User:GHcool

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

About Me

This user is of Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry.

This user lives in or hails from Los Angeles.

en	This user is a native speaker of English.

BA	This user has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Film.

A	This user is an adult.

This user is a citizen of the United States of America.

A, B, and C

This user prefers the serial comma.

This user participates in
WikiProject Israel.

This user is a member of WikiProject Films.

This user is a member of WikiProject Filmmaking.

This user thinks that registration should be required to edit articles.

I am a Los Angeles, California native working in the film and television industry with eight years of filmmaking experience in various fields of production. I have a degree in Cinema and Television Arts from California State University, Northridge where I have researched and written various film criticisms and historical analyses. I also have an interest in Israel-related topics.

1 Wikipedia contributions
2 Views on Israel
- 2.1 What are the origins of the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict?
- 2.2 Accusations vs. Reality

[edit] Wikipedia contributions

I contributed substantially to the following articles. Articles marked with an "A" mean that, to the best of my understanding, they represent a reasonably complete picture of the issue. Articles marked with a "B" are incomplete and I encourage other Wikipidians to add or delete any information necessary.

[edit] Film production

Favorite source: The Filmmaker's Handbook by Steven Ascher and Edward Pincus

[edit] Specific films

Favorite source: The Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

[edit] Middle East

Favorite source (historical analysis): The Continuum Political Encyclopedia of the Middle East edited by Avraham Sela.
Favorite source (contemporary commentary): The Case for Peace by Alan Dershowitz

[edit] Miss Nelson

[edit] Views on Israel

I find that Wikipedians are a largely moderate bunch trying to find and publicize truth. However, there are some bad apples in every bunch who are trying to disseminate disinformation about Israel on talk pages and within articles. Rather than stand idlely by or commit the same straw man or ad hominem logical fallacies committed by the people who are abusing this website, I prefer systematically debunking disinformation inspired by two popular books on the subject: Alan M. Dershowitz's The Case for Israel and Mitchell G. Bard's Myths and Facts.

One way that fair-minded Wikipedians could help is by not getting emotionally involved in an argument with an anti-Semitic or anti-verifiability Wikipedian. Remember that most of these people are just ignorant beyond reason and that you must not stoop to their level. As calmly as you can, disect their accusations without resorting to their straw man and ad hominem tactics. Remember that the truth is its own defense. Lastly, remember that not all criticisms of Israeli policy are anti-Semetic or necessarily wrong. Have enough courage to treat a true claim with respect, even if you do not agree with the claimer's conclusion. And keep informed on Israel and read about her history.

I recieved the following e-mail from Mitchell G. Bard on January 20, 2007: Thanks for your kind words and suggestions. You are quite right about Wikipedia and it is very important people like you monitor what's being posted there. I've heard of some problems from time to time."

[edit] What are the origins of the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict?

Ignorance about the origins of the Palestinian problem is perhaps the most common reason for Israel's critics to be so critical. The following is a summary of the historical narrative as I understand it. Feel free to disagree with me, but be prepared to produce solid evidence from reliable sources or else I will not be swayed.

To the best of my understanding, most of the present-day Palestinian refugees are decendents of Arabs (mostly Muslims) who lived in the area that is now known as Israel. These Arabs were mostly peasant agriculturalists, called felaheen, with an economy and sense of land ownership based largely on collective farming. The Jewish Zionists started emigrating to Palestine en masse after waves of anti-Semitism in Russia in the early 20th century, during which time the wealthier Jews legally bought land from the ruling Ottoman Turks and gave jobs to fellow Jews. The felaheen could not compete with the capitalistic system of land ownership that the Jews were using to their own advantage. By the time of the British Mandate, the economic disparities between Palestinians was perceived to be so large that riots against both Jews and Arabs in the upper classes started to become common. In 1947, the U.N. partitioned the country into two states: one Jewish, one Arab. The Arabs rejected the Partition Plan while the Jews accepted. In 1948, David Ben Gurion declared the independence of the State of Israel and all hell broke loose. The two results of the Israeli War of Independence is the present-day State of Israel and the present-day Palestinian refugee problem.

