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Archive 40←Archive 43Archive 44Archive 45Archive 46Archive 47→Archive 49

Earlier discussions

  • Archive 44
    • Robust Resource- Arkin Book
    • Casualty Figures
    • Photo
    • Israel planning the war in advance
    • Result of War
    • Allegations of war crimes
    • Initial Conflict

Please do not modify these archived discussions.

Casualty Figures

It appears unbalanced to me to include over 2000 cases of "shock and anxiety" according to the article under the category of Israeli injured. It makes the injury figures almost equal, when in actuality they are no where near equal. I can imagine that no Lebanese sufferers of anxiety or shock were included in that number. Is this a fair statement? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.111.31.7 (talk • contribs) 02:40, 21 November 2007

Casualty figures have previously discussed here and here. If after reading through those, you still feel that the issue has not been dealt with / resolved, then we can discus this further. Rami R (talk) 11:22, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
I have seen nothing to indicate that shock and anxiety have been included in the Lebanese figures, or to indicate the opposite. What I have seen is that the UN report says there were 4,409 were "injured" and the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs says that 4,262 injuries were "treated in hospitals for injuries." I have tried to find a breakdown of the Lebanese figure into physical and mental injury, but have been unable to do so. If someone else can find this information, please feel more than free to upload it. Otherwise, we can only present the information we have. Since practically the same words are used to describe both groups, we cannot use our own WP:OR to re-interpret them.
This philosophy is consistently used within the article. For example, the number of injured and killed Israelis includes only civilians, whereas the Lebanese figures include all Lebanese citizens. This means that Hezbollah fighters (which, by most accounts, accounted for about half of Lebanese deaths) are counted twice, while Israelis are only counted once. As I said, we can only use the information we have. Screen stalker (talk) 02:06, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Isn't silly to include the shock and anxiety casualties? Is it logical, for example, to say that 27 million Iraqis are shock and anxiety victims of the gulf war?! Imad marie (talk) 10:38, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Can we have a vote here on whether to include the Israeli 'shock and anxiety' figures or will a free vote on the matter be blocked by the pro-Israeli wiki lobby? Reaper7 (talk) 18:15, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
Please keep your comments civil, without attacking other editors, or alluding to some conspiracy. Such comments detract other editors from voicing their opinion, whether for fear of being labeled part of the "pro-Israeli wiki lobby", or for not wanting to be seen as supporting editors like you, who basically poison the atmosphere with such comments. okedem (talk) 22:01, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
Including the shock casualties is just silly! you are at war, if you feel shocked then just get over it! Imad marie (talk) 06:02, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
I think it is somewhat callous to call shock and anxiety "silly." These are real, universally recognized, mental injuries that are the result of severe trauma. Please do me a favor and don't call mental diseases like PTSD silly.
As for the question of a vote, I think it's too soon for a vote. If we become hopelessly deadlocked, that may become an option of last resort (although there are many options that should be exhausted first). Screen stalker (talk) 22:55, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

