User talk:GHcool/Archive 3

Stalinsky quoting Nasrallah
Do you have anything to corroborate Stalinsky's quote of Nasrallah's April 9, 2000 speech dated before 2006? There should be some sources that also reference this quote during the 6 years between when Nasrallah said it and when Stalinsky wrote it. I don't think the quote was fabricated, but Steven Stalinsky is the executive director of MEMRI, an organization that has been criticized of bias... often, and a contributor to several Israeli newspapers, so it would be best to use a more neutral source for the quote, provided one can be found from before the 2006 war in Lebanon. If not, it will have to be framed appropriately. ← George [ talk  ] 22:40, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't have one from before 2006, but I found this from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy: "The Holocaust's Arab Heroes." --GHcool (talk) 23:48, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
 * It looks like the original source for the translation of this speech is the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs. We already quote another excerpt from the same speech a few paragraphs earlier in the ideology article, so I've moved this quote up and merged it with the existing quote. I left the bit about Nasrallah supporting the two Holocaust deniers, as that wasn't in the MFA translation, and was unique to the NY Sun piece. Cheers. ← George [ talk  ] 13:15, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Tenacity
Hey man.

I just came from your user-page. Whatever our stances on the Israel-Palestine conflict might be (methinks we both agree in some ways and disagree in some ways), I have to admit that I'm impressed by the sheer LENGTH of your write-up on the matter on your user-page.

I was also excited to see you've worked as a filmmaker -- I've dabbled in a bit of screen-writing myself. :)

AlphaFactor (talk) 18:18, 26 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the compliments. Actually, the user page has been a work in progress.  Every time I correct a misguided Wikipedia editor that discredits Israel (for example, comparing Israelis to Nazis), I add my response to my user page.  It has grown over the past 2-3 years to the length it is now.  --GHcool (talk) 21:29, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

J Street Volunteering

 * Hey GH. As I mentioned, I wanted to get your advice&help on something. I was speaking with a communications liaison at J Street earlier today. Prompted by events that took place over the weekend, I offered her my help as a volunteer. We spoke for only a couple of minutes, but the conversation seemed cordial. She suggested that I email her my resume. Since I was offering my assistance as a writer (helping with op-eds, blog postings, media releases, donor solicitation templates, ) I thought I'd also send her the text of a web-post I made over the weekend that led to me calling her in the first place. I've provided it below. Since you work in film and are a communications pro, and also since you know a thing or two about the mindsets of the people that are involved with this topic, I was eager to get your thoughts. At this point, I'm mostly unconcerned with grammar and spelling (this is a web-post, after all), but I was hoping you might give it a quick read-thru, and then provide some pointers on minor edits I might want to make regarding style and tone.

I appreciate your help; methinks we're further reaping the dividends of good will, here.

(err... lastly, please try not to become too concerned with the underlying point of view. there's always the chance it could evoke passions; this is the Israel-Palestine conflict, after all.)

After making the post below, I received many accolades from the forum’s members including ones from differing sides of the issue. When my girlfriend saw it, she was particularly impressed and was particularly fond of the writing styles employed by the post. It was at her suggestion that I contacted you earlier this afternoon to offer to volunteer. Since I was writing for a web forum, my language and tone was rather casual. But, it should demonstrate we wield similar mentalities as regards the Israel-Palestine conflict, while also providing you some idea of my writing style in general.
 * Dorit, earlier this weekend, on a web forum I frequent, a fellow presented the open question, “Whose side in the conflict are you on, and why?-- what are your underlying reasons?” Responses poured in quickly and while some of them were polite, most of them (as I suppose might be expected, especially on the web) ranged from combative to obscene.  I became curious when I noticed that none of the responses quite lined up with my own views.


 * While I certainly don't think that something as intricate as the Palestine-Israel conflict can be boiled down to 'sides'...

I am prepared to say this.

At present, the Palestinians are impoverished and are undergoing great suffering.

Food, continuous electricity, jobs, healthcare... They lack many things that people like you and I take for granted. Their lives are plainly miserable-- as might be expected for refugees.

It doesn't have to be this way. The Palestinians don't 'have to' live in perpetual misery and impoverishment. But at present, the Palestinians are not the ones that ultimately control their own fate.

Their fates and futures are controlled by Israel. Israel has economically isolated the Palestinians via blockades. Under such isolation, the only possible result is an impoverished society. It is this kind of hopeless poverty that drive people to terror and crime. We've seen this in countless countries.