[edit] Accusations vs. Reality

Below I have compiled the accusations I have debunked on various talk pages:

[edit] Are official Israeli sources reliable?

[edit] Accusations

"I believe the integrity of the encyclopedia is severely compromised by references to Israeli government web-sites. ... Israeli government web-sites should come with a 'health-warning'." - PalestineRemembered. Talk:Hezbollah/Archive 8. October 2006.
"This claim that Hezbollah targets civilians is a deranged Zionist POV which flagrantly violates Wikipedia's NPOV policy." - Jacob Peters. Talk:Hezbollah/Archive 8. October 2006.
"The IDF are the ones who are dishonest by claiming that every male killed in Lebanon was a member of Hezbollah." - Carbonate. Talk:Hezbollah/Archive 8. 00:42, 24 October 2006 (UTC).

[edit] Reality

If Wikipedia did not quote the Israeli government on the issue of Hezbollah, the integrity of the encyclopedia would be severely compromised. The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs and army are as reliable as any other country's Ministry of Foreign Affairs or army. The Al Qaeda article cites the foreign affairs offices of the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada without any challenge to the reliability (or "worthiness") of those nations' foreign affairs office. Because Israel is a democracy and has a greater degree of freedom of the press than any other nation facing similar circumstances reguarding its security, much of what the IDF and the government claim can be easily verified by independent research. Critics of Israel could easily do their own research into official Israeli claims rather than flat-out condemning them all as "unreliable."

As for the claim that Hezbollah does not purposefully target Israeli civilian areas, there are countless sources documenting the opposite.

Further information: Targeting of civilian areas in the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict

I was in Haifa (Israel's third largest city) this summer and saw the aftermath of Hezbollah's wrath with my own eyes. As for the claim that Israel distorts collateral damage statistics, I challenge anyone to find definative proof from a reliable source of a claim by any IDF or any Israeli government official or publication stating that "every male killed in Lebanon was a member of Hezbollah."

[edit] Is Zionism a racist ideology?

[edit] Accusations

"To say that [racial discrimination] cannot be connected to the Zionist movement is false. ... By allowing the content in the intro [of the article on Zionism and racism] as it is, you want to have it both ways... first it says that discrimination is okay because the jewish [sic] people have suffered discrimination, then it says that it is not 'the majority view of Zionism.'" - Pco. Talk:Zionism_and_racism#Zionism_and_racism_Intro. December 2006.
"With Israeli President Olmert's [sic] approval rating below 20% due to his strict Zionist policies toward separating all Jews from all Muslims, one must assume that the majority of Israel's citizens are not Zionist." - Pco. Zionism. 13 December 2006. Jpgordon was correct in reverting this edit for "either WP:NPOV or WP:NOR."[1]
"Similar to George Bush's statement 'You are either with us, or you are with the terrorists', [Israeli Prime Minister Ehud] Olmert was quoted as saying 'Whoever believes in the right of the Jewish People to have a sovereign Jewish state in any part of the Land of Israel is a Zionist." - Pco. Talk:Zionism#Modern_Zionism_.28in_progress.29. 20:40, 17 December 2006 (UTC).
"Zionism is a political movement rooted in religious doctrine. If wikipedia [sic] doesn't state that Zionism is both religious and political right from the beginning (which is why it is undemocratic) then wikipedia [sic] is giving bias to the term in favor of the State of Israel. ... If I decided to make California for Atheists only ..., then you would see that as a racist and religiously discriminatory idea, .... No one would call zionism [sic] racism if the goal of the state was not obviously to deny the existence of all non-jews.[sic]" - 71.135.36.250. Talk:Zionism#First_Sentence_is_POV. December 2006. Not surprisingly, 71.135.36.250 was later discovered to be a sockpuppet for Pco not long after she made the above statement.
"[Y]ou simply don't like what the president of Israel and others have said because it proves that zionism [sic] is discrimination through political rhetoric - no matter how you slice it. ... I'm not saying it's evil, the articles [that she derives her conclusions from] say it themselves. I am referencing the articles that say these things, you just don't want to admit it. Democracy cannot exist with Zionism because Zionism by definition is for Jews only. Why can't you admit that? Why can't you let me state the truth? You are the one that is POV ... how can there be consensus with 10 zionists [sic] against one secular?" - Pco addressing SlimVirgin, a well-respected administrator on Wikipedia. User_talk:Pco#Original_research. 26 December 2006.
"[I]t's impossible to insert any evidence against Zionist politicians [on Wikipedia without it being reverted], no matter how well referenced and indeed proud they may be of their murderous racism." - PalestineRemembered. Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard. 20:32, 31 December 2006 (UTC).

