Talk:Tel al-Zaatar massacre

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[edit] Who Labeled this a 'massacre?'

According to this site: http://www.1stbusinesslebanon.com/civilwar/civil1.html it was a pitched battle for months. A massacre implies killing of civilians, not those involved in hostilities 75.164.41.248 (talk) 04:33, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Confused

Was an explanatory paragraph deleted? It's not clear to me whom the combatants were in this. 68.40.65.164 (talk) 05:24, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Disputed

I found no NPOV and reliable sources labeling the "Battle" of Tel al-Zaatar (as known in the Lebanese jargon) a massacre. Please discuss this issue here. Fadib83 (talk) 02:34, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

That's funny. A google book search reveals that there are a number of reliable sources that characterize what happened as a "massacre". For example,

1. Noam Chomsky citing David Shipler of the New York Times calls it the "Tel al-Zaatar massacre", and identified Elie Hobeika as one of three Phalange commanders responsible for it (the others, according to ABC News who also call it a "massacre" according to Chomsky, were Fady Frem and Joseph Edde).
2. Gil Merom calls it the "The August 1976 Christian massacre of Palestinians in Tel-Al-Zaatar..."
3. Michael Hanne describes how the "right-wing Christian militias" were "responsible for the mass murder of Palestinian refugees during the Tel-Al-Zaatar massacre..."

Do you need more examples? Do you have sources that claim that it was not a massacre? If not, I think it's pretty clear that there is reliable and verifiable information that supports the use of "massacre" in this article. The NPOV tag should be removed. Tiamut^talk 14:18, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

This paragraph in the introduction

In fact, there are some who would not consider this a massacre at all, but rather the casualties of war. ^[1] In fact, 1stbusinesslebanon.com calls Tel al-Zaatar "the final showdown between the Palestinians and the Lebanese Front in Beirut. It was one of the hardest battles fought during the war."^[2]

is cited to a source that is not a reliable one. A business magazine in Lebanon should not be used to present a one-sided view against the writings of historical and political scholars as provided above. I would like to remove this from the introduction. I encourage those who wish to see this viewpoint represented to find reliable scholarly sources that make the same claims. Tiamut^talk 14:22, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

The books you pointed to do not seem to mention how many Palestinians were killed during the so-called "massacre". If it is so (in)famous, how come three book authors could not back their claims with numerical evidence? On the other hand, I found these videos: http://www.ina.fr/archivespourtous/?vue=notice&from=fulltext&full=zaatar&num_notice=2&total_notices=19 and http://www.ina.fr/archivespourtous/index.php?vue=notice&from=themes&cs_page=0&cs_order=0&code=C0524219454&num_notice=5&total_notices=18 (in French) about the evacuation of wounded from the camp. None of them mentions a massacre but they all describe the hardship endured by Palestinian civilians during fifty days or so of continuous fighting. Fadib83 (talk) 00:49, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Many massacres lack clear statistics on the number of people killed, particularly when the events took place within the context of a civil war (i.e. in a context where an authoritative, responsible body who could garner such statistics is lacking). This discussion is however largely irrelevant. There are three reliable sources who use the term "massacre" to refer to the event in question. Per WP:NPOV and WP:ATT, our job is to report the viewpoints existent among the reliable sources, rather than engage in personal judgments as whether or not their assessment is correct. Tiamut^talk 07:19, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

So, given the lack of response, I will assume that the concerns you raised have been answered and remove the tags you placed in the article. I would ask that you not restore them and instead tag ndividual sentences you find problematic or in need of better sourcing so that we can work on improving the article. Tiamut^talk 21:01, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

My understanding is that a massacre happens when civilians are murdered in mass outside the battlefield; in Tel al-Zaatar, the civilian casualties were mostly due to the fighting going on between the Phalange and the Palestinian fighters. Further, I have found some reliable sources labelling what happened there as a battle (http://books.google.fr/books?id=VrXpeELOUNsC&pg=PA100&lpg=PA100&dq=tel+al+zaatar+battle&source=web&ots=MS3qS-DL0b&sig=MTmcpNkcUI_MJHXX9Y-LagpFXY0&hl=en and http://books.google.fr/books?id=wwntdx2IFAEC&pg=PR5&lpg=PR5&dq=tel+al+zaatar+battle&source=web&ots=xvvCIfoaEL&sig=DgDmjyawb-A2Qm3Sxoelp3_CYe0&hl=en). One more thing: you didn't comment on the videos I linked to in my earlier post. Fadib83 (talk) 00:07, 11 March 2008 (UTC)