User talk:Tempered

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Hello, Tempered, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful: I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using four tildes ( ~ ); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place  before the question. Again, welcome! Danger (talk) 17:59, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
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Psst...
Bigger digger (talk) 13:06, 21 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your comment, Bigger digger. You suggest I should "engage with other editors."  However, I am unclear on how I can be responsible for their silence when the material is already there, and has been there for three months, openly, and they have not chosen to comment on it at all.  Only Dailycare, and secondarily and irrelevantly Harlan, have commented.  I cannot drag others into the discussion; it is up to them.Tempered (talk) 22:39, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Opinions
Hi Tempered, I'm messaging you so as not to slow down the article talk page with opinion.

My opinion about the depressing slant of these sources is to be expected, really. I get equally depressed reading the pro-Palestinian side, which occasionally does indeed have antisemitic aspects. So I have no argument that there is antisemitism in the world, and it may be stronger in Muslim parts of the world (especially as some of them feel invaded by Israel), but the "apartheid label = delegitimisation = antisemitism" argument seems incredibly simplistic to me. What you've got is an area of land between the Jordan and the sea that is an ancestral home to both Jews and the Muslims. In the last century many Muslims in the area have been pushed out of their homes and "managed" into new locations, some of which are walled. So there is clearly some segregation going on, and it's a difficult question as to how much of that segregation and control can be attributed to security and how much to race. The more it seems attributable to race, the more appropriate the apartheid label becomes, and the less it can be dismissed as propaganda. So the dismissal of the apartheid label as entirely inaccurate in these sources, followed by the assumption that it must be racist propaganda, is what strikes me as an affront to neutral logic. Even if the apartheid label were hypothetically entirely inaccurate, isn't it possible that some of those employing the apartheid label believe it's accurate? In which case their use of it would be in good faith, and not necessarily an act of propaganda. It's the blindness to that possibility that strikes me as somewhat paranoid. Yes, there's antisemitism in the world. No, it doesn't explain everything.

The Israeli position that their treatment of the Palestinians is driven entirely by security becomes especially hard to credit when it comes to the settlers. Not only do many settlers seem to exhibit a strong degree of racism in their quoted comments, but it's hard to imagine how eating away at the Palestinian territory in the West Bank with settlements can be part of a "security" plan on the part of Israel. So there does seem to be good reasons for the Palestinians to feel mistreated, without even going into whether the formation of Israel displaced them. This evident mistreatment makes it unreasonable to attribute all of the pro-Palestinian arguments to racism.

Often, the legitimacy of the Palestinians has been called into question by Israelis - I often hear "there's no such country as Palestine" here and in news article feedback. Is that also racist, by the same logic? Is there an Israeli campaign to delegitimise Palestinians by saying they don't belong to a real place or race? If so, wouldn't that campaign of delegitimisation be equally racist as the "apartheid" campaign? I'm equally dubious in both cases. Both arguments have their pros and cons, and to cast the arguments as racist is merely to demonise the arguments rather than discuss them on their merits.

