The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
Keep - We've just changed the title of the article from "Israeli Apartheid" to "Allegations of Israeli Apartheid". Indeed, it's very encyclopaedic. It may stink of POV, it may be useless as it may be propaganda but i am sorry to say that it is soo very encyclopaedic. -- Szvest 11:00, 8 August 2006 (UTC)Wiki me up™[reply]
This AfD nomination was incomplete. It is listed now. DumbBOT 11:14, 8 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the info. I thought Bots are diff than regular users ;) -- Szvest 11:38, 8 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Sometimes I think all Israel related articles are one, big POV fork... Medico80 11:45, 8 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Seems well written and well sourced, referencing internationally renowned news sources. The potential to offend is not grounds for deletion, nor does it make an article unencyclopedic. Wikipedia is not censored. The title of the article is "Allegations of Israeli apartheid". The text of the article proves that such allegations are a reality and asserts their notability. --IslaySolomon 13:35, 8 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per IslaySolomon. BoojiBoy 13:43, 8 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. Although the article is well written and meticulously referenced, cited and sourced, I still think the article is inherently POV. One can find sources for people making allegations of virtually ANY position you can dream of, but does that mean they all deserve articles? wikipediatrix 14:09, 8 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Whilst you probably can find allegations of any position, this allegation seems to have come up a lot, and been made by many notable people and organisations (and more have either referred to or denied it). In my opinion, it's significant enough, verifiable enough, and messy enough that we probably ought to dedicate an article to it. - makomk 14:17, 8 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep This is the second AfD, and it wasn't deleted last time. Plus, it's in arbitration. --John Nagle 15:18, 8 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The article is not in arbitration. The conduct of editors is in arbitration. ArbCom does not address content disputes (or isn't supposed to, anyway). Su-Laine Yeo 06:49, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment How about Allegations of of Ehud Olmert being gay or Allegations of Palestinian babies being used in traditional Jewish cat food. Fair and balanced, with citations and references, both sides having their say... 84.238.25.152
Delete - allegations of Israel human rights violations do merit articles (though one can always wonder the paucity of such articles about other states and regimes who do much worse), but the term "apartheid" is a rhetorical device that distracts from the real issue. --Leifern 16:17, 8 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep since it survived a prior AfD — I'm no fan of this sort of propaganda, but as long as we have a Islamofascism page I don't see why we can't have this well-documented article. Plus the section on counter-arguments is useful and constructive for those wanting to counter such claims. — RJH (talk) 16:25, 8 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed, nobody talks about adding allegations in front of Islamofascism. -- Szvest 16:32, 8 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete- The difference is that Islamofascism isn't about Islamofascism. It's about the term, how it was created, how it's used. This article is just a big rant on allegations of Israeli Apartheid and how the author(s) beleive that it's true. It's not encyclopedic. It's not NPOV at all. It doesn't belong here. --PresN 19:32, 8 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment- Also, so what if it passed a previous AfD? That's not an automatic pass for all future ones, it just means it shouldn't be re-nominated again for a while. --PresN 19:33, 8 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I agree that it would be better to retitle the article as "Israeli apartheid" and provide a neutral investigation of the term's historical usage. CJCurrie 22:36, 8 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep If the current article seems to be infected with POV, the proper recourse is to correct it, not to remove the article. The allegation of "Israeli apartheid" has been made in various sources over a period of several years; there is no reason why Wikipedia should not document this usage (along with the debates surrounding the term), and every reason why we should. CJCurrie 22:34, 8 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete or else merge into another article, per my comments scattered through the many archived talk pages for this article. 6SJ7 23:33, 8 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Just a little too much of a POV powder keg
— Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.157.110.11 (talk • contribs) 00:19, 9 August 2006
Delete Way too much POV to ever be NPOV. --Wafulz 00:24, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep *sigh*, not again! POV problems can be fixed. At least the title isn't at "Israeli apartheid" anymore... —Khoikhoi 03:33, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete This article has always suffered from lack of a coherent reason to exist and probably always will.
Under its original title it was defended as being an article about the political term "Israeli apartheid" but has always consisted of a set of arguments about whether Israeli apartheid exists.
