Template:Did you know nominations/Israeli occupation of the West Bank

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: rejected by BlueMoonset (talk) 14:52, 24 February 2019 (UTC)
NPOV concerns remain—the article itself still has a neutrality template—so closing this per the discussion below. Should the article become a Good Article (which would mean, among other things, that the neutrality issue has been successfully dealt with), it can be nominated at that time.

Israeli occupation of the West bank[edit]

(

)

... that the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, along with the Gaza Strip, is the longest military occupation in modern times? Source: "The Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza is the longest military occupation in modern times"
- ALT1:... that under the Israeli occupation of the West Bank Palestinian Arabs are governed under military law and Israeli Jews under civilian law? Source: "From the occupation's very beginning, the ethnicity of the individual determined both the legal system to which a person would be subjected as well as whether the letter of the law would be enforced at all. Whereas both the land and its Palestinian inhabitants have been subjected to military rule, the Jewish settlers who took over the expropriated land have been subjected to Israeli civilian law."

Reviewed: Simeon Monument

Converted from a redirect by Nishidani (talk), Nableezy (talk), and NSH001 (talk). Nominated by Nableezy (talk) at 01:47, 28 November 2018 (UTC).

All the easy stuff is fine here: the article's newness, its length, the hook format, and QPQ. However, as documented on the talk page, good-faith disputes about the article's neutrality began almost immediately after its creation and have continued for almost two months, with the latest action occurring this week. That's not something a DYK reviewer can ignore or brush aside blithely. Sometimes, an article's issues can be addressed in response to a or . Unfortunately, there's no basis to expect that here, and so I'm forced to reject it. This will no doubt disappoint the nominator and authors; it would certainly disappoint me, if I were in their shoes. If it's any help, I would suggest they reflect on what they would consider the appropriate response to a DYK nomination for an article titled (for example) Security threats to Israel originating in Palestinian territories whose neutrality they had spent seven weeks disputing on its talk page. I realize that this perspective limits the scope of what can appear in DYK; taken to an undue extreme, it would allow only entirely anodyne topics. DYK should—must—have room for uncomfortable, even controversial, topics. However, that must be balanced against the requirement that the Main Page only feature content for which there is a consensus that it meets Wikipedia policy. Right now, and for the foreseeable future, that consensus is absent for this article. Lagrange613 04:18, 19 January 2019 (UTC)
- No, the article is impeccably neutral. Some editors on the talk page have tried to argue that it isn't, without success. The article has been remarkably stable since it was moved to mainspace, and that is what matters here. We go by reliable sources here – and the sources are of impeccable quality – not by what what your or my opinion might be of its neutrality. --NSH001 (talk) 08:27, 19 January 2019 (UTC)
- Military occupations, by their nature, are always unpleasant for their victims (the people occupied). Not surprisingly, RS report that unpleasantness. Pleaase don't confuse "neutrality" with refusing to report that unpleasantness. Where else in Wikipedia do we fail to report the brutal nature of military occupation? --NSH001 (talk) 09:40, 19 January 2019 (UTC)
- I agree with the reviewer the article is not neutral and can't be neutral in near feature for example Jewish connection to the area is completely omitted --Shrike (talk) 12:09, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

Actually, the reviewer's remarks are themselves completely neutral, and refreshing to read. I say this as main writer of that article. What he states, quite objectively, is that the article's neutrality is disputed on the talk page, not that he agrees with its lack of neutrality, (or considers it neutral). As to the hypothetical Security threats to Israel originating in Palestinian territories, were I to have edited such a page (I would probably ask for a title change: Israel as a state suffers no security threat from the WB, but Israelis have in the past been subject, within their national boundaries, to very severe threats from West Bank terrorists in quite a number of devastating attacks), I would certainly list in detail my objections, edit to ensure that the presentation was well-sourced and objectively set out and, if it were then proposed to cite a fact from it, I imagine I would have no objection. One cannot object to facts, however uncomfortable. As the present article states, polls surveying the issue have concluded that most people are not familiar with the fact that the West Bank is occupied, and, I guess (since I prefer not to 'vote' or 'promote' this DYK) there are many who would prefer this objective datum to not be known more broadly. So be it. The important thing is that the fact is registered somewhere on a world-wide global encyclopedia, and that it is not lost in the evitable confusion of so much polemical-partisan spinning.Nishidani (talk) 13:09, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

