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Being a relentless POV pusher. An epistemological note

Often one overreads into errors. They may or may not be casual or fortuitious, or the result of haste. But, if you begin to comb an editor's edits for proof of a pattern, it is easy, as one scans hundreds of diffs hastily, to get that impression confirmed. This is an epistemological vice that lies behind all sorts of personal, social and historical misprisions, and one we should all take on board if we are to avoid the predictable consequences of suspiciousness. One example I noted yesterday, which I didn't trouble to annotate, but which lies there, unrebutted. I've mulled it overnight. It endorses my own view that we are all fallible, even the best intentioned makes slips, and nothing is to be read into them, unless of course the slips are so consistently bad, we finally have to conclude that the systematic distortion of evidence is intentional.

I do think, among other things, that you (just you, not everyone) are a relentless POV pusher, who subtly changes what the sources say to advance a POV. Those "slips" you mention above do indeed look bad and can hardly be explained by "haste". Just like in the examples you give above that are supposed to showcase your wonderful NPOV editing, an 18 year old Palestinian who stabs people is called a "boy" (not in the source) or an Israeli who is stabbed in the stomach (in the source) turns into "lightly wounded in the torso", or the many many many other such examples I could bring if anyone actually cared about the integrity of this encyclopedia.

  • an 18 year old Palestinian who stabs people is called a "boy" (not in the source).
I presume, since no link is provided, that this refers to this edit and its follow-up, where I mention an 18 year old Palestinian as being a "teenager", and for stylistic variation, then write:'The boy was arrested by an armed guard and Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat.. This is in the source cited =' a 18-year-old Arab teen.'
I had 'teen' before me in the source, and, to avoid reduplication, glossed it as 'boy' for stylistic variation.
Now a reader who reads this with a suspicious eye for evidence to confirm a preconception, can read formidable implications into it. By making an 18 year old person attempting to commit a grievous bodily assault with a lethel weapon, out to be a 'boy', am I not manipulating things to insinuate some sympathy ('yes a Palestinian stabbed an Israeli, but the assailant was just a kid')? Possible. But, little matter that the source I first used described him as a 'teen', a synonym for 'boy'. Little matter that a casual glance for the definition of boyMerriam-Webster yields ‘a young man’, and in the Oxford Dictionary ‘A male child or youth’. Little matter that, if you think that, you should, if you are empirically minded, google "18 year old boy" to verify whether this is normal English (you get about 191,000 hits, all using in a vast variety of sociological, psychological texts, novels, etc, precisely this term). No. Just refract the difference through an 'antisemite' lens, and you can, I imagine, get an edgy sense that there's again a hint here that the editor (Nishidani) is manipulating language to downplay to partisan advantage the seriousness of an incident in which an innocent Israeli was the victim of a terrorist.
  • an Israeli who is stabbed in the stomach (in the source) turns into "lightly wounded in the torso".
Well, 'the text says stabbed in the stomach' yes, but the headline says Soldier stabbed, sustains light wounds to torso. I actually recall thinking over this as I read the evidence and mulled the edit. Stomach means the digestive organ but also the epidermal area external to, but aligned with, the stomach. When one 'crawls on one's stomach', one does not crawl on the digestive organ, unless we are speaking of gastropods. The source doesn't clarify which is meant, but if the stab wound punctured the stomach, then the reporter and his editor are idiots in describing this as 'a light wound'.
The scene is described by Reuters thus:

Before Barkat intervened, the distant but distinct black-and-white footage showed a man waving his arm in a stabbing motion and making contact with one individual and attempting to stab others as they waited to cross the road. When they realized what had happened, the pedestrians ran clear. The stab victim was rushed to hospital but was not seriously hurt, medical officials said.

I don't trust any news reports at face value. All of them have internal contradictions, are partial, or just superficial. One doesn't know. One simply choses the least ambiguous term and paraphrases, hoping for the best.
Lesson. The editor in question was a victim of 'haste', in making two errors, almost certainly unintentional, while attempting, ironically, to disprove that my own two errors were due to haste. I tend to think one of my own two errors earlier 8than these two) may indeed suggest that unconscious bias influenced that edit. But if this 'slip' can be construed as evidence of tendentiousness, then idem, the same goes for the editor above. I prefer to think that, in a medium like this, we all have our lapses, and frailties, and the sensible thing is, when they occur, to note them, drop a note, or correct them, without nagging the bone of suspicion to create a psychological drama.Nishidani (talk) 12:44, 23 May 2015 (UTC)
Allow me to help you out here before you congratulate yourself a little too much:
  • In the first case, the source uses the following descriptors - "18-year-old Arab teen", "terrorist", and "the attacker". "Terrorist" we don't use. "Teen" you used already. What's wrong with "the attacker"? It's in the source, it's descriptive, it's neutral, it's used in the same context where you use "boy", and it doesn't imply he wasn't an adult. Why didn't you use that?
Have you ever called an 18 year old Israeli who tried to kill a Palestinian a "boy"? That would definately convince me you think the term is neutral and appropriate for any 18 year old.
  • In the second case (source. You're quoting the wrong one above) you completely removed the perpetrator and put the whole thing in a passive voice. A reader will not know a Palestinian stabbed an Israeli in the stomach. All he sees is that an "Israeli was lightly wounded in the torso". Maybe he slipped and hurt himself on a rock as he was trying to put his boot on a Palestinian's neck? Perhaps he was running to oppress a Palestinian, didn't look where he was going, ran into a tree and got a splinter in the back? Somebody tried to kill this guy with a knife, but a reader will not know that.
By the way - "light wound" usually means a wound that doesn't require surgery to repair (and is not life threatening, of course). So in this case he was probably stabbed in the belly, without much damage to an internal organ. There was still blood as you can see in the pictures.
To conclude: you were not "chos[ing] the least ambiguous term and paraphrases", and can't even see you weren't after it's pointed out to you. That's a problem. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 04:20, 24 May 2015 (UTC)
Okay, let me reformulate this with visual simplicity to try and get througfh to you what you are consistently doing.
You are convinced that
  • I am an anti-Semite
  • dangerous to Wikipedia
  • also (the present case) because I subtly falsify sources-
  • to document the latter you provide two extra 'bits of evidence'
  • (a)'an 18 year old Palestinian who stabs people is called a "boy" (not in the source)
  • (b) 'an Israeli who is stabbed in the stomach (in the source) turns into "lightly wounded in the torso",
I replied to (a) You slipped up. The source says teen, which every native English speaker uses interchangeably with boy.
I replied to (b) You slipped up. The source uses precisely the words I used.
Those are the facts. How do you react? You made exactly the kind of error you attributed to me. Your misreading is proof of nothing for you. My putative errors are proof of malice. If I screw up, we have a pathology (anti-Semitism). If you screw, well, you just keep pushing on your case.
In logical form, you have two premises-
  • (1) If a an apparent divergence, even minute, between source and text, can be detected in N's work, the discrepancy is proof of deliberate distortion with malicious intent ('Jew-baiting, getting at Jews).
  • (2) If N shows my assertions are false, by indicating my claims of distortion were based on disattention and misrepresentation, the discrepancy between my claims and the evidence is proof that . . . . N is wrong.
What is going on here was diagnosed by Hume centuries ago, and there is a vast literature on the psychology of prejudice, or cranky speculative tendencies in human kind. The rule is: prejudice is a state of mind in which, once a person has committed himself to an idea, or emotional impression, no evidence can undermine it. To the contrary, any counter-indications, or disproof, rather than sow seeds of doubt, only tend to confirm the original suspicion.
Concretely in the present case: 'I(NMMGG) know Nishidani is an anti-Semite, and I've given him my evidence, and the way he responds to my evidence only confirms that my original impression is correct,
Hume analyses this commonplace human frailty or self-confirming state of delusion, thus:

As belief is almost absolutely requisite to the exciting our passions, so the passions in their turn are very favourable to belief; and not only such facts as convey agreeable emotions, but very often such as give pain, do upon that account become more readily the objects of faith and opinion. A coward, whose fears are easily awaken'd, readily assents to every account of danger he meets with; as a person of a sorrowful and melancholy disposition is very credulous of every thing, that nourishes his prevailing passion. When any affecting object is presented, it gives the alarm, and excites immediately a degree of its proper passion; especially in persons who are naturally inclined to that passion. This emotion passes by an easy transition to the imagination; and diffusing itself over our idea of the affecting object, makes us form that idea with greater force and vivacity, and consequently assent to it, according to the precedent system.' David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, ed. Ernest C. Mossner,(1739/1740) Penguin 1985 p.169.

I suppose even this is more evidence I'm an anti-Semite.Nishidani (talk) 09:05, 24 May 2015 (UTC)
I suppose we can argue about the "boy" thing, although google shows that "man" or "young man" are more popular and you had a perfectly good "the attacker" in the article, but when the source says a Palestinian stabbed an Israeli and your report removed the Palestinian and the stabbing, and you think that's ok, there's definitely a problem. You used the words in the article, only not enough of them to convey a precise and full account of what happened. You honestly don't see that?
Your "logic form" is so flawed, I won't even bother to correct it. You are obviously unable to understand what I'm thinking. Or more precisely, your attempt to analyze my thoughts is so influenced by your sense of victimhood, you are not even close. But like you like to say, that's a normal and natural flaw.
That quote above describes you to a tee. Everything I say you jump with your whiny "he thinks I'm an anti-semite!" "is he implying I'm an anti-semite?" "he can't be right, he's only saying I'm an anti-semite!". Get over yourself. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 17:09, 24 May 2015 (UTC)
Incorrigible.

'Your "logic form" is so flawed, I won't even bother to correct it.'

I made no attempt to analyse your thoughts. Why should I? Not even you appear to do that (analyse your thoughts: you're too busy trying to figure out mine, and that's the problem) I analysed your premises. You have no answer but to repeat yourself. p.s. I don't 'whine'. It's rather puerile to suggest that: you try to insult me with an absurd smear, I reply reasonably, and you jump at that as a proof of being my too touchy. I've seen more self-awareness in a kindergarten, chum. Indeed, being touchy when smeared is, for you, proof there's something wrong with my 'attitude'. It's rather like an unprovoked bully complainingwhining that the person he is trying to beat up is putting up a stalwart defense to protect himself. I must be 'whiny', an adjective that suggests some lacrimose sense of resentment of the downtrodden (See Dostoievsky's Notes from the underground). To to the contrary, I, well, wine only when I dine, and it being close to 8 p.m. here, thanks for the hint. I'm sure a fine repaste awaits me in the kitchen. Cheerio, poor fellow.Nishidani (talk) 17:35, 24 May 2015 (UTC)
I swear to god I knew you'd latch on to the word "whine". Of course you're trying to analyze my thoughts. What you call my "premises" is what you think I'm thinking. Stop it. You're not good at it.
I asked you a simple question: Source says "A stabbed B, wounding him lightly". In the article, you put "B was wounded lightly". An active act becomes passive. A is completely removed. The stabbing is removed. It is no longer an attempted murder, it may be an accident. You think this is OK? Stop telling me why you think I'm asking. Stop pretending to be hunted when you were the one who brought this up as an exemplar of your NPOV editing, and just answer the question. Why did you think not reporting what the article said about the perpetrator and the actual act was an NPOV way to describe the event? Can you explain it? I doubt it. Here's a great opportunity for you to attempt some self-awareness, pal. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 18:21, 24 May 2015 (UTC)
You're not a paragon of dialectical courtesy, I ask questions, you don't answer them. You keep raising queries successively about my responses to your questions. Okay I'll give you a leg up since you're way out of your depth and don't know how to formulate an argument, pursue it logically or reply cogently. Let's regard this fantasy of yours as a serious hypothesis worthy of verification. To make the theory you have one datum, always a bad move. Unique events cannot be verified scientifically. But, anyhow,
N sees a source writing "A(Palestinian) caused B (Israeli) harm".
There's something suspicious in the way he has recast this in the form
"An Israeli was harmed". and the assailant is removed.
There are seven cases in which stabbing is registered, divided between the active and the passive voice.
(A)8 January. 'A 21-year-old ultra-orthodox yeshiva student was stabbed in the upper body by an assailant, using a screwdriver, while walking on Sultan Suleiman Street near the Damascus Gate. The assault is believed to be motivated by nationalist feelings, initial reports speaking of an Arab fleeing the scene. Police later arrested a 15-year-old Palestinian from East Jerusalem on suspicion of having caused the injury.
(B)21 January.'Israeli passengers were stabbed in a Tel Aviv bus by Hamza Muhammad Hasan Matrouk (23) from the West Bank Nur Shams refugee camp of Tulkarm. 16 passengers were wounded, of them 4 seriously and 3 moderately. The terrorist was apprehended after being shot in the leg during a chase, nearby.'
(C)22 February.'Abraham Goldstein, an ultra-Orthodox Jewish man was stabbed in the stomach by a Palestinian teenager, Mahmoud Abu Aosba, (18) from Birzeit. The incident occurred in Safra Square in Jerusalem. The boy was arrested by an armed guard and Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat.'
(D) 8 April.'8 April Two Israeli soldiers were stabbed, one suffering a serious neck wound, by Muhammad Jasser Karakra of the village of Sinjil. The incident took place at 10 a.m. north of Ramallah on Route 60 near the settlement of Shilo. The assailant was shot dead by First Sergeant Tomer Lan, who was lightly wounded.
(E)20 April.'A 27-year-old Israeli Palestinian street cleaner[206] or construction worker for the Herzliya Municipality was stabbed by a man, reportedly with a Russian accent, who screamed "Death to Arabs" and then wounded him in the shoulder. Police arrested a suspect, who has reportedly confessed'
The source for E, nota bene, is Ma'an News Agency which used the active tense of an Israeli stabbing a Palestinian, and had this skewed by me into the passive tense (Israeli stabs Palestinian worker near Tel Aviv).
(F)25 April.'A Palestinian from Idhna, Mahmoud Abu Jheisha (20), initially wrongly identified as Assad al-Salayma,[218] was shot dead when, rushing a combat unit, he stabbed an Israeli soldier three times near the Cave of the Patriarchs[219] ("Ibrahimi Mosque"[218]) in Hebron.'
(G)23 May. ' A 19 year old Palestinian stabbed two 17 year old Israeli youths in the back as they were on their way to prayer at the Western Wall for Shavuot. It added to a spate of similar attacks in this period.'
I've struck out (G) because as evidence it is contaminated since I wrote it after you raised this contention.
If your active/passive verb tense+Israeli/Palestinian 'theorum' functions, it must find confirmation in some consistent differential indicative of bias over these 7 instances.
So, pull your finger out and do some homework for a change. As you do so, extend it to be more comprehensive.
Give me the analysis of the ethnic breakdown of the victims of violence who are described in the passive voice in that article you're citing from. Check
'was injured' No. Israelis =?/No, Palestians =?
'was shot' No. Israelis =?/ No.Palestinians=?
I'm taking in a movie, so take your time.Nishidani (talk) 19:35, 24 May 2015 (UTC)
Your accusing me of not answering your questions and then going ahead and not answering mine is somewhat amusing.
Here are some simple, direct, yes/no questions. Maybe they will be easier and allow you less of an opportunity to beat around the bush:
  1. Would a reader understand that a person was stabbed in the original case we're discussing? Yes or no?
  2. Was a person stabbed? Yes or no?
  3. Did a Palestinian do it? Yes or no?
  4. Can a reader glean a Palestinian did it from the article? Yes or no?
  5. Considering your above answers, did the edit conform with Wikipedia policies? Yes or no?
(side note: you claim my theory must find confirmation in your short list of cherry picked examples, and then accuse me of not knowing how to pursue an argument logically. As if the fact you don't do something all the time means you don't do it at all. I forget the term for that fallacy). No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 20:56, 24 May 2015 (UTC)
I just saw your "Forrest Gump" edit summary. Good one. FYI, every time you call me an idiot or make fun of my English skills I know I hit a nerve. It's a very convenient tell. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 20:59, 24 May 2015 (UTC)
I feel like Forrest Gump, replying seriously to someone as ill-mannered as yourself. There was nothing 'cherry-picked', again the choice of word indicates prejudice, since every instance in the page was included. For you information, 'cherry pick' means selecting from a large sample (A) to isolate a subset (A'). When (A) and (A') are identical, no selection has taken place, ergo, 'cherry pick' is ridiculous. Whoops, the ad break is over, Forrest has just joined Gary Sinise in s bsr and they are singing Auld Lang's Syne. Pull your finger out, and get your argument from all the evidence together. . .Nishidani (talk) 21:06, 24 May 2015 (UTC)
Ill-mannered. Another good one, coming from you. I hope by the time Lieutenant Dan gets his new legs you'll be able to answer my simple yes/no questions above. As for "cherry pick", you picked a few examples out of your, what was it, 37000 edits? And even if these were all the examples on that particular page (I've never read it), all it can prove is that you usually (6:7) don't do it on that page. It tells us nothing about your general editing practices, apropos logic. This leads to followup questions, but really, at this point just straight answers to the simple questions above would be great. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 21:34, 24 May 2015 (UTC)
Okay. Forrest's marathon phase has just ended, and this has been like sprinting a marathon in the company of a toddler who hasn't found his legs, on my shoulder. I've made one edit, to address the one point in your chip-on-the-shoulder grievance screed. So you can sleep easy for the sanity of the reader on that entry. Back to Forest and his son in front of the boobtube. Good night and goodbye. With David Hume as nocturnal company, one tends to get choosy about one's interlocutors.Nishidani (talk) 21:54, 24 May 2015 (UTC)
I'd sleep easy if you could bring yourself to admit that omitting the perpetrator and the fact there was a stabbing when reporting on a stabbing is not a good way to write an encyclopedia. But it seems like you feel you'd lose face if you did that, so you resort to "I fixed it but it wasn't broken". Oh well. As someone who admonishes other editors to be more precise and nuanced, I hope next time you'll be more careful with your "paraphrasing" even if it's just so you won't have to waste your time talking to me. If that happens I'll feel we achieved something here today, against all odds. Goodbye. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 05:52, 25 May 2015 (UTC)
I sleep like a top. If you're having trouble, why don't you try actually editing in constructively useful additions to the encyclopedia, instead of idly sitting round picking over the delicacies of what other people do, like the conversants overheard by a traveler in The Twa Corbies? Rolling up one's mental sleeves, reading widely in the topic area, finding fresh information to enrich its menu of details, choosing the appropriate words to paraphrase the content, all this is work, and, if, together with the other activities in one's daily round, one does enough of it, one closes one's book, at the end of the day, with a solaced somnolent sense that one's earned one's keep in the world. One of the extracurricular lessons I learned as a child going to school each day came from watching men at work: if a railroad was to be repaired, or a pothole in the road fixed, one often saw 5 or 6 men on the job. 5 would stand around, all work-shy while the one born navvie or fettler in the group shoveled the overburden, jimmied the sleepers or mixed concrete, or worked a wrench on the mains. It was a good lesson, i.e., lots of folks, when there's work to be done, sit round, kibitz, chiak, bat the breeze, pull on a fag, offer sardonic advice on what the one person actually working does. Check your editing record. There's almost zero content added, and most of it is on talk pages. Otherwise you remove stuff. This little chat here is perhaps a good indication why you might not be sleeping easier. You're wide awake watching other people work, (a certain vigilance is of course indispensable) but doing nothing but hair-splitting: while combing strans, you may spot some dandruff, or cleave the problematical hair with theodolite precision, but this nugatory fiddling rarely gives one a sweat, and a sense of accomplishment. Try it. Don't whinge for days until someone following your complaints gives you the pittance of information you could have gotten at the drop of a hat by simply googling for a few seconds ([1],[2], or this offer of stuff you complained was lacking, which enabled you to make the edit you wanted). Take a hint, it does wonders for the cot hours, and the prescription is free and a dead-set remedy for Morphean angst. Nishidani (talk) 07:58, 25 May 2015 (UTC)
Oh, in the real world I sleep like a log. Thanks for the usual long winded and somewhat patronizing lecture. I chose what I'd like to do here, just like you do. Not that it's any of your business, but unlike you I'm not a retired childless old man who can dedicate hours every day to editing here. I have kids, friends, and a job. I prefer to spend most of my free time with my family and friends, and dedicate just a little of it to making sure people like you don't turn this encyclopedia into something that looks like it was written by your friends Ben White and Max Blumenthal. So expect me to continue pointing out your policy and guideline violations and expecting you to fix them if/when I don't have the time or inclination to do so myself. That's how this place works. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 18:11, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

I chose what I'd like to do here, just like you do. Not that it's any of your business.’

