Talk:2006 Lebanon War/Archive 37

message: The media is calling this the 'Summer war' .
Moving it is probably a huge can of worms (BTW I have no position either way, I'm just reporting the news), but should be considered.
Also the page is protected, or I would mention 'Summer war' amongst the list of names at the top, with consideration to making Summer war the primary name. It's certainly very neutral as far as names go (well except for war vs conflict I suppose).
If the page is not to be moved, a redirect is probably in order. Ariel. 03:22, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd prefer 34-day war, as I've heard it used quite a bit in the media. Though Summer war may not be bad either. It would be nice if we can get a neutral name like one of these, so we can end the whole Hezbollah vs. Lebanon vs. Israel debate. However, per Wikipedia policy, we should use the most common name for the event I believe. — George Saliba [talk] 06:29, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The only problem with 'Summer War' is that it isn't terribly descriptive (as compared, say, to second Lebanon War, or Israel - Hezbollah War). Not many non Lebanese/Israelis would use that name. Iorek85 09:06, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That's true. Second Lebanon war isn't bad either, and I've seen that used in the news also. I was thinking 34-day war more along the lines of the Six-day war, though you're right that it's not terribly descriptive. — George Saliba [talk] 09:20, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

text: 34 Day would be better than summer, but no doubt there would be people complaining that the blockade didn't end until Sept 8th, and thus was biased. :) Iorek85 09:39, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ahh, do remember that per policy event titles can be based on the most common name, even if people think it is biased:1. If there is a particular common name for the event, it should be used even if it implies a controversial point of view. Honestly I haven't done any research at which of these names is the most common (mostly I've been looking into the use of the term conflict versus war), but it wouldn't surprise me if any number of these was more common than the current title. Variations on the current title are actually quite rare from my experience (Israel-Lebanon war, Israel-Lebanon conflict, Israel-Hezbollah war, Israel-Hezbollah conflict). However, in this policy, common seems to indicate > 50% usage among English speakers, so it's hard to say. However, we could probably use one of these more neutral names (the ones suggested so far in this discussion) under conventions #2 or #3 of the policy, and probably avoid the recurring debates on the article's title. — George Saliba [talk] 11:20, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

text: Does anyone have any ideas of a fair way to find the "most common" phrase used when referring to this event? I was thinking, if we could find some sample set of data which didn't suffer from recentism, we could do a fair evaluation without any POV bias. For instance, if we collect all articles mentioning the event in a random week or month sufficiently far after the end of fighting, that could do it. Maybe like "collect all the articles you can in the last week of February" and see what the sample shows? Just thinking. — George Saliba [talk] 11:20, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

text: Curse your text-based joviality!! :) The biggest problem I've found with Google searches (of all kinds) is that to be meaninful you almost need to do exact text searches, which are fairly inaccurate (since people word the same thing slightly differently). All of the articles contain the words Israel, Hezbollah and Lebanon, most contain war, and some contain summer or 34-day. However, distinguishing between the articles containing the words when ascribing a name to the conflict, and those who use the words in some other way, is very hard to do without manually go through them. And since it's so difficult to go through all the articles manually, I was thinking some defined subset would be best, statistically speaking. Google searches may prove to be good general indicators, but I'm a bit too busy at the moment to go through and try them all out myself. — George Saliba [talk] 00:23, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

text: I'm still for 2006 Lebanon War, like 1982 Lebanon War --TheFEARgod (Ч) 22:08, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Summer war]] 

message: I read the introduction to this article and found it lacking. Whoever wrote it is citing the falsely reported incident using the discredited New York Times citation. The two Israeli soldiers were not kidnapped in Israeli territory. Here are some counter citations proving that the Israeli soldiers were on raiding missions in violation of Lebanese territory, they were trespassing and were abducted as a consequence. And unlike the claims made by the introduction, Hezbollah did not start firing the rockets until after the Israeli campaign had started. The Israeli Army were the initiators of this great debacle.
In view of such discrepancies, the introduction of the article should at the very least point out that the location and cause of the start of this conflict is in question.
"It all started on July 12 when Israel troops were ambushed on Lebanon's side of the border with Israel. Hezbollah, which commands the Lebanese south, immediately seized on their crossing. They arrested two Israeli soldiers, killed eight Israelis and wounded over 20 in attacks inside Israeli territory. "
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HG15Ak02.html
TRANSLATION: According to the Lebanese police force, the two soldiers were captured in Lebanese territory, in the area of Aïta Al-Chaab close to the border, whereas Israeli television indicated that they had been captured in Israeli territory. [fr.news.yahoo 7/12/06]
The Lebanese Hezbollah movement announced Wednesday the arrest of two Israeli soldiers in southern Lebanon. Lebanese police said that the two soldiers were arrested as they entered the town of Aitaa al-Chaab inside the Lebanese border. Israeli aircraft were active in the air over southern Lebanon, police said, with jets bombing roads leading to the market town of Nabatiyeh, 60 kilometers south of Beirut. [Bahrain News Agency 7/12/06]
The Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah movement announced on Wednesday that its guerrillas have captured two Israeli soldiers in southern Lebanon. "Implementing our promise to free Arab prisoners in Israeli jails, our strugglers have captured two Israeli soldiers in southern Lebanon," a statement by Hezbollah said. "The two soldiers have already been moved to a safe place," it added. The Lebanese police said that the two soldiers were captured as they "infiltrated" into the town of Aitaa al-Chaab inside the Lebanese border. [Hindustan Times 7/12/06]
The militant group Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers during clashes Wednesday across the border in southern Lebanon, prompting a swift reaction from Israel, which sent ground forces into its neighbor to look for them. The forces were trying to keep the soldiers' captors from moving them deeper into Lebanon, Israeli government officials said on condition of anonymity. [Forbes 7/12/06]
The militant group Hezbollah said it captured two Israeli soldiers during clashes across the border in southern Lebanon on Wednesday. http://english.cri.cn/2947/2006/07/12/191@113428.htm [chinabroadcast 7/12/06]
The plot thickens:
"The US government was closely involved in planning the Israeli campaign in Lebanon, even before Hizbullah seized two Israeli soldiers in a cross border raids in July."
Excerpt from: Bush 'helped Israeli attack on Lebanon'
Dan Glaister Monday August 14, 2006
The Guardian 
PsyTrip 11:33, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I see, Lebanese sources claim that the abduction or "arrest" happened within their territory, yet everybody else, including Al Jazeera claim otherwise. I guess we should trust them and discredit any other source. Yonatan (contribs/talk) 12:55, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

text: In addition, please note the dates on these articles. Early on, when information was harder to come by, a few reports may have said they were captured in Lebanon. However, you'll find almost nobody reports that later on. It's most likely some bad information went out over the wires on the first day of the conflict, but was later corrected. Maybe they were just stating that Hezbollah captured them, and was currently holding them in southern Lebanon (they captured them in Israel but didn't stay in Israel obviously). Also, be aware that your sources which state "across the border" are likely to be interpretted as meaning "across the border in Israel". — George Saliba [talk] 00:22, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Initiation of Hostilities: Israeli Soldiers were abducted inside -Lebanese- territory