@Lagrange613:, editors are free to write Security threats to Israel if there are reliable sources supporting such an article. This article has such reliable sources, and the idea that a few people on the internet find what those sources report to be uncomfortable means that we should not have a a DYK makes little sense to me. I actually dont think there have been any good faith disputes about the neutrality of the article. There are a few people making wholly unsupported claims without any actual sourcing, users engaging in OR, users wishing away the existence of an eminently notable topic. But what we do not have is any actual evidence of a neutrality dispute. Shrike's comment above is an example of that. Jewish connection to the area is completely omitted? Uh, what in the actual fuck does that have to do with the military occupation of a territory by a foreign power? Your comment, that there is not consensus that this article meets Wikipedia policy, is likewise wholly unsupported. nableezy - 17:18, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

Well, one might well disagree with Lagrange's assessment, but I think it rather clear that in referring to no 'consensus' he is stating a fact: several people expressed deep unhappiness with the article, albeit in terms so generic and vague that to me, at least, it amounted simply to WP:IDONTLIKEIT. But, it was reasonable enough for Lagrange to argue that the talk page indicates a lack of consensus (one that was inevitable). The gravamen of what you, NSH001 and indeed I are saying is that insisting that a NPOV consensus on a talk page is obligatory for a DYK (admittedly I have zero knowledge of such processes) opens up a difficulty, in that political dislike can effectively cancel out the publication of a fact no one, beginning with the government of Israel, denies. Nishidani (talk) 18:21, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

There were several well reasoned objections to the rather serious POV problems on the page. A number of editors who attempted to rectify POV, as well as misrepresentation of sources, have seen their edits blanket reverted. That said editors are not edit warring over the challenged material does not mean the article is in a reasonable state. Security threats to Israel (and Jews inside and outside of the West Bank) should be covered in the article - this being one of the main reasons for the continuing occupation - I migjt work on this.Icewhiz (talk) 21:00, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

Those suggestions are patently untrue. The 'rectifications' were shown to reflect stark ignorance of the topic and were analysed and replied to in detail. There were no follow-up responses of any textual significance. Security threats to Israel - a disarmed population constituting an 'existential threat' to the most technologically sophisticated and powerful army in that part of the world- have nothing to do with the occupation, but as our reviewer has suggested an article along those lines, editors who have that concern should address it by creating such a page. I only hope the sourcing standard is on a par with the one adopted here, and that care is given to setting down, as here, the factual record, not hearsay, editorializing opinions, government spin and talking heads' chattering.Nishidani (talk) 21:51, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

Just to be clear, I was proposing "Security threats" as a thought experiment for the primary authors to help you understand why I couldn't approve the DYK. I was not "suggest[ing] an article along those lines," and I certainly was not suggesting that the different camps should retreat to their own articles where they can make the points that matter to them. WP:POVFORK rules that out specifically, and quite right, too. "If you don't like the tone of this article, go write your own" is entirely contrary to how Wikipedia is supposed to work. It is on editors to work with each other, assuming good faith even when they disagree with each other's arguments or perspectives, to produce an encyclopedia in which nobody owns articles and each article reflects a neutral point of view. An article on a contentious topic that is not produced in this spirit is unlikely to merit display on the Main Page. Lagrange 613 03:42, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

And to be clear, the article is owned solely by the method adopted, which is designed according to the strongest sourcing criteria at WP:RS, something almost universally ignored in the I/P area. The 'camps' referred to split along that line: scouring for sources that reflect one's POV, or scouring sources that provide the essential facts of a conflict, something that can be seen at a glance by comparing the percentage of recentist newspaper sourcing to long-term retrospective analysis by competent specialists. (2014 Israel–Gaza conflict is 80% based on newspaper hearsay dismissed now as misleading. The article was a splendid example of assuming good faith sinking assuming the real facts must be established) Editors here generally do not 'work with each other', unfortunately, because the criteria for encyclopedic composition are contested: some think the fundamental guideline must be 'representing national POVs' with equal weight (irrespective of the weighting of sources). Israel said this, the PA said that, utterly tedious. The problem has always been to accord priority to the factual record, which is least disputed, rather than privilege the interpretative spin placed on that record by commentators official or otherwise. Since all those objecting to the article want two contradictory things (a) radical reduction of the length and (b) major expansion of the official Israeli position, a compromise couldn't be worked. I took out 7,000 bytes as a compromise and in response 7,000 bytes were added, uncompromisingly. Facts were to be eliminated, and replaced by a standard set of memes available in all official literature. If you do not want a factual article, my advice was, then write up an article with the official viewpoint's outlines given in detail, but don't try to displace factual content with ideological content. Lastly, a large number of articles on controversial topics have been written basically by one or two hands because the AGF and methodological issues made all attempts to find a reasonable compromise impossible if the article in question was to be written to GA or FA standard. To assert that all articles must be premised on collaborative compromises by parties to 'camps' before they are accorded NPOV sounds ideal: in practice, it is in my experience, impossible. It's exactly the same problem one gets at Yugambeh - a desire to set forth a collective representation of a POV, what is thought of by an in-group as the 'truth' vs the simple outline of the known facts as reported in reliable sources.Nishidani (talk) 08:06, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

