Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Bloody Day in Jaffa


 * 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. After discounting the "delete" opinions by Ijon Tichy and Nishidani because they are mostly personal attacks, nobody except the nominator supports deletion.  Sandstein  18:49, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

The Bloody Day in Jaffa

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Firstly, the phrase ""The Bloody Day in Jaffa" gets exactly 3 hits in books.google.com: simply not notable.

Secondly (and more importantly): the present "article" is taking *one* tiny little snap-shot out of a large, complicated story, where there was a history of "tit for tat" revenge attacks. This article present itself as if these attacks were born out of nothing, which is of course rubbish. Huldra (talk) 20:37, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
 * As for being in the List of killings and massacres in Mandatory Palestine: Wikipedia is not WP:RS for a very good reason; it was put there by an IP, sourced to newspaper articles from 1936, in Hebrew. There is a mass of books, also in English, about the 1936–39 Arab revolt in Palestine; that it isn´t sourced to any of them should immediately have gotten alarm bells ringing. Huldra (talk) 21:20, 24 August 2016 (UTC)


 * A highly POV reason for bringing an article to AFD. The title was selected for this notable pogrom/race riot for the simple reason that it is the title already used in Wikipedia in our List of killings and massacres in Mandatory Palestine.  I took that for consensus.  If you wish to suggest an alternative title, the proper place to do so is on the talk page.  But you might want to follow WP:BEFORE, or just google: jaffa  19 April   1936,  and consider withdrawing this AFD.  I am article creator.E.M.Gregory (talk) 20:48, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Note that the quality of a page is generally not a good reason for deletion WP:DEL-CONTENT. Based on my wikipedia search I am a little concerned that most sources seem to be highly politicized. Have you looked through the sources the page? If they are legitimate, than I think those MIGHT provide evidence of notability. -Dan Eisenberg (talk) 20:53, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep (see below) and rename to something that those more knowledgable than I can decide. The title is clearly incorrect, but, per the book coverage linked above by E.M.Gregory, this is a day and series of events that has had plenty of coverage in history books. 86.17.222.157 (talk) 21:45, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete or Change title and Merge with 1936-39 Arab revolt in Palestine (see my comment below): There is already an article about 1936-39 Arab revolt in Palestine. The current version of the Jaffa disorder says nothing about the wider conflict, for easily understandable reasons: if it went into the wider conflict in detail, it would overlap significantly with the other article. The event is only notable as one of the earliest riots which spread to the whole of Palestine, and thus should properly be dealt with in the other article. It is also impossible to understand the rioting without the conflict with the British, especially the killing of al-Qassam, the larger events before and after the killing, for instance the immigration of Jews into Palestine, the conflict with the British, the formation of Higher Arab Committee who called a general strike on the issue of Jewish immigration just after the riots (which led to further violence against Jewish property and persons) and so on. Many sources are primary instead of secondary, like the Palestine Post. This article is simply a WP:POVFORK, which is EMG's stock-in-trade on WP - he has also created 1936 Anabta shooting (permalink) with a similar rationale. The other page is also a travesty, providing virtually no historical context - it seems that all Arabs want is to kill Jews. Obviously, EMG didn't deem it necessary to create a page for the two Arabs killed in reprisal for the 1936 Anabta incident, which directly led to this event: see  On the night of 15 April 1936, three Jews were ambushed and killed by Arabs on the road between Tul-Karem and Nablus. On the following night, two Arabs were killed in reprisal by members of a Jewish organization called National Defence - mother organization of Etzel - near the Jewish town of Petah-Tikva. These murders led to disorders in Jaffa and Tel Aviv on 19 April 1936.. To clarify, I am not calling for the creation of an article for the Jewish reprisal against Arabs, just pointing out the silliness of creating such pages. Kingsindian &#9821; &#9818; 00:02, 25 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I'll elaborate on one major point in my analysis. I claimed above that The event is only notable as one of the earliest riots which spread to the whole of Palestine, and thus should properly be dealt with in the other article. A simple glance at the "book sources" referenced in the article proves this point.


 * For instance, one reference (#2) cited is this. The entirety of any reference to this incident is a single sentence in a paragraph leading to the wider revolt.

On 15 April 1936, armed Arabs apparently acolytes of Izz al-Din al-Qassam of Haifa, murdered two Jews on a road near Tulkarem. In response, members of the Haganah Bet, a militant Jewish group that had broken from the Haganah, murdered two Arabs near Petah Tikva. During the funeral, Arabs in Jaffa attacked Jews and murdered nine of them. So began the great Arab rebellion. For Palestine's Arabs, the military option passed from theory to practice.