In actuality, what you have between the Jordan and the sea is an area of land that Muslims, Jews, and some others all have equally legitimate ancestral claim to (because their forebears lived there), so if any of these parties wants to be viewed as legitimate by the international community they have to find some way to share the land equitably. Whether that's in a one-state or two-state solution, it can't be in the present situation where the more powerful group is oppressing the less powerful one, regardless of whether that oppression takes place for reasons of security or race. Ryan Paddy (talk) 19:12, 9 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks, Ryan Paddy. I appreciate your contribution to the discussion.  And I very well understand your feeling depressed.  There is nothing really different about this generation that distinguishes it from earlier generations (not even the just previous generation!): majority views can be fallacious and malicious; human nature has not gone through a sudden sea change.  The tale of history is too often a miserable one, and often Jews have had to suffer from wildly unjust lies justifying murder, even as now.  I think it grotesquely appropriate that the only liberal democracy in the Middle East is defamed as the only apartheid state, the very people whose religious heritage is the source of universal human rights are defamed as the chief violators of human rights, the most moral and morally justified national liberation movement in modern times is the only one declared to be illegitimate (for a time by official decree of the "United Nations") and there are excuses made for every conceivable atrocity on the side of their enemies,  etc., etc.  The very people who first valued peace far more than war are the ones blamed for war when they merely defend themselves.  It is just and exact that over the entry way into the UN building in New York City there is engraved for the whole world the saying from Isaiah 2:4, "They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more," omitting from this the immediately preceding sentence foretelling the return of the Jews unto Zion in the end of days, while a very great deal of the discussions inside that same building center on demonizing and attacking the new Jewish state.  All of this is all too normal.
 * However, we differ on how to view these matters. Your comments seem to ignore that there really have been several wars to wipe out Israel, it remains in a state of war, sometimes hot and sometimes cold, and that it has a right to defend itself.  I am really not sure that there is any point in going on to respond to any specific points raised here by you, such as the claims that Arabs have been "segregated" and pushed out from this or that territory and naturally object to losing, etc., inasmuch as I do not think that this has a bearing on the contributions issues on the "Israel and the Apartheid Analogy" article, and if you wish further enlightenment there are books that are not militantly anti-Zionist that you can read at your own leisure.  I might suggest however that you have a read of Mitchell Bard, Myths and Facts: A Guide to the Arab-Israeli Conflict, available at www.JewishVirtualLibrary.org, which gives a general response to these issues, and such works as Howard Sachar, A History of Israel, Walter Laqueur, A History of Zionism, and, in regard to the issues at debate on the Wikipedia article, Alan Dershowitz, The Case for Israel and David Matas, Aftershock: Anti-Zionism and Antisemitism, already much cited in the article we are dealing with.  Even Benny Morris, 1948, deals fully with your claims that Israel "dispossessed" Palestinians, and shows that Palestinian claims are heavily exaggerated and ignore Arab leaders and policies as if they did not exist.  You will be able to find more.
 * Antisemitism is very much at issue here. Recent Pew Global Survey polls have shown that fully antisemitic ideas as defined in their global survey are held by 90% of people in Arab countries in the region, the highest percentage by far of any region or countries.  It also pervades Muslim views in the West, and has distorted public debate there too, linking up with leftist anti-American and "anti-capitalist" (i.e., covertly anti-democratic and authoritarian if not totalitarian, although they would not admit this) groups that are willing collaborators with and even perpetuators of antisemitism.  Antisemitism is a usual expression of totalistic ideologies, since the Jews very successfully persist in their group difference and this has been viewed as an offense also by totalistic secularists since the French Enlightenment.  (At least leftist types generally differ by admitting and deploring the Holocaust.)  This antisemitism has its roots in several sources, as regards the Middle East anyway.  First, the Qur'an and later Muslim writings.  On this, see Andrew Bostom, ed., The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism (2005, I believe), and Mohammed, Allah, and the Jews: The Foundational Doctrine; The Islamic Trilogy, Vol. 5 ( CSPI, 2006).  A very important component of this is the Muslim outrage at any part of "their" Middle East being a non-Muslim independent state.  This is taken as being contrary to their religion, ethnos, and destiny.  Even if only angels inhabited Israel, therefore, or Baha'is, or Christians, or Hindus, the complaints would be the same and the efforts at demonization and delegitimization as fevered.  But of course mere Jews having their own state, that is a kind of ultimate dishonor needing violent correction.  Feud, honor and shame values come into play as well, on which see for example David Pryce-Jones, The Closed Circle, or even better various anthropological studies of local village cultures in the Middle East.  Of course such values obtained until recently all around the Mediterranean and elsewhere, wherever there was no real rule of law, and not just in Arab/Muslim communities.  Secondly, there is the rise of primitive nationalisms which seek to unify very strife-ridden and violent societies by creating a common identity around lowest common denominators: race and/or religion, and shared negatives, not divergent positives, such as joining in a common hatred of the archetypal other -- the Jews have had that unenviable role throughout the history of modern primitive nationalisms, German, eastern European, and other, and they have certainly played that role in the Arab world.  And third, there is the direct influence of Nazi propaganda, which built on both the previous tendencies and pervaded the Middle East.  Nazi texts are still cited, e.g., in the Hamas Charter, and Mahmud Abbas wrote his doctoral dissertation on Holocaust denial.  A lot of the Palestinian claims echo the sort of stories the Nazis made up -- their own attributes, goals and deeds were projected onto the "Jew" and condemned, a covert self-condemnation having nothing to do with Jews but for which Jews were murdered.  Nor is it irrelevant that the heart's desire of Hamas and Fatah is also to murder Jews.  Nor that Fatah makes explicit its refusal to accept Israel as a Jewish state, officially claims that Jews have no holy sites in Jerusalem or elsewhere either in the Holy Land, and insists formally that Jewish inhabitants must be ethnically cleansed from their territories.  These are official policies openly declared, not some suppositions arising from inferences from individual cases of discrimination.
 * There is a great deal more that could be said, but I desist. If you really do want to discuss such issues as Muslim antisemitism, the existence or non-existence of a "Palestine" state before the rise of Israel (and the implications), the condition of Israeli Arabs in Israel, the history of events in 1948, etc., etc., please indicate that and I will write more, and also provide reading references.  But for now, this is enough.Tempered (talk) 04:54, 10 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Just for fun, I include here for your delectation an item I just read in an email. Searching for it on the web required some effort, but here you can read "Moved" (Cambridge Union - Debating Society): "Why Israel is a Rogue State" at what is in fact an excellent internet resource: http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2010/11/why-israel-is-rogue-state-gabriel.html


