User:PalestineRemembered/MustBeMuzzled

On the 1st August 2008, a top admin opened an  Request for Comment on me with "I'd like to propose a community ban of PalestineRemembered ... ". It would be fair to characterise this RfC as rubbish, it contains allegations that have nothing to do with editing policy, and no links whatsoever.

It took a day and several requests for any evidence to be produced, User Talk:GHcool declared strong support for my being banned from all I-P articles, and provides 6 links 20:46, 2 August 2008 (UTC) as "evidence". User:Jayjg later brought 5 links 23:53, 3 August 2008 and a warning that I'd proved myself capable of coming back unchanged after quietly sitting out previous long blocks.

On 5th and 6th August 2008 another editor examined both cases against me with [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard#A_Review_of_the_evidence._What_evidence.3F Review of the evidence. What evidence?] and declared that the only reason for GHcool calling for a ban is "personal dislike" and the reasons given by Jayjg are a "travesty of evidence".

GHcool's evidence

 * Support topic ban per everyone else. PalestineRemembered's edits are largely disgraceful. He has been guilty of calling Zionists "proud of their murderous racism,"8 spreading Zionist conspiracy theories,9, comparing Zionists with Nazis,10 comparing Israeli historians with Holocaust deniers,11, 12, 13 and basically committing logical fallacies and spreading disinformation left and right. Enough is enough. --GHcool (talk) 20:46, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Response to GHcool's evidence (after background discussion as above, the rebuttal of GHcool's "evidence" proceeds as follows:
(a)Ghcool’s opinion that PalestineRemembered's edits are largely disgraceful.  This emerges as the only reason GHcool has to press for PR's ban, personal dislike. (b) He has been guilty of calling Zionists proud of their murderous racism  The link takes us to December 2006 where in reply to Robert E.Rubin’s attempt to discredit the fact that Norman Finkelstein is the son of Holocaust survivors, PR replied:


 * "'There's a serious problem protecting the BLP of anyone who has criticised Israel, even if they have credentials as good as Norman Finkelstein. It's very, very wearing to take out, over and over again, these unsubstantiated and utterly pointless edits.Meanwhile, of course, it's impossible to insert any evidence against Zionist politicians, no matter how well referenced and indeed proud they may be of their murderous racism. PalestineRemembered 20:32, 31 December 2006 (UTC)"

Ghcool thus distorts the record. PR had it in for Zionist politicians (one presumes Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Shamir, Ariel Sharon , not Zionists(potentially all patriotic Israelis). The remark was in any case duly punished with a 24-hour ban, which was fair enough, though it should have been longer for the solecism in PR's remark. This is again evidence from 1 and a half years ago.

(c)	spreading Zionist conspiracy theories The link refers to a comment made 8 months ago, to Jaakobou:


 * "'I trust you'll not present yourself as having any understanding of the developing situation. The Saudi inititative is a two-state proposal that leaves Israel intact within the Green Line borders, but it does have to abide by International law (as mostly written or re-written by the US in the aftermath of 1945). And the Saudi proposal has more support amongst Palestinians than does the undefined 'two-state solution' they were offered in that poll. It might be time to start writing this article to WP:policy and reliable sources. PRtalk 20:56, 24 December 2007 (UTC)"

What on earth this completely acceptable statement has to do with the crime of spreading ‘Zionist conspiracy theories’ is unclear. This is a howler, and no one picks it up.

