Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Death of Binyamin Meisner


 * 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 keep. As the discussion dragged on, it leant towards the conclusion that news coverage of this event's aftermath did persist beyond the event itself. Deryck C. 13:54, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Death of Binyamin Meisner

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Wikipedia is still not for news, even news from 1989, if it didn't garner any significant coverage beyond a few days' news cycle. (No hits on this in or after March 1989.) Even in 2013, when the killer was released, there was no significant coverage in reliable sources of this incident, just a list. –Roscelese (talk &sdot; contribs) 16:01, 23 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Hi Rosecelese, If you examine the sources in the article, you will see that this death was the subject of significant international press coverage throughout 1989, that there was significant coverage when the perpetraors were released in 2013, and that it has continued to be discussed in articles and books published in this decade, for example: Ruth Linn (2012). Conscience at War: The Israeli Soldier as a Moral Critic. SUNY Press. p. 161.; Tolan, Sandy (2015). Children of the Stone. Bloomsbury. p. 344.; and Stephen Flatow (1 January 2014). "Palestinian Terrorists’ Forgotten Weapon: Murder by Stoning"  Best.E.M.Gregory (talk) 12:06, 26 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Israel-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 16:43, 23 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Palestine-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 16:43, 23 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Crime-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 16:43, 23 February 2015 (UTC)
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 * Please read the article and its sources more carefully, because your assertions are not accurate. — Preceding unsigned comment added by E.M.Gregory (talk • contribs) 18:41, 23 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Keep - as a notable event which illustrates that rock throwing - the 'weapon of choice' of Palestinians - which is often portrayed in the media as "non lethal" or even "non violent" - is actually a lethal weapon. Contrary to what the OP says, when the murderer was released in 2013, this generated news (referenced in the article) which specifically called out this incident for the reasons I mentioned above -15 years after the event! EscEscEsc (talk) 18:47, 23 February 2015 (UTC) — EscEscEsc (talk&#32;• contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
 * "...for the reasons I mentioned above.." - So you have two accounts?  Lugnuts  Dick Laurent is dead 18:53, 23 February 2015 (UTC)
 * No, I gave reasons a line above this one, hence "the reasons I gave above". EscEscEsc (talk) 19:01, 23 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Delete as per Roscelese. There are a enormous number of Palestinian civilians, and children killed by Israeli forces (only an extremely small number of which are included in List of Palestinian civilian casualties in the Second Intifada for one specific period. I would oppose articles on each of these, just as I oppose articles on every Israeli death, unless, in either case, the incident is subsequently taken up with some insistence by news sources the world around (Palestinian deaths aren't, of course, but that is not the reason for stacking Wikipedia with obituary notices like this. I see now that we have by the way, a Palestinian stone-throwing article. The title precludes any mention of Israeli settler stone-throwing, which is quite common, not only at American consulate figures, as anyone familiar with reports from Christian Peacemaker Teams in that area will know.Nishidani (talk) 20:32, 23 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Hi User:Nishidani Are you aware that you are supposed to make a reasoned, policy-based argument, not simply state that: "I oppose articles on every Israeli death."E.M.Gregory (talk) 15:21, 3 March 2015 (UTC)
 * That is quite rude of you, translating a position I have long argued (since 2012),(see for example Articles for deletion/The murder of Yehuda Shoham, which was one of a series being rushed into Wikipedia at the time by an activist POV pusher) against the inclusion of obituaries whether they be Palestinian or Israeli, unless they meet strong criteria of notability and making out that my hidden motive is some (anti-Semitic?) objection to registering Israeli deaths. I could write, were I a POV pusher, dozens of articles on Palestinian children, non-hostile civilians, shot down in cold blood by the IDF, and mentioned each in several sources. I refrain from doing so. I don't believe an encyclopedia should be manipulated to showcase victimization theories. What I do, when touching this area, is to contribute to lists. Short notes, objectively written, and well sourced. The morbid can click and investigate if they need details.Nishidani (talk) 16:10, 3 March 2015 (UTC)
 * That the editors citing this case on the thinnest of evidence for long term notability have a farcical understanding of notability is pretty obvious. Notability is something like this-
 * Benny Morris, Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2011 p.600
 * John Conroy, Unspeakable Acts, Ordinary People: The Dynamics of Torture, University of California Press 2000 pp.138-157, cf.p.140.
