Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Palestine-Israel articles

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[edit] Additional opening statements

[edit] Statement by Sm8900

Hi. this is Sm8900. I would like to add my input. i have contributed to discussions in these articles. sorry , but i do somewhat question the need for this arbitration. this request makes no specific statements as to what actually needs to be done or addressed. it's my understanding that Arbcom proceedings exist mainly to sanction other users. I have a concern about the wholesale nature of this proceeding. I would like to see more details about what needs to be addressed here.

I am concerned that starting a case like this might actually create greater conflict than the discussions which it would supposedly address. Sorry, I disagree with statements in the request; I feel that this community has been manifestly able to frequently have positive discussions. There are some articles (and some editors, according to some allegations here), where that has not been the case, but I feel that those articles and those editors can and should be addressed individually, not wholesale in a manner which invites the most minute problems and individual flaws to end up taking up most of the time and energy. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 17:30, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Reply to PR

(please note, everyone; we are permitted to make customary subheadings like this for readability within our OWN text sections here. )

Hi PR. sorry if my text was incovenient. everything is fine with me in regard to this case, so please feel free to remove my comments if you wish. thanks very much for the helpful sentiment which you expressed. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 19:39, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

By the way, if anyone wishes to discuss this case informally, they may do so by going to this page. thanks. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 19:48, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

General comment.

I am greatly disturbed by the tone which is already emerging here. Since no specific article is the focus here, editors are already piling on allegations and counter-allegations of various misconduct. this is sort of inevitable, since ArbCom does not address content disputes, and can only address user conduct.

i would suggest that a slightly better route might be to focus on disputed articles and on questionable editors individually, on a case by case basis. It is possible to start Arbcom cases for individual editors, as you may know. I truly don't have anyone particular in mind here. My only point is that if some here do feel that certain editors need attention, there are ways to do that, in a manner which would keep the focus much more steady, and would not result in a whole slew of counter-allegations to confuse the matter.

Going on this current route will only lead us into fuirther acrimony, and furthermore we may also find that nobody ends up with a useful resolution, because everybody is so involved in making allegations and counter-allegations. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 19:07, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Now that the case is open, I am glad to see the inclusion of comments by those who are involved, and also of those who simply wished to comment. Hopefully, we can gradually move towards some positive resolution of some of these issues. thanks. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 22:00, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by GRBerry

I strongly encourage the committee to review editing patterns across a broad spectrum of articles here. We have factionalized editing occurring, and also individually problematic editors from both factions. I haven't been interested enough, nor willing enough to suffer the inevitable personal attacks consequent upon acting, to take a wholistic view and determine which editors Wikipedia would be better off without, if any, nor what other solutions would work. I believe there is a pattern of "edit war, page protected, change page to war over, don't discuss the original edit war" occurring. Some of this is a natural consequence of attending to a watchlist, some seems to reflect users who don't want to collaborate and/or create a NPOV article. As an example of the sorts of problems that are encountered routinely consider the following sets of protections on Nov 29 and Dec 5.

At the time I made the comments here, the named parties ended with Chesdovi
November 29, 2007

Israeli-Palestinian conflict protected due to edit warring involving Pedro Gonnet and Jaakobou of the named parties, as well as others. Discussion on talk page.
List of Israeli civilian casualties in the Second Intifada and List of Palestinian civilian casualties in the Second Intifada protected [1] due to move and edit warring involving Tiamut, Eleland and Jaakobou of the named parties, as well as others. Discussion attempted by Tiamut, without reply by other participants.

December 5, 2007

Rule of the Gaza Strip by Egypt protected due to move warring involving Pedro Gonnet and Jaakobou of the named parties. Pedro raised discussion on Jaakobou's talk page, later copied to article talk page.
Saeb Erekat protected due to edit warring by Eleland and Jaakobou. No discussion until Dec. 9, when both discussed it. GRBerry 18:30, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by Kendrick7

I don't edit in this topic area as much as I used to; I hardly recognize the names of half the listed parties. But, I agree with Sm8900 that this could quickly devolve into a witch hunt which won't be good for anyone involved.

