User talk:Tiamut/Archive 9

Hello!
I´m delighted to see you again! I hope you have enjoyed and learned from whatever you have done off-wiki...I know about the bit about needing paid employment: it´s just sooo difficult to pay one´s mortgage or electricity bills with barnstars... Sigh.

About pictures: I think that I relatively easily can get hold of Canaan´s "Dæmonenglaube im Lande der Bibel" from 1929 (Is´t in German), it´s in a library here. Would, say, the front-page of that one help? (It is 64 pages.)

I have gotten hold of a scanner, and of a collection of old post-cards which I have started to upload to commons, see here. Note the Nazaret ladies!

I intend to follow you to Yalo in a moment, and I hope you will give me lots and lots of reasons to wiki-stalk you in the future! Take care, Huldra (talk) 16:04, 31 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Welcome back. Maybe your ears were burning. I was just thinking about you, while drafting a possible RfA for myself, because it's standard to ask about conflicts we've been in. I was imagining that you probably wouldn't oppose me based on our fairly minor tiffs, but now I get to ask you in person. Right? (... and notice that I respect your wishes vis a vis email, which I would surely use otherwise) Well, feel free to give me a more nuanced answer than y/n if you'd like. Take care, HG | Talk 16:10, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Yuck, really sorry to hear about that. Frustrating. Anyway, thanks, post here when you get a chance. Gently yours, HG | Talk 17:51, 31 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Tiamut, you just gave me inspiration to edit more on Cinema of Palestine..there is a new book out on the subject (this year) (see ref. bottom of the cinema-page) ..so now we have RS to choose from. And if you need help for finding old sources, I would love to help! ;-D And I perfectly understand that you do not want to give away too much private information on the net: extremely wise, I think. When I connected my WP account to an email-address, I got a new "throw away" email-account for that purpose.
 * Also, take a look at my note on HG´page: I´m collecting a virtual library here: User:Huldra/Sources. I was actually "inspired" by Khalidi: "All that remains" and Weir: "Palestinian costumes". Both those books use a lot of the old "travel-stories" from Palestine...and now so many of them are on the net! E.g, I was really, really delighted to find the Volney and Pococke sources on Dhaher al-Omar on the net.  Well, take care, dear Tiamut, Huldra (talk) 20:58, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

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article edits
Hi tiamut! Just found out that you're back. it's good to have you here. See you! --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 14:07, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

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Question about Ramadan
How do you greet someone in Ramadan? I know that for Rosh HaShanah it's perfectly OK to say happy new year, but that seems very strange to say happy new year on Yom Kippur even though it is the culmination of the new year prayers. Do you say happy holiday on a fast day? It doesn't feel right. Phil Burnstein (talk) 00:30, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Jabel Mukaber
Hi Tiamut, I was wandering whether you knew the Arabic translation for "Jabel Mukaber" - and if there is a cross-wiki Arabic article on it. I'm planning to continue working on the article to eliminate the problems you stated on the Talk Page before it goes to DYN, particularly adding information on the History of the neighbourhood. I'm a little hesitant to translate the hebrew version, because its not very well referenced or sourced. Please feel free to recommend (or translate from Arabic) any sources pertaining to the article. Cheers --Fatal!ty (T☠LK) 11:44, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Hi Tiamut, thanks for the kind words. I would also like to put the direct Arabic translation script in the Article, (e.g. بيت حنينا), but I cant seem to find it because, there is no wikipedia article (as far as I know) on Jabel Mukaber in Arabic and I dont speak Arabic. Could you please help me on this issue. Cheers --Fatal!ty (T☠LK) 02:45, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, Tiamut
Thank you indeed, dearest Tiamut. It's deeply heartening to hear you are well, and have been engaged in creative work off-wiki. Did I ever tell you that when your name comes to mind, I can't help thinking of Bertold Brecht? Why? Because Tia is, of course, Spanish for 'aunt', and Mut German for 'pluck', and the combination suggests a coincidental variation on his Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder!

I take it as an ethical obligation to keep my hand in watching over I/P articles, and especially, in helping to advise promising new editors, who appear committed to substance, (and not wiki-policy flag-waving to sustain WP:IDONTLIKEIT), as to how to get over the natural disgruntlement, and avoid being baited and wasting time in barren bickering. Though the climate has improved after the new rules, I still find that an inordinate amount of time is wasted in explaining the obvious to cunctatorial ditherers. I have a personal problem of course: my mind is naturally trained to strong interpretative work on primary sources, not to summing up available secondary sources within the limits imposed by the byzantine rules governing the encyclopedia. However, one never knows. In the meantime, I have a few years of intensive reading to resume, and work through. I'm studying Hebrew again, and I would like to learn Arabic, which I did start learning until I found that my grocer was teaching me Moroccan pronunciation which my pizza-maker kept correcting with Egyptian pronunciation! If I can help in anything of course, drop a note and, as they say in the Antipodes, 'Robert's a close relative' ('Bob's your uncle').