 * Thanks for the non-answer, it was not very illuminating. I was hoping for something with less sentiment and mythology and more admitting of the historical realities and rationalism, some willingness to admit at least a small degree of fault regarding the mess that Israel is in, otherwise there's really going to be no conversation here. So, if you could please justify the ever-expanding Israeli settlements in the West Bank, bearing in mind my comments on the subject, I'd be grateful. I'm afraid I'm now expecting to hear what the Israeli mythology has to say on this subject, but I'd be happy to be wrong. Less ideological lecture, more conversation about your personal viewpoint please. Ryan Paddy (talk) 18:09, 10 November 2010 (UTC)


 * The uncivil language surprises me, and seems demeaning to you. It also confuses me about what it is exactly that you want with this exchange.  On the one hand, you don't want any "mythologies" or "sentiments," which I read as attacks on my personal opinions or larger conclusions, just "historical realities and rationalism," which suggests a recitation of historical issues alone.  On the other hand you ask explicitly for my personal viewpoint, excluding reference to wider quite factual issues and historical realities I did actually address in my answer just above.  In any case,  I wrote a sincere and extended answer, grounded rationally on objective scholarship, and it does also reflect my personal views, whether it seems palatable or not.  I included further historical reading which would direct you to fuller answers than I can give here, since the questions you put are many, the realities are fairly complex, and all this requires longer space than is fitting in a personal Talk page.  I again refer you to them.
 * But in brief, since apparently the big issue for you is the "settlements" in the Disputed Territories, I begin by asking why Jewish communities are such a big deal? Do you object in New Zealand, where I gather you live, to having Jews living in the country?  Should they be killed if they do, as the PA advocates (glorifying murderers in all official and unofficial ways)?  Should any liberal democracy, or for that matter, any decent society, make an issue out of this, especially one genuinely eager to show good will and ready to make peace with a Jewish state next door?  Why should Israel be expected to have 20% of its population Arab but the PA 0% of its population Jewish?  Which is the racist apartheid state in that comparison?  I do wonder if you are not bothered by the fact that the official PA position is that the whole West Bank as well as Gaza must literally be ethnically cleansed of Jews?  Do you even endorse it?
 * There was no problem at Oslo, Camp David, Taba, or in other peace negotiations with the "settlements" being an insuperable block to negotiations before Obama made it so. Since then, it has become one the Palestinians have insisted on to justify no future peace talks.  But it is a false excuse, as the history of past peace talks shows.  Israel has also offered a swop of territory to allow the Jewish communities to be included in Israel, with pro-PA Israeli Arab areas included in the PA.  There are other options.  The "settlements" would not be an unsurmountable problem if there was any real desire for peace on the part of the Palestinians, and this refusal to countenance Jews or even basic Jewish legitimacy extends to many other official positions of the P.A., including even the denial that there are any genuine Jewish holy sites at all, either in Jerusalem or elsewhere, in the Biblical holy land, so that Jews, qua Jews, have no claim to anything and even their religion and Scripture have been delegitimized.  Naturally Jews wish to live near to their most holy sites.  What is wrong with that, in any decent and reasonable view?
 * If it is claimed that no double standards are operating, how is it that there is indifferent silence about PA open support for terrorist atrocities and ethnic cleansing while fiercely criticising far far less significant discrimination, a lot of this criticism of the usual propaganda sort of distortions, in Israel itself relating to Israeli Arabs? Compare the treatment of Israeli Arabs with the treatment of minorities closely linked to enemies in time of war in all Western democracies, in WWI and WWII, and also now, and at the least Israel comes out no worse, and usually it is very much, even incredibly better.
 * As you will know, there have been frequent wars in the past generation brought on by Arab attempts to wipe out Israel, starting even before its declaration in 1947-48. The Arabs lost those wars, and often lost territory too.  Israel is not to blame for that, though the Palestinian/Arab/Muslim claim is that each victory was "illegal" and "criminal."  Moreover, it is not unjust that there should be a penalty for attempting to wipe out an entire state and people, again and again, and loss of territory is one such appropriate penalty -- recognized as such by the way in history and international law.
 * If the Arabs generally had accepted the two-states-for-two-peoples resolution of the UN in 1947, Israel would have consisted of non-contiguous little bantustans, to coin a phrase, in a wider Palestinian continguous state, and there would have been no movement of population at all since there were hardly any Arabs in the areas assigned the new Jewish state. After the bloody conflict that ensued, Israel's borders were a somewhat more defensible thirty miles wide at its widest point, ten at its waist - still very insecure considering the belligerent attitudes of its neighbors.
 * By the way, the so-called "refugees" were put into internment camps still mostly inside their own self-claimed "Palestine" territory, a mere one to twenty miles from their previous homes. They were not real refugees, merely displaced persons still in their own self-proclaimed land.  The refusal by Arab governments including even the PA itself to allow them a normal life within their own "Palestine" is tied to what lies at the root of the present endless conflict: "Palestine" has never been the real issue (neither Jordan nor Egypt set up "Palestine" in the portions they held before 1967, nor did anything for the refugees).  The issue is the outrage that there could be a non-Muslim, non-Arab, even a Jewish state, in the "Muslim Arab" Middle East, as I wrote before.  That really is the key issue.  The Palestinians are in effect cruelly held as sacrificial hostages against the final annihilation of the Jewish state.  So the primitive and miserable situation of the refugees in their various camps over the decades is not due to Israel, which in any case did not govern there.  It is the entirely intentional political decision of their host governments.
 * There is really no point in rehearsing here the whole history of the matter. Please have a look at the histories I cited above.  The Jewish communities quite understandably grew in the West Bank, including around Jewish holy sites, at first very slowly after 1967, but in light of PA aggressions more vigorously in the last decade and a half, as Israel's population increased rapidly, and as Palestinian refusal to show genuine peaceful intentions and to make war instead demonstrated that no accommodations would bear any positive fruit.  At any time, in 1947, 1967, 1973, 1979, even in 1994-2000, the Palestinians could have accepted a state before there were any settlements to make a fuss over; they did not.  Each time, they loss ground.  That was their choice.
 * Each terrorist atrocity made it clearer that Arafat was not interested in peace; Camp David 2000 made this official. There are no "settlements" in Gaza: Israel's reward are thousands of rockets and terrorist attacks.  So removing "settlements" did not bring peace even in that most blatant instance.  What evidence is there, or assurance, that removing "settlements" in the West Bank will not bring rockets from there?  The Palestinians actually have done next to nothing to justify such an assurance.  The intifada was only brought to an end by the security fence whose "separation" you deplore.  And Fatah is suppressing Hamas in the West Bank for its own survival, not for Israel's.  But its own agenda remains the same, as the tone of its media, religious preaching, schoolbooks, and even statements from its leaders make clear (in Arabic, not in English).  Now, however, there is a disingenuous cry from the Palestinians that the "settlements" are the big issue, and were an hidden operation that escaped their notice in previous peace negotiations, a covert attempt to put something over on them, so that they are citing that now as the reason why Abbas cannot possibly agree to peace talks.  The result of constant Palestinian intransigence  is now made the excuse for further intransigence.
 * Bottom line: there should be a penalty for constant warfare and incitement to terrorism: the "settlements" are that penalty, which at any time in the past six decades the Palestinians could have prevented by choosing peace, and it is just too bad the Palestinians don't like it.Tempered (talk) 08:49, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I gather that what you want is for me to criticise the "settlements" and their supporters, and/or the behavior of some Israelis regarding them, as if this explains anything the Palestinians do or is even remotely comparable to Palestinian behaviors. On such an approach, an article I read just today well conveys my views:  Barry Rubin, "The Hour of the Hanging Judges: Demonizing Israel and Pretending It Is Ordinary," at: http://rubinreports.blogspot.com/2010/11/hour-of-hanging-judges-demonizing.htmlTempered (talk) 04:56, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