Much of the article now consists of quotes from people who do not say Israel practices apartheid, but instead compare current practices to apartheid or say that Israel might some day practice apartheid.
Recently many facts have been added that sound scary in the context of this article, but does anyone consider them to be examples of apartheid? What is the 2005 Gaza withdrawal doing in this article?
Could one of the "keep" voters please explain, succinctly, what this article is about?
Furthermore, much as we have a well-meaning wish to help the reader understand whether there is validity to allegations of Israeli apartheid, it's not something that can really be covered in an encyclopedic fashion because the term "apartheid" in modern, colloquial discourse has no concrete operational criteria. (Yes, a definition of crime of apartheid exists, but if we restricted the article to that definition it would practically disappear.) You can have a coherent, NPOV article about whether Israel practices discrimination or genocide or war crimes or torture, because these are all well-defined terms. "Apartheid," as most of the sources used in this article use it, is a vague political insult. Su-Laine Yeo 06:43, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, and merge any true human rights issues into Human rights in Israel As Sue-Laine eloquently said, this article has morphed and been changed to continue its survival so many times, that to me it seems apparent that its goal is more to disparage Israel than to inform as to facts.We now have an article for human rights issues, anything that is a valid issue should be (and likely already can be) found in that article. The current purpose of this article is now defunct, and it should be removed. Avi 13:44, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Per 84.238.25.152's reasoning, I think it is silly for such allegations to have its own article. However, I think Szvest is correct that it belongs on Wikipedia. Just like various blood libels, it is used enough that it is a notable enough for inclusion. Where to put it then? Per Avraham, I think it sounds logical to merge the NPOV bits into Human rights in Israel. -- Where 15:18, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Unsavoury subject, but a very real political discussion (or propaganda battle, if you prefer) of which neutral coverage is certaily encyclopedic. Do not merge into Human rights in Israel, because that article is too long already. Sandstein 16:05, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete -- any legitimate concerns about human rights violations should be dealt with in the neutral article on the subject, without all of the problems inherent in a title like this one. TewfikTalk 18:40, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. propaganda buzzword. -- tascwordsdeeds 19:11, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete if this is actually an article about the argument that Israel is an "apartheid state" rather than an article trying to advocate or advance that argument, as some here argue, it hardly seems encyclopedic. If we have to have articles about every instance an epithet is used on someone in a new way (Ann Coulter's "church of liberalism" or 9/11 victims as "little Eichmann's" in the very recent past come to mind) wikipedia is going to seem less like an encyclopedia and more like a collection of badly written flamewars about topics that are ultimately going to be completely irrelevant. GabrielF 19:13, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Per Su-Laine and others. IronDuke 19:38, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete we do not need articles based on an allegation or based on a viewpoint. Issues related to Israeli internal policy, society, culture, etc, can be explored in the related articles. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 20:03, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. "Apartheid" is just a more pejorative rhetoric term for "Segregation". --Heptortalk 20:19, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete because it cannot be made NPOV like most "allegations" type articles: the selection of whose allegations of what about whom is inherently POV. If someone called Clinton a "pinko", or does the mere existence of the urban myth of how Clinton supposedly sought Soviet citizenship during his visit to Moscow, do we get to start Allegations of Clinton's communism, if someone claims that Muhammad's wife was under 18, do we get Allegations of Muhammad's child molestation? Don't think so...and yes, both allegations have been made. Carlossuarez46 22:08, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per jossi. AnnH♫ 22:17, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete der jossi. This is an attack page. SlimVirgin(talk) 23:02, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, article has improved since I proposed it for deletion a few months ago and the title is now NPOV. fullsome prison 23:47, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per Carlossuarez46 abakharev 23:56, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per johnny cash. ReverendG 23:58, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep of course. The original title was better; but this is silly politicing that just repeats the prior AfD with no new reason. LotLE×talk 00:05, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep How many times do we have to do this dance? "Israeli Aparthied" would obviously be more NPOV a title as that is the exact claim... His Excellency... 