Talk:1948 Palestinian expulsion from Lydda and Ramle/Archive 2

Pov issues
I don't mind the tag.


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

For remaining pov-issues, I think we should : Ceedjee (talk) 07:15, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
 * check if some material from the article of Sela is not controversed (I am not at ease with the way the section about the Arab Legion involvment sounds - I don't like information coming from what happened in April mixed with the picture of the situation in July... If we do so, we could discuss also about Hassan Salameh... - ...)
 * pass the full article into review and see if we could not remove some material about "details" per wp:undue...


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


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


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


 * I didn't say what you did was not translating Kadish/Sela. That sounds logical. But Gelber writes in his book that "Kadish tried to prove that...". It sounds to me as if he doesn't consider this article as valuable. But I don't know.
 * I think we should check Kadish/Sela version fits what other historians say before it is given an important weight in the article.
 * For my personnal culture, I would like to read this article. I don't have access to Jstor. There is another one from Sela I would like to read where he answers to Shlaim about the Yishuv-Jordanian relation. That one seems more appreciated. Even Shlaim refers to it... Ceedjee (talk) 07:32, 17 May 2009 (UTC)


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


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


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


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

Arab invasion
There is controversy (mainly in wikipedia) about the way to describe the "actions" of the Arab States on 15 May 1948. I think : is not correct. It is too pro-Arab (and false by the way) : Lebanon didn't enter Palestine and Jordan is "forgotten". Maybe we could discuss this once for all and try to find a good and neutral wording ? Ceedjee (talk) 07:07, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
 * "Four of the neighboring Arab states opposed to the partition plan—Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon and Syria—immediately entered Palestine.
 * "Neighboring Arab states entered Palestine and fought the Israelis" (may sound pro-Palestinian for those who don't know that Palestine is a geographical concept)
 * "Neighboring Arab states invaded Palestine" (to paraphrase Gelber)
 * "Neighboring Arab states intervened in the fights" (to take into account their official motivation was to rescue the Palestinians and get rid of the word "Palestine"
 * "Neighboring Arab states intervened in the fights and some tried to invade Israel"
 * "Neighboring Arab states intervened in the fights and attacked the Israeli forces"

GA review ?
It seems to me the article is ready for a GA review... Ceedjee (talk) 07:21, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't think it's quite ready, but feel free to nominate it if you wish, because by the time it will be reviewed we'll probably make lots of improvements. IMO, we should first get all the raw information possible from sources, then work on the structure, style and formatting issues (which, again IMO, are seriously lacking in this article). Cheers, Ynhockey (Talk) 15:12, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

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

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


 * Ben-Gurion's image is in the Expulsion section. I disagree that there are too many images. They help break up the text for the reader, which matters with a long article like this. I also like the new views of Lydda that were added recently. What was the original LoC image? SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 17:16, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
 * This is the first image added to the lead section, it's reasonably high-quality, much better than the other ones, and displays the same thing. Moreover, the article doesn't need to look like this or be this long (purely in terms of height). Many small paragraphs should be merged, and information relevant purely to Operation Danny should be moved to the main article. The background also has tons of irrelevant information. We don't need to explainm all the details of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War—that's what the main article (which is well-written, and has its own background section) is for. Here is an example of what I think it should look like (again, there should be a separate section for Operation Danny linking to the main article).
 * While I made a lot of edits to this article, they were all minor, so I'm coming to the article mostly as a reader, and to be honest, reading this article is excruciating. It needs to be reorganized, and that would entail making it much smaller (in terms of height) which would make it more obvious that there are too many images. —Ynhockey (Talk) 17:41, 17 May 2009 (UTC)


 * You think it should be shorter? By how much roughly, as a percentage of text? SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 17:48, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
 * IMO, the background section needs to be approximately cut in half. As for the rest of the article—not entirely sure, it needs to be examined more closely. Have you noticed that practically every sentence in some sections begins with "Moris writes that...", "Kadish and Sela write that...", etc.? Can't we state the undisputed facts and remove half of the viewpoints held only by a single historian? If the views are notable, they should be grouped, e.g. Morris argues that X, while Kadish and Sela argue that Y. No need to create a new paragraph or section for every opinion. —Ynhockey (Talk) 18:05, 17 May 2009 (UTC)


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


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


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


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


 * Sorry, I also meant to ask: can you give a couple of examples of viewpoints you would remove (views held only by a single historian), so that I get an idea of what you mean? SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 18:34, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
 * 1) Don't really have anything in mind off the top of my head, but the closest example of such a similarly-sized article is 1948 Arab–Israeli War, which, although I haven't read it in a year at least (it has been changed a lot), still appears to be well-written and engaging. There are WikiLinks in the right places, and it has just the right amount of detail for an article of its scope. An article of similar scope to this one is Battle of Nitzanim (which I mostly wrote), but it's not as large, and I still have quite a bit to add to it when I have time.
 * 2) I wasn't criticizing your work on the article. In fact, you and Ceedjee have done an excellent job in a very short period of time. However, this is also an indication that the article is moving too fast. Personally, I am not able to follow all the edits and I'm sure many others cannot either. Therefore, I support (as mentioned somewhere above) to first dump all the content and sources into the article, and then work on structure/style. What I mostly oppose is turning the article into a quote farm which is indeed a dump of all the possible information without any structure or coherence.
 * 3) I'll work on it, and provide specific examples, once it's clear that all the content is in, in line with the above principles.
 * 4) As I understand it, we are trying to get this article featured eventually, which means it will have to become interesting to read, I see no way round that :)
 * 5) I'm talking in general about paragraphs, sections, and individual passages. For example, the section "Numbers of residents and refugees", could be turned into not such a large paragraph. The two existing ones can be merged, and Munayyer's quote should be converted to reported speech and trimmed. Indeed this is one example of what I'm talking about, and Munayyer isn't an historian, and I am not sure of the notability of this particular quote. It's important to describe the situation, but we can do it better in less words and less direct quoting. AFAIK Munayyer's account is not disputed, so a qualification + direct quote is not necessary in that respect either.
 * Another one is Spiro Munayyer writes that, at noon, there was suddenly a "crescendo of bullets and explosions in all parts of the city"; people started "running helter-skelter, screaming with fear."[56] This is the definition of quotefarming, and appears to simply be a sensationalist direct quote, instead of neutral reported speech.
 * Sorry for picking on Munayyer like that, and there are many more examples. It would take as much time finding and describing them as it would simply fixing them. When you tell me that the content is all "in", and we can work on the structure/style, I will make some changes and we can discuss them. —Ynhockey (Talk) 19:57, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
 * In fact, SlimVirgin did all the work alone ! I just tried to follow what was done and could not...
 * I don't agree with your last comment about " sensationalist direct quote" to avoid and that we should only use "neutral reported speech". NPoV means reporting all point of views, not writing without emotion. The Palestinian historiography focuses often on emotion and it is a point of view as valuable as others.
 * Concerning the material in the article, I think everything is inside. Ceedjee (talk) 20:21, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Perhaps a little more on the ensuing political crisis and loss of prestige for Britain would be appropriate. The scale of the looting and value of the land appropriated is also interesting. In 1949 Segev speaks of 1800 truck loads of loot from Ramla alone. In late 1948 the Israeli government estimated the extent of "abandoned property" in Lydda and Ramla at 59 million m2 of urban land and buildings worth roughly £P6.5 million (c. US$26 million) (Fischbach, Records of Dispossession. Ian Pitchford (talk) 20:44, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I added the material from Segev in the "Aftermath" section. I don't have the other source. Ceedjee (talk) 16:53, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Title
Does anyone mind if I move this to 1948 Palestinian Exodus from Lydda and Ramla? SlimVirgin talk| contribs 19:32, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I support simply Exodus from Lydda and Ramla. What is the reason for elaborating it like that? —Ynhockey (Talk) 20:02, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree with Ynhockey athough I am not entirely opposed to longer and more descriptive titles given that all of the possible shorter titles can be made into redirect. Ian Pitchford (talk) 20:08, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I personnaly prefer the first one because it is easier to understand what it talks about. It sounds also that it is more a part of the 1948 Palestinian exodus than of the history of Lydda and Ramle.
 * But I have no objection against the other one.
 * Ceedjee (talk) 20:25, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
 * As two of you prefer the shorter title, and Ceedjee has no objection (and nor do I), I'll move it to Exodus from Lydda and Ramla. SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 22:31, 17 May 2009 (UTC)


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

Operation Danny
It has already been suggested by others and at the time, I was to keep this but now I wonder if we should not move some material relative to the Operation Danny (read Dani ;-) to the main article. I don't think that most of the information in this section are relevant for the topic : exodus for Lydda and Ramle. It seems to me that it is enough to point out : What do you think about that ? Ceedjee (talk) 06:13, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * the strategic importance of the area
 * the presence of inhabitants and refugees
 * in 3 lines, the order of battle
 * I agree. We every have a guideline for this kind of stuff. There's no reason to withhold information about Operation Danny here, but it shouldn't be elaborate; that's why there's a main article. —Ynhockey (Talk) 18:33, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * We have very little about Danny here -- unless you're thinking of the the section about Israel's military preparations. I'd be against moving that, because it's clearly relevant to what happened in Lydda that 150 soldiers and a local militia on one side faced 8,000 soldiers on the other. SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 19:53, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree 150 vs 8000 is relevant but nothing else. We could just keep the main points. Ceedjee (talk) 20:20, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Map
A precise map would be welcome to, because it is not easy to understand the sentences that talk about Lydda airport, Ben Shemen, "from East to West" etc... I can try to make one. Ceedjee (talk) 06:17, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I actually wanted to create a map, and also re-draw the battle fronts map, but to be honest it's not high on my priority list. A high-quality map takes a long time to make. Maybe some other time; although I can probably expand this map to include more of the locations mentioned in the article. —Ynhockey (Talk) 19:25, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I think I have a good one. I work on this (in English). Ceedjee (talk) 20:21, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

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

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


 * In his book A History of the Israeli Army published in 1972, Zeev Schiff wrote that : "[Operation Danny] was the IDF's largest offensive operation [of the 10 days campaign] and it led to the taking of Lydda airport. Some 50,000 Arab inhabitants or Lydda, Ramle, and neighboring towns fled the region, this time without the Israelis preventing them or suggesting that they remain."

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

Netanel Lorch, Aryeh Yitzaki and Jeuda Wallach (ed.) in Carta's Atlas of Israel (1978), vol. 2, p. 42 on Operation Danny (partial translation of relevant part):
 * In the morning of July 12, Ramla surrendered to the forces of Kiryati. The Arab Legion renewed their attempts to penetrate the [IDF] ring surrounding [Lydda and Ramla]. A platoon of AFVs penetrated Lod and opened fire on Yiftah: the citizens [of Lydda] rebelled and a fierce battle developed on the streets. Quickly the armored vehicles left and the rebellion was subdued with a strong hand. The Arabs who violated the terms of the surrender and feared reprisals, preferred to leave the city and reach the lines of the Legion. At the night of July 12–13, the Legion unit in the Lod police station retreated, and on the following day, the evacuation of the residents of Lod and Ramla was completed.

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

Background section
I think we need to keep this short. Brief summary of what the conflict is about; brief summary that such a thing as Operation Danny existed and what it was. Then in the next section describe the situation in Lydda and Ramla itself and who was preparing to attack and defend it. SlimVirgin talk| contribs 19:37, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, with regard to the latter Lydda and Ramla were loyal to the Nashashibis, the long-term rivals of the Husseinis, and were terrorised to some extent by pro-Husseini militia. I'll locate the references later this week. Ian Pitchford (talk) 20:15, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Are you sure ? Hassan Salameh was a man of the Mufti.Ceedjee (talk) 20:19, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Excellent, thank you. SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 20:18, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Excellent, thank you. SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 20:18, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

My mind is quite opposite. For my point of view, the background of the exodus of Lydda refers to the first 7 sections of this article (from background to refugees taking operation Danny). I think the first 7 sections must be summarized and most of the material sent in the main articles... Maybe we could list all that we consider important to see what can be kept... Ceedjee (talk) 20:26, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Then perhaps we still have the wrong title. As I see it, this is about all the events that led up to the exodus, the events that caused the exodus. We can't write about the exodus meaningfully with explaining what caused it. We need to include the material that historians include when they write about it. If we split it into difference articles, readers will lose the sense of that.