[edit] Reality

Pco is actually Darrow Boggiano, the founder of Political Cooperative, a far-left faux political party in the United States.[2] As a member of WikiProject Israel, Pco implicitly agreed to abide by the project's stated "Goals" which clearly state that members should "[c]reate and maintain fair and unbiased information on Israel." Sadly, Pco has failed this obligation at every level by distributing disinformation throughout talk pages (which is bad enough), but also within articles without citations or consensus (which is unforgivable).

Like most proponents of the "Zionism is racism" UN resolution, Pco has probably never heard or read an NPOV definition of Zionism so she[3] could decide for herself whether or not Zionism is actually racism. According to Random House Webster's College Dictionary, Zionism is simply "a worldwide Jewish movement for the establishment and development of the State of Israel." It does not mention anything about any racial or religious doctrine. An anti-Zionist, therefore would be someone who is against "the establishment and development of the State of Israel." Olmert's statement is not a "dilution" of the definition; rather it is a reminder of what the definition has always been and always will be. Like any political ideology, there is a wide variety of interpretation of this ideology (Christian Zionism, Labor Zionism, etc.), but what they all have in common is exactly what Olmert said: the belief that the Jewish people have a right to a sovereign Jewish state in at least a part of the Land of Israel.

It is doubtful that any reasonable, fair-minded person aware of the history of the Jews and of the Middle East would be against the development of a modern nation in the Middle East safe for Jews to live in (assuming that person is not from a nation that is in a state of war with that nation). Furthermore, Zionism is a term that more accurately reflects a pre-Jewish state mentality than for identification with the State of Israel in the 21st century. Without a doubt, Israel practices racial discrimination, but then again so does every other government in the world preferring certain citizens more than others. Therefore, proponents of the "Zionism is racism" campaign should equally insist that Hindutva, Kemalism, and pan-Arabism are all racist or "undemocratic" ideologies.

Luckily, unlike Pco, most Wikipedians play by the rules of reliable citations, no original research, and (for the most part) NPOV. Pco has also been warned for violating Wikipedia:Conflict of interest [4] and has made a personal attack in an edit summary against a respected administrator that was so uncalled for that I refuse to repeat it on my user page.[5] Although as far as I know, Wikipedia does not have a rule against wacko opinions (provided they are not included into articles as original research), its important to note that Pco has a funny way of defining what is and is not racist. The fact that she made light of the International Conference to Review the Global Vision of the Holocaust in Iran in which she wrote, "I think that a holocaust deniers [sic] conference is a good idea - Mahmood must have learned something ... Yes, let them rant and have a conference - they will eventually realize their errors ..." [6] speaks volumes about her point of view when it comes to the Jewish state, Jewish history, and perhaps even Judaism in general.[7] For this reason, I urge honest Wikipedians not to take anything that Pco says seriously on any matter pertaining to the Jewish people.

[edit] Has Israel ever committed anything that could be described as a genocide?

