User talk:Nishidani

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The West Bank/Judea and Samaria Problem

Personal work section notes. I get headaches and am as slow as a wet week, in dragging up diffs, and even have a geezer's trouble in following these arguments all over several pages, so I can't really make an adequate case. So I'll have to make my contribution in the next few days, according to the fashion I normally work after, when I did work, in the real world. Reflecting from principles, through to the problem, the evidence and conclusions. Apologies to anyone reading this. It's written to help myself get some order into this chat, not to guide others.

• 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.

(ii)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.

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. 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.

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

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.'

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.

(iv)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.' 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. 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.

(v)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, pressed settlement, and propagated the terminology ‘Judea and Samaria’. 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 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.'

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, and 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.

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..

This goes right through 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.

Michael Sfard indeed has spoken of Hebrew being mobilized to lend itself to the national emergency of occupying Palestine, and denying the Palestinians the liberty to be themselves. They are passive subjects of an activist language that wraps them about in bureaucratic euphemisms.

'It has been tasked with providing a soothing, anesthetizing name for the entire project of suffocation, for the blanket system of theft we have imposed on those we occupy . . Thus extrajudicial executions have become “targeted assassinations”. Torture has been dubbed “moderate physical pressure”. Expulsion to Gaza has been renamed “assigning a place of residence”. The theft of privately owned land has become “declaring the land state-owned”. Collective punishment is “leveraging civilians”; and collective punishment by blockade is a “siege,” “closure” or “separation".'

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). According to Yossi Sarid, the process, illustrated further by Knesset proposals to eliminate Arabic as one of Israel's official languages, constitutes a form of ethnocide.

(vi) 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.

Further reading:-

• Mark Monmonier, No Dig, No Fly, No Go. How maps restrict and control, University of Chicago Press 2010

Question

Nishidani, on the Talk-page of the Gospel of Matthew you wrote: "...the importance for some Church theologians of establishing a Hebrew precedence in an environment where both Jewish and Christians competed for converts vigorously, where rabbinic hostility to Yeshua and ecclesiastical suppression of variant traditions deleted much of the then available evidence." Can you recite any historical documents attesting to this fact? It seems more likely to me that the passages quoted by Jerome, Eusebius, Origen, Irenaeus and Epiphanius from the original Gospel of Matthew (which was written in the Aramaic language and in Hebrew characters), and which Jerome had seen in the Library of Caesarea, is proof that the original text was not tampered with. It simply did not contain the genealogical record that now appears in the canonical text of Matthew (a later interpolation). Some think that these contradictory genealogical records in Matthew and Luke were added in order to counter the claim that Jesus may have been born of illegitimate birth.

According to Epiphanius (Anacephalaiosis 13.1): "The beginning of the Gospel among them reads: It happened in the days of Herod the king of Judea (at a time when Caiaphas was high priest) that a certain John came, baptizing the baptism of conversion in the river Jordan. Of him it is said that he was from the family of Aaron the priest, the son of Zacharias and Elisabeth. And all went out to him. […] It happened that John baptized and the Pharisees went out to him and were baptized and all Jerusalem. And John was dressed in a mantle of camel's hair and a leather belt was round his waist. And his food was, it is said, wild honey, of which the taste was that of manna, like cakes in olive oil.” It is worthy to note that the style of this original Aramaic Gospel of Matthew was similar in style to an earlier MS, viz., the Aramaic Scroll of Antiochus, whose introduction is strikingly similar to the Aramaic Gospel of Matthew, as if Matthew tried to emulate the style of the former.Davidbena (talk) 12:38, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

David, the above is massively confused, if only because in English you are saying that Jerome, Eusebius, Origen, Irenaeus and Epiphanius quoted from the original Aramaic Gospel of Matthew. They didn't.

Consulting primary texts is important. But we can only do so through secondary sources, since primary sources have all sorts of disputes surrounding them. You are careless in your use of both primary and secondary sources: the Anacephalaiosis is a recapitulation of Epiphanius's Panarion, itself a very confusing source, and is not by Epiphanius.

'the style of this original Aramaic Gospel of Matthew'. How did you get to that conclusion? If we lack the 'original Aramaic Gospel of Matthew' how can we say what style it was written in? See?

All ancient Christian testimonies agree that Yeshua died and was resurrected. That doesn't make it a fact. Many of the foundational stories in Genesis come from Ugaritic and Akkadian fairy-tales. That doesn't mean that the authors were translating from the originals in those languages. These methodological considerations are very elementary, and I can see no sign of a sensitivity to them. Antiquity was mainly an oral-transmission world, based also on rote memorization which, in bilingual speakers meant the tales were rewoven according to the audience's primary language. I don't care one way another about this. It is all speculative and unverifiable except if a rubbish dump in Egypt throws up evidence. The only thing that is important is to get secondary RS materials properly marshalled and paraphrased.

The facts I refer to and which you quote are common in the secondary historical literature. Nishidani (talk) 14:26, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Nishidani, you asked me: "How did you get to that conclusion [about its style]? If we lack the 'original Aramaic Gospel of Matthew' how can we say what style it was written in?" The answer is quite simple, Nishidani. I study Talmud (both, the Babylonian and Palestinian Talmud), which texts are written in Aramaic, just as Jews have always written their religious works and novellae. The Palestinian Talmud is written in the dialect spoken by Jesus and it is, therefore, quite easy to reconstruct the original text of the Hebrew/Aramaic Gospel of Matthew based on Epiphanius' record in Greek. I have made a preliminary translation back into the spoken Aramaic of the time, and, surprisingly, it is strikingly similar to the Aramaic "Scroll of Antiochus" which I also have in my private library. The "Scroll of Antiochus" begins in this way: "It happened in the days of Antiochus, the king of Grecia, a king who was great and strong and potent in his dominion, and to whom all kings gave homage, etc." The words in Judeo-Aramaic are: והוה ביומי אנטיוכס מלכא דיון, מלך רב ותקיף הוה וחסין בשלטנותיה וכל מלכיא ישתמעון ליה. You see, in the original Aramaic of the Gospel of Matthew (as quoted by Epiphanius ibid.) the wording would have been quite similar: והוה ביומי הורדוס מלכא דיהוד , etc.

As for your reluctance to rely principally upon primary sources, I can understand that. Still, because of the vast opinions in contemporary literature regarding this subject - often divergent one from the other, it is always a good idea to bear in mind the primary sources upon whose axis our entire debate hinges. For example: Jerome wrote (Dialogus adversus Pelagianos, in: Migne, Patr. Lat. 23, Parisiis 1883, III, 2): "In the Gospel 'According to the Hebrews,' which was written in the Chaldaic and Syriac language but with Hebrew letters, and is used up to the present day by the Nazoraeans, I mean that according to the Apostles, or, as many maintain, according to Matthew, which Gospel is also available in the Library of Caesarea, the story runs: 'See, the mother of the Lord and his brother said to him: John the Baptist baptizes for the remission of sins, let us go to be baptized by him, etc."

Likewise did Jerome write elsewhere: "Matthew, also called Levi, an apostle after having been a publican, was the first to compose a gospel of Christ in Judea in Hebrew letters and words for the sake of those of the circumcision who believed. But who afterwards translated it into Greek is not sufficiently certain. The Hebrew itself has been preserved until the present day in the library at Caesarea which Pamphilius the martyr so diligently collected." - Jerome (On Illustrious Men).Davidbena (talk) 19:59, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

'The answer is quite simple, Nishidani. I study Talmud'

I might answer that my first degree was in classical Greek, of which the koine is a very simple dialect. One thing one learns in mastering a classical language is that sources are often garbled. Almost all classical sources save one (Dionysius of Halicarnassus) say that the Etruscans emigrated from southwestern Asia Minor. The majority of scholars subscribe to the theory of autochthony. Go figure. Several hundred scholars with a command of Aramaic and Greek disagree with you.Nishidani (talk) 20:41, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

I will be willing to challenge any scholar in a debate on these ancient texts, and I am quite confident that I could win such a debate. I have already noticed countless errors with so-called "scholarship." Some try to use a Syriac-dialect to reconstruct the original Aramaic Gospel, but their dialect is NOT the same as Jewish Aramaic of the 1st century CE. Even Babylonian Aramaic differs from Palestinian Aramaic! Ask any Jewish scholar who has studied the Talmud in Israel for more than thirty years. Also, Jews have preserved written records dating back to thousands of years, similar to the Greeks in that regard. The difference, however, being that Jews are more scrupulous in what concerns the accurate rendition and copying of ancient texts. I know because I also worked in Jerusalem as a scribe.Davidbena (talk) 23:43, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

The problem is not to convince oneself, most of us have that fateful flaw in our characters: the problem is to convince one's peers that 'everyone is out of step but me, Johnny', to adopt my mother's ancient admonition for eccentric ideas. Pilpul's methods, however intricate, are generally not those of historical criticism and textual analysis. Formal source analysis is what you lack: I can see it in the way you marshal evidence.

• 'The Palestinian Talmud is written in the dialect spoken by Jesus' (actually it is written in Late Western Aramaic (i.e. post 200 CE, which has three varieties Jewish Palestinian, Christian Palestinian and Samaritan Palestinian dialects). I am very familiar with two dialects with a written history, and each of them has changed drastically over 200 years.

Having studied the Aramaic of the Palestinian Talmud, it is quite conclusive that the style and dialect were common in Galilee in the 1st century CE. The shortening of proper names (e.g. Yuda instead of Yehudah, Yashua instead of Yehoshua, etc.) are just a few examples of this. The Aramaic in Israel may have also been used by Samaritans and Christians, but this is irrelevant, since the surviving Aramaic texts of the Palestinian Talmud are all quintessential Jewish modes of speech in the Land of Israel at that time.Davidbena (talk) 17:06, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

• Jerome write elsewhere: "Matthew, also called Levi, an apostle after having been a publican, was the first to compose a gospel of Christ in Judea in Hebrew letters

I.e.,Jerome thinks the Gospel of Matthew was written by a direct disciple who knew Jesus, a provincial tax-collector who must have been born around I-2 CE, who set down his impressions in Aramaic sometime after 33CE. It follows that Matthew is the first gospel: that Mark, whom the same Papias identifies as Peter's interpreter, and hence a Greek-speaking intimate of the first apostle, didn't influence Matthew, but Matthew Mark, though every indication tells us the contrary is probably the case (the nativity stories arose after Mark, probably in response to Jewish criticisms that Yehoshua could not be the messiah because his birth data as a Nazarene were not consonant with biblical prophecies about the Davidic line, hence the 'trip to Bethlehem', etc); that typical phrases like ἕως τῆς σήμερον at Matt:27:8 and elsewhere, suggest strongly several decades had passed from the time of Yehoshua to Matthew's writing; That therefore characteristic stock phrases typical of Matthew's style, though identical to those favoured by Joachanan ben Zakai who would have been 3 years old at the traditional date for Yehoshua's death, for one, who would customarily use them after 70 CE are either coincidences or signs that JbZ picked them up from Matthew, rather than a Matthew writing in the 70s and 80s picked them up from JbZ, i.e. like that from Hosea 6:6 כִּ֛יחֶ֥סֶדחָפַ֖צְתִּיוְלֹא־זָ֑בַח = Ἔλεος θέλω καὶ οὐ θυσίαν Matt.9:13;12:7 . One could multiply like a tumbling block of domino pieces sprawling for miles the problematical consequences for the thesis you push, a thesis based on an ignorance, friend, of the standard techniques of source criticism developed over the last 200 years. Accumulation of memes, of repeated statements with their variations in ancient texts, does not constitute an argument, as you and Ret.Prof think. It is only evidence for a failure to understand the methodology of modern scholarship.

For thousands of years everything agreed Homer wrote the Iliad and Odyssey. All primary sources said so. The thesis crumbled when formal analysis showed there was no such single author behind the text. August Fick was convinced Homer as we have it went back to a core in the Aeolic dialect, and recomposed it according to that dialect. No one was convinced he'd got to the 'real' Homer, any more than Matthew was necessarily a single author as opposed to the final editor of a text part of whose logia or sayings were later said to have been collected by a certain Matthew. What you are doing is Fisking wikipedia, which is forbidden. Publish your results in a reliable academic press, and you may just get past the rules. Good luck! Nishidani (talk) 11:28, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Thank

you! But some people don't think so. I'll be so bold as to predict the outcome of that matter will be: "We told you so". --Shirt58 (talk) 13:38, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Hi

Greetings, does your (wide) field of expertise extend to Jewish Christianity? Supposed Hebrew Gospels and so forth? In ictu oculi (talk) 15:02, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

I've read about it for half a century fairly extensively, but have no pretensions to expertise. My only feeling is that nothing can be known, most of what is said is a POV, and that, for wikipedia at least, we have no other option that to write article according to strict criteria of WP:RS, WP:Due, making them reflect the scholarly consensus, where ascertainable, while allowing leeway for nuancing dissent positions when they are not notably eccentric or fringe. Cheers Nishidani (talk) 15:21, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

That's exactly what we need. In ictu oculi (talk) 17:11, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Reference Errors on 17 February

Hello, I'm ReferenceBot. I have automatically detected that an edit performed by you may have introduced errors in referencing. It is as follows:

• On the Khazars page, your edit caused a DOI error (help). (Fix | Ask for help)

Please check this page and fix the errors highlighted. If you think this is a false positive, you can report it to my operator. Thanks, ReferenceBot (talk) 00:38, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

If you can automatically detect an error, you can automatically fix it, bothead.Nishidani (talk) 12:17, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Belated MC

more than one year and one month late old chap. better late than never but not if all you are going to do is pen some tired cliches lacking accents (with a weak pun as a sorry bone to chew on). i'm afraid that my grey matter is not what it used to be after firing out a couple of life projects and holding on for dear life lest i lose track of one of these celestially bound bodies whose adventures never cease to amaze me. take care and if some cells should miraculously regenerate with time, i will see you again soon. Tiamut^talk 20:06, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

I began to worry about the symptomology suggested by the pleonasm of tired clichés, until I realized as per some thread above, that the clichés in question must be pneumatically endowed ('tire-d', no gross vulgarity intended) and keep running by sheer inertial momentum. Then of course I thought of Walter Redfern's doughty labours on the subject. I'm a re-tired cliché, as is most of the world, keeping faith with the wisdom of Ecclesiasticus. Don't worry: cells regenerate. Unfortunately, those (Abu Ghraib, Camp 1391's cells etc. ) of the degenerate hegemons, under whose imperial sway we are expected to accommodate ourselves, grow apace as well, and the grey that matters (Graham Greene) is whitewashed by the manichaistic simpletons who would reduce all the niceties of perception into a duelling chess-match of simplistic dualisms. There! I've matched your ellipticism, and my Sunday morning exercise in rhetoric is done! Nishidani (talk) 10:14, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Wording

Hi. You are correct on what you wrote in your edit summary here. But I think the wording was used for the whole part, not only that about the occupation. However, all of the points there, except for collective punishment, is undisputed. So maybe it is better to have it like it is now but change to "and what they describe as collective punishment". Any thoughts? --IRISZOOM (talk) 20:03, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

Hi. Well, collective punishment is a subset of 'military occupation' (which no one doubts: it is surrounded on all sides: a few days ago a major clash occurred when Palestinians tried to protest their lack of access to their businesses and residences on Shuhada Street). I always prefer the inclusive term: put the subterm in and someone will ask for a specific source on 'collective punishment' at Hebron. Cheers Nishidani (talk) 07:51, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

I take your notes seriously enough to reexamine my own quick reply. The result is I've done an extensive preliminary edit there, with links to several books that would be useful as background. For the moment I'm busy, but I hope the edit wasn't messy and that the passage you mention is improved. One link was broken and had to be replaced. Regards Nishidani (talk) 12:28, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Just as a reminder how absurdly ticklish otherwise normal descriptive terminology can appear to some. A Palestinian posted some days back a note on his Facebook page about living 'under occupation'. The Israeli police hauled in him for an interrogation, since this was evidence for 'incitement', i.e. a crime of hatred. Using even internationally accepted legal terminology is now interpreted in some quarters as an incitement to race hatred. Phew!Nishidani (talk) 16:28, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

True but when it was separated as before, I think it gives another view. You have formulated it great now. There was some problem with the formatting but I have corrected it now.