 * We don't, for example, have most of the information about the invasion of Kuwait in an article about whatever the name of Saddam's operation for it was. SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 20:32, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree. This is, and should remain, a comprehensive article on causes, events and consequences. In fact, it's already the best summary of what happended and the most detailed guide to the sources I've seen. The only things lacking are some details about the background in Lydda and Ramle (Glubb's tour, clan loyalties, military preparedness, impact of the fall of Haifa on the elite etc) and the extent of the impact on the British authorities, who saw the subsequent protests and riots as seriously damaging to the standing of the British Empire in the Middle East. Any other tweaks should be for style and readability. Ian Pitchford (talk) 20:43, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * The fall of Jaffa had an impact on the morale but the morale had no impact on the expulsions...
 * I don't see the link between the Glubb's tour and clan loyalties with the exodus ?
 * I am really concerned by the readability. The core of the topic (the exodus composaed of the massacre - the expulsion - the march to Ramallah) comes very late in the article...
 * Ceedjee (talk) 21:00, 18 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree but I wonder if we don't have too many useless details in these 7 sections.
 * We could get rid of the "strategic importance of the cities" and 95% of "the Israeli and Palestinian preparations" and just state that 5 brigades (for a total of 8000 men) supported by artillery and bombing planes opposed to a 150 Arab Legion soldiers and a -I don't remember how many- militiamen. We could also summarize much the "Arab Legion" involvment in stating that Glubb kept his forces at Latrun and on the hills because he feared to be trapped in the plain and to lose Latrun, Jerusalem and the whole Cisjordan. All in all, that is one paragraph in the background...
 * Ceedjee (talk) 20:41, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

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

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


 * I dispute that that information belongs in Operation Danny. What belongs there is an analysis of the operation itself: command structure, who was who, why and when set up. But the real-world consequences of it, they belong in their own articles. We can't hand ownership of the narrative to the Israel Defense Forces, which I think we would do by allowing the name of one of their operations to become our umbrella term. If you want to think of it in terms of summary style, we should have an article on Lydda-Ramla, and another on the attacks on Latrun-Ramallah (together or separately depending on what happened) and then, in summary style, a brief section explaining that there was this thing called Operation Danny. In that article, we can then explain about command structure etc. But Danny is part of what happened in Lydda-Ramla-Latrun etc, not the other way round. SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 21:25, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * We can rename the article Operation Danny if it bothers you that much. I don't see how it's giving "ownership of the narrative" to anyone though, as every serious historian calls it Operation Danny (or Dani ;)). And here's where I complete disagree with you—the expulsions in Lydda and Ramla are indeed only a small (but painful) part of Operation Danny, Dani, Larlar, Battle of Lydda–Ramla–Latrun, or whatever you want to call it. This seems obvious to me, simply because Operation Danny encompasses the entirety of the Exodus from Lydda and Ramla, while also being relevant to battles in Latrun and over a dozen unrelated villages. The operation was huge and had its own ad-hoc headquarters; the capture and evacuation of Lydda and Ramla was only one of its several objectives. —Ynhockey (Talk) 21:36, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Perspective

 * Yan, a question: do you think most of the information in Invasion of Kuwait should be moved to an article about whatever name Saddam Hussein gave the operation? If not, why not, and what do you see as the difference here? SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 21:38, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * As much as I'd love to know the name that Saddam Hussein gave the operation, there's a guideline for this, it's called Naming conventions. Among other things, it says: Generally, article naming should prefer what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature.
 * Seems pretty clear to me. Is there another name for Operation Danny/Dani? If so, I'd like to know, because I've been researching this for years and have never heard of one. But as I said in the above post (maybe you missed it), I don't care about the name of the other article. What I care about is that this article does not become a POVFORK and/or COATRACK, discussing something well outside of its scope. —Ynhockey (Talk) 22:00, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure you're taking the point. It's not about what most English speakers would recognize. My guess is that most English speakers have heard of neither Operation Danny nor the conquest of Lydda. It's a question of looking at the event from the point of view of all involved, or from the perspective of the world, if you like, and not from that of the Israeli military. The eyewitnesses don't say, "I was part of Operation Danny."


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


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


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


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


 * If I stop commenting now, it's only because the more time I spend on talk, the less I can spend reading and writing, and there are still quite a few sources to add to the article. SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 22:34, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm not mixing anyone up—you claim that the problem is the name of the article Operation Danny, because we "wouldn't dream of naming [the] article" after Saddam's operation, so why should we name an article Operation Danny? So my answer to you is, we don't have to. Pick another name for the article Operation Danny, if you wish, so we can write about the exodus of Lydda and Ramla in the context of a larger battle/operation. —Ynhockey (Talk) 22:53, 18 May 2009 (UTC)


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


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

To anyone else who doesn't understand my comments above, I'll outline Operation Danny (or whatever one wants to call it): —Ynhockey (Talk) 22:11, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * 1) Planning: Conception of Operation Larlar (Lod–Ramla–Latrun–Ramallah) to relieve the road to Jerusalem; eventual rename to Operation Danny
 * 2) Phase 1.1: Surrounding Lydda and Ramla, including attacks on Salbit, Anaba, Jimzu (south) and Rantiya, Qula, Tira, etc. (north).
 * 3) Phase 1.2: Capture of the strategic Lydda Airport and Yehudiya
 * 4) Phase 1.3: Capture of Lydda and Ramla
 * 5) Phase 1.4: Evacuation/expulsion of civilian population therein (Exodus from Lydda and Ramla)
 * 6) Reorganization and change of plans, removal of attack on Ramallah from plans
 * 7) Phase 2.1: Capture of Suba, Sara'a, and other villages in the Jerusalem corridor
 * 8) Phase 2.2: Attacks on al-Burj and other villages north of Latrun, failed attacked on Latrun itself
 * That sounds good for me (for the Operation Danny article).
 * Take care the attack on Salbit in phase 1.1 failed. I would add some words about the "strange situation" (my pov) of Ben Shemen, "delivered" on 10 July.
 * There are also all the operations performed south of the Burma road at the end of the campaign in order.
 * Ceedjee (talk) 06:11, 19 May 2009 (UTC)


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

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


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


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


 * I think it is more a way each of us structure the way he writes and like reading.
 * Personnaly, I like to have access to the global perspective and then, one by one, go into details.
 * My idea is that the reader cannot understand the importance of small nuances before he is aware of the core issues.
 * Due to that and my poor memory, I usually read books two times. A first to get the global perspective and a second time to understand the arguments of the author and to understand his reasonning (or his agenda) in the core of the article.
 * But never mind. Let's go on with a chronological approach (that is rationale) but with care.
 * (NB: my mind is still that this article is excellent !). Ceedjee (talk) 06:27, 19 May 2009 (UTC)


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

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

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

Karsh says there were no expulsions from Ramla, though we know there was an expulsion order. He says in his letter to the editor that he has developed this in another Commentary article, but I found that article, and he didn't develop it. I've therefore e-mailed him to ask whether he elaborates elsewhere. In the meantime, it looks too odd to leave it in. SlimVirgin talk| contribs 20:04, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Ceedjee (talk) 20:33, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Agreed as well. Out of curiosity - what do the others say?  Jaakobou Chalk Talk  21:23, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

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

1. It is—


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

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


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

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

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

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

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

In general, I disagree with the usage of "signed by Yitzhak Rabin and issued by David Ben-Gurion or Yigal Allon" in the first paragraph. This seems to go too deeply into details and, for example, I would not expect to see Amin al-Husayni's name on the lead to 1929 Hebron massacre or Hafez al-Assad on the lead of the Hama Massacre or Hussein bin Talal for the Black September in Jordan lead.  Jaakobou Chalk Talk  21:54, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Sorry for the late reply. I tend to agree with the above. Some compromise can be made about Rabin, who undisputably signed the document, but there shouldn't be any mention of the other two, because it is not even known which of them (if any) was responsible for the order. We should not be carrying over the historiographical debate into the lead paragraph. —Ynhockey (Talk) 18:05, 19 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I tend to agree. I would add that I am still convinced that this sentence is false : "The expulsion orders (...) were intended to avert a long-term Arab threat to Tel Aviv,"
 * Only that part is right : "and thwart an Arab Legion advance by clogging the roads with refugees, according to the Israeli army".
 * Operation Dani had the purpose of "avert a long-term Arab threat to Tel-Aviv" but certainly not the "expulsion order".
 * Benny Morris reports indeed that Yigal Alon claimed the second part.
 * Ceedjee (talk) 07:23, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

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

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


 * I agree with you, both for what concerns the topics to develop there and the material to gather. They key issue is to find wp:rs sources that discuss this and I am not sure we will find such an article about Lydda...
 * I see additionnaly the controversy about the "uprising". When I read the Palestinian version it sounds to me they want to underline they tried to resist... (?).
 * Some pists :
 * For the Jordanian historiography, there is an article of Sela that deals with that and there is the book of Avi Shlaim (ed), Palestine 1948... Behing the myths. I check.
 * For the Israeli historiography, there the current debate and we may just give the former version with both excerpts reported here above (by Ynhockey and I).
 * For the Palestinian historiography, I don't know. Maybe Saleh Abd al-Jawad or some French scholars Nadine Picadou, Henry Laurens (historian)... There is also the publications of the IPS.
 * I can check for Shlaim and the French scholars... al-Jawad is on google books.
 * Ceedjee (talk) 05:59, 19 May 2009 (UTC)


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


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

Harvard refs
Just a point about the Harvard refs we use in the footnotes. These are normally written "Smith 2008, p. 1," without parentheses around the year when in a footnote; though we would write "Smith (2008) argues that ..." when it's part of a sentence. See Parenthetical referencing. Not that it matters a great deal so long as we're consistent. SlimVirgin talk| contribs 16:00, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Hi SV! The parenthetical reference is not that important to me (although I do believe it's cleaner and easier to understand in some cases), but I'd prefer it if all editors paid attention to proper XHTML syntax (although it's not technically required for refs):


 * Not:


 * Or variations thereof. Also the consistency in page marks, i.e. "pp. 270–271", not "pp.270-1" (or variations); the 3 points are: the space between the "p." and the number, the dash, which should be an en dash, and the numbering, which I personally don't care about, but on Wikipedia it's generally accepted to write the full numbers. —Ynhockey (Talk) 17:55, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
 * More notes about style:
 * We should decide whether to use "en dash [text] en dash" (the flowers – the ones over there – are red), or "em dash[text]em dash" (the flowers—the ones over there—are red). I prefer the latter.
 * In addition to the above, please use the unicode dash characters (– and —) and not the HTML shortcuts (&amp;ndash; and &amp;mdash;) if possible. —Ynhockey (Talk) 18:00, 19 May 2009 (UTC)


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


 * Also, could we leave the images at fixed sizes, please? They keep being changed, with some ending up too small and some too large, and now the two map images have disappeared for some reason. :-) SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 20:13, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
 * There's a panel below your edit boxes which has both dashes, so you can copy&paste or click (requires JavaScript). About the images, again, it's a requirement at FAC to have scalable images, and any images not in the two standard sizes (regular and upright) are generally frowned upon even if they are scalable (e.g. upright=2). There's no reason whatsoever to have any image in a non-standard size. —Ynhockey (Talk) 21:41, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure what you mean. When I last took part in an MoS discussion about this, most editors there opposed not allowing image sizes to be fixed, and pointed out that most FAs have fixed image sizes. That was about a year ago. I've not looked since then. When they're not fixed, the image sizes depend on the browser. On my browser, some of the faces grew larger, and the images of Lydda were tiny. It looked odd. SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 02:26, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
 * The guidelines for this are fairly straightforward:
 * This results in a display 180 pixels wide (140 pixels if the "upright" option is used as well), except for those logged-in users who have set a different default in their user preferences. As a rule images should not be set to a fixed size (i.e. one that overrides this default), but see the Manual of Style for exceptions. —WP:IMGSIZE.
 * WP:MOS lists these exceptions:
 * Images with aspect ratios that are extreme or that otherwise distort or obscure the image
 * Detailed maps, diagrams, or charts
 * Images containing a lot of detail, if the detail is important to the article
 * Images in which a small region is relevant, but cropping to that region would reduce the coherence of the image
 * Lead images, which should usually be no larger than 300 pixels
 * It is fairly clear that most images in this article do not fit any of these and should not be resized. The portraits being too large is a moot point; if they're so large to the point that they mess up the article's layout, we should probably remove half of them. They serve no purpose in the article itself.
 * Please understand that these rules were meant to make Wikipedia more accessible, and are very important style guidelines. I did not resize any images in the article because their size bothered me, but because they needed to be resized per the above. There are only 3–4 images in the entire article (lead image, Ramla panorama, and the battle fronts map, for instance) which clearly fit one or more of the above exceptions.
 * —Ynhockey (Talk) 22:26, 21 May 2009 (UTC)


 * That is a guideline, not a policy, and that aspect of it is widely ignored, and was strongly argued against at the time -- the only reason it is there is because those opposed to it got tired of reverting. In addition, the MoS itself says editors should not arrive at articles in order to change styles. SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 22:37, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
 * SV, Wikipedia has changed a lot since last time you edit frequently. Yes, many of the changes happenned because certain 'older' editors got tired of arguing, but that doesn't make the changes less important/relevant. However, I am done arguing about image sizes. Do whatever you want, and you will see what I mean at FAC and/or PR. —Ynhockey (Talk) 23:41, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Not sure what you mean about the last time I edited frequently. My editing habits haven't changed all that much. I do edit less than I used to, but I've edited regularly since 2004. SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 23:46, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Background section
I'm wondering about this:

"The protagonists did not take equal advantage of the truce. Although they were all under an arms embargo,[14] the Israelis managed to obtain heavy weapons from the Eastern bloc and reinforced their army.[15] As a result, Israel was in a belligerent mood.[16] The day before the end of the first truce, the Egyptians launched an offensive, hoping to catch the IDF off guard, and on July 9, Israel launched three offensives, one of which was Operation Danny.[17]"

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


 * The ref. is Morris (2008), pp.267(last paragraph)-269.
 * The problem is more the "As a result", then the "belligerant mood". The idea is to remind that Israeli wanted to attack.
 * For what concerns Egypt, they broke the truce. But it may be considered not relevant.
 * Ceedjee (talk) 18:08, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Maps 2
Ceedjee recently drew a very good map of the front lines, although I had some concerns, so I also drew a map. Please offer your opinions.

