Talk:Israel and apartheid/Archive 6

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.

Archive 1

←

Archive 4

→

Minor typo at the end

Palestinians rely on employment in Israel do to the economic failures and corruption

The word should be "due", NOT "do".

Changed, housekeeping task. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 20:01, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

John Dugard UN report deleted again!

"In January 2006, a by John Dugard of the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva, stated that "the three major settlement blocs - Gush Etzion, Ma’aleh Adumim and Ariel - will effectively divide Palestinian territory into cantons or Bantustans." [1]" has been deleted again by User:Jayjg (who has persistly deleted it since its inclusion, claiming "bantustans" have nothing to do with apartheid). An administrator should probably introduce it again, as it is an important piece on the debate. Satyagit 19:39, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

No administrator is going to introduce it again as long as the page is protected without consensus to do so, reached here at the talk page. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 21:23, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Of course it is deleted; this article is about the epithet "Israeli apartheid", and the report doesn't deal with that epithet. Jayjg ^(talk) 22:03, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

"Dirty Jew" ?

WE should look at "Israeli paratheid" the same way we look at "Dirty Jew".

Would it be concivable to anyone here to write this:

"Dirty Jew" is a controversial politacl ~~epithet~~ ~~phrase~~ term that compare the jews to animals who do not wash. In analogy it has been used to describe Dirty tricks by the jewish people (especially those who deal with money) over the years. Even one left wing Zionist politian once said that "We are not dirty, but if this heat wave and short of water will continue we will smell really bad"

analogy

Thos who claim that the Jews are dirty point out that they have no washed all of last week

Critism

Jewish organization claim that most jews do wash at least twice a week, they also point out that some animal (such as cats) are actually very clean and that some sub-speeches of Elephent are known to wash regularly, thus comparing jews to animal who do not wash is wrong on both sides of the analogy.

I hope this makes it clear why Wikipedia should not be a home to every ridiculus politicaly motivated claim leveled against israel. We can only focus on:

Who uses the phrase
to waht goal and under what context
what do they want to get from it.

In a similiar way we should dscribe the organizations who dismiss the use of the term.

it is not very disfferent to accuse a whole contry in being apartheid country than to lable a whole group of people as "dirty". Once the direction in wkipedia has taken to have an article on the subject the article can not have a section that explain "Why israel is an apartheid state" for the simple reason that such a claim belongs on neo-Nazi hate sites and no mater what the next section will try to "NPOV" the term of the discussion (which is what the propeganda people, the 'spin doctors' want to achive has already been done.

To sum up: I do not accpet the way this article is formated. If wikipedia is to have an article on this it must start from scratch.

Zeq 10:08, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

I view the above argument based on the racist term "Dirty Jew" as non-representative of the current situation -- it really feels to me as if it is a straw man. Desmond Tutu made the comparison between Israel's occupation policies and apartheid as a means of promoting the same type of solutions, main various manifestations of global pressure, that where used to push the South Africa apartheid siutation towards a resolution. He is not equating Israal as a whole with Apartheid nor is he advocating a binational solution as the end result. --Ben Houston 10:27, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

With all due respect Desmund Tutu has not been in Israel/palestine and also he is not an academic authority on the issue.

I am all for "some type of solution" (beyond the scope of what we do here) But I will not let wikipedia become a tool in distributing Political propeganda.

This is an encyclopedia. If someone wants an NPOV description on what takes place in the occupied Palestinian territories he/she can find it and get the info. If someone is looking in a neutarl encyclopdia. about sraeli apartheid the info that should be provided is:

Who uses it
in which context
what do they want to achive by using it
Who is aginst the use of it

Dealing with the "reasons" why some equate Israel with SA is only giving room (in a so-called neutral encyclopdia) to an anati israel propeganda. It is the same as trying to describe in an NPOV manner the question: are the jews dirty or not dirty?

If there is anything which is a straw man here it is the creation of this article in violation of WP:not and the disrupption that was caused to wkipedia (violation of WP:Point). The fact that WP:RS is also violated in order to achive all that is just adding insult to injury.

Let us start by examining the sources used for this article:

Can global exchange be used as a source for wikipedia article on Israel/palestine ?

