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| =='''The West Bank/Judea and Samaria Problem''' == | =='''The West Bank/Judea and Samaria Problem''' == | ||
| {{User:Nishidani/JS}} | {{User:Nishidani/JS}} | ||
| {{/To-do list}} | |||
| == '''Shoah/Holocaust and 'wildly antisemitic'. A further set of reflections''' == | |||
| For an outstanding wikipedian, Doug Weller | |||
| <blockquote>'After Auschwitz, our feelings resist any claim of the positivity of existence as sanctimonious, as wronging the victims. They balk at squeezing any kind of sense, however bleached, out of the victims' fate.'], '']''. ] (1973) 1990 p.361.</blockquote><blockquote>'Inman walked through the house and out the back door and saw a man killing a group of badly wounded Federals by striking them in the head with a hammer. The Federals had been arranged in an order, with their heads all pointing one way, and the man moved briskly down the row, making a clear effort to let one strike apiece do. Not angry, just moving from one to one like a man with a job of work to get done-' ], ]1997 p.9 The allusion is something said to have taken place once nightfall set in, allowing a formal pause on the killing fields near Sunken Hill in the ]. {{efn|’The SS man at the pit said something to his comrade. The latter counted off about twenty persons and instructed them to go behind the earth mound .The family I have described was among them. I well remembver a girl, slim and with black hair, who, as she passed me, pointed to herself and said:’Twenty three years old’. . The pit was already three quarters full. I estimated that it held a thousand people. I looked for the man who did the shooting. He was an SS man who sat at the edge of the narrow end of the pit, '''his feet dangling into it. He had an automatic pistol on his knees and was smoking a cigarette.''' The people- they were completely naked-went down some steps which were cut in the clay wall of the pit and clambered over the heads of those who were lying there to the place to which the SS man had directed them. They lay down in front of the dead and wounded. Some caressed the living and spoke to them in a low voice. Then I heard a series of shots.’ {{harv|Reitlinger|1971|p=219}}{{sfn|Hilberg|1973|p=669}}}}</blockquote> | |||
| <center>'''{{purge|click here if recent changes to the above list don't appear}}'''</center> | |||
| <blockquote>'the United States (US) dropped eight times more bomb tonnage in Indochina – over two million tons on Laos alone – in Vietnam than in World War 11, killing two to three million people, mainly civilians. When Western publics recoiled in horror from the often-televised destructive scenes of this war, air forces moved to more accurate technologies, namely guided missiles. Even then, military strategists and lawyers acknowledge that the “collateral damage” of “surgical strikes”- what drone operators call ''bugsplat'' -is unavoidable, if regrettable. {{sfn|Moses|2021 |pp=1-2}} | |||
| </blockquote> | |||
| The wiki articles I was referred to, to amend my perceived indulgence in a ‘wildly antisemitic’ distinction, reflect the POV that the Shoah and Holocaust are interchangeable terms for a phenomenon of racial victimization affecting only Jews:- | |||
| *(a) ] | |||
| == Reading and listening list. Contributions only of original and incisive quality will be appreciated == | |||
| <blockquote>] lit. 'Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day'), known colloquially in Israel and abroad as Yom HaShoah (יום השואה) and in English as Holocaust Remembrance Day, or Holocaust Day, is observed as '''Israel's day of commemoration for the approximately six million Jews murdered''' in the Holocaust by Nazi Germany and its collaborators, and for the Jewish resistance in that period.</blockquote> | |||
| That could be read, giving proper weight to 'in the Holocaust', to imply a distinction using Holocaust as the larger phenomenon of which the Jewish victims form a core reality. Any nation has a natural right to focus on its own particular perspective, in any case. | |||
| *(b)] | |||
| <blockquote>The '''Holocaust, also known as the Shoah,''' was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; around two-thirds of Europe's Jewish population. The murders were carried out in pogroms and mass shootings; by a policy of extermination.</blockquote> | |||
| This takes the terms, as is very commonplace, as interchangeable and commensurate and implicitly excludes the idea that the other half the victims of Nazi racially-designed genocidal actions are to be included in the category of the Holocaust. | |||
| Are the two terms synonyms that are denotatively exclusive of non-Jewish victims, then? | |||
| Nishidani, I have transferred the contents of this section to a new sub-page: | |||
| ''Cleave'' and ''hew'' are synonyms, but also antonyms at the same time (split/cling to). It is true that Shoah and Holocaust are now used as synonyms, just as it is true that Holocaust usage shows a much wider range of denotation than Shoah. Holocaust is a vintage word with usage attested for various events from genocide to devastating fires from around the turn of the 19th century down to the late 1950s{{efn|'From 1900 to 1959 Western media used ‘holocaust’ to describe a wide variety of events, including the genocide of the Armenians, ], even the explosion of a cinema projector in May 1947.'{{harv|MacDonald|2008| p=9}}}}, and was also adopted to refer to the mass slaughter of civilian populations in WW2. Shoah was so rare in English that the ] 2nd edition of 1989 didn’t even register the term. But among the earliest uses of Holocaust, the generic sense referring to all victims of Nazi genocide was available from the outset. As early as 1945,] wrote: | |||
| * ]. | |||
| <blockquote>’Millions of surviving '''victims of the Nazi holocaust, Jews and non-Jews alike,''' will stand before us in the years to come.’{{sfn|Cohen|1945|p=vi}}</blockquote> | |||
| Cohen was an acute logician and analyst of language, with wide interests, playing a seminal role in the establishment and growth of the journal ], which as our article states, concerned itself with the universal (all men) and the particular (Jews). And that is precisely the issue here. Both ] and ] define what happened to this other half, to the Poles for example in Auschwitz, as genocide, but argue that there is a '''qualitative distinction''' to be made nonetheless.{{efn|Speaking of the laying of plaque memorials for two communities struck by Nazi genocidal policies in the Museum of the Slovak National Uprising in ], ], Stauber and >Vago write:'''Apparently, some voices behind the scenes demanded that the plaque to the Holocaust of Jewish victims be more conspicuous—perhaps bigger than the one devoted to the Roma.''' But then, ''quantity could become quality''—why should the plaque to the Roma victims be smaller in size than the Jewish one? Should it be smaller in mathematical terms? If six million victims deserve a plaque of a certain size, should the Roma one be proportionally smaller? Or relative to the overall numbers of victims, or to the proportion of victims among that particular group, Jews or Roma? Or perhaps the size of the plaques should reflect the percentage of Jewish losses in Slovakia as compared to losses among the Roma? {{sfn|Stauber|Vago|2007|pp=117-133}}}} This is the premise affirmed by ] as we shall see. | |||
| I've done this partly because your talk page was getting too big (again!) but also because it will be convenient for other editors to be able to refer to a separate page. | |||
| So what does one do with the millions of other peoples who were exterminated – which no one challenges {{efn|The widely accepted figure of 11 million for the total number of victims is equally rubbery, since was conjured out of thin air by ] in the 1970s and had no empirical basis at that time. The background to its invention was outlined by ] in his biography of Wiesenthal, who says Wiesenthal added 5 million to the larger figure of 6 million Jews in order to affirm "the brotherhood of all the victims" something which, in Lipstadt's account, "Jews generally fail to do." She writes:'Why is Segev so forgiving of Simon Wiesenthal’s many lapses? Perhaps we can arrive at an answer by considering Wiesenthal’s most egregious distortion of the historical record and Segev’s response to it. In the 1970s, Wiesenthal began to refer to “eleven million victims” of the Holocaust, six million Jews and five million non-Jews, but the latter number had no basis in historical reality. On the one hand, the total number of non-Jewish civilians killed by the Germans in the course of World War II is far higher than five million. On the other hand, the number of non-Jewish civilians killed for racial or ideological reasons does not come close to five million (though it no doubt would have exceeded it if the war had ended in a German victory). Nevertheless, Wiesenthal’s contrived death toll, with its neat almost-symmetry, has become a widely accepted “fact.” Jimmy Carter’s Executive Order, which was the basis for the establishment of the US Holocaust Museum, referred to the “eleven million victims of the Holocaust.” .. When Israeli historians Yehuda Bauer and Yisrael Gutman challenged Wiesenthal on this point, he admitted that he had invented the figure of eleven million victims in order to stimulate interest in the Holocaust among non-Jews. He chose five million because it was almost, but not quite, as large as six million.'{{sfn|Lipstadt|2011}}}} and the larger number is widely remembered{{efn|'Six million is an instantly recognizable number, the generally accepted estimate of the Jews killed by Nazi Germany in its murderous crusade. The phrase "the six million" is a rhetorical stand-in for "the Holocaust." But nowadays, for a great many people, the real number of Holocaust victims is eleven million: six million Jews and five million.'{{harv|Novick|1999|p=214}} Recently Alex Kay has attempted to put the overall figure on a sounder basis, concluding that the total civilian and non-combatant death toll was around 13 million:'‘if we take only civilians and other non-combatants into account, the Nazis killed approximately 13 million people in deliberate policies of mass murder, almost all of them during the war during the war years, 1939 to 1945, and the vast majority between mid.1941 and spring 1045, that is, in the space of only four years. . .In view alone of this intertwinement of war and extermination, it makes a great deal of sense to consider the different strands of Nazi mass killing together rather than in isolation from one another. '''This of course means going against the grain of most scholarship on the subject by examining the genocide of the European Jews alongside other Nazi mass-murder campaigns.''' Some scholars repudiate the very notion that the Holocaust can be analysed within a broader framework.' {{harv|Kay|2021}}.}} – by implementing a broader policy of liquidating inferior races, some 50 million Slavs according to ].{{efn|], one of the consultants on Generalplan Ost, was also an advisor to ], and drew up a plan to reserve better employment and wider commercial opportunities for Jews as opposed to ethnic Poles in ]‘s ]. The purpose of the proposal was to play one group off against the other by inciting hostile feelings between the two.{{sfn|Poliakov|1993|p=39}}}} In the end, from 10 to 17 million people in Europe fell victim to actions that were inspired by genocidal racism, of whom half or a third were Jewish: 5.1 (Raul Hilberg)/ 5.3-4 (Yehuda Bauer) or 5.7{{efn|This is the figure given in the November 1945 Nuremberg indictment, which drew on the immediate postwar ] estimate. It was this, rounded off, which established the 6 million figure, a figure which, unverifiable, was jumped on by antisemites to deny the scale of the shoah itself. Reitlinger rightly observed that even if the real numbers cannot be determined within a 'half-million degree of accuracy', and might be a million less, it is utterly shameless to think the difference relevant.{{sfn|Reitlinger|1971|pp=533-545, p.533}}}} (]) million upwards{{efn|I only put these figures in because Grabowsky and Klein, in their polemical tirade against Misplaced Pages, make much of the Polish nationalist inflation of holocaust victims, from a probably historical 1.9/2 million to 3 million. They rightly niggle the details. Which however they do not do when it comes to the formulaic 6 million Jews. When we go above the very conservative but scrupulously empirical ] figure, we enter the realm of conjecture, which nonetheless can reasonably infer that the 4,800,000+ figure must lie well below the real numbers, lost in the record destructions of war. Round figures in historiography are always troublesome, and the choice of the minimal upper limit of 6 million has a long public history going back at least to a guess made in 1946 (though wartime rumours in Germany spoke of 6-7 million. See ]'s diary entry for 24 October 1944{{sfn|Klemperer|1998|p=371}}, which imaginably might reflect a leak (?) of Eichmann’s estimate of 6,000,000) in his report to Himmler, two months earlier, in August 1944 {{sfn|Hilberg|1973 |p=631}})which has become canonical. This caution would be nugatory were it not for the contradiction between the factual pertinacity pursued by the two authors in insisting on the lowest figure for Polish victims (justifiably) while retaining the canonic figure for Jews (a conventional number without empirical, as opposed to conjectural, backing).{{harv|Grabowski|Klein|2023|pp=7-8}}}} Given that at least 5 million were Jewish, how do we classify the phenomenon comprising ‘the other half’?(whose round number is also historically grounded in hearsay, as it was pulled out of the hat by ]{{sfn|Novick|1999|pp=215-216}}.) To illustrate the point concretely, must the shoah at Auschwitz only refer to the 1.35 million Jews killed there, excluding the 250,000 non-Jews, (of whom 74,000{{sfn|Snyder|2010|p=275}} -83,000 were Poles) who died in that same place, by the same means, on the same racist-ideological grounds? | |||
| Been waiting to do this for some time, until the unbearable horrors of what US-Israeli militarism is doing in Gaza, and commentaries theron, have died down - which may never happen. Anyway, now seems as good a time as any. --] (]) 11:44, 22 September 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :Thanks N, as ever. Have retitled to make the content clear. ] (]) 15:05, 22 September 2014 (UTC) | |||
| There are strong grounds for arguing for the specialness of Jewish victimization. For one, in Snyder’s words, ‘The project to kill all Jews was substantially realized; the project to destroy Slavic populations was only very partially implemented.’{{efn|Snyder himself prefers the restrictive use of Holocaust, ‘the most systematic killing policy implemented during Europe’s period of mass murder,’ to the Jews alone.. {{harv|Snyder|Lane|2009}}{{harv|Snyder|2009}}}} In addition, numerous case studies show how local groups among Latvians, Lithuanians and the like, jumped with alacrity as war broke out, and Nazis hadn’t even set foot in their territory, to lynch, eradicate, murder, hang up on butcher hooks members of Jewish communities in their midst. Others stood by or actively approved, much as the ] in Anatolia, themselves ethnically cleansed from Europe and elsewhere, did during the ]. There is an important differentiating factor on a psychosociological plane among all those thrust into the forecourts of war, between the targeted Slavic nationalities and those, in their midst, who found themselves stripped of their primary identity as Poles, Ukrainians, Russians etc.,and, as Jews did, had to suffer the lacerating existential trauma of a people who, orphaned of those customary networks of tacit solidarity that inform national identities, suddenly found themselves facing the lethal hostility of the Wehrmacht/SS and the fear, insouciance or coldness of former neighbours, with drastically reduced margins for survival.{{efn|'I am a poor assimilated soul. I am a Jew and a Pole, or rather I was a Jew but gradually under the influence of my environment, under the influence of the place where I lived, and under the influence of the language, the culture and the literature, I have also become a Pole. I loved Poland. Its language, its culture, and, most of all the fsact of its liberation and the heroism of its independent struggle, all pluck at my heartstrings and fire my feelings and enthusiasm. But I do not love that Poland which, for no apparent reason, hates me, that Poland which tears at my heart and soul, which drives me into a state of apathy, melancholy, and dark epression. . I want to be a Pole, you have not let me; I want to be a Jew, but I don’t know how. I have become alienated from Jewishness. (I do not like myself as a Jew). I am already lost.'{{sfn|Ferguson|2006|pp=172-173}}}}{{efn|That sense of abandonment and unwantedness informed ]'s penitential doctoral thesis (1949) which became a seminal groundwork for the analysis of slavery. Mindful of Jews incarcerated in the camps, he intuited that it reflected an aspect of a broader historical reality, the kinlessness of slavery.'(T)he state of being excluded from kinship relations . .The slave inhabits a "no man's land" that remains unstruictured by social life.' {{sfn|Adler|2022|p=6}} This haunting bereftness did not cease with the conclusion of hostilities. The number of Jewish Holocaust survivors in ] by mid 1946 was around 250,000.{{sfn|Fieldhouse|2006|p=208}} That figure has a curious history. With the ] Great Britain legislated to allow up to 250,000 Polish troops, those unable to return to their country, to settle in England. This at a time when President Truman had been insisting (June 1946) that Britain open the ] gates in Palestine to take in 100,000 displaced Jews in Europe. This figure became ‘sacred’/’totemic’ , becoming the number Zionists insisted on for an immigration quota to Palestine. {{ sfn|Fiedlhouse|2006 |pp=207-212}} ] countered by suggesting that the American proposal was a dodge to sidestep relocating them in the United States. {{ sfn|Louis|1984|p=36}}{{sfn|Benson|1997|p=68}} The ] effectively resolved reciprocal embarrassments about absorbing unwanted Jewish Holocaust survivors by dispatching them to Palestine as the British Mandate stood to expire. Thus Western powers finally resolved their ‘Jewish question’ at the minor collateral expense, neither of the Great Powers had to bear, of 13,000 Palestinian deaths in the war that followed and 700,000 ‘native’ Palestinians expelled with all their assets expropriated as property of the new state. The effect was to create, as Arendt noted a Palestinian question and a Palestinian diaspora. Arendt wrote:'After the war it turned out that the Jewish question, which was considered the only insoluble one, was indeed solved- namely, ]- but this solved neither the problem of the minorities nor the stateless. On the contrary, like virtually all other events of our century, the solution of the Jewish question merely produced a new category of refugees, the Arabs, thereby increasing the number of the stateless and the rightless by another 700,000 to 800,000 people. And what happened in Palestine within the smallest territory and in terms of hundreds of thousands was then repeated in India on a large scale involving many millions of people.' {{harv|Arendt|2017|p=379}}}} The problem is, however, that this feeds into a concept of ], with its rhetoric of uniqueness, which is not only counter-productive of understanding, but methodologically inane, as the greatest comparativist historian of the last century, as ], with all his admitted faults, pointed out almost 90 years ago. | |||
| == Remove of a picture of soldiers shielding a boy == | |||
| ===Pt.2. Categories and definitions in historical context=== | |||
| <blockquote>Two survivors from the holocaust concentration camps meet up and exchange some black-humoured repartee concerning the Shoah. They are interrupted by God who happens by and overhears their banter. He interjects:’How on earth do you dare banter and joke about this catastrophe?’ The two survivors snap back:’how could You know what it was like? You weren’t there!” {{efn|{{sfn|Horvilleur|2021|p=86,cf.31-33}} This profound joke could be traced back to the anecdote related at ] concerning ] in dispute with several rabbinical colleagues. Compare the Talmudic anecdote recounted by ] earlier in her book.{{sfn|Horveilleur|2021|pp=31-33}}}}</blockquote> | |||
| It took some time for scholarship to settle on an appropriate word to describe the phenomenon.{{efn|'Primarily I believe it was regarderd holistically; there was as yet no word for what had happened. If I went to the ], they said this was a ''hurbn'' (the Yiddish/Hebrew word for destruction). If I looked elsewhere for some word, it was sometimes called the "Disaster" in English. The vocabulary with which to describe what had happened had not yet been developed'. {{harv|Hilberg|2008|p=26}}}} The words used to refer to the phenomenon of WW2 mass slaughter are many,- from the ethnospecific ''khurbn, shoa,'' ], ], Event, judeocide, the unnameable/unspeakable, and pseudo-sacred sacrifice etc., to the more generic genocide, (H/h)olocaust, univers concentrationnaire, (Great) Catastrophe, ] and ].{{sfn|Calimani|2018|pp=7-16,101ff.}} to name but a few,- and the denotative extensions and connotations of each differ. | |||
| Shoah in Israeli usage refers to a 12 year time span, while Holocaust tends to evoke (a) broadly the institutionalization of ethnic murders over the roughly six year period of WW2, from the invasion of Poland, or, (b) more restrictively, to the three years embracing the industrialized murder of Jews specifically that accelerated massively from 22 June 1942 onwards when ] was launched. Usage that restricts, implicitly or explicitly, the Holocaust to (b) means that the earlier propaiudeutic operations that set precedents for administratively organized group murders, such as ] of from 70,273{{efn|This is the known figure, based on Nazi documents, for the number of mentally ill killed between January 1940 and August 1941.{{sfn|Poliakov|1993|p=212}}}} to 275,000{{efn|This is the figure produced by the Nuremberg Tribunal which Poliakov considered exaggerated.}} deemed unfit to live, or the 61,000 members of the Polish elite prescriptively targeted in the ],{{efn|This was in marked contrast to the situation for Jews in the East. 'the Germans knew extremely little-in fact almost nothing-about the Jews. It is amazing to realize that when they conquered a town they did not have the faintest idea about the occupants, the leaders or who would be the proper person to head the ''Judenrat''. They could not select anyone, because they did not know ''who should'' be selected from their point of view.'{{harv|Hilberg|2008|p=31}}}} of whom two thirds were liquidated largely in the opening months of the war, are scanted from the narrative or marginalized in contemporary Holocaust commemorations, as is the ], 70% of whose Polish population alone was exterminated. | |||
| ] | |||
| Hi, you removed this picture from ], and I didn't quite get the reason. Can you elaborate please ? - ] (]) 18:50, 12 August 2014 (UTC) | |||
| The AktionT4 story, in particular, is a crucial precursor for the holocaust process. One estimate made at the time was that 1,000,000 Germans would have to be exterminated on the grounds of being of unsound body or mind.{{sfn|Poliakov|1993|p=211}} The original technique consisted of killing the mentally ill with a bullet to the neck. This method of disposing of 'useless mouths' (whose murder was duly calculated to have saved the Reich 885 million marks in expenses) was replaced by building 'shower' rooms in the extermination sites, where groups of 10 to 15 patients were ushered in. Once sealed off, the showers were flushed with carbon monoxide to kill them by asphyxiation. The bodies were then burnt in crematoriums made for that purpose in adjacent buildings. What later occurred at Auschwitz and other death camps was not 'unique' but replicated on a vast scale the methods devised for those diagnosed as insane. In short, as Poliakov notes, the rapidity with which the Nazi authorities implemented the later rational and efficient industrial murder factories drew directly on the model developed to exterminate Germany's mentally ill.{{efn|'les malades mentaux d'Allemagne ont fait office de banc d'essai pour les Juifs d'Europe.'{{sfn|Poliakov|1993|p=209}}}} One striking difference, was that the euthanasia programme, despite its secrecy, generated widespread popular opposition and protests within Germany which eventually led to its suspension, as opposed to the persecution and deportation of Jews, which, according to one informal wartime poll, left 90% of the population indifferent.{{efn|5% approved the measure enthusiastically;69% were completely indifferent;21% were troubled by doubts, while 5% were categorically hostile to the practice.{{sfn|Poliakov|1993|pp=324-331,325}}: Writing in 1951, Poliakov concluded that there was hardly any difference between this German insouciance and the general Polish view to Jewish suffering:'l'amère constatation ne peut être évitée:l'attitude populaire polonaise, en face de l'agonie des Juifs, ne se distinguait guère de l'attitude allemande.'{{harv|Poliakov|1993|p=333}}}} | |||
| See in the talk page archives. This was apparently uploaded from the ID flickr account, and constitutes war propaganda. There are serious doubts about its authenticity. Two editors, myself included, gave considered arguments that it looks as though it was a posed photo. Therefore, because of its provenance, because so far no one can track down where it was taken or under what circumstances, because, if it is, as it certainly looks, staged, it is laughably inept (the photographer taking the photo frontally is exposed to the same rocket fire the kid being protected, partially, is apparently exposed to. Note that there is a wall providing a background and, absurdly, the soldiers do not put themselves between the child and the wall: they are holding the boy outwards from the wall, presumably to make the fact that he is a child visible to the photographer, who is standing in the optimal position, despite a threatened rocket about to explode there, to capture the shot frontally. If you've ever protected a child from a threat, the instinct is universal: you grab him in your arms and put the threat to your back, which neither of the two soldiers is doing. Also in the discussion no editor in favour of its inclusion responded to these doubts, it should not be included until much further work is done consensually, if someone can provide the citation asked for. You don't in good practice, add 'stuff' without verifiable sources and then plaster a cit needed tag that might never produce the requested information, particularly when serious doubts exist as to the authenticity of that material.] (]) 19:08, 12 August 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :I particularly like the fact that the sun is overhead but the studio has shadows high to the left and right forming a halo typical of background lighting to throw into relief the central scene, and that the most protective soldier took care to find some paper or a hankerchief to place under his right knee to avoid getting his fatigues dirty.] (]) 20:47, 12 August 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :: I hope the child and the two soldiers are safe and healthy and I wish them a long and happy life. | |||
| :: (By the way it looks almost as if one soldier may be pointing at the camera.) | |||
| ::Theodore Postol, the MIT scientist cited in the WP article on ], recently gave a long interview ( and ) on ''Democracy Now!'' where he explained that Israelis - especially soldiers - are well aware of the scientific evidence that shows that in case of a missile attack the best thing to do (if you can't make it to the nearest bomb shelter within 9 seconds after the warning sirens begin to sound) is to lay completely flat on the floor or on the ground, because doing so reduces the probability of serious injury exponentially, compared to standing or even crouching. ] (]) 20:24, 13 August 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :::Thanks indeed. I didn't think of that, but of course it is true. I'll happily stand corrected, but I think one could write a long essay on what is, unless we have a miracle, wrong about that and screams 'fake' from every pixel. There is no tension in the body of the soldier to the right. The kid's body looks relaxed and intent on some object in his hands, as if this were a game. The rubble is out of place, suggesting a scene where a bomb has already dropped, and the use of the wall to reenact a scenario, rather than anticipating a 'bottle bomb' about to fall, etc.etc.] (]) 20:52, 13 August 2014 (UTC) | |||
| All this is further complicated by the shifts in debate position and focuses over successive decades, with geopolitical pressures playing not an insignificant role. The ] into an Eastern ] sphere and Western Europe under American auspices, played into this, esp. after the Cold War kicked in. The partition translated into a neglect of the Holocaust’s other victims in countries which now became adversaries of the West. Archives were closed off from external scrutiny, with the exception of Poland; no systematic centralization of documentation had been organized, leaving archival material dispersed throughout Eastern Europe,{{sfn|Hilberg|2008|p=30}} and Soviet scholarship was given very restricted agendas.{{efn| For example, the ''Jewish Historical Institute of Poland'', in November 1949, started pursuing the topic of the ]’s help in ‘organizing the liquidation of the ghettoes’{{sfn|Ferguson|2006|p=455}} and in some cases Jewish victims in exchange for securing the lives of rabbis and their families.{{sfn|Reitlinger|1971|pp=67-68}} That factor, when ] explored it in his Phd in the early 50s, unnerved his supervisors, ] and ], who thought it too premature to raise the tragically painful details, and mentioning them would compromise his career. Hilberg nonetheless pressed on, and ventured the highly controversial idea that:'The Germans controlled the Jewish leadership, and that leadership, in turn, controlled the Jewish community. This system was foolproof. Truly, the Jewish communal organizations had become a self-destructive machine.' {{harv|Hilberg|1973|pp?122-125,125}}}} Further events like the ] in 1948,{{efn|'The majority of the more than 200.000 immigrants arriving in Israel during the first two years were Holocaust survivors hoping to be met with understanding in their new homeland. The struggle, however, to create a new society in the midst of ongoing wars was of primary importance and gave no room for anything but the heroic myth in the face of the enemy. This resulted in a disproportionate emphasis on the partisan and ghetto fighters' active resistance during the second World War and a contempt for the passivity of the Jewish masses; for those who had gone "like sheep to slaughter".' {{sfn|Enemark|2001|p=108}}}} the showcasing of the ] in Jerusalem (1961){{efn|Arendt's idea of the ] in her report on the trial has been associated ever since with her name. But the concept was already implicit in Poliakov's 1951 book where, in speaking of the figure of Heinrich Himmler, he writes:'ce qui frappe le plus chez le maÎtre-bourreau du 111e Reich, surtout losqu'on le compare aux autres acteurs de tout premier plan, c'est la disproportion singulière entre la tracée démoniaque qu'il a laissée dans l'Histoire, et sa totale insignifiance humaine.'{{harv|Poliakov|1993|p=284}}}} and the ] (1967) also inflected reformulations of Holocaust discourse, as did the ].{{sfn|Keren|2000|pp=95-108}}{{efn|Following Calimani, who however appears to ignore ''here''(the oversight is partially corrected on pp.52-53) the seminal work of Léon Poliakov (1951), Reitlinger (1953) and Hilberg (1961) in making the following generalization:’Ci vollero decenni, infatti, perché intellettuali, storici, comunità ebraiche e centri di documentazione dessero vita a '' una vera e propria storiografia dello sterminio'': il processo di Adolf Eichmann, quelli di alcuni responsabili del campo di Auschwitz, la guerra dei Sei giorni ''in'' (sic) Israel, sono alcune delle vicende che contribuirono a mutare la percezione della storia recente e a dare nuova vigore alla ricerca.'{{harv|Calimani|2018|p=7}}}} To which one might add the impact of a renewed nationalism in the former Soviet states as they struggled to reconstruct their identities by addressing their respective histories, particularly with regard to WW2.{{efn|In this connection, one might observe that the acuity of critical Jewish responses to Polish narratives of the holocaust has often been blunted in the reception of 'autobiographical' novels and hoax memoirs that ostensibly portray experiences of Jewish persecution in Poland, and excuses are given when the deceptions are unmasked.]'s ] (1965) which describes the anguished travails of an orphaned Jewish boy at the time, was greeted with unanimous critical acclaim for its powerful evocation of the period. The novel turned out to be a faked autobiography: Kosiński had lived throughout the war closely protected by a Polish Christian family, whereas in the novel Poles prove to be relentlessly sadistic towards Jews. Binjamin Wilkomirski's ] (1995) likewise conjured up a putative holocaust survivor's memoirs until the deception was exposed. Yet authentic victims like ], director of ], could still appraise the work and its mountbank author, after its fraudulently fictional nature had been exposed, as 'not a fake. He is someone who lives this story very deeply in his soul. The pain is authentic.' Hoaxes that have played on Jewish holocaust grief have often been treated leniently, seemingly exempt from the unremitting hostility to tendentiousnessn or nationalist bias in Polish holocaust historiography.{{sfn|Finkelstein|2014|pp=55-62}}}} This last aspect is the gravamen behind Grabowsky and Klein's critique of wikipedia's Polish Holocaust articles. Whatever the biases, we have empirical evidence that affirms that in Western awareness the immense toll of 5.1 million Slavic, i.e. Polish and Russian victims of the holocaust, has been studiously wiped off the public record. They figure marginally, though constituting almost half of the victims, way under other minorities like the disabled, Sinti and Roma, homosexuals, in the awaremess of schoolers in their formative years. {{sfn|Foster|Pettigrew|Pearce|Hale|Burgess|Salmons|Lenga|2016}} {{efn|In the summary of the 2016 Foster et al., ( we read:'While Jews, Roma and Sinti, gay men and the disabled were all mentioned by large numbers of students as victims of the Nazis, some other groups were rarely mentioned. We can only speculate on why these groups appear to have all but ‘disappeared from view’, but it seems likely that they are considered somehow less ‘relevant’ to contemporary social issues. Many schools are rightly concerned with homophobia, for example, or the attitudes of society today towards disabled people; perhaps other groups persecuted and murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators have less ‘purchase’ on many teachers’ and students’ concerns with modern British society. Whatever the reason, the outcome is that the murder of up to 15,000 gay men appears to receive a lot of attention in the school classroom, whereas the murder of 3.3 million Soviet POWs seems to be forgotten, and the Nazi genocide of Poles (in which at least 1.8 million non-Jewish Poles were murdered) is barely mentioned. The persecution of political opponents also appears largely overlooked, even though the first concentration camps targeted these victims, and an understanding of this initial period of terror is important in understanding the later development of Nazi violence and genocide. It may be that an over-emphasis on the ‘lessons of the Holocaust’, leads to a particular focus on groups that feel ‘relevant’ to today’s issues, but that this leads – unwittingly – to both a distortion of the past and the forgetting of millions of victims.'}} | |||
| Your comments how it is obviously staged bothered me. | |||
| As I wrote, I really found the mother's address and phone number. I did not want to bother them, however given her description how they were just entering their neighborhood I was looking for a red wall near their address on google street view and couldn't find one. Finally I understood - the wall is not red, the soldier's vests reflect red light on it. | |||
| As early as 1941 Churchill, sizing up reports of atrocities trickling in from Europe of Nazi policies, stated that ‘we are in the presence of ''a crime without a name''.' {{sfn||Vasil|2019|p=1053}} It was ], three years later, who in his germinal study ''Axis Rule in Occupied Europe'' (1944){{sfn|Lemkin|1944}} devised the ] ] to describe the ethnic and cultural restructuring being conducted by the Nazi authorities throughout occupied Europe, citing the mass murders 'mainly of Jews, Poles, Slovenes and Russians.'{{sfn|Lemkin|1944|p=xii}} Citing Hitler’s remark in ] that 'the greatest of spirits can be liquidated if the bearer is beaten to death by a rubber truncheon', he defines this as referring concretely in his contemporary world to 'the practice of extermination of nations and ethnic groups as carried out by the invaders.' Lemkin had been from his youth struck by the impunity enjoyed by those who carried out the ]. At age 18, he was shocked by the destruction systematically visited upon the Armenians and noted, 'A nation was killed and the guilty persons set free.'{{efn|'To Lemkin, it was deeply dismaying that government could essay to destroy an entire group due to the absence of any law, while an individual, accused of lesser-scale atrocities, would be criminally charged. When he went to law school in ] – interestingly, the same school where the other prominent lawyer of the Nuremberg trial, ], deviser of the term ‘crimes against humanity’ as a legal term of art, was taught by the same teacher – he confronted his professor with this iniquitousness. His tutor pointed to sovereignty: any intervention in internal affairs would be as unlawful as preventing someone from slaughtering his own chicken. 'But', Lemkin replied, 'the Armenians were not chickens'.' {{harv|Vasil|2019|pp=1053-1054}}}}{{efn|Analogies abound between this earlier 'event' and what happened in WW2, as anyone coming from a reading of ]'s novelistic reconstruction of the Armenian genocide,] (1933), uneerily premonitory of what would happen to Jews in Europe, can see as they approach Holocaust memoirs. The assassination of one of the main organizers of the genocide, namely ], by ] in 1921 likewise anticipates the assassination of ] by ] in Paris in 1938 to avenge his Polish-Jewish family’s expulsion from Germany. Telhirian was absolved and the incident lost to all but Armenian memory, the latter led to the Nazi retaliation of ].}} The term genocide was required because there was something distinctive about Nazi policy as opposed to ethnic massacres of the past and ''new conceptions require new terms''. {{sfn|Lemkin|1979|p=79}}, for | |||
| I believe the photo was taken . On the photo you can see a concrete wall of a matching height, and a yellow strip that is the Plexiglas frame right bellow the dark semi-circle on top. The semi-circle on top that you said is studio light is probably the mother's hand or finger partially covering the lens. If it was light we'd still be able to see something in the corners, given it's harsh sun light (or a studio light). From you can see sand and rubble under the wall, this is why I think they were on the other side of the wall. Either they were driving there or the kid ran to hide behind this wall after he left the car. | |||
| <blockquote>'German militarism is the most virulent because it is based upon a highly developed national and racial emotionalism which ''by means of modern technology'' can be released upon the world ''in a much more efficient and destructive way'' than any of the pedestrian methods of earlier wars.'{{sfn|Lemkin|1944|p=xiv}}</blockquote> | |||
| Several terms vied for the choice of a terminus technicus for the Holocaust as it affected Jews. The primary Jewish victims of the Nazi onslaught eastwards referred to the Holocaust in their ] as a ''khurbn'' | |||
| I would like you to re-consider your flat statement that the image is staged. | |||
| (חורבן), ‘disaster’. A loanword from Hebrew, as opposed to the biblical connotations of Shoa this term resonates in both the original Hebrew and Yiddish with an allusion to two earlier disasters that inform Jewish historical memory, the destruction of Solomon’s Temple in 587 BCE and of the Second Temple in 70.CE, and also to the exile from ].{{efn|'Hurban was the traditional Hebrew term to describe the destruction of the First and Second Temples and ] from Eretz Israel. Jews extended the concept to include their sufferings as a result of pogroms in medieval and modern times, as well as their loss of national independence in ancient.'{{harv|Ofer|1996|p=568}}}} It maintains its currency among ], particularly those who speak Yiddish.{{sfn|Calimani|2018|p=20}} Given the resonance of historical antecedents, ''khurbn'' implicitly disowns the idea that the European holocaust as it affected Jews was unprecedented.{{efn|In an essay on the catastrophe and Jewishness in 1964{{sfn|Sperber|1994|pp=59-84}} ], analysing the phenomenon of the ''Hourban'', later made the point that:'Le genocide n’est pas un crime sans précédent; pour s’en convaincre il suffit de lire les histories de l’Antiquité, et en premier lieu la Bible.'{{harv|Sperber|1994|p=78}}{{harv|Calimani|2018|p=19}}}} In the new state of Israel, contrariwise, the term was rejected: it retained a resonance of the language of Europe’s persecuted Jews, from whom the new society of Israelis wished to both distance itself and shake off memories of their tragic fate.{{efn|'nel neonato Stato d’Israel, esso venne abbandonato, anche per le associazioni che suscitava con la lingua dei perseguitati da cui gli abitanti del nuovo Stato volevano distinguersi e dalle cui tragiche memorie volevano liberarsi.'{{harv|Calimani|2018|p=18}}}} According to Birgitte Enemark, at the time only examples of armed Jewish resistance were considered heroic, and 'all other aspects of the Jewish experience' were lumped together,' under the label "Holocaust"."Holocaust" thus became the `non-heroic' category.'{{sfn|Enemark|2001|p=109}} | |||
| Shoah ( שׁוֹאָה) "calamity" was the word that emerged in a December 1938 deliberation of the Central Committee of the ] party, as the rampaging precedent set by Kristillnacht became routinized. {{sfn|Calimani|2018|p=21}} Though mentioned in a work entitled ''Sho’at Yehudi Polin'' (Devastation of Polish Jewry), published in Jerusalem in 1940 to describe the calamity that had befallen European Jews,{{sfn|Fischel|2020|p=287}} the term was rarely used during the war by the ] in] until 1946.{{sfn|Ofer|1996|p=568}} The term has a biblical resonance{{efn|'In the Bible, Shoah denotes a terrible and unforeseen individual or collective disaster. In the books of Zephaniah and Isaiah, it is connected with the wrath of God and the punishment he inflicted through defeat by a great enemy. In the books of Proverbs and Psalms, Shoah is used in connection with a disaster that befalls an individual as punishment for his evil deeds. The biblical subtext hints that when a Shoah occurred it was sudden and unforeseen, and that the event in question came as a shock to the individual or group. In the book of Job, Shoah appears in the context of a terrible famine that connotes a cosmic disaster, but here too, the issue of sin and punishment is central.'{{harv|Ofer|1996|p=568}}}}- in the ] it is used for a sudden unforeseen disaster and desolation {{efn|Job 30:3, 38,27{{sfn|Calimani|2018|p=22}}}}- and began to enter common usage after the summer of 1947 {{sfn|Yablonka|2012|p=302, n.6}}, when, after its establishment in 1946 to commemorate the annihilation of European Jewry, ] held a conference dedicated to researching both the Shoah and the ] concept of heroism ('']''). {{sfn|Ofer|1996|p=568}} Khorbn and Shoah were thereafter used interchangeably in public discourse until, by the early 1960s, Shoah emerged as the dominant term in Israeli usage to refer more broadly to what European Jews underwent in the period from the ] in 1933 down to May 1945. {{sfn|Yablonka|2012|p=304}}{{sfn|Ofer|1996|p=569}} | |||
| The argument that this is not the correct procedure to protect children during the attack is valid - I'm sure their main concern was calming down a frightened child, it is possible that the picture was taken after the rocket already fell. The mother wrote that the soldiers remained with them for 10 minutes after the alarm talking to the child. In this case the caption saying that the soldiers are protecting him with their bodies wasn't factually correct - solders were calming a child frightened by an attack, but I see no reason to suspect the picture is not genuine. ] (]) 13:54, 3 September 2014 (UTC) | |||
| ::The impressions I gave, one after another, are multiple, and several conjectural inferences that confirmed the doubt which my basic sense of the scene gave me, are not necessary to 'prove' them. The light from above coincides with the mother's date or timing of the photograph and I presumed there is some veracity behind her account once you (?) supplied the interview material. That it was posed is irrefutably indicated in her own declaration where she was so happy to see IDF protecting her son that ''she asked them if she could take the photo.'' All of the circumstantial detail (her husband, the other child, the siren, imminent bombs, meaning the photographer-mother was supposed to be in a threat situation like the children, is belied by the fact that she requests soldiers to allow her to photograph and, when they agree, she stands there, perhaps as you say, carefully shading the camera, to take the image, which is so constructed that her son is clearly visible. If she hadn't said she asked permission, everything would change of course. Asking permission means not only getting it but suggesting to the soldiers they pose, and presumably they adjusted their postures to that end. Whatever the scene, the body language is wholly devoid of the stress of threat and emergency, and that is what seals it for me. Its claim to be an 'authentic' snap of a real-life situation' is therefore far more fragile than the ] or the long controversial ], which, despite the description, was not spontaneous but programmatic. Both served ideological ends ('leftist'/'patriotic'), as does this. Putting an image 'under a shadow' into the text, structurally, which goes out of its way to pin the huge death toll of Palestinian children on Hamas soldiers is ugly. (aside from ignoring what we know about ). | |||
| ::I appreciate your attempts to get at the truth of this, of course. I'm just sceptical by nature, and often feel disgruntled that, in order to adjust a text having an Israelocentric claim, I am constrained to give the other version (about which, as with Shlomo Eldar's piece of Hamas responsibility, to cite one of many examples, I privately remain wary).] (]) 14:55, 3 September 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :::If they were hugging the boy and talking to him, they did not need to pose - they were already in this pose for at least a few seconds, surely enough time to ask "may I take a picture?" while aiming the phone's camera. The fact that the top of the frame is covered does not indicate shielding against the sun - it indicates her holding the phone awkwardly, partially covering the lens and not noticing it at the time the picture was taken. There indeed is no feeling of urgency, because at this distance from Gaza the danger isn't high and if they already heard the explosion at a distance practically non-existent, but they are supposed to stay in cover for 10 minutes anyway. You'd have to be here to appreciate it - whenever there is an alarm people dutifully do as instructed, but everybody understand that statistically chances of being hit by a rocket are far less than being injured in a car accident. Near Gaza where mortars fall is entirely different story, as evident by the casualties. | |||
| As alluded to above, in 1945 M. R. Cohen could refer to the general annihilation of European peoples under Nazism, Jews and non-Jews, as a 'holocaust'. The transition in the use of this term from the generic to the particular, from all victims to Jewish victims, took some decades. {{efn|], calculating from the framing of the UN's ] in 1948, writes that:'the Holocaust as a specifically Jewish tragedy until almost two decades later,' which implies a turning point coinciding with the Six Days War in 1967. {{harv|Moses|2004|p=534}}}} ], in her seminal masterpiece '']'' (1951), speaks of 'extermination' broadly for what befell not only Jews but other peoples in both Nazi ''and Soviet hands,'' for which, outrageously, a relatively small phenomenon like 'the Jewish question' and antisemitism could become the catalyst of world war and its death factories.{{sfn|Arendt|2017|p=x}} Léon Poliakov recounted in his memoirs that at the time of his foundational study of the holocaust in 1951, the word 'genocide' was deemed not fit for publication,{{sfn|Bensoussan|2008|p=247}} and though he did employ it occasionally in his text,{{efn|e.g.'génocide systématique et intégral'. Perhaps Poliakov was referring to its absence in the title.{{sfn|Poliakov|1993|p=282}}}} he generally uses the term 'extermination'. When ] undertook in 1953 the first comprehensive English study of the genocide of Jews, he chose to write. not of the Shoah or Holocaust, but of the ], the title of his book alluding to the specific Nazi decision for an ''Endlösung der Judenfrage''.{{efn|Reitlinger’s book was 'the first significant work to tell the story of what was then nameless, and is now known as the Holocaust.' {{harv|Aronson|1987|p=ix}}}} | |||
| On a totally different subject, given your background and interests - what do you think about ? ] (]) 16:57, 3 September 2014 (UTC) | |||
| ::My first reaction on seeing the '''anal'''ogy between the symbol of Herod's gate and the Imperial symbol of the chrysanthemum was to recall that in Japanese sexual jargon, 菊 ''kiku'', the name for that flower, signifies ''anus'', clearly one not afflicted by haemarhoids. As to the Yamabushi's ''tokin'' 頭襟, or phylactery, miniaturization is a fundamental feature of Japanese art, though the world record for writing a document like the Lord's Prayer is (or so I read a half century ago) held by a gentleman from Shanghai who managed to inscribe it with a steel needle on the head of a nail. It has been argued, not irrationally, that there is an Eskimo component in Indo-European languages, but not for that does one conclude that the two are related (See Louis Hammerich, “Can Eskimo Be Related to Indo-European?” International Journal of American Linguistics 17 (1951): 217–23.) I'd better stop free-associating but, generally, humanity is promiscuous, borrows and travels: then nationalisms arise and appropriate things as peculiar to themselves, forgetting the liens (the Bible is full of this submerged or suppressed mythic and ritual borrowing from pagan cultures), in this case, that the Eurasian landmass was one constant exchange system whose conduit were nomads, many of whom formed one of the core populations of Japan, which is however, despite its national sense of apartness, deeply miscegenated. Great civilizations, like great poets, thrive on theft.] (]) 17:21, 3 September 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :::So you are not suddenly overcome with an urge to help your long lost people. interesting theory, that the Palestinians are one of the lost tribes. that supports it, as well. ] (]) 06:31, 4 September 2014 (UTC) | |||
| ::::I grew up reading about the Nazis' ''Rassentheorien'' and their genocidal consequences, which inoculated me at any early age against anything but a prophylactic wariness about biological claims to a common identity. Most people are 'lost',and the few that aren't are usually told to 'get lost'. I certainly have no attachment to abstractions like 'a people'. All communities are ''imagined'' (]) and I have no desire to be part of any group's collective nightmare. ] (]) 09:46, 4 September 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :::::Wow Nish, you're in top form today! "{{tq|Great civilizations, like great poets, thrive on theft.}}" (and composers, not to mention many Misplaced Pages editors), and now "{{tq|Most people are 'lost', and the few that aren't are usually told to 'get lost'.}}" Gold! ] (]) 10:10, 4 September 2014 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::Must start the day more often as I did this one, and take a regular drag or two on a rollie made from a recent gift of home-grown Croatian tobacco, and a cup of hot cappuccino to take the edges off a Chivas Regal hangover!] (]) 10:20, 4 September 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::Since your compliment flattered me, I must disown, for my own ethical well-being, the implication that my remark was original. Like everything else under the sun, it was a recycled pastiche, i.e. of St.Augustine's ] 4:4 and John Dryden's 'Of Dramatic Poesy' (George Watson (ed.) ''Of Dramatic Poesy and other critical essays,'' Everyman, (1962) 1967 2 vols.vol.1 p.69), the probable source for T.E. Eliot's famous remark on poets as thieves (which in 'formulating', he himself impudently stole in order to pass it off as his own 'conceit'/or blandish his own 'conceit'!) ] (]) 10:45, 4 September 2014 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::I wouldn't expect original research from a good editor, so thanks for the refs! Regarding the sun, I prefer {{tq|''The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new''}} and I am sure you won't have to Google that. ] (]) 11:06, 4 September 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::::Yeah so do I, but of cause (deliberate pun not a ]!), in adherence to the principle that everything is a 'recycled pastiche', Beckett, like all true Oirishmen, knew his Bible by heart and was only alluding to Ecclesiastes chapter 1, verse 9, as of course it is evident you know from the way you phrased things. (It is Beckett's version of Ecclesiastes you ''prefer'' to the original which inspired him) ] (]) 12:25, 4 September 2014 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::::OK, I'm going to call you on that. If a writer now were to mention "]" we would not think of Ecclesiastes because the phrase is so well known. Are you suggesting that in 1938 (when ] was written), the author and most readers would have had the Ecclesiastes text in mind (no time on research please—just yes/no/dunno)? BTW, a wonderful example of musical theft (and the real reason I'm reopening this) is ] which I thoroughly recommend, although tolerance of Philip Glass and friends is a prerequisite. ] (]) 04:14, 6 September 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::::::''Bref''. Yes. He and his readers at the time knew it was an allusion.] (]) 10:26, 6 September 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::::::Thanks indeed, had missed that. Magnificently enjoyable, and am now midway through a second audition. Reminds me of Schoenberg et al's rearrangement of waltzes, or say Glenn Gould's use of dragging tempo (almost Bachian) to rearrange familiar pieces like The ], which makes them, after excessive exposure tends to make the ear rebel, once more audible as if for the first time. So, it's an old device of course. Kafka's '']'' does the same thing to ]'s '']'', i.e. takes over the piece/novel completely and rewrites it (odd the wiki articles have no mention of this). The operative word in your challenge is ''now''. No one reads the Bible these days, priests, pastors and rabbis included (some exception should be made for the backroom agitprop boys in the IDF who coin names for their wars: they all have a deliberate biblical resonance, and are translated into King Jamesian terms to get that over to the fuindamentalist tubthumpers in the US. cf. 'Operation Brother's Keeper' (Genesis:4,9) But it's all over literature down to the end of WW2 at least. This goes down even to the musical lilt of prose styles. Look at the rhythm of the opening pages of Hemingway's ''A Farewell to Arms'', which I read a few weeks ago). People in those days learnt to read via the Bible and such things like ''The Book of Common Prayer''. As to Beckett, one of his favourite maxims (ostensibly from ]) was "pereant qui ante nos nostra dixerunt" (Let'em cark it, those (buggers) who said (before us) what we (now) say), and it would have been impossible for him to say or write those words without registering their provenance, since he is so thoroughly allusive. The metaphor of theft is of course hyperbole. Theft is clandestine, whereas creative borrowings like the one you mention from Richter are done in the light of day, with the author, painter, musician or (in film, like scenic allusions to Hitchcock) the auteur, expecting the reader/audience to recognize the source, and more often than not, doing so as homage to a master whose influence is thereby recognized. It's only since John Locke and the establishment of the notion of property rights, and the rise of Romanticism's cult of the bardic virtuoso's putative capacity for 'invention' that we worry this. It is even programmatic in postmodernism, and one school of art(citationism/citazionismo) based its whole technique on 'quotational' pastiche. Indeed, part of the pleasure engineered by authors lies in nudging readers to see what to them is the obvious theft: the technique is all over Umberto Eco's ] to the point of banality (William of Baskerville =Sherlock Holmes), which reminds me that Doyle's figure provided Kafka with the opening lines of his ], which are nothing but a straightforward paraphrase of two lines in ] (ch.2: para beginning 'It was on the 4th of March . . .'), etc.etc.etc.] (]) 10:13, 6 September 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::::::: On a related note, I can quote ] . "Plagiarism is basic to all culture". ] (]) 19:41, 6 September 2014 (UTC) | |||
| is a picture that was taken when the alarm was activated by accident and people thought there was a rocket attack. Reminds of you of anything ? ] (]) 14:04, 18 September 2014 (UTC) | |||
| ::Yep. I think such photos should only incentivate the Israeli government to be far more thorough in teaching parents and people generally how '''not to hold a child''' if they really want to successfully protect their threatened progeny from mortars and rockets in the vicinity. If you want to ensure someone's safety you put yourself between the imminent threat and the loved one (not in Strachey's proverbial joke: when asked when on trial for being a pacifist, what he would do if a brutal German were about to rape his sister or mother. He answered:'Oh, I should try and ''come'' between them!'(], '']: The New Biography,'' 2005 p.349) (He was homosexual). | |||
| In 1961 Hilberg, writing what was to become the cornerstone of later Holocaust studies, rigorously abstained from using the word in his monumental study.{{sfn|Calimani|2018|p=93}} Ever stylistically wedded to detached clinical language, he preferred the term 'destruction' - a generic term shorn of the various emotional resonances instinct in these other labels-in describing the 'annihilation' of European Jews as ‘the world’s first completed destruction process’ . {{sfn|Hilberg|1973 |p=669}} The decisive words here are (a) ‘first’ and (b) ‘completed’, both implicitly denying that, in his historian’s view, we may speak of the phenomenon as ‘unique’. For ‘first’ ominously suggests that the process may repeat itself in the future,(something that is sui generis cannot recur) and ‘completed’ affirms an awareness that the shoah was, at that point in time, the last of a series of comparable events, distinguished only from its predecessors by the thoroughness of its accomplishment.{{efn|Completion here does not mean, 100% of Europe’s Jews were murdered -25% somehow survived. It refers to the process of perfecting ethnic extermination on an industrial scale via the ''mise en scène'' of an efficient administrative mechanism for achieving the declared aim, and the overcoming of all moral scruples that might have impeded its execution.}} | |||
| ::Seriously, you appear to think I doubt Israelis were shocked, panicked, and didn't duck as sirens went off. Obviously they did, and there is substantial evidence to that effect. The picture of course reminds me also of , were such people sufficiently unpoor to have cameras,(remember the IDF banned the importation of tampons into Gaza, to prevent tunnels being built I guess), , , and the fact that 13,000 people were killed or wounded in that war in Gaza, not counting those who suffered shock. Almost none of that reality is on film, except in the Unit 8200 film archive studies.] (]) 14:46, 18 September 2014 (UTC) | |||
| That same year was to be a turning point in the assessment of the Holocaust in another sense, since the ] contemporaneously taking place in Jerusalem had widespread repercussions on discourse framing the event. In contradistinction to the ], where indictments were laid for "crimes against members of various nations," the priority of the proceedings was to focus on the Holocaust as a Jewish tragedy, and, it was believed, justice could only be meted out by a Jewish court, which, paradoxically according to Hannah Arendt, citing the prosecutor ]'s words, would make 'no ethnic distinctions.' {{efn|They were to watch a spectacle as sensational as the Nuremberg Trials; only this time, Mr. Hausner noted, "the tragedy of Jewry as a whole was the central concern." In fact, said Hausner, “if we charge him also with crimes against non-Jews . . . this is” not because he committed them but, surprisingly, “because we make no ethnic distinctions.” That was certainly a remarkable sentence for a prosecutor to utter in his opening speech; it proved to be the key sentence in the case for the prosecution. For this case was built on what the Jews had suffered, not on what Eichmann had done. And, according to Mr. Hausner, that amounted to the same thing, because “there was only one man who had been concerned almost entirely with the Jews, whose business had been their destruction. That was Adolf Eichmann.” . . . The Nuremberg Trials, where the defendants had been “for indicted crimes against members of (many and) various nations,” had left the Jewish tragedy out of account, Hausner said, for the simple reason that Eichmann had not been there. Did Hausner really believe the Nuremberg Trials would have paid greater attention to the fate of the Jews if Eichmann had been in the dock? Hardly. Like almost everybody else in Israel, he believed that only a Jewish court could render justice to Jews, and that it was the business of Jews to sit in judgment on their enemies.{{harv|Arendt|1963a|p=6}}}} This was understandable. given the extraordinary tolerance ]’s Germany , for one, showed to the tens of thousands of minions of massacre in the midst of its citizenry, among them war criminals. Germany had jurisdiction to try Eichmann but studiously circumvented the idea of extradition, and given the extreme leniency of the courts in sentencing men with thousands of murders on their conscience, that country at least could not be counted on to render justice. We all know of the ], but who recalls incidents like that in August 1949 in Munich when police shot at a crowd of 500 Jews who had taken to the streets to protest the publication in the ] of a letter that referred to Jews as ‘bloodsuckers’ (''Blutsauger'')?{{sfn|Hilberg|1973 |p=679, n.36}}{{efn| The situation has of course improved imnmensely. Now it is Palestinian Germans who are regularly beaten up by Berlin police if they are sighted wearing ]s or marching to commemorate ].{{sfn|Abunimah|2023}}}} | |||
| :::There were plenty of horror scenes in Israel after suicide bombings, with body parts scattered everywhere. A friend of mine was at ] and his family left unharmed by a miracle. You are not likely to see these horror pictures presented anywhere in Israel because of the difference in culture, but be sure they exist. Sderot people had full right to happy that the terrorists who were firing rockets on them for years are at last handled. They would have more sympathy for Gazan civilians if they hadn't elected Hamas and supported continued rocket fire on Israel. Perhaps popcorn was in bad taste, but so is distributing candies after a particularly successful murder of Israeli civilians. I do not know what is the deal with tampons, but if the terrorists found a way to use water pipes, fertilizers and concrete for murder - perhaps there is intelligence that they are using tampons to make ]. | |||
| :::I did not duck at every siren and it was not a matter of shock but of common sense - unless I'm 5-30km from Gaza the danger to be involved in a car accident is much greater than the danger from the rockets. Hugging and calming a child scared by the sirens is far more important than laying flat on the ground reducing the danger from 0.01% to 0.001%. And yes, I know the children in Gaza are scared too. I wish their parents chose a different government that would have some regard for their lives.] (]) 19:46, 18 September 2014 (UTC) | |||
| ::::I've seen almost everything you mention, but in the documentary records of several countries. I have no illusions. Only I don't think in terms of 'it began with suicide bombings'. Anyone can choose a starting point of convenience for their narrative, and spin everything out as a 'reaction' to '''that''' germinal event (as I am reminded after rereading ] these last days. You can read it as the heading of chapter 1 . A Palestinian might start with the effects on 30,000 youths of Yitzhak Rabin's order, to put down an unarmed rebellion against the occupation in the West Bank a decade earlier, to 'break their arms and legs' (you can see videos of soldiers doing just that). Playing that game gets everyone nowhere fast. | |||
| ::::Gazans can't duck. The universal metaphor for what they have put up with for nearly a decade is 'shooting into the fish bowl'. | |||
| ::::As to your final sentiment.It's not our business to wish Gazans voted for a different government. It's a bit like me citing the remark by ] (whose two books on the 1948 are required reading for any Israeli): | |||
| ::::<blockquote> </blockquote> | |||
| ::::Still, that government has a plebiscite, and though I dearly wish Israeli parents voted for a different government, rather than choosing one that has zero regard for non-Jewish lives, and contempt for international law, the reality is otherwise, and I, like the Palestinians, must respect that verdict at the polls. What an occupied people should never be asked to do is accept they are destroyed, turn tail, say 'yes bwana' and allow themselves to be turned into a caricature of the dumb natives that will eventually disappear. What Hamas is, is was the rebels of Judea were from the insurrection against Rome, down to Bar Kochba, led often by sicarii. Their cause was legitimate, even noble, their tactics stupid. Perhaps the same can be said of Hamas: they found themselves adopting at one point Israel's model for statehood (assassination, terrorism, massacres and suffering as a horrendous spectre (holocaust) that will appeal to the world's conscience etc.,) as their own, because PLO politics proved only productive of Quislings. Those who died at Masada or in Jerusalem thought exactly like the Gazans. Better die fighting than yield to foreigners. Israel's foundation (not uniquely, most states are based on criminal foundations) owed much to the effect of those spectacular assassinations and massacres of innocents ordered and executed by terrorists who, once statehood was achieved, became ministers of state and indeed Prime Ministers. It set a bad example for Palestinians. A good part of the political elite descends from Irgun families (even so-called moderates like Tzipi Livni, Ehud Olmert etc). We really must desist, this is off-topic, though I think it important to exercise some latitude from time to time, so that editors in a difficult area understand where each are coming from. I only accept arguments however that tell me my interlocutor tends to be wary of all sources of information, and sieves it through a sceptical lens, before using it to persuade others. I must see Brad Pitt in Troy now playing on TV this last half hour. As a child of 6, reading it for the first time, I rooted for the Trojans, against all of the evidence of the master narrative. Prejudices die hard, . ] (]) 20:51, 18 September 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :::::You are saying that it's impossible to tell who did a bad thing first, and I agree. Yet you're saying that founding of Israel set a bad example for Palestinians. Arabs populating the land of Israel (sorry, "Palestine") then, even before they came up with the great idea of calling themselves Palestinians, ]. I do not think I ever said how it began and who's fault it is. I have an opinion and you can guess it, but it's irrelevant. The question is how it can end. Since there are two peoples and one isn't going to kill the other, the only way is to reach some kind of agreement. This agreement cannot be reached while one is determined to destroy the other. Freeing Gaza is a noble goal and it was within reach in 2005. Destroying Israel is wrong and it just won't happen. Open-minded liberals (I believe it includes you) don't understand that by justifying and backing up the atrocities committed by radical terrorists they causing more suffering to their brainwashed but otherwise innocent subjects/hostages. You are right, this is off topic and most importantly pointless.] (]) 21:07, 18 September 2014 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::Just a correction. I'm not a liberal. In this area, my model for understanding what is going on is Jabotinsky, the only Zionist who was an unbleary-eyed rational analyst of historical logic. Were I a 'liberal', I'd agree with everything asserted above, which, however, has nothing to do with reality, and everything with feeling comfortable in an otherwise impossibly toxic world.:) ] (]) 09:28, 19 September 2014 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::: (flippant and silly) Given that Ben-Gurion used to call Jabotinski "Vladimir Hitler", it seems that NMMNG's comments have something to them after all. ] (]) 10:43, 19 September 2014 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::I've always believed that Ben-Gurion was a liar, since reading almost a half a century ago an interview in which he showed a visitor his personal library, of 20,000 books if I remember corrrectly, and, waving his arm over the treasured stacks, added that he had "read them all" (equally flippant reply!). I began to take VJ less ideologically, when I read that he had translated Dante into Hebrew and stated that Italy was the only country he'd lived in where he was never made to feel he was a 'Jew'. He was a rotten politician because he was rigorously honest in his realism. All the rest, the successful pollies, win because they manage to make their inner, often malevolent or puerile dishonesty seem thoroughly sincere and decent (like Hitler, and, in NMMGG's estimation, my ignobly anonymous, self).] (]) 11:26, 19 September 2014 (UTC) | |||
| I hope you can discern this auto-translation, looks like there is no English version of this article. ] (]) 06:31, 29 September 2014 (UTC) | |||
| ::Thanks. You labour under a misapprehension if you think I think Israelis and soldiers don't protect Jewish children. They do. But this is a posed photo after the event. The nation is moved. The nation takes extraordinary measures to protect the soldiers who protect their children, and shoot, bomb, wound, arrest, beat up children on the other side. ] (]) 11:17, 29 September 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :::Not posed, but probably taken after the fact, and mis-titled - the soldiers were calming and not protecting the kid while the photo was taken. Harming children on the other side is not a goal but the unfortunate result of their parent's choices. ] (]) 16:32, 29 September 2014 (UTC) | |||
| ::::We basically agree on the photo then. As to children, that is the standard PR response. It never explains the way courts treat know cases of deliberate murder (], one of hundreds I know of). Anyway, we can close this.] (]) 17:37, 29 September 2014 (UTC) | |||
| == AE == | |||
| ===Pt.3.The development of uniqueness === | |||
| --] (]) 22:05, 14 September 2014 (UTC) | |||
| <blockquote>In the aftermath of World War II, the Nazi holocaust was not cast as a uniquely Jewish — let alone a historically unique — event. Organized American Jewry in particular was at pains to place it in a universalist context. After the ], however, the Nazi Final Solution was radically reframed. "The first and most important claim that emerged from the 1967 war and became emblematic of American Judaism," ] recalls, was that "the Holocaust . . . was unique, without parallel in human history." In an illuminating essay, historian ] ridicules the "small industry of Holocaust hagiographers arguing for the uniqueness of the Jewish experience with all the energy and | |||
| ingenuity of theological zealots".' {{sfn|Finkelstein|2014|p=42}}</blockquote> | |||
| <blockquote>'According to ]: ‘The absolute character of the anti-Jewish drive of the Nazis makes it impossible to integrate the extermination of the Jews, not only within the killings the general framework of Nazi persecutions, but even within the wider aspects of contemporary ideological-political behaviour such as fascism, totalitarianism, economic exploitation and so on.’ I disagree.' {{sfn|Kay|2021}}</blockquote> | |||
| As seen above in Pt.2, the East European Jewish victims of the Holocaust appear to have suffered none of the brain-wracking vexations, that arose in the diaspora and Israel in the postwar period, over the ''mot propre'' for what was happening to them. They used the ], historically resonant term ''khurbn.'' The word drew an implicit analogy between the scale of the catastrophe that hit them, and two iconic events in antiquity that branded Jewish memory with a profound sense of loss, the destructions of the First and Second Temples. Thus, ''khurbn'' disavowed uniqueness, by affirming an essential continuity, the idea that the physical destruction of the diaspora’s core population repeated an earlier pattern: it was a recurrent, if exceeding rare, event. The symbolic force of this analogy lay in the fact that, in the legend of the foundations of the diaspora, the synagogue, wherever erected, slowly came to be experienced as a substitute for the temple in Jerusalem, with rabbis replacing the priesthood, and rituals of prayer and observance supplanting sacrifice. The unique specificity of the one sacred site millennia before has been preempted by a creative solution dictated by necessity: the ‘temple’ was any site Jewish communities built to celebrate their religion. The Final Solution, in aiming to extirpate their communities and raze their synagogal institutions, constituted the third in a series. | |||
| In Israel, to the contrary, this Yiddish ''khurbn'' was disliked just as the imputed ‘sheepishness’ of the victims and those who, surviving, made aliyah to the new state with its heroic ethos, was a source of discomfort and embarrassment. One slang term in Israeli usage referred to the martyrs of the camps, as opposed to the Warsaw ghetto rebels who fought back, as 'soap'.{{efn|'Over and again Zionist writers of the 1940s wrote in near fascist terms of the “beautiful death” of the Warsaw rebels and thed “ugly deaths” of the martyrs of the camps. .'{{harv|Boyarin||pp=292-293, n.61,293}}}} In its stead, the word shoah, which had become current in the Palestinian yishuv, gained an ascendancy. The emergent preference for the biblical shoah marked a shift from profane history (secular time) to an idiom of religious thrust (sacred). On another plane, it was also emblematic of natural tendency, instinct in the structural dynamics flowing from the definition of Israel as the Jewish state for the Jewish people, to invest it with discursive authority, one with a final say on crucial matters of definition.{{efn|'the Zionist enterprise claimed to be the spearhood of the Jewish revival, which also included the claim to be the center for Jewish historical memory.'{{harv|Michman|2008|p=13}}}} One might be tempted to think of a kind of unspoken tendency towards a Vaticanization of authority arising to reign over the disiecta membra of diasporic life which had always been characterized by an intense dialogic interplay, creatively dissonant, between far-flung communities which were unified in their sense of a shared Jewish identity but which, one by one, had to, as circumstances dictated, respond to very different historical social and political challenges. The emergence of a Zionist state, which had a completely different, because national and geopolitical, set of priorities, naturally bore a logic that militated towards the subordination of the diaspora, by redefining it as a contingent expedient, chaotically dispersed and historically defeated, to what was the new unifying narrative of Jewishness as defined by the state of Israel. | |||
| * | |||
| Political interests play an important role in suppressing analogies, in order to assert the uniqueness of the holocaust. In the late 1990s, according to ], ] succeeded in blocking the passage of a bill to commemorate a day of remembrance for the Armenian genocide. The USHMM, he adds, following declarations from both Elie Wiesel and Yad Vashem, and at the request of the Israeli government, virtually erased references to the Armenian genocide from its museum's exposition.{{sfn|Finkelstein|2014|pp=69-70}} | |||
| * | |||