—Ynhockey (Talk) 20:49, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Ceedjee (talk) 06:53, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
 * You are right concerning the map I drew (some mistakes must be corrected + another symbol for cities + Safarand camp must be positionned). I would add the railway should be added; some villages should be added.
 * I think on yours, the size of the road should be modified in function of their importance. Some lack on the east (Arab Legion counter-attacked from there). Burma road is not there. Indicating the direction of Tel-Aviv, Ramallah and Jerusalem would be better. The scale is needed.
 * Both maps lack an important matter : the hills on the east should be indicated.
 * Note that on my map, the green circles that are not filled don't refer to "Palestinian villages" but refer to Palestinian village that were depopulated. (See Latrun and Deir Aiyub).

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


 * I think if I had to choose, I prefer Ceedjee's, as it seems a little clearer, and the text seems sharper (though that could be my browser at fault). It would be good to include Tel Aviv, given that the perceived threat to Tel Aviv was a major reason given for the invasion. SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 19:40, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Not sure either of you have noticed, but I have made a map recently with all the relevant areas (except Jerusalem). The front lines can be added on top of it. I will also address both of your concerns shortly. —Ynhockey (Talk) 21:28, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment: I have addressed most of the concerns raised above. Please take a look at the new version (left). Purge your cache and refresh the page if you don't see a difference. —Ynhockey (Talk) 18:48, 21 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Can you say what the lines represent? SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 22:39, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
 * There's a legend on the image description page. The red lines are roads and the black are railways. —Ynhockey (Talk) 23:20, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

To speak frankly. My mind is that your map is far more accurate, but mine is nicer and easier to "read". I would suggest you use the *.svg (vector) map you have to : Ceedjee (talk) 15:20, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
 * broaden the view of the area to have : Tel-Aviv at the north-west, to whole Egyptian front at the south, and Latrun at East
 * remove some too small road and remove unsignificant ones...
 * add the burma road (even roughly)
 * the best map I know on the topic is that one - I would suggest to use this to add the relief...

Query about resettlement section
I don't fully understand the relevance of this:

"Around 260,000 Jews arrived in Israel between 1948 and 1951 as a result of the Jewish exodus from Arab countries. Before the ma'abarot&mdash;residential camps for Jews&mdash;were conceived in the early 1950s, immigrants were usually placed in former Arab cities, including Lydda and Ramla."

Does the source (Lissak) say that Jewish immigrants from Arab countries were placed in Lydda and Ramla? Also, I'm unclear about the meaning of the second sentence. Is it saying that, once the ma'abarot were created, immigrants didn't go to live in former Arab cities? SlimVirgin talk| contribs 23:20, 20 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Hi,
 * Let's not beat about...
 * Between 15 May 48 and 1951, around 700,000 Jews settled in Israel. Among these, it seems 260,000 came from Arab lands.
 * In the current general context of the discussion around the '48 events. Many voices in Israel think it has to be said that while 700,000 Arab Palestians "left or were expelled", between 1948 and 1970, 900,000 "fled or were expelled" from Arab lands. This is talked about the the forgotten Millions or the forgotten exodus.
 * Like Palestinian refugees, they had lost everything. And that is the same of most of the other 700,000 - 260,000 = 440,000 that came mainly from DP camps in Europe and detention camps at Cyprus. The war had ravaged their familly and they had lost everything.
 * Welcoming these people was not easy at all. The population double in two years. Israel was confronting too many challenges. There was no other possibility than using the Palestinian Arab property. And they were not welcomed by the population, particulary the sepharads. Like Palestinians were not welcome in Arab Lands...
 * The whole parallelism is a way of stating that whatever happened, the Israelis/Jews paid their side of the slate.
 * For what concerns wikipedia, We need first to find wp:rs sources that discuss this parallelism. I don't think an academic study has already been written. But it would be welcome to move forward. I think nevertheless it will be hard to find wp:rs sources defending this point because it is usually not considered morally acceptable to make parallelims between atrocities or to write an apologetic way. In wikipedia, the last paragraph of this sub-section of the article about the 1948 Arab-Israeli War generated many edit wars :.
 * To answer the initial concern :
 * "Before the ma'abarot—residential camps for Jews—were conceived in the early 1950s, immigrants were usually placed in former Arab cities" That is tricky. They were placed in Arab cities/towns/villages before and after.
 * I think it is important for NPoV to give one sentence that provide the context of the re-settlement. But maybe just stating the population doubled between 1948 and 1951 and that these people had to be installed somewhere is enough. Ceedjee (talk) 09:54, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I am not at all happy about the issue of 'equivalence' between the experience of Jews from Arab lands and the Nakba. 'No way. No way man.' But there is a lot to look at. Can I recommend 'The Lure of Zion' Abbas Shiblak? (ISBN 0 86356 033 4). Where to begin? Firstly the story of what happened in Syria was different from that in Yemen. Likewise Egypt (Layla Morad!) and Iraq. And the Magrib. Yalla - lets do it.Padres Hana (talk) 17:00, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
 * "Before the ma'abarot—residential camps for Jews—were conceived in the early 1950s, immigrants were usually placed in former Arab cities" That is tricky. They were placed in Arab cities/towns/villages before and after.
 * I think it is important for NPoV to give one sentence that provide the context of the re-settlement. But maybe just stating the population doubled between 1948 and 1951 and that these people had to be installed somewhere is enough. Ceedjee (talk) 09:54, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I am not at all happy about the issue of 'equivalence' between the experience of Jews from Arab lands and the Nakba. 'No way. No way man.' But there is a lot to look at. Can I recommend 'The Lure of Zion' Abbas Shiblak? (ISBN 0 86356 033 4). Where to begin? Firstly the story of what happened in Syria was different from that in Yemen. Likewise Egypt (Layla Morad!) and Iraq. And the Magrib. Yalla - lets do it.Padres Hana (talk) 17:00, 21 May 2009 (UTC)


 * There already is an article about the jewish exodus from Arab lands. There really is no need to go into detail about it here. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 17:19, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Reply to original post by SV: Actually that was absolutely not the meaning originally conveyed, you probably misunderstood what I wrote, and I fixed it. Basically my addition was meant to do two things:
 * 1) Give a context to the resettlement (as Ceedjee correctly noted)—before the addition, the paragraph read as though the Israelis were meant to withhold settlement in the land until/when the refugees returned, but instead did an evil deed and gave permission to Jews to both take Palestinian lands and their homes. It doesn't really matter if the residents were from Arab countries or not—they were Jewish refugees from everywhere. The truth is, the immigration wave was huge and there was simply no place to settle the Jewish refugees, so it was natural to use abandoned Arab buildings, especially in the cities (Lydda, Ramla, Jaffa, etc.). The source says precisely this.
 * 2) The link to the Exodus from Arab lands was not meant to over-emphasize the fact that "the Arabs also did something bad so we're equal", but to emphasize that the residents were refugees, and this seemed like the most appropriate link to say it in a concise way. Note that the original addition said "including from Arab countries", I guess this could be misunderstood/misread as was proven by your edit afterwards, so now I made it read "from Europe and Arab countries" which is much easier to understand. The source talks about all the Jewish refugees in-depth, and on other pages talks about the approximate amounts from each country, but I don't think it's too relevant to this article to go into that much detail.

Carta's Atlas of Israel is an excellent specialized encyclopedia :) I have 6 of the 9 volumes (actually the volume I used is #5, but it's usually referred to as Volume 2 because of how the encyclopedia was divided/sold). It was written by experts mostly with doctorates on the subjects (including Lissak), and edited by Yehuda Schiff, who is well-known in this field and has been the chief editor of several important Israeli tertiary sources. Too bad today everything has turned political, they don't write books like this anymore. —Ynhockey (Talk) 17:14, 21 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Hi Ynh, my question was whether your source mentioned Lydda or Ramla. We can't give background about the situation in general, unless the source mentions it specifically in relation to Lydda or Ramla, simply because there's so much of it. We would also have no way of knowing whether it was relevant. Also, to call the Arab buildings "abandoned" isn't accurate, certainly not in the case of Lydda. SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 20:56, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Ma'abarot sentence

 * I'm moving this sentence to talk, because it seems quite misleading: " Before the ma'abarot&mdash;residential camps for Jews&mdash;were conceived in the early 1950s, immigrants were usually placed in former Arab cities, including Lydda and Ramla."


 * The impression it gives is that the govt moved Jewish immigrants into Lydda and Ramla only because there were no ma'abarot established. But does the source say that? Also, when ma'abarot began to be established, immigrants were still moved into Lydda-Ramla. So we would need a source who specifically described the relationship, if there was one, between ma'abarot (or lack thereof) and Lydda-Ramla. SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 21:15, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
 * The source does not mention Lydda and Ramla specifically, but it says exactly what you said in sentence one—that the government moved Jewish immigrants into Arab towns because there were no ma'abarot established. Of course, there are probably other reasons too, when a source says something, it doesn't mean that's the only fact, it means that it's at least one of the facts.
 * Now, the issue here is POV, and we're coming back to the same dispute that slowed down this article at the start—right now it's written from a very pro-Arab viewpoint. In a private conversation to another Wikipedian (not involved in this article), I mentioned that I was frustrated by the fact that I could find at least 3 separate POV issues in the lead section, before even starting to read the article (but that's for another discussion).
 * WP:V and WP:RS do not override WP:NPOV, one of the very few of Wikipedia's non-negotiable policies. Not only do most sources here present only one side of the issue (except Kadish and Sela), but also the article is written in a completely slanted way—one major issue is that it presents many negative events without giving any context whatsoever, so that any reader would think of how evil the bad Israelis were. One of the negative events is the resettlement, and I tried to provide some context for this, which was clearly relevant (the source says Arab settlements in general, which obviously includes both Lydda and Ramla). Like you said, we cannot give the entire background for this (I could easily write a long article about it), but at least one sentence needs to be provided to put it in perspective. I am fine with Ceedjee's proposal (But maybe just stating the population doubled between 1948 and 1951 and that these people had to be installed somewhere is enough.), but am not sure how it would flow with the rest of the paragraph.
 * —Ynhockey (Talk) 22:41, 21 May 2009 (UTC)


 * NPOV on Wikipedia means fairly representing the majority and significant-minority sources on an issue. If you feel the article is POV, please say which sources have been left out, or which are in some way not accurately or fully represented.


 * I have sent off for Kadish and Sela's book (which was sponsored by the Israeli govt), though it may take a few weeks to arrive. Do you have any other suggestions?


 * I think you should also bear in mind that most of the sources currently in the article use the IDF archives for their primary-source material. Very little indeed in the article comes from the Palestinian side.


