| Revision as of 21:00, 2 February 2007 editJayjg (talk | contribs)Autopatrolled, Administrators134,922 edits →Break← Previous edit | Latest revision as of 19:52, 23 December 2024 edit undoYr Enw (talk | contribs)Extended confirmed users1,249 edits →Changing wording: ReplyTag: Reply | ||
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| == Questions about reverts == | |||
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| OK, there are some things I should probably have raised here before adding the material from the EU report, but I'd like to raise the issues now, post-reverting. | |||
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| == Evaluating authors == | |||
| 1) I don't think it's appropriate to quote the US State Department reporting what the EU is saying when the full texts of the EU reports are available on-line. The most recent EU report is nuanced differently from the State Department report. I believe I summarised it quite fairly but probably more detail could be added. | |||
| I don't know quite where this belongs, but there are factions in the American political landscape who are pro-Isreal but antisemitic. That has become increasingly clear since 2016. | |||
| 2) the EU's Working Definition offers clear criteria to establish a borderline between legitimate criticism of the Israeli government and anti-Semitism masquerading as criticism. If that isn't relevant to the question of whether criticism of Israel is necessarily anti-Semitic, then I don't really see what is. It's been put back under "Responses", but while the investigation of the issue by the EU is a Response (to real incidents, to their discussion in the media, possibly not to the emergence of New antisemitism as a "concept" though), the Working Definition is more than just a Response; it is an important contribution to the definition of contemporary anti-Semitism and deserves a more prominent place in the article. | |||
| In general writing intelligently about claims of new Antisemitism requires look at several factors, e.g., | |||
| 3) quoting the Working Definition's criteria without the concluding statement - that criticism of Israel on the same basis as criticism of any other government is legitimate - does not adequately represent the position of the EU report authors, and thus could be regarded as selective quotation.] 21:12, 22 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| #Does the author investigate adverse claims or just take them as true | |||
| #Does the author apply the same standards as used for other countries | |||
| #Does the author distinguish among, e.g., Israel, Israeli citizens, Jews? | |||
| #Does the author put events in context? | |||
| Discussing any of these potentially runs afoul of ]. -- ] (]) 14:35, 11 December 2023 (UTC) | |||
| :"pro-Isreal but antisemitic" I do not see much of a contradiction here. Supporting Israel for political reasons does not equate to supporting Jews or supporting the rights of Jewish minorities in various countries. In the last few years, I have encountered Greek ] voters who support an alliance with Israel (against Turkey), but have no problem blaming Jews for every social or economic problem faced by the entire world. ] (]) 23:45, 25 January 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :Their response to the new outbreaks of antisemitism and the scholarly work on new antisemitism was to produce a new working definition of what counts as antisemitism. That's one of the reasons it's in the responses section; the other reason is that that section is devoted to area-specific responses. Your edit pointlessly split up the EU response. | |||
| ::You two need to read these articles: | |||
| ::https://www.jpost.com/opinion/terra-incongnita-everyone-i-hate-is-hitler-dangerous-politicization-of-antisemitism-473188 | |||
| ::https://www.commentary.org/articles/robert-wistrich/the-new-war-against-the-jews/ | |||
| ::https://www.jpost.com/blogs/the-warped-mirror/from-al-jazeera-to-columbia-university-joseph-massads-obsession-with-israel-364634 | |||
| ::https://brandeiscenter.com/ali-abunimahs-orwellian-definition-of-anti-semitism/ | |||
| ::The idea that "there are factions in the American political landscape who are pro-Isreal but antisemitic" doesn't hold ground, let alone "has become increasingly clear since 2016". Your anecdote doesn't prove otherwise. Wake up! ] (]) 01:55, 15 April 2024 (UTC) | |||
| == Time Magazine cover story == | |||
| :As for the working definition, we quote it. You want to add material that is not part of the working definition. | |||
| The words "The New Antisemitism" appear in large letters on the cover of the March 11, 2024 issue of Time Magazine... ] (]) 15:34, 6 March 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :By the way, I haven't yet checked that you've correctly quoted the sources. All I did was move the material into the appropriate section. ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> 21:19, 22 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| == Lede == | |||
| ::I believe that the final sentence is part of the (draft) Working Definition. Although not bullet-pointed it is an essential part of the distinction that the EU authors make. As you can probably see, its inclusion or omission alters the whole tenor of the paragraph. Unless you have further arguments to make, which of course I would be pleased to listen to, we seem to be at stalemate on this and I think it may be appropriate to put out an RfC.] 21:47, 22 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| One of the two key citations for "critics" is the David Hirsh piece that repeatedly refers to the use of antisemitism accusations as a weapon. As such I would suggest it's not controversial to mention "weaponization" in the lede. That's what the RS says. ] (]) 18:13, 26 April 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :::If the authors of the report had wanted it to be part of the definition, they'd have included it in the bullet points. Listen to this very carefully, please: no one, and I do mean '''no one''', argues that criticism of Israel is, in and of itself, antisemitism. In fact, one of the examples given of the new antisemitism is that political activists on the left and far right keep raising this as a strawman argument to make Jews/Zionists/Israelis look ridiculous. So please stop implying that it might be so by including edits that suggest it needs to be refuted, and please don't decide on behalf of the European Union which sentences in their reports they really ought to have bulleted, and thank heavens we're around to correct them. They include in their definition that criticism of Israel that involves double standards ''is'' an example of antisemitism, which implies that criticism of Israel that ''doesn't'' involve double standards ''isn't'', so what you're trying to add is anyway repetitive. ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> 22:17, 22 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :I think perhaps a better balance can be struck by making it more explicit this is a ''belief'' rather than a “concept” (as the lede currently states, and unduly reifies it) ] (]) 05:29, 9 May 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ::::''If the authors of the report had wanted it to be part of the definition, they'd have included it in the bullet points.'' With respect, Slim, this argument doesn't make any sense. We're not compelled to leave a critical aspect of the Working Definition out of the article, merely because it wasn't included in the EU's bullet summary. If the passage is a important as Judith believes (and I'm not taking a position on this matter), it should be returned. | |||
| == Changing wording == | |||
| ::::... and I can't see how referencing the point constitutes a strawman argument, extrapolations notwithstanding. ] 22:58, 22 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :::::Making a weak argument on behalf of your opponents is a ] tactic. Reliable sources which talk about New antisemitism do not assert that "all criticism of Israel is antisemitism", but those who oppose the concept keep raising it anyway as if they do. As for the bullet points, they list the EU's definition. Something that they say is ''not'' antisemitism, of course, cannot be part of a definition of what antisemitism ''is''. That's just simple logic. ]<sup><small><font color="DarkGreen">]</font></small></sup> 23:52, 22 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| As the opening of the article implicitly describes the existence of new antisemitism is factual while in reality its existence is highly debated, maybe the wording should be changed to clarify that it's a proposed idea that may or may not be factual? ] (]) 02:09, 15 July 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::I don't understand this. The EUMC thought it was necessary to make this clarification; how could we decide it's not relevant? It's right there, and directly applicable to the definition and its proper interpretation. | |||
| :I think there's more dispute over the interpretations of the facts than about the actual facts. No informed person of goodwill would deny that some people on the political left hate Jews, but then there are endless ] debates about whether hatred of Jews is "baked in" to certain representative and characteristic forms of leftist doctrine, or whether those forms of leftism must be excluded from the definition of "true" valid leftism, or whether it's a mere personalistic aberration of certain individuals etc. etc. ad nauseam... ] (]) 19:30, 15 July 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::Regarding the general points above, I think many here simply miss the point. This isn't to rebut the definition, but to clarify it. Without it, one simply has no idea exactly what the definition means; the scope is potentially limitless. This vagueness is what drives people nuts, not any explicit claim that criticizing Israel is always antisemitic. That's why an effective definition of this sort has to clarify, "This is what we're getting at, except that we <i>don't</i> mean this," just as it did. Without the general clarification, the definition would need to have been written completely differently. ] 03:51, 24 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::@] The rest of the article still contains plenty of criticism of the concept, it's only the opening sentence that's changed to something that, in my view, has no consensus from reliable sources. The previous opening sentence to me seemed perfectly neutral and factual and the new one just seems like an effort at pushing ]. ] (]) 17:06, 25 July 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ::I think that this issue still deserves more discussion, and I would encourage @], @] and any other interested editor to participate. ] (]) 17:00, 30 July 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :::I have made a suggestion above that the word "belief" might be more appropriate in the lede, to reflect this. ] (]) 19:52, 23 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| == Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 10 October 2024 == | |||
| ::::Slimvirgin: "Listen to this very carefully, please: no one, and I do mean no one, argues that criticism of Israel is, in and of itself, antisemitism." Of course few argues this stance, because it is impossible to make serious arguments for it. However I've seen several people making innuendos in that direction. It is quite clear that accusations of antisemitism has been used against several people whose only "qualification " is critizisism of Israel (plus speculations of "hidden" motivation etc). This is OK so far SV, but you really get rediculous when you now are starting to argue or imply that it may be antisemitic to say that antisemitism-accusations are sometimes used to silence critisism of Israel... Because it makes zionsists etc look rediculous. Come on! ] 09:30, 24 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| {{edit extended-protected|New antisemitism|answered=yes}} | |||
| :::::I didn't say the latter so I don't know where you get that idea from. As for the former, '''no one''' — not "few," but '''no one''' — argues that criticism of Israel is in and of itself antisemitism, and I've never seen anyone serious, or in fact anyone at all, make "innuendos in that direction." Israel is the most self-critical society in the Middle East, as well as one of the most self-critical in the world, and clearly all Israelis can't be cast as antisemites. It's a strawman argument. ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> 19:15, 24 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| The following line need to be removed or reworded as it is highly subjective. | |||
| , typically manifesting itself as ].<ref name="Fastenbauer 2020">{{cite book |author-last=Fastenbauer |author-first=Raimund |year=2020 |editor1-last=Lange |editor1-first=Armin |editor2-last=Mayerhofer |editor2-first=Kerstin |editor3-last=Porat |editor3-first=Dina |editor4-last=Schiffman |editor4-first=Lawrence H. |title=An End to Antisemitism! – Volume 2: Confronting Antisemitism from the Perspectives of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism |chapter=Islamic Antisemitism: Jews in the Qur’an, Reflections of European Antisemitism, Political Anti-Zionism: Common Codes and Differences |location=] and ] |publisher=] |pages=279–300 |doi=10.1515/9783110671773-018 |doi-access=free |isbn=9783110671773}}</ref>{{rp|296–297}} ] (]) 00:55, 10 October 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::"I didn't say the latter so I don't know where you get that idea from." What did I not understand? I got it from this sentence: "In fact, one of the examples given of the new antisemitism is that political activists on the left and far right keep raising this as a strawman argument to make Jews/Zionists/Israelis look ridiculous." ] 08:29, 25 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :it seems ok to me. why do you object to it? ] (]) 06:06, 10 October 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :This is a tough one. The source doesn't actually talk about "new antisemitism" or describe it as anti-Zionist. Instead, it's referring to its own concept of "new anti-Zionist antisemitism", and it's unclear whether this is the same thing. ] (]) 02:54, 22 October 2024 (UTC) | |||
| {{notdone}} Marking edit request as completed due to no consensus. -] (]) 10:49, 11 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::Everybody knows that every critic can't be an antisemite, but the whole question a definition like this is trying to resolve is who <i>are</i> the antisemites, and how can you tell? That's the vexing question. When the definition says, essentially, "An antisemite is something more than this but less than this," you can't just cut off the second part. If not for its relevance, after all, why else did they say it? ] 19:49, 24 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| {{reflist-talk}} | |||
| :::::::The EU working definition is listed in bulleted points. We repeat what they are. No commentary is needed. ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> 20:29, 24 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| It's not in the bullet points but completes the bullet points to make the whole definition. Otherwise, why did the UK parliamentary inquiry include this sentence when they quoted the definition? They obviously thought it was relevant and so should we. As for "no-one" says that all criticism of Israel is antisemitic, well I would agree that no-one who was seriously engaged in the debate would make such an argument. But it surfaces, for example, in letters to the newspapers. It can easily be shown that this idea is frequently referred to. It may well be a straw man argument but it is one that sources engage with. If they are misguided in doing so, then that is their problem. It is not up to us to define the terms of the debate, only to reflect it.] 21:20, 24 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :Also, isn't the source cited here actually the wrong one? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the correct one is here . As it makes clear, the working definition isn't limited to the bullet points, but in fact is reflected in the entire document. The relevant part then provides five examples of potential antisemitism and one counter-example (of course, you wouldn't bullet a single point anyway). Is this a matter of space, or what? With all due respect, the EUMC clearly didn't see it as just a straw man, but as necessary for achieving some kind of clarity of scope. ] 22:47, 24 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| I found this quote interesting from Abraham Foxman , | |||
| :<i>Foxman insists that he is not opposed to criticism of Israel. "In every public forum," he says, "I'm always careful to say that criticism of the state of Israel is not necessarily anti-Semitic." But "is not necessarily" implies "is possibly," and what this really means is "it's usually so."<i> | |||
| In a way, I think it proves both of our points: Nobody says any criticism of Israel is antisemitic, but it's still a point which requires clarification, straw man or not. ] 16:15, 25 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| Note that Foxman is only used in this article by critics of the concept, who like to wave him around to prove their own points. He isn't used in this article to actually support the concept; more scholarly sources are used instead. ]<sup><small><font color="DarkGreen">]</font></small></sup> 22:10, 25 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :Ok, I simply thought it was interesting that even Foxman would say he always clarifies that criticizing Israel isn't necessarily antisemitic. It suggests there's a greater reason for doing so than erecting straw men for ridicule, which obviously isn't Foxman's intent -- or the EUMC's for that matter either. In the end, I'd think the only real question must be what the EUMC thought was appropriate and relevant, though, since that's who we're quoting. When they list 5 examples and one counter-example, I don't see how one possibly omits the counter-example, which is directly applicable. | |||
| :Simply to your concern, though, it's quite possible the EUMC's intent was actually to prevent anti-Zionists from even trying with the straw man. By making the clarification, you preempt that whole defense. ] 00:20, 26 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ==Single Sentence Lead== | |||
| Slim, I think the lead as is is problematic. First, New Antisemitism is not accurately summarized in a paragraph as "the concept of an international resurgence of attacks on Jewish symbols, as well as the acceptance of antisemitic beliefs and their expression in public discourse, coming from three political directions: the political left, far-right, and Islamism. " It's <i>a</i> theory (or possibly a series of theories) regarding such a resurgence, and a theory directly and very much tied to the relationship between antisemitism and anti-Zionism. I understand there are issues to reconcile here, but I'm pretty sure a single sentence paragraph trying to distill New Antisemitism isn't the way to do it. (Comare ], with four completely different ideas in the lead paragraph). ] 14:30, 24 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :] is actually a good example. Wouldn't it be problematic to split the first sentence into its own paragraph? I think the response would be "of course you can't do that; the essential information has to go in the first paragraph." ] 14:34, 24 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::I'm not sure I understand the problem. The lead is a compromise agreed after a discussion lasting several months and then mediation, and the sentence you mention is accurate. There is no alternative concept. This is '''the''' concept of an international resurgence etc and acceptance of antisemitic etc coming from three political directions etc. There isn't any other such concept, and that it ''is'' a concept is a fact. ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> 19:09, 24 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::Also, it's not a single-sentence lead. It's three paragraphs. ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> 19:10, 24 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :::How can whether something is a concept or not be a fact? To be a concept an idea has to have conceptual coherence. And the definition of ''new antisemitism'' is still fluid, and some authors, cited in the article, dispute that it has any utility. So its status as a concept is a matter of opinion, not fact.] 21:10, 24 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::::What's your source for saying that "to be a concept an idea has to have conceptual coherence"? That sounds to me like "to be a concept, an idea has to be a concept." ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> 08:53, 26 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::::It may to some extent be <i>the</i> theory on that, but it's also commonly used for something much more specific. The result, then, is that some people acknowledge a resurgance of antisemitism as described in the first paragraph, but actually reject the "New Antisemitism" label as generally used. So what about them, then? They've just been defined as following a theory they thought they rejected. | |||
| :::::Please read the first sentence carefully, and show me one serious (or otherwise) commentator who would agree with that sentence, but who rejects the concept of new antisemitism. ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> 08:56, 26 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::In this article, ''The Myth of New Antisemitism,'' Klug seems to acknowledge an upsurge, etc, while rejecting the concept in total. I don't know if he says whether it comes from the left or right or Islam. Would he endorse the sentence? I'm not sure, but that's not really the question I'm getting at, but simply whether the first sentence gives any clear idea whether a Klug qualifies or not. I think the average, or even exceptional, person who reads the first sentence thinks, "Oh, ok, so this is a theory that antisemitism is on the rise, and moving to the left." Yet, to my knowledge, the primary debate and dividing point over "New Antisemitism" is actually whether the "new" Antisemitism is and should be described as excessive opposition to Israel. Thus, I simply think a really clear definition which really wanted people to understand what people mean by "New Antisemitism," as it is most commonly used, could better clarify the extent "New Antisemitism" posits not just an upsurge in antisemitism, or a change in direction, but a change of form as well. ] 16:20, 26 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::::Simply for comparison, I'd invite anyone to check out ]. Also a contentious issue, very similar problem, but handled with extreme precision and delicacy, and by strong supporters of the theory. I actually found it to be a good lesson in parsing things out, when I found it. In any case, I don't aim to change the whole definition, which I think is basically good, but I do think combining the first two paragraphs would be better. Mostly just a thought... ] 23:28, 24 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| == Proposed page move to ] == | |||
| Hi, What would be the postives/negatives of renaming this article to ]? It would necesitate a number of changes in the article, but I think it would be a cleaner article once it was done. Regards, ] 01:09, 26 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :Hi Ben, the article's about the concept of new antisemitism, and that's what most commentators call it. The expression tends to be used interchangeably with "contemporary antisemitism," but not invariably. ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> 08:51, 26 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| : "New antisemitism" is a term that is largley unrelated to actual (traditional or contemporary) antisemitism so such a move would not be a good idea. // ] | |||
| ::If this article is about the "concept" and not about the actual antisemitic acts/beliefs, does that mean that the "response" section is about the responses to this concept. It is not. It is about the responses to antisemitic acts and beliefs. Be it "New Antisemitism" or not. Hence, I believe that an encyclopedia should have an article about contemporary antisemitism and focus on the facts, antisemitic attacks, slander and beliefs. Not start with some vague concept and try to prove its existense by refering to the facts. ] 09:21, 26 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :::: ], please review ]. This article summarizes scholarly thought on the topic, as it should; articles should not be what you are proposing, that is, masses of original research based on what individual editors imagine the "facts" to be. ]<sup><small><font color="DarkGreen">]</font></small></sup> 20:45, 26 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :::::You do not want to understand. And you are making wild accusations and assumptions here. Why should I really care to answer? ] 21:04, 26 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::Well, I'm not sure I understand your most recent comment, that's true. You seem to want to gather together some set of "facts, antisemitic attacks, slander and beliefs" that you think constitute "contemporary antisemitism", which you also think are some sort of "facts", rather than a "vague concept". That is a classic example of ]. This article itself quotes scholarly sources which list a number of "facts, antisemitic attacks, slander and beliefs" that the sources attribute to "New antisemitism"; however, by quoting the examples the sources bring, rather than whatever we happen to dig up on our own, we avoid the pitfall of original research. Why should Misplaced Pages have an article on your personal take on "contemporary antisemitism", whatever you think that is, rather than simply quoting what reliable sources have to say about "New antisemitism"? ]<sup><small><font color="DarkGreen">]</font></small></sup> 21:19, 26 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::I can not see why you believe that I want to do OR here. I do not at all intend to dig up my own research. There are numerous sources doing research on antisemitism today without limiting themselves to be looking for NAS. There are also reports, statistics (commented by researchers and media) etc. To quote what these say about antisemitism today would do. Of course, the ones that do believe that NAS is a useful conccept should be included as well, and of course the concept NAS is a part of Antisemitism today. But to view modern antisemitism a priori through lenses tuned in on an imagined coupeling/conspiracy/entity of the right, the left and the arabs/muslimis is to start in the wrong end. The correct way to present antisemitism today is to start with a general article about what researchers say about antisemitism today, and then be more specific about different theories and interpretations later on. As it is now, the concept is introduced and then all kinds of data and sources is included to "prove" that NAS is a valid concept. (almost seems like OR to me) OK: To put it simply and plain so that no one misunderstands: 1: I do not propose OR, I propose an article about CAS following normap WP standards. 2: I think it is better to start with a broad article closest possible to the empirical evidence and the common ground amongst researchers. ] 21:49, 26 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::: If it is about actual antisemitism it should be in that article. If it is about "New Antisemitism" it should be here. // ] | |||
| :::: ], please re-read ]. It applies to Misplaced Pages Talk: pages as much as it applies to articles. ]<sup><small><font color="DarkGreen">]</font></small></sup> 20:45, 26 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::::: What are you talking about? Please read what I wrote again. It's not a hint of soapboxing in my comment, just a clearification about what the different articles are about. // ] | |||
| ::::::It was a political statement about "real" antisemitism vs. "new antisemitism". Misplaced Pages is not a soapbox. ]<sup><small><font color="DarkGreen">]</font></small></sup> 03:42, 28 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::: No, it wasn't. It was a clearification. If they were the same thing then we wouldn't need two articles, would we? "New2 antisemitism" is the concept of claiming things that are not a form of traditional antisemitism is a form of antisemitism. // ] | |||
