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A fact from Palestinian expulsion from Lydda and Ramle appeared on Misplaced Pages's Main Page in the Did you know column on 2 May 2009 (check views). A record of the entry may be seen at Misplaced Pages:Recent additions/2009/May.

• Talk:Exodus from Lydda and Ramla/Archive 1, April 29–May 17, 2009

Pov issues

I don't mind the tag.

We need to remove it at some point if we want to keep improving the page, so I'd like to see the remaining issues identified. SlimVirgin 07:22, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

For remaining pov-issues, I think we should :

• check if some material from the article of Sela is not controversed (I am not at ease with the way the section about the Arab Legion involvment sounds - I don't like information coming from what happened in April mixed with the picture of the situation in July... If we do so, we could discuss also about Hassan Salameh... - ...)
• pass the full article into review and see if we could not remove some material about "details" per wp:undue...

Ceedjee (talk) 07:15, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Check to see if the Kadish/Sela material is contradicted elsewhere?

Regarding mixing April with July, that's how they write it, and it's written with direct reference to Lydda, so there's no SYN. That's all we can do really: repeated what the RS's say about Lydda, and if they go back to April (in a direct way), then so must we, I think.

You asked if I had a copy of the article. Is there something specific you'd like me to check? SlimVirgin 07:22, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

I didn't say what you did was not translating Kadish/Sela. That sounds logical. But Gelber writes in his book that "Kadish tried to prove that...". It sounds to me as if he doesn't consider this article as valuable. But I don't know.

I think we should check Kadish/Sela version fits what other historians say before it is given an important weight in the article.

For my personnal culture, I would like to read this article. I don't have access to Jstor. There is another one from Sela I would like to read where he answers to Shlaim about the Yishuv-Jordanian relation. That one seems more appreciated. Even Shlaim refers to it... Ceedjee (talk) 07:32, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

I've e-mailed you regarding the above. SlimVirgin 07:38, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

• I had removed but it has been put back in the lead : "expulsions orders... were intended to avert a long-term Arab threat to Tel Aviv". I don't think it is correct. Operation Dani had that intention but not the expulsion. Even if Gilbert writes that, we should find another source to corroborate. Ceedjee (talk) 07:32, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Writing from memory, the sources do say that -- that the point was not to leave a hostile population where it could be a long-term threat. Will add a source that says it explicitly. SlimVirgin 07:38, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Ok. In fact Kadish/Sela and Morris refer to each other but I didn't find answer. Gelber seems to agree with Kadish/Sela to state that the expulsion was not premedited and he disagrees with Morris conclusion that Ben Gurion issued the order. On the other side, he doesn't follow Kadish/Sela for the story of the two mosques. I found no reference from PAlestinian historians to the massacre of POW It seems to me they talk about civilians. Only Morris talk about POW's and Kadish/Sela talk about militiamen (but they don't say where they came from...). It seems to me that all sources agree that civilians were killed (in huge number) in the streets and so the claim of Kadish/Sela should not be that there was no massacre but that there was no massacre ... Anyway, I think the article is ok the way it is currently. Ceedjee (talk) 14:49, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Arab invasion

There is controversy (mainly in wikipedia) about the way to describe the "actions" of the Arab States on 15 May 1948.
I think :

• "Four of the neighboring Arab states opposed to the partition plan—Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon and Syria—immediately entered Palestine.

is not correct. It is too pro-Arab (and false by the way) : Lebanon didn't enter Palestine and Jordan is "forgotten". Maybe we could discuss this once for all and try to find a good and neutral wording ?

• "Neighboring Arab states entered Palestine and fought the Israelis" (may sound pro-Palestinian for those who don't know that Palestine is a geographical concept)
• "Neighboring Arab states invaded Palestine" (to paraphrase Gelber)
• "Neighboring Arab states intervened in the fights" (to take into account their official motivation was to rescue the Palestinians and get rid of the word "Palestine"
• "Neighboring Arab states intervened in the fights and some tried to invade Israel"
• "Neighboring Arab states intervened in the fights and attacked the Israeli forces"
• ...

Ceedjee (talk) 07:07, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

GA review ?

It seems to me the article is ready for a GA review... Ceedjee (talk) 07:21, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't think it's quite ready, but feel free to nominate it if you wish, because by the time it will be reviewed we'll probably make lots of improvements. IMO, we should first get all the raw information possible from sources, then work on the structure, style and formatting issues (which, again IMO, are seriously lacking in this article). Cheers, Ynhockey 15:12, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Images

It appears that there are now too many images in the article, many of them completely irrelevant. For example, IMO there are too many pictures of individuals—yes, they had a part to play in the exodus, but including their portraits does not help a reader understand the article. Ben-Gurion's portrait might be relevant to the article, but ironically, it's the only one not present.

In addition, there are too many nearly-identical views of Lydda and Ramla. We don't need more than one. I support having the original LoC image in the lead section (if someone's willing to restore it, more power to them), and the panoramic view of Ramla in one of the first sections. The newly-added low-resolution "rooftop views" and the airport picture are not relevant to the lead section, or too low-quality. —Ynhockey 17:13, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Ben-Gurion's image is in the Expulsion section. I disagree that there are too many images. They help break up the text for the reader, which matters with a long article like this. I also like the new views of Lydda that were added recently. What was the original LoC image? SlimVirgin 17:16, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

This is the first image added to the lead section, it's reasonably high-quality, much better than the other ones, and displays the same thing. Moreover, the article doesn't need to look like this or be this long (purely in terms of height). Many small paragraphs should be merged, and information relevant purely to Operation Danny should be moved to the main article. The background also has tons of irrelevant information. We don't need to explainm all the details of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War—that's what the main article (which is well-written, and has its own background section) is for. Here is an example of what I think it should look like (again, there should be a separate section for Operation Danny linking to the main article).

While I made a lot of edits to this article, they were all minor, so I'm coming to the article mostly as a reader, and to be honest, reading this article is excruciating. It needs to be reorganized, and that would entail making it much smaller (in terms of height) which would make it more obvious that there are too many images. —Ynhockey 17:41, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

You think it should be shorter? By how much roughly, as a percentage of text? SlimVirgin 17:48, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

IMO, the background section needs to be approximately cut in half. As for the rest of the article—not entirely sure, it needs to be examined more closely. Have you noticed that practically every sentence in some sections begins with "Moris writes that...", "Kadish and Sela write that...", etc.? Can't we state the undisputed facts and remove half of the viewpoints held only by a single historian? If the views are notable, they should be grouped, e.g. Morris argues that X, while Kadish and Sela argue that Y. No need to create a new paragraph or section for every opinion. —Ynhockey 18:05, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

A few points: first, could you direct me to an article with a similar number of words that's written and formatted the way you like? That would give me an idea of where you're coming from.

Second, I think it's important in contentious areas like this to use in-text attribution. You're right that views can be grouped together eventually, and I've been constantly doing that -- adding content, rewriting it, reformatting, moving sections. In about two weeks, we've gone from start class, to C class, to B class, so we're heading in the right direction. But there are still views to add.

Third, in terms of moving material to Operation Danny, I think we need to be careful not to view this too much through the lens of an Israeli historical narrative. To say that material doesn't belong here because it belongs in Operation Danny is to attribute too much centrality to the Israeli lens. We can't look at the world via Israeli military operations. It's true that much of our text comes from Israeli historians, but that's only because the Palestinians kept few or no records, and the Arab states won't open theirs. The details of who had what fighting force and what they did with it; of the fighting on day one; of the 250 deaths on day two -- these are all directly relevant to the exodus. I see no clear way of separating them, and no reason to either.

There are basically two kinds of articles on Misplaced Pages: articles that any interested person would be happy to sit down and read from start to finish; and articles that constitute online research resources. I see this as the latter. It is going to be long and detailed. I see no way round that, given the complexity of the story. SlimVirgin 18:30, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I also meant to ask: can you give a couple of examples of viewpoints you would remove (views held only by a single historian), so that I get an idea of what you mean? SlimVirgin 18:34, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

1) Don't really have anything in mind off the top of my head, but the closest example of such a similarly-sized article is 1948 Arab–Israeli War, which, although I haven't read it in a year at least (it has been changed a lot), still appears to be well-written and engaging. There are WikiLinks in the right places, and it has just the right amount of detail for an article of its scope. An article of similar scope to this one is Battle of Nitzanim (which I mostly wrote), but it's not as large, and I still have quite a bit to add to it when I have time.

2) I wasn't criticizing your work on the article. In fact, you and Ceedjee have done an excellent job in a very short period of time. However, this is also an indication that the article is moving too fast. Personally, I am not able to follow all the edits and I'm sure many others cannot either. Therefore, I support (as mentioned somewhere above) to first dump all the content and sources into the article, and then work on structure/style. What I mostly oppose is turning the article into a quote farm which is indeed a dump of all the possible information without any structure or coherence.

3) I'll work on it, and provide specific examples, once it's clear that all the content is in, in line with the above principles.

4) As I understand it, we are trying to get this article featured eventually, which means it will have to become interesting to read, I see no way round that :)

5) I'm talking in general about paragraphs, sections, and individual passages. For example, the section "Numbers of residents and refugees", could be turned into not such a large paragraph. The two existing ones can be merged, and Munayyer's quote should be converted to reported speech and trimmed. Indeed this is one example of what I'm talking about, and Munayyer isn't an historian, and I am not sure of the notability of this particular quote. It's important to describe the situation, but we can do it better in less words and less direct quoting. AFAIK Munayyer's account is not disputed, so a qualification + direct quote is not necessary in that respect either.

Another one is Spiro Munayyer writes that, at noon, there was suddenly a "crescendo of bullets and explosions in all parts of the city"; people started "running helter-skelter, screaming with fear." This is the definition of quotefarming, and appears to simply be a sensationalist direct quote, instead of neutral reported speech.

Sorry for picking on Munayyer like that, and there are many more examples. It would take as much time finding and describing them as it would simply fixing them. When you tell me that the content is all "in", and we can work on the structure/style, I will make some changes and we can discuss them. —Ynhockey 19:57, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

In fact, SlimVirgin did all the work alone ! I just tried to follow what was done and could not...

I don't agree with your last comment about " sensationalist direct quote" to avoid and that we should only use "neutral reported speech". NPoV means reporting all point of views, not writing without emotion. The Palestinian historiography focuses often on emotion and it is a point of view as valuable as others.

Concerning the material in the article, I think everything is inside. Ceedjee (talk) 20:21, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps a little more on the ensuing political crisis and loss of prestige for Britain would be appropriate. The scale of the looting and value of the land appropriated is also interesting. In 1949 Segev speaks of 1800 truck loads of loot from Ramla alone. In late 1948 the Israeli government estimated the extent of "abandoned property" in Lydda and Ramla at 59 million m of urban land and buildings worth roughly £P6.5 million (c. US$26 million) (Fischbach, Records of Dispossession. Ian Pitchford (talk) 20:44, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

I added the material from Segev in the "Aftermath" section. I don't have the other source. Ceedjee (talk) 16:53, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Title

Does anyone mind if I move this to 1948 Palestinian Exodus from Lydda and Ramla? SlimVirgin 19:32, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

I support simply Exodus from Lydda and Ramla. What is the reason for elaborating it like that? —Ynhockey 20:02, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Ynhockey athough I am not entirely opposed to longer and more descriptive titles given that all of the possible shorter titles can be made into redirect. Ian Pitchford (talk) 20:08, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

I personnaly prefer the first one because it is easier to understand what it talks about. It sounds also that it is more a part of the 1948 Palestinian exodus than of the history of Lydda and Ramle.

But I have no objection against the other one.

Ceedjee (talk) 20:25, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

As two of you prefer the shorter title, and Ceedjee has no objection (and nor do I), I'll move it to Exodus from Lydda and Ramla. SlimVirgin 22:31, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

• I'd briefly like to outline my pleasure at what seems to be some peace and stability settling on this article. Of late, from what I can see, there has been no revert wars, POV pushing, or whatnot. Keep it up, all. AGK 18:10, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Operation Danny

It has already been suggested by others and at the time, I was to keep this but now I wonder if we should not move some material relative to the Operation Danny (read Dani ;-) to the main article. I don't think that most of the information in this section are relevant for the topic : exodus for Lydda and Ramle. It seems to me that it is enough to point out :

• the strategic importance of the area
• the presence of inhabitants and refugees
• in 3 lines, the order of battle

What do you think about that ? Ceedjee (talk) 06:13, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree. We every have a guideline for this kind of stuff. There's no reason to withhold information about Operation Danny here, but it shouldn't be elaborate; that's why there's a main article. —Ynhockey 18:33, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

We have very little about Danny here -- unless you're thinking of the the section about Israel's military preparations. I'd be against moving that, because it's clearly relevant to what happened in Lydda that 150 soldiers and a local militia on one side faced 8,000 soldiers on the other. SlimVirgin 19:53, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree 150 vs 8000 is relevant but nothing else. We could just keep the main points. Ceedjee (talk) 20:20, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Map

A precise map would be welcome to, because it is not easy to understand the sentences that talk about Lydda airport, Ben Shemen, "from East to West" etc... I can try to make one. Ceedjee (talk) 06:17, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

I actually wanted to create a map, and also re-draw the battle fronts map, but to be honest it's not high on my priority list. A high-quality map takes a long time to make. Maybe some other time; although I can probably expand this map to include more of the locations mentioned in the article. —Ynhockey 19:25, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

I think I have a good one. I work on this (in English). Ceedjee (talk) 20:21, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

I have expanded the previous map to include most of the mentioned locations (except in the Jerusalem corridor). --Ynhockey 21:12, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Historiography

On wp:fr, it is not possible to get GA of FA status for an article dealing with an historical topic without developing the historiographical section. It is not always easy when the material lacks. I thinks we should try to look for this.

• In his book A History of the Israeli Army published in 1972, Zeev Schiff wrote that : " was the IDF's largest offensive operation and it led to the taking of Lydda airport. Some 50,000 Arab inhabitants or Lydda, Ramle, and neighboring towns fled the region, this time without the Israelis preventing them or suggesting that they remain."

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Ceedjee (talk • contribs)

Netanel Lorch, Aryeh Yitzaki and Jeuda Wallach (ed.) in Carta's Atlas of Israel (1978), vol. 2, p. 42 on Operation Danny (partial translation of relevant part):

• In the morning of July 12, Ramla surrendered to the forces of Kiryati. The Arab Legion renewed their attempts to penetrate the ring surrounding . A platoon of AFVs penetrated Lod and opened fire on Yiftah: the citizens rebelled and a fierce battle developed on the streets. Quickly the armored vehicles left and the rebellion was subdued with a strong hand. The Arabs who violated the terms of the surrender and feared reprisals, preferred to leave the city and reach the lines of the Legion. At the night of July 12–13, the Legion unit in the Lod police station retreated, and on the following day, the evacuation of the residents of Lod and Ramla was completed.

--Ynhockey 18:45, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Background section

I think we need to keep this short. Brief summary of what the conflict is about; brief summary that such a thing as Operation Danny existed and what it was. Then in the next section describe the situation in Lydda and Ramla itself and who was preparing to attack and defend it. SlimVirgin 19:37, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, with regard to the latter Lydda and Ramla were loyal to the Nashashibis, the long-term rivals of the Husseinis, and were terrorised to some extent by pro-Husseini militia. I'll locate the references later this week. Ian Pitchford (talk) 20:15, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Are you sure ? Hassan Salameh was a man of the Mufti.Ceedjee (talk) 20:19, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Excellent, thank you. SlimVirgin 20:18, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

My mind is quite opposite. For my point of view, the background of the exodus of Lydda refers to the first 7 sections of this article (from background to refugees taking operation Danny).
I think the first 7 sections must be summarized and most of the material sent in the main articles...
Maybe we could list all that we consider important to see what can be kept... Ceedjee (talk) 20:26, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Then perhaps we still have the wrong title. As I see it, this is about all the events that led up to the exodus, the events that caused the exodus. We can't write about the exodus meaningfully with explaining what caused it. We need to include the material that historians include when they write about it. If we split it into difference articles, readers will lose the sense of that.

We don't, for example, have most of the information about the invasion of Kuwait in an article about whatever the name of Saddam's operation for it was. SlimVirgin 20:32, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree. This is, and should remain, a comprehensive article on causes, events and consequences. In fact, it's already the best summary of what happended and the most detailed guide to the sources I've seen. The only things lacking are some details about the background in Lydda and Ramle (Glubb's tour, clan loyalties, military preparedness, impact of the fall of Haifa on the elite etc) and the extent of the impact on the British authorities, who saw the subsequent protests and riots as seriously damaging to the standing of the British Empire in the Middle East. Any other tweaks should be for style and readability. Ian Pitchford (talk) 20:43, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

The fall of Jaffa had an impact on the morale but the morale had no impact on the expulsions...

I don't see the link between the Glubb's tour and clan loyalties with the exodus ?

I am really concerned by the readability. The core of the topic (the exodus composaed of the massacre - the expulsion - the march to Ramallah) comes very late in the article...

Ceedjee (talk) 21:00, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree but I wonder if we don't have too many useless details in these 7 sections.

We could get rid of the "strategic importance of the cities" and 95% of "the Israeli and Palestinian preparations" and just state that 5 brigades (for a total of 8000 men) supported by artillery and bombing planes opposed to a 150 Arab Legion soldiers and a -I don't remember how many- militiamen. We could also summarize much the "Arab Legion" involvment in stating that Glubb kept his forces at Latrun and on the hills because he feared to be trapped in the plain and to lose Latrun, Jerusalem and the whole Cisjordan. All in all, that is one paragraph in the background...

Ceedjee (talk) 20:41, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment: Regarding the original statement: I believe that actually the defenses of Lydda/Ramla and similar information is precisely what belongs in Operation Danny and not here. This is why I proposed two main (tier 1, ==) sections—one talking about the general background of the conflict and the war, and the other about Operation Danny, which should basically be a summary of Operation Danny. —Ynhockey 21:14, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

P.S. IMO, putting too much information here that actually belongs in Operation Danny would make this article a POVFORK and COATRACK by definition, and that's the opposite of what we want. I believe that we should be working on the Operation Danny article in conjunction with this one, instead of separately. —Ynhockey 21:16, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

I dispute that that information belongs in Operation Danny. What belongs there is an analysis of the operation itself: command structure, who was who, why and when set up. But the real-world consequences of it, they belong in their own articles. We can't hand ownership of the narrative to the Israel Defense Forces, which I think we would do by allowing the name of one of their operations to become our umbrella term. If you want to think of it in terms of summary style, we should have an article on Lydda-Ramla, and another on the attacks on Latrun-Ramallah (together or separately depending on what happened) and then, in summary style, a brief section explaining that there was this thing called Operation Danny. In that article, we can then explain about command structure etc. But Danny is part of what happened in Lydda-Ramla-Latrun etc, not the other way round. SlimVirgin 21:25, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

We can rename the article Operation Danny if it bothers you that much. I don't see how it's giving "ownership of the narrative" to anyone though, as every serious historian calls it Operation Danny (or Dani ;)). And here's where I complete disagree with you—the expulsions in Lydda and Ramla are indeed only a small (but painful) part of Operation Danny, Dani, Larlar, Battle of Lydda–Ramla–Latrun, or whatever you want to call it. This seems obvious to me, simply because Operation Danny encompasses the entirety of the Exodus from Lydda and Ramla, while also being relevant to battles in Latrun and over a dozen unrelated villages. The operation was huge and had its own ad-hoc headquarters; the capture and evacuation of Lydda and Ramla was only one of its several objectives. —Ynhockey 21:36, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Perspective

Yan, a question: do you think most of the information in Invasion of Kuwait should be moved to an article about whatever name Saddam Hussein gave the operation? If not, why not, and what do you see as the difference here? SlimVirgin 21:38, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

As much as I'd love to know the name that Saddam Hussein gave the operation, there's a guideline for this, it's called Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions. Among other things, it says: Generally, article naming should prefer what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature.

Seems pretty clear to me. Is there another name for Operation Danny/Dani? If so, I'd like to know, because I've been researching this for years and have never heard of one. But as I said in the above post (maybe you missed it), I don't care about the name of the other article. What I care about is that this article does not become a POVFORK and/or COATRACK, discussing something well outside of its scope. —Ynhockey 22:00, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure you're taking the point. It's not about what most English speakers would recognize. My guess is that most English speakers have heard of neither Operation Danny nor the conquest of Lydda. It's a question of looking at the event from the point of view of all involved, or from the perspective of the world, if you like, and not from that of the Israeli military. The eyewitnesses don't say, "I was part of Operation Danny."

Another analogy. There were recently G20 protests in London. There was a police operation mounted to deal with it, Operation Glencoe. We don't write about the protests under the title of the operation. Rather, we have an article about the protests, 2009 G-20 London summit protests, and a subsection of that talks about Operation Glencoe.

What I'm saying is that we can't look at the world through the lens of various police and military operations. Those operations are just part of the events -- whether a small part, as in the case of Glencoe, or a determining part, as in the case of Saddam's operation to invade Kuwait, they are always just one perspective. SlimVirgin 22:11, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

From the above comment it is clear to me that indeed you are not "taking the point". To use your analogy, Operation Glenco happenned because of the riots, and the Exodus of Lydda and Ramla happenned because of Operation Danny, not the other way around. Had the IDF not captured Lydda and Ramla, the expulsions would not have happenned. And for the third time, please don't nitpick about the name of the other article, currently called Operation Danny. I don't care if it's renamed to something that you would consider more neutral. The point still stands, however, that these expulsions were part of an operation to capture a large area in central Israel/Palestine, not the other way around. —Ynhockey 22:20, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, you're right about which way round it happened. But the invasion of Kuwait happened because of Saddam Hussein, and we wouldn't dream of naming that article after his operation, no matter how well known it became. Please do take that point. We cannot write about Lydda and Ramla through the lens of the military operation of some particular group or state. What happened was that Israel invaded Lydda and Ramla. We can call this article "Invasion of Lydda and Ramla," or "Fall of Lydda and Ramla," or "Exodus from Lydda and Ramla," but we must include the entire context, including the military and political context, per the FA rules and per NPOV. (I haven't commented on the title of the Operation Danny article -- perhaps you're mixing me up with someone else.)

If I stop commenting now, it's only because the more time I spend on talk, the less I can spend reading and writing, and there are still quite a few sources to add to the article. SlimVirgin 22:34, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm not mixing anyone up—you claim that the problem is the name of the article Operation Danny, because we "wouldn't dream of naming article" after Saddam's operation, so why should we name an article Operation Danny? So my answer to you is, we don't have to. Pick another name for the article Operation Danny, if you wish, so we can write about the exodus of Lydda and Ramla in the context of a larger battle/operation. —Ynhockey 22:53, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

I didn't say that. You misunderstood me. We should name an article about Operation Danny, Operation Danny. We should not view any other article through that lens. We have political and military context in this article because we need it to make sense of what happened in Lydda and Ramla -- not because it is or isn't connected to Operation Danny. I am making a point about perspective, about the creation of narrative, about historiography. SlimVirgin 22:58, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Interestingly, there doesn't seem to be a problem with handing ownership of the narrative to another party with "Lydda death march" both in bold in the first line of the lead, and as a redirect. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 21:45, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

To anyone else who doesn't understand my comments above, I'll outline Operation Danny (or whatever one wants to call it):

1. Planning: Conception of Operation Larlar (Lod–Ramla–Latrun–Ramallah) to relieve the road to Jerusalem; eventual rename to Operation Danny
2. Phase 1.1: Surrounding Lydda and Ramla, including attacks on Salbit, Anaba, Jimzu (south) and Rantiya, Qula, Tira, etc. (north).
3. Phase 1.2: Capture of the strategic Lydda Airport and Yehudiya
4. Phase 1.3: Capture of Lydda and Ramla
5. Phase 1.4: Evacuation/expulsion of civilian population therein (Exodus from Lydda and Ramla)
6. Reorganization and change of plans, removal of attack on Ramallah from plans
7. Phase 2.1: Capture of Suba, Sara'a, and other villages in the Jerusalem corridor
8. Phase 2.2: Attacks on al-Burj and other villages north of Latrun, failed attacked on Latrun itself

—Ynhockey 22:11, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

That sounds good for me (for the Operation Danny article).

Take care the attack on Salbit in phase 1.1 failed. I would add some words about the "strange situation" (my pov) of Ben Shemen, "delivered" on 10 July.

There are also all the operations performed south of the Burma road at the end of the campaign in order.

Ceedjee (talk) 06:11, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

I've reduced the Danny paragraph and moved it into the section describing Israeli attitudes toward the cities (where Ben-Gurion calls them "two thorns"). Operation Danny is a "see also " link at the top of that subsection, per summary style. Hope this helps. SlimVirgin 06:28, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien

I cannot translate this in English. The idea is that "seeking for the best is the ennemy of getting something good."
Would a solutions for all concerns (readability - material of Danny in the main articles - all causes must be given in detailed) to adopt a structure of the type of the one of 1948 Palestinian exodus...
We give the facts (with a small background) and only after we give the causes, the consequences, the controversies, the historiography, the commemoration, ... Ceedjee (talk) 21:06, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

We can't really do that here, because we need to explain the sense in which it was an expulsion as opposed to fleeing -- which is the key issue in Lydda -- and which parts of the fleeing verus expulsion took place when, and that people from Lydda were being prevented from leaving earlier, but not people from Ramla -- and, and, and. It would be incredibly difficult to reverse the order and maintain a flowing narrative.

Also, this article isn't just about the expulsions. It is also about the massacre allegations, and the mosque, and the resettling afterwards, and general political consequences. It needs to be dealt with chronologically. SlimVirgin 04:39, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

I think it is more a way each of us structure the way he writes and like reading.

Personnaly, I like to have access to the global perspective and then, one by one, go into details.

My idea is that the reader cannot understand the importance of small nuances before he is aware of the core issues.

Due to that and my poor memory, I usually read books two times. A first to get the global perspective and a second time to understand the arguments of the author and to understand his reasonning (or his agenda) in the core of the article.

But never mind. Let's go on with a chronological approach (that is rationale) but with care.

(NB: my mind is still that this article is excellent !). Ceedjee (talk) 06:27, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Once the article is "finished" (in terms of FA or whatever we decide to go for), we could perhaps then go back and see if we can add a summary section at the beginning, though I'm not sure they're approved of at FA -- but maybe we could work something out to give the reader a "heads up," as it were. I do agree that nuances are hard to pick up without an overview. SlimVirgin 06:49, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Karsh

I've removed this, in part because the Prior stuff is from very early on, before we'd developed what happened in Ramla, and partly because it's not clear what Karsh means:

Michael Prior writes that a similar expulsion order was issued for Ramla. Israeli historians between the 1950s and 1970s tried to differentiate it from Lydda, he writes, with Morris writing that Ramla residents, "were happy at the possibility given them of evacuating." In a letter to Commentary magazine, historian Efraim Karsh writes that the population of Lydda was forced out by the IDF after a battle, but that there were no expulsions from Ramla.

Karsh says there were no expulsions from Ramla, though we know there was an expulsion order. He says in his letter to the editor that he has developed this in another Commentary article, but I found that article, and he didn't develop it. I've therefore e-mailed him to ask whether he elaborates elsewhere. In the meantime, it looks too odd to leave it in. SlimVirgin 20:04, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. Ceedjee (talk) 20:33, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Agreed as well. Out of curiosity - what do the others say? Jaakobou 21:23, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

FA criteria

As the goal is to reach FA, here are the criteria:

1. It is—

• (a) well-written: its prose is engaging, even brilliant, and of a professional standard;
• (b) comprehensive: it neglects no major facts or details and places the subject in context;
• (c) well-researched: it is characterized by a thorough and representative survey of relevant literature on the topic. Claims are verifiable against high-quality reliable sources and are supported with citations; this requires a "References" section in which sources are listed, complemented by inline citations where appropriate;
• (d) neutral: it presents views fairly and without bias; and
• (e) stable: it is not subject to ongoing edit wars and its content does not change significantly from day to day, except in response to the featured article process.

2. It follows the style guidelines, including the provision of:

• (a) a lead—a concise lead section that summarizes the topic and prepares the reader for the detail in the subsequent sections;
• (b) appropriate structure—a system of hierarchical section headings and a substantial but not overwhelming table of contents; and
• (c) consistent citations—where required by Criterion 1c, consistently formatted inline citations using either footnotes () or Harvard referencing (Smith 2007, p. 1) (see citing sources for suggestions on formatting references; for articles with footnotes, the meta:cite format is recommended).

3. Images. It has images that follow the image use policies and other media where appropriate, with succinct captions and acceptable copyright status. Non-free images or media must satisfy the criteria.

4. Length. It stays focused on the main topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).

As the reliable sources on the issue have to be more-or-less exhausted, we have a way to go. :-) SlimVirgin 21:34, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

The old finger pointing debate

Sorry for bringing this up again but I got a bit busy and also wanted to give the page a chance to settle down into a more collaborative atmosphere. Jaakobou 21:53, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

In general, I disagree with the usage of "signed by Yitzhak Rabin and issued by David Ben-Gurion or Yigal Allon" in the first paragraph. This seems to go too deeply into details and, for example, I would not expect to see Amin al-Husayni's name on the lead to 1929 Hebron massacre or Hafez al-Assad on the lead of the Hama Massacre or Hussein bin Talal for the Black September in Jordan lead. Jaakobou 21:54, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Sorry for the late reply. I tend to agree with the above. Some compromise can be made about Rabin, who undisputably signed the document, but there shouldn't be any mention of the other two, because it is not even known which of them (if any) was responsible for the order. We should not be carrying over the historiographical debate into the lead paragraph. —Ynhockey 18:05, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

I tend to agree. I would add that I am still convinced that this sentence is false : "The expulsion orders (...) were intended to avert a long-term Arab threat to Tel Aviv,"

Only that part is right : "and thwart an Arab Legion advance by clogging the roads with refugees, according to the Israeli army".

Operation Dani had the purpose of "avert a long-term Arab threat to Tel-Aviv" but certainly not the "expulsion order".

Benny Morris reports indeed that Yigal Alon claimed the second part.

Ceedjee (talk) 07:23, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Historiography section

Hi Ceedjee, you were saying earlier that we might need a historiography section if we want to go to FAC. What kind of thing did you have in mind? I was thinking of a section saying when this material had come to light; maybe something about disputes between the main historians about how to view it (a battle or ethnic cleansing); who is using which sources i.e. Palestinian oral history versus IDF files. Was that the kind of thing you were thinking of?

It's a question of finding good sources who discuss these issues. SlimVirgin 04:33, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree with you, both for what concerns the topics to develop there and the material to gather. They key issue is to find wp:rs sources that discuss this and I am not sure we will find such an article about Lydda...

I see additionnaly the controversy about the "uprising". When I read the Palestinian version it sounds to me they want to underline they tried to resist... (?).

Some pists :

For the Jordanian historiography, there is an article of Sela that deals with that and there is the book of Avi Shlaim (ed), Palestine 1948... Behing the myths. I check.

For the Israeli historiography, there the current debate and we may just give the former version with both excerpts reported here above (by Ynhockey and I).

For the Palestinian historiography, I don't know. Maybe Saleh Abd al-Jawad or some French scholars Nadine Picadou, Henry Laurens (historian)... There is also the publications of the IPS.

I can check for Shlaim and the French scholars... al-Jawad is on google books.

Ceedjee (talk) 05:59, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

I think we've covered the uprising issue with Golan and Sela, and we write that Morris says both sides wanted to call it an uprising for different reasons. I also want to add some more Munayyer as a firsthand account, and he may shed some light on the uprising issue, as he was involved in Lydda's defence.

