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The West Bank/Judea and Samaria Problem

Personal work section notes. I get headaches and am as slow as a wet week, in dragging up diffs, and even have a geezer's trouble in following these arguments all over several pages, so I can't really make an adequate case. So I'll have to make my contribution in the next few days, according to the fashion I normally work after, when I did work, in the real world. Reflecting from principles, through to the problem, the evidence and conclusions. Apologies to anyone reading this. It's written to help myself get some order into this chat, not to guide others.

• An editorial split between those in favour of using 'Judea & Samaria' to designate (a) parts of, or (b) all, or (c) all of the West Bank and parts of Israel, and those who oppose the usage, except on those specific pages devoted to (i) Samaria (ii) Judea (iii) the administrative territory known in Israel as 'Judea & Samaria'.

• The 'Judea and Samaria' school holds that (a) these are geographical and historical designations predating the West Bank (b) used in a variety of sources published in Israel and abroad to denote the territory, or parts of it, known as the West Bank (c) and that opposition to the employment of these words in wiki constitutes an 'ethnic-based discrimination' against both Israeli and Jewish people.(d) specifically, that MeteorMaker, Pedrito and myself have conducted a campaign to denigrate or deprecate Jewish terms in the I/P area, a kind of ethnic cleansing of nomenclature, in a way that lends substance to fears our position is motivated by, well let's call a spade a spade, anti-semitism.

• The 'West Bank' school asserts that (a) these terms have an intrinsic denotative vagueness because they refer to different geophysical, administrative and political terrains depending on historical period, and that to use the terms of the territorially bounded and defined area known internationally as the West Bank creates cognitive dissonance (b) that these terms, as documented, were used under the British Mandate, then dropped for 'West Bank', which has remained to this day the default term of neutral usage internationally and in international law and diplomacy (c) that, after the Israeli conquest of the West Bank, in 1967, the terms 'Judea & Samaria' were pushed onto the political agenda by an extremist settler group, Gush Emunim, then adopted by the Likud government in 1977, and imposed by government decree on the Israeli mass media, which suppressed the international term, West Bank (d) that, as documented, the terms 'Judea and Samaria' have a potent ideological charge as appropriative nomenclature, renaming Palestinian land presently occupied, annexed or expropriated illegally by Israel (ICJ judgement 2004), over which Israel has no sovereignty, where Israel is establishing illegal settlements at least half of which on land with private Palestinian title, and with its own Arabic toponyms, and erasing the traditional native nomenclature by creating a neo-biblical toponomy (d) that reliable secondary sources explicitly define the term as partisan, even in contemporary Hebrew and Israeli usage (e) that the evidence for usage overwhelmingly documents the prevalence of 'West Bank' (northern, southern) in neutral sources, whose neutrality is affirmed also by the very sources that otherwise employ the words 'Samaria and Judea' adduced by the former school, (f) that if explicitly attested partisan Israeli toponymy and administrative nomenclature is allowed on non-Israeli territory, then by WP:NPOV criteria, automatically this would mean the corresponding Palestinian toponymy and nomenclature, often covering the same areas, would have to be introduced (g)that in this whole debate, the West Bankers have not even represented the Palestinian side, which is absent, invisible, while the Israeli side is being treated as though its national naming were on terms of parity and neutrality with international usage (h) that wiki criteria, WP:NPOV, WP:Undue, WP:RS, WP:NCGN etc. require that neutral terminology, particularly as evidenced by the overwhelming majority of reliable sources, be employed. (i) If we are to allow Israeli terminology to be generally employed in denoting territory over which Israel exercises no sovereignty, but is simply, in law, an occupying belligerent, a very dangerous precedent, with widespread consequences for articles where ethnic conflicts exist, would be created.

(ii)Note on language, naming as an appropriative act of possession and dominion.

'According to the aboriginal theory, the ancestor first called out his own name; and this gave rise to the most sacred and secret couplet or couplets of his song. The he 'named' (tneuka) the place where he had originated, the trees or rocks growing near his home, the animals sporting about nearby, any strangers that came to visit him, and so forth. He gave names to all of these, and thereby gained the power of calling them by their names; this enabled him to control them and to bind them to his will.'

Wa’-yitser’ Yĕhôwāh’ (Adonai) ĕlôhīm’ min-hā'ădāmāh’ kol-‘ha’yath’ ha’-sādeh’ wĕ'ēth kol-ôph ha’-shāma’yim wa’-yāvē ‘ el-hā'ādām’ li-r'ôth mah-yiqrā-lô’ wĕ-kôl ăsher yiqrā-lô’ hā'-ādām‘ ne’pfesh ‘ha’yāh’ hû shĕmô. (20) Wa’- yiqrā’ hā'-ādām‘ shēmôth….

‘And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them; and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. 20. And Adam gave names.. .'

Wa-‘allama ādama l-asmā’a kullahā,

'And He taught Adam the names, all of them.’ Qu’ran 2:31.

In Thomas Pynchon's novel Mason & Dixon, the narrator Cherrycoke recounts, against the huge backdrop of seismic shifts in the political and scientific world of that time, the story of the eponymous figures who have undertaken to draw a scientific map of the wilderness and terrain between Pennsylvania and Maryland:

‘what we were doing out in that Country together was brave, scientifick beyond my understanding and ultimately meaningless, - we were putting a line straight through the heart of the Wilderness, eight yards wide and due west, in order to separate two Proprietorships, granted when the World was yet feudal and but eight years later to be nullified by the War for Independence.”

Late in the novel, the Chinaman of the piece remarks:

‘To rule forever, . .it is necessary only to create, among the people one would rule, what we call . . Bad History. Nothing will produce Bad History more directly nor brutally, than drawing a Line, in particular a Right Line, the very Shape of Contempt, through the midst of a People,- to create thus a Distinction betwixt’em. –’tis the first stroke.-All else will follow as if predestin’d, into War and Devastation.’

The dispute here in wiki, like the historical reality it refers to, has its ‘Bad History’. In the novel, the apparently empirical task of defining boundaries is found unwittingly implicated in the later travails of American history, with its exceptionalism, erasure of native peoples, of possible alternative worlds, of Frostian paths never taken. American innocence and pragmatic realism, in the innocuous work of two surveyors, is swept up in the torment of power: cartographic principles embody an Enlightenment’s reach into the unknown, while, applied, to the ends of order and control, they inadvertently engender violent confusion and disarray. What is the ‘right line’ to take on nomenclature, when history’s line demarcating Israel and the West Bank was drawn by war, then the West Bank was occupied in the aftermath of war, and the world of Israeli settlers begins to redraw the map? One thing that happens is that the complexities have drawn editors into a minor war, as Pynchonesque as it is Pythonesque. There is one difference: most the cartographers say one thing, and Israel, the controlling power, asserts a different terminology. So what’s in a name?

Before the world was tribalized and invested by the collateral damage or fall-out from the Tower of Babel, God assigned to the mythical forefather of all, ‘man’ or Adam, the faculty to name the world, though God himself had exercised this right in naming the light (or) day (yom) and the darkness (hôshek) night(layĕlāh) (Gen.1.5) There was only one name for each thing, and in later European thought the primordial language employed in this taxonomy was to be called ‘the Adamic vernacular’. The thesis was that the pristine jargon employed by Adam, being pre-Babelic, represented the true name for every object: every thing had a proper name intrinsic to its nature. The Greeks, as we see in Plato’s Cratylus, were much prepossessed by the philosophical crux of the correctness of names (ὀρθότης τῶν ὀνομάτων): did names have an intrinsic relation to, or represent, things, or was the link arbitrary.. The Confucian school’s doctrine of the Rectification of names (zhèngmíng: 正名). In the Bible itself the Hebrew text is full of the magic of words, of the power of words themselves to alter reality, a belief testified to in Isaiah:

'So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please.'

Modernity, especially after Ferdinand Saussure (1916), has opted, correctly, for the latter position, and disposed of the magical force of naming. But nationalism, another product of modernity, reintroduced it, via the backdoor, in a new sense. Naming was an act of assertive territorial control, of defining ethnic rights over land, especially as Anthony Smith argues, ethnie are defined also by attachment to a specific geophysical reality, the ‘homeland’ that defines in good part their identity ). Since national identities are a political construct, the inculcation of a uniform language, and the use of its lexicon to define or redefine the landscape, are crucial instruments in forging a national sense of common tradition. Nationalism demanded toponymic unison, and linguistic conformity.

John Gaddis, glossing James Scott’s recent book on North Dakota roads and maps, remarks on maps that they reflect

‘what states try to do to those portions of the earth’s surface they hope to control, and to the people who live upon them. For it’s only by making territories and societies legible – by which he means measurable and hence manipulable – that governments can impose and maintain their authority. “These state simplifications,” he writes, are “like abridged maps.” They don’t replicate what’s actually there, but “when allied with state power, (they) enable much of the reality they (depict) to be remade.”

The idea of a nation as a territorial unit speaking one language over that territory is a parlously modern ideology, one engineered by nation-builders into a plausible if specious semblance of commonsense. As Massimo d’Azeglio is said to have remarked at the dawn of the Italian Risorgimento, ‘we have made Italy: our task now is to make Italians’, 95% of whom could neither read, write and nor often even speak ‘Italian’.

Imperialism, venturing into terra incognita to appropriate foreign land and incorporate it into an empire, went side by side with nationalism, which was a form of internal colonization over, and homogenization of, the disparate cultures that made up an historically defined territory. For the natives, their indigenous naming is ‘essentially a process of asserting ownership and control of place and landscape’

Daphne Kutzner, in her analysis of the role of Empire in classic children’s fiction, looks at the question from the perspective of the intrusive Empire and its refraction of imperial renaming as reflected in popular books, notes that

‘Naming a place gives the namer power over it, or at least the illusion of power and control. Colonial powers literally transform a landscape once they rename it and begin reshaping it.’

Terra incognita is the foreigner’s name for an ostensibly empty landscape which, had they taken the trouble to learn the local languages, would have revealed itself to be replete from every rocky nook to crannied gulley with ancient toponyms. The tendency was one of erasure, and, as with introduced fauna and flora , the landscape was consistently remade as it was renamed to familiarize the alien by rendering it recognizable, a variation on the landscape settlers came from. The new mapping, as often as not, represent as much the settler’s mentality, as the queerly new features of the foreign landscape under toponymic domestication.

Australia is somewhat the extraordinary exception, and broke with the gusto for imperial nomenclature. There, following the pattern set by the earlier land surveyor Thomas Mitchell and his assistant Philip Elliott that “the natives can furnish you with names for every flat and almost every hill” (1828), native names were adopted in a standarized English form for both euphony and their characteristic relation to the landscape, and indeed a resolution was passed as early as 1884 which established the priority of native names in international usage.