| We can have material split across three articles, if that is the best way to do it. Or we can have two articles, with a redirect from new antisemtitism to contemporary antisemitism, or vice versa. The advantage of multiple articles is that it gives a sharper focus on a specific issue. The disadvantage is duplication. | |||
| The problem I have with the current article is that it isn't clear to me what the distinction between new antisemitism and 'old' antisemitism is, or even if there is one. Some duplication is OK but when I have no way to decide what should go into new antisemitism and what should go into antisemitism, I think there's a problem. The advantage of contemporary antisemitism over new antisemitism is that it has quite a clear definition. The advantage of new antisemitism over contemporary antisemitism could be that new antisemitism is not just antisemitism in the here and now but somehow something different. That we have a history of new antisemitism suggests that a difference exists, but I don't see what that difference is. | |||
| The current introduction says that new antisemitism is "the wave of antisemitism that escalated, particularly in Western Europe, after the Second Intifada in 2000, the failure of the Oslo accords, and the September 11, 2001 attacks." But it then says what is different about new antisemitism is that old antisemitism "was largely associated with the political right." So I'm confused. Is it the distinguishing factor the timing, or is it more to do with the source, in which case perhaps we should be talking not about new antisemitism but about new antisemites; a new chorus singing an old song? In the introduction we mention anti-zionism in passing, but we don't make clear what the relationship between it and new antisemitism is, we just say that there is one. | |||
| The history section talks about a Soviet new anti-Semitism, and says this antisemtism was "close to its modern form". But it doesn't explain what close means. Presumably there are important ways in which it is similar and ways in which it is different, but the article doesn't explain what they are. | |||
| Further down, we seem to be equating new antisemitism with anti-zionism. Maybe this is the crux of my issues with this article. We have anti-zionism; hatred of/opposition to an jewish state. We have anti-semitism; hatred of/opposition to the jewish race (common usage. technically arabs are also semites, but lets not go there now). We can also identify anti-Israel sentiment; opposition to some or all aspects of Israel. These things all overlap, but it's hard to say that any of them are the same, or a subset of each other. For example there were jews opposed to the creation of Israel because it was man-made, not created by god. And some dislike of Israel is anti-semitic, but not all of it. The boundaries are fuzzy, but for each of these concepts there is a clear and unmistakable core. I can't say that for new-antisemtism. I can't identify what new-antisemitism is that old-antisemtism is not. | |||
| To me, new antisemitism seems to be a grab bag of an expression that mixes some different issues: 1. the apparent resurgence in antisemitism, which I suggest properly belongs at ]; 2. the difficulty in distinguishing between legitimate/illegitimate criticism of israel, which I suggest belongs here, or possibly at ]; and 3. the changing nature of the anti-semite (left/right/arab/european/russian/...) which I suggest belongs at ] and/or at ]. Regards, ] 23:32, 26 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :Ben, we publish what reliable sources publish. The issues on this page are the issues that reliable sources discuss, and they tend to use the term "new antisemitism" to describe it. Some sources do use the term "contemporary antisemitism" instead, so we don't absolutely insist that "new antisemitism" be used before material is included in this article, but it has to be clear that that's what's being discussed (i.e. the concept of a new form of antisemitism created by an inadvertent alliance between the far right, left, and Islamism, focusing on Jews as an ideological group rather than a racial or religious category, and often centering on attacks on Israel). It's a very well-known term now, with many books and papers about it, including academic ones from specialist writers, so there's no reason for Misplaced Pages to ignore it. ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> 23:39, 26 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::I think the problem with this is simply that, no matter how you slice it, putting this kind of article together requires a lot of original synthesis. We have to decide if the five scholars talking about New Antisemitism are actually talking about the same thing. We have to decide ourselves how to present it, as a unified theory, or a poorly unified theory, or as two words which simply often get used together. Or we could present it as a unified theory to some, but then as used very differently by others. | |||
| ::In any case, I don't think we need an article on contemporary antisemitism, because I don't think "antisemitism" is a dated term. I think it applies today as much as it applied in the past. Contemporary antisemitism should be what ] is about, to the extent it isn't discussing history. My hope, thus, would simply be that there would be a little more clarity about New Antisemitism, the extent to which it means different things to different people, and then what it means to those different people, a little more like the definition of ]. ] 00:19, 27 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| "New antisemitism" isn't really about a contemporary resurgence of old-style theological or "biological" antisemitisms; those remain "old", however recently they may occur -- unless, of course, there's an apparent meeting of ideological opposites or a paradoxical convergence of long-term political enemies based on a commonality of Jew-hating (in which case it then becomes relevant to "new" style antisemitism). A move to "contemporary antisemitism" would only obscure these important distinctions... ] 00:26, 27 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :Agreed. "New antisemitism" is the proper name for this article. No other name would be appropriate. --] 06:09, 27 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::Here's my suggestion. This article is about the general concept of antisemitism, including the main definitions. ] does what it should, i.e. provide a history, chronologically. ] either remains appended to ] or becomes an article in its own right. History of antisemitism has sub-articles dealing with different periods, including for the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries. ] presents all the different ways that term is used and commentary on it.] 09:41, 27 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::::No. That would make this page indistinguishable from ] which it isn't. I'm not convinced that everything here belongs here, but this isn't the solution. ] 10:13, 27 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :::It isn't an article about the term, but about the concept. ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> 09:47, 27 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::::That's a very subtle distinction. I'd hope the two are close enough that we can deal with them together. That is, I think we should be trying to talk about new-antisemitism, not about terms and concepts of new-antisemitism. I've adjusted the intro accordingly. Regards, ] 10:13, 27 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :::::Ben, if we remove the word "concept," we leave the impression that Misplaced Pages is saying there definitely is such a thing as new antisemitism. It was for that reason that the mediator suggested we make clear that we're talking about the concept, and leave open whether the concept refers to anything in the world. ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> 10:17, 27 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::The cost is that the whole thing becomes very abstract. What if, instead of talking about 'the concept of new antisemitism' as something that may or may not exist, we talk about new antisemitism as something that definetly exists but has unclear boundaries. That is, we say "This is what new antisemitism looks like. If certain critics are right, there are no instances of new antisemitism." How would something like this sound as an introduction? | |||
| <small> deindent </small> | |||
| :'''New antisemitism''' is an alleged international resurgence of ] and the mainstream acceptance both of ] beliefs and of the legitimacy of their public expression. New antisemitism differs from classical antisemitism in that classical antisemites tend to be from the ']',whereas new-antisemitism comes from three political directions: the ']', ']', and ]. | |||
| :New-antisemitism overlaps with ], ], ], ], and opposition to the existence of the ] as a Jewish homeland. The boundary between legitimate and illegitimate criticism of Israel is often disputed, and there are charges that the expression new-antisemitism is a tool to deligitimise valid criticism. | |||
| :Allegations of new-antisemitism escalated in ] and world-wide in the aftermath of the ], the failure of the ], and the ]. | |||
| <small> reindent </small> | |||
| :::::: I've tried to talk about it as a real thing, the extent of which is debated, rather than as some abstract concept. I've dropped the refs only to make it easier for me to see the whole while I was editing. Presumably, some or all of them would still be required. | |||
| :::::: The bigfoot article starts by saying bigfoot probably doesn't exist, but this is what people believe. And then it talks about bigfoot. I suggest we take a similar approach. Regards, ] 10:58, 27 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::Largely, though, it is a concept. I'm pretty sure you have to say that. Often the phrase is used as a term of art, to invoke a new <i>kind</i> of antisemitism: antisemitism characterized by attacking things related to Jews rather than Jews themselves as per the old Right. Of course, this is what then becomes so controversial, because critics of Israel who feel they have legitimate motivations see it as insulting and stymying the debate ("People of goodwill who support the Palestinians resent being falsely accused of being anti-Semites," from Brian Klug in the article). | |||
| :::::::At the same time, others potentially do use the phrase simply as the general discussion of contemporary antisemitism, or to describe a general resurgence. I have a hard time understanding this, because I think the word for that would be "contemporary," not "new," which implies not just more or different people, but an actual change in antisemitism. In any case, you can't just get rid of "concept," because to most people it ''is'' a concept, which others don't like. (My problem remains that referring to New Antisemitism as simply the concept of a "resurgence" on the left is also inaccurate, for failing to note that most people mean something more specific, and specifically a change in form ). ] 20:35, 27 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::Ben, the problem is that some commentators, including some serious ones, disagree with your suggestion that: "new antisemitism ... exists but has unclear boundaries." They tend to argue (a) that it doesn't exist as a ''new'' form of antisemitism, but is just the same old thing; or (b) that it doesn't exist at all and has been entirely invented as a way of protecting Israel from criticism; or (c) that it does exist and is indeed a new form bigotry, but that it has an unclear relationship to antisemitism and shouldn't be given that name. | |||
| :::::::We therefore can't introduce the article by stating as a fact that there's such a thing as new antisemitism. All we can say is that there's such a thing as the concept of it, and then we explain who says what about it. ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> 21:21, 27 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::Isn't it also true, though, that "New Antisemitism" means different things to different people? This is what I find misleading about the first sentence, which suggests there's just one concept with clearly established boundaries. When this isn't true, my feeling is we should note the lack of clarity, so people aren't so confused. I haven't come up with a great way to do this, but I think it exists. As is, the lead basically presents it as a broad theory for which different people provide different evidence, when really I think they're actually distinct topics under one name. ] 21:59, 27 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::::I'm with Mackan here. Slim, what you say has some truth - there is a great deal of disagreement about what "new antisemitism" is, or even if it exists at all. But I don't think the answer to that is to change the page into ]. I'd rather that, given that new antisemitism is unclear, we speak clearly about this lack of clarity. Much as Mackan suggests, what if we start the article with "New antisemitism can refer to any of the following: .... " ? Or even "The expression "new antisemitism" has been used to ...." Would that allow us to give the reader an understanding of what is and isn't known about "new antisemtism"? (Just to put my POV on the table, I'm personally of the mind that new-antisemitism is a ], in the medical sense of the word, that is, a bunch of symptoms that tend to occur together often enough that everyone is reasonably confident that a relationship exists, even if no-one knows what that connection is. i.e. It's real, even if it does sometimse get used to stiffle legitimate criticism. What I'm not convinced of is that it differs in any important way from old antisemitism.) Regards, ] 23:22, 27 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::::Mackan, do you have a source showing that it means different things to different people? (By "people," I assume you mean reliable sources, because we don't care about anything else.) You implied elsewhere that the only thing you've read about new antisemitism is this article, so I'm wondering where you're taking your information from. All the sources I've read are referring to the same set of criteria, though different sources emphasize different aspects. But the first sentence is what they have in common: resurgence of ... coming from three political directions ... | |||
| ::::::::::Ben, we publish what the sources say. That's all we do. The view that it's not that different from the old antisemitism is in the article. But we can't come down on that, or any other, side. ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> 23:33, 27 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::::::I'm heading out the door, but I just want to say again that I never implied that, as I already told you. I've certainly encountered the term, although I'll acknowledge I'm mostly familiar with the debate itself rather than the specific term. But as you say, this article is about the concept, not just the term, and the concept is broadly discussed, and broadly relevant. Finding the article, I've read several more articles on the term specifically, which I think make the disparity pretty clear, and I'll bring next time... ] 00:30, 28 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::::::So which of the books or papers have you read, and which ones imply that different sources mean different things? Also, at the risk of repeating myself a thousand times, we're not talking about the ''use of the term'', but about the idea. ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> 00:36, 28 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| Ok, so Brian Klug says "The claim that I am criticizing is not that there is a new outbreak of 'old' antiSemitism but that there is an outbreak of anti-Semitism of a new kind." I think this supports my claim that ], per its proponents, isn't just about an increase or different source, but also a change in form. That's actually my main point. (Mackan79, continued below) | |||
| :Klug has updated his position since The Nation article. His latest position is, as we say: | |||
| ::"lthough it is true that the new antisemitism incorporates the idea that anti-Semitism is hostility to Jews as Jews, the source of the hostility has changed; therefore, to continue using the same expression for it — antisemitism — causes confusion. Today's hostility to Jews as Jews is based on the Arab-Israeli conflict, not on ancient European fantasies. Israel proclaims itself as the state of the Jewish people, and many Jews align themselves with Israel for that very reason. It is out of this alignment that the hostility to Jews as Jews arises, rather than hostility to Israelis or to Zionists. Klug agrees that it is a prejudice, because it is a generalization about individuals; nevertheless, he argues, it is "not rooted in the ideology of 'the Jew'," and is therefore a different phenomenon from antisemitism. | |||
| ::The problem with calling this new prejudice "new antisemitism" is that it gives the impression of an ideological continuum from religious to racial to "new" antisemitism. Klug writes that religious antisemitism mutated into racial antisemitism, and that the latter was clearly a variation on a pre-existing theme. Not so with the new phenomenon, he argues, which has entirely different origins and content. It is not a mutation of an existing virus, but "a brand new 'bug'." ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> 20:51, 28 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :::But isn't that my point, that New Antisemitism is different in kind, and related specifically to Israel? Currently, the first paragraph doesn't actually say that. I feel like that point could be made, hopefully without harming previous compromises.] 21:01, 28 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::::Klug's an opponent. The first para introduces what people say the concept ''is'', not what they say it isn't. The key to the concept is the unholy alliance of left, far right, and Islamism. That is what all the academic sources say; that is what they perceive as the essential difference between NAS and traditional antisemitism. That some or many on the left are involved because of anti-Zionism is secondary to the fact that they ''are'' involved. It is the relationship between these political factions, in agreement over Israel but in no other area, that's seen both as historically significant and as something that is very threatening, dangerous, to Jews. ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> 21:13, 28 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| Otherwise, I was simply conceding that ] may also be used more broadly, thus explaining our first sentence as it currently is. In any case, I've found support for both points: 1). That many people think New Antisemitism is explicitly about anti-Zionism, and 2). At the same time, others describe it more generally. | |||
| *Mortimer Zuckerman: "But since this new anti-Semitism manifests itself so clearly now as political rejection of the Jewish state, it is worth examining the historical record for a moment." (This one basically supports the status quo.) | |||
| *Phyllis Chessler: "What's new is that Jew-hatred (disguised as anti-Zionism) has itself become ‘politically correct’ among these so-called intellectuals. They have one standard for Israel: an impossibly high one. Meanwhile, they set a much lower standard for every other country, even for nations in which tyranny, torture, honor killings, genocide, and every other human rights abuse go unchallenged. // <i>Today anti-Zionism is the new anti-Semitism.</i>" | |||
| *<i>The "New Antisemitism": A volatile mix of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish hostility</i>, from the World Jewish Congress | |||
| *Elyakim Rubinstein: “This brings me to my final and very painful point. It has unfortunately become in vogue, among the "chattering classes", to speak about, excuse and even understand "anti-Zionism". This is the new antisemitism, which is basically anti-Israel, covered by a guise.” | |||
| *Frank Dimant: “Irwin concisely describes the new antisemitism which manifests itself as a diabolical representation of the State of Israel and a systemic methodology that makes Israel into an outcast and pariah among the nations.” | |||
| *Victor David Hanson: "A recent third type of anti-Jewish odium is something different. It is a strange mixture of violent hatred by radical Islamists and the more or less indifference to it by Westerners." (Also supports status quo.) | |||
| *Craig Horowitz: “The new p.c. anti-Semitism mixes traditional blame-the-Jews boilerplate with a fevered opposition to Israel. In this worldview, the ‘Zionist entity’ has no legitimacy and as a result no right to do what other nations do, like protect itself and its citizens.” <i>The Return of Antisemitism</i> | |||
| *Natan P.F. Kellermann: “One would have to be blind, deaf and dumb not to recognize that this hate of Israel is profoundly anti-Semitic. Such hostile sentiments, sometimes disguised as a 'legitimate' critique of Israeli politics, has been called the "new" anti-Semitism.” | |||
| *Jerome A. Chanes: “Analysis of the ‘new’ antisemitism deserves more than the blanket assertion: ‘It comes from radical Islam and haters of Israel.‘ Indeed, the position that anti-Israelism needs to be distinguished from antisemitism, whatever the antisemitic motivation of some Israelophobes, derives from a geo-political analysis of the contemporary phenomenon that goes beyond reiterating the ‘Muslims-hate-us’ palaver." | |||
| So some of these probably aren't reliable sources, but others are. I think they show a pretty clear pattern: people using "New Antisemitism" as a term specifically for the increased criticism and alleged demonization of Israel. Still, others do use the term more broadly (See Hanson, and others I didn't quote). | |||
| Finally, we have the summary on ]: "New antisemitism or 'modern political antisemitism', coming simultaneously from the left, the far right, and radical Islam, which mixes opposition to Zionism and a Jewish homeland in the State of Israel, with racial motifs associated with previous forms of antisemitism. " Isn't this more accurate? Basically I feel like we could add a second sentence to the first paragraph at least, to make this second part more clear, which I think would prevent a lot of confusion. ] 20:33, 28 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :You'd be better using the sources in our article, or those listed in Further reading, than the ones you've cited; we've used academics as far as possible. I don't know how we'd benefit from adding the racial motifs thing. Not everyone would agree that they're "racial" motifs, and the sentence about "the concept of an international resurgence of attacks on Jewish symbols, as well as the acceptance of antisemitic beliefs and their expression in public discourse" more or less covers the motifs idea. As for the rest, it's already in the lead. I honestly don't see exactly what you want to add or why. ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> 20:56, 28 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::Well, when I use sources from the article, you kind of accuse me of not reading anything else... Anyway, it wasn't the racial motifs part I wanted, but the part about Israel. I'm simply saying there seems to be a near-concensus that ] isn't just indicated by the surge in anti-Zionism, but actually specifically refers to that surge in Anti-Zionism. As Klug puts it, you now have three types: prejudicing Jews for religious reasons, racial reasons, or political/Israel reasons. Some would certainly suggest they're all covers for a hatred of some other origin, but in any case, I'd think the lead should still note the relationship, which is really at the very heart of the concept, isn't it? | |||
| ::I guess the simplest way to fix this would be something like this: "New antisemitism is the concept of an international resurgence of attacks on the State of Israel and Jewish symbols, as well as the acceptance of antisemitic beliefs and their expression in public discourse, coming from three political directions: the political left, far-right, and Islamism." That might do the trick, actually, or something similar. What do you think? I'm not 100% sure that would fix the problem; I'll have to give it a little more thought. ] 21:48, 28 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::: I agree. I don't know, and I will keep thinking on this too. What I do want to say is that this conversation has been really interesting, and I think it might be leading somewhere good. Regards, ] 21:40, 29 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ==Flannery section== | |||
| I have decided to remove this paragraph from the article: | |||
| In ''The Anguish of the Jews: Twenty-Three Centuries of Antisemitism'', Father ] writes that, because most of the spectacular displays of antisemitism have come from the right — for example, Czarist ]s, the ], and ] — it has blinded onlookers to what he calls an "uninterrupted strain of antisemitism on the Left," <ref name=Flannery274>Flannery, Edward H. ''The Anguish of the Jews: Twenty-Three Centuries of Antisemitism'', Paulist Press, first published 1985; this edition 2004, p. 274.</ref> quoting ] and ] who write: "The further Left one goes, the greater the antisemitism." <ref>Prager, Dennis & ]. ''Why the Jews? The Reason for Antisemitism''. Simon and Shuster, 1983, p. 172, cited in Flannery, Edward H. ''The Anguish of the Jews: Twenty-Three Centuries of Antisemitism'', Paulist Press, 2004, p. 274.</ref> Flannery writes that it came as no surprise to historians of the left that, as William D. Rubinstein wrote in 1978: "Today, the main enemies of the Jews and Israel are almost exclusively on the left, most obviously the Communist states, the radical Third World anti-Zionist nations and their sympathizers in the West." <ref>Rubinstein, William D. ''The Left, the Right and the Jews''. Universe Books 1978, p. 77, cited in Flannery, Edward H. ''The Anguish of the Jews: Twenty-Three Centuries of Antisemitism'', Paulist Press 2004, p. 274.</ref> Flannery argues that "all the progenitors of socialist theory, with the exception of ], were bitter antisemites," <ref name=Flannery274/> arguing that ] and ] took much of what Flannery calls their antisemitism from ], ], ], ], and ]. Flannery writes that in 1891, the Second International Socialist Congress refused to condemn antisemitism without also condemning ]. He cites historian Zosa Szajkowski, who writes that he could not find a "single word on behalf of Jews" in the entirety of French socialist literature from 1820 to 1920. The link between antisemitism and the ideology of the left is "not accidental," Flannery argues, because ] stresses nationality, peoplehood, or religious commitment; extreme leftist ideologies and traditional Judaism are "almost by definition incompatible." <ref name=Flannery275>Flannery, Edward H. ''The Anguish of the Jews: Twenty-Three Centuries of Antisemitism'', Paulist Press, first published 1985; this edition 2004, p. 275.</ref> | |||
| There are several reasons why this paragraph does not meet the standards of encyclopedic inclusion. I've explained my reasons in detail, and have provided sub-headers for the benefit of readers. | |||
| I would request that anyone who wishes to respond please do so '''after the end of this post'''. | |||
| :Sorry, it's too much to remember. I'll have to respond in between paras. ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> 20:00, 28 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::You could have just cut-and-pasted, you know. ] 22:26, 28 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ;Irrelevance to the NAS article | |||
| The parts of Flannery's book referenced in this paragraph relate to a supposed "uninterrupted strain of antisemitism on the Left". Leaving aside the accuracy or inaccuracy of this charge, Flannery's evidence is not relevant to the concept of a "new antisemitism". | |||
| The problems of defining "new antisemitism" have been raised many times in discussions concerning this article, such that it may be impossible to find a definition that satisfies everyone. The term is currently defined on the article page as referring to the concept of a recent convergence of antisemitic thought and action involving three distinct ideologies: the far right, the left, and radical Islam. Previous versions of the article suggested that it was primarily a concept applied to the left, and specifically to the New Left. Some authors have used the term primarily in reference to radical Islam, while others have used it in a different sense, synonymous with "contemporary antisemitism". | |||