Take Ireland. It was economically isolated until the 1990s due to a nativist agenda deliberately designed to minimize Ireland’s role in the world economy. Consequently, Ireland remained poor and the IRA raged strong into the early 1990s. But, following economic modernization and integration into the world economy, Ireland ceased to be a poor country and the IRA has since disbanded.

In the Middle East, economic despair has grown to the point of driving even many normal Palestinians to anger -- such anger, that they would seriously consider casting a ballot for violent madmen such as Hamas who promise 'vengeance' for suffering Palestinians.

Yes, the individual Palestinians that perpetuate terrorist acts are responsible for their own actions and they ought not be excused for their own misconduct.

And yes, the Palestinians -- despite their despair and anger -- should not have cast ballots for Hamas.

But it's also true that were Israel to take measures to keep the Palestinians from becoming hopelessly destitute, the incidence of terrorism would go down.

While Israel is entitled to 'reasonable' security measures (since many individual Palestinians could have violent tendencies), the measures shouldn't be so extreme that Palestine is economically isolated.

Let there be no question that the Israel-Palestine issue is complex and passions can very quickly flare.

But, because of the day to day misery the Palestinians experience -- as poor people -- I empathize with them strongly.

I reiterate that being destitute does not excuse criminality or terrorism; such behavior must be answered with justice. But it’s also important that such misconduct be understood in the context of poverty.

Whatever the underlying reasons may be, the Palestinians are suffering miserably and for that reason we ought feel compassion for them.

THANKS GH! Let me know if I can return the favor!! --AlphaFactor (talk) 03:22, 27 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Alphafactor,
 * While your tone, diction, and syntax are all very good, I'm afraid that your analysis of Middle Eastern history does not paint the multidimensional picture that you set out to achieve.
 * Firstly, most experts in the field would disagree with the core of your argument, which is that poverty begets terrorism. Throughout history, there have been people who are poorer than the Palestinians and more oppressed who have not resorted to terrorism (Tibetans, for example).  Occupation also does not beget terrorism since Palestinian terrorism has been a phenomenon since before the Israelis conquered the West Bank and Gaza Strip (Tibet is a good counter-example for this too).  I do admit, however, that poverty and occupation are important factors for Palestinian terrorism, but factors ought not to be confused with motives.
 * Secondly, your analysis of the cause of Palestinian poverty puts the cart before the horse, so to speak. There's no reference to the Arab population that practiced terror against the Jewish population before there was a state (see 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine), Arab Palestinian terrorism immediately following the UN partitian plan vote (see 1947–1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine), the Palestinians' rejection of UN Resolution 242, and the Palestinians' continued refusal to make peace no matter how many times its offered to them (see especially Camp David 2000 Summit, Hamas's treatment of their own people as human shields, and many more.
 * Lastly, as someone who one might consider pro-Israeli, I'd like to make it known that I too am sorry for their predicament. I blame Israel to some extent, but I place the lion's share of the blame on the Palestinian leaders who prefer terrorism to peace time and time again and are willing to fight Israel to the last Palestinian child.  The way they deliberately put their own children in harm's way and use them as weapons is more disgusting than anything they do to Israelis.
 * Regards. --GHcool (talk) 05:32, 27 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Alriiiiight... I just fired off the email to J Street's communications liaison. With any luck, they'll look over things favorably.
 * tone, diction, and syntax are all very good
 * :) I very much appreciate the kind words. Thank you!
 * But as regards my 'analysis' of the Middle East...
 * err... lastly, please try not to become too concerned with the underlying point of view. there's always the chance it could evoke passions
 * ;) Don't say I didn't warn you.
 * I wanted your thoughts on my tone and style because I did sense that you would be the sort to provide a candid critique.
 * Though I realize you have some differing thoughts on the web-post's content, methinks that it'll likely lineup neatly with the email recipient's perspectives on the conflict.
 * You know, while i DID have a suspicion or so that you were on the 'ProIsrael' side of the issue, up until I read what you typed I very mostly believed that you were not. Remember how we'd been talking about the hotheads? Statistically, I do not know if there are more hotheads that tilt toward the 'ProIsrael' side of the issue, nor do I know if there are more hotheads that tilt toward the 'ProPalestine' side of the issue.  It could be that of the 1000 hotheads in the universe, 600 are 'ProIsrael' and 400 are 'ProPalestine'.  Or it could be the other way around. Who knows?
 * But, speaking from FIRSTHAND experience and FIRSTHAND encounters... I've met very many more hotheads that tilted toward the 'ProIsrael' side of the issue. The trains&buses guy was just one instance among quite a few others. Maybe my personal experience is representative of the hothead ratio. Or, maybe my personal experience is a fluke.
 * Given that you did seem very cool-headed, it did seem -- going by quick-glance reasoning -- that you didn't tilt toward the 'ProIsrael' side of the issue. But that just makes me all the gladder to have gotten introduced. ^_^
 * Oh, and my 'analysis' of the conflict....? :) I'm a little strapped for time to debate tonight, but an opportunity to discuss the Israel-Palestine conflict with someone who is cool-headed AND 'ProIsrael' isn't something that I've stumbled across very frequently. Oh, I'll defend my analysis for ya'... Just not tonight.
 * And even with that said, I have a feeling that what you might be tempted to infer about my viewpoints on the matter, differ significantly from what they actually are. Why, I'll even go a step further: I think I can nudge your views to be significantly closer to mine! >:) That's right. I actually said I think I could change somebody's mind on the conflict -- at least a little bit. But, in filmman-speak, let's just wait till after the opening-credits, shall we? --AlphaFactor (talk) 07:19, 27 January 2009 (UTC)