Zeq 12:11, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Tutu in Israel/Palestine

"With all due respect Desmund Tutu has not been in Israel/palestine"

Actually, he has been: "On one of my visits to the Holy Land I drove to a church with the Anglican bishop in Jerusalem."[3]

Note "one of my visits" suggesting he has visited several times, in fact.

"and also he is not an academic authority on the issue."

Perhaps not but he did win a Nobel Peace Prize for his leadership in the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. I don't think anyone can seriously doubt his authority on the issue of apartheid. Homey 13:34, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

maybe he is an expert on South Africa but he is not an expret on Israel/Palestine. The article is about a phrase that is used by propeganda groups. Are you saying that he is also a propeganda distributor ? Zeq 13:51, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Zeq, you falsely claimed Tutu has never been to Israel/Palestine when clearly he has been there several times. If you want to have any credibility with people 1) stop making stuff up 2) admit you're wrong when you're caught making stuff up. Homey 14:16, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

I guess that means that you don't have any credibility left according to that criteria.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 16:41, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

So Tutu was in palestine on a visit and was getting explnations from sabeel - this does not make him an expert on the situation and that is what counts. 9although I actually agree with every word he wrote in this article – but I am not an expert as well:-))

The problem is three fold:

You use Wikipedia as a tool to spread your political agenda (violation of WP:not) and in the process disrupt wikipedia (violation of WP:Point). A clear example for this is that many articles you edit end up being protected (largly because of your edits). On top of that you abuse your admin power and try to use your tools and gaming the system in order to get an edge in the discussion.
You use sources (such as (www.globalexchange.com) which clearly are not the kind of objective, scholarly sources that can be used in sensitive articles such as this one.
You take words out of context. In the article you just quoted Tutu does not call Israel and "apartheid state", nor did Shulamit Aloni (which you tried to glue this statement to her previously.

if we look at Tutu's own words we see that he continually use the phrase "The apartheid government" which point out that even in the eyeys of Tutu, the apartheid government that ruled South Africa is unique other wise he would call the Israeli government by the title apartheid (which he clearly reserve for use in this article only to South Africa).

It seems that it is the guardian editor (and not Tutu himself) who gave the article by Tutu the catchy headline "Israeli apartheid" – Tutu himself indeed compare the suffering of Palestinians in west bank checkpoints to the suffering of blacks in south Africa and I can understand his sympathy to their situation, however in the west bank there is military rule and no one deny the need for that area to be free of occupation. Being an occupier force in the Palestinian territories (which Israel is and hopefully stop being such an occupier) does not make it "an apartheid state"

Even Tutu did not argue that. (btw, He was quoted elsewhere as saying "Israel is like Hitler and Apartheid" but that is not from a reliable source. If indeed Tutu compared Israel to Hitler – this makes him an even less reliable source….) Zeq 15:07, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Read WP:RS, Homey; we accept only scholarly sources on Wikipedia on all issues except current events where media are just fine. Tutu is as much of an authortiy on apartheid as Nicolas Chauvin is an authority on the history of Napoleonic Wars. Pecher ^Talk 14:35, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

It'd be like citing Sting in an article about rainforests.Timothy Usher 01:37, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Sting hasn't received a Nobel Peace Prize for his work on the rainforests. Tutu did receive one for his anti-apartheid work. It's quite unfortunate that you are trying so hard to denigrate Tutu simply because his views are not in accord with yours.Homey 01:39, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

The Nobel Peace Prize is not a credential.

My mission here is to stop Wikipedia from being used as a soapbox, from being filled with poorly-sourced nonsense and original research, and to ensure that words such as "apartheid" are used with their most standard meanings, particularly where article titles are concerned. Turns of rhetoric by unreliable sources don't warrant articles, and to whatever extent the article is to include other material, it can only be a POV fork of Israeli-Palestinian conflict.Timothy Usher 02:17, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

The Nobel Peace Prize is not a credential.

Oh please, it's recognition that Tutu was a leader in the anti-apartheid struggle. He's a recognised world statesman, it's ridiculous to claim that we cannot use him as a source. I suspect if he said there is no comparison between South African apartheid and the situation in Israel you'd be clamouring to use him.Homey 02:51, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

We don't cite politicians to support findings of fact. Do you suppose we can go to Hamas and write, "Hamas is a murderous terrorist organization", cited to Ariel Sharon?