Often imperialism and nationalism go hand in hand. Napoleon’s troops, in 1796, could hardly communicate with each other, such were the grammatical, semantic and syntactical rifts between the various provincial patois at the time. By 1814, Napoleon had formed a European empire, and millions of provincials spoke the one, uniform language of the French state’s army. When two nations, or ethnie, occupy the same territory, the historical victor’s toponymic choices, dictated by the victor’s native language, and as articulated in bureaucratic documents and maps, usually determines what names are to be used. However, the presence of two distinct ethnie on the same national soil creates fissiparous tensions in nomenclature. Speaking of French and British conflict in Canada over areas, Susan Drummond, remarks that, 'Symbolic appropriation of a territory is a critical index of control’, and notes that, as late as 1962, the Québec cartographer Brochu, invoked the political dimension of place names as important, in the conflict with the majoritarian English heritage of Canada over the naming of the northern Inuit lands.

Again, in another familiar example, Alfonso Pérez-Agote notes that Spain has its Basque Autonomous region, Euskadi. But the original force of that name covers an area beyond the administrative and territorial units of Spain, and Basque nationalists evoke its symbolic territory, comprising also the Basque area of Navarre in France. Euskadi has, on one level, within Spanish administrative discourse, a ‘territorial political objectification’, and on another level, in Basque nationalism, a ‘non-administratively objectified’ territory extending into a neighbouring country.. The analogy with Israeli and Palestinian nationalism is close. In Israeli discourse, Israel or Eretz Israel can denote Israel and its outriding West Bank, while Palestine, which is the favoured term of West Bank Arabs for the land they inhabit, also can refer to the whole neighbouring territory of Israel as well.

The anomaly, in comparative terms, is that history has settled the question, whatever local separatist nationalisms, revanchist or irredentist, may claim, except for such places as ‘Palestine’. For there, while Israel is a constituted state, it emerged the victor, manu militari in a conflict that gave it control over a contiguous land, but has no recognized legal right, since that land is defined as and ‘Occupied Palestinian Territory. Acts of unilateral annexation, the extension of administrative structures, settlements, toponymic remapping, and widescale expropriation of land in Palestinian title, is not only not recognized, but judged ‘illegal’ by the highest international bodies of law. All major encyclopedias (Encyclopædia Britannica, Encarta etc.,), except Wiki, maintain a strict neutrality, and, in recognition of the fraught difficulties, adopt the neutral toponymic convention of ‘(northern/southern) West Bank’ in order to avoid lending their prestige to the partisan politics of the parties in this regional conflict.

(iii)The specific instance of Palestine and the West Bank

When the British wrested control over Palestine from the Ottomans in the First World War, and established themselves there to administer the region, Selwyn Troen notes that, 'naming also became part of the contest for asserting control over Palestine'.. As early as 1920 two Zionists advising the British Mandatory authority on everything regarding the assignment of Hebrew names, fought hard for the restoration of Hebraic toponymy, and when, with such places as Nablus, or indeed 'Palestine' itself, were given non-Hebrew names, they protested at the designations as evidence of discrimination against Jews. The point is made by the Israeli historian and cartographer Meron Benvenisti:-

'When the Geographical Committee for Names, which operated under the aegis of the Royal Geographical Society (the only body authorized to assign names throughout the British Empire, decided to call the Mandatory geopolitical entity “Palestine” and the city whose biblical name was Shechem, “Nablus” these Jewish advisers saw this as an act of anti-Jewish discrimination, and a searing defeat for Zionism.'

One pauses to reflect. We are being accused here of 'anti-Jewish/Israeli discrimination' for refusing to insert Israeli toponyms into the West Bank. Nothing is said of the logic of this POV-pushing, i.e. that a Palestinian reader might well regard a Wiki endorsement of suc h foreign nomenclature as a 'searing defeat', and adduce it as proof of 'anti-Palestinian discrimination' both by Zionist editors, and Misplaced Pages itself.

Since Zionism took root, and especially since Israel was founded, the making of a people, living in a defined territorial unit and speaking one language, has followed the universal pattern of modernity. The landscape, full of Arabic words, had to be renamed, often according to Biblical terminology, but, more often, by the invention of Biblical-sounding names. To do this, a good part of the 10,000 odd Arabic toponyms collected by Herbert Kitchener, T. E. Lawrence and others in surveying that part of the Middle East had to be cancelled, and replaced with Israeli/Hebrew terms, to remake the landscape and its topographic songlines resonate with historical depth. Hebrew is a ‘sacred tongue’ (Leshon HaQodesh:לשון הקודש), the Bible describes the conquest of Eretz Yisrael, and the dispossession of its indigenous peoples, who were not part of the chosen: the pattern is repeated in modern times, down to the renaming. The revival of Hebrew, with its potent shibboleths, understandably exercises a powerful hold over the new culture of the country.

The problem is, as Steven Runciman pointed out in the mid-sixties, that the part assigned to Israel by the UN deliberation of 1947 was the western, non-Biblical part, whilst the part assigned to a future Palestinian state, what we now call the West Bank, is precisely the area most infused with Biblical associations cherished by the Jewish people, with sites and names redolent of the founding myths and realities of their ancient forefathers. Israelis, in their secular land, mostly dwell where the Philistines dwelt. The Palestinians dwell where the ancient Jewish tribes once settled. The tensions simmer between the secular Israel, which thrives in its new Mediterranean world, and the religiously-identified Israel that aspires to return to a geophysical space where origins and the present, the sacred nomenclature of the Bible and the modern world of Jewish life, might at least, once more overlap, in an ‘Adamic’ harmony congruent with the kingdoms of Israel and Judah.

(iv)The Negev Precedent With the foundation of Israel, and in the aftermath of the 1948 war, the vast Negev and part of the Arava were captured, and Ben Gurion duly established a Negev Names Committee to ‘hebraize’ the landscape’s features, its mountains, valleys and springs. The area already had a rich Arab toponymy, and some on the committee thought these terms might be preserved as a ‘democratic gesture towards the Arab population of the new state.’ It was not to be. The nomadic Bedouin who dwelt throughout the area were rounded up and expelled by force. They had terms for everything, but with their uprooting and displacement, Benvenisti notes, ‘an entire world, as portrayed in their toponomastic traditions, died.' Ben Gurion wrote to the committee setting forth his view that:-

We are obliged to remove the Arabic names for reasons of state. Just as we do not recognize the Arabs’ political proprietorship of the land, so also we do not recognize their spiritual proprietorship and their names.

Political pressure and ‘the influence of patriotic arguments’ prevailed over those who, like S.Yeibin, thought the erasure of Arab names, many of which might preserve an archaic Hebrew origin. Yeibin thought this a disaster:-

‘With a clap of the hand they were wiping out an entire cultural heritage that must certainly conceal within it elements of the Israeli-Jewish heritage as well. The researchers did indeed endeavour to identify all those names that had a link to ancient Hebrew ones in an attempt “to redeem, as far as possible, names from the days of yore.” <

Any Arabic toponym in short only interested the topographers in so far as it might provide a clue to reconstructing the hypothetical Hebraic original that might lie behind it. This consideration, however, often created a mess of concocted pseudo-traditional names. The hebraization of such Arabic toponyms did not restore the historic past, but invented a mythical landscape, resonant with traditionalist associations, that had, however, no roots in Jewish tradition. The most striking geologic formation in the Negev, Wadi Rumman was rewritten as if that word disguised an ancient Hebrew Ram ('elevated'), whereas the Arabic term it was calqued from actually meant 'Pomegranate Arroyo', for example.

Reflecting on Benvenisti’s account in his larger study of language conflict in the Middle east, the Palestinian expatriate scholar Yasir Suleiman makes remarks that,

’By assigning Hebrew names anew to places on the map, the committee was therefore ‘redeeming’ these places from the corrupt and ‘alien’ Arabic names that they have acquired over the centuries’

and likens this process of linguistic erasure of Arabic and the reconstitution of Hebrew metaphorically to the nakba:-

‘The cartographic cleansing of the Negev map of Arabic place names and their replacement by Hebrew names is an enactment of the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians from their homeland’

The record is therefore one of a linguistic cleansing of Palestine of any trace of its long Arabic history, and, as we shall see, an attempt to remodel Arabic usage in the territories Israel conquered and controls, to conform with Hebrew. Toponyms can only retain some semblance of an Arabic form, if that form is suspected to camouflage, in turn, an original Hebraic name. Adapting the reborn Hebrew language to the alien realities of the Palestinian landscape, the obvious problem was that the nomenclature for much of the flora and fauna, not to speak of the landscape itself, was infused with the very language, Arabic, a revarnished Hebrew had to compete with. As early as 1910 Jacob Fichman, a member of the Language Council, stated that Hebrew:

‘will not digest the new names of plants, especially those which have been taken from the Arabic language’ and that these borrowed names ‘will always be like atrophied limbs’ for ‘despite the fact that the Arabic language is our sister language in the family of Semitic languages, it has no foundation in our |psyche ’

Hebrew was thus to be programmatically sealed off from Arabic, to prevent atrophisation, and cultivate purism by means of a fake Biblical antiquarianism. Theodor Adorno, writing in the melancholic aftermath of the Holocaust on the effects of cultural purism, once remarked on the purging of foreign words from German undertaken by nationalists intent restoring an ideal of cultural authenticity. He saw this as part of the pathology of nationalism in Germany. Foreign words were treated as if they were 'the Jews of language' (Fremdwörter sind die Juden der Sprache). In expunging the landscape and the human world of Palestine of its Arabic language, of landscape and culture, Zionism likewise treated Arabic as German or French linguistic purists treated loan-words in their own languages, or, later, actual Jews in their midst, as foreign bodies to be expelled, or expunged if a proper 'foundation for an authentically Jewish psyche' were to be successfully engineered. One would call this ironic, were it not so tragically melancholic in its unintended resonances.

(v)The West Bank. History and Naming The relationship between demographic displacement and the loss of one's landscape through the erasure of its traditional placenames in Palestine has been remarked on by Paul Diehl.

‘The exclusive attachment to territory is reflected in the naming and renaming of places and locations in accordance with the historic and religious sites associated with the dominant political group. Not only did the outflow of Palestinian refugees bring about a change in the Jewish-Arab demographic rations, it brought about the replacement of an Arab-Palestinian landscape with a Jewish-Israeli landscape. The names of abandoned villages disappeared from the map and were replaced with alternative Hebrew names . . Israeli settlements throughout the West Bank have taken on biblical names associated with the specific sites as a means of expressing the Jewish priority in these places and the exclusive nature of the territorial attachment. Modern Israeli and Palestinian maps of Israel/Palestine possess the same outer borders, but the semantic content of the name is completely different.. The means by which new landscapes are created to replace or obliterate former landscapes is a good example of the way in which metaphysical and symbolic attachment to territory is translated into concrete realities on the ground.’

In 1950, when King Abdullah, of the Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan, unilaterally annexed the territory he had conquered in 1948, he changed the name of his country to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, which incorporated the remaining fragment of Palestine as aḍ-Ḍiffä l-Ġarbīyä, or 'the West Bank' of that kingdom. The usage is still current in German (Westjordanland). Though only Britain recognized his annexation, the word itself found ready acceptance in, and was not, 'forced on', the international community, as Binyamin Netanyahu argued.