I've just noticed your reply. It's a lot to digest. On the specific question I asked you, it sounds like you think the settlements are a reasonable form of punishment for the uncooperativeness of the Palestinians. That's interesting to hear, and I appreciate that you gave your opinion rather than continuing to avoid the subject. Do you think that opinion is widely held in Israel? The problem, as I see it, is that this undermines any moral high ground that Israel may claim. Fundamentally, insofar as the Palestinians have reasonable grounds for objection to Israel it's largely in regard to the forced confiscation of ancestral lands, whether during the formation of Israel & the wars or via the settlements (and bombing them, but that's another discussion). Contrawise, Israel largely has reasonable grounds to object to the violent resistance of the Palestinians to their presence. So... you see where I'm heading here? If each side responds to the objectionable behaviour of the other with more objectionable behaviour of their own, it's a vicious cycle, and both sides are to blame for perpetuating it. Ryan Paddy (talk) 03:46, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

I would also note that the "punishment by settlement" logic sounds like a rationalisation. I very much doubt that the settlers themselves see their activity as a punishment of the Palestinians. I gather they feel the settling is moral in itself for whatever reason. Because it's the land of their ancestors/promised to them/conquered, perhaps. Not as a punishment. Ryan Paddy (talk) 03:55, 3 December 2010 (UTC)


 * The "forced confiscation of land" is the result of wars of annihilation, and open terrorism aiming at the widest possible slaughter of Jews, entered into by Palestinians and Arab states against Israel itself. I am sorry that you think that this means Israel has no moral justification to protect itself, to have a more defensible territory or to hold additional land that makes it more viable, but there does seem to be a common view on the left and amongst Israel's enemies that it has no right to self-defense at all, whether active or passive, and none to actually being victorious.  I am afraid I cannot see the "moral" reasoning in that position.  Rather, it seems to me immoral.


 * You are right that many settlers, whether religious or secularist, see their establishment of communities in the Judea-Samaria region not as any punishment of Palestinians at all, but as taking up justified and ages-old Jewish residence there, and of course they are right. They are at home where they are, on their ancient homeland which Arab-Muslim conquest does not nullify, and certainly have a right to live near their own holy sites and worship there.  Jews have dwelt in these areas in some cases for centuries right up to the twentieth century, even though now the Palestinians pretend that they are colonialist aliens and "settlers" there, as if in a foreign land.


 * In the case of some communities, Jews have merely returned to properties and places they held before they were driven out or slaughtered by Arabs, either in 47-48, or in some cases, like Hebron, well before the establishment of the State of Israel (in 1929). So the real issue is the Palestinian refusal to accept Jewish neighbours at all, no matter how well-established or anciently and continuously existing.  Others in those communities, including some of the majority who are more secularist, live in the Disputed Territories not only for idealistic Zionist reasons, since it is their nation, but especially because they provide affordable decent housing and good locations relatively near their work elsewhere in Jerusalem, Netanya, etc. - the distances are very small.


 * But, aside from the Old City and East Jerusalem itself, which for almost all Israelis are not in the category of "settlements" but are integral to Israel's capital, the reason why there are "settlements" at all, as I explained, relate to Palestinian intransigence from 1947 onwards, certainly from 67 on too, and reflects the fact that time marches on regardless of what they want. I repeat, if the Palestinians don't like the consequences of their own intransigence they have only themselves to blame.  The "punishment" is the one they visit on themselves.  The intention to punish may not be the motivation for the settlements, but it is the practical consequence of the Palestinian refusal to make any accommodations, and that is no fault of Israel's.


 * They could still prevent any further loses by making peace now. But as we see they are not particularly eager to do this, and refuse still even to sit down to talks.  And they set as preconditions no compromises on their 200% demands (i.e., also including their "Right of Return" inside Israel itself, and no recognition of Israel as a Jewish state) along with the 67 borders including within Jerusalem itself, the whole of the Old City, even the entire Temple Mount including the Western Wall, and allied to this they also insist that Jews world-wide and Israel specifically relinquish all claims to Jewish holy sites in any P.A. territory.  This is quite frankly impossible.  It amounts to the demand that Judaism abolish itself.  This is only another version of the Palestinian demonization and delegitimizing of Zionism and the refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.  It is all the same syndrome.