 * Liron Mor,'Nihilism and Repetition:Dahlia Ravikovitch's Reiterations as Critique,' in Nitzan Lebovic, ‎Roy Ben-Shai (eds.), The Politics of Nihilism: From the Nineteenth Century to Contemporary Israel, Bloomsbury Publishing USA 2014 pp.151ff, p.154.
 * License to Kill: Israeli Operations Against "wanted" and Masked Palestinians, Human Rights Watch, 1993 p.193
 * Mary Elizabeth King,Mary King, Jimmy Carter A Quiet Revolution: The First Palestinian Intifada and Nonviolent Resistance, Nation Books 2009 p.361
 * Report of the Special Committee to investigate Israeli practices affecting the human rights of the population of the Occupied Territories, United Nations A/43/573, 29 August 1988
 * James A. Graff, ‎Mohamed Abdolell,Palestinian Children and Israeli State Violence, Near East Cultural and Educational Foundation of Canada, 1991 p.63
 * Those are the kind of high quality academic sources that cover an otherwise rather obscure death of a Palestinian, Hani al Shami. I don't think that, given thjis extensive book coverage. one should write an article on the Death of Hani al Shami, even though it was the object of a trial and a famous poem in Hebrew). The fact is, these articles are predominantly on Israelis, and are designed to skew the data base to create the impression that terror is predominantly a Palestinian problem. Now, given this reflex approval process, I look forward to NPOV-minded editors balancing the article with one on al-Shami. Of course, only joking. It won't happen. He's Palestinian, and I for one discourage 'retaliatory' articled creation.Nishidani (talk) 16:59, 3 March 2015 (UTC)Nishidani (talk) 16:55, 3 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Nishidani, I don't think this meets any speedy delete criteria. "Strong delete" is something people sometimes say, although ultimately the closing admin will evaluate the strength of arguments, not of users' opinions... –Roscelese (talk &sdot; contribs) 20:36, 23 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Adjusted. Nishidani (talk) 11:11, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Delete pr WP:BLP1E, if this is notable, then every violent death in the Middle East is. And that the killers of Palestinians typically walks free (i.e., no follow-up story when the killers come out of jail 25 years later) is no reason that *this* death is more notable. Huldra (talk) 21:28, 23 February 2015 (UTC)
 * HiUser:Huldra. please avoid straw man arguments, no one argues that "every violent death" is notable. The argument here,which you fail to address, is that this incident is notable because there was widespread coverage over a periof of 2 decades.  Please address this article under the more applicable standards: WP:GNS and WP:Event.E.M.Gregory (talk) 15:30, 3 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Delete per WP:NOTNEWS. — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 03:13, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Hi Malik. Did you have in mind subsection 2? The examples given there seem distinguishable: "routine news reporting on things like announcements, sports, or celebrities". Nor is this "breaking news". And the coverage is over years, on more than one continent, in books and newspapers.  I'm considering this, and know your !votes are thoughtful, so thought I would ask. Epeefleche (talk) 05:57, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Hi Epeefleche and thank you for your message. Yes, I had in mind bullet #2 of WP:NOTNEWS, which begins "Wikipedia considers the enduring notability of persons and events." In my opinion, the enduring notability of Staff Sergeant Meisner's death is not evident from the burst of coverage in 1989. — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 03:18, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I see. I wonder if what is meant by the "enduring notability" of the event, which "Wikipedia considers", is not best understood by looking at the examples then given -- of what does not constitute enduring notability leading to inclusion.  Those are "routine news reporting on things like announcements, sports, or celebrities" and (sometimes) "recent developments". It strikes me that this event is very easily distinguishable from all of the NOTNEWS examples given to explain what is being viewed as not appropriate for inclusion. Plus, while the coverage is largely from 1989, it is not limited to 1989 -- but actually continued years later. Thoughts? Epeefleche (talk) 08:23, 25 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Keep, sources indicate notability. Everyking (talk) 05:49, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Keep Meisner's death (perhaps because of the dramatic and unusual use of a concrete block as a murder weapon) was widely covered in the international press when it occurred; it had an impact on events at the time: the Israeli Army immediately put a lock-down on Nablus for 10 days while it searched house-to-house for his killers; the house form which the block was thrown was demolished; PLO sources asserted that the lockdown led them to scupper rapprochement; the release of the convicted murders decades later received significant press attention; and the incident continues to resonate, it is rehearsed in a 2015 popular book (http://www.amazon.com/Children-Stone-Power-Music-Hard/dp/1608198138).  — Preceding unsigned comment added by E.M.Gregory (talk • contribs) 13:21, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Look at the hundreds of redlinked Palestinian victims of Israeli assassination operations at List of Israeli assassinations. All of those incidents were reported in multiple sources. I did most of the list, but I would strongly oppose attempts to convert each casualty into a wiki article of this type. As for the mode of killing being unusual, well it occurred 2 years into the First Intifada, where, after Rabin reportedly ordered soldiers to break the bones of the teenagers leading the unarmed insurgency, 12 youths were beaten to death by IDF soldiers in Gaza alone in the first year. a commonplace technique was to bind and gag youths, pin them down, and use rocks and rifles to smash their arms or femurs, as you can see one minute into this video. 10% of the 1,000 odd Palestinians killed during that unarmed protest at the occupation died of such methods, which are, in warfare, as peculiar as using a concrete block to kill a soldier raiding one's home town. None of this is worth individual coverage. It should go in lists, without comment. Nishidani (talk) 20:49, 24 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Delete. Yet another dead Israeli soldier. Sad for his family, undoubtedly, but no more notable then any other soldier killed in conflict. As to there being sources, of course there are. There are sources on every single Western soldier killed in Afghanistan or Iraq too. That doesn't mean they're all notable. If we go down the route of having articles on every single soldier from a country with high internet usage who is killed then we end up turning into a memorial. And not only that, but we end up making it look like soldiers killed in the internet age are more worthy of articles than those killed before it simply because of internet coverage. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:57, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Hi Necrothesp, Did you notice that Meisner died before the advent of the internet age? His death received widespread coverage in the the old-fashioned printed newspapers of a long-ago era the death of death of Israeli soldiers on patrol was rare. This is not a memorial, it is an article about a death that received widespread coverage at the time, and that continues to be written about.E.M.Gregory (talk) 15:22, 24 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Question Is it proper for an editor to remove material from an article written about this death by a notable person Stephen Flatow in a newspaper in 2014 (http://www.algemeiner.com/2014/01/01/palestinian-terrorists%E2%80%99-forgotten-weapon-murder-by-stoning/) and for the same editor to remove material from an Israeli government website? I ask because it seems circular to me for the article to be considered for deletion on grounds that there is not sufficient coverage, or that there is not sufficient recent coverage, and for another editor to remove significant, recent coverage while this debate is going forward.E.M.Gregory (talk) 15:55, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Coverage needs to be in-depth coverage from reliable, third-party sources. An army writing about its own soldier being killed on its own website never adds to the soldier's notability and should be left out of this discussion a priori. Q VVERTYVS (hm?) 16:09, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Whether or not it counts towards notability, that is not a reason to delete it from the article. Our articles are replete with sources that are proper in the article, though they do not count towards notability. If that were the case, you would never see a Wikipedia article quoting a US government statement as to anything where it was not a third party. That's obviously not how it works. Epeefleche (talk) 19:45, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I was responding to a question about significant coverage in the context of the deletion discussion. Whether the sources are appropriate at all is a different matter. Q VVERTYVS (hm?) 21:58, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Understood. If the sources are appropriate (and they appear to be, from what I can see), I think the better course is to not delete them -- especially during the course of a notability discussion. Even if they do not count towards notability.  Deleting appropriate sources is always a bad idea. And deleting them during a deletion discussion properly raises eyebrows. The better course, I would suggest, would be to point out in the AfD discussion that "refs x and y do not count towards notability because ..." Best. Epeefleche (talk) 00:13, 25 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Weak keep, while the individual Binyamin Meisner has received significant coverage in multiple reliable sources, thus passing WP:GNG, the individual is primarily notable for a single event, his death, therefore it falls under WP:BIO1E (and thus why there are those who feel WP:NOTMEMORIAL applies) Thus the question that needs to be asked is whether the event that is the death pass WP:EVENT. It can be easily shown that due to the subject passing GNG that the event received significant coverage, now the question is whether the event has received WP:PERSISTENT coverage.