In 1967, Israel conquered what the world knew as ‘The West Bank’, the Biblical heartland, and a decree calling it ‘Judea and Samaria’ was issued by the Israeli military on December 17 that year with the explicit definition that it would be identical in meaning for all purposes to the West Bank region to replace the interim terms 'Occupied Territories' (ha-shetahim ha-kevushim), and ‘the Administered Territories’ (ha-shetahim ha-muhzakim) in use since the immediate aftermath of the June war. The term 'Judea and Samaria' however was rarely used until Likud took power. The Labour Government never enacted a settlement policy, though Gush Emunim, an extremist settler ground with a fundamentalist ideology, pressed settlement, and propagated the terminology ‘Judea and Samaria’. When the Likud party, the maximalist, expansionist party with strong ties to both religious and ultra-Zionist groups and traditions, was elected in 1977, it imposed Samaria and Judea as the vox propria in modern Hebrew on the mass media, expressly forbidding the use of the international term West Bank. Notably, the government's imposing of these terms on Israeli usage was seen as a prerequisite for an envisioned settlement policy, since accepting the terms would predispose the public to accepting the policy.

Gideon Aran describes the achievement:

‘The importance of changing names in the process of conquering territory is well known. Assimilation of the name “Judea and Samaria” in normal and official language, as well as in jargon, attests to G(ush)E(numin)’s political and cultural achievements.'

The Camp David Accords negotiations of and the final agreement, in 1979, only underline how great was the linguistic rift between Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin's position and the American government intent on brokering an agreement.

‘Begin consistently proved to be the most extreme member of his delegation, insisting on seemingly innocent terms such as “autonomy” as opposed to “self rule,” on the labelling of the West Bank as “Judea and Samaria” in the Hebrew text, and on the use of the phrase “undivided Jerusalem.'

A huge amount of wrangling between the American negotiators and Begin revolved around this term.

‘for what must have been the tenth time, he (Begin) objected to the term West Bank, giving a lesson to the president on the geographic and historical appropriateness of the term and the importance of using the words Judea and Samaria.’

Begin refused to back down from his ‘rock-hard’ intransigence on using ‘Judea and Samaria’ and at the Camp David signing ceremony, (March 26,1979) several interpretive notes were required to be added as annexes to the basic documents, one specifically dealing with the West Bank, which President Carter annotated with his own hand with the words:

‘I have been informed that the expression ‘West Bank’ is understood by the Government of Israel to mean ‘Judea and Samaria’.

An ambitious programme of colonising settlement, toponomastic Hebraisation and cultural Judaization was undertaken, and indigenous Palestinians were shifted off their land, in a repetition of the Negev programme, which forms the precedent. The programme took wing especially after the unprovokedinvasion of Lebanon in 1982, whose key political objectives included ousting the refugee Palestinian resistance in the para-state on Israel’s northern flank from Lebanon, where the PLO projected a 'state in waiting' image that threatened Israel’s plans for long-term control over the West Bank. The war was, the head of the IDF said at the time, ‘part of the struggle over the Land of Israel. It aimed to further the isolation of Palestinians on the West Bank by depriving them of close support, halt the rise to political respectability of the PLO, which embodied Palestinian nationalist aspirations, and deprive that body of its claims to be a political partner in the peace process for Israel’s normalization of its relations with the outside world. One calculation, a minority view entertained by both Ariel Sharon and Raphael Eytan, however, was that, expelled from Lebanon, the PLO would be forced to return to Jordan, topple king Hussein, and establish a Palestinian state there to satisfy Palestinian national ambitions that Israel would thwart on the West Bank.

Changing the realities of occupied territory by the manipulation of language, Hebrew, Arabic, and in controllable sources like the global Misplaced Pages, became a programmatic goal. The settlers were in fact 'colonists' in the old sense, but Israeli English usage has here prevailed in the politics of the culture wars to determine how the international community perceives the dynamics of that area. The corresponding Hebrew usage is complex (see Israeli settlements), but continuity with the biblical setlement of Eretz Yisrael is evoked by referring to Jewish settlers as mitnahalim. The root *n-h-l directly evokes a passage in the Book of Numbers where each tribe is assigned its portion on entering Canaan, or the Land of Israel, particularly as ' in the pledge by the tribes of Gad and Reuben that they will fight on the west side of the Jordan river to help the other tribes take possession of their assigned portions' Settlers, qua, mitnahalim are not colonizing anybody's land, in this usage: they are simply taking up their 'assigned portions' as those were marked out by God to the Chosen People.

Rashid Khalidi has remarked how the Israeli authorities themselves try to engineer the way Palestinians think in Arabic by tampering with that language's natural idiom in the Arabic broadcasts they authorize. Over Israeli Arabic channels, one does not hear Jerusalem referred to, as it is customarily in Arabic, and by Palestinians, as Bayt al-Maqdis ('The House of Sanctity') or Al Quds al-Sharif ('The Noble Holy Place'). Arabic usage as sanctioned by Israel speaks rather of Urshalim ('Jerusalem') or Urshalim/al-Quds ('Jerusalem Al-Quds'). The purpose is to diffuse a variety of Arabic names for places that are calques on the Hebrew terms chosen for the area..

This goes right through the bureaucratic language, a form of linguistic colonization that reinforces the physical occupation of the west Bank by cultural re-engineering. A new travel permit was imposed on the colonized Palestinians in the West Bank in 2002, and required of any of them wishing to travel in that area. This was issued, printed and released by Israeli authorities who call it in Arabic Tasrih tanaqul khas fi al-hawajiz al-dakhiliyya fi mantaqat yahuda wa al-samara. ('Special Travel Permit for the Internal Checkpioints in the Area of Judea and Samaria.'). Here, Palestinians who must travel in the West Bank, for them 'Filastin', are required to obtain a document which requires that area to be referred to by the settler term, 'Judea and Samaria'. It is this form of Arabic which they are expected to use in negotiating their way with Israeli authorities through checkpoints. But West Bank Palestinians simply abbreviate it and refer to their tasrih dakhili (Checkpoint permit), , thereby eluding the settler term imposed on them.

Michael Sfard indeed has spoken of Hebrew being mobilized to lend itself to the national emergency of occupying Palestine, and denying the Palestinians the liberty to be themselves. They are passive subjects of an activist language that wraps them about in bureaucratic euphemisms.

'It has been tasked with providing a soothing, anesthetizing name for the entire project of suffocation, for the blanket system of theft we have imposed on those we occupy . . Thus extrajudicial executions have become “targeted assassinations”. Torture has been dubbed “moderate physical pressure”. Expulsion to Gaza has been renamed “assigning a place of residence”. The theft of privately owned land has become “declaring the land state-owned”. Collective punishment is “leveraging civilians”; and collective punishment by blockade is a “siege,” “closure” or “separation".'

A proposal is now being made to apply the principle of Hebraization, as of 2009, even to those places within Israel which the world designates by traditional toponyms, such as Jerusalem (Yerushalayim) Nazareth (Natzrat) and Jaffa (Yafo). According to Yossi Sarid, the process, illustrated further by Knesset proposals to eliminate Arabic as one of Israel's official languages, constitutes a form of ethnocide.

(vi) Analysis of Ynhockey's suggestions

‘Mapmaking was one of the specialized intellectual weapons by which power could be gained, administered, given legitimacy and codified’

'Mapmaking is not, however, solely an instrument of war; it is an activity of supreme political significance – a means of providing a basis for the mapmaker’s claims and for his social and symbolic values, while cloaking them in a guise of “scientific objectivity.” Maps are generally judged in terms of their “accuracy”, that is, the degree to which they succeed in reflecting and depicting the morphological landscape and its “man-made” covering But maps portray a fictitious reality that differs from other sorts of printed matter only in form.'

After 1967 ‘Cartographers . .had many options, which tended to reveal their political proclivities. Those who were sympathetic to Israel labelled the West Bank, Gaza, the Golan Heights, and Sinai as “administered territories” and used the phrase “Judea and Samaria” for Jordan’s former West Bank. They also included all of Jerusalem within Israeli territory,. Mapmakers who were ideologically neutral generally referred to “occupied territory” and maintained the term “West Bank”. . . In the post-1993 period a Palestinian Authority has been established in the West Bank and Gaza, yet there is no actual independent state of Palestine. Most international maps have stayed with the terms “West Bank” and “Gaza” but maps published by the Palestinian Authority describe these areas as “Palestine.” Furthermore, Palestinian Authority maps usually leave out Israel and assign its territory to “Palestine,” with the added designation that it is “occupied territory.”Arthur Jay Klinghoffer, Harvey Sicherman, The power of projections: : how maps reflect global politics and history, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2006 pp.37-8

We are dealing with a defined territory and its naming. User:Ynhockey would make tidy distinctions, define the bound geographical territory (CIA Factbook) as just a political reality, and use Judea and Samaria for all other contexts. In his own work on Wiki, much of it admirable, we find many maps. Examine the following map he authored and uploaded, and which is employed on the Battle of Karameh

The central colour, a washed acquamarine tint, allows one to highlight the field of movement in the battle, and blurs the neat territorial division between the West Bank, and Jordan. But note that, in a wholly unnecessary manner, Israel is stamped in large bold characters and made to overlay the West Bank, which is placed diminutively in parentheses. Willy-nilly, the impression is that the West Bank is some territorial hypothesis or province within Israel. Whether Ynhockey meant to give the reader this impression or not is immaterial. Maps, as one source already quoted noted, reflect the cognitive bias of the mapmaker as much as an interpretation of a landscape, and here the bias is that the West Bank is under Israel, behind Israeli lines, a subset of that state. It is a fine example of what many cartographers and historians of cartography argue: the making of maps, and toponymic nomenclature in them, serves several purposes, to clarify, as here, a battle landscape, for example, but also to impose or assert power, or claims, or blur facts. Objectively, User:Ynhockey has loaded wiki with a map that cogs our perceptions, tilting them to an annexationist assumption. Indeed, unlike the Israeli government so far, his map actually looks like it has the West Bank annexed.

