Talk:Convoy of 35

message: I'll record a little anecdote on this talk page because it is Original Research and probably isn't important enough to put into the article anyway. When Chaim Guri heard about the death of the 35, he was in Europe (Vienna if I remember correctly).  He was very upset so he wrote a poem Henay M'utalot Gufoteinu (Here Our Bodies Lie), but when he finished he decided it wasn't good enough. He screwed it up and threw it towards the fire, but it fell short.  Later his wife Aliza rescued it from the floor and convinced him it was worth saving. He sent it to Palestine where it became very famous.  Chaim and Aliza told me this story themselves. --Zerotalk 14:04, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  A little anecdote 

message: : Your sources don't satisfy WP:RS, especially not the discussion forum. Zerotalk 11:57, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: And the article you omitted (the best of the three) is a newspaper article like it says at the end. --Zerotalk 12:12, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  incredible lies 

message: I really don't see why everything has to turn into an endless argument. The fifth letter in the Hebrew alphabet is He, not "Hey". The official English name of the kibbutz that was named after the convoy is "Netiv Halamed-He" .--Doron 19:52, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The spelling "hey" is quite common, but "he" seems more official.  For example, the name of the letter in Unicode (which is as close as we can get to an international standard) is "HEBREW LETTER HE".  --Zerotalk 10:55, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lamed He 

message: This farce has been going on for too long. I found the study by Yohanan Ben-Yaacov which Amoruso's sources refer to -- it turns out to be a Master's thesis, written in 2004, that presents an extensive examination of the incident. After going through it, I can conclude without any doubt that the possibility of there being any captives is nothing but fiction.
*The Arutz Sheva article (which I removed) raises this possibility based on Ben-Yaacov's study, mentioning an intercepted phone call as evidence. However, this is baseless. The intercepted phone call is indeed mentioned in the thesis (p. 86), but it took place on the same day of the battle and it refers to the first stage from 7:00 to 12:00 (in which there were indeed many wounded). Therefore, one cannot conclude from this piece of evidence that there were captives, and the idea does not even occur to the author. It is purely an invention of the Arutz Sheva reporter.
*The author gives in p. 124-135 of the thesis a detailed account of the battle, and nowhere does he raise the possibility that there were any captives. As a matter of fact, he makes a point of emphasizing that the troops fought to the last man. He even goes on to discuss the fate of the last soldier -- whether he was killed after he detonated a hand grenade as the enemy surrounded him, or whether he resorted to hand-to-hand combat after running out of ammunition, and was subsequently shot.
*In an interview in Amudim (the Religious Kibbutz monthly)  Ben-Yaacov makes things absolutely clear (my translation): "The soldiers were concealed behind boulders in Wadi Etziona and tended their wounds. At about 15:00, the soldiers decided to ascend to the top of the hill, while the Arabs were shooting at them from the rear. All the 35 reached the top of the hill and fought fiercely until the tragic end".
*The "Katz quote" (which, apparently, as others have mentioned above, does not appear in the English edition) is based on three Hebrew words. In another, longer, passage in the same book, he paints a different picture, in which the troops fought to the last round of ammunition. The latter is consistent with Ben-Yaacov's findings, and indeed with the way the battle is portrayed in the war's history as we know it. Even if we are to accept these three words as sufficient to indicate that Katz intended to make such a claim -- that some were captured and killed -- Katz's book is not a good source for this topic. Katz's book is mainly about the history of the Irgun, and these events are nothing more than background. The Irgun was not involved in the Convoy, which is why it receives such a brief mention (three sentences in one place, three words in another). Naturally, Katz does not give a reference to this offhand remark, simply because it is not the focus of his book. This remark is of course no match to a detailed study such as that by Ben-Yaacov. In other words, even if Katz is making this claim, he could be wrong, and we should use a reliable source that studied this subject extensively, and not a source that casually mentions the subject in the background to its main subject.
*On a more personal note, I have to say that I find these allegations that some of the soldiers were captured to be dishonorable to the memory of the soldiers and to their heroic deeds. Except for those three words from Katz and an innovative Arutz Sheva journalist, in all the written history of the War of Independence there is nothing to indicate that the 35 did not die fighting.
Therefore, any reference to this fantasy compromises the integrity of this Wikipedia article.--Doron 21:40, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you for this thorough assessment of the evidence Doron. --Ian Pitchford 21:59, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Indeed this research is very well done, and I'm pleased to see how quickly your evaluation of the source has evolved from dismissing it out of hand as the non-academic work of someone who has never "seen the inside of a university in his life", to espousing it wholeheartedly as "extensive examination of the incident" and "a detailed study". I guess it's all in the message isn't it? To the point:The Arutz 7 claims are not in the article, and Katz's book is a {WP:RS]]. We can source the claim to Katz, as the standard on WP in not truth, but verifiability. Isarig 22:12, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