(d) comparing Zionists with Nazis,

Again, the link goes through a time-capsule back to December 2006, and in reply to an editor who asks ‘why no mention of terrorist attacks on Jews’, Palestine remembered wrote:


 * "You could probably write a number of very good articles on oppression aimed at Jews. Unfortunately, most of your allies will either be Zionists (who are provably a lot nastier and more dangerous than anything we've seen since 1945) or anti-Zionists (who are appalled that the Holocaust is used as justification for the crimes of Israel). I'm not sure how you'll get round that one - you could start by expressing your outrage at Zionists who, whatever crimes are alleged against Israel, immediately blame the Jews. They fail to recognise that the Jews have suffered quite enough from false allegations in the last 2000 years. PalestineRemembered 23:27, 29 December 2006 (UTC)"

This again is malicious misrepresentation, since there is no equation of Zionists with Nazis. However you wish to construe what PR is saying, note that PR writes 'Zionists who..' not 'Zionists, who...' This now becomes a pattern with Ghcool’s evidence. None of these diffs support the dramatic tabloid titles he supplies them with in glossing their ostensible content.

(e) comparing Israeli historians with Holocaust deniers,11, 12, [13.

(e.i)Note 11.Takes us to an innocuous exchange of views that are far more nuanced that what Ghcool would have us believe. It dates to September 2007

Ghcool is satisfied with the state of the ‘causes of the 1948 Palestinian exodus’. PR replies.


 * "'I think it's terrible, gravely distorting what historians say about this business. We seem to have quotations in there from 'historians' even less credible than David Irving. We have historians who believe one thing quoted as if they believed the opposite - and editors claiming that that is a perfectly proper thing to do. PalestineRemembered 18:29, 9 September 2007"

i.e. David Irving is not a credible historian, since he is a denier. Neither is Schechtman, since he, in a different vein, denies obvious facts (and creates malicious untruths passed off as historiography)

There are two David Irvings. One was the highly regarded historian of the German military praised by all academic specialists in the 1960s, the other is the Holocaust-denier. PR is referring to a number of Israeli historians of the early postwar period who were responsible for creating a completely false mythical account of the reasons for the exodus, a myth exposed as early as 1961 but which was repeated right down to the 1980s, and which found honourable mention in the aforesaid article.

(e.ii) This refers to an exchange on Jan 14 eight months ago. PR writes:-


 * "Yet again, we agree. But I worry the ArbCom don't know what appalling souces get rammed into I-P conflict articles. We quote Joseph Schechtman in that article saying 'Until ... May 15, 1948, no quarter whatsoever had ever been given to a Jew who fell into Arab hands.' I'm confident (and User:GHcool has never denied) that that clip, alone, is worse than anything ever seen from David Irving. While illiterates stalk our articles, the I-P conflict articles, and the conduct surrounding them, will disgrace us. This is a problem we can fix - but only when the ArbCom protects scholars like User:Tiamut. And also User:Nishidani, recently hounded from the project when his patience and good-nature was trashed. PRtalk 16:38, 14 January 2008 (UTC)"

Apart from the lather, PalestineRemembered again considers Schechtman worse than David Irving. Both deny or affirm absurd things. Pr quotes a notorious piece of propagandistic nonsense by Schechtman, with no basis in the historical record. No one there confuted this. What Schechtman wrote was crap, and Ghcool is only offended at the comparison with David Irving. So? 

(e.iii) Again Ghcool takes us down the time tunnel, January 2008. He complains of this remark on the talk page of ‘Jewish Lobby’:-


 * "I'm somewhat handicapped discussing hate-sources because I avoid them like the plague. But I'd be surprised if David Duke is as bad (either on grounds of hate or grounds of 'gross historical fabrication') than two sources we seem to use a lot, Joseph Schechtman and Shmuel Katz. The former is even quoted in a WP article with this astonishing nastiness: Until the Arab armies invaded Israel on the very day of its birth, May 15, 1948, no quarter whatsoever had ever been given to a Jew who fell into Arab hands. Wounded and dead alike were mutilated. Every member of the Jewish community was regarded as an enemy to be mercilessly destroyed. (From his book The Arab Refugee Problem) Prove to me that David Duke have ever come out with anything so outlandish. PRtalk 16:51, 28 January 2008 (UTC)"

Again, PR, though guilty of hyperbole (actually Katz and Schechtman can, with extreme care, be harvested for information, as I once noted, though one must keep in mind their partisanship for terrorism) is expressing contempt for Irving and Duke, but saying to pro-Israeli editors, if you can’t stand lies against your community by holocaust-deniers, why push rubbish by Schechtman and Katz (both associated historically with an organization, the Irgun, that used terroristic methods to achieve statehood) that fabricates vicious untruths about Arabs comparable to the vicious untruths fabricated by Holocaust deniers against Jews. This is the rhetorical strategy. It may be fervid, ineptly put, but the technique is normal in persuasion by analogy.