User:Lagrange613 your position seems to be entirely unsupported by any policy or the DYK requirements. You are simply exercising the same systemic bias that the rest of Wikipedia displays. Things uncomfortable to largely white American and or Europeans are given less attention or are shoved aside in to some corner of Wikipedia. This topic is something that countless reliable sources focus on. But because some people find the facts those reliable sources uncomfortable that means the topic does not merit display on the Main Page. Well, fine, thats your choice I suppose, but it is just one more example of bias in action. You are very purposely reducing exposure of a topic and doing so based purely on facile claims of POV, always lacking in sources and not backed by any policy. Well, great, good for you. Hurray for Wikipedia, keeping the world safe from problematic topics and people. Guess we can establish a new DYK requirement, that the material be sufficiently Zionist enough to not draw objections based on no sources but only personal opinions. nableezy - 01:22, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

You've edited this page six times since you created it, which means you've had six opportunities to read the edit notice that comes up above the markup. That edit notice lists the nomination criteria, including that the article be within policy, and calls out WP:NPOV explicitly. So yes, I am following the DYK requirements here. Everything after your first sentence demonstrates a failure to assume good faith. In your view, no disagreement with you could possibly be based in the interests of the encyclopedia, but must instead flow from a political agenda or identity-based "discomfort." Given your failure to assume good faith, further engagement with you is unlikely to be productive. ~~I invite closure of this nomination before the quality of the discussion degrades further.~~ Lagrange 613 03:17, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

Im sorry, but no, you are not. You are allowing some of the most extreme pro-Israel/anti-Palestinian editors on Wikipedia, who have yet to actually document any NPOV issue with, hello, actual sources, to by virtue of claiming a NPOV issue to disqualify an article. There emphatically is not a NPOV issue in the article, if there were these editors would be able to substantiate their position with sources. They have not. But because the more extreme pro-Israel editors dislike this article it isnt NPOV? Where is that written down again? As far the incredibly silly In your view, no disagreement with you could possibly be based in the interests of the encyclopedia, no, not at all. My view is that if no sources are presented to demonstrate a NPOV issue then there is no NPOV issue. That actually is pretty much what NPOV says. You are very much making a decision based on political preferences. Yours or the people who have jumped up and down about supposed issues in probably the most well documented article in the entire topic area but cant bring sources that support their claims. Just nebulous, and factually wrong, horseshit like this being one of the main reasons for the continuing occupation. See any sources for such a position? Because there are a ton that refute it, that the motivation for the occupation is not "security threats" but land, water, and other resources. But no, some bullshit gets spouted off, no source is provided, but you decide that said bullshit claim disqualifies an article from DYK. nableezy - 06:35, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

Yes, well, most retired heads of the Israeli security apparatus have gone on record saying the occupation is a threat to Israel's security. That can be documented in a minute, so the point that it is bruited about this is the reason is easily balanced out. Nonetheless, this exercise was, from the outset, unlikely to receive the accolade of a DYK and it really doesn't matter.Nishidani (talk) 08:11, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

Reading the above, it seems that the article has been much improved since the original nomination, but that the discussion between the reviewer and the nominators has broken down. A new reviewer is needed. Onceinawhile (talk) 09:11, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

Struck per request. Onceinawhile (talk) 07:54, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

No. There is no requirement that a nominator agree with a reviewer's

. The nominator does not get a veto. There is no basis to believe the NPOV concerns with this article can be resolved quickly enough for this nomination to pass in a timely manner, and so it fails. The article's talk page has now spilled over into the nomination~~, so I repeat my request for closure~~. Lagrange 613 12:18, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

@Lagrange613: I have had no involvement in this article before today. I read this nomination page, and it struck me that your discussion with the nominators had become aggressive, hence my proposal for a new reviewer.

In your initial post you wrote "DYK should—must—have room for uncomfortable, even controversial, topics". I strongly agree. That takes hard work and investment in discussion from all sides. That appears to be happening at the article talk page. I suspect this DYK nomination is a helpful catalyst for that discussion. Let’s be patient, let the consensus building develop further, and reassess in a couple of weeks.

