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Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3Archive 4Archive 5

Jay's argument (and, to a lesser extent, SlimVirgin's) seems to be that because there is a legal dispute over whether the term "occupied" is correct in referring to the West Bank and Gaza (as far as I can tell, there has never been such a dispute over the Golan Heights or the Sinai), that we shouldn't use the term "occupied" in the title. But how much of a legal dispute is it? Every international body - including the UN Security Council and the International Court of Justice - has ruled that it is an occupation. So has the highest legal authority in Israel. Furthermore, the Israeli high court's ruling in both the Beit Sourik and Alfei Menashe cases essentially takes the West Bank's status as occupied as a given - it is simply assumed to be occupied, and it is stated in the Beit Sourik decision that this is a point agreed upon by all parties. Throughout the court rulings, the Court repeatedly quotes the respondents (in the Alfei Menashe case, this is The Prime Minister of Israel, The Minister of Defense, The Commander of IDF Forces in the Judea and Samaria Area, The Separation Fence Authority, The Alfei Menashe Local Council - i.e. the Israeli government) as arguing not that Israeli control of the West Bank is not "belligerent occupation," but merely that the way they want to build the wall conforms to the laws of belligerent occupation.

Now, the Israeli government may put out press released saying the territory isn't occupied. But given a clear chance to argue this before their own high court, the government refused, instead arguing on other grounds, and accepting that the territories are occupied. If the government of Israel is not even willing to make it's "this is not technically an occupation" argument in its own court over an issue to which this question would be definitely relevant, I don't think the fact that they like to put out poorly argued press released to the contrary should be respected by wikipedia as a reason for not using the most common name as an article.

Let's revisit this. Who says the territories are occupied, or calls them the "occupied territories"?

  1. academic publications
  2. the world media
  3. The Israeli media
  4. The United Nations Security Council
  5. The United States government
  6. The Supreme Court of Israel
  7. The government of Israel in their legal arguments before the Supreme Court
  8. [[[User:Zero0000|Zero]] adds:] The International Court of Justice

Who says this is an incorrect term?

  1. some zionist groups
  2. the settler movement
  3. The government of Israeli in propaganda releases
I'd hesitate a guess that legal academia is divided on the issue. Andjam 05:40, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
On what basis? If the Israeli government is not willing to argue in its own courts that the territories are not occupied under international law, what makes you think that anybody else is willing to carry their water for them? john k 06:51, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Are we really saying that these two sides are equivalent? If we assume that the Israeli government cancels itself out by arguing both ways in different contexts, we are left with "some zionist groups" and the settler movement on one side, and the entire body of both international and Israeli law and usage throughout the world. How is this even a contest? The position that the territories are not occupied is such a fringe position that there is absolutely no reason to show deference to it by refusing to use "occupied" in the title of the article. It is completely absurd for wikipedia to be more pro-Israeli government than the Israeli government itself is willing to be when it counts (that is, before the court, rather than in press releases where nothing's at stake.) john k 21:13, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Couldn't agree more. --Zero 00:31, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Time to rename: follow up to JK

If we have an Armenian Genocide title, we need to have an Occupied Territories one. The position of the Israeli govt. is not greater than that of the Turkish one, we need to follow political-diplomatic-media-scholarly-etc. consensus, the legalistic arguments are of no consequence over this decision of what to rename this article into. Within a few days, I am prepared to rename the article to OT (or I-OT, if there's greater interest in that). If anyone has objections, now is the time to reiterate and rearticulate in the most clear and direct way, noting the parallels and factors mentioned, and by JK above, and elsewhere. We can't go on like this indefinitely. Thanks everyone. El_C 00:02, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree. I would prefer Israeli-Occupied Territories. Brian Tvedt 11:58, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
My preference would be "Occupied Territories (Israeli)," just because the are often referred to as just "the Occupied Territories." If "Occupied Territories" (no further adjective) is used, then a final section should be added noting other "occupied territories" around the world, and the general information at the current "OT" article should be moved to "occupied territory." "I-OT" is also reasonable. Marsden 13:20, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

We had a poll and there doesn't seem to be a consensus to change it. SlimVirgin (talk) 13:36, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Though perhaps El C's creation of the other one dealt with the objections. SlimVirgin (talk) 13:37, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
Do you still object? What do you think of the arguments I've made? In terms of a vote, if we really want to settle this by a vote, we should announce it, so that people other than those already involved in the article can vote? In terms of the current vote, in addition to the seven of us who already voted for a move, Brian and ElC have now indicated their support for a move. That makes it 9 to 5. That means 64% in favor of the move. Not a consensus, but a supermajority. In terms of where the article should be, I think this article should be moved to Occupied Territories (when this term is referred to without modifier, the territories occupied by the Israelis after 1967 are almost always meant). As Marsden suggests, the more generic article can be at Occupied territory. If this is unacceptable, I agree that Israeli-occupied Territories is the marginally better disambiguator, because Occupied Territories (Israeli) is a bit confusing. Maybe Occupied Territories (Middle East)? john k 14:28, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
Further note - in addition, Rd232 and Grace Note have clearly expressed their support for Occupied Territories as the title, and Cybbe has made a comment implying support for the same. That would make it 12 to 5 - 71% in favor...I suppose this perhaps shouldn't be counted - Rd232, at least, explicitly said he wasn't voting. But there still seems to be a strong majority in support of moving. I'm not sure why, when this title was established without consensus, we should have to keep it at this title unless there is consensus - this seems to lead to the basic procedural unfairness of "whoever supports the way something was done first gets to filibuster any change." john k 14:37, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
Vizcarra's vote doesn't really count - he's only here as a result of a campaign of harrassing SlimVirgin and me - so the actual vote is 8 to 5. Jayjg (talk) 18:04, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
I don't think Andjam's vote should count, either. I'll make up ... er, provide ... a reason once we've all agreed to abide by the result of the vote. So the actual vote is 8 to 4, a super-majority by most people's reckonings. I also reserve the right to decide that Humus Sapien's vote doesn't count, either, but as a show of good faith I'd be willing to leave Humus' vote uncontested and leave it at an 8-to-4 result. Marsden 20:29, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
LOL! Actually, Andjam has been a serious contributor to this page; Vizcarra's history is clear. Not that it's all that relevant. Jayjg (talk) 20:45, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
Oh boy! Wrangling about vote totals! Jay - do you have any response to any of the multitudinous arguments I made above? Or are you just going to argue about how to interpret this stupid vote? john k 04:21, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
How come only Jay's comment came in for criticism? Andjam 00:30, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
Because Jay started the wrangling over votes, perhaps? john k 01:37, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
John, it was Marsden who started the vote, and it was you who started including people who hadn't voted, which could be called wrangling over votes too. Please don't make personal comments. This page has seen enough of them to last a lifetime. SlimVirgin (talk) 05:12, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
I wasn't including people who hadn't voted in the vote, because I think the vote is nonsense - it was never announced anywhere. I was merely counting up the number of people who, in the course of this discussion, have indicated support for including "occupied" in the title, against the number of people who have indicated opposition. And I didn't make any personal comments, that I'm aware of. john k 07:56, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm reassured that we have relative agreement toward the move, and yes, to follow up on Slim's comment, I think my Occupied-Disputed subarticle answers much of the hitherto objections. I partially agree with both Marsden and fully with JK. With the former, on renaming the current OTs into an OT in case we opt to rename this article into OTs, and with the latter, that we should either go for OT or I-OT, but not OT(I). El_C 22:07, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Occupied Territories (Middle East) might be interpreted as referring to former occupation(s) of Lebanon, or accusations that certain countries have a de facto occupation of Iraq, or Kurdish-majority portions of Turkey, or ... Andjam 07:31, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
Good point - it is too vague. I imagine Ocupied Territories (Levant) is rather too obscure. john k 04:21, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

If the word "occupied" is going to be in the title, then I'd go for "Israeli-occupied territories". Wikipedia shouldn't have the same attitude towards occupation as Lawrence Lowell had about cheating in exams. Andjam 05:40, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

The difference between the two, I believe, is that I-OT sounds more academic (see Britanica's I-OAT article above), whereas OT is more journalistic. Generally, I think Wikipedia should attempt to reflect the former rather than the latter. El_C 06:00, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
Israeli-occupied Territories is fine with me. I'm going to suggest we just move it there and then prevent any move back on the basis that there is no consensus for a move. I'm getting tired of this - a clear majority of those who have been discussing it on this page have been in favor of the move. There is no reason to believe that a larger sample would not find the same result. Most of the arguments against the move have, in my not so neutral opinion, been effectively answered. What more is needed here? john k 04:21, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Getting nowhere, a real vote seems to be necessary

Alright, matters have gotten to a point of maximum unpleasantness and anger on all sides, in which I am perhaps more to blame than anybody else. It seems clear that there is no possible way we are going to get everyone to agree. So, it seems that we have no choice but the unpleasantness of a vote. By a vote, I don't mean an informal poll on this page. That is worthless. It should be a real vote, announced in as many places as possible (especially Wikipedia:Current surveys and Wikipedia:Requested moves.) I would suggest approval voting, with four options - the current title, Territories captured by Israel in 1967, Occupied Territories, and Israeli-occupied Territories. The option with the most votes wins, and we agree never to speak of this again. john k 19:22, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

I have to disagree. All the arguments in favor of each title have been made, as far as I can tell. There has been no substantive response to a number of the points in favor of using "occupied" in the title. Unless this changes, I say that we just move the page and revert those who try to move it back unless and until they make some substantive response. Holding a vote will just give the obstructionists (we all know who they are) a chance to rally the troops and prevent the move solely by numbers rather than reasoned argument. —Charles P. (Mirv) 20:52, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
Why don't you spell it out, Charles? Just exactly who are the "obstructionists", and how are they "obstructing"? Is it any wonder I've been avoiding this cesspool? Thanks for adding to the aroma. Jayjg (talk) 06:09, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
Hmm...Well, I tend to think that numbers would end up favoring the move. But my instincts are really conflicted on this. On the one hand, if you read my comments yesterday and this morning, you'll see that I basically agree with you. On the other hand, I'm t fairly certain that a unilateral move will not resolve things, given the discussion so far. Obviously, I will not oppose a move, if you want to go ahead with it. Perhaps it would be better to move it, and then those who do not like the new title can, if they so desire, organize a move request which could be voted on. At any rate, I'm not going to argue about this any further. The arguments have been made, and are on the talk page. If there ends up being a vote, I will dutifully vote, but I'm not going to spend any more time shadowboxing here. john k 23:19, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
I don't think a vote is needed either. Give it another few days and if there is no substantive reponse to the points made by you and El C, we can consider the matter closed and move the page. The editors who oppose the move would have a hard time defending their position after ignoring such a clearly expressed invitation to state their case. I think the most important thing for those of us who do want to move the page is to close ranks and agree on the new title. I think Israeli-occupied territories has the most support. If anyone disagrees, now is the time to say so. Brian Tvedt 02:07, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
This seems like the most clearly supported location - Andjam also said he was willing to accept this as the least objectionable version including the word "occupation". john k 02:18, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
It is clear that the current article title is missleading for describing Israel proper in addition to the Territories, and we have a majority agreeing that "Occupied Territories" belongs in the title, with "Israeli-Occupied Territories" having the most support/least objection. A compelling argument has been made for including "Occupied Territories" in the title (notably, that the Israeli government itself is at most split in opposing the term) for which no substantive rebuttal has been made. A move to Israeli-Occupied Territories (I think the capitalized form should be used, but that's a minor point) is very strongly indicated, in my opinion. I agree that if the argument for the change remains substantially unrebutted after a couple of days, we should make the change. You can't please all the people all the time. Any remaining complaints about anyone's behavior -- including mine -- should be addressed formally if it is felt that there is cause, but should not be allowed to stand in the way of this article's name being moved from a clearly missleading name to a name that most of us agree with. Marsden 19:57, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Frankly, I've felt discouraged to participate much on this page because it degraded to too much hostility to allow for reasonable discussion. I will likely make this my final comment before I abandon the page altogether. I'm not thrilled with "Occupied Territories" precisely because there is dispute about it, and I don't mean just between editors on this page. John's examples of other disputed name situations (i.e., Armenian Genocide) make a valid point, but I'm having difficulty bringing that to the logical conclusion that we can summarily dismiss questioning the NPOVness of any disputed name such as "Occupied Territories" just because other (perhaps apples and oranges) examples exist. I could probably live with the "occupied" title, though I feel quite strong-armed into it. Aside from the POVness of the title, I do have an even greater problem with the ambiguity of "Occupied Territories". Yes, it's popularly used, but in a variety of ways that often makes it unclear which (Israeli occupied) territories specifically are being discussed. I think more often than not, it is really just used as a synonym for the Palestinian territories. That's why I still believe the best encylopedic solution, one that Ramallite first suggested, and I concurred, but to which no one else offered any feedback, is to have a disambig page for Occupied Territories (Israeli) or Israeli-Occupied Territories, which lists several related articles, including this one which I believe should be something like Territories captured by Israel in 1967, Palestinian territories, and Status of territories captured by Israel, for starters. Since "occupied territories" can refer to different things, wouldn't a disambig page seem the most logical alternative? --MPerel ( talk | contrib) 03:32, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

I too have avoided this page precisely because of the unwarranted and, at times, vicious hostility - see the latest anon comments below for another example. This Talk: page has been made needlessly unpleasant, as has the article itself: when new editors make it their "mission" to stay on Wikipedia only to battle other editors, fill Talk: pages with personal attacks on and lies about other editors, recruit people to revert war for them,[1] [2] [3] even giving them explicit instructions on how to do so [4] [5], then recruit people to vote for them [6] [7] [8] [9], well, why would the victims of their abuse want to stick around? Jayjg (talk) 06:04, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
Do we need to harp on this? Why don't we try to constructively engage, and ignore the trolls and trolling as best we can? john k 06:16, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
Because I come back to the newly abbreviated talk page, hoping that it has finally been cleared of all the toxicity, and find longstanding editors filling the page with ugly innuendo (see above), and anonymous IPs filling it with explicit (albeit oblique) conspiracy theory crap, of the same sort that has been spilled endlessly here already. Jayjg (talk) 06:19, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

MPerel, just a brief point - one of the arguments which has been made is that there really isn't very much dispute over the use of "Occupied Territories" - it's been pointed out by me and others that even a more right wing media outlet like the Jerusalem Post is willing to use it, and that the Israeli government accepted that its position in the West Bank was one of occupation in its arguments before the Israel Supreme Court on the West Bank fence/wall.

