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Allegations of Israeli apartheid

Allegations_of_Israeli_apartheid (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

Of the previous four Afd’s, two were by sockpuppet accounts. The most recent nomination contained next to no arguments by an inexperienced editor and was judged as keep. The remaining afd was closed as keep due to the nomination being out of process, despite delete votes outnumbering keeps. As per Misplaced Pages:Guide to deletion I am renominating this article for further discussion.

Our aim is to explain complicated issues in an encyclopedic manner whilst attempting to be as neutral as possible. By having a page that discusses the Israeli-Palestine situation which is “Allegations of apartheid”, are we approaching that goal, or are we moving away from it? Are we creating a POV and content fork that aims to channel sentiment towards a certain conclusion that does not comply with the goals of a neutral encyclopedia. Does this title alone immediately distort analysis of a complex issue, and hence distort the content of the article itself making it inherently unencyclopedic and POV?

This article and other “apartheid” articles are nearly a year old. They have carried POV templates for much of their duration and have been in permanent dispute. Collectively the articles have been disputed by countless users – the majority in fact - from all corners of wikipedia and all political persuasions. Does this imply that wikipedia is succeeding in dealing with these topics in a satisfactory manner? Or does it show that these pages have failed to meet the aims of their creators and a change is necessary?

Some of the arguments presented in the past to keep these apartheid articles are that they are sourced, However we could source anything from Allegations that the U.S. is a fascist state to Allegations that Venezuela is an emerging Communist dictatorship to Allegations that Belgium is boring. So that doesn’t wash. See...

• Allegations that the U.S. is a fascist state
• Allegations that Guantanemo Bay is a gulag
• Allegations that Iraq was a Stalinist state
• Allegations that Venezuela is an emerging Communist dictatorship
• Allegations that Belguim is boring
• Allegations that the Catholic Church were nazi collaborators
• Allegations that Britain is a totalitarian state
• Allegations that Russia is a dictatorship
• Allegations that Bolivia is a totalitarian dictatorship

All of these articles could be as well sourced and as legitimate as Allegations of Israeli Apartheid.

Some of the arguments presented elsewhere have stated that this article is written with a balanced view in mind. Nearly a year of POV tags, heated disputes and numerous complaints from users from all corners of wikipedia tells a different story. People might argue that as it is a controversial topic - it will inevitably draw POV tags. But that should be a sign that we should redress our approach to these topics - not blunder on regardless with articles in disarray. When topics are under dispute - we should work hard to find solutions to these problems, not become entrenched in block votes and partisan game playing. As far as I can see, the game is up.

Solution: This article should be deleted. It is notable and important that we detail this issue which is that people refer to Israeli policies regarding Palestinians as “apartheid”. But there are neutral pages already created which can (and on some occasions do) detail and address this. They include;

• Israeli-Palestinian conflict
• Israeli West Bank barrier
• Human rights in Israel

At present I believe the structure of this article inherently fails WP:NPOV, and there is no solution other than to delete. The problems with this and other articles are not going to go away until this happens. -- Zleitzen 17:16, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

• Comment The most recent AFD was closed as keep on 4 April 2007, barely two weeks ago. I don't agree with the contention that poorly worded or otherwise dubious nominations imply somehow that WP:AFD has been unable to give this article a fair hearing. -- Kendrick7 18:21, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment I do. The nomination was generic - was applied to a number of disperate articles and made virtually no arguments for the deletion of this article. Events surrounding afds since April 4 on other apartheid articles means that it is time to reevaluate.-- Zleitzen 18:32, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
    • Comment Well, it's becoming a distraction. I only noticed earlier today that 20% of the reliable sources have been disappeared from the article in the past month, apparently due to the actions of some rather clever vandal. With editors actively trying to make the article less encyclopedic on one hand, and others nominating it for deletion for being unencyclopedic on the other, it's getting difficult to actually maintain the article. -- Kendrick7 18:53, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
      • I agree with Zleitzen. Speaking as someone who has now "voted" three times to delete the article in question (not counting this page, where I haven't voted yet, and the second nomination which was open for less than 40 minutes and was never seen by me or most of the other "involved" editors before it was shut down), I think the procedural irregularities involving the first four nominations have deprived the proposal to delete this article of having a fair hearing. The first nom was by the guy who started the article, under a fake name, only a few days after he created the article; the second was over almost before it began; the third was shut down improperly, in my opinion, with (as Zleitzen says) a majority in favor. The fourth was oddly written and was based on policies that did not really capture the issue, and was doomed because most people thought it was the fourth nomination, which it really wasn't because the three previous were not legitimate. I fear that this one will meet the same end, as it will be labeled the "fifth" nomination. I am afraid that Misplaced Pages is probably stuck with this awful article. 6SJ7 23:19, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. These are notable allegations; a Nobel Peace Prize winner wrote a book with an accusation of Israeli apartheid in the title. If they were merged, then either important information would be omitted, or the allegations would be such a large portion of the article as to represent undue weight. And I do think sourced, NPOV articles could be written on many of the subjects mentioned by the nominator as an intended reducio ad absurdum. Crotalus horridus (TALK • CONTRIBS) 00:00, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
  • The details of the nobel prize winner's views are already detailed here in this standard article in a fashion that does not appear to be undue weight. So there isn't really a need for them to be forked into a problematic POV article here.-- Zleitzen 00:11, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Actually, Crotalus was referring to the other Nobel Prize winner. But the subject of this article is neither Tutu's views or Carter's, but the thread that runs through them both and that is detailed in neither's article(s). Andyvphil 15:00, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