Almost correct, though it looks like a paradox. I do what I like to do here, but unlike you, I don’t waste my time loading a page with pseud's corner stuff that aims to assail the bona fides of other editors. On reflection, in saying that it is none of my business when you make an inept attempt to smear me User:No More Mr Nice Guy/Antisemitism and Wikipedia, you are not making a paradox, but a confession. The page obviously does attempt to smear me, but only mirrors by its hysteria, as in a looking glass darkly, some undercurrent of anxiety perhaps, or a problem, you have. This problem of yours, is, quite correctly ‘none of my business’. You have to live with your fantasies about me. I just live, preferably under the Socratic dispensation, which demands irony. Nishidani (talk) 19:27, 25 May 2015 (UTC)
You just took one part of a sentence I wrote and tried to make it seem like it's related to a previous one by changing my comma into a period. Very honest. I suppose it's an indication of hysteria or anxiety for me to point this out? No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 19:56, 25 May 2015 (UTC)
Yes, well, (ad break for Murder by Numbers) just don't post here any more. It's boring and quite pointless.Nishidani (talk) 20:19, 25 May 2015 (UTC)
Again, you can't even admit you made a mistake. I said "A. Not that it's any of your business, but B". You turned it into "A is none of your business", while changing a comma into a period in a supposed quote. I'm starting to think the generous explanation here is that you suffer from an acute case of confirmation bias. Anyway, I will not post here again unless I have some administrative issue that I need to notify you about. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 21:15, 25 May 2015 (UTC)
To repeat. Don't try to be vexatious. Be courteous for once, and comply with a request, backed by third parties, to avoid this page. That's a good chap.Nishidani (talk) 21:20, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

I realize that this is your talk page, Nishidani, but is there a Reset button I can push to end this tit-for-tat arguing and lighten up the atmosphere around here so things can go back to normal operations? I fear without intervention this will go on unceasingly. Liz Read! Talk! 19:33, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

Um, I'm just about to take in a movie after my wife flicked the channel and I glimpsed over my shoulkder Sandra Bullock waking up after sniffing inadvertently her partner's armpit. This won't end until some independent editor gives a simple policy call on whether an editor can maintain on wikispace an open attack on another editor's bona fides. In Europe, being a known anti-Semite is a serious matter (and that's a good thing) with consequences for one's civil standing. So far, one such editor has agreed that the page in question is a personal attack (WP:AGF). But that thread resists closure, I assume because on this topic, people tend to waffle and waver, or just not touch it, and don't call a spade a spade either way. It's a simple call. If NMMGG can publicly prove his case that I am a racist intent on persecuting Jews also on wikipedia, - something an Arbcom review dismissed examining exactly the evidence he posted there-Arbcom should be overruled and I should be permabanned. If, instead, that is seen as a personal attack, then a compromise along the lines I suggest should be worked out. I.e. he can keep the page, but should acknowledge that, on my page, I have responded to that smear. Nishidani (talk) 19:44, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

Personal closeing quote (to satisfy also Liz's request):One can prove someone is an anti-Semite. No one can disprove he is not anti-Semitic, on the often psychologically true principle that:'qui s'excuse s'accuse'. That is a hermeneutic impasse, the mental joker in the pack, that stops morbid inquisitors, as it did in all the paranoid persecutions of history, from seeing the flaws in their own, endless routine of suspicion.Nishidani (talk) 19:01, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

I don´t know why....

but this cartoon reminded me of your talk-page. Cheers, Huldra (talk) 21:32, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

thanks Huldra. a very good cartoon by Ted Rall. Norman Finkelstein, in his recent interviews on The Real News Network, discussed this issue in detail. (The links to the interviews are in the 'External links' section of the Wikipedia article on Finkelstein.) IjonTichy (talk) 21:59, 27 May 2015 (UTC)
More boredom than wardoom. My apologies to fortuitous readers of this page, and its occasional discursive travails. Time for the fartsack.Nishidani (talk) 22:18, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

Jewish religious terrorism

With regards to Baruch Goldstein, he should DEFINITELY not be in Category:Jewish physicians, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Categorization/Ethnicity,_gender,_religion_and_sexuality. As for religious terrorism, see Islamic terrorism where no individuals are included as pages where subcategories are appropriate. --Monochrome_Monitor 19:06, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

Cite the exact passage.
Why is Irving Moskowitz in Category:Jewish physicians but Baruch Goldstein must be excluded, both are/were highly active in West Bank settlements? Are you saying that because BG was a settler terrorist he must be excluded, whereas the physician who finances settlements is okay? By the way. You have, once more, broken 1R. Again, in deference to our mutual friend, I will not report it. But there are a lot of people whose tolerance of editwarring abuse is less lenient than mine, dear.Nishidani (talk) 19:15, 1 June 2015 (UTC)
In Wikipedia there is an informal guideline called Wikipedia:Other stuff exists which says that arguments like 'As for religious terrorism, see Islamic terrorism where no individuals are included as pages where subcategories are appropriate' carry no weight. Practice in one area does not, in short, legitimate copycat behavior in another.Nishidani (talk) 19:17, 1 June 2015 (UTC)
I didn't know about Irving Moskowitz, but putting him in Jewish physicians is blatant overcat. Plenty of the 9/11 hijackers had similar qualifications, but are not included in the category. --Monochrome_Monitor 19:22, 1 June 2015 (UTC)
And it's not hiding anything. Osama Bin Ladin isn't in the category Islamic terrorism, is that hiding the fact he was a terrorist? He's in the category Al Qaeda founders under the category Al Qaeda members by role under the category Al-Qaeda members under the category Al-Qaeda under the category Designated terrorist organizations associated with Islam under the category Islamic terrorism. --Monochrome_Monitor 19:22, 1 June 2015 (UTC)
Ugh, and I got reported again. I'm not sure why I bother. --Monochrome_Monitor 19:23, 1 June 2015 (UTC)
You did not read my reference to Wikipedia:Other stuff exists. It is utterly irrelevant what is occurring on Islamic pages. Any editor that keeps thinking 'A they do this, so I'll do the same' is bound for trouble. In fact, there's no problem in adding Islamic/Muslim physician as a cat to an Islamic terrorist's page, if he/she happens to have been qualified that way. Nishidani (talk) 19:28, 1 June 2015 (UTC)
I'll advise you in loco Simonis, since he's probably skolling a Guinness at the rubbidy at this hour. What you do is (a) immediately revert (b) drop an apology on the administrative page with a link to your repentant revert and (c) undertake at the board to restrict yourself to a 1R rule on all articles for some months, I/P or not, something like that. Cross your fingers. I'll light a candle. But, really, trigger happy editing is something you simply must expunge from your temptation list. Nishidani (talk) 19:28, 1 June 2015 (UTC)
And for ****'s sake, don't argue the point. You just admitted to 2 reverts, not three. But that is beside the point. The rule is, you can't even do more than 1 revert, which you just admit to having done. Nishidani (talk) 19:34, 1 June 2015 (UTC)
I thought it was 3RR. Crap. --Monochrome_Monitor 19:41, 1 June 2015 (UTC) I'll revert.
I even apply 1R generally to all articles, I/P or not. The working rule is, if reverted, go to the talk page, explain your view briefly, and wait a day or so. Adopt Pavlovian responses in our world, and you go to the dogs. Nishidani (talk) 19:58, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

What actually happened on the ground and not in generic newspaper reports on blame. Any articles welcome

Among other things, the Samson Option is supposed to immediately saturate with bombing the precise area and surrounds where any IDF soldier is presumed captured. According to this report, it didn't work that way: the families hit by a direct IAF missile were two kilometres away.Nishidani (talk) 17:55, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
'something about the sheer weight of Gaza’s suffering — in wartime and under siege — stunts language, too. I’m supposed to be a writer. But I have not written a word about Gaza in more than 100 days. I couldn’t.'
Have you read Kiernan's Blood and Soil: Modern Genocide 1500-2000,?Nishidani (talk) 09:29, 2 June 2015 (UTC)
I noted, read, and (all too briefly) edited it in to an article here. I'm old enough not to be surprised by the normalcy of evil, and that otherwise good people can, in the right circumstances behave with, or mindlessly justify, barbaric behavior. It's not just linked to occupations, or colonization. What is going on, since you link it, in the Palestinian territories is absolutely normal, as slaughter or putting the Indians/Aborigines etc., who survived the genocides on reservations, was quite 'normal'. In fact, if one wants a theoretical grid for interpreting the I/E conflict perhaps the best one is provided by the 'conquest of the West'(Bank). The only anomaly, as Tony Judt pointed out years ago, is that is looks, being part of our backyard, terribly anachronistic. It's true that statistically, in any army, 5-7% are categorized as natural born killers, who enjoy that form of employment, as opposed to the larger percentages that deliberately avoid shooting at the enemy. There's a good book on this: Dave Grossman's, On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society,. But that's little consolation, since most of us are not troubled by the massacres in our midst.Nishidani (talk) 17:29, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
This is How We Fought in Gaza - Soldiers' testimonies and photographs from Operation "Protective Edge" (2014) (242 pages).
Gaza: Killing Gets Easier (June 2015). "... if all this is now acceptable public discourse inside Israel, then killing more [Palestinians] will become easier and easier and look less and less like the crime it is." David Dean Shulman, in the New York Review of Books ---- IjonTichy (talk) 07:47, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

No surprise: peace is far less expensive than war.

Jodi Rudoren, 'Profit as an Incentive for Israeli-Palestinian Peace,' New York Times 8 June 2015.Nishidani (talk) 07:04, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

Someone's trying to

crack my google account. So if any odd edits appear in my name, please notify me. Thank you.12:31, 9 June 2015 (UTC)Nishidani (talk)

Odd edits appear in your name all the time. Paul B (talk) 13:37, 9 June 2015 (UTC)
beware! Odd editors try to get even :) Nishidani (talk) 13:40, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

Hello

I made these changes to the Gilad Shalit page: I removed the word "kidnapping" and replaced this with capture/captivity. I believe you agree with this, judging from your comments on the Hamas talk page in which there is the same dispute by the same editors. Additionally, I made the following two changes: I removed the 2014 kidnapping and murder of Israeli teenagers from the "see-also" section of the Gilad Shalit page. The rationale for this is that I do not regard those two events to be similar enough to warrant (one involved the murder of civilians; the other taking a soldier hostage) inclusion in that section. I removed the Gilad Shalit article from the categories "Kidnappings by Islamists" and "Victims of anti-Semetic violence". The rationale for the former is that, as previously noted, "kidnapping" is a pov (if not wholly incorrect) word to describe the incident, and the latter simply has to do with the fact that there is no evidence that anti-Semitism played a role in Hamas taking Shalit hostage(to my knowledge, that is). These edits have since been reverted; I am being "double-teamed" by the two editors who are getting on my nerve. I assume you know who they are, as you have also dealt with them. They have not substantively responded on the Hamas talk page; they are reverting my edits without any argument. It is beyond dispute that they are agenda-driven and not genuinely interested in maintaining a neutral point of view.

My (informal) question to you, therefore, is, given your relatively large amount of experience as a Wikipedia editor(something which I lack), how should this situation be dealt with? I am not responding to it in an intelligent manner, I will admit, (accidentally violating 1RR on the 2014 Gaza War reverting what I regard to be their misguided edits; facetious name calling), but not withstanding this, I have a stern conviction that I am right and I am being wronged by blatantly partisan editors not editing in good faith. I mean, what is there to take issue with in the word "capture"? JDiala (talk) 06:26, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

While a discussion of a contested edit is underway, one should not preempt things, even if others do, to insert your own preferred version. The Hamas page has a lead which rather than sum up the history of the organization, is a POV-designed attack charge sheet on it as a terrorist organization, for example. One shouldn't get 'worried' or 'overwrought' by that, but rather work slowly to improve the content, and then insist that the lead reflect it neutrally (WP:Lede). Anything about soldier Shalit generates hysteria, since the poor fellow was the object of massive and daily reportage singling his unfortunate captivity as if it were anomalous, when what befell him is commonplace, but not mentioned much in sources, when Israeli forces seize, detain, "kidnap" Palestinians (children in the territories who are pastoring flocks are often 'seized' by settlers for several hours. It is rarely reported). The latter, to adopt a term from Jane Austin's novels, "don't signify": the former is an Israeli. You have to get used to this, since it is how the mainstream sources frame issues, and it is pointless getting worked up about it.Nishidani (talk) 10:17, 11 June 2015 (UTC)
If you find that the bad faith, tacit tagteaming, external support for bad edits by the invariable intervention of I/Ps and general lack of cogency when 'hostile' editors deign to address the talk page, 'worries you' or 'unnerves you', you should take a little break or leave the field. This place is both the meeting ground of good mannered people and sumud practitioners dedicated to fairness, and a battle ground where conflictual attitudes tempt the mediocre to push a grievance (from both 'sides'). I survived by regarding it as a training ground for never being put out, or 'unnerved' by behavior that reeks of gaming, i.e.,the numbers game. While deplorable, it is predictable. The only solution, for those who stay in, is patience, and respect for the rules whatever the others do. It's difficult, but quiet persistence, and a patient eye for finding very good sources, will over time improve the articles. Hoping for quick results only leads to disappointment with the project. I'm reverted every day. I plug away, and most of my day is spend productively because I have other things, far more interesting, to do. Best wishes.Nishidani (talk) 07:05, 11 June 2015 (UTC)
Okay, thank you for the advice :). JDiala (talk) 23:30, 11 June 2015 (UTC)
I should have added, that I do hope you stay around. I wrote the above somewhat pompous advice while somewhat distracted. I'ìd just come back from my gardens where every morning I collect up to 50 snails and carry them over to an olive field where I release them into the tall spears of grass. Only way to ensure they survive, and my vegetable patches aren't eaten. After 20 years of doing this, I heard, as I was walking along, a weeping sound, a limpid wheeze of pain, and looked about to see if one of the cats was injured and hiding with its wounds under a bush nearby. No. The minute but shrill whistle of hurt piped up again, and again, and I realized it came from my hands. It came from a large snail, one of those cupped there. Of course it can't be what it sounds like, a low but clear strangled groan, but it was a deadringer for the same. Probably air squeezed from between the shell and the gastropod. But one could have sworn it was as if one of Evans-Wentz's leprechauns was weeping at being manhandled. Best wishes. Nishidani (talk) 07:12, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Hello! There is a DR/N request you may have interest in.

This message is being sent to let you know of a discussion at the Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard regarding a content dispute discussion you may have participated in. Content disputes can hold up article development and make editing difficult for editors. You are not required to participate, but you are both invited and encouraged to help this dispute come to a resolution. The thread is "Talk:Shang dynasty#Language". Please join us to help form a consensus. Thank you! Kharkiv07 (T) 20:18, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

comic quote for the day

Meanwhile, the IDF Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, Maj.-Gen. Yoav Mordechai, continues work on the rehabilitation of Gaza,Nishidani (talk) 16:45, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

American Sniper (film)

I think you may find the critical commentary on the film American Sniper very interesting. The commentary includes analysis of the political, historical, social, cultural, philosophical, moral, ethical, religious, racial, ethnic and other aspects of society. I started the article, but don't have the time to combine or interweave the rich - both deep and broad - set of sources (including e.g. Noam Chomsky, Chris Hedges, Max Blumenthal and many other scholars and investigative journalists, and I'm hopeful additional scholars e.g. Norman Finklestein may express their views in the near future too) into a more 'coherent' story. (Fahrenheit 9/11 controversies is an example of a more coherent article.) It would be great if you applied your considerable talents to improve the article. You may enjoy it.

Here is a helpful comment from the talk page of the article on the film: "One good way to condense the text would be to group individual critiques under similar themes, rather than chop up criticism into two sentence "paragraphs" that read like a play-by-play of every person's view, and become somewhat overwhelming to read. Something more balanced and easier to read might go "A number of critics cited inaccuracies or distortions in the film. For example, Joe Smith stated "..." Similarly, Sue Smith wrote "..."". The next paragraph might read "Reception from Arab and Islamic-majority countries was (harsh/mixed) [Cite relevent examples]" This is how an encyclopedia should read, and it takes a bit more editorial finesse than quote after quote, but it is better writing. --Animalparty-- (talk) 20:12, 28 January 2015 (UTC) "

Warm regards, IjonTichy (talk) 04:45, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. Most of those are soundbite judgements, for and against. Of course, one could compile a list of such reviews succinctly excerpted for the outright thumbs-up/-down reactions by competent movie critics, as is being done. I did much of such a compilation for that trashy piece of filmic fantasy by Emmerich, Anonymous (film), but I don't think this is informative. Or let us say, you need reviews by critics who do frame analysis, historico-sociological contextualization, and do so within the logic of, say Eastwood's career parabola (for example, there is more than an inkling of a Wende, a readjustment of focus, starting from Unforgiven, A Perfect World and The Bridges of Madison County through to Letters from Iwo Jima Invictus and Gran Torino, that seems, at least to judge from some reviews I've read, to be undone in American Sniper. The key there is to see how he deals with 'empathy for the other' (zilch in the Dirty Harry series) and the emergence of self-awareness in the to-be-admired protagonist/broken hero, the shift from the heroic to the tragic. I usually wait a few years to read or watch anything new, but expect it would, in its genre, have a hard time rivaling the Enemy at the Gates film on Vasily Zaytsev. Zaytsev snipered to defend his homeland against barbarian invaders, but the backdrop is larger. Chris Kyle was a professional killer in a barbaric army of invaders. Nishidani (talk) 11:16, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
Thanks for the feedback. Much appreciated. By the way I also generally wait at least a year to watch new films, more typically several years or even decades. Regards, IjonTichy (talk) 17:15, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
Apropos, see Max Alvarez, 'A Short History of Sniper Cinema,' Counterpunch Jan 30-Feb 1, 2015. He appears to have missed the old classic Sergeant York (film) about Alvin C. York's WW1 exploits.Nishidani (talk) 17:06, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
Thanks for Information.   Among the many criticisms of the political/ historical/ social/ ethical aspects of American Sniper (film), one of the most brilliantly insightful, and most frightening and disturbing, is the commentary by Janet Weil: Gunman As Hero, Children As Targets, Iraq As Backdrop: A Review of ‘American Sniper’, published at Antiwar.com.
Among other things, Weil refers to the documentary film Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People. The full documentary (50 min) can be viewed here.
Regards, IjonTichy (talk) 04:48, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Let’s start with Clint Eastwood himself, who says that American Sniper was meant to criticize war. “The biggest antiwar statement any film” can make is to show, he said, “the fact of what [war] does to the family and the people who have to go back into civilian life like Chris Kyle did.” There are two Eastwoods in the popular imagination – the celebrant of violence in the Sergio Leone “spaghetti westerns” and the Dirty Harry movies; and the lamenter of violence in films such as Unforgiven and Gran Torino. But as American Sniper demonstrates, those two modes are not so far apart. Eastwood does here what he has done repeatedly in his career – resolves his hero’s ambivalence, psychic pain, and sense of structural powerlessness through masculine honor, sacrifice, and vulnerability (often played out on a highly racialized landscape).

Which was my original point, though he picked up what I forgot The Outlaw Josey Wales, which goes back to mark the Wende earlier (1976) than I did, and where the ambiguity, and its resolution is perhaps better exemplified by the figure played by John Vernon than by Eastwood perhaps.Nishidani (talk) 12:23, 4 February 2015 (UTC)
Yes, when I originally read the paragraph you quoted above, your words sprang into my mind ... Regards, IjonTichy (talk) 16:56, 4 February 2015 (UTC)
I happened to catch The Hurt Locker on the boobtube the other night. That is a masterly piece of film in the genre against which to measure this Eastwood reel.Nishidani (talk) 10:57, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

The Hurt Locker and American Sniper are similar in the sense (a) both were successful financially (although the latter much more so than the former), and (b) both received a very large number of positive reviews. but the two films are very different in the sense that Sniper received a much larger number of negative reviews of the historical/ political/ social (HPS) aspects of the film than Locker. For example, for a partial listing of the negative reviews of the HPS aspects of Sniper, see this section of the article talk page.

