Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2001 Israeli Nerve Gas Attacks

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. PhilKnight (talk) 14:07, 23 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

2001 Israeli Nerve Gas Attacks[edit]

This article was identified by RGTraynor as potentially specious, and there followed a discussion of this article at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Israel#2001_Israeli_Nerve_Gas_Attacks.

The article should be deleted. It is untrue.

The article relies on a number of sources which themselves are indecisive or which contradict the statements they are supposedly supporting. The first source cited is a report by the Palestinian Center for Human Rights from February 2001. The report has a headline that "Israeli occupation forces use a new gas with unusually severe symptoms". However, in the body of the report, the gas is identified repeatedly as "tear gas". While noting that the symptoms of the tear gas seemed particularly severe, the report says, "The hospital lacked the technical means to identify the gas used. PCHR will refer to international experts on this subject." There is no follow-up to this report indicating that the gas was anything other than CS, the standard tear gas used by Israeli forces.

The lead of the article states that "The symptoms reported match those of tabun, a known anticholinesterase poison belonging to a family of organophosphate nerve poisons". However, the source cited for this (http://emedicine.com/emerg/topic899.htm), contradicts this claim. According to emedicine, tabun is a gas developed by the Germans in World War II, and "the only confirmed wartime use of nerve agents was during the 1981-1987 Iran-Iraq War, where tabun and sarin were used by Iraq in an effort to gain advantage over Iran." None of the symptoms cited in the article - attractive fragrance, delayed reaction, spasms, paralysis - are symptoms of tabun poisoning. Rather, emedicine identifies the symptoms as "conjunctival injection and pupillary constriction," respiratory depression, and apnea. Onset of symptoms from the inhaled poison is almost immediate (the article says symptoms were delayed), and it is generally fatal (no fatalities are mentioned in the article).

The article relies also on statements by "Dr. Helen Bruzau - Medecins Sans Frontieres" who is quoted in a film. However, a search of the Medecins Sans Frontieres website - which contains a comprehensive archive of all the reports and press releases issued by the organization - reveals no reference to the alleged gas attacks. I have sent a query to MSF to verify if a Dr. Helen Bruzau actually worked for the organization. If so, perhaps she can be contacted and can shed some light on the source of the story.

Other sources cited in the article rely on the same quotes from Dr. Bruzau, and repeat contentions of symptoms that are contrary to those cited in the emedicine article. They contain a number of internal contradictions which raise doubts about their reliability. One of the sources notes that it is uncertain whether the doctor's name is Bruzau or Brisco.

There is no reference to the use of poison gas in the archives of the New York Times, the Washington Post, or the Times of London. It seems unlikely to me that a story of this magnitude would be ignored by the entire western media.

The "Background" section of the article relies on two websites of questionable authenticity. Neither of these websites cites any sources of its own, and they repeat innuendos that have never been confirmed. For example, the article contends that "in Oct 1998 it was revealed that the plane (an El Al plane that crashed outside Amsterdam in 1992) was carrying 10 tons of chemicals used in the most dangerous of the known nerve gases, Sarin." The New York Times and London Times both reported that the plane was carrying "50 gallons of dimethyl methylphosphonate" (about 200 pounds - quote from the NYT report), a chemical which can be used for manufacture of Sarin, but which also has a number of industrial uses, including flame retardation. The "Background" section also contains a quote from a London Times Sunday magazine article, that has no footnote, and that I am unable to verify because I don't have access to the Sunday magazine archive.

The contention that Israel has used poison gas against Palestinians has been floated a number of times, and never substantiated. The most notorious instance was a statement by Suha Arafat, the wife of Yasir Arafat, in 1999, a statement that was later retracted by official Palestinian spokesmen.

