Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Israeli violence against Palestinian children

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Israeli violence against Palestinian children was proposed for deletion. This page is an archive of the discussion about the proposed deletion. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page rather than here so that this page is preserved as an historic record. The result of the debate was no consensus. Although redirects plus deletes do form a rough consensus, there is no consensus (as per wikipedia policy) that this means anything. Any attempt to resolve this VfD by newly-formed policy would not seem to be legitimate, especially because partisans in this dispute dominate talk for the new policy.

The VfD tally suggests that many wikipedian's would be in favor of redirecting this, but this should be brought up on the talk page of this article. I'm removing VfD from this article. Please discuss possible redirects or moves on the talk page. Cool Hand Luke 00:05, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)


An example of modern blood libel, on par with alleged Jenin massacre, poisoning wells, etc. See Israel Defense Forces#The Code of Conduct. Humus sapiensTalk 07:53, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

  • Delete. Editorial. Gamaliel 07:55, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep the facts and remove the editorials, as long as we're keeping other ridiculous "articles" on violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and what is it they say about truth being the best defense against charges of libel? —No-One Jones (m) 08:02, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete or Redirect as Israel is not targeting children! On the contrary, when Israeli civilian buses or public places are blown up by homicide bombers or killed by Kassam rockets due to Palestinian terrorism, it is Israeli children who die (with the adults), and so far there is no special list on Wikipedia for Palestinian violence against Israeli children is there? Should there be? See Talk for examples. IZAK 09:03, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete. I care nothing for Israel, but this article shouldn't be. The first half is commentary on an opinion column, and the second is a synopsis of an Amnesty International report. This isn't really an article. As noted above, it presupposes something is remarkable about violence against children which is possibly POV in itself. Also, it should be noted there are two copies of this article. It was moved to Violence against Palestinian children, but User:Alberuni apparently felt "Israeli violence" was the proper title so added the content back here. I've VfD'd the moved copy as well and redirected the discussion here. Whatever happens to this article should happen to both of them since they're carbon copies. Cool Hand Luke 09:43, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete or Redirect. I tried moving the article to a more neutral title, but Alberuni only wants to represent his POV. --Viriditas 10:01, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
    • From Talk:Violence against Palestinian children in re moving the page: "...I know you are more concerned with defending Israel than you are about palestinian children but perhaps you will find a more productive venue than redirecting pages that disturb your POV. --Alberuni" Cool Hand Luke 10:13, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
      • I'm quite familiar with what he wrote, since it was in direct response to my concern about violence against palestinian children perpetrated by Palestinians, which he refuses to address. From Talk:Violence against Palestinian children as justification for moving the page: "...If you are going to be neutral, you are going to have to include Palestinan violence against Palestinian children, for example Palestinian children like Abdullah Quran and Husam Abdo and the recruitment and use of child soldiers by Hamas, Fatah and Islamic Jihad. -- Viriditas". A neutral title addresses both POV's, which Alberuni refuses to do since he is only interested in promoting his POV. There is no defense of Israel involved. --Viriditas 10:22, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
      • I know! I just wanted to show others evidence that this article has POV motives. "POV" is almost automatically tossed around in these debates, but it seems clear in this case. Cool Hand Luke 18:03, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
      • Furthermore, I think this shows that a delete will be more manageable than a redirect. Cool Hand Luke 18:47, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Merge or move. Surely that information can go somewhere else in one of the articles we have in the Israel/Palestine conflict. As it stands it's not very neutral, and is unlikely to ever be so with such a provocative article title. If the author is unwilling to take the step of merging or moving and NPOVing, delete. Shane King 11:42, Nov 1, 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete. Editorial. Failing that, Merge and Re-direct. Jayjg 12:52, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep and improve. There will surely be more incidents of Israeli forces killing Palestinian children to add to this page every week. When I tried to add related incidents on the Ghadeer Jaber Mkheemar, User:Jayjg deleted them and insisted that they desrve a page of their own. Now he advocates deleting it! Hypocrisy is outstanding! The instant denials and censorship efforts by pro-Israel partisans should in itself tell you something about the merits of this article. --Alberuni 15:45, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
