User talk:Eleland/Archive12

Iraq civil war

Thank your for restoring vandalized material.Dogru144 (talk) 16:01, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Please

Please be more cautious in your talk page messages (comment on the content, not the contributor). It is inappropriate to make accusations of bad faith and gaming the system in the absence of evidence to the contrary.[1] (To be specific, after looking over his contributions, I see no reason to believe that the approach is being used as a tactic to remove information.) The possible recurrence of issues involving incivility and assuming bad faith is deeply concerning. (I have some familiarity with the history.) Please refrain from uncivil and accusatory statements. Take a breath, take a break and post later if you find yourself about to make such comments. Thanks for understanding. Vassyana (talk) 07:47, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, thank you, I guess, for the reminder to remain civil. I'm not certain why the remark that "I think this kind of behavior borders on gaming the system" should warrant "deep concern;" perhaps we're all very sensitive on Wikipedia now, except that I have personally, recently, been on the wrong end of far harsher comments from "pro-Israel" editors that have attracted no admin attention at all. I'll give details if you like.

But I'm glad that you're familiar with "the history." Given this, I'm a little surprised that you'd object to my "accusatory statement" about removing valid references on dubious grounds, then coming back around to remove the information since there's no reference. The history that you cited relates to a dispute on Avigdor Lieberman, wherein Jaakobou did, indeed, take much the same approach. :First, Jaakobou removes information and a source, with the sole comment "?!" meaning, I guess, "I don't know what this source is." Then the information is restored, since there was still one source which reported it. Then Jaakobou goes back and removes it again, this time saying that the one source is not enough.

So it's a familiar pattern. I can give details of Amin or Efrat as sources, if you like, but suffice it to say that Jaakobou's apparent attitude of "I don't know what it is, and I couldn't find out in two minutes of Googling, so it's unreliable and I'm removing it" does not impress.

If this is too remote for you, how about an immediately preceding edit by Jaakobou to October 2000 events, this gem, wherein he removes a properly-cited report from Agence France Presse because he can't find an online copy? This guy is a veteran editor with ambitions to be an admin - and he doesn't know that's not how you deal with a deadlink?

And when is someone going to crack down on Jaakobou's vicious and cynical application of the term "blood libel" to virtually anything he doesn't like? Take a look at Talk:Battle_of_Jenin#Looks_like_a_cover-up, where he accuses a senior UN envoy of "blood libel."

When is somebody really going to deal with his WP:SOAPboxing advocacy of fringe, often highly offensive, beliefs on talk pages? Scroll down to the next sub-section, where he declaims, "Please don't lecture me about alleged innocence of the "capital of suicide bombers" population [...] War crimes were committed during those 10 days by use of these 'innocent' 'civilians.' [...] " He refused to clarify these remarks upon some very reasonable and polite questioning, instead, he and others are subjected to mockery and viciousness, in the manner that anybody who tries to get a mainstream human-rights-and-international-law perspective into an Israel/Palestine Wikipedia page is sadly accustomed to. And yet here you are, slapping me on the wrists for mild, diffident, and wholly justified objections to tactical gaming from a serial POV pusher. Charming. <eleland/talkedits> 15:01, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for taking the time to comment on my page, Eleland, and also to detail the 'history' of source deletions, above. LamaLoLeshLa (talk) 22:22, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

If you have a content dispute, you know well-enough where to resolve those disputes. You know how to compile evidence and where the appropriate venues are located for providing this evidence along with any legitimate complaints about conduct. If you continue to approach this in an inappropriate fashion, you will be sanctioned. It doesn't matter what the other guy did, inappropriate behavior is still inappropriate and the actions of others provides no excuse. Vassyana (talk) 04:19, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

(a)Thought of the day: I am seriously and vastly disturbed by the proposals for increased bureaucracy and centralized committees flying about Wikipedia recently. I strongly oppose any such change, and will depart the community if it takes this well-meaning but vastly wrong-headed turn (as it is directly contradictory to the community I joined). It is a solution to a problem that only exacerbates the problem. The problems are being caused by rigid interpretations of the rules and excessive bureaucratic sprawl. Adding more of the same is not a solution, it's masochistic and foolish. Vassyana (talk)01:26, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

(b)Wikipedia:Wikilawyering→Barratry→Frivolous litigation→Malicious prosecution→Vexatious litigation.

