Talk:Henry Siegman

 Henry Siegman search --

His age
I looked, but couldn't find anything about his age. He was a child early in WWII, so he probably was born in the 1930s. Bebestbe (talk) 01:10, 15 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Done. Mhym (talk) 01:24, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

How to handle the bogus quotation
This page has for some while contained a quotation form Henry Siegman that contains a Moshe Ya'alon bogus quotation. The New York Times ssays its a fake. I added a sectence poointing this out. I first put it into the criticism section. It was removed by USER:Nbauman. so I put it back right under the boqus quotation. It does seem odd for the article to have the quotation, without a note explaining that it is a fake.Historicist (talk) 15:37, 1 February 2009 (UTC)


 * WP:NPOV is one of the strongest, non-negotiable rules. According to WP:NPOV, specifically WP:ASF "Assert facts, including facts about opinions—but do not assert the opinions themselves," and also under WP:MORALIZE "Resist the temptation to apply labels or moralize—readers will probably not take kindly to being told what to think. Let the facts speak for themselves and let the reader decide."


 * The issue is attribution. You may think that the quote "has been demonstrated to be a fabrication," but that's your opinion. When you write an entry for Wikipedia, Wikipedia will be saying whatever you write. Wikipedia doesn't say that someone is fabricating, in its own voice. Wikipedia only quotes people who believes that it is a fabrication. If you want to rewrite it attributing it to a source, that's OK. If you simply state it as Wikipedia's opinion, it will come out. If I don't delete it, somebody else will.


 * These rules are enforced particularly strongly in a biography of a living person. See WP:BLP. Nbauman (talk) 17:41, 1 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Just for the record, it's not my opinion, it's the opinion of the New York Times that this quote cannot be found to exist. The New York Times searched fo rit for three weeks, and gave the op-ed author threee weeks to find it before subjecting him to the public humiliation of printed corrections both in the Times and in the Herald Trib.Historicist (talk) 21:29, 2 February 2009 (UTC)


 * The New York Times says only that the quotation is widely repeated, could not be verified, and does not appear in the source it is normally attributed to. It does not say that the quote was fabricated, is inaccurate, or that it reverses what Ya'alon meant.  It is reasonable to cite the Times for the proposition that the quote Siegman was repeating could not, in a different context, be sourced.  However, it is WP:SYNTHESIS to use an unrelated article to criticize Siegman.Wikidemon (talk) 21:45, 2 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Removed again. This edit had no references, and still uses inflammatory language. Please read WP:RS, WP:NPOV and WP:WEIGHT before continuing. If it's an issue worthy of inclusion in a BLP, then surely you can find neutral 3rd party sources? Surely such a fabrication would have brought the wroth of his peers in journalism and possible civil suits? If there's no outcry of this, aside from the extremist sources you found - perhaps you might consider that it's too minor an issue - or simply not an issue. GrizzledOldMan (talk) 21:58, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

August 13, 2009
It appears that the Siegman origin is disputed because the source which identified it, CAMERA, is apparently not credible enough. There has been no mention of their methodology being discredited, just a boilerplate condemnation. Certainly the organization's credibility was not so lacking according to the Toronto Star, the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times. Might I ask why Wikipedia is being held to a higher standard than these well-established, widely circulated and much reputed publications?

Please explain why it is insufficient as a source, or perhaps we will be forced to look for an impartial third opinion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.226.144.190 (talk) 15:09, 13 August 2009 (UTC)


 * CAMERA and its reporters are not reliable sources per Wikipedia standards. They did set the record straight here, through their persistent hard work, but we can't take their claims about the incident or their spin on it without some corroboration by reliable sources.  The Torronto Star article is very informative and it's the best we've got.  But it simply reports that a CAMERA writer believes that the misquote arose out of an article by Siegman.  Neither that article, nor Ina's claim, says that Siegman is the origin/source of the misquote.  They say that Siegman coined the entire sentence as his own writing, save for the phrase "sear deep", which Siegman put in quotes.  After that, other people seem to have run with it and misattributed the entire sentence to Yaalon, not Siegman.  If that's true, Siegman did not originate the misquote -- someone else misattributed Siegman's writing to Moshe Yaalon.  What actually happened is unclear.  Even if he didn't originate it as a misquote (or "fabricated" quote as was being discussed above, which implies deliberate deception), he still would have gotten Yaalon's position wrong, in a way unfair to Yaalon.  But if simply getting things wrong were such a major journalistic error that we reported that in every journalist's article, most of them would be full of that because journalists get a lot of things wrong.  The material here could be rephrased to clarify that, but such a detailed treatment is of undue weight.  There is no showing that being somehow involved in this widely repeated misquote is a major biographical milepost in Siegman's life, only one article in a reliable source.  Anyway, all this is treated in Yaalon's own article, where it is a better fit and where we can more reasonably take the time to explain.  I don't see that a journalist's own biographical article is a good place to list all their errors, not unless reliable sources describe it as significant to the journalist's overall career, legacy, reputation, etc.  Accordingly, I'm removing this section again.  If you want to include it, please continue the discussion and see if there is general consensus to include it and if so in what form.  Thanks,  Wikidemon (talk) 18:55, 13 August 2009 (UTC)


 * I find it difficult to concede the idea that a journalist's errors should go entirely unmentioned- nor do I understand how such a concept provides undue weight. Should we neglect to mention the mistakes of other professionals such as politicians and scientists? I find the argument that there is undue weight more convincing, and I do not believe that it deserves its own section. But to argue that it must be a milepost in his life would mean removing much of the content of the article as it is- for instance, his stance on Arafat. In my opinion, either the article should be culled significantly on that principle, or more information should be satisfactory. Thank you for your time. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.226.144.190 (talk) 20:03, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Third Opinion Since there is controversy over this, and the article is a BLP, it seems best to err on the side of caution. You both agree, I think, that this isn't a milestone in his life; now, that wouldn't necessarily be a reason for excluding it (although it might be), but since the statement is clearly controversial, I would suggest that it is better to just leave it out. If there were an overwhelming reason to keep it in, that would be a different matter, but I'm not seeing such a reason. Anaxial (talk) 17:18, 14 August 2009 (UTC)


 * This kind of discussion is proper on the page dedicated to this quotation, assuming it is notable, not the purported fabricator. For example, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion have their own page, and are not discussed on the Romanov family page.  Mhym (talk) 17:21, 14 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Is there a source that verifies what the journalist at CAMERA said about the controversial quote?--Kbob (talk) 17:27, 14 August 2009 (UTC)


 * The Torronto Star piece verifies that the CAMERA journalist said that the misquote arose from the Siegman article but not that Siegman invented it.  I think there may be other sources showing that the quote somehow arose from Siegman's piece.  The Torronto Star piece mentions that this misquote was subsequently repeated throughout the world - shoddy journalistic practice perhaps but prevalent.  What I haven't seen in any reliable sources is a discussion of Siegman's role in it.  Did he get the "sear deep" part right or wrong, or does anyone even know?  Siegman apparently coined the rest of the language that was later attributed to Ya'alon, the part about the Palestinians needing to internalize that they were a defeated people, which may or may not have been a reasonable description of Ya'alon's position on the matter.  Likely it mischaracterizes Ya'alon's actual position, but as a weight matter, a single occasion of an opinionated scholar/journalist making an unfair editorial comment about a middle eastern military figure, or a single incident among many of repeating the misquote, is hardly noteworthy - that kind of thing is best treated in summary fashion lest each bio article about the middle east partisans become a WP:COATRACK or litany of controversial statements.  Siegman's political leanings are already covered in summary form at the top of the section that Siegman is a left-wing (with respect to the field of Israeli politics) figure critical of Israel's actions. Wikidemon (talk) 17:52, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Third opinion
I have taken a third opinion request for this page. I shall reply after receiving at least two summaries below. I have made no previous edits on Henry Siegman and have no known association with the editors involved in this discussion. The third opinion process is informal and I have no special powers or authority apart from being a fresh pair of eyes.

wants to offer a third opinion. To assist with the process, editors are requested to summarize the dispute in a short sentence below.


