Talk:Yasser Arafat

This is a controversial topic, which may be disputed. Please read this talk page discussion before making substantial changes. (This message should only be placed on talk pages.)

Older Talk: archived to Talk:Yasser Arafat/Archive 1, Talk:Yasser Arafat/Archive 2, Talk:Yasser Arafat/Archive 3, Talk:Yasser Arafat/Archive 4 Talk:Yasser Arafat/Archive 5

Contents

1 Proposed article split 2 Minor change 3 Arafat's name 4 NPOV Tag 5 ‘Terrorist’ vs. ‘militant’ 6 Father's nationality

Proposed article split

I know this article is controversial but it is also at 43KB an overweight article and therefore must be separated into 2 different articles, even if they are both controversial. This must be done in order to allow people to freely edit this article. I will wait till Sunday to hear people's proposals about how they would like to see this article split. I actually know very little about Yasser Arafat, and feel I come from a neutral point of view in regards to this article. I am happy to do a split according to a consensus here, and I imagine this will be my only input into the article. My only interest is to see the overweight problem resolved, and quickly. I have put a note at the top of the article so that readers of the article can participate in the discussion. Squiquifox 20:18, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

That's not a bad idea, although another alternative is to simply reduce the existing article, which contains much irrelevant minutia. Fortunately, the environment here has calmed down sufficiently over the last month or so to enable editors to do work. So your involvement is certainly welcome. --MPerel^{( talk | contrib)} 20:31, Feb 8, 2005 (UTC)

I think cutting it down a little first would be better. Also, more that 32K is not great, but not an emergency. For example, here are 3 pages that are 80-115K, and have been around for a while: Isotope_table_(divided), Isotope_table_(complete), November_2003 Jayjg ^(talk) 21:53, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Even getting it down to 32K would be a good goal though. Basically it would entail paring 25% off the article, which seems entirely feasible. We could either go section by section starting from top to bottom, or perhaps start with the most bloated section, for example, all the material about Arafat's death. --MPerel^{( talk | contrib)} 22:03, Feb 8, 2005 (UTC)

That is pretty bloated. Jayjg ^(talk) 22:17, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I would like to suggest pruning the external biographies list. A sampling of 5 or 6 biographical links would be sufficient, IMO. Wikipedia isn't a web directory after all. We should favor the more well-known and reputable sources such as Time Magazine, the BBC, etc. I don't think the inflammatory op-eds are especially useful here. We should probably prune the Bibliography as well, although I don't have any specific suggestions for how to do that. Kaldari 05:49, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

For the bibliographies, there are four that I believe are the most cited: Hart (he's the "official" biographer), Aburish (he's the Palestinian biographer), Gowers & Walker, and Wallach & Wallach. I suggest we keep only the most recent of each of these four, unless someone thinks any of the others are especially relevant. --MPerel^{( talk | contrib)} 08:00, Feb 9, 2005 (UTC)

Although, now that I do some googles on the authors and Arafat, I get a lot of google hits for Rubinstein and Rubin, even more than for Gowers or Wallach. Maybe we can pare it down to those six. --MPerel^{( talk | contrib)} 08:17, Feb 9, 2005 (UTC)

contrib)</small></sup> 08:13, Feb 9, 2005 (UTC) I agree that the article is too long, but is it still true that articles should be under 32 kb for editing purposes? I understood this length limit had to do with old versions of IE, but don't apply to new versions. SlimVirgin 05:54, Feb 9, 2005 (UTC)

Internet Explorer for Mac (including the most recent version) has a hard limit of 32K on text fields. So if someone edits the article and saves it using IE for Mac, half of the article will disappear. I don't know if there's a limit on any of the versions of IE for Windows, nor do I know how many people actually use IE for Mac. Kaldari 19:27, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

That's only if they edit the whole article, though. If they edit any one section they'll be fine. Jayjg ^(talk) 19:43, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I propose keeping the following biographical links:

• A Life in Retrospect: Yasser Arafat Time magazine retrospective
• Recent BBC profile of Arafat
• Interactive biography of Arafat from the Associated Press
• Life and times of Yassir Arafat, Profile: Yassir Arafat from Times Online, UK
• Obituary, The Guardian

I propose deleting the following biographical links:

• Trailer of a documentary with video clips... This trailer has a brief clip of Arafat saying "Jihad, jihad, jihad, jihad". That's it. I don't know why this was ever deemed a relevent link.
• Arafat the monster - Boston Globe Op-ed Inflammatory op-ed with very little biographical information
• Quintessential Arafat (Includes statements by world leaders on Arafat's death) biographical profiles of children killed in Israel-Palestinian conflict juxaposed with brief quotes from Arafat about Jihad. No biographical information whatsoever.
• Think Again: Yasser Arafat from Foreign Policy Magazine Another Op-ed piece with little biographical information.

