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Much of the material being added to this page is inconsistent with the scholarly consensus on the causes of the Palestinian exodus and is sourced to a book by a Revisionist politician Shmuel Katz who was involved in the exodus as an Irgun propagandist and member of the high command. I believe that the use of this material is a clear violation of WP:V and brings Wikipedia into serious disrepute.
Comment: Shmuel Katz is a notable writer who has written an extensively quoted peer-reviewed book about the conflict. You can see the number of uses here [1] and mentions in google scholar here [2] You can see an editorial review of Katz here [3]. user:Avraham has already explained to user:Ian_Pitchford that it's all right to quote Katz regardless of this here [4] Katz is quoted in scholary journals [5] The Johns Hopkins University Press... [6] [7]: Journal of Palestine Studies, Indiana University Press, Jewish History... Regardless of all this, we have explained already that Katz is used as a secondary source. Nobody ever questioned his myriad of references which he collected. In fact, the same primary sources are used in a myriad of other books and web-site you can see that easily. Ian and his friend have also admitted and argued that Katz based references on the scholar Schectman. Now this scholar is quoted by another person extensively used by Ian Pitchford in the article called Gelber, so what possibly could be the problem here ? In addition, it's difficult to WP:AGF since Ian Pitchford has removed whole chunks of material that weren't quoted to Katz at all and also contemporary quotes regarding Hezbollah and a whole lot of different things - see here [8] Mind you, he provided no edit summary for these mass removals unwarranted of materials and he used popups in order to do it. Seems clear sources should be restored in their full as we don't want to represent only one WP:POV in the article which if you see is surprisngly or not the consequence of this removal..... Amoruso 09:56, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
Comment: Katz has compiled much reliable information, Amoruso's words are correct. It is not Ian Pitchford's job to call him a "propagandist" and just delete it. Also, Ian Pitchford and others have deleted much information that is verifiable. This is information that has nothing to do with Katz. It came from reliable peer-reviewed sources and was removed by him for no reason. None even mentioned on the talk page. This violates Wikipedia's rules in terms of vandalism. -- Shamir1 18:15, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
Comment: Historical events should not be portrayed in Wikipeida from the viewpoint of notorious propagandists who have spent a lifetime espousing one side of the argument. This is a clear violation of WP:NPOV. I think the problem is illustrated well by the claims made above. To take just a few of the fundamental problems raised:
-- Ian Pitchford 20:49, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
Yes, according to WP:V: Editors adding new material to an article should cite a reliable source, or it may be challenged or removed by any editor. But there is an inherent problem with history, as it is essentially written from the POV of the winner. The Nazi's were evil (sorry, first one that came to mind). To combat that, we must look at and cite the multiple sides of the conflict (especially in one such as this). Something like "they said this, they said this". And we must try not to sandbag one side. Just some suggestions. - Royalguard11( Talk· Desk· Review Me!) 21:15, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
Comment: Indeed we must cite reliable sources and if those sources indicate a significant difference of opinion then we cite them in proportion to the prominence of each, but we should not cite anyone regardless of their bias or credibility. -- Ian Pitchford 22:58, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
Could I make a suggestion here: Seek mediation. The Mediation Cabal will do informal mediation for you, if you all agree to it. It is a fact that wikipedia works on consensus (and anyone that says otherwise is wrong). The article is protected, and will remain protected I expect until a decision is come to. You can all fight about this and that, but without any consensus, nobody is going to be doing any editing any time soon. So, either stop fighting and come to a decision, or ask the MedCab to help. - Royalguard11( Talk· Desk· Review Me!) 05:20, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