Did you get a chance to watch Lord of War and War, Inc.? I highly recommend these two films. They are both highly intelligent, deeply insightful, thought provoking, and entertaining. I've read extensively over the last 10 years about the complex, challenging issues analyzed in these films, and both of these films offer highly accurate, truthful, penetrating, revealing, sophisticated, nuanced historical/ political/ social commentary. (Which partially explains why both films received poor reviews from mainstream film critics.) The films are not documentaries, they are officially works of fiction, but in reality they are (to a large extent) documentaries well-disguised as mass entertainment (otherwise they could not be sufficiently funded, as well-made war movies generally require relatively high budgets). Both offer many documentary-like elements of the highest quality. By the way you may want to check the Wikiquote entries on both films to get a taste for the high level of intelligence and brutal intellectual honesty offered by these films. Take good care, IjonTichy (talk) 00:17, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

I've seen Lord of War, despite disliking Nicolas Cage, and have yet to see War, Inc, despite having a high regard for John Cusack. If there is a defect in the former, it is (to make a variation on the point re the antithetic tensions in Eastwood's films) that (a) the horror of arms-running is embodied by a marginal criminal, whereas it is how official states function, as is admitted only in the postscript to the film and (b) the lesson Yuri voices as the sum of the wisdom he acquired in supplying dictators with weapons of massacre, 'Never go to war, especially with yourself' is contradicted by his own life, which is split, except for two moments, between the realized fantasy of an American dream world laundered of violence, and the brutalizing reality of the violent world he exploits to finance his other life. He's a liminal maverick, but everything he does is what the respectable world of state 'actors' do on a day by day basis, as part of their job, which no one takes exception to. Suffice it to see the massive, lunatic contradictions in the real life behavior of a mainstream figure depicted by Tom Hanks in (Charlie Wilson's War). Still, it's some time since I saw the film, and, as I said, I don't like Cage as an actor.
Vladimir Propp argued that humanity had but 5 plotlines in its fabulatory repertoire, which is probably richer than the story-lines of people or of history in the real world. Generally the rare grim tales in the Grimm brothers' yarns don't translate well for a mass audience, and fail box office success, and the obvious reason, to cite Ibsen, is that we're more comfortable existentially with the blandishment of lies, or as the Old Possum said in Burnt Norton: 'Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind cannot bear very much reality.' We know everything to the point of having at arm's reach a certain predictive grasp of the consequences of our repeated national and international follies, but it is only to be expected that it has little or almost no impact on reality.Nishidani (talk) 11:31, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
Thanks for your insights Nish. Your keen observations of Lord don't diminish my very high regard for the film (and I don't feel that was your intention at all). All your observations are insightful and thought provoking. I agree with your analysis. You mentioned you saw Lord some years ago, maybe if you will watch it again you may develop additional perspectives. If I would have watched all these films 10 years ago I probably would have rated Sniper very highly and Lord and War Inc very poorly. It is only because I've educated myself extensively over the last 10 years about the financial interests behind war (and more importantly and more generally about the role of financial interests in larger society from ancient human history to date) that I was in a position to develop a full and deep appreciation for the brutal intellectual honesty of films such as Lord and War Inc, both of which I've watched for the first time in 2013.
By the way Lord was successful at the box office, although nowhere near the level of the financial success of Sniper. Andrew Niccol, the writer and director of Lord, [also the writer (but not the director) of The Truman Show, another great film in my view] appears to have made several compromises in the script of Lord which in my view did not detract from the film and probably helped the film to (at least modestly) succeed at the box office. Without crafting Lord with an eye towards financial success Niccol would have faced enormous roadblocks to obtain funding for his future filmmaking efforts, e.g. Good Kill (which I've not yet seen --- did you get a chance to catch it yet?). And I loved the Yuri speech near the end of Lord where he informs the idealistic Interpol agent Jack Valentine that the state 'actors' are much larger criminals than Yuri himself and that the state is certain to intervene on Yuri's behalf.
By the way in my view other great anti-war films include, but are certainly not limited to, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly as well as High Noon, and of course many films by Charlie Chaplin, including but not limited to The Great Dictator. IjonTichy (talk) 19:36, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
Well, there's an ad break from listening to Luttwak discuss Libya, so I haven't time to add my list. (Some wars are 'good', you know, i.e.necessary. The Holocaust wouldn't have occurred if more Jews acted (then, rather than applying the doctrine against harmless Palestinians now) in WW2 like the Bielski brothers. Have you seen La grande guerra. I suppose it wouldn't go over well in translation, there's so much local dialect, regional mindsets, etc., in it. Extremely powerful ending. Train of Life,The 25th Hour, The Last Valley, Zulu) (saw that with my father, who gave me through the film a detailed run-down of the history of Zulu chieftains by name, which his father transmitted to him in turn, since he had fought in the Boer War: a fine study in courage, by both sides, even if the Brits were imperial arseholes), and yes, (I liked the character portraits of the British soldiers, esp the one played by Attenborough) in Guns at Batasi 'Nite (no, I wasn't being critical of the Cage film, really. But his speech in the end sounding to me like a pretext, and therefore an example of instrumental self-justification. Put it this way- what the film is trying to say is: the 'American dream' is built on foreign nightmares, whether it's Yuri the maverick or the State Department doesn't really matter. Back to the debate.Nishidani (talk) 21:25, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
Thanks for the reply. I will definitely look into the films you linked to.
By pure coincidence, I've read the Hebrew translation of The Good Soldier Švejk about one short year before I was drafted into the Israeli military. Without a doubt one of the top 3 antiwar books I've read in my lifetime. Decades later, I smile when I remember the pure joy I felt reading that book. From the first page of the book I sensed this was a special, extremely well-crafted story, and I remember trying to limit my reading of the book to only a few paragraphs every day over a period of weeks, in an effort to prolong the pleasure as much as possible. And when I finished reading the book I immediately read it again from cover to cover. I experienced the same joy very recently, in 2011-2, when I read Catch-22 for the first time in my life -- not only the best antiwar book I've ever read, but the very best book in any genre I've ever read. Best, IjonTichy (talk) 00:18, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
Švejk would be even better in Yiddish, I would reckon. I thought immediately of Catch-22 just as I switched off the computer, and also Norman Mailer's The Naked and the Dead, which is up there with the greatest American novels. Since you mentioned finance and violence, the latter is particularly apposite. There is a long speech in there by General Cummings, designed to show that (despite 'us' being on the good side) the directive elite of the Western powers, esp. corporate America, are as fascist as their enemies. Quite a premonitory statement for the period. I can't find the chapter or page numbers as my worn copy is stored elsewhere, but I recommend it, if you haven't read it (Uri Avnery's In the Fields of Philistia must be a fascinating read, though I haven't seen it yet). I was raised listening to people talking about their Boer and WW1 memories - they glossed life in the trenches more or less along the lines of Wilfred Owen's poem, or Frederick Manning's The Middle Parts of Fortune, Robert Graves's Good-Bye to All That and Frank Richard's Old Soldiers Never Die. There's a huge number of very good books and films (Gallipoli is another: my paternal grandfather was there), now that you mention it. I suppose it's just entertainment now: since, if the consumers of these realistic fictions took their reading or viewing of these things to heart, the world would be a different place. Cheers.Nishidani (talk) 09:28, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
The Society of the Spectacle by Guy Debord. Full text of the book on WikiSource and Well-made 10-min film on YouTube.
Allegory of the Cave by Plato. Well-made 3-min film on YouTube.
IjonTichy (talk) 19:40, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Manifestations of Apartheid Israel (May 2015). "Shir Hever, economist at the Alternative Information Center, says segregation begins five seconds after disembarking in Israel and there is blatant racism of various kinds isolating Arabs." May 27, 2015, The Real News


Philip Weiss on Oren. I've always thought people like myself are just all transcribers of an internal debate (taking sides, of course. I remember the 50s ad 60s, and how crucial Jewish voices were in pressing for sanity in American society). Regards Nishidani (talk) 14:47, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, this is interesting.
Oren appears to be accusing Jewish critics of the brutal, vicious policies of the government of Israel of being Self-hating Jews.
"This just shows how meretricious the use of the “anti-Semite” label is, and ought to offer even more encouragement to all you non-Jewish critics of Israel who are afraid to say anything lest you be tarred." I agree with this statement by Philip Weiss.
Back in February of this year, on the talk page of American Sniper (film), when editors accused Max Blumenthal and Zaid Jilani of anti-Semitism in an effort to suppress and silence the excellent, powerful criticism of the film offered by Blumenthal and Jilani, user:Nbauman put it best, when he said something to the effect that anti-Semitism is now the new McCarthyism. I agreed with Nbauman, and added that the accusations against Blumenthal and Jilani in the mass media (e.g. on Fox News) were a Hasbara i.e. propaganda effort.
I am seeing a number of recent attempts in the mass media, as well as on Wikipedia, to suppress and silence valid, well-documented criticism of the policies of various governments (Israel, US, Russia, Ukraine, other former Soviet Union countries, France, Spain, some Arab countries, the UK among other governments) by accusing the critics, both Jews and non-Jews, of harboring anti-Semitic sentiments. These vacuous accusations are a form of ad hominem attacks on the critics. In my view, some of these frivolous, baseless, groundless accusations were issued in an effort to silence and intimidate editors such as yourself, Nishidani, among other productive, acting-in-good-faith WP editors.
Also, as I posted on your talk page, accusations of Antisemitism are intended, among other purposes, to distract the populace from enormous socio-economic inequalities and the on-going kleptocratic looting, i.e. the transferring (stealing) of the public wealth to create private riches. This distraction campaign is one part of the timeless - ancient, current, and future - stratagem of kleptocrats/ oligarchs/ plutocrats and their servile hacks in practically all global countries, governments and mass media, employing almost infinitely many variations of Bread and circuses-style and Circus Maximus-style distractions. (Another example, among many examples of massive distractions are the Orwellian-called "democratic elections." For a small subset of the many good examples on this issue, see all the books and investigative reports and essays by Chris Hedges, for example his most recent essay 'America's Electoral Farce.' Also highly recommended: 'Obey': Film Based on Chris Hedges' book 'Death of the Liberal Class' by Temujin Doran, freely available on YouTube. In my view the film is different than the book and is mostly based on Chris Hedges' columns in TruthDig, but nonetheless it is a very good film.)
[There is no 'conspiracy' here of any kind by the kleptocratic oligarchs -- they are only people like everyone else and they are not part of any cabal or organization, they are not at fault here, the global socio-economic system is the problem and it developed slowly over thousands of years and is now deeply embedded in each and every person on the planet, including myself. In many cases these distractions are not even part of a deliberate strategy or tactic - in many cases the kleptocratic plutocrats and their hacks in government and the mass media and other 'professions' (e.g. most, although not all, so-called 'economists,' or e.g. the military-surveillance-police-prison professions) actually fully believe their own propaganda, Hasbara and public relations horseshit.] IjonTichy (talk) 15:34, 17 June 2015 (UTC)
Well, one should try to keep cheerful, even when listening to this, which elaborates on your second paragraph. That programme is one of the several bright spots one can listen into the world over for keeping the broad public informed of what's going on, and worth checking from time to time. Politicians are, predictably, trying to shut it down, citing economic rationales. Nishidani (talk) 16:21, 17 June 2015 (UTC)
Thanks, this radio program is informative. May I also recommend everything by Juice Rap News, including e.g. this episode. IjonTichy (talk) 17:02, 17 June 2015 (UTC)
Good grief, two intelligent sites in Downunderland! Very good. Bookmarked for daily use.Nishidani (talk) 20:54, 17 June 2015 (UTC)
Thanks for your comments. I was not in the best of moods today but your comments lifted my spirits. You are right, one should try to keep cheerful, despite all the insanity in the world in general and on WP in particular, and to remember the bigger picture, including e.g. that the world, including WP, also have much goodness and hope to offer. Best wishes, IjonTichy (talk) 22:58, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

U.S. gunman kills three young Muslims

U.S. gunman kills three young Muslims, Reuters. --IjonTichy (talk) 17:40, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

Chris Johnson, One dead and three injured in Copenhagen 'terrorist attack', The Guardian, 14 February 2015. Nishidani (talk) 11:00, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
Gunman as Hero, Children as Targets, Iraq as Backdrop ---- IjonTichy (talk) 18:33, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
drone piloting is, of course, a form of sniping. It's striking that they have a high trauma index, until one remembers that the juxtaposition of doing a normal desk job, killing people you don't know by pushing buttons, and then going home to dinner and TV with the kids parallels the Vietnam syndrome so many vets spoke about, one night in a jungle swamp scared to death and shooting, then if you survived, being whipped out by helicopter to sunbake on a Danang beach, with all the mod-cons, as if you were back home on vacation. I often wonder about the private lives of the large number of snipers in the IDF who, once the spotter has identified the leader of a bunch of stone-throwers, shoot him, esp. like the Palestinian journalist a while back who was shot through his camera lens, as he focused to film a riot, and lost his eye. Very good aim, with a rubber coated steel bullet. He can't get a pass for treatment in East Jerusalem where St John's Hospital is the best clinic for such cases.Nishidani (talk) 19:17, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
Former US military personnel urge drone pilots to walk away from controls. "Letter from 45 retired and former military members call on pilots at Creech and Beale air force bases to refuse to carry out duties as they ‘profoundly violate’ law." The Guardian, via Antiwar.com. ---- IjonTichy (talk) 22:12, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

New AP Report on the Massacre in Gaza in Summer 2014

Economist Shir Hever discusses an Associated Press report about attacks on the Gaza civilian population during Operation Protective Edge, The Real News. HEVER: "This is the importance of the AP report now, because it undermines the Israeli narrative about that war. This argument, as if Hamas has been using human shields to protect their fighters, this is an extremely racist argument. It presents the people of Gaza as if they don't care about their own family, about their own neighbors."   ...   HEVER: "it just shows that the only thing that the Israeli forces were effective at doing is keeping most of the Israeli civilians out of harm's way. But when it comes to using their offensive capabilities, they have made no effort to distinguish between Palestinian civilians and fighters."

High civilian death toll in Gaza house strikes, says report, Ynet news --- IjonTichy (talk) 18:43, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

הווידוי המדהים של קצין תקציבים בצבא: "רק חיפשנו איפה לדחוף את הכסף"
"The amazing confession of a budgeting officer in the [Israeli] military: we were searching where to shove the money ... Sometimes I felt the senior command were so excited from the mountains of money that were expected to arrive, that I had the sense that maybe they pushed a little for an escalation." TheMarker. --- IjonTichy (talk) 15:51, 1 June 2015 (UTC)
Nothing really. Small change (i.e.Moldavia compared to the Iraqi scam. It is however, understudied, the sociology of threat forecasting in order to enhance greater access to the public purse.Nishidani (talk) 16:23, 1 June 2015 (UTC)
UN Chief Criticizes Israel Over Deaths of Children in Gaza. ---- IjonTichy (talk) 22:12, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

quote of the week

Ayman Odeh, the head of the new Joint Arab List, is a true leader. Extremely incisive, he often uses irony and wit to undermine his detractors while advancing an egalitarian vision for the future. In a moment of candor, a well-known Israeli commentator characterized his demeanor as a serious threat: “He’s really dangerous,” she said, “he projects something every Israeli can relate to.” Neve Gordon, 'The End of the Liberal Zionist Façade,' Counterpunch 20-22 March 2015

Further testimonials from Israeli soldiers on Israeli war crimes during the 1967 war (June 2015), Haaretz. --IjonTichy (talk) 17:55, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

ds alert

Why are you removing a ds alert from someone else's talk page? Gaijin42 (talk) 16:05, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

I know Pluto's record, I remember all the warnings. The assumption he does not know the obvious is offensive. He's a very intelligent guy, with a very good memory (and we disagree about lots). Nothing personal.Nishidani (talk) 16:07, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
Quite the opposite, I said I assumed he DID know. But all of his previous posts at AE or other places (that I could see) were more than a year ago, and therefore do not qualify as "notification" under the DS policies. Please restore the notice. Gaijin42 (talk) 16:13, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
Unlike myself he is not, I gather, in proximity of the age when Alzheimer's or dementia strikes. I've done this in the past on his page with similar notices. Sometimes he has reciprocated on mine, removing useless notices. If he objects he will certainly tell me.Nishidani (talk) 16:43, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
It is not a matter of Alzheimers. Its a matter of policy. Per Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee/Discretionary_sanctions#Awareness_and_alerts the alert must be given again every 12 months or the person is considered not aware and therefore is not sanctionable (if needed). Gaijin42 (talk) 16:52, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
Do some constructive editing instead of bothering experienced editors with junk alerts. No one thinks I or a dozen other editors warrant such stuff dumped on their pages, editors with long experience like Pluto. Nishidani (talk) 16:56, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

If you think experienced editors should be permanently on notice of DS, its a position I might support, but its an argument to go make with ArbCom. They wrote the policy that explicitly says people are not considered aware if they have not been notified in the last 12 months and that such notice must be given using the ds/alert template. Gaijin42 (talk) 17:00, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Actually the alert is still needed, but don't worry, it got entered in the edit filter log which is all that matters for future enforcement. EdJohnston (talk) 17:02, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
EdJohnston In this particular scenario, if Pluto were brought up for enforcement, would he not have the (valid!) defense that "I was not aware, because I did not see the alert, because it was deleted before I saw it" ? Gaijin42 (talk) 17:11, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
Nishidani, that's a valid point. Will you please undo your removal of the notice on User:Pluto2012's page? Thanks, EdJohnston (talk) 17:20, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
Of course, I'll do that right now, since like Johnuniq your calls have a high impeccability percentage. l'd ask Gaijin to be coherent, however. It's my personal conviction that editors' major defect is lack of coherence (IP editors will remove at sight any source they think is not RS, if they dislike the content, while leaving on the page any non-RS that backs their POV etc.), and in this case, I would note that Gaijin hasn't to my knowledge posted the same template on a dozen editors' pages I follow, all IP editors, logically, in this case, should be alerted, indeed it should be done by a bot. Singling him out looks, well, distinctly odd. What's sauce for the goose should be sauce for the gander. Pluto often gets vexatious notifications which I or he customarily removes. Nishidani (talk) 17:33, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

I posted it to Pluto's page, because I saw commentary from Pluto that concerned me, and made me think a discussion at AE may occur some time in the future. I am unaware of the IPs you are referring to, as there are no IPs commenting in the page that I am interacting with Pluto on. If you however see cause for concern, then certainly go ahead and notify them. Gaijin42 (talk) 17:42, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

I'd appreciate a link to the comment (not 'commentary') that led you to forewarn him of future consequences.Nishidani (talk) 19:00, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
I confirm that I am aware of this policy.
But I also want to underline the point of Nishidani : don't you really feel all this is childish.
Gaijin42 : for my defence, if one day I am the subject of an AE from you, I will say that you preferred posting a 'ds' warning on my talk page, without comment, rather than to explain me what 'edit summary' had offended you.
Pluto2012 (talk) 06:31, 23 June 2015 (UTC)
I do think this should be clarified. I'm not talking about a discussion. Gaijin, please be courteous enough to provide a link to the comment Pluto made, which either 'concerns you' (i.e.regards you personally) or 'concerns you' (gives rise to concerns that Pluto's editing is problematical). If you have a duty to notify, you also have an (unwritten perhaps) obligation to specify what the problem is. Not to clarify this early on is to leave Pluto unaware of the kind of thing you might eventually use in an AE case. One should not edit under a cloud or surrounded by mysteries. Thank you. Nishidani (talk) 09:21, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

it was his talk comments that all Jewish/Israeli sources were unreliable "Hasbara" propaganda and should not be used on wikipedia. To spin the issue around, what would you think of an editor who said that all Palestinian sources were "Pallywood" and should not be used? Would you think perhaps they have an WP:NPOV issue? Gaijin42 (talk) 14:00, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

I would have appreciated a diff. I looked around and this seems to fit the description. If it does, confirm and I'll look into it. is this the diff?Nishidani (talk) 16:46, 23 June 2015 (UTC)
Since I don't have much time, and you are slow in either confirming or not confirming this, I take it that this, in that thread, is what you object to, You have, in my view, misrepresented the remark.Since Pluto has been one of the strongest advocates for basing most of our reconstructions of the period of Mandatory Japan, down to the war of 1947-1948 on the scholarship of Israeli historians (which in my view is strongly partisan, though admirably thorough) the idea that, as you insinuate with that all , that he believes Jewish/Israeli sources are unreliable is counterfactual. What he is saying is that on delicate topics, the masses of popular journalism, mainstream or not, in Israel and abroad are not good sources because they suffer from a lack of detachment. I disagree with him on The Forward for example, and several other venues. But to anyone reading the press reportage in The Times of Israel, the Algemeiner and many other sources knows, as Chemi Shalev's article indicates in a thread above, a huge amount of relevant material is ignored, as hysterical point-scoring races into print. Any one who prefers to look at history with the detached pathos of distance, as he does and I aspire to do, feels a strong unease with this bitter, squabbling deadline sensationalism that infects most reports. I certainly would not have been as drastic as Pluto, but then English is one of my mothertongues, I go for nuance, and nitpick where a foreign user of the language might not see anything worrisome. Your construal has, in my view, grossly distorted and interpreted as possibly antisemitic a mandarin dislike of the frivolous insouciance to the complete factual record typical of the popular press most keenly involved in the I/P conflict, in someone who, laudibly, has in my experience been both philosemitic, and an admirer of Jewish/Israeli scholarship.Nishidani (talk) 18:29, 23 June 2015 (UTC)
I alluded to Chemi Shalev's Haaretz article as if I had posted it here, when in fact I posted it yesterday at Talk:Timeline of the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict. For convenience I will also place it here.