00:26, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep of course we should keep it. As previously discussed, the term is in wide use, there are weighty arguments supporting the usage, there are scholarly works using the term. And unfortunately, the phenomenon also exists. If I thought you could get rid of something by deleting the Wikipedia article, there's a lot that comes to mind. . . RolandR 01:00, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Although lacks available scholary information (see Talk:Israeli_apartheid/RS#Reliable_sources:_scholary_articles), so rewrite is in order under title that is in line with WP:TTILE, focussing on scholary studies comparing the Israeli situation with South African apartheid. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 01:19, 10 August 2006 (UTC) Changed my vote, to mush scholary information to merge with other article. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 21:09, 11 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, agee with the others. --Daniel575 01:23, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per Svest and RJH or merge per Avi and/or Kim van der Linde. heqs 02:51, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Significant way of framing the controversy. Fred Bauder 03:07, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete propaganda. Pertinent details on these allegations are already in the article Apartheid_outside_of_South_Africa and also in Israeli West Bank barrier. It is POV and unencyclopedic to single out one country for special demonization, and the term itself, "Israeli apartheid", is novel and a neologism. --MPerel ( talk | contrib) 03:21, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The problem with this assessment is that there's a tonne of recent literature on the subject from credible, academic sources -- some of it dating back twenty years. CJCurrie 03:51, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Is there? All the serious stuff I've seen has been about the way the term is used, or else discussing discrimination in general. I've not seen a single, serious academic source (i.e. a scholar who is employed in a relevant field in a university) argue that there's such a thing as "Israeli apartheid." SlimVirgin(talk) 04:37, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Glaser, D. J. 2003. Zionism and Apartheid: a moral comparison. Ethnic and Racial Studies 26:403-421. (pdf available on request)
GREENBERG, STANLEY 1980 Race and State in Capitalist Development: South Africa in Comparative Perspective, Johannesburg: Ravan Press
AKENSON, DONALD HARMAN 1992 God’s Peoples: Covenant and Land in South Africa, Israel, and Ulster, Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press
Just to give three of the sources... -- Kim van der Linde at venus 04:55, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
None of the sources you cite (and you know this already) allege that there is such a thing as "Israeli apartheid," as I said above. That is the problem with this article. Not one academic source (that I am aware of) says there is actually such a thing. SlimVirgin(talk) 06:56, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe read those sources
Glasier 2003: Drawing on a range of historical and sociological evidence, it shows that this claim (or accusation) is substantially justified in two senses. Firstly, Israeli Zionism is, in many areas, morally bad in the same way as apartheid; secondly, where it is different from apartheid in character, it is in some respects anyway as bad – that is, the difference is not invariably morally favourable to Israeli Zionism.
Glasier 2003: Israeli Zionism resembles apartheid in a range of ways recognizable to specialists in comparative race relations, and indeed scholars have done interesting historical-sociological work on the similarities and differences between them (e.g. Greenberg 1980, Akenson 1992). -- Kim van der Linde at venus 14:52, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
"Dr. Uri Davis is an honorary research fellow at the University of Durham's Institute for Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies (IMEIS) and at the University of Exeter's Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies (IAIS)." That is from Uri Davis, article on the man who wrote "Israel: An Apartheid State". Based on the reasons being given I suspect that many of the people voting here have not actually read the article they want to delete. 62.156.190.36 05:00, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, this was your first edit. Did you forget to log in? Su-Laine Yeo 06:56, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Kim, you've said yourself ([1]), that none of these sources actually allege that Israel practices apartheid. What these sources do is compare Israel's practices to apartheid. Nuanced comparison is what scholars do. Reducing a complex situation into a slogan, like "Israeli apartheid," is what activists do. Su-Laine Yeo 06:46, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If you talk about the term perse, yes you are correct. However, scholars do make comparisons between South Africa and Israel, and their conclusions are straightforward. On the title of the article, the current is POV, as it denies the scholary studies, but for the rest, I do not care abut the exact title, see my comment above. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 06:51, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, let's look at those sources. They seem to level the "apartheid" charge not only at Israel's treatment of the population of the West Bank and Gaza, but at "Zionism" as a whole -- in other words, at the belief that there should be a State of Israel as a Jewish state. That being the case, the "merge" (if any) probably should be into Zionism and racism. I know that that article has its own problems, but since it is already there, the fact that some people have chosen to use a word in another language ("apartheid") to refer to a related concept, does not merit a separate article with that word in the title. And I know the argument will be that the resulting article would be too long, but this article really does not need to be as long as it is anyway. We do not need to be citing every article in every little magazine, or every master's thesis, that refers to the issue. I think a lot of the sources are in there solely due to the controversy over the article's existence, to "make weight" for keeping it as a separate article. 