I read about the protests and actually thought to add it here but other things took up my time. I had not read about the other case, which is an astonishing one. --IRISZOOM (talk) 20:49, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Archiving

Nishidani, I've now set up automatic archiving for this enormous talk page of yours. It will never archive the "The West Bank/Judea and Samaria Problem" section at the top of this page. Some details:

• I've given you a nice fat archive size of 250K. That should put off for a while the evil day when you run out of archives.
• I've set it to keep at least 20 threads on this page, and to keep at least the most recent 180 days of discussion. In other words, the archiving bot will not be too aggressive.
• You can tweak these parameters yourself by editing the top bit of this page (but I think they're reasonable).
• It is possible to prevent, or just delay, the archiving of any specific section. See here, or drop a note on my talk page.

The archiving bot will not bother you with any notifications that it's done its work (none of my doing, that's just how the bot is set up). So don't be surprised when you find bits of your talk page have disappeared down the archive plug hole.

And with a bit of luck, neither of us should have to worry any more (at least, not for a few years) about archiving this page. Regards,

--NSH001 (talk) 12:14, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Well, the quiet performer (genius) comes to my aid once more. Thanks mate. I was thinking of you the other day while reading Richard Flanagan' s recent novel The Narrow Road to the Deep North, which I venture to suggest as a minute token of thanks you might profitably read (in memoriam, etc.) Best Nishidani (talk) 12:28, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Flanagan is a lucky man, at least his father talked to him. I never had any sense of love or affection from my father; I think in those days it was the duty and obligation of a macho male to support his wife and children, which he did do, but nothing beyond that. He was so badly affected psychologically by the war that he was an extremely difficult man to live with. I just mostly experienced criticism, with outbursts of fearsome rage from time to time, upsetting everyone in sight, especially my poor mother. It tends to inhibit conversation when you feel you're treading on eggshells all the time, never quite knowing when something might trigger an outburst.

I think I'll leave the book for a while. I did read a few books by survivors after my father died, which left me feeling very depressed (not immediately after - I had my hands full between a demanding job and the large amount of work needed to wind up my father's estate, mostly hindered rather than helped by the Scottish solicitors, who charged the usual outrageous monopoly fee). In very belated reply to a query of yours a long time ago – although he said almost nothing about the war, I do know that he was in the RAF, not the army, and that he rose to the exalted rank of corporal before he was captured. Regards --NSH001 (talk) 15:06, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Flanagan was lucky, and the exception (another was our family tailor, who went through the camps and yeet managed to retain a deep urbane serenity), and my brother's close woman friend, whose grandmother survived Auschwitz, and was subject to the kind of rage your father felt -her grandchild, raised by the woman, managed to survive her own childhood to become one of the most extraordinarily empathetic, helpful persons I've ever met. Most, paralleling Holocaust survivors, Jews and Gypsies alike, could never bear to speak of what they experienced. Without belabouring the point perhaps you might catch the film just done on Eric Lomax The Railway Man. I heard some months ago a very insightful interview with his widow here. Lomax, as an officer, it should be added, was luckier than yours (since as a corporal he wasn't of officer rank). In his memoirs, Weary Dunlop has pretty damning things to say about the officer class among the POW ranks.(I too had to wrest our estate from lawyers who refused to settle it because of the lucrative income they earned managing it. Just in time: the lawyer society crashed soon after and brought down hundreds of families in the ensuing bankruptcy.) Best Nishidani (talk) 15:49, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Lomax's was one of those depressing books. I haven't seen the film, but I did see something on the television quite recently about the film (can't remember which channel it was) and this piece in the Friend magazine (anything by John Lampen is well worth reading, BTW). Incidentally, my father never expressed any anger or resentment expliicitly against the Japanese; occasionally, when the subject of stammering came up, he would joke, "the Japanese cured me of my stammer". On the subject of damning remarks, my father was scathing about two groups of men he encountered in his career at ICI: the public school old boy network and arts graduates. So you'd probably have gotten it with both barrels! --NSH001 (talk) 17:42, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

One Changi POW I knew came back as a cheer-leader for Japan, and couldn't wait for the day they would triumph as a superpower! My father told me, when I started to learn the language, that the most racist anti-Japanese soldiers in his club tended to be pen-pushers who'd never actually fought in the Pacific War, and just swaggered with antipathy as they bullied their way through the country when it was occupied. My uncle, who had fought them, agreed. Your dad perhaps hated Arts Graduates because they stocked the POW uni courses, teaching men obscure subjects like Sanskrit, Malay, Greek history, Latin prose etc. to distract them from thoughts of starvation. Well my reading suggestions were rather inappropriate. It's just that from age 6, I found books enabled me to read myself out of a barrage of put-downs and humiliations - they taught you to disinvest in yourself sufficiently to see the trouble or pain behind the insult. Not much consolation if one missed out on a fundamental, like having a father. I've often noted, initially with surprise, that exceptionally good fathers suffered from bad parentage, and coped by reversing, rather than, as is the class norm, repeating the pattern. Cheers, mate, and thanks.Nishidani (talk) 18:03, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

On arts graduates, I doubt it. He said he was shocked, when he got to university after the war, how little work the arts students had to do compared to the scientists (so he might have let you off if you were putting in 12 hours a day in the uni library). Then you have to remember that ICI was a science- and engineering-based company, and he was infuriated by arts graduates being promoted to positions where they didn't have a clue about what they were managing. Similarly he thought the ex-public school types tended to get promoted beyond their ability. On the other hand, he did have a high regard for Paul Chambers, an ex-public school boy and the first non-scientist to be head of ICI. It's partly why I went for the science courses at school (my choice, not his), plus I could see that my father, as a scientist, was earning a lot more money than most of the other kids' dads. In any case I just enjoyed doing maths and science! The point you make about seeing the pain (or whatever) behind the insult (or indeed, any offence) is true indeed. --NSH001 (talk) 19:45, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Almost a first

This is a first indeed. We did come to some good compromises, but I don't think we ever agreed on anything before. Debresser (talk) 00:57, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

Well, I'm not surprised. You do understand the force of rational arguments - that's been clear to me for years. I don't care whether editors' private opinions clash with my own, as long as there is room for reasonable compromises, based on honest attention to what one's interlocutor is saying, and a decent respect for the rules in this madhouse. Cheers. Nishidani (talk) 13:09, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

Khazar theory of Ashkenazi ancestry

Hi - with this edit[1] I'm guessing that you moved material from another article but didn't put a link to that article in your edit summary (that needs to be fixed with a dummy edit to avoid copyvio). My problem is that you didn't bring over the references, so we have Brook 2009 and Brook 2010 without a clue as to what these are. I've just reverted someone who replaced one of those with a website (which at least was selling his book among others, so some relevance). Can you please fix this? Thanks. And, um, Sheba? Dougweller (talk) 15:44, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

Mea culpa on all counts. I've done part of your request. What's the 'copyvio' in copying one's own wiki work from one page to another. Five months late on Sheba, sheba! (/I don't know if any of your dialects uses sheeba in the sense of 'cripes, jeepers, creepers') Work load. I'm doing a long analysis of an obscure oriental book. Will get to it when time allows, unless infarction intervenes. Thanks for the heads-up, Doug, as youngsters here write.Nishidani (talk) 18:27, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

If it's all yours, I guess that's ok, I don't recall our guidelines mentioning what we do in that case. I tend to say something in the edit summary but sometimes forget when I'm copying my own text. I hope your mention of infarction isn't a medical concern. Nope, never heard sheeba used that way. But the US is a huge place, loads of phrases that are only used on one locality, ditto on a smaller basis the UK, the only 2 English speaking countries I know well. Don't worry about Sheba. Dougweller (talk) 19:27, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

Reticent to...

Ah, Nishidani, this time I must disagree. "Reticent to" is attested in English since 1875 according to the OED:

2. Reluctant to perform a particular action; hesitant, disinclined. Chiefly with about, or to do something.
1875 Rep. Sel. Comm. Condition of South (43rd U.S. Congr. 2 Sess.) 15 The State registrar was just as reticent to give us information.
1932 Daily Capital News & Post Tribune (Jefferson City, Missouri) 14 Feb. 11 a/6 They were reticent about leaving it [sc. home].
1948 Jrnl. Amer. Folklore 61 29 Dreams, promptings of the spirit, and peep-stones have all combined to make the reticent girl give in to the proposals of a polygamous suitor.
1959 Times 8 Oct. 13 Having..informed my employer of my impending call-up, he is naturally reticent to improve my position.
2008 F. Kellerman Mercedes Coffin xxxviii. 311 She knows he'd be reticent to hire a lawyer to defend her?

It seems to have begun in America, though, but did make it into The Times by 1959. In all other aspects of the discussion we concur, of course.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 17:31, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

Well, screwmecadaverous, Alf, yu've cort me by the short and curlies, ...no!fuckit!

Reticent

• 'reserved, disinclined to speak freely; given to silence or concealment.'J.A.Simpson, E.S.C. Weiner (eds), Oxford English Dictionary,2nd ed. 1989, Clarendon Press, Oxford vol.XIII,p.777 col.2 will admit of no example of 'reticent' in the sense of 'reluctant'. So, stuff that up ya septic tank pipe and smoke it:) Doug's just given me some grief on the Khazar page, and I need a feed and a bottle of Barolo before I come to my senses! Nishidani (talk) 18:27, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

Passive voice

You may find this of interest.

In the mid-1980s, when I worked at Al-Fajr Newspaper, a friend of mine was teaching English in a village in the West Bank. She wanted to do a lesson on active and passive voice, and for this purpose she photocopied reports of the same clashes between Palestinians and Israeli forces, as published in both the Jerusalem Post and Al-Fajr English Weekly. Where the JP routinely reported that "x Palestinians were injured", "y houses were demolished", AF reported that "Israeli forces injured x Palestinians, destroyed y homes". It's a lesson her pupils never forgot!

Happy weekend. RolandR (talk) 21:35, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Roland. 'Old' newspaper hands know these tricks, and it's a pity much of it appears to be lost on contemporary readers. Actually, I don't mind the passive voice in historical narrative. It's not uncommon, but there's no reason why one can't accompany it with the instrumental by. 'z Palestinians were injured by Israeli forces'. Karl Kraus attributed the disasters of Shanghai, and much of WW1, to slipshod journalism with its endemic solecisms, wrote most of the nearly 1000 issues of Die Fackel to hammer away on this point: that the sanity of reality is dependent on extremely precise respect for grammar and usage (pity the poor bugger thought it necessary to convert to Catholicism: it gave his critique, in crucial moments, like his attack on Herzl, an antisemitic edge. He never had the good fortune to listen to Eric Hobsbawm's mother's advice to her son on identity, which I'm sure you're familiar with). Have a good one yourself, Roland. Best Nishidani (talk) 22:41, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

And I wonder what Hobsbawm's mother would have said to the eminent and learned saxophone player... RolandR (talk) 23:45, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Ha!) In any case, Eric Hobsbawm, Interesting Times, p.24 (read on through to 25). Nishidani (talk) 18:56, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

Your sermon a performative demonstration of your point

...because it could have been preached equally well on Saturday morning as on Sunday. Nicely done.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 23:06, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Thank you

		The Socratic Barnstar
		For your wisdom in the analysis of the mess that was the Gilabrand AE case, and the wisdom that your comments continue to show. The Israel-Palestine area needs more editors like you. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 17:56, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

That's deeply appreciated. But your last edit has a summary 'sleep deprived' (the spelling 'derpived' proves the truth of it) and I worry that this might be misread against you, however. Malice or reading between the lines for non-existent fine print to prove an unempirical apriori suspicion, is commonplace in the I/P area, and bad blood is easy to stir at the slightest appearance of administrative appreciation. Admins must, of necessity, keep all us us at an arm's distance (I wanted to write 'yard' to increment the distance between us peons and the neutral board of directors and admins, but didn't because it was the standard term in Shakespeare's day, in the KJB, and current till Dickens' time, for penis!). My work there was not so much about Gilabrand: I have a long term scepticism about the 'readability' of diffs on a subject as evidence for the court. Unless one knows the context, they can prove very very tricky. Though it risks WP:TLDR, we peons in such cases should assist arbs by doing the legwork and contextualizing each diff in an evidence report, because not to do so, is to assume they capture what is at stake. It's particularly important in sensitive areas. To expect admins, who can't be familiar with every topic area, to rake through subtle sequences and figure what is going on, is to expect inhumane energies, and demand that they give up their off-wiki lives. Thanks, in any case, and happy somnia! Nishidani (talk) 18:17, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Amalek edit you made

"Armenians as Amalekites: Fixing an horrendous confusion of displaced sourcing, WP:OR. If you edit in anything, please follow standard principles.". This was not my work. I restored material a new editor deleted without cause or comment. The critique is meant for the prior editor that added that material. Alatari (talk) 15:41, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

Sorry for any confusion there. You were quite right to restore that material, which should never have been removed. My edit summary referred to whoever did the original compilation. Thanks, and cheers.Nishidani (talk) 15:57, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

You are amazingly fast at reorganizing that to a better form. Your page says you retired. You are addicted... Thanks for all the work you've put in. Alatari (talk) 16:35, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

1517 pogroms

Hi,

You participated to a discussion on that article. A brief opinion would be welcome here. Pluto2012 (talk) 17:54, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Thank you. I forgot about the word opinion... I will try to take care of this !!! Pluto2012 (talk) 19:25, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Talkback