"The ordinary response to atrocities is to banish them from consciousness,” Judith Herman writes in the book Trauma and Recovery, but that observation relates to people who had been exposed to the calamities in the first place. Last summer, the overwhelming majority of Israelis were spared the sights and sounds of the carnage in Gaza: Israeli media refrained from covering the suffering of Gazans while politicians and pundits maintained that it was unpatriotic to even discuss. The hardships and ordeals of Israelis cowering from rocket attacks, undeniable in and of themselves, were magnified tenfold while the misery of Gaza was not only downplayed but also depicted as well deserved. Chemi Shalev , 'UN report on Gaza will further embed Israelis in their isolated bunker,' Haaretz 22 June 2015.

That statement was true of the war, but it is (as can be easily documented) true of reportage on the I/P area generally, from the New York Times downwards, and is one of the reasons this area is particularly difficult to edit unless editors commit themselves to thorough analysis of multiple sources before editing, i.e., informing themselves of the subject's depths and omissions given the WP:systemic bias at work. You don't get this problem in academic historical works written by scholars in Israel or the diaspora. There is a total inversion of the prejudices of the press, and any reader of the latter can only deplore that the same hard eyes, and meticulous care for details rarely turns up on television or in newsprint, the last of which constitutes for most editors the basis for their I/P contributions.Nishidani (talk) 18:41, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

Regarding the dispute in the Shang Dynasty section

@Nishidani: Do you think the citations I posted are incapable of being succinctly and accurately summarized in the proposed language section. I admittedly lack the expertise in linguistics to do so, but are you capable of it? I know you said you generally disagree with me on the subject, but I'm curious as to your thoughts as you seem the most objective of the participants. --Easy772 (talk) 06:27, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

You come over as a nice guy with a passion for these subjects, and that is all to the good, indeed an invaluable resource for wikipedia. From my reading, you are unaware of the impact your mode of presentation of material has, which has legitimate claims to be registered on these pages: the impact is negative because it is unfocused, and indiscriminate. The amount of off-line work those simple edits have triggered, for example, downloading and incorporating the Sagart/Baxter phonological reconstruction of Old Chinese for my own files, is enormous, even if rewarding. It, and other offline interests, leave me little time for anything but basic work here, I'm afraid.One piece of advice: rather than get swept up in the intense to-and-fro of argufying, where you are cornered (and several of those editors are knowledgeable, excellent contributors, particularly Kanguole), I think it sensible to take one's time, study the two branches (linguistics and archaeological) at leisure, closely, draft your notes in an orderly fashion, and, when you are absolutely clear as to the state of research, come back to present your case, succinctly and cogently, without drifting into and this, and this, and then this. Regards.Nishidani (talk) 10:25, 24 June 2015 (UTC)
Regarding linguistics, It seems to me, even with my limited experience that the state of research is unclear on the issue. I have also noted that it seems highly politicized, with certain "camps" being accused of being biased towards certain scenarios (For example here). I do note, however, that "Austric" languages and their affinity to Old Chinese are often discussed in the first few opening paragraphs and I in all honesty don't think a brief mention of this in Layman's terms is dishonest. I am content to drop the issue if Kanguole or others have already addressed them in the Old Chinese (or related) sections.
Regarding physical anthropology/archaeology, The resemblance of Anyang sacrificial pit remains to modern day Southern Chinese and Hainan Islanders won't change, unlike 'Old Chinese' linguistics. In all the studies the Anyang cluster with Southern Chinese and Hainan Islanders. Only when Atyal (A Taiwanese tribal group with extensive historical cohabitation with Han Taiwanese) are included do they occupy a node intermediate. I have plotted the measurements from Howell's data set myself and can confirm similarities between populations from the general South China region. Whether these remains are characteristic of "Shang commoners" is the core issue in this discussion. I had previously always assumed they were considered Shang citizens due to the tone researchers took when describing them, e.g. the most recent saying directly "they are thought to be Han." Only on online forums and blog comment sections did I ever see opposition to this. Despite claiming a "plethora" of evidence, Lathdrinor only came up with one citation (Yang 1966) stating that these remains were "non-Shang", but in his 1983 work Howells claims to have disproved this and demonstrates they were ordinary northern Chinese from this time period (page 225). Lathdrinor has yet to respond. I am far from an expert in this field either, but this would be much easier for me to state/discuss cogently, especially since my opposition seem to have expertise in linguistics.

Easy772 (talk) 17:07, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

PS: I should clarify that I wasn't attempting to "move the goalposts" like I was accused of with the physical anthropology/ archaeology edits. I made several other edits to the Shang Dynasty article in the 'related sites' and 'genetic studies' section, which weren't reverted (I'm guessing because of no mention of direct "foreign" affinity to the Shang). Easy772 (talk) 17:27, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

I am almost always unsure what the historical facts are. I am, instead, fascinated by what various theories do in piecing together what facts we have. I am like that because time and again in my early studies, I was almost convinced of a hypothesis, and then found it contradicted either by new evidence, or another theory, or challenged by a critic using a different perspective. There is no doubt that in these areas, certainties are rare, and all positions are provisory. This is particularly true of archaeology and genetics. In any case, I think you are making useful contributions. My only point is that, if you want anything to stick on Wikipedia, in a controversial or editor-controvertive environment here, slow background study, accessing the best available sources (which takes time) and careful checking of who said what, when, and in what context, is the only way to go. I've sometimes waited several years to do an edit I thought necessary but didn't have sufficiently strong orthodox sources to justify it. This is one of the problems with DeLancey's hypothesis (which seems to me reasonable qua hypothesis). We simply have to wait until more scholars in the field respond to his suggestion that when the Zhou overthrew the Shang the latter probably spoke a language different from the Tibetan-Burman form used by the Zhou. Nishidani (talk) 21:04, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

Understood, I am completely prepared to wait. To be completely honest I am also interested to explore the Wiki mediation process as well. The most annoying thing is that people are accusing me of "synthesis" regarding linguistics, genetics, physical anthropology etc. But they just don't understand that these often don't change in sync and, for example, similarities in linguistics don't prove a shared ancestral origin anyways. Take for example the Cham ethnic group in Vietnam, they speak an Austronesian language, but they are genetically closer to Austro-Asiatic speakers. And even looking at the dendrogram I posted earlier on crania, even though it's a good "general" indicator of genetic relationships, you can clearly see that many populations with shared origins are more separate than we'd expect (e.g. Taiwan aboriginals and Filipinos). I obviously can't segue into this sort of disclaimer every time I post material from different disciplines, though I don't think I should be held responsible for trying to balance "due weight" across sections regarding these different disciplines. It's not my fault if someone thinks remains with Southern Chinese affinity in bronze age North China strengthens the argument for an Austro-Asiatic Shang language. Sorry for my rant. Easy772 (talk) 06:41, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

Jewish Supremacism (My Awakening to the Jewish Question)

@Nishidani:I wrote an article for introducing a book by David Duke in my user space draft page. But several users come and make problem for it and after move to main space with me deleted it. They want bane me and said that you can add negative idea in the article. But they don't accept and delete page and want ban me. Can you help me? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents#Really_need_to_topic_ban_AliAkar_from_Jews_and_Judaism AliAkar (talk) 12:58, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

I haven't read the page, since it has been deleted. It is not anti-Semitic in itself to write an analysis or article on an anti-Semitic book. Were that so great scholars like Norman Cohn would have been fired for writing magisterial studies of the Protocols of Zion and the history of that forgery. David Duke is an anti-Semite of course, and his thinking illustrates in textbook fashion the profound envy that permeates anti-Semitic minds and culture. The jealous deplore as negative traits what they themselves would secretly aspire to have, but haven't. Were they to have the gifts, or power or influence they imagine others possess, they would consider all these things in a positive light. Let me illustrate. In the David Duke article he is quoted as saying:-

We [Whites] desire to live in our own neighborhoods, go to our own schools, work in our own cities and towns, and ultimately live as one extended family in our own nation. We shall end the racial genocide of integration. We shall work for the eventual establishment of a separate homeland for African Americans, so each race will be free to pursue its own destiny without racial conflicts and ill will.

I.e. he wants a community that mirrors the one constructed in Israel where some observers say (and it is profoundly untrue of how, generally, Jews in the diaspora act) that there is:

A reality where religious and ethnic communities maintain their separation. Palestinians and Jews live live in their own neighbourhoods, read their own newspapers, send their children to their own schools, use their own bus lines and taxi companies. Ira Sharkansky, The potential for Ambiguity: The Case of Jerusalem, in Efraim Karsh, From Rabin to Netanyahu: Israel's Troubled Agenda, Frank Cass 1997 pp.187-200 p.187.]

So you see, it is impossible for any rational person to admire David Duke's writings and, at the same time, be a critic of Israel or 'the Jews', because what critics might deplore in Israel's ethnocratic tendencies, or in the traditions of communitarian identity in Jewish tradition, is something David Duke brandishes as an ideal for the 'white race'. Anything DD has to say that might seem accurate, is so because it has been copied and pasted from the works of great Jewish critics and writers who, however, were not 'jealous' or 'envious' of some vague 'Jewish other' for the simple reason that they themselves were inclusive Jews, happy to live with several identities, none of which had anything to do with racial stereotypes or national-ethnic profiling. DD, like all racists, anti-Semites, and homogenizing rhetors of separate identity. I'm afraid I can't help you out therefore, other than stating briefly that, while there's a place on wiki for articles on any book, any wikipedian who wishes to write on this kind of trash, should immerse themselves in the history of both racism and anti-Semitism, which is just the 'accelerated grimace' of the former. Ideas can kill. Mein Kampf produced the holocaust, the Aeneid's Parcere subiectis et debellare superbos might have given 'moral' comfort to the imperial campaigners who massacred the Jews for their revolt against Rome, Theodor Herzl's Altneuland fantasy spelt misery, dispossession, and disaster for millions of Palestinians, even to this day, . .the list is infinite.Nishidani (talk) 14:38, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

Your comparison of the recreation of Israel to the Holcaust is extremely anti-Semitic and despicable, and you should retract your absurdly racist claim immediately. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 45.48.140.41 (talk) 11:05, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

See any primer on how to acquire basic literacy and reading skills.Nishidani (talk) 11:11, 18 March 2015 (UTC)
War against the people (June 2015). By Derek Gregory.
See also: Securocracy. -- IjonTichy (talk) 18:14, 23 June 2015 (UTC)
I hope you noted that your President today did something that exhibits a courage and symbolic manifestation of deep compassion for a despised enemy that no other politician in the world in recent memory (Willi Brandt at Auschwitz is the last time I can recall a similar gesture) has proved capable of doing. I know a lot of his background, and worried over his election to that position. He is an inclusivist for a single state. If the kind of gestures he is making, in this, and at commemorations for the Kafr Qasim massacre for example, were to become far more widespread, the conflict would be wrapped up, as solved. Hats off to him. It is magnificent. Nishidani (talk) 18:57, 23 June 2015 (UTC)
Nish, you have a good sense of humor. I smiled as I read your note. I think you may know that Rivlin did not remove the Israeli flag - this was only a thought experiment based on the aftermath of the Charleston church shooting, where South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley called for the Confederate flag to be removed from statehouse grounds by the State legislature. Regarding Rivlin's words on the massacre Kfar Kassem, Rivlin should be commended for saying these words. IjonTichy (talk) 22:27, 23 June 2015 (UTC)
Perhaps I'm naïve, or else according to a noted wiki authority on my hidden Machiavellian psychopathology, it was a prophylactic feint to forfend accurate charges that I am an anti-Semite!. The fact is, I had a large amount of reading done yesterday and on browsing per duty a dozen websites, read way too fast, and didn't see it was a 'thought experiment' (an interesting phrase a 'thought' is always experimental, as opposed to 'experiential thoughts'), as you, and Simon now gently remind me. Old age!! The geezer's getting soppy, the anti-Semite Nazi is on his last legs as 'the sixth age slips into the lean and slippered pantaloon' and he drools empathy with his age-old 'enemy' etc. With enemas like Nishidunny who needs fiends, SignalmanFreud might have whispered to Giacomo ReJoyce. Uh well, it just means Willi Brandt is up there alone.Nishidani (talk) 14:22, 24 June 2015 (UTC)
A magisterial analysis of the grotesque Projection (Psychology) that DD exhibits Nish. Always a pleasure. However, I must say I do find your mention of Herzl somewhat strained in the context of the extended sentence. You know I will offer gentle criticism on occasion, which is why we are mates. Yours aye, the redoubtable Irondome (talk) 23:30, 23 June 2015 (UTC), or Simon, according to the weather.
A further thought experiment concerning Rivlin and the role of the Israeli President. I believe the office is unique amongst the nations in that it appears to embody the moral and or ethical counterweight to the national "mood". The gadfly. As President. What if Einstein would have accepted the proffered role of President in the early days of Israels' rebirth? Sadly, he declined, as we know. Simon. Irondome (talk) 23:48, 23 June 2015 (UTC)
Knuckle-dusters excluded, I take uppercuts thrown my way by mates as salutary wake up calls. Relationships, virtual or otherwise, that can't tolerate strong disagreements are false, so any challenges are more than welcome. Herzl has always puzzled me. He certainly knew in depth the dangers in the air of European anti-Semitism, but he knew virtually nothing about Judaism, or the Middle East, or history. Most rabbis thought his idea heretical, and most eastern european Jews thought America was the new Zion. I think they were right: and have produced much that is best in a country I otherwise have difficulty liking. Knowing little made Herzl into a very effective politician. I'll think it over some more though. Yes, Einstein, had he accepted, would have made a difference, but he probably realized that remaining intelligent and being a politician are two incompatible states. Hang on, had he recalled Schrödinger's cat, he might well have accepted, since it allows you to be both alive (someone who thinks) and dead (a politician) simultaneously!Nishidani (talk) 14:22, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

The Anatomy of Hell (July 2015), The New York Review of Books. Richard J. Evans: "The power of the “Holocaust” as a concept has all but obliterated other aspects of the crimes of the Nazis and driven the history of the concentration camps from cultural memory."

Thanks for that. I must order some of those books. Noted esp.'To subsume all of these crimes under the concept of the “Holocaust” is to narrow our vision unduly and to constrain our ability to pursue similar crimes in the future. As the two lawyers remark: “It is tragic that triggers for prosecutions of genocide and other mass atrocities still exist, that the brutalization of civilian populations and massive theft, rape, and dismemberment of peoples is not just a historical vignette, but part of today’s news. At least, however,” they conclude, ending on a note of cautious optimism, “the ideas of the 1940s have evolved into a system of justice to deal with some of these crimes,” and that is “an improvement over where we were seventy years ago.”'
In camp slang, people who had given up the struggle to survive were, as Primo Levi wrote, called 'Muslims'.Nishidani (talk) 12:04, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

Lawmakers Are Using Trade Rules to Blacklist Critics of Israel. "Legislation to fast track new trade pacts specifically targets supporters of the BDS movement against the Israeli occupation."

IjonTichy (talk) 22:29, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

Alain Menargues

If you have some time, I would appreciate if you take a look at this. The source is Alain Menargues Secrets de la Guerre du Liban pp469-70. What exactly does he say about Sayeret Matkal? Kingsindian ♝♚ 11:35, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

I'm not quite satisfied that this is factual, as opposed to a (strong) inference. I'll keep my eyes peeled or 'my pies eeled' as the cockneys might say. Zero is, apparently, busy to gather from a recent edit and away, but he has more access to library sources to hunt this up eventually . I'll do any translations if any foreign language material emerges. As always, one should never rush, but bide one's time. At the moment, therefore, I think the passage requires attribution.Nishidani (talk) 13:36, 30 June 2015 (UTC)
Thanks, I have checked the Trablousi reference and it also does not say anything specifically about this 63 number. I have reproduced the relevant text on the talk page there. Kingsindian ♝♚ 14:21, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

Formal mediation has been requested

The Mediation Committee has received a request for formal mediation of the dispute relating to "Shang Dynasty". As an editor concerned in this dispute, you are invited to participate in the mediation. Mediation is a voluntary process which resolves a dispute over article content by facilitation, consensus-building, and compromise among the involved editors. After reviewing the request page, the formal mediation policy, and the guide to formal mediation, please indicate in the "party agreement" section whether you agree to participate. Because requests must be responded to by the Mediation Committee within seven days, please respond to the request by 8 July 2015.

Discussion relating to the mediation request is welcome at the case talk page. Thank you.


Message delivered by MediationBot (talk) on behalf of the Mediation Committee. 02:57, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

George Shulz source (trivial)

I was reading the George Shulz source which you pointed to on the talk page. A quite frank account. Despite the grim subject matter, I laughed out aloud when reading this:

I came into the department at 5:00am. Habib was screaming in rage on the tacsat. The shelling was the worst he had seen in eight weeks of war...Begin was calmly denying that any shelling was taking place; this had just been confirmed by Defence Minister Ariel Sharon. "There is no intent today to occupy West Beirut. If we had such an intent, I would write to Ronald Reagan." The United States was being fed hysterical, inflated reporting, Begin said.

