[WikiEN-l] Effective bullying strategy. (RK)

Fri Jan 9 16:02:23 UTC 2004

Jimbo,

I am in the uncomfortable and for me highly unusual position of completely
disagreeing with your assessment of the situation.

I was the one who listed the original article, [[Palestinian views of the
peace process]], on VfD in mid-December. I had encountered the article
last summer and was appalled by it, and made a mental note to try to
salvage what little of value was in the article and merge it somewhere
else. However, I never got around to it -- nor did anyone else -- and
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.

(As an aside, I would like to add that I agree with the shortcomings of
VfD; I also think it should be abolished and Cleanup as a process further
enhanced, but this is a separate issue which should be discussed
elsewhere.)

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 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 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?

On 01/09/04  at 06:48 AM, Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com> said:

> But in tems of actual content, I don't see the problem.  There is no
> question that a full understanding of the Palestinian situation requires
> understanding what Palestinian views of the peace process actually are. 
> There is no question that one point of contention is whether Palestinian
> leaders, in particular, view the peace process as "permanent and
> irrevocable" (or similar) or whether they view it merely as a short-term
> negotiating tactic in a longterm effort to destroy Israel.

> Simply omitting information on that question is unacceptable.  This is
> an important part of one of the major questions of our time.

V.