Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Palestine-Israel articles 5/Evidence

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Target dates: Opened 30 November 2024 • Evidence closes 14 December 2024 • Workshop closes 21 December 2024 • Proposed decision to be posted by 4 January 2025

Case clerks: HouseBlaster (Talk) & SilverLocust (Talk) Drafting arbitrators: Aoidh (Talk) & HJ Mitchell (Talk) & CaptainEek (Talk)

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Evidence presented by Zero0000

About me

I have been an editor since 2002 and an administrator since 2003. I believe I have had no sanctions, blocks or formal warnings for 15 years.
I specialise in historical topics within ARBPIA and mostly stay away from contested current events. For example, since the start of the Israel-Gaza war in October 2023, less than 1% of my article edits and 2% of my talk page edits have concerned that war.
Why am I a party?. Red-tailed Hawk added me to one ARCA case because I had asked a participant for clarification at AE (not because of any accusation against me). Barkeep added me to another ARCA case because ScottishFinnishRadish had suggested a 0RR restriction due to a single revert (not a 1RR violation) in an article I have only edited twice since July 2022. I do not believe that this is sufficient reason to make me a party. If there is a better reason, please tell me, otherwise please remove me. I will continue to participate. Zero^talk 10:26, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

A historical overview of ARBPIA

As an ARBPIA editor for 22 years, I believe I am well qualified to place the current status in perspective.
In the early days things were far more dispute-ridden than now, with almost the entire topic endlessly on fire. The maturing of key articles, the raising of sourcing standards (for which I claim a lot of credit) and then the introduction of 1RR and ECR led to a major reduction in tension.
A sea-change occurred when Hamas invaded Israel in October 2023. See data here. The number of distinct main-space editors in the first year after October 2023 jumped by almost 70% over the previous year, while the number of main-space edits increased over 3 times. However, despite the fact that 2/3 of the editors were non-EC, and despite the fact that there is a war on, multiple statistics indicate improvement:

• The fraction of edits which were reverts dropped to its lowest value in at least 4 years.
• The fraction of edits which were reverted dropped to its lowest value in at least 4 years.
• The fraction of reverts by EC-editors which were themselves reverted (a crude measure of edit-war frequency) dropped below 1% for the first time in at least 4 years (a 39% reduction).
• The average number of talk page edits for each article edit was the highest for at least four years.

None of these statistics support the claims by some that the topic is in crisis. On the contrary, I challenge anyone to identify a period in the past when ARBPIA was in better shape than it is now. Zero^talk 11:51, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

One thing that ArbCom can do

Even though all ARBPIA articles come under ECR, fully 2/3 of edits there are made by non-EC editors. About 1/3 of the non-EC edits are reverted and some fraction of the others cause disruption. This nuisance could be eliminated by EC-protection, but the admins at RPP usually refuse to apply it if they can't see "ongoing disruption". As a result, few requests are made at RPP and the problem continues. I propose that the committee consider mechanisms to have more ARBPIA articles EC-protected. Zero^talk 04:16, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Selfstudier

A party -

Due to this AE case, together with this related AE case, being referred to Arbcom. Admin, @ScottishFinnishRadish: (SFR) made comments in the first case that I contested. Admin @Theleekycauldron: (Tlc) subsequently suggested I be warned for tag team editing (amended to edit warring), that I also contested. Then at the referral of those cases, admin @Barkeep: (BK) said "the discussion [at the AE case] ballooned to potential misconduct by multiple other editors. For me the editors whose conduct needs examining would be BilledMammal, Iskandar323, Nableezy, and Selfstudier" presumably referring to one or both of the admin comments above.

Origin -

This farrago originates with editing at Zionism producing an earlier AE case, closed by SFR on 11 July with "A bunch of socks/compromised accounts blocked. Further action related to anything here will need a separate report" and which is where the idea of an ARC(A) was first raised by SFR. Myself and others also considered the idea of filing for an ARC at that time. A number of the parties here were involved in that case including myself, Nableezy, BilledMammal, IOHANNVSVERVS, Levivich, Zero0000, Iskandar323, SFR, and tlc, This case highlighted the underlying tensions and the impact of socking in the topic area. With hindsight, matters perhaps ought to have been referred to Arbcom (by whatever method) at this juncture.