I ask you again to desist from baseless attributions of bad faith.Timothy Usher 04:12, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Timothy Usher, it is totally allowed to include Ariel Sharon saying that if he did in deed say that in a notable medium. If it is in a reliable source that would not mischaracterize Sharon's statements and given Sharon's previous role as leader of Israel it would be notable. Also, the president of Iran and his inflammatory are quoted all the time in Wikipedia. I feel that you and Zeq have artificially raised the bar in this instance. --Ben Houston 04:20, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Timothy, Ben is correct above. this is indeed the way the policy WP:RS works. The issue is if Sharon was the only/main source for the Hamas article we would have a problem according to the "minorty view" section of WP:NPOV. I think we first need to create an article from scholarly sources as per WP:RS. Only later we can add anecsdutal data (such as Tutu). Zeq 04:25, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

I think you're misconstruing my point. Tutu and Sharon alike are sources for their own statements. Sharon's opinion is obviously notable in discussions of the conflict. With Tutu, it's debatable. My point was that in neither case does this support a finding of fact that Hamas actually is a terrorist organization or that Israel actually practices "apartheid". Without such support, we are not justified in having an article titled after something that we have no reason to believe even exists, as wikipedia is not a guide to the contemporary political rhetoric of unreliable sources.

Another article that should not exist: Religion of Peace, based solely on the rhetoric of George W.Bush and its ironic usage by right-wing commentators. This trend must be stopped. All such articles merit deletion.Timothy Usher 07:50, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Tutu repeated his Apartheid reference regarding Israel during a discussion with Father Elias Chacour, the Archbishop of Galilee. Father Chacour documents the meeting in his book "We Belong to the Land."

Discuss the content, not the editors

I would like to urge everybody here to keep their discussion limited to the content. The continued discussion about who does what and for what motivation and why it is wrong etc etc etc is not going to help to resolve the current standoff between the different fractions. Thank you all. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 17:06, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Consensus lead section

After reading all comments to the proposed lead section, it seems to me that the first sentence of the proposed lead is acceptable for most people. However, the second line is clearly not. As such, would the following lead be acceptable to everybody:

Israeli apartheid (or calling Israel an apartheid state) is a controversial phrase used by some critics of Israel to describe the country's policies towards the Palestinian and Israeli Arab populations. Critics of the term see it as a political epithet and argue that it is historically inaccurate, offensive, antisemitic, and that it is used as justification for terrorist attacks against Israel.

From a NPOV, I think this lead is acceptable, but I could be wrong in that. Please comment if you agree or diagree, so that we can move forward. (Whether I myself agree with this lead will remain upin the air as that is not relevant at all)-- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 02:26, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

This was discussed above I think there are many inaccuracies in this intro. Zeq 04:02, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

It isn't great, but better than the current one, but since most of the people opposed to this article seem to regard an integration into Apartheid outside of South Africa as a fait accompli I doubt they'll vote because they already 'own' that version. --Coroebus 20:29, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

I have changed this per wide support which includes all editor minus one. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 20:38, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Original research

What source do we have for "Israeli apartheid" being an epithet? Our policy against OR applies to article titles as well as the articles themselves. Homey 02:57, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree. It should simply be "Israeli apartheid", much like special rights and homosexual agenda. No parenthetical nonsense. Al 03:09, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Not even close: those are not pejoratives. But consider Fascism (epithet) and Islamofascism (epithet). ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 03:45, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Fascism (epithet) is so titled because it's a distinct article from Fascism, about a different thing; Islamofascism (epithet) exists only as a redirect to Islamofascism. You've failed on both counts to prove that this article is being held to a different standard. And I'm sorry, but you are absolutely wrong that "special rights" and "homosexual agenda" aren't pejoratives. They most certainly are. Bearcat 05:50, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Humus, what is your source for apartheid being an epithet? If you can't provide one it's original research. Homey 03:47, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Dictionary. Wanna quote? ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 08:14, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I do and I can't find any definition of it as an epithet[4]:

Apartheid

Related phrases: apartheid wall petty apartheid gender apartheid anti-apartheid movement crime of apartheid

Definitions of apartheid on the Web:

"Separateness," (Afrikaans, Dutch); policy implemented by National Party government (1948-94) to maintain separate development of government-demarcated racial groups; also referred to as "separate development," an d later "multinational development"; abolished by Constitution of the Republic of South Africa of 1993.

reference.allrefer.com/country-guide-study/south-africa/south-africa149.html

the official policy of racial discrimination that exists in South Africa

www.imuna.org/c2c/app_a.html

racial and tribal segregation.
- www.summit.org/resource/dictionary/

racial, political, and economic segregation of non-European peoples.
- oregonstate.edu/instruct/anth370/gloss.html

an Afrikaans word which essentially means segregation. The long-term foundation of South African race relations until the 1990s. Whites and non-whites (eg. Africans, Indians, coloureds) were kept separate long before the National Party legislated very specific regulations at the middle of the 20th century defining a de jure version of apartheid. ...
- www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php

A political philosophy of keeping races apart in South Africa
- jamaat.net/name/name2.html

System originating in South Africa, designed to prevent blacks from invading their own country. Democratically applied by the New Order to the poor of the world, irrespective of’ colour.
- www.newint.org/issue226/order.htm

the policy of spatial separation on racial grounds employed in South Africa under National Party rule between the late 1940s and early 1990s.
- media.pearsoncmg.com/intl/ema/uk/0131217666/student/0131217666_glo.html

a social policy or racial segregation involving political and economic and legal discrimination against people who are not Whites; the former official policy in South Africa
- wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

Apartheid (International Phonetic Alphabet or in English and in Afrikaans) is the policy and the system of laws implemented and continued by "White" minority governments in South Africa from 1948 to 1990; and by extension any legally sanctioned system of racial segregation. The first recorded use of the word, which means "separateness" in Afrikaans and Dutch, was in 1917 during a speech by Jan Smuts, who became Prime Minister of South Africa in 1919.
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apartheid

Humus, which dictionary uses the word "epithet" in its definition of apartheid? Homey 12:29, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

I already had this argument with Heptor: Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Apartheid_(disambiguation) --Coroebus 12:36, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

It doesn't matter whether or not "Israeli apartheid" is an epithet. Parentheses are used in situations like these to disambiguate, not to clarify usage. That's what the first sentence of articles are for. The sole reason for Fascism (epithet) is to disambiguate from Fascism itself; since there are no other articles named "Israeli apartheid" on Wikipedia, that does not apply here at all. Islamofascism (epithet) has already been moved back to its correct title, Islamofascism, for exactly this reason. As soon as possible, this article should as well. It's both deeply biased (in that we have "(epithet)" disclaimer on this article, but no such disclaimer on hundreds of other articles, like Yellow Peril and homosexual agenda) and deeply impractical (no point unnecessarily complicating article titles; as long as Israeli apartheid redirects here anyway, it's just common sense to use the simpler title and make things easier on everyone). A double whammy. -Silence 18:13, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

I was away last weekend and didn't see a lot these comments, so I am responding to a few of them now. I think Silence's comment is a good argument for this article being merged into one about Apartheid as an epithet. It could be a perfect parallel with "Fascism" and "Fascism (epithet)" -- one article with the title "Apartheid," which would be about the official South African policy of that name, and one with the title "Apartheid (epithet)" about, well, the use of "apartheid" as an analogy, including accusations about "Israeli apartheid." The only reason the article about South African apartheid is not named simply "Apartheid" is that certain editors insisted on using the article as a platform for their attacks on Israel. 6SJ7 22:39, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

I disagree, first of all there is no policy which states that parenthesis in the title must be used to disambiguate. The reason that epithet is included is because without it, the title would just be an unneccessarily pov name, claryfying that the article is primarily about a political epithet, not about "Israeli Apartheid" in of itself is the only way that the article could be encyclopedic. While I believe it is still not notable enough and would support an afd, I think the parenthical statement is necessary.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 18:23, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