 * While I appreciate the invitation to debate, I'd prefer to talk about articles on Wikipedia. You seem like a moderate on the subject and so I assume we agree on the core principles:
 * That Israel ought to have secure borders on at least a portion of their historic homeland and to define their Jewish, democratic state as they see fit
 * That that the Palestinians ought to have have an independent state in at least a portion of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
 * That the above two are not mutually exclusive propositions in theory.
 * All other rational value judgments stem from those three points. This is why I'm more interested in the facts than in the opinions on who's more right and who's more wrong when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  The goal is peace.  On this, I'm sure we agree.  Instead of debating, let's focus our energies on improving Wikipedia and correcting errors and omissions in factual information.  --GHcool (talk) 08:31, 27 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Lol.
 * instead of debating, let's focus our energies on improving Wikipedia
 * Actually, I think I'd prefer to do BOTH. If anything, my experience has been that mixing in a little fun -- including in the guise of leisurely debate amongst friendly lads -- actually results in more work getting done.
 * And, believe it or not, nope, I do NOT adhere to core principle#2. Sure, I wouldn't characterize my views as being tantamount to the hard-liner view (i.e., the fellows that are so firmly opposed to the creation of a Palestinian state that they say they'd never allow it to happen even over their dead body), but I am skeptical of the various two-state solutions that have been floating about. I just simply don't think that the odds of them bringing about nice results are very good.
 * As I said... my views differ significantly from what ANYONE might expect. I'll spare you the details for at least the moment, but I will say that lateral reasoning underpin my views. I'll concede that when a fellow says, 'I've thought of a THIRD way to do things that I want to talk to you about!' there's usually a good chance the fellow is a little bit crazy (think: Ross Perot. Or, maybe even Lyndon LaRouche, to cite an extreme). But I would strongly maintain that my views, though they might very well constitute a third way of looking at things, are not absurd. More on that to come.
 * I've been reading up on and supplementing Wikipedia's materials on John Brown. John Brown had nothing to do with Israel-Palestine whatsoever, of course, but it's been absolutely fascinating to read and learn about (should you have ever the occasion). And so, back to it!
 * --AlphaFactor (talk) 16:47, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