Hill relayed this to Habib. "Oh, yeah?", Habib said, and held his tacsat earpiece out of the window, so that we could hear Israeli artillery firing. Hill counted eight shells within thirty seconds

Kingsindian ♝♚ 12:40, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

Yep. That sticks in the memory:I can't recall the name of the State official standing by and actually managing to calculate the intensity of the non-existent bombing,6 shells per 30 second, as Habib's tacsat let them hear, and Begin was on the other phone saying 'you guys are prey to hysterical fantasies'. It is one of numerous episodes reported in White House memoirs for that crucial period, perhaps the most hilarious if tragic. Caspar Weinberger, a hawk, was so pissed off by the repeated lying straight over the telephone that he was entertaining the idea of breaking of diplomatic relations. But the point is, I've read the same scenario in virtually every insider account of all the many crises in the Middle East. Exasperation in the White House, repeated threats, ignored, lies told that men on the ground know are untrue,and, result, once havoc is finished, shaking hand publicly, smiles, all is well. The only group that kept its word throughout, the PLO gets the people it was obliged to protect slaughtered, as the standbys pledging to protect them let it happen, and is blamed in books (it has a lot to be blamed for, like Hamas, but not for things like this). The scenario should be in every briefing book for crisis management, how to play the game. 'Guys, this is what you are expected to repeat'.Nishidani (talk) 12:54, 3 July 2015 (UTC)
Sorry read too fast (emergencies here..) Hill was the chap's name and as you report, it was 8 shells per half minute, quite remarkable for a cease-fire folks on the line were swearing had been upheld. Nothing like this external reality enters the Kahan Commission's timeline.Nishidani (talk) 12:56, 3 July 2015 (UTC)
All this of course just to underline what editors should know, and often refuse to know or do. Even excellent RS can be made to say anything, unless one really delves into at least 10 books for each historic episode and gets some picture of its complexities, so that the editor can evaluate the RS for their meta-reliability. It's a method that should be discussed and taught, but would probably disenchant most newcomers. Most editors appear to read a page exclusively to weigh its POV drift from line to line, and if they see something that they dislike, delete it or get a snippet to balance it, without actually studying the subject generally. If one knows nothing but what is on a wiki page or what one vaguely recalls, even googling for some useful 'stuff' is not going to be helpful unless you can measure it against a broad picture with fuller details. This is what Zero taught the I/P area by example. I must stop preaching to the choir.Nishidani (talk) 13:04, 3 July 2015 (UTC)
Just a follow up note. This Israeli strategic form of brinksmanship probably dates from Lavon, should be called, without giving too much of my handle's meaning away, the Nishtagea doctrine. The idea is, in critical situations, act with ostensibly mad unpredictability to unnerve your allies even, so that they fall in with your insistently maximum demands for fear of worse.In game theory, it is actually quite logical (Syriza, from a completely different rationale, is doing it now, though being weak its bluff was called by the thugocracy that rules the troika, as always happens to weak imitators who use this method with their strong allies) Many sources mention this, )Matthew Abraham, Out of Bounds: Academic Freedom and the Question of Palestine, Bloomsbury Publishing 2014 p.77, for example and it deserves a book length study.Nishidani (talk) 18:24, 3 July 2015 (UTC)
Chomsky also mentions this in his Fateful Triangle. It is comparable to Nixon's madman theory. Anyway, I am a bit skeptical about Shulz's claim of being appalled by the massacres etc. The US responsibility was considerable, since they brokered the whole deal, and also withdrew the MNF early, allowing the subsequent massacre. Kingsindian ♝♚ 18:55, 3 July 2015 (UTC)
All memoirs are self-serving, but I was just surprised by the details, which are high pythonesque tragicomedy where psychological manias and political image fears clashed (what worried the US politicos were the photos coming out. No photos no image problem). Inadvertently he revealed that there is nothing rational about policy in such moments, which is something people should learn to see. For that alone, his account is commendable. Of course the US fucked up, but that was Weinberger's fault, if I remember correctly, since as he later clarified, U.S. troops should never be committed under those circumstances. Shultz overrode him, but CW managed to get them taken out as a compromise, the massacre ensued as was forseeable, and, as a further consequence, this time foolishly with forseeable consequences, the US reintroduced its troops after the massacre, having lost all credibility, and were massacred themselvesthe following year. It's an interesting sidelight that the only intelligent and respected brokers in for the US this area, Philip Habib and George J. Mitchell were Maronites: they rose above any historic enmity to see deeply into the other side (much as James Wolfensohn did). But none of this has nany impact on policy: to the contrary the memoirs re all three show how any decent broker is stymied from go to woe by either the US or Israel or both. Nishidani (talk) 19:41, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

Blumental article in Journal of Palestine Studies

I wonder if you have seen this Journal of Palestine Studies article by Blumenthal? It goes into a fair bit of details about Ofer Winter, and also a bit about Khuzaa and Shujaiyya (not a lot). Not a lot of new things that I didn't know, but collected conveniently in one place. Kingsindian ♝♚ 20:45, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

Thanks indeed. I'll read it this afternoon. Only have time for the introduction, and stopped at 'Ariel Sharon . .warrior-politician', which is appropriate but reminded me of one of the defining terms for Sharon is 'larger-than-life', the ingeniously comfy euphemism (nodnodwinkwink ='larger than the lives he'd destroyed) developed after his comeback by his admirers in the media to cover the issue of his record for ruthless ethnocide.Nishidani (talk) 06:48, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

WP articles on Exceptionalism/ Indispensability

Nishidani, which books or scholarly articles do you recommend on the ancient roots of today's delusional belief among almost all countries in the globe that they, and their people, are exceptional or indispensable?

Did you by any chance read The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People's History of Ancient Rome by Michael Parenti? I recommend it.

Additionally, you may want to take a look at a somewhat interesting recent article by David Bromwich on some of the ancient roots (going back to ancient Greece) of the modern Israeli, Arab, American, Chinese, Japanese, UK, Australian, Russian, French, German, Spanish, Indian, Brazilian, Nigerian, South African, Chilean, Columbian (as well as many other countries', indeed practically all countries') elites pushing their citizenry into the mental illness of falsely believing in their own exceptionalism/ indispensability/ grandiosity.

IjonTichy (talk) 03:23, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

It depends on how technical one wants to get or how far one has leisure to read around. There's a good if sometimes abstruse book by Giorgio Agamben called the State of Exception, on the historical roots and philosophical ramifications, which given your mention of Parenti's book, comes to mind because of its excellent examination of homo sacer. But the literature is vast, and much of it psychoanalytic, which is out of vogue, though Freud's remarks on der Narzißmus der kleinen Differenzen, or 'narcissism of minor differences' is a fundamental insight. Generally the works of Norman Cohn are in my view, indispensable for understanding historical trends of paranoia, esp. The Pursuit of the Millennium, Europe's Inner Demons, and Cosmos, Chaos and the World to Come: The Ancient Roots of Apocalyptic Faith. Of course, they are more concerned with paranoid trends in history from messianism to antisemitism, rather than 'exceptionalism', which is in every sense of group identity, as we see from the common endonym of many tribes whose languages frequently define themselves by a word denoting 'people', implying 10,000 out-groups aren't quite people. But more specifically, engineering a notion of 'exceptionalism' is characteristic of all drives towards national statehood. The paradox of this kind of exceptionalism was well put by Ernest Gellner in his Nations and Nationalism: to form a distinct national identity, nation-builders had to mould or rig the micro-world views of numerous regional peasant communities to conform to a fictive sense of belonging to a larger state. You dissolved many 'exceptionalist' internal differences in order to assert an homogenized difference from the rest of the world. Modernization meant cancelling internal differences and exchanging them for a larger difference, that constructed by the new state to differentiate it as distinct from all neighbouring countries. Since democracy is premised on respect for internal differences, there is a natural tension between democracy and nationalism. Nationalism is powerful because it allows maximum expression in a group assertion of being exceptional for individual communities and persons who, sucked into the homogenizing world of industrialism, must sacrifice their personal sense of being individuals qua individuals. It's a safety valve for the loss of a real sense of intimate difference as we are drilled to conform to a broad model of seamless social group-identity. The paradox here is that the United States has a powerful political sense of its version of the fiction, in the idea it has an historic mission as an exceptionalist state, and yet is a democracy. Even in international law, it underwrites general principles and then adds clauses saying it alone is exempt from them (as Noam Chomsky repeatedly points out). It has deep roots, that you can get an idea of by reading any number of works, Jack P. Greene's The Intellectual Construction of America, University of North Carolina Press, 1993, or Byron E Shafer (ed.) Is America Different! A New Look at American Exceptionalism, Clarendon Press 1991 etc.
As for the engineering of delusional states of mind, and passing them off as normal, that is inherent in all modernization, and Walter Lippman's Public Opinion is a classic and germinal analysis of the problem.
I haven't read Parenti's book. I haven't read for that matter most books I should read. I'll keep an eye out for it.Nishidani (talk) 12:35, 27 October 2014 (UTC)
How Exceptionalism Fuels America’s Gun Massacres (Why Laws Won't Stop the Bloodshed), by Abby Martin, in CounterPunch
Nishidani, thanks for the detailed information.
Talking about Michael Parenti, here is a recent article by him. Reminding us that in all human clashes over the last several thousand years, including but not limited to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, power elites on all sides of the conflict send low-income and poor people to kill other low-income and poor people and to be killed by them, while the wealthy elites and high-ranking military officers on all sides smile all the way to the bank.
Regards, IjonTichy (talk) 14:14, 28 October 2014 (UTC)
The Ghosts of Gaza: Israel’s Soldier Suicides. IjonTichy (talk) 18:18, 1 November 2014 (UTC)
Thanks. A useful summary, perhaps worth inclusion in the article. I don't think that blaming the jihadi elements like Col. Winter gets one anywhere. The IDF's policies haven't changed because of the rise of religious fanatics in the IDF ranks: their presence just makes explaining the usual policies, and criticism of Islamic jihadis, more difficult.Nishidani (talk) 18:57, 1 November 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for demonstrating your extreme anti-Semitism and complete disregard for WP:BLP by calling an honorable Jewish soldier a "religious fanatic." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.207.47.232 (talk) 06:42, 2 November 2014 (UTC)
Jehovah akhbar! Nishidani (talk) 09:48, 2 November 2014 (UTC)
Perhaps a direct link to this Times of Israel article might be useful.     ←   ZScarpia   13:43, 2 November 2014 (UTC) (By the way, did you read about Netanyahu's gross, abominable, sickening, insulting etc. comparison between rocket attacks on Israel and Nazi aerial assaults on the UK during WWII? ;) )
Yes I did. Perhaps he got that hyperbole from his father, an excellent historian on medieval matters, but a wild-eyed apocalyptic fantasist with regard to contemporary history.Nishidani (talk) 20:05, 17 November 2014 (UTC)
From an interview Prof. Netanyahu did with Maariv: [3][4][5].     ←   ZScarpia   02:10, 20 November 2014 (UTC)
Apologies for being pedantic, but there's an embarassing typo there, which means you wrote something very different from what you meant (think of the elative from the root K-B-R). Regards, NSH001 (talk) 22:51, 23 November 2014 (UTC)
Whozzat? I love pedantry, but where's the typo, and in whose remark?Nishidani (talk) 23:12, 23 November 2014 (UTC)
See elative and akhbar and, err, a few lines up. --NSH001 (talk) 23:21, 23 November 2014 (UTC)
Ah, I see. My cousins used to say that I was a great punner, only the point each time required a footnote or tedious paraphrase before you understood it (the irish joke about micturating, a malapropism for the intended 'matriculating', had to be glossed, and it was that which elicited my elder cousin's riposte).
In writing:'Jehovah akhbar!' I added the 'h' to make such a pun, 'Jehovah' (a misreading of YHWH) and 'akhbar' a distortion of '(Allahu akbar). The point was to liken distortions of holy writ for fanatical ends to slips in orthography, by twisting the terms, and driving home that our own evangelical fanaticism (Jehovah) made God out to be a 'mouse'(that roared). And I suppressed the pedantic temptation to add notes to the fact that in Mycenaean Greek there is a form 'si-mi-te-u' that is linked probably to an inscription at Chryse in the Troad attesting to a cult of Apollo Smintheus (Apollo the Vole). The god of the Trojans was a field-mouse (σμίνθος: as opposed to your average domestic mouse,μῦς), just like the akhbar in 'Jehovah akhbar'. I can't help making private puns, but it relieves the boredom of working here, at least makes me smile, and if flagged would only give the impression of a braggart display of pseudo-erudition. Cheers, pal. Nishidani (talk) 11:21, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

Quotes from the book Johnny Got His Gun.   IjonTichy (talk) 08:06, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Coincidence. I read a long article on that extraordinary man, Dalton Trumbo, some weeks ago.Nishidani (talk) 20:05, 17 November 2014 (UTC)
Yale chaplain forced out by Zionist attacks. The chaplain was forced to resign over a brief letter to the New York Times in which he explained that actions such as the recent Israeli war on the people of Gaza were breeding anti-Semitism in Europe and elsewhere. IjonTichy (talk) 20:29, 19 November 2014 (UTC)
Noted that the day it occurred. He's the last on a list I have of, at last count, 36 prominent academics kicked out of academia or harassed or denied tenure for trying to make a reasonable case for Palestinian rights over the last few years. We have no wiki article on the phenomenon, despite the fact that it is a chronic problem.Nishidani (talk) 20:33, 19 November 2014 (UTC)
How is this a problem? Anti-Semites who demonize and tell lies about Jews and Israel should not be brainwashing students. Western universities are infested with anti-Semitism, as can be witnessed with the growing influenced of the racist hate group "Students for Justice in Palestine" in demonizing and slandering Israel on American universities. (unsigned comment left by 190.94.210.123)

ZScarpia, care to explain your deliberate mischaracterization of Netanyahu's accurate comparison of the Hamas rocket attack on Israel to Nazi Germany's attacks on Britain? The Gazans are very similar to the Nazis and even have the same ideology of wanting to genocide all Jews. How come you people never post links that cast Arabs or Muslim in a bad light? You always post anti-Israel crap. Here are some things to enlighten you:

(unsigned comment left by 190.94.210.123)

Is that an 'answer' to the documentation above about Israeli calls for a genocidal solution? This is the 'Yes,-but-they-are-even-worse' gambit in the dishwater polemical vein of public discourse on ethics and law. In Italy and Greece, many average people avoid taxes and scream when their services don't function, and their excuse is, 'But they (politicians and bigwigs) steal millions.' So your gambit is proof only of an an-ethical crowd attitude, based on focusing on the sins of others in order to turn the conversation away from one's own faults, shortcomings. It works of course, because, as the poet said Humankind cannot bear very much reality. And as another poet wrote:
I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.
One was also told as a child that it is pointless talking back to garrulous airheads with a lopsided sense of outrage, esp. if that outrage is envenomed by a unilateral sense of righteousness and victimization. In any case, you will be reverted if you offload the usual junk of blinkered pathos on this page. So don't waste your time, or mine, further. Thank you.Nishidani (talk) 12:08, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

ZScarpia, care to explain your deliberate mischaracterization of Netanyahu's accurate comparison of the Hamas rocket attack on Israel to Nazi Germany's attacks on Britain? The theme of my postscript was hypocrisy and double standards. A bit of context: recently, a complaint was made about Nishidani's use of the Warsaw Ghetto as an example, the complaint being based on the (bogus) grounds that the ADL has stated that comparisons between the regime in Israel and that in Nazi Germany are anti-Semitic. Now, if supporters of Israel find such comparisons objectionable, shouldn't supporters of Israel avoid making those comparisons about others? If making comparisons between the two regimes is anti-Semitic, then what adjective should be used when supporters of Israel make similar comparisons about others. A case in point, which is why I highlighted it to Nishidani, is Netanyahu's comparison between Hamas rocket attacks on Israel and German ones on Britain during the Second World War [6][7]. The justification comment you left above serves as another case in point: The Gazans are very similar to the Nazis and even have the same ideology of wanting to genocide all Jews. As far as accuracy goes, you might like to read the linked-to Telegraph articles and also look at the Wikipedia ones on Qassam and V-2 rockets. If Netanyahu's speech writer had read the latter, perhaps he or she might not have made the historically erroneous claim that, "There's only been one other instance where a democracy has been rocketed and pelleted with these projectiles of death, and that's Britain during World War Two." Since the total Israeli death toll due to rocket attack is three people, if Hamas is really trying to "genocide all Jews", obviously their current rocket strategy isn't the way they're going to achieve it.     ←   ZScarpia   23:33, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

Chris Hedges says that ISIS—the New Israel. IjonTichy (talk) 21:16, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

That parallels exist is clear. But Israel was not founded on internecine sanguinary sectarian murder between tribes, there was no reformist vs orthodox bloodbath: it succeeded because the Ashkenazi elite understood the technology of modernity, and had no real link to religion, unlike the maniacs who direct ISIS. Secondly, it is too early to speak of a state or a 'shell state'. Thirdly, the technocratic angle is trumped by ideology (just as Nazis destroyed for ideological reasons an advanced industrially able workforce in the Jewish populations of Europe, damaging their war from the inside). Hezbollah (and its imitator Hamas) does not wage war against the Lebanese Sunnis or the Maronites, Hezbollah provides services, and modernizes its Shiite tradition to make it compatible with a viable Islamic state. It does not behead its enemies, but if captured, keeps them in detention (apart from several early recourses to pure terror, mostly mirroring what it perceived its adversary did in targeted assassinations and indiscriminate bombings). Fourthly, Israel succeeded because it had a superpower patron: ISIS is patronized by backward obtuse monarchical regimes, with no industrial basis or growing service class of note: oil revenues buy off the population. Etc. So I am unimpressed (=disgusted), and don't think the analogy dignifies ISIS or demeans Israel, which drove out, as ISIS did, massive numbers of people, but did not, as ISIS does, murder, decapitate, or liquidate those who managed to remain (Christians, Yazidis, Shiites etc.) Israel was under a leash that imposed limits on what could be done before the world's eyes. ISIS has no such rein on what it might do. Nishidani (talk) 10:53, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
U.$. $enator tells Netanyahu Congre$$ will follow his lead on Iran sanctions. "In Jeru$alem, Lindsey Graham says $enate will vote on Iran sanctions bill in January."
"Graham also discussed the possibility of cutting off U.$. funding for the United Nations if the Security Council passes a pending Palestinian state resolution. “Any effort by the French, the Jordanians or anyone to avoid direct negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians over the peace process, anyone who tries to take this to the UN Security Council, there will be a violent backlash by the Congre$$ that could include suspending funding to the United Nations,” Graham said. “We will not sit back and allow the United Nations to take over the peace process.” "
IjonTichy (talk) 22:20, 31 December 2014 (UTC)
Which Wikipedia article is the following source best suited for? Please advise.
Israeli Founder Contests Founding Myths, Consortium News. By Uri Avnery and William R. Polk.
Thanks, IjonTichy (talk) 22:27, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
‘You Have a Mother’. Very powerful, moving by Chris Hedges on the horrors of the Holocaust.   IjonTichy (talk) 06:06, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
  • Gaza in Arizona - How Israeli High-Tech Firms Will Up-Armor the U.S.-Mexican Border. "So consider it anything but an irony that, in this developing global set of boundary-busting partnerships, the factories that will produce the border fortresses designed by Elbit and other Israeli and U.S. high-tech firms will mainly be located in Mexico. Ill-paid Mexican blue-collar workers will, then, manufacture the very components of a future surveillance regime, which may well help locate, detain, arrest, incarcerate, and expel some of them if they try to cross into the United States."
  • Israel at the U.S. Borderlands, video interview with Todd Miller, the author

IjonTichy (talk) 07:56, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Overpopulation, overconsumption – in pictures, The Guardian. Looks like a 2015 partial update of the great 1982 film Koyaanisqatsi.
Happy weekend Nish, IjonTichy (talk) 21:53, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
How telling the truth gets an Israeli soldier thrown in jail. "Cpl. Shachar Berrin, 19, told of his personal experience of the occupation in a show for German TV, and was promptly tried and jailed by the IDF." Haaretz --- IjonTichy (talk) 18:01, 26 May 2015 (UTC)
Thanks. Missed that. If one wants to persist in being normal, one should be told that being so can carry a high price tag, as with this lad. When a spontaneous human feeling is ostracized, the society where this happens has problems, i.e., in this case the attrition of sensibility over 48 years of attempts to "normalize" indecency. A lot of regions in Germany in the early years of Hitler and co's insanity didn't take to the indecency of what was happening. One wonders what happened to the police officers in this village on the Rhine, who reacted normally, as did the villagers in the mid 30s. After another 6 years of it, normalcy surrendered, people turned away, it was none of their business, and a whole world became lunatic, accepting madness as the new norm. Though ageing, I try to remember the names of good people who do these normal things and get punished- Shachar Berrin- it's the only way to honour people whom one will never meet.Nishidani (talk) 18:53, 26 May 2015 (UTC)
By the way, that excellent book has a stupendously trenchant oxymoron in it that one should take on board, to lodge it within one's analytic framework, for the attrition of repeated injurious acts, rules, laws, administrative practices etc., that gradually erode one's capacity to see what is there to see, and call a spade a spade i.e. 'cold pogrom'. Much of what happens in the advanced world, in the E.E.C. etc fits this. It's not an area specific or ethnic specific pathology. Nishidani (talk) 19:14, 26 May 2015 (UTC)
Online database 'exposes' pro-Palestinian college students in bid to block future jobs. "Canary Mission website keeps backers' identities hidden, calls on activists to 'ensure that today's radicals are not tomorrow's employees.'" Haaretz ---- IjonTichy (talk) 15:33, 1 June 2015 (UTC)
Thanks ITIT. People on The Forward still remember the lessons of history, that's why it is a joy to read. It reminded me of hundreds of personal incidents, of the career obstacles to figures like Isador Rabi, Arthur Kornberg, of how that flatulently logorrhoic Heidegger seconded his revered teacher, Edmund Husserl's removal, from the academic world after the 1933 elections. Husserl like thousands of scholars became immediately unemployable because of background 'checks'. Same in the Soviet Union, as with the early life of one of the most brilliant modern linguists, Alexandra Aikhenvald. The 'racial' profile translated into political unreliability. Here, the 'political' profile (do they support human rights for another 'ethos') translates into joblessness.
In Japan there used to be firms specializing in profiling all graduates who were of pariah origins, and furnishing this information to firms that might want a checkup on backgrounds. What's more disturbing is that it mirrors what anti-Semitic groups do, listing and identifying people as Jewish, grubbing up dossiers for eventual use, as with the infamous Posse Comitatus. Well, more or less, all nations, not least the U.S. are now using this. Google itself. Fortunately, speaking in egoistic terms, I'll be dead before this ability to have instantaneous background profiles of everyone you meet will feed into the perceptions of all organizations, employers, and, nod nod wink wink, tip the scales for or against people's utility to the government or company. Nishidani (talk) 16:19, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

Robotics: Ethics of artificial intelligence (May 2015). "Four leading researchers share their concerns and solutions for reducing societal risks from intelligent machines." Nature.

