User talk:Martha

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Hello there, welcome to the 'pedia! I hope you like the place and decide to stay. If you need any questions answered about the project then check out Wikipedia:Help or add a question to the Village pump. BTW, nice addition to the Diaper article. Cheers! --maveric149

Your Al Naqba was seriously in violation of our Neutral Point of View policy. Please review Wikipedia:Neutral point of view -- Zoe

The way to get along in the Wikipedia is not to insult our trusted users. If the articles on the Israeli-Palestinian conflicts are not neutral (and I agree they are biased towards Israelis), those articles should be changed. POV articles are not be balanced out by inserting more POV articles elsewhere, but by making them NPOV. Discuss what makes those articles POV on the appropriate talk pages, and even RK can be civil. Tokerboy

Martha,

You want discussion – let’s discuss. The Al Naqba article was lacking NPOV not because it its content, but because of how the content was presented.

Al Naqba (Arabic: disaster, catastrophe), is a collective term

Yes, it is “a” collective term. But one way to achieve NPOV is to be specific about ‘’whose’‘ term it is. Why not write, “Al Naqba (Arabic: disaster, catastrophe), is the collective term used by Palestinians and other Arabs...”

for the events of 1947-48 in Palestine. As a result of Zionist efforts, many Palestinians perished. The survivors were deprived of their homeland, turning them into refugees.

Also reflects a particular point of view. For some people Zionists are heroes, for others, racists, so although I think it is okay to use the word, I think it would be better to use a less contentious word. I think this is also important because your phrasing muddled POV issues: for Palestinians it was a disaster, but not for Zionists; if you are going to bring in Zionists, bring in their point of view as well (this is another way to provide NPOV; balance). I think you could rewrite this in an NPOV way: “for the events of 1947-1948. For Jewish Israelis and their supporters, these events constituted their victorious war for Independence, and the birth of the Jewish State. For Palestinians, however, these events were dominated by the physical death of many, and political and geographic displacement for most.

A just solution is yet to be found.

Is just editorializing. Most people would agree that there has not yet been a just solution – let along an unjust solution – but assertions of opinion like this must be contextualized. Here is one way of doing it: “For most Palestinians, Al Naqba was a trauma that can only be healed through the establishment of a Palestinian State and the return of refugees to their former homes. Some Jewish Israelis have come to recognize the meaning of Al Naqba for Palestinians, and to support their goals; most Jewish Israelis are divided.”

A ray of hope appeared during the 1990s, with the Oslo Accords. The Palestinians have, in spite of their sufferings, maintained that only a political solution is possible.

“A ray of hope” is clear editorializing. Simply to assert it is simple violation of NPOV. It would be a violation of NPOV to write that the State of Israel is a “ray of hope.” At the very least, you would have to say “Zionists see the State of Israel as a ray of hope for Jews.” Well, similarly, in this instance, you could say that “Peace activists among both Israelis and Palestinians were hopeful...”

However, the Israeli side choose to pursue settlements in the West Bank and Gaza rather than peace, and the move towards reconciliation failed.

Again, not NPOV – the point is not that this statement is false, only that it reflects one point of view. You could keep it if you added that the Palestinian side chose to pursue suicide bombings. Or if this makes you feel uncomfortable, you could say something like “according to partisans of Israel, however, the peace-process was derailed by continued terrorist acts by Palestinians.” You should also of course have written “According to Palistinians and their supporters, the peace process was derailed by Israel’s continued commitment to Jewish settlements in the occupied territories.” Frankly, I think a link to another article on the “Peace Process” (such as it is) would be better. Slrubenstein

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