Talk:Murders of Koby Mandell and Yosef Ishran

Materials
Relevant sources to the article that are not yet used (please add more here If you have them):
 * http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4393955,00.html

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Ynhockey (talk • contribs) 07:08, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

Review of sources stating that some group claimed responsibility
There's currently a minor edit war going on over whether claims that some group or other, eg "Hizbullah-Palestine", can be represented in our article as having taken responsibility for these murders via one or more phone calls that have been mentioned. This has been discussed at considerable length already, but since it's understandably a controversial point, I don't mind summarizing the facts, provided people will also read the previous material about this.

For reference, here's the RSN thread about the sources used to support the claim that one group or another called some news agencies saying his group was responsible. Please review that RSN thread before commenting further here, and please review the discussion in previous sections about this, too, especially please review the section above entitled, "Review of conflicting sources does not support a conclusion", which also speaks to this question.

The overall conclusion at RSN was that the books cited were tertiary sources for their one or two line, unreferenced statements as to claims of responsibility. For that reason, and because even those brief sentences included multiple errors (apparently reproduced from secondary sources that also got the details wrong) the consensus there was that they should not be used as sources, or if they were used, they should at most be presented with some strongly-worded disclaimer as to their accuracy.

Everyone who was previously involved in this article's development very extensively researched the matter as to who, if anyone, had called whom to claim responsibility for "their" group. As is discussed in previous sections, and at RSN to a lesser extent, the assertion that someone called someone to claim responsibility is not corroborated by any agency that claims to actually have received such a call. What we have are three news stories out of the approximately twenty reliable-source reports about this that say so, the day after the murders.

To quote from an uninvolved RSN participant in the discussion about this:


 * "WP:RS says this: ' The reliability of a source depends on context. Each source must be carefully weighed to judge whether it is reliable for the statement being made and is the best such source for that context .' Isn't it saying that we, as editors, can examine a source, irrespective of whether it's otherwise reputable, to see how well it supports the assertion?" (emphasis added)

So let's do that (again); let's do that exactly:


 * A group called Hizbullah-Palestine claimed responsibility as revenge for the killing of four-month-old Iman Hijo, who was killed in Khan Yunis on Monday. An anonymous caller claiming to represent the group told foreign news agencies it would continue to attack Israelis until they are forced off Palestinian land. ( The Jerusalem Post, 10 May 2001 )

This day-after-the-event article gets the boys' ages wrong, and completely omits what the great majority of other sources that reported on this said, that the murders appear to have been the result of a chance encounter. Instead it presents and repeatedly reinforces a decidely contrary view, primarily by quoting Sharon, Ben-Elizer, and Rabbi Riskin, that the murder was a pre-planned terrorist attack that, in Riskin's words, deliberately "picked out innocent children to destroy them." Please remember that the boys skipped school that day to spend time in the area of the cave where they were killed. It's unlikely that any terrorist group could have had advance knowledge of their presence there, a notion that further lends support to the ubiquitous "chance encounter" characterization.

Further, please note that the Jerusalem Post article in this instance is relaying, on the day after the murder, a reporter's rumor. The authors of the article do not say they received such a call, nor that the Jerusalem Post received such a call, just that some unnamed person told them that some other unnamed person called some unnamed "foreign news agencies" at some unnamed date and time. It is, in my opinion, irresponsible to report such a claim as if it were fact. None of us who researched this could find any claim made by a news agency that they had received such a call, as they certainly would have done if (a) they received such a call, and (b) they had reason to believe the claim was credible.

I'm troubled by the JP's ommission of the "chance encounter" idea that they certainly would have been aware of, and that the great majority of other reports presented. I'm troubled by the certainty of the article's presentation that this was a pre-planned attack by a terrorist group, when the evidence presented by other news sources shows a very different picture. And I'm very definitely troubled by the JP's reporting of an unconfirmed, second-hand, unattributed rumor as if it were fact. I accept that others can disagree in good faith but in summary, I don't find this report reliable for the assertion it makes that someone called someone else to claim responsibility.


 * An anonymous phone caller claimed the murders were in revenge for the death of a four-month-old Palestinian baby hit by shrapnel during  bombardment of Gaza. ( A Highbeam fragment of a 10 May 2010 article by the Daily Mirror )

This is also a "day-after-the-murders" report; this unattributed statement is the only one in the Highbeam fragment that's relevant to the present question.