Insomuch as I can answer Kirill's question, the situation in Category:Israeli-Palestinian conflict is more or less the same as every other part of the Wikipedia trying to cover an ongoing civil war. There is always a slow influx of zealous new editors on both sides, and either they learn the ropes in a few months or they don't. If they remain problematic -- and I admit to cringing a little when I saw Jaakobou had installed Twinkle -- then an RFC is a better first step. Meanwhile, occasionally an article gets enough neutral editors going on it at once, as I recall occurring lately with Palestinian exodus for example, and the quality of the category does slowly improve.

Update: Ah, I am now caught up per the AN/I thread and User:Jaakobou#Detwinkled. Glad I wasn't the only one cringing.

Reply to Eleland: The thinking is correct as there are two sides to this little chess game, and instead of an RFC on the behavior of particular editors individually, bringing this to ArbCom puts all the pieces into play. The AN/I thread comments regarding WP:KETTLE forebode the likely attempt by one side to sacrifice one editor in exchange for an editor of greater value on the other side.

Reply to ThuranX: Yes, I also don't understand why you'd be a party here; Ryan seems to have listed just a lot of people who commented in the AN/I.

Reply to Durova: I concur that other dispute resolution would be a better first step; the examples Ryan give above are either rather ancient or ongoing or not even dispute resolution per se. P.S. You shouldn't get upset at G-Dett's little poke in your belly -- it just wouldn't be a cabal without you!

[edit] Statement by MastCell

This probably ought to go to ArbCom since there are real problems here, and no admin who values his residual sanity would get involved in trying to resolve them given the prevailing atmosphere and history. The only suggestion I have is that, if this goes to Arbitration, an uninvolved party (clerk or Arbitrator) seriously needs to ride shotgun over the Workshop and discussion pages to prevent them from turning into yet another front on the WP:BATTLEfield. MastCell ^Talk 18:56, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by Tariqabjotu

I also strongly urge the Arbitration Committee to examine this case. Resolving this issue, or at least issuing remedies related to it, would go a long way to defusing the minefield that is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict articles and Middle East articles in general. I have not assessed the full situation, but every time my actions intersect with these articles, I see what appears to be an attitude a lá "I'm right, everyone else is wrong; thus, my edit-warring is okay (or actually not edit-warring at all) and everyone else is a disruptive POV warrior". Not good, to say the least. -- tariqabjotu 21:23, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

P.S. I know I'm being pedantic here, but can we please reorder the entities in the name of this case, from "Palestine-Israel conflict" to "Israeli-Palestinian conflict", if/when it gets opened? The latter arrangement seems more customary both here on Wikipedia and elsewhere, and the former sounds awkward. -- tariqabjotu 21:29, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

P.P.S. I don't believe ThuranX (talk · contribs) and Chesdovi (talk · contribs) should be involved in this case. I'm also unsure about the involvement of G-Dett (talk · contribs), Itzse (talk · contribs), Suladna (talk · contribs), and Tewfik (talk · contribs). -- tariqabjotu 21:52, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I would like to remind everyone that this is an RfArb on just the Israeli-Palestinian conflict articles. Please be cautious about adding new editors; ensure that their involvement is specifically in regards to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict articles and not primarily in regard to disruption on other Middle Eastern articles (or elsewhere). Also, I do not believe every single person that has edited an article related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict needs to be dragged into this arbitration case. Please use some discretion. -- tariqabjotu 12:49, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by uninvolved Durova

Jaakobou has undertaken mentorship with me. This mentorship regards Wikipedia policies only, not the related content dispute. He tells me he wishes to pursue other dispute resolution at this time. Arbitration in general is a last resort, and I ask in good faith for the other parties to consider whether a brokered solution would be feasible.