    • I explained that biography pages are intended to describe the individuals in question, and not to promote your own POV theories about Israel. A standalone POV essay consisting purely of original research is not a solution. Jayjg 19:02, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Rename or Move or Delete. Surely there are children killed and that is very extremely sad and there should be peace, but such provocative messages does not cause peaceful attitudes between the sides of the conflict. How about to include child victims to the list of other victims, if there are such? Tuohirulla 15:54, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
    • This user has only 4 edits so far, all to this page. --Conti| 16:11, Nov 1, 2004 (UTC)
      • I have been editing Finnish Wikipedia. See it for yourself. This is my first time in English Wikipedia. Is that a problem?Tuohirulla 16:20, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
        • Policies of the varying wikipediae are allowed to differ -- I'm not sure how much a young editor in one pedia can draw on being old in another. Any thoughts? --Improv 19:05, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
          • See the arguments. Don't bow for authority! /Tuomas 14:26, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete. --Conti|
  • Delete. As far as I understand, there is no particular targeting of children by Israelis. I don't think Alberuni was wrong to revert the redirect, as the renamed title was a poor one, but I also don't think there should be an article on this topic. The article on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict should be sufficient -- let all the battles happen there. --Improv 19:05, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Merge the children into Violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The article addresses a valid and important issue - far from being the "blood libel" that it was libellously called - but that point is better made by a page already dedicated to listing the conflict's victims on both sides. - Mustafaa 20:27, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
    • Changing my vote to keep, having noticed No-One Jones' point above. - Mustafaa 16:30, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Merge into some other artcile that discussed the entire conflict, perhaps Israeli-Palestinian conflict or Violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Such a difficult area, such bad behavior by so many users on other pages it is hard to see where to put anything. The BMJ editorial is an unusual event, but, like the Amnesty International report, should be part of an article on the conflict itself. I guess the author of the BMJ editorial would support an article on the role of the medical profession in decrying violence, which could be interesting. As is, the article is original research and POV and needs to be fixed. Chrisvls 20:51, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete, or at the very least, rename. Hugely provocative title. Lacrimosus 22:10, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Merge. Article contains relevant and factual information. ElBenevolente 22:24, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Rename and rewrite. It is a valid topic. Given the existence of the Violence against Israelis article, the only objection I see to this one is its title which could be made more neutral. Imc 22:48, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I originally moved it to Violence against Palestinian children for NPOV and Alberuni immediately moved it back, claiming that my move was POV. Now there are two identical articles with different names. --Viriditas 23:04, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Merge into a more general article on the whole boiling mess. — Bill 23:01, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Redirect (no merge) to Violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. -Sean Curtin 01:30, Nov 2, 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete. Inherently POV. Gwalla | Talk 02:12, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete. Inherently POV. Indrian 02:14, Nov 2, 2004 (UTC)
  • Definite keep. BLANKFAZE | (что??) 02:23, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • KEEP. As in previous VfD: Dozens of pages with Israeli fatalities were voted OK, so the only NPOV position is that this one is fine too. HistoryBuffEr 02:42, 2004 Nov 2 (UTC)
  • Keep. I would also support a merge into Violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. -[[User:Frazzydee|Frazzydee|]] 04:41, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep or preferably Merge it with something more generic. Restricting this to "children" makes it come across fairly POV. Sarge Baldy 05:40, Nov 2, 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete and merge bare facts into some better-titled article. As it stands now, it is little more than an essay based on an opinion column, and the title is inherently very POV. - Mark Dingemanse (talk) 08:15, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep. Preferably merge. --*drew 08:20, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete. Ridiculous, unprovable B.S. Terrapin 17:41, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Difficult. Given the tit-for-tat nature of the conflict, I don't like the idea of separate lists of atrocities committed by each side -- probably inevitable to some degree on such a controversial topic, but this is escalating the issue. The POVness stems from the decontextualization rather than the content itself, so I'd say merge, and keep the BMJ reference as a footnote rather than a raison d'être. It all seems to relate to the most recent intifada, so maybe Al-Aqsa Intifada would be a good home for it, though it's already pretty long. If we do need to split it, I think it should be along more useful lines than "violence perpetrated by Palestinians" vs. "violence perpetrated by Israelis". Pnot 23:28, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)
