Wikipedia:AMA Requests for Assistance/Requests/November 2006/Ian Pitchford

Wikipedian filing request:

• Ian Pitchford (talk · contribs)

Other Wikipedians this pertains to:

• Amoruso (talk · contribs)
• Shamir1 (talk · contribs)

Wikipedia pages this pertains to:

• Palestinian exodus (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Questions:

Have you read the AMA FAQ?

• Answer: Yes

How would you describe the nature of this dispute? (policy violation, content dispute, personal attack, other)

• Answer: content dispute

What methods of Dispute Resolution have you tried so far? If you can, please provide wikilinks so that the Advocate looking over this case can see what you have done.

• Answer: Extensive discussion on the talk page; WP:RFC just filed.

What do you expect to get from Advocacy?

• Answer: Clarification of policy and correct procedures.

Summary:

Much of the material being added to this page is inconsistent with the scholarly consensus on the causes of the Palestinian exodus and is sourced to a book by a Revisionist politician Shmuel Katz who was involved in the exodus as an Irgun propagandist and member of the high command. I believe that the use of this material is a clear violation of WP:V and brings Wikipedia into serious disrepute.

Discussion:

Comment: Shmuel Katz is a notable writer who has written an extensively quoted peer-reviewed book about the conflict. You can see the number of uses here [1] and mentions in google scholar here [2] You can see an editorial review of Katz here [3]. user:Avraham has already explained to user:Ian_Pitchford that it's all right to quote Katz regardless of this here [4] Katz is quoted in scholary journals [5]The Johns Hopkins University Press...[6][7]: Journal of Palestine Studies, Indiana University Press, Jewish History... Regardless of all this, we have explained already that Katz is used as a secondary source. Nobody ever questioned his myriad of references which he collected. In fact, the same primary sources are used in a myriad of other books and web-site you can see that easily. Ian and his friend have also admitted and argued that Katz based references on the scholar Schectman. Now this scholar is quoted by another person extensively used by Ian Pitchford in the article called Gelber, so what possibly could be the problem here ? In addition, it's difficult to WP:AGF since Ian Pitchford has removed whole chunks of material that weren't quoted to Katz at all and also contemporary quotes regarding Hezbollah and a whole lot of different things - see here [8] Mind you, he provided no edit summary for these mass removals unwarranted of materials and he used popups in order to do it. Seems clear sources should be restored in their full as we don't want to represent only one WP:POV in the article which if you see is surprisngly or not the consequence of this removal..... Amoruso 09:56, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Comment: Katz has compiled much reliable information, Amoruso's words are correct. It is not Ian Pitchford's job to call him a "propagandist" and just delete it. Also, Ian Pitchford and others have deleted much information that is verifiable. This is information that has nothing to do with Katz. It came from reliable peer-reviewed sources and was removed by him for no reason. None even mentioned on the talk page. This violates Wikipedia's rules in terms of vandalism. --Shamir1 18:15, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Comment: Historical events should not be portrayed in Wikipeida from the viewpoint of notorious propagandists who have spent a lifetime espousing one side of the argument. This is a clear violation of WP:NPOV. I think the problem is illustrated well by the claims made above. To take just a few of the fundamental problems raised:

• According to Amoruso Katz has written an "extensively quoted peer-reviewed book". In fact the book is not peer reviewed. Katz has no peers because he is not an historian, he does not publish material in scholarly journals, and he has never held a University post. Throughout his career he has been a Revisionist politician, propagandist and publicist for the far right. His book is a trade book, and like all trade books it can contain anything that the author and publisher want to publish. It is not a fact-checked source. The policy on verifiability states that "Articles should rely on reliable, third-party published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy" and that "In general, sources of dubious reliability are sources with a poor reputation for fact-checking or with no fact-checking facilities or editorial oversight." The points that Amoruso raises about Google Scholar etc have been answered by other editors many times across all of the pages in which he is trying to insert this material, e.g., Palestinian refugees:[9], Palestine:[10], Palestinian exodus:[11], Faisal-Weizmann Agreement:[12], in the latter example Amoruso also misrepresents what Katz says in his book.
• According to Amoruso "Nobody ever questioned his myriad of references which he collected": Amoruso copies a great deal of material from Katz, but attributes it to the sources Katz mentions and not to Katz's book. This is plagiarism, e.g., [13]. Again this has been pointed out to him ad nauseam: [14].
• Shamir1's comments simply ilustrate that he's not even aware that the material he and Amoruso have been pasting into Wikipedia has been copied from Katz, sources and all. As WP:V states: "The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material." He can't evade reponsibility for adding this material by claiming that Amoruso and/or Katz supposedly checked it.
• Finally, WP:V states "There seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of random speculative 'I heard it somewhere' pseudo information is to be tagged with a 'needs a cite' tag. Wrong. It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced. This is true of all information". Once again I would like to invite Amoruso and Shamir1 to contribute to Wikipedia using reliable sources.

--Ian Pitchford 20:49, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, according to WP:V: Editors adding new material to an article should cite a reliable source, or it may be challenged or removed by any editor. But there is an inherent problem with history, as it is essentially written from the POV of the winner. The Nazi's were evil (sorry, first one that came to mind). To combat that, we must look at and cite the multiple sides of the conflict (especially in one such as this). Something like "they said this, they said this". And we must try not to sandbag one side. Just some suggestions. -Royalguard11(Talk·Desk·Review Me!) 21:15, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Exactly. It makes you wonder doesn't it because Pitchford won't accept any of the sources regardless to where they're sourced. Pitchford simply wants his version and his version only to be displayed. You'd notice that neither I nor Shamir1 never tried to blank out material even though the whole article is based on a fringe opinion of Benny Morris and not on a neutral way - in fact, our sources are only relevant to a section which is INHERHENTLY POV and talks about a THEORY - even though this is not a theory according to these sources but a FACT - the whole article is described from Benny Morris's and Gelber's theory point of view, yet Pitchford doesn't ALLOW sourced and verified information to be placed even in a theory section. Quite extraordinary wikipedia allows this to happen IMO. Amoruso 02:05, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Comment: Indeed we must cite reliable sources and if those sources indicate a significant difference of opinion then we cite them in proportion to the prominence of each, but we should not cite anyone regardless of their bias or credibility. --Ian Pitchford 22:58, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

In short, I respectfully believe that by Pitchford's statement above, it proves he's only trying to blank out Katz for his WP:POV and he has nothing to base it upon. His differnet allegations are all denied of course and don't seem to have any inherhent logic to them. There's no single sentence sourced to someone else and not to Katz unless reviewed by me. In fact, Pitchford recently claimed in what seems like paranoia that I myself was Katz so that kinds debunks the plagarist fantasy of his [15] so to speak... It would be best if Pitchford reads WP:NPOV a few times and then a few times more and realise that wikipedia is not a place to display one set of opinions and not the other. Pitchford seems to think that only sources which meet his WP:POV are WP:RS and WP:V and not others. He hasn't provided even one shred of evidence to back his claim that Katz is not a WP:RS and I have effectively proven that he is. His peer reviewed book is a most relevant and cited book on the conflicts by scholars and historians like I demonstrated on my statement. Regards, Amoruso 02:01, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Could I make a suggestion here: Seek mediation. The Mediation Cabal will do informal mediation for you, if you all agree to it. It is a fact that wikipedia works on consensus (and anyone that says otherwise is wrong). The article is protected, and will remain protected I expect until a decision is come to. You can all fight about this and that, but without any consensus, nobody is going to be doing any editing any time soon. So, either stop fighting and come to a decision, or ask the MedCab to help. -Royalguard11(Talk·Desk·Review Me!) 05:20, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