| Over the last quarter of a century highlighting the Holocaust as a unique event affecting only Jews has passed out of scholarly fashion.{{efn| Among scholars, discussion over the perceived ‘uniqueness’ of the Holocaust has long ‘lost most of its steam’ (Bloxham 2013: 319). Advances in knowledge of Nazi ideology and praxis have furthered understanding of what happened to its various victim groups, how, and why, while a greater appreciation of the interface of these policies has helped transcend dichotomies of uniqueness and comparability. In sum, scholarship of the last quarter of a century has positioned the Holocaust within a much wider spatial and temporal context, allowing the ‘specific features’ of the murder of the Jews to be drawn more sharply within the context of the ‘broader phenomenon’ of genocide (Bloxham 2013: 1),{{sfn|Foster|Pettigrew|Pearce|Hale|Burgess|Salmons|Lenga|2016|p=7}}}} though the idea that the holocaust refers to the genocide of Jews alone still holds the upper hand.{{efn|More vexed than this is the matter of precisely what the phrase refers to when it is applied – a question especially charged since the use of the definite article ‘raises questions concerning the distinguishing features’ (Lang 1999: 77) and in particular whether it should apply only to the genocide of the Jews or more widely to include other Nazi victims. Within the academy ‘the traditional view that it was the genocide of the Jews alone’ (Niewyk and Nicosia 2000: 51) tends to hold sway, though there is some ‘debate’ between ‘those who reserve the term “Holocaust” specifically and exclusively for the Jewish victims of Nazism and those who opt for much wider inclusion of victim populations’ (Rosenfeld 2011: 58). These contrasting positions of exclusivity and inclusivity are much more highly charged outside academia however, where they are intensely politicised – not least because they often segue into contrasting claims over the uniqueness, universality and comparability of different victim group experiences under Nazism. ..Here, the experiences of other groups of people persecuted and in many cases murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators are recognised as critically important to an understanding of the Holocaust, but they are not themselves denoted by the use of this specific term'{{sfn|Foster|Pettigrew|Pearce|Hale|Burgess|Salmons|Lenga|2016|pp=9,65}}}} | |||
| *] (]) 09:37, 19 September 2014 (UTC)) | |||
| <blockquote>'(Genocide’s) usage in reference to the Shoah and similar events of comparable destructive intent, both prior and subsequent, has gradually increased, including by historians, especially since the 1990s. The word “genocide” in reference to the extermination of the Jews is, in some respects, more neutral than both “Holocaust,” which evokes an etymological notion of the sacrificial, and “Shoah”, which seems to exclude the affected non-Jewish groups. At the same time, the term “genocide” allows for a comparison of similar causes and effects, and emphasizes, by analogy with the legal definition of crime, the intent, which in this case is the endeavour to partially or completely destroy a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group.’{{harv|Sullam|2020|p=4}}</blockquote> | |||
| <blockquote>‘The Nazi plan of Genocide was related to many peoples, races, and religions, and, it is only because Hitler succeeded in wiping out 6 million Jews, that it ''became'' known predominantly as a Jewish case. As a matter of fact, Hitler wanted to commit G. against the Slavic peoples in order to colonize the East and extend the German Empire up to the Ural mts. Thereupon after the completion of the successful war he would he would have turned to the West and to subtract from the French people the 20 million Frenchmen he had promised in his conversation with ].’ Lemkin cited in {{harv|Moses|2008|p=20}}{{efn|The reliability of Rauschning’s recall of Hitler’s views here, published in 1939, have been questioned, but are generally considered now to be indicative, if not taken, as recorded, verbatim.{{sfn|Spielvogel|Redles|2011| p=96, n.42}}}}</blockquote> | |||
| == Systemic bias: he who pays the piper calls the tune == | |||
| If one trawls the global past for evidence of genocide, history becomes a charnel house. Though the holocaust is ‘the most documented of genocides’, {{sfn|Jacobs|2009|p=x}} genocide itself has always been a commonplace of history. It received powerful theological endorsement in the ], where the injunction was laid down to annihilate the ] (] 7:2, 20:16-18) namely the ], ], ], ], ], ] and ].{{sfn|Garber|2011|p=284}} The logic and principle of exterminating any resistant population by murdering the males and enslaving the rest were first set forth in Western tradition in ]’ vignette, ] regarding the options given the islanders of ] during the ]. | |||
| On 'mainstream source bias, and many links to relevant analyses that show the corruption that threatens many of our sources | |||
| ] ] 9 September 2014.] (]) 08:26, 28 September 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :As to the recent flutter of insults and i.e. 'Listen, you. When I get a hold of you, I'm going to gull out your eyes and shove them down your pants so you can watch me kick the krap out of you,' I much prefer the imagery in that antipodean idiom.’May your balls drop off, bounce off the turf and turn into bicycle wheels that backpedal up your coit.’] (]) 10:22, 28 September 2014 (UTC) | |||
| ::Let's just let him or them waste their mornings. Who cares, really?] (]) 10:41, 28 September 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :::Sounds good. I'll keep blocking as it's no trouble for me and makes more work for them :) —]] 10:43, 28 September 2014 (UTC) | |||
| ::::Thanks. I'll remove reduplications of the same stuff in the interests of page economy, and hr I'll just add for the record a few more accidentally removed. Sometimes, we need to conserve abuse to document the kind of 'toxic' atmosphere of hostility in which '''some''' of us have to work. ] (]) 11:04, 28 September 2014 (UTC) | |||
| Lemkin was well aware of precedents stretching back to the deep past, {{efn|Lemkin himself, in his late unpublished study of the phenomenon, emphasized the ancient roots and continuity of the process, writing that the '], the ] and ], the Crusades, the ], , the massacres of the Herero in Africa, the ], the ] in 1933, the ], the pogroms of Jews in Tsarist Russia and Romania –all these are classical genocide cases.’Moses concludes that ‘The history of genocide is the history of human society since antiquity.’{{harv|Moses|2008a|pp=8,ix}}}} but for our purposes, one should briefly reacquaint our fugitive modern memory with its selective, fragmentary interest in the past, with how the 19th century's periphery must have experienced the glorious march of progress whose beneficiaries, the West-is-besters, complacently celebrate. Incidents of mass killings in the name of civilization were commonplace, many implemented under impress of the ] maxim drilled into the elites who emerged to gather up and govern their flourishing, expansive windfall empires, i.e., the purpose was to retread the path cut out paradigmatically by the Roman empire, whose Virgilian civilizing mission consisted of 'imposing the custom of peace, sparing the subjugated and warring down the proud.' {{efn|Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento:</br>hae tibi erunt artes, pacisque imponere morem,</br> | |||
| ::::(1) (2) ; (3) ; ] (]) 11:24, 28 September 2014 (UTC) | |||
| parcere subiectis et debellare superbos.</br>(], ] Bk. VI, 851-853) }}. An illustration of how this worked out in practice was ], beginning in 1834. At that time the country had an estimated population of roughly 2 million. Four decades later, by 1875 when the conquest was completed, approximately 825,000 indigenous Algerians had been killed. The necessity of genocidal killings lingered on in everyday conversation. One author in 1882 commented that 'we hear it repeated every day that we must expel the native and if necessary destroy him'. {{sfn|Kiernan| 2007|p= 374}}{{efn|In pressing for the overthrow of ]’s regime, Western interventionists cited as a justification for invasion the same abuses of human rights, (charges denied by ]), which had been documented as characteristic of Italy’s earlier invasion and genocidal onslaught , such as the mass gassing of ‘rebellious’ tribes.{{sfn|Gilly| 2020|pp=217-219}}}} | |||
| :::::Someone with "issues", clearly. Hopefully, he restricts himself to getting his rocks off calling people he disapproves of paedophiles and nazis and imagining himself handing out beatings rather than editing articles. <span style="font-family: Perpetua, serif; font-size:120%"> ← ] </span> 22:00, 9 October 2014 (UTC) | |||
| An important principle in approaching history is the relationship between (imperial) core | |||
| == ANI == | |||
| and periphery.{{efn|The historical sociology of this idea goes back at least to ]’s ] (1377) down to ]’s work. The underlying premise in the modern worldview down to the end of WW2 was admirably set forth by Toynbee in 1934:'the fact that we have ceased to apply any common name to ourselves is historically significant. It means that we are longer conscious of the presence in the world of other societies of equal standing; and that we now regard our society as being identical with 'civilized' Mankind and the peoples outside the pale as being mere 'Natives' of territories which they inhabit on sufferance, but which are morally as well as practically at our disposal, by the higher right of our monopoly of civilization, whenever we choose to take possession.'{{harv|Toynbee|1962|p=13}} This dialectical interplay between metropolitan dominance and the outlying colonial/marginal world everywhere inform ]’s 4 volume masterpiece, ''The Sources of Social Power''(1986-2013). It constantly illustrates the phnomenon of ]-exceptional measures taken, way off centre stage, to subjugate, dominate and incorporate ‘backward’ societies into the ‘civilized’ world often end up coming home to roost, with a vengeance in the metropolitan hearthland.{{efn|A related form is the competition between advanced powers and other nations on their immediate periphery, surveyed by] in his '']'',(1987)}}}} Genocide as a twentieth century phenomenon arguably began with ]’s ] the ] in 1904-1905,-in one estimate 65,000 of 80,000 (80%) died- accomplished in broad daylight since it was duly covered in the German press. Remembrance of the holocaust is celebrated in postwar Germany but, until recently, this earlier episode of the country's colonial genocide was all but erased from memory.{{efn|'In Germany, debate about the country’s colonial project has long been overshadowed by the crimes of the National Socialist era. While most German cities commemorate the victims of the Nazi period, there are no significant monuments to the victims of German colonialism.’ ]’s exploration of Germany’s colonial genocide in Namibia ] came out only this year.{{harv|Connolly|2023}}}} The idea of herding at gunpoint uprooted townsfolk into arid zones where they might die en masse of famine was taken up by the Turks, with their forced exterminatory marches, and the technique, a typical case of blowback, was adopted and widely deployed by Nazis, and to a lesser extent ] in WW2. | |||
| But this is all too facile, and culturally self-regarding to single out three examples which happen to instance the genocidal practices of those countries which were later to emerge as adversaries of the Western powers in two successive world wars.If we take the years around 1900 as an angle from which to reflect on what was to follow in the 20th century, perhaps the best starting point is ]’s '']'' (1898) where the complacent Western core becomes, by a brilliant piece of topical tableturning of imperial prejudices, a planetary periphery. Wells reimagined this annihilation with the modern world refigured as aborigines, invaded and under mechanical extirpation from Martians just as ] of 5-7,000 people was all but annihilated within a short century, starting with the ].{{efn|'Indignant objections to the Martians taking unfair advantage are quickly squashed by reminders Wells drops about what humans did to ]s, and what Europeans did to Tasmanians.’{{harv|Kemp|1996|p=147}}}} | |||
| User:CONFIQ has opened an ANI concerning you, but hasn't notified you. I'm correcting that. ] (]) 11:59, 29 September 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :Thanks for that courtesy, which is in short supply these days. Regards ] (]) 12:55, 29 September 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :I apologize to both. This is something that I know I should do but I did forget. --] (]) 15:30, 29 September 2014 (UTC) | |||
| In 1896-1898 ] wiped out 10% of the island’s population. The British adopted the same system in South Africa in 1899, closeting Boer civilians, women and children into ] where over 2 years over 25,000 died of disease and malnutrition as their army wardens maintained guard. On the other side of the world, the ] had the collateral impact of leading to the death through disease and famine of 10 to 20 times the number of guerilla fighters killed. In all three, concentration camps, ] and starvation policies took the largest toll out on civilians. Over a 20 year period ]’s ] (1885-1908) were so vastin their application that the minimal figure for those killed is 1,500,000, with a maximum estimate ranging as high as 13,000,000. By 1900, only 10% of aborigines (50,000) had survived the impact of British colonialization, with an estimated 20,000 of the original estimated 500,000 members of 300 tribes, each with their distinct languages, killed by direct genocidal settler practices.{{sfn|Kiernan|2002|pp=163-192}} This was the international background for Germany's policies against the Herero. | |||
| ==Disambiguation link notification for October 1== | |||
| After WW1, the metropolitan assault on peripheries resumed. In the ] (1923-1932) Italy likewise killed one quarter of the population in the region of ], by the mass murder of civilians and surrendered soldiers, resorting to the mustard gas bombing of villages,(much as ] against the ] in the ] in Morocco at that time,{{efn|It was technical difficulties rather than moral scruples, which ] to quell the ] (1920). }} as well as death marches into the desert). Having mastered the techniques there, they ] where their spraying of areas with mustard and other gases, together with tactics of gunning down masses of surrendered soldiers and enforcing death marches. The conservative figure is that Italy's invasion of Ethiopia led to the death of perhaps 225,000 people. Mann comments:'This was the equivalent not of the Final Solution but (on a smaller scale) the Nazi mass murder of Poles.'{{sfn|Mann|2005|p=309}}{{efn|The official Ethiopian count, according to our Misplaced Pages article, later spoke of 760,300 deaths, referring to Arthur J. Barker’s ''The Civilising Mission: The Italo-Ethiopian War 1935–6,'' ] 1968 {{isbn|978-0-304-93201-6}} pp. 292-293}} In the ] in 1932-1933, Stalin intentionally starved to death over 3 million Ukrainians. At the time, the future core of the Luftwaffe’s new generation of pilots was, under a secretive Soviet-Germany pact to circumvent the Versailles agreement, being trained at ] with close to a thousand German military personnel, not far from the genocidal liquidations underway to their west.{{efn|A sideline to Germany’s cooperative ventures with the Soviet Union via personnel deployed by its Trade Enterprises Development Company(GEFU: ''Gesellschaft zur Förderung gewerblicher Unternehmungen'') was to gather information on their host country. The projects run by Special Division R or ''Zentrale Moskau'' trained 100 German pilots from 1925 to 1933; a tank school was established in ] in 1929 forming the core of the future Panzer forces; part of the armament manufacturing agreements had a company, ''Bersol Aktien Gesellschaft'', operating secretly to manufacture poison gas on Soviet territory.{{sfn|Lyman|1995|p=26}}{{sfn|Jovanović|2013|p=175}}{{sfn|Carroll|2018|p=61}}}}{{efn|‘It is established beyond reasonable doubt that Stalin intentionally starved to death Soviet Ukrainians in the winter of 1932–1933. Soviet documents reveal a series of orders of October–December 1932 with evident malice and intention to kill. By the end, more than three million inhabitants of Soviet Ukraine had died.'{{harv|Snyder|2009}}}} | |||
| ], author of a foundational study on the massacre of American indigenous peoples, ] has argued that the view that the holocaust as a 'unique, unprecedented, and categorically incommensurable' stand-alone event restricted to Jews, is a recent construction. Questioning the late 20th century arrogation of the term to refer exclusively to what befell the Jewish victims of Nazism, he then argues that | |||
| Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Misplaced Pages appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited ], you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page ]. Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. <small>Read the ]{{*}} Join us at the ].</small> | |||
| <blockquote>'it is the hegemonic product of many years of strenuous intellectual labour by a handful of Jewish scholars and writers who have dedicated much if not all of their professional lives to the advancement of this exclusivist idea.'{{sfn|Stannard|1994|p=249}}</blockquote> | |||
| While conceptually incoherent, the uniqueness model is defended, he then documents, with intimidating polemical vigour. ] in taking President Carter to task publicly for mentioning the holocaust's 11, not 6, million victims, (perhaps influenced by Simon Wiesenthal's recent surmise) suggested in his excoriation such an attempt to 'de-Judaize' the holocaust was, albeit unconsciously, 'antisemitic'. ], author of one of the most popular accounts of the holocaust, has also asserted that any comparison between the Jewish holocaust and other forms of genocide put such 'holocaust relativists' on an antisemitic spectrum, one end of which included ].{{efn|'In other words, you are to be considered in the same general category-as an antisemite, as a creator of "moral equivalencies" . .if you are a neo-Naszi or a comparative historian. For, to Lipstadt, even someone who has no doubnt regarding the ghastly hoprrors of Jewish suffering and death under Hitler - but who has the temerity to dissent from her insistence regarding the unquestionable uniqueness of the Jewish experience is, in her phrase, merely a ''not yet'' denier. And 'nopt yet' denial, she writes, is "the equivalent of ] without his robes". In short, if you disagree with Deborah Lipstadt that the Jewish suffering in the Holocaust was unique, you are, by definition . .a crypto-Nazi'.{{sfn|Stannard|1994|p=250}}}} | |||
| It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these ]. Thanks, ] (]) 09:14, 1 October 2014 (UTC) | |||
| ===Pt.4b.Hitler's awareness of a precedent for the Holocaust=== | |||
| == Saturday and Sunday == | |||
| Hitler himself, on the eve of WW2, one week before the invasion of Poland, in his ''Obersalzberg Speech'' of 22 August 1939, has the Armenian genocide in mind when he set forth before his generals the genocidal thrust of the imminent assault upon Poland:- | |||
| <blockquote>Our strength lies in our quickness and in our brutality. Genghis Khan sent millions of women and children into death knowingly and with a light heart. History sees in him only the great founder of States. As to what the weak Western European civilization asserts about me, that is of no account. I have given the command and I will shoot everyone who utters one word of criticism, for the goal to be obtained in the war is not that of reaching certain lines but of physically demolishing the opponent. And so, for the present only in the East, I have put my ] in place with the command '''relentlessly and without compassion to send into death many women and children of Polish origin and language.''' Only thus can we gain the living space that we need. '''Who after all is today speaking about the destruction of the Armenians?'''{{sfn|Lochner|1942|pp=1-2}}{{sfn|Robertson|2014}} {{sfn|Moses|2021|p=299}}{{efn|The source for this remark is the ]-winning (1939) head of the ]'s Berlin branch, ]. The authenticity of ] first at the Nuremberg trial by lawyers defending ] and ], and subsequently by the Turkish government and several scholars, on the basis of the fact that two other transcripts of the Salzberg talk later discovered do not contain the reference to the Armenians. The Armenian massacre allusion was however not the gravamen of the defense's challenges to the memorandum, but rather the reference to 'brutal' measures. In the forensic reconstruction of the likely provenance of Lochner's version, Hannibal Travis,{{sfn|Travis|2013|pp=27-35}} who defends its authenticity, infers that the indirect source for these remarks was the head of German military intelligence (the ]) ]. His notes to the meeting were passed on to ], ] and ], the last-named being the probable informant referred to by Lochner. Thus a chain of transmission from Canaris to Lochner is traceable.{{sfn|Travis|2013|p=29}} He also documents not only the many Germans in Hitler's circle who were very familiar with the Armenian genocide, but notes that Hitler himself had alluded to the Armenian genocide several years earlier. In that 1931 interview, Hitler expatiated on considerations to be borne in mind regarding the future of Germany, stating that one should remind oneself of,'the biblical deportations and the massacres of the Middle Ages,' and 'remember the extermination of the Armenians'. Hitler also dedicated part 1 of ], further, to a comrade of his early militancy ] killed while standing next to Hitler during the ] in 1923. von Scheubner-Richter had been German vice-consul in ] in the period when the massacre was planned and implemented and was intimately acquainted with the events. {{sfn|Travis|2013|pp=32,34}}}}. </blockquote> | |||
| Those who refuse on principle to entertain the possibity that the genocide of Jews might be further illuminated by analogies or comparisons must of course deny that Hitler's stated intentions here to liquidate the Polish nation are relevant to assessing the ensuing broader holocaust. They must dismiss the explicit justification, that Germany could get away with genocide and enjoy impunity because Turkey had, as immaterial to our understanding of the holocaust affecting Jews. | |||
| In case you missed it, I agreed that the article needs to be an analysis rather than a list of reports of the phrase. I think the PFLP quote helps a bit. I still don't know how or if I will !vote in the AfD, which I encouraged. And thanks for your support. The AfD is a bit of a clusterfuck right now. ] (]) 16:04, 1 October 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :Forgot - did you notice I deleted a lot of the new edits to ]? Some interesting stuff had to go but the editor doesn't like or know our copyvio policy and I had to raise a ]. ] (]) 16:06, 1 October 2014 (UTC) | |||
| ::Thanks Doug. I don't know how I would vote there either. I've been busy these days on other things, and still must get round, what is it, a more than a year after promising to do so, to these cluster of articles. Sorry to be so lazy. Cheers. ] (]) 17:08, 1 October 2014 (UTC) | |||
| The ] (1915-1918), with perhaps 1,000,000 of 1,800,000 murdered (55%) is defined by ] as 'qualitatively different' from earlier Turkish massacres. The word holocaust itself appears to have been indeed first used, by the New York Times, to describe a new round (‘another Turkish holocaust’) of Turkish pogroms against the Armenian Christian population.{{sfn|Crowe|2008|p=i}}. '(I)t is now widely acknowledged to have been the first true genocide,' he continues, endorsing the view of the American Consul in ] at that time, that it ‘surpasse(d) in deliberate and long-protracted horror and in extent anything that has hitherto happened in the history of the world.' {{sfn|Ferguson|2006|p=176-177}} {{efn|] in his ''A History of the Modern World'', characteristically blames the invention of genocide on Lenin and communism, in 1917, three years into the Armenian genocide which he ignores completely.{{sfn|Johnson|1983|p=71}}}} | |||
| ::: In some respect you seem to be so offended by my provocative use of the assyrian story, that you missinterpret my actual position. Thats a pity and hindering a possible fruitful cooperation. I ask you to have a look on my recent changes on ] to get a more differentiated perspective. ] (]) 16:09, 4 October 2014 (UTC) | |||
| ::::Given the huge disinformation that accompanies ethnic conflicts and clashing geopolitical interests, editors who subscribe to NPOV must exercise particular care in getting their details absolutely correct, to ensure that anyone, from any side, can see their narrative represented objectively. I am not offended by people. I am annoyed by the amount on nonsense (thanks for the ] edits, but you are, by the way, not alloweed to add 'sic), even if understandably this is 'sick' stuff) one has to wade through in order to establish a correct text on any article. In editorial exchanges, the vice here is to trim one's opponents to fit one's arrows, to borrow a phrase from ]. In this case, my opposition to that article is seen as reflexly 'anti-Israel/anti-Jewish' and the arguments against what I wrote, concerning getting the facts straight, seem to be replied to not on their merits, their precise philological and historical focus, but in terms of that perceived animus.] (]) 16:28, 4 October 2014 (UTC) | |||
| In one sense Hitler was correct. Even today only Armenians recall their holocaust, and Hitler's onslaught on the Poles is lost to general public awareness. Western commemoration is overwhelmingly focused on the Shoah as a unique event, 'qualitatively different', affecting Europe's Jewish population. What would have been unimaginable in the European core in 1905, but proved perfectly practicable if, as with Von Trotta's extermination of the liminal Herero, the 'uncivilised' periphery of Africa was the field of implementation, had its blowback effect a mere three and a half decades later, as the technique was directed at Germany's immediate neighbour. | |||
| ::::: I am as experienced as provocative and try to get through always with my POV AND the one or other joke based on quality sourcing. Take ], ] and ], the latter caused a major feminist uprising including three lengthy afD attempts on deWP. In your case, I tried to reduce the amount of bad spirit with my notion of the proverb collection AND as well the notion of "the Walfish of ashkelon". „Aussi bini, aussi bleibi, wai Ascalun, ihr grobi Kaibi“ will say, I think the article grew better when it went away from the Jews versus arabs narrative, which is as old as boring and started to include the arab Christian perspective, which is much more interesting. That said, I would like to interact with you based on less distrust and more fun. ] (]) 19:23, 4 October 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::No problem. When I first saw the proverb article, I thought of ]'s remark that 'if men knew what women said to each other about them, the human race would die out'. I deeply distrust anyone who uses a proverb to sum up an ethnic attitude and make it typify another culture. Were that true, the Italians (''l'ospite è come il pesce dopo tre giorni puzza'':'a guest is like a fish, stinks to high heaven after three days), Russians (Незваный гость хуже татарина:'An uninvited guest is worse than the Mongol horde ), Japanese (人を見れば泥棒と思え:'Consider any stranger you see to be a thief'), wouldn't be as graciously hospitable as they are in reality (nor, on the strength of this proverb we're discussing ). The Yiddish proverb ''An ofter gast falt tsu last,''(since you're German there's no need to translate that, I guess) is contradicted by what so many Jews practice as a duty, ''hakhnasat orehim'', etc. | |||
| :::::::The Egyptians have a proverb that explains the circulation of memes in newspapers, I guess: 'When the imam farts, those behind him have a crap.' I.e. once a lead writer, in this case ] makes the proverb famous in the West in one article, everyone grasps at it and yodels it aloud on every occasion when an incident involving Arabs with Jews and/or Christians occurs. Karl Kraus came to mind for precisely this reason. He thought the world went on with its madness because of slipshod language, and though he was an odd fellow, I think he was correct in this.] (]) 20:25, 4 October 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::::I just read your link to Muggeseggele. Australians have the same concept, though since 'blowies' conjures upan unpoetic unpleasantness, they say 'within a bee’s dick', meaning 'very close'. I.e. 'I came within a bee's dick of being kinghit by the mongrel' (I almost got knocked out by some bastard) etc.] (]) 20:37, 4 October 2014 (UTC) | |||
| ===Pt.5. The politics of restrictive usage=== | |||
| ::::::::: Lewis commented on the Rushdie issue as well, in that case the fart was a stinky mess :) I think it was in one of the Rabbi Kemelmann crime stories, when one guy said that while the Jews are said to be smart and greedy and the Irish fame is about being hospitable, nice in their cups and friendly, most personal encounters with such persons reveal the opposite. I cannot confirm both issues, as my experience in either case was rather positive. I however need to improve the english ] entry, he once used „Some of my best friends are German“ as lede to one of his books. ;) ] (]) 20:57, 4 October 2014 (UTC) | |||
| <blockquote>There is nothing surprising in the connection between antisemitism and economic distress. A similar relationship has been observed in many other cases, and there is no reason to believe that antisemitism is exempt from social causation, or that the sufferings of the Jews are something absolutely unique. Unfortunately, the annals of cruelty are inexhaustible and other minorities have experienced at some time or other all the iniquities inflicted upon the Jews. The ] was just as thorough as Hitler’s genocide. If fewer were killed it was because they were fewer. When massacring the Armenians, the Turks perpetrated all of the deeds of which the SS men are guilty. If the history of antisemitism is particularly long it is because the Jews have clung to their separateness with unique tenacity. Most minorities could not be persecuted for so long because they dissolved themselves in the surrounding population.'{{harv|Andreski|1969|pp=305-306}}</blockquote> | |||
| :::::::::::Please think before posting here, if you wish collaboration or assistance or whatever. The allusion to the fatwa in the Rushie affair is just another swipe. I could easily cite hundreds of similar things (theologically) Lewis and others of his influential stature quietly ignore which were and are still being said by rabbis in the West Bank, or even in Rabbi Shalom Lewis's Congregation Etz Chaim in Atlanta the other day, I see that crap every other week, and don't write articles in wikipedia about it. It's incitement, as Israeli PMs love to say ''of the other camp'', as they turn a studiously ] to crap churned out in their own backyard. One would say:'Thank goodness for paganism,' were it not for the writings of people like Reuven Firestone, most recently ] 29 September 2014, which a lot of wiki articles should catch up with.] (]) 21:22, 4 October 2014 (UTC) | |||
| <blockquote>How does the Hollocaust relate to genocide as a concept and an event? This question has caused considerable controversy because ''scholarly discourse and identity politics cannot be separated neatly.'' While the term 'genocide' was coined during the Second World War and enshrined in international law in 1948, the Holocaust as a specifically Jewish tragedy did not become an object of consciousness until almost two decades later. Ever since, those highlighting a distinctive experience for European Jewry have sought to separate it from that of other victims of the Nazis as well as other cases of ethnic and racial extermination.'{{harv|Moses|2004|p=533}}</blockquote> | |||
| Analysing the explosion of Holocaust narratives in the United States in the 1970s, after decades of silence also within Jewish communities, ] argued that the phenomenon was in part motivated by a desire by many influential Jews to make Americans more sympathetic to Israel and Jews generally. {{efn| How did this European event come to loom so large in American consciousness? A good part of the answer is the fact, not less of a fact because anti-Semites turn it into a grievance, that Jews play an important and influential role in Hollywood, the television industry, and the newspaper, magazine, and book publishing worlds. Anyone who would explain the massive attention the Holocaust has received in these media inrecent years without reference to that fact is being naive or disingenuous. This is not, of course, a matter of any "Jewish conspiracy"Jews in the media do not dance to the tune of "the elders of Zion." . .In large part the movement of the Holocaust from the Jewish to the general American arena resulted from private and spontaneous decisions of Jews who happened to occupy strategic positions in the mass media.’ {{harv|Novick|1999|pp.207-208}}}} Novick went on to call the ] American Jewry's 'epistle to the ].' {{efn|'When it comes to how American Jews represent themselves to others, there is no question but that the Holocaust isat the center of that representation. The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum is the principal symbol and "address" of American Jewry, our "epistle to the gentiles" about what it means to be Jewish.'{{sfn|Novick|1999|p=202}}}} Originally funded by private donations,{{efn|By the end of the 1990s the USHMM's annual budget totalled $50 million of which $30 million came from federal funding. {{sfn|Finkelstein|2014|p=72,n.61}}}} official government involvement was announced by the White House in 1978, on the 30th anniversary of Israel's foundation. This was a political measure to placate American Jews displeased by what they regarded as the President's "excessive evenhandedness" in ].{{sfn|Novick|1999|p=216}} The running expenses were thereafter largely taken over by the federal government.{{sfn|Novick|1999|p=207}} Political calculations also contributed to government funding of such awareness programmes concerning the Holocaust, a way to woo the Jewish electorate.{{efn|'What were, ''de jure'', government initiatives were often, ''de facto'', those of Jewish aides, simultaneously promoting projects in which they believed and helping their employers score points with Jewish constituents.'{{harv|Novick|1999|p=208}}}} | |||
| ::::::::: I have written ] in the meanwhile. With regard to antisemitism, I prefer to use the auld Austrian definition "it occurs when you dislike Jews more than actually necesary". In a way, your reaction describes part of the problem - I havent planned another swipe, but checked the Lewis issue on google, found the fatwa point first and gave a feedback on that. I think the serious background is about important differences in the history of religions. Jewish interaction with God is rather on even level, take ] or ], Christian theology has been dealing with failure much earlier than Muslims - I mean the founder of the religion was crucified at the age of thirty three, thats where others start their career. Islam was so successfull in the start, that some of the adherants still believe it has to go on like that for ages. That said, please take the notion that I am willing to use and take swipes easily, and I love ] for the sort of self deprecating humour (its written in my pilote licence) she provides. There is more like that, take ] and I am looking forward to see it advanced ;) Best regards ] (]) 22:34, 4 October 2014 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::::Okay, so you don't like Muslims, and know even less about history and theology, and you can't help yourself (I think you are just not as bright as you think you might be) making a personal swipe again. ' antisemitism "occurs when you dislike Jews more than actually necesary". In a way, '''your reaction''' describes part of the problem.' The paranoid trend of seeing communists, Jews, witches, islamists, the Pope, everywhere is invariant in history, and there is nothing unique about its most devastatingly recent recrudescence in 'antisemitism' (see ]'s works). It has biblical roots, going back to God's advise re the ], and what to do generally about everyone else being disruptive of theological claims to some real estate. The impact of 1 Samuel 15:2-3, and the ] has affected all monotheisms descending from that tradition, which is one reason I am happier identifying myself with pagan Greece, or mixing with 'primitive' or oriental peoples who hadn't the misfortune to inherit in their cultural genes this obsession with a brimstone deity's commandments re ''Blut und Boden''.I have a low boredom threshold. Please don't interact with me, or ask for assistance. Thank you.] (]) 09:18, 5 October 2014 (UTC) | |||
| It was President Carter's understanding that the Memorial Centre, following on the report he had commissioned which he appointed ] to preside over,{{sfn|RPPCH|1979}} would commemorate all the victims of the Holocaust.{{efn|Out of our memory and understanding of the Holocaust, we must forge an unshakable oath with all civilized people that never again will the world stand silent, never again will the world look the other way or fail to act in time to prevent this terrible crime of genocide.In addition to the Jewish people who were engulfed by the Holocaust simply because they were Jews, 5 million other human beings were destroyed. About 3 million Poles, many Hungarians, Gypsies, also need to be remembered. To memorialize the victims of the Holocaust, we must harness the outrage of our own memories to stamp out oppression wherever it exists. {{harv|Carter|1979}}}} In a public address on the occasion of its establishment, Carter happened to mention the 'eleven million innocent victims exterminated'. He was immediately soundly rebuked by ], Israel's foremost Holocaust historian, for attempting to 'deJudaise the Holocaust' by including all of the non-Jewish victims.{{sfn|Moses|2004|p=535}} Indignant groups, led by ] reacted by launching a campaign, which eventually achieved its goals, to ensure that the Museum would refer only ''en passant'' to 'other' (non-Jewish) victims'.{{sfn|Moses|2004|p=535}} Throughout the following decade tensions arose, for example, between Poles and the Museum's authorities over the way the Holocaust was being portrayed. In a recent memoir recalling that period, ], a Carter appointee, states that difficulties arose in efforts to get Polish American groups to do something towards improving thel exhibitions. At that time, Poles were mentioned at the beginning and the end (as rescuers) but little was said of their engulfment in the central killing programmes at Auschwitz and elsewhere, which formed the main Judaiocentric focus of the Museum's depiction of the events. | |||
| :::::::::: Among others, I have written ] was much more fun for me than ] ever would be :) ] (]) 18:14, 7 October 2014 (UTC) | |||
| Later, the issue arose as to whether the Museum should put Polish victims (2 million) on a par with the 3 million Polish-Jewish victims of the Holocaust. had even resigned from the Council for its failure to address this precise issue of commemorating the Polish victims. The general scholarly consensus of experts at the time was that a distinction did exist which militated against any notion the two annihilations could be equated. No decision was reached when, on a further occasion, she and several Polish survivors of the death camps, came to give their testimony. Pawlikowski writes: | |||
| <blockquote>while Urbanowicz-Gilbride, ], and the several Polish survivors of concentration camps tell a story that very much needs to be heard, '''their failure to make proper distinctions weakens their ability to get a hearing for their story'''- Saying this in no way undercuts the continued need to make the story of the Nazi brutality against the Polish people as part of its racial ideology better known. We must mourn the Polish victims; we must make their story important components of Holocaust education programmes. But '''we cannot efface the special nature''' of the attack on the Jewish community within the Nazi programme of racial cleansing. And '''until people interested in achieving this fully appreciate the distinction, we will never be successful in making the Polish story better understood.'''{{harv|Pawkowski|2022|p=425}}</blockquote> | |||
| Compare ]. The long discussion about details fails to grasp the issue with the generic narrative, which is about ], similar as sut/sunday has to do with dual convenant theology. ] (]) 17:50, 13 October 2014 (UTC) | |||
| ::No it isn't about ]. It's about using the best Japanese and Korean scholarship on each item listed on that page. Most of the bibliography shows that the editors or editor have no knowledge of either. The adage Sat/sunday has to hasn't anything to do with ] (another unreliable wiki page), for the saying pre-existed for centuries dual convenant theology.] (]) 18:53, 13 October 2014 (UTC) | |||
| ::: Goodness, Dual-covenant issues are as old as Paulus controversy with Petrus on Christians with Jewish respectively gentile background. The point is, as long as Christians could play a role in arab nationalism, the theology was not questioned, that changed with rising "muslim-only" tendencies - similar as the use of the proverb. ] (]) 19:24, 13 October 2014 (UTC) | |||
| ::::No. That is retrospective interpretation by bad theologians but excellent Zionists like ]. Theology shouldn't trump history: Paul was a turncoat and arguably more offensively anti-Judaic than anyone or anything attributable to/associated with Jesus or his immediate followers, with whom he broke.See Heerak Christian Kim, p.112 which has just come out, to cite one of hundreds of sources.We discussed bees' dicks earlier on in this thread. Now I'm reminded of the contiguous 'fly's fart' (Tom Sharpe,''Wilt in Nowhere'', 2004 p.218] (]) 20:08, 13 October 2014 (UTC) | |||
| ==]== | |||
| Nishidani, I can understand you felt the need to post a comment, but please leave it at that, really. Don't put any more pennies in. ] | ] 12:13, 9 October 2014 (UTC). | |||
| :You're right as usual. It's just that this is, I think, the 5th editor to campaign against me this year to settle some observed score from the past, and it is becoming programmatic. I don't want immunity of course, but clarity, and in repeating decontextualized diffs from the past, all this is lost from view. Admins can't remember everything. Now back to my books, that's that. ] (]) 12:29, 9 October 2014 (UTC) | |||
| == Kids Behind Bars == | |||
| , ''Spiegel Online International.'' ] (]) 06:48, 11 October 2014 (UTC) | |||
| == AFD "no consensus" result, and how to deal with that other problem == | |||
| Hey, I've been out of the AFD game for a while -- is it common for AFDs with a pretty clear trend to '''delete''' after 7 days to wait for a few late-comers to !vote keep without actually reading the prior discussion? I'm halfway considering ] in this case, but I guess since no one other than Curtis and ''maybe'' Andrew actually objected to my assertion that virtually everything in the article needed to go one way or the other then no harm no foul. | |||
| But regarding that latter point -- I wasn't lying when I said the guy has interacted with me three times outside of my initial AFD on his Tomomitsu Taminato article (an equally dodgy "no consensus" close with a 2/3 majority in favour of deletion...), and on all three occasions he has showed up on a page he had never shown any interest in before or since and opposed my removal of blatant POV/OR. I don't wanna go to ANI and ask for an IBAN, since they tend to be two-way and ], and the problem with a TBAN is that the "topic" in question is ]... | |||
| ] (<small>]]</small>) 12:47, 14 October 2014 (UTC) | |||
| About the ] discussion -- it does seem to have been closed rather abruptly (even though I suppose it was going nowhere). I find it very difficult to understand why a bunch of people always come along, and just ignore fundamental problems with (non-)articles. Anyway, what you said about the "Coffee table Needham": of course you are right, I should have said "by Robert Temple, with a foreword by and no doube ''sourced'' from Joseph Needham". But this might be a demonstration of the same problem: what does Needham say about the Chinese and biochemistry? They discovered how to isolate things with medical effects from urine, but they knew nothing (obviously) of DNA, enzymes, and whatnot, and as far as I know were still stuck with fire, water, wood, metal, and earth to make stuff from. But to call this "anticipating modern biochemistry" seems to me to be just dishonest. ] (]) 15:04, 14 October 2014 (UTC) | |||
| == Plot Spoiler. Evidence == | |||
| * | |||
| :This edit summary is (a) accompanied by no comment on the talk page. | |||
| :(b) It is answered by the article itself, which uses blogs 14 times, most of them being pro-war Israeli sources, and including several references to the idf.blog, which, by the record, has less reliability than Richard Silverstein. | |||
| :(c) Challenging ] as not RS (to be demonstrated) for his own widely read opinions is silly but | |||
| :(d) the edit summary is a pretext, because Plot Spoiler reverted not only my reference to Silverstein, but also to ] (former Knesset member, writer and distinguished commentator) and ] (a highly notable Israeli journalist), the last of whom was writing for ], a mainstream Israeli newspaper. That Uri Avnery posted his comments on ] is neither here nor there. His views are quoted for what he thinks, not what Counterpunch proposes. | |||
| :As to the relevance, the page has made intensive efforts to showcase Israel's thesis, all over the world press, that there is something unusual in Hamas having weapons in schools, mosques, hospitals, kindergartens etc. We have given numerous sources stating this thesis. Per ] it is perfectly fair to present the opposite opinion, one indeed widely known in Israel, i.e., that the IDF rhetoric contradicts the history of the IDF, since in its early manifestations as the Palmach/Haganah, in a similar struggle for independence, it used all of these civilian facilities to hide its weaponry from the British. | |||
| :The edit therefore was more than legitimate. It is obligatory, and Plot Spoiler's revert is in line with his long history of reverting me, and many others, on pretextual grounds (WP:RS) which (as in his simultaneous elision of Haaretz) are belied by what he he actually does, which is rather explained by ].] (]) 19:15, 17 October 2014 (UTC) | |||
| (2) 2 November 2014. The object is R Silverstein's blog, 'not RS', whilst it is RS for Silverwstein's own opinion, which is cited as evidence of one of several similar views, and therefore perfectly acceptable in that context, to illustrate a viewpoint. ] (]) 15:01, 2 November 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :Plot Spoiler immediately rereverted (2nd revert) with this | |||
| :The time stamp is 15:09, 2 November 2014 | |||
| :The page referred to is ] | |||
| :The which was opened up earlier today 02:42, (12 and a half hours earlier) by ], and which four editors, Knightmare, WarKoSign, JDiala, and myself had offered a discussion. | |||
| :So, Plot Spoiler's 'it's not on the talk page right now' is counterfactual, i.e. flies in the face of the evidence he was directed to review. So much for 'tendentious nonsense'.] (]) 15:48, 2 November 2014 (UTC) | |||
| == Your rollback - 20:20, 19 October 2014 == | |||
| FYI: ] --] (]) 23:19, 19 October 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :A word on the meaning of English words. 'Rollback' means scaling back down to a prior situation. Therefore your use of the word distorts what I did: I rewrote a passage with outdated statistics, while you and another editor each warred over which version of dated or irrelevant statistics to use.] (]) 17:37, 20 October 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :: It's not about English. Pls re-read beginning of my topic: | |||
| <blockquote>@], please explain this your edit: | |||
| * diff : | |||
| Sorry, but I do not see any base for your "Don't edit war" charge. | |||
| My edit does follow on @] erasing the information from ] with such symptomatic description as , so I've asked him to add his info accurately ...</blockquote> | |||
| :: and paid attention to the diff's link pointed just to your "'Rollback'... scaling back down to a prior situation", i.e. back to {{u|Dr. R.R. Pickles}}' "Revision as of 07:20, 19 October 2014". :) --] (]) 20:35, 20 October 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :::The answer to your question is in my original response above, which I invite you to actually read.] (]) 20:58, 20 October 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :::: And "I invite you to actually read" the title too: "20:20, 19 October 2014" --] (]) 21:32, 20 October 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :::::No thank you! Мне кажется, я со стенкой разговариваю ] (]) 21:49, 20 October 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :::::: Взаимно. А жаль :(. --] (]) 21:57, 20 October 2014 (UTC) | |||
| == ] == | |||
| I highly recommend the on the socio-economic and political impact of the I-P conflict. The website contains a series of well-researched, well-supported pieces of investigative journalism, studying the issues in great depth and breadth. The articles focus mostly on the impact of the conflict on the lives of average people, including both Palestinians and Israelis. The articles also investigate closely related issues, e.g. how Israeli companies exploit the occupation for financial profit, corruption in the Israeli government, etc. | |||
| The most recent posting is titled | |||
| , 18 October 2014, Gaza. Translation of the sentence at the bottom of the page: According to , at least 1,473 civilians were killed by the IDF during operation "Strong Cliff," including 501 children and 257 women. More than 11 thousand people were injured. During the day of July 20, 2014, the IDF Shajai'yya 7,000 shells, including . 72 civilians were in Shaja'iyya. | |||
| Eidan Landau writes in Hebrew. You may want to use google translate (or bing translate etc). These free online translation services are not good but they are not entirely useless either, and they are constantly improving. And besides, Landau's articles often contain links to YouTube videos in English or in Hebrew with an English translation, or links to newspaper articles from around the world in English. | |||
| Best regards, ] (]) 23:26, 19 October 2014 (UTC) | |||
| ::Thanks. I found the artwork quite good. As to Shuja'iyya, the rule applies to everything else. Exercise patience until strong RS by independent minds emerge with the wisdom and superior accuracy of hindsight. These articles, written on breaking news, are all infantile. One would never guess reading them what everyone who studies these things knows: that rocket attacks had nothing to do with the decision to go to war. Both Hamas and Netanyahu found themselves with no other option if they were to ensure their political survival.] (]) 17:37, 20 October 2014 (UTC) | |||
| == Comparing Arab-Israeli matters to WWII == | |||
| The comparison between "undereported" events and "Vad yashem accounts of the Holocaust" is quite offensive and lacks basic sensitivity. The same goes for misrepresenting Israeli officials with fake/out-of-context quotes (Note: Weissglass says nothing about food) and soapboxing about , "military power out to be a lachrymose victim", et al. ] (]) 02:06, 22 October 2014 (UTC) | |||
| *]:'The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger,' Source:Conrad Urquhart, ] 15 Apr 2006 (the remark was made in February 2006) | |||
| ** I don't even know what this talk section is about, having not looked, but I saw this quote and remembered . ]<sup><small>]</small></sup> 08:30, 23 October 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :::Ah, wikileaks and US cdablegrams corroborating Weissglass's policy. Nothing new, of course, but these basic materials without newspaper spin, clarify the point. Thanks Zero.] (]) 10:27, 23 October 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :::<blockquote>Israeli officials have confirmed to Embassy officials on multiple occasions that they intend to keep the Gazan economy functioning at the lowest level possible consistent with avoiding a humanitarian crisis.</blockquote> | |||
| :::<blockquote>As part of their overall embargo plan against Gaza, Israeli officials have confirmed to econoffs on multiple occasions that they intend to keep the Gazan economy on the brink of collapse without quite pushing it over the edge </blockquote> | |||
| *Genocide/Holocaust analogy was made by ].'"The more Qassam fire intensifies and the rockets reach a longer range, they will bring upon themselves a bigger ] because we will use all our might to defend ourselves," .' ] 29 February 2008. | |||
| *'lachrymose,' was an allusion to a famous complaint by ]:'“it is time to break with the lachrymose theory of pre-Revolutionary woe, and to adopt a view more in accord with historic truth”,' given a neat exposition by David Engel in his Stanford University Press, 2010 p.56. | |||
| *]'s foundation stone was set just after the massacre of ] and rises close to that village (1,400 metres away if I remember correctly) whose destruction precipitated the ], and on which, somewhat ironically, the ] stands. A curator of the museum who happened to mention this fact was sacked. Do you think I should be deplored for remembering what I read? Cf. Jeffrey C. Alexander, Wiley 2012 p.120. | |||
| In short, editors in this area should familiarize themselves with the topic (any brief allusion to the real history of this area is habitually dismissed as 'soapboxing' ). Lack of knowledge of both history and who said what means that the obvious seems surprising, if not a travesty of the (lack of) knowledge one might possess. So kindly drop it. I'm busy. ] (]) 10:48, 22 October 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :{{re|Nishidani}} | |||
| :* The Hebrew meaning of 'shoah' (not 'The Shoah') is disaster, not 'genocide' -- so you can retract that word and future use of Matan Vilnai (or Ovadyah Yosef, for that matter). | |||
| :* Itamar Shapira, a self-described "ex-Jew" which you mistakenly call "A curator" (he was a tour guide) was indeed fired. Isn't that a big enough clue? | |||
| :I don't know why you think it pertinent to mention him and the Deir Yassin massacre. Do you believe soapboxing justifies earlier soapboxing? Your comments are long and philosophical. Quotes by "anti-Zionist rabbis" and "ex-Jews" that take things out of context and have little historical accuracy. Promoting political or ideological struggle, e.g. "Just as the Nazi final assault", is ]. ] (]) 12:41, 22 October 2014 (UTC) | |||
| ::Don't try to pull the wool over my eyes. The article on ] reads>: | |||
| ::<blockquote>The biblical word shoah (שואה; also transliterated sho'ah and shoa), meaning "calamity", became '''the standard Hebrew term for the Holocaust as early as the 1940s''', especially in Europe and Israel. Shoah is preferred by some Jews for several reasons, including the theologically offensive nature of the word "holocaust", '</blockquote> | |||
| :: | |||
| ::That Vilnai backtracked and tried to cover up what everyone who heard him understood by the term with the limp excuse that when he personally uses the word 'shoah' he doesn't think of '''the meaning attached to it in Hebrew and by all Jews, and Westerners,''' but meant it to refer to a 'disaster'. It's like saying that when you use the word 'apple' no thoughht of the fruit crosses your mind, but only an image of New York or Microsoft's competitor. Sure, yeah. Yawn. | |||
| ::Look at the context. You want to remove a source that details a series of Israeli massacres from oral memories of the survivors. | |||
| ::Itamar Shapira exercised his right to remark on a feature in the landscape: -as you recall the holocaust, recall that next door there existed a village where over 100 Palestinians were murdered-. He would make an excellent wikipedian editor, but recalling both versions of a country's history, Jewish and Palestinian, is evidently good enough warrant over there for getting fired. You don't understand that. People raised on free speech, democratic principles do. | |||
| ::The tendency of editors to find excuses for any remark or fact deleterious to one side's image, while editing vigorously to showcase everything negative about the other side, is why this area of wikipedia is worked in continual violation of the obligation to assure neutrality, whatever one's private opinions.] (]) 13:40, 22 October 2014 (UTC) | |||
| ::: The article on ] says rightly that the word "Shoa" translation is "calamity". Usually, people refer to the Holocaust the use the term "Hashoa" ( The Holaucaust) or "Shoat yehudei Romania" (Romanian Jews Holocaust), so it seems that MarciulionisHOF is right. ] (]) 14:13, 22 October 2014 (UTC) | |||
| ::::Not to comment on the substance of your discussion here, I would point out that it is doubtful that Vilnai was referring to the Holocaust in his use of the word "Shoa". In modern Hebrew, the word "Hashoa" (with the definite article) universally refers to the Holocaust; but without the definite article, it is often used as a general term for catastrophe. See, for example, by Yair Lapid: | |||
| ::::"מה שקורה בארץ עכשיו לא פחות משואה אנשים נאלצים לעבוד בשלוש עבודות רק כדי לשלם שכירות" | |||
| ::::(translation: What is happening in Israel now is no less than a ''shoa''' - people have to work three jobs just to pay rent.) | |||
| ::::--] (]) 14:40, 22 October 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :::::Thanks Rav. I'm aware of the distinction between'shoa/hashoa, which Ykantor points up. The problem is, um, hermeneutic. I was taught to read, and write, with attention to the resonance of words. Freudian 'lapses' didn't begin with psychoanalysis. All of classical and Talmudic exegesis accepts as an interpretative truism that the full range of meanings given a word is relevant to the interpretation of the content. Consider the verbal and cultural context I wrote out below (in response to the premise that somehow these numerous reports of wild statements by senior figures in Israel are, one by one, just 'misunderstandings'). | |||
| :::Many sources say you are both wrong. 'shoah'/'ha-shoah' is an equivocation.Both and Haaretz are Israeli newspapers that took his comment, as did many other Jewish sources, as utterly distasteful because it evoked the Holocaust. Language works that way. When the town council of ] posted a sign outside the cityduring the recent gaza War telling its local boys serving in the IDF: | |||
| :::*Residents of Or Yehuda are with you! | |||
| :::*Pound (''kansu'') their Mom so you can return safely to yours. | |||
| :::The word 'pound' means 'fuck/bang' in hebrew slang, and can't avoid that connotation, even if the jerk who thought it up comes back and justifies the phrasing by arguing that 'bang' means (just as bad) 'bomb the shit out of them'. When Professor ] of ] said that or, yesterday, his colleague emeritus professor ] called for the annihilation of the Palestinians, saying it is inevitable and won't constitute 'genocide' since that applies to a people, which the Palestinians are not, you don't as an editor equivocate, or run to the defense of whoever said what, as if it were impossible, uniquely for some eminent israelis, among them rabbis ], ] and , to consider the murder of innocents or genocide itself as an option. If ] calls for the extermination not only of Hamas but anyone who supports it, and bundling the rest of Gazans into camps where they will await relocation abroad, with a subsidy so Israel can build a nice commercial tourist industry for itself in Gaza(] ), or if Yochanan Gordon , and ], a Knesset member groomed as potential prime ministerial material on the eve of the murder of Abu Khdeir, and before the war broke out wrote , then it is unwise to pretend, on every occasion that there is a (foreign) misunderstanding, that genocide wasn't invoked, or murder of innocents justified. | |||
| ::Update: 'In the post, written Friday and titled “Dealing with Savages,” Rabbi Steven Pruzansky of Congregation Bnai Yeshurun in Teaneck offers suggestions that range from destroying whole Palestinian towns to uprooting the Dome of the Rock.“There is a war for the land of Israel that is being waged, and the Arabs who dwell in the land of Israel are the enemy in that war and must be vanquished,” Pruzansky writes. . .Pruzansky refers to “the Arab-Muslim animals that span the globe chopping, hacking and merrily decapitating,” and then writes, “At a certain point, the unrestrained behavior of unruly animals becomes the fault of the zookeeper, not the animals.”' Ben Sales, ] 24 November 2014. | |||
| :::The point Ykantor is that as editors, we are obliged to find the facts, and report them, whatever the consequences, and it is disappointing to observe the large influx of editors now who seem to edit defensively or aggressively to promote an official agenda that appears to read: 'we are incapable of evil, malice, wrongdoing. These are properties associated with the other side.' No one is exempt from evil, and even the devil has, by late report, some good features. ] (]) 15:39, 22 October 2014 (UTC) | |||
| ===Wider review=== | |||
| {{U|Nishidani}} I'm having trouble getting past these repeated 'genocide' assertions, as well as the matter of allusions between Arab-Israeli matters and WWII. I am posting for wider review on ]. ] (]) 20:29, 22 October 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :They are not 'generic assertions'. They are links to documents in the public domain. I am not to blame if so many people consistently make these remarks. | |||
| :Could I counsel you, in your own interests to withdraw that? You came to my page, with a sense of offense over our disagreement at ]. The implicit request above was that I clarify what I meant in remarks you took to be injurious. I did so by documenting the kinds of sources that lay in my mind as I wrote those remarks. This was necessary because your misprision appears to come from a lack of familiarity with the facts. You silenbtly passed over my corrections, and challenged a thing or two. I went to the trouble to illustrate in depth the issue as I saw it, which is an editorial problem: namely, learning, whatever one's POV, to know the subject sufficiently thoroughly that you are not discountenanced by anything that might, in an edit, show the unseemly side of an issue. We are under an obligation to see all sides of these realities, not to muckrake for one side, and defend to the last comma the bona fides of the other. Please note that almost nothing of what I know of these things has influenced my editing. I read a lot of trash like the above, but do not rush to cram wiki pages with damning evidence. Unfortunately this is not the case with many new editors. | |||
| :You now use this to report me for a sanction. Now, jumping at that to report what was a time-consuming act of courtesy to clear up something that appearted to bother you as if I had said something indictable, looks as though from the outset you were on a 'fishing expedition.' I'm willing to believe that this contretemps is just typical of a certain newbie naivity, and not gamesmanship. Others may think otherwise, but perhaps you should familiarize yourself with ] and calculate whether your interests are served by making such a complaint.] (]) 21:50, 22 October 2014 (UTC) | |||
| === The same comparison === | |||
| in description of : | |||
| * "In all wars, children have fought. They did so in the Warsaw ghetto" | |||
| I am not sure that Misplaced Pages is the right place for such comparisons. --] (]) 22:21, 22 October 2014 (UTC) | |||
| ::I must admit (as I said in Russian to you the other day) that I am completely perplexed by recent trends here. In several pages, a notable number of editors have swept in, all intent on making an IDF talking point stick: Hamas uses children as human shields (translation= we aren't to blame for the 557 killed in bombing runs), Hamas uses children in war translation= we aren't to blame for the 557 killed in bombing runs), Hamas uses civilian structures, mosques, schools, and charities to store weapons (translation= we aren't to blame for the destruction of several hundred social centres, mosques and schools). Well, obviously the pages must register these claims, for that is what RS report. When I simply edited in several sources, from Israeli and Jewish commentators, which compare this talking point with the fact that in 1947-1948 Jews in their fight for independence used schools, synagogues and kindergartens and all sorts of civilian institutions to stash weapons, and therefore that this claim (true or untrue) about Hamas is also a fact about Israel's foundational history, shocking if Hamas does it, glorious if Israel did it, the edit is immediately reverted, and several editors complain that '''I''' (not ], ], ] et al.,) am making offensive analogies!? The analogy, sir, is in the sources. | |||
| ::Today WarKoSign wanted to fuss the casualty page with a dubious source suggesting Hamas used children in several instances. I personally don't find that claim absurd: it's quite possible youths in Gaza have helped their fathers, brothers, relatives in fighting. After all, this, as I documented in detail (]) is what happened in Europe in 1939-1945, and Jewish youths in Poland such as among the ] and in many other places valiently fought against those who plotted their extermination. My objection was to the poor source, and to ]. The lead there is minimal, and plunking the 'Hamas are contemptuous of children's lives' meme on every page, when it is amply covered on the main articles, suggests to me POV-extremism gone amuck. ] (]) 22:49, 22 October 2014 (UTC) | |||
| ::: I am afraid that there is something wrong in your understanding of current Arab-Israeli reality when you trying to apply today the WW2 framework to this new, not black & white, reality. May be the reason is that same Avnery, whom you call the ] (:), that same Levi, and others such your sources are not the most respected men in Israel. Their point of view here, if not marginal, but isn't shared by more than few percents of society. | |||
| ::: Did you try to read some other authors? --] (]) 00:08, 23 October 2014 (UTC) | |||
| ::::Science, culture, philosophy, art, everything that makes us civilized, comes from the 'few percents of society' (the same is true of everything that makes us barbarous). The premise in your remark is that an idea is sound if a majority underwrites it.57% of American believe in the existence of Satan; 77% believe aliens have visited earth; 46% believe God created man on the 23 October 4004 BC. The only corrective to the general impression one gets from mainstream newspapers that mankind is insane is to read ] sedulousy from cover to cover each week.] (]) 10:30, 23 October 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :::Nishidani, observing this farcical interaction reminded me of this quote from ]:<blockquote>Perhaps most important of all, real education is not always an enjoyable experience. Genuine education is emancipatory and revolutionary, which may be a reason why conservatives distrust it. The good educator challenges the student's world-view and this cannot always be a comfortable experience. You know you are teaching successfully when you see a furrow begin to appear on the youthful skin of your students’ foreheads. This connotes the performance of ‘thinking’, an activity that has been increasingly rare in universities since the advent of the market. (, '']'', March 2011.) </blockquote> You seem to be doing a good job of producing "furrows" (metaphorical or real) on your interlocutors' brows! And, as MSC points out, the increasing corporate control of university education might (partly) explain why it seems that so few people nowadays are intellectually equipped to see through the framing of issues presented in mainstream sources. --] (]) 06:55, 23 October 2014 (UTC) | |||
| ::::Perhaps I should just ignore these requests on my talkpage. The human mind is wired so that synaptic maps are formed by associational leaps. Analogy is the natural mode for reducing randomness in the infinite, potentially chaotic linkage of ideas or impressions. It is also the affective template for the roots of ethics in a sense of empathy for the other. Ideology is a system for creating mental buffers or circuit-breaks that hamper the formation of analogies: it is a system for cementing in-group identity by erasing analogy's tendency to cross taxonomic borders, as per the ritual exclamation one was taught to recite inwardly as a child on witnessing calamity befall a stranger:'There, but for the grace, of God, go I.' In ideologically-suffused worlds, this reflex is not only deprecated, it is engineered discursively so that it does not even arise as a possibility. A Roman in Gaul or among the Picts, Cortez in Tenochtitlan were perhaps just illustrating 'nature, red in tooth and claw'. Modernity provides elaborate doctrinal justifications that serve a Han immigrant in Lhasa,a Zionist settler in Hebron, a pioneer rancher on Apache land, a Boer in Transvaal, a Brazilian logger in Amazonia, the squattocracy of Queensland, . . Well, I hope that this can close an unfortunate interlude. I don't have much time these days to edit, let alone explain them to people who are not interested in listening. Cheers ] (]) 10:27, 23 October 2014 (UTC) | |||
| Historically children often participated in conflict, and often died as a result. If the article reports deaths of underage militants as something out of the ordinary, then their participation in the fighting must also be represented as something out of the ordinary. If there is nothing unusual in their involvement in fighting, then the number of children dying (513) is notable only for being relatively low - 23% of the causalities vs 44% of general Gaza population.]]] 11:06, 23 October 2014 (UTC) | |||
| ::::I think you miss the point. The fact that some children may have participated in the conflict is, contrary to the way all Israelocentric sources frame it, not anomalous. In Germany WW2, 20% of the civilians who died were '''children''', in Gaza 23% of the casualties were children.20% reminds me of the percentage of German youth fighting in the ], 200 I think out of 1,200, made famous but not featuring in the famous ] film, all will recall for Robert Redford's panic-sedative 'Hail Marys' as he paddled under fire to the other bank. | |||
| ::::This doesn't mean that in the case of Gaza, a high percentage of those children died in combat. The numerous and graphically recalled accounts of families of 10-27 bombed to smithereens is evidence to the contrary. in trying to lard articles with ill-sourced trivia (using a fringe private think tank's agenda-driven propaganda claim that several children of 513 killed were killed while in proximity to, or abetting combatants) suggesting a nexus between the high number of children killed, and juvenile militancy, is agenda driven, and indifferent to what is required of wikipedians. Please don't write any more on this topic on this page. Do want you are minded to do on these articles, but personally I find all of this cool discussion of how many of half a thousand children killed in 51 one days deserved what they got appalling. ] (]) 12:35, 23 October 2014 (UTC) | |||
| I suppose the difference between "ill-sourced trivia" and "" is whether the statement promotes your agenda or hinders it. Nobody belittles the number of children - but the nature and reason of their deaths have to be attributed properly. Some of the reported children participated in fighting, some of them were in fact adult militants, some were killed by Hamas's own rockets, some were "urged" to stay at homes, and some were killed by the IDF. Not stating these facts in the article misleads the reader into thinking that IDF killed more than it in fact did. I'm sure that after all the validations are complete there will still remain enough children killed by IDF to satisfy any Israel hater. ]]] 13:18, 23 October 2014 (UTC) | |||
| ::Your editing strikes me as a mimeograph of official IDF or government window-dressing, and utterly predictable, as are your comments. I'm familiar with them because I read press briefings. So it is quite pointless trying to converse rationally here, esp. since any disagreement is implicitly (here explicitly) understood to be symptomatic of 'Israel-haters', of whom, in this 'logic' the President of Israel itself is one, judging from the fact that he said recently . People who think in these terms don't think: they represents official talking-points 'to win the minds and hearts' of the 'majority'. So, do me a courtesy and stay off this page.] (]) 13:29, 23 October 2014 (UTC) | |||
| Sorry I wasted both of our times. As my usual experience with you, I did not get a response to the essence but a flood of obscure references to unimportant points. You repeatedly accused editors of serving hasbara, yet you follow almost point-for-point. I will try to suppress my urge to open this page in the future, even if I see other editors making comments here. ]]] 14:28, 23 October 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :Bathetic ], because amnesial. When Hamas defines itself as I have done, calling it 'stupid, terroristic, murderous, and intoxicated by an instrumental indulgence of suffering,' still on this page, you may come back and say that I 'follow Hamas's manuel almost point-by-point,' only in the sense that they would be admitting to copying my remark for some future reference text. | |||
| ::<blockquote>], led often by sicarii. Their cause was legitimate, even noble, '''their tactics stupid.''' Perhaps the same can be said of Hamas: '''they found themselves adopting at one point Israel's model for statehood (assassination, terrorism, massacres and suffering''' as a horrendous spectre (holocaust) that will appeal to the world's conscience etc.,) as their own, because PLO politics proved only productive of Quislings.''']</blockquote> | |||
| :Israel and Hamas are just mirrors of each other. There is one difference I admire in the latter, a prejudice I admit to. Courage, fearlessness, something a strategist would not identify as . One Parthian shot for another is the proper way to end this. This is not a forum for such opinions, but a place to work out how to edit. So that's it.] (]) 15:05, 23 October 2014 (UTC) | |||
| If I may add an opinion here, I really don't understand the obsession some have with this conflict. Supporters and haters of any side both need to relax. To put things in perspective: ] than Israelis and Palestinians, combined, were ever killed by each other. Ever. Simply absurd, and that's just one example. There are way more urgent things and conflicts happening in the world than the Israeli-Arab one. ] (]) 12:35, 24 October 2014 (UTC) | |||
| ::This is a ]. 'the obsession some have' was identified as by ], who is no longer persona grata in Washington after remarking that Kerry was '“inexplicably obsessive” and “messianic” in his efforts to coax Israelis and Palestinians into a peace agreement'. If the Secretary of State of a country that is Israel's strongest ally is regarded with contempt for desiring a peaceful settlement of the I/P conflict, the reverberations of this will be picked up by editors, who duly refer the quite normal 'obsession' with achieving peace to the relevant articles. ] (]) 12:34, 25 October 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :Yuvn86, I answered your question on my user page. ] (]) 21:37, 24 October 2014 (UTC) | |||
| == WP articles on ]/ Indispensability == | |||
| Nishidani, which books or scholarly articles do you recommend on the ancient roots of today's delusional belief among almost all countries in the globe that they, and their people, are ] or ]? | |||
| Did you by any chance read '']'' by Michael Parenti? I recommend it. | |||
| Additionally, you may want to take a look at a somewhat interesting by ] on some of the ancient roots (going back to ancient Greece) of the modern Israeli, Palestinian, American, Chinese, Japanese, UK, Australian, Russian, French, German, Spanish, Indian, Brazilian, Nigerian, South African, Chilean, Columbian, Arabian (as well as many more countries') elites pushing their citizenry into the ] of falsely believing in their own exceptionalism/ indispensability/ grandiosity. | |||
| ] (]) 03:23, 27 October 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :It depends on how technical one wants to get or how far oine has leisure to read around. There's a good if sometimes abstruse book by ] called the ''State of Exception,'' on the historical roots and philosophical ramifications, which given your mention of Parenti's book, comes to mind because of its excellent examination of ''homo sacer''. But the literature is vast, and much of it psychoanalytic, which is out of vogue, though Freud's remarks on ], or 'narcissism of minor differences' is a fundamental insight. Generally the works of ] are in my view, indispensable for understanding historical trends of paranoia, esp. ], ], and ''Cosmos, Chaos and the World to Come: The Ancient Roots of Apocalyptic Faith''. Of course, they are more concerned with paranoid trends in history from messianism to antisemitism, rather than 'exceptionalism', which is in every sense of group identity, as we see from the common endonym of many tribes whose languages frequently define themselves by a word denoting 'people', implying 10,000 out-groups aren't quite people. But more specifically, engineering a notion of 'exceptionalism' is characteristic of all drives towards national statehood. The paradox of this kind of exceptionalism was well put by ] in his ''Nations and Nationalism'': to form a distinct national identity, nation-builders had to mould or rig the micro-world views of numerous regional peasant communities to conform to a fictive sense of belonging to a larger state. You dissolved many 'exceptionalist' internal differences in order to assert an homogenized difference from the rest of the world. Modernization meant cancelling internal differences and exchanging them for a larger difference, that constructed by the new state to differentiate it as distinct from all neighbouring countries. Since democracy is premised on respect for internal differences, there is a natural tension between democracy and nationalism. Nationalism is powerful because it allows maximum expression in a group assertion of being exceptional for individual communities and persons who, sucked into the homogenizing world of industrialism, must sacrifice their personal sense of being individuals qua individuals. It's a safety valve for the loss of a real sense of intimate difference as we are drilled to conform to a broad model of seamless social group-identity. The paradox here is that the United States has a powerful political sense of its version of the fiction, in the idea it has an historic mission as an exceptionalist state, and yet is a democracy. Even in international law, it underwrites general principles and then adds clauses saying it alone is exempt from them (as Noam Chomsky ). It has deep roots, that you can get an idea of by reading any number of works, Jack P. Greene's ''The Intellectual Construction of America,'' University of North Carolina Press, 1993, or Byron E Shafer (ed.) ''Is America Different! A New Look at American Exceptionalism,'' Clarendon Press 1991 etc. | |||