I bought and read recently Henry Laurens's 3 volume (a fourth is in press) La question de Palestine (1997,2002,2005), Fayard, Paris. It is the most comprehensive (so far over 2,000 pages dealing with 1799-1967), erudite and balanced historical survey of modern Palestine I am familiar with, using many Arabic sources to correct what until now are mainstream orthodoxies based on a rather tendentious POV. I think you would be deeply refreshed by Laurens's penetrating neutrality. Stylistically it is no great shakes, but no episode dealing with Palestine fails to bring up a leaveningly enlightened perspective otherwise ignored in standard textbooks. You can see a small sample of the kind of evidence one can harvest from it in the first part of the Mohammad Amin al-Husayni article, which I thoroughly revised (unfortunately did not finish, though I will some day).

My best wishes for your life, family and country, and for your future wiki work.Nishidani (talk) 16:37, 8 September 2008 (UTC)


 * 'working with someone'. Ah, my bones whisper, RM! (No need to comment either way) I don't mind wrangling in muck, as long as one has a prospect of climbing out of it. I do mind wasting time on trivial bickering based on flag-waving. Light monitoring duties, like Nigel Bruce on patriotic nightwatch amid the sandbags and streets of London in WW2, perhaps fit an old codger like myself. Cheers Nishidani (talk) 16:17, 10 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Rd Msrwh! A silly guess of mine. Nishidani (talk) 18:43, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Aqsa lead
Marhaba Tiamut, I just nominated al-Aqsa Mosque for GA and like Bethlehem and Nablus, I would really appreciate a look-over (especially the lead) by you whenever you have enough free time. BTW I did some "NPOVing" on Jabel Mukaber, is there anything else in the way of removing the POV tag? Cheers and congrats on Yalo and soon Anasartha! --Al Ameer son (talk) 03:37, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Request
Salam Tiamut. Since you have commented on a recent case, could you please have your say here? Thanks. --  fayssal   / Wiki me up® 05:29, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

classical arabic
Sliem. I've just reverted your edit to the Arabic language article. Do you think you could provide a source? Your edit summary made it seem you yourself were unsure about the exact date. Cheers, The roof of this court is too high to be yours (talk) 14:07, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I appreciate your comprehensive reply. It seems that Veerstegh himself (your provided source) qualifies his research: Almost no element of this interpretation is uncontested and his conclusions are left pending further interpretation. Perhaps the article should reflect this. The roof of this court is too high to be yours (talk) 14:53, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for that wealth of information. User:Xevorim is planning a Pre-Classical Arabic article where some of these issues, like the origins of preclassical arabic, might be better discussed. Unfortunately, I haven't found any reference to whether classical arabic replaced its pre-classical ancestor (with origins supposedly stretching back to the 4th Century CE) or existed alongside it. Such information may be relevant to the Arabic language and proposed Pre-Classical Arabic articles. The roof of this court is too high to be yours (talk) 19:16, 10 September 2008 (UTC)


 * "'origins supposedly stretching back to the 4th Century CE"


 * Reference sought:=


 * 'Arabic is another Semitic language closely related to the Aramaic and Akkadian that preceded it in the Near east. Its records go back to North Arabian inscriptions of the fourth century BC.' Nicholas Ostler, Empires of the Word:A Language History of the World, Harper Perennial, London, New York, Toronto and Sydney 2005 p.93 Nishidani (talk) 20:09, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
 * 'Supposedly' wasn't meant to cause offense: many reputable sources are less ambitious than Dr Ostler in defining an exact date. The roof of this court is too high to be yours (talk) 20:37, 10 September 2008 (UTC)


 * p.s. Tecnicamente, parlando solo in termini logici, l'arabo classico non poteva esistere accanto alla lingua (its pre-classical ancestor) che lo precedeva (la lingua da cui discende). AuguriNishidani (talk) 20:17, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
 * p.p.s ma come sei bravo! e altrettanto logico! ..stavo semplicement provando a capire se l'arabo pre-classico è sinonimo con l'arabo pre-islamico.. The roof of this court is too high to be yours (talk) 20:37, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Non c'entra la bravura infantile. Era semplicemente un tentativo delicato di farle capire che il modo in cui lei si era espresso in inglese destava problemi di ordine logico, anche se la forma sintattica era perfetta (complimenti, il suo inglese è molto superiore alla mia traballante capacità di esprimermi in italiano). Non volevo dire questa cosa davanti agli altri. Però, la malizia è assai normale oggigiorno, in un mondo dove le buone maniere sono derise. Comunque non mi offendo. Auguri Nishidani (talk) 20:44, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm baffled. Ho capito cosa dici, ma con i miei termini ridefiniti (qui sopra) penso che la mia domanda sia meritata, e troverò qualcuno per rispondermi ;) la mia lingua materna è inglese, e l'italiano non è una lingua che parlo molto. Posso anche parlare in maltese, ma non molta gente lo conosce. Auguri. The roof of this court is too high to be yours (talk) 21:00, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Wow...
Thanks for your help in moving Palestinian prisoners in Israel forward!

