Talk:Saeb Erekat

Jenin massacre

I have removed a large part of the "Jenin massacre" thing, which in my opinion does noteven belong here at all.

Saeb Erekat has been a very important negociator in the Middle East for years. This "Jenin massacre" is an absolutely anecdotical detail of his biography ; Erekat is one among many proponents of this affair.

It is not acceptable to unbalance the article with such trivialities, which are already covered in their own article anyway. In addition, the wording was militant (who can seriously write things like "BBC and international media buying into the Propaganda" in an encyclopedia ?). Also, you say "Biography", not "bio", in an encyclopedia.

The sectionning is very, very wrong (putting "BBC and international media buying into the Propaganda" on the same level than "General Bio") ; it means that Erekat did two things in his life : be a proeminent diplomat and statesman, and, most importantly, be involved in one of the gazillion media mess that occure in the Middle East. Similarly Georges Bush Junior is President of the USA and a drunk ? Come on. Rama 09:49, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

I will leave User:Jaakobou to respond in detail, but I will say I agree with Rama that alot of this edit is WP:POV and certainly needs to be tidied, but there is information here that needs to be added. I do not wish this to turn into a revert war, but I have reverted it to the state it was before I asked for this discussion, and not through mal intent. Jaakobou if you do not take this time to respond or re-write in a more objective manner, then Rama will have no recourse but to revert. Regards Khukri ^{(talk . contribs)} 10:22, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Note that even though I think that whole information is anecdotical and irrelevant, I am willing to settle to a short "Controversy over the Jenin Raid" paragraph, with a link to the main article (where the information belongs) and a brief text. But making this "event" more important comparably than the whole career of Erekat is in my view totally out of the question.

Jaakobou, although there is a need for this info in the article, as Rama has stated I think it can be drastically shortened, and doesn't need to take up 60% of the article. Khukri ^{(talk . contribs)} 12:11, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

i agree that it needs to be tidied up and that the quoetes should be affiliated as a stub. on top of that, much more information behind the reason for this and more about his life should be added - it's not my fault that the article was basically 2 paragraphs to begin with that portrayed him only as a peace negotiator - i added a section and expected people to add more - i was planning on adding more about his contribution to the palestinian life but didn't get around to it just yet - i'm redoing a few texts at the university - if you could let me know on how to make the quotes into stubs , i'd be happy to make that change - i'm also open to suggestions on changing the phrasing "BBC buying into the propoganda" which i chose due to their usual M.O. of broadcasting news about israel.

Jaakobou 17:25, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Erekat is a historical figure of Camp David and other similar negociations, which are way more important, in all respects, that this story.

Agreed, would you be willing to add it as a counterpoint? Khukri ^{(talk . contribs)} 12:11, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

It is mentionned in the biography section. Naturally, it could be desirable to elaborate on this; Enderlin's Shattered Dreams gives hints on his role in these talks. But I am not a specialist of these questions, so I would not be as bold as to try this myself. Rama 13:46, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

i havnlt heard about Enderlin's book, but i think while his public image in the peace talks was one, his other image where he blatantly lied to the media constantly - also with his free "translations" to Arafat's words - were a part of his public image that should be recognized in a serious encyclopedia... indeed, as of now, they take too much of the article - i plan on expanding it, and hope others will join in expanding it - and not in shrinking it.

i was a little shocked to see that you took the title "terrorists" off the PLF on the article about Samir Kuntar.. i could understand the other edits - but when you removed that title from the PLF, you basically show your stand on this issue [the PLF are responsible for example for the kidnapping of a ship and trying to get their captured prisoners out of the israeli prisons, they are also accepted as a terrorist group not just by the USA and Israel but also the UN].