| Notwithstanding their differences, however, these definitions are linked by a common theme: they all refer to perceived developments in ''contemporary history''. The excerpted portions of Flannery's text do not. | |||
| "NAS" is not defined as "antisemitism of the left", nor is it defined in terms of a linear progression of historical events dating back to the 19th century (which would be an absurdity for a "new" concept.) The fact that Proudhon and Fourier were antisemites is relevant to studies of Proudhon and Fourier, but not to the concept of a "new antisemitism". Similarly, the 1891 resolution of the Second International may or may not be relevant to a history of 19th century antisemitism, but it is clearly irrelevant to this page. | |||
| :It is defined in part as an antisemitism of the left, and some commentators focus almost exclusively on this aspect of it. The Flannery material indicates that this is not new, and it provides a background to the development of the concept, as do the other sources in that section. Why single out Flannery? ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> 20:00, 28 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::It might have something to do with the fact that Flannery posits a connection between *19th century* socialism and modern antisemitism, which is clearly beyond the range of this article. (Seriously, has anyone else tried to claim *Proudhon and Fourier* as spiritual heirs to "NAS".) I could add in passing that Flannery's "continuous line" ignores a long period when Left groups supported Zionism as a national liberation movement. ] 22:26, 28 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :::Um, you do realize what ] and ] are about? Flannery is a reliable source, and that's his view; it's not up to you to reject him because your personal analysis of history differs from his. ]<sup><small><font color="DarkGreen">]</font></small></sup> 17:39, 29 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :::I've presented evidence that Flannery's 1985 edition is not a reliable source. You've ignored it. ] 17:52, 29 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ;Source credibility | |||
| There are two editions of Edward Flannery's "The Anguish of the Jews". The first was published in 1965 by Macmillan Press. The second was issued in 1985 by Stimulus Books, a division of the Paulist Press (which mostly publishes Catholic devotional material). Copyright in the latter is owned by the Roman Catholic Bishop of Providence. There are significant differences between these books, and some sections (including the text referenced above) appear only in the second. | |||
| The original edition was released by a respected firm, and is recognized as being a work of scholarly merit. The second version was issued by a religious press, and there is some reason to believe that it may not have been adequately vetted (see below). | |||
| The circumstances of the Second Edition's publication can't help but draw into question its reliability as a source. (Are we really to be surprised that a book issed by the Catholic Church at the height of the Cold War would include sections attacking socialism?) | |||
| :I don't see what this has to do with anything. Flannery was the author of both editions. He is our source. ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> 20:00, 28 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::One edition was published by a credible source, the other was effectively self-published through a religious organization. I'm sorry you can't see the difference. ] 22:26, 28 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :::Flannery is a ], and of course what is relevant are his most recent views, not his earlier views. Again, your personal views about possible errors in Flannery's analysis are pure ]. ]<sup><small><font color="DarkGreen">]</font></small></sup> 17:39, 29 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::I've presented evidence that Flannery's 1985 edition is not a reliable source. You've ignored it. ] 17:52, 29 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ;Inconsistency | |||
| Flannery's comments on the relationship between antisemitism and socialism underwent a significant transformation between 1965 and 1985. | |||
| Consider the following statement from the 1965 edition: | |||
| :''Toussenel ranks high among the high priests of so-called Socialist anti-Semitism, which enlisted in varying degrees such names as Pierre Proudhon, Karl Marx, Bruno Bauer, and lesser lights, all of whom trained their guns on Jewish "unproductiveness," "parasitism," and the like. The association of Socialism with anti-Semitism was unsubstantial, however, and did not survive the condemnation of the anti-Semitic movement by the International Socialist Congress of 1891. After this, anti-Semitism became quite consistently a phenomenon of conservatism or the anti-democratic right.'' (p. 176) | |||
| Now, consider this revised statement from 1985: | |||
| :''Toussenel ranks high among the high priests of socialist antisemitism, which enlisted in varying degrees such names as Pierre Proudhon, Karl Marx, Bruno Bauer, and lesser lights, all of whom trained their guns on Jewish "unproductiveness", "parasitism," and the like. The association of Socialist with antisemitism came to an end officially with the condemnation of the antisemitic movement at the International Socialist Congress of 1891, but this did not spell its end in socialist reality. On the other hand, increasingly and more consistently antisemitism became an attribute of conservatism and the anti-democratic right.'' (p. 177) | |||
| It would be interesting to speculate on the reasons for this change, and particularly on whether or not it had anything to do with increased criticism of Israel from the Left after 1967. One way or the other, it seems inappropriate for us to reference Flannery's 1985 comments on antisemitism and socialism without drawing his 1965 comments into the picture in some way. | |||
| :You're engaged in OR. This is what the author wrote, period. ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> 20:00, 28 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::My point is that we shouldn't convey Flannery's 1985 argument without ''also'' conveying his 1965 argument. ] 22:26, 28 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :::Nonsense. His views may have evolved, but you can't use ] to try to revert his most current views, based on earlier works. ]<sup><small><font color="DarkGreen">]</font></small></sup> 17:39, 29 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::::I've argued that we should provide *both* statements, or neither. And, anyway, the 1985 edition is demonstrably less reliable than the 1965 edition. ] 17:52, 29 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ;Demonstrably poor scholarship | |||
| Most of the cited text is taken from two paragraphs on p. 274 of Flannery's 1985 edition: | |||
| :''Antisemitism is generally considered by both Jews and non-Jews to be a phenomenon of the Right. And certainly in modern times its most spectacular displays, exemplified by Czarist pogroms, the Dreyfus Affair, Hitler, and chauvinistic demagogues, have tended to justify that interpretation. But this view has tended to eclipse the fact that there has been an uninterrupted strain of antisemitism on the Left. It should not, further, obscure the recrudescence of leftist antisemitism that has developed since the rebirth of the State of Israel. Indeed at present leftist "anti-Zionism" predominates on the antisemitic spectrum - a spectrum running leftward from liberal to socialist to radical to Communist. Prager and Telushkin put the matter succinctly: "The further Left one goes, the greater the antisemitism." W.D. Rubenstein is no less direct: "Today, the main enemies of the Jews and Israel are almost exclusively on the left, most obviously the Communist states, the radical Third World anti-Zionist nations and their sympathizers in the West." | |||
| :''This development comes as no surprise to historians of leftist ideology. From its inception socialist thought took on an antisemitic turn. All the progenitors of socialist theory, with the exception of St. Simon, were bitter antisemites. Marx learned much of his own antisemitism from Proudhon, Bauer, Fourier, Toussenel, Fichte, and others, as did also Engels. The ''Protocols'' came from socialist sources. In 1891, the Second International Socialist Congress refused to condemn antisemitism without condemning philosemitism at the same time. During the Dreyfus affair socialist leaders refused to counter the rightist attack on the Jewish army officer. Historian Zosa Szajkowski, writing in 1947 after a close study of French socialist literature, concluded that he could not find a single word on behalf of the Jews in the whole of that literature from 1820 to 1920.'' | |||
| There are a number of problems here. | |||
| ;;Szajkowski | |||
| There is one (1) footnote for the second paragraph: | |||
| :See Zosa Szajkowski, "The Jewish Saint-Simonians and Socialist Antisemitism in France" in ''Jewish Social Studies'', January, 1947, cited in Prager and Telushkin, ''op. cit.'', p. 142. | |||
| It's a shame that Flannery didn't take the time to check the original source. If he had, he might have discovered this statement: "In quoting only the antisemitic pronouncements of the French socialists, before Edouard Drumont, the writer may be suspected of having ignored the pro-Jewish sentiments. In order to ally any such suspicion, the writer wishes therefore to say explicitly that his efforts to find sympathetic references to Jews in the French socialist literature, from Saint-Simon to the date of Drumont's first appearance, have been futile" (p. 60) Drumont's first appearance was in 1886. | |||
| Flannery might have also discovered the following statement, had he looked up the original essay: "It was not until antisemitism had joined hands with the "Boulangist" reaction (1889) that some socialist groups have become aware of the danger and started to fight against antisemitism" (p. 59; tense error in original). He certainly wouldn't have made his lunatic suggestion that Szajkowski found not "a single word on behalf of the Jews" in French socialist literature before *1920*, nor would he have suggested the "all the progenitors of socialist theory, with the exception of St. Simon, were bitter antisemites". | |||
| (I should add that Szajkowski's essay is an erudite scholarly piece, and deserves a better legacy than being used to prop up Father Flannery's efforts to malign the Left as antisemitic. An interesting fact I learned from the essay is that Fourier apparently concealed his antisemitism behind facetious support for a plan to move Europe's Jews ''en masse'' to Palestine.) | |||
| ;;Dreyfus | |||
| ''During the Dreyfus affair socialist leaders refused to counter the rightist attack on the Jewish army officer.'' | |||
| This statement is profoundly misleading. It's true that the "integral" faction of French socialism didn't participate in the campaign to exonerate Dreyfus (see Szajkowski, p. 59), but someone of Flannery's experience must surely have known that *most* French socialist leaders were active Dreyfusards. For him to suggest otherwise is intellectually dishonest, and for *us* to repeat this suggestion is profoundly unencyclopedic. | |||
| ;;Protocols | |||
| On the subject of lunatic suggestions, may I assume that no one reviewing this page is willing to defend Flannery's unreferenced suggestion that "Protocols" was derived from socialist sources? | |||
| ;;Summary | |||
| In light of these errors, I do not believe that the 1985 edition of Flannery's book should be considered a reliable source for the history of "new antisemitism". | |||
| :I see that SlimVirgin didn't respond to this section. ] 22:26, 28 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::Of course not. You continue to engage in ] in your efforts to refute Flannery's work. However, Flannery is a reliable source; you, on the other hand, are an anonymous Misplaced Pages editor. ]<sup><small><font color="DarkGreen">]</font></small></sup> 17:39, 29 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::I've presented evidence that Flannery's 1985 edition is not a reliable source. You've ignored it, and I suspect that you're not taking the process seriously. How on earth is it possible for you to twist "OR" and "V" to suggest that we should present Flannery's '''demonstrably false''' statements as fact? ] 17:52, 29 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :::You're engaged in OR. Please read the policy. ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> 19:09, 29 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::::I have (read it), and I'm not. Feel free to demonstrate otherwise, if you can. ] 19:12, 29 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ;Probable misrepresentation | |||
| Our summary describes Prager and Telushkin as having written, "The further Left one goes, the greater the antisemitism." This comment is presented in isolation, and without further clarification as to their intentions. The effect may be to have readers believe Prager and Telushkin were referring to a "left to right" spectrum. To judge from Flannery's remarks, however, it appears more likely that they were referring to a "left to *centre*" spectrum. | |||
| Unfortunately, I was not able to obtain a copy of Prager and Telushkin's book before writing my comments. I suspect, however, that the current edit may be a distortion of their true intentions. I am not suggesting that this was deliberate. | |||
| :This is all your original research. ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> 20:00, 28 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::Actually, it's my evaluation of the way Flannery presents the source. The current article statement is for all intents and purposes a selective half-quote. ] 22:26, 28 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :::In other words, more ] attempts to refute Flannery's work. Where has your refutation been published? ]<sup><small><font color="DarkGreen">]</font></small></sup> 17:39, 29 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::::I've presented evidence that Flannery's 1985 edition is not a reliable source. You've ignored it. I don't need to publish a refutation to justify *removing* an unreliable source from the article. ] 17:52, 29 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ;Sliding definitions | |||
| Flannery's statement that "Extreme leftist ideologies and traditional Judaism are almost by definition incompatible" is not relevant to this article. Opposition to "traditional Judaism" is not, in and of itself, generally recognized as sufficient proof of antisemitism, let alone of "new antisemitism". (Are secular Jews who reject their religious backgrounds automatically considered antisemites? Of course not. For that matter, are Reform Jews who reject Kashrut considered antisemites? Of course not.) | |||
| :He writes: "Extreme leftist ideologies and traditional Judaism are almost by definition incompatible." He doesn't say that opposition to traditional Judaism must be antisemitism; nor is not keeping kosher opposition to Judaism. This is all your own opinion, CJC, and you're slipping and sliding between topics making category errors. ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> 20:00, 28 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::If he's not saying it's antisemitism, then why are we including it in this article? ] 22:26, 28 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| It may be possible to incorporate Flannery's statements on the Left and particularism into the article, but I doubt there's any compelling need to do this in light of his credibility issues on other fronts. | |||
| ;Summary | |||
| For all of these reasons, it is clear to me that the Flannery paragraph is not encyclopedic, and needs to be removed from the article. It may be possible to restore Rubinstein's quote at some point in the future, but only if we reference the '''original source'''. | |||
| I've put a fair bit of time into researching these matters. I trust that any editor who wishes to restore the Flannery paragraph will review my comments, and address my arguments. | |||
| '''Please add your comments after this line'''. ] 06:42, 27 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ===Response=== | |||
| *CJC, you've done everything possible since you started editing this article to remove references to left-wing antisemitism. It's unseemly, it's wrong-headed, and it's pointless. There's a lot of it around, and increasingly so; every week more articles are published about it. You're swimming against the tide trying to pretend it doesn't exist. Flannery provides some background indicating that it's nothing new. This will give the reader an interesting context within which to study the development of the concept of NAS, and we're here to provide exactly that kind of background material. ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> 20:00, 28 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| *Slim, whoever doubted that there was some antisemitism on the left? I've never objected to actual left-wing antisemitism being highlighted in this article, as appropriate. What I'm opposing is an attempt to use flawed scholarship to suggest a "continuous line" of antisemitism dominating the left. ] 22:26, 28 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Please note''': Itsmejudith's next post is a response to my original statement, not to SlimVirgin. ] 22:26, 28 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Agree''', as you would expect. Since Flannery's book was first published in 1965 it cannot be relevant to the definition in the second paragraph of the article, that NAS is the upsurge in antisemitism after 2001. It seems to me, again, that we need good articles on the ], to which the Flannery comments cited here seem to apply, ] and ].] 09:27, 27 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :This is an impressive and well-researched argument, CJ. I fully concur with your conclusions here. ] 21:50, 27 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Disagree with continual attempts to bury antisemitism from the left'''. It astonishes me that the history section can contain statements from ] regarding antisemitism from the left following the 1967 Six-Day War, a whole long section about Forster and Epstein's 1974 book (inserted only so that the "famous scholar" - i.e. anti-Zionist polemicist ] can insert his own political views attempting to refute the concept), statements from ] ] in the 1980s regarding the phenomenon, etc., yet people here can still claim that it is all about "the upsurge in antisemitism after 2001", and attempt to exclude Flannery on those grounds. Why was there no objection when the Brownfeld material about books in the 1970s was inserted, yet Flannery's material is somehow too early? If those who object to the concept want to be taken seriously, they must start '''reading the article, reading ALL the relevant material, and editing with the intent of elucidating, not obfuscating.''' ]<sup><small><font color="DarkGreen">]</font></small></sup> 21:27, 28 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| **There's a bit of a difference between the 1970s and the 19th century, Jay. Meanwhile, I see you haven't actually responded to any of my arguments. ] 22:26, 28 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :::Well if you want to look at it like that then there was even more left-wing anti-semitism in the 19th century. This is due to the fact that during the period of the great European empires the dominant left-wing ideology was essentially various forms of nationalism. We all know how tolerant they can be.- ] | ] 21:05, 29 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ***They've already been responded to; in a nutshell, your ] regarding sources doesn't really trump ]. ]<sup><small><font color="DarkGreen">]</font></small></sup> 04:21, 29 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ****Have you read my initial comments, Jay? ] 05:26, 29 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| *****Yes. Have you read ] and ]? ]<sup><small><font color="DarkGreen">]</font></small></sup> 17:39, 29 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ******Yes, and I've presented evidence that Flannery's 1985 edition is not a reliable source. You've ignored it, and I don't believe that you're taking the process seriously. "NOR" was never meant to be used as a justification for retaining obviously unsuitable material. ] 17:52, 29 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| *******You're engaged in your own original research in order to denigrate a source that you disagree with. If Flannery had been writing about right-wing antisemitism, you wouldn't bat an eyelid about him being used. Please read the content policies. ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> 19:12, 29 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ********I've read the policies, and they don't apply here. If I were trying to submit information *on an article page* that Flannery's source is unreliable, then I'd be in violation of NOR ... but there's nothing in the policy that prevents me from *removing* information on the grounds that the source is unreliable. And stop the personal abuse, please. ] 19:16, 29 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| *********Of course NOR applies. You're imposing on the source your own opinion of the issues, then trying to rule the source out on that basis. The point is that left-wing antisemitism is a major part of NAS, and so in the history section we give some information about what people have said about the existence of left-wing antisemitism prior to the emergence of the concept. Flannery is one the best known writers on the history of AS, and so we use him. ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> 19:41, 29 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| *********Isn't there a little humor in accusing somebody of "engaging" in original research? And to mean by that, when somebody looks through a source and finds it actually says something else? I'm pretty sure this situation needs a comic more than it needs a debate... ] 19:25, 29 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| **********Indeed. I can't believe this is even being raised as a serious argument. (Meanwhile, I will reiterate the "NAS" is *not* "a history of left-wing antisemitism", and the material on Fourier, Proudhon et al is completely irrelevant.) ] 20:58, 29 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ***********'''In your opinion''', it is completely irrelevant. You must write to the publishers of the book to complain. In the meantime, we have chosen a classic history of antisemitism from which to quote a few points about the author's view on the background to leftwing antisemitism, which he concludes is no surprise because the values of traditional Judaism and the values of the far left are, in his opinion, incompatible. It doesn't matter whether you agree. It doesn't matter whether you think he's a lunatic. His book is well known in antisemitism studies, and that is what he says. Period. And the history of NAS is very much related to the history of leftwing antisemitism. I know this makes you shudder, but left-wing antisemitism is '''the''' major aspect of the NAS concept. As long as I've seen you editing here, you've never understood that neither the article '''nor its talk page''' are the place for your personal opinions and original research. If you have other arguments against the inclusion of that paragraph, I'm willing to listen to them, or if you think it should be written differently, or shortened or whatever, but that you don't like what he says is not a reason to remove it. Or if Mel comes up with an argument against, I'll abide by his decision. But I can't listen to you try for the thousandth time to get rid of a source because you want to protect the left from allegations of antisemitism. ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> 21:24, 29 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ************Slim, Edward Flannery's *1965* book is a classic history of antisemitism. His 1985 "updated version" is a unreliable and unworthy follow-up, which wasn't even published by an accredited firm. You're playing on confusion between the two editions to keep flawed, unreliable and in at least one case *false* information included the article. Btw, I didn't say *Flannery* was a lunatic: I said that two of his assertions were sheer lunacy (and I stand by this). I'm not going to respond to your personal attacks, but I'll reiterate that the views of early 19th century socialists are irrelevant to this article. I maintain that any fair-minded, uninvolved party will agree with my conclusions. Cheers, ] 22:33, 29 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| . ] 01:39, 28 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| I'm truly baffled as to how to interpret this: . ] 09:11, 28 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :Who are you that you think you should be allowed to delete whatever you want prior to discussion, but everyone else MUST discuss before they restore it? I'm sure it's no cooincidence that you want to get rid of someone who talks about the "uninterrupted strain of antisemitism on the Left." Please stop being so predictable. ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> 09:17, 28 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::Slim, I took the time to prepare a ''detailed'' explanation of why the Flannery section is inappropriate for the article. I avoided personal abuse, and focused on ''evidence''. Could you please do the same, if you want the section returned? | |||
| ::And to answer your question, I deleted the section because it ''obviously'' didn't meet the standard for inclusion, in light of my investigations. Do you honestly think it should be returned? ] 09:23, 28 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :::You posted your explanation of the deletion '''one minute''' before removing the material i.e. prior to any discussion. Could you explain why you feel you are allowed to do this, but others must discuss before restoring it? ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> 09:28, 28 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::::With respect, Slim, I think this we're getting a bit off-track. I'm "entitled" to remove material that's obviously unsuitable for the article, and I've explained in detail why I made that decision in this instance. If entitlement is the issue, I could just as easily ask why you initially included the paragraph with no prior discussion. | |||
