Talk:Zionism/Archive 26

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Where to start this article

Our article spends an inordinate amount of space discussing the period between 600 BCE and 1882 CE. I recently swapped out a portion of this period (14th century - 19th century) to focus on the prezionist initiatives which emerged in the second part of the 19th century. Most RS on Zionism will either start there, or give a brief overview of the time before. It's great that we compiled a list of best sources to use as an overview for this article. @Andrevan, can you show me which sources emphasize the 600BCE-1882CE period in this list? DMH223344 (talk) 01:39, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

There are already sources for the statements that you removed in the article. I suggest we start by taking a closer look at those and see what the broader context is in those sources, and if they belong here, or not. As discussed, the BESTSOURCES survey, which as I understand it is still in progress, is for determining the weight of sentences summarizing the article in lead, and other sources not in that list are available for use in the article; WP:PRESERVE tells us to try to fix the problems with the content already there. Most of your edits have added, and not removed material, but I reverted this one because it was a significant cut to the preexisting content. Andre🚐 01:44, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

The Jewish Encyclopedia entry does not mention zionism.

I dont read hebrew.

I can't find where to access "Aliya and Pilgrimage in the Early Arab Period (634–1009)" (not at my library) but will try harder to find it.

"Honored by the Glory of Islam: Conversion and Conquest in Ottoman Europe" doesnt mention Zionism

"The Sultan's Renegades: Christian-European Converts to Islam and the Making of the Ottoman Elite: 1575–1610" also does not mention Zionism.

That's all the sources.

The discussion from 600BCE-Mid19thcent is so obviously a mess of sources having nothing to do with Zionism. DMH223344 (talk) 01:58, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

The prehistory is not only inordinate, it is a pathetic pastiche of 'stuff', much pasted from other articles, that have nothing to do with modern Zionism. There are really funny patches of WP:OR all over the place.

The number of Jews migrating to the land of Israel rose significantly between the 13th and 19th centuries, mainly due to a general decline in the status of Jews across Europe and an increase in religious persecution, including the expulsion of Jews from England (1290), France (1391), Austria (1421), and Spain (the Alhambra decree of 1492).

Oh really? There is far too much poor sourcing, and, it would seem that the strict requirement on reference relevance Zionism has been totally neglected here. Every article about Israel cannot be prefaced by carry-over 'stuff' more or less from various other articles dumped in to makes the same points. The article is about Zionism, and precursors can be handled in a paragraph. A history of Jewish immigration to Palestine is irrelevant to Zionism, since it was traditionally unrelated to nationalism.etc.etc.etc.Nishidani (talk) 02:35, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

My Hebrew isn't fluent, but you can usually get pretty far with Google Translate, see WP:NONENG, but we shouldn't remove stuff indiscriminately without verifying. I'm sure we can find better sources than the JE, which is quite old, but it's commonly used on Wikipedia because the licensing is friendly. I agree that there are problems with the current text, and I agree that modern Zionism generally starts in 1882, but I would say that the 1840 and 1850 activities by Touro and Montefiore do belong in the context of pre- or proto-Zionism, such as Yehuda Bibas. Hess, who you mentioned, is 1862. I'd suggest Conforti would be helpful here. I don't agree that mention of pre-modern aliyah as Wikipedia terms is off-limits here, for example in terms of connecting Sabbateanism, see Charvit. This seems like a good article about "heralds of Zionism," for example Dinur included Judah HeHasid in 1700. In general, some overview of pre-modern Zionism is merited here, and we need to balance or contrast the anti-Zionist authors such as Rabkin to show the shades of scholarly debate on these matters, which consist of multiple narratives. Per [1], traditionalist Judaism and Hasidism didn't have one unified view on Zionism. It was a controversial thing. Andre🚐 02:51, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

I see no reason to think this stuff was removed indiscriminately. I think, just based on the improvement in the quality of sources alone, DMH's edit should be restored. We don't need to be citing tertiary sources, deadlinks to websites, books that aren't about Zionism, WP:MDPI, etc. Start the history wherever the "best sources" start the history (I haven't looked yet). Levivich (talk) 03:27, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Well, it's pretty effectively indiscriminate if he admits there were several sources he didn't look at or check, that is what I meant. Anyway, I added a better source to the Sabbateanism, so that should stay in. I also added Yehuda Bibas (1789-1852), Tzvi Kalischer (1795-1874), and Judah Alkalai (1798-1878), as well as the aforementioned info on HeHasid. All sourced reliably, to the sources I posted in my previous message, and the Hillel Cohen 1929 book (though, better sources could always be added) Also, we should check out Stanislavski, one of the best sources, pp.11-13 Andre🚐 03:31, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Interesting use of the page needed template btw. DMH223344 (talk) 05:29, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

User:Levivich, WP:MDPI, really? It's the Religions journal, "Religions is an international, interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed, open access journal." You really think Amir Mashiach wouldn't be reliable even if he had self-published? Andre🚐 03:46, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

What is the source selection criteria you're applying? Levivich (talk) 03:51, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

I'm looking for reliable sources to fix the problems with the citations needed in this section, per WP:PRESERVE. I really don't understand your MDPI concern here. The source is reliable and anyway it's citing another historian whom I attributed. I'm sure another source can be found, but the objection feels misplaced. Only 5% of MDPI journals are mentioned in that RSP post, and WP:CONTEXTMATTERS. Andre🚐 03:54, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

How about Messianism, Zionism, and Jewish Religious Radicalism By Aviezer Ravitzky · 1996 University of Chicago Press, p. 228, or even Sand p. 140Andre🚐 04:01, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

I don't understand. You say you're "looking for" reliable sources... there are 16 listed at #Best sources, so you don't have to look very far. Why not look at those? Levivich (talk) 04:33, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

We should use those sources to guide weight for the lead and to guide authoritative questions when there are disputes within sources or how to structure things, but many details can and should be sourced to sources other than those. The edits in question and the recent additions made to the article do not exclusively use those either, nor should they be required to. The existence of HeHasid's 1700 proto-Zionist endeavor is something referred to in enough reliable sources that it deserves mention here even if it doesn't find itself mentioned in the top 15. There are hundreds of books and articles that are reliable about these topics. Andre🚐 04:38, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

How many sources about Zionism refer to HeHasid's 1700 proto-Zionist endeavor, or call it proto-Zionist? There are hundreds of thousands of books and articles that are reliable about these topics. That's why we need a source selection criteria that's better than "is a reliable source." No, it doesn't have to be limited to the 16 best sources, but (a) that's a good place to start on any question, and "where to start this article" is definitely a "how to structure things" question, and (b) even as we move beyond them, we should have some source selection criteria that's tighter than "is a reliable source," because while we don't need to limit ourselves to the 10 or 20 "best" sources, we don't need to go alllll the way down to MDPI, or all the back to the 1990s, either. We both know very well that there are dozens of full-length books about Zionism by top scholars from the last 20 years, and we've put together a pretty good list. If we want to know "where to start this article," there are 16 top sources listed on this page, and another 50 great sources listed on the bibliography page. I see no reason to skip over all of those and start throwing in obscure articles. One thing I liked about DMH's edit is the quality of the sources. Levivich (talk) 04:48, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

His edit introduced Shimoni 95, which is from the year before the UChicago book above. Andre🚐 04:51, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

OK so yeah I'd replace that one with something newer :-) But speaking of editing incrementally, I think that edit was an incremental improvement. Levivich (talk) 05:39, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

At the very least it looks like no one is arguing that we should start the discussion before 1700. DMH223344 (talk) 05:55, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Wikipedia is a work in progress. We may only have sufficient weight in reliable sourcing that describes Zionism going back to 1700, but for example, read the beginning of Edelheit. Similarly, Sabbateanism happened in the 1600s if I'm not mistaken, which should also be included. Andre🚐 06:06, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

If you think Sabbateanism is a significant WP:ASPECT of Zionism, make the case: how many books about Zionism cover Sabbateanism, and how much coverage of it do they give? Levivich (talk) 06:16, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

I will, but not right now, because I should step away for a bit, and others may want to opine too. But, I want to again opine, that it's not "books about Zionism" but "any sufficiently reliable source," which includes reliable and cited books and journal articles about Zionism or Jewish messianism that mention Zionism, books or articles about the history of Judaism that mention Zionism or cover it etc. If they talk about Zionism, they are RS that count for weight, and it doesn't exclusively need to be a book about Zionism. Nor does it need to be in the majority of RS to have weight. Andre🚐 06:24, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

WP:BESTSOURCES: "When writing about a topic, basing content on the best respected and most authoritative reliable sources helps to prevent bias, undue weight, and other NPOV disagreements." IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 15:20, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Yup, which includes reliable journal articles, and books that aren't exclusively general histories of Zionism. Andre🚐 15:27, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Journal articles aren't "the best respected and most authoritative reliable sources" on Zionism. 100,000 sources can't be the best and most authoritative, it's too large of a pile. Neither are books. Some journal articles are. Some books are. But not every journal article or book is going to be a "best source." Levivich (talk) 15:48, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Ok so at the very least no one is arguing that we should cover anything before 1600. I'll delete everything covering the period before that tomorrow. DMH223344 (talk) 06:38, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

I haven't checked those sources out enough, but if they do not mention Zionism explicitly or only mention it in passing for something unrelated, you should remove them as WP:SYNTH, but please check them to make sure. Andre🚐 06:41, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

"My Hebrew isn't fluent, but you can usually get pretty far with Google Translate." :picard Dan Murphy (talk) 04:20, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

As in Star Trek? Sorry, I'm more of a Wars guy, but I was watching some Babylon 5 recently. Anyway, this snippy rejoinder to me in another thread [2] put it more succinctly, which I rather enjoyed even tho it was at my expense, "Google Translate exists." But more seriously, it's a legitimate point. A better source may exist but we should totally expect some sourcing to be in Hebrew since that's what they speak in Israel, the country where Zionism is most relevant, so we can't just remove sources that are in Hebrew. It also wouldn't be completely out of the question that we consider what sources in the French, German, Russian, and Hebrew sphere. Andre🚐 04:32, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Maybe for niche and specific points, but not for historical background. Any relevant historical background would be covered by many english sources. DMH223344 (talk) 05:56, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

I took a look at where the #Best sources start (I couldn't access Conforti 2024, and couldn't figure out where Gans 2016 started):

• Amar-Dahl: mid-19th c.
• Engel: timeline's first entries are 721 BCE, 586 BCE, 135 CE, 632 CE, 1517, 1700, 1850s...; from the intro: "if you want to know where the Zionist movement came from, you'll need some rudimentary information about what Jews experienced as a group before the movement first appeared on the scene. That's where Chapter 1 begins." Ch. 1 spends about 4 pages on Biblical Israel through French Revolution.
• Forriol: late 18th c.
• Halperin: 1882/1st Aliyah
• Masalha: 19th c. but 19th c. biblical studies
• Penslar: 19th c., with a section about "forerunners" covering 18th c./Haskalah
• Dieckhoff: 18th c./Haskala (also refers to "forerunners")
• Wagner & Davis: early 19th c./post-French Revolution
• Brenner: 19th c.
• Black: 19th c.
• Stanislawski: 19th c.; brief mention of "forerunners" (which are mid-19th c. figures); about one page on pre-19th c. stuff
• Sachar: late 18th c./French Revolution
• Alam: late 19th c.
• Gans 2008: late 19th c.