Jaakobou 17:25, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Besides, the story itseld seems to be much more nuanced than what Jaakobou seems to believe: it seems that Erekat might actually never have given this figure of 500 killed, nor spoken the word "massacre" [1] [2] ; this should be taken into account in te article about jenin. Rama 11:21, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Rama, the story in itself is not neuanced at all, since up to that moment he was on the news on every clash between israel and terrorists [yes, terrorists, not freedom fighters].. whenever asked about a terror attack he would say something to the note of "what you really need to see is the oppression of the occupation" and then he would embellish it with pseudo facts and down right lies - he managed to do this for about 2-3 years becoming ever more popular on BBC, SkyNews and CNN.. [i can't say about other channels] up to the point that he put them all to mockery with this large incident where he was caught with his lies and pants down... i chose not to embellish the text the way i do so now... but to present the facts about BBC who even after the incident was revealed, refused to give way.. which is not the case with CNN [i can't speak for sky - our cable stopped airing them].

basically, he was trying to cover up all the under-the-table activity yasser arafat was doing with the terrorists where he funded them, imported weapons and promoted terror activity.. a lot of valuable proof was uncovered at the jenin raid.. i should add that information - but that would really be part of the "jenin battle" article.

as for the links you gave, they are ridiculously biased - you cannot say that they are more accurate than the transcripts of CNN - i gave a direct link on the article itself to avoid this type of sharade debate - here is one of them again: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0204/17/wbr.00.html

SAEB ERAKAT, CHIEF PALESTINIAN NEGOTIATOR: _{Well, I have a suggestion to make, Wolf, to Mr. Ben-Eliezer. How about if we form an international commission of inquiry, let them go to Jenin with the equipment needed (UNINTELLIGIBLE). And let them tell the world, this being American, European, anybody, we have} 1,600 missing men _{in this refugee camp. Mostly women and children, husbands and wives. I'm not saying they are killed. I'm saying that the situation in this refugee camp which we have been reporting from there now,} even milk is prevented to the children now_. Bodies are rotting_{. It's a disastrous area, Wolf.}

_{So it is not for us to decide how many were killed.} There is no longer a refugee camp there_{. And maybe the defense minister and the prime minister of Israel want to deny what CNN is showing, that the camp was totally destroyed. They conducted terror.} They're not out there to fight terror_{. They are conducting terror. They're killing Palestinians. They have made Palestinians so filled now with anger, with hate. They have set the clock back to 30 years ago. All the work of the good people, Palestinians and Israelis who devoted their lives to make peace, reconciliation, healing have been destroyed in the last few weeks at the hands of Sharon and his people.}

_{So, as far as he is concerned, we officially offer...}

_{BLITZER: Mr. Erakat, let me interrupt...}

_{ERAKAT: ... to have an international commission of inquiry to get the results (ph) and to decide how many people were massacred.} And we say the number will not be less than 500.

in short 1, after the jenin "incident" - Erekat was no longer invited on CNN or BBC .. and now BBC sometimes give a quote here and a quote there by him, but refrain from making him a desirable persona on their channel anymore... sounds significant to me.

in short 2, i agree that more input about Erekat should be inserted and thus making the jenin "incident" take a smaller part out of the article... [i made it quite small considering the amounts of quotes i could have insereted from 3 years full of lies which practically ended at that point in time].. i may add some material myself about other topics - but i hoped others will contribute... Khukri, i hope you will help us resolve this out in suggesting and maybe making the quotes into stubs or arranging the section differently - without removing it.

note that jenin, right before the raid, was nicknamed "town of shaheeds" by the palestinians themselves and about 28 suicide bobmers came from there in a period of about 3 months.

note to Rama, a terror group is a terror group - the Etzel/Irgun was an Israeli terror group - you will not see me go into their page and change that into the word 'orgenization' - calling them/PLF/Samir Kuntar/Arafat freedom fighters is a mockery if you consider the actual tactics used... i suggest you watch a movie called "relentless" and afterwards watch "death in gaza". - on that note - Saeb Erekat is more than a diplomat and a peace negotiator - but he's also a manipulator propoganda officer for the Palestinian Authority, denying that would be defending a person on the basis of liking part of what he's doing... the most famous case of those in israel is about Arie Deri which his people wrote songs "who zachai" [he's innocent] even after his conviction.

sorry for rambling.. i probably repeated myself a couple times.

