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Peter, I haven't checked Bethel, but while commending your adjustment just now, ask myself if one shouldn't add, and, if sent, 'why they were not acted upon by the British authorities'. One doesn't want to engage in violations of WP:OR, but narratively, the first part of the sentence puts a question-mark over the reports, and the second part assumes they were true. Thoughts anybody? Nishidani ( talk) 16:29, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
Something that I think is worth pointing out is that the controversy over whether warnings were sent appears to be a manufactured one. Irgun supporters say that the British said that no warnings were sent. From what I've read, they didn't and it would have been ridiculous for them to do that seeing as there were so many witnesses. According to Thurston Clarke, on the morning after the bombing, Irgunists pasted up posters which contained the following text (p243 of By Blood and Fire):
He says that:
So, what was said immediately after the bombing wasn't that warnings hadn't been sent, but that they hadn't been received by anyone who could do anything about it. Five months after the bombing, according to Arthur Koestler, once the inquest had been completed, the statement released said specifically that nobody at the Secretariat in an official position and in a position to do anything had received a warning (this was when claims were being made that John Shaw had forbidden an evacuation. Bowyer Bell does state that Attlee said that no warnings had been sent, but none of the other published sources cited in the article apart from perhaps Katz (and I'll try to check Days of Fire tonight) do. Bowyer Bell doesn't state when or where Attlee is supposed to have made the statement, but I've searched the archives of The Times and The Palestine Post without managing to turn anything up. Attlee certainly didn't make that statement in one of his Parliamentary statements, anyway. I suspect that, along with a lot of what Bowyer Bell wrote, he was just reporting what was told him by the those who had been Irgun leaders. RockyBiggs has pointed out that The Times report on the 60th anniversary celebrations says that the British diplomats denied that a warning had been sent. But, I've seen various versions of what they supposedly said, so that, until somebody publishes their actual statement and until it is confirmed that they had official backing, I wouldn't attach any significance to it. Thurston Clarke says that the staff at the hotel's reception desk decided to ignore the warning phoned to them by the Irgun. It was at a time when scores of hoax calls, including by the Irgun, were being sent. Even disgruntled civil servants who had recently been on strike were phoning in hoax calls in order to be able to head home early. The operator at The Palestine Post who received the warning sent there had received many hoax calls in the preceding months. Out of routine, she forwarded the warning to the police, who logged the time of the call as 12:20. Afterwards, because the Palestine Post operator had a friend at the King David Hotel reception desk, she rang there. When the police also called, the hotel staff called Max Hamburger, the hotel manager, who called somebody at the military GHQ to ask for advice. He said that he was advised not to evacuate, the reason being that an ambush was suspected. Hamburger then walked down the steps of the hotel to talk to Inspector Haddingham, who went down into the basement of the hotel. As he was walking along the corridor towards the Regencé Café, the bomb exploded. Witnesses reported that the windows of the French Consulate-General, which was also sent a warning, were thrown open five minutes before the bomb went off.
According to Thurston Clarke, if people had been ordered to evacuate, a lot of them would have been on the stairway directly above the bomb when it exploded. As it was, people died who were drawn there to spectate after one of the barrow bombs exploded in Julian's Way. People standing in Julian's Way were killed when the basement bomb went off because of the blast (one person was impaled on railings and others were blown against the wall of the neighbouring YMCA) and because of flying debris (one poor victim died because a safe which had been blown high in the air landed on him). So, even had an evacuation taken place, it probably wouldn't have saved lives. People who were saved because they were in the part of the south wing which didn't collapse would have been killed because they were standing in the blast zone outside the hotel.
An interesting part of the story which isn't detailed as yet in the article is that a search of the basement had been made earlier that morning because of a tip-off, but of course nothing was found because the bomb hadn't been planted at that point. There had been a lot of leaks about the bombing, so a larger number of people than normal hadn't turned up for work. One Jewish employee was taken aside by a member of the Irgun porterage team, who recognised him, while he was on his way to work and given a warning. He telephoned the manager of the typing pool (I think) to tell him to get out, but was told that the basement had already been checked and found to be clear. The other big leak, of course, albeit accidental, was the phonecall to the news agency in London announcing that the hotel had been bombed. It arrived before the bombing actually took place because the caller didn't know that the start of the operation had been delayed by an hour.
Something else stated by the Irgun posters was:
The fuses worked faster than expected so that the bombs exploded six minutes early. Gidi Paglin assumed that the bombs must have exploded early because someone tried tampering with them. When the bombs exploded, police officers were walking down the corridor towards them. Had they actually reached the bombs, there would have been little of them left. As it was, they survived.
--
ZScarpia (
talk)
18:49, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
Nishidani, thanks for correcting the spelling of Attlee. I thought it had two ts, but my spelling checker said that was wrong. -- ZScarpia ( talk) 18:49, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
Since the controversy over whether warnings were sent is an artificial one, I thought that it was better to omit mentioning it in the final sentence of the Lead section. Therefore, the last version of the sentence that I wrote read: From the question of responsibility for the deaths, much controversy has arisen over the issues of when the warnings were sent, whether they were adequate and why no evacuation was carried out. -- ZScarpia ( talk) 19:26, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
"The Jewish political leadership publicly condemned these attacks. The Jewish Agency expressed "their feelings of horror at the base and unparalleled act perpetrated today by a gang of criminals". In fact, the Irgun was acting in response to instructions from the Jewish Resistance Movement."
What was the relationship between the two? Chesdovi ( talk) 23:26, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
I note that the wiki article Jewish resistance movement which the text refers to translates the Hebrew phrase Tenu'at Ha-Meri Ha-Ivri, literally, 'Hebrew Rebellion Movement'. Joseph Heller, and Bowyer Bell, among both refer to the United Resistance Movement, and the latter throughout his Terror Out of Zion even gives the phrase of the time without 'Ha-Ivri'. Cross-wiki contamination is not a good thing, and one should sources these things to the best historical works. Nishidani ( talk) 18:56, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
It is only prudent to list first the generally agreed-upon target of the attack and not the other functions of the building. As a more extreme example of how this may be phrased is '... attacked a Hotel housing tourists which also housed the (...)'. I'd also personally go as listing under 'attack on' only the intended target of the attack, but first things first. 132.66.126.200 ( talk) 17:51, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
{from p200, Thurston Clarke, 'By Blood and Fire' }: "Adina slipped into the Arab pharmacy on Julian's Way ... She lifted the receiver and dialed 1 ... 1 ... 1 ... 4. After two rings a male voice answered. 'King David Hotel.' She spoke rapidly in Hebrew. 'This is the Hebrew Resistance Movement. We have placed a bomb in the hotel. The building is going to blow up. You must evacuate immediately. You have been warned.' She repeated the message in English, and then hung up and ran out of the store. It was 12:22."
