Talk:Battle of Gaza (2007)

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 Battle of Gaza (2007) was a good article nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There are suggestions below for improving the article. Once these are addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.

Reviewed version: July 13, 2007
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Contents

[edit] Please rename

This article should be renamed Palestinian Civil War. [unknown anon editor]

Disagree; this event was a coup d 'etat in the Gaza strip. Oldest such source I'm aware of is UK govt denouces coup d 'etat on Forbes, and has since been followed by numerious other countries denoucing it as a coup. Jon 13:17, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
I believe name should change to "Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip" or something like that. Current name is ambiguous and probably won't be search able. Amoruso 17:14, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

This was a military battle between Hamas and Fatah over the Gaza strip so it should be called the Battle of Gaza (2007), te 2007 added cause there where more battles of Gaza. The Honorable Kermanshahi 17:44, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Human Rights Violations

  1. The level of detail in this section exceeds that of the rest of the article. Undue weight.
  2. One of the incidents is already reported in the article, above.
  3. The combination of the four or five or six details into one section constitutes WP:Original Research. It is an original synthesis.

Note, I am not claiming the material is inaccurate; just that it does not belong here. Jd2718 13:21, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Answers:
  1. The level of detail for the rest of the article will be improved. I don't see undue weight even now but accept that more detail can be added elsewhere in the article.
  2. We can move it to the section that talks about Human right violations.
  3. Human Rights violation as part of such civil war are common. Human Rights Watch and the press are calling it as such and so there is no WP:OR invloved.
I am glad you agree that the material is accurate. I understand the reality is not convient to you (or to the people of Gaza) but this is the reality. we only report it in the most NPOV way possible. Zeq 13:25, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
The Sweirki incident is already reported. And the rest is simply out of proportion with the level of detail in the article. Saying that it will be improved is at most vaguely interesting. It has not been improved. As written, the section placed undue weight on what is essentially a single fact (HRW's claim). We could, if you like, rewrite the claim to a single paragraph. That would keep it in the article, without the undue weight that a full, bulleted section carries. Jd2718 13:49, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
You are on the border of vandelizing the article. Improvments to other section will be done but first you need to stop the revert. Please be respecfull and self revert (or add) - feel free to edit the section but the level of detail (for encyclopdia) is reasonable and should not be used as an excuse to remove a section you disgree with (first you argued OR - now you claim something else...) Zeq 13:55, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

The quote box adds no information not already present, but distorts the balance of the whole article, pushing a view that the most important aspect of these events is that Palestinians have committed crimes against other Palestinians. 62.56.90.91 09:31, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

It is one the most important things in this conflict, that the Rules of war are not followed internally not just against the isrealis. This means that innocent decent palestinian civilians are again the victims of human rights violations due to conflict in the region. Hypnosadist 11:07, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Removed information about an Israel human rights organization. Nothing coming from Israel on this situation will be near NPOV. Stick with international and accredited groups.

[edit] Page title

Why is the page title "Battle for Gaza (2007)" and not "Battle of Gaza (2007)"? "Battle for Gaza (2007)" is a one-sided page title with Hamas' point of view. It certainly is not from the Palestinian Authority's point of view. "Battle of Gaza (2007)" is a more neutral title and will also be similar to many of the countless other battles which are named similarly. Also, how can a page move by Batmanand be marked as a minor edit? --121.6.67.214 17:18, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Hamas Coup D'etat seems more accurate. Zeq 17:43, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

I think so too. Not going to move it (waiting for more input), but I think that's a better title for the article. -- False Prophet 20:50, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
I think it should be Battle of Gaza. As it is most NPOV. Berlin in 1945 was also taken and still it's name on wiki is Battle of Berlin. As for Hamas coup d'etat it's not sourced fairly and it is currently only a Fatah accusation. --TheFEARgod (Ч) 12:26, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
It's not only Fatah calling it a coup d'etat. UK might have been the first country to call it that (re: article title on Forbes Friday) but several other countries are now. To be fair Hamas is calling the subequent Fatah action in the West Bank as a coup d'etat as well. Jon 13:21, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
IMO if Hamas took both Gaza and the WB in a couple of days that would be a coup. A coup is when the whole government is seized, and Gaza is only a geographical part. --TheFEARgod (Ч) 14:20, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
That's indeed the major difference between this and the normal coup's. In most cases either the coup attempt totally succeeds throughout the country (recent example: Fiji 2006), or else totally fails (recent example Venezula 2002), or (rarely) degenerates into a civil war. Here we seem to have a case in which the coup was totally successful in Gaza, while at the same time totally failed in the West Bank. Jon 20:50, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