How about we say: "1,489 physically, and 2,773 were treated for shock and anxiety" I believe this is a more fact revealing sentence. Imad marie (talk) 06:30, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Imad, I think what you propose would make a good deal of sense, were it not for the nuances of the documents cited. During previous discussion on this topic, the argument was raised that both sources present their 4,000+ figures in the same terms (injured). It would be synthesis to present them differently, because we would in fact be interpreting the same word in two different meanings.
In a parallel but hypothetical example, consider a comparison of the extinction pattern of two species. If source 1 said that species A was "put on the endangered species list in 1982," and source 2 said that species B "became endangered in 1976" we would have to present those facts as given, even though source 1 provides a more specific and concrete bright line of what "endangered" means.
Note that the article is consistent with this: Lebanese casualties (both injured and dead) include Hezbollah fighters, whereas Israeli figures include only civilians. This means that Hezbollah fighters are counted twice. One might as oneself why this is. The reason is that Lebanese figures do not delineate between fighters and civilians, and so we must use the most detailed information we have, and place the two sources on as equal a footing as possible. Should we not take the same approach when the tables are turned? Screen stalker (talk) 17:53, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
A few points:
  • First, unaware of this more recent discussion, my goal in rewording the statement was to fix the English. That's been reverted (as it should have been, given this ongoing discussion), so please fix the English yourself. "of whom physically" has readability issues in the given context.
  • Second, after reading through this most recent discussion, I'm perplexed. You state that "we must use the most detailed information we have" in defending the use of a more ambiguous statement than the cited source. From the cited source: "Since July 12, 4,262 civilians were treated in hospitals for injuries. Of these, 33 were seriously wounded, 68 moderately and 1,388 lightly. Another 2,773 were treated for shock and anxiety." While this may be excessively long to write in the summary box, I see no reason to oppose the wording "1,489 physically wounded; 2,773 treated for shock and anxiety" when the source itself uses both terms explicitly (wounded when referring to physical injuries, and "treated for shock and anxiety" when referring to mental injuries). If we had the same break down on the Lebanese side, I would fully support using that breakdown too, but just because we don't doesn't mean that we should avoid using the most specific data we do have.
  • Third, you're misciting WP:SYN. No material is being synthesized by using more specific wording and figures from the very same source.
Please provide your thoughts. ← George [talk] 08:54, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
I might be misunderstanding WP:SYN, but it seems that we need to present the information in a way that is consistent with how the source presents it. If we take information and rearrange it, we would not change the literal meaning of the information, but we could still use it in a way that takes it beyond where the source designed. I would think this would be particularly true if we are contrasting two sources that present data in similar ways (here, discussing "injured" people). If we choose to present it one way one time and another way another, then aren't we synthesizing it in a way? We're not changing what it says, but are editorializing the context.
Obviously, there is a limit to this. We cannot put the full breakdown in the infobox. But because the source says "4,262 treated in hospitals for injuries. Of these … wounded," we should try to stay as near this wording as possible. I suppose this is similar to a statistic that says that 1,214 of 1,534 adults interviewed had opinion X. It would be nice to say 79% of adults…, but that would be pushing the envelope. If it weren't for the counterpart on the Lebanese side, I might be inclined to accept this breakdown. But since the Lebanese figures lists "injured," the Israeli figure should, too.
I agree that "of whom physically" sounds a little weird, although it is grammatically correct. Perhaps "4,262 injured, including 1,489 physically wounded" would be more appropriate?
I said "we must use the most detailed information we have" with regard to the civilian vs. citizen breakdown, not this particular debate. I think we should treat them the same, but I did not feel the need to stipulate reasonable length because there was no danger of excessive length in that case. Screen stalker (talk) 21:57, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
While I totally agree that we shouldn't put the full breakdown in the infobox, I do feel that putting absolutely no breakdown is misleading, and raises serious POV concerns. To expand on your example, let's say I tell you that 1000 dentists recommended my Acme brand toothpaste. Now, let's say that the breakdown of the 1000 dentists has 8 saying they would absolutely recommend it, 16 saying they would marginally recommend it, and 976 saying they would recommend it if was the last toothpaste on Earth (the same proportional breakdown as the MFA site). Would my original statement that "1000 dentists recommended my Acme brand toothpaste" be accurate? Strictly speaking, yes, but I think we both can agree that this blanket statement would be hiding something significant about the statistical breakdown of the data, and my statement would be pushing one very specific point of view - namely that my toothpaste is recommended by dentists.
I'm also highly concerned with the colloquial versus the formal use of the term "injured". Colloquially, the word "injured" is almost exclusively meant to indicate a physical injury, while when used formally it can refer to physical injury, or mental injury, or injured feelings, or even injured reputations. The way this figure is currently worded, citing a formal usage, implies that there were far more physically injured Israeli civilians than were actually reported to anyone reading this article, also familiar with the colloquial definition (which is most readers). If an article were to come out stating that 10,000 civilians (on either side) had their feelings injured, I would object to their inclusion with any such generic, blanket label as well, although it would be accurate if using the formal definition. (Please note, I have no intention of marginalizing anyones mental distress on either side, but I also feel that lumping them in with those who are physically maimed does them an even greater disservice)
I do agree with you on the labeling of civilians versus citizens, but I believe the two issues must be tied together in order to form a balanced consensus. I'm not sure how the article got to its current state, but we had reached a consensus long ago to use the breakdown of physical & mental injuries on the Israeli side, while using the label "citizens" for the figure on the Lebanese side, as a way to sort of balance these two issues. Thoughts? ← George [talk] 08:53, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm going to go ahead an change this citation, per my reasoning and recollection of previous consensus agreements. It's the most balanced solution I can come up with. Screen stalker was found to be "I <3 Israel", someone involved in the recent CAMERA/Isra-pedia wikilobbying fiasco, and was topic banned for a month, so my good faith in working with them in a constructive manner is, unfortunately, thrown out the window. I'm also going to include the "citizens" label for the Lebanese figure, as I feel it is also unbalanced to list them as civilians, when the source is unclear on that point. Hopefully other editors find this a fair solution. ← George [talk] 23:40, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Since when is "shock and anxiety" considered a casualty? In any other war has there been such record of people treated for something related to shock and anxiety being treated as casualties? It is defined as: 1archaic : chance, fortune <losses that befall them by mere casualty — Sir Walter Raleigh> 2: serious or fatal accident : disaster 3 a: a military person lost through death, wounds, injury, sickness, internment, or capture or through being missing in action b: a person or thing injured, lost, or destroyed : victim <the ex-senator was a casualty of the last election> Nothing to do with "shock and anxiety". I say, refer to it in the article but remove it from the infobox. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.158.67.9 (talk) 18:50, 25 May 2008 (UTC)


Article Title

I know there have been many previous attempts to change the title of this article (some successful), but I am going to bring the issue up again. I think "2006 Lebanon war" fails as an adequate title for a number of reasons:

  1. The Lebanese state was never part of the war.
  2. It doesn't name either combatant--Hezbollah and Israel.
  3. It is not a common name for the war in either Israel or Lebanon. Our article should reflect the terms people use to describe the war in real-world discourse.