 * Viewpoint by User:Wikidemon: The disputed material does not match the source, and if made to conform becomes a WP:WEIGHT and possibly WP:POV violation. There is one known reliable secondary source, a Toronto Star article that traces the history of the statement erroneously attributed to Moshe Ya'alon.  In addition there are quite a few sources that are unreliable, either because they are advocacy / opinions by middle eastern partisans in the business of undermining each other, or because they are the actual examples of the misquote being repeated and, as such, primary sources that if analyzed by Wikipedia editors would constitute original research.  What the Star piece establishes is most importantly that the quote is false -- Ya'alon never said it.  According to the Star, CAMERA believes it to have originated out of a 2002 Siegman interview of Ya'alon.  However, (per the Star) in that interview Ya'alon did not say it, nor did Siegman claim he said it.  Rather, Siegman wrote a sentence characterizing Ya'alon's opinion on the matter, which itself contained only a two word quotation that Siegman attributed to Ya'alon.  The Star piece does not explain what happened next but reading between the lines (which itself would be WP:SYNTH), some other unnamed writer(s) repeated Seigman's sentence but put the entire sentence Siegman wrote inside the quote marks and attributed them to Ya'alon.  The Star piece mentions that subsequently it was repeated around the world, and cited to the Siegman interview, until CAMERA noticed it and convinced a number of major newspapers to issue corrections.  The bottom line is that if we're going to include something at all it should be faithful to the source and not intimate that Siegman created the misquote - rather, it arose from a sentence written by Siegman through the intervention of an unnamed party.  Is that a significant enough issue to include in his bio article?  I don't think so.  If you google around and look for sources we have hundreds of major mentions of Siegman, his opinions, writings, and career.  We have a single article that describes his apparently unwitting involvement in this incident.  It seems out of place to single him out for this amidst all the significant events in his career.  This misquote is itself notable, and indeed I have just added this to two articles, Moshe Ya'alon and Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America.  Perhaps it also belongs in List of misquotations.  But as a weight matter and to avoid redundancy I don't think the misquote needs to be described in the articles about every person and every publication or organization that had anything to do with it - that would be dozens of articles.  Doing so, however unintentionally, becomes a POV issue because it mirrors the undue attention of the partisan commentators who disparage each other by beating the drums against their ideological opponents, accusing them of intellectual fraud, lying, repeating untruths, etc.  That's how the game of middle-east propaganda seems to be played but that's not how we ought to organize our information here on Wikipedia.  Wikidemon (talk) 18:10, 14 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Viewpoint by (name here): ....


 * Third opinion by Keithbob: ...

criticism - removed section - explanation
Removed the section for the following reasons:
 * WP:BLP - "We must get the article right. Be very firm about the use of high quality references." - see below, it all comes back to this, in the end.
 * WP:coatrack - use of the Middle East Quarterly "article" (note sarcastic quotation marks - really, it's a special character)isn't appropriate in a BLP. It's far too biased. Surely if this criticism is so widespread, a neutral third party covering the controversy can be found? Coatrack articles aren't appropriate for BLPs.
 * WP:RS - "Opinion pieces are only reliable for statements as to the opinion of their authors, not for statements of fact" - use of editorials is not appropriate in a BLP. 3 of 4 sources in this section are editorials. If he is the subject of widespread controversy, then neutral 3rd party sources can easily be found which cover the issue. Editorials are about opinions, not the news. BLPs don't benefit from a few opinions. Facts - that's what Wiki is about.
 * WP:WEIGHT - undue weight given to a few critical sources. Clearly lacking in balance. Complete lack of representation of sources contesting the "anti-Israeli" claims.

This section needs a re-write. Removed the section in its entirety, as it breaks multiple WP:BLP guidelines.

Posted to WP:BLPN as well, if someone wishes to contest this. GrizzledOldMan (talk) 01:03, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * The same issue affects at least three five articles right now - I'm posting links over at BLP/N, and wonder if the discussions should be consolidated.Wikidemon (talk) 07:01, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * BLPN does not seem to be working. I have referred the matter to AN/I here. Wikidemon (talk) 23:00, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Defending falsehood on Wikipedia
So, the argument being made by the users writing above is that there is no problem with slandering Moshe Ya'alon by allowing this page to carry a defamatory quotation atrributed him to him by Henry Siegman to appear on this page even though the New York Times has determined that the quote is BOGUS.Historicist (talk) 23:13, 3 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Please keep this to AN/I. GrizzledOldMan (talk) 23:26, 3 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I believe that editors coming to this page ought to understand the extend of falsehood being published on Wikipedia. Quotations that have been verified as bogus by the New York Times are unencclopedic.  If User:GrizzledOldMan and USER:Wikidemon are sincere in their protestations that they wish to uphold Wikipedia standards fo rreliable, souced nformation, they will insert information form the New York times establishing that the quote it a fabrication.  Their failure to do so established that they are simply interested in using Wikipedia to promote anti-Israel propaganda.Historicist (talk) 02:16, 4 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Knock off the personal attacks. WP:BLP guidelines must be adhered to. The sources you provided are not reliable sources for a variety of reasons, all of which have been adequately discussed. If you want to include pejorative assertions, you'll need to back them up. You should note that an approximately equal number of critics think Wikipedia is a Zionist propaganda mill as think that Wikipedia is a hotbed of anti-Semitic fervor. So we're doing something right. GrizzledOldMan (talk) 02:36, 4 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm reporting the latest WP:FORK of personal attacks to the ongoing AN/I discussion. We should keep it for the record, but I suggest that once this all closes down we should consolidate, close, and/or archive this stuff.  This kind of argument and incivility disrupts any real effort to edit this article. Wikidemon (talk) 03:00, 4 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Let's look at the facts. In the excerpt from the New York Review of Books in the Wikipedia entry, Siegman quotes former IDF chief of staff Moshe Ya’alon as saying that the peace proces is a fiction and the purpose of the occupation is "to sear deep into the consciousness of Palestinians that they are a defeated people." Siegman apparently got the quote from Rashid Khalidi, who he cited. Khalidi used the quote in a New York Times Op-Ed, but when CAMERA challenged the quote, and the NYT asked Khalidi to verify it, he could not.


 * According to Editors' Note: January 30, 2009:


 * An Op-Ed article on Jan. 8, on misperceptions of Gaza, included an unverified quotation. A former Israeli Defense Forces chief of staff, Moshe Yaalon, was quoted as saying in 2002 that “the Palestinians must be made to understand in the deepest recesses of their consciousness that they are a defeated people.” This quotation, while cited widely, does not appear in the Israeli newspaper interview to which it is usually attributed. Its original source has not been found, and thus it should not have appeared in the article.


 * According to CAMERA, Khalidi uses the same quote in his book Resurrecting Empire, citing in the footnote an interview with Ari Shavit in Haaretz Magazine, August 30, 2002, as quoted in Arnaud de Borchgrave, "Road Map or Road Rage?" Washington Times, May 28, 2003.


 * CAMERA links to the original 2-part Haaretz interview at and.


 * I just read both parts and the quote does not appear in the interview.


 * Historicist is arguing that the quote from Ya'alon in Henry Siegman is incorrect. Indeed, if you look in the original interview, it's not there. That's WP:OR, but Historicist wasn't depending only on WP:OR, he also used the WP:RS of CAMERA. I share the outrage of the WP community at CAMERA's unethical manipulation of WP, but no one has ever challenged the accuracy of their research, and in any even their research is footnoted, can be verified, and is true in this case.


 * Historicist said in his entry that the quotation was "demonstrated to be a fabrication" and calls it "bogus". This language violates WP:NPOV, WP:WTA, and several other rules. There is no evidence that it was a "fabrication" rather than a simple mistake. However, if Historicist rewrote his addition in proper neutral language, he would have a point. Khalidi does seem to have misquoted the Haaretz interview, and Siegman seems to have used the quote without verifying it with the original source.


 * I don't think WP:BLP can, should or was intended to prevent an editor from pointing out that the subject of a biography made a mistake in his scholarship, and this mistake meets the WP burden of proof. It's a matter of judgment how much detail it deserves, but it certainly belongs in WP under WP:NPOV and I haven't seen a good reason for deleting it. It's WP:CENSOR to eliminate the entire criticism section, or to eliminate all criticism of Siegman.


 * Conversely, the quote attributed to Ya'alon is defamatory, and if it's unverifiable, it must be removed or (as I would prefer) it should be included with a correction, under [[WP:BLP].


 * I would add out that I admire Siegman, I'm on his side politically, I am horrified by Ya'alon's views, and I think CAMERA engages in unethical PR practices. Furthermore, I've seen the Israeli government itself distort quotes like this deliberately, rather than accidentally, and there are Israeli generals who have expressed sentiments just as bad as the ones Yaalon is accused of saying. If Khalidi had to withdraw the Ya'alon quote, he could have easily found another one.


