Talk:Animal stereotypes of Palestinians in Israeli discourse

This source has been removed though it is pertinent

not humans but Arabs, red Indians, The date for the item is 14 November 2022 and the author is Marwa A.

As the source states: The reference was a relatively old one. It was attributed to former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat [...] The head of the PLO and president of the Palestinian Authority said that, despite Israel’s attempt to eradicate the Palestinian people, they remain steadfast. “[Israel had] failed to wipe us out,” said Arafat. “We are not Red Indians.”
That reference is from Arafat, not from Israeli discourse. Chaotıċ Enby (talk · contribs) 09:15, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

The analogy with the red Indians goes back at least to the 1930s. The article itself is about stereotypes of Palestinians.Nishidani (talk) 09:26, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

What's your point here? I thought this was about offensive things said by Israelis about Palestinians? AusLondonder (talk) 09:28, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

There is a clear consensus that this page is not constructive

How come? No talk page discussion has occurred, no AfD. This page cannot be redirected as it has been in good faith. The article appeared today, no talk page discussion took place, only two people reverting its contents, as I began to wikify its contents. The function of this page is to outline the details of animal stereotypes, a detailed expansion and sister article to the generic page on anti-Palestinianism in Israel. Indeed, the proper title for the contents would be 'Animal stereotypes of Palestinians in Israeli discourse' for which there are scores of academic and mainstream newspaper sources. Nishidani (talk) 09:32, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

Feel free to take part in the ongoing discussion at Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard#Negative Terms for Palestinians in Israeli discourse. And yes, of course an article created in good faith can be redirected. 09:38, 12 March 2024 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by AndyTheGrump (talk • contribs)

WP:Blank and redirect allows to remove content in an article that is in its current state problematic and should be WP:TNT. There is no problem if you establish a proper scope and rewrite the article (and in fact I believe there are enough sources to write a quality article on it), but the article in its current state was a mess and couldn't be kept. Chaotıċ Enby (talk · contribs) 09:40, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

It contained multiple falsehoods (an example is alleging the Israeli defence minister refered to Palestinians as cannibals when the source cited said Hamas leaders, a potential BLP violation), the "Red Indians" quote, actually said by Yasser Arafat, it was poorly-sourced (sources including A-Z Quotes), it was original research, it was a WP:POVFORK. Not sure how much more explanation is needed here. AusLondonder (talk) 09:50, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

Totally agreed with Nishidani.Crampcomes (talk) 10:00, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

@Crampcomes: Please don't continue to revert the redirect. There's a clear consensus both on this talk page and the NPOVN link above that this article is clearly problematic and should be redirected (or at least should go through WP:TNT). Either way, the article cannot stand in its current state. Presently I only see yourself and Nishidani opposing this, but no arguments have really been given. AusLondonder has summarised very well the issues with this article. — Czello ^(music) 10:06, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

I agree with the BLAR approach and with Czello and AusLondoner's comments. DeCausa (talk) 10:10, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

There is no consensus to redirect or delete this article. For Animal stereotypes of Palestinians in Israeli discourse, there are scores of academic and mainstream newspaper sources.Crampcomes (talk) 10:11, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

There is obviously a consensus. I realise you're protective of the article as you created it, but let's not edit war about this. — Czello ^(music) 10:14, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

There's the nuance. I and likely others will likely agree that, while the topic itself and notable and an article could be written about it, this is just not it and should be WP:TNT if a better article is to be written. There isn't a consensus that the topic is not notable, but there is a consensus for redirecting/deleting the current state of the article. Chaotıċ Enby (talk · contribs) 10:16, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

Just looked at the article when it was restored with near-identical content, found yet more quotes which are false. A supposed animal stereotype "barbarians who are serial killers" is not a direct quote from the source given. Another one, "Arab scum"; the word scum does not appear in the source provided. AusLondonder (talk) 10:12, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

No source provided for "a nation of monkeys, scorpions, morons, worms, not humans but Arabs". That is such an offensive and inflammatory statement and the article creator can't even be bothered to give a source. That's appalling behaviour. AusLondonder (talk) 10:16, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

Re-write

@Nishidani: The second sentence of your re-write is "Mutual dehumanization is commonplace among both the occupying and occupied peoples in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict." Isn't that where the article should really be - Dehumanizing rhetoric in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, which is more interesting, substantial and encyclopedic than the current scope. The current title is very narrow ("cannibals" don't fit), sounds crude and unencyclopedic and whatever way you start it out will inevitable drift into a POV coatrack of lists of invective. (And by the way, "critters" in WP's voice without quotes??) DeCausa (talk) 12:41, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

Indeed. I've just made a similar point about the framing of the topic on Nishidani's talk page. [1] We don't need two mirror-image articles on the same mutually-dehumanising discourse, which is what we will inevitably end up with if this carries on. AndyTheGrump (talk) 12:51, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

I state that the dehumanization is mutual because that is what my source states. Familiarity with the sources tells me that there is an extensive documentation on Israeli stereotypes of Palestinians as animals, and little about Palestinian stereotypes of Israelis. So it is rather like my writing (there are whole volumes on this) an article on Ancient Greek stereotypes of the Persians (another ancient conflict), starting with the Persai by Aeschylus, and be pulled up by someone arguing that since both sides were contemptuous of each other, at least down to Alexander's time, the article should be overhauled along the lines of Dehumanizing rhetoric in the Graeco-Persian conflict when we have tons of material on Greek views of their adversary, and very little from Persian sources. That is to fall into the trap of false parity. One party in this dispute occupies and governs, savagely, the territories on which the occupied peoples live, and I'm sure Palestinians have a significant vocabulary to express their grievances, resentments and hatreds for the humiliations of being under the relentless boot of a foreign power. But that is not well-documented: what is documented is what the overlord says of those he rules. One cannot force an article to fit some theory of discursive and existential symmetry when the sources themselves, mostly Israeli and diasporic, focus on the language of the occupying power. NPOV simply demands that one scrupulously set forth what RS tell us, not hold back because we feel that the RS are guilty of some suspected lack of balancing parity in what they focus on.Nishidani (talk) 13:05, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

