Talk:Kafr Qasim massacre

message: === About an event in village history, not the village ===
This is not an article about the village. It's mostly about the massacre which is part of the village history.<BR>
I think that this article should be edited, so that most of it will be a paragraph about the history.<BR>
What about adding some facts and info about the current village situation ??  ^^ Dod1 10:23, 31 Oct 2003 (UTC)
replies: text: The casualty numbers are different from those that appear in the English entry. What is the data source? 217.132.33.12 10:57, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Indeed, different sources give different numbers of casualties, and this problem bothered me when writing the entry. In Meir Vilner's article, which appears under External Links, the number of fatalities that appears is 49, and I suppose this is the source of that number in the English Wiki. In written sources that were at my disposal I've found the number 43 fatalities. On the Snunit website I've found information that bridges the gap between the two numbers, based on the verdict on the matter, which I regard as the most credible source. It turns out that in addition to the Kafr Qasim massacre, which is a specific event in which 43 were killed, there were other events at the village, in which another four fatalities occurred, also in the first hour of curfew. The other fatalities are not of smaller significance, but they are not part of the Kafr Qasim massacre, and they were not the subject of the Kafr Qasim trial. As the verdict explicitly says "those four victims were included in the indictment by mistake and the prosecutor asked, as mentioned in paragraph 1 above, to acquit the defendants of the charge of murdering them". Therefore I have chosen to mention the number 43 fatalities, which is also a terrible number. Apparently Meir Vilner decided not to distinguish between the different fatalities and chose the number 49 (I don't know who the additional two fatalities that Vilner counted are). David Shay 12:00, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)

text: I saw that I'd actually mentioned in the body of the article all the numbers, in the sentence "The soldiers of on of the battalion's teams, under the command of Lt. Dahan, shot to death, in cold blood, 43 of the village's residents, including 12 women and 17 children and youths. The commanders of four other teams that acted in the village refrained from such extreme action, but within an hour of the beginning of curfew, another four (or six) residents were killed".  David Shay 12:04, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Refactored early comments 

message: This is not an article about the village. It's mostly about the massacre which is part of the village history.<BR>
I think that this article should be edited, so that most of it will be a paragraph about the history.<BR>
What about adding some facts and info about the current village situation ??  ^^ Dod1 10:23, 31 Oct 2003 (UTC)
thread_title:  About an event in village history, not the village 

message: Translated from the talk page for the corresponding Hebrew entry:
:The casualty numbers are different from those that appear in the English entry. What is the data source? 217.132.33.12 10:57, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Indeed, different sources give different numbers of casualties, and this problem bothered me when writing the entry. In Meir Vilner's article, which appears under External Links, the number of fatalities that appears is 49, and I suppose this is the source of that number in the English Wiki. In written sources that were at my disposal I've found the number 43 fatalities. On the Snunit website I've found information that bridges the gap between the two numbers, based on the verdict on the matter, which I regard as the most credible source. It turns out that in addition to the Kafr Qasim massacre, which is a specific event in which 43 were killed, there were other events at the village, in which another four fatalities occurred, also in the first hour of curfew. The other fatalities are not of smaller significance, but they are not part of the Kafr Qasim massacre, and they were not the subject of the Kafr Qasim trial. As the verdict explicitly says "those four victims were included in the indictment by mistake and the prosecutor asked, as mentioned in paragraph 1 above, to acquit the defendants of the charge of murdering them". Therefore I have chosen to mention the number 43 fatalities, which is also a terrible number. Apparently Meir Vilner decided not to distinguish between the different fatalities and chose the number 49 (I don't know who the additional two fatalities that Vilner counted are). David Shay 12:00, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I saw that I'd actually mentioned in the body of the article all the numbers, in the sentence "The soldiers of on of the battalion's teams, under the command of Lt. Dahan, shot to death, in cold blood, 43 of the village's residents, including 12 women and 17 children and youths. The commanders of four other teams that acted in the village refrained from such extreme action, but within an hour of the beginning of curfew, another four (or six) residents were killed".  David Shay 12:04, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Translation and casualty numbers 

message: This article is written in a confusing matter and from a POV perspective. It needs a rewrite. 
Guy Montag 01:15, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Confusing and POV 

message: Would you give us a hint why you totally dispute this article's neutrality and factual accuracy?--Doron 02:29, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It already was in the right order - chronological.  The claim that he said these things then is what's of interest, not the fact that he was quoted later. - Mustafaa 21:42, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

text: "There is no way to check this" - actually, for $12.00 you can check it online. http://journals.cambridge.org/bin/bladerunner?REQUNIQ=1118439845&REQSESS=14662550&117000REQEVENT=&REQINT1=169256&REQAUTH=0 . - Mustafaa 21:46, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

