Talk:Israeli occupation of the West Bank/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: AirshipJungleman29 (talk · contribs) 15:45, 9 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'll take this review. As a disclaimer, it'll be used for points in both the WikiCup and the ongoing backlog drive—please consider signing up to the latter. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 15:45, 9 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

As a start, two issues I'd like to discuss:

GA criterion 3b) prescribes that the article stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style). As it stands, the article contains over 18,000 words of prose, not counting 6,000 words in notes, and assorted image captions and quotes. I appreciate that the article topic is of course heavily-discussed, complicated, and extremely controversial; nevertheless, 18+6k words does in my opinion violate criterion 3b). The good news, and the reason that I'm not immediately failing this nomination per quickfail criterion 1, is that cutting extraneous information or transferring it to subarticles shouldn't be that hard—at first glance, there are huge amounts of digressions or redundacies that could easily be removed. Still quite a lot of work, however.
Something more immediately fixable: criterion 1b) requires compliance with MOS:LEAD—the lead section should be a summary of [the article's] most important contents. As it stands, I don't believe the lead section adequately summarises the article's contents: various issues of etymology and legality are discussed (a summary of apartheid comparisons, mentioned only thrice in the body, takes up half a paragraph), but most of the meat of the article is ignored in the lead. I would like to see this addressed. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 15:45, 9 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for starting this review, but I'm not sure the 6k in notes counts towards the word limits here, but I can see what can be reduced from there. Ive knocked out a bit of the lead, but Im not really sure where youre seeing much extraneous material in the body. Most of the sections have already been reduced considerably and expanded in child articles. Can you clarify where youre seeing huge amounts of digressions or redundacies please? nableezy - 21:29, 9 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The notes shouldn't be given as much value as the body, but they should still be a reasonable size (otherwise you could have 6,000 words of prose augmented by 30,000 words of notes). Incidentally, WP:TOOBIG recommends that any article over 15,000 words be split or otherwise decreased in size. Let's have a look in-depth at the first section, since the lead is a work in progress.

"The language of conflict and coverage in academia and the media" is a bit of a long-winded title—perhaps "Nomenclature and coverage in academia and the media", or "Academic and media nomenclature and coverage" or something. Essentially, the "of conflict" is implied with the subject matter.
There is a general problem in this section with MOS:WEASEL-like words. "Concerns over language manipulation in coverage of the conflict are often expressed" etc. Although you have two citations for the sentence, there is no way of knowing that these citations contain "often expressed" views, or just those of four writers.

Personally, I would write the first sentence as Academics have explored the manipulation of language in coverage of the Arab–Israeli conflict, with conclusions ranging from "sanitized terminology" to Peter Beinart's suggestion of Orwellian "linguistic fraud". (assuming that those are in fact the extremes of non-fringe opinions).

The sentence "Each party has its preferred set of descriptive words." implies that a discussion of each party's descriptive words will follow. This happens, but only after a digression into (1) what term American mainstream coverage doesn't use, and (2) how many Britons knew about the occupation 22 years ago. Not entirely sure why this digression is located here, or whether either of the sentences needs to be in the article.
Following this, we have a long discussion of differing viewpoints ("International usage ... for Palestinians "dispossession"".) Firstly, and most importantly, this potentially controversial/challengeable sentence is not supported by an inline citation. Then, there are MOS:WEASEL and a general lack of clarity—who is the "some" using "colonies" or "settlements"? Why is "pinpoint preventative operations" in scare quotes but "target assassinations" not (MOS:SCAREQUOTES)? "Violence by Palestinians is regularly labeled terrorism" by who? Obviously Israel, but say that, and back it up with sources!
Why not simply write something (obviously much better sourced) such as:

Terms preferred by Israelis include "the Judea and Samaria Area", "pinpoint preventative operations", "settlements", and "displacement", while Palestinians term the same things the "West Bank", "targeted assassinations", "colonies", and "dispossession". Israel terms violence (the status quo for Palestinians but the opposite for Israelis) "terrorism" when Palestine-initiated but "retaliation" when Israel-initiated to support the idea that Israel does not instigate fighting.

