Talk:Killing of Muhammad al-Durrah/Archive 8

This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

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Conditions for editing: Discussion (partial archive)

I have started the above section for my own (Elonka's) notes, to keep track of who's who, and also so that everyone knows where they stand in terms of ArbCom restrictions. If the section grows too large, I may move it to a subpage. Any other uninvolved admins who are interested in this dispute, are welcome to update the above lists, though of course you should avoid changing another admin's restrictions, unless you check with them first. Thanks, El on ka 03:47, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

This is a bad idea. "No reverts" is completely unworkable if one wishes to maintain our core policies and values. -- Ned Scott 04:24, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

This is backed up by ArbCom. See Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Palestine-Israel articles#Discretionary sanctions: (emphasis added) "Any uninvolved administrator may, on his or her own discretion, impose sanctions on any editor working in the area of conflict if, despite being warned, that editor repeatedly or seriously fails to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, any expected standards of behavior, or any normal editorial process. The sanctions imposed may include blocks of up to one year in length; bans from editing any page or set of pages within the area of conflict; bans on any editing related to the topic or its closely related topics; restrictions on reverts or other specified behaviors; or any other measures which the imposing administrator believes are reasonably necessary to ensure the smooth functioning of the project." --El on ka 04:38, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

I think ORR for everyone is a very good idea on an article like this. I started to rewrite it last year, and ended up taking it off my watchlist because of the reverting on both sides. It's frustrating when someone adds a version you don't like and you can't revert it, but the challenge then is to improve it. The article should get better bit by bit if we each use the last editor's work as a platform, rather than something to be discarded. SlimVirgin ^talk|edits 04:50, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Gun battle(s)?

I noticed that Canadian Monkey had added a claim based on the proposition that "there were multiple gn battles" [sic]. I know of no contemporary source which suggests that. On the contrary, this BBC report - published a few hours after the incident, and just before the al-Durrah shooting had become a cause célèbre - describes a single gun battle lasting 20 minutes in which "one 12-year-old Palestinian boy" (clearly al-Durrah) was shot and killed. Every contemporary source I've found so far - including the Israeli statements - has described the episode as a single incident. -- ChrisO (talk) 09:04, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, "this episode" - the one showing the al-Durrahs being shot - is a single incident, but "this episode" is also one which was only captured by Rahma. There are several sources describing exchanges of gunfire throughout the day, and I'm surprised your meticulous research has not turned them up. Here is Fallows on the topic: "A few of the civilians had pistols or rifles, which they occasionally fired; the second intifada quickly escalated from throwing rocks to using other weapons. The Palestinian policemen, mainly in the Pita area, also fired at times. The IDF soldiers, according to Israeli spokesmen, were under orders not to fire in response to rocks or other thrown objects. They were to fire only if fired upon. Scenes filmed throughout the day show smoke puffing from the muzzles of M-16s pointed through the slits of the IDF outpost." (see [http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200306/fallows this) Canadian Monkey (talk) 15:32, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Fallows was writing nearly three years later. This plainly isn't "as originally reported". Every contemporary source I've seen (and I've seen a lot by now, believe me) speaks of a single incident. Presenting Fallows' view as "originally reported" is quite simply untrue, it misrepresents the source and it contradicts what was actually reported at the time. Fallows' revisionism is certainly relevant later in the article, but not in a section on the incident "as originally reported". -- ChrisO (talk) 17:01, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

This section, though labeled ‘as originally reported’, is chock full of references to non-contemporary sources. The Age article, which you added, was written in 2007, yet it is used extensively, to support three different statements, in different subsections of this section. Also currently referenced are articles by Sullivan, in the Jerusalem Post, written in mid-2001, an article by Schouman, in the Jerusalem Post, written in 2007, multiple references to Jeambar & Leconte, published in Le Figaro in 2005. We reference an article by Leigh, in the Daily Mirror, written in 2001 and Schapira’s ARD documentary, from 2002. No fewer than 4 (!) references to Tierney’ Glasgow Herald piece, from 2003, are made. We reference Carvajal’s IHT piece from 2005 and an anonymous Toronto Star piece, from 2001. We make two references to Goudsouzian’s Gulf News piece from 2001, and to Pnesy’s article, in le Monde, written in 2004.

We will either remove every single one of these anachronistic accounts from this section, in keeping with its “‘as originally reported” title, or we will allow non-contemporary sources alongside them. What we will not do is selectively include accounts from 2007, such as the O’Loughlin article, because we like what they say, while excluding accounts from 2003 because they are “non-contemporary”. Canadian Monkey (talk) 03:53, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

I've already explained what I'm trying to do in this section: present what people said, saw and filmed at the time. For instance: Jeambar and Leconte provide the wording (in French - the English translations I've found are differently worded and inaccurately translated) of what Enderlin reported in September/October 2000. Shapira reports what the Palestinian doctors said in September/October 2000. O'Sullivan reports what the Israeli soldiers saw in September.October 2000. Psenny, Poller and O'Loughlin report what was filmed in September/October 2000. What's being excluded from this section is personal opinions of writers that weren't written in September/October 2000. Get the idea now? -- ChrisO (talk) 10:03, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

I’ve read your explanation of what you are supposedly trying to do in this section, but even if I were to accept that this is what needs to be done, your explanation is at odds with what you are actually doing. Tierney’s article for example, written in 2003, is not used to describe how the incident was reported in 2000, but rather to provide a non-contemporary description of the father’s condition in 2003. To wit ‘a journalist who interviewed him in 2003 reported that "there is a web of deep scarring around his groin area. There is scarring on his legs and around his right elbow area. His right hand is withered and he is unable to move some fingers because of nerve damage. He limps.’ Similarly, the Carvajal piece is not used to describe how the incident was originally reported, but rather to render a non-contemporary account of how the Jordanian King visited al-Dura in an Amman hospital. There is no difference between Fallows’ 2003 account that “The Palestinian policemen, mainly in the Pita area, also fired at times” and the Toronto star 2001 account that “The Israeli troops initially responded with rubber bullets and tear gas before gunfire erupted”, or between O’Loughlin’s 2007 account that “A Palestinian policeman dies behind the wheel of his Land Rover within a few metres of the spot where two blurred figures can be seen” and Fallows’ 2003 account that “Scenes filmed throughout the day show smoke puffing from the muzzles of M-16s pointed through the slits of the IDF outpost.". We either allow them all, or none of them. Canadian Monkey (talk) 02:10, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

You may have a point about Tierney's description of the wounds - obviously that describes the situation as of 2003, not 2000, so it would probably be more appropriate in another section (probably in a discussion of the conspiracy theory since it's relevant to that). His description of the injuries and treatment are relevant, though, as they describe contemporary happenings. I've replaced Carvajal's description of the Jordanian king's visit with a contemporary source. Good catch on Fallows' descriptions; let's add those to the article, since again he's describing contemporary events. -- ChrisO (talk) 07:11, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Violation of edit restrictions on this page

Liftarn, this edit not only removed well sourced information (2 references are given), but is a clear violation of the 0RR restriction on this page. Please undo it, or you may be subject to editing restrictions. Canadian Monkey (talk) 14:21, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

He was right to remove your addition - not only was it not contemporary reporting (hint: the section is titled "The incident as originally reported"), but your text was ridiculously POV ("the clearly faked evacuation"?). In addition, your claim that "there were multiple gn battles" [sic] is original research and is not supported by any contemporary sources - please see and respond to my comments in the section above. -- ChrisO (talk) 14:44, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

The question is not if he was right or not - we can debate that on the talk page and come to a consensus on how to include (or exclude) this material. This page is subject to 0RR, and he violated that restriction. I am sure you thought you were right when you violated 0RR on this page - but you were nonetheless restricted from editing it because of that violation. I'm giving Liftarn an opportunity to avoid a similar fate.

You raise an interesting point regarding the need for contemporary sources. I take it you will be shortly removing any reference to The Age article from this section, then, as it is from 2007?

As to the 'ridiculously POV' text you complain of - this is a statement taken, verbatim, from the cited source. Please read it. Canadian Monkey (talk) 15:16, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

AS I said on my talk page. It was not a revert. It was a removal of unsourced and biased text. Yes, there were sources, but they did not say anything like the text you entered. // Liftarn (talk)

It was a revert, as you removed everything, even changes that were not related to that particular source.[1] If you disagreed with the source, then per the #Conditions for editing, you could have tagged it with {{vc}} (verify credibility of the source) or {{vs}} (verify the information from the source), but you should not have simply reverted. --El on ka 20:01, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Challenge on one of the reporters

In relation to the Reuters' film and what is on it, Ed O'Loughlin is referenced. The article currently reads: "Two figures dressed like the al-Durrahs can be seen from several angles, sheltering behind an obstruction, and Abu Rahma is visible taking cover behind a white van parked on the opposite side of the road. An ambulance driver and a Palestinian policeman are shown being killed as they attempt to reach the al-Durrahs. Soldiers in the Israeli army base and Palestinian gunmen are seen exchanging bursts of automatic gunfire from opposite ends of the wall against which the al-Durrahs are sheltering.[21]" The reference given is: O'Loughlin, "Battle rages over fateful footage". The Age, October 6, 2007 This reporter is considered by some to be highly biased. See How to spot a slanted journalist Landes and My Israel Reporting Explained, february 22, 2008 Australian Jewish News --ED O'LOUGHLIN responds to critics of his reporting from Israel, chiefly Melbourne Ports MP Michael Danbyand Ed O’ Loughlin’s journalism: defending the indefensible - When responding to critics, it’s always a good idea to get your facts right Tzi Fleisher and more. So my point is, I don't think this is a good source used alone, and vote to strike anything that is backed up by his word alone. Is there Reuters film that is in the public domain that shows the ambulance driver and Palestinian policeman being killed? Is there film of the Israeli army base and PA gunmen exchanging gunfire? Or is there a reliable uncontroversial news report that has seen it and vouches for it? Tundrabuggy (talk) 14:50, 19 July 2008 (UTC) In fact in the Richard Landes articles he fisks this very reference and says "There is no evidence of an ambulance driver even shot, much less killed. If I’m wrong and there’s other footage depicting this, he’s seen entirely new evidence, and should tell us where he saw it." Tundrabuggy (talk) 15:04, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Middle East reporter criticised by pro-Israel groups shock. I'm afraid Ed O'Loughlin is a professional journalist, who works subject to editorial oversight. Totally passes WP:RS and his factual accounts of what he has seen cannot automatically be rejected just because some people don't like what he says more generally. Are you suggesting he's making this up? --Nickhh (talk) 15:07, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

This is just a case of WP:IDONTLIKEIT on TB's part. Activists constantly criticize journalists if coverage of any controversial issue doesn't suit them - that just goes with the job. Please don't bother quoting Landes' website, it's an unusable source. On the ambulance driver, I've found multiple corroborating sources; I'll add those to the article. -- ChrisO (talk) 15:17, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Please dispense with the name calling. Just deal with the article and the issues please. Tundrabuggy (talk) 19:32, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

No, there are multiple problems here. One is that the Age article in question is from 2007, so it does not belong in a section called 'the incident as originally reported'. Another is that it makes reference to a tape of unknown origin, which is acknowledged to be heavily edited. A third is that it is used to support a statement about the Reuters tape, when the article does not say the source is Reuters. The Age is a reliable source, but since it is the only source making this claim about a video showing the ambulance driver being killed (a claim contradicted by multiple other sources), it needs to be properly attributed to the source (e.g; "accordign to O'Loughlin...), not stated as fact. 15:25, 19 July 2008 (UTC) Canadian Monkey (talk)

I'm not sure who the last speaker was but he is exactly right. His point is also well taken about 'the incident as originally reported.' It would seem to me that since we are talking about such a contentious issue, we really don't needed it referenced to a contentious reporter. If it's a fact that the Reuters tape says what O'Loughlin says it says, we should be able to find another reliable source to back him up! Also the author claims that it can be seen on the tape that "Soldiers in the Israeli army base and Palestinian gunmen are seen exchanging bursts of automatic gunfire," and others say they have not seen this on any film of that day. Surely we can find a less contentious source to back up his claims? I am not saying get rid of him, just add another source to it. Tundrabuggy (talk) 19:15, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

O'Loughlin is not "contentious", other than to those who choose to label anyone who reports in a way that they disagree with "contentious". You are making the fundamental error of confusing "I don't agree with" with "is therefore biased". There's a bit of Wikipedia history here as well, if you're not aware of it. --Nickhh (talk) 21:59, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that's exactly right. He's a professional journalist writing for a mainstream quality newspaper, and as such he epitomises the requirements of a reliable source. If pro-Israel campaigners don't like what he writes, so what? That's their problem, not ours. Journalists who write about contentious topics are often criticised by those with strong opinions on such topics. That's to be expected. It's certainly not a reason to exclude them. In the case of the Arab-Israeli conflict, you'd probably struggle to find a journalist whose reporting hasn't been criticised by someone.