I am neutral regarding the underlying conflict and, I hope, sufficiently respectful of both sides. About two years ago I started a short article on a Judaism-related topic and at present I'm doing a little bit of editing that relates to uncontroversial parts of Palestinian social history. Durova^Charge! 21:56, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

~~G-Dett, please strikethrough that insinuation regaring me. It's very bad faith and treads on the margins of a personal attack.~~ Durova^Charge! 23:27, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Yikes, Durova! I'm not sure how the wires got crossed, but...that was a straight suggestion, not a sarcastic insinuation. Sure, we've clashed briefly a couple of times, but I regard you as very even-handed on ME pages and related issues. There was a mediation way back about whether Wikipedia should report with a straight face something that Juan Cole said about himself in wry self-deprecation, and two partisan editors were locked in what appeared to be mortal combat, and if I remember right you were stern and effective. I was trying to think who would be a good foil to HG on my proposed 'cabal', someone who could be bad cop if necessary but had no ideological dog in the fight, and I thought of you.--G-Dett (talk) 00:47, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Apologies, I misunderstood. Please bear in mind that pretty much everyone in this dispute understands the content side in much greater depth than I do. So while I'd gladly interact with anyone as a neutral party regarding wiki policies and practices, I'm also reticent to scale up my involvement more than it already is. I'm posting here to affirm that Jaakobou is taking proactive steps and endeavoring to adapt to site standards. Durova^Charge! 05:55, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by ChrisO

I strongly support this request for arbitration. I only rarely edit Middle Eastern-related articles, for exactly the reasons that MastCell alludes to in his statement above. However, I've kept an eye on a number of editors and articles for some time, and I can confirm that there is indeed a serious and systematic problem in this topic area. I'd like to offer a few observations for the arbitrators:

The class of affected articles is potentially very large - essentially all Middle Eastern articles, plus those on Jewish and Muslim-related topics, though I should emphasize that the number of articles being disputed at any one time is much more limited.

The problem has its roots in the behaviour of a relatively small number of editors whose primary interest is in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Action against some of these editors (which will likely require topic or site bans) will help in part, but the topic areas are also likely to need placing under article probation (cf. Macedonia, Armenia-Azerbaijan). I suggest that parties should look to Wikipedia:General sanctions for relevant precedent in proposing remedies. A number of editors have been involved in straightforward violations of editing and conduct policies - for instance, episodes such as Jaakobou's recent edit warring to re-insert properly removed BLP violations, abuse of editing tools and other willful policy violations that led to this arbitration request in the first place. Such misconduct is relatively easy to identify and should result in those responsible being sanctioned.

The harder question is what to do about the underlying problem in this topic area - the existence of blocs of partisan editors who use Wikipedia as a battlefield to campaign for their causes. The problem with Middle Eastern articles isn't only a matter of misconduct by individual editors; it has its roots in mutual hostilities that exist off-wiki and have been transported here en masse. The result is a poisonous atmosphere characterised by antagonism, aggressive behaviour and mutual distrust. There needs to be a change in editing culture on these articles, not just conduct. -- ChrisO (talk) 01:05, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

(Added) In reply to Quadell's query about Jayjg being added as a party, I believe Cla68 is alluding to this accidental e-mail from Jayjg to the WikiEN-l mailing list in which he invites a number of "allies" (namely User:Avraham, User:Beit Or, User:Humus sapiens and User:PinchasC) to "watch my back" as he makes controversial edits to Messianic Judaism. It's hard evidence of exactly the kind of cliqueish behaviour that I mentioned above and it's arguably a violation of WP:CANVASS. It certainly isn't good practice to try to stitch up an article by recruiting a team of ideological allies using back channels and inviting them to fight over an article; it's particularly depressing that experienced editors (two of them administrators!) should have sunk to this. I'm sure this sort of thing is going on on both sides, but it's something that should be strongly discouraged given the amount of disruption that it causes. Other subscribers to WikiEN-l certainly weren't impressed by Jayjg's inadvertent disclosure, and I hope it's properly reviewed by the Arbitration Committee. -- ChrisO (talk) 19:25, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by Uninvolved CarolMooreDC

While happily I'm not named above! - and this is NOT my primary area of editing interest (except last couple days!) - I have observed the problems on some of the pages mentioned above, as well as on Carlos Latuff (where there is an absurd on going editing war I don't much get involved in); on Samson Option (where any attempt to mention the controversial things said about the Samson Option by Israel leaders and supporters was repeatedly deleted, no matter how well sourced, even when placed in a "controversies" section); and on Jewish Lobby (refusal to allow there to be ANY mention of NON-antisemitic use of the phrase Jewish Lobby, even though many prominent uses of the phrase are by Jews and/or mainstream publications and/or are NOT antisemitic).