Jaakobou 17:25, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Listen, this is all very nice, but

1. You know nothing about me, so do not try to force political opinions down my throat
2. If you do not have direct quotations of Erekat "lying to the media", I see no reason to blindly repeat what the media reported if we have reasons to doubt their exactitude. What makes you think that Erekat did not genuially think that 500 people were killed ? The Israeli did kill 50 people, and forbid any access to the place for some time ; I do not see why you might make it a crime for Erekat personally to base his numbers on the number of missing people, for instance.
3. In the Battle of Jenin article, which is much more topical to this subject than this article, the point is developped with two lines : "Saeb Erekat, a Palestinian minister for Local Government is quoted in the Washington Post making the first allegation of a massacre [24]" and "Saeb Erekat estimates 500 or more dead in the whole Israeli offensive[27]"
4. In any case, the point is negligeable in regard to the carrer of Erekat.
5. In any case, the wording is appaling and certainly not to the standards of an encyclopedia. Rama 11:57, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

I have re-worked the part in question.

• We do not need lenghtly quotations that say exactly the same thing, awhich is what isalready paraphrased in the paragraph ; sources are enough
• The developpements of the perception by the BBC and God knows who are irrelevant ; this is an article about Saeb Erekat, not a general opinioned editorial about how biased the liberal media bla bla bla. Rama 12:33, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

i admit your edit is not bad, i'll probably add just a little bit more into it, but nothing like the way it was written before. still, since you havn't witnessed all of his TV appearances - you can claim ignorance on his part. where i - and the people who took his words for granted in those days - can tell you there is no mistaking that he lied intentionally in an attempt to stop the israeli raid from getting the papers where arafat signed paychecks for terror orgenization militants... there's a reason you don't see him on TV anymore, and there was no mistaking all his quotes.. he said he had seen a brotherly grave with 300 people in it.. this is not a media report but a direct quote... anyways - i appreciate your interest and your protection on neutrality on wiki.

Jaakobou 15:38, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Your personal opinion does not constitute a proof. What was known for certain is that Tsahal did kill a number of civilians in the camp ; that access to the camp was forbidden to International organisations, including the Red Cross. Erekat might have spoken out of genuine concern ; he might have exagerated his own fears ; or he might magically have had a precise figure of the casualties and actually have lied ; we certainly have no proof that the third case of figure actually happened.

Think about the way in which we treat discourses which were, for months, off reality by far greater margins, by people who had far greater means to gather accurate information, and which have had far more damageable consequences. Rama 16:33, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Numerous inaccuracies in Jenin section

Besides the grossly undue weight on this Jenin thing, the information there is very poorly verified and in some cases inaccurate. Furthermore, it ignores widely reported information in order to present Erakat as a manipulative liar.

• "repeatedly claimed" is unsourced; the only sources I'm aware of who bring this "repeatedly claimed" language are partisan-hackery groups like ADL, CAMERA, etc. The source contains one claim, and it's not even entirely clear what was being claimed.

• "Palestinian Fatah investigators claimed the death toll is 56, announced by Kadoura Moussa, the Fatah director for the Northern West Bank."

...and yet the only source which claims this is a report by Paul Martin in the Washington Times. The Washington Time, which is the organ of a religious cult, s has a reputation for poor fact-checking. Paul Martin specifically has been called out by Canada's national broadcaster for fabricating a false quotation from an Arab militant group, and for using an Arabic pseudonym to bolster his credibility on a Palestine story while actually reporting from London.

• The UN put the final death toll at 52 Palestinians,[not in citation given]

No, the UN reported that at a certain time, Amnesty had placed the current death toll at 52. Nowhere in the UN report is it stated that 52 was some kind of definitive or final number, and in fact the UN referred to two subsequent deaths caused by unexploded ordnance / mines left from the battle.