Thanks for the reading tips -- they are very helpful! SlimVirgin 06:30, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Harvard refs

Just a point about the Harvard refs we use in the footnotes. These are normally written "Smith 2008, p. 1," without parentheses around the year when in a footnote; though we would write "Smith (2008) argues that ..." when it's part of a sentence. See Parenthetical referencing. Not that it matters a great deal so long as we're consistent. SlimVirgin 16:00, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Hi SV! The parenthetical reference is not that important to me (although I do believe it's cleaner and easier to understand in some cases), but I'd prefer it if all editors paid attention to proper XHTML syntax (although it's not technically required for refs):

<ref name="the_name"></ref>
<ref name="the_name" />

Not:

<ref name=the_name></ref>
<ref name=the_name/>

Or variations thereof. Also the consistency in page marks, i.e. "pp. 270–271", not "pp.270-1" (or variations); the 3 points are: the space between the "p." and the number, the dash, which should be an en dash, and the numbering, which I personally don't care about, but on Misplaced Pages it's generally accepted to write the full numbers. —Ynhockey 17:55, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

More notes about style:

1. We should decide whether to use "en dash en dash" (the flowers – the ones over there – are red), or "em dashem dash" (the flowers—the ones over there—are red). I prefer the latter.
2. In addition to the above, please use the unicode dash characters (– and —) and not the HTML shortcuts (– and —) if possible. —Ynhockey 18:00, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Okay, will try to remember, though two things: I'll almost certainly forget to put "" around refs, and it seems to make no difference to leave them off; and I can't see to do an m-dash with my keyboard, so I'll still have to to write it out. I agree that em dash is preferable to en dash, and I think they require it at FA, and without spaces, just as you wrote it above.

Also, could we leave the images at fixed sizes, please? They keep being changed, with some ending up too small and some too large, and now the two map images have disappeared for some reason. :-) SlimVirgin 20:13, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

There's a panel below your edit boxes which has both dashes, so you can copy&paste or click (requires JavaScript). About the images, again, it's a requirement at FAC to have scalable images, and any images not in the two standard sizes (regular and upright) are generally frowned upon even if they are scalable (e.g. upright=2). There's no reason whatsoever to have any image in a non-standard size. —Ynhockey 21:41, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean. When I last took part in an MoS discussion about this, most editors there opposed not allowing image sizes to be fixed, and pointed out that most FAs have fixed image sizes. That was about a year ago. I've not looked since then. When they're not fixed, the image sizes depend on the browser. On my browser, some of the faces grew larger, and the images of Lydda were tiny. It looked odd. SlimVirgin 02:26, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Background section

I'm wondering about this:

The protagonists did not take equal advantage of the truce. Although they were all under an arms embargo, the Israelis managed to obtain heavy weapons from the Eastern bloc and reinforced their army. As a result, Israel was in a belligerent mood. The day before the end of the first truce, the Egyptians launched an offensive, hoping to catch the IDF off guard, and on July 9, Israel launched three offensives, one of which was Operation Danny.

I'm wondering about the point of the equal advantage sentence, or mentioning the belligerent mood -- and the ref is to Morris 2008, p. 273, but I can't see anything there about that. Also not sure of the point of mentioning the Egyptians, and then "and on July 9, Israel launched ..." was not connected to the Egyptian attack, but we make it sound as though it was. SlimVirgin 16:12, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

The ref. is Morris (2008), pp.267(last paragraph)-269.

The problem is more the "As a result", then the "belligerant mood". The idea is to remind that Israeli wanted to attack.

For what concerns Egypt, they broke the truce. But it may be considered not relevant.

Ceedjee (talk) 18:08, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Maps 2

Ceedjee recently drew a very good map of the front lines, although I had some concerns, so I also drew a map. Please offer your opinions.

—Ynhockey 20:49, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

• You are right concerning the map I drew (some mistakes must be corrected + another symbol for cities + Safarand camp must be positionned). I would add the railway should be added; some villages should be added.
• I think on yours, the size of the road should be modified in function of their importance. Some lack on the east (Arab Legion counter-attacked from there). Burma road is not there. Indicating the direction of Tel-Aviv, Ramallah and Jerusalem would be better. The scale is needed.
• Both maps lack an important matter : the hills on the east should be indicated.
• Note that on my map, the green circles that are not filled don't refer to "Palestinian villages" but refer to Palestinian village that were depopulated. (See Latrun and Deir Aiyub).

Ceedjee (talk) 06:53, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

I found the data for the relief. It will just take time to take care of this. But I wonder if we should not widden the view. A "fair" map should go south to Ashdud and the Egyptian line front and to the West up to Tel-Aviv and Jaffa. Showing alos the swamps that existed all along the coast at that time. What do you think ? Ceedjee (talk) 07:19, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

1. Schiff, Zeev, A History of the Israeli Army, McMillan Publishing Company, 1972, p.40.
2. Prior, 1999, p. 206.
3. Karsh, Efraim. Israel’s Founding, Commentary, September 2008.
4. Smith 2007, p. 1.

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