This is less than half the length of what previously ended the paragraph, and also eradicates numerous MOS:WTW-related issues.
"The quality of both media coverage of the Arab–Israeli conflict and research and debates on university campuses have been the object of extensive monitoring and research." The first half of the sentence has already been expressed, so is redundant. The second half is about as wordy as it is possible to get.
"In the latter regard", "on the other hand" both redundant expressions when it takes around three readings to understand what is being referred to.
Grammar issues: can you "closely report"? Why is "Campus Watch" both a third-person singular and a third-person plural?
"Academics like Sara Roy have argued on the other hand that [quote]" I think you mean that Sara Roy has argued that precise quote, and that other (hand-waved in) academics have agreed with her.
Why are there so many passive verbs in these sentences? They reduce clarity, obfuscate detail, and remove attribution—none of which you want in a highly controversial article. "Attempts have been made" by who? "Such difficulties have given rise to anxieties"—by "such difficulties" is it just the unspecified attempts, or something else? Who's becoming anxious?
You can see similar issues to the above in the final paragraph, in addition to tense issues ("who maintain fraudulence was natural for Palestinians and that images of their dead and wounded were generally faked").

On that note, I have no clue what this sentence means: "with digital forensics on social networks occasionally revealing problems with a few widely circulating images of dead Palestinians" what problems? I assume it means that some are faked?

Just in case, this is how I might trim the section.

Academics have explored the manipulation of language in coverage of the Arab–Israeli conflict, with conclusions ranging from "sanitized terminology" to Peter Beinart's suggestion of Orwellian "linguistic fraud". Both sides have their own preferred nomenclature: terms preferred by Israelis include "the Judea and Samaria Area", "pinpoint preventative operations", "settlements", and "displacement", while Palestinians term these the "West Bank", "targeted assassinations", "colonies", and "dispossession". To support the idea that they do not instigate fighting (considered the status quo by Palestinians but the opposite by Israelis), Israel terms violence "terrorism" when Palestine-initiated and "retaliation" when Israel-initiated.

Organizations and academics have researched and monitored attitudes to the conflict in North American universities. Campus Watch reports and denounces what it consider "anti-Israeli" attitudes, while Sara Roy has argued that "the climate of intimidation and censorship surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict [inside and outside U.S. education] is real and longstanding". [Entity X] has attempted to silence critics of Israeli policies in the territories, giving rise to anxieties that the political pressures undermine academic freedom.

Both Israeli and Palestinian local press coverage, reflecting the views of the political and military establishment, has traditionally been conservative. Tamar Liebes has argued that Israeli "journalists and publishers see themselves as actors within the Zionist movement, not as critical outsiders". The growth of the Internet has introduced controversy regarding images of dead or wounded Palestinians, with some proven to be fake and many more alleged to be fraudulent manipulations.

Hope that proves helpful as to what I'm looking at, Nableezy. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 10:21, 10 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That indeed gives me a lot to work with, thank you. Ill keep plugging away. nableezy - 14:58, 10 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Nableezy would you like me to give similar in-depth recommendations for other parts of the article? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 14:28, 14 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I very much would thank you, sorry I been sick with round 2 of Covid and then traveling for a bit, but I’m not giving up on this and would definitely appreciate all the pointers you can give. nableezy - 14:32, 14 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I think the (il)legality of the occupation itself is important to at least mention in the lead; since this is an international conflict, international law matters. Just as the international law status is mentioned for other international conflicts and practices that are considered to violate international law. And the ICJ is going to rule on it soon, which makes it even more salient. (t · c) buidhe 05:15, 6 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Adding a bit to lead and body, thanks for the suggestion. nableezy - 14:44, 6 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Added, unfortunately that only made the article longer though. nableezy - 14:59, 6 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

nableezy, apologies for forgetting about this review. Truth is, I attempted to come back a few times, but the size of the task just put me off. The facts of the matter are simply that 1) I don't think this article meets GA criterion 3b), and 2) it would take an absolutely massive GA review to fix those issues, and I don't think I have that in me.

So with that in mind, we have two options. Either I fail this review, and you take this article to peer review or other places to try and improve it, or I can follow the instructions at WP:GAN/I#N4a and increment the review counter so this review ends but you retain your original place in the GA queue. What do you think? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 00:36, 22 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Just increment the counter I think, doubt anybody will come to review it before I get a month or two to work on tightening it up. nableezy - 09:31, 23 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

nableezy, AirshipJungleman29, just be aware that, as the oldest unreviewed nomination waiting for a review now that the counter has been incremented, there's a good chance that someone is going to take this nomination for review before you get that month or two to work on it. They probably won't see this page before they do take it on. Something you should include in your calculus. BlueMoonset (talk) 03:59, 25 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]