At any rate, in terms of ambiguity, I'm not really sure how to deal with this - I agree that sometimes just the West Bank and Gaza are meant. But it seems to me that almost anyone would admit that technically, the Golan Heights are also a part of the occupied territories, and that the Sinai was. This article, as it is, contains a summary of what we mean by "Occupied Territories" and links to the other article - notably Palestianian territories. So I don't see that as a huge problem. If we did go the disambiguation page route, though, I'd suggest that the disambiguation page be Occupied territories, that the current occupied territories article be moved to occupied territory, and that the disambig page link to the general occupied territory article, this page at Territories captured by Israel in 1967, the Palestinian territories article, and the article about the legal dispute (such as it is). I think this would be an acceptable solution.

BTW, isn't "Palestinian territories" just as disputed and potentially POV a term as "Occupied territories," if not considerably more so? Why was there never a fight over there about naming? john k 04:13, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Maybe because it's feels pro-Palestinian rather than anti-Israeli, and it's better to be positive than negative. Andjam 13:56, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
Depending on how disengagement goes, there's also going to be disagreement over whether Gaza should be included in the article or not, unless the article definition is so broad it also includes formerly occupied territories or the article definition is related to Palestine. Andjam 14:15, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
I don't think so - the Sinai is included, and it has been fully returned to Egypt. This article is about territories which have been at some point since 1967 occupied by Israel, not just territories which are occupied at present. john k 17:53, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
Besides, the issue whether the Gaza Strip is still considered occupied is by no means decided by Israel unilateral withdrawal of it's settlements. See for instance the legal position of the PLO.[10] Cybbe 19:53, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Proposed names

(For brevity's sake, I'd prefer it if the case for or against each name wasn't done in this section but in other sections) John K has proposed

Since that is already an article, and since this article discusses the Golan and Sinai, which are not Palestinian, I do not think this is an appropriate potential title. john k 17:41, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
I would not be - I think that would be a different article. If you wanted to write such an article, that would be fine. john k
No-one has supported my suggestion, so ok. (both strikeouts by me) Andjam 14:15, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

I think that Territories captured by Israel in 1967 should be used, the wording is nothing that could be contested, or that causes offense.

Capitalize "occupied" in title?

Can we do this? It doesn't look right, as is. Marsden 00:41, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Or make "Territories" lower case? Andjam 01:49, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

I'd go for that. Marsden 14:58, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
Ok, done (a little while ago). Andjam 16:39, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Yes, lower case. See Encyclopædia Britannica's Israeli-occupied Arab territories, for a random example. 10:31, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

"Territories under Israeli control moved to Israeli-occupied Territories: Renaming as promised and agreed upon"

Can someone explain what "Renaming as promised and agreed upon" refers to? The consensus may end up being "Israeli-occupied [Tt]erritories", but if the promise is made-up, that is so not cool. Andjam 02:23, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

You should investigate, perhaps! I sense wrongdoing, made-up promises, possibly evildoin'! Exclamation points means I'm excited! Excited about your forthcoming investigation, that is! Either way, it should be better than these latest abomination "films" by that idiot, Lucas! 10:31, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
Sarcasm and faking a signature in response to a question about bad-faith editing is not helpful. Please stop insulting me. Andjam 14:08, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
Ah, more "faking" and "made-up" bit! :) Assuming good faith is a arsh mistress, indeed. But at the event, I only insulted Lucas! 15:04, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
Please, can you stop the sarcasm? With regards to criticism, I found "It really is quite simple, Andjam" a bit rude, and also found a bit rude your pedantic answer to my question about some sections that were at one stage archived but were later on in the main talk page. Also, virtually all of your edit history has been to do with me. I'm finding it a bit disturbing. Andjam 16:33, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
I also edited the lead paragraph to India! Anyway, it's unfortunate you find my light satire to be so insultingly sarcastic and pedantic. At the time, I wasn't fully aware to which sections were archived, because it was redlinked when I saw it. Please assume good faith. That goes for this ip's edit history vis.a.vis. yourself, too. Thanks again for all your patience! 16:41, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
If you didn't happen to know which sections were archived, how come [11] unarchived exactly the same material as you "accidentally" unarchived previously? Unsigned without a time stamp by User:Andjam, on 17:05, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
I remebered which sections I archived; my memory isn't that short, and it was, after all, only a few hours ago. 17:05, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
Also, where does the "accidentally" quote come from, and whom are you quoting? I didn't include the last two sections on the talk page here by accident. On closer look, I disagree with User:John Kenney method (see, I'm able to avoid mention of his person, unlike as he did with me: stating as a matter of fact that I'm "Obnoxious") mass archiving of everything, and I, myself, am in favour of some continuity. And I am entitled to hold that view without my motives being questioned. Though they should. 21:34, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
Obnoxiousness from the anon aside, I think that there was sufficient support for moving, and insufficient articulate opposition, to allow the article to rest here, for the moment. As I said above, if you (Andjam) would like to sponsor a requested move to move the page to a different location, you should go ahead and do this, and we can have a proper vote. john k 18:35, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
I take exception to that mischaracterization, User:John Kenney. Please review closely and adhere to WP:CIVIL and WP:WQT. TIA. 18:54, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
Oh, come on. john k 19:01, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
Now I'm offended. 19:13, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
Oh, I upset the troll? How can I ever live with myself? john k 21:59, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
User:John Kenney, cease immediately from directing personal attacks against me. 23:33, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Hostility and civility

The open proxy contributions (66.98.180.53, 66.139.76.245 and 69.193.242.60) are mine. The reason I made anonymous edits was not to deceive editors, but as a safety precaution that is no longer necessary. A few people (outside of Wikipedia) knew/know my real life identity and I've had to spend some time to assure them that I'm not a "useful idiot" and/or "self-hating" and/or a "traitor"; that being pro-Israeli and anti-propaganda is not mutually exclusive (or being pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian). Far from it. On October 3 I was banned indefinitely "for sockpuppetry", which was ridiculous and against Wikipedia policy. However, now any admin can block/ban me for that same offence, since I have for two days de facto violated the policy. Absurdly enough, the lie became truth. :-) Another offence I'm guilty of is accusing Jayjg (without providing evidence) of having User:John McW as a sockpuppet. (John McW who has made some really inflammatory comments [12]) My suggestion is that Jayjg and SlimVirgin's friend User:David Gerard investigate the matter and if he comes to the conclusion that John McW isn't a sockpuppet of Jayjg, then he's free to block me (again). Alternative suggestion is that MPerel, who is somewhat of an expert [13] could by using the "psycho-linguistic empirical method" [14] (or equivalent method) compare the semantics/syntax of John McW and Jayjg, and if she finds that they're different people - then SlimVirgin is free to block me. I've found it deplorable that instead of dealing with substantive arguments in an intellectual and emphatic manner the 'debate' here has instead been about long-time editors vs. short time editors, and such things, all saturated with vicious hostility [15] and power struggle. And because I like the idea of Wikipedia, I've been confused on how to react to this; just walk away, or adapt the "When in Rome" philosophy. --saxet 09:21, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

69.193.242.60 most definitely isn't saxet, nor an open proxy (strike out above is my own addition). 10:31, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
My mistake - I copied, from the history page, the IP# that I thought came from whatever open proxy server I was routed through. Obviously, it should have been a total of two, not three, addresses. All apologies. --saxet 11:11, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
Saxet - a couple of points: 1) you are allowed to use sock puppets, so long as the intent is not to deceive, to get around bans, or to otherwise violate policy. I don't think David ever presented any evidence that this was the case in banning you, and I unbanned you almost immediately, so you have not been banned for all this time, so I don't think you've violating any policy by editing as an anon. Secondly, I would suggest that you certainly should not be claiming, without any evidence at all, that Jay is using a sock puppet. I think this incredibly unlikely, and that it is extremely unhelpful for you to bring up this issue again. That said, even if it could be proved that your statement was made in error (since you bring it up again, I will assume you were not knowingly lying in making this accusation), that would not be grounds for a block, although it might be grounds for Jay to ask for arbitration against you. john k 18:31, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
It seems I need to read up on that policy, I honestly thought it was a violation to edit the same page with two different usernames (even if there wasn't an intention to deceive). Anyway, whether it's permitted or not there's no need for me to do so again. In regard to the Jayjg/John McW issue I would be extremely surprised if the information I was presented with was inaccurate. It may be unhelpful for me to have brought it up again but it wasn't done in malice or as a personal vendetta - I think Jayjg would be an excellent editor to Wikipedia, but maybe not an admin. And I felt that it was necessary to counter his assessment on how/why the atmosphere here got so ugly. Also - I think it may be the case that maybe you and a few others don't really know what ad hominem actually is; it "involves replying to an argument or assertion by addressing the person presenting the argument or assertion rather than the argument itself."[16] For example; when SlimVirgin accused you of "ad hominem remarks" [17] it was in fact SV who made an ad hominem argument since you didn't evade any arguments in the post where you addressed Jayjg and SlimVirgin's reluctance to respond to substantive arguments. It sort of annoys me that 'well regarded long-time editors' seem to get away with those kind of things. MPerel writes on my user page that I'm disruptive to the purpose of building an encyclopaedia, yet if one looks at her history she has hardly made any edits to any articles but have mainly engaged in voting and such. She actually proposed that we should go through some 'psycholinguistic testing' to determine the "loadedness" of various terms in our psyches. And I'm being disruptive… I've also been the subject of WP:NPA et cetera, either explicitly or implicitly, but when I respond it is I who violated this or that guideline and it is I who "should be careful not to attack" a long-time editor. I may lack in civility at times but I have no intention of showing undue respect to the VIPs. In fact, it could have been a lot worse, considering the few times I've been close to getting seriously hostile, but restrained myself. I'll take a short break from this article now, been planning anyway to write articles about a couple of short stories by JL Borges. --saxet 22:14, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
I have removed saxet's latest personal attack. I'm constrained somewhat here by netiquette, but I can say that saxet has said exactly the opposite to me by e-mail to what he just posted about Jay, so he's clearly playing games. This page is for discussion of content only. SlimVirgin (talk) 02:23, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
Please restore my comment immediately/Comment restored/. It wasn't a personal attack and it provided context to the claims/attacks made further up on this page by you and Jayjg [18] [19] [20]. This is the fourth time (that I'm aware of) that you removed comments that you percieve as NPA violations against you/Jayjg while leaving obvious NPA violations made by you/Jayjg intact. I'm not "playing games". --saxet 04:51, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

I also don't understand why the (only four day old) "Legal dispute" section [21] repeatedly gets archived. From what I understand, from reading the guidelines, it should be restored. --saxet 05:14, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Archiving and communicating through reverts

Undeleted discussion

Can someone unredlink this please? Andjam 01:49, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
All you need to do is to copy from the last revision from before the wholesale archiving, paste it into the red-linked renamed archive. and viola. I hope you found my explanation instructive; I'm certain that, in the future, you'd be able to undertake such a task yourself. 04:57, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
Did you mean to move "legal dispute" and "Time to rename: follow up to JK" out of the archives and into the current talk page? Andjam 07:34, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
No, not move from out of the archive and into the current talk page, but again, copy and pasted from the revision history. Click on the history button, then the last revision by User:Andjam, dated 08:02, 16 October 2005 contained the desired content. I hope my explanation (this time) aids in you becoming a more productive editor. 10:31, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

I still have one revert left re: the archiving; it's unfortunate that no explanation has yet been offered to why these sections need to be archived. 06:50, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Minor move of title

I have moved "Israeli-occupied Territories" to "Israeli-occupied territories", following support from a couple of people above. Andjam 15:57, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, "Israeli-occupied territories" with the lower case t is definitely an improvement. I would (obviously) have preferred "Occupied Territories" or "Occupied Territories (Israeli)", but I guess I can live with this title. --saxet 16:36, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

To Yuber: "Syrian Heights" contemporary usage

To Yuber. Italics are my (contemporaneity) emphasis:

  • King Hussein said "I hope this could be a positive step on the way towards not only the withdrawal from Lebanon, which is an implementation of the U.N. Security Council Resolution, a decision which we have so long waited for. The same should apply to the occupied Syrian Heights" — The Royal Hashemite Court official website.
  • However, Israeli sources said that one Israeli military unit was attacked in the occupied Syrian heights, but no casualties were reported. — Source cited: Arabic News, 6/28/2005.
  • [Barak] also rejected the return of Palestinian refugees to their homeland, and suggested only the possibility of a withdrawal "on" rather than "from" the Syrian heights. These positions were accompanied by a stream of statements declaring a commitment to peace, and even setting a year 2000 deadline for an agreement (Usher, 1999) — Source cited: Peace and Conflict Studies, Volume 7, Number 1, May 2000.
  • The occupied Golan has formally been annexed, settled by Israelis, and, contrary to international legislation, Israel has been extensively exploiting its nature resources: "Mey Eden", an Israeli-based mineral water producer, is pumping in the occupied Golan. Typically, even the Yizchak Rabin Monument in Tel-Aviv is made of black basalt from the Syrian Heights. — Source cited: "The New World Order and the Stone Age Israel's Next Target: Syria," from Anti-War.com Thanks, Yuber! 18:54, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
http://www.golan-syria.org/ There's a website from the Syrian perspective. No Syrian calls the Golan Heights "The Syrian Heights". They are known in Arabic as "al Jolan", more specifically "al Jolan al mu7talla" (the occupied Golan Heights). See the Arabic Wikipedia article for more proof [22].Yuber(talk) 20:22, 18 October 2005 (UTC)ا
Unless you bother translating that .ar article, or acknowledging my querry for a precise citation from that source (not simply repeating the url, I have already seen it in your edit summary), I will continue to object. It sounds plausible that its usage as cited in the .en Golan Heights articles and above is largely tangenial, in that sense (historically, politically), but I expect slightly more effort on your part in making your claims explicable here, in this English-language WP. Also, see my comment about reverts and discussion here. 21:20, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

I think you have demonstrated that the name "Syrian Heights" is used. I don't think you've demonstrated that this is specifically the Syrian/Arab usage, or that it is used in contrast to "Golan Heights." It seems to simply be an alternative to "Golan Heights" - one of your sources uses both terms in the same paragraph. john k 22:02, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

I live in Syria (though I'm not there at the minute), and I have never heard them called the Syrian heights, but simply the Golan. The majority of the sources for "Syrian heights" cited above seem to be Israeli, and none of them appears to be Syrian. Also, it's not clear how many of them are actually using it as a name for the heights as opposed to a description, and one is clearly talking about a putative future renaming. What on earth is going on here? Palmiro | Talk 22:25, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
I am answered. Thanks for the explanation and for your insights, Palmiro. Much appreciated. 23:36, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Not really after a vote

Hi. I'm happy to leave this page name as is. I feel the title could be better, but it could be worse as well. There has been too much unpleasantness as well, not just at the beginning but still ongoing. Thanks, Andjam 01:58, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Good, becuse Wikipedia ia not a democracy. I sincerely suggest you place greater efforts at coming across more diplomatically with your objections, reducing rather than increasing unpleasentness via declarative accusations, ones which you should really follow through or not comment on at all, in my [yes ip-based] opinion. I am refering of course to your "Territories under Israeli control moved to Israeli-occupied Territories: Renaming as promised and agreed upon"-titled section and accusations of what was allegedly "made-up," which to quote you (italics and all), is so not cool. Thank you in advance for reading my comment's content without implied malice or harrassment. 06:50, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Subtleties of Wikipedia:Ownership of articles

Well, now that most of everyone is sick of me, and having failed to improve the article and discussion substantively, my work is done here. Have a good one. 20:38, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Agent 69.193.242.60, about fifty percent of your edits to the article were not half-bad, and I enjoyed your most recent reply to Andjam, although you could have been nicer to my "agent provocateur" in the unredlink-archive affair. :-) Good hunting! --saxet 00:56, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
I am not comforted by your enjoyment, nor in your observation that "about fifty percent of [my] edits to the article were not half-bad." 05:49, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
You could always assume good faith; of course you don't have to, but you could choose to do so. --saxet 07:51, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
Anyway, silly discussion this, if you feel so inclined you can on User talk:Dervish Tsaddik read about my POV regarding Wikipedia:Ownership of articles. --saxet 08:50, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
Sorry, I found it riddled with about half-good truths, distortions, general evasiveness, personal attacks, and frankly, hypocricy. 10:44, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
There's no need to be sorry. And although I do appreciate your honesty I wish you could have been a little bit more specific than that. And maybe (since you brought it up) share some of your opinions regarding 'the ownership issue'. --saxet 13:26, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
To further the interests of honesty, I should mention that I wasn't actually sorry — that was a rhetorical devise. And I'm not at all interested in commenting on various Wikipedia essays and policies, and most certainly am against entering into a polemic with you on the "nature of primates" and 'the everyone's a hypocrite' sell/cop-out argument, the nature of "somewhat" and what being seemingly inexplicably drawn to selective expressions of imperialist domination —and imperialist-lackey dependency and submission— in my opinion amounts to, and so on. You were the one who chose to engage me, also about the contents of your page, otherwise I would not be offering my opinion. 16:44, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
Whatever you say.. compañero/compañera. --saxet 18:00, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
Wow, what a peculiar response. I'm not Ayn Rand nor am I Jimbo, my politics is in direct opposition to both. 18:27, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
Peculiar indeed. Well, Ayn Rand is (thankfully) dead and Jimbo is a character in The Simpsons, so I kind of figured you were neither. If you would make an effort to understand the concept of language-game, it is quite possible that you youself will become a brilliant prose writer. Then it's also possible that a hypocritical imbecile such as myself will have a chance to understand what you are trying to communicate. --saxet 19:46, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
Or so you say, in-between vaguely-explained insults. 20:21, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
Yes, so I say, without implied malice or harrassment. AGF really. --saxet 21:04, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
Whomever you are, I don't believe you would call me Ayn Rand without implied malice. 21:24, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
Sure you know who I am, as I know who you are. The reference to Ayn Rand was made since I thought your abstract [23] read like it was written by an Objectivist. A friendly advice: if you want to know something; then ask, If you want to say something; then say it. Don't hide under the cloak of stilted cowardice. --saxet 01:56, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
And as I've said; you could always assume good faith; of course you don't have to, but you could choose to do so. --saxet 02:26, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
Actually, no, I did not know about your other account, nor do I see why I should care. Elsewhere, I'm finding your diatribes rather innane, absurd and unfocused. You also seem to be in the habit of straying into personal comments too often amid multiple links per-sentence to WP:AGF. 05:21, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
Of course, you could always simply repeat yourself word-for-word, but in my opinion, that smacks of intellectual lazyness. 05:21, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
Another thing that might strike you as intellectual laziness would be if I borrowed the phrase "You also seem to be in the habit of straying into personal comments too often" from you Sir Commandant. --saxet 11:34, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
Not a particularly well thought-out response. Your various name-calling are childish; your attempt to come across as sophisticated is strikingly sophomoric and pseudointellectual. 12:45, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
Are you arguing yourself now? You claim that I'm "name-calling", and you also made an 'objective assessment' that I strive to come across as "sophisticated", which couldn't be further from the truth. Just as I'm not an auxiliary, I'm not, in the slightest, refined. Anyway, I've said all that I wanted to have said on this page, and since this pissing contest, unlike a game of chess, can't be won, I will leave the debate (and the page) in your capable hands. --saxet 15:29, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
Here's faintly hoping. Characteristically muddled till the end, I feel that your various transpositions are dishonest. But enough about my weaknesses. 01:31, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
Could the two of you (saxet and nameless editor) please move your discussion to your personal talk pages? Marsden 16:28, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
I didn't mean to discourage you, nameless editor, by undoing or changing so many of your edits. Most of your links and content changes, I liked and tried to keep. I did think, however, that many of your changes made the article less encyclopedic in style. Marsden 15:21, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
Not that I don't strive to reach the heights your brilliant prose, but your reversion seemed too wholesale cut & paste. I might not object if there was a bit more of an explanation and effort. Please attempt to be more communicative and precise with future contributors. 16:44, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
I tried to salvage what I could of your changes, but at a couple points you'd combined too many sentences for me readily to remove the conversational writing style, so I just cut and pasted the prior wording. A couple things that you could do, nameless editor, in order to make your efforts more efficient are:
(1) Start a Wikipedia account with a user name. Most people don't naturally keep track of series of numbers, so there is real potential for your excellent contributions to be confused with the crap than other anonymous editors leave here.
(2) Take smaller bites. In this article, you came from out of nowhere and made a bunch of primarily stylistic changes throughout the article. You seem to be, as most people are, and as I certainly am, enamoured with your own writing style. But not everyone will share your capacity to appreciate how wonderfully you write, and indeed, with the changes you made, I was struck that the article had come to read like an encyclopedia article plus some comments added by someone as if writing notes in the margin. Had you made a couple minor changes, you might have been more proficient at maintaining the encyclopedic writing style, and other people (like yours truly) would have been more able to make minor changes to each of your edits without, as you say, seeming to make wholesale reverts.
(3) Tone down the attitude. No doubt you really are God's gift to the rest of us, but it betrays a lack of experience in working with other people that you so cavalierly offer your input and act hurt when it is not heart-warmingly received. Have pity on us lesser mortals, if nothing else.
Hope that helps!
Marsden 16:28, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
Not really! Again, you don't need to insert a double space in-between sentences. Which brings me to the point of how it's always easier to offer stylistic and otherwise criticisms than it is to recieve and truly reflect on them. Also, please try not to project such an acerbic tone with your comments, it can easily be read disparagingly. Back on topic: I am not at all attached to my written word; as in my admittedly clumsy writing style and poor orientation with a written narrative. But by copying portions of text, it just did not seem as if you compared my changes closely enough, which was hurtful. My advise to you in being more communicative from the outset, and I'll add now, less metaphorical and more porsaic, stands. 01:31, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

If Saxet or any other registered users feel that I was trying to increase unpleasantness, I'd be willing to read how they feel I've been unpleasant in my talk page. With regards to the archiving (mentioned elsewhere), I was only trying to restore the archive to what John K had created. Andjam 13:28, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Andjam, I did not feel you were trying to increase unpleasantness. --saxet 13:38, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
Ok. My mistake. Andjam 13:59, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
No problem, I've also made those kind of mistakes. --saxet 14:49, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

explain like im a two year old

explain to me like i'm a two year old: if the iraeli army marches in and controls the territories, how can one possibly argue that they are not occupied?

"The term "Occupied Territories," especially when capitalized, is commonly used to refer to the Israeli-occupied territories"

"The term "Occupied Territories," especially when capitalized, is commonly used to refer to the Israeli-occupied territories" Unbehagen, I'm astonished you would consider this claim to be properly referenced, and not "original research", considering the rather vociferous objections you made to rather better cited information about the modern day use of the term "Zionist terrorism" on the "Zionist terrorism" page. Can you explain how the "Zionist terrorism" phrase was original research, and the claim listed above is not? Alternatively, please restore the paragraph you keep removing at Zionist terrorism. Thanks. Jayjg (talk) 02:54, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

There is a difference between trying to prove EXCLUSIVE use and COMMON use. Do you really not think so? If so then it is I who am astonished! Unbehagen 12:03, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
While proving exclusivity in anything is difficult, the citations provided on the other Talk: page show that as well as anything can be shown. Jayjg (talk) 17:05, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
Jay - is this really controversial? Are you saying that the Israeli-occupied territories are not referred to as the "Occupied Territories" or "occupied territories," without modifier? see here for a google news search on "Occupied Territories" - there are 474 results, a great number of which are relevant. Are you really saying that it is original research to say that the term "Occupied Territories" is used to refer to the subject of this article? Or am I missing something. john k 03:24, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
To begin with, I think a more typical present-day use of "Occupied Territories" refers to the West Bank and Gaza Strip, not the Golan Heights, and certainly not the Sinai desert. More importantly, I'm trying to find the standard of original research that is going to be used for these kinds of articles. For example, if you look at this Talk: page, and the edit history of the article, you will see that an extremely high standard for original research is being set by Unbehagen. Specifically, he's insisting that the results Google and Library of Congress searches consist of original research, and that one must actually quote a reliable source which makes this claim - yet here he (and you) seem to consider them not to be original research. We should strive for some consistency in our application of policy here. Jayjg (talk) 17:05, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
The Sinai is not occupied anymore, so that's hardly fair. Beyond this, I don't think anything in the statement says that "Occupied Territories" is necessarily used to refer to the Israeli-occupied territories as a whole, just that it is used to refer to the Israeli-occupied territories - perhaps we can clarify on this, but the statement itself hardly seems controversial. Beyond this, it sounds as though you are making a WP:POINT violation here - as to the Zionist terrorism article, I have not expressed an opinion there, although I will say that Unbehagen has a point in saying that "commonly used" should require a much lower standard of proof than "exclusively used" or "almost exclusively used." john k 18:00, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
Also, you said you added the "cite" thing based on talk, but I don't remember any discussion of this at all ever. john k 03:34, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
The discussion was about inclusion of material about water resources without sufficient balance. Also I think removing a request for citation without actually providing a citation, or in lieu thereof resolving the issue on the Talk: page, is bad form. Jayjg (talk) 17:05, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
I've provided a google news link which gives many examples of major media using the term "Occupied Territories" in this context. At any rate, it seems pretty clear that this is not an issue of citation - it is an issue of phrasing. This statement could probably be phrased better. But there is nothing controversial about the idea being conveyed. As to bad form, violating WP:POINT is also bad form, so that's rather the pot calling the kettle black, isn't it? john k 18:00, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
Are you objecting to "commonly" or to "used". I agree "commonly" is a matter of interpretation and may need a citation. "used" is a simple matter of fact - a citation which shows usage ie a reference to "Occupied Territories" which clearly refers to the land is question is a valid one. I actually think you're breaking WP Policy on Making a Point and carrying on the "debate" from Zionist Terrorism - which is very different - here. If so please show some good faith and reason. Unbehagen 11:57, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
Please see my comments above - striving for clarification and consistency in policy application is not WP:POINT, and you appear to be applying the policy in vastly different ways on these two pages. As for "commonly used", that is actually less objectionable than "used", which, in my mind, implies exclusivity. Jayjg (talk) 17:05, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
Jay - of course it is WP:POINT. The issues are not basically similar. "Proving" the rather obvious fact that the term "Occupied Territories" is commonly used to refer to either the Palestinian Territories or the Palestinian Territories+Golan should only require a pretty low standard of proof - some citations by major media ought to be sufficient. To prove that something is exclusively used is essentially trying to prove a negative - you have to show that the term is never used in any other way. A single counterexample blows up the whole point. Now, you and Unbehagen may disagree on whether you've demonstrated enough proof as to whether or not "zionist terrorism" is exclusively used by nuts, but this has absolutely nothing to do with the issue on this page. john k 18:00, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
It was hardly WP:POINT - I was trying to establish a standard for what we consider "original research". What is actually WP:POINT is Unbehagen's continued removal of the information on the Zionist terrorism page, even though the allegedly contentious word "exclusively" has been removed. He now uses a different rationale for removing the information, claiming that sources need to be cited, ignoring the many sources provided on the Talk: page. Maybe you could take a look at that. Jayjg (talk) 03:31, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Jay - I have changed the opening to deal with your objections. I hope the new version meets with your approval. john k 18:01, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