By diasporic, you're not implying that all Jews perpetuate that dehumanizing rhetoric, are you? (Edit: I misread that part of the comment, my apologies)
Also, the argument that sources can only written from one side because of the occupation doesn't work - to take your own example, we have extensive writing from Greeks about their views on Persians, despite most Greek lands being occupied by Persia throughout the conflict. Chaotıċ Enby (talk · contribs) 13:06, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

Nishidani, I have to say I'm confused by your response. First you say "I state that the dehumanization is mutual because that is what my source states." And you've chosen that source so you presumably you feel it is valid and WP:DUE, particularly as the second sentence in your text. But then you say "familiarity with the sources tells [you]" otherwise and so you're proceeding with the article on that basis. Surely, that only makes sense if you think the second sentence and it's source is WP:UNDUE? DeCausa (talk) 13:25, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

Agree, it feels like this article presents both sides of the mutual dehumanization (which is preferable, to avoid POV forks) and should be moved to a title that reflects this. Chaotıċ Enby (talk · contribs) 13:05, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

Now now, please read, unspeedily, what I wrote and which, in misapprehension, you fail to interpret correctly. 'what is documented . . One cannot force an article to fit some theory of discursive and existential symmetry when the sources themselves, mostly Israeli and diasporic, focus on the language of the occupying power.'

There is no way a careful reader could construe these words as implying that 'all Jews perpetuate that dehumanizing rhetoric'. To the contrary, it unambiguously states that what we know of this abusive discourse comes predominantly from Jewish scholars and observers in Israel and the diaspora who carefully (and concernedly) document this troublesome language. Such facile misprisions on a talk page wastes editorial worktime on actually reading the abundant sources. Worse, the misreading assumes I may be motivated by antisemitism. Nishidani (talk) 13:13, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

My apologies, I misread and thought you meant that these Israeli and diasporic sources perpetuated the rhetoric. I'll strike my comment. Chaotıċ Enby (talk · contribs) 13:16, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

Thank you, that is very gentle(wo)manly of you. Nishidani (talk) 13:19, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

• I have removed the comments by the then Israeli defence minister as I believe you are framing them incorrectly and in a way that is contentious. You added the minister's comments, alongside offensive comments such as "repugnant critters", to suggest he refered to Palestinians "at least once as mere ammunition weaponized by their 'cannibal' leaders." His actual quote was "The Hamas leadership is a bunch of cannibals who treat their children as weaponry" - I see this overwhelmingly as an intended criticism of Hamas and their leadership, not Palestinians broadly. The use of the word mere (emphasise how small or insignificant someone or something is), by you and not him, is inappropriate editorialisation. I also disagree with the implication that Hamas are "their" (Palestinians) leaders. Hamas does not control the West Bank, the larger Palestinian territory; does not have widespread international recognition and does not hold elections. AusLondonder (talk) 14:21, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

  Nishidani You then re-add the comment despite the fact I have disputed their inclusion and your editorialisation. When content is in dispute you should not immediately restore it without discussion. AusLondonder (talk) 14:28, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

You misconstrued what is elementary English, and appear to not understand that words like 'repugnant critters' are those in a very reliable academic source parsing Israeli views, not mine. That text is not linked to the view of Liberman. The distinction he makes is between Palestinians who are cannibals (Hamas militants) and Palestinians who are 'ammunition', referring to those Gazans who, in a series of consecutive demonstrations, protested at the border and were shot down by Israeli troops. What Liberman was effectively saying is that the Gazans his troops were ordered to mow down each Friday were just military material (ammunition) being shot at Israel by cannibals, cannibals being people who consume their own. I.e., Israel does not shoot 'people', but rather knocks out human ammo fired their way in self-defense. In that sense, it is not killing people and affords the world an unparalleled model for humane military rectitude. So you misread my text and the one source you examined from several supplied. I didn't re-add a 'comment'. I restored strongly sourced text illegitimately removed on a specious grounds that shows a remarkable ability to not construe correctly straightforward English.Nishidani (talk) 14:41, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

Not sure why you feel the need to become abusive, particularly given the patience shown by many editors today. His quote is "Hamas leadership is a bunch of cannibals who treat their children as weaponry". Frankly twisting that to "referring to protesting Gazans, as mere ammunition weaponized by their 'cannibal' leaders", from a criticism of Hamas to a slur on Palestinians in general, involves an impressive amount of gymnastics. AusLondonder (talk) 15:35, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

You haven't read the three sources, not to speak of several others. They state what I paraphrased-Nishidani (talk) 16:19, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

That’s only half of what he said. The other half was They have rocket weaponry, they have personal weapons, and they have another kind of weapon: women and children. And a source brings this quote up in the context of dehumanizing language. nableezy - 17:43, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

Moles?