Comment: Amoruso's claims above are false: the book is not peer-reviewed; there are not "many sources", there is only one source Katz, and he is not a reliable source because he has been intimately involved in attempts to justify Revisionist policies throughout his career. Katz is not a scholar and no historian cites his book. Joseph Heller, of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, has described the "history" propagated by Katz and colleagues as "one-dimensional counterhistory" in which the "self-image of Begin and his underground colleagues... was highly inflated; their negative images of the Jewish Agency and of the Haganah leaders were similarly detached from reality". In other words the works by Katz and Co. are biased and self-serving even by the standards of mainstream Zionist myth-making. The Jewish-American authority on Zionism Norman Finkelstein has written that Joan Peters' use of twenty-one references to Katz's book Battleground "has the combined scholarly weight of a classic comic book". Amoruso and his collaborators routinely delete anything from Wikipedia, no matter how well sourced, that indicates Katz's political bias and unreliability, e.g., [16] and [17]. There are engaged in a concerted campaign to fill Wikipedia with crude propaganda and to delete reliable sources that indicate just how crude that propaganda is. Here is Amoruso's collaborator Isarig, for example, deleting material sourced to the Israeli historian Benny Morris and replacing it with propaganda material from Israeli government web sites and US advocacy groups [18]. Amoruso has already declined mediation on his use of Katz in the Palestine article: [19]. The only thing that remains to be clarified is whether Wikipedia has any means at all of enforcing its policies and whether Amoruso, Shamir1 and Isarig get the bans they deserve.
References
-- Ian Pitchford 17:48, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
Comment: Getting back to the issue at hand - the validity of Katz as an historian - I would like to point out that over the years Katz is not mentioned even once by the
American Jewish History Journal (search entry), maybe the most respected historical journal on the subject and quarterly published for more than a century. Furtermore, to my knowledge Katz is neither peer-reviewed nor is his work cited by anynone but a group of "followers". Contrary to what was claimed above, in Johns Hopkins University Press's
Project Muse, a collection of high-quality peer-reviewed journals from 60 scholarly publishers, Katz's scant presence is primarily related to his political work
[20]
[21] (Katz was an adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Begin).
However, the main reason why Kats isn't, and shouldn't, be cited as a historian (as opposed to his background as a politician and a participant in certain events) is that he has not done any research on his own; rather, his books are a collection of thoughts and viewpoints, backed up by selective quotes and events.
Much of the same can also be said of the above mentioned Schechtman, whose 1966 book, The Crucial Decade: 1939-1949, was reviewed by the American Jewish History Journal as, while interesting, "with unqualified approval of the Revisionist movement", "does not show more than a few traces of self-disipline", "seems a bit too many of these [mistakes]", and otherwise criticized for citing only publications from certain organizations, the government and press, while ignoring important work by others (AJHQ:56,1-4,pg. 361, available via the entry link above) .
As for the conflict, I concur with Ian Pitchford's description. Amoruso in particular, and to some extent Shamir1, are, based on my experiences, POV warriors of the destructive kind. I see no point in engaging in a who-said-what-when quarrel, but I think the following words from Amoruso sums it up: "All the quotes from Joseph B. Shectman are 100% accurate and verifiable and trust worthy. This is true on all accounts of other historians who happent to belong to a right wing side of a map." [22]. I have also briefly listed examples of Amoruso's edit behaviour, with diffs, on a previous occasion
In a way, this conflict also mirrors what is a major problem at Wikipedia: information from partisans and propagandists is readily available online (and often cited by fellow partisans), while work from scholars and others are increasingly moved to pay-sites or is only available in libraries. - Steve Hart 06:29, 5 December 2006 (UTC) (I forgot to mention, if someone wants to reply to this you will do so below, and not inject your comments into mine (you know who you are) -- Steve Hart 06:38, 6 December 2006 (UTC))
Ok, here is a (proposed) policy on books: WP:BK. Second, reliable sources should link to WP:RS. Third, could someone give the reader-digest version of the conflict, including who added what, who removed what, and include diffs. That will make it easier for all of us (including myself, which will make it easier to help you). Thank you. - Royalguard11( Talk· Desk· Review Me!) 05:09, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
Post-Zionist and palestinian historians claim the "traditional Israeli historiography" didn't explain the events the way they happen. "Official Israeli historians" (who were maybe more propagandists than historians) would have built an history for these events. Right. Noted.