Suggestions for alternative names:

  1. 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war
  2. 2006 Hezbollah-Israel war
  3. Summer war in Lebanon
  4. Summer war
  5. 2006 Summer war
  6. Second Lebanon war (official name in Israel)
  7. July war (all but official name in Lebanon)

Suggestions? Thoughts? Screen stalker (talk) 12:34, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Given the attacks were perpetrated from sovereign Lebanese soil, by an organization participating in the Lebanese government and parliament, and operating undisturbed by the Lebanese military, the Lebanese state was very much involved, as an accomplice at least. okedem (talk) 12:56, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
But there was no declaration of war between Israel and Lebanon. The Lebanese military never entered into the fray (although some its soldiers were accidentally killed in bombings). Screen stalker (talk) 16:09, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
Yes, it's not a traditional war, but the attacking body was one who was allowed to operate from within Lebanon's sovereign territory. As the most universally accepted meaning of sovereignty is a monopoly over the use of force, Hizbollah's actions can be seen as under the responsibility of Lebanon's government. I know the situation is WAY more complicated than that, with Syria and Iran meddling about, but on the face of it - this is Lebanon's responsibility. okedem (talk) 17:05, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
Do note that the first war is named here 1982 Lebanon War. This also wasn't really a war against Lebanon itself, but against the PLO's forces, who were constantly launching terrorist attacks against northern Israel's towns. okedem (talk) 17:07, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm not going to go into the 1982 war in too great a depth. Allow me to simply say that that is how this war is referred to in real-world discourse. Wouldn't you say that Hezbollah bears more responsibility for this war than Lebanon? Screen stalker (talk) 00:30, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
I don't think the two are separate. Hezbollah plays a major part in Lebanese politics, enjoys wide support from a part of the populace. Although it's not the official Lebanese military, the Lebanese state is responsible for its actions.
Anyway - which name is more common in discourse (i.e. - news sites, etc.)? okedem (talk) 12:28, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
I am going through the sources at the bottom of the article, and here are the terms they use:
Source 1 (Daily Star): July War.
Source 12 (Israeli MFA): Israel-Hizbullah Conflict.
Source 13 (Encarta) admittedly refers to the war as "Conflict with Lebanon," though it doesn't use that as a name.
Source 17 (Israeli MFA): The Second Lebanon war
Source 18 (AFP via Daily Star): July war
Source 23 (Lebanon Under Seige): July war and July 2006 War
After going through 30 sources I got a little tired, so I'll take a break. Screen stalker (talk) 13:34, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

I would argue that the Lebanese government was a passive victim of this conflict initiated by Hizbollah when it invaded Israel territory without the consent of the Lebanese government. That Hizbollah was a participant in the Lebanese government does mean any culpability falls to the government when this rogue element initiated an action independent of that government. Since Hizbollah initiated the actions the onus of the war falls upon Hizbollah thus it is "Hizbollah's War"Judadem (talk) 15:31, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

I haven't reviewed the name recently, but the last time I checked (June 2007), terms similar to "2006 Lebanon War" were far more common (60.5-86.5% of instances) than names similar to "2006 Israel-Hezbollah War" (9.4-20.9% of instances) or names similar to "2006 Israel-Lebanon War" (1.6-18.6% of instances). ← George [talk] 08:31, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