(f)	committing logical fallacies and spreading disinformation left and right. -GHcool (talk) 20:46, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

I don’t think this needs comment. Most of the newspaper sources from mainstream press that, for some, form a staple of I/P information, don’t stand a moment’s scrutiny for logical coherence. If logical fallacies were the basis for including or excluding editors, wiki would lose 95% of its regular contributers, from the most brilliant to the average editor. The information on PR provided by Ghcool therefore is void of substance, full of thin historical reminiscence of past behaviour that, in context (don’t read the bolded green patch in the link: read the whole flow and all comments for each diff) has not been exceptional on I/P articles in the past. Strongly worded, opinionated, but to the point, and often rationally argued or sourced reliably.

Then, LamaLoLeshla notes that his tabloid headings are not backed up by the diffs. Horologium tries to be helpful, but his indications in no way clarify Ghcool’s bad diffs. Since Ghcool’s charges are ancient history, Coppertwig twigs us to a copper in the wings, as Ryan did, by telling us to at Jayjg’s forthcoming evidence based on PR’s recent editing. 

I in turn make a point about the vagueness of these charges, all old history, no evidence. Jaakobou, also notes that the diffs are insufficient. Both PR and I have had a past record of conflict with him, and his remark at this point is to be thoroughly commended. He is judging this case on the merits of evidence, reading what is said closely, and making his own call. Our differences are enormous, but here is an editor who, though he has a very convinced pro-Israeli point-of-view, is measuring the evidence, against the claims, by his own lights. PhilKnight agrees with Jaakobou's call, but suggests a 3 month ban, nothing as drastic as that originally proposed.

Jayjg's evidence

 * Support. I don't understand the issue to begin with; User:PalestineRemembered was an admitted SPA whose every edit is propaganda and every Talk: page comment is a typically irrelevant soapbox, often with WP:BLP violations thrown in for spice. In other words, the editor behind the "PalestineRemembered" account is saying that the account is a secondary account used only to edit I-P related areas. I say was an admitted SPA because the fact that he has started to edit articles outside of the I-P area indicates that User:PalestineRemembered is now merely a garden-variety sockpuppet account, rather than an a supposedly legitimate WP:SPA. As for examples? A quick glance through his past week's edits show a BLP violation against "the likes of Ayaan Hirsi Ali", a BLP violation against Mitchell Bard, and some sort of weird attacks on Paul Bogdanor in which he claims, inter alia, that "everyone agrees that [Rudolf] Kastner collaborated with the Nazis - and almost everyone thinks that, late in the war, he tricked some 450,000 of his fellows to go quietly to the ovens". This is the kind of tendentious nonsense User:PalestineRemembered liberally spreads on Talk: pages and articles. In reality, historians don't agree on this at all, and the latest book on the subject concludes that he was a war hero who saved 12,000-18,000 lives. The book, by the way, won the 2007 Nereus Writers' Trust Non-Fiction Prize, and was shortlisted for the 2008 Charles Taylor Literary Prize for Non-Fiction. As for 3 months, if one thing characterizes the editor behind User:PalestineRemembered it's his dogged and dogmatic persistence; he waited out previous lengthy blocks, and returned from them completely unchanged. I see no reason to think a lengthier block will produce a novel result. Jayjg <small style="color:darkgreen;">(talk) 23:53, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Response to Jayjg's evidence (rebuttal of Jayjg's "evidence" immediately follows that of GHcool's evidence above, all in the same edit)
(3)As the case for a community ban wobbles towards a crash, Jayjg finally shows his hand.</BR>