{from p258, Bethell, 'The Palestine Triangle' }: "Begin continues: 'We did not want to hurt one living soul. The ethics of the Irgun demanded every possible precaution to prevent civilian casualties.' For this reason, he says, a young Irgun girl, Adina Hay-Nissan, was ordered to telephone a warning to the hotel thirty minutes before the impending explosion, this period being a compromise between Paglin and Sadeh, the former having originally wanted to allow forty-five minutes for evacuation."
{from p215, Begin, 'The Revolt' }: "Despite his youth, Giddy [Paglin], had had far more practical experience in this kind of fighting than had the Haganah Operations Officer [Sadeh]. He replied that experience had taught him that when the authorities received a warning that one of their offices was about to be blown up, they left the building at high speed, and did not waste time on documents. Giddy felt that fifteen minutes might not give a safe margin for evacuating the building. Finally, agreement was reached by a compromise: half-an-hour."
{from p217, Begin, 'The Revolt' }: The next consideration was how to give warnings so as to eliminate casualties. To keep passers-by away, it was decided to let off a small, noisy but harmless, cracker bomb. Telephoned warnings would be sent to three offices as soon as the Irgunists had got away: the King David Hotel management, the Palestine Post, the French Consulate-General. Warning placards would be placed next to the cans in case British experts tried to dismantle the bombs after the warnings were sent.
Hopefully, Thurston Clarke will be an acceptable source for the statement that the intent of the warning to the hotel was to make sure it was evacuated. -- ZScarpia ( talk) 23:44, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
Aside from a few Zionists who maintain a warning was given, what actual physical evidence is there that a warning was given? I doubt they gave a warning. I'd like to see hard-evidence, until then I suggest that the warning be referred to as "alleged warning" or perhaps, "the terrorists maintain that they issued a warning, although this cannot be substantiated." 9 October 2009 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.140.85.63 ( talk) 04:29, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
It must emphatically be noted that placing this within 'WikiProject Terrorism' does not mean that this bombing is being categorized as an act of 'terrorism'. The Squicks ( talk) 03:01, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
Where in this article, or anywhere else, is there evidence that this bombing was "an act of violence carried out in order to cause widespread terror?" The fact that the documents had been seized is not disputed. There is no reason to suppose the objective was not the destruction of those documents and a strategic response to their seizure. The question that this article hasn't and perhaps can't answer is whether they really intended to avoid harming civilians or not. But certainly you understand that being willing to do something that might kill noncombatants and making the killing of noncombatants the only objective are simply not the same. If you expect a strategic advantage from targeting noncombatants, the only way to achieve that advantage is to state the objective [hence the word 'terror']. They didn't pick a tourist hotel. They picked the one where the British had their documents. Mskohane ( talk) 08:50, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
So they telephoned they placed the bomb, how nice of them, but why did they put a bomb, because British army confiscated their document and found arms in their central, really what a great reason to explode a hotel that is so highly populated. No kill policy is not bad for an armed organization, which is actually a high standard. Yet they phoned, because they knew British may act back pretty harsh on them, if they kill any British citizen, don't even claim they pity human life other than Jewish, because the statements after the bombing proves they simply don't. They can't even express sorrow for the non Jewish British victims, while not even mentioning the largest group of victims, the Arabs.
"The Irgun issued an initial statement accepting responsibility for the attack, blaming the British for the deaths due to failure to respond to the warning and mourning the Jewish victims. A year later, on July 22 1947, they issued a new statement saying that they were acting on instructions from "a letter from the headquarters of the United Resistance, demanding that we carry out an attack on the center of government at the King David Hotel as soon as possible." Menachem Begin reportedly was very saddened and upset. He was angry that the hotel was not evacuated which resulted in casualties, which was against the Irgun's policy. The Irgun's radio network announced that it would mourn for the Jewish victims, but not the British ones. This was explained by claiming that Britain had not mourned for the millions of Jews who died in the Nazi Holocaust. No mention was made of the largest group of victims, the Arab dead."
Also there is something called as a signal beacon/ Warning shot. If IRA would call, you had enough reason to take them serious, since they have done that before many times. But you also know anyone can call a building and say there is bomb in it. You cannot fully evacuate a building anytime anyone calls with fake threats. Or any flight or building would have been emptied till they can no longer operate. If they need to be taken seriously, they could explode a bomb before the event to a non-populated target, showing they are serious somehow before bombing a hotel completely. Phoning for a first time event in the name of a hidden organization, not always taken seriously.
The article is a bit harsh on British forces, for they didn't evacuate the building, yet who would empty a military central upon a telephone conversation. The callers, would have also planned killing them when they got out. Evacuating a building might also be a serious security flaw. So not accusing the bomber yet accusing the bombed men is a bit off balance Kasaalan ( talk) 22:35, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
Wether or not the intent was to kill civilians it was a terrorist attack. Even if they hadn't had killed anyone they would have damaged the hotel which belonged to innocent people who did nothing to them. Is it that hard to figure out? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.224.97.111 ( talk) 21:07, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
Orijentolog: Please read Mr. Cohen's contributions to this discussion with the aim of understanding more than his surname. You will see that he is actually questioning Begin's statements about the bombing, and also the legitimacy of those statements as evidence of intent. I.e., while not saying it was terrorism, he is clearly challenging assertions here that it was not. In even plainer terms, you have just accused [someone almost certainly Jewish] of defending something he is actually attacking, and you have done so based solely on your [reasonable] assumption that he is Jewish, with total disregard for the content of his remarks. You then presume to speak for all non-Jews, but let's leave that alone. The article, as is, does its job of informing us about salient details and the fact that the event is controversial. People who are interested in learning will be moved to find more information, and those who are interested in confirming their biases, whatever they are, have more than enough to work with. Mskohane ( talk) 08:27, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
Orijentolog was "blocked indefinitely from editing for block evasion and sockpuppetry" at the end of September, 2009. Prior to that he had been criticised for referring to the religion of at least one other editor in a derogatory manner. I'm not normally in favour of deleting comments, but given that the user has been blocked (which probably alters the situation with regard to deleting comments and the rules) and that his comment here is both offensive (repulsive even) and unjustifiable, I think that the one above should be. -- ZScarpia ( talk) 18:01, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
Personally, while I applaud the expulsion of the commenter, I'd like to see the comment itself remain, as a reminder of some of the realities of open editing--leave the gun smoking. As for the expressed anti-Semitism itself, Oliver Wendell Holmes and Louis Brandeis were a couple of guys whose opinions on such matters I hold in high esteem; one would exhort us to be vigilant even against the censorship of that which we find despicable, and the other would encourage us to expose it rather than attempt to suppress it. Mskohane ( talk) 05:19, 19 January 2010 (UTC)
Using Israel, a History by Martin Gilbert as a source, Shmuel Katz was referred to until recently in the article as spokesman for the Irgun, as though this was his official or normal role. What the book says is only that Katz was the spokesman for Begin at a press conference in Jerusalem which was held in response to an ultimatum demanding the dissolution of the Irgun. ← ZScarpia 11:29, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
The statement that none of the warnings was sent to the British authorities is not controversial. Irgun sources including Menahem Begin said that warnings were sent to the Palestine Post, the French Consulate and the Hotel's own telephone exchange (which was separate from the Secretariat and Military's separate exchanges). If my memory serves correctly, the hotel staff decided to ignore the warning sent to the hotel because Jerusalem was rife with hoax bomb alerts (they were even being sent by disaffected civil servants in order to get extended lunchtimes or shortened working days). In fact, a bomb warning had been sent to the hotel that very morning and a search was carried out, but, of course, nothing was found because the bomb was only planted shortly before it detonated. It was only afterwards, when the person who received the call sent to the Palestine Post (who knew one of the people working at the hotel) phoned, that alarm began to set in. ← ZScarpia 00:25, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
ynetnews.com - Uri Misgav - "Then I saw a giant cloud – like in Hiroshima", 27 July 2010: Former Irgun fighter recalls bombing of British headquarters in Jerusalem's King David Hotel, which left more than 90 people dead. Sarah Agassi says armed Jewish group warned occupants to evacuate building. "My conscience is clear," she says 64 years after the operation, "it was war." (interview with Sarah Agassi, one of the two Irgunists responsible for sending the warnings)
The Jerusalem Post - Larry Derfner - Rattling the Cage: One man’s terrorist, 28 July 2010: The greatest denouncers of Palestinian violence against Israel also tend to be the greatest defenders of pre-state Zionist violence against Britain.
