Talk:Western Wall/GA1

GA Review

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Will be starting review.Pyrotec (talk) 16:56, 8 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Initial review

So far I read part of the article to the middle of British rule 1917 - 1948, so I've some way to go. So far the article appears to be of GA standard, but there are some minor problems that could be fixed without too much difficulty:

Reference 17 has two broken links - 404 errors. Fixed Chesdovi (talk) 20:09, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Metre(s) and meter(s) are used - it should be either British English or American English, not both. Fixed during GAR.Pyrotec (talk) 20:17, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
There is an unreferenced direct quotation from Allenby that needs referencing. Fixed Chesdovi (talk) 20:09, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I now will continue the GAR.Pyrotec (talk) 19:13, 8 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

main GAR

An interesting read. Overall, I consider that this article is of GA standard. It has a broad scope and is well referenced and illustrated; but there are a number of direct quotations in the article that are unreferenced. I'm putting the article On Hold to allow these, possibly rather minor defects, to be attended to.

Specific "problems":

Surprisingly to me, the article does not say what the wall is made of. Yes it is stone, but is it sandstone, limestone, etc,? The article fails to mention this. From the images, it's not granite, etc. Interestingly, the "See also" section, has a link to Meleke, which is a limestone; and there is a link in Meleke to the colloquial name, Jerusalem stone; but these do not appear in the article. The article needs to cover this point, even if it is only a short sentence or paragraph. It could possibly go in the "Location and dimensions" section, where it would not interfere with the flow of the article. Done Chesdovi (talk) 22:18, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The WP:lead states: "The wall itself dates from the end of the Second Temple period, being constructed around 19 BCE." - for what is visible today, that appears to be only strictly true for the bottom seven visible layers, the layers above are newer. Some clarification of this lead-sentence is needed. Done Chesdovi (talk) 22:18, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
In the "Names of the Wall" section, the only citation is for the al-buraq name; but other names appear in quotes, without citations. Done Chesdovi (talk) 22:18, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The allenby quotation in the "British rule 1917 - 1948" section needs a citation Done Chesdovi (talk) 22:18, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
In the "1930 commission" section, the Requests of the Jews could do with a citation, as could the scope of the commission and the conditional approval of the League of Nations.
In the "Ottoman period 1517 - 1917", the Rothschild “a merit and honor to the Jewish People.” needs a citation. Done Chesdovi (talk) 22:18, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
In the "Sanctity of the wall" the direct quotation about removing shoes and the Rabbi Moses Reicher quotation need citations. Done Chesdovi (talk) 22:18, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Ref 17 is broken, both links give 404 error messages. Please clarify what is meant by "both links"? Thanks. NB. ref # changed due to added refs. Chesdovi (talk) 22:18, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Pyrotec (talk) 19:50, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Referencing

The majority of the 88 references in the Reference section are full references, but references 38, 39, 42 to 45, 47 and 49 are wikilinks to chapters in books or scriptures. Some wikilinks appear to be broken, or missing, e.g. Reference 49 leads here - Interpunct, which is not a valid reference; and there is no Kav Ha-yashar article for Ref 42 and 46. Could the Middot reference be fixed; one red-link is probably acceptable fora GA (no red-links would be better)?Pyrotec (talk) 20:37, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

ref 49 fixed; created Kav ha-Yashar. Chesdovi (talk) 00:33, 10 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

POV issues, likely serious

This article should raise alarm bells on POV. For instance, the events of 1929 are treated in a seriously distorted fashion, the article currently says:

On August 14, 1929, after attacks on individual Jews praying at the Wall, 6,000 Jews demonstrated in Tel Aviv, shouting “The Wall is ours.” The next day, the Jewish fast of Tisha B'Av, 300 youths raised the Zionist flag and sang the Zionist anthem at the Wall.[30] The day after, on August 16, an organized mob of 2,000 Muslim Arabs descended on the Western Wall, injuring the beadle and burning prayer books, liturgical fixtures and notes of supplication. The rioting spread to the Jewish commercial area of town and was followed a few days later by the infamous Hebron massacre.[33]

Even the most highly regarded Israeli historians give a much more nuanced impression than this - Benny Morris in "Rightous Victims" says that the Muslims long feared a violent take-over of the Wall - p.112 "the Palestinian delegation to Mecca during the hajj, or pilgrimage, of 1922 had declared: "the Holy Places are in great danger on account of the horrible Zionist aggressions".