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

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

Hello, Nishidani. You have new messages at Ojh2's talk page. --09:41, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

Mongoloid Khazars

Although you were right to remove that silly passage about Khazars being more mongoloid in a certain region, I'd like to bring your attention to this. Notice the beginning of page 4. Khazar (talk) 23:19, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for that note. I've added a note re skulls, as you will see.Nishidani (talk) 08:23, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Things to be done/Notes to self (or what pieces are left of that hypothetical entity

• Huldra trans Talk:Bardala‎
• Sabah as per promise to Doug Weller
• Abu Iyad as per promise to Al Ameer
• The Ashkenazi Jews/Khazarian origins theory
• Werner Muensterberger
• 中里介山 and also his 大菩薩峠, which have no wiki article. ('to call him Dickensian would be utterly inadequate, to call Dickens "Kaizanian" would be to flatter him greatly' William E. Naff, The Kiso Road: The Life and Times of Shimazaki Tōson, University of Hawai'i Press, 2011 p.4.) Nishidani (talk) 21:00, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

(2)'To call Dickens "Kaizanian" would be an over-statement of his considerable gift for for creating memorable characters, while to call Kaizan "Dickensian" would be a seriously misleading understatement. This richness became all the more impressive when set against the national drive towards human standardization.' ibid. p.430

To be kept close to the bottom of this page because I forget the agenda as time scurries on Nishidani (talk) 21:00, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

• • e.g.<ref="Horowitz" /> Nishidani (talk) 17:20, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

Systemic bias or systemic angst

We use only mainstream newspaper sources for the I/P area updates. A half a day ago, Kerry touched on the risks Israel ran of becoming an apartheid state unless progress was made in serious peace talks. Well, in fifteen hours, Al Jazeera noted it almost immediately, as did the Jerusalem Post, The Times of Israel and Front Page Magazine; it took a mere 5 for Haaretz to note the fact; Ynet registered the news after 7 hours. The NYTs is still twiddling its thumbs, trying to work out how to spin this, on its not-yet-breaking news breaking news page. On the other hand it has the latest updates on sanctions against Russia, and was first off the block to shout that 'Egypt Sentences More Than 680 to Death'. On important I/P information, every dot and comma must be cross-checked, every stylistic nuance, every detail in the ostensible troublesome balance sheet must be calculated. In short, why bother?Nishidani (talk) 13:58, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps they are waiting for the inevitable push back and State Department "clarification" before they go to print. To be fair to the NYT, the only mainstream US publication I can see running the story is The Daily Beast (while all the main European and Israeli media are running it). The other point to note is that it has taken the US government 4 years to acknowledge something that was stated by the Israeli defence Minister in 2010. I guess it speaks to the evolving limits of acceptable discourse on the I/P conflict in the US. From what I recall, Chomsky's propaganda model posits that liberal media like the NYT set the limits of what is acceptable discourse in a society so it is not surprising that they are on the front line of that debate with regards the IP conflict. Dlv999 (talk) 15:08, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for that, Dlv. I noted it here because these things affect I/P wikiwork, which one hopes is the one global medium that, by its intrinsic logic, rebuffs the idea that reportage need suffer from a tactical incompleteness in coverage. Actually, what is odd is that as opposed to the NYTs articles, which are as dreadful as the negotiating imbalance, (protests couldn't get them to change Jodi Rudoren's statement that the Golan heights was in Israel) the New York Review of Books consistently carries very strong statements, in the books it reviews and the reviewing editors' comments, on Israel, books, mostly written by the Jewish or Israeli intelligentsia, that cover far more meticulously the hidden or silenced (what the Japanese call 黙殺, killing by silence) dimension, the facts on the ground, historical and contemporary. Clearly, therefore, the daily print version pitches its reportage to Middle American perceptions and desires an 'even-handedly' pro-Israeli spin, whereas the NYRB knows full well that its highly literate subscribers, Jewish or otherwise, are far more informed about the area than what is acceptable in 'public' discourse, and won't take the usual dose of suburban pabula. I can't quite figure out how this dissonance works for any self-respecting journalist at his newsdesk: commercial elements evidently dictate the distinction, but it sits very oddly. All the news that is fit to print is carefully snippeted out in one outlet, and studiously crammed into the other, depending on the constituency. The right hand knows what the left is doing, and vice-versa. Fascinating.Nishidani (talk) 15:38, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Coverage-wise, perhaps things are changing somewhat as a result of people like Diala Shamas and things like the B'Tselem’s Camera Project. Citizen journalism with the added bonus of occasionally getting shot, just like real journalists. Sean.hoyland - talk 16:45, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

True, everything's now covered, but little is still widely reported. While watching the clock to see how long it would take the NYTs to get over the angst and convey the gist of Kerry's remarks, I noted that its most emailed article this week is on Tony Blare's remark that 'the spread of Islamic extremism “represents the biggest threat to global security of the 21st century.' Maybe, but in the meantime, dealing with the real world, I emailed him years ago in Jerusalem to see if he could ensure that one more IDF uprooting of a solar-powered electrical grid for a khirbeh where a few hardscrabble farmers south of Hebron live could be reversed. He had been reported as having visited the area. and, after all, he is paid a reported $million bucks as special envoy of the Quartet on the Middle East to improve communication between the parties. Nothing happened. It's not the sort of practical thing than politicians think sufficiently attention-getting, I guess. Give me the Ezra Nawis of this world any day, who merit the Nobel Prize that chap in the White House refuses to bother returning. History is what elites mess with, or mess up: the redemption of modernity is that those who suffer from its consequences can now write what really happens (which of course the elites will never read). Sorry for this blog. Nishidani (talk) 18:50, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Well, unless I've missed something, the NYTs wasn't waiting for a State Dep. "clarification" but rather for Kerry's inevitable apology fo saying what every analyst in Israel or elsewhere knows as the logical consequence of indecision.Nishidani (talk) 10:30, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

• The New York Times in an instance of being the newspaper of false record.
• Kerry: "A two-state solution will be clearly underscored as the only real alternative. Because a unitary state winds up either being an apartheid state with second-class citizens—or it ends up being a state that destroys the capacity of Israel to be a Jewish state." Now, as theoretically each state of the two-state solution could practise apartheid, it would be interesting to know how that is going to be prevented; non-Jewish citizens of Israel become citizens of the Palestinian state and vice-versa? Also, it would be interesting to hear Kerry explain what would be so bad about a non-apartheid unitary state which is the state of all its citizens rather than being "the state of the Jewish people."
• Kerry: Kerry also said that at some point, he might unveil his own peace deal and tell both sides to “take it or leave it.” Oh right! No marks for guessing whether his plan would be taken or left by either side.

    ←   ZScarpia   15:03, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

I hope that my editing is acceptable here, otherwise, please do not hesitate and delete it. In my opinion, a unitary state cannot succeed. Both sides have bad records concerning minorities. The "Price tag policy" criminals are repeatedly evading the law enforcement, which is a shame for Israel. Unfortunately the situation is not improving. The poor Israeli election system give the small parties a lot of political force and the voters majority does not have a say. On the other hand, Israelis are looking at the current Syrian war, and would not accept a solution of a unitary state, which will possibly mimick such quarrels. Ykantor (talk) 18:06, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Please don't apologize for editing here or on other talk pages. We are all equal before wikilaw, and your rights are those of everyone else. This is not a coterie enclave.The PTP incidents are quite acceptable hazing. Having your land systematically and literally stolen as '(foreign)state land' in contravention of the Geneva Conventions is what is intolerable. But this is not the place to discuss these matters.Nishidani (talk) 12:16, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Don't all countries have bad records concerning minorities, with the possible exception of...no, can't think of one. Sean.hoyland - talk 18:10, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Now, come on, Sean. Some countries are run by minorities that have bad records concerning majorities but the minorities are treated quite well, being in charge of everything.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 18:15, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Good point!     ←   ZScarpia   19:22, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

So this isn't about the widespread geographical distribution of records by comedians that make racist jokes about minorities. Nevermind then. It would be a bit hypocritical of me to criticize countries being run by minorities that have bad records concerning majorities because it was that kind of shameful behavior that helped to make the country I was born in rich enough so that eventually, many years later, they could pay for my entire education without it costing me a penny, giving me the freedom to live anywhere I want, while a decolonised African peer had to do what they were told for several years to pay back their government grants. No fair. Sean.hoyland - talk 19:55, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

But, unless transfer of nationality or location is being considered, then the two states resulting from the two-state plan would themselves have minority populations.     ←   ZScarpia   19:22, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Should say that I suspect that what is in the pipeline by way of solving Israel's "demographic problem", attempts at turning Jordan into The Palestine State so far having failed, is the creation of a bantustan or two on the minimum territory possible with transfer of citizenship for Israel's non-Jewish population.     ←   ZScarpia   11:12, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

That will never happen. You cannot by an act of parliament strip 20% of the citizenry of their native rights, constitutionally, or before the world, which is ready to ignore most violations of international law, but not a flagrant imposition of apartheid. There has always been a very neat distinction here between what you calculate you can get away with and what you can't. When Obama threw in the towel the other day, remarking:'we haven't seen the political will to actually make tough decisions', he thought he was commenting on the other two parties. He was actually revealing the defect in his, Kerry and American foreign policy: the lack of a political will to make a tough decision. A juridically fair peace requries more of Israel than it does of the disiecta membra we call Palestine, and that is why there will never be a negotiated settlement, except via an act of treason by the reps of the latter, which would carry the death penalty. So, 5 decades on, one will have one state.Nishidani (talk) 12:16, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

In this case, depending on how the selling is done and how many countries supporting the Palestinians go through regime changes before an agreement is reached, the answer to what can be got away with will probably be, quite a lot. Israel is facing a "demographic timebomb" and politicians such as Tzipi Livni are urging the necessity of implementing a two-state solution in order to avoid it. How will implementing a two-state solution circumevent the impending demographic timebomb? For it to work, you would have to increase the number of Jewish Israelis eligible to vote in Knesset elections, decrease or slow the rate of growth in the number of non-Jewish Israelis eligible to vote, or both. Implementing a transfer of voting eligibility of non-Jewish Israelis from Israel to the new Palestinian state would help to achieve the latter options. When it comes to international protests, I should think that those who take the homeland view, that Israel is the homeland of the Jews and the new Palestinian state will be the homeland of the Palestinians, are already well down the road to accepting that ethnic Jews will be privileged in Israel (that is, if they're not already there). That would, of course be to implement apartheid in Israel proper, or, if you prefer to give it another name, "separateness".     ←   ZScarpia   16:37, 1 May 2014 (UTC) (Hope you'll indulge this comment, which was added after you requested people to stop adding to this thread)

Which would be the best solution. The presence of minorities is like a quiet conscience that sits vigilantly in the noisy parliament of that national 'amour-propre' which, otherwise on its own, sounds the death-knell of civility. When Jesus wanted to warn his fellow Jews of the dangers of failing in charity the legend has it he cited the palmary behavior of a Samaritan, the arch-enemy of Judaism. Most of what is great about modern Europe came from its minorities, the most creative being the Jews. And Sean, point taken. But my generation grew up in relatively struggling postwar countries, which could nonetheless afford universal health care and free education to tertiary level, of which you too are a beneficiary. Alf's point was that, nowadays, with the great seismic shift, elites governing western democracies that are tens of times wealthier than they, or our societies were, in earlier decades, now demand that the majority pay through the nose for every service, and cark it if they can't pony up health insurance, while insisting that their failed speculative bets in derivatives be covered by the Federal Bank. In that sense, the elitarian minorities that now are the post-Keynsian default models, insist that governments, almost completely in their pockets, downsize to zero their redistributive functions. Nishidani (talk) 22:02, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

"attempts at turning Jordan into The Palestine State so far having failed". I can understand that the Palestinians want to establish their state between the sea and the Jordan river, and no one has a right to tell them that their country is somewhere else. But how should we call the state of Jordan if "population of Palestinian origin constitutes about 67 percent of the Kingdom's population." ? . It make sense, that after a while, the 2 independent states, Palestine and Jordan , will merge, like the independent state of Texas who merged with the U.S..

- "You cannot by an act of parliament strip 20% of the citizenry of their native rights,". Yes, of course. These people should keep the Israeli citizenship, but what about their newborn babies? there is a precedent of British citizens, that their newborn babies are not inheriting the British citizenship, if the baby is born overseas.(I am not familiar with the details.)

- "Baqa al-Gharbiyye is separated from its West Bank sister city, Baqa ash-Sharqiyya (or Baqa East) by the Israeli West Bank barrier which in this section coincides with the Green Line.[16 As a result, a concrete wall topped with barbed wire runs through one neighbourhood."]. Does not it make sense that the border will move such as both Baqa villages will be united within a Palestinian state? Ykantor (talk) 20:25, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

When I wrote about attempts to turn Jordan into the Palestine state, I really had in in mind Jordan-is-Palestine proponents such as Ariel Sharon. For instance, this says: "Prime Minister Sharon's historical views of Jordan are, to say the least, troubling to those who rule in Amman today. How can it be forgotten that for many years Sharon was the most prominent voice in Israel favoring the proposition that "Jordan is Palestine." During Black September he sought unsuccessfully to win the government of Golda Meir to this view, advocating that Israel withdraw its support for King Hussein in his life and death battle against the PLO. In 1982, as minister of defense in the government of Menachem Begin, Sharon's star-crossed strategy in Lebanon included the relocation of Lebanon's Palestinian population, en masse, to Jordan."     ←   ZScarpia   16:00, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

I respect Nishidani wish to end this discussion here. If you wish to, we may continue in your talkpage or in mine. Ykantor (talk) 18:32, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, but it's probably better to get back to building an encyclopedia. And I've realised that a major part of what I wrote above was based on a serious misunderstanding on my part, so I should shut my mouth before I make more of a fool of myself.     ←   ZScarpia   21:30, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

97 years ago, an Imperial power decided to give a European population persecuted by antisemitism territorial rights in Palestine. 90% of the native population disagreed: the majority of religious Jews were horrified. In 2017, some end to this must take place, if decency is to prevail. Israel must accept that its 78% of a land which it only possessed only 6% of in 1948, is a bounteous historical settlement, and a stupendous achievement, where its population thrives in a booming economy with cutting edge science and technology and a fair life for most. None of this has taken place in the travailled history of the original majority population which has been systematically robbed of its possessions and rights. All the rest is bullshit and details that, in discussion, become an undignified travesty of fundamental notions of decency (because miracles of justice are rare in human history: I know of only one: the British abolition of the slave trade). But this is not what the thread was about, and I think it should end here. Regards Nishidani (talk) 20:44, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

But the incident of the use of "apartheid" by Kerry just points to the fact that the situation is approaching critical mass insofar as the USA can no longer unilaterally support certain intransigent positions of the Israeli government.