I'm ambivalent about the following entries:

• The Nobel e-Museum - Biography of Yasser Arafat a brief biography, not very extensive
• ICT - Yasir Arafat: Psychological Profile and Strategic Analysis Arafat's terrorist psychological profile. Outdated.
• Yassir Arafat: 1929-2004 a brief biography by honestreporting.com. Many parts are remarkably similar to this Wikipedia article.

Kaldari 23:45, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I agree with the keeps, although the Guardian Obituary is also in the Open Directory links. As for the deletes, these can probably go for the sake of NPOV, although they do illustrate viewpoints of how his critics regard him. Either delete them or perhaps one should stay as long as there's an additional link added for balance that illustrates the viewpoint of his supporters. On the ambivalent ones, the Nobel article is in all four of the directories, although it seems an important one. I'd go for perhaps keeping only that last link from honestreporting, at least it's a source for the article if so much of it is apparently borrowed from it. --MPerel^{( talk | contrib)} 00:21, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)

I think the honestreporting.com biography would serve as a good example of how his critics view him. It's completely negative, but at least it's biographical. Kaldari 03:42, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

That's probably the one to keep then instead of any of the ones on your delete list. I say go with your suggestions if no one else speaks up. I'll probably be offline the next few days. --MPerel^{( talk | contrib)} 07:33, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)

I agree with your deletion proposals, though I think you should keep the ones you're ambivalent about. Jayjg ^(talk) 16:41, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Well, we've shaved 2K off so far. Any proposals for reducing the main body of the article? Kaldari 17:09, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The usual method when an article goes too large is to take whole sections, make them separate articles, and replace them with a summary. For instance, we could remove the section on Arafat's death and the controversy surrounding it and make it a separate article. Etc. David.Monniaux 19:00, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I think the "Marginalization" section is flabby and confusing in spots, that would be a good place to go next. I'm opposed to spinning off articles from this, particularly about his death, since I don't think an article devoted to Arafat's death is particularly encyclopedic. The death article was spun off originally to avoid edit wars, and has only recently been re-integrated and cleaned up. By the way, I thought it was against Wikipedia policy to have links to link directories; or was I incorrect about that? Jayjg ^(talk) 19:08, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I agree it would be better not to split off sections of this article, especially since the article on Arafat's death was just reintergrated. Most of the sections just need more summerization and fewer expositions of minute facts and details. I favor removing the directory links entirely, BTW. Does anyone want to keep them? Kaldari 19:29, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

.

Controversial sections of articles (e.g. ==Criticism of X== in the article X) should not usually be moved out into separate articles (e.g. Criticism of X) as an attempt to avoid POV wars, since, although it may bring peace to the main article X, the new article Criticism of X is likely to have even graver POV problems. Such sections are best dealt with in the main article in most cases.

I have brought the issue of whether articles should be split/slimmed or not to Wikipedia:Village pump (policy).Squiquifox 02:46, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Minor change

I think we should change "He claimed to have sought to understand Judaism and Zionism[..]" to "According to Arafat, he sought to understand Judaism and Zionism[...]". Personally, I find it slightly unrealistic that he has actually done just that, I'm very sure that many of you will agree. Putting it more clearly as 'According to Arafat' should help clear out the fact that it's his claims. Should we do that? Dushkin

I see no distinction in the 2 different wordings. How is "According to Arafat" any different than "Arafat claimed"? They both mean the same thing. Why don't you change it to "He claimed to have sought to understand Judaism and Zionism, but I seriously doubt it". Kaldari 23:05, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

It's well known that he was a major leader in this whole middle eastern bloodshed, he called a mass slaughter against Zionism and the US in many ways -- call me biased, but I think we should make it clear that it's only claims. I am afraid that you are biased, my friend. I'm pretty sure that if this article was about Hitler you wouldn't have said what you just did. Dushkin

The wording seems pretty much the same to me, and "Arafat claimed" is shorter. Jayjg ^(talk) 03:55, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Arafat's name

In the internet edition of Nationalencyklopedin his name is claimed to be only "Rahman 'Abd ar-Rauf al-Qudwa" (and a.k.a. "Abu Ammar"). I don't know proper Arabic transcription, and NE.se has a very odd standard of transcription and fonts of their own that in combination work pretty poorly with most browsers, so please disregard the simplification. The name here is a lot longer. Which one is correct? Is there a reason for NE not mentioning "Muhammad" and "al-Husayni" or did they just forget? - karmosin 09:10, Mar 5, 2005 (UTC)

The internet edition of Nationalencyklopedin is wrong: the name Rahman is one of the divine names in Islam, a person has the name `Abd ar-Rahman. I think, because of this slip, it is unlikely that that web page is a good source. Gareth Hughes 13:29, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

NE is generally good, but sometimes oddly substandard. But could you confirm that the name stated here is the correct one? A source would be very nice.