 * But I don't believe in allowing false statements to remain uncorrected, and I don't believe I'm serving Siegman by allowing his mistakes to go uncorrected. I must concede that Historicist is right on this one. Nbauman (talk) 04:29, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Exactly what is right about Historicist's claims? He is using this page to justify misbehavior, for which he is under scrutiny on an administrative notice board.  On the substance, of course we should not unquestioningly repeat a quotation the validity of which is under serious question.  I have never said otherwise.  I too am concerned (but not convinced yet) that as the New York Times reports a widely repeated anti-Palestinian quote by an Israeli official turns out quite possibly to be something he never said.  That is not the material Historicist added, though.  He has added to this and five other articles (so far discovered) a claim that Khalidi "fabricated" the "bogus" quotation, as part of a long-running series of edits to discredit Khalidi.  Is it really the job of Wikipedia to track down everyone who repeated the misquote and tar them based on unreliable sources?  The objection to Historicist's conduct is the poor sourcing, edits that do not comport with the source, and edit warring and incivility (calling me and another, an anti-Israel propagandist) against those who disagree with him.   Back to misquotes - they are a very interesting thing.  One of the most famous quotes in America, "what's good for General Motors is good for America" (or many variants thereof), is a complete misquote of something Charles Erwin Wilson said, and turns its meaning on its head.  It is repeated in article after article, book after book, yet almost always incorrectly.  The true history of the aphorism / quote is a very interesting, encyclopedic quote.  And of course it would be wrong to repeat the quote without questioning.  However, we do not go to the BIO article of each person who repeated the quote, and attach a poorly sourced partisan complaint about each person who repeated it.  Historicist's material is a coatrack, and does not even comport with the (unreliable) sources.  Wikidemon (talk) 05:02, 4 February 2009 (UTC)


 * The problem remains, however, of whether or not it is indeed a mistake. The NYT only stated that they could not verify it, and that the quotation "... does not appear in the Israeli newspaper interview to which it is usually attributed. Its original source has not been found, and thus it should not have appeared in the article.".
 * Isn't it a little odd that the quotation has been floating around for the better part of 6 years, and has only now been questioned? Perhaps CAMERA is correct - but given the facts in this matter, the issue needs to be approached carefully.
 * It must be noted that the source of the quotation has not been established - "usually attributed" does not mean "the definite source". It may have come from another interview. It may be the result of a question of translation from Hebrew. Who knows? But the fact remains that the NYT did not claim it to be a fabrication. All they said, is that they couldn't verify the source.
 * As well, WP:WEIGHT has to be taken into account. Everyone makes mistakes. How important is this, in view of the lifetime body of Siegman's work? Does it really warrant inclusion? Is it significant enough? Einstein surely made enough mathematical errors over the course of his career - but are they worthy enough of representation in his bio?GrizzledOldMan (talk) 05:14, 4 February 2009 (UTC)


 * What's right about Historicist's claim is that the quote is wrong, and that can be easily verified by reading the Ha'aretz interview. He properly cited CAMERA.


 * Historicist is wrong to use the terms "fabricated" and "bogus", because that violates WP:NOR and WP:NPOV. His edit can easily be revised to eliminate those violations. However, he's right on the claim that the quote is wrong.


 * As for WP:WEIGHT, it's true that everybody makes mistakes, and that it's a minor mistake in Siegman's career. However, merely because someone has a distinguished career, it doesn't follow that we are not allowed to mention his mistakes. WP:NPOV requires that we mention his mistakes. And since it is a mistake, it's important to correct the record, so that people won't continue to believe the mistake.


 * Furthermore, WP must be fair to Ya'alon and correct the mistake. Evil as his politics may be, we should criticize Ya'alon for what he actually said, not for what he never said. Nbauman (talk) 14:45, 4 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Let's separate two things. There is a behavior matter of BLP violations, edit warring and personal attacks.  Historicist began this section as a personal attack on me and another editor (and elsewhere, other editors) as part of a matter that is now on AN/I.  Secondarily, there is a question of a questionable quote attributed to Ya'alon.  You may be misreading thigns to say that Historicist is right - your position there is closer to mine than Historicist's.  We cannot include the quote in the encyclopedia, and it is reasonable at the appropriate place of the encyclopedia to say what the sole reliable source says on the subject, that the widely repeated quote is unverifiable and not contained in the article to which it is usually attributed.  Nobody is arguing otherwise.  We cannot come out and say the quote is wrong because that is not sourced, and for reasons discussed elsewhere it is not necessarily wrong.  If we want to start treating different people's career mistakes in their biographical articles and in the articles about others, they must be reliably sourced as: (1) occurring; (2) relevant to the subject of the article, i.e. their biography or as in this case the biography of someone else; and (3) demonstrated to be of sufficient weight to be significant enough to mention; (4) phrased in a neutral way; and (5) described in a way supported by the sources.  Reprinting CAMERA's partisan hit pieces on the subject does not satisfy #1 through 5, but we do not even get there because there is no reliable source for any of this at the moment.  Again, though, this is primarily a Wiki behavior issue.  If people were behaving we could have a single, civil discussion on the Ya'alon page about how to phrase the matter.  Wikidemon (talk) 17:00, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Nbauman seems to have a legitimate point. But the question appears more complex that what we can gather from CAMERA and co's twisted deconstruction of Khalidi and Siegman's use of this phrase. It is far wider than them: you find this phrase, at least in English form, as representing Ya'alon's attitude, in many translations of Israeli authors and historians of high standing. To give but one example, Peri, after expatiating on Ya'alon's admission he thought Palestinians a cancer on Israeli and IDF measures against them a form of chemotherapy (something Baruch Kimmerling described as akin to the language of der Stürmer), has the following
 * "‘Ya’alon contended, in the war against the Palestinians in Judea, Samaria, and the Gaza Strip, Israel must attain a clear-cut, decisive victory. “We must win this conflict in such a way that the Palestinians will realize that they have no prospect of gaining anything by means of terror seared into their consciousness.’ Yoram Peri,Generals in the Cabinet Room: How the Military Shapes Israeli Policy, US Institute of Peace Press, 2006 p.140-1"
 * That is poor grammar of course, and vague. The word 'sear' here is translated by Meron Benvenisti's translator as 'engraved'. Both take the sense contextually to mean that the kind of actions the IDF must take in a conflict with the Palestinians must be calibrated to have such a powerful impact of winning might that the use of (further) terror by the Palestinians will be shown to be futile, since it only worsens their plight. The 'sear into their consciousness' is a lesson the IDF military preponderance of pure power conducts. If 'terror' is associated with the Palestinians, the eradication of their use of terror (the technique of weak and colonized societies against the overwhelming military superiority of their colonizers) is attained by military means so ferocious, that the Palestinians will renounce their version of terror. So, CAMERA is twisting things, and, if the quote about chemotherapy, which he uttered on a different occasion some weeks before, is taken into context, he thought of IDF military suppression as akin to chemical means to extirpate a cancer associated with the Palestinians (very like the vermin disinfection of another age's antisemitic metaphor).
 * So neither CAMERA nor the NYT (not in my book a very reliable source) are by any means definitive. One needs to look at the original interview and other sources in Hebrew, to eliminate the ambiguities. Nbauman's point is that some journalistic synthesis has made into a quote what looks like a (reasonable) interpretation of Ya'alon's words, and the point is just. Peri, in conclusion, says that this interview created an uproar in Israeli, understandably so, since the verb 'sear' did 'remind(ed) some of the numbers the Nazis seared on the arms of Jews in concentration camps.’ Apologies for the intrusion.Nishidani (talk) 17:49, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * That's a very interesting point, and a little hard to figure out. Are you saying that although the original quote may or may not be something Ya'alon actually said, his notoriety for saying harsh things about Palestinians is wider than the one quote?  If that is so, CAMERA's war of words against Khalidi and other writers would be more than a little disingenuous, and the fact that a single one of his many statements is misreported, even if true, is not terribly significant.  The core encyclopedic point about Ya'alon in that scenario is not that a quote was misreported but that he says a lot of controversial stuff that offends people.  All the more reason why this issue is really a matter for his own biography, and not the biographies of all of the individuals who CAMERA perceives as Ya'alon's detractors.  Wikidemon (talk) 18:06, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * The CAMERA and Commentary pieces were jejunely fatuous, since they try to get at Khalidi (who should however have been wary of quoting Arnaud de Borchgrave, a notoriously unreliable source), for something several better sources, all from within the Jewish/Israeli community, actually attribute to Ya'alon. I won't be comnfortable with what is attributed to Ya'alon until the original Hebrew is construed, word for word, by a competent person of undoubted integrity, to give us the meaning. What I say is that 'implicitly' what he appears to be saying is what the Borchgrave/Khalidi/Siegman 'quote' has him say, only that, so far, that 'quote' is a synthetic interpretation of Ya'alon's words, and not directly something he said. So, if one is to mock Khalidi for taking this parsing of Ya'alon's words as a quote, then you have to go an edit several other biographies of people like Kimmerling, Jacqueline Rose, Meron Benvenisti etc.etc., to say that either they misread Ya'alon, or had harsh views about what he said in that interview, which would be nonsensical. It's stuff for Ya'alon bio, and no one else's. CAMERA is using the synthetic interpretation's misprision to get at Khalidi, because he is Palestinian, because he was associated with the PLO (as Livni, Olmert, Netanyahu and dozens of PMs and politicians in Israel were associated with, or are direct heirs of, groups like Stern/Lehi and the Irgun), and particularly because he is an academic of some considerable distinction, and one puts as many of them down as erratic to ease the criticism on Israel's policies.
 * One should note however that Ya'alon (I haven't checked the page) had a ratrher queer seesaw attitude to Palestinians, supporting negotations and then pressing for a policy of state terror against them, and then backing off. In fact, Sharon clashed with him, and refused to give him a one year extension of his three year term, appointing the notorious Halutz to take his place, in 2005.Nishidani (talk) 18:30, 4 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I didn't know about the significance of "sear" but I did wonder whether Ya'alon could possibly have been unaware that the Nazis used the same metaphor of "cancer" to describe the Jews. The truth is bad enough. Why defend an incorrect quote?