jewish terrorism and zionist political violence
Could you please have a look at these articles because what happens there seems to me not very wise and a little bit not in compliance with wp:npov but rather more with wp:soap. Thx. Ceedjee (talk) 18:00, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
 * What specifically do you object to? --GHcool (talk) 18:33, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I let you judge by yourself. Just follow last edits and last comments on the talk page. Any new mind is welcome. Ceedjee (talk) 22:12, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I think you're doing an excellent job. Both articles are (as of this writing) informative and not grossly POV for a topic this controversial.  I would be against the merger of these two documents.  If this ever comes to a vote or a proposal of any kind, please let me know and I'll vote accordingly.  Thank you.  --GHcool (talk) 00:40, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Views subpage
GHcool, hi, could you clarify the purpose of User:GHcool/Views? It seems to be making some negative statements about other editors, which could be viewed as a violation of WP:ATP. I'm not saying delete the whole thing, but it might be a good idea to delete qualitative comments about other editors, unless you're collecting the diffs for a particular reason. Likewise, for some of the quotes, you may wish to present them in a neutral "Somebody said this" format, rather than attributing them to specific editors. Thanks, --Elonka 01:43, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm collecting the diffs so that in the future, I can cite specific incidents when a specific person said a specifically stupid thing. I suppose I could just collect the diffs without attributing them to the person.  When I have a moment, I may revise it accordingly.  --GHcool (talk) 02:03, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Precedent around MfD says Laundry lists are not something particularly welcomed; while precedent is not guiding (we're not a court) it is helpful to indicate how !voters will behave in a particular type of event. Deletion and then recreation without names is the minimum (and even there it is stretching it) that is really acceptable; I'd be much happier if you just deleted the thing altogether. No action will result in an MfD, limited action may still, to be honest, result in an MfD. Ironholds (talk) 09:46, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Might I suggest a .txt file or an e-mail to yourself? The diffs are all saved anyway so if you need to reference them you can have them all saved, just saves having them hanging out there as drama bait (And justification for certain other editors to maintain similar pages) -- Narson ~  Talk  • 12:04, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
 * FYI, GHcool, the reason this came up, is because some other ATP pages have gone up for MfD lately, and your page was brought up in discussion. That's why so many people are tumbling in to your talkpage at the moment.  To watch and/or participate, see Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:PalestineRemembered/Cheating‎, and another related one just started at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:PalestineRemembered/Saeb Erekat. --Elonka 16:01, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't have the time to do it at the moment. May I request that any action taken about my "Views" page be suspended until Monday morning? I promise to take care of it before then.  Thanks in advance.
 * As a side note, I don't have any problems with PalestineRemembered's page. He has the right to state his views.  I wish he (and the broader Wikipedia community) would grant me similar respect, but I see that that is not in the cards, and so I'll remove the offending material when I get a moment this weekend.  --GHcool (talk) 18:46, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
 * We are granting you similar respect; his page is up for MfD. Ironholds (talk) 20:13, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Asking for a few days is perfectly reasonable, thanks. :)  Enjoy your weekend, --Elonka 23:01, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I meant I wish you would grant me the same respect I grant PalestineRemembered. I don't mind if his page is deleted or not deleted.  In any case, I won't fight the request of the Wikipedia community, but I thought I should clarify.  As I promised earlier, I'll remove the offending material within a day or two.  --GHcool (talk) 01:55, 7 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Done sooner than I expected. --GHcool (talk) 05:06, 7 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Hmmm, it still needs a bit more, since you're still making personal comments about other editors. Could you just remove the names entirely?  Or perhaps just blank the entire page, and then if you really want to access the information later, it'll still be in history. Or to put it another way:  Any place that you see an editor's name, try as a mental exercise to remove their name and insert your own, and imagine how you'd react if you saw someone else maintaining a subpage like this with comments about you.  It's really not an appropriate page to have, as it's the kind of thing that will antagonize other editors, without providing any solid benefit to the rest of the project. --Elonka 19:59, 7 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Whoops, I just did the "Accusations" and forgot the "Realities." Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I just fixed it.
 * As for replacing my name with the editors I criticize, I think if I wrote bigoted falsehood, I would rightly be criticized. --GHcool (talk) 20:40, 7 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Your comments at that page appear to be bigoted falsehood, aimed at defending the use in articles of two serious falsifiers and race-haters. Schechtman in particular was been exposed as a fraud very much more blatant than David Irving (who abused some of the sources he'd found - Schechtman actually invented sources). It is horrific to see an example of this conduct edit-warred into Causes of the 1948 Palestinian exodus - a clip from his "The Arab Refugee Problem" that reads as follows: "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."
 * The portion I've bolded is a clear "extreme historical falsification" that has absolutely no place in any article in the encyclopaedia. It was edit-warred back into the article eg here, with the summary "put back Schechtman. Why was this deleted?".
 * All this on top of an attempt to make it appear that I'm defending, and presumably using David Irving in articles! And edit-warring out another scholar from that article against a 4.5 to 1.5 editor agreement! PRtalk 15:04, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
 * More comparisons of Israeli historians to Holocaust deniers aren't exactly helping PalestineRemembered's case. I once again ask him not to continue with this rhetoric as it is offensive, ignorant, and plainly a failure as a tactic.  --GHcool (talk) 21:24, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