My impresion is there has been no attempt on the westbank authority and the violence there came from antihamas forces. Coup d'etat is imprecise since hamas is the elected majority. Further we shouldn't judge shooting from one side or the other, in this article but just research it. Both parties have been involved in rather the same crimes, with the accusation of fatah clinging to power hardhandedly in gaza being pronounced. I suspect it is actually the reason behind the current interpalestinean animosity, a matter of precedent. Every war is characterised by attrocities and we have to try to accept it is always both sides living up to them.77.248.56.242 10:26, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, in my book if the elected majority party of the legislature forms a new government excluding the minority party sudenly it would be just as much a coup as if a minority party formed a new government excluding the majority party. I believe "counter coup" would be the approative terminology for the subseqent Fatah actions in the West Bank. Jon 21:42, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Background

Background section seems rather too short. Shouldn't it begin with the skirmishes and repeated cease-fires, ceasefire collapses, etc, in May? 70.55.90.138 04:06, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Debka as source

Debka is (IMHO) not a WP:RS source. Zeq 14:54, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

They can sometimes be unreliable, yes, however they have an uncanny ability to scoop others on things like this. I have a quote from a spokesman of the Popular Resistance Committees to Aaron Klein, who on the basis of his Wikipedia biography I hold reliable.topynate 15:45, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Where is the archive of older edits to the discussion page?

Why has the older discussion to this page been blanked? Is there something in the older comments that is being suppressed? Valtam 03:39, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Never mind - I guess this page is different than the Hamas - Fatah civil war page. Valtam 03:41, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] I suggest to rename the section

I suggest to rename the section "Human rights violations" to "military crimes" as keeping human rights is too hard to expect during the war and what actually counts is better described as military crimes (POW killings, civil priperty seizure etc).--Dojarca 09:31, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

No way! these must be portrayed as what they are "Human rights violations" and "War crimes" these terms get used all the time about US and British forces they apply when Hamas toss people off 15 story buildings. Hypnosadist 09:36, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Religious consequences

This section reads like anti Hamas propoganda. It is about christians in Gaza. But christains are an insignificant minority of the Gaza population. The section begins

Christians can only continue living safely in the Gaza Strip if they accept Islamic law, including a ban on alcohol and on women roaming publicly without proper head coverings

, but it only becomes apparent later in the paragraph that this is a quote from an "Islamist militant leader". The section goes on to quote "Sheik Abu Saqer, leader of Jihadia Salafiya", but who exactly is Jihadia Salafiya, what is their influence, and what if any is their relationship with the Hamas.

The section is more a less a cut and paste job from an article by Aaron Klein in Jerusalem.

The section lacks any quotes from Hamas members, and says nothing about the position secular muslims. ابو علي (Abu Ali) 23:00, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

WP:BOLD. If you can find what this article needs, add it.--Flamgirlant 20:55, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

"But christains are an insignificant minority of the Gaza population" says it all really. (Hypnosadist) 10:41, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
Please explain what you mean by "says it all". Christains are 0.7% of the population of Gaza. Are they being persuted by the Hamas? It would not suprise me. But I have seen no evidence of it so far. What I do no is that secular moslems, especially women have been attacked by the Hamas in the past (before their takeover of the strip). But there is nothing about this in the article. Furthermore this section says nothing about Hamas, but about an obscure group called Jihadia Salafiya. ابو علي (Abu Ali) 11:23, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
Re-added line from the source that ties Hamas into this. As for secular moslems, please add any info you have on their problems under Hamas rule as that would be part of the religious consequences of this event. (Hypnosadist) 11:47, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
Please be so kind as to adress the comments I made above, the question of undue wight being given to Christains, and the the use of a quote from Jihadia Salafiya in an sectin on the Hamas victory. ابو علي (Abu Ali) 11:53, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Aaron Klein and WorldNetDaily

I added the part about CIA intelligence docs a few days ago. I used Debka as a source, but it was pointed out to me that it is unreliable. However, the other source I found, WorldNetDaily, is a subject of some controversy here, and if you visit Talk:Aaron_Klein you'll find he likes to edit his own article a lot. As Abu Ali pointed out above, a lot of this article now contains claims sourced solely from Aaron Klein, who, reliable as he may be, is talking to people that are completely unknown on the net other than through him. Do we keep these claims and quotes, or not? topynate 14:07, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

WP:V states that we need multiple reliable sources for anything here. So find the sources and nything which is not supported by multiple reliable sources should be deleted. There is plenty of material around on Hamas' harrasment of secular Gazans in the past. But what I have seen since their victory in Gaza seems to suggest they intend to soft peddle on Islamic law for now in order to try to consolidate their control of the strip. ابو علي (Abu Ali) 20:21, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] GA nomination

Is the nominator going to finish off the nomination for Good Article tagging of this article?