Having just started intensely editing in last 6-8 months, I confess I have sometimes lost my temper and ranted and even made a couple personal attacks, but I'm learning how to use to the process instead! :-) Yes, it has taken me longer than it should to really read and re-read and understand the Wiki Pillars, but the more I understand them, the more outraged I become at the behavior of these editors. See my most recent complaining entry attempting to get NPOV version of page. At the end of it I list multiple violations of WP:NPOV from the tutorial.

Besides whatever steps Arbitrators might take, I really think wikipedia needs a neutral AND courageous Ombudsman just for the Israel-Palestine and related issues to keep people in line with the wikipedia process.

An additional idea: I noticed that Wikipedia:Naming_convention has manuals of styles for several nations. Maybe there should be a "Israel-Palestine" manual of style, or maybe one on Arab/Muslim/Jewish issues, to set up some guidelines -though there'd be a massive debate on creating that!

Also, I agree that User_talk:Jayjg should be added to the list of problematic editors on this topic. Carol Moore 02:36, 9 January 2008 (UTC)CarolMooreDC talk

[edit] Statement by RomaC

I am relieved to see that this issue is being addressed. I was happily contributing in many areas of Wiki until I tried to edit a picture caption at Media Coverage of the Arab-Israeli Conflict and came across a stubbornly persistent Jaakabou. I am currently working to add recently-released casualty figures to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict article, and again I see what seems a coordinated effort by some editors to control content, with open talk about "sides," referring not to the subjects of the article, but to the editors themselves. This is a serious threat to Wiki. I would suggest interested parties also consider looking at some of the activity in our little edit war, I know Timeshifter for one has already studied the problem and made an interesting exposition on his user page. Good luck! RomaC (talk) 03:17, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by CasualObserver'48

Sigh of relief, I am happy, ecstatic, naively optimistic and very much appreciate the decision to accept. You will need the wisdom of Solomon and I wish you luck. It is long overdue; much longer that I have been around Wikipedia or on the Internet (Sept07). That said, I have already been labled as being on one of the ‘sides’, but only on the talkpages, not on edits (largely because I’m still learning to Be Bold. My POV is Pro-MidEast Peace, although a good friend of mine termed it the ultimate oxymoron, and even I consider that it is pushing the limits of the Serenity Prayer. I look at the I-P conflict situation from a civil/human rights perspective and, therefore my bias tends to be pro-Palestinian, but my support for Israel is based on, well, Biblical proportions. The admins will decide what they decide and I hope to be helpful along the way, but that is well over my head. Most of the heavily involved users with whom I am familiar are included above, although I could name a few more, if asked.

As pointed out in other’s statements above, I too feel that a broad range of topics with content disputes should be included and an ombudsman might be helpfull. I also believe for Wikipedia to gain more credibility, the systematic bias with respect to this subject must be addressed. More critically for Wikipedia viability is to address the issues noted here and to that I’ll add CAMERA and it’s multitude of talk-alikes, Hasbara and, for those computer literate types Megaphone. The import of these on NPOV should not be discounted. CasualObserver'48 (talk) 08:17, 9 January 2008 (UTC) ~~So, why is it Red?~~

[edit] Statement by uninvited Number 57

I would also strongly urge the arbitration committee to look at this case. As possibly the largest single contributor to articles on Israeli politics, I have come across almost all the editors listed in this case (hence listing myself as uninvited rather than uninvolved), and I am thoroughly sick of the endless disputes which a number of them create and prolong. Unfortunately for the project, whenever an edit by at least five of the editors listed above comes up on any of the 500+ articles on my watchlist, I know that in the vast majority of cases (for two of the editors the figure is 100%) that edit will not conform to WP:NPOV.

Unfortunately my past attempts to diffuse situations and correct POV have led to me being labelled as a POV pusher by both sides, but particularly by the pro-Israelis (possibly because I tend to stick to articles on domestic Israeli topics rather than Israeli-Palestinian ones, and pro-Palestinian editors are not common in that sphere). This has meant that despite being well-placed to do so, I am now effectively hamstrung from carrying out administrative actions against the numerous violations of policy carried out by many of the editors listed above. I hope that a thorough investigation may allow me more room to take prompt action against both sides in the future.