| :As for the engineering of delusional states of mind, and passing them off as normal, that is inherent in all modernization, and Walter Lippman's ] is a classic and germinal analysis of the problem. | |||
| :I haven't read Parenti's book. I haven't read for that matter most books I should read. I'll keep an eye out for it.] (]) 12:35, 27 October 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :: Thanks for the detailed information. | |||
| :: Talking about Michael Parenti, here is by him. Reminding us that in all human clashes over the last several thousand years, including but not limited to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, power elites on all sides of the conflict send low-income and poor people to kill other low-income and poor people and to be killed by them, while the wealthy elites and high-ranking military officers on all sides smile all the way to the bank. | |||
| :: Regards, ] (]) 14:14, 28 October 2014 (UTC) | |||
| ::: . ] (]) 18:18, 1 November 2014 (UTC) | |||
| ::::Thanks. A useful summary, perhaps worth inclusion in the article. I don't think that blaming the jihadi elements like Col. Winter gets one anywhere. The IDF's policies haven't changed because of the rise of religious fanatics in the IDF ranks: their presence just makes explaining the usual policies, and criticism of Islamic jihadis, more difficult.] (]) 18:57, 1 November 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :::::Thanks for demonstrating your extreme anti-Semitism and complete disregard for ] by calling an honorable Jewish soldier a "religious fanatic." <span style="font-size: smaller;" class="autosigned">— Preceding ] comment added by ] (]) 06:42, 2 November 2014 (UTC)</span><!-- Template:Unsigned IP --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot--> | |||
| ::::::Jehovah akhbar! ] (]) 09:48, 2 November 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::Perhaps a direct link to ''Times of Israel'' article might be useful. <span style="font-family: Perpetua, serif; font-size:120%"> ← ] </span> 13:43, 2 November 2014 (UTC) (By the way, did you read about Netanyahu's gross, abominable, sickening, insulting etc. between rocket attacks on Israel and Nazi aerial assaults on the UK during WWII? ;) ) | |||
| ::::::::Yes I did. Perhaps he got that hyperbole from his father, an excellent historian on medieval matters, but a wild-eyed apocalyptic fantasist with regard to contemporary history.] (]) 20:05, 17 November 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::::From an interview Prof. Netanyahu did with ''Maariv'': . <span style="font-family: Perpetua, serif; font-size:120%"> ← ] </span> 02:10, 20 November 2014 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::Apologies for being pedantic, but there's an embarassing typo there, which means you wrote something very different from what you meant (think of the elative from the root K-B-R). Regards, ] (]) 22:51, 23 November 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::Whozzat? I love pedantry, but where's the typo, and in whose remark?] (]) 23:12, 23 November 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::See ] and ] and, err, a few lines up. --] (]) 23:21, 23 November 2014 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::Ah, I see. My cousins used to say that I was a great punner, only the point each time required a footnote or tedious paraphrase before you understood it (the irish joke about micturating, a malapropism for the intended 'matriculating', had to be glossed, and it was that which elicited my elder cousin's riposte). | |||
| ::::::::In writing:'Jehovah akhbar!' I added the 'h' to make such a pun, 'Jehovah' (a misreading of YHWH) and 'akhbar' a distortion of '(Allahu ''akbar''). The point was to liken distortions of holy writ for fanatical ends to slips in orthography, by twisting the terms, and driving home that our own evangelical fanaticism (Jehovah) made God out to be a 'mouse'(]). And I suppressed the pedantic temptation to add notes to the fact that in Mycenaean Greek there is a form 'si-mi-te-u' that is linked probably to an inscription at Chryse in the Troad attesting to a cult of Apollo Smintheus (Apollo the Vole). The god of the Trojans was a field-mouse (σμίνθος: as opposed to your average domestic mouse,μῦς), just like the akhbar in 'Jehovah akhbar'. I can't help making private puns, but it relieves the boredom of working here, at least makes me smile, and if flagged would only give the impression of a braggart display of pseudo-erudition. Cheers, pal. ] (]) 11:21, 24 November 2014 (UTC) | |||
| . ] (]) 08:06, 17 November 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :Coincidence. I read a long article on that extraordinary man, Dalton Trumbo, some weeks ago.] (]) 20:05, 17 November 2014 (UTC) | |||
| ::. The chaplain was forced to resign over a brief letter to the New York Times in which he explained that actions such as the recent Israeli war on the people of Gaza were breeding anti-Semitism in Europe and elsewhere. ] (]) 20:29, 19 November 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :::Noted that the day it occurred. He's the last on a list I have of, at last count, 36 prominent academics kicked out of academia or harassed or denied tenure for trying to make a reasonable case for Palestinian rights over the last few years. We have no wiki article on the phenomenon, despite the fact that it is a chronic problem.] (]) 20:33, 19 November 2014 (UTC) | |||
| ::::How is this a problem? Anti-Semites who demonize and tell lies about Jews and Israel should not be brainwashing students. Western universities are infested with anti-Semitism, as can be witnessed with the growing influenced of the racist hate group "Students for Justice in Palestine" in demonizing and slandering Israel on American universities. (unsigned comment left by 190.94.210.123) | |||
| ZScarpia, care to explain your deliberate mischaracterization of Netanyahu's accurate comparison of the Hamas rocket attack on Israel to Nazi Germany's attacks on Britain? The Gazans are very similar to the Nazis and even have the same ideology of wanting to genocide all Jews. | |||
| How come you people never post links that cast Arabs or Muslim in a bad light? You always post anti-Israel crap. Here are some things to enlighten you: | |||
| * | |||
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| * | |||
| (unsigned comment left by 190.94.210.123) | |||
| ::Is that an 'answer' to ? This is the 'Yes,-but-they-are-even-worse' gambit in the dishwater polemical vein of public discourse on ethics and law. In Italy and Greece, many average people avoid taxes and scream when their services don't function, and their excuse is, 'But '''they''' (politicians and bigwigs) steal millions.' So your gambit is proof only of an an-ethical crowd attitude, based on focusing on the sins of others in order to turn the conversation away from one's own faults, shortcomings. It works of course, because, as the poet said ''Humankind cannot bear very much reality.'' And as another poet wrote: | |||
| ::''I and the public know'' | |||
| ::''What all schoolchildren learn,'' | |||
| ::''Those to whom evil is done'' | |||
| ::''Do evil in return.'' | |||
| Pawlikowski adds also that, at an NPAJAC{{efn|National Polish-American Jewish American Council}} conference in 2004, the Catholic theologian and historian Ronald Modras gave a presentation defending the use of the word Holocaust for Polish victims of Nazi racist policies. Paulikowski, himself a priest, then glosses this with his personal view:- | |||
| ::One was also told as a child that it is pointless talking back to garrulous airheads with a lopsided sense of outrage, esp. if that outrage is envenomed by a unilateral sense of righteousness and victimization. In any case, you will be reverted if you offload the usual junk of blinkered pathos on this page. So don't waste your time, or mine, further. Thank you.] (]) 12:08, 20 November 2014 (UTC) | |||
| <blockquote>For myself, I do accept the possibility of using 'Holocaust' as an overarching term for the entirety of victimization under the Nazis, '''but only if the proper distinction mentioned above is clearly maintained'''.’{{harv|Pawkowski|2022|p=426}}</blockquote> | |||
| When on 17 June 2019 the Democrat Representative ], called the ], “concentration camps” and added “Never Again,” her choice of words was challenged by the Republican ], who accused Ocasio-Cortez of deploying a ludicrous, demeaning analogy with the Holocaust and thereby setting up a false analogy, Both ] and ] {{efn|This is not only an egregiously crass expropriation of natural idiom, but extremely provincial in its ]. ], a Methodist minister who survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima perhaps contributed to the wording ''mō nido to''+negative verb) (never again) which is customary in Japanese commemorations of the bombings of both Nagasaki and Hiroshima. He used it as early as 1950 (もう二度とあんなようなことが起らぬように祈る。 I pray that something like that never happens again). {{sfn|Tanimoto|1950|p=53}}}} preexisted Nazism, though both are commonly associated with it. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum stepped in to the dispute by stating that it, “unequivocally rejects efforts to create analogies between the Holocaust and other events, whether historical or contemporary,” {{sfn|PBS|2019}} an assertion of the dogmatic position that the Holocaust, understood as referring to Jews, was unique. The declaration provoked an open letter of protest addressed to the director of the Museum, ], and published in The New York Review. The letter was undersigned by 560 academics, many of whom are Holocaust scholars, have supported the Museum, some in the capacity of fellows, and researchers given access to its archives. {{sfn|Bartov|Bergen|Orzoff|Snyder|Walke|2019}} They remonstrated that | |||
| ''ZScarpia, care to explain your deliberate mischaracterization of Netanyahu's accurate comparison of the Hamas rocket attack on Israel to Nazi Germany's attacks on Britain?'' The theme of my postscript was hypocrisy and double standards. A bit of context: recently, a complaint was made about Nishidani's use of the Warsaw Ghetto as an example, the complaint being based on the (bogus) grounds that the ADL has stated that comparisons between the regime in Israel and that in Nazi Germany are anti-Semitic. Now, if supporters of Israel find such comparisons objectionable, shouldn't supporters of Israel avoid making those comparisons about others? If making comparisons between the two regimes is anti-Semitic, then what adjective should be used when supporters of Israel make similar comparisons about others. A case in point, which is why I highlighted it to Nishidani, is Netanyahu's comparison between Hamas rocket attacks on Israel and German ones on Britain during the Second World War . The justification comment you left above serves as another case in point: ''The Gazans are very similar to the Nazis and even have the same ideology of wanting to genocide all Jews.'' As far as accuracy goes, you might like to read the linked-to ''Telegraph'' articles and also look at the Misplaced Pages ones on and rockets. If Netanyahu's speech writer had read the latter, perhaps he or she might not have made the historically erroneous claim that, "There's only been one other instance where a democracy has been rocketed and pelleted with these projectiles of death, and that's Britain during World War Two." Since the total Israeli death toll due to rocket attack is three people, if Hamas is really trying to "genocide all Jews", obviously their current rocket strategy isn't the way they're going to achieve it. <span style="font-family: Perpetua, serif; font-size:120%"> ← ] </span> 23:33, 23 November 2014 (UTC) | |||
| <blockquote>'By “unequivocally rejecting efforts to create analogies between the Holocaust and other events, whether historical or contemporary,” the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is taking a ''radical position that is far removed from mainstream scholarship on the Holocaust and genocide.'' And it makes learning from the past almost impossible.' </blockquote> | |||
| This narrowing of Holocaust to evoke a specific ethnicized denotation, related to Jewish victims of Nazi ] and racial extermination alone, and its successful promotion in this restrictive sense, had an unforeseen collateral effect. One now remarks on how envy and admiration for the publicitarian efficacy in political discourse of the term generated its imitative adoption as a catch-all term among aggrieved constituencies in the rising vogue of ].{{sfn|MacDonald|2008|pp=1-8,passim}}{{efn|'As the Holocaust came to figure ever larger in the American scene, to be invoked in various contexts, the problem repeatedly arose of distinguishing between the (legitimate) "use" and (illegitimate) "abuse" of the Holocaust and its imagery. Finally, what did non-Jews make of all this talk of the Holocaust?.'{{harv|Novick|1999|p=209}}}} Yet, as the headquote from A. Dirk Moses above suggests, it was precisely the wresting of the term holocaust away from its generic usage and its exclusivist application only to the Jewish WW2 tragedy that constituted the first step in the ethnicization of holocaust discourse, and its modern deployment in identitarian discourse and its correlated politics of grievance. | |||
| ] says that . ] (]) 21:16, 15 December 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :That parallels exist is clear. But Israel was not founded on internecine sanguinary sectarian murder between tribes, there was no reformist vs orthodox bloodbath: it succeeded because the Ashkenazi elite understood the technology of modernity, and had no real link to religion, unlike the maniacs who direct ISIS. Secondly, it is too early to speak of a state or a 'shell state'. Thirdly, the technocratic angle is trumped by ideology (just as Nazis destroyed for ideological reasons an advanced industrially able workforce in the Jewish populations of Europe, damaging their war from the inside). Hezbollah (and its imitator Hamas) does not wage war against the Lebanese Sunnis or the Maronites, Hezbollah provides services, and modernizes its Shiite tradition to make it compatible with a viable Islamic state. It does not behead its enemies, but if captured, keeps them in detention (apart from several early recourses to pure terror, mostly mirroring what it perceived its adversary did in targeted assassinations and indiscriminate bombings). Fourthly, Israel succeeded because it had a superpower patron: ISIS is patronized by backward obtuse monarchical regimes, with no industrial basis or growing service class of note: oil revenues buy off the population. Etc. So I am unimpressed (=disgusted), and don't think the analogy dignifies ISIS or demeans Israel, which drove out, as ISIS did, massive numbers of people, but did not, as ISIS does, murder, decapitate, or liquidate those who managed to remain (Christians, Yazidis, Shiites etc.) Israel was under a leash that imposed limits on what could be done before the world's eyes. ISIS has no such rein on what it might do. ] (]) 10:53, 16 December 2014 (UTC) | |||
| The paradigm of holocaust uniqueness has undergone significant stress fractures in the wake of the unfolding ] throughout the ] precipitated by the events of 7 October 2023.{{sfn|Klein|2025|pp=1-21}} | |||
| ::. "In Jeru$alem, Lind$ey Graham says $enate will vote on Iran sanctions bill in January." | |||
| :: "Graham also discussed the possibility of cutting off U.$. funding for the United Nations if the Security Council passes a pending Palestinian state resolution. “Any effort by the French, the Jordanians or anyone to avoid direct negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians over the peace process, anyone who tries to take this to the UN Security Council, there will be a violent backlash by the Congre$$ that could include suspending funding to the United Nations,” Graham said. “We will not sit back and allow the United Nations to take over the peace process.” " | |||
| ::] (]) 22:20, 31 December 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :::Which Misplaced Pages article is the following source best suited for? Please advise. | |||
| :::, ''].'' By ] and ]. | |||
| :::Thanks, ] (]) 22:27, 4 January 2015 (UTC) | |||
| ===Pt.6. Calling in outside institutions,and the need for scholarly caution in these areas === | |||
| == Clarification motion == | |||
| <blockquote>There was, and still is, a very fine line between Israeli government politicization of antisemitism for furthering its national interests—through ] and other political interventions—and scholarly work being undertaken at universities and in research institutes. The blurring of any differences between propaganda and objective research is one of the key factors contributing to the bitter and divisive battles over antisemitism research in the academy.{{harv|Burley|Lerman|2022}}</blockquote> | |||
| <blockquote>le commun des hommes est ainsi fait que si la vue d'un subit désastre émeut et provoque une pitié agissante, la contemplation d'une souffrance prolongée finit par irriter et par lasser.{{harv|Poliakov|1993|p=336}}</blockquote> | |||
| <blockquote>We recall the victims, but are apt to confuse commemoration with understanding.{{harv|Snyder|2015|p=xiv}}</blockquote> | |||
| <blockquote>It is true that Israel’s current far-right government has turned dog whistles into fog horns.' {{harv|Brown|Nerenberg|2021}}</blockquote> | |||
| This has been proposed by ], who nominated in this regard the ] for its 'institutional' expertise. That Misplaced Pages is self-regulating,-often ramshackle, provisory and imperfect in its day-to-day workings, but still remains a rare experiment in a project of an autonomous, anonymous self-governing production of an encyclopedia. Its nature means that all articles will be subject to a process of continuous '''internal''' development and analysis, and that the major, overriding rules consist in a goal of strict ] as a final outcome, as determined by a judicious ] emerging from ]. This eminently internal democratic experiment fits the ] criteria for the slow, incremental growth, by constant ameliorative tinkering, of articles informed by recourse to the best available, verifiable knowledge. | |||
| As I indicated above, an external institution has its own distinct values, aims and interests, and functions quite differently, however excellent the results generally. In the case of the USHMM, its consultancy would be problematical for a number of of reasons. It has been known to exert pressure to censure criticism of arguments concerning the political manipulation of holocaust discourse. When ] published his devastating exposé, ], and the then doyen of holocaust studies, Raul Hilberg, endorsed the accuracy of its scholarship, the USHMM and ] reportedly pleaded 'relentlessly' with Hilberg to retract his support for the book, unsuccessfully.{{sfn|Alexis|2013|p=290}}{{efn|When not ], critical reactions to the book were often frivolous in their trivial nitpicking, dismissing for example Hilberg's appraisel as a sign of his lack of knowledge of Judaism. ] challenges his dating of the revival of holocaust interest to 1967. It began, Vidal asserts, with Eichmann's trial in 1961, which however contradicts most assessments by Novick and others; Finkelstein fails to mention that one of the functions of the trial was to reunify Israelis whose identity was shaken by ] upheavals. Nothing to do with Finkelstein's theme; Finkelstein's analysis is vitiated by failing to say anything about the 'natural' causes for the early postwar tendency to forget the holocaust. But he does, stating that most of his youthful acquaintances in the United States were simply indifferent, and the problem was to explain why a decade or two later, they suddenly adopted remembrance as a core element of their identity.{{sfn|Vidal|2002|p=276}}}} If, further, as one of its Council members has recently recalled (2022), , then their participation in a wiki dispute precisely over the Holocaust in Poland, and the proper representation of the two sets of victims would, a priori, support one side, namely the position advanced tendentiously in Grabowski and Klein's essay. | |||
| A case (]) in which you were involved has been modified by {{oldid2|631252824|Motion|motion}} which changed the wording of the ] to clarify that the scope applies to pages, not just articles. For the arbitration committee --]] 19:35, 27 October 2014 (UTC) | |||
| I have no set views on the underlying historiographical issues of that paper, as opposed to deep reservations about its quality and methodology. Research infused with a polemical animus and particularly of the personalised kind that weds a conspiracy theory, is not unknown in academia, and tends to have a ] not dissimilar to an isotope like ]. It is true that nationalist editing has seriously affected the three core areas under Arbcom restrictions.{{efn|'It is one of only three content areas on which the Arbitration Committee – the highest authority of administrators, elected by the community from among Misplaced Pages’s most experienced editors – has placed a special set of restrictions on the entire topic, the other two being India-Pakistan and Israel-Palestine.'{{harv|Grabowski|Klein|2023|p=39}}}} But it is extremely naive, epistemologically, or indeed manichaean to think that the vigorous interplay of, in each case, editors in disagreement can be spun simply as a conflict between an honourable RS-respecting party, and a group of inflammatory nationalists, who, alone, exhibit a POV. The assumption is that there is 'pure' scholarship promoted by one side to any textual dispute and contaminated thinking exhibited by their nationalistic antagonists. All research in the humanities is embedded in, curricular, human, and social intrerests, the difference being that the reliability of the results is in direct correlation with the epistemological sophistication of the research. Too abstract? Let me illustrate. | |||
| == What you never read in the mainstream Western press. Links == | |||
| That in January 2018 a conservative Polish government passed a ] which is coercive, enabling libel suits against people including scholars like Jan Grabowski when their interpretations of the past do not run in lockstep with an official narrative, is well known.{{sfn|Weinbaum|2021}} Less well known is that wresting narrative control over holocaust discourse, not only by insisting it be restricted to Jewish victims, has been a major concern over decades for several institutions, and various Israeli governments. The distinguished historian of Poland, ] was recently reported on ] as recalling that in 1974 ], the acknowledged contemporary doyen of the discipline, in a holocaust seminar for historians conducted in the Israeli embassy in London, stated that the historical actors should be broken down into perpetrators (Germans), victims (Jews) and '''bystanders''' (Poles). When Davies, whose Polish father-in-law had survived both the ] and ] camps, protested, he was apparently shouted down as a Polonophile. {{sfn|PolishRadio|2019}} Davies was later denied tenure at ], according to him, because it was imputed that he was ‘insensitive’ to Jews. {{sfn|Lindsey|1987|p=14}} | |||
| Alomost every single point was mentioned in passing in most sources, but in isolation, and often ''en passant''. ] (]) 18:26, 13 November 2014 (UTC) | |||
| In reading the threads, I keep in mind what Timothy Snyder wrote in his ''Bloodlands'' (2010) | |||
| :: Youre far from being in line with reality with that statement. Sheen's hazzling partner Blumenthal has been elected by the Wiesenthal center among 2013 top antisemites for their gibberish, since log they got all the global coverage they deserve. Same for the current incident in the Reichstag, which was not as violent as the shootings in Ottawa but of similar symbolic importance. The two, on the anniversary of the Nazi pogrom night, tried to hazzle linkspartei leader Gysi, a Jewish member of the Reichstag within the spell mile of the parliament. Thats been enough to have those guys expelled there for a lifetime. got all the coverage as deserved, but it would be sort of fringy to believe anyone in the mainstream takes those morons for serious, even within ex-communist linkspartei that sort of behavior is unheard of. ] (]) 18:45, 13 November 2014 (UTC) | |||
| <blockquote>Beyond Poland, the extent of Polish suffering is underappreciated. Even Polish historians rarely recall the Soviet Poles who were starved in Soviet Kazakhstan and Soviet Ukraine in the early 1930s, or the Soviet Poles shot in Stalin’s Great Terror in the late 1930s. No one ever notes that Soviet Poles suffered more than any other European national minority in the 1930s. The striking fact that the Soviet NKVD made more arrests in occupied eastern Poland in 1940 than in the rest of the USSR is rarely recalled. About as many Poles were killed in the bombing of Warsaw in 1939 as Germans were killed in the bombing of Dresden in 1945. For Poles, that bombing was just the beginning of one of the bloodiest occupations of the war, in which Germans killed millions of Polish citizens. More Poles were killed during the Warsaw Uprising alone than Japanese died in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. '''A non-Jewish Pole in Warsaw alive in 1933 had about the same chances of living until 1945 as a Jew in Germany alive in 1933. Nearly as many non-Jewish Poles were murdered during the war as European Jews were gassed at Auschwitz.''' For that matter, more non-Jewish Poles died at Auschwitz than did Jews of any European country, with only two exceptions: Hungary and Poland itself.{{sfn|Snyder|2010|pp=405-406}}] (]) 13:31, 19 February 2023 (UTC)</blockquote> | |||
| :Like so many people who form opinions quicker than Bob Mundan can draw his pistol, you have no knowledge of the people or the subject, and indeed from the timestamp it is clear that you hadn't taken the trouble to read the link, since you replied within 19 minutes, whilst Sheen's speech to the Bundestag committee lasts 25 minutes. And of that 19 minutes you spent at least several googling the usual blogs that associate criticism of anything israeli with anti-Semitism. The Wiesnthal list is a farce, and Blumenthal, had you listened to the related Russell Tribunal on the Gaza War speeches, was proud to be included in it, along with several other distinguished Jews whose humanity is not compromised by an 'ethics' which draws judgements based on the ethnic identity of the subject. If Sheen and Blumental are anti-Semites, so is ] (BBC HARDtalk - Dr Mads Gilbert - Doctor and Activist) (who is anchored in the practical realities, not in your blogospheres of kibitzing nitwits), and, for that matter, myself. Still, as a philologist, I register the fact here that anti-Semitism now also refers to anyone who has empathy for the dispossessed, doesn't look at the ethnicity of a person before expressing sympathy for his plight, and is not blinded by ideologies of ethnic exceptionalism. But, this is pointless. Go away.] (]) 19:48, 13 November 2014 (UTC) | |||
| ==Notes== | |||
| {{notelist}} | |||
| ===Citations=== | |||
| ::I'd add to that that Serten should check his facts better, especially when writing about living people. Sheen, for example, hasn't, as far as I can make out, featured on any Wiesenthal Center list, but particularly not on its 2013 "top-10 list of anti-Semitic and anti-Israel slurs". 's "paternal grandmother was Jewish, as was one of his maternal great-grandfathers", which doesn't make him, at least in standard usage, but particularly not halachically, a Jew or Jewish. <span style="font-family: Perpetua, serif; font-size:120%"> ← ] </span> 20:36, 13 November 2014 (UTC) | |||
| {{Reflist|20em}} | |||
| ==Sources== | |||
| :::Sheen NEVER spoke and never will speak to any Bundestag comittee, God forbade. He was invited by two '''extremist fringe''' members of the already '''extremist Linkspartei''', Gysi - which is no practising jew but intelligent enough to count as one - tried his best to get the morons excluded from the premises but could hinder them getting access to the MoPs bureaus. Blumenthal made it on the Wiesenthal list. (UTC) .Serten 02:40, 14 November 2014 | |||
| {{refbegin|30em}} | |||
| ::::'God '''forbade'''.' The past tense indicates that, in your view, God had a direct hand in denying to an Israeli the right to address the Bundestag! Germans apparently are as deeply informed of the situation in Palestine as they were of the Holocaust while it was underway. ''Gottes Wege sind unergründlich''. ] (]) 10:22, 14 November 2014 (UTC) | |||
| *{{ cite news| title = A Jew in Germany is fined for supporting Palestinian rights | |||
| | last =Abunimah| first =Ali| author-link = Ali Abunimah | |||
| | publisher = ] | |||
| | date=15 February 2023 | |||
| | url= https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/jew-germany-fined-supporting-palestinian-rights | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{cite news| title = Slavery | |||
| | last = Adler | first = Jeremy | author-link = Jeremy Adler | |||
| | publisher =] | |||
| | date =22 July 2022 | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite book| title = Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism: A History of Conflict Between Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism from the Early Church to Our Modern Time | |||
| | last = Alexis | first =Jonas E. | |||
| | publisher =Westbow Press | |||
| | volume =2 | |||
| | year =2013 | |||
| | url =https://books.google.com/books?id=Vd8LmeVwA9sC&pg=PA290 | |||
| | isbn = 978-1-449-78159-0 | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite book| chapter =An Economic Intepretation of Antisemitism | |||
| | last = Andreski | first = Stanislav| author-link =Stanislav Andreski | |||
| | title = The Uses of Comparative Sociology | |||
| | publisher = ] | |||
| | year=1969 | |||
| | origyear=1964 | |||
| | pages =291-307 | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite book| title =The Origins of Totalitarianism | |||
| | last =Arendt| first =Hannah| author-link =Hannah Arendt | |||
| | publisher =] | |||
| | year=2017 | |||
| | origyear =1951 | |||
| | url= | |||
| | isbn =978-0-241-31675-7 | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite book| title =Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil | |||
| |last =Arendt| first =Hannah| author-link =Hannah Arendt | |||
| | publisher =] | |||
| | year=1963a | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite news| title = Eichmann in Jerusalem—I : Adolf Eichmann and the banality of evil | |||
| |last =Arendt| first =Hannah| author-link =Hannah Arendt | |||
| | publisher =] | |||
| | date=16 February 1963b | |||
| | url= https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1963/02/16/eichmann-in-jerusalem-i | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite book| chapter =From Collective Violence to a Common Future : Four Models for Dealing With a Traumatic Past | |||
| | last =Assman | first =Aleida | |||
| | editor1-last =Guarda|editor1-first =Filomena Viana | |||
| | editor2-last =Martins|editor2-first =Adriana | |||
| | editor3-last =da Silva |editor3-first =Helena Gonçalves | |||
| | title = Conflict, Memory Transfers and the Reshaping of Europe | |||
| | publisher =Cambridge Scholars Publishing | |||
| | year=2010 | |||
| | pages =8-23 | |||
| | url= https://books.google.com/books?id=6kQaBwAAQBAJ&pg=PA10 | |||
| | isbn =978-1-443-82005-9 | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite news| title = An Open Letter to the Director of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum | |||
| | last1 = Bartov | first1 = Omer | author1-link = Omer Bartov | |||
| | last2 =Bergen | first2 =Doris| author2-link = Doris Bergen | |||
| | last3 = Orzoff | first3 = Andrea | |||
| | last4 = Snyder | first4 =Timothy | author4-link = Timothy Snyder | |||
| | last5 = Walke | first5 =Anika | |||
| | publisher = The New York Review | |||
| | date=1 July 2019 | |||
| | url= https://www.nybooks.com/online/2019/07/01/an-open-letter-to-the-director-of-the-holocaust-memorial-museum/ | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite book| title = Harry S. Truman and the Founding of Israel | |||
| | last = Benson | first = Michael T. | author-link = Michael T. Benson | |||
| | publisher = ] | |||
| | year=1997 | |||
| | url= https://books.google.com/books?id=jmoab5xc9ogC&pg=PA68 | |||
| | isbn = 978-0-275-95807-7 | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite book| chapter = The Jewish Contemporary Documention Centre (CDJC) and Holocaust Research in France,1945-1970 | |||
| | last = Bensoussan | first = George | |||
| | title =Holocaust Historiography in Context:Emergence, Challenges, Polemics & Achievements | |||
| | editor1-last =Bankier| editor1-first =David| editor2-last =Michman| editor2-first =Dan | |||
| | publisher = ]/] | |||
| | pages =245-254 | |||
| | url =https://books.google.com/books?id=aNzjTUT6jdYC&pg=PA245 | |||
| | isbn =978-9-653-08326-4 | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite book| title = Unheroic Conduct: The Rise of Heterosexuality and the Invention of the Jewish Man | |||
| | last = Boyarin | first = Daniel | author-link = Daniel Boyarin | |||
| | publisher = ] | |||
| | year =1997 | |||
| | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=n6QwDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA300 | |||
| | isbn =978-0-520-21050-9 | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite book| title = The Origins of the Final Solution ; The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939-March 1942 | |||
| | last = Browning | first = Christopher | author-link = Christopher Browning | |||
| | publisher = ] | |||
| | year=2014 | |||
| | origyear =2004 | |||
| | url= https://books.google.comt/books?id=bM8OEiuoKhEC&pg=PA12 | |||
| | isbn =978-1-448-16586-5 | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite news| title = Interrogating the “New Antisemitism” | |||
| | last1 =Burley| first1 =Shane | |||
| | last2= Lerman| first2=Antony|author-link2 =Antony Lerman | |||
| | journal =] | |||
| | date =17 September 2022 | |||
| | url =https://jewishcurrents.org/interrogating-the-new-antisemitism | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite book | title= I Nomi dello sterminio: Definizioni di una tragedia | |||
| | last = Calimani| first =Anna Vera Sullam | |||
| | publisher =Marietti 1820 | |||
| | year = 2018 | |||
| | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QegCEAAAQBAJ&pg=PT6 | |||
| | isbn =978-8-821-19615-7 | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite book| title=Design for total war: Arms and economics in the Third Reich | |||
| | last =Carroll | first =Berenice Anita | |||
| | publisher=] | |||
| | year = 2018 | |||
| | url =https://books.google.com/books?id=xBd-DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA61 | |||
| | isbn =978-3-111-35958-8 | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite news| title = President's Commission on the Holocaust Remarks on Receiving the Final Report of the Commission. | |||
| | last =Carter| first =Jimmy| author-link =Jimmy Carter | |||
| | publisher= The American Presidency Project | |||
| | date=27 September 1979 | |||
| | url=https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/presidents-commission-the-holocaust-remarks-receiving-the-final-report-the-commission | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite book|title=Commemorating the Holocaust: The Dilemmas of Remembrance in France and Italy | |||
| | last = Clifford | first =Rebecca | |||
| | publisher =] | |||
| | year =2013 | |||
| | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=VfH1AAAAQBAJ&pg=PA1 | |||
| | isbn =978-0-199-67981-2 | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite book | chapter = Preface | |||
| | last =Cohen | first= M. R. | |||
| | author-link =Morris Raphael Cohen | |||
| | title= Siegfried Goldschmidt, ''Legal Claims Against Germany'' | |||
| | publisher =The Dryden Press | |||
| | year = 1945 | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite news| title ='Most are unaware’: film highlights Germany’s genocidal past in Namibia | |||
| | last =Connolly| first =Kate | |||
| | publisher =] | |||
| | date =22 March 2023 | |||
| | url =https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/22/most-are-unaware-film-highlights-germanys-genocidal-past-in-namibia | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite book| chapter = Introduction | |||
| | last = Cramer | first = Kevin | |||
| | editor-last = |editor1-first = | |||
| | title =] by ] | |||
| | publisher = ] | |||
| | year= 2018 | |||
| | pages = vii-xxx | |||
| | url= | |||
| | isbn = 978-0-241-30986-5 | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite book| title= The Holocaust: Roots, History, and Aftermath | |||
| | last = Crowe | first = David M. | author-link =David M. Crowe | |||
| | publisher =]| year =2018|origyear =2008 | |||
| | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=eaHsDwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover | |||
| | isbn = 978-0-813-34325-9 | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite journal| title = Holocaust Remembrance and Education in the State of Israel, 1948-2000 | |||
| | last = Enemark | first = Birgitte | |||
| | journal = Nordisk Judaistik • Scandinavian Jewish Studies | |||
| | year =2001 | |||
| | volume =22 | |||
| | issue =2 | |||
| | pages = 107-130 | |||
| | url = https://journal.fi/nj/article/view/69584 | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite book| title =The War of the World: History's Age of Hatred | |||
| | last = Ferguson| first = Niall| author-link =Niall Ferguson | |||
| | publisher =] | |||
| | year =2006 | |||
| | url =https://books.google.com/books?id=aajfWAoG1w8C&pg=PT895 | |||
| | isbn=978-0-713-99708-8 | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite book| title = Western Imperialism in the Middle East 1914-1958 | |||
| | last = Fieldhouse | first = D. K. | author-link = D. K. Fieldhouse | |||
| | publisher = ] | |||
| | year=2006 | |||
| | url= https://books.google.it/books?id=K28TDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA207 | |||
| | isbn = 978-0-199-28737-6 | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite news| title = The business of death | |||
| | last =Finkelstein| first =Norman| author-link = Norman Finkelstein | |||
| | publisher = ] | |||
| | date=12 July 2000 | |||
| | url= https://www.theguardian.com/books/2000/jul/12/1 | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite news| title = Swiss Toll | |||
| | last =Finkelstein| first =Norman| author-link = Norman Finkelstein | |||
| | publisher = ] | |||
| | date= 13 July 2000 | |||
| | url= https://www.theguardian.com/books/2000/jul/13/extract.features11 | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite book| title = The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering | |||
| | last =Finkelstein| first =Norman| author-link = Norman Finkelstein | |||
| | publisher = ] | |||
| | year= 2014 | |||
| | origyear= 1999 | |||
| | edition =2 | |||
| | url= https://books.google.com/books?id=JWvnDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT8 | |||
| | isbn = 978-1-781-68440-5 | |||
| }} | |||
| * {{cite book| title = What do students know and understand about the Holocaust? Evidence from English secondary schools | |||
| | last1 = Foster | first1 = Stuart | |||
| | last2 = Pettigrew | first2 = Alice | |||
| | last3 = Pearce | first3 = Andy | |||
| | last4 = Hale | first4 = Rebecca | |||
| | last5 = Burgess | first5 = Adrian | |||
| | last6 = Salmons | first6 = Paul | |||
| | last7 = Lenga | first7 = Ruth-Anne | |||
| | publisher = ] | |||
| | year= 2016 | |||
| | url= https://holocausteducation.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/What-do-students-know-and-understand-about-the-Holocaust-2nd-Ed.pdf | |||
| | isbn = 978-0-9933711-0-3 | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite book| chapter = Terror Out of Zion: Making Sense of Scriptural Teaching | |||
| | last = Garber | first = Zev | |||
| | author-link = Zev Garber | |||
| | editor-last = Jacobs |editor1-first = Steven L. | |||
| | title = Genocide in the name of God:Thoughts on Religion and Genocide | |||
| | publisher = ] | |||
| | year= 2009 | |||
| | pages = 279-289 | |||
| | url= https://books.google.com/books?id=1gwunFdWfNsC&pg=PA284 | |||
| | isbn = 978-0-739-13589-1 | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite book| title = The Art of Selling War: Propaganda from Cato to Nato | |||
| | last = Gilly | first = Pierre | |||
| | publisher = I.A Bergman | |||
| | year = 2020 | |||
| | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=Y9PsDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA219 | |||
| | isbn = 978-9-151-96046-3 | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite journal| title =Misplaced Pages’s Intentional Distortion of the History of the Holocaust, The Journal of Holocaust Research | |||
| | last1 = Grabowski| first1 =Jan | |||
| | author-link =Jan Grabowski | |||
| | last2=Klein| first2=Shira | |||
| | journal =] | |||
| | date =9 February 2023 | |||
| | url = https://doi.org/10.1080/25785648.2023.2168939 | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite book| title =The Destruction of the European Jews | |||
| | last =Hilberg| first =Raul| author-link =Raul Hilberg | |||
| | publisher =] | |||
| | year=1973 | |||
| | origyear =1961 | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite book| chapter = The Development of Holocaust Research: A Personal Overview | |||
| | last =Hilberg| first = Raul| author-link =Raul Hilberg | |||
| | title =Holocaust Historiography in Context:Emergence, Challenges, Polemics & Achievements | |||
| | editor1-last =Bankier| editor1-first =David| editor2-last =Michman| editor2-first =Dan | |||
| | publisher = ]/] | |||
| | pages =25-36 | |||
| | url = | |||
| | isbn =978-9-653-08326-4 | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite book| title =Vivre avec nos morts | |||
| | last = Horvilleur | first = Delphine| author-link =Delphine Horvilleur | |||
| | publisher = ] | |||
| | year=2021 | |||
| | isbn =978-2-246-82694-1 | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite book| chapter = Introduction | |||
| | last = Jacobs | first = Steven L. | |||
| | author-link = Steven L. Jacobs | |||
| | editor-last = Jacobs |editor-first = Steven L. | |||
| | title = Genocide in the name of God:Thoughts on Religion and Genocide | |||
| | publisher = ] | |||
| | year= 2009 | |||
| | pages = ix-xvii | |||
| | url= https://books.google.com/books?id=1gwunFdWfNsC&pg=PR9 | |||
| | isbn = 978-0-739-13589-1 | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite book| title =The Economics of European Integration | |||
| | last =Jovanović| first =Miroslav N. | |||
| | publisher =Edward Elgar Publishing | |||
| | year =2013 | |||
| | origyear =1997 | |||
| | url =https://books.google.com/books?id=HQK9CQAAQBAJ&pg=PT175 | |||
| | isbn =978-0-857-93398-0 | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite book| title = A History of the Modern World | |||
| | last = Johnson| first = Paul | author-link =Paul Johnson (writer) | |||
| | publisher =] | |||
| | year =1983 | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite book| title = Empire of DestructionA History of Nazi Mass Killing | |||
| | last = Kay | first = Alex J. | |||
| | publisher = ] | |||
| | year = 2021 | |||
| | url =https://www.google.com/books/edition/Empire_of_Destruction/8yJCEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1 | |||
| | isbn = 978-0-300-26253-7 | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite book| title = H. G. Wells and the Culminating Ape | |||
| |last =Kemp | first = Peter | author-link =Peter Kemp | |||
| | publisher = ] | |||
| | year=1996 | |||
| | origyear=1982 | |||
| | url= | |||
| | isbn = 0-333-67893-1 | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite journal| title =Teaching the Holocaust in Israel | |||
| | last =Keren| first = Nili | |||
| | journal =Internationale Schulbuchforschung | |||
| | year =2000 | |||
| | volume=22 | |||
| | issue =1 | |||
| | pages =95-108 | |||
| | jstor =43057186 | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite book| title = Blood and Soil: A World History of Genocide and Extermination from Sparta to Darfur | |||
| | last =Kienan| first = Ben| author-link =Ben Kiernan | |||
| | publisher = ] | year= 2007| url = | |||
| | isbn=978-0-300-10098-3 | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite journal| title = The Growing Rift between Holocaust Scholars over Israel/Palestine | |||
| | last = Klein | first =Shira | |||
| | journal = ] | |||
| | date =8 January 2025 | |||
| | pages =1-21 | |||
| | url = https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10.1080/14623528.2024.2448061?needAccess=true | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite book| title = I Will Bear Witness: 1942-1945 | |||
| | last = Klemperer | first = Victor | author-link = Victor Klemperer | |||
| | series =Diaries of Victor Klemperer| volume =2 | |||
| | publisher = ] | |||
| | year =1998 | |||
| | isbn=978-0-375-50240-8 | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite book| title = Axis Rule in Occupied Europe:Laws of Occupa tion, Analysis of Government, Proposals for Redress | |||
| | last = Lemkin| first =Raphael | author-link = Raphael Lemkin | |||
| | publisher = ] | |||
| | year=1944 | |||
| | url= https://ia600104.us.archive.org/2/items/AxisRuleInOccupiedEuropeRaphaelLemkin/Axis_rule_in_occupied_Europe_Raphael_Lemkin.pdf | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite news| title= Scholar say his views on Jews cost him a post at Stanford | |||
| | last = Lindsey | first = Robert | |||
| | publisher =] | |||
| | date =13 March 1987 | |||
| | url =https://www.nytimes.com/1987/03/13/us/scholar-says-his-views-on-jews-cost-him-a-post-at-stanford.html | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{Cite journal| title = Simon Wiesenthal and the Ethics of History | |||
| | last =Lipstadt| first =Deborah E. | |||
| | author-link =Deborah Lipstadt | |||
| | journal = ] | |||
| | date =Winter 2011 | |||
| | url =https://jewishreviewofbooks.com/articles/217/simon-wiesenthal-and-the-ethics-of-history/ | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite book| title= What About Germany? | |||
| | last = Lochner | first = Louis | |||
| | author-link = Louis P. Lochner | |||
| | publisher =] | |||
| | date =1942 | |||
| | url = https://ia801504.us.archive.org/14/items/in.ernet.dli.2015.167385/2015.167385.What-About-Germany.pdf | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite book| title = The British Empire in the Middle East, 1945-1951: Arab Nationalism, the United States, and Postwar Imperialism | |||
| | last = Louis | first = William Roger | author-link = William Roger Louis | |||
| | publisher = ] | |||
| | year= 1984 | |||
| | url= https://books.google.com/books?id=ATQQ0FMS1FQC&pg=PA36 | |||
| | isbn = 978-0-198-22960-5 | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite book| title =Nato and Germany: a Study in the Sociology of Supernational Relations | |||
| | last =Lyman| first =Stanford M. | |||
| | publisher = ] | |||
| | year =1995 | |||
| | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WS811VMD-gwC&pg=PA26 | |||
| | isbn =978-1-610-75274-9 | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite book| title = Identity Politics in the Age of Genocide: the Holocaust and historical representation | |||
| | last = MacDonald | first =David B. | |||
| | publisher = ] | |||
| | year=2008 | |||
| | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8QoNONBC5K8C&printsec=frontcover | |||
| | isbn= 978-1-134-08572-9 | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite book| title = The Dark Side of Democracy: Explaining Ethnic Cleansing | |||
| | last = Mann| first = Michael | author-link = Michael Mann (sociologist) | |||
| | publisher = Cambridge University Press | year =2005 | |||
| | url =https://books.google.com/books?id=cGHGPgj1_tIC&pg=PA309 | |||
| | isbn = 978-0-521-53854-1 | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite book| chapter = Introduction | |||
| | last =Michman| first = Dan | |||
| | title =Holocaust Historiography in Context:Emergence, Challenges, Polemics & Achievements | |||
| | editor1-last =Bankier| editor1-first =David| editor2-last =Michman| editor2-first =Dan | |||
| | publisher = ]/] | |||
| | pages =9-21 | |||
| | url = | |||
| | isbn =978-9-653-08326-4 | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite book| chapter = The Holocaust and Genocide | |||
| | last = Moses| first =A. Dirk | author-link = A. Dirk Moses | |||
| | title = The Historiography of the Holocaust | |||
| | editor-last = Stone|editor-first=Dan | |||
| | publisher = ] | |||
| | volume =29 | issue =3| pages = 533-551 | |||
| | year=2004 | |||
| | url= https://zeithistorische-forschungen.de/sites/default/files/medien/material/2008-3/Moses_HolocaustandGenocide.pdf | |||
| | isbn = 978-1-403-99927-6 | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite book| chapter= Empire, Colony, Genocide:Keywords and the Philosophy of History | |||
| | last = Moses | first = A. Dirk | author-link =A. Dirk Moses | |||
| | title= Empire, Colony, Genocide: Conquest, Occupation, and Subaltern Resistance in World History | |||
| | editor-last=Moses| editor-first= A. Dirk | |||
| | publisher =] | year =2008 | |||
| | pages =3-54 | |||
| | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=RBgoNN4MG-YC&pg=PA3 | |||
| | isbn = 978-1-845-45452-4 | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite book| title = The Problems of Genocide: Permanent Security and the Language of Transgression | |||
| | last = Moses| first =A. Dirk | author-link = A. Dirk Moses | |||
| | publisher = ] | |||
| | year=2021 | |||
| | url= https://books.google.com/books?id=BTQTEAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover | |||
| | isbn = 978-1-009-02832-5 | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite journal| title = Revisiting a Founding Assumption of Genocide | |||
| | last = Moses| first =A. Dirk | author-link = A. Dirk Moses | |||
| | journal = Studies in Genocide and Prevention | |||
| | volume = 5| issue =3| pages = 287-300 | |||
| | year=2011 | |||
| | url= https://www.dirkmoses.com/uploads/7/3/8/2/7382125/moses_revisiting_assumptions_genocide_studies.pdf | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite book| title = ] | |||
| | last = Novick| first = Peter | author-link = Peter Novick | |||
| | publisher = ] | |||
| | year=1999 | |||
| | url= | |||
| | isbn = 978-0-395-84009-2 | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite journal| title = Linguistic Conceptualization of the Holocaust in Palestine and Israel, 1942-53 | |||
| | last = Ofer | first = Dalia | |||
| | journal =] | |||
| | date = July 1996 | |||
| | volume =31 | |||
| | issue =3 | |||
| | pages =567-595 | |||
| | jstor =261021 | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite book| chapter = The Holocaust: A Continuing Challenge for Polish-Jewish Relations | |||
| |last = Pawlikowski | first = John T. | author-link = John T. Pawlikowski | |||
| | title = Polish-Jewish Relations in North America | |||
| | editor1-last = Biskupski |editor1-first= Mieczyslaw B. | |||
| | editor2-last = Polonsky |editor2-first= Antony | |||
| | publisher = ] | |||
| | series= Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry | |||
| | volume =19 | |||
| | pages = 415-429 | |||
| | year =2022 | |||
| | url= https://books.google.com/books?id=LcJvEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA426 | |||
| | isbn = 978-1-802-07943-2 | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite news| title =Politics: The Ocasio-Cortez and Cheney dispute over ‘concentration camps,’ explained | |||
| | publisher = PBS | |||
| | date=25 June 2019 | |||
| | url =https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/the-ocasio-cortez-and-cheney-dispute-over-concentration-camps-explained | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite book| title =Bréviaire de la haine: Le IIIe Reich et les Juifs | |||
| | last =Poliakov| first = Léon| author-link =Léon Poliakov | |||
| | publisher = ] | |||
| | year =1993 | |||
| | origyear =1951 | |||
| | isbn=2-266-05324-8 | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite news| title= Academics were told to call Poles ‘bystanders’ of Holocaust: historian | |||
| | publisher =] | |||
| | date = 8 October 2019 | |||
| | url =https://www.polskieradio.pl/395/7785/artykul/2380023,academics-were-told-to-call-poles-%E2%80%98bystanders%E2%80%99-of-holocaust-historian | |||
| | ref ={{ harv|PolishRadio|2019}} | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite book|title =The Final Solution | |||
| | last =Reitlinger| first =Gerald| author-link =Gerald Reitlinger | |||
| | publisher =] | |||
| | year =1971 | |||
| | origyear =1953 | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite book|title =The Final Solution | |||
| | last =Reitlinger| first =Gerald| author-link =Gerald Reitlinger | |||
| | publisher =] | |||
| | year =1987 | |||
| | origyear =1953 | |||
| | isbn = 978-0-876-68951-6 | |||
| | ref={{harvid|Aronson|1987}} | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite book| title = Crimes Against Humanity: The Struggle For Global Justice | |||
| | last = Robertson | first = Geoffrey | author-link = Geoffrey Robertson | |||
| | publisher = ] | |||
| | year=2006 | |||
| | url= https://books.google.com/books?id=V0XLZ0gbVpkC&pg=PT7 | |||
| | isbn =978-0-141-90080-3 | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite news| title = My Resistance to Elie Wiesel | |||
| | last=Robin| first = Corey|author-link =Corey Robin | |||
| | publisher =] | |||
| | date = 7 June 2016 | |||
| | url=https://jacobin.com/2016/07/elie-wiesel-holocaust-primo-levi-imre-kertesz/ | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite news| title = Report to the President:Presidents Commission on the Holocaust | |||
| | publisher=] | |||
| | date=27 September 1979 | |||
| | url=https://www.ushmm.org/m/pdfs/20050707-pres-commission-79.pdf | |||
| | ref ={{harvid|RPPCH|1979 }} | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite journal| title =Holocaust: The Ignored Reality | |||
| | last =Snyder| first =Timothy| author-link =Timothy Snyder | |||
| | journal =The New York Review | |||
| | date =16 July 2009 | |||
| | url =https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2009/07/16/holocaust-the-ignored-reality/ | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite book|title =Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin | |||
| | last =Snyder| first =Timothy| author-link =Timothy Snyder | |||
| | publisher =] | |||
| | year = 2010 | |||
| | isbn =978-0-465-00239-9 | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite journal| title =‘Holocaust: The Ignored Reality’: An Exchange | |||
| | last1 =Snyder| first1 =Timothy| author1-link =Timothy Snyder | |||
| | last2 =Lane| first2 =Pacho | |||
| | journal =The New York Review | |||
| | date =13 August 2009 | |||
| | url =https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2009/08/13/holocaust-the-ignored-reality-an-exchange/ | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite book|title =Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning | |||
| | last =Snyder| first =Timothy| author-link =Timothy Snyder | |||
| | publisher =] | |||
| | year = 2015 | |||
| | url =https://books.google.com/books?id=ChhsCQAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover | |||
| | isbn =978-1-473-52270-1 | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite book| title = Etre juif | |||
| | last = Sperber | first = Manès | author-link = Manès Sperber | |||
| | publisher = Odile Jacob | |||
| | year =1994 | |||
| | isbn = 978-2-738-13720-3 | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite book| chapter = Hitler’s Racial Ideology: Content and Occult Sources | |||
| | last1=Spielvogel|first1=Jackson|last2=Redles| first2=David | |||
| | title = The Origins of the Holocaust | |||
| | editor-last= Marrus |editor-first = Michael Robert | |||
| | publisher = Walter de Gruyter | |||
| | year =2011 | |||
| | origyear =1989 | |||
| | pages = 79-98 | |||
| | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=6XybDGUk1woC&pg=PA96 | |||
| |isbn=978-3-110-97049-4 | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite book| chapter = Uniqueness as Denial | |||
| | last = Stannard | first = David | author-link =David Stannard | |||
| | title =The Holocaust Unique?: Perspectives On Comparative Genocide | |||
| | editor-last =Rosenbaum| editor-first = Alan S. | |||
| | publisher = Avalon Publishing | |||
| | year =1996 | |||
| | url=https://www.public.asu.edu/~acichope/David%20Stannard%20on%20uniqueness.pdf | |||
| | isbn =978-0-813-32641-2 | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite book| chapter = The Politics of Memory Jews and Roma Commemorate Their Persecution | |||
| | last1 = Stauber | first1 = Roni | |||
| | last2=Vago| first2=Raphael | |||
| | title = The Roma: A Minority in Europe: Historical, Political and Social Perspectives | |||
| | publisher = ] | |||
| | year = 2007 | |||
| | pages = 117-133 | |||
| | url = https://books.openedition.org/ceup/1418?lang=en | |||
| | isbn= 978-9-637-32686-8 | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite book| title = The Italian Executioners:The Genocide of the Jews of Italy | |||
| | last = Sullam | first = Simon Levis | |||
| | publisher = ] | |||
| | year = 2020 | |||
| | url =https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Italian_Executioners/MYfiDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Sullam%2BThe+Italianb+Executioners&printsec=frontcover | |||
| | isbn= 978-0-691-20920-3 | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite book| title =ヒロシマの十字架を抱いて | |||
| | last= 谷本 | first = 清| author-link =Kiyoshi Tanimoto | |||
| | publisher =大日本雄弁会講談社 | |||
| | year = 1950 | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite book | title = A Study of History | |||
| | last =Toynbee | first= Arnold J. | |||
| | author-link =Arnold J. Toynbee | |||
| | series= ] | |||
| | publisher =] | |||
| | year = 1962 | |||
| | origyear = 1934 | |||
| | volume =1 | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite book | title = A Study of History | |||
| | last =Toynbee | first= Arnold J. | |||
| | author-link =Arnold J. Toynbee | |||
| | series= ] | |||
| | publisher =] | |||
| | year = 1964 | |||
| | origyear = 1961 | |||
| | volume =12 | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite journal| title =Did the Armenian Genocide Inspire Hitler? | |||
| | last = Travis | first =Hannibal | |||
| | journal = ] | |||
| | date = Winter 2013 | |||
| | volume =20 | |||
| | issue =1 | |||
| | pages =27-35 | |||
| | url =https://www.meforum.org/middle-east-quarterly/pdfs/3434.pdf | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite news| title = Statement Regarding the Museum’s Position on Holocaust Analogies | |||
| | publisher = ] | |||
| | date=24 June 2019 | |||
| | url= https://web.archive.org/web/20190630014432/https://www.ushmm.org/information/press/press-releases/statement-regarding-the-museums-position-on-holocaust-analogies | |||
| | ref ={{harvid|USHMM|2019}} | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite journal| title = In the Beginning, There Was No Word | |||
| | last =Vasil | first = Johann Justus | |||
| | journal = ] | |||
| | volume =29 | issue =3| pages =1053–1056 | |||
| | year=2019 | |||
| | url= http://www.ejil.org/pdfs/29/4/2940.pdf | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite book| title =Les historiens allemands relisent la Shoah | |||
| | last =Vidal| first =Dominique| author-link =Haïm Vidal Séphiha | |||
| | publisher =Éditions Complexe | |||
| | year =2002 | |||
| | isbn =2-87027-909-4 | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite journal| title =In the Name of Six Million Accusers: Gideon Hausner as Attorney-General and His Place in the Eichmann Trial | |||
| | last = Weitz| first =Yechiam | |||
| | publisher = ] | |||
| | date = Summer 2009 | |||
| | volume =14 | |||
| | issue =2 | |||
| | pages = 26-49 | |||
| | jstor =30245851 | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite news| title= Never dead, not even past. Poland’s struggle with history | |||
| | last = Weinbaum | first = Laurence | |||
| | publisher =] | |||
| | date =19 February 2021 | |||
| | url =https://neweasterneurope.eu/2021/02/19/never-dead-not-even-past-polands-struggle-with-history/ | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite book| title = The Thirty Years War: Europe's Tragedy | |||
| | last = Wilson | first = Peter Hamish | |||
| | author-link = Peter H. Wilson | |||
| | publisher = ] | |||
| | year =2011 | |||
| | origyear=2009 | |||
| | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=567MDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA787 | |||
| | isbn = 978-0-674-06231-3 | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite book| title = Iron and Blood: A Military History of the German-speaking Peoples Since 1500 | |||
| | last = Wilson | first = Peter H. | |||
| | author-link=Peter H. Wilson | |||
| | publisher = Penguin Books | |||
| | year =2022 | |||
| | url =https://books.google.com/books?id=S-yrEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA231 | |||
| | isbn = 978-0-241-35556-5 | |||
| }} | |||
| *{{ cite journal| title = The Eichmann Trial: Was It the Jewish Nuremberg? | |||
| | last = Yablonka | first = Hanna | |||
| | journal = ] | |||
| | volume =34 | issue =3| pages = 301-313 | |||
| | date=Spring 2012 | |||
| | url= https://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1680&context=ilr&httpsredir=1&referer | |||
| }} | |||
| {{refend}} | |||
| ::::: First you claim Toiletgate is not in the main press, in reality its covered broadly. . Now you claim Gysi, about whom the pogromers ran around, has no jewish background but the two progromers are discriminated against. Gosh. Shimon Peres has spoken in the Bundestag, he was invited and it was an honor to have him there. The two morons won't and ain't. Serten 14:31, 14 November 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :::::While I appreciate your assiduous attempts to document your textual illiteracy, incapacity to construe English prose and make the correct inferences, I'm quite busy, no golden lad but still sprightly, cleaning my chimneys this afternoon, and I prefer to accompany the household routine by reciting memorable poems, not ruminating on the hack jobbery of non-thinkers. Thanks. As I said, go away.] (]) 14:54, 14 November 2014 (UTC) | |||
| == |
== Resilience/Sumud. == | ||
| ] (]) 17:00, 19 October 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *'some 48,000 Palestinian homes have been demolished in the Occupied Territory since 1967.' | |||
| ] (Director of the ](ICAHD), ] November 19, 2014 | |||
| {{AE sanction|sanction=3 week topic ban from the Arab-Isreal conflict, broadly construed|rationale=for ] following a previous ] about unconstructive or unnecessarily inflammatory language.|decision=a-i}} ] (]) 18:34, 24 October 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *'"We must make it absolutely clear that anti-Semitism is a sin. One of the reasons I'm here is to remind the Christian world that our roots are in Judaism. In every Christian, there is a Jew; and you can't be a true Christian if you don't recognize your Jewish roots. I don't mean Judaism in the ethnic, origin, sense, but from the religious aspect. . .In conversations with other religious figures, he likes to tell a tale about a group of anti-Semitic priests who were sitting together in a room and badmouthing the Jews, with a picture of Jesus and Mary hanging on the wall above their heads. "And then, suddenly," Pope Francis says, "Jesus steps out of the picture and says, 'Mom, let's go, they don’t like us here either." ' Henrique Cymerman, ] 28 November 2014. | |||
| :If I had seen this comment from someone who just barely had ECR, I'd have likely indef blocked them (with the first year being a CT sanction if they were eligible). If there is another UNINOLVED admin who would like to discuss something longer, or refer this to AE to discuss a longer sanction, I am open to both of those, but after a bit of thinking this is what I felt appropriate given all the facts at play here. ] (]) 18:38, 24 October 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ::There's something nice about finding one's views on a tricky subject endorsed by the Pope. Perhaps because in every Western pagan, there is a Christian, and ergo, a Jew, culturally, which is all that counts, even if I'm more comfortable with Athens ca.450 B.C.E., before monotheisms got a toehold on philosophy.] (]) 12:15, 28 November 2014 (UTC) | |||
| ::Please see my comment on Barkeep49’s talk page. The point Nishidani makes, with the same cultural joke as an illustration, was made in a peer-reviewed academic journal of high repute. Unfortunately it seems this did not come up easily on google when quickly searched for. ] (]) 18:43, 24 October 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :::And my ] where I note the peer reviewed journal is using the joke to criticize it as offensive (50+ years ago). ] (]) 18:57, 24 October 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ::::] e Talk:Weaponization of antisemitism | |||
| ::::In short someone emailed you offwiki to weaponize this totally innocuous edit and see to it I am put behind bars and kept there for 3 weeks, if not indeed permabanned. Well, that spell might enable me to finger where in the hell I buried ]'s classic ] to refresh my memory about this kind of social gamesmanship. ] (]) 20:00, 24 October 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :::::I contacted Barkeep about this for a couple of reasons. First, I wanted another set of eyes to look at it. As I've said before, I have an outsized influence on the topic area, so more administrative participation is better. Second, I was at work, soon to leave, had to stop for an oil change, and now I'm about to sit down for enchiladas with my wife, and my father is coming over to join us, so I didn't have time for all of this this evening. ] (]) 20:51, 24 October 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::Sounds like a pleasant evening. Thanks for your scruple in clarifying this remark by Barkeep. In short, no editor on the page complained, any more than in 2018, when I cited the same joke on my talk page, any reader or admin saw anything 'inflammatory' - had they I would have been immediately reported. That's really bizarre to me, but I'll call it quits if you could do me a simple favour, since I think I'm wasting my time on wikipedia in this kind of atmosphere of by now inveterate nagging over nothing (the nothing being my 'integrity'). At ], I promised to provide the page numbers for a source a hard copy of which I only received yesterday, and read last night. At Note 24 re after ‘with the Catholic parish’ the citation with the existing page = should read <nowiki>{{sfn|Sale|Neuhaus|2024|p=406}}</nowiki> and, just below the same ? in the citation should be fixed to ‘engaging in blood libel’ <nowiki>{{sfn|Sale|Neuhaus|2024|pp=406-407}}</nowiki>. These are necessary because an editor asked me to supply them. This is not a request for meatpuppetry, but a matter of courtesy, since Barkeep's original action was done, as he admits, based on insufficient evidence, and no courtesy note to me to ask for the clarification he needed to assuage his, and your, concerns. Cheers ] (]) 11:30, 25 October 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::You probably don't realize this, but since the issue is about my behaviour judged in terms of a misreading of the meaning of a joke, your reply can be read as a crass example of ], with the same licence used by Barkeep and others in interpreting my edit as a disruptive violation of our civility code. Why? Because you can be heard as saying more or less | |||
| ::::::<blockquote>(a) it was I who reported you to Barkeep, because I was short on time in RL to handle this myself. (b)you are now in ], placed off-limits from your wikipedia community, being under a sanction I started while (c) I'm have a pleasant evening in a nice family setting.</blockquote> | |||
| ::::::I'm not singling you out. Habitually, reading the talk exchanges on wiki pages for what the subtext intimates, I see what I consider rudeness or crassness regularly, but ignore it, because it wastes serious editing time. It is that incivility that escapes through the nets of what admins think of as documentable incivility. | |||
| ::::::You see, though that was not your intention, that is how any number of literate readers, were this to occur in a social setting or a novel, might read it for context and tone, as socially inept and offensive. Just as my innocuous illustration was interpreted. Since this has happened several times in the past, - admin unawareness of how language works, leading to sanctions - I have lost faith in my future as a contributor to wikipedia because of eight fatuous complaints in a year one has achieved its end. I read it as the instauration of a wokish ] to the effect that from now on in, 'anything I write can and may be used against me in arbitration,' if it can somehow lend itself to raising suspicions of a possible infringement of our strict laws on courtesy. So I clearly cannot work here, suspension ended, with this sort of Gordian knot of surveillance hanging over my head, with the scissors in the hands of admins who have, in my view, at times snipped before reading closely and checking with their peers. On the other hand, I don't yield up a natural right certainly when thuggish off-wiki sites have increasingly pressured wikipedia (lately ) to raise the temperature and target editors like myself. Unless I get permabanned, I will retain and assert my right to edit here, if infrequently. but to avoid supplying anyone here with excuses to keep up the harassment I experience, I will exercise that right by no longer exchanging a single word on talk pages when, and if, I do feel inclined to add something. That will stop admins from these embarrassing wastages of everyone's time, since my voice will disappear, as many no doubt want, but my right to continue to influence article content will remain intact. ] (]) 15:18, 27 October 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::{{tqq|I have an outsized influence on the topic area, so more administrative participation is better.}} Or less. That would be another option. ] (]) 18:59, 25 October 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :::::Topic bans apply to your user and talk spaces, so if you'll have to wait until the topic ban expires to continue the discussion and provide page numbers. ] (]) 16:19, 25 October 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::lol yall wild. Nish, if this is enough to say fuck this place for good I get it, feel similarly tbh. ''']''' - 16:43, 25 October 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::{{ping|ScottishFinnishRadish}} this was wholly unnecessary, and unreasonably provocative. Very disappointing behavior. ] (]) 17:41, 25 October 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::. Did you disclose this to Barkeep when you contacted them regarding this matter? ] (]) 18:05, 25 October 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::::Hand in glove. Just leave it. ] (]) 18:07, 25 October 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::::You may want to look at those edits, rather than the summary. ] may provide some helpful context. ] (]) 18:20, 25 October 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::::Thanks. Would you mind letting us know what exactly was the original concern you raised with Barkeep? ] (]) 18:36, 25 October 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::::::That an unnecessarily inflammatory comment had been made on an article talk page by an editor warned for unnecessarily inflammatory comments. ] (]) 18:40, 25 October 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::::::And, now that per ], it has been shown that there was nothing inflammatory about it, how has your view changed? ] (]) 19:15, 25 October 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::::::::The only unnecessary and extremely inflammatory comment made here was who directly accused me of antisemitism by saying I was responsible for mentioning a joke that weaponized antisemitism (''I see a joke weaponizing antisemtism''). That reading borders on the illiterate. You endorse this egregious misprision. This is a failure of the most elementary reading skills. Since you both are highly literate, the only explanation that comes to me is that such a judgment reflects a personal impression over the last several months that there is something antisemitic, hard to pin down, but there, in Nishidani, and when I posted an utterly innocuous statement, ] kicked in, I'm sure unwittingly, but that is not a rational judgment based on evidence (that I am responsible for spreading antisemitic ideas) that would stand up in any court of opinion. I tried to be courteous in my dialogue with Barkeep but the door was shut in the face of evidence that his judgment was deeply flawed, and you second this closure. I'm not quite surprised. It's been in the air since that foreign lobby persuaded arbcom to allow one of its spokesmen to make a case against me, and, with the four subsequent cases, two by socks, something like this was on the books (the 'no smoke without fire' syndrome). Well, I'm fucked if I am going to continue to volunteer contributions for an organization that has now registered me, via admin fiat, as antisemitic, after 18 years in which this kind of repeated sockpuppet-type trashing of my work was dismissed dozens of times in an appropriate tribunal. ] (]) 19:26, 25 October 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::::::::ding. Why some admins think they should be handing out sanctions without any complaint or giving the person, with over a decade of contributions to this project, the chance at explaining themselves is something I fail to understand. I actually think Barkeep is generally a great admin so I’m a bit baffled at this sequence tbh. Especially when the basis for the sanction was nearly instantaneously proven false. ''']''' - 19:37, 25 October 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::::::::::It goes without saying that both are fine admins, dedicated and conscientious. That is why this profound misreading is disturbing. I suspect that the burden, which I would never have the guts to take on, of having to read vast reams of often inane prose in complaints or on talk pages, dulls the edges of concentration at times. I know that happens because that is what has always worried me about having to read so much uninformed argufying on IP talk pages, that the resolute attention in the face of tedious repetitiveness risks desensitizing me, so that the payback of actually getting articles written in full scholarly attire looks like a bad investment.] (]) 19:44, 25 October 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::::::::::Meh on both. ''']''' - 20:02, 25 October 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::::@] SFR is active in this topic area not because they are ] in a Misplaced Pages sense of the word but because they are an administrator attempting to uphold behavioral expectations. So they reached out to me in an administrator to administrator capacity, despite the fact that we often disagree on the right outcome in our discussions at the Arbitration Enforcement noticeboard (I normally am for milder or even no sanction than what SFR supports). And that noticeboard was, until this incident, where I had limited my activity in this topic area. This includes times where SFR has reached out about specific incidents and I've declined to take action. Hopefully that better explains the context in which SFR contacted me. ] (]) 19:45, 25 October 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ::::, dear Barkeep, is to an anecdote, talking precisely about the abuse of antisemitism claims by ], one of the great European jurists, six years ago. | |||
| ::::<blockquote>the ubiquity of insult and calumny in the everyday vocabulary of social media plays a not insignificant part in the foul-mouthed verbal assaults described by Jewish MPs in the recent Commons debate. This said, most Jews do understand the risk of hypersensitivity. There is the story about Goldbloom, doing well in the rag trade in Stepney, who has to make a dash for Euston to sort out a problem with his supplier in Glasgow. As the night sleeper pulls out, he realises he has left his overnight bag behind. Luckily the man occupying the other berth in the sleeper compartment has a spare pair of pyjamas, which he lends Goldbloom, and tells Goldbloom he can use his razor in the morning. But when Goldbloom asks if he can also borrow his toothbrush, he politely declines. The next evening, when he returns from Glasgow, Goldbloom’s wife asks him how the journey went. ‘Not bad,’ says Goldbloom, ‘but did I meet an anti-Semite!’</blockquote> | |||