Onceinawhile (talk) 15:14, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

As you'll see below, I've agreed to your proposal. However, I'd like to push back against your position that my "discussion with the nominators had become aggressive" and hence a new reviewer was needed. A nominator's disagreement with a review is not a basis for a demand for a new review. Especially when the nominator's objection devolves into an evidence-free accusation of personal bias (as it has here), such a demand can appear to be an attempt to shop for a favorable review. I'm sure that wasn't your intent. However, I would be grateful if you would strike your request for a new reviewer as a gesture of good faith, unless you have a specific objection to my continuing the review, in which case I would like to hear it. Lagrange 613 04:23, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

Hi @Lagrange613: I have struck it as requested. I hope my proposal will have merit - thank you for agreeing to test it. Now we wait and see! Onceinawhile (talk) 07:54, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

I've tagged the article for POV, as a well-sourced section on Israeli security concerns (which are a major component of the occupation itself as well as negotiations for ending the occupation) was reverted out of the article. I'll note that this "revert happy" editing (it seems that additions by some editors are reverted on sight by other editors) are not conducive for this article to ever evolve from the POV WP:NOTESSAY it is currently.Icewhiz (talk) 09:14, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

I guess you wrote 'revert happy editing' re some editors with a tongue-in-cheek smile. The point made concerning systemic bias seems underlined by the wide interpretation of this article in the New York Times, whose coverage has been notoriously partisan, that even that august newspaper, with a change of editorial policy, seems finally ready to face the fact that publc discussion of the content reported in our article, but almost never marshaled in mainstream press coverage (except in Haaretz) is now possible.Nishidani (talk) 10:35, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

The NYT has (and does) runs a wide range a op-eds from non-staff (e.g. PA president Mahmoud Abbas in 2011) - running an opinion piece does not reflect editorial endorsement. I will note that in stating that our article diverges significantly from the NYT and mainstream press (except Haaretz) - you admit a rather severe POV issue in the article. Icewhiz (talk) 10:49, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

Two-week stay[edit]

Since my initial review, developments have only served to validate the concerns that led me to fail it. The POV concerns on the Talk page have multiplied, even spilling over into this page. The nominator has demonstrated an inability to process adverse events except as evidence of bias on others' part, boding ill for the prospect of an NPOV article emerging in the near future. Other primary contributors have expressed their desire for their interlocutors to go fork their own POVs rather than engage in trying to fix this one. Claims that this is a dispute only about reliable sources, with the primary contributors being the only ones who care about them, fly in the face of, for example, these edits. (And in any case, arguing that an article's sources are reliable does not suffice to prove the article is NPOV: reliable sources can be biased.)

However, I'm willing to entertain Onceinawhile's suggestion that this nomination itself could be a "catalyst" for developing the article into something that could gain consensus as NPOV. Therefore, I've struck my calls for closure, and, as proposed, I will reassess the NPOV question in two weeks' time. Editors have until then to edit the article and reach consensus that it reflects a neutral point of view. If that is achieved, and the article and nomination meet the rest of the DYK requirements, I will pass it at that time. Otherwise, I will fail it and expect the matter to be closed.

In my initial review, I gave an example of another, hypothetical article titled "Security threats to Israel originating in Palestinian territories". Since then, security for Israel has emerged as a subtopic of the NPOV discussion at the Talk page. If that is an important consideration for making the article NPOV, then please, by all means, address it. However, I want to restate that I was not putting the topic forward as something that I needed to see for the article to be NPOV, nor was I saying that it was or should be the only concern. It was intended as a thought experiment for the primary authors to understand my reasoning and, perhaps, put themselves in the shoes of the editors claiming the article is POV, nothing less and nothing more. The criterion for me is not that this one topic be addressed per se: the criterion is consensus that the entire article reflect a neutral point of view.

My comments about the necessity of collaboration go both (all) ways here: editors maintaining that the article is POV have an obligation to work collaboratively to improve it. If they were to spend the next two weeks stonewalling or running out the clock, I would interpret their POV claims as motivated by bad faith and weigh them accordingly when evaluating consensus.

