clearly Jaakobou thinks they are, and so do Arthur Rubin any myself. This is analogous to what Jaakobou did in March (the diff you brought up), and he was blocked for it, despite later retracting the statement (i.e. maybe he didn't consider his own statements offensive when making them, but the community and admins did). Therefore, I'm not sure how the cases are different, and how the warning wasn't justified, when Jaakobou was actually blocked for a similar offense. -- Ynhockey ^(Talk) 19:16, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

I am now being accused of making an attack on the basis of two administrators making inferences. I'll be brief as requested. Show me where in that diff I accused Jaakobou of racism. Justify your writing this:it appears that you are directly accusing Jaakobou of racism, as opposed to my having reminded Jaakobou that he once defined the Arabic culture in which Tiamut grew up as racist. Please don't violate WP:SYNTH. Administrative judgements are on evidence, not on subjective reconstructions, suspicions, or inferences. Were I a stickler for the rules I would report you both for what appears to be a partisan use of administrative judgement. Of course I won't. On principle I never take formal action if insulted, but simply ignore it or defend myself on the appropriate talk page.Nishidani (talk) 21:35, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

The quote That your outburst proves you think Tiamut is heir to a terrorist and racist culture is obvious. seems like a blatant judgemental accusation of racism to me. Additionally, please desist from your threats to take this to one process or other; it is not required and violates WP:NPA. If you strongly feel that either Arthur Rubin or I have at any point violated policy, please feel free to report either of us to whatever process you see fit. -- Ynhockey ^(Talk) 22:00, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

I've been asked to comment on this. I would have to agree with Ynhockey here. Mentioning WP:SYNTH is at best disingenuous — it's a content policy. Let's try and comment on the content, rather than contributors. Stifle (talk) 22:28, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

How does one reply to administrators who consistently fail to construe English, ignore logic, disattend to context, and then proceed to make admonitions? Who consistently read my reminder to Jaakobou that he associated Tiamut with a terroristic and racist culture, as an accusation that Jaakobou is racist, and not as a reminder that he insinuated Tiamut's own cultural and social world is both terroristic and racist? You, gentlemen, have no problem with Jaakobou's remark, for which he was duly sanctioned. You have a problem with my reminding him of it in a context where Tiamut again complained of harassment. My remark was made on the 20th. It fell before the eyes of several fine administrators, indeed before the impeccably impartial gaze of one I think must rank as one of the finest in Wikipedia. No administrator on that page took exception to it. None read it as an attack. Two days later, someone comes up out of nowhere, presumably one of many contacted offline by Jaakobou with his complaint, and warns me. And thus, a possible lack of tact by Jaakobou in needling Tiamut with trivial cavils on a page written by a Palestinian woman he has twice offended, concludes without a verdict against Jaakobou (I think appropriately. Tactlessness is not sanctionable) but a NPA 3 warning (I still do not know what NPA 3 means) against myself for 'attacking' Jaakobou. Oh the the poor little fellow. Ever the victim. Ever the dogged emailer. Ever the object of insult when he calls Palestinians racist and terroristic. Go figure, but as I say, there's little point in replying to you, gentlemen, if your mastery of the wikirule book only serves instrumental ends, to make partisan judgements while misconstruing evidence. There's no point indeed in editing wikipedia if administrators are to consistently overlook commonsense when solidarity is at stake.Nishidani (talk) 11:12, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Jaakobou has asked me to review this as an impartial, uninvolved administrator. I don't feel that your original comment was particularly constructive- reminding people of past comments for which they have been 'punished' and later retracted out of respect for the civil atmosphere required to edit effectively in what appears to be an attempt to refute their previous statement is only ever going to inflame situations. Whether or not Jaakobou still believes what he said is frankly irrelevent- he's welcome to believe what he likes, in my eyes, as long as he is working for the good of the encyclopedia in a way compliant with our policies. However, I do feel that a template warning was a little out of place- the comment isn't exactly the most offensive thing I have ever read. That said, your reaction seems to have just made the situation worse- I can appreciate what you are saying does make sense, but it's still not really helping matters- your last comment (the "always the victim" stuff) is again crossing the line. If you genuinely did not mean to cause offence, and genuinely did not mean to accuse Jaakobou of being a racist, saying as much and apologising would have diffused the situation completely. Instead, your meticulous defence of your comment just comes across as childishness dressed up in long words and logic. You're getting caught up in semantics- this isn't an argument for the existence of God. No matter how right we are, we should always avoid causing offence. J Milburn (talk) 12:03, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm busy this afternoon shifting 30 quintals of split logs thirty metres. I have a reply in mind, but this will have to do, since the other is slower in coming. I can't help being longwinded. It is simply that youngsters in wiki are used to diffs and repartee, and everywhere I see the obvious ignored, precisely because contemporary culture is apparently uncomfortable with attempts to be precise and reading closely for context and nuance, which strike most as boring (more than two minutes). That is why we are in Iraq. The public, and journalists, didn't care much for the fine print commenting on the brief executive decisions made on shonky grounds.

If one paragraph of cogent self-defence against the use of a monitory template you yourself think perhaps a touch ill-advised is to be construed as 'childishness dressed up in long words and logic', I can smile at myself with the Shakespearean reflection on my 'sixth age slipping into the lean and slippered pantaloon', of course. Or I can ponder over age and professional differences: no colleague in my own field of specialization ever took me to task for misreading difficult texts. To the contrary. I only get this from the young, and from wikipedians, who read a few diffs on issues they do not know the background of, skip nuance, context and logic, and make a rapid call before moving on. The result? It is suggested I apologize for noting to an editor who branded a woman's culture as racist and terroristic, that he should use more tact in interacting with her, given his 'personal perspective' on Arabs, which was never retracted. You're quite right: Jaakobou is entitled to think, privately, as he once did publicly, of Arabs, raised within an Islamic civilization, as Tiamut is, as 'racist' (note further down in my original diff. He did not strike out the second use of 'racist'). I.e. Jaakobou is entitled to privately think that Arabs are racists and terroristic. Nishidani is not entitled to publicly remind him, when he observes the man interacting with a Palestinian Arab woman, of his perspective, as a reminder to take extreme care against offending her as he did in the past.

To the contrary, my remarking the obvious is only grounds for several administrators asking me to apologize to Jaakobou, who never retracted his original assertion that people of Tiamut's background grow up in a racist-terroristic culture. He accused Tiamut of belonging to a racist world, and I am hauled over the coals by people who think reminding him of this, delicately, constitutes a 'personal attack'.

If I publicly upbraided someone for saying to a Jewish friend of mine that Palestinians are victims of a 90 year old terroristic racist campaign, and that terror and racism is part of Israeli/Jewish culture. If, months later, watching their interactions, I thought it necessary to remind the original offender to watch his p's and q's because his behaviour had a certain ambivalence about it that clearly worried my friend, what would happen? I don't know. But analogically this is what would have happened had wiki realities ensued.

The original offender, examined originally for harassment and antisemitic remarks, would complain in turn of harassment and cite my remark or reminder as evidence of my offensive behaviour. Ombudsmen would be contacted, and glancing at my remark would say I'm too verbose, too finicky with details, rather childish in my 'meticulous logic', and should apologize, that I'm a party pooper for upsetting a civil atmosphere, and deserve a final warning about personal attacks on the said person. The person who, months back, accused my Jewish friend of belonging to a racist culture, would emerge, paradoxically, as the only real victim of a 'personal attack', namely my caution to him would be construed, by a subjective inference, as implying he is a racist for branding his adversary a racist. Everything else would be irrelevant. I would of course shrug this off as the world's usual quixotry when it comes to ethical coherence: but my Jewish friend, standing silently on the sideline, would I think be perplexed at this miracle: that he, the victim, had been forgotten, while the one person who extended him a protective hand, in conformity with an ancient code of manners, but not in conformity to the peculiar institutions of the place where these incidents occurred, would now be indicted for aggressive behaviour, warned not to protect his friend again by ever naming that prior evidence in the presence of the original offender, and wryly pained that his antagonist emerges as the final victor, as aggrieved and injured party by common, and authoritative consent.

Humpty Dumpty logic indeed, especially if you consider that the original remark refers to an editing exchange over an episode where, after 1900, mainly unarmed Palestinians were shot in 5 days for protesting at their occupation, a small number of militants, after the passage of some months, adopted terrorist tactics against Israeli civilians in what they thought was retaliation. But back to the woodpile. Nishidani (talk) 14:26, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Unlike others here, nobody has asked me to involve myself, but I want to intercede because the way that Nishidani is being treated makes me feel deeply uneasy. If somebody makes a claim for themselves, I think that it is entirely justified to quote their own earlier remarks back at them if they show that the claim is untrue, particularly if the claim is made on the Administration Enforcement page. The quoted remark may have been retracted, but it was retracted because it breached Wikipedia rules rather than because the remarker thought the remark was untrue. The claim that Nishidani called Jaakobou a racist is absurd and I think that Nishidani is owed an apology rather than the other way round. To give only Nishidani (and PalestineRemembered, I think) a warning for a comment that was nowhere near the worst of what might be construed as personal attacks in a section of the Administration Enforcement page where they were flying thick and fast looks like victimisation. "No matter how right we are, we should always avoid causing offence." Really? Since, then, it looks as though Nishidani was offended by being given a warning, by being told that he had called someone a racist and, possibly, by being told that his reactions came across as childishness, does that mean that all those things shouldn't have been done or said? -- ZScarpia (talk) 20:46, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Addendum. A short primer on logic for first-graders

Speaker A (1):'The Arab world, Islam inspired cultural structure is the main cause of the Arab-Palestinian 91 year racist terror campaign against the Jewish-Palestinians,'

Speaker A (2)'I have absolutely nothing against Muslims and/or Arabs'

Speaker B. 'Statement (2) is contradicted by Statement (1).'

Administrator C. 'To remind speaker A of the contradiction between his two statements constitutes a personal attack on A. Repeat a notification of this contradiction to A and you will be punished.'

Speaker B. 'Let me contextualize. Speaker A made his first comment in the presence of an Arab (D). He made his second comment when D later complained of harassment by A, whose first statement implicitly defined that Arab's world as one whose culture is characterised historically by terrorism and racism against Jews. It was therefore an attack on D as hailing from a civilisation that is structured by antisemitism and terrorism.'

Administrator C 'It appears that you are directly accusing A of racism.'

Speaker B. 'No, I am reminding A that he accused D of racism.'

Administrators C, E, F. 'Forget about D. In reminding A of his attack on D, you are attacking A, and some of us think you are accusing A of racism and terrorism. What is important here is what we consider to be an attack by you on A, not the fact that A attacked D as heir to a racist terroristic culture, and then prevaricated when the two clashed again.'

Speaker B.'To remind a person of what he said is not an attack.'

Administrators (apparently). 'Four of us think you, in that diff, are accusing A of belonging to an Israeli world, Judaism-inspired cultural structure which you think is the main cause of the Israeli-Jewish 91 year racist terror campaign against the Palestinians.'

At this point B is forced to retire. The possibilities are three. Either (a) he is an idiot, (b) administrators can't read English, though they write it, or (c) ethnic sympathies and subtextual politics trump logic. Whatever, this is too eerily reminiscent of Harold Pinter's dialogues in his comedies of menace, and he has no intention of playing the eternal role of a whingeing victim against a cast of people unable to construe a simple piece of English, or understand the elementary forms of the syllogism, especially when such people exercise administrative functions. Alternatively, he may indeed be an idiot, in which case his aspirations to contribute to wikipedia are misplaced and rightly blocked by administrative consensus.Nishidani (talk) 11:41, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

As one of the administrators involved, I really don't see the logic in any of this. If this really is what happened, then there is no contradiction between (1) and (2), unless one wants to redefine "Muslims" in (2) to mean "Muslims who participate in 'The Arab world, Islam inspired cultural structure'"; and (1) is not a racist attack unless perhaps D believes that there is an "... Arab world, Islam inspired cultural structure" and that he belongs to it.

As an aside, there are Jews who believe that Zionism (which might be described as 'an Israeli, Judaism-inspired culture') is the root cause of the Palestine Problem. That's not racism, either. Just because "A" is unable to name the specific culture which he considers the root of the problem, doesn't make his comments racist.

In the hypothetical, A is blameless, although not all of B's actions are inappropriate. If A later said something that really did contradict (1), he should be called on it. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 15:05, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for replying. Have I understood you correctly as saying that I deserved a NPA3 warning because, as speaker B, I made an incorrect inference about A's statements 1 and 2, i.e., I saw a contradiction where none, in your view, existed? Nishidani (talk) 18:10, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Not necessarily, and here I was speaking to the hypothetical. (rereading the hypothetical, what does "in the presence of D" mean on Wikipedia?) In the specific instance, your actions may have only been of NPA2 quality, but it was still a personal attack as a clear misinterpretation of J's statement (1) (more or less; I don't see (1) as being identical to what J said). PR's attack probably deserved an NPA4, as he's been on notice and possibly on probation for past violations in regard the Palestinian Question. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 18:34, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

'In the presence of' i.e., Jaakobou made his remarks while in dialogue with Tiamut, an Arab woman, on a talk page.

'more or less; I don't see (1) as being identical to what J said.'

That is impossible. (1) is a direct quotation of Jaakobou's words, here, remarks for which he was given a one week suspension in March 2008, for intimating to an Arab person his personal view at that time, at least, that the world to which she belonged was the cause of a century long campaign of racism and terror against Jews in Palestine. You can say that 'the Arab world' does not mean 'Arabs', and that a 'Muslim' does not denote someone inspired by Islamic culture, but only if you thinkGilbert Ryle's terse deconstruction of 'Category mistakes' (The Concept of Mind, 1949 ch.1, esp.pp.17-19) is just rubbish of the usual kind from a Waynflete philosopher.

I can prove my point either historically, or syllogistically. My problem is that I fail to understand why you think the diff you cited, which merely documented a discrepancy between Jaakobou's statement 2, and his earlier statement, is an attack, and therefore I do not know which form of argument you prefer, since I still cannot perceive what you took to be an attack in my words. None of the dozen administrators who followed that thread found anything problematic about it, even after Jaakobou said he found the reminded offensive. I don't wish you to waste time, but could you do me the courtesy of clarifying why my reminder of the dyscrasia between statement 1 and 2 was an attack, rather than, as I thought it was, a gentle nudge to Jaakobou not to strain credibility? Thank you Nishidani (talk) 19:07, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

I think the subtle difference may be as simple as an article choice. I read J's original comment as that there is an Islam inspired cultural structure which is the main cause ...., while you (and possibly D) read it as the Islam inspired cultural structure is the main cause.... ("Heir to terrorist culture", however, seems to be your statement alone, although a possible interpretation of D's misinterpretation of J's comment.) I think it can be taken for granted there is not a single Islam-inspired culture, just as there's isn't a single Jewish- or Christian- inspired culture. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 19:30, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Sorry to be late in replying, Arthur. The answer I wrote last night was wiped out by some glitch while being processed. It was a boring analysis on the distinction between parenthetic and epexegetic remarks, as they bear on the interpretation of Jaakobou's sloppy wording. Reconstructing, I will spare you the details. But, in short, he used The not an in referring to Tiamut's 'Arab world', in so far as its culture was informed ('inspired') by Islam, which is both a civilization and a religion.

The remark on the Islamic mindset of the Arab world you say I misinterpreted and in doing so, ‘offended’ Jaakobou, earned Jaakobou a week’s suspension in March 18 precisely because it was deemed grossly offensive. In that discussion Jaakobou said 'I consider the Palestinian population to also be victims of this mentality,' where the 'mentality' was the Islamic culture informing Tiamut's Palestinian Arab world in what Jaakobou construed to be its terroristic racist campaign against Jews in Palestine since the Balfour Declaration. This means he viewed his interlocutor, the Palestinian Tiamut, as a victim (I replaced this with 'heir') of a racist/terroristic mindset.

I.e. I, like the administrators who suspended Jaakobou, misunderstood what Jaakobou said. An injustice was done by administrators back in March 2008, when within two weeks of each other, in two separate instances, he was hauled before AN/1 for what not only Tiamut but several estimable administrators thought offensive remarks about Palestinians, likening them to Red Indians in the wild West (Bank) and their culture as both racist and terroristic in so far as it is informed by Islam. By citing this remark, then, I am repeating an offensive decision made by Arbcom?

In case this is too elliptical. See the following. It’s exceedingly boring, but I would ask you to glance at the context in which Jaakobou made the remark I am condemned for citing, for it informs the background for my suggestion, which you take as an attack, that Jaakobou's affirmation he had nothing against Muslims or Arabs was either disingenuous or a prevarication. The words Jaakobou found offensive were a reminder of words he used which Wikipedia community found ugly on March 17-18, 2008 here and here, as a very even-handed administrator had found offensive two weeks earlier, his mockery of Tiamut's expression of grief for the 'collateral damage' of indiscriminate bombing of Gaza on March 2, 2008.In that last instance, Jaakobou mimicked a box on Tiamut's page replacing its picture of Gazans 'in happier days' with one on his own page, showing Indians 'in happier days'. As anyone familiar with Zionist literature knows (one can find the stereotype criticized in Victor Klemperer's diaries, November 1934, from memory), Palestinians have often been likened to American Indians, people to be dispossessed, and driven towards cultural if not physical extinction, as the 'West'(Bank) is conquered by a more vigorous and sophisticated society. The point apparently was, 'you'll go the way of the Indians of the wild West'. Few noticed this innuendo, as is usual. Regards (take your time, I already feel I am abusing it by what must appear to be a rather casuistic attempt to redress what I consider a slight to my honour, if made, as I believe, by an understandable misprision).

I should add that I do not wish to review Jaakobou's record. I adduce it only in so far as it throws light on why I saw a discrepancy between his two statements. It's my propriety as an editor that concerns me, not his past. Nishidani (talk) 16:50, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Above I gave the historical background. I should conclude with the logical reasoning for my remark, which you construe as an attack.

Jaakobou’s original remark

This remark, as was the 'clarification' on the AN/I thread, was addressed to, among others, Tiamut.

• (1) The Arab world has an Islam-inspired cultural structure
• (2) I consider the Palestinian population to also be victims of this mentality
• (3)(1) is the cause of a racist-terror campaign against Jews in Palestine.

Tiamut is (a) Palestinian, (b) she is an Arab, (c) she is a heir to Islamic civilization (Arabic mother-language and culture, as opposed to faith) (d) Jaakobou’s interlocutor at the time these remarks were made(e) She is critical of the Zionist construction of the history of Palestine and Israel, a construction Jaakobou edits to defend.

From these contextual elements I simply remarked, when Jaakobou said he had absolutely nothing against Muslims and/or Arabs, that to the contrary,

‘your (original) outburst proves you think Tiamut is heir to a terrorist and racist culture is obvious.’

In propositional terms.

• (a) The Islamicized culture of the Arab world engages in racist terror against Jews in Palestine.
• (b) Palestinians are victims of this cultural mentality.
• (c) Tiamut is an Arab Palestinian who edits to balance Israeli/Jewish POVs on I/P articles.

My inference was that, contextually, Jaakobou did imply by his remark, and later clarification, that he took Tiamut’s views as corroborating his perception that Palestinians/Arabs, of which she is one, are victims/heirs of a terrorist/racist culture.

That may be disputed as an incorrect inference. It cannot be construed as a personal attack, since it is simply a perfectly legitimate construal of Jaakobou’s own stated views, within the specific contexts (conflict with Tiamut over I/P articles) where they were expressed. To warn one here is to establish a precedent for challenging perfectly legitimate inferences from explicit statements made by a party, as an attack on that party. Nishidani (talk) 12:35, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Ignorance

I was troubled that you beleive that Israel has turned Gaza into a concerntration camp. You find two interesting similarites: "since no one can get in, or out, and all have been on starvation rations." Yet this does not automatically designate a place a Concerntration Camp. You could maybe call it a POW camp. When the Israelis start sending the children, women and the infirm off to the left, then we can start comparing. Chesdovi (talk) 01:01, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

'We'?

'When 2.5 million people live in a closed-off Gaza, it’s going to be a human catastrophe. Those people will become even bigger animals than they are today(2004, before the disengagement), with the aid of an insane fundamentalist Islam. The pressure on the border is going to be awful. It’s going to be a terrible war. So, if we want to remain alive, we will have to kill and kill and kill. All day, every day.. The only thing that concerns me, he says, “is how to ensure that the boys and men who are going to have to do the killing will be able to return home to their families and be normal human beings.” Ruthie Blum,'ONE on ONE:It's the Demography, Stupid. An interview with geographer/demographer Arnon Soffer'. The Jerusalem Post, May. 20, 2004

If you know your Holocaust history, you will recognize Himmler's words at Minsk to Einsatzgruppe B Commander Nebe in what Arnon Soffer said. Identical. In Jewish camp slang, as Primo Levi reminds us, people who had lost the will to live, and therefore were to be culled for the ovens, were called 'Muslims'. I could go one with the analogies for approximately 20 pages, but would only be indicted for soapboxing. All peoples aspire to read their own histories with some peculiar sense of exemption from the ethics that unite us in a common humanity. To each his own conscience. Conscience is never collective. It is individual or nothing, that bristling tremor of unease in the skin when memory of the past rubs up against some present evil one has been drawn into, and whispers,'what I now do or justify is what I deplored when it happened to me, or my kin in the past'. Unfortunately, we live in a world where all nations cry exceptionalism, and no one remembers, unless the memory serves as a cosy collective prod for self-defensive grievance. That is one of our modern pathologies, that we have buried a very primitive sense that murmured, 'But for the grace of God, there go I' whenever some wretch, of whatever colour or description, suffers.Nishidani (talk) 11:13, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

However many analogies you find, you will never be able to equate the Holocaust with the situation in Gaza. I will find just as many that make it differ. If only the UN operated in the ghettos, if only the Red Cross vans in Aushwitz were really genuine... The people of Gaza it seems lost their will to live long ago with the onset of their suicide bombings, not the "seige". We cannot deny people in Gaza are suffering. But it is interesting when people compare it using Holocaust lingo. Chesdovi (talk) 23:57, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I know and recognize that tired voice, mumbling vapid variations on the usual manufactured clichés. 'We suffer more than anyone else, therefore to us everything is permitted, and those who suffer as a consequence of our 'reprisals' are the real guilty, and have only themselves to blame if they die on the steets from the 'collateral damage' of an imported American 2000 bunker-busting bomb'. A handful of these people blew up restaurants in Israel in suicide attacks 5-7 years ago, therefore all Palestinians are game from that point on, by virtue of collective guilt. The same logic of the 1930s. Herschel Grynszpan, a Jew, retaliated for the wrongs done his people, by assassinating the German ambassador to Paris, Ernst von Rath, and therefore, as a just retaliation, we got Kristallnacht, since all Jews were to held to blame for his single act. 'Muslims' in the slang of Auschwitz, meant people who lost the will to life, and were therefore deemed ready for the ovens. I did not make the Holocaust analogy: I replied to your charge of ignorance by reminding you of Jewish history, of which the Holocaust in all its aspects was one. Half of the murdered were Slavs, and Gypsies. They have never made a politics of ethical supremacy of the fact. But I won't argue, if your mind is so vulgar that you think people locked up for for decades in a concentration camp are to be condemned for having lost their will to live. It is the time's curse when the blind lead the blind, and the deaf quibble and rant on the sidelines as cheerleaders.Nishidani (talk) 10:39, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

I mention that the situation is Gaza is not comparable to a concerntration camp and you automatically think that I am playing the victim card and excuse Israel's actions. Well, that was never my intention here. And while you will tell me that you never mentioned the Holocaust, the fact the you choose to use the words concerntration camp in this case is, as I said, interesting. You will tell me you were refering to the ones of the Boer war, etc. But I suspect you do indeed refer to those of WW2. Or am I making the same misconception you had about me? I am sure the Popes cardinal was also trying to make a connection with Jewish suffering to the suffering Israel is inflicting. You will notice that in many current protests, from among many instances of brutal reigmes, Israel is equated with Nazism. Intersting. Anyway, I will give you the benefit of the doubt, and suggest you refer to a certain type of camp which is far removed from the connotations most people have when the words "concerntration camp" are mentioned. Maybe I am the one ignorant of these types of camps! Chesdovi (talk) 23:26, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I missed this. Concentration camps were invented by the Spanish, developed by the British (in South Africa) and Italians in Libya. They spread to Russia after the revolution and grew into the vast machinery Solzhenitsyn described in the Gulag archipelago, which crammed into its voracious maw over 10 million. Hitler was more familiar with the British, and established them immediately after assuming the reins of power in 1933, for communists, homosexuals, dissidents, Gypsies and of course Jews. We have the gulag system, the laogai system which was as extensive in China, and still in part survives. They were all concentration camps and collectively over 30-50 million passed through them. Every survivor of these respective systems has told us of scenes reminiscent of Dante's inferno. It is our collective past, and the property of no one country or people.

Israel is a country. Nazism was (and still is, where it survives) an ideology. To make an equation between a country and an ideology is not only stupid, it is simply a confusion of categories. There is a little of the Nazi in all of us, I think, Reich once wrote. Not for that would it follow that we are all Nazis. Anyone with an honest eye can catch this in all innocence watching most children as they play collectively, in aggressive contexts, esp. with animals. Perhaps that is what Catholics mean by their doctrine of original sin. I really don't care how 'most people' express themselves, except to the extent that, in thinking, I feel unnerved if what comes into my mind sounds like something bounced off the infosphere, or is seeded with the raw assumptions of what Heidegger called Gerede. I do appreciate your giving me the benefit of the doubt. I like to benefit from doubts, especially when they overcome me while reading what I write. I am becoming spick and span. It must be the soap in the soapbox. Nishidani (talk) 23:04, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Please refrain from obscene soapboxing.

Your "found an accomplice or willing executioner" in reference to Israel[1] is a grotesque soapbox and more fitting for an antisemitic Iranian holocaust denying blogger than a Wikipedia editor. Please avoid calling Israeli self-defense a "willing executioner" in the future.
Cordially, Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 12:03, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

I suggest you go back to school and learn to construe the finer points of English. It was asserted, and edited into the text by several pro-Israeli POV-warriors that Hamas's whole strategy in the present conflagration was to satisfy a 'desire for death' as opposed to Israel's 'desire for life'. I took this shabby piece of hasbara 'fact'sheet propaganda, and placed an 'if' clause. This, Jaakobou, was therefore a rhetorical gambit, pitched in the ironical form, 'if, as you assert . . ', 'then it would follow'. As to soapboxing, and other violations of wiki NPA procedures, in your remark you have just broken WP:AGF, and WP:NPA, though being a grown man and not a wimp, I won't of course report it. For you have decapitated my nuanced hypothetical to make it into a statement of belief, and then associated the view you then attribute to me as more or less equivalent to 'an antisemitic Iranian holocaust denying blogger'(s)', whereas they are more or less identical with those of the eminently respectable mainstream historian of Israel, Geoffrey Wheatcroft or of that outstanding Israeli, Uri Avnery. Technically, then, this latest snippet in your ongoing campaign to engineer an impression before administrators that somehow I am abusively loose with offensive language illustrates a line in Hamlet:

'the enginer(is)Hoist with his own petar

What wikipedians more usually call a case of the pot calling the kettle marijuana. Nice try. Keep it up. It's one of the few things that amuse me in these dire times. Still, I'm in no mood for amusement, so in future, do me the courtesy of keeping these mendacious insinuations, and your presence, off my page. If you can't help making an attack, use the routine you employed earlier - contact a potentially favourable administrator offline, sweettalk him or her up with the usual horrid fact sheet detailing my monstrous views and behaviour, and hope for the best. Nishidani (talk) 12:13, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

The problem is that the "if" part is true which makes your "then" part a flagrant hyperbole. Pay attention to sources and stop spreading anti-Zionist soapboxing please. Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 21:20, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

I think this "warning" is an extreme overreaction to his comment, which itself was an unnecessary reply to a comment that should not have been made. Neither of you really need to be reminded, but just in case - article talkpages are for discussing ways to improve the article. Debating your biases, or lack thereof, has no place here. Debating the subject itself, and not the article, has no place here. If you aren't able to hold to this and still converse with each other, then you should refrain from interacting anymore than absolutely necessary - that includes correcting inflammatory and wrong remarks that are unrelated to improving an article. Both of you know better, and Jaakobou -using words like grotesque and obscene to describe the comments of others, particularly (in my opinion) Nishidani, is completely unacceptable. Avruch ^T 23:35, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Calling Israel a "willing executioner" is indeed a grotesque hyperbole and to be frank, an antisemitic commentary to Jewish people defending themselves from rocket attacks (god forbid). I have no intentions and don't believe I talk about Nishidani's personal attributes, but his comment was wholly out of place and your "everybody's at fault" comment here is just a misunderstanding of how obscene the soapboxing was (and always is). Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 00:08, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

His comment was an "if, then" statement - as you no doubt realize, he doesn't agree with the "if" and so was making the "then" for effect, and not as an assertion of fact. Read in that light, its intriguing rather than offensive - but also, as I've said, out of place either way. Avruch ^T 00:20, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

I've never said this, Jaakobou, because the comment I will make can be in turn taken as a piece of flattery, as a 'move' to butter up someone, and get administrators on my side. But the context requires it, however it may be taken. Avruch is one of those few administrators in whom I have perfect confidence. If he, reviewing anything I wrote that was taken to be an infraction of the rules, were to decide against me, and for the plaintiff, then I'd tumble off my highhorse, despite inner reservations, and accept that I was careless and deserved a warning, as I would with several others, like PhilKnight, Gatoclass, Avi, etc. I've had minor differences with them all, and with Avruch and Avi I'd probably have significant differences in perspective, were it proper to discuss them, which it isn't. These are administrators who exemplify a quality of scruple, close attention to drift and detail and fairness that is far above the average, and approximates to the ideal of this small world (David Lodge)'s supervisory mechanisms. Here Avruch has not sided with me. He has construed a sentence as the logic of English requires it to be construed, and as I insisted it must be construed. He has asked us both to shut up on extratextual disagreements, as futile and immaterial to the job we are asked to perform. I commend and accept both points, and the admonition to focus on articles, not on opportunities to hyperventilate.