text: Ben-Yaacov's work is an academic study, which I was not aware of when I wrote that. I stand corrected. What do you want to cite from Katz, these three words?!! No, there's nothing to cite. Katz may be a reliable source about the history of the Irgun, but this offhand remark about the Convoy is meaningless, it's no match to the overwhelming evidence to the contrary -- there was no killing of captives. I don't understand why you insist on advocating this obviously incorrect historical reference.--Doron 23:03, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, what I want to cite is exactly what's in the article, sourced to Katz- that he claims some were captured alive and killed later. He does claim so, and the standard on WP is verifiability. Feel free to insert the other opinion as well. Isarig 00:53, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Do you know how many unverifiable claims there are about this event?  There is a much better known claim that one of the 35 was a woman, should we include that?  There is a claim that some of the 35 were rescued by the the British, how about that one?  There is also a claim that the Hagana garrison at Kfar Etzion knew that the 35 were under attack and refused to go to their assistance; something tells me you would be reluctant to include that one.  Either we fill up the article with unsubstantiated rumors or we restrict it to things that have some historical support. The rules are actually quite clear on this: "views that are held by a tiny minority should not be represented except in articles devoted to those views", quoted from WP:NPOV. --Zerotalk 04:29, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If you can source those rumors and claims to WP:RS go ahead and add them, I have no objection. Unlike you, I don't edit from a specific POV, so have no problem with a reliable source claiming the Hagana knew about the plight but refused to go. strange things happen at war, and this would not be the first such case. As to minority view - Arutz 7 claims a listening base larger than Reshet Bet - doesn;t seem like a "tiny minority" to me. Isarig 04:35, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

text: Katz was obviously wrong. There's nothing wrong about it, since this was not the focus of his book, he's allowed not to be 100% accurate about every background detail, but nevertheless it is clear that he was wrong. I remember some time ago there was a little dispute about whether Uri Avnery was an Irgun member or a Lehi member. A Haaretz interview with Ari Shavit  was given as evidence that he was a Lehi member. Of course, as everybody knows, Avnery was an Irgun member, not a Lehi member, and Ari Shavit (which is a respected mainstream journalist nevertheless) simply made a mistake. Were we to recognize this mistake given overwhelming evidence, or were we to add "a mainstream Israeli journalist claims that Avnery was a Lehi member [ref]"? I hope you can see the absurdity of this. Just because someone wrote something doesn't make it verifiable. We have one source making a brief off-topic remark against several detailed sources stating the opposite -- I think it is clear that the former is not even worth mentioning. I'm sure the Wikipedia community would see this if I ask for a third opinion.--Doron 04:55, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: "Katz was obviously wrong" is not a fact - it is your opinion. There is a difference between a verifiable fact (was Avneri a member of Lehi or Irgun), and a claim about a historical event over which there are many missing details. Isarig 14:49, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Per WP:REDFLAG it would be absurd for an article to be written according to an off-hand comment in a foreign language publication written by a known propagandist. --Ian Pitchford 15:30, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  ...especially when that comment, made eighteen years after the event, is contradicted not only by every other account, but even by a fuller discussion of the incident in the very same book. RolandR 17:08, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No, it is not. We've been over this, see above. Isarig 18:37, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

text: User:Isarig exerted his right to disappear after these incidents and some attempt at improvement. As a result of this, the consensus is now even more overwhelming than it had been. This makes this revert from an editor just returned from a 3 month block (and the puzzling summary, not addressing the concerns) even more strange. I will revert once before escalating this as tendentious editing. PRtalk 14:24, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Sadly, you misunderstand the issues... this is because your lack of knowledge of the subject apparently. The edit is within the consensus. There were wounded but not captued. Read Doron here . The edit simply reflected what the call was about (they didn't pass it because nobody knew about it, and that is not important info and wasn't discussed here anyway) - the consensus was to remove the captured issue and I agree with it very much, so there is no conflict of opinions here at all. You're just disrupting a neutral edit. Amoruso (talk) 14:29, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Killing of captives 

message: Would it not be "goral haGra" ("goral of the Gaon Rabbi Eliyahu")? Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 13:45, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: "goral hagra"

message: It seems to me there is no reference to this event as an important one in historical books and that is more an event that marked the Israeli collective memory of the 1948 War.
If I was wrong, I (or we) could find more articles dedicated to this event. And I think there is absolutely none.
This article is not far not to reach the admissibiliy criteria.
I would suggest we shift from "convoy of 35" to "Lamed He" or even "Lamed He (xxx)" and we modify the title in consequence.
Have in mind that this is just a platoon of 35 soldiers that attacked and defeated by the Arabs. There are numerous such events in wars.
Given this : "The story of the 35 was immortalised in an emotional poem, Here Our Bodies Lie written by Haim Gouri. In August 1949, a group of former Palmach soldiers founded a kibbutz, Netiv HaLamed He (Hebrew: נתיב הל"ה‎, path of the 35) near the convoy's route.", I think we would modify the lead and : "the 35 refers the to an ambush in which a full platoon of 35 Haganah soliders were killed during the early stage of the 1947-1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine and that marked the Israeli collective memory". Else, I think this article should not exist. Ceedjee (talk) 07:36, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Are you suggestion deletion, merge, or what? -- Nudve (talk) 11:32, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Title and lead 