Are you sure about that one? I can't access the source to check but from the quote (singular mole which is "growing") it looks like it's more mole than the furry little digger. The latter just seems an unlikely insult. DeCausa (talk) 20:32, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. Correcting. It just came to me that perhaps this could be further elucidated by our erudite regional expert on flora and fauna, Davidbena. I presume that Stern was using the word khafarperet, more or less 'the digger' and that he had in mind the Middle East blind mole-rat. Nishidani (talk) 20:40, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

David can't edit this page, best not to ping him. nableezy - 20:52, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

I forgot that, sorry David. But he could drop me a note if he is reading this.Nishidani (talk) 21:25, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

But why is that an insult? Looks cute! The quote is about a sole mole (not moles) and it's "growing". This is presumably before Gaza tunnels etc so what would be the significance of the digging? DeCausa (talk) 20:56, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

Let's construe the quote.

The Arabs are not a nation but a mole that grew in the wilderness of the eternal desert. They are nothing but murderers

The subject is plural, 'the Arabs' who are collectively likened to a 'mole'. I wrote 'moles' because the plural is implicit, from 'Arabs' to the 'they' in the concluding sentences. The sources for this, and the zoological reading of 'mole', come from impeccable RS, Nur Masalha and Julie Peteet, who take it as derogatory. I just follow RS.Nishidani (talk) 21:31, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

I've found the sources now: Peteet and Masalha (1992). Peteet definitely puts it in a zoomorphic context but cites Masalha. Masalha doesn't reference the zoomorphism, but undoubtedly indicates it's derogatory. I think there's something gone wrong here - maybe Peteet misinterpreted Masalha's point. The quote is:

"The Arabs are not a nation but a mole that grew in the wilderness of the eternal desert. They are nothing but murderers."

That makes total sense if the "Arab mole" is meaning a potentially cancerous and ugly blemish that grows from nothing. But to mean the Arabs are murderers because they are a single lonely little furry digger growing away in the desert...well, that just doesn't make sense. It's almost ludicrous, comical as an image. DeCausa (talk) 23:00, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

I appreciate your acuity here, and, as you remark, the image is untidy. When I first read it I thought quizzically of a mole as a seaboard structure, a paradox in the desert, but they don't grow. Checking round I found sources that claim the animal species is not local to Palestine, implying an alien growth but a halfblind creature bumbling about in the dark (metaphorical), could fit. The third option you raise, of a kind of melanoma, fits a subcategory, the analogies made between Palestinians and cancerous organic, viral, noxiously bacterial growths, which I will write up presently. The latter range of image is commonplace, and were you right, it would simply mean shifting the remark to the section on Palestinians as toxic microbes.

Stern's original remark, whether in Hebrew or Polish, will have to be tracked down eventually to unravel this apparent knot. But it still stands that Peteet, a specialist with impressive credentials in this area, takes it as an animal, and we have to accept that until evidence that she misread her source may emerge from authoritative sources to contradict her construal. To call people a mole, whether an ugly skin growth or a purblind burrowing creature, is awkward, but unlike Jabotinsky and, like most politicians, he was not sensitive to the language he blurts.Nishidani (talk) 07:53, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Masalha cites as his source Heller, Yosef (1984). Gutman, Israel (ed.). "Between Messianism and Realpolitik – Lehi and the Arab Question, 1940–1947". Yahdut Zemenenu [Contemporary Jewry], A Research Annual. 1: 255.. I don't have access to it but if you do then that seems to be the place to track it down. DeCausa (talk) 08:46, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Yes, I too checked those, and have sent out some enquiries to people who may be able to shed light on the crux. These things often take some time, but I'm delighted that your attentive scruple has started the chase for this foxy hare - this is wikipedia at its best. Peteet's reading flows on from what Stern is quoted as remarking in the sentence immediately preceding the one citing Heller:'Stern described the Arabs as “beasts of the desert, not a legitimate people.".' Contextually, her construal is natural, since 'beasts' followed by the specificity of 'mole' suggests a zoological cast to the latter word. But they are two separate quotes. Cheers Nishidani (talk) 10:04, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Well, according to this the Heller piece that's the original citation is in Hebrew so it should be obvious from that what was meant for anyone who speaks the language (although it says it's 1983 not 1984 and can be got for $30!). DeCausa (talk) 18:06, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay, but I have made inquiries and one proved a negative in terms of assistence. I'm sure someone out there can now check the text you link to and throw light on this. it is vexatious not knowing with absolute certainty, while having formally to accept one scholar's explicit reading of a secondary source that we are dealing with the local desert mole. I've sometimes had to wait for years for this kind of detail to be clarified beyond doubt, but I hope the answer we await will come within a few days or weeks. Cheers Nishidani (talk) 18:15, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Dehumanization of Palestinians in Israeli discourse

What do editors think of the above as a potential (and slightly broader) alternative title? Onceinawhile (talk) 17:07, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Some related sources:

• Heywood, Emma; Goodman, Simon (2019). "How Palestinian students invoke the category "human" to challenge negative treatment and media representations" (PDF). Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology. 29 (2): 133–145. doi:10.1002/casp.2389. ISSN 1052-9284.
• Yaghi, Adam (2019). "Voices against Erasure, Loss, and Dehumanization: The Year in Palestine". Biography. 42 (1). [University of Hawai'i Press, Center for Biographical Research]: 103–110. ISSN 0162-4962. JSTOR 26755249.
• Maoz, Ifat; McCauley, Clark (2008). "Threat, Dehumanization, and Support for Retaliatory Aggressive Policies in Asymmetric Conflict". The Journal of Conflict Resolution. 52 (1). Sage Publications, Inc.: 93–116. ISSN 0022-0027. JSTOR 27638596.