 * But I would like to end by returning to the first question I posed: do you support the ethnic cleansing of all Jews from PA territory? Why shouldn't there be Jewish communities in the West Bank?  What is wrong with showing willingness to live with and extend proper security to Jews in the PA when Israel already is doing just that with Arabs in Israel?  Does not this just in itself reveal a refusal to live in peace with Israel?Tempered (talk) 09:12, 3 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Interesting and telling that Ryan Paddy seems unable to commit to a view on Palestinian demands for ethnic cleansing. One further relevant point of information on those "ever-expanding settlements" that so disturb him: they only occupy ca. 5% of the West Bank, and are as a matter of simple fact not expanding in area (building expansion is inward, not outward; they are all positioned on uninhabited or Jewishly-owned land so no Palestinians have been displaced), indeed Israel has indicated that some remoter Jewish villages established without official permission will be removed, so if the Palestinians were really interested in peace there would be no problem creating the contiguous West Bank territory they want even if the Jewish areas were allocated to Israel. A further good rebuttal to protestations about the "settlements" being obstacles to "peace" is contained in the comments made as far back as 1979 by Menachem Begin: see http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/richman/385441. Tempered (talk) 12:50, 1 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I lost interest in the conversation because we didn't seem to be interacting with each other's perspectives in a meaningful way. When you did finally address my question about settlements, by saying they're a "punishment", while I appreciated your honesty your position seemed so loathful to me that I figured we have little common moral perspective to use as a basis for discussion. Your posting here about "Ryan Paddy" rather than addressing me directly suggests that your heart is in the wrong place for a two-way exchange: you seem to be focused on impressing the audience of some imagined cage fight between us, not on a heartfelt dialogue with me. As for your ethnic cleansing? My position has been evident from my first: I'm equally opposed regardless of whether it's the Palestinians or the Israelis promoting or performing it. Adiós. Ryan Paddy (talk) 21:48, 3 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I referred to you in the third person, Ryan Paddy, because you were manifestly absent from the discussion you yourself had initiated (you confess you had "lost interest in the conversation"); you had refused to respond to my comment and direct question week after week, and I had waited a full month for that response and realized it was not going to come at all. Since you were absent from the discussion, I spoke of you in the third person.  Your outrage at such reference is phoney.  Now that you are back, if you are (the Adios makes it uncertain) I can address you directly and have no problem doing so.  Your response to the ethnic cleansing question is still evasive.  It has certainly not "been evident from [your] first" (comments), as you assert.  You avoided it.  Now, you only say that you are "equally opposed" to either side doing it, which makes it a hypothetical generalization and spreads the blame.  But the whole point is that either side is not pushing ethnic cleansing, only one side is, even is making it explicit and officially proclaimed policy (backed up by terrorist atrocities when convenient), and your pretend even-handedness and abstract generalization is an obvious attempt to evade admitting this.  So it is a strongly one-sided position, not even-handed at all.  As for the "punishment," as I made clear it is a punishment the Palestinians are bringing on themselves, not one instigated by the Israelis.  But even if it had been, there is nothing wrong with Israel punishing a refusal to make peace with it or attempting to pressure the Palestinians to make peace as soon as possible.  There is nothing loathsome (as I suppose you mean) in my response.  Instead of throwing around such personally offensive terms, actually, you might try to be a little more courteous and humane yourself.  By the way, I did not try to avoid addressing your questions, but rather was at first unclear on what they were, and when this was clarified answered them immediately and very fully -- much more so than they deserved, it appears.Tempered (talk) 23:45, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Loathful: a 1. Full of loathing; hating; abhorring. Different to loathsome - that would merely suggest that I hate your opinion, as opposed to suggesting that your opinion is a hateful one. Ryan Paddy (talk) 21:38, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
 * An apology for your language would be in order. You are a self-invited guest on my talk page, I am not on yours.  I have tried to answer your questions in good faith and with good will, fully and frankly, and deserve more courtesy and an absence of emotive name-calling.  If appeals to simple decency are not sufficient in this case, I would remind you of the official guidelines for Wikipedia etiquette.  Otherwise, perhaps you can find a more congenial audience elsewhere.