Finally, everyone, please remember that the stakes here are much lower than they've been treated. DYK puts a link to an article on the Main Page for a few hours, generally prompting, at best, a few thousand extra views beyond what it would have gotten during that time. The outcome of this process does not "cancel out the publication" of the article and really has very little to do with its destiny. (Some content creators also think of DYK credits as chits, but if you really want them, there are much easier ways to get them than 250 kB at a time!) Lagrange 613 04:23, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

Nomination is on hold pending outcome of the AFD. Lagrange 613 02:10, 6 February 2019 (UTC)
The AFD will close on Tuesday, unless it's extended. Unfortunately, starting Tuesday, I will be unable to edit for a few days. I ask in advance for everyone's patience until I'm able to return. Lagrange 613 03:24, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

Note: AfD closed as keep, so when Lagrange613 returns, it will be ready for their decision. BlueMoonset (talk) 21:49, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

TLDR: The article still has NPOV problems two and a half months since the nomination, almost one month since I began the review calling attention to the NPOV dispute, and over three weeks since I put the review on hold to test whether the dispute could be resolved quickly. Since the problems have not been resolved and will not be resolved imminently, it is time to close this nomination as unsuccessful.

Some progress has been made in reducing the volume of disputed content. However, that is not enough for NPOV; it's not even necessarily progress toward NPOV, since NPOV is about WP:BALANCE rather than raw volumes. Indeed, POV problems remain and are readily apparent, even to a non-expert like me. A few examples that jumped out as I was re-reading the article:

As noted above, multiple editors have stressed repeatedly that Israeli security concerns must be addressed for this article to reflect a neutral point of view. The primary authors seem to have conceded this point after it was raised by a keep !voter at the AFD. As the !voter suggested, a single sentence was added to the lead. The body, which the lead is supposed to summarize, is a different story. The views of Israel's "political and military establishment", presumably of some value in understanding the security concerns, are not explained, and indeed are dismissed within the article's text as "often tendentious and biased". The mainstream Israeli press is likewise described as "see[ing] themselves as actors within the Zionist movement, not as critical outsiders" (based on a quotation from a single source) and then never heard from again. By a standard argued by multiple editors and conceded by the primary authors, the article does not reflect a neutral point of view.
Indeed, the only substantial discussion of Israeli perspectives comes in the last section, Israeli occupation of the West Bank#Israeli critical judgements, which summarizes the views of the anti-Zionist WP:FRINGE. Most of the discussion is cited to a single source. This section was previously much longer before it was trimmed extensively. I highlight this edit because it exemplifies the work being done on this article: while it is a net positive for the article overall, it reveals two problems with how the work is being done that prevent progress toward NPOV. First, while it decreases the length of the POV content, it does not produce the balance necessary for the article to reflect a neutral point of view. Second, the edit summary motivates the section by saying "Readers need to know that the occupation is something many Israelis and Israeli Jews protest about, if only to avoid them falling into an antisemitic trap." In fact, readers need a neutral description of the views of Israelis and Israeli Jews that have bearing on the occupation, without WP:UNDUE weight placed on fringe views like those represented in the section. Editing that is not in service of this goal is unlikely to produce an NPOV article. (I'll add that the suggestion that antisemitism arises from readers learning what most Jews think reflects poorly on the editor who made it.)
After noting the politicization of terminology within the conflict in its first section, the article goes on to largely adopt the "Palestinian terminology" uncritically. For example, the article uses "colonialism" and its derivatives throughout in describing Israeli motives. This is just one POV; see the last paragraph of Settler colonialism#Zionism and the State of Israel for descriptions of an opposing POV, cited to multiple sources that are facially no less reliable than the academic sources cited in this article. And before you argue that that article is about Zionism and this article is about the occupation, note how the second and third paragraphs of Israeli occupation of the West Bank#Settlement tie the two together. The third paragraph even explicitly calls the "Israeli term"—settlement—a "euphemism" for the true term, colonization. This article does not reflect a neutral point of view by its own standards.

These examples reveal deep, structural problems standing in the way of the article being NPOV, problems that can't be resolved just by shifting a few words around or sprinkling an extra sentence or two in the right places. Significant work is required to address these problems, work far beyond the scope that would be appropriate for

or

. Thus, the final answer is

.