text: So far you have not identified a single problem with this article.  The only problem you really have is that it shows Israel in a bad light.  Tough.  --Zero 00:54, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  POV 

message: I've made substantial contextual and accuracy changes to the article. I've removed a quote wrongfully attributed to Malinki (some philosopher made it), fixed the amount killed, added background about the military administration from 1948-1966 (very important, I can't believe it was left out), fixed sentence structure and npoved the wording. I've also added some more aftermath information, and added notes on things that still need to be looked at. Although it is not fully done, I think the changes I made have substantially improved the quality of the article to the point where individual changes can be made. I await commentary on the edit. At least now we know where to go from.
Guy Montag 12:33, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: There was no such doctrine in a strict legal sense.  The principle that manifestly illegal orders had to be disobeyed had already entered Israeli jurisprudence via the Eichmann trial, which in turn relied on the customary international law established at Nuremburg.  The Kafr Qasim case was the first of significance which tested its applicability to Israeli military personnel.  Whether it was an innovation or a clarification is a matter of opinion.  Incidentally the newer sources I have found show that the chronology of the trials in the article is a bit confused.  I'll fix it. --Zero 12:00, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

text: Um, not exactly.  The Kafr Qasim trial preceded the Eichmann trial and was used as a precedent in the latter.  Nuremberg precedents were cited in both trials.  --Zero 13:48, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Changes

message: *According to (Benny Morris, "Israel's Border Wars, 1949-1956: Arab Infiltration, Israeli Retaliation and the Countdown to the Suez War"), the death toll was 47, including 15 women and 11 children aged 8-15. Do you have any idea why the discrepancy?
*The above does not mention the stroke casualty. Did he die as a result of an injury inflicted by the shooters?--Doron 07:14, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Benny Morris's largish footnote must have been written on a bad day because it has lots of errors.  For example it says that 11 people were convicted whereas 11 were tried and 8 convicted.  He also attributes a saying to Malinki that in fact someone else said.  So I wouldn't worry about it too much.  The number 47 is clearly accounted for in the court judgement so it is solid.  The old man died of a stroke shortly after the massacre, and I don't know if he was injured himself (more likely he was related to some of the victims like much of the village was).  The village includes his death in the total, but the court didn't include it in the indictment.  I think both points of view were reasonable.  --Zero 07:29, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Death toll 

message: See Zero's edit summary for 12.07 13 June: "Shadmi was IDF, not BP; most infiltration was not fedayeen; Arabs were citizens." Fedayeen were overwhelmingly Palestinians, while infiltrators were most often Palestinian villagers: this was not clearly expressed. I hope that explains it.
In any case, in relation to your remark that you basically wrote the page with someone else, articles in Wikipedia are not subject to the copyright of the people who wrote them, so if something is simply badly expressed it is not necessary to ask anyone's permission to change it on the talk page. 
In addition, deleting words which change the meaning (or make the meaning harder to get at, as in this case) is not a minor edit and should not be marked as such. See Wikipedia:Minor_edit. Palmiro 17:58, 17 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Infiltrators 

message: Suggest renaming to something more neutral like "Qasim incident" or "Qasim raid" Rune X2 14:13, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Negative.  Even the Israeli courts called it a massacre and anyway this is its most common English name. --Zerotalk 14:23, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rename article 

message: On 18 October 2008, Haaretz published a long and important article (Do the right thing, by Dalia Karpel) on the soldiers who refused to carry out the orders and kill civilians in other villages. As well as interviews with surviving soldiers (some of whom had never previously spoken about the events), the article includes speculation about Malinki's motivations, and details of Operation Hafarferet ("Mole"). This article adds substantially to our understanding both of the context of this massacre, and of the moral dilemmas of some of those involved. Unless someone beats me to it, I propose to include some of this material in the article. RolandR (talk) 09:35, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Updated link for the article: . Zerotalk 04:21, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

text: The new text is misleading.  The question is not about whether there was a connection but whether Operation Hafarferet explicitly called for a massacre. The new article does not say that it did, even though it does say that the massacre occurred in the context of the Operation. Suggest a better wording. Zerotalk 08:13, 14 October 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  New Haaretz article 

message: I think it would be nice to add that this incident is being taught in israeli schools to high school students. the incident is talked about at the class and in school text books, it is given as an example of an illegal order that should not be carried out. from it students learn that they have an obligation not to carry our orders that are against some international values.
in my opinion it would be a good addition to the article that at least the lesson is being learned.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by MrZaf (talk • contribs) 14:44, 11 June 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: That would be fine, but it can only be added if a good source can be found.  Zerotalk 04:18, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  addition 

