Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/1948 Palestine war


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   No consensus for deletion.. There isn't a clear consensus for merging, and there was very little discussion of closing as delete. \ Backslash Forwardslash / {talk} 04:17, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

1948 Palestine war

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This page is a WP:POVFORK of the main 1948 Arab-Israeli War page. 1948 War (with a capital "W") redirects to the main page while 1948 war (with a lowercase "W") redirects to this POV fork. GHcool (talk) 19:09, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

'''A real debate took place on the IPCOOL project :. It was not intended, such as the current RfD to pov-push a disgusting pov. Just keep in the area where you have a minimum know-how  personal attack removed by Nableezy User:ceedjee'''


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Israel-related deletion discussions.  —Shuki (talk) 19:11, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
 * You don't know anything about the topic and you didn't even read the source. Go and see them. Go and read at least the lead. AND THEN APOLOGIZE. You should be forbidden to vote. User:ceedjee


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Palestine-related deletion discussions.  —Shuki (talk) 19:11, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Merge Seems pretty straight forward, merge content into the existing 1948 Arab-Israeli War article. Fuzbaby (talk) 19:17, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
 * You don't know anything about the topic and you didn't even read the source. Go and see them. Go and read at least the lead. AND THEN APOLOGIZE. You should be forbidden to vote. User:ceedjee


 * Merge per Fuzbaby. I see no useful neutral-POV information that merits a standalone article, especially when the main article has a neutral title.  I also recommend speedy-redirecting 1948 war (lowercase "w") to the main article. --A More Perfect Onion (talk) 19:23, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
 * There have been many wars in 1948. The most important war occuring in India. If you don't know anything about history, refrain from voting. user:ceedjee
 * General question I'll ignore the personal commentary and address the relevant point -- do other years with multiple major wars have disambiguation pages? If so, then 1948 war and 1948 War ought to both redirect to the appropriate disambiguation page, possibly "Major wars in 1948". --A More Perfect Onion (talk) 12:55, 6 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Merge What I see now is either poorly sourced or duplicates the material on the main page anyway, anything sourced and not included on the main page can be happily merged in. Cazort (talk) 20:22, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Poorly source !??? You should be forbidden to give any mind. They are given in the articles. They are at the end of this. User:ceedjee


 * Merge and redirect Clear example of WP:POVFORK.-Dino Velvet 8MM (talk) 21:35, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
 * POVFORK ??? PROVE THIS. You are just a stupid ignorant. User:ceedjee


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions.  -- TexasAndroid (talk) 23:24, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Military-related deletion discussions.  —AustralianRupert (talk) 02:30, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Merge this blatant WP:POVFORKHistoricist (talk) 00:34, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Blatant povfork. You are just a stupid ignorant. You didn't even take care to read the source and you didn't even take care to go and see who read this. Did you only ask him. All people who consider "merge" are stupid ignorant who, sorry that, should be forbiden to edit any encyclopaedia. user:ceedjee


