Talk:1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight/Archive 8

message: Removal of sourced, relevant data (which does not fit Zero's political agenda) continues:
This list is endless. The question is does any one care about this enecylopedia NPOV policy (which allows two conflictiting point of view to be heared) It seems that in article on the israeli-pal conflict one POV is allowed and the other is removed. Zeq 14:34, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If the data is appropriate for Wikipedia, argue your case. If it is not, then it should be removed. It isn't clear what's the purpose of this grumble.--Doron 15:26, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: "appropriate for Wikipedia" - there is simple policy and Zero violate it. This policy is called WP:RS. I don't need to "argue the case" - We need Zero to adhir to policy. If he does not there are mechanisms to deal with that. he has been warned before. Zeq 18:21, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

text: Can you help us verify those so-called reliable sources? Can you tell us where to find them?--Doron 02:09, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bias by zero 

message: ArbCom has already warned Ian (here: ) not to edit like this:
Zeq 20:11, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  ArbCom 

message: There are far too many quotes in this article. This is a problem for two reasons:
*It makes the article very hard to read, as the reader has to wade through a large number of quotes that contribute little to the understanding of the subject.
*It is hard to distinguish between notable quotes and obscure ones. Some of these quotes are quoted by respectable authors while others are brought from propaganda sites.
We really don't need so many quotes. To make a point, one could copy a couple of books full of quotes into this article, this would hardly serves anyone's purpose. I propose to remove all (or almost all) of the quotes from this article. This article should contain a description of the historical events and the different points of view, we don't need all the quotes to prove it, all we need is a reference to a book or website from where we got those descriptions. If the readers want a bunch of quotes, they can look up those sources themselves.--Doron 09:52, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If it is in another section than "2 stages theory section", that's ok for me. Alithien 13:51, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Why is it necessary to have those longish quotes, wouldn't we be better off just summarizing them and letting the interested reader look up the source for more?--Doron 18:50, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree with Doron here.--Urthogie 05:06, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Because a quote is usually more fidel than a summary if not manipulated. Alithien 19:36, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Too many quotes 

message: I'm entering this discussion rather late and may be making suggestions that have been discussed long ago, but what the heck. Norman Finkelstein's book Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict is in the references for this article, it is, hoever, never quoted although it contains a lot of information, i.e. regarding the flight endorsement issue, which is, in my opinion, a bit more solid than what Morris or Katz have to say. It's been a while since I've read the book, but I could go over it again and recover the relevant data and add it to the article (i.e. not removing Morris and Katz as to not stoke a new conflict here). What are the chances of such an addition surviving? If the general sentiment is that it will be deleted microseconds after being posted, then I won't even bother... Looking forward to your thoughts, Cheers, Pedro.Gonnet 08:56, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Finkelstein's Book 

message: In the opening paragraph is non enclopedic. Also the words "there are documented cases" means we take position.. Wikipedia should just bring the two sides not take side. 09:42, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  "paradoxily" ???? 

message: The Higla quote is heavily parsed and therefore not too reliable (are "the armies of your predecessors" the Israelis or the Kings' predecessors?), especially since it is not in English and not in a readily available publication.
As for Bilby, although he has a right to an opinion, I don't think his personal appreciation of the Arab leaders' (what a differentiated term, btw.) rationale is very relevant, compared to Katz or any  academic source.
In a bid for quality vs. quantity I would suggest these be removed. We can argue and even compromise on Katz, but these two quotes are definitely not reliable sources. Cheers, Pedro.Gonnet 15:54, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree ابو علي 15:57, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

text: Ok, if nobody gives me a reason why these two quotes should be kept, I'm deleting them... Cheers, --Pedro.Gonnet 08:31, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fuad Abu Higla and Kenneth Bilby quotes 