Unfortunately the image Image:Palestinian_prisoners.jpg is not a fair use on this page, as the article is not about the TV station or its program. Is it possible to get a free image? GB 11:48, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

  • Fair use in this case is acceptable "for identification and critical commentary on the station ID or program and its contents", and in this case the image is used for identification on the programme's contents. If there is a free image available on the Internet which can replace this image then the fair use would be void. --:Raphaelmak: [talk] [contribs] 14:11, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
    • But in this article the station or its program are not even mentioned, and the picture is used to illustrate the event, rather than the station. If the picture is used there has to be a fair use rationale in the article (or caption). Perhaps the particular station could be discussed as the only coverage. GB 21:49, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] GA review

This article should be improved more. Therefor I put an On Hold tag on it.--Sa.vakilian(t-c) 18:45, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

During review, some issues were discovered that can be resolved without a major re-write. This is how the article, as of July 4, 2007 compares against the six good article criteria:

Imagine a person who is not familiar with Palestine Liberation Organization and Fatah-Hamas conflict want to read this article. As a separate article it should be complete and clear. But at present nobody can understand why this battle happened. I propose to pay attention to lead and background of 2006 Lebanon War.

1. Well written?: Expand lead per WP:LEAD and add something about the situation of Hamas and Fatah and their positions in the political system.
2. Factually accurate?: You have used news sites as source. Unfortunately some of these webpages like Yahoonews will disappeared while others like BBCNews will remain. So please check your sources and substitute impermanent sources with permanent ones.
I checked all of the references. Unfortunately in one case I encountered Page not found.--Sa.vakilian(t-c) 02:55, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
3. Broad in coverage?: The background should contains something about Fatah-Hamas conflict so that everybody can understand the situation and the reason of the battle clearly.
I've not satisfied with the background.--Sa.vakilian(t-c) 02:55, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
4. Neutral point of view?: It's not bad. Especially in the case of aftermath you can make it more NPOV. I suggest taking a look at Hamas official website, fatah official website and PLO official website.
5. Article stability? It's fine. You can remove the tag of current event.
6. Images?: It's fine.

Please address these matters soon and then leave a note here showing how they have been resolved. After 48 hours the article should be reviewed again. If these issues are not addressed within 7 days, the article may be failed without further notice. Thank you for your work so far.--Sa.vakilian(t-c) 19:19, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Most things now corrected!
This [1] shows that nothing has done!!!--Sa.vakilian(t-c) 01:52, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
GA review (see here for criteria)
  1. It is reasonably well written.
    a (prose): b (MoS):
  2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.
    a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):
  3. It is broad in its coverage.
    a (major aspects): b (focused):
  4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.
    a (fair representation): b (all significant views):
  5. It is stable.
  6. It contains images, where possible, to illustrate the topic.
    a (tagged and captioned): b lack of images (does not in itself exclude GA): c (non-free images have fair use rationales):
  7. Overall:
    a Pass/Fail:

[edit] WorldNetDaily

I question if this is a reliable source for any factual claims. A more respected and less politically-extreme newspaper would be a far better choice for referencing. Tim Vickers 22:34, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Civil War

Reuters now calls this event as a civil war. See: [2] "They have been searching for Fatah men," said the official, Ibrahim Abu An-Naja, alleging Hamas has been carrying out nightly raids on homes since defeating Fatah forces in the territory in a brief civil war last month. --TheFEARgod (Ч) 12:46, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fatah accused of collaboration.

This article is seriously deficient, failing to explain why political differences between Fatah and Hamas led to bloodshed. Here's what the Washington Post said: "The presidential guard, comprising about 5,000 fighters, is the unit slated to receive the U.S. package of training and nonlethal military equipment. The money, arriving now, has prompted Hamas officials and fighters to refer to Fatah as the "Jew American Army" and "Zionist collaborators."" A report from Ynet suggests there is a serious rift between them: "Hani al-Hassan, senior presidential advisor says Gaza war was between Hamas and Fatah collaborators who aided Israel, US. Gunshots fired at al-Hassan's home following statements, Abbas dismisses him from his role". PRtalk 17:27, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