[edit] Accusations

"The founders of Israel aspired to seizing the southern part of Lebanon and ethnically cleansing the Muslim inhabitants. They did this for years before Israel was established, and it's important we recognise that fact." - PalestineRemembered. Talk:Hezbollah/Archive 8. 20:49, 17 October 2006 (UTC). PalestineRemembered later edited this statement to read: "the fact that Israel (and it's founding fathers before 1948) intended to seize and ethnically cleanse the Muslim south of Lebanon is historical fact."
"[W]hat the Zionist regime did in the early 1900s when it landed on the shores of Palestine [was massacre] Palestinians by the thousand [sic]." - Haramzadi. Talk:Hezbollah/Archive_terrorist_allegations#Terrorist_organization_III. 00:37, 19 November 2006 (UTC).
"No matter how much support you are able to get for the killing of Arabs by misleading the public, that will not change the fact that murder is murder and genocide is genocide." - 71.135.36.250. Talk:Zionism#First_Sentence_is_POV. December 2006. Not surprisingly, 71.135.36.250 was later discovered to be a sockpuppet for Pco not long after she made the above statement.
"[Zionists] are provably [sic] a lot nastier and more dangerous than anything we've seen since 1945." - PalestineRemembered. User_talk:Nidhishsinghal#Why_no_mention_of_terrorist_attacks_on_Jews.3F. 23:27, 29 December 2006 (UTC).
"The Zionist plan (well documented) to ethnically cleanse the natives is by definition 'terrorism.' - Fourtildas. Talk:Zionism#terrorism_and_violence. 9 February 2007.

[edit] Reality

The Random House Webster's College Dictionary defines "genocide" as "the deliberate and systematic exterminization of a national, racial, political, or cultural group" (emphasis added). The word genocide has been used accurately to describe what happened in Armenia during the 1910s, Europe during the 1940s, Rwanda during the 1990s, and Darfur today. The term has also been used innaccurately and with malicious intent to twist the facts about the reality of the Arab-Israeli conflict. This may burst the bubble of anti-Israel propogandists, but Israel does not impliment forced labor of Arabs (as the Turks did to the Armenians and the Nazis did to Jews), send Arabs to concentration camps (as the Nazis did to the Jews), permit military roundups and execution of Arabs without due process of law (as the Nazis, Turks, and the Hutus of Rwanda did and the Janjaweed currently are doing in the Darfur region of Sudan), or any other action that could be described as the "systematic exterminization" of Arabs or Palestinians based solely on their "national, racial, political, or cultural" background.

As for Haramzadi's claim of an alleged massacre by "the Zionist regime ... in the early 1900s," there is no reference to any such massacre in any history book or encyclopedia I have encountered. Such a massacre could not have taken place anyway because before 1948, there was nothing in existence that could be accurately labeled "the Zionist regime" no matter how liberally one defines either term. It is not surprising that on the day after Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad opened a conference encouraging Holocaust denial, Haramzadi said that Ahmadinejad "is not anti-semitic [sic]"[8] It appears that Haramzadi has been infinately blocked by an admin because the username is "is a derogatory word ... in Urdu."[9]

It is also not surprising that about a month before Fourtildas's claim of a Zionist organized ethnic cleansing campaign, Fourtildas openly suggesting that the infamous forgery, Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a falsehood created and promoted to cause maximum damage to Jews worldwide, is true.[10]