(c)Parturient montes, pascetur ridiculus mus Horace, Ars(e) Poetica, 139. Translation. These extraordinary warnings look very much like barratry. There is nothing in the original evidence to warrant pettifogging admonitions of this intensity, and if there is an aggrieved plaintiff who thinks an innocuous piece of advice can be so construed, he'd do well to check the respective records of the parties for vexatious abuse of bureaucratic recourses. Nishidani (talk) 10:04, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Eleland, my internet connection is being a bit flaky and slow, so I've had some difficulty trying to review the I-P articles you've been on recently to find the personal attacks against you that you mentioned. If you would, please leave a message on my talk page with section links and/or diffs, or feel free to send them via email. If you are being subjected to that kind of abuse, it needs to be addressed and stopped. Thanks. Vassyana (talk) 11:48, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : Issue XXIX (July 2008)

The July 2008 issue of the Military history WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you.
This has been an automated delivery by BrownBot (talk) 01:06, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Reviewed talk pages

I've reviewed the talk pages you've contributed to since June 15th and was not able to find much indicating that you "have personally, recently, been on the wrong end of far harsher comments from 'pro-Israel' editors". All I could find is the exchange on Talk:Nakba Day, a two month old bicker and I only saw that because you posted on July 29th after the discussion had been dead for one month and twenty days. I did find a collection of personal attacks coming from you (not directed at you) on Talk:Jerusalem. In the end, all I could find was a mutual snipe fest (for which the other user was warned) that you stirred up again well after the spat was over, and personal attacks launched by you. (Of course, this only serves to reinforce the perception that there are recurring civility issues and that a reminder was entirely appropriate.) It is entirely possible I missed something in the review of talk page discussions (I'm only human), so if I'm missing something obvious, please point it out to me. Please note: I haven't reviewed anything but article talk page discussions, since after that tedious process (and its results), I've become unmotivated about continuing the time-consuming process of digging around to find evidence of your claims. Vassyana (talk) 14:38, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, Vassyana, I have a disturbing habit of calling people out when they indulge in fabrication and dishonesty; "recurring civility issues" is, I suppose, WP shorthand for this failing. I'll try and keep myself in check, but with the number of blatant propagandists around here, it's a difficult task. Forgive the inflammatory analogy, but it's a little like being told to value civility and compromise with holocaust deniers - even if one agrees in principle that this is a good thing, one can only hear "there are no Palestinians," "there is no occupation," or "there were no gas chambers" so many times before some type of outburst. Now, as for attacks against me, did you review WP:FAR/Jerusalem?

I think this FAR is completely inappropriate. It reads as if Eleland is just trying to force other people's hands in a content dispute by hanging the threat of FA removal over their heads. -TariqAbjotu

Israeli articles are being attacked ferociously in wikipedia by many anon users (I'm not commenting on users on this page) in the hope of crushing the spirit of editors [...] users like to exploit the platform to sway discussions to the conflict. This is the whole point of course - to de legitimize the state of Israel. It's a similar situation to if the New York City article would be attacked by supporters of Saddam or Castro for example. [...] The experienced editors like User:Eleland should know better not to be dragged to these anon users' wishes. -Amorouso

It is incredibly tiresome to find editors whose main purpose for editing Wikipedia is to demonize Israel coming here to try to "punish" an article because it doesn't view the ancient city of Jerusalem through their incredibly narrow "Zionism is evil" lens. [...] Using this process in an extortionist attempt to advance a political agenda is shameful. -Jayjg

The article is comprehensive, and the stability issue is caused by people edit-warring with the specific intent of causing FA removal. [...] this FAR was political from the start, initiated because some editors want the article to discuss the conflict at every single paragraph. This would be a prize for them. -Okedem

So, to review: I think this kind of behavior borders on gaming the system: inappropriate, uncivil and accusatory, deeply concerning.

It reads as if Eleland is trying just trying to force other people's hands, he should know better than to be dragged to the spirit-crushing exploitative attacks of antisemites comparable to Saddam Hussein, his main purpose is to demonize Israel through his incredibly narrow lens, he's a political extortionist whose acts are shameful: nothing much to indicate harsh comments.

I did not see the FA review. I will look it over. The comments you copied from it certainly seem inappropriate. Is there anything happening currently I should look over as well? Vassyana (talk)

Thank you. I won't ask for any further impositions on your time. I am backing off from Israel/Palestine articles for a while - I think that in the down time, I may work offline on a complete rewrite of Israel and the apartheid analogy. The atmosphere on most of those articles is poisonous. Admittedly, I have hardly been a shining example of how to rise above the fray, and my non-apology-apology above is not enough. I'm sorry for spreading the poison around, and I'll make an additional effort to stick to WP:CIV and WP:NPA. <eleland/talkedits> 01:22, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