Onceinawhile (talk) 17:11, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

I'm quite willing to sacrifice some of my time for wikipedia, but your title immediately generated so vast a set of textual memories, way beyond the manageable and restricted issue of animal/non-human stereotypes, that your proposal suggests only the need to be reborn in order to have at least 10 years to write that kind of lengthy summary of what hundreds of academic sources discuss. I know other editors exist, of course, but usually what happens is that people pitch in with tidbits and then get bored. I like comprehensiveness, and that is far too large a theme to be handled with wiki brevity.Nishidani (talk) 17:57, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

This made me laugh. OK fair enough. It could be another article - i.e. a parent article for this one, as well as other forms of dehumanization. I have starting reading our article Dehumanization to identify other forms of dehumanization - it says:

It is theorized that dehumanization takes on two forms: animalistic dehumanization, which is employed on a mostly intergroup basis; and mechanistic dehumanization, which is employed on a mostly interpersonal basis. Dehumanization can occur discursively (e.g., idiomatic language that likens individual human beings to non-human animals, verbal abuse, erasing one's voice from discourse), symbolically (e.g., imagery), or physically (e.g., chattel slavery, physical abuse, refusing eye contact).

This doesn't quite capture an alternate form of group dehumanization. I was assuming the other form would be something more vague, akin to "selective empathy".

Onceinawhile (talk) 08:36, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

Your question is salient. I'd suppose that a better title might be representations or portrayal of Arabs in Israeli discourse. Otherwise, we'd need companion articles on "human stereotypes," "sympathetic portrayals," "mechanistic dehumanization," and so on.

FWIW, this article is extensively researched, with sources as well as an unusual set of primary source quotations, but I'm guessing it is largely Original Research and a kind WP:SYNTH. Kudos to the author, though maybe better to publish this elsewhere than WP. ProfGray (talk) 03:22, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

Content copying attribution for future article "Animal stereotypes of Jews in Palestinian discourse"

As per the instructions in Wikipedia:Copying within Wikipedia I announce here that I intend to copy some of the material in this article and incorporate it into an article I'm writing on Animal stereotypes of Jews in Palestinian discourse. That page is currently under construction in my sandbox. I'll post another notification here when it will be published.

I also wish to thank the creators of this page for giving me inspiration. Vegan416 (talk) 07:10, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

Page published Vegan416 (talk) 05:59, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

Using CounterPunch as a single source

@Nishidani 2 claims in this article use CounterPunch as a single source (Canterow and Dasgupta). CounterPunch is considered a generally unreliable source, "so articles should be treated as self-published sources". See Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources. So one of the following should be done: (1) provide better sources, or (2) give a very good ad-hoc justification why CounterPunch can be used in these cases, or (3) remove the claims from the article. Vegan416 (talk) 06:33, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

These elementary tips on policy, thrown my way, are like teaching grannie to suck eggs. Counterpunch is not deprecated, though, along with four other net resources, Middle East Eye, Middle East Monitor, +972 magazine and Mondoweiss, since Oct.7 a number of editors have made strenuous efforts at RSN to exclude their use from wikipedia, as was done with Electronic Intifada, a website that occasionally provides trenchant analyses and impelling facts studiously ignored by those 'mainstream' sources, Ynet, Jerusalem Post, and The Times of Israel whose coverage of the conflict, by all informed Israeli analysts, has been deplorable in their unilateral confirmation of the official Israeli/IDF line. This pressure to erase from the record the full picture, by denying the use of valid and insightful independent journalistic sources, just means that one doesn't have an argument about neglected content, and therefore, one silences the sources that provide such material. That lazy approach means editors do not need to read carefully and evaluate the quality of any piece: all they need do is look at the publisher, note wiki editors have suggested caution, and jump at that pretext to hold anything at all from such sources to hostage.

Unfortunately for the POV pushers, NPOV requires us to represent both sides in a conflict, and the only curb is Undue weight. There's no undue weight in supplying articles with information from serious but non-mainstream sources which, as often as not, represent less well publicized opinions from that minority of writers, scholars and the like of Jewish background who provide their readers with a different perspective than that endorsed officially by their leaders.

Ellen Canterow, with degrees from Brandeis and Harvard and a long journalistic career, is an excellent source, and it is immaterial than she chose to publish in CounterPunch. You misuse the word 'ad hoc' in the sense of 'off-hand' i.e. ask me for an 'impromptu justification', and add that such an 'impromptu justification' only passes master if, in your opinion, it proves to be 'very good', which of course, were I to provide one or several, you would not find adequate. That kind of looseness doesn't inspire confidence.

Anyone can verify in 10 seconds that Dasgupta's point is confirmed by consulting the original source. One retains Dasgupta because he cites that source in the context of animal stereotypes, which the original did not.

You appear to have a bee in the bonnet about this article. I suggest you avoid wasting your time on trivial objections like this, which suggest inexperience or simply antipathy to the topic.Nishidani (talk) 10:32, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

This wall of words doesn't change the fact that CounterPunch is not a reliable source (and BTW it has benn in this low status long before October 7, and not only in the IP context). I have no idea who Ellen Canterow is, and what is her level of credibility, but apparently she is not important or well-known enough to have a wikipedia article on her. So I don't know if she can be regarded as an "established expert on the topic of the article". As for Dasgupta - I don't understand what is the "original source" which you claim he quotes, but if it exists then bring it instead of Dasgupta. Vegan416 (talk) 11:07, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

PS speculating about other editor's motives, as you have done here, is also against the spirit of wikipedia. See here:

Help:Wikipedia: The Missing Manual/Collaborating with other editors/Handling incivility and personal attacks