There are also internal pressures building in Israel, apparently, but, like Japan, the people put right-wingers in office.

Once the USA has to start abstaining in UN votes regarding Israel, the behavior of the Israeli government will have to change rapidly, or turmoil will ensue.

That, as I see it, is the crux of the matter at this juncture.--Ubikwit ^連絡 _{見学/迷惑} 16:48, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

The Guardian - Chris McGreal - Kerry wasn't wrong: Israel's future is beginning to look a lot like apartheid, 14 May 2014:

• In an interview late last year, Danon told me that there is not going to be a Palestinian state, and that Netanyahu shouldn't worry what the Americans think
• Danon says bluntly that he wants to take the bulk of West Bank land – Judea and Samaria, as it's known in Israel – while ridding the Jewish state of responsibility for governing the mass of Palestinians. "Long-term, I am not talking about annexing the Palestinians. My goal is to annex – or 'apply sovereignty', as I prefer to call it – to the land in Judea and Samaria with the minimum amount of Palestinians," he told me. "So, if I am doing the map, yes, I want the majority of the land with the minimum amount of Palestinians."

    ←   ZScarpia   23:28, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

Pt 2, strictly on the NYTs coverage

Could any of the young whiz kids out there tell me where the New York Times reported the news that Martin Indyk might resign from his role as Special Envoy, which caused a flurry of articles all over Israel and in many foreign papers? Thanks Nishidani (talk) 15:45, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

According to this Haaretz article, the source for the story was some Israeli officials in Jerusalem.     ←   ZScarpia   00:06, 15 May 2014 (UTC) (you may be interested in this transcipt of a speech and question and answer session given by Indyk on 8 May at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy’s 2014 Weinberg Founders Conference)

Thanks for both Scarpy. I did get the Indyk leak bit into the relevant article when it came out. In any case, I'm now taking some time to see what the NYTs fails to, or is late in, cover(ing) here, and the pattern is quite fascinating.Nishidani (talk) 12:03, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

On the NYT, but on a different topic, where the NYT is obviously not using its fact checkers, in order to fulfill a propaganda function. --NSH001 (talk) 21:26, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

Evildoer

Nishidani, I know you've spent a lot of time and said a lot on this AN/I case, but I hope you go to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Proposed topic ban and either voice your support or opposition. From reading your statements, I think I know your position but right now, the voting could go any which way (topic ban, indefinite block, both) and since you made the original complaint, I think what you say will carry a lot of weight. As an editor who is continually and persistently reverted by Evildoer at every turn, I find myself in the peculiar position of speaking up for him, if he can work on his attitude and sourcing. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 01:20, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

If you saw me doddering down the street, and chumbling at the gums, Ma'am, you would not solicit me! I would have preferred, in any case, not to vote. I've lowered my sense of what is due, because some of those votes seem mechanical. I don't like ganging up, or even the appearance of ganging up. There are a lot worse editors in this area than E.d. On the other hand, he hasn' the faintest clue about how to read what's going on, or how to assess sources, and he consistently 'prevaricated': the point about using one's computer only at work, where he could consult the 4 sources, to gain time, and then saying he had read Dipont (re Romulus/Remus) and that his question was only 'rhetorical' only then to admit he never even looked at the 4 sources (i.e. Dipont). I've seen people permabanned for less (like myself!). Let's leave this up to a completely neutral arb, hopefully two or three, to assess the evidence and make an autonomous call as to what is due. Nishidani (talk) 12:47, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

It's ironic that the two editors he most came in conflict with are asking for a lenient response in contrast to those who are unfamiliar with him. I see this happen sometimes on AN/I. I appreciate his interest in and passion for the subject, he is just so wedded to his POV, in came in conflict with the style of editing on Wikipedia. To be honest, I keep clear of topics I feel that strongly about, because I don't want to spend my time on Wikipedia fighting over these topics. It's easier to remain detached when you're editing subjects that are not tied to ones personal identity. IMHO. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 23:35, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Well, Liz, it's no skin off our noses to behave like gentlewomen! I too try to steer clear of topic I know a lot about, if only because it would be boring to just dollop in information. By editing areas one is ignorant of, one's unpaid work here becomes a constant learning experience. As to personal identity. Fortunate are those who have a clue as to who they are, other than what's on the ID card, if one has one. At least that's the psychoanalytic premise, and I underwrite it (though my signature is meaningless). Cheers Nishidani (talk) 11:16, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

A piece of sanity on the Ukraine issues for wiki

You get endless bad reportage in mainstream newspapers. Counterpunch is not stricto sensu RS, but this article should be accepted.Nishidani (talk) 17:32, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Un peu de réconfort serait le bienvenu

• XX Amitiés, Pluto2012 (talk) 17:40, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Désolé. Wikipedia souvent me fait penser au proverbe: 'fais du bien à Bertrand, il te le rend en caguant.' I'ìve suggested we draw up a petition here. I'm not confident we can get enough I/P editors from all sides on board, but it's worth trying. This is not an ideological issue: we're supposed to be a community that, even in our disagreements, can see the merits of each other's work. Amitiés.Nishidani (talk) 19:42, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Thank you Nish.

After all that I lived in 8 years I prefer stopping here.

Life is too short. Pluto2012 (talk) 19:36, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

It's not a lifetime obligation. One can always return. Whatever you decide, enough people here recognize the quality of your work to ensure that your edits here are taken seriously and stick. But it is good to also learn how to live outside of wikipedia, which is all duty, and hardly pleasurable. I saw La Môme, two nights ago, and can't get rid of those songs, all profoundly melancholic, but releasing springs of some indefinable joy in those who recall them. Summer is upon is, (Sumer Is Icumen In) and that is all that matters, so fuck/forget wikipedia and enjoy its air, fruits, landscape and lazy afternoons. Un abbraccio.Nishidani (talk) 19:47, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

My comment above strikes me now as frivolous, given your distress. A suggestion. The cost of getting even the obvious onto wikipedia here is extremely high. You have a sufficiently wide and deep mastery of the events of 47-8, and control of the secondary literature either to do a doctorate on the subject, or a book. At least there, one is free of the absurd wastage of time and intelligence which working here exacts on many of us, and, this is the sweetener, one can actually thrive in the pleasure of giving one's own views, meticulously reasoned, without murmurs of WP:OR ruining one's liberty. I would suggest, if this 'defeat' of years of effort rankles, that you exercise that option. If successful, you then become a source for future wiki articles. If not, at least giving systematic shape to your own understanding of events will allow you the pleasures of a private sense of achieved synthesis. A good point of departure would be to map events minutely, after the declaration of the Partition Plan, against the borders outlined in late November 47 until May 14/15 1948, and systematically place each incident, within and without those borders, chronologically, to determine who did what to whom (this is by no means clear from Morris 2004, for example, and in my view his thesis starts to wobble if one does this kind of analysis), listing attacks and casualties. In other words, writing a history of war that excludes all considerations of geopolitics, and outside historical agents, to concentrate exclusively on the struggle between the Yishuv and indigenous Palestinian Arab forces. Of course, please ignore this if, as I hope, you discover that there are better interests to pursue.Nishidani (talk) 21:22, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

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Sourcing

Hi Nishidani! I would ask you to reconsider the comment with which you reverted my edit at [2]. I know about Aikhenvald as a linguist, but that is not even at issue here. Bibliographies about living persons are not supposed to contain any unsourced information. The entire paragraph was unsourced, so it was appropriate to delete it. And so was your revert during which you added a source. Best, G Purevdorj (talk) 09:51, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

It is a matter of method. If you see something unsourced, you don't eliminate it (unless of course you have the area competence that tells you the statement or facts are absurd, contradictory, or false etc.) Were that the principle, almost 80% of wikipedia's content, if not more, would go down the gurgler. I wrote the passage you cancelled, because I know of her work on New Guinea languages, and even remembered an interview with her I heard in 2008. Editors have two options when they suspect something: (a) do a google search, which in this case (Aikhenvald+tok-pisin+manambu) would have immediately yield the source, or, if they are too busy, post a tag. I admit I was irritated that I had to go back and do that work, even if it cost me only a minute, hence my edit summary. But had I not by chance left that page, which I glanced at and edited just once, on my watchlist, your failure to check for sources and subsequent elision would have impoverished it, cancelled work by another editor, and left the general reader ignorant of a minor, but important detail. The page could be expanded significantly, also: she deserves better notice as one of the most outstanding linguists of modern times. One must always seek to enrich, rather than impoverish, articles in this fragile, randomly edited, digital encyclopedia. Regards.Nishidani (talk) 10:36, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Thank you

		The Socratic Barnstar
		I was meaning to thank you months ago but I forgot to. You've single handedly turned the Khazars article into one worthy of FA status. Not only is it free of edit wars now, but it's nice to be able to read one of my favorite articles without seeing it shrink or inflate with original research. :)))) Khazar (talk) 20:08, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Deeply appreciated, but I couldn't have gotten it into shape alone. I might have done a fair bit of the work, but it was an environment of several posters like yourself, Laszlo, Andrew and Jeepez (I hope I've forgotten no one, but at my age . .), ready to read closely, curb edit warriors, and check that constituted the sine qua non of anything accomplished there. Teamwork by people with a critical independence can do wonders, and no one main editor should forget that debt. Cheers Nishidani (talk) 21:11, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

CFD discussion

Nishidani, since you edit in the broad area of the Middle East, I'd welcome your opinion in the discussion on the deletion of the Semitic peoples' categories. The question about these categories seems to hinge on whether or not the editor believes Semitic is correctly applied to people or if it should be restricted to describing certain topics, like language, geography or history. Please weigh in at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2014 May 11#Category:People of Semitic descent. Thanks. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 14:50, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard

I don't want to be a headache but your experience with fringe theories are needed here. Khazar (talk) 23:43, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

Query

Are there any maps uploadable for the disposition of Yishuv forces on the 13/14 May 1948 set against the Nov.30 Partition plan map? One exists, and can be viewed at 17.15 minutes into Salman Abu Sitta's lecture on the Right of Return here. His argument is that on the day of the 'Arab Invasion' , Yishuv forces were already outside the lines allocated to them. Nishidani (talk) 19:52, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

Notes for possible future edits

• New definition of nakba.

a demonstration on Nakba Day—the anniversary of Israel’s Declaration of Independence in 1948. (Jonathan S. Tobin,'Was Nakba Shooting Another al-Dura Libel?,' Commentary Magazine 21 May 2014.)

• The problem with List of Israeli assassinations is that it is restricted so far to ordered killings, mostly admitted by the state actor. If the 15 May 2014 killings turn out to give the lie to the Pallywood memes circulating, the following data, plus sources indicating the outcome of investigations, should be entered there. It parallels the Mohammad al-Dura incident, given the indeterminacy, save for one element: in the former, responsibility was admitted immediately, only to be denied later. In the latest incident, responsibility was denied, the disinformation on tampered footage deconstructed within days.

Date	Place	Target	Description	Action	Executor
May 15, 2014	Beitunia, West Bank	Nadeem Siam Nawara(17); Mohammad Mahmoud Odeh Salameh(16). A third student, Mohammed Aza, was shot through the lungs	Students	Shot dead in the back in two separate incidents (73 minutes apart) after a demonstration involving rock throwing outside Ofer Prison.	Israel Border Police.

Nishidani (talk) 13:31, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

Israel - Palestine Conflict

It said at the top that you can only revert once every 24 hours on that page if you Edit it. You might be blocked now, you reverted twice! XD The Toon Disney Guy (talk) 11:51, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

What you did was self-evident vandalism. I/P articles are not disneyland, toon comics or a kindergarten sandpit. If you have legitimate objections that have missed the lynx-eyed gaze of a dozen long-term editors, address the talk page. If you wish to take this to A/1 read WP:Boomerang. Whatever, the mass removal of RS-sourced (4) material without warning is vandalism.Nishidani (talk) 12:03, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

I've checked your record, and can find no evidence at a quick review of interest in anything other than cartoons and television, except one edit to that page which was a drive-by tag plastering edit. Please correct me if I err.Nishidani (talk) 12:28, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

No, that is wrong, Dude! Also. Why are you bothered about that? You don't need to be a dick about it. The Toon Disney Guy (talk) 07:34, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

Unlike you, I wasn’t born yesterday. Nishidani (talk) 08:55, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

JarlaxleArtemis

For the record, it absolutely is him - even down to denying his identity (he also denied that he was Grawp until that was proven). He reacts instinctively - any time anyone challenges his edits, he starts making unicode-infused, empty, cowardly threats against them. As if this had ever worked. This has been going on for ten years, since he was 15, and he hasn't changed a bit. NawlinWiki (talk) 14:43, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

I'm deeply appreciative of the work you, and others like Malik, do in keeping this nonsense clear of pages. Jeez, I never really follow this stuff, but from 15-25 he's wasted a decade doing this? - ten of the best years of one's life, when one writes poems, reads impossibly dull tomes that turn out to be memorable for some gem one discovers or page-turning novels, treks through deserts, or along thin pathways in tropical forests, listens to the Beatles and Elvis, learns languages, travels the world, screws around, and up, goes to concerts to hear Richter, or watch Nureyev, works on a kibbutz, plays football and cricket, skulls and runs in long-distance events, almost gets murdered, carouses till dawn in good company every week in hundreds of pubs from London to Toronto to Los Angeles, and this kid's lost himself in fighting an ephemeral nanosecond war seated before a computer screen instead? It's profoundly sad because pointless. The state of Israel flourishes, and will continue to do so, whatever historians write, or angry POV pushers of the eternal panic-button of antisemitism or anti-antisemitism say, or do. I used to laugh when I saw the otherwise dumb message 'Get a life!' on the net. I now realize that it appears to be appropriate. Cheers and thanks.Nishidani (talk) 15:23, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

And a big thank you from me also, to you :NawlinWiki, and Malik and Zero and all the others who help keep the death threats etc off my page, Cheers to you! Huldra (talk) 23:54, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

Good grief! I never realized you had that many. Take it as a backhanded compliment, sys(ter). By a quick calculation (no of death threats etc vs number of edits on Palestinian villages) it is empirical proof at last that you remain the most important and invaluable contributor to wikipedia's database on the Palestinian world.Nishidani (talk) 08:27, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Of course I take it as a big compliment! :D But I really haven´t gotten the larges compliment yet; having socks named after you....I´m green with envy...: NishidaniDoesBadStuffToChildren (talk · contribs)  :) Cheers, Huldra (talk) 20:42, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Beitunia

The Beitunia shootings incident probably deserves its own article at some point given the coverage, although perhaps it's too soon. Anyhow, you may not have seen a more recent NYT article[3] B'Tselem seem to be keeping track of the media reports.[4] Sean.hoyland - talk 12:40, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the links. I've a whole file on that, thinking that it fits the criteria for a targeted killing but none of the earlier reports gave it as an instance of the same, until I noticed that, today, Human Right Watch reported its considered view that this consisted of a targeted killing. In that report, HRW lists quite a number of civilian killings that result from targeting practices with live fire during demonstrations, which however never figure in the usual lists of targeted assassinations, where the assumption is that there must be some Israeli testimony that the suspect was a 'militant'. This is just of course bias: one could add a large list of such killings that are not labelled that way ('targeted assassinations'), but they can't be added unless we have independent assessments classifying them that way. To note just another:-

• October (24?) , 2001
• Tulkarm
• Abdallah Jarousha.
• Unknown. A businessman
• Shot by Israeli snipers from Battalion 202 of the Paratroop Brigade, on suspicion of using a nearby telephone booth to regularly report Israeli positions.
• IDF(ref Chaim Levinson 'IDF officer promoted despite role in Palestinian's death,' Haaretz 10 June 2014 ref>)

One can't add that to the list, despite the fact that we know who gave the order (now Brig. Gen.) Roni Numa, who, Ofir, relayed the decision to 'neutralize' a Palestinian businessman (driving in a car with his wife and brother-in-law and children), to the two snipers who then shot him dead. It's the best documented example of the genre, but is not classified yet in the targeted assassinations lists. Indeed no internet search will tell you the day the incident occurred, nor the name of the person. Of the several thousand killed so far, on my reading, several hundred would fit that description of being deliberately targeted, though not militants. But we can't do WP:OR syntheses or draw conclusions.