I wonder if quantitative predominance is reason enough to go with one title over another. Consider this hypothetical example: If a dispute between the government and a minority group occurred in a country with no free press, and this dispute was under the radar of the Western media, then most coverage of this dispute would then use the gov't-preferred language. This doesn't seem to be reason enough for a wikipedia article on the dispute to adopt the gov't-preferred language. Of course, this is far from a perfect analogy, but the point is that predominance alone might not be a good enough reason to go with one title over another. Precision and accuracy should also be considered. (please correct me if there's some wikipedia policy or guideline that proves me wrong.) What about this title proposal, which takes the multiple opinions into account: "2006 Lebanon War Between Hezbollah and Israel." Gni (talk) 15:12, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
Please review Wikipedia's policy on naming conventions for events: "If there is a particular common name for the event, it should be used even if it implies a controversial point of view... A common name or standing expression exists if most English speakers who are aware of the topic call it the same thing." The word "most" implies a quantitative analysis to me, and the best source I've been able to find for "English speakers" is internet search engines. These index billions of websites, so they are freer of potential use of "government-preferred language" that you mentioned may be present in Western media. The same predominant trend appears in these indexed common websites, news articles, and scholarly sources alike. ← George [talk] 09:33, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
Google yielded the following results for the following names (note: all searches exclude pages that contain the word "wikipedia," in order to avoid circular naming):
"2006 Lebanon war": 30,800
"Second Lebanon war": 145,000
"Israel-Hezbollah war", "Israel-Hizbollah war", "Israel-Hizbullah war": 38,900, 1,130, 2,610, respecitvely (total of 42,640)
"Hezbollah-Israel war", "Hizbollah-Israel war", "Hizbullah-Israel war": 5,640, 501, 1,710, respectively (total of 7,851)
"Summer war" Lebanon: 29,000
"July war": 30,800
It seems the landslide winner is "Second Lebanon war," followed by some variation of "Israel-Hezbollah war," followed by "2006 Lebanon war," tied with "July war," followed by "Summer war." Screen stalker (talk) 20:01, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
I tried the same thing with Yahoo!:
"2006 Lebanon war": 136,000
"Second Lebanon war": 743,000
"Israel-Hezbollah war", "Israel-Hizbollah war", "Israel-Hizbullah war": 305,000, 5,780, 19,000, respecitvely (total of 329,780)
"Hezbollah-Israel war", "Hizbollah-Israel war", "Hizbullah-Israel war": 28,100, 675, 1,900, respectively (total of 30,675)
"Summer war" Lebanon: 497,000
"July war": 131,000
The results are pretty similar. Screen stalker (talk) 21:08, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
I repeated the same search with a news search engine: [news.google.com]. The numbers for this site will change a lot, fairly fast, because it stays up-to-date. These may be a little more reliable in terms of their accountability. I did not remove wikipedia from these searches, for obvious reasons.
"2006 Lebanon war": 31
"Second Lebanon war": 231
"Israel-Hezbollah war", "Israel-Hizbollah war", "Israel-Hizbullah war": 12, 0, 3, respecitvely (total of 15)
"Hezbollah-Israel war", "Hizbollah-Israel war", "Hizbullah-Israel war": 3, 0, 2, respectively (total of 5)
"Summer war" Lebanon: 30
"July war": 14 Screen stalker (talk) 00:30, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Allow me to add to these the results for "Israel-Hezbollah conflict" (hereafter IHC) and "Hezbollah-Israel conflict" (hereafter HIC). The term "wikipedia" excluded from search results. Spelling variations are in the same order as the three examples above.

Google: IHC: 21,500, 9,400, 1,620 (total of 32,520). HIC: 3,630, 200, 223 (total of 4,053) Yahoo!: IHC: 132,000, 1,300, 1,860 (total of 135,160). HIC: 14,800, 110, 111 (total of 15,021) Google news: IHC: 1, 0, 0 (total of 1). HIC: 3, 0, 0 (total of 3)

I think it is important to include these because these clearly prefer Israel and Hezbollah in the name (because they were the combatants), even though they use "conflict" instead of "war." Then again, I think this article did that a long time ago, didn't it? To be fair, I therefore searched "2006 Lebanon conflict." Here are the results:

Google: 1,860 Yahoo!: 2,080 Google news: 0 Screen stalker (talk) 21:46, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

These graphs show the clear trend: "Second Lebanon war" is leads heavily. The only other name which comes close on both counts is some variation of "Israel-Hezbollah war." "Summer war" remains a remote, but not lost, possibility, because of its showing on Yahoo! I tried loading the Google News Chart, but it gave me some problems. I guess that doesn't really matter, since the numbers are far too small to draw a general trend. Screen stalker (talk) 22:23, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
First, let me say that I don't object to "Second Lebanon war". Per naming conventions, similar names, such as World War II and Second World War, are interchangeable. However, I believe that another set of naming conventions state that, in general, military conflicts/wars should be listed with the year (I think it was the Military History WikiProject's guidelines, or something similar). So in general, I don't really have a preference between Second Lebanon war, Lebanon war II (never seen this used), 2006 Lebanon war, and Lebanon war of 2006 (this would be eliminated for being unnecessarily longer than the preceding). The only question that I've researched is whether "Lebanon war", "Israel-Hezbollah war", or "Israel-Lebanon war" was more common (including variations on spellings and orders).
The following is the chart I came up with when I last checked these three values a little under a year ago. The blue, red, and green boxes indicate the general trends that I had seen that supported "Lebanon war", "Israel-Hezbollah war", or "Israel-Lebanon war", respectively (again, including variants) . I did re-check a couple of these, and the gap appears to be even wider now, but you can click on any of the links to be taken to the equivalent google query to check the latest values. These were the best queries I could come up with.
Google search results for title variations across all websites, news articles, and scholarly sources (as of June 10, 2007)
Title variation query All websites News articles* Scholarly sources
"Lebanon War" -1982 -"First Lebanon War" -"Israel-Lebanon War"&#134; 661,000 68.7% 1,479 64.6% 22 51.2%
"Second Lebanon War" 102,000 10.6% 492 21.5% 2 4.7%
"2006 Lebanon War" 31,500 3.3% 8 0.3% 2 4.7%
Total (2006 Lebanon War) 794,500 82.6% 1,979 86.5% 26 60.5%
"Israel-Hezbollah War"&#135; 64,700 6.7% 88 3.8% 4 9.3%
"Israeli-Hezbollah War"&#135; 25,000 2.6% 186 8.1% 5 11.6%
"2006 Israel-Hezbollah War"&#135; 382 < 0.1% 0 0.0% 0 0.0%
Total (2006 Israel-Hezbollah War) 90,082 9.4% 274 12.0% 9 20.9%
"Israel-Lebanon War" 70,300 7.3% 31 1.4% 7 16.3%
"2006 Israel-Lebanon War" 7,250 0.8% 5 0.2% 1 2.3%
Total (2006 Israel-Lebanon War) 77,550 8.1% 36 1.6% 8 18.6%
* Limited to the last month, to eliminate any articles about the 1982 Lebanon War, and avoid recentism immediately following the end of the conflict.