Just to explain what I'm doing with this "incident as initially reported" section, I'm compiling a summary of statements made by eyewitnesses, footage shot or facts reported on or immediately after (up to 2-3 days) the shooting. The Reuters film was shot on the day of the incident, therefore it needs to be documented; in the same vein, I've documented the IDF soldiers' accounts of what they experienced at the time. In both cases the sources were published well after the shooting but I decided to include them as they were a straightforward description of contemporary footage (in the case of the video) and a statement - the only one I've come across - of the soldiers' point of view at the time. Both come from news reports, not opinion pieces. I've consciously excluded any commentary or analysis, hence the exclusion from that section of the very shrill Commentary opinion piece. That piece might potentially be useful at a later point in the article, in relation to the conspiracy theorists, but it certainly doesn't count as a contemporary perspective or as original reporting. -- ChrisO (talk) 00:48, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

This double-standard with regards to sources is unacceptable. Either we use only contemporary sources, in which case the Age article, written 7 years after the fact, is out, or we allow later commentary about the original material, in which case the Commentary piece is just as much a valid article form a reliable source, meeting every Wikipedia requirement for inclusion in that section. We don’t pick and choose which sources we want included based on our subjective evaluation of their tone. Canadian Monkey (talk) 01:56, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Not their tone but their content, nature and sourcing. The author of the Commentary piece is one Nidra Poller, who's described as "an American novelist and translator ... who has lived in Paris for 34 years" - i.e. not a journalist. O'Loughlin is a long-established professional journalist. Poller's article is an opinion piece, not a report - it's Poller's personal view of the issue. O'Loughlin's piece is a conventional news report published in a mainstream newspaper. Poller passes judgment on what she sees ("clearly faked evacuation") rather than just reporting it neutrally as O'Loughlin does. What I don't want to do in this section of the article is pass judgment on anything - simply to report neutrally what people said, saw and filmed on that day and immediately afterwards. Poller appears to be a strong proponent of the conspiracy theory; I've found a number of articles by her, arguing forcefully for the conspiracy scenario. Her views may well be relevant to the section of the article that covers the conspiracy theory (I'll have to have a think about how to work them in) but they're anachronistic for the "as initially reported" section, as nobody had advanced the conspiracy theory at this stage. -- ChrisO (talk) 10:18, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia policy does not allow for exclusion of sources based on “content” or “nature” that you don’t like. Nor does wikipedia policy require that sources be only professional journalists. It requires verifyability, and reliability – and Commentary meets both. Commentary is a reliable source, and can be used everywhere the Age is used. Poller’s piece is not an OpEd – it is a magazine article written for Commentary, which analyzes the court case, and the related video evidence – exactly as the Age piece, which is not ‘news’ – but a non-contemporary analysis by O’Loughlin of video footage and other evidence as it relates to a court case. As part of her analysis, Poller passes judgment on what she sees (calling the evacuation “fake”) – as does O’Loughlin on what he sees (calling Rahma’s cover ‘dubious’, describing the footage as ‘harrowing’). The only difference I can see is that O’Loughlin’s evaluation dovetails with your own, whereas Poller’s does not. This is a double standard, which is not acceptable. It is interesting that you would attempt to exclude Poller from this section based on your personal evaluation of her motives or her ideology, yet reject in the strongest terms those who try to do the same for O’Laughlin. The bottom line is this: If the Age piece, written in 2007 by a journalist criticized as having an anti-Israeli agenda can go in since it meets relevant WP policy, so can the Commentary piece, written in 2005 by an author who ChrisO criticizes as a being a supporter of conspiracy theories.Canadian Monkey (talk) 15:37, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Let's find a compromise on this. As I've said below, I'm trying to present a straightforward description of what was recorded, seen and said at the time of the incident, without passing judgment on it. O'Loughlin and Poller both describe the footage and both use some statements of personal opinion ("dubious", "harrowing" for O'Loughlin, "clearly faked" for Poller), though it has to be said that Poller's piece is more obviously polemical. Personal opinions written five or seven years after the incident clearly aren't relevant to "as originally reported", particularly so in Poller's case since absolutely nobody was claiming fakery at the time. So let's simply do what I've just done in the article: presented their statements of fact about what they say the footage shows, but without any statements of opinion about what they say the footage means. -- ChrisO (talk) 16:56, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

I disagree that Poller's piece is more polemical, but my evaluation or yours are not relevant. If we are going to include The Age's 7 year old description of the tape, there's no reason not to include Commentary's 5 year old description of the same - especially since the latter clearly indicates what footage is being described (Reuters), whereas the former refers to and unidentified 'spliced-up' tape made up of different sources. Here's an alternative compromise I'm happy to go accept: Since the section is "as originally reported" - let remove ALL non-contemporary sources - Poller, O'Loughlin, Psenny's 2004 Le Monde article, etc... - and leave just those sources dated September-October 2000. Canadian Monkey (talk) 17:07, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Nope. As I've said below, O'Loughlin clearly states the provenance of the footage he saw, so your premise there is wrong. The bottom line is that we're not going to include anachronistic personal opinions from either side in this section. -- ChrisO (talk) 17:11, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, no. If we allow anachronistic evaluations of the video material such as the Age article from 2007, in a section labeled "The incident as initially reported", we are going to allow all anachronistic evaluations of the video material, from any and all reliable sources, including Commentary, and you don't get to cherry-pick which parts of the material which comes from a reliable source are included, and which are excluded, based on your personal preference. Canadian Monkey (talk) 00:33, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

No, that's a thoroughly tendentious approach. "As initially reported" must necessarily include "as initially filmed". Factual descriptions of what was filmed are appropriate to that rubric. The France 2 footage was not the only footage shot that day, so the other footage needs to be described as well - it would be inaccurate and misleading to suggest that the France 2 footage was the only contemporary footage of the incident. A factual description of the footage is appropriate, as it describes what people saw on the day. Opinions of the meaning of what was filmed is not, because that's not a contemporaneous viewpoint. Thus I have no objection to citing Poller's factual description of the video, but we cannot include her opinion on the meaning of that footage in that section because it wasn't a contemporaneous viewpoint. As I've said before, Poller's opinions may be relevant later in the article, but certainly not in an "as initially reported" section. -- ChrisO (talk) 07:06, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Enough with conspiracy theorists and activists please! We are not talking personal views here but support for specific facts in this article. Tundrabuggy (talk) 13:55, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Not so. This has nothing to do with a Hollywood blacklist. Please do not throw up red herrings or make personal representations. I have not seen the Reuter's tape so I have no idea what was on it and neither agree nor disagree. I do know that other people, some who are principals in this argument (ie Landes [2] ) as well as others who are not principals( eg Australian MP Michael Danby [3]) and Australian Jewish News journalist Tzi Fleisher [4]have accused O'Loughlin of "Significant misrepresentation," "systematic bias against Israel" and of "half-truths, distortions, and obfuscation and omission of inconvenient facts – that have made his journalism so problematic." It isn't as if there has been no substantial errors or even misrepresentations by the media in this case. In fact, that is at the very heart of this issue. So rather than accusing the messenger of bias and error, why not simply find someone else who can substantiate O'Loughlin's testimony? Tundrabuggy (talk) 00:39, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Because there's no need to. O'Loughlin's testimony meets all the requirements of WP:RS, and no amount of WP:IDONTLIKEITs will change that. Be careful with what you're demanding, by the way: there's a great deal of conspiracy theory material in the article that's single-sourced. -- ChrisO (talk) 00:48, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

O'Loughlin may be "a professional journalist writing for a mainstream quality newspaper," but there is a problem with that. Consider what MP Darby wrote about O'Louglin and The Age when he gave up his subscription.

In 2005, Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council media analyst Tzvi Fleischer reported that when members of the Jewish community made a complaint to the Australian Press Council about O'Loughlin's reporting, a senior Fairfax editor responded that The Age had not published any letters critical of O'Loughlin because it "does not allow its letters page to be used to impugn the 'professionalism of their journalists". If there's anything worse than a biased, lazy and intemperate reporter, it's a newspaper management shich shields him from criticism and continues to publish his one-sided reports.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Tundrabuggy (talk • contribs) 01:44, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

So an Australian MP doesn't like O'Loughlin - so what? Look, this line of argument is pointless: we have a well-established reliable sourcing policy, under which O'Loughlin clearly and indisputably qualifies as a reliable source, and we do not write off professional mainstream journalists just because a handful of activists doesn't like their reporting on a particular issue. That has always been the policy and it will continue to be the policy for the foreseeable future. If you don't believe me, try the reliable sources noticeboard - I guarantee that you will get the same response. -- ChrisO (talk) 10:00, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

So what you have here is a page under mediation and an incident in court because there may have been media dishonesty and bias involved. So you put up a reporter accused of bias as a sole source for important information, and when that is challenged, rather than simply find another reliable source to support his facts, you blow it off as unimportant. It is just this sort of one-sided insistence on one version of the facts that has led to this mediation, and will lead to many more -- and the kind of sourcing that does nothing for Wiki's reputation for NPOV and reliability. Tundrabuggy (talk) 13:18, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Why not, as suggested, take it to the noticeboard? This suggestion that there should be an "approved" and "unapproved" list for mainstream journalists, and furthermore that their presence on either list should be determined by how favourable their reporting is to a particular country, is mildly disturbing. Especially when it comes from someone complaining about supposed NPOV issues. --Nickhh (talk) 13:32, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

This is a false argument. We are talking about Israel here, not Antarctica.Tundrabuggy (talk) 14:10, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't understand this point. What makes Israel special or different in this respect, and how would that make my argument "false"? --Nickhh (talk) 14:14, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm dismissing it because our sourcing policies aren't subject to ideological tests. Neither you nor anyone else gets to veto sources because you don't like their point of view. That's all there is to it; if you don't like that policy, you're welcome to go somewhere with lower standards; try Conservapedia, perhaps? -- ChrisO (talk) 13:51, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Backing up again, this is what O'Loughlin says about the tape which is used to assert facts in this article.

But there is another edited tape, splicing together footage shot on the day by France 2 and other Western agencies, that depicts the surreal combination of ritual violence and lethal force, of stones and bullets, which has become all too common in Gaza in the years since then.

What tape? The article doesn't say it was a Reuters tape. It says it is spliced footage from unidentified sources and proceeds to interpret it for us. Unidentified spliced footage? Perhaps it is the same footage put together by the Palestinians a couple of days later in which some unidentified person spliced in the image of an Israeli soldier that was not in the original film? This has nothing to do with ideology and everything to do with standards of reportage. Tundrabuggy (talk) 14:10, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

On the contrary, it's not "unidentified" - reread what O'Loughlin says. He says very clearly that it was "shot on the day by France 2 and other Western agencies". -- ChrisO (talk) 17:02, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

He does not identify those "other Western agencies". Is it AP ? Reuters? We don't know. He does not say who made this "spliced-up" tape available nor where one can see it - it is an anonymous source whose validity cannot be verified.. Canadian Monkey (talk) 17:12, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

That's irrelevant. We don't need to verify the sources of our sources - policy specifically discourages us from attempting to do so. As the very first line of WP:V says, "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth — that is, whether readers are able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether we think it is true." -- ChrisO (talk)

That is all well and good, but we still want to give the reader the most reliable and verifiable information that we can. Tundrabuggy (talk) 19:15, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Of course, but that doesn't extend to trying to verify sources of sources. We simply don't do that - never have, never will, never should. Our verification policy extends only to the sources that we quote, not the sources of our sources. -- ChrisO (talk) 22:34, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

We are not trying to verify sources of sources, but when O'Loughlin himself describes his source as a 'spliced-up' compilation from multiple sources, there's no reason why we can't say this in the article. Canadian Monkey (talk) 00:33, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Background

ChrisO has re-written the entire background section to appear that Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount was the precipitating cause of the Intifada, another subject and another controversy (see: Ain, Stewart The Jewish Week 12-22-2000 PA: Intifada Was Planned; Palestinians now acknowledge what Israel has been saying, that renewed violence was orchestrated for political purposes. ) and to expound upon Palestinian casualties. I therefore added this [5] at the beginning of the section: 'According to the Israeli government, the violence preceding the al-Durrah incident had been building for some few weeks. "The attacks began with the throwing of stones and Molotov cocktails in the vicinity of the Netzarim Junction on 13 September. This was followed by the killing of an Israeli soldier by a roadside bomb on 27 September, and the murder of an Israeli police officer by a Palestinian policeman in a joint patrol on 29 September."' sourced to: Letter dated 2 October 2000 to addressed to the Secretary-General of the UN 55th Session Agenda Item 40 The situation in the Middle East Because this letter discusses the "wave of violence in the preceding weeks" -- it was appropriate to place it in advance of the Sharon visit. ChrisO moved this down to the bottom of the third paragraph, in an obvious attempt to marginalize it. Further, I do not see what light is thrown on the al-Durrah incident by a long list of casualties on this day or that. But if we are going to include background that includes a laundry list of Palestinian casualties, let's start a few week earlier and acknowledge what Israel called a "wave of violence" initiated by the Palestinians that preceded the Temple Mount visit, and not bury it at the bottom. I am not sure however, what purpose is served by including more controversial material in an already controversial article. Tundrabuggy (talk) 21:20, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

I can't say I'm particularly familiar with the controversy you mention, and you're wrong to claim some sort of ulterior motive ("bury at the bottom", etc). I've said nothing about what was "the precipitating cause of the Intifada", so I think you might be reading more into the article than is actually there. All I've done is to provide a snapshot of the events leading directly up to September 30th - the Temple Mount visit on the 28th was followed by the rioting and deaths on the 29th, and the general strike and demonstrations on the 30th were called at least ostensibly to protest at the events of the previous two days. As far as this article is concerned, the ultimate causes of the violence aren't really relevant - that's another debate entirely.