In addition, I would also support adding User:GHcool and User:Beit Or to this case, as they are both involved in reverting on some of the articles listed above. пﮟოьεԻ 5 7 11:09, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by 6SJ7

I have to agree with Sm8900's "General Comment." There may be something for the ArbComm to accept in Ryan's initial "example", in which he specifies what a few specific editors did in a few specific articles. After that, Ryan identifies a few other articles, but with no specifics about what events concerning those articles might require arbitration. And in the comments of some subsequent editors, this potential arbitration case has taken on a life of its own. It would not be a particularly happy life, either for the parties, potential parties, the arbitrators or anyone else. If the committee accepts this case without specifically limiting what the case is about, the case is potentially going to be about every dispute that has occurred among dozens of editors on dozens of articles. I wouldn't be surprised if 150 or more editors are "named" before this is all over. And how far back does this go? All Israel- or Palestinian-related articles (and antisemitism-related articles? and other religion-related articles?) for the past six months? A year? Three years? Five years? And what kind of disputes are we talking about? I have already seen mentions of articles that would involve the ArbComm in content disputes, but I know that the ArbComm does not accept those. I hope that the arbitrators, if they accept this case, will tell the rest of us what it is about. Otherwise, this is going to become one big, ugly, nasty, confused and contentious scene, and it isn't going to produce anything good for anyone. 6SJ7 (talk) 20:35, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by uninvolved EconomicsGuy

General comment. Now that the case has been accepted I urge the arbitrators to look for a broad solution to this. AN/I threads like this will keep appearing if ArbCom does not come up with some sort of centralized solution to these disputes. The number of articles and the number of participants in these disputes would otherwise make it very difficult for the arbitrators and those enforcing the remedies to keep this from reappearing here. EconomicsGuy (talk) 11:19, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by univolved Cla68

I added Jayjg to the case because of this thread [2] on WP:ANI. I believe that more evidence of problematic behavior by Jayjg can probably be presented on the evidence page once the case formally opens. If Jayjg is still on the ArbCom mailing list, I formally request that he be removed, at least until this case closes. Cla68 (talk) 13:12, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

In response to requests for evidence of involvement by Jayjg in specific Palestine-Israel articles, here's a recent RfC that he participated in: [3]. Cla68 (talk) 01:12, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by uninvolved User:Quadell

I don't understand why Cla68 added Jayjg to the case above. The thread he quotes above regards Jayjg's comment to Wayne, which Wayne regarded as a personal attack. (I don't see why that was ever on AN/I, actually, since it didn't involve Jayjg's admin abilities and was not requesting admin abilities be used to resolve it -- it just looks like a general complaint filed in an inappropriate place.) Jayjg's comment to Wayne doesn't involve the issues of "ownership", etc., in the description of this case. I don't think it's appropriate for him to be included as a party. – Quadell ^{(talk) (random)} 16:03, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

I also note that the comment in question was on the Khazars talk page, unrelated to this RfAr, and Wayne and Jayjg to not appear to have ever had a content dispute related to Israel/Palestine articles. Can anyone just add anyone's name to these things, based on unrelated allegations? – Quadell ^{(talk) (random)} 16:15, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

In response to Chris O's statement, that e-mail also did not have anything to do with the articles in question, on Israel/Palestine relations -- it was about Messianic Judaism, which has exactly nothing to do with the case. This really appears to be a situation where some people think "If it has to do with Judaism and it's controversial, then Jayjg must be involved!", and all kinds of old and unrelated grudges are coming to the surface. This isn't an RfAr on improper posts to Wiki-l, nor is it an RfAr on alleged personal attacks on the Khazars talk page. It's about ownership issues in "Palestine-Israel articles", and I still can't see why Jayjg's name was drug into this. – Quadell ^{(talk) (random)} 20:14, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm going to remove Jayjg's name. Several people have indicated that they want his name on it, but no one has given any reason why his name should be listed among those who have recently had ownership issues with Israel/Palestine articles. I invite anyone to provide evidence of involvement in this if I've overlooked anything. – Quadell ^{(talk) (random)} 20:26, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