One thing I noticed going through those is that Penslar, Dieckhoff, and Stanislawski, when they talked about forerunners, talked about how they weren't really important, and questioned the concept of forerunners. This argument seems supported by the fact that so many of these books pay little or no attention to the forerunners, and instead provide a general backdrop of life for Jews in Europe post-French Revolution, and then it's on to Herzl. Levivich (talk) 04:51, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Even if only 3 or 4 of the "best sources" start before the mid-19th century, that isn't an argument that the article should not. Andre🚐 04:54, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

I mean, I think it is actually an argument, and a pretty good one, that if only 3 or 4 sources out of 14 cover something, that thing might not be a significant WP:ASPECT or WP:DUE for inclusion. But in this case, I think half of the sources cover pre-19th century stuff, so the Wikipedia article should, too, but pre-19th century stuff should be short (compared to 19th c. and 20th c.), and IMO we should include the aspects that are included in these sources (and other sources of similar quality). For example, when I was skimming these sources, I saw multiple sources mentioned Haskalah, the French Revolution, and when they talked about forerunners, they all seemed to mention Zvi Hirsch Kalischer, Judah Alkalai, and Moses Hess. I didn't do a thorough search, but I didn't notice Bibas or HeHasid mentioned, and I noticed one mention of Sabbateanism, and all they said was that it was a "little known" Jewish messianic movement (it said the other pre-Zionist Jewish messianic movement was better known: Christianity). Levivich (talk) 05:24, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

HeHasid is mentioned in the Edelheit that we just added. Ravietzky isn't categorized in the criteria of a general book, because it's more specialized, but it's still reliable. Similarly, there's Morgenstern. Just because we defined the criteria as "general histories," doesn't mean that if something appears in other reliable specialized sources, be they books or journal articles, that it can't be mentioned here. If so, please make that argument using Wikipedia policy, as I'm not aware of it. Andre🚐 05:34, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

WP:V § Verifiability does not guarantee inclusion: just because something appears in an RS doesn't mean it should appear in this article. WP:ASPECT (for facts) and WP:DUE (for viewpoints) expressly say we include content in proportion to its coverage in RS. The article should cover what appears in most sources, not what appears in any or just a few sources. Remember, there are other articles for more in-depth information. Details of pre-Zionism history can go in articles like History of Zionism and Proto-Zionism. Levivich (talk) 05:44, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

True, but WP:BESTSOURCES clearly includes journal articles. So how do we justify excluding all journal articles in favor of only books? Andre🚐 05:46, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Nobody said that. But one reason not to include just any journal article is that "Zionism" has like 179,000 hits on Google Scholar. Journal articles are fine, but we should "skim from the top," meaning limit it to the best authors and the best journals, however we define that. Keep in mind, this article is an overview of Zionism, it's a high-level general overview of a very broad topic, and a main purpose is to guide readers to the right sub-article. There really isn't anything in an encyclopedia article about Zionism that we wouldn't find in a book about Zionism. If you have to go to journal articles for a particular fact that isn't in the book, it's probably not an important aspect of Zionism. Now, there are probably some journal articles that are excellent sources for particular aspects of Zionism, and sure we can cite those. But in that case, we're talking about an article being a better source for particular content, which could still be sourced to any given book about Zionism. As an example: there are no doubt books about Herzl that are better sources for Herzl than any of the #Best sources. And there are no doubt articles about the Uganda Scheme that are probably better sources for the Uganda scheme than any book about Zionism or any book about Herzl. So we might cite the HErzl biography when we talk about Herzl, and the article when we talk about the Uganda Scheme, but we're still talking about aspects (Herzl and Uganda Scheme) that we could source to any of the general Zionism overview books. As opposed to using an article for a fact or aspect that isn't in any, or many, or most, of the books. Levivich (talk) 05:52, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

This is the overview article of Zionism yes, but we should take the Timeline of Zionism as far back as there are reliable sources. Not hitting on every single point, but if an event appears in a sufficient number of RS, WP:DUE doesn't justify excluding that except in cases of extreme length. I didn't say to include any journal article, but when we look at weight, there are many reliable journals and journal articles to include. Similarly, specialized books. I don't agree that any fact not in the books but in journal articles doesn't belong in the overview article. I think that's an overzealous skimming of the cream. We need a bit of half and half too. Neutrality requires that mainspace articles and pages fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in those sources If it's not 0, I don't see how 0 is a fair proportion for a significant fact. Andre🚐 06:10, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

The weight of various aspects should reflect that in RS. +1 to the explanation Levivich has given many many times on this page. DMH223344 (talk) 05:53, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Andrevan. You participated intensely in our discussion on (b)restricting composition of this page to the very best latest academic sources, and approved of the high bar Levivich and others set forth. In this thread, you are taking the diametrically opposed view for the pre-history of Zionism, with (b) an open Sesame policy to a huge source base that is not primarily about Zionism. Why the double standard, when the general consensus that emerged was in favour of one restrictive criterion, in a short range of best recent research, consensually drawn up?Nishidani (talk) 08:04, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Eh? I certainly did not argue that this page should be restricted to the best sources. In fact, I've been regularly pushing back on unduly cherrypicking. As I've said, the best sources should be used to guide weight for the lead. Please don't mischaracterize my statements without diffs, thanks. Andre🚐 08:14, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

@Andrevan, please stop making accusations of cherrypicking without evidence. Your argument seems to be that any source that is primarily about Zionism is likely to be biased, and that's what you're basing these accusations on. Unless you can provide some evidence that this is true, please just stop making this accusation. Accusing others of cherrypicking also implies they'd be doing so intentionally, which is a violation of AGF.

I explained to you at your talk the problem with including general sources: that increases the number of sources by such a large number that the BESTSOURCES list inevitably becomes unmanageable, and other editors tend to throw up their hands and walk away. Unless you have evidence that general sources are somehow necessary to avoiding bias -- which when you assert without proof is simply your opinion -- please stop bludgeoning about this. No one else here seems to be objecting to a BESTSOURCES list, and has also been explained to you, not being on the BESTSOURCES list doesn't mean a source cannot be used at all. Valereee (talk) 16:16, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Cherrypicking, as I've said a few times, is not always intentional, but an unintentional blind spot. Andre🚐 16:17, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Just stop using the term. It's an accusation, and you have not presented evidence. Valereee (talk) 16:20, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

It is not an accusation, and when I used it in the last comment, I was referring to what I was previously doing, to refute Nishidani's misquote and mischaracterization of my statements, and not making a fresh claim. Andre🚐 16:22, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

'I do think we should have objective criteria that applies to the whole list.'

That is what you asserted as a principle earlier. Using the criteria Levivich laid down, you accepted Gans but excluded Alam, in a strict exclusionary view of relevance. In this thread you are all over the place with no 'objective criteria' in sight. The effect is the impression that youy're fine with restrictive rules on Zionism, rules which give little weight to the past or old precedents, but not so with writing up stuff about pre-Zionism. That is a recipé for the kind of mess many of those prehistorical passages create. If histories of Zionism do not cover pre-Zionism back to BCE or the medieval period, then to only mention messianic movements en passant, then coherence requires editors to stick to that scholarly choice. Not to do so is to open the floodgates for the WP:OR violations we have throughoput these sections, with past editors just chucking in stuff about immigration, exile, persecutions etc., from sources that do not specialize in Zionism but the Jewish people, background that modern histories of Zionism give small account of.Nishidani (talk) 09:25, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

That is not a quote from me. That is a quote from Levivich. Andre🚐 15:09, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

My apologies to both you and Levivich. But you were fine with a cut-off date at 2000, and ventured to include or exclude (Alam/Gans) on restrictive lines, after earlier pressing to expand the range of acceptable sources. I'll drop it.Nishidani (talk) 16:01, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

As I said, there is a legitimate use for a shortlist of the best-best sources, but it's not to restrict the page or exclude any other source from being used; nor do the recent additions exclusively draw from that list. Andre🚐 16:09, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure I've seen anyone arguing a BESTSOURCES list excludes other sources from being used? Long TP, maybe I missed it? Valereee (talk) 16:25, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Nishidani argued the page should be restricted to the best sources in this same thread. Andre🚐 16:26, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Nope, and we are wasting time here on misrepresenting each other. I wroteNishidani (talk) 16:42, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

These are only suggestions and, given the extraordinary proliferation of books of quality, there is good writerly reason to select a restricted base or core for a complete redraft. But that done, supplementary works which finesse the details can be culled from works like the above.Nishidani (talk) 16:30, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

I have never argued for that, I argued for the opposite in fact, that subsidiary detail would likely require other sources but that doesn't mean I agree that any and all sources are acceptable. High citation journal articles might be OK whereas one would have to examine, for example, low citation recent journal articles. Quite happy to try and work out the best journal sources just as for the books. Selfstudier (talk) 16:30, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Selfstudier, I didn't say you? Andre🚐 16:33, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

I know you didn't, let's not make this a two editor thing tho, realistically there is no real dispute about multi sourcing, for me this whole sourcing exercise is a means to an end, avoid the edit/revert cycle in the future, as much as is possible anyway. Selfstudier (talk) 16:37, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Are you referring to this, where Nishidani said the general consensus that emerged was in favour of one restrictive criterion, in a short range of best recent research, consensually drawn up? Nishidani, were you intending to argue that no other sources could be used at all, even if there was separate consensus to use them for some bit of content but not to add them to BESTSOURCES? Valereee (talk) 16:37, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

@ValereeeThis is a repeat of the Shakespeare Authorship Question for me. The article was a hodgepodge. It was revised from top to bottom with strict citational criteria, no easy thing. As I just noted above, Andrevan misrepresents my views. It is workerly commonsense to rewrite by drafting an outline using the themes as elicited in the best contemporary scholarship's overviews. There must be several hundred books of all types of quality which, were they uncritically accepted, would cause chaos and edit-warring since any POV can be found in them. Once you have the gist of critical scholarship, any perceived omission can be supplemented by books and articles which go into finer detail. The short-list ain't censorship, it is functional to writing an efficient digest of contemporary historiography on Zionism. Elsewhere here I have suggested several books that could fulfill that adjunct role of finessing trhe primary draft. Nishidani (talk) 17:01, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, Nishidani. @Andrevan, are you satisfied that other editors aren't arguing limiting the entire article to only those sources that are on the BESTSOURCES list? Valereee (talk) 18:28, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