1. T.G.H.Strehlow, Songs of Central Australia,Angus & Robertson, Sydney 1971 p.126; cited by Barry Hill, Broken Song: T.G.H.Strehlow and Aboriginal Possession, Knopf, 2002 pp.436f.
2. Genesis, ch.2, verses 19-20, with apologies for my transcription
3. For a fascinating study on both the figure of Adam in Islamic tradition, and on commentaries on this particular text specifically, see M.J.Kister, ‘Ādam: A Study of Some Legends in Tafsīr and Hadīt Literature,’ in Joel L. Kraemer (ed.) Israel Oriental Studies, Volume XIII, BRILL, 1993 pp.112-174, p.140
4. Thomas Pynchon, Mason & Dixon, Jonathan Cape, London 1997, pp.8,615
5. George Steiner, After Babel, Oxford University Press 1975 p.58
6. Ernst Cassirer, The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms,, vol.1, tr.Ralph Manheim, Yale UP 1955 pp.119ff.,p.122
7. Isaiah 5:11. For this and other passages, see S.J.Tambiah ’s 1968 Malinowsky lecture, "The Magical Power of Words," (the ancient Egyptians, the Semites and Sumerians all believed that “the world and its objects were created by the word of God; and the Greek doctrine of logos postulated that the soul or essence of things resided in their names (pp.182-3). My attention was drawn to this particular essay by Tambiah by Brian Vickers, Occult and scientific mentalities in the Renaissance, Cambridge University Press, 1984 p.96
8. Anthony D. Smith, The Ethnic Origin of Nations, Basil Blackwell, Oxford 1986 passim
9. John Lewis Gaddis, The Landscape of History: How Historians Map the Past, Oxford University Press US, 2004, p.131
10. Abbiamo fatto l'Italia. Ora si tratta di fare gli Italiani
11. Regis Stella, Imagining the Other: The Representation of the Papua New Guinean Subject, University Of Hawaiʻi Press, 2007 p.169 gives many Papuan examples. Compare his remark elsewhere in the same book, ‘In indigenous cultures . .(t)he most important means of taking control of the landscape is by naming, Naming provides the equivalent of a title deed, imbues power and identity to that which is named, gives the named place a presence, confers a reality, and allows it to be known.’ Ibid pp. 40-41
12. M. Daphne Kutzer, Empire's Children:Empire and Imperialism in Classic British Children's Books, Routledge, 2000 p.120
13. Alfred W. Crosby, Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900-1900, Cambridge University Press, 1986
14. ‘Maps are a kind of language, or social product which act as mediators between an inner mental world and an outer physical world. But they are, perhaps first and foremost, guides to the mind-set which produced them. They are, in this sense, less a representation of part of the earth’s surface than a representation of the system of cognitive mapping which produced them,’ N.Penn, “Mapping the Cape: John Barrow and the First British Occupation of the Colony, 1794-1803.” in Pretexts 4 (2) Summer 1993, pp.20-43 p.23
15. John Atchison, ‘Naming Outback Australia,’ in Actes du XVI Congrès international des sciences onomastiques, Québec, Université Laval, 16-22 August 1987, Presses Université Laval, 1987 : pp.151-162 p.154-5
16. Susan Gay Drummond, Incorporating the Familiar, McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP, 1997 p.32 .
17. Alfonso Pérez-Agote, The Social Roots of Basque Nationalism, University of Nevada Press, 2006 p.xx
18. Selwyn Ilan Troen, Imagining Zion: Dreams, Designs, and Realities in a Century of Jewish Settlement, Yale University Press, 2003 p.152
19. Meron Benvenisti, Sacred Landscape:The Buried History of the Holy Land since 1948, tr. Maxine Kaufman-Lacusta, University of California Press, 2000 pp.12-13 cf.'Suffused with the sense that “it is impossible for a present-day Hebrew map not to identify by name the places of Hebrew settlement mentioned in the Bible and in post-biblical Hebrew literature,” they set about identifying these sites and putting them on “Hebrew maps,” which they placed opposite the official Mandatory maps.’
20. Cf.Bruce Chatwin, The Songlines, Jonathan Cape, London 1987
21. Benvenisti, ibid, p.19
22. Benvenisti, Sacred Landscape, op.cit.p.14. The Arabic names were also found ‘morose’ and ‘offensive’ . As one member put it: ‘Many of the names are offensive in their gloomy and morose meanings, which reflect the powerlessness of the nomads and their self-denigration in the face of the harshness of nature’ (ibid.p.17). On the committee see also his memoir, Meron Benvenisti, Son of the Cypresses: Memories, Reflections, and Regrets from a Political Life, tr. Maxine Kaufman-Lacusta, University of California Press, 2007 p.72.
23. Amar Dahamshe Off the linguistic map. Are Arab place names derived from Hebrew? in Haaretz 30.06.10
24. Benvenisti, ibid. p.17, p.18
25. ‘The name of the Ramon Crater, for example, perhaps the most dramatic geological formation in the Negev, “is derived from the Hebrew adjective ram (meaning elevated), “states an Israeli guidebook. The fact that its name in Arabic was Wadi Rumman (Pomegranate Arroyo), . . was not considered worthy of mention’ Benvenisti, Sacred Landscape, ibid. p.19
26. Yasir Suleiman, A War of Words: Language and Conflict in the Middle East, Cambridge University Press, 2004 p.161, p.162.
27. cf.Shalom Spiegel, Hebrew Reborn,, The Jewish Publication Society of America, Philadelphia 1930, Meridian Book reprint 1962. Shalom Spiegel was Sam Spiegel's more distinguished and erudite brother.
28. Yasir Suleiman, A War of Words, ibid p.140
29. Theodor Adorno, Minima moralia: Reflexionen aus dem beschädigten Leben (1951), in Rolf Tiedemann (ed.) Gesammelte Schriften, Bd.4, Suhrkamp, 1980 p.123
30. Paul Francis Diehl, A Road Map to War, Vanderbilt University Press, 1999, pp.15-16.
31. 'The term West Bank was forced onto the international lexicon only after Jordan conquered the territory in 1948'. Binyamin Netanyahu, A Durable Peace: Israel and Its Place Among the Nations, Warner Books, (1993) 2000 p.20. Netanyahu's dislike of the term (and his faulty memory for dates), is mirrored by the Palestinian poet, Mourid Barghouti, evidence if ever of the neutrality of the term: cf.‘I did not realize what it meant to be a refugee until I became one myself. When the Israeli army occupied Deir Ghassanah and the whole eastern part of Palestine in 1967, the news bulletins began to speak of the occupation of the Israeli defense forces of the West Bank. The pollution of language is no more obvious than when concocting this term: West Bank. West of what? Bank of what? The reference here is to the west bank of the River Jordan, not to historical Palestine. If the reference were to Palestine they would have used the term eastern parts of Palestine. The west bank of the river is a geographical location, not a country, not a homeland. The battle for language becomes the battle for the land. The destruction of one leads to the destruction of the other. When Palestine disappears as a word, it disappears as a state, as a country and as a homeland. The name of Palestine itself had to vanish. . .The Israeli leaders, practicing their conviction that the whole land of Palestine belongs to them would concretize the myth and give my country yet another biblical name: Judea and Samaria, and give our villages and towns and cities Hebrew names. But call it the West Bank or call its Judea and Samaria, the fact remains that these territories are occupied. No problem! The Israeli governments, whether right or left or a combination of both, would simply drop the term occupied and say the Territories! Brilliant! I am a Palestinian, but my homeland is the Territories! What is happening here? By a single word they redefine an entire nation and delete history.’ Mourid Barghouti, 'The Servants of War and their Language', in International parliament of Writers, Autodafe, Seven Stories Press, 2003 pp.139-147 pp140-1
32. Emma Playfair, International Law and the Administration of Occupied Territories: Two Decades of Israeli Occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Oxford University Press, 1992 p. 41.
33. Ran HaCohen, 'Influence of the Middle East Peace Process on the Hebrew Language' (1992), reprinted in Michael G. Clyne (ed.), Undoing and Redoing Corpus Planning, Walter de Gruyter, 1997, pp.385-414, p.397.
34. Shlomo Gazit, Trapped Fools: Thirty Years of Israeli Policy in the Territories, Routledge, 2003 p. 162
35. 'The terms “occupied territory” or “West Bank” were forbidden in news reports.'Ian S. Lustick, 'The Riddle of Nationalism: The Dialectic of Religion and Nationalism in the Middle East', Logos, Vol.1, No.3, Summer 2002 pp.18-44, p. 39
36. 'Begin was happy to castigate the media and the intelligentsia for their views, real and imaginary, and their use of politically incorrect language. Israeli television was now instructed to use “Judea and Samaria’ for the administered territories, annexation became ‘incorporation’ and the Green Line suddenly disappeared from maps of Israel and the West Bank'. Colin Shindler, A History of Modern Israel, Cambridge University Press, 2008 p.174
37. 'The successful gaining of the popular acceptance of these terms was a prelude to gaining popular acceptance of the government’s settlement policies'.Myron J. Aronoff, Israeli Visions and Divisions: Cultural Change and Political Conflict, Transaction Publishers, 1991. p. 10.
38. Gideon Aran, 'Jewish Zionist Fundamentalism: The Block of the Faithful in Israel (Gush Enumin),', in American Academy of Arts and Sciences, University of Chicago Press, 1994 pp.265-344, p.291, p.337
39. Zeev Maoz, Defending the Holy Land: a critical analysis of Israel's security & foreign policy, University of Michigan Press, 2006 p.441
40. William B. Quandt, Peace process: American diplomacy and the Arab-Israeli conflict since 1967, Brookings Institution Press, 2001, rev.ed.2001 p.130
41. William B.Quandt, Peace process, ibid. p.134. This was then accompanied by a formal note to Begin (September 22,1978), it which it was registered that ‘(A) In each paragraph of the Agreed Framework Document the expressions “Palestinians” or “Palestinian People” are being and will be construed and understood by you as “Palestinian Arabs”. (B)In each paragraph in which the expression “West Bank” appears, it is being, and will be, understood by the Government of Israel as Judea and Samaria.’ William B. Quandt, Camp David: peacemaking and politics, Brookings Institution Press, 1986 p.387
42. Howard Jones, Crucible of Power: A History of U.S. Foreign Relations Since 1897,Rowman & Littlefield, 2nd.ed. 2001 p.469
43. Rex Brynen, Sanctuary and Survival: The PLO in Lebanon, Westview Press, Boulder, 1990 p.2
44. James Ron, Frontiers and ghettos: state violence in Serbia and Israel, University of California Press, 2003 p.180. Decoded, the statement means, 'invading Lebanon secures the West Bank for Israel and thus achieves the Biblical borders set forth more or less in the Tanakh's account of the early kingdoms'
45. Eric J. Schmertz, Natalie Datlof, Alexej Ugrinsky, President Reagan and the world, Greenwood Publishing Group, 1997 p.44.
46. See Uri Bar-Joseph, Israel's National Security Towards the 21st Century, Routledge, 2001 p.185
47. Numbers, 32:18
48. David C. Jacobson, Does David still play before you? Israeli poetry and the Bible, Wayne State University Press, 1997 p.50
49. Rashid Khalidi, Palestinian Identity: The construction of modern national consciousness, Columbia University Press, 1998 p.14
50. Nigel Craig Parsons,The Politics of the Palestinian Authority: From Oslo to Al-Aqsa, Routledge, 2005 p.299
51. Michael Sfard, Occupation double-speak,' at Haaretz, 12 June 2012.
52. Jonathan Cook, Israeli Road Signs, Counterpunch 17-19, July 2009
53. Nir Hasson, Give Arab train stations Hebrew names, says Israeli linguist, Haaretz 28/12/2009
54. Yossi Sarid 'Israel is not killing the Palestinian people - it's killing their culture,' Haaretz 3 Octobr 2014
55. John Brian Harley, David Woodward, The History of Cartography: Cartography in Prehistoric, Ancient, and Medieval Europe and the Mediterranean, Humana Press, 1987 p.506, cited Benvenisti, Sacred Landscape, ibid.p.13
56. Benvenisti, Sacred Landscape, ibid. p.13

Further reading:-

• Mark Monmonier, No Dig, No Fly, No Go. How maps restrict and control, University of Chicago Press 2010

christmas and new year

trust you have had a good christmas- have a good new year as well! JarrahTree 00:17, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

hahaha - just had my time in hospital and under anasthesia - good start to the year :) - thanks for your greetings JarrahTree 23:49, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

not going anywhere near it - see my email as to why JarrahTree 09:43, 11 January 2019 (UTC)

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Merry Christmas and a Prosperous 2019!