 * Regarding the particular issue, can you quote what your source says here, including context (i.e. a sentence or two before and after the point)? The problem is that what you're doing is skirting original research (SYN). I had the same problem with the rape section. There is a great deal of material published about rape during the 1948 war, in high-quality sources, including govt sources. But very little of it mentions Lydda or Ramla. Because this article is only about Lydda and Ramla, I had to stick to the latter sources, even though it means I can't write about the issue properly, at least not here. SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 23:08, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
 * NPOV isn't only about giving due weight to each reliable source—which, of course, is a major part of it—but not all. NPOV is also about how sentences are worded, when context is provided and when it is not, etc.


 * I agree about context, but it can't include clear examples of SYN, that's the problem. SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 23:49, 21 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Maybe this source does not talk about either Lydda or Ramla in-depth, but IMO you should recognize the need to add context to controversial statements, or propose an alternative. There's no way around it.


 * Okay, but what is the controversial statement in this case? SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 23:49, 21 May 2009 (UTC)


 * As for your requested full quote (my translation):
 * Immigrant camps and ma'abarot
 * In the first stage of the Aliyah after the founding of the State, the olim were absorbed in an improvised fashion. Without the means and time, they were at first moved to settlements that their Arab residents abandoned, and later into immigrant camps, the residents of which were dependent on the Jewish Agency, which was responsible for the absorption process. In the early 1950s, the founding of ma'abarot was proposed (from the word ma'avar—"a move", "a transfer") which were meant to serve as a temporary stage until a permanent settlement could be established. This temporary solution was meant to prepare the oleh for gradual integration into the workforce, and to establish one's economic basis. At this stage the olim received great assistance—direct and indirect—the policy was to cause them to move and become self-sustaining, a policy which met at times with considerable difficulties.
 * It then goes on for another 3 paragraphs about ma'abarot and their function. However, what's particularly interesting to note is that a map is attached to the article, and it clearly shows two ma'abarot called Lydda and Ramla. This either means that existing buildings in the cities were used as ma'abarot, or that new temporary housing was created there (but probably the former), which are both extremely relevant here. —Ynhockey (Talk) 23:38, 21 May 2009 (UTC)


 * There's something about it here, p. 390 in case the link doesn't work. Immigrants were moved into Lydda while the ma'aborot existed, so the sentence as written isn't accurate. SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 23:23, 21 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Ynhockey, could you look at the Morris material above? He seems to contradict your source, at least regarding Lydda, and when these residential camps were established. SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 23:49, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
 * The source is interesting. It actually both supports and contradicts Dr. Lissak/Yehuda Schiff's text. Certainly it fully supports the argument that Jewish refugees were settled in Lydda (and especially Ramla) because of an impending housing crisis—the Kaplan quote clearly states that they ordered not to destroy Arab houses because they were needed for settlement of olim, and any relevant source you look at will point out that the olim at the time were mostly refugees, including from Arab countries.
 * Where it costradicts "my" source is also in the Kaplan quote, which mentions that there are already 20,000 olim living in ma'abarot which is apparently dated November 5, 1948. I would like to examine the source that Morris uses, although apparently p. 411 (I think) where the footnote is, is not available in the preview. Can you provide the quote?
 * It is however worth noting that Kaplan mentions 20,000 olim in ma'abarot by that time, while on the same page Carta's Atlas of Israel states that by May 1952, the number of ma'abarot reached 111, being home to 250,000 residents. The word ma'abara is a completely logical way to call a transit camp in Hebrew, therefore it is likely that Kaplan was referring to 20,000 refugees in transit camps that a third party set up, not the government-sponsored ma'abarot (which had certain specific features) that came in the 1950s. Again though, I'd like to examine the full context of the Kaplan quote, and would also like to know what he said in Hebrew if possible. —Ynhockey (Talk) 07:40, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
 * The Benny Morris source is Eliezer Kaplan, finance minister, in protocol of meeting of Ministerial Committee for Abandoned Property, Nov 5, 1948, ISA FM 2401/21 aleph. Kaplan says that the country is in a bad way, given the continual arrival of immigrants; Arab houses should therefore not be destroyed. He then says, "There are 20,000 in ma'abarot." If you want to know the Hebrew, you could go to the original source that Morris cites. I don't know how difficult it would be to access that.  SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 09:31, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
 * P.S. What about this source? Golan, Arnon. "Lydda and Ramle: from Palestinian-Arab to Israeli towns, 1948-67," Middle Eastern Studies, October 1, 2003. I don't have access to it, but the title reads like it could shed some light on the issue. Can you take a look? —Ynhockey (Talk) 08:00, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Okay, will do. SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 09:31, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your latest edit about the housing shortage. It's very good, and I appreciate it. —Ynhockey (Talk) 01:51, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the thanks. :-) SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 02:08, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Parking this here
I've removed that Arabs who had stayed in Lydda were allowed by the new city government to retain their property, which is a claim that Kadish and Sela make. All the other sources I've found so far, including eyewitnesses, say the opposite, and even Kadish and Sela say later in the same article that Arabs had to live in special areas. I may have misunderstood their point, so I've removed this until I can check it further. SlimVirgin talk| contribs 23:44, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Balance of sources currently used

 * Israeli primary sources
 * Allon, Yigal. (1979) Ha'aretz, October 25, 1979.
 * Ben-Gurion, David. The War Diary: The War of Independence, 5708-5709.
 * Guttman, Shmarya. ("Avi-Yiftah") (1948) "Lydda," Mibifnim, November 1948, pp. 458-460.
 * Kenan, Amos. (1989) The Legacy of Lydda: Four Decades of Blood Vengeance, The Nation, February 8, 1989.
 * Rabin, Yitzhak (1979), The New York Times, October 23, 1979.


 * British/American primary sources
 * Bilby, Kenneth. (1951) New Star in the Near East. Garden City:Doubleday.
 * Moshe Dayan
 * The Economist


 * Arab primary sources
 * Aref al-Aref, a reference to his death-toll estimates.
 * Munayyer, Spiro. (1998) "The Fall of Lydda", Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol 27, issue 4, pp. 80-98, Institute for Palestine Studies.
 * George Habash
 * Rantisi, Audeh G. (1990) Blessed are the peacemakers: the story of a Palestinian Christian; and (2000) Death March, The Link, July-August 2000, Vol 33, Issue 3, Americans for Middle East Understanding.
 * Zochrot. Testimonies on the Nakba of Lod, January 11, 2003.
 * Khalil Wazir


 * Israeli historians (who rely mainly on IDF archives) or other Israeli academics
 * Benvenisti, Eyal; Gans, Chaim; Hanafi, Sārī. (2007) Israel and the Palestinian refugees. Springer.
 * Gelber, Yoav. (2006) Palestine, 1948: war, escape and the emergence of the Palestinian refugee problem. Sussex University Press. ISBN 1902210670, 9781902210674
 * Golan, Arnon. (2003) "Lydda and Ramle: From Palestinian Arab to Israeli Towns, 1948-1967," Middle Eastern Studies, 39 (4), pp. 121–139.
 * Kadish, A.; Sela, A.; Golan, A. (2000), The Occupation of Lydda, July 1948, Tel Aviv: Israel Ministry of Defense and Hagana Historical Archive (Hebrew).
 * Kadish, Alon, and Sela, Avraham. (2005) "Myths and historiography of the 1948 Palestine War revisited: the case of Lydda," The Middle East Journal, September 22, 2005.
 * Karsh, Efraim. (2002) The Arab-Israeli Conflict: The Palestine War 1948, Osprey Publishing, 2002. ISBN 1841763721, 9781841763729
 * Kelman, Moshe. (1972) "Ha-Hevdel bein Deir Yasin le-Lod" ["The Difference between Deir Yasin and Lydda"], Yedi'ot Aharonot, May 2, 1972.
 * Monterescu, Daniel and Rabinowitz, Dan. (2007) Mixed towns, trapped communities: historical narratives, spatial dynamics, gender relations and cultural encounters in Palestinian-Israeli towns. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. ISBN 0754647323, 9780754647324
 * Lissak, Moshe. (1978) Carta's Atlas of Israel, Volume 2. Carta, Jerusalem, Israel.
 * Morris, Benny. (1986) "Operation Dani and the Palestinian Exodus from Lydda and Ramle in 1948", Middle East Journal, Vol 40, issue 1, pp. 82-109.
 * Morris, Benny. (1988) The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949, Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0679744754
 * Morris, Benny. (2001) Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881-2001. Vintage Books. ISBN 0521330289, 9780521330282
 * Morris, Benny. (2003) The Road to Jerusalem: Glubb Pasha, Palestine and the Jews. Tauris. ISBN 1860649890, 9781860649899
 * Morris, Benny. (2004) The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521009677
 * Morris, Benny. (2008) 1948: The First Arab-Israeli War. Yale University Press.
 * Morris, Benny. (2009) He tried harder, Haaretz, May 17, 2009.
 * Segev, Tom. (1986) 1949, The First Israelis, Owl Books by Henry Holt and Company. ISBN 0805058966 978-0805058963
 * Segev, Tom. (2000) What really happened in the conquest of Lod? Haaretz, May 12, 2000.
 * Yacobi, Haim. (2009) The Jewish-Arab City: Spatio-politics in a mixed community. Routledge.


 * British/American historians or journalists
 * Gilbert, Martin. (2008) Israel: A History. Key Porter Books. ISBN 1554700663, 9781554700660
 * Holmes, Richard; Strachan, Hew; Bellamy, Chris; and Bicheno, Hugh. (2001) The Oxford companion to military history. Oxford University Press.
 * Shipler, David K. (1979) "Israel Bars Rabin from Relating '48 Eviction of Arabs," The New York Times, October 23, 1979.
 * Prior, Michael, P. Zionism and the state of Israel: a moral inquiry. (1999) Routledge. ISBN 0415204623, 9780415204620
 * Ron, James. Frontiers and ghettos: state violence in Serbia and Israel. (2003) University of California Press. ISBN 0520236572, 9780520236578


 * Arab historians or other Arab academics
 * Khalidi, Walid. (1998) Introduction to Munayyer, Spiro. The fall of Lydda. Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 27, No. 4, pp. 80–98.
 * Sa'di, Ahmad H. and Abu-Lughod, Lila. (2007) Nakba: Palestine, 1948, and the claims of memory. Columbia University Press.
 * Said, Edward W. and Hitchens, Christopher. (1988) Blaming the Victims. Verso.

If anyone can suggest other sources to ensure all views are covered, please list them here. SlimVirgin talk| contribs 00:40, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
 * That's an awfully long list of 'Israeli acadamics'/Israeli secondary sources, without including actual Israeli historians. The only two Israeli historians who work and publish in Israel on that list is, as far as I can tell, Gelber and Kadish. The others are either New Historians (especially Morris, whose sources are overwhelmingly used in the article, and Segev), Israelis living/publishing abroad like Karsh, or non-historians like Sela and Benvenisti. Who is entirely missing? Why, all of the most prominent Israeli historians who wrote about that period (again, except Gelber and Kadish): Jeuda Wallach, Netanel Lorch, Aryeh Yitzhaki and Uri Milstein (probably missed a few). Also dozens of less prominent historians who wrote specific articles about events but no well-known books. In addition, Israeli primary sources wrote a lot about the war, although I'm not sure how many are missing in regards to these specific events (e.g. Moshe Carmel wrote much about the war, but I'm not sure he has much to say about Lydda).
 * I will try to balance this act by using what materials I have, but unlike in America, access to relevant books here in Israel is fairly difficult, especially for me who has no direct access to any university library. Probably the only book I have which might be of extensive use in this article is On the Road to the City by Elhanan Oren, which is about Operation Danny. However, I only got it yesterday and have not even looked inside, much less read and examined its contents. So this could take a while, but I encourage you and other editors to firstly come up with more varying sources so that it doesn't look like the article was written by New Historians, and in addition, keep in mind that no matter what materials we have, the language, wording, and organization, all have to be written with a neutral point of view. —Ynhockey (Talk) 07:57, 22 May 2009 (UTC)


 * If you can recommend books by these writers that particularly deal with Lydda and Ramla, I'd be happy to try to get hold of them. SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 09:18, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Ynhockey,
 * Jeuda Wallach published his book in 1978, Netanel Lorch in 1961, Aryeh Yitzhaki in 1982. As far as I know, Uri Milstein stopped the publication of his books about the '48 war at the 4th volume (before the events) and never wrote any about Lydda/Rame. I don't know how to deal with his book "The Rabin File: An Unauthorized Expose".
 * You could add in the list : Ytzhak Levi, Nine Measures: The Battles for Jerusalem in the War of Independence but it is the same, it was published in 1986.
 * The reason why they are not used in this article is that these historians had not access to the material to which current Israeli historians have access. They could only fit an Historiography section. But Morris and Gelber, eg, refer to them broadly.
 * Ceedjee (talk) 11:35, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
 * The funny thing is that the IDF's history department, as far as I can tell, did have access to most of these documents, and overall used original documents extensively in their writings (also original Egyptian and Jordanian documents available to the IDF, which are mostly ignored by New Historians). Of coruse, the department did not write negative things about Israel, and none of the above historians, as far as I know, wrote the department's official published books.
 * The time when they wrote these books is not relevant however. Yes, if a newer source that cites a declassified/released document contradicts an older source that doesn't cite it, the newer source is probably more accurate. However, there are many facts that escape the books of modern historians (including, but not limited to, "New Historians") and are written in older books, because modern history has been focusing more and more on politics. Doesn't mean the facts in the older books are wrong. For example, I have a book from 1963 about the southern front (mainly Givati), and as far as I can tell, it doesn't mention the name of a single politician even once (except Ben Gurion, who was the defense minister). It does however contain much more interesting (and correct) information than any other books I've seen related to the southern front.
 * However, again, the debate is mainly about POV. I don't even care that much if the entire article is based on books written by Morris, as long as it uses neutral wording (we shouldn't copy/paste what historians or primary sources are saying, as was done throughout much of this article), and context is given where necessary. —Ynhockey (Talk) 11:57, 22 May 2009 (UTC)


 * The problem is how we would know that something from 1963 is accurate. We can certainly use it as primary source material for what was thought to be the case then, but I'm not sure it could be a reliable secondary source in general, as the Palmach material wasn't released until 1982. It's not clear what you mean by these books not being "political." I'm sure they were. It would be impossible not to be.