 * Here is a paper on JSTOR also cited (#10). The entirety of reference to this incident is a single sentence leading to the wider revolt.

On 19 April 1936, Arab riots broke out in Jaffa. A curfew was imposed on the area and emergency regulations brought into force. The following day...


 * I'm willing to bet that the vast majority, if not all of secondary sources deal with this incident in just this manner. It is not a coincidence that most of the details in the article rely on primary sources like the Palestine Post and The Nation both published in 1936. Kingsindian &#9821; &#9818; 03:13, 25 August 2016 (UTC)


 * Merge with 1936-39 Arab revolt in Palestine. Kingsindian's analysis is very good and I concur. Zerotalk 00:22, 25 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep - A number of WP:RS refer to the Bloody Day in Jaffa, including The Nation on its June 3 1936 issue. Entire Wikipedia articles have been written on less (and this one is additionally backed by references to 2 books and at least 2 scholarly journals).  I see nothing wrong with this article, which, being young, will probably be developed in future, but since when is Wikipedia in the business of deleting young articles before a chance is given to develop them?  Now, some people say "merge," but then, once merged, others may fairly complain that this one event's section on a long series of events is oversize respect to the entirety of the 1936-39 Arab revolt article, and then, well, we'd be back to square one.  Kingsidian's comments and Zero's are nothing but ad hominem's on EMG's; they seem to not like the Wikipedia articles EMG apparently chooses to edit (his "stock in trade", they say).  I say, judge this Bloody Day article by its merits, and not by EMG's other articles. Cheerio, XavierItzm (talk) 01:13, 25 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Palestine-related deletion discussions. Kingsindian &#9821; &#9818; 02:44, 25 August 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep. One of the comments for deletion said,   "The event is only notable as one of the earliest riots which spread to the whole of Palestine, " ; that's looking at it upside down.  The event is notable because it is one of the earliest riots which spread to the whole of Palestine. It's like saying a battle is notable only because it is one of the events in a war, and therefore should be covered only in the article on the war. Significant events get separate articles.  DGG ( talk ) 04:49, 25 August 2016 (UTC)
 * No, the battle analogy isn't apt. The question is: where is the evidence that this event is significant by itself? If you look at my analysis of the secondary sources, the Jaffa riots get no more than a single sentence in two of the cited secondary sources which I looked at: I am pretty sure the pattern generalizes to other sources if I bothered to check. The origins of the Arab revolt were complex: the section 1936–39 Arab revolt in Palestine gives a fair summary. Is one supposed to make a separate page for all the people killed on all sides of the conflict, or is it better to discuss all of them together in the proper context? Just read the 1936 Anabta shooting article and compare it to the section of the main article. The former is a travesty of history - there's no mention of the conflict with the British, a very brief mention of the killing of al-Qassam, no mention of the protests over Jewish immigration, no mention of the reprisal killing of two Arabs by the Haganah Bet at Petah Tikva. It is no accident that out of the events in chronological order A, B and C, EMG created articles on A and C, but not B. Kingsindian &#9821; &#9818; 09:43, 25 August 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep without going into politics and POVs discussion, from pure technical point of view the sources look legit, the event itself have a broad coverage, so it perfectly pass staying. Arthistorian1977 (talk) 11:08, 25 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Note that poet Haim Gouri wrote of "the bloody day that came in Jaffa on April 19, 1936."  a search of bloody day + Jaffa + 1936  shows that the term bloody day is applied to this event.E.M.Gregory (talk) 19:59, 25 August 2016 (UTC)
 * See my comments here. The source is simply describing April 19, 1936 as "a bloody day in Jaffa" not "the bloody day in Jaffa". Also note the lack of capitalization. There's no indication that this is some kind of name. I found no secondary source calling this day by this name. Kingsindian &#9821; &#9818; 01:20, 26 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Here's a recent (2015) article published in major Israeli media (which includes the third largest weekend-circulation in that country) where the author specifically refers to the events of April 19-20, 1926, as, and I quote, «‘The Bloody Day in Jaffa’». XavierItzm (talk) 06:59, 26 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Source referenced above, an opinion column, valid for demonstrating that this term is in some degree of use.E.M.Gregory (talk) 16:03, 26 August 2016 (UTC)
 * This is absurd: the opinion column is written by a nobody in a worthless venue: perhaps we should count The Sun as demonstrating notability of topless models which used to appear on Page 3? After all, The Sun had the highest circulation of any newspaper in the UK until very recently. Kingsindian &#9821; &#9818; 16:30, 26 August 2016 (UTC)
 * "A Common Soldier: The Story of Zwi Brenner, Yosef Eshkol, Afiḳim (Israel 1993), refers to "those killed in the bloody day at Jaffa" p. 121; i24news echoed the Artuz Sheva essay several times, as did other news and Zionist online sources, "It is April 19–20, 1936. There is no partition, no Israel, no settlements, no occupation and no refugees. Even the original suggestions of partition first raised by the Peel commission are still some time away. But ‘The Bloody Day in Jaffa’ is upon us and the first day of the ‘Great Arab Uprising’. By the end of the first week, 17 Jews had been murdered."   in the Anglospnere.  I understand that YOUDONTLIKEIT, but Arutz Sheva and these other sources and they do demonstrate that this phrase is in use with specific reference to this event.  If you have found other phrases in specific use to describe this event, I hope that you will share them.E.M.Gregory (talk) 17:44, 26 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I think you have demonstrated that you are well-versed in Googling "bloody day Jaffa". In case you didn't realize, your second source is a blogpost comment by some random person - who has wholesale copy-pasted the worthless Arutz Sheva source. The first source is also useless: it is a description, not a name. Note the lack of capitalization, for instance. Kingsindian &#9821; &#9818; 18:17, 26 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I see some sources using The Arab Riots of 1936  and 1936 Arab riots .  We already have 1929 Arab riots in Palestine .  I prefer the unique name, now sourced to 2 books, one citing a major poet, and an article in The Nation, as well as to recent opinion pieces.E.M.Gregory (talk) 19:05, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