Conduct -

I do not consider that my conduct rises to a level that justifies sanctions, if a sanction for edit warring was justified, then that could have been done at the AE case in question or even outside of it for that matter. SFR asserted that their comments were not intended to lead to any sanction. I do not know if BK had anything else in mind when making their statement at referral. Nevertheless I am available for questioning in this regard, should anyone wish to pursue that.

Solutions -

Although I think the situation has become, willy nilly, rather overblown, I have some thoughts on how matters might be improved and may present them later in workshop. Selfstudier (talk) 12:49, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

Genocide of indigenous peoples/SFR evidence (22 diffs) - Summary Selfstudier (talk) 17:22, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

Evidence presented by ScottishFinnishRadish

Long-term edit warring, and edit warring to game STATUSQUO/ONUS is common. Stonewalling and multiple attempts at dispute resolution exhaust the community's will to engage

Genocide of indigenous peoples

1. Israel/Palestine added 31 March 24.
2. Immediately challenged 31 March 24.
3. Now it's an edit war 31 March 24.
4. Expanded section 31 March 24.
5. Removed again 23 May 24.
6. Restored again 23 May 24.
7. Removed again 24 May 24
8. RFC started 24 May 24.
9. Restored again 27 May 24.
10. Removed again 27 May 24.
11. Restored 27 May 24.
12. Removed 27 May 24.
13. Restored 27 May 24.
14. Full protected 27 May 24.
15. RFC closed as no consensus 21 June 24.
16. Removed per no-consensus 23 June 24.
17. Restored per no consensus 23 June 24.
18. Removed 23 June 24.
19. Restored 23 June 24.
20. I'm tired of listing these individually [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11].
21. New RFC less than 2 months after previous 6 August 24.
22. RFC closed with roughly half the !votes of the earlier RFC 25 September 24

Very long term multi-party edit war that included trying to retain content in in order to set the status quo to leading to arguing after a no consensus close that since the immediately challenged material was in at the start it gets to stay in. Clear battleground, gaming STATUSQUO, violating ONUS, and with behavior that was complained about by other parties on other occassions, e.g. opening an RFC shortly after another RFC was closed. The community has limited energy to continuously engage with dispute resolution in this topic area, so frequent RFCs tend to draw diminishing returns until only invested editors remain. This leaves us with a LOCALCONSENSUS of the most invested editors.

POV forks are created and maintained, stonewalling contributes

Articles are created as quickly as possible in the topic area as an affirmative consensus is needed to change the title once the article is created. This has led to POV forks. In this situation we have two articles created ~8 hours apart, one calling the event a rescue operation, the other calling it a massacre. Two months ago there was a consensus to merge. There were some edits made to merge, and the merge tags were removed, then reverted back. The other article was redirected and reverted as well, saying there needed to be discussion on the merge. After nearly two months this is the entirety of that discussion, and there has been no movement on eliminating the POV fork. Currently there are two articles on the same event, one calling it a rescue and massacre, the other just calling it a massacre. This had been remedied, but it was reverted with no specific reasons. Included below is the textdiff of the pertinent sections of the forks to demonstrate the similarity of coverage between articles. We're now six months into having this fork. This also gets at the issue of people rushing to create articles to provide framing from their POV.

