User:Aminz/rfc

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In order to remain listed at Wikipedia:Requests for comment, at least two people need to show that they tried to resolve a dispute with this user and have failed. This must involve the same dispute with a single user, not different disputes or multiple users. The persons complaining must provide evidence of their efforts, and each of them must certify it by signing this page with ~~~~. If this does not happen within 48 hours of the creation of this dispute page (which was: 21:26, 20 December 2006 (UTC)), the page will be deleted. The current date and time is: 13:29, 8 April 2007 (UTC).

---

The following users involved in "Anti-Semitism" related article:

• Beit Or (talk • contribs • logs)
• Humus sapiens (talk • contribs • logs)
• Jayjg (talk • contribs • logs)

Note: Some guess that User:Beit Or is the same as User:Pecher. If true more evidences can be presented.

---

Users should only edit one summary or view, other than to endorse.

Contents 1 Statement of the dispute 1.1 Description 1.2 Evidence of disputed behavior 1.3 Applicable policies and guidelines 1.4 Evidence of trying and failing to resolve the dispute 1.5 Users certifying the basis for this dispute 1.6 Other users who endorse this summary 2 Response 3 Outside view 4 Outside view 5 Outside view 6 Discussion 7 Merzbow's outside view

[edit] Statement of the dispute

Some editors sharing a POV on Anti-Semitism article are alleged to timewasting attempts to trash sound academic research, and are alleged to have been violated WP:RS, WP:NPOV.

[edit] Description

Particular wiki-policies that are violated in timewasting attempts to trash sound academic research. Please note that this is not a content dispute. Preference of a conservative journalist over scholars like Bernard Lewis, or outright dismissing scholarly works like Encyclopedia of Islam by users who are apparently well aware of the policies is not a content dispute.

1. Violations of WP:RS and WP:NPOV

#1 Removal of the quotes from Encyclopedia of Islam, the standard encyclopaedia of the academic discipline of Islamic studies. Examples: [1], [2], [3]

The article in Encyclopedia of Islam is written by Claude Cahen a distinguished Islamic historian (According to Prof. Mark Cohen), "an eminent authority" (in words of S.D. Goitein another renowned scholar whom these editors themselves approve and use). The above quote was taken from the Dhimmi article by Cahen. S.D. Goitein describes this article as "For Islam, see the concise, up-to-date, and authorative article "Dhimma" by Claude Cahen in EI, which registers also the relevant material." Another example of removal of sourced material is User:Beit Or's edits on Claude Cahen's article: [4]

Other evidences presented in support of Cahen's quote: Encyclopedias writing about anti-semitism and Medieval times don't mention Islam at all: examples: Encyclopedia of The Medieval World History on Anti-Semitism, Encyclopedia of The Middle Ages on Anti-Judiasm, Dictionary of The Middle Ages on Anti-Semitism

When User:BhaiSaab asked User:Humus Spaiens to read the Encyclopedia of Islam article, he dismissed the reliability of the source based on his own views [5]. To Humus sapiens, Encyclopedia of Islam is a POV teritary source which must be removed [6]

#2 Usage of unreliable sources over reliable ones. These users consider Paul Johnson (journalist), a conservative journalist who has only a lower-second class degree in Jesuit method (which is not even Islamic studies or Jewish studies), to be more reliable than Bernard Lewis & Claude Cahen for the following reasons:

Johnson's publications are have likely outsold those of Lewis by a wide margin (diffs [7] and [8])

Encyclopedia of Islam, Brill academic publisher, the source in which Claude Cahen has published his article is a POV teritary source. [9]

Johnson has a lot of publications.

In fact, the book written by Johnson, the conservative journalist, is not peer reviewed either. It is published by "New York: HarperCollins Publishers", not a univ press or other ones which particularly publish scholarly books. I have introduced many sources to them including Bernard Lewis, Claude Cahen, Norman Stillman, etc etc but they insist in using the conservative journalist despite existence of several other sources.

Humus Sapeins believes Johnson is a notable historian [10] and I was accused of attempting to remove material that does not correspond to your POV.[11].

#3 Removal of views of scholars such as Bernard Lewis, Norman Stillman and S. D. Goitein. Before that, we need to to see the views within academia of the subject. My research shows that there are two academic POVs regarding traditional Islam:

• 1. There was no antisemitism. Examples of scholars who state that: Claude Cahen, Bernard Lewis: Quotes:

- Bernard Lewis: "Prejudices existed in the Islamic world, as did occasional hostility, but not what could be called anti-Semitism"

- Claude Cahen: "There is nothing in mediaeval Islam which could specifically be called anti-semitism." (This very sentence is also quote by Mark Cohen)

- Nissim Rejwan: "Anti-Semitism, then, is an exclusively Christian phenomenon and, as such, a predominantly Western one. It is therefore both historically wrong and morally inexcusable to try to apply the term to non-Christian and non-Western societies."[12]

• 2. Antisemitism was not absent as it is assumed. There was little antisemitism:

- S.D. Goeith: "Still “anti-Semitism,” that is, hostility directed against the Jewish community, was not entirely absent from medieval islam, as has been assumed." The footnote for "as has been assumed" says: "Even by such an eminent authority as Claude Cahen (in the EI article quoted above)"

- The Oxford Dictionary of the Jewish Religion writes: "In the Muslim world, antisemitism developments were far less overt, except in periods of religous extremism. There was little specific antisemitism, and Jews were treated (or ill-treated) like other infidels."