"The United States, the United Kingdom and Israel — the three countries leading the development of Lethal autonomous weapons system (LAWS) technology — suggested that a treaty is unnecessary because they already have internal weapons review processes that ensure compliance with international law."

Yes, and we have ample evidence over the last 70 years (or longer) of that compliance, or more accurately, lack of compliance.

These three countries have near the highest levels of economic inequality in the world. And all three countries have some version of a permanent war economy.

"Israel Second Most Unequal Economy in World" (June 2015). "Shir Hever says the current OECD statistics on inequality in Israel would be even worse if the Palestinian population in the occupied territories were taken into account." The Real News

IjonTichy (talk) 16:39, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

Rather than think this symptomatic of the usual suspects, I think one should examine this, and all such facts, in the broader context. A slow summer's reading of Immanuel Wallerstein's The Modern World System (3 vols), Michael Mann 's The Sources of Social Power, (4 vols) give one a general structural sense of the underlying mechanisms (that include China). If you have philosophical interests, Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer's works,Dialectic of Enlightenment is excellent, as is the former's late work Negative Dialectics, though it can be heavy going for those unfamiliar with the Hegelian background (in such cases, I advise reading it in 10 page sections, interleaved by breaks of reading Wodehouse's Bertie Wooster novels, if only because humour's the only thing left to stave off the potential for anxiety that certain kinds of hard realism can induce.Nishidani (talk) 18:52, 1 June 2015 (UTC)
Have you listened to this,IjonTichy . We all know out Chomsky back to back, but I found that modest delivery exceptionally moving.Best Nishidani (talk) 14:24, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

The phenomenon of retaliatory edits.

I consider odd when, having reverted a red-inked editor on an otherwise obscure page, which I mainly wrote (in the sense I understand the subject), an editor with whom I am in dispute on a completely different page suddenly appears out of the blue, having never edited the page, to support the initial revert, and roll back my edit. No talk page argument, nothing. I am in two minds how this kind of behavior should be classified, 'retaliatory' or 'punitive' (in the latter case, because one might not be getting one's way on the other page). I don't recall any wiki guidance on this. Pure speculation in specific cases, of course, but it is not infrequent, and when a pattern is established, recourse to some remedy is not excluded. The person who most enjoyed doing this in my regard was User:NoCal100, since permabanned but a constant revenant as a sockpuppet. Nishidani (talk) 13:42, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

Well, most of the consensus on WP is silent, just proceeding through incremental edits or tweaks on the main page. However, anything is potentially challengeable, and of course "retaliation" and "punitive" etc. can't be proved. Best to simply open a talk page discussion. Talking through edit summaries only works if there is a background of trust. In this area, nobody really trusts anyone on the "other side". Thus more detailed explanations are necessary on the talk page. I learnt this because my first major WP:ARBPIA article was the 2014 Gaza war. Even truculent editors usually "saw the light" after enough explanation on the talk page. I made sure to open a new talk page section on each revert I made. If the local consensus is against you, open an RfC. In my experience, RfCs usually shortcut interminable talkpage discussions and usually produce the right result. I recall very few RfCs that I have "lost". It just takes a bit of time. Kingsindian ♝♚ 18:34, 4 July 2015 (UTC)
I note these things in a section just to keep track. I hate reading other people's contribs. I don't think of myself as 'on one side', though I am mainly concerned with the Palestinian record since I noticed in 2007 that only 2 people of Palestinian origin were active. There are quite a significant number of editors that some might identify as being on 'the other side' (quite improper designation for them) whose judgement I trust implicitly, and if I see their work on my watchlist I never check it. Hertz1800 and Avi, Irondome, to begin with, not to mention more than a dozen others I could easily name. Some I sometimes check, WarKoSign and Greyshark, but usually think they are excellent editors, with an obvious POV, who can be trusted, if there is a dispute or diff of opinion, to come to a quick compromise. So I don't check them often, except if the edit summary looks a touch sensitive. The people whose edits I check are at anytime only about 5 to 7,whose edits I don't usually trust for objectivity: most of them are drive-by removalists, or talkpage cunctorians and have no intent to be constructive. Nishidani (talk) 18:48, 4 July 2015 (UTC)
That's why I put the "other side" in quotes. As for the rest, the best essay I have read about unconstructive talk page warriors is WP:GLUE. It points out that WP:AGF is not only a good thing in itself, it can also lay bare the bad-faith efforts of others. As long as you keep emphasizing the correct arguments on the talk page, the bad-faith warriors will shoot themselves in the foot, or simply be ineffectual in the long run. Kingsindian ♝♚ 19:05, 4 July 2015 (UTC)
Well from a medical point of view, the issue is one whether they put their feet in their mouths before or after the shooting. I think before, on clinical observations.Nishidani (talk) 10:04, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

You edit like it is an article

This edit use language of newspaper not encyclopedia. " He has no complaint about this because it is designed, he added, " DaniDin 17:47, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

There is almost no encyclopedic writing in wiki articles, unless you see an FA. Writing an encyclopedic article requires one, at worst, two hands. As the Swedes say when reformulating the old English proverb: 'Too many kuks spoil the brothel.'Nishidani (talk) 10:09, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

Request for mediation rejected

The request for formal mediation concerning Shang Dynasty, to which you were listed as a party, has been declined. To read an explanation by the Mediation Committee for the rejection of this request, see the mediation request page, which will be deleted by an administrator after a reasonable time. Please direct questions relating to this request to the Chairman of the Committee, or to the mailing list. For more information on forms of dispute resolution, other than formal mediation, that are available, see Wikipedia:Dispute resolution.

For the Mediation Committee, TransporterMan (TALK) 21:42, 11 July 2015 (UTC)
(Delivered by MediationBot, on behalf of the Mediation Committee.)


First Palestinians, then Greeks. Bravo Germany

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surprise surprise

Shocked and astounded. Though I have to give that one credit, they played the newbie confused by all these rules quite well. nableezy - 21:46, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

I wasn't surprised. There are so many sockpuppets, that though I noticed he was one from the start, I couldn't finger which one it was. One just knows these things. When Sean Hoyland said he was JaimeHerut whoever, the meisterpuppeter, it didn't ring true to me. What admins don't realize is the burden of having to argue with people you know are socks, because, though one's instincts after a decade can detect them pretty quickly, the evidence is only intuitive, not empirical and therefore protesting is pointless. Nishidani (talk) 21:51, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
Kingsindian's to blame for this brilliant work. If we had more editors who only checked sock patterns, and ignored page editing, this place would almost become workable.Nishidani (talk) 21:59, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

I seem to have found a full-time job. I don't know if it is worth it to go after these. They will just create another one. Kingsindian ♝♚ 22:21, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

Several turn up each week, and have for years. Everyone knows that the only remedy is to bar new accounts or sudden drift-ins from editing the I/P area, until they have proved their value to Wikipedia for at least a few hundred edits, is the only remedy. You've joined the rare club of the elect, those who can demonstrate what is obvious to most, but not proven to admins:Sean.hoyland, nableezy, well done. This kind of work is perhaps more important than editing itself. Thanks.Nishidani (talk) 08:58, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

South Hebron Hills

The recent flap over Susya made me notice that there is no article on this as a whole. All the settlements etc. are hived off into their separate pages, with each of them stating the same thing. Half the article consists of the status under international law and settler/Palestinian conflicts and so on. I am myself not too aware of the details here, but I know that you have linked to CPT reports in the past about this. I found the background on the B'Tselem site here useful. Should there be an article on this as a whole? Kingsindian ♝♚ 07:00, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

I found this touristy page Judaean Mountains. Forgive my gross geographical ignorance, but are these related? Kingsindian ♝♚ 07:16, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
IT's hard to do in a collective article, because of problems in sources, which do not treat this as a defined, inclusive zone because there is no political definition. In descriptive terms it tends to overlap with what Palestinian usage calls the Masafer Yatta, the congeries of sites, locales, hamlets associated with the area around Yatta. It is a topological range that more or less covers the areas south of Hebron (city and governorate), down to the southern border of the West Bank, but with the emphasis on Palestinian sites outside that administrative area. There's a map here which provides useful shading for political and administrative control differentiations. B'tselem's survey a decade ago (gives the key site names and realities that are the object of ethnic purification policies of the occupying 'authorities') Nishidani (talk) 07:48, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
Ok, I see. Thanks. Reading the B'Tselem document, I see now why Settleman has been insisting on adding "seasonal" to the Susya article. I failed to grasp the nuances at first. Kingsindian ♝♚ 08:07, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
The problem with the original edit is that it inserts 'seasonal' in a sentence describing Palestinian Susya from 1832, i.e. WP:OR. Precisely the dynamics of the century and a half after then for several of these communities are not known: we do know that two Susya families transferred there from the Arad desert in 1948 after the expulsions. 'Seasonal' as you can see, is an Israeli administrative designation designed to deny residency, more than it is a descriptive term for half of the reality of SHH transhumance communities. You may be right in any case that an article is required on the South Hebron Hills (as opposed to Judean Hills), to collect and give an outline of all of the sites and realities of the remarkable congeries of clans living there. The B'tselem doc is a good place to start, sometime in the futureNishidani (talk) 11:38, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

Hello

Hi, Nish (does Nab still call you that?) I was just passing through WP the other day and I tried my old password for a lark. I said hello to Nab on his talk in a conversation he had with you. I had intended that to be for both of you but I'm not sure if you saw it. So I hope you're well also, despite everything that goes on here. JGGardiner (talk) 20:51, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

I call him that cus im too lazy to finish the name. But from me its almost endearing. From you it is presumptuous and disrespectful. nableezy - 21:39, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
Yeah, yeah. Quit your stagging and get back to work. JGGardiner (talk) 06:23, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
Ah, refreshing to see the other two pair of legs of our old 3 stooges act dancing the daylight out of the other's shadows. Very nice to hear from you JGG, and I hope the next time your hockey team (was that the sport you always chiakked over?) plays against Nab's, that both get thoroughly thrashed. Keep well (a cliché that takes on some force to my ears after recent events. Just got out of hospital after relapse. Nishidani (talk) 16:11, 4 August 2015 (UTC)
The news today is that his team's star player is being investigated for rape, so that should help my Canucks. I'm sorry to hear about your health troubles. I hope that you're doing better now. I've been in the hospital as well recently so I know how frustrating it can be. JGGardiner (talk) 00:22, 8 August 2015 (UTC)
one of his team's star players*. Get it right. nableezy - 05:34, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

looking forward

I'm guess you didn't mean the "November 23,2015" you just added to Hilltop youth but I'm too sleepy to fix it. Zerotalk 13:06, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

Reference errors on 8 August

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Aqabah

I don't like your condescending tone. Nine years on Wikipedia and you don't know how to be civil?

I correct over a hundred refs per day. I've been yelled at, shouted at, and been put down by people like you for fixing the refs wrong. If in doubt, I leave the contributor to fix it. I can't win.

Next time, try saying thank you for finding my mistake or don't say anything at all. Bgwhite (talk) 07:06, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

The ref bot found the mistake. I'm surprised that an accompli8shed editor would go ahead and remove a substantial amount of information simply because an obvious ref bracket had dropped out. Placing <ref in front of > was all that a glance and four tickles of the keyboard would have required to fix it. It's called 'collegial editing', and you can see it at work in Zero's note above. Next time, if you note on of my increasingly demential slips, just drop a note on my page with the text: "pull your finger out " or words to that effect, and I'll fix it myself.Nishidani (talk) 07:31, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

Article by Sara Roy on UNRWA's financial situation

Here is a good article by Sara Roy on UNRWA's financial situation. Kingsindian ♝♚ 00:26, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Thanks indeed. It more or less is the end of the tether of the pattern she predicted in her comprehensive economic histories in the 1980s.Nishidani (talk) 10:31, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

About your Rock-throwing accusations

Nishdani, you are a fool who has obviously never had a rock thrown through your windshield. It is scary as hell. True, it happened to me in Providence, Rhode Island, but it sure as hell made me change how I understood that thing Palestinian "kids" do when they throw rocks at Israeli cars. It is beyond horrifying to be in a car when a rock hits the windshield, the car swerves out of control, and you..... I can't believe I'm having to explain this to an idiot who thinks I am "framing" this horror by calling it criminal!!! I survived. Many people do not. Or they are maimed for life. I worked out some of the horror at Interstate 80 rock throwing, Darmstadt American rock-throwing incident, Death of Chris Currie, Criminal rock throwing - because it is a CRIME!!! People get killed!!! Then you go around bowdlerizing articles and pretending that it is some sort of non-violent political statement. If you think those kids on that Providence street corner were anything other than dangerous hooligans committing a crime when they hurled that rock at me you are out of your mind. Hooligans who throw rocks at moving cars should be locked up. Period.E.M.Gregory (talk) 12:39, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
Well, I'll reread this after your tirade, to remind myself that conscience, a feel for the contexts of evil, and readiness to work beyond the universal brainwashing of ethnic contempt, exists, and is not as rare as an editor of these pages is tempted to believe. 'That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn.'Nishidani (talk) 13:48, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
Maybe read Interstate 80 rock throwing or Death of Chris Currie, or just admit that rock-throwing is a criminal act and that rock throwing kills.E.M.Gregory (talk) 14:24, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
So does shooting, which Israeli occupying troops indulge in every day while storming into Palestinian areas. One side shoots, bombs, gases, steals, loots resources, beats up, imprisons, holds up at checkpoints and entangles for hours days months the lives of another people, sitting on their own ancestral plot of land, and it goes on day in day out now for decades, and it is all routine police work. One reads past, or ignores it. The other throws stones, and your moral antennae quiver with outrage. I don't expect most people to show a trace of conscience. It's too rare a human commodity. One should only be surprised when one sights it, like spotting a rare, haunted and hunted animal. Our moral obtusity here is identical to that of most Europeans as certain trends afflicted with increasing systematic viciousness Jews in Nazi Germany 1933-1939. There, that's my prejudice. I think of Palestinians as I was taught to respond to reading of Jews under regimes of anti-Semitism before the war. It's not the viciousness that astounds me, but the anaesthetized insouciance of the majority, for whom this was none of their business, at least so far as their own (ethnic) communities remained unaffected. That's what I tried to gentle hint citing the magnificent Hillel the Elder's adage, which Martin Niemöller translated into more practical terms in his famous remark: "First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out . . . " Nishidani (talk) 15:13, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Policies in Area C?

I was wondering, if "south Hebron Hills" is too narrow a topic, one could have an article dealing with policies in whole of Area C? I don't know if this exists here, I couldn't find it. This B'Tselem report seems a good place to start as any. Kingsindian ♝♚ 14:07, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

all we have is this. The topic's a big one and would merit a detailed historical page, with perhaps sections on specific areas like the SHHs. Notify me if you decide to develop a special page on Area C and I'll see what I can do, as health allows.Nishidani (talk) 17:44, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Magnificent Samurai Sword Man is back

Hey, sorry to bother you with yet more of this crap but TH1980 is once again requesting that I be indefinitely site-banned for disagreeing with him on an article talk page months ago, or something. Any chance you could talk some sense into him -- or at least his target audience -- again? I just have too much on my plate with the other users requesting that I be site-banned for different reasons right now... Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 06:15, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

Palestine-Israel articles 3 arbitration case opened

You may opt-out of future notification regarding this case at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Palestine-Israel articles 3/Notification list. You recently offered a statement in a request for arbitration. The Arbitration Committee has accepted that request for arbitration and an arbitration case has been opened at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Palestine-Israel articles 3. Evidence that you wish the arbitrators to consider should be added to the evidence subpage, at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Palestine-Israel articles 3/Evidence. Please add your evidence by September 8, 2015, which is when the evidence phase closes. You can also contribute to the case workshop subpage, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Palestine-Israel articles 3/Workshop. For a guide to the arbitration process, see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide to arbitration. For the Arbitration Committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:43, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

Help

If you know of any worthy candidates, feel free to add them at List of peace activists. Thanks --NSH001 (talk) 13:15, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

P.S. Glad to see you back after your absence, was getting a bit worried about you – but everyone needs a break from time to time!

I'll have a look presently. Half the academic staff in the Humanities Department of Hebrew University in Jerusalem should be there, only we lack wiki bios. Indologists, scholars of Greek, Latin, history, esp. conspicuous.
Not quite the 'break' the 'doctor ordered'! Close shave a week ago, Monday 1:30 am. Checked in to the local hospital with stomach pains that had persisted for 2 days. Put on a waiting list as 'not urgent' (I apparently gave too dryly clinical a description of symptoms). Fortunately I suffered a complete collapse while shuffling outside the waiting room to vomit in the gutter round 4 a.m., and was whipped into emergency. Wife thought I was dead. Perforated appendix (at my fucking age!), peritonitis, about an hour from death's door. The real suffering was that I had to go six days without a decent plate of pasta. All well now, with fork regularly twiddling over parmesan-lashed spaghetti. Cheers N, N.Nishidani (talk) 15:07, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
Sorry to read about your health problems. I hope you have fully recovered. The cheese-lashed pasta sounds good, I think I'm gonna fix me some right now. Take good care. Warm regards, IjonTichy (talk) 22:24, 25 August 2015 (UTC)
Thanks. Good as fools' gold now. If my little note had the effect of encouraging more pasta consumption, it was worth the trouble having the op.! Cheers.Nishidani (talk) 16:54, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

Sorry to do this again...