 * It is also noticeable that you have avoided serious (or any) reasoned and/or empathetic consideration of the many specific other points I made regarding "settlements," Arab/Palestinian views, and peace. As to the claims made, it is too bad that you dismiss as merely "loathful" and apparently untrue the forthright statements that Palestinian officially emphasized demands for ethnic cleansing of Jews, and public glorification of any terrorists killing Jews en masse (public squares named after them, posters put up in schools, etc.), are morally unacceptable, indeed openly racist and murderous, and that in general they bring their own punishments on themselves by their constant rejection of any decent accommodations or compromises.  (Instead, it seems, you think Israel should actually reward them for such behavior, and not to do so is merely "loathful.")  Nevertheless, these official calls for ethnic cleansing, terrorist acts, hate-incitement, and jihadi rejectionism are the facts and mainstream realities, Ryan Paddy, and they are crucial to the problems Israel faces.  They explain why the Palestinians have famously never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity (only those Arab governments willing to overthrow such ideas have been willing to make peace, like Egypt and Jordan, and it is a matter of public record that Israel has been quick to accept such genuinely peaceful overtures).  Arab and Palestinian rejectionism and antisemitism existed before there were any "settlements," even before there was an Israel.  I wish we could say otherwise; things would be much more agreeable if that were so, and Israel has gone to great lengths to make overtures despite all this.  But pretenses will not make the problem go away, and your dismissal of legitimate Jewish concerns and criticisms look instead too much like blaming the victims and considering them of little or no account as such; it implies that no empathetic unapologetic defense of their collective existence, let alone their state, or their criticism of their open enemies, is permissible.  What would your definition of "loathful" look like in the setting of the 1930s and 40s in regard to strong and unapologetic Jewish criticisms  of Nazi murderous racism?  Who was really loathful there?  I take your silence also to indicate that you justify as well the official Palestinian claim that there are no Jewish holy sites anywhere in the very land called the "Holy Land" because of the Jewish Scriptures, and consider "loathful" frank and firm rejection of such fantasies and falsehoods.  Your position is not defensible.Tempered (talk) 07:25, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
 * More showboating, now with added strawman. Have fun with your invented dialogue and bizarre additions to my perspective, a fictional debating opponent seems to be what you wanted all along and I don't fit that bill. Ryan Paddy (talk) 20:27, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
 * More name-calling, ostentatiously replacing any attempt at all to address my questions put to you, apparently since you cannot honorably or honestly defend your preferred answers. If you really deplore Palestinian demands for ethnic cleansing, how hard would it have been to just say so, without circumlocutions and false generalizations equating victims and perpetrators?  Similarly with Palestinian claims that there are no Jewish holy sites anywhere in the Holy Land, including even the Temple Mount.  It would simple enough to affirm that this is neither true nor acceptable, if you had any good will at all or respect for truth itself and the Israeli and Jewish side of the issue.  And if you reject any "moral" or trivializing and also dishonest "cycle of violence" justifications for terrorist attacks on people in pizza parlours, school buses, etc., a few humane, honest and direct words would do the trick.  If you believe that Israel has the right to defend its own people, whether passively through a security fence, or actively through blockade or direct retaliation for attacks, it would be nice to hear it.  In the glaring absence of such statements, replacing them now with mere name-calling, you have rejected the basis for any dialogue at all.  It raises questions about what you were about in coming on to my Talk page to begin with: endorsement merely of your own hostile point of view?  Dialogue requires respectful discussion of different views, including the assumption that the other person has justifiable reasons for them, not name-calling nor even the expectation of a complete agreement.  In response to your initial questions, I gave extended and reasoned answers, with recommendations for further reading in authoritative literature.  You started by making some fairly reasonable responses along with sharply dismissive and insulting statements, but, apparently unable to justify your views any further, this has degenerated to mere personal attacks.  Actually, therefore, your last comments would appear to describe best your current posture: a negative self-projection.  I would suggest that this discussion is at an end and would appreciate it if you left the Talk page.  Thank you.Tempered (talk) 02:08, 6 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Some battles not worth fighting Tempered Koakhtzvigad (talk) 15:10, 15 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I understand your response, Koakhtzvigad, and indeed it was time to call a halt to it, but I also believe that it is absolutely necessary to stand up for what is right precisely in response to those who refuse genuine dialogue, because it preserves human dignity and brings truth into contact with the shadows, blowing them aside and revealing just the bias itself underneath, undisguised. Neither did I know at the start that this particular dialogue was going to be so farcical.  I actually hoped for better in this case -- not conversion, but at least discussion that decently accepted some validity to the Israeli positions. The willingness at least to grant that antisemitism played some part in the problem seemed to me a step in the right direction, something besides that is denied outright by other editors on that page.  But this concession was apparently overwhelmed later by heat. Tempered (talk) 23:36, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