don't forget the accusations coming from the other side. JaakobouChalk Talk 19:11, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
I don't know what you're refering to. In the meantime, improving the encyclopedia goes one step at a time - the RSs appear to claim that Israel was arming Fatah while laying siege to Hamas. Hamas (and even a Fatah minister, promptly sacked) took this to be collaboration. It's absurd that this article doesn't mention the main factor that seems to have provoked this near Civil War. PRtalk 22:37, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
everything you said was ok up to the last section which is incorrect OR, the coup being a result of Hamas calling out Fatah on what they believe to be collaboration is not "what seems to have provoked this near civil war", not even close.
p.s. fath has accused hamas of quite number of things as part of their conflict.JaakobouChalk Talk 22:42, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
I still don't know what you're refering too - is this article part of the fact-free zone we have to defend? Why are we bandying this stuff around in Talk instead of getting on and writing this encyclopedia? Clearly, accusations of collaboration by Hamas were a significant part of this affair - as was the fact that Israel/US was giving Fatah more guns and laying siege to Hamas. I'm not sure what else was significant - other than you seem to be saying that much of what I edited in was alright. Why was it reverted out if it was alright? PRtalk 12:41, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
The american funding of Fatah is clearly important and was mentioned alot at the time and was in this article and should be in here. (Hypnosadist) 16:24, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
Your edit did not fully reflect your sources. The first is just accusations from Hamas, there is no mention of Israeli aid to Fatah, just of the US funding of the palestinian presidential guard. The rest are the claims of Hamas and should be reflected as such. Truth is not as important as verifiability. Narson 17:07, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
By the rules of WP, my edit cannot fully reflect my sources, otherwise it would be a copyvio. Nevertheless, I'd started to provide a part of the explanation of this mini-war. That improvement of the article has been summararily reverted, and it still contains no mention of "collaboration", which is certainly one of the problems (and probably the major grouse of Hamas). As I said, the article is seriously deficient. It would be much, much better if my contribution was left in place and added to/adjusted. PRtalk 19:10, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
Uhm. No. By the rules of WP your edit cannot be a direct copy, but it must reflect your sources. I would say adding more poorly sourced and possibly OR conclusions is not the improvement you believe it to. More is not always better. Narson 20:24, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
It looks to me as if good, thoughtful, work was taken out of this article, leaving a gaping hole and an article that is deficient. My edit reflected significant parts of my sources and didn't appear to distort the remainder. I'm not going to waste my time battling to improve articles if consensus is opposed to improving them. PRtalk 22:35, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment - I don't know enough about these events to fix the problems, but I can be positive that the article is deficient in ways sufficient to seriously distort the understanding of any visitor. PRtalk 16:15, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
What I'd propose would be something along the lines of:
"Conflict between Fatah and Hamas had been simmering since Hamas won the legislature elections in January 2006. Sanctions and other international actions, including the US funding of the Presidential Guard to protect President Abbas, were aimed at strengthening President Mahmoud Abbas's position and forcing Hamas to fundamentally change its aims."
Or we could have its own little paragraph:
"Conflict between Fatah and Hamas had been simmering since Hamas won the legislature elections in January 2006. Sanctions and other international action were aimed at strengthening President Mahmoud Abbas's position and forcing Hamas to fundamentally change its aims.
Hamas accused Fatah of receiving military aid from the Israeli and American administration due to the US funding and training provided to the Palestinian president's guard, controlled by Fatah leader (and Palestinian president), Mahmoud Abbas."
Obvious both need the refs put in. Either of those float your boat?Narson 17:34, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
I think the word "collaboration" has to be prominently in there, a feature more important than slavery to the Civil War. Otherwise, we're simply not providing a narrative of the event. When you say "change their aims", you're actually saying "abandon their religion-justified purpose" and do what Israel wanted of them under the new guns of the rather more secular Fatah. Collaboration (paying and arming) has been a constant theme to Palestinians almost since the arrival of the first immigrants in 1882 - and has attracted the death penalty for how long - 80 years?
The second clip I offered from Ynet provides one of the more subtle twists - Palestinians (reminded by a top Fatah man) were acutely aware of what it was about - but actually speaking a word so loaded was intolerable. (Sorry to have to re-format your post - something happened to blank this page when I first put in this last entry). PRtalk 06:22, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
Collaboration is a loaded word and we can come up for less POV terms for 'working with'. Especially as the sources are reporting what one group says about the other group or about a move to fund and organise the Palestinian Presidential Guard. I don't recall the sources listed stating that was support for Fatah in general (Just that Hamas claimed it was evidence of some systematic conspiracy against them). Seperating fact (That the US funded a group whose designated role was to protect Mahmoud Abbas) from claim (That this was done because he is the leader of fatah rather than him being president of the palestinian authority, other claims about support etc). Narson 07:19, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
Of course collaboration is a loaded word - it's also a capital crime for Palestinians. The sources I'm seeing say that this is what this Civil War was about, suspicion of (and effectively, the practise of) taking money/guns from Israel with which to dominate and kill other Palestinians. Lets have articles that actually describe (or at least, very heavily hint at) what is really going on. PRtalk 18:10, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
Loaded but irelevant the conflict in Gaza. Israel did not armed gaza. Hamas exctive force had more weapon. Zeq 18:37, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Source about amnesty

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1192380636961 Zeq 07:42, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:Palestinian prisoners.jpg

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BetacommandBot (talk) 21:15, 26 November 2007 (UTC)