Cheers,  pedrito  -  talk  - 11.09.2008 13:19

Meleke
It appears that a suggestion was made to move the page to Meleke in April, which was closed without consensus. Nevertheless, one editor moved it there, in an egregious violation of WP:COMMONNAME. I've moved the article back to its original name, per the guidelines, which is where it should stay, unless someone suddenly creates 100,000 webpages using the term "Meleke". Whether or not there should be a separate article on "Meleke" is another question. Jayjg (talk) 01:27, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
 * You have WP:CONSENSUS backwards. The original article name was "Jerusalem stone", and it was moved to "Meleke" without WP:CONSENSUS. I've restored it to the original name, pending a consensus forming. Please take further discussion to the article Talk: page. Jayjg (talk) 01:37, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
 * That was five months ago. I think the consensus of the last five months which retained the new article name counts for something, no?  T i a m u t talk 01:42, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Reply
I've dropped a note on my page, to avoid encumbering this page. A meditation of this kind is not what was asked for. 'Words, words, words', as Hamlet stuttered. My very best, Tiamut Nishidani (talk) 11:18, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I've had problems with this new computer all day, and couldn't add the afterthought that, of course, if there is the slightest hint of conflict or silly behaviour where you're editing, drop me a note and I will, certainly not supervise, as I am no admin, but watch very closely and intervene where appropriate. Nishidani (talk) 17:24, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
 * My personal feelings on most of these issues are really not printable, and I have no worry about recriminations that might ensue from putting this on the record. But if one chooses to edit a medium like Wikipedia, one must accept that the rules are those established by this project, and ask only of editors to contribute towards drafting neutral articles. If my online connection is slow, I wait by playing virtual chess, to analyse the defects at various levels the game is programmed to evince in order not to crush players with despair and disaffection. At a middle level, last night, I sacrificed a rook, and true to form, thinking me an idiot, the pawn swooped, and found her king checkmated in three moves. It made me think of Wiki. If one chooses a 'game', one cannot contest the rules, but merely analyse the behaviour of the system and learn to win within its parameters, not one's own.


 * It means one shouldn't try to be sneaky, and fiddle around with the many pretextual manoeuvers allowed by a dishonest mastery of those rules to rig things, form tacit battle lines, and con the text. It is, if practiced with integrity, rather a monastic calling, requiring a quasi-religious forebearance, rather like that demanded by an uncomprehending world of your people living in circumstances that would be deemed intolerable, and subject to democratic outrage, were they in place anywhere else. Thomas à Kempis, whose book always lies by my bedside, (though I am, unlike my wife, areligious), uses words that are suggestive of the quality required:


 * I honour this monastic ideal (oportet ut discas teipsum frangere) here mostly in the breach. You don't: you embody it. Several lines from his Imitatio Christi came to mind in perusing your note. One is Bonorum gloria, in conscientiis eorum, et non in ore hominum ('the only good record a good Christian values is the record of his own conscience, not any testimonial paid him by his fellow men' tr.Evelyn Waugh and Michael Oakley 1959 p.68)


 * Well, I'd better stop these forays in opinion and belief, esp. as retired, and in two recent instances, they have only compounded confusion in those I sought to assist. That, as I said, can be suspended if you ever think I might be able to proffer a word of advice or check a page for difficulties you may be experiencing while editing in your usual scrupulous mode.Nishidani (talk) 12:22, 13 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Just a final (!!!) note on karameh. One of my many pastimes is to study the concepts of shame and honour, and some years ago I read an anthropological monograph on the Bedouin value of ird (which is quite another, distinct value, of course). When you told me of your being spat on in an endeavour to communicate with an elderly woman, and of replying with grace under extreme provocation, I had a vague itching in the memory banks. It niggled away as I wrote about the call to duty as a wiki editor, where feelings must be suspended, as opposed to the real world. I have found the page, and in copying it for your perusal, imagine the malicious might misinterpret my intent at another level. You read correctly, and therefore I can trust you to see the analogical point intended. (Accepting to work in a system strictly on its terms does not mean surrender of a dignity that system does not recognize as proper to its functions etc.)
 * "'Willy von Liebermann, an aristocratic Jew, believed that he had been insulted during his army service by his senior officer, and that the officer had been motivated by anti-Semitism. As long as he was a soldier, Liebermann could do nothing; but the very day he completed his year in the army, Liebermann challenged the officer to a pistol duel under conditions that made it distinctly likely that injury or death would result from the encounter. The officer refused to accept the challenge, and referred the matter to a military tribunal of honour (Ehrenrat). The Ehrenrat did not wish to authorize the duel, and tried to encourage a peaceful settlement. But Liebermann was adamant: he let it be understood that if necessary he would force the officer to accept by assaulting (tätlich beleidigen) him on the street when he (the officer) was in uniform. The Ehrenrat was left with no choice but to sanction the duel, which then took place'. Frank Henderson Stewart, Honour, University of Chicago Press,1994 p.137"
 * I think the honour you displayed and still hold to a notch or two up the scale from Liebermann's, which was very Germanic, though to be strongly admired because of the unusual courage he displayed in challenging, with meticulous care for the rules, the prejudice that afflicted his people. It is normal to sign off 'Take care'. I never can bring myself to do so, while sharing the sentiment, because I would prefer that idiom ran, 'may those who care keep vigil over you'.Nishidani (talk) 17:16, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