I have left a message on Nishidani's page regarding this, asking him to userfy the article. Kingsindian &#9821; &#9818; 13:58, 26 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete/merge This will be kept, of course, though it is incompetent trash, as one has come to expect from the editor's work in this area, which is essentially designed to make a Yad Vashem sector to the I/P conflict and seed in a victim mentality, and insinuate Arabs are terrorists. The technique is to select an incident where Jews have died by Palestinian violence, keep it decontextualized, repress the historical contexts, all on the basis of a couple of scrappy second rate sources. As an indication of what you must do if you want to contribute at a minimal basic level to article creation of this type, I wrote up for 2 hours a response to this crap, to show how it can be done, if that's one's obsessive interest. So, compare Black_Sunday,_1937. Perhaps  1% of the automatic approvers for this rubbish will rethink their position, but I doubt it. Nishidani (talk) 12:56, 26 August 2016 (UTC)
 * You need to remain civil in your discourse. If you can't, then perhaps find a different topic to edit in. And creating a new article just to show a response is not what is expected from an experienced editor.
 * Keep article is sourced and is notable. Anything more than that is just editorializing. Sir Joseph (talk) 13:38, 26 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Note That as a response to this article, Nishdani has just created Black Sunday, 1937.E.M.Gregory (talk) 13:50, 26 August 2016 (UTC)
 * New article was created by Nishdani for "remonstrative" purposes, while describing "the 90% likelihood is that Gregory's 2 articles on that period will survive.". This violates WP:DISRUPT, as per WP:POINTy.E.M.Gregory (talk) 16:20, 26 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I have perhaps over 200 draft articles for Wikipedia in my files, going back several years. They lie, unused, because I don't think it shows much understanding of what encyclopedic editing requires, to plunk stubs every other day, even if they are far better worked that this, as however you do in offering stubs like Kate Prusack or this into wikipedia. Look at Black Sunday, 1937, at the section aftermath and you will see for 6 July 1938,25 July 1938, and 26 August 1938 incidents of mass slaughter of Palestinians, which, by your criteria, Wikipedia should devote an article to. Each can be multiply-sourced. But no, one does not do that because that material, and it covers hundreds of incidents, is best dealt with in lists, as on the page I wrote on the context. To make articles of each incident is to be repetitive, and to manipulate Wikipedia to a victim or pity mentality in our readership, devoid of actual historical content. It's tabloid history.
 * Competence requires hard work, not vanity publishing. As I explained on my page, seeing this rubbish reminded me of work long thought over, not done, on the era 1936-1939, and, in dedicating a few hours to it, I was quite aware it also contained a useful message: don't be lazy, read widely; don't place 'stuff' on Wikipedia unless   you can see it covered significantly in strong sourcing; don't invent history with synthetic titles; don't write snippets of events shorn of all historical context; cover both sides, and a dozen other banausic rules for solid craftsmanship. Follow those rules and you will not see your talk page blotted by frequent AfD notifications, as often is the case.Nishidani (talk) 18:54, 26 August 2016 (UTC)