Morris doesn't mention any attacks on "individual Jews" on Aug 14th 1929 (and I don't see a reference for this). Rather, he infers that organised and/or mass violence was brought to the Wall (and for the first time?) by the Zionists, starting the following day with: "hundreds of Jews - some of them extremist members of Betar, carrying batons - demonstrated on the site". Benny Morris (a very, very long way from being a friend of the Palestinians!) says things like: "In 1928 the Muslims sought British confirmation of their traditional rights at the Wall, after all, they owned the Wall and the adjacent passage where the Jews worshipped.[226 Porath, 1976] ... Right-wing Zionists began to demand Jewish control of the Wall".

I'm also very alarmed at statements like this "In October 1928, the Grand Mufti organised a series of provocations against the Jews who prayed at the Wall. He ordered new construction next to and above the Wall, with bricks often falling on the worshippers below. The volume of the muezzin was turned up while the Jews were praying.[31]" being referenced to "The Case For Israel", a polemical work that, amongst other things, appears to justify torture and communal punishment. There seems no doubt that the construction work did interfere with worship - but we should be absolutely sure of our facts before claiming it was done provocatively to damage race relations. The Mufti, for all his faults, has too long been used as a propaganda bogeyman with the most absurd exaggeration of his influence. We reference the distinguished historian ~~(who specialises somewhat in Israel)~~ and convinced Zionist Martin Gilbert - but only for the trivial statement "The rioting spread to the Jewish commercial area of town and was followed a few days later by the infamous Hebron massacre.[33]". Again, alarm bells ring - where's his real scholarly input? PR^talk 16:49, 10 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

GA

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

Is it reasonably well written?
A. Prose quality:

B. MoS compliance:
Is it factually accurate and verifiable?
A. References to sources:

B. Citation of reliable sources where necessary:

C. No original research:
Is it broad in its coverage?
A. Major aspects:

B. Focused:
Is it neutral?
Fair representation without bias:
My view is yes, but one editor has raised concerns over one section - The events of 1929 - a small part of the overall article
Is it stable?
No edit wars, etc:
Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?
A. Images are copyright tagged, and non-free images have fair use rationales:

B. Images are provided where possible and appropriate, with suitable captions:
Overall:
Pass or Fail:
A claim of possible bias (POV) in one subsection does not undermine the overall level of the article, which is GA-level.

Congratulations, this article is now at GA-class. Pyrotec (talk) 19:06, 10 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've only documented from RS the POV problems at one section, but problems are clearly evident in several other places. The lead is seriously distorted - the statement "an important Jewish religious site located in the Old City of Jerusalem which is also of significance to Islam" is probably the reverse of the situation - 3/4s of what's now visible was put there by Muslims, some of it relatively recently. The pre-1967 section "Only Jordanian soldiers and tourists were to be found there" looks like Hasbara - access was not restricted by religion, whatever restrictions were placed on holders of Israeli passports. PR^talk 20:42, 10 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Whoa! Why did you pass the article when POV issues have been raised? In addition to the occasional POV, the "Wall in Islam" section is way to small. It briefly mentions what Muslims consider the wall to be and the remainder of the section is basically questioning whether or not the wall is holy in Islam or not. There is no mention of Palestinian or Israeli Arab visitation and prayer at the wall and although the restrictions that Jordan placed on Israelis is mentioned, I see nothing on the restrictions Israel places on Palestinians who wish to pray at the Wall. The POV issue was raised by PR and Nishidani before him, but were not addressed. POV is a major issue and should not be dismissed without discussion. Is it so hard just to fix it for the overall quality of the article? Those are two major issues that have been bypassed: NPOV and Broadness. Also, the Mufti issue was not addressed and the "Rabbis of the Wall" sub-sub section either should be merged with the main section or removed from the article. The "Structural damage" section should definitely be expanded. If these problems are ignored and are not addressed soon, then the article which is of a relatively good quality will be nominated for reassessment. --Al Ameer son (talk) 21:41, 10 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What is in the article is verifiable through references and in-line citations. The minor deficiencies that I raised in the GAR have been addressed quickly to my satisfaction. PR only raised questions, at 16:40 today, of POV about one small section that was a very minor portion of the article. He has not attempted to "correct" what is seen as POV, but has done other edits since. The latest points of POV raised by PR are a matter of emphasis, e.g, should it read "an important Jewish religious site located in the Old City of Jerusalem which is also of significance to Islam", or "an important Islamic religious site located in the Old City of Jerusalem which is also of significance to Israel", or some middle way? I don't have a strong view on that point and it appears that PR's view is not sufficiently strong to impel a "correction" of the perceived POV. The article will be at GA-level regardless of how the emphasis is laid in that particular sentence. The second claim of POV is an alleged distinction between "discrimination" by religion versus discrimination by PassPort holder, but no supporting evidence has been provided yet to back up the claim.