message: Hello -- I saw that Robinson was already used as a source within the article, yet without giving her perspective on the ceremony, which I don't think was acceptable (both source usage-wise and NPOV-wise). I added it, corroborated by Slyomovics, 2008. This also seems to give due weight to more recent secondary (academic quality) sources, as opposed to period articles or (then) nearly-primary Davar, which the official recollection is based upon. What do you think? Best, —Ireilly talk 10:23, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  ''Sulha'' 

message: This is the opening summary as it now stands:
"The Kafr Qasim massacre took place in the Israeli Arab village of Kafr Qasim situated on the Green Line, at that time, the de facto border between Israel and the Jordanian West Bank on October 29, 1956. It was carried out by the Israel Border Police (Magav) and resulted in 48 Arab civilians dead, including 6 women and 23 children aged 8–17. Arab sources usually give the death toll as 49, as they include the unborn child of one of the women.
The border policemen who were involved in the shooting were brought to trial and found guilty and sentenced to prison terms, but all received pardons and were released in a year.[1] The brigade commander was sentenced to pay the symbolic fine of 10 prutot (old Israeli cents).[2] The Israeli court found that the command to kill civilians was “blatantly illegal”.[3]
In December 2007, President of Israel Shimon Peres formally apologised for the massacre.[4]"
In my view, the function of the opening summary is to provide the fundamental facts of the subject. I consider this summary to fail in this.
This summary provides no indication of context. There is no reference to the facts that provide any explanation of how or why this occurred.
Therefore, I added the following 3-sentence paragraph to the opening summary:
"The underlying basis of relations between the two communities was most crudely unveiled on the night of 28 October 1956. The peaceful villagers of Kfar Kassem were massacred as they returned home from the fields, unknowingly violating a curfew that had ben hastily imposed on the eve of the Sinai war. The officers responsible for the killing were indeed court-martialed, but were later amnestied." [4]
This provides context, connects this event to the other major event occurring at that time in 1956, and it constitutes solely a direct quotation from a respected text (A Modern History of Israel, by Noah Lucas), with no additional comment or editorializing on my part.
This edit was instantly removed in its entirety, with the explanation that it added nothing. I disagree.
My subsequent efforts to bring about a discussion of this instant deletion, with the administrator who performed it, have gone without response, which I continue to invite.Improvethewiki (talk) 18:23, 17 May 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed edit to opening section 

message: Hi! Sorry to bother and I know it's petty, but isn't there another better form for indicating the source than placing the authors' surnames between brackets after a full-stop, with another full-stop after the closing bracket? Like for instance here:
His symbolic punishment [...] became a standard metaphor in Israeli polemic debate. (Robinson, Lipmann, Bilsky).
Thanks, and a happy 2016 to you! Arminden (talk) 19:15, 3 January 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: I hope you have a good 2016 too.  Citations written in such informal formats date from around a decade ago, before the current citation practice was established.  They should be brought up to date.  I'll look at them soon. Zerotalk 21:03, 3 January 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Sources

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*Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20160303180043/http://jpress.org.il/Default/Scripting/ArticleWin.asp?From=Archive&Skin=TAUHe&BaseHref=DAV/1957/11/21&EntityId=Ar00400&ViewMode=HTML to http://jpress.org.il/Default/Scripting/ArticleWin.asp?From=Archive&Skin=TAUHe&BaseHref=DAV/1957/11/21&EntityId=Ar00400&ViewMode=HTML
*Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20061109041310/http://www.haaretz.com:80/hasen/spages/780898.html to http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/780898.html
*Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20060307235424/http://www.kufur-kassem.com:80/cms/ to http://www.kufur-kassem.com/cms/
*Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20070820001502/http://www.kafr-qassem.net:80/content/category/1/31/ to http://www.kafr-qassem.net/content/category/1/31/
*Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20070310142547/http://www.kafr-qassem.net:80/ to http://www.kafr-qassem.net/
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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: I dont know if the second paragraph is misleading or a blatant lie, but the accused soldiers were in prison for more than a year, despite what you wrote. for example, here is an article 
from the Israeli newspaper ma'ariv, that states that shmuel melinki was in jail for 3 years and 4 months, before he was released because of his medical condition. because the article is protected, i would like to ask an editor that have the permission to edit it, to fix it. Zeze62 (talk) 11:05, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  prison time

message: I didn't see any proof that all the killers received pardons Red Gabriel (talk) 20:22, 18 June 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pardons 

message: Fix typo by changing "int school syllabuses" into "in school syllabuses". Daniel R. Adam (talk) 21:13, 12 November 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Cannolis (talk) 21:57, 12 November 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 12 November 2023