As an aside, regarding the penultimate accusation on that page, where the IP addy suggests that Hitler is the main proponent of a Jewish state before the war. While patently untrue, there was an idea put forwar during the war within the German government for Jews to all be shipped to Madagasgar. Whether this was a serious plan (I mean, they would have to either sail around africa through various allied navies, or take Suez and even then Madagasgar was not in German hands) or just a ploy (If you people hadn't forced this war on us we wouldn't have to kill them we could have sent them to Madagasgar idea, I would imagine similar to that ship Hitler let go full of Jewish refugees to prove that the world didn't want them, so why shoul he?) I can't speak to. I am happy to dig out references regarding it. I can't recll if its in Hochstadt or one of the other book. Anyway, I imagine that is what has the IP confused. -- Narson ~  Talk  • 22:13, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm not familiar with the Madagascar thing, but that's not what the IP address said. He/she said that Hitler supported a Jewish state (i.e. Hitler was a Zionist).  This is a very different claim and obviously false.  --GHcool (talk) 22:56, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Your false accusation of my link spamming when I posted one on topic link to a talk page.
Dear GHCool,

The other day you reverted a contribution to a talk page I made and accused me of being a link spammer.

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/w/index.php?title=Talk%3AIsrael_lobby_in_the_United_States&diff=267236014&oldid=267195523

This is a serious accusation and I would like to take this matter up further with you directly so that I understand what exactly has made me be considered a link spammer in your opinion. Can you please cite the sections of Spam that I am in violation of? Remember that you are not to use automatic revert tools against contributions considered to be in good standing, that is for fighting vandalism. Is the link I posted connected to me in some fashion such that I am falling afoul of self promotion or am I posting off topic links (it doesn't appear so if you read the article)? I can't find the provision that I have violated? Also remember that on Wikipedia there are no follow attributes on links thus it doesn't help Google page rank to post things on talk pages.

I am been a good contributor to Wikipedia for some time and it is unfair to bully me over a non-violation. I think it sets a bad precedent to accept this on my part. I am not going to be bullied when making valid contributions. Please if you find a post of mine too short, explain that you feel it is too short, don't blindly revert me and make false but serious accusations regarding my intentions.

I don't think anyone neutral observer would characterize my contributions as those of a link spammer.

--John Bahrain (talk) 16:26, 7 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Perhaps "link spam" was the wrong thing to accuse you of. However, I felt it was setting a bad precedent to allow a one link: "Check this out" kind of post to be accepted.  Imagine if I went to every talk page and wrote: "Check this out" and put one link to a related topic.  It would get old rather fast and it wouldn't necessarily help Wikipedia.  If you would like to edit the article using the website you linked to as a source, feel free, but a "check this out so you guys can do the research and writing and I can just provide the link" kind of request is rather lazy and might be considered to be a violation of the spirit of WP:Soapbox (whereas instead of you doing the soapboxing, you get a link to a website you agree with doing the soapboxing for you).  --GHcool (talk) 20:28, 7 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Thank you for retracting your accusation of link spamming. I have added the content under discussion to the appropriate article.  --John Bahrain (talk) 14:37, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

npov
Hi GHCool, Do you see something pov in this summary ? (From the lead of the article 1948 Palestinian exodus)
 * "During the war, between 700,000 and 750,000 Palestinian Arabs fled or were expelled from the territories that became Israel in 1949. They were not allowed to go back to their home after the war and became refugees. The circumstances of these events are still hotly debated among historians and commentators of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict."

Ceedjee (talk) 10:42, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Aside from Israel being established in 1948 (not 1949), it seems fine to me. --GHcool (talk) 01:30, 23 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your answer !
 * I wrote 1949 because what finally became Israel after the 1949 cease fire discussions was different than what Israel was in 1948.
 * Should I add "after the 1949 Armistice Agreements" ?
 * Ceedjee (talk) 07:11, 23 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, that would be preferable, IMHO. :) --GHcool (talk) 17:33, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

UNRWA
Yes, I know that Middle East Forum isn't just a web forum, it is a "think tank", self claimed to be fighting "[...] or lawful Islam". Erik Warmelink (talk) 22:17, 27 February 2009 (UTC)