The problem is that there's no specific conflict of opinions here. Mass material was removed from different sources and different eras. More than 50% of what was removed has nothing to do with Katz at all. Some concerned whole differnet issues altogether. Clearly, if we can describe the actual disagrement then perhaps a mediation will be possible but for that we need to see some WP:AGF from Pitchford and agree to retrieve all the information that had nothing to do with Katz and was still removed. Then we can ask the mediation perhaps in theory if we can source to Katz, but right now it would seem the question will be "Can we source anything that doesn't fit this user's opinion?" -> you see the problem. Amoruso 05:32, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Comment: Amoruso's claims above are false: the book is not peer-reviewed; there are not "many sources", there is only one source Katz, and he is not a reliable source because he has been intimately involved in attempts to justify Revisionist policies throughout his career. Katz is not a scholar and no historian cites his book. Joseph Heller, of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, has described the "history" propagated by Katz and colleagues as "one-dimensional counterhistory" in which the "self-image of Begin and his underground colleagues... was highly inflated; their negative images of the Jewish Agency and of the Haganah leaders were similarly detached from reality". In other words the works by Katz and Co. are biased and self-serving even by the standards of mainstream Zionist myth-making. The Jewish-American authority on Zionism Norman Finkelstein has written that Joan Peters' use of twenty-one references to Katz's book Battleground "has the combined scholarly weight of a classic comic book". Amoruso and his collaborators routinely delete anything from Wikipedia, no matter how well sourced, that indicates Katz's political bias and unreliability, e.g., [16] and [17]. There are engaged in a concerted campaign to fill Wikipedia with crude propaganda and to delete reliable sources that indicate just how crude that propaganda is. Here is Amoruso's collaborator Isarig, for example, deleting material sourced to the Israeli historian Benny Morris and replacing it with propaganda material from Israeli government web sites and US advocacy groups [18]. Amoruso has already declined mediation on his use of Katz in the Palestine article: [19]. The only thing that remains to be clarified is whether Wikipedia has any means at all of enforcing its policies and whether Amoruso, Shamir1 and Isarig get the bans they deserve.

References

• Finkelstein, Norman G. (2003). Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict, New and Revised Edition. London: Verson. ISBN 1-859-84442-1
• Heller, Joseph (1994). The End of Myth: Historians and the Yishuv (1918-1948). In Reshaping the Past: Jewish History and the Historians (pp. 112-138). Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-195-09355-0

--Ian Pitchford 17:48, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Comment: Getting back to the issue at hand - the validity of Katz as an historian - I would like to point out that over the years Katz is not mentioned even once by the American Jewish History Journal (search entry), maybe the most respected historical journal on the subject and quarterly published for more than a century. Furtermore, to my knowledge Katz is neither peer-reviewed nor is his work cited by anynone but a group of "followers". Contrary to what was claimed above, in Johns Hopkins University Press's Project Muse, a collection of high-quality peer-reviewed journals from 60 scholarly publishers, Katz's scant presence is primarily related to his political work [20] [21] (Katz was an adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Begin).

However, the main reason why Kats isn't, and shouldn't, be cited as a historian (as opposed to his background as a politician and a participant in certain events) is that he has not done any research on his own; rather, his books are a collection of thoughts and viewpoints, backed up by selective quotes and events.

Much of the same can also be said of the above mentioned Schechtman, whose 1966 book, The Crucial Decade: 1939-1949, was reviewed by the American Jewish History Journal as, while interesting, "with unqualified approval of the Revisionist movement", "does not show more than a few traces of self-disipline", "seems a bit too many of these [mistakes]", and otherwise criticized for citing only publications from certain organizations, the government and press, while ignoring important work by others (AJHQ:56,1-4,pg. 361, available via the entry link above) .

As for the conflict, I concur with Ian Pitchford's description. Amoruso in particular, and to some extent Shamir1, are, based on my experiences, POV warriors of the destructive kind. I see no point in engaging in a who-said-what-when quarrel, but I think the following words from Amoruso sums it up: "All the quotes from Joseph B. Shectman are 100% accurate and verifiable and trust worthy. This is true on all accounts of other historians who happent to belong to a right wing side of a map." [22]. I have also briefly listed examples of Amoruso's edit behaviour, with diffs, on a previous occasion