Opinions expressed at RSN about the Mirror vary pretty widely: Some refer to its status as a "Fleet Street" tabloid ( a  "redtop" in the U.K. ) that, according to Highbeam, gives "special attention" to "celebrity news". But whatever you think about the paper, this single sentence is all the fragment has to say on the subject. The statement is not attributed to the police or any investigative authority: Like the JP article it's a report that some unnamed person (a reporter?) said some unnamed person called some other media property, also unnamed. It is, in fact, likewise just an unconfirmed reporter's rumor. It's hard to evalate this further without having access to the complete article; the Daily Mirror isn't carried in any of the the proprietary databases I have access to. But like the JP article, the fragment doesn't mention what the majority of other papers do; that the murders were thought to be the result of a chance encounter. Also like the JP article, this one misreports the boys' ages.


 * An anonymous caller to Reuters claimed responsibility for the boys killings in the name of an Islamic militant group, saying they were to avenge the death of the four-month  baby and an Islamic Jihad militant on Saturday. The call  could not be authenticated. The Irish Independent, 10 May, 2001.

This next-day report is the only one of the three that says a particular news property was called and, unlike the JP report, only says a single agency received a call, viz. Reuters. Again the source for the statement is unnamed, and despite assiduous searching, none of us could find Reuters itself having reported receiving such a call. As was discussed in previous sections above, it appears that they either didn't receive a call, or didn't believe in its authenticity if they did. ( And yes, news agencies do typically have procedures and back-channels by which they attempt to verify such anonymous calls. ) This article at least has the courtesy to report that this is a reporters rumor; the most we could reasonably infer is that someone probably said someone at Reuters received a call that they couldn't verify, and didn't believe in enough to publish about, themselves.

This next-day report also gives the boys' ages incorrectly, and its assertion that they "were stoned to death and cast into a cave" is, based on every other source I've seen (all or nearly all of them, I believe) mere speculation presented as fact. The police said very clearly that they weren't sure where the boys were killed, in the cave or elsewhere.

Overall, these next-day reports seem to have been prepared in a great rush to get the story out quickly, and to have relied on each other or, more likely some unnamed newswire service(s) for their duplicated errors, e.g. about the boys' ages. It's clear that no verification was done of even the very basic fact of the boy's correct ages. ( One was 13, the other 14. ) Further, this "somebody said somebody said" passing along of rumor, without verification from the one actual principal named (Reuters), is simply not reliable, especially given that the great majority of other news sources didn't report any claim of responsibility.

Also, as I noted in a previous section, the JP story in 2001 is at least called into question and at most repudiated by a subsequent JP story written in 2008 by Caroline Glick ( who nearly always writes strongly in favor of Israeli government policies, when she expresses an opinion ). She writes,


 * Feldbaum’s concern over the gathering was heightened because Bedouin shepherds are suspected of having carried out a number of unsolved terrorist murders in the area. These include the murder by stoning of 14-year-olds Kobi Mandell and Yosef Ish-Ran on May 8, 2001. ( A 2008 Jerusalem Post story, by Caroline Glick )

Further, given the publication dates of these articles, and based on the context of other articles about this, it's my supposition that if any calls were actually made that they occurred after rather than before the news of the murders appeared on Israeli television and radio the previous day.

So in summary, out of the twenty or so secondary sources that reported about this, we have three that mention that some unnamed person said some unnamed person at some news agency or agencies (one mentioned Reuters) received a call from an anonymous person claiming a group claimed responsibility for the crimes. ( Only one of the three names the group: the JP mentions "Hizbullah-Palestine" ). No agency that third-parties claim received such a call supports the statement. One of these sources, The Mirror is at least doubtful overall, and another of those sources, the 2001 next-day JP article, appears to be partially or wholly contradicted by a subsequent 2008 report in the same paper. All three stories get important facts wrong, e.g. the boys' ages, facts that could have been verified, but evidently were not. This mention of a call or calls to claim responsibility is an unverified reporter's rumor that got kicked around the day after the bodies were discovered; it simply cannot be presented in our article as fact.