"If you respond, be factual, not emotional

If you respond at all, stick to the facts. If particular wording wasn't in accordance with a Wikipedia policy, that's a fact. If you speculate on the editor's motives for writing something, that's your opinion." Vegan416 (talk) 11:18, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

Counterpunch is not deprecated and may be used. Maxwell-Hyslop is a primary source. Dasgupta is a secondary source. One provides the datum, the other contextualizes it in a larger discursive field. All editors should learn to grasp these elementary distinctions and principles. To argufy without knowing them is wasting time. Nishidani (talk) 11:24, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

Dasgupta has his commas in the wrong place, thereby confusing the date, but otherwise the report matches the original. Robin Maxwell-Hyslop and other MPs met with Hacohen (then chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Knesset) soon after the 1967 war, but his comment about the meeting to the House of Commons was during the 1973 war. The verbatim transcript in Hansard can be read here. Attribution is needed but there is no case for exclusion. Zero^talk 11:28, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

I was just going to add that, i.e. Robin Maxwell-Hyslop, https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1973/oct/18/middle-east Hansard vol 861 cc419-546 18 October 1973 p.502. But that should not form a pretext for then expunging the secondary source. One should generally access primary sources like that through a secondary source, and, as I argued, it is one thing for Maxwell-Hyslop to be cited directly for HaCohen's denial that Palestinians are people, it is another to have a secondary source which draws on that remark to place it into the context of animal stereotypes, the focus of this article.Nishidani (talk) 11:38, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

Well, what we have learned from this discussion so far is that in your opinion generally unreliable sources can be used if (1) they provide context to claims that can be verified by reliable sources, or (2) if they are written by someone who had been a journalist long enough, even if it is far from being obvious that he is an "established expert" in the field.

I may start doing this in the future and if someone objects I'll refer them to this discussion. In the first version of the complementary article to this that will publish soon I took care not to rely on any source that is marked red in Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources, but perhaps in future edits to the new article I will go your more "liberal" way... Vegan416 (talk) 16:23, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

That is an absolutely bizarre reading of one short exchange of opinions. You have absolutely no right to treat this, the way you make inferences from it, as a justification for some future programmatic assault on the use of CounterPunch. So drop this nonsense. 19:07, 1 May 2024 (UTC)Nishidani (talk)

And please desist from the vulgar habit of writing 'we' when you are referring to yourself. It is, as Theodor Adorno once remarked, insulting to confuse oneself with one's interlocutor.Nishidani (talk) 19:47, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

Actually this is the royal we :-) And I don't see how you understood my last comment as a justification for "some future programmatic assault on the use of CounterPunch". What I said is that maybe in the future I'll start using "pale red" sources with the same justifications that you gave here. Probably I won't use CounterPunch, but maybe The Daily Wire... Vegan416 (talk) 19:58, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

Thomas Friedman

is not Israeli. Vegan416 (talk) 23:06, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

And Emad Hajjaj is a Jordanian citizen, though of Palestinian origins, whom you use on the other page to document a Palestinian stereotype. Friedman is technically borderline by the criteria I use, in that he is a US citizen with very strong attachments to Israel where, as a Jew, he is entitled to citizenship any time he cares to apply. That explains my inclusion. It plays off a metaphor that has a history in that area, as I will show in rewriting the section.

But more importantly, you really should not take exception to this when a large number of the sources you use yourself ignore any focus on the Palestinian evidence, or mention an instance only in passing, since you conflate Palestinians with Muslims/Arabs anywhere and use numerous texts focused on the latter to write up evidence of Palestinian usage.

By the way, what is your source for the 'zoomorphism' in your opening line? I know you copied it from this text, but did you check the source?Nishidani (talk) 12:23, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

1. Emad Hajjaj is defined as Palestinian-Jordanian in this source. I don't think you will find any RS that describes Thomas Friedman as Israeli or even as an American-Israeli. He is a moderate Zionist I suppose, in the sense that he supports the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish and democratic state, but so are most of the people in the West. If I remember correctly he also has relatives and many friends in Israel. But other than that he was often very critical of Israel.
2. I actually concentrate almost entirely on Palestinian sources in my article. The few other examples are brought as a background. If you want to say that Thomas Friedman's quote is also a background to the topic, well that really doesn't look like it, but whatever. I won't argue over it, as long as we mutually agree that as long as we both focus mostly on the main topic (you on Israeli sources and me on Palestinian sources) it is not a big deal if rarely another source appears for context or other reason.
3. What source is needed for Zoomorphism in the first line? The first line just describes the topic. It doesn't make any specific factual claims. It feels like nitpicking, but in any case if you feel that I need a source for the specific word "zoomorphism" in this context here are a 2 sources like this that are mentioned elsewhere in the article: Kotek, Joël (2009). Cartoons and Extremism: Israel and the Jews in Arab and Western Media. Vallentine Mitchell. p. 47. ISBN 978-0-85303-752-1
   

הרט רחל, Rachel Hart (2014). "ביקורת פוליטית ואנטישמיות בקריקטורה הערבית: קריקטורות בעיתון פלסטין בשנת 1936, "המרד הערבי הגדול"" [Political criticism and anti-Semitism in Arab cartoons: cartoons in Falastin newspaper in 1936, "The Great Arab Revolt]. Kesher / קשר (46). Tel-Aviv University: 148. ISSN 0792-0113. JSTOR 23922600.

I think I saw the word in more sources that appear in the article, but I won't bother to check that now.