• 3. In modern times, Norman Stillman writes: "Increased European commercial, missionary and imperialist activities within the Muslim world during the 19th and 20th centuries introduced anti-Semitic ideas and literature into the region. At first these prejudices only found a reception among Arabic-speaking Christian protégés of the Europeans in Syria, Lebanon and Egypt and were too new and too palpably foreign for any widespread acceptance among Muslims. However, with the ever-increasing conflict between Arabs and Jews in Palestine during the period of the British Mandate, the language and imagery of European anti-Semitism began to appear in political polemics both in the nationalist press and in books."

I was progressively working on this section. The last final version which I ended up with but was reverted is as follows: [13]

#4 Removal of Tags.

Given the above disputes, these users remove the dispute tags from the articles:

[14], [15], [16], [17]

#5 Dismissing reliable sources by calling them polemic, or being anti-Zionist:

• Source: Nissim Rejwan, Israel's Place in the Middle East: A Pluralist Perspective, University Press of Florida. User Jayjg: "Rejwan is a polemist"[18]. Please note that the book is published by a university press and Nissim Rejwan is a research fellow at the Harry Truman Institute for the Advancement of Peace at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

2. Double Standards

User:Humus spiens, used the scholar S. D. Goitein (a famous scholar of Jewish studies) when it was quoted by the journalist but removed it when I added it. In fact, even the journalist refers to Goitein as a "great scholar". I was expecting and requested User:Humus spiens to add back the scholarly quotes but instead he added another quote from the journalist.

User:Jayjg while accepts the *un-peer-reviewed* work of a journalist, is over-skeptical of a peer-reviewed article from the Journal of Palestine Studies which could be found in JSTOR .[19]. As explained on the talk page, the article is published by Journal of Palestine Studies, a normal academic journal published and distributed by University of California Press, Berkeley. The fact that the editorial board of this journal has reviewed the article and accepted it makes it reliable as a source. For relevant discussion, please follow Talk:New antisemitism section "Aminz' edit" - edits made after 23:40, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Evidence of disputed behavior

(Provide diffs. Links to entire articles aren't helpful unless the editor created the entire article. Edit histories also aren't helpful as they change as new edits are performed.)

Examples of removal of quotes from Encyclopedia of Islam and replacing them with one of a journalist: [20], [21], [22]

Preference of a journalist over scholars like Bernard Lewis (diffs [23] and [24])

Given all that history of disputes, recently the users were refusing to have a disputed tag on the Islam & anti-semitism related articles. Beit Or viewed my posting of the tag as warring against consensus.[25], [26], [27], [28]

Dismissing sources: e.g. Nissim Rejwan, Israel's Place in the Middle East: A Pluralist Perspective, University Press of Florida. User Jayjg: "Rejwan is a polemist"[29] and Encyclopedia of Islam and Muslim world by Macmillan reference and Concise Encyclopedia by Altamira Press are either badly incomplete or badly biased or both.[30]

[edit] Applicable policies and guidelines

WP:RS

WP:NPOV

[edit] Evidence of trying and failing to resolve the dispute

(provide diffs and links)

[31] + a lot of discussions on the talk page of Antisemitism

[32]

[33]

[34]

[edit] Users certifying the basis for this dispute

{Users who tried and failed to resolve the dispute}

Aminz 22:29, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

TruthSpreader^reply 13:23, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Other users who endorse this summary

1. Bless sins 07:32, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Response

This is a summary written by the user whose conduct is disputed, or by other users who think that the dispute is unjustified and that the above summary is biased or incomplete. Users signing other sections ("Statement of the dispute" and "Outside Views") should not edit the "Response" section.

{Add summary here, but you must use the endorsement section below to sign. Users who edit or endorse this summary should not edit the other summaries.}

Users who endorse this summary:

[edit] Outside view

This is a content dispute that is better resolved at talk page. I do not see this dispute to be any different from hundred others in Wikipedia. If there is a specific issue with a user, file a user RfC. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 03:36, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary:

[edit] Outside view

This is a summary written by users not directly involved with the dispute but who would like to add an outside view of the dispute. Users editing other sections ("Statement of the dispute" and "Response") should not edit the "Outside Views" section, except to endorse an outside view.

I used to follow these pages actively, but I don't any more, and I don't know the current condition of the articles. Based on past experience, I think Aminz has a point. There are two views, and both should be presented with due weight, as they are supported by reliable sources. At least some of the sources Aminz mentions are reliable works by respected scholars, and should be included.

I do not think any of the involved users is insincere. Based on our study and experience, we all have an understanding of history. We naturally find more reliable the sources that support that understanding. Within those sources, we find most significant the quotes that support our understanding.