And regarding Nishidani's evidence below, you do realize that was 6 months ago, right? Is that the most recent evidence of Jayjg's questionable activities regarding this RfAr? – Quadell ^{(talk) (random)} 20:53, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Jayjg withdrew for several months just after the incident I mentioned, and therefore the point you make is irrelevant, since he is now back on board. I have quite a number of examples I could adduce for the preceding period to underline a pattern of irresponsibly partisan abuse from someone who had formerly been elected to an administrative role requiring, certainly in this area, rigorous and austere neutrality. Had he not been an administrator I wouldn't have worried or raised the issue, since the behaviour I objected to is par for the course among the lower denizens of Wikidom Nishidani (talk) 21:06, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by User:Nishidani

I have withdrawn from editing, tired of the futility of trying to get attested and verifiable book sources in, and internet propaganda sources out in many articles. But, since I note User:Jaakobou has named me as a contentious editor, I should like at least to jot down this one point. In my experience, User:Jayjg, whose inclusion here many editors wonder about, certainly has edited frequently in an incomprehensible, and, in my view censorious fashion, riding shotgun to keep disagreeable information off many pages because he deems it personally unwelcome. As just one example of his ignoring Wiki editing norms concerning sources in order to wikilawyer an item of information or a respectable author I could cite for example the following edit exchange with myself, [4].

The reason given was ‘remove claim attributed to an unknown and possibly non-existent rabbi'’

The quote came from an eminent authority on the region, Professor Ian Lustick. Lustick’s source was in turn the New York Times. Thus it was doubly grounded in reliable sources. Jayjg has enough experience to know that information must be grounded in verifiable and reliable sources, yet he challenged the use of this information because he doubted its truth (which is not at issue). In the subsequent exchange on the talk page [5], (Talk:Baruch Goldstein. See the present talk sect.5 'fingernail speech'), he endeavoured apparently to get me to engage in a violation of WP:OR, by trying to lure me to verify the truth of Lustik's remark.

That said, I do not think the issue is primarily one of putting up individual editors to intense scrutiny, to weed out malefactors. Given the structural problem, even the best can find themselves dragged into violations of rules, out of sheer exasperation with patent abuses of the rules by editors cunning enough to avoid, themselves, a technical breach. And in any case, a person by person examination of the record would lead to a Kafkian or Borgesian archive of unmanageable intricacy. The articles in this area perfectly fit the cruxes (cruces) outlined in Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias. The contentiousness in good part arises from the anomalousness of articles dealing predominantly with Palestinians (almost invariably entwined with Israel as occupying power). The history of the Palestinians is being written with hardly any Palestinians on board (User:Tiamut is a notable exception), by (a) complete outsiders (Westerners) who, for a variety of distinct motives, take on the task of representing a 'Palestinian perspective' as that is available in books and reliable sources, and (2) by Jewish/Israeli editors who are either present in the area or deeply committed to the country. Both are potentially defective sources, in that the Westerners who stand in as locum tenentes for the missing Palestinian voices, often have no intimate personal grounding in the area, and lack as often or not familiarity with the appropriate languages(User:RolandR provides an exception), and the Jewish/Israeli editors, some living in the West Bank, can often confuse their task with a national mission to define the people their nation has effectively colonized (after 1967), and over which Israel exercises a preponderance of legal, military, economic and, in a discursive sense, cultural power. User:Chesdovi 's home page is all for national liberation movements everywhere, for example, but in the relevant window on Palestinians, they alone effectively do not exist, since he locates their homeland in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

There is, in addition, a general Western cognitive bias against Palestinians and Arabs, one that has deep historical roots, and which is complicated by the intense politics concerning terrorism, identified in the public mind with Islam, over the past decades. A lesser one, often suspected as motivating some 'pro-Palestinian' editors, is anti-semitism. Personally I have not encountered editors whose work lends itself to this suspicion, but then again, I have relatively little experience. I judge this to be a concern among 'adversaries' because more than twice my work here has be hinted as implying such a bias, and the innuendo is often encountered.