&#134; The addition of -1982 -"First Lebanon War" -"Israel-Lebanon War" to this query eliminates any overlapping results, or results that are about the 1982 Lebanon War, as well as any results about the 2006 Lebanon War that even mention the 1982 war, making this figure lower than it actually is.
&#135; The spelling Hezbollah appears approximately ten times more often than either Hizbollah or Hizbullah.

Please review the notes at bottom as well, which indicate how I tried to get as accurate results as possible. Let me see if I can find the naming conventions talking about using the year in the title... ← George [talk] 09:36, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
Ahh, it's a bit confusing. I think the general convention is to use "YEAR EVENT", but the military events style suggests "EVENT (YEAR)". It does prefer the common names, but also uses things like "First EVENT", "Second EVENT", etc., to refer to similar events in the same year... I have a feeling that's why we chose the year over the word "secondary", but again, I'm not entirely opposed to it. ← George [talk] 09:44, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
George, I think it is interesting how we can both search for the same thing using slightly different terms and find very different results. One thing that comes through from your search results is that the current name of the article as it is now ("2006 Lebanon war") is a rare appearance. Also, your first search result can cover events regarding the Lebanese civil war (such as this source, which is included in those results, along with thousands of others). In fact, these sources may relate to any number of conflicts (in the middle east, there are a lot of "Lebanon wars"). Another thing is that once you begin to exclude so many things from a search, the engine begins to drop search terms because it doesn't want to yield zero results. Also, I've noticed most of the sources in the first line include "Second Lebanon war" or "2006 Lebanon war" in them, so those get counted twice (or even three times). Also, you did not exclude wikipedia pages (which account for 34,800 of the 661,000 in the first line. Screen stalker (talk) 16:32, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
All good points. Again, when doing this research, I ignored differences between "2006 Lebanon war" and "Second Lebanon war", as my goal was to determine what the most common root name for the conflict was, evaluating "Lebanon war" versus "Israel-Hezbollah war" versus "Israel-Lebanon war". Eliminating any of the sources that cite the word "civil" is easy enough, as is eliminating any that even mention Wikipedia. I believe that prevalence of "Lebanon war" over "Israel-Hezbollah war" or "Israel-Lebanon war" (or "July war" or "Summer war") still stands though, even with the artificially lowered result count (from removing any articles that mention the 2006 war in addition to the older wars). I view the differences between "2006 Lebanon war" and "Second Lebanon war" to be qualitative, so I wouldn't oppose a proposal to rename to the latter. That said, I'd have to better familiarize myself with the military event naming conventions to determine exactly what they would point to between "2006 Lebanon war", "Second Lebanon war", and "Lebanon war (2006)". ← George [talk] 01:18, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
I think that the name "Second Lebanon war" would be a better name than the one currently used, and would be happy to work under it while we discuss. Are there any objections? Screen stalker (talk) 22:33, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
Are you asking if it's okay to move the page, or if it's okay to request a move? You likely can't move this page yourself (unless you're an administrator), so you should probably file the move using the steps listed under "Requesting potentially controversial moves" in WP:RM. This topic has been discussed so many times in the past that I'm sure it will be controversial to some. ← George [talk] 00:49, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Thank you for directing me towrads WP:RM. I have read a good part of this policy, and think this is the most appropriate course of action for the time being. If so, I would like to see if anyone has any objections to moving this page to "Second Lebanon war." I don't think that would be the absolute best name for the article, but it is certainly better than its current name, and it would be a good starting point for what is bound to be a long discussion on the article's title. Thoughts? Screen stalker (talk) 13:24, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
I applaud your efforts here, with all the pie charts... I have no objections to the move (though I'm fine with the current name). okedem (talk) 13:46, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Well, I think I object until this email organizing a concerted group challenge to the title is clarified:-
4/22/08 11:22 AM Page 1 of 1 [Isra-pedia] Changing the title of "2006 Lebanon war" From: I <3 Israel (yonathan@ou.edu) Sent: Wed 4/09/08 7:48 AM To: isra-pedia (isra-pedia@googlegroups.com)

Hello, all. The discussion about voting reminded me that some time ago there were a few votes on how to name the article that wound up being named "2006 Lebanon war." It wound up being so named for many reasons, but mostly because the supporters of this name wanted to communicate their opinion that this war was conducted against Lebanon, not just Hezbollah. I think it might be appropriate to restart discussion on that title, if there are some people here who would be willing to support me in proposing a new title (such as "2006 Israel-Hezbollah war"). What do you guys think?'

