Talk:Zionism/Archive 28

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RS opinion on “colonialism"

Zionism is an ethnocultural nationalist movement that emerged in Europe in the late 19th century and aimed for the establishment of a Jewish state through the return of Jewish refugees from Europe and Middle Eastern countries to the ancestral Jewish homeland, in a manner that has been described by some as colonialism but disputed by others. According to The New York Times, Israel was "peopled not by colonial forces" but by refugees from persecution in Europe and Arab lands. Allthemilescombined1 (talk) 02:24, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

It's not "According to The New York Times," it's according to Roger Cohen, and an analysis in a newspaper isn't WP:DUE. There are plenty of high-quality academic books about Zionism to summarize; the views of individual journalists aren't significant enough for a high-level summary article of a topic with as much available scholarship as this one, not when compared to the views of scholars in the field. We could have 100 "According to [journalist's analysis published in reputable newspaper]..." statements in this article if we did that. And besides, no individual -- scholar or journalist -- is so important that their view should be stated in the lead of this article (or almost any Wikipedia article). I agree with the revert. Levivich (talk) 02:38, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

Roger Cohen is not an expert in any discipline relevant to this article. His opinion damn sure doesn't belong in the lede, where you tried to place it. And frankly, not that my experience is any more relevant, it's kind of absurd. I have family who emigrated to Israel. I wouldn't call them "refugees from New Jersey."Dan Murphy (talk) 02:42, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

This handwave to another POV:

"The war has seen another significant shift: the broad embrace of the Palestinian cause as an extension of movements for racial and social justice in the United States. It has also been adopted by the Global Majority, sometimes known as the Global South, as an expression of the battle of Indigenous peoples — read Palestinians — against white colonial oppressors and interlopers."

and this hyperbole:

"Across the world, from the Americas to Africa, the quest to create a state of Palestine supplanting Israel has become the North Star of many young people. Israeli “colonialism” is increasingly shorthand for the Zionist project of establishing a homeland for the Jewish people after their millennial persecution, rather than for Israel’s post-1967 colonial settlement of the occupied West Bank."

Followed by a desultory "Not all the protesters think this way, of course. They are appalled by Israel’s conduct of the war but do not dispute its right to exist".

"News analysis" is stretching things, plainly a lot of opinion in this piece and certainly not leadworthy. Selfstudier (talk) 09:54, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

References

These are good points. Currently, "Zionism is an ethnocultural nationalist movement that emerged in Europe in the late 19th century and aimed for the establishment of a Jewish state through the colonization of a land outside Europe" does not show NPOV.

Academic sources relevant to the discussion include:

"Zionism declared that it had no desire to rule others (i.e. Arabs), and was not willing to have others rule it. The Zionist position was that Arab demands should be met in the framework of autonomy. The Zionist Congress of 1921 defined Palestine as a 'common land' and talked about undisturbed nationalist development of the Jews and the Arabs. The following Congress, in 1923, spoke of the integration of the Jewish people in the revival of the east...

Foregoing Jewish majority rule in Palestine, willingness to grant full Arab autonomy in Palestine and support for the movement of Arab independence and unity - all considered by the Jews to be far-reaching concessions- did not satisfy the Arabs. They demanded institutions that would guarantee Arab majority rule".

"Documents indicate that the American Zionist leaders went beyond the question of Jewish-Arab relations: they proposed plans that dealt with such questions as water, the future refugee problem, regional economic cooperation and the role of international organizations in the Middle East, with a view to assuring Jewish-Arab coexistence and cooperation".

"Palestine under the Mandate knew not only years of violence and hostility but also partnerships and the creation of understanding, mostly as a result of the wish to realize joint interests. The working of the Haifa municipal council at the time of the Mandate reflects this well. The cooperation that crystalized in it was a breakthrough with respect to the possibility of administering a mixed city in conditions of national conflict".

Allthemilescombined1 (talk) 23:38, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

Why are these academic sources relevant to the discussion? How did you select them? Levivich (talk) 23:55, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

They show that unlike the British mandate, which represented colonialism, the British had somewhere to go back to, compared to Jews who (in addition to fleeing persecution and returning to their indigenous homeland) had no intention of colonizing Palestine but rather had intentions of coexistence with Arabs. American Zionists then attempted to further regional cooperation, which was exemplified by the working of the Haifa municipal council. Academic sources were requested in the comment "There are plenty of high-quality academic books about Zionism to summarize; the views of individual journalists aren't significant enough for a high-level summary article of a topic with as much available scholarship as this one, not when compared to the views of scholars in the field." Allthemilescombined1 (talk) 00:09, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

None of these three sources are books. They're not even widely-cited papers; less than 10 citations each (and that's after 20-25 years of publication). The journals have low impact factor (for whatever that's worth). They're all Israeli -- don't you think we should consider non-Israeli sources as well as Israeli sources, like the Wikipedia article currently does? One is geographer, another is an archaeologist (Segev is a historian). I'm not sure why you think these obscure papers are "high-quality academic books." Levivich (talk) 00:15, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

OK forget that question, I just read the first one, Katz. Your quotation omitted the words "During these years," at the beginning, before "Zionism declared that it had no desire to rule others". And then there's this part, a couple pages later, emphasis added:

Chances of reaching an agreement were remote from the outset, since as soon as the Zionist enterprise launched its campaign to change the balance of demography and settlement in Palestine in favour of the Jews, Arab nationalists felt compelled to halt or impede this process. Agreement would be completely antithetical to Arab interests, as Arabs would have to concede vital issues such as land and immigration in any agreement with the Jews. Similarly, the Jews could not abide any significant concessions on these two issues, as they ran counter to the fundamental principle of the Zionist enterprise in Palestine.

In 1936-37, the official Zionist leadership despaired of reaching any agreement with the Arabs, although they had nurtured this hope for many years. Yet deep in their hearts, they had known since the 1920s that the conflict with the Arabs would be ongoing, as Zionist and Arab interests were fundamentally opposed to each other. In practice, they denied the inevitability of the conflict - for purposes of public consumption, to ease their liberal and socialist conscience, and also in the hope or delusion that the Arabs, despite everything, would agree to an accommodation. Like Weizmann, Ben-Gurion, who headed the Jewish Agency Executive from 1935 and had fervently believed in the possibility of an agreement at the outset of his career, also lost hope in 1936-37 and accepted the inescapability of violence, becoming the symbol of 'anti-Arabism' and advocating the need for a Jewish majority and Jewish force of arms to realize the Zionist vision. Thus, the Zionist leadership reached the conclusion that a mutually agreeable solution was out of reach: objectively, the conflict could not be resolved in a way that would fully satisfy both sides. Achieving the goal of Zionism - a state in Palestine - inevitably entailed injury to the Arabs, and therefore every Zionist attempt to come to agreement with the Arabs without conceding their objectives would be doomed to failure.

That part seems pretty relevant, eh? How come you didn't read Katz and were like, "oh, wow, that Wikipedia article is spot on-- it says the same thing this geographer Katz wrote 25 years ago in an obscure paper with 6 citations in a journal with an impact factor 0.4!" I'm not going to read the other two, I'll assume they also say the same thing that everybody else says. Levivich (talk) 00:09, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

That is uncivil. I humbly request your good faith attention. As I stated, "Zionism... aimed for the establishment of a Jewish state through the colonization of a land outside Europe" does not show NPOV. I propose "Zionism is an ethnocultural nationalist movement that emerged in Europe in the late 19th century and aimed for the establishment of a Jewish state through the return of Jewish refugees[1] from Europe and Middle Eastern countries to the ancestral Jewish homeland, in a manner that has been described by some as colonialism but disputed by others". If respectful discussion is not possible, administrative involvement will be needed. Allthemilescombined1 (talk) 00:56, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

@Allthemilescombined1, FWIW, you've come into a highly contentious topic and started making suggestions that seem to indicate you haven't read this talk page thoroughly enough. Editors here have been working very hard for months to find some area of compromise for this article, even though many of them disagree with one another on many things, including sourcing. I'm sure they're all trying to be patient with less-experienced editors coming in, but tempers do get frayed. IMO that was a pretty mild sarcasm that doesn't rise to actual incivility. Not particularly helpful, but not uncivil.

If you'll read this talk page rather thoroughly (I'd recommend including the most recent archive, Talk:Zionism/Archive 26, too, as you can see that even with this talk archiving after fifteen days it has a dozen active discussions) so that you can bring yourself up to speed, you'll probably find fewer editors making sarcastic remarks about your suggestions. Valereee (talk) 10:43, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

I’m not casting aspersions at anyone in this chat, but although I’ve been welcomed kindly by some editors, to whom I’m grateful, I’ve also experienced contentious editors. I’ve noticed editors who have made mild-mannered prickly comments as a means of wearing down dissenting editors and making the edit (and larger space) feel like it is hostile and inhospitable. I personally see sarcasm as thinly veiled intention, so I will not accept the notion that a mountain of microaggressions is acceptable in a space that is supposed to, principally, be AGF. Encouraging sarcasm is a slippery slope to AGF evaporating in the long term. Said with all respect, but we must admit that things add up, and no one would be left feeling antagonized in the long run if we were doing a good job at being kind to each other consistently. Allthemilescombined1 (talk) 16:27, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

I'm not encouraging sarcasm. To be clear, I think it's seldom persuasive. But I've never found slippery slope arguments -- a logical fallacy, btw -- compelling. Yes, in an ideal world, everyone would be able to communicate 100% of the time without making mild-mannered prickly comments. This is a contentious topic. Tempers get frayed. Patience gets tried. If you'd like to argue this sidebar further, let's take it to your talk or mine. Valereee (talk) 20:24, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

References

natural punctuation; insert commas

I have inserted a pair of commas, as natural punctuation, for ease of reading. No change of meaning. Chjoaygame (talk) 15:31, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Highlight and better source needed in first sentence?

Can someone explain the highlight and the BSN template in the first sentence? DMH223344 (talk) 21:37, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

@Steven1991 Bitspectator ⛩️ 21:57, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Is it possible to provide better sources for the claim or classification? Because it looks totally different from how it was before 7 October 2023. Steven1991 (talk) 22:01, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Working on it, it appears that some references have been misplaced, Conforti 2024 also here. fiveby(zero) 22:12, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for your information. Steven1991 (talk) 23:08, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

What's wrong with Gans? The quote seems appropriate. DMH223344 (talk) 22:26, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

I thought the problem was with Conforti when i looked, but only tagging page needed right now. Some of the cites are a muddle, but it happens. fiveby(zero) 22:55, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

conforti doesnt seem to support the claim at all, why not just remove it? DMH223344 (talk) 23:24, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Said i wouldn't, if i started removing cites i thought were inappropriate there would be a whole lot more fights on the talk page. fiveby(zero) 23:42, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

DMH223344, regarding this, alphabetical by author but don't worry about it as long as they are inside the refbegin/refend templates. Just throw 'em in there, probably a bot that formats and alphabetizes around somewhere. fiveby(zero) 01:32, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Conforti was in there to support the cultural nationalism claim but that was removed in favor of ethonocultural nationalism so unnecessary now. Selfstudier (talk) 09:20, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Can the claim in the introduction of the article be referenced, preferably in exact wording, to the publication of the cited author? Steven1991 (talk) 23:37, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Is there some technical reason that people perhaps aren't seeing the full bullet list of 10 sources for the 'most land/fewest Arabs' line? Does the template not render on some platforms or something? I've checked it on desktop and mobile and can see it just fine, but a number of people seem to just not see the sources for some reason. Levivich (talk) 00:50, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

I've been changing them to Template:multiref, but look fine here. Will log out and look tho. Looks fine logged out. fiveby(zero) 01:37, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Is zionism "considered" settler colonialism, or is it "criticized" as such?