 * The danger of using an incorrect quote is that you can get called on it in a debate, and it distracts you from the real issues. But Siegman brought it up. You can't just delete the whole issue entirely, because then people will come upon the false quote again, assume Siegman's credibility, and repeat it. So we must include the quote, and the rebuttal. Nbauman (talk)
 * My problem is that I am not happy with evidence from CAMERA or Commentary on this, esp. since Yoram Peri's book is an intimate account of the IDF's personalities and workings, and appears to at least suggest that though the words Khalidi and Siegman take as a 'citation' from Ya'alon are not quite that, they do represent a fair synthesis of his position. I really think, without violating WP:OR that the original article in Hebrew needs looking into. Peri does say that 'sear into their consciousness' was an idiom which surprised the Israeli public at the time, but which was familiar to IDF officials, part of their jargon for describing what their extreme measures were intended to effect in suppressing the intifadas. I have it somewhere in my files, but it was used in the months after the Al-Aqsa intifada broke out, to justify shooting 1900 Palestinian protestors in just five days. These tactics, of shooting at crowds, and injuring with live or rubber ammunition hundreds of people otherwise demonstrating against an occupation, were described by one IDF man as designed to 'sear into the consciousness' of the Palestinians that such resistance was futile. Nishidani (talk) 18:54, 4 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Actually, I think this should be fixed up on Ya'alon and Arnaud de Borchgrave's page. It was attributed to the former, and, as far as we know, everyone else, Siegman, Khalidi and many others, were misled by de Borchgrave, who, if I recall from the 1980s was a media-manipulator famous for his false 'leaks' to the press on the big power game, and its secrets. It's in keeping with his record, his responsibility, and the dour shabby chapter should be noted on his page. He started the hare, perhaps a chunk of the hare that bit him would close the circuit.Nishidani (talk) 19:07, 4 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Interesting proposal, but it leaves two problems unsolved


 * 1) siegman's page still has a fake quotation, one that reverses the plain sense of Ya'alon's actual remrks. It requires ammendment of some sort.
 * 2) de Borchgrave's is the first use of the quotation that has yet been discovered. However, it does not have a footnote.  Khalidi's book is the earliest to have cited the problematic quotation back to a specific source.   Times policy is to phone the author and give him an opportunity to produce the missing source.  The thing is fabricated citations are as unethical as fabricated quotations.  The Times and CAMERA have got him dead to rights.  This is not trivial, we all stake our reputations every day on getting the footnotes and the sources and the quotations right.  And Rashid published this fake quotation FOUR separate times.Historicist (talk) 19:24, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * The Ya'alon page already contains a section that describes the quote as being widely repeated but unverifiable. That is the only statement so far with a reliable source.  I suggest we redact the quotation from this article, in that it is legitimately questioned.  To go beyond that would require adequate sourcing, which I have not seen so far.  We're not going to play by CAMERA's rules of character and reputation assassination.  Wikidemon (talk) 20:40, 4 February 2009 (UTC)


 * ‘Ya’alon contended, in the war against the Palestinians in Judea, Samaria, and the Gaza Strip, Israel must attain a clear-cut, decisive victory. “We must win this conflict in such a way that the Palestinians will realize that they have no prospect of gaining anything by means of terror seared into their consciousness.’’ Peri p.140-1
 * ‘to sear deep into the consciousness of Palestinians that they are a defeated people’ Siegman.


 * Siegman's quote is a synthesis. There is no doubt from the several remarks attributed to him in that period that he pushed for a crushing defeat of the Palestinians, whose desire for throwing off the yoke of being an occupied people he interpreted as 'terroristic', treated as terroristic, and that in wishing for 'clear cut victory', which in layman's language means a 'comprehensive defeat for the Palestinians', he wanted that victory of Israel, and the defeat of its adversary, the Palestinians, to be 'seared into the consciousness' of the latter as a message, 'terror' will get you nowhere.
 * Siegman understood precisely what Ya'alonì's remarks meant. But Siegman's quote, while paraphrasing Ya'alon's thinking, cannot be cited as a direct quote of Ya'alon's own words, because it is a synthesis of them. It is a misquotation (not a 'fake', which implies deliberate fraud) which happens to represent more or less Ya'alon's views. The two pieces from Commentary and CAMERA are rather pathetic, selective and evincing a poor capacity to construe the drift of a passage, hence their conclusion, which Historicist shares, that Khalidi and Siegman have Ya'alon saying the opposite of what the latter meant. The only error really was to put this in quotation marks. As a gloss it fits Ya'alon's trend of thinking perfectly.
 * One can briefly ref. the quotation Siegman makes to Ya'alon's page, noting that it has not be verified as coming from Ya'alon. Anything more than this smacks of CAMERA/Commentary charaqcter assassination, to which Wiki should not be an accomplice. In the real world, most authorities get things wrong (the New York Times' Judith Miller for years, to note one of many cases in their poor record for checking facts). Academics from right to left, Zionists and anti-Zionists. et idem indignor quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus? Nishidani (talk) 20:56, 4 February 2009 (UTC)