The letter to the UN was a good find on your part and I agree that it's relevant. I've moved it to the section on Netzarim because it helps to support the previous statement that the settlement was the scene of previous frequent confrontations. -- ChrisO (talk) 22:32, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

I noticed that you added the line: " Major General Yom Tov Samia, head of the Southern Command, called the situation an emergency, saying the 18 soldiers there were trapped by approximately 5000 rioting Palestinians. "They lobbed 300 grenades, shot thousands of rounds of ammo." I've removed this, as it actually refers to the events of October 1st, not September 30th, as the previous line in the article makes clear: "Spin control problems aside, Samia says that after the Al-Dura shooting, he was confronted with an emergency situation at the junction." The sources do describe a major riot at the junction on October 1st, following the shooting - see for instance this BBC story. According to Reuters, only "hundreds" were involved in the previous day's violence, which was far less intense. -- ChrisO (talk) 08:59, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Change in structure - Israeli Investigations

Just running this by. I believe this whole article would read better and be more understandable if "Israeli Investigations" was changed to "Investigations" under which each investigation would have its own sub-section. That way the later section regarding the controversies would make more sense. Tundrabuggy (talk) 11:07, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Not really, since the Israeli investigation was the only one with any official accreditation. I'm going to post a revised narrative shortly that addresses the chronology of the controversy post-2001. -- ChrisO (talk) 23:07, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Investigation "report"

Tundrabuggy added a list of bullet points and a citation, describing them as "the results and conclusions of the IDF/Shahaf report." I've checked the source and it actually isn't the IDF report of 2000; it's a 2005 presentation by Shahaf. If you read the abstract in the cited PDF file, it doesn't say anywhere that it represents the conclusions of 2000. The presentation is discussed in a New York Sun article of March 15, 2005 ("Engineer Casts Doubt on Veracity of Claims That Israelis Killed Palestinian Boy in 2000"), which describes it as "a presentation he made at the American Academy of Forensic Sciences annual meeting in New Orleans in February." None of the media reports from 2000 (nor Major-General Samia, who presented the IDF report) mention most of the points listed by Shahaf - note that the abstract is titled "Who Shot Muhamed Jamal Al-Dura? Is the Boy Still Alive?", which certainly isn't what anyone said in November 2000. This is clearly a factual error ("potentially untrue" as Elonka's editing conditions put it), so I've removed it for now. I think the points raised in the abstract are relevant to documenting Shahaf's views, and I intend to work them into a later section of the article, but it's clearly erroneous to describe the presentation as being what was said in 2000. It definitely doesn't belong in a section discussing the conclusions of the investigation in 2000. -- ChrisO (talk) 18:25, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

No. Removing the text wholesale is a violation of 0RR, and it is also a removal of a reliable source, both of which are violations of the #Conditions for editing. You can change the text, condense it, rewrite it, or move it around. But do not simply revert and remove it. --El on ka 18:43, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Elonka, let me spell this out for you: The text has been cited in error. It is a presentation from 2005. It is not "the results and conclusions of the IDF/Shahaf report" of 2000. The source does not claim that it is the conclusions of the 2000 report. I don't doubt that Tundrabuggy has added this in good faith, but he's misread it, and he's misstated what it represents. Your own editing conditions state that "potentially untrue" material may be removed. What part of this is not clear? -- ChrisO (talk) 18:49, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Let me suggest another approach: it doesn't belong in the section on the investigation of 2000 because it's not about the investigation of 2000. I'll move an amended version of it into a later section of the article. Bear with me for a few minutes, please. -- ChrisO (talk) 18:53, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Happy with this? -- ChrisO (talk) 19:09, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, much better. Kept the source intact, and reworked the information towards a compromise. Now anyone else who disagrees with that, is welcome to make further changes, towards a better compromise if they wish. The key is, to leave the sources in the article, and keep trying to change the work of other editors, rather than just removing it. As long as each edit is a bonafide attempt at compromise, I'm happy. :) --El on ka 19:27, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Could I ask you, in the future, to please not fly off the handle? I said in my first contribution to this thread that I wanted to work the points into a later section of the article. I don't appreciate being threatened if I don't do that instantly. The first priority is to get incorrect information out of the article - last time I looked, we weren't on a mission to mislead. As I said before, your editing conditions explicitly permit "potentially untrue" material to be removed. Is that still the case? Incidentally, the material was also a copyvio, since Tundrabuggy copied it word-for-word (complete with HTML formatting) - Tundrabuggy, please don't do that in future. -- ChrisO (talk) 19:33, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Copyright vio -- NOT. I made it clear where it came from. It was sourced and presented as given. ("The following were the results and conclusions of the IDF/Shahaf report as reported to the American Academy of Forensic Sciences." It would have been in error to have followed with anything except their words) And btw -- there was nothing "incorrect" about what was in that post. It may have been written in 2005, but it is clear he is talking about the 2000 investigation. One need only read the methodology to see that. Tundrabuggy (talk) 01:55, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but that's your personal opinion. It's not what the the source says at all. It doesn't say anywhere that it's the 2000 investigation. If you want to make that conclusion you need to have a source that says "this is the conclusions of the 2000 investigation". You can't simply assert that on the basis of your personal belief. Please don't go beyond what the sources say. As for the copyvio, this is something you need to be careful about. The section you extracted comprised a significant chunk of the abstract. Fair use depends on using a small proportion of a work, relative to the size of that work. In this case it was a large chunk of a small work, which is problematic from a copyright perspective. The text was also problematic in that it asserted Shahaf's views as fact without making it clear that it was a quotation, something which we're not supposed to do. That's why, when I reworked it, I paraphrased Shahaf's claims and couched them as his personal opinions rather than undisputed fact. -- ChrisO (talk) 07:43, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

By the way, this article is quite scattered. Why in the world would the results (not to mention the discussion) of the IDF investigation be in two different spots; one under the heading of Israeli investigations and another in a section in the end called Shahaf/Duriel? There seems to be little logic to this structure. Tundrabuggy (talk) 02:30, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

You're quite right about the scattered nature of that section. It's not the only problem with it - there is some redundant content, there are a number of factual errors about what sources say, and there are major NPOV problems (statements of opinion are asserted as fact and opposing views are barely mentioned). What I'm doing at the moment is rewriting the entire "Main issues" section from scratch, using a different approach to that which we have at the moment - focusing on what has been said by whom, rather than who has said what. It's based around the three key points of dispute - forensic evidence, medical evidence and the footage, plus alleged inconsistencies in statements made about the incident - and the conspiracy allegations. Since several people have said the same thing at different times, it makes more sense to go for a thematic approach, otherwise we will just end up with a series of repetitive statements about different people holding the same views (much like what we have now). There will also be a substantial amount of sourced criticism of the claims, to provide balance. -- ChrisO (talk) 07:43, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Please do not do a major rewrite in large sections without getting agreement from the others here. Many have worked hard on this article and do not want to see their changes discarded in such a move. If you want to do a major rewrite I suggest you do it on a separate page that we can look at and determine if we want to accept. Considering you are already talking about "conspiracy allegations" I suggest that any wholesale rewrite will be unacceptable to those of us who do not agree with your POV. Tundrabuggy (talk) 02:41, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. Please work on any major rewrite in a sandbox page and get consensus for it before drastically changing the article. Canadian Monkey (talk) 03:44, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Just to be clear, though a sandbox version is definitely an option, I see no problem with rewriting the article from top to bottom. As long as the #Conditions for editing are followed (especially no deletion of reliable sources), a rewrite might actually be a good idea at this point. It's also worth noting that the article is currently at 100K in size, which is extremely large for a Wikipedia article. Some people's browsers have trouble with anything over 32K, and per WP:SIZE, we should consider splitting any article which has gotten this large. I'm not sure that there's enough content here to justify an actual split (I'll leave that up to the editors here to decide). But a rewrite, especially if it condenses over-long sections, is a reasonable option, as long as it would be a bonafide attempt to try and address everyone's concerns and produce a good consensus version of the article. However, it's also important to note that just because one editor rewrites the article, would not mean that the article would have to stay in that state! Other editors would be allowed to completely "rewrite the rewrite", as long as they were trying to bring the article into its best possible adherence with policies such as neutrality and "no undue weight". I do understand that if multiple editors are doing this, it might get too confusing, so I (or any other uninvolved admin) may step in and say "slow down with the changes". But for now, everyone has the right to edit as much as they want, in accordance with the conditions. --El on ka 06:20, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

I've already effectively been rewriting the article from top to bottom. The only sections I haven't done yet are the intro, which I'll leave for last, and the "Main issues" section. I don't propose to use a sandbox version for the latter, since it has major problems (NPOV and factual accuracy in particular) which need to be resolved as a high priority. I can't guarantee I won't be deleting any existing sources since it's a rewrite from the ground up. I will be using more sources and perhaps using some existing sources in a different way, but as with other sections of the article, I will be seeking to use mainstream published sources rather than fringe or marginal ones - that may require the substitution of some current sources for other more reliable ones to make the same or similar points. The rewrite should be ready in a few days' time. I have to say it's proving to be quite a tough bit of work, certainly harder than the other sections I've tackled. What I'm doing, in effect, is compiling a sort of matrix/cladogram of who has made which claims and who has rebutted them, then working that into a narrative form. One thing that's already clear is that Nahum Shahaf is at the heart of this. All of the other conspiracy theorists are essentially just quoting him, and several have specifically credited him with convincing them of the conspiracy theory, though one gets the impression they didn't need much convincing in the first place... -- ChrisO (talk) 08:10, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Incidentally, regarding the length issue, let's see how it turns out when I've finished the rewrite. When that's done I propose to submit the article for a good article review so that we can get some independent views on its quality. Ideally I'd like to get it up to featured article status by, let's say, September 30th... -- ChrisO (talk) 08:16, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

This is exactly the kind of mind-set that I am talking about - one that says: "One thing that's already clear is that Nahum Shahaf is at the heart of this. All of the other conspiracy theorists are essentially just quoting him, and several have specifically credited him with convincing them of the conspiracy theory, though one gets the impression they didn't need much convincing in the first place." This is a prejudiced perspective on this article and if your rewrite pushes this theory, it will reflect your own original research. It was the facts of the case as they leaked out that convinced people, not one man: it was the 3 minutes of film out of 45 minutes of shooting or 27 minutes of film that became 18 minutes of film and now is 1 minute of film out of which 10 seconds were cut out in the end where the boy lifts his arm and looks out at the cameraman. It was the fact that there was no autopsy, no bullets recovered, and that Abu Rahma contradicts himself. It was the French ballistics expert and the Judge herself who makes certain statements regarding the testimony of both Enderlin and Abu Rahma. Tundrabuggy (talk) 18:39, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

The Incident as initially reported

the headline is useless, as the material underneath does not adhere to that. Furthermore, trying to stick to that criterion makes it virtually impossible to get a balanced picture of what is actually happening. I suggest changing this to "The incident as reported" and to clarify as necessary. The incident as initially reported would simply consist of a few minutes of testimony by Enderlin. Everything after that is later testimony...the cameraman's statement...the IDF's first and second investigations...etc etc. Unless I hear objections in the next day or so I will change the headliner. Tundrabuggy (talk) 03:07, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't think that approach entirely works, though "The incident as reported" seems OK. (The IDF's second investigation (Shahaf) is already in a later section.) Judging by your recent edits, you seem to want to discredit the initial testimony in that initial section. That doesn't fit the way that I've structured this article. It essentially comprises three elements: first the initial reporting and testimony (what the people involved said, did, recorded and saw - or say they saw - at the time, mainly concerning people who were there on the day of the shooting or very shortly afterwards - i.e. eyewitness testimony); second the follow-up investigation and controversy; third the specific areas of controversy. Don't forget it's not just an article about the controversy, it's about the incident itself. We have to be careful not to present it in an anachronistic fashion by presenting later controversies as being contemporaneous with the initial incident. Two major problems with the article before I started rewriting it were that it wasn't very clear about the timeline or development of the controversy, and it was repetitious - making the same points in different sections. If you start trying to put counter-claims into the "as reported" section, you will just end up with the same problems again. I'd suggest that you wait until I've redone the "Main issues" section, which should address your concerns about balance in the article. At that point you will also be able to see how the entire article works as a single coherent entity , rather than the usual incoherent patchwork quilt of different bits that people have added at different times. -- ChrisO (talk) 07:43, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Last point first. While we are waiting until you have rewritten the article, you are taking out sourced material on an arbitrary basis. [6] No one is trying to "discredit the initial testimony." It has been discredited already in a court of law and was reported to have been "retracted." The article is totally unbalanced (WP:UNDUE?) toward the initial reporting and everything that has happened since is relegated to the bottom, an old media trick used to bury information . Until recently there was virtually nothing here on the Karsenty appeal - one paragraph and then the verdict. That is because if anyone is discrediting anything- it has been your side, attempting to prove that everything other than France 2 perspective is fringe or conspiracy theory.(OR?)(POV?) How is it that the cameraman's testimony receives an enormous amount of coverage all at the top, despite the fact that it has been reported to have been retracted as well as discredited by the French court? By relegating this kind of information to the bottom of the page you are in effect burying it. The al-Durrah incident is more than simply the footage shot by Abu Rahma and reported by Enderlin. There is a much wider context that some here are intentionally trying to keep out of the article, which is essentially why it is in mediation here, and similarly why it has been in court. It should possible to synthesize this material into an acceptable article without using this arbitrary timeline that implies that what comes first is true and what comes later is "conspiracy theory." . As I have said before, for clarity's sake, and for maintaining a NPOV, it is imperative not to leave the reader with the impression that the initial testimony is the final word on the matter, particularly if there is evidence that it has been retracted or inconsistent. What was "initially reported" is what is basically at the top of the article. The rest of the article should clarify, not obfuscate, as it currently does. By the way, I have changed the heading to "The incident as reported" Tundrabuggy (talk) 16:06, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

I've certainly not removed anything on an arbitrary basis - the basis is clearly explained in my edit summary. There's no need to keep harping on the dates; it's bad writing, it makes for unneeded repetition and it's not necessary in the first place, since the dates are already given in the references. The dates are only important if they make some kind of material difference to what is being said, and I can't see that being the case here. The purpose of the initial third of the article is to set out what you might call the mainstream narrative - the initial uncontradicted version of events that went around the world and caused such a massive impact, namely that al-Durrah was killed by the Israelis. I agree entirely that there's far more to it than simply the footage shot by Abu Rahma and reported by Enderlin. In fact, in expanding that initial section I made a point of looking for other sources, since the earlier version was almost entirely sourced to Abu Rahma and Enderlin alone. I looked in particular for reports filed in the hours between the shooting itself and the circulation of Abu Rahma's footage. I've found no evidence that Enderlin's report was circulated (I would actually have been surprised if it had, since news agencies generally distribute footage without commentary); in fact, the very first report of al-Durrah's death appears to have come from Reuters, shortly before Enderlin's broadcast. The initial account was accepted by all the players - even the IDF - at least until Samia's report in November 2000, which was disowned by the IDF high command. Samia's alternative version was more or less accepted by Shapira's 2002 documentary, and it wasn't until 2003 that the media began reporting on the conspiracy theory that was being promoted in the blogosphere by Shahaf and others. So in explaining the original version as stated at the time by the participants, we can provide context for its impact. We also set up the rest of the article to explain how, why and who disputed the original version.