| ::::, prefaced by the words:'The point was put with great lucidity by ] in the brilliant essay I cite just above this.' and discussed it, on my talk page, when dealing with a query about a wikipedia editor whose behaviour was, in my view, antisemitic 6 years ago. Not a peep or boo from anyone. Nothing problematic. How times have changed. I don't mind the fact that Sir Stephen can retell an anecdote which gets both a laugh from his readers while inculcating a deep lesson, but I on wikipedia am sanctioned if I paraphrase it to the same purpose. What is a moral reminder by a great jurist is 'inflammatory language' for a wiki peon. I don't mind the offensiveness of this insult to my moral probity in these matters. I'm used to it. But how the trigger-finger now itches to , now even on wikipedia even with a light joke. My block log is thus crammed with just one more example of being punished because an admin didn’t read up, or ask around, and no doubt the usual reports asking for another sanction on the usual spurious grounds will have further 'evidence' to lead me to ''Galgenweg''. Well, as the previous section says, ]. ] (]) 19:32, 24 October 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :::::Yes. A known Jewish jurist warning Jewish MPs to not be hypersensitive is a rather different context than you using it to score try to convince someone you are correct on a Misplaced Pages talk page. This is indeed how something which can be thought provoking in one context is unconstructive or unnecessarily inflammatory language in another context. And good news - I intentionally did not add to your block log choosing instead a rather short topic ban. ] (]) 20:11, 24 October 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::What you are saying is that a Jew can tell a self-critical Jewish joke to another Jew. If a non-Jew repeats that joke (to a Jew or not), they are being inflammatory (and many would say 'antisemitic'). In other words, no non-Jew may intrude on an infra-Jewish conversation without being inflammatory. The world is, admittedly, a lunatic asylum run according to , unlike the physical universe, but I try to maintain my sanity by trusting in logical analysis and the moral parity of all humna beings. You are in your rights to disagree, but your statement is not underwritten by any awareness of the principles of coherence. I say that without enmity.] (]) 20:30, 24 October 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::See ]. I apologize for the parallel discussion. ] (]) 20:35, 24 October 2024 (UTC) | |||
| == barnstar == | |||
| ::::::::I appreciate this Once, but please don't worry about this here. I'll be off-wiki for three weeks, that's all. ] (]) 20:47, 24 October 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::::I will admit that I am pushing for a fair resolution here mainly because I have a deep aversion to seeing the logical fallacy of ]. | |||
| :::::::::] (]) 20:59, 24 October 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::::::For the record (which rhymes with 'bored'), what happened precisely is explained ] (]) 12:01, 15 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::::: Reading ]’s mammoth works on jokes in the late 1970s taught me an important lesson: listening to comedians, or diving into the vast lore of jokes could tell you as much, perhaps even more, than philosophy or logic about the human world, not to speak of the hilarious way it is recounted in top-shelf newspapers. ] blew up ]’s haranguing insistence on Hamas’s putative use of human shields by interrupting the latter’s usual tactic of hammering interruptions with a simple comical analogy:’I know all about them! I’m always trying to murder my wife (she is of Palestinian descent) but she keeps using our children as human shields’. End of argument. | |||
| :::::::::: Misplaced Pages is increasingly, administratively, a tired humourless place, shorn of all of the delicacies of style like irony, where passionate ignorance gets a podium and the rules require that one take everything seriously. And if you don’t, and tell a joke, the surveillance of wokist minds will haul you over the coals for being ‘inflammatory’ even if they themselves don’t believe in anything other than the instrumental ('weaponised') opportunism presented by a joke to lay that kind of fatuous insinuation. Who gives a fuck? I think I’ll drop ] for bedtime reading and dip back into Legman’s magisterial anthology of limericks:) And now to bed. I don't think anyone in the Western world can feel entitled to any sentiment like unfairness or grievance - whatever occurs in the bitching banter of midget pissing matches we call the 'mainstream' reportage that we discuss to edit anything, - and that is all the more true of my response here,enjoying rather the farce in comical misreadings like the above. Cheers. ] (]) 23:04, 24 October 2024 (UTC) | |||
| {| style="border: 1px solid gray; background-color: #fdffe7;" | |||
| :<small>(])</small> A bad call, administratively, especially because of doubling down on the block despite getting further information about the Jewish history of the mentioned folklore. Perplexing decisions resulting in an outcome without justifications that hold up under scrutiny. ] (] | ] | ]) 01:29, 26 October 2024 (UTC) | |||
| |rowspan="2" style="vertical-align:middle;" | {{#ifeq:{{{2}}}|alt|]|]}} | |||
| :I'm sorry about this block. I try and avoid anything like humor myself on Misplaced Pages as it simply doesn't travel well. I keep whatever I say straightforward and avoid saying anything that requires a modicum of thought, there's no point as it will simply cause trouble and not accomplish anything. Thank you for pointing out that problem with the Wikimedia Foundation trying to be woke and accomplish social goals. I fully agree with trying to get more women to edit - the purpose though is to help create create a free, reliable encyclopedia. ] (]) 15:50, 15 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| |rowspan="2" | | |||
| ::When I told an Israeli scholar that joke after my suspension he laughed, never having heard it, and sent to another. Jokes are currency and should be repaid. They are one of the primary indexes of the self-perceptive temper of peoples and the quality of their civilization (which as regards the West began its death agony with the Holocaust, and, with the cormorant war on the Gaza fishbowl, banged the last nail into its coffin.). Some Auschwitz survivors remembered that they had to make jokes in order to survive and save themselves from lethal depression. | |||
| |style="font-size: x-large; padding: 0; vertical-align: middle; height: 1.1em;" | '''The Special Barnstar''' | |||
| |- | |||
| |style="vertical-align: middle; border-top: 1px solid gray;" | for working to keep POINTY articles off WP ] (]) 12:09, 27 November 2014 (UTC) | |||
| |} | |||
| <small>(this will have to do until they make an Anti-Zionism barnstar)</small> | |||
| :How can I repay that? By a trivial secret. One of the major frustrations of my life is that I never learnt to read ]'s ] in the original. I'll die thinking I missed something of great importance for this lacuna in my education.] (]) 12:30, 27 November 2014 (UTC) | |||
| ::As early as 1927 the Soviet Union passed a law (Article 58) forbidding on pain of imprisonment the telling of anti-régime jokes and one calculation put the number of Soviet citizens who ended up in gaol for telling them at 200,000. The best Russian comment on this farce was the joke that has a judge walking out of court, bent up laughing. When asked why, he gasped that he’d just dispatched someone to the gulag for ten years for telling the best joke he’d ever heard, which, of course, he couldn’t repeat for fear of incriminating himself. Nazi Germany wasn’t slow to imitate the Soviet measure. One of the first laws passed in Nazi Germany in 1934 was the ''Heimtückegesetz'', which outlawed as treasonable acts any jokes about Nazis. One of the reasons undoubtedly lies in what Henri Bergson detected when, in his classic ''Le Rire'', he wrote: | |||
| ==Hi!== | |||
| ::<blockquote>(On y verrait) le rire accomplir régulièrement une des ses fonctions principales, qui est de rappeler à la pleine conscience d'eux-mêmes les amours-propres distraits et d'obtenir ainsi la plus grande sociabilité possibles des caractères (. .laughter regularly accomplishing one of its principal functions, namely, to summon '''the distracted expression of self-esteem back to a full awareness of itself''' and thereby obtain the '''greatest possible sociability''' of characters). ], ] (1900) ] 1975 p.133.</blockquote> | |||
| RE: "Occupied": to be honest I wasn't aware of the discussion regarding the "occupied" portion of "occupied territories", but that is a lot of discussion on a lot of different threads. I am not disputing that 200 kilos of olives are months of subsistence for a family in that economy -- but: | |||
| :: a) I don't recall using the term "petty", to the best of my knowledge | |||
| :: b) I am referring to the term "reportedly". If the settlers stole the olives then they did, but if they didn't then they didn't. If we don't know if/who/when the olives were stolen then that should be clarified. | |||
| :: c) I also added the why tag because it is not explained why "the IDF ordered Palestinian farmers in Kafr Qaddum villagers in the Qalqilya Governorate to leave their properties" | |||
| ::As wiki wokifies itself, making an advanced degree in the niceties of political correctness, rather than familiarity with scholarship, the essential qualification for writing articles, I hope the picayune historic record of this nook in the ] of the world will include me as the first, I believe, to fall victim to administrative humourlessness for an innocuously instructive on-topic joke. As for the rest, administrative failings in correctly construing simple English sentences are nonetheless nothing new, as my block log’s rapid overturnings of hasty suspensions show.] (]) 14:12, 16 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :::: Thanks anyway for your civilized response. I know that this topic can bring out the worst in people. Please correct as you see fit as per ]. ] 17:14, 27 November 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :::Once was maybe a misspeak in the moment so I disregarded it, but this is twice now that you've characterized the situation as {{tq|wokist}} or {{tq|wokifies}}. I thought you better than being one to play into right-wing authoritarian 'anti-woke' discourse but now I'm not as sure. This was a bad administrative call, but it wasn't a bad call because it was a 'woke' call. ] (] | ] | ]) 18:40, 16 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ::::: P.S. I would give you a barnstar but I don't know how. I am rather ignorant about the technical side of things, i.e. a Luddite. ] 17:14, 27 November 2014 (UTC) | |||
| ::::], ''I'll Burn That Bridge When I Get To It!: Heretical Thoughts on Identity Politics, Cancel Culture, and Academic Freedom,'' Sublation Press 2023. When an authoritative scholar voices views I had already arrived at independently (I wrote extensively on the dangers in identity politics before it became a fashionable topic), I defer to their conclusions, preferring to get sceptics to read that book or article rather than argue with me briefly on a wiki page. Books have depth not allowed here, also per TLDR. which marks the default attention span customary on wiki ] (]) 21:11, 16 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :::::I used the term "reportedly" as a sop to editors who often complain when my sources are OCHA or 'pro'-Palestinian. It's no skin off my nose. I don't know the facts, few do, and, having to read a mother-lode of newsprint, I doubt whether most of our RS are written by people who "know the facts". It often takes me, in my private work, a decade or two to ascertain with the assurance I desire, that something reported in a source is verifiably true. In this instance, the UN report I used is at variance with the PLO official report made on the day, 3 bags becomes 200 kilos (I assist yearly monks in picking their olives so 65 kilos per bag made sense), one individual becomes several, etc. My explanation on your page is ], a private reflection one often has to make to figure out why source dissonance is so frequent, and as often, I cannot judge the truth of the matter. No one knows why the IDF ordered the farmers to leave their property, since their access to it, as per the regulative norm governing these things, is that they may put foot on their land near settlements only two or three days a year, and they had the permission here. The fact that Kedumim settlers quickly exploited the situation may be coincidence, grasping at the opportunity given by the result of the IDF order, or informally coordinated, since there is much tacit collaboration between the IDF (which has a rising settler component) and settlers. God/destinty works in mysterious ways, the cliché runs: I've always found human behavior more mysterious than the god hypothesized by monotheistic theologies. Ours is not to reason "why", ours is but to transcribe and sigh. In Hebron, houses in Shuhada street are invaded by settlers, who often are accompanied by IDF regulars in their invasions of private property. Sources simply don't tell one what one would wish to know, so as editors we have to resign ourselves to the puzzling incompleteness of articles, ours and the newspaper sources we use. Regards.] (]) 18:04, 27 November 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :::::While Finkelstein has published quality work on topics like memory studies, antisemitism, and the genocide in Palestine, I think it's telling that unlike those works, ''I'll Burn That Bridge'' was not published with a university press, academic journal, major national publisher, etc. I know some editors think that anything a professor writes or utters anywhere is equally golden, but I think that publishers and venues matter. I consider , published in established academic journal '']'' and written by —herself hardly a non-entity in academia as former ] dean and current holder of an endowed professorship—instructive on the topic. ] (] | ] | ]) 21:35, 16 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :::::For 2 thousand years hardly any of the books constituting the 'great tradition' of Western thought were published by a university Press. One of the greatest historical works in that discipline, ]'s ] was rejected by 3 university presses, included Princeton, because his research of agonizing moments of history ''woke'' anxieties, ante litteram. Personal anecdotes by friends still in academe underscore how careful teachers must be in speaking in classes on any topic about which some special constituency has ideas of being an historic victim of discrimination, just in case someone in the class may share them. If they do not learn to tiptoe around the minefield of these diverse sensitivities, they risk being reported to the deans, and having their careers damaged. And I am speaking of personal knowledge of people on the left. It's more or less what is happening on wiki with ARBPIA5] (]) 22:48, 16 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::{{tq|For 2 thousand years hardly any of the books constituting the 'great tradition' of Western thought were published by a university Press}}: Yeah, and we still don't cite Augustine's ''The City of God'' on Misplaced Pages pages about human history.{{pb}}In the meantime, I've been reading , and frankly I don't have money to spare on buying transphobic, anti-Black trash written by a red fascist annoyed that his students care about trans rights and learn about racial capitalism. You can keep your Finkelstein fanboying. If something goes wrong in ARBPIA, it's going to be because committee members think it's unnecessary to read up on the topic at issue beyond what gets filtered to them by osmosis through media mired in Islamophobic neo-imperialism. It's not going to be because they're 'woke' and voted for Obama in the primaries instead of Sanders. Verso didn't reject ''I'll Burn That Bridge'' because it was too radical. They rejected it because it was sloppy and ''reactionary''.{{pb}}That you had the gall to recommend this book as if it has any real wisdom—''that's'' the funniest thing on this page, or it would be if it weren't so pathetic and sad. ] (] | ] | ]) 23:04, 16 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::<blockquote>'I feel a real and solid pleasure when anybody points out a fallacy in any of my views, because I care much less about my opinions than about their being true.'], as cited admiringly in Finkelstein's book. </blockquote> | |||
| :::::::This you fail to do, unfortunately for this conversation, which ends here. That epitaph, to you, since I also cite it, is sheer gall, by a reactionary thinker, devoid of wisdom. Some of us live by that credo, which ultimately goes back to Plato and Aristotle, for both of whom personal affections should never compromise our loyalty to the pursuit of truth. There was of course, an implicit danger in that notion (''amicus Plato, sed magis amica veritas'' in a totalitarian state or family could provide a warrant for murder, if the 'truth' is confused with an authoritarian parent's right to domineer or with a party line which runs roughshod over people by advocating the betrayal of one's family or friends), a danger corrected by Russell. In his reformulation, in all of us, even the most gifted, there is a tendency for our self-esteem to get the better of realities and concepts that deflate and challenge it. But, of course, this is just my gall, livid and splenetic, and you are not obliged to torment yourself by reading this page where consolation for what one ardently believes is not my concern. Fare thee well.] (]) 02:30, 17 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::Far be it from me to stop you and Finkelstein from swooning for a eugenicist. "Fare thee well" indeed. ] (] | ] | ]) 09:10, 17 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::::古池や | |||
| :::::::::盲飛び込む | |||
| :::::::::空の音] (]) 10:08, 17 November 2024 (UTC){{od}} | |||
| ==Earthing== | |||
| I still do not understand what is in regards to not committing suicide. Can you explain to me, one to one. I admit I am a dunce. ] 17:42, 27 November 2014 (UTC) | |||
| ::The men of that particular suburb of East Jerusalem are noted electricians,- they are responsible for wiring up a large part of Jerusalem, east and west. Evidently their jargon draws off their trade. In everyday Islam, one standard measure (as opposed to classical Islam which took on board Greek humoural theory) for ridding oneself of madness/deep depression/homicidal-autocidal feelings is the recitation of specific ]s or prayer at a mosque. The devout have a "raisen" on their foreheads (zebibah) from frequently bowing and touching the mosque's pavement with their brows. Presumably this is what the men of that district alluded to: since they imagine that a mind is like an electrical circuit, and when its discharges go haywire (abnormal mental states) then, just as Franklin's lightening rod discharged dangerous atmospheric lightening strikes by earthing the charge to the ground, so praying in Muslim fashion, with one's head touching the earth, would function similarly to 'earth' the tensions building up in a person.] (]) 18:09, 27 November 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :: |
:::If my calendarizing is right, ur free to speak once more of matters that shall not be spoken of. Apropos of nothing I look forward to your participating in the upcoming ARC, no excuses. It's planned for December, after that you can put your feet up:) ] (]) 19:28, 16 November 2024 (UTC) | ||
| :::: Nothing I say, or for that matter in my view what the indicted write in their defence will alter substantially the outcome, substantial damage to regular, competent editors with a balancing ban for one or two others. The probable verdict is already present in the selection of names - the majority of those listed as under suspicion are commonly if ludicrously identified with a 'pro-Palestinian' profile. That is what I meant by 'wokist' above. And, indeed, I take the weird otherwise inexplicable sanction I received as a foretaste of what's to come, since it must reflect some irrationally cautious protective atmosphere surrounding anything deemed 'Jewish' (as opposed to Palestinian- there's no jumpiness about that term). In the IP conflict, Israel, reflecting the mainstream media bias, is, qua an ostensibly 'Jewish' state, increasingly considered ‘marginalized’ and therefore requiring the same special protections and sensitivities accorded other marginalized groups on wikipedia. This consideration does not apply to the other half of the equation, the Palestinian people, who are suffering extreme marginalization if not genocide at the hands of that state. Since 2019 this undercurrent has been slowly creeping into Misplaced Pages and, I expect, has essentially since 7 October, won the ‘argument’, thanks also to the, apparently, massive disruption of an organized sock farm, whose irruptions were mostly reverted by regulars, while the 'others' stood silently by. Good luck.] (]) 21:54, 16 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :::::I had the good fortune in September while in Paris, to sight and buy a copy of Foucault’s thitherto unpublished lectures on Nietzsche, which were finally edited and published in August. But perhaps I should rather reread his ] which seems more actual. I was reminded of this this morning when low and behold I was pinged to note the 8th report against me over the last year or so, and this time the in-your-face harassment hinges on an awesome innumeracy. | |||
| :::::I’m always amazed at the lengths some types of editor will go to to rake up, or extort readings from, diffs in one’s record to exact punitive measures from contributors whose commitment to wikipedia they evidently dislike. than the one I, and perhaps yourself, were raised to master by rotework in bubs. I.e., | |||
| ::: Thanks. Interesting. ] 18:26, 27 November 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :::::''Thirty days has September, | |||
| ::::Interesting anthropologically, indeed, but of course counter-intuitive. It means one only kills in cold blood, which is not of course true.] (]) 18:45, 27 November 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :::::''April, June, and November, | |||
| :::::''All the rest have thirty-one, | |||
| :::::''Save February at twenty-eight, | |||
| :::::''But leap year, coming once in four, | |||
| :::::''February then has one day more.'' | |||
| :::::Some years later, I realized that it had two anomalies: (a) has should be ‘have’ since the subject is plural, and (b) the rhyme scheme is defective because ‘thirty one’ and ‘twenty-eight’ do not rhyme with each other, as the format would lead one to expect. Something like | |||
| ::::: I thought "murder" meant in cold blood, whereas "killing" is far more varied. ] 19:02, 27 November 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :::::I was just going to strike my comment out as fatuously obtuse in its ethnocentrism, while somewhat ashamedly pondering over it and thinking it frivolous at the dinner table. What I as a Westerner might construe as 'counter-intuitive' might, in a different, in this case, micro-culture like that, be eminently reasonable as an explanation of why suicide is to be excluded. As for 'murder'/'killing', my impression is that the former is a legal definition applied to taking someone's life, whereas the latter is generic for the same thing. Did ] kill or murder ]? Many Christians would say he murdered him, making a sectarian-theological and legal judgement. Idem for ]'s beheading of ], which, like killing one's wounded companion in Britain's Afghan wars, was, in terms of military culture, an act of pity, though forbidden in law. How does one define ]'s killing of ]? Legally, it's murder, though the Holocaust was round the corner. The Nazis called it symptomatic of a vast Jewish terrorist conspiracy, just as newspapers habitually call these days any murder with some profound political grievance behind it 'terror'. There is a cultural and technical bias in our use and application of these terms. Murder is distinguished from manslaughter in that in the former there is malice aforethought. I guess as distinct from assassinations which, if made by a state, putatively are not driven by malice, but are ], though to an outside eye, quite primitive notions of vengeance typical of frontier wars or feuds would be seen to be compact of many such acts. The Israeli indictment against the soldier who furtively changed his ammo case, and shot dead, first Nadim Nuwara, and then apparently, after an hour shot dead Odeh Salameh in the ] cites the soldier for manslaughter, not, as murder, though it is difficult to see how, in the space of an hour one can sight up and shoot two individuals without premeditative enmity of the kind usually defining murder charges. We call them killings, but, had the subject been an Israeli, the newspapers would have reported them as murders. Thanks for raising these issues, and cleaning up my sloppy oversights. Now, to this evening's movie, hopefully a comedy. Regards ] (]) 20:01, 27 November 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :::::''Thirty days have September, | |||
| == Caution-2014-12-01 == | |||
| :::::''April, June, and November, | |||
| :::::''All the rest have thirty-one, | |||
| :::::''With one exception to the sum | |||
| :::::''That’s February with twenty-eight | |||
| :::::''Stumbling with a shorter gait | |||
| :::::''On leap years, though, one in four, | |||
| :::::''February marches one day more.'' ] (]) 10:30, 18 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::Thirty days have not September | |||
| ::::::April, June, or November, | |||
| ::::::by those baubles you remember, | |||
| ::::::and by ] tis sworn 'twere "hath" | |||
| ::::::(changing nary a drop the dues of wrath).-- ] <sup>] · ]</sup> 23:30, 18 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::Touché. Serves me 'write' for googling the text to save transcribing from memory.] (]) 09:45, 19 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::I stand corrected, and yet still the math | |||
| :::::::of ruling subjects with a singular 'hath' | |||
| :::::::Challenges usage. We must then 'hath' away | |||
| :::::::And let a plural 'have' assert its sway. | |||
| :::::::Of course the bard's example mocks the rule: | |||
| :::::::Both govern plurals, and damn the grammar school | |||
| :::::::In plays He penned, and few of us would dare | |||
| :::::::To let a pedant voice douse out His flair. | |||
| :::::::Though once a nob, - a certain E. de Vere - | |||
| :::::::A courtly farter, and a whinging brayer, | |||
| :::::::Tried to outshine Shakespeare, writing answers | |||
| :::::::To all the sonnets. The outcome? Paltry cancers | |||
| :::::::Upon the lithely body of English verse | |||
| :::::::Here's one to prove it. The rest are far, far worse. | |||
| :::::::::::'''E de Vere's riposte to Sonnet 73''' | |||
| Regarding to your (without any smile) as well as for the following your edit's description "" - I just have to remind you about the ] & ] rules. | |||
| ::::::::''Your glowering years lie on youth’s ashen bed, | |||
| --] (]) 00:07, 1 December 2014 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::''And limbs that would caress shake in the cold | |||
| ::::::::''Winds of remembrance, grazing upon the fled | |||
| ::::::::''Warmth of yesteryear, with my self enrolled | |||
| ::::::::''As brushwood for that all-consuming pyre | |||
| ::::::::''Your songs stack up against Time’s freezing hour, | |||
| ::::::::''My boyhood’s voice enchanted in this choir | |||
| ::::::::''Of dirges skirling your necromantic power. | |||
| ::::::::''You stay your twilight with my dawning’s glow, | |||
| :::::::: ''And fire your winter on my borrowed spring, | |||
| ::::::::''So you may keep warm watch on life, although | |||
| ::::::::''I shiver, bare and ruined, to see you fling | |||
| ::::::::''My youth’s green wood on age’s hearth and glow, | |||
| :::::::::''Refreshed by bracing coals, while I grow old, | |||
| :::::::::''Mere bedded ash left smouldering in the cold.'' ] (]) 11:18, 19 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| == Proposed party at PIA5 == | |||
| :(Your friendly neighbourhood stalking Zionist) There may be a grain of wisdom there N. I believe it was meant kindly. ] (]) 01:36, 1 December 2014 (UTC) | |||
| Hello, I'm notifying you that I have listed your name at ] as being among the most active editors in Palestine/Israel noticeboard disputes, and I have proposed that you participate as a party to the case. ] (]) 20:29, 4 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ::Fair enough. It might look like a personal attack, but, it was intended as a sociological message, straight out of a remark by ], tinctured by memories of reading ]'s ''Russia Under the Old Regime'' (disastrously for my education, the Peregrine reprint of 1977 lacks pp.239-270), to alert several editors why I find their approach perplexing. If I find the travails of 'liberal Zionism' understandable in terms of the peculiarities of American history, I find the confusions of Israel's revarnished, neo-post-Zionist rhetoric illustrative of the impact of a new constituency, that of the ex-Soviet immigration (everyone knows that the demographic urgency to fill that 'empty land' brought unintended (if obvious to the sociological mind) consequences: the Mizrachi inflow undercut the confident Ashkenazi faith in their enduring primacy by electing the marginal world of ] to ] ascendency, just as the Soviet influx altered the parameters by the emergence of ]. It is remarkable that ] has more Russian readers than those who peruse its Hebrew version. I learned Russian from very astute exiles who gave me a wonderful education in how to parse a Marxist literary critique of ] or ] to shovel out the regime rhetoric (a palliative to censors) from what Brodsky would call the 'nitty-gritty' of the kernel, which, contrariwise, addressed the realities. Because of this, I expect people, perhaps unfairly, of that background to thresh out the difference between the chaff of ideology (which Zionism, like any nationalism is), from the substance of facts. Igorp's edit, which I responded to, was not necessary. My original edit gave the bare bones of what happened. His edit added an 'explanation' (how can Israel investigate a crime if it is not allowed on the scene?) That is a defensive adjunct. It elicited my second compensative edit (a fact: 90% of Palestinian complaints to the occupation authorities are shelved; specifically, settlers are almost never indicted for observed crimes for 'lack of evidence', and of 10 mosque arson cases since 2011, none have ever come to an indictment or conviction). It's a pity to me to observe that the culture that produced ], ], ] and ] is less influential among contemporaries than ], just as one is disappointed to see how Mizrachi culture's standing is tainted by the recent lyrics of ], better known now than the music of ] which so moved Einstein to remember his Jewish roots in 1930. Okay, I admit it: I'm a fossil, with the musky redolence of that collapsed world that once, when it heard the word 'Russian', didn't think of politics, but of a great tradition of humanism where, even under Soviet rule, a first edition of ] or ] would be sold out on day one, and run through numerous editions within a year, till everyone in Moscow and the provinces had their major verses off by heart, and no longer needed a printed copy, something that was unheard of in the sanctimoniously cultured West. Thanks.] (]) 11:14, 1 December 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :And I decline your proposal. I'm retired, , not retarded.] (]) 20:45, 4 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ::Indeed . I paraphrased a joke used by ], a distinguished EEC jurist sharing with a non-Jewish readership (]) a joke Jews tell among themselves to warn against the excesses of accusing indiscriminately critics of Israel as, ''ipso facto'', antisemites. No one raised an eyebrow when I quoted this . By 2024, SFR thought it 'inflammatory' and was backed up by Barkeep, who said, unintelligibly, that my use of it 'weaponised antisemitism' when my use of it underscored how Jews themselves have jokes which caution the community '''not''' to weaponise antisemitism!!! And what is the result? an absurdly confused misreading of the evidence and flawed judgment and sanction is now part of the 'proof' I have a battleground mentality. That's called a disinformation feedback loop, and it is so thoroughly ingrained in the system that woe behold anyone dragged into its indefatigably superficial toils. I'll trust the judgment of admins to exercise their functions as serene IP supervisors when they can, as Slim Virgin did, write or rewrite from top to bottom a conflicted or difficult IP topic article or two, displaying mastery of the literature and respect for NPOV balancing between the two parties, an achievement all recognized, even while recognizing imperfections remained. Few of those who kibitz but refuse to help out and prefer to sit in judgment on the sidelines have the faintest idea of how conceptually, methodologically and ethically demanding a serious commitment to that area is, and to see so many good editors hauled over the coals for putative abuses or occasional slips is sad, given the impunity of the endless socks that infest the area with utter cynicism and contempt for encyclopedic aims ] (]) 21:07, 4 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *I am notifying you of ]. --] (]) 19:42, 9 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ::: Sorry, but your answer (as usual) has little to do with my questions. | |||
| ::Declined. I’m retired and stirring from the grave would aggravate rheumatic risks. I see no evidence there, unless for what looks like settling an old score/sore dating back to 19th of August 2023 where you appear to have been upset when I used the adjective ‘extraordinary’ to characterize an edit you made to ] (which I rewrote from top to bottom), an edit suggesting that 19th century science ‘provided evidence’ for the existence of races. It did no such thing, and it struck me as extraordinary for someone with a scientific background to suggest, by careless language (noting careless language has proved to be the bane of my former wikilife . It really upsets people), that science (or the pseudo-science of that day) had anything resembling evidence for its contention that ‘races’ (the ideological virus of modern history) existed. If any admin wants to make an informed judgment on the weird insinuations purported to emerge in those diffs, they’d better read the five archived discussions of that page beforehand, where they will find almost nothing from me but patience, urbanity and scholarship used to address other editors few if any of whom appear to have familiarized themselves with many if indeed any of the 103 or so academic sources I and others brought to bear to substantiate the article. ] (]) 23:06, 9 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ::: I can also tell you that: | |||
| :::Since I believe the recent sanction was injurious to my bona fides here, however, and since in that request of yours to drag me into a deliberation which I think is conceptually flawed from the outset, further insinuations were made I am disruptive, I will drop a few notes in response to your 'evidence' because I like to think that, at least here, the record of my activities here should be complete. This interests no one but myself of course, so I don't desire any feedback. It may take some time since I am engaged privately in a lengthy argument over Dante's cosmology and the Timaeus, which consumes most of my leisure reading.] (]) 13:25, 11 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :::* Degree of your radical estimates' of "Russian" Jews and their integration in Israel is inversely proportional to your understanding of their life in the former Soviet Union and Israel (1990 ++). Actually, this is true for many Western liberals, idealizing "proletariat", "oppressed nations", etc, abstracting from the negative consequences of their errors. But you can read about them in the ] article. However, they do consider themselves as the the main democratizers and feel entitled to distribute derogatory evaluation for those who do not share their opinion :) By the way, I'm afraid that ] would turn over in his grave if he knew that his prize was awarded to ]. :( | |||
| :Being dragged repeatedly to AE can be evidence for every imaginable conjecture or nothing. Diffs like that look impressive, (that nothing basically happened only feeds into glancing eyes the suspicion that Nishidani must be one of the so-called Untouchables) in terms of the 'no-smoke-without-fire' effect in rumour-momgering, so I will open each up to dissect who said what of whom, in what context, and what the results were. ] (]) 13:39, 11 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :::* Your words are very similar to such ]'s ] ]: | |||
| ::No need, judging by and (altho not everyone is paying attention to that afaics). ] (]) 13:49, 11 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| <blockquote> | |||
| :::<blockquote>'newly added parties have adequate time to engage in the case.'</blockquote> | |||
| "A million immigrants from Russia, a third of them non-Jews, some of whom were also found to have a degree of alcohol and crime in their blood, were not a problem. Tens of thousands of Africans are the ultimate threat." | |||
| :::I have no adequate time to engage with what is going on over there, which, in any case, is so humongously messy in its conceptual sprawl that to unpack the conflicting premises would take weeks, something which, given the austere word limits, is formally impossible anyway. Perhaps they have the liberty to try and drag me by the virtual short and curlies out of a contented retirement, but my gut feeling is that initiatives of this kind smack of being a kind of ], a novel which bears some analogy to things that go wrong on wikipedia. Now, kindly leave the page to my annotations, which have no interest to anyone at this point but myself.] (]) 15:58, 11 December 2024 (UTC){{od}} | |||
| </blockquote> | |||
| *<blockquote>'In the past two years, Nishidani has been the named subject of 5 AE cases': , , , , , although the last one was initiated by sockpuppets.</blockquote> | |||
| ::: and others like him, whom you often regard as RS,.. | |||
| ::: But again ... WP isn't a place for such your personal assessments, there is a lot of other sites for. I agree to find another Internet's desk and continue the conversation there, but in the meantime I'd propose you to comply with above mentioned WP:NOTFORUM Rule in your future posts here. | |||
| ::: Regarding to the Alexa's statistics : as I showed in ], its data raise many questions, including the lack of data for non Israeli visitors. | |||
| To underline the recurrency of my obnoxious behaviour as recognized at AE two precedents were cited: the second (Sandstein 2019) I deal with elsewhere down the page. The first goes back to a single, bizarre report for 2017 | |||
| ::: Your interpretation of your "" edit's description may cause only a sad smile. But about it - later. --] (]) 01:18, 3 December 2014 (UTC) | |||
| *13 March 2017 | |||
| *I think that edit could be resolved. "Chiam Levinson claims in a H article..." and allow the short section to stand. This would make it clear that this was one jouno's opinion in Israel's equivalent of the ]. It would take off the slightly misleading "authoritative" edge that I think you object to here. I understand that. Regards ] (]) 01:44, 3 December 2014 (UTC) | |||
| The report arose from my adding to the ] a datum about 4 Israelis throwing a stun grenade into an apartment where two Palestinian women, a mother and her daughter, lived ( apparently to drive them out of a predominantly Jewish neighbourhood). The mayor of ] called it an example of racist violence. It was immediately reverted on the grounds that the incident was ‘a neighbor dispute over music and criminals’. I thought (mistakenly it turned out) that I was entitled to 1 revert, especially given the bizarre contrafactual edit-summary made by the reverter. This restoration was expunged by a second editor saying the incident was not dissimilar to Palestinian stone-throwing (?!!). | |||
| *Always thoughtful and challenging. Your post is appreciated. The colleague known as ] (]) 02:37, 2 December 2014 (UTC) | |||
| ::I would like to discuss the points you make in more depth, when you, and indeed I, have the time. I am basically a ], a sucker for the wonderful 20's and 30's ] type domestically produced films, so heavily borrowed stylistically from the contempory Soviet school of film. I totally agree with your point regarding the intensely rich Russian Humanist/Artistic heritage, which many early Zionists regarded as a cultural and philosophical touchstone, a unique product of a glorious fusion of the Russian and Jewish identity reflected in the gifted individuals whom you mention in your post. This remarkable period created the Kibbutzim movement, and the true beginnings of the essentially Socialist, communal Israel which was stymied in the 70s and 80s, curiously at about the same period when ] destroyed the huge gains made by the post-1945 welfare state consensus in the U.K, which has had such toxic effects on this society. This Israeli "Thatcherism" also crippled (for some tragic decades) any attempts for an early 2 state solution, which may have been achieved by the 80s. But I am optimistic due to Israeli historical socio-political patterns. Arguably Israel was the only truly successful Socialist state in the world in it's first 3 decades, coupling a radical political synthesis of State Socialism and Anarcho-Syndicalism with a unique freedom in the arena of public and media discourse, both intellectual and popular. I suspect you rather approve of those aspects of early Israeli socio-political development, and you have often remarked favourably on the almost unprecedented and unfettered self-criticism in current Israeli media discourse. When the 2 state solution eventually is achieved (as it will) then these aspects will enjoy a resurgence. A nation which has such a pure and almost masochistically democractic inner dialogue, conducted within the Hebrew media in all its forms, has a foundation of intellectual and humanistic granite, which testify to many of the original left Zionist traits still being in place and ripe for a renaissance of thought and deed. I remain optimistic of a socially aware, radically open Israel which regains the admiration of progressive Western socialism and humanism, as it did prior to 67 as a remarkable experiment. It is a disaster that Ottoman oppression inhibited any similar sentiments of socialism and humanism, blended with a sense of nationalism developing in I/P's Islamic leadership cadres which may have dovetailed with early Zionism. (If you are aware of similar movements that developed, I would be interested to hear) Excuse my ill-formed initial impressions, which I will refine. I hope I am welcome on your page by the way. Yours aye ] (]) 03:23, 2 December 2014 (UTC) | |||
| ::Yes, I largely agree with that (though I am not optimistic as you are), historically, because it is the Israel I knew when I worked there. I must have a coffee to get my post-prandial neurons stirring, but will reply in duke horse. And of course stimulating interlocutors like yourself are always welcome here, it hardly need be said. Cheers for the mo'. ] (]) 13:23, 2 December 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :::{{tps}} A horse belonging to the ? ] | ] 13:42, 2 December 2014 (UTC). | |||
| ::::Nope, though topologically not far off, if temporally askew. ]'s nickname has inflected some dialect jokes, and this was a common misprint, when not intended, in letters back in the 1940s (so it must exude a rather air, easily lost on someone with the youthful moniker of 美少年). As I said earlier above, one problem with my attempts at being comical is that I have to footnote everything. Shades of ] in ]! ] (]) 13:51, 2 December 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :::::: From Old Horse ''jalda''? Huh. ] | ] 17:44, 2 December 2014 (UTC). | |||
| :::::::Very good! Just a slight correction: ]:)] (]) 18:05, 2 December 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :::::Decisions in politics are, overwhelmingly, when not grounded in ideological obsessions or moral self-inflation (Tony Blair's person decision to trample on what the best legal and academic (Arabist) advice in 2003's invasion of Iraq told him) based on hard numbers calculations, nothing else. Psephologically, there is no basis for optimism. Demographically, the situation overrules confidence for similar reasons: the three constitutive blocks of any viable majority - the religious vote, the Russian immigrant vote, the Mizrachi constituency, all respectively have very rich traditions, but have no roots in the kind of enculturated enlightenment thinking which is required to sustain the institutional fabric of democracy.* Gellner said Russia missed out on the (a) separation of church and state (b) the Protestant reformation (c) the Enlightenment, and all 3 factors predisposed the state to autocratic imperio-religious/slavoiphilic-ethnic thinking. In Israel (a) is deeply problematical (b) is true in the economic sense, (1) in that ethical principles do not conflict with, but rather enhance rationality in the productive sphere, but (ii) not true in so far as ultra-orthodoxy trumps reformist Judaism, tending towards a kind of fundamentalism that is, unlike Protestantism, collectivist and messianic rather than individualistic; (c) the ] tradition in Judaism has, after the Holocaust and 1967 and the occupation, dwindled into a fringe of outraged anti-Zionism which liberal Zionism, itself fading as it got compromised with the neo-conservative politics of the U.S,, disowns. The outside world can do little with all this: the battle is essentially between 'Tel Aviv' and 'Jerusalem', but either way, all of these things are swept up in a much larger discourse, in which empires vie for resource dominance and the imposition of a fast-buck-return 'rationality' which will, if it hasn't already, dissolve the old nation-state as a civil and civic construction and replace it with the politics of the jungle. As to Islamicism, this is a trivial thing: in the last decade the West has picked off, isolated or dismantled the three Arab states, Iraq, Syria, and Ghedaffi's Libya, which were secular, two of them protective of significant Christian minorities, and had a relatively high standard of living (repellant dictatorships, but so are our regional allies in the Arab world). The states that best embody its worst traits, are solid allies of the Western states, despite their largesse to terrorists, while the non-state actors that use it, together with a commitment to social justice and technocratic training (Hezbollah), are dismissed as terrorists and nothing else. Israel is now a key military power in geopolitics, and 'Palestine' is a third-worldish rump-state, a congeries of district statelets or bantustans, with no hand to bid, and nothing to offer in return for recognition. The purpose of Zionism was to create a space where Jews didn't need to think in terms of 'us/them', but could grow up, raise a family, work and live out their lives without looking over their shoulder, sniffing a pogrom in the air, or hearing those at times intermittent yet chronic anti-Semitic innuendoes even in the finest democracies, not only as one shopped or worked in a factory, but in Yale or Oxford, etc. over casual conversations or between the lines of print: i.e. some place on earth where they could finally be normal people without an identity problem invented by amicably inimical 'others' thrust on them every other day by the ingrained recourse to a millennial toxic prejudice. I don't see Zionism as having solved that effectively. It created an urbane milieu where this dream is now largely realizable, but in an area where a 'they' now penetrates the headlines even more obtrusively, to disturb the equanimity of normalcy, and the 'they' won't go away. It is, to an outside eye like mine, the paradox or irony of the project - the dream to create the normalcy most humanity takes for granted has its nightmarish underside in which the enfranchised minority tormented by prejudice is now a majority threatened by its own ineludible minority of neighbours, who for several decades haven't been allowed the same right, i.e., to live normal lives free of the pressure of demonization. Until that enfranchisement towards the secure sense, even in the unconscious, of normalcy comes to terms with the hidden cost of Zionism, the disenfranchisement of Palestinians aspiring to precisely the same thing, there is no solution. Sometimes an apology can do wonders. This is a very scrappy reflection, digited while listening to a relative's woes over the phone, so, my apologies.] (]) 16:25, 2 December 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :::*A parallel is with the way American politics have been radically changed by the impact of the formative evangelical Baptist cast of Texan politics, which came to ascendency within the Republican Party in the late 70s. The only outside hope this might suffer a sea-change is with the gradual Hispanic expansion in the South, which has, at least culturally and in terms of religious values, diametrically opposed values.] (]) 17:27, 2 December 2014 (UTC) | |||
| ::::*Not "scrappy", but excellent. Having one's current political thoughts given such an insightful scrutiny is deeply refreshing, and oddly reassuring..strange. I do hope the relative is now, or soon will be, woe free. Yours till the horses come home. The curly fossil known as ] (]) 20:14, 2 December 2014 (UTC) | |||
| Administrators all agreed that the RS confirmed this violent incident was clearly related to the I/P conflict (i.e. my addition was justified). The technicality that in my one revert I’d failed to get consensus meant I’d apparently infringed an Arbpia ruling. Getting consensus for inclusion of even obvious facts was technically impossible at that time, since from 2016 there had been a concerted ‘pro-Israeli’ majority relentlessly reverted a great number of well-sourced contributions I had made to IP pages on the most spurious or picayune of reasonings. But the technicality stands and, in those terms, I was justly blocked for 24 hours. The long-term result was (a) that nothing can be reverted if one editor challenges an addition, save by talk page consensus (a rule consistently breached since then with impunity) and (b) that this perfectly valid datum is missing from that page to this date. The case can hardly be cited mechanically as evidence for my putatively consistent bad behaviour. I had simply misunderstood the nicety of a rule.If anything it constitutes strong evidence of how rules are abused tactically both to erase legitimate data from IP articles, and to manoeuver content editors into errors that can feed AE reports and get them removed. ] (]) 14:40, 21 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| == WP=:NOTFORUM violation, no.2 == | |||
| '''Background'''. Just prior to the first diff, a stub (about a baker's dozen of refs) was posted, ], which was . I happened to have extensive files precisely on this topic, and was amazed to see every wikipedia negative voice thrown at it (], ], ], ], ], ], ], ] etc) by a handful of editors who clearly were totally unfamiliar with this topic, which has accrued a substantial scholarly literature over the past decades. I stepped in and rewrote it thoroughly, with 45 first-class references. In the AfD Tryptofish on the grounds it was a synthesis of 'bogus and nasty scholarship promoting antisemitism to legitimate scholarship rebutting antisemitism.’ Presumably as main drafter I was spreading ‘bogus scholarship promoting antisemitism’. Tryptofish then was miffed that I didn't take this weird claim seriously (), and noting his complaint personalized this by stating . So A week later . He made the extraordinary and offensive inference that my sardonic rejoinder implied in turn that I was effectively | |||
| *27 November ] 27 November | |||
| <blockquote>caricatur(ing) my good-faith comment as some kind of laughable conspiracy theory ''a la'' the Protocols of Zion makes me uninterested in taking such a reply seriously. </blockquote> | |||
| *29 November ] 29 November 2014. | |||
| Sigh. How on earth could one suddenly twist a piece of obvious irony - the technical term is ] -into a wild insinuation about his intentions is beyond me. Nonetheless, I persisted in trying to mend these hurt feelings, which I found inexplicable, by for my scepticism about his claim. He apparently remained disgruntled. ] (]) 16:31, 11 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *30 November ]. | |||
| :Terrible poor taste to speak of a ]. The third was more of a bat trick. It was definitely not cricket.] (]) 20:22, 1 December 2014 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Nishidani 1''' Drsmoo filed a report against me for 'bludgeoning and hostility . . . (and) making personal attacks, assuming bad faith, and casting aspersions on the talk page of Zionism, race, and genetics'. | |||
| == A beer for you! == | |||
| Drsmoo cited for my ostensible bludgeoning mentality a 2019 case where Sandstein took no action against Icewhiz, reported by Nableezy, while blocking me for a week for a ‘battleground’ use of Misplaced Pages: I'd characterized Icewhiz as someone with extremist views. Sandstein judged that I’d given no evidence (the evidence I gave was that Icewhiz characterized ) (], ], ], ] and ]) as people militating on ‘the fringes of the Israeli radical left’, whereas, in his view, ] and ], figures on the radical right, were simply on the generic right side of the political spectrum and putative opponents of the occupation (radically false). | |||
| {| style="background-color: #fdffe7; border: 1px solid #fceb92;" | |||
| Anyone who actually knew the records of all the named figures would grasp that my inference from that evidence was more than reasonable, not an 'aspersion'. But, true, it was an inference, and Icewhiz was only permabanned six months later, surviving as a prolific sockmaster, even after his ] admin candidate puppet was detected. Technically Sandstein’s sanction was understandable – reasonable inferences are not evidence, even if well-founded. But it was certainly not a battleground aspersion to note that IW’s skewering of those prominent Israeli intellectuals as fringe radical leftists in contrast to the putative moderation of far-right settlers was an ‘extreme’ distortion of the know facts about their respective profiles. Citing a prior case result as a diff, as usual, can be question-begging, since the later record arguably vindicated my inference. ] (]) 10:56, 13 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| |style="vertical-align: middle; padding: 5px;" | ] | |||
| |style="vertical-align: middle; padding: 3px;" | A toast to you for the regular abuse you continue to put up with on your user talk page here. ] (]) 15:43, 3 December 2014 (UTC) | |||
| |} | |||
| :As to the substance, Drsmoo's relevant diffs consisted of my dismissing as 'rubbish' an assertion he made that the ] article was stating | |||
| :Duly/dewly quaffed with virtual virtuosity, i.e. quicker than Bob Hawke's 2 pints in 11.5 though I had some mathematical problems in figuring out the seconds required to skull just a pint!] (]) 21:13, 8 December 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :<blockquote>(a)in wiki voice that modern genetic studies on Jews are both “Zionist” and “race science”</blockquote></blockquote> | |||
| :It was rubbish because it was tailored out of whole cloth because there is simple no textual evidence for any such insinuation, and to assert it suggests one didn't even read the article. The article stated in wikivoice paraphrase what scores of academic studies argued, that an early Zionist concern for 'race' left traces in post war genetics research, primarily in Israel, and a certain methodological divergence between this and broad genetic studies, a trace closely studied and criticized by Israeli scholarship itself. Etc. | |||
| :Tryptofish to Drsmoo’s list of what he deemed disruptive or aspersive remarks. I was indeed exasperated by that talk page mess. I had noted on July 24 that some editors to the page were getting it by expressing their opinions or impressions of the article as then written, rather than focusing on the nitty gritty of the analysis of sources. ] reasonably raised an issue of one source interpretation, and Having clarified them, I then concluded: ‘What’s the problem?’ Suddenly Tryptofish . He said my source analysis was very helpful but '''his issue was my language'''. | |||
| <blockquote>I think what you quoted there is very helpful in addressing the concern that I had. ('''What's the problem? I'd say that there is a problem in your speaking to me in that tone.''')’</blockquote> | |||
| :That in my view was typical of the distracting drift on that page. One analysed sources collaboratively, and out of the blue an interjection would pop up expressive of some personal grievance. This sort of hypersensitive personalization, interrupting textual analysis one admits is illuminating by saying one is offended by some ‘tone’, to the point that an innocuous ‘what’s the problem’ is pointed out as injurious, this kind of derailing of work by petty or sniffish remarks, is incomprehensible to me. I was forced to . How did Tryptofish read this? He construed my explanation as really saying that Nishidani believes that in these exchanges 'It's everyone else's fault, not (mine).' That is the extraordinary way (an AGF abuse of course) he glossed . With that kind susceptibility to see a plea for commonsense as an example of demeaning hostility, editing becomes impossible: the sources are lost from sight. | |||
| :The result was a logged warning for both the plaintiff, Drsmoo, and myself, by ] for battleground conduct on 28 August. Fair enough.I disagree with the idea that 'battleground mentality' adequately sums up an attempt (my view) to stop a page deteriorating from its rigorously source-based text into a mish-mash of tinkering by editors ignoring the sources in order to readjust a topic strictly in terms of how they understand POV. But still, expressed my understanding of Tamzin’s decision. Mark. No resentment. Shit happens. | |||
| :Hi, | |||
| :Firstly, I would like to thank you for your excellent analysis on ]. Secondly, could I suggest that you asked to have your user-page permanently protected? Some admin did that to my user-page (I guess they got tired of "cleaning up" after young J.): that "lock-symbol" in the upper right-hand corner tells you that the page is protected. It would mean that no-one would be able to post as a new IP, whenever they felt like it. Cheers, ] (]) 20:52, 3 December 2014 (UTC) | |||
| *Oh! Well! Me too: I appreciate the solid review on ], and apparently {{U|Secret}} did too. Yes, admins can have a hard time with AfDs sometimes, esp. if there's a lot of sources which ''look'' valid. Thanks again. ] (]) 00:15, 5 December 2014 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Nishidani 2'''As soon as Tamzin closed the case, Tryptofish immediately What was his evidence of some putative ‘battleground mentality’? Revising the lead for precision and NPOV I had written | |||
| :Ah, Goya and Gentileschi! I have a plainsindian's diffidence about photography, but on the birth of my best friend's daughter, I did pick the cutie up and dangled her outstretched limbs before my gaping jaws for a 'snap', since the father was a great painter and was working at the time in a citationalist mode, and appreciated the joke. Thanks.] (]) 21:13, 8 December 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :<blockquote></blockquote> | |||
| ==Semi== | |||
| :Tryptofish changed this key neutral word leaving us with | |||
| I've semi'd this page for a week, Nishidani, and blocked the open proxy. Let me know if you don't want it. ] | ] 00:52, 4 December 2014 (UTC). | |||
| ::<blockquote></blockquote> | |||
| Thanks Bish, Do, as always, as you see fit. It might just relieve a lot of admins of noxiously recurrent sadsackery if you took the extreme measure mentioned here, so that none but registered editors can edit the page. It's your call.] (]) 21:13, 8 December 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :Frankly, this was flabbergasting. I opened a new section on the talk page | |||
| :Tryptofish rushed to warn me on my page that my use of the single word ‘extraordinary’ was in his view problematic, given Tamzin’s warning, and I replied lightly that . Tryptofish stated, after reporting me immediately to AE, that ‘Nishidani's reply to my message, '''which strikes me as defiant and lacking in self-awareness,''' clearly intending to continue the kind of conduct that the warning was about. So here we are.’ | |||
| :Just over an hour later . I didn’t protest. I merely noted that if I was to be sanctioned for battlegrounding for the use of a simple exclamation intended tersely to make another editor rethink his very strange edit, then obviously working any more on Misplaced Pages had become impossible, since virtually any sentence I might write would be microscopically parsed, word for word, to find a similar skerrick of ‘evidence’ from ‘tone’ to make reports against me. | |||
| == More beer! == | |||
| :Fortunately, many admins and experienced editors thought both Tryptofish's report and Tamzin's quick sanction were rash and commented that my linguistic point, that ‘affirm’ means ‘to make a statement and stand by it, to maintain or assert strongly’ fitted the context precisely, whereas Tryptofish’s ostensible correction ‘science provided evidence’ attributed to antiquated racial thinking of the 19th century a scientific status it did not have, and stated effectively in wikivoice that the results of a speculative pseudo-science provided ‘evidence’, when no such evidence was ever produced about the ‘genetics’ of ‘race’ differences. His suggestion only showed he had little grasp of the history of science (genetics in the 1880s?!!), and no familiarity with the dozens of sources used on that page, all of which support ‘affirmed’ and implicitly dismiss the idea that race hypotheses had any empirical support. | |||
| {| style="background-color: #fdffe7; border: 1px solid #fceb92;" | |||
| |style="vertical-align: middle; padding: 5px;" | ] | |||
| |style="vertical-align: middle; padding: 3px;" | I can really believe that the, um, persistence of certain IP's around here might make it reasonable to have more than one. ] (]) 00:57, 4 December 2014 (UTC) | |||
| |} | |||
| :To her great credit, Tamzin serenely accepted the criticisms and . | |||
| :The Nishidani brain, although far from delicate, is a fine instrument, and like all fine instruments, needs some lubrication from time to time. So enjoy the beer, my ancient old friend, but don't get too sozzled – we still need you in working order. Meanwhile, have a laugh at the . Regards, ] (]) 10:51, 4 December 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :::I grew up in a pub and don't know what 'too sozzled means:, except that, like emphysema, it seems to be used a lot at the clan's funerals as some pseudo-explanation for why some of us cark it earlier than expected.] (]) 21:13, 8 December 2014 (UTC) | |||
| ::::Yes, indeed. People working in what underwriters call "the retail liquor trade" are one of the worst risks for life insurance – much worse than, for example, North Sea oil divers. Regards --] (]) 09:48, 9 December 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :In short two days of admin and editors' time, and I include dear Tamzin here, were wasted clearing up an utterly misguided AE denunciation with no merit to it from the outset, because it was based on a lack of sensitivity to language (and I would suggest, oversensitivity, in reading into exchanges highly subjective, perceived feelings, things that either weren't there or had nothing to do with the hard task of getting a text accurate and neutral. More damagingly, the diff of the AE action is now repeatedly cited against me, as if there were something there which suggested there must be some fire beneath all the smoke arising from frivolous AE reports ] (]) 15:29, 28 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| == Croatian tobacco for rollies == | |||
| *'''Nishidani 3''' . The substance was that I had crossed a bright line in terms of ] in claiming editors, in an ongoing three month long talk page discussion about Zionism, race and genetics, were clearly not doing their job of reading the sources, but rather engaged in a protracted argufying for a title change in complete insouciance to the source base, chopping and changing vagrant assertions every time they were painstakingly refuted. To me it was a ‘serial nightmare of ] behaviour. , | |||
| :Please email me if you have some surplus supplies. I am prepared to swap a small photograph of ] and my last 12 oz tin of ] ] ] The sell-by date is 2006. (Ignore that. I had one last year of the same vintage. Excellent) Yours in a ] fug of tobacco smoke. ] (]) 02:43, 5 December 2014 (UTC) | |||
| ::Sure. Email me any address and I'll send you some in due course. I smoked the first consignment, but this new batch is very light on the lungs, so I have less recourse to it, not enough asphalt and gravel in it.] (]) 21:13, 8 December 2014 (UTC) | |||
| == Do you have any idea == | |||
| The best AE-adequate rebuttal was given by Levivich who about the page and its sources, each of which was proven to be contrafactual, with the plaintiff following up every correction of an unfounded claim, with another which likewise proved he was asserting things about sources which the sources themselves contradicted when checked. Not liking the turn of things, Andrevan then stated he would take a long break from the article in question. My impression from admin comments was that an editor cannot accuse another editor of unfamiliarity with the RS sources, even if this can be amply demonstrated, without themselves risking a charge of being uncivil: that it is uncivil to state the obvious. As a gesture of detached solidarity, I offered to do the same, and the complaint was closed on the 27th October.] (]) 15:14, 29 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| who's behind the editor using proxies to attack you, me, etc? ] (]) 06:42, 5 December 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :It's a very sad LTA but DENY is best. YGM. ] (]) 07:10, 5 December 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :: ]: Yeah, , ] (]) 22:39, 5 December 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :::Actually, I never even notice these assaults on this page. I switch on of a morn and note a lot of messages up for examination, and the dutiful work of attentive admins erasing it all. In any case, it's not something I think or care about or look into. I've been off the net since the 2nd, with computer problems, which means I have actually done some serious work at last. Thanks to everyone for their remarks and assistance during my absence/absinthe (John Carter would say)] (]) 21:13, 8 December 2014 (UTC) | |||
| ::::Yup, links to news articles about violence and hatred directed against Jews is so terrible that it needs to be deleted from the page history. More proof of Misplaced Pages's anti-Jewish agenda... <small class="autosigned">— Preceding ] comment added by ] (]) 08:54, 12 December 2014 (UTC)</small><!-- Template:Unsigned IP --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot--> | |||
| == Gva'ot == | |||
| Hi, I'm trying to understand why you reverted my edit. Yariv Openheimer and Peace Now fall under Israeli reactions, NYT belongs under international. Israeli media itself does not react, it reports reactions, and the statement attributed to it is already reported above, which is why I preserved the ref about. Please leave more informative edit summaries, "source" is rather meaningless considering I did not actually remove anything. ] (]) 09:28, 11 December 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :my proper edit summary is on the talk page. The one you saw arose because I am using a dinky provisory computer which hits the edit button by its own before I have managed to write out the reason for the edit. At least that is what occurred there. ] (]) 18:05, 11 December 2014 (UTC) | |||
| == Barenboim == | |||
| vs ] (]) 15:42, 18 December 2014 (UTC) | |||
| == Formal mediation has been requested == | |||
| {{Ivmbox | |||
| | <!---MedComBot-Do-not-remove-this-line-Notified-Skunk (weapon)--->The ] has received a request for formal mediation of the dispute relating to "Skunk (weapon)". As an editor concerned in this dispute, you are invited to participate in the mediation. ] is a voluntary process which resolves a dispute over article content by facilitation, consensus-building, and compromise among the involved editors. After reviewing the ], the ], and the ], '''please indicate in the "party agreement" section whether you agree to participate.''' Because requests must be responded to by the Mediation Committee within seven days, please respond to the request by 30 December 2014. | |||
| Discussion relating to the mediation request is welcome at the case talk page. Thank you.<br> | |||
| <small>Message delivered by ] (]) on ] of the Mediation Committee. 14:17, 23 December 2014 (UTC)</small> | |||
| }} | |||
| == Request for mediation rejected == | |||
| {{Ivmbox | |||
| | The ] concerning Skunk (weapon), to which you were listed as a party, has been ]. To read an explanation by the Mediation Committee for the rejection of this request, see the ], which will be deleted by an administrator after a reasonable time. Please direct questions relating to this request to the ] of the Committee, or to the ]. For more information on forms of dispute resolution, other than formal mediation, that are available, see ]. | |||
| For the Mediation Committee, ] (]) 16:53, 23 December 2014 (UTC)<br> | |||
| <small>(Delivered by ], ] the Mediation Committee.)</small> | |||
| }} | |||
| *'''Nishidani 4'''. Point 4 is missing from the official record because I never made a formal complaint about it (and wouldn't on principle, though it was a serious offence). Using discretion I simply notified an admin of the possibility that Andrevan had gone to a page in an area of my professional interest and edited it provocatively in such a way as to give the impression he was pressing me to deny or affirm my private identity. In short, it had all the hallmarks of an outing fishing expedition. The sequence is as follows: | |||
| ==Norman Finkelstein == | |||
| :At 16:17 on 26 December ScottishFinnishRadish , from the Palestine/Israel conflict for 3 months. | |||
| :At 21:06, 26 December 2023, 5 hours later, Andrevan at the ] page and made an extensive set of 81 revisions. He’d never edited it before. It happened to be one of the , coming to Misplaced Pages from a Japanological background, in 2006, though the page was too problematic to waste much time on and I left off a desultory tinkering with it in October 2008. Anyone checking my contributions would have noted that immediately. | |||
| :Since, again, it struck me that he was messing with a topic he knew nothing about. I What his edits had done was to selectively cull criticisms from reviews of a book he believed I was the author of (his identification reflected a conjecture on pro-Israeli activist sites critical of wikipedia attempting to out me), in order to skewer the author and, I presume, myself, in so far as he appeared to think we were the same person. His highly partisan cherrypicking of negative comments about that particular author in the reviews . | |||
| on '']'', December 2014. ] (]) 06:57, 26 December 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :Yes, saw it last night, and look forward to the next installments. NF looked tired, but as precise as ever. It really is a disgrace, such a fine intellect, and a beautiful moral fibre, being ground down by a fucking obtuse bunch of brainless cunts in his community's commentariat. Even the Palestinians have it in for him at times. Not much space in this disenlightened world of money-grubbing landgrabbing, ideology-spouting, Tanakh/bible/Quran-bashing arseholes for someone who thinks thinking cogently and and acting coherently on larger principles obligatory. Have a good New Year, mindful that most won't of course, which is no reason to not embrace an augury.] (]) 14:20, 26 December 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :: Good year to you too. Best, ] (]) 17:54, 26 December 2014 (UTC) | |||
| ::Two new episodes, illuminating, have since been published on the same network. and and ] (]) 11:17, 10 January 2015 (UTC) | |||
| :::, for a total of five interviews to date, and three more to come. ] (]) 21:25, 15 January 2015 (UTC) | |||
| : there were ] issues. . When I, very irritated by this strategy, told him to drop it and, well, piss off, Andrevan then . I refrained from participating, that as ] thought, this had all the hallmarks of Andrevan to trying to pick a fight and out me. In the meantime I wrote a very detailed email to ScottishFinnishRadish on that same day, 27 Dec 2023, 12:58, outlining what I believed was going on. In my view Andrevan was ‘abusing wikipedia to settle personal accounts.' Soon after Andrevan withdrew his ANI complaint. Had this behaviour been formalized in a report, given other precedents, he would almost certainly have been banned for an attempted outing of a fellow editor. | |||
| == Happy Christmas == | |||
| .] (]) 20:23, 23 December 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :Cops standing over a beaten Santa Claus. Wonderful iconic image - it would be intersting to see how much use it might get. ] (]) 20:29, 23 December 2014 (UTC) | |||
| ::As iconic as a or of at ], i.e., zero.] (]) 20:45, 23 December 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :::.] (]) 18:58, 25 December 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :::: from the Israeli military (in Hebrew). . ] (]) 17:54, 26 December 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :::::I can't read the word 'gift' without thinking in German, but realities are complex. In a season people extol for good will, it would be inappropriate not to draw attention to things . ] (]) 21:51, 26 December 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :In these endlessly repeated whingeings about my putative battleground mentality there is no awareness of the many occasions where, rather than jump at potentially damaging data to 'get at' a colleague who disagrees with me, I have, as here, consistently avoided retaliation, preferring to persist on a talk page, even if irritated or, using discretion or silence. That courtesy never, never, shows up on the official record, and it embarrasses me even here to mention it. ] (]) 19:32, 29 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| . ] (]) 08:50, 27 December 2014 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Nishidani 5'''. On 14 February 2024 in response to an article by ], ] 27 December 2019, which kicked off a because it argued Ashkenazi Jews were more intelligent than other people. Drsmoo wanted to use Stephens as a reliable source, an ‘expert’, on the ] article. It should have been obvious to him that a journalist who believes could never be an expert or reliable source on anything related to the I/P area. When his views on the intellectual superiority of the ‘Ashkenazi’ of which he is one were alluded to, and dismissed by Drsmoo as not an invalidating argument, I noted this phase that is a vernacular subtext in such claims, meaning that any writer who believes he belongs to a group with superior intelligence is unlikely, a priori, to be persuaded by arguments made by anyone coming from a less intelligent group. Irony. For Drsmoo, the phrase was of Hitlerian currency, and intrinsically antisemitic: I was alluding to ] and indulging in antisemitism. Ergo, AE. | |||
| :, by Jonathan Cook on December 24, 2012. ] (]) 20:59, 29 December 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :The result, after it was shown that is was current in American Jewish novels and in Israeli popular discourse, was that Drsmoo was suspended from the I/P area for a year, while I was warned against being ‘inflammatory’. I didn’t protest at this, by now, reflex adjective thrown my way. I think its growing ascendency to describe minor ticks of verbal behaviour erratic, indiscriminate (like ‘battleground mentality’) and a threat to encyclopaedic ends. In commemorating Jimmy Carter, ] recalled how Carter and his family were mocked for their friendliness to local, and poor, Afro-Americans. Whites spoke of ‘Carter and his coons’. . Citing that was important to assess the quality of Carter as a man and president. | |||
| Those have forgotten WW 2, <s>now they are the new Nazis in the world and run so called «Israel». This Anti-christ «Israel's» policy is a lot worse than racism, it's ethnic cleansing and a genocidal war. Even most stupid person in the world can see that they don't want to leave a place to the native Palestinian to live on their own Holly Land PALESTINE. Zionists are Nazis. Israel runs by racist people so they come out as racist and they have racist policies. This is why it is a cancer state. Wake up people, same people, same ideology, different name. The reason why Hitler made Nuremberg Laws is to stop the jewish racists from discriminating everyone, see how</s> . Keep up the great work! ] (]) 07:39, 29 December 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :It is one thing to sensibly permaban any racist who abused Misplaced Pages by flinging that word around in articles or against other editors. It is quite another matter to register the use of such phrases as a part of a particular discursive, racist tradition. One must do that to '''educate people about how (the language of) prejudice works'''. In branding indiscriminately every reminder of the existence of such terms as ‘inflammatory’, Misplaced Pages risks setting up an even narrower restricted code of wokist bright lines hedging any number of words: ‘Zionist’ itself, apartheid or ‘colonialism’ being recent IP examples of usage some editors want banned from that area as offensive to their identity. | |||
| == Personal attack == | |||