message: Come on Zero000, what do you want to say with your statement "The hilltop where the bodies were found lies on the Israeli side of the Green Line, though this was not known until after the Six-Day War.[7]"? Didn't the Israelis know the right place until then? Or was there a border correction after the Six-Day war? What? Could you pls rephrase your stament, and maybe add some details, so that it makes sense to readers who haven't read that book???Gray62 (talk) 16:44, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Maybe it would be better to make that two sentences, for clarity. Something like "Until 1967, Israelis didn't visit the site of the battle, because it was thought it lay on the Jordanian site. However, after the Six Day War a more precise survey of the borderline determined that the hilltop was within the Green Line". You sure have a point, but pls explain it to the readers in more detailGray62 (talk) 16:59, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

text: Ah! Now this makes sense. And your excellent edit made that point clear in the article, too. As for the correct procedure, I stated several times that the original sentence was too fuzzy, leaving the reader wondering about the problem. And I tried to improve it, based on your earlier explanations (I don't have that source). However, let's not argue about that, what's important is that this point is much better explained now in the article. Good job, Zero, thx! Gray62 (talk) 10:21, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  "on the Israeli side of the Green Line" - What does this mean? 

message: Extracts from Scotsman Newspaper: 
Friday 18 January 1948:
A plane, believed to be Jewish fired on an RAF plane (a Spitfire) in the Hebron area where British troops were evacuating wounded Jews and Arabs. The plane dropped a message over Kfar Zion settlement. It was believed to be a Moth or Piper Cub - types used by the Jewish flying club in Palestine. The British plane did not return the fire.
Saturday 17 January: 
(Friday) - Ouzi Weizmann, ex-RAF, nephew of Dr Weizmann, taken into custody by police after telling them that he piloted the Haganah plane that fired on a RAF reconnaissance Spitfire on Thursday.
Monday 19 January:  
(Sunday) - A Haganah reconnaissance patrol, 100 Strong, searching for the bodies of 35 Jews ambushed by Arabs on Friday in the Judean hills, became involved in actions with Arab parties near Bait Jamal. They claim three Arabs killed and twenty wounded. They admit that one of their patrol was killed. Arab sources say seventeen Jews were killed..
The bodies of the 35 ambushed Jews were brought to the Kfar and Zion(sic) settlement by British troops today. The dead include three members of the Hebrew Communist Party. Also an American, Moshe Periman, a former GI of Brooklyn, New York. He is the first American killed in the Palestinian civil war.Padres Hana (talk) 19:58, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Contemporary newspaper reports about things like this tend to be inaccurate and should be treated very carefully.  Remember that the Scotsman probably did not have a reporter at Kfar Etzion (they changed "et" into "and", that's funny) but printed what they heard from various involved parties. Zerotalk 00:03, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed. (But) The Scotsman had several correspondents in Palestine, some of whom they shared with the Daily Telegraph. They mostly used official statements from the British or the Jewish Agency. In this case I think the et/and mistake is a transmission error - not something a reporter in Jerusalem would get wrong. I think the story about Weizmann's nephew is probably correct. The size of the Haganah rescue party could be wrong but I see no reason to doubt that there was one. The Palmach website lists Perishtein Moshe-Avigdor (23), born in the USA, as being among the dead. So in fact I would ask where are the inaccuracies? Padres Hana (talk) 20:08, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  Aren't you saying the Palmach website gives a different name from what the Scotsman gave?  Also "Ouzi Weizmann" is probably a misspelling of Ezer Weizman (later president of Israel) who was a pilot then. Those are the sort of errors newspapers are good at. Zerotalk 04:52, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  Perhaps the reporter had the name from his US passport? There was a fashion for changing your name on arrival in Palestine. Padres Hana (talk) 12:11, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  He was born in Tel Aviv. Zerotalk 12:35, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: The reference I have is the Palmach wedsite http://www.palmach.org.il/show_item.asp?itemId=8519&levelId=42855&itemType=0  Search by Unit: "Moira" Battalion, person 16 - Born in USA, New York. 24/11/1925. Son of Ela and Samuel-Joseph. Named as being member of "Lamed-Hey" platoon. Died 16/1/48. According to their list three of the thirty five were born in Tel Aviv, (Aloni Israel, Ben Yamin Oded, Goland Sabo) most came from Jerusalem (9). Sixteen were born in Europe (7 in Poland), one from Russia, Canada and Yemen. Where is the inaccuracy? Padres Hana (talk) 09:42, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  Sorry, I meant that Ezer Weizman was born in Tel-Aviv.  Zerotalk 10:35, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Newspaper account