Talk:Battleground: Fact and Fantasy in Palestine

Removed Text from 'Criticism' Section

"Writers and journalists such as Moshe Shamir, Yishayahu Ben Porat answer to critics. They point out that Katz bases his work on variety of sources and references, pagan and Christian, Jewish and Moslem. Katz does not deny the existence of some Arab population but brings evidence that the country was mostly desolate.. In 1785, there were no more than 200,000 people in the country. In the middle of the nineteenth century, the estimated population for the whole of Palestine was between 50,000 and 100,000 people. It was the gaping emptiness of the country, the spectacle of ravages and neglect, the absence of a population that might be dispossessed and the growing sense of the country's having "waited" for the "return of her banished children," that lent force and practical meaning to the awakening Christian realisation that the time had come for Jewish restoration. With this in mind, Katz details the history of the Jewish people in Palestine, the people that was "not there". Since the general population was small, Katz is trying to show the significance of the Jewish continuous presence in spite of the general desolation."

This block of text in the criticism section is not needed. It's just some NPOV stuff defending the text, which doesn't belong in critcism or this article. We should then include a huge paragraph refuting this refutation of criticism, which doesn't work! ~~

it's an answer to the criticizm, seems relevant. Amoruso 18:31, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia isn't a message board forum for people to discuss issues. The section is called 'Criticism' and presents some points from people who believe the book is inaccurate. We don't need to then include in the same section, or at all in my opinion, people trying to argue with that critcism. The criticism is legitimate and the page is for the book, so people can read about the book which is already a defense of it's position. To try and refute critcism is just very non-neutral. It's like an advertisement for the book! ~~

Is there some way to point out in this article that Katz was the Irgun's chief propagandist, and his reliability on everything concerned with 1948 must be in real doubt?

There must be some way to avoid giving the impression that he's an academic or regular historian!

PalestineRemembered 19:25, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

well you could open up a blog on the world wide web. anyway, to the unsigned member above, material of this is of course relevant and is sourced. Amoruso 20:26, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

References

Paragraph moved from article

The following paragraph needs to be rewritten using Katz's words, as it otherwise is commentary:

Battleground raises many questions. Why do Leftists wildly denounce the only democracy in the Middle East, simultaneously siding with some of the world’s worst dictatorships? And why do Left-wing ideologues, if they are so opposed to imperialism, interpret the return of the Jewish people to their ancient homeland as an act of colonialism?

-- Steve Hart 19:22, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

unsourced sentence

The sentence

The book is widely used in the context of the Arab Israeli conflict and is taught in schools abroad as a historical source

has been for a long time in the article without a source. If no source is provided to support this sentence, it ought to be removed.--Doron 00:36, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Katz might be a real historian

Katz might be a real historian (though his biography more or less rules this out).

But the only text from his book I've seen is this, and the man on the Clapham Omnibus would not mistake it for Reliably sourced history:

"Battleground: Fact and Fantasy in Palestine" p36: "....... The economic interest of the individual Arab in the perpetuation of the refugee problem and of his free keep is backed by the accumulating vested interest of UNRWA itself to keep itself in being and to expand. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency is thought of as some Olympian, philanthropic body directed and operated by a band of dedicated humanitarians, devoted exclusively to the task of helping suffering refugees. The fact is that the organisation consists of some 11,000 officials of whom all but a handful are Arabs who are themselves inscribed on the rolls as "refugees." They perform the field work; they, that is, hand out the relief. The remaining handful consists of some 120 Americans and Europeans who man the organisation’s central offices. Since UNRWA itself is thus a source of livelihood for some 50,000 people, no one connected with it has the slightest interest in seeing its task end or in protesting the fraud and deception it has perpetuated for over twenty years. The myth continues to live and to thrive, feeding on itself." PalestineRemembered 09:21, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Battlegroundbook.jpeg

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BetacommandBot (talk) 05:43, 2 January 2008 (UTC)