Talk:Samir Kuntar

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http://www.samirkuntar.org the article on wikipedia is very biased and pro-israeli. -- unsigned contribution by anonymous IP 194.126.24.3 19:25, 21 July 2006

That site is the official family site. If they admitted that he had done something wrong (rather than praising him to the skies without ever mentioning any details of his crimes), then non-Hezbollah-supporters might be more impressed. AnonMoos 22:37, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

that site includes another source of the end of the "Nasser" operation...should it be included for records sake? it doesn't jive much with the israeli accounting.Fcyoss 16:44, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Contents 1 POV 2 Bias 3 Just a note 4 The Name 5 The Lebanon Plan 6 Samir Kuntar

[edit] POV

I came here looking for something informative and balanced. You know, the sort of thing we all come to expect from Wikipedia.

This comes across as propaganda. It doesn't seem very encyclopedic at all.

Steve Lowther 05:54, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

What exactly did you expect? To hear that he is a fredom fighter or an innocent citizen that Israel kidnapped in a cross-border infltration into Lebanon? Well he is not. He murdered a family and this is described in an NPOV fashion. If you have good WP:RS sources saying otherwise, bring them. Zeq 06:17, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Umm...No actually I just expected what I said; "informative and balanced" rather than "propaganda". I think this is particularly important with an article that is crucial to a current event. I see that the article is now markedly improved.

Incidentally, I don't have any particular POV here, other than a desire to see a better standard being applied to articles related to current events.

Steve Lowther 23:03, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't believe the following should be written in an article about Kuntar:{Inspired by the prisoner swap Hamas vowed, a few days later, that they would also abduct Israeli soldiers to secure the release of Palestinian prisoners. Hassan Nasrallah simultaneously told his supporters that Hezbollah would continue to kidnap Israelis until "not a single prisoner" remained inside Israeli jails.}

Maybe the part about Nasrallah is a little bit more welcomed(but it's a detail anyway) but the part about Hamas is not directly related to the Kuntar issue. that's why i chose to make a little change, if someone still insists on the paragraph i deleted you can paste it back in the article. But I think my version would be a little better.--Six 7 8 20:34, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bias

I have tried to reword a few of the paragraphs to make them less emotional and biased. By focusing on the graphic descriptions of the murder of the daughter and constantly referring to her age, the article becomes too emotional. Wikipedia is supposed to report facts, not take sides in conflicts.

I have also added a paragraph stating that many people believe he is innocent of the murders and consider him a political prisoner. I personally don't believe that, but it is important to add this information to understand why Hizbollah wants him set free.

I understand that people are emotional about such an issue, and I have read what the surviving wife and mother wrote about the experience, which was undoubtedly awful. We still need to tone those aspects down in an encyclopedic article.

Innocent? Ha-ha-ha! Allek "political prisoner". What was he doing in Nahariya then? Taking a tour in the town? Sipping caffé latte in Sderot ha'Gaaton? Such an idiocy has no place on Wikipedia; Wikipedia is not Al-Manar, to remind you. Islamists openly take pride in killing infidels, be it in Iraq, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Thailand or Israel. They are praised for it. They even videotape it. Everybody knows it. He is guilty, he was caught in action, and he was convicted. Israel does not have interest in jailing uninvolved people, as can clearly be seen from the case with a shepherd boy from recent Baalbek raid. Aleverde.

Those people who consider him innocent only do so out of ethnic/political/religious/racial pride. There are times when loyalty to your own people and your own family is commendable, but not when it is at the expense of an objective, higher level of justice. It's just sad to imagine how some people can apologize for this man's actions, simply because of "Hizbollah Pride". -- Camille

[edit] Just a note

I've just created Lebanese prisoners held by Israel, would appreciate if anybody had information on the other names involved. Sherurcij ^{(Speaker for the Dead)} 18:44, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The Name

The name is best written in english as SAMEER Quntar. This is the best approximation to the Arabic sound. I know that the name "Samir Kuntar" is circulating in the net, but we need to adhere to the name that closely resembles the Arabic one. --Thameen 09:02, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Actually Samiir or Samīr would be an accurate scholarly transcription of the classical Arabic pronunciation of his name, while "Sameer" would be something of a crude journalistic equivalent (based on English-specific spelling conventions only), so it's hard to say how Sameer is more "correct". If "Samir" is much more commonly found in third-party writing (in addition to the official family website), that's what should be used here... AnonMoos 12:48, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The Lebanon Plan

this seems factually incorrect. I dont think Kuntar was ever explicitly names in UN-Siniora plan, which only mentioned "Lebanese prisoners". Hezbollah certainly interprets this to include Kuntar, but he was not named inb the agreement, as this article implies. See the wikipedia article on the Siniora Plan Jhcarter 14:26, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Samir Kuntar

I took the liberty of reverting your revert, per WP:WTA, which says to generally avoid words like 'terrorist' - although some states regard him as a terrorist, others do not, and although I personally think he is, it's not really Wikipedia's place to assign labels to people. Feel free to insert who sees him as a terrorist, and please be assured I'm not pro-anyone - I'm editing from Dartmouth, not Haifa or Lebanon! Thanks, HawkerTyphoon 11:05, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your note. I would only say in reply that all Wikipedia does is assign labels to people. Oh, and I've no problem at all with your editing from Haifa or Lebanon. On the contrary. Cheers. IronDuke 03:06, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

this is like a bad joke the way the page is like right now - look up the definition of the word "terrorism" - terrorism - the calculated use of violence (or threat of violence) against civilians in order to attain goals that are political or religious or ideological in nature;

i cannot, for the life of me, see how entering a house and killing a family is not terrorism - even if they are considered legitimate targets by some - it just means that those "some" believe that it's ok to act with terrorism against random civillians.. it doesn't mean the act itself is not a terrorist act.

Jaakobou 14:22, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

The present compromise -- "was widely viewed as a terrorist act" with a list of specific references -- seems to be basically satisfactory to most editors of this article at this time... AnonMoos 16:19, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

AnonMoos, i think it's a sad joke - maybe i should go in to the articles about the Irgun and the Lehi and change them to be "falsly accused to be terrorist by the british and arabs only" ??? - maybe we should start lying like the arab media that says 9/11 and pearl harbor were zionists and US conspiracy acts so that the US can go into the oil buisness?! - there's a clear definition to the word "terrorist" and samir kuntar fits it perfectly and he even admitted to his acts with pride.. it doesn't matter if the targets are considered legitimate.. playing these "He participated in what was widely viewed as a terrorist attack" games puts us at serious risk of losing credibility when it's more than obvious that it was a terror attack... not a freedom fighting action.. it was done, i'll remind you all before israel went into lebanon - and this guy was a secular druze who never lived in what is dubbed as "occupied territories" which is a sad joke in itself since 4 arab countries attacked israel... but in any event - kuntar was a terrorist. no doubt - and if you want to call him "resistance jihad" warrior - that would still mean terrorist.

Jaakobou 01:44, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Jaakobou, you are correct, but the current version is sourced and I think everyone can see that he was a terrorist. It is better for wikpedia not to say "was a terrorist" but show sources that he was a terrorist. atleast as long as the category exists, it's also obvious. if the category disappears, then it should change to "is a terrorist" like you say. Amoruso 02:18, 26 September 2006 (UTC)