← ZScarpia 17:08, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
Curiously, in the ynetnew.com interview, Agassi says:
Of course, one of the rare things about the bombing which is an agreed fact is that the explosion happened at 12:37. If the warning was sent at 12:32, that obviously would have left only 5 minutes to act. It is hardly credible, though, that warning calls could then have been sent to the Palestine Post and the French consulate, that the Palestine Post rang the police and that the Palestine Post and police both managed to phone the hotel in the period between the first warning and the bomb detonating if the length of that period was less than five minutes. The fuses were supposed to have been set to go off after half-an-hour, but it is known that they went off sooner, probably because the chemical reaction they worked off took less time to complete than expected. After the fuses were set, the bombers escaped from the hotel (under gunfire). Once the bombers were clear of the hotel, Adina Hay and Agassi went to various public phones to send the warnings.
← ZScarpia 11:11, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
This is in the lead. Can someone provide a source that says this? It's not enough that one guy says so, that doesn't mean there is "controversy" RomaC TALK 14:58, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
It's spread throughout the article. Begin, various Irgun members, and historians give specific warning times(some of which contradict each other but that's in the sources) while the British government has stated that they either weren't warned or warnings were given but not to anyone who could have evacuated the building. Either way it's given a lot of coverage for an issue that's mainly academic. Sol Goldstone ( talk) 16:15, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
Here. This is a snappy edit summary and I will feel foolish if I missed the phrasing of the source that may or may not support the content in the lead. I see only a ref to an offline source, am I missing something? RomaC TALK 16:21, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
I think RomaC has nailed it. The long discussion over the warnings is superfluous and does not merit such a lengthy section. It might have happened but no law or definition of terrorism says "it's ok if you called ahead". The bombing is the meat of the article, not the debate over what etiquette was observed. If someone were to include a POV about why the warnings would have made the bombings legitimate under international law then it could work but the current wording gives too much weight to a detail. Sol Goldstone ( talk) 05:57, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
In the Leaks and Rumors section, it says that "Shortly after noon, Palestine time, the London bureau of UPS received a message".
UPS? What's that? The link brings up an article about Universal Press Syndicate, "the world's largest independent press syndicate." However, it goes on to say that "Universal Press Syndicate was founded by John McMeel and Jim Andrews in 1970". It can therefore not be the same organization that was mentioned in the King David Hotel bombing article since that event took place in 1946.
Perhaps we are dealing with a mere typo and the actual agency was UPI, as "United Press International (UPI) is a news agency that has roots dating back to 1907 ".
I wouldn't make the switch without being absolutely certain but, for the time being, I think it's a safe bet that UPS was a mistake. Oclupak ( talk) 23:14, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
Oclupak, you are right: it should read UPI, not UPS. From Chapter 18 (11:55 am - 12:10 pm) of Thurston Clarke:
The Shmuel Katz citation only covers the final section of the paragraph. From page 94 of Days of Fire: The news spread so quickly that by the time the explosion occurred several newspapermen had arrived in the neighbourhood and were eyewitnesses to the event.
The only journalists mentioned in the other sources are New York Post reporter Richard Mowrer, who was staying in a hotel near the King David Hotel, and a small number of others who were in one of the Kind David Hotel bars during the attack. Thurston Clarke wrote that Mowrer left his own hotel to investigate after hearing one of the barrow bombs detonate. When the main bomb went off, he was injured in the leg. Katz's account is strange in that, even though he wrote it shortly after translating Begin's The Revolt into English, it contradicts Begin's account. Also he gets details such as the extent of the damage and the death toll wrong. He wrote that the whole of the south wing, rather than one half of it, was destroyed and that the death toll was eighty rather than the accepted figure, ninety-one.
← ZScarpia 03:50, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
The article says: "The columns were in a basement nightclub known as the Regencé". This is quite obviously a spelling mistake. La Régence is a French word and If an accent was placed on one of the three "e"s comprised in the word, it would have been on the first one, not the last one. It is also possible that no accent was used, as seems to be the case for the present-day Regence nightclub located in the same area of the King David Hotel. In any case, "Regencé" was most definitely a mistake and it seems to me most likely that the spelling at the time must have been "Régence" and I have edited the text accordingly. I also corrected a second instance of Régence which was not accentuated at all. I eventually stumbled upon a third instance of the word further down the page. Of the three, it was the only one which was correctly accentuated and I left it alone. Oclupak ( talk) 12:29, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
Dear Zscarpia, while I am a neophyte in the matter of the King David Hotel bombing incident, you seem to be very knowledgeable on this subject and, glancing through the history, it appears you are a major contributor to this Wikipedia article.
It was more or less by chance that I landed on this page this morning after I stumbled upon a YouTube video (at [3]) which featured, at the very beginning, one of the participants of the attack, a gentleman by the name of Izahk Zadok, who seemed quite proud of his achievement when, as a young man, he was an active participant in the 1946 event.
Flabbergasted to witness such an admission of guilt devoid of any corresponding sentiment, and wanting to know more about him, I naturally ended up reading the Wikipedia article on the subject and, in passing, I could not help noticing the obvious misplacement of an acute accent in the name of the Régence Café, where seven milk (or was it butter?) churns of 50 kg capacity each had been deposited after their contents had been replaced with explosives.
I was disappointed to find no reference to a Mr. Izahk Zadok in the Wikipedia article and further investigation with Google did not yield much more info, even when using alternate spellings such as Izaak Zadok or Isaac Zadok.
I was mostly intrigued by one particular aspect of his testimony to the camera. It was his statement to the effect that "We were yelling at people to get out of the way, threatened some with our weapons, as we carried it in." I have great difficulty believing that a terrorist would threaten people on his way in and thus reveal the plot ahead of the explosion, which could inevitably compromise the success of his mission.