In a way, this conflict also mirrors what is a major problem at Wikipedia: information from partisans and propagandists is readily available online (and often cited by fellow partisans), while work from scholars and others are increasingly moved to pay-sites or is only available in libraries. - Steve Hart 06:29, 5 December 2006 (UTC) (I forgot to mention, if someone wants to reply to this you will do so below, and not inject your comments into mine (you know who you are) -- Steve Hart 06:38, 6 December 2006 (UTC))

Section Break 1

Ok, here is a (proposed) policy on books: WP:BK. Second, reliable sources should link to WP:RS. Third, could someone give the reader-digest version of the conflict, including who added what, who removed what, and include diffs. That will make it easier for all of us (including myself, which will make it easier to help you). Thank you. -Royalguard11(Talk·Desk·Review Me!) 05:09, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

How to discuss about the Israeli official historiography in wp

Post-Zionist and palestinian historians claim the "traditional Israeli historiography" didn't explain the events the way they happen. "Official Israeli historians" (who were maybe more propagandists than historians) would have built an history for these events. Right. Noted.
They are many references for this in first quality (undiscussed) scholar's works.
As a consequence, isn't their point of view an important information to add to an article. Not to claim that what they say is (or may be) true but only to underline what they say and permits the readers to understand precisely the "size of their (alleged) lie or manipulation" (if any)
I think Katz, Schechtman and other pov would deserve a place in all these controversed articles but in a special section : "Israeli official history".
Their Pov could be given and critics of their pov from other historians (if any) too.
As I think I wrote some months ago (you were not there yet but this received no echo) :

if what they claim is (maybe) not true, it is true that it is what they claim.

This information deserves numerous lines in the articles because this is what all Israeli citizens and most western people learned unless they studied the matter deeply.
Any comment ? Alithien 09:54, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

For the most part I agree, but I don't think you will get many takers. -- Steve Hart 06:31, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

On my talk page, Zero wrote he agreed (even if he gave me some name of official israeli historians). On his talk page, Amoruso wrote me that Schetchman and Katz were not propagandists but he agreed to write in a particular section. Shamir1 answered on my page 2 but not about the topic. Nevertheless, I think there could be a compromise if Ian agrees too. Ie : simply writing all these people's points of view in precisely attributing each of them. Alithien 20:42, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Let me be perfectly clear: There's no reasoning with these guys. You will have better luck convincing a priest that God doesn't exist. A couple of points:

• There should be no need to confine certain viewpoints to a specific section. That's just a temporary solution. Should such a section be free for a subgroup to do what they please with? To put in anything they want? How large do you think such a section will grow in time? What about Undue Weight?
• Cites should stand and fall on their own merits(!) This conflict is not about Katz, but about how to interpret sources (Katz's not the only one). The talk page of the article in question has one section in particular which is a good read: Quotations, a salutary lesson.
• I certainly agree that Katz can be mentioned by Wikipedia, but as a participant, not as a historian. A similar example can be found in former Israeli Prime Minister Rabin, who, in the unpublished version of his biography, surprisingly told about the forced expulsion of 50.000 Arabs in the town of Lydda. Rabin shouldn't be be quoted as a historian either, but as a participant. However, this means that more than 90% of Katz on Wikipedia must go.

In the end I know this will sort itself out. Amoruso has violated pretty much every policy multiple times, and pissed off hundreds of people, during his 6 months here. One day someone's going to write him up and report him, and he'll be gone. Not even WP's forgiving policy enforcement is going to save him. -- Steve Hart 06:36, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Ok, everything's quited down here again. Has everything been settled maybe? Do we finally have an agreeable settlement? Or do we still need to discuss that? -Royalguard11(Talk·Desk·Review Me!) 23:22, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

My summary

• I provided links which (1) state that Shmuel Katz is historian (2) scholary journals who cite Katz (3) proof that book is notable in the conflict discourse. So I don't feel I need to repeat myself again. As for historian btw, user:Zero0000 himself admitted that historian is not a term one can detremine and didn't object to this title for him.