| :One damaging example of the way this prissy mania for impacts articles is afforded by the ineptly named ] page. It cannot get beyond a dull stub stage because of two diametrically opposed POVs engaged in edit-warring. On the one hand, editors who consider claims of genetic inheritance of intelligence unscientific, racist and inflammatory and elide on sight any attempt to include a significant number of RS on this as ‘undue’. On the other, a small number of editors citing statistical evidence from research on Ashkenazim IQ performance that lends itself to the idea they are qualitatively more intelligent than (white) non-Ashkenazi. The former group (with some good reasons) suspect that the latter are, in the real world, believers in separate races. The latter believe (with some good reasons) that part of the legitimate (if minoritarian) record claiming there is evidence for such a contention is being censored for ideological (humanist) reasons. | |||
| I feel compelled to warn you against personal attacks, for your calling a wikipedia editor a jihadi . (Best wishes for the new year). --] (]) 21:21, 26 December 2014 (UTC) | |||
| ::Wow! I'd never thought of that. Hey, just for fun, why not cite me at the ] wikiquette board for a sanction using that diff to argue that I failed to assume good faith on my part by insulting myself as a jihadi? I'm sure there's a few literalists around here who, to defend me, would willingly sanction me. Stranger things have happened. (Of course, I'd come to my own defence with a super-clever chessmaster rhetorical move, like, um, 'jihadi' is an Arabic term derived from the Greek text of the ]. | |||
| ::Of course, best wishes for the coming year, to you and yours. Mine if I manage to survive the food and drink tsunami will be occasioned by a rereading of Auden's New Year Letter, which is uncannily prescient for our times as well.] (]) 21:43, 26 December 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :::Good thought! ] (]) 21:52, 26 December 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :Since I was quite familiar with the topic, I tried to mediate, and there was a certain acceptance that a third party revision could satisfy both parties: the humanists’ because personally I don’t accept any argument for ‘races’; the other side because I argued that some of the sources being elided were perfectly acceptable as RS. My point was that in these difficult POV-ridden topics, only an approach that wrote out the genealogy of an idea, its historical roots, ideological trends, and debates over the scientific status could give a neutral overview (this was precisely the misunderstood thrust of my endless niggled article ], perhaps the core reason why, after posting it, I ended up with several frivolous AE reports). | |||
| == Measuring up == | |||
| :Indeed I wrote up the article, covering the topic from WW1, when Ashkenazi IQ tests were first taken, down to 2019, and it was quite long. But I didn’t post it for two reasons. Given the atmosphere, were it put up, a renewed edit war would leave it with significant gaps, and effectively ruin its encyclopaedic character. The other one was that part of my evidence was the impeccably sourced article by ], ] 26 June 2006 which contains an anecdotal overture: | |||
| If you feel like a change, how about casting a skeptical eye over the "Rendition of Old Japanese units of length" table at ]? Please do not waste much time on it, but it would be good to know if "yabiki" in the table is valid or a blunder (see the comment under the table). The background is that a very enthusiastic but challenged new editor has created a lot of stubs on units based on a book which contains tables like the one shown. The editor extracts factoids from these to create articles (if really wanted, there is an overview ]). I'm curious to know if ''yabiki'' is a valid unit; it is not mentioned at ]. ] (]) 23:28, 26 December 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :<blockquote> My grandparents were immigrants from Eastern Europe who owned a small necktie factory on the outskirts of Montreal. While visiting them one weekend, I found my grandfather on the factory floor, cutting shapes out of irregular stacks of cloth with a fabric saw. He explained that by carving up the remnants that were left over when the neckties had been cut out and stitching them together in places that didn't show, he could get a few extra ties out of each sheet of cloth. I asked him why he was doing this himself rather than leaving it to his employees. He shrugged, tapped his forehead, and said, "Goyishe kop," a term of condescension that literally means "gentile head." </blockquote> | |||
| :Biki in yabiki is clearly an Australian unit of measure,that has strayed north. It refers to the mean length of a Guest's teddybear biscuit manufactured by Arnott's, made for children between the age or 3-5. When I was a guest downunder in the 1960s, I often heard it used as an incentive to get kiddies to eat their porridge at the breakfast table. They were promised one if they managed to get that slush down, and sure enough, once their dials were cleaned of that mushy goo, Dad or Mum would smile and hand them one, saying:'Here's ya biki." | |||
| :Talking about units of length, it's sparrowfart here and I must go abhout my morning business of shaking the 'yard' at the porcelain. (Have a good NY Johnno) ] (]) 07:33, 27 December 2014 (UTC) | |||
| ::Yikes, too much Christmas spirit, I suspect. Happy Shaking! ] (]) 08:35, 27 December 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :More bluntly, in Yiddish this phrase גוייִשער קאָפּ means a 'goy's brain' i.e. a dope. That would have been either excised as embarrassing, or, on precedent, cited in just one more follow up from the 2nd Drsmoo case, where my citation of the related term ‘dumb goyim’ had me whacked with a warning about ‘inflammatory language’. Well, stiff shit. Another case where wiki's peculiar sensitivities deny a global readership access to a synthesis of what scholars say about topics deemed to be too controversial, and better left silenced or untouched. Wokism.] (]) 14:39, 31 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| == Gaza Strip == | |||
| *'''Nishidani 6'''.On the 26 March an hitherto unregistered editor Mschwartz1, , with the bulleted (#) sign indicating I was the first in a list of (no doubt ‘regular’) editors against whom he was preparing to ask for sanctions. He lacked ther standard 500/30 qualification for I/P editors, and had been accorded an , including, commendably, Tryptofish.] (]) 14:53, 31 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| Your addition of editorial comment to the lede of the ] article on 25 December was reverted by another editor. ] (]) 03:19, 30 December 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :: it showed almost no knowledge of wikipedia practice or procedure, or of either Jewish and Israeli scholarship and history. | |||
| :It was closed on the 26th of March for being posted on the wrong page and his exceptional right was revoked by Arbcom on 3 April for Mschwartz1's ] (]) 15:04, 31 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Nishidani 7.''' On the 4th July 2024 by ]. Now, every 'regular' in the game cannot but have twigged that the several new editors who jumped in make up a chorus of complaint were suspect. But initially, this was taken very seriously by ] who wrote: | |||
| == Happy New Year Nishidani! == | |||
| <blockquote>Problems with your civility have date back to 2009, when the ArbCom found that you had engaged in incivility, personal attacks, and assumptions of bad faith. I don't think it appropriate to refer to other editors as barely qualified IP editors when they are not IP editors. At a baseline, it is not civil, and it comes off as a personal attack. You were already warned against using against using unconstructive or unnecessarily inflammatory language in the topic area earlier this year, and this sort of thing is another example of that.</blockquote> | |||
| <div style="border: 3px solid #FFD700; background-color: #FFFAF0; padding:0.2em 0.4em;{{border-radius|1em}} {{box-shadow|0.1em|0.1em|0.5em|rgba(0,0,0,0.75)}}<!-- | |||
| :My way of taking that was to infer that the writing was on the wall, after Arbcom had allowed exceptional leeway, following a request/pressure from an outside lobby, to allow its representative to attack me in the earlier Mschwartz1 case above. It would only be a matter of time, this year, as one can see from my replies. | |||
| -->" class="plainlinks">]] | |||
| :Indeed, the reason, having withdrawn from wikipedia, I am reconstructing the 8 complaints about my behaviour in the past 16 months arises from that single synthesis of my putative incivility in Red-tailed hawk's synthesis of my blocklog. | |||
| {{Paragraph break}} | |||
| :It turned out that Icebear was a compromised, ban-evading account, and that a team of socks was supporting the accusation.] (]) 15:37, 31 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| {{Center|{{resize|179%|''''']!'''''}}}} | |||
| '''Nishidani''',<br />Have a prosperous, productive and enjoyable ], and thanks for your contributions to Misplaced Pages. ] (]) 00:20, 1 January 2015 (UTC) | |||
| <br /><br /> | |||
| {{Center|1=<small>Send New Year cheer by adding {{tls|Happy New Year 2015}} to user talk pages.</small>}} | |||
| </div> | |||
| *'''Nishidani 8.''' On the 24 October Barkeep suspended me for 3 weeks for, in his view, using 'a joke weaponizing antisemtism' on the talk page about such an article.' The offence was so grave that had a non EC editor mentioned it, he would have permabanned them. He was open to another admins proposing a severe sanction | |||
| == A good 2015 to you and yours! == | |||
| :The first thing I noted was several errors in the prose, misspellings 'Isreal, antisemtism, UNINOLVED', i. that was highly unusual in my experience of reading Barkeep and suggested 'haste', and perhaps not serenity. The second, if this was a rush to judgment for an edit from a very experienced contributor because it was deemed to be close to requiring 'indeffing' me, why was no common courtesy extended my way to notify me and demand that I explain either myself or the edit (advisable since my block log, which is invariably looked at, shows ), or, if the edit implied what Barkeep and Sfr (also very busy that day off-line), believed it meant (effectively a horrible antisemitic slur) why wasn't I mmediately brought to heel there, with a report asking for an indef/permaban at AE? | |||
| :The short technical answer is of course that I lay under a warning that allowed any admin to sanction me discretionally if they had reason to believe I was acting inappropriately. | |||
| :Further, it appears to be the case that no IP editor among those who dislike my editing presence there - some of whom are very trigger-happy over such potential issues, - found cause to complain of it. That itself should have been silent ''prima facie'' evidence that editors deep inside that area's discourse recognized the joke for what it was, an ironical Jewish awareness that accusations of antisemitism can be abused, often frivolously. | |||
| :The problem remains: no grammarian in the world could ever construe that joke to be one of 'weaponizing antisemitism'. As Sedley's own use of it, which I copied, shows, the joke does the opposite: it is wryly critical of tendencies to 'weaponize antisemitism'. The only explanation of that antic contrafactual claim justifying the sanction was haste, the burden of overwork perhaps, and unfamiliarity with the topic (beyond reading talk pages). | |||
| :The decision on Oct 24 on the eve of ARBPIA5 meant inadvertently but contextually that despite the dismissal of the barrage of 7 AE complaints launched frivolously my way over the preceeding 14 months, finally there was an ostensible smoking gun: Nishidani, like Jimmy Carter, must have some 'Jewish problem', one that invalidates his presence in the topic area.] (]) 18:48, 1 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| '''Summation''' | |||
| Over 12 years, despite scores of AE reports, I was suspended in 2017 for a 1R violation, and suspended in 2019 by Sandstein for a week for calling Icewhiz someone who held extremist views . Five years passed until Barkeep's 3 week suspension. My conclusion is that if groups persist in making scores and scores of AE reports, eventually, even if 99% lead to no action, some fleck of mud will stick and prejudice how my work is read. As an allusive writer almost everything I said on talk pages, if anyone cared to ask me to clarify, reflected a scholarly source (for EladKarmel's 'evidence', ''lebensraum'' is Arnold Toynbee from 1955 onwards, as I documented in replying to Mschwartz1's screed; 'religious fascists' is the Israeli sociologist Eva Illouz writing for Le Monde etc).Lack of familiarity with the rich discursive world of scholarship, which thrives beyond the tight-laced corseting of wikispeak and the popular imagination of POV warriors, will continue to plague serious IP work. It didn't help that my prose style and occasional exuberant divagations look to many like 'snotty vainglory' as one plaintiff in the cases put it. It was a form of imaginative relief from the tedium of handling silly stonewalling on talk pages, and a hint to younger editors that reading scholarship can be a lifelong joy that, however much it may strip one of youthful illusions, pays one back with a sense that, in a dark world, individual voices, connected via books and articles, collectively and collegially, help their fellow(wo)men towards that illuminated road we otherwise are brainwashed not to take, even if they themselves will stumble at times while blazing the trail. Cheers and goodbye.] (]) 22:18, 2 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| == ] updates == | |||
| :I hope it is happy and productive. I always enjoy our often sadly all-too-brief exchanges. Yours with walnut topping! ] (]) 01:28, 2 January 2015 (UTC) | |||
| ::Thanks. I don't aspire to happiness, since I was born with (nicknamed 'Smiley' for my first three years -i.e. until I began to take full cognizance of things) that defect of grace, and have experienced an exceptional abundance of that rare feeling. I tend to hope every new year will begin with it some flash of common decency on the horizon, coruscating into a brighter spring and summer of, if not incandescent justice,( I'm a realist) then generosity, magnanimity and compassion. A Syrian refugee on the ], credited with shepherding for several hours two children and a woman to safety as the ship went up in a fetid conflagration, was asked if they were Syrian: he replied: 'They were people'. As to productivity, that is a variable of the weather, though the close lopping of fruit trees two years ago promises a goodly windfall, and the last tomato off my vines was picked, resisting the chill, on the last day of December. | |||
| ::All the very best to you and yours for this coming year, Irondome.] (]) 13:32, 2 January 2015 (UTC) | |||
| :::You are aware by now that I "suffer" from strange bursts of optimism. Odd, as for some years I was ironically named "smiler" by some of my associates. My worldview is bleak, I am personally anxiety-ridden and riddled with a sharp awareness of my deep flaws, which must be that nasty human condition thing I have heard reference to. I inject large dosages of optimism into the bloodstream of my "self", much like cocaine. And like cocaine it's effects are short lived (so I have read on the substance) and demand increasingly large dosages to achieve the same effect. I understand you perfectly, Nishidani. Peace ] (]) 23:39, 7 January 2015 (UTC) | |||
| You are receiving this message because you are on ] for ]. The drafters note that the scope of the case was somewhat unclear, and clarify that the scope is {{tqq|The interaction of named parties in the ] topic area and examination of the ] process that led to ] ] to ]}}. Because this was unclear, two changes are being made: | |||
| == Global account == | |||
| First, '''the Committee will accept submissions for new parties for the next three days''', until '''23:59, 10 December 2024 (UTC)'''. Anyone who wishes to suggest a party to the case may do so by creating a new section on ], providing a reason with ] as to why the user should be added, and notifying the user. After the three-day period ends, no further submission of parties will be considered except in exceptional circumstances. Because the Committee only hears disputes that have failed to be resolved by the usual means, proposed parties should have been recently taken to AE/AN/ANI, and either not sanctioned, or incompletely sanctioned. If a proposed party has not been taken to AE/AN/ANI, evidence is needed as to why such an attempt would have been ineffective. | |||
| Hi Nishidani! As a ] I'm involved in the upcoming ] of all accounts organized by the Wikimedia Foundation (see ]). By looking at ], I realized that you don't have a global account yet. In order to secure your name, I recommend you to create such account on your own by submitting your password on ] and unifying your local accounts. If you have any problems with doing that or further questions, please don't hesitate to ] with <nowiki>{{ping|DerHexer}}</nowiki>. Cheers, —] <small>]</small> 14:17, 2 January 2015 (UTC) | |||
| :{{ping|DerHexer}}.(a) what is a global account? I edit from one place, on one computer, with one name, on Misplaced Pages, not on any allied projects. I could read up on this, of course, but I avoid technical literature because it lacks musicality and avoids metaphor. If you can convince me of its necessity (spin me an ] in the magical, not in the Spartan sense, that is), of course, I might change my mind.] (]) 15:45, 2 January 2015 (UTC) | |||
| ::Metaphors, uhm … a global account is like a master key for all countries around the world. If you prefer to stay home, just stay at your enwiki house. But if you want to get outta there and take pictures, you may need a key for your commonswiki house. Some time ago you got one (and according to ] you most likely got one there and on other wikis) but now you have to search for it in order to enter it and login. Soon after you've taken your pictures, you want to show them to folks around the world and have to travel to their wikis. But you don't want to do that anonymously but assign your efforts to your account. Ofc, you could ask for visa and a new key to these countries, but if you already had a master key, you could just cross the border and would be recognized. And even if you come back home, (soon) people can contact you in their homewiki countries and you would be notified at home without having to get the mail in their respective country-wikis. If you decided to watch some or their activities at the time when you've been there, you could even check your mails at home in your watchlist. In any case, till April 2015 your home owner will change your current key into a master key no matter what you do. But he might not know all of your former local keys but mix them up. That's why he recommends you to collect your local keys by entering your respective passwords on ] and change them into a master key, your global account. You would still be able to solely work at home but could more easily get outta there, do some stuff and stay in touch with the outside. Convinced? ;-) Cheers, —] <small>]</small> 16:09, 2 January 2015 (UTC) | |||
| :::That's very lucid - it's nice relief from Thucydides, though his description of the siege of Sphacteria which I reread this afternoon was, as ancient memory reminded me, itself uncommonly straightforward. I've only wandered off to those other sites once or twice on occasion, and invented some password without registering which one, so cannot remember. I don't take photographs, have no camera nor cellphone, don't communicate with other editors, except very rarely. This is my only point of contact with the market (I'm sure you'll recognize ''Wo die Einsamkeit aufhört, da beginnt der Markt''). What little I do here is in deference to the fact I'm 'part of the maine' though prefer to be an island with limnited portage elsewhere! Thanks anyway, and my very best wishes for the New Year.] (]) 18:58, 2 January 2015 (UTC) | |||
| ::::A global account is important, if not for you, then for the rest of us. We don't want the confusion of wondering whether someone called Nishidani and editing at, say, Wiktionary is you. DerHexer has some tricks for people who haven't tracked their passwords, but you can fix a couple yourself. You might try visiting ] and seeing if you can log on there. If you can't, you can go to ] and enter "Nishidani" while leaving the email address blank. Clicking "Reset Password" will then send an email with a temporary password to whatever email address you entered years ago. If you receive that email, you have to do what it says for the temporary password to work. DerHexer would have to explain what happens after that, but I think you can visit ] and do stuff there to confirm that you control at least the enwiki and itwiki accounts. ] (]) 23:06, 2 January 2015 (UTC) | |||
| ::::I think I've done a few edits to the German, French, Japanese and Italian pages, but that is history. Renewing my accounts there, one-offers, would be wasting people's time and 'mainspace'. It's best to let all that nugatory (a word redolent with fond memories, like 'pinguid': my Latin teacher didn't expect us to know 'nugae' and 'pinguis' has reflexes in English, at least in our early adolescence, and I was promoted from being a suspected hoodlum to studious eccentric when I piped up and gave these as examples) crap a miss and allow those accounts to die a natural death, lapsing into, uh,'desuetude' or, more colloquially 'abeyance'. Is that okay with the system? ] (]) 11:42, 3 January 2015 (UTC) | |||
| Second, the ] '''has been extended by a week''', and will now close at '''23:59, 21 December 2024 (UTC)'''. For the Arbitration Committee, <b>]]</b> (] • he/they) 03:20, 8 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| == Caution-2015-01-06 == | |||
| <!-- Message sent by User:HouseBlaster@enwiki using the list at https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Palestine-Israel_articles_5/Update_list&oldid=1260342644 --> | |||
| == You have been added as a party to ] == | |||
| Unfortunately, in December, I was too lazy to copy such a warning to your Talk page too. It was after your selective choice of sources and the same selective, only confirming your point of view - quotng, from already <u>existing</u> sources. See . | |||
| At ], you have been added as a party to ]. Evidence that you wish the arbitrators to consider should be added to the evidence subpage, at ]. '''Please add your evidence by 23:59, 21 December 2024 (UTC), which is when the evidence phase closes.''' You can also contribute to the case workshop subpage, ]. For a guide to the arbitration process, see ]. For the Arbitration Committee, <b>]]</b> (] • he/they) 21:36, 13 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| Today, when you choose from the source only accusations against Bennett, omitting any refutation of these charges <u>in the same article</u> (), it seems me close (sorry, but :(...) to some kind of falsification. <br> | |||
| :I appreciate the courtesy but decline to participate. Still, on reflection, I owe this page a fuller explanation to explain why, and will set out several reasons why, even as a retired wikipedian, re-engaging would be pointless and a waste of everyone's time. A second point is that I do not wish whatever material I may have to cite here furnish matter to be re-cycled against editors there. | |||
| I have to remind you again that the selective choice & quoting is a violation of the rules of NPOV. --] (]) 17:21, 6 January 2015 (UTC) | |||
| :::'''First Reflection''' | |||
| ::I think you are well-meaning but this is silly. I can't do everything you and others may want - this is a collegial workplace where we each contribute and, collectively, build articles. No one is expected to figure all the angles. Specifically,when I look at most pages, I see that most editors do little, or rather, put in bits of stuff they note or like, without reading the page. What was remarkable about the page in question, which I went to edit in the article on Bennett and that incident after reading about it in ] this morning, cited in your diff, is that, reading it before editing I noted it cited Fisk minimally, ignoring most of what he said, which is a far more horrendous account of what actually happened and the mechanical nonsense spun out by the IDF in justification. Please note I could have added dramatic accounts of bits and pieces of over a hundred bodies being picked up in body bags, of bits of kids' bodies stuck on burnt trees etc. It's there. And the text before my edit was mainly concerned to contextualize the reasons (justifications) for why Israel fired on a UN compound, and ''accidentally'' killed 106 people. I fixed that, and then added Bennett. | |||
| :I have been very diffident about arbcom since, in my permaban of 2009, , the case for my putative ongoing ‘incivility, personal attacks, and assumptions of bad faith’ included , which got my account by ]. Several editors within hours complained and his sanction was almost immediately by ] because he had misread the point of . Note that in Jehochman’s defense I immediately added that while wrong, Jehochman’s mistake was understandable. | |||
| ::You complain that I was obliged to add, what you now, in garbled English (please correct it) added (getting there of course by pure chance, not following me around) | |||
| ::<blockquote> '''Indirect Drucker's evidence denied then Deputy of Bennett,''' who called '''them''' "Vanity of vanities, nonsense, a pile of bullsh*t", Haaretz daily's defense analyst ] and others . . (verb?).</blockquote> | |||
| ::I think facts are important. I laugh at the way we have ''reactions'' sections, listing the usual spokesperson claptrap of shock at some I/P news report. No one reads that crap because it is predictable and meaningless. Just as no one is interested if Bennett, in reaction, brushed off the story by mixing an inane allusion to the preacher's exclamation" הֲבֵ֤להֲבָלִים֙ " in the Book of Ecclesiastes with the manure pats one finds in a cow paddock. By all means, exercise your right to add such outbursts. I myself am waiting for serious details of Bennett's role in the incident, which may or may not emerge, i.e., field reports. | |||
| ::If you are worried about partial or partisan editing on that page and numerous other I/P articles, there are hundreds of editors you should worry about, not just me. Look at editors like ] whose to the page show she is clearly are unfamiliar with ], an historian with a book that goes into great detail on that incident and period, who was on the spot when the massacre occurred above him on the hills, and interviewed everyone in the UN and Fijian high command, and the survivors, that very day, within hours, and for weeks and months afterwards. As for the rest, this place is packed with lazy editors who are ignorant of everything but the concept of POV, and can't read anything except to figure out if the enemy is insulting them in this or that edit. A new year augury is that you avoid temptations to fit the mould of that type, the partisan wikipedian who only edits in terms of what she or he thinks is the potential political fallout of any one else's contributions.] (]) 18:00, 6 January 2015 (UTC) | |||
| :::p.s. please don't use 'refute' for 'dismiss'. Bennett 'dismissed' the report by ''brushing it off'' as a heap of shit, and laughably by using a biblical phrase 'vanity of vanities' that is meaningless in context, a sputter of evocative terms resonant of ], wholly inapplicable to the situation. 'Refutation' refers to a logical and factual rebuttal of, or reply to, a charge or accusation. I note several editors recently consistently ignore this simple but crucial distinction.] (]) 18:25, 6 January 2015 (UTC) | |||
| :::: is a good, if somewhat emotive example of why some people like him and myself regard this part of our discursive universe as utterly contaminated by topsy-turvy 'logic'. Nothing makes sense in what is passed off, daily, as commonsense. But you're under no obligation of course to read it.] (]) 18:33, 6 January 2015 (UTC) | |||
| :One month later, , completely ignoring or totally unaware of the fact that Jehochman and Bishonen had annulled the suspension, recognizing it had nothing to do with a personal attack, cited it as core proof of my incivility. It permabanned 5 ‘pro-Palestinian editors’ and 2 ‘pro-Israeli editors’ (not 3: every editor probably knew, as I did, ] and ] were one and the same person (the stylistic thumbprints and tagteaming were a dead giveaway but at that time I certainly doubted that was sufficient to report the sock), still highly active under other names on wikipedia. My mere 8 reverts over 45 days of the politically explosive ‘Judea and Samaria’ for the default term in international literature ‘West Bank’ consisted of desultory but reasoned restorations of proper text (in terms of thick RS evidence) not some mindlessly mechanical and partisan ‘edit-warring’. Indeed I wrote an extended scholarly article on the whole issue of that naming, which still remains . Of course, arbitrators probably, and understandably, did not read it. TLDR, and perhaps to many, looking like a personal divagation, mere 'opinion', irrelevant to evidence, rather than a comprehensive academically orientated background paper to Arbcom's deliberations. | |||
| :: So many words, instead of simple: "Sorry (keyword), it was not my best editing". :( | |||
| :Within months, the overwhelming evidence for this led to an obvious consensus that ‘West Bank’ was the default neutral term for Misplaced Pages. Had arbitrators any knowledge of the state of the considerable literature on that consensus, they probably would not have taken those rare reverts as indicative of edit-warring. But they are formally under no obligation to read up on the topic and consider that such things are just 'content disputes'). The result was that the I/P area was 'gutted' of most of its regular 'pro-Palestinian' (ugh) editors, with only very minor damage to the editors whose POV invariably favoured a 'pro-Israeli' (ugh) POV. Not malice, just sheer disattention. | |||
| :: Unlike you I am not going to evaluate who of us is "sillier". :) As for Fisk, we can and should discuss whether he is RS in this case, but not here. I only say that you may have a same as his desire to accuse Israel in something yet, but we are not in a class of ], but in Wiki-pedia, and are obliged to give accurate information. The same is true with your re-directs to (valid?) accusations against other editors. | |||
| :: Here we discuss your edit only, so I remind what you did include in the article, and what - omitted: | |||
| ::* "According to Israeli journalist Raviv Drucker reported that Bennett's radio call for support was "hysterical" and contributed to the outcome that ensued." | |||
| :: ''versus'' | |||
| ::* "Israeli journalist ] citing an anonimous "senior army figure" reported that Bennett's radio call for support was "hysterical" and contributed to the outcome that ensued. Bennett’s deputy during the operation called Drucker’s charges as “Vanity of vanities, nonsense, a pile of bullsh*t”. Bennet's position was also defended by other officers involved in the incident and Haaretz daily's defense analyst ]. ], who headed the Northern Command during the operation, said that Bennett “... demonstrated level-headedness and did not panic”. | |||
| :: IMHO, it was better not to include anything about this Drucker's pre-election dirty trick, and to give a complete picture, if to include. Otherwise - it's not a fair edit. Sorry. --] (]) 23:40, 6 January 2015 (UTC) | |||
| :My diffidence is, furthermore, based on principles of method. | |||
| :::This is a content dispute, presented as a behavioural problem. I don't take seriously anyone who passes over without comment the work of numerous abusive or blatantly censorious/POV-pushing editors where, and just follows me about to find something in my own edits to which they take exception as a lapse from Misplaced Pages's highest standards. he fact that ] is rumoured to have been involved in communications that led to the massacre is relevant, both to his biography and the Qana massacre page. ps. I notice that you never reply to the substance of '''my''' replies, and when I do to you, in detail, you simply suggest that it was ]. Whatever, this is a content dispute, not a behavioural problem. My only behavioural problem here is that I waste time better spent on other projects, by editing this farcical area.] (]) 10:57, 7 January 2015 (UTC) | |||
| ::*(a)an admin cannot be expected to be familiar with the topic literature (immense in the I/P area); | |||
| ::*(b) no diff elicited in ‘evidence’ can be properly evaluated '''unless the original thread (often long) in which it is embedded,''' is read closely. If that is not done exhaustively, the likelihood of small but persistent misreadings of what is apparently going wrong increases exponentially; | |||
| ::*(c) the most common forms of abuse are not verbal incivility but an obstinate refusal by editwarring parties to read the sources while dilating at length on their views about the article, and comments made by others about their equally source-insouciant impressions (]). | |||
| ::*(e) if an editor fully fluent in the high quality RS literature, (which editors have imposed as an I/P area article ''sine qua non'', thank god), complies with the obligation at ] to negotiate in these endemic stonewalling threads by replying to the manifold of vagrant assertions at length, that gets them nowhere except risking a sanction as someone who ] | |||
| ::*(f) If you show and state that a persistently objecting editor doesn’t appear to have read the sources, that will be cited as an ] attack, something which encourages the practice to continue with impunity. The result is that the way we are obliged to achieve consensus, under these conditions, resolves nothing, but lends itself to AE reports of the serious editors’ incivility per occasional outbursts of frustration. An Arbcom5 review, covering several hundred diffs at a minimum, cannot afford the time to read all of the pages where the implicating diffs are embedded. So everything is reduced to ostensible ‘conduct issues’ in the words contributors used. And that MissManners approach totally disregards what we are supposed to be here for, i.e., not to pass the time opining on an interesting social medium, but to muster the finest available sources in such a way that the global public can trust the high quality of its encyclopedic articles.] (]) 14:59, 16 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :::'''Second Reflection''' | |||
| :::: I'm glad that you decided to add not one side info to the ] after such my edits. | |||
| :Mention has been made that ] banned me from appearing at AE. That has been in effect since June 2019. I may only appear there if I am reported, i.e. to defend myself, but otherwise no. The implication there is that I abused that arbitration process. Since that right is universal in Misplaced Pages, it looks like a very black mark, indicative of some horrendous behavioural trait. It was odd, however. To my memory (I will stand corrected), from the very outset of my wikiwork here I had undertaken to never resort to arbitration by reporting another editor as a means of settling differences. No matter how incomprehensibly stressful a talk page might be, differences must be thrashed out by careful argument on the talk page. I thought I must allow myself no margin for weaponizing AE etc to get at my interlocutors (though I fully understand that this system is indispensable otherwise). This, even though many of them were to relentlessly pursue me there. I was faithful to that decision from 2006 to the time Sandstein banned me in 2019 save for one exception. I ] in 2016, only because Sandstein himself after warning Galassi that he was breaking his topic ban at ] by challenging me and my edits at that page, which I had managed to retrieve from a messy slough of conflicting POV clashes to bring it to its present, close to FA state. | |||
| :::: But I have to mention the next case of your "selective quoting" as well as what I see as not NPOV editing. See the corresponding ]" topic. | |||
| :::: Can you explain / specify what were you meaning writing : | |||
| ::::* "I notice that you never reply to the substance of '''my''' replies, and when I do to you, in detail, you simply suggest that it was ]" above ? | |||
| :::: By the way, IMHO just your answers are as min . Are you doing so specifically? :) --] (]) 00:22, 8 January 2015 (UTC) | |||
| :In short, though often quoted at face value against me, there was no need for Sandstein to deny me the right to make reports to AE because on principle I had denied myself recourse to that instrument before that decision and afterwards. I think what happened is that Sandstein’s way of phrasing his decision created an ambiguity. He did not want me to participate, as a commentator on reports against other editors made by third parties in the IP area, which, from his strictly decontextualizing legalistic perspective (i.e., no interpretations please, only diff data, to be measured strictly against the rule book), quite understandable. But it cancelled in theory, inadvertently, a natural right all other wikipedians have to exercise. The anomaly persists. Any editor or sock can, as they have done repeatedly for 16 years, make reports against me, but I, uniquely, cannot exercise that right in their regard. That, and my own refusal from the outset to use that forum, has given potential harassers a very strong advantage, particularly over the last five years. I'm not troubled by that unique ruling against me. Together with a probable doubling of a permaban, I might even feel somewhat tickled that my work here has been skewered as so 'toxic' (a 'net negative' as one admin insists) that otherwise unexampled measures must be taken against me to bring serenity back to this place, a kind of backhanded honour:) ] (]) 15:01, 17 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| == Comic Relief == | |||
| :::'''Third Reflection''' | |||
| It may be time to take a quick break from battling the various POV-pushers and ] propagandists, and read this from ''].'' I laughed hard when reading this, I hope you do too. Warm regards, ] (]) 17:30, 7 January 2015 (UTC) | |||
| :, I noted, while objecting to be sucked into it, that 10 contributors drew dire pictures of utter chaos in the IP area, all of which struck me (impression) as uniformly ill-informed and almost all blaming this putative abusive morass on a small core of highly experienced ‘regular editors’.I’ve been reading that invariable impression by people who rarely if ever engage in editing there, for 15 years. It is one of wikipedia’s clichés. But, reading between the lines, the intimation was that the IP area had been hijacked by ‘pro-Palestinian’ POV pushers. ] of these putative ]s as being editors ‘seeking to ].’ | |||
| :Like all acronymic links, this has its uses, but often begs the question. It suggests that the ‘pro-Palestinian’ editors are abusing Misplaced Pages, by trying to twist the known facts in order to secure justice for Palestinians, in civil POV-pushing. '''If''' one concedes there might have been a 'great wrong' (i.e. since 1948 at least 3 million Palestinians have lost their land, homes and livelihoods, with 55,000 homes bulldozed in the West Bank alone, as a byblow of the establishment and development of Israel as a homeland for the diaspora), that ‘wrong’ cannot be righted. I have consistently asserted this, advising potential editors not to work in the I/P area if they have succumbed to the naïve notion that such contributions can change the outcome. | |||
| == ありがと == | |||
| 「愚公山を移す」、西田にさん。] (]) 05:09, 8 January 2015 (UTC) | |||
| :Yet, history is not, contrary to ] ’s view, written by the judges among the victors. It is written retrospectively by the descendants of both victors and vanquished. There is a remarkable overlap between Israeli/diaspora and ‘pro-Palestinian’ approaches in the scholarship on this history, reflecting the greater detachment of retrospective learning. A large number of pages where key issues of summary judgement and phrasing are contested reflect the contentions between the abbreviated generalizations of contemporary mainstream media overviews and that shared body of historical research, which lives in a far more complex universe. | |||
| == Stop your ], ] editing == | |||
| :The associated implication, again, that the putative 'pro-Palestinian' 'regulars' (a bad word whose ] seem to have slipped past the attention of too many here, vie to wrest control of the narrative, never collaborate, and in editing do so with such violence that they deter new editors, and discomfort 'pro-Israeli' colleagues, is undermined by the fact that whenever a promising new editor, espousing a strong pro-Zionist view, shows care over RS, erudition and a commitment to rational talk page dialogue but still gets into hot water, they have been consistently defended by their ostensible ‘pro-Palestinian’ ‘adversaries’. Suffice it to glance through the AE records of cases involving ] (),] , ] , or what happened at AE in the frequent cases against ] but his importance to the project, given his erudition, has been defended by his so-called POV adversaries to mitigate the severity of sanctions. Nableezy indeed took over the role of mentorship The problem amongthe slandered regular 'core' has never been what POV an editor may entertain, but the potentials for improving the quality of the encyclopedia. I myself even had an informal agreement with ], who mentored ‘pro-Israeli’ editors aspiring to work in the IP area, to help him out to that end. All this is lost from view in simplistic snippety diff histories, as is the fact that reciprocal gestures of this kind seem unexampled among editors identified with the other POV, with the outstanding exception of Irondome, who stepped in to at just one more frivolous AE report in 2016 –the year I was so repeatedly reverted over numerous pages by several mostly tagteaming editors that I was close to throwing in the towel. ] (]) 18:21, 19 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| In your edit , you took an objective sentence and edited it into an apologetic one, based on a ] that is also ]. There are 5 sources for that sentence but you forced your ]. | |||
| You are welcome to report me, this example is indisputable for the way you edit and contribute. I would love an administrator to look closer at your work. ] (]) 09:27, 8 January 2015 (UTC) | |||
| :So RS are biased. So you can't spell NPOV. So you can't distinguish one diff from another. So you believe that I am forcing my policy of neutrality ('forced your ]') on you and Misplaced Pages!! So you invite me to waste my time reporting you, so . .yaawwn. Please study Misplaced Pages's relevant policies, desist from following me around to pages you have never edited and which I do regularly (]), and please desist from blotting this work page with inane complaints that only illustrate a certain haste and incompetence. Thank you. ] (]) 12:05, 8 January 2015 (UTC) | |||
| :::'''Fourth Reflection''' | |||
| ::List of Ashtul's mechanical and falsely motivated reverts of edits I make. | |||
| :Tryptofish insisted I be listed at ARBPIA5 as a problematic editor, and this proposal was accepted. There is a long story behind this which goes back to strong differences of opinion that emerged between us when I rewrote the article ] that had been put up, when a stub, for immediate deletion. | |||
| *(1) | |||
| :People upset at the article dealt almost exclusively with a phrase or two in the lead, or the title. Almost all objecting editors showed themselves wholly indifferent to the extensive scholarship underpinning that article. Andrevan and Tryptofish in particular vigorously argued that genetics and race should be removed from the title (which I didn’t invent), and were successful, following standard procedures, and now we have ‘Racial conceptions of Jewish identity in Zionism.’ It was renamed but the title remains a glaring misnomer: that article has nothing to do with the very broad concept of ‘racial conceptions of Jewish identity’ : it is narrowly focused on the scholarly documentation of how early Zionist ideas about race later inflected quite a bit of Israeli research on Jewish origins, a subject intensively analysed over the last two decades by Israeli scholars. The fact that half of the article is about traces of the earlier thinking about a 'Jewish race' in Israeli genetic studies has been buried from sight by its elision from the original title. Between the lines, I think one editor at least, sincerely believed that the scientific discipline nof genetics was being unfairly 'tainted' by the original title, however strong the academic evidence for this might have been. | |||
| ::The well-known fact is all over RS, as showed. Rather than request enlightenment with a {{cn}} tag, he just erased my edit at sight. | |||
| *(2)I wrote: 'Israel sought to justify the blockade as necessary to limit' taking out the word 'legal'. This was reverted by Ashtul. | |||
| : | :In that discussion for the proposed the breakdown of the main editors’ comments is | ||
| :*Andrevan 59 comments | |||
| :*Tryptofish 45 | |||
| :*Nishidani 27 | |||
| :The same two editors, each took me to AE subsequently, and now participate in the evidence section at ARBPIA5, where I was not listed. Tryptofish in particular insisted I be included. His argument is that I appear to suggest that their views coincided throughout an extenuating thread of sheer argufying in which there is little evidence of their displaying any familiarity with the topic’s literature. Much of this irrationality (my view) appears to be linked to a common perception that I am pushing an That particular abused phrase, in operative terms, means that an editor focused on the culture,history and experiences of the 7 million Palestinians who constitute the demographic other half of the IP area must by that very fact, with its core concern for international law, be hostile to the state of Israel, and half at least one foot in the antisemitic cesspit for that spurious insinuation. Throwing that 'anti-Israel agenda' slogan around functions only if one accepts the presmise that Palestinians don't 'signify', as the 19th century idiom has it.] (]) 17:21, 1 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :The source says: | |||
| :That diff shows no such thing. It reveals on my talk page an acute and troubled sense, shared with an Israeli and based on scholarship, that Israel’s systemic political choices, in the name of Jews, half of whom live by choice in a diaspora, will exacerbate common perceptions that Israel and Jewry are synonyms, and what is done by the former will be blamed on the latter, and feed anti-Semitism. All these careful discriminations are lost when editors persist in thinking that criticism of actions taken by an occupying power of territory outside Israel against a people militarily occupied for 57 years, are read as delegitimizing Israel proper. This blurring of precise conceptual distinctions is inscribed in the politics of language vigorously promoted in attempts to get the (notoriously unworkable) ] translated into many legal systems, so that work in various media, Misplaced Pages included, to document human rights abuses, can be spun as intrinsically anti-Semitic, if Israel is mentioned. In the IP area, Israel is not the focus, but Israel's occupying policies in the ]. There are two subjects - an occupying power acting outside of its recognized borders and an occupied people both of whose rationales must be represented with equal weight per NPOV. It is an uncomfortable topic, but must be covered whatever the intense, intimidating pressures may be, also here, to 'normalise' this as a , or as a result of resistance to the unilateral right of one people to self-determination, whatever the expense may be to the rights to self-determination of people in the other half of the equation may be. | |||
| :The word ‘legal’ I cancelled is not in : | |||
| :nor in ; | |||
| :nor in :’ "Security concerns" is an elastic term which sometimes refers to valid concerns; a UN report in 2011 found that '''the naval blockade was legal''', but that '''this should be viewed separately to the restriction of goods overland''',’ which means that the blockade itself overland was not regarded as ‘legal’; | |||
| :Nor in which refers to | |||
| :*(a)3 Israelis detained for violating a ‘lawful order’ not to enter Gaza, and has nothing to do with the legality of the blockade; | |||
| :*(b) a statement that Binyamin Netanyahu claimed the '''IDF operation''' to enforce the blockade on the Gaza Strip '''was in keeping with international law''',’ which is a political lie representing a prime ministerial assertion, and refers to the operation by the IDF, not the blockade. | |||
| :*(3) In July 2011, the UN’s Palmer Commission published a report on the IDF’s interception in May 2010 of the Turkish protest flotilla, and ruled that Israel’s security blockade on Gaza “is both legal and appropriate.”; . | |||
| ::The wording 'legal and appropriate' for the blockade nowhere occurs in the Palmer report, which distinguished a naval from a land blockade (p.39)] (]) 13:08, 8 January 2015 (UTC) | |||
| ::Section70 Palmer report. | |||
| ::<blockquote>At this juncture, a word of clarification is necessary. The naval blockade is often discussed in tandem with the Israeli restrictions on the land crossings to Gaza. However,in the Panel’s view, '''these are in fact two distinct concepts which require different treatment and analysis.''' First, we note that the land crossings policy has been in place since long before the naval blockade was instituted. In particular, the tightening of border controls between Gaza and Israel came about after the take-over of Hamas in Gaza in June 2007. On the other hand, the naval blockade was imposed more than a year later, in January 2009. Second, Israel has always kept its policies on the land crossings separate from the naval blockade. The land restrictions have fluctuated in intensity over time but the naval blockade has not been altered since its imposition. Third, the naval blockade as a distinct legal measure was imposed primarily to enable a legally sound basis for Israel to exert control over ships attempting to reach Gaza with weapons and related goods. This was in reaction to certain incidents when vessels had reached Gaza via sea. We therefore treat the naval blockade as separate and distinct from the controls at the land crossings. This is not to overlook that there may be potential overlaps in the effects of the naval blockade and the land crossings policy. They will be addressed when appropriate. Likewise, the restrictions on the land crossings to Gaza are part of the context of our investigation, and our recommendations in Chapter 6 address the situation there. But the legal elements of the naval blockade are analyzed on their own.'Palmer report ] (]) 15:14, 8 January 2015 (UTC)</blockquote> | |||
| *(3). Another deceitful edit summary. in because the prose devised by Ashtul has no resonance in the citations given.] (]) 16:40, 8 January 2015 (UTC) | |||
| :Tryptofish challenged the suggestion of something that looks close to tagteaming, by citing one diff, from a combined 104, where he disagreed with Andrevan. | |||
| ::: 1. You added a source later. Your initial edit had no RS. | |||
| <blockquote> </blockquote> | |||
| ::: 2. The main point of edit wasn't the word 'legal but rather 'sought to justify' instead of 'maintains'. Clear NPOV. | |||
| ::: 3. The edit was signed by a BOT not Nish. The source is at the end of the paragraph. | |||
| ::: ] (]) 18:51, 8 January 2015 (UTC) | |||
| ::::To repeat. You have little if any knowledge of the subjects of these pages. You turn up frequently on pages I edit. If you see an edit whose veracity you doubt, ask the editor for a reference or post a {{cn}} note on the article, requesting a verifiable source. Given your incompetence, due I suppose to utter inexperience, about editing, don't keep causing trouble by ignoring customary ways of improving pages. Your answer is further proof you don't read what an editor like myself notes, and you can't distinguish. I.e., is not signed by a BOT but me, and though I provide proof you still insist it was a BOT, because, for fuck's sake, you did not look at the diff I provided, but , which has nothing to do with this issue, and was vandalistic because you must not remove tags without good reason, and you had none. If you can't see what any 5 year old can sight at a glance then, please visit an optometrist or some cognitive specialist. Otherwise, don't edit Misplaced Pages. Please go away.] (]) 19:37, 8 January 2015 (UTC) | |||
| :He had evidently forgotten that he originally voted for deletion of the article on the grounds it ] (aside from the absurd claim that it ‘promoted antisemitic pseudoscholarship’ which, when asked for diffs, he couldn’t corroborate. | |||
| == Not for an article but, cripes, such is one man's war against terrorism == | |||
| :Evidence makes a huge issue of POV inconsistency. There is merit in examining this, but, over a manifold of pages across years, it is not hard for even the most self-aware editor to slip up. POV-pushing is said to be where double standards are evident. That doesn’t worry me overly. You can point it out on talk pages without harassing the editor by an immediate AE report. A real problem emerges only when the POV-pushing editor repeatedly returns to his notion despite being reminded it is incoherent. All one gets are further recycling, at length, of arguments already disposed of, often at tedious length when the simple solution is to admit one's fallability. I'll give but one example related to the aftermath of the Zionism, race and genetics page dispute. | |||
| Lisa Goldman, ] 12 January 2015 | |||
| <blockquote>For those who haven’t been following the story, Netanyahu crashed the national solidarity event despite President Hollande’s explicit request that he stay at home. Then, after the VIP reception at the Elysee Palace, cameras for a local media outlet caught him elbowing aside a female French minister as he tried to jump the queue for the bus that would transport the group to the starting point of the march. Finding himself relegated to the second row at the march itself, he shoved aside the the president of Mali and inserted himself in the front row, one down from Hollande himself and within eyesight of Angela Merkel.] (]) 20:11, 12 January 2015 (UTC)</blockquote> | |||
| :At ], ] removed material by the (Palestinian) anthropologist ] on the grounds that an anthropologist cannot be RS on a point of Jewish genetic origins because | |||
| I liked especially the last bit, how he "marched with world leaders"...and then he when tweeting the picture. Noted. ] (]) 20:32, 12 January 2015 (UTC) | |||
| :Well, dear. I always thought politicians were supposed to be sharp, cunning, cluey, devious calculators and manipulators, but, this and the earlier stuff suggests this is not the case. Such patent, easily exposed, crassness means, that he hasn't the foggiest notion of how others view him. He's ] Congress, but no one else. What are Auden's lines? | |||
| :''Here great magicians, caught in their own spell,'' | |||
| :''Long for a natural climate as they sigh'' | |||
| :''Beware of magic to the passer-by.'' ] (]) 21:24, 12 January 2015 (UTC) | |||
| :At ] he introduces the Israel historian ]’s view that genetic studies confirm a Jewish view that they all have common Middle Eastern roots. Shapira is not a geneticist. A scholar without specific qualifications in genetics can therefore comment on that topic is she is Israeli, but not if she is Palestinian. | |||
| ::: "] and ] discuss the march against terrorism in Paris and the participation of leaders of countries who have committed and encouraged various forms of terrorism and war crimes." '']'' | |||
| :: : Jeremy Scahill on How World Leaders at Paris March Oppose Press Freedom. '']'' | |||
| :: ] (]) 21:39, 13 January 2015 (UTC) | |||
| :::Thanks. Yeah, double-think, and loads of hypocrisy. Under Berlusconi's Bulgarian edict, top journalists like ] were expelled from the national RAI network. Over the years, brilliant comics like ], ] and ], ], all experienced career problems after political pressure was waged on networks, to name but a few. ] contemporary Italy's most proficous and genial vignettista was likewise punished for revealing ahead of time the trumpery of trhe pseudo-reconstruction of Aquila after the great earthquake, and got into hot water for mocking ] who pretends to be 'objective' about Palestinians while having a house in occupied territory, when she joined Berlusconi's party, crammed with fascists with a tradition of defending Mussolini and his racial laws (Vauro was eloquently defended by the wonderful Yiddish theatreman, singer and thinker,] . All fired, shifted, told to piss off. ] (]) 19:57, 15 January 2015 (UTC) | |||
| ::::'The reproduction by Charlie of the caricatures published in the Danish magazine seemed to me appalling. Already, in 2006, I had perceived as pure provocation the drawing of Mohammed decked in a turban in the form of a bomb. This is not so much a caricature against Islamists as a stupid conflation of Islam with Terror; it’s on a par with identifying Judaism with money!. It has been affirmed that Charlie, impartially, lays into all religions, but this is a lie. Certainly, it mocks Christians, and, sometimes, Jews. However, neither the Danish magazine, nor Charlie would permit themselves (fortunately) to publish a caricature presenting the prophet Moses, with kippah and ritual fringes, in the guise of a wily money-lender, hovering on a shlomostoppedstreet corner.'], ] 18-20 January 2015.] (]) 18:51, 16 January 2015 (UTC) | |||
| :::::. Shir Hever: "Netanyahu responded to the terror attack in Paris by calling on French Jews to emigrate to Israel. Netanyahu's statement is a clear attack on France. This is a vote of non-confidence in France's ability to protect its own citizens. And it's also contributing to the very dangerous and worrisome rise of anti-Semitism or anti-Semitic ideas, which is when people associate everything Jewish with everything that represents the state of Israel." ] (]) 07:34, 18 January 2015 (UTC) | |||
| :::::It's election time in Israel, and new evangelical fundamentalist Republican party majorities hold Congress and the Senate. I'm sure the fellow knows all the flak that would fly in Europe, but Eurabia is not his constituency, and the feisty banana-republican thumb-in-your-eyes circus act was intended for the only two state actors who have an impact. Politically, his egregious vulgarity and offensiveness was quite 'rational.'] (]) 09:34, 18 January 2015 (UTC) | |||
| :A year earlier he made much of Abu-Haj being Palestinian (invalidating her scholarship) and imputed that she was a political activist, and possibly therefore associated with antisemitism.,, and . Cf . | |||
| == A quick question == | |||
| :There is no evidence for that contention or its anti-Semitic insinuation. The whole thread on the exchanges in those two days has to be read to be believed for its ] and aspersions about the competence of a Palestinian anthropologist. A year later, this ‘resolved’ issue is still be exhumed with the same intensity of argufying on numerous pages, at , and on the Arbpia5 ,, , and . The assumption, I assume, is that he is above some POV 'fray' whereas on his own record he has here himself a decided POV, to exclude a scholar because of her ethnicity. Sigh. | |||
| After raising a question in the talk page and if there is no reply, how long should I wait for a reply before making a change? Thanks, ] (]) 22:08, 14 January 2015 (UTC) | |||
| :I |
:I raise this here, after the Evidence page has closed, because I do not want to be involved there and have no interest in providing diff evidence that might embarrass or complicate the wikilives of other colleagues. Apart from socks, no differences among regular contributors on talk pages should lead to AE actions except in exceptional circumstances. ] (]) 15:10, 20 December 2024 (UTC) | ||
| ::That's a very long thank you but I decline! Far far longer than mine :-) Are you sure you wouldn't fit in with them? 😀 ] (]) 15:42, 23 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :::It strikes me as self-evident that participating in a case when three admins had determined, by totally misreading one diff, that I was either a spreader of antisemitic hate (leeky cauldron) or a weaponizing purveyor of antisemitism (SFR and Barkeep)- all being, with good cause, highly respected-would be pointless. There is no logic in imagining a punishable distinction between | |||
| :::*Sir Stephen Sedley telling a non-sectarian global audience a joke underscoring Jewish awareness that antisemitism can be weaponized, and | |||
| :::*Nishidani reminding one English editor on wikipedia of that same joke, a joke underscoring Jewish awareness that antisemitism can be weaponized | |||
| :::Since the propositional values in the two statements are identical, either Sedley was also being 'inflammatory' by weaponizing antisemitism, or I was, like the distinguished English jurist, trying to bring to the discussion the same illuminating reminder that Jews themselves take care to not weaponize antisemitic accusations. Being inadvertently but objectively smeared on the eve of ARBPIA5 with that insinuation by a sanction blotting a record that shows just two minor infringements since 2017 spells the end of my wikiwork. We peons are held to the highest standards in the IP area, a standard, unfortunately here, which those who govern us don't have to live up to on those rare occasions where an indisputable error of judgment occurs .] (]) 18:15, 23 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :::'''Fifth Reflection''' | |||
| :Going back to Foarp's suggestion that the editors may not use wikipedia to right great wrongs, a wiki issue often and invariably cited exclusively to skewer any edit or editor who may take an interest in the Palestinian realities in the IP equation, more or less following the example of that ]. Following up from the following reflection is perhaps due. | |||
| :An official Israeli perception is that over recent times, despite intensive efforts to win over the hearts and minds of the world, hasbara has failed to achieve any such goal. To the contrary, there has been a distinct deterioration in its image across the globe (a 'great wrong'). To remedy this failure, the Israeli government has just made a dramatic increase in one budgetry provision, allotting $150 million, a 20-fold increase in its normal hasbara outlay, with the aim of influencing world opinion, through diplomatic and legal actions, intervention on American colleage campuses and '''on social media'''. (Asaf Elia-Shalev, , ] 28 December 2024 | |||
| == Warning == | |||
| :The Ma’ariv report cites the official Israeli government announcement that calls part of this initiative ‘cognitive warfare’(התודעה לוחמת ''lochamet hatoda 'a''), lit. ‘consciousness warfare’ (Anna Barsky, ] 24 November 2024) | |||
| Please stop editing your ] into article where they do not belong. Adding the following passages to ] is a clear violation of WP guidelines. | |||
| :<blockquote>'funds were also allocated to an organization called National Vision, which was set up by Likud MK Ariel Kallner – and is currently being run by other Likud activists. The funding was designed to highlight the Israeli government’s narrative on the English Misplaced Pages.'], Shomrim:The Center for Media and Democracy 31 October 2024</blockquote> | |||
| :Of course, as in the past, none of this will have the slightest impact on wikipedia, the one social medium which, we must confidently infer, that government scrupulously avoids meddling with. ] (]) 15:55, 30 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| According to ] of the ] Carmel is | |||
| :<blockquote>'a lovely green oasis that looks like an American suburb. It has lush gardens, kids riding bikes and air-conditioned homes. It also has a gleaming, electrified poultry barn that it runs as a business.' Beyond its barbed wire fencing, the Bedouins of Umm al-Kheir in shanties are denied connection to the electricity grid, barns for their livestock and toilets, and all attempts to build permanent dwellings are demolished. Elad Orian, an Israeli human rights activist, noted that the chickens of Carmel's poultry farm get more electricity and water than the Palestinian Bedouin nearby. <ref>], , ] 30 June, 2010.</ref></blockquote> | |||
| Hammerman writes as follows: | |||
| :<blockquote>Right next to the stately country homes - complete with air-conditioning, drip-irrigation gardens and goldfish ponds - a few extended families including old men, old women and infants live in dwellings made of tin, cloth and plastic siding, though there are a few cinder-block structures, too. They tread on broken, barren ground. They have no running water. They are not connected to the power grid that lights up every settlement and outpost in this remote region. They have no access road.<ref name="Hammerman" /></blockquote> | |||
| == Proposed decision of ] posted == | |||
| If you insist on continuing in this line of editing I won't have any other option but to report you. | |||
| Hi Nishidani, in the open ] arbitration case, a ] which relates to you. Please review this decision and draw the arbitrators' attention to any relevant material or statements. Comments may be brought to the attention of the committee on the ]. For a guide to the proposed decision, see ]. For the Arbitration Committee, <b>]]</b> (] • he/they) 21:00, 11 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ] (]) 14:44, 18 January 2015 (UTC) | |||
| :Interesting. Of 11 editors named as the major culprits deemed responsible for the '''perceived''' toxically problematical area, 3 are usually identified with a pro-Israeli position, one of whom is an underperforming, more or less, throw-away account. The rest are the notorious 'regulars' usually if haplessly identified as 'pro-Palestinian'. So 80% of the core problem is implicitly traced back to the latter group. Statistically, this vindicates what scores of hasbara sites have complained of with urgent intensity over the past year.] (]) 00:29, 12 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
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The West Bank/Judea and Samaria Problem
Personal work section notes. I get headaches and am as slow as a wet week, in dragging up diffs, and even have a geezer's trouble in following these arguments all over several pages, so I can't really make an adequate case. So I'll have to make my contribution in the next few days, according to the fashion I normally work after, when I did work, in the real world. Reflecting from principles, through to the problem, the evidence and conclusions. Apologies to anyone reading this. It's written to help myself get some order into this chat, not to guide others.
- An editorial split between those in favour of using 'Judea & Samaria' to designate (a) parts of, or (b) all, or (c) all of the West Bank and parts of Israel, and those who oppose the usage, except on those specific pages devoted to (i) Samaria (ii) Judea (iii) the administrative territory known in Israel as 'Judea & Samaria'.
- The 'Judea and Samaria' school holds that (a) these are geographical and historical designations predating the West Bank (b) used in a variety of sources published in Israel and abroad to denote the territory, or parts of it, known as the West Bank (c) and that opposition to the employment of these words in wiki constitutes an 'ethnic-based discrimination' against both Israeli and Jewish people.(d) specifically, that MeteorMaker, Pedrito and myself have conducted a campaign to denigrate or deprecate Jewish terms in the I/P area, a kind of ethnic cleansing of nomenclature, in a way that lends substance to fears our position is motivated by, well let's call a spade a spade, anti-semitism.
- The 'West Bank' school asserts that (a) these terms have an intrinsic denotative vagueness because they refer to different geophysical, administrative and political terrains depending on historical period, and that to use the terms of the territorially bounded and defined area known internationally as the West Bank creates cognitive dissonance (b) that these terms, as documented, were used under the British Mandate, then dropped for 'West Bank', which has remained to this day the default term of neutral usage internationally and in international law and diplomacy (c) that, after the Israeli conquest of the West Bank, in 1967, the terms 'Judea & Samaria' were pushed onto the political agenda by an extremist settler group, Gush Emunim, then adopted by the Likud government in 1977, and imposed by government decree on the Israeli mass media, which suppressed the international term, West Bank (d) that, as documented, the terms 'Judea and Samaria' have a potent ideological charge as appropriative nomenclature, renaming Palestinian land presently occupied, annexed or expropriated illegally by Israel (ICJ judgement 2004), over which Israel has no sovereignty, where Israel is establishing illegal settlements at least half of which on land with private Palestinian title, and with its own Arabic toponyms, and erasing the traditional native nomenclature by creating a neo-biblical toponomy (d) that reliable secondary sources explicitly define the term as partisan, even in contemporary Hebrew and Israeli usage (e) that the evidence for usage overwhelmingly documents the prevalence of 'West Bank' (northern, southern) in neutral sources, whose neutrality is affirmed also by the very sources that otherwise employ the words 'Samaria and Judea' adduced by the former school, (f) that if explicitly attested partisan Israeli toponymy and administrative nomenclature is allowed on non-Israeli territory, then by WP:NPOV criteria, automatically this would mean the corresponding Palestinian toponymy and nomenclature, often covering the same areas, would have to be introduced (g)that in this whole debate, the West Bankers have not even represented the Palestinian side, which is absent, invisible, while the Israeli side is being treated as though its national naming were on terms of parity and neutrality with international usage (h) that wiki criteria, WP:NPOV, WP:Undue, WP:RS, WP:NCGN etc. require that neutral terminology, particularly as evidenced by the overwhelming majority of reliable sources, be employed. (i) If we are to allow Israeli terminology to be generally employed in denoting territory over which Israel exercises no sovereignty, but is simply, in law, an occupying belligerent, a very dangerous precedent, with widespread consequences for articles where ethnic conflicts exist, would be created.
(ii)Note on language, naming as an appropriative act of possession and dominion.
'According to the aboriginal theory, the ancestor first called out his own name; and this gave rise to the most sacred and secret couplet or couplets of his song. The he 'named' (tneuka) the place where he had originated, the trees or rocks growing near his home, the animals sporting about nearby, any strangers that came to visit him, and so forth. He gave names to all of these, and thereby gained the power of calling them by their names; this enabled him to control them and to bind them to his will.'
Wa’-yitser’ Yĕhôwāh’ (Adonai) ĕlôhīm’ min-hā'ădāmāh’ kol-‘ha’yath’ ha’-sādeh’ wĕ'ēth kol-ôph ha’-shāma’yim wa’-yāvē ‘ el-hā'ādām’ li-r'ôth mah-yiqrā-lô’ wĕ-kôl ăsher yiqrā-lô’ hā'-ādām‘ ne’pfesh ‘ha’yāh’ hû shĕmô. (20) Wa’- yiqrā’ hā'-ādām‘ shēmôth….
‘And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them; and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. 20. And Adam gave names.. .'
Wa-‘allama ādama l-asmā’a kullahā,
'And He taught Adam the names, all of them.’ Qu’ran 2:31.
In Thomas Pynchon's novel Mason & Dixon, the narrator Cherrycoke recounts, against the huge backdrop of seismic shifts in the political and scientific world of that time, the story of the eponymous figures who have undertaken to draw a scientific map of the wilderness and terrain between Pennsylvania and Maryland:
‘what we were doing out in that Country together was brave, scientifick beyond my understanding and ultimately meaningless, - we were putting a line straight through the heart of the Wilderness, eight yards wide and due west, in order to separate two Proprietorships, granted when the World was yet feudal and but eight years later to be nullified by the War for Independence.”
Late in the novel, the Chinaman of the piece remarks:
‘To rule forever, . .it is necessary only to create, among the people one would rule, what we call . . Bad History. Nothing will produce Bad History more directly nor brutally, than drawing a Line, in particular a Right Line, the very Shape of Contempt, through the midst of a People,- to create thus a Distinction betwixt’em. –’tis the first stroke.-All else will follow as if predestin’d, into War and Devastation.’
The dispute here in wiki, like the historical reality it refers to, has its ‘Bad History’. In the novel, the apparently empirical task of defining boundaries is found unwittingly implicated in the later travails of American history, with its exceptionalism, erasure of native peoples, of possible alternative worlds, of Frostian paths never taken. American innocence and pragmatic realism, in the innocuous work of two surveyors, is swept up in the torment of power: cartographic principles embody an Enlightenment’s reach into the unknown, while, applied, to the ends of order and control, they inadvertently engender violent confusion and disarray. What is the ‘right line’ to take on nomenclature, when history’s line demarcating Israel and the West Bank was drawn by war, then the West Bank was occupied in the aftermath of war, and the world of Israeli settlers begins to redraw the map? One thing that happens is that the complexities have drawn editors into a minor war, as Pynchonesque as it is Pythonesque. There is one difference: most the cartographers say one thing, and Israel, the controlling power, asserts a different terminology. So what’s in a name?
Before the world was tribalized and invested by the collateral damage or fall-out from the Tower of Babel, God assigned to the mythical forefather of all, ‘man’ or Adam, the faculty to name the world, though God himself had exercised this right in naming the light (or) day (yom) and the darkness (hôshek) night(layĕlāh) (Gen.1.5) There was only one name for each thing, and in later European thought the primordial language employed in this taxonomy was to be called ‘the Adamic vernacular’. The thesis was that the pristine jargon employed by Adam, being pre-Babelic, represented the true name for every object: every thing had a proper name intrinsic to its nature. The Greeks, as we see in Plato’s Cratylus, were much prepossessed by the philosophical crux of the correctness of names (ὀρθότης τῶν ὀνομάτων): did names have an intrinsic relation to, or represent, things, or was the link arbitrary.. The Confucian school’s doctrine of the Rectification of names (zhèngmíng: 正名). In the Bible itself the Hebrew text is full of the magic of words, of the power of words themselves to alter reality, a belief testified to in Isaiah:
'So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please.'
Modernity, especially after Ferdinand Saussure (1916), has opted, correctly, for the latter position, and disposed of the magical force of naming. But nationalism, another product of modernity, reintroduced it, via the backdoor, in a new sense. Naming was an act of assertive territorial control, of defining ethnic rights over land, especially as Anthony Smith argues, ethnie are defined also by attachment to a specific geophysical reality, the ‘homeland’ that defines in good part their identity ). Since national identities are a political construct, the inculcation of a uniform language, and the use of its lexicon to define or redefine the landscape, are crucial instruments in forging a national sense of common tradition. Nationalism demanded toponymic unison, and linguistic conformity.
John Gaddis, glossing James Scott’s recent book on North Dakota roads and maps, remarks on maps that they reflect
‘what states try to do to those portions of the earth’s surface they hope to control, and to the people who live upon them. For it’s only by making territories and societies legible – by which he means measurable and hence manipulable – that governments can impose and maintain their authority. “These state simplifications,” he writes, are “like abridged maps.” They don’t replicate what’s actually there, but “when allied with state power, (they) enable much of the reality they (depict) to be remade.”
The idea of a nation as a territorial unit speaking one language over that territory is a parlously modern ideology, one engineered by nation-builders into a plausible if specious semblance of commonsense. As Massimo d’Azeglio is said to have remarked at the dawn of the Italian Risorgimento, ‘we have made Italy: our task now is to make Italians’, 95% of whom could neither read, write and nor often even speak ‘Italian’.
Imperialism, venturing into terra incognita to appropriate foreign land and incorporate it into an empire, went side by side with nationalism, which was a form of internal colonization over, and homogenization of, the disparate cultures that made up an historically defined territory. For the natives, their indigenous naming is ‘essentially a process of asserting ownership and control of place and landscape’
Daphne Kutzner, in her analysis of the role of Empire in classic children’s fiction, looks at the question from the perspective of the intrusive Empire and its refraction of imperial renaming as reflected in popular books, notes that
‘Naming a place gives the namer power over it, or at least the illusion of power and control. Colonial powers literally transform a landscape once they rename it and begin reshaping it.’
Terra incognita is the foreigner’s name for an ostensibly empty landscape which, had they taken the trouble to learn the local languages, would have revealed itself to be replete from every rocky nook to crannied gulley with ancient toponyms. The tendency was one of erasure, and, as with introduced fauna and flora , the landscape was consistently remade as it was renamed to familiarize the alien by rendering it recognizable, a variation on the landscape settlers came from. The new mapping, as often as not, represent as much the settler’s mentality, as the queerly new features of the foreign landscape under toponymic domestication.