As you seem to have a few books dealing with this subject, I would like to ask you if you have any information about Izahk Zadok. Does he really exist, is it really him that we see in the video and did he really say what he claims to have said? If so, shouldn't the article mention his participation in the attack? Thanks. Oclupak ( talk) 19:47, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
In the Execution section, it says "The attack used approximately 350 kg (770 lb) of explosives spread over six charges."
However, in a documentary available on YouTube, the narrator says, at 05:24 from the beginning, that there were seven milk containers.
Later on, at 06:13, Izahk Zadok, one of the terrorists who actually carried out the attack, says "And there were seven churns, weighing 350 kilos in all".
So, what is it? Six or seven? Oclupak ( talk) 00:04, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
I added a new section, between Further reading and the Endnotes. Oclupak ( talk) 12:53, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
So just because the hotel management got a phonecall (as if), then terrorism is not to do with it? Come to think of it, even ETA makes phonecalls, but we still call them the worst terror organisation in Europe. -- 83.108.28.69 ( talk) 22:18, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
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Are there any other cases of people responding to an anticipated explosion by opening windows and closing curtains? It doesn't seem especially sensible to me. Firstly, it exposes people to being killed by the blast as they carry out this preparation. Secondly, opening windows might reduce the risk of flying glass, but it increases the risk of blast damage and fragments from the explosion. Finally, it seems to be an unnatural reaction to receiving news of a pending explosion in the building opposite: you'd expect people to move to the other side of the building and take cover under tables or stairs. New Thought ( talk) 23:17, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
User The Madras has been changing the caption under the image in the Lead from what it has been from some time, Mandate Palestine, to British Mandate of Palestine, breaching the 1RR rule on the article to do so. The latter term was shown, by a large margin, to be a minority one when the latest incarnation of the Mandatory Palestine was last renamed. I propose that, as a best solution, we adopt the term used in that article, Mandatory Palestine, in the caption of the current article. ← ZScarpia 19:27, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
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Reviewer: Khazar2 ( talk · contribs) 19:50, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
I'll begin this review later today or tomorrow. Looking forward to working with you, -- Khazar2 ( talk) 19:50, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
I'm doing my first read-through, and I'll note down some points big and small here as I go. Tomorrow or Thursday I'll begin the formal checklist, but this will give you a head start.
Overall this looks like a quality article to me. It's detailed about background, the event, and its consequences, and draws on a variety of sources. The only pervasive issue I see is the lack of page numbers, which seriously complicates verifiability. Do you still have these books, and would it be possible to add some of these?
Other issues:
-- Khazar2 ( talk) 21:09, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
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1a. the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct. | |
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1b. it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation. | See below. |
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2a. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline. | |
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2b. reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose). | Inline citations are mostly included, but page numbers are not, including for some quotations, opinions, and controversial material. |
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2c. it contains no original research. | |
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3a. it addresses the main aspects of the topic. | |
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3b. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style). | |
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4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each. | |
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5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute. | |
6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio: | ||
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6a. media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content. | |
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6b. media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions. | I removed one image that appeared less relevant (it pictured Attlee, but meeting with Stalin) and substituted a simple picture of Attlee. Images have suitable captions. |
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7. Overall assessment. | see below |
The article largely complies with style guidelines, but the lead gives an incomplete summary of the article. The warnings before the bombing are perhaps excessively detailed, while the reactions, consequences, and later controversies are not adequately summarized. Please rewrite this section to proportionately summarize the article.
This one is close, but can't be listed for now due to lack of page numbers for book quotations, and an incomplete lead. Thanks for your work to improve this article to this point, and I hope it makes it soon. -- Khazar2 ( talk) 18:22, 13 December 2012 (UTC)
Ref this The Arab workers in the kitchen fled after being told to do so.[13] This source http://www.apnewsarchive.com/1990/Former-Commander-Of-Deadly-King-David-Hotel-Attack-Dies/id-e5df8808719296a179445ce521a66e52 states that
No customers were in the cafe. The attackers locked La Regence's 15 Arab workers in a side room and set the timers to go off 30 minutes later.
Can anyone help reconcile these? Maureendepreezedent ( talk) 16:34, 4 May 2013 (UTC)
Regarding this edit: 82.113.183.204 objected to what the article currently says about the distribution of British occupancy in the hotel, using the Institute of Historical Review as a source to claim that the military were also housed in the south wing. The material currently in the Lead summarises what is said in the body of the article, which is cited to a reliable source. It will be noticed that the number of military casualties caused by the bombing was comparatively light. General Barker's office was on the top floor in the middle of the central axis of the hotel. He heard the explosion and saw falling debris, but, being well away horizontally from where the bombs were planted, his office suffered no damage at all. ← ZScarpia 15:25, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
The wikipedia article on the Irgun has this section in it. The Irgun has been viewed as a terrorist organization or organization which carried out terrorist acts.[3][4] In particular the Irgun was branded a terrorist organisation by Britain,[5] the 1946 Zionist Congress[6] and the Jewish Agency.[7]
Check the RS in that. No other sources are required. The word terrorist should be used in this article as well. 199.119.128.74 ( talk) 01:37, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
The word terrorist is already used on wikipedia to refer to this group in the main article. Why would it not be used here? It would of course be acceptable to state that some groups call Irgun terrorist and some call it militant, with the relevant RS. But we should not use the POV word militant in isolation when the Irgun are widely described as a terrorist group. Cite error: There are <ref>
tags on this page without content in them (see the
help page). [199.119.128.74 02:16, 31 October 2013 (UTC)]
I agree with ZScarpia on this issue. I never understood why (other than the obvious politics) people are so eager to apply labels like "terrorist" to people and groups. Surely what they actually did is the important thing. This article is about a certain event. The reaction of others to the event is relevant and it is fine to cite people calling it an act of terrorism. But that's different from labeling the group. Zero talk 00:19, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
199.119.128.74, your most recent edit removed the word 'militant' as a descriptor for the Irgun in the Lead, giving the edit reason as: "Removec POV labelling. This does not belong in the lede, it is in the body already." In what way is the word 'militant' POV? You think that it's too weak? Saying that something shouldn't be in the Lead because it is already in the body of the article is non-sensical as the Lead is supposed to summarise what the rest of the article says. ← ZScarpia 14:26, 1 November 2013 (UTC)
I'll give 199.119.128.74 a short amount of more time to reply; if no reply is received, I'll revert the article. ← ZScarpia 21:23, 7 December 2013 (UTC)
Nothing heard from 199.119.128.74, so revert is being carried out. ← ZScarpia 02:41, 21 December 2013 (UTC)
