Template:Did you know nominations/Sursock Purchases

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) 20:12, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

Sursock Purchases

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The Sursock Purchases (red circle)

... that reaction to the sale of al-Fule, one of the Sursock Purchases, was the most significant Anti-Zionist event in Palestine prior to World War I? Source: Emanuel Beska, 2014, Political Opposition to Zionism in Palestine and Greater Syria: 1910–1911 as a Turning Point: "As the debate regarding the crown lands was still under way another, more important event started to develop. The sale of lands of the village of al-Fula to the Jewish National Fund can be considered in this context the most significant event that took place in the period before the outbreak of the First World War. The lands of al-Fula belonged to Ilyas Sursuq, the wealthy Greek Orthodox banker, merchant, and landowner from Beirut, who in 1910 reached a deal on their sale with the Zionists... The peasant inhabitants refused to leave their village and were supported in their resistance by the qa’immaqam (district governor) of Nazareth, Shukri al-‘Asali (1878–1916), who was resolutely opposed to this transaction and became a major protagonist in the affair."

Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Statue of Laxmi-Narayan

Created by Onceinawhile (talk). Self-nominated at 01:44, 9 February 2021 (UTC).

The cited source talks about the importance of the sale, not the reaction to it. Regardless, a claim like "most significant" needs to be attributed unless you can show that it's more than the opinion of one author. (t · c) buidhe 03:15, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

Many thanks for your comment. The context of Beška's wider article is clear that this refers to the importance of the reaction. See for example the introduction: "The relatively short period at the turn of the year 1910–1911 was of profound importance for the development of political opposition to Zionism in Palestine and its neighboring Arab regions. During a period of about a year, several important events and incidents occurred; a number of Arab journalists, notables, and officers became involved in anti-Zionist activities and campaigns; and the quantity of articles critical of Zionism published in the Arabic press markedly increased. Based on these and other reasons, we are convinced that the months at the end of 1910 and the first half of 1911 represent the turning point in the attitudes of the educated Arab public toward Jewish land purchases in Palestine, Jewish immigration, and the Zionist movement." Onceinawhile (talk) 08:48, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

@Buidhe: a second source as requested: Rashid Khalidi (1997). Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness. Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-10515-6.: "These themes are reiterated during one of the earliest cases of organized opposition to Zionist land purchase in Palestine: the al-Fula (or ‘Afula) incident of 1910-1911. Many newspaper articles written in opposition to this sale stressed the special place of Palestine, for it was one of the biggest purchases up to that point, and one of the earliest to lead to the eviction of large numbers of Palestinian peasants… The twentieth-century incidents in the Tiberias region and at al-Fula, especially the latter, are significant because of the major effect they were to have in the context of Ottoman and Arab nationalist politics and in the coalescence of Palestinian identity… Important as had been the al-Shajara incidents in 1901-4 and their bloody sequel in 1909, which repeated the pattern of the earlier clashes in Petah Tiqva and elsewhere while taking the conflict to a higher level, a far greater impact was created by events in al-Fula… Although the end result for many of the fellahin involved was the same—dispossession and homelessness—the al-Fula purchase marked the beginning of an overt and articulate anti-Zionist campaign… In large part as a result of al-‘Asali’s actions, the al-Fula incident became a cause celebre in bilad al-Sham, with dozens of articles appearing in news papers in Damascus, Beirut, Haifa, and elsewhere over a period of over a year... The sharp, continuing controversy sparked off by the al-Fula sale, an otherwise minor incident, underlines the importance of the dispossession and consequent resistance of the Palestinian peasantry in making the issue of Zionism a central one in Arab political discourse before 1914… The coalescence of all these factors made the al-Fula clashes between Arab fellahin and Jewish settlers more significant than the many others that preceded it and that involved a few of the same elements."

Does this address your questions? Onceinawhile (talk) 22:42, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

Not really, the second source appears to say that it is the most significant incident of opposition to Jewish land purchases during that era but the claim in the hook does not follow from that. Anyway, I think a better hook would focus on the purchases themselves as opposed to the reaction to them. It looks like Al-Fula incident is a notable topic that could have its own article. (t · c) buidhe 23:35, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

@Buidhe: I think these sources very clearly support the hook, so perhaps let’s get a third opinion. In the meantime, given you are well read on Israeli-Palestinian history, please could you confirm whether you consider the proposed hook likely to be accurate, or if you are unsure, whether you are aware of any other pre-WWI outbreak of Anti-Zionism in Palestine that could be considered equally or more significant? Onceinawhile (talk) 22:43, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

Full review needed, including an additional opinion on the hook claims. Thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 03:55, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

On second thought, it has been over a month since nomination and review, and a QPQ has still not been provided. Onceinawhile, please provide the QPQ within seven days if you wish to continue pursuing this nomination. Thank you. BlueMoonset (talk) 18:25, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

Thanks @BlueMoonset: now done. Onceinawhile (talk) 20:14, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, Onceinawhile. With a QPQ supplied, full review is still needed here, including an additional opinion on the hook claims. BlueMoonset (talk) 23:18, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

The sources and text do not back up the claim made in the hook --Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 04:47, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

Guerillero, how about:

ALT1: ...that the Sursock Purchases represented almost a quarter of all land purchased by Jews in Palestine until 1948?
ALT2: ...that the Sursock Purchases were of vital importance in allowing the territorial continuity of Jewish settlement in Palestine?