Hello Nishidani, may you be surrounded by peace, success and happiness on this seasonal occasion. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Sending you heartfelt and warm greetings for Christmas and New Year 2019. Happy editing, Walk Like an Egyptian (talk) 06:31, 25 December 2018 (UTC) Spread the love by adding {{subst:Seasonal Greetings}} to other user talk pages.

Nomination of Zion Square assault for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Zion Square assault is suitable for inclusion in Misplaced Pages according to Misplaced Pages's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Zion Square assault until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. Icewhiz (talk) 15:26, 11 January 2019 (UTC)

ahh new year optimism

I can really tell where wikipedia is at when I go to the Mick Jagger and Jimi Hendrix categories to find that neither have a parent category or anything at all on their talk pages (no designated projects) - its all just low hanging fruit that people nibble at - the real issues abound like a damned 1882 tsunami from krakatoa - untouched and unmanaged - and enough to ingrain a sense of optimism that.... JarrahTree 10:28, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, well, fuck the cats, he murmured with a cynical pun on felinity. I feel as done as a dead dingo just trying to clear up one little article like Yugambeh people, knowing painfully quite a few decent people are going to be upset. Nishidani (talk) 13:21, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

you left out the better part in the simpson desert - current state of south east of it being more beyond cat (sic) a strophic - - the dunes close to moomba were as almost as good as - I once worked in a tent camp there many many moons ago - but never got to JarrahTree 13:50, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

Ah, brings back dreams. I never got further north than Wilpena Pound, and was lucky to get that far since people on the road generally didn't like the look of me as I hitchhiked - right eye closed from a spider bite while camping - and just got lucky when a truckie took pity on me and gave me a ride, in the refrigerated section of his truck through to the Flinders Range. Hitching back, I felt bushed by the time I reached Adelaide, climbed the nearest wall, roped myself up in the fork of an oak tree, and at 5 am, thoroughly refreshed, jumped the wall and stuck out my thumb for a ride, and was picked up immediately by a University geologist driving through to the Wimmera, who quietly noted he'd picked me up on second thought - his first being that it might be a touch risky giving a lift to a likely lad who'd just shimmied down from the wall of the Glenside Lunatic Asylum. Nishidani (talk) 14:25, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

hahahah - makes my adventure seem very very mild - I was flown into moomba by my oil exploring employer, and then drove out to the camp west in the fields (oil) - where I basically sat in a seismic recording truck monitoring the bangs - off time was sand surfing on the nearby dunes... the kitchen being the most dangerous location... the dingoes looked they hadnt eaten for a decade and the rabbit droppings were of archaeological vintage - they hadnt been around in place like that there was nothing to chew... JarrahTree 14:33, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

So the outback is where the Dark Tower lies.

So, on I went. I think I never saw

Such starv’d ignoble nature; nothing throve:

For flowers—as well expect a cedar grove!

But cockle, spurge, according to their law

Might propagate their kind, with none to awe,

You ’d think; a burr had been a treasure trove.Nishidani (talk) 16:13, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

that is indeed the most poetic response to anything I have ever put on a talk page in 13 or 14 years or whatever it is - well worthy of raising

the tinnie in the ironclad pub in marble bar, and pouring it over your head in gratitude (all moisture is needed at 45+ whatever the from of liquid) or for that matter un-named water holes on hannan street in kal... JarrahTree 09:42, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

Fuck Paddy Hannan, his street and his statue! Not worth a dekko. I could hardly get a full forty winks at the Palace Hotel there because of the great Macropus rufus that liked to put the wind up the chooks by dinning out their cockcrow as he thumped his tail along that street at the crack of dawn. Sleepy-eyed, my big nipper and I trundled over after brekkie to chuck a shufti at his statue - distant relatives knew him and were probably kin- and were ambushed by a high aggro swarm of kallili lion ants whose late morning nap in ther burrowed grit we'd disturbed. My brother introduced me on the occasion to the Tarantella, judging from the now familiar paroxysmic pattern of his anaphylactic reaction to the stings. Only an unforgettable lime icecream at Cottesloe beach a few days later changed the western walkabout's mnemonic template from tragic to euphoric. I'm as dry as a nun's nasty these days - only because the local lager, like the peanut butter, doesn't tempt my bushed palate, so a tinnie baptism, metaphorically, is just what the 'Doctor' blowing in from Fremantle would order. Thanks. Nishidani (talk) 10:47, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

at this point it is just that little too personal - cottesloe for me is off wiki  :) JarrahTree 11:55, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

Hi

Is this of interest? Cheers, Huldra (talk) 21:40, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

Thanks H. A huge amount of native lore was 'grounded' in dreamtime rainbow serpents that founded the country and, once they had carved its contours, survived through communicating underground channels from one lagoon or dip to another. That's dried up. What would happen has been known since I was there in the 60s, so it's no surprise. There are few combinations as lethally destructive as an amalgam between 'cockies' (farming rednecks) and rural politicians, whose idea of 'development', despite their ferocious 'anticommunism' (hostility to the rational sustainable use of resources) consisted in rerouting scarce water on a dry outback to grow cotton and the like, with the same impact that was obtained by Soviet 'planners' at the Aral Sea. Someone should rewrite the Ord River article, which underplays the stupidity. As to Walgett's river, this poem used to be famous, and catches the early story with comic irony. Alas. Nishidani (talk) 09:07, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

How terrible sad. Actually, it reminds me of some of the things happening in Israel/Palestine (ok, so this is an issue I know far, far too little about: just paraphrasing from "what I have heard"). The groundwaters/aquifers are apparently being depleting at a level which will mean the end of life there in the forseeable future. When asked why they allowed this to happen, the answer was that "the Messiah" would come before then, so why worry about sustainability? Huldra (talk) 20:13, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

I think the depletion refers to the Gaza Strip, 95% of the water of which is technically noxious, since the West Bank aquifer is intercepted before it gets there. They can't build a desalination plant, though it's already designed and partially financed, because they are not allowed to access their off-shore gas reserves to generate sufficiently secure energy to run such a plant. The problem with being old, if your memory is intact, is that all the news you read is stale, DOA dope.Nishidani (talk) 21:02, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

Theory

Hi Nishidani, let's talk. Maybe if you and I can come to agree, it will help everyone else agree? I know you like threaded, so I will sign every paragraph. :-) _ich? ! 00:42, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

1. 160k or 200k or 300k is not enough to cover this topic. At least ten times as much text is needed to really do it justice. _ich? ! 00:42, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

2. The difference between one long article or ten smaller articles is the difference between baking one big loaf and baking ten smaller loafs: either way, it's the same amount of bread. _ich? ! 00:42, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

3. Our most important readers are the youth, for whom Misplaced Pages is the first stop, who know the least about this conflict, and whose minds will be heavily influenced by the first thing they read about it. _ich? ! 00:42, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

4. The average millennial does not have the attention span to read a book, nor a novella, nor a long article. 150k or 300k of reading is not going to happen, never mind ten times as much. _ich? ! 00:42, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

5. There is no point in writing something unless it will be read. _ich? ! 00:42, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

I dont think you will find an audience that accepts that view here. If somebody is too lazy to read what is written that is the fault of the reader, not the writer. nableezy - 00:55, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

6. We should offer the child or novice reader an article that (a) they will actually read, (b) they will understand, and (c) will give them a correct, neutral, sufficiently-complete explanation of the occupation. _ich? ! 00:42, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

7. We should offer the curious or advanced reader further information about the topic. We should provide as much (accurate, neutral, well-sourced, etc.) information as we can, organized in such a way to make it as easy to understand as possible (i.e., to ensure it will be read). _ich? ! 00:42, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

8. Ergo, we should have (a) an overview article that a child can read and understand, and (b) a series of in-depth sub-articles offering further understanding to those who are willing and able to read more. _ich? ! 00:42, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

9. Ergo, we should spin off. _ich? ! 00:42, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

10. Ergo, we should start working together on how to spin off, rather than spend any more time fighting about whether to spin off. _ich? ! 00:42, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

This is my train of thought. It seems to me that we both want the same thing, so I haven't understood thus far why you disagree with me (and so strongly). I'm watching your talk page and looking forward to your reply. Best, _ich? ! 00:42, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

For the record, Icewhiz did not spin anything off. He chopped off parts that he would rather not be covered on Misplaced Pages. nableezy - 00:54, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

You need not note anything for the record. There is no record here. I want to have a discussion, not a trial, and no edit to the article is relevant to this discussion. I want to focus on the future of the article, not its past. The reason I posted here and not on the article talk page is because I want to have a separate conversation, away from the heat of the article talk page, to try and come to an understanding with one particular editor with whom I've consistently disagreed. Of course this is not my talk page so I have no right to make any kind of demands here, and if it were my talk page, I would invite everyone to the conversation anyway, but I just ask that we try to keep the shit from the article talk page on the article talk page, and not bring it here. I'm not trying to open up another front in some war, or press some kind of court case. I am laying out my thoughts for Nishidani's (and your and his TPW's) review and asking him (and you and anyone) to comment on them–but not on the drama on the article talk page that involves other editors. Please understand? Please help? _ich? ! 04:01, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

I have no problem with trimming, as once more shown today. I was and remain deeply unhappy with your reaction to my readiness to compromise. I began cutting back in an overall review and in response you filled up the gap, like putting a man on a slimming diet back onto a Big Mac eating habit, with all the hallmarks of bad faith since your request was satisfied, and you responded by contradicting your own express concern. What you put in - the geography and timeline -was the last thing (they are set out in half of the I/P pages) - sabotaged my efforts at size reduction. I would therefore appreciate if you show some active willingness to implement your own request by taking out those two additions. If you do that, in a brief couple of edits, we will have collaboratively managed to take out about 18,000b.Nishidani (talk) 11:18, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

I appreciate this and this. Of course you're welcome to post your thoughts here.Nishidani (talk) 16:26, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

COI / PAID?