In 1986 PM Margaret Thatcher was the first British PM to visit Israel since the war years. As a symbol, she stayed in the same wing and floor or the hotel as a guest of the Israeli PM. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.144.12.58 ( talk) 10:39, 11 January 2014 (UTC)
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Peter, I haven't checked Bethel, but while commending your adjustment just now, ask myself if one shouldn't add, and, if sent, 'why they were not acted upon by the British authorities'. One doesn't want to engage in violations of WP:OR, but narratively, the first part of the sentence puts a question-mark over the reports, and the second part assumes they were true. Thoughts anybody? Nishidani ( talk) 16:29, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
Something that I think is worth pointing out is that the controversy over whether warnings were sent appears to be a manufactured one. Irgun supporters say that the British said that no warnings were sent. From what I've read, they didn't and it would have been ridiculous for them to do that seeing as there were so many witnesses. According to Thurston Clarke, on the morning after the bombing, Irgunists pasted up posters which contained the following text (p243 of By Blood and Fire):
He says that:
So, what was said immediately after the bombing wasn't that warnings hadn't been sent, but that they hadn't been received by anyone who could do anything about it. Five months after the bombing, according to Arthur Koestler, once the inquest had been completed, the statement released said specifically that nobody at the Secretariat in an official position and in a position to do anything had received a warning (this was when claims were being made that John Shaw had forbidden an evacuation. Bowyer Bell does state that Attlee said that no warnings had been sent, but none of the other published sources cited in the article apart from perhaps Katz (and I'll try to check Days of Fire tonight) do. Bowyer Bell doesn't state when or where Attlee is supposed to have made the statement, but I've searched the archives of The Times and The Palestine Post without managing to turn anything up. Attlee certainly didn't make that statement in one of his Parliamentary statements, anyway. I suspect that, along with a lot of what Bowyer Bell wrote, he was just reporting what was told him by the those who had been Irgun leaders. RockyBiggs has pointed out that The Times report on the 60th anniversary celebrations says that the British diplomats denied that a warning had been sent. But, I've seen various versions of what they supposedly said, so that, until somebody publishes their actual statement and until it is confirmed that they had official backing, I wouldn't attach any significance to it. Thurston Clarke says that the staff at the hotel's reception desk decided to ignore the warning phoned to them by the Irgun. It was at a time when scores of hoax calls, including by the Irgun, were being sent. Even disgruntled civil servants who had recently been on strike were phoning in hoax calls in order to be able to head home early. The operator at The Palestine Post who received the warning sent there had received many hoax calls in the preceding months. Out of routine, she forwarded the warning to the police, who logged the time of the call as 12:20. Afterwards, because the Palestine Post operator had a friend at the King David Hotel reception desk, she rang there. When the police also called, the hotel staff called Max Hamburger, the hotel manager, who called somebody at the military GHQ to ask for advice. He said that he was advised not to evacuate, the reason being that an ambush was suspected. Hamburger then walked down the steps of the hotel to talk to Inspector Haddingham, who went down into the basement of the hotel. As he was walking along the corridor towards the Regencé Café, the bomb exploded. Witnesses reported that the windows of the French Consulate-General, which was also sent a warning, were thrown open five minutes before the bomb went off.
According to Thurston Clarke, if people had been ordered to evacuate, a lot of them would have been on the stairway directly above the bomb when it exploded. As it was, people died who were drawn there to spectate after one of the barrow bombs exploded in Julian's Way. People standing in Julian's Way were killed when the basement bomb went off because of the blast (one person was impaled on railings and others were blown against the wall of the neighbouring YMCA) and because of flying debris (one poor victim died because a safe which had been blown high in the air landed on him). So, even had an evacuation taken place, it probably wouldn't have saved lives. People who were saved because they were in the part of the south wing which didn't collapse would have been killed because they were standing in the blast zone outside the hotel.
An interesting part of the story which isn't detailed as yet in the article is that a search of the basement had been made earlier that morning because of a tip-off, but of course nothing was found because the bomb hadn't been planted at that point. There had been a lot of leaks about the bombing, so a larger number of people than normal hadn't turned up for work. One Jewish employee was taken aside by a member of the Irgun porterage team, who recognised him, while he was on his way to work and given a warning. He telephoned the manager of the typing pool (I think) to tell him to get out, but was told that the basement had already been checked and found to be clear. The other big leak, of course, albeit accidental, was the phonecall to the news agency in London announcing that the hotel had been bombed. It arrived before the bombing actually took place because the caller didn't know that the start of the operation had been delayed by an hour.
Something else stated by the Irgun posters was:
The fuses worked faster than expected so that the bombs exploded six minutes early. Gidi Paglin assumed that the bombs must have exploded early because someone tried tampering with them. When the bombs exploded, police officers were walking down the corridor towards them. Had they actually reached the bombs, there would have been little of them left. As it was, they survived.
--
ZScarpia (
talk)
18:49, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
Nishidani, thanks for correcting the spelling of Attlee. I thought it had two ts, but my spelling checker said that was wrong. -- ZScarpia ( talk) 18:49, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
Since the controversy over whether warnings were sent is an artificial one, I thought that it was better to omit mentioning it in the final sentence of the Lead section. Therefore, the last version of the sentence that I wrote read: From the question of responsibility for the deaths, much controversy has arisen over the issues of when the warnings were sent, whether they were adequate and why no evacuation was carried out. -- ZScarpia ( talk) 19:26, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
"The Jewish political leadership publicly condemned these attacks. The Jewish Agency expressed "their feelings of horror at the base and unparalleled act perpetrated today by a gang of criminals". In fact, the Irgun was acting in response to instructions from the Jewish Resistance Movement."
What was the relationship between the two? Chesdovi ( talk) 23:26, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
I note that the wiki article Jewish resistance movement which the text refers to translates the Hebrew phrase Tenu'at Ha-Meri Ha-Ivri, literally, 'Hebrew Rebellion Movement'. Joseph Heller, and Bowyer Bell, among both refer to the United Resistance Movement, and the latter throughout his Terror Out of Zion even gives the phrase of the time without 'Ha-Ivri'. Cross-wiki contamination is not a good thing, and one should sources these things to the best historical works. Nishidani ( talk) 18:56, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
It is only prudent to list first the generally agreed-upon target of the attack and not the other functions of the building. As a more extreme example of how this may be phrased is '... attacked a Hotel housing tourists which also housed the (...)'. I'd also personally go as listing under 'attack on' only the intended target of the attack, but first things first. 132.66.126.200 ( talk) 17:51, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
{from p200, Thurston Clarke, 'By Blood and Fire' }: "Adina slipped into the Arab pharmacy on Julian's Way ... She lifted the receiver and dialed 1 ... 1 ... 1 ... 4. After two rings a male voice answered. 'King David Hotel.' She spoke rapidly in Hebrew. 'This is the Hebrew Resistance Movement. We have placed a bomb in the hotel. The building is going to blow up. You must evacuate immediately. You have been warned.' She repeated the message in English, and then hung up and ran out of the store. It was 12:22."
{from p258, Bethell, 'The Palestine Triangle' }: "Begin continues: 'We did not want to hurt one living soul. The ethics of the Irgun demanded every possible precaution to prevent civilian casualties.' For this reason, he says, a young Irgun girl, Adina Hay-Nissan, was ordered to telephone a warning to the hotel thirty minutes before the impending explosion, this period being a compromise between Paglin and Sadeh, the former having originally wanted to allow forty-five minutes for evacuation."