You've been an exemplary contributor, Eleland, and I'd like personally to register my high regard for the patience and intelligence you've shown. I even enjoyed the occasional outrageous bits. I think there is a general feeling that one simply cannot edit intelligently on I/P articles within this environment. A collective strike by withdrawal would be sensible, but overtheatrical. As you seem to suggest, choosing an article or two, taking a copy off-line, and meticulously reviewing the best reliable sources to come up with a strong and viable NPOV text is perhaps the way to go. Far too much serious editorial time is consumed answering to nonsense. By working off-line and then providing the site with an alternative text of rigorous quality, one saves time, enjoys one's work, and gets a result. It may not eventually stick, but it is there as a template for future users. I'm thinking of doing this for Mohammad Amin al-Husayni, which I half-completed before throwing in the towel (for other reasons), but which I should finish. Enjoy the summer, and, not too much salt in the beer (that's what I had to put up with when over your way decades ago)! Best regards Nishidani (talk) 16:21, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Iranian Arab ethnic conflict

Hello Eleland,

I believe the process in the ethnic conflict noticeboard is not going well because there is little participation from most involved editors, while problems and questionable conduit continue to pile up. as i'm not as familiar as i'd like to be with wikipedia policy, i'd be happy if you could advise how to improve the situation - would an arbitration request by appropriate by now? MiS-Saath (talk) 11:30, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

It seems that BehnamFarid is on a rampage, see the DR process page... although this wouldn't be the first Human Rights issue someone tries to insert into wikipedia despite persistant objection. I suspect some collusion or even perhaps sockpuppeting, but i still doubt i have the ability to properly pass this through wikipedia's beaureaucracy. MiS-Saath (talk) 00:36, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Clearly, this thing is turning into a train wreck. I'll make an effort. For your own part, comments like "Fellow arab editors," please help me out, do not impress. Even if you're facing a rather... pugnacious... opponent. <eleland/talkedits> 01:25, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, i figured this by now... I couldn't imagine this would draw so much fire. it seems like this has disturbed arbitrators much more than the process failure and/or BehnamFarid's conduit. But then again, i doubt human right activism (even as minor as editing wikipedia pages) would go anywhere if it buckled at the slightest pressure. MiS-Saath (talk) 01:42, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

A Land without people for a people without a land

I would like you to know I came to your defense on the talk page of this article. It's nice to know that theres someone as angry about this article as I am. I am the one responsible for the neutrality tag. I actually tried to get it erased several months ago because it was obvious it was part of the CAMERA attempt to slant wikipedia that was expose buy electronic intifada. If you have any info that could contradict muirs allegations please add them so that there can be some counterpoint to this vial propoganda. annoynmous 14:30, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Formatting your endorsement

Hi. In case you miss your endorsement of Elonka's recall: I moved it up to right after the previous endorsement, I hope you don't mind. (The automatic count doesn't work where you put it.) Regards, Bishonen | talk 21:42, 11 August 2008 (UTC).

Tabbouleh again

The anon continues to remove sourced content with no discussion on Talk. Perhaps we should ask for semi-protection? --Macrakis (talk) 14:48, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Tabouleh references

Please check your references in note 1: is Anissa Helou, Oxford Companion to Food, correct? I don't think Anissa Helou is one of the authors of Oxford Companion to Food. You may be referring to another book by Anissa Helou. But then what about "s.v. Lebanon and Syria"? Is this Helou or Oxford Companion? --Zlerman (talk) 02:58, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Nominations for the Military history WikiProject coordinator election

The Military history WikiProject coordinator selection process is starting. We are aiming to elect nine coordinators to serve for the next six months; if you are interested in running, please sign up here by 23:59 (UTC) on September 14!
This has been an automated delivery by BrownBot (talk) 22:03, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : Issue XXX (August 2008)

The August 2008 issue of the Military history WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you.
This has been an automated delivery by BrownBot (talk) 22:58, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Image:Eurabia map.png

• In Image:Eurabia map.png, why is Eritrea (which is not currently member of Arab League) colored? 89.2.243.42 (talk) 13:12, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : Issue XXX (August 2008)

The August 2008 issue of the Military history WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you.
This has been an automated delivery by BrownBot (talk) 22:58, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Image:Eurabia map.png

• In Image:Eurabia map.png, why is Eritrea (which is not currently member of Arab League) colored? 89.2.243.42 (talk) 13:12, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : Issue XXX (August 2008)

The August 2008 issue of the Military history WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you.
This has been an automated delivery by BrownBot (talk) 22:58, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Image:Eurabia map.png

• In Image:Eurabia map.png, why is Eritrea (which is not currently member of Arab League) colored? 89.2.243.42 (talk) 13:12, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Military history WikiProject coordinator election