Australia is somewhat the extraordinary exception, and broke with the gusto for imperial nomenclature. There, following the pattern set by the earlier land surveyor Thomas Mitchell and his assistant Philip Elliott that “the natives can furnish you with names for every flat and almost every hill” (1828), native names were adopted in a standarized English form for both euphony and their characteristic relation to the landscape, and indeed a resolution was passed as early as 1884 which established the priority of native names in international usage.
Often imperialism and nationalism go hand in hand. Napoleon’s troops, in 1796, could hardly communicate with each other, such were the grammatical, semantic and syntactical rifts between the various provincial patois at the time. By 1814, Napoleon had formed a European empire, and millions of provincials spoke the one, uniform language of the French state’s army. When two nations, or ethnie, occupy the same territory, the historical victor’s toponymic choices, dictated by the victor’s native language, and as articulated in bureaucratic documents and maps, usually determines what names are to be used. However, the presence of two distinct ethnie on the same national soil creates fissiparous tensions in nomenclature. Speaking of French and British conflict in Canada over areas, Susan Drummond, remarks that, 'Symbolic appropriation of a territory is a critical index of control’, and notes that, as late as 1962, the Québec cartographer Brochu, invoked the political dimension of place names as important, in the conflict with the majoritarian English heritage of Canada over the naming of the northern Inuit lands.
Again, in another familiar example, Alfonso Pérez-Agote notes that Spain has its Basque Autonomous region, Euskadi. But the original force of that name covers an area beyond the administrative and territorial units of Spain, and Basque nationalists evoke its symbolic territory, comprising also the Basque area of Navarre in France. Euskadi has, on one level, within Spanish administrative discourse, a ‘territorial political objectification’, and on another level, in Basque nationalism, a ‘non-administratively objectified’ territory extending into a neighbouring country.. The analogy with Israeli and Palestinian nationalism is close. In Israeli discourse, Israel or Eretz Israel can denote Israel and its outriding West Bank, while Palestine, which is the favoured term of West Bank Arabs for the land they inhabit, also can refer to the whole neighbouring territory of Israel as well.
The anomaly, in comparative terms, is that history has settled the question, whatever local separatist nationalisms, revanchist or irredentist, may claim, except for such places as ‘Palestine’. For there, while Israel is a constituted state, it emerged the victor, manu militari in a conflict that gave it control over a contiguous land, but has no recognized legal right, since that land is defined as and ‘Occupied Palestinian Territory. Acts of unilateral annexation, the extension of administrative structures, settlements, toponymic remapping, and widescale expropriation of land in Palestinian title, is not only not recognized, but judged ‘illegal’ by the highest international bodies of law. All major encyclopedias (Encyclopædia Britannica, Encarta etc.,), except Wiki, maintain a strict neutrality, and, in recognition of the fraught difficulties, adopt the neutral toponymic convention of ‘(northern/southern) West Bank’ in order to avoid lending their prestige to the partisan politics of the parties in this regional conflict.
(iii)The specific instance of Palestine and the West Bank
When the British wrested control over Palestine from the Ottomans in the First World War, and established themselves there to administer the region, Selwyn Troen notes that, 'naming also became part of the contest for asserting control over Palestine'.. As early as 1920 two Zionists advising the British Mandatory authority on everything regarding the assignment of Hebrew names, fought hard for the restoration of Hebraic toponymy, and when, with such places as Nablus, or indeed 'Palestine' itself, were given non-Hebrew names, they protested at the designations as evidence of discrimination against Jews. The point is made by the Israeli historian and cartographer Meron Benvenisti:-
'When the Geographical Committee for Names, which operated under the aegis of the Royal Geographical Society (the only body authorized to assign names throughout the British Empire, decided to call the Mandatory geopolitical entity “Palestine” and the city whose biblical name was Shechem, “Nablus” these Jewish advisers saw this as an act of anti-Jewish discrimination, and a searing defeat for Zionism.'
One pauses to reflect. We are being accused here of 'anti-Jewish/Israeli discrimination' for refusing to insert Israeli toponyms into the West Bank. Nothing is said of the logic of this POV-pushing, i.e. that a Palestinian reader might well regard a Wiki endorsement of suc h foreign nomenclature as a 'searing defeat', and adduce it as proof of 'anti-Palestinian discrimination' both by Zionist editors, and Misplaced Pages itself.
Since Zionism took root, and especially since Israel was founded, the making of a people, living in a defined territorial unit and speaking one language, has followed the universal pattern of modernity. The landscape, full of Arabic words, had to be renamed, often according to Biblical terminology, but, more often, by the invention of Biblical-sounding names. To do this, a good part of the 10,000 odd Arabic toponyms collected by Herbert Kitchener, T. E. Lawrence and others in surveying that part of the Middle East had to be cancelled, and replaced with Israeli/Hebrew terms, to remake the landscape and its topographic songlines resonate with historical depth. Hebrew is a ‘sacred tongue’ (Leshon HaQodesh:לשון הקודש), the Bible describes the conquest of Eretz Yisrael, and the dispossession of its indigenous peoples, who were not part of the chosen: the pattern is repeated in modern times, down to the renaming. The revival of Hebrew, with its potent shibboleths, understandably exercises a powerful hold over the new culture of the country.
The problem is, as Steven Runciman pointed out in the mid-sixties, that the part assigned to Israel by the UN deliberation of 1947 was the western, non-Biblical part, whilst the part assigned to a future Palestinian state, what we now call the West Bank, is precisely the area most infused with Biblical associations cherished by the Jewish people, with sites and names redolent of the founding myths and realities of their ancient forefathers. Israelis, in their secular land, mostly dwell where the Philistines dwelt. The Palestinians dwell where the ancient Jewish tribes once settled. The tensions simmer between the secular Israel, which thrives in its new Mediterranean world, and the religiously-identified Israel that aspires to return to a geophysical space where origins and the present, the sacred nomenclature of the Bible and the modern world of Jewish life, might at least, once more overlap, in an ‘Adamic’ harmony congruent with the kingdoms of Israel and Judah.
(iv)The Negev Precedent With the foundation of Israel, and in the aftermath of the 1948 war, the vast Negev and part of the Arava were captured, and Ben Gurion duly established a Negev Names Committee to ‘hebraize’ the landscape’s features, its mountains, valleys and springs. The area already had a rich Arab toponymy, and some on the committee thought these terms might be preserved as a ‘democratic gesture towards the Arab population of the new state.’ It was not to be. The nomadic Bedouin who dwelt throughout the area were rounded up and expelled by force. They had terms for everything, but with their uprooting and displacement, Benvenisti notes, ‘an entire world, as portrayed in their toponomastic traditions, died.' Ben Gurion wrote to the committee setting forth his view that:-
We are obliged to remove the Arabic names for reasons of state. Just as we do not recognize the Arabs’ political proprietorship of the land, so also we do not recognize their spiritual proprietorship and their names.
Political pressure and ‘the influence of patriotic arguments’ prevailed over those who, like S.Yeibin, thought the erasure of Arab names, many of which might preserve an archaic Hebrew origin. Yeibin thought this a disaster:-
‘With a clap of the hand they were wiping out an entire cultural heritage that must certainly conceal within it elements of the Israeli-Jewish heritage as well. The researchers did indeed endeavour to identify all those names that had a link to ancient Hebrew ones in an attempt “to redeem, as far as possible, names from the days of yore.” <
Any Arabic toponym in short only interested the topographers in so far as it might provide a clue to reconstructing the hypothetical Hebraic original that might lie behind it. This consideration, however, often created a mess of concocted pseudo-traditional names. The hebraization of such Arabic toponyms did not restore the historic past, but invented a mythical landscape, resonant with traditionalist associations, that had, however, no roots in Jewish tradition. The most striking geologic formation in the Negev, Wadi Rumman was rewritten as if that word disguised an ancient Hebrew Ram ('elevated'), whereas the Arabic term it was calqued from actually meant 'Pomegranate Arroyo', for example.
Reflecting on Benvenisti’s account in his larger study of language conflict in the Middle east, the Palestinian expatriate scholar Yasir Suleiman makes remarks that,
’By assigning Hebrew names anew to places on the map, the committee was therefore ‘redeeming’ these places from the corrupt and ‘alien’ Arabic names that they have acquired over the centuries’
and likens this process of linguistic erasure of Arabic and the reconstitution of Hebrew metaphorically to the nakba:-
‘The cartographic cleansing of the Negev map of Arabic place names and their replacement by Hebrew names is an enactment of the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians from their homeland’
The record is therefore one of a linguistic cleansing of Palestine of any trace of its long Arabic history, and, as we shall see, an attempt to remodel Arabic usage in the territories Israel conquered and controls, to conform with Hebrew. Toponyms can only retain some semblance of an Arabic form, if that form is suspected to camouflage, in turn, an original Hebraic name. Adapting the reborn Hebrew language to the alien realities of the Palestinian landscape, the obvious problem was that the nomenclature for much of the flora and fauna, not to speak of the landscape itself, was infused with the very language, Arabic, a revarnished Hebrew had to compete with. As early as 1910 Jacob Fichman, a member of the Language Council, stated that Hebrew:
‘will not digest the new names of plants, especially those which have been taken from the Arabic language’ and that these borrowed names ‘will always be like atrophied limbs’ for ‘despite the fact that the Arabic language is our sister language in the family of Semitic languages, it has no foundation in our |psyche ’
Hebrew was thus to be programmatically sealed off from Arabic, to prevent atrophisation, and cultivate purism by means of a fake Biblical antiquarianism. Theodor Adorno, writing in the melancholic aftermath of the Holocaust on the effects of cultural purism, once remarked on the purging of foreign words from German undertaken by nationalists intent restoring an ideal of cultural authenticity. He saw this as part of the pathology of nationalism in Germany. Foreign words were treated as if they were 'the Jews of language' (Fremdwörter sind die Juden der Sprache). In expunging the landscape and the human world of Palestine of its Arabic language, of landscape and culture, Zionism likewise treated Arabic as German or French linguistic purists treated loan-words in their own languages, or, later, actual Jews in their midst, as foreign bodies to be expelled, or expunged if a proper 'foundation for an authentically Jewish psyche' were to be successfully engineered. One would call this ironic, were it not so tragically melancholic in its unintended resonances.
(v)The West Bank. History and Naming The relationship between demographic displacement and the loss of one's landscape through the erasure of its traditional placenames in Palestine has been remarked on by Paul Diehl.
‘The exclusive attachment to territory is reflected in the naming and renaming of places and locations in accordance with the historic and religious sites associated with the dominant political group. Not only did the outflow of Palestinian refugees bring about a change in the Jewish-Arab demographic rations, it brought about the replacement of an Arab-Palestinian landscape with a Jewish-Israeli landscape. The names of abandoned villages disappeared from the map and were replaced with alternative Hebrew names . . Israeli settlements throughout the West Bank have taken on biblical names associated with the specific sites as a means of expressing the Jewish priority in these places and the exclusive nature of the territorial attachment. Modern Israeli and Palestinian maps of Israel/Palestine possess the same outer borders, but the semantic content of the name is completely different.. The means by which new landscapes are created to replace or obliterate former landscapes is a good example of the way in which metaphysical and symbolic attachment to territory is translated into concrete realities on the ground.’
In 1950, when King Abdullah, of the Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan, unilaterally annexed the territory he had conquered in 1948, he changed the name of his country to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, which incorporated the remaining fragment of Palestine as aḍ-Ḍiffä l-Ġarbīyä, or 'the West Bank' of that kingdom. The usage is still current in German (Westjordanland). Though only Britain recognized his annexation, the word itself found ready acceptance in, and was not, 'forced on', the international community, as Binyamin Netanyahu argued.
In 1967, Israel conquered what the world knew as ‘The West Bank’, the Biblical heartland, and a decree calling it ‘Judea and Samaria’ was issued by the Israeli military on December 17 that year with the explicit definition that it would be identical in meaning for all purposes to the West Bank region to replace the interim terms 'Occupied Territories' (ha-shetahim ha-kevushim), and ‘the Administered Territories’ (ha-shetahim ha-muhzakim) in use since the immediate aftermath of the June war. The term 'Judea and Samaria' however was rarely used until Likud took power. The Labour Government never enacted a settlement policy, though Gush Emunim, an extremist settler ground with a fundamentalist ideology, pressed settlement, and propagated the terminology ‘Judea and Samaria’. When the Likud party, the maximalist, expansionist party with strong ties to both religious and ultra-Zionist groups and traditions, was elected in 1977, it imposed Samaria and Judea as the vox propria in modern Hebrew on the mass media, expressly forbidding the use of the international term West Bank. Notably, the government's imposing of these terms on Israeli usage was seen as a prerequisite for an envisioned settlement policy, since accepting the terms would predispose the public to accepting the policy.
Gideon Aran describes the achievement:
‘The importance of changing names in the process of conquering territory is well known. Assimilation of the name “Judea and Samaria” in normal and official language, as well as in jargon, attests to G(ush)E(numin)’s political and cultural achievements.'
The Camp David Accords negotiations of and the final agreement, in 1979, only underline how great was the linguistic rift between Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin's position and the American government intent on brokering an agreement.
‘Begin consistently proved to be the most extreme member of his delegation, insisting on seemingly innocent terms such as “autonomy” as opposed to “self rule,” on the labelling of the West Bank as “Judea and Samaria” in the Hebrew text, and on the use of the phrase “undivided Jerusalem.'
A huge amount of wrangling between the American negotiators and Begin revolved around this term.
‘for what must have been the tenth time, he (Begin) objected to the term West Bank, giving a lesson to the president on the geographic and historical appropriateness of the term and the importance of using the words Judea and Samaria.’
Begin refused to back down from his ‘rock-hard’ intransigence on using ‘Judea and Samaria’ and at the Camp David signing ceremony, (March 26,1979) several interpretive notes were required to be added as annexes to the basic documents, one specifically dealing with the West Bank, which President Carter annotated with his own hand with the words:
‘I have been informed that the expression ‘West Bank’ is understood by the Government of Israel to mean ‘Judea and Samaria’.
An ambitious programme of colonising settlement, toponomastic Hebraisation and cultural Judaization was undertaken, and indigenous Palestinians were shifted off their land, in a repetition of the Negev programme, which forms the precedent. The programme took wing especially after the unprovokedinvasion of Lebanon in 1982, whose key political objectives included ousting the refugee Palestinian resistance in the para-state on Israel’s northern flank from Lebanon, where the PLO projected a 'state in waiting' image that threatened Israel’s plans for long-term control over the West Bank. The war was, the head of the IDF said at the time, ‘part of the struggle over the Land of Israel. It aimed to further the isolation of Palestinians on the West Bank by depriving them of close support, halt the rise to political respectability of the PLO, which embodied Palestinian nationalist aspirations, and deprive that body of its claims to be a political partner in the peace process for Israel’s normalization of its relations with the outside world. One calculation, a minority view entertained by both Ariel Sharon and Raphael Eytan, however, was that, expelled from Lebanon, the PLO would be forced to return to Jordan, topple king Hussein, and establish a Palestinian state there to satisfy Palestinian national ambitions that Israel would thwart on the West Bank.
Changing the realities of occupied territory by the manipulation of language, Hebrew, Arabic, and in controllable sources like the global Misplaced Pages, became a programmatic goal. The settlers were in fact 'colonists' in the old sense, but Israeli English usage has here prevailed in the politics of the culture wars to determine how the international community perceives the dynamics of that area. The corresponding Hebrew usage is complex (see Israeli settlements), but continuity with the biblical setlement of Eretz Yisrael is evoked by referring to Jewish settlers as mitnahalim. The root *n-h-l directly evokes a passage in the Book of Numbers where each tribe is assigned its portion on entering Canaan, or the Land of Israel, particularly as ' in the pledge by the tribes of Gad and Reuben that they will fight on the west side of the Jordan river to help the other tribes take possession of their assigned portions' Settlers, qua, mitnahalim are not colonizing anybody's land, in this usage: they are simply taking up their 'assigned portions' as those were marked out by God to the Chosen People.
Rashid Khalidi has remarked how the Israeli authorities themselves try to engineer the way Palestinians think in Arabic by tampering with that language's natural idiom in the Arabic broadcasts they authorize. Over Israeli Arabic channels, one does not hear Jerusalem referred to, as it is customarily in Arabic, and by Palestinians, as Bayt al-Maqdis ('The House of Sanctity') or Al Quds al-Sharif ('The Noble Holy Place'). Arabic usage as sanctioned by Israel speaks rather of Urshalim ('Jerusalem') or Urshalim/al-Quds ('Jerusalem Al-Quds'). The purpose is to diffuse a variety of Arabic names for places that are calques on the Hebrew terms chosen for the area..
This goes right through the bureaucratic language, a form of linguistic colonization that reinforces the physical occupation of the west Bank by cultural re-engineering. A new travel permit was imposed on the colonized Palestinians in the West Bank in 2002, and required of any of them wishing to travel in that area. This was issued, printed and released by Israeli authorities who call it in Arabic Tasrih tanaqul khas fi al-hawajiz al-dakhiliyya fi mantaqat yahuda wa al-samara. ('Special Travel Permit for the Internal Checkpioints in the Area of Judea and Samaria.'). Here, Palestinians who must travel in the West Bank, for them 'Filastin', are required to obtain a document which requires that area to be referred to by the settler term, 'Judea and Samaria'. It is this form of Arabic which they are expected to use in negotiating their way with Israeli authorities through checkpoints. But West Bank Palestinians simply abbreviate it and refer to their tasrih dakhili (Checkpoint permit), , thereby eluding the settler term imposed on them.
Michael Sfard indeed has spoken of Hebrew being mobilized to lend itself to the national emergency of occupying Palestine, and denying the Palestinians the liberty to be themselves. They are passive subjects of an activist language that wraps them about in bureaucratic euphemisms.
'It has been tasked with providing a soothing, anesthetizing name for the entire project of suffocation, for the blanket system of theft we have imposed on those we occupy . . Thus extrajudicial executions have become “targeted assassinations”. Torture has been dubbed “moderate physical pressure”. Expulsion to Gaza has been renamed “assigning a place of residence”. The theft of privately owned land has become “declaring the land state-owned”. Collective punishment is “leveraging civilians”; and collective punishment by blockade is a “siege,” “closure” or “separation".'
A proposal is now being made to apply the principle of Hebraization, as of 2009, even to those places within Israel which the world designates by traditional toponyms, such as Jerusalem (Yerushalayim) Nazareth (Natzrat) and Jaffa (Yafo). According to Yossi Sarid, the process, illustrated further by Knesset proposals to eliminate Arabic as one of Israel's official languages, constitutes a form of ethnocide.
(vi) Analysis of Ynhockey's suggestions
‘Mapmaking was one of the specialized intellectual weapons by which power could be gained, administered, given legitimacy and codified’
'Mapmaking is not, however, solely an instrument of war; it is an activity of supreme political significance – a means of providing a basis for the mapmaker’s claims and for his social and symbolic values, while cloaking them in a guise of “scientific objectivity.” Maps are generally judged in terms of their “accuracy”, that is, the degree to which they succeed in reflecting and depicting the morphological landscape and its “man-made” covering But maps portray a fictitious reality that differs from other sorts of printed matter only in form.'
After 1967 ‘Cartographers . .had many options, which tended to reveal their political proclivities. Those who were sympathetic to Israel labelled the West Bank, Gaza, the Golan Heights, and Sinai as “administered territories” and used the phrase “Judea and Samaria” for Jordan’s former West Bank. They also included all of Jerusalem within Israeli territory,. Mapmakers who were ideologically neutral generally referred to “occupied territory” and maintained the term “West Bank”. . . In the post-1993 period a Palestinian Authority has been established in the West Bank and Gaza, yet there is no actual independent state of Palestine. Most international maps have stayed with the terms “West Bank” and “Gaza” but maps published by the Palestinian Authority describe these areas as “Palestine.” Furthermore, Palestinian Authority maps usually leave out Israel and assign its territory to “Palestine,” with the added designation that it is “occupied territory.”Arthur Jay Klinghoffer, Harvey Sicherman, The power of projections: : how maps reflect global politics and history, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2006 pp.37-8
We are dealing with a defined territory and its naming. User:Ynhockey would make tidy distinctions, define the bound geographical territory (CIA Factbook) as just a political reality, and use Judea and Samaria for all other contexts. In his own work on Wiki, much of it admirable, we find many maps. Examine the following map he authored and uploaded, and which is employed on the Battle of Karameh
The central colour, a washed acquamarine tint, allows one to highlight the field of movement in the battle, and blurs the neat territorial division between the West Bank, and Jordan. But note that, in a wholly unnecessary manner, Israel is stamped in large bold characters and made to overlay the West Bank, which is placed diminutively in parentheses. Willy-nilly, the impression is that the West Bank is some territorial hypothesis or province within Israel. Whether Ynhockey meant to give the reader this impression or not is immaterial. Maps, as one source already quoted noted, reflect the cognitive bias of the mapmaker as much as an interpretation of a landscape, and here the bias is that the West Bank is under Israel, behind Israeli lines, a subset of that state. It is a fine example of what many cartographers and historians of cartography argue: the making of maps, and toponymic nomenclature in them, serves several purposes, to clarify, as here, a battle landscape, for example, but also to impose or assert power, or claims, or blur facts. Objectively, User:Ynhockey has loaded wiki with a map that cogs our perceptions, tilting them to an annexationist assumption. Indeed, unlike the Israeli government so far, his map actually looks like it has the West Bank annexed.
- T.G.H.Strehlow, Songs of Central Australia,Angus & Robertson, Sydney 1971 p.126; cited by Barry Hill, Broken Song: T.G.H.Strehlow and Aboriginal Possession, Knopf, 2002 pp.436f.
- Genesis, ch.2, verses 19-20, with apologies for my transcription
- For a fascinating study on both the figure of Adam in Islamic tradition, and on commentaries on this particular text specifically, see M.J.Kister, ‘Ādam: A Study of Some Legends in Tafsīr and Hadīt Literature,’ in Joel L. Kraemer (ed.) Israel Oriental Studies, Volume XIII, BRILL, 1993 pp.112-174, p.140
- Thomas Pynchon, Mason & Dixon, Jonathan Cape, London 1997, pp.8,615
- George Steiner, After Babel, Oxford University Press 1975 p.58
- Ernst Cassirer, The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms,, vol.1, tr.Ralph Manheim, Yale UP 1955 pp.119ff.,p.122
- Isaiah 5:11. For this and other passages, see S.J.Tambiah ’s 1968 Malinowsky lecture, "The Magical Power of Words," (the ancient Egyptians, the Semites and Sumerians all believed that “the world and its objects were created by the word of God; and the Greek doctrine of logos postulated that the soul or essence of things resided in their names (pp.182-3). My attention was drawn to this particular essay by Tambiah by Brian Vickers, Occult and scientific mentalities in the Renaissance, Cambridge University Press, 1984 p.96
- Anthony D. Smith, The Ethnic Origin of Nations, Basil Blackwell, Oxford 1986 passim
- John Lewis Gaddis, The Landscape of History: How Historians Map the Past, Oxford University Press US, 2004, p.131
- Abbiamo fatto l'Italia. Ora si tratta di fare gli Italiani
- Regis Stella, Imagining the Other: The Representation of the Papua New Guinean Subject, University Of Hawaiʻi Press, 2007 p.169 gives many Papuan examples. Compare his remark elsewhere in the same book, ‘In indigenous cultures . .(t)he most important means of taking control of the landscape is by naming, Naming provides the equivalent of a title deed, imbues power and identity to that which is named, gives the named place a presence, confers a reality, and allows it to be known.’ Ibid pp. 40-41
- M. Daphne Kutzer, Empire's Children:Empire and Imperialism in Classic British Children's Books, Routledge, 2000 p.120
- Alfred W. Crosby, Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900-1900, Cambridge University Press, 1986
- ‘Maps are a kind of language, or social product which act as mediators between an inner mental world and an outer physical world. But they are, perhaps first and foremost, guides to the mind-set which produced them. They are, in this sense, less a representation of part of the earth’s surface than a representation of the system of cognitive mapping which produced them,’ N.Penn, “Mapping the Cape: John Barrow and the First British Occupation of the Colony, 1794-1803.” in Pretexts 4 (2) Summer 1993, pp.20-43 p.23
- John Atchison, ‘Naming Outback Australia,’ in Actes du XVI Congrès international des sciences onomastiques, Québec, Université Laval, 16-22 August 1987, Presses Université Laval, 1987 : pp.151-162 p.154-5
- Susan Gay Drummond, Incorporating the Familiar, McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP, 1997 p.32 .
- Alfonso Pérez-Agote, The Social Roots of Basque Nationalism, University of Nevada Press, 2006 p.xx
- Selwyn Ilan Troen, Imagining Zion: Dreams, Designs, and Realities in a Century of Jewish Settlement, Yale University Press, 2003 p.152
- Meron Benvenisti, Sacred Landscape:The Buried History of the Holy Land since 1948, tr. Maxine Kaufman-Lacusta, University of California Press, 2000 pp.12-13 cf.'Suffused with the sense that “it is impossible for a present-day Hebrew map not to identify by name the places of Hebrew settlement mentioned in the Bible and in post-biblical Hebrew literature,” they set about identifying these sites and putting them on “Hebrew maps,” which they placed opposite the official Mandatory maps.’
- Cf.Bruce Chatwin, The Songlines, Jonathan Cape, London 1987
- Benvenisti, ibid, p.19
- Benvenisti, Sacred Landscape, op.cit.p.14. The Arabic names were also found ‘morose’ and ‘offensive’ . As one member put it: ‘Many of the names are offensive in their gloomy and morose meanings, which reflect the powerlessness of the nomads and their self-denigration in the face of the harshness of nature’ (ibid.p.17). On the committee see also his memoir, Meron Benvenisti, Son of the Cypresses: Memories, Reflections, and Regrets from a Political Life, tr. Maxine Kaufman-Lacusta, University of California Press, 2007 p.72.
- Amar Dahamshe Off the linguistic map. Are Arab place names derived from Hebrew? in Haaretz 30.06.10
- Benvenisti, ibid. p.17, p.18
- ‘The name of the Ramon Crater, for example, perhaps the most dramatic geological formation in the Negev, “is derived from the Hebrew adjective ram (meaning elevated), “states an Israeli guidebook. The fact that its name in Arabic was Wadi Rumman (Pomegranate Arroyo), . . was not considered worthy of mention’ Benvenisti, Sacred Landscape, ibid. p.19
- Yasir Suleiman, A War of Words: Language and Conflict in the Middle East, Cambridge University Press, 2004 p.161, p.162.
- cf.Shalom Spiegel, Hebrew Reborn,, The Jewish Publication Society of America, Philadelphia 1930, Meridian Book reprint 1962. Shalom Spiegel was Sam Spiegel's more distinguished and erudite brother.
- Yasir Suleiman, A War of Words, ibid p.140
- Theodor Adorno, Minima moralia: Reflexionen aus dem beschädigten Leben (1951), in Rolf Tiedemann (ed.) Gesammelte Schriften, Bd.4, Suhrkamp, 1980 p.123
- Paul Francis Diehl, A Road Map to War, Vanderbilt University Press, 1999, pp.15-16.
- 'The term West Bank was forced onto the international lexicon only after Jordan conquered the territory in 1948'. Binyamin Netanyahu, A Durable Peace: Israel and Its Place Among the Nations, Warner Books, (1993) 2000 p.20. Netanyahu's dislike of the term (and his faulty memory for dates), is mirrored by the Palestinian poet, Mourid Barghouti, evidence if ever of the neutrality of the term: cf.‘I did not realize what it meant to be a refugee until I became one myself. When the Israeli army occupied Deir Ghassanah and the whole eastern part of Palestine in 1967, the news bulletins began to speak of the occupation of the Israeli defense forces of the West Bank. The pollution of language is no more obvious than when concocting this term: West Bank. West of what? Bank of what? The reference here is to the west bank of the River Jordan, not to historical Palestine. If the reference were to Palestine they would have used the term eastern parts of Palestine. The west bank of the river is a geographical location, not a country, not a homeland. The battle for language becomes the battle for the land. The destruction of one leads to the destruction of the other. When Palestine disappears as a word, it disappears as a state, as a country and as a homeland. The name of Palestine itself had to vanish. . .The Israeli leaders, practicing their conviction that the whole land of Palestine belongs to them would concretize the myth and give my country yet another biblical name: Judea and Samaria, and give our villages and towns and cities Hebrew names. But call it the West Bank or call its Judea and Samaria, the fact remains that these territories are occupied. No problem! The Israeli governments, whether right or left or a combination of both, would simply drop the term occupied and say the Territories! Brilliant! I am a Palestinian, but my homeland is the Territories! What is happening here? By a single word they redefine an entire nation and delete history.’ Mourid Barghouti, 'The Servants of War and their Language', in International parliament of Writers, Autodafe, Seven Stories Press, 2003 pp.139-147 pp140-1
- Emma Playfair, International Law and the Administration of Occupied Territories: Two Decades of Israeli Occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Oxford University Press, 1992 p. 41.
- Ran HaCohen, 'Influence of the Middle East Peace Process on the Hebrew Language' (1992), reprinted in Michael G. Clyne (ed.), Undoing and Redoing Corpus Planning, Walter de Gruyter, 1997, pp.385-414, p.397.
- Shlomo Gazit, Trapped Fools: Thirty Years of Israeli Policy in the Territories, Routledge, 2003 p. 162
- 'The terms “occupied territory” or “West Bank” were forbidden in news reports.'Ian S. Lustick, 'The Riddle of Nationalism: The Dialectic of Religion and Nationalism in the Middle East', Logos, Vol.1, No.3, Summer 2002 pp.18-44, p. 39
- 'Begin was happy to castigate the media and the intelligentsia for their views, real and imaginary, and their use of politically incorrect language. Israeli television was now instructed to use “Judea and Samaria’ for the administered territories, annexation became ‘incorporation’ and the Green Line suddenly disappeared from maps of Israel and the West Bank'. Colin Shindler, A History of Modern Israel, Cambridge University Press, 2008 p.174
- 'The successful gaining of the popular acceptance of these terms was a prelude to gaining popular acceptance of the government’s settlement policies'.Myron J. Aronoff, Israeli Visions and Divisions: Cultural Change and Political Conflict, Transaction Publishers, 1991. p. 10.
- Gideon Aran, 'Jewish Zionist Fundamentalism: The Block of the Faithful in Israel (Gush Enumin),', in American Academy of Arts and Sciences, University of Chicago Press, 1994 pp.265-344, p.291, p.337
- Zeev Maoz, Defending the Holy Land: a critical analysis of Israel's security & foreign policy, University of Michigan Press, 2006 p.441
- William B. Quandt, Peace process: American diplomacy and the Arab-Israeli conflict since 1967, Brookings Institution Press, 2001, rev.ed.2001 p.130
- William B.Quandt, Peace process, ibid. p.134. This was then accompanied by a formal note to Begin (September 22,1978), it which it was registered that ‘(A) In each paragraph of the Agreed Framework Document the expressions “Palestinians” or “Palestinian People” are being and will be construed and understood by you as “Palestinian Arabs”. (B)In each paragraph in which the expression “West Bank” appears, it is being, and will be, understood by the Government of Israel as Judea and Samaria.’ William B. Quandt, Camp David: peacemaking and politics, Brookings Institution Press, 1986 p.387
- Howard Jones, Crucible of Power: A History of U.S. Foreign Relations Since 1897,Rowman & Littlefield, 2nd.ed. 2001 p.469
- Rex Brynen, Sanctuary and Survival: The PLO in Lebanon, Westview Press, Boulder, 1990 p.2
- James Ron, Frontiers and ghettos: state violence in Serbia and Israel, University of California Press, 2003 p.180. Decoded, the statement means, 'invading Lebanon secures the West Bank for Israel and thus achieves the Biblical borders set forth more or less in the Tanakh's account of the early kingdoms'
- Eric J. Schmertz, Natalie Datlof, Alexej Ugrinsky, President Reagan and the world, Greenwood Publishing Group, 1997 p.44.
- See Uri Bar-Joseph, Israel's National Security Towards the 21st Century, Routledge, 2001 p.185
- Numbers, 32:18
- David C. Jacobson, Does David still play before you? Israeli poetry and the Bible, Wayne State University Press, 1997 p.50
- Rashid Khalidi, Palestinian Identity: The construction of modern national consciousness, Columbia University Press, 1998 p.14
- Nigel Craig Parsons,The Politics of the Palestinian Authority: From Oslo to Al-Aqsa, Routledge, 2005 p.299
- Michael Sfard, Occupation double-speak,' at Haaretz, 12 June 2012.
- Jonathan Cook, Israeli Road Signs, Counterpunch 17-19, July 2009
- Nir Hasson, Give Arab train stations Hebrew names, says Israeli linguist, Haaretz 28/12/2009
- Yossi Sarid 'Israel is not killing the Palestinian people - it's killing their culture,' Haaretz 3 Octobr 2014
- John Brian Harley, David Woodward, The History of Cartography: Cartography in Prehistoric, Ancient, and Medieval Europe and the Mediterranean, Humana Press, 1987 p.506, cited Benvenisti, Sacred Landscape, ibid.p.13
- Benvenisti, Sacred Landscape, ibid. p.13
Further reading:-
- Mark Monmonier, No Dig, No Fly, No Go. How maps restrict and control, University of Chicago Press 2010
Shoah/Holocaust and 'wildly antisemitic'. A further set of reflections
For an outstanding wikipedian, Doug Weller
'After Auschwitz, our feelings resist any claim of the positivity of existence as sanctimonious, as wronging the victims. They balk at squeezing any kind of sense, however bleached, out of the victims' fate.'Theodor Adorno, Negative Dialectics. Routledge (1973) 1990 p.361.
'Inman walked through the house and out the back door and saw a man killing a group of badly wounded Federals by striking them in the head with a hammer. The Federals had been arranged in an order, with their heads all pointing one way, and the man moved briskly down the row, making a clear effort to let one strike apiece do. Not angry, just moving from one to one like a man with a job of work to get done-' Charles Frazier, Cold Mountain1997 p.9 The allusion is something said to have taken place once nightfall set in, allowing a formal pause on the killing fields near Sunken Hill in the Battle of Fredericksburg.
'the United States (US) dropped eight times more bomb tonnage in Indochina – over two million tons on Laos alone – in Vietnam than in World War 11, killing two to three million people, mainly civilians. When Western publics recoiled in horror from the often-televised destructive scenes of this war, air forces moved to more accurate technologies, namely guided missiles. Even then, military strategists and lawyers acknowledge that the “collateral damage” of “surgical strikes”- what drone operators call bugsplat -is unavoidable, if regrettable.
The wiki articles I was referred to, to amend my perceived indulgence in a ‘wildly antisemitic’ distinction, reflect the POV that the Shoah and Holocaust are interchangeable terms for a phenomenon of racial victimization affecting only Jews:-
- (a) Shoah
Yom HaShoah lit. 'Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day'), known colloquially in Israel and abroad as Yom HaShoah (יום השואה) and in English as Holocaust Remembrance Day, or Holocaust Day, is observed as Israel's day of commemoration for the approximately six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust by Nazi Germany and its collaborators, and for the Jewish resistance in that period.
That could be read, giving proper weight to 'in the Holocaust', to imply a distinction using Holocaust as the larger phenomenon of which the Jewish victims form a core reality. Any nation has a natural right to focus on its own particular perspective, in any case.
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; around two-thirds of Europe's Jewish population. The murders were carried out in pogroms and mass shootings; by a policy of extermination.
This takes the terms, as is very commonplace, as interchangeable and commensurate and implicitly excludes the idea that the other half the victims of Nazi racially-designed genocidal actions are to be included in the category of the Holocaust.
Are the two terms synonyms that are denotatively exclusive of non-Jewish victims, then?
Cleave and hew are synonyms, but also antonyms at the same time (split/cling to). It is true that Shoah and Holocaust are now used as synonyms, just as it is true that Holocaust usage shows a much wider range of denotation than Shoah. Holocaust is a vintage word with usage attested for various events from genocide to devastating fires from around the turn of the 19th century down to the late 1950s, and was also adopted to refer to the mass slaughter of civilian populations in WW2. Shoah was so rare in English that the OED 2nd edition of 1989 didn’t even register the term. But among the earliest uses of Holocaust, the generic sense referring to all victims of Nazi genocide was available from the outset. As early as 1945,M.R. Cohen wrote:
’Millions of surviving victims of the Nazi holocaust, Jews and non-Jews alike, will stand before us in the years to come.’
Cohen was an acute logician and analyst of language, with wide interests, playing a seminal role in the establishment and growth of the journal Jewish Social Studies, which as our article states, concerned itself with the universal (all men) and the particular (Jews). And that is precisely the issue here. Both Yehuda Bauer and Yisrael Gutman define what happened to this other half, to the Poles for example in Auschwitz, as genocide, but argue that there is a qualitative distinction to be made nonetheless. This is the premise affirmed by John Pawlikowski as we shall see.
So what does one do with the millions of other peoples who were exterminated – which no one challenges and the larger number is widely remembered – by implementing a broader policy of liquidating inferior races, some 50 million Slavs according to Generalplan Ost. In the end, from 10 to 17 million people in Europe fell victim to actions that were inspired by genocidal racism, of whom half or a third were Jewish: 5.1 (Raul Hilberg)/ 5.3-4 (Yehuda Bauer) or 5.7 (Snyder) million upwards Given that at least 5 million were Jewish, how do we classify the phenomenon comprising ‘the other half’?(whose round number is also historically grounded in hearsay, as it was pulled out of the hat by Simon Wiesenthal.) To illustrate the point concretely, must the shoah at Auschwitz only refer to the 1.35 million Jews killed there, excluding the 250,000 non-Jews, (of whom 74,000 -83,000 were Poles) who died in that same place, by the same means, on the same racist-ideological grounds?
There are strong grounds for arguing for the specialness of Jewish victimization. For one, in Snyder’s words, ‘The project to kill all Jews was substantially realized; the project to destroy Slavic populations was only very partially implemented.’ In addition, numerous case studies show how local groups among Latvians, Lithuanians and the like, jumped with alacrity as war broke out, and Nazis hadn’t even set foot in their territory, to lynch, eradicate, murder, hang up on butcher hooks members of Jewish communities in their midst. Others stood by or actively approved, much as the Muhacir in Anatolia, themselves ethnically cleansed from Europe and elsewhere, did during the Armenian genocide. There is an important differentiating factor on a psychosociological plane among all those thrust into the forecourts of war, between the targeted Slavic nationalities and those, in their midst, who found themselves stripped of their primary identity as Poles, Ukrainians, Russians etc.,and, as Jews did, had to suffer the lacerating existential trauma of a people who, orphaned of those customary networks of tacit solidarity that inform national identities, suddenly found themselves facing the lethal hostility of the Wehrmacht/SS and the fear, insouciance or coldness of former neighbours, with drastically reduced margins for survival. The problem is, however, that this feeds into a concept of exceptionalism, with its rhetoric of uniqueness, which is not only counter-productive of understanding, but methodologically inane, as the greatest comparativist historian of the last century, as Arnold Toynbee, with all his admitted faults, pointed out almost 90 years ago.
Pt.2. Categories and definitions in historical context
Two survivors from the holocaust concentration camps meet up and exchange some black-humoured repartee concerning the Shoah. They are interrupted by God who happens by and overhears their banter. He interjects:’How on earth do you dare banter and joke about this catastrophe?’ The two survivors snap back:’how could You know what it was like? You weren’t there!”
It took some time for scholarship to settle on an appropriate word to describe the phenomenon. The words used to refer to the phenomenon of WW2 mass slaughter are many,- from the ethnospecific khurbn, shoa, continuous pogrom, Final Solution, Event, judeocide, the unnameable/unspeakable, and pseudo-sacred sacrifice etc., to the more generic genocide, (H/h)olocaust, univers concentrationnaire, (Great) Catastrophe, Götterdämmerung and ethnocide. to name but a few,- and the denotative extensions and connotations of each differ.
Shoah in Israeli usage refers to a 12 year time span, while Holocaust tends to evoke (a) broadly the institutionalization of ethnic murders over the roughly six year period of WW2, from the invasion of Poland, or, (b) more restrictively, to the three years embracing the industrialized murder of Jews specifically that accelerated massively from 22 June 1942 onwards when the invasion of the Soviet Union was launched. Usage that restricts, implicitly or explicitly, the Holocaust to (b) means that the earlier propaiudeutic operations that set precedents for administratively organized group murders, such as Aktion T4’s euthanization of from 70,273 to 275,000 deemed unfit to live, or the 61,000 members of the Polish elite prescriptively targeted in the Sonderfahndungsbuch Polen, of whom two thirds were liquidated largely in the opening months of the war, are scanted from the narrative or marginalized in contemporary Holocaust commemorations, as is the gypsy Samudaripen, 70% of whose Polish population alone was exterminated.
The AktionT4 story, in particular, is a crucial precursor for the holocaust process. One estimate made at the time was that 1,000,000 Germans would have to be exterminated on the grounds of being of unsound body or mind. The original technique consisted of killing the mentally ill with a bullet to the neck. This method of disposing of 'useless mouths' (whose murder was duly calculated to have saved the Reich 885 million marks in expenses) was replaced by building 'shower' rooms in the extermination sites, where groups of 10 to 15 patients were ushered in. Once sealed off, the showers were flushed with carbon monoxide to kill them by asphyxiation. The bodies were then burnt in crematoriums made for that purpose in adjacent buildings. What later occurred at Auschwitz and other death camps was not 'unique' but replicated on a vast scale the methods devised for those diagnosed as insane. In short, as Poliakov notes, the rapidity with which the Nazi authorities implemented the later rational and efficient industrial murder factories drew directly on the model developed to exterminate Germany's mentally ill. One striking difference, was that the euthanasia programme, despite its secrecy, generated widespread popular opposition and protests within Germany which eventually led to its suspension, as opposed to the persecution and deportation of Jews, which, according to one informal wartime poll, left 90% of the population indifferent.
All this is further complicated by the shifts in debate position and focuses over successive decades, with geopolitical pressures playing not an insignificant role. The Yalta division of Europe into an Eastern Soviet bloc sphere and Western Europe under American auspices, played into this, esp. after the Cold War kicked in. The partition translated into a neglect of the Holocaust’s other victims in countries which now became adversaries of the West. Archives were closed off from external scrutiny, with the exception of Poland; no systematic centralization of documentation had been organized, leaving archival material dispersed throughout Eastern Europe, and Soviet scholarship was given very restricted agendas. Further events like the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, the showcasing of the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem (1961) and the Six Days War (1967) also inflected reformulations of Holocaust discourse, as did the Yom Kippur War. To which one might add the impact of a renewed nationalism in the former Soviet states as they struggled to reconstruct their identities by addressing their respective histories, particularly with regard to WW2. This last aspect is the gravamen behind Grabowsky and Klein's critique of wikipedia's Polish Holocaust articles. Whatever the biases, we have empirical evidence that affirms that in Western awareness the immense toll of 5.1 million Slavic, i.e. Polish and Russian victims of the holocaust, has been studiously wiped off the public record. They figure marginally, though constituting almost half of the victims, way under other minorities like the disabled, Sinti and Roma, homosexuals, in the awaremess of schoolers in their formative years.
As early as 1941 Churchill, sizing up reports of atrocities trickling in from Europe of Nazi policies, stated that ‘we are in the presence of a crime without a name.' It was Raphael Lemkin, three years later, who in his germinal study Axis Rule in Occupied Europe (1944) devised the neologism genocide to describe the ethnic and cultural restructuring being conducted by the Nazi authorities throughout occupied Europe, citing the mass murders 'mainly of Jews, Poles, Slovenes and Russians.' Citing Hitler’s remark in Mein Kampf that 'the greatest of spirits can be liquidated if the bearer is beaten to death by a rubber truncheon', he defines this as referring concretely in his contemporary world to 'the practice of extermination of nations and ethnic groups as carried out by the invaders.' Lemkin had been from his youth struck by the impunity enjoyed by those who carried out the Armenian genocide. At age 18, he was shocked by the destruction systematically visited upon the Armenians and noted, 'A nation was killed and the guilty persons set free.' The term genocide was required because there was something distinctive about Nazi policy as opposed to ethnic massacres of the past and new conceptions require new terms. , for
'German militarism is the most virulent because it is based upon a highly developed national and racial emotionalism which by means of modern technology can be released upon the world in a much more efficient and destructive way than any of the pedestrian methods of earlier wars.'
Several terms vied for the choice of a terminus technicus for the Holocaust as it affected Jews. The primary Jewish victims of the Nazi onslaught eastwards referred to the Holocaust in their Yiddish mother tongue as a khurbn (חורבן), ‘disaster’. A loanword from Hebrew, as opposed to the biblical connotations of Shoa this term resonates in both the original Hebrew and Yiddish with an allusion to two earlier disasters that inform Jewish historical memory, the destruction of Solomon’s Temple in 587 BCE and of the Second Temple in 70.CE, and also to the exile from Eretz Israel. It maintains its currency among American Orthodox Jews, particularly those who speak Yiddish. Given the resonance of historical antecedents, khurbn implicitly disowns the idea that the European holocaust as it affected Jews was unprecedented. In the new state of Israel, contrariwise, the term was rejected: it retained a resonance of the language of Europe’s persecuted Jews, from whom the new society of Israelis wished to both distance itself and shake off memories of their tragic fate. According to Birgitte Enemark, at the time only examples of armed Jewish resistance were considered heroic, and 'all other aspects of the Jewish experience' were lumped together,' under the label "Holocaust"."Holocaust" thus became the `non-heroic' category.'
Shoah ( שׁוֹאָה) "calamity" was the word that emerged in a December 1938 deliberation of the Central Committee of the Mapai party, as the rampaging precedent set by Kristillnacht became routinized. Though mentioned in a work entitled Sho’at Yehudi Polin (Devastation of Polish Jewry), published in Jerusalem in 1940 to describe the calamity that had befallen European Jews, the term was rarely used during the war by the Yishuv in Palestine until 1946. The term has a biblical resonance- in the Book of Job it is used for a sudden unforeseen disaster and desolation - and began to enter common usage after the summer of 1947 , when, after its establishment in 1946 to commemorate the annihilation of European Jewry, Yad Vashem held a conference dedicated to researching both the Shoah and the Kabbalistic concept of heroism (Gevurah). Khorbn and Shoah were thereafter used interchangeably in public discourse until, by the early 1960s, Shoah emerged as the dominant term in Israeli usage to refer more broadly to what European Jews underwent in the period from the Machtergreifung i.e., Hitler’s seizure of power in 1933 down to May 1945.
As alluded to above, in 1945 M. R. Cohen could refer to the general annihilation of European peoples under Nazism, Jews and non-Jews, as a 'holocaust'. The transition in the use of this term from the generic to the particular, from all victims to Jewish victims, took some decades. Hannah Arendt, in her seminal masterpiece The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951), speaks of 'extermination' broadly for what befell not only Jews but other peoples in both Nazi and Soviet hands, for which, outrageously, a relatively small phenomenon like 'the Jewish question' and antisemitism could become the catalyst of world war and its death factories. Léon Poliakov recounted in his memoirs that at the time of his foundational study of the holocaust in 1951, the word 'genocide' was deemed not fit for publication, and though he did employ it occasionally in his text, he generally uses the term 'extermination'. When Gerald Reitlinger undertook in 1953 the first comprehensive English study of the genocide of Jews, he chose to write. not of the Shoah or Holocaust, but of the Final Solution, the title of his book alluding to the specific Nazi decision for an Endlösung der Judenfrage.
In 1961 Hilberg, writing what was to become the cornerstone of later Holocaust studies, rigorously abstained from using the word in his monumental study. Ever stylistically wedded to detached clinical language, he preferred the term 'destruction' - a generic term shorn of the various emotional resonances instinct in these other labels-in describing the 'annihilation' of European Jews as ‘the world’s first completed destruction process’ . The decisive words here are (a) ‘first’ and (b) ‘completed’, both implicitly denying that, in his historian’s view, we may speak of the phenomenon as ‘unique’. For ‘first’ ominously suggests that the process may repeat itself in the future,(something that is sui generis cannot recur) and ‘completed’ affirms an awareness that the shoah was, at that point in time, the last of a series of comparable events, distinguished only from its predecessors by the thoroughness of its accomplishment.
That same year was to be a turning point in the assessment of the Holocaust in another sense, since the trial of Adolf Eichman contemporaneously taking place in Jerusalem had widespread repercussions on discourse framing the event. In contradistinction to the Nuremberg trials, where indictments were laid for "crimes against members of various nations," the priority of the proceedings was to focus on the Holocaust as a Jewish tragedy, and, it was believed, justice could only be meted out by a Jewish court, which, paradoxically according to Hannah Arendt, citing the prosecutor Gideon Hausner's words, would make 'no ethnic distinctions.' This was understandable. given the extraordinary tolerance Adenauer’s Germany , for one, showed to the tens of thousands of minions of massacre in the midst of its citizenry, among them war criminals. Germany had jurisdiction to try Eichmann but studiously circumvented the idea of extradition, and given the extreme leniency of the courts in sentencing men with thousands of murders on their conscience, that country at least could not be counted on to render justice. We all know of the post-war Polish recrudescence of antisemitism, but who recalls incidents like that in August 1949 in Munich when police shot at a crowd of 500 Jews who had taken to the streets to protest the publication in the Süddeutsche Zeitung of a letter that referred to Jews as ‘bloodsuckers’ (Blutsauger)?
Pt.3.The development of uniqueness
In the aftermath of World War II, the Nazi holocaust was not cast as a uniquely Jewish — let alone a historically unique — event. Organized American Jewry in particular was at pains to place it in a universalist context. After the June war, however, the Nazi Final Solution was radically reframed. "The first and most important claim that emerged from the 1967 war and became emblematic of American Judaism," Jacob Neusner recalls, was that "the Holocaust . . . was unique, without parallel in human history." In an illuminating essay, historian David Stannard ridicules the "small industry of Holocaust hagiographers arguing for the uniqueness of the Jewish experience with all the energy and ingenuity of theological zealots".'
'According to Saul Friedländer: ‘The absolute character of the anti-Jewish drive of the Nazis makes it impossible to integrate the extermination of the Jews, not only within the killings the general framework of Nazi persecutions, but even within the wider aspects of contemporary ideological-political behaviour such as fascism, totalitarianism, economic exploitation and so on.’ I disagree.'
As seen above in Pt.2, the East European Jewish victims of the Holocaust appear to have suffered none of the brain-wracking vexations, that arose in the diaspora and Israel in the postwar period, over the mot propre for what was happening to them. They used the emic, historically resonant term khurbn. The word drew an implicit analogy between the scale of the catastrophe that hit them, and two iconic events in antiquity that branded Jewish memory with a profound sense of loss, the destructions of the First and Second Temples. Thus, khurbn disavowed uniqueness, by affirming an essential continuity, the idea that the physical destruction of the diaspora’s core population repeated an earlier pattern: it was a recurrent, if exceeding rare, event. The symbolic force of this analogy lay in the fact that, in the legend of the foundations of the diaspora, the synagogue, wherever erected, slowly came to be experienced as a substitute for the temple in Jerusalem, with rabbis replacing the priesthood, and rituals of prayer and observance supplanting sacrifice. The unique specificity of the one sacred site millennia before has been preempted by a creative solution dictated by necessity: the ‘temple’ was any site Jewish communities built to celebrate their religion. The Final Solution, in aiming to extirpate their communities and raze their synagogal institutions, constituted the third in a series.
In Israel, to the contrary, this Yiddish khurbn was disliked just as the imputed ‘sheepishness’ of the victims and those who, surviving, made aliyah to the new state with its heroic ethos, was a source of discomfort and embarrassment. One slang term in Israeli usage referred to the martyrs of the camps, as opposed to the Warsaw ghetto rebels who fought back, as 'soap'. In its stead, the word shoah, which had become current in the Palestinian yishuv, gained an ascendancy. The emergent preference for the biblical shoah marked a shift from profane history (secular time) to an idiom of religious thrust (sacred). On another plane, it was also emblematic of natural tendency, instinct in the structural dynamics flowing from the definition of Israel as the Jewish state for the Jewish people, to invest it with discursive authority, one with a final say on crucial matters of definition. One might be tempted to think of a kind of unspoken tendency towards a Vaticanization of authority arising to reign over the disiecta membra of diasporic life which had always been characterized by an intense dialogic interplay, creatively dissonant, between far-flung communities which were unified in their sense of a shared Jewish identity but which, one by one, had to, as circumstances dictated, respond to very different historical social and political challenges. The emergence of a Zionist state, which had a completely different, because national and geopolitical, set of priorities, naturally bore a logic that militated towards the subordination of the diaspora, by redefining it as a contingent expedient, chaotically dispersed and historically defeated, to what was the new unifying narrative of Jewishness as defined by the state of Israel.
Political interests play an important role in suppressing analogies, in order to assert the uniqueness of the holocaust. In the late 1990s, according to Norman Finkelstein, Jewish lobbyists in Congress succeeded in blocking the passage of a bill to commemorate a day of remembrance for the Armenian genocide. The USHMM, he adds, following declarations from both Elie Wiesel and Yad Vashem, and at the request of the Israeli government, virtually erased references to the Armenian genocide from its museum's exposition.
Over the last quarter of a century highlighting the Holocaust as a unique event affecting only Jews has passed out of scholarly fashion. though the idea that the holocaust refers to the genocide of Jews alone still holds the upper hand.
'(Genocide’s) usage in reference to the Shoah and similar events of comparable destructive intent, both prior and subsequent, has gradually increased, including by historians, especially since the 1990s. The word “genocide” in reference to the extermination of the Jews is, in some respects, more neutral than both “Holocaust,” which evokes an etymological notion of the sacrificial, and “Shoah”, which seems to exclude the affected non-Jewish groups. At the same time, the term “genocide” allows for a comparison of similar causes and effects, and emphasizes, by analogy with the legal definition of crime, the intent, which in this case is the endeavour to partially or completely destroy a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group.’(Sullam 2020, p. 4)
‘The Nazi plan of Genocide was related to many peoples, races, and religions, and, it is only because Hitler succeeded in wiping out 6 million Jews, that it became known predominantly as a Jewish case. As a matter of fact, Hitler wanted to commit G. against the Slavic peoples in order to colonize the East and extend the German Empire up to the Ural mts. Thereupon after the completion of the successful war he would he would have turned to the West and to subtract from the French people the 20 million Frenchmen he had promised in his conversation with Rauschning.’ Lemkin cited in (Moses 2008, p. 20)
If one trawls the global past for evidence of genocide, history becomes a charnel house. Though the holocaust is ‘the most documented of genocides’, genocide itself has always been a commonplace of history. It received powerful theological endorsement in the Tanakh/Old Testament, where the injunction was laid down to annihilate the Seven Nations (Deuteronomy 7:2, 20:16-18) namely the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. The logic and principle of exterminating any resistant population by murdering the males and enslaving the rest were first set forth in Western tradition in Thucydides’ vignette, The Melian Dialogue regarding the options given the islanders of Melos during the Peloponnesian War.
Lemkin was well aware of precedents stretching back to the deep past, but for our purposes, one should briefly reacquaint our fugitive modern memory with its selective, fragmentary interest in the past, with how the 19th century's periphery must have experienced the glorious march of progress whose beneficiaries, the West-is-besters, complacently celebrate. Incidents of mass killings in the name of civilization were commonplace, many implemented under impress of the Virgilian maxim drilled into the elites who emerged to gather up and govern their flourishing, expansive windfall empires, i.e., the purpose was to retread the path cut out paradigmatically by the Roman empire, whose Virgilian civilizing mission consisted of 'imposing the custom of peace, sparing the subjugated and warring down the proud.' . An illustration of how this worked out in practice was France's invasion of Algeria, beginning in 1834. At that time the country had an estimated population of roughly 2 million. Four decades later, by 1875 when the conquest was completed, approximately 825,000 indigenous Algerians had been killed. The necessity of genocidal killings lingered on in everyday conversation. One author in 1882 commented that 'we hear it repeated every day that we must expel the native and if necessary destroy him'.
An important principle in approaching history is the relationship between (imperial) core and periphery. Genocide as a twentieth century phenomenon arguably began with Lothar von Trotha’s campaign to decimate the Herero people in 1904-1905,-in one estimate 65,000 of 80,000 (80%) died- accomplished in broad daylight since it was duly covered in the German press. Remembrance of the holocaust is celebrated in postwar Germany but, until recently, this earlier episode of the country's colonial genocide was all but erased from memory. The idea of herding at gunpoint uprooted townsfolk into arid zones where they might die en masse of famine was taken up by the Turks, with their forced exterminatory marches, and the technique, a typical case of blowback, was adopted and widely deployed by Nazis, and to a lesser extent by the Japanese in WW2.
But this is all too facile, and culturally self-regarding to single out three examples which happen to instance the genocidal practices of those countries which were later to emerge as adversaries of the Western powers in two successive world wars.If we take the years around 1900 as an angle from which to reflect on what was to follow in the 20th century, perhaps the best starting point is H. G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds (1898) where the complacent Western core becomes, by a brilliant piece of topical tableturning of imperial prejudices, a planetary periphery. Wells reimagined this annihilation with the modern world refigured as aborigines, invaded and under mechanical extirpation from Martians just as Tasmania’s aboriginal population of 5-7,000 people was all but annihilated within a short century, starting with the Black War.
In 1896-1898 Spain’s concentration camp policy in Cuba wiped out 10% of the island’s population. The British adopted the same system in South Africa in 1899, closeting Boer civilians, women and children into barb-wire enclosures where over 2 years over 25,000 died of disease and malnutrition as their army wardens maintained guard. On the other side of the world, the the United States’ suppression of the Philippine war of independence had the collateral impact of leading to the death through disease and famine of 10 to 20 times the number of guerilla fighters killed. In all three, concentration camps, scorched earth and starvation policies took the largest toll out on civilians. Over a 20 year period Leopold II of Belgium’s murderous policies in the Congo (1885-1908) were so vastin their application that the minimal figure for those killed is 1,500,000, with a maximum estimate ranging as high as 13,000,000. By 1900, only 10% of aborigines (50,000) had survived the impact of British colonialization, with an estimated 20,000 of the original estimated 500,000 members of 300 tribes, each with their distinct languages, killed by direct genocidal settler practices. This was the international background for Germany's policies against the Herero.
After WW1, the metropolitan assault on peripheries resumed. In the Second Italo-Senussi War (1923-1932) Italy likewise killed one quarter of the population in the region of Cyrenaica, by the mass murder of civilians and surrendered soldiers, resorting to the mustard gas bombing of villages,(much as Spain was resorting to chemical weapons against the Berbers in the Rif War in Morocco at that time, as well as death marches into the desert). Having mastered the techniques there, they proceeded to Ethiopia where their spraying of areas with mustard and other gases, together with tactics of gunning down masses of surrendered soldiers and enforcing death marches. The conservative figure is that Italy's invasion of Ethiopia led to the death of perhaps 225,000 people. Mann comments:'This was the equivalent not of the Final Solution but (on a smaller scale) the Nazi mass murder of Poles.' In the Terror Famine implemented in Ukraine in 1932-1933, Stalin intentionally starved to death over 3 million Ukrainians. At the time, the future core of the Luftwaffe’s new generation of pilots was, under a secretive Soviet-Germany pact to circumvent the Versailles agreement, being trained at Lipetsk fighter-pilot school with close to a thousand German military personnel, not far from the genocidal liquidations underway to their west.
David Stannard, author of a foundational study on the massacre of American indigenous peoples, American Holocaust, has argued that the view that the holocaust as a 'unique, unprecedented, and categorically incommensurable' stand-alone event restricted to Jews, is a recent construction. Questioning the late 20th century arrogation of the term to refer exclusively to what befell the Jewish victims of Nazism, he then argues that
'it is the hegemonic product of many years of strenuous intellectual labour by a handful of Jewish scholars and writers who have dedicated much if not all of their professional lives to the advancement of this exclusivist idea.'
While conceptually incoherent, the uniqueness model is defended, he then documents, with intimidating polemical vigour. Yehuda Bauer in taking President Carter to task publicly for mentioning the holocaust's 11, not 6, million victims, (perhaps influenced by Simon Wiesenthal's recent surmise) suggested in his excoriation such an attempt to 'de-Judaize' the holocaust was, albeit unconsciously, 'antisemitic'. Deborah Lipstadt, author of one of the most popular accounts of the holocaust, has also asserted that any comparison between the Jewish holocaust and other forms of genocide put such 'holocaust relativists' on an antisemitic spectrum, one end of which included Holocaust denial.
Pt.4b.Hitler's awareness of a precedent for the Holocaust
Hitler himself, on the eve of WW2, one week before the invasion of Poland, in his Obersalzberg Speech of 22 August 1939, has the Armenian genocide in mind when he set forth before his generals the genocidal thrust of the imminent assault upon Poland:-
Our strength lies in our quickness and in our brutality. Genghis Khan sent millions of women and children into death knowingly and with a light heart. History sees in him only the great founder of States. As to what the weak Western European civilization asserts about me, that is of no account. I have given the command and I will shoot everyone who utters one word of criticism, for the goal to be obtained in the war is not that of reaching certain lines but of physically demolishing the opponent. And so, for the present only in the East, I have put my death-head formations in place with the command relentlessly and without compassion to send into death many women and children of Polish origin and language. Only thus can we gain the living space that we need. Who after all is today speaking about the destruction of the Armenians? .
Those who refuse on principle to entertain the possibity that the genocide of Jews might be further illuminated by analogies or comparisons must of course deny that Hitler's stated intentions here to liquidate the Polish nation are relevant to assessing the ensuing broader holocaust. They must dismiss the explicit justification, that Germany could get away with genocide and enjoy impunity because Turkey had, as immaterial to our understanding of the holocaust affecting Jews.
The Armenian genocide (1915-1918), with perhaps 1,000,000 of 1,800,000 murdered (55%) is defined by Niall Ferguson as 'qualitatively different' from earlier Turkish massacres. The word holocaust itself appears to have been indeed first used, by the New York Times, to describe a new round (‘another Turkish holocaust’) of Turkish pogroms against the Armenian Christian population.. '(I)t is now widely acknowledged to have been the first true genocide,' he continues, endorsing the view of the American Consul in Smyrna at that time, that it ‘surpasse(d) in deliberate and long-protracted horror and in extent anything that has hitherto happened in the history of the world.'
In one sense Hitler was correct. Even today only Armenians recall their holocaust, and Hitler's onslaught on the Poles is lost to general public awareness. Western commemoration is overwhelmingly focused on the Shoah as a unique event, 'qualitatively different', affecting Europe's Jewish population. What would have been unimaginable in the European core in 1905, but proved perfectly practicable if, as with Von Trotta's extermination of the liminal Herero, the 'uncivilised' periphery of Africa was the field of implementation, had its blowback effect a mere three and a half decades later, as the technique was directed at Germany's immediate neighbour.
Pt.5. The politics of restrictive usage
There is nothing surprising in the connection between antisemitism and economic distress. A similar relationship has been observed in many other cases, and there is no reason to believe that antisemitism is exempt from social causation, or that the sufferings of the Jews are something absolutely unique. Unfortunately, the annals of cruelty are inexhaustible and other minorities have experienced at some time or other all the iniquities inflicted upon the Jews. The extermination of the Christians in Japan was just as thorough as Hitler’s genocide. If fewer were killed it was because they were fewer. When massacring the Armenians, the Turks perpetrated all of the deeds of which the SS men are guilty. If the history of antisemitism is particularly long it is because the Jews have clung to their separateness with unique tenacity. Most minorities could not be persecuted for so long because they dissolved themselves in the surrounding population.'(Andreski 1969, pp. 305–306)
How does the Hollocaust relate to genocide as a concept and an event? This question has caused considerable controversy because scholarly discourse and identity politics cannot be separated neatly. While the term 'genocide' was coined during the Second World War and enshrined in international law in 1948, the Holocaust as a specifically Jewish tragedy did not become an object of consciousness until almost two decades later. Ever since, those highlighting a distinctive experience for European Jewry have sought to separate it from that of other victims of the Nazis as well as other cases of ethnic and racial extermination.'(Moses 2004, p. 533)
Analysing the explosion of Holocaust narratives in the United States in the 1970s, after decades of silence also within Jewish communities, Peter Novick argued that the phenomenon was in part motivated by a desire by many influential Jews to make Americans more sympathetic to Israel and Jews generally. Novick went on to call the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum American Jewry's 'epistle to the Gentiles.' Originally funded by private donations, official government involvement was announced by the White House in 1978, on the 30th anniversary of Israel's foundation. This was a political measure to placate American Jews displeased by what they regarded as the President's "excessive evenhandedness" in trying to negotiate a peace settlement between Israelis and Palestinians. The running expenses were thereafter largely taken over by the federal government. Political calculations also contributed to government funding of such awareness programmes concerning the Holocaust, a way to woo the Jewish electorate.
It was President Carter's understanding that the Memorial Centre, following on the report he had commissioned which he appointed Elie Wiesel to preside over, would commemorate all the victims of the Holocaust. In a public address on the occasion of its establishment, Carter happened to mention the 'eleven million innocent victims exterminated'. He was immediately soundly rebuked by Yehuda Bauer, Israel's foremost Holocaust historian, for attempting to 'deJudaise the Holocaust' by including all of the non-Jewish victims. Indignant groups, led by Elie Wiesel reacted by launching a campaign, which eventually achieved its goals, to ensure that the Museum would refer only en passant to 'other' (non-Jewish) victims'. Throughout the following decade tensions arose, for example, between Poles and the Museum's authorities over the way the Holocaust was being portrayed. In a recent memoir recalling that period, John T. Pawlikowski, a Carter appointee, states that difficulties arose in efforts to get Polish American groups to do something towards improving thel exhibitions. At that time, Poles were mentioned at the beginning and the end (as rescuers) but little was said of their engulfment in the central killing programmes at Auschwitz and elsewhere, which formed the main Judaiocentric focus of the Museum's depiction of the events.