They are many references for this in first quality (undiscussed) scholar's works.
As a consequence, isn't their point of view an important information to add to an article. Not to claim that what they say is (or may be) true but only to underline what they say and permits the readers to understand precisely the "size of their (alleged) lie or manipulation" (if any)
I think Katz, Schechtman and other pov would deserve a place in all these controversed articles but in a special section : "Israeli official history".
Their Pov could be given and critics of their pov from other historians (if any) too.
As I think I wrote some months ago (you were not there yet but this received no echo) :
This information deserves numerous lines in the articles because this is what all Israeli citizens and most western people learned unless they studied the matter deeply.
Any comment ?
Alithien
09:54, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
Ok, everything's quited down here again. Has everything been settled maybe? Do we finally have an agreeable settlement? Or do we still need to discuss that? - Royalguard11( Talk· Desk· Review Me!) 23:22, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
Ok, this has died down again. Has everyone come to an agreement? - Royalguard11( Talk· Desk· Review Me!) 21:06, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
When the case is finished, please take a minute to fill out the following survey:
Did you find the Advocacy process useful?
Did your Advocate handle your case in an appropriate manner?
On a scale of 1 (worst) to 5 (best), how polite was your Advocate?
On a scale of 1 to 5, how effective do you feel your Advocate was in solving the problem?
On a scale of 1 to 5, how effective do you feel the Advocacy process is altogether?
If there were one thing that you would like to see different in the Advocacy process, what would it be?
If you were to deal with this dispute again, what would you do differently, if anything?
Case Status: closed
Advocate Status:
Wikipedian filing request:
Other Wikipedians this pertains to:
Wikipedia pages this pertains to:
Have you read the AMA FAQ?
How would you describe the nature of this dispute? (policy violation, content dispute, personal attack, other)
What methods of Dispute Resolution have you tried so far? If you can, please provide wikilinks so that the Advocate looking over this case can see what you have done.
What do you expect to get from Advocacy?
Much of the material being added to this page is inconsistent with the scholarly consensus on the causes of the Palestinian exodus and is sourced to a book by a Revisionist politician Shmuel Katz who was involved in the exodus as an Irgun propagandist and member of the high command. I believe that the use of this material is a clear violation of WP:V and brings Wikipedia into serious disrepute.
Comment: Shmuel Katz is a notable writer who has written an extensively quoted peer-reviewed book about the conflict. You can see the number of uses here [1] and mentions in google scholar here [2] You can see an editorial review of Katz here [3]. user:Avraham has already explained to user:Ian_Pitchford that it's all right to quote Katz regardless of this here [4] Katz is quoted in scholary journals [5] The Johns Hopkins University Press... [6] [7]: Journal of Palestine Studies, Indiana University Press, Jewish History... Regardless of all this, we have explained already that Katz is used as a secondary source. Nobody ever questioned his myriad of references which he collected. In fact, the same primary sources are used in a myriad of other books and web-site you can see that easily. Ian and his friend have also admitted and argued that Katz based references on the scholar Schectman. Now this scholar is quoted by another person extensively used by Ian Pitchford in the article called Gelber, so what possibly could be the problem here ? In addition, it's difficult to WP:AGF since Ian Pitchford has removed whole chunks of material that weren't quoted to Katz at all and also contemporary quotes regarding Hezbollah and a whole lot of different things - see here [8] Mind you, he provided no edit summary for these mass removals unwarranted of materials and he used popups in order to do it. Seems clear sources should be restored in their full as we don't want to represent only one WP:POV in the article which if you see is surprisngly or not the consequence of this removal..... Amoruso 09:56, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
Comment: Katz has compiled much reliable information, Amoruso's words are correct. It is not Ian Pitchford's job to call him a "propagandist" and just delete it. Also, Ian Pitchford and others have deleted much information that is verifiable. This is information that has nothing to do with Katz. It came from reliable peer-reviewed sources and was removed by him for no reason. None even mentioned on the talk page. This violates Wikipedia's rules in terms of vandalism. -- Shamir1 18:15, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
