User:Elian/Proposal

Suggestion of guidelines for a neutralization of articles related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict[edit]

This is only an additional proposal to the general policy of the Neutral Point of View

An article should contain in general more facts than views, so that the reader has the possibility to interprete the presented views for himself with actual knowledge of the facts.
Concurring views, e. i. "the" Arab and "the" Israeli side, should be given in general equal space. In existing articles where one side is grossly overrepresented the whole viewpart should be moved to the related talkpage until an equilibrium is reached.
1. Writers should keep in mind, that there is no "Israeli view" and no "Arab view". Try to attribute as detailed as possible, f.e. "Israeli settlers", "Palestinian islamist groups". Views attributed to "some Israelis", "almost all Palestinians" should be based on statistics.
Use strong words like "terror", "assasinated" with great care. Writing in one case of "assassination" where you use for the other side just a "killing" means already unconsciously taking party for one side and subtly influencing the reader. If you want to write "and terrorized the..." better describe precisely the actions that constituted the "terror".
Never try in your article to charge up deads/injured/terrible actions of one side against the deads/injured/terrible actions of the other side.
(to be continued)

Uriyan's additions and Elian's comments I wish to propose several additional points for the policy you proposed:

We should try to ignore propaganda links (from both sides). There are a plenty of them, and they're next to useless. I see no reason why we should link to them, unless it's solid facts they contain.

- 100% agreed. Now the dangerous question: what is to be considered a propaganda site? I read some discussions on the talkpages where sites were categorized as such because of ommisions of balancing facts, f.e. a site which lists only killed palestinians and no israelis. Using this definition we would also have to classify f.e. [1] (where are the dead palestinians?) as a propaganda site. So I would opt for another strategy, i.e. excluding sites which use hate speech and refer to the opponent in a degrading manner.

(a continuation of the last point) If someone says something, it still doesn't have to be true. E.g., King Hussein and Nasser have declared on June 6th, 1967 that American and British aircraft helped Israeli ones to strike Arab targets. An utter lie, it is still repeated by some even though Israel has publicly broadcast the intercepted phone call between the leaders in which they invented the "news"!

- One suggestion: we don't have to list everything. A simple solution: if the described lie has no real effect onto the described history (by that I mean something like causing some other arab state to declare war, too) we can leave it out. One of the essential things in a good encyclopedia article should be only to describe the relevant, not all facts.

We should abide to normal conventions. That is, the area of olive trees razed should be in hectars (or sq. km., not sq. m.!). Figures should be precise, and names (including article names) should follow the English usage. For instance, Al-Quds is the Arabic name of Jerusalem (commonly used name), no reason to have a separate article for it.

- agreed. (BTW, I think, the al-Quds, at least the wikification, wasn't my change) However, I am used to German transcription, so if you find errors, feel free to correct them.

Wikipedia is about integration (which leads me to the following point:)

We should re-factor pages so they cover each issue once in the whole 'pedia. In other words, only one page for discussing whether territories are occupied (elsewhere link to it). I see no particular reason why the same arguments should be duplicated in multiple articles.

- me neither. I feel the need for a little bit more structure, maybe we could start by a listing with all the articles about the conflict, bringing them into a logical structure (historic events, geographical places, people etc.), then decide how to arrange it and which articles need to be modified.
  - Has any progress been made on a page for all articles? and How would one find it then the search only returns if a page is found?
  - Does the "search" function list all pages containing a term?

We should define "terrorism" ad-hoc as "violence against civilians carried out by a non-state organization to achieve a political end". "State terrorism" is such violence carried out by a state.

- agreed.

I see no reason to go into gore. For example, I could describe the way Vadim Norzhitz was torn apart by citizens of Ramallah, how his murderers displayed their bloody hands for the world to behold, and how his pregnant wife gave birth to a child that will never meet his father. I don't think I should write that (even though that would be in order) - because I think the emotional impact of the description is excessive. There's got to be a point where we stop.

- that was one of my thoughts too. Detailed description of violence is too often used as a propaganda tool and distracts the reader from an objective judgement.

"Occupation" is a very loaded word extensively used in Palestinian P.R.-speak. As the issue is very complicated (on the tip of things, Israel's only way to end what most of the world calls "occupation" is by negotiations for the creation of a state - which is already far enough from the usual meaning of the word), I think we should minimize the use of the word in favor of control + discussion of Israeli control + link to Palestinian territories.

- this question is something I'd like to discuss with you by mail. But I agree with you that when we reorganize the articles the name of the article referring to Westbank and Gaza should be a more neutral "Palestinian territory"

- - Does international law recornize "terroitory" or "Palestine". Calling it territory is political as well since it sugests it is not a "state". I would rather prefer to use "disputed territory". "Palestinian territory" is also not unbiased (same with "liberated territory").

I probably have some other thoughts but I've got to disconnect at this moment. Please mail me/leave a message at my talk page and inform me about your opinions. Sincerely yours,

--Uri 21:15 Oct 7, 2002 (UTC)

In the article for Occupation it states that occupation "involves physically taking possession of an area" and that seems to be a fitting description. It's clearly not an annexation. // Liftarn

Question: what is the English equivalent to the German noun "Schwarzweißmalerei"?

There is a POV that individuals can be arbitrarily (even against their will) classified into ethnic or religious categories and that they have collective rights or obligations or guilt as a result. This POV is implictly assumed throughout the Israel-related pages. Generally accepted human rights concepts are based on individual rights. Who is assigned to a particilar group is often very political. For example there are large numbers of "right of return" immigrants to Israel who are officially classified as "Jews" even though they may be practicing Christians. We should not talk about "Jews" or "Arabs" without mentioning who is doing the classifying.

137.186.217.254 08:30, 13 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Keith from Calgary - WP keeps forgetting I'm logged in - is it a timeout? do I need to type fstr?

I don't know if my comments are welcome as a non-project-member, but Elian, you suggest we "Never try in your article to charge up deads/injured/terrible actions of one side against the deads/injured/terrible actions of the other side" but in a conflict where (overall) the deaths are about 90% Palestinian and (since 2001) 75% Palestinian, (and in a conflict, moreover, where popular perception of those statistics is completely reversed)isn't that a profoundly POV principle to adopt? --joveis 19:41, 3 August 2005 (UTC)
I would also argue that, far from being characterizable as a "loaded word extensively used in Palestinian P.R.-speak," "The Occupied Terriories" is both the standard terminology for the West Bank and Gaza used in UN Security Council and General Assembly resolutions, and it is also the most commonly used means in English to refer to the West Bank and Gaza. It's fair and necessary to repeatedly note that Israel disputes the term, but isn't it quite POV to pick an Israel-friendly term like "Palestinian territories" when it's almost never the term used in discussion, within the language or globally? Besides, if you refer only to the Occupied Territories (and not all of historical Palestine) as the "Palestinian Territories," aren't you being deliberately POV on the question of Palestinian right of return to Israel, with the issues of reparations and repatriation which that involves? --joveis 19:41, 3 August 2005 (UTC)