6SJ7 15:43, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Apartheid goes way further than racism, but merging this article with that article and renaming that to Zionism-apartheid comparison (or something like that) would be a very usefull alternative approach. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 16:14, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. WP doesn't need this article any more than it needs Allegations of Jews drinking Christian blood. The info can fit very well into related articles, such as Israeli West Bank barrier and, well, Israel. POV fork. --Chodorkovskiy(talk) 03:34, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Delete OR and POV magnet. The article is essentially about comparing the Israeli-Arab relations with South African aparthed. The comparisons are OR. Let's put out verified sourced statements about what exactly the Israelis are doing to the Palestinians and let the reader decide whether or not to draw comparisons to South African apartheid. - CrazyRussiantalk/email 05:19, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. An article here will give both sides their view. The term is widely used, and deserves thus encyclopaedic coverage. Bertilvidet 06:04, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. I do not endorse them, but the allegations are often made. --Ezeu 06:21, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. Evolver of Borg 06:57, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, Merge or Rename - the title is perhaps not the best (perhaps something like "Ethnical discrimination in Israel" would be better), but in no way should the information be lost. // Liftarn
Very Strong Keep. Whether or not the article is NPOV in its current state is a consideration for cleanup tagging, not deletion. We don't delete articles for being poor quality, we delete articles because the topic they are about don't deserve an article. In this case, the allegations are there, they have been extensively referenced proving that the concept or the term Israeli apartheid is verifiable and notable whether or not it actually exists, so obviously keep. Don't like the way it's written? ((sofixit)) Loom91 10:10, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I really dislike the SoFixIt phrase. I also heard it in the Immigrant deaths along the U.S.-Mexico border AfD debate. It is a very big problem with WP that people create articles that are inherently POV and fob off all critcs with an arrogant "So fix it...". The burden of justifying controversial articles must lie on those who made them. Medico80 11:44, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per Khoikhoi. --Yakudza 10:45, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. As per Ian Pitchford, I'd also support renaming to Israeli apartheid. The article can (should) explore the validity of such a phrase, but the phrase has been used for several years -- much longer than Islamofascism, for example. There is no question that it will be a POV lightening rod, but so are other articles in Wikipedia. TedTalk/Contributions 11:20, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. This is the third AfD on this, anyone want to start taking bets on when the fourth will be? --Ben Houston 12:05, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The second nomination was a purposeful disruption by a strawman sockpuppet (see User:SoCalJustice), precisely so that it could get a Speedy Keep designation. It lasted all of 34 minutes. This is in fact only the second AfD. The article has had a great deal of time to mature since the first AfD, but instead of getting better, it's only gotten worse. --MPerel ( talk | contrib) 20:03, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I do not agree with your assessment, but everyone is entitled to their own opinion. --Ben Houston 20:47, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep deleting articles on genuine contraversial issues is not the WP way --BozMotalk 12:07, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nom --217.91.40.148 13:46, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep I was asked via E-mail to take a look at this. As I recall, I voted delete in the last one. Perhpas I was wrong. As the result of the last one was speedy keep, I see no need for this AfD at all. :) Dlohcierekim 21:11, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I voted keep on the first one. The result on the second one was speedy keep. However, I would much appreciate any contact being via my talkpage. I believe in a transparent wikipedia. E-mailing me about a vote on a highly charged and controversial subject gives the appearance of vote stacking and tarnishes my credibility if I do choose to vote. :) Dlohcierekim 21:19, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep The article is heavily referenced... making the claims of 'original research' and 'unverifiability' seem nonsensical. NPOV is often a matter of perspective, but frankly irrelevant to a deletion debate. If it isn't neutral we change the wording, not delete it. See NO basis whatsoever for this deletion nom. It is a meme which passes notability. People will certainly be looking for information about it. The forced renaming was a silly abrogation of Wikipedia's naming conventions fueled by POV... this nom strays over from there into attempting to enshrine POV