(3.a)Palestine remembered is a self-confessed SPA, a propagandist and soapboxer. Like Ghcool Jayjg has a perfect memory and can testify that PR has never made, even once, an edit that is not propaganda.</BR>

(3.b)A technicality allows Jayjg to raise a specious impression that PR is guilty of sockpuppetry. It is nothing more than that, a play on words, used for the subliminal effect 'sockpuppetry' has on administrators. Wink,wink, nudge,nudge</BR>

(3.c)Here we finally have contemporary evidence from the last week. [WP:BLP] violation against "the likes of Ayaan Hirsi Ali". Jay jigs up the following tremendously damning smoking gun from PR's recent edit.


 * "'Shahak did less to Judaism (in far more measured terms) than the likes of Ayaan Hirsi Ali do to Islam. Compare the two for reliability - Hirsi Ali is known to have lied (she's admitted it publicly) about what Islam did to her life, re-inventing great portions of it even including her name and date of birth. (That was in order to leave the perfectly safe Germany and settle in Holland). She's either chucked up or mysteriously distanced herself from the plum think-tank job she landed in Washington .... safer back in Eurabia than Washington? Whereas Shahak is more respectable in every way, surviving Belsen (1943 aged 10), going to Palestine, serving in an elite regiment of the IDF. He went on to become a professor of chemistry at Hebrew University. I think it's only in 1967 he came to question his faith. Nishidani proves again (above) that Shahak's criticisms of his religion (while hard hitting) bear no resemblance to those of Hirsi Ali, they're veritable models of reason in comparison. Now compare the two for the tone of our treatment - we quote Ayaan Hirsi Ali enthusiastically (as do all sorts of blatant Islamophobes and racists) seemingly delighted to have her say of Islam 'Violence is inherent in Islam, it's a destructive, nihilistic cult of death. It legitimates murder'. In Shahak's case, we ignore the points he has to make, pour scorn on his testimony, and quote his critics saying 'world's most conspicuous Jewish antisemite... Like the Nazis before him'. Then we further defame Shahak because his words were picked up by racists - even though we know it's completely irrelevant. Moshe Sharrat, 2nd Prime Minister of Israel is also extensively quoted by the antisemitic - so? It's almost as if we're writing the Great Soviet Encyclopedia on Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. PRtalk 17:45, 31 July 2008 (UTC)"

So, what is the enormous crime by wiki criteria in this first piece of evidence for PR’s horribly recalcitrant propagandistic editing? Jayjg, read the whole Shahak page and archives, has it in for Shahak. Shahak was a Popperian liberal, a Holocaust survivor and secular critic of the ultra-orthodox threat to the development of Israel as a modern democracy. You cannot even begin to understand his critique unless you are familiar with Popper's 2 volume masterpiece, 'The Open Society and its Enemies' and Hadas's theories about Platonic influence via Hellenism on certain currents of rabbinical thinking. He wrote several books on the oddities of rabbinical halakhic and doctrinal traditions. Because he translated and divulgated extensive swathes of opinion from rabbinical sources that will strike most secular minds as bizarre, in a state where Judaic religious identity is still not disentangled from Israeli Jewish identity, Shahak came in for a huge amount of flak. Jayjg has supported cramming the page with poor sources that smear, insinuate and slander the man. Many, myself included, have given up and allowed the mess to stand as a monument to the kind of editing Jayjg rides shotguhn over, while he jumps at people like PR for not respecting Wiki ideals, and retailing 'propaganda'.</BR>