I take therefore to heart his suggestion that we should not interact: indeed, I admit that I erred in being reactive, and should not have responded to provocations. I do not make a practice of insinuating things on other editors' pages, nor in complaining to administrators whenever an opportunity might present itself. I do get somewhat polemical when I see inflammatory one-sided interpretations of, or wall-eyed approaches to, realities we are obliged to describe neutrally, since I foresee an exasperating degree of fatigue in the wings when most issues are minor flaps that could be resolved by a little mutual fluffing of plumes. On these occasions, I do go my windbaggery way, as a minor paladin in these Piepowder Courts, to defend a principle. WP:SOAP is my major offense - I find myself tempted to say things to clarify metatextual points that often my interlocutors ignore because the failure to take them into implicit understanding, in my view, affects the way we evaluate sources and evidence. Malice, gamesmanship or antisemitism, despite what you often aver, are not part of my temperamental baggage. So let's drop it.Nishidani (talk) 08:46, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

2 Notes to self. Everytime I hear Hamas quoted on the 'desire for death', I will now recall (a) the graffiti scribbled by occupying soldiers on the walls of a house near the Samouni's home, where some 48 died.

(a)'Inside and outside the home, graffiti had been daubed in Hebrew and English, with slogans including Arabs need to die, "Arabs: 1948 to 2009" and "Make war, not peace".' Cited Rory McCarthy, ‘Inside Gaza: Israeli troops have vanished but the damage is plain to see,’ The Guardian, 19/01/2009

and (b) 'On Monday, on one of the walls of the house that became the IDF position from which soldiers shot the two brothers who died at their father's side, we found two inscriptions in Hebrew: "The Jewish people lives" and "Kahane was right," referring to right-wing extremist Rabbi Meir Kahane.' Amira Hass, 'Life in Gaza is not 'back to normal' Haaretz, 28/01/2009

and (c)'Israeli soccer matches were suspended during the assault on Gaza. When the games resumed last week, the fans had come up with a new chant: "Why have the schools in Gaza been shut down?" sang the crowd. "Because all the children were gunned down!" came the answer'.Yigal Bronner, Neve Gordon, 'Fueling the Cycle of Hate,' Counterpunch January 27, 2009

No wonder then that Norman Finkelstein is reading the collected works of Mahatma Gandhi.

Psychologists call it "projection". Obviously, somebody here (in your quote) is putting their faith in death and destruction. But the acolytes of this murderous ideology do not choose to see themselves; instead, they project their inhuman faith onto their victims. In that way, the killer can pretend that he is simply acceding to the desire of the victim. Thus, the killer is able, once again, to evade responsibility and retain his childhood state of "Innocence". The physical damage done to the victim is horrifying, but the spiritual damage the aggressor does to himself is worse. Those who dehumanize others end up dehumanizing and damning themselves.

That is why we cringe in these discussions: The naked soullessness shocks us. Our automatic reaction is to rend our compassion and channel it towards the physical victim. That is a mistake, because the spiritual victim (the aggressor) is the one most desperately in need of our tough love. NonZionist (talk) 16:40, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Who cringes in discussion? It's just not part of the rulebook that one divagate in this way during editing. I might agree with you on much. But one good solidly grounded edit that sticks, is worth more than a thousands effusions of 'tough love'. We're not here to convince our interlocutors: we are here to make sure a text reads neutrally, and gets the facts germane to a comprehensive narrative straight. Hamlet somewhere says, in reaction to Laertes's excess of grief,

If thou prate of mountains, let them throw

Millions of acres upon us, till our ground

Singeing his pate against the burning zone,

Make Ossa like a wart. Nay, an thou'lt mouth,

I'll rant as well as thou.

'Ranting' is partially excused from time to time, if one does so, rarely, in exasperation at some ranting provocation from left field, but as Avruch reminds us, we're here to edit, and should avoid such occasions of reciprocal incitement ('of our reason and our blood', Hamlet again). It should not be an avocation here. Best regards Nishidani (talk) 18:46, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Who cringes? I do, instinctively. It's human nature, and it explains why criminals so often get the best of us and rise to the top: We shrink from their pain.

Yes, I am here to edit: I just fixed a missing source problem over at Ahmadinejad, and it felt good. But I'm too involved to edit the Israel articles properly -- the one article I did contribute is mired in vehement controversy. It is better that I contribute mainly on the talk page. My aim there is to help the active editors to produce a clearer and more balanced article. I do this by offering my political insight, fomenting dialogue, and voting on issues. Ranting is exactly what I try to avoid and discourage. What I write may seem like ranting sometimes, because I come from a dissident vantage, but a genuine rant is accompanied by outraged passion, and I exhausted by outrage long ago. Thanks for your interest! NonZionist (talk) 06:00, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Sorry to be a pompous hair-splitter, my friend. The word you meant to write, I think (again presumptuously) was 'wince', not 'cringe'. One winces at certain comments. To 'cringe' is to come to heel like a cowed dog. I don't imagine this is your case. 'Foment' again, means 'to stir trouble', 'exacerbate tensions', which may indeed seem to administrators what your 'political' remarks look like: to 'foment dialogue' is almost a contradiction in terms, since dialogue is deliberative, 'foment' implies disruption. Perhaps 'enhance'. These slips, like the excessive recourse to words like 'fascism' betray a certain looseness of focus that rather than conduce to dialogue, or clarity, muddy the waters by rhetorical murkiness. I do wish you well, but advise you to take care to rein in your language. Best wishes, Nishidani (talk) 09:10, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Happy New Year

Happy new year, Nishidani. It's been a little while; I hope things have been going well for you. Looking at your talk page it would seem that you are fighting a little war. I must respect your vigor in the face of questionable opposition.

The Israeli / Palestinian situation of late certainly is tragic. Other than following the news, I regret that I am not versed enough to make any useful contributions, though. Once upon a time you used to make extremely valuable contributions to Japan-related topics. If you feel like taking a break from the status-quo, let me renew that invitation. You're always welcome. Best wishes, Bendono (talk) 12:43, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tamding Tsering

I thought you might be interested. --J.Mundo (talk) 21:57, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, can't help. I did once seriously consider becoming a Tibetan Buddhist, but my knowledge of Tibetans in any sport other than the one they excel in, philosophical dialectics, is execrably poor. The issue you raise only stirs in me memories of Orgyen Tobgyal in The Cup, an exquisite film. Regards Nishidani (talk) 08:57, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

israel-gaza lead

Hello, would you mind taking a look at the lead I proposed at [2]; I would like to get this to the point that there cannot be any possible contention with any of it, and JGGardiner makes some interesting points. Thanks (and much respect for everything I have seen you write), Nableezy (talk) 20:59, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

I am indeed new to this area of wikiland, I spent a lot of time reading near every A/I article and their talk page, including all the archives (I have a boring job with 4 monitors, tend to do a lot of reading), so I am familiar with many of the 'players' in these articles. So when I say 'respect for everything I have seen you write' it is quite an expansive set that I compliment you on. I hope I can continue to edit here as well (lets just see if I get fired for spending 80% of my work day on the wiki). A compliment on the quality of my work from you, needless to say, is high praise, and I am very thankful. Peace and happiness, Nableezy (talk) 21:45, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Dont mean to put words in your mouth but I *think* you meant versions 1 and 3 are acceptable as you said 'Version 2 is totally unacceptable' before saying 'versions 1 and 2 are acceptable interim solutions' Nableezy (talk) 08:51, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks

Hi. Thanks and I did see your compliment on the article talk so thanks for that also. I appreciate your work on the talk page also. It feels funny sometimes patting ourselves on the back for merely being a little reasonable. But somehow that deserves it around here.

Don't feel bad, I think that Nableezy agrees with Cerejota as well. And I do also really. But I think one can agree with Cerejota's point and support our version as well. The "intensified" part of the paragraph really had nothing to do with the version we created. We were just incorporating what was already there. It was more about modifying the third sentence and adding the fourth.

I don't feel bad either. I always say what I think on the talk page. We only started working together because Nableezy was good enough to react to my concerns. If he wasn't involved in the page my comments have just ended up in the ether. Like most of my comments do.

The only really upsetting thing is that someone keeps adding that picture of the Pears soap with the "get out of the soap box" caption. You stand on a soap box, not in it! --JGGardiner (talk) 22:06, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

disappointed

I guess the one thing I learned from this is that it is impossible to achieve an accurate, neutral wording by just trying to offer that accurate neutral wording. So many people are going to fight for their extreme that it almost necessitates going to the other extreme to get it back to what is neutral. That somebody even offered that 'option 2' as a neutral suggestion is beyond me. Whatever, I guess some people are so far gone out of reality that it won't matter at all what is actually real. Thanks for the help though, and best wishes. Nableezy (talk) 22:36, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

The conflict on the ground is driven by a conflict in ideology, something we Americans are not supposed to know anything about, and something that is not given sufficient treatment here in wikipedia. Ideology is a denial of neutrality and a loss of faith in reality -- truth is the first casualty in war. If there were a way for us all to agree, there would be a way for us to stop killing one another. Because ideology disdains reality, it is a suicidal gesture: Fascist powers are the ultimate "suicide bombers".

Our penchant for asking too many inconvenient questions reveals our pathetically archaic insistence on belonging to "the reality-based community," as one top White House advisor famously put it to reporter Ron Suskind:

"The aide said that guys like me were 'in what we call the reality-based community,' which he defined as people who 'believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. 'That's not the way the world really works anymore,' he continued. 'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors ... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.'"

-- Justin Raimondo (2005-03-11). "The Wonderful Wizard of Washington / If ever a Wiz there was -- our fantasy-based foreign policy".

But my main reason for visiting, Nishidani, is your edit to my talk page. I suppose I owe you a 'thank you' for deleting the anonymous comment -- I am already out on the soapbox limb and I don't need to go out any farther. On the other hand, I remain committed to dialogue, and I'm convinced that it is possible to have a productive and civil dialogue with 213.8.96.48. Yes, call me naive! Anyway, I have faith in your judgment and I regard you as a friend, but, for the record, I'm not happy about losing the opportunity to continue the conversation! Any thoughts? NonZionist (talk) 17:34, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

No apologies needed, since what I did was both presumptuous and vaguely paternalistic. I half expected a kick up the virtual coit, or a tweak of the intrusive snout, for barging in.

Most dialogues don't follow the Platonic model. They are, as the saying now goes, dialogues of the deaf. Indeed this variety is the norm. Dialogue is only fruitful if, with both parties, the ear is as attuned as finely as the tongue is trained to wag its tail at the first promptings of inward thought. We must learn to listen, not only to what is said, but what is not said in our interlocutors. Before that we do well to learn to listen to ourselves, and hear the murmur of dissonance in our own convictions.

For example 'fascist'. I generally use the term comically, as an old man, and exclusively to make my brother laugh. (He:'They forgot to pick up the dustbins' - Me: 'fascists'/He: 'this icecream's nowhere near like that cone we had in Hawaii 50 years ago': Me:'Yeah. I bet the vendor's dad was a fascist').

I do this because I take the phenomenon as far too important to be used anywhere but in highly analytic contexts, or as comic relief, to make fun of my own serious beliefs. To brandish it wildly is to travesty a problem that goes far deeper than fascism - the genocidal character of the century that just passed, from the destruction of the Herero people, down to recent times, which covers the way many states have acted: Germany, Italy, the Soviet Union, the United States, China, to name but a few. Anything fascists did, was done by Communists, save for the attempted extermination of the Jewish, Gypsy and Slavic peoples. Fascism was in this recursive to the past, and thought tribally, while embracing the latest technology. Communism (and I am Marxistically minded) was predominantly futuristic and thought of eliminating classes rather than ethnoi.

If you use, in a dialogue, the word 'fascist', you set off in your interlocutor a train of associations - communist, leftie, red, illiberal, subversive, ranting Hyde Parker from the fringe lunatic left, etc - that will generate a similar kind of response from yourself, Pavlovian, predictable. There is absolutely no point, unless one cares for language sufficiently to tread around it with care, (Servius spoke of Vergil licking his words into shape, like a she-bear did her cubs - this is too high an aspiration for mere conversation, of course), and the 'other' shows some responsiveness to nuance, for a 'dialogue' to take place. What you will get is a shooting match as two people talk past each other, and this is tantamount to wasting time.

Not all conversation should be subject to some code of mystical quietude and hyper-attentive pilpulism. Most of it, happily, never will be. We can say a lot without such anal 'rectitude' for le mot juste. But talk too much without thinking either about why you wish to talk or who the person prompting you to talk is, tends to wither one, in the end.

All we would like to say, on either side, about Israel and the Palestinians, has already been said, written, discussed, analysed ad nauseam. Despite this, few budge from their positions, and most attempts at discursive resolution end up as chess-matches of cunning, or overblown restatements of the usual rhetorical pabulum. Esp. in wiki I/P areas, where, underneath much intensive editing, a political conflict and an ideological wariness, tramples over any inconvenient fact. To yield on a point is taken as conceding politically capital one could well withhold from the indigent hands of the other.

And, in any case, we're here not to espouse our views, or exploit this medium as a forum, but simply to build an encyclopedia. If one is committed, as you and I am, to speak of the pro-Palestinian side, to securing an adherence to the principles of neutrality in articles dealing with these people, then we do well to do just that, not waste time in futile exchanges, but in study, preparation, and the search for effective data, reliably grounded, to get into these pages, that gives the full picture. It's a battle, but, reflect. Every moment spent in improper expositions of one's convictions might look, as it often does to Palestinians, as a betrayal of the ostensible good will, which they would surely rather that we show by concrete work on articles about them, rather than ostentatious conflicts with our colleagues about our respective world-views. I have to dine, unfortunately, and am, once more abusing this medium, but you asked for a word of advice, and this is what came to mind. Regards, and take care. Most people don't. Those who do, don't need to wear it one their sleeves. Ps. What Suskind wrote was said by Clinton, was said even earlier by . . but that would be an essay. It's true, these guys think like that. But it's also as old as the hill.Nishidani (talk) 19:04, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

A disease that killed thirty million people is a disease worth remembering. We ought to at least learn the name of this affliction, so that we can recognize it and take preventative measures, should it appear again. That's why I use the term "fascist". I would no more delete the word from my dictionary than I would delete "malaria" or "pnemonia". That some people use the term in jest or derogation is not my problem: They have their world, and I have mine, and mine will outlast theirs! LOL! Anyway, it is not the job of an encyclopedia to mince words or censor the dictionary. Bring 'em on!

What's more, the artificial dichotomy between fascism and communism enables us Americans to pose as arbiters, above the fray, since we, in theory, reject both isms. That's not good! If we get any more messianic, we'll explode. However much we like to think in bipolarities, the two isms are no more opposites than cancer is the opposite of appendicitis. It is best to deal with one disease at a time, and right now, "fascism" is on the operating table. My favorite quote on the subject: "That which the fascists hate above all else is intelligence." -- Miguel de Unamuno (1864-1936, great Spanish philosopher, poet, and patriot).

Best wishes / NonZionist (talk) 05:33, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, frankly, I think you're wrong. 'Fascism' is a variety of totalitarianism, it is not thereby a synonym for totalitarianism, anymore than a platypus is a synonym for mammal, being a subset, monotreme, of a wider class. Miguel de Unamuno got it wrong. He was correct, contextually, that the Francoist order despised intelligent men like himself, Lorca and Ortega y Gasset. But many fascists were highly intelligent, and many highly intelligent men like the makers of literary modernity were enamoured of fascism, T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, W.B.Yeats, etc. I've never deleted the word from my dictionary: I refrain from using it as you did, because it disturbs conceptual clarity. You're an optimist, I see, thinking your world will outlast 'theirs'. 'Our' world is almost irredeemably prey to a metastasis of the cancer that afflicted the generations of the last century: simply put, we have formally repudiated collectivism (totalitarianism in all historically self-evident forms), and convinced ourselves we are individuals, while, behind the scenes, in the very common, public language of common sense, our personal capacities to think as individuals have withered. You tend, in your polemics, to betray a collectivist mindset, as do your chosen adversaries in what you take to be a 'dialogue'. We are entangled in vast webs of rapid chat, journalese, public cant, and slipshod thinking that embraces 'left' and 'right', 'republicans' and 'democrats', 'liberals' and 'conservatives'. Don't take Israel, or America to be peculiar in this, or single them out as an illness others must approach as though they were surgeons. What you protest there is only the tip of the iceberg, and if you wish to avoid infection, steer clear of clichés ('fascism'). To conclude with a saw from the evangelist Luke, 'Medice, cura te ipsum'. Wiki needs clarity, it doesn't need polemics. In every confident, authoritative conviction, or belief, there's an undertone of 'fascism' even if the voice is saying the opposite. I think we should leave it at that. Nishidani (talk) 09:07, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

I think you are too much the purist, Nishidani, allowing the best to become the enemy of the good (if I understand that idiom correctly). Spain was not the same as Italy, which was not the same as Germany, but we call all three "fascist": There is sufficient similarity between the three. It's a matter of degree, and thus involves judgment, which is subjective. We use a common term, because we find it helpful or useful to emphasize the similarities. There is no clear bright line.

When prominent American Jews, in their 1948 letter to the NYT, labeled Begin's party "fascist", they were using judgment -- the use of the term, they deemed sufficiently justified by the level of similarity between Begin's party and Mussolini's, say, and by the need to inform Americans of the rough nature of the new threat. In my opinion, Israel has not improved: What applied in 1948 applies a hundredfold today. You have not deleted the word from your dictionary, but you have retired the word, which is just as bad. History repeats. What happened seventy years ago has happened again, and the words we used then to warn and inform ourselves are no less applicable today. A hyper-aggressive war-addicted state with a self-destructive ideology of ethnic supremacy, a vast censorial propaganda apparatus, a disdain for human rights, a disregard for the property of the individual, and a large persecuted populace is properly placed in the category that similar states occupied seventy years ago. NonZionist (talk) 17:17, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

For short: Godwin's law - That said, the problem with "fascism" as epithet is that when everything is fascism, then nothing is. --Cerejota (talk) 20:26, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the link. I protest about 'fascism' as a carry-all term of obloquy amongst my own. Less observed in the fact that 'Islamic' (or 'Hamas' or 'Hezbollah'), 'terrorist' etc., are increasingly subject to the same abuse. 'Israelis are Nazis' = 'Arabs are terrorists', 'the Jews are bloodsuckers' = 'Islamists are hell-bent on destroying West civilization'. You won't hear the former phrasing in the once antisemitic faculties of Yale and Harvard. But Ivy league professors, not only in private, but in books, theorize about the latter as if anti-Semitism is dead and buried, but can, if the urge and instinct are still there, be rechanneled into 'interpreting the Arab/Islamic mind'. I'm pro-Palestinian also because I can't tolerate anti-Semitism.Nishidani (talk) 21:17, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Godwin's law advises against using "fascism" as a casual epithet, and I agree: If we cry "Wolf!" too often, we will have no way to warn when a wolf really does appear. The implication, however, is that there is such a thing as a real wolf and a need to warn against it. So too, there issuch a thing as fascism, and there is a need to warn against it. If our avoidance of epithets causes us to avoid all mention of wolves and all warnings, then we have gone too far! Godwin's point is not to silence all warnings! -- just the opposite, the point is to maintain our ability to warn effectively, when warning is necessary. And it has been necessary, for the last sixty years. NonZionist (talk) 17:30, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Not on wiki talk pages or in edits, however. Minor point. Not sixty years, 90 years. Nishidani (talk) 18:24, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

link

I just saw your contrib at my special page. Keep 'em coming. I just think we need to improve the MILHIST aspect. Thank you!--Cerejota (talk) 20:19, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Second paragraph

Hi Nishidani!

I was a bit surprised to come back from the week-end and see this. The lead, as it was, was written by User:Jacob2718 and myself (here) and was, as far as I could tell, factual and unbiased. What are/were your objections?

The second paragraph, as it stands now, is only confusing and extremely diffuse. The compromise established a sequence of events: ceasefire, breach by Israel, non-renewal of truce by Hamas, Israeli attack. The text, at the time, was:

A six-month truce between Hamas and Israel expired on December 19 2008.[52][53][54] Earlier, contending that Israel had not lifted the Gaza Strip blockade and following an Israeli raid into the Gaza Strip on November 4,[55] Hamas resumed its rocket and mortar attacks on Israel. After initially announcing, on December 19, that the truce was "over",[56] Hamas offered to extend the truce on December 23.[57][58][59][60][61][62] On 27 December 2008, Israel launched its military operation with the stated objective of defending itself from Hamas rocket fire[63] and to prevent the rearming of Hamas. Hamas demands the cessation of Israeli attacks and an end to the Israeli blockade.[64]

I realise somebody tweaked some of the formulations to make it sound nasty, but can we try to fix this up again?

As for the cease-fire fork, I just did a copy-paste job to get it out of the way. As soon as I have some time I'll un-fluff it.

Cheers and thanks, pedrito - talk - 19.01.2009 07:57

I saw an attempt to destabilize the lead, and restored para 1 to the consensual version, arguing this stuff should not be touched before the body of the article is reviewed. I then noted that para 2, also consensually drafted, had been altered. So I reverted that too, irrespective of who did it, since there was a principle at stake. Two people do not make a consensus, even on 'my side'. Allow one para to be meddled with, and you get another, and then edit wars.

Nothing I see in any I/P article has much correspondence with the truth, all I can hope for is balance at the moment. As to specifics, Hamas's main beef was starvation, which undermined its credibility though sources won't tell you that yet. On Nov.12 Israeli started closing down the Karni entrypoint where flour was supplied, and Gaza's 3 mills began to shut down for lack of material to mill (In the assault, the IAF took out 2 of Gaza's three flour mills, just like the earlier 'incident' where it knocked out its new power generators). Israel also broke the truce on the 17th. Hamas was involved in intense negotiations via Egypt from early Dec.esp.14th onwards, to continue the truce. Hamas didn't 'contend'. It stated a fact: Israel had not lifted the blockade as it had undertaken to do in June, though Hamas had succeeded in halting rocket fire.

Perhaps I made a wrong call. It was late, I remember only my impression of a text that looked more POV than the one we had, I don't have the patience to check whether it was yours or a tweaked version of it, though perhaps the latter. The overall lead was being modified by several hands (even the casualties were removed, and edits were fast), so I just tried to restabilize it with a general revert, and tell people to lay off it.

Nothing personal in this. Cheers, Pedrito Nishidani (talk) 10:28, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, I've taken the liberty of re-instating "my" version, apparently there had been some changes to the wording and some sources removed.

Can we work on this version, as it is less blurry than the first? If I read you correctly, what needs work is:

1. Better word for "Contending",
2. Make non-lifting of blockade more prominent,
3. Add that blockade was tightened after November 12,
4. More specific on negotiations prior to attack on December 27.

Do you want to add anything to those points or should we start working on them directly? The first two are more language and formulation issues, the last two would require sources.

Cheers and thanks, pedrito - talk - 19.01.2009 14:45

Well, if I can find the page where the lead's being talked about, (not that stupid thread, but a serious discussion) then I'll join in. I'm only once voice among many. If you can drop me a link to the ongoing discussion, I'll litch in when my head's less foggy than it is now. By the way Tanya Reinhart has excellent background on this down to 2006. She was partisan, but gives enough inside details to remind one how dangerous these lead generalizations are, for what they miss. Cheers, and sorry for the bother.Nishidani (talk) 14:52, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Uhm, there's no real organised discussion... I've been keeping an eye on the paragraph and engaging editors directly whenever it is edited (except of course blatant vandalism). The long discussions on the talk page don't seem to get very far and attract the wrong kind of audience. Well, now I guess it has cooled down somewhat... Anyway, I'm pretty much off for the day.

Cheers and no problem, pedrito - talk - 19.01.2009 14:55

As for the 'wrong kind of audience' I note the Israeli Foreign ministry's Media Department is getting more active in countering our bias. I've a lot of reading to do, but will keep an eye on things later, and try to review the points you raise, It's far better than several very curious attempts to rework the lead. Thanks, pedrito. Nishidani (talk) 15:03, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Your Behavior is Disruptive (i.e., Doright's POV)

Let's see on the one hand an editor named Nishidani says Dr. Ledeen is a known liar and not a reliable source and therefore can not be cited as a source in Wikipedia. On the other hand, Dr Ledeen has been a senior Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute for 20 years. He is also a contributing editor at National Review Online. He has served as a consultant to the United States National Security Council, the United States Department of State, and the United States Department of Defense. He has also served as a special adviser to the United States Secretary of State. He holds a Ph.D. in modern European history and philosophy from the University of Wisconsin, and has taught at Washington University in St. Louis and the University of Rome. Furthermore, Dr. Ledeen provides links to his references in the cited article. And his thesis is supported by the Prime Minister of Israel himself. The Prime Minister said, "Iran, which strives for REGIONAL HEGEMONY, tried to replicate the methods used by Hizbullah in Lebanon IN THE GAZA STRIP as well. You are disrupting the Wikipedia project and could ultimately lose the privilege of editing Israel related articles. Please review WP:NPOV, WP:V and WP:OR http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:2008%E2%80%932009_Israel%E2%80%93Gaza_conflict#Remedy_for_documented_.5BWP:POV.5D_violation Doright (talk) 11:53, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Geez, such threats! such dire prospects! Disruptive behaviour, i.e. countering Doright-Get-things -wrong-while-doing-it and his POV pushing, will get me banned from wikipedia! I'm pooping myself from the incontinence of fear, and a troubled conscience!

So now the tactic's to go from WP:NPA to 'disruption'. I've followed with curiosity Ledeen's Italian career for decades, since law courts dealing with everything from the attempt on the Pope's life, the 'deviated' secret services, the fascist underground's terrorism, and many other things, often mention his name. For the record, CVs don't impress me when I know much about the person that never figures in them. I believe Richard N. Gardner, who was the American Ambassador to Italy from 1977 to 1981, more than some self-promotional hype.

‘I was astonished that Ledeen would write something that the record of the past four years would so readily show to be false. . .Some years later it was revealed that during my years in Italy, Ledeen was under contract as a consultant to General Giuseppe Santovito, Italy’s chief of military intelligence, and that a great deal of Ledeen’s “information” about Billy Carter had come from SISME sources. Ledeen’s partner in the Billy Carter and other affairs was Francesco Pazienza, an influential SISME Adviser who was subsequently charged in Italy with extortion by violence, possession of cocaine, leaking state secrets, and criminal associations of a Mafia type. . .According to the Wall Street Journal, the indictment on which he was convicted read in part; “With the illicit support of the SISME and in collaboration with the well known ‘italianist’ Michael Ledeen, Pazienza succeeded in extorting, also using fraudulent means, information – then published with great evidence in the international press –on the Libyan business of Billy Carter, the brother of the then President of the United States’. After Reagan’s victory, Ledeen and Pazienza set themselves up as the preferred channel between Italian political leaders and members of the new administration. For these and other services, Ledeeen was eventually rewarded with a position as an assistant to President reagan’s secretary of state, Alexander Haig.’ Richard N. Gardner, (with Zbigniew K. Brzezinski), Mission Italy: On the Front Lines of the Cold War, Rowman & Littlefield, 2005 p.291

The details of his forging of false information for partisan political ends are on the preceding page. Pity I can't link Santovito, who while head of intelligence, also belonged to a subversive organization, and has a long documented history of having seeding false information in the press to derail investigations into terrorism conducted by Italian magistrates. This is the sort of environment in which Ledeen thrived.