Comment: Historical events should not be portrayed in Wikipeida from the viewpoint of notorious propagandists who have spent a lifetime espousing one side of the argument. This is a clear violation of WP:NPOV. I think the problem is illustrated well by the claims made above. To take just a few of the fundamental problems raised:
-- Ian Pitchford 20:49, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
Yes, according to WP:V: Editors adding new material to an article should cite a reliable source, or it may be challenged or removed by any editor. But there is an inherent problem with history, as it is essentially written from the POV of the winner. The Nazi's were evil (sorry, first one that came to mind). To combat that, we must look at and cite the multiple sides of the conflict (especially in one such as this). Something like "they said this, they said this". And we must try not to sandbag one side. Just some suggestions. - Royalguard11( Talk· Desk· Review Me!) 21:15, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
Comment: Indeed we must cite reliable sources and if those sources indicate a significant difference of opinion then we cite them in proportion to the prominence of each, but we should not cite anyone regardless of their bias or credibility. -- Ian Pitchford 22:58, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
Could I make a suggestion here: Seek mediation. The Mediation Cabal will do informal mediation for you, if you all agree to it. It is a fact that wikipedia works on consensus (and anyone that says otherwise is wrong). The article is protected, and will remain protected I expect until a decision is come to. You can all fight about this and that, but without any consensus, nobody is going to be doing any editing any time soon. So, either stop fighting and come to a decision, or ask the MedCab to help. - Royalguard11( Talk· Desk· Review Me!) 05:20, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
Comment: Amoruso's claims above are false: the book is not peer-reviewed; there are not "many sources", there is only one source Katz, and he is not a reliable source because he has been intimately involved in attempts to justify Revisionist policies throughout his career. Katz is not a scholar and no historian cites his book. Joseph Heller, of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, has described the "history" propagated by Katz and colleagues as "one-dimensional counterhistory" in which the "self-image of Begin and his underground colleagues... was highly inflated; their negative images of the Jewish Agency and of the Haganah leaders were similarly detached from reality". In other words the works by Katz and Co. are biased and self-serving even by the standards of mainstream Zionist myth-making. The Jewish-American authority on Zionism Norman Finkelstein has written that Joan Peters' use of twenty-one references to Katz's book Battleground "has the combined scholarly weight of a classic comic book". Amoruso and his collaborators routinely delete anything from Wikipedia, no matter how well sourced, that indicates Katz's political bias and unreliability, e.g., [16] and [17]. There are engaged in a concerted campaign to fill Wikipedia with crude propaganda and to delete reliable sources that indicate just how crude that propaganda is. Here is Amoruso's collaborator Isarig, for example, deleting material sourced to the Israeli historian Benny Morris and replacing it with propaganda material from Israeli government web sites and US advocacy groups [18]. Amoruso has already declined mediation on his use of Katz in the Palestine article: [19]. The only thing that remains to be clarified is whether Wikipedia has any means at all of enforcing its policies and whether Amoruso, Shamir1 and Isarig get the bans they deserve.
References
-- Ian Pitchford 17:48, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
Comment: Getting back to the issue at hand - the validity of Katz as an historian - I would like to point out that over the years Katz is not mentioned even once by the
American Jewish History Journal (search entry), maybe the most respected historical journal on the subject and quarterly published for more than a century. Furtermore, to my knowledge Katz is neither peer-reviewed nor is his work cited by anynone but a group of "followers". Contrary to what was claimed above, in Johns Hopkins University Press's
Project Muse, a collection of high-quality peer-reviewed journals from 60 scholarly publishers, Katz's scant presence is primarily related to his political work
[20]
[21] (Katz was an adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Begin).