In short, the structure of the article is really quite simple. The first section sets out the original story. The second section explains how the controversy developed over time. The third section sets out the specific points of controversy. That's all there is to it. -- ChrisO (talk) 18:00, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

actually what you removed was a sourced and as far as I'm concerned it was a revert. [7]

It is necessary to keep "harping" on the dates, when testimony changes little by little. If Abu Rahma says one thing in this initial sworn testimony and adds or subtracts or changes it at later times that is important to the context of the story. If the investigation says one thing on Monday and something else on Friday, that too is relevant to the story. It is not fair to the readers to jump from time-frame to time-frame without clear guideposts. The lead sets out the story. The next portion should develop the lead. There is really very little story without the controversy. One would simply say that the IDF shot Mohammad al-Durrah and Charles Enderlin reported it. The controversy -- and the relevance in history, for the Palestinians as well as the Israelis-- is what this story is all about. Sticking the contemporary issues and questions at the bottom as a kind of anomaly or afterthought, or worse, conspiracy theory -- really works as a means of pushing a POV. The controversy should be incorporated into the article, just as we have incorporated it into the lead. The fact that something took a while to be accepted does not make it any less relevant. It took the US a couple hundred years to nominate a black man for president. But if we are talking about civil rights or Obama's nomination, do we spend the first two thirds of the article talking about the first two hundred years, being careful to edit out anything current until the bottom? That's rhetorical of course. No, we incorporate the history into the story. It can be done well if it is carefully and honestly written. The heading now reads "The Incident as Reported" so it is no longer necessary to stick to these rigid time-line rules. If you want to put in a real, neutral time-line, I would not be averse to that; but this business of writing an article around a rigid timeline is for the birds. Tundrabuggy (talk) 20:11, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Attribution

ChrisO removed several of my changes, which had attributed O’Loughlin’s claims to him, with the edit summary “rm erroneous attribution, changed wording ("claims" is a word to avoid)”. I have several issues with this edit. Firstly, the attribution is certainly not erroneous – all the claims I had attributed to O’Loughlin clearly come from his Age article. Perhaps ChrisO was misled by the fact that one of these attributed claims (“the two asserted that the assassination was the work of a conspiracy headed by Shimon Peres, who was later to become the President of Israel.”) was additionaly sourced to the Schwartz article. But if there is any error, it is in the original sourcing of this claim to the Schwartz article – which makes no such claim. Peres is not mentioned in that article at all. As far as the “claims is word to avoid” explanation, ChrisO is interpreting what WP:WTA says rather more broadly than what the relevant passage actually says, and eliding nuances and exceptions made there. “Claims” can be used in certain circumstances – such as when there are multiple, conflicting accounts – as is the case here. What is not permissible, according to that section, is to “use "claim" for one side and a different verb for the other, as that could imply that one has more merit.” I don’t want to quibble over this – so I’ll assume good faith here, and give ChrisO a chance demonstrate his good faith by editing the ‘Israeli Investigation’ section to remove the use of “claimed” there. Meanwhile, I will again attribute O’Loughlin’s claims to him, without using “claims”. From a stylistic point of view, this might be a little repetitive, but then again, this may draw attention to the problem we have in this section – over-reliance on a single source. Canadian Monkey (talk) 19:29, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Hmm. You might be right about the Peres/Schwartz issue - I've looked again at the article in question. As regards "claims", the reason we generally regard it as a word to avoid is because it's so often (mis)used to convey the message that (so to speak) "it's just a claim". I generally use other formulations such as "asserted", "stated" or "said", which don't have the same connotations. If you want to change the "Israeli investigation" section to remove a use of "claimed" there, that's fine by me. I may slip up occasionally and use "claims" or derivations when I shouldn't, so if you notice any more examples, please flag them up or change them yourself. -- ChrisO (talk) 21:31, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

(To Elonka) You made a blanket restriction, which arbcom did not authorize. Arbcom said you could place restrictions on editors, if "despite being warned, that editor repeatedly or seriously fails to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, any expected standards of behavior, or any normal editorial process." In other words, the restriction should not apply to every user on the project. -- Ned Scott 05:18, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

I placed restrictions on the article, which are effectively restrictions on all of the editors who are participating at this article. When an editor, in my opinion, does not abide by those restrictions, I have the authority to place increased restrictions, such as I did with ChrisO and Julia1987. If you disagree with the actions being taken here by uninvolved administrators, you (or any editor) are welcome to file an appeal, though I personally think that would be getting a bit WP:POINTy, especially since there is an extensive history of prior warnings. Still though, you are welcome to do this if you choose. Appeal instructions are at the ArbCom case page. --El on ka 05:47, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

I only noticed this because ChrisO's talk page was on my watchlist. I haven't really looked into the merits of ChrisO's or Julia's arguments, but that would besides the point. Consider my comments here as a word of caution, that a blanket restriction on reverting is extremely unwise. It makes sense only in the context of a dispute, but not outside of that. I have no real interest in this situation or this article, but I saw this as a very big flaw, and felt the need to say something about it. -- Ned Scott 05:57, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

For most articles on Wikipedia that are not in dispute, I would agree that a "no revert" restriction would seem bizarre. However, the context here on this article, is a longrunning dispute that has been characterized by an excessive amount of reverting and edit-warring. Usual practice in these cases is to protect the article and not let anyone edit at all. However, my feeling is that a simple limit on reverts, along with the other #Conditions for editing as I have described above, provide a better-crafted solution than all-out protection. --El on ka 19:29, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

(reset indent) I think N.S is talking about the fact that normally a blanket restriction of revert isn't a common solution for a problematic area. - Penwhale | ^{Blast him / Follow his steps} 14:59, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
- I agree that it is not a common solution. However, I am one of the people that was tasked by ArbCom to participate in the Working group on ethnic and cultural edit wars. Over the last few months, we have been discussing Wikipedia's ethnic disputes in some depth, as well as examining previously tried solutions for dealing with them, to identify successes and failures, and try to compile a list of "best practices", as well as brainstorming possible new techniques. Results so far from the Working Group have included an overhaul of procedures for dealing with disruptive editors, the Wikipedia:New admin school/Dealing with disputes page, a successful reconciliation project at User:Elonka/Hungarian-Slovakian experiment, and (though we can't take credit for this, but I did encourage it), the new Wikipedia:Ethnic and cultural conflicts noticeboard, primarily spearheaded by Folantin's group and Moreschi. In other words, there is an active movement by multiple editors and taskforces to try new methods of dealing with these longrunning ethnic conflicts on Wikipedia. When I volunteered to help out on this Muhammad al-Durrah article, I did so not just as a random uninvolved admin, but also as part of my WorkGroup research, as I'm trying to get a feel for the various types of ethnic conflicts on Wikipedia, ranging from Hungarian/Slovakian to Turkish/Assyrian to Polish/Lithuanian to Israeli/Palestinian, to the Irish "Troubles", the Sri Lankan topic area, and so forth. If my methods here are a bit unorthodox, well, okay, but I would also point out that they are working. This article, which used to be protected and in the middle of a severe dispute that was causing threads to sprout up on admin boards all over Wikipedia, has calmed down considerably since my restrictions of June 10. And all of this with no further page protection, and no editors being blocked. Just a clear set of restrictions, a lot of communication and education, a few brief page bans, and everyone else is allowed to get back to work, with no aggravating "black marks" in people's block logs. The article is once again in a state of healthy editing, with editors flowing through and making a steady series of edits to improve it. And all this in just a week. I'm not sure what else could be seen as a better marker of success? --El on ka 03:55, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

This is not a diary

Since the whole article is about the controversy, the reader should not have to read several paragraphs to discover that the IDF might not have killed the child. The article isn't a movie about how the whole case developed, nor is it a melodrama. It should clearly state that there is serious question as to whether the child was killed by IDF or Palestinian gunfire. Note that this does not allow for any interpretation that the article supports a POV that the child might not be dead. If somebody thinks it does, please feel free to fix that, but that the IDF may not have kill the boy, should be stated right up front.Sposer (talk) 05:28, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Sposer, I removed from the first sentence that he was reported killed by X, and changed it simply to was reported killed during a clash between X and Y. So it now says: "Muhammad Jamal al-Durrah (1988-2000) was a Palestinian boy reported to have been killed by gunfire during a clash between the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and Palestinian Security Forces in the Gaza Strip on September 30, 2000, at the start of the Second Intifada." SlimVirgin ^talk|edits 08:04, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately, CJCurrie has reverted me. [8] SlimVirgin ^talk|edits 08:22, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

I disagree with SlimVirgin's interpretation of events. For details, please consult this statement. CJCurrie (talk) 09:25, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Once again, this omits the essential fact that he was reported to have been killed by Israeli gunfire. Do you think it would have had one tenth of the impact if the shooting had been blamed on Palestinian gunfire? It also restores the highly weaselly "reported killed" wording, when the overwhelming majority of our sources say definitively that he was killed . -- ChrisO (talk) 09:45, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree with ChrisO here. The propaganda value of the MaD affair lay in the claim that he was killed by the Israelis. Otherwise, it would indeed have passed unnoticed just as thousands of children murdered in miscellaneous conflicts around the world pass unnoticed. Beit Or 10:34, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Exactly. It was used as a symbol (or would synecdoche be the right term?) of "Israeli brutality". -- ChrisO (talk) 10:58, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree, so let's make clear in the first sentence that the article is about propaganda and symbolism, and not about an actual event that probably didn't occur the way the propaganda says it occurred, and may not really have occurred at all. 6SJ7 (talk) 13:55, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Regarding the "overwhelming majority" comment, what are the dates of a few of the most recent major reliable sources that "definitively say he was killed"? Thanks, --El on ka 16:31, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Regarding SlimVirgin's report of a revert, I took a look, and she is correct that CJCurrie did revert the article, but CJCurrie's explanation that this was a simple mistake, followed by an immediate correction a moment later, is reasonable. I also agree that CJCurrie's subsequent edits were in compliance with the conditions for editing, in that they were changes to the text, rather than reverts. For the purpose of this article, I define "revert" as something that might be done with the "undo" or "rollback" buttons, meaning a clean revert back to a previous version. As long as CJCurrie (or any other editor) is actively trying to find compromise wording, the editing is acceptable. There does appear to be some rapid back and forth on the article today, but I see this as a good thing, which I hope will lead towards consensus wording that everyone is more or less happy with. --El on ka 16:24, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Elonka, CJCurrie did not correct himself a moment later, and still hasn't. This edit of his reverted this edit of mine just half and hour after I made it, and the revert remains in the article. SlimVirgin ^talk|edits 18:49, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

I addressed SlimVirgin's concern in my initial response. This was not a "revert" in the sense that the term is being used here, as a direct comparison of the edits should indicate. CJCurrie (talk) 23:38, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Postage stamps

The article currently shows a rather low-res and not very clear image of a postage stamp from Tunisia reproducing a frame from the footage. It turns out that in September 2001, most Arab states (Morocco, Libya, Jordan, Tunisia, Egypt, UAE...) did a coordinated release of postage stamps showing the al-Durrah footage. I think this might be worth mentioning in the article. Also, I've got hold of two of the stamps in question from Jordan, showing how the footage was combined with other symbols of the conflict (e.g. the al-Aqsa mosque), presumably for propaganda purposes. I propose to replace the existing image of the Tunisian stamp with a better quality image of the equivalent Jordanian stamps - see right for the image and caption. Any objections to this? -- ChrisO (talk) 13:39, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

If any other editor agrees that the image of these stamps would be useful to the article, you are welcome to add them, as ChrisO is still under an editing restriction. Also as a sidenote, there seem to be multiple memorials to the boy, not just stamps, so it might be worthwhile to try and find photos of those, as well. --El on ka 16:27, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm happy to add the image to the article, but it's about to be deleted, so we need some kind of rationale. I'll add one later if I have time, or perhaps someone else could do it in the meantime. SlimVirgin ^talk|edits 18:39, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

It has a rationale already. It's only about to be deleted because it's currently orphaned. If you add it to the article, that will no longer be a problem. -- ChrisO (talk) 18:46, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Ah, okay. SlimVirgin ^talk|edits 18:52, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

I believe all of these (from each country) should be added into a small gallery display of the related stamps. i.e. I think we shouldn't remove the one from Tunisia. Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 18:49, 6 July 2008 (UTC) clarify. 18:50, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't know about that... I'm not sure it would be very useful, to be honest. I've seen most of the stamps (in the Stanley Gibbons catalogue) and they are substantively identical in design and theme. The Jordanian version is probably the best of the bunch in terms of aesthetic value and the clarity of its design, which is why I selected it. I also think there would be potential copyright issues with providing a gallery of stamps given that the article is not specifically about them (hence a fair use claim would be weak). I intended the Jordanian stamps to replace the Tunisian one rather than supplement it, partly for that reason. -- ChrisO (talk) 22:09, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Lead again

I'm thinking that the current lead] is pretty factual and neutral. Does anyone disagree, and if so, what point(s) exactly do you feel are still not right? SlimVirgin ^talk|edits 21:46, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Do you think saying he was shot by the Palestinian Authority forces makes it sound as if he was deliberately shot? If so, we could change the second sentence to:

"Subsequent investigations have challenged the report, asserting either that the shots came from the Palestinian Security Forces, or that the incident was staged." Thoughts?Sposer (talk) 22:34, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Were all the Palestinian shooters members of their security forces? I suggest that a wording like "asserting either that al-Durrah and his father were struck by bullets fired from Palestinian positions, or ..." -- ChrisO (talk) 22:59, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Done. SlimVirgin ^talk|edits 23:42, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm satisfied with it as it stands. Let me know when we get down to paragraph 2, where the point needs to be clearly made that Enderlin's report said: "targeted." [9]. That's key to this story. As it stands now, the paragraph skirts this. "Targeted" means "aimed at." Enderlin said the Israelis targeted this 12 year old boy and shot at him until he was dead. Let's not whitewash anyone -- this is public knowledge. -- Tundrabuggy (talk) 00:43, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I think it would be best to use a direct quote from Enderlin's voiceover. I think a fair translation of his original wording is that the boy and his father were "the target of shots coming from the Israeli position". (Ils sont la cible des tirs venus de la position israélienne) Sanguinalis (talk) 01:33, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I think we're pretty far from a factual and neutral lead, though Slim Virgin tagging her version and opening a new discussion is helpful. Here are just a few of the problems:

I strongly disagree with: The original reports stemmed from 59 seconds of a 27-minute tape. The implication, that the Abu Rahma footage was the only evidence that informed the original reportage, is simply not true. For example, there is Jamal al-Durrah's testimony from his hospital bed (as in this BBC article [10]). There is the original IDF investigation which was done within three days of the shooting. There is the fact that a funeral was held. I am aware that supporters of the hoax view believe the funeral was staged and Jamal al-Durrah was putting on an act, but for such a hoax to go undetected and influence world reporting would have required a lot more than cooking 59 seconds of videotape.
Charles Enderlin, who was not present during the incident, who attributed the shooting to the IDF based on the belief of the cameraman. This is well poisoning. A standard procedure in televisions news is being made to sound sinister. I think it is understood by viewers that television news reports are put together by teams of people, and that the person doing the voiceover is not necessarily present at every single time and place being shown. Also, Enderlin only said in his original voiceover that the shots came from the direction of the Israeli position.
triggering widespread condemnation of Israel. Highly questionable. I don't recall any condemnation in the halls of the US Congress, for example. Certainly there was anger in the Muslim world, but I think it is a mistake to assume this was all because of France 2. I believe it likely that people in Muslim countries would have believed the testimony of the boy's father, not to mention the other Palestinian witnesses, regardless of what Enderlin said in his voiceover.