 * Nothing in this article has been copied and pasted, except quotations, of course (and even they were not pasted in). What are you saying? SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 12:52, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Ynhockey. If the article was about Operation Danny, I would agree with you.
 * But this article is about the Exodus from Lydda and Ramle.
 * NB: Morris has no political goal when he writes. That is an a priori you have because you never read him. That is the same for Segev who is just less precise and writes with a different style. Pappé makes more politics. I think you mix post-zionists and new historians.
 * The easier would be to "copy/paste" here the sentences you consider non neutral. Ceedjee (talk) 14:37, 22 May 2009 (UTC

Housing crisis
Yan, what does Morris 1988 say about a housing crisis in relation to Lydda or Ramla? SlimVirgin talk| contribs 13:34, 22 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Also could you say what you mean by "The battles at Negba also contributed to the decision," so that it can be understood by readers who know nothing about it? SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 13:47, 22 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I just tried finding it so I could write it up for you, but we have no "Oren 1976" in the References section. Can you give a name and title? SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 13:52, 22 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Actually it was Morris 2004, p. 390 (the source you posted somewhere above), I just read a few pages there. Sorry for getting it wrong.
 * Oren says that two things significantly contributed to the expulsion decision: The rebellion in Lydda, and the concurrent battle in Negba. He does not explain why the battle in Negba contributed, but it makes a lot of sense and there's no indication that he is wrong. This is also why I removed the part about "according to Morris"—it's corroborated by this source, and there doesn't seem to be a dispute about this.
 * I actually said which book I had here, but to quote my own post below, you gave me an entire 3 minutes to add Oren's book as a source at the bottom. I didn't intend to keep it 'unknown' at any time. —Ynhockey (Talk) 22:57, 22 May 2009 (UTC)


 * If you have a source that says X helped to cause Y, but the source doesn't say what he means, then it's best to use that to find another source that does explain. But there's no point in adding it to the article as it is, because the readers won't understand it. How does the Negba thing make a lot of sense? SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 23:04, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't see any reason to look for other sources when a reliable secondary source says X and there are no sources contradicting his writings. I will of course do this, but it's not likely that I will be able to find one, as Oren's book is by far the most detailed on I have on the subject. It makes a lot of sense that Negba contributed to the decision. Negba was strategically placed to harrass the only Egyptian connection with the Hebron area and central Israel/Palestine. In the attack, it was surrounded from the north, and there was a chance that the Egyptian road would be open, which would both let it attack/reinforce Lydda and Ramla, and also capture the entire south. Whether this was actually possible doesn't matter, because as Oren says, this contributed to the decision in the form of pressure. It did not create the decision, which was probably thought of earlier.
 * I also think you misunderstood me about my comments on the balance of sources. As I said somewhere below, it doesn't matter if the entire article is based on Morris (although I do not approve, but it's not related to NPOV as a policy), but which facts are selected and how information is balanced. For example, in the resettlement section I checked a Morris source that you introduced, and it did have balancing text—the editors of this article simply chose not to include it (the part about the housing crisis). So that's one of my main problems with the article right now. —Ynhockey (Talk) 00:25, 23 May 2009 (UTC)


 * The reason to find another source is that you can't explain what the first source means, and the source doesn't say. So it would be obtuse of us to add it to the article, expecting readers to guess what is meant.


 * Please say what you mean about Morris and "balancing text". I'd appreciate specificity if you're going to criticize what I'm writing. If you mean that non-sequitor that you added, then I truly don't know what to say. You think it makes sense to say, "Half a million new people are arriving. We expect a housing crisis." It is almost a tautology. If you want "balancing text" from Morris, there was much better stuff on that very page. Though it's a shame you are looking at it in terms of you searching for "balancing text" to support your own POV, rather than writing what makes sense. SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 00:34, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Anita Shapira
There is some interesting material in Anita Shapira, Ygal Allon, native son: A biography, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007. It answers partly to Ynhockey concerns given she strongly opposed to new historians but she had also access to all recent publications on the topic; so she answers to their argumentaion. Ceedjee (talk) 15:04, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
 * p.223 - evaluation by the IDF intelligence of the Arab Legion forces at Lydda-Ramle (20 armored cars - 2000 Legionnaires - 1500 irregulars !) - She also evaluate the 5 brigades to 9000 men (giving her sources).
 * In the following pages, she give the different plans to make the cities fall.
 * p.225 she comments the "myth" around Dayan attack (even if it is not 100% the topic of the article)
 * pp.226-9 she gives her pictures of the events at the Mosque, the "uprising", the "evacuation and expulsion", the "order", ...
 * p.231 she reports what Yigal Allon said at a conference years later about the causes of the exodus among which : expulsions and where he explains why expulsion was required for Lydda and Rame.
 * p.232 she refers to Mapam problem with the expulsions and the frankness of Allon
 * p.237 she gives some consequences of the event on Arabs.


 * Excellent stuff, thank you! SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 15:10, 22 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Would you mind taking care of using this in the article where you think it is appropriate ? Thank you :-) Ceedjee (talk) 10:30, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

David Tal
He has been used in the writing of the article at different places. But I think he could be added in the reference and more material from his book given because he refers to both Morris and Kadish and comment their analyses : David Tal (historian) also answers Ynhockey concerns given he is opposed to New historians. His book was published in 2004. Ceedjee (talk) 15:37, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
 * p.310 and next

WP:OWN problems
I have really been trying to contribute to this article, despite not having that many sources at my disposal, and it appears that every attempt to make any edit of any kind is reverted by SlimVirgin. This includes reverts on clearly non-controversial cleanup, two sourced facts, image placement (forget about sizes), etc. It feels increasingly as if other editors are simply "not allowed" to edit this article and it is SV's personal domain. SV has also previously tried to sanction User:Jaakobou for a content dispute in this article. I have also noticed that Ceedjee is making great contributions to the article, but is not actually editing (e.g. after having provided a new book source with new information, he hasn't actually made any edits). I assume that this is out of personal choice, but it doesn't help that this article is edited by one person in any case.

Some diffs to illustrate the point:
 * – removing a sourced sentence because supposedly no one can understand it, also re-instating "according to Morris" which I wrote in my edit summary was corroborated by other sources and asked if any source contradicted it; also restored image positions to the previous version which ruined the formatting of the quote under Rabin's account.
 * – blanket-reverting edit that, while it did change image sizes (we were having a dispute about it), also made cleanup edits, and replaced a dirty/low-quality image on Wikipedia to a cleaner retouched image uploaded to Commons.
 * – rewriting a paragraph (the first one) completely changing its meaning, and then asking on talk whether the source I added conveyed the new meaning that SV created. (Note that actually here I conceded in the following argument, but the above still doesn't seem like a nice thing to do to foster collaboration).

There are more examples which I can't find right now because of the plethora of edits made to the article (it is moving very quickly), but I clearly remember my WP:DASH corrections being lost for no reason in various sections of the article. I will open an RfC about this if the issues are not cleared up, and hopefully other editors can start contributing to the article and not "watching" from the sidelines. I do have at least one book that has a lot of information on the matter, but am now causious to add material from it because of the above.

—Ynhockey (Talk) 16:08, 22 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Your latest edit was, "The battles at Negba also contributed to the decision," cited to Oren 1976. No title, no first name, no publisher, and it's not obvious from a google search who it is. No explanation of what the battles at Negba had to do with Lydda, and the Wiki article doesn't enlighten us. No explanation of which decision those battles contributed to (I assume the decision to expel from Lydda, but it's not clear), or how they did it. I asked you on talk for a clarification, or for a source so that I could clarify it for you, but you ignored me.


 * Do you believe this is good editing, and that it shouldn't be removed? SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 16:54, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Firstly, I apologize for not replying to your earlier questions, I simply did not notice them (will reply ASAP). However, this still does not make your edits more appropriate—you gave me an entire 3 minutes to add Oren's book as a source at the bottom, and as I was simultaneously reading the book, this was not enough time. The moment I noticed your edit, I just thought "oh, for crying out loud", and stopped both reading and editing right there. What's the point when someone with clear WP:OWN issues is just going to revert any addition you make? (So far you have reverted 100% of my content additions to the article, and most of my cleanup edits). Please be more accepting and think before you revert. —Ynhockey (Talk) 22:28, 22 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Please don't add material that is OR and/or unsourced. For example, I've also asked you about, "Giora Yoseftal of the Jewish Agency predicted a housing crisis" (and that is still in the article). I asked what the connection was with Lydda, and you also didn't respond. I also asked what the point was of stressing that Jews arrived in Israel from Arab countries, also still there.


 * I'm getting the impression you're editing for POV, rather than because the content you add is truly relevant. I apologize if that's not the case, but that's what it looks like. What I would like to see for this article is that we gather the scholarly and primary sources who talk about the fall of Lydda and Ramla, and we write an article that tells Wikipedia's readers what those sources say, and let the chips fall where they may. Period. No politics, no emphasizing this or downplaying that, or "swapping" atrocities, or "balancing" quotes, as usually happens in I/P articles. Just a straightforward: "this is what the sources say happened in Lydda and Ramla during, just before, and just after, July 1948, and the direct consequences thereof."


 * That means editors have to familiarize themselves with the literature, with the published body of knowledge, and that does mean there is going to be a lot Benny Morris, because he is a key source about this. I know you think that makes the article POV, but NPOV = fairly representing what the reliable sources on the subject say. It doesn't mean always having to find a "balance." If all the sources say, "X was not a good thing," NPOV does not require us to scour the horizon looking for someone, anyone, to say the opposite.


 * Also, please don't remove the in-text attribution. If I write, "according to Morris," there is a reason for it e.g. that it's not a universally agreed fact, or that it's clearly an opinion, or for some other stylistic reason.


 * So, to ask two questions again: (1) what is Oren 1976, and what does it say about the battles at Negba affecting the decision to expel people from Lydda? and (2) did Giora Yoseftal of the Jewish Agency predict a housing crisis in relation to Lydda or Ramla? If not, what's the relevance? SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 22:56, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I have made content-related replies in the section you started above.
 * It is unfortunate that you believe that I edit for POV and you do not. Actually this is the very impression I got about you, and of course, like you I apologize if this is not the case. This is actually the point I was making about the sources—most sources in this article are themselves controversial, and you yourself wrote "according to" for most of their statements. So it's not as straightforward as you say; this is why I suggested to use more non-controversial sources. I have not seen much criticism of the works of Alon Kadish, Yoav Gelber or Jeuda Wallach, for instance.
 * In that respect, the article reads a lot like a university paper. Personally I would remove "according to" from the non-controversial facts, and remove many controversial statements with "according to" entirely. Our goal is to write good balanced prose, with a coherent structure and flow. It is not an indiscriminate collection of information, and not everything any source has ever said about the exodus from Lydda and Ramla should be in the article.
 * To be honest, I'm extremely discouraged from editing this article by your general attitude. I will not get mad and quit Wikipedia like Tiamut did (there are many other articles!), but what I feel now is probably fairly close to what she felt vis-a-vis NoCal100 and other editors who were opposed to the DYK. —Ynhockey (Talk) 23:18, 22 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Then Yan, please go to a library and get hold of Kadish, Gelber, and Wallach, and start adding their material. I have the first two on order, but it takes time for material to arrive and to be read.