In Wikipedia people can hide behind Wikijargon and claim NPOV, so it helps to disregard any arguments founded on emotions. In this Wikipedia is a very 'male' domain, predicated on the logical, and eschewing the intuition of the mind. Ryan betrays his less than sophisticated argument when he says (very early on here), "The Israeli position that their treatment of the Palestinians is driven entirely by security becomes especially hard to credit when it comes to the settlers. Not only do many settlers seem to exhibit a strong degree of racism in their quoted comments, but it's hard to imagine how eating away at the Palestinian territory in the West Bank with settlements can be part of a "security" plan on the part of Israel." What about the hundreds of years of Ottoman treatment of the Arabs, also for security reasons, that did not even have settlers in the region, ruling it from Anatolia via military commands? The racism of the Turks towards Arabs was purely racial, and not one derived from the animosity Arabs have always displayed towards Jews since the Ottoman conquest. Ottomans however did not 'eat away' at the region, they 'swallowed it up' whole, leaving NO provision for any Arab ownership of any land, as confirmed by the British post-WW1 land surveys. And where was 'Palestinian self-determination' in the 20 years of "Jordanian" occupation (which it was by virtue of permanent garrisoning)? Can any 'Palestinian' show Jordanian land registry documents?Koakhtzvigad (talk) 22:38, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Re 'anti-Semitism' at AfD 'List of Jewish Nobel laureates'
I consider your suggestion that "Anyone concerned about antisemitism ought ... to support this list" to be grossly offensive in its implications. I suggest you withdraw it immediately. AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:28, 3 December 2010 (UTC)