 * I have been persuaded by the conversation here that my "keep" opinion above was incorrect. The topic is better covered in context by a broader article. 86.17.222.157 (talk) 20:15, 26 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Note that This article has been linked in its lede to 1936–39 Arab revolt in Palestine from the moment it was written. This Arab riot targeting Jews is independently notable as the event that marked the beginning a notable 3-year period of violent attacks.  Interest in that period has been increasing since the Intifada of 1987-1993 among historians, political analysts, anti-Israel activists, writers and artists of all sorts.  Significant secondary sourcing exists; has, in fact, existed since 1936.  More to the point, it is quite normal on Wikipedia to have general articles plus narrowly focused articles on a topics provided that the sourcing supports having both, as it does here.  We have literally hundreds of articles on the Indian independence movement; appropriately so.  The fact that we have American Revolution would hardly be an argument for deleting Boston Massacre or the Edenton Tea Party.E.M.Gregory (talk) 20:38, 26 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Note to the above note. You have ignored all of the secondary sources contextualizing this single incident of hundreds. Indeed you've just cited as 'horrible reading' Leland B. Morris (American Consul General at Jerusalem,Attitude of the Department of State Concerning Problems Arising from Conflicting Interests of Arabs and Jews in Palestine. To the Secretary of State  867N.00/283, No.62, Department of State, 25 April 1936, which gives an ample backdrop and context to the April event tracing it back to the discovery of a smuggling operation through the port of Jaffa in late 1935 of arms shipments to the Jewish Haganah militia, through to the Jewish blocking of a proposal for a Legislative Council and the activities of the Islamic militant gang led by Izz ad-Din al-Qassam and both jewish and Arab rioting. All of these elements spurred the heightening of tensions in both communities. So you are quite aware of this. No trace of it appears here or in the other article you created recently, 1936 Tulkarm shooting. The effect of this snippet history? Arabs just rise up and shoot Jews. Unless you fix this apparently witting omission of all the key information you have read, you are violating WP:NPOV by creating skewed articles for effect.Nishidani (talk) 20:48, 26 August 2016 (UTC)


 * Delete/Merge. Writing crappy, shitty, context-free "articles" does nothing to honor the memory of Jews who suffered from Palestinian violence. In my view, these articles risk appearing to perhaps do more to dishonor, reduce and cheapen the memory of the Jewish people's suffering by potentially seeming to associate their real pain and anguish with third-rate, distorted, twisted, NPOV-policy-violating "articles" that could likely come across as lazy, crude pieces of cheap propaganda. Regards, Ijon Tichy (talk) 00:49, 27 August 2016 (UTC)


 * Comment - I have no opinion on the merits of keeping or deleting this article, but I urge the administrator who closes this discussion, one way or another, to deal with the editing behavior of editors who support the  deletion of this article, while creating a mirror-image article , with identical "context free" focus on the events of a single day, replete with one sided commentary, only from  the other side. This should be grounds for topic-banning, in my opinion. Epson Salts (talk) 19:19, 27 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Mirror-image article? That only reminds me to remind you to think of the meaning of the phrase Through a Looking Glass, darkly. But since you regard the other article as a 'travesty' and as a specular reflection of this article, it is a simple syllogistic consequence that you do have an opinion 'of the merits of keeping or deleting this article', since you are saying this also is a travesty. If you can't make up your mind about this 'travesty', complaining of what you take to be its refracted image is pointless.Nishidani (talk) 19:57, 27 August 2016 (UTC)
 * The fact that you cannot see the difference between the two articles is itself illuminating. Unlike this made-up name "Bloody day in Jaffa", sourced to trash sources like Arutz Sheva and non-sources which don't use any name of the kind, "Black Sunday" is a name used by the Irgun itself and in secondary sources cited in the article. Virtually all of the sources in the other article are secondary, unlike half of the sources here, which are primary and provide virtually all the detail. (The secondary sources are put there by EMG to puff up the citations). Unlike this article, which is about a riot plucked out of context, Black Sunday was a turning point in the use of tactics by the Irgun, commemorated as such by the Irgun itself. The article could and probably should more context - but it does talk about wider context, the Zionist resolution on the Peel commission, the British response and the Arab provocations and response. For instance, find me a quote analogous to At this stage in the revolt, the Arab uprising had degenerated into, in Colin Shindler’s words, ‘internecine Arab violence and nihilist attacks on Jews' in this article. Also, the place to ask for a topic ban is WP:AE, not an unrelated AfD. Kingsindian &#9821; &#9818; 22:17, 27 August 2016 (UTC)
 * (1) I disagree with your characterization of Arutz 7, which is a mainstream media source in Israel. It has a clear ideological bias, but so do many outlets ,from MSNBC to Fox News, which are used all over Wikipedia. Editors don;t get to discount sources as "trash" just because they don't identify with the ideological bias. (2) The Irgun actually does not use that name, if you read the source you  provided , you'd see it says this was a term coined by Irgun's opponents- Yitzhak Ben-Zvi  - a labor Zionist. (3) If 'Black Sunday' was such a well known event and turning point, you;d expect to see he term used quite commonly in the  historiography of the conflict, but in fact, of the sources used in that travesty of an article, only 3 mention that name, all three references an offhand mention in a single sentence . (4) When I say mirror image , what I mean is an article created to advance a POV , by embellishing an otherwise little-known or insignificant event. That is exactly what Black Sunday, 1937 is. If you strip away the material which is "background" , or "context"  or "aftermath" which do not mention the events of Nov 14 1937 (and which could have easily been copied, word for word, and applied equally well to  The Bloody Day in Jaffa as both event happened in the context of the 1936-1939 revolt , you are left with two sentences, comprising some 30-odd words, that have been fluffed up using POV selective  quoting into an article. And the creator of that travesty brags that he created it as a "response" to the article under consideration here. Enough said. Epson Salts (talk) 23:28, 27 August 2016 (UTC)
 * If you think an opinion piece by a nobody in Arutz Sheva is a fine source for a historical article about an 80-year old event, I am afraid there is no hope. Find me one, not two, one serious secondary source for the made-up name of this article. Kingsindian &#9821; &#9818; 23:32, 27 August 2016 (UTC)