Nishidani, I know you're super-busy at the moment dealing with topics that actually are a cause of controversy in the real-world, but if you have a spare moment could you talk a look at Talk:History of Japan? There's another problem with the same old folks developing over there. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 16:26, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

Done. I didn't look at the talk page. The two editors there are not too bright and one is a passive aggressive, so it is pointless discussing anything. I just looked at the page, and removed a few of the more inane sources. I suggest this is the best way of dealing with that situation.Nishidani (talk) 17:43, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Amnesty report on "Black Friday" in Rafah

Not sure if you have seen this. We have an article on Shujaiyya, not sure if we should have one on Rafah as well. I was thinking for a long time about this, but never actually found the time. Perhaps one can simply extend the material elsewhere instead of having a separate article. Kingsindian ♝♚ 17:34, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

I think one could do separate articles on Khuza'a and Rafah, certainly. Time presses me as well, but it's worth getting a file open and working slowly on it. I'll try to do so, but keep in touch on this. Nishidani (talk) 17:43, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

History of Japan is not a GA, and should probably be reassessed in the near future

Hey, regarding the massive problems already demonstrated on the "good article" History of Japan -- would you mind helping me draft a GA reassessment proposal here? As you know, I have a habit of being kind of long-winded, and not very objective. In talk page discussions I can't reasonably ask you to write my posts for me, but I can ask for assistance drafting a proposal. As you are also aware, the article contains massive sourcing problems, with unreliable sources cited, and words put in the mouths of reliable sources -- I checked some of the areas I know more about than the Wikipedian who rewrote the article, and found about a 75% OR/misleading rate; but I don't know everything -- if you could check some of the other passages for problems and succinctly describe them in the draft, it would help. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 12:14, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Waste of time. Just improve it by changing all the poor sourcing. Do sections at a time. Avoid all bureaucratic circuits, they are toxically boring, and a huge drain on positive editorial improvement. Nishidani (talk) 13:33, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
Probably a waste of your time, but not mine: the article's main author has three times now requested that I be either TBANned or SBANned because I have compiled fewer "good" articles than he has. You can imagine this would be incredibly frustrating for me when everyone but the GA reviewers themselves know that none of the articles are actually "good" because they all contain massive sourcing problems and factual errors. I really wish serious failure to understand our content policies was an effectively blockable offense, and pointing such competence issues was not a blockable offense... Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 13:57, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
Well, shrug it off. In these conflictual areas, shit's thrown, people are bombarded, or passive aggressives get away with 'murder'. But it's all water off a duck's back. Don't think of the other person's behavior, concentrate on the article. It doesn't matter that CN got that to GA status, and it ain't really worthy of it. The world is basically stupid, but nonetheless full of decent or intelligent(or both) people. I think you spend far too much time worrying about correcting other people's bad or dumb habits, all of which is a hindrance to honing your own gifts to improve articles. Just edit, and to hell with the rest. Only in Zen monasteries does one look at a blank, unresponsive wall for 9 years. In real life, when one runs up against obtusity, the best move is to conjure up tinkled ivories and dance past them, without more than a nod towards the nuisance. Nishidani (talk) 14:10, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

The Citation Barnstar
Thank you for finding good sources for History of Japan. ミーラー強斗武 (StG88ぬ会話) 23:26, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
Much appreciated. Thank you.Nishidani (talk) 13:33, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
I second this barnstar. Sorry for not giving you one myself earlier, Nish! Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 13:59, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
Thanks. I sometimes think 'barn' here means what it does in Scandinavian languages, a child, i.e. a merit badge for a cub, who, being a child, is tickled pink. -:)Nishidani (talk) 14:14, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
And not just in Scandinavian languages, but also in Scots ("bairn"). Anyway, speaking of things Scottish, I thought you might appreciate Finkelstein in Glasgow here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcOv5BxtI3M. Barnstar well deserved BTW, and not only for your Japanese work. Regards, NSH001 (talk) 18:49, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
P.S. Picked up a DVD of The Railway Man on offer cheap in a supermarket this afternoon. Not sure when I'll get round to watching it, though.
Well, don't rush it. I never read a book through, even if it is a classic, unless the right mood hits me. I'm ashamed to say that from childhood until 43 I could never manage to get past the first few pages of Moby Dick. After the nth yawn, one day I picked it up, and read it in two sittings, wondering why I hadn't recognized earlier that Melville had a mind as acute to resonance imagery and language as Shakespeare. Of course the Railway Man touches very close to the bone, and a more personal thing. Perhaps even just possessing it is enough, a symbolic presence. Best Nishidani (talk) 19:47, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
Ah, Moby Dick - that brings back childhood memories, must have been about 8 or 9 when I read it, too young to appreciate subtleties of language or relation to Shakespeare, forgotten most of the detail but still a good yarn. As kids we were allowed into the small village library one day a week, and then only into the children's section, but I remember it as being hugely exciting, something we'd look forward to all week. My mother was very keen I should read what she called "classics", but I was more interested in science fiction, good "yarns", and anything scientific or technical (not much of that in the children's section!). Happy days. --NSH001 (talk) 08:48, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
Nishidani, Bishonen is correct about not striking another editor's edit - it's OK to strike your own crap, but not someone else's, except in some very limited circumstances (e.g., a banned editor). You could simply remove it (probably the best course), which is why I'm writing this here, to make that option easier for you. The Finkelstein clip reminded me of you, BTW, when he talks about being able to be calm once you've done all the hard work to have all the relevant facts established. Regards, NSH001 (talk) 22:43, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

reverts on Hebron, Bethlehem

Would you care to explain why you are deleting my contributions without any stated justification? If you look up any city in the world, it will say, for instance, "London is the capital and most populous city of England and the United Kingdom" or "Paris the capital and most-populous city of France". Not "London is an English/British city" or "Paris is a French city". Saying "Hebron is a Palestinian city" seems WP:POINTy. cf. "Derry". You wouldn't start the article with "Derry is an Irish city" or "Derry is a British city". It is: "Derry is the second-largest city in Northern Ireland". ZinedineZidane98 (talk) 21:20, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

I agree with my esteemed colleague User:Hertz1888, who explained why you were wrong to make those two edits here, and there is no reason to repeat what he said with some authority. Particularly annoying was the coining of a topological neologism, the southern West Bank of PalestineNishidani (talk) 21:31, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
He refused to engaged in discussion, as are you. "the West Bank" is not a neologism. Neither is it if you include "of Palestine" (which I don't care about at all, to be honest"). What is novel, is calling a city a "Palestinian/French/British/Irish/Lebanese/Israeli city". If you fail to provide any sources or Wikipedia policies to support your deletions, I'll have no choice but to revert. ZinedineZidane98 (talk) 21:36, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
The obvious reason for such usage, in my eyes, is the fact that the city is in the Palestinian territories or State of Palestine, depending on whether you whether you recognize the state, I guess. But, while there does exist argument about the official name of the region, there is no doubt that both use the word Palestine and on that basis that the applicable adjective would be Palestinian. It avoids the issue of the whether the state or the territories are the appropriate designation of the government, in favor of using the common adjectival form of the name. I think. John Carter (talk) 22:21, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
I privately regard the whole settlement project as sheer carpetbagging and a realestate scam, a scandal to Judaism, a pretext that easily incites to anti-Semitism, and a threat to Israeli democracy, but that opinion is worth nothing. Hertzl applied a running consensus among editors that introducing programmatically 'state of Palestine' everywhere is premature. Nishidani (talk) 22:26, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
John Carter, what you wrote there doesn't make much sense. What is your opinion on the matter?


See http://global.britannica.com/place/Bethlehem http://global.britannica.com/place/Hebron-city-West-Bank. Why should these two particular articles on Wikipedia be at variance with the articles on every other city in the world, and at variance with - in this instance - Encyclopedia Britannica? ZinedineZidane98 (talk) 22:39, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

That is so authoritative it gives Kiryat Arba as an alternative name for Hebron.Nishidani (talk) 06:32, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Please explain

Please explain. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 07:40, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

The explanation is in the edit history and my edit summary.Nishidani (talk) 07:47, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
Then you should try again as you've utterly failed to communicate (and there's no edit summary). Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 07:48, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
I'm willing to go a mile to explain some complex things. I don't discuss with people who cannot distinguish the semantic valencies that nuance the distinction between 'living on' and 'living in'.Nishidani (talk) 08:00, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
In other words, you lack communication skills. Leave the copyediting to the competent, please. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 08:11, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
Sure User:Signedzzz is a competent copy-editor. In our dispute, you dismissed as 'crappy' a normal English idiom, and have no reply but irritation and reverting.Refusing to admit an error is problematical. Nothing personal in this. I'm a linguist, fallible like almost everyone else, but I do know how to verify issues of grammatical usage. I don't allow my emotions to get the better of me if a patent error of judgement is pointed out to me. It's here that we differ.Nishidani (talk) 12:06, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
"I don't allow my emotions to..." -- HAHAHAHAHA!!! As if anything but raw emotion (and incompetence) drove that whopper of a "reference" in the middle of the lead sentence of the article! There is no rational excuse for that. It belongs in the Hall of Lame. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 12:15, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
Adjectives, LOL-type language, repeating oneself, psychological projection, adventitious assertions ungrounded in any evidence, and, above all, a failure to focus on, and answer, precise explanations on the talk page, reverting without rationales . . and you call me 'emotional'? Perhaps you should email my surgeon, who labored under the impression I was indifferent to pain, anxiety and stress.Nishidani (talk) 12:33, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
Your attempts to slag me are doomed to fail in light of that "referencing" edit. Your credibility has sadly dried up. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 12:43, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
Okay. Let's see if you are a blowhard, or can actually respond intelligently Try to explain your edit rationally. I cited this usage of 'living in an archipelago'
Human habitation in the Japanese archipelago (source:Tuyet Nguyet (ed.) Arts of Asia, Arts of Asia Publications, Vol.39 No.4,2009, July -August p.iv:'Dogū (土偶) are fired ceramic figures, usually in human form but sometimes modelled after animals, birds, sea creatures and even plants, made by people living in the Japanese archipelago during the Jomon period (16,000- 500 BCE).'</ref>
you found this reference repugnant, though I had already notified the talk page that the idiom is common:
Given 4 high quality scholarly references attesting to the normalcy of this usage, why do you persist in asserting that it is 'crappy' and not proper English?Nishidani (talk) 13:22, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
Um.. I try to talk turkey and my interlocutor goes cold turkey.Nishidani (talk) 18:55, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
It's the middle of the night in Japan. I went to fucking sleep. Now are you telling me you don't see the sheer idiocy of referencing "on the archipelago"? We reference facts, not prepositions. You've demonstrated that you don't know how or why to use a reference and have now called into question the appropriateness of all the other references you've added to the article. I'll be bringing this up at the article talk page after I've had breakfast, showered, and gotten the kids off to school. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 20:24, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
Well, you didn't understand that I documented the normalcy of the idiom you contest as 'crappy'. Four scholarly quotations indicated it is a standard, which you deny. You should try to think before editing. お鼠野菜Nishidani (talk) 20:39, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
You've "documented" that you don't understand what sourcing is about and are willing to disrupt article space to push the slightest of POVs. This brings all of your sourcing into question (particularly as you tend to edit in contentious political areas), and I'll be calling for an independent review of it. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 21:03, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
Either supply a logical and intelligent reply to my illustration of the normalcy of the phrase you witlessly dismissed as not conforming to English use, or get off this page. Thank you.Nishidani (talk) 21:11, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
You just can't follow this conversation, can you? Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 21:23, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Here, let's throw you a bone: I admit you've found sources that demonstrate "in an archipelago" is used in English. I still maintain it's crappy usage for the reasons I already gave you: you wouldn't say "human habitation in the island" or "human habitation in the continent". Regardless, you've admitted yourself that "on the archipelago" was correct, so changing it yet again afterwards was contentious—but more important is your "sourcing". This is not a recognized method of sourcing anything anywhere in any context on Wikipedia ever. That you would pull such a stunt raises quite grave concerns about all the other "sourcing" you've added to the article recently—and elsewhere, particularly as you tend to focus on politically-charged articles and politically-charged portions of articles. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 22:54, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
Neither my views nor your views count. What counts here is the evidence of reliable sources. If I give you 4 extremely strong sources to illustrate English usage, then your 'opinion' (I maintain) that it is 'crappy' has zero value. That is the most elementary lesson to learn here: whatever we believe personally cannot trump strong sourcing.Nishidani (talk) 18:54, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
I've I've countered with sources that demonstrate the original wording is correct—and you admitted yet. Yet you still did this, which would be horribly wrong even if you were right about the usage. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 22:01, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
  • I think I am beginning to notice what seems to me to be a rather regular, pointless, attempt to impugn Nishidani in your comments. If you are so considered about what you call a "stunt" here regarding sourcing, then, honestly, I guess I have to tell you that raising those concerns here is probably virtually pointless. If you have such concerns, and believe them valid, then the appropriate place to raise them would almost certainly be in a place where such comments might actually receive more attention. The fact that you apparently don't know this, or perhaps simply that insist on making what others might see as veiled threats on this page on this matter, repeatedly, could reasonably raise grave concerns regarding your conduct in this matter, more or less along the lines of our policy WP:HARASS. I very much think it would be in your own best interests to either find more evidence of the questionable judgment you seem to impugn on Nishidani, or perhaps raise the matter in a more appropriate forum than this one. Alternatively, I regret to say, I think that there might be a very real chance that your own conduct in this matter may be raised elsewhere, and, honestly, I don't think you'd like the results of such a discussion if it were to be started. John Carter (talk) 23:08, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
    • Meaning that this page, despite your rather apparent lack of understanding of such matters, is not here for you to repeatedly insult and belittle and harass others as you have been doing. John Carter (talk) 00:32, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
      • The comment you immediately responded to was no such thing and is a serious issue that requires a response. I've raised it on the article talk page. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 00:55, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
        • What is all the outrage about? Even if everything you have said were correct, why outrage? Do you understand that posting "please explain" on someone's talk page is not civil? Such an approach is merely faux civil and immediately recognized as a battle tactic, and the current "discussion" appears to be an attempt to win a pissing competition. If you are going to argue, at least find something substantive for the topic because an ENGVAR issue like on/in is hardly worth all this passion. If there is something you wanted to know about the history of Japan, this page would be a good place to ask. Johnuniq (talk) 04:58, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

NSH001, and User:Bishonen have a nigh impeccable record for sticking to the rules, so I owe them an explanation as to why I struck out the repeated attempts by CurleyTurkey to hammer at his puerile point. I don’t read the rulebook;I've never managed to read any guideline page beyond a desultory paragraph, and I don’t follow the niceties. I rely on practical experience and commonsense. So undoubtedly your judgements are impeccably correct in terms of policy. But I struck those words out, rather than reverting them, to permit Curly Turkey's comments to stay on my page, and, at the same time, register the fact that I had asked him to desist and he refused to. He was being vexatious. I did so recalling that he earlier impetuously collapsed my answer to his request for feedback (which he didn’t understand, and still doesn’t) dismissing it as ‘political horseshit’. If the rules say anyone can dismiss a legitimate opinion from the talk page by hiding it and using vehement turpiloquy in doing so, but that the 'offended' editor cannot cross out (dissent but preserve for view) a repeatedly aggressive set of assertions on his own talk page from the same censor, then policy can’t see what the simple ethics of reciprocity require. I note this with some dry sense of the humorous absurdities of wikipedia, since this bizarre episode is one of those particularly inane examples of shit-stirring to no purpose. Ah well.Nishidani (talk) 16:27, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

Other stuff exists, Nishi; please don't strike out even if the other guy used turpiloquy. Tell them explicitly to stay off your page if you want them to, no hinting or curve balls, and I'll enforce it myself. Bishonen | talk 18:08, 4 September 2015 (UTC).
Bish, I did tell him to stay off the page unless he could behave rationally. He persisted after that warning. What I did was neither a curve ball nor hinting. Just to set the record straight. Nishidani (talk) 18:47, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
Granted, but the individual involved may not have seen it, or, perhaps, been able to read it accurately. Hey, it happens.It might not be a bad idea to either say it more forcefully in some way, or maybe collapsed some of the less than useful personal attacks and other comments, maybe the whole damn thread if you thought so, or "take it to the article talk page," or "stay off my page," or left that person a message on his own user talk page. So far as I could see, he was clearly, to paraphrase him, not attempting to follow the conversation, but rather attempt to dictate it and deliver rather insulting attempts at getting you to see things his way. That, clearly, didn't work, but he didn't seem to understand that. Unfortunately. But, yeah, there are more than a few editors around here who keep repeating themselves, sometimes in completely off-topic ways, rather than directly respond to anything that doesn't agree with their preconceived perceptions. John Carter (talk) 19:00, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
The notorious Bishonen a nigh impeccable record for sticking to the rules! Hahahahaha! Ask Jimbo! darwinbish BITE ☠ 18:10, 4 September 2015 (UTC).
You aren't, um, hungry, today, are you, Jaws? duunnn dunnn... duuuunnnn duun... duuunnnnnnnn dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dunnnnnnnnnnn dunnnn John Carter (talk) 18:26, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

Review and close:

You are having problems with chronology. I provided it above. You want me to explain this? Look at the time:18:55 . I told you to say off the page later i.e.,at 21:11, both long after the, to me, vexatious behaviour documented above. (2)You now allow that my edit re archipelago was acceptable English. Your dismissal of this 'accepted English' was what started this nonsense. Let's drop it. The above is just bookkeeping. I woke up last night with a nagging suspicion I might have erred somewhere, checked, and found this time round, I hadn't. I have had run-ins with quite a few good editors, like Hijiri, who however attests to your good faith; here you blundered, as I have more times than I would wish to admit. So let's bury the hatchet.Nishidani (talk) 22:15, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
I'll be happy to leave it alone, but I'd like to see you admit (a) the aggression started here, not with the language issue; and (b) this was wholly inappropriate and in no way defensible. My "blunder" was not recognizing another acceptable usage, and my aggression was in direct response to yours. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 22:36, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
It is understandable that you didn't catch the point of this this edit because you can't be expected to be aware of my editing practice. As said, I don't care for the minutiae of wiki rules, since I was trained by first rate minds both how to conduct research, and document minutely anything any professor might question. When I find someone questioning my usage of words in a lead or elsewhere, I make a provisory edit documenting that usage in the lead, so that editors on the page can see for a few days the evidence for that choice of language, after which I or anyone else can remove it. In unstable leads under review, this enables people to quickly assess the facts, which I then outlined on the page. All you needed to have done was remove the source once you were satisfied that my judgement was verifiable and acceptable. Nishidani (talk) 12:25, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

FYI ANI

Information icon There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Settleman (talk • contribs) 16:32, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Oh! (to quote Claudia Schiffer) Surely there are better ways to prepare for and enjoy Rosh HaShanah? On a general point of English usage, there was at the moment of your writing, and some hours later, no 'discussion' at AN/1 and (b) the use of the past tense of a model verb ('may have been') implying doubt that I was involved means that you laid the indictment without being convinced of its veracity or propriety, which is not good practice. Your complaint is a matter of a dozen content disputes. I won't take it seriously, this time. Anyone who adopts a wiki handle of such declarative POV as your own and who thinks that Regavim (NGO), an organization programmatically dedicated to the ethnic cleansing of an entire people from the West Bank is on a POV par with Rabbis for Human Rights, which has earned the Speaker of the Knesset's Prize for contributions to Israeli society, probably has not yet grasped what editorial obligations, and NPOV involve here. Regavim would appear to be untroubled in its legal case against Palestinian Susyans by the behavior of the settlers you see in this video, whereas Rabbis for Human Rights is appalled. If you call that POV parity, then you should examine your charge that I am a hypocrite. Coming so quickly off your success in getting another experienced user suspended, User:Pluto2012, it looks like you are being tempted to use A/I to get at editors you disagree with. The exposition is useful only for clarifying that at ARBPIA3, when you claimed some editors are hypocrites citing WP:CPUSH, you had me in mind. That is, like the rest, an infraction of WP:AGF. Good luck.Nishidani (talk) 20:05, 13 September 2015 (UTC)
Pluto hounding was very clear and had little to do with content, and I have gave him two chances to self-revert his unjustified reverts before complaining.
Who I have in mind as hypocrite is none of anyone business unless the admins there want to 'clean the stables' and then I will gladly give some names. Some editors act like they live in the Wild West and is admins at WP:ARBPIA3 are serious about improving things, I thing the 1RR rule should be replaced with more rule about one's conduct. Shana Tova. Settleman (talk) 06:06, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Who I have in mind as hypocrite is none of anyone business unless the admins there want to 'clean the stables' and then I will gladly give some names.

