Talk:Al-Hamah

Actually, I am personally from this twon. I am personally a witness for these two events. I was a child at that time and I don't know a lot of details, so I am asking tothers to contribute more to document the history. Al-hama is a simple small town and I can't find in its history anything more relavant than these two events. I search the whole web and its name is tied to nothing else. I am not trying in any waw to defame or attack Israel. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 162.71.232.253 (talk • contribs) 09:34, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

• You say that your purpose is not to defame or attack Israel, but every single thing you have to say about your hometown is related to Israeli attacks with the exception of a single sentence about its beauty and its shared river with Damascus. Has Al-Hama no schools, no parks, no businesses, no shops, no economy? Do the lives of its people revolve around Israel and nothing else? Is there not a single other thing to talk about? You don't even say what country Al-Hama is in; I had to dig to find out it's in Syria. Or, rather, that it's claimed by Syria but is actually part of the territory that was mandated to Israel in 1948. Is this information not notable? While digging, I found numerous claims that Hafez al-Assad ordered the city leveled and its inhabitants slaughtered in 1982. I don't know if these claims are reliable, but aren't they notable?

I do my best to abide by the Wikipedian policy to assume good faith, but when an article is written about a city and nothing is said about it other than that it's been attacked (allegedly wrongfully) by Israel, it makes it very hard to maintain that assumption. I'm sure you can understand.

In any case, if your article flows from your own personal experiences, that's a particularly good reason not to write it. See No original research, one of only three bedrock guiding principles of Wikipedia content. We're not supposed to write about our own personal experiences or findings. (The other two principles, by the way, are Neutral point of view and Verifiability, both of which are in question here as well.) VoiceOfReason 17:11, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

I've done a bit of the same digging, and I'm beginning to think that there are at least two, and probably three, towns named Al-Hama associated with Syria. One is, like the account in the article, a suburb of Damascus on the river Barada. According to David Hirst's The Gun and the Olive Branch: The Roots of Violence in the Middle East, quoted here, this Al-Hama was the site of an Israeli air strike in response to the Munich Olympics.

Another Al-Hama is apparently in the Golan Heights and is apparently administered by Israel. This town, or area, appears to have been claimed by Syria at least in 1999.[1] [2] It contains "ruins" of an unspecified nature which could be visited by Israelis as of 1999.[3] One 1994 paper[4] says that Al-Hama was "seized by Syria in 1948", while a 1998 Ma'ariv op-ed republished by the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs states that Syria took it in 1951. Apparently as of 1999 Israel controlled the area but was considering ceding it to Syria again, according to a 1999 report[5] which describes it as "the strategic site where Israeli, Jordanian and Syrian borders meet". This report[6] indicates that Syrian military leadership helped Fatah run a training base in al-Hama, apparently circa 1965. So this Al-Hama was probably gained by Israel in the Six-Day War.

Now, this source, citing Thomas Friedman's 1989 From Beirut to Jerusalem, describes an al-Hama as being Syria's fourth-largest city before Hafez al-Assad levelled it in 1982. If the levelled Al-Hama was Syrian in 1982, then that suggests it wasn't in the Golan Heights. On the other hand, the "fourth largest city" also suggests that it wasn't the suburb of Damascus on the Barada, a "simple small town" according to 162.71.232.253. In other words, this could be a third Al-Hama.

Finally, this website[7] claims that there was a Fatah "training camp" in an Al-Hama in 1968. I don't even want to guess at exactly what that means.

Anyway, I conclude from all this that the article is not necessarily omitting relevant events, because those events happened elsewhere. And depending on what David Hirst says, some of the material in the article could be verifiable. I haven't tried searching on any of the alternate spellings. Mbaba001, can you comment on anything here? Melchoir 19:47, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

• Ah, but the article is omitting relevant events, even if not the specific ones I cited above, unless the only relevant events in the town's entire history involved being attacked by Israel. And even if some of the material in the article is in fact verifiable, that would not save it from being hopelessly POV. To draw an example, imagine an article on Bill Clinton consisting solely of the following: "Bill Clinton was an American president, under whose watch the Branch Davidian conflagration occured, and whose non-UN-sanctioned bombing campaign of Serbia led to the deaths of hundreds of civilians, many of whom were women and children. Also, he violated the sanctity of his wedding vows in the Oval Office by receiving oral sex from a woman not his wife." Who would argue that such an article isn't absurdly POV-tainted? Every word is true, every statement is verifiable, but through creative omission the author has painted a picture of the 42nd President that's completely biased. Even if this article's unsourced details are all true, the selection of specific details that all just happen to paint Israel in a negative light makes any claim of NPOV fail the laugh test. VoiceOfReason 01:32, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Okay, bad wording on my part-- the article omits plenty of relevant events, just nothing so revolutionary to its content as "...and it was also stolen and then levelled by a different government" would have been. Melchoir 02:07, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
    • My point, though, is this. An anon removed the prod claiming that the subject matter is as notable as that of many other articles. That's fine, though. I'm not claiming it's not notable. I'm claiming that it's not NPOV... and much of it is also not verifiable and there's reason to believe (per author's comment) that some of it may also be original research. What I'd like to do is flesh out the first sentence, giving more detail about the town (like, say, what country it's in), remove the rest, and flag it as a stub, so hopefully somebody can come by with some NPOV, verifiable material to flesh it out. Any objection? VoiceOfReason 03:58, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
      • Well, shoot me if I ever object to removing unverified content! I urge you to be conservative, though; when it comes to new articles from new users, I prefer to be patient and let the cleanup tags work their magic. Melchoir 04:22, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
        • Sage advice. I've tweaked the templates a bit and I'll leave the page alone for a week at least. If after spending that long on [[Category:Articles which may be biased]] and [[Category:Wikipedia articles needing factual verification]] there's no progress towards verification, I'll take that as strong evidence that the unverified data is in fact unverifiable and remove it. Sound good? VoiceOfReason 06:05, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
          • Sure! Melchoir 06:19, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I know only two places that have similar names in Syria. The first one which was cited in this article is a small village of 10,000 people or so and is called Al-hama الهامة . This is a suburb, west of Damascus on the Barada river. The other one is a large city in the center of Syria. It is called Hama حماة . Everything written about Assad army atrosities against the Muslim Brothers on February 2, 1982 (see Hama massacre) took place in the latter one. There is also a town in the Golan Heights called el-hama that was attacked on April 5th, 1951 by Israel air forces [8]. I thank everyone who contributed to the discussion. once again I am not trying to defame anyone, but collect information about this small village history. If anyone knows the date of the first event or more details I would appreciate it. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Mbaba001 (talk • contribs) 07:21, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Okay, thanks for contributing, and please stay on the lookout for more verifiable information! Melchoir 15:48, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Hamat Gader has nothing to do with this town. Al-hama is a suburb of Damascus and Hamat Gader is in the Golan area, between Syria and Israel. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mojbaba (talk • contribs) 14:59, 31 October 2010 (UTC)