However, the main reason why Kats isn't, and shouldn't, be cited as a historian (as opposed to his background as a politician and a participant in certain events) is that he has not done any research on his own; rather, his books are a collection of thoughts and viewpoints, backed up by selective quotes and events.
Much of the same can also be said of the above mentioned Schechtman, whose 1966 book, The Crucial Decade: 1939-1949, was reviewed by the American Jewish History Journal as, while interesting, "with unqualified approval of the Revisionist movement", "does not show more than a few traces of self-disipline", "seems a bit too many of these [mistakes]", and otherwise criticized for citing only publications from certain organizations, the government and press, while ignoring important work by others (AJHQ:56,1-4,pg. 361, available via the entry link above) .
As for the conflict, I concur with Ian Pitchford's description. Amoruso in particular, and to some extent Shamir1, are, based on my experiences, POV warriors of the destructive kind. I see no point in engaging in a who-said-what-when quarrel, but I think the following words from Amoruso sums it up: "All the quotes from Joseph B. Shectman are 100% accurate and verifiable and trust worthy. This is true on all accounts of other historians who happent to belong to a right wing side of a map." [22]. I have also briefly listed examples of Amoruso's edit behaviour, with diffs, on a previous occasion
In a way, this conflict also mirrors what is a major problem at Wikipedia: information from partisans and propagandists is readily available online (and often cited by fellow partisans), while work from scholars and others are increasingly moved to pay-sites or is only available in libraries. - Steve Hart 06:29, 5 December 2006 (UTC) (I forgot to mention, if someone wants to reply to this you will do so below, and not inject your comments into mine (you know who you are) -- Steve Hart 06:38, 6 December 2006 (UTC))
Ok, here is a (proposed) policy on books: WP:BK. Second, reliable sources should link to WP:RS. Third, could someone give the reader-digest version of the conflict, including who added what, who removed what, and include diffs. That will make it easier for all of us (including myself, which will make it easier to help you). Thank you. - Royalguard11( Talk· Desk· Review Me!) 05:09, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
Post-Zionist and palestinian historians claim the "traditional Israeli historiography" didn't explain the events the way they happen. "Official Israeli historians" (who were maybe more propagandists than historians) would have built an history for these events. Right. Noted.
They are many references for this in first quality (undiscussed) scholar's works.
As a consequence, isn't their point of view an important information to add to an article. Not to claim that what they say is (or may be) true but only to underline what they say and permits the readers to understand precisely the "size of their (alleged) lie or manipulation" (if any)
I think Katz, Schechtman and other pov would deserve a place in all these controversed articles but in a special section : "Israeli official history".
Their Pov could be given and critics of their pov from other historians (if any) too.
As I think I wrote some months ago (you were not there yet but this received no echo) :
This information deserves numerous lines in the articles because this is what all Israeli citizens and most western people learned unless they studied the matter deeply.
Any comment ?
Alithien
09:54, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
Ok, everything's quited down here again. Has everything been settled maybe? Do we finally have an agreeable settlement? Or do we still need to discuss that? - Royalguard11( Talk· Desk· Review Me!) 23:22, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
Ok, this has died down again. Has everyone come to an agreement? - Royalguard11( Talk· Desk· Review Me!) 21:06, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
When the case is finished, please take a minute to fill out the following survey:
Did you find the Advocacy process useful?
Did your Advocate handle your case in an appropriate manner?
On a scale of 1 (worst) to 5 (best), how polite was your Advocate?
On a scale of 1 to 5, how effective do you feel your Advocate was in solving the problem?
On a scale of 1 to 5, how effective do you feel the Advocacy process is altogether?
If there were one thing that you would like to see different in the Advocacy process, what would it be?
If you were to deal with this dispute again, what would you do differently, if anything?
Case Status: closed
Advocate Status: