Talk:Yasser Arafat/Archive 3

message: Reuters:CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt, where Yasser Arafat began his political life and where biographers say he was born, on Thursday prepared a funeral for the Palestinian president, who was declared dead in Paris in the early morning. 
Nobel Prize:Mohammed Abdel-Raouf Arafat As Qudwa al-Hussaeini was born on 24 August 1929 in Cairo**,
::**The place of Arafat's birth is disputed. Besides Cairo, other sources mention Jerusalem and Gaza as his birthplace. 
New York Times: The mystery surrounding Mr. Arafat starts early, as accounts of his origins vary. The man who became "Mr. Palestine" was probably not born there 
Wikipedia:According to Arafat and other sources, he was born in Jerusalem on August 4, 1929, 2004[1] (http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/a/arafaty1.asp). His date and place of birth have been disputed; some sources contend that he was born in Cairo or the Gaza Strip [2] (http://nobelprize.org/peace/laureates/1994/arafat-bio.html). According to a birth certificate registered in Cairo, Arafat was born there on August 24, 1929. [3]
What information does Wikipedia have that the New York Times, Reuters, and the Nobel Prize committee are missing?  At a minimum we should change to page to agree with the New York Times, Reuters, and the Nobel Prize committee.
Basis for added "Factually Disputed" ? Lance6Wins 16:28, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Place of Birth 

message: Reuters:CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt, where Yasser Arafat began his political life and where biographers say he was born, on Thursday prepared a funeral for the Palestinian president, who was declared dead in Paris in the early morning. 
Nobel Prize:Mohammed Abdel-Raouf Arafat As Qudwa al-Hussaeini was born on 24 August 1929 in Cairo**,
::**The place of Arafat's birth is disputed. Besides Cairo, other sources mention Jerusalem and Gaza as his birthplace. 
New York Times: The mystery surrounding Mr. Arafat starts early, as accounts of his origins vary. The man who became "Mr. Palestine" was probably not born there 
Wikipedia: Corrected to match they above sources. Lance6Wins 19:31, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Place of Birth 

message: User:HistoryBuffEr is constantly vandalizing the article and inserting biased false information. I ask anyone who sees his changes to revert to the previous version.
Examples of HisBuf's vandalism:
* In September of 1972 the Palestinian group Black September kidnapped 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympic Games;  all hostages and most hostage takers were eventually killed.   Try to whitewash the fact that the kidnappers slaughtered the 11 athlets.
* The Fatah movement continued to launch attacks against Israeli targets. In the late 1970s several new leftist organizations were formed in Palestine and carried out attacks on Israel and Israeli occupation colonies. Israel claimed that Arafat was in ultimate control over these organizations, but Arafat denied responsibility for acts of other groups. Highly biased and POV term.
* Israel claimed that the PLO had played an important part in the Lebanese Civil War. Some Lebanese Christians claimed that the PLO was responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of Lebanese citizens killed by Israel. Unbased accusation. And again, trying to cover PLO involvement in the Lebanese violence.
*  During this invasion Israeli army killed about 18,000 Lebanese and Palestinians and helped the Christian Phalangist militia massacre in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps about 2,750 Palestinian refugees, mostly civilians. Ariel Sharon, Israeli Minister of Defense at the time, was found by the Israeli Kahan Commission "personally responsible" for the massacre and was dismissed from his post; he is now Prime Minister of Israel. Full of lies and missinformation:
:# Israel did not helped the Christian Phalangists in Sabra and Chatila. HisBuff accuses the IDF in direct involvement, which is, of course - a brute lie.
:# The Kahan committee found Sharon "indirectly responsible" and blamed him in not anticipating that the Phalangists will massacre the Palestinians. It never said Sharon was involved in that, or that took active part in the massacre.
:# Since HisBuff caught lying on this, I dispute the casualties toll he brings and the assertion the most were civilians.
* However, Israel made no visible attempts to live up to either the Oslo or the Wye River agreements; to the contrary, Israel steadily expanded its occupation, doubled the population in occupation colonies and kept obstructing Palestinian self-rule. Again, the incitement and POV terming.
If you find more of these, please report them here. MathKnight 21:44, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Report them here and here. Mrfixter 00:53, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  HistoryBuffEr warnings 

message: Arafat's likely cause of death, heavy metal poisoning, either Thallium or Arsenic, should be addressed.
* Here ya go.  conspiracy theory    Terrapin 17:06, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Heavy Metal Poisoning 

message: The recent news and commentary section is really POV, poorly written and mostly unsubstantiated. Examples: 
*Arafat's long personal and political survival was taken by most Western commentators - Which commentators? And why do they matter in this encyclopedia article?
*Others point to the constraints - Again, what others?
*Supporters of this declaration
*critics of this offer
Also a quote from Ariel Sharon, but from where? Recent news and commentary is just too vague and too POV to be in this article, or at least needs a whole lot of work done to it. --Mrfixter 14:23, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: This entire article is probably beyond saving, and will remain so probably about as long as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict continues or the community grows up.  I think I'll stick to edits on pages like the the average biomass of south american fungus and stuff like that and stay away from anything to do with politics. Chuck Adams 18:13, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Recent news and commentary

message: The article has become too big. I have:
* Removed bibliography (this info is available in many places).
* Removed various superfluous analyst opinions and speculations about Arafat's skills.
* Rephrased some parts for brevity.
* Added useful edits by others (persistently biased edits by the anon IP have been ignored.)
P.S: Chuck Adams asks above to edit a little bit at a time. Then he says in the next reply that the current (biased) version is totally beyond repair. 
I agree with the latter. The goal is to produce a neutral and useful article; given the state of the article bold steps are required to fix it. 
HistoryBuffEr 20:34, 2004 Nov 15 (UTC)
:As usual, your edit was a complete re-write. . Jayjg 20:40, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Also, please review the "But don't be reckless" section of Wikipedia:Be bold, which deals with exactly this situation. Jayjg 20:42, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Shortened Neutral version 

message: Seems its possible Arafat has up to 20 billion USD that came from the US, Europe as well as possible illegal actions. What was supposed to be done with this huge sum of money? How much of it was taken from taxes we all pay? Was any good done for the arab people with all the money spent aleady? --Hackeron 23:11, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: That number seems highly unlikely, it's far too high, and probably off by an order of magnitude. Jayjg 02:52, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Arafat's billions? 

message: The article now states that Arafat met Khalil al-Wazir (Abu Jihad) at Cairo University, but the link doesn't say that, it only says that they met in Cairo, and doesn't give a date, and al-Wazir never attended Cairo University. Jayjg 03:28, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: You are correct.  I shall remove it. --Viriditas 03:40, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Arafat met Khalil al-Wazir (Abu Jihad) at Cairo University? 

message: I am going to assume good faith and ignore your explicit ad hominem attack, which you have clearly made as a distraction, to avoid having to discuss your fallacious argument, which ironically, you continue to make in your second reply.  I will comment, however, that following the policy of verifiability is not a form of bias.  Also, I have stated that I am willing to compromise on this issue by including both claims, provided they are accurate and not misleading.  Now, back to your comments:  You claimed that Arafat was a more reliable source than his biographers, who relied on actual evidence for his place of birth.  I explained that you were presenting an appeal to authority. You also claimed that the evidence for Arafat's birth in Gaza is supported by his death certificate.  That appears to be a fallacy of wrong_direction as well as another appeal to authority.  Just because his death certificate says he was born in Gaza does not in any way substantiate his claim.  You have also confused the distinction between unreliable sources (a claim I never made) with unsubstantiated sources.  They are not the same thing.  (But, that didn't stop you from making a straw man argument which provided the central thrust for your ad hominem).  You then went on to make another appeal to authority, when you argued that the French authorities were substantiating Arafat's claim by issuing a death certificate with his alleged place of birth.  After that, you made  a brazen false analogy when you compared Arafat's claim of birth, which lacks evidence, to the claims made by biographers, which is based solely on evidence.  That is to say, the biographers claims are not based on an appeal to authority, but on the evidence itself.  On the other hand, the same cannot be said of Arafat's birth claim.  You wrote, I don't see anything in your remarks that addresses that, and I have addressed your false analogy in this reply.  You then followed up with another straw man and yet another appeal to authority when you claimed that it was POV to put others' views on the subject of the article's birthplace before those of the subject of the article himself.  This flaw in your reasoning (Ipse dixit)has been explained to you several times, so there is no need to discuss it again.  Finally, you concluded your litany of fallacies with an argument from ignorance, as well as an appeal to negative proof when you wrote, Neither of them were present after all.  Nevertheless, we do not have an absence of evidence.  We have an Egyptian birth certificate for Arafat.  It is certainly possible that the certificate has been falsified, but is it probable?  Occam's Razor might be a good tool to use in questioning the veracity of both Arafat's birth claims, and the Egyptian birth certificate.  --Viriditas 04:23, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Reply to Dr. Zen's attack and accusation of bias

message: All the Zionist hyena-like vitriolic smears against Arafat, his father the forger, his embezzling wife, etc. all the Ziocentric news about the AIDS ridden homosexual terrorist drinking the blood of Jewish children at Maalot and the Munich Olympics can go there. I'm sure it will be very popular. You can use your usual reliable hasbara sources  like Jerusalem News Wire, Israel Insider, Dore Gold NGO Monitor Frontpagemag, Free Republic, WorldNetDaily, etc. When you are done, we will match it with an Ariel Sharon the Butcher article. OK? --Alberuni 05:46, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Um, thanks for sharing. Jayjg 17:39, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

text: Alberuni, you're throwing logs on an already nicely burning arbitration case. JFW | T@lk 18:19, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

text: Is "Ziocentric" a word? Or did he just make it up?  A2Kafir 03:10, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe he invented it; Google gets no hits on the term.  It's certainly an attempt at a neologism and an insult, much like Zionista, Ziopedia, etc.  Its use also violates Wikipedia:Civility rules, among others. Jayjg 15:57, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Zionists who hate Arafat should edit an article on Arafat the Monster 

message: Yasser Arafat was more than 70 years old when he died. It is extremely unlikely that Israel had something to do with his death. In fact, the Palestinians are those who'd be wanting his money, and his seat as a monarch of Palestine. It is sure enough the Israelis didn't poison him in any way, for many of them actually thought he'd be better than what would come next. Therefore, If Arafat had been actaully killed, it's the Palestinians who killed him, or, if it was indeed an Israeli, then it's not a government organization but a private person (שהוא זיין)
:Huh? There were several Isreali attempts at him in the past and recent utterances by Sharon and prominent members of his cabinet that can be interpreted as a manifest decision to kill him. Futhermore, there seem to be not only those Israelis who preferred him, actually, they seem to be a small minority - there is a lot of very outspoken hatred even now after his death. --217.231.27.125 04:33, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Guy was 70-sth. - It's not Israel's fault 

message: Hello, in the section on Lebanon, I would argue strongly for removing the " (inverted commas) from 
around disassociated. It (disassociated) is already qualified with publically; so I think that it is silly 
to write 'publically "disassocieted"'. Either one publically disassociates or one doesn't. Clearly 
Arafat *publically* did; whether he really did or not is another question. Anyway, those extra 
inverted commas really feel like a little too much pov.
Secondly, what is the meaning of '"ordered"'? Either he did order it or not. Perhaps he claimed
to have ordered it while he actually didn't? This needs to be explained, or those ambiguous " 
need to be dropped.
What are 'security forces'. We are talking here about an occupying army here, are we not?  What
about a mention of Isreali forces killing innocent Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank --
usually as "collateral" damage? I feel that this whole section is tilted towards an Isreali pov.
NJC 16:19, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: You're right regarding the quotation marks, I think you should remove them.  Regarding the security forces, I think that the term was meant to indiciate various non-civilian groups, including police, but I'm not sure. Regarding "collateral damage", this was pre Intifadeh, when such incidents were rare, if they happened at all. Jayjg 16:47, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  publically "disassociated" 

message: Mperel stated above that he thought Arafat was the 6th of seven children.  This article from UPI seems to confirm that: "Mohammed Abdel-Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Husseini was born in August, 1929 -- Aug. 24 is the generally accepted date but some sources give it as Aug. 4 -- in Cairo, Egypt. Called Yasser from an early age, he was the sixth of seven children of Abd al-Raouf al-Qudwa al-Husseini, a wholesale merchant who ran businesses in Jerusalem and Cairo, and his first wife, Zahwa Abu Saud, a member of one of Jerusalem's most prominent Arab families."  Jayjg 03:15, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  5th or 6th of 7 children? 