textdiff of the merged POV forks

− Nuseirat rescue and massacre + Nuseirat refugee camp massacre − According to reports, "at least one of the vehicles" containing the three male captives broke down and the Israeli military called in support, "attacking from the air, from the sea and on the ground with massive force." At 11:27 a.m., a strike occurred near the building from which the three male hostages were rescued. Subsequently, the building was demolished by another strike. Shortly before noon, another strike demolished the building where Noa Argamani had been held captive. Eyal Shahtout, a resident of a neighboring building, informed The New York Times that his home was hit, resulting in many of his family members being buried under the debris. 18 of his family members were killed, including his wife, four children, and two grandchildren. The Israeli military did not provide an explanation for why the home was targeted. To the south of the hostage sites, a market was also struck. At 11:45 a.m., plumes of smoke were visible in downtown Nuseirat. Scores of local people, including children, were killed. According to a statement from Doctors without Borders, which works nearby at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, "there have been back-to-back mass casualties as densely populated areas are bombed. It’s way beyond what anyone could deal with in a functional hospital, let alone with the scarce resources we have here." The Al-Awda Hospital in Nuseirat was also overwhelmed with casualties, "including many children laid out in the corridors". The strikes destroyed "apartment buildings throughout" [the] "camp, according to witnesses and video footage". The UN human rights office said that both Israeli forces and Palestinian armed groups may have committed war crimes, citing potential "violations of rules of proportionality, distinction and precaution" in the case of the former and "holding hostages in densely populated areas" for the latter. + According to the IDF, after the Israeli forces had recovered the hostages, at least one of their vehicles broke down. The Israeli military then called in support, "attacking from the air, from the sea and on the ground with massive force." A witness in the camp reported a "crazy bombardment" occurred suddenly. Footage showed Palestinians in the market area diving for cover as missiles flew in and gunfire erupted, and a witness who had been in the marketplace stated that about 150 rockets fell at and around the market place in less than 10 minutes. According to witnesses and video footage, the strikes destroyed apartment buildings and even entire residential blocks throughout the camp. Per a resident and paramedic in the camp, the assault felt like a "horror movie" and that Israeli drones and warplanes fired randomly throughout the night at peoples' homes and those who tried to flee the area. One witness stated, "Anyone who was moving in the street was killed". Videos showed corpses with entrails spilling out lying on blood-stained streets, although Reuters was unable to immediately verify the footage. An Israeli drone commander reported that after an initial attack "to drive civilians away", Israel considered anyone who did not flee to be a "terrorist", even if they were unarmed. Many individual testimonies of eyewitnesses who survived the intense fire-fight have been collected, according to Mondoweiss. In the aftermath, one woman stated, "We don’t know where the children are. We lost them, and now we are being displaced for a third time with no idea where to go." Witnesses described being able to hear people buried under the rubble, but being unable to help rescue them. − The death toll resulting from the operation has been disputed. The Gaza Health Ministry stated on the same day as the operation that the number of victims "has risen to 210 martyrs and more than 400 wounded." Later that day the number was updated to 274 Palestinians killed during the operation with around 700 wounded. Tanya Haj-Hassan, a paediatric intensive care doctor with Doctors Without Borders, stated that Al-Aqsa hospital, where 109 Palestinians including 23 children and 11 women and over 100 wounded victims were transported, was a "complete bloodbath." Another 100 people killed in the attacks were taken to al-Awda hospital. It is not known how many combatants are included in these counts. According to the IDF, Hamas pays Palestinian families to hold the hostages in their houses, which may account for the high casualties. In addition, a large firefight occurred as IDF special forces were attempting to extract the hostages, reportedly coming under fire from dozens of militants with RPGs and machine guns when their vehicle became stuck. The IDF then called in airstrikes to cover their evacuation. The IDF estimates the number of casualties from the operation was “under 100.” According to Hamas spokesman Abu Obaida, the operation resulted in the deaths of several other Israeli hostages, which IDF spokesman Peter Lerner dismissed.The day after the operation, Hamas's armed wing uploaded a video to its Telegram channel appearing to show corpses of three hostages that were reportedly killed during the rescue operation. The faces of the corpses were obscured to prevent identification. A pedestrian bridge in Petah Tikva renamed in honor of Arnon Zamora who fell in the line of duty while rescuing four hostages held against their will in Nuseirat On the Israeli side, the operation resulted in the death of Yamam officer Chief Inspector Arnon Zamora. The rescue operation was renamed in his honor as "Operation Arnon", and a pedestrian bridge in Petah Tikva has been renamed "Operation Arnon Bridge". + Trucks and ambulances rushed wounded people to Al-Aqsa Hospital for treatment. Prior to the operation, the hospital had already been overwhelmed with civilian casualties. A Doctors Without Borders (MSF) representative described the situation at Al-Aqsa as a "nightmare." An MSF paediatric intensive care doctor at Al-Asqa stated the emergency department was a "complete bloodbath… it looks like a slaughterhouse". The same doctor stated only one generator at the hospital was functioning, meaning ventilators, lights, and the internet were not working. Another MSF doctor stated, "We had the gamut of war wounds, trauma wounds, from amputations... to [traumatic brain injuries], fractures and, obviously, big burns". Two weeks after the incident, many of the wounded remained in the hospital. Severely injured patients requiring advanced surgeries were unable to leave Gaza to receive them, due to Gaza's borders being closed. The total number of casualties are disputed, with Israeli and Palestinian totals differing drastically. The Gaza Health Ministry and local health officials stated at least 274 Palestinians were killed and 698 were wounded due to the Israeli rescue operation. Israeli military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari stated that Israel was aware of "under 100" Palestinians who had been killed in the operation. Neither the Health Ministry nor IDF clarified how many casualties were civilians. The Gazan Health Ministry reported that 64 children and 57 women were killed. According to Hamas, several Israeli hostages were killed in the Israeli attack. The group stated in a video clip that three hostages were killed during the operation, including an American. The Israeli military denied that any hostages were killed during the operation. − Allegations of the United States military constructed floating pier in Gaza being used in the IDF operation, were seen after a video showing an IDF helicopter taking off from the beach with the pier in the background began to circulate online on 8 June. Two United States officials responded to the claims, stating that the pier was only used for humanitarian aid and the helicopter was used to return the hostages into Israel and had landed south of the pier but not within the cordoned off area. The U.S. had promised aid groups the pier would be a no-go area for Israeli forces and the UN has put aid operations at the pier on hold while it investigates and decides whether the Israeli usage, real or apparent, of the pier facilities and the perception of that by Palestinians, mitigates against continued engagement at the pier. Oxfam and other aid organizations said they are waiting for answers from the U.S. government. + In the immediate aftermath of the operation, the United States was accused of allowing its humanitarian pier to be used by the IDF. This accusation arose after video footage showed an IDF helicopter taking off from a beach with the humanitarian-aid pier in the background. Two U.S. officials denied this. In a statement, the Pentagon spokesperson stated that Israeli helicopters used an area "near" the pier. Martin Griffiths, the UN humanitarian aid coordinator, stated that if the allegations were true, "they are very concerning, because they would put at risk any future humanitarian engagement in that operation". Both Israeli and American officials confirmed that U.S. intelligence assisted the Israeli military for its rescue.