    • I agree. Allowing these articles to be seperate along Israel/Palestine lines is not desirable from the perspective of managing POVs. These claims do have a place somewhere, because they're obviously widely believed and discussed, but it should be in proper context. Cool Hand Luke 02:26, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Merge with one of the general articles on the conflict, and redirect. Any killings of civilians--indeed any killings at all--sadden me to an extreme, but breaking them out as separate, e.g. "A" violence against "B" civilians is POV, especially in this tedious, endless, exasperating conflict which has gone on for all of recorded history, and probably before that too. Antandrus 02:40, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Merge with an article on Israeli violence in general. Ashibaka 20:18, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep. God only knows why some people don't want others to know this information. Xed 23:23, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete. The old "think of the poor persecuted children" argument could easily be applied to any number of topics, and we don't need emotional, far-from-NPOV articles about "Palestinian terrorism against Israeli children," "terrorist recruitment of Palestinian children," and so on. Delete, delete, delete. --Modemac 16:41, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete. Stereotek 20:25, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Not an easy one to call. I was originally going to go for "delete or rename", as it has real factual information but is presently giving half the picture only. Others have commented on the highly POV nature (artificial and subjective split, specifies one side without contextualisation or acts of other side, etc). At a pinch maybe a rename to "Violence against noncombatants in the Israeli/Palestinian war" or something. But if so, it needs a neutral approach to childen victims and must include suicide bombings on school buses, at schools or universities, etc.
The trouble with "rename" is that even then the article is misleading in a second way. It suggests that such acts are deliberate policy. I've just spent a few hours googling this to be sure of my facts but so far as I can tell the only ones who deliberately targeted the death of children (junior high school bombers [1], university cafeteria [2], and most horribly using 11 year old as living bomb [3]) all seem in fact to be Palestinians.
The more I think about this, the more I think that both sides have killed children, but only on one side is it official policy to deliberately do so. Delete. If there's any value in a separate article for child deaths (and I don't think there is), then it's the dead of all sides in a horible war and at the least deserves a neutral article, not just the dead of those who themselves by official policy, train use and kill young people in gun and bomb. FT2 22:21, Nov 4, 2004 (UTC)
(Side note: whilst not directly relevant to the VfD and this specific article, one study by a counter terrorism institute I came across analysed the circumstances of israeli-palestinian killings, and concludes:
  • "figures actually lump combatants in with noncombatants, suicide bombers with innocent civilians, and report Palestinian 'collaborators' murdered by their own compatriots as if they had been killed by Israel."
  • "More meaningful figures show that Israel is responsible for around 568 Palestinian noncombatant deaths, while Palestinians have killed more than 420 Israeli noncombatants."
  • "Over 50 percent of the Palestinians killed were actively involved in fighting - and this does not include stone-throwers or 'unknowns.'"
  • "Palestinians are directly responsible for the deaths of at least 185 of their own number - one out of every eight Palestinians" killed in the conflict thus far."
Source: rense.com [4] a website which also carries strongly anti-israel articles about "Zionist fascism" and the like) FT2 22:21, Nov 4, 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep and merge. Deletion looks like censorship. You can still fact check every word if we keep it. -- Toytoy 00:44, Nov 5, 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep and merge. as the number of Palestinian civilians killed during the military occuption is disproportionately high to the number of Israelis killed, display of accurate numbers should be of interest. Pnd 18:28, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete. This information is POV and not encyclopedic until such time as the conflict is over and all the atrocities committed by both sides can be placed in proper perspective. It may be that some of the information on this page should be merged into a parent article, but this page should go. Indrian 17:19, Nov 5, 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete, or altenatively redirect. These types of articles tend to be highly POV.--Josiah 17:55, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep (may need rename). The content of the article does not appear inheirently POV, although it may have POV issues. The title of the article may be inheirently POV. --L33tminion | (talk) 18:35, Nov 5, 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete. Failing that, Redirect first and Merge contents later. Gady 13:50, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)