John, the matter had already been covered in a separate section of the article. Maybe that section should be moved to just after the intro, but your change was pretty clunky. Marsden 18:10, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
I think it's much more clunky for the first sentence of the article to link to a section later on in the article, but maybe that's just me. I'm obviously open to other suggestions, though. john k 18:22, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
Let me take a stab at it. Marsden 18:35, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
Looks much better. Out of conflict, a better article arises! Almost enough to restore my faith in wikipedia. john k 21:54, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
I'm impressed, nice work to all. It's good to see things taking a better turn. --MPerel ( talk | contrib) 00:03, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
Not too bad, if I do say so myself. Until the next "improvement" .... Marsden 23:23, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
Good solution on the section, Marsden; and good rewrite of the intro, JK. As for my hit-and-run re-naming of Territories under Israeli control to the current title, let us never speak of it again! El_C 03:04, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
I'm getting a bit sick of the whole insist on tertiary sources thing - which I note is a favourite tactic with Israel/Palestine articles. Basically you insist ont he form of words "X is used to refer to" - then insit on examples not of X refering to but of X being used to refer to. A classic is the Occupied Territories article. It's eeasy to find references to the phrase "Occupied Territories" and it's clear from what this refers to. It's very hard to fund references to "occupied territories is used to refer to" (which is a meta search searching for a secondard source showing uage not a secondary source of the fact). Fortunately this is a pattern I've now recognised and will be trying to ensure doesn't proliferate. "No Original Research" relies on secondard sources not secondary sources showing evidence of other secondary sources. Unbehagen 22:16, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
Actually, it's insisting on secondary sources for claims, not tertiary sources. And I'm getting rather sick of your double standards on that page - first deleting the information based on the notion that it was "original research", then insisting here that the only "original research" was the word "exclusively", then, when that word was removed, deleting it on the grounds that there were no citations, ignoring all the citations on the Talk: page. Jayjg (talk) 03:31, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

The neutrality of this section is disputed

I don't have much time, but I want to help facilitate a new discussion concerning the two current npov-section tags. I'll leave it blank for now and hope a productive exchange ensues wikimagically therefrom (hopefuly I'll be able to revisit it next week). Yet another proverbial hit-and-run from yours truly! El_C 03:04, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

The West Bank and the Gaza Strip

Alright, to begin with, who finds this section to be POV, and in what respect? john k 16:42, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

I do. It has information about the water resources inserted there, which, as you've said yourself, does not even belong in this article. Furthermore, the information has been inserted for the purpose of creating a POV that Israel is holding on to the territories because of the water resources, ignoring at least a half dozen other important reasons. This has already been discussed at length above. Jayjg (talk) 03:34, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
The information clearly belongs. Jay, if you and John Kenny need some remedial education about the water situation in the Occupied Territories, that can be addressed. But the information belongs. Marsden 04:12, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
Please note that an assertion is not an argument. Jayjg (talk) 12:14, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for clarifying, Jay. I don't think I've ever said that the water resources issue definitely does not belong in the article. I do think that it shouldn't be the only piece of specific information presented in the article. It seems to me that the key to NPOVing this is not to remove the water issue, which is clearly important (while, admittedly, not being uniquely important), but to add other material. john k 23:07, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

The Golan Heights

Same question here. Who finds this section to be POV, and in what way? john k 16:42, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

See comment above. Jayjg (talk) 03:34, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Ski resort

I've added a citation and some additional info on the Golan Heights. If anyone still has objections to it appearing in the article, I'd appreciate it if they list them here rather than edit-war, and possibly list what topics they feel are halal and which are haram for the article. Thanks, Andjam 12:02, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Now the resort has been moved from the Golan Heights to the West Bank. Andjam 14:53, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
And now reference to it has been removed from the article completely. Andjam, the ski resort information doesn't belong here; it makes the article ridiculous. Insert it again without a reference indicating it as an consideration in Israel's continued occupation of the Golan Heights, and I'll begin a vandalism complaint against you. Marsden 15:15, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Here is a comment left on my talk page on this matter, Andjam: "Ski resort???? That's very funny and very sad at the same time." Marsden 15:44, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

As I understand it, this ski resort does have some strategic importance. As noted, the Alpinistim trains there, and the Alpinistim is important—but guess why? Its main purpose is to defend Mount Hermon, and why is it important that Mount Hermon be defended? Because the headwaters of the Jordan rise there, and the Jordan supplies Israel with . . . you guessed it: fresh water. I'll see if I can find some sources on this. —Charles P. (Mirv) 20:18, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Vandalism complaint

Jayjg -- who has serially removed the references to water resources in the Occupied Territories because they are allegedly not relevant, in spite of the ubiquity of opinions to the contrary in published writing on the matter, and that including it allegedly creates a POV slant -- has restored the sentence, "The Golan Heights contains the only ski resort under Israeli control" in two separate reverts, the first time noting that the ski resort information was "as material as the water crap" that he'd been deleting before, and the second time after I warned him that I'd file a vandalism complaint against him if he restored it again. Enough is enough, and I'm filing the complaint. I'm going to ask that he be banned from editing this article for a month, and I understand that I'll need someone to second my complaint. I'll post a link to it when I've completed it.

Marsden 14:21, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Actually, I restored the information before your "warning"; have a look at the edit times. As for the information itself, it's clear that you've expanded the scope of the article from what I had orginally argued it should be held to. Since expanded scope seems to be the consensus here, I'm respecting that consensus by restoring the information User:andjam added regarding other unique reasons why Israel has interest in these territories. I think the article needs other relevant information too, regarding Israel's unique wineries in the Golan, and the Israeli greenhouses in the Gaza Strip which produce prodigious amounts of produce for the Israeli and world markets. If you object that that content, rather than edit-warring it out (as you edit-warred other content in), why don't you express on the Talk: page why it is you feel the information doesn't belong here? You've been explicitly asked to do so, above, but appear to have simply reverted User:andjam, rather than responding to him. Jayjg (talk) 22:32, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
I responded to Andjam at his talk page, but thanks for your concern. Marsden 01:49, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
Marsden's response included repeating that my contribution was "cr**". He also justified of the use of that word, claiming that Jay had used it to describe my contribution. Within minutes of him talking to me, he sent messages to half a dozen other people on this dispute, asking them for support. Andjam 13:44, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
Yes, I've seen his comments there, they're very insulting. As for "crap", far from describing your contribution that way, I instead acquiesed to Marsden's insistence that the scope of this article needed to be broadened. I've explained that to him, so I'm not sure why he would present a patently false claim and attribute it to me. It is troubling that he would insist that the scope of the page be expanded, but then exclude obviously relevant material under that expanded scope, and even threaten other editors for including that material. Jayjg (talk) 18:05, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
On "patently false": here is what Jay wrote the edit comment in restoring the comments on the ski resort: "it's as material as the water crap." This faithfully represents his obsessive past objections to the information on water resources, but also equates the materiality of the ski slope information to this. If Jay would like to make the argument that, in spite of his edit comment, he believes that the referenced and broadly supported information on water resources is "crap" but the silly and broadly condemned information on the ski resort is somehow more valid, that should be very amusing. Marsden 19:03, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
My personal feeling is still that the article focus should be narrow. However, personal feelings notwithstanding, I have acqueised to your insistence that the scope be broadened, even though I personally disagree with that rather unilaterally enforced decision. It astonishes me that you would now attempt to criticize me for agreeing to your parameters for the article; apparently I'm damned if I do, damned if I don't. Jayjg (talk) 20:20, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
Let's not be so phony, Jay: it is not my insistence, but rather the consensus of people involved in this article that information on water resources belongs in this article. I also strongly expect that the consensus of people involved in this article will be that the ski resort information does not belong, and I believe that you -- recognizing this as well -- realize that it would only further blacken your reputation if you were to persist in inserting the ski resort information into the article, including quite possibly tangible penalties for vandalism. The extent of your "agreeableness" seems to be delineated quite clearly by what you recognize you won't be able to get away with. Really, you're damnable if you do and damnable if you don't -- you have shown absolutely no acceptance of the consensus that your preferences for this article violate NPOV, instead moaning about me getting away with "revert warring" and enforcing "my" parameters and insistences on the article, and probably, if I looked further afield, grousing about how an "inappropriate POV title" has been used here "... for the time being." The only difference between when you do and when you don't, Jay, as far as I have seen, is whether or not a stick is held over your head. So get used to having a stick held over your head, Jay, because clearly that is all that keeps you from promoting what not just me but the consensus of people involved in this article see as your POV. I honestly wonder with you if there is not some sort of anti-gentilism going on with how contemptuous you are of a lot of people. In any case, I have figured out how I can most effectively deal with you, and sadly for you it involves holding a stick over your head. Marsden 20:56, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
Wow. That's quite a comment. "Phony"? "Damnable"? "Get used to having a stick over your head"? "Anti-gentilism"? Personal attacks, threats, and egregious violations of the Wikipedia:Civility policy noted and logged. Jayjg (talk) 21:54, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
Marsden, this is not acceptable, you are making this far too personal, and your antagonistic feelings toward Jayjg are getting in the way of working together. "Holding a stick over Jayjg's head, etc" is quite threatening harrassing language that violates Wikipedia policy, and your charge of "anti-gentilism" is outrageous - Jayjg has never made any disparaging comments about gentiles (or any other ethnic groups) here or elsewhere. --MPerel ( talk | contrib) 22:13, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
Did you notice how Jay characterized the consensus on this article as my "insistence" and my "unilaterally enforced decision" and my "parameters?" And who is making this far too personal? Are you buying into Jay's notion that nothing happens other than by my will? If I'm so all-powerful, maybe you two should just accept my word as law? Marsden 04:48, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
Or maybe we should all try to work together in an environment of respect for people with diverse viewpoints? --MPerel ( talk | contrib) 16:22, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
Marsden, those kinds of comments are completely unacceptable, no matter how strongly you feel about the content dispute. Ever since you've arrived here, you've launched attack after attack on people who disagree with you, including me (implying I was sympathetic to ethnic cleansers). You managed to drive me off this page because of them, and I don't get driven off easily. I've asked you to stop countless times, so it's pointless asking you again, but that is my request nevertheless. SlimVirgin (talk) 22:20, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
I think we made some good progress on this article after you'd been driven off ... what exactly was it that induced you to leave? Marsden 04:48, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
Are you really willing to hurt people and drive them off to accomplish your goals, and do you think this is really in the best interest of writing a balanced article, driving off editors who have viewpoints different than yours? --MPerel ( talk | contrib) 16:22, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
It's not that they have viewpoints that are different from mine, MPerel. It's that they are pushing their POV with scant regard to objectivity or even to quality. Remember the nonsense at Moroccan Wall, MPerel? Here was a poorly written, internally inconsistent article that I made first some minor changes to. Then Jayjg, then Viriditas, then John McW, then you, then SlimVirgin started edit warring with me there. And to what end? If you look at the history there, even if you can't remember it, my edits were improving the article and moving it forward, and I provided comments about why I was making them and why I objected to the changes all of you were making; you guys were almost invariably just undoing anything I did, sometimes restoring grammatical errors. And Viriditas put in a reference that didn't even make the claim he attributed to it. And even when you, MPerel, provided a source for a change you were making, it was over something undisputed that didn't really need a citation -- check the record! I hope you'll agree that the article is now a hell of a lot better now than when I first looked at it, and yet the major contribution of the five of you -- five of you! -- who were edit warring me was to slow down the progress on the article and, as SlimVirgin might say, to make the editing a "very unpleasant experience" for me. MPerel, you seem to be an honest person of good will. I obviously have a lot of differences of opinion with you, but in my experience, you have been above board and have been open to considering other perspectives and to respect them even when you don't agree with them. I don't think this is the case at all with Jayjg, nor that is the case to any great degree with SlimVirgin. I think the history of their behavior bears this out. Have you considered, MPerel, that even if you agree with their positions on various things quite often, maybe you have fallen in with a bad crowd? Marsden 17:16, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
See I don't see the problem here being any particular editor's lack of regard for objectivity or quality. You believe you are objective, as I'm sure Jay and Slim believe they are objective, and I think everyone tries to be. Though in reality, I think none of us are as objective as we think we are, and it's natural to think the other side is the POV pusher. We certainly all have blind spots we don't recognize, and we may think we can by ourself make an article that is neutral, but it takes multiple sets of eyes to draw attention to areas any one particular neutral-intentioned person might not be sensitive to. I do agree with you that edit wars are counterproductive, and I've had my share of guilt in this. Talk pages are highly preferable, hopefully with willingness by both sides to find compromise. As for quality, well my observation is that you, Jay and Slim all produce excellent, high-quality editing. As someone who struggles greatly to find words, I can especially appreciate and admire people who have that gift to be so articulate. The only barrier I see happening here is due not to lack of objectivity or quality, but due to lack of mutual respect. If only you could appreciate each other's qualities and realize that behind these edits are valuable albeit imperfect human beings each with unique contributions...I believe that would completely fix things. I hope I don't sound like I'm sermonizing, because I'm obviously not anyone's superior, just another editor with another perspective. And no, I'm not with a bad crowd. I don't see any bad crowds here. --MPerel ( talk | contrib) 18:59, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Apparently as part of the complaint process, I need someone to leave a second message to Jay at his talk page requesting that he not restore the ski resort sentences. Marsden 14:28, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Please keep in mind that "complaint processes" tend to look at all aspects of an issue. Your implication that only you may decide what is relevant to the contents of this article will be only one of the issues examined. Other issues examined will obviously include your almost ceaseless series of personal attacks against a number of editors, particularly me, and your admitted wikistalking for the purposes of reverting. My experience with "complaint processes" is that they have a way of rebounding on the complainant, but feel free to do what you wish. Just a bit of friendly advice. Jayjg (talk) 22:32, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
Jay, I think you should be careful here that you are not WP:POINTing. Are you only supporting inclusion of the ski resort material because it's a way to prove your point about the water resources material? That being said, I don't see why the ski resort information is necessarily irrelevant. It seems to me that the best way to look at the sections dealing with each of the occupied territories is to view them as epitomes of the main articles Golan Heights, Palestinian Territories, East Jerusalem, and Sinai Peninsula (or whatever, for the last one). The ski resort is probably insignificant enough that it should only be mentioned at the main Golan Heights article (where it is, at present, not mentioned), but I'd be interested to see other arguments on that front.
In terms of the water issue, which seems to be the main one here, the Golan Heights article makes it clear that the Israeli government itself has stated that water resources, along with strategic position, are one of the key reasons for Israel maintaining its control over the Heights. Why can't we say this, then? john k 23:16, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
John, as I made clear to Mirv, Marsden has insisted that the scope of the article be expanded to include reasons why the various territories have value to Israel, against my vociferous objections. Well, it seems the consensus (or his edit warring) support his view, but now that he's opened Pandora's box, he cannot insist that only the things he thinks are important to Israel can be included in the article. Tourism is a huge industry in Israel, and has already been mentioned on this Talk: page (by Ramallite) as a reason for Israel's holding the territories - certainly the only ski resort in Israel contributes to that. As well, military uses are obviously critical to Israel, given its position, so it's difficult to understand why listing the Golan's unique capabilities as a training ground for soldiers should be deleted. Of course, I'm interested in finding consensus on this page as to what is relevant and what is not, but I don't think it should be decided by Marsden edit-warring out what he disapproves of, in the same way he previously edit-warred the water material in. Jayjg (talk) 23:36, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
Numerous sources on the importance of water resources in the Occupied Territories have been offered. I'm sure you and Andjam won't add information about wineries or greenhouses or ski resorts to this article unless you have sources that can show that they are material concerns in Israel's continued presence in the Occupied Territories, because to do so would be original research. As I mentioned to Andjam, the articles on the individual territories would be more appropriate repositories for information on them that is not particularly relevant to the occupation. Thanks, by the way, for your "friendly advice." Hopefully you'll cease trying to make this article a laughingstock, so we won't have to find out if Wikipedia's complaint process is as dysfunctional as you claim it is. Perhaps, on the other hand, having as much experience with the complaint processes of Wikipedia as you do is not something to be proud of. Marsden 01:49, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
You deleted a citation I made, Marsden. Making false accusations of original research is a form of personal attack. Andjam 13:44, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
Jay, discussing tourism in the article as another potential reason seems fine to me, if citations can be found. My main objection to the ski resort issue is that it seems pretty small-time, and no citation has been provided. Beyond this, it seems rather unlikely to me that too many tourists come to Israel for the skiing...but, as I said, I have no inherent objection. It clearly ought to be mentioned in Golan Heights if it is mentioned here, though. john k 18:02, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Other points:

  • It has been said that I didn't mention anything about the ski resort in the Golan Heights page. That is true, but I did add information to the Mount Hermon page before this dispute. If I were to add the info to the Golan Heights page, who would say it wouldn't get edit-warred out?
  • Winter sport is one of my interests in wikipedia. Heck, I've even edited the page! This is not even my first middle eastern-related winter sport article.
  • I've not objected to water being mentioned in this article. If people wish to argue Jay is a hypocrite, fine, but that is not a valid reason to remove my contribution to the article. The consensus seems to be that resources of the areas under dispute are fair game for the article, as the article already mentions a number of those.
  • As the only talk Marsden has been willing to do on this page so far has been under the category of "Vandalism complaint against Jayjg", I'm going to add the ski resort info back in.

Thanks, Andjam 13:44, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Marsden, please, no personal-attack headers. SlimVirgin (talk) 18:57, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
It's an attack against his action in this article, not against him. Marsden 19:03, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
Please cease using section headers for personal attacks - this is viewed strongly negatively by the Wikipedia community. Article Talk: pages are for the purpose of discussing article content, not other editors. Jayjg (talk) 20:20, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
A complaint that someone is supposedly vandalizing an article is not a personal attack. If it were, nobody would ever be able to claim that someone is vandalizing an article, as personal attacks are banned everywhere on wikipedia, not just article talk pages. That said, I think it would be better to avoid using section headers in this manner. john k 20:53, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
Further: I think that Marsden's actions in terms of the section header could easily be described as a failure to assume good faith and perhaps as a violation of wikiquette. But we should be careful and precise - it is not a personal attack. john k 20:56, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
I see it as a personal attack, John, to use the term vandal of an editor in good standing, and then to use it in a header, particularly when seen in the context of all Marsden's other personal attacks. This one hardly comes out of the blue. SlimVirgin (talk) 22:20, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
How are we to define a "user of good standing"? This gets dangerous, I think. As I said, I think Marsden's accusation of vandalism against Jay is both clearly untrue (even if Marsden's accusations are correct, what Jay is doing in his view does not amount to the wikipedia definition of vandalism) and a violation of several wikipedia policies. But it is not a violation of no personal attacks, because it is not a personal attack to accuse someone of violating wikipedia policy. OTOH, the "No personal attacks" page is deeply ambiguous about what a personal attack actually is - it seems potentially possible to interpret it in this way, although none of the examples on that page fits with what Marsden is doing. john k 04:48, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
Respectfully, John, you don't seem to know what you're talking about: "Vandalism is any addition, deletion, or change to content made in a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of the encyclopedia."[24] If Jay was restoring the ridiculous ski resort edit even after all of his bitching and moaning about how water was not worth mentioning, it is difficult not to conclude that his intent was to make the article -- the title of which as well as the content of which he had failed in spite of his "vociferous objections" to control -- a laughingstock. This clearly would meet the definition of vandalism. You suggested that he may have been trying to include the information in order to make a point, but there are inconsistencies with this interpretation: surely there are dozens of facts more comparable in significance to water than the ski resort information, and these would more naturally fit into "making a point" about the water information not belonging. The ski resort stuff was "very funny" according to saxet, and I think that would be the reaction of most people; I doubt also that this conclusion would have escaped Jay. You may note that I have never claimed that Andjam's original insertion of the ski resort information was vandalism: as far as I know, he legitimately thought it belonged. Jay's history of complaints about the water information makes it very difficult to give him this same pass. Maybe you buy into Jay's posturing that he doesn't think water is as big a deal as it is in Israel and the Occupied Territories, but this is also very difficult to believe: he is not ignorant enough about the topic that he could not know that undeniable truth.
Also, Jay backed off when I made clear that I was going to file a vandalism complaint against him, the first time I've ever seen him do that: maybe he was not innocent in his own view as you imagine.
Finally, your claim that my vandalism complaint against Jay was "a violation of several wikipedia policies" is astonishing, particularly given your sensible comments about accusations of policy violations not being personal attacks. It might be said that I was not assuming good faith, but if assuming good faith is to be pushed that far, then, much as you wrote of personal attacks, how could anyone ever be accused of violating any but the most objective Wikipedia policies? What are the "several wikipedia policies" that you claim I violated? I think you must not have given much thought to your comment.
Marsden 06:10, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
Actually I believe what you see as Jay backing off had to do more with my call to both of you for a truce on the grounds it would be more productive to work together. Don't you think all this energy could be put to a lot better (and more positive) use? --MPerel ( talk | contrib) 16:22, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
Marsden, in terms of vandalism, no, it is not vandalism. It is a violation of WP:POINT, maybe (I think so, at least), but your definition of vandalism would include all violations of WP:POINT. Which clearly doesn't work. Vandalism is when somebody replaces an entire article with "Bill is gay," or inserts expletives into an article, or deletes a whole section for no reason, or whatever. One can think of more borderline actions that would fall under this. Adding a sentence, which is demonstrably true, is not vandalism. Just barely, it might qualify as trolling, but it just isn't vandalism - you are using at least as expansive a definition of vandalism as Jay and Slim are of personal attacks, if not much more so. In terms of policies you have violated, as I said before, I think you have violated "assume good faith" - vandalism is the ultimate in bad faith, and accusing a long-time editor of vandalism, specifically (rather than, say WP:POINT or POV-pushing, or whatever), is clearly a failure on this regard. I also think that, not necessarily with this specific action, but in terms of edits as a whole, you have violated wikiquette and been unnecessarily rude. Saying that you feel you need to "beat" another editor "into submission" is completely inappropriate. Again, I don't think you're the only one guilty here - I think that Jay has frequently failed on the "assume good faith" front with you, as well. But this kind of activity is completely unhelpful, and competing accusations of wikipedia policy violations are almost always unhelpful. john k 17:03, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
John, you're simply wrong about vandalism. "Vandalism is any addition, deletion, or change to content made in a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of the encyclopedia." You say, "Adding a sentence, which is demonstrably true, is not vandalism." That's just wrong. I could add the sentence, "Certain species of baboons have blue buttocks," to this article: the sentence is demonstrably true, but it is irrelevant to the article and it would be a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of the encyclopedia: vandalism (although, if I did it right now just in order to show you that you are wrong, that would also be using the article to make a point). You claim that my "expansive" definition of vandalism would include all violations of WP:POINT, but this is simply not so. You may recall that I at one point proposed to change all references to the State of Israel to instead refer to "the Zionist Entity." While I think one person suggested that I would properly be banned for vandalism if I had done that, that is really not true: it would have been a violation of WP:POINT, but not of vandalism. From my perspective, the integrity of the encyclopedia had already been compromised by the censoring of the term "Occupied Territories," and my intent would have been to make the point that consistency would demand that we also censor the term "Israel." But ultimately, my intent would have been to restore the integrity of the encyclopedia by forcing an end to the censorting of "Occupied Territories" -- the opposite of vandalism.
We probably disagree on the facts of Jay's perspective: I think he's flat-out dishonorable, and you somehow escape this conclusion. But from my perspective, Jay was not at the point that he restored the ski resort sentences trying to make the point that the water information didn't belong and to get it removed -- again, the relevance of water is so indisputable among honest people Jay would recognize that he wouldn't be able to get it removed without getting himself into trouble. Instead, I think he was accepting that the water information would remain, but was trying to compromise the integrity of the article by restoring the laughable ski resort information, which is only slightly more relevant to the article than blue baboon buttocks. Alternatively, he may have been trying to bury the relevant water information with the profoundly trivial ski resort information, but either way it would be vandalism.
You seem to have ignored my comments about how the assume good faith policy would preclude almost all accusations of policy violation, so I won't comment on that further. Finally, while you say that my comments about beating Jay into submission violate wikiquette are inappropriate, I dispute this. Sometimes editors are banned from Wikipedia, often appropriately, I think we can both agree. This is not just commenting on beating someone into submission; this is in effect beating someone into submission, albeit tidily. Jay is clever enough about Wikipedia rules that he is unlikely to get himself banned, but to me he is as if the human emodiment of Godel's paradox: the editor who obeys all the rules, but who still should have his editing priviledges curtailed. In that regard, I think it serves the purpose of Wikipedia well to keep the heat on him, to beat him into submission. I know you don't agree, but I hope you'll respect that I didn't come upon my perspective on him lightly.
Marsden 17:58, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