I'm going to pre-rebut a few arguments I anticipate seeing in response to this:

The article is NPOV because it was kept at AFD. Consensus at AFD was that the article should not be deleted as a WP:POVFORK; that is a lower standard than NPOV. Multiple participants !voted keep while noting POV problems in the article.
The article is NPOV because of the quantity of reliable, academic sources. As noted above, reliable sources, even academic sources, can be biased. Biased sources can be sampled and weighted to preclude a neutral point of view.
The editors alleging an NPOV violation have not brought enough sources to document their claims. Those editors have not always made their arguments effectively. However, as I've demonstrated above, the article is not NPOV by standards set out by the primary authors and within the article itself. If you're looking for sources that can point this article toward NPOV, I suppose you could start with the ones cited in the article I mentioned above, but again I'm not an expert.
You're just imposing your own agenda, or reinforcing systemic bias, or uncomfortable with the material! See above.
Why aren't editors complaining about NPOV problems in article X? Ask them. (Or maybe don't.) I'm here to review a nomination for this article.
The article just needs more time. Yes, it needs more time to get to NPOV. But its time for DYK has run out. When an article has problems, its DYK nomination deserves to be left open for a few weeks while they are addressed; in the past, I have worked extensively with nominators to get their nominations through. But DYK is supposed to be a showcase for new or newly expanded content, and content from November is not new anymore. It would be one thing if I had any basis for thinking the problems would be resolved imminently. But from where I'm sitting, the improvements to the article since I started the review have made much more progress toward compliance with WP:TOOLONG than with WP:NPOV. (And as I've noted on the article's talk page, TOOLONG isn't even a requirement for DYK.) At this rate, NPOV is still a long way away, several months at least, and it would be inappropriate to leave a nomination open for that long. Indeed, there's a strong chance that the outcome will be the participants moving on rather than solving the problems. We have to cut this off sometime. That time has come.

However, there is still a path for this article to appear at DYK: newly promoted Good Articles are eligible. Success at GA nomination would demonstrate NPOV and presumbly imply that all other DYK requirements would be satisfied. I don't know DYK precedent well enough to know for sure whether a renomination post-GA would be allowed, but it seems to me to be within both the letter and the spirit. When and if that happens, ping me and I'll be happy to provide a positive "character witness" for the article. As many noted at the AFD, this is certainly a notable topic, and I would be glad to see it featured on the Main Page once it's ready. But it is not ready now.

I apologize for the length. The nominators have worked long and hard on this article, and they deserve to understand my reasoning. Lagrange 613 05:58, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

I for one dont really care. nableezy - 06:13, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

@Lagrange613: thank you for the consideration and effort put into your assessment here. Whilst I don’t entirely agree (I think we could reach consnsus on NPOV view quickly if the opposing editors would take a more constructive approach, and I have a more lenient view on timetable), I repect your judgement and the dispassionate approach. Onceinawhile (talk) 18:07, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

Just on a point or two of misreading.

(a)Indeed, the only substantial discussion of Israeli perspectives comes in the last section, Israeli occupation of the West Bank#Israeli critical judgements, which summarizes the views of the anti-Zionist WP:FRINGE.

The section deals with Israeli Zionists (they accept the Zionist state as defined down to 1967) who are critical of what they perceive to be an extremist distortion of Zionism beginning with the occupation of the West Bank after 1967. I demonstrated that Icewhiz’s assertion that these were fringe was outlandishly false. When called out on this ridiculous caricature, Icewhiz had no reply. Lagrange, you took him at his word, which any Israeli mainstream person would call an example of 'extreme right-wing hyperbole'.

(b)I didn’t concede that there was some problem with coverage of security

I simply called complaining editors' attention to a fact they overlooked that Israel’s security concerns were already disseminated 32 times throughout the text. There was no significant answer to this obvious reminder, but I did then summarize this thematic repetition by a note to the lead, as was requested, waiting for editors to provide examples of what they see as the 'Israeli' security case. No one has, so far.

(c)After noting the politicization of terminology within the conflict in its first section, the article goes on to largely adopt the "Palestinian terminology" uncritically. For example, the article uses "colonialism" and its derivatives throughout in describing Israeli motives.

No. The article adopts the default pro-Israeli term 'settlement' over 93 times, throughout. Colonization/colony etc. is used 12 times, and is not a Palestinian term (the Palestinian Arabic term for settlers does not connote 'colonization'), simply because the analogy of WB and other colonizing projects is widely discussed in the academic comparative literature. Colony/colonize is, I think, used here of a settlement attempt 3 times (and could be changed in those instances to 'occupy', but there is no privileging of Palestinian usage. To the contrary.)

Generally, the worrying that NPOV is problematical here because we haven't enough 'Israeli perspectives' blames the article for being more concerned with facts and the description of mechanisms than with what spokesmen, Israeli or Palestinian, say. I've invited people to try to sketch out some statement about security concerns - I hope they are aware that Israel has never formulated a national security doctrine about the West Bank. How often do I keep having to repeat that high intelligence and strategy specialists will tell you either that the West Bank is indispensable to Israel's security, or that Israel's security requires it to disengage from the West Bank? There is no one Israeli viewpoint on security and the WB.