Several practical measures can be taken, with, I suggest a series of experiments. Here are two suggestions of many that come to mind. (a) Competitive page writing in which editors from both 'sides' (not always a valid marker, since many of us get on well with posters on the other 'side') take on an article, and compete to produce a GA/FA standard according to strict Wiki rules, while the original page is locked. The natural consequence will be to eliminate edit-wars between opposed groups, since say one page on Palestine will be done exclusively by Jewish/Israeli editors, the other page by 'pro-Palestinian' editors, in which the conflicts will be respectively inframural. The psychological logic of such testing would be, I should think, one that presses each group to modify internally its own natural biases, reduce ideological antagonism, and strive harder towards both neutrality and excellence in order to impress neutral arbitrators called in, at the end of the experiment, to cast a vote as to which article best fits Wiki's quality standards. (b) have a rule obliging patent and consistent violators or edit-warriors to justify their continued presence on the encyclopedia by creating, within a month or two, an article dealing exclusively and neutrally, with some event, figure or episode in the history or culture of either Israel (in the case of a 'pro-Palestinian' editor) or Palestine (in the case of a 'pro-Israeli' editor'.

Excuse my longueur. Nishidani (talk) 20:42, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by Malik Shabazz

I generally have tried to stay away from Wikipedia articles about Palestine and Israel — despite my life-long personal interest in the subject — because of the venomous atmosphere that surrounds them. Like several others, I strongly recommend the addition of Jayjg to the involved parties: As a member of the Wikipedia community who has been entrusted with considerable authority, Jayjg should be setting a positive example; instead, he usually pours gasoline on the fire. — Malik Shabazz (talk · contribs) 23:06, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by Nagle

There's been some minor trouble over at Jewish Lobby from some of the same parties named in this arbitration, but it hasn't yet risen to the level of needing ArbCom attention. There have been some sizable deletions by Armon (talk · contribs), but they're usually follow-ups of similar actions by Jayjg (talk · contribs).

It's worth noting that during Jayjg (talk · contribs)'s first arbitration of 2007 (Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Allegations of apartheid) when he left Wikipedia without explanation for some months, these issues seemed to quiet down. ArbCom noted this in closing that arbitration.

Incidentally, if Jayjg (talk · contribs) is still on the ArbCom internal mailing list, ArbCom might want to consider removing him during this arbitration. --John Nagle (talk) 01:55, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] User:Jayjg

Unless the arbs revert themselves, do not add this user to the case. — Rlevse • Talk • 02:25, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Any future reverts of a sitting arb will result in a one month block, [6]. — Rlevse • Talk • 11:05, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Apparently some think my stmt above was directed at John Nagle, but it wasn't. It was prompted by 128.122.253.196 reverting Morven, here and future such attempts to reinsert Jayjg as a party. — Rlevse • Talk • 21:28, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Clarification request

Is there any chance the wording of the "discretionary sanctions" remedy could be tweaked to allow uninvolved admins to place a specific article (or closely related set of articles, if necessary), on article probation? I believe this would help, given the current thread at WP:AE and attendant squabbling at Jewish lobby. I suppose you could argue that article probation here might be redundant (seeing as all Arab-Israeli articles are kind of on article probation anyway) but it helps as a solution on especially problematic articles - the tag at the top lets people know there is a long-term issue. Furthermore, it means the article as a whole can be monitored and you don't have to pick through contributions elsewhere if deciding when to topic-ban. Best, Moreschi ^{If you've written a quality article...} 17:39, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure this is necessary Moreschi. If there's problematic editing on the page, article ban the participants on the page who are taking part in the problematic behaviour. If there's problems on numerous pages with certain editors, topic ban them. If they carry on editing these pages then should be blocked. Ryan Postlethwaite 17:53, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

The sanctions are so broadly written that I think they allow for pretty much everything. I will probably place all editors on Jewish Lobby on 1RR per week for that article pending an attempt to more deeply analyze the problem. The sanctions are written against "any editor" not "any article," but articles don't write themselves, and I'm pretty sure that "any editor" includes "all editors of article X". Thatcher 18:09, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, this is what I was trying to say. The ability to place a specific article on 1RR (and put in extra sanctions against uncooperative editing etc) is what's needed in some cases, because some articles are so darn controversial it's just natural to edit-war (the poor darlings can't help themselves). But Thatcher's work-around is rather neat, and will serve equally well. Moreschi ^{If you've written a quality article...}