I don't really want to get into the latter point, but it is still utterly absurd to claim that adding a true sentence that Israel's only ski resort is in the Golan Heights to an article section about the Golan Heights constitutes vandalism. It may be an inappropriate addition (I think it almost certainly was). It may even be trolling. But it just isn't vandalism by any reasonable definition - find me a single example of vandalism on the Wikipedia:Vandalism page which is at all like this. john k 19:41, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

"At all like this?" How about [25]? Admittedly, the added information is (probably ...) false, but it would be easy enough to find true information, and even information about the Golan Heights, that serves to make the article silly, as I think the ski resort sentence does. Maybe the oldest titty bar in the Middle East is in Golan ... Marsden 23:32, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
I feel that topless revue shows are quite legitimately mentioned in an article that mentions international law (and a passing reference to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict) in Bantustan#Life in the Bantustans. Do you beg to differ? (And I didn't complain that Kirstie Marshall was already written when I did Australia at the 1998 Winter Olympics) Andjam 13:35, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
I think your question is irrelevant to the discussion of this article. Do you beg to differ? Marsden 17:20, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Citation

I've been repeatedly accused of not citing, so I'll make the record here clear. I have cited, and Marsden deleted the citation here. In the Hermon article, I used a different citation, that one to the BBC - Regions and territories: The Golan Heights. Andjam 01:18, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Andjam, your link makes clear that Golan has "Israel's" only ski resort, but not that this fact has anything significant to do with why Israel maintains occupation of Golan. Marsden 04:00, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
News24 explicitly, and BBC semi-explicitly, state that the ski resort is one reason why (the Zionist entity's residents/the Zionist entity) would rather keep the Golan Heights. Andjam 05:31, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
So is your position that News24 is reporting that Israelis are willing to remain in an official state of war with a neighboring state so that they can go skiing more easily? Isn't that almost a blood libel? Marsden 06:49, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Moved to Golan Heights article

I entered the ski resort thing in the Golan Heights article as per Marsden's suggestion. Andjam 15:50, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

disputed by who and who

Hey, all. Just came here from Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee_Elections_December_2005/Candidate_statements/Jayjg and saw the intro. the last sentence of the intro says "The status of blah is disputed by Israel". Semantically, that doesn't make sense because "the status of blah" doesn't say what the status is, so Israel can't really 'dispute' it. If it said "The status of blah as illegal occupation is disputed by Israel" might make sense. If you can list who is in dispte with Israel, that would at least tie in with who is in "dispute", as it is, I changed it to say "the status of blah is disputed". Either list both disputants or none. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by FuelWagon (talk • contribs) .

Normally, you would be correct. However, in this case, the matter is decided by virtually all of the world other than Israel and some of its supporters; it is more akin to a person found guilty of a crime and having exhausted all of his appeals still disputing his guilt: the rest of the world is content with its understanding of the situation, and it is only he who disputes the legal finding. No one actively disputes the matter on the side of those who disagree with the sometimes Israeli position that the status is something other than occupation and that the Geneva Convention etc. apply; this is accepted without question, except by Israel (and not always consistently even so) and some of its supporters. Therefore, it makes sense to say that it is disputed by Israel and some of its supporters, and not to note who disagrees: virtually everyone else disagrees. Marsden 01:09, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Golan Heights

Some information was added on the history of the Golan Heights. I deleted it, but added a bit on the history of the defensive concerns, vis a vis the Heights. I don't think it is appropriate to repeat the information about the Six-Day War or the 1973 War in this article, but I understand if the editor wanted to strengthen the statement about the defensive concerns. I invite him/her to comment here about whether my adaptation is acceptable. Marsden 01:12, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Marsden, your edit is fine. I understand your concern about repeating historical information. --Daniel

Britain recognized the annexation of East Jerusalem?

Zero0000 has just changed the text to indicate that Britain recognized the Jordanian annexation of East Jerusalem. Is this true? I thought it only recognized the annexation of the West Bank. Jayjg (talk) 19:24, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Jordan annexed the WB+Jerusalem together in a single action. My impression was that Britain recognised that action, and ergo recognised the annexation of East Jerusalem. However, it could be that Britain's recognition included a caveat on Jerusalem. I've never seen the actual document and at the moment I can't find a good source on it. --Zero 00:22, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
Ok, it seems British recognition was only de facto in the case of EJ. See Ian's note on my talk page. Incidentally, this was the same official pronouncement in which the UK recognized Israel. The same caveat was made wrt West Jerusalem. --Zero 01:31, 4 January 2006 (UTC) I added a scan of the actual text of the announcement. --Zero 12:08, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Picture revert war

Image 1: children in Jenin

Alongside:

File:Yad Leahim baby.jpg
Image 2
File:Gaza withdrawal.jpg
Image 2 replaced with

I invite User:Aiden and User:El_C to stop reverting the picture and discuss your views, please. Spaceriqui 22:10, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

How about both pictures? Jayjg (talk) 22:33, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
I agree about using both. SlimVirgin (talk) 23:05, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
I'm not contesting the picture of the Palestinian children. The picture in question is El C's for Gaza, which shows an IDF soldier smiling at an Israeli baby she's "evacuating" from Gaza. My picture shows a woman holding her child, obviously distraught, being removed from Gush Katif by IDF soldiers. The reason why the latter picture should be used is because it reflects reality. Of these 8,000 settlers, nearly all were adamant about Gaza being part of the Land of Israel and were not happy about the withdrawal. Using the smiling cheeful picture to illustrate the withdrawal does not reflect reality and in my mind has ulterior motives which compromise the NPOV of the article. Aiden 05:19, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, I fixed the picture. Spaceriqui 19:49, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
It seems to me that neither photo has any reasonable fair use rationale and they both should be deleted. Matt 21:35, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
Actually, the first one is genuinely fairuse under the terms of the IDF (which it does live up to), whereas second one has no url to anything — it's also pro-ssttler, emotionalist propaganda, so I presume it will stay and skew the article accordingly. El_C 23:28, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
See: תבנית:תמונות מאתר צה"ל. Where is the link for the second picture? How can we verify its source, aside from taking the uploader's word for it? El_C 23:31, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
Okay, I found a link for it, though it's reduced. That's good enough for me, because I don't really care about copyrights, just having a source to something (or preferably, crediting the photographer and exact date, I'm willing to take the uploader's word for it, if they do that). But that aside, while I have no objection to it being used in other articles, I'm certainly not inclined to throw off the agreed upon non-tragic image balance on account of baseless insinuations that this picture was somehow ulteriolislisly special. This was an evacuation, because once the IDF leaves, these people would not have been able to survive there. Anyway, the baby is definitely being evacuated (it was taken during 3-day מבצע יד לאחים operation - perhaps his/her parents decided to stay so as to be forcefuly removed, who knows). My point was that it is counterbalanced with the Palestinian children image, and they are smiling not crying, or throwing rocks or being injured/killed. Perhaps John Kenney is also of the same mindset, that this article isn't Israel's unilateral disengagement plan, etc., since he reverted to my version. An inclusionist compromise will lead to the sort of setting most suceptible to simplistic discord; if lumpenism and chuavinism weren't a decisive factor on Wikipedia, I'd be all for having images which are much more militant, depicting the products of violent death much more explictly (white phosphallujah and beyond). The best approach is my original, so-called balanced format which invokes calm by and at the expense of circumventing the truth. All-smiles for the pathos. El_C 03:42, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Btw, Danny is currently working on getting IDF and Knesset-specific fairuse tags, but in the meantime: המשתמש רשאי לעשות " שימוש הוגן" בחומר המוגן , לפי הכללים הקבועים בדין. (source) El_C 23:44, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Israeli Supreme Court Decision of 2005

The UPI article did not say that the Supreme Court ruled that the territory is occupied as defined under the Fourth Geneva Convention. The primary source (the decision) says that since "Israel has declared that it practices the humanitarian parts of this convention... we see no need to reexamine the government's position" and "seeing as the government of Israel accepts that the humanitarian aspects of The Fourth Geneva Convention apply in the area, we are not of the opinion that we must take a stand on that issue in the petition before us." I added a link (beginning of section) to the page that discusses this further and has citations to the appropriate primary source material. SeattliteTungsten 04:00, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't know about any UPI article, but the important thing is what the court itself has said. In fact the court has repeatedly stated that the terrorities are held by Israel in a state of "belligerent occupation" and that the Hague Conventions on the behavior of occupying powers are legally binding. For example, the 2004 ruling on the separation fence (official English translation) says simply "Since 1967, Israel has been holding the areas of Judea and Samaria in belligerent occupation." The ruling also notes that the government of Israel accepts this reality. The 2005 ruling on the fence says the same: "The Judea and Samaria areas are held by the State of Israel in belligerent occupation." [26] What the court has not done is to clearly infer that the Geneva Conventions apply as well. Note that "belligerent occupation" is a standard legal phrase, not words that the court invented. --Zero 09:08, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
Yes, these points are reasonable and could be added although I think the place to add them is the International law and the Arab-Israeli conflict page where the treatment is more detailed. This section has a pointer to it. The way it was written before made it seem like the Israeli Supreme Court decision(s) were supporting the ICJ decision that the Fourth Geneva Convention applied, which (as you point out) the has not yet done. (The UPI article is still in the footnote, and I agree with you that it's better to look at the actual rulings than a news article about the rulings.)
What do you think about (1) making sure all of the points in this section are on the International law and the Arab-Israeli conflict page, (2) summarizing the whole section in about twenty words, and (3) ensuring the pointer to the more detailed treatment is prominent? I think this would be better than a partial treatment here that doesn't well describe much. SeattliteTungsten 09:36, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
I made my edits just now before reading your reply. As with many topics, this one is split between different articles in a confusing fashion. Really this information is pertinent to multiple articles, which makes life harder for both us editors and our readers. It clearly should be spelled out in detail at International law and the Arab-Israeli conflict; let's not delete what is here at least until there is something there to refer to. --Zero 10:04, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
Right, it is a problem that these things are split up but it sounds like we are in agreement that International law and the Arab-Israeli conflict is the place for detailed treatment of the legal issues relating to the territories. It sounds like if I moved all of this text, sentence for sentence with only minor conjunctive changes for readability ("and", "so", "moreover"), to appropriate parts of International law and the Arab-Israeli conflict and replaced it here with something short like "The term 'occupied territories' is generally used by ... whereas the term 'disputed' territories is generally used by ... See International law and the Arab-Israeli conflict." this would be good? I will do this when I get around to it. This way, this article can focus on where they are, and history of control. SeattliteTungsten 10:24, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Invoking internal law as justification for failure to abide by international law

No need for me to do the talking:

Under the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, which reflects customary international law, "A party may not invoke the provisions of its internal law as justification for its failure to perform a treaty. [27]

This reflects Article 27 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of Treaties, signed at Vienna on May 23, 1969, entered into force on January 27, 1980, which states that: "A party may not invoke the provisions of its internal law as justification for its failure to perform a treaty." It is well established that Article 27 embodies a "long accepted rule of customary law." (Louis Henkin, Richard Crawford Pugh, Oscar Schachter, Hans Smit, International Law: Cases and Materials, West Publishing, St. Paul, MN, Second Edition, 1987; p. 434). Advisory Opinion on Treatment of Polish Nationals in Danzig, 1932 P.C.I.J., Ser. A/B, No. 44, at 22. [28]

"The law in this respect is well settled. A state cannot plead provisions of its own law or deficiencies in that law in answer to a claim against it for an alleged breach of its obligations under international law." I. Brownlie, Principles of Public International Law (5th ed. 1998), p. 34

"The principle that a State cannot plead the provisions (or deficiencies) of .... its constitution as a ground for the non-observance of its international obligations ... [This] is indeed one of the great principles of international law, informing the whole system and applying to every branch of it." G. Fitzmaurice, The general principles of international law considered from the standpoint of the rule of law, 92 Recueil des Cours (1957-II), p. 85.

"[I]f a state's internal law is such as to prevent it from fulfilling its international obligations, that failure is a matter for which it will be held responsible in international law. It is firmly established that a state when charged with a breach of its international obligations cannot in international law validly plead as a defence that it was unable to fulfil them because its internal law was defective or contained rules in conflict with international law; this applies equally to a state's assertion of its inability to secure the necessary changes in its law by virtue of some legal or constitutional requirement which in the circumstances cannot be met or severe or political difficulties which would be caused. The obligation is the obligation of the state, and the failure of an organ of the state, such as a Parliament or a court, to give effect to the international obligations of the state cannot be invoked by it as a justification for failure to meet its international obligations." R. Jennings/A. Watts (eds.), Oppenheim's International Law, vol. I (9th ed. 1992), pp. 84 f.

"[a] state cannot adduce its constitution or its laws as a defense for failure to carry out its international obligation". Restatement of the Law (Third), The Foreign Relations Law of the United States (1987), vol. 1, p. 64, § 115, Comment b.

"[I]t is certain that France cannot rely on her own legislation to limit the scope of her international legal obligations ... ." Free Zones of Upper Savoy and the District of Gex, Judgment, 1932, P.C.I.J., Series A/B, No. 46, p. 167.