• Strong Keep. By its very existence this article is going to prove problematic, however as the above editor points out, by deleting the article Misplaced Pages is stating an equally WP:NPOV position. Sources: BBC Jerusalem Post Salon.com and that's in a short persual of the available sources. EliminatorJR 00:17, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Is removing a POV/content fork stating a POV position?(which I presume is what you meant) And as written above, we could source Allegations that Belgium is boring using the BBC , etc if we need to. The fact that an article is sourced does not mean it meets core policies.-- Zleitzen 00:26, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
    • I'd agree with you if this was a pure POV fork, but I believe that it is sourced sufficiently independently that it isn't. EliminatorJR 00:59, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
      • That's not really the point though is it. Allegations that the Iraq war is a disaster could be independently sourced to the highest level, using numerous reliable sources and counter reliable sources that discuss whether the war is a disaster, but it would still be a POV fork from Iraq War by its leading title.-- Zleitzen 01:45, 20 April 2007 (UTC) .
• Keep and a few of the hypothetical articles mentioned might also make appropriate WP articles. The one on Belgium, for example, seems to be a notable cultural theme being used consciously as a stereotype. DGG 05:58, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
• Keep, the allegations exist, and have been made by some very prominent people. The previous AfD was barely two weeks ago, this is getting tiresome. --Ezeu 10:13, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. When a mainstream newspaper writes "UN accuses Israel of apartheid" (), then the allegations are clearly notable, whether they are true or not. Sjakkalle (Check!) 14:05, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

The reasons for nominating are not to dispute whether anything is true or not. It is to dispute whether this was an unneccessary content/POV fork that has damaged wikipedia. It obviously has. I have never edited a single article related to Israel, but when my routine edits to make Tourism in Cuba a good article began to be reverted because of this article - then there is a problem. The problem is that this a POV fork that has set a precedent for a plethora of damaging articles that isolate and slant an issue. From Misplaced Pages:Neutral point of view : "A POV fork is an attempt to evade NPOV policy by creating a new article about a certain subject that is already treated in an article, often to avoid or highlight negative or positive viewpoints or facts."-- Zleitzen 14:29, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

I looked at the three articles you claimed this was a POV fork of, and I am not convinced. The Human Rights article discusses human rights in general, not just the condition of the Palestinians, and the "apartheid" section is only a paragraph long, citing this as the main article. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict article is more of a historical article. The barrier article is about a specific structure. None of those articles covers what this article covers. As for POV, a NPOV dispute is not a reason to delete the full article, even though the debate can be vigorous and heated. I see a "criticism" section here which tries to being some balance in the article, and the whole thing is remarkably well-sourced. Sjakkalle (Check!) 14:42, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

The reason why you are not finding details covered here in those article is because its already been forked to this article. Unfork it back to encyclopedic articles, delete this article, and end its impact on scores of articles throughout the site - which have taken the precedent that any allegations can be forked to their own article - and have only resulted in what someone above described as "tiresome distractions". -- Zleitzen 15:33, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

• Delete, Zleitzen makes a very good case on how the very existence of the article is POV and unencyclopedic, and additionally gives an excellent recourse for distributing legitimate sourced info in an NPOV way in more neutral pages. --MPerel 17:11, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
• Keep per Crotalus horridusRaveenS 17:24, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