 * comment I want to draw your attention to a very bad trend in Israel/Palestine articles. Tis article is  an example of a recent surge in the paired articles we have spawned, and they are far from NPOV.  See for example  Kafr Bir'im  and  Kfar Bar'am, two articles about the same village that barely mention the other's existence,  or Silwan and City of David  or Shechem and Nablus.  There is a current RFC on Nakba  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Nakba)  where User:Hemlock Martinis proposes adding an article on Nakba although there is already a heavily edited article 1948 Arab–Israeli War.   It is as though we now settle disputes by approving alternate realities, an Arab narrative and a Jewish narrative, one article pretending that Jews have never lived in a place, the other ignoring the Arabs who live there now.    It doesn't do our credibility as an encyclopedia any good.  (I assume everyone saw the rcent New York Times article on how untrustworthy Wikipedia is on the Middle East)   I suggest that we handle things on the model of Temple Mount, with a good faith attempt to give due weight to the names used by all parties, everyone's history, and the points of view of all parties in a single article.Historicist (talk) 00:46, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree. --GHcool (talk) 00:53, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
 * You both pov-pushers. You think there is a pov fork because there is the word Palestine. User:ceedjee
 * Keep. I can't quite see why this has been proposed for deletion. Historians (from all sides) use the term frequently. I believe it describes the period covering the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine, the 1947–1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine, and the 1948 Arab-Israeli War i.e. November 1947 to July 1949. What should happen is that we describe those events summary-style in 1948 Palestine War, with sub-articles for each topic. What is the benefit of deleting the umbrella article that gives the context? SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 14:17, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
 * In case it helps, Benny Morris splits the 1948 Palestine War (or what he calls the 1948 War) into (1) the first stage of the civil war (this is when he says "the war begins") beginning November 30, 1947; (2) the second stage of the civil war, beginning April 1948; (3) the Pan-Arab invasion, May 15, 1948; and (4) the various operations thereafter. I can't see the benefit of losing that structure by deleting 1948 Palestine War. SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 14:30, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Efraim Karsh, in some ways on the opposite "side" from Morris, if we have to speak in these terms: "The 1948 Palestine War was probably the most important Middle Eastern armed confrontation since the destruction of the Ottoman empire, and the creation of a new regional order in the wake of the First World War. By the time the fighting ended in the summer of 1949 ..." (Arafat's War, p. 33). SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 15:59, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Alon Kadish and Avraham Sela (2005). "Myths and historiography of the 1948 Palestine War revisited: the case of Lydda," The Middle East Journal, September 22, 2005.
 * Ilan Pappe (2004). A History of Modern Palestine, Cambridge University Press, p. 131, section called "the Palestine War," though his dates are different (May to January 1949), p. 131.
 * The above shows that from left-wing anti-Zionist to right-wing pro-Zionist, Israeli academic historians use the term. SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 16:15, 2 July 2009 (UTC)


 * That's beside the point. The point isn't that the term is POV (although, one could argue that it is).  The point is that there is another better, longer article about the war already under a better name.  --GHcool (talk) 17:16, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
 * You argued that it was a POV fork; that is your deletion reason. But the 1948 Arab-Israeli War article isn't about the 1948 Palestine War. Different timeframe. And the term is used by historians from all persuasions, so it's not a POV term. Therefore, I'm not seeing why you would want to delete it. It's the kind of thing that will keep on being recreated, because people will look for it and wonder why it's not there. SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 17:21, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Not once it is merged/redirected to the real, NPOV 1948 Arab-Israeli War article. --GHcool (talk) 17:27, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't follow what you're saying. AfDs are not where merges and content is decided. What is decided here is whether to delete the title. Anyone can recreate the content, and they will, because it would be odd not to have an article on it. You keep saying it's the same as the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, but you haven't shown that. SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 17:32, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
 * You've shown it. --GHcool (talk) 18:47, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
 * You're not addressing my point. (1) 1948 Arab-Israeli War (what Israelis call the War of Independence) began on May 15, 1948, as our article on it says. (2) 1948 Palestine War comprises that and the previous Jewish-Palestinian civil wars fought before the creation of the state of Israel. Why would you want to delete the second? SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 19:12, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Don't be disingenuous. The 1948 Arab-Israeli war has a section on the civil war.Historicist (talk) 22:40, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
 * LOL. LOL. LOL. What a stupid comment. It has not . It is in the context. You didn't even read this. You just one of these frustrated pov-pusher. 81.244.182.215 (talk) 16:15, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
 * The page 1948 Arab-Israeli War has an extensive section on the civil war.Historicist (talk) 17:39, 3 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Merge Into the main 1948 Arab-Israeli War article. This page appears to be a blatant WP:POVFORK. --Nsaum75 (talk) 07:09, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep and merge 1948 Arab-Israeli War into this article. This is the term that historians use for the time range from near the end of the mandate through the 48 war, and having a separate article on the 48 war without the relevant context is what is the POV fork. Nableezy (talk) 14:41, 3 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Comment
 * Yoav Gelber,  Palestine 1948 , Sussex Academic Press, Brighton, 2006, ISBN 1845190750
 * Saleh Abdel Jawad, The Arab and Palestinian Narratives of the 1948 War, in Robert I. Rotberg, Israeli and Palestinian Narratives of Conflict, Indiana University Press, 2006, ISBN 978-0-253-21857-5.
 * Efraim Karsh, The Arab-Israeli Conflict: The Palestine War 1948 , Osprey publishing, 2002. FROM EFRAIM KARSH, pov-pushers.
 * Walid Khalidi, Selected Documents on the 1948 Palestine War, Journal of Palestine Studies, 27(3), 79, 1998.
 * Benny Morris, 1948, Yale University Press, 2008, ISBN 9780300126969
 * Eugene Rogan & Avi Shlaim, The War for Palestine - Rewriting the history of 1948 , Cambridge University Press, 2001.
 * David Tal,  War in Palestine, 1948 . Strategy and Diplomacy, Routledge, 2004.