As to the incident deserving a page, I have extensive downloads of reportage that would make that an easy job. But in the past I generally opposed temptations to follow the habit of using wikipedia to showcase individual incidents (Murder of Shalhevet Pass, The Death of Asher and Yonatan Palmer,Death of Yehuda Shoham,Murder of Eliyahu Asheri, Murder of Helena Rapp, Murder of Koby Mandell and Yosef Ishran, Murder of Neta Sorek and Kristine Luken,Murder of Ofir Rahum,Murder of Oleg Shaichat,Murder of Yaron Chen,etc.) because all of those articles were written by editors wishing to make a case, assign historic blame or blacken the other side, and the events mostly fail WP:Notable. I wrote Zion Square assault to test these editors, but the event took on a life of its own and was so widely reported that its inclusion on wiki became obligatory. Sound practice would suggest that a potential article The Murder of Nadim Nawareh and Mohammed Salameh can only be justified if reportage continues over several months, and it eventually is included or noted in the ongoing stream of academic books on the I/P world.Nishidani (talk) 13:29, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

I like articles about individual incidents but rarely have time to work on them. They require so much research to ensure accuracy and balance. Done well I think they can be interesting and informative in the sense that they often encapsulate broader aspects, ripples of the conflict in microcosm, in the events that came before and after the incidents, the causes and effects. Unfortunately it seems to be almost impossible to do anything well in ARBPIA. I worked on Murder of Hatuel family for a while to see if I could make it better, but ended up walking away. I genuinely don't understand why editors would only write articles about certain incidents and not others based on the nature of the victims. What's the difference ? I mean I get it, I understand what is going on and why to a certain extent for those editors, but it doesn't make any sense to me. It's a pity that Wikipedia's coverage of the day to day things that make up the conflict for the people involved is so piss poor. Sean.hoyland - talk 18:42, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. I hadn't thought about it from that angle, which I should have, given that I admire the microstory approach to history, as exemplified by the articles and monographs of Carlo Ginzburg, for example. Perhaps I should reconsider an article like that. When I saw what was being done with the Death of Yehuda Shoham, i.e., using a selective set of sources to underline the viviousness of Palestinians (I just noted because someone edited it, the article Deception: Betraying the Peace Process which should be deleted as a non-notable book whose agenda is to ignore what systematic studies show, by the way - same purpose on wiki), I stepped in, and it was a bit of a firefight, but in the end (haven't checked recently) managed to contextualize it historically in the flow of violence on both sides during that week, and the political consequences. I think that it should be obligatory to do this on all articles of this kind. It's not impossible because of ARBPIA, but because of source bias. We know much more from newspapers about Israeli victims on average than we do of Palestinian victims, who are lucky to get mentioned by name, while articles that deal with close background focus tend to be well informed on the Israeli context, and less so on the Palestinian context. Murder of Shalhevet Pass is a good example (I can't remember if anyone has edited into it the fact that Israeli politicians were so disgusted by the extreme media pressure the Hebron settlers put on them to turn up for the burial and transform it into a signature day for Israel's victimization, that several in the end boycotted the ceremony. It's in the sources, but those who edit the page appear to prefer to coast over it.

As for the editors, if I may hazard a remark, restricting my remarks to bad editors from the ostensibly 'pro-Israeli' side, many of them are raised within an ideology dominated by the historical fact of anti-semitism, which is a eurocentric disease, and Zionism which was originally premised on the idea that indigenous Palestinians could be omitted from the picture. Victor Klemperer caught the syndrome back in his diaries in the early 30s when he, if my memory doesn't err, likened what would happen to Palestinians, they would be forced historically to play the role of wild Indians being shot out of history in an endlessly popular Hollywood storyline of the 'conquest of the West', untinctured by Karl May's romantic defence of the noble savage. Both my parents' generation and mine watched endless Hollywood movies where the historical atrocities of the white conquest were ignored, while the indigenous victims of what was a kind of partial genocide by an invader, were depicted as a murderous bloodthirsty savages, always to blame. This scotoma has been revived in the post 9/11 storyline of terrorism (which of course does exist), while dying out in Westerns, and therefore 'it does make sense' to me, that they cannot see the obvious (IOTTMCO as John Lanchester wrote recently in the LRB). It is hard to feel pity if the 'other' shouldn't exist on principle, and her presence is just some dark anomalous blur on the periphery of one's vision, which is focused solely on one's own tremendous stride towards a dazzling historical achievement.

Klemperer's vision was as prophetic as Kafka's was of modernity and Nazism. They are 'sincere' in the worst sense of that word, i.e., they cannot understand that 'sincerity' can obtain in people who disagree with them: it must be bad faith, or anti-semitism. It is a reflex Pavlovian system of group-think, as inexorable in its conclusions as any ideology.Nishidani (talk) 20:11, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

The other relevant point to consider is system bias. For instance, while we don't have an article for the Beitunia killings, there is already an article for an event less than three days old - 2014 kidnapping of Israeli teens (an example of the format described by Nishidani: "using a selective set of sources to underline the viviousness of Palestinians"). A prodigious output of (POV) articles covering Israeli victims of the the conflict while not covering Palestinian victims is a problem. Dlv999 (talk) 10:49, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. I actually checked yesterday, wondering how long this would take to get into wikipedia, and, not finding an article, thought to myself that the area was improving. Alas, not so. I think editors should exercise caution in succumbing to the temptation to imitate this pattern (it does look, even if it isn't, retaliatory), even if there is a strong argument for 'balancing' the evident POV-bias. Whether or not an article should be written on the Beitunia murders or not should depend on WP:NOTABLE criteria (such events fail notability (ugh!) in wikipedia terms because their frequency is in inverse proportion to the follow-up attention given targeted Palestinian murders in the RS mainstream press - they occur almost monthly), esp. on the forensic outcome (partially known) and ongoing reports of the Israeli investigation, while keeping in mind that one can't be bound by the latter, since these notoriously drag on and tend to bury such cases.Nishidani (talk) 13:58, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

Fuck, bad editors just mean revert wars, false edit summaries, and the burden of fixing crap placed on others' shoulders. 'I provide the POV pushing and you neutralize it, if anyone's looking.' Nishidani (talk) 16:00, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

Your lovely vandal

I asked Alison if an IP was JarlaxleArtemis and she confirmed and blocked several accounts and another IP. Dougweller (talk) 14:08, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Doug. I fail to see the point of this turpiloquent hyperactivism in my regard. I think the Spanish for 'water off a duck's back' is Por un oído me entra y por otro me sale, so I quack rather than quake. I still owe you that article, - just overwhelmed these months by extrawiki work and life. Will do it eventually.Nishidani (talk) 15:15, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

Notice

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. FatGuySeven (talk) 03:22, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

Hello! There is a DR/N request you may have interest in.

This message is being sent to let you know of a discussion at the Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard regarding a content dispute discussion you may have participated in. Content disputes can hold up article development and make editing difficult for editors. You are not required to participate, but you are both invited and encouraged to help find a resolution. Please join us to help form a consensus. Thank you! FatGuySeven (talk) 16:15, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

IP socks

Hi, regarding your comment at Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement: you seem to have forgotten to sign it. Any full RfC about the matter would be flooded with socks, me thinks. Perhaps we should start finding links to all those off-wiki reports of canvassing, and then show the damage (=huge waste of time) throw-away sock do in the I/P area, and then take it to Arb.com? Cheers, Huldra (talk) 20:35, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

• Btw, have you seen this? Cheers, Huldra (talk) 01:16, 1 July 2014 (UTC)
• I would absolutely love it if you could help me out on Talk:Nisf Jubeil. We need a French and a Latin reader. There are two Nisf Jubeils which have been mixed up, it seems, Cheers, Huldra (talk) 08:52, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Of course. But I will be away for a few days. Nishidani (talk) 09:48, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

SPI case filed

I've filed a sockpuppet case at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Smatprt. Tom Reedy (talk) 13:36, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

For the task ahead....

Have a beer! Cheers, Huldra (talk) 22:01, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Btw, one very easy task: on Umm al-Fahm Guerin writes that it has "dix huit cents" inhabitants. Isn´t that 1800? Petersen, citing Guerin, say it is 800? Cheers, Huldra (talk) 22:44, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

Strewth. You may have seen me making occasional edits in here, but since Monday I have been once more chopping down trees, chain-sawing wood, packaging 31 large bags of leaves for disposal, loading trucks - backload of tasks I finally could do only on those days because a friend turned up with the equipment to rid the place of a year of accumulated woodstock. Same Friday. I'll do it though, just remind me if I haven'ìt by Sunday night.Nishidani (talk) 07:01, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

User reported me

Hi Nishidani....

Just letting you know :) user Gunrpks reported me for "reverting" his editorial wars on your article concerning the war in the middle east. I am a new user and have never reported some one before but I will try to report him as well. --علي سمسم (talk) 12:35, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

I see. I'm afraid you can't enlist people's help, technically. You are new to this place, unlike User:Gunrpks and, I think, you engaged in an edit-war with him. Your excuse would be unfamiliarity with I/P ARBPIA practices, but any editor should inform himself before hand that edit-warring, even in a 'just cause' sends a bad signal. One must not imitate bad editors. In any case, as you are unfamiliar with these things, I will examine this, if only because I informed that editor that he was violating the 1RR, and he persisted. I refrained from reporting him, but, if my perception is correct about his edits, it is certainly odd that he should report you. That would mean he risks WP:Boomerang, when all of the evidence is examined.

In any case, I would advise you not to report him, it is a bad practice, esp. by newbies, to use this. It looks like playing tactical games to out an 'adversary'. Be patience, calm, succinct, in your reply, and if you check the evidence and find you have made an error, apologize. Above all, do not transform your reply into a long screed. Trust administrators to see into it. They have better eyes than most of us, most of the time.Nishidani (talk) 13:07, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Thank you :)--علي سمسم (talk) 13:16, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

It would be wise to withdraw your complaint. You made an error, since it was not User:Gunrpks who reported you but User:Shrike. I have already noted in his complaint the unsatisfactoriness of his report, and you would do well therefore to withdraw your complaint, and allow admiistrators to examine the whole set of diffs for the relevant pages and make up their own minds. Edit-warring did occur on both sides, and they must evaluate from your respective records what to do in each case.Nishidani (talk) 13:57, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Nomination of List of Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article List of Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. AlanS (talk) 14:37, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

A cup of tea for you!

I find it chills me more than coffee! I think we can work well together, because of, more than despite, our differing POVs. I think most editors misuse or fail to grasp the positives of that dynamic, in many contentious areas. Cheers :) Irondome (talk) 00:22, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, gratefully accepted. Nicely designed cup, though I prefer a mug, because the latter makes me think of myself.Nishidani (talk) 21:30, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

Ditto :). With respect, Irondome (talk) 02:04, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

Thanks lads for riding shotgun on this page, (NSH001, Sean.hoyland, Sjö and Yunshui)

But now that I see what the removed 150 odd attacks by this Nishidumbass sockster wrote, I wonder at the puerile lack of an ability to connect one's thoughts to real history. Willing death on others in order to defend one's 'ethnic vitalism' is of course a Nazi cast of mind, and therefore, ipso facto unacceptable for anyone with the genocide of WW2 still vivid in recall.

Hitler once said:’ We shall regain our health only by eliminating the Jew.' Manfred Henningsen, ‘The Politics of Purity and Exclusion,’ Björn H. Jernudd, Michael J. Shapiro (eds.), The Politics of Language Purism, Mouton de Gruyter ‎1989 pp.31-52 p.48 Same pathology in the sock who thinks eliminating Christians, Europeans, Arabs and wikipedia will somehow secure the survival of Israel. Even if that happened I would survive, I guess, being a pagan, and only 'European' by adoption. Then again, if wikipedia was killed off, I might just, qua Nishidani, croak with it! Nishidani (talk) 07:34, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

Sjö! tack så mycket

Strömkarlen spelar,

Sorgerna delar

Vakan kring berg och dal.

雲水先生,谢 谢 你 的 帮 助.

喜見行脚人

恥茶無兩杯 Nishidani (talk) 10:19, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

That's very elegant - a pleasure to assist someone of a poetic bent. Yunshui ^雲_水 10:29, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

No poetic bent, but a bent for what poets write, reading which keeps me sane when editing in here. The merits of elegance lie elsewhere, I confess. I'd been reading about Ladakh recently, while engaged in a AfD discussion on Nepal, and saw those elegant verses by a Chinese visitor to that wonderful place. Then someone offered me a cup of tea (see above), and I thought of tsampa, and when I saw the 雲 in your handle I thought of the Tümed, and 水, water, by an uncanny coincidence, clicked with the other admin's handle Sjö, which in Swedish means 'lake' and both of you had rid my page of a Strömkarl, who tries to drown people (here by inundating the page with racist hogwash). Thanks again.Nishidani (talk) 10:54, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

Your recent editing history shows that you are currently engaged in an edit war. Being involved in an edit war can result in your being blocked from editing—especially if you violate the three-revert rule, which states that an editor must not perform more than three reverts on a single page within a 24-hour period. Undoing another editor's work—whether in whole or in part, whether involving the same or different material each time—counts as a revert. Also keep in mind that while violating the three-revert rule often leads to a block, you can still be blocked for edit warring—even if you don't violate the three-revert rule—should your behavior indicate that you intend to continue reverting repeatedly.