Al Ameer son has raised a number of points about perceived omissions from the article and gives helpful examples on how the article might be improved. There does not appear to be any recent evidence of edit wars, so I must presume that those editors who claim to see lack of balance in the article do not wish to improve the article themselves; and I don't understand why that should be so. Can I suggest that both editors expand the sections / subsections that they consider in need of expansion, adding adequate references and in-line citations to enable their statements to be verified. Again, expanding the "structural damage" section has no bearing on the Broadness of the article, or whether the article is at GA-class or not. The riots in February 2007 over a wall built in 19 BCE could be "down played" as a very recent event, but POV in this section would be unwise bearing in mind the sensitivities of the wall. However, you are welcome to expand that section, subject to the constraint of WP:Verify.Pyrotec (talk) 22:47, 10 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well put. The source hunting shall begin and the info instated as soon as possible. --Al Ameer son (talk) 23:24, 10 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent.Pyrotec (talk) 23:31, 10 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not an expert on this business, and I am more usefully engaged elsewhere. However, I can tell you of (and prove that) some parts of the article are severely POV - and I can point out one of the major problems, atrocious sources. We use a sensational passage from a book that was publicly discredited - in Scarborough Country on Sep 8th, 2003 the author of "The Case for Israel" said "I will give $10,000 to the P.L.O. in your name if you can find historical fact in my book that you can prove to be false". Go here for the challenge made and proved, (relevant part at minute 27.0 but lots that's significant) in a radio exchange that resulted 16 days later, Sept 24, 2003. (It's also on YouTube somewhere). According to p.80 of "The Case for Israel" book, "between 2,000 and 3,000 Arabs fled their homes" where Morris says 200,000 to 300,000 (p.256 of "Righteous Victims"). The $10,000 was never paid - hardly surprising, when the book stands credibly accused of "appropriates large swathes" from another hoax book - and then "goes one better ... cites absurd sources or stitches evidence out of whole cloth". There is another apparently wholly unjustifiable claim in the book at p.126, also mentioned at the debate. We use this source to claim that the Islamic establishment deliberately provoked the Jews by doing work on the wall? The allegation doesn't make any sense unless you suppose that Islam didn't care much for the wall - an astoundingly insulting and totally false insinuation. With adherence to Reliable Sources Policy so poor, there can be no way this article does the project credit. The article can only have been written as Hasbara, and it takes no more than a glance over it for this to be obvious. PR^talk 09:10, 11 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I will read Morris, but if this article is Hasbara why don't you attempt to balance it? I don't see why, for instance one of the passages mentioned could be changed to (for instance) "thousands of Arabs fled their homes: two to three thousand according to Ref 1, or 200 to 300 thousand according to ref 2" and the necessary sources provided; there are also many other ways that sentence could be rewritten. WikiPedia works on WP:Consensus, you have the power like any other editor to change/improve articles, subject to the WP:verify. You can also do it now; if I do it, it will not happen until I get hold of a copy of Morris, read it and decide what changes need to be made.Pyrotec (talk) 10:03, 11 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The "2,000 to 3,000" figure has been proven in a live, U-tubed, interview to be a complete falsehood - by a faux-historian who is not going to retract. And this is just one of the most obvious problems in an article that seems calculated to incite derision of one of the world's major religions. We demean the product of everyone elses efforts by this kind of conduct. PR^talk 22:28, 11 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