 * Google News Search
 * I would argue that the PERSISTENCE requirement has been met.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 05:49, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I would argue that the PERSISTENCE requirement has been met.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 05:49, 25 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Keep - Repercussions section in article say "this killing... derailed incipient reconciliation between Israel and the PLO" which shows repercussions beyond this single event. It might need more expansion but indicates that WP:NOTNEWS rule does not apply. Ashtul (talk) 09:05, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
 * It's identified as one of several events that, combined, did so - but possibly more to the point, pretty much anything that happens in Israel or Palestine delays some peace talks that are allegedly about to happen. It's a non-indicator at this point. –Roscelese (talk &sdot; contribs) 14:28, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
 * IMHO, Comparison made between this case to Palestinian casualties is false.
 * The last Palestinian killed by Israeli citizens is Mohammed Abu Khdeir and I suspect any of the respondents to this deletion request haven't looked at it or even actively edited it. That page is ~70k and there is no doubt it deserves that amount of attention and not only because of the heinous way in which he was killed but because citizens took the law into their hand and avenged the kidnapped, not to mention the repercussions.
 * I tried to think when is the previous case when an Israeli civilian have killed a Palestinian, even used Timeline of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, 2014 which is being nurtured by a fellow editor and I just couldn't. I came up with Khaled Odeh and Tayeb Odeh from Huwara and Einas Khalil of Sinjul but these cases are more complex and can be compared to Netaniel Arami, neither have it's own article. Against the belief of some, it just doesn't happen.
 * Roscelese, what led to the creation of this article is probably your RfC which concluded in consensus against inclusion of incidents that do not have their own Wikipedia article. It is possible that changing this decision will eliminate the need for a separate article. Nobody doubt (I believe) this event should be mentioned somewhere. Ashtul (talk) 17:34, 25 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Keep The links and sources provided in this discussion above by E.M.Gregory reveal that this murder has acheived long term notability and this is not a case of BLP1E.-- brew crewer  (yada, yada) 17:54, 26 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Delete The killing is not notable, especially not in that region. It's more like a news report with some coverage later. It could be in Palestinian stone-throwing, where it already is mentioned. --IRISZOOM (talk) 14:35, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.
 * Keep. Meets GNG, and see my other above comments. Many of the delete !votes seem premised on "lots of people get killed there" - ignoring the GNG coverage (if it meets our criteria, we don't worry ourselves that other killings meet our criteria), or rely on distinguishable policies. Epeefleche (talk) 18:48, 28 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Keep based on the sources mentioned in Death_of_Binyamin_Meisner; although I don't like the title to that section, it shows how this death has had a lasting impact. Bearian (talk) 01:29, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, &mdash; Coffee //  have a cup  //  beans  // 13:52, 3 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Keep - meets WP:GNG. lasting impact, good sourcing.. etc etc.--BabbaQ (talk) 13:18, 4 March 2015 (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.