[edit] Other accusations and responses

The Accusation: "Is there any explanation as to how Hezbollah can target civilians when in fact the vast majority of those killed Israeli colonists in July-August 2006 were military thugs?" - Jacob Peters. Talk:Hezbollah/Archive 8. October 2006. The Reality: No, there is no explanation because the question is an unfair one and implies the truth of an outright lie. If I were to ask, "Is there any explanation as to how Michael Jackson invented a time machine?" people would not know how to answer such a question and I would probably look rather foolish for even proposing that it happened.
The Accusation: "You all seem to be forgetting that 'northern Israel' was in fact part of the Arab state in the comically unfair 1947 UN Partition. If Hizballah wants to, they can fire rockets on what is rightful Palestinian territory under Zionist occupation." Jacob Peters. Talk:Hezbollah/Archive 8. 20 October 2006. The Reality: Much of northern Israel, including Haifa, were part of the proposed Jewish state in the 1947 UN Partition Plan. This did not stop Hezbollah, a Lebanese organization unrelated to the Palestinian problem historically and certainly unrelated to the 1948 War of Independence, from bombing those cities. Furthermore, the north is not "Palestinian territory under Zionist occupation," but rather an annexed part of Israel since 1948 (37 years before the founding of Hezbollah).
The Accusation: "Hezbollah does not have the capability to deliberately target civilian areas. They have no air force. Their WWII-era Russian rockets are hopelessly primitive. Due to the extremely low civilian death toll inflicted by bombs fired by Hezbollah, it is dishonest to claim that Hezbollah deliberately targets civilian areas." Jacob Peters. Talk:Hezbollah/Archive 8. 02:01, 22 October 2006 (UTC) The Reality: Fellow Wikipedian Isarig responded, "Your conclusion does not follow from your premise, even if your premise was true. You need to study logical reasoning."[11] To expand upon Isarig's response, I'd like to rephrase Jacob Peters's argument in logical form: (1) Hezbollah has "no air force." (2) Hezbollah's "rockets are hopelessly primative." (3) The Israeli "civilian death toll inflicted by bombs" was "extremely low." Therefore, (4), Hezbollah does not and/or cannot target civilian areas within Israel. Now, let's look at each claim. Claim #1 and #2 are both true. Claim #3 is poorly defined. Do the "bombs" refer to katyusha rockets? What civilian death toll would be considered "extremely low?" And, as Isarig already stated, even if all three claims are true (and one can argue that they are), why would #4, the conclusion, necessarily follow? If anything, the opposite conclusion would follow from Claim #3 alone: Hezbollah does and can target civilian areas within Israel. Furthermore, Jacob Peters's conclusion contradicts his earlier statement that "If Hizballah wants to, they can fire rockets on what is rightful Palestinian territory under Zionist occupation." A more detailed analysis of that statement can be found above. Sadly, Hezbollah terrorism is not the only undisputable fact that Jacob Peters denies. Jacob Peters has spent signficant energy on Talk:Joseph Stalin trying to proove that the brutal leader of the USSR was not such a bad guy after all: "Calling an immensely popular government leader like Stalin a dictator is a blatant violation of NPOV policy. There is no basis to the claim that Stalin was a dictator." (Talk:Joseph_Stalin#POV_Introduction). In short, because of the fact that Jacob Peter has a very limited knowledge of the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict, has an even more limited ability to argue logically and convincingly, and because he does not seem capable of making basic moral distinctions when it comes to world history, it is my opinion that he should no longer be taken seriously on topics pertaining to Hezbollah (that is, if he ever was taken seriously to begin with). Thankfully, the rest of the Wikipedia community rightly feels the same way and it appears that Jacob Peters has been blocked by an admin indefinately for repeated sockpuppets for previous block evasions for not playing "by the rules" in the words of the admin that blocked him.[12]
The Accusation: "Israeli soldiers defaced and destroyed private property just to spite the Lebanese people." - Carbonate. Talk:Hezbollah#Pie_chart_by_Carbonate_&_Liftarn. 00:42, 24 October 2006 (UTC). The Reality: If Carbonate had even glanced at the targeting of civilian areas in the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict article, he would not say such things. Israeli Vice Prime Minister Eli Yishai stated the Israeli objective in the war as clearly as anybody has: "If one has to choose between hurting the Israeli home front or the Lebanese home front, I prefer that the Lebanese get hurt. It hurts me to see civilians hurt by our air force, but there is no choice. We cannot be bleeding hearts while our citizens are being hurt. If Lebanese citizens pay the price, they will rise up against Hezbollah."[13] To be sure, Lebanese bystanders were the greatest victims of this war, but the fact that they did not rise up against Hezbollah is not necessarily Israel's fault. This is a different argument altogether with at least two valid POVs, but this is far removed from the issue Carbonate is interested in, perhaps because this issue implies guilt on Hezbollah, something unfathomable in Carbonate's world-view.
