Viajero wrote:
finally I thought the best thing would be to give the thing a quick and decent burial. The vote if I recall correctly was nearly unanimous; six or eight people also agreed the thing was clearly a POV rant that was hopelessly beyond salvation, as you will see from the VfD vote. Sometimes it really is better to wipe the slate clean and begin anew.
I have as yet been unable to find the VfD vote, nor have I seen the version of the article that was being voted on. But the text that Daniwo and Zero000 have been repeatedly deleting is *not* a POV rant.
It is not perfect, but then it is easy to understand why -- no one is attempting to edit it, they just try to suppress the information by deleting it and insulting RK.
If the original was a POV rant, it was still not appropriate to *delete* the article -- deletion causes text to be completely unavailable to future editors who are not sysops. It would have been much more sensible to just edit it down to a stub, and to ask RK to substantiate everything that he wanted to add back in.
At this point, I have neither the time, the energy, nor the scholarly resources to offer a detailed explanation as to why the material in that article was so bad: suffice to say that it comes across as a collection of quotes of dubious origin take completely out of context, obviously (to some of us at least) manipulated solely as a way of discrediting the Palestinian cause. It failed to take into consideration that there is a broad range of opinion among Palestinians; the radical/fundamentalist/militarist POV is but one.
The text in question gives considerable context for each quote, and clearly indicates a broad range of opinion among Palestinians. So far, you are the first person to say that the quotes are "of dubious origin", but they are generally referenced to reputable sources -- Washington Post, etc.
The PLO -- representing the Palestinians but not necessarily reflecting ALL of Palestinian opinion -- did indeed at one time have as a goal the destruction of Israel. This goal was renounced at the PNC meeting in 1988 if I recall correctly. Perhaps our coverage of the evolving Palestine perspective could be expanded in the main article or one of its offspring -- the issue is not "omitting" any information or censoring any POV -- it is presenting balanced (and balancing) viewpoints with the proper historical context, something the above-mentioned text failed utterly to do.
I don't agree. (Again with the caveat that I have not seen the original so that we may be talking about different things.) The text could be improved, of course. But it is very good precisely becasue it presents "balanced and balancing viewpoints with the proper historical context". The quotes are dated and exact references are given. Alternative views and background information is given.
I support Danny and Zero on this one 100%. I find it particularly ironical and completely hypocritical that RK now positions himself as the "defender" of Palestinians from "censorship". Have you no shame RK?
But I think he's exactly right about that. I think that's really important to understand.
Many in the West are uncomfortable with this kind of information because it doesn't comport well with the prevailing liberal view that the Palestinians are solely victims. Rationally, of course we can say that Palestinians are indeed victims while simultaneously holding and expressing reprehensible views. What we must not do is simply omit information about Palestinian attitudes because it doesn't match up too our rosy view of noble rebels fighting a racist apartheid state.
What I'm primarily arguing, though, is not the content of the material. I think that the material is good, though not excellent, but my real point is that it can in no way be characterized as something that ought to be simply *deleted* outright. It should be *improved*.
In the present case, we see why deletion is bad. We are left with a horribly broken presentation in which readers are unable to discover why it might be that, despite the PLO officially no longer calling for the destruction of Israel, and Arafat himself announcing a right to exist, the majority of Palestinians polled support the destruction of Israel.
We can only come to understand that better when we come to understand Arafat's duplicity, and the anti-Israel propaganda that is rampant in the Palestinian culture. But because some supporters of Palestine are uncomfortable with that material, it is censored from Wikipedia.
No, I don't think censorship is too strong a word.
--Jimbo