In sum, the article contains no verifiable information, and relies on sources that contradict the very contentions of the article itself. --Ravpapa (talk) 05:41, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Military-related deletion discussions. —Nick Dowling (talk) 10:39, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Question I agree that if this is a non-notable hoax or myth it should be deleted. However, are the claims that nerve gas was used sufficiently notable that the article should be moved to something like Alleged 2001 Israeli nerve gas attacks be re-written along the lines of "It was claimed... ...but denied by Israel and retracted by the Palestinian authorities"? The sources in the article look pretty dodgy so I suspect that this isn't the case, but there may be better sources about the allegations and response which could be used (I know nothing at all about this topic). Nick Dowling (talk) 10:39, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nominator. -- Nudve (talk) 13:51, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Argument is very well put by the nominator so I shan't bother repeating it. All that can be said is that none of the unbiased sources used in the article actually state that there was an attack, and their use makes it a bit of a WP:SYNTH mess. Despite having lived in Israel and having what I would say is a fairly good general knowledge of the conflict, I have never heard of this incident. пﮟოьεԻ 5 7 14:10, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nominator. Dbrodbeck (talk) 14:20, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete No such attack happened. Renaming it to "allegations of X" and retaining it still leaves us with a fundamentally dishonest article. Protonk (talk) 15:02, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - as I said in the WP:Israel discussion, I don't think the factual accuracy of the article is even relevant. The article violates other Wikipedia policies and guidelines, such as WP:POVFORK. Who says that 2001 was a notable year for nerve gas attacks, assuming they happenned? Who says that nerve gas attacks are more notable than rubber bullet attacks, for example? Even if this aritcle proves to be 100% factually accurate, it should be merged and not kept. -- Ynhockey ^(Talk) 20:35, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect to Blood libel. Jclemens (talk) 21:50, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Wikipedia is not for defamatory unconfirmable conspiracy theories. RayAYang (talk) 00:56, 17 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep and retitle as suggested above. Thiswill need careful editing,to make it clear that they are accusations only. It's notable enough that it needs to be covered. Wikipedia is very much the place where we cover conspiracy theories objectively. DGG (talk) 01:11, 17 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep or perhaps retitle - I created this article - I seem to be unable to log back in. While the absolute authority of each of these reports may be less than, for instance, a report on the BBC, there provenance is more than reasonable, and the combined weight must be considerable indeed. Jonathan Cook is certainly a well-respected individual, living in the region. Given the history of Israel killing observers, abusing and even straffing civilians, and denying acts that flout every kind of International Law, this report deserves a place in any kind of reference to the history of Israel. Its deletion would smack of denial, the same thing we've seen from the same quarters over the Armenian Genocide. Templar99. Templar98 (talk) 13:51, 17 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Talking about the "combined weight" of the sources is a nonsense - many of the sources (and indeed none of the mainstream ones) do not actually refer to the supposed incident - you mention Cook, but his article says nothing about nerve gas - and putting them together is mere WP:SYNTH. The fact that the story has not covered by mainstream media organisations usually accused of being anti-Israel (e.g. the BBC or Guardian), or the generally self-critical Israeli media, suggests that it is rubbish. пﮟოьεԻ 5 7 14:35, 17 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete or possibly retitle with "alleged". I note that the article is tagged as WP:HOAX; I do not think that tag is quite justified, but the evidence cited is little more than suspicions and innuendo. Accordingly, the article seems to fail WP:V. The international community has takenm a very serious view of the gassing of a Kurdish village in the 1980s. Canisters of the gas were apparetn;ly available to the Palestinians. These would almost certainly have contained residues. It seems to me inconceivable that they did not make the best efforts to identify the gas, and to publicise it widely if it was a nerve gas. The fact, that they did not do, suggests to me that their analysis revealed that it was not a nerve agent. This leaves the question of whether the existence of allegations (albeit unporved) is itself notable, in which case there might possibly be a case for retention, but hedged about with qualifications as to their unverified nature. Nevertheless, my preference is for a delete. Peterkingiron (talk) 21:39, 21 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nom. --Shuki (talk) 22:32, 21 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.