 * This argument needs to be reeled in...
 * As it stands, we have precisely TWO sources to use - the NYT note and CAMERA's write-up. That's all.
 * Here's what we DON'T have, contrary to Historicist claims-
 * 1. NYT didn't say it's a fake.
 * 2. NYT didn't say it was a fabrication.
 * 3. NYT didn't say that it examined the original interview transcripts, much less identified the source,
 * 4. NYT didn't say Siegman was contacted
 * 5. NYT didn't say what steps it had made to verify the quote.
 * 6. The source of the quotation has not been positively identified
 * 7. The CAMERA article uses the English translation of the to which is it usually attributed (note: not _THE_ interview, which has not been established) interview, not the original (Hebrew?) - working with translations is a perilous business. The accuracy of the English translation has not been established.
 * So that's it. A quote that hasn't been verified. Reading any further into it would be WP:OR. Discounting CAMERA's slanderous language, what do we _REALLY_ have?
 * 1. A NYT editor's note which says it can't verify the quotation
 * 2. A single unverified quotation used by various writers, which given the history of the IDF, could easily be replaced by another without making a ripple.
 * At best, it's a very minor blip. At worst, it's another attempt by CAMERA to skew the truth.
 * What I don't get, is how this is really important - If Tolkien made a spelling mistake in LotR, is that REALLY worthy of mention? Given the volume of work of Siegman and others, it's about as relevant.
 * Nbauman stated that WP:RS does not mean accuracy - which clearly contradicts Wikipedia guidelines. I think this has to be kept in mind when reading his arguments. Contrary to Wikipedia guidelines, he seems to be happy to include any material, regardless of whether or not it is true.GrizzledOldMan (talk) 21:23, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Very well put, and a convincing argument that crystallizes my gut reaction that the proposed content is somewhere between marginal and simply wrong. A minor nit, though.  The "verifiability, not truth" maxim is crucial to Wikipedia but it does not work the same forward as in reverse.  As a threshold to inclusion, any information here has to be verifiable.  We need more than to know in our heart of hearts (or by original research, assertion, claim of authority, unreliable source, primary sources, etc.) that something is true - it has to be citeable to reliable sources.  The converse is not true, though.  Not everything that is verifiable is fit for inclusion.  Among other things, if something is verifiable, yet there is strong evidence that it is untrue, it is best to leave it out or only include it with some care and qualification.  To argue that something is too dubious to be reported we do not need reliable sourcing to say it is untrue.  Whether something is true or not is a fair topic of conversation here on the talk page, where we do not have the same formalized content rules.  A simple example, suppose the New York Times says "Bill Clinton and Rush Limbaugh never met each other", yet we have a photograph of the two shaking hands.  We should probably remove, or at least question, any content sourced to the New York Times statement.  However, we should not start WP:SYNTH or WP:OR on the article page by saying something like "although the Times says the two never met,[cite Times] they did in fact meet [cite photo]".  A photo, without commentary, is not very reliable because among other things it could be faked, it may not mean what it seems to mean, it is a primary source, we do not know the date, etc.  That's a simple, obvious issue.  We have a much bigger problem if we try to play detective here, translating stuff from Hebrew, doing a survey of the literature, arguing matters of academic standards, speculating what the Times and Khalidi did based on how newspapers normally handle fact checking, etc.  Wikidemon (talk) 00:35, 5 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Critical point: It is not accurate to say that the Ya'alon quote, "to sear deep into the consciousness of Palestinians that they are a defeated people," is merely unverified. It can be proven false, because it was taken from a published interview, which is verifiable online. Nbauman (talk) 02:40, 5 February 2009 (UTC)


 * State your source. Where does it state that the interview in question is, as you claim, _THE_ interview? Borchgrave never specified the exact interview, much less whether he used the English or the Hebrew edition.GrizzledOldMan (talk) 02:48, 5 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Even if we knew which interview it applied to, we would need a secondary source rather than Wikipedians' skills of deduction and analysis, to establish that it is "false". Otherwise we would have to be very careful and literal in wording anything we obtained from the source document, so as not to inject opinion, original research, synthesis, analysis, undue weight, etc.Wikidemon (talk) 03:15, 5 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Bah humbug - I was hoping to catch him trying to defend the difference between the wordings of CAMERA and NYT.
 * In any case, I think the WP:WEIGHT applies here, with additional importance due to it being a WP:BLP:
 * From Jimbo Wales, paraphrased from this post from September 2003 on the WikiEN-l mailing list:


 * If a viewpoint is in the majority, then it should be easy to substantiate it with reference to commonly accepted reference texts;
 * If a viewpoint is held by a significant minority, then it should be easy to name prominent adherents;
 * If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small (or vastly limited) minority, it does not belong in Wikipedia regardless of whether it is true or not and regardless of whether you can prove it or not, except perhaps in some ancillary article.
 * Majority? Nope, we can rule that out. Significant minority? Hrm - nope, aside from a couple of extremist sources, this issue seems to be a non-issue. Extremely small? Yep, that applies. Regardless of whether or not it is true or proven, is not worthy of inclusion in Wikipedia. Unless more and better sources can be found to back up the claims of CAMERA, imo it has to stay out.GrizzledOldMan (talk) 04:59, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * As to WP:WEIGHT, CAMERA's views are essentially the views of the Israeli government. That is a significant minority. Nbauman (talk) 14:46, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * State your source where the Israeli government contested the quote. CAMERA is not the official spokesperson for the IDF, nor the Israeli government. GrizzledOldMan (talk) 20:30, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Rules of citation and quotation

 * Quotations must have sources. It is never legitimate to quote anyone unless you are able to provide a citation setablishing where he wrote or said whatever it is you are quoting him as having said.


 * Op-eds do not have footnotes.


 * When you write an op-ed, you are sesponisble for being able to provide, on demand, sources setablishing the validity of all facs and quotations in your essay.


 * The standard procedure for a newspaper in the position of the New York Times is to ask the author of an op-ed who used a quote the validity of which has been quesitoned, to provide a citation. Now, while no one can tell what Ya'alon said to the mirror while shaving, only a citation to a reliable source counts.  Here, Rashid Khalidi had two problems.  The first is that the sense of this quotation is the reverse of the sense of Ya'alon's remarks in the article that Khalidi cited the article to.   The second is that although he was given sufficient time to search every Ya'alon interview and every speech and every article, Khalidi could not find a ssource, nor could anyone else.


 * It is not at all unusual for quotations to begin to circulate widely, fool serious people, and turn out to have been misattributed, or simply fabricated. Take a look  at Serenity Prayer Alleged Ouze Merham interview of Ariel Sharon (it fooled quite a few writers) A land without a people for a people without a land (that one fooled both Rashid Khalidi and Edward Said).   Fred R. Shapiro, who unmasked the false attribution of the Serenity Prayer,  is currently compiling a book about fabricated quotations.  He is including the fabricated Ya'alon quotation, along with the three I just linked to. (He invites the public to send in fabricated quotations.)


 * I recognize the difficulty of proving a negative.  However, when a quotation cannot be verified, it cannot be used.


 * The Siegman article requires a correction to stating that According to the New York Times,  the quotation used by Siegman  cannot be traced to Moshe Ya'alonHistoricist (talk) 13:28, 5 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Here's the edit that was deleted:


 * ''...an occupation whose goal, according to the former IDF chief of staff Moshe Ya’alon, is ‘to sear deep into the consciousness of Palestinians that they are a defeated people’. [15] are a defeated people’.


 * ''The Ya’alon quotation cited by Siegman above was reported to be unverifiable by the New York Times,[9] and did not appear in the interview where he is usually attributed to have said it. [10] The fabricated quotation is traced by some to journalist Arnaud de Borchgrave, [11]; [12] and by others to Siegman, neither of whom provided a citation. [13] A citation was apparently first provided by historian Rashid Khalidi in his 2004 book Resurrecting Empire, to an interview in Ha’aretz where, according to the New York Times, the quote cannot be found. [14] What Ya’alon actually said in the cited interview was: “The facts that are being determined in this confrontation - in terms of what will be burned into the Palestinian consciousness - are fateful. If we end the confrontation in a way that makes it clear to every Palestinian that terrorism does not lead to agreements, that will improve our strategic position. On the other hand, if their feeling at the end of the confrontation is that they can defeat us by means of terrorism, our situation will become more and more difficult.” [15]


 * Could we state this more concisely, in a neutral way that follows WP rules and is acceptable to everybody here? How about,


 * ''Several critics have complained that Ya'alon never said those words, or at least that the quote cannot be verified. [footnotes]


 * We all agree on that, right? Nbauman (talk) 15:11, 5 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Er, the Times is not exactly a "critic". How about:  Attempts to verify the quotation have failed, and critics assert that Ya'alon never said those words. With footnotes to both the Times and CAMERA.   CAMERA because it has links enabling the curious to judge for themselves.  Historicist (talk) 17:28, 5 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Quotations must have sources, true. There is a quote from Siegman, that is duly sourced. It is not true, I think, that quotations within quotations themselves, must be sourced. Wiki editors are not held to any responsibility for verifying or sourcing quotations in a statement that forms the body of a cited text. Or, have I missed something?Nishidani (talk) 16:04, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Certainly. Quoting peopple quoting other people incorrectly is a delightful parlor game, and legitimate in scholarly writing, Wikipedia, The New York Times and elsewhere.Historicist (talk) 17:20, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, where then is the wiki rule that says wiki editors must, should, may or can annotate texts that are cited for an author's views to correct that author's quotations (the quotation inside a citation)?Nishidani (talk) 18:00, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Speaking of citations, this passage should be on Ya'alon's page:
 * "‘In Ya’alon’s view, all of Israeli society needed to show unity and determination to defeat the Palestinians, or, in the language of an LIC (Low intensity Conflict), “To prove to the Palestinians that their use of violence will not lead to a change in the aim of (our) civilian society, but rather the reverse, will cause Palestinian society to pay so high a price that continuing the war is not worthwhile.” Israel needed to come out of the current round of conflict a clear-cut winner, he believed,” to engender a change in the mindset of the opposing side.” Such a change is attainable “only by wearing down the enemy through a wide arc of means, both civilian – including political, social, and economic – and militart.” . .Additionally, Ya’alon opposed using “intifada” to describe the events then erupting because he did not view them as a spontaneous popular uprising; instead he described them as a “continuation of the War of Independence of 1948”."