Finally on media coverage. There is a huge amount of literature on the massive advantage Israel has in presenting its case. It has an overwhelming number of official and semi-official bodies, with high leverage and media prominence, arguing that Western perceptions are skewed to Palestinians. Palestinians, or whoever for them, have nothing like this on the ground. No one who looks at the material in Mearsheimer and Walt's study pp.168-196 can pretend that there is some POV balance between the ways the parties struggle for representation in the public sphere in reality. If anything that section underplays the imbalance.

The thumbs down was to be expected, and I for one am not disappointed. Most of us haven't the time to examine anything in depth.Nishidani (talk) 13:35, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

That Mearsheimer and Walt are used as a source - when their piece of writing has been condemned as " Because of its extremism, however, we can hope that mainstream individuals and institutions will see it for what it is – a classical conspiratorial anti-Semitic analysis invoking the canards of Jewish power and Jewish control."ADL - is a cause for alarm in terms of sourcing. As for Israeli occupation of the West Bank#Israeli critical judgements I'm not sure if all the individuals/organizations there are Zionist (a rather archaic designation) - however I am fairly sure each and every one of them is on the political spectrum from Meretz (e.g. B'Tselem was for a long time run by Meretz's junior varsity (e.g. Zehava Gal-On back when she was a parlimantary assistance - well prior to becoming party chief)) and left of Meretz (Hadash and a few less notable radical groups) - which is very much on the left fringe of Israeli politics. Icewhiz (talk) 17:18, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

You don't stand a chance of retaining your place as R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor at Chicago University (John Mearsheimer) nor as tenured professor at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government (Stephen Walt)if you are anti-Semitic. Neither the ADL nor, I presume, yourself, are familiar with the book, the smear, like most smearing, is just yabbering hearsay. As to the rest of your comments, it's speculation on whom the several individuals named vote for, if indeed they vote at all. A large number of prominent Israeli intellectuals simply don't vote.Nishidani (talk) 17:37, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

We could go down every name in the list - they are all rather outspoken and active - e.g. Avishai Margalit was one of the regulars in this protest. Uri Avnery was a MK for Left Camp of Israel (as well as meeting Arafat in 1982 in Beirut during the siege). Icewhiz (talk) 17:47, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

I know their histories. It's a bad commie tendency to think you can dispose of an argument or thinker or person by sticking him/her with a political label, rather than addressing the quality of the thinking. In two cases there, terrorists connected with settlers tried to kill these thinkers, not because of their party affiliations but because of what they wrote. Let's drop this. I accept that you no longer think they are all representatives of the 'fringe of the radical left' (which in anycase doesn't mean anything) Nishidani (talk) 18:10, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

I'm not going to get dragged into an I/P content dispute, but a few points require rebuttal here.

By construction, a section titled "Israeli critical judgements" limits the scope of opinions that can be considered. This section begins by placing the cited opinions within "[a] tradition of Jewish opposition to Zionism" and goes on to quote one critic on the "'Nazification' of Israeli society." I do not need Icewhiz or anyone else on Wikipedia to tell me this is a fringe view among Israelis and hence not a good ingredient for an NPOV article.
References to Israel's security concerns are scattered throughout the article. Mostly, they either present critical takes on Israel's security concern generally (usually without naming the concerns themselves) or summarize Israeli justification of specific actions, e.g. with regards to olive groves or bar associations. The current state of things is not a substitute for a systematic treatment of the concerns that (it is claimed) drive the occupation, as multiple editors are saying would be required for the article to be NPOV. Critical responses would, of course, be a component of such a treatment.
Your penultimate paragraph appears to argue that (1) the majority of WP:reliable sources favor "the Israeli case", (2) but this is only because Israel exerts great control over the media, (3) so this article needs to favor the Palestinian perspective more than the balance of reliable sources does. Together, (1) and (3) run afoul of WP:DUE and WP:BALANCE, components of WP:NPOV, and have a strong flavor of WP:POVFIGHTER. As to (2), Mearsheimer and Walt's book is highly disputed, and the overall sentiment evokes some old and very ugly tropes.