The Accusation: "Israel lost soilders [sic] because they are poor fighters compared to Hezbollah." - Carbonate. Talk:Hezbollah#Pie_chart_by_Carbonate_&_Liftarn. 00:42, 24 October 2006 (UTC). The Reality: Hassan Nasrallah and his supporters made similar claims after the end of the war. The rest of the world did not. The fact that Carbonate seems to unconditionally accept and agree with Nasrallah's "assessment" of the war speaks volumes. Why did Hezbollah allow the IDF to destroy much of Lebanon if they were fighting on behalf of the Lebanese, as some Wikipedians seem to imply, and if they are better fighters than the IDF? And why is Nasrallah still in hiding while Ehud Olmert appears in public on a daily basis without fear? Certainly the IDF made many grave mistakes during the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict, but no reasonable person would claim that they are a weaker army than Hezbollah, for if they were, Israel would now be a Muslim state.
The Accusation: "I am sorry about this stupid question, but why do zionists keep on quoting this most unprofessional writer [referring to Alan Dershowitz] who have been repeatedly proved to plaigiarise many of his writings? He is an unreliable, hardly objective let alone scholarly in his writings." - 213.244.124.20. Talk:Palestine:Peace_Not_Apartheid/archive1#Dershowitz_commentary. 5 December 2006. The Reality: Yes, Mr. Unregistered, you should be "sorry about this stupid question." It is not really a question at all, but an insult to a prominant commentator on this issue that is extremely careful with his sources (as proven by Harvard University's exoneration of any and all plagiarism accusations). Your charge that he is "hardly objective let alone scholarly in his writings" apply as much to Jimmy Carter as they do to Alan Dershowitz.
The Accusation: "While most people have accepted Israel's right to occupy land in Palestine, the most vocal critics of Zionism base their criticism on Israel's failure to comply with the United Nations Resolution 242 ... that was mutually agreed upon in 1968 to divide the land equitably and return land to Palestinians that had been taken during the recent war and was being occupied by the State of Israel at that time." - Pco. Talk:Zionism#Modern_Zionism_.28in_progress.29. 20:40, 17 December 2006 (UTC). The Reality: The claim that "most people have accepted Israel's right to occupy land in Palestine" is as POV as one gets. It sounds to me like Pco considers Israel proper to be part of "Palestine." Certainly Hamas thinks so, but "most people" do not and those who do think so have not "accepted Israel's right to occupy land in Palestine." Furthermore, Israel has not failed "to comply with United Nations Resolution 242, which encouraged the principle of land for peace in resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict. Israel accepted the resolution while the PLO rejected it; not "mutually agreed upon" as Pco claims (read any reliable book on the Arab-Israeli conflict and you'll find the same information ... I suggest Myths and Facts: A Guide to the Arab-Israeli Conflict by Mitchell G. Bard). The Oslo Accords are the perfect example of both Israel and the PLO trying to abide by Resolution 242, and achieving some important milestones, but ultimately failing due mostly to the continuation of anti-Semitic indoctrination of Palestinian youths, the illegal arming of Palestinians not involved in law enforcement, and, of course, Palestinian terrorism against Israeli civilians even though Yassir Arafat and the Palestinian Authority explicitly promised to halt all three. It is important to remember that Resolution 242 does not call for Israeli withdrawl from territories (or "the territories") before the Palestinians uphold their end of the bargain.
The Accusation: "[A]dmins [on Wikipedia] do not allow any content which is against the state of Israel [sic]. There is no source which is good enought, even the same sources they use to prove their points." - HalaTruth(ሐላቃህ). Talk:Racism#Honesty_is_needed. 20:51, 8 February 2007 (UTC). The Reality: This claim is easily and embarrassingly falsifiable. I direct HalaTruth and anyone else who falsely claims that criticism of Israel is "not allowed" on Wikipedia to the articles about the Israel lobby in the United States, the targeting of civilian areas in the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict, or Zionism and racism allegations.

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../g/h/c/User%7EGHcool_11e1.html"

User:GHcool

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Contents

[edit] Wikipedia contributions

[edit] Film production

[edit] Specific films

[edit] Middle East

[edit] Miss Nelson

[edit] Views on Israel

[edit] What are the origins of the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict?

[edit] Accusations vs. Reality

[edit] Are official Israeli sources reliable?

[edit] Accusations

[edit] Reality

[edit] Is Zionism a racist ideology?

[edit] Accusations

[edit] Reality

[edit] Has Israel ever committed anything that could be described as a genocide?

[edit] Accusations

[edit] Reality

[edit] Other accusations and responses

Views

Navigation

interaction

Search