I continue to be concerned about WP:NPOV, namely including minority views and balancing controversial positions by anti-Zionist historians with Zionist historians and other mainstream sources, since after all this is the Zionism article and should say what Zionist historians have said, and WP:PRESERVE, such as the recent removals, but I am aware that there are many more editors currently active on this page that don't agree with me, and I always try to abide by the consensus. But it's not disruptive to discuss, and it's not bludgeoning to engage in a thoughtful process in good faith. I would say your comments here show you are a participant as well with your own opinions and views. When I refer to cherrypicking it is not an accusation but a concern that we are considering WP:DUE and WP:WEIGHT using our top-best-sources list, a concept that is not part of any policy. Weight is in all reliable sources, including non-general history books of Zionism, such as reliable journal articles. I agree tabulating that list and discussing it is a useful exercise, and should be used for weight in the lead. Hopefully that clarifies my position, without being too repetitive, but be that as it may, I am well aware that consensus may not agree with me, still, I am trying to participate in good faith, and I think it does Wikipedia and this article a disservice to be so unbalanced as it is. Which, again, is not anyone's fault and not happening on purpose. Andre🚐 21:53, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Whether or not you consider me involved, whether or not you agree with the exact sources currently listed, whether or not you are still concerned with balance issues: are you now satisfied that the creation of a list of sources that have consensus for inclusion does not exclude other sources from being used? Valereee (talk) 11:37, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

I would assume after this discussion that everyone does understand that it's not an exclusive list. Andre🚐 20:01, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

No, that is not what I'm referring to. I'm referring to Andrevan. You participated intensely in our discussion on (b)restricting composition of this page to the very best latest academic sources, and approved of the high bar Levivich and others set forth. Andre🚐 16:38, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Okay, same question to Nishidani: Were you arguing that no other sources could be used at all, even with consensus to do so, or that it was the BESTSOURCES list that was being restricted to the very best latest academic sources? Valereee (talk) 16:41, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Telling me that I wanted to restrict composition of the page to the very best sources, when I didn't do that, was what I was objecting to. an ex post facto clarification doesn't change both the misquoting of me, with a quote that was from Levivich, and a misrepresentation of my position. If we all agree that BESTSOURCES is not an exclusive list, great. Then there shouldn't be a need for anyone to say In this thread you are all over the place with no 'objective criteria' in sight. an open Sesame policy to a huge source base that is not primarily about Zionism. Why the double standard Andre🚐 16:48, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

I apologized for the misquote. Replying to everyone on everything on a talk page is not conducive to resolving problems, or composing an article.Nishidani (talk) 17:26, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

We have articles like Aliyah and History of the Jews and Judaism in the Land of Israel that are appropriate for the pre-modern stuff. There are already more than enough things from the middle of the 19th century onwards to make for a fat article and we don't need a catalogue of earlier things. That's especially true when those earlier things were almost all quite different from the Zionism that later emerged. Zero^talk 12:36, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps go with 19th century and to the extent earlier times are considered they should be discussed only with how the post 19th century has viewed/used them. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:50, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and removed that large patchwork about the Jewish people, which is a very familiar narrative repeated over multiple pages, and very much a modern construction. There is general agreement here that we write that background according to how the best sources on Zionism represent precursors. It is a very bad practice to copy and paste material across articles, and if one rewrites an article, nothing should be assumed as a given from other wiki pages. I left in the bit about next year in Jerusalem. But that apparently arose among a number of Ashkenazi communities in the late medieval period and to selectively take historical innovations in one group (in the medieval period Ashkenazi were a very small community compared to Mizrachi) as typical of all Jewish communities worldwide is a common approach in popular history, but misleading. Likewise on immigration. For 2500 years Palestine was a net supplier to the diaspora of emigrants - and in almost any period down to modern times, any Jew with the means could emigrate from the diaspora back to Palestine without hindrance. They didn't. Maimonides made a visit to the desolation, and quickly returned 'home'.. They no more did this than the massive Mediterranean Jewish populations around BCE-CE entertained the idea of returning to Palestine. Emigrating outwards offered better prospects, but the narrative we have, which derives from rabbinical meditations on galut, and does not reflect historical realities. The expulsion from Spain under modern history's first fascist, Isabella, led to some notable movements towards the Levant, but the small, perhaps 2,000 strong Jewish community in Palestine, after an initial boost, collapsed against until the 1800s, and the stabilization after 1830s allowed renewed interest. The text I removed, furthermore,was Ashkenazocentric. Any account of Jewish attachment to Israel should, but rarely does, cite this theme as it emerges in all Jewish communities, from Kaifeng to Morocco, from Ethiopia to Russia. Etc etc.15:40, 27 September 2024 (UTC)Nishidani (talk)

• I'm going to flag this discussion at WP:NPOVN because I think this discussion needs wider input. Andre🚐 17:13, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

  I don't and I said so there. Selfstudier (talk) 17:24, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

  My saying so there was hatted so I will strike it here and just say that I think it's unnecessary to do so. There. Selfstudier (talk) 18:12, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

As i understand the basis for removing this content: WP:BESTSOURCES, strict requirement on reference relevance Zionism, and this being a summary style overview; is there any appetite for applying the same standard to other content within the article? I think that was a good edit based on a very good standard for the article, but looking at the content and the "section sizes" template at the top of the talk page suggests much more work is needed. fiveby(zero) 17:13, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Everything is supposed to be summary style if there are main articles existing. Selfstudier (talk) 17:25, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

@zero. Much more work on other sections is indeed needed. I just hope editors have the energy, after these exhausting threads, to actually read that small sample so that we can begin the long-augured overhaul. Nishidani (talk) 17:33, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

To get back on track as Levivich says, think half of the sources cover pre-19th century stuff, so the Wikipedia article should, too, but pre-19th century stuff should be short (compared to 19th c. and 20th c.), and IMO we should include the aspects that are included in these sources (and other sources of similar quality). Does anyone disagree that we should cover the Haskalah and the French Revolution era stuff? Also, I believe Edelheit should be a valid source to restore the Nasi stuff. Andre🚐 22:12, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

NPOV balance issue in lead

The lead has WP:UNDUE weight on a particular interpretation of Zionism as a specific form, namely the 19th century through 1930s versions of Zionism which were radical political movements (Political Zionism) or the Jabotinsky types (Revisionist Zionism) and yes, verged into ethnonationalism not so subtly when describing their aims and goals, and of course, there is religious Zionism, the opposite of which would be secular Zionism. One must remember that the history of Zionism includes cultural Zionism, labor Zionism, Progressive Zionism, and much more mainstream versions of Zionism. For more see Category:Types of Zionism. Most Zionists in America, while not all Christian Zionists, largely, according to the recent Harris-Harvard polls, believe that Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish national homeland, and that's probably the common meaning that many people refer to as Zionism. The lead, while impressively sourced, needs to be doing a better job of WP:BALASP of Zionism to explain that Zionism is not one movement but a set of movements, and also has become used as a slur to refer to Jews and Jewish groups according to recent institutional changes such as that at NYU. The groups such as J Street in the United States shouldn't be lumped in with some 1930s research that yes, is indeed a part of the history of Zionism, but is taking undue center stage in the lead as written. Andre🚐 03:09, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

I disagree. The thing in itself as described by the best academic sources is the way to go.Dan Murphy (talk) 03:19, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Indeed. But the current lead is cherry-picked to tell a very specific and narrow story about Zionism that isn't NPOV. Consider the following sources from Cambridge.

• Formulated by Theodor Herzl, Political Zionism affirmed the supra-national nature of Jews, holding that all Jews shared a common legacy and tradition... over the course of the late nineteenth century and the first decades of the twentieth century, several varieties of Jewish nationalism emerged. They included Cultural Zionism, which called for a group of Hebrew-speakers to develop a spiritual center in the Land of Israel, Socialist Zionism, which sought to blend Jewish nationalism with utopian socialism, Marxist Zionism, which united class struggle and nationalism, and Mizraḥi, which hoped to stem the secularism of other established varieties of Jewish nationalism.
• Zionism, the Jewish national territorial movement, sought to create a modern Jewish society and polity that would ensure a high cultural standard and a cultural market that would meet all the needs of that society – in Hebrew.
• Zionism is a variety of Jewish nationalism. It claims that Jews constitute a nation whose survival, both physical and cultural, requires its return to the Jews’ ancestral home in the land of Israel. Throughout most of its history, however, Zionism was far more than a nationalist movement: it was a revolutionary project to remake the Jews and their society. It was part of the great political convulsion that wracked the western world during the first half of the twentieth century. Despite the vast differences between them, social democracy, communism and fascism in Europe, anti-colonial nationalist movements in Asia and Africa, and Zionism all strove for a radical transformation of existing political realities, and they espoused utopian visions of social engineering. This was true primarily for Labor Zionism, which arose out of the European leftist tradition, but also characterized bourgeois varieties of Zionism and right-wing Revisionism.
• A complex ideological form, Zionism historically reflected and responded to all early twentieth-century political currents (liberalism, nationalism, socialism, colonialism, and fascism) and cultural styles (art nouveau, expressionism, modernism, Bauhaus).
• Zionism was born out of the drive to find a response to the problems Jews faced as a distinct collective, and its solution was based on defining the Jewish people as a nation with distinctive cultural characteristics entitled to self-determination realized in a Jewish state in the Land of Israel. While Zionism was fundamentally a modernist, dynamic, revolutionary, and secular movement, it recognized the Jewish faith and Jewish history as the source of its formative stories and national cultural symbols. Zionism never entirely suppressed the cultural issue; it rather adopted a moderate stance that manifested itself in several ways. First, the Zionist movement kept the cultural Zionists on a low burner. Second, Zionism spoke in a collective national language and saw itself as speaking for and representing the entire Jewish people, and voicing all its problems and needs. Third, Zionism translated its ethos of unity into democratic procedure. Fourth, the Zionist movement took upon itself to operate in a way that would facilitate civil cooperation and good neighborliness. Fifth, the Zionist movement made a point of stressing the cultural symbols common to and accepted by most Jews.
• anti-Zionism is understood as an opposition not to the policies of the Jewish state but to the existence of the Jewish state. The chapter explains how notions of Holy Land and sacred history are tied to anti-Zionism, how anti-Zionism is tied to a contempt for Judaism, and what this has to do with the demonization and delegitimization of the Jewish state. Andre🚐 04:17, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

I dont really understand what you're saying. Are you just saying that the lead should describe how the term "Zionism" is used today? DMH223344 (talk) 05:31, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

This is the overview topic of Zionism, the first page, which will have many links to all the various aspects of Zionism, so it should give a balanced and neutral overview of Zionism, the main aspects of Zionism, and a brief summary of its history and impact. Maybe less maybe more. Yes? Right now, the lead is not balancing the aspects neutrally. Andre🚐 05:44, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