 * "While and LIC does not involve the totality of military force, it does involve a totality of a different sort. And LIC is not just a battle between armies but a conflict between two societies, involving the psyche, consciousness, and worldview of each . .In an LIC, effort is not directed at the physical assets of the enemy but at its national and moral strength; the war effort is directed at a nation’s consciousness, and it attempts to compromise the enemy’s faith in its ability to attain its own war aims.’ Yoram Peri, Generals in the Cabinet Room: How the Military Shapes Israeli Policy, US Institute of Peace Press, 2006 p.143"


 * ".” The reasons for this are ideological, religious, and cultural; this therefore suggests that peace initiatives are a waste of time, and that in their place it is necessary to devote ourselves to “engraving upon the Palestinian consciousness” that Israel is invincible.’ Meron Benvenisti, Son of the Cypresses: Memories, Reflections, and Regrets from a Political Life, tr. Maxine Kaufman-Lacusta, University of California Press, 2007p.149"


 * As both these analyses show, Peri and Benvenisti read the Hebrew text as meaning the Palestinians were to be 'defeated' or so badly burnt by the exercise of a combination of IDF power and political and social sapping of Palestinian 'moral strength' that they would finally be convinced that, as Benvenisti put it, Israel is invincible. Siegman, Khalidi and the rest have understood perfectly what Ya'alon meant, as have Peri, Benvenisti and many others. It's simply that the 'quotation' is not verbatim, but an accurate paraphrase of the drift of his thinking, as expressed in his talk before the Rabbis and with Shavit. As long as the Moshe Ya'alon page doesn't simply cite the 'unverifiable' point, as if he had been misunderstood, but registers that many Israeli analysts understood his remarks to mean what the imprecise 'quotation' says, I see no objection even to a footnote here, to clarify it is imprecise. It certainly should not be called a 'fabrication'. At best, it is a paraphrase.Nishidani (talk) 17:13, 5 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I want to make sure we're all following the same rules.


 * I've heard newspaper editors say that when you quote a person, that means the person said exactly what is in the quotes, not "something close" to it or what you think he meant. The only exception is that some editors accept "cleaning up" quotes by correcting obviously bad grammar.


 * In the U.S. and other countries, people have won libel suits against newspapers because they were quoted as saying something that was actually a paraphrase. An Israeli government official sued Time magazine because Time's Israel-based reporter quoted the official as saying what the reporter thought he meant, but an examination of the reporter's notes showed that he didn't say it. The New Yorker lost a libel suit in a story about the Freud Archives because the reporter wrote a paraphrase as a quotation.


 * The main reason it's wrong is that it's not true.


 * Do we all agree on that? It's false to put words in quotes if the source didn't actually say those words? Nbauman (talk) 18:52, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * No, I cannot say that as a general matter. Quotes made in Wikipedia articles ought to be attributed correctly, reliably sourced, if possible taken in context, if in translation sourced to a reliable translation, and subject to the vagaries of translation and general clean-up (removing stutters, backtracking, filler words, and other slips of the tongue and brain, and putting into standard English) repeated as close to verbatim as we can.  We don't seem to have a stylistic convention for noting that a quote is really a translation, or has been subject to the general cleanup that always happens, either of which can change the meaning significantly.  Off Wikipedia quotes are a different matter and there is no rule for what to call it.  As interesting and informative as it is to delve into that (i.e. the conclusion that if Ya'alon did not say those exact words he said something very close, and that is what he meant), it is all kind of moot because we are not in the business of textual WP:ANALYSIS.  The quote itself is suspect so we should not repeat it in article space, even as a reprint of someone else's citation.  However, no reliable source says the quote is wrong, nor that the misquote however widely repeated is notable, so there is no sourcing to justify discussing the quote as inaccurate either in article space.  Wikidemon (talk) 19:13, 5 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Nbauman wrote: "The New Yorker lost a libel suit in a story about the Freud Archives because the reporter wrote a paraphrase as a quotation." - um, for someone that preaches accuracy and truth, he has a funny way of showing it. The New Yorker and Janet Malcom, in fact, won the lawsuit. Surely a self-proclaimed journalist can read the headline, "Psychoanalyst Loses Libel Suit Against a New Yorker Reporter"? (bold mine)GrizzledOldMan (talk) 21:11, 5 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Sorry. The New Yorker lost the first trial, and won the second trial and appeal. I know that newspaper editors usually recommend against it. The jury decided that even if it was wrong and distorted, it wasn't libelous. Nbauman (talk) 00:07, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Criticism section restored
This article without criticism section reads as an advertisement, and I am saying it as the person who created the article and most of its content. The criticism section is urgently needed to balance the article and make it NPOV. I find it hard to believe that people would consider A. Dershovitz and New York Sun as marginal outlets. Feel free to rewrite the section though. Mhym (talk) 16:30, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I have removed it as a WP:BLP violation, but Historicist has revert warred it back in again. There is not a single reliable source in the entire proposed section, yet it quotes the criticism of strident partisans active in the pro-Israel side of the Palestine/Israel war of words that Siegman and his life work are "propaganda", "fabricating", "sycophantic", and associating with the "anti-semitic".  The burden is on editors proposing new material to justify, source, and obtain consensus for it, not up to the prudent editors on a page to allow coatracks to stand while they make improvements.  Further, BLP violations like this can and should be removed without waiting for discussion.  This should be left out until and unless there is consensus to include something, but as is the section is entirely unusable.  Three editors have reverted, so it is not as if the point is obscure.  Folks, you should know better than this.  Please do not edit war, particularly not on BLP violations and Israel-Palestine matters.  Wikidemon (talk) 18:25, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Hi, coming in as an uninvolved admin. Instead of revert-warring back and forth, how about changing the text to try and find a compromise version? --Elonka 22:04, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * My proposed change is that it be entirely removed because none of the proposed content unusable. As a BLP violation, none of it can stand and none of it should be in the article while we hash it out - there is not a single reliable source among them, and it is simply a coatrack of criticism, something specifically cautioned against in BLP.  Moreover, even setting BLP asside, per the middle letter in WP:BRD a disputed addition does not stand until and unless it gains WP:CONSENSUS.  Putting that in English rather than Wikipedianese, it is a short laundry list of derogatory statements that opponents have said about him, for the most part partisans who make it their careers to disparage opponents of their political cause.  It is not fit material for the encyclopedia.  If a reliable source could be found for the proposition that Siegman has attracted his share of critics, that would be a different matter.  But it is not my duty here on Wikipedia to start hunting for valid material to add to articles to criticize a journalist when a POV editor tries and fails to find some - cleaning up after other editors' messes, and making something that looks like the mess they tried to create but is supportable as something other than a mess, is not part of the duty of patrolling an article.  Wikidemon (talk) 22:14, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