 * Our goal is not to write non-controversial "facts." Our goal is to tell readers what the reliable sources say about Lydda and Ramla 1948, controversial or not. The prose in this article is fine, and will improve as the structure and flow sort themselves out, which they will after we're exhausted the sources.


 * Are you suggesting we not use Benny Morris as a source, and what do you mean that the article "reads lke a university paper"? SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 23:32, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Image issues
Hi, it's come to my attention that there are differences about image use at this article. Perhaps a fresh set of eyes could be of help? Please specify the points of dispute; will endeavor to give impartial feedback. Best wishes with this improvement drive, Durova Charge! 19:01, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Hi Durova! The image issues are as follows:
 * The size of the images (the main issue): I am arguing that they should not be fixed, but instead be standard (either 180px (no value) or "upright" 140px), citing WP:IUP and other guidelines. SlimVirgin argues that they should mostly (if not all) be fixed-width, and that the above policy and other guidelines are "largely ignored".
 * Image placement: I am arguing that images should not be "sandwiched" (both left- and right-aligned images in the same space), and that they should not be placed in a way that ruins quotation formatting (quote or blockquotes), e.g. no image should be aligned to the left when there is a quotation there. SlimVirgin has not addressed this point at all, but has reverted all of my edits on this.
 * Necessity of certain images: I support removing most portraits and a few other images which are only semi-relevant to the article (IMO). I don't think the article needs as many images as it has now, and also support trimming the text (esp. removing certain quotes) and merging small paragraphs, which will really show just how many images this article has.
 * There are probably a few more minor image issues related to specific images, but right now I can't think of anything. Thanks for coming here! —Ynhockey (Talk) 22:45, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

If this is an FA drive there are a few issues here that'll lead to automatic opposes. One is the artificial resizing on many of the images. Over at the manual of style the argument is that's an accessibility issue for visually impaired users, so other than the lead image things ought to be left to default thumbnail. I don't necessarily agree with that rationale, but it often matters at FAC. Also per MoS images shouldn't be left-aligned directly below section headers. That will lead to automatic opposes also. This article does appear a bit image-heavy. Trimming a few of the less vital ones seems like a good idea. Durova Charge! 00:53, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Durova, thank you for the comment. Personally I'm coming from a web developer point of view, having built numerous websites as close as possible to W3C standards. Accessibility is fairly important, and it does require scalable image sizes, but that's not the only reason. In today's world we are seeing more and more handheld devices which are meant to allow you to browse the web exactly like a desktop browser (see for example Acid3). I'm not sure how Wikipedia parses fixed image sizes, but it's definitely not a good thing for mobile devices. We're not talking about 1024x768 or 800x600 resolutions here, but 640x480 and lower (the iPhone appears to have 320x480 vertical res.). Images should be completely scalable to fit any screen, and fixed widths work directly against that goal. I'm not talking about image sizes specifically here—sizes larger than 180px can also be scalable, using properties like upright=X (appropriate for lead images and some diagrams and maps). —Ynhockey (Talk) 01:03, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

The problem here
I am not going to mention any names, because it's not a question of individual finger-pointing, but of the way I/P articles are almost always written. I've been watching it happen for four-and-a-half years.

What people do is they approach a specific I/P topic about which they have little knowledge, but a strong POV. They then start searching through texts, mostly on Google and sometimes offline, to find snippets and factoids that strength that POV in the article. The writing goes to the dogs, and the reader can make neither head nor tail of the narrative. As one journalist said of Wikipedia's I/P articles, it's like reading the Bible, where you have to sift through weird text to find the trace of the author who put it there. It's factoid A (seen as pro-Israel) balanced by factoid B (see as anti-Israel), followed by quote C balanced by quote D, and atrocity E balanced by atrocity F, and so on.

What I would like to do with this article is the opposite. I am asking people to approach this with a "clean mind," as it were, as though you're a Martian. Approach it as though you know nothing about the I/P conflict, and don't care about it, but would like to learn what happened in Lydda and then explain that to others. Period. Just do the reading, and add the material to the article the way the author intended it to be read, not by pulling out factoids and adding them without context just because they promote or counter a POV. It's not always easy to do that&mdash;part of being a good writer and scholar is knowing how to do it, so I'm not saying we can achieve it perfectly&mdash; but we can aim for it.

I was talking about this with another Wikipedia who said I'm living in dreamland if I think I/P articles on WP can be written like that. Maybe I am. But I would like to try it with this one. SlimVirgin talk| contribs 00:47, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
 * SV, you are right about paragraph two (about I–P articles), but I disagree with the conclusion. The solution isn't to write a POV article based mostly on one editor's work. As much as I appreciate your work on this article, you can't be the only contributor. For me personally, I have a few good Arab–Israeli conflict articles to show for it: Battles of the Kinarot Valley, Battle of Nitzanim, and Operation Pleshet. I really wanted to write more of this stuff, but there's not enough time to do serious research. I certainly consider myself among the top 3–4 Wikipedians in terms of knowledge of the subject, and hope you aren't referring to me when you say that I look through Google results to get 'balancing' sources :) Most of my materials are offline (non-digitized) Hebrew books though.
 * Speaking of the above, there is another very common trend which I am opposed to; it's actually the opposite of the trend you accurately described in paragraph 2, and has also been going on since I joined Wikipedia over 4 years ago—basically, an editor with almost no knowledge on the subject but who has access to many books (often through libraries) writes an article overwhelmingly quoting from book sources, giving no regard to common sense and NPOV. The editor who did this most prominently has been recently blocked (not banned), but many other editors do this as well. I am hoping that this article will also not turn into that, and I am increasingly feeling that it is. It doesn't take a Wikipedia editor to take selective quotes from many sources and lump them together. It does take a Wikipedia editor to write a good article. Let's work together towards that goal. —Ynhockey (Talk) 01:07, 23 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree that both of the practices we describe are undesirable, and I can assure you that I'm not doing either of them. I'm reading around this whole subject in order to gain an overview of it. Again, I'd ask you to bear in mind that this is very much a work in progress. If we have any chance of FA, the reliable sources on the topic must be exhausted. Once we've done that, we then have to go back and start tightening so that it's not too long. But we can't tighten (sensibly) until we have it in place. My suggestion is that we just keep adding relevant material from the most obvious scholarly and primary sources, then work out what we have to do in terms of copy editing. SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 02:13, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

There are many issues discussed on this talk page from my point of view. Globally : Ceedjee (talk) 08:16, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
 * wp:own. I felt the same but I see -above all- the (excellent !) result of SV work and even more, this result must be placed in the context of these articles impossible to develop on wikipedia. As a consequence, SV convinced me that she doens't WP:OWN the article but that she has decided -maybe unconsciously- to be the guardian of the WP:NPoV and high quality standards (WP:RS) of this article. Like St-Thomas in the Christian religion : "she believes what she reads" and if a fact doesn't fit what she has read, she will reject this." I support this.
 * wp:own-2. Let's be honnest. It is impossible to write an NPoV article alone but it is impossible to write an FA article if there is not a main editor. The reason is that an article requires uniformisation and a global structure. My mind is that in an article, there must be some sort of "chief-editor" without any power but with the charge of structuring the article. That is why I didn't intervene much in the article (even if I did a little). That is not against wp:principles or wp:own.
 * About the problem here. I assumed SV meant the problem here on wp, not here in this article. That is clear that all the articles related to the I/P conflict problems. I see : 1/the fact that even scholars fight against each other - 2/basic pov pushings - 3/people who defend an alleged bias against a community in wikipedia - 4/people who edit without any knowledge on the topic - 5/people who have knowledge but who want to defend a pov above all - 6/agressivity
 * Ynhockey talked about somebody who would have books but doens't know the topic. Let's assume he refers to AK. In fact, AK is in the fifth category. He knows the topic. Another one, who left was user:JaapBoBo. Ynhockey, you can see on his talk page how much he disagrees with Morris because of his alleged pro-Israeli bias !
 * Benny Morris. It must be definitely admitted that if Morris may be wrong, he is the number-one reference on all these topic. Despite the fact his work was disturbing for some Israeli political groups, he was appointed Prof. at Ben Gurion University and is quoted or referred to in absolutely all publications on the topic ! It doens't matter if he is neutral or not. But again, people should admit he is certainly given he has been attacked by all sides. Such events are typical of scholars who try to put them in between. For those who have more empathy about the Israeli point of view about the '48 events, I would suggest to read this article of Abd al-Jawad - a Palestinian scholar. For those who have more empathy about the Palestinian point of view, except maybe a book published by Gelber in Hebrew, I think there is no major contribution to the global problem of the exodus. I would add that Morris is certainly one of the most precise scholars on the topic he always gives all his sources with high precision and make the difference between his analysis and the facts. Few others do the same.
 * neutrality - 'according to'. I agree with Ynhockey. For clarity, we should remove all the "according to" when the information is not controversed. This has to be checked but that gives a strange feeling.
 * neutrality - 'sources'. If there is a neutrality problem in that article, it rather comes from the lack of Jordanian sources about the events. I experience the same for the battle of Latrun. But I had a neutral source (?) that claimed Jordanian historians were not neutral and rather apologetical to Abdallah.
 * Image size. There is a consensus on wikipedia not to fix the size of images. The reason given is linked with size screen that can vary. Imagine what can become an image of 200px on a 800 screen or on a 1600 screen... I have never been convinced because all screens are rather in the 1000-1200 range and I don't apply this. I personally prefer to have all images perfectly aligned but that's it and there is a rationale behind.

GA - FA
I have just read all the article at once. It is an FA. I don't see any neutrality issue and I don't agree with Ynhockey for these concerns. I suggest to propose this to FA review...

My only concerns are in the lead :


 * "The expulsion orders—signed by Yitzhak Rabin and issued by David Ben-Gurion or Yigal Allon[5]—were intended to avert a long-term Arab threat to Tel Aviv, and thwart an Arab Legion advance by clogging the roads with refugees, according to the Israeli army.[6]"

We should modify this because the first part is delicate and there is no link between the expulsion and the threat to Tel-Aviv.

Ceedjee (talk) 17:10, 23 May 2009 (UTC)


 * The expulsions took place because they didn't want to leave a hostile population in a town they saw as a threat to Tel Aviv and the road to Jerusalem. I've added quotes from sources in the footnote after that sentence. SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 22:37, 23 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Regarding FA status, I feel there's quite a bit more to do. I was hoping to add more Kadish and Sela, Gelber, and some Nur Masalha, but I have to wait for the books to arrive.


 * I would also like to write a brief historiography section, explaining how the Palmach records were released in 1982, and how they changed the historical approach. And outline the dispute between Morris, Karsh, and Gelber, as it relates to Lydda and Ramla. Discuss the difference between the views that (1) Lydda and Ramla were part of Plan Dalet, that this had all been pre-planned -- broadly speaking the Arab view; (2) that there were deliberation expulsions ordered from the top, but they were not part of a broad plan -- Morris's view; (3) that expulsion decisions were made locally, and that Lydda was just an exception -- Kadish and Sela's view, possibly Karsh too, I don't know who else. But to write that section, I would need quite a bit more time.