The characterization of Zionism as settler-colonialism is not necessarily criticism, so I suggest that we adopt the phrasing "considered" or "described" rather than "criticized". Recent edits started using "criticized" instead, which I disagree with. DMH223344 (talk) 22:10, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Not necessarily probably, but those authors are few and far between. It's popularity is certainly due to it's presumed effectiveness as a vehicle of criticism. Sabbagh-Khoury, Areej (2022). "Tracing Settler Colonialism". Politics & Society. doi:10.1177/0032329221999906. fiveby(zero) 00:02, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Saying that descriptions in RS that are factual per the RS are intrinsically criticism of something renders their descriptions as something other than that they literally say. We don't do that in any other context, like saying people who describe the Russian invasion of Ukraine, or the Holodomor, as merely "criticizing" these things, we say that they are being described.

And since we are dealing with scholarly consensus, we should not do otherwise here. I support the prior longstanding text, and I believe it should be restored until consensus is obtained to say otherwise. Raskolnikov.Rev (talk) 11:44, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

See Talk:Zionism/Archive 25#Penslar on colonialism/settler colonialism where I lifted some relevant quotes when I thought we were going to discuss this issue. Penslar is willing to see it as settler colonialism but does say there is a "deep divide" among scholars. So not "criticism" but a matter of scholarly debate (what you said, Andrevan...).

Note that he also says "Debates about virtually every aspect of the history of Zionism and Israel boil down to clashing conceptions of the essence of the Zionist project—whether it has been one of homecoming and seeking asylum or one of colonial settlement and expropriation." so it's a recurring theme according to Penslar. Selfstudier (talk) 12:11, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

To clarify, I meant there is scholarly consensus concerning the colonial aspects of Zionism, even among its supporters or those who believe that those aspects are justifiable, about which there is disagreement. I have not seen any reliable scholarly source saying that for example the Nakba did not happen and pushing the "a land without people for a people without a land" argument in recent reliable scholarship, let's say post 2000.

That goes the point @Zero0000 raised that we'll then have to end up saying "criticized or praised as", but I think it's best to avoid that language altogether. Raskolnikov.Rev (talk) 12:44, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

While this can indeed be intended as criticism, alternative descriptions of Zionism can be intended as praise. Either we say "criticised as" and "praised as" in balanced fashion, or we say neither. I vote for neither. Zero^talk 12:18, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

All histories of Zionism allow that (a) Palestine was settled by (b) a huge number of emigrés from other countries and (c) that, from its formative years down to the 1950s, the term commonly used for this project was 'colonisation'. Those are the facts. What objectors protest is the use of the term, settler colonialism, as applicable to Israel, as opposed to many other colonial adventures of a similar type. The single objection to this is that all Jews were emotionally/symbolically attached to Palestine as the homeland of their forefathers, unlike the other examples. The error in all of this is to take a cultural value as the decisive consideration in describing why and how historical facts occurred. In Marxist terms, adopting a superstructural feature to explain the material, economic, sociological factors which constitute the substructure of the historical process. To simplify illustratively, it is a bit like explaining the emergence of ancient Israel in terms, not of archaeology, the collapse of prior empires under climate changes, demographic marauding as populations collapse, etc.etc., but as a result of the belief, developed cultically among people who came together and called themselves Israelites, that their Yahweh has promised them that land, and thus the subsequent history consisted in their implementing this belief. Collective emotions can at times tip the scales of history, but the fundamental forces are not emotional or ideological.

Since no one can doubt modern Israel arose out of a project of colonization, that word must stand. All one needs to add is 'though whether it has been a variety of settler colonialism or not is disputed.'(with an array of illustrative statements from RS in the notes/or a link to the precise wiki page discussing the former. One cannot say nothing, because the topic is thoroughly debated, and the text must not shy from controversy, but simply state it succinctly.Nishidani (talk) 12:55, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Yes this is a good point, there is indeed scholarly dispute over settler-colonialism, but not colonialism, and one of the edits removed its usage in the latter sense from the "Characterization as colonialist and racist" section. That should be restored, and for the settler-colonialism edit in the "Zionism as settler colonialism" @Nishidani's addition should be included after its restoration. Raskolnikov.Rev (talk) 13:07, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

We are dangerously close to igniting another long and unproductive thread on 'colonization'. Do see your "what objectors protest is..." at work on the talk page of course. The other day Levivich was trying to explain colonization and colonialism to an editor. A failure of this article is that one can't, in that situation, simply say "go read the article section". I think more care and more reader focus is warranted. It might seem sometimes like writing to, what, an early secondary school level? I sometimes wonder, if some of the comments here are an indication of the WP:AUDIENCE, whether the lead needs to state plainly that there where more than a half-million Arabs living there at the turn of the century? Anyway not all objections based on the issues you point to. All this discussion moves too fast, without ample consideration and doesn't seem to result in anything productive. Hell, i'm still thinking about your "outside Europe" vs. "in Palestine".

To Zero0000 point, there are many superseded nationalist histories of course, i thought practice was already that these should only be used in very limited ways and if they are to somehow alert the reader to whats going on? Where you thinking of a different category of sources which "praise" Zionism? fiveby(zero) 14:21, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

I think the audience point is insightful and it's worth trying to explicitly cover more of the basics in the lead. Levivich (talk) 06:50, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

My remarks were not aimed to start another futile thread, but to sum the scholarship versus feelings which has been, in my view, characteristic of these humongous episodes, and provide a compromise. If there are people out there who baulk at 'colonization' tout court, then they are not interested in the scholarship but in a 'compromise' which elides the very term so commonly used in the best studies. If they follow the scholarly debate, then (a) settler colonialism is increasingly the default term in colonialization theories, but has been questioned or worried over (by Zionists), and therefore one mentions setcol with the appropriate qualifying remarks. Despite our endless chatting, the text here in any version is straightforward, not abstruse. And while dumbingdown so that the hypothetical 'audience' may grasp the issues more easily (they can do that with the article, the problems arise on the talk page), any familiarity with what audiences are presented with on the IP issues tells us that it is already so thoroughly dumbdowned and surveilled for political correctness in the newspapery/TV mainstream , that most of what historians know is lost on 'them' (or it would be 'news' to them). I don't know how many times in random conversations (not started by myself) with well-educated people, usually where newspapers are being read, I drop a remark on this (e.g. 'when Zionism was launched 95% of the population of Palestine was Arab', a core fact for the lead), I prefer statistics and meet with raised eyebrows and astonished looks. The obvious is not mentioned.* I even note that our text has sources that most Jews reject settler colonialism. The two sources do not state that, and it is impossible to ascertain because (a) most people, Jews included, are unfamiliar with the term and (b) there has been no global polling to determine what percentage of Jewish people reject the term. The simplest of commonsensical tweaks in phrasing can settle this, if there is a willingness to accept both the obviousness of colonialism as objective, and the contentiousness of settler colonialism as an adequate descriptive theory.

• A few nights ago in a TV debate, someone touched on UNWRA's difficulties in getting aid to starving people, and Maurizio Belpietro sunk him relentlessly by repeating something like: 'It is a terrorist organization, there were 6 members whom Israel identified as Hamas operatives! 'No one replied. It was such a devastating 'fact'. I thought:'is there no one there, among many journalists, who know that UNWRA employs 30,000 people, and therefore Belpietro's persuasive gobbledegook should be exposed for its monumentally tendentious fallaciousness that 6 members of Hamas's social organizations, constituting 0.02% of UNWRA means that UNWRA is a pro-Hamas facilitator of terrorism He got away with it, because even journalists either keep mum or don't do their homework, which wiki must do for them.Nishidani (talk) 14:50, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Agree mostly on scholarship versus feelings, which again clearly on display at this talk page. Failed to take into account your final sentence as a compromise wording for including 'colonialism'. Think i probably prefer Selfstudier's pointing to Penslar as a way out of this mess, if a way out is to be found. fiveby(zero) 15:42, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

There seems to be a tremendous amount of confusion between "colonization," "colonialism" and "settler-colonialism," which is one of the big problems with the article right now. Zionism was indisputably a movement involving colonization. The agricultural colonies by land purchasing primarily. Settler-colonialism is a term of art in history and post-colonial studies. It usually focuses on the British imperial colonialism in North America and Australia. While a number of sources do describe Israel in similar terms, it is a minority of sources that use "settler-colonialism," and usually if not universally critically - it's a critical view, which should be clear from the sources that do so, and not the academic consensus view. Colonization is, as I said, not really up for dispute, the problem is conflating these related but distinct concepts. Particularly, Israel lacked a parent country, and is seen by others as a form of decolonization since it entailed Britain giving land back to local Arabs and Jews, the latter of whom had a long connection and several rather long-lived colonies in the Yishuv, and were arguably basing their claim on being indigenous to the area thousands of years ago. Whether or not someone who disagrees finds that to be rubbish is really not the point. The point is that the article is not NPOV is we simply treat "settler-colonialism" as a consensus aspect of Zionism, since that isn't the case in reliable sources, there's quite a critical aspect and is itself subject to critical dispute. Andre🚐 21:06, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

There is no confusion (unless you find it all confusing), but it is pointless repeating what has been said and resaid. What concept do you think covers a proposal (Zionist) and then enactment to change a 95% Arab majority in a country into one with a Jewish demographic majority (who as the present government states '“have an exclusive and inalienable right to all areas of the Land of Israel”) primarily by promotion of mass immigration into that country by Jews all around the world? Nishidani (talk) 21:33, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean by "a consensus aspect of Zionism". Most authors will point out what the consider the core aspects of Zionism or at various times what was the "Zionist consensus". I'd think we would be hard pressed to find one that did not consider a demographic majority in Palestine and eventual state part of that. Sure there was some debate as to whether 'colonialism' fit, so we've got 'settler-colonialism'. In order to decolonize one needs a colonialism to undo. As Sabbagh-Khoury makes clear the basis of it's popularity is politics and the aim single state, right of return, etc. I think we might be able to find a consensus that the definition mostly fits (what's your opinion on Penslar?) tho it is fairly new. I don't know why would would expect or be able to ever see some consensus that the paradigm is useful. Not including if there is room for it in the article would be passing over a great deal of literature. The section right now is short, does attempt to alert the reader to what's going on with Rachel Busbridge (whoever she might be) probably generally the right approach? All the colonialism content in the body is a bunch of throw-away "according to X" and "Y says" so hard to tell. fiveby(zero) 14:05, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

I agree with what Selfstudier said about Penslar: a matter of scholarly debate, not a consensus. As to the colonialism to undo, it was the Ottoman and British who controlled the area. Andre🚐 18:54, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

what do you mean by the second sentence? I don't know what you are talking about when you link a colonialism to undo with the respective Ottoman empire and the British mandate period.Nishidani (talk) 19:46, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

the unwinding of Ottoman and British imperial rule. Andre🚐 19:49, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

So what you means is

As to the colonialism to undo, (that was) the unwinding of Ottoman and British imperial rule?

I still don't know what on earth you mean by that. The Ottoman empire had nothing to do with colonialism in Palestine, and Britain was not a colonial power in Palestine but the executor of a mandate for the colonization of Palestine by Jews. SheeshNishidani (talk) 21:11, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

colonial development during the mandate period was the culmination of a longer running process that stretched back well into the Ottoman period. Contrary to British colonial rhetoric, the districts of the Ottoman Empire that later formed the Palestine Mandate were undergoing rapid change in the decades before the First World War as they were increasingly incorporated into global networks of trade and political reform, all under the umbrella of a centralizing Ottoman state. Andre🚐 21:19, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Oh dearie me, more slippage from the gravamen of what is being discussed. The 'colonialism' we were supposed to discuss is related to the 'colonization' of another land and the exploitation of its resources to the detriment of the indigenous population (here majority). 'Colonialism is a practice of domination, which involves the subjugation of one people to another.' The Ottoman Empire did not 'subjugate' the population of Palestine and do so by populating that land with Turks. The British did not conquer by subjugating Palestinians, but by overthrowing the Turkish army and taking on a LoN mandate to bring that country to independence - by definition not stricto sensu an extension of the British Empire's dominians to include Palestine, since the terms of its interim rule were subject to a higher authority, the League of Nations. The expression 'undo (Ottoman and British ) colonialism', means, to take up Fiveby's word, a process of 'decolonization' of the foreign power controlling a territory to achieve self-determination for a people, here, who were neither Turkish nor English. To now cite a snippet from the googled abstract of Jacob Norris's book that both the Ottoman and British were engaged in 'colonialism' (in the general sense of that word) in developing the infrastructure of Palestine is muddying things: the former developed infrastructure to include Palestine within the empire's trade and commercial network; the latter supervised institutional growth there to (b) provide 'administrative advice and assistance by a Mandatory until such time as they are able to stand alone", and (b) favour Jewish immigration to create a pro-British Jewish homeland (to the detriment of the interests of the indigenous population in practice). Neither of these fit the standard definition of colonialism as vide the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy cited above. The fact that the infrastructural improvements were designed to extract resources advantages to the large external economies of the two empires is typically 'colonial', as exemplified by Moshe Novomeysky's creation of the Dead Sea Works, which Norris's book studies closely. But, had you read the book, you would not have talked about 'undoing' this kind of colonial heritage, since it formed an important basis, as the fourth largest producer of potash in the world, for the nascent Israeli economy. Is that what had to be 'undone'? It was not British colonialism that was undone: one could argue, and this is how your expression struck me as implying, the overthrow of its administrative presence to enable its proxy, the Zionist leadership, to create a colonial society in Palestine, umhampered by external constraints. Nishidani (talk) 11:47, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Nishidani as an aside, was looking for more sources here and got distracted by this from Ilan Pappé, p. 613 paragraph begining "Israeli historians hesitate...", do you happen to know where he is referring to with "as I argue elsewhere"? fiveby(zero) 12:16, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

At a guess, Ethnic cleansing of Palestine? Selfstudier (talk) 12:46, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

You're right, that was 2006, thinking it was later for some reason. Probably here tho? fiveby(zero) 13:05, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Mainly the editor for that one. Selfstudier (talk) 14:03, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Pappé's position has changed several times (no bad sign: it means he is less ideological (immune to developments in scholarship)than he is usually taken to be). He did assume from the 1980s that Zionism was colonialist, and this is still present in his The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, 2006 Oneworld 978-1-851-68467-0 pp.8, 10-14, but a sea-change emerges in the (excellent and neglected) 2008 paper you cite, where nationalist impulses come to the fore over a simplistic colonialism mode. Sorry not to be able to be more helpful. Nishidani (talk) 16:37, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, maybe not useful for the article but was a little surprised to see it. He gets a big black mark from me tho for failing to cite. fiveby(zero) 22:26, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Pappe 2022, p. 32: Zionism was a settler colonial movement, very much like the movement of other Europeans who moved to the Americas, parts of Africa as well as Australia and New Zealand. Levivich (talk) 00:59, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Yep, still with the settler colonial construct, can't really see where the nationalist thing comes from unless referring to the 48 war. Selfstudier (talk) 10:08, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

"Pappe explains that he "will argue that Zionist settlers—indeed Zionist thought and praxis—were motivated by a national impulse but acted as pure colonialists." Notice the term "pure colonialist", which is especially odd given that the title of the article refers to "diluted colonialism" ”.He accepts that the main models of settler colonialism will not work for Zionism and Palestine, as normally "nationals were sent by a mother country". (Colonialism John Strawson Israel Studies Vol. 24, No. 2, Word Crimes; Reclaiming The Language of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (Summer 2019), pp. 33-44, p.39) Selfstudier (talk) 10:43, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Strawson's paper has to be handled with care. He's right to note the shifts in Pappé's views, but only in a somewhat one-sided focus on BDS's use of colonialist language, and is totally silent on the numerous parallels with colonialism drawn by Israeli and diaspora scholarship also in the last decades, something with which he shows no such intimacy. His paper promotes the idea that this discourse is about 'fringe politics' and he 'picks on' Pappé, but the latter is not, in any case, one of our best sources (he's a good thinker, the problem we have always here by IP consensus is that he does not sufficiently document his arguments with detailed sourcing footnotes, so that it is difficult for editors to thresh out personal interpretation from facts). Since Strawson mentions Maxime Rodinson, with whose views I have considerable sympathy, I suggest editors read Rodinson for background. He can't be used on this because of our 'decent scholarship' criterion. But he thought on his own two feet before this rhetorical battle became known and battled over, and his range of knowledge, of politics, sources and history on that area, was dauntingly formidable. Nishidani (talk) 11:36, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

The response attacks my use of research, as though using search tools to find sources is a bad thing(?), without providing much to bear for assertions, or really refuting the claim, I don't see any sources cited pertaining to the topic. This conflates settler-colonialism, colonialism, and colonization. Zionists were colonizing, as in colonization, the land in the 1880s. Those agricultural colonies were often based on land purchases which were not subjugatory in nature, and not colonial since they weren't acting as forward settlers of Britain, and at that time displacement was also not yet part of the picture. Nor is subjugation a necessary condition of colonization. Colonization is the most general term and simply refers to the range of establishment of colonies. Colonialism, referring to a system or style of governing a polity, as we've also established, often involves exploitation, generally to enrich the mother country, which indeed the Ottomans were doing, as Norris illustrates in depth. The Ottomans and the British were both colonial empires that extracted labor and raw materials from their colonies, though of course the British are more generally considered colonial and engaged in extensive settler-colonial activities. The Ottomans didn't have settler-colonialism or colonization, but they did have a colonial and expansionist empire. The Arab fellahin were also exploited, and the Ottomans waged several wars, notably against the Mamluks and Byzantines. The connection with trade with intimate, such as for example the British commercial monopolies in India for tea and spices. Not all colonies were settled by the empire. That is usually in reference to Australia or North America where factors led to a good number of Dutch, British, French, Spanish, Portuguese, etc., seeking imperial conquest and also setting up "New Spains" or "New Yorks." The Ottomans were also a colonial empire. It didn't have colonization, but it had colonialism, it has metropolitan imperial rule and expansionism. There were no "New Istanbuls," but Istanbul itself was Constantinople, and the Mamluks and Byzantines also controlled Palestine before the 600s and 1500s. Palestine was a colonial province of these large imperial concerns even though it wasn't the subject of settler-colonialism at that time. There was also a continuous Jewish population from the Middle Ages and repeated attempts of groups of Jews to settle there. This type of colonization did not have a mother country and did not involve enriching the mother country through trade and exploitation of raw materials. Because the Ottomans and the British were engaged in colonialism, that's why the granting of the land to the Jews and Arabs, because both received land in the 1947 partition plan, was an unwinding of colonialism, similar to the independence of other former British holdings such as in Africa, which was explicitly made comparison to. Subsequently, one can look at the West Bank as settler-colonialism, but in 1948, the West Bank was Jordan and Gaza was Egypt. Also, this New Historian view is not the dominant view in all the reliable sources, but a revisionist modern and indeed critical view. Andre🚐 01:24, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

A SparkNotes-type gaunt précis mingling random aspects of 3 concepts (colonialism, colonization, colony) regarding 2 empires over several centuries gets us nowhere (except if one takes up the gambit and starts several threads parsing the inadequacy of these epitomes, in which case we go everywhere on this talk page for the next decade). I asked you a simple question earlier and you ignored it bec ause it bears directly on the issue we are discussing here. I'll repost it.

'What concept do you think covers a proposal (Zionist) and then enactment to change a 95% Arab majority in a country into one with a Jewish demographic majority (who as the present government states '“have an exclusive and inalienable right to all areas of the Land of Israel”) primarily by promotion of mass immigration into that country by Jews all around the world? 17 October 2024)

Spoiler alert. If, unlike numerous sources already surveyed, you don't have a concept under which that process can be described, then you are claiming Zionism belongs to a class of its own, a singularity in history (in which the event(s) can be narrated but not conceptualized except on its own terms as 'Zionism').Nishidani (talk) 08:28, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

More time spent reading sources thoroughly, rather than clipping abstracts to ad-libs distractive answers to the topic's essential issues, would enable us to get somewhere here.

I agree "described"/"considered" is better than "praised"/"criticized" (absent a showing that RS are using the word "criticized"), and have reverted the edits. Also, @Andrevan, please don't use "ce" as the edit summary for edits like this, which change the meaning of the sentence. If you're going to change a neutral word ("considered") to a word that has a positive or negative meaning (eg "criticized"), it's better to just write in the edit summary that you changed "considered"->"criticized" than "ce," as I think copyedits, by definition, are edits like grammatical changes, fixing typos, changes that don't change meaning or connotation. Levivich (talk) 17:39, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

I mean, that's a bit of wikijargon, but I'll make my edit summary more clear in the future. In the extra-wiki world, copyedit also includes changing word choice for accuracy. Andre🚐 22:06, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Or inaccuracy, presumably. Selfstudier (talk) 08:24, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

C'mon. Bitspectator ⛩️ 13:02, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

"Because the Ottomans and the British were engaged in colonialism, that's why the granting of the land to the Jews and Arabs, because both received land in the 1947 partition plan, was an unwinding of colonialism" — Actually the 1947 plan in total proposed to take land away from Arabs and give it to Jews. Moreover, it's disappointing to see a resurrection of the broken old argument that a small number of Jews in Palestine served as stand-ins for the Jews of the world. If the British plan was to seize Palestine from the Ottoman Empire and hand it over to the inhabitants, an argument could be made that it was a decolonisation plan. However, that was not the British plan and it sure as hell was not the Zionist plan. Zero^talk 02:59, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

I didn't say the 1947 plan was fair or equitable, but it can still be post-colonial despite that. It dismantled the colonial instrument of power and replaced it with at least in part, an independent, self-governing, multiethnic, democratically legislated state. While it's true that the 1947 plan allocated more land area (56%) to the Jewish state even though the Arab state had a larger population, and that the Zionists accepted the plan while the Arabs did not, it is also true that the reason why the international community including the UN enacted the plan was because they intended the Jews of the world, or more specifically Jewish refugees from the Nazis in Europe, to move there, which they did, followed by many of the Jews of the Muslim world as well after the 1948 war. So in terms of handing it over to the inhabitants, they did, but the Zionists had already set up a system of self-governance, while the Arabs had not. The Arab population was disorganized politically, suffering economically, and socially divided. Many willingly sold their land as they were in dire straits. The 1948 war led to other events. The Arabs, who rejected the plan, were promised to be able to return. The Arabs also indicated they would reject any partition plan. They immediately rejected the internationally adopted plan by the UN and defied the resolution and resorted to force to defy it. Either way, the British Mandate ceased to exist and the British forces withdrew. Andre🚐 04:29, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

None of this supports a decolonisation thesis. Actually it reads like it comes from Myths and Facts. Zero^talk 05:32, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

I didn't say the 1947 plan was fair or equitable

And no one asked that of you. You were questioned over the statement

the granting of the land to the Jews and Arabs, because both received land in the 1947 partition plan,

All the language there is POV-packed and distortive. The idea that the Partition plan consisted of a land grant wherein a sovereign power cedes part of its territory to two ethnic constituencies within it is a non-starter. The Arabs certainly did not 'receive'* land : Jewish purchases from 1896 to 1948 amounted to 5.7-6% of Palestine, the rest remained available, by 1947, to the Arabs who lived and worked on it. The partition plan sanctioned 31% of the population taking possession of 56% of Palestine, and the ensuing war ended up with Zionists achieving 78% of the land, and declaring the massive Arab infrastructure 'enemy property', a legal gimmick which led to its expropriation. It is these fundamental facts, demographics, economics - the statistical realities, not the narrative spin, which your repeated suggestions continue to sweep under the carpet. And it is that factual reality which underlines what studies on colonialism in this area do. Nishidani (talk) 08:55, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

'receive' in that context only makes sense for one party if one remembers the term 'receiver of stolen goods'. One doesn't use that loaded negative term any more than one should 'euphemise' the hard historical realities, which in my view is what most of these proposals are doing. Nishidani (talk) 08:55, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Noting the beginning of this thread, "The characterization of Zionism as ...", instead of 'considered', 'described', or 'criticized', may one ask would it be ok to say 'characterized'?Chjoaygame (talk) 08:03, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

That would be an improvement. Andre🚐 19:13, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Political Zionists

"Zionists wanted to create a Jewish state in Palestine with as much land, as many Jews, and as few Palestinians as possible."

Should the article be specified that it was mainly political Zionists who believed this? Many Cultural Zionists, including the founder of that section of Zionism, Ahad Ha'am, was a strong critic of political Zionism. Ha'am believed the solution was to bring Jews to Palestine much more gradually, while turning it into a cultural center. At the same time, he said it'd be necessary for Zionism to inspire a revival of Jewish national life in the diaspora. Ha'am criticized political Zionism as unoriginal and merely a thinly veiled transplantation of European imperialism. He supported "a Jewish state and not merely a state of Jews". Many followers of his ideology, such as Martin Buber and Judah Leon Magnes, were adamantly in favor of a binational state and lobbied against a partition of Palestine. Lightiggy (talk) 16:57, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Is there a source(s) saying that? It's likely true but no one cares what I think, need RS saying so. Selfstudier (talk) 17:02, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

I think yes if needed, Laquere and Gorny probably. Some territorialists also, they wanted "as few Arabs as possible" so suggested elsewhere and were worried about lions. Problem as i see it is "Zionist consensus", what authors say are the core aspects, how rational some of these views were, how to present to reader, and a best sources look for how much content to include? I think maybe all groups outside the pale were told they were not really Zionists, but maybe responded with: no, we are the real Zionists. fiveby(zero) 17:18, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Brit Shalom and Ihud are mentioned in the lead, but no real content and what there is under "Beliefs" is i think misleading. Laquere frames as internal criticism, mostly minority and if i recall on Palestinian question: "rare". fiveby(zero) 17:29, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

I agree, Lightiggy. Andre🚐 18:03, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

As in RS, when we say "Zionism" or "Zionists", we mean the mainstream. Brit Shalom and Ihud were outside this mainstream and as benny morris says brit shalom was "ultimately marginal" and had a very limited membership in terms of numbers. Gorny traces the development of political differences, highlighting that before the arab revolt there was more flexibility, although the ideological framework still constrained differences in tactics (after the arab revolt, the zionist factions were more unified politically and tactically). While Gorny traces the development, since that is the main interest of his book, other authors speak more broadly and decisively about Zionist intentions; for example

slater: "From the outset of the Zionist movement all the major leaders wanted as few Arabs as possible in a Jewish state; if all other means failed, they were to be “transferred” by one means or another, including, if necessary, by force."

Similarly, Morris describes Zionism as "elementally expansionist" and "Zionism was politically expansionist in the sense that from the start, its aim was to turn all of Palestine (and in the movement's pre-1921 maps, the East Bank of the Jordan and the area south of the Litani River as well) into a Jewish state." and separately describes the desire for as small an Arab population as possible (I dont seem him doing that in the same context, but he does also say "The Zionists were intent on politically, or even physically, dispossessing and supplanting the Arabs" in the same passage.) DMH223344 (talk) 19:11, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Zionism changed drastically over the last 70 years, so Zionism back in the days of Ahad Ha'am is definitely not the same Zionism of today. Today, there are different flows of Zionism that advocate for different things. while I think the majority want to keep the status quo, some do fall under different values. אקסינו (talk) 14:20, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

The sources that are cited for this were all written in the 21st century, so presumably they know how Zionism changed over the course of the 20th century. They would say if this aspect of Zionism had meaningfully changed. Levivich (talk) 14:39, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

From my reading, what the sources have to say about that, is that political Zionism quickly became mainstream Zionism, and the other forms of Zionism--including those that wanted some other arrangement with Palestinians--were a small minority. In other words, political Zionism is the only kind of Zionism that matters, it's the kind of Zionism that established and governed Israel. Levivich (talk) 14:42, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Emphasis on "colonization" in first sentence

Describing Zionism as "colonization" in the first sentence is editorializing and not neutral. The term carries a strong negative connotation and does not fully capture the motivations behind the Zionist movement, particularly its emphasis on the return to an ancestral homeland in response to anti-Semitism and persecution in Europe. While the article should acknowledge the perspectives of critics who view Zionism through a colonial lens, the current wording risks appearing overly biased. I would like to suggest revising the language to reflect the diversity of views on Zionism and ensure a more balanced presentation. Heptor (talk) 17:49, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

This and other matters are already under discussion above (with the benefit of sources, rather than opinion). Selfstudier (talk) 18:00, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Yes, thanks. For the benefit of anyone else who may consider to comment, it's in section Talk:Zionism#WP:SYNTH_in_lead. Heptor (talk) 19:24, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Page needed

Can someone explain to me when a page is needed on a citation? I thought it would only be required on controversial or surprising claims and my understanding from WP policy is that we dont typically need page numbers. I'm fine to add page numbers on the locations where the pn template was added, but I'm trying to understand what the reasoning is behind adding so many of these tags. DMH223344 (talk) 16:24, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Customary to give page numbers, afaik, I usually do. Selfstudier (talk) 16:26, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

It's best practice, DMH223344, and, precisely because there is so much bad or sloppy editing in the IP area, the principle should always be that of meticulousness. That is why I use the SFN template so often, because it is the neatest way to provide also the pagination so every addition can be verified. Sometimes, that can't be done if say google books doesn't give you the page, but that is overcome by providing a link to that page or a page range close to it. Without the page no., one is left to go to a library and read the whole book cited to track down the specific passage in question. It is not only a courtesy to readers, but an affirmation by serious editors of their commitment to rigour. Nishidani (talk) 16:51, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

got it, that's fair, thanks everyone. It might take me a couple days to get around to adding them. DMH223344 (talk) 16:59, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

That was my project for the existing missing page #'s. Your other work seems more important. And BTW sfn will not work inside another <ref> such as multiref or other list, has to be {{harvnb}}. fiveby(zero) 18:43, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Have I been throwing around sfn inside ref? My mistake, I'll try to use harvnb in those cases DMH223344 (talk) 18:55, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Didn't notice if you did, just noticed the footnotes disappeared when i tried to use sfn. But don't worry about cleaning things up, just ping when done. fiveby(zero) 19:10, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Consider that others are trying to verify and follow the work. It's only common courtesy to provide page numbers. If it's taking several days to add them for you, it'll be even longer for people less familiar with the quoted portions to verify. Please just add page numbers or chapter locations for everything that isn't a short journal article. Andre🚐 18:52, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Chapter locations are too much of a page spread to be useful, esp. in the form pp23.47, (esp.)p.45. Nishidani (talk) 19:00, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

The difficulty is that I usually only have access to the epub versions which dont have page numbers. DMH223344 (talk) 19:03, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Mark "edition=epub" "type=epub" (Template:Cite_book)? Can look in a pdf or print later if someone has access. fiveby(zero) 19:14, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

That could work, or, just find the text, and search it in the Google Books or TWL version to find what page it's on. Andre🚐 21:50, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

The lead?

I feel like the lede of the article, before major edit warring on both sides due to the war, did its job of being fair, neutral, accurate and balanced. LivinAWestLife (talk) 00:41, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

I think you're right, the current lead emerged not only due to the war but due to edit warring of a contested phrasing that never reached clear consensus. This is why the article hasn't been stable for the last couple of months but those who pushed for the changed controversial edits now seem to label their changes as a consensus. ABHammad (talk) 08:14, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

These matters are already being discussed above, another section is not necessary. Selfstudier (talk) 08:21, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

I think you're 100% right. There are big problems in the lead. Parts of it rely on overtly biased sources and falsely represents their claims. That should be completely unacceptable but some people seem to want it to stand.

Andre, CoreTheApple, and I have been calling for a POV tag to be added to the article.

@Li 12345 and @ABHammad, what do you think about two ideas:

1) Should we add a POV bias tag until these issues are resolved?

2) Should do a re-write of the lead based on the best sources which are being defined as recent books, about Zionism, by subject matter experts, and published by academic presses.

-- Bob drobbs (talk) 18:21, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

I agree with the observations folks have made and have said similar things above. I'm not sure if the discussion has stalled out. There was a pretty robust discussion about Line 1 and I thought we were making good progress. I also posted a separate section about the perception of SYNTH and would appreciate others' thoughts since it was a 2-person convo. Andre🚐 19:28, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

Agree with both 1 and 2 ABHammad (talk) 11:36, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

Based on what ?

Specialized reliable sources are what determine NPOV, i find the current lead neutral and balanced as per the reliable sources. Stephan rostie (talk) 11:01, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

I can't help but agree with Stephan rostie. The lead is full of high-quality reliable sources backing up everything it says in pretty meticulous detail (maybe this wasn't like that when this discussion was opened 12 days ago?). Wikipedia is not censored, and that includes historical revisionism based on placation. TheTechnician27 (Talk page) 02:23, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

There is currently an ongoing process, which I support, to come up with a list of the best sources.

I want to see if we can come to agreement that after this process is done, we will do a re-write of the lead to make sure that the lead relies primarily on these sources.

This will include any big changes made to the article in the past few months, even if they currently are labeled as having "consensus".

Does everyone support this idea?

Edit -- Instead of a full rewrite, it might make more sense to just do a review and make sure that everything stated in the lead is supported by the best sources.

-- Bob drobbs (talk) 18:15, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

This was already in process before you..ah..returned. This is another unnecessary section. Do feel free to participate in any of the ongoing discussions. Selfstudier (talk) 18:17, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

In one other section we are discussing best sources. In another section were are discussing POV tag which I and others feel needs to be in place until some issues in the lead are resolved.

But I'm not sure that there is any actual agreement that after we come up with a list of best sources the lead will be rewritten based on the best sources including some sections being labeled as having existing "consensus".

Are you saying that we already have agreement that this rewrite will happen, and I just missed it?

-- Bob drobbs (talk) 18:26, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

I haven't a crystal ball, there are ongoing discussions and what will be will be. One should not attempt to prejudge the outcome. Also many, if not all, of the issues you have raised have already been discussed ad nauseum, check the archives. Selfstudier (talk) 18:29, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

For instance, there is an ongoing discussion about Line 1 of the lead (which might also impact on Line 2). If we can't make progress on that relatively simple matter, it seems difficult to imagine progress elsewhere. If you feel that objections are being ignored or that there isn't "really" a consensus about something, an RFC (or even multiple RFCs) are always possible. I find it interesting that through all of the interminable discussions that have taken place, objectors such as yourself persistently fail to take advantage of this possibility, instead resorting to repeating the complaints time after time as if that will give them greater substance (it doesn't). Selfstudier (talk) 18:59, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

I agree an RFC might be helpful if there's disagreement about whether the present lead is POV or needs a rewrite. Just note that an RFC will probably further stall progress rather than helping it, but it can be useful if we're at an impasse. Andre🚐 19:31, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

I think we absolutely need a POV tag.

When an article has been cited by not one but several news sources as antisemitic (See This article has been mentioned by multiple media organizations above) and there is fervent disagreement on it, it would be wrong to NOT tag a particularly controversial rendition as POV unless and until we can agree on a neutral POV.

To NOT put a POV tag on it suggests that there is strong wikipedia consensus on an extremely controversial (and many have said, offensive) point of view. Frankly, it makes wikipedia look bad. GreekParadise (talk) 17:33, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

It's of course not an antisemitic article. No one here is even making that charge. DMH223344 (talk) 18:49, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

You say it's "of course not an antisemitic article." But when multiple respected media sources say it is, we have to give them their point of view too. You can't write off a widely-held opinion with a wave of your hand and an "of course."

I don't believe this article as written is based on consensus. The talk page makes that perfectly clear. And I do believe it is antisemitic. But it doesn't matter what I think. I think it's best when there's sufficient consensus to keep a Wikipedia article from being widely criticized as biased and hateful.

Therefore, I think "Criticism of this Wikipedia Article" may be a relevant addition to the article, citing the many sources in the media arguing this is a biased article (and that it is antisemitic and outrageous and their reasons why), at least until a consensus can be arrived on this article or it is returned to a more neutral formulation such as existed prior to October 7, 2023.

That way we show both sides of the controversy, both (a) the views of a select group of wikipedia editors that have changed the article in the last year but failed to reach consensus and (b) those many critics on and off wikipedia that condemn this particular formulation as not only biased but also antisemitic and outrageous.GreekParadise (talk) 19:54, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

FWIW, just clarifying because GreekParadise seems to address me, in case there was some doubt about my message, yes, I do think the article has NPOV balance issues, particularly in the lead, and I've explained why in other sections above. However, I do not think you need to go so far as invoking the media organizations calling the article antisemitic to see what the POV issues are in the article, and it might be tough to defend that using Wikipedia's policies and processes, so better to stake out a position that's more moderate and defensible in my view. To wit, the article unduly focuses on critique of Zionism such as that of being settler-colonialism, and it characterizes all the differing subtypes of Zionism with a broad brush, which is WP:SYNTH in this case. To balance the article we should look at the summaries of Zionism in the best sources, which we've started doing in the other sections here. I think that analysis clearly substantiates the balance issue and points a way forward to a lead rewrite or refactor and other improvements. Andre🚐 19:24, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

I agree, Andre, that fixing the article is better than leaving it alone and putting in the criticisms. I only offer that suggestion as a temporary one until a consensus can be re-reached. That way, folks can read the many sharp criticisms of those who agree with us that the article in its current form is demonstrably biased.

For those interested in fixing the article, here's why I believe it is antisemitic as currently written.

The article implies that Zionism is entirely a new idea. While Modern Zionism dates back to the late 19th century, the 3500-year-old desire of the Jews to return to their ancestral land from before the Exodus in Egypt through the Babylonian Exile and since the Roman exile in 70 is, I believe, the longest lasting successful movement of an exiled people to return to their homeland in human history. That's why I put it in the lede that DHM removed in his second reversion (arguably. third, since he also removed Bob's POV tag)

The article fails to mention 3500 years of Jewish history and prayers and thought and writing from before the Bible was written and in millions of writings since then, from before the Hebrew Bible was written through the Torah, Prophets, Writings, the Mishna and the Gomorra (Talmud), and thousands of responsa, kabbala, and returns to the land through the present day. Every single day from 70 to the present, every religious Jew has prayed for the return to their homeland at least a dozen times a day. I'm aware of no exiled people and no religion on planet earth, with the one possible exception of the Islamic devotion to Mecca, that has mentioned its homeland and the land of its origin as often. So yes, I think excluding this unimpeachable narrative, backed by millions of unimpeachable sources, from the article is antisemitic.

The wikipedia article Zionism as it was written before Hamas invaded Israel on October 7, 2023, had a long detailed accurate and undisputed account in the Historical and religious background. I think we should at the very least return this prior consensus to the article: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Zionism&oldid=1177123269

The article as written today gives short shrift to the 3500-year Jewish connection to Israel. That's what makes it non-neutral and especially wrong in the context of an article on Zionism, a movement based on that Jewish legacy. That's why the formulations in this wikipedia article are mocked and criticized as obviously biased. See, e.g. https://www.jewishpress.com/news/media/social-media/war-over-wikipedias-definition-of-zionism-pits-provoked-users-against-biased-editors/2024/09/17/ which cites Brittanica for a clear neutral lede.

“Zionism, a Jewish nationalist movement with the goal of the creation and support of a Jewish national state in Palestine, the ancient homeland of the Jews (Hebrew: Eretz Yisrael, “the Land of Israel”). Though Zionism originated in eastern and central Europe in the latter part of the 19th century, it is in many ways a continuation of the ancient attachment of the Jews and the Jewish religion to the historical region of Palestine. According to Judaism, Zion, one of the hills of ancient Jerusalem, is the place where God dwells.”

Did some Jews/Israelites think they would never return to Judaea (which gave "Jews" its name)? Certainly true. But they repeatedly prayed for it. For thousands of years, the Jewish connection to the Land of Israel and desire to return to it never went away, even if some thought it required Messianic direction to happen. This has been part of the Jewish religion and Jewish people for 3500 years. There are thousands of sources for this, including the standard Jewish prayer book, the Jewish prayer over the meals, all the Jewish holy books, etc. This necessary context should be in the article. Brittanica is right. Any text that excludes this undeniable truth is hopelessly antisemitic.GreekParadise (talk) 20:37, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

GreekParadise, I'm sympathetic to your points and I think that the article could do a better job explaining both the religious as well as cultural ties between Judaism and Israel, which are definitely discussed extensively in the best sources such as Edelheit and Engel. I just think you'll have an easier time making that case using NPOV and the language of Wikipedia rather than calling it antisemitic which could be unintentionally interpreted as a personal attack of some sort. I would say the article has critical-of-Zionism lean. Andre🚐 20:44, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

By the way, I agree with that first point. Bitspectator ⛩️ 20:49, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

I know - you said as much earlier. I thought we were doing so great with that superdeluxe version earlier. Andre🚐 20:50, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

No POV tag needed here. The material in the article is obviously supported by reliable sources. Please read WP:NPOV TarnishedPath^talk 13:08, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

I don't think so. We don't just don't tag an article because we don't agree with what it says. If there are specific concerns, then they need to be raised and justified using our policies. M.Bitton (talk) 13:38, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

LivinAWestLife Would you be able to link to the last stable, widely accepted version? BobFromBrockley (talk) 12:51, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

The last edits on October 6 2023, I suppose LivinAWestLife (talk) 20:47, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

I would support either returning the article to its state as it was on October 6, 2023

and/or putting a POV tag on it along with a link to the many news articles denouncing this wikipedia article in its current state as "antisemitic", "outrageous", etc. GreekParadise (talk) 18:35, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

It also appears that DMH223344 has violated the 1-rr rule by making two revisions today yesterday an hour apart from one another.

Perhaps the last rendition should be undone on that basis alone. It would also return the POV tag.GreekParadise (talk) 18:42, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

@DMH223344, it does look like you made two reversions yesterday. Can you please explain? Valereee (talk) 19:03, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

Sure, the first one was actually agreed upon by the person who's edit i reverted: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DMH223344#%E2%80%9Cwhy_delete_this_instead_of_put_it_in_quotes?%E2%80%9D

(their edit was based on copyright grounds, I just kept the footnote and wrapped it in quotes with an appropriate citation).

I did indeed revert a second edit within 24hr to remove the pov tag. The justification for the tag was apparently that only an anti zionist source supported the claim about "max land, min palestinians", but as I showed, at least 2 non antizionist sources also say the same thing explicitly. That edit also added a lot of content to the lead that's inconsistent with most RS on zionism and not present anywhere in the body (we actually reached a consensus to remove similar content from the body a couple weeks ago). DMH223344 (talk) 19:09, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

@Stephan rostie, you confirm that the revert was with your agreement? Valereee (talk) 19:18, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

To be clear, i did not ask for their agreement. But they did post on my talk page with what I interpreted as their agreement. DMH223344 (talk) 19:23, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

I'm sorry, are allotted reverts transferrable now? (Hint, no, they're not an allotment.) I'll give mine to Bob. 1RR on CTOPs is a bright-line rule. Andre🚐 19:56, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

Yes, but a bright-line doesn't mean a block is required. For me the intention of the other editor is worth at least trying to understand when deciding whether to warn ("Hey, even if the other edit says yes, you can't revert them; ask them to revert themselves") or to block ("That was not even what they were telling you!"), and also whether to revert that most recent edit when the article is protected. The first is moot now, but the article is still fully protected so the second isn't. Stephan hasn't edited since being pinged. Valereee (talk) 13:27, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

If outrage were sufficient to have content removed from Wikipedia, there would be no Israel-Palestine articles. Bestsources > opinions. Bitspectator ⛩️ 20:43, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

Reverting the work of multiple editors (who have improved the article) is a terrible idea. M.Bitton (talk) 13:48, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

I am curious why so many erroneous statements are in the article. Govvy (talk) 16:41, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

WP:NOTAFORUM? Not a reply to anyone, source free statement, no specification of anything "erroneous". Selfstudier (talk) 16:48, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

Zionists wanted to create a Jewish state in Palestine with as much land, as many Jews, and as few Palestinian Arabs as possible. Erroneous, in Palestine, Palestine didn't exist in the format of the said sentence. as few Palestinian Arabs as possible. Erroneous, as Arabs, were Bedu, from Arabia, Jordan and Iraq. The Turks were pushed out of the Levant region. This was the Turkish Ottoman empire. I truly despise this article. It's as if no historians were involved in writing this article. Govvy (talk) 17:19, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

When the term Palestine is first used, what Wiki article does it link to? Bitspectator ⛩️ 17:27, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

You're welcome to disagree with reliable sources, but don't expect anyone on Wikipedia to care. Levivich (talk) 18:02, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

Palestine (region), which is the first link, is in fact showing modern borders. The article fails to promote the ancient border changes. The problem with all these articles, they relegate the conquests of the different kingdoms. Borders are constantly changing, this article relegates the conquest. Zionism is a type of conquest. It's mentioned six times in the article, but doesn't mention it in the lead. It's a movement and a conquest, the land is already has settlement, constant settlement. It had Jews there for hundreds of years, the very first sentence is using the idea of colonisation, which is control over foreign territories. However the territory was never foreign to the Jewish people. So many of the citations used on the article are opinion pieces and not all are factual based. This in turn allows total corrupt writings to imbed into this article. It's no-where near neutral. Govvy (talk) 19:56, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

You said that "Palestine didn't exist in the format of the said sentence". But it's referring to a historical region. So in what way did that not "exist in the format of the said sentence"? Bitspectator ⛩️ 20:19, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

This convo is a waste of time. Selfstudier (talk) 21:27, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

Besides, didn't Zionism already happen? The sentence above wanted to create well it did happen, surely the sentence needs to be adjusted. :/ Govvy (talk) 21:48, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

WP:IDONTLIKEIT Bitspectator ⛩️ 21:52, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

I basically agree that there is a balance problem, and the lead focuses on specific things at the expense of other informative things. Zionism was a historically successful movement, and what is called Zionism today is conflated with general support of Israel's existence or its right to defend itself. While the lead does say that, not as clear as it could or in so many words, and it gets confused because you could interpret Zionism broadly or narrowly, but as written, it implies that Zionism is a modern settler movement or that Likud/Revisionism/Political Zionism are Zionism, but it's actually a broad, cultural, and religious, and multifaceted movement. Andre🚐 22:04, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

I agree. I'm repeating this so anyone who wants the article to change understands that I and other editors are not trying to stonewall. It's just that when we're presented with "I feel upset, so please change statements that are backed by dozens of RS" we have to say no. Bitspectator ⛩️ 22:25, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

No objection to changing that sentence to "Zionists succeeded in creating a Jewish state in Palestine with as much land, as many Jews, and as few Palestinian Arabs as possible." Levivich (talk) 22:21, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

Well, I think it'd be possible for there to have been fewer Arabs, right? There are about 2 million Arab citizens in Israel today. Don't you think that isn't the minimum possible number that could have been reached by Zionism et al? Andre🚐 22:51, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

How about: "Zionists succeeded in creating a Jewish state in Palestine with as much land, as many Jews, and as few Palestinian Arabs as they could." Levivich (talk) 23:18, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

I still think they could've had fewer Arabs. I'm not disputing that many of the earliest Zionists wanted to create as large of a Jewish majority as possible. But, over time, I'm not sure that's the best summary statement. Arab citizens of Israel could have, in theory, all been deported, right? If Turkey created a new state full of Turks and Armenians, they could've deported all the Armenians. But instead the Israeli Declaration of Independence tries to both be a Jewish state and a democratic state with equality of social and political rights, irrespective of religion, race, or sex, and a set of basic laws that protect the rights of the minorities in Israel be they Druze, Circassian, Bedouins, African migrants, etc. I'm not negating the many concerns about the plight of various groups or the civil rights concerns that may be legitimate which should also be mentioned. However, I just don't think that 20% of the population was the lowest possible number of Arabs they could have obtained. Couldn't they have just deported nearly all the Arabs and reduced the population to less than 1%? Obviously, that'd be wrong and bad, but we're already kind of criticizing Zionism as being wrong and bad in that way, right? They've had since 1948 or earlier to get the population down below 20% but I just don't agree that this is a goal of the state. Andre🚐 23:35, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, I see no need to change the phrasing in the article. They wanted to, but ultimately didn't. Bitspectator ⛩️ 23:44, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

Because it's taking a 1930s view and presenting it like it still applies. Andre🚐 23:47, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

"wanted" is past tense. Bitspectator ⛩️ 23:49, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

It is, but the rest of the lead doesn't explain what ended up happening. Andre🚐 23:50, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

The next sentence is "Following the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 ..." Levivich (talk) 23:54, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

The next line is about the establishment of the state of Israel. Bitspectator ⛩️ 23:54, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

Yes, but I'm saying it doesn't explain that in fact, they didn't get as few Arabs as possible, and in fact, they established a democratic pluralitic state, the only one in the region. In fact it implies the opposite, by establishing Zionism as an ethnocentric exclusionary ideology (which was just one branch of Zionism), and then saying it became the state ideology of Israel, it implies that Israel continued that program and not that there was actually a Ben Gurion to oppose the Jabotinsky tendencies. Andre🚐 23:57, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

Should there be a line about Israeli apartheid? Bitspectator ⛩️ 00:01, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Does the article on the Democratic-Republican Party talk about Jim Crow or Thomas Jefferson's views on slavery? The lead is hyperfocused on critical aspects of Zionism. There are separate articles for all of these subaspects including the detailed history. This one is supposed to be a balanced overview. Should we look again at how the best sources introduce this? Do any of them introduce Zionism with apartheid? Andre🚐 00:07, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Zionism as leading to an apartheid of Arabs is the counterbalance for Zionism as leading to a "democratic pluralitic state, the only one in the region". Is your suggestion that we add only the latter? Bitspectator ⛩️ 00:17, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Oh, I see what you mean. I think that's more controversial than it is balancing, but I'd support something like with continued civil rights issues for the Arab minority who according to many scholars are second class citizens and whose status has been fraught since the founding, or something like that. Which is really what you mean, because Arabs citizens in Israel, unlike the vicitims of the South African apartheid, can run for office and serve in the parliament, and own a business or land. The second-classness of the stateless people in Palestine is a separate problem, but not one that arose specifically because Zionists wanted that, but because of the division and the status of the West Bank and Gaza changes later, such as in 1967. Anyway, a better analogy than the Democratic-Republicans is Patriot (American Revolution). This is the article about Zionism, and not the history of Israel post-1948. While overlapping, they are different. This is an article about an ideology, one that predates Israel, and exists today, and has many forms. I'm not looking to present a pro-Israel position, I'm looking to refocus the article on what it is actually about, which is a movement that was successful, and a set of historiography that has a certain viewpoint, and a set of thinkers and political actors that have a shared ideological underpinning, but many Zionists, such as those who had a different perspective on the plight of the Arab population, so it's not fair to the movement to characterize it all based on Jabotinsky. Ben Gurion hated Jabotinsky, he called him "Vladimir Hitler," and wouldn't even allow his bones to be reburied in the country. Andre🚐 00:29, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

I'd support something like with continued civil rights issues for the Arab minority who according to many scholars are second class citizens and whose status has been fraught since the founding, or something like that Why? This is this intro for an article about Zionism. Bitspectator ⛩️ 00:38, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Well, WP:NPOV means Writing for the opponent, so throwing a bone is pretty common in leads I think. I was trying to summarize what I think of the Israeli apartheid discussion, what I think people really mean when they say that. Andre🚐 00:40, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Do you think it's necessary to include "something like with continued civil rights issues for the Arab minority who according to many scholars are second class citizens and whose status has been fraught since the founding" in an intro to Zionism? Bitspectator ⛩️ 00:50, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

I wouldn't say it's necessary. I'm trying to find a balance and a compromise to express all POVs, so something like that seems like a good substitution for the view that you were trying to espouse. But if you don't like it, I'm certainly not attached to that phrasing. "Something like" shouldn't be in the quote btw, that was me speaking. Andre🚐 00:53, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

I agree, I don't think it's necessary. So it follows that I don't think the opposite POV version is necessary. Bitspectator ⛩️ 01:20, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

I'd say that's an argument to removing the "Zionists wanted... " Andre🚐 01:24, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Why? We agreed that this article isn't about Israel post-1948. It's about Zionism. So: Zionists wanted... Bitspectator ⛩️ 01:27, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Zionists wanted a lot of things - a national homeland, a Hebrew culture, a sovereign nation, to drain a malarial swamp, to build new institutions, to achieve technological progress, better farms, to live in peace, to escape persecution. They also tried to negotiate with the Mufti. The problem with this particular want is not that it's false but the way it's phrased (most best sources say large Jewish majority not as few Arabs as possible), and the focus of weight at the expense of their other, fuller wants that are less controversial and less focused on the plight of the Arab refugees post 1948. Andre🚐 01:48, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

The line is not about "the plight of the Arab refugees post 1948". Bitspectator ⛩️ 01:51, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Zionism isn't a political party. American exceptionalism does, indeed, mention Jim Crow, Jeffrson, and slavery. (Not that Wikipedia is an RS anyway.) Levivich (talk) 00:20, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

they established a democratic pluralitic state No they didn't, wtf? They put the Arabs under military rule until 1967, when the occupations began. Democratic? Pluralistic? No, they created an ethnocracy. Levivich (talk) 00:18, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

I wasn't citing Wikipedia as an RS. You have to be specific as there are several different groups. I was referring to the Arab citizens of Israel who have had the right to vote in Israeli elections since the first Israeli elections in 1949 Andre🚐 00:29, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

In the same way that Black Americans had the right to vote since the American Civil War ended in 1865. Those Arab citizens of Israel were subject to military rule until 1966, look up literally any history book at all. Levivich (talk) 00:36, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Black Americans got the right to vote in 1870 which is when the 15th amendment was ratified. And wasn't America still a democratic pluralistic state all through Jim Crow? Contrast with a monarchy or a state without any form of democratic pluralism? Andre🚐 00:39, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

No, and I'm laughing out loud because like, lol no, Jim Crow America (for about 100 years after the civil war) was not a democratic or pluralistic state. It claimed to be but it was in fact an apartheid state, which had two classes of citizens based on race. Levivich (talk) 00:42, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

I think that's where we're getting into semantics. A flawed democracy is still considered, by most historians AFAIK, a democracy. A pluralistic state doesn't mean one without flaws. It's true that voting rights protections were still being passed until desegregation and later, but I mean, there's still racial gerrymandering and disenfranchisement today, so are we a democratic pluralistic country now? I think we need to take our cues from what historians say. AFAIK, historians don't say that the civil rights and voting rights that were lacking mean that America wasn't still a democratic republic or that it wasn't pluralistic if a flawed, racist, unfair pluralism until arguably, still today. Pluralism just means that after 1870 there was a right enshrined for the right to vote that couldn't be abridged based on color. Did that fix everything? Of course not. But show me the historians that say America wasn't democratic or pluralistic at all until 1965? Andre🚐 00:44, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Legal scholars will have to do: There is no definition of democracy that the United States, pre-1965, actually meets. Any working definition of democracy includes the full right to vote for all citizens. Kalb, Johanna; Kuo, Didi (2018). "Reassessing American Democracy: The Enduring Challenge of Racial Exclusion". Michigan Law Review Online. 117 (1): 56. doi:10.36644/mlr.online.117.reassessing. Levivich (talk) 02:27, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

That source doesn't pass the smell test. I wouldn't really call that law review article an authoritative source by a historian. Far from it. Contrast with Democracy as a way of life in America: A history, which starts in like 1786 and covers 3 distinct waves of democracy in American history. Pluralism is generally associated with James Madison and the Federalist Papers. I realize this gets pretty far off track a discussion of Zionism, but aren't you the guy who advocates for well-cited scholarly books that are specifically about the topic? Andre🚐 02:36, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Allow me to introduce you to Johanna Kalb, dean of a law school and an expert in the law of democracy, and Didi Kuo, of Stanford's Center on Democracy. I think they're qualified to say what a democracy is. Levivich (talk) 06:22, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

They're lawyers. Kalb is a constitutional lawyer. That's the same specialty as Dershowitz. And surely you don't think that law review article is somehow representing the consensus view of historians. I really do not think any historians say that American democracy began in 1965. Andre🚐 06:48, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

@LevivichAt least one of the sources referenced details ways that Zionist leaders had a high level policy to not get rid of as many Palestinians as possible. Why is this info excluded when summarizing the author's views?

Manna pg 5. "the existence of a high-level policy of ethnic cleansing at times and refutes that policy at other times. Those cases which are not consistent ... These and other examples demonstrate that cases of “non-expulsion” were not spontaneous but rather the result of a high-level policy"

To cherry pick one claim and ignore all of the info which refutes that claim from the same source seems to be a big problem.

We do agree that by 1948 mainstream Zionists leaders wanted a clear demographic majority, but that's about it. And if we chose to look at the best sources I think this is what we would end up with. Bob drobbs (talk) 04:09, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

I don't understand this message, or the quoted passage? Levivich (talk) 04:15, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Are you trying to employ American law on another country that isn't America? That seems way off base here. Govvy (talk) 08:16, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

I do not think that is what anyone is doing. The discussion led to an analogy. Andre🚐 20:28, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

before 1948, religious Zionists were legal pluralists: that is, that they imagined the state being run by several parallel legal regimes, of which only one would be halakha, traditional Jewish law as interpreted by the rabbis. They were willing to accept a democratic legislature and did not call for halakha to rule Israel. This legal pluralism drew on a very long history of Jewish law and was congruent with the way that Jews had organized their legal institutions for centuries. Thinkers who adopted this position included Reuven Margulies, Shlomo Gorontchik (Goren), Shimon Federbusch, and Haim Ozer Grodzinski.

Andre🚐 06:36, 17 October 2024 (UTC) Andre🚐 06:36, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

I would probably summarize that quote as

Religious Zionists did not demand that rabbinical authorities govern Israel, and they were willing to accept democratic rule in parallel to religious courts.

not as:

Zionism is pluralistic.

because:

1) The desire for a state to preference a specific religion is pretty antithetical to what most readers will probably understand the word "pluralistic" to mean.

2) It clearly isn't trying to describe ethnic or racial pluralism.

3) It's just talking about religious Zionists.

I think the point about religious Zionists not demanding religious law is pretty interesting, but I'm not sure what you mean by pluralism and in what way it would be leadworthy. Bitspectator ⛩️ 22:10, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

That is fair and well-reasoned. The quote is about Religious Zionists accepting a democratic legislature (political) and a pluralistic system (religious/cultural), but you are correct it does not pertain to race or ethnicity. So far in this dicussion, I've been using pluralism in the history sense, meaning, I think, primarily political pluralism, but you are right to broaden it, as Levivich did earlier, to include race since that's a very important lens of history too along with cultural/religious as in my quote. However, we do know that Zionists of all stripes also wanted a pluralistic racial and cultural state (cites to come later). Even Pappe agrees with this. For example, although this is talking about political pluralism, in The Idea of Israel p. 219 e Downfall – Dispensing with Political Plurality Although post-Zionism had no political representation as such – possibly apart from the Communist Party and the two Palestinian national parties whose political agendas were similar – it produced a certain pluralism in the political discourse of 1990s Israel. That pluralism vanished Pappe separately cites a source "Shmuel Almog, ‘Pluralism in the History of the Yishuv and Zionism’, in Moshe Zimmermann et al., ed., Studies in Historiography, Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar Centre, 1978, p. 202 (Hebrew)." Which I haven't gotten a hold of yet, as well as "Sammy Smooha, Israel, Pluralism and Conflict, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1978, p. 31" Even if we disagree if Zionism or Israel are pluralistic in any of the ways, do we at least agree that the issue of any pluralism is an important issue worth discussing and seeing what the sources say about? Andre🚐 22:25, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

I think it's up to you to justify pluralism as leadworthy (that's what you're suggesting, right?). I think it's worth mentioning that what's leadworthy for an article on Israel won't necessarily be for an article on Zionism, and visa versa. Bitspectator ⛩️ 22:59, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

What's the relevance of this quote? DMH223344 (talk) 23:52, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

You are overcommenting, and saying far too many disparate things that are unfocused, arbitrary, and only lead to rebuttals (pluralistic democracy thread above) which you sidestep byshifting the goalposts, ergo more argufying. As per the above comment. We began with the assertion that Israel was born as a democratic and pluralist country, and the successive anomalies in this terminology against the facts of history were duly pointed out. Now you reply by citing pluralism in the rabbinate, which of course just compels one to remind you that the term is inappropriate, because the law discriminates against rabbinical pluralism:-

Israel must no longer remain the sole democracy in the world that sanctions legal discrimination against Reform, Conservative, and Reconstructionist Jews (and increasingly Modern Orthodox Jews as well). In denying them the right to engage in State-recognized life cycle ceremonies, in accordance with their conscience, performed by their rabbis, on the same basis as most Orthodox Jews; in denying their Jewish institutions the same support that most Orthodox institutions receive, their fundamental rights are violated, and Israel’s democratic character is diminished. Rick Jacobs, "The Imperative of a Pluralistic, Jewish, and Democratic State of Israel Jewish People Policy Institute 3 May 2024

You have made 78 comments on this talk page, often multiple responses to one interlocutor apiece, and I doubt whether anyone can keep up with the attritional barrage of misdirections that arise when you walk around a focused reply.Nishidani (talk) 08:32, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

I have not made 78 comments, there are 78 occurrences on my name on the page, including the times that others used my name. The number of comments judging by a ctrl+F of my signature was actually 63 when you wrote that (not including the duplicate signatures in the previous comment), which is comparable to other participants that have ~50 comments, and is a factor of the archiving of other sections that I didn't participate in while some of those I did remain on the page. See WP:BLUDGEON for the rules of thumb that do not characterize my behavior or activity level at this time. Many of my comments are just quotes from sources which are intended to be constructive and productive, such as in the best sources list section for the lead. If you have a problem with my behavior, this isn't the forum to comment on that, and could be considered uncivil to do so, so please refrain from doing so in the future in this way. It's not good faith to say I'm engaging in misdirection because I am not doing that, I am engaging on the basis of the discussion, which you happen to disagree with and have a strong view about, but that doesn't mean that I am doing something deceptive or dishonest because I have not done so.

As to the substance of your message, it still refers to Israel as a democracy. The issue at hand was whether Zionism should discuss the imperative to be a democratic and pluralistic state. At the very least, surely those who disagree would admit that many sources do describe Israel as a democratic and pluralistic state and the Zionists' goal to create that as a disputed topic among scholars, even if some do not feel it meets that definition, if enough others do that is worthy of inclusion by NPOV. Andre🚐 20:26, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

References

Wikipedia necessities

Apparently it’s necessary that I, or someone else, attain consensus on this before editing the existing article:

The Lede should at least mention the existence of both World War II and the Holocaust.

I’ll leave it to others to consider what that says about Wikipedia’s community.

I have sourced paragraphs ready to go about that period between 1881-1939. Crucial period of this history!

No objections to that history between 1881-1939 being included in the lede? KronosAlight (talk) 23:13, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

Kronos, it takes a lot of work, patience and collaboration to make progress in this topic area. Notice that we have engaged your contributions with specific feedback. It's up to you to incorporate that feedback and share a substantive suggestion.

You seem mostly concerned with mention of WWII and the Holocaust--I agree these should be included in the lead. It shouldnt be too hard to look at what the body contains about WWII and the Holocaust and summarize that in the lead (as per policy). You are also welcome to make contributions to the body itself as well. DMH223344 (talk) 23:22, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

Recent additions are problematic and I have reverted them, specifically:

"as intensifying violence and persecution in Russia and Europe led to an influx of Jewish refugees making the passage to Palestine" implying that Jews wishing to go to Palestine could not because of the 1939 white paper. This is false because as the white paper article says "..at the end of the five years in 1944, only 51,000 of the 75,000 immigration certificates provided for had been used". I also do not see what relevance the MV Struma has for Zionism? Selfstudier (talk) 14:29, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Details in Lead

I removed some details from the lead which I thought were too low level for the lead. (A first step would be to include this information in the body at least, but we all know wikiwarriors prefer to only edit/read the lead)

Here is the edit which reverts my deletion: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Zionism&curid=34484&diff=1252758875&oldid=1252756272

• the number of pogroms is way too detailed for the lead
• I dont see how details about passports are leadworthy
• The MV Struma attack? From this statement it's not even clear that this ship was targeted because of the presence of jewish individuals (let alone zionists). Definitely not lead worthy

I suggest we remove this content from the lead. DMH223344 (talk) 20:57, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

The MV Struma line is inexplicable, for sure not leadworthy. I'm neutral on the other two. Bitspectator ⛩️ 21:01, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

@KronosAlight: Changes challenged by reversion may not be reinstated without affirmative consensus on the talk page. This edit fails that so you should self revert.

The Struma thing, on top on not being lead worthy, is also not mentioned in the body. It should be removed solely for that reason. - Ïvana (talk) 21:42, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

You’re right, somebody should add the killing of 700+ Jewish refugees fleeing Europe for Palestine in a boat that was turned back and then sunk with a nearly 100% fatality rate.

I’m guessing that it won’t be anyone else here though, so I guess I’ll have to do that tomorrow. KronosAlight (talk) 22:12, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

Why is that leadworthy for an article about Zionism? Bitspectator ⛩️ 22:13, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

Because it’s one of the important moments of the actual historical movement of the Jewish people back to Israel from Europe/Asia, rather than just endless elite discourses about ideology. KronosAlight (talk) 22:20, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

Why? Why not also the SS Patria, which was sunk by the Haganah? Bitspectator ⛩️ 22:28, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

Because it was one of the key moments in which the British forcibly sent back Jewish refugees to die in the death camps of Europe, except that the Russians got there first.

If your claim is that the sinking of SS Patria is morally comparable then I simply don’t think you should be allowed to contribute to any of these articles, given that the entire point of the plan (which went horrifically awry, per the article itself, no opinion added by myself) was to prevent the British army from sending Jewish refugees back to the slaughterhouse of Europe. KronosAlight (talk) 22:35, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

"morally comparable"? Do you believe any of my comments have been about morality? Bitspectator ⛩️ 22:44, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

I respect many of the contributions you’ve made in this Talk page.

I don’t think you helped yourself by implying, as you did in your reply to me, that there was some moral equivalent to the Soviet sinking of the MV Struma and SS Patria. KronosAlight (talk) 22:55, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

This is a discussion about what is leadworthy. There is no mention of morality whatsoever. No implication. No subtext. None. Morality has nothing to do with Wikipedia or what is leadworthy. Nothing. Bitspectator ⛩️ 23:10, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

You think WW2 and the Holocaust are too low-level to include in the lede? KronosAlight (talk) 22:10, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

Non sequitur. Bitspectator ⛩️ 22:13, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

Well it’s not actually a non sequitur, given that the lede didn’t mention either the Second World War or the Holocaust until I added those elements to it.

You could have added those elements.

Did you? KronosAlight (talk) 22:22, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

There are three bullet points. This thread is about those bullet points, and whether they should be removed. Do you believe that those bullet points are "WW2 and the Holocaust"? Bitspectator ⛩️ 22:25, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

>“the number of pogroms is way too detailed for the lead”

If you prefer, we could round up the number of Jews slaughtered by the Russians in pogroms?

If you have a better way of describing the 200+ pogroms of 1881-82 in Russia and their impact on the migration of Russian Jews to Palestine in that period, please do contribute that.

>I dont see how details about passports are leadworthy

Feel free to move that into the body of the article instead. There’s plenty of very easy to find sources. Plenty of the existing ones cover it too, but if you want to double down then there’s plenty to find.

>The MV Struma attack? From this statement it's not even clear that this ship was targeted because of the presence of jewish individuals (let alone zionists). Definitely not lead worthy

Ah, well if it wasn’t targeted because of “Jewish individuals” (“let alone Zionists”) then… KronosAlight (talk) 22:29, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

Why are you asking me to do your work for you? These are your additions that you would like to include.

To be clear, the pogroms are clearly relevant to the development of Zionism (basically every RS will mention them), but the fleeing of Jews to Palestine as a result of some passport detail is certainly not relevant (there is nothing Zionist about it; Zionism was never about *individuals* moving to Palestine). Much more relevant is the impact the pogroms had on the development of Zionism and the forerunners of Zionism.

Ah, well if it wasn’t targeted because of “Jewish individuals” (“let alone Zionists”) then…

? DMH223344 (talk) 23:16, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

@DMH223344. There's an important article that might bear on this. Stefania Ragaù In search of Zion: reconsidering the political category of Zionist utopias Journal of Modern Jewish Studies, Volume 23, 2024 - Issue 3-4 22 May 2024pp. 690-711. It is interesting ebcause it exposes the teleological premise underwriting much Zionist analyses of 'yearning', which prioritzed the goal of Palestine. Originally, of course, things were far more complex than that. Nishidani (talk) 14:52, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the reference DMH223344 (talk) 15:10, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

NPOV tag dispute

There's an essay at Wikipedia:NPOV dispute that directly discusses disputes over NPOV tags. Realize this is an essay, not policy. It's useful in understanding how others are interpreting policy and deciding how to resolve the issue. Valereee (talk) 13:52, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

My reading is that there is consensus against the NPOV tag. More importantly as the addition of the tag has been challenged by reversion this is now covered by active arbitration remedies, namely that "[c]hanges challenged by reversion may not be reinstated without affirmative consensus on the talk page". TarnishedPath^talk 13:59, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

I'm wondering if this might actually need an RfC? This is a toggle-switch situation, not an area that can be compromised on, tweaked, differences ironed out. It's either tagged, or it isn't. Valereee (talk) 14:21, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

That depends on whether the tag can actually be justified using the policies. M.Bitton (talk) 14:23, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

Seems RFC is only way to make any progress, supporters/objects can then formally make the arguments for and against and we can restart conversations in a month. Selfstudier (talk) 14:36, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

Commonsense would be that one should not tag a whole article if one dislikes a word, phrase or a single sentence, esp. in the lead. Before being once mired down in endless talk and argufying, which so far has produced no result but has wasted enormous energies (for the simple reason that those who opposed the very well-attested term 'colonization' don't appear to accept anything but the disappearance of the term, but I may be wrong), editors who wish the term to mark the article should give a bulleted list of specific, emendable terms, phrases or whatever, whose entry into the article they consider, (in context, because NPOV is balanced in contexts) a violation of neutrality. That way, practical editors can deal with each point, rationally, by referring to arguments already covering the point in the archives, and fixing the issues. This is what is done at GA and we should adopt that criterion. Nishidani (talk) 16:33, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

@Nishidani I don't think that's commonsense at all.

If the page on Palestinians was somehow manipulated such that the lead said "Palestinians seek to mass murder Jews" would you argue that doesn't justify a NPOV tag until it's clarified?

Anything distorting the truth and presenting a blatantly biased perspective, especially in the lead, should merit a NPOV tag until it's resolved. Bob drobbs (talk) 18:22, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

I'm responding to a ping only because I saw that, to cite one of numerous examples, I saw our Levivich responding with enormous, meticulous analysis, by diff citations and bibliographical referrals just below minutes back. The huge waffling here, without any sense of precision, evidence-based analysis, is getting this page nowhere. Everytime I see such hard dedicated, dialogic and rational work here, I feel like apologizing to those, like Levivich, who do it despite the messy idleness of unfocused chat which embraces the page in a stifling hug, with the end result that airheaded editorialists on a second-rate rag like the JP pocket their salaries skewing these complexities to spin a voyeuristic narrative of bias, when what gets them in the craw is the witness of persevering intelligence to master a topic and get an article solidly grounded in evidence, evidence many here appear not to want to see because it is uncomfortable with a national fairy tale which had its day decades ago, thanks mainly to Israeli scholarship.Nishidani (talk) 18:42, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

That's just your opinion, in any case this constant repetition is bordering on WP:BLUDGEONING. Selfstudier (talk) 18:30, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

The reason why this is unusual is because of the additional consensus required restriction, a discretionary sanction in effect. Normally, a tag is added when a discussion begins and is removed when the discussion ends and there is a consensus. Removing the tag is against the norms and in some cases the rules. However, given the consensus required restriction, any change challenged by reversion cannot be reinstated, which would seem to include tags. Andre🚐 23:05, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

Makes sense though, if the idea is to insist on consensus, tags don't really help, at least not in this article, pretty sure we had several rounds of tagging previously. Selfstudier (talk) 09:59, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

The usual function of tags is to plaster them and then walk away, without any logical or evidential warrant for them. They apply not to the articles overall, but to one or two phrases or a contested line at the most. Nishidani (talk) 19:30, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

@Nishidani Do you think it's appropriate to use a source in the lead where the author says his hope is that the book will make Zionists uncomfortable? And that this as source isn't being used in an opinion but as supposedly presenting a factual non-biased definition of the goals of Zionists?

If a book in one place says that "Zionists want X" and in other places the same book says there are tons of counter examples which disprove this, do you think it's appropriate to cherry pick the first half and totally ignore the 2nd part?

We've repeatedly shared problems here, and it seems you're both standing in the way of solving the problems and also standing in the way of putting up a NPOV tag telling the world there are issues.

So... I'm hoping that you'll either work to solve these issues, or stop standing in the way preventing the NPOV tag from going up. Bob drobbs (talk) 18:31, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

@TarnishedPath I don't know how on earth that you can claim that there is consensus against the NPOV tag. Yes, _some_ authors including yourself are opposed to it. Quite a few other authors have spelled in detail why they support the NPOV tag.

As just one example, blatantly biased sources in the lead are being used to define Zionism and beyond that they're being poorly referenced using misleading cherry picked quotes.

The article about NPOV does not speak about requiring consensus for their being a NPOV tag. It just says that a single author must see POV issues:

This means that in the opinion of the person who added this link, the article in question does not conform to Wikipedia:Neutral point of view.

It also says that editors should work together to solve these issues. So I'm asking if you're willing to work with some of us on the other side to get rid of issues like using authors who hope their books make Zionists uncomfortable as supposedly credible non-biased sources to define it. Bob drobbs (talk) 17:58, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

"Quite a few other editors" does not equal consensus. Take it to WP:NPOV/N. TarnishedPath^talk 00:57, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Or better yet, start an RFC, as per active arbitration remeidies "[c]hanges challenged by reversion may not be reinstated without affirmative consensus on the talk page". TarnishedPath^talk 01:00, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

You said "My reading is that there is consensus against the NPOV tag.". So, let me turn this back on you. If "quite a few other editors" does not equal consensus, on what basis are you claiming that you feel there is consensus against this tag?

And as you ignored the last part of my message, can I take your response as an indication that you're unwilling to work with me and other to address the POV issues we're pointing out in this article?

As just one example, a source stated in the preface of his book that his hope was to make Zionists uncomfortable:

This author hopes that the discomfort that this book causes to Zionist and pro-Zionist readers will drive them..

How on earth can we be using his views on Zionists if they were factual and non-biased? Do you think this is okay? Bob drobbs (talk) 02:33, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Please don't keep WP:REHASH the same argument. No one is here to WP:SATISFY you. @Valereee asked at the start of this thread whether an RFC would be required and I think their question was an apt one. TarnishedPath^talk 03:23, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

How on earth can we be using his views on Zionists if they were factual and non-biased? I'll tell you how: because the book you are quoting, Adel Manna's Nakba and Survival (2022) was:

• written by a historian who taught at multiple universities, including in Israel [2]
• published by University of California Press (who, as a bonus for Wikipedia readers, offer free access to the whole book)
• reviewed in a 4-review roundtable in The American Historical Review [3] and also in Journal of Palestine Studies [4]
• cited by other historians like Alan Dowty (in an Oxford Handbook) [5], Alon Confino [6], and Amos Goldberg [7]
• celebrated (the university's word!) at Columbia University [8] and included in a book series at Brown University [9]

The WP:BIASEDSOURCES guideline says However, reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective. Sometimes non-neutral sources are the best possible sources for supporting information about the different viewpoints held on a subject. But even if we removed this source (which no one is stopping you from proposing on the talk page), which is only cited for one sentence in the whole article, there are nine other sources cited for that sentence, including Benny Morris, Ian Lustick, Avi Shlaim, and Hillel Cohen. They're not "his views," they're the views of multiple scholars on various sides of the political spectrum. Levivich (talk) 04:08, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

I don't have any objection using non-neutral sources if they're sourced as an opinion. The problem is using biased sources and presenting their opinions as fact. Shouldn't this justify a NPOV tag until it's resolved?

There's also the issue of cherry picking the claim "as few Palestinians as possible", but then ignoring the parts of the same sources when they spell out counter-examples.

"...attests to the existence of a high-level policy of ethnic cleansing at times and refutes that policy at other times ... These and other examples demonstrate that cases of “non-expulsion” ..."

Why are we ignored the fact that these same sources have the opinion that Zionists had high level polices to not expel as many Palestinians as possible? Doesn't this also justify a NPOV tag until it's resolved? Bob drobbs (talk) 18:05, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

A fuller quote of Manna 2022 p. 4, emphasis mine:

... That is what also happened in the 1948 war, when it became clear that the objective that enjoyed the unanimous support of Zionists of all inclinations was to establish a Jewish state with the smallest possible number of Palestinians. The important question at that stage, from their perspective, was what could be done through means that would not hurt their own interests. Plan Dalet was important during a certain phase in the war; however, the Zionists employed the same policies and instruments both before that plan and after it as well. The prohibition of return, the expulsion of thousands of those who had remained in the Galilee and elsewhere, and the destruction of villages and eviction of their population under military rule, particularly from 1948 to 1956, represented other links in the chain of the ethnic cleansing policy.

As we shall see later, the history of the Palestinians who remained in the Galilee both attests to the existence of a high-level policy of ethnic cleansing at times and refutes that policy at other times. Those cases which are not consistent with the general policy are due to causes connected to geography and the differential treatment of non-Muslims. The Druze were treated in a different way from the general Arab population. Christians were generally treated more leniently and with some sensitivity, out of fear of the reaction of Western states and churches. This unequal treatment of Palestinians in Haifa and the Galilee emerged during the months of war and several years after. These and other examples demonstrate that cases of “non-expulsion” were not spontaneous but rather the result of a high-level policy of Israeli leaders based on their political interests and also connected to the positions adopted by the leaders of those religious and political sects.

So basically the opposite of how you presented it. Manna is not saying that Zionists had high level polices to not expel as many Palestinians as possible, he is literally saying that they had such a policy, that by 1948 it became clear that this had unanimous support of Zionists, and the only exceptions were for non-Muslims (Christians and Druze). If other sources (like any of the 9 other sources cited for that sentence) made this point (and I don't know if they do or not), then I'd be in favor of changing "Palestinian Arabs" to "Palestinian Arab Muslims" for the sentence in the lead and the body. If other sources don't make this point, then I'd be in favor of adding to the body somewhere (but not the lead) that "According to Adel Manna, there was an exception for non-Muslims" or something like that. Levivich (talk) 19:05, 23 October 2024 (UTC)