These are large and complex subjects. Part of the problem in my view is generalization. Islam was not one thing over 1500 years of history, it was not uniform, and not everything that happened was attributable to Islam. The way Jews were treated in Constantinople in 1830 was probably not the way they were treated in 16th century Isfahan. Smaller, more focused articles might help.

None of this should be personal. My ancestors did lots of things good and bad, none of which say anything at all about me. Almost everyone is a man of his time. George Washington grew tobacco, distilled whiskey, owned slaves, and went to church. That does not in some way invalidate the US presidency as an institution, or show that Christianity is morally bankrupt, or that Washington was a bad man. There is no point in explicitly or implicitly applying today's moral standards retrospectively, and doing so is contrary to good scholarly practice.

We enforce our policies on sources and neutrality by editorial consensus. As a result, a majority of the editors who work on a page determines what sources to use on that page. This does not always give the best result, but I don't know an alternative.

Users who endorse this summary:

1. Tom Harrison ^Talk 14:36, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
2. Merzbow 00:24, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
3. Proabivouac 07:44, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Outside view

Tom makes some good points here. Regarding the first few diffs, BhaiSaab was wrong in removing the Paul Johnson material, but Humus was wrong in removing the Enc of Islam material, and he was wrong in classifying that enc as POV - perhaps he mistakingly thought it was an Islamic enc as opposed to an enc about Islam? Anyways, both sources were reliable (enough) and could easily have been summarized and included in the article.

Humus' reversion of the material presenting the views of scholars who didn't think there was traditional Islam was overly aggressive. Again, there was a place in the article for that material.

Jayg's comments that Johnson has outsold Lewis seem not very relevant; for example, Karen Armstrong has outsold all of them, yet she's an absolutely terrible historian. As far as the comments about how notable the views of minor scholars like Rejwan are, I don't know enough about them to comment. If their views are truly a small minority, they only deserve small, if any, representation in the relevant articles. This has to be hashed out on Talk with lots of evidence. - Merzbow 00:24, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary:

1. Merzbow 00:24, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
2. I'm not clear this is an adequate "summary," but I agree with Merzbow's points.Proabivouac 04:44, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion

[edit] Merzbow's outside view

Thanks for your comment. User:Humus sapeins was asked to read the article on Encyclopedia of Islam (edit by BhaiSaab on 05:56, 21 November 2006 (UTC); antisemitism talk page) Humus sapeins replied :"After that quote it doesn't seem trustworthy." Humus sapiens argues that evidences like Shiraz blood libel are antisemitism but only a reliable source is required to make such connections. Antisemitism is a theological hostility towards Jews.

I believe Paul Johnson (journalist) is not a reliable source on Islam, for the reasons stated in the RfC page. He has only a second-lower class degree in Jesuit studies and more importantly, his work is not published in a university press in which blind peer-review is practiced. Rijwan is not a minority view. Claude Cahen in the Encyclopedia of Islam says that "There is nothing in mediaeval Islam which could specifically be called anti-semitism." Bernard Lewis says that "Prejudices existed in the Islamic world, as did occasional hostility, but not what could be called anti-Semitism". --Aminz 01:49, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

I've been looking over some of the blood libel articles. I think decisions on sourcing necessarily have to be made there. I lean toward inclusion, subject to due weight, article length, and good writing - pages should stay on topic, and topics should be spun off to their own pages and summarized. Beyond that I can't say much, having really not much expertise in the area. I am surprised to hear Antisemitism described as theological hostility. I thougt it was based on ethnicity, but maybe the pretext for ill treatment has varied with time and place. Tom Harrison ^Talk 02:06, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

The Oxford Dictionary of the Jewish Religion states (and has only to say the following on Islam):

"In the Muslim world, antisemitism developments were far less overt, except in periods of religous extremism. There was little specific antisemitism, and Jews were treated (or ill-treated) like other infidels."

Therefore the discriminative nature of the persecution is very important. --Aminz 02:09, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Encyclopedia of Islam states: "there had been scarcely any difference in the treatment accorded to Christians and Jews (at most they were distinguished by prescribed differences in dress); but it later came about that some categories of d̲h̲immī s were looked on as friends of foreign powers and were worse treated, and naturally some Christians were in this respect more of a target than the Jews. There is nothing in mediaeval Islam which could specifically be called anti-semitism." --Aminz 02:12, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

I provided a lot of academic evidences here Talk:Antisemitism#Various_Academic_Sources_on_Anti-Semitism.3B_My_final_try But User:Humus sapiens's reply to all of these evidence was :"No quote in the world can remove historical facts. By now you should remember the list: dhimmi, mellah, etc. ←Humus sapiens ну? 05:38, 18 December 2006 (UTC)"

BTW, the articles on Shiraz blood libel etc etc are all written based on the works of Bat Ye'or or Littman. --Aminz 02:17, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

'Shiraz blood libel' references Littman, but the others in Category:Blood libel seem not to. I found Rhodes blood libel an interesting read. Tom Harrison ^Talk 02:40, 24 December 2006 (UTC)