Viajero,
List me as "abstaining" from the VfD vote: so it wasn't unanimous, there was at least one abstention. If I thought VfD was a helpful process, I'd have voted "keep".
I agree that the article wasn't well written, but I don't think /voting to eliminate it/ is the answer. Perhaps BLANKING the content and starting fresh, with a stub would be better.
Part of the problem in politics is that advocates (like Arafat) espouse various positions. Sometimes the change is gradual over time, or sudden at a particular point. There have even been claims that a politician will say different things to different audiences on the same day!
The hardest political position to describe is one which the advocate doesn't want to be "caught" advocating; he tells his supporters one thing and his critics another. The so- called "secret agenda". In American politics, some people think Bush and Cheney have a secret agenda in Iraq, e.g., of self-enrichment via Haliburton. In Middle Eastern politics, some people think Arafat seeks the full elimination of Israel and talks peace only as means to that end.
It's exceedingly difficult to figure out what a politician is /really/ saying, in such a case. Is he telling the truth, and his opponents are TWISTING his words? Or is he speaking with forked tongue, and his opponents are REVEALING the deception?
I don't think Wikipedia is called upon to make the ultimate judgment. Rather, we should say things like:
* Former Israeli prime minister X believes that Arafat says one thing and does another * Islamic leader Y believes that Arafat has always sincerely sought to live side by side in peace with Jews
If it's a question of statements being taken out of context, we can help by quoting lengthier passages. But it's up to the /reader/ to decide whether the man /really/ means what he says.
Ed Poor, aka Uncle Ed