Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Palestinian revolving door policy


 * 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. Cirt (talk) 07:33, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Palestinian revolving door policy
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The phrase "Palestinian revolving door policy" is an WP:OR hodgepodge that utterly fails WP:N. It receives zero scholarly references and was not an official policy of the Palestinian Authority, but rather an accusation levelled against them by the Israeli government under Netanyahu. The title is misleading, the subject non-notable. Merging of a couple of lines of the content into articles related to Benjamin Netanyahu or the Palestinian Authority might be possible, but as a standalone article? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tiamut (talk • contribs)


 * Notice: Article has been restructured and re-edited with some content adding at 08:11, 27 April 2009 (UTC) .  Jaakobou Chalk Talk  08:11, 27 April 2009 (UTC)


 * As a result of the restructuring and significant expansion and additions of scholarly sources discussing the allegations of a 'revolving door' policy, I have reconsidered my position regarding the article's notability. I believe it does meet WP:N and managed to avoid WP:OR via a name change to Revolving door (Israeli politics). I changed it to this name from Brewcrewer's earlier name change to Revolving door policy. The reason this change is necessary is so as not to imply it is a policy in the title, when it is only alleged to be a policy. Scare quotes might have taken care of that but I believe they are frowned upon in the MoS. In any case, I hope the new title alleviates the concerns of OR and NPOV among others as it has for me. However, I'm a bit of a die-hard inclusionist so others might not take the same approach. Thanks to all for your efforts in bringing the article quality up and for everyone's comments.  T i a m u t talk 14:23, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment: No offense, but the "PA revolving door" is referred by Israel and others towards the Palestinian Authority so your renaming to "Israeli politics" was not a great idea.  Jaakobou Chalk Talk  12:28, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Response:' No offense, but given that it's an allegation made by Israeli politicians against the PA, I'd say that "Israeli politics" is a good delimiter to have in the brackets. I used Revolving door (politics) as my disambig style guide in this decision. I'm currently leaning more towards Revolving door (Mideast politics) given the sources Nickhh brought forward on Palestinian allegations against Israel that it is the one with a revolving door policy in its habit of re-arresting people its just released. But this naming and article scope discussion belongs on the article talk page and not here. No offense.  T i a m u t talk 21:33, 29 April 2009 (UTC)


 * No offense, but I'd like to chime in here. The allegations were made by the American and British governments as well, so "Israeli politics" is misleading. Also, these allegations originated from the intelligence and security apparatuses of the Israeli government, not their politicians. Finally, it's a national security issue, not a "political" issue. -- brew crewer  (yada, yada) 21:39, 29 April 2009 (UTC)


 * None taken, but as I said, the place for this discussion is the article talk page.  T i a m u t talk 21:53, 29 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Palestine-related deletion discussions.  --  I 'mperator 18:32, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Delete It is an allegation against the PNA by one government. Maybe in the Netanyahu article we could have passage or possibly a subsection discussing this as his view. I don't think it belongs in the PNA article though and it certainly does not need its own article. --Al Ameer son (talk) 16:58, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Weak keep Term appears to be used by FOX news, Haaretz & the israeli government . I think it's possible to have a neutral article here. --neon white talk 20:56, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep Now that it has been restructured and is on its way to be NPOV, I think we should keep the article. However, I think the Usage section should be expanded to include exactly when and why the British and US governments used the term. This won't get it deleted though. --Al Ameer son (talk) 17:03, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete Seems to be an "allegation" only rather than based on pure fact.  Dr. Blofeld       White cat 17:14, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
 * That's not a reason for deletion. We are not here to decide whether the allegations are correct but whether the subject is notable. --neon white talk 18:45, 24 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete Non-notable term, there is no significant coverage from reliable sources to warrant an article. -- J mundo 20:53, 24 April 2009 (UTC) Change to Keep per the sources. -- J mundo 13:21, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete - as a separate article, this has serious POV issues, and its existence isn't justified by the limited sources that have been provided. This could be covered in less detail as a subsection of a related article, but it doesn't deserve its own one. Robofish (talk) 04:15, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep. The article's sources and the sources provided above by User:Neon white indicates that the concept and term are notable. The fact that it is an allegation is irrelevant. God is also an allegation. According to WP policy, notability is decided by substantial coverage in reliable sources. Same with allegations. Allegations are notable when the allegations have received significant coverage in reliable sources. If there are POV problems with the article, the solution is never deletion, it's editing. -- brew crewer  (yada, yada) 15:44, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Significant coverage? The sources only mention the term. Can you offer specific examples of significant and independent coverage?-- J mundo 17:09, 26 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Strong Keep Highly notable.  It only took me 20 minutes to find a dozen references in the scholarly books, and reports.  Here are just a few of them:
 * Defending the Holy Land: a Critical analysis of Israel's security & foreign policy By Zeev Maoz University of Michigan press pg 471. ISBN 978-0472115402 " 'revolving door policy'wherein they captured terrorists only to release them ..."
 * Human Rights Watch Reports-- here:  "'revolving door policy' of arresting alleged members..." here,, and here
 * The other side of despair: Jews and Arabs in the promised land - Page 37 by Daniel Gavron -Rowan & Littlefield 2003 - ISBN0742517527, ISBN 9780742517523 "Israel justifiably complained about the 'revolving door' policy of arresting terrorists and releasing them after a few weeks or even days. ...
 * Building a successful Palestinian state RAND Palestinian State Study Team Jerrold D. Green & others  2005 -  "Are individuals being jailed or is there a revolving-door policy?"  pg 59
 * Plenty more where that came from. Highly notable.  Tundrabuggy (talk) 18:31, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep—was going to say delete, but then read Tundrabuggy's post above. Basically the reason I was going to say delete was because of lack of personal knowledge here, and it appears now that the term is used in a lot of places, by notable persons, and therefore appears notable enough for its own article. —Ynhockey (Talk) 21:09, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep per Tundrabuggy. I can understand why pro-Palestinians claim POV and would object to this term in that they might not see anything wrong with the policy at all. They (and the P.A.) specifically reject being Israel's enforcer of Israeli Jewish law and do not see anything wrong with releasing 'militants' who have carried out missions 'against the occupation'. So for them 'revolving door' is really NN, but in otherwise 'international' law, releasing suspects of violent crimes is not acceptable. --Shuki (talk) 21:42, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment Just thought I'd add a few more since I had made note of them.
 * The Oslo Accords: international law and the Israeli-Palestinian peace agreements - Page 225 by Geoffrey R. Watson - 2000 -  "Israel has charged that the PA has adopted a 'revolving door' policy of detaining and then releasing known terrorists. "
 * Israel's foreign relations: selected documents, 1947-1974 by Meron Medzini, 1976 Pg 262 - "The US has also committed to Israel that there will be special arrangements to prevent a 'revolving door' policy in relation to these prisoners..."
 * pg 7 Testimony for Congress The Roadmap to Middle East Peace: Can it be Restarted?" Boaz Ganor, Ex Dir International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism.'' "Sometimes they would put up a show arrest apprehending the terrorists and let them go free after a short while through the infamous 'revolving door' policy."
 * I think readers who come across this term might want to know what it means and look to Wikipedia for an answer. And lo! we have one. ;) Perhaps these extra refs will help to expand and improve the article. Tundrabuggy (talk) 23:04, 26 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete As per Tiamut's filing.  pedrito  -  talk  - 27.04.2009 06:35