No criticism allowed
USER:Wikidemon is back to his old trick of purging the pages of Israel-bashers of legitimate, well-sourced criticism. Criticism of notable people is allowed if properly sourced and cited. Bringing external criticism of journalists, politicians, and scholars, especially criticism that directly impacts their claims to expertise and careful research, is not only allowed, but necessary to maintain the neutrality of the encyclopedia. See the voluminous criticisms of Alan Dershowitz for example, or the section of criticism on Martin Kramer for another example. We must be careful not to let any criticism section become unduly large and violate WP:UNDUE, but leaving out any criticism is as gross a violation of WP:NPOV as would be putting in unfounded criticism. Wikipedia cannot be used as a soapbox to vilify or whitewash; we bring reliable and verifiable secondary sources (where possible, primary where necessary) and we provide enough data (links, unlinked citations) for the interested reader to follow through, do the research, and make their own conclusion. full disclosure, this comment shameless plagiarized by me from remarks by another editor on the Rashid Khalidi page, another page that User:Wikidemon polices aggressively to remove all material that might show one of Israel's critics in a less than perfect light.Historicist (talk) 17:37, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Take that WP:Civil / WP:NPA violation back now, stop accusing editors of bad faith, and revert the BLP violation in the article space now. I am presently in process of leaving appropriate cautions on your talk page, and bringing this ongoing trouble to WP:AN/I.  Wikidemon (talk) 17:49, 5 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Historicist This is distinct from open controversies between two public figures, as Dershowitz and Finkelstein, for example. This is not a controversy between Siegman and some other public intellectual or advocate for a cause. It is wholly another matter, that of whether it is appropriate for wiki editors to annotate a passage cited from Siegman in which a quotation is made, a quotation that some advocacy sources criticize as 'fabricated'. These are quite distinct issues, and should not be confused. Nishidani (talk) 18:08, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * You are right that it is a distinct, and second, front in the WP:BLP, WP:NPOV, WP:RS, WP:WEIGHT, WP:COAT, etc., violations to have Wikipedia disparage scholars who are not suitably pro-Israel. However, this material has been reverted by three different editors already, and explained as a BLP violation, so there is no excuse to edit war over it, particularly by an editor who is under current AN/I scrutiny over this very thing.  This abusive behavior has gotten intolerable, probably beyond what we can handle without administrative help.  Wikidemon (talk) 18:18, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I myself have long been troubled that disparagement in 'criticism' sections, in the I/P area, greatly outweighs editorial concern for the life or content of the thought of scholars. Few read books, most google for scuttlebutt or 'controversy', usually from advocacy sites. Nishidani (talk) 18:23, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * For what it's worth this new section too accuses a (Jewish? but not sufficiently pro-Israel) author of "fabricating" things. For all their PhDs, think tank appointments, columns, blogs, and editorial columns, the field seems to be a mud wrestling arena where grown men accuse each other of all kinds of technical fouls, looking for anything they can possibly turn into an argument.  It makes the electoral discourse in America look like Masterpiece Theater.  Without reliable sourcing, it brings us down to that level to turn Wikipedia into a mouthpiece for either side.  There is no indication that any of these insults are notable.  For weight and BLP reasons, the fact that "partisan X has said disparagement Y about partisan Z" cannot reasonably be sourced only to X's own writing.Wikidemon (talk) 18:40, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Policies for criticism sections in articles under the WP:BLP umbrella are abundantly clear; don't do it. If there is notable, reliably sourced criticism, then work it into the context of the article. A full section devoted to it is a serious case of undue weight as well. Experienced Wikipedia editors should know better by now. Tarc (talk) 19:24, 5 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Ongoing edit-warring by Historicist documented (in part here - requested page protection at WP:RFP GrizzledOldMan (talk) 20:17, 5 February 2009 (UTC)


 * WP:BLP does not say, "don't do it." BLP Criticism and praise says, "Criticism and praise of the subject should be represented if it is relevant to the subject's notability and can be sourced to reliable secondary sources..." We can include it as a short comment in a neutral tone.


 * I think CAMERA, disagreeable though their politics and ethics may be, are a WP:RS in this matter. The New York Sun is clearly a WP:RS by WP standards. While CAMERA is selective, and I personally think they're fundamentally wrong, I don't think anyone has ever demonstrated that their scholarship was incorrect. They're a partisan group, but I don't think they're extremist for purposes of WP:RS. They would say that B'Tselem and Amnesty International are extremist groups, by that definition, and I think B'Tselem and Amnesty International are clearly WP:RS.


 * As to the reversions and edit warring, we have not resolved this matter. I believe that some kind of note belongs in the entry. I don't believe that it's a BLP violation. There was no resolution on the WP:AN/I notice board. If you did bring disciplinary actions against Historicist, I would defend him by saying that he was trying to prevent a Wikipedia entry from libeling Moshe Ya’alon. I would also defend him by pointing out that the people on this Talk page and WP:AN/I are clearly violating WP:BITE.


 * Historicist, I would warn you in particular not to violate the 3-revert rule WP:3RR, because people can very easily get tripped up by that. I suggest that you read about the Wikipedia dispute resolution process WP:DR and follow that procedure. You might also try to get some advice and help at the WP:WikiProject Israel Palestine Collaboration. I think that if you understand a few simple WP rules, you can make that addition to the Siegman entry, because it certainly belongs.


 * I'm saying this not because I agree with the politics of Historicist or CAMERA -- I strongly disagree -- but because I believe that the truth comes first, and because I've seen intimidation on WP from the other side by hard-line supporters of the right-wing movements in Israel. Nbauman (talk) 20:30, 5 February 2009 (UTC)


 * WP:BITE does not apply. He was clearly and repeatedly warned about his violations before it went to WP:AN/I. GrizzledOldMan (talk) 20:44, 5 February 2009 (UTC)


 * BLP is black and white on this issue. WP:BLP requires that criticism and praise of living individuals be sourced to reliable secondary sources.  In fact, they like that so much they said it twice.  The CAMERA and New York Sun pieces are both not reliable, and clearly not secondary (they are being used to self-source the fact that they have criticized Siegman, which means it is primary sourcing).  CAMERA for part is a partisan extremist that regularly bashes everyone who is not pro-Israel.  The New York Sun is at least an independent middlebrow journalistic institution, but the piece itself is an editorial.  What we would need is a reliable secondary source saying something like "the New York Sun editorial board criticized Siegman..."  Otherwise, if you admit criticism on the encyclopedia just because someone said it we will start looking just as bad as the editorial pages.  I wish that editors wouldn't enable this kind of behavior.  The reason AN/I reports don't resolve anything, and problems like this fester, is that people muck things up by accusing the accuser. By posting the accusation of BITE and confrontation, and suggesting we try to "educate" historicist first before doing anything about it, you're pulling the rug out from under those trying to deal with it.  That tends to sink the administrative action, so we're going to spend hours and hours more dealing with this.  Historicist has had 3+ months of education that he is supposed to find good sources, not edit war over BLP violations, and stop being uncivil.  This is a (hopefully) last stop, not the first stop, in dealing with him.  Wikidemon (talk) 21:50, 5 February 2009 (UTC)


 * How can the decision of whether a source is WP:RS be black and white? Some people think the New York Sun was reliable. Other people think it isn't. They have different ways of evaluating the Sun, and they come to different conclusions. How do you decide whether the Sun is reliable? Do you just look at it and decide, "I think this is unreliable?" You couldn't even begin to make a fair judgment about its reliability without reading it regularly. Reliability is probably the most subjective judgment in Wikipedia. Nbauman (talk) 00:23, 6 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Wikidemon did NOT say that The New York Sun was unreliable. He said that the article itself, being an editorial (see WP:RS - primary sources and editorials) is not appropriate as a RS here. I quite agree with his statement, that the piece itself - the specific piece, to make it abundantly clear - is inappropriate.
 * Going back to WP:RS, "News reporting is distinct from opinion pieces. Opinion pieces are only reliable for statements as to the opinion of their authors, not for statements of fact, and should be attributed in-text. In articles about living persons, only material from high-quality news organizations should be used.". Just in case you still don't understand:
 * 1. It's an editorial. It represents the view of the author and the author alone.
 * 2. WP:RS specifically advises against using editorials in BLPs.
 * 3. The article is a primary source. Again, read WP:RS - "Wikipedia articles should use reliable, third-party, published sources.". WP:BLP goes on to state, "Material about living persons must be sourced very carefully. Without reliable third-party sources, it may include original research and unverifiable statements, and could lead to libel claims.". Surely this is clear enough?


 * Please don't try to confuse the issue by implying that he suggested The New York Sun not to be a reliable source. That's disingenuous and misleading. GrizzledOldMan (talk) 00:53, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

This is no way to edit an article
The outlandishness of things becomes clearer and clearer if one takes a few steps back from the article. What is the purpose of this article, and why is Wikipedia here? We're generating some free content that tries to present the casual interested reader an informative, balanced, comprehensive, neutrally written summary of the state of human knowledge, in this case the life and work of a particular journalist named Henry Siegman. What will they say about him in 50 years? What will they write on his tombstone or obituary? Secondarily, an article like this is a resource for people who want to know more: they can get a brief look by skimming the lede, a better look by reading the whole article, and yet more if they follow the references and external links. Will his tombstone say "Here likes Henry Siegman, he was called names by the New York Sun?" Will it say "Here lies Henry Siegman, who did X, Y, and Z in his life?" Is he a controversial figure? If so, why and how? Did anything in particular that he did cause a great scandal, a great problem with his own career, or some other surprising thing? Darned if anyone knows either way reading any version of this article, and we sure aren't going to know by adding a "criticism" section that says that some pro-Israeli extremists complained about how he used a quote or who he met with. That's like saying that Paris Hilton is an airhead, and quoting Miley Cyrus on the subject. Can't we get some real information from reputable sources? Surely if he is controversial, or subject to a lot of criticism, or has been embroiled in scandals, a major mainstream publication will say so. And if not, perhaps it is not such a big controversy after all.