PR, Don't jump to conclusions! Dershowitz states twice in the interview words to the following effect: "My argument it’s very serious, that many of the Palestinians were told to leave by the commanders. If in fact 200,000 were told to leave instead of 2,000, that strengthens my argument. That is the argument that I make. If the book says 2,000 to 3,000 there were only two explanations. Either it is a typographical error or I have to check the book obviously, I was referring to a smaller phase. But it would be ridiculous for anybody to understate when the purpose would be to overstate." Personally I think it was a typo. 00 was missing after the 2! Chesdovi (talk) 01:28, 12 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Even if it was a typo, Dershowitz was obligated to pay up according to the conditions he'd set out in Scarborough Country on Sep 8th, 2003 where he said "I will give $10,000 to the P.L.O. in your name if you can find historical fact in my book that you can prove to be false". Dershowitz blustered and refused to pay - that's a pretty good indication of what kind of source he is. (Incidentally, the idea that 200,000 left because they were told to do so is a gross historical fabrication, up there with the kinds of things that David Irving was caught doing).

In any case, Finkelstein was only just getting into his stride - here's the second one he brought up - on page 126 of Dershowitz's book he claims "there is no evidence that Israeli soldiers deliberately killed even a single civilian in Jenin." There is ample evidence from multiple sources that Israeli soldiers did precisely this. Finkelstein quotes perhaps the most prestigious observers of all, Human Rights Watch "many of the civilian killings documented by Human Rights Watch are mounted to unlawful or willful killings by the IDF." Dershowitz somehow managed to drag the interview out so that Finkelstein was unable to introduce further examples - but those two alone are conclusive proof. PR^talk 19:25, 14 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Enough of your soapboxing. What relevance does this have to a GA review, already passed a month ago? or to the article? If you want to rant against Dershowitz, start a blog. Talk pages are for improving articles. Canadian Monkey (talk) 19:43, 14 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have a copy of Righteous Victims in front of me, opened at page 256. It mentions Arab commanders ordered villagers to leave, but there is no mention of numbers i.e NO 200,000, no 2,000, no 3,000, etc. The book is: Morris, Benny [1999] (2000). Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881-1999. London: John Murray (Publishers) Ltd ISBN 0-7195-6222-8.Pyrotec (talk) 20:32, 14 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have also checked your quotation from page 112 of Morris. Your quotation, in quotes, "the Palestinian delegation to Mecca during the hajj, or pilgrimage, of 1922 had declared: "the Holy Places are in great danger on account of the horrible Zionist aggressions", is generally correct, however you have missed out some words; but you have not indicated that some words are missing. Moreover, the preceding body of Morris' text says - 'The contention that the Jews were bent on taking over the compound, destroying the Islamic structures, and rebuilding the Temple had long been a theme in Arab propaganda. For example the Palestinian delegation to Mecca .....'.

What you said above (16:49, 10 October 2008 (UTC)) is:

Even the most highly regarded Israeli historians give a much more nuanced impression than this - Benny Morris in "Rightous Victims" says that the Muslims long feared a violent take-over of the Wall - p.112 .....

Your words and Morris' words appear to have different meanings to me. Morris says used in Propaganda, you say Morris said feared!!!Pyrotec (talk) 21:17, 14 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The lead

PR wrote: The lead is seriously distorted - the statement "an important Jewish religious site located in the Old City of Jerusalem which is also of significance to Islam" is probably the reverse of the situation - 3/4s of what's now visible was put there by Muslims, some of it relatively recently.

According to the article, only the top 3 rows were added by a Muslim. The first 7 are Herodian, the next 4 were “added by Umayyads”. This means during that period, maybe by Jews? Even if it was done at the behest of a Muslim governor, it is doubtful that it was done to enhance the significance of the site. It was probably general maintenance, as layers of the same period are also found on the southern wall. The next 14 rows were added at the request of the Jew Monrefiore. Provide infomation which would change the wording to something stronger than "significance". Is it holy because a winged steed was teathered there? (NB. I read a hadith that said Buraq was tied to the Sakrah). I think the lead should give more weight to Judaism as it has gained the status of the holiest and most venerated Jewish site. Chesdovi (talk) 01:56, 12 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]