PR simply said that proIsraeli I/P editors are enamoured of what Ayaan  Hirsi  Ali says of Islam, yet hate what Shahak says of Orthodox rabbinical thought. Both often say the same thing, that these respective religions shackle human liberty with the queerest of mystical theories. Hirsi Ayaan Ali is hailed as a heroic figure because her enemy is Islam. Shahak is despised as a Jewish antisemite because his enemy was a mode of rabbinical doctrine and thinking he thought tyrannical and totalitarian. Hirsi Ayaan Ali is known to have lied (PR says) and this does not alter the esteem in which she is held. Shahak is said by his bitter enemies to have lied, and this is showcased on his page. The point PR makes is the point made with Irving. I.e., pro-Israeli editors get on their high horses when Israel or Judaism is attacked, in this case by a Jewish critic, and allow the page to carry a large amount of preposterous insinuations from unreliable sources, whereas figures like Hirsi Ayaan Ali critical of Islam (Israel’s putative enemy) are left untouched, when not hailed for their critical boldness in taking on religious obscurantists. To entertain both positions is hypocritical, the duplicity of double standards is disturbing among editors of I/P articles, because one set of criteria is used with regard to Israel, another set used with regard to Israel’s putative enemies or antagonists, even when the situations in both cases are strikingly analogous. PR is thus vigorously deploring nationalist bias in I/P articles. Jayjg thinks this, apparently, deplorable, as deplorable as a man like Shahak, whom the Council of Foreign relations in Washington thought highly enough to consult with regularly over the 1990s. This is, finally, an analogy, of considerable merit, made on a talk page to illustrate what is wrong with Jayjg's editing, and not a violation of Ayaan Hirsi Ali's biography.</BR>

(3.d)'a BLP violation against Mitchell Bard'

Again as before the following comment occurs on a Talk Page (Arab Citizens of Israel). The contested remark is:-</BR>


 * Bard comes across as a serious propagandist with a particular interest in denial. His "Myths and Facts" contains such gems as MYTH: "Settlements are an obstacle to peace." He should try and persuade Condoleeza Rice of that. CAMERA's single-mindedness and attitude to integrity doesn't need further discussion, there's been an RfC on it and other action. PRtalk 06:56, 1 August 2008 (UTC)</BR>

Well? Bard is not a reliable source. The remark he is cited as making is a nonsense, since every Israeli government (bar Netanyahu’s perhaps) has, in its negotiations, allowed that there is a problem with settlements, and every world body consulted thinks so too, since they are not on land legally belonging to the state of Israel. With comments like that, one can only reply: ‘Non c’è trippa per gatti’. PR’s remark is innocuous, and a correct call to boot. It is not a BLP violation of Mitchell Bard to say, on a talk page where his irrelevant views are pushed, that he is a ‘serious propagandist’ who denies what Israeli negotiators admit to be the truth, i.e. that settlements are the central issue of contention, and an obstacle to be overcome, in peacetalks. Talk pages are full of such comment, whenever bad sources from second raters in the commentariat are being pushed in.</BR>

(3.e)'some sort of weird attacks on PaulBogdanor14, 15'</BR>

(3.e.i)	refers to a long discussion agreeing with another poster, on technical questions of branding people ‘deniers’ of genocide. It concludes:-</BR>


 * Lastly, there are other examples which must look perilously close to denial - it's difficult to imagine that the claims made in this republished 1962 leaflet (?) are taken very seriously by anyone who know anything of this case. PRtalk 09:22, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

(3.e.ii)Interacting with Relata refero on his talk page, PR mentions Paul Bogdanor:-</BR>


 * Hi Relata - I came across this from Paul Bogdanor's web-site - he's re-publishing a 1962 pamphlet (?) that looks pretty much like gross historical distortion to me (everyone agrees that Kastner collaborated with the Nazis - and almost everyone thinks that, late in the war, he tricked some 450,000 of his fellows to go quietly to the ovens). I then discovered that his reliability was recently discussed here. From the WP article on Bogdanor I found and checked The 200 lies of Chomsky, much of which also appears to me to be gravely distorted. I wondered if this discussion should be taken to the board again. PRtalk 13:42, 31 July 2008 (UTC)</BR>