You want controversy? Here's controversy: "The controversy centers on Mr. Dershowitz's account of a meeting in Warsaw in December 1989 between the two American Jewish leaders and the Roman Catholic Primate of Poland, Jozef Cardinal Glemp. The author says that during the meeting, Mr. Lifton and Mr. Siegman condoned anti-Semitic remarks by Cardinal Glemp." Notice we aren't sourcing Dershowitz complaining about Siegman, we are sourcing the New York Times, in a news article (a book review, actually, but not an editorial) saying that as a matter of fact: (1) there is a controversy; (2) Dershowitz initiated it; and (3) it is over Siegman's allegedly condoning anti-Semitic remarks by Józef Glemp. A paragraph below we can source Glemp (or refer to that section of his biography) were Glemp gets in a dispute with Dershowitz, a lawsuit in fact, over some pretty nasty statements widely considered to be anti-semitic. Now, can we stop whining about sourcing? The reliable secondary sources are out there, you just have to use google (and some people can use Lexis/Nexis, even better). They may not endorse words like "sycophantic" but you will end up with a much more convincing account. Wikidemon (talk) 01:25, 6 February 2009 (UTC)


 * ...but wait, there's more. The New York Times does report that Dershowitz called Siegman "sycophantic." But guess what it also reports.  Siegman says "Mr. Dershowitz's account is a complete fabrication and I feel extremely angry about this".  Siegman also says Dershowitz is "essentially Jewishly illiterate and his ideas are totally uninformed".  Actually, the Times frames the controversy in the opening line as follows: The American Jewish Congress has accused Alan M. Dershowitz of making things up in his best-selling new book, "Chutzpah", which contends that Jews in America have accepted second-class citizenship. Hmm, two sides to the story maybe?  That's the danger of primary sourcing to unreliable sources.  It doesn't matter how many degrees Dershowitz has or that he's a litigious Harvard Law professor - probably exactly because he is a law professor - you cannot take partisans who are in the middle of a dispute as good sources about what the dispute is all about.  After looking into this I am even more concerned than ever that the material people are trying to put into these Israel / Palestine articles is so one sided that it all deserves a lot of scrutiny.  Wikidemon (talk) 01:34, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

CounterPunch quotation
I dug around for a quotation that more or less conveys the meaning of the quotation User:Wikidemon removed here. Might require some massaging of the preceding text, though... It's not my style to use multiple sources in a single paragraph, but going through Wikipedia articles, it seems to be common.

Hrmm - not sure why Wikidemon added a fact tag here - 3 sources cited - how many more does he expect the article to include?

Suggestions/comments/complaints?GrizzledOldMan (talk) 03:47, 6 February 2009 (UTC)


 * A replacement quote would be great. It's an odd situation but I just don't think we should be using a quote that has sourcing problems.  Regarding your second point, a single reliable secondary source would do.  None of the three cites directly supports the claim that "Siegman's works and opinions received a widespread recognition in the media." Radio Free Europe + Jewish Daily Forward + New York Times does not equal "widespread recognition" and I don't think counting articles used as primary sources for the proposition that they are recognizing him is the way to go.  It's actually just like the criticism, but in reverse.  It would be better to find a secondary source that comes out and says he is widely recognized.  But why highlight the issue of recognition at all?  What difference does it make?  I think saying something like "Siegman has been called" - or just "is" because it is a statement of fact in a third party reliable source - "a leading U.S. expert on the Middle East" is a far better introductory sentence.  Sourcing, sourcing.  Reliable and secondary is the best.  Wikidemon (talk) 04:31, 6 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Is CounterPunch a WP:RS? I think it is, but then I also think that CAMERA and the Jewish Press are WP:RS. What could you say about CounterPunch that you couldn't also say about CAMERA and the Jewish Press? I like CounterPunch and I dislike CAMERA and the Jewish Press, but aside from personal and political bias, why don't they all have the same status with WP:RS? Nbauman (talk) 07:17, 6 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Considering it's a quote from Siegman's OWN ARTICLE, how can you say it's NOT WP:RS? You are being entirely unreasonable if you're suggesting that taking one of Siegman's OWN QUOTES from HIS OWN WORK is inappropriate. Don't be silly. GrizzledOldMan (talk) 07:28, 6 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Wikidemon, I'm not sure why you require a specific reference. William Shakespeare's article uses terms like, "widely regarded", and "highly popular" - all of which are highly subjective. Since the term, "widely recognized" is not overly colourful or distracting in the article, I don't see why a citation is necessary... or do you think citations are necessary for William Shakespeare's bio as well? GrizzledOldMan (talk) 08:24, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
 * We may need to visit the Shakespeare article next! Actually, setting aside a few surprisingly quirky things for a featured article, the Shakespeare article does source "widely recognized".  The first of three sources does not and the third is not available online, but the Bevington book spends three pages of introduction describing how wide Shakespeare's regard is.  Anyway, I was not doing it just to difficult.  As a reader I am truly interested in how well known Siegman is, and how well he is received overall.  I'm not satisfied by three disparate examples, one off topic.  Based on that the statement could be mere puffery, especially in a short article that has had sourcing and POV problems, in such a contentious field.  If he's that well regarded, certainly there must be a source to say he is.  I think it's harmless, which is why I didn't just delete the quote.  But the sourcing could be improved, or we could rewrite (or omit) the sentence to fit the sources we do have.  Wikidemon (talk) 09:58, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
 * At least you're not arguing that using one of his own quotes, to express his views on the matter, isn't a reliable source. I really don't follow Nbaum's logic sometimes.
 * Ya, it's puffery. It'd be nice to get a citation on it, but it's pretty harmless for the most part. He's widely published enough, that even without it, it's hard to argue that he's not "widely recognized". GrizzledOldMan (talk) 10:36, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Forget Shakespeare. I tried to modify one 'regarded as' (the greatest dramatist) and have all the bovver boys from Kent to Kingdom Come get the wind up.
 * Nbauman. Counterpunch as an RS has been discussed several times on the relevant page. It's rather different from CAMERA and COMMENTARY, since it hosts a wide range of positions, and has no line except perhaps accepting any muckraking that takes a serious look at the mainstream vision of the world: you have ex-Reaganites on economics (Craig Roberts), retirerd CIA operatives (Christisons), financial analysts from the Hill (Wheeler), academics on monetary theory who come from decades of work at Wall Street as derivative brokers (Michael Hudson), Uri Avnery but also Benny Morris, libertarians, anarchists, policy wonks, top-ranking reporters who actually know the countries they write about etc. Ralph Nader, disaffected Democrats and self-critical Republicans, etc. Cockburn often expresses a critical view of people on the left. That is why I like it, its breadth and willingness to host any deeply thought out dissent within what a superficial reader might think of as a 'leftist rag' (its libertarian outlook is actually non-leftist in many respects). I don't find this hurly burly of critical dissent in the two advocacy or communitarian-defence mags, and therefore think distinctions should be made. Counterpoint does tend indeed to have a basic unity of analysis in regards to Israel and Central and Southern America, reflecting its overall position as a gadfly on the 'Corruptions of Empire'. Occasionally, articles in CAMERA are of value, but too much even there is selective in its corrections. The Rashid Khalidi stuff is a case in point, since it is designed to get at him, as though his slip were indicative of a general error in all pro-Palestinian positions. Those two are far more wedded to a defense of ideological and informational barricades than is Counterpunch.Nishidani (talk) 13:40, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Third Opinion
Please participate in the Third Opinion process for this article currently going on here. 

Neutrality
Siegman has created a notable and politically significant False Moshe Ya'alon quotation. This and other examples of his highly partisan and less-than-honestly-sourced scholarship belong in the article.Historicist (talk) 19:14, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
 * There is no reliable source that backs up your claims. As with your tag on another bio article, this tag is inappropriate.  As I said there I would remove it, and will likely do so once this settles down, but I do not wish to edit war.  Please remove the tag from this and the other BLP, participate in normal editing process, and don't commit BLP violations in article or talk space by accusing living article subjects of dishonesty.  Thanks,  Wikidemon (talk) 19:31, 18 August 2009 (UTC)