If someone wants to offer language here to try to fairly summarize that, I'd not be opposed. I'd not be opposed, in other words, if the reasons these sources are best viewed with skepticism are included in any presentation of their claims. But without the least offence intended, it's my opinion that it's simply irresponsible to try to report the purported claim of responsibility, in Wikipedia's voice, as if it were fact. I've reverted the recent changes that do so.

The murder of these two kids was as reprehensible as can be, but given what the preponderance of sources have said about this, it almost certainly wasn't a pre-planned attack by an organized group. If anyone cares, my opinion, based on having read all the sources about this that I've been able to find, very carefully, is that the most likely murderers were Palestinian youths who had, according to the Boston Globe, claimed the cave area for their own exclusive "hangout", and who would have vehemently resented what they would have seen as an incursion into what they viewed as their territory. Specifically, the Boston Globe said, "a group of Palestinian youths had staked a claim on the cave during the seven months of violence, and that Israeli youths had been warned not to hike there." A microcosm of the larger conflict, most probably, and as tragic, albeit on a smaller and more personal scale.

If anyone would like to comment on anything I've presented here, please do so following, rather than interleaving your comments in the above. – OhioStandard  (talk) 04:45, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Update: I see that the user who signs himself "Broccolo" has reinstated his preferred version, in this edit, without any attempt to discuss this here, 25 hours and 5 minutes after his last reinstatement of the same material. His one nod to "discussion" was that he appended "please do not engage in the original research" to the "please do not remove sourced information" that he used as his edit summary in his previous reinstatement of this material. Because of this action, the article now includes three book sources that were deemed unreliable for this purpose at RSN. It also presents as fact the reporter's rumor discussed above, claiming that "Hizbullah-Palestine" took responsibility, a claim made by a single secondary source of the 20 or so news reports about this, viz. only in a next-day Jerusalem Post article that is itself contradicted by a later (2008) article published in that same paper. – OhioStandard  (talk) 12:40, 28 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I did discuss the sources. Did you sawthis? There are three sources that reported an anonymus call. Please do not remove sourced information, and please stop doing WP:OR.--Broccolo (talk) 16:19, 28 April 2011 (UTC)


 * No, you didn't discuss the sources. You simply posted quotes from three to support your first revert, one of which is from a very questionable tabloid/redtop source and only a Highbeam fragment anyway, one of which is contradicted by a subsequent article in the same paper, and a third (non-Reuters) source which claims Reuters received a call that couldn't be authenticated from some unnamed Islamic group, a claim which Reuters doesn't support. When I made a good faith attempt above to present an analysis of their reliability for this purpose you simply didn't respond. You instead just reinstated your preferred version 25 hours and 5 minutes after your first revert.


 * You've given no indication that you've read the above at all, nor the RSN thread which concluded that the three one-to-two line unattributed mentions in tertiary source books could not be considered reliable sources for this purpose. And now, when I pointed out that you haven't discussed this, all you've done is repeat your glib edit summary. I'll ask a second time that you read the above, and that you read the RSN thread. If you'd like to show that you're willing to proceed in good faith, then please remove the books that were held to be unreliable for this purpose at RSN from the article, along with the sentences that rely on them. We can discuss the balance of the problem separately.  –  OhioStandard  (talk) 18:24, 28 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Of course I read this thread. There was absolutely no consensus to your claim that the books are unreliable sources. Broccolo (talk) 18:41, 28 April 2011 (UTC)


 * There was certainly consensus among uninvolved editors. But please make your position on this clear. Is it your claim that the three books are reliable sources? –  OhioStandard  (talk) 19:49, 28 April 2011 (UTC)


 * There was no consencus among uninvolved editors. I find those two books to be RS: Encyclopedia of terrorismChronologies of modern terrorism. Broccolo (talk) 14:35, 29 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your reply. Perhaps I should have been more clear. There were just two editors who participated in the RSN thread who don't edit in the I/P area, Andrew Lancaster and TimidGuy, both very experienced contributors to RSN. Tim (evidently that's his name) disapproved of using the books at all, and Andrew expressed strong reservations about using them. Don't let's argue about that just now, though: Others can read the March 2011 RSN thread and come to their own conclusions.