{from p215, Begin, 'The Revolt' }: "Despite his youth, Giddy [Paglin], had had far more practical experience in this kind of fighting than had the Haganah Operations Officer [Sadeh]. He replied that experience had taught him that when the authorities received a warning that one of their offices was about to be blown up, they left the building at high speed, and did not waste time on documents. Giddy felt that fifteen minutes might not give a safe margin for evacuating the building. Finally, agreement was reached by a compromise: half-an-hour."
{from p217, Begin, 'The Revolt' }: The next consideration was how to give warnings so as to eliminate casualties. To keep passers-by away, it was decided to let off a small, noisy but harmless, cracker bomb. Telephoned warnings would be sent to three offices as soon as the Irgunists had got away: the King David Hotel management, the Palestine Post, the French Consulate-General. Warning placards would be placed next to the cans in case British experts tried to dismantle the bombs after the warnings were sent.
Hopefully, Thurston Clarke will be an acceptable source for the statement that the intent of the warning to the hotel was to make sure it was evacuated. -- ZScarpia ( talk) 23:44, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
Aside from a few Zionists who maintain a warning was given, what actual physical evidence is there that a warning was given? I doubt they gave a warning. I'd like to see hard-evidence, until then I suggest that the warning be referred to as "alleged warning" or perhaps, "the terrorists maintain that they issued a warning, although this cannot be substantiated." 9 October 2009 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.140.85.63 ( talk) 04:29, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
It must emphatically be noted that placing this within 'WikiProject Terrorism' does not mean that this bombing is being categorized as an act of 'terrorism'. The Squicks ( talk) 03:01, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
Where in this article, or anywhere else, is there evidence that this bombing was "an act of violence carried out in order to cause widespread terror?" The fact that the documents had been seized is not disputed. There is no reason to suppose the objective was not the destruction of those documents and a strategic response to their seizure. The question that this article hasn't and perhaps can't answer is whether they really intended to avoid harming civilians or not. But certainly you understand that being willing to do something that might kill noncombatants and making the killing of noncombatants the only objective are simply not the same. If you expect a strategic advantage from targeting noncombatants, the only way to achieve that advantage is to state the objective [hence the word 'terror']. They didn't pick a tourist hotel. They picked the one where the British had their documents. Mskohane ( talk) 08:50, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
So they telephoned they placed the bomb, how nice of them, but why did they put a bomb, because British army confiscated their document and found arms in their central, really what a great reason to explode a hotel that is so highly populated. No kill policy is not bad for an armed organization, which is actually a high standard. Yet they phoned, because they knew British may act back pretty harsh on them, if they kill any British citizen, don't even claim they pity human life other than Jewish, because the statements after the bombing proves they simply don't. They can't even express sorrow for the non Jewish British victims, while not even mentioning the largest group of victims, the Arabs.
"The Irgun issued an initial statement accepting responsibility for the attack, blaming the British for the deaths due to failure to respond to the warning and mourning the Jewish victims. A year later, on July 22 1947, they issued a new statement saying that they were acting on instructions from "a letter from the headquarters of the United Resistance, demanding that we carry out an attack on the center of government at the King David Hotel as soon as possible." Menachem Begin reportedly was very saddened and upset. He was angry that the hotel was not evacuated which resulted in casualties, which was against the Irgun's policy. The Irgun's radio network announced that it would mourn for the Jewish victims, but not the British ones. This was explained by claiming that Britain had not mourned for the millions of Jews who died in the Nazi Holocaust. No mention was made of the largest group of victims, the Arab dead."
Also there is something called as a signal beacon/ Warning shot. If IRA would call, you had enough reason to take them serious, since they have done that before many times. But you also know anyone can call a building and say there is bomb in it. You cannot fully evacuate a building anytime anyone calls with fake threats. Or any flight or building would have been emptied till they can no longer operate. If they need to be taken seriously, they could explode a bomb before the event to a non-populated target, showing they are serious somehow before bombing a hotel completely. Phoning for a first time event in the name of a hidden organization, not always taken seriously.
The article is a bit harsh on British forces, for they didn't evacuate the building, yet who would empty a military central upon a telephone conversation. The callers, would have also planned killing them when they got out. Evacuating a building might also be a serious security flaw. So not accusing the bomber yet accusing the bombed men is a bit off balance Kasaalan ( talk) 22:35, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
Wether or not the intent was to kill civilians it was a terrorist attack. Even if they hadn't had killed anyone they would have damaged the hotel which belonged to innocent people who did nothing to them. Is it that hard to figure out? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.224.97.111 ( talk) 21:07, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
Orijentolog: Please read Mr. Cohen's contributions to this discussion with the aim of understanding more than his surname. You will see that he is actually questioning Begin's statements about the bombing, and also the legitimacy of those statements as evidence of intent. I.e., while not saying it was terrorism, he is clearly challenging assertions here that it was not. In even plainer terms, you have just accused [someone almost certainly Jewish] of defending something he is actually attacking, and you have done so based solely on your [reasonable] assumption that he is Jewish, with total disregard for the content of his remarks. You then presume to speak for all non-Jews, but let's leave that alone. The article, as is, does its job of informing us about salient details and the fact that the event is controversial. People who are interested in learning will be moved to find more information, and those who are interested in confirming their biases, whatever they are, have more than enough to work with. Mskohane ( talk) 08:27, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
Orijentolog was "blocked indefinitely from editing for block evasion and sockpuppetry" at the end of September, 2009. Prior to that he had been criticised for referring to the religion of at least one other editor in a derogatory manner. I'm not normally in favour of deleting comments, but given that the user has been blocked (which probably alters the situation with regard to deleting comments and the rules) and that his comment here is both offensive (repulsive even) and unjustifiable, I think that the one above should be. -- ZScarpia ( talk) 18:01, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
Personally, while I applaud the expulsion of the commenter, I'd like to see the comment itself remain, as a reminder of some of the realities of open editing--leave the gun smoking. As for the expressed anti-Semitism itself, Oliver Wendell Holmes and Louis Brandeis were a couple of guys whose opinions on such matters I hold in high esteem; one would exhort us to be vigilant even against the censorship of that which we find despicable, and the other would encourage us to expose it rather than attempt to suppress it. Mskohane ( talk) 05:19, 19 January 2010 (UTC)
Using Israel, a History by Martin Gilbert as a source, Shmuel Katz was referred to until recently in the article as spokesman for the Irgun, as though this was his official or normal role. What the book says is only that Katz was the spokesman for Begin at a press conference in Jerusalem which was held in response to an ultimatum demanding the dissolution of the Irgun. ← ZScarpia 11:29, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
The statement that none of the warnings was sent to the British authorities is not controversial. Irgun sources including Menahem Begin said that warnings were sent to the Palestine Post, the French Consulate and the Hotel's own telephone exchange (which was separate from the Secretariat and Military's separate exchanges). If my memory serves correctly, the hotel staff decided to ignore the warning sent to the hotel because Jerusalem was rife with hoax bomb alerts (they were even being sent by disaffected civil servants in order to get extended lunchtimes or shortened working days). In fact, a bomb warning had been sent to the hotel that very morning and a search was carried out, but, of course, nothing was found because the bomb was only planted shortly before it detonated. It was only afterwards, when the person who received the call sent to the Palestine Post (who knew one of the people working at the hotel) phoned, that alarm began to set in. ← ZScarpia 00:25, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
ynetnews.com - Uri Misgav - "Then I saw a giant cloud – like in Hiroshima", 27 July 2010: Former Irgun fighter recalls bombing of British headquarters in Jerusalem's King David Hotel, which left more than 90 people dead. Sarah Agassi says armed Jewish group warned occupants to evacuate building. "My conscience is clear," she says 64 years after the operation, "it was war." (interview with Sarah Agassi, one of the two Irgunists responsible for sending the warnings)
The Jerusalem Post - Larry Derfner - Rattling the Cage: One man’s terrorist, 28 July 2010: The greatest denouncers of Palestinian violence against Israel also tend to be the greatest defenders of pre-state Zionist violence against Britain.