Nishidani (talk) 19:19, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
I changed the indentation on your last post. I hope that's alright.
Discussion on ths issue has taken place many times. I have seen it in the archives and in actual discussion. I don't think a blog posting will have much of an impact on it, especially considering everyone who has thus far contributed has made a considerable number of contributions to this article before.
Something has occurred to me: "Israel-Lebanon war" gets counted in its own category and in the "Lebanon war" category. So I reran the "Lebanon war" search under the terms "Lebanon war" Hezbollah Israel -wikipedia -"Israel-Lebanon war". I hope we can all agree that any article worth looking at will mention Hezbollah and Israel. This yields 159,000 results. Screen stalker (talk) 21:06, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Unfortunately, due to the way Google works, you can't modify the query in that manner without drastically skewing the results. A search of "Lebanon war" Hezbollah Israel -wikipedia nets 449,000 results, while a search of "Lebanon war" Hezbollah Israel -wikipedia -"Israel-Lebanon war" nets only 159,000 results. However, if you just search for "Israel-Lebanon war", you only get 44,000 results - obviously far less than could possibly cause a 300,000 difference in results. ← George [talk] 09:09, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
That is an excellent point. So what can we do if search engines make these kinds of mistakes? What are our options? Screen stalker (talk) 16:41, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
Our only good option is to try to avoid the mistakes the search engines make, by careful tweaking our queries to minimize false positives while also trying to limit the false negatives. That's one of the reasons I chose to try the news article and scholarly journal searches in addition to the Google web search (the two additional columns). There are also some more advanced searching techniques we can use, such as the news article search allowing us to search allowing us to specify a date range. We also have to be careful to avoid recentism in our searches. You'll find that sources from early in the fighting will often use different terms (most notably, it took quite a while for the word 'war' to become the most common term used, over things like 'conflict'). ← George [talk] 08:08, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Please don't delete the section of Gabriel Al Amin

Please don't delete the section of Gabriel Al Amin. This is a very important section, it shows the Lebanese perspective of the conflict, of both during and after the war. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nicholausz (talk • contribs) 23:39, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Why not? its a opinion of one individual. He claims to represent the Lebanese, however he is not a published author, there are no other articles in his name on the internet (in his western or Arabic name). The article has also been reproduced on a couple of Israeli web sites/blogs. Not, however on any creditable Lebanese (or other) news sites. A question posed at http://nz.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070926034927AAbIdEd seems to indicate that the Lebanese have never heard of him either. The UserID Nicholausz has been banned because of a conflict of interest from LebanonWire.com - the original source of the article ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Spam/LinkReports/lebanonwire.com ) --80.44.200.163 (talk) 09:20, 26 May 2008 (UTC). The original article and the few blog entries to it have broken links to the claimed original source (a US right wing site). The only solid information on 'Gabriel Al Amin' is his Wikipedia entry and none of the references on that page have any confirmation of his existence - they are circular references to the same article, wikipeida and a unrelated BBC news article.

I'm convinced Gabriel Al Amin is a fabricated identity - for the sole purpose of posting an opinion in this Wikipedia article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.44.200.163 (talk) 11:04, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

His article is posted here http://www.lebanonwire.com/0709MLN/07092429MN.asp it is a credible Lebanese news source. Please allow the Lebanese perspective to be presented as well. Many Lebanese would share his views, if you google him up over 250 results come up. Please allow this to stay. You are right he does only have one famous article, but that one article was what gave him notability.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Author.aspx/555

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/7442

http://opednews.com/...?p=opedne_gabriel__071105_why_hezbollah_lost_t.htm

http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/printer_25491.shtml

http://www.michnews.com/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/403/17968

etc.... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nicholausz (talk • contribs) 17:04, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

First off, if he only has one well known article, he's not notable, and there's no reason to quote him. Second, I see no reason to believe his views represent most of the Lebanese people.
The sites you linked too seem completely unremarkable. The only one of them I could recognize is "israel national news", AKA Arutz Sheva. This is an Israeli ultra ring-wing media organization, with crappy journalistic standards. Sorry, but it seems this guy cannot be quoted here. okedem (talk) 21:57, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

I too looked for anything else that this person has ever published, and found nothing. The only thing I can find is one user who goes from news forum to news forum, posting a link to the article with a copy-and-paste message telling others to go to the site. The persona is likely fabricated, or at the very least inflated. ← George [talk] 08:06, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

I've nominated the Gabriel Al-Amin article for deletion, due to the lack of sources and serious questions about its noteworthiness/verifiability. The discussion can be found here. ← George [talk] 22:48, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Anti-Semitism and Racism Towards Israel on Wikipedia

The fact that you guys remove Gabriel Al Amin section 3 times a day proves that you guys are biased towards one side. I am sure if someone, whom we will call "Person A," actually invented a fabricated character, whom we will call "Person B", and "Person A" would say that "Person B" is a famous columnist who published an article that Israel failed miserably in the Lebanon War, and that Israel is an evil occupier oppressor, I am sure you guys would not care about getting proof of "Person B's" existence as much as you guys would care about proof of the existence of Al Amin! But when someone like Al Amin, who does not share a 100% bashing Israel perspective (as much as you guys are), then you guys go bazerk and look for any excuse to have him taken down and hush him up. Even if "Person B" would not have even ever been published in even one newspaper you guys would probably let his section stay. But Al Amin has been published in 6 different newspapers.