So, what’s the ruckus about this, where's the huge violation of wiki policies involved here. A note on Paul Bopgdanor asking for a second opinion. Bogdanor is a hack writer, without any competence on Kastner, or anything else to do with I/P articles (in Jayjg’s own severe standards on WP:RS) and PR asked for advice to confirm her own reasonable impressions. Those who track and sort out who’s saying what to whom on I/P articles have clipped this out as damning evidence, of what? That PR, like a large part of the serious commentariat, thinks anything Bogdanor has to say can be safely ignored without drastic loss of wisdom?</BR>

Jayjg protests at PR saying 'Everyone agrees that Kastner collaborated. He thinks, evidently that some people do not agree that Kastner collaborated with the Nazis. But Everybody does agree, however, that Kastner collaborated with Nazis, since he did. And to say he didn’t would be to controvert a huge mass of contemporary documentation. It is not a claim, it is a matter of fact. In the second part of PR's remark to which Jayjg takes exception, we read:</BR>
 * "almost everyone thinks that, late in the war, he tricked some 450,000 of his fellows to go quietly to the ovens'''."

What Jayjg ignores, crucially, is that almost. Ignoring that almost wilfully then allows him to make a Mountain out of a non-existent molehill, a fuss about the ostensible exception to PR's generalization. i.e. Anna Porter’s 'Kazstner's Train: The True Story of Rezsö Kasztner, Unknown Hero of the Holocaust', which argues that Kastner was a hero. So? PR said almost, not everyone. Almost, Jayjg, in English usage here, means, contextually, almost everyone (except Anna Porter, for example). I won’t go into the Kastner case, and the large literature on that episode, as, I think, Relata refero redmarks, that it is a very complex case (the tradition behind sacrificing a large community to save a few however has been studied, not least by Israel Shahak, a taboo he and Raul Hilberg worried over all their lives, and for which many have never forgiven them for having voiced their malaise publicly) but I would suggest that Jayjg instead of whipping up froth and foam out of PR’s truism, meditate on the interview his link directs us to where Anna Porter is quoted as saying:</BR>


 * "'He's the only Jewish Holocaust survivor who saved lives. There isn't anybody else really.'"

I.e. Porter who shouts her ignorance in this remark, is also saying that of the 2 to 4 million Jews who survived the Holocaust, no one, except Kastner, lifted a finger to save a fellow Jew. And you have the brashness to assert, after reading this extraordinary generalization, that PR makes remarks characterized by tendentious nonsense?</BR>

(3.f)Jayjg concludes his shabby brief with the following ex cathedra judgement:'Tendentious nonsense. . characterizes the editor behind PalestineRemembered it's his dogged and dogmatic persistence; he waited out previous lengthy blocks, and returned from them completely unchanged. I see no reason to think a lengthier block will produce a novel result. Jayjg (talk) 23:53, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

To use that language on the strength/weakness of the ostensible evidence, rigged up out of a few lame diffs, against another wikipedian is probably a violation of WP:CIVIL. All I can see here is an attempt to finish unsettled old scores, a vendetta, personal dislike, and factitious material jerryrigged to waste another editor, whose faults, acknowledged by many, are venial, and certainly not conspicuous, in the record placed before us here. Nothing adduced here warrants such comments on PR's recent behaviour as both GHcool and Jayjg have attempted to document it. This is, therefore, a farce.

But, in fine, Jayjg, examining this travesty of evidence, one can only sigh with a slight infraction of metrical proprieties, with Horace (Serm. Lib,I, 1, 69-70), in parsing the intemperate language and characterisations of congenitially poor editing you have brandished here against PR: ''Quid derides? Mutato nomine, de te fabula narratur''. 15:59, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Trivial and non-policy objections begin

 * Palestine Remembered's edits are frequently out of proportion to the sources which he cites. he often writes with clear political predilections and agendas. 19:54, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I'd like to bring us back to the criteria for a community-wide or topic-ban. What are indeed the criteria? Cheating, and edit-warring, PR says. I'd have to agree with him/her that I don't see evidence to that effect. So, please, as someone who's only been here for a few months, could someone explain to me, with an emphasis on recent concerns, first, what the specific charges are here which merit permanent banning, and second, offer support. 23:52, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