Tariqabjotu has brought to my attention, in connection with a different matter altogether, an apparent edit war involving the same editors at New antisemitism. It's evidently escalated well beyond the issues at Jewish lobby, to the point of the article having being protected. I'm not involved in any way with either article and not really up to date on what has been going on, but m

aybe one of you guys could take a look. Now my request for clarification: would such an article be covered by this arbitration in the first place? I'm not certain how broadly the link with the Palestine-Israeli conflict is going to be interpreted, though looking at the article's content it does seem to be indirectly related to that conflict (which is mentioned at various points). Does an article have to be about Palestine-Israel, or is it sufficient that it should have some sort of non-trivial link to the conflict? -- ChrisO (talk) 23:32, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

"The area of conflict in this case shall be considered to be the entire set of Arab-Israeli conflict-related articles, broadly interpreted." In my view a broad interpretation does include New antisemitism. Sam Blacketer (talk) 00:09, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

That is plenty wide to cover about anything, clearly the intent of the ruling. — Rlevse • Talk • 00:20, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

(unindent) The remedies were deliberately wide, to indicate in a way, simply, that we feel that

Administrators on this area may need to use their judgement and adminship to bring the edit war (and warriors, and some editors who need to modify their conduct) back within acceptable limits, and
The edit war has exhausted patience, and we are therefore now inclined to give uninvolved administrators wide ranging scope to achieve that end (as described in the decision).

Note that a stricter application of "drawing a line on unproductive behavior" is not the same as "anything an admin does will be okay". However a user who cannot or will not take note of the need to edit productively and appropriately in their conduct ("WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT"), has now basically got only two choices in this arena: voluntarily do not edit there, or be prevented from editing in an unhelpful manner, by admin action. What counts as "unproductive" or "inappropriate" is pretty much "any action that contradicts high quality collaborative creation of a neutral encyclopedia article for readers".

Bottom line: the encyclopedic community is not expected to endorse some areas being a perrenial edit war, for any reason, and the belief that somehow they should, is misplaced. Disputes are fine provided they are carried out appropriately, which includes non-disruption, listening to uninvolved administrators, and editors actively and genuinely working to achieve resolution via NPOV.

An approximate summary of my own personal thoughts. If in doubt the remedy wording overrides any comment I might make. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 01:59, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks very much for these very informative comments. I hope one of the clerks will archive this thread somewhere (maybe on the arbitration page?). -- ChrisO (talk) 21:37, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Yup, main case talk page, after it's stale for a couple more days (in case any other Arbs wish to comment) Thatcher 00:56, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

(If it's ok to comment. Aside for broad interpretation, which is fine by me, another method is to search for terms like "Israel" and "Palestin"* on the Talk page. By this means, I suspect that uninvolved admins would find that Jewish lobby is within the topic area. My 2 cents. See also the (unofficial) list of disputed articles being developed here. Thanks.) HG | Talk 19:46, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I am posting again a comment that was arbitrarily deleted by RolandR. -> In case anyone wonders how uninvolved administrators are to be recognized, it's actually pretty easy. They ride flying pigs which are both kosher and halal. Administrators riding kosher flying pigs have a sound grasp the issues at stake here, are willing to engage constructively in a vicious confrontation, shutting up people on both sides of a desperate struggle, while staying uninvolved. They have an uncle who died in Auschwitz, a brother who lost his legs in a bombing in Jerusalem and a little sister who was blown to pieces in Qana. They can convincingly explain the difference between terrorists and freedom fighters, murders and extra-judicial killings, victims and losers. L'omo del batocio (talk) 12:07, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

I am raising an issue that I consider both extremely relevant and unresolved. I regard bitter irony as a legitimate and effective rethorical tool. L'omo del batocio (talk) 12:23, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Note: A new Sanctions template has been developed which could tag articles and notify users about possible sanctions. //FYI, without opinion about tagging, HG | Talk 18:18, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

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