That Iran has connections with Hamas is highly probable. But Ledeen, given his record of manipulating pseudo-information for political effect, cannot be used to furnish evidence. Many other, mainly Italian sources, could be cited to underline his unreliability. But you're wasting my time, and your own. Nishidani (talk) 12:33, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Your above diatribe is no more rational nor based on policy nor fact, than the last time I, as you say, wasted my time trying to reason with you and demonstrate your refusal to follow WP policy when you wrote, "In covet your meaning is clear, in that it suggests you view my behaviour as one indicative of a sexual impulse, which cathects itself in environments that lend themselves to conflict, conflicts I require to satisfy some unconscious perversity." Embarrassed for the personal disclosure inherent in your statement, I did not respond.

Even your above citation states: "For these and other services, Ledeen was eventually rewarded with a position as an assistant to President Reagan’s Secretary of State, Alexander Haig." This further provides evidence that his pov is significant. Whether you like it or not what he says is widely considered a significant part of the discourse that you insist on excluding from Wikipedia in violation of [WP:NPOV]. Doright (talk) 05:17, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm glad your link timecapsuled this contretemps back to an earlier occasion where you persistently ignored consensus. There is no 'personal disclosure' in my statement: there is only a suggestion that in using 'covet', a biblical term related to the 10 commandments, to 'explain' my reactions to your unilateral editing of marginal material, readers may have some insight into the way you interpret the motivations of those who contest your edits.

It's not a matter of what I like or dislike. Ledeen, I repeat, is well-known, this escapes you, for having continually fabricated material to influence public opinion. His POV is therefore not one of objective deliberation over the evidence, but of pushing a particular interpretation, whatever the evidence. I take what the American Ambassador says about what Ledeen did consistently and still does, as more authoritative than what you believe, since the former was privy to the inside details of how Ledeen and his kind systematically distorted evidence. Secondly, many people without Ledeen's notorious record for manipulating evidence sustain precisely the position he asserts. As I said, given Ledeen's known record for being untruthful, it is sensible to cite other sources that say what he said. Unless one does so, one is only using his recycling of the cliché because of the ostensible prestige intimated in his CV, a CV that tells us nothing of his shady, unscrupulous and manipulative past. Wiki asks for the best reliable sources, and Ledeen is, as I showed, not only unreliable, but a known entrepreneur of disinformatsia. I haven't finally 'insisted' on anything. I have argued with sources that illustrate something you were unaware of: that Ledeen is a proven liar. I actually know people in the CIA that worked with him, but that is neither here nor there, since independently of what I know, reliable sources confirm what I asserted. This has nothing to do with WP:NPOV, but with WP:RS. Nishidani (talk) 10:24, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Bogus nonsense. Indeed you are correct when you suggested talking to you was a waste of time.Doright (talk) 05:47, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, each anchored in his own misprisions? That you don't parse what I say, is evidenced in your Parthian shot, the double-whammy of 'bogus nonsense' which, despite the effort to pile on insult, only turns out to be a compliment. 'Bogus' and 'nonsense' are both terms used in dismissive exclamations, alone. Put together, they cancel each other out. For 'Bogus' means 'spurious', or 'sham', and, qualifying 'nonsense' - meaning 'the obverse of meaning' - with the adjective 'bogus' effectively turns out to signify 'a lack of sense that is only fictitious, or spurious in appearance'. In short, in branding my remarks as 'bogus nonsense', you are confessing that my words belie their appearance, to you, of being meaningless, for, on examination, they are, to invert the two negative connotations, 'authentic sense'. The attempt to score works out as a self-goal. But perhaps this is too complex for you. The syntax of the world is not a nursery rhyme. Let's leave it at that then. Nishidani (talk) 09:01, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

thanks

for your comment. It was very thoughtful of you. Nableezy (talk) 21:49, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

articles

I would begin by finishing the merger of 2008 Israel-Gaza conflict into 2007—2008 Israel-Gaza conflict and then working that article. There is also the rocket attack articles and 2008 Israel-Hamas ceasefire. Ultimately a fix up is to be given to Israeli-Palestinian conflict to reflect a more updated chronology. I think the article in The Economist about a 100 year war provides a recent RS framework for historical narrative, although for much of the older stuff there is plenty of scholarly sources.--Cerejota (talk) 12:27, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Please discuss on talk page first

Please discuss on Talk Background. High percentage of children in population and use of human shield are relevant points for background section and go hand in hand together and are relevant. AgadaUrbanit (talk) 15:47, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Please don't edit in what you like, while asking those who might disagree to discuss it with you before reverting. It's an old trick, and won't work Nishidani (talk) 17:29, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

question

How do you deal with dumb people? You are obviously an extremely intelligent man, how do you deal with people who can't go beyond a 5 yr olds logic? Now this is obviously a question in general and in no way can be portrayed as construing that certain people are dumb. Nableezy (talk) 04:48, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
And I find your deconstruction of the phrase 'bogus nonsense' to be one of the finer things I have read on Wikipedia. Nableezy (talk) 04:49, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

I usually shut down the computer, and declare like a temperamental prima donna full of herself that I'll storm off in protest. Then I reflect that actually most people I've met aren't dumb, and are amenable to reason - contrary to belief - and deduce that either the obtusity discerned owes something to the force of ideology, of groupthink from an early age, or that it is, like Hamlet's madness, feigned. It is very useful to act as if you don't understand your interlocutor, particularly if there is a higher well-motivated principle at stake, what one takes to be the defense of one's nation. It makes him exhaust her(his time and good-will, and drives him to withdraw from editing. I think most instances are covered by the latter. It is part of strategy, to make work on wiki not worth the candle.

Societies are viable only if enough people, always a minority, tithe their time and means towards the common good, whatever the difficulties. I don't want to edit wikipedia, given these circumstances. But one does has a civic responsibility, especially in a world that is fast dumbing itself down. The world doesn't need high intelligence so much as an ethical patience towards doing the right thing for a collective good, even if this demands that one sacrifice one's immediate personal interests. In any case, there is always a personal interest in being altruistic. A little constant effort makes it harder for people who act dumb to persist in the charade, while one's own natural irascibility is tempered in the process. That said, I'm in a fucking furious mood these days. Keep well, Nableezy, and don't leave wiki, and don't overcommit. Just tithe your time. It makes a difference, friend.Nishidani (talk) 09:11, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

If it is so useful a tactic, how come it is never employed by you and others who speak as intelligent people (the ones that immediately come to mind are Tiamut and eleland)? Everything I have read shows that those who feign incompetence succeed in forcing through their changes, if only by sheer will. As far as leaving, please, I'm from Chicago, we dont play that bullshit, somebody acting like a *expletive removed* should be slapped like a *expletive removed*, and I rather enjoy providing a literary slap. Peace, Nableezy (talk) 21:22, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

This is not about winning, and tactics. Chicago, ay, Saul Bellow's town, but also, lamentably, that of Ravelstein aka Allan Bloom, that great pseud who gave a Platonic varnish to neocon thuggery! Which reminds me, I'm in too foul a mood to observe my own principles, and if punished, will probably serve out my time rereading John Updike, who died the other day. Don't lead with your chin, then, keep your nose clean, unlike the rest of us reprobates. And an eye out if Tiamut is subject to 'tactics'. Best wishes. I wish I had your urbane equanimity. Keep in touch. Salaam/Shalom Nishidani (talk) 21:40, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Sure it is not about winning and tactics, it is about making sure that an 'encyclopedia' presents information in a way that is worthy of the title. But when others demand on playing this game, when they really aren't that good at it and only 'win' because the others refuse to play, what else is to be done? Im probably making too much of this, so Ill leave you be to read the fine words of Updike. Nableezy (talk) 22:08, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

It just needs what chess addicts call Sitzfleisch, and to continue the metaphor, at times, 'more arse than Jessie the elephant'. That's why I said don't overcommit. I have at times, and get worn out, particularly since I really am attracted to the idea of a public encyclopedia, done by free unpaid labour, that aspires to secure knowledge that the run-down informational circuits of our smalltown global world systematically ignores, even though the quiet work of dedicated scholars publishes such things. Best wishes, friend.Nishidani (talk) 22:20, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Continuing from 2008-2009 Israel-Gaza conflict talk page

Nishandi, I was referring to the post where you said, "Don't be so rude. Your time is no more valuable than my own. Were I as ill-mannered as you seem to be above . . ." I realize that calling someone rude and ill mannered (particularly when he has been somewhat rude and ill mannered) is not exactly be epic on the personal attack scale, but the discussion on the article has been remarkably civil for such a contentious topic, I was just trying to put the brakes on before things got out of hand. Blackeagle (talk) 23:25, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

I have a file on people who call me 'Nishandi'. It's quite fascinating. On a point of etiquette. To ask a person not to be rude does not constitute a personal attack, but, to the contrary, is a request to desist from making a personal attack. Not that I really give a rodent's sphincter for being hit with the odd verbal shell. It's just that these things tend to supply folks with pretexts to get me off wiki.

What you did repeats a mistake made by several administrators at the top of this page. It may be my age, and the fact that I was born before popular science convinced people that quantum physics had abolished 'cause and effect', but I cannot but once again, remark on the confusion. It's rather like Martin Amis's novel, 'Time's Arrow', everything runs backward, and causal relations over time go arse over tit. read more carefully next time. Nishidani (talk) 23:33, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree with you on asking someone not to be rude. Calling someone "ill-mannered", on the other hand, is more of a personal attack and that kind of casts the request not to be rude in a more accusatory light. Blackeagle (talk) 23:40, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Archiving

I've noticed your present archive is approaching a reasonable size limit, so I've created a nice shiny new one for you (Archive 8), labelled "February 2009" above. I've re-labelled your existing archive "November 2008 - January 2009" above.

There's enough room for you to put all the "logorrhoea" above into the existing archive, if you want to; new stuff from February onwards should go in the new archive.

Hope this is OK with you. --NSH001 (talk) 00:43, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Sorry for Middle East anecdote

Sorry, if you were offended by "Middle East anecdote". Please consider I'm the part of that region AgadaUrbanit (talk) 12:01, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

What anecdote?Nishidani (talk) 12:21, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Latin gobbledygook?

Umm... here. Pardon my ignorance - what does "et idem indignor quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus?" mean? To my shame, I never studied Latin. GrizzledOldMan (talk) 01:02, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

'And all the same I get pissed off when that good old geezer Homer nods off.' I'm terribly sorry. It must indeed look vulgar to drop those old quotations one had to drudge and drag into memory in the days of my fossilized youth, on pain of being thwacked with a cane. I'd come to think, these days you can check up anything obscure just by googling on the net. We used to say 'even Homer nods' for 'even the best of us don't get it right all of the time': it's a phrase one drops to explain why sometimes very intelligent people make blunders. Regards Nishidani (talk) 08:59, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

carter interview

You probably already saw this but I thought it might make a nice addition to your reading list: Riz Khan, 'The Future of Gaza: An Interview with Jimmy Carter,' Counterpunch, January 29, 2009 Nableezy (talk) 00:56, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

I didnt know if you were maintaining a list of things for you to read or as basic reference for anybody, but Ill definitely let you know of anything I come across, but something tells me you are much better at these sort of things, so Id ask if you could update your list with things you have already found. A lot of interesting things up there I hadnt seen before, and on quite a few I have had to consider additions to my list of favorite Israelis on my user page. Peace, Nableezy (talk) 08:15, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

It's a bit short on pieces justifying the war, and the way it was conducted, except for Cordesman and Walzer (the last, if you know his books, seems embrrassed into succinctness however - it is difficult for this theorist to provide a coherent warrant for his position, in terms of his more general thinking-). My point is to list intelligent debates or opinions, as opposed to the usual trivia, from whatever side of the divide, and not simply to provide a laundry list of articles I approve of.Nishidani (talk) 09:40, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

I understand now, perhaps because I live in the states I dont really see the need to read more about the justification of the war, thats what FOX news is for ;). But Ill keep a look out for the ones that piss me off the most as well. Nableezy (talk) 17:30, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Interesting

Thought you might find this page interesting.
Warm regards, Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 23:09, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Hussayni jailed

On the business of Hussayni being jailed for 10 years by the British, I have a source that says no record of his trial has ever surfaced. Is it possible that there was no such trial, and Samuel simply announced he'd been amnestied, in order to "balance" the otherwise extraordinary release of the violent revolutionary? PR^talk 09:44, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Provide the source. Storrs as military governor and head of a military administration, sentenced Husayni to 10 years imprisonment, and the basis was one inflammatory speech which al-Husayni was said to have delivered on the occasion of the disturbances. Whether this was a formal act of a military tribunal, as some sources say, or Storr's judgement on reviewing the evidence (an inflammatory speech) is not clear. Clarification from an RS would be welcome. Regards Nishidani (talk) 11:35, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

PalestineRemembered may have something earth shattering here. Would be interesting to see if this theory has support, as it certainly should, here on Wikipedia. Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 15:15, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Now, now, Jaakobou. Ideologies are easy to wear, and we all have them. Some of us try to unravel the skeins of our native bias by the assiduous use of logic and evidence. We never outlive them, but we do come to see that even our adversaries suffer from the same constraints as we, and we do well to credit them with at least an equal amount of effort to refine them ('out of existence' as James Joyce would have said) as we ourselves think we are striving to do in the case of the parochial tradition that weighs on our mental shoulders. PR simply offered me evidence for something. I hadn't thought of it (trial or simply a judgement by a military governor using his discretionary powers). If (s)he comes up with something I hadn't thought of, I and other editors will be in debt. I think you do well not to chiack or kibitz. We all do mentally, but it ain't helpful online.Nishidani (talk) 18:56, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

I think PalestineRemembered raised something of immense value and you should help them explore it rather than send them off to "The Twilight Zone" with a single obolus (rather than two) so they can't pay their toll for way back up the River Styx. Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 11:30, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

PR raised something of 'immense value' ('I have raised a monument more durable than brass/And one that doth the royal scale of pyramids surpass'. Gladstone's version of Horace, Odes, Book 3,30), and since brass is slang for a coin of small value, you think of obols. How PR then became two people ('them') and was then despatched by me with a one-way cheapskate ticket to שאול has me, to make a pun in your native language, out'foxed'! I was even more perplexed by the suggestion that the envisioned return trip, once Charon was paid under the table, would be by the river Styx, somewhere in the infernal sticks, when Charon plied his bark on the Acheron ('la trista riviera d'Acheronte', as Dante, an hermenutic insider in matters of the underworld, informs us. By contrast, for Dante, the Styx, in distinction to what Hesiod tells us, is a 'swamp' with a tristo ruscel where the souls over whom wrath has pressed its sway (l'anime di color cui vinse l'ira) languish). Lacking Maimonides' Guide to the Perplexed to unriddle the issue, thinking of Hamlet's 'the bourne from where no traveller returns', etc., I wikiwandered about, looked up Charon, without illumination (naturally, since candles are snuffed in hell), only to find more things to correct, like the suggestion at note 1 on that page that Callimachus's Hecale fragment 31 holds the key to the riddle (source Smith's dictionary).

Who wrote that crap? I asked myself. There's no mention of placing coin, oboloi or brass in the Suidas fragment no.31 of the Hecale. That is an allusion, au contraire to fragment 278 in Pfeiffer's text Callimachus , Oxford UP, 1949,, vol.2, p.262, now ordered as fragment 99 by A.S.D. Hollis, in his edition, Callimachus:Hecale, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1990 pp.284f.

So as we sit down to lunch here, I will have my appetite ruined by these sombre mysteries, Jaakobou. In the meantime, fix that note in the Charon page, as per the above indications, or I will take my siesta with indigestion. There's a good chap! Nishidani (talk) 12:21, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

The world needs too much fixing and I am but one person with good nature. Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 16:04, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Uh-ha! Another allusion, again to Hamlet, or is that Horatio?

The (world) is out of joint, o wretched spite

That I was ever born to set it right.

Well, off I go, Sadsack with a mop and pail learning, the pale fire (Timon of Athens) of reflected erudition, to fix Charon, feeling like Grumpy in the chorus, and sighing:

Heigh ho, heigh ho, it's off to woik I go.

Fixing wiki when a note looks dicky,

Hey ho, hayo! Nishidani (talk) 17:38, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

On the business of Hussayni being jailed for 10 years by the British, I have a source that says no record of his trial has ever surfaced. Is it possible that there was no such trial, and Samuel simply announced he'd been amnestied, in order to "balance" the otherwise extraordinary release of the violent revolutionary? PRtalk 09:44, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

What is the source ? I am very much interested !!

I have this on my side :

According to E. Elat (Haj Amin el Husseini, Ex Mufti of Jerusalem (Tel Aviv 1968)), Hussayni was convicted by a secret military court of violation of paragraphs 32, 57, and 63 of the Ottoman code - all of which have to do with incitement to riot. Proceedings of the hearings - which were held with Hussayni himself in absentia - were never published.

Sir Robert Storrs, then Military Governor of Jerusalem, wrote, "The immediate fomenter of the Arab excesses had been one Haj Amin al Husseini... like most agitators, having incited the man in the street to violence and probable punishment, he fled." (Storrs, Orientations London 1937 p 388, cited in Taggar, The Mufti of Jerusalem and Palestine Arab Politics 1930 - 1937 (Garland Publishing, 1986)).

Ceedjee (talk) 13:53, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, CJ, as usual prompt and to the point. Let's edit that in then.Nishidani (talk) 14:09, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Done. I've just changed your 'Robert' to (Sir) Ronald (Storrs). I'll do some checking to refine the note with pagination in due course. regards Nishidani (talk) 14:17, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Storrs is hardly a good witness for any of this, since he seems to have conspired with Jabotinsky to prepare for a revolution, turning a blind eye to the guns and the other preparations - from the Palin Report p.52,68: "It seems scarcely credible that the fact that these men had been got together and were openly drilling at the back of Lemel School and on Mount Scopas [sic] should have been known as it undoubtedly was, to the population during the month of March - it was organised after the demonstration of the 8th - and yet no word of it reached either the Governorate or the Administration until after the riots." PR^talk 18:21, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

All wiki requires is a reliable source. Storrs' wrote a memoir, he was military governor, and CJ has provided us with two other RS that mention his account. There are a good many misleading reports in history that qualify as RS, but this is not material to the question here. One cancels out such RS only by citing a later RS which exposes the former account as false, or untrue. So far there is no indication of this, and therefore what Storrs and sources say must stand. If you have a contrasting source, by all means let's add that. Nishidani (talk) 18:42, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

I have the 1945 "definitive" edition of Orientations. The quote appears on page 331; presumably Taggar was using an earlier edition. RolandR (talk) 19:16, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Pappé

Act 1

• Ilan Pappé, Le nettoyage ethnique de la Palestine, fayard, 2006, p.80 :

Quoi qu’il en soit, au bout de[s] 3 jours [suivant le vote par l’ONU de la résolution sur la partition], les correspondants de presse étrangers qui suivaient les manifestations et les grèves constatèrent (...) un désir évident de retour à la normale Mais le rapide retour à la normale et le souhait des Palestiniens de ne pas se laisser entraîner dans une guerre civile posaient problème [aux] dirigeants sionistes (...)"

Comment. The resolution for partition was the 29th of November. Foreign correspondents spoke of a manifest desire for a return to normality. Morris corroborates this:-

'In general, by the end of 1947 the Palestinians had a healthy and demoralising respect for the Yishuv's military power. A Jewish intelligence source in October 1947 described the situation in the countryside:</blockquote

'The fellah is afraid of the Jewish terrorists . .who might bomb his village and destroy his property . .The town dweller admits that his strength is insufficient to fight the Jewish force and hopes for salvation from outside . .the moderate majority . .are confused, frightened . .They are stockpiling provisions . .are are being coerced and pressured by extremists . .(but) all they want is peace.'Morris, 2004, p.32

• Nevertheless : Ilan Pappé, La guerre de 1948 en Palestine, La Fabrique Editions, 2000, p.111 :

Chapter title : "Le déchainement de la violence"

Le lendemain du vote par l’ONU de la résolution sur la partition, la Palestine fut balayée dès l’aube par un vent de violence, début de la guerre civile qui allait durer jusqu’au 15 mai 1948.

Comment. There is no contradiction between the two statements. For the first refers to what foreign correspondents regarded as a desire for normality and peace in the immediate aftermath of the resolution, from late Nov to early Dec., and Morris himself says that the majority wished for peace at that specific period. The second remark (p.76 of the first English edition) is somewhat hyperbolic in its metaphor, since what is referred to are two attacks on buses, a general strike for three days, and otherwise only 'sporadic' violence for a few weeks. Pappé's phrasing is belied by his own details, which is not a crime in narrative historians. But he does specify that the first attacks after the Resolution were made by Arabs.Nishidani (talk) 15:18, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

• First Special Report to the Security Council : The Problem of Security in Palestine, A/AC.21/9, 16 February 1948 :

Comment. This is a security report made two and a half months after the 'lendemain', (February)and refers to a report made in January. No one denies things precipitated from late December onwards. Pappéìs own book reflects precisely all the points made in the primary sources you give here (above and below)

‘The Arab attacks, which culminated in January 1948, were of such scope and force that they succeeded in shaking the confidence of the Jewish community, whose last experience of such a period of hostilities had been back in 1937. Israeli historians have called this period the ‘nadir of the Yishuv’ -summarizing the mood of the Jewish community in Palestine in those days. The actions against the settlements and the major routes certainly caught the Zionist leadership off its guard, and it had already misjudged the intensity and severity of the Arab reaction. The dismay and despair comes out very clearly from notes of the Mapai council meetings at the beginning of February 1948. Mapai members were particularly concerned about Jerusalem’s fate and blamed Ben Gurion, who was present at those meetings, for inadequately preparing the community for the struggle. The Arab siege of isolated Jewish settlements in the Negev was another sore point. Ben Gurion refused to describe the situation in dire terms and insisted, in this hindsight proved him right, that the local Arab effort in Palestine had failed.’ Ilan Pappé, The Making of the Arab-Israeli Conflict,, 1957-1951, I.B.Tauris, 1994, London p.78

Nishidani (talk) 15:18, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

§ I.2 : "2. It is because of the extreme gravity of the situation in Palestine now, and the anticipated worsening of the conditions there

§ II.3 : "The representative of the Mandatory Power informed the Commission at its sixteenth meeting on January 1948, that as regards Arabs and Jews in Palestine "elements on each side were engaged in attaching or in taking reprisals indistinguishable from attacks", and that as a result, were it not "for the efforts of the security forces over the past month, the two communities would by now have been fully engaged in internecine slaughter"

§ II.5 : The documents reports 46 casualities (deaths) among British, 427 among Arabs and 327 among Jews... The [Palestinian] arabs were killed by the Jews... According to Pappé who killed the Jews?

Act 2

• Ilan Pappé, Le nettoyage ethnique de la Palestine, fayard, 2006, p.81 :

"[En décembre, les dirigeants arabes], en particulier ceux des pays limitrophes de la Palestine préféraient ne pas prendre de décision individuelle ou radicale."

• First Special Report to the Security Council : The Problem of Security in Palestine, A/AC.21/9, 16 February 1948 :

§I.3.C : "Powerful Arab interests, both inside and outside Palestine, are defying the resolution of the General Assembly and are engaged in a deliberate effort to alter by force the settlement envisaged therein."

§II.6 : " (...) The Subsequent communication of 6 February (...) from the representative of the Arab Higher Committee :

"b. The Arabs of Palestine consider that any attempt by the Jews or any power or group of powers to establish a Jewish State in Arab territory is an act of aggression which will be resisted in self-defense by force."

"g. The Arabs of Palestine made a solemn declaration before the United Nations, before God and history, that they will never submit or yield to any power going to Palestine to enforce partition. "The only way to establish partition is first to wipe them out – man women and child."

User:Jayjg

Referred it to WP:ANI - please add your comments. I can see no hope of making any headway with his stance. GrizzledOldMan (talk) 22:01, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

That is a page that has defeated some years of extensive attempts at improvement. It can be improved, but neither by litigation, nor expostulation, but simply by mastery of the rulebook. Jayjg has mastered it, (I haven't even read it) and uses it, at least there, instrumentally. I seriously doubt whether the rulebook, as partially cited, justifies his many interpretations of it on that page's history. Therefore, if one wants to work the page one must be ready for some considerable work in rule interpretation. I can't do that, but I do know Shahak's work thoroughly, which is why I hope to see the page come up to NPOV snuff.Nishidani (talk) 22:22, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia can be a bit of an Alice in Wonderland (the rules mean exactly what I say they do) sort of place to be. And, if you're the kind of editor who deletes rather than adds, you don't need to develop an in-depth knowledge of the rules. To suppress something you don't like, in most cases you could get by by questioning the reliability of the sources or stating that it is not neutral (the idea, of course, is to stop a particular viewpoint from being represented, not to ensure that all the significant viewpoints are represented fairly). -- ZScarpia (talk) 15:08, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

As a rule of thumb, there is an inverse relationship between intimacy with the rules and knowledge of any subject. The best games require few rules (chess, bunnyhole, and, uh, that thing people do to keep global demographics in a tizz). The more rules, as in wiki and Italy, the less is any law observed.Nishidani (talk) 15:13, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Interesting! And, I suppose, as a general principle, the greater the number of rules, the poorer the drafting and the greater the number of contradictions will be, giving crafty lawyers the opportunity to twist them to their own ends. -- ZScarpia (talk) 15:54, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

The OJ Simpson case, or the fact that Silvio Berlusconi has repeatedly violated all sorts of laws from tax evasion to corrupting magistrates and government investigators, and yet, by the sheer power of his media interests and wealth, he can twist public perceptions and pay lawyers (he got his own defence team senate tickets, where they now sit and rewrite the laws) to cavil for 10 years on every suit brought against him, until the statute of limitations (which he has lowered) expires and gets him off the rap. Nishidani (talk) 16:11, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

I hate you!

I keep having to look up words - things which I've heard or sometimes used, but haven't actually ever known the precise definition of! Argh! Brain hurts. Too... much... reading... middle-school-language-newspapers! :) GrizzledOldMan (talk) 23:56, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

:Please review this diff, and check positions on history. Time. Dates. Remove this message GrizzledOldMan (talk) 16:26, 9 February 2009 (UTC) Nope, not so irrelevant now - wikilawyering continues. GrizzledOldMan (talk) 11:45, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, I really agree with you on Shahak being completely misrepresented in those articles - they're taking a lot of his writings completely out of context. In my opinion, he was more interested in analyzing the roots of the Jewish psyche and how it formed the basis for the Israeli mentality, than laying blame. But some people don't like to be criticized, and from the response, he hit a very sore spot with his proddings. However, misrepresenting as the critics might be, it comes down to finding sources which actually put them into context. For example, I really didn't understand Clausewitz until I read Harry G. Summers' "On Strategy: A Critical Analysis of the Vietnam War" - but sadly, Summers is pretty much alone in the field. Perhaps there's a book out there sitting on a dusty shelf which actually examines Shahak's work with a less defensive mindset. But until it turns up - it seems the critics have pretty much free reign on Wikipedia. Sadly, it seems like the best we might do for Shahak's article is to tone it down so he doesn't look like he's saluting the Nazi swastika. GrizzledOldMan (talk) 16:37, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Just a small point. There's no such thing as a 'Jewish psyche', any more than there is an American mind, a Japanese mind, or a Chinese psyche. Nations are fictions, as are national identities. There are only individuals, who belong to social groups, ethnic or otherwise, classes, and faiths, each differing, which make up a political entity called the nation. It is very dangerous to generalize about types, since this kind of categorical abstraction is just an etiolated form of what we all deplore 'racism', but isn't recognized for what it is, a form of mass labelling that ignores the profound differences between individuals in any one society, ethnic group or class. One needs patience with that article, and I agree: the best thing is to work with patience to tone down the absurd imbalance there.Regards Nishidani (talk) 16:47, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Gaza Mosques

No worries but thanks for the response. I see the article still has the 24 number but sourced with the Haaretz article that says 20. So you'd like to change it back to 20? I think that's what I'd do. At least until we can find a good source for a higher number. --JGGardiner (talk) 09:18, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

I haven't been around myself and I'm actually a little reluctant to jump into those long debates. I'm not too worried about the number because I'm sure it is at least that high if the preliminary Haaretz number is 20. But with all the scrutiny I wouldn't want anyone to claim a double-standard so we should just stick with what we have an RS for. Hopefully the fog will lift soon, like Cerejota keeps saying and then we'll have a good source for the final number. --JGGardiner (talk) 09:35, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Nishidani. You have new messages at Cerejota's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Cerejota (talk) 10:51, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Milhist stuff on Gaza. If anyone comes by material, please refer the info with a link to User:Cerejota/OpCastLeadNishidani (talk) 10:59, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Just a wee technical note

I noticed among your comments on GOM's talk page: "I find it very odd that a bot might make content adjustments or prefer one edit against another." It didn't (and no bot would be permitted that status if it did). The diff provided above by GOM (and now struck out) shows the net effect of 26 edits - at the top of the diff you will see the note "(25 intermediate revisions not shown)". You can easily produce such diffs yourself by clicking any pair of those little round buttons opposite the relevant diffs on any "history" page; or clicking "(curr)" on any old version will show the cumulative diff between that version and the current one.