User:Jayjg responds
Holy mother of pearl, that was long XXXXXXX. I'll try to be much briefer: Finally, regarding your claim that "Jayjg, every edit of yours I have observed over two years looks like a defence of a national image interest", in the past month I have written these two articles: Temple Sinai (Oakland, California), East Midwood Jewish Center, brought the following article I created to GA status: Beth Hamedrash Hagadol, created three Did You Know articles, including Congregation Beth Israel (New Orleans, Louisiana) and Congregation Beth Israel (Lebanon, Pennsylvania), completely re-written and tripled the size of Agudath Israel Etz Ahayem to save it from deletion, written Congregation Beth Israel (Gadsden, Alabama), Temple Beth Israel (Niagara Falls, New York), Congregation Beth Israel (Honesdale, Pennsylvania), Temple Beth Israel (Bergen County, New Jersey), and 34 stubs. Your powers of observation do not appear to be very good. Jayjg <small style="color:darkgreen;">(talk) 02:01, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
 * 1) I actually do know a fair bit about Kastner and the allegations raised regarding him, having written most of the Malchiel Gruenwald article and contributed significantly to the Rudolf Vrba article. No, not "everyone agrees that Kastner collaborated". Kastner negotiated with the Nazis, trying to make a deal to trade Allied goods for Jewish lives. Whether or not this negotiation ever had a chance of succeeding is a matter for debate amongst historians, and there are some writers who think that Kastner knew they had no chance, and was only in it for himself - Vrba and Gruenwald primary among them. However, that is certainly not the consensus among historians, far from it. Yehuda Bauer certainly does not agree, nor does Martin Gilbert. But if Nishidani thinks that "almost everyone" thinks that Kastner was a collaborator who betrayed hundreds of thousands of Jews, and that Porter's award-winning book is bunk, let him produce the many reliable historians who say so. And no, despite your citing Adolf Eichmann as a reliable source on Kastner, I nevertheless do not consider him to be one.
 * 2) Aayan Hirsi Ali, Mitchell Bard, and Paul Bogdanor are all living people, and Wikipedia discussion regarding them is covered by the WP:BLP policy, regardless of your personal opinions regarding them.
 * 3) PalestineRemembered claimed that his account was a "legitimate" SPA, used to edit I-P articles. Since he is now using the account to edit other articles, it is no longer a legitimate SPA, but instead, merely a second account, which in Wikipedia terminology, is called a "sockpuppet". It no longer possess the alleged "legitimacy" it once claimed.
 * Jayjg, In regards to point 3, could you possibly point out where the evidence is that:
 * PR uses multiple accounts; and
 * simply having multiple accounts is considered sock-puppetry? My reading of WP:SOCK's lead suggests otherwise.
 * It seems a pretty big leap to go from "What used to be an SPA is now editing other areas of Wikipedia" to "The user is deceptively abusing sock-puppet accounts". Even if PR did have another account, I would see no problem, as long as never the twain shall meet.
 * -- Mark Chovain 02:55, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
 * You are correct, I had always believed from his statement that he was an SPA editing only I-P related articles that he was declaring PalestineRemembered to be a secondary account, as per SOCK, reason #1. I see now that it was an assumption on my part. Perhaps he can clarify. Jayjg <small style="color:darkgreen;">(talk) 03:38, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Uh... he said he is (or was) a "single-purpose account", which is what we call people who show up only to promote their band, categorize railroads by state, or block bad usernames. It says nothing about having another account. --NE2 04:23, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, I just stated that I now see it was merely an assumption on my part, based on my quite possibly erroneous inference that he was using the account for SOCK, reason #1. Jayjg <small style="color:darkgreen;">(talk) 05:35, 6 August 2008 (UTC)