Talk:Zrarieh raid

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@Shrike: Please stop making changes without consensus. -- Maudslay II (talk) 12:15, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

I don't see that your edits have consensus. Also you inserted factual wrong information the journalists were killed in another incident that have nothing to with the raid. Please remove it or it can be considered WP:TE --Shrike (talk) 12:19, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

How so? It was mentioned by Latimes, Upi, AP, that in this specific massacre two journalists from CBS were killed. I don't know about you, but I think it's related. -- Maudslay II (talk) 12:24, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

It was in other village and in other date/How it related ? The Zrarieh incident mentioned in those sources briefly as incident that happened early please reread the sources Shrike (talk) 12:27, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

• Maudslay, your edits lack consensus. LA Times and AP call this a raid. The two journalists killed are mentioned by sources - but the same sources say they were killed somewhere else.Free1Soul (talk) 13:11, 10 April 2021 (UTC) sock

If you want to propose a RM, you can do so but until the deletion discussion is finished with seems to lack point as does editing the article as if it is going to stay. Raid would appear to be as much a euphemism as massacre, fwiw.Selfstudier (talk) 13:46, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

Tag. Document please

'This article's factual accuracy is disputed. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page.'

Please document what facts are inaccurate. All I can see is documentation of a variety of data as given by sources. I'd appreciate bulletting so the 'concerns' if any, can be systematically addressed.Nishidani (talk) 14:03, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

I'll just park this other source here if that's OK "Israeli troops kill 30 Shias in attack on Lebanese village". Financial Times. March 12, 1985. Retrieved April 14, 2021. Selfstudier (talk) 15:18, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

I mightn't be able to access that with the paywall. Who wrote the piece, and does it have any elements of fact we lack so far?Nishidani (talk) 19:43, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

• The claim that this was a massacre of civilians is clearly disputed, stating that it was so in the voice of Wiki is clearly not NPOV. Most of the sources report that the Amal militia was there. FOARP (talk) 19:00, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

Amal was there. It was a Shiite town, subject to an Israeli military occupation, and Amal is a Shiite militia. The IDf then stated that the town was a He3zbollah centre (different from Amal); the official Lebanese Army was there. There was also a PLO group just outside the municipality So, the town was what you would expect in Lebanon at that time: Lebanese citizens, a variety of political groups with military wings, and, yeah, an Israeli army that invaded without provocation Lebanon, and according to Ariel Sharon, intended eventually to annex part of the south, and threw hell at the Lebanese for 3 years. Try and think that way in dealing with any brutal occupation in Europe WW2. When upwards of several people were killed in cars, or shot on the outskirts of the exit road, you have by our criteria a massacre (5 people+), which you may dismiss as collateral damage in an army campaign to root out 'terrorists', i.e., anyone who opposed Israel's occupation of Lebanon. So there is nothing anomalous in noting that the ratio civilians vs the other unidentified dead indicates a massacre. The damage itself attests to a 'raking' operation (thus the French press) to just smash the place up pour encourager les autres. Nishidani (talk) 19:43, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

Well the Financial Times is certainly no cliché mongering leftist rag, yet its correspondents leave no doubt that the proper way to read the incident is as a punitive action far exceeding the 20 odd raid that preceded it in the weeks before, and one designed to exact a 'death toll' in retaliation for Israeli casualties. We have the Israeli official version that this was unconnected with Metula, but no one, certainly not historians, takes this as any more than a formal denial of the obvious. The two cannot not be connected. The evidence of these reports is therefore that this was not your normal military defensive action. When 10 dead bodies are counted on the road out of the village, that is not warfare: it is shooting whoever moves out, ergo, a massacre. Nishidani (talk) 21:21, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

I just noted Maudslay has restored the Arabic sources and citing them for a putative 'fact': that Israel deployed 3,000 soldiers in the assault. This is utterly dumb and shows a total incomprehension of military logic - putting 6 trigger happy soldiers into a village for every 1 person there would lead to massive friendly fire. 3,000 was the number used, if I recall, for Israelis in and around Tyre and Sidon when they were occupied - vastly bigger military challenges. So, if that is an indication of the quality of the Arabic sources, then as FOARP suggested, they should be rejected as not RS.Nishidani (talk) 08:07, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

Recalculated. The Israelis said they deployed 40 armoured personnel carriers. The ones in use in South Lebanon were M113s, with a carrying capacity besides a three man crew, of 10-11 soldiers =400 soldiers reportedly used in the assault, not as the Arabic source suggests 3,000 (who did the counting for that report?).Nishidani (talk) 20:22, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

Another source http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01436598608419954 p1362 "Israeli assaults on villages in the spring of 1985 were conducted with particular ferocity. On 11 March 1985, the day after a suicide bomber had killed twelve Israeli soldiers close to the Israeli border, Israeli tanks and armoured personnel carriers ploughed into the village of Zarariyyah, injuring or killing tens of people. The photograph on the front of al-Safir newspaper of 12 March shows the carcases of three smashed cars with the bodies of their drivers inside, run over by Israeli tanks." Plus other stuff. Selfstudier (talk) 14:53, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

From the language, it seems the same article by Mowles from the mid eighties which we already use.Nishidani (talk) 15:07, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

Sorry about that, struck. Selfstudier (talk) 16:54, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

Newsweek

There is a detailed account with interviews in Newsweek for March 1985, p.96, which I can only view snippet wise. Can anyone access that via the archive? Nishidani (talk) 10:51, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

Raid or massacre?

