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Template:Did you know nominations/Nakba

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The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by SL93 (talk) 16:42, 16 May 2021 (UTC)

Nakba

  • ... that the Nakba has been described as an ongoing catastrophe? Source: See quotations in footnotes 4-7 of the current version[1] of the article.

Created by Onceinawhile (talk). Self-nominated at 23:17, 4 April 2021 (UTC).

:* Absolutely not. A blatant POV fork that just barely escaped speedy deletion with the closer recommending a redirect or merge with the article it was forked from. Kenosha Forever (talk) 23:27, 4 April 2021 (UTC) blocked by Bradv as a sock of NoCal100

    • (Admin who declined the speedy deletion here). The article clearly did not meet WP:CSD#A10, which only applies if the new article adds nothing AND its title is not a plausible redirect. So it did not "barely escape speedy deletion". I recommended to anyone wishing for deletion to consider redirecting or merging, but I did not recommend any particular action myself. —Kusma (𐍄·𐌺) 18:19, 5 April 2021 (UTC)
    • Strange, this doesn't seem like an AfD discussion...Selfstudier (talk) 23:37, 4 April 2021 (UTC)
    • I think this could be usable, but it maybe needs a more detailed hook. Kokopelli7309 (talk) 14:39, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
  • ALT1 ... that the Nakba – the destruction of Palestinian society and homeland and the permanent displacement of a majority of the Palestinian people – has been described as an ongoing catastrophe?
  • ALT2 Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish described the Nakba as "an extended present that promises to continue in the future."?
  • ALT3 the Nakba greatly influenced the Palestinian culture and is a foundational symbol of Palestinian identity?
  • ALT4 the Palestinian Nakba resulted in the loss of their homeland, the fragmentation and marginalization of their national community, and their transformation into a stateless people?
Hi @Kokopelli7309: thanks for your comment. Some more detailed alternatives for consideration - what do you think? Nakba Day is in about three weeks (15 May) - I am hoping that this DYK could be up on that day. Onceinawhile (talk) 21:36, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

New reviewer needed. Onceinawhile (talk) 19:52, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

  • Came to review, but am concerned that the issue raised by the sock puppet is actually valid. I don't see a clear dividing line between this article and the much larger article 1948 Palestinian exodus, which used to have Nakba as an alternate title. Can you explain the difference? --GRuban (talk) 13:10, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
Hi GRuban, yes sure. This article was created after a discussion which concluded the two topics were different. On the back of that, work was done to gather the best sources for an article on the Nakba, with a clear scope defined by those sources.
The scholarly definitions of the Nakba from those sources are quoted in the footnotes of the article, but I will try to answer your question in layman's terms. The simplest way to perceive the Nakba is in its literal translation. The Nakba is the Palestinian Catastrophe. That catastrophe was much more than the fact that many people had to leave. It is that the country ceased to exist, that its history was erased, its society fractured, its people denationalized and displaced (much of the displacement was internal, which was not part of the exodus). The Nakba encompasses the impact on all Palestinian lives, not just those who had to leave; and it is commonly said to be ongoing given the continuing persecution, displacement, and occupation of the Palestinians still under Israeli control.
Onceinawhile (talk) 13:35, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
  • OK, I can accept that. So then it should be much larger than the 1948 Palestinian exodus rather than the other way around? So it's nowhere near complete? I guess completeness isn't part of the DYK requirements. Reviewing:
General: Article is new enough and long enough

Policy compliance:

  • Adequate sourcing: No - yAlmost; need a cite for second paragraph under "Dispossession and erasure"
  • Neutral: No - yNo; we do need to cover the Israeli point of view on the Nakba, all we've got is an "Israeli law" paragraph about how one politician tried to outlaw commemoration, which isn't really comprehensive.
  • Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing: Yes
Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation

QPQ: No - yn
Overall: So, multiple issues. The cite is no big deal, there are loads to choose from, that should be easy. The neutrality needs a fair bit of content, I'm afraid, and given the high quality of sources used in the rest of the article needs to have high quality sourcing there as well. And I think you need a quid pro quo review, unless this is one of your first few DYKs? If you fix all that, please ping. For the hooks, I prefer ALT1, followed by 0 and 2. ALT3 seems to minimize it (alongside a cartoon? and a key that we don't even have an article on?), while ALT4 is just wrong, as you describe it, the Nakba didn't result in the loss, fragmentation, transformation, the Nakba is the loss, fragmentation and transformation. Right? That is part of the confusion there. GRuban (talk) 14:25, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

