Talk:2006 Lebanon War/Archive 29

message: Here is an article about what Israel wants to be seen as: They want to creat events that will have the Arabs think that they are, i quote from an Israeli: "The Jews Are Crazy": article, opinion, amnesty --Striver 14:34, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The zombietime replied to the Australian "rebuttal", and is quite convincing: His only "evidence," yet again, is the testimony of the people who claim to have been attacked. And though he informs his readers that he went back to "inspect the damaged ambulances" he took no pictures to either validate his claims or to challenge the evidence here. . It may not be NPOV but it adheres to facts, and the pictures don't lie. It clearly shows that any claims that Lebanese ambulances were hit by Israel are false, since there is no supporting evidence. It was not "discredited". Moreover, the reporter that was sent to reinforce the accusations returned with empty hands. --Gabi S. 13:20, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Propaganda

message: "Amnesty International called on Israel to consider refraining from the use of depleted uranium munitions..." is a false accusation. Israel did not ever use such weapons, not even in the 2006 Lebanon conflict. The fact that it didn't use it acts as a counter-balance to the accusation, and doesn't need any proof. On the contrary, if someone claims that Israel did use such weapons, then supporting evidence from reliable sources must be provided. It would be a distorted POV to leave Amnesty's accusations on the article without mentioning that they have no relationship to reality. --Gabi S. 12:50, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: When you have some evidence of this, then please, put it in. Until then, you can't say Amnesty is wrong without evidence. It's not at all POV to leave a comment unrefuted when you can't refute it. Iorek85 12:56, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Amnesty called Israel not to use depleted uranium. Israel didn't use depleted uranium. These are simple facts. You keep deleting it, but I can't prove what has not been done. You want only one side (Amnesty's accusations) to remain in the article - this is not NPOV, you should show both sides of the issue. --Gabi S. 13:06, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

text: That's rich.  "Israel never used them and my word is proof enough that they didn't, but if they did you would still have to prove that they did because your word isn't proof." Does that about sum up your arrgument? Carbonate 01:21, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

text: Screw AI, they're in bed with Hezbollah, anyway—it's a bunch of islamofascist crackheads spouting propaganda. I tell you, the IAF dropped pink balloons, and that's all there is to that. Kosmopolis 16:03, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: And don't forget the IDF. They can lie better than the rest. Carbonate 01:23, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

text: Mnw2000, above you wrote: "Are there any honest brokers out there anymore? You have to admit that democratic governmeents are being held to a higher standard than non-democratic instituations by these so-called non-political organizations [AI, HRW, etc]? This, by itself, is unfair and shows the bias." But shouldn't democratic governments be held to a higher standard than non-democratic ones? Isn't it reasonable to expect more excellence in the actions of the governments of the USA or Israel or Sweden, than, say, of the governments of North Corea or Sudan? After all the actions of a democratic government reflect on the entire population, and I daresay reflect on the very principle of democracy. Conversely should one's expectations of the democratic government of Israel be the same to one's expectations of the governments of North Corea or Sudan, wouldn't this be demeaning to Israel? - You write that AI, HRW, IRC, UN have all been wrong sometimes in some of their statements. What other organizations would you suggest are more reliable as a source of information about current wars? Dianelos 01:18, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Suggestion: Since Amnesty's call to Israel to refrain from using depleted uranium did not materialize (Israel did not use such weapons - there would be clear evidence if it did), I suggest to delete the whole accusation paragraph. It is irrelevant. Please write your opinions here; I will wait a couple of days before changing it. --Gabi S. 06:17, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Done. --Gabi S. 07:05, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Amesty's accusations 

message: The user from the 80.135. IP range should consider themselves warned in regards to the Wikipedia:Three-revert rule rule. Please discuss the issue instead of continuosly reverting. TewfikTalk 04:49, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[WP:3RR]] 

message: Iorek85 deleted the external links on August 1, stating: "They are getting way too long. I think that post conflict, the news links are no longer needed unless they give a special insight to the conflict - before, they were good as they allowed quick access to updated news, but that's irrelevent now. Maybe even the blogs, since the conflict is over. Iorek85 00:35, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: WP:SPAMHOLE is where this article is. We should aim to have five links, tops. HawkerTyphoon 01:11, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You're exaggerating. :-) It could probably do with shortening (do we need to link to blogs?) but otherwise it seems about right to me - we certainly need to link to the major combatant and international news outlets' coverage of the conflict. Compare 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake#External links. -- ChrisO 07:48, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Contemporary news coverage is never irrelevant for those who wish to track the day-by-day developments. I couldn't agree more! But the conflict is over - hence the lack of a need to link to the general conflict pages on a variety of news sources any more. Same goes with the blogs. I was happy to have them when the conflict was ongoing, so readers could get the latest, unique information (I defended their inclusion repeatedly, in fact) but now the conflict is over, they don't provide anything unique or important. As for bad links - I culled based on the links claimed content, not the reliability of the source. I thought specific articles were fine - detailed analysis should be included, of course. I just deleted the links to the israel-lebanon section of the newsagencies. As for structure, sure, but ideally, there should be so few as to not require headings, as with most pages here. Iorek85 09:07, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links again 

message: It's massive! Far too long. This is not the history of conflict between Israel and Lebanon, it's about the 2006 conflict that started in July and ended in August. I know it didn't happen in a vacuum, but a background section longer than the section about Israeli attacks is way out of proportion. Iorek85 09:21, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I know, it's long, arguably too long at the moment. I am at it, right now, looking at which parts can be spared. Kosmopolis 10:10, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