 * Note I have been slowly expanding this article from the many academic and popular sources available. Note, for example, entire journal articles by Goren and by Golan devoted the impact of this pogrom. There is a great deal more still to be added.  Much of it, on the fate of the Jewish refugees thrown from their homes in Gaza, and the political consequences in terms of the demand for annexation of Jaffa to Tel Aviv, make the suggestion of a merger to the  1936–39 Arab revolt in Palestine wholly ineligible.E.M.Gregory (talk) 00:52, 28 August 2016 (UTC)
 * By contrast, material such as ''Italian Involvement in the Arab Revolt in Palestine, 1936–1939,N Arielli - British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 2008, dealing with on Mussolini's funding of the Revolt should probably be added to that article rather than to this one.E.M.Gregory (talk) 00:52, 28 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I read the Golan source: I congratulate you on finding at least one secondary source which has a tangential connection with the riots. Unfortunately, you have mangled the source in your treatment. The source is talking about the whole of Arab revolt of 1936 and the the disturbances in the whole of 1936, not just the riots on 19th April. For instance, in your rendering of the incident, the general strike by the Arab Commitee isn't mentioned. Turning to the source, we find: The disturbances raged for two more days, until suppressed by British military and police forces. Another five Jews were killed, dozens were wounded, and Jewish property along the line separating Jews and Arabs was destroyed, mostly by arson. The three days of rioting resulted in the flight of about 7,000 Jews from areas near the Arab neighbourhoods. The halt to the violence did not stem the wave of refuge-seekers as tension between Jews and Arabs persisted following the declaration of a general strike by the Palestinian Arab leadership. On 27 April, the number of refugees reached its peak, about 12,000. The source goes on to describe the events through November 1936. Again, this shows that it is senseless to have two articles on just the initial riots without reference to the broader context. It is perhaps possible to write a neutral and comprehensive article on the start of the revolt, but this sure as hell isn't it. I'll mention here that the source makes no mention of this made up name "Bloody Day in Jaffa". Kingsindian &#9821; &#9818; 02:25, 28 August 2016 (UTC)
 * You flatter me. It is not at all difficult to find RS on this pogrom.  I do urge you to read up on the accurate and objective reading of sources.  And also to readWP:BLUDGEON.E.M.Gregory (talk) 09:55, 28 August 2016 (UTC)


 * Note the fictional portrait of this event/day in a bestselling 1984 novel by Leon Uris.E.M.Gregory (talk) 12:04, 28 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Works by 2 more notable authors have been added to In literary memory section.E.M.Gregory (talk) 01:56, 31 August 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep though possibly renamed. The start of the Arab rising is surely notable.  Peterkingiron (talk) 18:34, 28 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Note ongoing expansion and sourcing obviating many of the negative early opinions.E.M.Gregory (talk) 19:52, 30 August 2016 (UTC)


 * Comment: I withdraw my objection to this article. It clearly meets WP:GNG. One has to simply fix its name and POV problems. Kingsindian &#9821; &#9818; 22:35, 30 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes, well, it is abundantly clear that the attacks on notability above and nomination of this topic for deletion were the product of emotions unrelated the intrinsic notability of this topic.E.M.Gregory (talk) 01:56, 31 August 2016 (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.