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Ijnisinya
Hey Tiamut! I started the article on Ijnisinya earlier this week and was wondering if you know anything about the village? I couldn't find any online sources that could back the history text in the article besides the JMCC. Regards, --Al Ameer son (talk) 03:05, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Well thank you very much and yes I nominated it (and an-Nasr Mosque) for DYK a couple days ago. Cheers and again thanks for the kind words! --Al Ameer son (talk) 16:29, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Nearly all possible entries are now added
And you can allways access the Template by searching for 'Template:Infobox Arab villages depopulated'. Tiamut you talked about, that "we need to make sure its features for optional listings and stuff like that are on par with the old table." First of all, you can allways access the old table,which still exists by searching for 'Template:Infobox Former....(something -have forgotten)'. I would have thought that all the entries would be displayed, once you opened the template, but instead you have to type, each single one. Here is the extra I have added:


 * crusn=
 * araboo = (Arab owned)
 * jewo = (Jewish owned)
 * rel = (Religion)
 * struc = (Public structures before)
 * year = (usually 1931)
 * strucst = (Public structures standing)
 * year1 =
 * house31 = (Number of houses)
 * house45= (Number of houses 1945)
 * house48 = [Number of houses in 1948)(This is bound to be more unsure than the 'official' number of 1931. But what abou 1945. Was that a public accurate census?)
 * housest = (Houses standing)
 * year2 =
 * oper = Operation
 * brig = Brigade

So if you are going to edit (to help me) it would be the easiest to copy these 15 new entries. In fact that is (partly) why I list them here, in order to copy them, and quickly put them in, next time I edit a village, cause the good thing is they do not have to be entered in any correct order; no matter in which order you enter them, the program behind the Template will display them correctly.But I am still interested in knowing if somehow you cannot get the maschine to list all possible entries, for example if one is going to describe a village for the first time, instead of you have to copy and paste each time. There MUST surely be a way for getting the machine to display them automatically. Anyone who knows how? P:S: It will just take a little time before all the different entries - particularly about the years - figure correctly in the boxes, because I have altered the programme, and only now to I have all possible entries taken account for. Yours sincerely.Nick Finnsbury (talk) 11:01, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Tiumut, I am now finished with Acre district, and move on
I leave these behind for you. A very good job for you! To put into infobox, so you can learn how the new inforbox works and get accustomed to it! The pages are:
 * Al-Mansura, Acre
 * Al-Nahr
 * Al-Ruways
 * Al-Tall, Acre
 * Tarbikha

Yours sincerely Nick Finnsbury (talk) 13:39, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Al Magr
Tiamut, Al Magr is the Arabic name for the Cave of Machpelah, and I have edited that fact in. But it would of course be improved if you could kindly add the corresponding Arabic script! Thanks in anticipation Nishidani (talk) 21:23, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
 * شُكْرًا جّزيلًا

Nishidani (talk) 14:28, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks
Hey Tiamut... Thanks for the barnstar. Much appreciated. --  fayssal   -  Wiki me up®  12:08, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Hebron glass GAN
Greetings Tiamut! Just like Nabulsi soap, I think you (or Huldra) should nominate the article on Hebron glass for GA status. It meets all of the criteria (maybe it could be slightly expanded more in the History section), but besides that I see no impediments to a GA pass in the article now. I suggested to Huldra to nominate Bayt Jibrin (which we've worked on for months actually) for GA and I think it would be better that you nominated Hebron glass (seeing that you are the creator and one of the two significant contributors) and if Huldra nominates Bayt Jibrin, she'll have too much on her hands. I in the meanwhile have nominated al-Aqsa Mosque for GA and it is currently undergoing review. Anyhow, please consider nominating the article, it really deserves to be a GA like its "sister" Nabulsi soap. Cheers and good luck! --Al Ameer son (talk) 17:08, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Yalo
3 villages depopulated? What about Dayr Ayyub.....'Imwas, Bayt Nuba, Yalo and Dayr Ayyub, that makes 4...I know the article used as a reference gets it wrong but do we have to follow the error?....Ashley kennedy3 (talk) 12:44, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Aloha
Aloha Tiamut! I've been gone a long while and may not be able to keep at it long this "burst", but wanted to send my greetings and appreciation for all the awesome work that I see you are still continuing to do. Much aloha, -- Laualoha 07:35, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Fun JIDF stuff
Just so you know, you've been mentioned in a posting at this website. (permanent link) Let me know if you experience any problems regarding this. Cheers. lifebaka++ 20:54, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : Issue XXXI (September 2008)
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Glad to help
No problem...Ashley kennedy3 (talk) 12:55, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Heya, I've noticed you've been contributing to articles similar to mine, i.e. related to activist/anarchist people. My article on Bruno Masse is threatened of deletion, could you please vote to keep it? You can vote [| here]. In solidarity! Lkeryl (talk) 18:27, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Palestinian and Jewish origins
Take a look at this:

http://www.thenational.ae/article/20081006/FOREIGN/279853798

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/966952.html

FunkMonk (talk) 00:33, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Heads up on Palestinian music
Just wanted to alert you that someone is mucking around with this article. You might want to take a look. --Ravpapa (talk) 05:59, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

DYK for Al-Karmil (newspaper)