In regards to diff, please WP:DISCLOSE any COI and/or WP:PAID editing performed in relation to said commision.Icewhiz (talk) 21:19, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

How silly. I rejected payment, and when this was insisted on, told the executive in charge of publication to donate the payment to a charitable cause. The topic was light years away from the subject of Israel/Palestine. And I am referring to an encyclopedia published several years before Misplaced Pages was created. It dealt with a totally different topic area, the Orient. Of course, if super-skepticism remains, the details are readily available if you pass this request to EdJohnston, say, and he thinks verification here necessary, and asks me for them.Nishidani (talk) 22:32, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

Nishidani, you are describing a past commission to edit some other encyclopedia, not Misplaced Pages? If so I don't see that this falls under WP:PAID. EdJohnston (talk) 04:54, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

Just so. Even were one offered a handsome sinecure of exuberant largesse in work on Misplaced Pages's IP death-zone, I doubt if anyone in his right or left mind would jump at the option. It's one of the refreshing things in a world where bottom-line calculations are the advised mode for employing one's time, that here, as in social work and hospitals, voluntarism is the privileged mode of recruitment, one of the last redoubts of unremunerated idealism, and where the greased palm of power has little pull against the testimony of the factual.Nishidani (talk) 09:33, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

If this occurred several years prior to the creation of Misplaced Pages (2001) - why did you use "have been" (present perfect continuous - an ongoing or just completed action) to refer to it? You are usually quite accurate and thoughtful in your grammar use. Icewhiz (talk) 07:39, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

Your problem is that you didn’t construe the tense of the verbs in the consequent phrasing: 'disagreed . . recognized … trusted . . looked at’ which by complementing the present perfect continuous resolve its residual ambiguity in favour of the nuance that the fact referred to took place in the past. When Orlando says:

'True is it that we have seen better days,

And have with holy bell been knoll'd to church.' (As You Like It 2, 7.113ff)

The reference is to a period, now closed, before his exile. But you don't need a literary education to tell you that. 'I've been trained in analytic philosophy/psychoanalysis' does not mean, on the lips of a retired old man that he is still being mentored, particularly, if the accent, which unfortunately, we do not supply to prose, falls on have, in which case, contextually, the clear subtext is, 'don't tell granny to suck eggs'/I've been there'.Nishidani (talk) 09:56, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

I apologize then for my failure to parse the semantic intent of the sentence, which I read in the context at hand (the discussion on Misplaced Pages on a specific article) and not as a sentence that stood by its own timeless self.Icewhiz (talk) 10:13, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

All sentences, as I stated above, have their semantic content determined by the context, -here the use of the present perfect continuous tweaked by a succession of verbs in the simple perfect- and are not, as suggested, 'timeless'. No need to apologize, however. Even God makes mistakes, first by creating man, then by realizing he'd made a mistake in assuming in his omniscience that they'd be happy in paradise.Nishidani (talk) 10:18, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

That he said he had been commissioned for a prestigious encyclopedia should have been a hint it was not Misplaced Pages. nableezy - 20:58, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

History of Alexander

Following our discussion, I would be interested in working with you to improve that article, maybe even bring it up to Good Article standard - you do write excellent articles and with your classical background I can imagine you would be able to make insightful contributions to it.

I will have access to better sources in a few weeks, and have been intending to improve the article when I get them, but having an experienced editor on board would result in a better article and also provide an excellent opportunity to improve my ability to contribute to Misplaced Pages - and of course I would defer to your greater experience and education on any matters that we disagree on. -- NoCOBOL (talk) 09:38, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

I'm retired from Misplaced Pages and only back here because an editor I have great respect for requested some notes and help on this topic. As a gift I ran up the IOWB article and gave it to him to save him the effort and time, telling him that it would be hacked and battered to death by the usual crowding in all probability, which indeed is what is happening. Scholarship is despised in this area, because it deals with complexities in depth, and doesn't comfort one, as one's favourite TV and news outlets do. Indeed, just as with my work on Khazars, distaste was immediate, requests were made to split it. Why? Because a large number of editors read into everything their suspicions that anything touching this topic area must be favourable to Israel, or not undermine its (semi-)official spin on anything - otherwise it is Palestinian POV pushing. It is as simple as that. Palestinians are terrorists, an obstacle to national well-being, and should be swept under the rug. The number of people working Misplaced Pages's I/P area, mostly of a mixed scholarly background, who think the Palestinian side of history deserves equal treatment, can be counted on the fingers of one hand, if you are like some of the Ngadjunmaia six-fingered, rari nantes in gurgite vasto. None are Palestinians. Palestinian editors are virtually non-existent here, unlike the other ethnicity/nationality. I'm hanging round to limit the damage, but only that long, and I'm pressed privately to limit my time here anyway.

So I don't think I can be of much help, timewise, for input on your article. I reread the article this morning, and made some notes, before reality interrupted most of my day. Feel free to use the following, prefaced by a general comment.

What is required of encyclopedic writing is that it be readable to a general audience and satisfy what specialists would regard as an adequate synthesis of the field, and not provoke a sense of irritation among the latter at outsiderly amateurishness, what the Japanese inimitably call kakka sōyō no kan (隔靴掻痒の感), lit. ‘the feeling of scratching an itchy foot with one’s shoe on’.

There is an epistemological divide between us and antiquity, in that the majority of ‘facts’ in narratives of the latter are inferred, and therefore the objection of meticulous, often abstruse, contention. Anything you cite from an ancient text is plagued by hermeneutic difficulties, something virtually no article on antiquity on Misplaced Pages shows any awareness of, but one reason why all citations of primary sources should be accompanied by a secondary or tertiary scholarly source which uses that passage. Let me illustrate.

The work is believed to have been written in Alexandria, perhaps having been started when Ptolemy ordered the body of Alexander brought to Egypt, and finished between 309 and 301 BC. This dating is backed by the writings of several ancient historians, in particular through the works of the same Ptolemy, who it appears corrected Cleitarchus and whose works have been dated to the late fourth century

• That is sourced to John Yardley’s book, without the page indicated (it is p.5).
• But on the same page Yardley notes that some argue Ptolemy’s account was written shortly after 321 a view which might be challenged by the fact that at 9.5.21 (Quintus Curtius: Ptolemaeum, qui postea regnavit, huic pugnae adfuisse auctor est Cleitarchus et Timagenes. Sed ipse, scilicet gloriae suae non refragatus, afuisse se, missum in expeditionem, memoriae= 'According to Clitarchus and Timagenes, Ptolemy (who was subsequently a king) took part in the battle. Ptolemy himself, however, certainly from no desire to detract from his own reputation, records that he was not there, since he had been sent on an expedition’. (Yardley p.224 cf.Tarn, cited below pp.26-27)) from which it has been argued to the contrary that Ptolemy is correcting Cleitarchus, and therefore, implicitly writing after the latter’s own work was issued.
• All that has to therefore be contextualized, beginning with W. W. Tarn’s Alexander the Great: Volume 2, Sources and Studies, Cambridge University Press, (1948) 2003 pp.5-43, and from pp.43 onwards. This is a detailed study of the fragments of Cleitarchus and Tarn argued that the terminus post quem for Cleitarchus’s work was 280. For the context of his view and an early criticism in a very readable survey, you could consult J. R. Hamilton, Cleitarchus and Aristobulus Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte Bd. 10, H. 4, (October 1961 pp. 448-458.

• The opening sentence should have a footnote after the title Perì Aléxandron historíai (note accents, = Περὶ Ἀλέξανδρον ἱστορίαι) noting that it was also referred to by the variant title ‘tà perì Aléxandron = τὰ περὶ Αλέξανδρον.
• 'Late fourth-century' should be 'late fourth century-early third century.' (Prandi p.16)
• You should not cite a work without a page reference, thus referring generically to Prandi’s paper for the Oxyrhynchus fragment. The ‘sensational’ is a description conserved there from an anonymous historian,(Prandi p.16)
• Get rid of the Encyclopedia Britannica 1911 article, cited for the vague number of fragments of Cleitarchus’s work, i.e. ‘around thirty’. Tarn 1948/2003 p.43 gives the precise number, 36.
• The citation of Bartlett, Brett (July 2014). "Justin's Epitome: The Unlikely Adaptation of Trogus' World History" (PDF). Histos. 8: 246–283 is pointless and WP:OR as it stands. This doesn’t mention Cleitarchus, and the source you would need for the statement is J. C. Yardley, Pat Wheatley, Waldemar Heckel, Justin: Epitome of the Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus: Volume II: Books 13-15: The Successors to Alexander the Great, Clarendon Press, 2011 978-0-199-27759-9 p.5 esp. but also pp.53,62,85 (on Justin) and 94.

There are a score of other things, -some of them I hinted at in my tough remonstrance -but I don't have much time. All I advise is to read Tarn's extensive section very closely, and use that as a basis for a draft, which can then be tweaked as subsequent reading suggests. If of course you come up with a real doifficulty or two, drop me a note here and I'll try eventually to see what I can do.Nishidani (talk) 17:18, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

Thank you, I will refer closely to this when I return to work on the article; my field of expertise is well outside the classics, but I have no interest on working on my field of expertise outside of work. -- NoCOBOL (talk) 08:06, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

Nomination of Israeli occupation of the West Bank for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Israeli occupation of the West Bank is suitable for inclusion in Misplaced Pages according to Misplaced Pages's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Israeli occupation of the West Bank until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article.

possible mergers in Aussie peoples

Hi,

Here are the articles I tagged for merger. Some of them may be ethnicities that share a common language, but some of them are probably duplicates, e.g. alt names. Since you know the literature, would you mind reviewing them, and removing the 'merge' templates from the ones that shouldn't be merged?

• Kokowara and Laia people

• Wiknantjara and Kugu Nganhcara

• Bininj Kunwok people and Gunwinggu
• Dangbon and Dalabon

• Barara people and Burarra

• Marinunggo and Marranunggu

• Amijangal and Emmiyangal

• Mutjati and Otati

Wuthathi, according to Norman Tindale, held sway over some 150 square miles (390 km2) of territory extending north from Shelburne Bay north to the vicinity of Orford Ness

Southern part of Shelburne Bay; east and south to Macmillan River, inland to headwaters of Dulhunty River.

On the other hand, the Austkin/AIATSIS entry lists Otati as a variant of Wuthathi. So you have source conflict, that can only be resolved when an authoritative source comments on this.

What I'll do is note that Tindale's distinction is apparently not accepted by AIATSIS Nishidani (talk) 14:50, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

• Pintupi and Ildawongga

Lake Mackay, Lake Macdonald, Mount Russell,Ehrenberg Range, Kintore Range, Warman Rocks; west to near Winbaruku; south to about Johnstone Hill.

West of Lake Mackay to about Longitude 126°E;north toward a native place named Manggai which is tentatively identified as in the Stansmore Range. Manjildjara say their country begins at Ngila, an unidentified place several days walk east of Liburu (Libral on maps, Canning Stock Route Well 37). South to about 23°30'S latitude. A group of them supposedly suffering from the effects of drought were officially removed in April 1964 from

As one can see from the second quote re the Ildawongga, the Pintubi informant regarded them as a different people. AIATSIS is, justly so, extremely sensitive to any language that may prejudice contemporary land claims, but the earlier ethnographers, despite their own confusions, did take down information from elderly fully tribal people over a half a century ago, before this was a consideration. I don't think one can merge here.Nishidani (talk) 15:27, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

• Yingkarta and Inggarda

Good catch.

• Ngarlawangga and Inawongga

Headwaters of the Ashburton and Gascoyne Rivers; south to near Three Rivers and Mulgul; east to Ilgarari.

On Hardey River south of Rocklea; southeast along upper Ashburton River from Turee Creek upstream to Kunderong Range and Angelo River; south only a short distance from the main Ashburton River channel to the north of Mount Vernon Station. Enmity with the Ngarlawangga prevented them from visiting Tunnel Creek.

Tindale defines them as separate, and as one can see from the bolded part, in the good ol' days, both groups were at odds, and clearly had boundaries beyond which incursion by either would lead to war.