OK, do you have specifing changes in mind? Could you provide an example? Dimadick (talk) 08:59, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

It's a good question, but I think we're too bogged down with the discussion of editors questioning these apparently reliable sources. I'd love to come back around to something constructive though if we can get past it. Andre🚐 16:22, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Only two of those sources are specifically about Zionism, 4 and 5 (as in part of the title). As was pointed out in earlier discussions, we should focus our attention only on such sources and there are plenty of them. Selfstudier (talk) 09:22, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

That is an arbitrary criterion. What's the policy justification for only using sources with Zionism in the title? Andre🚐 09:33, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

WP:BESTSOURCES are going to be scholarly material about the topic? Not about other topics, even if indirectly related. As I said, there are plenty of them, why would we need others? Selfstudier (talk) 10:02, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

No, that's not a valid argument for excluding scholarly RS about related topics such as the history of Judaism. It's cherrypicking, and there's no policy justification for excluding based on the title of a reliable source that discusses the material in the body, not the title. The many volume Cambridge History of Judaism is eminently reliable and you've not given any valid rational basis for exclusion. Andre🚐 10:05, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

I have, sources that discuss the topic are obviously preferable. Unless there is some specific reason to use less focused sources? What would be in them that are not in the principal sources? Selfstudier (talk) 10:20, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

History of Israel and History of Judaism are directly related to Zionism, and there are many reasons to use these sources, they are reliable general reference sources which provide a balanced view of the topic, and are in no way novel or polemical. One should expect that in a broad historical topic you will use many sources about the history of the key aspects of the topic. One key aspect of Zionism is that it's Jewish nationalism, so history of Judaism is directly related, which should be obvious. You've offered nothing wrong with the sources, other than a title test which appears nowhere in any policy or guideline. BESTSOURCES says nothing at all about your title test, it is not policy-abiding whatsoever. A much more important policy here is WP:BALASP of WP:NPOV. Andre🚐 10:45, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

We used the same principle already when reviewing colonialism in earlier discussions up the page. Also you didn't answer my question. That's my 2 cents, not getting dragged into another interminable discussion. Selfstudier (talk) 10:54, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

You've not fulfilled the burden of proof for the principle, it appears to fly in the face of any established principle and is arbitrary, and there's no reason to follow it other than justifying what are probably going to be more critical and therefore less balanced usage. Andre🚐 15:05, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

I agree those aren't the WP:BESTSOURCES (eg, encyclopedia articles are tertiary). Better sources would be secondary sources, academic books focused on Zionism. There is a list at Bibliography of the Arab–Israeli conflict § Zionism. I'd support choosing a few good ones from there and looking at how they frame the typology of Zionism. Levivich (talk) 14:39, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Just to take one example, I'm not sure why we'd use, as a source for the Wikipedia article Zionism, Penslar's 2017 article about Israel in a book about Judaism, instead of using Penslar's 2022 book about Zionism. This is what "best sources" means to me: the best source for Penslar's views on Zionism is going to be his 2022 book about Zionism, not his 2017 article about Israel. Levivich (talk) 15:00, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

That is not what BESTSOURCES mean. Those sources are equally good. See the list here [3] which cites Cambridge History of Judaism as a secondary history. Andre🚐 15:03, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

These aren't encyclopedia articles; they're quite usable here and nobody has furnished an argument that cites anything mentioned in BESTSOURCES. A cherrypicked list is probably how we got these non-NPOV articles. Penslar is one of the authors in the Cambridge sources and also one of the sources you have in that bibliography, also. [WRITING THE LIST ISN't CHERRYPICKING, but demanding REQUESTING WITH INVALID POLICY ARGUMENTS that I use it is [16:06, 16 September 2024 (UTC)~]🚐]Andre🚐 15:52, 16 September 2024 (UTC)]Andre🚐 15:01, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

To be clear, it's literally cherrypicking to say we can't use Cambridge because the BESTSOURCES are a pre-vetted list by a specific editor. There needs to be a policy-based reason not to use Cambridge, not "Zionism isn't in the title." That is clearly cherrypicking. Andre🚐 15:44, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

This is missing the point made above multiple times which is that the source should be about Zionism. The history of Zionism is of course NOT the history of Judaism. Is there some overlap? of course, but they are not the same, and anything you choose to include that isnt already discussed as part of a history of Zionism from an RS is OR or SYNTH. DMH223344 (talk) 15:47, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

It is not OR or SYNTH at all. That is completely not in the policy. Obviously the sources above are ABOUT Zionism, they just don't have Zionism IN THE TITLE. Zionism is a crucial part of the history of Judaism. Andre🚐 15:49, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Zionism is a crucial part of the history of Judaism sure! I probably agree with this. But is it true that The details of the history of Judaism is a crucial part of the history of Zionisim? Most RS on Zionism would probably not agree since basically every text about Zionism starts in the late 19th century. DMH223344 (talk) 16:08, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Take a look at the quotes from the sources above. They are all about the development of Zionism, not the broader history of Judaism. This is the balance we need. Andre🚐 16:14, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Let's look at the second quote you listed above. It emphasizes the cultural aspect of Zionism. The source is "Jewish Cultures, National and Transnational". Of course this source will emphasize the cultural aspect of Zionism, that is the point of the source. Does that mean we should emphasize that same aspect in the lead? Only if it is also emphasized in RS about Zionism. DMH223344 (talk) 16:24, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

That is a chapter of the larger work. It's RS, there's no bounds in policy that RS are not "about" Zionism if the do not have Zionism in the title. That chapter is obviously "about" Zionism. Its exclusion is arbitrary. It is RS as well. Do we have to use that in the lead? Not necessarily. That depends on the discussion and consensus of editors. But is it RS? Yes. Is it usable on the article in general? It should be. Andre🚐 16:26, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Sure you can use it in the article in general. But we cant include that same emphasis in the lead if RS about Zionism dont also give the cultural aspect that same weight. DMH223344 (talk) 16:43, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

For your reference, this is how a book about Zionism describes a cultural aspect of Zionism (from The Zionist Bible, Masalha):

The Zionist movement has appropriated the Jewish religion and regional cultures and traditions of Palestine for its own use. In The Founding Myths of Israel Israeli scholar Zeev Sternhell called the Zionist uses of Judaism “a religion without God” a secular-nationalist religion which has preserved only Judaism’s outward symbols (Sternhell, 1998: 56). Israeli biblical archaeology is a secular-nationalist “civil religion” in Israel. Its nationalist founding godfathers are all secular Ashkenazis and European immigrants to Palestine, who often relied on the Scripture and Written Torah but were unfamiliar with rabbinic Judaism or the anti-literalist interpretation of the Oral Torah, Midrash, Mishna, Talmud and Responsa and thus ignored the rich and complex interpretative traditions of the Midrash – interpretative traditions that encouraged infinite interpretations of the Word of God and eschewed limitations on or definitive interpretations of the Written Torah (Armstrong, 2007: 79–101). As a state-driven “civil religion” designed to create a “scientific high culture” to stand above Talmudic and rabbinical Judaism and supersede two millennia of actual Jewish history and long traditions of rabbinical (Midrash) interpretations.

and from Shimoni: The aspiration towarda renaissance of Jewish culture that was to be accomplished byZionism was predicated on the secularized understanding of Jewishidentity as an outcome of immanent processes in the history of thenation. Religion was neither wholly coextensive with Jewishculture nor its original source; it was merely one of the ingredientsof Jewish national culture.

and Goldberg (A history of zionist thought): A distinctively Jewish culture has yet to emerge in Israel. National art, music, literature and dance are derivative, their several distinguished-practitioners firmly in the tradition of the European or eastern cultures from which they and their parents emerged. Israelis are a well-informed, literate, politic­ally aware, book-buying, theatre-going, music-loving public, whose emphasis on higher education is testimony to the abiding Jewish stress on learning. But such is the all-pervasive influence of cultural imperial­ism in the modern world of mass communication that a small country like Israel can only imitate the tone set by London, Paris or Hollywood. As everywhere else, English is the language of diplomacy, commerce, science, technology and ideas.Significantly, the only specifically Jewish features that distinguish Israeli culture from that of most western societies are atavistic: biblical archaeology; the revival of spoken Hebrew; a proliferation of yeshivot, the traditional Talmudic academies. DMH223344 (talk) 16:50, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Stanislawski: Crucial, too, is the absence in the Basel program ofany mention of the renaissance of Jewish culture or the Hebrewlanguage, as opposed to “the strengthening and fostering of Jewishnational sentiment and national consciousness”: the former wouldbe objectionable not only to Herzl, Nordau, and the other strictly“political Zionists” but also to the very small minority of delegateswho were traditional Jews or rabbis who rejected any connectionbetween Zionism and any secular, cultural, renaissance DMH223344 (talk) 16:57, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

"A distinctively Jewish culture has yet to emerge in Israel" surely you must know that other RS will contradict that conclusion, and we must balance that? Andre🚐 20:05, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

I'm not saying we should say that in the lead (or even in the article body). I'm just showing you that RS on zionism will emphasize different points than RS on judaism. We should base the lead on what RS about zionism are saying about zionism. DMH223344 (talk) 20:18, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

I disagree, and I'd like to understand your policy basis for this, which I would characterize as cherrypicking. Many sources that are specifically about Zionism are more critical. But WP:UNDUE actually says we need to balance the proportion of views in all reliable sources, period, not those which match an arbitrary set of criteria. To continue the discussion though, for the sake of argument, I will go do some research of "Books about Zionism" because I'm sure there are some about what I'm saying, too. Andre🚐 20:28, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Well I can see very clearly that it's not in all reliable sources "period", it's:

Neutrality requires that mainspace articles and pages fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in those sources.

where "in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint" is a key aspect.

Second, the BESTSOURCES to use for a summary of what zionism is are RS about Zionism. That is not controversial. DMH223344 (talk) 20:47, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

All reliable sources in proportion to their prominence. BESTSOURCES reads: n principle, all articles should be based on reliable, independent, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. When writing about a topic, basing content on the best respected and most authoritative reliable sources helps to prevent bias, undue weight, and other NPOV disagreements. Try the library for reputable books and journal articles, and look online for the most reliable resources. If you need help finding high-quality sources, ask other editors on the talk page of the article you are working on, or ask at the reference desk. It in no way supports the principle of only using books with Zionism in the title. Andre🚐 20:49, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

You think a book about Judaism counts as a better (or even equally good) source for a summary about Zionism as a book about Zionism? DMH223344 (talk) 21:18, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

How good the source is, is determined by its reliability, how much it is cited, the credentials and reputation of the author and so on. Not the title. So yes, it can be, it depends. Andre🚐 21:19, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

We are interested in the number of citations by others re Zionism, not something else? We absolutely do want books about Zionism and if those do not contain the material you are trying to rely on from books not about Zionism, that's a big red flag. Selfstudier (talk) 21:28, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

A lot of great sources seem to have been discovered in 2024. A remarkable coincidence, no doubt. Out of curiosity, what was wrong with the sources prior to October 7 2023? The lede looked a lot different a year ago.