Hope this helps --NSH001 (talk) 13:35, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Primary Sources

I'm not sure what the problem with using a primary source is, if there's no interpretation or conclusions drawn from it - this provides what seems to be a decent explanation. GrizzledOldMan (talk) 23:01, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Segev copyright

There is a formal system for recording this sort of stuff (most commonly applies to images, but can also be used for text) called OTRS. If you need help on OTRS, Avi's your man (he's a long-standing OTRS volunteer).

I'll just add that it's ludicrous, all that bizarre shit that you're having to put up with on Israel Shahak (the world would be a much better and safer place with a few hundred more Shahaks around). I wish I had more time to follow it all.

--NSH001 (talk) 23:14, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Hi Nishidani. I have been observing the spirited debates going on at Israel Shahak. Good on you, for your continuing fine efforts to improve the article. You have my support, and I would like to offer assistance if it helps. Logicman1966 (talk) 12:04, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

I think, given the atmosphere, that serious editors will have to sit down, review all sources, possibly write out an improved NPOV version each, on their own computers, independently, and then when the literature is mastered, the sources familiar, come back and work on the page. He was a major figure in Israeli debates, a man all who knew him appreciated. Until this atmosphere of edit-warring to make improvement of the article impossible evaporates, touching the text in piecemeal edits will only generate that kind of reckless bartering that leads to the kind of pastiche we have. He had several books, only one is focused on. Look at the long term benefit of informed collegial work on it. He deserves a good neutral page, and it will only reflect well on Israel if he has one. Regards Nishidani (talk) 12:37, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Apologies

Apologies for the offensive approach; I would have changed it had it been possible. Perhaps it's best if we both consider WP:CIV as it seems to be lacking in our communications. Certainly, that Ariel Sharon comment still lies as it was after I've asked you to refactor it.
Regards, Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 09:04, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

No need for apologies (copied from Jaakobou's page since my last remark was erased)

Jaakobou. I don't think that, in this, you need apologize, though I appreciate the gesture. You made a judgement, and someone else disagreed. Though our differences are, as often our exchanges on broader themes underline, irreconcilable, we are both grown men. Were I to dwell at length on 'tone', 'innuendo', 'the etiquette of address', minor things that catch my attention in the flow of comments, and in turn harp on them by reference to WP:AGF, WP:Civil, WP:whatever. I could take exception to a huge range of things, and make heavy weather of them on various administrative sites. Many otherwise innocuous (for the editor) remarks by my interlocutors rub me up the wrong way, perhaps because of my training in literature. I try to keep these sensitivities offpage, and not interpret publicly exchanges as I would were one discussing a Henry James novel. Efficiency in editing requires this distinction, and those various rules are predominantly, I assume, for newbies coming of internet forums, rather than for experienced wiki editors. Otherwise the temptation is to consistently 'work the rules' as though they were instruments of a duel, rather than a means to facilitate the collective writing of a text. As to Sharon, I wrote, 'in a minor key'. My substantive point was, no population should be told it mirrors its leaders. I have a harsh view of him, and instanced him to underline that point. I could have said as well that Mohammad Amin al-Husayni or Saddam Hussein did not 'mirror' the people they claimed to represent. Warm hummus!Nishidani (talk) 10:26, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

p.s.I've just noted the problem you raised 'calling my notes flies in fly-bottles,'. Jaakobou, this was an allusion to Ludwig Wittgenstein's remark about the nature of philosophy, and had absolutely nothing to do with your remarks. Rather, I cited his remark because it reflected my opinion that, when there is a problem (Judea/Samaria vs. West Bank) that seems irresolvable, with arguments spinning like a merry-go-round, one must strive to get off the merry-go-round, or let the 'fly' (the bottled problem) out of its confinement. It was a reference to all the threads we have written on that issue, not to anything you said. Perhaps I should not make recondite allusions, since they may look, decontextualized, as if they were personal, and give rise to this sort of misprision. If you have any apprehensions that I am being obscure or personal in our exchanges, a brief note on my page is the way to go. I'll clarify there.Nishidani (talk) 10:39, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

What worth is there to such notes when they are repeatedly ignored? The point was made with Ariel Sharon who is replaceable with Mohammad Amin al-Husayni or Saddam Hussein just as easily as Ireland would be replaced with of Zimbabowe or Saudi-Arabia ... 'in a minor key', it can easily offend. Even with today's democratic leaders (unlike the 'clan' despot societies), Germany took responsibily for a fairly singular genocide. Under Arab rule there were multiple occassions of similar -- yet far less mothodological -- activity by the Arab world but all you hear is "Nakba" this and "corruption masterminding (Allah said so) Jews"[3] that. It would seem that one standard that not even the "enlightened world" has ever followed given to the only Jewish state and another, a much lower one, given to the 22 Arab states? Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 12:54, 1 March 2009 (UTC) clarify 12:57, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Jaakobou. Everything can offend, if one allows oneself to be so disposed. I could find the language used to describe most things I am fairly deeply informed about 'offensive'. I don't make it a way of life to talk about this, or allow it to influence me, since I aspire to be rational, and reason, contrary to David Hume and Shakespeare, is no longer rational when it panders to, or is a slave of, the passions. Passions are things like being x-centric, x being one's national, ethnic, sportive or sectarian identity above everything else, and anyone else's. It's as easy as a poop in bed to be x-centric: being civilized means accepting the simplest, most unpalatable truth around: the intensities of belief and values of my partisan upbringing are felt by most people, to the same degree, with a different partisan upbringing, and therefore, if I am going to live in the world, I must understand that I can't bring my overpowering partisan beliefs to bear on other people, but rather only what I share with them, an aspiration to rise above the fray of frayed passions, by the exercise of reason and a logic that assumes all parties to a dispute have an equal entitlement to dignity. The more certain one is of one's own beliefs, the more those of others are understood only by caricature. The more one sees in the 'other' some common ground, a mirror of one's tacit dimensions, the more one understands oneself. Martin Buber said much of this in 'I and Thou'. Please read it. Nishidani (talk) 14:40, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

I've never felt you trule believe that equal entitlement to dignity thing you now preach. Certainly, when you minimise the raping of Jewish communities under Arab rule as "they had it good compared with Europe" or "oh common, communities were raped only a couple times". If you believe in dignity, you will stop disrespecting the nature of some of the most horrific attacks on minorities in history and you will also stop comparing Jewish/Israeli figures such as Ariel Sharon -- who is not Baruch Goldstein just yet -- with the likes of world leaders who forced non-Muslims to wear bells on their garments and forced women to wear shoes of two differnt colors.

I've given you contact to some people who can help you find reading material into this (you've refused to watch the documentary) and it would be honorable of you to give this topic a sincere look outside the scope of apologetic writers you've been reading thus far. -- Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 15:28, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

p.s. I'd like an explanation to where you place the following text under "entitlement to dignity" and "protected by law" - As non-Muslims, the heads of Jewish households were slapped in the face when they paid their annual tax, a humiliation they endured for centuries. Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 15:42, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Any documentary you would have me watch can be paralleled by material like this, available abundantly. We're here to edit articles fairly, not air historic grievances, with you talking about bells on toes in one decree in Baghdad a thousand years ago, and me telling you to read Sassoon Somekh's Baghdad, Yesterday: The Making of an Arab Jew. This is pointless. Nishidani (talk) 16:12, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Your recent reply seems to be a disguistingly innapropriate jusitification of the humiliation and dehumanization of Jews and even their genocide thoughout 1400 years of abuse, with a couple videos of misguided Israeli soldiers in the Second Intifada (when Suicide Bombings were all the rage). Congrats for the immaculate incivility (some would just call it the A word), Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 18:35, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

It wasn't intended as a provocation. You keep harping on Jewish humiliation at the hands of Arabs for 1400 years, as if I was in a state of denial. The video by the way has nothing to do with the wave of suicide bombings several years ago. It was filmed three months ago. It is fairly typical of what happens on the West Bank on a daily basis for the last 20 years. Youtube has several hundred from the past few years. Let's drop it. We talk at cross-purposes, and that only means one is tempted to get cross, over that have nothing to do with editing wiki.Nishidani (talk) 20:13, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Justification/Minimization of multiple genocides and 1000 year long humiliations on 2500 year old communities is just an honorable cross-purpose. Surly, the best way to show that you can see grave injustice and still claim that Jews were (A) treated honorably ("protected"), and (B) the Palestinian Arabs are on moral high-ground; is to minimize anything that Jews are not responsible for (like a military grade rocket hitting a classroom today or 75% of a Jewish community wiped and their property raped 300 years ago) and to portray Jewish people as dishonorable... suggest that this is a Jewish trait and call it a cross-purpose morally blind day. Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 21:37, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, you don't listen, move goalposts, extrapolate imaginary views from nuanced remarks that then arouse unnerving suspicions about your interlocutor's putative subtexts, return with a vengeance to your favourite theme, which is more or less the position of Moses Maimonides on Yemen in the 11th century as a paradigm for what his family suffered from the Almohads in the Maghreb, extended over all of Islam (while he found sanctuary in Egypt, Nableezy's original homeland), and over all of time. All interpretations are subject to human interests. The position you insist on is used to justify pure force in expelling Palestinians, as Arabs who are intrinsically anti-Semitic, in this view, and therefore an 'existential threat' to the security of Israel, even in their homeland on the West Bank. This position is identical with the extremist interpretations of halakha and the Book of Joshua's account of the dispossession of the original inhabitants of Canaan promoted by many rabbis in West Bank settlements. The Palestinians are there viewed as Amalekites, and are compelled, even if the analogy is incorrect, to suffer what Amalekites suffered in the Tanakh, a sort of odium theologicum. They are not permitted an autonomous identity, but are besieged by historical clichés about 'Islam', 'terrorism', 'Amalekites', 'nomadic invaders' of the Jewish homeland, etc, entangled up in a huge alien web of readings of another, relatively new, people's history they knew nothing about. My position is essentially that of Bernard Lewis: nothing in Arab history really compares to the odium theologicum of Western anti-Semitism. Attempts to rewrite history as though there were no difference only serve to provide ideological cover for the geopolitical interests of certain sectors of the Israeli nomenklatura. I differ from Lewis in thinking that the foundation of Israel after the Holocaust transferred the legitimate horror and fears aroused by their tremendous experience of virulent European hatred onto a people that, relatively, had very little in common with European prejudices of that kind, and that thereafter the 'national resistance' by Palestinians to occupation and dispossession has been consistently interpreted as anti-Semitic, or 'terroristic' or as an 'existential threat', rooted in some larger transhistorical 'Arab/Islamic' mindset. You know now my position: I know yours. We're here to write articles neutrally. not to wage cultural wars. This clarified, let's drop it (as I have asked for several times). Of course, if you wish to keep posting your remarks on my page, I won't erase them. But I am busy, and will no longer have time to reply, since you don't seem to read what I write.Nishidani (talk) 10:44, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Quite the opposite, it is you that (admittedly) refuses to listen. There's no benefit for society in a self-inflicted victimhood/dehumanization narrative. I hear some people have a trademark on what constitues Justice™ but calling another people decendants of apes and pigs for a thousand years and claiming its related to something that occurred in the 20th century is bullshit. Anyone promoting these bullshit narratives is holding hands with antisemitism.

p.s. You're right though about one thing though, which is that I've skipped your text (this time). Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 23:02, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

In general, one should only 'skip' texts when they are 'ropey'.Nishidani (talk) 09:52, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

What to say

Hello Nishidani, I think the proper response to such silliness is one of the first Arabic words I learned as a youngster. Tuz, emphasis on the t, is most easily translated as 'fuck it', where fuck it takes the meaning 'I dont give a fuck anymore, this is dumb as hell'. If you get really frustrated, you can use 'elf tuz', or a thousand fuck its. I realize you are fond of words that make me consult a dictionary, but I though this might be a little simpler and hopefully allow you to spare some energy for things that matter. Hope to see you around, Nableezy (talk) 20:23, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Would be better to say 'thousand and one fuck it's.

p.s. it's 'alf, not elf. Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 21:41, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Why thank you, somebody who did not grow up with Arabic being spoken in his household has corrected me on an ad-hoc transliteration. That is so very generous of you. You should keep in mind though that there are a number of dialects of Arabic and an Egyptian saying one thousand would sound closer to elf then 'alf. You are probably right on a standard transliteration, but I was just giving an approximate transliteration of a phrase that I am quite familiar with. So in the end, elf tuz. And again, to repeat something that a much smarter man than me has told you, it's means it is. Its is the word you are looking for. Nableezy (talk) 21:50, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

And a rather interesting lesson in how to revise history to prove yourself right. If a professor did such a thing he would be fired. I am starting to understand why this whole thing is hopeless. Nableezy (talk) 22:29, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Always a joy to correct a fellow editor and have them reciprocate in a respectful manner. Others take badly to corrections and end up sounding off like an antisemite. Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 09:40, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Well I hope you take my following correction of your prose in a joyful spirit. Your last sentence should read: 'Others take badly to corrections and end up sounding off like antisemites.' There is a lack of congruence in the plural subject and the singular in the following clause, probably because, after the initial neutral generalization, your mind then focused on myself as the person whose behaviour illustrates that generalization, and forgot to readjust, recursively, for grammar. Nishidani (talk) 10:55, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Need not worry about my grammar, but about those who sound off like antisemites. Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 22:47, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Jaakabou, just so you know, my elf tuz was said comically, as in elf tuz, why argue about whether to write elf or 'alf. Not sounding off. Nableezy (talk) 07:09, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Upon further review of the map issue, he may actually be right. Would you happen to know of any resources to find maps of the old city of Jerusalem showing the quarters? Nableezy (talk) 22:37, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

On the other hand, since it is the same 'where', there is only a source difference between 'wain' and 'fain', or elf and alf (given normal problems with transliteration). On the other hand it might only be temporal or temporary thing, as in 'baboose ....' CasualObserver'48 (talk) 02:11, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Much more than temporal, my people get to the point. What is better, 'shou hadha' or 'ee da'? It may be a personal preference but it is my opinion that spoken Arabic has been perfected in Cairo. Not a wasted syllable will be heard, and yet the language retains its musical, almost rhythmic quality. that might be the Chicago pride in meNableezy (talk) 07:09, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

I either don't know, forgot, or never knew that one. In Aswan, it was a surprise that no one knew 'hobis' and I learned it was 'ersh' (? I never could quite say it right). Over the years it had been 'nan' and 'japati' and a host of others; all of which are far better than Wonder Bread, but ersh from my local Nubian baker was the sandiest of the lot. Only local speakers know details; my learning was job/survival based. Many times in tourist parts of Aswan, I was asked if I were Israeli because of my accent on Arabic; no, I explained, I had learned it by ear, from close by. My first basis in Arabic comes from previous Persian usage of the same or root words. Elsewhere, although I had noted the difference, it was still quite a while before I learned the geographic distinctions, say, between kaif al halak and shlonak. I certainly understand mid-west pride, many of my flights started in Chicago. CasualObserver'48 (talk) 08:29, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Ladies and Gentlemen, I think the only way to end this contretemps would be some doggerel. Something along the lines of Coleridge,

In Wikidom, did Quibbler-can

A static transcript once decree

Where Elf, the gnomish letter ran,

Alf should be writ, so let that be..... Nishidani (talk) 08:38, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Shoo Haada' is definitely a more common phrasing here. There's even jokes around it where you ask a friend einta bidubi? and to complete the joke they reply Shoo-bidubi. Good times, Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 16:27, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Primary and Secondary Sources

Apropos King David Hotel Bombing/Israel Shahak. The following discussion arose on the former article's talk page, and has been removed here.

Just a query,ZScarpia. Since both were involved, are Begin and Katz's accounts to be considered Primary or Secondary Sources?Nishidani (talk) 10:07, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Good question. The contents of the books have the characteristics of primary and secondary sources in different parts. I would say that the sections being used here should properly be seen as primary source material. What's your opinion? -- ZScarpia (talk) 12:55, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

At Israel Shahak, it has been long been hammered home that his account of an incident in which he was (putatively, according to him) involved, written thirty years after the event, is a primary source, and hence must yield way to secondary sources. The main secondary source denies the event ever happened. So Shahak's own evidence is tendentially discounted in favour of that of his adversary. I know how to handle the difference just writing academically, but wikirules can make this a real problem. Since both Begin and Katz were directly involved in this event, I would assume that editors should, on the principles in WP:RS, privilege secondary accounts by historians.Nishidani (talk) 15:34, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree with your last sentence. With regard to Israel Shahak, it surprises me that so much fuss is made out of whether that incident was genuine or whether he invented it (as an illustration). The point there is that rabbinical sources confirmed that, in their opinion, the behaviour of the (illustrative) person who refused to help was correct by Jewish law. -- ZScarpia (talk) 17:07, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, in Shahak's account, they confirmed that the person said to have refused to lend assistance (a telephone) was correct. In Jakobovits' account, Shahak never asked the rabbinical authorities, the incident did not occur except as a fabrication made up by Shahak in a letter to Haaretz, and the ruling (later) made by rabbi Unterman said they should. Unterman's ruling however quotes a rabbinical judgement from the 13th century that was never widely known until centuries later, and goes against many other rabbinical judgements. I've given up in any case there, until I can be sure one edits without fear of constant irrational reverting by blow-ins who don't know the subject. Unfortunately, unlike the King David hotel bombing, we have very few reliable sources to handle this, and in lieu of such, only intelligent judgement, made by neutral editors collegially, can fix the mess. Cheers Nishidani (talk) 18:37, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

{Reply to Nishidani's 18:37, 3 March 2009 comment}

It's good to see you participating again, by the way.

I'd been following developments at the Israel Shahak article from a distance. As regards the primary versus secondary sources issue, I've taken a look at the Jakobovits article A Modern Blood Libel--L'Affaire Shahak. Whether a text is a primary or secondary source depends on the context in which it is being used. Most of the article is dedicated to explaining Rabbi Unterman's response to Shahak's letter to Ha-aretz. It hardly mentions what Shahak wrote. As far as explaining Rabbi Unterman's response is concerned, the Jakobovits article is a secondary source. On stepping back to view the telephone incident as a whole, however, in my opinion it then becomes a primary source in that it is one of the pieces of primary evidence available to secondary sources examining that affair. The practical significance of that as far as describing the telephone incident is concerned is that editors can state what Jakobovits said, but as far as synthesising anything from that is concerned, citations from the next layer of commentary back must be given.

In the L'Affaire Shahak article, Jakobovits doesn't say that Shahak didn't ask the rabbinical authorities for a ruling. He says that Shahak claims that they confirmed that the Sabbath can only be broken to save a Jewish life and then goes on to say that, far from confirming what Shahak said, they had in fact ruled that the Sabbath must be broken to save a non-Jewish life as much as a Jewish life. Jakobovits says that Unterman published a lengthy responsum explaining his ruling. It sounds as though the ruling being referred to is one Unterman gave to Shahak, but whether it actually was or not is unclear. The way I read the justification is that, although observing the sabbath is an absolute rule, it becomes permissible to violate it to save a Jewish life, the number of Sabbaths that the saved person will observe outweighing the one that was broken, or to save a non-Jewish life if not saving that life will lead to enmity (leading to lost observed sabbaths if anybody Jewish is killed as a result presumably). If I remember what Shahak wrote correctly, he did say that it was permissible to break the sabbath if to not do so would lead to enmity for Jews. Presumably, if no negative consequences will ensue, the non-Jewish person should remain untreated, though. If that was what the ruling obtained by Shahak said, he was justified in saying that the ruling confirmed what he was saying.

Apologies for wandering off-topic everyone. -- ZScarpia (talk) 01:27, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Acute, and in good part your comments correspond to my own understanding of the vagueness in Jakobovitz's account. The essential problems are two. Lack of secondary sources reviewing critically both Shahak and Jakobovits's notes on the incident, and (b)from memory, Unterman there, Jakobovits gives us to understand, gave his ruling after the press controversy arose in Dec 1865, with the publication of Shahak's letters, whereas Shahak says he asked and got a formal court opinion before going to the press in Dec.1965, and 30 yrs later then said Unterman, in the meantime, was pressured to write the responsum in the way it was written. Perhaps eventually this exchange should be cut and pasted to that page for future reference. Thanks for the input. Apologies to the page editors for this off-topic interlude, but a common problem, primary versus secondary sources, engaged a cross-page dialogue.Nishidani (talk) 09:34, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

If you'd like me to comment on the primary versus secondary sources issue on the Israel Shahak article talkpage, I'd be happy to do it. -- ZScarpia (talk) 12:51, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

I'd appreciate your moving our exchange there, strictly for the record. For the moment, I am not committed to Wiki editing, and it would be improper to delegate, esp. to a page where I myself have withdrawn until substantial improvements in collegial and commonsensical editing return. I'm back almost solely to see that Meteormaker's intensive work on a key problem, now under Arbcom review, goes through the due process of arbitration.He, like you, works on one problem at a time, perhaps the way to go, but has often found himself under 'siege', despite the strength of his argument, which is one most I/P editors find both convincing and yet exhausting to argue over several hundred pages. CheersNishidani (talk) 14:21, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Shall we move to your talkpage to discuss things further? -- ZScarpia (talk) 15:23, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't know what your access to sources is like, but perhaps a way that I can be of help is looking up references. I have access to a copyright library that has a copy of everything published in the UK. Most other things I can obtain by using inter-library loans.
Reading the West Bank - Judea and Samaria arbitration case, I hope that the outcome is a Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Israeli-Palestinian articles) as suggested by ChrisO.
-- ZScarpia (talk) 15:02, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm afraid of libraries, because I live in a small one (7,000 books) that overwhelms me with joy (the pleasure of reading) and with frustration, (because it is pathetically insufficient to cater to my curiosity). I have far far too many things I would like to look up to avail myself of your generosity. There's also a general principle involved: having fewer books makes one work harder. The more books one has, the less one actually thinks through, slowly, any problem, since one just scours abundant sources to find someone who has the answer you should otherwise find your way to yourself. It made my day to read your offer. I'll keep it in mind for absolute emergencies, when the angst of nescience pushes me to a precipice, and salvation only lies in grabbing for a branch of the learning you can wave my way. Best regards, and thanks for the fine job you're doing over at the KDHB. Nishidani (talk) 18:00, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

You more than deserve my support, so please do ask if I there's anything I can do to help. -- ZScarpia (talk) 23:04, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, to tell the truth, I was tempted to ask you just this, but it's a very tall order, and so ignore it if too difficult. For two years or so I have been wondering about the following in the article on Mohammad Amin al-Husayni.

During his testimony before the Shaw Commission two months later (the commission interviewed him in his offices) on December 4, 1929, al-Husayni was apparently described as holding a copy of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion in his hand'. Palestine Commission on the Disturbances of August 1929, Minutes of Evidence, (London 1930), Vol 2 page 539 paragraph 13,430, page 527 paragraph 13,107.

I've only worked my way half way through that page but hope to make it throughout a good one. The problem here is that this crucial piece of evidence comes from a primary source, though it should be cited via a secondary source. Secondly, the reader has to take this completely on trust. My suspicions were aroused by one of those minutiae of language. Whoever inserted this wrote 'apparently', but if the editor had accessed the source himself, he wouldn't have written 'apparently'. Therefore whoever edited this in copied it from a secondary source's notes, but did not provide wiki readers with his secondary source.

I've never removed it, though one could argue that using a primary source like this warrants its removal. I just relocated it to a note and requested a secondary source. If you, or anyone else, over the next year, could ever be near a library that could allow the note to be verified, then I'm sure a personal note that it has been checked out against the source, duly registered on the talk page, would be sufficient to secure it there, even if the secondary source required is not forthcoming. Now, if you do think this is doable, without trouble, then it would be much appreciated, not only by myself but other editors, like Ceedjee, who've worked the page. There is absolutely no hurry here, if you can access a source like that. I'd be happy if we can solve this little mystery within the year. I only ask this one, because I hardly ever visit England, and the two countries where I tried to look for the volume,and check, didn't have a copy in their national libraries. Regards Nishidani (talk) 23:23, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

The library that I have access to has a copy of Horace Barnett Samuel's Beneath the whitewash. A critical analysis of the report of the commission on the Palestine disturbances of August, 1929. I've asked them to put that aside for me. In the British Library catalogue, I've found two items of interest, the Minutes themselves and an examination of the Commission report by the World Union of Zionist-Revisionists. Sadly, since the last time I requested an inter-library loan or photocopies, they've introduced quite steep charges for doing it. I'll hunt around and see if I can find a cheaper alternative. Unfortunately, I don't visit England very often myself, but if we can get together a group of sources to check, I would make a special trip. I would quite like to look at the documentation of the inquest carried out after the KDH bombing and the police and military reports. Otherwise, is anybody reading who uses the British Library? -- ZScarpia (talk) 13:23, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Mate, don't spent a fucken penny. That'd only make me drop me knackers in sheer grief, to find them bicycling up my khyber, with the spikes doing wheelies to rub me up the wrong way out of a sense of ayenbite of inwit for making silly requests. No special trips either, unless you're interested in amanita muscaria. As I said, these are things that can be signposted as stuff to look into when opportunity strikes, a year, two years or so, makes no difference, since no sensible person edits here thinking he has to secure the 'right impression' on a day to day basis. Like buying first editions, it's more fun to chance upon things, than to order by catalogue and pay through the nose. Since I've inadvertently started a chase, leave it to me to see what my connections can come up with over the next few months. I'm in your debt for the fine collaborative spirit, though and if I can reciprocate drop me a note anytime.Nishidani (talk) 14:31, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. The best thing that you can do for me is to refuse to oblige those trying to provoke you into getting annoyed or abandoning Wikipedia. -- ZScarpia (talk) 03:16, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

I read Horace Samuel's Beneath the Whitewash yesterday. Unfortunately it doesn't have anything to say about the Mufti and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Near the front, it has a summary of the principal events, which includes the following:

November, 1928 - August, 1929: Intensive anti-Zionist and anti-Jewish Campaign in Press. Protocols of the Elders of Zion reprinted in spite of Government prohibition.

So, it looks as though the Protocols of the Elders of Zion was considered a bit naughty, but that's probably not big news. As the title indicates, the conclusion of the booklet is that the report of the Shaw Commission was a whitewash. -- ZScarpia (talk) 08:55, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Runtshit

Thanks for your comments, and of course you are right. As the text on Category:Wikipedia sockpuppets of Runtshit states, "This Sock Puppet sedulously perpetrates a sustained persecution under a steady procession of stupid pseudonyms".

Interestingly, this latest avatar began by edit-warring on Neve Gordon, adding a link to the Jewish Press blog at thejewishpress.blogspot.com (I don't want to add a wikilink). This was a blatant attempt at well-poisoning, directed at a frequent target of abuse on and off Wikipedia.

There are many other confirmatory facts, but I'm not going to list them here. Openness is not always preferable.