Better still, they have to be kept separate.

• Girai wurrung and Kirrae

• Ngambri and Walgalu

, or rather, unresolvable. While the Walgalu are traditionally attested there, as well as the Ngunawal, there are highly politicized claims and counter-claims to a tertium quid, namely the 'Ngambri' based on the suggestion such a group, and their ethnonym, lie behind the name for Australia's capital, Canberra. As one can see from the Ngambri page, it is all either WP:OR or modern political infighting by those descendants who make this claim, and those who dismiss it. To jam the Ngambri mess into the Walgalu page would only submerge the solid data of the latter, and be an eyesore. I think the sensible thing is to keep them separated.

• Dunghutti and Djangadi Resolved

They are identical, good catch. The problem is the Dunghutti page is a total WP:OR mess which, as it stands can't be sourced. It appears to have been written off the top of various heads connected to the descent groups. This stuff shouldn't be on wiki. I thought of trying to fix it but just tweaked, since a real fix would eviscerate most of the text. Ill take out one or two things there that are sourced, but someone should, after that, ask for its deletion, leaving the Djangadi page in its place. You can't merge, when a huge WP:OR mess has to be amalgated with another text that is documented, if skeletal.Nishidani (talk) 18:16, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

Please redirect rather than ask for deletion. That will preserve the page history if anyone needs to go back to check something, as well as preserve all the redirects and links to that name, and take people to the preferred article if they look up that spelling. — kwami (talk) 05:38, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

In some cases, it may be that two ethnicities are confused in one of the articles, so they shouldn't be merged but part of one should be moved to the other.

I've only reviewed the articles linked from the regional templates, and only half of those. But I've come across quite a few ethno articles that aren't linked from the regional templates.

I've probably also missed some that don't have corresponding language articles. It's when I add the ethno name to the language info box that I sometimes notice that I'm repeating a name. — kwami (talk) 21:20, 10 February 2019 (UTC)

The primary problem arises from two sources. (a)Tindale summarized in 1974 what he could gather from old informants as to the distinctions in ‘tribe’ and territory when the respective cultures still had some viable identity. His approach was ethnographical (b) research from the 1960s onwards among often ‘detribalized’ descendants, but also from a handful of elderly people, primarily linguistic in nature. The rift in results between the two comes from three decades and more of a waning in the number of informants who spoke the languages, and the rise of land claims by their descendants, who often came from parents who intermarried outside the strict laws of traditional moiety, who had been dislocated for half a century and who combined elements of their distinct multi-ethic/cultural heritage to form a new identity on the basis of which legal redress in courts for land could be made.

• (1)Kokowara and Laia people

According to Norman Tindale, the Kokowara had some 1,800 square miles (4,700 km2) of tribal land on the Normanby River, extending south from Lakefield to Laura and the Laura River. Their central camping area was at a place called Daidan on the Deighton River.

• Laia people

In Norman Tindale's estimation, the Laia had 2,100 square miles (5,400 km2) of territory, ranging over the area to the north of the Palmer River, and east as far as the Great Dividing Range. Their western limits lay around the headwaters of the Alice River.

On that evidence, they can't be merged.

• (2) Wiknantjara and Kugu Nganhcara

Norman Tindale estimated that the Wiknantjara's tribal lands were about 300 square miles (780 km2) in the area between the mouths of the Holroyd River.

However Kugu Nganhcara has no entry, except as an alternative name for the former. This is a very good catch. Kugu Nganhcara (Kugu-Nganychara,known also by the exonym Wik Ngenycharra) are associated with the area whose northern bounds are around the Kendall River and southwards around Moonkan Creek.(von Sturmer 1978:p.169,181) whereas the term used by Tindale Wiknantjara if looked at geophysically refers to an area of a subgroup, the Kugu-Ugbanh in the northern-centre of this area. (John Richard von Sturmer, The Wik Economy, Territoriality and Totemism in Western Cape York Peninsula, North Queensland, PhD University of Queensland 1978.p.37) Contextually then, Tindale’s Wiknantjara is an example of ethnographic synecdoche, they being the Kugu-Ugbank dialect speakers of the broader Kugu-Nganychara. Of course these are highly probable inferences. My problem, as usual, is to locate a source that states the obvious, to avoid WP:OR. On this evidence clearing the wik nantjara has to be merged into Kugu NganhcaraNishidani (talk) 11:31, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

Iì've gone ahead and gutted Wiknantjara, merging what is useful there into Kugu Nganhcara. No doubt this leaves things redirects, merge proposals etc., in a mess, but I don't know, as said, how to do this correctly according to wiki protocols and I'll never learn.Nishidani (talk) 13:42, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

I turned 'Wiknantjara' into a redirect for 'Kugu Nganhcara', and deleted it from the template list. That should take care of things. — kwami (talk) 23:44, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

• (3) Bininj Kunwok people and Gunwinggu.

I was tempted to agree here. Indeed I tried a merge, but it's more complex thasn appears.The problem is that as it stands Gunwinggu is referenced to ethnography that dealt only with one of the six Bininj Gunwok groups. Norman Tindale's mapping seems to refer predominantly to the Kunwinjku /Gunwinggu, and speakers of that dialect were the dominant informants of Ronald Berndt and his wife Catherine Berndt. Elsewhere we have several pages with an ethnos, say Yugambeh people, and a separate page on one of their constitutive groups, the Kombumerri (a difficulty there is that the present self-identifiers want to simplify into one people numerous groups on a dialect chain often treated differently in the old ethnography), or, better still, the Noongar, a collective term now for 14/15 dialect groups, each of which has a page because the ethnography treated them as differentiated. I'll have to think more.Nishidani (talk) 17:51, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

Sounds good. You know the sources, so whatever you think best.

I can't find Tjurabalan or Ngurrara on AIATSIS. I assume that means they don't speak distinct languages, but still it would be nice to list them as speakers of the appropriate language. Any ideas? — kwami (talk) 02:44, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

Keep them coming. It's not that I'm slow, just that I have several time-consuming problems to deal with here, but I will merge most of those and add comments in the next few days.Nishidani (talk) 09:15, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

The Tjurabalan are an aggregate, and since the language used defines the country and both 'own' the inhabitants of the territory thus defined, they appear to be constituted of Djaru and Walmajarri speakers. The Ngurrara likewise, as the page indicates, an aggregate of Walmadjari, Wangkatjunga so that you get |Ngumbin,Wati speakers and even some who prefer Ngarluma. It's all very confusing. But since the pages are ethnographic, and ethnographic identities are so fluid, and subject to repeated reformulation esp. when the European impact was so devastating for the traditional clan/territory/ language unities, only to be expected.Nishidani (talk) 11:38, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

I apologize that in successive blankings and merges, I haven't tutored myself to do all the redirect fancy footwork. I hope it's no bother to clean up in the wake (an appropriate word, since it also refers to burying the dead !). Nishidani (talk) 12:29, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

Yangga possibly needs to be split. Dixon lists "and possibly Yanga" with Mbara but also Yangga as a dialect of Biri. E52: Yangga = Durroburra at AIATSIS is said to be a dialect of Biri, but at G21 Mbara says that "According to Oates (1975:297), Sutton discovered that his Mbara and Tindale's Mitjamba G18 were the same dialect, being mutually intelligible with Yanga E52." But Biri is a Maric dialect and Mbara is Southern Paman, so Yanga/Yangga could not possibly be intelligible with both. Are Dixon's 'Yanga' and 'Yangga' two different dialects, conflated by AIATSIS under E52 Yangga? I'll leave a note at AIATSIS. — kwami (talk) 02:26, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

I've gone through all the templates now. Now for List of Indigenous Australian group names. I've restored your deleted articles as redirects to their alt name. Amijangal, for example, was on the main list, and turned into a red link once it was deleted,, I don't know if there were any rd's to that name, but if so they might've been deleted too because they no longer pointed to anything. Generally, a rd is a better option that deleting the article, unless it's actually wrong (typo etc.). — kwami (talk) 05:34, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

• Parrintyi and Barindji

Uh, not quite, my merge not being accepted. I've got bronchitis, and can't afford the time to argue this. Sorry.Nishidani (talk) 16:31, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

They probably didn't understand why you'd blanked the article, since you didn't leave a redirect. It was tagged as 'blanking' as a warning that it might've been vandalized, and since you didn't leave an edit summary explaining that "Barindji" is not a valid name, or that the article was a hoax or vanity project or something, they probably reverted you just on principle. But, just in case, I merged from the other direction. 'Barindji' was the older article. — kwami (talk) 20:40, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

• Baranha and Barna (Australian Aboriginal tribe)

Should Kareldi be split?

Gkuthaarn According to Black (1980:189), Sharp (1939:449) noted that Karandi G32 and Kutanda (G31) were two local groups of one group which was usually known by the latter name. Black (1980:181, 189) describes Norman Paman as definitely comprising the Kuthant and Kurtjar G33 languages, probably also Rib Y107 ('though only as a dialect that now appears to be completely indistinguishable from Kurtjar') and possibly Walangama G36 (for which there is very little data).

Garandi According to Black (1980:189), Sharp (1939:449) noted that 'Karandi (G32) and Kutanda G31 are two local groups of one tribe which is usually known by the latter name'. Oates (1975), however, reports a lack of consensus on this matter. She notes that Sutton considers them to be separate, with Garundi (G32) perhaps related to Gugadji G28, but that Breen disagrees, saying Curr's Karrantee is Southern Pama, not related to Gugadji. See also Kuthant G31.

Since there is lack of consensus it's probably best left as the stub it is, rather than create two stubs. I admit I have bronchitis and a certain fatigue here. All of these articles cry for work on expansion, and probably the controversy should be worked up on the page by anyone who can access those or other secondary sources, and when bulk is secured, split it.Nishidani (talk) 16:27, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

Please don't just delete the duplicate articles! When you had Baranha deleted, that left Barna people stranded. Before long, a bot would've come by and deleted 'Barna people' as well, and all of the many articles that linked to it would've been left with red links. In general, if someone has put in time creating redirects for synonyms and a bot deletes them all because their target was deleted rather than merged, they probably aren't going to be recreated again any time soon. — kwami (talk) 20:28, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

I moved Jupangati to Wimaranga before I realized that this might be a conflation on AUSTLANG rather than a synonym. Please revert my edits if I was wrong, and I'll move the article back (or perhaps to 'Yuupngati' or something). — kwami (talk) 20:28, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

If you don't know how to leave a redirect when you merge an article, just leave a line saying 'article to be merged with X' or something, rather than blanking it, and let me know, and I'll fix it up. Maybe that's why your articles have been getting deleted. If you were the only author, people figure you're not hurting anyone and delete the article after you blank it. — kwami (talk) 20:45, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

• Wongkumara and Kalali people.

According to AIATSIS (articles D30, D71 for Kullilli/Galali and L25, L68 for Wankumara, there are two groups of each, one on the Bulloo River and one on the Wilson River. The descriptions of their languages and speculation about the direction of migration make it sound as though these are synonyms, that there is a Bulloo River Kalali/Wongkumara and a Wilson River Kalali/Wongkumara. — kwami (talk) 21:52, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

(I've been treating them as two peoples speaking close languages/dialects that both moved from one region to the other.)