Later, the issue arose as to whether the Museum should put Polish victims (2 million) on a par with the 3 million Polish-Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Bożena Urbamowicz-Gilbride had even resigned from the Council for its failure to address this precise issue of commemorating the Polish victims. The general scholarly consensus of experts at the time was that a distinction did exist which militated against any notion the two annihilations could be equated. No decision was reached when, on a further occasion, she and several Polish survivors of the death camps, came to give their testimony. Pawlikowski writes:
while Urbanowicz-Gilbride, Lukas, and the several Polish survivors of concentration camps tell a story that very much needs to be heard, their failure to make proper distinctions weakens their ability to get a hearing for their story- Saying this in no way undercuts the continued need to make the story of the Nazi brutality against the Polish people as part of its racial ideology better known. We must mourn the Polish victims; we must make their story important components of Holocaust education programmes. But we cannot efface the special nature of the attack on the Jewish community within the Nazi programme of racial cleansing. And until people interested in achieving this fully appreciate the distinction, we will never be successful in making the Polish story better understood.(Pawkowski 2022, p. 425) harv error: no target: CITEREFPawkowski2022 (help)
Pawlikowski adds also that, at an NPAJAC conference in 2004, the Catholic theologian and historian Ronald Modras gave a presentation defending the use of the word Holocaust for Polish victims of Nazi racist policies. Paulikowski, himself a priest, then glosses this with his personal view:-
For myself, I do accept the possibility of using 'Holocaust' as an overarching term for the entirety of victimization under the Nazis, but only if the proper distinction mentioned above is clearly maintained.’(Pawkowski 2022, p. 426) harv error: no target: CITEREFPawkowski2022 (help)
When on 17 June 2019 the Democrat Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, called the Trump’s detention centres, “concentration camps” and added “Never Again,” her choice of words was challenged by the Republican Liz Cheney, who accused Ocasio-Cortez of deploying a ludicrous, demeaning analogy with the Holocaust and thereby setting up a false analogy, Both concentration camps and Never again preexisted Nazism, though both are commonly associated with it. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum stepped in to the dispute by stating that it, “unequivocally rejects efforts to create analogies between the Holocaust and other events, whether historical or contemporary,” an assertion of the dogmatic position that the Holocaust, understood as referring to Jews, was unique. The declaration provoked an open letter of protest addressed to the director of the Museum, Sara J. Bloomfield, and published in The New York Review. The letter was undersigned by 560 academics, many of whom are Holocaust scholars, have supported the Museum, some in the capacity of fellows, and researchers given access to its archives. They remonstrated that
'By “unequivocally rejecting efforts to create analogies between the Holocaust and other events, whether historical or contemporary,” the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is taking a radical position that is far removed from mainstream scholarship on the Holocaust and genocide. And it makes learning from the past almost impossible.'
This narrowing of Holocaust to evoke a specific ethnicized denotation, related to Jewish victims of Nazi ethnic cleansing and racial extermination alone, and its successful promotion in this restrictive sense, had an unforeseen collateral effect. One now remarks on how envy and admiration for the publicitarian efficacy in political discourse of the term generated its imitative adoption as a catch-all term among aggrieved constituencies in the rising vogue of Identity politics. Yet, as the headquote from A. Dirk Moses above suggests, it was precisely the wresting of the term holocaust away from its generic usage and its exclusivist application only to the Jewish WW2 tragedy that constituted the first step in the ethnicization of holocaust discourse, and its modern deployment in identitarian discourse and its correlated politics of grievance.
The paradigm of holocaust uniqueness has undergone significant stress fractures in the wake of the unfolding genocide of Palestinians throughout the Israel-Gaza war precipitated by the events of 7 October 2023.
Pt.6. Calling in outside institutions,and the need for scholarly caution in these areas
There was, and still is, a very fine line between Israeli government politicization of antisemitism for furthering its national interests—through hasbara and other political interventions—and scholarly work being undertaken at universities and in research institutes. The blurring of any differences between propaganda and objective research is one of the key factors contributing to the bitter and divisive battles over antisemitism research in the academy.(Burley & Lerman 2022)
le commun des hommes est ainsi fait que si la vue d'un subit désastre émeut et provoque une pitié agissante, la contemplation d'une souffrance prolongée finit par irriter et par lasser.(Poliakov 1993, p. 336)
We recall the victims, but are apt to confuse commemoration with understanding.(Snyder 2015, p. xiv)
It is true that Israel’s current far-right government has turned dog whistles into fog horns.' (Brown & Nerenberg 2021) harv error: no target: CITEREFBrownNerenberg2021 (help)
This has been proposed by Chess, who nominated in this regard the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum for its 'institutional' expertise. That Misplaced Pages is self-regulating,-often ramshackle, provisory and imperfect in its day-to-day workings, but still remains a rare experiment in a project of an autonomous, anonymous self-governing production of an encyclopedia. Its nature means that all articles will be subject to a process of continuous internal development and analysis, and that the major, overriding rules consist in a goal of strict neutrality as a final outcome, as determined by a judicious weighing of all relevant positions emerging from the best available scholarly sources. This eminently internal democratic experiment fits the ideal Popperian criteria for the slow, incremental growth, by constant ameliorative tinkering, of articles informed by recourse to the best available, verifiable knowledge.
As I indicated above, an external institution has its own distinct values, aims and interests, and functions quite differently, however excellent the results generally. In the case of the USHMM, its consultancy would be problematical for a number of of reasons. It has been known to exert pressure to censure criticism of arguments concerning the political manipulation of holocaust discourse. When Norman Finkelstein published his devastating exposé, The Holocaust Industry, and the then doyen of holocaust studies, Raul Hilberg, endorsed the accuracy of its scholarship, the USHMM and Elie Wiesel reportedly pleaded 'relentlessly' with Hilberg to retract his support for the book, unsuccessfully. If, further, as one of its Council members has recently recalled (2022), the Polish story of the Holocaust won't get a fuller hearing at the Museum until Polish advocates recognize that their Jewish confreres suffered qualitatively more than Polish victims, then their participation in a wiki dispute precisely over the Holocaust in Poland, and the proper representation of the two sets of victims would, a priori, support one side, namely the position advanced tendentiously in Grabowski and Klein's essay.
I have no set views on the underlying historiographical issues of that paper, as opposed to deep reservations about its quality and methodology. Research infused with a polemical animus and particularly of the personalised kind that weds a conspiracy theory, is not unknown in academia, and tends to have a half-life not dissimilar to an isotope like Francium 223. It is true that nationalist editing has seriously affected the three core areas under Arbcom restrictions. But it is extremely naive, epistemologically, or indeed manichaean to think that the vigorous interplay of, in each case, editors in disagreement can be spun simply as a conflict between an honourable RS-respecting party, and a group of inflammatory nationalists, who, alone, exhibit a POV. The assumption is that there is 'pure' scholarship promoted by one side to any textual dispute and contaminated thinking exhibited by their nationalistic antagonists. All research in the humanities is embedded in, curricular, human, and social intrerests, the difference being that the reliability of the results is in direct correlation with the epistemological sophistication of the research. Too abstract? Let me illustrate.
That in January 2018 a conservative Polish government passed a “anti-defamation” law which is coercive, enabling libel suits against people including scholars like Jan Grabowski when their interpretations of the past do not run in lockstep with an official narrative, is well known. Less well known is that wresting narrative control over holocaust discourse, not only by insisting it be restricted to Jewish victims, has been a major concern over decades for several institutions, and various Israeli governments. The distinguished historian of Poland, Norman Davies was recently reported on Polish Radio as recalling that in 1974 Yehuda Bauer, the acknowledged contemporary doyen of the discipline, in a holocaust seminar for historians conducted in the Israeli embassy in London, stated that the historical actors should be broken down into perpetrators (Germans), victims (Jews) and bystanders (Poles). When Davies, whose Polish father-in-law had survived both the Dachau and l Mauthausen camps, protested, he was apparently shouted down as a Polonophile. Davies was later denied tenure at Stanford University, according to him, because it was imputed that he was ‘insensitive’ to Jews.
In reading the threads, I keep in mind what Timothy Snyder wrote in his Bloodlands (2010)
Beyond Poland, the extent of Polish suffering is underappreciated. Even Polish historians rarely recall the Soviet Poles who were starved in Soviet Kazakhstan and Soviet Ukraine in the early 1930s, or the Soviet Poles shot in Stalin’s Great Terror in the late 1930s. No one ever notes that Soviet Poles suffered more than any other European national minority in the 1930s. The striking fact that the Soviet NKVD made more arrests in occupied eastern Poland in 1940 than in the rest of the USSR is rarely recalled. About as many Poles were killed in the bombing of Warsaw in 1939 as Germans were killed in the bombing of Dresden in 1945. For Poles, that bombing was just the beginning of one of the bloodiest occupations of the war, in which Germans killed millions of Polish citizens. More Poles were killed during the Warsaw Uprising alone than Japanese died in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A non-Jewish Pole in Warsaw alive in 1933 had about the same chances of living until 1945 as a Jew in Germany alive in 1933. Nearly as many non-Jewish Poles were murdered during the war as European Jews were gassed at Auschwitz. For that matter, more non-Jewish Poles died at Auschwitz than did Jews of any European country, with only two exceptions: Hungary and Poland itself.Nishidani (talk) 13:31, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
Notes
- ’The SS man at the pit said something to his comrade. The latter counted off about twenty persons and instructed them to go behind the earth mound .The family I have described was among them. I well remembver a girl, slim and with black hair, who, as she passed me, pointed to herself and said:’Twenty three years old’. . The pit was already three quarters full. I estimated that it held a thousand people. I looked for the man who did the shooting. He was an SS man who sat at the edge of the narrow end of the pit, his feet dangling into it. He had an automatic pistol on his knees and was smoking a cigarette. The people- they were completely naked-went down some steps which were cut in the clay wall of the pit and clambered over the heads of those who were lying there to the place to which the SS man had directed them. They lay down in front of the dead and wounded. Some caressed the living and spoke to them in a low voice. Then I heard a series of shots.’ (Reitlinger 1971, p. 219)
- 'From 1900 to 1959 Western media used ‘holocaust’ to describe a wide variety of events, including the genocide of the Armenians, the 1918 Minnesota forest fire, even the explosion of a cinema projector in May 1947.'(MacDonald 2008, p. 9)
- Speaking of the laying of plaque memorials for two communities struck by Nazi genocidal policies in the Museum of the Slovak National Uprising in Banská Bystrica, Slovakia, Stauber and >Vago write:Apparently, some voices behind the scenes demanded that the plaque to the Holocaust of Jewish victims be more conspicuous—perhaps bigger than the one devoted to the Roma. But then, quantity could become quality—why should the plaque to the Roma victims be smaller in size than the Jewish one? Should it be smaller in mathematical terms? If six million victims deserve a plaque of a certain size, should the Roma one be proportionally smaller? Or relative to the overall numbers of victims, or to the proportion of victims among that particular group, Jews or Roma? Or perhaps the size of the plaques should reflect the percentage of Jewish losses in Slovakia as compared to losses among the Roma?
- The widely accepted figure of 11 million for the total number of victims is equally rubbery, since was conjured out of thin air by Simon Wiesenthal in the 1970s and had no empirical basis at that time. The background to its invention was outlined by Tom Segev in his biography of Wiesenthal, who says Wiesenthal added 5 million to the larger figure of 6 million Jews in order to affirm "the brotherhood of all the victims" something which, in Lipstadt's account, "Jews generally fail to do." She writes:'Why is Segev so forgiving of Simon Wiesenthal’s many lapses? Perhaps we can arrive at an answer by considering Wiesenthal’s most egregious distortion of the historical record and Segev’s response to it. In the 1970s, Wiesenthal began to refer to “eleven million victims” of the Holocaust, six million Jews and five million non-Jews, but the latter number had no basis in historical reality. On the one hand, the total number of non-Jewish civilians killed by the Germans in the course of World War II is far higher than five million. On the other hand, the number of non-Jewish civilians killed for racial or ideological reasons does not come close to five million (though it no doubt would have exceeded it if the war had ended in a German victory). Nevertheless, Wiesenthal’s contrived death toll, with its neat almost-symmetry, has become a widely accepted “fact.” Jimmy Carter’s Executive Order, which was the basis for the establishment of the US Holocaust Museum, referred to the “eleven million victims of the Holocaust.” .. When Israeli historians Yehuda Bauer and Yisrael Gutman challenged Wiesenthal on this point, he admitted that he had invented the figure of eleven million victims in order to stimulate interest in the Holocaust among non-Jews. He chose five million because it was almost, but not quite, as large as six million.'
- 'Six million is an instantly recognizable number, the generally accepted estimate of the Jews killed by Nazi Germany in its murderous crusade. The phrase "the six million" is a rhetorical stand-in for "the Holocaust." But nowadays, for a great many people, the real number of Holocaust victims is eleven million: six million Jews and five million.'(Novick 1999, p. 214) Recently Alex Kay has attempted to put the overall figure on a sounder basis, concluding that the total civilian and non-combatant death toll was around 13 million:'‘if we take only civilians and other non-combatants into account, the Nazis killed approximately 13 million people in deliberate policies of mass murder, almost all of them during the war during the war years, 1939 to 1945, and the vast majority between mid.1941 and spring 1045, that is, in the space of only four years. . .In view alone of this intertwinement of war and extermination, it makes a great deal of sense to consider the different strands of Nazi mass killing together rather than in isolation from one another. This of course means going against the grain of most scholarship on the subject by examining the genocide of the European Jews alongside other Nazi mass-murder campaigns. Some scholars repudiate the very notion that the Holocaust can be analysed within a broader framework.' (Kay 2021).
- Erhard Wetzel, one of the consultants on Generalplan Ost, was also an advisor to Alfred Rosenberg, and drew up a plan to reserve better employment and wider commercial opportunities for Jews as opposed to ethnic Poles in Hans Frank‘s General Government. The purpose of the proposal was to play one group off against the other by inciting hostile feelings between the two.
- This is the figure given in the November 1945 Nuremberg indictment, which drew on the immediate postwar World Jewish Congress estimate. It was this, rounded off, which established the 6 million figure, a figure which, unverifiable, was jumped on by antisemites to deny the scale of the shoah itself. Reitlinger rightly observed that even if the real numbers cannot be determined within a 'half-million degree of accuracy', and might be a million less, it is utterly shameless to think the difference relevant.
- I only put these figures in because Grabowsky and Klein, in their polemical tirade against Misplaced Pages, make much of the Polish nationalist inflation of holocaust victims, from a probably historical 1.9/2 million to 3 million. They rightly niggle the details. Which however they do not do when it comes to the formulaic 6 million Jews. When we go above the very conservative but scrupulously empirical Yad Vashem figure, we enter the realm of conjecture, which nonetheless can reasonably infer that the 4,800,000+ figure must lie well below the real numbers, lost in the record destructions of war. Round figures in historiography are always troublesome, and the choice of the minimal upper limit of 6 million has a long public history going back at least to a guess made in 1946 (though wartime rumours in Germany spoke of 6-7 million. See Victor Klemperer's diary entry for 24 October 1944, which imaginably might reflect a leak (?) of Eichmann’s estimate of 6,000,000) in his report to Himmler, two months earlier, in August 1944 )which has become canonical. This caution would be nugatory were it not for the contradiction between the factual pertinacity pursued by the two authors in insisting on the lowest figure for Polish victims (justifiably) while retaining the canonic figure for Jews (a conventional number without empirical, as opposed to conjectural, backing).(Grabowski & Klein 2023, pp. 7–8)
- Snyder himself prefers the restrictive use of Holocaust, ‘the most systematic killing policy implemented during Europe’s period of mass murder,’ to the Jews alone.. (Snyder & Lane 2009)(Snyder 2009)
- 'I am a poor assimilated soul. I am a Jew and a Pole, or rather I was a Jew but gradually under the influence of my environment, under the influence of the place where I lived, and under the influence of the language, the culture and the literature, I have also become a Pole. I loved Poland. Its language, its culture, and, most of all the fsact of its liberation and the heroism of its independent struggle, all pluck at my heartstrings and fire my feelings and enthusiasm. But I do not love that Poland which, for no apparent reason, hates me, that Poland which tears at my heart and soul, which drives me into a state of apathy, melancholy, and dark epression. . I want to be a Pole, you have not let me; I want to be a Jew, but I don’t know how. I have become alienated from Jewishness. (I do not like myself as a Jew). I am already lost.'
- That sense of abandonment and unwantedness informed Franz Baermann Steiner's penitential doctoral thesis (1949) which became a seminal groundwork for the analysis of slavery. Mindful of Jews incarcerated in the camps, he intuited that it reflected an aspect of a broader historical reality, the kinlessness of slavery.'(T)he state of being excluded from kinship relations . .The slave inhabits a "no man's land" that remains unstruictured by social life.' This haunting bereftness did not cease with the conclusion of hostilities. The number of Jewish Holocaust survivors in Allied Displaced Persons Camps by mid 1946 was around 250,000. That figure has a curious history. With the passing of the Polish Resettlement act on 27 March 1947 Great Britain legislated to allow up to 250,000 Polish troops, those unable to return to their country, to settle in England. This at a time when President Truman had been insisting (June 1946) that Britain open the Mandate gates in Palestine to take in 100,000 displaced Jews in Europe. This figure became ‘sacred’/’totemic’ , becoming the number Zionists insisted on for an immigration quota to Palestine. Ernest Bevin countered by suggesting that the American proposal was a dodge to sidestep relocating them in the United States. The United Nations Partition Plan effectively resolved reciprocal embarrassments about absorbing unwanted Jewish Holocaust survivors by dispatching them to Palestine as the British Mandate stood to expire. Thus Western powers finally resolved their ‘Jewish question’ at the minor collateral expense, neither of the Great Powers had to bear, of 13,000 Palestinian deaths in the war that followed and 700,000 ‘native’ Palestinians expelled with all their assets expropriated as property of the new state. The effect was to create, as Arendt noted a Palestinian question and a Palestinian diaspora. Arendt wrote:'After the war it turned out that the Jewish question, which was considered the only insoluble one, was indeed solved- namely, by means of a colonized and then conquered territory- but this solved neither the problem of the minorities nor the stateless. On the contrary, like virtually all other events of our century, the solution of the Jewish question merely produced a new category of refugees, the Arabs, thereby increasing the number of the stateless and the rightless by another 700,000 to 800,000 people. And what happened in Palestine within the smallest territory and in terms of hundreds of thousands was then repeated in India on a large scale involving many millions of people.' (Arendt 2017, p. 379)
- This profound joke could be traced back to the anecdote related at Bava Metzia 59b concerning Eliezer ben Hurcanus in dispute with several rabbinical colleagues. Compare the Talmudic anecdote recounted by Delphine Horvilleur earlier in her book.
- 'Primarily I believe it was regarderd holistically; there was as yet no word for what had happened. If I went to the YIVO, they said this was a hurbn (the Yiddish/Hebrew word for destruction). If I looked elsewhere for some word, it was sometimes called the "Disaster" in English. The vocabulary with which to describe what had happened had not yet been developed'. (Hilberg 2008, p. 26) harv error: no target: CITEREFHilberg2008 (help)
- This is the known figure, based on Nazi documents, for the number of mentally ill killed between January 1940 and August 1941.
- This is the figure produced by the Nuremberg Tribunal which Poliakov considered exaggerated.
- This was in marked contrast to the situation for Jews in the East. 'the Germans knew extremely little-in fact almost nothing-about the Jews. It is amazing to realize that when they conquered a town they did not have the faintest idea about the occupants, the leaders or who would be the proper person to head the Judenrat. They could not select anyone, because they did not know who should be selected from their point of view.'(Hilberg 2008, p. 31) harv error: no target: CITEREFHilberg2008 (help)
- 'les malades mentaux d'Allemagne ont fait office de banc d'essai pour les Juifs d'Europe.'
- 5% approved the measure enthusiastically;69% were completely indifferent;21% were troubled by doubts, while 5% were categorically hostile to the practice.: Writing in 1951, Poliakov concluded that there was hardly any difference between this German insouciance and the general Polish view to Jewish suffering:'l'amère constatation ne peut être évitée:l'attitude populaire polonaise, en face de l'agonie des Juifs, ne se distinguait guère de l'attitude allemande.'(Poliakov 1993, p. 333)
- For example, the Jewish Historical Institute of Poland, in November 1949, started pursuing the topic of the Judenräte’s help in ‘organizing the liquidation of the ghettoes’ and in some cases Jewish victims in exchange for securing the lives of rabbis and their families. That factor, when Raul Hilberg explored it in his Phd in the early 50s, unnerved his supervisors, Salo Wittmayer Baron and Franz Neumann, who thought it too premature to raise the tragically painful details, and mentioning them would compromise his career. Hilberg nonetheless pressed on, and ventured the highly controversial idea that:'The Germans controlled the Jewish leadership, and that leadership, in turn, controlled the Jewish community. This system was foolproof. Truly, the Jewish communal organizations had become a self-destructive machine.' (Hilberg, 1973 & pp?122-125,125) harv error: no target: CITEREFHilberg1973pp?122-125,125 (help)
- 'The majority of the more than 200.000 immigrants arriving in Israel during the first two years were Holocaust survivors hoping to be met with understanding in their new homeland. The struggle, however, to create a new society in the midst of ongoing wars was of primary importance and gave no room for anything but the heroic myth in the face of the enemy. This resulted in a disproportionate emphasis on the partisan and ghetto fighters' active resistance during the second World War and a contempt for the passivity of the Jewish masses; for those who had gone "like sheep to slaughter".'
- Arendt's idea of the banality of evil in her report on the trial has been associated ever since with her name. But the concept was already implicit in Poliakov's 1951 book where, in speaking of the figure of Heinrich Himmler, he writes:'ce qui frappe le plus chez le maÎtre-bourreau du 111e Reich, surtout losqu'on le compare aux autres acteurs de tout premier plan, c'est la disproportion singulière entre la tracée démoniaque qu'il a laissée dans l'Histoire, et sa totale insignifiance humaine.'(Poliakov 1993, p. 284)
- Following Calimani, who however appears to ignore here(the oversight is partially corrected on pp.52-53) the seminal work of Léon Poliakov (1951), Reitlinger (1953) and Hilberg (1961) in making the following generalization:’Ci vollero decenni, infatti, perché intellettuali, storici, comunità ebraiche e centri di documentazione dessero vita a una vera e propria storiografia dello sterminio: il processo di Adolf Eichmann, quelli di alcuni responsabili del campo di Auschwitz, la guerra dei Sei giorni in (sic) Israel, sono alcune delle vicende che contribuirono a mutare la percezione della storia recente e a dare nuova vigore alla ricerca.'(Calimani 2018, p. 7)
- In this connection, one might observe that the acuity of critical Jewish responses to Polish narratives of the holocaust has often been blunted in the reception of 'autobiographical' novels and hoax memoirs that ostensibly portray experiences of Jewish persecution in Poland, and excuses are given when the deceptions are unmasked.Jerzy Kosiński's The Painted Bird (1965) which describes the anguished travails of an orphaned Jewish boy at the time, was greeted with unanimous critical acclaim for its powerful evocation of the period. The novel turned out to be a faked autobiography: Kosiński had lived throughout the war closely protected by a Polish Christian family, whereas in the novel Poles prove to be relentlessly sadistic towards Jews. Binjamin Wilkomirski's Fragments: Memories of a Wartime Childhood (1995) likewise conjured up a putative holocaust survivor's memoirs until the deception was exposed. Yet authentic victims like Israel Gutman, director of Yad Vashem, could still appraise the work and its mountbank author, after its fraudulently fictional nature had been exposed, as 'not a fake. He is someone who lives this story very deeply in his soul. The pain is authentic.' Hoaxes that have played on Jewish holocaust grief have often been treated leniently, seemingly exempt from the unremitting hostility to tendentiousnessn or nationalist bias in Polish holocaust historiography.
- In the summary of the 2016 Foster et al., ('Non-Jewish victims of Nazi persecution and murder,' we read:'While Jews, Roma and Sinti, gay men and the disabled were all mentioned by large numbers of students as victims of the Nazis, some other groups were rarely mentioned. We can only speculate on why these groups appear to have all but ‘disappeared from view’, but it seems likely that they are considered somehow less ‘relevant’ to contemporary social issues. Many schools are rightly concerned with homophobia, for example, or the attitudes of society today towards disabled people; perhaps other groups persecuted and murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators have less ‘purchase’ on many teachers’ and students’ concerns with modern British society. Whatever the reason, the outcome is that the murder of up to 15,000 gay men appears to receive a lot of attention in the school classroom, whereas the murder of 3.3 million Soviet POWs seems to be forgotten, and the Nazi genocide of Poles (in which at least 1.8 million non-Jewish Poles were murdered) is barely mentioned. The persecution of political opponents also appears largely overlooked, even though the first concentration camps targeted these victims, and an understanding of this initial period of terror is important in understanding the later development of Nazi violence and genocide. It may be that an over-emphasis on the ‘lessons of the Holocaust’, leads to a particular focus on groups that feel ‘relevant’ to today’s issues, but that this leads – unwittingly – to both a distortion of the past and the forgetting of millions of victims.'
- 'To Lemkin, it was deeply dismaying that government could essay to destroy an entire group due to the absence of any law, while an individual, accused of lesser-scale atrocities, would be criminally charged. When he went to law school in Lwów – interestingly, the same school where the other prominent lawyer of the Nuremberg trial, Hersch Lauterpacht, deviser of the term ‘crimes against humanity’ as a legal term of art, was taught by the same teacher – he confronted his professor with this iniquitousness. His tutor pointed to sovereignty: any intervention in internal affairs would be as unlawful as preventing someone from slaughtering his own chicken. 'But', Lemkin replied, 'the Armenians were not chickens'.' (Vasil 2019, pp. 1053–1054)
- Analogies abound between this earlier 'event' and what happened in WW2, as anyone coming from a reading of Franz Werfel's novelistic reconstruction of the Armenian genocide,The Forty Days of Musa Dagh (1933), uneerily premonitory of what would happen to Jews in Europe, can see as they approach Holocaust memoirs. The assassination of one of the main organizers of the genocide, namely Mehmet Talaat, by Soghomon Tehlirian in 1921 likewise anticipates the assassination of Ernst vom Rath by Herschel Grynszpan in Paris in 1938 to avenge his Polish-Jewish family’s expulsion from Germany. Telhirian was absolved and the incident lost to all but Armenian memory, the latter led to the Nazi retaliation of Kristallnacht.
- 'Hurban was the traditional Hebrew term to describe the destruction of the First and Second Temples and the exile (galut) from Eretz Israel. Jews extended the concept to include their sufferings as a result of pogroms in medieval and modern times, as well as their loss of national independence in ancient.'(Ofer 1996, p. 568)
- In an essay on the catastrophe and Jewishness in 1964 Manes Sperber, analysing the phenomenon of the Hourban, later made the point that:'Le genocide n’est pas un crime sans précédent; pour s’en convaincre il suffit de lire les histories de l’Antiquité, et en premier lieu la Bible.'(Sperber 1994, p. 78)(Calimani 2018, p. 19)
- 'nel neonato Stato d’Israel, esso venne abbandonato, anche per le associazioni che suscitava con la lingua dei perseguitati da cui gli abitanti del nuovo Stato volevano distinguersi e dalle cui tragiche memorie volevano liberarsi.'(Calimani 2018, p. 18)
- 'In the Bible, Shoah denotes a terrible and unforeseen individual or collective disaster. In the books of Zephaniah and Isaiah, it is connected with the wrath of God and the punishment he inflicted through defeat by a great enemy. In the books of Proverbs and Psalms, Shoah is used in connection with a disaster that befalls an individual as punishment for his evil deeds. The biblical subtext hints that when a Shoah occurred it was sudden and unforeseen, and that the event in question came as a shock to the individual or group. In the book of Job, Shoah appears in the context of a terrible famine that connotes a cosmic disaster, but here too, the issue of sin and punishment is central.'(Ofer 1996, p. 568)
- Job 30:3, 38,27
- A. Dirk Moses, calculating from the framing of the UN's Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide in 1948, writes that:'the Holocaust as a specifically Jewish tragedy until almost two decades later,' which implies a turning point coinciding with the Six Days War in 1967. (Moses 2004, p. 534)
- e.g.'génocide systématique et intégral'. Perhaps Poliakov was referring to its absence in the title.
- Reitlinger’s book was 'the first significant work to tell the story of what was then nameless, and is now known as the Holocaust.' (Aronson 1987, p. ix)
- Completion here does not mean, 100% of Europe’s Jews were murdered -25% somehow survived. It refers to the process of perfecting ethnic extermination on an industrial scale via the mise en scène of an efficient administrative mechanism for achieving the declared aim, and the overcoming of all moral scruples that might have impeded its execution.
- They were to watch a spectacle as sensational as the Nuremberg Trials; only this time, Mr. Hausner noted, "the tragedy of Jewry as a whole was the central concern." In fact, said Hausner, “if we charge him also with crimes against non-Jews . . . this is” not because he committed them but, surprisingly, “because we make no ethnic distinctions.” That was certainly a remarkable sentence for a prosecutor to utter in his opening speech; it proved to be the key sentence in the case for the prosecution. For this case was built on what the Jews had suffered, not on what Eichmann had done. And, according to Mr. Hausner, that amounted to the same thing, because “there was only one man who had been concerned almost entirely with the Jews, whose business had been their destruction. That was Adolf Eichmann.” . . . The Nuremberg Trials, where the defendants had been “for indicted crimes against members of (many and) various nations,” had left the Jewish tragedy out of account, Hausner said, for the simple reason that Eichmann had not been there. Did Hausner really believe the Nuremberg Trials would have paid greater attention to the fate of the Jews if Eichmann had been in the dock? Hardly. Like almost everybody else in Israel, he believed that only a Jewish court could render justice to Jews, and that it was the business of Jews to sit in judgment on their enemies.(Arendt 1963a, p. 6)
- The situation has of course improved imnmensely. Now it is Palestinian Germans who are regularly beaten up by Berlin police if they are sighted wearing keffiyahs or marching to commemorate Nakba day.
- 'Over and again Zionist writers of the 1940s wrote in near fascist terms of the “beautiful death” of the Warsaw rebels and thed “ugly deaths” of the martyrs of the camps. .'(Boyarin, pp. 292–293, n.61, 293) harv error: no target: CITEREFBoyarin (help)
- 'the Zionist enterprise claimed to be the spearhood of the Jewish revival, which also included the claim to be the center for Jewish historical memory.'(Michman 2008, p. 13) harv error: no target: CITEREFMichman2008 (help)
- Among scholars, discussion over the perceived ‘uniqueness’ of the Holocaust has long ‘lost most of its steam’ (Bloxham 2013: 319). Advances in knowledge of Nazi ideology and praxis have furthered understanding of what happened to its various victim groups, how, and why, while a greater appreciation of the interface of these policies has helped transcend dichotomies of uniqueness and comparability. In sum, scholarship of the last quarter of a century has positioned the Holocaust within a much wider spatial and temporal context, allowing the ‘specific features’ of the murder of the Jews to be drawn more sharply within the context of the ‘broader phenomenon’ of genocide (Bloxham 2013: 1),
- More vexed than this is the matter of precisely what the phrase refers to when it is applied – a question especially charged since the use of the definite article ‘raises questions concerning the distinguishing features’ (Lang 1999: 77) and in particular whether it should apply only to the genocide of the Jews or more widely to include other Nazi victims. Within the academy ‘the traditional view that it was the genocide of the Jews alone’ (Niewyk and Nicosia 2000: 51) tends to hold sway, though there is some ‘debate’ between ‘those who reserve the term “Holocaust” specifically and exclusively for the Jewish victims of Nazism and those who opt for much wider inclusion of victim populations’ (Rosenfeld 2011: 58). These contrasting positions of exclusivity and inclusivity are much more highly charged outside academia however, where they are intensely politicised – not least because they often segue into contrasting claims over the uniqueness, universality and comparability of different victim group experiences under Nazism. ..Here, the experiences of other groups of people persecuted and in many cases murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators are recognised as critically important to an understanding of the Holocaust, but they are not themselves denoted by the use of this specific term'
- The reliability of Rauschning’s recall of Hitler’s views here, published in 1939, have been questioned, but are generally considered now to be indicative, if not taken, as recorded, verbatim.
- Lemkin himself, in his late unpublished study of the phenomenon, emphasized the ancient roots and continuity of the process, writing that the 'destruction of Carthage, the destruction of the Albigenses and Waldenses, the Crusades, the march of the Teutonic Knights, the destruction of the Christians under the Ottoman Empire, the massacres of the Herero in Africa, the extermination of the Armenians, often paralleled to the HGolocaust, the slaughter of the Christian Assyrians in Iraq in 1933, the destruction of the Maronites, the pogroms of Jews in Tsarist Russia and Romania –all these are classical genocide cases.’Moses concludes that ‘The history of genocide is the history of human society since antiquity.’(Moses 2008a, pp. 8, ix) harv error: no target: CITEREFMoses2008a (help)
- Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento:
hae tibi erunt artes, pacisque imponere morem,
parcere subiectis et debellare superbos.
(Virgil, Aeneid Bk. VI, 851-853) - In pressing for the overthrow of Ghadaffi’s regime, Western interventionists cited as a justification for invasion the same abuses of human rights, (charges denied by Amnesty International), which had been documented as characteristic of Italy’s earlier invasion and genocidal onslaught , such as the mass gassing of ‘rebellious’ tribes.
- A related form is the competition between advanced powers and other nations on their immediate periphery, surveyed byPaul Kennedy in his The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers,(1987)
- The historical sociology of this idea goes back at least to Ibn Khaldun’s Muqaddimah (1377) down to Immanuel Wallerstein’s work. The underlying premise in the modern worldview down to the end of WW2 was admirably set forth by Toynbee in 1934:'the fact that we have ceased to apply any common name to ourselves is historically significant. It means that we are longer conscious of the presence in the world of other societies of equal standing; and that we now regard our society as being identical with 'civilized' Mankind and the peoples outside the pale as being mere 'Natives' of territories which they inhabit on sufferance, but which are morally as well as practically at our disposal, by the higher right of our monopoly of civilization, whenever we choose to take possession.'(Toynbee 1962, p. 13) This dialectical interplay between metropolitan dominance and the outlying colonial/marginal world everywhere inform Michael Mann’s 4 volume masterpiece, The Sources of Social Power(1986-2013). It constantly illustrates the phnomenon of blowback-exceptional measures taken, way off centre stage, to subjugate, dominate and incorporate ‘backward’ societies into the ‘civilized’ world often end up coming home to roost, with a vengeance in the metropolitan hearthland.
- 'In Germany, debate about the country’s colonial project has long been overshadowed by the crimes of the National Socialist era. While most German cities commemorate the victims of the Nazi period, there are no significant monuments to the victims of German colonialism.’ Lars Kraume’s exploration of Germany’s colonial genocide in Namibia Der vermessene Mensch came out only this year.(Connolly 2023)
- 'Indignant objections to the Martians taking unfair advantage are quickly squashed by reminders Wells drops about what humans did to dodos, and what Europeans did to Tasmanians.’(Kemp 1996, p. 147)
- It was technical difficulties rather than moral scruples, which stopped the British from using toxic bombs to quell the Iraqi Revolt (1920).
- The official Ethiopian count, according to our Misplaced Pages article, later spoke of 760,300 deaths, referring to Arthur J. Barker’s The Civilising Mission: The Italo-Ethiopian War 1935–6, Cassell 1968 ISBN 978-0-304-93201-6 pp. 292-293
- A sideline to Germany’s cooperative ventures with the Soviet Union via personnel deployed by its Trade Enterprises Development Company(GEFU: Gesellschaft zur Förderung gewerblicher Unternehmungen) was to gather information on their host country. The projects run by Special Division R or Zentrale Moskau trained 100 German pilots from 1925 to 1933; a tank school was established in Kazan in 1929 forming the core of the future Panzer forces; part of the armament manufacturing agreements had a company, Bersol Aktien Gesellschaft, operating secretly to manufacture poison gas on Soviet territory.
- ‘It is established beyond reasonable doubt that Stalin intentionally starved to death Soviet Ukrainians in the winter of 1932–1933. Soviet documents reveal a series of orders of October–December 1932 with evident malice and intention to kill. By the end, more than three million inhabitants of Soviet Ukraine had died.'(Snyder 2009)
- 'In other words, you are to be considered in the same general category-as an antisemite, as a creator of "moral equivalencies" . .if you are a neo-Naszi or a comparative historian. For, to Lipstadt, even someone who has no doubnt regarding the ghastly hoprrors of Jewish suffering and death under Hitler - but who has the temerity to dissent from her insistence regarding the unquestionable uniqueness of the Jewish experience is, in her phrase, merely a not yet denier. And 'nopt yet' denial, she writes, is "the equivalent of David Duke without his robes". In short, if you disagree with Deborah Lipstadt that the Jewish suffering in the Holocaust was unique, you are, by definition . .a crypto-Nazi'.
- The source for this remark is the Pulitzer Prize-winning (1939) head of the Associated Press's Berlin branch, Louis Lochner. The authenticity of his version was questioned first at the Nuremberg trial by lawyers defending Hermann Göring and Erich Raeder, and subsequently by the Turkish government and several scholars, on the basis of the fact that two other transcripts of the Salzberg talk later discovered do not contain the reference to the Armenians. The Armenian massacre allusion was however not the gravamen of the defense's challenges to the memorandum, but rather the reference to 'brutal' measures. In the forensic reconstruction of the likely provenance of Lochner's version, Hannibal Travis, who defends its authenticity, infers that the indirect source for these remarks was the head of German military intelligence (the Abwehr) Admiral Wilhelm Canaris. His notes to the meeting were passed on to Hans Oster, Ludwig Beck and Hermann Maaß, the last-named being the probable informant referred to by Lochner. Thus a chain of transmission from Canaris to Lochner is traceable. He also documents not only the many Germans in Hitler's circle who were very familiar with the Armenian genocide, but notes that Hitler himself had alluded to the Armenian genocide several years earlier. In that 1931 interview, Hitler expatiated on considerations to be borne in mind regarding the future of Germany, stating that one should remind oneself of,'the biblical deportations and the massacres of the Middle Ages,' and 'remember the extermination of the Armenians'. Hitler also dedicated part 1 of Mein Kampf, further, to a comrade of his early militancy Max Erwin von Scheubner-Richter killed while standing next to Hitler during the Munich Beer Hall Putsch in 1923. von Scheubner-Richter had been German vice-consul in Erzerum in the period when the massacre was planned and implemented and was intimately acquainted with the events.
- Paul Johnson in his A History of the Modern World, characteristically blames the invention of genocide on Lenin and communism, in 1917, three years into the Armenian genocide which he ignores completely.
- How did this European event come to loom so large in American consciousness? A good part of the answer is the fact, not less of a fact because anti-Semites turn it into a grievance, that Jews play an important and influential role in Hollywood, the television industry, and the newspaper, magazine, and book publishing worlds. Anyone who would explain the massive attention the Holocaust has received in these media inrecent years without reference to that fact is being naive or disingenuous. This is not, of course, a matter of any "Jewish conspiracy"Jews in the media do not dance to the tune of "the elders of Zion." . .In large part the movement of the Holocaust from the Jewish to the general American arena resulted from private and spontaneous decisions of Jews who happened to occupy strategic positions in the mass media.’ (Novick, 1999 & pp.207-208) harv error: no target: CITEREFNovick1999pp.207-208 (help)
- 'When it comes to how American Jews represent themselves to others, there is no question but that the Holocaust isat the center of that representation. The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum is the principal symbol and "address" of American Jewry, our "epistle to the gentiles" about what it means to be Jewish.'
- By the end of the 1990s the USHMM's annual budget totalled $50 million of which $30 million came from federal funding.
- 'What were, de jure, government initiatives were often, de facto, those of Jewish aides, simultaneously promoting projects in which they believed and helping their employers score points with Jewish constituents.'(Novick 1999, p. 208)
- Out of our memory and understanding of the Holocaust, we must forge an unshakable oath with all civilized people that never again will the world stand silent, never again will the world look the other way or fail to act in time to prevent this terrible crime of genocide.In addition to the Jewish people who were engulfed by the Holocaust simply because they were Jews, 5 million other human beings were destroyed. About 3 million Poles, many Hungarians, Gypsies, also need to be remembered. To memorialize the victims of the Holocaust, we must harness the outrage of our own memories to stamp out oppression wherever it exists. (Carter 1979)
- National Polish-American Jewish American Council
- This is not only an egregiously crass expropriation of natural idiom, but extremely provincial in its eurocentrism. Tanimoto Kiyoshi, a Methodist minister who survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima perhaps contributed to the wording mō nido to+negative verb) (never again) which is customary in Japanese commemorations of the bombings of both Nagasaki and Hiroshima. He used it as early as 1950 (もう二度とあんなようなことが起らぬように祈る。 I pray that something like that never happens again).
- 'As the Holocaust came to figure ever larger in the American scene, to be invoked in various contexts, the problem repeatedly arose of distinguishing between the (legitimate) "use" and (illegitimate) "abuse" of the Holocaust and its imagery. Finally, what did non-Jews make of all this talk of the Holocaust?.'(Novick 1999, p. 209)
- When not passed over in silence, critical reactions to the book were often frivolous in their trivial nitpicking, dismissing for example Hilberg's appraisel as a sign of his lack of knowledge of Judaism. Dominique Vidal challenges his dating of the revival of holocaust interest to 1967. It began, Vidal asserts, with Eichmann's trial in 1961, which however contradicts most assessments by Novick and others; Finkelstein fails to mention that one of the functions of the trial was to reunify Israelis whose identity was shaken by Mizrachi upheavals. Nothing to do with Finkelstein's theme; Finkelstein's analysis is vitiated by failing to say anything about the 'natural' causes for the early postwar tendency to forget the holocaust. But he does, stating that most of his youthful acquaintances in the United States were simply indifferent, and the problem was to explain why a decade or two later, they suddenly adopted remembrance as a core element of their identity.
- 'It is one of only three content areas on which the Arbitration Committee – the highest authority of administrators, elected by the community from among Misplaced Pages’s most experienced editors – has placed a special set of restrictions on the entire topic, the other two being India-Pakistan and Israel-Palestine.'(Grabowski & Klein 2023, p. 39)
Citations
- ^ Hilberg 1973, p. 669.
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- Reitlinger 1971, pp. 533–545, p.533.
- Klemperer 1998, p. 371.
- Hilberg 1973, p. 631.
- Novick 1999, pp. 215–216.
- Snyder 2010, p. 275.
- Ferguson 2006, pp. 172–173.
- Adler 2022, p. 6.
- Fieldhouse 2006, p. 208.
- Fiedlhouse 2006, pp. 207–212. sfn error: no target: CITEREFFiedlhouse2006 (help)
- Louis 1984, p. 36.
- Benson 1997, p. 68.
- Horvilleur 2021, p. 86,cf.31-33.
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- Poliakov 1993, p. 212.
- Poliakov 1993, p. 211.
- Poliakov 1993, p. 209.
- Poliakov 1993, pp. 324–331, 325.
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- Finkelstein 2014, pp. 55–62.
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- & Vasil 2019, p. 1053.
- Lemkin 1944.
- Lemkin 1944, p. xii.
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- Lemkin 1944, p. xiv.
- Calimani 2018, p. 20.
- Sperber 1994, pp. 59–84.
- Enemark 2001, p. 109.
- Calimani 2018, p. 21.
- Fischel 2020, p. 287. sfn error: no target: CITEREFFischel2020 (help)
- ^ Ofer 1996, p. 568.
- Calimani 2018, p. 22.
- Yablonka 2012, p. 302, n.6.
- Yablonka 2012, p. 304.
- Ofer 1996, p. 569.
- Arendt 2017, p. x.
- Bensoussan 2008, p. 247. sfn error: no target: CITEREFBensoussan2008 (help)
- Poliakov 1993, p. 282.
- Calimani 2018, p. 93.
- Hilberg 1973, p. 679, n.36.
- Abunimah 2023.
- Finkelstein 2014, p. 42.
- Kay 2021.
- Finkelstein 2014, pp. 69–70.
- Foster et al. 2016, p. 7.
- Foster et al. 2016, pp. 9, 65.
- Spielvogel & Redles 2011, p. 96, n.42.
- Jacobs 2009, p. x.
- Garber 2011, p. 284. sfn error: no target: CITEREFGarber2011 (help)
- Kiernan 2007, p. 374. sfn error: no target: CITEREFKiernan2007 (help)
- Gilly 2020, pp. 217–219.
- Kiernan 2002, pp. 163–192. sfn error: no target: CITEREFKiernan2002 (help)
- Mann 2005, p. 309.
- Lyman 1995, p. 26.
- Jovanović 2013, p. 175.
- Carroll 2018, p. 61.
- Stannard 1994, p. 249. sfn error: no target: CITEREFStannard1994 (help)
- Stannard 1994, p. 250. sfn error: no target: CITEREFStannard1994 (help)
- Lochner 1942, pp. 1–2.
- Robertson 2014. sfn error: no target: CITEREFRobertson2014 (help)
- Moses 2021, p. 299.
- Travis 2013, pp. 27–35.
- Travis 2013, p. 29.
- Travis 2013, pp. 32, 34.
- Crowe 2008, p. i. sfn error: no target: CITEREFCrowe2008 (help)
- Ferguson 2006, p. 176-177.
- Johnson 1983, p. 71.
- Novick 1999, p. 202.
- Finkelstein 2014, p. 72,n.61.
- Novick 1999, p. 216.
- Novick 1999, p. 207.
- RPPCH 1979.
- ^ Moses 2004, p. 535.
- Tanimoto 1950, p. 53. sfn error: no target: CITEREFTanimoto1950 (help)
- PBS 2019. sfn error: no target: CITEREFPBS2019 (help)
- Bartov et al. 2019.
- MacDonald 2008, pp. 1–8, passim.
- Klein 2025, pp. 1–21.
- Alexis 2013, p. 290.
- Vidal 2002, p. 276.
- Weinbaum 2021.
- PolishRadio 2019. sfn error: no target: CITEREFPolishRadio2019 (help)
- Lindsey 1987, p. 14.
- Snyder 2010, pp. 405–406.
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Resilience/Sumud.
The creativity of people under genocide. Nishidani (talk) 17:00, 19 October 2024 (UTC)
Notice that you are now subject to an arbitration enforcement sanction
The following sanction now applies to you:
3 week topic ban from the Arab-Isreal conflict, broadly construed
You have been sanctioned for this comment following a previous logged warning about unconstructive or unnecessarily inflammatory language.
This sanction is imposed in my capacity as an uninvolved administrator under the authority of the Arbitration Committee's decision at Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Index/Palestine-Israel articles#Final decision and, if applicable, the contentious topics procedure. This sanction has been recorded in the log of sanctions. If the sanction includes a ban, please read the banning policy to ensure you understand what this means. If you do not comply with this sanction, you may be blocked for an extended period, by way of enforcement of this sanction—and you may also be made subject to further sanctions.
You may appeal this sanction using the appeal process. I recommend that you use the arbitration enforcement appeals template if you wish to submit an appeal to the arbitration enforcement noticeboard. You may also appeal directly to me (on my talk page), before or instead of appealing to the noticeboard. Even if you appeal this sanction, you remain bound by it until you are notified by an uninvolved administrator that the appeal has been successful. You are also free to contact me on my talk page if anything above is unclear to you. ~~~~
Barkeep49 (talk) 18:34, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
- If I had seen this comment from someone who just barely had ECR, I'd have likely indef blocked them (with the first year being a CT sanction if they were eligible). If there is another UNINOLVED admin who would like to discuss something longer, or refer this to AE to discuss a longer sanction, I am open to both of those, but after a bit of thinking this is what I felt appropriate given all the facts at play here. Barkeep49 (talk) 18:38, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
- Please see my comment on Barkeep49’s talk page. The point Nishidani makes, with the same cultural joke as an illustration, was made in a peer-reviewed academic journal of high repute. Unfortunately it seems this did not come up easily on google when quickly searched for. Onceinawhile (talk) 18:43, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
- And my response where I note the peer reviewed journal is using the joke to criticize it as offensive (50+ years ago). Barkeep49 (talk) 18:57, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
- Barkeep This was flagged for me offwiki. I can find no evidence that this is a commonly familiar old Jewish Joke. So instead I see a joke weaponizing antisemtism on the talk page about such an article. Still considering whether other measures are appropriate Talk:Weaponization of antisemitism
- In short someone emailed you offwiki to weaponize this totally innocuous edit and see to it I am put behind bars and kept there for 3 weeks, if not indeed permabanned. Well, that spell might enable me to finger where in the hell I buried Eric Berne's classic Games People Play to refresh my memory about this kind of social gamesmanship. Nishidani (talk) 20:00, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
- I contacted Barkeep about this for a couple of reasons. First, I wanted another set of eyes to look at it. As I've said before, I have an outsized influence on the topic area, so more administrative participation is better. Second, I was at work, soon to leave, had to stop for an oil change, and now I'm about to sit down for enchiladas with my wife, and my father is coming over to join us, so I didn't have time for all of this this evening. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 20:51, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
- Sounds like a pleasant evening. Thanks for your scruple in clarifying this remark by Barkeep. In short, no editor on the page complained, any more than in 2018, when I cited the same joke on my talk page, any reader or admin saw anything 'inflammatory' - had they I would have been immediately reported. That's really bizarre to me, but I'll call it quits if you could do me a simple favour, since I think I'm wasting my time on wikipedia in this kind of atmosphere of by now inveterate nagging over nothing (the nothing being my 'integrity'). At Killing of Nahida and Samar Anton, I promised to provide the page numbers for a source a hard copy of which I only received yesterday, and read last night. At Note 24 re after ‘with the Catholic parish’ the citation with the existing page = should read {{sfn|Sale|Neuhaus|2024|p=406}} and, just below the same ? in the citation should be fixed to ‘engaging in blood libel’ {{sfn|Sale|Neuhaus|2024|pp=406-407}}. These are necessary because an editor asked me to supply them. This is not a request for meatpuppetry, but a matter of courtesy, since Barkeep's original action was done, as he admits, based on insufficient evidence, and no courtesy note to me to ask for the clarification he needed to assuage his, and your, concerns. Cheers Nishidani (talk) 11:30, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
- You probably don't realize this, but since the issue is about my behaviour judged in terms of a misreading of the meaning of a joke, your reply can be read as a crass example of Schadenfreude, with the same licence used by Barkeep and others in interpreting my edit as a disruptive violation of our civility code. Why? Because you can be heard as saying more or less
(a) it was I who reported you to Barkeep, because I was short on time in RL to handle this myself. (b)you are now in porridge, placed off-limits from your wikipedia community, being under a sanction I started while (c) I'm have a pleasant evening in a nice family setting.
- I'm not singling you out. Habitually, reading the talk exchanges on wiki pages for what the subtext intimates, I see what I consider rudeness or crassness regularly, but ignore it, because it wastes serious editing time. It is that incivility that escapes through the nets of what admins think of as documentable incivility.
- You see, though that was not your intention, that is how any number of literate readers, were this to occur in a social setting or a novel, might read it for context and tone, as socially inept and offensive. Just as my innocuous illustration was interpreted. Since this has happened several times in the past, - admin unawareness of how language works, leading to sanctions - I have lost faith in my future as a contributor to wikipedia because of eight fatuous complaints in a year one has achieved its end. I read it as the instauration of a wokish Miranda warning to the effect that from now on in, 'anything I write can and may be used against me in arbitration,' if it can somehow lend itself to raising suspicions of a possible infringement of our strict laws on courtesy. So I clearly cannot work here, suspension ended, with this sort of Gordian knot of surveillance hanging over my head, with the scissors in the hands of admins who have, in my view, at times snipped before reading closely and checking with their peers. On the other hand, I don't yield up a natural right certainly when thuggish off-wiki sites have increasingly pressured wikipedia (lately here) to raise the temperature and target editors like myself. Unless I get permabanned, I will retain and assert my right to edit here, if infrequently. but to avoid supplying anyone here with excuses to keep up the harassment I experience, I will exercise that right by no longer exchanging a single word on talk pages when, and if, I do feel inclined to add something. That will stop admins from these embarrassing wastages of everyone's time, since my voice will disappear, as many no doubt want, but my right to continue to influence article content will remain intact. Nishidani (talk) 15:18, 27 October 2024 (UTC)
I have an outsized influence on the topic area, so more administrative participation is better.
Or less. That would be another option. Levivich (talk) 18:59, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
- Topic bans apply to your user and talk spaces, so if you'll have to wait until the topic ban expires to continue the discussion and provide page numbers. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 16:19, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
- lol yall wild. Nish, if this is enough to say fuck this place for good I get it, feel similarly tbh. nableezy - 16:43, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
- @ScottishFinnishRadish: this was wholly unnecessary, and unreasonably provocative. Very disappointing behavior. Onceinawhile (talk) 17:41, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
- I see you are heavily involved in ARBPIA topics. Did you disclose this to Barkeep when you contacted them regarding this matter? Onceinawhile (talk) 18:05, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
- Hand in glove. Just leave it. Selfstudier (talk) 18:07, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
- You may want to look at those edits, rather than the summary. This may provide some helpful context. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 18:20, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
- Thanks. Would you mind letting us know what exactly was the original concern you raised with Barkeep? Onceinawhile (talk) 18:36, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
- That an unnecessarily inflammatory comment had been made on an article talk page by an editor warned for unnecessarily inflammatory comments. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 18:40, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
- And, now that per User talk:Barkeep49/Archives/10#Nishidani comment, it has been shown that there was nothing inflammatory about it, how has your view changed? Onceinawhile (talk) 19:15, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
- The only unnecessary and extremely inflammatory comment made here was this remark by Barkeep who directly accused me of antisemitism by saying I was responsible for mentioning a joke that weaponized antisemitism (I see a joke weaponizing antisemtism). That reading borders on the illiterate. You endorse this egregious misprision. This is a failure of the most elementary reading skills. Since you both are highly literate, the only explanation that comes to me is that such a judgment reflects a personal impression over the last several months that there is something antisemitic, hard to pin down, but there, in Nishidani, and when I posted an utterly innocuous statement, confirmation bias kicked in, I'm sure unwittingly, but that is not a rational judgment based on evidence (that I am responsible for spreading antisemitic ideas) that would stand up in any court of opinion. I tried to be courteous in my dialogue with Barkeep but the door was shut in the face of evidence that his judgment was deeply flawed, and you second this closure. I'm not quite surprised. It's been in the air since that foreign lobby persuaded arbcom to allow one of its spokesmen to make a case against me, and, with the four subsequent cases, two by socks, something like this was on the books (the 'no smoke without fire' syndrome). Well, I'm fucked if I am going to continue to volunteer contributions for an organization that has now registered me, via admin fiat, as antisemitic, after 18 years in which this kind of repeated sockpuppet-type trashing of my work was dismissed dozens of times in an appropriate tribunal. Nishidani (talk) 19:26, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
- ding. Why some admins think they should be handing out sanctions without any complaint or giving the person, with over a decade of contributions to this project, the chance at explaining themselves is something I fail to understand. I actually think Barkeep is generally a great admin so I’m a bit baffled at this sequence tbh. Especially when the basis for the sanction was nearly instantaneously proven false. nableezy - 19:37, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
- It goes without saying that both are fine admins, dedicated and conscientious. That is why this profound misreading is disturbing. I suspect that the burden, which I would never have the guts to take on, of having to read vast reams of often inane prose in complaints or on talk pages, dulls the edges of concentration at times. I know that happens because that is what has always worried me about having to read so much uninformed argufying on IP talk pages, that the resolute attention in the face of tedious repetitiveness risks desensitizing me, so that the payback of actually getting articles written in full scholarly attire looks like a bad investment.Nishidani (talk) 19:44, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
- Meh on both. nableezy - 20:02, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
- It goes without saying that both are fine admins, dedicated and conscientious. That is why this profound misreading is disturbing. I suspect that the burden, which I would never have the guts to take on, of having to read vast reams of often inane prose in complaints or on talk pages, dulls the edges of concentration at times. I know that happens because that is what has always worried me about having to read so much uninformed argufying on IP talk pages, that the resolute attention in the face of tedious repetitiveness risks desensitizing me, so that the payback of actually getting articles written in full scholarly attire looks like a bad investment.Nishidani (talk) 19:44, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
- ding. Why some admins think they should be handing out sanctions without any complaint or giving the person, with over a decade of contributions to this project, the chance at explaining themselves is something I fail to understand. I actually think Barkeep is generally a great admin so I’m a bit baffled at this sequence tbh. Especially when the basis for the sanction was nearly instantaneously proven false. nableezy - 19:37, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
- The only unnecessary and extremely inflammatory comment made here was this remark by Barkeep who directly accused me of antisemitism by saying I was responsible for mentioning a joke that weaponized antisemitism (I see a joke weaponizing antisemtism). That reading borders on the illiterate. You endorse this egregious misprision. This is a failure of the most elementary reading skills. Since you both are highly literate, the only explanation that comes to me is that such a judgment reflects a personal impression over the last several months that there is something antisemitic, hard to pin down, but there, in Nishidani, and when I posted an utterly innocuous statement, confirmation bias kicked in, I'm sure unwittingly, but that is not a rational judgment based on evidence (that I am responsible for spreading antisemitic ideas) that would stand up in any court of opinion. I tried to be courteous in my dialogue with Barkeep but the door was shut in the face of evidence that his judgment was deeply flawed, and you second this closure. I'm not quite surprised. It's been in the air since that foreign lobby persuaded arbcom to allow one of its spokesmen to make a case against me, and, with the four subsequent cases, two by socks, something like this was on the books (the 'no smoke without fire' syndrome). Well, I'm fucked if I am going to continue to volunteer contributions for an organization that has now registered me, via admin fiat, as antisemitic, after 18 years in which this kind of repeated sockpuppet-type trashing of my work was dismissed dozens of times in an appropriate tribunal. Nishidani (talk) 19:26, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
- And, now that per User talk:Barkeep49/Archives/10#Nishidani comment, it has been shown that there was nothing inflammatory about it, how has your view changed? Onceinawhile (talk) 19:15, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
- That an unnecessarily inflammatory comment had been made on an article talk page by an editor warned for unnecessarily inflammatory comments. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 18:40, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
- Thanks. Would you mind letting us know what exactly was the original concern you raised with Barkeep? Onceinawhile (talk) 18:36, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
- @Onceinawhile SFR is active in this topic area not because they are WP:INVOLVED in a Misplaced Pages sense of the word but because they are an administrator attempting to uphold behavioral expectations. So they reached out to me in an administrator to administrator capacity, despite the fact that we often disagree on the right outcome in our discussions at the Arbitration Enforcement noticeboard (I normally am for milder or even no sanction than what SFR supports). And that noticeboard was, until this incident, where I had limited my activity in this topic area. This includes times where SFR has reached out about specific incidents and I've declined to take action. Hopefully that better explains the context in which SFR contacted me. Barkeep49 (talk) 19:45, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
- I see you are heavily involved in ARBPIA topics. Did you disclose this to Barkeep when you contacted them regarding this matter? Onceinawhile (talk) 18:05, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
- @ScottishFinnishRadish: this was wholly unnecessary, and unreasonably provocative. Very disappointing behavior. Onceinawhile (talk) 17:41, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
- lol yall wild. Nish, if this is enough to say fuck this place for good I get it, feel similarly tbh. nableezy - 16:43, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
- I contacted Barkeep about this for a couple of reasons. First, I wanted another set of eyes to look at it. As I've said before, I have an outsized influence on the topic area, so more administrative participation is better. Second, I was at work, soon to leave, had to stop for an oil change, and now I'm about to sit down for enchiladas with my wife, and my father is coming over to join us, so I didn't have time for all of this this evening. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 20:51, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
- What you don’t know, dear Barkeep, is that was an allusion to an anecdote, talking precisely about the abuse of antisemitism claims by Sir Stephen Sedley, one of the great European jurists, six years ago.
the ubiquity of insult and calumny in the everyday vocabulary of social media plays a not insignificant part in the foul-mouthed verbal assaults described by Jewish MPs in the recent Commons debate. This said, most Jews do understand the risk of hypersensitivity. There is the story about Goldbloom, doing well in the rag trade in Stepney, who has to make a dash for Euston to sort out a problem with his supplier in Glasgow. As the night sleeper pulls out, he realises he has left his overnight bag behind. Luckily the man occupying the other berth in the sleeper compartment has a spare pair of pyjamas, which he lends Goldbloom, and tells Goldbloom he can use his razor in the morning. But when Goldbloom asks if he can also borrow his toothbrush, he politely declines. The next evening, when he returns from Glasgow, Goldbloom’s wife asks him how the journey went. ‘Not bad,’ says Goldbloom, ‘but did I meet an anti-Semite!’
- I quoted this, prefaced by the words:'The point was put with great lucidity by Sir Stephen Sedley in the brilliant essay I cite just above this.' and discussed it, on my talk page, when dealing with a query about a wikipedia editor whose behaviour was, in my view, antisemitic 6 years ago. Not a peep or boo from anyone. Nothing problematic. How times have changed. I don't mind the fact that Sir Stephen can retell an anecdote which gets both a laugh from his readers while inculcating a deep lesson, but I on wikipedia am sanctioned if I paraphrase it to the same purpose. What is a moral reminder by a great jurist is 'inflammatory language' for a wiki peon. I don't mind the offensiveness of this insult to my moral probity in these matters. I'm used to it. But how the trigger-finger now itches to shoot anyone who dares tread on this ground whose zones of what is discursively permissible are narrowed day by day, now even on wikipedia even with a light joke. My block log is thus crammed with just one more example of being punished because an admin didn’t read up, or ask around, and no doubt the usual reports asking for another sanction on the usual spurious grounds will have further 'evidence' to lead me to Galgenweg. Well, as the previous section says, sumud. Nishidani (talk) 19:32, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
- Yes. A known Jewish jurist warning Jewish MPs to not be hypersensitive is a rather different context than you using it to score try to convince someone you are correct on a Misplaced Pages talk page. This is indeed how something which can be thought provoking in one context is unconstructive or unnecessarily inflammatory language in another context. And good news - I intentionally did not add to your block log choosing instead a rather short topic ban. Barkeep49 (talk) 20:11, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
- What you are saying is that a Jew can tell a self-critical Jewish joke to another Jew. If a non-Jew repeats that joke (to a Jew or not), they are being inflammatory (and many would say 'antisemitic'). In other words, no non-Jew may intrude on an infra-Jewish conversation without being inflammatory. The world is, admittedly, a lunatic asylum run according to Rafferty's rules, unlike the physical universe, but I try to maintain my sanity by trusting in logical analysis and the moral parity of all humna beings. You are in your rights to disagree, but your statement is not underwritten by any awareness of the principles of coherence. I say that without enmity.Nishidani (talk) 20:30, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
- Yes. A known Jewish jurist warning Jewish MPs to not be hypersensitive is a rather different context than you using it to score try to convince someone you are correct on a Misplaced Pages talk page. This is indeed how something which can be thought provoking in one context is unconstructive or unnecessarily inflammatory language in another context. And good news - I intentionally did not add to your block log choosing instead a rather short topic ban. Barkeep49 (talk) 20:11, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
- And my response where I note the peer reviewed journal is using the joke to criticize it as offensive (50+ years ago). Barkeep49 (talk) 18:57, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
- Please see my comment on Barkeep49’s talk page. The point Nishidani makes, with the same cultural joke as an illustration, was made in a peer-reviewed academic journal of high repute. Unfortunately it seems this did not come up easily on google when quickly searched for. Onceinawhile (talk) 18:43, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
- See User talk:Barkeep49/Archives/10#Nishidani comment. I apologize for the parallel discussion. Onceinawhile (talk) 20:35, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
- I appreciate this Once, but please don't worry about this here. I'll be off-wiki for three weeks, that's all. Nishidani (talk) 20:47, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
- I will admit that I am pushing for a fair resolution here mainly because I have a deep aversion to seeing the logical fallacy of belief perseverance.
- Onceinawhile (talk) 20:59, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
- For the record (which rhymes with 'bored'), what happened precisely is explained here Nishidani (talk) 12:01, 15 November 2024 (UTC)
- Reading Gershon Legman’s mammoth works on jokes in the late 1970s taught me an important lesson: listening to comedians, or diving into the vast lore of jokes could tell you as much, perhaps even more, than philosophy or logic about the human world, not to speak of the hilarious way it is recounted in top-shelf newspapers. Bassem Youssef blew up Piers Morgan’s haranguing insistence on Hamas’s putative use of human shields by interrupting the latter’s usual tactic of hammering interruptions with a simple comical analogy:’I know all about them! I’m always trying to murder my wife (she is of Palestinian descent) but she keeps using our children as human shields’. End of argument.
- I appreciate this Once, but please don't worry about this here. I'll be off-wiki for three weeks, that's all. Nishidani (talk) 20:47, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
- See User talk:Barkeep49/Archives/10#Nishidani comment. I apologize for the parallel discussion. Onceinawhile (talk) 20:35, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
- Misplaced Pages is increasingly, administratively, a tired humourless place, shorn of all of the delicacies of style like irony, where passionate ignorance gets a podium and the rules require that one take everything seriously. And if you don’t, and tell a joke, the surveillance of wokist minds will haul you over the coals for being ‘inflammatory’ even if they themselves don’t believe in anything other than the instrumental ('weaponised') opportunism presented by a joke to lay that kind of fatuous insinuation. Who gives a fuck? I think I’ll drop Georges Dumézil for bedtime reading and dip back into Legman’s magisterial anthology of limericks:) And now to bed. I don't think anyone in the Western world can feel entitled to any sentiment like unfairness or grievance - whatever occurs in the bitching banter of midget pissing matches we call the 'mainstream' reportage that we discuss to edit anything, - and that is all the more true of my response here,enjoying rather the farce in comical misreadings like the above. Cheers. Nishidani (talk) 23:04, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
- (Talk page watcher) A bad call, administratively, especially because of doubling down on the block despite getting further information about the Jewish history of the mentioned folklore. Perplexing decisions resulting in an outcome without justifications that hold up under scrutiny. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 01:29, 26 October 2024 (UTC)
- I'm sorry about this block. I try and avoid anything like humor myself on Misplaced Pages as it simply doesn't travel well. I keep whatever I say straightforward and avoid saying anything that requires a modicum of thought, there's no point as it will simply cause trouble and not accomplish anything. Thank you for pointing out that problem with the Wikimedia Foundation trying to be woke and accomplish social goals. I fully agree with trying to get more women to edit - the purpose though is to help create create a free, reliable encyclopedia. NadVolum (talk) 15:50, 15 November 2024 (UTC)
- When I told an Israeli scholar that joke after my suspension he laughed, never having heard it, and sent this link to another. Jokes are currency and should be repaid. They are one of the primary indexes of the self-perceptive temper of peoples and the quality of their civilization (which as regards the West began its death agony with the Holocaust, and, with the cormorant war on the Gaza fishbowl, banged the last nail into its coffin.). Some Auschwitz survivors remembered that they had to make jokes in order to survive and save themselves from lethal depression.