| ::::The question we should be addressing is the following: does the Flannery material belong in the article? So far, you have not addressed any of my arguments. ] 09:36, 28 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :::::We're not getting off track. If you're entitled to remove without discussion, others are entitled to restore and ask you to discuss it first. Do not remove it again until there has been a proper discussion about it, because there are people who disagree with you. Practise what you preach, please. ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> 09:47, 28 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::Slim, have you read my original comments? ] 09:55, 28 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::No, I haven't because they're so long, but if you stop reverting, I'll read them and try to address your points, and then perhaps we could try to have a civilized discussion instead of the usual reverting and carping. I know it sounds unlikely but I live in hope. ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> 09:58, 28 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::I'm prepared to leave the Flannery paragraph on the page for as long as another day, if you promise to read my comments during that time. I'm not at all impressed that you would restore the paragraph three times without so much as reviewing my arguments. ] 10:02, 28 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::::And I'm not impressed that you think it's okay to keep on removing something over objections. If you post material as lengthy as you have, in fairness you have to allow people a few days to read and respond to it. ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> 10:11, 28 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::::If you read my comments fairly, you'll understand why it would be inappropriate to leave the paragraph in place for that long. ] 10:14, 28 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| * For now I'll say this: based on what I've seen, I can't go as far as calling Flannery completely irrelevant, since it does speak to the debate about whether "New Antisemitism" is actually new. The conflict between the two editions, though, seems a much more serious issue. To that, I'll simply say the the two things which particularly raise flags for me are the "The further left the more antisemitism" statement, and the "Nobody could find a positive word" statement, simply because they're little rhetorical bombshells, presented offhand, and both two degrees from the original context. In that situation, I think you can present an individual's general argument, but you shouldn't quote little snippets of highly controversial evidence in a way that obscures the original meaning (left of center or left of right or what? As CJ nicely points out). Other than that, I wouldn't insist on removing everything, but I think CJ makes a good case that the whole thing needs an update, which may well make it unsuitable. ] 19:21, 28 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::Actually, for "The further left the more antisemitism" check out ]. ] 13:11, 30 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| * '''Agree''' that the paragraph should be removed. CJ has made a detailed case (''talk page'' original research of the very best kind) for why the 1985 edition is not an RS. The only attempted rebuttal to this has been the claim that "Flannery was the author of both editions. He is our source." This is sophistry. Reliable-source status is not a permanent and inalienable endowment of biographical persons; it arises from a configuration of factors surrounding the publication of any given material (as anyone who's ever tried to cite material from a prominent person's blog, for example, will know very well). Flannery hasn't taken a swan-dive into intellectual ignominy á la David Irving, but he does appear to have untethered himself from the rigors of vetted scholarship and dropped gently into the bosom of a religious press, where he is free to enjoy the languors of self-publication and make grotesque farm-league errors of the sort CJ catalogues. Until we see a serious rebuttal to CJ on this point, the 1985 edition is out. As for the 1965 edition, for us to imply and endorse the explanatory relevance of a book published ''two years before the earliest postulated appearance of the phenomenon under discussion'' – ! – is article-page original research of the very worst kind.--] 22:31, 29 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Moot''' I'm truly amazed at this complete flouting of ] and ] -hello, "verifiability, not truth". This is more than original research, it's ] on an RS the editor doesn't agree with. This is ''completely'' beyond scope. Imagine if we were to start "fact-checking" the millions of sources in WP to the same degree! The later edition loses RS status because it was published by Catholics during the cold war? C'mon, there are any number of equally plausible theories we could advance for him shifting publishers. However, unless you've got an '''RS''' -not some wild theory- noting some sort of decline in his scholarship, it's simply a moot point. Well crafted though -I'll grant him that. That must explain how it's seduced a few editors here. ] 13:11, 30 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::OR means putting original research ''into articles''. Looking back at sources and checking their citations is something we should be doing, and I'm impressed that CJCurrie has done so. The idea that we should discourage such things is ridiculous. CJCurrie is suggesting that we remove information from an article because it is inaccurate, and he has provided plenty of sources to demonstrate this inaccuracy. The idea that it should be included anyway because what CJ has done constitutes "original research" seems entirely mystifying to me. It seems to me that including Flannery and implying that his comments have anything to do with "new antisemitism" is a "novel synthesis," and as such, is much more clearly an instance of original research than anything CJCurrie has done. ] 14:36, 30 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :::The statements are clearly attributed to Flannery. '''We''' have not made the claims, someone in an RS has. Like I said, -moot. Let's pick another example. Suppose I wanted to take issue with Tariq Ali's statement that Israel is "the strongest state in the region. It possesses real, not imaginary, weapons of mass destruction. It possesses more tanks and bomber jets and pilots than the rest of the Arab world put together." I could go, do a bunch of OR about the aggregate military strength of the "Arab world" (I could define this loosely if I liked) and could possibly produce an equally well-crafted dissertation on Ali's "unreliability", and blah blah blah. It's ] of the worst sort, and any topic touching on ME issues is contentious enough without it. Hmmm, maybe that's why ] exists? ] 02:36, 31 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::::''Hmmm, maybe that's why ] exists?'' | |||
| ::::To permit false information to be included in articles? I doubt it. | |||
| ::::Seriously, why are people so keen to allow a demonstrably '''untrue''' piece of information to be retained? ] 02:53, 31 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :::::"Verifiability, not truth" is to stop WP editors from engaging in '''utterly pointless''' arguments with sources. It's not our job. As for why ''I'm'' "so keen to allow a demonstrably '''untrue''' piece of information to be retained" -it's because I'm also not interested in doing a pointless peer-review of your work. I'm lazy that way. ] 03:29, 31 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::I doubt anything I say will make any difference to you one way or the other, but it's ''entirely'' our job to confirm the reliability of sources. | |||
| ::::::My interlocuters seem to have taken the absurd position that we should include material which is false, but verifiable. As they obviously aren't taking this seriously, I can't see any way forward besides mediation. ] 03:43, 31 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::But what would be the point? ] 04:04, 31 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::To resolve this silliness as soon as possible. Feel free not to participate, if the prospect doesn't interest you. ] 04:36, 31 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::::OK then drop it. Look, at every step in the chain of dispute resolution you're going to be told pretty much the exact same thing I just did. You're only going to cause yourself stress by pursuing a lost cause like this. ] 01:06, 1 February 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :::::Armon, your point about mission creep deserves careful thought. But the Tariq Ali analogy isn't a very good one. It's a rhetorical statement; it's the kind of thing a reader will already take with a grain of salt. What if Tariq Ali, in a self-published book, grossly misquoted someone? What if he wrote, relying on faulty memory in an unvetted volume, that Alan Dershowitz had argued for the sudden, unannounced destruction of entire Palestinian villages in retaliation for terrorist acts? (Dershowitz argued that the IDF should do this 24 hours ''after'' an announcement, so that residents would have the chance to evacuate). Would it be acceptable for us to simply repeat the mistake – in our own words, no less? This is the kind of analogy we have to consider.--] 03:16, 31 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::(edit conflict) See above. ] 03:29, 31 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| **My "wild theory" involved looking up an essay from 1947 and discovering that it had been misused. ] 01:17, 31 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :::Your opinion that the essay was "misused" is, frankly, worthless. Sorry, Flannery trumps anon Misplaced Pages editor. ]<sup><small><font color="DarkGreen">]</font></small></sup> 01:48, 31 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::::Jay, could you explain why you're insisting on including factually inaccurate information in the article? (Hasn't anyone else looked up Szajkowski's essay by now?) ] 01:51, 31 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :::::Please review ]. ]<sup><small><font color="DarkGreen">]</font></small></sup> 01:53, 31 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::My question is both accurate and appropriate. Flannery makes a false statement about Szajkowski's essay, which our article repeats. It's remarkable that you and SlimVirgin would defend retention of this reference. ] 01:59, 31 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::To repeat: why are you restoring factually inaccurate information to the article? ] 02:00, 31 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| Jay, you've chosen to revert, on the rhetorical grounds that Flannery trumps CJ. Can I ask why you've left this sentence in: ''"He cites historian Zosa Szajkowski, who writes that he could not find a 'single word on behalf of Jews' in the entirety of French socialist literature from 1820 to 1920,"'' which we know now to be false? Let us bracket for the moment the question of whether Flannery belongs at all. You think he does, so you restore him. But why not at least correct the sentence? Or at the very least, quote Flannery at greater length, so the falsehood is in his words and not ours? I'm not suggesting that this would suffice; I'm just trying to understand your negotiating posture. Is the point to show maximum contempt for CJ, as your edit summaries and posts here would suggest? Or do you not trust his legwork and believe him to be lying? Or is there a categorical principle involved here for you, that Misplaced Pages editors are to treat as infallible any assertions made by an RS? That even a modest editorial decision to put dubious claims in quotation marks, for example, rather than in free-indirect, so as to put a buffer between the voice of Misplaced Pages and manifestly false statements, would constitute OR? If there is some other principle involved, could you explain it please – in reasoned, detailed sentences, and not another crypto-sarcastic diktat?--] 02:23, 31 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ===To Slim and Jay=== | |||
| I notice that neither one of you has directly addressed my arguments concerning the unsuitability of Flannery's arguments to this article. That's unfortunate, but not entirely surprising. What I find a bit more troubling is that neither of you has made any efforts to even *correct* the paragraph, based on what I've written. In its current form, the article presents Flannery's flawed scholarship as though it were accurate and credible. This is clearly unacceptable. | |||
| Seriously, does either of you honestly believe that a neutral editor (Mel Etitis, for instance, or Jmabel) would favour retention of the Flannery paragraph in light of the arguments I've presented? I doubt it. | |||
| The current Flannery paragraph is remarkably unencyclopedic, and has absolutely no business being here. I'm going to remove it again, and I'm going to request that you not restore it. If you want to return it in a revised form, please discuss it on the talk page first. ] 22:26, 28 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :I'd have no objection to asking Mel Etitis to take a look, and I'd be willing to stick by his decision. ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> 16:01, 29 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::I've already asked Mel to review the controversy. He hasn't responded yet. ] 16:22, 29 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| (And no, I didn't promise to leave the paragraph in place for a full day. I said I'd leave it in place *up to* a full day, on condition that SlimVirgin take advantage of the opportunity to read my comments.) ] 22:29, 28 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :Stop being so pompous, please. ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> 16:01, 29 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::HERE HERE!- ] | ] 20:52, 29 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :I can understand your point that the material is somewhat different than most of the article's other passages, but I think it generally follows the same line of argument that the rest of the article follows. You might disagree with the conlusions of Flannery, but wikipedia policy states that relevant material from a reputable and reliable source is permitted. I also cannot agree with everything that the author says (most of the progenitors of socialism may have been anti-Jewish religion, but I wouldn't state that most of them were necessarily anti-semitic), however I think that the jist of it is not particularly controversial.- ] | ] 01:04, 29 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::My feeling is that a self-published work (which for all intents and purposes the 1985 version was) which suggests "Protocols" was derived from socialist sources is not reliable. When you add in the other errors, it becomes even less so. When you add the question of relevance, it becomes profoundly unencyclopedic. (The fact that the paragraph is referenced is entirely beside the point.) | |||
| ::I maintain that a genuinely neutral editor would almost certainly conclude that the paragraph should be removed. | |||
| ::So ... how long do I have to wait before removing the paragraph again, if I'm to avoid being accused of "gaming the system"? ] 01:49, 29 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| It's an almost insignificant point but Flannery was not writing about the "new antisemitism". He wrote long before the rightists who inform this article had invented the term. Including the passage about him is a new low in what is already a terrible piece of POV pushing masquerading as an article. It's entirely OR to suggest that his analysis has anything whatsoever to do with the "concept" that is under "discussion" in this article. I just don't see how we can justify having a section on the "history" of something that exists mostly in the minds of contributors here and a few of the more frothy pro-Israeli commentators, when it isn't simply an epithet thrown around by those who think Israel should have ''carte blanche'' for whatever reason. ] 03:00, 29 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :I did my best to revise it as appropriate. I have no idea who will like this or not. Possibly it only makes for a stronger argument, suggesting that Flannery saw the error of his ways. Anyway, I'm not endorsing it or anything, but simply thought it would be interesting to try it out based on CJ's new sources. ] 03:04, 29 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::I appreciate what you're trying to do, Mackan, but I think the paragraph is beyond hope one way or the other. Why on earth should we convey *anything* from a work which posits that "Protocols" was derived from socialist sources, and has other obvious errors besides? Sorry, but I still think the paragraph has to go. ] 03:13, 29 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :::Yes, I definitely think there's a concern that I've now given him much more weight than is appropriate. I simply think somebody had to try it to see. When I got done I had a sudden realization that probably nobody was going to like me for that one :P ] 03:17, 29 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ===Updated remarks=== | |||
| I had been hoping that a greater number of uninvolved and neutral editors would have provided their views on this matter by now. I'm a bit concerned that this "controversy" could soon degenerate into the usual stale bickering between SlimVirgin's supporters and SlimVirgin's opponents; a few outside voices would be useful to ensuring that this unwelcome prospect doesn't come to fruition. I thank John Kenney for weighing in on this matter, and I hope others will follow in his footsteps. | |||
| For the time being, it will probably occasion little surprise among readers that I'm not convinced by the counter-arguments of Slim and Jay. Their comments about "Original Research" are especially puzzling: the NOR policy is designed to prevent editors from *adding* unverifiable and novel research, not to prevent editors from removing obviously flawed research. I'm also uncertain as to how a source that misinterprets Szajkowski by 34 years and claims "Protocols" as socialist-derived can honestly or accurately be described as reliable. To give credit where it's due, I appreciate that Moshe hasn't resorted to any transparent policy distortions in his remarks. (Even though I disagree with his conclusions, I appreciate that Moshe is approaching this discussion in a reasonable manner.) ] 06:05, 29 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :I don't think that any of my compatriots have resorted to "transparent policy distortions" either.- ] | ] 06:33, 29 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::I didn't say they did. ] 06:35, 29 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| As no-one has provided a convincing reason why the paragraph should be retained, I will remove it again presently. I am fully aware of the significance of my actions, and I believe that any neutral editor reviewing this situation would conclude that the paragraph should not have been returned in the first place. I can only wonder how much longer Slim and Jay will insist on defending an obviously unsuitable source. ] 06:05, 29 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :I agree. Looking over it again, I had to laugh, just because the section became much more POV pro-1985-Flannery than it did undermine him (my intent wasn't to do either, but I figured by combining them it would become clear that the material didn't belong). In any case, the paragraphs are clearly out of place. This is a section on the <i>history</i> of New Antisemitism, not a section for controversial and dubious single-person opinions not even speaking to that topic. In the sections below, of course, that's exactly what we provide: various individual scholars' opinions on the New Antisemitism. Here, we're supposed to be providing a neutral section on the history of New Antisemitism. I'm pretty sure nobody can make the case that Flannery 1985 represents a fair and neutral chronicle of antisemitism on the left through history. Quite obviously it's two paragraphs of idiosyncratic opinion, considering that it completely reversed itself over a period of 20 years. Unless someone explains otherwise, I completely support CJCurrie's decision to remove it.] 06:40, 29 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| Question to Jay: Is there any basis for quoting the second less influential book rather than the first more influential book which says the opposite? ] | |||
| :The revised edition of a book always reflects the author's intent better, and the most recent scholarship. ]<sup><small><font color="DarkGreen">]</font></small></sup> 01:49, 31 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::Lordy, this is rich. The original version was published by a credible firm; the "revised version" was effectively self-published and is demonstrably inaccurate. I think these facts may trump the "temporal factor" somewhat. ] 01:57, 31 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ===Question for Jay=== | |||
| ? | |||
| It's fairly obvious this situation is degenerating into a full-blown edit war. I'm going to refrain from removing the paragraph again for the time being, in the hope that more uninvolved editors will weigh in shortly. I maintain that the paragraph has absolutely no business being in the article, and I'm prepared to take the matter as far as formal mediation if need be. | |||
| For the moment, I'm going to put a fact-disputed notice on the section. The current edit includes the following line: "He cites historian Zosa Szajkowski, who writes that he could not find a "single word on behalf of Jews" in the entirety of French socialist literature from 1820 to 1920." Szajkowski does not write this. ] 16:29, 29 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :Update: I've chosen a "dubious" notice instead. Consider it as applied to the whole paragraph. ] 16:37, 29 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :Update: I've filed an RfC. ] 17:28, 29 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :Update: . (I've already reverted it). ] 04:30, 30 January 2007 (UTC) See also: , | |||
| :Update: . ] 04:47, 30 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::'''Your''' RfC?? ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> 14:40, 30 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :::I know this has gotten contentious, but my suggestion would really be to try editing the passage down, and then if it doesn't work, shoot for elimination at that point. While my attempt was a little ridiculous, I could potentially see a paragraph noting Flannery's changing position. Ideally, we'd then have a counter-source, but without going into a huge amount of detail that gives this perspective undue weight. Regarding a discussion of New Antisemitism, I think a <i>fair</i> treatment of historical antisemitism on the Left is relevant to the subject. What we have now simply isn't fair. It's one perspective, and actually more like half a perspective. If we could make it a fair discussion, we might be able to accomodate both sides. A categorical yes or no would be nice and easy, I'm simply skeptical it's going to resolve that way either way. | |||
| :::One might consider what an actual encyclopedia would say on something like this: it wouldn't be quoting one scholar at length to establish the history of a subject. That's a good way to discuss theory, but it's a bad way to establish history. ] 16:08, 30 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::::I think this is a great suggestion, Mackan79. Slim has pointed out that several writers on this topic cite Flannery; if they grant him central importance, then maybe we can refer to his work by way of their use of it. Of course, the immediate thing is to make sure we're not simply repeating and disseminating the errors in Flannery's work that CJ pointed out.--] 16:22, 30 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ===About "Original Research"=== | |||
| This is the essence of Misplaced Pages's Original Research policy: "Articles may not contain any unpublished material, or any unpublished analysis or synthesis of published material that serves to advance a position." | |||
| There is nothing in the policy that prevents me from challenging the reliability of a source on the talk page, nor is there anything in the policy that prevents me from removing obviously flawed information. | |||
| I hope that uninvolved parties reading this page will understand the defensive cry of "No original research" for what it is: an excuse, and a deflection. ] 19:21, 29 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :Agree – the charge here is spurious to its very core. Article pages can't have original research; talk pages can. The editorial process indeed consists of 90%+ original research, but it is rarely of this depth and judiciousness.--] 21:48, 29 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :I concur. Doing "original research" and presenting it on a talk page as a reason for ''removing material'' from an article cannot possibly violate any wikipedia policy. ] 23:35, 29 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::John, you've always objected to the OR policy, and you're not very familar with it. We can't have editors impose their personal views on source material that's regarded by scholars of antisemitism as reliable and worth using in their own work. If other people use it, we may use it too, even if CJCurrie doesn't like it. ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> 14:42, 30 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :::Slim, try to avoid strawman arguments: John hasn't "objected to OR policy," he's objected to what he sees as a fallacious invocation of it. Indeed, a central element of his objection to the current interpolation of the Flannery material (and it's an objection I've voiced here as well) is that "including Flannery and implying that his comments have anything to do with 'new antisemitism' is a 'novel synthesis,'" and therefore a violation of ]. --] 15:21, 30 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::::As G-Dett says. Additionally, your argument here seems completely untenable. An encyclopedia article has to be selective. It has to make choices about what it talks about. There is no obligation to include any particular claims, or lengthy summaries of the work of a single scholar, particularly when such claims can be demonstrated to be tendentious and dubious by looking at the sources cited by Flannery himself. And I don't object to the OR policy, and I am perfectly familiar with it. I think the OR policy is necessary and great, but that it has to be interpreted reasonably and sanely, and that there have been some problems with interpreting "OR" very broadly. In this particular case I think that the key issue is that OR policy applies to article content, not to talk page discussion. The change to the article suggested by CJCurrie is to remove the discussion of Flannery. The article ''sans'' discussion of Flannery would not contain any original research, so there is no violation of ]. The issue is not whether a ''change'' to an article is made based on "original research." It's whether the article itself becomes a vehicle for promoting original research. Removing the Flannery stuff would not make the article a vehicle for promoting CJ's critique of Flannery. It would simply remove the Flannery stuff. It would be OR to add CJ's critique of Flannery to the article, but nobody is advocating that. Furthermore, as G-Dett says above, and I have suggested before, the inclusion of Flannery's discussion of ''19th century'' antisemitism in the context of an article about "new antisemitism" supposedly arising after 1967, at earliest, is deeply problematic. Certainly by the standards you have expressed on many previous occasions, SV, we should have to find some sources which discuss Flannery's discussion of 19th century antisemitism, in particular, in the context of a discussion of "New Antisemitism." Either way, including the Flannery material seems a lot closer to OR than removing it would be. ] 16:43, 30 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ====A thought==== | |||
| One of the guiding principles of Misplaced Pages's editorial policy is that verifiability, rather than truth, is the standard for any piece of information to be included on an article page. That is, editors who wish to include *accurate* information on an article page must be able to demonstrate that the information has been published by a credible source. | |||
| This policy is meant to prevent editors from disseminating unverifiable personal knowledge (eg. "Celebrity X ran over my dog!"), and from promoting novel and untested theories (eg. "Were we too quick to dismiss phrenology?"). | |||
| To judge from recent discussions, however, this principle may be open to abuse and misinterpretation. Slim, Jay et al almost seem to have inverted the principle, to suggest that demonstrably *inaccurate* information may be deemed encyclopedic if it appears in a reliable source (''what?''). They also seem to be suggesting that efforts to demonstrate the inaccuracy of such information are contrary to Misplaced Pages policy. This, of course, is nonsense. | |||
| I had hoped that neutral editors would have weighed in the Flannery controversy by now. Since that hasn't happened, I will remove the paragraph again. I make no apologies for doing this, as I emphatically ''do not'' require anyone's permission to remove demonstrably false information from the article. | |||