message: It's a "fact" that the Boston Globe calls it an op-ed not that it *is* an op-ed.-Dr.Zen
:Precisely, and since we are concerned with facts, and not your opinion of the facts, the external link to the Boston Globe article is accurately labeled:  Boston Globe Op-ed. --Viriditas 09:24, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: That point was entirely lost on you, hey? Next, Viriditas argues that doing a crossword is sport, because the crossword appears in the sports section.Dr Zen 23:11, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dr. Zen and the Boston Globe 

message: Dr. Zen, I think I may have inadvertently deleted your new bibliography, if it was yours, when I reverted HistoryBuffEr's latest reversion. If that's meant to be in the article, I apologize for deleting it. One thing about ISBN numbers, I read on someone's talk page that Wikipedia prefers not to give ISBN numbers because they can refer to an out-of-print edition. I won't leave them out, but you may want to take a look at policy. Slim 10:02, Dec 3, 2004 (UTC)
:MPerel, thank you for putting the bibliography back in. We were editing at the same time. I thought I was going nuts for a minute there and had only imagined that I had deleted it . . . :-) Slim 10:10, Dec 3, 2004 (UTC)
:: Actually, the bibliography has been in there for awhile.  It seems useful; on the other hand, I'm not sure how standard it is to include it.  I saw your note after I restored the bibliography.  But whether any or all of it remains is definitely up for discussion.  (now it appears I'm adding this comment as you're commenting too, ha!) --MPerel 10:14, Dec 3, 2004 (UTC)
:::If it's been there for awhile I have no idea how I managed to delete it. I like bibliographies myself. The more references we provide, the more help Wikipedia is to the reader, I'd guess. Anyway, thanks again. Slim 10:27, Dec 3, 2004 (UTC)
::::Oh btw, I just discovered that if you click on the ISBN link in the article, it brings you to a Wikipedia Book Sources page which lists places that particular book is available.  There's instructions on the Book Sources page once it comes up.  The original person who put in the bibliography (search on "ISBN" in this talk page to find the message about it) mentioned this feature, but I didn't understand what Wiki ISBN feature he was talking about until I tried clicking on one of the ISBN links just now.  It's a nice feature. --MPerel 11:04, Dec 3, 2004 (UTC)
I see that this page has been protected. If there was an edit war over his date of death, then that was one of the best actions I've seen out of an admin because the controversy surrounding when he died doesn't have to spread to the Internet. I know the date of death supplied is correct, but there are two possibilities for his date of birth.Scott Gall 11:05, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Bibliography again

message: Jayjg decided that Zionist revisionism should be redirected to an irrelevant page. he did not bother to use the Talk page. He just reverts and redirects to suit his Zionist propaganda whims. Why should I be held to a different standard? The hypocrisy and deceit of the Zionists knows no bounds. --Alberuni 05:13, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: If you have a complaint about something Jayjg did on another article, why are you taking your frustration out on this article?  Have you communicated with Jayjg on his talk page?  I would love to help you resolve this issue, but I don't have the slightest idea what you are referring to, here.  If you would like, feel free to leave me a note on my talk page.  --Viriditas 05:34, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Alberuni didn't communicate with me, though he did direct some comments to "Zionist Revisionists".  Perhaps they will respond, though it's not clear if they even exist, much less edit here on Wikipedia. Jayjg 14:53, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I asked you clearly on the Talk page why you redirected Zionist revisionism when there was no consensus to redirect. You are just engaging in your usual deceitful and dishonest editing practices. --Alberuni 17:41, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: On the contrary, you quite clearly asked "Why are the Zionist revisionists redirecting?"   I am not a Zionist revisionist, so your comments were clearly directed to someone else.  If you meant me, you should have addressed me. Jayjg 17:50, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  No need to discuss anything in Talk anymore 

message: Please, add :pt:Yasser Arafat.
Please again. 08:45, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Interwiki