Minor point of clarification, but I am not "requesting ... that [you] use" anything. I do, however, believe this Wikipedia article should be "basing content on the best respected and most authoritative reliable sources" (WP:BESTSOURCES) about the topic, which would be books focused entirely about Zionism (as opposed to books about something other than Zionism that mention Zionism). (And, as always, the books should be recent, academic, and written by a recognized subject matter expert.) Levivich (talk) 16:55, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Lede is fine, RS is used throughout, and NPOV standards are met.

Important also to note that there is an orchestrated campaign on social media by prominent Zionists to change it, unsure if editors arguing for that here are involved in that, but it's important to keep in mind as the page gets flooded with attention. Raskolnikov.Rev (talk) 20:15, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Unrelated. Andre🚐 20:26, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

@Theleekycauldron it seems reasonable to consider adding temporary restrictions on the article. What do you think? DMH223344 (talk) 22:04, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

+1, whole string of disruptive edits lately. Selfstudier (talk) 22:09, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Agree with this, it's being vandalized by those not interested in seeking consensus for any changes and instead driven by the social media coordinated campaign.

Needs a cooldown period for that to blow over, and we can discuss specific change requests in Talk and then move ahead based on consensus. Raskolnikov.Rev (talk) 22:09, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

All zionism sub-ideologies agree on the core principles of zionism itself, such as the colonization of a land that is inhabited by other pre-dominantly non-jewish population to establish a jewish majority. This is the essence of the zionist project regardless of which kind of zionism sub-ideology you are talking about as stated in reliable sources. the article lead is talking about the core principle of zionism as a whole regardless of the minor differences as between political zionism vs socialist zionism, such differences is to be detailed in the article body, not the lead. Stephan rostie (talk) 08:00, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Books about Zionism

Although as I explained, the article should reflect the proportion of views relative to their reliability and prominence in all reliable sources, not just "Books about Zionism," and we shouldn't be cherrypicking sources (Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view#Bias_in_sources: biased sources are not inherently disallowed based on bias alone, although other aspects of the source may make it invalid. A neutral point of view should be achieved by balancing the bias in sources based on the weight of the opinion in reliable sources and not by excluding sources that do not conform to the editor's point of view.) Here we will search for acceptable "books about Zionism."

• The Zionist idea, recognizing the Jews as a people with rights to establish a state in their homeland,

Thoughts? Andre🚐 20:43, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

I dont understand what you are asking. DMH223344 (talk) 20:48, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

This is a book source with detailed explanations of all the types of Zionism, take a look at the table of contents. It's a reliable, university press book about Zionism specifically which defines Zionism and its various strains in a more comprehensive and neutral way, to balance with our other existing critical sources. It's by Gil Troy a blue-linked historian. Andre🚐 20:50, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Add it to The bibliography so that we don't have to constantly repeat what was already previously discussed. Selfstudier (talk) 20:55, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Yes, I just did. So the parts that I think need more fleshing out in this article are stuff like, Jewish renewal revived the national spirit with Israel at the center radiating toward the other Jewish communities. Cultural Zionism not only survived; it became the defining ideology for many Diaspora Jews, especially Americans Andre🚐 20:58, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

• Here's my next item. "Anne Perez is an historian of modern Jewish and Israeli history. She earned a PhD in History at the University of California, Davis, and an MA in Theological Studies at Bethel Seminary San Diego" This book is a more Christian perspective rather than a Jewish one. Thoughts? the word “Zionism” initially described a movement to invigorate Jewish cultural, linguistic, and national identity. Zionism has since evolved into a movement with many streams, brought about the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 Andre🚐 21:06, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

  Fortress Press is the official publishing house of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, so I would expect this to be a christian zionist perspective. This doesn't mean we shouldnt use the source. DMH223344 (talk) 03:49, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

  I don't disagree. But you haven't told me your opinion of the Gil Troy book. Andre🚐 04:07, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

  Well Gil Troy is not an expert on the topic. But he is of course a Zionist activist. DMH223344 (talk) 04:11, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

  Gil Troy, while not the most prolific scholar in this area, certainly is an expert on the topic of Zionism. — xDanielx ^T/_C\^R 04:47, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

  A historian of US presidents is considered an expert and a BESTSOURCE on Zionism? DMH223344 (talk) 05:03, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

  Most historians' work spans multiple areas, and a huge chunk of Troy's work is explicitly about Zionism. — xDanielx ^T/_C\^R 15:07, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

  To be clear, I'm not saying you shouldn't cite his book. DMH223344 (talk) 05:04, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

  Well, is he or isn't he reliable? Or do you believe any Zionist historian is not an expert on Zionism? Andre🚐 05:21, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

• I'll leave one more to chew on before I tear myself away to do something else. Mark Raider, from 1998, I guess it's getting a little old but still seems pretty useful, no? Andre🚐 21:14, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

In pursuit of a more balanced slate, I've added a number of sources and removed one to the aforementioned bibliography page. Let me know if editors have familiarity with or concerns with these sources.[4] Andre🚐 00:05, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

OK, fine, how about this one? [5] Zionism is an international political movement that was originally dedicated to the resettlement of Jewish people in the Promised Land, and is now synonymous with support for the modern state of Israel. in the blurb. Andre🚐 05:47, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

In lieu of discussing individual sources, add them to bibliography, when we're done doing that, I suggest we agree on a subset that we are going to use to settle the various debates, we can't keep on having separate discussions everywhere (some repeated from earlier). Selfstudier (talk) 09:44, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

This source was already listed in the bibliography in several editions. So, you would agree, it is the BESTSOURCE, right? Andre🚐 11:17, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

I would rather wait until we agree on a list and then agree on a representative subset (by vote if necessary). Selfstudier (talk) 11:23, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

How about we (anyone) pick our top 5 to start with and see if there's any agreement at all? If there is, we could just keep going like that, see where we end up. If there's obviously no agreement, then I guess we will have to vote the list. Selfstudier (talk) 17:55, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

What's the goal here? We havent even identified a specific npov issue, just general concerns raised by an editor and a bunch of new accounts. DMH223344 (talk) 18:45, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Same old, same old..."The" definition, colonization/settler colonialism (maybe), the land without Palestinians thing, etcetera...go to the best sources and settle these issues once for all (or for a while at least). Selfstudier (talk) 18:49, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Only other option is some sort of RFC (or more than one) and we'll end up debating the sources anyway. Selfstudier (talk) 18:51, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

At least improve the citations in the lead. Ideally, the entire lead should be sourced or source-able to five (or however many) best sources. As the saying goes, "write what the sources agree on," and I'm confident that five (or however many) best sources will agree on, eg, what Zionism is, what the key aspects of it are, what the current debates about it are, etc. Improve the citations to where everything is sourced to five (or however many) good sources, and that'll answer the perennial NPOV objections (eg, "that's just what the Arabs/Jews say!"). Levivich (talk) 19:13, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

I've pointed out below ("Language in the lead - Consensus") issues with one sentence in the lead which is very misleading and does not seem to accurately represent any of the sources listed individually nor does it accurate sum up their views in their entirety. It also does not seem to conform to the consensus which was agreed to elsewhere.

The responses I got didn't seem to be that there weren't problems there, just a wish to delay any fixes until after best sources were agreed upon.

Thus I strongly support putting up a NPOV notice on this article at least until the issues with that sentence is resolved.

-- Bob drobbs (talk) 17:54, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

You mean the as few Palestinians thing? As of now, it is fully sourced and has consensus, tagging something just because you personally disagree with it is not useful, what is your suggestion instead and based on what sources? Selfstudier (talk) 18:15, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

Let me quote you:

" ...the difference between Zionists and Zionism is not that much to get excited about tbh, I see no need for an interim fix."

Just because you don't think that there is a significant different between what there seemed to be consensus about and what was put on the page and that you don't see any need for an interim fix does not mean that there isn't a POV issue there.

Andre and I agree that the page in it's current state has NPOV issues, and Levivich has indicated that he'd prefer that the text on the page to reflect Zionism as an ideology instead of Zionists as a group of people.

I'm not clear if we need to have consensus to add a POV tag to this page or just have multiple people who agree there are issues. What are your thoughts there? Do we need full agreement that there a POV issues before adding the page or just multiple people who see issues?

-- Bob drobbs (talk) 19:42, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

I'd supporting tagging NPOV for now. Also, we have 19 best sources below. Based on that, we could start summarizing how each current chunk of lead text is reflected in each source, ie doing a comprehensive source survey. I am fairly confident that exercise will show that the current lead isn't as neutral as it could be. For starters, participants should gain access to as many sources as they practically can. Wikipedia:The Wikipedia Library is a good resource, which should help for the Oxford books, and others are on Google Books or available through libraries. It looks like the Conforti book is too new and it should be available through DeGruyter in November, which hopefully will give access to TWL. However, Conforti has several articles on JStor and Wiley that should be a good stand-in for the Conforti book while its ebook is pre-publication. Andre🚐 20:08, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

Not answering the question I posed is OK. Then I have nothing further to add at this point. Selfstudier (talk) 20:33, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

I agree that the page has POV issues for the reasons stated by Andre and Bob drobbs. Coretheapple (talk) 22:01, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

I can see no clear indication of either what Andrevan or Drobbs mean by an NPOV issue. So it would at this point be useful for either or both to bullet succinctly what they see as an NPOV issue.I say bullet because part of the problem here is that huge threads are being generated without any precise focus. A remarkable amount of words have been spent on discussing a short-list only Levivich and DMH223344 are, apparently, reading. In a normal world, one reads the sources and then one objects, not the other way around.Nishidani (talk) 22:11, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

I'd like to clarify what happened at Talk:Zionism/Archive 24#Revert. I added "the sentence" (the most-land/fewest-Arabs one). It was reverted. A discussion ensued. Consensus was found for that sentence, and this consensus was confirmed by an uninvolved admin. During that discussion, I said I thought the sentence should be changed in some ways, but consensus did not agree with my changes, it agreed with the original sentence. That doesn't mean there isn't consensus, and it certainly doesn't mean that there is an NPOV problem. If editors want to revisit that, there's nothing stopping anybody from proposing a change to that sentence. I would support a change from "Zionists wanted" to something like "Zionism sought..." or "Inherent in Zionism was the desire for...", there are many possible alternatives. But right now, the consensus is for the status quo, until and unless somebody proposes something else, and that gains consensus. Levivich (talk) 00:15, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

Since this thread is too long I created a new one below. I saw that others did as well, I was already working on my message though so I didn't realize. Andre🚐 00:07, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

References

Contentious sentence in lead

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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From lead, Zionists wanted to create a Jewish state in Palestine with as much land, as many Jews, and as few Palestinian Arabs as possible.