bias as a Wikipedia standard. --CBD 21:51, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per Bertilvidet. --DieWeibeRose 23:51, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete it has no basis here, it is just pushing propaganda, and does not show an accurate history. Delete. Shamir1 04:17, 11 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - definitely a notable POV, with 80,000 Google hits and numerous scholarly and academic sources referring to the concept. Article is also well referenced. No reason at all for deletion as far as I can see. Might possibly be an argument though for changing the title or broadening the subject matter, but that's another issue. Gatoclass 12:31, 11 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. Wikipedia is not a platform for propaganda. Pecher Talk 14:53, 11 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. POV is not grounds for deletion. POV is correctable through judicious editing and collaboration-- the hallmark of Wikipedia at its best. As to purported inaccuracy, the benchmark is Verifiability and not whether or not one agrees with the information presented. The article is large enough to stand on its own and would overly expand other articles. Does not violate WP:NOT. WP is not a paper encyclopedia and can thus accommodate items that would not fit in one. The article is about an (alleged) phenomenon and controversial subject that needs to be treated evenhandedly without censorship based on politics. Any "propaganda" needs to be countered with verifiable information that tells the other side of the story. :) Dlohcierekim 15:06, 11 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. This article is an attack on the legitimacy of the very existance of Israel. It's a disgrace to Wikipedia and to the article's supporters. Noon 16:57, 11 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
What does this has to do w/ the existance right of Israel? Could you develop your idea? -- Szvest 17:08, 11 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
To apply the term "Apartheid" to Israel's policies, which is totally false, is a way to delegitimate Israel, with the hope that it will end the same way the Apartheid regime in SA ended. Thats why. Noon 17:28, 11 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Noon, you mean the regime and not the statehood. It should be rather an "attack on the legitimacy" of the regime than. -- Szvest 18:00, 11 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Those who use the term "Apartheid" in reference to Israeli policies are probably POV, but pointing out that those allegations exist, and explaining their point of view from a neutral point of view, is bonafide. --Ezeu 17:49, 11 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
But there doesn't have to be a separate article about it, nor one that has the word "apartheid" in the title. 6SJ7 17:56, 11 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
In which case the correct course of action would be merging, not deleting. -- ChrisO 18:01, 11 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, it appears the material is already amply covered in other articles in a less POV soapboxy way. HGB 17:35, 11 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, allegations of Israeli apartheid are commonplace, and noteworthy, so they need to be covered in an encyclopedia. The article has covered the issue well, and should be allowed to continue to do so without censorship. Carl Kenner 18:07, 11 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep as per Carl and strong suspicion of bad faith AfD nom. --Strothra 18:08, 11 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Speedy keep. Please see WP:DEL#Abuse of deletion process: "XfD(deletion) processes are not a way to complain or remove material that is personally disliked, whose perspective is against ones beliefs, or which is not yet presented neutrally. Using XfD as a "protest strategy" in an editorial or NPOV debate is generally an abuse of process and the article will usually be speedy kept." Without making a judgment on the worth of the article in question, Haham hanuka's nomination is a clear abuse of process. I note also that Haham hanuka has just recently been blocked for a week for another abuse of process on AfD and has a long history of blocks for 3RR and revert warring (see [2]). I've asked for this deletion vote to be closed. -- ChrisO 18:14, 11 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep Where else but Wikipedia am I supposed to go for a sourced NPOV article of what the (to me) bizzare notion of "Israeli apartheid" is supposed to be about? WAS 4.250 18:16, 11 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
keep and improve. There is a very large published literature on this topic. Under such conditions, I think it is wise for the Wikipedia community to be very selective and make an organized effort to identify and cite mostly peer-reviewed scholarly articles (see: Wikipedia:Reliable sources). I suspect that there are enough scholarly, well referenced and peer-reviewed articles from professional historians and sociologists to provide an account of this topic. Maybe near the bottom of the article there could be one small paragraph for "Media coverage" and a very selective account of commentary from blogs, reporters and media pundits could be restricted to that paragraph. --JWSchmidt 19:54, 11 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Note. It is in fact extremely POV to pretend (whether one agrees with it or not) that there are no allegations of Israeli apartheid. --Ezeu 20:10, 11 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. If this gets merged with other articles, information might get lost. -- Dissident (Talk) 21:06, 11 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.