The perception of identity comes from the fact that the Garlali were bilingual, speaking both Bulloo River language and the Wilson River language, about which there is some contention as to identity and difference:

Of the various language varietiess that have gone by this name, all of which are extinct, Bowern (2001) classifies the Wilson River language of the 'modern' Galali/Garlali and Wangkumara-plus-Bundhamara/Punthamara (also known as or closely related to Ngandangara/Yarumarra) peoples as an Eastern Karnic language, while the Bulloo River language of the 'old' Garlali and Wangkumara remains an unclassified Karna–Mari 'fringe' language.

All I saw was that Tindale makes a straightforward territorial distinction, whatever the language similarities.

Wongkumara (QLD) Cooper Creek east of Nappa Merrie and Orientos to the Wilson River at Nockatunga. In postcontact times at Chastleton and NCarcowlah where they mixed with uncircumcised Kalali. Mathews (1905) used the tribal term as a general name for several tribes with similar languages along Cooper Creek. 4,500 sq. m. (11,700 sq. km.) 141°50'E x 27°35'S

The ethnonyms are as follows:

• Wangkumara (valid variant), Wonkamara, Wonkomarra, Wonkamarra, Wonkamura, Wonkamurra, Wonkubara, Wanggumara, Papagunu (rude Jandruwanta name, means 'dog dung'), Balpamadramadra ( ? Horde at Nappa Merrie), Jaramarala ( ? Horde at Baryulah).

Garlali people Eulo west to Thargomindah and Bulloo River; upstream to Norley; south to Orient, Clyde, and Currawinya. Mathews (1905) included this as part of his artificial Wonkamurra 'nation.' They do not practice either circumcision or subincision. 3,800 sq. m. (9,900 sq. km.) 144°5'E x 28°25'S

The ethnonyms as as follows:

• Alternative names Galali, Kullalli, Kullally, Kalili

I might add that at times I find AIATSIS as confusing as Tindale can be. These distinctions can only be collapsed, in my view, if one has a specialist secondary source analyzing all of the relevant respective scholarship and coming forth with a clearer picture. Until that is available, I'd leave them as they stand.Nishidani (talk) 16:50, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

Are Nunukul and Moondjan synonyms? If not, 'Moondjan' should be removed from the article and I need to tag the redirect for deletion. — kwami (talk) 08:52, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

They both go to the same page, so there is no reduplication. Moondjan should evidently just redirect to Nunukul. I'm ill at the moment, so reviewing what you did will take some time.

Okay, just wanted to confirm that's as it should be, and that they're truly synonyms rather than two separate populations that speak dialects of the same language. — kwami (talk) 00:45, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

Okay, I think I'm just about done. I'll watch this page for a while, but you might need to drop me a line on my talk page if you want me to see something. — kwami (talk) 13:48, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for all you help, Nishidan, and hope you feel better soon. — kwami (talk) 00:45, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

get well

Your retired sign looks sick, and you self identify as sick as well - get better ! JarrahTree 01:15, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

Usus

I noticed this edit which links to usus. It that real? I wondered if it might be a pet idea of a couple of researchers somewhere. If the latter, I might revert the edit. Johnuniq (talk) 00:34, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

I've removed the link, which is just confusing. The para doesn't clarify how Jesperson's usus sits with something otherwise said to be rare and with dialect distribution. There are several functions of themself in any case, not just one, something not clarified there either. That's as much as I can managed for now: hack work as I hack/cough (myself) away! Nishidani (talk) 13:46, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, hope the cough clears soon. Johnuniq (talk) 22:48, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

The Jew Among Thorns

Hi thank you for your help. I have added your to the DYK as one of main contributors to the article --Shrike (talk) 20:52, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

No problem. (By the way no need to mention me in the nomination. By all means drop it. I'd never have thought of this had you not come up with the idea and the honour goes to you for that. I'm glad you created the article. It just so happens that I once collected a lot of books on the topic, and your raising this gave me a chance to glance back at my reading of them decades ago). By the way, Shrike. As I now noted, there are two other anti-Semitic stories in that collection, and you might consider making a page for each of the other two. I've very little time, otherwise I'd do that myself, but if you can get round to them, I'd be happy to help out there as well. Cheers.Nishidani (talk) 20:56, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

Corbyn

Hi,

I like your suggestion of an abbreviated synthesis. I'm not sure what your intended process is from here - whether you are soliciting improvements before changing the article, or going to make the change to the article to allow for tweaking afterwards, or just putting it out there and leaving it to someone else to change the article. So, I am not sure how to respond. Sorry: I'm quite new to Wiki. Jontel (talk) 10:34, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

No problem. I have no copyright on the version! Editors are free to tweak it or rewrite it. If a rewrite of a para or the whole version is thought necessary, however, the best way is to supply one's own version (version B), and subject it to the same process. This is just to avoid time-consuming editing disagreements. I'd prefer not to edit the article in any significant way, esp. on this topic. Your intelligent and careful contributions are appreciated. Feel free to make suggestions, tweak or edit it as you see fit.Nishidani (talk) 13:15, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

OK, thanks,...here is my suggestion (version B), building on your initiative, having read the various comments. User:Jontel/sandbox It is focused on Corbyn, rather than Labour, uses paraphrasing and is short, while mentioning all the incidents. I would like to put it forward to Talk, but would appreciate your views first. Let me know if you have time.Thanks. Jontel (talk) 20:08, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

Thanks. That certainly has a greater laconic virtue. It may well be something like the version that should end up on the page for WP:Undue reasons. There is a technical problem and a realistic issue. (a) Since we have a RfC open on the draft I suggested, it should be allowed to run its course until that expires, to see what the result is. The probability is that it will be shafted, but it's best to have that process completed before offering a further alternative. On the other hand, if it were approved to replace the existing text, it would be logical to them present the version above, as a larger improvement in terms of concision. (b) Realistically, since quite a few editors want masses of scary detail, the objections arising regarding my suggestion will in all likelihood double with your alternative. It's late here, and these are just some immediate reflections. I'll try to come back to this in due course. In any case, for the moment, the old dictum, festina lente is a wise one: the problem of that page is hectic editing, not detached care to sort out the grain from the chaff, something which I'm happy to see also in your work. Regards Nishidani (talk) 20:43, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

Thanks. Re a) OK. Re b) I agree. However, as version B is based on the current version, adding detail would be easy. The challenge would be that every 'proof' added on one side prompts another proof to counter it, like an adversarial court case, which is what I've done in the past. I'll await your thoughts in due course. Jontel (talk) 20:53, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

Discussion seems to have petered out on the proposed version, after a fortnight. People seem happy with the principle of concision and coherence but there are objections to some of the additions/ subtractions. My version, based more closely on the existing version albeit highly summarised, might be an easier first step which you could then amend. I am not sure what you mean by 'run its course until it expires' and 'result'? There does not seem to be a clear majority and the process of closure and duration of discussion can be informal and variable, it seems Misplaced Pages:Closing_discussions. Also, people are somewhat pre-empting it by starting new discussions. Can I ask the process and timeline going forward? Jontel (talk) 19:47, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

Two weeks - I usually go by the bot closure, i.e. 12 month. A thin majority 4 to 3 so far approves my version. That could change, but one does not need a clear majority. On a page like this new discussions are inevitable. One could, for example, close this earlier by jumping the gun and saying at this moment a majority approve or disapprove if one played a numbers game. That is why I suggest leaving it open for another week or so. Perhaps you could simply provide your version and see what the outcome is, in an RfC, while leaving the other option open. My thinking was that it would be more logical for someone arguing for a more concise summary than I provided, to wait and see if mine was approved, and then suggest cutting even that down further along the lines you suggest. The problem is cutting it down from irts embarrassing length and I don't think one will get there in one fell swoop. I may be wrong. So as a compromise let both RfCs run together?Nishidani (talk) 20:15, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

Ok, thanks. What I think I will do is put it out there for discussion/ improvement initially. Then we can have an RfC. Jontel (talk) 21:00, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

DYK for The Jew Among Thorns

On 13 March 2019, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article The Jew Among Thorns, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that the antisemitic tale "The Jew Among Thorns" was used to indoctrinate children in Nazi Germany? You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, The Jew Among Thorns), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

 — Amakuru (talk) 12:02, 13 March 2019 (UTC)

19920

Somebody is just upset they lost a couple of arguments elsewhere and thinks that hounding is the way to seek vengeance on those terrible people who stand in his way. Wouldnt worry about it too much if I were you. Hope you are well. nableezy - 16:17, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

Wouldnt worry about it too much if I were you.

Youngsters like yourself would do well to recall Alfred E. Neuman's signature slogan, which had a vast impact, perhaps educationally more important than the theories of Montessori and Piaget, on my generation's outlook. Of course my father, a learned man, preferred soldier's Latin, nihil illegitimus carborundum (never let the mongrels grindya down). I never inquire about my health, but since I chain-sawed for several hours today, I'm not apparently wholly dead yet:) Nishidani (talk) 19:36, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

Honestly, this was a mistake. The only reason somebody got to that article is his interest was piqued when he read this comment. Anyway, its your fault for fucking up the article name in the first place. Apparently my move of your initial title needed more than unanimous (your) consent. nableezy - 23:36, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

pop registry article

Think there should be an article Palestinian Population Registry? nableezy - 16:44, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

Yes. It has been frozen since 2000/2001, but the consequences are immense. Technically tens of thousands of West Bankers could be expelled because of this, so it is obviously important. I'll see what I can do, but my time is scarce.Nishidani (talk) 20:59, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

Dracula

Re: Labour strategists leapt at this by then depicting Howard as a Dracula figure, swinging a hypnotic watch. I think you might say in the text who asserted this. Up to you. I don't think the #65 Delaney source link works. Jontel (talk) 12:44, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

'Michael Howard had been chosen by the Conservatives to lead them I n the 2005 campaign on the basis of his experience. But the former home secretary was plagued with an image problem: Tory frontbencher Ann Widdeombe had suggested he had 'something of the night about him' -an accusation that Labour's campaign team was happy to cash in on.Trevor Beattie, again at the helm of Labour's ad campaign, produced a poster portraying Howard as Dracula, swinging a hypnotist's pocket watch and declaring, "I can spend the same money twice!"

Frail memory. The only thing I got wrong and which needs tweaking is mistaking Widdecombe for a backbencher. It should of course be 'frontbencher'.Nishidani (talk) 12:56, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

You were right and the book was wrong, according to Ann Widdecombe.:) It's the link to the book that needs fixing. I don't know how to. Jontel (talk) 13:15, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the sharp eyes, and your edits. The link I added (now in 'sources' works for me. Tell me if nyou have problems.Nishidani (talk) 14:16, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

Corbyn & Antisemitism articles, thanks for your hard work

Just a thank you for your all round detailed encyclopedic additions and non-partisan clean up of these articles. I really appreciate your contributions. ~ BOD ~ 20:11, 31 March 2019 (UTC)