RolandR (talk) 19:01, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

haha

I couldnt stop laughing after reading "as tight as a nun's nasty". Nableezy (talk) 17:52, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

and within days will come the official denials, that some of the men were identified to be carrying weapons by drones and that they all presented an imminent threat to Israel. What gets me is that there is actually an argument being made about the legitimacy of such actions. That second quote that I took from Tiamut's talk page broke it down perfectly: "As if to show the totalitarian character of colonial exploitation the settler paints the native as a sort of quintessence of evil ... The native knows all this ... he knows that he is not an animal, and it is precisely at the moment he realizes his humanity that he begins to sharpen the weapons with which he will secure his victory." The idea that Palestinians should be treated as human beings, not even as the rightful occupants of the land, but just as human beings, has to be argued and negotiated, and after 40+ years there still is not agreement on that single issue. Hope all is well with you. Peace, Nableezy (talk) 14:27, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

No. B'tselem and other groups are handing out cellphones with video capabilities, and that technical revolution will mean that print's power to refer and yet to blur (meaning everything is debatable because incidents are reduced to conflicting versions) will be trounced by the sheer visual presentation of incidents uploaded on places like Youtube. Potentially this is a post-Gutenberg revolution in the wings (Marshall McLuhan). As you know, I have a long interest in the Hebron region, and a lot of what happens there is now filmed by locals and put on the net. Doesn't change much, but at least the outside world has no excuses. In Gaza, that may be complicated, since Hamas may well fear that this technology will imperil its own secretive activities and restrict them. Salaam/Shalom Nishidani (talk) 14:54, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

I dont know if you are familiar with the comedy of Dave Chappelle (I'm going to go out on a limb and say probably not), but he has a skit where police officers kill an unarmed black man, and to cover their asses they 'sprinkle some crack on him'. Point being, those in power can abuse those being oppressed without regard for such things as evidence, they just make it up as they go along. Case in point, the UN school strike in the latest conflict. To show that it was 'justified' they release a video from 2 years in the past. I hope you are right, but the outside world has a long history of not paying attention to the facts, they just go along with X is a terrorist group, they must be bad and wrong in everything that they do, Y is only trying to defend itself. Maybe FOX 'News' has made me more jaded than I ought to be, but pessimistic I remain. Nableezy (talk) 22:14, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Don't know the comedian. One can do little for the world at large, since we're hit with huge volumes of (dis)information torn out of context, and are asked to have an opinion, on the strength of a 'mainstream' presentation. One's job is limited to souci de soi, as Foucault started to understand, care for the daily housekeeping of one's mental abode, to keep cobwebs of clichés out, etc. That is why reading novels, which show you how complex incidents, the social hinterground behind them, and the intricate motivations of all characters are a therapeutic necessity, as opposed to newspapers, which dessicate the world in skeletal sketching that, to convince, relies on a massive act of trust. Whatever, you may like to download and read Walter Lippmann's Public Opinion, a prescient analysis of this, and many related problems, a perusal of which can help one understand more acutely the broader picture, as well as the problematic use of sources in wiki. Cheers, pessimistically.Nishidani (talk) 11:02, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Libraries

Re the above, I am a member of the University of Sussex library, so may be able to help. The URL for their catalogue is here - anything you can find there I should be able to get my hands on. I also have access, through the library, to various subscription-only online journals. A couple of provisos:

• I only visit the library once a week, on the same day as my Arabic class there (it's a 3hr+ round trip for me).
• Most of the subscription-only stuff requires access from a PC physically situated in the library (but can e-mail articles to oneself for later persusal)

I'm also, of course, a member of my local library, which gives access to some online material. The only one I've found useful is the ODNB (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography), which I can access at any time. They also allow inter-library loans for a small fee (about £2, I think).

The British Library? That might be a possibility. Some day I intend to try to find out more about Kruschev's visit to Hunterston A nuclear power station at around the time it opened in 1964. I know it happened, since I saw him with my own eyes, but there is nothing on it in either wiki article. National newspapers are bound to have reported it, but it could be a difficult search to find it. Quite ironical really, inviting the head of state of a foreign country to what was effectively (part of) a nuclear bomb factory for weapons targeted at that country - the Magnox design was perfect for producing military-grade plutonium, though of course none of that was mentioned publicly at the time.

--NSH001 (talk) 17:38, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Neil. Doesn't look like Sussex has a copy, at least from my check. Don't trouble yourself, unless the Sussex trainpotters through a timewarp and plunks you there!

Perhaps we should have an exchange visit between Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at Dimona, and Avidgor Lieberman (future FM?) at Natanz! Best regards Nishidani (talk) 19:04, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Jaak's incivility

What would you say is the best course of action? Should I notify Durova, another admin, or just leave the whole thing to ArbCom? MeteorMaker (talk) 17:58, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Just leave it as it is. You've stated the evidence clearly. He hasn't a good record for accuracy in these things, and is somewhat careless in his language. One should not allow oneself to be distracted from the main point, which is not to recriminate, but rather to focus strongly on presentations that show what is problematical in various positions, no matter who entertains them. Depersonalise the dispute, and work towards dispute resolution while we have this golden opportunity to thrash out the issues before experienced eyes. I hope I can live up to the Polonius-type advice I dish out to others! Nishidani (talk) 18:23, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Hi Nishidani

Hi, sorry to be so rude – I've been meaning to say hello and thanks for the video link. Thanks also for your kind words and recent valiant defense. And to say such things about a boozy girl who once cracked wise about your 'verbal chandeliers'! You are the old-world craftsman of chandelier-builders, Nishidani, the maestro. Downright Ruskinian.--G-Dett (talk) 23:03, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Hey, I enjoy rudeness, as long as it is witty and intelligent! I was actually delighted by 'verbal chandeliers' since, as someone whose ancestors were likened to apes (being likewise of Irish stock, Eugene O'Neill's theatre is haunted by that painful analogy, as much as Kafka’s is by the put-downs thrown at Jews (Sander Gilman). The image conjured up one of the Marx Brothers 'swinging' on a real one, (uh, no, he wasn’t hung, perhaps well-hung), apishly (meaning one of the Catarrhini, not an exemplar of Apis mellifica). Ruskin, Praeterita! Well, I’ll console myself with the fact that our favourite author, James Joyce, praised him in a ‘Crown of Wild Olive’. Actually, what I admire in your style is that it is immune to the pressures of wiki-editing, that niggling ear one acquires for political correctness, which tiptoes around words as they tumble into consciousness, and snips like a vorpal blade at anything subliminally nuanced that might lend itself to accusation of violating WP:CIVIL, so that one has to choose between towering chandeliers of gracile equivocations, or the castrated bureaucratic short-hand most are comfortable with (I don't know about you but I read the extremely curt, civil, bureaucratic style here practiced by the maestri of obfuscatory stonewalling as menacing as anything in Harold Pinter). I think in terms of the Elelandic commendation with a large number of things I must parse to work in here, but then pirouette tolutiloquently to avoid calling a mattock a fucken spade. I see you're in more shit than Biggles for being forthright, which isn't allowed. Hope this absurdity of dragging you of all people into accusations of bad faith and stalking is seen through, and ignored.Cheers.Nishidani (talk) 18:37, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Advice

I didn't expect to be asking for a favour so quickly, but I could do with some advice. Game? -- ZScarpia (talk) 21:26, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Bang goes another day writing in a talkpage rather than doing something more productive. And bang goes a lot of time for you too, I'm afraid. Hopefully the finding of the 2007 reference to Katz as the person in charge of propaganda for the Irgun will stop attempts to change the description to anything else without producing sources or other justification. -- ZScarpia (talk) 23:28, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, it's not understood that readiness to be exhaustive in explanation on a talkpage doesn't mean that one is replying to an intelligent comment. There, as often, it means having one's time wasted by someone who is either dumb or plays the finto tonto. How many articles could be written up to snuff if only this environment were less thick, or obstructive! Nishidani (talk) 08:41, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Just dropping by to say hi

Since I have not been around for a while, I thought I'd pop in to say marhaba. Have missed you very much during my absence and have enjoyed reviewing your eloquent additions here and there. If you need anything, let me know. You and others seem to be doing a bang up job of bringing light to some of the problems afflicting our domain here at Wikipedia. I will likely sit this one out, but if you do need someone to present evidence or otherwise intervene, just drop me a note. Much love, Tiamut^talk 15:41, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Oh dear. Lately, this is getting embarassing. I don't know what I've done, nothing actually, but nice comments flow in, and rumours around the traps are gathering that anybody with whom I exchange notes is somehow my henchman, and I am some sort of padrino to a gang of wiki warriors. I'm tempted to wipe my homepage. It might be reported to Arbcom that this otherwise serious issue of treating the invisible country of Palestine on a par with the established State of Israel is nothing more than a scam worked up by a devious Nishidani to be flattered by an entourage, while putting, inadvertently or otherwise, his Jewish and Israeli colleagues, many of whom he holds in high regard, to shame.

But to your own note, let me reply to you with an anecdote.

On my honeymoon three decades ago, while travelling in a godforsaken patch of land, we ended up in a dumpy little town, and lodgings secured, walked into the soft desert air in search of food, as eveninglight began to brood, with a melancholic lambency, over the rooftops. Chinese restaurateurs of course are found everywhere, but I'd already introduced my wife to its varied cuisine, given my profession. So I looked beyond the bright windows of two restaurants, one Chinese and one Vietnamese, and caught sight of a third eatery, with an Oriental atmosphere to it, entered, and found Arab cuisine. Despite the dumpy area, we were treated to succulent fare, and, over coffee, mine host, responding to a few remarks I made on the Middle East, suddenly caught my eyes in his, as Arabs often do to gauge one's sincerity, and asked, 'Can you guess where I come from?'

Being a pompous smartarse, who'd always topped his class in geography, I said, 'well, that's hard to pin down, if it's a matter of nationality, as opposed to ethnicity. But it must be either, Morocco? ('No!'); 'Algeria?' ('No!'); Libya ('No!');Egypt ('No!'); Syria? ('No!'); Jordan? ('No!'); Turkey, then? ('No!'); Armenia, perhaps ('No!); Are you Kurdish, by chance? ('No!); Iraqi? ('No!'); Kuwaiti? ('No!'); Saudi? ('No!). Then, I'm getting warm!, because you must be either from Yemen? ('No!'); Eritrea? ('No!'); Sudan? ('No!'); Surely not Ethiopia? ('No!); then it must be either Oman? ('No!'); the Emirates? ('No!); Abu Dhabi? ('No!')...Well, you don't look like a Somali, but? ('No!') . .I ran the map through my mind, as he stared quizzically, half in triumph, half in a gaze of infinite tristesse at what this meant. Ah, of course, I missed out Djibouti, monsieur! ('No! No!'). Well, Iranians aren't Arabs though they have .. .? ('No!'). Finally, humility got the best of my proud perplexity, and I relented: 'I give up. Where are you from?'. 'Jerusalem: my house was stolen from me, and I was expelled from the homeland of my fathers, in 1967. I am a Palestinian Christian'.

Being generous in spirit, he covered my deep shame as I blushed in the silence fribbling for words to apologize for my crass stupidity, with a wisecrack. 'Don't feel bad. You've got a remarkable knowledge of the map. It's just that we're not on it.' My instinctive Zionist-oriented background suffered a setback from that night, as retiring, the words of the Psalm about 'weeping by the waters of Babylon' began to haunt my mind. This man had no poplar in that arid land to hang a harp on, but his right hand had not forgotten its skill in conjuring up the cuisine of Jerusalem, and I thought that, the least one could do, whenever conversation anywhere turned to his country, that my own tongue would not cleave to its roof in silence, but speak up on behalf of that invisible people, wiped off our modern, Western cognitive map, whose nostalgia for the bittersweet landscape of their unique homeland was every bit as intense as that of the psalmist, and of his heirs, our Jewish brethren.Nishidani (talk) 17:33, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Out of the blue

		Your Opinion is More Important than You Think Barnstar
		You should know, Nishidani, that you have fans even far-removed from your areas of interest. Your wit and scholarship are only matched by your gentility. You have demonstrated admirable tenacity in the difficult editorial realms you frequent, and I hope you will keep up the exemplary work. Thibbs (talk) 17:19, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

2009-03 Ehud Olmert

• "Next Olmert will be on their [anti-israeli] list!" (Nishidani, 14 October 2008) Ehud Olmert is already in this list (in which "dhimmi" = traitor). 89.2.241.2 (talk) 23:13, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Promises, Promises

One I promise to look at the screen while typing and turn the auto spell check on...so that someone known as Nishidani doesn't pick on my spelling....promise...PS nice to see you picking on me..Ashley kennedy3 (talk) 17:05, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Never trust spell-checkers, it's better to guess, and your's was better than that of the Japanese gentleman who, prey to a phonological difficulty in pronouncing 'l', wrote 'interrectual', which is, judging by the historical record, an occupational hazard of that class. It's a medicinal necessity for me to pick on people, as it stops me from picking my nose, which can lead to major haemorrhaging (sp.?)at my age, and I dislike the idea of an obituary writing that down as the cause of my death.Nishidani (talk) 17:27, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

sorry nishidani I removed your bit on league of nation mandate as it is already mentioned further up the article..Ashley kennedy3 (talk) 18:36, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

No need to apologize. We all make errors, and I more than most. I can never get any work done, trying to reason on talk pages. I see now Shiruberstein, an editor I like, is taking me to task for never having writing any article of quality, but only edit-warred (? a strange interpretation of a 3 year attempt to reason through fundamental problems to get some lineaments of consensus) so I guess I must rethink everything here. It really is a waste of time. Cheers Nishidani (talk) 18:43, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

I love the chuckleheads. I've always just got on with thing, I don't so much lead with the chin as charge in full steam ahead. I had a great laugh at cool making out that I had done the "large make over" when it was one of them, I just added bits to his make over. They don't seem to appreciate quotes from books that can't be found in JVL...bye the bye, nice bit on Lebanon not invading Israel. greatly appreciated..The tripe tripe that Israelophiles trot out has been found to be false many years ago and still they try to shovel manure...Ashley kennedy3 (talk) 20:11, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Don't use the word 'Israelophiles' within my hearing. There are a lot of people who love that country, within and beyond, and yet are as deeply distressed by its military and political history as they are of their own. (Many virulent critics of America are infused with a deep patriotism, idem elsewhere). Always distinguish, cultivate an ear for nuance, particularly in what you say or think, otherwise you needlessly offend decent people. (Asto the rest, of course)Nishidani (talk) 20:26, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry if the word offends...I don't know of any other word that can be used to describe someone who is in love with Israel...Its use is the same as Anglophile or francophile...I have come to the conclusion that nationalism is a destructive force with very few redeeming qualities....Ashley kennedy3 (talk) 23:04, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

You're right in logical terms, since it has analogies with the terms with which you compared it. But language is not logical (it is one of the flaws in I/P articles that no attention is paid to this, despite academic literature on the issue), but full of queered exceptions, where tone and use subvert comparisons rooted in a sense of parity. For example, just the fact that in standard usage, -phile is suffixed to a disyllabic term for a country ('Anglo'/'Franco'/'Sino'/'Russo'), whereas Israelo-, having three syllables, differs and creates a slight jarring difference from the norm, counts. There's an informal rule that ethnic disyllable are neutral, a pejorative connotations elicit monosyllables ('spik, wog, yid, chink, gook, hun','nip'/'jap', 'frog' etc., though exceptions exist, 'Polack') and this plays round the other terms, to nuance them in various ways. Language is a minefield, and what to one ear sounds okay, to others may resonate differently.

To illustrate on a different level, Wiki as I said is full of incoherencies over pages, and hidden traps, and most efforts, as the present one on 'Judea and Samaria' to get clarity and conceptual coherence into the encyclopedia fail because most people are tone-deaf to these things. One I noted long ago was that in articles like that on Avraham Stern,Lehi, orGush Enumin you'll often note native Israeli editors insisting on the word 'underground' to describe them, these ultra-Zionist terrorist movements, and, I don't think this word is used of comparable Arab movements in the territories. The same editors will press for 'militias', 'terrorists' etc, when describing similar Arab/Palestinian movements. It is a linguistic bias, reflected in widespread but partisan usage. Behind this is a simple translation into wiki of a distinction made in mainstream Israeli historical literature and newspaper usage between mehabbel (saboteur) applied exclusively to Arabs, and mahteret (underground), applied to 'our guys' (who otherwise 'behave like Arab terrorists'). We all suffer from this decanting of prejudice in our mother-tongues. That's why I insist that editing requires care over the small things, as much as over content. It gets one a bad rep as a niggling warrior. But the issue is a serious one. Cheers Nishidani (talk) 10:48, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

The "niggling" makes the difference between POV and NPOV...as with the Israel Palestine conflict page where the supporters of Israel want capture or conquered for areas that Israel entered and invade for areas that Jordan, Iraqi, Syrian, Egyptian, ALA or even local militias entered. And all that when one group was opposed by the locals and the other group wasn't....What you pursue is not "niggardly" in any shape or form, it is what other editors should be emulating...Ashley kennedy3 (talk) 12:56, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Waste of time. It's a stupid page, let it die on its feet. It's in the morticians' hands, let them tizzy up the corpse.Nishidani (talk) 16:14, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

WP:BLP

Wikipedia's BLP policy expressly prohibits making unsourced negative comments about living people. This policy applies on every page of the project, with no exceptions. The policy also states that 'Unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material about living persons—whether the material is negative, positive, or just questionable—should be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion.' - I have accordingly removed a Talk page comment of yours which describes a living person as an "agitprop operator".(note 1) Please don't do it again. Canadian Monkey (talk) 00:16, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

While on purity control, note that on every page where I have seen you edit, and most recently at the page where I made the remark you object to (Israeli–Palestinian conflict), I've remarked in checking both the page and the notes, masses of patched up material violating WP:SYNTH , notes of the most various type from poor, often execrable sources, texts in a conceptual, stylistic and methodological shambles, and you? what do you do there? You join ranks with pals, and make life difficult for serious editors who actually read in sequence through the notes, consult sources, and, of course, discover much that is rubbish or dysfunctional. So instead of wasting both your and my time on wielding your fatuous mastery of the wiki rulebook, in the endless game of narking and backbiting, I suggest you roll up your sleeves more, and roll your eyes less, and actually read informed books on these subjects, and edit collaboratively instead of sheriffing the Bronx. No responsible editor would ever cite a POV hack like Mitchell Bard, a polemicist, for detailed historical information on any subject. You all do, and edit out of dislike of other editors, rather than in respect of the subject. You may have a point on BPL violations. But your point is wholly undone by the fact that you close your eyes to editors who introduce such extremist and overheated polemical sources into an encyclopedia, while making a fuss about etiquette violations on editors who try to write according to scholarly consensus. Nishidani (talk) 08:31, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

(1)For the record, one of thirty odd quotes from MB which lie behind my remark that he is an agitprop operator:

'The majority (of Arabs), like the thousands of Palestinians who demonstrated in the Palestinian Authority, share bin Laden’s world view.' Mitchell Bard, ‘The Myth of ‘Peaceful’ Islam’

MB can wave his apocalyptic demonizations of an occupied people, to justify the landgrab, as he wishes. People who dismiss their human rights with this sort of cant should be disqualified as sources for I/P articles. They wear their agitprop ranting on their sleeves, and have no credibility as informed and judicious students of the Middle East.Nishidani (talk) 10:43, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

I share your sentiments Nishidani. Although I used more florid language at home when I saw the standard of RS used for rebuttal. You write so much more elegantly than I do...Ashley kennedy3 (talk) 19:52, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Can I reprove you one more time, asking for indulgence. A slight correction: 'elegantly' is not a synonym for 'like a windbag'. Cheers Nishidani (talk) 20:10, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Efram

Know the source, know of the raid...There are more holes in the Israeli argument than you could shake a stick at...I will be returning to the subject at some time in the future I can only do one set of unsubstantiated unreferenced pieces of work at a time..And each year there are more books coming out especially since Palestine is being written about by Palestinian historians...no longer do Israeli historian have a monopoly on the topic.....Ashley kennedy3 (talk) 20:36, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree that it is best to concentrate on one or two articles at a time, as Ceedjee does. The French articles are tilted a bit, but they are otherwise very good expositions, and tend to use only the best sources. It's not an Israeli argument, as much as a strong tendency left over from the long influence of Zionist historiography. I think one could write a very incisive and powerful pro-Palestinian history of the period using strictly Israeli secondary and tertiary sources. I know you are thinking of Morris and Gelber in your generalization. But I think cutting-edge scholarship in this area is no longer focused on a national, or defensive perspective. In a very real sense, Palestinian and Arab scholars have no problem in harvesting the rich resources their Israeli colleagues have produced, and in recognizing the quality of information and interpretation they provide. (Yeah, once the Indians died off, Americans wrote marvellous classics on their anthropology! But that is unfair. Since this is a generational seismic shift seen everywhere in the world). The problem in the wiki I/P area is simply that 98% of the 'Zionist' editors in wiki show no familiarity with Israeli scholarship, and if it is provided, don't like it. They are editing in dead historiography, and this reflects more on their individual insouciance to the high quality of Israeli scholarship than on Israel. The best historical treatment from a relatively neutral perspective I know of is the 3 volume work (the fourth will be out shortly) by Henry Laurens, who is an Arabist. Unfortunately it is not available in English. He writes a double history, from Israeli/Western and Arabic sources. Nishidani (talk) 20:57, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Lebanon 1948

Morris is clear about Lebanon's involvement in his new book 1948: "But at the last moment, Lebanon - despite Prime Minister Riad al-Sulh's fiery rhetoric - opted out of the invasion. On 14 May, President Bishara Khouri and his army chief of staff, General Fuad Shihab (both Maronite Christians), decided against Lebanese participation; Colonel Adel Shihab, commander of the army's First Regiment (battalion), designated to cross into Israel, apparently refused to march. The Lebanese parliament, after bitter debate, ratified the decision the same day." (Morris, Benny, (2008) 1948: A Hisory of the First Arab-Israeli War. London: Yale University Press, p. 258.) Morris also confirms that the Palmah crossed into Lebanon on the night of 28/29 May, i.e, before the Lebanese army attacked al-Malikiya on 5-6 June. Ian Pitchford (talk) 22:13, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

I've scrappy refs to a raid from the 13th-15 into Lebanon, Karsh for the 16-19, and of course this for the 28-29th of May, long before the third battle of Malikiyya. I usually read these things while tracing the narrative against maps, but finding a first rate period map for the borders at that particular time's escaped me. In any case, there are also three quite detailed accounts of the Lebanese background in Oren Barak's recent, The Lebanese Army: A National Institution in a Divided Society,SUNY, 2009 ch.3 (b) Guy Nathaniel Ma’ayan, 'Burning the candle at Both Ends:Lebanon and the Palestine War, 1947-1949,’ in Elie Podeh, Asher Kaufman, Moshe Maʻoz, Arab-Jewish relations: from conflict to resolution? : essays in honour of Moshe Maʻoz,Sussex Academic Press, 2005 chapter 9 pp.154-168 and (c)Matthew Hughes's article in Rogan and Shlaim's, The War for Palestine: Rewriting the History of 1948, (2 ed.). Cambridge University Press, 2007. pp.204ff. Thanks again.Nishidani (talk) 23:04, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps exceeds length. Copy here since it will probably be erased

From Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/West Bank - Judea and Samaria/Evidence

Jayjg

I find User:Jayjg’s use of the rule book completely erratic, except if one reads it as a strategy for excising unwelcome material, and including material he likes, according to his personal impression of what is good or bad for Israel’s image. There is no attempt at cogency of interpretation, or coherence of application, or respect for encyclopedicity. I have numerous memories of the bewildering volte-faces in his method. But this will have to do to illustrate the principle, and the perplexity of colleagues. If asked, I could provide several other instances of this strategic rule-bending.

At Israeli Settlement, he removed a quotation by a distinguished academic Avishai Margalit in The New York Review of Books (WP:RS on two counts) reviewing a book acclaimed by a senior editor at Slate as one of the best books of the year (2007), written by a front-ranking world expert on Indian and Dravidian languages, an Israeli professor, fluent in Hebrew and Arabic, with a professional interest also in Islam in India, with years as a peace activist on the West Bank, namely David Shulman, whose study of settlers on the West Bank was published by the University of Chicago Press, He then proceded to challenge it, saying who's Shulman? His book's just one of any number of sources, and nothing to do with human rights in the territories, when this happens to be the theme of the book, stressed by the reviewer. He never checked. He just bracketed ‘David Shulman’ and found there was no wiki article on him at the time (since changed), concluded he was non-notable, and just a nondescript ‘peace activist’. No amount of intensive elucidation 1, 2 3 4 of who Avishai Margalit is, who Shulman is, why the University of Chicago Press, the New York Review of Books were guarantors of the high quality of the source, or why the claim is not exceptional would make him change his mind or moderate his refusal. Informed of who Shulman was, he dismissed him, despite his field experience on the West Bank and expertise in Arabic, because as an expert in Tamil, he could not be quoted for on settler psychology, his judgement was an ‘extraordinary claim’ requiring an extraordinary source and thus ‘This lengthy, pejorative quote from a non-expert is about as blatant a violation of WP:V and WP:UNDUE as I’ve seen in a long time. ‘ He just kept reiterating a scholar of Tamil is not a reliable source on Israeli settler psychology All of which is interesting, but ignores the fact I was not quoting Shulman, but one of Israel’s most distinguished professors of philosopher, Avishai Margalit, in the NYRB, who confirms Shulman’s analysis by drawing on his own experience, and the view of other distinguished Israeli sources, with the group of settlers about whom, according to Jayjg, Shulman the student of Tamil (actually a dozen Indian languages) is writing about. He concludes by twisting my remarks about ‘bad faith’ in editors removing this material by saying that I am admitting that this is how I myself edit Wikipedia. He commends me for this ‘confession’ and ‘based on your new self-awareness, request that you desist from doing so in the future’. The argument ran to three archives. Several days later, I complain of his lack of response, and point out a glaring contradiction in his attitude to sources.

On the Israel Shahak page, which Jayjg has monitored with hostile eyes, and edited with malicious joy since its virtual inception five years ago, and cannot be written because of his wikilawyering, we have a rack of smears, most of which are extraordinary claims about Shahak, a Chemistry professor at Tel Aviv University who wrote several books onJewish fundamentalism, from the perspective of a Popperian secularist. Jayjg dislikes the man and his works intensely. He defends quotes from Werner Cohn, a retired sociologist with no knowledge of rabbinical thought, about Shahak’s putative anti-Semitism. Shulman, the linguist fluent in Hebrew and Arabic cannot be cited, even through a prestigious tertiary source (Margalit) on settler psychology, though he has worked in the West Bank on these conflicts for years as a notable peace activist. It’s just an extraordinary smear by a nondescript student of Tamil. Werner Cohn, though unfamiliar with rabbinical thought and from an unrelated academic field, can be cited for reviewing Shahak’s analysis of rabbinical Judaism. The point is underlined by G-Dett in her familiar, eloquently acerbic comment. Jayjg's commitment to WP:RS is such that at the same time he was holding the Shulman quote hostage from Israeli Settlement, he was pasting a quote from an execrably poor agenda-driven source, FrontPage Magazine to the Shahak article, not from a psychologist or expert on philosophy, or Shahak, or rabbinical thought, saying that Shahak was ‘a disturbed mind who made a career out of recycling Nazi propaganda about Jews and Judaism’, which is a lie. G-Dett points out the contradiction in method, taking place, note, contemporaneously (Febr 2008) while he worked on two different articles.

According to Jay, you need a PhD in psychology in order to say something general about society's "violent, sociopathic elements," or something specific about "destructive individuals" in the Israeli settlement enterprise – even if the source is a highly acclaimed book put out by University of Chicago Press. But to diagnose a celebrated writer and critic of Israel as having a "disturbed mind," all you need to be is some gasbag interviewed by David Horowitz's online tabloid. "The material seems well and reliably enough sourced," Jay assures us.

This is the way he works in the I/P area. Poor sources are RS if the person smeared is a critic of Israel. High quality sources are rejected by endless wikilawyering if they are critical of Israel. I have no intention of citing him for suspension. But someone up there should address this extremely erratic gaming behaviour with some strong words in his direction.

Related matter

Robert L.Pollock, A Dialogue With Lebanon's Ayatollah, Wall Street Journal, 14/03/2009

Thank you

Thank you very much for your kind words about me, Nishidani. I truly appreciate them, and I hope to be able to continue to be viewed as both scrupulous and fair by those with whom I interact. Forgive me for dropping a link to the meta page on your user page here, but as you do not have a linked account, that was necessary to make your vote eligible. I am sorry that you feel the need to remove yourself from the project; we need more intelligent, well-spoken, level-headed, open-to-compromise editors who are able to work with people with differing opinions, not fewer. But the frustration that comes from trying to be the voice of reason in a sea of cacophonous dissension is all to real and overwhelming at times. Thank you again! -- Avi (talk) 20:43, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

please please please please dont. we need more knowledge here, not less. Nableezy (talk) 20:45, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Nishidani,

How young are you in real life ? (c'est une vraie question !)

Et est-ce que tu peux me dire où tu vis ?

Et enfin comment se fait il que tu parles le français ?

Ceedjee (talk) 19:57, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Questions that might be better asked and answered in e-mail. Avruch ^T 21:10, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

WP:RfArb regarding West Bank vs. Judea and Samaria

I have started a Request for Arbitration regarding the use of northern/southern West Bank vs. Judea and Samaria. Since you have been involved in this debate, I have included you in the request.

Cheers, pedrito - talk - 25.02.2009 09:31

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/West Bank - Judea and Samaria

An Arbitration case involving you has been opened, and is located here. Please add any evidence you may wish the Arbitrators to consider to the evidence sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/West Bank - Judea and Samaria/Evidence. Please submit your evidence within one week, if possible. You may also contribute to the case on the workshop sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/West Bank - Judea and Samaria/Workshop.

On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, Tznkai (talk) 04:51, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Mayhap a statistical analysis of the amount of words used to put a minority perspective forward would be useful? Along the lines of:

• PoT; ...legal position, internationally recognised; x number of words
• WB and GS;... common usage, internationally recognised; x number of words
• J and S used by Israeli national extremists and religious fundamentalists/extremists; x number of words
• Dis T used by Israeli nationalists; x number of words.

just to have a look for any undue weight that may be within the article?

