Talk:Battle of Be'erot Yitzhak

Sources still to use

Givati, Moshe (1994), In the Path of Desert and Fire, pp. 173–178

Who is/was Moshe Givati ? I hope he is an historian...

(edit) Is he "former military commander of Hebron and now a government adviser on settlement security" ?

Pluto2012 (talk) 19:11, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

I could not find any more information except this fucntion of military commander in the occupied territories. And therefore, none about a potential academic carreer. In which University would he have performed his research ? What are his publications in academic journals ? Is there any more information ? Pluto2012 (talk) 08:25, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

Maybe these are the correct coordinates? 31°27′54.99″N 34°30′25.3″E

Sreifa (talk) 09:47, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Seems more or less accurate. —Ynhockey ^(Talk) 12:06, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Leaving behind 90 workers and paramilitaries, 30 of them women

According to Uri Milstein, History of the War of Independence: The first month, p.282, a platoon of 35 fighters had been divided into 2 sub-units and one of its base was Be'erot Yitzhak. This was in December '47.

Palmach soldiers were not paramilitaries but elite troops. They were positionned in the Negev, the Galilee panhandle and at Jerusalem for that reason.

Pluto2012 (talk) 19:43, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

I have clarified that these are not precise numbers (from the source).

Not sure about December 1947, but in May 1948 there were about 60 men and 30 women. It doesn't say anything about the Palmach, but it is implied that they were not career fighters:

(my translation, a bit literal) "The day after the invasion the mothers and children were evacuated from the kibbutz, and there remained only about 60 male members of the gar'inim and youth, and 30 women.

Source: Givati (1994), p. 173.

—Ynhockey ^(Talk) 20:15, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Misltein is more reliable than Givati... Here above I asked who is/was Moshe Givati ? The only Givati that google found is not particularly a WP:RS... Pluto2012 (talk) 20:24, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Milstein is more reliable, did I hear that from you? :) I thought we were trying to avoid Milstein on Wikipedia due to his controversial writings, even though I would like nothing more than to use him as a source, and agree that he is reliable.

However, the source you pointed to does not contradict the Givati source as it talks about a different time period. Unfortunately I don't have this specific book by Milstein to see the context, but based on what you said they are not in contradiction. Givati is a military historian.

—Ynhockey ^(Talk) 20:35, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

4 books of Milstein on the '48 war are considered as a Reference on the topic by asbolutely all historians, whatever their side.

That has nothing to deal with the last book from Milstein. Don't you know this ?

Do you have references regarding who is Givati because all Israelis seems to be historian with your definition.

Pluto2012 (talk) 20:43, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

It's true that whether a source is reliable or not is partly an editorial decision, but it is also partly an objective decision against certain criteria. You can't arbitrarily decide the reliability of sources based on a hunch.

About Givati and your assertions in general: first of all I completely reject your repeated implications that Israeli historians are somehow less reliable than non-Israeli historians. You yourself use Israeli works as your sources almost exclusively. Having got that out of the way:

It should be clear that the vast majority of research about the war is done in Israel, and 100% of that research is published in Hebrew. Some of it later gets translated into English, mostly works by historians who teach abroad or whose works happened to interest institutions abroad. Most works however are not translated and you will find many well-known historians here who have written extensively about the war (both military and civilian aspects), whom you may or may not have heard about. They include Alon Kadish, Mordechai Bar-On, David Tal, Avraham Sela, Nir Mann, Avi Bar'eli, Aryeh Yitzhaki, many others and yes, Moshe Givati. He is a military historian publishing both inside and outside the military, similarly to Netanel Lorch. He is not a "superstar" like Benny Morris, but you can read about him in the Hebrew Wikipedia and his book about the Negev Brigade is a well-known work of research which was not disputed. And in any case it does not contradict Milstein, according to yourself. I will try to get my hands on the Milstein series as soon as possible though to check for myself.

—Ynhockey ^(Talk) 08:41, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

His book was published by the Israeli Ministry of Defence. This is not a reliable source.

Regarding the NPoV. Forgetting to talk about the Palmach soldiers that were there and just talking about "paramilitary forces" and "women" after "the children were evacuated" is a traditionnel pov-pushing in the Israeli collective memory. It took me 5 minutes to find a reference proving this claim was biaised. This was quite obvious for any people who read on the '48 war given the purpose of the Negev brigade was to garrison the kibbutz to stop the Egytpian forces as long as possible. So it would have been amazing this kibbutz would have been left alone.