Well, it is my business, since you clearly indicate in your evidence that I am a hypocrite:
(1) At Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Palestine-Israel articles 3/Workshop Revision as of 05:27, 13 September 2015 you wrote:
====Some editors are hypocrites====
A 'Hypocrite' is explicitly stated to be anyone who indulges in WP:CPUSH
  • Some editors WP:CPUSHed others over all kind of reasons but when they edit themselves, they don't hold themselves to the same standards. Not even close!
Having made this generalization you then proceeded to report me some hours later at 16:31, 13 September 2015‎, and in that report
(2)You made 5 bullet points to assert that I violated WP:CPUSH, which is in any case inept, because that is an essay, not policy, and irrelevant to AI cases. In short you cited me specifically as one of those editors who engage in behavior you earlier defined as 'hypocritical'.
Even blind Freddy and his dog can see this, and it is rather pointless to insist against the above evidence that you haven't given administrators the impression I am uppermost in your mind when you complain of hypocrisy. I could have made a far more extensive report on erratic POV-pushing from your record, but in principle I don't report editors unless conditions are exceptional (socking etc), and in any case I am off to Ireland shortly, and have better ways to pass my time. I have a strong POV - it is grounded in the principle of universal human rights, which I think provides a warrant for our WP:NPOV policy, in the sense that every human ethnic group must be represented on equal terms with its (ostensible) 'other' or adversary. Sometimes this leads me to be intemperate: watching repeated evidence such as videos that settler youths in Susya can bash old people, even a woman, over the face with baseball bats, and never be brought to trial, and knowing that the communities from which the thieving thugs hail are, per NPOV, to be allowed equal representation with the dispossessed, utterly poor, legitimate owners (as the Israeli authorities, including the IDF, admit) of that land would test the patience of Job.* But that I know, from a decade of experience, does not mean that I can allow my moral prejudices to interfere with the factual representation of both parties (Israel and Palestine, not sectional interests within those worlds). I occasionally vent my irritation on a talk page: it's a failing, but then again, it does not harm articles. There are editors of distinction, like Zero and Kingsindian who would, and have, pulled me up sharply were that the case.
You have a strong POV too, that of settlers in the West Bank, and vigorously edit to ensure that their position, that they own the West Bank and its historic communities are 'squatters' (Arutz Sheva) or 'transients' (Regavim), is showcased in all relevant articles. This is a position no respectable Israeli historian would underwrite. There is nothing wrong with having an identifiable POV: but one that comes from a WP:Fringe counterfactual position that programmatically denies those very rights to the 'other' (Palestinians) which it advocates for its small constituency cannot but be problematical for a neutral encyclopedia.Nishidani (talk) 10:09, 14 September 2015 (UTC)
  • I am comforted in reading a remark this afternoon by one of the men I most admire in that dark area, whom you airily dismiss as a 'radical leftist' and 'Ta'ayush activist' as if that were obloquy:

a Jewish past with its dead voices whispering in my memory. 'Bind the wounds. Heal the sick. Don't forget you were slaves. To save one person is to save a world. Don't be afraid. All that lives is holy. Forgive. Wake up. Shake off the dust and stand up. Feed the hungry. Bring the poor into your home. Cover the naked. Break their chains.' Did I invent these voices? They seem to speak from some buried, dreamlike domain, as distant and insistent as childhood. It is nothing to be right, and a true disaster to be righteous, but it is everything to do what you can. . If I look deeply into myself, I can identify - side by side with hope, faith, and a certain embryonic capacity for empathy - the same dark forces that are active among the most predatory of the settlers. I, too, am capable of hate and of polarizing the world. Perhaps the balance, individual or collective, is always precarious. Here is a reason to act.' David Dean Shulman in Susan Neiman, Moral Clarity: A Guide for Grown-up Idealists, Random House,2009 pp.383-390, p.385.

Every literate goy will recognize here the heart of Judaism. Most of them will have difficulties understanding how this can be reconciled with the behaviour carried out in the name of Judaism, in places like Susya.Nishidani (talk) 12:45, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Deletion

I am unfamiliar with the way this is done but 2015 Rosh HaShanah murder by stone-throwing should be deleted. 'Murder'? The same editor managed to get the parallel Death of Binyamin Meisner past AfD because it had been referred to quite a few times over more than a decade, but making one of numerous deaths any month into an article before it has passed muster for notability is patent POV pushing, article creation to make a statement, here about Palestinian stone throwing as a specific instance of the same editor's Criminal rock throwing. I was drafting a description of this incident for possible inclusion in the List of violent incidents in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, July–December 2015 list when it was reported several days ago. The original Ynet report said that the two women passengers testified that the man had suffered a convulsive fit before the crash. I kept the page open, while awaiting further news, since it was only hypothetical at the time whether a rock throwing incident was involved (the road suffers from these) or whether it was an accident. I used several sources. Unfortunately the page seized up before I could copy it into a file. Now all sources merely report it has been ascertained as caused by rock-throwing. Perhaps, but the Ynet reporter originally said the man had had some physical seizure. Has that gone down the memory hole, or since been discounted, anyone? In any case a whole article on a single incident before notability is determined is obviously inappropriate.Nishidani (talk) 21:42, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

PROD might not be the best way to handle this, since that is for uncontroversial deletions. AfD would be the way to do this. AfDs are really hit-and-miss. See for instance the AfD here for another article created by the same user, disrupted by several socks. I even opened a deletion review for that: it turns out that wikipedia has a longstanding problem with trying to cover breaking news and to apply WP:EVENT at the same time. I plan to re-nominate that one after a few months or weeks, to make clear that it had no lasting impact. I will try to nominate this for AfD at some point, hopefully soon. Kingsindian ♝♚ 20:31, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
The problem with this sort of crap (I could write a couple a week for several years on parallel incidents with Palestinians, and I refuse to follow the model, as often noted in various deletion debates. Wikipedia is not about retaliation, or lowering one's own standards when others have none) is that a proposal to delete seems motivated by political fears or anxieties of the impact of such information. No. It's just self-evidently POV-pushing. I don't know how to do AdFs, but I posted that note hoping someone who does might look into it. It really is not encyclopedic, of were it, you would still have 100 missing sister articles demanded to be created for the corresponding Palestinian deaths. Nishidani (talk) 20:47, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

Al Jazeera reliable source?

After reading this news article on the Al Jazeera website, wouldn't you say that this website is not a reliable source? I am posting not for any specific reason, just to have an intelligent discussion with somebody who might have an alternate point of view. Debresser (talk) 21:46, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Not sure what exactly you find unreliable there, if you are more explicit, I can respond. But consider this background article for instance. It is largely written from the point of view of the Murabitoun, though it also quotes the Israeli ministry and spokesperson many times. Now consider this article from "leftist" Haaretz: it only quotes Israeli government and unnamed "security officials" making nebulous claims of foreign funding etc., with not even a quote from the group just banned and teargassed. Kingsindian ♝♚ 15:26, 16 September 2015 (UTC)
yet another (talk page stalker): I think that there is a significant difference between "reliable" and "optimal." There are quite a few stories from magazines like Time and Newsweek which are written by, for instance, reporters travelling with presidential candidates, which sometimes strongly reflect the views of that individual candidate. We generally don't discredit them simply on that basis. Now, that is not saying that it would, necessarily, be an optimal source, unless the POV being reflected is itself a significant one, but I don't see any reason to think that the article in question makes the source open to question, any more than the candidate caravan stories I mentioned above raise such questions of the magazines which publish them. John Carter (talk) 15:46, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

Hello Kingsindian and John Carter. Nice of you to join. I am well familiar with friendly talkpage stalkers, and providing you are as well spoken as Nishidani, will be happy to discuss this with all of you.

My problems with this article are:

  1. The repeated use of the word "activists" for people who are either tourists or pilgrims.
  2. The title of the page is "police storm mosque", although what I see on most of the video (and other similar videos on the web) is Muslim youth throwing stones.
  3. The statement by Yousef Mukhaimar that "Israeli settlers are allowed to enter the mosque and roam around freely under police protection" should not be cited, because 1. These visitors are definitely not all settlers. 2. I sincerely doubt that Israelis are allowed inside the mosque itself, but rather on the plateau of the Temple Mount, which is the area surrounding the mosque and further. 3. If it is under police protection it is not freely, now is it.
  4. The statement "Netanyahu's strategy is fulfilling his promises to his right-wing and extremist supporters to eventually demolish Al-Aqsa and build their alleged temple in its place" should not be in the article. It is not clear who was supposed to have made this statement, but 1. I sincerely doubt Netanyahu made any such promises. 2. The temple is not "alleged".
  5. The text "Palestinians who fear Israel may change the rules for visiting Al-Aqsa compound" was different yesterday. It said something like "Palestinians who fear Israel may want to establish sovereignty on the Temple Mount". Apparently even Al Jazeera recognized how far that is from the stated and practical policy of the Israeli government and removed it.
  6. Also notice that the article does not mention that the visits that are said to have lead to the violence are the regular visiting hours for Jewish groups, which have been in place for decades now.
  7. Also no editorial comment draws attention to the strange behavior of Muslim youth, who have no problem with bringing stones into a mosque with the intent of using them in acts of violence. I have not yet seen a Jew bring stones to a synagogue. Let alone with violent intent.

I think Al Jazeera is rather prejudiced, or as we call it here on Wikipedia, POV, and is thereby disqualified per our reliable sources policy. Debresser (talk) 18:10, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

I should say that I have not followed this closely, so this is rather superficial. To your points in order:

  1. No idea why they use "activists".
  2. "Police storm mosque" is a quote from a mosque official, Azzam al-Khatib. I don't know why you doubt it? I don't know what you saw on videos, and what provocation there was. But throwing sonic grenades into a mosque sure counts as "storming" in my book.
  3. The next two points are quoting a Mourabitoun official. He may be lying or otherwise unreliable, just as Israel is often quoted on many things which turn out to be false. It is correctly attributed, as we say on Wikipedia.
  4. See above.
  5. The "fear" of Palestinians that Israel plans to divide the site may or may not real, and need not align with stated Israeli policy. Do governments all over the world abide by their stated policies? By the way the NYT quotes the same "fear" of division and suspicions of Israeli intent.
  6. I don't know how one can be non-accurate or unreliable on something one doesn't say. See my comments at the end.
  7. That analogy would make sense if the synagogue was under occupation. Perhaps you might find this article educational for what Jews did with synagogues under occupation. History is often ugly, and easily forgotten by people.

To summarize, in WikiSpeak, your points are about WP:DUE weight rather than WP:V. Apart from the first point, I don't see any place where they were inaccurate. By the way, reliable sources are not required to be neutral, as WP:RS clearly says. Regarding WP:DUE weight, see my previous comment: what would one call a source which not only uses anonymous "security officials" as sources, but fails to even quote one side? Is that a WP:DUE weight violation? Yet, I don't consider Haaretz to be unreliable. Kingsindian ♝♚ 18:54, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

I waited a little to see if others wanted to respond. So my replies to Kingsindian's points are along the following lines.

  1. Activists is incorrect and POV.
  2. "Police storm mosque" may be a quote, but the decision to use it as the title of the article was made by Al Jazeera, while the very video on this article show more Muslim youths throwing stones than police storming a mosque. That is lopsided reporting.
  3. I completely agree the statements are correctly attributed. The question is whether a newspaper should put such POV or unrealistic statements in perspective. My answer to that question would be a clear yes. Not doing so is tantamount to showing a skewed picture, and that is bad reporting and makes Al Jazeera unreliable.
  4. See above.
  5. See above.
  6. The same as above. This would be a vital detail to put the subject of the article in perspective.
  7. Thank you for the link to that article, and I understand that the situation regarding the West Bank in general is rather complicated. From there to turning places of worship into centers of violence, is in my opinion a huge step. I personally feel that such a step is not moral.

I mostly agree with your summary, but would like to stress that my opinion is that Al Jazeera is one-sided, and can be a reliable source only for the subjective point of view of Arabs, but not of for facts. I really appreciate this conversation. Debresser (talk) 17:14, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

Israeli reports on the Al-Aqsa developments are no better than Al-Jazeera's. Israel's behavior there is no better than that of the Palestinians, with the difference that Muslims have been worshipping there for 1,300 years, which is a lot of history to raze from a people's minds to get a toehold. Remember, it is not legally in Israel. It is a foreign country's terrain policed by Israel.
There's no point in singling out Al-Jazeera. I read The Times of Israel, the Jerusalem Post, Ynet and Haaretz, not to speak of things like The Forward, The Tablet, +972 magazine, Richard Silverstein and Mondoweiss as well as a lot of sources I would not quote for wiki (IMEMC, Christian Peacemaker Teams bulletins etc.). Very little of what happens is reported in mainstream Israeli newspapers that constitute the bulk of our RS. Even with Haaretz, there are numerous problems of underreportage. One has to sweat to get to verifiable details for any any incident - the contradictions between mainstream newspaper reports are multiple for any event. Remember, by the nature of RS we rely on Israeli newspapers, which means a huge amount of relevant information from the other side (take these recent 'riots' in the occupied areas: nothing of the names, villages, numbers of people rounded up, children arrested, people shot, gassed, etc., is visible: if a policeman or Jewish Israeli is injured you get huge coverage, follow up interviews, and reports in the New York Times. WP:Systemic bias. I don't whinge about this, or try to sneak in details from unreliable sources. One plugs away. Technically, nothing in any of these newspapers, the ones I mentioned or Al-Jazeera, should be considered as automatically authoritative, even if mainstream. Covering a fifty year war from, basically one side's faceted reportage is a nonsense, but generally that is what we, you or myself, take as the groundrule with regard to israeli reportage. Nishidani (talk) 17:50, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
I have to agree with Nish here. I remember some years ago, when I was asking about a source which seems to have been, well, wrong, on a topic it reported, an older editor told me that "reliable" in our terms might be better called "acceptable." Al Jazeera is, for the most part, one that meets our basic standards of acceptability. So, for that matter, are Falun Gong press releases (literrlly, I remember arguing about that), even though they in general are at least as tilted as al-Jazeera. As with all other sources, however, the fact that something can be reasonably used in some instances does not mean that it is necessarily the most reliable, or optimum, source in all instances. Of course, honestly, the same can be said for virtually all other sources as well. John Carter (talk) 18:02, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
Nishidani, you are right about WP:Systemic bias, but even after that is said, and with the above example in mind, I do think there is a difference in the degree of reliability of fact reporting between Al Jazeera and e.g. Haaretz. Debresser (talk) 17:58, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
It depends on which article, and which journalist you use. A lot of the political articles in Haaretz strike me as obtuse and stolidly blind to simple principles (I don't read their corresponding articles in Al-Jazeera, however). A good editor will read several versions, look at the spin, and try to sift the facts. As to those incidents, I have found no satisfactory version in any newspaper to date. You need a detached historian or analyst to do it, not journalists writing to deadlines. Probably in a month or three someone will come out with a precise time line: in the Gaza war 2014, we had a huge flurry of accounts (Palestinian/Arab included) that were, to an experienced reader, sheer crap, but they dictated the POV battles and struggles to pin blame. Finally we got people like Nathan Thrall etc., fixing it up. But the point of immediate reportage is to flatter your constituency (linguistic-political-national), assure them of the justice of their own cause, and point all blame elsewhere. There is little if any care taken to review the day's conflicting reports and sort out the mess, the day after. Wiki editors, if they take the encyclopedic scope seriously, must do this, though I don't see much interest in that sense. Often it's painful. Any Jewish person with a sense of the near and deep past should be reading these events in terms of 1928-1929, and the valiant defence of Jerusalem from Rome's imperial thuggery, if only to understand that Jewish attachment to a sacred site is not unique, that the kith with the wrong dialect of semitic have 1,300 years of writing, worship, passion, and fear of loss the equal to anything taught in Zionist or Jewish books generally, and defend what they will probably lose with violence, as Jews did in similar circumstances. The Masada complex is not unique to Judaism.Nishidani (talk) 19:02, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
We agree completely. Debresser (talk) 08:55, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

Please refrain from bringing up Silverstein

It doesn't add anything to the conversation and quite frankly, I can't see how a reasonable person will pay any attention to him. Yes' he had been used as a channel to break Israeli gag-orders but that about it. I have brought a few recent examples of how he falsify the sources he links (which is a dumb move) and I have read some antisemitic material on his website. Yes! antisemitic!!! Claiming that Rashi is 'literature of genocide' is IMO antisemitic. You seem to know enough about Judaism to see my point even if don't agree.

In the future, if you bring him up I'll respectfully reply 'Please try again' and ignore the previous message. Settleman (talk) 09:43, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

Don't waste my time. It is both fatuous and rude to complain on my talk page of an illustration I made concerning sources, discussing with other editors. This place is not a playground to while away one's time with trivial pursuits of niggling opinions, especially when they are, unlike what Silverstein's work, totally ignorant of the complexities of historical details and their academic analysis. The following, to cite just one of dozens of sources, confirm that Silverstein is saying nothing unusual.
When I see the word 'antisemitism' flung at fellow Jews one disagrees with, I always suspect the polemicist has a very superficial knowledge of the chain of tradition, and its modern links. Nishidani (talk) 10:20, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
If you see this an inappropriate, I will remove it all together (or you can do so). I also didn't say he is an antisemite but that some of his material is IMO. I just ask you politily to not bring him up if he is considered non RS. Settleman (talk) 12:48, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

DRN about Duma

Here. Settleman (talk) 06:36, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

1RR

You have broken it multiple times on Palestinian stone-throwing. In addition 'The IDF is known' is both OR and POV. Revert or be reported. Settleman (talk) 21:47, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

I checked before I made that edit, and cannot see where IR has been violated. Of course, I will revert if I have.I'll get Nableezy to check, and follow instructions, when I wake tomorrow morning. Good night.Nishidani (talk) 21:53, 23 September 2015 (UTC)
I dont see the 1RR vio. The last one was more than 24 hrs before. nableezy - 22:08, 23 September 2015 (UTC)
Thanks, Nab.Nishidani (talk) 09:46, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
One edit in the middle seemed like a revert but upon 2nd check you are right. Again, 'The IDF is known' is OR. Can you please quote the source on which you based this on? Bringing multiple sources and making up this sentence doesn't support this. At most it can support 'at multiple instances the IDF...' Settleman (talk) 22:13, 23 September 2015 (UTC)
Please restudy Wikipedia policy. Please observe more closely how policy works in practice. Please reflect before posing questions, like the 'IDF is known' when I gave 6 sources to validate a commonplace you know to be true. Any instant google will provide you hundreds of RS sources and youtube videos of soldiers standing around while settlers throw stones. To ask for further proof is just wasting editors' time.Nishidani (talk) 09:46, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of List of deaths and injuries caused by Israeli forces firing at alleged Palestinian stone-throwers

The article List of deaths and injuries caused by Israeli forces firing at alleged Palestinian stone-throwers has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

WP:NOTNEWS Because WP:COATRACK This "article" is a hotchpotch of incidnets in which deaths are alleged to have taken place in a variety of civil disturbances, riots, criminal rock throwing and vandalism incidents. Although police and security forces respond to riots and civil disturbances, in Israel as elsewhere, there is nothing that defines this as a category, no recognized topic beyond the general subject of Israel response to riot, civil disturbances, and vandalism of sundry types. Article, moreover, is poorly sourced, making it difficult or impossible to check the validity of individual incidents listed. Where sourcing exists, it is often to partisan NGOs.Article is new, and author acknowledges writing it in response to List of deaths and critical injuries caused by Palestinian stone-throwing.

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. E.M.Gregory (talk) 14:32, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

Send me a link if you ever get around to seriously proposing its deletion.Nishidani (talk) 16:08, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

Nomination of List of deaths and injuries caused by Israeli forces firing at alleged Palestinian stone-throwers for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article List of deaths and injuries caused by Israeli forces firing at alleged Palestinian stone-throwers is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of deaths and injuries caused by Israeli forces firing at alleged Palestinian stone-throwers until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 06:39, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

Prodding for discussion at DRN: Duma arson attack#Ya'alon on Jewish extremists

Hello Nishidani, just checking to see if you are wanting to join the discussion occurring at the dispute resolution noticeboard concerning the article Duma arson attack. If you could please either join or let us know that you do not wish to join the discussion, that would be much appreciated. Thanks, Drcrazy102 (talk) 02:34, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. Have done. I should apologize for not accepting to participate, but I hate being tied up in extensive and often, as this case, pointless, niggling over technical issues. Every involvement of this nature detracts from editing time, and I think it is clear from the talk page that when several editors disagree with one, while the latter has a right go to dispute resolution, he has no automatic right to overturn a pretty obvious and commonsensical consensus. The only assumption there would be that the majority is a POV gang, which is not so, despite rumours. Cheers Nishidani (talk) 16:11, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

GA reassessment for History of Japan

History of Japan, an article that you or your project may be interested in, has been nominated for a community good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 06:56, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

I'll keep an eye on the discussion. Obviously it was not GA. I dislike the time wasted in arguing the point when simple work to improve referencing resolves most issues. I'll try to improve its sourcing when I get some leisure, which is scarce these days. Cheers.Nishidani (talk) 16:15, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

Note to self

Read this regularly Nishidani (talk) 07:33, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

Etymology of West Bank

I figure if anyone would be able to find out the details here, it would be you. Please see Talk:West Bank#Suggested edit. Thanks. John Carter (talk) 21:50, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

I thought I provided those details (came into vogue after 1951, but was used desultorily before them, from memory) on that page. Not so much an etymology as a usage origin. Germans still say Westjordanland, as earlier texts spoke of Cisjordan, which survives in Romance languages, though in a restricted sense, since there, unlike the historical term which refers to all Palestine west of the Jordan as opposed to the Transjordan, it means just the West Bank. The Japanese happily say 'Area of the West Bank of the Jordan River', which is clearly formulated to clarify that the focus is on territory near the Jordan, not all territory west of the Jordan.Nishidani (talk) 15:20, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

What do you think?

Multiple issues. Tom Reedy (talk) 03:03, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

Reference errors on 6 October

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