message: Anything sourced to Katz should be removed. His book Battleground is a non-scholarly trade book published 34 years ago and is a compilation of propaganda relevant to those times, e.g., there is much about the evil influence of the Soviet Union; as WP:ATT states clearly, reliaable sources "are credible published materials with a reliable publication process; their authors are generally regarded as trustworthy, or are authoritative in relation to the subject at hand". Katz is not a credible source and the claims he makes are refuted by genuine experts such as Morris and Gelber. In addition, the 1986 version of the book was self-published through Shapolsky Publishers as well as being of questionable provenance; as WP:ATT states "A questionable source is one with no editorial oversight or fact-checking process or with a poor reputation for fact-checking". Questionable and self-published sources must not be used in Wikipedia articles. Finally, this unreliable source makes exceptional claims that are not supported by experts in the field; exceptional claims "should be supported by the best sources, and preferably multiple reliable sources, especially regarding historical events, politically charged issues, and biographies of living people." Case closed. --Ian Pitchford 08:48, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Katz again

message: This quote appears twice and seems to originate only from Katz's book. I "googled" the quote and it is only attributed to Katz, if any source is given at all. Can anybody who has a copy of Katz's book at hand check what his source of the quote is? If there is no source, then the quote is far too unfounded to me mentioned twice in this article. --Pedro.Gonnet 10:13, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Note that this quotation is in the article twice.  The other appearance is in the Other Claims section.  As with many of these standard "quotations", it comes from the 1952 book "The Arab Refugee Problem" by the Revisionist-Zionist author Joseph Schechtman.  The tragedy of this article is that the story of the exodus from Haifa is nearly completely absent from this article except for a few "quotations" with hardly any context.  This is despite a huge amount of serious research having appeared on the subject written by real historians.  The Jewish mayor of Haifa pleaded with the Arabs to stay, one of the very few instances where local Jewish leaders took this position.  But what is the use of trying to add proper text with proper citations to this article when there are so many POV pushers who just want to copy-paste rubbish into it?  --Zerotalk 12:26, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Does Schechtman offer a source for this quotation? Cheers and thanks, --Pedro.Gonnet 12:47, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Schechtman gives what he says is a photograph of the telegram.  I have no reason to doubt its genuineness, but what use is it to us?  It is just a tiny snapshot of a complex process.  The Arabs were leaving Haifa, but why?  The telegram doesn't say.  Actually quoting a primary source like this as if it gives us a balanced picture all by itself is a fine example of Original Research.  What we should be doing is quoting the conclusions of professional historians who have examined not only this single telegram but hundreds of relevant documents, including many that were not available until the 1980s or later. --Zerotalk 13:04, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I recently ordered Benny Morris' Birth revisited -- it should contain quite a bit of said material. As soon as I have it I'll try to make a good synthesis, especially regarding Haifa. If anybody wants to get ahead of me on this -- go ahead! Cheers, Pedro.Gonnet 13:33, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Every effort is being made [...]" 

message: A lot of the material in this subsection to the section "The Arab leaders' endorsement of flight Theory" would actually be more at home in the "Criticisms of the endorsement of flight theory" subsection, since most of the quotes contradict what the section title implies. If nobody objects, I will start moving things around. Cheers, Pedro.Gonnet 08:21, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree 100%. Screen stalker 17:00, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Claims by Arab leaders" Subsection 

message: Do we have an actual quotation for how Gelber "explains why he believes that Israeli authorities did not prompt the Palestinian population to flee but on the contrary tried to stop it"?  I don't have his book handy, but my recollection is that he did not make such a blanket statement. In fact I think that is what he wrote about the Arab leadership.  Thanks.  --Zerotalk 14:53, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: What exactly do you claim he wrote ? Do you have a quote ? Zeq 14:56, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

text: Hi Zero. I check in English in Palestine 1948 but I am quite sure he wrote that. The problem is the context. I am not sure it concerns the whole exodus but maybe some events in the exodus of some actions at a givent ime. He wrote many other things and the NPoV would require to weigh this view properly among other Gelber's claims. Alithien 15:18, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This quotation specifically discusses the "first stage" of the מערכה which can loosely be translated as a site, location, stage or duration (generally applied to conflicts). So this clearly does deal with a given time. Perhaps it should be used to talk about that time. If anyone needs a complete translation, let me know. But I don't want to write one if everyone has access to the English. Screen stalker 16:47, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Gelber