 * You have here a FULL PANEL of RECENT SCHOLARS on the TOPIC and MOST OF ALL, from absolutely ALL SIDES and ALL POV's.
 * GHCool was fully aware of this. He is just a pov-pusher.
 * User:ceedjee


 * Comment - The debate is here user:ceedjee


 * Immediate undefinite topic ban of GHCool and Historicist for blatant pov pushing. user:ceedjee


 * comment Most wars have multiple names. Statements like "This is the term that historians use..."  are necessarily untrue when describing wars, like this one, where each side has a preferred name.  In this case, Many Israelis prefer some version of the phrase "War of Independence."  Many proponents of the Palestinian perspective prefer "War in Palestine" and the most widely-used neutral term is some version of  Arab-Israeli War.  This widely accepted phrase, "1948 Arab-Israeli War" has the virtue of listing, with brevity and accuracy, the opponents, Israeli on one side and several Arab states on the other, without giving a POV, as any inclusion of the word "Independence" would do.  The advantage or problem with the phrase War in Palestine is that Palestine has come to be both a geographic term and the term widely used term for the aspirational state of the Palestinian people.  The phrase therefore gives and inexorably POV boost to the belief that this was a war in land that belonged to a designated nation, i.e., it implies that since the war was fought in Palestine it was fought on land that rightfully belongs to the Palestinian nation.  In reality, of course, the question of which nation or nations have a right to sovereignty on that land is the very issue that is being fought over.  Use of the word Palestine as the article title is a violation of NPOV.Historicist (talk) 18:03, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Sorry, but that comment shows a fundamental misunderstanding of what we are discussing here. The sources provided above have multiple Israeli historians using this name. Also, as has been pointed out, the phrase Israeli War of Independence != Palestine War. And it implies no such thing as that the land belongs to the Palestinian nation. See, there was this place, it was called the British Mandate of Palestine, in fact the Jews who lived there were called Palestinian Jews. The name implies that it was fought in mandatory Palestine, which actually was a real place. Amazing what a little reading and not just going on ones gut feelings can do. Nableezy (talk) 18:37, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Israel is a raucous democracy with a famously free press. Unlike the situation in many countries, Israelis are entitled to publish whatever they please.  A good many Israeli historians choose to publish books that present the history of the region from a highly partisan Palestinian point of view.  My point, however, is that it is specifically historians who write as advocates  of the Palestinian perspective - of whatever ancestry and of whatever citizenship - who use the term ''Palestine War.Historicist (talk) 18:55, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Cherrypicking examples to support your position is not helpful. There are hundreds of books about this war.  You selectively site a title by Yoav Gelber, Palestine 1948,  but Gelber also has a book entitled: Independence Versus Nakbah: The Arab–Israeli War of 1948."   In an imperfect world, Arab-Israeli War'' is the most commonly used and probably the most parsimonious and neutral term available.Historicist (talk) 19:02, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
 * What do you not understand about this statement of absolute fact: 1948 Palestine War is not the same thing as the Arab-Israeli War of 1948, the second forms a part of the first. And you originally said that "Many Israelis prefer some version of the phrase "War of Independence", not what you say you meant later. But as to what you think you mean now (at least until that is shown to be fraudulent as well), would you care to show something backing up that statement? Or is it again your gut feeling? Nableezy (talk) 19:10, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Everything is already covered in 1947–1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine and 1948 Arab-Israeli War.Historicist (talk) 19:32, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
 * And this article should be a parent to those summary style. Nableezy (talk) 19:36, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Keep (Speedy) Per SlimVirgin, Nableezy, etc. This is not at all a case of POVFORKing, or something which should be in AfD at all. This is a summary / umbrella article, covering a war which had two major phases, each having its own article. It is not a fork of either. Quoting from the lede of these articles, there was:
 * Merge TomStar81 (Talk) 23:41, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment. The problem here is that people are trying to use AfD as a way of solving a content dispute. AfD can't rule on the content of a page, or merges, or redirects. AfD is here to decide whether a title should be deleted entirely. The content was already discussed here, where it was decided that 1948 Palestine War was an umbrella term used by historians from all sides to cover essentially two wars: (1) a civil war in 1947-1948 between Palestinian Arabs and Palestinian Jews in Palestine before the state of Israel existed; and (2) a war between Israelis and other Arab states started on May 15, 1948, triggered by Israel's declaration of independence. It is historically inaccurate to say, "well, there was really only ever one war." The second was entirely different from the first, in terms of combatants, and in terms of goals. I ask that an admin who has never been involved in the I/P disputes before, and who has no known relationship with the participants, close this, because we have a situation here where we have the numbers on one side, and the historical facts (as well as WP policy about deletion) on the other. SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 01:46, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment. I meant to add to the above that Historicist has admitted the opposition here is to the word "Palestine." This is an issue I've been seeing increasingly on Wikipedia, namely that a small number of Israeli editors and their supporters are trying to make certain words disappear from Wikipedia. (It's ironic that those same editors recently condemned the ArbCom for blocking pro-Israeli accounts that were trying to stop the words "Judea" and "Samaria" from disappearing.) The only point that matters for Wikipedia is that we are not here to make words and terms disliked by one side or another disappear from history. Palestine existed, as did Palestinian Arabs and Palestinian Jews, and a series of distinct, separable battles were fought for supremacy over certain parts of it in 1947-1948, only one of which is called the 1948 Arab-Israeli War (or what the Israelis call their War of Independence, a title I personally would have no problem using for it). Historians call that series of battles the 1948 Palestine War. SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 01:57, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
 * A Civil War, the 1947–1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine, which " lasted from 30 November 1947, the date of the United Nations vote in favour of the termination of the British Mandate of Palestine and the UN Partition Plan,[3] to the termination of the British Mandate itself on 14 May 1948."