Thanks @GRuban: for reviewing this. I have done the QPQ and added the citation. I am fine with ALT1.
On the neutrality question, would you be able to give me some more guidance? Part of the challenge is that, as you say, the article is not currently a complete summary of all aspects of the Nakba, so nor can I currently give a complete summary of all perspectives on the same. At this point all perspectives will be incomplete, but I do agree that we must still maintain neutrality which I perceive as being done if we hit the right "relative weighting" for the various perspectives.
In writing the article, I have tried to stay away from any of the really contentious ground - the article doesn't say which side caused the displacement, it doesn't argue why the towns were demolished and their names changed, it doesn't seek to explain why those who crossed the borders were denationalized, and it's doesn't seek to discuss the legality of laws enacted to take possession of the land. It just says that these things happened (factual statements, to which there are no "two sides") and that taken together they are considered a catastrophe for Palestinians (again a factual statement, which the Israeli mainstream agrees with). If you asked an Israeli on the street for their view of the Nakba, you would get answers very similar to these: "Israelis: What do you think of Palestinian property confiscated in 1948 war?" A mix of "sure it's a shame", "that's war", whataboutism, "it was their fault" etc etc. There is no coherent "Israeli view" on the Palestinian tragedy.
If there are specific sentences or paragraphs which you consider would benefit from alternative viewpoints, I would find that much easier to implement. Onceinawhile (talk) 22:44, 6 May 2021 (UTC)
For the QPQ, I know when I reviewed DYKs, I got in trouble once or twice for just saying "ok" or "not ok" without going point by point, as in the template I used here. But maybe that has changed: I've reviewed maybe a dozen DYKs, but I'm not a DYK-review-reviewer. For neutrality, please take a look at the section 1948 Palestinian exodus#Role in the Palestinian and Israeli narratives. This whole Nakba article is quite similar to the Palestinian narrative section of that article. To balance, we want something like the Israeli narrative section; though, I admit, that one is not very well sourced. You've picked a hard article to write, which you can tell by how long it took to get a DYK reviewer! Honestly, if you just present a section reading a mix of "sure it's a shame", "that's war", whataboutism, "it was their fault" etc etc, with good sourcing for each (not just Youtube man-on-the-street interviews, you've got scholarly sources for the rest of the article, you want to match that), that would probably satisfy. --GRuban (talk) 23:13, 6 May 2021 (UTC)
Hi GRuban, thanks for this. On QPQ's I have reviewed about 50 or so in my time and have usually done it in prose form. On the 1948 Palestinian exodus#Role in the Palestinian and Israeli narratives I have read that a few times and find the whole thing to be poor quality. The Palestinian narratives and Israeli narratives sections are covering entirely different sub-topics and fail to present a coherent picture of the various perspectives. That whole article needs some real work. I can't use the Israeli narrative section here because it is all about the cause of the exodus, and I really don't want to get into that in either direction (we have a whole article dedicated to it at Causes of the 1948 Palestinian exodus).
I will see what I can do on the proposal in your last sentence, and will ping you when done. Onceinawhile (talk) 23:24, 6 May 2021 (UTC)
Hi GRuban I have spent the last 10 days on and off looking for good quality sourcing for criticism of the Nakba. All I have been able to find is non-RS extremist blogs, and a few months ago some news about the Israeli ambassador to the UK calling it a lie[2] (when you listen to her words, she doesn’t present any substance behind the claim[3]).
I can’t find any reliable sources or any other form of mainstream criticism.
Onceinawhile (talk) 22:51, 15 May 2021 (UTC)
I'm not asking for criticism of the Nakba, just for the Israeli view. If that view is supportive or mixed or neutral that is perfectly fine too, just some good scholarly sources on what that or those views is or are. I can't believe there are no Israeli views on such an important thing; say what you like about Israelis, but no one has ever called them restrained in their opinions! --GRuban (talk) 23:05, 15 May 2021 (UTC)
Well it's today, isn't it? I think this idea of criticism is a wrong way of looking at it. The truth of it, as far as truth can be found, is that Israeli independence and the initial Palestinian Nakba are two narratives about the same events and never the twain shall meet. It is not specifically about the rights and wrongs of what happened then and since, it is that it is difficult if not impossible for a participant to hold the idea of both in their heads at the same time, they are contradictory. https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/jewish-israelis-should-stop-being-afraid-of-the-nakba-1.9761766 is a good as anything I have read up to now.Selfstudier (talk) 23:18, 15 May 2021 (UTC)
I was trying to post mine and kept getting edit conflict, anyway, same conclusion, it's not that it is criticism.Selfstudier (talk) 23:25, 15 May 2021 (UTC)
Thanks @GRuban and Selfstudier: I think I have found a good source which covers this elegantly:
Motti Golani; Adel Manna (2011). Two Sides of the Coin: Independence and Nakba 1948. Institute for Historical Justice and Reconciliation. p. 14. ISBN 9789089790811. The Palestinians regard the Nakba and its repercussions as a formative trauma defining their identity and their national, moral, and political aspirations. As a result of the 1948 war, the Palestinian people, which to a large degree lost their country to the establishment of a Jewish state for the survivors of the Holocaust, developed a victimized national identity. From their perspective, the Palestinians have been forced to pay for the Jewish Holocaust with their bodies, their property, and their freedom instead of those who were truly responsible. Jewish Israelis, in contrast, see the war and its outcome not merely as an act of historical justice that changed the historical course of the Jewish people, which until that point had been filled with suffering and hardship, but also as a birth – the birth of Israel as an independent Jewish state after two thousand years of exile. As such, it must be pure and untainted, because if a person, a nation, or a state is born in sin, its entire essence is tainted. In this sense, discourse on the war is not at all historical but rather current and extremely sensitive. Its power and intensity is directly influenced by present day events. In the Israeli and the Palestinian cases, therefore, the 1948 war plays a pivotal role in two simple, clear, unequivocal, and harmonious narratives, with both peoples continuing to see the war as a formative event in their respective histories.
Onceinawhile (talk) 11:25, 16 May 2021 (UTC)
Yes, in essence, I think that covers it.Selfstudier (talk) 11:28, 16 May 2021 (UTC)
I have implemented it here: [4]. Onceinawhile (talk) 11:44, 16 May 2021 (UTC)
Good enough for DYK. Thank you! I struck the "no"s in my form and replaced with "y"s but it still marks them with crosses; hopefully the closing editor will understand.--GRuban (talk) 13:17, 16 May 2021 (UTC)