• and it concluded that no civilians were killed deliberately.[dubious – discuss]

Where in the source does it say this? The UN report repeated the conclusions of Amnesty and HRW that no evidence existed of a large-scale deliberate massacre, not that no evidence existed of deliberate killings of civilians. In fact, the UN report referred to several cases unearthed by Amnesty and HRW of apparent deliberate killings of civilians (though on a smaller scale).

• The Israeli claim about hype and facts is promulgated with no attempt at balance from non-Israeli (or even dissident Israeli) sources.

• Finally, we are ignoring the fact that the IDF also released very high estimates of body count! Numbers from 150-250 were thrown around, which in the words of IDF Captain Jacob Dallal, a media spin doctor, "made the Palestinian estimates seem reasonable". Instead, we're presenting the propaganda narrative where Saeb Erakat knew that these numbers were high but pushed them anyway. Given that the Israelis were not allowing access to the camp, and had just destroyed all the infrastructure of PA governance, Erakat was in absolutely no position to know.

<eleland/talkedits> 21:35, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

ok, which part do you want to discuss first? Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 23:07, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

We do the easy parts first, and exclude anything referenced to hate-sources, or religious wishful thinking (like the Washington Times). Then we make sure that sources haven't lied about what they've taken from the UN report (as at least one RS did). PR^talk 17:09, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Eleland, feel free to continue the discussion from where we left off. Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 17:24, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

I'd say the ball's in your court, but unless you are planning to reference this information or offer some credible explanation of why it should stay, I'm planning on removing the entire section soon. The only verifiable information here is that Saeb Erakat made casualty estimates on the Battle of Jenin, but there is no reason to treat this as relevant or significant (the article on Shimon Peres, for example, makes no reference to his hastily-retracted "Jenin massacre" claim.) It would appear that the only people who see these statements as a significant part of his career are partisan pressure groups like the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs; I do not see why we are effectively authorizing them to write Erekat's biography. <eleland/talkedits> 17:29, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Wait, you just deleted dissed PR's comment, which was helpful, on topic, and civil, without explanation. Don't be a dick. <eleland/talkedits> 17:29, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Oh, now I see. You are referring to the discussion section prior to the one I opened. It appears that you stuffed this article full of irrelevant and tendentious editorializing, then objective editors managed to bargain you down but didn't quite complete the task. Well, fine; Wikipedia is about consensus, after all. Find me a source, even a POV commentary source, which discusses Saeb Erakat as a malicious liar, and we can say "The [insert objective-sounding name of Israeli Hasbara group here] criticized Erakat for his conduct during and immediately after the Battle of Jenin, when he promulgated very high casualty estimates later found to be spurious." That's what your cringe-inducing revision boils down to once Wikipedia policy is applied. <eleland/talkedits> 20:14, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

as you might have suspected, the version of the article, before the recent edits, was a hard earned consensus. now, i'm willing to rediscuss each point - however, there was plenty of refrences to everything on the text before it was narrowed down to a single paragraph (that's now been littered with "fact" and "bogus" tags.

maybe we can start our discussions without talks of [insert name of highly-POV group] or threats to remove material (as you've seen there's ample material in the old version), but rather by focusing on each point and finding out if we can slowly work out a new consensus on each. Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 03:37, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm glad to know that we both wish to discuss this. Above, I raised specific objections based on both facts and policy. I added that "unless you are planning to reference this information or offer some credible explanation of why it should stay", I intended to delete it. If you wish it to stay, I would suggest you find accurate references for the information, or in some way engage with the factual and policy objections I have raised. <eleland/talkedits> 04:07, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

everything was well cited and explained - you can go over the old version to see for yourself. Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 04:17, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Can you be more specific? I have raised specific objections, to which you have not specifically responded. The quotations from Erakat were apparently all sourced, as was the Yediot Aharonot editorial, but nothing else was, including key statements such as "Saeb Erekat being the most prominent and outspoken...BBC and international media buying into the Propoganda...The UN put the final death toll at 52 Palestinians ... and it concluded that no civilians were killed deliberately." Furthermore, my specific objections also included questions of unbalanced POV and errors of omission, which I think merit further discussion. <eleland/talkedits> 04:54, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