 * We could try for FA without that section, but could we go for it without reading the Kadish and Sela book, which I believe is only in Hebrew? It was financed by the Ministry of Defence, so it's the "official" view -- see this article. Or at least reading a very good and sympathetic summary of it. Or is it enough to have the Kadish/Sela paper in the article? SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 22:14, 23 May 2009 (UTC)


 * There's also more to be written about the looting of the towns, which was extensive. SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 22:18, 23 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Ynhockey, as you're in Israel and you read Hebrew, the quickest thing would be if you could get hold of the Kadish book, and check through it to make sure there's nothing major that we're missing from this article. It is: Kadish, Allon; Sela, Avraham; and Golan, Arnon. (Hebrew) The Conquest of Lydda, July 1948. Tel Aviv, Haganah Archive/Ministry of Defence Press, 2000. SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 22:43, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
 * SV, I tried but can't find the book in any online Israeli store, new or used (I told you getting hold of materials in Israel was hard!) I will help with translation and clarification where needed if I can get hold of it in a local library (doubtful). —Ynhockey (Talk) 23:24, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
 * P.S. The Ministry of Defense Publishing does not support any "official" government view. It was usually the official publisher of many government books and papers, but most books it published were written by independent authors, who preferred it to third party publishers for (obvious) financial reasons. There is no evidence that the MoD Publishing's editors forced any government propaganda, or "official" views, on the authors. Another well-known publisher that was part of the Ministry of Defense was Ma'arakhot Publishing. Both were closed in 2008 because of financial issues, so it's particularly hard to get hold of their books now. —Ynhockey (Talk) 23:24, 23 May 2009 (UTC)


 * We'll have to make do with the Kadish paper, in that case, which should be okay because it's from 2005, and the book was published five years earlier (had it been the other way round, we'd have had a problem). I don't know what the status of these publications is, in terms of being the "official" version. Tom Segev seems to think they are: "The State of Israel has, over the years, been a prolific publisher of history books. The Defense Ministry and the IDF run their own publishing house to produce these histories. The Education Ministry, the Foreign Ministry and the Israel State Archives also release official histories. Such publishing efforts are, of course, perfectly legitimate, because the struggle over history-telling has been paramount in the struggle for control of the Land of Israel. By the same token, it's natural that the official version of history is rife with mythology, apologetics, and ideology. In fact, books about Israel's wars published by the Defense Ministry must be perused with the same critical attitude applied to publications of the Red Army press."  SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 23:31, 23 May 2009 (UTC)


 * A book published by a governement and that deal with sensitive or political issues is not wp:rs sources. of course. If you disagree, it can be discussed on wp:rs board but I am confident in the result.
 * Ceedjee (talk) 09:38, 24 May 2009 (UTC)


 * - "I was hoping to add more Kadish and Sela, Gelber, and some Nur Masalha, but I have to wait for the books to arrive."
 * Nur Masalha, Expulsion of the Palestinians, has only 2 pages about the events. pp.191-192. I don't see anything new in what he writes.
 * Nearly everything Gelber (2006) writes is already in the article
 * As pointed out here above, Kadish and Sela articles give the main information already.
 * - "Discuss the difference between the views... More time..."
 * That is also part of the article, indeed, but take care that this article, alone, cannot deal with the whole issue of the exodus. There is already an article Plan Daleth and an article Causes of the 1948 Palestinian exodus. You should add material there first and then try to summarize. That is a harder stuff that you imagine. Personnaly, I dealt these issues that way : Plan Daleth and Causes of the Exodus. It will not be easy to say more in keeping a perfect neutrality (WP:NPoV).
 * - "debate between Morris, Karsh, and Gelber"
 * There is no real debate between all these 3. The real debate was between Morris, Finkelstein and Masalha (# N. Finkelstein, 1991, ‘Myths, Old and New’, J. Palestine Studies, 21(1), p. 66-89; N. Masalha, 1991, ‘A Critique of Benny Morris’, J. Palestine Studies 21(1), p. 90-97; Morris, 1991, 'Response to Finkelstein and Masalha', J. Palestine Studies 21(1), p. 98-114). But this and the polemic with Karsh is already described here. The part of the debate with Israeli historians is described in the introduction of the Birth... Revisited and it can be a good start point to get all the points of the debate.
 * - "historiography"
 * Just giving the former version could be easy.
 * starting with Schetchman, "The Arab Refugee Problem", 1952. There is wp:rs synthesis : Glezer here.
 * Developing this topic and widening this to the whole topic of the exodus may deserve an entire new article :
 * opening of the archives (in the context of Post-Zionism)
 * the issue around ORAL HISTORY (see eg here as a first step) but there is wide debate on the topic between the Palestinian School and the Israeli School.
 * ethnic cleansing issue... Morris say it was one for the events after the first truce; Pappé and Palestinian historians say it was [certainly] one.
 * political consequences...
 * - "size and readability"
 * In the GA and FA criteria, there is readability. An article doesn't have to deal with all issues and it must remain readable. 110k is already much. The "best is the enemy of the good". If you add more material, I would highly suggest you remove or summarize some other.
 * Ceedjee (talk) 09:16, 24 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Okay, well I would definitely to add just a bit more about the looting of the town. We have 76 kilobytes of text if you don't count the footnotes and references sections. That's not too bad. SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 09:22, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
 * (sorry - I added some comments in my text just after you answered me...) Ceedjee (talk) 09:39, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Lead

 * "The expulsion orders—signed by Yitzhak Rabin and issued by David Ben-Gurion or Yigal Allon[5]—were intended to avert a long-term Arab threat to Tel Aviv, and thwart an Arab Legion advance by clogging the roads with refugees, according to the Israeli army.[6]"


 * I still claim this sentence must be changed.
 * Gilbert is wrong.
 * Have in mind Gilbert is a tertiary source and may now have less knowledge on this particular event that you have yourself given he only read 2nd sources, as you did. There is no reason to insist to keep a false information that is even not developed in the core of the article.
 * That is not wp:censorship or wp:Idontlikethis and have nothing to deal with wp:npov. That is just a mistake and should not be in the lead. There is another example here : of an even more important mistake by a recognized scholars.
 * I also concur with other comments above for what conerns the first part of the sentence that may not be required.
 * Ceedjee (talk) 09:45, 24 May 2009 (UTC)


 * It's not just Gilbert though. See Morris in the same footnote. SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 10:02, 24 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Morris 2004, p. 433: "A Palmach report, probably written by Allon soon after [the expulsions], stated that the exodus, beside relieving Tel Aviv of a potential, long-term threat, had 'clogged the Legion's routes of advance,' and had foisted upon the Jordanians the problem of 'maintaining another 45,000 souls ... Moreover, the phenomenon of the flight of tens of thousands will no doubt cause demoralisation in every Arab area [the refugees] reach ... This victory will yet have great effect on other sectors'." SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 10:03, 24 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Where it the "threat on Tel-Aviv" ?
 * What I contest is the fact the exodus would have been organised to " avert a long-term Arab threat to Tel Aviv", not the fact (widely reported) it was to prevent a counter-attack by the Legion.
 * Operation Danny took place for that purpose, but not the exodus/expulsion/displacement. Ceedjee (talk) 10:08, 24 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I think we're quite close to the source. Our sentence (my bold): "The expulsions—the orders for which were signed by Yitzhak Rabin and issued by David Ben-Gurion or Yigal Allon[5]—averted a long-term Arab threat to Tel Aviv, thwarted an Arab Legion advance by clogging the roads with refugees, and caused demoralization in other Arab cities, in the view of the Israeli army."


 * The source's sentence (my bold): "A Palmach report, probably written by Allon soon after [the expulsions], stated that the exodus, beside relieving Tel Aviv of a potential, long-term threat, had 'clogged the Legion's routes of advance,' and had foisted upon the Jordanians the problem of 'maintaining another 45,000 souls ... Moreover, the phenomenon of the flight of tens of thousands will no doubt cause demoralisation in every Arab area [the refugees] reach ... This victory will yet have great effect on other sectors'." SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 11:04, 24 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Sorry. I missed this at the first reading.
 * The exact sentence in the lead is/was : "The expulsion orders (...) were intended to avert a long-term Arab threat to Tel Aviv".
 * The source rather says what is in the current version : "The expulsion orders averted a long-term Arab threat to Tel Aviv", which is not the same.
 * But the source is not Morris (secondary source) but Allon (primary source), so if we want to be accurate, we have to state :
 * 'Years later, Ygal Allon stated that "[t]he expulsion orders [had] averted a long-term Arab threat ot Tel-Aviv."'.
 * I still claim that this is no-sense. How could an expulsion have had such a consequence ?
 * Even if this doens't concern really us : We have to fit to sources ! (I often claimed that wikipedia at the time of Galileo Galilei would claim the earth was at the centre of the universe and that is the way it must be!!!), we are here in the lead, not in the core of the article where this could not be discussed and we would have to add this (and eventually nuanced it).
 * In more of what I wrote up to now, there is a wp:npov issue. What were the different intentions given for the exodus among the wp:rs secondary sources ? Answer : 1. a planned expulsion - 2. none : it was the consequence of the "uprising" - 3. preventing a counter-attack of the Legion - 4. none : if there was a (little) expulsion, what happened is mainly a flight.
 * Why to chose the one given by Allon, the wort of all source : a primary one ?
 * Ceedjee (talk) 12:16, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Why to chose the one given by Allon, the wort of all source : a primary one ?
 * Ceedjee (talk) 12:16, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Contradiction
We've got an internal contradiction now regarding how many Jordanian soldiers were thought to be in Lydda. It really is better to use in-text attribution, even if it makes the text harder to read. Morris writes that, according to the IDF, etc etc. Then someone else writes that, according to someone else yet again, etc etc. SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 21:52, 23 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Not really a contradiction, as I said above -- more of a question mark. I copy edited a bit, and added an invisible comment about how it would be good to cite Shapira's source, and say why she thinks it's an exaggeration -- I think we need to do this because the gap between her numbers and Morris's is substantial. SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 23:34, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
 * 
 * I had already checked. It is footnote 29 but I don't have access to this with Googlebooks.
 * Maybe you can have access. I already noticed that each country has different pages not accessible...
 * She doesn't say why this is exaggerated but it seems obvious given the real numbers.
 * I wondered if she didn't count the forces at Latrun but it seems not given what she writes after...
 * Ceedjee (talk) 08:29, 24 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I'll take a look. It's not just different countries that have different access to Google books, by the way, it's different people. If you've been looking at several pages of a book, it will suddenly cut you off and say the next one is unavailable. The thing to do is ask a friend on another computer to fetch the missing page numbers for you -- they almost always can. Or if you have access to more than one IP, you can do it yourself. SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 08:37, 24 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Hmmm... That is a part of the issue but it is more complex. eg, I have absolutely no access to the last book of Morris (1948:A History...) while you have. Ceedjee (talk) 09:49, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Clogging the roads
Nice image, Yan, thanks. Could you add the source to the image page? That'll stop it from being questioned in future. SlimVirgin talk| contribs 00:08, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I have added the source. It's a scan from the book by Elhanan Oren. There are a few other images there which are more relevant to the article on Operation Danny. —Ynhockey (Talk) 00:55, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Great, thanks. SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 01:00, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Need advice about a quote
There is a moving story in a Zochrot pamphlet from a Lydda survivor, Halimah Nakib Al Aju, and I would like to add some of her testimony to the article. I'm checking here because Ynhockey feels there are already too many quotes, and because this one is powerful, so I'd appreciate input.

"Six days after the massacre at Bir Al-Zeibaq, the Jews came and said 'we want you to collect the bodies and take them far away' because the corpses are bloating and started to stink... There was a man called Ali Al Halili... from Lod... He had a horse and cart... They told him come with your cart and collect the bodies... He came and started to collect the bodies and brought them to a cemetery so they can burn them... He saw a boy whose mother was dead, the boy was about 8 or 9 months... crawling on the ground next to his mother... wanting to nurse... One week he nursed his dead mother's milk... Halili, who had no children, took the boy... The soldier who was with him said 'give me the boy'... Halili had two soldiers with him... nobody went around on his own, except under guard... He said to him: By God, Sir, I don't have kids... leave me the boy... He said to him: 'No... I want him'... The soldier took him, put the boy on the ground and shot him... Halili started to cry, and put the boy with his mother and buried him. (Zochrot pamphlet in Hebrew, translated by a Wikipedian)"

Zochrot is an Israeli educational group that arranges for survivors of expulsions to speak to current residents of the towns they were expelled from. They publish educational pamphlets and run a website. They also post street signs giving the former Arab names of the area. The woman I would like to quote spoke to a Zochrot meeting in Lydda/Lod in 2005.

I wouldn't want to use the whole quote necessarily, but most of it, probably in the July 13 onwards section. SlimVirgin talk| contribs 11:26, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
 * It depends. Firstly, is the alleged massacre at the well (Bir al-Zeibaq) corroborated by sources? If so, it should be written about in the article, so that there is context for the quote, otherwise no one will understand what it's talking about. About the other parts of the quote I have no opinion at this point. Where do you want it inserted and in what context? —Ynhockey (Talk) 12:18, 24 May 2009 (UTC)


 * As I said, I'd probably want to put it in the "July 13 onwards" section, the context being the bodies being buried. SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 12:26, 24 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Palestinian scholars think oral history is reliable, particularly if corroborated by other testimonies.
 * Israeli scholars think oral history is not possible to use in the context, even when corroborated.
 * Here, it is worse, even the source (Zochrot) is not 100% reliable. Think about Katz affair...
 * The crime that is described is particularly strong.
 * To be used with the highest care... Ceedjee (talk) 12:28, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
 * To be used with the highest care... Ceedjee (talk) 12:28, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Another quote that bothers me
In the July 12–15: Exodus section, there is a quote from Morris's book saying that "The eviction [pinui]" of the inhabitants ... has begun."