I'd be more than happy to point it out to the NE editors. :-) - karmosin 13:36, Mar 5, 2005 (UTC)

We had the discussion at /Archive 5#Muhammad Abd al-Rahman ar-Rauf al-Qudwah al-Husayni or Mohammed Abdel-Rawf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Hussaini. I think it covers a few general point about his name. Gareth Hughes 14:01, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

• • • • Should, that 'Abu Ammar' translates as 'father of the virtuous[1] (http://www.ancestry.com/search/SurnamePage.aspx?html=b&ln=Ammar&sourcecode=13304)', be added?--195.7.55.146 09:31, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

NPOV Tag

The article seems to be very well balanced with impartial attention devoted to divergent opinions of Arafat. Consequently, I am removing the NPOV tag. If someone has a any further problems (related to neutrality) not already covered in Talk, they should start a new section and bring forth their concerns. These perpetual NPOV tags in virtually all articles related to the Arab-Israeli conflict are unreasonable. I hope that when the article is split, the resulting two halves will be as well balanced as this one.--A. S. A. 13:10, Mar 17, 2005 (UTC)

‘Terrorist’ vs. ‘militant’

The term 'militant' should be replaced with 'terrorist' everywhere in the article. Militants are defined by the 4th ed. of the AHD as “[h]aving a combative character; aggressive, especially in the service of a cause”—but who stop short of actually killing people like those Palestinians mentioned who killed 135 Israelis.

Would we dare call Timothy McVeigh a 'militant'? If so, then let us call him that instead in his Wikipedia article. Let us apply the same standards to Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

• Terrorist is a loaded POV term. The best NPOV word we have is Militant. I am not prepared to call Michael Collins a terrorist. --Irishpunktom\^talk 11:57, Jun 15, 2005 (UTC)

So is 'militant' as used here—it is loaded with pro-Muslim bias one would not detect so easily. The term seeks to downplay the actions of killers who happen to be Muslim. Real militants protest, shout slogans, and engage in all sorts of civil disobedience, and using the term to describe what are in reality terrorists who kill innocent civilians distorts human understanding.

Would you rather it be replaced with "Revolutionaries", or "Freedom Fighters", or "Martyrs"? Terrorist is just as loaded a POV term as these. Militant best serves NPOV --Irishpunktom\^talk 16:01, Jun 15, 2005 (UTC)

After giving it some thought, I figured that ‘terrorist’ doesn’t seem to be as loaded a term as people think it might be, because in the end, that’s what terrorists are—terrorists. Just as dictators the world over are dictators and murderers murderers. It’s plain fact. However, I get your point, and I realize this is probably the best compromise we could arrive at for now.

A group of people kills 135 civilians. If this group was Canadian and the civilians Palestinians, there is no doubt that the former would be branded 'terrorists'.

In this case, it doesn't matter whether you or I consider Black September to be a terrorist organization, the sentence is about what Mohammed Daoud and Benny Morris think. Can someone dig up the source so that we're not just making shit up? Thanks! And for the record, I oppose changing every instance of the word 'militant' in this article with the word 'terrorist'. Context matters! Kaldari 15:13, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I happen to have those sources and much more and I am probably the last person to tell you that you are making things up. I agree with you that context matters, and very much, but not when it means using ‘terrorist’ for non-Muslims and substituting that with ‘militant’ for Muslims. Moreover, by suggesting “context”, one assumes that Israelis are in the wrong here and that the Palestinians are victims of an official and systematic policy of Israeli aggression when it might be argued that in reality the problem lies with their own leaders. However I will not get further into that anymore.

Father's nationality

According to http://nobelprize.org/peace/laureates/1994/arafat-bio.html , his father was Palestinian "with some Egyptian ancestry". I've changed it back.

You didn't put in the "some Egyptian ancestry" part. Jayjg ^(talk) 20:29, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

No, I was just correcting his nationality. Ben Bulben 22:00, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Nationality? Palestinian wasn't a nationality when Arafat's father was born. The article is talking about ancestry, not nationality. Jayjg ^(talk) 00:43, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Regardless of whether or not Palestinian was a nationality, the phrase "had some Egyptian ancestry" isn't very illuminating. I don't think it's worth including on its own. The statement that his father was Palestinian is, from the sources I can find, accurate.

If it "isn't very illuminating" nor worth "including on its own" I wonder with the brief (yet official) bio at the Nobel Prize site chose to include it. Jayjg ^(talk) 17:21, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)