This vote is complicated. So that interested parties can better plan what to do with this article after VfD, I'm keeping a running tally. (Counted through L33tminion). Cool Hand Luke 19:28, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Total: 39

  • Delete only - 12
  • Delete (preferable) or redirect/rename - 6
  • Rename (preferable) or delete - 1
  • Redirect (no merge) - 1
  • Keep and merge - 10
  • Merge or rename - 2
  • Keep and rename - 2
  • Keep, no qualifications - 6


Quick summary: Both delete and merge imply the removal of the actual article. The options for the actual article (as opposed to its content) really come down to variations of delete, keep or rename, and the present votes are as follows: FT2 22:43, Nov 5, 2004 (UTC)

  • Delete/merge the article - 22
(of whom 12 want delete only, 10 want the content kept and merged elsewhere)
  • Delete/merge, or rename/redirect if not - 7
(of whom 5 want delete preferable, 2 want merge, all would accept rename/redirect as a fallback)
  • Rename/redirect, or delete/merge if not - 1
  • Rename/redirect - 3
  • Keep - 6

Recalling of course, that merging implies keeping the article as a redirect/for edit history. Cool Hand Luke 07:48, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Vote Tally[edit]


Total votes = 41


  • Keep

  1. —No-One Jones (m) 08:02, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  2. Alberuni 15:45, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  3. Mustafaa 16:30, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  4. BLANKFAZE 02:23, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  5. HistoryBuffEr 02:42, 2004 Nov 2 (UTC)
  6. Frazzydee 04:41, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  7. Xed 23:23, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  8. L33tminion 18:35, Nov 5, 2004 (UTC)

  • Keep and/or Merge
  1. Sarge Baldy 05:40, Nov 2, 2004 (UTC)
  2. *drew 08:20, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  3. Toytoy 00:44, Nov 5, 2004 (UTC)
  4. Pnd 18:28, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

  • Delete.

  1. Gamaliel 07:55, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  2. Cool Hand Luke 09:43, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  3. Conti
  4. Improv 19:05, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  5. Gwalla 02:12, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  6. Indrian 02:14, Nov 2, 2004 (UTC)
  7. Terrapin 17:41, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  8. Modemac 16:41, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  9. Stereotek 20:25, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  10. FT2 22:21, Nov 4, 2004 (UTC)
  11. Humus sapiens 07:53, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

  • Delete or Redirect
  1. IZAK 09:03, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  2. Viriditas 10:01, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  3. Tuohirulla 15:54, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  4. Lacrimosus 22:10, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  5. Josiah 17:55, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

  • Delete or Merge and Re-direct.
  1. Jayjg 12:52, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  2. Gady 13:50, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)

  • Delete and merge
  1. Mark Dingemanse 08:15, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  2. Indrian 17:19, Nov 5, 2004 (UTC)

  • Redirect

  • Rename and rewrite.
  1. Imc 22:48, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

  • Redirect (no merge)
  1. Sean Curtin 01:30, Nov 2, 2004 (UTC)

  • Merge

  1. Shane King 11:42, Nov 1, 2004 (UTC)
  2. Chrisvls 20:51, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  3. ElBenevolente 22:24, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  4. Bill 23:01, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  5. Pnot 23:28, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  6. Antandrus 02:40, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  7. Ashibaka 20:18, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Totals:


  • Keep = 12/41 = 29.3% (includes "Keep and/or Merge")
  • Delete = 20/41 48.8% (includes "Delete or Redirect")
  • Redirect = 9/41 = 22% (includes "Delete or Redirect")
  • Merge = 15/41 = 36.6% (includes "Merge" under "Keep", "Delete" and "Redirect")

Conclusion: No consensus. Someone remove this VfD. (HistoryBuffEr 18:41, 2004 Nov 6 (UTC))


Where to merge it[edit]

It's been five days. This page does not currently have consensus for delete, but a strong plurality exists to merge the content. Please discuss possible destination articles at Wikipedia talk:Votes for deletion/Israeli violence against Palestinian children#Merge. Cool Hand Luke 07:58, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Actually, "Merge" received only 37.5% (15 of 40) votes. That's not a consensus. HistoryBuffEr 18:00, 2004 Nov 6 (UTC)
Merge plus delete recieved over 2/3rd easily. More importantly. Merge doesn't require consensus. Any editor can merge and redirect, and an editor might feel especially bold in this case because most don't believe this should be seperate. In the interests of NPOV, this material must be on wikipedia, but not at this level of granularity.
Natually, any editor can also undo a redirect (as you've proven), but I'm trying to preemptively prevent this edit war. So...where should we put it? Cool Hand Luke 19:48, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Luke, you seem to misunderstand what voting means. You are free to do anything you want as an editor (subject to being reverted, of course), but when something is brought up to a vote then consensus is needed for any action. If there is no consensus on a VfD, then the article remains. You cannot have it both ways; as there is no consensus you cannot ignore the vote and at the same time claim that your action is somehow approved here. HistoryBuffEr 20:16, 2004 Nov 6 (UTC)
Did you notice I removed VfD from the article. Did I ever say there was consensus or that this vote demands a move? Absolutely not; "strong plurality" I said. But these results strongly suggest a move, and as an editor (not working off of some nonexistant VfD mandate), I believe this is clearly the best solution. Cool Hand Luke 20:26, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)

This page is now preserved as an archive of the debate and, like other '/delete' pages is no longer 'live'. Subsequent comments on the issue, the deletion or on the decision-making process should be placed on the relevant 'live' pages. Please do not edit this page.