Evidence presented by Nableezy

Editor behavior at Use of human shields by Hamas

An article was spun out of Human shield#Israeli–Palestinian conflict focused solely on accusations against one party. When I first arrived at that article, it was in this state. I found the article, and the lead especially, to be both distorting the overall balance of sources and just poorly written. After beginning a discussion on the talk page (here), AndreJustAndre replied to an editor both "refrain from personalizing the dispute" and making the outrageous attack that they "clearly sympathize more with Hamas' POV". That in response to attempting to follow sources like Amnesty International. I rewrote the lead entirely (here), and another editor added material that was indeed reliably sourced but was also false. I attempted to show that it was false on the talk page, Andre's response was it's false according to you, and nobody else. The editor who previously inserted the material engaged in good faith with my argument, and analyzed the source themself and came to the same conclusion, that we were stating something in the lead that simply was not true (see their analysis here and them removing the material from the article here.) A week later, BilledMammal blanket reverted all the changes that had been made, saying simply new lead not an improvement. They never engaged on the talk page, despite my raising the issue in the section I had opened. In sum, AndreJustAndre made a serious of pedantic claims without engaging in the substance of the argument, and a personal attack about another editor supposedly "sympathiz[ing] more with Hamas' POV", though to their credit they did not directly place false material in to the aticle. BilledMammal completely ignored the discussion and issues raised to make a revert that reinserted both POV issues and false statements into the lead of the article. Im sure somebody will claim my rewrite introduced POV issues, but I feel confident in my editing on this topic in that I yes removed things that did not belong but I also am the one who added material that conflicts with the supposed POV of "sympathiz[ing] with Hamas' POV". Eg here or here.

Socks of banned users

Socks of banned users continue to have an outsized influence on the topic, both in raising the temperature and in content discussions. For example, two Icewhiz socks are responsible for 30% of the content at 2024 Hezbollah headquarters strike. The 2021 RFC that temporarily deprecated Counterpunch had participation by 5 IW socks and a NoCal100 sock. A series of compromised accounts lobbied for sanctions against a long time IW target here. Yes, we are all responsible for our reactions to provocations, but I cant seriously believe that anybody cant see that over and over editors who never actually face any sanctions because they just make a new account and start up again are antagonizing editors and attempting to bait them into a response that will generate a sanction. You can look at the archives of both the NoCal100 and Icewhiz SPIs to see the series of editors that have started fires and then tried to have somebody banned for getting too hot under the collar.

Evidence presented by {your user name}

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