The September 2008 Military history WikiProject coordinator election has begun. We will be selecting nine coordinators to serve for the next six months from a pool of fourteen candidates. Please vote here by September 30!
This has been an automated delivery by BrownBot (talk) 21:51, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Jerusalem

"What you think "we all know" is hardly a basis for Wikipedia editing, especially when it relates to an irrelevant and irrational claim which isn't even true (some 30% of Jerusalemites speak Arabic, self-identify as Palestinian, and refuse Israeli citizenship - in the Old City it is more like 85%.) "Israel and West Bank" is OK with me, even though the ancient part of Jerusalem is entirely outside the Green Line. It is not clear to me why edit warring and talk-page vitriol over several months should be necessary to change "Israel and Palestinian Territories" to "Israel and West Bank," either. But I think we are (finally) done here. <eleland/talkedits> 01:01, 19 September 2008 (UTC)"

Thank you, you prove the point of ignorance you base your assertions on distortions of reality.

1) Speaking Arabic, as in the other official language of Israel?

2) Palestinian is a dubious title coined in the 1960's.

3)Arab/Muslim ethnic cleansing and occupations really shook up the demographics.

4) The Green line, go to Jerusalem and look for it in Jerusalem, but seriously people lived outside of the walls of the city in ancient times and the area is not so cut up.

5) Your assertions are entirely based upon some alternative universe in which Jerusalem the anglicization of Yerushalayim a Hebrew word makes it a non-Jewish place. Ironically the Arab designation al-Quds is in reference to the Two Temples that Arafat said never existed.

6) International law is extremely vague on many of the points, and a State's sovereignty in principle suggest that no foreign entity extends rules over its own. Whether you like it or not.

--Saxophonemn (talk) 02:16, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

"Jerusalem is Jewish" doesn't even make sense. Jerusalem is a city, not an individual. I mean, did Jerusalem pass its Bat Mitzvah when it was twelve or something? It makes sense to state "the majority of its inhabitants are Jewish", which apparently holds for the city but not for the Old City. But I don't suppose it is worth the effort to try any kind of rational approach with someone as steeped in ideology as Saxophonemn. He keeps conflating "Jewish", "Hebrew" and "Israel" as if they all meant the same thing. I mean, sheesh, I would like to feel more sympathetic for the Israeli side in all this, but people like this don't make it any easier. dab (𒁳) 07:57, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Is Paris French? Is Tokyo Japanese? Jewish/Hebrew/Israel not in quotes are the essentially the same thing, I have yet to make a Venn diagram. My ideology is Torah, not a popularity contest.--Saxophonemn (talk) 12:06, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

I never would have guessed. <eleland/talkedits> 17:27, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Zionism / Arab-Israeli conflict

"OH MY GOODNESS are you still on about this? You are nothing if not persistent. I would love to respond to your general views on Zionism and the Arab-Israeli conflict, really, I would. It would be enjoyable in a certain sense. But this is not the forum for it. Bottom line; you have said nothing of relevance to the question at hand. I refer to you my comments of 18:42, 4 September 2008 and 18:31, 5 September 2008 and leave it at that. <eleland/talkedits> 04:27, 21 September 2008 (UTC)"

I think you have skewed my views a bit. I take it you have a low esteem of Zionism and you're not the biggest fan of Israel based upon liberal/atheist view points which make Jews appear as out of place white folks in the wrong neighborhood. --Saxophonemn (talk) 05:58, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Civility

Please do not attack other editors. If you continue, you will be blocked from editing Wikipedia. In particular, [2] [3] I'd also like to remind you of Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Palestine-Israel articles#Discretionary sanctions. Be more careful in future, GDonato (talk) 12:19, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Well the horn-blower did imply he had 'no weakening of his parts'.Nishidani (talk) 14:55, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, what are you going to do about mister "You have to change this article because it's unfair to the master race," anyway? <eleland/talkedits> 17:27, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I'd strongly urge you to consider reading the civility policy: you can not argue that the diffs I provided are examples of acceptable conduct regardless of who is looking at them. Furthermore, your reply is also of borderline appropriateness. Consider this a final warning; I'm sure you are a sensible contributor and do not need to resort to incivility, GDonato (talk) 18:19, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

With all due respect,GDonato (and apologies to Eleland for barging in on a setled matter) I'd strongly urge, now that what's said has been said, and strong warnings duly and forcibly made, that some administrator drop an equally forceful reminder to Saxophonemn, that to manipulate Twain's quote, and insert 'Palestinians' into the text dealing with extinct peoples and cultures, is an extreme provocation to more than one editor here. Put me down as someone who objects most 'violently' to the innuendo in Saxophonemns' crack. We all have acute ears for the blunt anger of 4 letter words. No one, other than Eleland or myself, seems to have twigged to the intense malevolence in the remark that spurred Eleland's violent rejoinder, violent, if all too human. It happens to be what I thought too in examining Saxaphonemns' words, only, because I'm slower with age, I tend to murmur such words inaudibly, without troubling a talk page with my private disgust.