 * No problem. I've been taking a break from the Wiki myself, it's good to take a break now and then :) Gatoclass (talk) 11:46, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Tarab birthplace
Hey Tiamut! Glad too see your starting new articles again (nice job on al-Karmil (newspaper)). I just wanted to know if you knew which city in Palestine Tarab Abdul Hadi was from. I could assume Nablus, but the Abd al-Hadis also dominated Aqraba, Arrabah and several other towns and villages in the Jabal Nablus. Also, she might not be an Abd al-Hadi by blood. The only reason I ask is for categorization: Category:People from Nablus. --Al Ameer son (talk) 17:37, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Gilo Compromise
Thank you Tiamut for taking the time to come up with a compromise version for the page on Gilo. I know that I find this version to be much more neutral and considerate of both perspectives on the issue. I also agree that the term suburb is a much more appropriate one in this case, and one inherently less emotive. Thank you again, and best wishes. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Colourinthemeaning (talk • contribs) 06:11, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

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Have put on watch list
Have withdrawn from serious editing, only glancing round a few minutes a day in here, with a few dabs here and there when I see the usual ganging up on an article by POV warriors on a committed editor, instead of a collegial spirit. Always ready to help in specific things, esp. if friends and committed wikipedians of whatever political or ethnic background drop me a note, and have put the QDS page on my watch list. I do archive all remarks almost immediately in the last archive, to keep my protest up at the bad faith and programmatic inconclusiveness in the I/P area, which reflects all too much the tactics of endless delay in the real world in your area. Best wishes to you and yours as always, dear. Nishidani (talk) 17:02, 15 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Aharon Klieman’s analysis of Israeli negotiating culture may contribute to understanding why I/P articles are not written to quality levels. There is a certain confusion of roles by editors muddling political commitments with NPOV obligations. The modal overlap between the two otherwise distinct areas is remarkable, and, I believe not casual. I.e.


 * "'Applying many of the principles of IDF warfare to bargaining, soldiers in mufti are prone to treating diplomatic talks as analogous to wars of attrition and conducting them according to one of two models: either as a game of waiting out the opponent, or as a lightening offensive aimed at breaking the back of resistance. If the former, then the objective is to wear down one’s adversary in a battle of wills through such strategems as looking for the tactical high ground, refusing to budge, and fighting for every inch and centimetre by wrangling over even seemingly trivial technical details. If the latter, then the enemy’s bargaining position is best taken by storm by using intimidation and bluff. Apply mounting pressure, if warranted, by constantly devising and tabling fresh counter-proposals. Insist on quid pro quo. Outsmart the opponent by probing for openings, soft spots, and weakness. Bring constant pressure to bear. Present maximum demands in the knowledge that one can always back down and offers concessions; especially symbolic ones, further along the negotiation . .The basic inclination is to assume neither goodwill nor magnaminity on the part of the Arab opponents.’ Cited in Yoram Peri Generals in the Cabinet Room: How the Military Shapes Israeli Policy, US Institute of Peace Press, 2006 p.238 Nishidani (talk) 17:57, 15 November 2008 (UTC)"