I found this too: http://arabdesk.co.il/ArticleView.aspx?id=99

I am not even Jewish, I am actually a Greek Orthodox, but i believe the section of Al Amin needs to be heard, since like i said again there are a lot of people in Lebanon that would agree with him.

The reason I am making a section just for this, on the "Talk" page, is because I want Wikipedia to get wind of this.

Listen now, this is Wikipedia, so there's no way for "Wikipedia to get wind of this"...
Important points have been raised regarding this guy. We have guidelines and norms to dictate when to quote persons in such sections. As this person is not a famous journalist by any standard, and there's no evidence that he represents anyone other than himself, I see no possibility of quoting him here.
Regarding your personal accusations - know this - I'm an Israeli, and am usually called a "Pro-Israeli" editor, so don't accuse me of any ulterior motives. Personally I think Hezbollah is a disaster for Lebanon, and the people of Lebanon should rise up against them, if they ever want to be a prosperous country. Hezbollah clearly lost the war, and caused a whole lot of pain and destruction for Lebanon, which forgot its a country with sovereign territory, allowing these guys to operate unchecked. But that's my personal opinion, and I will not bend the rules to get it on the article. okedem (talk) 14:08, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm confused, how is removing a suspect article about the Lebanese view point, by a Lebanese commentator 'anti-semitic'? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.44.200.163 (talk) 18:25, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

I just read this article on this war and found it rather biased in it's overall perspective spinning the war as a lost opportunity for Israel and the IDF. As I recall, even the mainstream U.S. media generally reported the 2006 Israel-Lebanon war as an upset victory for Hizbollah--and I don't get ANY impression of this fact from reading either this discussion section, or the article itself, which sadly implies that this article is dominated and heavily slanted by Israel/Jewish interests and bias. Even more comical is the claim of "anti-semitism" here! Please, you've got to be kidding. I hate to say it, but once again it's the old knee-jerk Jewish tactic: if anybody dares to be critical of anything Israel does, or what any Jewish person does, "you're an anti-Semite!" is the immediate response. Can we please move on from this already please? What is so common and the biggest flaw in Wikipedia is that if you get enough key players behind you you can totally slant an article on a politically controversial topic like this one. It's unfortunate this happens, as this degrades the credibility of Wiki. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.71.162.20 (talk) 21:33, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Hell yeah!!!!111one!!!!! There must be a Jewish slant on here, seeing as how Wikipedia in general lists all of the hardships that the Israelis inflict on everyone and almost none of the stuff that gets launched(pun intended) at them.... JJJOOOOOOOSSSSSS!!!!!!! BBBBBBBOOOOOOOOOOSSSHHHH!!!72.75.161.21 (talk)

Summary of Winograd Commission Report

Hi, I've included a summary of the summary of the W.C.R. of material i feel is relevant to this page. However, in doing so I also seem to have deleted the section heading "Media Controversy". I've already self reverted on another page (mea culpa) and I'm afraid of doing so again. So if somebody feels like editing it back in i'd be very grateful. thanks Delad (talk) 02:29, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I hope I'm not misleading you. But self-reverting to fix a mistake, explaining the reason, doesn't really count in the 3RR rule does it. I've self-reverted to correct an error of mine on a page where I have reverted others earlier in the day, and no one took objection. If anything, it is an indication of probity.Nishidani (talk) 10:31, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
Thank you for clearing that up for me. Delad (talk) 01:07, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

FYI - arbitration on Israeli Wiki Lobbying

I have filed an arbitration request in regards to the Israeli Wiki Lobbying and attacks uncovered, which have an impact on this article and possibly it's editors: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration#Israeli Wiki Lobbying. Lawrence Cohen § t/e 16:28, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Order in Allegations of war crimes section

I think Shamir1 and I may disagree on this, so I'd like to open up a discussion about it. We've gone back and forth a few times on whether to mention HRW's position first, followed by Peter Bouckaert's comments, or to start with Peter Bouckaert's comments, then mention HRW's position. My personal feeling is that we should follow a structure of:

  • Organization position
    • Member of that organization's comments/opinion
    • Member of that organization's comments/opinion
  • Organization position
    • Member of that organization's comments/opinion
    • Member of that organization's comments/opinion