'The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then . . . passed away. The Greek and the Roman followed. [The Palestinians too.]'

Saxaphonemn inserted the 'Palestinians'. The undisguisedly triumphant sneer here is that the Palestinians, now striving for statehood under Israeli occupation, labour under the illusion they have a future, whereas they are already extinct. It's not a 'death threat' (sanctionable). The informal message is, 'your obituary is already written, Palestinians. Our Jewish people will perdure here while you, a transient blip on history's screen, will join the rest of humanity along the path of extinction. In fact, you've no future, since you are already consigned to the past'. Eleland, as someone editing to keep the record of Palestinian claims to a national identity untarnished by the kind of suppressio veri at times engineered around I/P articles, took this personally. He admitted his error, and erased the remark within 15 minutes. Almost all of us have zero-tolerance for antisemitism. By the same token, we don't like newbie editors who have done nothing so far to read widely and deeply and edit seriously, coming forth with vainglorious insinuations that the people Israel occupies are, unlike the Jewish people, marked down to join history's dustbin of dead peoples. Regards Nishidani (talk) 19:41, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

There is a certain degree for concern regarding those words but I lack the familiarity with this dispute to know exactly to what degree some comments are inappropriate or offensive. I am willing to keep an eye on Saxophonemn (talk · contribs) if that is what you want to see if there are any policy violations there. Lastly, the removal of a comment from this page has been noted as I find it slightly concerning, GDonato (talk) 21:06, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for that reflection. I've dropped a note on your page. I hope this is settled. I need a cuppa, or a reefer of that stuff we used to get off friendly folks in Gaza in the good old days, when you could walk round there and smoke interesting herbal stuff, before someone came up with the idea they were terrorists, and weeds dangerous.Nishidani (talk) 21:38, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I removed the content, GD, because it was BASELESSLY ACCUSING ME OF ENDORSING THE PROTOCOLS OF THE ELDERS OF ZION. Ok, can you see why that might be a problem? MAYBE? JUST A LITTLE BIT?!?!?!?!? FOR FUCKS SAKE WHAT IS WRONG WITH WIKIPEDIA ADMINS <eleland/talkedits> 21:46, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

(<=) I think (and I hope) that was not his intention. Let's leave it for just now and maybe try to stay away from editors who you feel you might fall into dispute with or make sure that you are always civil when communicating with them. I'm always available by e-mail, talk page and IRC for any good faith requests or complaints about conduct. Cheers, GDonato (talk) 21:57, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

E. Wikipedia admins have an unenviable job, it ain't quite as enjoyable as editing, which is in any case, in the I/P area, mainly exasperation. Quick judgements on diffs, and often without time to check in depth (Donato stepped back, earlier,'I lack familiarity with this dispute', and took note that perhaps some things had escaped him etc). Only problem is that Saxaphonemn kibitzes away, as a newbie, on pages where you've toiled for years. To stay away from such blowin editors would be tantamount to leaving wiki, since they tend to follow serious editors about. It's late, I'm out. I'm fucked if it's worth the candle mate, at times like this. But if we don't keep our noses clean, whatever snot's wheezed our way by the Protocol spin-teamsters, who's going to look after that 22% and its people's right to representation? Nishidani (talk) 22:12, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Eleland, I came across this discussion on your talk page. Apologies for my intrusion, but I thought I would offer some advice to you and Nishidani as your friendly neighborhood admin™. It really doesn't seem appropriate to refer to people as "horn-blowers" (is that a reference to the shofar?) and "the master race". It certainly isn't conducive to a friendly editing environment, and I can't see how it can help if it results in antagonising people. Please think about the effect of what you're posting and ask yourself if your comments are going to help the discussion and what you want to achieve by posting them. -- ChrisO (talk) 00:43, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

ChrisO you would have to ask whoever made the "horn blower" comment because it wasn't me. As for "master race," that is simply a direct, accurate reading of Saxophonem's conception of how the world works. He did, indeed, post a quote about how Jews are timeless and eternal and anybody who opposes them will, to use an apropos phrasing, disappear from the pages of history, or perhaps I should say be wiped off the map. He posted this to Talk:Palestinian territories.