Sanguinalis (talk) 01:09, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Hi Sanguinalis, to address your points: (1) I believe the original reports were broadcast before the interview with the father (which was conducted the next day by the same cameraman), and before the funeral and IDF investigation. The original reports were based simply on the cameraman's footage. (2) Using controversial footage from lone cameramen is not standard procedure; there would normally be a correspondent, producer, reporter, or researcher present. (3) The anger against Israel was certainly "widespread," notwithstanding that it wasn't everywhere. SlimVirgin ^talk|edits 05:00, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I think the hoax stuff is not really necessary, since I suspect few believe it outside of conspiracy theorists. However, it was the initial report and video that caught everybody's attention, not the IDF apology and initial admission, nor the interview of the father. Remove the hoax stuff, but the reaction was before the Israel apologized and admitted, or before anybody had spoken to the father. As far as Enderlin not being there, it is still the reporter's job to check his sources and be sure there wasn't any bias involved. As far as condemnation goes, the U.S. actually waits to get both sides of the story. Israel initially apologized (and later said they didn't do it). There is nothing to condemn if Israel apologizes and says that is not how they normally, or intend to act in the future (I am not getting into an argument over what Israel did, does or doesn't do, I am talking theoretically here).Sposer (talk) 01:36, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Sanguinalis, I think we were only talking about the the 1st paragraph of the lead (1st couple of sentences of the lead) I agree that the 2nd paragraph has problems though disagree with your perspective on it. I edited to put in the actual wording of Enderlin. Enderlin actually said the boy and his father were "the target of fire from the Israeli position." You can find it quoted here and they have a link to streaming video at that article as well. While it is true that news reports are put together by teams, it is incumbent on the broadcaster not to assert something quite so pointedly accusatory (Israel targeted a 12 year old boy) without strong evidence. Considering the nature of the whole story, people need to know that Charles Enderlin was not at the scene reporting this. I suspect you wouldn't have heard condemnation right away in the the US Congress, since we try not to condemn countries and people before they have had a chance to investigate, get access to the facts (the film, the bullets, etc), and get a fair hearing -- "innocent until proven guilty." We don't always get it right, but we try. --Tundrabuggy (talk) 01:41, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't agree with this edit. (1) Enderlin "asserted" sounds a bit strained. (2) Adding "while" implies that he didn't know what he was talking about. (3) There is no need to quote him. (4) He has said several times that he based his report on the belief of the cameraman, so I see no reason to remove that. SlimVirgin ^talk|edits 04:54, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

SlimVirgin, 1) I could go with "said," or "claimed" 2) Someone else wrote the part about him not being there, I just worked it in 3) I think quoting him is extremely important - that way no one is editorializing on what he said or why he said it. All we know is what he actually said. Later in the article, when we go into further detail, then fine, add the fact that he said he based his report on the cameraman's say-so 4)In the current state of the fullness of our knowledge, the idea that he based his report on the belief of the cameraman is definitely 'iffy'. If so, why did he edit out the last 10 seconds of film which to many looks like the boy is still alive and "peeking" at the camera? Worse still, how do we know what the cameraman "believed"? The court has said that his testimony was unreliable. That is the very essence of the conflict here. The simplest way to deal with questions of fact is simply to quote the words. And the word "target" is extremely important. Had he said that the Israelis had accidentally shot the boy, or that we don't know who did it pending investigation, the event might well have had a (somewhat) different impact. --Tundrabuggy (talk) 13:21, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Hi TB, the point about adding "while" is that it actively joins "wasn't there" with "did a voiceover anyway," implying that he shouldn't have done the latter. Leaving the two clauses unconnected implies that much less, if at all.

Regarding the cameraman, I think it's important to stress that the cameraman was the sole source for what allegedly happened, because he seems to have been the only witness, notwithstanding that the area was full of people. Enderlin had no direct knowledge at all. He has said that he relied on the cameraman's testimony. We can use "testimony" rather than "belief," so that we don't make assumptions about internal mental states, if you like.

I don't like quoting unless absolutely necessary, because in contentious articles you often end up with a list of quotes instead of a narrative, because no one dares paraphrase.

Yes, I take your point about "target." SlimVirgin ^talk|edits 19:43, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks to recent changes, as well as having 50% of the lead discussing the minutiae of the criticisms of the France 2 report (rather than having that detail in the main part of the article), we now have an unqualified reference to the "staged" allegations right at the very top of the page, as if they are worthy of due weight with everything else. Oh and btw Abu Rahma is not merely a "cameraman" - he describes himself and is described by others as a "correspondent" and "journalist". The current wording does, as suggested, verge on well-poisoning. Unfortunately this article inches closer every day towards being swamped by a "Palestinians lie" narrative. All very nasty. --Nickhh (talk) 10:27, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Nick, do you have a (pre-shooting) mainstream third-party source who describes him as a journalist/correspondent? SlimVirgin ^talk|edits 19:46, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Hopefully, without the hoax mention, the lede is now completely neutral. It states that the initial reports implied that the boy and his father were hit by Israeli gunfire, while later reports suggested otherwise. For the reader to have to move several paragraphs down to discover the later controversy gives the article a POV opposite what later court cases and evidence may show. Adding the hoax story gives undue weight to that idea, and I removed it. There is nothing now that suggests any sort of Palestinian lie in the lede, and I am not going into the rest of the miasma that is this story. I do not know enough about the cameraman versus reporter part to comment on that, but I used to hold a press card, wrote many articles in financial magazines, and called myself a reporter and journalist. Few would have agreed with that. I have no idea what the gentleman's credentials are, but his own description is probably not a very good source.Sposer (talk) 12:43, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I strongly disagree with your edit, for reasons that have been stated over and over on this page. Many people now appear to believe that this may have been a hoax, and not to put it in the lead is to ignore the latest developments in the case. Anecdotal evidence about personal qualifications in this media is meaningless. To your assertion that the lead now no longer suggests "any sort of Palestinian lie" - I would just say that if individual Palestinians are caught a lie that doesn't make it a "Palestinian" lie. -- Tundrabuggy (talk) 13:44, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

My god, this is an unadulterated, bald-faced lie. There is absolutely no truth to the claim that "most people believe this may have been a hoax." Theres no place at all in this page for mention of the lunatic hoax claim, **especially** not in the first damn sentence! 70.244.83.107 (talk) 13:53, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

In fact, no one on this page or on the article said what you claim. On this page I said "many people" and in the article I said "some." "Subsequent investigations have challenged this conclusion, with some asserting that the boy may have been killed by gunfire from the Palestinian Security Forces, and others suggesting that the entire episode was staged." Tundrabuggy (talk) 15:24, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Anon, your comment violates WP:CIVIL. Please be aware that this is a highly controversial article, and inflammatory comments on the talkpage are not helpful. You are welcome to participate in a civil and constructive way in the discussion, but if you persist with uncivil comments, your account access will be blocked. --El on ka 14:09, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

The "hoax" allegations are mentioned further down in the lead, and they have been for ages. Given the (limited) coverage of the Karsenty case, this is fair enough to some extent - however it should not be one of the first things that is flagged up. It remains, as has also been "stated over and over", a minority view. The problem is that people keep stuffing this article - from the first paragraph down - with as many instances of the words "allegedly", "reportedly" and "supposedly" as they can and then thanks to the 0RR rule, no-one can remove it. For instance Slim Virgin has done that here. And this daft theory is not just about claims that one or two Palestinians were lying - if the hoax theory is true, a huge number of Palestinians and Jordanians must have been in on the conspiracy, along with whole swathes of the world's media, and still are to this day. That is what all these edits are insinuating. Not only is it ridiculous, it's offensive. --Nickhh (talk) 14:03, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree that sometimes one can have too much of a good thing. But if we can just start at the top and work our way down, I think we can get the rest of the article to reflect the current state of affairs. If we allude to all the controversies in the opening, we can avoid all the allegeds and reportedlys down below. The hoax theory might be offensive to some, but it has to be less offensive than the idea he was shot by Palestinians, which has been accepted in the lead, and is believed by some. As for offensive, the story that the Israelis targeted the boy in cold blood is offensive, particularly if it isn't true. --Tundrabuggy (talk) 15:36, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Well simply on the general point of language, I take the view that an accusation becomes more offensive the more implausible it is, and the more it attempts to generalise about a particular group of people and their overall behaviour. Yes it may also be offensive to suggest either that the IDF or Palestinian policemen/gunmen shot him, but one or the other of those alternatives is also almost certainly what happened. And guns do tend to kill people, so it's hardly an unfair accusation either way. --Nickhh (talk) 17:35, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

It is an unfair accusation if it accuses someone falsely, as in this case. Your link, of course, demonstrates your POV and is a great example of how ellipses can be used to put words in people's mouths, and quite possibly shows the use of selective language used to smear. Whether Barak did or did not say what your article claims he said has zero to do with this article. Nor does the degree of implausibility have anything to do with something's offensiveness. There is much in this life that is implausible, inoffensive and true. Something is implausible only before it is demonstrated to be true. Tundrabuggy (talk) 21:31, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Read the complete original account of the interview if you wish to. I think the words are pretty clear, with or without the - single - apparent break in the quotation. The point I am making by linking to it is nothing to do with my POV, but is simply to highlight that there is an undeniable tradition in both Western and Israeli discourse of painting Arabs and Palestinians as being habitual liars. The promotion of the al Durrah hoax theory is part of that tradition in my view, hence its relevance here. On an even more general point, I guess we just disagree that it's offensive to accuse a whole group of people of doing something that is both morally wrong and implausible, although you seem to have gotten half way there by making the point that it is "unfair" to accuse someone "falsely" (perhaps you could explain the subtle difference there?) Oh and finally, implausibility is not of course the state that immediately and necessarily precedes being inevitably proven true - most things that start off implausible remain as unlikely to be true as they always were. --Nickhh (talk) 22:00, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

The plausibility of this hoax theory does not rest on an "undeniable tradition ... of painting Arabs and Palestinians as...habitual liars." In the first place, I take issue with your contention. It is neither "undeniable" nor a "tradition," and in the second, even if it were true, it would prove nothing about this case. I would say it demonstrates a prejudice on your part, and would never be heard in court. In fairness to all, each event needs to be judged on its merits. - Tundrabuggy (talk) 19:59, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

The 0RR rule means that people should not use the "undo" or "rollback" buttons to completely wipe out someone else's edits. However, everyone is still welcome to change the text to try and find a compromise version. Just don't use "revert" as an editing tool. --El on ka 14:14, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I am assuming though that if I were to remove those words, even if I did it "manually", it would be treated as a revert. As I say, that's the problem ... it prevents edit-warring but isn't necessarily a solution to the underlying and bigger problem. --Nickhh (talk) 17:37, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

"Triggering widespread condemnation"

I plan to return to the other points I raised, and the responses to them, later, but for now I will limit my comments to the clause triggering widespread condemnation of Israel. I think it's time for those who want this clause to stay in the lead to come up with some evidence. To justify "widespread" the condemnation has to come from more than just the Arab and Muslim countries. What is needed are statements from world leaders, editorials in major newspapers, and so forth. This article has had a "Reaction" section for a long time and no such statements are to be found there. The only reactions mentioned are those of: the immediate family, Israel, the Muslim world, and Amnesty International (the latter in a lengthy report that criticizes both sides in the conflict and doesn't mention al-Durrah until page 15). If what is meant is condemnation in the Muslim world, it is certainly open to question (as I have pointed out above) whether that reaction was "triggered" by the France 2 report specifically. After all, there was widespread condemnation against Israel within the Muslim world long before Muhammed al-Durrah was even born. I suggest striking this clause. Sanguinalis (talk) 01:36, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Oct. 1, 2000:From US ABC's Gillian Findlay also says the boy died "under Israeli fire." [11] From a UN paper: "In many instances, the soldiers of the occupying Power have committed wilful killings, including the highly publicized killing of a 12-year-old boy, Mohammed Jamal Al-Durra, as well as wilfully causing great suffering and serious injury to many other Palestinians." [12] From the UK "While the world condemns Israel, this tragedy will never end.[13]From France: "Hundreds demonstrate in support of Palestinians in eastern France" $2.95 - BBC Archive - NewsBank - Oct 7, 2000 Strasbourg, 7th October: Around 1500 demonstrators, including around 30 children ... aged between 5 and 7 carried photographs of Muhammad Jamal al-Durra, ...[14] This from the US - PALESTINE: Doctors condemn Israeli tactics "But international outrage at Israel's tactics is growing. Stunned by the image of 12-year-old Rami Al-Dura, who was shot by Israeli soldiers, international human rights organisations are demanding investigations into Israel's methods of containing civil unrest."[15] Tundrabuggy (talk) 18:35, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Tundrabuggy, thanks for finding these sources. Unfortunately they do not support the assertion that is in question here. First, allow me to point out that I specifically asked for statements from world leaders or editorials in major newspapers and none of your examples are that. Moving on to what you did provide:

From US (James Fallows' Atlantic Monthly article). The same article says Print outlets were generally careful to say that Mohammed al-Dura was killed in "the crossfire" or "an exchange of fire" between Israeli soldiers and Palestinians. An American network news broadcasts that, correctly or incorrectly, attributes the death of one child to "Israeli fire" does not constitute "condemnation of Israel". Note that your criticism of Endlerlin's voiceover, that it implied Israel deliberately killed al-Durrah, clearly does not apply to the ABC broadcast, which did no such thing.
From a UN paper (Letter from the Permanent Observer of Palestine) The organization that wrote this letter is associated with the Palestinian Authority and therefore counts as part of the Arab/Muslim world.
From the UK (An opinion piece published in the Daily Telegraph) Irrelevant since al-Durrah is not mentioned.
From France I'm not able to find the article. Your link appears to be to a copy of the Mitchell Report. Anyway a single demonstration is not "worldwide condemnation".
(A BBC article) I'm not able to find this, as you didn't provide a link.
From the US Actually this is a reprint of an article by Suzanne Goldenberg of the Guardian, a British newspaper. The article begins with a description of the treatment of Mohammed Abu Faress for chest injuries sustained under fire by Israeli soldiers, and then goes on to describe charges by Palestinian doctors that the Israeli military was deliberately shooting the heads and upper bodies of demonstrators. A lot of cases are described. I'm not sure you really want to use this article as a source, as it confirms that four Palestinian youths were injured by Israeli fire an Netzarim junction the day after al-Durrah was shot. In any case, it's clear that the al-Durrah incident was not the only thing the human rights groups were criticizing Israel for in 2000.

I consider the "triggered worldwide condemnation" phrase to be harmful, since it implies that the France 2 story about al-Durrah was the only reason anyone could have been angry at Israel at this time. As if Israel's settlements in Gaza and the West Bank, the confiscated land and the checkpoints, Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount, the 7 Palestinians killed in Jerusalem the day before al-Durrah was shot, Israel's tactics of destroying homes, razing orchards, etc., etc., would not have caused anyone to demonstrate, any Palestinians to file a protest in the UN, any human rights groups to raise questions about Israeli methods, if it were not for Charles Enderlin and Talal Abu Rahma. Clearly that's not something that can stand as an indisputable or verifiable fact. Sanguinalis (talk) 03:21, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

There is nothing in the phrase that implies that the incident was the only reason why others might be angry at Israel. After all, it wasn't even the first Intifada against Israel. Prior to this incident, there had been numerous other wars with the countries around it. Israel's settlements, conflicts over the Temple Mount, and the killing of both Israelis and Palestinians in this conflict had gone on since the birth of modern Israel and before. Back to the point concerning "worldwide condemnation," this incident was made to make it look as if Israel targeted an innocent 12 year old boy and shot at him for 45 minutes. That would trigger worldwide condemnation if anyone had done it, don't you agree? It is not required to have heads of state or political parties denounce Israel in order to prove "worldwide condemnation" -- just plain folks as can be demonstrated in the headlines of newspapers at the time. Tundrabuggy (talk) 13:20, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Apparently then, by "worldwide condemenation" you mean demonstrations in Europe in support of the Palestinians, and reports by human rights groups critical of Israel, because that's all you have been able to document (I don't know what "headlines of newspapers at the time" you are referring to, as none of the sources you provided were headline stories). To say those demonstrations and human rights reports were "triggered" by France 2 distributing its news footage does in fact imply that those demonstrations would not have taken place and the human rights reports not been published had France 2 not done that, and that is simply impossible to prove. We must stick to objective, verifiable facts, and not draw conclusions based on what we figure must have happened if such and such occurred. Besides, the voiceover was not distributed along with the footage. All we know is that the footage was distributed worldwide. How it was broadcast and what reaction if any it brought forth may very well have varied considerably from country to country. In the United States, we know from James Fallows' article that is was shown on all three major network news shows, and yet, according to the same article, "The name Mohammed al-Dura is barely known in the United States". So no, without direct evidence we cannot make any conclusions about what kind of impression the footage made in other countries. Sanguinalis (talk) 20:26, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Assuming what you say is correct, it sort of makes one wonder whether there is enough notability for an article at all, particularly under the current title. 6SJ7 (talk) 20:38, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

You can't be serious. A person does not have to make front-page headlines around the world to be meet Wikipedia's notability guidelines. Besides, everyone agrees that al-Durrah is a household name in the Arab and Muslims countries. That by itself justifies this article, though it does not equate to "worldwide condemnation of Israel". Sanguinalis (talk) 21:02, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Actually, the article says "widespread", not "worldwide" condemnation, but I still maintain that implies more than just the Arab and Muslim countries. Sanguinalis (talk) 21:18, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

No, I can't be serious. This whole area on Wikipedia is a farce, so how can I be serious? 6SJ7 (talk) 02:44, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

On the "widespread" versus "worldwide" issue, this contemporary article describes it as a "worldwide furore". Interestingly, it also quotes one of the ambulance men who took the al Durrahs to hospital, and indicates that both were still alive when they entered the ambulance (though obviously not when they left it). -- ChrisO (talk) 09:07, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

um, not overly contemporary -- Oct 3, 2000! Your statement suggesting that Mohammed was dead after they left the ambulance is not borne out by the article you quote. It quotes a person named Bassam al-Bilbays, who was riding with the ambulance (not necessarily "one of the ambulance men" as you claim) says : "There was still some breath left in him when we reached the ambulance, but when we opened the doors, they started shooting again." This person does not claim Mohammed Al-Durrah was dead when they arrived at hospital! We mustn't read more into an article than is actually there. Speaking to "widespread condemnation" issue again: this article from the JPost [16] quotes Glen Lewy the ADL National Chair and Abraham Foxman, National Director of ADL saying that the France 2 report "incited much hatred and violence toward Israel." They also mention in passing that the additional footage has "advanced serious arguments that the entire incident was staged." Tundrabuggy (talk) 02:14, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

The ADL is a a political organization. A statement from one of its directors should not be used as a source for anything except what the views of the ADL are. Sanguinalis (talk) 10:48, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

A statement from both the Director and the Chair of the ADL reflects the opinion (views) of lots of Jews, and others. Tundrabuggy (talk) 22:04, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Not unless the Director and Chair of the ADL possess the equivalent of papal infallibility. They speak for their organisation - some Jews may choose to support what they say, but it's a lazy generalization to claim that they speak for all Jews. -- ChrisO (talk) 08:11, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Give it up

seriously guys, regardless of what is said in this talk, unjustified hate and fallacy-driven (bandwagoning, poisoning the well, etc..) will continue until wiki authorities update its flawed agenda. for more info i suggest turning to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies. there youll find a plethora of fallacies, many of which have been demonstrated time and time again in this discussion. tundra, 6, and everyone else fighting for logic, give it up. nothing is going to change until wikipedia ends its unwritten policy of supporting the biased, hateful, and malicious acts perpetrated by the israeli bashing masses. we should be spending more time on articles that have potential for change. al-durrah is dead and will forever be dead until the powers that be (not pointing figures at anyone specific) stir up the courage to act. cheers. Wikifan12345 (talk) 07:58, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

The shooting

I've changed the statement that said the shooting was captured by several cameramen, as this is misleading. While the events of the day at the junction (occasional gunfire exchanges, rock throwing by palestinaisn, and play acting) were indeed captured by multiple camera crews, only abu rahma captured the al-dura incident. In fact, one of the elements of the "staged" theory is that despite the presence of multiple crews who were constantly filming - only abu rahma manged to catch this incident, despite it allegedly lasting 30-45 minutes. One other crew did film the al-duras crouching behind the barrel, but that same scene has multiple other people walking by them casually, with no indication of any gun-battle in progress. Canadian Monkey (talk) 18:24, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm afraid you've misread the text. It didn't say that the shooting was captured, it said that the gun battle was captured - that includes the exchanges of gunfire on both sides. I've reworded the line to make it clear that the broadcast footage of the al-Durrahs came from Abu Rahma. As for your claims, what's your source? -- ChrisO (talk) 18:47, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

A gun battle was captured by other crews, but not one in which the al-Durrahs are involved. The way it was phrased before my change leads the reader to believe that the incident which is the topic of this article was captured by more than one crew - which is false. Only the F2 vidoe shows the al-durrahs allegedly being shot at. There are many sources which document this anomaly - multiple crews filming throughout the day, yet a 45 minute shooting incident is only captured by a lone photogarpher. One of them isthis"Much of the day’s events are filmed by the various (20 or so) television crews, but only Abu Rahma records what he claims to be Mohammed Al Dura’s death by Israeli bullets. (A Reuters clip apparently captures Jamal and Mohammed Al Dura filmed from a different angle.)", and others are available on Landes's web site. Canadian Monkey (talk) 19:02, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Real sources, please, not CAMERA or Landes. The source I'm citing - a reliable mainstream newspaper, not a personal website or lobbying group - says definitively it's the same battle . -- ChrisO (talk) 19:06, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't see you providing any source for that claim - the only reference for that section is Abu rahma statement, and he was found, I remind you, to be an unrelaible witness by the French court. As to my sources, there's nothign wrong with CAMERA as a source for this claim, nor with Landes. Canadian Monkey (talk) 19:12, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

I've provided the source in the article. CAMERA is not a reliable source, nor is Landes - as I've pointed out, lobbying groups are not considered reliable sources, nor are individuals' personal websites. Wikipedia:Verifiability specifically precludes us from using such questionable sources. You're welcome to try to argue your case at the reliable sources noticeboard, though I believe CAMERA has been discussed before and found wanting. -- ChrisO (talk) 19:24, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Chris, can you say why CAMERA would not be regarded as a reliable source under WP:V? As for Landes, he does count as one, because he's become a specialist in this area; he's an academic with what he describes as a relevant background (propaganda, as I recall); and he's been acknowledged as a legitimate commentator by other reliable sources, including France 2 — I believe they agreed several years ago to give him access to the raw footage for his research.

The article should not give the impression that the shooting was filmed by anyone other than the France 2 cameraman. That he filmed it alone is, indeed, what a lot of the controversy stems from. SlimVirgin ^talk|edits 19:23, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

I see you have now added a source, but what that source says is that the "other" video" is "splicing together footage shot on the day by France 2 and other Western agencies". so we have no way of knowing what parts of this "spliced" and heavily edited anonymous video were actually shot by sources other than F2. As you say - let's have some real sources, please. You may want to have a look at this: "Through his diligent compilation work, Shahaf located some previously unknown taped material that depicts the scene of Muhammad Al-Dura and his father from additional angles. There is a scene in which a television photographer may be seen kneeling right next to the child and his father. Thus, there had to be an additional photographer there as well, the one who filmed the first photographer. There is also a picture of youths running and passing by a barrel of cement in order to get away from the place. Al-Dura and his son stay behind the barrel and do not join the people who, it seems, are getting themselves away from a dangerous area." Canadian Monkey (talk) 19:29, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Shahaf is <BLP Violation removed>, so I'm not inclined to put any weight on his claims. But the gist of his claim is already stated in the article from Abu Rahma himself: "His attention was drawn to the child by Shams Oudeh, a Reuters photographer who was sitting beside Muhammad al-Durrah and his father. The three of them were sheltering behind a concrete block." I'm not sure about the usefulness of the JCPA source, since (a) it's obviously an opinion piece and (b) it's just a retelling of Shahaf's claims. -- ChrisO (talk) 19:59, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Your opinion of Shahaf is mildly interesting, but entirely irrelvent. The source is Amnon Lord, a well known and highly respected Israeli journalist, published by the JCPA, which is a perfectly valid WP:RS. Canadian Monkey (talk) 22:07, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

The 'gist' of the claim made by the supportes of the 'staged' theory is not that there was another photographer nearby, but rather that there are many people filmed walking or running by the barrel, without any apparent need to take cover the way the Al-Durrahs were (have you asked yourself, for example, where is footage of the event by Shams Oudeh? ) Consider also this impeccable source: "Despite the number of cameras that were running that day, Mohammed and Jamal al-Dura appear in the footage of only one cameraman—Talal Abu-Rahma, a Palestinian working for France 2." [17]. As I said, numerous sources have commented on this apparent anomaly, and we should not be brushing it aside with a statement that misleads readers into thinking the controversial incident (as opposed to the general events of the day, including exchanges of fire) had been caught by anyone other than Rahma. Canadian Monkey (talk) 22:26, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Fallows appears to be factually incorrect. The Age article I cited states that the al-Durrahs are visible, albeit blurrily, in the long-shot footage taken by other cameramen at the scene. To be fair, he wrote that piece years before The Age did theirs, so he may not have been aware of the other footage. It certainly appears to be accurate to say that the actual shooting was only captured by Abu Rahma, but the general scene including the al-Durrahs is reliably reported to have been recorded by other cameramen at the scene. I'm not going to speculate about Shams Oudeh - neither of us know what happened to any pictures he took (or indeed if he took any). Much of the conspiracy theory depends on speculation and innuendo, but we're not going to write this article on that basis. I'd like to think Wikipedia has higher standards than that. -- ChrisO (talk) 22:39, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