choose your favorite point from the list and start a new subsection. Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 04:58, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I don't understand what you are asking. I've elicited, several times, specific responses to objections I've made. I don't see how the use of ==== markup enters into it. I'm concerned that an overly bureaucratic attitude may have been adopted here; let's just discuss the issues freely, and resort to this type of micro-management if and when it becomes necessary. Let me re-iterate: I object to the current version on grounds of factual accuracy, unbalanced POV, and errors of omission, which I have already elaborated. Let's talk about those objections. Of course, if you wish to open subsections, you are absolutely free to do so. <eleland/talkedits> 05:55, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

And now, instead of discussing, Jaakobou pushes the article back towards his preferred soapboxy essay. This kind of thing is unfortunate. Let's talk instead of edit-warring. <eleland/talkedits> 15:42, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Pagenumbers tag

This refers to the "UN Report" citation. The UN report is at least two hundred paragraphs long. It's very difficult to verify statements like "[The UN] concluded that no civilians were killed deliberately" on the basis of citing the entire report. I do not believe that the report made this statement anywhere; unless we are pointed to the specific portion where this claim is made, it should be removed from the article soon. <eleland/talkedits> 15:47, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

removing a source because it's hard to find the text within' it? that must be a new policy. this "i really want to remove this and that soon" style of interaction is a great way to build antagonism, why not just make a request that a source be clarified? ... or better yet find the paragraphs yourself... anyways, i'll fix it tomorrow if you won't help. Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 17:16, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Most likely, the reason I can't find the paragraphs myself is that the paragraphs don't exist. The UN report does not appear to find that no civilians were killed deliberately.

• The only use of the word "deliberate" in the main report appears in Section D, Paragraph 29: "While IDF soldiers have acknowledged in press reports that they forced Palestinians to knock on doors for house searches, they deny the deliberate use of civilians as human shields."
• The word "intentional" appears in Section F, Paragraph 59: "The Palestinian Authority maintains that IDF 'had complete and detailed knowledge of what was happening in the camp through the use of drones and cameras attached to balloons … [and] none of the atrocities committed were unintentional'."
• The word "purpose" appears in B10 discussing the Oslo II agreement ("Israel shall have the overall responsibility for security for the purpose of protecting Israelis...") and "purposely" comes in F53 saying "The Government of Israel maintains that ... 'armed terrorists ... purposely concealed themselves among the civilian population'".
• "calculated" comes up blank
• "planned" hits F45 "The Government of Israel has charged that, from October 2000 to April 2002, 28 suicide attacks were planned and launched from the Jenin camp." and F58 "In what both the Palestinian Authority and the Government of Israel describe as a "well-planned ambush" 13 IDF soldiers were killed and a number of others wounded"
• "predetermined" and "prearranged" have no hits; "premeditated" or indeed any kind of "meditated" are blank. That pretty much exhausts my thesaurus, as well as my patience.

I appreciate your commentary on my choice of words and tone, and will redouble my efforts to avoid antagonism. <eleland/talkedits> 17:49, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

No reason whasoever for "Pagenumbers" tag, all references are web-sources. PR^talk 06:58, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Going to discuss, or just edit?

Thus far I've refrained from re-inserting maintenance tags, or from deleting extraneous content altogether. But there's no discussion going on here. I'd like to avoid any kind of edit war, so can "somebody" please respond to my earlier points? <eleland/talkedits> 19:17, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Jenin

Start here, Jaakobou. Provide reliable sources about Erekat (not an article about Jenin that merely quotes Erekat) that present the Jenin episode as central to his life. Then we'll decide how much detail is appropriate.--G-Dett 15:44, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict: G-Dett beat me to it.)

Enough of your garbage, Jaakobou. I'm in full 3RR mode now, until you cease your disruptive insistence on making this page into your personal playhouse. We write biographies to reliable sources, not to the obscure conspiracy theories of right-wing bloggers. Stop disrupting, start discussing. <eleland/talkedits> 15:51, 20 October 2007 (UTC)