PS thanks for the BtS link; I'm not sure where best to place it...Ashley kennedy3 (talk) 16:25, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

I defer to the persons who have really worked hard in that area, esp. Meteormaker. No rush, I presume. This should be approached with great clarity, no fuss, and forensically. Whatever G-Dett's mastery of lucid prose is also needed. ps I think it is well documented that Likud and the settler movement are associated with the terms' diffusion from the late 1970s, but a good many Israelis who don't share their politics or perspective, who are not extremists, have nonetheless been raised to think of that area as Judea-Samaria. Nishidani (talk) 16:34, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Underlying Israel’s efforts to retain the occupied territories is the fact that it has never really considered the West Bank as occupied territory, despite its pro forma acceptance of that designation. Israelis see the Palestinian areas as ‘contested’ territory to which they have claims no less compelling than the Palestinians, international law and UN resolutions notwithstanding. This is a view that was made explicit for the first time by Sharon in an op-ed essay published on the front page of the New York Times on 9 June 2002. The use of the biblical designations of Judea and Samaria to describe the territories, terms which were formerly employed only by the Likud but are now de rigueur for Labour Party stalwarts as well, is a reflection of a common Israeli view.

Henry Siegman...Ashley kennedy3 (talk) 14:29, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

references

there are just some references that are too good not to include: (Hebrew: הגדה המערבית, HaGadah HaMa'aravit)Dishon (1973) Dishon Record 1968 Published by Shiloah Institute (later the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies) ISBN 0470216115 p 441

I have a list of books published by the Israeli government from 1967 to 1969 which show the drift in usage, from 'West Bank' to 'Judea and Samaria', and will add them presently to a note, Ashley. One would prefer to access and read these things in the original. I'm only half way through the book of Genesis, and a third through a textbook on modern Hebrew, in my studies, to be able to do this. This is a long haul.Nishidani (talk) 09:29, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Lebanon 1948

Hello,
I gathered the information I had here.
So, Lebanon would not have participated at all... Soldiers would have been allowed to "leave" the army and fight with the ALA or the Syrians and 300 Muslim volunteers would have been taken the opportuny...
Ceedjee (talk) 07:40, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I checked that page, and closely read that section before even getting into the argument, Ceedjee.

L'historiographie traditionnelle prend en compte les 3000 hommes des forces libanaises dans les armées arabes. Benny Morris parle quant à lui d'une « poignée » d'hommes.Dans les faits, quelques jours avant l'entrée des forces arabes en Palestine, les Libanais annoncent qu'ils ne participeront pas aux opérations ce qui oblige les Syriens et les Irakiens à revoir leurs plans[39]. Ben Gourion aurait obtenu en juin 1947 du gouvernement maronite libanais de ne pas intervenir dans les combats pour quelques milliers de livres[40] et certains chiites libanais auraient émis des réserves quant à une intervention[39]. L'armée libanaise se déploie le long de la route côtière, côté libanais et les commandants chrétiens autorisent 300 volontaires à rejoindre l'Armée de libération arabe ou les Syriens[39]

That puts to shame the dreadful contortions we have on the corresponding page here. Wiki should pay you a stipend to get the 1948 English articles done. They are models of clarity and fairness by someone who admits to a certain learning on one side, and yet never allows that to block his reading of the best academic sources. I didn't ask you to comment, because that would have sounded like canvassing. I hope Ian's note, and my own, on further sources can prove useful in nuancing some details on this and a few other pages over at the Fr.wiki. Best regards Nishidani (talk) 09:20, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Interesting find about the June '47 financial arrangement with Lebanon. I don't think I've read that before, but Gelber is certainly a reliable source. Ian Pitchford (talk) 09:36, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Refs

I've had the same problem in finding a reliable map of the area, but will continue looking. I have Hughes' chapter, but will follow up the Barak and Ma’ayan material, which I haven't seen at all. BTW if you wrote the splendidly articulate essay on appropriative naming above you should turn it into an article. Ian Pitchford (talk) 08:43, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Thought of drafting it when I realised a few days into the Arbcom review, that all we would get is long threads and countercharges, and that, within the wiki system, since mastery of rules and numbers is what determines content on I/P articles, not commitment to studying all the best sources available, the issue would not, in all likelihood, be resolved satisfactorily. So, it's just a set of notes for the record, for anyone interested, to leave a trace that makes clear that it is a pure fiction, or pretence, that this is just a content issue between two opposed parties, and not, which it most obviously is, an organised attempt by one party to pass off a sectarian, unilateral political programme within Israel's annexationalist camp as a valid alternative toponomastic set of terms for an invaded, and foreign piece of land. I suppose I'd better finish it. I don't know of anywhere else in wiki where a minority nationalist view by one party is given equal weight with neutral international usage, while the other nationalist party is neither represented, nor its alternative terminology alluded to. Disgraceful really.Nishidani (talk) 10:06, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Years ago my PhD supevisor convinced me that "power lies with the person who defines the situation or the question" and I've been sensitive to these situations ever since. Definitional issues are key in many disciplines, but particuarly in the historiography of the I/P conflict. I've added your excellent essay to my personal scrapbook to make sure I have access to it in the future. Ian Pitchford (talk) 20:59, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

But there is an alternative...I do believe that during the early camp David discussions it was resolved by a hand shake...The Palestinians would stop using the term Occupied Palestinian Territory and the Israeli delegation would stop referring to Judea and Samaria...The two terms are in effect the opposite and equivalent...to have NPOV West Bank is the preferred neutral term but if Judea and Samaria is used then Occupied Palestinian Territory must also be used as Judea and Samaria (Occupied Palestinian Territory) so that the two terms are then seen as synonymous and equal...I sure a bot could go round including the (Occupied Palestinian Territory) at the relevant points...Ashley kennedy3 (talk) 11:42, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Put that as a proposal on the Arbcom proposals talk page, providing a RS, and see how the others think? The problem of course is that 'Occupied Palestinian Territories' is the juridical name for it in the ICJ decision of 2004, whereas 'Judea and Samaria' is an annexationist expression shared by one cultural and political group within Israel. But it's worth venturing.Nishidani (talk) 14:59, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

I think a slight modification of such a proposal might be in order. Add 'a term used by expansionist settlers and right wing politicians in Israel' with the ref for that, to each mention of J/S, and add 'used by the UN, ICRC, ICJ, . . . .' to oPt alongside J/S. Just putting them out there like the usage of the terms is the same is misleading. Nableezy (talk) 17:39, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

We are dealing with potential usage over 700 pages, and compromises mean writing everywhere awkward variations of . . in the area of Samaria, as settlers call it, or the northern West Bank as international usage says, or in the Jenin or Tulkarm governorate, as Palestinians. . . It stands out like dog's balls that this would be, stylistically, stupid. And that one simply ought to use 'in the northern/southern West Bank', except on a few articles dealing specifically with Judea and Samaria together as an administrative district, or biblical areas. Still, in a week or two, it will probably be back to chaos.Nishidani (talk) 17:53, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Of course you are right, it would be stylistically stupid, but better stylistically stupid than just the plain stupid 'Samaria region of the West Bank'. I think if people are going to demand these names be used then they should be properly defined where they are used. Nableezy (talk) 18:01, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

you have to laugh

look at this. I have been wiping tears from my eyes over this one (laughing not crying). Some of the excuses for removing material are lame but this takes the biscuit. Removed for being accurate and well sourced, so it doesn't belong in the Israel-Palestine conflict article. is the rest of the article of such poor quality that accurate referenced work stands out?..this one is too good to keep to myself...I haven't enjoyed myself as much since someone challenged the fact that the Gaza port in Rimal being in Rimal...Ashley kennedy3 (talk) 17:57, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Ashley, now you know that NoCal100 is only there to get you banned again. Are you a masochist. That page is protected as a last redoubt of bad scholarship. If you check in sequence its citations and sources, they are nearly all wrong. The ref to Arafat's biography by Hart p.152 (from memory) simply does not say what it is supposed to say, for example. NoCal100, Canadian Monkey and, I'm afraid GHcool as well, are not going to let you edit, so why edit it? They will revert you. It's a waste of time. You were right on Judah Magnes, you were right on the fact that dissent from the Yishuv acceptance was not limited to the commies and Lehi, but they want that text as it stands. You fuck up my not listening to sensible criticism at times, as when told you broke WP:Undue Weight (GHcool's call was correct). Let'em have it. It's crap, and would require concentrated work by several editors for a week, even without obstruction to fix, and no one is going to assist you there. I'll drop just one note, and then leave the farce.Nishidani (talk) 21:02, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

About your last comment

You are absolutely right, as you were when you pointed out that Judaization also affects seculars in the city. Do you have some sources I can access discussing those issues? I think they would make a valuable addition to the article. Hope you are doing well my friend and thanks for your input. Tiamut^talk 17:48, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. It's such a huge subject actually, I feel a little overwhelmed. Unfortunately, I have no access to a library here (Nazareth does not have one). I'll try to find what I can on those sources online. But at least you have reminded me of a great deal of things that have happened that are worth mentioning there. I am resisting the inclusion of "allegations" or "alleged" in the article now. Not one source uses that terminology. I do not want to see this article go the way of Israeli apartheid where weasal words made it into the article title for a time. It's a well-known process/project/policy/concept referred to in hundreds of RS's. I don't want to war over it with anyone, but I can already see that once it survives deletion, it's going to ravaged by the same people who wished it away. Unfortunate that more people couldn't take Dweller's advice on WP:BALANCE to heart. I know I'm have a tendency to push the stick my way, but I don't mind people pushing it back. What I do mind is them trying to break the stick into millions of tiny pieces. Oh well. Wikipedia. Warmest regards, Tiamut^talk 18:30, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

My Adminship

So sorry for my late reply ya sayyed Nishidani. Thanks for the congrats. And nonsense, I don't think your vote would have had a negative affect on the turnout. Keep up your good work in quality edits! Admin or not, WP Palestine is a priority, so I'll continue to contribute. I might not be as active as usual for the next week though (Spring break here in Florida!). Regards, --Al Ameer son (talk) 19:29, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

(I) The Problem

’Reading nationalist texts is a lesson in the power of silence.’

• An editorial split between those in favour of using 'Judea & Samaria' to designate (a) parts of, or (b) all, or (c) all of the West Bank and parts of Israel, and those who oppose the usage, except on those specific pages devoted to (i) Samaria (ii) Judea (iii) the administrative territory known in Israel as 'Judea & Samaria'.

• The 'Judea and Samaria' school holds that (a) these are geographical and historical designations predating the West Bank (b) used in a variety of sources published in Israel and abroad to denote the territory, or parts of it, known as the West Bank (c) and that opposition to the employment of these words in wiki constitutes an 'ethnic-based discrimination' against both Israeli and Jewish people.(d) specifically, that MeteorMaker, Pedrito and myself have conducted a campaign to denigrate or deprecate Jewish terms in the I/P area, a kind of ethnic cleansing of nomenclature, in a way that lends substance to fears our position is motivated by, well let's call a spade a spade, anti-semitism.

• The 'West Bank' school asserts that (a) these terms have an intrinsic denotative vagueness because they refer to different geophysical, administrative and political terrains depending on historical period, and that to use the terms of the territorially bounded and defined area known internationally as the West Bank creates cognitive dissonance (b) that these terms, as documented, were used under the British Mandate, then dropped for 'West Bank', which has remained to this day the default term of neutral usage internationally and in international law and diplomacy (c) that, after the Israeli conquest of the West Bank, in 1967, the terms 'Judea & Samaria' were pushed onto the political agenda by an extremist settler group, Gush Emunim, then adopted by the Likud government in 1977, and imposed by government decree on the Israeli mass media, which suppressed the international term, West Bank (d) that, as documented, the terms 'Judea and Samaria' have a potent ideological charge as appropriative nomenclature, renaming Palestinian land presently occupied, annexed or expropriated illegally by Israel (ICJ judgement 2004), over which Israel has no sovereignty, where Israel is establishing illegal settlements at least half of which on land with private Palestinian title, and with its own Arabic toponyms, and erasing the traditional native nomenclature by creating a neo-biblical toponomy (d) that reliable secondary sources explicitly define the term as partisan, even in contemporary Hebrew and Israeli usage (e) that the evidence for usage overwhelmingly documents the prevalence of 'West Bank' (northern, southern) in neutral sources, whose neutrality is affirmed also by the very sources that otherwise employ the words 'Samaria and Judea' adduced by the former school, (f) that if explicitly attested partisan Israeli toponymy and administrative nomenclature is allowed on non-Israeli territory, then by WP:NPOV criteria, automatically this would mean the corresponding Palestinian toponymy and nomenclature, often covering the same areas, would have to be introduced (g)that in this whole debate, the West Bankers have not even represented the Palestinian side, which is absent, invisible, while the Israeli side is being treated as though its national naming were on terms of parity and neutrality with international usage (h) that wiki criteria, WP:NPOV, WP:Undue, WP:RS, WP:NCGN etc. require that neutral terminology, particularly as evidenced by the overwhelming majority of reliable sources, be employed. (i) If we are to allow Israeli terminology to be generally employed in denoting territory over which Israel exercises no sovereignty, but is simply, in law, an occupying belligerent, a very dangerous precedent, with widespread consequences for articles where ethnic conflicts exist, would be created.

(2)Note on language, naming as an appropriative act of possession and dominion.

'According to the aboriginal theory, the ancestor first called out his own name; and this gave rise to the most sacred and secret couplet or couplets of his song. The he 'named' (tneuka) the place where he had originated, the trees or rocks growing near his home, the animals sporting about nearby, any strangers that came to visit him, and so forth. He gave names to all of these, and thereby gained the power of calling them by their names; this enabled him to control them and to bind them to his will.'

Wa’-yitser’ Yĕhôwāh’ (Adonai) ĕlôhīm’ min-hā'ădāmāh’ kol-‘ha’yath’ ha’-sādeh’ wĕ'ēth kol-ôph ha’-shāma’yim wa’-yāvē ‘ el-hā'ādām’ li-r'ôth mah-yiqrā-lô’ wĕ-kôl ăsher yiqrā-lô’ hā'-ādām‘ ne’pfesh ‘ha’yāh’ hû shĕmô. (20) Wa’- yiqrā’ hā'-ādām‘ shēmôth….

‘And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them; and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. 20. And Adam gave names.. .'

Wa-‘allama ādama l-asmā’a kullahā,

'And He taught Adam the names, all of them.’ Qu’ran 2:31.

In Thomas Pynchon's novel Mason & Dixon, the narrator Cherrycoke recounts, against the huge backdrop of seismic shifts in the political and scientific world of that time, the story of the eponymous figures who have undertaken to draw a scientific map of the wilderness and terrain between Pennsylvania and Maryland:

‘what we were doing out in that Country together was brave, scientifick beyond my understanding and ultimately meaningless, - we were putting a line straight through the heart of the Wilderness, eight yards wide and due west, in order to separate two Proprietorships, granted when the World was yet feudal and but eight years later to be nullified by the War for Independence.”

Late in the novel, the Chinaman of the piece remarks:

‘To rule forever, . .it is necessary only to create, among the people one would rule, what we call . . Bad History. Nothing will produce Bad History more directly nor brutally, than drawing a Line, in particular a Right Line, the very Shape of Contempt, through the midst of a People,- to create thus a Distinction betwixt’em. –’tis the first stroke.-All else will follow as if predestin’d, into War and Devastation.’

The dispute here in wiki, like the historical reality it refers to, has its ‘Bad History’. In the novel, the apparently empirical task of defining boundaries is found unwittingly implicated in the later travails of American history, with its exceptionalism, erasure of native peoples, of possible alternative worlds, of Frostian paths never taken. American innocence and pragmatic realism, in the innocuous work of two surveyors, is swept up in the torment of power: cartographic principles embody an Enlightenment’s reach into the unknown, while, applied, to the ends of order and control, they inadvertently engender violent confusion and disarray. What is the ‘right line’ to take on nomenclature, when history’s line demarcating Israel and the West Bank was drawn by war, then the West Bank was occupied in the aftermath of war, and the world of Israeli settlers begins to redraw the map? One thing that happens is that the complexities have drawn editors into a minor war, as Pynchonesque as it is Pythonesque. There is one difference: most the cartographers say one thing, and Israel, the controlling power, asserts a different terminology. So what’s in a name?

Before the world was tribalized and invested by the collateral damage or fall-out from the Tower of Babel, God assigned to the mythical forefather of all, ‘man’ or Adam, the faculty to name the world, though God himself had exercised this right in naming the light (or) day (yom) and the darkness (hôshek) night(layĕlāh) (Gen.1.5) There was only one name for each thing, and in later European thought the primordial language employed in this taxonomy was to be called ‘the Adamic vernacular’. The thesis was that the pristine jargon employed by Adam, being pre-Babelic, represented the true name for every object: every thing had a proper name intrinsic to its nature. The Greeks, as we see in Plato’s Cratylus, were much prepossessed by the philosophical crux of the correctness of names (ὀρθότης τῶν ὀνομάτων): did names have an intrinsic relation to, or represent, things, or was the link arbitrary.. The Confucian school’s doctrine of the Rectification of names (zhèngmíng: 正名). In the Bible itself the Hebrew text is full of the magic of words, of the power of words themselves to alter reality, a belief testified to in Isaiah:

'So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please.'

Modernity, especially after Ferdinand Saussure (1916), has opted, correctly, for the latter position, and disposed of the magical force of naming. But nationalism, another product of modernity, reintroduced it, via the backdoor, in a new sense. Naming was an act of assertive territorial control, of defining ethnic rights over land, especially as Anthony Smith argues, ethnie are defined also by attachment to a specific geophysical reality, the ‘homeland’ that defines in good part their identity ). Since national identities are a political construct, the inculcation of a uniform language, and the use of its lexicon to define or redefine the landscape, are crucial instruments in forging a national sense of common tradition. Nationalism demanded toponymic unison, and linguistic conformity. Under these pressures, in ther words of Saul Cohen and Nurit Kliot,

Place names are intrinsic compents of political landscape, and their study should be an important part of political geography.’

John Gaddis, glossing James Scott’s recent book on North Dakota roads and maps, remarks on maps that they reflect

‘what states try to do to those portions of the earth’s surface they hope to control, and to the people who live upon them. For it’s only by making territories and societies legible – by which he means measurable and hence manipulable – that governments can impose and maintain their authority. “These state simplifications,” he writes, are “like abridged maps.” They don’t replicate what’s actually there, but “when allied with state power, (they) enable much of the reality they (depict) to be remade.”

The idea of a nation as a territorial unit speaking one language over that territory is a parlously modern ideology, one engineered by nation-builders into a plausible if specious semblance of commonsense. As Massimo d’Azeglio is said to have remarked at the dawn of the Italian Risorgimento, ‘we have made Italy: our task now is to make Italians’, 95% of whom could neither read, write and nor often even speak ‘Italian’.

Imperialism, venturing into terra incognita to appropriate foreign land and incorporate it into an empire, went side by side with nationalism, which was a form of internal colonization over, and homogenization of, the disparate cultures that made up an historically defined territory, though there is a fascinating inverse relation between the two in the case of Israel. The Jews of the diaspora assimilate to another nation’s history, accepting fully their country’s historical nomenclature and cultural self-definitions. The Jews who perform aliyah or who are raised in Israel, find themselves part of a process of radical toponymic and cultural-engineering to re-establish an ancient identity between people and land which cannot but involve the dispossession, cultural and linguistic of the former linguistic and cultural majority of Palestine.

Julie Marie Peteet describes the typical form this process takes

colonialism typically generates a set of terms and discourses to describe conquered lands as uninhabited, virgin territory, terra nullius, uncharted and undiscovered territory, the frontier, wasteland, wilderness, untamed and unoccupied, regardless of the presence, often extensive and hardly unnoticed, of the indigenous population. Inhabitants of these colonised or subjugated areas have been referred to as savages, heathens, barbarians or primitives; more recently they are ‘terrorists’.’

For the natives, their indigenous naming is ‘essentially a process of asserting ownership and control of place and landscape’

Daphne Kutzner, in her analysis of the role of Empire in classic children’s fiction, looks at the question from the perspective of the intrusive Empire and its refraction of imperial renaming as reflected in popular books, notes that

‘Naming a place gives the namer power over it, or at least the illusion of power and control. Colonial powers literally transform a landscape once they rename it and begin reshaping it.’

Terra incognita is the foreigner’s name for an ostensibly empty landscape which, had they taken the trouble to learn the local languages, would have revealed itself to be replete from every rocky nook to crannied gulley with ancient toponyms. The tendency was one of erasure, and, as with introduced fauna and flora , the landscape was consistently remade as it was renamed to familiarize the alien by rendering it recognizable, a variation on the landscape settlers came from. The new mapping, as often as not, represent as much the settler’s mentality, as the queerly new features of the foreign landscape under toponymic domestication.

Australia is somewhat the extraordinary exception, and broke with the gusto for imperial nomenclature. There, following the pattern set by the earlier land surveyor Thomas Mitchell and his assistant Philip Elliott that “the natives can furnish you with names for every flat and almost every hill” (1828), native names were adopted in a standarized English form for both euphony and their characteristic relation to the landscape, and indeed a resolution was passed as early as 1884 which established the priority of native names in international usage.

Often imperialism and nationalism go hand in hand. Napoleon’s troops, in 1796, could hardly communicate with each other, such were the grammatical, semantic and syntactical rifts between the various provincial patois at the time. By 1814, Napoleon had formed a European empire, and millions of provincials spoke the one, uniform language of the French state’s army. When two nations, or ethnie, occupy the same territory, the historical victor’s toponymic choices, dictated by the victor’s native language, and as articulated in bureaucratic documents and maps, usually determines what names are to be used. However, the presence of two distinct ethnie on the same national soil creates fissiparous tensions in nomenclature. Speaking of French and British conflict in Canada over areas, Susan Drummond, remarks that, 'Symbolic appropriation of a territory is a critical index of control’, and notes that, as late as 1962, the Québec cartographer Brochu, invoked the political dimension of place names as important, in the conflict with the majoritarian English heritage of Canada over the naming of the northern Inuit lands.

Again, in another familiar example, Alfonso Pérez-Agote notes that Spain has its Basque Autonomous region, Euskadi. But the original force of that name covers an area beyond the administrative and territorial units of Spain, and Basque nationalists evoke its symbolic territory, comprising also the Basque area of Navarre in France. Euskadi has, on one level, within Spanish administrative discourse, a ‘territorial political objectification’, and on another level, in Basque nationalism, a ‘non-administratively objectified’ territory extending into a neighbouring country.. The analogy with Israeli and Palestinian nationalism is close. In Israeli discourse, Israel or Eretz Israel can denote Israel and its outriding West Bank, while Palestine, which is the favoured term of West Bank Arabs for the land they inhabit, also can refer to the whole neighbouring territory of Israel as well.

The anomaly, in comparative terms, is that history has settled the question, whatever local separatist nationalisms, revanchist or irredentist, may claim, except for such places as ‘Palestine’. For there, while Israel is a constituted state, it emerged the victor, manu militari in a conflict that gave it control over a contiguous land, but has no recognized legal right, since that land is defined as and ‘Occupied Palestinian Territory. Acts of unilateral annexation, the extension of administrative structures, settlements, toponymic remapping, and widescale expropriation of land in Palestinian title, is not only not recognized, but judged ‘illegal’ by the highest international bodies of law. All major encyclopedias (Encyclopædia Britannica, Encarta etc.,), except Wiki, maintain a strict neutrality, and, in recognition of the fraught difficulties, adopt the neutral toponymic convention of ‘(northern/southern) West Bank’ in order to avoid lending their prestige to the partisan politics of the parties in this regional conflict.

(3)The specific instance of Palestine and the West Bank

The toponymic shifts that have taken place in Palestine over the last century are particularly instructive for analysing the relations of naming conventions and the struggle for cultural and strategic power. As Julie Peteet writes, speaking of the way terminological fluxes are part of the historical process of power, and mastery of the lexicon constitutes ‘moral worlds and the humanity of participants and thus, ultimately, the distribution of rights,’

’Contests over names in the Palestine-Israel conflict, in which two parties are vastly disparate in terms of weaponry, support from the USA, the prevalence and circulation of narrative and voice in the West, and institutional infrastructure are certainly an example of this and thus changes in naming should be traced along the lines of power.’

When the British wrested control over Palestine from the Ottomans in the First World War, and established themselves there to administer the region, Selwyn Troen notes that, 'naming also became part of the contest for asserting control over Palestine'.. As early as 1920 two Zionists advising the British Mandatory authority on everything regarding the assignment of Hebrew names, fought hard for the restoration of Hebraic toponymy, and when, with such places as Nablus, or indeed 'Palestine' itself, were given non-Hebrew names, they protested at the designations as evidence of discrimination against Jews. The point is made by the Israeli historian and cartographer Meron Benvenisti:-

'When the Geographical Committee for Names, which operated under the aegis of the Royal Geographical Society (the only body authorized to assign names throughout the British Empire, decided to call the Mandatory geopolitical entity “Palestine” and the city whose biblical name was Shechem, “Nablus” these Jewish advisers saw this as an act of anti-Jewish discrimination, and a searing defeat for Zionism.'

In the project of Jewish colonization as understood by its promotors, ‘(b)etween a Jewish presence in the biblical era and modern Zionism, Palestine was conceptualized as a wasteland.’

One pauses to reflect. We are being accused here of 'anti-Jewish/Israeli discrimination' for refusing to insert Israeli toponyms into the West Bank. Nothing is said of the logic of this POV-pushing, i.e. that a Palestinian reader might well regard a Wiki endorsement of suc h foreign nomenclature as a 'searing defeat', and adduce it as proof of 'anti-Palestinian discrimination' both by Zionist editors, and Wikipedia itself.

Since Zionism took root, and especially since Israel was founded, the making of a people, living in a defined territorial unit and speaking one language, has followed the universal pattern of modernity. The landscape, full of Arabic words, had to be renamed, often according to Biblical terminology, but, more often, by the invention of Biblical-sounding names. To do this, a good part of the 10,000 odd Arabic toponyms collected by Herbert Kitchener, T. E. Lawrence and others in surveying that part of the Middle East had to be cancelled, and replaced with Israeli/Hebrew terms, to remake the landscape and its topographic songlines resonate with historical depth. Hebrew is a ‘sacred tongue’ (Leshon HaQodesh:לשון הקודש), the Bible describes the conquest of Eretz Yisrael, and the dispossession of its indigenous peoples, who were not part of the chosen: the pattern is repeated in modern times, down to the renaming. The revival of Hebrew, with its potent shibboleths, understandably exercises a powerful hold over the new culture of the country.

The problem is, as Steven Runciman pointed out in the mid-sixties, that the part assigned to Israel by the UN deliberation of 1947 was the western, non-Biblical part, whilst the part assigned to a future Palestinian state, what we now call the West Bank, is precisely the area most infused with Biblical associations cherished by the Jewish people, with sites and names redolent of the founding myths and realities of their ancient forefathers. Israelis, in their secular land, mostly dwell where the Philistines dwelt. The Palestinians dwell where the ancient Jewish tribes once settled. The tensions simmer between the secular Israel, which thrives in its new Mediterranean world, and the religiously-identified Israel that aspires to return to a geophysical space where origins and the present, the sacred nomenclature of the Bible and the modern world of Jewish life, might at least, once more overlap, in an ‘Adamic’ harmony congruent with the kingdoms of Israel and Judah.

(4)The Negev Precedent

With the foundation of Israel, and in the aftermath of the 1948 war, the vast Negev and part of the Arava were captured, and Ben Gurion duly established a Negev Names Committee to ‘hebraize’ the landscape’s features, its mountains, valleys and springs. The area already had a rich Arab toponymy, and some on the committee thought these terms might be preserved as a ‘democratic gesture towards the Arab population of the new state.’ It was not to be. The nomadic Bedouin who dwelt throughout the area were rounded up and expelled by force. They had terms for everything, but with their uprooting and displacement, Benvenisti notes, ‘an entire world, as portrayed in their toponomastic traditions, died.' , a process that Benvenisti himself describes as equivalent to ‘an act of war’ on Palestine’s heritage. Ben Gurion wrote to the committee setting forth his view that:-

We are obliged to remove the Arabic names for reasons of state. Just as we do not recognize the Arabs’ political proprietorship of the land, so also we do not recognize their spiritual proprietorship and their names.

Political pressure and ‘the influence of patriotic arguments’ prevailed over those who, like S.Yeibin, thought the erasure of Arab names, many of which might preserve an archaic Hebrew origin. Yeibin thought this a disaster:-

‘With a clap of the hand they were wiping out an entire cultural heritage that must certainly conceal within it elements of the Israeli-Jewish heritage as well. The researchers did indeed endeavour to identify all those names that had a link to ancient Hebrew ones in an attempt “to redeem, as far as possible, names from the days of yore.” <

Any Arabic toponym in short only interested the topographers in so far as it might provide a clue to reconstructing the hypothetical Hebraic original that might lie behind it. This consideration, however, often created a mess of concocted pseudo-traditional names. The hebraization of such Arabic toponyms did not restore the historic past, but invented a mythical landscape, resonant with traditionalist associations, that had, however, no roots in Jewish tradition. The most striking geologic formation in the Negev, Wadi Rumman was rewritten as if that word disguised an ancient Hebrew Ram ('elevated'), whereas the Arabic term it was calqued from actually meant 'Pomegranate Arroyo', for example.