| To anyone who wishes to return the paragraph, I offer the following challenge: Why should we include false, misleading and irrelevant material from a book that was for all intents and purposes self-published? ("But the author wrote a classic study twenty years earlier!" is not a suitable response.) ] 01:16, 31 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :Please review ]. ]<sup><small><font color="DarkGreen">]</font></small></sup> 01:52, 31 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::Should we just take this to mediation now, given that your side doesn't seem interested in debating the substance of the issue? ] 01:54, 31 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ==History of== | |||
| With regard to Ben's comment above. Ben, are you saying that it would not be useful to have historical articles as I suggested? I am not saying that it would resolve all the issues but surely it wouldn't hinder anything. I am not sure why you think the result would be that the Antisemitism and New antisemitism articles would be the same. As I see it, the Antisemitism article would carry all the main definitional work including the distinctions between religious and racial forms and the New antisemitism article would be devoted to that idea/concept/whatever in particular. BTW within the historical series I am most interested in the medieval period and hope to be making most edits to that, not to the 19th century onward.] 10:47, 27 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| : I think the point of ] is that it is somehow distinct from ]. I'm still not clear how, but your proposal that "This article is about the general concept of antisemitism" would lose that distinction. Having lost that distinction, there would be no difference between the two articles. But maybe I'm misunderstanding what you're proposing. | |||
| :I can see value in pages on the history of antisemitism, and maybe on the history of new antisemitism as well, assuming it is not one and the same. I can imagine a good article with the heading ], though IMHO such articles are usually best started as sections in a larger article and extracted once they grow big enough. That said, some users do like to write complete articles, by themselves, to ] candidate status, before letting anyone else at them. Not my style, but perfectly valid. Regards, ] 11:07, 27 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::The history of new antisemitism and this article would be the same thing. ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> 21:23, 27 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :::For the moment, yes. Maybe one day we will have enough to say that each earns its own page, but at this moment, history of new antisemitism only justifies a section in this page. Cheers, ] 23:54, 27 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::::There is already ] and since that deals largely with oppression and persecution then a separate article on antisemitism in the Middle Ages is not needed. As for a history of New antisemitism, then it would have to be a history of the term/concept/idea. In a few years time that article will be written. It will say that the term became current in the early 2000s as a response to a sudden upsurge of antisemitic activity and to changes in the type of antisemitic discourse but that usage of the term soon faded away when it became apparent that the resurgence was better described simply as antisemitism without the ''new''. An article on antisemitism in the 21st century will say that there was an upsurge in the early years of the century but that it had soon died down after a peace settlement in the Middle East. (Just hoping for the best...)] 22:04, 29 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :::::You should how little you know about the history of antisemitism if you hope for the best, sadly. ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> 14:38, 30 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ==Reverts by Slim Virgin and Al Silverburg== | |||
| I have attempted to improve this article by two simple edits. One was to change the sentence changing the words "not not be" is "is not" with regards to legitimate anti Isreali opposition. This is to try to ensure that this article does not come off as promoting POV. Use of the words "need not be" as the article states currently implies anti-semitism on the part of people who oppose Israel. In other words, "need not be" is a loaded phrase and puts POV into the article, and should be eliminated. ] reverted on the basis that it was taken from a quote when clearly it was not. I will revert this back, unless anything else is posted. Secondly, there has been a platitude state at the end of the United States section. It is a useless sentence that says something to the effect that the United Nations Human Rights Committee spent more than half of its time on Israel, more time than all countries combined. It may seem petty to argue style. But clearly, there is no need to point out that more than half is majority. Any idiot with basic arithmetic skills could see that. However, it has been reverted twice. Therefore, I am reverting that section back to the way it should be. There is no reason to have the back of that sentence. ] 00:34, 29 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :With regards to the passage about the time the UN spent on Israel, it is important to add emphasis to the implications of the commisions actions, therefore I am reinserting that passage. I do not even understand your other argument. All the wording is saying is that it is not inherantly antisemitic, but sometimes it can be as it depends on the motivations of the speaker. I don't see how you could argue against this as it is not particularly controversial.- ] | ] 00:51, 29 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::What needs to be emphasized, unless someone is pusting a POV? It's just redundant. Currently, it just looks like someone with poor writing style created this article. I am invoking the three revert rule on this. Please do not revert again. | |||
| For the other edit. | |||
| The distinction between "is not" and "need not be". Please look at the two following sentences: | |||
| *"They neeed not be so rude" | |||
| *"They are not rude" | |||
| The first one clearly implies that THEY ARE RUDE, but don't have to be. Similarly, you are making the accusation that people who oppose Israeli apartheid are anti-semitic. ] 01:01, 29 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :First of all you obviously have no understanding of the ] rule as I have only reverted 2 times in the last 24 hours. Second of all, you are not making any sense, normal writing is filled with stylistic emphasis that may technically be redundant. I do not understand why you persist on such a small issue. The other issue makes even less sense. All the passage implies is that the criticism may be anti-semitic but is not inherantly anti-semitic.- ] | ] 01:09, 29 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :: I was saying don't change it again, or you will be and apparently have violated the rule. Make sense, now. Also, might I ask why you persist on such a small issue? Why do you care so much? At least I care with a valid reason. ] 22:31, 29 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :::Actually even if this were still in that 24 hour period another edit would not be breaking the 3RR, you seem to have a tendency to not read things that you should before commenting on them (policies and sources for example). If you wish to see my reasons for favoring the version you merely need to scroll up. The fact is, you continually either imply or outright state that only your reasons make sense, when in fact they might make the least sense out of any argument on this talk page. If you would pick up a book and read it you may be surprised by the amount of similar "redundant mistakes" the author makes. In fact you may be outright shocked that so few people seem to conform with your idiosyncratic interpretation of the English language.- ] | ] 09:59, 30 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :Nlsanand, have you actually read what the source says? ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> 15:47, 29 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::Does it matter? This is not a quote, why are we inisting on writing so poorly. It's a platitude, encyclopedias don't need platitudes. Your insistece upon this in spite of facts baffles me. | |||
| Also, I've amended the section to say "need not be deemed". I think it is a good compromise. ] 22:31, 29 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::::I think it would be a really good idea to read a source before trying to summarize what it says; I'm baffled that you don't. ]<sup><small><font color="DarkGreen">]</font></small></sup> 22:54, 29 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :::::Look you guys are quite condescending for people who don't understand simple logic. It doesn't matter what the source says! By the way, I did read it before. The point I was making is my edit has not changed the meaning of anything, just eliminated redundant info. This is really dense. I am editing this again. ] 23:34, 29 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :::::Apparently, someone beat me to it. ] 23:37, 29 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::Isn't the whole sentence, about a single meeting in 2002, somewhat redundant and irrelevant? The argument is made quite thoroughly already. I'd suggest simply taking out the sentence, which is much weaker than the argument that precedes it. ] 02:28, 29 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ==EUMC Definition== | |||
| Ok, I'm a bit confused. The EUMC definition is titled "Working Definition on Antisemitism." How is this a definition of "New Antisemitism"? Very clearly, it says it's a definition of antisemitism, which then gives contemporary examples. In fact, the working definition itself is italicized: "Working Definition: <i>Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physcial manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their prperty, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.</i>" Please check it out, it doesn't call itself a definition of new or even contemporary antisemitism. | |||
| So, then, the document continues, after a set of general contemporary examples of antisemitism: | |||
| "Examples of the ways in which antisemitism manifests itself with regard to the state of Israel taking into account the overall context could include: | |||
| *Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination... | |||
| *Applying double standards... | |||
| *Using the symbols and images... | |||
| *Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis. | |||
| *Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel. | |||
| However, criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic." | |||
| Can you also explain, then, why we're removing the final counter-example? The bulleted points are not offered as a definition, but as five examples, followed by one counterexample. The counter-example is directly applicable to the examples. How do you quote the document and simply cut that out? We discussed this above, and the only answer we got was that it's a straw man, but clearly that can't be a valid reason when the EUMC itself chose to include it. Any and all comments welcome. ] 22:40, 29 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :Jayjg, only the second part, if anything, has been discussed at all. In any case, can I ask what was your reason? Can you really say the EUMC was simply knocking down a straw man? ] 23:03, 29 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::Mackan, for heaven's sake, you're doing here what you do everywhere else. The EU doesn't need to give a def of AS. It's new or contemporary AS that govts need a def of so they can monitor it, and that's what the EU offered. ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> 23:07, 29 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :::Slim, if it's universally understood that new definitions are contemporary definitions, then it's universally understood. It's not something for us to throw in, especially when this article has just given a very particular definition of "New Antisemitism." Why is this even controversial? My main point was simply to clarify that it's not actually a definition, but examples that illustrate a definition, which is irrefutable. ] 23:39, 29 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::::I don't know what you mean. It's a definition. ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> 23:56, 29 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :::::Look at it again. The definition is given in italics at the top of the page. What follows are various examples and illustrations. It is not "defining" these incidences as antisemitism. The statement I put is obviously more accurate; can I ask why you don't like it? ] 01:23, 30 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :::Slim, re this: "The EU doesn't need to give a def of AS. It's new or contemporary AS that govts need a def of so they can monitor it, and that's what the EU offered." You are simply but very much so wrong. I quote: "The EUMC Report on Antisemitism published in March 2004 highlighted both the lack of '''operational definitions of antisemitism''' in most EU Member States and the insufficient data comparability due to the different methodologies used by primary data collectors." (my emphasis) This clearly states (without my needing to indulge in any interpretation or judgement to make it state) that what is lacking is precisely what you say the EU doesn't need to give. Are you suggesting, btw, that, for example, "Calling for, aiding, or justifying the killing of Jews in the name of a radical ideology or in the name of religion" is "new antisemitism"? I'm sorry to say that it is not, and it is just the first of several examples of antisemitism that have a long history. The "new" elements in the document we are discussing all concern the state of Israel (which your article omits to mention). Criticisms of the state of Israel will tend to be "new" for the obvious reason. ] 03:57, 30 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| Slim, your reversion is unjustified, as per Mackan79's points. You've restored an edit that a) smuggles in OR by saying what the EUMC doesn't say, that their true topic is "new" antisemitism; b) falsely describes bullet-pointed examples as constituting a "definition," where in fact the EUMC actually supplies a definition and the examples aren't it; and c) violates NPOV by selectively deleting a key qualifying sentence.--] 23:32, 29 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :It says new or contemporary, G-Dett, which it undoubtedly is. That's what they're trying to describe, what some scholars and journalists are calling new antisemitism. What did you think they were trying to do? Read the previous footnote, and read the definition itself. For example, part of their definition of antisemitism is "using the symbols and images associated with '''classical antisemmitism''' ... to characterize Israel or Israelis" (which is part of the definition of new antisemitism as understood by ''everyone'' who writes about it). Why would they mention "classical antisemitism" if in fact that's all they're talking about? ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> | |||
| I thought they were trying to do what they said they were trying to do: <blockquote> | |||
| The purpose of this document is to provide a working guide for identifying incidents, collecting data, and supporting the implementation and enforcement of legislation dealing with antisemitism. | |||
| </blockquote> | |||
| Antisemitism is a fact, a phenomenon. "New antisemitism" is a theory. It's a theory to which you subscribe, so you'd like to alter the wording of the EUMC document such that it looks they've explicitly endorsed the theory. But they haven't. Classic case of OR. Let it go. | |||
| They also explicitly provide a "definition," and it isn't the one you keep shoe-horning in: <blockquote> | |||
| Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities. | |||
| </blockquote>The set of non-exhaustive examples you keep falsely presenting as their "definition" of "new antisemitism" actually constitutes a subsection, way down the page, explicitly about how "antisemitism manifests itself with regard to the state of Israel." The subsection includes several qualifying phrases ("taking into account the overall context"; "However, criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic") which, unsurprisingly, you keep deleting. It takes considerable nerve to insist that other editors must clear it with you on the talk page if they wish to correct incontestibly false information in the article. | |||
| In short, you've offered a wholly unsatisfactory answer to my point a) above, and no answer at all to points b) and c).--] 00:37, 30 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :Antisemitism is as much a concept as "New antisemitism"; they are both ways of describing specific phenomena directed at Jews. Your distinctions are entirely artificial. You happen to subscribe to a particular political narrative in which the former is "fact", and the latter is "theory", but that's just sophistry, not reality. ]<sup><small><font color="DarkGreen">]</font></small></sup> 00:53, 30 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::::If you want to say antisemitism is merely a concept, fine. I don't agree, but I'll accept the premise. If it's a concept, it's still a concept distinct from the theory of "New Antisemitism." The EUMC document supplies a definition of the former, which you keep altering so that it looks like an endorsement of the latter.--] 01:10, 30 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::We now have Michael Whine's expert view of the definition, rather than the personal views of some editors on this page. ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> 01:06, 30 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :::In fact, Whine describes it as a "common definition of antisemitism" and says the "initiative" (not the definition) recognises "the new directions from which anti-Semitism comes". So you have allowed yourself to reinterpret the source (which does not say what you claim at all), which is from what cannot in any way be described as an unbiased organisation, and seems to be an issue brief on a website. (Was it ever published? How widely was it disseminated?) Even if it were allowed that this source is reputable, you simply footnote the document, do not quote it and do not claim to be sourcing any part of the views in the article to Whine. ] 04:09, 30 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ===Concept versus term=== | |||
| Some editors here are engaged in WP:POINT. This isn't an article about the term, but about the idea, and there has been a long-standing agreement on this page that sources don't have to use the exact phrase "new antisemitism" to be included. It only has to be clear that they are talking about that idea, and in the case of the EU definition, it's '''abundantly''' clear by the examples they give and the language they use; indeed it's the rise of NAS in Europe that prompted the need for the EU's research and definition in the first place. Any editor here who pretends otherwise is either editing in bad faith, or hasn't read anything about the topic. ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> 00:07, 30 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :Anyone who does a brief Google search will find discussion of the EU definition in terms of new antisemitism, or new forms of antisemitism, or the new manifestation of antisemitism, and similar phrases. For example, Michael Whine of the Community Security Trust, who regularly briefs the British government and European Union on antisemitism: "Of the initiatives undertaken by European organizations in recent years to combat anti-Semitism, two appear likely to be more effective than others. They are the April 2004 Berlin Declaration of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the Working Definition of Anti-Semitism of the European Union Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC) ... Both initiatives depart from previous ones in two important respects. First, they provide for regular implementation monitoring ... Second, '''they both recognize the new directions from which anti-Semitism comes - particularly the demonization of Israel and Zionism, which all too frequently serves as a cover for Jew-hatred, and which overspills from the Arab world, is promoted by Islamists, and has been adopted by some leftist and left-liberal circles.'''" | |||
| :With secondary sources identifying it thus, it doesn't matter what some editors on this page are claiming. It's obvious from the primary source material that the EU definition and examples are about the concept of new antisemitism, and it is so described by secondary sources. ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> 00:26, 30 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| I don't think anyone's arguing that sources "have to use the exact phrase 'new antisemitism' to be included" here. It's fine to use the EUMC definition; it's just not fine to alter their words so that they appear to be endorsing a theory you subscribe to.--] 00:48, 30 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :Good thing that hasn't been done. And it's certainly not o.k. to pretend the EUMC is ''not'' talking about New antisemitism. ]<sup><small><font color="DarkGreen">]</font></small></sup> 00:53, 30 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::What do you mean that hasn't been done? Have you read the above? And have you read the report?--] 00:59, 30 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :::I mean it hasn't been done; the summary is faithful to the source. ]<sup><small><font color="DarkGreen">]</font></small></sup> 01:04, 30 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::::Jay, it is not even arguably faithful to the source. The source says nothing about "new antisemitism," and it explicitly gives a definition of "antisemitism" which the current edit suppresses, instead shoe-horning in some examples from a subsection at the bottom of the page, which it misrepresents as the document's definition. The examples you've repackaged as the definition itself come from a subsection dealing with a subset of the topic at hand; these are introduced as "ways antisemitism could manifest itself with regard to Israel." "Ways that topic X can manifest itself" is perforce ''not'' the definition of topic X itself. The definition of AIDS is not weight loss and depression. The definition of poverty is not a lack of educational opportunities for one's children. The definition of racism is not being refused a deserved job promotion. This is elementary reading comprehension and verbal logic 101, Jay. Stop prevaricating.--] 04:18, 30 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::::It's quite astonishing that you suggest that. No one who reads the source will be under any misapprehension that what you give is the definition, or that the EUMC suggests in any way that it's defining "new antisemitism". I do not know what to say about this, Jay, because I can't understand how you could rationally say what you're saying if you've actually read the working paper. ] 04:22, 30 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :The secondary sources say they're defining new or contemporary antisemitism, and so that's what we will say. ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> 00:51, 30 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::We're going to present the report's very mandate using not its own formulations, but those of secondary sources? | |||
| ::Do you also have some secondary sources to back up your misstatements about the paper's "definition"? | |||
| ::Can I expect a response or justification regarding the selective deletions and NPOV violations?--] 00:57, 30 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :::The report is contrasting ''some'' recent sort of antisemitism with "classical antisemitism"; what do you imagine that to be? Old antisemitism? ]<sup><small><font color="DarkGreen">]</font></small></sup> 01:04, 30 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :::As a compromise in order to stop the reverting, I've restored the sentence about Israel, even though it's already part of the definition, which includes: "Applying double standards by requiring of Israel a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation," which is saying the same as: "criticism of Israel cannot be regarded as antisemitism so long as it is similar to that leveled against any other country." However, both sentences are there now. I also added a secondary source for the sentence saying it's a def of new or contemporary antisemitism. G-dett, we always use secondary sources if possible, rather than interpret primary ones. Please read the policies. ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> 01:04, 30 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::::Slim, as you know very well, I haven't suggested that we "interpret" the primary source; I've suggested that we quote it accurately, rather than doctoring their words as you have done.--] 01:14, 30 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| I see you've now restored the misrepresentation. Why won't you quote the document accurately? Are we really going to go down the revert war/mediation/arbitration route over what is plainly a misrepresentation?--] 01:19, 30 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :::::Which bit is not being quoted accurately? ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> 01:46, 30 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::Read before posting, Slim.--] 03:49, 30 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::Instead of unhelpful sniping, could you just tell me? I don't know which bit you're referring to. ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> 04:08, 30 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :This is completely silly, though I don't have time to respond adequately at the moment. It's a definition of antisemitism, as it says; the statements of other sources are completely irrelevant unless we're going to say "This has been called a definition of New Antisemitism by this source." Simply attributing that to WP is blatantly false and ridiculous. As I said above, this isn't even a definition; it's examples from a definition. Perhaps the best method is to say that this other source called it a definition of New Antisemitism, but you can't simply misrepresent the original source as saying that itself. The original source says it's a definition of Antisemitism. ] 01:29, 30 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::Mackan, do not start here what you do elsewhere. Read the policies, read the sources, read the article before editing it. The EU document is a definition. It is described as such everywhere. We have secondary sources calling it that and there are dozens of them. They say it is a definition of the new wave of antisemitism, new antisemitism, and words to that effect. We go with what authoritative secondary sources say where there's a disagreement over the meaning of a primary source. '''Read the policies, please'''. How many times do I have to say that? ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> 01:49, 30 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :::Crimeny, Slim. I hate to say this, but I don't think you can pull the expertise card on this one. This is a simple question: can you take an illustrative example out of a paper devoted to defining a term, and call that example a "definition"? The obvious answer is no, you can't. An example already has a name: an example. | |||
| :::Beyond that, though, the paper itself couldn't be more clear. We have a heading, "Working Definition," followed by a colon, quotes, two sentences in italics, and ended by a quotation mark. It then proceeds to discuss and illustrate the definition for the rest of the page. It's just a little funny, really, because a couple of weeks ago, Jayjg and you were obsesed with the significance of a missing bullet point, and now you want to ignore all of a heading, italics, and quotation marks? | |||