Vegan416 (talk) 14:43, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

Lead has a problem

This article's lead section makes frequent allusion to statements without being explicit about what persons or groups of people made them. I tagged two. Zanahary (talk) 03:55, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

The "prelude to genocide" bit needs clarification, too: is it speaking about dehumanizing rhetoric throughout history, in general? Or dehumanizing rhetoric of Palestinians by Israelis? Zanahary (talk) 03:56, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

Actually your edit summary 'some edits' didn't mention that you gutted a large swathe of stable text from the lead.

• frequent allusion to statements without naming what persons or groups of people made them'('by the way grammatically 'what' there should be 'which' an error which does not inspire confidence about correcting text)

The point is obscure, too vague to reply to, unless you clarify exactly what policy commands that lead generalizations, based on the given sources, require a specific roll call of who said what. Generalizations don't do that. Or at least, unlike the other article, this one has no programmatic intent to isolate 'Jews'/Israelis/ 'Palestinians' as a collective responsible for what has been said. It is focused on what has been said in 'Israeli discourse'.

In short, the way you frame your complaint suggests you want me to treat 'Jews/Israelis' as a collective responsible for everything said in 'Israeli discourse', which would itself succumb to the vice of collective caricature this article rigorously avoids, while documenting statements which do indeed make such collective assumptions.Nishidani (talk) 08:23, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

you want me to treat 'Jews/Israelis' as a collective responsible for everything said in 'Israeli discourse'
Ahhhh, you got me!! Back to my forest. Zanahary (talk) 08:29, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

Thomas Friedman revisited

Following the discussion in the parallel article I decided to adopt the strict policy of using there only sources that explicitly mention Palestinians, and I'm working on purging all other sources from that article (this will probably take a few days).

So accordingly I expect you to adopt this strict policy which you demanded of me, in this article as well. In other words, Thomas Friedman has to go since he is not Israeli by any stretch of the word. The same of course goes for Nasrallah.

Also since in this section about spiders you consider the BDS to be Palestinians (which is a legitimate decision) then I will also include in the parallel article zoomorphic examples produced by BDS against Jews/Israelis. Vegan416 (talk) 17:58, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

That sounds distinctly like retaliation for my noting the consistent failure throughout the article you wrote to avoid WP:OR. You have yet to even begin fixing your article. Friedman was speaking in the context of Israel and its relationship to the people it occupies, specifying that Hamas were spiderish. (Of course, your wee point could be addressed simply by a title change, in (pro-)Israeli discourse). Nasrallah can go into a note to clarify the background of that metaphor. Nishidani (talk) 18:01, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

This is not retaliation. This is simply applying uniform standards (rather than double standards). And I had started fixing my article. I already removed and fixed several references in the last hour. And the fact that in this instance Friedman was speaking "in the context of Israel and its relationship to the people it occupies" doesn't matter at all. After all some of the Arab non-Palestinian references you objected to in the parallel article can also be described as being in the context of Palestinians and Israelis and being pro-Palestinian. And BTW if you changed the name of your article to "(pro-)Israeli discourse", then maybe I would change the parallel article to "(pro-)Palestinian discourse". That would give me a ton of new material to add there. Actually the only reason I might not like you making this change right now, is because then I would have a lot of work adding a lot more material to the parallel article, exactly when I'm going to be busy elsewhere in the near future :-) Vegan416 (talk) 18:35, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

It is retaliation for the following reason. I wrote this article with very strict criteria. It documents animal metaphors for Palestinians in Israeli usage, and limits, with one exception (Friedman) the evidence to citations from politically or historically notable Israeli figures, after stating that such metaphors occur also among Palestinians. I consistently told you your fudge-up of a parallel article violated both this criterion, and WP:SYNTH/OR. From the outset you were making a case against Palestinians, often by suggesting as Arabs, what is said of Arab anti-Jewish metaphors can automatically be used to document (by inference) Palestinian attitudes (examples of which are almost all from Islamic preachers and Hamas militant leaders). The zeal here is as evident as the lack of rigour. When today I took some time to remind you that you should deal strtictly with refs that directly deal with Palestinian stereotypes, rather than fix your text, you brushed off my analysis and, instead, made the point re Friedman (the one exception here, easily fixed). Your article from the outset made a case against 'Palestinians', whereas this article makes no case against Israelis or Jews.

The spider-web thing from Friedman has been present in Israeli discourse since Moshe Ya'alon adopted it from Nasrallah, interestingly enough, like Nasrallah, to assert Israel was strong on the outsider, weak within. As some one who has professionally reported on the Muddle East for 40 years Friedman picked this up and turned it on its head, by extending it to Hamas but with a lethal twist, probably because (something I know but do not mention because unfortunately sources don't make the connection) he remembers his Tanakh, where ḥāmās (violence) is what spiders (sinners) do with their webs to the unwary. I say this because you are making a suit defensive of Israel, and scraping the barrel to find evidence to skewer its historical underling and adversary. And you do this imitating an article that is the simple precipitate of years of note-taking done almost a decade ago, which, despite the content, I never thought of adding to wikipedia until the fibrillating rhetoric of 7 Oct in israel about Palestinian animals, and a prompt from another editor, suggested I provide some encyclopedic coverage of it. At every step you are justifying what you do as a mirroring of what you think I am doing, but the mirror is a distorting one, because it does not follow wiki policies, or only does so when, despite disagreeing with the few (of numerous) points someone like me may make, you start combing out the errors as they are identified.Nishidani (talk) 20:24, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