• From YouTube [6]

It seems this is highly contentious as much as to have a video done on this? The whole sentence is kind of erroneous in many ways. Can we remove the whole sentence? Govvy (talk) 11:16, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

Not just a video, plenty of other complaints about this sentence which is however, very well sourced.

Also see #Edit suggestion- remove a line in the opening paragraph above. Selfstudier (talk) 11:52, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

Isn't there a limit to how many sections can be opened, while editors ignore prior threads, to repeat what many threads have discussed and which are now archived?Nishidani (talk) 12:03, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

source survey for lead weight and how they start/introduce Zionism

Looking at how best sources introduce the book or Zionism. What jumps out is that most sources mention antisemitism and pre-existing Jewish nationalism that predates Zionism. Many also talk about the biblical underpinnings of Zionism ("Return to Zion"). Many talk about a Jewish state and self-determination in the context of Enlightenment social movements and nationalism. None frame it the way we do, really.

• Tamar-Dahl, Introduction: Israel is a product of Zionism. The Jewish state originates in Jewish nationalism that emerged in the second half of the nineteenth century in Europe. In the course of the secularization and formation of national states that was taking place in Western Europe, the religiously hued, old Christian hatred towards Jews assumed racist features, turning into virulent anti-Semitism. At the same time, efforts to achieve real emancipation for European Jews were failing. Consequently, as new approaches to a resolution seemed to be called for, the Jewish people themselves took up the “Jewish question.” Theodor Herzl’s 1896 pamphlet The Jewish State (Der Judenstaat)....
  • Chapter 1: Zionism emerged in Europe in the middle of the nineteenth century with the defined goal of terminating the “abnormal” political situation of the Jewish diaspora, that is, statelessness of the Jews, and of creating a mode of collective life based on a national state. Arising from the emergency situation posed by an increasingly rampant racist anti-Semitism in Europe, Jewish nationalism was funneled into a movement, with the “negation of the diaspora” forming the core of its ideology and the starting point of its politics. Thus, Shimon Peres (1923–2016), a Zionist statesman and Israeli politician of many years who himself was born in an Eastern European shtetl and emigrated to Palestine as an adolescent, described the Jewish diaspora from the vantage point of an already achieved national statehood
• Conforti[7] (journal article as stand-in for new book): the Zionist conception of the Jewish past and shows that this developed in the second half of the nineteenth century before the inception of political Zionism. Second, the article demonstrates that political Zionism was deeply connected with cultural issues
• Engel: starts with timeline in 721 BCE. Ch 1 The idea of a Jewish state. The word Zionism comes from Zion, one of the Hebrew Bible's name for Jerusalem
• Forriol[8]: Ch1, rise of Zionist project in Europe, starts with I-P conflict. p. 6 Zionism, or Jewish nationalism, was a product of the upsurge of anti-. Semitism in 19th century Central and Eastern Europe. In the late 18th century,
• Gans[9]: Ch1 This book presents a liberal political theory for the Jewish people. It was written in the 2010s, following centuries of persecutions of Jews in Europe, their emancipation there in the nineteenth century, and two centuries of modern political proposals to solve the Jewish problem. Initially, such proposals were worked out and put forward by visionaries and political activists, but over the last few decades academic historians and sociologists have also offered ideas. Only rarely, however, have political theorists and philosophers weighed in. This book seeks to begin to make up for that deficiency. It is being written after the Holocaust and after the Zionist movement’s success in establishing the State of Israel
• Halperin: Introduction discusses Petah Tikva, agricultural colony, winery etc.
• Masalha[10]: Introduction: The secular founding fathers of Jewish Zionism sought to underpin the legitimacy of their European movement in the biblical text. Testifying before the British Royal (Peel) Commission in 1936, David Ben-Gurion, then head of the Jewish Agency, declared “The Bible is our mandate’. For Ben-Gurion, the Tanakh, the “Hebrew Bible’, was the master text of Zionism and the foundational text of the State of Israel. Like Ben-Gurion, the founding fathers of the Israeli state also viewed the Tanakh not only as a reliable historical source but also as a guide for Zionist and Israeli state policies towards the indigenous inhabitants of Palestine, the Palestinians
  • Ch1, Herzl, Zionism would not have been able to achieve its goals without the overall support of the Western imperialist powers. The Israeli state was and still is central to Western projects in the “East”. In fact the Israeli state owes its very existence to the British colonial power in Palestine, despite the military tensions that existed in the last decade of the British mandatory period between the colonial power and the leadership of the militarized Jewish “Yishuv”. Under the Ottomans the European Zionist settlers were not given a free hand in Palestine; had the Ottomans been left in control of Palestine after the First World War, it is very unlikely that a Jewish state would have come into being. The situation changed radically with the occupation of Palestine by the British in 1918; already on 2 November 1917 Zionism had been granted title to Palestine in the well-known Balfour Declaration
• Edelheit[11]: Zionism- the Jewish movement for national rebirth- was arguably one of the most success- ful and, at the same time, one of the least understood examples. Born in the last third of the nineteenth century, its meaning, goals, and very essence continue to be debated by scholars, politicians, and laypersons from all walks of life. Yet, at its core, Zionism was based on a paradox: an effort to revolutionize Jewry by, in essence, making Jews "like all the nations," Zionism proposed a modern solution to the "Jewish Problem" by restoring Jews to their ancestral homeland. Although tapping into millennia-old traditions of restoration and rebirth, most Zionist thinkers rejected - or at least redefmed - all elements of the Jewish tradition that did not specifically relate to restoration, notably religious ritual. Zionism was thus, again, paradoxically, an effort to return the Jew to history thorugh national rebirth while rebelling against Jewish history; an attempt to restore Jewish tradition while recasting that tradition; an effort to make Jews like all the nations while highlighting the unique elements in Jewish culture, tradition, and history goes on to discuss antisemitism.
• Penslar[12]: The word “Zionism” was coined in Central Europe more than 130 years ago. Over time it has undergone myriad changes and is used in the early twenty-first century in ways that late nineteenth-century Jews would have scarcely understood. The fact that the word retains currency, however, means that people find value in it and that they believe in its continuity with earlier usage, even when that continuity is, in fact, tenuous. This combination of malleability and continuity demonstrates Zionism’s function as what the British cultural critic Raymond Williams called a keyword—a term with origins in a fixed time and place that remains current and accumulates new meanings.1Zionism is a keyword inside another keyword: nationalism. Nation-alism is the belief that human beings are divided into groups called nations, which share a territory, language, and culture and aspire to self-determination. Self-determination may take various forms ranging from autonomy to sovereign statehood. Zionism, in turn, is the belief that Jews constitute a nation that has a right and need to pursue collec-tive self-determination within historic Palestine. Like other forms of nationalism, Zionism is both an ideology—a coherent, sustained inter-pretation of experience in terms of fundamental values—and a move-ment: a set of practices designed to realize ideological goals. When nationalist movements realize their goals, such as the attainment of autonomy or sovereignty, nationalist ideology does not disappear, because it serves to bolster the legitimacy of the state. Similarly, although the State of Israel was created in 1948, Zionism exists to this day. It signifies both diaspora Jews’ attachments to the state and the nationalistic senti-ments of Israeli Jews.Zionism has not been the only form of Jewish nationalism....Zionism is, however, heterogeneous. As the writer Amos Oz famously remarked, Zionism is a family name, claimed by a vast number of people whose relations may be intimate or distant but who do bear a certain family resemblance.2 This chapter explores those areas of difference and resemblance between varieties of Zionism in the nineteenth through twenty-first centuries. Most scholars who draw a Zionist family tree are content to call the family’s members by their given names and to accept at face value claims by one family member of propinquity or distance from another. During the Zionist movement’s formative decades, activists defined themselves via categories such as “Political,” “Practical,” “Cul-tural,” “Labor,” “Revisionist,” and “Religious.” These terms had meaning for the people who used them, but they obscure similarities between allegedly opposed Zionist camps, as well as difference within each camp. This chapter therefore critiques old taxonomies of Zionism a (Staging Zionism)
• Dieckhoff: stars with glossary, defining "Aliyah" first. Starts first chapter with Roth quote "The Jews have no homeland." p.2, Haskalah. p.3 Peretz Smolenskin, David Gordon, Hess, Bund, socialism, Dubnow p.4 Ahad Ha'am
• Wagner[13][14]: Starts with I-P conflict. Intro Ch1+2: For Israel and the organized American Jewish community, Zionism is one of the most influential ideologies of our times. Although the tenets of political Zionism have shifted over the years, the impact of Zionism continues unabated, shaping the identity of many Jews worldwide as well as the geopolitics of the Middle East, North America, and Europe
  • Ch1 Herzl to Ben-Gurion In Europe during the second half of the nineteenth century, the Age of Nationalism and the Age of Imperialism converged. Building on ideas of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution, which promised equal rights for all, nationalist movements based on blood and soil arose all over Europe while their countries competed with each other to expand their colonial empires overseas. Political Zionism was one of these national-colonial movements, but Zionism faced obstacles that the other nationalist movements did not have: Jews were dispersed throughout Europe, had no common national identity, and possessed no common territory.
• Brenner[15]The eminent Oxford philosopher Isaiah Berlin took great pleasure in telling the story of a party he attended in the 1930s where the later president of the State of Israel, Chaim Weizmann, then the leader of the World Zionist Organization, was asked by an aristocratic British lady admirer, “Dr. Weizmann, I do not understand. You are a member of the most cultured, civilized, brilliant and cosmopolitan people in history and you want to give it all up to become—Albania?” According to Isaiah Berlin, Weizmann pondered thoughtfully and slowly on the question, then his face lit up like a light bulb. “Yes!” he exclaimed: “Albania! Albania!” To become a people like any other people! That was the idea that many Zionists had in mind when they set out to realize their project to create a Jewish state. The Declaration of Independence of the State of Israel internalized this notion in a central passage that stresses “the natural right of the Jewish people to be masters of their own fate, like all other nations, in their own sovereign State.” Jews, so their argument went, had always been the archetypal “other” in history. Only by ending the “abnormal” situation of their dispersion in a world-wide diaspora and by reestablishing their own state after two millennia would “normality” be regained in the form of a small Jewish state. Thus, the Jews would become “a nation like all other nations” and their state a state like all other states— an imagined Albania.1 Over two millennia Jews had received attention way beyond their numerical strength, as historian David Nirenberg observed: “For several thousand years people have been think- ing about Judaism
• Black: starts with I-P conflict. a few pages in. Palestinian and Israeli narratives diverge over far more than the words .... Both are reflected throughout this book. Each is authentic, even if dismissed by the other side as propaganda or lies. Neither can be ignored. The conflict between these two peoples can only be understood by paying attention to how they see themselves and their history as well as each other. Narrative, in its simplest definition, is ‘the story a nation tells itself about itself’ Israelis describe a quest for freedom and self-determination after centuries of anti-Semitic persecution, and the ‘ingathering of the exiles’ who ‘return’ from the Diaspora to Zion to build a sovereign and independent Jewish state in their ancient homeland, finally achieved in the wake of the extermination of 6 million Jews by the Nazis during the Second World War. That story of national liberation is succinctly captured in the Hebrew phrase ‘miShoah leTekuma’ — ‘from Holocaust to rebirth’. Self-respect and dignity are restored after centuries of powerlessness, suffering and humiliation. The presence of another people in that homeland (however that people and land are defined) is rarely noted beyond its violent opposition to Zionism. Land is ‘redeemed’ and the desert made to bloom. Israel’s dominant narrative emphasizes its own readiness to compromise and to make peace while the other side has repeatedly missed opportunities to do so. The ‘dove’ is forced to fight
• Stanislawski[16]: Ch1 Zionism—the nationalist movement calling for the establishment and support of an independent state for the Jewish people in its ancient homeland—is today one of the most controversial ideologies in the world. Its supporters see it as the national liberation movement of the Jewish people that came to fruition in the creation of the State of Israel in 1948. Its opponents regard it as one of the last forms of colonial oppression in the world, defined by Israel’s occupation of the West Bank in the name of a racist ideology increasingly turning Israel into an apartheid state. “The Jews: Religion or Nation?” outlines the aims of this VSI, which does not promote any particular position on Zionism.
• Sachar: Preface. This is a long volume for a small country. After four far-ramifying Middle Eastern crises in one generation, however, it may be assumed that the seismic impact of Israel upon the contemporary world is too palpable to require elaboration. One may even argue that the Jews, with or without statehood, have exerted an uncommonly protean influence upon organized society from ancient to modern times. Ironically, the theorists of Zionism had anticipated that revived nationhood in the Land of Israel finally would lift this unique and burdensome afflatus from the backs of the Jewish people; for, aside from the religionists among them, the Zionists were animated less by a sense of mission than by a search for normalcy. In the ensuing chapters, we shall have opportunity to evaluate the ambivalent results of that quest. Ch1. The Rise of Jewish nationalism. 1807. Napoleon. p6. Forerunners of Zionism. Herzl and political Zionism in chapter 3.
• Alam: Ch1 starts 1897 in Europe.
• Shapira[17]; Ch1 Herzl 1897. Ch2 Jews, Turks, Arabs, Ottomans, Napoleon. What began as an evanescent movement whose most ardent supporters never believed that the objective of Jewish sovereignty in Palestine would be achieved in their lifetime became a real national movement
• Laqueur[18]: 2003 Preface, Herzl, labor Zionism. Preface The term Zionism was first used publicly by Nathan Birnbaum at a discussion meeting in Vienna on the evening of 23 January 1892.* The history of political Zionism begins with the publication of Herzl’s Judenstaat four years later and the first Zionist congress. But the Zionist idea antedates the name and the organisation. Herzl had precursors in Germany, Russia, and in other countries, whose writings reflected the longing for the ancient homeland, the anomaly of Jewish existence in central and eastern Europe, and the need to find a solution to the ‘Jewish question’. The emergence of Zionism in the 1880s and 1890s can be understood only against the general background of European and Jewish history since the French Revolution on one hand, and the spread of modern antisemitism on the other. The present book starts with a discussion of the European background of Zionism, covers the prehistory of the movement and five decades of Zionist activities, and ends with the establishment of the state in May 1948, the turning point in the history of the movement. It is debatable whether there is a history of Zionism beyond 1948, and not only because many of its functions have been taken over by the state of Israel. Before the word ‘Zionism’ became generally accepted, the term Palestinofilstvo (Hibat Zion) was widely used in Russia.
• Cohn-Sherbok: [19] Ch1 Sabbateanism/Messianism. Hess. Forerunners. Napoleon