I am not suggesting we write the article based on speculation. I brought up Oudeh because you had introduced the unsourced claim that Rahma was the 'closest to the incident' - apparently in an attempt to explain (in other words, speculate) on why he was the only one to capture the incident- but he clearly was not. Oudeh was closer, and yet did not film anything remotely like what Rahma did. We agree that the actual shooting was only captured by Abu Rahma, but we apparently disagree as to what 'the general scene including the al-Durrahs' which was captured on film by other photographers is. You seem to be under the impression (and have worded the disputed statement to suggest) that there is footage, other than the one shot by Rahma, showing the al-Durrahs hiding during a gun battle. I don't think that is the case. To be sure, there are shots of gun battles taking place at the junction, some even in locations that are close to the famous barrel. But as far as I can tell, there is no footage other than the 50+ seconds shot by Rahma that shows the al-Durrahs involved in any gun battle, so we shouldn't create that impression with the wording you have chosen. As to the Age source you cite, you are misrepresenting what it says. Again, the quote there is " "splicing together footage shot on the day by France 2 and other Western agencies" - in other words, a heavily edited video, by an anonymous editor, which combines both the Rahma footage and other footage - leaving us no way of knowing what it actually shows, and which parts were shot by which source. If that is what you are going by, we might add a footnote that says that according to the Age, there exists an edited video which splices together rahma's shots with other shots in which the al-Durrahs are blurrily seen, but not much more than that. Canadian Monkey (talk) 23:24, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Let's recap what the video shows, according to our reliable sources. We know from the testimony of the eyewitnesses that the al-Durrahs and Abu Rahma were sheltering behind a concrete cylinder and minivan respectively, taking refuge from an ongoing gun battle. The Age describes the video as showing the three of them sheltering in those positions while the battle was raging: "There is a lot of automatic gunfire - from both the Israeli army base and Palestinian security men filmed as they shoot back from positions at either end of the wall against which the al-Duras are huddled." So according to The Age, the video does quite clearly depict the al-Durrahs and Abu Rahma in the crossfire of an armed clash. Since it shows Abu Rahma, it obviously can't have been filmed by him. We know from other testimony by Abu Rahma that he filmed some of the events before the shooting (stone-throwing etc) and The Age does describe seeing this in the video, but he also says that he stopped filming after the al-Durrahs were shot. He doesn't say why, but France 2 has said that he had a low battery. -- ChrisO (talk) 08:01, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

The passage you quote above doesn't say that the boy and his father are visible hiding from crossfire. Can you link to the source where France 2 talks about a low battery, please? I've not been able to find it. SlimVirgin ^talk|edits 19:33, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

The passage I quoted clearly describes the al-Durrahs as being caught in a crossfire between the two sides, even if it doesn't use the word "crossfire". As for the battery, it's mentioned in the International Herald Tribute article of February 7, 2005: "The footage of the father and son under attack lasts several minutes, but does not clearly show the boy's death. There is a cut in the scene that France 2 executives attribute to the cameraman's efforts to preserve a low battery." -- ChrisO (talk) 20:18, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

The article mentions them and crossfire, but it doesn't say that anyone other than France 2 captured them and the crossfire on video. But I believe all the available footage is on Richard Landes' site, so we can simply look. Thanks for the IHT reference. SlimVirgin ^talk|edits 20:26, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't regard Landes' site as remotely reliable, so please don't "simply look" there - we have no idea whether his footage has been edited or even if it all comes from the same incident. He would certainly have every motive to distort it, given his political views and role in this controversy. I found another source which states that the footage described by The Age was shot by a Reuters cameraman (probably Shams Oudeh, the one named in the article - it's not clear, but it would be a logical assumption). But I think, from The Age's description of it, the footage does clearly show them in the crossfire. As I've said above, we know from the eyewitness testimony that they were sheltering from gunfire; The Age describes how the footage shows them sheltering while soldiers and gunmen "shoot back from positions at either end of the wall against which the al-Duras are huddled" (again, note the tense: "are huddled"; the huddling and shooting are simultaneous). -- ChrisO (talk) 20:44, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Agian, no. What the Age article says of this edited video consisting of footage shot by Rahma and other sources which has been spliced together is that "In a couple of long shots Abu Rahma is visible, huddled in the dubious cover of a white van parked a few metres from the figures behind the barrel.", and in other shots "There is a lot of automatic gunfire — from the Israeli Army base and the Palestinian security men clearly filmed as they return fire from positions at either end of the wall against which the Duras are huddled.". In other words - in the shots that show both Rahma and the Al-Durrahs, there is no mention of gunfire, and in other shots, where there is gunfire, the al-durrahs are visible, but not Rahma, and they are presumably the footage shot by Rahma. As I wrote earleir, this unverifyiable, heavily edited tape by an anonymous editor may be worth mentioning in a footnote, as something claimed by the Age, but not more than that. Canadian Monkey (talk) 17:51, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, you've just failed your basic English comprehension test... Re-read the sentence I highlighted: "they shoot back from positions at either end of the wall against which the al-Duras are huddled." Not "were huddled" or "will later be huddled", but "are huddled". In other words, the huddling and the shooting are simultaneous. -- ChrisO (talk) 18:31, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Your incivility aside, this is non-responsive to what I wrote. I did not make a point of the timing (i.e - was there shooting when the al-Durrahs are visible) , but rather that when they are visible and there is shooting, Rahma is not visible - so it is likely he took those shots, as the anonymous video is a pliced version of his footage and other footage. Canadian Monkey (talk) 03:57, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

I believe that conclusion would be original research, as it seems to be based on your views ("it is likely that..."), rather than what reliable sources have said. I'm going by what The Age has reported. -- ChrisO (talk) 09:07, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

The Age does not report what you claim. Specifically, it says nothing about the Reuters tape, and does not describe any shooting incident in which both the al-Durrahs and Rahma are visible. Canadian Monkey (talk) 20:56, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Please don't engage in idle speculation - it's a waste of time and effort. If you have something substantive to contribute, please do so. -- ChrisO (talk) 22:39, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Sure thing, Chris. Idle speculation gone. We should all take your (very good) advice. Tundrabuggy (talk) 00:54, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Karsenty was found guilty

See (in french): http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/A-Dura/France-2/Karsenty:_depuis_l%27arr%C3%AAt_de_la_Cour_d%E2%80%99appel —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.65.133.234 (talk) 14:13, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Some confusion here, I think? The judgment says that Karsenty was found guilty by a lower court. If you read down to the bottom it sets aside that court's verdict. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:46, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

59 seconds?

I've flagged the claim in the article that the footage was "edited down to 59 seconds" - I can't find a single reliable source that states this. Where does the figure come from? -- ChrisO (talk) 08:00, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

My understanding is that there is some question as to whether it was 55 or 59 seconds. This from the Jerusalem Post [18] "France 2's original September 30, 2000, broadcast showed 55 seconds of edited footage from the Netzarim junction..." Tundrabuggy (talk) 16:04, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, that's very helpful. The next question is do we know whether France 2 distributed more than this 55-second package to other broadcasters? -- ChrisO (talk) 19:53, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

They may have distributed some of what has been called the "playacting" going on, but it is clear that they did not distribute the rather important edited-out 10 seconds described as "peeking out from under his arm" by most, and "the death 'agonies'" by Enderlin et al, until forced to do so by the court some years later. Tundrabuggy (talk) 12:49, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

The shooting, again

The following quote is referenced to a Matthew Kalman in the Daily Mail:

According to the father, "Muhammad was hit in the knee by a bullet. I tried to defend him with my body, but another hit him in the back. I cried and shouted for help. The shooting continued even as Muhammad bled. Suddenly a bullet hit me in the shoulder, and it was followed by another and then a third. I stopped counting the bullets and could not tell what had happened to Muhammad. I regained consciousness in the ambulance and felt the body of my son. It was cold."^[20]

This citation is not verifiable as far as I can see in my research. Something as important as this testimony should have some verifiable source. Looks like the references are all screwed up at the moment. Tundrabuggy (talk) 17:24, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

What do you mean that it's "not verifiable"? It's certainly verifiable if you have access to a database of Daily Mail articles or, indeed, the original newspapers. -- ChrisO (talk) 19:32, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Yeah! Tundrabuggy seem to have removed the link so we can't check it. // Liftarn (talk)

It's still there in the article - check out ref 24 in the footnotes. I added some more references further up in the article, which has broken Tundrabuggy's hyperlink in the paragraph above. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:06, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

I would think that something as inflammatory as that ought to be verified somewhere else. Who is the author and why can't one seem to find the quote anywhere else? Heaven knows there seems to be plenty of ink on this subject. Why can't we find another source that can be accessed? And Liftarn, I did not remove the link. Tundrabuggy (talk) 20:14, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

The author is this guy; he's a long-established British Middle East correspondent who was the Daily Mail's Jerusalem correspondent at the time of the shooting. As for "why one can't seem to find the quote anywhere else", I presume you're Googling for it and not finding it. That's not surprising - the Mail and other Associated Newspapers titles were latecomers to the online news publishing business. It wasn't until as late as 2003 that they started publishing their stories online, [19] so Kalman's October 2000 report obviously wouldn't have had much circulation beyond the UK. But it's easily retrievable if you have access to professional news databases, which I do.

And by the way, what's "inflammatory" about this? It's nothing that isn't reported by several other sources. Kalman has the advantage of having actually gone to the scene and spoken to the family. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:40, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

The article is real, and verifiable to anyone with access to a good university database, or probably even just a library card and access to a local library website. I verified it within a few minutes via the latter method. It's a real article, published in The Daily Mail, which evidently picked it up off the "Europe Intelligence Wire". I didn't see a Kalman byline in my version, which was on NewsBank. It does have the feel of an "early report" to it, since it says, "For the first time last night, his father Jamal, swathed in bandages in hospital, told how a day out to find a new car ended in tragedy." The al-Durra portion is also a relatively small section of a longer article that was covering multiple such incidents in the latest round of Middle East fighting. So it might be worth couching it as an early report, but I'll leave that up to the editors here, and/or WP:RSN. --El on ka 21:15, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, I don't know, maybe I was having a bad day, it didn't show up for me. Thanks for finding it and verifying. The whole quote doesn't even make much sense because he says the boy was shot in the back, and that he was cold. The ambulance driver seems to say that he was breathing when he got in the ambulance, and if he was shot in the back, then there was no way he could have been shot by the Israelis. I did find out about Kalman, who seems to have an excellent reputation. Tundrabuggy (talk) 03:58, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

I noticed from Googling his name that CAMERA has praised him, so that should be good enough for you. ;-) If you look further down in the article, you'll see that there's a statement that "doctors who examined the boy's body said that he had been shot from the front in the upper abdomen and the injury to his back that his father had seen was an exit wound". A correction for Elonka - the Europe Intelligence Wire is a news redistribution service, so the story was picked up by the EIW from the Daily Mail, not the other way round. -- ChrisO (talk) 08:30, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

It's already couched as an early report, since it's within a section entitled "The incident as initially reported". -- ChrisO (talk) 21:24, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Nahum Shahaf

There is a contest going on over Nahum Shahaf's qualifications. One reporter O'Loughlin [discussed above](presumably a reliable one) insists that he had "no qualifications in ballistics or forensics." {[20] The original reference to this was this one [21] which said "Did ballistics experts take part in the tests? Shahaf concedes he is no authority on ballistics - however, he says, "as a physicist I read scientific material, both theoretical and experimental, and try to consult with several experts in this area, and so I have basically finished all the stages necessary in learning this topic." So the only reporter that says they have "no qualifications" is O'Loughlin. However, this bio [22] says this of him

As an Elcint employee he helped develop CT technology. From 1981, he was a leader in developing unmanned Israeli aircraft at Tadiran heading the unit-charged with formulating strategy in the area of visual intelligence. In 1989, he moved to Israel Aircraft Industries to develop helicopter missile technologies. He also studied the limitations of the civilian (nylon sheets system) defense arrangement against non-conventional ground to ground missiles and lectured on this subject in the army and at universities. The limitations of this system led the army to develop the 'mamad' system of especially designated protected areas.
In 1991, he set up the Natuf Company, developed a system to compress video material and was awarded a Science Ministry prize for this accomplishment. He also invented a see-through (walls) system for defense against ballistic attacks.
He founded the New Zionist Forum within whose framework the 'Ometz' movement to combat institutional corruption was created (by Arieh Avneri). He also led the fight in Ramat Gan and Givatayim to dismantle a cellular antenna (which was duly removed). He also developed a system to protect buildings from cellular antenna radiation (patent pending).