 * You have been answered at that place already. No aspersions were cast on those wishing to delete the article on Jewish Nobel Prize winners, but there was merely a positive recommendation to keep the article.  Your response is a bit hyper-sensitive.Tempered (talk) 09:18, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Stop editing the closed AfD
Please stop editing the AfD (e.g., ) because it is closed. When the AfD closes no one should edit it any longer. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 13:47, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Articles for deletion/List of Jewish Nobel laureates
This AfD is closed and archived and must not be edited further - read the standard AfD closing header. Your attempts to continue adding extensive comments to a closed AfD are disruptive, and if you persist, it'll just get you blocked. Move on. Nsk92 (talk) 13:48, 3 December 2010 (UTC)


 * You might consider the possibility that I was not aware of the sudden and unannounced closure of the page. I only realized this after posting an entry, the one you object to here.  The notification even on the page is not all that obvious.  Naturally I shall desist from future posts.  Lighten up.Tempered (talk) 14:03, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
 * When the page changes color, that's a hint that its closed, remember to look at the top for the closing statement when that happens.--Milowent • talkblp-r 14:08, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Milowent is correct. By the time of your edit the AfD had already been closed for five hours. There was nothing "sudden and unannounced" about it. An AfD usually runs for 7 calendar days before being closed - this one run for 8 days. When an AfD is closed, the closing admin puts an archive box around it and a closing statement at the top of the page indicating the AfD's outcome. All of this is the standard procedure and it was followed precisely in this case. That is how the AfD process works. Nsk92 (talk) 14:49, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
 * What you posted there would be very helpful instead at the list itself. That sounds like a very useful source w clear info, thanks for bringing that info to Wikipedia. betsythedevine (talk) 15:52, 3 December 2010 (UTC) I have reposted your remarks for consideration at Talk:List_of_Jewish_Nobel_laureates. betsythedevine (talk) 20:11, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Cabal of Mediation
Hello, my name is Asinthior and I will be your mediator. I have no prior knowledge of Israel and the Apartheid Analogy, which I think is a good thing as I will be able to provide a pair of fresh eyes and I won't have any prejudice on the matter. I hope we can all actively participate in the solution of this dispute. Feel free to leave a note at my talk page at any time. I will be available through the weekend. Asinthior (talk) 14:47, 14 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Could we please transfer the discussion to the Mediation Cabal case page? In other words, all further comments concerning this dispute and how to insert the controversial paragraph into the article should be done at case page until we close the case. If you agree, please state so in the discussion section of the case page. Asinthior (talk) 12:49, 15 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I've read the subsection of the discussion page for the article in dispute. As the Mediation Cabal did not have an immediate response, I feel the debate have moved to a new topic. I would ask all concerned parties to make a very short statement trying to define as narrowly as possible what is the topic of the dispute and what would be the expected outcome. Please do this in the discussion section of this page. Asinthior (talk) 15:01, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Need information regarding the references section added to Ger Toshav
Hello. I've revised Ger Toshav to remove uncited material. Basically the whole article was uncited, so I just went over it with an Encyclopedia Talmudit, sourced or revised what could be supported, and removed the rest. However, after doing this I noted the list of sources that you added. So my question is: Was that list in support of any material in the article, or was it just general references? Because if the references support any material there, I want to put it back. I would really appreciate a speedy reply; vandalism was not my intent.Mzk1 (talk) 20:37, 22 October 2011 (UTC)