• Keep I think there is a problem with Wiki policy when articles can just keep getting put up for deletion every couple of weeks. People who are implacably opposed to the existence of an article can just keep trying until they finally get lucky and manage to get a majority. I think an article should not be able to be nominated for deletion more than once in, say, six months. This nomination seems particularly gratuitous given that an AFD on the "allegations of apartheid" page, which is much less noteworthy, was just defeated by a 2 to 1 majority. Gatoclass 18:51, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
  • The majority of keep votes on that article were made by Israel focussed editors who object to this article - but wish to retain balance by having the other article(s). So in this weird game that has evolved since the unfortunate creation of these allegations articles - and the clearly dubious shenanigans that have surrounded the previous two or three apartheid afd's - it is worth testing the waters again to see where consensus has shifted, which can change in the few weeks. The conspicuous absence here of Israeli focussed editors who have fought tooth and nail to delete this article is of note. And there is obviously a problem with wiki-policy when coordinated blocks of editors can swoop in or out of afd and unrelated merge debates based on strategies to affect the outcome of this article. As I've stated in the past, this isn't going to end until a satisfactory outcome is found that doesn't impact on unrelated non-Israeli articles - and as this article appears to be the locus of the problem, a solution needs to be found here.-- Zleitzen 21:06, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
    • What "coordinated blocks of editors" do you refer to, and when did they happen? Could it be that those "Israeli focussed editors" have accepted the consensus evident in previous AFDs? --Ezeu 21:24, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
      • Essentially, "consensus" has broken down and been subverted on most of these afds. Whether the Israeli focussed editors have or haven't accepted whatever consensus you believe was present before - swooping in en masse to oppose unrelated merges and deletions of material referring to Latin America on the basis of their acceptance of decisions made on this article helps no one. Something is broken. And if people don't realise that it's broken or think that it isn't a problem, then perhaps they should borrow my watchlist of over 4000 articles. Then perhaps they'd realise how many topics and articles have changed in the year since this article was created, and what a bad precedent this has set. Vote to fix this damage to wikipedia. Not to compound it.-- Zleitzen 21:44, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
        • Well said. The continued existence of this article is an embarrassment...it makes Misplaced Pages look more like a propaganda fest rather than an encyclopedia, and it promotes the creation of other articles like it. --MPerel 22:17, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
• Keep, this is an issue well-discussed in the media and elsewhere (see all the sources above). —Ashley Y 22:13, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
• Obvious Keep The existance of this article shouldn't preclude covering anything in Zleitzen's Cuban Tourism article or elsewhere. If bad decisions have been made to that effect (give me a diff, Z) he needs to find some way to address that directly, because this process isn't going to do it for him. And he's wasting our time. Andyvphil 22:55, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

There is no more direct way to address this problem than to call for the deletion of the article that created it. And having had more time wasted on this farce than most whilst researching and writing another article I hoped to raise to featured article status, I don't plan to waste anymore working on articles that are impacted by this article until this business is resolved. Interfering with editors' efforts to improve other articles is the real waste of time. You ask for diffs? Start your research here, and here's another "consensus" decision that looks more like a Cold war era UN vote than a genuine debate.-- Zleitzen 01:08, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

What you've cited is failed attempts to delete articles. What I asked for was some evidence that your "efforts to improve" Tourism in Cuba had been adversely affected. In the cites the worst I see you alleging is a denied direct redirect. Andyvphil 11:43, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

When you've been around long enough, and worked on enough articles to try and bring them to a half decent standard, you'll realise that people coming out of nowhere to revert routine edits and changing the context of material to suit some unrelated issue concerning a completely different country, then it is not helpful, and is disruptive. My goal here is to improve Caribbean and Cuban articles for readers. If I can't do that without an unrelated dispute concerning Israel having a bearing, and without a bunch of Israeli focussed editors swooping in to dictate merges and content based on something to do with this article, then there is a problem. Likewise issues concerning race in Brazil. If a proper debate on content cannot be had without it being part of a strategic game concerning this article, there is a problem. And it needs to be solved. - Zleitzen 18:44, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, at least these are diffs, but they don't support your point. Looks like Jayjg came to your article to fix a link broken by a rename and thought the article should have an inline link from the paragraphs that cover "tourist apartheid" to the article covering the subject in greater detail, rather than just a note in "see also" at the bottom. So he added it, using the often confusing (and therefor inappropriate) "main" template. You had a bit of back-and-forth about whether or how to do it, and in the end he got the current "Further information:" inline cite rather than "Main article:". A very modist tiff, and the result looks right to me. Only your amour propre as "owner" of the article was damaged, not the article itself. I assure you that the resulting campaign more closely resembles Don Quixote's than Agamemnon's... your snowball melted long ago and your delusional quest is just wasting everyone else's time. And yours. Andyvphil 13:10, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

I haven't revisited Allegations of apartheid in Cuba since the early phases of what had once been a blantant WP:POINT but the more I look at it this is a form of apartheid, i.e. a government enforce separation of two populations so the government can maintain its regime. It seems to go beyond the classic description of Club Med: a holiday in other people's misery. -- Kendrick7 20:33, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Well that is what the fork suggests, however the situation is far more complex than that. Your conclusion illustrates how unsatisfactory these articles are explaining complex issues. They deny context and isolate situations from their structural causes resulting in a POV distortion. In situations like Cuba and Israel, where distortions for political reasons already complicate any representations, we should tread even more carefully.-- Zleitzen 23:23, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

• Strong Keep Too many reliable sources. Why keep Allegations of Cuban, Brazilian and Saudi Arabian Apartheid? Has Desmond Tutu commented on those? The attempt to delete this article is a disgrace to Zionist editors that are a part of it.Kritt 04:25, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
• Strong Keep Read anything written by reporters who have the courage to live in Arab villages in Israel (Jeremy Cook among others) instead of those that never leave their hotel rooms in Tel-Aviv, have papers delivered to their doorstep and simply rephrase them. Lixy 17:58, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
• Speedy Keep Why are we going through this for the fifth time? --John Nagle 22:37, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
• Delete for whatever it's worth, per nom and per my comments the last few times, and many of my comments on the talk page. If I had to boil it down to one sentence, the problem is that the article is inherently POV and its purpose is to have an attack on Israel in the title of an article. Zleitzen is correct that this allegation can be handled in other articles. It does not need its own article. 6SJ7 23:24, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
• Move to Political status of the Palestinian people as suggested by Fred Bauder half an eternity ago, and rewrite to address questions other than "Is it apartheid or isn't it?". I don't think this article is currently a POV fork, but it is question-framing fork. Per Zleitzen, "our aim is to explain complicated issues in an encyclopedic manner whilst attempting to be as neutral as possible." Kla'quot 04:09, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Political status of the Palestinian people is fine if it is about Politics of Palestine. This article is about the Apartheidish nature of Israeli politics. --Ezeu 05:00, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Zleitzen, I sympathize with some of your concerns. Some folks here probably think that the "allegations of Israeli apartheid" should stay because it documents an important and notable critique of Israeli policies toward Palestinians. As shown in a recent analysis I did of article bias though, far from doing so, the page is so one-sided as to read almost like an advertisement for Israeli tolerance and high-mindedness.

It's for that reason apart from any other that I've sometimes thought deletion would be the best course. The problem though, is that doing so effectively reinforces bad behaviour. If editors are to be rewarded for petulantly sabotaging articles they don't like, or by creating multiple examples of WP:POINT, where does it stop? After "Allegations of Israeli apartheid", which page will be targeted by such tactics next?

What I'm saying is that I think there's an issue of principle here. If the allegations themselves are notable enough to warrant their own page - and in this case I believe they are - then one cannot agree to deletion just because some editors apparently can't restrain their desire to try and undermine it. Gatoclass 05:51, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Hello Gatoclass. I haven't followed the discussions on the talk page of the Israel article. But I have no doubt that there has been an element of WP:IDONTLIKEIT about proceedings since the creation of this article. However, I imagine that the concerns of many people including the Israel focussed editors is that this is simply too complex a situation to be framed simply by the rhetorical pejorative itself.

In this round of debates (4-5 I think), there have been several interesting suggestions, concepts and ideas thrown around. Although I have lambasted the original creators of this article elsewhere, and continue to take a dim view of the WP:POINT activities that have sprung up in its wake, the motives behind each of these acts is understandable in a certain light. Even if they have resulted in this unsatisfactory scenario. The people above who are complaining about this afd wasting time are missing the point of the debate and discussion process, and the concept of gauging the mood of involved parties. There has been much food for thought on how to proceed. The over-riding conclusion, of course, is that we do have to proceed. -- Zleitzen 06:47, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

That's an insightful comment, Gatoclass. AfD, whether for one article or all articles at once, does not address user conduct issues. RfC is a better venue for curbing the WP:POINT problem. To the pro-Israel editors I'll say this: We have a series of one-sided articles which make other countries such as Brazil and Cuba look as heavily criticized and apartheid-ish as possible, while great efforts have been made to downplay the analogy as applied to Israel. This is, for any reader smart enough to see what's happening, actually bad PR for Israel. Kla'quot 06:49, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Whatsmore, as noted in previous debates, the volume of available media which will analyse or counter the credibility of these claims about Israel far outweighs that of poorer nations. Meaning that in some cases, there is no possible way to find reliable sources to counter various random, speculative, propagandistic comparisons to apartheid. So whilst Israel editors were able to draw from a deep well to add to the article described above, an editor attempting balance on (say) Latin American subjects is scrambling around in the dark with a broken article that cannot be improved or balanced.-- Zleitzen 15:29, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

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