 * I've added a note from Benveniste (amazing genius, denied a chair at the Sorbonne because of anti-Semitic attitudes among faculty there, according to rumour, despite him being one of the glories of scholarship in his day), with a short note. The note is intended to register that Indo-european philology was caught up in a racist premise which sought etymologies from within the I.E.languages and disdained any suggestion that Semitic languages might have influenced classical Greek. There's always been a problem with this, since 30% of the Greek vocab can't be analysed in IE terms. A brilliant Jewish-Russian scholar Michael Astour, a refugee fromn Stalin's gulags, wrote a fascinating and groundbreaking treatise on possible connections (Hellenosemitica 1965), which however was greeted with scepticism. Martin Bernal tried to restate the case, but was too ideologically involved to do it justice. However over the last four decades the doyens of the field, Walter Burkert in Switzerland and Martin West in Oxford have now thoroughly reinstated the earlier view that indeed there was a long, consistent and profound interaction between pre-classical Greece and Middle eastern cultures. Many of the etymologies, current from the 16th century, for Greek words that look distinctly semitic, are now being closely examined, and a good many scholars now argue forcibly for this kind of linguistic influence from Semitic. I haven't seen kudos cited in this regard, since the similarity to Slavic ЧУДО-(chudo-) (wonder,miracle) has usually won the day for an IE root. However, as Benveniste noted in his extensive analysis of kudos, it is used in a way that is anomalous, or ill-understood. This suggests to me that, despite the Slavonic connection, it may well be that some inflection of the Q-D-S usage may indeed be present in ancient Greek, for it would account for this curiosity anomaly in its use in, say, the Homeric poems. So despite a general traditional consensus on kudos as an IE word, this does not exclude per se, at this early stage, possible liens with semitic usage. This was the thought behind my wording (no WP:OR infraction!). Best Nishidani (talk) 19:58, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Tiamut, this is why he is so valued. Jaakobou's gifts lie in image improvement, nowhere else. He is totally incapable of understanding what collegial editing to NPOV standards requires. But he is endowed with marvellous Sitzfleisch, obstinacy, an infinite capacity for stonewalling on trivia, and that is why his many mates rush to defend him, precisely because he has finally mastered the formal airs of correctness, while maintaining that dour, crass 'We're right, you're all wrong' approach with a bulldozing energy and innocence of mien most of them cannot muster. Any major article he works on almost immediately seizes up in bureaucratic entanglements (Al-Aqsa Intifada, most recently). And I think he has a real conviction that he is a young, innocent paladin for a just cause, an Arab-free Palestine, working among malicious people (a Zionist of Ben-Gurion's kind: 'anyone who has moral scruples cannot be a Zionist'). I tried once by example to show how an article or two he mostly edited could be improved, Haim Farhi, for instance. One glaring thing there is an unattested statement that that figure helped the Baal Shem Tov immigrants in 1770. He dearly wanted that in. I could find no evidence for it. Were our roles reversed that would have been elided by tag-team insistence on proof, him in the lead. I let it stand, with a 'citation required' statement, just as at Ma'alot I let stand an article that violates a large number of wiki rules. They will exploit your generosity and collegial outlook, but will not budge an inch when the rules allow them to challenge all and everything, to what they conceive to be Israel's advantage. That is what working in I/P articles means - trying to keep honest amidst pullulating bad faith. Nothing can be done about this. Complaining is futile, because those administrators who understand intuitively the deeper drift of these games, and follow closely all respective behaviours, are few and far between. There was some improvement in atmosphere after the new Arbcom rules were emplaced early this year, but since September there has been a rapid recursion to tagteaming, silly POV-pushing to exhaust others' patience, and, is it?, wikihounding, with a few new faces joining the fray etc. The wikihounds are riding free, their victims sitting out their sanctions. Wiki's entire system privileges formalism over substance, legalism over intuitive assessment of the nature of the games people play. So, dearest Tiamut, never appeal. Just walk off, and merely note for the record what is going on. Palestinians have to put up with this infernal harassment in their everyday lives, where the rule is I litre of water to you, 10 to every Israeli; abundant water for settler farms whose produce is then illegally sold as Israeli products in Europe, and choked wells for Palestinian hardscrabblers, whose produce rots at the checkpoints etc. The same goes for editors who try to ensure that they are properly represented. There is no consolation as long as this area, as in the real world, enjoys a state of exemption, in which parity is not the aim, but sympathy for the overdog rules. For if you defend yourself in the real world, you are a terrorist, and if you complain in wiki, your record will be scoured to prove you are not the victim but a consistent abuser of some recondite rule in the infinite Kafkian wikibook of etiquette. It's a numbers game, and they have the numbers. There, another WP:SOAPBOX infraction. I'm sure our mutual acquaintence, or a friend, will find everything here to have me hauled over the coals. Nishidani (talk) 09:49, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, it saves us so much time. I dislike saying privately how I read things, but if this infraction of mine has helped you to just ignore this kind of behaviour, perhaps it has served its purpose, and I can archive it. It won't be easy though. Un abbraccio, Nishidani (talk) 10:33, 18 November 2008 (UTC)


 * It has. Thank you and salamat.  T i a m u t talk 10:42, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Wikiproject Palestine logo
Sallam. I understand now. No problem. Thanks for the welcome.

It's illegal
But I just wondered if I can drop messages in here!


 * Yes you can. Which means that editors can change their archives, though there would be traces of that in the history page (I think, and hope :).  T i a m u t talk 17:50, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Nietzsche and donkeys
Didn't want to worry you with this, since it is distressful, and bears an obvious allegory. Still reluctantly put it on my page for a few hours. Someone out there might catch it, and understand from where some of us are coming from. It was so powerfully summed up in Blake's Auguries of Innocence, wasn't it.
 * A horse misused upon the road
 * 'calls to heaven for human blood.
 * Each outcry of the hunted hare
 * A fibre from the brain does tear
 * A skylark wounded in the wing
 * A Cherubim does cease to sing.
 * Good evening to you all over there.Nishidani (talk) 20:57, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

NishiNotes
(1)On Rihat al-watan see Efrat Ben Ze’ev, 'The Politics of taste and Smell: Palestinian Rites of Return', in Marianne E. Lien, Brigitte Nerlich,The Politics of Food,Berg Publishers, 2004  pp.141-160

(2)The only intelligent response is a general strike, on the lines of: 'The undersigned withdraw their collaboration from I/P articles until better rules governing content editing emerge. At present assorted wikistalkers and admin shoppers are systematically engaged in an ideological tagteam war to out or drive out by sheer attrition experienced editors in the I/P area who build the encyclopedia's content. Ashley Kennedy, a fine page builder, is only the most recent victim of these ideologically fixated abusers of policy. He has built numerous pages, been extensively generous in responding to inquiries for help, and in return has only been slapped about with numerous penalties that are unilateral judgements on the impropriety of legitimate frustrations over cunctatorial behaviour by editors who play games and know nothing of the area they 'edit'.' Hi, NoCal. Yes, I mean you too.
 * Nishidani (talk) 12:10, 13 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I share your total frustration. What happened to Ashley seems awfully unfair. Recall that when User:Number 57 reverted 6 times in 28 hours, he was not given a 3RR block because there were other editors edit-warring with him (each of whom made one unrevert each, and on of whom made two). In this case, Ashley made 4 unreverts and NoCal100 made three reverts, bascially blanking 10,000 bytes of material for no clearly articulated rationale. But really, what can be done? I was thinking of proposing something at the Countering Systematic Bias page, but the "P-word" is like the "F-word" around here. I guess I just have to get used to the idea that Muslims and Arabs and those who like them are, at this point in history, fair game for ridicule and abuse which would not be tolerated against any other ethnic groups.
 * I hope your book work is going well. Thanks for responding my friend. Again, you are sorely missed.  T i a m u t talk 14:50, 13 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I may be able to work more effectively by staying off wiki and doing what I've always done, pure research, which is long term. If I can ever prove useful, drop me a note on my page and I'll reply here, where only you and NoCal will notice! Apropos, one can almost finger the settler who stuck in that nonsense about the Dwek clan on the House of Contention (Beit HaMeriva, alias. . .) page. Quite funny really. It must have been visited thousands of times, and none of the hyperactive pov-pushers who make life impossible for us has removed the text, and note 6! My best wishes, dearest Tiamut.Nishidani (talk) 18:31, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Crying over dead horses
As I am quite sure you are my friend. The number of dead has surpassed 418 now and those wounded over 2000, and it's only been six days. Six days of hell during the holidays to commemorate Christ's birth. Oh the irony!