- As early as 1927 the Soviet Union passed a law (Article 58) forbidding on pain of imprisonment the telling of anti-régime jokes and one calculation put the number of Soviet citizens who ended up in gaol for telling them at 200,000. The best Russian comment on this farce was the joke that has a judge walking out of court, bent up laughing. When asked why, he gasped that he’d just dispatched someone to the gulag for ten years for telling the best joke he’d ever heard, which, of course, he couldn’t repeat for fear of incriminating himself. Nazi Germany wasn’t slow to imitate the Soviet measure. One of the first laws passed in Nazi Germany in 1934 was the Heimtückegesetz, which outlawed as treasonable acts any jokes about Nazis. One of the reasons undoubtedly lies in what Henri Bergson detected when, in his classic Le Rire, he wrote:
(On y verrait) le rire accomplir régulièrement une des ses fonctions principales, qui est de rappeler à la pleine conscience d'eux-mêmes les amours-propres distraits et d'obtenir ainsi la plus grande sociabilité possibles des caractères (. .laughter regularly accomplishing one of its principal functions, namely, to summon the distracted expression of self-esteem back to a full awareness of itself and thereby obtain the greatest possible sociability of characters). Henri Bergson, Le rire:Essai sur la signification du comique, (1900) Presses Universitaires de France 1975 p.133.
- As wiki wokifies itself, making an advanced degree in the niceties of political correctness, rather than familiarity with scholarship, the essential qualification for writing articles, I hope the picayune historic record of this nook in the selva oscura of the world will include me as the first, I believe, to fall victim to administrative humourlessness for an innocuously instructive on-topic joke. As for the rest, administrative failings in correctly construing simple English sentences are nonetheless nothing new, as my block log’s rapid overturnings of hasty suspensions show.Nishidani (talk) 14:12, 16 November 2024 (UTC)
- Once was maybe a misspeak in the moment so I disregarded it, but this is twice now that you've characterized the situation as
wokist
orwokifies
. I thought you better than being one to play into right-wing authoritarian 'anti-woke' discourse but now I'm not as sure. This was a bad administrative call, but it wasn't a bad call because it was a 'woke' call. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 18:40, 16 November 2024 (UTC)- Norman Finkelstein, I'll Burn That Bridge When I Get To It!: Heretical Thoughts on Identity Politics, Cancel Culture, and Academic Freedom, Sublation Press 2023. When an authoritative scholar voices views I had already arrived at independently (I wrote extensively on the dangers in identity politics before it became a fashionable topic), I defer to their conclusions, preferring to get sceptics to read that book or article rather than argue with me briefly on a wiki page. Books have depth not allowed here, also per TLDR. which marks the default attention span customary on wiki Nishidani (talk) 21:11, 16 November 2024 (UTC)
- While Finkelstein has published quality work on topics like memory studies, antisemitism, and the genocide in Palestine, I think it's telling that unlike those works, I'll Burn That Bridge was not published with a university press, academic journal, major national publisher, etc. I know some editors think that anything a professor writes or utters anywhere is equally golden, but I think that publishers and venues matter. I consider "Cancel Culture and Other Myths", published in established academic journal The Yale Review and written by Kathryn Lofton—herself hardly a non-entity in academia as former Yale dean and current holder of an endowed professorship—instructive on the topic. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 21:35, 16 November 2024 (UTC)
- For 2 thousand years hardly any of the books constituting the 'great tradition' of Western thought were published by a university Press. One of the greatest historical works in that discipline, Raul Hilberg's The Destruction of the European Jews was rejected by 3 university presses, included Princeton, because his research of agonizing moments of history woke anxieties, ante litteram. Personal anecdotes by friends still in academe underscore how careful teachers must be in speaking in classes on any topic about which some special constituency has ideas of being an historic victim of discrimination, just in case someone in the class may share them. If they do not learn to tiptoe around the minefield of these diverse sensitivities, they risk being reported to the deans, and having their careers damaged. And I am speaking of personal knowledge of people on the left. It's more or less what is happening on wiki with ARBPIA5Nishidani (talk) 22:48, 16 November 2024 (UTC)
For 2 thousand years hardly any of the books constituting the 'great tradition' of Western thought were published by a university Press
: Yeah, and we still don't cite Augustine's The City of God on Misplaced Pages pages about human history.In the meantime, I've been reading the reviews, and frankly I don't have money to spare on buying transphobic, anti-Black trash written by a red fascist annoyed that his students care about trans rights and learn about racial capitalism. You can keep your Finkelstein fanboying. If something goes wrong in ARBPIA, it's going to be because committee members think it's unnecessary to read up on the topic at issue beyond what gets filtered to them by osmosis through media mired in Islamophobic neo-imperialism. It's not going to be because they're 'woke' and voted for Obama in the primaries instead of Sanders. Verso didn't reject I'll Burn That Bridge because it was too radical. They rejected it because it was sloppy and reactionary.That you had the gall to recommend this book as if it has any real wisdom—that's the funniest thing on this page, or it would be if it weren't so pathetic and sad. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 23:04, 16 November 2024 (UTC)'I feel a real and solid pleasure when anybody points out a fallacy in any of my views, because I care much less about my opinions than about their being true.'Bertrand Russell, as cited admiringly in Finkelstein's book.
- This you fail to do, unfortunately for this conversation, which ends here. That epitaph, to you, since I also cite it, is sheer gall, by a reactionary thinker, devoid of wisdom. Some of us live by that credo, which ultimately goes back to Plato and Aristotle, for both of whom personal affections should never compromise our loyalty to the pursuit of truth. There was of course, an implicit danger in that notion (amicus Plato, sed magis amica veritas in a totalitarian state or family could provide a warrant for murder, if the 'truth' is confused with an authoritarian parent's right to domineer or with a party line which runs roughshod over people by advocating the betrayal of one's family or friends), a danger corrected by Russell. In his reformulation, in all of us, even the most gifted, there is a tendency for our self-esteem to get the better of realities and concepts that deflate and challenge it. But, of course, this is just my gall, livid and splenetic, and you are not obliged to torment yourself by reading this page where consolation for what one ardently believes is not my concern. Fare thee well.Nishidani (talk) 02:30, 17 November 2024 (UTC)
- Far be it from me to stop you and Finkelstein from swooning for a eugenicist. "Fare thee well" indeed. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 09:10, 17 November 2024 (UTC)
- 古池や
- 盲飛び込む
- 空の音Nishidani (talk) 10:08, 17 November 2024 (UTC)
- Far be it from me to stop you and Finkelstein from swooning for a eugenicist. "Fare thee well" indeed. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 09:10, 17 November 2024 (UTC)
- Norman Finkelstein, I'll Burn That Bridge When I Get To It!: Heretical Thoughts on Identity Politics, Cancel Culture, and Academic Freedom, Sublation Press 2023. When an authoritative scholar voices views I had already arrived at independently (I wrote extensively on the dangers in identity politics before it became a fashionable topic), I defer to their conclusions, preferring to get sceptics to read that book or article rather than argue with me briefly on a wiki page. Books have depth not allowed here, also per TLDR. which marks the default attention span customary on wiki Nishidani (talk) 21:11, 16 November 2024 (UTC)
- Once was maybe a misspeak in the moment so I disregarded it, but this is twice now that you've characterized the situation as
- As wiki wokifies itself, making an advanced degree in the niceties of political correctness, rather than familiarity with scholarship, the essential qualification for writing articles, I hope the picayune historic record of this nook in the selva oscura of the world will include me as the first, I believe, to fall victim to administrative humourlessness for an innocuously instructive on-topic joke. As for the rest, administrative failings in correctly construing simple English sentences are nonetheless nothing new, as my block log’s rapid overturnings of hasty suspensions show.Nishidani (talk) 14:12, 16 November 2024 (UTC)
- If my calendarizing is right, ur free to speak once more of matters that shall not be spoken of. Apropos of nothing I look forward to your participating in the upcoming ARC, no excuses. It's planned for December, after that you can put your feet up:) Selfstudier (talk) 19:28, 16 November 2024 (UTC)
- been there, done that. Nothing I say, or for that matter in my view what the indicted write in their defence will alter substantially the outcome, substantial damage to regular, competent editors with a balancing ban for one or two others. The probable verdict is already present in the selection of names - the majority of those listed as under suspicion are commonly if ludicrously identified with a 'pro-Palestinian' profile. That is what I meant by 'wokist' above. And, indeed, I take the weird otherwise inexplicable sanction I received as a foretaste of what's to come, since it must reflect some irrationally cautious protective atmosphere surrounding anything deemed 'Jewish' (as opposed to Palestinian- there's no jumpiness about that term). In the IP conflict, Israel, reflecting the mainstream media bias, is, qua an ostensibly 'Jewish' state, increasingly considered ‘marginalized’ and therefore requiring the same special protections and sensitivities accorded other marginalized groups on wikipedia. This consideration does not apply to the other half of the equation, the Palestinian people, who are suffering extreme marginalization if not genocide at the hands of that state. Since 2019 this undercurrent has been slowly creeping into Misplaced Pages and, I expect, has essentially since 7 October, won the ‘argument’, thanks also to the, apparently, massive disruption of an organized sock farm, whose irruptions were mostly reverted by regulars, while the 'others' stood silently by. Good luck.Nishidani (talk) 21:54, 16 November 2024 (UTC)
- I had the good fortune in September while in Paris, to sight and buy a copy of Foucault’s thitherto unpublished lectures on Nietzsche, which were finally edited and published in August. But perhaps I should rather reread his Discipline and Punish which seems more actual. I was reminded of this this morning when low and behold I was pinged to note the 8th report against me over the last year or so, and this time the in-your-face harassment hinges on an awesome innumeracy.
- been there, done that. Nothing I say, or for that matter in my view what the indicted write in their defence will alter substantially the outcome, substantial damage to regular, competent editors with a balancing ban for one or two others. The probable verdict is already present in the selection of names - the majority of those listed as under suspicion are commonly if ludicrously identified with a 'pro-Palestinian' profile. That is what I meant by 'wokist' above. And, indeed, I take the weird otherwise inexplicable sanction I received as a foretaste of what's to come, since it must reflect some irrationally cautious protective atmosphere surrounding anything deemed 'Jewish' (as opposed to Palestinian- there's no jumpiness about that term). In the IP conflict, Israel, reflecting the mainstream media bias, is, qua an ostensibly 'Jewish' state, increasingly considered ‘marginalized’ and therefore requiring the same special protections and sensitivities accorded other marginalized groups on wikipedia. This consideration does not apply to the other half of the equation, the Palestinian people, who are suffering extreme marginalization if not genocide at the hands of that state. Since 2019 this undercurrent has been slowly creeping into Misplaced Pages and, I expect, has essentially since 7 October, won the ‘argument’, thanks also to the, apparently, massive disruption of an organized sock farm, whose irruptions were mostly reverted by regulars, while the 'others' stood silently by. Good luck.Nishidani (talk) 21:54, 16 November 2024 (UTC)
- If my calendarizing is right, ur free to speak once more of matters that shall not be spoken of. Apropos of nothing I look forward to your participating in the upcoming ARC, no excuses. It's planned for December, after that you can put your feet up:) Selfstudier (talk) 19:28, 16 November 2024 (UTC)
- I’m always amazed at the lengths some types of editor will go to to rake up, or extort readings from, diffs in one’s record to exact punitive measures from contributors whose commitment to wikipedia they evidently dislike.Apparently there are some who work under a different calendrical system than the one I, and perhaps yourself, were raised to master by rotework in bubs. I.e.,
- Thirty days has September,
- April, June, and November,
- All the rest have thirty-one,
- Save February at twenty-eight,
- But leap year, coming once in four,
- February then has one day more.
- Some years later, I realized that it had two anomalies: (a) has should be ‘have’ since the subject is plural, and (b) the rhyme scheme is defective because ‘thirty one’ and ‘twenty-eight’ do not rhyme with each other, as the format would lead one to expect. Something like
- Thirty days have September,
- April, June, and November,
- All the rest have thirty-one,
- With one exception to the sum
- That’s February with twenty-eight
- Stumbling with a shorter gait
- On leap years, though, one in four,
- February marches one day more. Nishidani (talk) 10:30, 18 November 2024 (UTC)
- Thirty days have not September
- April, June, or November,
- by those baubles you remember,
- and by Rote tis sworn 'twere "hath"
- (changing nary a drop the dues of wrath).-- SashiRolls 23:30, 18 November 2024 (UTC)
- Touché. Serves me 'write' for googling the text to save transcribing from memory.Nishidani (talk) 09:45, 19 November 2024 (UTC)
- I stand corrected, and yet still the math
- of ruling subjects with a singular 'hath'
- Challenges usage. We must then 'hath' away
- And let a plural 'have' assert its sway.
- Of course the bard's example mocks the rule:
- Both govern plurals, and damn the grammar school
- In plays He penned, and few of us would dare
- To let a pedant voice douse out His flair.
- Though once a nob, - a certain E. de Vere -
- A courtly farter, and a whinging brayer,
- Tried to outshine Shakespeare, writing answers
- To all the sonnets. The outcome? Paltry cancers
- Upon the lithely body of English verse
- Here's one to prove it. The rest are far, far worse.
- E de Vere's riposte to Sonnet 73
- Your glowering years lie on youth’s ashen bed,
- And limbs that would caress shake in the cold
- Winds of remembrance, grazing upon the fled
- Warmth of yesteryear, with my self enrolled
- As brushwood for that all-consuming pyre
- Your songs stack up against Time’s freezing hour,
- My boyhood’s voice enchanted in this choir
- Of dirges skirling your necromantic power.
- You stay your twilight with my dawning’s glow,
- And fire your winter on my borrowed spring,
- So you may keep warm watch on life, although
- I shiver, bare and ruined, to see you fling
- My youth’s green wood on age’s hearth and glow,
- Refreshed by bracing coals, while I grow old,
- Mere bedded ash left smouldering in the cold. Nishidani (talk) 11:18, 19 November 2024 (UTC)
Proposed party at PIA5
Hello, I'm notifying you that I have listed your name at Misplaced Pages talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Palestine-Israel articles 5/Evidence#Seven proposed parties as being among the most active editors in Palestine/Israel noticeboard disputes, and I have proposed that you participate as a party to the case. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 20:29, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
- And I decline your proposal. I'm retired, in good part because of this kind of behaviour, which undermined my confidence in the serenity of administrative judgment, not retarded.Nishidani (talk) 20:45, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
- Indeed the last diff is particularly comical. I paraphrased a joke used by Sir Stephen Sedley, a distinguished EEC jurist sharing with a non-Jewish readership (The London Review of Books) a joke Jews tell among themselves to warn against the excesses of accusing indiscriminately critics of Israel as, ipso facto, antisemites. No one raised an eyebrow when I quoted this on my talkpage in 2019. By 2024, SFR thought it 'inflammatory' and was backed up by Barkeep, who said, unintelligibly, that my use of it 'weaponised antisemitism' when my use of it underscored how Jews themselves have jokes which caution the community not to weaponise antisemitism!!! And what is the result? an absurdly confused misreading of the evidence and flawed judgment and sanction is now part of the 'proof' I have a battleground mentality. That's called a disinformation feedback loop, and it is so thoroughly ingrained in the system that woe behold anyone dragged into its indefatigably superficial toils. I'll trust the judgment of admins to exercise their functions as serene IP supervisors when they can, as Slim Virgin did, write or rewrite from top to bottom a conflicted or difficult IP topic article or two, displaying mastery of the literature and respect for NPOV balancing between the two parties, an achievement all recognized, even while recognizing imperfections remained. Few of those who kibitz but refuse to help out and prefer to sit in judgment on the sidelines have the faintest idea of how conceptually, methodologically and ethically demanding a serious commitment to that area is, and to see so many good editors hauled over the coals for putative abuses or occasional slips is sad, given the impunity of the endless socks that infest the area with utter cynicism and contempt for encyclopedic aims Nishidani (talk) 21:07, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
- I am notifying you of Misplaced Pages talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Palestine-Israel articles 5/Evidence#Request to add Nishidani. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:42, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
- Declined. I’m retired and stirring from the grave would aggravate rheumatic risks. I see no evidence there, unless for what looks like settling an old score/sore dating back to 19th of August 2023 where you appear to have been upset when I used the adjective ‘extraordinary’ to characterize an edit you made to Zionism, race and genetics (which I rewrote from top to bottom), an edit suggesting that 19th century science ‘provided evidence’ for the existence of races. It did no such thing, and it struck me as extraordinary for someone with a scientific background to suggest, by careless language (noting careless language has proved to be the bane of my former wikilife . It really upsets people), that science (or the pseudo-science of that day) had anything resembling evidence for its contention that ‘races’ (the ideological virus of modern history) existed. If any admin wants to make an informed judgment on the weird insinuations purported to emerge in those diffs, they’d better read the five archived discussions of that page beforehand, where they will find almost nothing from me but patience, urbanity and scholarship used to address other editors few if any of whom appear to have familiarized themselves with many if indeed any of the 103 or so academic sources I and others brought to bear to substantiate the article. Nishidani (talk) 23:06, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
- Since I believe the recent sanction was injurious to my bona fides here, however, and since in that request of yours to drag me into a deliberation which I think is conceptually flawed from the outset, further insinuations were made I am disruptive, I will drop a few notes in response to your 'evidence' because I like to think that, at least here, the record of my activities here should be complete. This interests no one but myself of course, so I don't desire any feedback. It may take some time since I am engaged privately in a lengthy argument over Dante's cosmology and the Timaeus, which consumes most of my leisure reading.Nishidani (talk) 13:25, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
- Declined. I’m retired and stirring from the grave would aggravate rheumatic risks. I see no evidence there, unless for what looks like settling an old score/sore dating back to 19th of August 2023 where you appear to have been upset when I used the adjective ‘extraordinary’ to characterize an edit you made to Zionism, race and genetics (which I rewrote from top to bottom), an edit suggesting that 19th century science ‘provided evidence’ for the existence of races. It did no such thing, and it struck me as extraordinary for someone with a scientific background to suggest, by careless language (noting careless language has proved to be the bane of my former wikilife . It really upsets people), that science (or the pseudo-science of that day) had anything resembling evidence for its contention that ‘races’ (the ideological virus of modern history) existed. If any admin wants to make an informed judgment on the weird insinuations purported to emerge in those diffs, they’d better read the five archived discussions of that page beforehand, where they will find almost nothing from me but patience, urbanity and scholarship used to address other editors few if any of whom appear to have familiarized themselves with many if indeed any of the 103 or so academic sources I and others brought to bear to substantiate the article. Nishidani (talk) 23:06, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
- Being dragged repeatedly to AE can be evidence for every imaginable conjecture or nothing. Diffs like that look impressive, (that nothing basically happened only feeds into glancing eyes the suspicion that Nishidani must be one of the so-called Untouchables) in terms of the 'no-smoke-without-fire' effect in rumour-momgering, so I will open each up to dissect who said what of whom, in what context, and what the results were. Nishidani (talk) 13:39, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
- No need, judging by this and this (altho not everyone is paying attention to that afaics). Selfstudier (talk) 13:49, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
'newly added parties have adequate time to engage in the case.'
- I have no adequate time to engage with what is going on over there, which, in any case, is so humongously messy in its conceptual sprawl that to unpack the conflicting premises would take weeks, something which, given the austere word limits, is formally impossible anyway. Perhaps they have the liberty to try and drag me by the virtual short and curlies out of a contented retirement, but my gut feeling is that initiatives of this kind smack of being a kind of Invitation to a Beheading, a novel which bears some analogy to things that go wrong on wikipedia. Now, kindly leave the page to my annotations, which have no interest to anyone at this point but myself.Nishidani (talk) 15:58, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
- No need, judging by this and this (altho not everyone is paying attention to that afaics). Selfstudier (talk) 13:49, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
'In the past two years, Nishidani has been the named subject of 5 AE cases': , , , , , although the last one was initiated by sockpuppets.
To underline the recurrency of my obnoxious behaviour as recognized at AE two precedents were cited: the second (Sandstein 2019) I deal with elsewhere down the page. The first goes back to a single, bizarre report for 2017
- 13 March 2017 "Nishidani clearly violated the consensus required sanction placed by the Committee on all ARBPIA articles."
The report arose from my adding to the List of violent incidents in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, January–June 2017 a datum about 4 Israelis throwing a stun grenade into an apartment where two Palestinian women, a mother and her daughter, lived ( apparently to drive them out of a predominantly Jewish neighbourhood). The mayor of Petah Tikva called it an example of racist violence. It was immediately reverted on the grounds that the incident was ‘a neighbor dispute over music and criminals’. I thought (mistakenly it turned out) that I was entitled to 1 revert, especially given the bizarre contrafactual edit-summary made by the reverter. This restoration was expunged by a second editor saying the incident was not dissimilar to Palestinian stone-throwing (?!!).
Administrators all agreed that the RS confirmed this violent incident was clearly related to the I/P conflict (i.e. my addition was justified). The technicality that in my one revert I’d failed to get consensus meant I’d apparently infringed an Arbpia ruling. Getting consensus for inclusion of even obvious facts was technically impossible at that time, since from 2016 there had been a concerted ‘pro-Israeli’ majority relentlessly reverted a great number of well-sourced contributions I had made to IP pages on the most spurious or picayune of reasonings. But the technicality stands and, in those terms, I was justly blocked for 24 hours. The long-term result was (a) that nothing can be reverted if one editor challenges an addition, save by talk page consensus (a rule consistently breached since then with impunity) and (b) that this perfectly valid datum is missing from that page to this date. The case can hardly be cited mechanically as evidence for my putatively consistent bad behaviour. I had simply misunderstood the nicety of a rule.If anything it constitutes strong evidence of how rules are abused tactically both to erase legitimate data from IP articles, and to manoeuver content editors into errors that can feed AE reports and get them removed. Nishidani (talk) 14:40, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
Background. Just prior to the first diff, a stub (about a baker's dozen of refs) was posted, Zionism, race and genetics, which was immediately marked for an AfD. I happened to have extensive files precisely on this topic, and was amazed to see every wikipedia negative voice thrown at it (WP:NOR, WP:SYNTH, WP:RS, WP:OTHERSTUFFDOESNTEXIST, WP:HASTE, WP:AND, WP:TNT, WP:BATTLEGROUND etc) by a handful of editors who clearly were totally unfamiliar with this topic, which has accrued a substantial scholarly literature over the past decades. I stepped in and rewrote it thoroughly, with 45 first-class references. In the AfD Tryptofish voted for deletion on the grounds it was a synthesis of 'bogus and nasty scholarship promoting antisemitism to legitimate scholarship rebutting antisemitism.’ Presumably as main drafter I was spreading ‘bogus scholarship promoting antisemitism’. Tryptofish then was miffed that I didn't take this weird claim seriously (how could important historical scholarship most of it by Jewish academics, published by the most prestigious universities and academic presses in the world be smeared as 'bogus' and a promotion for anti-semitism?), and noting his complaint personalized this by stating he felt these remarks were 'badgering' a 'career professor'. So I gave him a detailed rationale. A week later he was still upset ('offended'), despite my gesture. He made the extraordinary and offensive inference that my sardonic rejoinder implied in turn that I was effectively
caricatur(ing) my good-faith comment as some kind of laughable conspiracy theory a la the Protocols of Zion makes me uninterested in taking such a reply seriously.
Sigh. How on earth could one suddenly twist a piece of obvious irony - the technical term is reductio ad absurdum -into a wild insinuation about his intentions is beyond me. Nonetheless, I persisted in trying to mend these hurt feelings, which I found inexplicable, by apologizing if my dismissal of what struck me as a ludicrous assertion offended him and provided an even longer set of reasons for my scepticism about his claim. He apparently remained disgruntled. Nishidani (talk) 16:31, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
- Nishidani 1On the 11 August Drsmoo filed a report against me for 'bludgeoning and hostility . . . (and) making personal attacks, assuming bad faith, and casting aspersions on the talk page of Zionism, race, and genetics'.
Drsmoo cited for my ostensible bludgeoning mentality a 2019 case where Sandstein took no action against Icewhiz, reported by Nableezy, while blocking me for a week for a ‘battleground’ use of Misplaced Pages: I'd characterized Icewhiz as someone with extremist views. Sandstein judged that I’d given no evidence (the evidence I gave was that Icewhiz characterized ) several famous left-centrist Zionist scholars in Israel (Avishai Margalit, David Dean Shulman, Baruch Kimmerling, Zeev Sternhell and Yehuda Elkana) as people militating on ‘the fringes of the Israeli radical left’, whereas, in his view, Bezalel Smotrich and Rehavam Ze'evi, figures on the radical right, were simply on the generic right side of the political spectrum and putative opponents of the occupation (radically false). Anyone who actually knew the records of all the named figures would grasp that my inference from that evidence was more than reasonable, not an 'aspersion'. But, true, it was an inference, and Icewhiz was only permabanned six months later, surviving as a prolific sockmaster, even after his Eostrix admin candidate puppet was detected. Technically Sandstein’s sanction was understandable – reasonable inferences are not evidence, even if well-founded. But it was certainly not a battleground aspersion to note that IW’s skewering of those prominent Israeli intellectuals as fringe radical leftists in contrast to the putative moderation of far-right settlers was an ‘extreme’ distortion of the know facts about their respective profiles. Citing a prior case result as a diff, as usual, can be question-begging, since the later record arguably vindicated my inference. Nishidani (talk) 10:56, 13 December 2024 (UTC)
- As to the substance, Drsmoo's relevant diffs consisted of my dismissing as 'rubbish' an assertion he made that the Zionism, race and genetics article was stating
(a)in wiki voice that modern genetic studies on Jews are both “Zionist” and “race science”
- It was rubbish because it was tailored out of whole cloth because there is simple no textual evidence for any such insinuation, and to assert it suggests one didn't even read the article. The article stated in wikivoice paraphrase what scores of academic studies argued, that an early Zionist concern for 'race' left traces in post war genetics research, primarily in Israel, and a certain methodological divergence between this and broad genetic studies, a trace closely studied and criticized by Israeli scholarship itself. Etc.
- Tryptofish added to Drsmoo’s list of what he deemed disruptive or aspersive remarks. I was indeed exasperated by that talk page mess. I had noted on July 24 that some editors to the page were getting it bogged down by expressing their opinions or impressions of the article as then written, rather than focusing on the nitty gritty of the analysis of sources. fiveby reasonably raised an issue of one source interpretation, and I responded addressing the sources mentioned. Having clarified them, I then concluded: ‘What’s the problem?’ Suddenly Tryptofish stepped back in. He said my source analysis was very helpful but his issue was my language.
I think what you quoted there is very helpful in addressing the concern that I had. (What's the problem? I'd say that there is a problem in your speaking to me in that tone.)’
- That in my view was typical of the distracting drift on that page. One analysed sources collaboratively, and out of the blue an interjection would pop up expressive of some personal grievance. This sort of hypersensitive personalization, interrupting textual analysis one admits is illuminating by saying one is offended by some ‘tone’, to the point that an innocuous ‘what’s the problem’ is pointed out as injurious, this kind of derailing of work by petty or sniffish remarks, is incomprehensible to me. I was forced to waste time explaining that misapprehension on his part. How did Tryptofish read this? He construed my explanation as really saying that Nishidani believes that in these exchanges 'It's everyone else's fault, not (mine).' That is the extraordinary way (an AGF abuse of course) he glossed my attempt to assuage his strange sense of personal affront. With that kind susceptibility to see a plea for commonsense as an example of demeaning hostility, editing becomes impossible: the sources are lost from sight.
- The result was a logged warning for both the plaintiff, Drsmoo, and myself, by Tamzin for battleground conduct on 28 August. Fair enough.I disagree with the idea that 'battleground mentality' adequately sums up an attempt (my view) to stop a page deteriorating from its rigorously source-based text into a mish-mash of tinkering by editors ignoring the sources in order to readjust a topic strictly in terms of how they understand POV. But still, when notified on my page, expressed my understanding of Tamzin’s decision. Mark. No resentment. Shit happens.
- Nishidani 2As soon as Tamzin closed the case, Tryptofish immediately submitted a report to the same AE page. What was his evidence of some putative ‘battleground mentality’? Revising the lead for precision and NPOV I had written
Late 19th century science affirmed the idea that humanity was divided into a hierarchy of races.
- Tryptofish changed this key neutral word leaving us with
- Frankly, this was flabbergasting. I opened a new section on the talk page calling this alteration ‘extraordinary’.
- Tryptofish rushed to warn me on my page that my use of the single word ‘extraordinary’ was in his view problematic, given Tamzin’s warning, and I replied lightly that he should concentrate on the merits of edits, not read between the lines to trawl evidence for reports, as though warnings were tripwires. Tryptofish stated, after reporting me immediately to AE, that ‘Nishidani's reply to my message, which strikes me as defiant and lacking in self-awareness, clearly intending to continue the kind of conduct that the warning was about. So here we are.’
- Just over an hour later Tamzin pagebanned me for two weeks from the article and talk page. I didn’t protest. I merely noted that if I was to be sanctioned for battlegrounding for the use of a simple exclamation intended tersely to make another editor rethink his very strange edit, then obviously working any more on Misplaced Pages had become impossible, since virtually any sentence I might write would be microscopically parsed, word for word, to find a similar skerrick of ‘evidence’ from ‘tone’ to make reports against me.
- Fortunately, many admins and experienced editors thought both Tryptofish's report and Tamzin's quick sanction were rash and commented that my linguistic point, that ‘affirm’ means ‘to make a statement and stand by it, to maintain or assert strongly’ fitted the context precisely, whereas Tryptofish’s ostensible correction ‘science provided evidence’ attributed to antiquated racial thinking of the 19th century a scientific status it did not have, and stated effectively in wikivoice that the results of a speculative pseudo-science provided ‘evidence’, when no such evidence was ever produced about the ‘genetics’ of ‘race’ differences. His suggestion only showed he had little grasp of the history of science (genetics in the 1880s?!!), and no familiarity with the dozens of sources used on that page, all of which support ‘affirmed’ and implicitly dismiss the idea that race hypotheses had any empirical support.
- To her great credit, Tamzin serenely accepted the criticisms and vacated her ban.
- In short two days of admin and editors' time, and I include dear Tamzin here, were wasted clearing up an utterly misguided AE denunciation with no merit to it from the outset, because it was based on a lack of sensitivity to language (and I would suggest, oversensitivity, in reading into exchanges highly subjective, perceived feelings, things that either weren't there or had nothing to do with the hard task of getting a text accurate and neutral. More damagingly, the diff of the AE action is now repeatedly cited against me, as if there were something there which suggested there must be some fire beneath all the smoke arising from frivolous AE reports Nishidani (talk) 15:29, 28 December 2024 (UTC)
- Nishidani 3 On the 21 October Andrevan resorted to one more AE report against me. The substance was that I had crossed a bright line in terms of WP:Civil in claiming editors, in an ongoing three month long talk page discussion about Zionism, race and genetics, were clearly not doing their job of reading the sources, but rather engaged in a protracted argufying for a title change in complete insouciance to the source base, chopping and changing vagrant assertions every time they were painstakingly refuted. To me it was a ‘serial nightmare of WP:IDIDNOTHEARTHAT behaviour. I outlined on my page, when notified, why Andrevan was demonstrably ignoring evidence presented to him that he wasn't reading sources,
The best AE-adequate rebuttal was given by Levivich who listed 9 successive assertions by Andrevan about the page and its sources, each of which was proven to be contrafactual, with the plaintiff following up every correction of an unfounded claim, with another which likewise proved he was asserting things about sources which the sources themselves contradicted when checked. Not liking the turn of things, Andrevan then stated he would take a long break from the article in question. My impression from admin comments was that an editor cannot accuse another editor of unfamiliarity with the RS sources, even if this can be amply demonstrated, without themselves risking a charge of being uncivil: that it is uncivil to state the obvious. As a gesture of detached solidarity, I offered to do the same, and the complaint was closed on the 27th October.Nishidani (talk) 15:14, 29 December 2024 (UTC)
- Nishidani 4. Point 4 is missing from the official record because I never made a formal complaint about it (and wouldn't on principle, though it was a serious offence). Using discretion I simply notified an admin of the possibility that Andrevan had gone to a page in an area of my professional interest and edited it provocatively in such a way as to give the impression he was pressing me to deny or affirm my private identity. In short, it had all the hallmarks of an outing fishing expedition. The sequence is as follows:
- At 16:17 on 26 December ScottishFinnishRadish topic-banned Andrevan, and his interlocutor Nableezy, from the Palestine/Israel conflict for 3 months.
- At 21:06, 26 December 2023, 5 hours later, Andrevan turned up at the Nihonjinron page and made an extensive set of 81 revisions. He’d never edited it before. It happened to be one of the first pages I edited, coming to Misplaced Pages from a Japanological background, in 2006, though the page was too problematic to waste much time on and I left off a desultory tinkering with it in October 2008. Anyone checking my contributions would have noted that immediately.
- Since, again, it struck me that he was messing with a topic he knew nothing about. I restored the version as it existed earlier What his edits had done was to selectively cull criticisms from reviews of a book he believed I was the author of (his identification reflected a conjecture on pro-Israeli activist sites critical of wikipedia attempting to out me), in order to skewer the author and, I presume, myself, in so far as he appeared to think we were the same person. His highly partisan cherrypicking of negative comments about that particular author in the reviews was noted, and corrected by another editor.
- Andrevan claimed there were WP:COI issues. He then opened a thread on my page asking me if I had a conflict of interest there. When I, very irritated by this strategy, told him to drop it and, well, piss off, Andrevan then reported me to ANI. I refrained from participating, considering that as User:AndyTheGrump thought, this had all the hallmarks of Andrevan to trying to pick a fight and out me. In the meantime I wrote a very detailed email to ScottishFinnishRadish on that same day, 27 Dec 2023, 12:58, outlining what I believed was going on. In my view Andrevan was ‘abusing wikipedia to settle personal accounts.' Soon after Andrevan withdrew his ANI complaint. Had this behaviour been formalized in a report, given other precedents, he would almost certainly have been banned for an attempted outing of a fellow editor.
- In these endlessly repeated whingeings about my putative battleground mentality there is no awareness of the many occasions where, rather than jump at potentially damaging data to 'get at' a colleague who disagrees with me, I have, as here, consistently avoided retaliation, preferring to persist on a talk page, even if irritated or, using discretion or silence. That courtesy never, never, shows up on the official record, and it embarrasses me even here to mention it. Nishidani (talk) 19:32, 29 December 2024 (UTC)
- Nishidani 5. On 14 February 2024 Drsmoo again reported me for using the phrase ‘dumb goyim’ in response to an article by Bret Stephens, The Secrets of Jewish Genius New York Times 27 December 2019, which kicked off a heated controversy because it argued Ashkenazi Jews were more intelligent than other people. Drsmoo wanted to use Stephens as a reliable source, an ‘expert’, on the UNRWA and Israel article. It should have been obvious to him that a journalist who believes the ‘Arab mind’ (whatever that is) is ‘diseased’ could never be an expert or reliable source on anything related to the I/P area. When his views on the intellectual superiority of the ‘Ashkenazi’ of which he is one were alluded to, and dismissed by Drsmoo as not an invalidating argument, I noted this phase that is a vernacular subtext in such claims, meaning that any writer who believes he belongs to a group with superior intelligence is unlikely, a priori, to be persuaded by arguments made by anyone coming from a less intelligent group. Irony. For Drsmoo, the phrase was of Hitlerian currency, and intrinsically antisemitic: I was alluding to Mein Kampf and indulging in antisemitism. Ergo, AE.
- The result, after it was shown that is was current in American Jewish novels and in Israeli popular discourse, was that Drsmoo was suspended from the I/P area for a year, while I was warned against being ‘inflammatory’. I didn’t protest at this, by now, reflex adjective thrown my way. I think its growing ascendency to describe minor ticks of verbal behaviour erratic, indiscriminate (like ‘battleground mentality’) and a threat to encyclopaedic ends. In commemorating Jimmy Carter, Peter Beinart recalled how Carter and his family were mocked for their friendliness to local, and poor, Afro-Americans. Whites spoke of ‘Carter and his coons’. Coon is an ethnic slur. Citing that was important to assess the quality of Carter as a man and president.
- It is one thing to sensibly permaban any racist who abused Misplaced Pages by flinging that word around in articles or against other editors. It is quite another matter to register the use of such phrases as a part of a particular discursive, racist tradition. One must do that to educate people about how (the language of) prejudice works. In branding indiscriminately every reminder of the existence of such terms as ‘inflammatory’, Misplaced Pages risks setting up an even narrower restricted code of wokist bright lines hedging any number of words: ‘Zionist’ itself, apartheid or ‘colonialism’ being recent IP examples of usage some editors want banned from that area as offensive to their identity.
- One damaging example of the way this prissy mania for ‘civil discourse management’ impacts articles is afforded by the ineptly named Ashkenazi Jewish intelligence page. It cannot get beyond a dull stub stage because of two diametrically opposed POVs engaged in edit-warring. On the one hand, editors who consider claims of genetic inheritance of intelligence unscientific, racist and inflammatory and elide on sight any attempt to include a significant number of RS on this as ‘undue’. On the other, a small number of editors citing statistical evidence from research on Ashkenazim IQ performance that lends itself to the idea they are qualitatively more intelligent than (white) non-Ashkenazi. The former group (with some good reasons) suspect that the latter are, in the real world, believers in separate races. The latter believe (with some good reasons) that part of the legitimate (if minoritarian) record claiming there is evidence for such a contention is being censored for ideological (humanist) reasons.
- Since I was quite familiar with the topic, I tried to mediate, and there was a certain acceptance that a third party revision could satisfy both parties: the humanists’ because personally I don’t accept any argument for ‘races’; the other side because I argued that some of the sources being elided were perfectly acceptable as RS. My point was that in these difficult POV-ridden topics, only an approach that wrote out the genealogy of an idea, its historical roots, ideological trends, and debates over the scientific status could give a neutral overview (this was precisely the misunderstood thrust of my endless niggled article Zionism, race and genetics, perhaps the core reason why, after posting it, I ended up with several frivolous AE reports).
- Indeed I wrote up the article, covering the topic from WW1, when Ashkenazi IQ tests were first taken, down to 2019, and it was quite long. But I didn’t post it for two reasons. Given the atmosphere, were it put up, a renewed edit war would leave it with significant gaps, and effectively ruin its encyclopaedic character. The other one was that part of my evidence was the impeccably sourced article by Steven Pinker, Groups and Genes,’ The New Republic 26 June 2006 which contains an anecdotal overture:
My grandparents were immigrants from Eastern Europe who owned a small necktie factory on the outskirts of Montreal. While visiting them one weekend, I found my grandfather on the factory floor, cutting shapes out of irregular stacks of cloth with a fabric saw. He explained that by carving up the remnants that were left over when the neckties had been cut out and stitching them together in places that didn't show, he could get a few extra ties out of each sheet of cloth. I asked him why he was doing this himself rather than leaving it to his employees. He shrugged, tapped his forehead, and said, "Goyishe kop," a term of condescension that literally means "gentile head."
- More bluntly, in Yiddish this phrase גוייִשער קאָפּ means a 'goy's brain' i.e. a dope. That would have been either excised as embarrassing, or, on precedent, cited in just one more follow up from the 2nd Drsmoo case, where my citation of the related term ‘dumb goyim’ had me whacked with a warning about ‘inflammatory language’. Well, stiff shit. Another case where wiki's peculiar sensitivities deny a global readership access to a synthesis of what scholars say about topics deemed to be too controversial, and better left silenced or untouched. Wokism.Nishidani (talk) 14:39, 31 December 2024 (UTC)
- Nishidani 6.On the 26 March an hitherto unregistered editor Mschwartz1, laid out a formal complaint against me, with the bulleted (#) sign indicating I was the first in a list of (no doubt ‘regular’) editors against whom he was preparing to ask for sanctions. He lacked ther standard 500/30 qualification for I/P editors, and had been accorded an unprecedented right to skip the rigorously applied norm, a concession which aroused an almost unanimous outcry among many wikipedians, including, commendably, Tryptofish.Nishidani (talk) 14:53, 31 December 2024 (UTC)
- I duly took the plaintive screed, a polemical and offensive fiasco of wild accusations -one large NPA violation, apart: it showed almost no knowledge of wikipedia practice or procedure, or of either Jewish and Israeli scholarship and history.
- It was closed on the 26th of March for being posted on the wrong page and his exceptional right was revoked by Arbcom on 3 April for Mschwartz1's 'failure to come through with a report that would meet Arbcom’s expectations.'Nishidani (talk) 15:04, 31 December 2024 (UTC)
- Nishidani 7. On the 4th July 2024 Another AE complaint was made by Icebear244. Now, every 'regular' in the game cannot but have twigged that the several new editors who jumped in make up a chorus of complaint were suspect. But initially, this was taken very seriously by Red-tailed hawk who wrote:
Problems with your civility have date back to 2009, when the ArbCom found that you had engaged in incivility, personal attacks, and assumptions of bad faith. I don't think it appropriate to refer to other editors as barely qualified IP editors when they are not IP editors. At a baseline, it is not civil, and it comes off as a personal attack. You were already warned against using against using unconstructive or unnecessarily inflammatory language in the topic area earlier this year, and this sort of thing is another example of that.
- My way of taking that was to infer that the writing was on the wall, after Arbcom had allowed exceptional leeway, following a request/pressure from an outside lobby, to allow its representative to attack me in the earlier Mschwartz1 case above. It would only be a matter of time, this year, as one can see from my replies.
- Indeed, the reason, having withdrawn from wikipedia, I am reconstructing the 8 complaints about my behaviour in the past 16 months arises from that single synthesis of my putative incivility in Red-tailed hawk's synthesis of my blocklog.
- It turned out that Icebear was a compromised, ban-evading account, and that a team of socks was supporting the accusation.Nishidani (talk) 15:37, 31 December 2024 (UTC)
- Nishidani 8. On the 24 October Barkeep suspended me for 3 weeks for, in his view, using 'a joke weaponizing antisemtism' on the talk page about such an article.' The offence was so grave that had a non EC editor mentioned it, he would have permabanned them. He was open to another admins proposing a severe sanction
- The first thing I noted was several errors in the prose, misspellings 'Isreal, antisemtism, UNINOLVED', i. that was highly unusual in my experience of reading Barkeep and suggested 'haste', and perhaps not serenity. The second, if this was a rush to judgment for an edit from a very experienced contributor because it was deemed to be close to requiring 'indeffing' me, why was no common courtesy extended my way to notify me and demand that I explain either myself or the edit (advisable since my block log, which is invariably looked at, shows 5 admin blocks almost immediately undone because of a misreading), or, if the edit implied what Barkeep and Sfr (also very busy that day off-line), believed it meant (effectively a horrible antisemitic slur) why wasn't I mmediately brought to heel there, with a report asking for an indef/permaban at AE?
- The short technical answer is of course that I lay under a warning that allowed any admin to sanction me discretionally if they had reason to believe I was acting inappropriately.
- Further, it appears to be the case that no IP editor among those who dislike my editing presence there - some of whom are very trigger-happy over such potential issues, - found cause to complain of it. That itself should have been silent prima facie evidence that editors deep inside that area's discourse recognized the joke for what it was, an ironical Jewish awareness that accusations of antisemitism can be abused, often frivolously.
- The problem remains: no grammarian in the world could ever construe that joke to be one of 'weaponizing antisemitism'. As Sedley's own use of it, which I copied, shows, the joke does the opposite: it is wryly critical of tendencies to 'weaponize antisemitism'. The only explanation of that antic contrafactual claim justifying the sanction was haste, the burden of overwork perhaps, and unfamiliarity with the topic (beyond reading talk pages).
- The decision on Oct 24 on the eve of ARBPIA5 meant inadvertently but contextually that despite the dismissal of the barrage of 7 AE complaints launched frivolously my way over the preceeding 14 months, finally there was an ostensible smoking gun: Nishidani, like Jimmy Carter, must have some 'Jewish problem', one that invalidates his presence in the topic area.Nishidani (talk) 18:48, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
Summation Over 12 years, despite scores of AE reports, I was suspended in 2017 for a 1R violation, and suspended in 2019 by Sandstein for a week for calling Icewhiz someone who held extremist views . Five years passed until Barkeep's 3 week suspension. My conclusion is that if groups persist in making scores and scores of AE reports, eventually, even if 99% lead to no action, some fleck of mud will stick and prejudice how my work is read. As an allusive writer almost everything I said on talk pages, if anyone cared to ask me to clarify, reflected a scholarly source (for EladKarmel's 'evidence', lebensraum is Arnold Toynbee from 1955 onwards, as I documented in replying to Mschwartz1's screed; 'religious fascists' is the Israeli sociologist Eva Illouz writing for Le Monde etc).Lack of familiarity with the rich discursive world of scholarship, which thrives beyond the tight-laced corseting of wikispeak and the popular imagination of POV warriors, will continue to plague serious IP work. It didn't help that my prose style and occasional exuberant divagations look to many like 'snotty vainglory' as one plaintiff in the cases put it. It was a form of imaginative relief from the tedium of handling silly stonewalling on talk pages, and a hint to younger editors that reading scholarship can be a lifelong joy that, however much it may strip one of youthful illusions, pays one back with a sense that, in a dark world, individual voices, connected via books and articles, collectively and collegially, help their fellow(wo)men towards that illuminated road we otherwise are brainwashed not to take, even if they themselves will stumble at times while blazing the trail. Cheers and goodbye.Nishidani (talk) 22:18, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
Palestine-Israel articles 5 updates
You are receiving this message because you are on the update list for Palestine-Israel articles 5. The drafters note that the scope of the case was somewhat unclear, and clarify that the scope is The interaction of named parties in the WP:PIA topic area and examination of the WP:AE process that led to two referrals to WP:ARCA
. Because this was unclear, two changes are being made:
First, the Committee will accept submissions for new parties for the next three days, until 23:59, 10 December 2024 (UTC). Anyone who wishes to suggest a party to the case may do so by creating a new section on the evidence talk page, providing a reason with WP:DIFFS as to why the user should be added, and notifying the user. After the three-day period ends, no further submission of parties will be considered except in exceptional circumstances. Because the Committee only hears disputes that have failed to be resolved by the usual means, proposed parties should have been recently taken to AE/AN/ANI, and either not sanctioned, or incompletely sanctioned. If a proposed party has not been taken to AE/AN/ANI, evidence is needed as to why such an attempt would have been ineffective.
Second, the evidence phase has been extended by a week, and will now close at 23:59, 21 December 2024 (UTC). For the Arbitration Committee, HouseBlaster (talk • he/they) 03:20, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
You have been added as a party to Palestine-Israel articles 5
At the direction of the Arbitration Committee, you have been added as a party to Palestine-Israel articles 5. Evidence that you wish the arbitrators to consider should be added to the evidence subpage, at Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Palestine-Israel articles 5/Evidence. Please add your evidence by 23:59, 21 December 2024 (UTC), which is when the evidence phase closes. You can also contribute to the case workshop subpage, Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Palestine-Israel articles 5/Workshop. For a guide to the arbitration process, see Misplaced Pages:Arbitration Committee/Party Guide/Introduction. For the Arbitration Committee, HouseBlaster (talk • he/they) 21:36, 13 December 2024 (UTC)
- I appreciate the courtesy but decline to participate. Still, on reflection, I owe this page a fuller explanation to explain why, and will set out several reasons why, even as a retired wikipedian, re-engaging would be pointless and a waste of everyone's time. A second point is that I do not wish whatever material I may have to cite here furnish matter to be re-cycled against editors there.
- First Reflection
- I have been very diffident about arbcom since, in my permaban of 2009, analysed here, the case for my putative ongoing ‘incivility, personal attacks, and assumptions of bad faith’ included this, which got my account immediately blocked by Jehochman. Several editors within hours complained and his sanction was almost immediately reverted by Bishonen because he had misread the point of my edit. Note that in Jehochman’s defense I immediately added that while wrong, Jehochman’s mistake was understandable.
- One month later, Arbcom, completely ignoring or totally unaware of the fact that Jehochman and Bishonen had annulled the suspension, recognizing it had nothing to do with a personal attack, cited it as core proof of my incivility. It permabanned 5 ‘pro-Palestinian editors’ and 2 ‘pro-Israeli editors’ (not 3: every editor probably knew, as I did, NoCal and User:Canadian Monkey were one and the same person (the stylistic thumbprints and tagteaming were a dead giveaway but at that time I certainly doubted that was sufficient to report the sock), still highly active under other names on wikipedia. My mere 8 reverts over 45 days of the politically explosive ‘Judea and Samaria’ for the default term in international literature ‘West Bank’ consisted of desultory but reasoned restorations of proper text (in terms of thick RS evidence) not some mindlessly mechanical and partisan ‘edit-warring’. Indeed I wrote an extended scholarly article on the whole issue of that naming, which still remains at the top of this talk page. Of course, arbitrators probably, and understandably, did not read it. TLDR, and perhaps to many, looking like a personal divagation, mere 'opinion', irrelevant to evidence, rather than a comprehensive academically orientated background paper to Arbcom's deliberations.
- Within months, the overwhelming evidence for this led to an obvious consensus that ‘West Bank’ was the default neutral term for Misplaced Pages. Had arbitrators any knowledge of the state of the considerable literature on that consensus, they probably would not have taken those rare reverts as indicative of edit-warring. But they are formally under no obligation to read up on the topic and consider that such things are just 'content disputes'). The result was that the I/P area was 'gutted' of most of its regular 'pro-Palestinian' (ugh) editors, with only very minor damage to the editors whose POV invariably favoured a 'pro-Israeli' (ugh) POV. Not malice, just sheer disattention.
- My diffidence is, furthermore, based on principles of method.
- (a)an admin cannot be expected to be familiar with the topic literature (immense in the I/P area);
- (b) no diff elicited in ‘evidence’ can be properly evaluated unless the original thread (often long) in which it is embedded, is read closely. If that is not done exhaustively, the likelihood of small but persistent misreadings of what is apparently going wrong increases exponentially;
- (c) the most common forms of abuse are not verbal incivility but an obstinate refusal by editwarring parties to read the sources while dilating at length on their views about the article, and comments made by others about their equally source-insouciant impressions (WP:IDIDNOTHEARTHAT).
- (e) if an editor fully fluent in the high quality RS literature, (which editors have imposed as an I/P area article sine qua non, thank god), complies with the obligation at WP:Consensus to negotiate in these endemic stonewalling threads by replying to the manifold of vagrant assertions at length, that gets them nowhere except risking a sanction as someone who spiflicates
- (f) If you show and state that a persistently objecting editor doesn’t appear to have read the sources, that will be cited as an WP:NPA attack, something which encourages the practice to continue with impunity. The result is that the way we are obliged to achieve consensus, under these conditions, resolves nothing, but lends itself to AE reports of the serious editors’ incivility per occasional outbursts of frustration. An Arbcom5 review, covering several hundred diffs at a minimum, cannot afford the time to read all of the pages where the implicating diffs are embedded. So everything is reduced to ostensible ‘conduct issues’ in the words contributors used. And that MissManners approach totally disregards what we are supposed to be here for, i.e., not to pass the time opining on an interesting social medium, but to muster the finest available sources in such a way that the global public can trust the high quality of its encyclopedic articles.Nishidani (talk) 14:59, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
- Second Reflection
- Mention has been made that Sandstein banned me from appearing at AE. That has been in effect since June 2019. I may only appear there if I am reported, i.e. to defend myself, but otherwise no. The implication there is that I abused that arbitration process. Since that right is universal in Misplaced Pages, it looks like a very black mark, indicative of some horrendous behavioural trait. It was odd, however. To my memory (I will stand corrected), from the very outset of my wikiwork here I had undertaken to never resort to arbitration by reporting another editor as a means of settling differences. No matter how incomprehensibly stressful a talk page might be, differences must be thrashed out by careful argument on the talk page. I thought I must allow myself no margin for weaponizing AE etc to get at my interlocutors (though I fully understand that this system is indispensable otherwise). This, even though many of them were to relentlessly pursue me there. I was faithful to that decision from 2006 to the time Sandstein banned me in 2019 save for one exception. I reported Galassi in 2016, only because Sandstein himself suggested I do so after warning Galassi that he was breaking his topic ban at Khazars by challenging me and my edits at that page, which I had managed to retrieve from a messy slough of conflicting POV clashes to bring it to its present, close to FA state.
- In short, though often quoted at face value against me, there was no need for Sandstein to deny me the right to make reports to AE because on principle I had denied myself recourse to that instrument before that decision and afterwards. I think what happened is that Sandstein’s way of phrasing his decision created an ambiguity. He did not want me to participate, as a commentator on reports against other editors made by third parties in the IP area, which, from his strictly decontextualizing legalistic perspective (i.e., no interpretations please, only diff data, to be measured strictly against the rule book), quite understandable. But it cancelled in theory, inadvertently, a natural right all other wikipedians have to exercise. The anomaly persists. Any editor or sock can, as they have done repeatedly for 16 years, make reports against me, but I, uniquely, cannot exercise that right in their regard. That, and my own refusal from the outset to use that forum, has given potential harassers a very strong advantage, particularly over the last five years. I'm not troubled by that unique ruling against me. Together with a probable doubling of a permaban, I might even feel somewhat tickled that my work here has been skewered as so 'toxic' (a 'net negative' as one admin insists) that otherwise unexampled measures must be taken against me to bring serenity back to this place, a kind of backhanded honour:) Nishidani (talk) 15:01, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
- Third Reflection
- When the ARCA discussion opened, I noted, while objecting to be sucked into it, that 10 contributors drew dire pictures of utter chaos in the IP area, all of which struck me (impression) as uniformly ill-informed and almost all blaming this putative abusive morass on a small core of highly experienced ‘regular editors’.I’ve been reading that invariable impression by people who rarely if ever engage in editing there, for 15 years. It is one of wikipedia’s clichés. But, reading between the lines, the intimation was that the IP area had been hijacked by ‘pro-Palestinian’ POV pushers. FOARP wrote of these putative POVwarriors as being editors ‘seeking to WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS.’
- Like all acronymic links, this has its uses, but often begs the question. It suggests that the ‘pro-Palestinian’ editors are abusing Misplaced Pages, by trying to twist the known facts in order to secure justice for Palestinians, in civil POV-pushing. If one concedes there might have been a 'great wrong' (i.e. since 1948 at least 3 million Palestinians have lost their land, homes and livelihoods, with 55,000 homes bulldozed in the West Bank alone, as a byblow of the establishment and development of Israel as a homeland for the diaspora), that ‘wrong’ cannot be righted. I have consistently asserted this, advising potential editors not to work in the I/P area if they have succumbed to the naïve notion that such contributions can change the outcome.
- Yet, history is not, contrary to Hermann Göring ’s view, written by the judges among the victors. It is written retrospectively by the descendants of both victors and vanquished. There is a remarkable overlap between Israeli/diaspora and ‘pro-Palestinian’ approaches in the scholarship on this history, reflecting the greater detachment of retrospective learning. A large number of pages where key issues of summary judgement and phrasing are contested reflect the contentions between the abbreviated generalizations of contemporary mainstream media overviews and that shared body of historical research, which lives in a far more complex universe.
- The associated implication, again, that the putative 'pro-Palestinian' 'regulars' (a bad word whose military connotations seem to have slipped past the attention of too many here, vie to wrest control of the narrative, never collaborate, and in editing do so with such violence that they deter new editors, and discomfort 'pro-Israeli' colleagues, is undermined by the fact that whenever a promising new editor, espousing a strong pro-Zionist view, shows care over RS, erudition and a commitment to rational talk page dialogue but still gets into hot water, they have been consistently defended by their ostensible ‘pro-Palestinian’ ‘adversaries’. Suffice it to glance through the AE records of cases involving Arminden (here),Monochrome Monitor here, Bolter here, or what happened at AE in the frequent cases against Davidbena but his importance to the project, given his erudition, has been defended by his so-called POV adversaries to mitigate the severity of sanctions. Nableezy indeed took over the role of mentorship The problem amongthe slandered regular 'core' has never been what POV an editor may entertain, but the potentials for improving the quality of the encyclopedia. I myself even had an informal agreement with Irondome, who mentored ‘pro-Israeli’ editors aspiring to work in the IP area, to help him out to that end. All this is lost from view in simplistic snippety diff histories, as is the fact that reciprocal gestures of this kind seem unexampled among editors identified with the other POV, with the outstanding exception of Irondome, who stepped in to defend me at just one more frivolous AE report in 2016 –the year I was so repeatedly reverted over numerous pages by several mostly tagteaming editors that I was close to throwing in the towel. Nishidani (talk) 18:21, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
- Fourth Reflection
- Tryptofish insisted I be listed at ARBPIA5 as a problematic editor, and this proposal was accepted. There is a long story behind this which goes back to strong differences of opinion that emerged between us when I rewrote the article Zionism, race and genetics that had been put up, when a stub, for immediate deletion.
- People upset at the article dealt almost exclusively with a phrase or two in the lead, or the title. Almost all objecting editors showed themselves wholly indifferent to the extensive scholarship underpinning that article. Andrevan and Tryptofish in particular vigorously argued that genetics and race should be removed from the title (which I didn’t invent), and were successful, following standard procedures, and now we have ‘Racial conceptions of Jewish identity in Zionism.’ It was renamed but the title remains a glaring misnomer: that article has nothing to do with the very broad concept of ‘racial conceptions of Jewish identity’ : it is narrowly focused on the scholarly documentation of how early Zionist ideas about race later inflected quite a bit of Israeli research on Jewish origins, a subject intensively analysed over the last two decades by Israeli scholars. The fact that half of the article is about traces of the earlier thinking about a 'Jewish race' in Israeli genetic studies has been buried from sight by its elision from the original title. Between the lines, I think one editor at least, sincerely believed that the scientific discipline nof genetics was being unfairly 'tainted' by the original title, however strong the academic evidence for this might have been.
- In that discussion for the proposed name change discussion the breakdown of the main editors’ comments is
- Andrevan 59 comments
- Tryptofish 45
- Nishidani 27
- The same two editors, each took me to AE subsequently, and now participate in the evidence section at ARBPIA5, where I was not listed. Tryptofish in particular insisted I be included. His argument is that I appear to suggest that their views coincided throughout an extenuating thread of sheer argufying in which there is little evidence of their displaying any familiarity with the topic’s literature. Much of this irrationality (my view) appears to be linked to a common perception that I am pushing an ‘anti-Israel’ POV ‘agenda’. That particular abused phrase, in operative terms, means that an editor focused on the culture,history and experiences of the 7 million Palestinians who constitute the demographic other half of the IP area must by that very fact, with its core concern for international law, be hostile to the state of Israel, and half at least one foot in the antisemitic cesspit for that spurious insinuation. Throwing that 'anti-Israel agenda' slogan around functions only if one accepts the presmise that Palestinians don't 'signify', as the 19th century idiom has it.Nishidani (talk) 17:21, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
- That diff shows no such thing. It reveals on my talk page an acute and troubled sense, shared with an Israeli and based on scholarship, that Israel’s systemic political choices, in the name of Jews, half of whom live by choice in a diaspora, will exacerbate common perceptions that Israel and Jewry are synonyms, and what is done by the former will be blamed on the latter, and feed anti-Semitism. All these careful discriminations are lost when editors persist in thinking that criticism of actions taken by an occupying power of territory outside Israel against a people militarily occupied for 57 years, are read as delegitimizing Israel proper. This blurring of precise conceptual distinctions is inscribed in the politics of language vigorously promoted in attempts to get the (notoriously unworkable) Working definition of antisemitism translated into many legal systems, so that work in various media, Misplaced Pages included, to document human rights abuses, can be spun as intrinsically anti-Semitic, if Israel is mentioned. In the IP area, Israel is not the focus, but Israel's occupying policies in the Palestinian territories. There are two subjects - an occupying power acting outside of its recognized borders and an occupied people both of whose rationales must be represented with equal weight per NPOV. It is an uncomfortable topic, but must be covered whatever the intense, intimidating pressures may be, also here, to 'normalise' this as a struggle by a democracy against terrorism, or as a result of resistance to the unilateral right of one people to self-determination, whatever the expense may be to the rights to self-determination of people in the other half of the equation may be.
- Tryptofish challenged the suggestion of something that looks close to tagteaming, by citing one diff, from a combined 104, where he disagreed with Andrevan. Note that Andre and I did not always agree with one another
- He had evidently forgotten that he originally voted for deletion of the article on the grounds it violated WP:Synth (aside from the absurd claim that it ‘promoted antisemitic pseudoscholarship’ which, when asked for diffs, he couldn’t corroborate.
- Evidence makes a huge issue of POV inconsistency. There is merit in examining this, but, over a manifold of pages across years, it is not hard for even the most self-aware editor to slip up. POV-pushing is said to be where double standards are evident. That doesn’t worry me overly. You can point it out on talk pages without harassing the editor by an immediate AE report. A real problem emerges only when the POV-pushing editor repeatedly returns to his notion despite being reminded it is incoherent. All one gets are further recycling, at length, of arguments already disposed of, often at tedious length when the simple solution is to admit one's fallability. I'll give but one example related to the aftermath of the Zionism, race and genetics page dispute.
- At Zionism, Andre removed material by the (Palestinian) anthropologist Nadia Abu El Haj on the grounds that an anthropologist cannot be RS on a point of Jewish genetic origins because ‘she is not a geneticist.’
- At Racial conceptions of Jewish identity in Zionism he introduces here the Israel historian Anita Shapira’s view that genetic studies confirm a Jewish view that they all have common Middle Eastern roots. Shapira is not a geneticist. A scholar without specific qualifications in genetics can therefore comment on that topic is she is Israeli, but not if she is Palestinian.
- A year earlier he made much of Abu-Haj being Palestinian (invalidating her scholarship) and imputed that she was a political activist, and possibly therefore associated with antisemitism.here,here, here and here, to cite just a handful. Cf my comment.
- There is no evidence for that contention or its anti-Semitic insinuation. The whole thread on the exchanges in those two days has to be read to be believed for its WP:Stonewalling and aspersions about the competence of a Palestinian anthropologist. A year later, this ‘resolved’ issue is still be exhumed with the same intensity of argufying on numerous pages, at Zionism, and on the Arbpia5 workshop page,where he is still worrying this dead and buried non-issue, by arguing insistentloy in the thread that, (unlike Shapira) her presence as a reliable source is an instance/proof of some putative bias, and pressing still to get her removed. The assumption, I assume, is that he is above some POV 'fray' whereas on his own record he has here himself a decided POV, to exclude a scholar because of her ethnicity. Sigh.
- I raise this here, after the Evidence page has closed, because I do not want to be involved there and have no interest in providing diff evidence that might embarrass or complicate the wikilives of other colleagues. Apart from socks, no differences among regular contributors on talk pages should lead to AE actions except in exceptional circumstances. Nishidani (talk) 15:10, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
- That's a very long thank you but I decline! Far far longer than mine :-) Are you sure you wouldn't fit in with them? 😀 NadVolum (talk) 15:42, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
- It strikes me as self-evident that participating in a case when three admins had determined, by totally misreading one diff, that I was either a spreader of antisemitic hate (leeky cauldron) or a weaponizing purveyor of antisemitism (SFR and Barkeep)- all being, with good cause, highly respected-would be pointless. There is no logic in imagining a punishable distinction between
- Sir Stephen Sedley telling a non-sectarian global audience a joke underscoring Jewish awareness that antisemitism can be weaponized, and
- Nishidani reminding one English editor on wikipedia of that same joke, a joke underscoring Jewish awareness that antisemitism can be weaponized
- Since the propositional values in the two statements are identical, either Sedley was also being 'inflammatory' by weaponizing antisemitism, or I was, like the distinguished English jurist, trying to bring to the discussion the same illuminating reminder that Jews themselves take care to not weaponize antisemitic accusations. Being inadvertently but objectively smeared on the eve of ARBPIA5 with that insinuation by a sanction blotting a record that shows just two minor infringements since 2017 spells the end of my wikiwork. We peons are held to the highest standards in the IP area, a standard, unfortunately here, which those who govern us don't have to live up to on those rare occasions where an indisputable error of judgment occurs .Nishidani (talk) 18:15, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
- Fifth Reflection
- It strikes me as self-evident that participating in a case when three admins had determined, by totally misreading one diff, that I was either a spreader of antisemitic hate (leeky cauldron) or a weaponizing purveyor of antisemitism (SFR and Barkeep)- all being, with good cause, highly respected-would be pointless. There is no logic in imagining a punishable distinction between
- That's a very long thank you but I decline! Far far longer than mine :-) Are you sure you wouldn't fit in with them? 😀 NadVolum (talk) 15:42, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
- Going back to Foarp's suggestion that the editors may not use wikipedia to right great wrongs, a wiki issue often and invariably cited exclusively to skewer any edit or editor who may take an interest in the Palestinian realities in the IP equation, more or less following the example of that noted 'person with a Jewish problem', sigh Jimmy Carter. Following up from this note the following reflection is perhaps due.
- An official Israeli perception is that over recent times, despite intensive efforts to win over the hearts and minds of the world, hasbara has failed to achieve any such goal. To the contrary, there has been a distinct deterioration in its image across the globe (a 'great wrong'). To remedy this failure, the Israeli government has just made a dramatic increase in one budgetry provision, allotting $150 million, a 20-fold increase in its normal hasbara outlay, with the aim of influencing world opinion, through diplomatic and legal actions, intervention on American colleage campuses and on social media. (Asaf Elia-Shalev, Israel has spent millions trying win hearts and minds abroad. It’s about to spend 20 times more, The Forward 28 December 2024
- The Ma’ariv report cites the official Israeli government announcement that calls part of this initiative ‘cognitive warfare’(התודעה לוחמת lochamet hatoda 'a), lit. ‘consciousness warfare’ (Anna Barsky, here Maariv 24 November 2024)
'funds were also allocated to an organization called National Vision, which was set up by Likud MK Ariel Kallner – and is currently being run by other Likud activists. The funding was designed to highlight the Israeli government’s narrative on the English Misplaced Pages.'Uri Blau, ‘A Failure by Every Conceivable Parameter’: The Government’s Campaign Against the Global Delegitimization of Israel, Shomrim:The Center for Media and Democracy 31 October 2024
- Of course, as in the past, none of this will have the slightest impact on wikipedia, the one social medium which, we must confidently infer, that government scrupulously avoids meddling with. Nishidani (talk) 15:55, 30 December 2024 (UTC)
Proposed decision of Palestine-Israel articles 5 posted
Hi Nishidani, in the open Palestine-Israel articles 5 arbitration case, a remedy or finding of fact has been proposed which relates to you. Please review this decision and draw the arbitrators' attention to any relevant material or statements. Comments may be brought to the attention of the committee on the proposed decision talk page. For a guide to the proposed decision, see Misplaced Pages:Arbitration Committee/Party Guide/Proposed decision. For the Arbitration Committee, HouseBlaster (talk • he/they) 21:00, 11 January 2025 (UTC)
- Interesting. Of 11 editors named as the major culprits deemed responsible for the perceived toxically problematical area, 3 are usually identified with a pro-Israeli position, one of whom is an underperforming, more or less, throw-away account. The rest are the notorious 'regulars' usually if haplessly identified as 'pro-Palestinian'. So 80% of the core problem is implicitly traced back to the latter group. Statistically, this vindicates what scores of hasbara sites have complained of with urgent intensity over the past year.Nishidani (talk) 00:29, 12 January 2025 (UTC)