Wikipedia edit warring noticeboard

Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there is currently a discussion involving you at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring regarding a possible violation of Wikipedia's policy on edit warringTritomex (talk) 11:06, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

Notice of WP:ARBPIA

Please carefully read this information:

The Arbitration Committee has authorised discretionary sanctions to be used for pages regarding the Arab–Israeli conflict, a topic which you have edited. The Committee's decision is here.

Discretionary sanctions is a system of conduct regulation designed to minimize disruption to controversial topics. This means uninvolved administrators can impose sanctions for edits relating to the topic that do not adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, our standards of behavior, or relevant policies. Administrators may impose sanctions such as editing restrictions, bans, or blocks. This message is to notify you sanctions are authorised for the topic you are editing. Before continuing to edit this topic, please familiarise yourself with the discretionary sanctions system. Don't hesitate to contact me or another editor if you have any questions.

This message is informational only and does not imply misconduct regarding your contributions to date.

Template:Z33--Bbb23 (talk) 20:21, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

Pursuant to your call that I effectively violated the IRR at Operation Protective Edge, and in lieu of the obligatory sanction, given your discretionary comments, I will observe a 48 hour self-suspension from editing as of this moment. Best regards.Nishidani (talk) 21:15, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

Early Christian history

Ho, mikado! First, is there maybe a missing "a" in the time since your retirement. Second as someone who knows something about the topic, you might maybe be interested in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Christianity/Noticeboard#Userspace drafts.John Carter (talk) 20:49, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

Lynx-eyed, John. Was in a hurry, and, though straining the bean to modify 'donkey's age(s), which would be untrue, as I didn't retire yonks, but a year or thereabouts ago, I thought I'd have to downscale the years in that idiom, and of course a donkey's offspring is a foal, meaning retired less than papa donkey's years. Perhaps it would better be Don Quixote's years? I'm fucked if I know, spending what little spare time I have to give names to history's rerun of a recpetitive tragedy that visits the anonymous, who die under the broadbrush journalistic cant of 'terrorists' every time them furreners shoot into that fish bowl that is the Gaza Strip. Tomorrow's Sunday, so as a gesture to ancient beliefs, I might have a glance at that draft, but I fear the overnight death toll will rise steeply enough to keep my fingers concentrated on the Gaza necrology. Cheers, John.Nishidani (talk) 21:05, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

Reference Errors on 19 July

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article

Good article, [5] nableezy - 22:56, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

Are you planning on sticking around for a while ? I hope so. Sean.hoyland - talk 10:44, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Probably not. Forgive me, but its too aggravating, depressing, ... . nableezy - 16:23, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

I don't blame you. It's definitely depressing. Sean.hoyland - talk 17:04, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

At my age I look on the positive side. Things like this comfort me at the prospect of death. Having lived with exceptional good luck a fair dose of years, I don't see much point in hanging round, though I have to while my ineludible biological momentum insists otherwise, to watch both this slaughter, and read articles, or edit with people, who fail the most elementary standards of objective evaluation or humanity. It'll be good to be dead, and not wake up every day in a part of the comfortable world and have to measure one's pleasure in existence against the larger realities of an engulfing cruelty. This is not a sensible perception for the younger to entertain, of course.Nishidani (talk) 17:17, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps you would enjoy a break from the carnage over at Talk:Samaria#.2F.2A_In_the_header._.2A.2F. Sean.hoyland - talk 19:00, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Just what the doctor ordered for a laugh. Phew, some editors are so badly informed they ought to consider a career in politics, aim for the White House or whatever. You can get away with that level of nescience there at least.Nishidani (talk) 20:08, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. It's nice for people to be reminded of the actual facts of real world scholarship, and get them momentarily off that dripfeed of 'terrorist' reportage that makes life exciting for the dull as they browse the internet for the hollywood version of history or watch TV from the comfort of their barca loungers in the air-conditioned nightmare. You'll recall, Nab, Sara Roy said it all in 2009 after the Gaza War here. But of course since she is the world's foremost authority on Israel designed dedevelopment of Gaza, publishing a premonitory study of the problems back in 1987, no one will care to listen. Some quotes:

Gazan farmers are legally forbidden to reclaim their own land unless they obtain permission from the Israeli military authorities.

Gaza expanded its trade in the late 1950s to the COMECON countries of Eastern Europe. .. Immediately after the June 1967 war, all Western markets were banned to Gazan exporters in order to preclude competition with Israeli agricultural producers and then, as now, to limit Gaza's access to foreign economic and political circles.

Restrictions on export markets also extend to the Israeli market.Presently, Gaza's farmers are prohibited from marketing most fruits and vegetables inside Israel, a measure designed to avoid competition with Israeli products. . .Certain products, such as strawberries, eggplants, and zucchini, which are not competitive with Israeli products, are allowed to enter Israel's markets through the Vegetable Marketing Board . . citrus products are also exported to Israel from Gaza for use in juice factories. Israeli producers, on the other hand, have unlimited access to Gazan markets, exporting substantial quantities of fruits and vegetables at prices with which Gazan farmers are unable to compete.

In light of the critical water problems inside Gaza, the Israeli government, through its affiliated water company, Mekorot, has issued restrictions against the digging of new wells and has limited the amount of water that Palestinian farmers may use, These same restriction on water consumption, however, do not apply to the Israeli settlements inside the Strip, which have installed 35-40 new wells in recent years, . . According to the Israeli Water Commission, in 1985 alone, Israelis living in the Gaza Strip consumed, per capita, 2,326 cubic meters of water compared to an average consumption of 123 cubic meters for every Gazan

Nishidani (talk) 11:52, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

In short 'déjà vu', because the political elites read the New York Times headlines, and have no time for the real details. My advice is, keep away. You've done enough in here.Nishidani (talk) 11:52, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Page protection

Guess you'll be needing that again, then... Yunshui ^雲_水 10:35, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for this tedious mopping up. I guess each dull job exacted on the intelligent, esp. to help others, deserves ther elevation of poetry's thank you. For the moment, after thinking these days that work in this area is like wandering into Dante's selva selvaggia e aspra e forte, one thinks of 鮑照's 路難 and thus,

瀉水置平地

各自東西南北流

人生亦有命

安能行嘆復坐愁

酌酒以自寬

舉杯斷絕歌路難

心非木石豈無感

吞聲躑躅不敢言. Best regards,Nishidani (talk) 11:10, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Full protection maybe? Of course, we'd have to make you an admin, and I'm not sure I'd want to that to you. John Carter (talk) 17:30, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Don't think that's necessary, though it annoys me that admin time is taken up sweeping the Augean stables that IP blow-ins, and assorted teenagers with a logorrhoic capacity for dittological repetition of racist graffiti, wish to impose here. You see far more wit and ingenuity in the Latin inscriptions on the walls of the dunnies and brothels in Pompei, which reminds me that Alec Hope once aspired to get the attention of Christopher Brennan, by then a reclusive drunk, by following him into a pub toilet and, while he too pointed his percy at the porcelain, with his free hand wrote down a piece of Latin verse recently published (late 1920s) from excavations in Pompei, on next cubicle wall. Though pissed as a newt, the erudite Brennan, glanced over while splashing his boots, and, buttoned up, corrected an error in the reproduced inscription's grammar. Patience. I edit to ensure that the Palestinian side of this fratricidal conflict is duly and fairly represented, and it is only natural that the place will be bombed, in a petty and insignificant mimesis of what goes on in the real world over there.Nishidani (talk) 18:49, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Agree with your view on the conflict being fratricidal. In fact all human conflicts are fratricidal. One of my favorite WP articles is Mitochondrial Eve. Regards, IjonTichy (talk) 17:25, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps the better word is, psychoanalytically, 'autocidal', given the doubleness of human identity: you kill something in yourself when you murder others.Nishidani (talk) 09:49, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

Yes. And when we damage the natural environment, we are injuring ourselves. When we degrade it, we are degrading ourselves. IjonTichy (talk) 16:12, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

Participate the discussion please

Hi! I think you've missed a discussion occurred at here. Please participate the discussion by presenting your ideas about the background section. Best Mhhossein (talk) 21:39, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

Give me a proper link. That one took me to the article, which is not a discussion, but the result of editing. I'm not aware of an ongoing discussion, and have been away for two days visiting libraries (not on this issue). If there is indeed a discussion I missed in the meantime point me to it. Or otherwise, raise here the issues you wish to discuss, so I can get back to reviewing the background (at a glance it seems to have been modified somewhat).Nishidani (talk) 22:17, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

Reference Errors on 24 July

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List of Israeli strikes and Palestinian casualties in Operation Protective Edge

I fixed this up as best I could; please note edit summary contents and hidden text. The list has issues. For one thing, the number of wounded is very hard to specify with any kind of exactitude which is what I think you are (understandably) trying to do. Also, some of the links are no longer active. Best of luck. Quis separabit? 00:45, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

First, thanks for the precision of textual review. All wiki work begins as provisory, and is in a constant state of flux, as sourcing or editors improve. All articles, not only lists, have 'issues': castrate a text by occultation and it will have no issue. Once one begins to hide text because it falls short of perfection, no passing editor will see it and be prompted to improve it, so improvement of the hidden text falls back uniquely on the shoulders of the editor who drafted it and lies under the obligation to check every tinkered contribution. This is just a practical issue of worksmanship. Perfection (exactitude) is acquired festinans lente in itinere, not given. Since this is a working bee, optimally, one thinks of Pliny's community of that species: laborem tolerant, opera conficiunt, rempublicam habent.(HN,XL 9) Nishidani (talk) 09:14, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

Evildoer187

User Evildoer187, has returned to Wikipedia and has violated his topic ban. This ip belongs to him and he is using it to avoid his topic ban. He states in this edit summary that it belongs to him. AcidSnow (talk) 17:11, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

I'm not an administrator, and as an editor, my general policy is not to report infractions of wikilaw. If this is a problem I'm sure people who follow such things will eventually pick it up.Nishidani (talk) 17:22, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

A kitten for you!

It is good to see that the article pertaining to the Gaza-Israel situation has been somewhat restrained as of late and is keeping as neutral of a view as is seemingly possible for an article like this. In the mean time, if anything gets out of hand, look at this pretty kitten!

Jab843 (talk) 16:31, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

Given the fact that 'having kittens' in British English means 'getting hysterical', I should register that I'm immune to hysteria. My comments can express an undertone of contempt or fatigue or outrage every now and then (every 50 edits) at the idiocy of wikipedia, but I'm not prone to hysteria, since I lack a womb, and even had I one, it would not bear kittens, metaphorically or otherwise, but something more monstrous like a dictionary of etruscan.Nishidani (talk) 17:34, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

Your reversion

May I asked what I wrote that what biased and not just the inclusion of facts? Looking at your page you seem to biased and a bit antisemitic, I think I'll consult more neutral parties. --monochrome_monitor 10:24, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

Note.

(1) Accusation that I am ‘a bit antisemitic’

(2)'deleted my question, convo with you will get me no where (blatant antisemite),' i.e., deletion accompanied by a repeat of the charge, adding insult to the original offence.

You cannot be 'a bit antisemitic': the term 'antisemitic' is absolute - either one is, or is not, antisemitic. This is recognized in the second edit, with its summary, where 'a bit' becomes 'blatant'. One can be a blatant antisemite, as opposed to a discreet antisemite. T.S. Eliot is an example of the latter, Ezra Pound of the former. Nishidani (talk) 11:17, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

(3) On being reported, and when note was made of these remarks, the editor replied.

'It wasn't exactly a personal attack, I asked him to tell me what I said that was biased and noticed on his page vilification of Israel and contempt of being accused of Jew-baiting. I deleted it in exasperation because I didn't want to get into an argument especially when I read his comments on Jews being like Nazis.'

'contempt of being accused of Jew-baiting.' One can be 'in contempt of court'. One cannot, in English, be '(in) contempt of being accused' (of Jew-baiting or anything else). I guess the meaning is, 'Nishidani is contemptuous of accusations that he is a Jew-baiter'. If so, then, that's true. I view accusation slung my way in this regard with contempt, and therefore this is a compliment. But, given the solecistic writing, the meaning probably was intended to be negative: 'Nishidani, when confronted with complaints that he is a 'Jew-baiter' (i.e., an antisemite), brushes off these serious charges with an insouciant contempt, without addressing the gravamen of the charges. If so, then the statement is wrong. I documented and refuted these charges.

As to my commenting that Jews' are like Nazis, that is a fiction with no evidence in these archives. It's worse than fiction, because I'm on wikipedia also because I am militantly opposed to any ethnic or group stereotypes which brand or categorize individuals who happen to be Irish, Eskimoes, Jewish or Martians as, ipso facto, exemplars of a collectivist identity. There is no such thing as a 'Jew', or an 'Irishman', understood as an identifiable type of ethnic character. There are only individuals. Antisemitism's fundamental premise is that if someone is Jewish, his/her basic identity is defined by that circumstance, and not by who he or she happens to be individually, Like all racism, the abstraction annihilates the individual by its reductiveness of the person to a type. Nishidani (talk) 12:07, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

(4)

person that reverted me is a total tool who advertises the fact that he's been accused of antisemitism as a sort of badge of honor on his page.

Okay, that clarifies what he meant beneath the screwed up syntax. Whatever, 4 insults in the space of an hour, even while under report is a good definition of chutzpah. The problem is not WP:AGF, really. The problem is that the editor doesn't read the sources, is unfamiliar with the scholarship, on pages he fiddles with, and instead, rewrites text according to his personal historical knowledge, which is, to be polite, extremely patchy, and self-evidently culled from hasbara-type sketches of 'positions to adopt' when arguing about Palestine/Israel.Nishidani (talk) 12:51, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

:(5)'he has been called antisemitic many times before. I'm just one of many to object.'Monochrome Monitor.

Nishidani (talk) 18:41, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

As to my commenting that Jews' are like Nazis, that is a fiction with no evidence in these archives. It's worse than fiction, because I'm on wikipedia also because I am militantly opposed to any ethnic or group stereotypes which brand or categorize individuals who happen to be Irish, Eskimoes, Jewish or Martians as, ipso facto, exemplars of a collectivist identity. There is no such thing as a 'Jew', or an 'Irishman', understood as an identifiable type of ethnic character. There are only individuals. Antisemitism's fundamental premise is that if someone is Jewish, his/her basic identity is defined by that circumstance, and not by who he or she happens to be individually, Like all racism, the abstraction annihilates the individual by its reductiveness of the person to a type. Nishidani (talk) 12:07, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

(4)

person that reverted me is a total tool who advertises the fact that he's been accused of antisemitism as a sort of badge of honor on his page.