followed by


 * A War between nations, 1948 Arab–Israeli War  "The war commenced upon the termination of the British Mandate of Palestine in mid-May 1948 following a previous phase of civil war in 1947–1948."

The current structure was decided at the IP collaboration as noted above. This, 1948 Palestine war, is the "main article", not 1948 Arab–Israeli War; changing this would entail changing the subjects of the two daughter articles. Nobody is suggesting use of the delete button or anything but normal editting. Peoples' feelings about "Palestine" and what the article should be named is not at all a matter for AfD.John Z (talk) 09:12, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Merge The bigger issue here as that this article does not meaningfully add to the existing articles 1947–1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine and the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, both of which cover far more ground than this article. While the collaborative development is a positive it does not override community consensus on the subject. Alansohn (talk) 13:21, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I fail to understand, if this is a parent article to those two shouldnt each of them cover more ground individually? Can you explain your objection to having this as a parent article to those two? And merge where? Nableezy (talk) 17:48, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't understand either. That the Summary style article has less detail than the ones it summarizes is the usual way.John Z (talk) 18:57, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
 * The 1948 Palestine War article does need to be built up more, which is perhaps what Alan is seeing. It should be written in summary style, with sections on the civil war and the Arab-Israeli war, but without going into the military details, which should be left to those sub-articles. It also needs sections on the background and the demographic and political consequences. I'm willing to help do that, but I'm not keen on having to do it before this AfD is over. SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 19:03, 5 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep. SlimVirgin's reasoning above is fair.  I'll add that we do have a problem of basically the same information appearing in too many places, but this problem should be solved in cooperative workshops, not by arguments on AfD pages. Zerotalk 21:25, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep -- While I have not examined all the "child" articles in detail, this article is seeking to provide an overview of the entire sequence of events. The use of "Palestine" does not indicate POV-pushing: that was the official name of the territory subject to the British mandate.  However I would prefer to see the article covering all the events of the 1940s in Palestine, including the unrest that led to the termination of the British mandate.  Peterkingiron (talk) 22:39, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep per SlimVirgin Gang14 (talk) 05:46, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep Obviously helps with context. --Ian Pitchford (talk) 19:04, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.