← ZScarpia 17:08, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
Curiously, in the ynetnew.com interview, Agassi says:
Of course, one of the rare things about the bombing which is an agreed fact is that the explosion happened at 12:37. If the warning was sent at 12:32, that obviously would have left only 5 minutes to act. It is hardly credible, though, that warning calls could then have been sent to the Palestine Post and the French consulate, that the Palestine Post rang the police and that the Palestine Post and police both managed to phone the hotel in the period between the first warning and the bomb detonating if the length of that period was less than five minutes. The fuses were supposed to have been set to go off after half-an-hour, but it is known that they went off sooner, probably because the chemical reaction they worked off took less time to complete than expected. After the fuses were set, the bombers escaped from the hotel (under gunfire). Once the bombers were clear of the hotel, Adina Hay and Agassi went to various public phones to send the warnings.
← ZScarpia 11:11, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
This is in the lead. Can someone provide a source that says this? It's not enough that one guy says so, that doesn't mean there is "controversy" RomaC TALK 14:58, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
It's spread throughout the article. Begin, various Irgun members, and historians give specific warning times(some of which contradict each other but that's in the sources) while the British government has stated that they either weren't warned or warnings were given but not to anyone who could have evacuated the building. Either way it's given a lot of coverage for an issue that's mainly academic. Sol Goldstone ( talk) 16:15, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
Here. This is a snappy edit summary and I will feel foolish if I missed the phrasing of the source that may or may not support the content in the lead. I see only a ref to an offline source, am I missing something? RomaC TALK 16:21, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
I think RomaC has nailed it. The long discussion over the warnings is superfluous and does not merit such a lengthy section. It might have happened but no law or definition of terrorism says "it's ok if you called ahead". The bombing is the meat of the article, not the debate over what etiquette was observed. If someone were to include a POV about why the warnings would have made the bombings legitimate under international law then it could work but the current wording gives too much weight to a detail. Sol Goldstone ( talk) 05:57, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
In the Leaks and Rumors section, it says that "Shortly after noon, Palestine time, the London bureau of UPS received a message".
UPS? What's that? The link brings up an article about Universal Press Syndicate, "the world's largest independent press syndicate." However, it goes on to say that "Universal Press Syndicate was founded by John McMeel and Jim Andrews in 1970". It can therefore not be the same organization that was mentioned in the King David Hotel bombing article since that event took place in 1946.
Perhaps we are dealing with a mere typo and the actual agency was UPI, as "United Press International (UPI) is a news agency that has roots dating back to 1907 ".
I wouldn't make the switch without being absolutely certain but, for the time being, I think it's a safe bet that UPS was a mistake. Oclupak ( talk) 23:14, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
Oclupak, you are right: it should read UPI, not UPS. From Chapter 18 (11:55 am - 12:10 pm) of Thurston Clarke:
The Shmuel Katz citation only covers the final section of the paragraph. From page 94 of Days of Fire: The news spread so quickly that by the time the explosion occurred several newspapermen had arrived in the neighbourhood and were eyewitnesses to the event.
The only journalists mentioned in the other sources are New York Post reporter Richard Mowrer, who was staying in a hotel near the King David Hotel, and a small number of others who were in one of the Kind David Hotel bars during the attack. Thurston Clarke wrote that Mowrer left his own hotel to investigate after hearing one of the barrow bombs detonate. When the main bomb went off, he was injured in the leg. Katz's account is strange in that, even though he wrote it shortly after translating Begin's The Revolt into English, it contradicts Begin's account. Also he gets details such as the extent of the damage and the death toll wrong. He wrote that the whole of the south wing, rather than one half of it, was destroyed and that the death toll was eighty rather than the accepted figure, ninety-one.
← ZScarpia 03:50, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
The article says: "The columns were in a basement nightclub known as the Regencé". This is quite obviously a spelling mistake. La Régence is a French word and If an accent was placed on one of the three "e"s comprised in the word, it would have been on the first one, not the last one. It is also possible that no accent was used, as seems to be the case for the present-day Regence nightclub located in the same area of the King David Hotel. In any case, "Regencé" was most definitely a mistake and it seems to me most likely that the spelling at the time must have been "Régence" and I have edited the text accordingly. I also corrected a second instance of Régence which was not accentuated at all. I eventually stumbled upon a third instance of the word further down the page. Of the three, it was the only one which was correctly accentuated and I left it alone. Oclupak ( talk) 12:29, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
Dear Zscarpia, while I am a neophyte in the matter of the King David Hotel bombing incident, you seem to be very knowledgeable on this subject and, glancing through the history, it appears you are a major contributor to this Wikipedia article.
It was more or less by chance that I landed on this page this morning after I stumbled upon a YouTube video (at [3]) which featured, at the very beginning, one of the participants of the attack, a gentleman by the name of Izahk Zadok, who seemed quite proud of his achievement when, as a young man, he was an active participant in the 1946 event.
Flabbergasted to witness such an admission of guilt devoid of any corresponding sentiment, and wanting to know more about him, I naturally ended up reading the Wikipedia article on the subject and, in passing, I could not help noticing the obvious misplacement of an acute accent in the name of the Régence Café, where seven milk (or was it butter?) churns of 50 kg capacity each had been deposited after their contents had been replaced with explosives.
I was disappointed to find no reference to a Mr. Izahk Zadok in the Wikipedia article and further investigation with Google did not yield much more info, even when using alternate spellings such as Izaak Zadok or Isaac Zadok.
I was mostly intrigued by one particular aspect of his testimony to the camera. It was his statement to the effect that "We were yelling at people to get out of the way, threatened some with our weapons, as we carried it in." I have great difficulty believing that a terrorist would threaten people on his way in and thus reveal the plot ahead of the explosion, which could inevitably compromise the success of his mission.