 * Of more immediate interest to me is that you appear to have neglected one book in your comment above. You restored references for three books, not two:


 * (1) Dilemmas of Weak States
 * (2) Chronologies of Modern Terrorism
 * (3) Encyclopedia of Terrorism


 * Since you restored references to them, I presume that means that you consider all three to be reliable sources for the information they present that's relevant to this article? –  OhioStandard  (talk) 03:59, 30 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Update: I've left these three books in the article for now, pending your response and further developments, but have expanded the "Responsibility" section considerably to accurately reflect the wide divergence of reporting on that score. –  OhioStandard  (talk) 08:40, 30 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, I consider all three book to be RS. Broccolo (talk) 17:25, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

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"Part of the Second Intifada militancy campaign"
The infobox states that the murders were "part of the Second Intifada militancy campaign". While it is true that the murder has occurred during the Second Intifada, since no perpetrators have been found and to this day it is not known who killed the boys and what their motives were, I think this sentence should be removed, as there is no evidence that the murders were part of a militancy campaign. Thoughts? BeŻet (talk) 12:03, 22 August 2018 (UTC)
 * The label "militancy campaign" makes little sense to me actually, I think it can just be shortened to "part of the Second Intifada". I don't think that's really disputed, as the intifada was largely organized but there were lone wolf attacks as well. —Ynhockey (Talk) 08:45, 26 August 2018 (UTC)
 * It can be disputed on the grounds that the perpetrator of the attacks were never found and motives are unknown. The murders happened to have taken place during the Second Intifada, but since we don't know who committed the crime and why, attributing them to the Second Intifada is incorrect in my opinion. BeŻet (talk) 12:53, 28 August 2018 (UTC)
 * User:BeŻet, I completely agree. AFAIK, there is nil−nix−nada evidence that this was a terrorist attack: no perpetuators have ever been found. Huldra (talk) 20:19, 13 January 2019 (UTC)
 * The perpetrators not being caught does not negate this being a murder and an act of terror. He and Yosef were both killed that day by Palestinian terrorists, their skulls shattered with massive rocks and their bodies stabbed, bludgeoned and then dragged into a cave in the Judean desert.. TOI, 2014, Koby Mandell’s family after he and his friend Yosef Ishran were killed by terrorists in 2001. The bodies were found - bludgeoned beyond recognition - are we going to dispute their deaths as well? Icewhiz (talk) 06:46, 14 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Nobody's disputing that they were brutally murdered, but a brutal murder is not automatically a terrorist attack. The motives are unknown, because the perpetrators are unknown. It's that simple. We're already including what Israeli officials think, but we can't unequivocally state anything until the murderers are identified. BeŻet (talk) 23:02, 14 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Your assertion above is WP:OR. We have RSes stating in their own voice this was a terror attack. Catching the perpetrators is not a necessary condition for an act to be an act of terror. The 9/11 terrorists were never caught nor convicted - and even if their identities would've remained unknown (and there is a certain degree of uncertainty regarding some of them) - it would still be a terrorist attack. Icewhiz (talk) 08:01, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
 * What a terrible comparison. We know the exact identities of the hijackers in the September 11 attacks, the exact motives, circumstances of the planning, setup and execution, and on top of that, a specific group claiming responsibility. We know nothing about this murder, other than the victims, time and place. Also, how on Earth saying that we cannot determine the perpetrators of this murder is WP:OR? The perpetrators are unknown, literally nothing is known about them - end of story - and because of that we cannot determine the motive. BeŻet (talk) 19:21, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
 * It is not our job to determine the motive - that is OR. We follow sources, which clearly state Palestinian terrorism.Icewhiz (talk) 19:42, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
 * But we already say what sources say: that the perpetrators were not found, and that Israel is claiming it was Palestinian terrorism. However we cannot state that it was, without a doubt, Palestinian terrorism. That's why we've removed this statement from the Infobox. We want to stick to the truth. BeŻet (talk) 22:22, 23 January 2019 (UTC)
 * WP:NOTTRUTH. Icewhiz (talk) 08:24, 24 January 2019 (UTC)
 * That policy literally supports my point. BeŻet (talk) 13:16, 25 January 2019 (UTC)