User:Tiamut/breakdown

New Version
''The cycle of violence between the Israelis and Palestinians had been steadily escalating during the Second Intifada. March and April of 2002 saw suicide bomb attacks against Israelis by Palestinian groups, such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades increase in frequency, and saw two waves of incursions by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) into Palestinian towns and villages in the West Bank.''
 * Source1 : "By the beginning of 2002, the parties were already locked in an accelerating cycle of violent attacks. This cycle of violence further increased in intensity through the early months of this year. The violence reached a high point in the months of March and April, which saw suicide bomb attacks against Israelis by Palestinian groups increase in frequency, and two waves of incursions by the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) into Palestinian towns and villages in the West Bank, including areas under the administrative and security responsibility of the Palestinian Authority."
 * Source2 Irrelevant to this text and the subject - source describes events in 2003
 * Source3 Irrelevant to this text and subject - is this a reliable source anyway?

The first wave of Israeli incursions began on 27 February through to 14 March, causing significant loss of life.
 * Source1 Plett's report on the second day of the incursions. Probably not necessary.
 * Source2 : "During this same period, IDF conducted two waves of military incursions primarily in the West Bank, and air strikes against both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The first wave began on 27 February 2002 and ended on approximately 14 March. Those incursions, which Israel stated were in pursuit of Palestinians who had carried out attacks against Israelis, involved the use of ground troops, attack helicopters, tanks and F-16 fighter jets in civilian areas, including refugee camps, causing significant loss of life among civilians."

On March 5th, Sharon explained the cabinet's decision while talking with reporters in the Knesset cafeteria, using unusually blunt language: "The Palestinians must be hit, and it must be very painful... We must cause them losses, victims, so that they feel a heavy price."
 * Source1 No date is cited for this information in the TIME report, but it states: "Ariel Sharon has never been one to pussyfoot. He does not shy from confrontation, physical or verbal. The bumptious Prime Minister of Israel outdid himself, however, when speaking to reporters in an impromptu session at the parliament cafeteria early last week. Explaining the decision of his inner Cabinet to intensify the military campaign against the Palestinians, he used language that was unusually bald. "The Palestinians must be hit, and it must be very painful," he said. "We must cause them losses, victims, so that they feel a heavy price." He went on to do just that, unleashing a broader military offensive than anything seen so far in the past 17 months of fighting."
 * Added this source for the date of March 5th.

Suicide bombings continued throughout the first wave of IDF incursions, with attacks on 8 and 9 March.
 * Source1 "Over the course of two days, 8 and 9 March, 18 Israelis were killed in two separate Palestinian attacks and 48 Palestinians were killed in the Israeli raids that followed."

Following a larger attack on 27 March, an event known as the Passover massacre where 30 Israeli civilians were killed and about 140 were injured (20 seriously), the Israeli government deployed the IDF to conduct a second wave of incursions which it described as a large-scale counter-terrorist offensive, beginning on 29 March.
 * Source1 "It was against this backdrop that the most extensive Israeli military incursions in a decade, Operation Defensive Shield, were carried out. The proximate cause of the operation was a terrorist attack committed on 27 March in the Israeli city of Netanya, in which 28 people were killed and 140 injured."
 * Source2 Hebrew-language source - not necessary given that English-language sources saying the same thing are available
 * Source3 This seems to be a bunch of links to various suicide bombings. I don't really understand their inclusion here unless this was being used in an attempt to link Sharon's statement to these events. That would be WP:SYNTH unless a source says that itself.

Dubbed Operation Defensive Shield, the Israel Defense Forces issued emergency call-up notices for 30,000 reserve soldiers, the largest such call-up since the 1982 Lebanon War.
 * Source1 I'm assuming this is the source for the call up of reservists. In any case, its also mentioned here among other places.
 * Source2 I don't see why this is sourced for this info.

''Overall, in March 2002, some 130 Israelis including approximately 100 noncombatants were killed by Palestinians, while a total of 238 Palestinians including at least 83 noncombatants were killed in the same month by the IDF.
 * Source1
 * Source2

Jaakobou's version
March and April 2002 saw a dramatic increase of suicide bomb attacks against Israelis by Palestinian militant groups such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Fatah-affiliated Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades.
 * Source1: Not about this.
 * Source2 Not a reliable source.
 * Source3 This source mentions that two IDF incursions were carried out during these two months as well. Why is this information missing here? Not a very NPOV presentation of the source.

The next paragraph tries to paint Sharon's comments on March 5th as a response to terror attacks, using SYNTH to collect references to all the attacks that took place before his comments. It also tries to imply that the incursion undertaken by the IDF which is explicitly said by the UN to have begun on February 27th, began after this weekend of attacks and after Sharon's comments on the 5th, which is simply not true, according to the other sources cited. ''Following nine terror attacks between March 2-5 the Israeli cabinet decided to massively expand its anti-terrorist activity. While talking with reporters in the Knesset cafeteria, Sharon explained the cabinet's decision, pointing to the unleashing of the bloodiest week against Israelis since the start of the Second Intifada; in conjunction he asserted, "The Palestinians must be hit, and it must be very painful... We must cause them losses, victims, so that they feel a heavy price." ''

The final pararaph completely ignores Palestinian deaths from the first incursion (Feb 27-March 14), focusing only on Israeli deaths and their motivations for undertaking the operation. Using SYNTH again, it collects mentions of bombings before the second incursion was undertaken, like the March 9th one, to gloss over the fact that at that time the first IDF incursion was ongoing.

''Palestinian violence continued to escalate and in March alone approximately 130 Israelis were killed in 13 attacks, Suicide bombings on 9 March (see Café Moment bombing), and 20 March, followed by a larger attack on 27 March (an event known as the Passover massacre in which 30 Israeli civilians were killed), prompted the Israeli government to announce Operation Defensive Shield on March 29, and deploy the IDF on a wave of incursions into the West Bank in a large-scale counter-terrorist offensive. The Israel Defense Forces issued emergency call-up notices for 20,000 reserve soldiers, the largest call-up since the 1982 Lebanon War.

Conclusion
The new version avoids the WP:SYNTH and POV of the old version. It is adequately sourced. Some of the sources cied that serve no purpose need to be removed. Otherwise, I can't see anything that justifies its being blanket reverted. Fine tunings are always an option for discussion.

Other relevant info that could be added

 * In mid-February 2002, Arab countries announced the Arab Peace Initiative whereby they offered a normalization in relations with Israel, in exchange for an Israeli withdrawal from the territories occupied in 1967 and the establishment of a Palestinian state therein. American and European officials welcomed the initiative, but the Israeli government, headed by Ariel Sharon, appeared unwilling to followup. Six days after a televised address on February 22 announcing the IDF's readiness to dismantle "terrorist nests" in the Palestinian refugee camps, major assaults were launched on the Balata camp in Nablus and the Jenin camp, killing 30 Palestinians, wounding 200, and causing widespread destruction. By the end of third week of March, 200 Palestinians had been killed in the Israeli assaults, many of them civilians. On March 12, the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 1397 which outlined a vision for the Palestinian state, welcomed the Arab Peace Initiative and called for an immediate cessation of violence and the resumption of peace negotiations. Israeli troops pulled out of Palestinian population center on March 15, the day before the arrival of US peace envoy Anthony Zinni.