I was in Bethlehem for Christmas Eve. It was terrible. Everyone was depressed over the siege on Gaza (the bombbardments had not yet started in earnest). The wall, the checkpoints and then because Abu Mazen was there, there were hundreds of his personal police everywhere carrying guns. A man who thinks he is more important than the whole of the Palestinian people and their 60 year struggle for self-determination is not worthy of such protection. A Palestinian Karzai is all he is.

Nazareth is boiling over what is happening in Gaza. There have been at least two demonstrations so far and tens of arrests. Helicopters hovered over the city for hours a couple days ago and again last night. This region is heading for an all-out war, of that I am quite sure now. I'm not afraid. We lived through the 2006 war and I hope we'll live through this one too, though I don't fear death. To me, there is nothing worse than injustice and indignity. And now I'd like to share some special and dark Palestinian humor with you from a Palestinian in Gaza who writes that he received a text message on New Year's that said: "'Look outside, F-16s are smiling at you, missiles are dancing for you, drones are singing for you, because I requested them all to wish you Happy New Year.'"

I hope that the people are smiling, the trees dancing, and the birds singing where you are my friend. Because I asked them to wish you a Happy New Year.  T i a m u t talk 20:49, 1 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Dearest Tiamut
 * I dropped you a note on your page, but only with my signature. Words are hamletic, no longer, in their exuberant bare-faced mendacity, commensurate with the sheer obviousness of the realities we are constrained to watch. No one is smiling around here, the trees evoke only Shakespeare's 73rd. sonnet, and I found a robin redbreast dead in my vegetable garden this morning (killed for fun as usual by the otherwise overfed and amiable cat). Oddly, only one person set off fireworks in my neighbourhood, in an area where traditionally everyone lights them. Perhaps the lights over Gaza on the news hours before had induced a shamed sobriety. I only hope that part of the reduction in celebrations visible here was due to that old mediterranean sense, the sense that the best one can do is to shut up when tragedy is about, and, here, certainly not tizzy up the sky with a dazzingly triumphant 'festival of light', when several hundred miles away, the night is lit only to kill, terrify and ravage the innocent, and disinherited of that part of the earth.


 * Colin Schindler reminds one that, in the weeks before Rabin's assassination, Netanyahu and co were addressing an inflamed public with abrasive turpiloquy about the former's putative criminal behaviour, and among the terms listed is one that now assumes an intensely ironic poignancy. In making a gesture of peace towards Palestinians Rabin was 'shrinking Israel into Auschwitz borders’. He was shot, and now Israel is long down the road to shrinking Palestine into Auschwitz borders. Fresh from the ghetto, too many leaders have cast Palestinians into a shtetl, as if the further theymanage to drive the latter into diaspora, persecution and universal obloquy as a despised race, the more they themselves will emerge clean and detached, redeemed of their persecuted past, from their own millenial past of being the eternal victim of a majoritarian prejudice. Scapegoats, as René Girard's commentaries on Biblical myth teach, are invested with the sins of those who slaughter them, or drive them into the deserts. That is the highest irony of history, that to redeem oneself from exile, Israel is now making 'Juden' out of Palestinians, and casting them in the shackles, role and Pale of Settlement the Jewish people have been privileged to throw off. But no more. I'm so so sorry. And if anyone posts a complaint that I have abused wikispace for a private expression of my feelings, in reply to you, my correspondent, well, whoever, if so tempted, be decent enough to ignore this, or otherwise fuck off.Nishidani (talk) 22:31, 1 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I can't being a realist, and against wishful thinking, wish you a happy New Year. I dearly wish you and your world a year that promises release from this blind tunnel of infinite torment, that is, to realize a legitimate national aspiration to be oneself in one's own land, poor, happy, or whatever the case may be. One cannot be lucid, and happy often, at the same time. There is a certain subdued happiness in knowing that one can see at times into the heart of things, while, all about one, the blind lead the blind in herdish heartlessness, alternating between euphoria and hysteria. I'd rather wish that your gifts of empathy and insight remain secure against the brutal assaults on them these realities wave your way, even if that is tantamount to auguring someone the often intolerable pain of wisdom, that truth is the most precious thing we can aspire to, even though grasping it fully means only to perceive that this knowledge is totally ineffectual, and has no place in the world, except as a totem in our modern museum of ragged memories, which the stolid lips of mankind lick in moments of idle curiosity, out of some token regard for the residues of a primitive, premodern culture.Nishidani (talk) 22:56, 1 January 2009 (UTC)