Okay, that clarifies what he meant beneath the screwed up syntax. Whatever, 4 insults in the space of an hour, even while under report is a good definition of chutzpah. The problem is not WP:AGF, really. The problem is that the editor doesn't read the sources, is unfamiliar with the scholarship, on pages he fiddles with, and instead, rewrites text according to his personal historical knowledge, which is, to be polite, extremely patchy, and self-evidently culled from hasbara-type sketches of 'positions to adopt' when arguing about Palestine/Israel.Nishidani (talk) 12:51, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

Your use of the word "Hasbara", which is itself a misnomer, proves your bias. I know nothing about and have zero participation with any activist community, I added facts and figures and dates and clarifying phrases. If you object to any of my points that's on you to say which and why instead of painting a portrait of me as uninformed without actually calling anything I said into question. You did compare someone to a Nazi, which is per Godwin's Law, almost always a gross exaggeration. "Hitler once said:’ We shall regain our health only by eliminating the Jew.' Manfred Henningsen, ‘The Politics of Purity and Exclusion,’ Björn H. Jernudd, Michael J. Shapiro (eds.), The Politics of Language Purism, Mouton de Gruyter ‎1989 pp.31-52 p.48 Same pathology in the sock who thinks eliminating Christians, Europeans, Arabs and wikipedia will somehow secure the survival of Israel. Even if that happened I would survive, I guess, being a pagan, and only 'European' by adoption. Then again, if wikipedia was killed off, I might just, qua Nishidani, croak with it!" I'm not sure what you were addressing here but to mention Nazis is at best insensitive. Looking at your talk page I see that you are "in cohoots" with many other biased editors. For example, you edited the article on Israeli assassinations but were requested to comment on the deletion of "list of Palestinian rockets attacks into Israel." Huldra, a friend of yours, was extremely hostile to me on my talk page, assuming I was some sort of duplicate account because I knew what NPOV meant even though I was new (I had asked another user what it meant). Adding Zero to the list via reporting me just shows this is a witch hunt. I did not break the rule in question and you know it but are looking for something to condemn me for. Go ahead, continue with your righteous indignation. But ask yourself, per occam's razor, is it more probable that you are an antisemite or that everyone else is an "anti-anti-semitic" (ridiculous term) Jew? You called me racist, and I didn't harp on that, because I'm trying to drop the issue. Take your outrage elsewhere, maybe the Electronic Intifada or Richard Finklestein, whose works you have referenced. I have some minor pro-Israel bias but you have an extreme anti-Israel bias, its obvious we wont agree, I'll leave the articles you hound alone even if their neutrality is questionable.--monochrome_monitor 18:50, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

I will remind you that I deleted the comment and you chose to reinstate it.

I HAVE read the historical scholarship.Monochrome Monitor

Take your outrage elsewhere, maybe the Electronic Intifada or Richard Fink''le''stein

HAD you read the historical scholarship you would not have written Richard Finklestein for Norman Finkelstein,evidently confusing Tikun Olam's Richard Silverstein with the historian of modern Palestine, Norman Finkelstein. Please note that Finklestein is written Finkelstein.Nishidani (talk) 19:46, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

I will admit to that mistake though I didn't analyze it that way, it was just the name I was thinking of and it sounded right. I had just read an article critical of that guy for recycling of antisemitic candards (saying Holocaust remembrance serves the the "Jewish elite" and is an "extortion racket". I'm not sure what you think of the guy but I'll refrain from saying more lest you feel otherwise. I have not read either official pro-israel nor pro-palestinian sources. I have read sources documenting the politics of the region in the early 20th century and its important to include objective facts (palestinians are those who lived in the mandate 2 years before the war) instead of just retrospective revisionism. For example the article assumes genetic similarities to mean direct descendence and says Palestinians are the successors of everyone who has lived there. Not objective. --monochrome_monitor 20:10, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

An Apology

Hello again. I apologize for my unfounded libeling of you as antisemitic. I only skimmed your page and decided without credence that you reverted my edit due to an ulterior motive because it was easier than actually debating it. I certainly won't vilify you again. I hope that we can both make Wikipedia a more comprehensive knowledge base while avoiding confrontation in the meantime. Thanks, (and I'll be more careful about omitting my nonfinite verbs!) --monochrome_monitor 00:23, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Hi Nishidani. I hope you are not as depressed by the human condition as I am at the mo. I mean everything, Ukraine/Russia, Gaza, the ongoing oppression of Tibet and the Kurds..so I went off-line for ten days, to chill, in an idyllic Norfolk village. Gardening helped :)

I am mentoring MM, I decided to shortly before I left. I should have "publicised" it somehow, or told MM, but I didnt. I think if I had been around, we all could have agreed to put it away days ago. I have spoken to her, and I reproduce fully my initial email, knocked out about 2 hrs after I got home. I trust MM will not object.

Hi Georgia :)

Now listen up.

a/ I am not happy with you calling Nishi d an anti-semite. As a Jew who was 16 in 1978 allow me some advantage here. I can smell an anti-semite at 12,000 miles and no, neither he nor Sean are. I have studied N's writings through a microscope, my anti-semite detector lens. It reads zero. His writing has always been deeply respectful of the Jewish people and religion, and has explicitly and repeatedly spelled out the positive aspects of the state of Israel. He admires its democratic institutions and it's plurality, its scientific and cultural and economic achievements. He just demands from his own POV, a moralistic action-based series of measures from Israel. He is not a existential Israel rejectionist. He holds to the 2 state solution as far as I can see. The same seems to go for Sean. As for user pages, my own handle alone is provocation enough to the inexperienced ;)

b/ I advise you go to N's page and apologise. You can freely quote the contents of these mails. Then we can see what we can do about that scappy mess of a fight that I am wading through. Have you been banned in any way? It does not look like it from my scan-reading so far. I will go to N's page too if necessary. We have mutual repect. Say I was out of town as your mentor and take full responsibility. Never throw the AS charge around Georgia, unless you are DAMN sure, and you have consulted with me.

Apart from that you are doing ok. You will be intellectually roughed up sometimes, but you will grow. IMPROVE YOUR GRAMMAR. LOL

Shalom!

S

Please forgive youth Nish. Anyway, I shall be keeping her out of trouble, and getting her faculties sharpened to deal with the formidible intellectual standard required of contributors to any aspect of I/P on Wikipedia, crucially in the intelligent selection of strong RS. Cheers N Irondome (talk) 02:55, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

A leeuwenhoekian linguist would note that troubling confusing of 'it's' for 'its' in your email, but ignore it because the orthographic peccadillo is expunged by the generosity of the sentiments in my regard. Thanks. It's a wet summer here, but precisely for that reason, my gardens thrive, though, mindful of Shakespeare's fondness for the tender-horned snails that proliferate under such conditions, much of the day is spent picking those creatures, with their gypsy-waggoned, vardo-shells, off the cabbages and lettuce and moving them over to a lush abandoned olive grove where they can feed off weeds, and do less damage. As I harvest and transport upwards of 200 a day, I think it's like editing: one doesn't 'attack' the problematical agent, one just nudges them off grounds where their presence conflicts with the slow growth of life. Cheers Nishidani (talk) 10:10, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Reading and listening list. Contributions only of original and incisive quality will be appreciated

Timeline reconstructions of the prior events deemed relevant to the casus belli.

• Nathan Thrall, 'Hamas’s Chances.' London Review of Books Vol. 36 No 16 · 21 August 2014 pp. 10-12 (Exceptionally good)
• Scott McConnell, 'Israel Runs Up the Score,' The American Conservative 16 July 2014
• Larry Derfner, 'How Netanyahu provoked this war with Gaza,' +972 Magazine 9 July 2014
• John Judis, 'John Kerry's First Peace Effort in Israel and Palestine Failed, But Now He Needs to Try New Republic 9 July
• Dan Murphy, 'Israel, Gaza, morality – and who started it (+video),' Christian Science Monitor 24 July 2014
• (1) J.J. Goldberg, 'How Politics and Lies Triggered an Unintended War in Gaza,' 10 July 2014
• (2) J.J. Goldberg, 'How the Gaza War Started, and How It Can End,' The Forward 10 July 2014

General

• Robert Fisk, 'Robert Fisk on Gaza & MH17,' Late Night Live 31 July 2014
• Adam Withnall, 'Israel-Gaza conflict: ‘Sderot cinema’ image shows Israelis with popcorn and chairs 'cheering as missiles strike Palestinian targets' The Independent 13 July 2014 (Neither analytic nor incisive, but 'a picture tells a thousand words'. The cartoon based on those photos, however, caused a major uproar, and rightly so because the 'nose' (and the age, I would add) tipped satirical caricature of a real event in one specific town into an antisemitic stereotype that branded all Jews as 'Sderotic'.)
• Robert Fisk, 'Dress the Gaza situation up all you like, but the truth hurts,' The Belfast Telegraph 29 July, 2014.
• The editors, 'Israel Must Stop Its Campaign of Terror,' The Nation 30 July 2014.
• Peter Beinart, 'Gaza myths and facts: what American Jewish leaders won't tell you,' Haaretz 30 July 2014.
• Patrick Cockburn, 'How Israel Spins War Crimes,' Counterpunch 28 July 2014.
• Yara al-Wazir, 'We must never celebrate death in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict,' Al Arabiya 26 July 2014.
• Julian Borger, 'Gaza civilian death toll raises questions about Israeli military training,' The Guardian 31 July 2014 cf. information of the 2006 shelling of Beit Hanoun
• John Dugard, 'Debunking Israel's 'self-defense' argument,' Al Jazeera 31 July 2014.
• Arno J. Mayer, 'The Future of Israel and the Decline of the American Empire,' Counterpunch August 1-3, 2014, reprinted from June 9, 2009 because in Mayer's view the situation is identical to that his article originally commented on.
• John Mearsheimer 'A Pillar Built on Sand,' London Review of Books 16 November 2012. Same as for Mayer's article, dated yet contemporary.
• J.J. Goldberg, 'How Israel Refuses To Learn Lessons From Ground Invasions Past,' The Forward 1 August, 2014
• Jonathan Cook 'The experts’ verdict: Every Israeli missile strike is a war crime,' Mondoweiss 1 August 2014.
• 'Israel/OPT: International Criminal Court key to breaking cycle of injustice for war crimes,' Amnesty International 1 August 2014
• Uri Avnery, 'Meeting in a Tunnel,' Counterpunch 1-3 August 2014.
• Gideon Levy, Alex Levac 'Israel has stolen Gaza's future, and its hope' Haaretz 2 August 2014
• Mondoweiss, Reprint of Yochanan Gordon’s “When Genocide is Permissible” (Updated) Mondoweiss 1 August 2014.
• Jeremy Sharon,'Rabbi Lior::Jewish law permits destruction of Gaza to bring safety to Israel,' Jerusalem Post 23 July 2013.
• Ami Kaufman, 'Israeli rabbi: It’s okay to kill innocent civilians and destroy Gaza,' +972 magazine 22 July 2014.
• Joint Declaration by International Law Experts on Israel’s Gaza Offensive Global Justice in the 21st Century 28 July 2014
• Richard Falk, ‘Tormenting Gaza,’ Al-Jazeera 134 July 2014.
• Richard Falk, ‘Massacre in Gaza,’ Al-Jazeera 23 July 2014.
• Sara Roy,'Deprivation in Gaza Strip,' Boston Globe 19 July 2014.
• Patrick Connors 'Inhuman shield: How ‘The New York Times’ protects US elites from Gaza’s brutal reality,' Mondoweiss August 2, 2014 23, a very good article suggesting once more why Mondoweiss is a normally a reliable source, whereas the New York Times isn't.
• Maisam Abumorr, 'A question from Gaza: Am I not human enough?,' Al-Jazeera 3 August 2014.
• Jonathan Cook Eyeless in Gaza Counterpunch 4 August 2014, (acutely deconstructs the patent contradictions in Israel’s account of the ostensible abduction of one of its soldiers after the ceasefire.)
• 'Us and them,' The Economist 2 August 2014. Not particularly bright, but it did say one thing that chimed with recent editor influx and editing on wikipedia, in line with an old vice.

there are signs that some in government are taking notice. Yuval Steinitz, the strategic-affairs minister, is seeking 100m shekels to co-ordinate efforts by the army, the foreign ministry, the government press office and other bodies to combat delegitimisation. In the recent Gaza campaign, the government has co-opted universities to its war effort. Several have established “war rooms” with banks of computers where student volunteers use army talking-points to rebut social-media attacks.

• Shirley Williams, 'Europe has a duty to Gaza,' The Guardian 5 August 2014

The following is neither incisive nor original, but is RS, perhaps for the article on Bouvard et Pécuchet

• Prof. Efraim Inbar and Dr. Eitan Shamir, ’Mowing the Grass: Israel’s Strategy for Protracted Intractable Conflict,’ Begin–Sadat Center for Strategic Studies Mideast Security and Policy Studies No. 105(December 1, 2013 ) printed in Journal of Strategic Studies, 2014 Vol. 37, No. 1, pp. 65-90. In an update to gloss the relevance for the present war we read:

'The Israeli approach described here is substantively different from current Western strategic thinking on dealing with non-state military challenges. Western thinking is solution-oriented. This explains part of the lack of understanding for what Israel is doing.’

I.e. The authors have established that there is 'foreign' thinking, what you get in Western civilization, and Israeli thinking. The former has no irrelevance and is in a certain sense culpable, when applied to the exceptional world of Israel, of misunderstanding Israeli policy, which does not believe in solutions other than that of regularly 'mowing the terrorists' lawn' in order to ensure 'the establishment of a reality in which Israeli residents can live in safety without constant indiscriminate terror'. The break with the Western world consists in the total elision of the Other from the equation, for inclusion of the adversary's predicament would imply that 'Palestinian residents can live in safety without constant indiscriminate terror.' Quite remarkable and unutterably crass. Nishidani (talk) 09:53, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

• David C. Hendrickson, The Thrasybulus Syndrome: Israel’s War on Gaza, The National Interest July 29, 2014 : I found it a good commentary from the "realist" perspective. I have already referenced this on the 2014 Israel-Gaza conflict page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kingsindian (talk • contribs) 19:02, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

That is in of Herodotus (Book V.92 ζ 2-3), and it helps of course clarify the idiom of mowing a lawn, though the source for that is Biblical. More incisive is Thucydides (Book V.84-116), Melian dialogue, which sums up what happened. In terms of outcomes, justice is a function of rough parity in the capacity to destroy an adversity, whereas preponderance of power, more usual, means you just wipe the other out, which is the norm, and has nothing to do with defending democracy, civilization and all the other hot air blown round events as they happen.