 * Notice: Article has been restructured and re-edited with some content adding at 08:11, 27 April 2009 (UTC) .  Jaakobou Chalk Talk  08:11, 27 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep: I know this term was highly common in use about a decade ago but I wasn't sure if it deserved its own article as I falsely figured it to be more of an Israel-only terminology. A review upon relevant English news sources though, gave out the appearance that it caught foreign media attention to a degree where I believe an article would benefit the project.  Jaakobou Chalk Talk  08:20, 27 April 2009 (UTC) p.s. Article does need a couple of Palestinian/Arab official responses/perspectives though, for neutrality's sake.  Jaakobou Chalk Talk  08:22, 27 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep per Tundrabuggy. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 08:49, 27 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete. The phrase "revolving door policy" is of course a very common and standard - but nonetheless informal and colloquial - phrase, frequently applied to all sorts of situations. The sources cited appear to show that the PA policy on prisoner releases has occasionally been described, in passing, as an example of a "revolving door policy". Are we suggesting here that every time we can find a few instances of the use of the phrase by a politician/government or in a piece of commentary, in respect of situation or actor xxx, that we should then create an entire WP page with the formal title "xxx revolving door policy"? Unless there is actually serious evidence in serious sources that this is a commonly used, notable and formal phrase in its entirety, readily understood to refer specifically to this policy, this is pretty obvious POV forking and WP:SYNTHing. What next, "yyy hare-brained scheme", "zzz cunning plan"? --Nickhh (talk) 21:10, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
 * ps: call me thick, but I have only just noticed that this article has been renamed - since this AfD was opened - by User:Brewcrewer from "Palestinian revolving door policy" to simply "Revolving door policy". Forgive me, but this is doubly problematic - 1) is this kind of thing actually appropriate in the middle of an AfD?; 2) as I have noted, the more general phrase "Revolving door policy" is used to refer to many other things besides this supposed example of Palestinian duplicity, such that the general wrongness of this article is even more exposed now. --Nickhh (talk) 00:19, 28 April 2009 (UTC)