"It should ... be observed that ... a State cannot adduce as against another State its own Constitution with a view to evading obligations incumbent upon it under international law or treaties in force." Treatment of Polish Nationals and Other Persons of Polish Origin or Speech in the Danzig Territory, Advisory Opinion, 1932, P.C.I.J., Series A/B, No. 44, p. 24.

Article 3 makes explicit a principle already implicit in article 2, namely that the characterization of a given act as internationally wrongful is independent of its characterization as lawful under the internal law of the State concerned. There are two elements to this. First, an act of a State cannot be characterized as internationally wrongful unless it constitutes a breach of an international obligation, even if it violates a provision of the Stateís own law. Secondly and most importantly, a State cannot, by pleading that its conduct conforms to the provisions of its internal law, escape the characterization of that conduct as wrongful by international law. An act of a State must be characterized as internationally wrongful if it constitutes a breach of an international obligation, even if the act does not contravene the Stateís internal law - even if, under that law, the State was actually bound to act in that way. (...) That conformity with the provisions of internal law in no way precludes conduct being characterized as internationally wrongful is equally well settled. International judicial decisions leave no doubt on that subject. Draft Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts with commentaries [29]

As an emanation of the elementary and universally agreed maxim of pacta sunt servanda - rightly described by the International Law Commission as "the fundamental principle of the law of treaties", 211 our principle has also been included in the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. Article 27(1) of this Convention reads as follows: "A State party to a treaty may not invoke the provisions of its internal law as justification for its failure to perform the treaty." This provision does not embody an innovative concept but restates a rule deeply rooted in general principles of international law, universally recognised at the time of the drafting of the Convention. [30]

Under the rules of interpretation codified in the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties: [31]

According to international law, the law of treaties, Israel Foreign Ministry Legal Advisor Alan Baker [32]

Thus he bears the further and cumulative duty so to conduct himself that the norms of Israeli Administrative Law do not release him from the duty to abide by the Laws of War. He cannot rely on those norms to avoid a duty or prohibition applicable to him under the customary Laws of War. [33]

There is a complicating factor not brought out here very well. The Israeli supreme court has taken the view that customary international law is binding on all states regardless of of their domestic legislation, but that conventional international law only binds when domestic legislation specifically brings it into the national legal framework. Thus, they accept the Hague Conventions to be binding because they have become accepted universally as customary law, but have denied the Geneva Conventions this status on the grounds that they are not customary law. This view explicitly violates the Vienna Convention, but Israel never ratified that convention and claims to not be bound by it. Additional factors against this Israeli interprettation are that both the Vienna Convention and the Geneva Conventions are now regarded by the overwhelming majority of legal authorities to be customary law. --Zero 00:46, 18 February 2y006 (UTC)
I think this is a bit more complicated. They might view the Geneva convention as not binding under domestic Israeli law, which is what they are set to judge after, and thus claim that one cannot apply the convention in Israeli courts. This is quite common in legal systems that have a dualistic view on the relationship between domestic and international law. That does not imply, however, that the Geneva convention is only binding upon Israel if supported by domestic legislation. It only implies that it is not incorporated in Israeli law, and thus Israeli courts cannot use it unless supported by some national legislation. The convention is still binding upon Israel, and Israel is still in breach of its international obligations if it fails to abide by it, even if it isn't incorporated in their national legal framework. The Israeli Supreme Court use Israeli legislation, but Israel's failure to abide by the Geneva Convention cannot be justified by reference to their domestic failure to implement it. --Cybbe 15:34, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

"This argument is contrary to the principle in international law..."

This statement needs a citation on the main article page. It should be easy to do given some of the references in talk. SeattliteTungsten 22:53, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

The use of reverts by Aiden and Slimvirgin in this matter are unreasonable and should be censured as unfriendly behavior. Given the copious sources given here in Talk, it would have been very easy for them to choose one they find appropriate and add it to the article. That is called cooperative editing. Shame on both of you. --Zero 23:16, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
So easy in fact, that users assuming good faith would actually improve the article and source it themselves. I agree with Zero, this is shameful behaviour and the claim that a sentence have to be sourced in article instead of talk in order to not be regarded as OR is obviously false, and both these editors (should at least) know this. --Cybbe 23:33, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
(Let me reserve comments on whether the other behavior is shameful or whether they should know better.) Why don't you just add the references to the text you'd like included in the article and then there won't be the dual problem of having an edit war and having uncited statements in the article. SeattliteTungsten 03:02, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Exactly how removal of OR unsourced material is "unfriendly behavior" is beyond me. If it is so easy to provide sources for this statement, do so in the article! That is Wikipedia policy, nothing more. —Aiden 01:01, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

It is unfriendly behaviour to make ridiculous claims of OR, when the sources provided, regardless of whether they where put in talk or not, clearly show that not to be the case. It is unfriendly behaviour to choose the destructive option to get the claim sourced (removal of relevant material when you've actually seen and read the sources), instead of tagging it accordingly, asking for a reference on this talk page or actually citing it yourself with the sources available to you. It is unfriendly to enforce a so-called policy of deleting relevant material with sources provided in talk without prior discussing, when this so-called policy is applied inconsistently, even within the same section. However, this inconsistency is lucky for Wikipedia, as a majority of claims and facts are not sourced neither in talk nor in the article and a removal frenzy based on such a rationale would have drastic consequences. --Cybbe 16:02, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Then I likewise claim it is unfriendly to other WP editors to add POV unsourced, arguably OR, material to an article. It can go both ways. Why is it such a big deal to simply follow WP policy concerning adding only sourced material? —Aiden 18:23, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Reconciliation between Palestinian territories and Israeli-occupied territories - 1

I think Palestinian territories and Israeli-occupied territories have (1) lots of currently overlapping material and (2) lots of material that could be included in the other article. Perhaps these can be merged at some point. (Note: one obvious difference is Golan/Sinai which are not Palestinian but are often (erroneously) included depending on which of the many terms is used.) To this end, I merged common parts of the first two paragraphs of the introduction as a start. They are not identical (Golan/Sinai) but very close. SeattliteTungsten 07:46, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

There's no doubt there could be some sort of merger; the Israeli-occupied territories article was created as a POV fork by a now-banned editor. Jayjg (talk) 19:38, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
Agreed. —Aiden 23:28, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
I renamed the article following Britannica's own title and article theme: covering all territories occupied by Israel. This article provides an overview for each one; any substantive merger needs to be better defined in terms of summaries and main articles. El_C 20:17, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

OR

I've removed the following because it seems to be a clear case of OR: "This argument is contrary to the principle in international law that a state may not invoke the provisions of its internal law as justification for its failure to perform an obligation under international law." [34] SlimVirgin (talk) 02:19, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

How is it a clear case of OR? It might be OR, or it might not, depending if anyone has made this argument. It is currently phrased in an ORy way, certainly. john k 02:43, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
Because it seems to be the argument of a Wikipedia editor, that's why it's a clear case, John. If you know otherwise, I stand to be corrected, of course. SlimVirgin (talk) 03:20, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
What about all the citations that Cybbe quoted above; if you report a generally accepted principle, is it then OR in your world?? If so, I would like to know: when is it not OR? Regards, Huldra 04:54, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
Indeed - I hadn't noticed before the considerable discussion above. There seems, in fact, to be considerable sourcing for the idea that it is a standard principle of international law that a state cannot invoke the provisions of its internal law as justification for its failure to perform an obligation under international law. So that part is clearly not original research. Is the objection, then, that we're applying this principle to Israel and the Occupied Territories in a way which constitutes original research? If we can't find any quotations which show that this argument has been made by prominent people, I think the case would be highly debatable, but I don't think it's open and shut - applying a well known principle to an instance in which it obviously applies, even if nobody has explicitly done so before, can only be at the extreme edges of original research. I would suggest, though, that it would certainly be better if we cited a source which specifically applies this principle to the Occupied Territories - that way we don't have to argue about what constitutes original research, and we make the article better too. john k 05:24, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
If the principle obviously applies to this area, someone prominent and qualified will have mentioned it and we can quote them. If there's no one appropriate to quote, it's OR. SlimVirgin (talk) 07:15, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Just to note, this statement, cited above, apparently from an Israeli court decision: Thus he bears the further and cumulative duty so to conduct himself that the norms of Israeli Administrative Law do not release him from the duty to abide by the Laws of War. He cannot rely on those norms to avoid a duty or prohibition applicable to him under the customary Laws of War, seems to be applying this principle, at least partially, to the issue under discussion. That would seem to constitute a fairly strong case against this being OR - this issue has clearly come up in discussion of Israeli actions in the Occupied Territories, and as such it is not original research for us to mention it. Or am I missing something? john k 05:27, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

There's nothing complicated about the OR policy. It's designed to stop editors from adding their own opinions and arguments. Find a qualified source (in this case a specialist in that area of law, or a relevant court decision), and quote them. Don't put a spin on it, don't add anything to what they say, and what they say must be directly relevant to the subject of the article i.e. the quote must be about the law as it applies to the Israeli-occupied territories. SlimVirgin (talk) 07:18, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

I suppose the key statement from WP:NOR is: it introduces an argument, without citing a reputable source for that argument, which purports to refute or support another idea, theory, argument, or position (just to note, for the sake of full disclosure, that I, a moment ago, slightly edited this point because the key phrase, "without citing a reputable source for that argument" was in parentheses when it clearly shouldn't be). At the moment, I would say that you are possibly right, in that the argument is not cited. That said, the argument itself is such an obvious one, and based on such an obvious and well-established principle, that, even in the absence of a specific citation, it is hard to imagine that nobody has made the argument before. There have been numerous actual court cases on this specific subject - it beggars the imagination to think that this issue has really never been brought up. That said, it does seem as though an actual specific citation would be in order here. john k 07:35, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

It makes no difference how obvious any Wikipedia editor thinks it is. The key statement from NOR is: "Original research is a term used on Wikipedia to refer to material added to articles by Wikipedia editors that has not been published already by a reputable source. In this context it means unpublished theories, data, statements, concepts, arguments, and ideas; or any new interpretation, analysis, or synthesis of published data, statements, concepts, or arguments ..." (my emphasis) that would amount to a novel narrative. SlimVirgin (talk) 08:22, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
Well, I don't think we really disagree on the basic point here. The statement ought to be cited, if possible. But applying such a broad understanding of what constitutes "original research" seems to me to have possibly negative consequences if applied in other contexts. For instance, there is almost no available published material in English refuting the theories of Anatoly Fomenko as described in New Chronology (Fomenko). By your understanding of NOR, it seems as though it would become impossible to present any kind of explanation of how Fomenko's theories conflicted with established historical methodologies, because these arguments have not actually been made in the context of people arguing with Fomenko. Your understanding of original research would mean that we can't present any refutations of published crackpottery that have not themselves been published. The NOR rule then can be used to support the work of the very crackpots it was originally designed to work against. john k 08:51, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
That's right. If the argument or evidence doesn't exist in the public domain, we're not allowed to make it up, no matter how correct we think we are. If the issue's important, and if any Wikipedian is qualified to write about it, someone will doubtless publish his or her ideas and then we can use that published material as a source. NPOV doesn't mean presenting every conceivable POV even if we have to invent them. It means presenting the majority and significant-minority POVs that have been published by reliable sources. If this discussion is to continue, it belongs on Wikipedia talk:No original research. I'm glad you agree about the point in hand. SlimVirgin (talk) 08:57, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
But this means that practically any analytical content at all, any statement which puts two statements in contrast with each other when we don't have a clear source that has done the same, constitutes original research and has to be removed. I don't think this is really a tenable position - it reduces our role to stenography. Any kind of selection or judgment on the part of wikipedia editors becomes suspect. Again, the claim ought to be sourced, if possible. But I'm unconvinced that it has to be removed otherwise, since that seems to depend on an overly broad understanding of OR which is, I think, much broader than the consensus understanding of OR. john k 15:14, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
The claim looks like it's sourced here: perhaps Huldra could give us a clearer indication of what the source cited says about it? Palmiro | Talk 15:20, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
My understanding is that the claim that it is a common principle of international law that one can't use the provisions of domestic law to evade one's obligations under international law is copiously sourced. What we seem to lack are clear applications of this principle to the Israeli situation. john k 17:08, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
I see. If I get some time, I'll have a look. I have a feeling that at least assertions of this will not be hard to find, if not judicial decisions. Palmiro | Talk 17:13, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

John K is exactly right regarding the problem; if people have used this provision to argue against Israeli claims, then it is perfectly acceptable to cite them. However, if it is just Cybbe who is making this argument against Israeli claims, then it is obviously original research and cannot be included. And this is not a "broad application" of the OR policy, but in fact the very heart of it. People are always using cited facts to promote their own arguments, but this is simply not permitted by policy: "Articles may not contain any unpublished theories, data, statements, concepts, arguments, or ideas; or any new analysis or synthesis of published data, statements, concepts, arguments, or ideas." Again, find a reliable source who makes this counter-argument to Israeli claims,i.e. someone who is not User:Cybbe. Jayjg (talk) 18:32, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, what if the statement were as follows?

The Israeli government has used a number of rationales to argue why the Geneva Conventions should not apply in the Occupied Territories:

  • International Law and Domestic Law: It is a principle of international law that a state may not invoke the provisions of its internal law as justification for its failure to perform an obligation under international law.[citation] Nevertheless, the Israeli government has made the argument is that conventional international law applies only when supported by domestic legislation [citation].