If you want me to take this whole kerfuffle seriously, here's what you should do. Create a pan-Arabian sockpuppet who runs around making absurd demands and posting nationalist calls-to-arms on Israel related pages (or really any page that even in passing mentions Israel, like List of oldest continuously occupied cities.) Make sure that it's suspected from the beginning as a sock-puppet, and that its edits are clearly linked to a known group of internet thugs who amuse themselves by, for example, breaking into pro-Israeli settler facebook groups and deleting all the members. Then have your sockpuppet post a quote about how all who oppose Islam will be destroyed to Talk:Israel, as an epigraph to a discussion about why the page should be renamed to "Zionist entity." Then, when people call him "you cunt" and "clearly unfit to edit," go ahead and give them your civility lecture. Then I'll take you seriously. Until then, I have to admit - I still think Saxophonem is a cunt. I mean it. He's a huuuuge douchebag. He can go fuck himself. <eleland/talkedits> 12:48, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

ChrisO, why I should reply to this idiotic sand-in-the-eyes insinuation by Eternalsleeper over the shofar, when the joke was obvious, is beyond me. Saxophonemn touts his love of wind-instruments, ‘horns’ in jazz slang. He wears this in his own ID handle. He trumpeted, via Twain, the peerless immortality of Jews, and the death of Palestinians, and all other peoples. Malik, with whom he was in conflict, has now asked him to refactor his comment since ‘the Talk page is not a forum for theories of national superiority’. Eleland put this, if I may rhyme the offensive word, in blunt terms, but he was correct in seeing here, as I and Malik have also, a foul recycling, where it should never appear for obvious historical reasons, of clichés about ethnic supremicism. The result? Saxophonemn’s page is silent, Eleland is warned by an administrator, both he and I are accused of anti-semitism, I because in punning on Saxophonemn’s handle, I called him a ‘horn-blower’. I hardly need to tell you of all people that to ‘blow one’s horn’ is to ‘trumpet one’s own virtues’, something Saxophonemn, with his love of wind-instruments, was doing in saying he, like the Jewish people in Twain’s vignette, will outlast all the rest of us, and consign the Palestinians to the dustbin of history. As William Empson taught us, language speaks more than the intentions of conscious use might allow. ‘Horn-blower’ can sound indeed Clintonian, though I had primarily in mind Horatio Hornblower, for private hermeneutic reasons. To ‘blow the horn’ might well allude to the shofar, but why not then to the qerem (the horn/hill. 'To lift up the horn (qerem) of Salvation' is Biblical language for 'exalt oneself in resistance'.Gerard Manley Hopkins alludes unwittingly to this in his diary entry for September 24, 1863, in noting an analogy to the word herna (horn) and the Hernici of Switzerland, ‘rock (Lt.saxum)-people’ because they dwelt on horn-like crags)? Of course, now that shofar is mentioned, one does recall that when Betar rallied at the Wailing Wall in the 1920s, a shofar was blown, as demonstrators shouted ‘The Wall is Ours’, and the right to challenge those at al-Aqsa in this way became a hallmark of extremist agent provocateurs, which is how I regard Saxopphonemn. The Irgun threatened the British with retaliation for criminal behaviour if they interfered with Jewish worship at the wall, since the latter had banned the blowing of the shofar after the 1929 riots (J. Bowyer Bell, Moshe Arens, Terror Out of Zion, (Dublin, 1977) Transaction Press reprint, 1996 pp.121f.(A the authors are wrong here: it was the International Commission for the Wailing Wall that recommended the ban in 1930)). Moshe Segal defied the ban on Yom Kippur 1931 (Anita Shapira, Land and Power:The Zionist Resort to Force, 1881-1948, tr. William Templer, Stanford UP 1999 p.201). Blowing the shofar is, in revisionist Zionism, emblematic of Israel’s crushing of indigenous aspirations to the land. In that sense, yes, I cannot deny that, in my mind, Saxophonemn was also blowing a shofar, and trumpeting down into non-existence the walls of Palestinian aspiration. I’m not like Horatio Hornblower who ‘restrained himself from pointing out the obvious too didactically to his superior officer’ (C. S. Forester, Lieutenant Hornblower(1952) in The Young Hornblower, Penguin Books reprint 2004 p.259.) So just for the record, as Eleland invites the usual administrative measures to get himself banned by allowing his understandable repulsion for ethnic supremicists to be voiced here, while Saxophonemn smiles from the wings in silence, and can notch this up as a scalp from the enemy to do his newby record proud in the eyes of his fellows, I’ll put down my personal reconstruction (early this morning, but not posted) of what happened, and why both Eleland and I are, to put it mildly, pissed off that someone who has done nothing for this encyclopedia, except militate ideologically, provoked a sharp and vulgar quip, quickly withdrawn, and in the labyrinths of judgement, is now ignored for his behaviour, while those who responded are summoned to judgement for not ‘creating a civil environment’. Regards Nishidani (talk) 15:24, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