The article is very solid, but makes a fundamental error in confounding 'Israelis' with IDF war strategy. The options are those chosen by a military and political elite and go back to the Lavon period, when it was decided that a strategy of appearing to go 'crazy' with overwhelming force was the default mode for confronting crises, trumping diplomacy and rational escalation. Nishidani (talk) 15:01, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

• I had indeed heard of the "going crazy" strategy before, like when Tzipi Livni vulgarly said that she demanded "real hooliganism" in the 2008-9 war. But I think the article is more dealing with the US side of it, enabling Israel's actions. "Of course, Israelis do care about their larger standing in the world and rightly fear isolation, but they figure they are safe so long as they have American public opinion in their corner."
• Regarding the Melian Dialogue, I had only heard of Thucydides' famous dictum "The strong do what they can, the weak suffer as they must". But reading the Wikipedia page, the whole Athenian-Melian argument seems to have played out in eerie similarity. The "gods are on our side, because we are standing for what is right" argument, can be secularized in today's world by international law. The "Spartan kin" argument, is analogous to the Arab leaders. The "we are neutral" analogy is not perfect, but the previous 2012 ceasefire demonstrated Hamas' accomodation. The "we should not submit without a fight because of cowardice" is the argument for Hamas' firing rockets even as they know they are no match for Israeli firepower. And finally, the end result is the same: The Melians/Gazans do not accept the arguments that they should lie down and surrender. Kingsindian (talk) 15:56, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

• Daniel Bettini, 'Foreign journalists reveal Hamas' false front,' Ynet 7 August 2014

I am assuming that you will accept good quality sources from a differing POV, N? Makes it more useful as a resource. This space is actually the germ of an excellent concept. To compare and briefly discuss strong RS of differing POV without corrupting mainspace with premature inclusion. More importantly, a Scriptorium where sources can be critiqued and if neccesary, be removed. I see an organic development of thought here. You have provided a formidable list. Will you allow other comments on the sources to be briefly given under each entry? Concise, very, discussing weaknesses if present. Regards Irondome (talk) 01:33, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

I've been away. Of course. I meant this as a ref. guide to articles that might be used for wiki articles (see now Ynet above. It's not a good paper, but the evidence was there from the start, as the evidence from Jewish history is overwhelming that there is nothing anomalous in defending one's position from within the thick of civilian areas, or using synagogues (the Great Synagogue in Tel Aviv, the Hurva Synagogue in Jerusalem), hospitals and ambulance transport to store or ferry arms David Cesarani,Major Farran's Hat: Murder, Scandal and Britain's War Against Jewish Terrorism, Da Capo Press 2009 p.41 (to cite just one of dozens I have on file. Yossi Melman's review of Rephael Kitron, "Eretz Yisrael Hanisteret:Sippuram Shel Ha'slikim Ve'toldotehem" ("The Hidden Land of Israel:The Story and History of the Secret Weapons Caches" ) in the Haaretz English version (27 January 2011) shows the process of elision. In the Hebrew version, details are given of using synagogues and child centres as places for arms caches, This was excised in the translation (What a community is willing to admit privately is never 'washed' as the proverb says, before a foreign public)

What is, clinically, interesting for the student of the area is that almost everything that occurs, is recursive and the accusations are reflexive, even down to antecedents to the 2014 kidnapping and murder of Israeli teenagers like the Irgun's lynching of Clifford Martin and Sergeant Mervyn Paice, and the Abu Khdeir's kidnapping, which uncannily mimicked Alexander Rubowitz's kidnapping and murder in a forest by the British. Of course Menachem Begin went on to be Prime Minister, as did other 'terrorists' like Yitzhak Shamir and Ariel Sharon, and are glorified by mainstream history. What fascinates me is the way practices and incidents typologically identical between the two sides (Jewish past and Palestinian present) are spun differently now. It's not quite 'fascinating' as a farcical gloss on the stupidity of modern journalism, reportage, and commentary, which time and again proceeds without any sense of historical irony, because writing to a contemporary deadline means one doesn't consult the past, and in any case, one ruins the John Waynesque plot of civilizing the wilderness. The only people aware of the analogies, like Uri Avnery, are never listened to, by youngsters who appear not to read books, or politicians (who don't read books by definition). My only reserve is bad faith (in articles), or an excess of passionate sincerity drowning out the process of threshing out the dry germinal facts from the wet chaff of spun chat. Everything that the Israeli and US press finds repulsive about Hamas's strategy played a role in the foundation and consolidation of Israel (and many other nations' history).Nishidani (talk) 15:01, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

• Norman Finkelstein, HRW Whitewashes Israel, The Law Supports Hamas: Some Reflections on Israel’s Latest Massacre, Jadaliyya, 20 Jul 2014. Some interesting thoughts on whether Hamas is committing "war crimes" by using "belligerent reprisals". This argument was also made in Finkelstein's book "Knowing Too Much" regarding Hezbollah. Though I have not seen any other international law expert agree with him. Still it is interesting. Kingsindian (talk) 15:24, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Nishidani, thanks for offering many powerful, insightful analyses over the last few months. I recommend this highly informative satire, by Rap News. May not satisfy the requirements of an RS in WP articles, but does a good job highlighting the key similarities between the events leading to the establishment of the US and Israel, and the current behavior of the US and Israeli elites. Also features Norman Finkelstein, and a creative interpretation of Scarlett Johansson's promotion of Soda Stream. Very incisive, penetrating commentary, in my view. (My favorite line: "Palestinian suicide homes ramming themselves into peaceful Israeli bulldozers.") Regards, IjonTichy (talk) 17:03, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
• A very good article, easily satisfying RS, by Guy Rolnik, on the socio-economic impact of the Israeli assault(s) on Gaza on Israeli society. For the past week or so I wanted to translate it from Hebrew and use in WP articles but cannot find the time. Highly recommended for those who can read Hebrew. Regards, IjonTichy (talk) 17:08, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
• Raimond Gaita edited a book on an earlier stage of the conflict, Gaza: Morality, Law & Politics,UWA 2010, and briefly comments on this latest one in his interview with Philip Adams here. Even a fine thinker like him gets the chronology wrong, but the final question assumes that the civilian casualty level might have been acceptable (a)had Israel relented, withdrawn its settlements and allowed the Palestinians to achieve statehood and (b) Hamas then attacked (as, unknown to him, it did not this time) such an Israel, from the Gaza Strip.Nishidani (talk) 21:22, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

The larger picture

• Stephan M. Walt, 'Do No (More) Harm,' Foreign Policy 7 August 2014. A good example of realistic thinking that is self-evidently 'unrealistic' (obvious solutions are never probable outcomes, my variation on Murphy's law:)
• Deputy Speaker of Israeli Knesset Calls for Expulsion and Jewish Reoccupation of Gaza (2014-08-07), Max Blumenthal, The Real News. Explains why the Obama administration is unwilling to impose limits on the amount of force that Israel can exert against the people of the Gaza Strip. It's because the U.S. elite has adopted the same mentality to those it has deemed its own enemies. IjonTichy (talk) 02:03, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

It was more interesting for the other details. I don't think anything the US administrations say publicly has much interest. After 1967, it was decided that Israel was the terrestrial aircraft carrier they needed to 'stabilise' and control the Middle East, a proxy in 'the great game'. Yesterday Obama noted that “To have scratched out of rock this incredibly vibrant, incredibly successful, wealthy and powerful country is a testament to the ingenuity, energy and vision of the Jewish people." Well, 'scratching out of rock' is an odd spin on the facts of ethnic cleansing, water resource expropriation, and carpetbagging, heavily financed by US outlays. Had a nuanced strategy prevailed, it might have been different. The West Bank's Jordanian educational system before the occupation began, in 1967, imposed free and compulsory education for 12 years, and Palestinians leapt at the opportunity, the growth in education outstripping demographic growth by a factor of three times. The result was that 44.6% of the Palestinian age-group of 15-17 receiving a secondary education before the 2nd nakba of 67, as compared to 22.8% for Israel (Elias H. Tuma and Haim Darin-Drabkin, The Economic Case for Palestine, Croom Helm 1978 p.44). Percentually double, with Palestinian enrolment rates superior to those in any other Arab country and thus, had the $150 billion in aid given to Israel (1967-2005) been proportionally distributed also to Gaza and the West Bank for infrastructural development, we would probably be rephrasing that flattery less in terms of ethnic uniqueness:“To have scratched out of rock these incredibly vibrant, incredibly successful, wealthy and powerful pair of countries is a testament to the ingenuity, energy and vision of the Jewish and Palestinian people, and America can be proud of the key role its largesse played in financing the formation of two successful Middle Eastern States as models for the region, in terms of ethnic coexistence, entrepreneurial flair, commitment to education, and multiculturalism." The Palestinian diaspora is just a rerun of 70 CE., with similar results, though probably it will take less than 2,000 years to return home. The US is a great creator of failed states, and their exceptionalist success in underwriting the engineering of Israel serves to paper over the folly. It's quite remarkable that even in choked Gaza, some 38,000 of the 900,000 under 18 year olds managed to do their high school final exams this year, mostly studying by lamplight. Nishidani (talk) 10:54, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

• Uri Avnery, 'The Gaza conflict: losers and consequences,' Redress Information & Analysis, August 08, 2014
• Leon Wieseltier, Israel and Gaza: A Just and Unjust War New Republic August 6, 2014. Fundamental to his interpretation of Hamas is something he had just read on an ID blog,

. A combat manual of the Shejaiya Brigade of Hamas advises its fighters to deploy in densely populated areas because “the soldiers and commanders must limit their use of weapons and tactics that lead to the harm and unnecessary loss of people and civilian facilities,”

The sentence is self-contradictory, and it is amazing that Wieseltier, a very close writer most times, outside this area, misses it. This all over the blogosphere, along with a non-relable source arguing it is a fake (IDF Hamas Human Shield Manual a Sloppy Forgery - The Evidence [UPDATED August 8th]).Ashley Fantz, 'Why are so many civilians dying in Hamas-Israel war?,' CNN August 6, 2014 writes:

The IDF said Monday it found a "Hamas combat manual" that IDF says proves the group uses its people as human shields. A CNN translation of the two pages posted by the IDF did not find specific statements that Hamas uses its own civilian population as human shields, but one section discusses the benefits for Hamas when civilian homes are destroyed. CNN could not confirm the authenticity of the manual, and neither the IDF nor Hamas could be reached for comment.

The issue is of some importance, and I cannot yet see good mainstream newspapers analysing the manual? Nishidani (talk) 21:48, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

• Noam Chomsky on Israel's Assault on Gaza & U.S. Elite's Support for the Occupation (2014-08-07). Democracy Now!. Hideous. Sadistic. Vicious. Murderous. That is how Noam Chomsky describes it. He also discusses the "moral degeneration" of Israeli and US elites. 40-min interview. IjonTichy (talk) 18:54, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

'Degeneration' implies a falling off from something 'noble' in the past. I think standards are fairly coherent over time:)Nishidani (talk) 19:33, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

One would underwrite every jot and tittle were it not for two small lapses: the three teenagers were not 'settlers': one was. Hamas did not fire off rockets to protest the West Bank mass arrests, Islamic Jihad and others did, desultorily. Hamas started firing when Israel 'took out' several militants within its territory, rising to the bait. Thanks.Nishidani (talk) 19:10, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

• Benny Morris, 'We must defeat Hamas - next time,' Haaretz July 30.
• Amos Oz '"For Israel, it is a lose-lose situation",' Qantara.de, Deutsche Welle 1 August 2014.

“What would you do if your neighbor across the street sits down on the balcony, puts his little boy on his lap and starts shooting machine gun fire into your nursery?”

Answer. I wouldn't shoot his child to kill him. About 40 yards separated Oz'S house from that of Sari Nusseibeh, unknowingly their playgrounds were separated by a patch of wire dividing Jerusalem. One of the two grew up. Nishidani (talk) 19:33, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

Unfortunately, to answer such an obscene, misleading question is already to fall into a trap. The analogy is in no way representative of the actual situation. The purpose of such analogies is to direct minds towards simplistic, loaded hypotheticals instead of reality.

Kingsindian (talk) 21:19, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

• Ronen Bergman, 'How Hamas Beat Israel in Gaza,' New York Times 10 August 2014

Thanks for

your thoughtful commentary here. I know a (very) elderly man who survived the Warsaw uprising and the concentration camps, and he wholeheartedly agrees with you. -Darouet (talk) 19:38, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

May he be blessed with many more of the years denied to those who grew up with him. Some unfortunately think Israel is the Warsaw ghetto (here and here), and fail to see that the more compelling analogy is with Gaza.Nishidani (talk) 21:22, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Nishidani, thanks again for all your work. By the way I recall reading somewhere (don't remember where) that the tactic of inversion, i.e., blaming the (relatively weak) victim as the (overwhelmingly more powerful) aggressor, and painting the aggressor as the victim, was used extensively by the ancient Greeks and Romans, and in fact even thousands of years even before the advent of these two fascist, ancient so-called 'civilizations' whose elite pretended they were 'democratic' or 'republican' (respectively) and 'law abiding' and 'humane and peace-loving.' IjonTichy (talk) 17:19, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

I don't think it helps to retroject modern concepts like fascism back into antiquity, or the orient or anywhere else in time. Leni Riefenstahl is one thing, the Athenian tragic theatre another: If people in Sderot, or Cicero, or we in our livingrooms, reacted as Leontius did in Plato's Republic Bk.IV 439ff, or as Seneca did in his 7th Epistle, the world would be a saner place.Nishidani (talk) 20:54, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

IjonTichy You make some rather strongly worded and ill-informed statements here

...the ancient Greeks and Romans, and in fact even thousands of years even before the advent of these two fascist, ancient so-called 'civilizations' whose elite pretended they were 'democratic' or 'republican'

What is it that makes you think you have to perspective to even venture such a ludicrous and overreaching comment? What is it that makes you want to demonize the Ancient Greeks and the Romans?

Apologies to Nishidani for intruding here to respond to that.--Ubikwit ^連絡 _{見学/迷惑} 23:49, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

Harry's gaiters.Nishidani (talk) 19:10, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

Remove of a picture of soldiers shielding a boy

Israeli soldiers shielding a 4-year old Israeli boy during a Hamas rocket attack.

Hi, you removed this picture from 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict, and I didn't quite get the reason. Can you elaborate please ? - WarKosign (talk) 18:50, 12 August 2014 (UTC) See [6] in the talk page archives. This was apparently uploaded from the ID flickr account, and constitutes war propaganda. There are serious doubts about its authenticity. Two editors, myself included, gave considered arguments that it looks as though it was a posed photo. Therefore, because of its provenance, because so far no one can track down where it was taken or under what circumstances, because, if it is, as it certainly looks, staged, it is laughably inept (the photographer taking the photo frontally is exposed to the same rocket fire the kid being protected, partially, is apparently exposed to, and because in the discussion no editor in favour of its inclusion responded to these doubts, it should not be included until much further work is done consensually, if someone can provide the citation asked for. You don't in good practice, add 'stuff' without verifiable sources and then plaster a cit needed tag that might never produce the requested information, particularly when serious doubts exist as to the authenticity of that material.Nishidani (talk) 19:08, 12 August 2014 (UTC)