 * You're making a good point. But as outlined at Talk:Revolving door policy, the previous name was vague and derogatory. Maybe a better name would be Palestinian Authority revolving door policy or Revolving door policy (Palestinian Authority).-- brew  crewer  (yada, yada) 00:49, 28 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Well, that might cover the renaming point, but not the fundamental AfD debate. In respect of both issues, I was just about to add the following - A few more quickly sourced online examples, to prove the point that not everything and every phrase has to be viewed through the I-P prism, and defined on every WP page as if that were all that counted. Release of prisoners in Northern Ireland, here; rotation of a football first team, here; senior staff moving from the public to private sector in the UK (again) here etc etc. Or maybe we should view it through the I-P prism after all, and note that the accusation seems to cut both ways! Now then, is anyone seriously going to defend the existence of this page, especially under its latest title? To repeat: is there something genuinely unique, and identified as the "Palestinian/PA/whatever revolving door policy", or are we talking about something that is an alleged policy, which has sometimes been described by way of general description, as a "revolving door policy". That does make a difference as to whether it deserves a whole WP page under that name. --Nickhh (talk) 00:54, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
 * The name of the article is irrelevant for afd purposes. That can always be renamed, now or later. It's the content that's the issue. To that end, the "deleters" have focused on the wrong aspect of the content of the article. The article is not about the term, its origin, and its historic usage. That can be added as a small part of the article. The main focus of the article should be the actual (alleged) policy in which the PA arrested people and then just released them. This policy is a notable policy (as evidenced by the substantial coverage in reliable sources) and there's ample converge concerning the reasons for this type of policy, when it started, when it ended, why it started, why it ended, etc. -- brew crewer  (yada, yada) 01:08, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Well whatever it ends up being called, I'm still not sure that this needs a whole WP page to itself. "Look! The PA (allegedly) releases terrorist prisoners!" Smacks more of a glorified blog post to me than an encyclopedia article. --Nickhh (talk) 01:26, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I might agree with your sentiments, but it's WP:N and WP:RS that rule the day. -- brew crewer  (yada, yada) 01:38, 28 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete. Non-notable, per Nick. Not a good idea to build an article around each and every allegation and counter-allegation in the I/P conflict; and it's especially odd to upgrade the allegation to a "policy."  For what it's worth, I'll vote to delete Israeli land-grab policy, Israeli shoot-first-ask-questions-later policy, and Israeli policy of deliberately destroying civilian infrastructure, should some Palestinian Amoruso venture to create these or the like.--G-Dett (talk) 20:53, 29 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Even if the allegations satisfy WP:N?  brew crewer  (yada, yada) 21:04, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
 * For the allegations to satisfy WP:N, we need sources discussing the allegations themselves – that is, qua allegations. Examples might include an Amnesty International investigation into the truth of the allegations, a series of

, etc. Allegations of Israeli apartheid is a classic example of when an allegation itself becomes notable. There are academic conferences, op-eds, TV segments, and entire books (both popular and scholarly) devoted to debating its merits; this is what makes it notable. Generally speaking, the notability of "allegations" type articles has nothing to do with whether the allegation's probable, or thought to be probable by an authority; it has simply to do with whether the allegation qua allegation has become interesting to lots of secondary sources.


 * I'm not saying there aren't any such sources in this case. But no, I don't think they've reached anywhere near a critical mass; and if we go down this path – Haaretz said it!  Fox said it!  We need an article on it! – we'll end up with a gigantic clusterfuck of lame articles like this one, written by partisans on both sides.  Do you really want to see Israeli land-grab policy?  Do you imagine, for one half a second, that it would have fewer sources than this one?--G-Dett (talk) 21:34, 29 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Scholarly conferences is not prerequisite to notability, per WP:N. I don't think there was any scholarly conferences about Stoney Woodson. All that's required is substantial coverage in reliable sources, which this policy clearly meets. Oh, and Israeli land-grab policy, it already exists. See Judaization of Jerusalem, which just survived an afd. Too bad you couldn't chime in there.-- brew  crewer  (yada, yada) 22:05, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I mentioned conferences as an example, not a sine qua non; don't get fixated on that for heaven's sake. Not having been previously aware of Judaization of Jerusalem, I'd have to reflect on it before saying what I think.  It doesn't seem to me equivalent to Israeli land-grab policy.


 * Whenever you have a war or conflict, you have officials from one side making claims about what the other side's supposed "policies" consist of. I do not think that every one of these claims merits a separate Wikipedia article, simply because said claim was reported by several sources.--G-Dett (talk) 22:32, 29 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Stoney Woodson doesn't meet any of your other suggested standards; no books about him either. The revolving door policy did not originate from a war. To the exact contrary. It was a policy that took place in the non-war years following the Oslo Accords. And the fact that this policy was practiced during post-Oslo process is probably what caused all the coverage about this policy. You see, it was this policy that the opponents to the peace process used as proof that there cannot be peace. -- brew crewer  (yada, yada) 22:47, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
 * You keep fixating on non-essential elements of my posts, as if my arguments turned on them. Anyway. But Brewcrewer, when you say that "it was this policy that the opponents to the peace process used as proof that there cannot be peace," is that your own analysis, or one that's been mooted, disputed, etc. out there in the public sphere? If the latter, then that's exactly the kind of thing that could be relevant to notability.--G-Dett (talk) 22:58, 29 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Nor were there any "high-profile debates" about Stoney Woodson :) As for the "analysis", it's not my own, but something that I recall hearing. Obviously this analysis can't go into the article until it is supported by reliable sources. I'm looking around for stuff on The Google (my favorite mode of research), but these things take time. Why don't you help me out?-- brew crewer  (yada, yada) 23:09, 29 April 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.