 * In an old abandoned house in Nazareth, we once saw a framed parchment of Arabic calligraphy that read "Kol halli ya zul" ("Every state (of being) passes") Perhaps our primitive, premodern sensitivities will yet find a place in a new world. Out of destruction comes rebirth, the pendulum never stops swinging, and my hope springs eternal.  T i a m u t talk 23:24, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Neuroses?
Dearest lady, I don't think we share our neuroses here. We are normal people absolutely ****** ***, uh, well,'discountenanced' by the difficulties of trying to state clear facts in the face of neurotic denial. I think Eleland, when he does the right thing, and drops his four letters, speaks for us all.Nishidani (talk) 16:13, 26 January 2009 (UTC)


 * While I appreciate your politesse Nishidani, even with his four letters, he speaks for me.  T i a m u t talk 16:19, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Dearest Tiamut
Oh dear. Lately, this is getting embarassing. I don't know what I've done, nothing actually, but nice comments flow in, and rumours around the traps are gathering that anybody with whom I exchange notes is somehow my henchman, and I am some sort of padrino to a gang of wiki warriors. I'm tempted to wipe my homepage. It might be reported to Arbcom that this otherwise serious issue of treating the invisible country of Palestine on a par with the established State of Israel is nothing more than a scam worked up by a devious Nishidani to be flattered by an entourage, while putting, inadvertently or otherwise, his Jewish and Israeli colleagues, many of whom he holds in high regard, to shame.

But to your own note, let me reply to you with an anecdote.


 * On my honeymoon three decades ago, while travelling in a godforsaken patch of land, we ended up in a dumpy little town, and lodgings secured, walked into the soft desert air in search of food, as eveninglight began to brood, with a melancholic lambency, over the rooftops. Chinese restaurateurs of course are found everywhere, but I'd already introduced my wife to its varied cuisine, given my profession. So I looked beyond the bright windows of two restaurants, one Chinese and one Vietnamese, and caught sight of a third eatery, with an Oriental atmosphere to it, entered, and found Arab cuisine. Despite the dumpy area, we were treated to succulent fare, and, over coffee, mine host, responding to a few remarks I made on the Middle East, suddenly caught my eyes in his, as Arabs often do to gauge one's sincerity, and asked, 'Can you guess where I come from?'


 * Being a pompous smartarse, who'd always topped his class in geography, I said, 'well, that's hard to pin down, if it's a matter of nationality, as opposed to ethnicity. But it must be either, Morocco? ('No!'); 'Algeria?' ('No!'); Libya ('No!');Egypt ('No!'); Syria? ('No!'); Jordan? ('No!'); Turkey, then? ('No!'); Armenia, perhaps ('No!); Are you Kurdish, by chance? ('No!); Iraqi? ('No!'); Kuwaiti? ('No!'); Saudi? ('No!). Then, I'm getting warm!, because you must be either from Yemen? ('No!'); Eritrea? ('No!'); Sudan? ('No!'); Surely not Ethiopia? ('No!); then it must be either Oman? ('No!'); the Emirates? ('No!); Abu Dhabi? ('No!')...Well, you don't look like a Somali, but? ('No!') . .I ran the map through my mind, as he stared quizzically, half in triumph, half in a gaze of infinite tristesse at what this meant. Ah, of course, I missed out Djibouti, monsieur! ('No! No!'). Well, Iranians aren't Arabs though they have .. .? ('No!'). Finally, humility got the best of my proud perplexity, and I relented: 'I give up. Where are you from?'. 'Jerusalem: my house was stolen from me, and I was expelled from the homeland of my fathers, in 1967. I am a Palestinian Christian'.
 * Being generous in spirit, he covered my deep shame as I blushed in the silence fribbling for words to apologize for my crass stupidity, with a wisecrack. 'Don't feel bad. You've got a remarkable knowledge of the map. It's just that we're not on it.' My instinctive Zionist-oriented background suffered a setback from that night, as retiring, the words of the Psalm about 'weeping by the waters of Babylon' began to haunt my mind. This man had no poplar in that arid land to hang a harp on, but his right hand had not forgotten its skill in conjuring up the cuisine of Jerusalem, and I thought that, the least one could do, whenever conversation anywhere turned to his country, that my own tongue would not cleave to its roof in silence, but speak up on behalf of that invisible people, wiped off our modern, Western cognitive map, whose nostalgia for the bittersweet landscape of their unique homeland was every bit as intense as that of the psalmist, and of his heirs, our Jewish bretheren.
 * Perhaps, one day, we shall sit down, our families, in Nazareth, at a-Sheik's, to eat hummus, and talk of this and many other things. LoveNishidani (talk) 17:33, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I sent Huldra a brief note, as she asked for. If there is any doubt about my identity, it read 'I'm lost for words'.Nishidani (talk) 09:25, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Missing you and the other four, as well as all who wrote to say come back, and more ...  T i a m u t talk 20:55, 14 May 2009 (UTC)