Reflecting on Benvenisti’s account in his larger study of language conflict in the Middle east, the Palestinian expatriate scholar Yasir Suleiman makes remarks that,

’By assigning Hebrew names anew to places on the map, the committee was therefore ‘redeeming’ these places from the corrupt and ‘alien’ Arabic names that they have acquired over the centuries’

and likens this process of linguistic erasure of Arabic and the reconstitution of Hebrew metaphorically to the nakba:-

‘The cartographic cleansing of the Negev map of Arabic place names and their replacement by Hebrew names is an enactment of the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians from their homeland’

The record is therefore one of a linguistic cleansing of Palestine of any trace of its long Arabic history, and, as we shall see, an attempt to remodel Arabic usage in the territories Israel conquered and controls, to conform with Hebrew. In Peteet’s words, ‘(n)aming a place functions as a public claim.’Toponyms can only retain some semblance of an Arabic form, if that form is suspected to camouflage, in turn, an original Hebraic name. Adapting the reborn Hebrew language to the alien realities of the Palestinian landscape, the obvious problem was that the nomenclature for much of the flora and fauna, not to speak of the landscape itself, was infused with the very language, Arabic, a revarnished Hebrew had to compete with. As early as 1910 Jacob Fichman, a member of the Language Council, stated that Hebrew:

‘will not digest the new names of plants, especially those which have been taken from the Arabic language’ and that these borrowed names ‘will always be like atrophied limbs’ for ‘despite the fact that the Arabic language is our sister language in the family of Semitic languages, it has no foundation in our psyche ’

Hebrew was thus to be programmatically sealed off from Arabic, to prevent atrophisation, and cultivate purism by means of a fake Biblical antiquarianism. Theodor Adorno, writing in the melancholic aftermath of the Holocaust on the effects of cultural purism, once remarked on the purging of foreign words from German undertaken by nationalists intent restoring an ideal of cultural authenticity. He saw this as part of the pathology of nationalism in Germany. Foreign words were treated as if they were 'the Jews of language' (Fremdwörter sind die Juden der Sprache). In expunging the landscape and the human world of Palestine of its Arabic language, of landscape and culture, Zionism likewise treated Arabic as German or French linguistic purists treated loan-words in their own languages, or, later, actual Jews in their midst, as foreign bodies to be expelled, or expunged if a proper 'foundation for an authentically Jewish psyche' were to be successfully engineered. One would call this ironic, were it not so tragically melancholic in its unintended resonances.

(5)The West Bank. History and Naming

The relationship between demographic displacement and the loss of one's landscape through the erasure of its traditional placenames in Palestine has been remarked on by Paul Diehl.

‘The exclusive attachment to territory is reflected in the naming and renaming of places and locations in accordance with the historic and religious sites associated with the dominant political group. Not only did the outflow of Palestinian refugees bring about a change in the Jewish-Arab demographic rations, it brought about the replacement of an Arab-Palestinian landscape with a Jewish-Israeli landscape. The names of abandoned villages disappeared from the map and were replaced with alternative Hebrew names . . Israeli settlements throughout the West Bank have taken on biblical names associated with the specific sites as a means of expressing the Jewish priority in these places and the exclusive nature of the territorial attachment. Modern Israeli and Palestinian maps of Israel/Palestine possess the same outer borders, but the semantic content of the name is completely different.. The means by which new landscapes are created to replace or obliterate former landscapes is a good example of the way in which metaphysical and symbolic attachment to territory is translated into concrete realities on the ground.’

In 1950, when King Abdullah, of the Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan, unilaterally annexed the territory he had conquered in 1948, he changed the name of his country to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, which incorporated the remaining fragment of Palestine as aḍ-Ḍiffä l-Ġarbīyä, or 'the West Bank' of that kingdom. The usage is still current in German (Westjordanland). Though only Britain recognized his annexation, the word itself found ready acceptance in, and was not, 'forced on', the international community, as Binyamin Netanyahu argued.

In 1967, Israel conquered what the world knew as ‘The West Bank’, the Biblical heartland, and a decree calling it ‘Judea and Samaria’ was issued by the Israeli military on December 17 that year with the explicit definition that it would be identical in meaning for all purposes to the West Bank region to replace the interim terms 'Occupied Territories' (ha-shetahim ha-kevushim), and ‘the Administered Territories’ (ha-shetahim ha-muhzakim) in use since the immediate aftermath of the June war. The term 'Judea and Samaria' however was rarely used until Likud took power. The Labour Government never enacted a settlement policy, though Gush Emunim, an extremist settler ground with a fundamentalist ideology, reviving an old Haganah project elaborated before the state of Israeli was achieved, pressed settlement, and propagated the terminology ‘Judea and Samaria’ as part of a symbolic strategy for territorial annexation. When the Likud party, the maximalist, expansionist party with strong ties to both religious and ultra-Zionist groups and traditions, was elected in 1977, it imposed Samaria and Judea as the vox propria in modern Hebrew on the mass media, expressly forbidding the use of the international term West Bank. Notably, the government's imposing of these terms, very much Likud-specific terminology, on Israeli usage was seen as a prerequisite for an envisioned settlement policy, since accepting the terms would predispose the public to accepting the policy.

Gideon Aran describes the achievement:

‘The importance of changing names in the process of conquering territory is well known. Assimilation of the name “Judea and Samaria” in normal and official language, as well as in jargon, attests to G(ush)E(numin)’s political and cultural achievements. In January 1990, the American press reported in the official Middle East maps of the United States, published by the State Department and the CIA, the term “West Bank” was recently replaced with “Judea and Samaria.” The maps also indicated the cease-fire lines between Israel and Jordan, whereas previously the disputed territories were marked as belonging to Jordan.’

The Camp David Accords negotiations of and the final agreement, in 1979, only underline how great was the linguistic rift between Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin's position and the American government intent on brokering an agreement.

‘Begin consistently proved to be the most extreme member of his delegation, insisting on seemingly innocent terms such as “autonomy” as opposed to “self rule,” on the labelling of the West Bank as “Judea and Samaria” in the Hebrew text, and on the use of the phrase “undivided Jerusalem.'

A huge amount of wrangling between the American negotiators and Begin revolved around this term.

‘for what must have been the tenth time, he (Begin) objected to the term West Bank, giving a lesson to the president on the geographic and historical appropriateness of the term and the importance of using the words Judea and Samaria.’

Begin refused to back down from his ‘rock-hard’ intransigence on using ‘Judea and Samaria’ and at the Camp David signing ceremony, (March 26,1979) several interpretive notes were required to be added as annexes to the basic documents, one specifically dealing with the West Bank, which President Carter annotated with his own hand with the words:

‘I have been informed that the expression ‘West Bank’ is understood by the Government of Israel to mean ‘Judea and Samaria’.

An ambitious programme of colonising settlement, toponomastic Hebraisation and cultural Judaization was undertaken, to create, as the metaphor ran, an Israeli cheese pitted with a few Palestinian holes, over the West Bank as indigenous Palestinians were shifted off their land, in a repetition of the Negev programme, which forms the precedent. The programme took wing especially after the unprovokedinvasion of Lebanon in 1982, whose key political objectives included ousting the refugee Palestinian resistance in the para-state on Israel’s northern flank from Lebanon, where the PLO projected a 'state in waiting' image that threatened Israel’s plans for long-term control over the West Bank. The war was, the head of the IDF said at the time, ‘part of the struggle over the Land of Israel. It aimed to further the isolation of Palestinians on the West Bank by depriving them of close support, halt the rise to political respectability of the PLO, which embodied Palestinian nationalist aspirations, and deprive that body of its claims to be a political partner in the peace process for Israel’s normalization of its relations with the outside world. One calculation, a minority view entertained by both Ariel Sharon and Raphael Eytan, however, was that, expelled from Lebanon, the PLO would be forced to return to Jordan, topple king Hussein, and establish a Palestinian state there to satisfy Palestinian national ambitions that Israel would thwart on the West Bank.

Changing the realities of occupied territory by the manipulation of language, Hebrew, Arabic, and in controllable sources like the global Wikipedia, became a programmatic goal. The settlers were in fact 'colonists' in the old sense, but Israeli English usage has here prevailed in the politics of the culture wars to determine how the international community perceives the dynamics of that area. The corresponding Hebrew usage is complex (see Israeli Settlements), but continuity with the biblical setlement of Eretz Yisrael is evoked by referring to Jewish settlers as mitnahalim. The root *n-h-l directly evokes a passage in the Book of Numbers where each tribe is assigned its portion on entering Canaan, or the Land of Israel, particularly as ' in the pledge by the tribes of Gad and Reuben that they will fight on the west side of the Jordan river to help the other tribes take possession of their assigned portions' Settlers, qua, mitnahalim are not colonizing anybody's land, in this usage: they are simply taking up their 'assigned portions' as those were marked out by God to the Chosen People. Technically therefore in the varnished rhetorical lexicon of possession and dispossession, there is no room for language that might betray the nature of this carpetbagging. Much of the international media obliges, calling areas in the West Bank around Jerusalem, like Gilo, ‘neighbourhoods’. In May 2002 it was reported that the Israeli media had been prohibited from using the euphemisms of ‘settler’ and ‘settlement’ themselves for areas built up and occupied on Palestinian territory. By successively pressuring the media to redefine the settlers themselves as ‘Israelis’, i.e., ‘non-military personnel’ and citizens of Israel, people who are properly colonists on foreign land expropriated under conditions of military occupation and martial law, Israel manages to interpret any act of resistance against the colonists, which might otherwise be construed frequently as legitimate according to the Genevan conventions, as tantamount to an act of terrorism against Israel and Israelis. Likewise, Israel’s asserted right to preemptive self-defence by murdering Palestinians its security organs believe pose a threat to Israeli interests, in Israel or the occupied territorie, is no longer ‘assassination’ or ‘murder’, but a ‘targeted killing’, a military euphemism which is apparently de rigueur for prestigious foreign news agencies like the BBC.

Rashid Khalidi has remarked how the Israeli authorities themselves try to engineer the way Palestinians think in Arabic by tampering with that language's natural idiom in the Arabic broadcasts they authorize. Over Israeli Arabic channels, one does not hear Jerusalem referred to, as it is customarily in Arabic, and by Palestinians, as Bayt al-Maqdis ('The House of Sanctity') or Al Quds al-Sharif ('The Noble Holy Place'). Arabic usage as sanctioned by Israel speaks rather of Urshalim ('Jerusalem') or Urshalim/al-Quds ('Jerusalem Al-Quds'). The purpose is to diffuse a variety of Arabic names for places that are calques on the Hebrew terms chosen for the area.. Julie Peteet argues that the now current term in Western sources for this area, which still remains under Muslim administration, namely the ‘Temple Mount’, is of relatively recent usage, whereas the term described as the year of ‘independence’ by the former, and of ‘catastrophe’ (Haram al-Sherif was been standard in the disciplines of art history and history generally. If so, this would be another example of recent Israeli usage prevailing even in Western sources, over the traditional topological conventions.

This goes right through several spheres of discourse, from the language of historical description for the area, which is split into two distinct and mutually exclusive idiolects the bureaucratic language, a form of linguistic colonization that reinforces the physical occupation of the west Bank by cultural re-engineering. A new travel permit was imposed on the colonized Palestinians in the West Bank in 2002, and required of any of them wishing to travel in that area. This was issued, printed and released by Israeli authorities who call it in Arabic Tasrih tanaqul khas fi al-hawajiz al-dakhiliyya fi mantaqat yahuda wa al-samara. ('Special Travel Permit for the Internal Checkpioints in the Area of Judea and Samaria.'). Here, Palestinians who must travel in the West Bank, for them 'Filastin', are required to obtain a document which requires that area to be referred to by the settler term, 'Judea and Samaria'. It is this form of Arabic which they are expected to use in negotiating their way with Israeli authorities through checkpoints. But West Bank Palestinians simply abbreviate it and refer to their tasrih dakhili (Checkpoint permit), , thereby eluding the settler term imposed on them.

A proposal is now being made to apply the principle of Hebraization, as of 2009, even to those places within Israel which the world designates by traditional toponyms, such as Jerusalem (Yerushalayim) Nazareth (Natzrat) and Jaffa (Yafo).

As for the Palestinians, driven into a life as refugees by the Jewish desire to end their millennial exile (Galut) through the establishment of a national homeland in Palestine, their only recourse in the experience of diaspora imposed on them has been to retain the topological memories of their former world, and reinscribe them on the camps where they are compelled to eke out their new ‘lives’. Thus we find in Lebanese territory allotted for them, that the Galilean landscape of their forefathers is reproduced, toponymically and spatially. Thus Bourj el-Barajneh consists of a ‘spatial array of a number of northern villages in six named areas: Kuwaykat, Tarshisha, Al-Kabri, Sheikh Daoud, Al-Ghabisiyya and al-Chaab’ and Ain al-Hilweh has quarters named for the villages of Saffuriyya, ’Amqa , Loubia and Bassa/al-Zeeb. This and the process of naming children after the toponyms of ancestral villages in their homeland is one strategy for resisting the intense discursive pressure within Zionist sources to treat the indigenous Palestinian ethnos as ‘Arabs’, by which it is intended to forge an impression that the Palestinian people Israel drove out or still displaces from its ethnic state only have a non-national identity, which fits them for assimilation within the vast ‘Arab’ world where power-politics and fate has consigned them. Defined as ‘Arabs’, they are no longer ‘native’ to the area, while the immigrant David Gruens (David Ben-Gurion), in taking on eminently Hebrew names, are nativized.

(6) Analysis of Ynhockey's suggestions

‘Mapmaking was one of the specialized intellectual weapons by which power could be gained, administered, given legitimacy and codified’

'Mapmaking is not, however, solely an instrument of war; it is an activity of supreme political significance – a means of providing a basis for the mapmaker’s claims and for his social and symbolic values, while cloaking them in a guise of “scientific objectivity.” Maps are generally judged in terms of their “accuracy”, that is, the degree to which they succeed in reflecting and depicting the morphological landscape and its “man-made” covering But maps portray a fictitious reality that differs from other sorts of printed matter only in form.'

After 1967 ‘Cartographers . .had many options, which tended to reveal their political proclivities. Those who were sympathetic to Israel labelled the West Bank, Gaza, the Golan Heights, and Sinai as “administered territories” and used the phrase “Judea and Samaria” for Jordan’s former West Bank. They also included all of Jerusalem within Israeli territory,. Mapmakers who were ideologically neutral generally referred to “occupied territory” and maintained the term “West Bank”. . . In the post-1993 period a Palestinian Authority has been established in the West Bank and Gaza, yet there is no actual independent state of Palestine. Most international maps have stayed with the terms “West Bank” and “Gaza” but maps published by the Palestinian Authority describe these areas as “Palestine.” Furthermore, Palestinian Authority maps usually leave out Israel and assign its territory to “Palestine,” with the added designation that it is “occupied territory.”Arthur Jay Klinghoffer, Harvey Sicherman, The power of projections: : how maps reflect global politics and history, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2006 pp.37-8

We are dealing with a defined territory and its naming. User:Ynhockey would make tidy distinctions, define the bound geographical territory (CIA Factbook) as just a political reality, and use Judea and Samaria for all other contexts. In his own work on Wiki, much of it admirable, we find many maps. Examine the following map he authored and uploaded, and which is employed on the Battle of Karameh

The central colour, a washed acquamarine tint, allows one to highlight the field of movement in the battle, and blurs the neat territorial division between the West Bank, and Jordan. But note that, in a wholly unnecessary manner, Israel is stamped in large bold characters and made to overlay the West Bank, which is placed diminutively in parentheses. Willy-nilly, the impression is that the West Bank is some territorial hypothesis or province within Israel. Whether Ynhockey meant to give the reader this impression or not is immaterial. Maps, as one source already quoted noted, reflect the cognitive bias of the mapmaker as much as an interpretation of a landscape, and here the bias is that the West Bank is under Israel, behind Israeli lines, a subset of that state. It is a fine example of what many cartographers and historians of cartography argue: the making of maps, and toponymic nomenclature in them, serves several purposes, to clarify, as here, a battle landscape, for example, but also to impose or assert power, or claims, or blur facts. Objectively, User:Ynhockey has loaded wiki with a map that cogs our perceptions, tilting them to an annexationist assumption. Indeed, unlike the Israeli government so far, his map actually looks like it has the West Bank annexed.

In a tiff over the editing ofSusya, I reverted Ynhockey for eliding information he thought poorly sourced (from Counterpunch, though the authors are all notable scholars with a published record for studying settlements on the West Bank) concerning the Palestinian origins of that town. His response was to upload a map onto the Susya page (30/03/2009). Though his map image gives Susya as south of Hebron and, without words, within the boundaries of what an attentive reader knows to be the Occupied Palestinian Territories of the West Bank, as one runs the cursor over the map, a pop-up suggests to us the falsehood that 'Susya is located in Israel'. If one clicks on the map for details, again, one finds the pushpin map he created described as 'Southern West Bank (Judea region)'. Whether the pop-up comes from him, or, as Nableezy now tells me, is a collateral effect from the Susya web-site (?) I cannot judge. But User:Ynhockey's practice on wiki, where his cartographic gifts are acknowledged, is ambiguous. His maps are so drawn, or glossed on the Wiki Commons page that at times a false impression, or subliminal message, is conveyed to Wiki browsers. In Karameh, certainly, the occupied areas are in Israel. In Susya, the pop-up effect, whoever is responsible, should have been removed.Nishidani (talk) 08:54, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Interesting reading the above is. Perhaps essay like User:Ravpapa/Tilt write you should. Tijfo098 (talk) 12:26, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Sorry to correct your grammar, but you should have written:-

The above, interesting reading is. You User:Ravpapa/Tilt like Essay write should perhaps.

And I would have perhaps then replied along the lines of 儂 はね, ゆとりがあるように見えるかもしれないが . . Nishidani (talk) 14:35, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

susya

I am not sure your accusation of Ynhockney putting that caption on the image is correct, it looks like the description is just generated by using the infobox_kibbutz class. Nableezy (talk) 10:06, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, Nab, sorry, Nablokov ameer (lynx-eyes). I haven't the foggiest notion of how these effects are created. I've dropped a clarification under my workshop note. I am extremely reluctant to get into this area of accusations, find it distasteful. There are however many problems with these maps. I'll just stick to my work page.Nishidani (talk) 10:21, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

and he just changed the description of the map in the template to at least say 'and the Palestinian territories' Nableezy (talk) 10:13, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Well I'm bewildered by that change. The cursor now yields, after Ynhockey's new edit, the pop-up 'Susya is located in Israel and the Palestinian Territories'. Susya is not located in Israel. To respond in this way and maintain that fiction or untruth is a matter of some gravity. I'll keep watching.Nishidani (talk) 10:32, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

It has to do with how the map is set up. Look at Template:Location_map_Israel_south_wb. The map itself does contain areas in Israel so it could conceivably be used for towns on the Israeli side of the recognized border. A simple solution would be to make a duplicate file, one to use for Israeli municipalities and one for ones in the West Bank. Nableezy (talk) 11:17, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

True. But an editor, esp. with technical expertise, who introduces such things should clear the ambiguity. Susya is not in Israel, nor in Judah, and to leave it as though it were, is not only negligent, but ideologically convenient. Omission to act is culpable, in my view. I've had to make some 'nasty' edits against Palestinians because sources required it at times.Nishidani (talk) 11:21, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I too was looking at Susya today and thought how inappropriate to have an Israeli coloured village banner on the village article before they've evicted the last Palestinian....as to the other, you know me take the bull by the horns and worry about the blood loss later...Ashley kennedy3 (talk) 21:27, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/West Bank - Judea and Samaria/Workshop -- dialogue with Malcolm Schosha

I'm in agreement with what you said about Jayjg, so if you feel that it would be useful for someone to back you up in your conversation with Malcolm Schosha, I'd be happy to do it. My opinion is that Jayjg interprets and applies the rules in an indiosyncratic, self-serving, biased and non-commonsensical manner. For starters, if he was unbiased and balanced, he wouldn't be at the heart of attempts to represent Judea and Samaria as neutral names for areas of the West Bank and, furthermore, ridiculously misrepresenting sources to try to justify doing so. Has anybody ever challenged Jayjg as to whether he is in effect a professional Wikipedia editor? If he is, I think that it is obvious that he shouldn't have access to the privileges which he does. -- ZScarpia (talk) 23:47, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks pal, but I think conversations are best one on one, and in any case, there, there is no conversation. Several editors are too emotionally committed to a political cause (one or two pro-Palestinians included) to be functional in the encyclopedia. It's nothing personal (penis envy was the suggestion, in psychoanalytical terms) with Jayjg. He's a very talented editor, when not editing in the I/P area. Nothing will be done in all probability. One writes for the record. Cheers.Nishidani (talk) 09:35, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

One week off

Your account is blocked for one week for this edit. We do not allow taunting, teasing, attacking or harassing other editors (even when those editors blocked for 1 year) drama mongering and fanning the flames of disputes. Jehochman ^Talk 13:53, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, make it a lifetime sentence. *** ******, and learn to read. That, for the record, was a last ditch attempt to get a very good, committed wikipedian off the wildly punitive sanction you handed out, and that was in the air. Sandstein's sanction was lenient, but perfect in its discretionary intelligence and contextual reading. If you had checked my and AK's page for the history of our interactions, you would have understood the comic gentle wistful tone I use with him, as a semi-mentor, to remonstrate with him and get him to drop his bad habits. But this caps it. Writing, only to be misread: editing, only to be reverted by someone who hasn't read sources, is far too fatiguing. Perhaps you've done me a favour, even if it is April 1 Nishidani (talk) 14:05, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Your adjustment is even worse. I was endeavouring to stop a recurrent fire, and flame-war, not stoke it. Irony is not drama-mongering, quite the opposite. Don't worry, I don't complain formally. But I've taken the hint, permanently. Nishidani (talk) 14:26, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

If you would like to be unblocked, you need to show recognition of the problem and explain how things will be different going forward. It makes it much, much harder to manage the project when editors pour inflammable remarks onto a hot dispute. Jehochman ^Talk 14:36, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I will certainly not ask for an unblock, since the only problem here was your inability to distinguish an elegiac piece of remonstrative irony to a man I respect, and whose imminent elimination from wiki I deplore while finding him culpable of silly peccadillos, from an act of abusive flaming, or some other wiki-infraction. I don't even blame you, since I am becoming convinced I'm the odd man out in insisting everything be read quietly, closely, and comprehensively, and postmodern times, and the young, even brilliant administrators like yourself, no longer understand that this was once regarded as obligatory if one is to judge correctly anything on its merits. So, it's a random world, and I'll retire to somewhere else, where these things, ethical and cognitive, still eke out their existence. You just read far too fast. Most administrative work couldn't be done unless this were the case, but it often produces absurdities. Like this. No hard feelings, in any case. Nishidani (talk) 14:56, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

This is a really odd block... Nishidani, just place an unblock request template and let's just let it play out. I'm not asking you to repent -- you did nothing wrong -- just put the template up to get another admin to have a look at this. As far as I know, WP:DRAMA (besides not even being the original reason for this block -- that was just poor reading skills) is not WP:DISRUPT and this block is not justified. Cheers, pedrito - talk - 01.04.2009 14:47

Request to Neil

Could I ask you for one final, of so many favours, Neil. I tried to archive this page, but cannot do so. Final irony, I can't even wipe myself without permission. Could you just, as I do, cut the text and paste it into my last archive (perhaps retitling it February-April 2009)? Thanks in anticipation, and apologies to one or two, Ian Pitchford in particular, for not now being in a position to finish that essay. Best wishes for the future Nishidani (talk) 14:46, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Request for Nishidani

Look, I can't fault you for wanting to leave, particularly under the circumstances here. But you have been a very valuable editor working without much respect in a very contentious field, and we definitely need as many decent editors in those areas as we can get. It would be a real loss to the effort here if you were to leave permanently. I would very sincerely ask you to reconsider. In any event, you have my thanks, and that of several others, for all you have done here. Hope to see you back soon. John Carter (talk) 14:58, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

John, I deeply appreciate these remarks, but I would ask fellow editors to refrain from any further comments. It embarrasses and makes me look like I'm some poorly done-by prima donna. . Best wishes. Sorry I hadn't got round to helping you on that new Hebraic inscription. One just gets keeping caught up in humongous and absurdly trivial argument, to the detriment of editing. Best regards

You'll be missed

We'll miss your presence and work here on the 'pedia, Nishidani. For what its worth, which isn't much, I think the block was a serious overreaction - 1 week for that comment, with no history of blocks/warnings for the behavior cited in the block reason? Unfortunate that excessively punitive reactions, unevenly applied, take away some of our best editors but leave us with many of lesser worth. Avruch ^T 16:14, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. John Carter (talk) 16:19, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

All Nishidani needs to do is back down and request unblock. Look at the diff I cited. They need to recognize this sort of participation is completely inappropriate and unhelpful. They need to renounce incitement and drama mongering as editorial tactics. Jehochman ^Talk 16:27, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm familiar with Meatball:Goodbye, but its singularly unhelpful to note it in a post here. I'm not sure why he needs to 'back down' - this isn't a dominance game, or a test of wills, nor does he need to learn his place. Perhaps the wording of his post was ill-advised, particularly for such a high profile place. But let's review:

• He's got a history of similar exchanges with the same user, with intent understood
• He does not have a history of being blocked or warned for personal attacks, indeed he edits in some of the most contentious areas of Wikipedia with noteworthy aplomb
• The comment is not the sort that even regularly draws warnings, let alone warning free blocks
• I've been regularly following Nishidani's work around the wiki for quite some time, and I have never seem him use "incitement and dramamongering" as an editorial tactic. Absolutely the opposite, in fact - he overwhelms people with erudition, and far more often draws criticism for long comments with obscure references than for anything else.