(2) ChrisO Like the young midshipman Horatio ‘’Hornblower’’, you enjoy the benefits of a classical education. You will recall that when Captain Keene mocks this cultural boon in the apprentice sailor as a drawback, he does so by upbraiding him on the use of ablative absolutes, which do not serve the ends of wars of Empire, unlike the study of sines and cosines. The point was, pure math is a more serviceable tool of destruction than a capacity to construe Cicero. A classical education tunes the vagrant ear to allusive nuance in language, but what’s the point of that when curt formulaic orders, (‘clear the forward raffle!’, ‘snug the brig down’) and their instantaneous execution are the pared down staple of verbal exchanges on board a man of war. The vignette suggestsan analogy with certain tendencies in Wiki administration that privilege being a stickler for form: that and execution is all that matters: what counts in the’’ litterae humaniores’’, i.e., the subtextual world of meaning, can be ignored, and in ignoring it, the message is, ‘stuff the content’ when disputes arise.

The kerfuffle (pure coincidence I now note that Eleland uses the same word) we have witnessed illustrates the contrast. An editor yet to prove himself, with a record for nuisance declarations, whinges about being the victim of a ‘with hunt’ (sic) , returns and nitpicks on the way the term Palestinian Territories (the whole article is a useless fork, and can be summed up as 'an Israeli expression for the Occupied Palestinian Territories) is treated as a single term, like the ‘United States’, whereas, in his view, it designates as a plural, plural topological realities. The adjective (not a ‘proper’ adjective: one only speaks of proper nouns) is POV, since it implies the territories are ‘Palestinian’, which is moot. One might remark that calling ‘The Palestinian Territories’ a plural reality, (is the ‘United States’ to be similarly dismembered on the strength of a similar equivocation?) not only defies standard usage, but is itself POV, in that in a certain Israeli perspective, there’s much to be gained tactically by defining the two as distinct geopolitical realities, in disregard of standard international language, (‘’divide et impera’’) than by accepting that the final status of the area must recognize them as a political and cultural unity. Malik made a revert, with his customary succinct and neutral incisiveness, and the rejoinder was a rather odd stab at being either comical or ironical:-

’Malik, they is coming to take you away, is good English.'

Well, not only Freud, but Empson would have said that to illustrate a point with this phrasing, to someone whose handle indicates a gesture of identitarian affinity with the Islamic Afro-American hero, Malcolm X, is in extremely crude taste. ‘They is coming to take you away’ is in fact a parody of black dialect (‘They’z cumen to take you away, man’). Why, of all imaginable examples, did Saxophonemn think up one that sounds either like a veiled threat to a black man, or a prophylactic warning (a tip off)? He also asserted that an exquisitely neutral comment on grammatical proprieties by Malik, reflecting a consensual viewpoint weeks back, struck him as ‘bullying’. Malik, in his view, was abusing his ‘authority’ and menacing him. This is what Saxophonemn says. On a deeper Empsonian level, the phrase can even be taken to imply, ‘who are you to correct my English? Yeah, you are Jewish, but identify with Islamic blacks, and blacks don’t speak proper English. And you, in saying ‘a plural noun can take a verb in the singular’ sound like you hang out with people who speak black dialect, rather than educated folks who speak correct English’. In this sense, it was just possibly a tribalistic reminder to stick to Malik’s ‘proper’ Jewish identity, and not get confused by associating with blacks. This is not just a matter of the hermeneutics of suspicion. In an earlier exchange on Eleland’s page here , Saxophonemn remarked:

liberal/atheist view points which make ‘’’Jews appear as out of place (as) ‘’white folks’’ in the wrong neighborhood.’’’

I.e. secular criticism of what Saxophonemn thinks as Torah-based Zionism makes ‘Jews’ (not Israel) as out of place as white folks in a black neighbourhood’ (black neighbourhoods are ‘wrong’), and Malik therefore, in S’s understanding, is a Jew out of place in a black’s world, and in not supporting a fellow-Jew on an edit.

I noted this, reading quietly, with disquiet before this brouhaha flared up. It was covert, intangible, but subtly resonant in the words and associations Saxophonemn’s remarks conjured up. I also noticed that my intuition was not quite peregrine, for Saxophonemn suddenly followed this up with a familiar quote from Mark Twain, tampering with it ever so slightly. Saxophonemn laments the difficulties he is experiencing, as a newby, in not having established an ‘authority’ to get his own way as an editor.