Here the translation is clearly false because the Hebrew word pinui does not, and cannot in any context, mean "eviction". It means "evacuation" (and actually has positive connotations, like evacuation of a building on fire), or "clearing" when referring to objects (e.g. clearing the debris from a construction site). Look it up for example in http://milon.morfix.co.il (write: פינוי). However, I do not doubt that the quote indeed existed, it's just that Morris's translation is flawed. Therefore, I support converting it to reported speech using more neutral wording an keeping the ref as it is. —Ynhockey (Talk) 01:25, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Well... It is true that Morris usually don't translate word by word but in a given context.
 * In such a case, I would suggest to get rid of the information, simply. It is in our "power"
 * Because the discussion to modify the way a wp:rs source analyse events is not... Ceedjee (talk) 13:56, 25 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I've checked with a couple of people, and they say that pinui could be translated as "eviction," given the context. People always translate within a context, not word-for-word, so I would say this is okay. SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 23:28, 25 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Actually, hang on, one of my advisors has just withdrawn what he said; and apparently this has been written about somewhere. I'm going to adjust the sentence if I can find that source; or perhaps remove it if I can't, or rephrase. SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 00:22, 26 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Okay, Karsh has written about this, but not in the same context. I've therefore added a footnote after that sentence, explaining.  SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 05:59, 26 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks. Another thing: In the operation order you just added, there is also a mistranslation: clause 2 actually says: To war that we are not reponsible for defending those who remain. This is a fairly gross mistranslation, although maybe Morris had his reasons—does he say anything else about this? Also I don't like the word "guideline". The Hebrew word used is hora'a, which literally means guideline, and this is probably what Morris thought, having not served in the IDF. In the IDF, the words "order" (pkuda) and "guideline" (hora'a) are used interchangably, and are both 100% binding. For anyone interested, the full Hebrew text of the order was:
 * הכל חופשיים לצאת, פרט לאלה שתעוכב יציאתם.
 * להזהיר שאיננו אחראים להגנת הנשארים.
 * לא להכריח נשים, חולים, ילדים וישישים ללכת.
 * לא לגעת במנזרים ובכנסיות.
 * חיפושים בלי ונדליזם.
 * אל שוד
 * —Ynhockey (Talk) 02:32, 26 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I'll look to see what Morris says about the "defending" sentence. As for "guideline," is there a source anywhere that says pkuda and hora'a are both binding? If so, we could add it in a footnote too. It doesn't actually change the meaning, or the point in this context -- because the guideline, binding or not, was ignored. :-) SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 05:59, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Here you go: http://dover.idf.il/IDF/pkuda/h/010105.doc (I realize it's in Hebrew and was written in 1979, but this document clearly outlines what types of orders exist in the army, most of which are "guidelines", and that they are all binding). Moreover, I just read in Elhanan Oren's book that the order was not simply a "guideline", but literally an Operations order (הוראה אג"מ). Again I refer you to a dictionary, where you can look up the word "order", and one of the words you will get is hora'a (הוראה). Morris is obviously wrong here, and there doesn't need to be any footnote, we should just not use the word guideline at all. This is understandable however; I seriously doubt that Morris, as someone who refused to do military service, would take the time to understand how IDF orders actually work, even if it only means reading Order 1.0105. —Ynhockey (Talk) 00:20, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
 * In fact, he served in the "paratroops" during the attrition war. What he refused is later to take his reserve period in Judea/Samaria/Cisjordan/Occupied territories.Ceedjee (talk) 05:47, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Source about the Arab Property

 * - google books
 * A review :
 * From late 1947 through 1948, more than 726,000 Palestinians—over half the entire population—were uprooted from their homes and villages. Though some middle class refugees were able to flee with liquid capital, the majority were small-scale farmers whose worldly fortunes were the land, livestock, and crops they left behind. This book tells for the first time the full story of how much property changed hands, what it was worth, and how it was used by the fledgling state of Israel. It then traces the subsequent decades of diplomatic activity on the issue and publishes previously secret UN estimates of the scope and value of the refugee property. Michael Fischbach offers a detailed study of Israeli counterclaims for Jewish property lost in the Arab world, diplomatic schemes for resolving the conflict, secret compensation efforts, and the renewed diplomatic efforts on behalf of property claims since the onset of Arab-Israeli peace talks.

Ceedjee (talk) 17:21, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Source for the historiography

 * Benny Morris, Making Israel gives exactly what was expected. Ceedjee (talk) 19:25, 24 May 2009 (UTC)


 * This is great stuff. You keep producing gems. :-) SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 19:58, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Weird goings-on
I wonder if my computer is causing these strange errors. 

What's also odd is that I didn't edit the affected bits, I don't think, at least not in these edits. Thanks for catching them, Ian. SlimVirgin talk| contribs 21:29, 24 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Okay, I got rid of them. No idea what that was. SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 22:00, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Copy edit
I did quite an extensive copy edit today, mostly tightening and moving sections for flow, in order to inch the text closer to FA quality. I expanded the looting section a little (would like to add just a bit more, if I can find the source I had in mind), and also added a short section on what became of Habash and Abu Jihad, the two best-known of the expelled, so far as we know.

I also edited the lead. I removed who signed and issued the expulsion orders. I disagree with this removal, but several of you mentioned it, so I've capitulated. I also removed aka Lydda death march from the first sentence, in part because in talking about Ramla and Lydda, it looked odd, and in part because not that many sources use it. I've therefore moved it to the third paragraph, where we discuss the deaths from the march, but it is still bolded.

Other tightening: I removed "during the battle to take Lydda, and in violence that followed," if only because the writing stood out as not tight enough. I won't fight if someone restores it, but "during the conquest of Lydda" really is better writing and, in my view, more neutral. I also removed the part about the expulsions demoralizing other Arab cities, because it seemed a bit too detailed for the lead. And I removed the 25 villages for the same reason, plus it's not clear whether there were villagers there when they were taken, so it's an unnecessary complication for the lead.

I also added to the cutline of the woman soldier that she was a soldier, because someone pointed out that a woman fighter was very unusual in those days in Israel, and still is, apparently, and suggested that we make clear she was a fighter and not an auxiliary worker.

I think the lead is now tighter and flows better, and is probably more neutral. SlimVirgin talk| contribs 00:14, 25 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Though thinking about it some more, I think we do need to say something about orders, because the distinctive thing about Lydda-Ramla is that everyone admits it was a clear case of an order being given from on high, as opposed to other areas where there was more ambiguity. I'll try to find a way to word that that doesn't cause POV or a problem with the flow. SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 00:21, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I really like what you did with the lead section, it's so much better than what it used to be. I disagree about the orders, but if there is consensus that it should be included, then only information about Rabin should be there, because there is no agreement between historians who ordered the expulsions (Ben-Gurion, Allon, or someone else), but it is known who signed the order. —Ynhockey (Talk) 01:04, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Thank you, I'm glad it's okay with you. If we do decide to refer to orders in the lead, perhaps we could attribute them to the IDF high command, rather than naming anyone. SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 02:03, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Great job for the lead ! And congratulation for taking other minds into account even if you disagree with ! If the article is not yet FA, you are an FE. ;-)
 * Whatever think these historians, the order was given by one of these or any combination of : Rabin (Brigade Commander), Alon (Chief of Operation), Yadin (Chief of Staff) or Ben Gurion (Ministry of Defense and Prime Minister). This is the command chain.
 * I would suggest "orders were issued by the Israeli High Command" (in proper English) if it is finally considered important to add this. But at the contrary of other expulsions, such as the ones during Operation Yiram, it cannot be stated here these were the results of local initiatives.
 * Who precisely doesn't matter.
 * About the woman, I just point out that Gezer (south of Ramla) was defended by Haganah contingent. It was attacked after Operation Yoram and 13 women fighters were made prisonners by the Arab Legion and released the next day.
 * Ceedjee (talk) 05:56, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Just a clarification, Yigael Yadin was actually Chief of Operations (not Allon), and the Chief of Staff was Ya'akov Dori who did not participate in the decision. However, Yitzhak Sadeh (Armored Service commander) was in the July 12 meeting at a later time, and it's unclear whether he participated in the decision (he is/was not mentioned in the article as part of the meeting). Yigal Allon was the front commander. —Ynhockey (Talk) 12:30, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Yeah...
 * But Yigael Yadin (Head of Operation) was the acting Chief of staff given Dori was ill from march to october and is referred as so. And Allon was indeed not "Chief of Operations" but "Commander of Operation Larlar" because BG refused to appoint him "Commander of the Central Front... But in the facts :
 * Rabin (Brigade Commander) reported to Allon (Commander of Operation LRLR) who reported to Yadin (Head of Operation, acting Chief of Staff) who reported bo Ben Gurion (Defense Minister adn PM). Dori was in practice out of the command chain.
 * Yadin may not have been there. I really don't know. But no need to be there to take this decision. Phone existed at the time.
 * Given Rabin signed, it is one of these 4 guys who took the initiative or gave the order.
 * This is not WP:OR. This can be sourced easily. That is just a way of keeping the most important : "the order was issued by the Israeli High Command" and not diluting this in a "yes but who exactly ?", as if an order for which we cannot give the instigator never existed... Ceedjee (talk) 13:30, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Ceedjee (talk) 13:30, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Why is it important to name an individual Israeli commander? Too many people have qualms about this business - nobody cares which indifividual Nazi commanders did what 6 million Jews were ordered to be murdered. The squatters had to go, and Rabin's signature speaks for all Israelis, then and now. 81.152.36.240 (talk) 15:51, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Reminder

 * about image issue in the context of a potential FA. Ceedjee (talk) 13:59, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

New map
I believe to have addressed all of the concerns that have been raised about the previous map. Here are the changes:
 * Expanded view to include Tel Aviv in the northwest and Majdal in the southwest, including all relevant front lines with Jordan and Egypt (no distinction is made)
 * Added Burma Road
 * Removed depopulated villages—not completely important, and some cases in the new map could be ambiguous because there were constant battles in those days in the Negba/Iraq Suwaidan/Ibdis area.
 * Corrected front line east of Latrun—the area close to Bayt Nuba was captured in Operation Danny and was still controlled by the Legion on July 9

—Ynhockey (Talk) 02:01, 26 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Your map is better than the one currently in the article.
 * I suggest we put it in instead of the current one.
 * The area east of the Beit Nuba / Yalu / Deir Ayyub line was taken during Operation Maccabi. I made my maps check by a scholar. See : Latroun (15 mai).png.
 * Ceedjee (talk) 06:18, 26 May 2009 (UTC)


 * That seems to be a lot earlier than the period we are talking about. Since then there were Operation Bin Nun B and Operation Yoram, both in the same area, and both ended in failures for the IDF. On one of the maps I have, it is clearly shown that the Legion controlled a fairly large buffer zone around Yalou and Beit Nuba after these operations, and on the map I have of the exact front lines on June 11 (truce) clearly shows that the area was not under IDF control. —Ynhockey (Talk) 20:20, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
 * P.S. This map that you made seems fairly accurate for the period we're talking about, and does show that the front line is a fairly long distance from Beit Nuba. —Ynhockey (Talk) 20:35, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree with you. I was not clear.
 * My concern, which is a detail, not really important, is the part of the road from Bad al-Oued to the west (just above the word "Jerusalem" in your map, that was Israeli-controlled. ;-) Ceedjee (talk) 05:51, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
 * The problem here is that both of our maps for this article only have one border—between Israeli-controlled and non-Israeli-controlled territory. This is an oversimplification because not all non-Israeli-controlled territory was actually controlled by the Arab states, and there were a lot of no-man's zones, which exist in your Latrun-related maps. However, since I don't have any decent source map for Arab frontiers, I think it's best left like this, which is accurate for the Israeli frontier. —Ynhockey (Talk) 06:13, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Do we mean the top image? The only problem I have is that the text is harder to read, perhaps because it's coloured? Also, it would be good if the areas relevant to this article could be highlighted e.g. a bigger font, so they stand out for the reader i.e. Lydda, Ramla, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Ramallah, and if the smaller places the refugees walked to are on the map, those too. SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 06:25, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, we are talking about the top image :) —Ynhockey (Talk) 20:20, 26 May 2009 (UTC)