Both sourced to the quote in footnote 7. Onceinawhile (talk) 00:31, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

ALT1 looks good. factual, neutral.Selfstudier (talk) 13:07, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Alt 1 looks good, but there are close paraphrasing concerns for example:

quick purchase, and rapid self-sufficiency by means of general agriculture made the jezreel valley the focus of the Zionist Organization’s land purchasing plans. The Zionist Organization thought the Jezreel Valley to be significantly more desirable, for instance, than even the coastal region where smaller parcels of land were available for purchase.
Urgency for large settlements, quick purchase, and rapid self-sufficiency by means of general agriculture made the Jezreel Valley the focus of land purchasing plans. The Zionist Organization thought the Jezreel Valley to be more desirable than even the coastal region where smaller parcels of land were available for purchase.

and

Because the villagers paid tithes to the Sursock family in Beirut for the right to work the agricultural lands in the villages, they were deemed tenant farmers by the British Mandate authorities in Palestine, and the right of the Sursock family to sell the land to the JNF was upheld by the authorities.
Because the villagers paid tithes to the Sursock family in Beirut for the right to work the agricultural lands in the villages, they were deemed tenant farmers by the British Mandate authorities in Palestine, and the right of the Sursock family to sell the land to the JNF was upheld by the authorities.

We are pretty close to COPYVIO territory here

(While this is outside of the DYK criteria, sursockhouse.com does not look like a RS to me) --Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 18:39, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

Thanks @Guerillero: for spotting these. Both these sentences came from the version of Sursock family which this article was originally split from [1]. It looks like they were added there three years ago.[2] I will fix them. Onceinawhile (talk) 19:03, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

Hi @Guerillero: I believe this has now been fixed. Many thanks. Onceinawhile (talk) 22:38, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

Comment As the text was taken from other wiki articles[3] it should be expanded 5 times in seven days I am sorry but I don't see it correct me if I'm wrong --Shrike (talk) 14:51, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

I don’t think the rules work like that, particularly since the text here was built independently from scratch, only a very small amount was taken from other articles, and the small amount of incorporated text came from three other articles not just one.

It is academic though as if the rules did apply per your suggestion, the article would qualify under the 5x expanded rule as the 7-day version[4] includes much less than a fifth of the article in text incorporated from other articles.

Onceinawhile (talk) 17:31, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

What percent of the text you have taken from other articles? --Shrike (talk) 17:54, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

Less than 10%. 4 or 5 sentences at most. Onceinawhile (talk) 08:00, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

I have done some comparison [5],[6],[7]. We should combine all the red parts to understand how much percent was taken from other articles. --Shrike (talk) 08:30, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Hi @Guerillero: are you happy to continue your review? Many thanks. Onceinawhile (talk) 08:08, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

@Onceinawhile: it is going to take a bit to wade through all of the stuff Shrike posted above. The fact that this article is showing a 70% overlap with some others is worrying when you say that only 10% of the text was moved. --Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 03:54, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

@Guerillero: this is par for the course unfortunately, as Shrike regularly shadows my DYK submissions, for example Template:Did you know nominations/Mausoleum of Abu Huraira, Template:Did you know nominations/Hebraization of Palestinian place names, Template:Did you know nominations/Enclave law, Template:Did you know nominations/First Jordan Hydro-Electric Power House, and many others.

A few points to clear up: Shrike's link above has compared the initial draft of the article, not the 7-day version or the current version. It does not say 70% overlap; it says 70% probability of some copying. If the algorithm was perfect it would have said 100%, because I explicitly attributed in the edit summary that some of the content had come from those three articles. In the subsequent drafts of the article, I changed, removed, and sourced most of what was brought across, which was of pretty poor quality.

In terms of assessing Shrike's claim, the accurate way to do it is to look at the actual highlighted sentences in whatever version of the article you consider most relevant to the DYK.

Onceinawhile (talk) 07:54, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

New enough and long enough. I am going to take the splits as de minimus enough to not do the calculations for a 5x expand, but in passing it looks like it passes that bar. The copyvio concerns have been addressed. I am only approving ALT1. Let me know if there are other alts that the promoters would want to use --Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 20:38, 3 April 2021 (UTC)