Addressing FOARP's concerns.

Both Amal and in village memory, the event is recorded as a 'massacre' or 'slaughter'.

FOARP suggested 'raid' is NPOV. My problem with that is that Israeli military actions in that conflict and several others are not technical 'raids', but fully-fledged attacks, with overwhelming and indiscriminate firepower (to ensure their own soldiers' great immunity from being shot at and terrorize the local population into surrender) that has almost invariably caused numerous civilian casualties.

On Wikipedia, there is not much coherence or logic in these classifications. In articles like Hadassah medical convoy massacre and Kfar Etzion massacre we call military operations in which both parties were engaged 'massacres' because in those two exemplary cases, Jews had a heavy defeat inflicted on them, and Jewish memory recalls the lethal clashes by that descriptor though hey were, in strict military terms, battles between two opposing sides in a conflict where the civilian/military cadres distinction was often blurred, as indeed it was in occupied Lebanon. The situation in South Lebanon was of an occupying army attempting to 'pacify' resistance to its long-term plans for annexing a sector of the south (Ariel Sharon certainly declared as much). All resistance was branded as 'terrorist', and, to 'encourage' non-resistance, numerous sweeping operations were undertaken to intimidate or terrorize local villages in order to ram home the message that even the slightest casualty among occupying troops would lead to massive reprisals. This is not my construction - the historical documentation for it is rock-solid. That is why, in each of these, mostly on wiki unreported 'incidents', houses are blown up on the smallest pretexts, cars smashed (that was done in SLebanon because cars were occasionally used in bombings as at Metula - to the degree that Israel broadcast a threat making driving alone in cars a sign of suspicious behavior, on the belief that suicide-bombers would find it difficult to find company in driving towards an Israeli target), houses ransacked, radios, televisions, record players and anything else of value was stolen (as often happens in the West Bank even today) and key administrative infrastructure, municipal buildings, police stations demolished. Chomsky is not being extreme in calling this a form of state terror.

Given that context, events where notable number of civilians are killed as part of the implementation of that policy lend themselves to being called 'massacres' perhaps with even more warrant that the two cases re Hadassah and Kfar Etzion cited above. After several incidents in which upwards of 12 to 24 to 40 people were killed in that period in Israeli sweeps, criticism (reflected in Friedman's piece) arose that the high numbers reported time and again couldn't be just 'terrorists', since the evidence of reporters visiting the sites was that operations were broadscale wreckage using massive indiscriminate firepower. 'Raid' can fit, but the pattern is nonetheless typical of manoeuvers designed to inculcate terror, and in that sense 'massacre' is an equally approximate term.Nishidani (talk) 13:42, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

• Raid, besides most of the slain being Amal members, reliable sources.in English call it a raid: AP, The Washington Post.Free1Soul (talk) 15:20, 17 April 2021 (UTC) sock

It was a raid that killed several people, crushing them in tanks or firing on their cars as they fled, and many were civilians. That is a raid that led to a massacre.Nishidani (talk) 15:51, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

• 100% massacre, it was part of a larger series of ruthless killings of Lebanese civillians. -- Maudslay II (talk) 16:02, 17 April 2021 (UTC)
• Raid - Per WP:COMMONNAME at the very least. (GScholar hits for ("Zrariya" OR "Zrarieh" OR "Zrariyeh" OR "Zrariyah") AND "massacre" = 15, and for ("Zrariya" OR "Zrarieh" OR "Zrariyeh" OR "Zrariyah") AND "raid" = 18), with most of the "massacre" hits being references where the word "massacre" is used for other incidents (e.g., Munich, Sabra and Shatila). Note that it is totally wrong to, as some editors above have done, try to form your own view of whether this was or was not a 'massacre' through original research, here on Wiki we refer to what reliable sources say, and particularly when deciding the name of an article, what they call the incident in English. FOARP (talk) 16:12, 17 April 2021 (UTC)
• Comment However it ends up, it is worth noting somewhere that Israel per https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1985-02-27-mn-8717-story.html barred foreign journalists from the area and readers may judge for themselves why that was.Selfstudier (talk) 17:04, 17 April 2021 (UTC)
• Comment https://www.un.org/unispal/document/auto-insert-180386/ is worth a read. Of course, one might expect them to be referred as massacres in this context.Selfstudier (talk) 17:18, 17 April 2021 (UTC)
• Raid The sources are quite clear on this no independent source call it massacre .I have no with "attack" too--Shrike (talk) 18:04, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

The sources are quite clear that reporters thought it extremely odd that a 'raid' as per the IDF spokesmen's comments, resulted in tanks driving over cars while people were in them, and elderly men, with lemons, machine-gunned down on roads. That is not behavior typical of your classic military 'raid'.Nishidani (talk) 18:13, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

Completely irrelevant to the present discussion even taking what you say as true (it is the version put forward in some, not all sources). Wikipedia is not here to right great wrongs. What matters, the only thing that matters for the present discussion, is what the event is called in reliable, independent sources in English. Reliable sources appear to overwhelmingly refer to this as a raid - almost none of them refer to the action in the village of Zrariya (or whatever it is transliterated as) on 12 March 1985 as a "massacre". One of the few sources presently cited in the article that does use the phrase "Zrariyah Massacre" is apparently talking about a car bombing that occurred in Snubarah Square in Bi'r al-'Abd on 7 March 1985, which they apparently blame on the Israelis. FOARP (talk) 18:23, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

That's because you didn't read it properly, it's not hard, look at the first entry to understand the layout.Selfstudier (talk) 09:14, 18 April 2021 (UTC)

Reliable sources refers here to newspaper accounts on the day, or day after, which customarily follow Israel IDF descriptions in their press handouts, that it was an 'operation' to search for 'terrorists', and thus a 'raid'. When however journalists actually got there and described the effects of the 'raid' they listed numerous incidents that did not have the appearance of a 'normal' military operation, in that, as per Iron Fist policy, the purpose seems to have been to 'teach villagers' a lesson by mowing down anyone who tried to flee, and smashing their infrastructure, robbing their goods, steamrolling their cars etc. The statistics suggest several people - identified as elderly people, were definitely killed on sight, as journalists confirm. That fits our criteria for deciding when the word 'massacre' occurs: five or more civilians. I note that no one replies to my point that anytime in a military engagement Israeli civilians die, we call it customarily a 'massacre'. Israel is one thing, Arabs another, on Wikipedia.Nishidani (talk) 08:42, 18 April 2021 (UTC)

Again, Wikipedia is not here to right great wrongs. If reliable sources called it a raid, then this is what it is called here. Saying "afterward journalists got there and raised doubts about the IDF's account" does not justify the present title if those journalists mostly still did not use the word "massacre". Talking about "our criteria" simply exposes the WP:OR nature of the thinking going on here - you have decided this based on your criteria, not what reliable sources are calling it. FOARP (talk) 12:04, 18 April 2021 (UTC)

Waving flags righting Great wrong is neither here nor there. One calls a spade a spade. I'll link the word raid in the text: it means a military sortie whose purpose is to demoralize an enemy by pillage, destruction and hostage-taking. That's its technical 'neutral' sense, and if the term is adopted, we should make that clear, because apart from the murdering, that was what the incident involved.Nishidani (talk) 12:59, 18 April 2021 (UTC)

This is Wikipedia, not "what Nishidani thinks-pedia", nor even "what FOARP thinks-pedia". For this reason we use reliable sources as our guide, not simply make things up as we go along. FOARP (talk) 17:24, 18 April 2021 (UTC)

This is Wikipedia where in military clashes involving Jewish civilian deaths, I gave two examples - we speak of 'massacres', even though that term is in sectarian sources predominantly. On the other hand, when military clashes involve Arab civilian deaths, one finds that the like use of 'massacre' is denied. Of course the reflex response is to wave WP:Other stuff exists when this egregious systemic bias issue is raised. No, editors should be coherent. If this troubles you, try and see where you get if you contest the use of massacre on those other pages where, if your principle were correct, the term would be deleted for 'clash'/'battle'. All I insist on on Wikipedia is 'ethnic-neutral' coherence. Nishidani (talk) 13:56, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

The one that I find really irritating is 1990 Temple Mount riots where the side with all the dead civilians are the rioters ¿! (altho Al Aqsa Massacre is an aka).Selfstudier (talk) 14:37, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

WP:WAX. And I suspect the the reason why those articles are where they are is WP:COMMONNAME. FOARP (talk) 13:11, 20 April 2021 (UTC)

Nope WP:WANE. Suspicions are pointless. The point is that in both cases, 'massacre' is the common name in Jewish/Israeli books, just as 'massacre' is how Arab Lebanese memory recalls Zrarieh. It is another case of ignoring the structural problem of NPOV, while chanting its virtues on just one ethnic instance, i.e. to deny it to Arabs, and close an eye to Israeli usage. Nishidani (talk) 20:42, 20 April 2021 (UTC)

• Raid, more neutral and accurate.--SoaringLL (talk) 02:29, 18 April 2021 (UTC) sock
• Comment I think someone of those supporting raid should set an RM for that, that way we will decide this in 7 days.Selfstudier (talk) 13:45, 18 April 2021 (UTC)

No point starting an RM unless the AFD results in "keep". FOARP (talk) 17:24, 18 April 2021 (UTC)

Difficult to see how it could not be keep at this point but you're right, shouldn't jump the gun.Selfstudier (talk) 13:33, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

• Comment: The thing some is missing is that this even is notable because of the civilan victims, and not because of the raid in itself. The raid, from a military POV, is insignificant and wouldn't be mentioned in of these sources, but was followed (i.e. killed civilians) is the important thing about it. -- Maudslay II (talk) 17:54, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
• Raid. I don't see that "massacre" is the COMMONNAME. WP:ONUS applies to the editors who want to argue for a more "POV-heavy" name, such as massacre. JBchrch (talk) 16:36, 21 April 2021 (UTC)

Raid: With all due respects to both sides (which both have put up very good points), I would say that per WP:COMMONNAME and WP:NPOV it must be classified as a raid. While it's true that a large amount of civilians were killed, a big portion of them were members of the Amal movement; making the proposed change more subservient to people's bias than to Wikipedia's policy of neutrality. Dunutubble (talk) 22:21, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

Journal for Palestine studies

Here is Fadlallah talking in an interview with the Journal of Palestine Studies about the massacre, but I don't know how to find the rest of it. -- Maudslay II (talk) 17:38, 18 April 2021 (UTC)

Apart from the bit you can see the only other mention was a bit later when Fadlallah refers to "These barbaric massacres.." So there is not much there in the way of useful information, the article is mainly about resistance strategy.Selfstudier (talk) 13:44, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

I thought if we can find that he said something important we can add in Aftermath/Reactions. -- Maudslay II (talk) 14:18, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

AJME news

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Zrarieh_massacre&curid=67318152&diff=1018719681&oldid=1018718077 is not acceptable. AJME news was closely linked to the PLO, and was funded by the Saudi state (via Aramco). It has a bad reputation. Besidea, using a soyrce cited as fron 1980 for a 1985 event is peculiar.Free1Soul (talk) 15:02, 19 April 2021 (UTC) sock

It's also mentioned in Al-Akhbar article. -- Maudslay II (talk) 16:04, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

I agree this source is unreliable It doesn't have any history of fact checking and accuracy the WP:ONUS is not met --Shrike (talk) 17:29, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

The edit was shockingly poor because, as noted, regardless of RS considerations, it is absurdly anachronistic to source events in 1985 to a source published in 1980. Please pull your socks up.Nishidani (talk) 21:27, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

Requested move 3 May 2021

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: There is consensus to use "raid" based on common name and POV concerns. As noted in WP:POVTITLE, a loaded term like "massacre" may only be used in an article title if the majority of sources are using it, and there's no evidence for that. (non-admin closure) (t · c) buidhe 04:05, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

---

Zrarieh massacre → Zrarieh raid – Per WP:NPOV and WP:COMMONNAME most of the sources call it raid. The attack was against militants Shrike (talk) 15:46, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose Of course the Israelis said it was an attack against "militants"; I recall how Israeli spokespersons "informed" us (or rather: misinformed us) about the attacks against "terrorist" in Qana; and then when the dead were brought out, it was clear for all that they were many, many, children (terrorist children?). Or the Maarakeh massacre, where the Israelis said it was "internal conflict inside Amal"? (They shouldn't have bragged about it to Ronen Bergman, then). Sorry, but the whole Lebanon invasions was marred by Israel lies from day one. I vividly recall the Israeli spokespersons saying that the invasion in 1982 Lebanon War was due to an assassination attempt on their London ambassador the same day: Lies, lies and lies, Sharon et al had planned it for 6 months, etc, etc, etc. Please stop white-washing, Huldra (talk) 22:44, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

Is there a way to merge this section of the talk page here? It seems there is consensus to call it raid. We already had this discussion. We need a final resolution by an administrator or someone, not voting again.--SoaringLL (talk) 00:13, 4 May 2021 (UTC) See Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/יניב_הורון

pinging @Maudslay II: @FOARP:, @Shrike:, @SoaringLL:, @JBchrch: who voted above. Free1Soul (talk) 14:45, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

• Support because all the English sources use raid. Raid is the common way of describing this. Free1Soul (talk) 14:47, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
• Support. Per consensus above and WP:COMMONNAME. JBchrch (talk) 14:50, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
• Support per common name. FOARP (talk) 20:45, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
• Support. More neutral and accurate.--SoaringLL (talk) 03:24, 6 May 2021 (UTC) See Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/יניב_הורון

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.