Given that, a week-long block truly seems unnecessarily punitive. I usually respect your judgment, Jehochman, and don't recall having criticised it in the past even when I might quibble. This particular time, though, I think you are in error. Avruch ^T 17:39, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I know you asked others not to add anything here Nishidani, but, well I'm ignoring that. I must have missed the moment when we passed into an alternative universe where admins here can unilaterally impose no-warning, no-precedent bans of a week out of the blue on other editors simply for saying something ironic or not entirely serious on a talk page or board. And then have the nerve to come to that person's talk page, apparently in all seriousness, to demand that the editor in question "back down" or "renounce" some alleged failing before the admin will acknowledge any error; and at the same time posting a sarcastic parting shot of their own in the form of a piss-taking link in the edit summary. Absolutely astonishing. If you felt the original post on WP:ANI was inappropriate or too lengthy and off-topic, you could simply have removed it and notified Nishidani that you had done that. Now that would have solved any alleged problem without any "drama-mongering". --Nickhh (talk) 18:28, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

If it's an error, then the subject should post an unblock request, and a discussion can occur at WP:ANI if that proves unsatisfactory. What needs to stop is the drama mongering by the subject and everybody else. This is a simple matter to resolve. I'd unblock Nishidani myself if they posted an unblock request that said something to the effect of, "yeah, my comment at ANI was over the top and I now understand that it was unhelpful and won't do it again." You folks need to stop fighting and try to get along. Jehochman ^Talk 18:42, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Honestly, should an AN/I thread about this be necessary? That, more than anything else that has happened so far, would be maximum drama. Can't you unblock, and revise the spent block-time as a warning given no history of blocks for this reason and no warning? Avruch ^T 18:50, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Exactly, that creates more drama, and also presupposes that people who've been hit by bad blocks have to repent or recant before anything is done about it. And the request that we "stop fighting and try to get along" seems a little misconceived. No one's fighting anyone here - Nishidani was giving support to Ashley at the original WP:ANI thread; myself, Avruch, John Carter and others have been backing Nishidani. In fact it seems everyone's getting along just fine and doing their best to be collegiate - with one exception. --Nickhh (talk) 18:57, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

May I ask Jechoman who Nishidani personally attacked and harassed, per Jechoman's blog log notice? No one. The person to whom Nishidani directed his remarks is currently outraged at this block. You had a reading comprehension failure, probably prompted by a sudden outbreak of creative and original writing on Wikipedia, then rather than undo your error when Nishdani angrily pointed it out, simply changed your block reason. Now you want Nishidani to "back down" based on your new judgment call that the comment he blocked for was "unhelpful" to the tune of a one-week block! Really, Jechoman, there is no support for this assessment and it is goading to suggest that Nishidani must now jump through hoops of your construction. Unblock. 86.44.33.122 (talk)

Login with your main account, please. The comment by Nishidani was highly disruptive, and a gross violation of decorum. The editors in a recurring, severe dispute such as WP:ARBPIA need to show restraint. This sort of drama mongering will not be permitted to continue. Jehochman ^Talk 19:09, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I have never registered for an account here, so I guess this is my "main account". I don't see any evidence that the comment by Nishidani was highly disruptive, and a gross violation of decorum. It's obvious that it was not intended to, and did not, antagonize the person to whom it was addressed. 86.44.33.122 (talk) 19:14, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Nor do I see that it inflamed any situation, just to be clear. 86.44.33.122 (talk) 19:16, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Nishidani was asking Ashley to 'back down', the same action you are asking of him at this time. He realized, that it was going to take 'something' in order for Ashley to comply and ask for leniency in lieu of a mea culpa. Ashley took the road less traveled(a lonely road) and now will have to probably, ask for leniency himself, in order to come to this place and ask for Nishidani's absolution. I foregone to say the obvious already exposed above, which is of much value. Cryptonio (talk) 19:30, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Please see here. Avruch ^T 19:18, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

		The Defender of the Wiki Barnstar
		For your brave attempts to uphold scholarly standards in the Israel/Palestine-area of WP. Deep regards to Nishidani from Huldra (talk) 16:38, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Request for Neil

My name ain't Neil, but I did copy everything to the last archive, if you didn't want that let me know and will remove. With sincerity, peace and happiness Nishidani, Nableezy (talk) 17:47, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Unblocked

Bishonen unblocked you. I hope we can see you back again very soon. John Carter (talk) 21:57, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Nishidani, please review WP:ARBPIA and avoid making edits that appear to be disruptive or inflammatory. I recognize that you may have been trying to help, but a discussion at WP:ANI is serious. Please try to focus on the facts of the matter and avoid excessively strident rhetoric in the future. I have nothing against you personally. Jehochman ^Talk 22:36, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. Some of what you said could be taken seriously by an editor who didn't know that you would only ever use such language in jest. I know we can get a little dry and boring around here, me in particular, and that sometimes it helps to lighten things up. But please also remember that some of us around here would only ever use such language in earnest, and that they or others used to dealing with such people might easily see your comments as accurately relaying your honest opinions. You have been far too valuable an asset to this project for us to run the risk of losing you over such a joke, however well intentioned. Having said that, I hope to see a few more such jokes, possibly with attached smileys? ;), from you again in the near future. John Carter (talk) 22:49, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I have started a campaign to bring the snark into common use. When writing something sarcastic, it can help avoid misunderstandings. Regrettably, we have too many incidents of people threatening or suggesting suicide. It's the sort of thing I tend to take seriously, even though I normally appreciate (and sometimes make) snarky comments. Jehochman ^Talk 06:39, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

The offending passage in Jehochman's diff

I would have posted earlier to save you all the trouble and embarrassment here. I didn't follow things, having watched Banderas's Take the Lead instead. Against instincts I feel I must drop a clarification in, to explain why Jehochman's reading, though wrong, is understandable, and to clear Ashley's mind of any sense of responsibility for what happened. He's only responsible for what happened to him.

(Or of course, you could apologize, and promise to pull your finger out, which is rather difficult for seppuku aficionados, since a preliminary requires the moriturus to stuff his rectum with a ball of cottonwool in order not to soil the scene)

I can understand why Jehochman should take exception to this. He did not rule on my remonstration, but only on this specific addition.

As soon as I had posted, I realized that I had neglected to suggest to Ashley that he apologize. Since I'd used (he being a military man) the example of seppuku to remonstrate with him, and since we have always spoken to each other straight from the shoulder I thought I'd tell him to pull his 'finger out'.(there's a cultural difference here: people of our background speak like that, 'rough as bags' even to express affection. It does shock outsiders to the Irish/English world, esp. Americans).

I still had Mishima's death in mind, but, I suppose I should add, a private memory influenced me while telling him to extract the digit. The last man (to my knowledge) who actually managed to execute himself in the classic style, (in a manner so ritually flawless his brother, of an old samurai family, only came to the morgue to see whether his younger brother had done things correctly), that man was a friend of mine. At the scene of his death, the forensic police were amazed he had not, as should have been the case, soiled himself, until they were informed about the ritual cotton wool. I thought the joke about the cotton wool (that word itself has comically rude undertones in cockney slang) would make Ashley laugh enough to take my berating words of admonition to heart: humour, in remonstration, shaves off any misunderstanding of ill-will in otherwise harsh language, as anyone raised on the streets, or in close tribal families knows.(That particular memory of my friend's suicide, for me, evokes only melancholy however, but had this not caused a fuss, no one should have known about this).

So Jehochman's misreading is understandable. I feel some considerable blame for what happened,though not in the least for what I wrote, except for some slipshod or subpar grammar. I tried to avoid the forseeable drama by twice wiping the page of comments. I wouldn't have written this at all, since I intended just to drop a note to Avruch's page to apologize to him for any carelessness on my part, and express my gratitude for his exquisitely gentlemanly manner, but have found myself blocked for another day.

I'll otherwise stay off for the week Jehochman thought proper. On things like this, full consensus is, in my book, necessary, and if there is any equivocation remaining, any shade of suspicion I was misbehaving, I've no problem sitting the full sanction out. best wishes to my fellow wikipedians, to John Carter and the others, whatever I decide. Cheers Nishidani (talk) 23:01, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Now that you (and others) have made things clear, I don't think that's necessary at all. I would have reduced the block to time served if Bishonen had not gotten there first (and the only reason she did is that I was stuck in a traffic jam). Let's put away this unfortunate incident and get back to editing. Jehochman ^Talk 23:07, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I have lifted the autoblock that was still active, so you should be able to edit now. —bbatsell ¿? ✍ 23:10, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, you do know you're unblocked now, right? John Carter (talk) 23:10, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

vanity

While you may be a pompous prick, I do not think it is pomposity or vanity that led to the oversight that another user had already added Huldra's barnstar to your collection. You will see that you have the same barnstar twice now (3rd to last and last). Glad to see you plan on staying, and sorry to muddy the waters of your analysis, Nableezy (talk) 20:14, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

haha, I don't think that is all that accurate and if somebody else calls your enlightening posts windbaggery or puffery I'll fight them. Peace, Nableezy (talk) 21:00, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Nab for making me note that. The only decent thing to do was to pull the mickey out of myself (appropriate now that I advised Ashely to pull his finger out!)Nishidani (talk) 22:05, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Disrution

Nishidani,
I'd hate to be rude but you're being a huge disruption. No one was mentioning either the American revolution or the supposed huge difference between "militant" and "militia". Please let it go.
With respect, Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 16:37, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Nableezy's page is Nableezy's page. Your behaviour in calling my notes on that page, that clarify distinctions in my native language you ignore, irrespective of the argument between you and Nableezy, 'disruptive' , is, well, disruptive. And don't throw around lightly adjectives like 'huge'. I am making a precise semantic distinction, away from the page where you are in disagreement, a word in private, in short. You should understand that native speakers assisting you to become aware of semantic nuances, when you are editing an encyclopedia in a language that is not your own native tongue, are not 'disruptive' but being helpful. Nableezy is American-raised. That is why I used the example of the American Revolution. You will now see further documentation on that page to clarify the point. I am so undisruptive that, instead of following you both to the actual article, I dropped the note on the personal talk page where you are at loggerheads. Sensitivity to nuance is all, Jaakobou, if you wish to understand what writing to NPOV standards requires in Wikipedia.Nishidani (talk) 16:47, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

A simple point, Nishidani could launch the most expletive laced attack at me on my talk page and it wouldnt be disruption. However, if he were to continually misquote me, as you, Jaakobou, have been doing, I might call that annoying. Nableezy (talk) 17:55, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

One more, raised in America would be fitting, not American raised, as that can also refer to who raised me, and they were most certainly not American (I dont think I really am either, but thats another matter). Not often I get to correct you, so I had to jump on the opportunity. Nableezy (talk) 19:15, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Good grief did I write that? I can't stand writing as quickly as this newfangled medium requires, and rarely correct or read closely what I write, because one has to write under unnatural constraints in here, and my prose style is unrecognizable. Correction accepted, though, gratefully. (Perhaps you were America-razed?).Cheers, Nab.Nishidani (talk) 21:21, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

thanks

You aint got nothing to learn from me. But thank you very much, Nableezy (talk) 18:30, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

maybe I could teach you how to roll a joint with your eyes closed, but I think that be about it. Nableezy (talk) 19:11, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Not a joint. Neither hash/ganja, nor cocaine to speak of it, seem to affect me. Over 4 decades ago, I smoked a full pipe of the best hashish Gaza could provide, while in the Negev, just to convince a circle of hostile joint-freakers who disbelieved me on this, and were sick and tired of my loathsome 'rationality', and though they had to 'open the doors of (my) perception'. Nothing happened, except two women next to me conked out giggling in the Sherlockian fumes. Guess I must have missed out on something in life. Only effect was to make me drink more beer than the usual several nightly bottles to quench my thirst. Conversational tone remained in the some dry-droning state that made the others irascible. I'd like to learn to roll a smoke with my eyes closed. I can, after long exposure to John Wayne films, roll one with my fists open, one-handed, though!Nishidani (talk) 21:21, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Thank you

Your comments on the talk page of the J/S case are very much appreciated. -- Avi (talk) 14:49, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

"Innocuous"?! "A compromiser"?

Sigh, I've clearly failed in all I've been trying to do here ....--Nickhh (talk) 16:27, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm dreadfully sorry, Nickhh. Inexcusably ambiguous language. By 'innocuous' I meant literally 'not harmful' to the project (to the contrary, you've always been a very moderate voice, decent, fair, and reasonable). By 'compromiser' I meant someone who is willing to overcome a stalemate with a compromise, not by any stretch of the imagination someone who compromises his beliefs, principles in order to fit in or 'muddle along'. I'll re-edit my remarks. I'm tired of this endless nonsense, nothing of what one really perceives can be said, while diffs tell you nothing except who broke the 3RR rule or violated some etiquette, and the fatigue of being dragged into what is a dispute resolution mechanism that is necessary to this wikiworld as it would be ludicrous in the real world, where psychology, historical background, knowledge of who did what to whom and why, counts in judgement. The simplest solution, non-punitive, would have been to impose on I/P articles rigorous standards of evidence from book knowledge rooted in reliable academic sources. That simple criterion would have stopped the huge POV-googling crap that mocks articles, and kept out people who don't up read much of anything.Nishidani (talk) 17:02, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Oh, no problem, it was mock outrage - I took the description in exactly the way it was intended, it just came across as somewhat amusing when I read it, and also I thought that those I've clashed with occasionally might not see it that way. While I can be a little combative at times (I'm not the first and won't be the last editor to get a little frustrated with some of the nonsense here occasionally), as you say I actually am innocuous in that I don't edit content widely, and am a compromiser in that I do try to work out woolly solutions a lot of the time (and in doing so am often a little too accomodating to aggressive POV editing). For my sins I currently find myself bogged down now in two separate dispute resolution proceedings. A whole world of fun, here. And you are of course right about the sourcing issues on I-P pages btw. --Nickhh (talk) 17:14, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Talk:Israeli settlement#Possible Arbcom Request

There is some information there that you might find useful. In any event your comments are welcome. harlan (talk) 12:56, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

No walkouts

Otherwise, nothing will get done. There is so much to write about it. I mean can you even believe that until yesterday there was no such article on Lydda Death March, which had a higher death toll than the Deir Yassin massacre? (Another page in dire need of some good editing). Someone's got to do it. It's sure as hell gonna be me if I have any say in the matter. I'm not about to let the history of things be written the way they were at Lod, before I started tackling it today. Tiamut^talk 19:13, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

I'd be the last person to leave you and one or two others to their own devices. I meant an experiment, repeating what I have done on several pages, usually with the same result. I, perhaps one or two others, would roll up our sleeves and begin to comprehensively pull a page up by the bootstraps. After a day or two, the usual figures drift in, and quibble, and question and revert. It gets my Irish up, I protest, and then leave the page, commending the drifting edit-warriors to do what I and one or two others intended to do, i.e., read up on the page subject, and edit to complete the article. Almost inviariably, the response has been one or two edits, a day or two passes, and then the edit-warrior wanders away from that page. The lesson I drew from this is that such editors are there for the conflict, not for the page, and, if you don't provide them with conflict (which is their purpose there, always over one or two words, or a single statement) they get frustrated.

So my suggestion was, and it might help Arbcom out of a very difficult situation, if they can put the proceedings on hold, for a dozen of the more notable I/P 'pro-Palestinian' editors to withdraw, for some months (all to the good: one reads more relaxedly, and researches more thoroughly), and see what, in our absence, the usual bunch of editing activists on the other side can do for these pages, or see whether, now that the adversary as editing excuse vanishes, they tire of the conflictual void, shadow-box a bit, and then realize that they are actually obliged to work on the encyclopedia, rather than work over adversaries.

Of course, I say this out in public, letting them know. There are many ways this could be gamed, and I've imagined several scenarios I won't mention here (well, a new crops of recruits might well march in etc.). The simpler obvious things would consist in, were such a partisan withdrawal to take place, naturally editing on. Perhaps they (hereon = disruptive editwarriors) would strive to prove that the contrary of what one would expect occurs, i.e. by editing to NPOV criteria, and adducing as much Palestinian matter as Israeli government sources. They might mock it by funny edits that tease the silent observer. They might just go bullheadedly on to produce an NPOV version of some official Zionist or Israeli perspective as though this were passable. I don't know. Of all editors on the other side, GHcool, with whom I mostly disagree, is the only one I have identified as endeavouring to write systematically over a page (I must admit I don't really follow many articles, so I may be doing an injustice here).

This is a chronically conflicted area, many solutions have been tried, without success. If, to enter sequentially into Wikipedia, the results of my reading of Henry Lauren's mammoth, La Question de Palestine (about 2,300 pages of detailed material) so far, I have to look forward to 10 years of combat, edit by edit, by people who've never read a book (by appearances), then I would be doing no good for the encyclopedia, or myself, or for the broader public that might wish to read clear informative and balanced articles on this difficult, and ill-reported matter. For all the last would get would be driblets of info' squeezed out of awkward compromises. So, on a long time-scale, I think several months, is neither here nor there, and this proposal is just a possible measure to test the commitment of many editors quite a few of us regard as in here to monitor, or act as damage-control patrollers for one specific political image.

I've just realized this is very oriental, and more or less reflects what my T'ai Chi mentor, a quiet man brought up in the roughhouse backstreets of Hong Kong in the post-war period, drummed into me. On our first meeting, he asked me what experience I had in martial arts, and I said, several years of Judo and karate. 'Useless'. He asked me to kick him in the stomach as hard and aggressively as I could. I did: he didn't move, and all that happened was I bounced off him, and fell flat on my arse.Nishidani (talk) 17:27, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Well, I was also thinking of Maxwell's demon, with only the entropic demon left in the closed system, while the other withdrew, in Wiener's variation. There's an account of it in Norbert Wiener's The Human Use of Human Beings (1950) pp.28f., which I came across while rereading him to check out what he says about repetition and noise in communicative systems last week, something that seemed to be illustrated by the discursive flow of the present arbitration.Nishidani (talk) 17:36, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Lydda death march

Hello my friend :),
Je suis bien entendu d'accord avec tout ce que tu as écrit sur la page de discussion. Je voudrais juste commenter ceci : "by such a mass of people forced onto a march under guard by a hostile enemy that was obliged by the Geneva Conventions to supply water, then of course it was, objectively, a 'death march'."
Les Israéliens les ont menés à 2 km (1/2 heure) de Latroun. Ils sont morts de soif sur le chemin de Ramallah (2-3 jours). Je crains fort que les responsables de ne pas leur avoir fourni nourriture et eau ainsi que le soutien minimum (tranports des enfants) sont les hommes de la Légion arabe... Même si le crime reste dans le chef des Israéliens qui ont expulsés plus de 50,000 personnes (après un massacre), personne n'est innocent dans l'histoire. Ceedjee (talk) 15:51, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Cher Ceedjee. J'estime toujours la précision de tes conaissances minutieuses en matière historique, et je suis d'accord che personne n'est pas complètement innocent dans l'histore, (parlant seulement des acteurs qui ont la faculté de décider. Naturellement, con l'histoire, il faut toujours distinguer les agents et ceux, 'les innocents' qui doivent subir les conséquences suivantes les décisions faites des autres). Les forces arabes (sauf la Légion de Glubb Pascha) avait des problèmes logistiques enormes. Et Glubb même à ce moment-là avait des difficultés notamment graves à cet égard. Rabin voulait, ses mémoires nous le disent, imposer, avec cette foule immense auprès de Latrun, un fardeau insupportable pour son ennemi. On manque une histoire détaillée des calculs logistiques de ce guerre. Les expulsions avaient un effet non seulement de nettoyage pour créer la base d'un Israél juif, mais aussi de rendre plus difficile la situation logistique de ses ennemis sur le champ d'action. Ton travail pour Wiki e l'indépendence de tes jugements, sont tous les deux, exemplaires, et je voudrais, avant de partir, te remercier pour m'avoir donné l'occasion de nouer une amitié avec toi ici utile au but fondamental de cette entreprise collective. Nishidani (talk) 17:27, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Bonsoir,

Dans cette guerre, les Palestiniens furent vraiment abandonnés de tous.

Ceedjee (talk) 19:59, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Bonsoir,CJ. Oui, c'est vrai, comme les juifs d'antan. Nishidani (talk) 22:03, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Apropos

Cnaan Liphshiz,Wikipedia editors: Coverage of Israel 'problematic', Haaretz 04/05/2009Nishidani (talk) 12:30, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

It turns out that the following elements are problematic for coverage of 'Israel-related issues', according to one editor here, Eli Hacohen, director of Tel Aviv University's Netvision Institute for Internet Studies.

• He complains that he is being thwarted in his edits to document that Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a Holocaust denier.

• He also complains that the Hamas article fails to define the organization as a terrorist organization.

• He notes that David Irving - a known Holocaust denier - is defined as a historian, 'although his credentials are recognized by no one but himself'.

• He notes that the Wiki article on Operation Cast Lead in Gaza describes it as an 'intense bombardment' by Israel on a civilian population.

What is curious here is the assumption (apart from the errors of fact, Irving was regarded as an accomplished historian by his peers for his early works: the Gaza Strip was the object of intense bombardment, not civilians etc.) that in writing on Hamas (Lebanon), or David Irving, or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (Iran), or Gaza ('Palestine'), a required perspective is one that takes these issues as 'Israeli-related' coverage. Is writing on Saddam Hussein, Noam Chomsky, or Cuba or Trail of Tears of the Cherokee ever interpreted by anyone as 'America-related coverage'?Nishidani (talk) 13:14, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Gaza Reading List

• Christopher Hitchens, 'Bad Timing', Slate, 05/01/2009
• Akiva Eldar, ‘Is an Israeli Jewish sense of victimization perpetuating the conflict with Palestinians?,’ Haaretz, 30/01/2009
• Benny Morris, ‘Why Israel Feels Threatened,’ New York Times 29/12/2008
• David Rose,'The Gaza Bombshell,' Vanity Fair, April 2008
• Charles Glass,'The Ordeals of Gaza,' SOAS Lecture 22 Jan, 2009
• Robert Fisk, 'Leaders lie, civilians die, and lessons of history are ignored,' The Independent 29 December 2008
• Anthony H.Cordesman, ‘The War in Gaza: Tactical Gains or Strategic Defeat,’ Center for Strategic & International Studies, January 9,2009
• Norman Finkelstein, ‘The Cleanser: Lobbyists Whistle Up Cordesman to "Prove" Israel Waged a Clean War in Gaza,’ Counterpunch, February 19, 2009
• Henry Siegman, 'Israel’s Lies,' London Review of Books, 29 January 2009
• John J. Mearsheimer 'Another War, Another Defeat,' The American Conservative, January 26, 2009
• Richard Falk, ‘Winning and Losing in Gaza,’ The Nation, February 9, 2009.
• David Bromwich, 'Self-Deception and the Assault on Gaza', Huffington Post, January 16, 2009
• Gideon Levy, 'The next step,’ Haaretz 24/01/2009
• Avi Shlaim, 'How Israel brought Gaza to the brink of humanitarian catastrophe,’ The Guardian, 07/01/2009
• Tom Segev, 'Trying to 'teach Hamas a lesson' is fundamentally wrong,’ 29/12/2008
• Tom Segev,’Peace Is No Longer in Sight,’ Washington Post, January 11, 2009
• Tom Segev, ‘Cruel and meaningless wars,’ Haaretz, 23/01/2009
• Eric Hobsbawm, 'On Gaza' , London Review of Books, 15/09/2009
• Geoffrey Wheatcroft, 'How Israel gets away with murder,' The Independent, 11/01/2009
• Gershom Gorenberg, 'The Ignored Choices in Gaza,’ The American Prospect, January 7, 2009
• Norman Finkelstein, 'Foiling Another Palestinian "Peace Offensive",' Counterpunch January 28, 2009
• Noam Chomsky Guillotining Gaza 07/30/07
• Sergio Romano, 'Gaza. Chi ha iniziato e come giudicare la guerra,' Corriere della Sera, 09/01/2009
• Shlomo Sand,‘David et Goliath ou le mythe historique inversé,’ Le Monde diplomatique, Février 2009
• Stephen M.Walt, ‘What if Egypt, Jordan, and Syria had won the Six Day War?’, Foreign Policy, 01/04/2009
• Timothy Garton Ash ‘Europe is failing two life and death tests. We must act together, now', The Guardian, Thursday 8 January 2009
• Michael Walzer The Gaza War and Proportionality,’ Dissent, January 8, 2009
• Seth Freedman, ‘A suffocating consensus of self-congratulation’, Guardian, 29 January 2009
• Anthony H. Cordesman, ‘THE “GAZA WAR”: A Strategic Analysis,’ Center for Strategic & International Studies, February 2009 p.2
• Michael Mandel, Self-Defense Against Peace, Counterpunch February 5, 2009
• Sherifa Zuhur, 'Hamas and Israel:Conflicting Strategies of group-based politics,' Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, December 2008
• Pierre Heumann,'Israel's Conspicuous Silence after the War', Spiegel online, 22/01/2009
• Gadi Baltiansky, 'What happened to us?,’ Ynet 01/21/2009
• Ben Wedeman, ‘Analysis: After the war, an uneasy peace,’ CNN.com 21/01/2009
• Gideon Levy, 'Kahane won,' Haaretz, 08/02/2009
• Amos Harel, 'IDF rabbinate rapped for booklet advocating cruelty in Gaza war,' Haaretz, 08/02/2009
• Amira Hass, 'Pots of urine, feces in the refrigerator,' Haaretz, 06/03/2009
• Gideon Levy,'Has anyone in Israel asked why the Swedes hate us?', Haaretz, 14/03/2009
• Amos Harel, ‘IDF in Gaza: Killing civilians, vandalism, and lax rules of engagement,’ 19/03/2009
• Uri Blau Dead Palestinian babies and bombed mosques - IDF fashion 2009,’ Haaretz 20/03/2009
• Breaking the Silence Full Report on Gaza 14/07/2009
• Chomsky on Gaza aftermath
• Donald Macintyre, ‘Israeli commander: 'We rewrote the rules of war for Gaza', Independent, Wednesday, 3 February 2010
• Sara Roy, 'Gaza: Treading on Shards,' The Nation, Feb 17, 2010
• Rachel Shields, 'Children of Gaza: Scarred, Trapped, Vengeful', The Independent, 14 March, 2009
• Michael Slackman, Ethan Bronner 'Trapped by Gaza Blockade, Locked in Despair', New York Times, 13 July 2010

Massacres 1948

Hello,
Could you have a look at my additions here. I try to paraphrase the info you gave me from Laurens (excellent source) but it is hard for me. To equilibrate everything; I also introduce info about Deir Yassin. Thank you ! Ceedjee (talk) 11:42, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Done. I changed several hundred to a large force only because the word 'several' was used twice in the sentence. If you wish to specify 'several hundred' fighters, then be careful to find an alternative word for the other 'several'! The Star of David emblem was not recognized by the Red Cross, so I adjusted your note, and a few other things. If there are any problems or queries about my copyedit, by all means drop me a note. Cheers Nishidani (talk) 13:07, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Thx ! Ceedjee (talk) 16:06, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

hello,

Dear Nishidani, First, may I ask you to email me? It is about a total non-Wikipedia matter. If you want, I can post my email here.

Secondly: I am very sorry to see that you will now apparently be topic-banned from the I/P area; I will greatly miss yours (and G-Detts) comments about matters. However; I´m very happy that you are now editing the Dogon-people, absolutely fascinating, aren´t they? I actually edited a bit there when I arrived on WP back in 2005; before I got caught up in I/P affairs. I really love their art/architecture; & I hope to go there one day.

Anyway, take care, Huldra (talk) 20:34, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

PS: BTW, the claim here that "Jerusalem Post has never faced mainstream accusations of lying" is as wrong as it can be. Only 6-7 weeks ago the "Jerusalem Post" claimed on their web-site that Norways Minister of Finance (and leader of the Socialist Party), Kristin Halvorsen, had shouted "death over the Jews" in an demonstration earlier this year. They had to withdraw the allegations (which caused an absolute outrage in Norway), as their only "source" turned out to be a convicted fraudster who goes under the alias of "David Weiss." It is discussed here (and many, many other places):

• http://www.aftenposten.no/nyheter/uriks/article3008893.ece
• http://www.aftenposten.no/nyheter/iriks/article3016760.ece

(And Aftenposten is about as mainstream as you can get in Norway. Lots of other media discussed it too.)

I think people here was absolutely astounded by the total ignorance shown by the "Jerusalem Post." Needless to say; any politician in Scandinavia who start saying/shouting "Death to the Jews" will be completely ostracized here in about 1/2 second. To think that any half-educated or semi-intelligent being can fall for such a fraud is, to me, and to other people here in Scandinavia, completely incredible, and I am afraid it left us with no great admiration for "Jerusalem Post". Cheers, Huldra (talk) 21:13, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Oh Christ, I'm learning when it's too late, all sorts of fascinating things. I bought Griaule and Dieterlen's le renard pâle 4 decades ago, after reading 'Conversations with Ogotemmeli' in a library, and have never quite recovered. Had I known you shared this interest, we could have teamed up and done it top to bottom. Absolutely extraordinary people, and superb anthropology. As I said though, if I can't edit where I like to, I won't edit anywhere.

Thanks to the aftenposten link. I don't believe people or institutions really lie anymore. They really sincerely believe the things they make up from hour to hour. Take Silvio Berluscoglioni, for instance, here.

I just told Ceedjee I'd delay for several months putting in an email contact. If there's something urgent, well, I'd have to reconsider. Only the autistic, or insecure ideologists, bristle at making rare exceptions. So, by all means, then leave your email address. Sorry to be a lousy prick on this. I'm a bit like a hedgehog. They only open up when foxes piss on them. Best Nishidani (talk) 21:52, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

I have the "Conversations with Ogotemmeli' book; I really planned to go there 2-3 years ago, but something came up. We will see about this autumn, though. I`m also dreaming of visiting Djenne.... Ah yes, here is a note from me, back in Sept. 2005. Never followed it up. A job for you, Nishi? (I am playing the temptress here; would hate not to see you around..)

About lying: yes, you might be right: they *do* believe it. But that makes it even sadder. Take care, whatever you decide to do, Huldra (talk) 22:14, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

List of sockpuppets and their victims

Someday an historian of wiki should look into the question of how sockpuppet investigations have played out in terms of the strategies of power-disbalancing. I think I know of one case where a pro-Palestinian editor I worked with got a sockpuppet rap (Ashley Kennedy). Yet the number of socks of one or two editors, whose various manifestations were highly focused on getting pro-Palestinian editors of repute to lose their cool, and receive sanctions, is quite extensive.

'Pro-Israel'

• User:Mr. Hicks The III
• User:I am Dr. Drakken,
• User:Canadian Monkey
• User:NoCal100
• User:Hadashot Livkarim
• User:Isarig and his many manifestations
• User:Zeq and his many manifestations
• User:Tundrabuggy and his many manifestations.

'Pro-Palestinian/independent'

• User: Ashley kennedy3

Anyone is welcome to add to this list, for sockpuppets on either side, active over the past few years, or now and in the future. A proper analysis would list the number of editors on the other side each sock has managed to harass to the point of having him sanctioned, as notoriously, Tundrabuggy succeeded, despite being to the eyes of all a patent sock, in almost getting User:ChrisO banned.Nishidani (talk) 14:33, 2 December 2009 (UTC)