Is this original research? If so, how? It seems to me that the statement about international law in general is, in this case, providing useful context for the Israeli government's claims. Is it a violation to provide context if we can't find a source that provides the same context? Or is the problem with the specific language used in the phrase. Given how closely the international law principle relates to the Israeli argument in question, it seems problematic not to bring it up. john k 19:17, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

It's a sneaky original research argument, and who says it's applicable in this case? Rather than trying to do an end-run around the WP:NOR policy, it's best just to find proper sources for someone who makes this argument as regards Israel and the West Bank. Jayjg (talk) 19:56, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
Similar statements are made in wikipedia all the time without any problem. The line between providing context and engaging in original research is not so clear-cut as you would like, I think. john k 21:22, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
It's actually very clear cut, John; it's just that you don't like it. SlimVirgin (talk) 21:44, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Al Haq argued that "Israeli reliance on local law does not justify its violations of its international legal obligations" citing Article 27 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, "a party may not invoke the provisions of its internal law as justification for its failure to perform a treaty." [35]

Presented this way, perhaps it's not Original Research as much as a Google Search, eh? ;-) Anyway, if it's properly sourced, than it fits the X says Y about Z rule. --Uncle Ed 19:33, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Cybbe, does Vierdag, E. W. "The Law Governing Treaty Relations between Parties to the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties and States not Party to the Convention" in The American Journal of International Law, Vol. 76, No. 4. (Oct., 1982), pp. 779-801, p.788 specifically refer to Israel and the territories? Jayjg (talk) 19:56, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
Take a breath, Jay. No one is saying that al Haq is right about the applicabality of Vienna to Palestine. Our job as contributors is not to evaluate the political correctness of political arguments.
You asked about sources for someone who "makes this argument as regards Israel and the West Bank", and I found al Haq. --Uncle Ed 20:07, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
Ed, I'm not sure how your response is related to my question to Cybbe regarding Vierdag. Jayjg (talk) 20:20, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
That is irrelevant now JayJG, but the point was and still is, you didnt bother checking now did you? Why was that? --Cybbe 20:22, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
Of course it's relevant; yousomeone made up an argument you liked, which was challenged, so you went looking for a source to support yourthat argument. We need to find othersreliable sources making that argument vis a vis Israel and the territories; please respond below. Thanks. Jayjg (talk) 20:25, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
As far as I can gather, the Vierdag article is a general article on the subject of this principle of international law, and does not mention anything about Israel and the Occupied Territories. john k 21:22, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
That being said, Ed does seem to have found a clear example of somebody outside wikipedia making this argument. Shouldn't that be sufficient to make it not OR? john k 21:26, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
So long as al-Haq are widely acknowledged experts on international law, and so long as we stick very closely to what they say, preferably quoting them, then yes. If this is such an obvious point, John, why can't you find an expert in international law who has said it? SlimVirgin (talk) 21:49, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
Yes, of course, so long as it comes from a reliable source. Assuming that's the case, we simply say who they are, and quote their argument. Jayjg (talk) 21:49, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Palestinians and Israeli law

Difficult passage:

Unlike Israeli Arabs, the Palestinian inhabitants of the West Bank and Gaza Strip are not citizens of Israel, and are not afforded the same political rights and freedoms or protections under Israeli law as Israeli citizens who live in the same areas. This includes restraints on freedom of movement, no right to vote in Israel (i.e. in any independent country), and other measures at odds with conditions in Israel and other liberal democracies.

I made several changes and cuts to the above. Please check me for unintended POV-pushing (what some contributors call "POV edits").

The passage seems to be an editorial, arguing that Israel ought to give Gazans and West Bankers the same rights as Israelis. If this is a widely held point of view, it should be easy to find a source or two for it. --Uncle Ed 19:23, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Vierdag, E. W.

Cybbe, does Vierdag, E. W. "The Law Governing Treaty Relations between Parties to the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties and States not Party to the Convention" in The American Journal of International Law, Vol. 76, No. 4. (Oct., 1982), pp. 779-801, p.788 specifically refer to Israel and the territories? Would you mind quoting what he says on the subject? Jayjg (talk) 20:23, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Not specifically no. I do however find it alarming that you assume bad faith and remove properly sourced material without knowing the source, which is easily accessible. --Cybbe 20:25, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
And to answer your accusation above: no, I did not "invent" an argument, I expanded on one first put forth by Zero. --Cybbe 20:27, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
From the edit history, it was quite apparent that he didn't refer to it specifically, but rather was being brought by you to bolster an original research argument already present in the article, regarding your beliefs about International law and their applicability to this situation. The fact that I was correct about this merely confirms what was obvious. As for WP:AGF, it's a guideline, not a policy, and the more relevant section of it is this: Of course, there's a difference between assuming good faith and ignoring bad actions. If you expect people to assume good faith from you, make sure you demonstrate it. Don't put the burden on others. Yelling "Assume Good Faith" at people does not excuse you from explaining your actions, and making a habit of it will convince people that you're acting in bad faith.. Jayjg (talk) 20:31, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
Oh, and regarding "properly sourced" information, that's a red herring. Wikipedia has three content policies, WP:V, WP:NOR, and WP:NPOV. "Proper sourcing" only applies to the first, and the insertion, when it was finally cited, violated the second and the third. As well, "proper sourcing" doesn't apply when the material itself is irrelevant to a page. Finally, I find it "alarming" that you would edit war in favour of policy violation. Jayjg (talk) 20:38, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
You did not ask me to explain my actions, in fact, no-one even bothered asking me what the source did say, or looking it up. And I do disagree with your broad interpretation of the OR policy, as do several other editors proven above, as it would have absurd consequences taken to it's extremes, and is open for abuse. And why you would characterize this as a violation of NPOV is beyond me, but I guess employing double standards is the neutral way of handling things. --Cybbe 20:57, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
My interpretation of the OR policy is hardly broad, and abuses are almost inevitably the other way. People always claim that it can be taken to absurd lengths, but are never able to find any practical examples. As for NPOV violation, when you state something as "fact", rather than attributing it to the source (in this case Vierdag), you are obviously violating WP:NPOV. Please remember we are discussing the rather nebulous concept of international law, where the variety of interpretations is huge - it's not mathematics. And finally, please do your best to avoid further violations of WP:CIVIL; unlike WP:AGF, that truly is policy. Jayjg (talk) 21:48, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
Could people please just find qualified sources and stick closely to what they say? That's the easiest way to do research and the only way to avoid violating OR. It means you may not always get to say what you want to say, but that's a good thing, because if you can't find a reputable source to back you up, what you want to say may not be correct. That's why the OR policy exists, to protect Wikipedia from its own editors' opinions, so please let's stick to it. SlimVirgin (talk) 21:53, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
There are many means to violate WP:CIVIL JayJG, you really shouldn't be throwing the first stone. And stating what any scholar would say on art. 27 of VCLT is hardly a breach of NPOV, in this specific case hundreds of sources can be found, a multitude of them are already on this talk page. If you wanted to change "This is in vio..." into "A general principle" you could've done so, but this per se was never the issue. And while there may be different interpretations on several issues in international law, this is certainly not one of them (regarding VCLT art.27 that is). --Cybbe 22:23, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
Why is there a problem finding a source, in that case? SlimVirgin (talk) 22:27, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
That this is a general principle in IL? Not a problem at all. --Cybbe 22:39, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
No, that would be OR. You need to find an expert in international law who has written about the Arab-Israeli conflict and who has applied this supposedly general principle. You are not allowed yourself to put two and two together, no matter how convinced you are that the answer ought to be four. You must find a qualified source that has said it. SlimVirgin (talk) 22:42, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
And again, such a broad interpretation of the policy would lead to absurd results, e.g. if we have a 'reputable source' (in itself a troublesome term) saying George W. Bush is a martian controlled by an alien power, we cannot present counter-arguments unless they are made in that context. A general principle of International law is a general principle wherever it is applied.
The irony is of course that the real OR: the flawed interpretation of the judgment as a matter of IL, when it in fact dealt with what is admissable before Israeli Courts, was left to stay, while a principle of IL outliving Israel was removed. Guess it all is a matter of policy. I have stated my opinions on this matter and see no reason to continue the discussion, at least not here as we're getting way off topic. --Cybbe 22:49, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
I'm growing tired of this. First, there are no reputable sources which say George W. Bush is a Martian; the people who continually claim that the WP:NOR policy is too broad can never provide proper examples, only strawman arguments, precisely because it is not too broad. Next, whatever you believe about general principles of international law is irrelevant. Cite your sources! Next, do not insert that Veirdag reference again, we've already determined that it violates the WP:NOR policy. Next, when inserting the other sources, quote them exactly, and attribute their arguments, as per the WP:NPOV and WP:CITE policies. If you continue disruptively flaunting policy, and using this page for violations of WP:CIVIL, then I will simply revert you in the future. Jayjg (talk) 22:53, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
Cybbe, please accept that Wikipedia does not publish your opinions on international law. Even if you were yourself a specialist in international law, we would still not publish your views, unless someone else had published them first. If you want to contest this, you must do it on a policy talk page, not here. SlimVirgin (talk) 23:02, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
What about sources like, say, the LaRouchites who say that the Queen of England is at the center of a giant conspiracy to destroy the world's economy? While there are various people who have written against LaRouche, few have taken the trouble to refute claims of his like this. Would it be original research to provide contextual remarks which undercut LaRouche's claims if we cannot find sources which provide the same contextual remarks? What about the ridiculous claims about historical chronology made by Anatoly Fomenko? In the New Chronology (Fomenko) article (currently marred, I will admit, by in text "responses" by Fomenko's associates), there are statements noting, for instance, discrepancies between what Fomenko claims about the historical record and the consensus view of what the historical record is. Is that inappropriate original research? john k 04:10, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
John, I can't keep debating policy with you here. If you read the policies, they're actually quite clear, or you can ask for clarification on the talk pages. Regarding LaRouche, his views would never be mentioned in an article not related to him, and yes, in those articles, we would repeat that the Queen and the Beatles were operated by British intelligence, without adding our own opinion that they were not. SlimVirgin (talk) 04:17, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
John, did you imagine that on the LaRouche page we would write "Lyndon LaRouche thinks the Queen and the Beatles were operated by British intelligence, but everyone knows that's not true"? Of course not; we report what LaRouche says, period. And if some reliable source deigns to respond to LaRouche's claims, we can report that too. Regardless, the policies are what they are. If you'd like to change them, you'll need to get consensus on the respective policy pages. Jayjg (talk) 04:55, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

The issue here is not what is a reputable source (I personally am quite ready to grant that The American Journal of International Law is a reputable source). The question is whether the way the source is being used by Cybbe complies with our NOR policy or not. NOR states that we editors cannot use sources to make synthetic, analytic, or interpretive claims that the source itself does not. If Vierdag's article explains how his analysis applies to Israel/Palestine, then it is appropriate to this article. If he does not (which is what I understand Cybbe to have said), then it is not. If he is addressing a general matter of international law without applying it to Israel, then perhaps this article would be a great source for the general article on "occupied territories." But it is not proper for an editor to take that article and apply it in a way the author did not in order to make an argument in this article. To do so is a clear violation of NPOV. Slrubenstein | Talk 09:53, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Experts and others

On this same issue, once again:

We seem to be looking for an authoritative source, such as an expert in international law, who can tell us whether the Vienna Convention obliges Israel to do (blank) about some of the land it captured. I haven't followed this closely enough perhaps, but presumably this captured land was conquered by Egypt and Jordan during one war, and then re-conquered by Israel later. Anyway, we all like to call it "occupied territory" now, right?

The matter before us, as Wikipedia contributors, is to determine how to characterize the various sources which have offered their opinion on whether Israel is obliged to do (blank). This action, by the way, can be anything, like give people there better schools, or the right to vote, or easier access to jobs - all the way up to "get yer stinkin' hands off our land!" I guess. But our approach doesn't depend on how we fill in the blank.

Sorry to "lecture" you all, but I've seen this sort of contributor deadlock before, and the solution is to apply the classic formula

  • X said Y about Z.

If we can find any experts in international law, such as scholars writing in journals, we can say:

  • International legal expert Ann Something said, "Israel is obliged by the convention to do A."

If we can find a court with jurisdiction (or which says they have jurisdiction):

  • The Internatonal Court of B issued a ruling which said, "The Vienna Convention requires Israel to do B."

We can always quote the United Nations - they always have a quotable point of view:

  • The Security Council issued a resolution saying C.
  • A General Assembly vote recommended D.

Then there are the various partisans. We don't have to quote all of them, especially if their positions are substantially the same. But we should list ever significant Point of view.

  • E. Z. Going of the Let's Be Friends Institute said, "That Vienna thing is outdated, man. We shouldn't try to make Israel do anything they're not ready for."
  • Franz Yusef, European Representative of Arabs for Justice and Freedom, wrote: "Israel must withdraw completely from Gaza and West Bank. It's the only way to comply with international law, such as the Vienna Convention which in my opinion applies to the situation in Palestine today."

Say what kind of of expert or partisan each source is, or just give their titles and organizations. But do say that person X gave opinion Y about matter Z. Thank you. --Uncle Ed 13:39, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

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