• I feel it's obvious that this is not about Katz as also written above. It's about certain users wanting to remove the theory that Arab leaders endorsed the flight. Now this is the amazing thing - it's not just a theory. We can write the whole article from that sense yet the article is written from an opposite sense. Saying that only Katz quoted are removed is a false statement. Katz never mentioned the 2006 Hizballah WP:RS links that were provided and were relevant for example but were removed wholesale together with everything else.

• The article is written, completely from head to start, from Benny Morris' review. Benny Morris has been criticized a LOT. For example by Efraim Karsh and Shapira. But Ian Pitchford seems to believe that this is irrelevant, but for some reason the controversial Finklestian who criticized Joan Peters or Shmuel Katz is the "auhoritive" on this issue. This proves a clear bias and I'm disappointed that wikipedias endorses it by locking the version which removed anything that Pitchford doesn't agree with - this is very disappointing, and I feel I might not contribute to wikipedia in the future if information that doesn't fit one's WP:POV is removed for no reason.

• Katz is not a teacher of history in a faculty - i think that was mentioned in other words. Well guess what, WP:RS doesn't require that he will be. Usually those writers from the university are more inclined the left side of the map anyway and we wouldn't want to present only one POV. Now, Efraim Karsh agrees with the endorsement "theory" too - he's in the university and he's just one example of many, so what's the problem ?

• Why did we quote Katz in the first place if he's not the issue ? Well, simply because of the reasons I provided above. Katz compiled a respected peer reviewed book about the conflict. That book is full of references. Nobody ever questioned his use of the references. He made no one statement of his indepedent from references so his background or opinions or agenda or whatever is not relevant at ALL. The reason we quoted from his book as secondary source is because : (a) it's WP:RS a published book by Bantam circulating widely (b) VERIFIABLE in english and many other languages. WP:V and WP:CITE. I have 3 versions of the book in differnet lanaguage and 2 or 3 differnet editions of it in Hebrew accessed to me on every day basis. (c) the same infomarion appears in web-sites etc but they're not as RS and we quote the origin - one of the main researches done on the subject. We can also quote directly from Schechtman of course. We're not even quoting Joan Peters although the opinion that her book is "discredited" is just an opinion and explained already - others disagree, simply like people agree on Morris' work or not it's also debated. So this is really not the issue. We need to face the fact - are we allowing wikipedia to censor information that doesn't fit with a couple of users' point of views ? I hope not. Amoruso 12:14, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

• As for personal attacks and incivil language directed to me by some users, I choose not to respond in the spirit of wikipedia's honour. Amoruso 12:14, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

• As for compromise, indeed we have no problem to accept the POV of other users and only include the rferenced material which was blanked in its own section - that the "endorsement theory" version. This was actually the case, which proves there was a censoring attempt here. Also that section is also filled with POV attempts to refute this information which is wrong because the whole article is based on the other POV anyway. Statements like "undue weight" in this sense are highly disturbing. In fact, the whole issue is very disturbing because still no excuse was provided for the reasons that fully referenced and verified quotations and information was wholesale removed. None. Amoruso 12:16, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Ok, this has died down again. Has everyone come to an agreement? -Royalguard11(Talk·Desk·Review Me!) 21:06, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Followup:

When the case is finished, please take a minute to fill out the following survey:

Did you find the Advocacy process useful?

• Answer:

Did your Advocate handle your case in an appropriate manner?

• Answer:

On a scale of 1 (worst) to 5 (best), how polite was your Advocate?

• Answer:

On a scale of 1 to 5, how effective do you feel your Advocate was in solving the problem?

• Answer:

On a scale of 1 to 5, how effective do you feel the Advocacy process is altogether?

• Answer:

If there were one thing that you would like to see different in the Advocacy process, what would it be?

• Answer:

If you were to deal with this dispute again, what would you do differently, if anything?

• Answer:

AMA Information

Case Status: closed

Advocate Status:

• I haven't had a big case lately, so I'll take it. Open. -Royalguard11(Talk·Desk·Review Me!) 22:58, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Closed due to lack of activity. -Royalguard11(Talk·Desk·Review Me!) 19:52, 24 December 2006 (UTC)