text: Would it make sense to put the Background section after the description of the conflict?  That way, a reader could move on to the background after reading about the events of July and August 2006. Valtam 13:39, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

text: I'd like to hear what others have to say about this, but it seems a bit drastic. Some background is necessary in the main, article, though you can feel free to trim it down. And I'm not sure that there should even be a subarticle called Israel-Lebanon conflict. TewfikTalk 07:46, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Background section

message: I just want to state for the record, I believe this article and this whole series of articles has come out really well, even if Tewfik at times does cut a little closer to the bone than would be in my own nature. But it's not the job of the encyclopaedist to spoonfeed the reader overarching theories. Kosmopolis gives the example, if I might over-paraphrase, that this could be viewed as a proxy war between the US and Iran. History may indeed look back at this conflict that way. But, however that may be so: a user with so much of an inkling of that idea today would have to follow the link to Military and economic aid in the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict, find that the US supplied military aid to Israel from the TOC there, follow the link to Israel-US relations and it is all pretty well laid out. As someone who had an encylopedia at his fingertips for most of his youth, thumbing through three levels of see-also's is hardly a chore, and Wikipedia guarantees no paper cuts. Let the propagandists spoon feed people this outside our pages, and tell their disbelievers to look it up in their "Funk and Wagnalls" for verification, or rebuttal. If any of us want to shout from the roof tops that US citizens tax dollars are paying to kill and empoverish woman and children, that's an endeavour to be accomplished from a rooftop or soap-box somewheres else. 
Nevertheless -- all that does need to be balanced with our duty to encourage readers to delve, which is why I prefer more meat on the bone. But it's a difficult balancing act, especially for current or recent events. All we have to write with is black letters on white screen, while all the world gives us are shades of gray. -- Kendrick7 04:32, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: And anyway, I know it is all very serious, but try to keep a sense of humor. -- Kendrick7 04:52, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Edit Wars

message: This article failed the GA noms due to the instability of being a current event. Might I also suggest turning the bulleted list into prose? --Tarret 00:09, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm hardly surprised. It's not even close to GA quality yet. Iorek85 00:24, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Failed GA

message: --Greasysteve13 03:31, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Special:Mostrevisions]] 

message: I was notified that I could not created an "external link" to the Israel-Hezbollah Conflict debates on [www.debatus.com Debatus.com] This seems to be because I founded Debatus, and there was concern that I was self-advertising, which I can't defend against. Nevertheless, I believe strongly that this "external link" should be made by a 3rd party, not affiliated with the Debatus team, because the content and structure is very valuable to rationalizing the debate. I should add that the idea of Debatus is basically an extension of the Wikipedia concept over to the refinement of debate and argumentation. I would think, then, that Wikipedia would desire an "external link" to such a resource. Perhaps, a concensus could form on this issue in this discussion page with people varifying the legitimacy of Debatus, and someone could then decide to make the external link. Thank you. Debatus.com inspirator 23:40, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Debatus.com External Link or Not?

message: Kudos to Kendrick7 on the concise and neutral background. My only issue with it was that the instability which caused the Lebanese Civil War was directly caused by the influx of Palestinians, including the PLO, into Lebanon after their expulsion from Jordan. While the founding of Israel can of course be looked at as an indirect cause, so can lots of things, and I believe this more accurately portrays what happened. Again, this was only a small part - the passage was otherwise a very good work (I also restored the categories and clarified the nature of targets hit by Hezbollah). Cheers, TewfikTalk 07:54, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I see that you've restored mention of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War to the background, and while it is certainly neutral, I still question the assertion's accuracy. While there may have been some movement of Palestinian Arabs to Lebanon in the war's wake, the instability leading to Lebanese Civil War (as is stated in that article) was primarily internally based before the post Black September events, which is when Palestinian involvement came into play. Please let me know what you think. TewfikTalk 15:29, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

text: The information I've gathered from the other artcles suggests 711,000 Palestinians fled Lebanon in 1948. By 1967, 19 years later, they had 700,000 descendants in Jordan. So I would guess maybe 200,000 came to Lebanon in 1948? I don't how many came in after the Six Day War, but 110,000 fled Jordan after the failed coup, again, according to loosely ref'd subarticles to the main background article. I wouldn't mind having more precise data, but for political reasons, Lebanon hasn't conducted a census since 1932. -- Kendrick7 22:25, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Background 

message: Although Haaretz reported that soldiers in the IDF have explicitely said that cluster bombs and phosphorus shells have been used in Lebanon and that these shells are "widely forbidden" according to the international law, someone, I hope it is not Tewfik, is not happy with this fact. I have re-edited that part to refelect what was really reported in Haaretz. To say that some phosphorus shells are not excplicitely forbidden by intenational laws is funny. I'm not sure if there are some phosphorus shells that are Kosher and some that are not. 
Marwan123 22:18, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It was me, Marwan. While the Haaretz article does say "widely forbidden," we've had many more detailed discussions on this specific point in the past (and I realise that this sounds exclusionary - you could check the archives if you like), but the results of those discussions are more or less preserved in the Targeting of civilian areas. The relevant points are that international law only prohibits them in very specific situations (ie, antipersonnel, as opposed to tracers, marker bombs etc.), and that neither Israel nor Lebanon are party to even these limited prohibitions. Thus saying that they are not explicitly forbidden would seem to more accurately represent the reality of what is a very complex situation. Let me know what you think, TewfikTalk 03:01, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cluster Bombs