What was one to make of this MollyBloomsian flow of apparently illogical thoughts? We have an admired and experienced editor, whose identity is influenced by a regard for an Islamic Afro-American, berated for being a bully, and vaguely, if ham-handedly, informed he should mull over the meaning of the menacing black dialect phrase: ‘They is coming to take you away’ (even if intended on another level to illustrate a problem of grammatical concordance). Of course given Saxaphonemn’s musical interests, it’s the sort of allusion Christopher Ricks, aficionado of Bob Dylan's lyrics, would pick apart, since it is obviously a reminder of Napoleon XIV’s song, They're Coming To Take Me Away, Ha-Ha!. The allusion only compounds the doubts about Saxaphonemn’s game, since by substituting ‘you’ for ‘me’, the innuendo is that Malik is ‘insane’, like the fellow in the original lyric.

Light was thrown on it by the following citation from Mark Twain, representing a viewpoint Saxaphonemn says he can’t wait to edit in, so that he can put over with acquired editorial authority something along the lines of Mark Twain, when he wrote:-

’The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then . . . passed away. The Greek and the Roman followed. [The Palestinians too.] The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts. … All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?"

Distilled down to its conceptual attar, Saxophonemn says here, in effect: ‘The Palestinians are a dead people who have had their day, like the Egyptians, Babylonians, Persians, Romans and Greeks. The Jews beat them all, have beaten once more the Palestinians. They Jews are immortal’.

Contextually it is a reprise of the implicit point made earlier, about ‘Palestinian Territories’. They are at the moment, ‘territories’ but it is POV to call them ‘Palestinian’ and in any case, ‘we’ Jews will eventually own them, since the Palestinians are doomed, like all other peoples save ‘us’, to extinction.

Several paragraphs to bring into overt clarity the obscure innuendoes embedded in Saxaphonemn’s messages. One intuits all this, without troubling to construe it, at a moment's glance, and, if one has an ethical nature, and a certain sympathy for the plight of Palestinians, one swears under one’s breath a four letter word, and words to the effect of ‘shove your ‘ethnic supremicism’ crap'. Eleland violated the code by writing briefly what he and many others would think, true but, to his credit, almost immediately reverted.

What was the consequence? An admin (notified?) looked at the diff (actually, in haste, he made two diffs of the one remark, as if Eleland had been repeatedly offensive), and called him for incivility. As I said to Eleland, one shouldn’t take it badly that admins simply don’t have time to go into the details, the contexts, and the history: the rules privilege formalism over substance. Were they to waste their time, as I have mine, going into the intricate history of each contretemps, they’d never manage to exercise even a minimum amount of control, since it would require one admin on constant surveillance for each wiki page. Donato himself, when his attention was drawn to the lack of deeper oversight, properly allowed he may not have looked as closely at this as the problem demanded.

Then I intruded, with a crack, formulated to suggest to Eleland that, if one is outraged, perhaps an innocuous but pointed piece of repartee, rather than an exasperated and futile, because sanctionable, four-letter word of abuse was the way to handle this kind of crass racism.

Eleland is understandably exasperated, and caps a few effs. Rightly so from a modern ethical perspective, but highly improper from a wiki editorial slant. Rightly, because much ado about virtually nothing was being made over his angry response to racist language, no hullabaloo was made about the racist vaunt that provoked it, a remark which said Palestinians are a dead people, they’re ‘history’, and are history because their ‘ethnic’ rivals are, uniquely, immortal, a position that elicits spontaneously the conclusion that Saxophonemn believes in Jewish racial superiority, or what Eleland was to call a ‘master race’ complex.

At this, an editor of Lebanese origin who apparently thinks all Arabs outside of Saudi Arabia are intruders, (and therefore the Orient should have remained Jewish and Christian as it was in the good old days) came out with a strong pro-Zionist sympathy: the land that has invaded his own homeland several times in the last several decades, is Eretz Israel, where all Arabs are intruders, aliens, all of it belongs to the Jews, and people like Eleland and myself are antisemites. Eleland, because in using the word ‘Master race’ he was not (as indeed he obviously was), alluding to the language of Mein Kampf, where ‘’Herrenvolk’ is employed several times, but to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, (where that wording does not recur, at least in Marsden’s translation), and I because in calling Saxophonemn a ‘horn-blower’ I was mocking the shofar. One provocation leads to another, but in an Humean similitude, people seem to be fixated on the pocketed billiard ball, and not at the cue-wielders. I wish for Chrissake, one could do without these endless quibbles, esp. over a 15 minute edit that disappeared down the tube as its author thought better of it. Best regards Nishidani (talk) 15:48, 27 September 2008 (UTC)