How can we possibly accept this idea of "no qualifications " with a straight face -- just because it was apparently reported in a "reliable source?" I have other sources also recording his inventions in the area of ballistics . Additionally, why should this business about Shahaf & Doriel's involvement with the Rabin assassination be included in this article on al-Durrah? Either this report holds water or it doesn't. Under what circumstances Doriel met Sharaf or what their outside interests are do not reflect on this report in the least. It should be struck as the intention is only to discredit the investigation by discrediting those who did it. Tundrabuggy (talk) 22:30, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

What you think - or for that matter what I think - of Shahaf is irrelevant and original research. We go by one thing only, namely what our reliable sources say. In this case, Shahaf is described by reliable sources as not having any ballistic or forensic qualifications (O'Loughlin) and as being "known mainly as an inventor" (Fallows). The involvement of Shahaf and Doriel in a previous conspiracy theory campaign is highly relevant in the view of our reliable sources; it is discussed in some detail in four separate sources, O'Loughlin (2007), Adi Schwartz and Gideon Levy in two Haaretz articles (also 2007) and a Haaretz editorial in 2000. The fact that he was a known conspiracy theorist is obviously something that those sources regarded as important and relevant in the context of criticising the reliability of his work. NPOV requires that we document both sides of an issue, or as WP:NPOV puts it, "fairly represent[ing] all significant viewpoints that have been published by a reliable source." We do not engage in whitewashing or "spin" by cherry-picking only what individual editors think is likely. -- ChrisO (talk) 23:19, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

... and I can find dozens of reports of him as a physicist, [23], including your own reference [24]. And indeed he is a physicist, as well as an inventor. One of his inventions described above is in the field of ballistics. Sharaf describes himself as having "finished all the stages necessary in learning this topic." He describes himself as "qualified," - it is not "Original Research" to use his own description of himself. O'Loughlin was editorializing; he is the only reporter to describe him that way, and the facts simply do not back him up. Again, it should be struck. To claim that Shahaf is unqualified could be seen as dangerously close to WP:BLP, though I'm no expert in this area. As for the "fact that he is a known conspiracy theorist" being "highly relevant" in the view of your sources --maybe they are-- but that doesn't mean it is "highly relevant" to this article. Both articles are clearly editorializing -- not news, but opinion. If you want to put it in a separate section on "criticism of the Shahaf/Doriel report" along with a section of "support for the Shahaf/Doriel report", fine, if it is agreeable all 'round. But there is no reason to slant the article to imply that the authors of the report are a couple of unqualified kooks. Let's hear some real criticism of what the report says, with some facts behind it, not personal attacks, like "unqualified" and "conspiracy theorists." I would think it is WP:OR to try to demonstrate that, as you seem to be, not to mention, a serious case of WP:ILIKEIT. Tundrabuggy (talk) 01:02, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Of course it's relevant. Some of our sources are highly critical of Shahaf's report - we are required by the NPOV policy to report their criticism (no whitewashing, like I said) and thus the reasons for their criticism. We can't say "Haaretz criticized the report" and then not say why. Please get it out of your head that we're here to present what you consider to be "the truth". NPOV requires that "where multiple or conflicting perspectives exist within a topic each should be presented fairly" and that is exactly what is being done here - since some of our sources consider Shahaf to be an unqualified kook, as you put it, that viewpoint needs to be documented. BLP endorses that approach: "Criticism and praise of the subject should be represented if it is relevant to the subject's notability and can be sourced to reliable secondary sources", both of which clearly apply in this case. As for creating a criticism section, this is generally discouraged; the NPOV policy flags as a concern the "'segregation' of text or other content into different regions or subsections, based solely on the apparent POV of the content itself." They are widely considered to be a symptom of bad writing. As Jimmy Wales himself has said, "the information should be properly incorporated throughout the article rather than having a troll magnet section of random criticisms." [25] -- ChrisO (talk) 07:54, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Some sources are highly critical of the report and you are required to report their criticism and their reasons. Are you also required to report on what the actual report said or just the highly critical criticism? Until I began to add something about the appeals decision, for example, there was plenty of criticism of it and virtually nothing about the appeals itself. Ditto for the IDF report in question. Furthermore, being critical about something is not the same as being critical about the people involved. That was your argument in getting rid of the material that claimed that Abu Rahma was lying. There was evidence and plenty of criticism that he had issues in that department, yet half or more of the article is based on material some of which he himself has retracted or is "inconsistent" (a judge's words, not mine). It seems to me that you are suggesting that material which is supportive a particular viewpoint requires criticism and immediate deletion - and material which is supportive of another position does not. I wonder what Jimmy Wales would say about that? Tundrabuggy (talk) 11:08, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

In fact, in this Guysen News interview, Mr Shahaf is quoted as saying "I’m a scientist, a physicist specialized in ballistics and the technology of filming images." [26] Tundrabuggy (talk) 03:02, 24 July 2008 (UTC) http://www.guysen.com/mena.php?sid=352

That's certainly not what he claimed at the time (your interview is from 2002). Haaretz says in 2000: "Shahaf concedes he is no authority on ballistics - however, he says, "as a physicist I read scientific material, both theoretical and experimental, and try to consult with several experts in this area, and so I have basically finished all the stages necessary in learning this topic."" He doesn't claim any qualifications there. Likewise in your interview he also doesn't claim to have any qualifications, merely that he is "specialized in ballistics", whatever that means. It certainly wasn't what he was claiming in 2000. If you can find a statement from him that he has any sort of professional qualifications in ballistics or forensics, or that he had such qualifications in 2000, let's see it. -- ChrisO (talk) 07:54, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

huh? You are interpreting the material. Conceding that he is not an "authority" does not suggest he is unqualified! In fact the author himself uses the qualifier "however" -- to point out his qualifications: "as a physicist" he's "read the scientific material" consulted with experts and has "finished all the stages necessary in learning this topic." Nor is the implication that he was not qualified in 2000 borne out by the interview, as the question is asked " Nahum Shahaf, you were selected to head the Israeli commission established to investigate the circumstances of the A-Dura affair. A you a career military man?" Shahaf: "Not at all. I’m a scientist, a physicist specialized in ballistics and the technology of filming images. I was appointed on this basis." It doesn't get more clear than that! Tundrabuggy (talk) 16:18, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

So there we have it. There is no longer any reason to believe that Shahaf was unqualified or "had no qualifications" and now we have several named experts that were on the committee. Now let's discuss whether there is any real relevance to the idea that because some commentators consider the validity of Shahaf and Doriel's work is compromised by factors totally unrelated to the al-Dura incident, that we should therefore consider such in this article. In point of fact this report was vindicated by an independent ballistics expert "Schlinger has served as an adviser on ballistic and forensic evidence in French courts for 20 years." [27] We clearly do not need to put in such distracting and essentially irrelevant material in this article, simply because you like it.

Utter nonsense. The interpretation is entirely on your part, as you're going well beyond what the sources you're citing say. Being "qualified" in a subject or "holding qualifications" means something very specific - that you have received a professional certification from a professional body to verify that you have the knowledge and ability to perform a particular job or task. Shahaf says very clearly that his knowledge of ballistics is self-taught ("finished all the stages necessary in learning this topic"); he does not at any point claim that any third party has certified his expertise. I ask again: where has he said that he has any professional qualifications in ballistics or forensics? You have no source whatsoever for that assertion - it's entirely original research to claim that he had qualifications in ballistics or forensics when he himself hasn't claimed that. I think you can be pretty sure that O'Loughlin, an experienced professional journalist, has checked this point, and you have absolutely no business removing it because you think (on the basis of your personal opinion, apparently) that he's wrong. -- ChrisO (talk) 18:02, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

I would guess that your being "pretty sure" that O'Loughlin has checked and determined that Shahaf had "no qualifications" would constitute OR on your part. So would be your suggestion that O'Loughlin was referring to "professional qualifications" or "certified" qualifications. You are inserting your own assumptions into O'Loughlin's words. Is there a wiki rule for that? O'Loughlin said "no qualifications" -- not "no professional qualifications" -- not "no certification in the areas of.." --- So he made a BLP statement which he neither backed up nor qualified, and its only purpose for being in the article is to discredit him and the IDF investigation and qualifies as OR. The IDF investigation has to be discredited on its own terms, not by suggestive innuendo in relation to the personal lives of the participants. Is there a wiki rule for that outside of BLP?Tundrabuggy (talk) 10:52, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry Chris, but he did claim it himself. Aren't you reading what I am putting up? He says "I am a scientist, a physicist specialized in ballistics and the technology of filming images. I was appointed on that basis." Tundrabuggy (talk) 18:36, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps this is something that is worth discussing in mediation? --El on ka 18:45, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

It could be discussed in mediation but the fundamental problem here is Tundrabuggy's desire to engage in original research. The issue here is very simple: O'Loughlin says that Shahaf has no qualifications in ballstics or forensics. No source I've ever seen has said that Shahaf has such qualifications. Shahaf himself has never said he has such qualifications, as far as I'm aware. Tundrabuggy is taking a statement by Shahaf that he "specializes in ballistics" and using that to justify a claim that he has professional qualifications in that area, even though no source has been cited that states that conclusion. That is absolutely overt, blatant original research. It's a textbook example in every respect. What's worse, he's using his own personal view to override that of a professional journalist in a mainstream newspaper, deciding that the journalist is wrong and removing content on that basis. We simply do not do that, period. -- ChrisO (talk) 19:08, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Let's take an analogy. Would you accept Robert Faurisson as an expert of the Holocaust? He has a background in literature that he considers relevant sine he claims to be trined in analysing texts, but he is not a historian. // Liftarn (talk) 20:13, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Actually it's fine, I just checked Shahaf's Wikipedia entry. It's well sourced article, with references and/or links to i) Shahaf's own website, ii) an interview he gave to a minor, partisan news website and iii) and to an account of some sort of award from a right wing Israeli media pressure group. Anyway, he appears to be a world-renowned polymath, and expert in pretty much every field from media criticism to investigative journalism to ballistics. If he says he's done a bit of "reading" and has tried to "consult with several experts", that counts as qualifications and expertise as far as I'm concerned, no matter what those pesky journalists say and despite the lack of any apparent objective evidence elsewhere as to his actual qualifications or professional history. Yes, I know it's the lowest form of wit, but seriously ..... --Nickhh (talk) 21:57, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

the above two comments were improperly canvassed here: [28], [29][30]. We now await for CJCurrie to join in with a predictable response. Canadian Monkey (talk) 23:07, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Question: I'm not sure I'm following this. What makes O'Loughlin more qualified to testify about Shahaf than Shahaf himself? I'd assume that if Shahaf was incompetent to run the investigation, then clearly more than one person would make note of it.

p.s. Liftarn, the Holocaust comparison is uncivil and gross. Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 21:49, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

I second your PS. Tundrabuggy (talk) 00:22, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

It's a quite appropiate comparission. Onde denialist compared to another. Both without training in the field, yet claims they are experts. // Liftarn (talk) 08:29, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Comparable if less inflammatory examples might be Christopher Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley (global warming denier) and Jonathan Wells (evolution denier), both of whom claim expertise in their subjects but have no qualifications in them whatsoever. Note that criticism of Monckton has been very similar to that of Shahaf: "Monckton's critics charge that "[his] science is self-taught and his paper qualifications nonexistent" and that "he is trying to take on the global scientific establishment on the strength of a classics degree from Cambridge." No idea what Shahaf's degree is in - assuming he has one - but it certainly ain't ballistics or forensics. -- ChrisO (talk) 08:42, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

The answer to your question is a very simple one called WP:RS. --Nickhh (talk) 21:57, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

I just sent a request up to Wizardman on the mediation page. I was about to do it quite a bit earlier but as I was typing a thunderstorm took out the electricity for several hours. Three cheers for Edison! Tundrabuggy (talk) 22:10, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

As Jaakobou writes, clearly Shahaf is at least as qualified to describe himself as O'Loughlin is. Since this issue is disputed, and O'Loughlin seems to be the only one making the "unqualified" claim, WP:NPOV requires that we describe this along the lines of "Shahaf says that his training as a physicist specialized in ballistics qualifies him to conduct the investigation <insert reference to Shahaf interview here>. This has been disputed by O'loughlin who claims he has no qualifications <O'Loughlin refernce here>. Canadian Monkey (talk) 23:07, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Maybe. But that sure sounds pretty silly (IMO) for an encyclopedia article. "He both does and doesn't have qualifications" And it only requires one person qualified as a RS to make an unsubstantiated allegation against someone and that has to be included in the article? Here is what I would consider the relevant wiki arguments: WP:BLP--

Material about living persons must be sourced very carefully. Without reliable third-party sources, it will violate the No original research and Verifiability policies, and could lead to libel claims.

-- The section on Verifiablity says: --

Sources should directly support the information as it is presented in an article and should be appropriate to the claims made: exceptional claims require high-quality reliable sources. Tundrabuggy (talk) 23:37, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

And what are "Exceptional Claims" according to Wiki?

Certain red flags should prompt editors to examine the sources for a given claim:

- surprising or apparently important claims not covered by mainstream sources;
- reports of a statement by someone that seems out of character, embarrassing, controversial, or against an interest they had previously defended;
- claims that are contradicted by the prevailing view within the relevant community, or which would significantly alter mainstream assumptions, especially in science, medicine, history, politics, and biographies of living persons. This is especially true when proponents consider that there is a conspiracy to silence them.

Exceptional claims in Wikipedia require high-quality reliable sources; if such sources are not available, the material should not be included. Also be sure to adhere to other policies, such as the policy for biographies of living persons and the undue weight provision of Wikipedia:Neutral point of view.

Tundrabuggy (talk) 00:22, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

The issue of Shahaf’s personal qualifications, in the context of the IDF investigation commissioned by Samia, is a Red Herring. I will come back to these in a second, but it is important to note that while Shahaf was a member of the team, and in charge of the professional investigation, the investigative committee was comprised of clearly qualified experts – including Bernie Schechter, a former police chief superintendent, who is a ballistics expert and the former head of the weapons laboratory at the Israel Police's criminal identification laboratory, as well as Chief Superintendent Elliot Springer, also from the Israel Police's criminal ID lab. It is common practice, the world over, to have investigative committees headed by people who are not necessarily subject-matter experts themselves, who oversee the work of qualified experts, and the results of those investigations are rarely, if ever, presented as questionable because their head was not a professional.

Though a side issue in all of this, claiming as fact (rather than the apparently minority personal opinion of O’Loughlin) that Shahaf does not have “any forensic or ballistic qualifications or experience” skates very close to a WP:BLP violation. Shahaf is an award winning physicist, and was apparently qualified enough to present an academic paper at the American Academy of Forensic Sciences’ annual Scientific Meeting – a meeting which, according to our article about the AAFS, “gathers these professionals who present the most current information, research, and updates in this expanding field.”

I will await ChrisO’s rewrite, which will hopefully join the currently disparate sections discussing Samia’s committee, before making any major changes. For now, I will just properly attribute personal opinions to those making them.

I've asked for outside input on the Shahaf "qualifications" issue - see WP:RSN and WP:FTN (I raised it on both since there are overlapping issues). -- ChrisO (talk) 13:53, 28 July 2008 (UTC)