| :::Anyway, I have no interest in scoring points, which make me feel like a child. I really just don't see the problem here. So it's five examples provided by the EUMC: what does it hurt to say this? Does it somehow undermine the examples to call them what they are? You could certainly say, if you wanted, that many groups have considered this a definition on New Antisemitism. Is that not the proper way to deal with the situation? ] 08:15, 30 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| Here's what is "completely silly", Mackan; the EUMC comes up with a definition of ''some'' sort of antisemitism, which includes the ideas that | |||
| *Denying the Jewish people the right to self-determination, e.g. by claiming that the existence of a state of Israel is a racist endeavor, | |||
| *Applying double standards by requiring of Israel a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation, and | |||
| *Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis | |||
| are a kind of antisemitism. Now, if it's not New antisemitism, then exactly what antisemitism are they describing? Racial antisemitism? Religious antisemitism? And, on top of that, reliable secondary sources explicitly tell us that it's New antisemitism that the EUMC is talking about. I can only assume that some of the arguments to the contrary are being made purely in jest; the alternatives are too horrible to contemplate. ]<sup><small><font color="DarkGreen">]</font></small></sup> 01:53, 30 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::These points are "examples oft the ways in which antisemitism manifests itself with regard to the state of Israel". Please review WP:RTS (read the sources). ] 09:42, 30 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :They're discussing <i>antisemitism</i>. What you're ignoring, of course, is that before even getting to the part about Israel, they have a whole host of examples having nothing to do with it. In that regard, here's what you <i>can</i> say: "In their recent working definition of antisemitism, the EUMC acknowledged the fundamental preceps of New Antisemitism to be an important part of contemporary antisemitism." Because that, indeed, is what they basically did. What they didn't do was <i>define</i> "New Antisemitism." I'm really not trying to whitewash the page here; I'm simply trying to make it accurate. See comment to Slim below. ] 08:15, 30 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :Exactly. What is it if not the concept of new antisemitism? Are people here suggesting Mackan79 knows more about antisemitism than Michael Whine of the Community Security Trust? ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> 01:56, 30 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::What am I missing here? The Whine article calls it a working definition of Antisemitism. He also says it acknowledges antisemitism has changed in form. You're suggesting that makes it a definition of new antisemitism? Perhaps we're simply talking past each other. If we're talking about a definition of music, which incorporates elements from the 20th century not previously considered "music," that doesn't make it a definition of 20th century music, does it? It's a definition of music, updated and expanded for the 20th century. Neither is it a "definition of contemporary music." That's all I'm saying here...] 08:15, 30 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :::I don't have an opinion on how it presented in the article (haven't looked at it yet) but i did just read the source. I think see where the problem is. See here: | |||
| :::*''Using the symbols and images associated with '''classic antisemitism''' (e.g., claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterize Israel or Israelis..'' | |||
| :::It's "new" by virtue of not being "classic". They've prefixed the "old", rather than the "new". ] 10:20, 30 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::::I've added in "Some contemporary examples included, but were not limited to:" before the bulleted examples in the article -does this address your concerns, Mackan? ] 10:57, 30 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :::::Thanks, that helps immensely in terms of accuracy. In terms of clarity, the only thing is that these still are examples of the interaction between antisemitism and Israel-opposition, which is specifically why it's relevant to this article. I'd think we would all want to clarify that much, because it's the whole basis for inclusion. I simply think some are going too far by suggesting this is actually a <i>definition</i> of contemporary antisemitism, which means something totally different, like calling a modern definition of music a definition of modern music. They're two very different things. ] 14:17, 30 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::One more thing: along with others, I think you may have overlooked the division in the examples. The first large group is a set of general examples of antisemitism in public life. This, incidentally, is what makes it very clear it's a general definition. The second group, though, which we quote, is indeed specifically about interaction between Israel and antisemitism, as G-Dett quoted.] 14:34, 30 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| I don't know why anyone would contribute any further to this discussion when not agreeing with Slim/Jay is characterised as "editing in bad faith" but I direct Slim and Jay to ]. The EUMC definition states clearly what it defines. If you guys had the slightest regard for the policies you brandish like weapons, you would reword your statement to make it clear that the examples given by the EUMC are so characterised by commentators, not by the EUMC. The EUMC even states that it supplied the definition because operational definitions '''of antisemitism''' lack. It does not state that it needed a new definition for a new kind of antisemitism. | |||
| :The EUMC does say this elsewhere. In its 2006 working paper, it says something like (writing from memory) — Some commentators have posited that there is a "new antisemitism," characterized as vilification of Jews as a collective and mainly perpetrated by Muslims. While studies do not show that there has been any fundamental change in the expression of antisemitic stereotypes, there has been a fundamental change in the way Jews are represented in politics and the media." | |||
| :The problem on this page is that several editors want to express strong views, but don't want to get their heads down and do the dull reading. I accept that it's boring, but there's no shortcut. The fact of the matter is that the EU does accept there is a new form of antisemitism, no matter what it might be called, as does almost every serious scholar of the subject. Even those opposed to NAS such as Brian Klug accept that there is a new bigotry against Jews — his "brand new bug," as he calls it — he just doesn't want to call it antisemitism, because he feels it's a radical departure rather than a continuation. But he agrees that it's new, that it's vile, and that it's dangerous. There really is no one sensible and knowledgable who disagrees with that. ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> 04:08, 30 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::But you didn't quote the passage you can't quite remember. You instead mischaracterise something as a "definition" of the concept that far from being agreed upon by everyone "sensible and knowledgeable" is very controversial. ] 04:17, 30 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| Furthermore, what you quote as the definition '''is not'''. They are examples given by the EUMC of antisemitism, which you have cherrypicked (ignoring the other examples of antisemitism that are given supra, which do not fit your definition so well, because they do not regard the state of Israel). | |||
| I note also that I entirely deplore the suggestion that Jay makes that anyone who argues contrary to his (extremely poor) argument is antisemitic (the irony that this is precisely the counterargument to the epithet we are describing should not escape us). Jay, you are smart enough to see that the '''definition''' given by the EUMC does not include the examples of antisemitism, as your text misleadingly suggests, but that they are given as examples to guide the work of researchers. Other examples are given. The EUMC '''in no way''' defines "new antisemitism", '''in no way''' characterises what it defines as that, and '''in no way''' suggests that what it describes is divisible. It's interesting that you cherrypicked the list of examples it gives of antisemitism directed towards the Israeli state, which cannot but be "new", on account of the Israeli state's not existing until recently. (Curiously, again, this is precisely the argument of the left in this area: that there is only a "new antisemitism" because pro-Israel commentators have started labelling any criticism of Israel as "antisemitic".) Now you and I might rehearse that argument here, Jay, but I think you can (but of course won't) agree that we should not be trying to synthesise it in the text. ] 03:30, 30 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| If we have to go to mediation and/or arbitration, then let's get on with it. Slim, your last question to me – "Which bit is not being quoted accurately?" – smacks of bad faith. I do not see the merest glimmering of a sincere attempt to engage with – or even acknowledge – the objections meticulously raised here. The current edit is flat-out false, and appears to be a deliberate doctoring and misrepresentation of source material.--] 03:53, 30 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :Do you really enjoy this time wasting? I don't know which part you feel has not been quoted accurately, so just tell me. ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> 04:10, 30 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::I gave a long discussion of how the definition is misrepresented. I'm sorry to say I agree with G-Dett. I objected in detail, carefully, and you ignore that and repeat the question. Well, all I can do is repeat the answer. It's in my post of 03:30, 30 Jan 2007 UTC. ] 04:17, 30 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::Read what I've written, Slim, and stop prevaricating.--] 04:20, 30 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ==The British All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Anti-Semitism in the UK== | |||
| The following paragraph in this section needs serious work:<blockquote> | |||
| The inquiry adopted the view of racism expressed by the MacPherson report after the murder of Stephen Lawrence, namely that a racist act is defined by its victim, and that it is the Jewish community that is in the best position to determine what is anti-Semitic. The report states that left-wing activists and Muslim extremists are using criticism of Israel as a "pretext" for anti-Semitism, and that the "most worrying discovery" is that anti-Semitism appears to be entering the mainstream. The inquiry calls for the adoption of a clearer definition of anti-Semitism that reflects its "complex and multi-faceted" nature. It argues that anti-Zionism may become anti-Semitic when it adopts a view of Zionism as a "global force of unlimited power and malevolence throughout history," a definition that "bears no relation to the understanding that most Jews have of the concept: that is, a movement of Jewish national liberation ..." Having re-defined Zionism, traditional anti-Semitic motifs of Jewish "conspiratorial power, manipulation and subversion" are transferred from Jews onto Zionism. This is "at the core of the 'New Anti-Semitism'," the report concludes, adding that many of those who gave evidence called anti-Zionism "the lingua franca of antisemitic movements." | |||
| </blockquote>First of all, it's heavily cherry-picked so as to look like an unqualified endorsement of the theory/concept of new antisemitism. All of the charged phrases floating around in this paragraph are qualified in their context, and the report explicitly says that "it is not the role of this inquiry to take sides in this major debate," i.e. the debate about NAS and the relationship between anger about Israeli policies and antisemitism (point 81). The sentence that reads ''"This is 'at the core of the "New Anti-Semitism,"' the report concludes, adding that many of those who gave evidence called anti-Zionism 'the lingua franca of antisemitic movements'"'' contains much that is misleading as well as one outright falsehood. This is not how the report "concludes"; rather, it is a digressive side-example 24 pages into a 66-page report (point 83, beginning "For example, criticism of Israel is not in itself antisemitic..."). The sentence saying "This is at the core of the 'New Anti-Semitism'" actually reads "This is at the core of the 'New Anti-Semitism,' ''on which so much has been written.''" The sentence, in other words, is tangentially gesturing to an external body of work about one facet of the topic at hand (a facet the report endorses only with cautious qualifications, acknowledging it to be controversial, and trying to stay aloof of the controversy by positing a difference between antisemitic ''intentions'' and antisemitic ''effects''). This cautious side note in the middle of the report has been edited by someone here so as to appear to be the concluding moment, where the report sums up its own findings. I'll leave it to veterans of this page to fix it, but if it doesn't happen I'll do it.--] 00:18, 30 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :G-Dett, it seems to me that the report does indeed conclude that there is an overlap between anti-Zionism and antisemitism, but does not want to get into the discussion on the use of a particular term. There is, however, a recognition of the concept - a rose by any other name - etc. As for "criticism against Israel is not necessarily antisemitism," this is a strawman argument, which has been pointed out many many times. Nobody - to my knowledge - equates criticism of Israel with antisemitism. It looks to me like you are the one who wants to qualify the conclusions at the expense of the clarity the report is striving for. --] 18:10, 30 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::No, I want us to a) quote the report accurately and not tendentiously; b) balance the cherry-picked phrases with ''one'' iteration of the report's many careful qualifications; and c) rephrase one incredibly misleading sentence – not by offering an alternative paraphrase, but by citing the actual language of the report itself. | |||
| ::That sentence now reads: ''"This is 'at the core of the "New Anti-Semitism,"' the report concludes, adding that many of those who gave evidence called anti-Zionism 'the lingua franca of antisemitic movements'"'' As I've explained, 66-page report does not conclude on page 24, in a digressive numbered point beginning "For example, criticism of Zionism is not in itself antisemitic," which is where these phrases have been picked and prised from. This opening caveat is indeed itself one of the many such qualifications selectively suppressed in the current edit. Moreover, the actual sentence that's been selectively sampled goes like this: ''"This is at the core of the 'New Anti-Semitism,' on which so much has been written."'' The current edit deletes the last seven words, thereby making it look like the report is announcing its own findings about its own central subject, which it is ''not'' doing, rather than gesturing to an external body of work, which is what it ''is'' doing. This false implication is compounded by the misleading statement that this is how the report "concludes," when it fact it is merely presenting a digressive observation one-third of the way into its findings. | |||
| ::My revision goes like this: ''This is "at the core of the 'New Anti-Semitism', on which so much has been written," the report remarks in one of its numbered points, adding that many of those who gave evidence called anti-Zionism "the lingua franca of antisemitic movements." The report underscores that "it is not the role of this inquiry to take sides in this major debate."'' It is a modest revision, which I've justified at great length on this page, a full day before adding it. Jay has since reverted it without any explanation, either here or in his edit summary. I think this is clearly unacceptable, and I've just filed an RfC on the matter.--] 18:42, 30 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| Mackan79, your reworded edit looks fine. Hopefully you've headed off an unnecessary revert war.--] 20:07, 30 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :Well, for starters, the citation was incorrect. The relevant quote is on p. 24. Secondly, the inquiry makes it clear that it doesn't want to take sides on the semantic issue but emphasizes the point that is made repeatedly by those who characterize New Antisemitism, namely that while criticism of Israel is not antisemitic per se, "however, in some quarters an antisemitic discourse has developed that is in effect antisemitic because it views Zionism itself as a global force of unlimited power and malevolence throughout history." Setting aside the issue that there is no major debate except between ] and his own strawman argument, the inquiry certainly agrees that antisemitism and anti-Zionism are not necessarily different things, as demonstrated by antisemitic events. G-Dett, you keep accusing others of obfuscating the meaning, but as far as I can tell, this is precisely what you're trying to do. --] 20:29, 30 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::Leifern, please. My edit (which was reverted) left in place all of the points you reiterate above, every last quote. It merely added to them one example of the many cautious rhetorical qualifications made by the report. The report is carefully written; it doesn't traffic in weasel phrases like "antisemitism and anti-Zionism are not necessarily different things." Indeed it carefully specifies, ''at the outset of the very bullet-point cherry-picked by the contentious edit'', that "criticism of Zionism is not in itself antisemitic." I'm not even trying to quote that one. The only qualifying phrase I've suggested is the one where it explicitly states that "it is not the role of this inquiry to take sides in this major debate" – where the clear reference (''pace'' Armon) is the major debate about a relationship between anger at Israel and antisemitism. | |||
| ::So don't accuse me of obfuscating. I've left everything in. The relevant questions here are: | |||
| ::'''1.''' Why are you determined to alter the rhetorical tenor of the report, and suppress every qualifying phrase it was careful to include? | |||
| ::'''2.''' Why are you determined to present a single phrase from a single bullet-point in a subsection (pt.#83 in subsection 4, "Antisemitic discourse") as if it represented how the report "concludes"? What's wrong with saying "states in one of its numbered points"? or even simply, "states"? | |||
| ::'''3.''' And why do you insist on further truncating that phrase, so that a reference to a topic covered by an external body of work ("the 'New Anti-Semitism', on which so much has been written") appears instead to be a culminating judgment about the report's central subject?--] 21:17, 30 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| Leifern, the clause you've just added looks fine to me. Indeed, it's an important point, one the report comes back to in various ways when trying to explain its mandate. --] 21:25, 30 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ==Edit War== | |||
| I see that Humussapiens has restored the propaganda edit. I must say I'm accustomed to special pleading, double standards, and aggressive wikilawyering from these editors; what seems new however is the persistent shoe-horning in of bad-faith misrepresentations. Enough of the nonsense; let's go straight to mediation.--] 05:45, 30 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| Humus, the "silly rv game" is yours and yours only. What you've just reverted was new material I added – not a revert of your last ridiculous edit. The latter I'm leaving for mediation, having given up on the expectation of serious and good-faith discussion.--] 06:26, 30 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| : Could you add a couple more times "propaganda edit" and "ridiculous edit" for good-faith discussion? ←] <sup>]]</sup> 06:30, 30 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::Forget it Humus, it's calculated prevarication, not heated rhetoric, which is relatively new to this page and which is destroying the atmosphere of good faith.--] 06:56, 30 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| == Progress on EUMC working definition == | |||
| Armon, I appreciate your good work in this section, rescuing what had become a bad situation indeed. I don't understand your latest edit however, and I think there might be a misunderstanding. Your edit summary says ''"rv OK how about WP:V? in any case the burden of proof is on removal -G-Dett check source it's "Contemp exmpls of AS in public life, media, schools, workplace, and and in the religious sphere"''. Have another look at the document in question. First of all, you'll find there are two subsections of examples. The first of these has the heading you quote in your edit summary, but this is ''not'' the section we quote from in our article; none of the examples we've entered into the article come from this subsection. They come from the second subsection, which is headed ''"Examples of the ways in which antisemitism manifests itself with regard to the state of Israel taking into account the overall context could include:"'' and then it goes on to list the examples we ''do'' quote in our article. This is the framing language for the relevant section we quote in full in our article; that's why I sampled it in the edit you've now removed. Which brings me to the second apparent misunderstanding. You say "the burden of proof is on removal," but it's you who's doing the removing, no? Please consider self-reverting.--] 15:06, 30 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :I went to bed but I take your point re: the bullet points which were quoted. As for the "removal point" - the edit summary was admittedly a mess. What I was talking about the commenting out of the "history" section. I'm sure you agree that if we're going to remove a big chunk of cited text, the burden of proof is on those who wish to remove it. ] 22:52, 30 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::Oh I see. All clear now.--] 23:17, 30 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| == Ongoing manipulation and distortion of source material == | |||
| Jay, why have you restored an edit that has been shown to be factually false on one count and misleading on another? And why do you not see fit to account for your edit on the talk page? Especially given that the material you've just deleted was prefaced by a lengthy explanation on this page, posted some twelve hours before making the needed edit? Is this arrogance on your part or an oversight?--] 17:33, 30 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :I've submitted an RfC on this.--] 18:44, 30 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::I tried a compromise, though I don't know if it's any good. In any case, I looked through the report, and entirely share your concerns. My immediate question is, why does our summary not reflect any of the care taken in the report itself to present an even-handed discussion? Starting with Anti-Zionism, the first thing the report says is "One of the most difficult and contentious issues about which we have received evidence is the dividing line between antisemitism and criticism of Israel and Zionism." The report even says that "most of those who gave evidence were at pains to explain that criticism of Israel is not to be regarded in itself as antisemitic." So why does our article act like the report only supported this theory? I think the edit you suggested, with minor alteration or not, is really the least we could possibly do to even up this section. ] 20:20, 30 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :::As we are all agreed on the need to reflect the actual statements in this report and to avoid as far as we possibly can introducing our own various biases, then the best solution must be to quote this report at greater length, and to use its own words rather than summarising. Mackan, do you want to add, for example, the sentences that you quote in your contribution above?] 21:36, 30 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::::Well, I honestly don't have time at the moment. At least one thing that needs clarification, though: "The report states that left-wing activists and Muslim extremists are using criticism of Israel as a "pretext" for anti-Semitism, and that the "most worrying discovery" is that anti-Semitism appears to be entering the mainstream. " As far as I can tell, the second half there isn't actually from the report, but a statement from the chairman, which wasn't connected to the previous thought. Also, the lingua franca statement is one of many pieces of testimony going both ways, which gives an inaccurate picture of the report. Anyway, I'm not pushing for dramatic changes here, but a couple minor changes, I think, could really even it up. I'll look at it more later, if someone doesn't first... ] 22:27, 30 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| Slim, the changes were not only to improve the writing, but to make inaccurate statements accurate. The past/present tense issues were already there, I simply didn't fix it. In any case, you reinserted several inaccuracies: | |||
| *The report does not adopt the view that a racist act is defined by its victim, but considers it. It adopts the view that the Jewish community is in the best position to determine what is antisemitic. Saying the victim defines it is substantially stronger, and they specifically only said they considered that view. I made a small change to fix this. | |||
| *The report is very careful to say that the pretext is used "in some quarters" or "by some." Thus, I included the same qualification here. Why would we remove it? | |||
| *The quote about antisemitism entering the mainstream is missourced. It's not in that document, and in fact it appears to have been said by the Chairman, not the report. The statement is quoted at the bottom of the section to its correct source, where it belongs. | |||
| Beyond that, the section is simply poorly written, failing to present any sort of coherent line of thought. It's talking about who defines racism, then completely drops that and talks about anti-zionism. Then it jumps to a general statement on rising antisemitism, then back to an example of anti-Zionism as antisemitism, etc. What's the topic of this paragraph? "Tidbits from the committee that seem relevant"? You must see this paragraph does a poor job of explaining its line of thought, in addition to presenting only tidbits from one side. Can we not fix this? | |||
| Anyway, the main point is the inaccuracies. Did you check that out? ] 18:57, 31 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :It's a while since I read the whole report, but I recall that it says it was adopting the Lawrence inquiry definition (are you familiar with that, and why it says that?). Ok, I see from your second sentence above that you accept what it says, so I suspect you don't know the Lawrence background. I don't have time right now to explain. | |||
| :Please don't WP:POINT. What the chair says is what the committee endorsed. | |||