Actually Friedman is not the only exception. You also mention Ermete Pierotti which was not Israeli (or even a Jew or a Zionist). Of course one might say that this is legitimate historical background, but when I tried to give some historical background in the parallel article (specifically about the history of the phrase "sons of apes and dogs") you became furious and deleted the entire paragraph. Double standards again? Vegan416 (talk) 21:47, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

Edit Request - add Salmon

Add a section for Salmon.  With this: Ehud Barak during the Camp David talks with Bill Clinton compared, in the context of Palestinian refugees Right of Return to the homes and land they were born, compared the Palestinians to Salmon, saying that Palestinians had "salmon syndrome."  Promoting the idea of purposefully prolonging the refugee crisis for 80 years until Palestinians with this "salmon syndrome" die, in the belief that this will somehow sever the connection between the children of the Palestinian refugees born in Palestine and their homes, now occupied by Israel, like salmon, who, separated from spawning ground for a generation might, in Ehud Barak's imagination, somehow forget their native spawning ground.  "By then, most of the generation that experienced the catastrophe of 1948 at first hand will have died; there will be "very few 'salmons' around who still want to return to their birthplaces to die"." Using this as a reference.  https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2002/06/13/camp-david-and-after-an-exchange-1-an-interview-wi/ https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/may/23/israel3Fanccr (talk) 03:22, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Seems like OR without a source connecting it to the phenomenon of Palestinians as animals in Israeli discourse Zanahary (talk) 00:22, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

The lead defines the topic of this article, i.e.

This article surveys the terms which are encountered in Israeli narratives that zoomorphically classify Palestinians as members of different kinds of non-human species,

Barak's language shows he is thinking that their desire to return to the land of their birth, unlike the aliyah of Jews with its aspiration for Jews to return to the putative land of the birth of their ancestors 2,600-2000 years ago, can be grasped as some kind of anomalous reflex best explained in terms of a salmon instinct. The use of this put-down (silly because it would only warrant stating that Jews have an unextirpated 'salmon' reflex). Were that language used of Jews it would go into our extensive (in the scholarship) lists of the way antisemites reduce Jews to animals. Barak as elsewhere often shows himself thinking of Palestinians in terms of animal analogies (beasts in the jungle etc.) and this is another documented example.Nishidani (talk) 12:56, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

Were this said about Jews, with no secondary source analyzing it as an animal stereotype of Jews, or any other receptive literature, it wouldn’t be due for inclusion either. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 13:31, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

Please read the remarks by Benny Morris. He cites the phrase and explains it. It is self-evidently an animal simile, and one does not require secondary sources to document or explicate the obvious. I've added two other books where the remark is noted.Nishidani (talk) 14:17, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{Edit extended-protected}} template. Geardona (talk to me?) 17:12, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

Editorialization

this excision justifies substantial removals of text on the grounds the editor thinks they constitute examples of editorializing. Actually, the principle used here is that where sources use animal metaphors and similes re Palestinians, those sources are paraphrased for the context. The 'editorialization' is not by the author of this article: it mirrors what the authors of the reliable sources we use state in noting examples of this theriomorphic usage. So the removal was improper. Nishidani (talk) 12:49, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

Your revert does not accurately represent the source. The source concludes in summary that "despite their disadvantaged status, Palestinians reported strikingly high levels of blatant dehumanization of their more powerful Israeli neighbors. Indeed, we observed that the participants in our Palestinian and Israeli samples dramatically dehumanized the outgroup, rating them as closer to animals than full humans. Not only was the degree of outgroup dehumanization quite high among the advantaged and disadvantaged group, but it was also quite potent: as with Israelis, Palestinians’ dehumanization of the outgroup was reliably and uniquely associated with aggressive attitudes and support for aggressive policies likely to feed cycles of intergroup violence."

I assume you will not object to the source's conclusion being inserted in full. KronosAlight (talk) 14:37, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

Your assumption is correct. That should be footnoted to the lead sentence which specifies precisely that dehumanization is reciprocal, with the appropriate efn format.Nishidani (talk) 14:41, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

I don't see any reason why it should remain in the footnotes. It instead looks like you're trying to bury the lede. In addition, you've now reverted two of my edits within a 24 hour period, so I would politely request that you undo your reversion and reinsert the complete passage from the source in the body of the text, not the footnote. KronosAlight (talk) 15:51, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

The second was not a revert. I retained all of the information you added. The one adjustment that could be wildly construed as a second revert, was my removal from 'mutual and reciprocal' of the second term, 'reciprocal'. I removed it because it is patently reduplicative ballast, since you either write 'reciprocal' or 'mutual' but you cannot write 'mutual and reciprocal' as if the two words were not synonymous but mean something different.

You are accusing me of 'burying the text'. No. The text as you found it had an ample quote from the source indicating the details of a study which compared Israeli and Palestinian attitudes to each other. I placed the full evidence for this succinct statement in a footnote (as I have done throughout the article).

Please examine your edit, which left the page like this.

(i) Look up above the text you added to footnote l

(ii)Then examine the footnote to the text you added as a blockquote, and the note m it is sourced to.

You will perceive immediately that (a) the footnotes are identical' (b) the added text in your blockquote does not refer to the specific page where that passage occurs. It was thoughtless copy and past that caused a meaningless reduplication of the same footnote. You didn't take the trouble to get the precise page number for the text you added (it is page 14)

What did I do? I retained the text you added, and eliminated the reduplication of the same quote in footnotes l & m.