Pluto2012 (talk) 08:05, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

Other edits in the past two days

The other edits in the past two days are incorrect:

1. Egypt invaded Israel, I don't think there is any argument about it. Even if you accept that the borders at the time were the Partition Plan borders, the statement Egypt invaded Israel on May 15 still holds true.
2. Jeuda Wallach is an award-winning historian. Most major Israeli historians writing about military affairs participated in some of the events they described, including Benny Morris, Netanel Lorch and others I reference often. It is clear in any case that Wallach did not participate in the Battle of Be'erot Yitzhak, and also the source was not written by Wallach alone, in fact maybe not written by him at all. He was the main editor of the military history part of the book though.

—Ynhockey ^(Talk) 20:19, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Egypt could not have invaded Israel. THe boundaries were not defined. At best, it could have entered in some of the territories allocated to the Jewish State by the Partition Plan. Refer to Yoav Gelber, he talks about "Invasion of Palestine" and Palestine was not the current Palestian State, it was what was partitionned. That is much more accurate.

Jehuda Wallach was also a soldier who participated to these battles on the Israeli side. I don't know who wrote this book. I assume that you have this. Who are the others ? Are they a little bit more reliable ?

Pluto2012 (talk) 20:23, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

About invading Israel: I believe the partition plan borders were official at the time, as those were the borders that were sanctioned by the UNSC and Israel accepted—the war is therefore irrelevant to the issue of borders.

About Wallach: The other historians who participated in writing the 1948 section were Netanel Lorch and Aryeh Yitzhaki, two other well-known Israeli historians. Wallach, by the way, edited the book when he was a military history professor at TAU. I will also again point you to the fact that all the notable Israeli historians of the time participated in the wars of Israel, and this holds true to this very day. Morris is a great example, but many of the less internationally-known historians (Mordechai Bar-On, Avraham Sela, etc.) were also combatants and/or career soldiers in the IDF including the wars they wrote about.

—Ynhockey ^(Talk) 20:30, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

You "believe the partition plan borders were official at the time" ?

It is well known that it is not the case and it is notorious controversy on the topic.

Why don't you go and read an historian like Yoav Gelber ? He is not a New Historian. Do you think he less neutral or knowledgeable than you ?

The fact to be a soldier is not an issue. The problem is that he partipated in the events that are described.

What is the exact reference of the sentences that were added ? Wallach ? Lors or Yitzhaki ? Why is this not very precisely written in the references ?

Pluto2012 (talk) 20:39, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Since I don't have access to the specific book you implicitly cite, I don't know what Gelber wrote, but if you have a specific citation I will be more than happy to check it out.

About Wallach, there is no evidence that he participated in the Battle of Be'erot Yitzhak.

Since the book cited is a tertiary source, it does not cite every line to a specific author. This is normal in tertiary sources.

In any case I have no problem with changing the wording to clarify some nuances, just not to "invaded Palestine" which is misleading. While you can argue whether Israel's borders were defined at the time, you can't argue that there was no other country on the territory. There are two problems with this: one, if they weren't invading Israel, who were they fighting against when invading? And two, Palestine today has specific connotations about being an Arab state, which does not fit what the paragraph means to convey at all.

If there is no opposition, I will suggest and use a different wording.

—Ynhockey ^(Talk) 08:56, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Per WP:V, the contributor who uses this source must have checked it personnally. If so, it is easy to state who exactly is the author of each article of this book where the information comes from given Jehuda L. Wallach is just the editor if I understand well.

You reverted the edit where I put brackets around his name in the article : Jehuda L. Wallach ?

He was a member of the Givati brigade who fought in the Northern Negev against Egyptians.

The point that you defend is that Israeli former soldiers who decided to publish books after their military carreer are exceptionnal guys who can make abstraction of the events they lived when they write "scientifical" papers about these events. Unfortunately, a work becomes scientific when he is published by academic editors and when it is recognized and quoted by peers. The Israeli Ministry of Defence is not such an editor. More, nor historians or sociologists all around the world consider that this capacity of abstration is possible. So, if he is the author of the quote (and not just editor), he is certainly a primary source (and need to be quoted from WP:RS secondary ones) or a best a not reliable secondary source.

Pluto2012 (talk) 08:14, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

Ynhockey : "Since I don't have access to the specific book you implicitly cite, I don't know what Gelber wrote, but if you have a specific citation I will be more than happy to check it out." Do you mean that you don't have access to the Hebrew version of Yoav Gelber's book on the '48 War ? Pluto2012 (talk) 08:20, 9 November 2013 (UTC)