| :Did you read the whole report and all the press statements from the chair explaining it? You do need to read it all before editing. ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> 19:03, 31 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::Yes, Slim, I read the report before editing on it. Incidentally, I'm somewhat surprised you admit to reverting my corrections based on distant recollections, and then try to instruct me on what I should do. Do you see why this would be unwelcome? The statements are incorrect for the specific reasons I mentioned. The report states that they "take into account" the view that racism is defined by the victim, but does not say they endorse that statement. It says the Jewish community is in the best position to determine what is antisemitic. Subtle differences are the whole objective of a report like this; should we not recognize them, unless there is a reason not to? As to the chairman, I hardly know what to say. 1. The footnoted source doesn't say that. 2. Our text says the report says it, but the report doesn't say it. 3. A chairman is not a committee. Basically, this isn't even a POV issue, it's simply an issue of citing the correct source. At the bottom of the section, the correct source is cited for this statement. Why on earth would we cite it a second time incorrectly to the wrong source? ] 19:41, 31 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :::You answered a question I didn't ask. Did you read the report '''and all the press statements from the chair that accompanied it'''? When these reports are published, the big problem is that journalists need to write about it '''that day''' for same day broadcast or next day publication. It's impossible, and so what happens is that there are advance leaks of summaries, and the chair agrees to give interviews which summarize the views of the committee, and that makes the media's job easier. What the chair says will be agreed by the committee in advance. So you need to read the coverage in general so you get the flavor of what the committee ''wants you to understand from its report''. Not just the report itself. ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> 19:47, 31 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :::You also must understand the Stephen Lawrence background and the conclusions of the MacPherson report. That strongly informed the way this issue was handled by the committee. ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> 19:49, 31 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| == Boring? == | |||
| I would just like it to be noted that neither the parliamentary enquiry report nor the EU documents are boring as someone said above. Even picking them over line by line and discussing on this page what they mean and how they should be cited is not boring. But it is incredibly time-consuming. How many words have been added to this page today?] 21:44, 30 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :And it's emotionally draining.] 21:45, 30 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::The problem is that people are reading outlines without understanding the background; without having done any of the academic reading (including carefully and respectfully reading stuff they strongly disagree with); without having knowledge of the MacPherson report, which informed the background to the UK inquiry; and then in addition having strong views that they want to insert into the article '''today'''. I started reading about NAS maybe 18 months ago; I've been steadily making my way through the material and I'm nowhere near having read enough (and more is being written every day). It's very frustrating to me to be doing that and have others turn up to edit war having read next to nothing. A lot of the certainty and pomposity on this page (that comment not directed at you, itsmejudith) comes from people not knowing much. Just a tiny bit of humility would therefore be welcome. | |||
| ::Some AGF would be welcome too. People have put a lot of work into this article, and almost '''all''' the anti-NAS material has been written by editors who broadly agree with the NAS thesis. That is, there has been a lot of writing for enemy, but not on the anti-NAS side, which always only writes from its own perspective. | |||
| ::There isn't a single sentence that has been "deliberately distorted" by the regular editors of this page. So I'd appeal to people who are making those accusations to consider whether, instead of deliberation distortions, it's (a) that ''they'' have made a mistake, or (b) that those they accuse have made a mistake, or (c) that there's a genuine good-faith disagreement about how best to present the issues. ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> 19:19, 31 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :::I'm very much proceding on the assumption that you've made mistakes, but you insult me with virtually every single comment you leave me in any case. If you think there should be more respect here, could you not stop doing this? Reading background is of course helpful, but you don't have to be an expert on an issue to see whether a source was accurately quoted. If for some reason you did, then the expert should explain this, not tell people to go off and do their homework. That's a ridiculous comment, unless you very specifically know <i>and can explain why</i> a person is making suggestions that are completely off the wall. I really wish you could appreciate this, which would raise the level of respect on these talk pages <i>immensely</i>. ] 19:52, 31 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::::I've tried to discuss this issue with you before, but I seem to get nowhere. Do you accept that it would be better if editors were to read about new antisemitism before writing about it? Yes or no? ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> 19:55, 31 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :::::You know I've read about the subject, and you should know I've shown my willingness to compromise on many occasions. In any case, if someone sees clear mistake, I think they absolutely should correct it, and in fact I believe there's a WP policy ]. I have no idea how this justifies disrespectful behavior. ] 20:23, 31 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::I don't know that you've read about the subject. Everything you write indicates that you haven't. Instead, you spend your time posting long comments to talk and expecting people to explain the background to you instead of reading it for yourself. Not just here, but elsewhere too, and it's really too much, as I've explained before. The time would be infinitely better spent reading up on the subject, then there would be fewer misunderstandings and a ton less frustration. ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> 20:30, 31 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::Slim, please simply know that if you continue with these unexplained personal attacks, I'll have no choice but to file an RfC. I don't want to bicker with you, because I think it's the biggest waste of time in the world, and I respect your point of view. But I don't think you're allowed to edit like this, and I'm not ok with the constant barrage of insults. Some people here may be ok with trading insults with you, but I'm not one of them. I have no interest in this style of editing. I'm here because I'd like to improve the accuracy and neutrality of WP, and because I find these topics fascinating, and because I enjoy working with the other editors on WP. That's it. I'm not here to be insulted. | |||
| :::::::I'll say this again, simply to be entirely clear: If I say something that is blatantly ignorant, you are completely entitled to point out why my comment is incorrect. You're not entitled to tell me repeatedly on multiple talk pages to read more on the subject in lieu of an explanation for why you just reverted my edit. Is that not incivil? Does it not violate the spirit of WP? Please note that I am strongly disagreeing with you, but I am in no way personally attacking you. If you could do this in response, I would really very much appreciate it. ] 22:35, 31 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::Don't take it personally, Mackan. I've following the events on this page long enough to know that SlimVirgin *almost always* responds to criticism by suggesting that her opponents know nothing about the concept of "new antisemitism". The act is wearing extremely thin. ] 00:08, 1 February 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::::Thanks CJ. I don't take it that personally, although to some extent I do. Equally importantly, though, I think this hostile environment damages WP, by intimidating reasonable people from making or standing by suggestions. Otherwise, I'd be happy to sing my own praises, or join the melee, as the case required... ] 05:49, 1 February 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::: I don't think the problem is with Slim who has proven to be knowledgeable and reasonable editor, but with users who tend to swarm around this and many other related articles, mostly ignorant of the subject and history but ready to push their preset political POV. ←] <sup>]]</sup> 00:21, 1 February 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::::CJCurrie, you arrived at this page a long time ago talking about Finkelstein's views, admiring him, I think. Yet I was the one who had to write the Finkelstein section because you said you couldn't find the book or something. You did eventually add some stuff to it, but only after being badgered and directly asked to. What you've mostly done here is try to make life unpleasant with constant reverting, snide remarks, and bickering, but without much actual input. That's the act that's wearing extremely thin. ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> 00:24, 1 February 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::::::Actually, (i) I wasn't the one who first mentioned Finkelstein on this page, and (ii) virtually every time I ''have'' mentioned him, I've clarified that I don't endorse his views ''in toto''. But more to the point, I find it rather odd that you'd raise ''this'' particular example, given that I've had to correct your version of the Finkelstein section . ] 00:31, 1 February 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::::::Slim, I don't understand your argument. Nobody said you're not well-read on New Antisemitism. Nobody said you don't belong here. If you want, I'll acknowledge your superior scholarship on the issue all day long. As you now seem to admit, however, even well-read people make mistakes, particularly when they have a strong point of view on the topic, which I think you'll admit to having. If I wrote the article, I'd probably have made many more mistakes than you did. But then, I wouldn't call someone ignorant when they came and pointed them out. Or at least I'd try hard not to... ] 05:49, 1 February 2007 (UTC) | |||
| This is a response to Slim's comment above of 19:19 UTC, 31 January. (Getting muddled about who said what on the talk page to whom and when is one of the things I find most wearing on this page.) Slim, I took my time going through the All-Party Inquiry report. I had to be sure I understood its status in relation to a) its own terms of reference, b) the "out there" NAS debate as far as I understand that debate, c) that debate as discussed in this article's mainspace, d) the arguments presented on this talk page. Now I think I understand all that. I've read some of the other background stuff, e.g. the Mcpherson report, and I frequently read policy documents and debates in the UK and EU so I know the policy context like the back of my hand. However I haven't read everything about the history of antisemitism in every historical period. I come to this as an amateur encylopedia editor, just like everyone else editing this page. | |||
| Now how can I proceed about trying to ''improve'' the way the Inquiry report is presented here? If I make changes in mainspace, will Jay revert me with nought but a No-Way-José edit summary? Shall I present everything here first? Should I set up a sandbox? Perhaps I feel a Be Bold moment coming on .... ] 13:51, 1 February 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :I agree that the section needs a revision, as I attempted to do to some small degree. . I see a number of problems: 1. Most simply, the section has two misattributions which I pointed out. 2. The section fails to reflect the qualifications and care the inquiry took to present an evenhanded examination. 3. The section jumps around, failing to follow a clear line of thought, and fails to connect the information or to clarify its perceived relevance. These are what I tried to modestly fix. Incidentally, I'm not sure how much SV actually disagreed with my changes, or simply didn't see what I was trying to do. I'd welcome your effort, though, to offer another solution when the page is unlocked. If people object to changes, they can of course revert them, but ideally they'll do so carefully, and either with good explanations or better solutions. ] 17:56, 1 February 2007 (UTC) | |||
| == ]? == | |||
| Jay, would you mind deigning to explain and/or justify your plans to revert work that has been accompanied by lengthy, detailed, and cogent presentations of rationale on this page? Some modicum of respect for the work of others seems in order. Is it your intention to simply issue occasional peremptory, unresponsive, gnomic assertions here while engaging in ceaseless revert wars on the article page?--] 02:04, 31 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :G-Dett, perhaps you can first explain what you imagine you will gain from various personal attacks, double-standards, calling editors liars, etc.? One wonders in particular why you would accuse me in particular of WP:OWN, when at least 8 different editors have reverted each other on this article recently? ]<sup><small><font color="DarkGreen">]</font></small></sup> 02:53, 31 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::I don't know of any other editor here who is doing major reversions without any attempt to engage or answer to those who have done the legwork. As to your first question, Jay, I note that you aren't any longer pursuing last night's revert war. I'd rather build on that positive development than revisit any ugliness. If you have wish to discuss the matter further, I'm willing, but let's do it on our own talk pages.--] 03:36, 31 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :::Well, your description doesn't match me either, as I've been fully engaged on the Talk: page. Perhaps you meant User:Liftarn, who has managed to make a few reverts, and wikistalk/revert to other pages, all without commenting in Talk: at all. ]<sup><small><font color="DarkGreen">]</font></small></sup> 20:13, 31 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::::Wow, G-Dett, some insight, please. "''Some modicum of respect for the work of others seems in order.''" Yes, indeed, but you're showing none. ''"Those who have done the legwork"''? '''Not one''' of the editors who turned up here a few days ago to start an edit war has done any of the "legwork." Please look at the amount of work and research that has gone into this page and have some respect for it, even if you disagree with it. ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> 20:20, 31 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :::: Hey, Jayjg. Easy on the ]. // ] | |||
| :::::Every time Slim's authority on these matters is questioned, she suggests that her opponents know nothing about the concept. The act is getting tiresome. ] 00:05, 1 February 2007 (UTC) | |||
| Slim, I have indeed shown respect for the work and research that has gone into this page. That's precisely why, when I found flaws in that research in the form of misrepresented source material, I detailed – well in advance of editing – the nature of the flaw and what I proposed to do about it. When after a period I made my modest edit I found myself almost instantly reverted – the first time blindly by an editor who clearly hadn't read the material he was deleting, and subsequently by Jayjg – who wrote nothing on the talk page justifying his deletion, wouldn't respond to requests for justification either here or on his talk page, and in whose edit summary blithely remarked that he was "fixing" my edit, which he hadn't looked at closely enough to notice was about the British all-party parliamentary inquiry and not the EUMC definition. | |||
| If you're suggesting that new editors have to submit to having 'veterans' peremptorily toss their considered contributions into the trash can without so much as a flicker of mental recognition, then what you're suggesting is what I call ].--] 17:29, 1 February 2007 (UTC) | |||
| == "Responses" section == | |||
| I am not really sure what the responses section is about. | |||
| Is it a) about the responses to the "concept of NAS" (which SV claims the article is about) or is it b) about the responses to the phenomenon (actual or not) of NAS? ] 08:33, 31 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :The section contains responses to the entire situation: the rise of antisemitism again, the struggle to understand and define it, the introduction of the concept of new antisemitism or a new form of antisemitism, or whatever it's named — that is, a rise in left-wing antisemitism, Islamic antisemitism, and far right antisemitism, '''accompanied by an apparent shared language between the three''', which is the unique thing. What we're dealing with is the rise of a new ''zeitgeist'', possibly a paradigm shift in the way Jews are viewed. The responses are an attempt on the part of governments and universities to understand it, and to fight and reverse it. These constant questions about "is it a phenomenon, or a concept, or a term?" miss the point. ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> 19:40, 31 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::Actually, we're dealing with the opinion of certain authors that a new "zeitgeist" is rising. There's nothing close to academic consensus, let alone popular consensus on these matters. | |||
| ::I've never objected to having a page that explores the idea of a "new antisemitism", and conveys the opinions of concept-proponents and concept-opponents. The problem is that certain editors seem intent on using the article page to *promote* the concept, notwithstanding Misplaced Pages regulations to the contrary. | |||
| ::For too long, this page has been a textbook example of Misplaced Pages's failure to police itself. We now seem to have reached an absurdist stage in this development, wherein "false, but reliable" material is deemed suitable for inclusion. | |||
| ::We need a restoration of sanity. ] 00:03, 1 February 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :::I'm happy to discuss the inclusion of Flannery, or the editing of that paragraph, if that's what you're referring to, but it can't be done the way you edit, CJ, and I'm surprised that after all this time of (as I see it) causing trouble on this page, you haven't realized that. Your usual thing is to remove something, without discussion, that another editor has put a fair bit of work into; announce in a very long post on talk that you're the only person in the world capable of understanding NPOV and that this ain't it; revert, revert, revert when someone tries to restore the text; then express astonishment on talk that someone dared to restore it before responding to your several-hundred-word long opinion. | |||
| :::On the very few occasions where you've actually discussed first, put forward reasonable suggestions, and treated other editors' work with respect, you've managed to insert or remove whatever you wanted, almost without argument. Perhaps you could try that again? | |||
| :::No one is trying to use this page to push any concept. What we're trying to do is to make sure you don't remove material just because you'd prefer the issue of left-wing antisemitism not to be explored too thoroughly. What I suggest is that both "sides" read the sources and try to transmit what they say, and just leave it at that. ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> 00:15, 1 February 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::::''What we're trying to do is to make sure you don't remove material just because you'd prefer the issue of left-wing antisemitism not to be explored too thoroughly.'' Unfortunately, some editors appear to have '''started''' from the viewpoint that I was removing material for that reason, and ignored the substance of my arguments. | |||
| ::::''What I suggest is that both "sides" read the sources and try to transmit what they say, and just leave it at that.'' Are you willing to read the Szajkowski essay? ] 00:18, 1 February 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :::::Yes, of course. I'm willing to read anything people suggest. ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> 00:34, 1 February 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::I'm half-tempted to call you out on this by suggesting an impossibly dense work like ''Finnegans Wake'', ''Gravity's Rainbow'' or ''Glas''. Instead, I'll simply request that you read Szajkowski's 1947 essay, and state whether or not you still believe Flannery's 1985 citation is valid. ] 00:37, 1 February 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::Please confirm that you want me to read "The Jewish Saint-Simonians and Socialist Antisemitism in France," ''Jewish Social Studies'', January 1947. I will, though I have a real-world deadline tomorrow, so I can't go looking for it then, but I'll track it down as soon as I can. I take it your point is that the statement that "Szajkowski concluded that he couldn't find a single word on behalf of the Jews in the whole of ... literature from 1820 to 1920" is false. Are you saying Flannery made it up, or are you saying he misunderstood something that Szajkowski did say; and if the latter, what did Szajkowski say that you think Flannery misunderstood? ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> 01:23, 1 February 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::Taking this point-by-point: (i) Yes, I want you to read "The Jewish Saint-Simonians and Socialist Antisemitism in France," ''Jewish Social Studies'', January 1947, (ii) the statement is, in fact, false, (iii) it appears to have been a misunderstanding, (iv) Szajkowski actually wrote the following: "In quoting only the antisemitic pronouncements of the French socialists, before Edouard Drumont, the writer may be suspected of having ignored the pro-Jewish sentiments. In order to ally any such suspicion, the writer wishes therefore to say explicitly that his efforts to find sympathetic references to Jews in the French socialist literature, from Saint-Simon to the date of Drumont's first appearance, have been futile" (p. 60); Drumont's first appearance in French socialist literature was in 1886. | |||
| ::::::::I could add that (v) an error of this magnitude calls into question the reliability of the source, (vi) compounded with his ''Protocols'' howler and taking into account the fact that it was not published by a credible firm, I can only conclude that the source is unsuitable for our purposes, (vii) the material is in any event irrelevant to the article. ] 02:45, 1 February 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::::Thank you. My lack of response doesn't mean I'm ignoring your post; I just need time to think about it, recheck Flannery, and think about the OR issue. ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> 13:15, 1 February 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ===Break=== | |||
| :Thanks for a good and serious answer. The problem wtih the whole article, as I see it, is illustrated by this section. You have claimed elsewhere that the article is about a concept, but clearly the Responses section does not contain the responses to NAS - The Concept. It contains a muddeled collection of "evidence" to its existence, responses to AS in general (presented as the sources are talking about NAS), examples of NAS, a definition, some random statistical data from the EUMC report, anecdotes, the disputed Flannery part and so on. Being so loosely defined, it allows for Cherry-picking of "evidence" and examples, and the section really ends up being a OR-piece "proving" or "analyzing" the status of this zeitgeist or shift in the ways jew are viewed you describe. I do not claim that everything is wrong, but I claim that the (lack of) structure of the section allows for POV editing. Clearly, this whole section must be rearranged. Do not view this as an attack of your authorship here. The state of the section is clearly a result of the many compromises. | |||
| :PS: This is not so important, but.... If the section were really to contain responses to the concept NAS it think the article I posted some months ago by jenny bourne could be included for balance in the UK section. (you rejected it based on a basis that JB was no-notable, which probably was based on mistaken identity.). This is a '''response''' to the concept: She claims that it is a tool for a witch-hunt and for ad hominem-attacks on Israel-critics. <small>—The preceding ] comment was added by ] (] • ]) 09:39, 1 February 2007 (UTC).</small><!-- HagermanBot Auto-Unsigned --> | |||
| ::Hi Pertn, I take your point and it's a fair one. First, regarding Bourne, the responses section is about responses by organizations (govts, quangos, universities). | |||
| ::The fact remains is that — whatever we call NAS, and whether we see it as a concept, phenomenon, whatever — there is a wave of ''something'' spreading around the world, especially Europe; it's similar to an old something but not exactly like it; and it's sufficiently serious and bewildering that governments have set up inquiries and issued reports. The academics invited to address these inquiries tend to be the people involved in the new antisemitism debate, and in the development of the concept: ], ], and ], for example, and non-academics like Michael Whine (even Brian Klug, who opposes the concept is helping to sharpen it with his arguments). In addition, at least one university, Yale, has set up a new center to study it, and although they don't include NAS in the name of the center, one of the academics said: "It's almost like going back into the lab. I think we need to understand the current manifestation of this disease." So they're saying there seems to be something different going on. Therefore, to argue that these responses aren't really responses to NAS, and that we're somehow pushing the concept by including that material, ignores all that evidence. I really don't see how we could leave it out. ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> 13:15, 1 February 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :::I think what you should more candidly acknowledge is that in the eyes of many, that "something" spreading is the sophistry that equates criticism of a modern state with historical oppression of a people. I think the uneasiness people have about the "responses" section is that its presentation seems to foreclose the vigorous debate people are having about the scope and very legitimacy of the concept; if someone's responding, then the phenomenon must exist – so goes the logic tacit and hidden in the article, and explicit in your last post. Imagine if there were a section in the "Allegations of Israeli Apartheid" article called "Responses," that listed the World Court decision about the wall, various UN resolutions, the findings of various human rights organizations and so on. It would load the dice a little, wouldn't it? | |||
| :::I think the section should be called, "Statements by Governments, Universities, and Other Organizations."--] 16:31, 1 February 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::::I wouldn't mind changing the header, though I'm not keen on that long one, or "statements" because setting up an inquiry is an action, not a statement. We could simply say "actions by governments and groups." ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> 16:24, 2 February 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :::If you review the section i light of what you just wrote, you will see several examples that do not fit into your description of the intent of the section. For instance: the section quotes (quite selectively) findings of antisemitic attacks in Europe. And it quotes the definition of antisemitism with regards to israel. And then you've got one quote here and one quote here and it is not really clear why they are placed there. It also seems that your intent with the section is coloured by your POV. Hence, I must restate my claim that this section needs a change. I have a feeling you agree. I am not sure if that means that any of the material needs to be removed or that you have to "leave out" the material or what you call the "evidence" that there is a wave of something new, but it has to be placed in a more rigid and transparent structure. | |||
| :::(By the way, since you are expressing your POV about NAS here, I could mention mine. I also think that there might be changes in the distribution and forms of antisemitism, and I am certain that that has to do with Israel. But I do not see much evidence of antisemitism on the European left, and I am a proponent of free speech do not at all like to the attempts of labeling political statements about Israel as antisemitic. In most of the instances I have seen NAS used it is to make ad hominem attacks against serious Israel-critics, and not agains people with prejudice towards jews.) ] 09:29, 2 February 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::::Agree with Pertn above, especially regarding the need for a "more rigid and transparent structure" for the "Responses" section. I reiterate my suggestion that we rename the section to something like, "Statements by Governments, Universities, and Other Organizations," and limit its content accordingly.--] 14:20, 2 February 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::::Pertn, can you give me an example of the NAS allegation being made as an ''ad hominem'' against a "serious Israel critic," rather than against someone who is prejudiced against Jews? | |||