You wanted to set out in the maintext the following:

(a)In sum, despite their disadvantaged status, Palestinians reported strikingly high levels of blatant dehumanization of their more powerful Israeli neighbors. Indeed, we observed that the participants in our Palestinian and Israeli samples dramatically dehumanized the outgroup, rating them as closer to animals than full humans. Not only was the degree of outgroup dehumanization quite high among the advantaged and disadvantaged group, but it was also quite potent: as with Israelis, Palestinians’ dehumanization of the outgroup was reliably and uniquely associated with aggressive attitudes and support for aggressive policies likely to feed cycles of intergroup violence.

I.e. it is you who, by that edit, appeared to prioritize Palestinian dehumanization of Israelis, by selectively quoting the source. The source states that but it also states

(b)On average, Israelis showed the "highest levels of blatant dehumanization towards any outgroup observed to date using the 'Ascent of man' measure of blatant dehumanization",

Now were I a POV pusher for Palestinians I would have done exactly as you have done for the other perspective and put that in a blockquote in the main body of the article. No. I 'buried' it in a footnote.

So I am burying nothing, while you are highlighting one conclusion about Palestinian dehumanization to the disadvantage of the other.

I construed the mutual dehumanization as affecting both sides to similar degrees and left the statistical details in footnotes. That is NPOV- Your text violated NPOV by accepting the superior (according to the authors) index of discrimination by Israelis be left in a footnote, but the striking dehumanization of Palestinians be quoted in the maintext.

To repeat. You messed up your edit by (a) reduplicating the content of footnotes (b) by providing a new quote with a false sourcing because the quote you gave is nowhere to be found on pp. 1–2, 7–9, 11 (as you claimed) (c) you unbalanced the NPOV construal by singling out for prominence one of two conclusions, negative for the Palestinians, for the maintext. (d) in addition you added the word 'reciprocal' when it is a reduplicating synonym for 'mutual'. If you disliked 'mutual' you could have replaced it with 'reciprocal'. The only thing in my fixing this mess you might cite as violating 1R is my removal of that reduplicative (piddling) Nishidani (talk) 16:38, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

Possible rename?

The article discusses Palestinians being labelled as bacteria and cancer. These are obviously not animals and thus out of scope for the current article title. Shall we rename the article to Non-human descriptions of Palestinians in Israeli discourse? starship.paint (RUN) 02:33, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

Dehumanisation of Palestinians in Israeli discourse? TarnishedPath^talk 10:01, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

All those objections can be met by simply retitling:Dehumanizing and animal stereotypes of Palestinians in Israeli discourse. Bacteria and viral agents belong to the biological order. The emphasis is on animal stereotypes, but this dehumanization extends to the lowest biological order, and even extends to considering them inert material. 'Dehumanization' alone is far too broad a category, since that topic is vast and would destabilize, if followed through on, the essential focus of this article. Actually, I don't think we need a title change. The part you worry about is attached at the end more or less as an afternote.Nishidani (talk) 13:17, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

Removing the Begin quote purportedly describing Palestinians as beasts

• What I think should be changed

  −

  According to Amnon Kapeliouk, in a 1982 address to the Knesset in justifying the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, Menachem Begin likened Palestinians to "two-footed beasts."

  +

  :
• Why it should be changed: This supposed quote by Begin has been widely debunked. Begin never said it. What he actually said was:

"I want to announce in the ears of all nations: The children of Israel will happily go to school and joyfully return home, just like the children in Washington, in Moscow, and in Peking, in Paris and in Rome, in Oslo, in Stockholm and in Copenhagen. The fate of one and a half million Jewish children was different from the fate of all the children of the world in all generations. Not anymore. We shall protect our children. If the hand of a two-legged animal shall be raised against them, that hand shall be cut off and our children will grow up happily in their parent’s homes." [Hebrew source below has text of speech in Hebrew]

Begin was discussing terrorists targeting Jewish children, not Palestinians. Unless you include all Palestinians under that umbrella, it is false to say Begin was describing all Palestinians. The incorrect quote often circulates in antisemitic circles as proof Begin/Israelis/Zionists/Jews hate Palestinians. Continuing to share it contributes to the rise in antisemitism.

• References supporting the possible change (format using the "cite" button):

SK6074 (talk) 00:51, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

References

(a)All of your sources are not RS (b) attribution is given (c) the source was Amnon Kapeliouk (d) who was present when Begin is reported as making that remark and (e)Kapeliouk was a linguist and journalist (f) there is no record I know of of his inventing stuff (g) we provide attribution in order to distinguish the truth (unknown) from a reliably sourced report. Nishidani (talk) 14:29, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

Would you please explain why CAMERA, the Algemeiner, and the text of the discussion aren't considered reliable sources? SK6074 (talk) 21:47, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{Edit extended-protected}} template. An explanatory footnote immediately follows the sentence, giving more context and stating that This has been contested as not referring to Palestinians but to terrorists generally. Removing the sentence entirely would not be an uncontroversial change. jlwoodwa (talk) 22:41, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

Add mention that gallant referred to Gazans as "human animals"

For some reason I've gotten repeated requests to state this request in this fashion: change the lack of the existence of a section on gallant referring to the Palestinians in Gaza as "Human animals" by saying "“Everything is closed... We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly.”' to an additional paragraph in the "Palestinians as simply animals" section to include: "Yoav Gallant referred to Palestinian Gazans as 'Human animals' by saying “Everything is closed... We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly.” (referring to him stating that his strategy would be to enact a complete blockade of all food water and electricity from all of Gaza targeting all Gazans not any one particular group or any combination of multiple groups but the entire population." Using https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3e9q4nylwjo as a source. Fanccr (talk) 03:19, 17 October 2024 (UTC)