As you seem to have a few books dealing with this subject, I would like to ask you if you have any information about Izahk Zadok. Does he really exist, is it really him that we see in the video and did he really say what he claims to have said? If so, shouldn't the article mention his participation in the attack? Thanks. Oclupak ( talk) 19:47, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
In the Execution section, it says "The attack used approximately 350 kg (770 lb) of explosives spread over six charges."
However, in a documentary available on YouTube, the narrator says, at 05:24 from the beginning, that there were seven milk containers.
Later on, at 06:13, Izahk Zadok, one of the terrorists who actually carried out the attack, says "And there were seven churns, weighing 350 kilos in all".
So, what is it? Six or seven? Oclupak ( talk) 00:04, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
I added a new section, between Further reading and the Endnotes. Oclupak ( talk) 12:53, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
So just because the hotel management got a phonecall (as if), then terrorism is not to do with it? Come to think of it, even ETA makes phonecalls, but we still call them the worst terror organisation in Europe. -- 83.108.28.69 ( talk) 22:18, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
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Are there any other cases of people responding to an anticipated explosion by opening windows and closing curtains? It doesn't seem especially sensible to me. Firstly, it exposes people to being killed by the blast as they carry out this preparation. Secondly, opening windows might reduce the risk of flying glass, but it increases the risk of blast damage and fragments from the explosion. Finally, it seems to be an unnatural reaction to receiving news of a pending explosion in the building opposite: you'd expect people to move to the other side of the building and take cover under tables or stairs. New Thought ( talk) 23:17, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
User The Madras has been changing the caption under the image in the Lead from what it has been from some time, Mandate Palestine, to British Mandate of Palestine, breaching the 1RR rule on the article to do so. The latter term was shown, by a large margin, to be a minority one when the latest incarnation of the Mandatory Palestine was last renamed. I propose that, as a best solution, we adopt the term used in that article, Mandatory Palestine, in the caption of the current article. ← ZScarpia 19:27, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
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Reviewer: Khazar2 ( talk · contribs) 19:50, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
I'll begin this review later today or tomorrow. Looking forward to working with you, -- Khazar2 ( talk) 19:50, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
I'm doing my first read-through, and I'll note down some points big and small here as I go. Tomorrow or Thursday I'll begin the formal checklist, but this will give you a head start.
Overall this looks like a quality article to me. It's detailed about background, the event, and its consequences, and draws on a variety of sources. The only pervasive issue I see is the lack of page numbers, which seriously complicates verifiability. Do you still have these books, and would it be possible to add some of these?
Other issues:
-- Khazar2 ( talk) 21:09, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
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1a. the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct. | |
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1b. it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation. | See below. |
2. Verifiable with no original research: | ||
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2a. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline. | |
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2b. reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose). | Inline citations are mostly included, but page numbers are not, including for some quotations, opinions, and controversial material. |
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2c. it contains no original research. | |
3. Broad in its coverage: | ||
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3a. it addresses the main aspects of the topic. | |
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3b. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style). | |
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4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each. | |
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5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute. | |
6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio: | ||
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6a. media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content. | |
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6b. media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions. | I removed one image that appeared less relevant (it pictured Attlee, but meeting with Stalin) and substituted a simple picture of Attlee. Images have suitable captions. |
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7. Overall assessment. | see below |
The article largely complies with style guidelines, but the lead gives an incomplete summary of the article. The warnings before the bombing are perhaps excessively detailed, while the reactions, consequences, and later controversies are not adequately summarized. Please rewrite this section to proportionately summarize the article.
This one is close, but can't be listed for now due to lack of page numbers for book quotations, and an incomplete lead. Thanks for your work to improve this article to this point, and I hope it makes it soon. -- Khazar2 ( talk) 18:22, 13 December 2012 (UTC)
Ref this The Arab workers in the kitchen fled after being told to do so.[13] This source http://www.apnewsarchive.com/1990/Former-Commander-Of-Deadly-King-David-Hotel-Attack-Dies/id-e5df8808719296a179445ce521a66e52 states that
No customers were in the cafe. The attackers locked La Regence's 15 Arab workers in a side room and set the timers to go off 30 minutes later.
Can anyone help reconcile these? Maureendepreezedent ( talk) 16:34, 4 May 2013 (UTC)
Regarding this edit: 82.113.183.204 objected to what the article currently says about the distribution of British occupancy in the hotel, using the Institute of Historical Review as a source to claim that the military were also housed in the south wing. The material currently in the Lead summarises what is said in the body of the article, which is cited to a reliable source. It will be noticed that the number of military casualties caused by the bombing was comparatively light. General Barker's office was on the top floor in the middle of the central axis of the hotel. He heard the explosion and saw falling debris, but, being well away horizontally from where the bombs were planted, his office suffered no damage at all. ← ZScarpia 15:25, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
The wikipedia article on the Irgun has this section in it. The Irgun has been viewed as a terrorist organization or organization which carried out terrorist acts.[3][4] In particular the Irgun was branded a terrorist organisation by Britain,[5] the 1946 Zionist Congress[6] and the Jewish Agency.[7]
Check the RS in that. No other sources are required. The word terrorist should be used in this article as well. 199.119.128.74 ( talk) 01:37, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
The word terrorist is already used on wikipedia to refer to this group in the main article. Why would it not be used here? It would of course be acceptable to state that some groups call Irgun terrorist and some call it militant, with the relevant RS. But we should not use the POV word militant in isolation when the Irgun are widely described as a terrorist group. Cite error: There are <ref>
tags on this page without content in them (see the
help page). [199.119.128.74 02:16, 31 October 2013 (UTC)]
I agree with ZScarpia on this issue. I never understood why (other than the obvious politics) people are so eager to apply labels like "terrorist" to people and groups. Surely what they actually did is the important thing. This article is about a certain event. The reaction of others to the event is relevant and it is fine to cite people calling it an act of terrorism. But that's different from labeling the group. Zero talk 00:19, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
199.119.128.74, your most recent edit removed the word 'militant' as a descriptor for the Irgun in the Lead, giving the edit reason as: "Removec POV labelling. This does not belong in the lede, it is in the body already." In what way is the word 'militant' POV? You think that it's too weak? Saying that something shouldn't be in the Lead because it is already in the body of the article is non-sensical as the Lead is supposed to summarise what the rest of the article says. ← ZScarpia 14:26, 1 November 2013 (UTC)
I'll give 199.119.128.74 a short amount of more time to reply; if no reply is received, I'll revert the article. ← ZScarpia 21:23, 7 December 2013 (UTC)
Nothing heard from 199.119.128.74, so revert is being carried out. ← ZScarpia 02:41, 21 December 2013 (UTC)
In 1986 PM Margaret Thatcher was the first British PM to visit Israel since the war years. As a symbol, she stayed in the same wing and floor or the hotel as a guest of the Israeli PM. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.144.12.58 ( talk) 10:39, 11 January 2014 (UTC)