Andre🚐 23:32, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

References

Proposed new lead draft 0, not precious or particular about it, it's a very early swag that I think can be improved:

Zionism is the nationalist movement that emerged in its modern form during the late 19th century with the goal of establishing a Jewish state in the historical region of Palestine, known as the Holy Land or the biblical Eretz Yisrael. This took for the form of small agricultural colonies and land purchases prior to the Ottoman Empire giving way to British administration and partition which formally drew lines for the Jews and Arabs of Mandate Palestine. Zionism arose in response to growing anti-Semitism in Europe, and the failure of Jewish emancipation efforts. Formulated into political Zionism by such figures as Herzl, Pinsker, the movement's core ideology centered on the "negation of the diaspora" and the belief that Jews needed a sovereign state with a Hebrew national culture. Early Zionists such as Ahad Ha'am drew on historical and religious ties in the revival of Hebrew and historical Jewish traditions of aliyah to create a new secular modern identity. With the support of Western powers, the movement ultimately succeeded in establishing the State of Israel in 1948. Today, Zionism remains a complex and controversial ideology, with supporters viewing it as a national liberation movement for self-determination and opponents criticizing it as a form of ethnonationalism.

Andre🚐 00:25, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

So is your key issue the use of the word "colonization" in the first sentence? DMH223344 (talk) 00:42, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

There are several issues to do with the balance of aspects and the amount of weight, this is the first paragraph and the first draft attempt, so we can go in further depth, or not. Feel free to take this same list of sources, read them and create your own draft and start there, also. Andre🚐 00:49, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

Well, we should be specific about the issues. DMH223344 (talk) 03:43, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

I wrote a long section about this in several places, so I don't want to repeat myself. This section contains a constructive attempt, which you can engage with if you wish. As I said the lead focuses overly on critical aspects, and is missing several of the key aspects mentioned in BESTSOURCES about Zionism: ancient homeland, self-determination, history, revival of Hebrew language and culture, antisemitism, return from diaspora. That are coming up again and again. If you don't agree that's fine, naturally I had to focus on certain quotes that seemed responsive to the question. You can spelunk the same source list and find an alternative or simply critique mine if you wish. But don't say I'm not being specific, because I just did Andre🚐 03:53, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for being specific. Of the aspects you listed, only revival of hebrew language is not mentioned in the lead. DMH223344 (talk) 04:04, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

To be clear, these should all be mentioned in the first paragraph, and mostly as close to the first sentence as possible. And I would say the current lead puts undue emphasis on the critical aspects. Andre🚐 04:29, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

I don't agree, the first paragraph should describe the basics of what Zionism is, which it does in its current form. DMH223344 (talk) 04:37, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

Do you honestly feel that the current first paragraph is a reasonable map to the first introduction or Ch1 paragraph in the bestsources? Andre🚐 04:39, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

I think it does a good job of satisfying the requirements in the policy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Lead_section#Opening_paragraph DMH223344 (talk) 04:58, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

I don't have a MOS concern, I have a WP:BALASP concern. The WP:WEIGHT should mirror all reliable sources. The best sources can be a proxy for that. But right now there is undue weight on a number of different details in each paragraph of the lead that are ancillary and serve to create an impression of arguing in the lead. See WP:IMPARTIAL. A neutral characterization of disputes requires presenting viewpoints with a consistently impartial tone; otherwise, articles end up as partisan commentaries even while presenting all relevant points of view. Even where a topic is presented in terms of facts rather than opinions, inappropriate tones can be introduced through how facts are selected, presented, or organized. Neutral articles are written with a tone that provides an unbiased, accurate, and proportionate representation of all positions included in the article. The tone of Wikipedia articles should be impartial, neither endorsing nor rejecting a particular point of view. Try not to quote directly from participants engaged in a heated dispute; instead, summarize and present the arguments in an impartial, formal tone. Andre🚐 05:05, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

You want to shove every aspect you consider "positive" about zionism in the first paragraph? DMH223344 (talk) 19:07, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

I agree. I didn't realize it before, but on reading it now it's pretty perplexing that a motivation for Zionism isn't there. They just decided to create a state randomly? Uh... ok. Bitspectator ⛩️ 05:17, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

I definitely agree that there is a balance issue here. But I think the original lead reads well, and I don't see much wrong with it as a base aside from a couple of potentially controversial wordings. Not sure if it needs a full rewrite though. To modify your work, Andrevan, I would probably just add something like this after the first sentence in the original lead:

Zionism arose in response to growing anti-Semitism in Europe, which had been persistent since the formation of the Jewish diaspora. Zionism was seen as an alternative to failing efforts to achieve Jewish emancipation.

and something like this after the "central importance in Jewish history" sentence in the original lead:

Early Zionists drew on these historical and religious ties in order to create a new secular modern identity, carrying out a revival of Hebrew and adopting it as an official language.

Bitspectator ⛩️ 02:17, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

Those do both feel like great incremental improvements to the current text, without prejudice to other changes and issues. Andre🚐 02:20, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

As I mentioned above, this article is an overview of Zionism, not the History of Zionism, which article is another mess in need of fixing up, maybe that should be done first. Selfstudier (talk) 10:30, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

Which reminds me, another mess at Timeline of Zionism. Selfstudier (talk) 10:34, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

For example, Forriol, "The first chapter will analyse why and how the Zionist project began to take shape in Europe in the late 19th and 20th centuries. The second chapter will examine how the Zionist project has developed in Israel and the mechanisms that this ideology uses to achieve its goal of taking control of Palestinian territory and establishing a fully Jewish state, with the help of the US. The third chapter will analyse how Zionist ideology has been implemented in the state of Israel throughout its history." This article should be mainly interested in Chapters 2 and 3 of the book not Zionism, or Jewish nationalism, was a product of the upsurge of anti-Semitism in 19th century Central and Eastern Europe. Or in the case of Conforti where instead you have chosen to pick up a line about the Zionist conception of the Jewish past, from a journal article whose abstract says "This article offers a new perspective on the early stages of Zionism, adopting the ethno-symbolic approach to the study of nationalism"? Selfstudier (talk) 11:30, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

As for your suggested paragraph, I would prefer something along the lines of, using your words mostly:

"Zionism is a complex and controversial ideology, with supporters viewing it as a national liberation movement for self-determination (this is was?) and opponents criticizing it as a form of ethnonationalism pursuing colonial settlement and expropriation. It emerged during the late 19th century in response to growing antisemitism in Europe, and the failure of Jewish emancipation efforts (?), with the goal of establishing a Jewish state in Palestine. Supported by Western powers, the movement succeeded in establishing the State of Israel in 1948. Since then...? Selfstudier (talk) 11:53, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

I have to comment here that describing it as ethnonationalism is certainly not limited to critics or opponents. It literally is ethnonationalism, the mainstream zionist description of zionism is that it is ethnic-nationalism (although they sometimes also shove in "cultural") DMH223344 (talk) 18:18, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

I don't think that's too bad, Selfstudier, and I appreciate a conscientious attempt to find a reasonable compromise and improve the state of affairs. Andre🚐 22:07, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

• You didn’t respond to my request, which was to give a bulleted list of what you object to in the present lead. Instead you provide a lead alternative, with bibliography. So you have essentially walked past the issue of what is putatively wrong in the text we have.