"I disagree, first of all there is no policy which states that parenthesis in the title must be used to disambiguate." - There doesn't need to be an explicit policy forbidding something for that something to be contrary to policy: there's no explicit policy saying we can't use parentheses in article titles to numerically rate how much we like the article in question, or to indicate whether an article is about a fruit or not, or to tell a short story about a clown named Bobo, but common sense indicates that such use is unnecessary, cumbersome and inconsistent, among other things—just like putting "(epithet)" at the end of random articles to indicate that they are not about a literal thing-in-itself (i.e., a real Israel apartheid, in this case), but about a certain term or concept, is. Read Wikipedia:Naming conventions, which is an official naming policy, and you'll notice that nowhere is there a provision to allow parentheses for anything other than disambiguation: every time parenthese are mentioned in the page, it's specifically and solely for disambiguating purposes. Moreover, even if we used parentheses for purposes other than disambiguating or because the original title itself included them (which I'm not necessarily opposed to: I simply haven't seen such a purpose yet, which would necessitate parentheses), it's clear that using them for this specific purpose is inappropriate.

"The reason that epithet is included is because without it, the title would just be an unneccessarily pov name," - This is not correct, for the same reason that articles titled Yellow Peril and homosexual agenda are not POVed: merely having an article with a title of a certain name does not in any way imply that the thing described by the word actually exists. It is no more implied by an article named Israeli apartheid that there really is an Israeli apartheid than it's implied by an article named Santa Claus that there really is a Santa Claus: adding "Santa Claus (fable)", or similar, would be absolutely unnecessary, and could only conceivably arise out of disambiguational necessity, not out of a need to clarify that the article's topic is conceptual or terminological. Moreover, a title is extremely unlikely to be "POVed" as long as it is the most common title for a certain concept, and this article's title, Israeli apartheid, most certainly doesn't qualify.

"claryfying that the article is primarily about a political epithet, not about "Israeli Apartheid" in of itself is the only way that the article could be encyclopedic." - This has already been clarified by the first sentence in this article, which is sufficient. If you think even more clarification is needed, then add an italicized explanatory note at the top of the article, akin to the one at the top of Islamophobia. But that is the limit: changing the title itself is simply not acceptable for this purpose, under current naming conventions. The article's contents should be what make its scope and topicality clear; the title simply cannot contain all the necessary information, as a matter of practicality, and must only have the simplest title possibly to identify the article's subject matter at all (which is "Israeli apartheid", irrespective of whether that actually exists or not, just as the subject of Batman is "Batman", with no bias implied by the title as to whether or not Batman really exists; same for Poseidon, Extraterrestrial life, and countless thousands of other articles).

"While I believe it is still not notable enough and would support an afd," - Then AfD it. I don't care one way or the other whether this article exists. But AfD it as Israeli apartheid, so that title mismanagement doesn't confuse voters, and so that if it's kept, it's kept under the right title.

"I think the parenthical statement is necessary." - I am forced to disagree, respectfully. Not only is it not necessary, but it is not acceptable, both for practical and for POV reasons. I believe you should propose a new addition to Wikipedia:Naming policy if you feel that it is important to add (epithet) here, as doing so would be a revolutionary change to the way Wikipedia handles article-naming, and thus should be fully discussed before it is implemented. No article in the history of Wikipedia has ever been named in the same style or format as this article is right now, except in error. Such an enormous policy change, which would, for the sake of consistency and fairness, require changing the names of thousands, perhaps even tens of thousands, of articles, should not be rushed into. -Silence 20:08, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Actually, yes, Wikipedia does have a policy that words in parentheses after the main title are used only to disambiguate titles from other things with the same name; parenthetical phrases cannot be used to add a political comment to a unique title. That said, I'd still like to know if there's a specific reason that this needs to be a separate article from Israeli-Palestinian conflict — I'm fundamentally uncomfortable with the idea of Wikipedia using the word "apartheid" in the title of any article that isn't specifically about South Africa. Bearcat 00:30, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, the phrase "Israeli apartheid" gets over 400,000 hits on Google, so at least it's not original research, even if it doesn't quite have enough notability for its own article. Regardless, though, at least we agree that the current title is unacceptable, whether the article itself is acceptable or not. -Silence 01:04, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

FWIW, I loathe this article and hope it will be deleted or merged ASAP or, barring that, that it will at least reflect balance between both sides of the debate. Having said that, I also loathe parens in the title. I hated it at Islamofascism and I hate it here. IronDuke 01:12, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