| ::::The NAS allegation is made against people and groups who make Jews feel they're being attacked ''qua'' Jews by people who claim to be no more than opponents of some Israeli government policies. Here are some examples of Jews reporting that they feel attacked ''qua'' Jews. If our article isn't communicating this adequately, perhaps we need to restore some of this material: | |||
| ::::*In Australia, Deon Kamien, president of the ] in Victoria, said: "A lot of students who would feel very comfortable wearing a kippah or T-shirt with ] words on it now feel they are being targeted as Jews — not supporters of Israel, but Jews. When they walk past socialist stalls (on campus) they are called f---ing Jews." (Zwartz, Barney & Morton, Adam. ", ''The Age'', September 4, 2006.) | |||
| ::::*In the UK, the ] students' union proposed a motion in 2002 that anti-Zionism was not anti-Semitism, and that Israeli goods should be boycotted. During the voting phase, a leaflet from the General Union of Palestinian Students, quoting a ] forgery, "Prophecy of Benjamin Franklin in Regard of the Jewish Race," was handed out to students lining up to vote. ( {{PDFlink}}, September 2006, p.39.) The leaflet described Jews as ]s, and said that if they were not expelled from the United States, they would "enslave the country and destroy its economy." (ibid, p. 40) When the motion was defeated, a brick was thrown through the window of one Jewish student residence while a poster with the words "Slaughter the Jews" was stuck to its front door, and a knife was stuck in the door of another. (ibid) | |||
| ::::*In Canada, an advertisement in the '']'' on ], ], signed by 100 people, said that Canadian Jewish students are so traumatized by on-campus anti-Semitism that they dare not speak out in support of Israel or ]. (Gerstenfeld, Manfred. , ''Jewish Political Studies Review'' 15:3-4 (Fall 2003)) | |||
| ::::*In France, Patrick Klugman, President of the Union of French Jewish Students (UEJF), wrote in '']'': "On some university campuses ... the climate has become very difficult for Jews. In the name of the Palestinian cause, they are castigated as if they were Israeli soldiers! We hear 'death to the Jews' during demonstrations which are supposed to defend the Palestinian cause. Last April, our office was the target of a ]. As a condition for condemning this attack, the lecturers demanded that the UEJF declare a principled position against Israel!" (ibid) | |||
| ::::Pertn, do you feel the allegation of antisemitism (new or otherwise) would be used inappropriately of these examples? ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> 16:24, 2 February 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :::::You're asking Pertn if he/she thinks it's antisemitic to throw bricks, knives, and molotov cocktails at Jews because they're Jews? To distribute posters saying "Slaughter the Jews"? And this is your response to Pertn's saying this: "I do not see much evidence of antisemitism on the European left, and as a proponent of free speech do not at all like the attempts of labeling political statements about Israel as antisemitic"? I think if someone wanted to understand how the discourse of "new antisemitism" can be used exploitatively, as a bullying tactic to evade serious discussion, they'd need look no further than the preposterous question you've just asked. | |||
| ::::::What's your argument here? Pertn says she sees little evidence of left-wing antisemitism in Europe. I gave some examples, but there are hundreds of incidents like this being reported. What is ''your'' point exactly? ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> 19:39, 2 February 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::My point is that of course these incidents are antisemitic, and that your purpose in "asking" Pertn if she agrees they are is to suggest that she's involved in apologetics. She thinks incidents like this are not representative of the orientation and direction of the European left; you think they are. The good-faith thing to do would be to try to demonstrate to her that they are indeed representative, not to pose rhetorical questions that insinuate she's an apologist for bigotry.--] 20:13, 2 February 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :::::As for strictly ''ad hominem'' uses of the charge of antisemitism, some examples would be the vilification of Jimmy Carter, the vilification of Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, and the vilification of Tony Judt, just to take examples from the last year. Look at any of the annual reports compiled by the ADL about antisemitic "incidents" on U.S. campuses, where they – with a bad faith that verges on breathtaking – list incidents like bricks being thrown through the windows of Hillel buildings side-by-side with campus appearances by Hanan Ashrawi or Robert Fisk. I don't what experience you've had with American campuses, Slim, or with the false coin of "new antisemitism" so frivolously spent there on a regular basis. I don't know if you've read the bogus editorials in student newspapers and fraudulent accusations of neo-Nazism that are generated any time a student group has the courage to invite, say, Norman Finkelstein to speak. But if you'd like further examples of wholly spurious invocations of NAS, read almost anything on the subject by Alan Dershowitz, Marty Peretz, Deborah Lipstadt, or Abe Foxman. It may be that your campus experience was in a British or European setting, Slim. When it comes to something like the proposed British boycott of Israeli academics, just to take an example, then yes I'm prepared to talk about antisemitism. In the context of American political or academic discourse, however, the invocation of antisemitism to describe criticism of Israeli policies is – though quite common – about 95% of the time sheer fraud.--] 17:04, 2 February 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::" Look at any of the annual reports compiled by the ADL about antisemitic "incidents" on U.S. campuses, where they – with a bad faith that verges on breathtaking – list incidents like bricks being thrown through the windows of Hillel buildings side-by-side with campus appearances by Hanan Ashrawi or Robert Fisk. " OK, I'll bite; where would these be hidden? I wonder... is it antisemitic to be so sure of the Jews' oversensitivity (and why the heck are they so sensitive, anyway?) that you blithely state as fact that the ADL labels "campus appearances by Hanan Ashrawi or Robert Fisk" antisemitic incidents without even bothring to check your assumption? ] 18:09, 2 February 2007 (UTC) | |||
| Gzuckier, your calling-of-bluffs would be the great triumph you hoped for had you posted it before 2001. The ADL's decline from courageous and pathbreaking civil-rights activism into political demagoguery was steady until then, precipitous after that. Not too long ago they were still publishing annual audits of anti-semitic events that were none other than, well, anti-semitic events, such as you'll find here. By 2002, they were lumping antisemitic incidents and "anti-Israel" events into a single category, making no distinctions at all between the two (''pace'' the silly claims on this page that no one equates criticism of Israel with antisemitism and it's a "strawman" to say otherwise). So in their annual audits since then you get absurd sequences such as the following:<blockquote> | |||
| *# April 15 - Muslim student groups at University of California - Berkeley and UC - San Diego posted fliers featuring fabricated, distorted and out-of-context quotations from the Talmud and other rabbinical literature. Many of these anti-Semitic "quotations" are easily found on extremist Web sites. Samples include: | |||
| ::-- "A Jew is permitted to rape, cheat and perjure himself, but he must take care that he is not found out, so that Israel may not suffer." | |||
| ::-- "A Gentile girl who is three years old can be violated." | |||
| ::-- "The Jews are human beings, but the nations of the world are not human beings but beasts." | |||
| ::-- "When the Messiah comes, every Jew will have 2800 slaves." | |||
| *# April 15 - The Gaza Strip, a one-sided film that is severely critical of Israel, was screened at New Jersey's Drew University. | |||
| </blockquote> | |||
| You heard that right, the academy-award-nominated ] makes it onto their list, right after pamphleteering about the Jewish right to rape and violate three-year-olds. (Add him to the examples Slim asked for.) Now scan to the bottom of the list and you'll find what you were after: <blockquote> | |||
| *# January 23 - Hanan Ashrawi, the Palestinian spokeswoman was a guest lecturer at Calvin College (Grand Rapids, MI). | |||
| </blockquote> | |||
| Sorry, I was wrong about Robert Fisk. But have a good look at the (black)list: I trust you'll concede that if Fisk ''had'' made an appearance on a U.S. campus in 2002, the ADL would not have hesitated to include him, right there alongside "fliers appeared on campus with an anti-Semitic diatribe written by the right-wing extremist and former Klansman David Duke," "a rock was thrown through the students' front window (where an Israeli flag had been displayed) and their car, parked out front, was also vandalized," etc. etc. | |||
| Let it be absolutely clear I'm not talking about "Jews" being "oversensitive." I'm talking about political groups being demagogic. I never gave much thought to the ethnic dimension of any of this, but in my experience "Jews" on American campuses are, like "Jews" in American life and letters generally, politically all over the map; and certainly active in substantial numbers on both sides of the debates about a) the moral legitimacy of the occupation, and b) the explanatory force and strategic purpose of the theory of "new antisemitism." | |||
| Cheers,--] 19:35, 2 February 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :OK, point to you on this one, I stand educated and humble. ] 20:08, 2 February 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::Point to you for fair play. I have a weakness for gloating over every returned serve. Sorry. Back to deuce :).--] 20:23, 2 February 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :I'm not able to follow your argument. "Jews are ... politically all over the map." So what? That didn't stop sympathetic Jews at Stop the War rallies in the UK from being assaulted. What exactly is your argument (argument, please, not rhetoric). ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> 19:42, 2 February 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::Slim, which argument are you having trouble following? The point about Jews being all over the map was that "Jews" should not be conflated with zealots exploiting the "new antisemitism" thesis as a bullying tactic, that the target of my comments is political propaganda not individual or communal "sensitivity." You raise a serious issue about the UK rallies, but with respect it's a complete non-sequitur coming after my points about American academia and the ADL. I included the ADL information because Gzuckier asked for it, apparently not believing it existed. Anything else?--] 20:03, 2 February 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :::But the "zealots exploiting the "new antisemitism" thesis as a bullying tactic" are just a fantasy of yours, conjured up in an attempt to excuse antisemitism. For that matter, it's a given that all antisemites try to excuse their antisemitism, explaining that what they provide is actually legitimate criticism of bad actions of Jews; it should be no surprise that the left does it just as much as the right, or perhaps even more. ]<sup><small><font color="DarkGreen">]</font></small></sup> 21:00, 2 February 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ==] and ]== | |||
| From reading ] of the ] article and in particular ]'s comments relative to the matter it would seem appropriate to mention Carter in this article surrounding his book. Even news organizations like the ] and ] are prominently mentioning his name in the articles like and . {{User:Netscott/s1.js}} 16:19, 31 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :Why should he be mentioned? Many have accused him of a one-sided political approach to the mid-east conflict, and of carelessly tossing around incendiary and inflammatory language, but few serious commentators have accused him of antisemitism... ] 16:28, 31 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::Perhaps few serious commentators have accused him of antisemitism but those few (Foxman in particular) are rather prominent. If such folks are describing Carter utilizing the term ''antisemitism'' and he's criticizing Israel with his book and he himself is so notable it would only be logical to add a mention of this example here. {{User:Netscott/s1.js}} 16:34, 31 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :::Netscott, we've tried to avoid using any of the usual non-scholarly commentators in this article, for the simple reason that there are too many of them. We've made an exception for some of the more serious journalists and writers such as Tariq Ali, but to start introducing Jimmy Carter and Abe Foxman leads us down the usual path of such articles on Misplaced Pages, which is that it would turn into a long list of "A said this, but B said that, and C replied with, while D noted ...." Articles like that are bad writing, impossible to read, and basically just a copy of what's floating around on Google, with no connecting narrative, and no answer to the question of "Yes, but what is this ''actually about''?" That's the question this article tries to answer. ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> 19:25, 31 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::::The point about this not becoming another A-said-this-B-said-that article is well taken. But the article seems to have set a very high bar for sources critical of the theory, and a very low bar for sources that support it. This is also unacceptable. That you offer ] as the illustrative example of an exception to the scholarly-sources-only rule is very odd. It's true he has no doctorate, but he is widely acknowledged as a historian, and writes regularly in venues that are largely produced and consumed by academics (the London Review of Books, the New Left Review, etc.). It would be comparable to describing ] or ] as "non-scholarly commentators" in a literary article. Better examples of the use of non-scholarly comment are provided by the quotations from U.S. News & World Report, Searchlight Magazine, Commentary, the Sunday Times, Fiamma Nirenstein, Hillel Halkin, Peter Beaumont, etc. | |||
| ::::The problem I see with including Carter is a different one. Despite the strange claims made on this page that no one equates criticism of Israel with antisemitism, there is in fact no serious and prominent critic of Israeli policies (in the American public sphere at least) who has ''not'' been prominently accused of antisemitism. The reason I see for trying to limit the scope of the present page to academic sources is that – despite the efforts of Campus Watch, David Horowitz, Stanley Kurtz, MEQ, Martin Kramer ''et al'' – the witch hunt is more restrained within the academy, and the topic more responsibly defined, scrutinized, and addressed, if only due to the mechanisms of peer review. | |||
| ::::On the topic of scholarly comment, we need to get Judith Butler's work into the article. --] 16:10, 1 February 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :::::Did you read the section which used those sources? Again, it was the section in which Finkelstein gets to promote his views ''against'' the phenomenon. As is quite typical, it is those opposed to the idea who bring in "non-scholarly comment" as strawmen to beat up, much as they like to quote Foxman. As for Searchlight, it was part of the British Inquiry. The sources used in this article to actually support the idea are quite good; it is mostly the strawmen used by the opponents that are weaker. On the other hand, Ali (like Chomsky) has no particular expertise in this area; popular polemics don't count as scholarship, even if written by people who have expertise in other areas (e.g. linguistics). ]<sup><small><font color="DarkGreen">]</font></small></sup> 23:26, 1 February 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::::Jay, I partially take your point about non-scholarly "strawmen," which has some validity for three of the seven sources I listed. To argue that critics of the concept "like to quote Foxman" and other hysterics because they make good strawmen, however, overlooks how much influence the Foxmans and Dershowitzs have in the national discussion about these matters. How do you define expertise with regards to people like Chomsky and Ali? Do you mean only people who have filed dissertations on a topic have expertise? In Chomsky's case in particular, you might explain your criteria. I know there's a good of fluff (collections of softball interviews and so on) printed and sold with his name on it, but he ''has'' written several very highly regarded books on Israel, Palestine, foreign policy, the mass media, the propaganda model in free societies, etc., all of which place him well (in the eyes of many) to weigh in on the discourse of "new antisemitism" and its political uses. Of course many proponents of the NAS concept will think Chomsky's full of baloney, but the issue there is not a lack of expertise, at least not as I understand it. I'm not making an ideological judgment when I say this. There's plenty of pro-Palestinian stuff that is indeed popular polemics: you can find examples in The Nation, The Guardian, ZMAG etc. – and saying this does not disparage them. But ''The Fateful Triangle'', ''Manufacturing Consent'' etc. are works of a different order of expertise, I think you'll have to concede.--] 04:20, 2 February 2007 (UTC) | |||
| == Page protection == | |||
| The last 50 edits are almost all edit-warring; only the last bit is by an anon. I think that full protection, not semi-protections, is needed. People are talking, which is great, but talking ''while'' reverting isn't good. ] 19:04, 31 January 2007 (UTC) | |||
| == "Progressive" Jewish Thought & The New Anti-Semitism == | |||
| The conservative American Jewish Committee released a document/report entitled that was covered today in . --] 04:58, 1 February 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :Hmm ... yes, I think we should add this to the article, once page protection is lifted. Btw, the latter piece was also printed in the International Herald Tribune: . ] 05:16, 1 February 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :Seems pretty clear to me that one major way that antisemitism is spreading is by the mere fact that the term includes more and more bordering on the absurd. Well well. When the article is unlocked, someone should include this in the article, and not least the comments mentioned in NYT. quite a few good ones there. ] 14:11, 2 February 2007 (UTC) | |||
| == Reflecting the UK All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry in the article == | |||
| I posted this on Mackan's talk page, now reposted here in the hope of getting more comments. | |||
| I have been trying to step back a bit to examine ''why'' the article would refer to this report and ''what'' bits it would refer to. I would really appreciate your view on this and then afterwards maybe we could turn to ''how'' it should be done. | |||
| The existence of the inquiry is clearly significant to the ] article, as it was a response to a real and perceived rise in antisemitic incidents and antisemitic discourse. | |||
| So, to what extent is the fact of this inquiry and its report relevant to the article ], the purpose of which is to explain "new antisemitism" as a (contested) concept? Only tangentially, one might argue. Although the inquiry was set up in response to a rise in antisemitism, only some authors, not all, identify that rise as ''new'' antisemitism. If the article is about "new antisemitism" as a ''concept'' not as a ''phenomenon'', then it is hard to say that the inquiry is relevant. | |||
| There is however, an overriding argument in favour of the use of the inquiry report as a source in the New antisemitism article. Because the recent rise in antisemitism (occasioning the inquiry) has been accompanied by a large amount of discussion of the term "new antisemitism", then the report will necessarily address questions that are at issue in that discussion (for example, the ''newness'' of this recent antisemitism, whether all criticism of Israel is antisemitic, the extent of antisemitism on the Left and among Muslims). | |||
| Since the fact of the inquiry’s establishment is pertinent to the article, the article should briefly summarise, in the report’s own terms, the context in which the inquiry was established, the purpose of the inquiry and what its recommendations were. | |||
| Next, the debate around "new antisemitism" as presented in the article, suggests a number of questions on which the inquiry's views are relevant and should, if possible, be cited. Some of these would seem to be: | |||
| *How does the report define the term “antisemitism”? | |||
| *What does it say about the term “new antisemitism”? | |||
| *What does it say about whether criticism of Israel is antisemitic? | |||
| *What does it say about antisemitism on the Left? | |||
| *What does it say about antisemitism among Muslims? | |||
| *What does it say about a coalescence of views between the Right, Muslims and the Left (or any two of these)? | |||
| These are not exhaustive and it goes without saying that the report is a reliable source in WP terms and can be drawn on for further factual information. These could include points that the report makes in passing so long as the general argument of the report is not thereby distorted. | |||
| ] 10:17, 2 February 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :This sounds reasonable. As I see it it adresses some of the problems I mentioned in the part here about the "responses" section. ] 11:07, 2 February 2007 (UTC) | |||
| ::Agree with Itsmejudith's suggestions and cogent framing of the matter at hand.--] 14:29, 2 February 2007 (UTC) | |||
| :::Also repeating, I agree this is the right kind of framework, to make it more explanatory and less point-by-pointish. I made my effort, so I'm interested to see yours. At the same time, I'd say conciseness is good, as long as the line of thought and neutrality remains clear. ] 14:37, 2 February 2007 (UTC) | |||
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Evaluating authors
I don't know quite where this belongs, but there are factions in the American political landscape who are pro-Isreal but antisemitic. That has become increasingly clear since 2016.
In general writing intelligently about claims of new Antisemitism requires look at several factors, e.g.,
- Does the author investigate adverse claims or just take them as true
- Does the author apply the same standards as used for other countries
- Does the author distinguish among, e.g., Israel, Israeli citizens, Jews?
- Does the author put events in context?
Discussing any of these potentially runs afoul of WP:SYNTHESIS. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 14:35, 11 December 2023 (UTC)
- "pro-Isreal but antisemitic" I do not see much of a contradiction here. Supporting Israel for political reasons does not equate to supporting Jews or supporting the rights of Jewish minorities in various countries. In the last few years, I have encountered Greek far right voters who support an alliance with Israel (against Turkey), but have no problem blaming Jews for every social or economic problem faced by the entire world. Dimadick (talk) 23:45, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
- You two need to read these articles:
- https://www.jpost.com/opinion/terra-incongnita-everyone-i-hate-is-hitler-dangerous-politicization-of-antisemitism-473188
- https://www.commentary.org/articles/robert-wistrich/the-new-war-against-the-jews/
- https://www.jpost.com/blogs/the-warped-mirror/from-al-jazeera-to-columbia-university-joseph-massads-obsession-with-israel-364634
- https://brandeiscenter.com/ali-abunimahs-orwellian-definition-of-anti-semitism/
- The idea that "there are factions in the American political landscape who are pro-Isreal but antisemitic" doesn't hold ground, let alone "has become increasingly clear since 2016". Your anecdote doesn't prove otherwise. Wake up! 69.113.233.201 (talk) 01:55, 15 April 2024 (UTC)
Time Magazine cover story
The words "The New Antisemitism" appear in large letters on the cover of the March 11, 2024 issue of Time Magazine... AnonMoos (talk) 15:34, 6 March 2024 (UTC)
Lede
One of the two key citations for "critics" is the David Hirsh piece that repeatedly refers to the use of antisemitism accusations as a weapon. As such I would suggest it's not controversial to mention "weaponization" in the lede. That's what the RS says. Simonm223 (talk) 18:13, 26 April 2024 (UTC)
- I think perhaps a better balance can be struck by making it more explicit this is a belief rather than a “concept” (as the lede currently states, and unduly reifies it) Yr Enw (talk) 05:29, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
Changing wording
As the opening of the article implicitly describes the existence of new antisemitism is factual while in reality its existence is highly debated, maybe the wording should be changed to clarify that it's a proposed idea that may or may not be factual? Blepii (talk) 02:09, 15 July 2024 (UTC)
- I think there's more dispute over the interpretations of the facts than about the actual facts. No informed person of goodwill would deny that some people on the political left hate Jews, but then there are endless No true Scotsman debates about whether hatred of Jews is "baked in" to certain representative and characteristic forms of leftist doctrine, or whether those forms of leftism must be excluded from the definition of "true" valid leftism, or whether it's a mere personalistic aberration of certain individuals etc. etc. ad nauseam... AnonMoos (talk) 19:30, 15 July 2024 (UTC)
- @AnonMoos The rest of the article still contains plenty of criticism of the concept, it's only the opening sentence that's changed to something that, in my view, has no consensus from reliable sources. The previous opening sentence to me seemed perfectly neutral and factual and the new one just seems like an effort at pushing WP:POV. 22090912l (talk) 17:06, 25 July 2024 (UTC)
- I think that this issue still deserves more discussion, and I would encourage @Blepii, @AnonMoos and any other interested editor to participate. 22090912l (talk) 17:00, 30 July 2024 (UTC)
- I have made a suggestion above that the word "belief" might be more appropriate in the lede, to reflect this. Yr Enw (talk) 19:52, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 10 October 2024
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The following line need to be removed or reworded as it is highly subjective.
, typically manifesting itself as anti-Zionism. 47.14.91.4 (talk) 00:55, 10 October 2024 (UTC)
- it seems ok to me. why do you object to it? Rainsage (talk) 06:06, 10 October 2024 (UTC)
- This is a tough one. The source doesn't actually talk about "new antisemitism" or describe it as anti-Zionist. Instead, it's referring to its own concept of "new anti-Zionist antisemitism", and it's unclear whether this is the same thing. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 02:54, 22 October 2024 (UTC)
Not done Marking edit request as completed due to no consensus. -OXYLYPSE (talk) 10:49, 11 November 2024 (UTC)
References
- Fastenbauer, Raimund (2020). "Islamic Antisemitism: Jews in the Qur'an, Reflections of European Antisemitism, Political Anti-Zionism: Common Codes and Differences". In Lange, Armin; Mayerhofer, Kerstin; Porat, Dina; Schiffman, Lawrence H. (eds.). An End to Antisemitism! – Volume 2: Confronting Antisemitism from the Perspectives of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter. pp. 279–300. doi:10.1515/9783110671773-018. ISBN 9783110671773.
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