In this way, we mention Amnesty International, then anyone from AI's comments, then Human Rights Watch, then anyone from HRW's position (such as Peter Bouckaert, a senior emergencies researcher for HRW), then the UN's position, then anyone from the UN's position, etc. I'm not sure what the arguments for the order Shamir1 prefers are, so I'll let him lay those out. Just wanted to get this discussion going so other editors can weigh in too. ← George [talk] 21:18, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Picture and NPOV

OK I have already mentioned this in the past with no change conducted. The picture at the top of this article shows Lebanon after an Israeli strike. To an unknowing, unsuspecting person this can surely look like "the poor Lebanese were hit by the merciless Israeli military" rather than "this was a war where both sides suffered destruction and casualties". It does not matter how biased you are, you cannot hide the fact that thousands of rockets were fired at Israel, which caused great destruction to thousands of homes. This needs a representation...either by providing a photo of Israeli side destruction under or beside the Lebanon picture. Please don't claim to keep this article NPOV when this small detail surely demonstrates the bias. 89.1.180.29 (talk) 13:33, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

If you'll suggest a good photo illustrating the effect on Israel, I'm sure there'll be no objection to including it at the top, alongside the Lebanon image. Perhaps another Lebanon image, though, one that's narrower, to allow space for two photos.
The current photo is Wiki-Commons, in the category 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict. Browse there, or in other (non-copyrighted!) sources, and suggest an image, please. okedem (talk) 13:44, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Reservists

The factbox lists Hezbollah's reservists. But if the reservists never became active troops, then there is no need to list them, as they didn't take part in the war.Bless sins (talk) 04:15, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

A-class review

Do you agree to nominate the article for A-class review here.--Seyyed(t-c) 02:40, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

This must be one of the best articles in the I-P conflict, with only modest evidence of the kind of rampant problems so obvious elsewhere. At least the observations of the human-rights groups are given a proper airing, even if the Israeli response is given equal weight. The last must be questionable, since Israel is believed to have been caught using white-phosphorus after it had denied it (why's this not mentioned?). And, despite Israel denying using DU, there is quite good evidence of uranium weapons, including a finding that the material was enriched, rather than depleted. I also see no mention of the criticism of an HRW spokesman who apparently deviated from the content of the report he was commenting in order to criticise Hezbollah and defend Israel.[1], [2], Human Rights Watch still denying Lebanon the right to defend itself
PS - I will regret saying this article was relatively good, since at least one entire section, "Media Controversy" is badly distorted. We're presenting astoundingly trivial allegations against Hezbollah - even while ignoring the much more serious (and better referenced) allegations against Israel detailed above. One blog "proves" that the same woman is mourning her destroyed home twice on two different occasions two weeks apart? So? (It's even obvious that she's less distraught 2 weeks later - but why would we think it remarkable she's standing outside again?). One photographer found to have "enhanced" (but not altered) two photos, gets sacked for it - are we this desperate for trivia? Hezbollah probably do have something to hide amongst bombed apartments - what's the big deal? In other events and articles we know there are much, much more extreme cases of Israel obstructing observers (and all medical assistance), bulldozing all the evidence before access for anyone was allowed, and our article makes nothing of it atall. Either we need many more articles with sections of "Media Controversy" or we should take it out of here. PRtalk 18:05, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
PalestineRemembered, please familiarize yourself with WP:SOAPBOX. Thank you. --GHcool (talk) 21:18, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Unbiased U.S. Reaction?

"In April 2007, the Financial Times reported that US officials trying to limit the Turkish response to Kurdish attacks had privately described the Israeli experience as a “strategic defeat” that failed to meet military goals, heaped widespread condemnation upon it, and punctured the “myth of the invincibility of the Israeli army.”[217]"

I think this should be removed. At first it appears fairly damning, as you'd think the source (US state dept) would be pro-Israel, but if you think a little bit about the context in which it was said, of course US officials are going to put that spin on it to discourage similar Turkish adventurism. On balance, I think this bit shouldn't be trusted, and might even be a little misleading. Hence recommend removal, I'm sure there are less questionable quotes to be found. Riceman0 (talk) 22:58, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

There may be a degree of double-speak in there, because of course its not just Israel has found it impossible to deal with restless natives (other than by mass slaughter) everyone else has had the same problem. Think British/Ireland. But there is no reason to think it's not a valid quote. PRtalk 17:34, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
Absolutely, us/uk reaction was totally biased, if there was no war with lebanon in 2006, government of senora would have been much stronger today, hezbollah gained, achieved its goals thru it by defeating israel (they did not get release of soldiers) and holding on the arms and territory, real well.
For the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College analysis of the war, see "We Were Caught Unprepared: The 2006 Hezbollah-Israeli War". They rate this as a loss for Israel: "The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) emerged from the campaign with its enemies undefeated and its prestige severely tarnished.". That study is a good read, and goes into great detail about the flaws in IDF doctrine, training, and preparedness that lead to defeat. --John Nagle (talk) 02:04, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Total dead

Like i said long ago, israel lost at least 120 soldiers, when we find out for sure, we need dates of their deaths.

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