• Your alternative version is now showcased to, I presume, be the point of discussion, not the present lead. Artful, but not helpful .
• Your version is an impeccable exercise in writing a text that would be perfectly acceptable in an Israeli school primer. It is, in essence, how Zionists are taught to perceive their history. That is a legitimate perspective, but in academic/encyclopaedic articles we do not describe as a set of facts what turns out to be the formal self-perception or retrospective political, cultural and ideological reading of its past any nation may choose to entertain. It is not an NPOV balancing act, in short, but a ‘disappearing’ of one party and their history (the 95% of Palestinians and their descendants) in order to privilege how Zionists, and then later, large parts of the Jewish world perceived what they were doing (while sweeping under the carpet the other side of Zionism, its possession of a foreign land. The only allusion to that is reference to unnamed ‘opponents criticizing it as a form of ethnonationalism’).

• You want a discussion of your version, it seems, and want to avoid making a clear list of what you think unbalanced in the article at present. No. Your version is even more problematical. So I suggest you make a pointed critique line by line of the text as it stands.

• 'emerging in its modern form’ implies as a given fact that Zionism pre-existed its creation’ suggests in a Zen-like form that Zionism pre-existed itself, which is contentious. ‘What was the face of Zionism before Pinsker and Herzl thought it up’.

• the precursors alluded to in ‘small agricultural colonies and land purchases’ are given as examples of a an early form of ‘establishing a Jewish state’. That’s how your grammar works, and the statement is false..

• ’land purchase’ from the 1882s onward, extremely exiguous down to 1948, is prioritized while dispossession of land disappears.

• ‘the Ottoman empire’ gives way to a British administration. No mention of how this controversial transition took place (the Balfour declaration). It is all smooth history.

Zionism arose in response to growing anti-Semitism in Europe, and the failure of Jewish emancipation efforts.

• Again a tendentious POV passed off as an historical fact. It has been argued that Zionism did not arise, certain in Herzl, as a response to growing anti-Semitism. *But leave that aside- What is wildly POV is to suggest that it arose out of ‘the failure of Jewish emancipation efforts’. Rubbish. Emancipation had been a thorough ongoing process since Napoleon’s Grand Sanhedrin. Eastern Jews had a Yiddish saying about being 'as lucky as a French Jew', etc. Zionism arose, as much to handle the emigration from Slavic countries, where assimilation was virtually non-existent in the Western sense, as anything else.

the movement's core ideology centered on the "negation of the diaspora"

• Nope. Early Zionism was a secular movement, bitterly opposed by orthodox Judaism for decades and ‘negation of the diaspora/galut’, being taken from religious terminology did not figure in its original core ideology. So much so that for a decade, Palestine was only one of many countries that were vetted for expatriative colonies. This is anachronistic.

Jews needed a sovereign state with a Hebrew national culture. . Early Zionists such as Ahad Ha'am drew on historical and religious ties in the revival of Hebrew and historical Jewish traditions of aliyah to create a new secular modern identity

• That is not in Herzl, who imagined a German-speaking Western state in Palestine. Why Ahad Ha'am is given prominence is obscure, since he fought political /statist Zionism all his life. He did not advocate mass aliyah: to the contrary, he thought creating a spiritual home in Palestine would be a ‘light unto the dispersed’ nations of Jews in diaspora.

With the support of Western powers’ Zionism created Israel.

• It was predominantly under the British Empire that support came.’Western powers’ is both a retroactive reading, (ignoring the politics of partition and the large number of minor countries, not ‘Western powers’ (which sounds like the last four decades) , and Russia, who endorsed both the partition plan and the, with initial American reluctance, subsequent declaration of the state of Israel.

Today (Zionism has) supporters viewing it as a national liberation movement for self-determination and opponents criticizing it as a form of ethnonationalism

• Wow. The ‘national liberation movement idea arose 50 years after the foundation of Zionism, in the 1950s. It is a cliché, that is rather senseless in its erasure of the fact that the success of Zionism implicitly repressed another national liberation movement from achieving its goals. And it is not ‘opponents’ of Zionism who criticize Zionism as a form of ethnonationalism. Stupendous!!!! That happens to be a Basic Law of Israel.

• In short, instead of working on a text which has 1 decade of consensual work behind it (and you have emphasized that wikipedia articles must be written line by line, datum by datum consensually, which this is not), you have patched up an incoherent mess of historical simplifications and pseudo-facts as an alternative to restart from scratch, and the version for this reculer pour mieux sauter is almost verbatim the standard Israeli/Zionist public story about that movement and the origins of the state. We are to tweak a national POV.Nishidani (talk) 14:13, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

  Eastern Jews had a Yiddish saying about being 'as lucky as a French Jew', etc. Zionism arose, as much to handle the emigration from Slavic countries, where assimilation was virtually non-existent in the Western sense, as anything else.

  So what's the problem with the line then? Virtually all Zionist leaders and thinkers came from Eastern and Central Europe where emancipation wasn't achieved. Virtually none came from France. That demonstrates the point if anything. Bitspectator ⛩️ 14:42, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

  See Stanislawski 2017 pp. 7-10. fiveby(zero) 16:27, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

  an incoherent mess of historical simplifications and pseudo-facts is in my opinion a grossly unfair characterization of a very well-thought-out and comprehensive compilation of sourcing proving quite conclusively that the lead section is POV. Coretheapple (talk) 15:48, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

  Proves nothing at all, and an incoherent mess of historical simplifications and pseudo-facts could just as well be said in the other direction. Try and be specific, please. Selfstudier (talk) 16:03, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

  I left out that it is needesslly inflammatory verbiage that has no place in these discussions. Coretheapple (talk) 16:52, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

  That comment is worth about as much as the previous one, please comment specifically on content. Selfstudier (talk) 17:06, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

  That was precisely my point. Editors shouldn't be using these pages to "get stuff off their chests" and "unload" on other editors. That's not too much to ask. Coretheapple (talk) 17:16, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

  Policy on reaching consensus addresses my point: "Editors who maintain a neutral, detached, and civil attitude can usually reach consensus on an article through the process described above." I'm not blazing a new trail here. Coretheapple (talk) 17:28, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

  Third time of asking, do try and comment on the content. Selfstudier (talk) 17:41, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

  I did. [20] You responded that it "proves nothing at all." It wasn't intended to "prove" anything other than my belief that the editor Andre provided ample sourcing to substantiate his position on the POV issue. Editors are not requiried to meet other editors' standards of "proof" or meet their demands or desires for further elaboration if the editor does not feel it is necessary or useful. Coretheapple (talk) 17:56, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

  Andrevan did not show where our existing text had POV problems. He simply leapt over that request, and presented his own version, which happens to mirror a story that has been told a thousand times for 70 years in that form. To anyone familiar with the literature, what Andrevan wrote is a highly recognisable story. The way Zionists now like to see their movement retrospectively. One does not describe encyclopedically an ideology, which Zionists admit their belief system is, in terms of how the framers of that ideology see it. We don't wrote Russian or Chinese communism as the those militants or thinkers see it, but from outside, according to how a detached scholarly overview analyses it. Nor do we write the modern history of Spain according to Francoism. This goes for all countries. Before calling this a mishmash in terms you take as rude, I gave very concrete examples of why it screws up Zionism. You haven't contested those facts. You highlight as 'inflammatory' language that is dismissive of a patchwork of confused generalizations which cancel all nuances, and totally elide the existence of the dilemma within Zionism which our best sources highlight. So as Selfstudier says, if you want to participate, focus on the argument about its defects, not on my personal summation of Andrevan's suggestion, which is, politely put, a dully familiar patchwork of Zionist POV self-representations. In any case, it is perhaps not worth the effort, since we have spent months deliberating on the best sources to be used in rewriting the article, achieving something of a consensus, and, rather than reading them, we now have a complete sidestepping of that collegial effort's results with a personal resumé, not of all of the scholarship. but only those parts of it which vindicate Zionism's self-portrait.Nishidani (talk) 18:19, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

  I can't respond to all this WP:TEXTWALL. I gave my best attempt, trying to follow the bestsource summaries above, and substantiating my logic for the POV/WEIGHT and IMPARTIAL problems. I will note the extensive textwall response doesn't appear to cite any sources. Andre🚐 20:40, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

  As I said previously, and I'm repeating myself because my comment (to which you just replied) is hidden in a "hat," I disagree with your statements about Andrevan's comments and believe that he has set forth a cogent and detailed litany of sources that address the subject matter of this discussion more than adequately. Coretheapple (talk) 21:41, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

• If you consider my 299 words above a Wall of Text consider just two of your own extensive remarks

(a) Andrevan 03:09, 16 September 2024 (UTC) 230 words (b) Andrevan 21:53, 27 September 2024 (UTC) 250 words Your name appears 131 times on this talk page, mine 31. It is a similar loquacity profile to what happened on the Zionism, race and genetics page, where I wrote the whole article, and you argued all that time for a mere name change, and one or two tweaks. Nishidani (talk) 21:33, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

Would you like to cite some sources for your claims? Because my text came out of the sources. Most of the things you are critiquing are pretty much paraphrased directly. I tried to give prominence to the things I summarized in the source list. Antisemitism was given considerable weight in the sources. Your argument It has been argued that Zionism did not arise, certain in Herzl, as a response to growing anti-Semitism directly contradicts the BESTSOURCES. Andre🚐 21:38, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

We would all do well to spend less time on the talk page, and more time reading offline. And by the way, you like everyone else, should link to the specific pages in the sources cited, not to a link to the book's publishing details at google books. That is what I do, so I do not throw the burden of verification on the reader's shoulders. Nishidani (talk) 21:43, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

Yes I think specific pages is not a bad idea at all wherever possible. I've found that in locating specific sources, it is often possible to ascertain relevant pages by perusing the Amazon "look inside the book" feature, as well as the ability to temporarily access books on Internet Archive. Coretheapple (talk) 21:48, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

I generally do agree that cites should cite pages, but in this case I specified the locations as sections, ie Introduction, or Chapter 1, etc., because I was almost always trying to find the earliest part of the source, so in most cases Ch1 intro is p.1. I did specify a few other pages above, but usually low single digits. If you have trouble verifying let me know. The links are for the benefit of readers needing a readable copy of the book. I believe almost all of the sources should be readable for free using either Google Books preview, the PDF links, or TWL access to Oxford, Cambridge, DeGruyter, etc. Andre🚐 21:55, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

Yes I see your point. That makes sense. Coretheapple (talk) 21:58, 30 September 2024 (UTC)