The AFD failed and there's no consensus to merge it with another article so let's concentrate on making this article NPOV (I fail to see how terms like "epithet" are NPOV and, as I said, I see no citations for the claim). Homey 01:15, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

I am aware of the history of this article; I believe you may misunderstand me. I am arguing against the inclusion of "(epithet)" in the title of this article, whatever else happens to it. IronDuke 01:27, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Apologies Iron Duke - I didn't mean to sound like I was lecturing you. I appreciate what you're saying - it is encouraging that you've put your POV aside in favour of NPOV and recognizing community consensus. Homey 01:39, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

No need to apologize, but appreciated nevertheless. A lot of us are editing articles on subjects related to this one: if we can't work together, we hurt WP and become a PITA for editors who have to referee. (And I'm not trying to lecture you, I just think it bears repeating for all of us.) IronDuke 01:43, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

There was no consensus. This article was intentionally titled to delegitimize and demonize Israel. I don't like the parentheses either, but to remove them is to embrace such offensive title as encyclopedic. Currently the content duplicates Apartheid outside of South Africa#Israel, so it would be safe to remove this article. Until this is done, "(epithet)" should stay in the title. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 01:32, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

" There was no consensus"

There was no consensus to add "epithet" to the article or to merge it with Apartheid outside South Africa either in the AFD or in related talk pages.

"This article was intentionally titled to delegitimize and demonize Israel."

That was not my intention. WP:AGF

"Currently the content duplicates Apartheid outside of South Africa#Israel, so it would be safe to remove this article"

If it does it's because it was "merged" without a consensus to do so, probably in order to justify your latter statement. In any case let's wait to see what a mediator says about your and Jay's attempt to circumvent consensus and circumvent this article's AFD through a unilateral merge. Since the material there copies the material here it makes more sense (and is usual practice) to remove the duplicated material from Apartheid outside of South Africa and replace it with a See Israeli apartheid note. Homey 01:39, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Humus sapiens: you above claim that the "article was intentionally titled to delegitimize and demonize Israel". I disagree with that characterization of Homey's intent in titling the article as such, I believe that the article title (and the article contents) is a reference the aspects of Israel's policies vis-a-vis the Palestinians in the occupied territories.

Additionally, the fact that it duplicates Apartheid outside of South Africa#Israel (at least for a few moments between revisions) is because you and Jayjg and Moshe are trying to arbitrarily merge the content as a fallback position in light of the failed AfD on this article -- which is not appropriate behavior but rather just slight of hand bullying. --Ben Houston 01:40, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm going to try this again: Wikipedia policy explicitly states that parenthetical comments after the article title can only be used when it is specifically necessary to disambiguate the title from another thing with the same name; such parentheticals cannot be used for any other purpose. What, exactly, makes you think that this article should be entitled to a special exemption? Bearcat 05:47, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

On what page is that policy located? 6SJ7 22:55, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Bearcat, it's only in the past day or so that anyone involved in the discussion has even been aware of the policy about parenthetical comments after the article title. Kim even conducted a straw poll about the nonconforming titles, so obviously she wasn't aware. Please give the group some time to discuss some alternatives. For goodness sake, there are more than three possible titles that this article could have. Some ideas, not all of them original: "Apartheid comparisons in Israel and the Occupied Territories" "Allegations of Israeli apartheid" "Allegations of apartheid in Israel in the Occupied Territories". I feel that "Israeli apartheid" is a poor article title because, as I've said before, it is easily interpreted by the reader as being a verifiable fact rather than as a disputed, metaphorical use of the term. By comparison, titles such as Cheese-eating surrender monkeys do not invite such a literal interpretation. Su-laine.yeo 16:53, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

I was aware of it, but I did not want to start with mediating starting with stating that, as I would like to get the arguments at the table first. The first step is to get discussion on the merrits, and that was actually my prime reason for the straw poll, as it has less the tendency to result in a shouting match between the most vocal editors. That worked as far as I am concerned pretty reasonable. As for the wider issue, see my comments below, we need to find a place to have that multipage spanning discussion.-- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 17:34, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

By the way Bearcat, I also agree with you that this article should not exist at all, for exactly the reasons you gave in Talk:Apartheid outside of South Africa. Su-laine.yeo 17:28, 10 June 2006 (UTC)