Far from helping your case that the article is NPOV, your response here only validates my concern that your approach to editing is unlikely to produce an NPOV article in the near future. Lagrange 613 19:07, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

I'm not here to engaged in 'fights' of any kind, but to reason on why Wikipedia needs an article outlining a topic massively covered in high quality sources, but no where expounded in the clear detail the subject demands, namely the mechanisms of occupation. That it is an occupation is what all sources say, from the Israel High Court down: that an occupation has an infrastructure is self-evident. That nearly all I/P? articles spend undue time documenting the political pros and cons, via the sound bites of high profile actors in the area, is also true. The article cuts to the chase by telling the reader how this started, how it developed, and what mechanisms are used to maintain the occupation.

(a) Your premise is that any view not shared by 'most Israelis is, ipso facto fringe, is weird. I/P articles are jam-packed with political extremist statements by Israeli and Palestinian talking heads which only dubiously could be associated with some general outlook attributable to Israelis or Palestinians. That, to be notable, a view must shade into the mainstream view established by labile polling to warrant quotation is unsustainable. We do not quote views because they are mainstream, we quote views according to the prominence of 'opinion-makers' be it Netanyahu saying the Palestinians'spiritual father inspired Hitler's holocaust, or Yeshayahu Leibowitz saying the settler project will Nazify his society. Icewhiz complained at first that the people cited were 'fringe'. That failed verification, so now the views they espoused are fringe. Israeli political rhetoric is extremely strong on hyperbole, and mellow mainstream voices are a rare thing, which, if encountered (Yehuda Elkana comes to mind),are disliked.

(b) I've been waiting for about a month for someone to follow through with a neat summary paragraph on Israel's security concerns. Do I really have to write everything? I've offere suggestions, advised that it is very difficult to summarize (where do you put Yitzhak Shamir's argument, rebuffing the first implicit historic offer by Arab States to recognize Israel (1981/2) is exchange for establishing a Palestinian state along pre-1967 lines, that the idea of a Palestinian state constituted an existential threat to Israel?), a position reiterated through several united Arab peace initiatives from 2002, which were met with silence or similar readings that it was a threat to Israel's security?)

(c)your summary of my penultimate paragraph is, to me unrecognizable, because as Walt and Mearsheimer argue, 'Israel' does not control the media, and I do not deal here with the 'Palestinian perspective', whatever that is, but with what the scholarly, as opposed to the newspaper/ or official organ grinding POVs, evaluate. Mearsheimer and Walt's book's facts are not 'highly disputed'. What is notable is that there is a stark split between what the highest quality university presses print in their numerous monographs about the conflict and what newspaper reportage (far more subject to pressure) ladles out to the mainstream reading public. M and W's book is an extremely closely documented history of pressure at all levels exercised to gloss over the geostrategic problems the U.S. faces in succumbing to an official Israelocentric narrative which they regard as destabilizing. I think they are somewhat starry-eyed about U.S. policy, but that is neither here nor there. Unless one has actually read that, and a dozen other books analyzing the issue of representation, this rebuttal is just what you get in newspaper one column outbursts of general disagreement. They document facts, those who challenge them have yet to challenge the extremely detailed documentary record outlined in their book. If you think stating this is a case of WP:POVFIGHTER then I am amazed that you skate so comfortably over the numerous statements made here to the effect that anyone critical of an occupation is on the fringe of the radical left or just one of 'various lily faced humanities (or int. law scholars) scholars'. Tendentious editing is all over this place, and that is one reason why the article in question tries as best it can to set down the facts and mechanisms. Not one editor here has yet to deny that the facts and mechanisms outlined exist. Several editors just don't want that material listed, and they do so on the grounds that it is a violation of WP:NPOV to describe the reality of an occupation and its impact on the occupied. Nishidani (talk) 21:06, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you hoped to accomplish by this soup of strawmen and whataboutisms, but none of it seems to be about the fate of this DYK nomination. Unless you have more to add, I consider this conversation complete. Lagrange 613 21:25, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

I always endeavor to reason, even in recalcitrant or obtuse cases. Call it 'strawmen and whataboutisms' if it makes you feel happier. All I see here, unfortunately, is a hardening attitude brandishing policy, not a grasp of the complexities, policy or otherwise, raised. I have no objections to this being closed, particularly since I never thought, being a realist, that it was a starter in the first place. Nishidani (talk) 10:08, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

Yes, the problem with these DYK processes is the time limit. I had to choose to avoid debate on Template:Did you know nominations/Enclave law simply because of some entirely spurious claims. If I had chosen to engage, the DYK would have failed.

The only conclusion I can draw is that DYK for new articles or 5x expanded articles is not practical for contested topics. Contested topics must first go through the Good Article procedure (unfortunately that process has a c. 1 year backlog...) Onceinawhile (talk) 12:11, 19 February 2019 (UTC)