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Yaakov Menken (August 6, 2024). "Wikipedia hates Israel and Jews". Jewish News Syndicate. Retrieved August 6, 2024. Regarding Hamas itself, however, Wikipedia merely says that "authors have characterized" (emphasis added) the Hamas charter as genocidal, although Hamas leaders themselves repeatedly declare that genocide against the Jewish nation is the group's very purpose and mission.
Text and/or other creative content from Hamas was copied or moved into Criticism of Hamas with this edit on March 25, 2017. The former page's history now serves to provide attribution for that content in the latter page, and it must not be deleted as long as the latter page exists.
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One editor among us believes that Hamas is acquiescing in 1967 borders and wants the Wikipedia visitors to believe that too. Hamas doesn’t acquiesce in 1967 borders, it wants to liberate Palestine in 1947 boundaries as stated with sources in our article. The ‘acquiescing’ is NOT in the article, but was in the lead with 3 refs that DON’T assert that. I don’t say my summary is perfect but at least it is based on sources. Skitash on 11 Sep placed back the ‘acquiescing’, suggesting “unjustified sourced content removal” which is not so: the “acquiesc” is unsourced. What do other colleagues want in Wiki: fantasies or facts? --Corriebertus (talk) 21:13, 25 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Every single point made in the lede is backed by the respective sources and has been the result of consensus established here. The term "acquiesce" does not have to be specifically used in the sources for the fact itself being present in them, which it plainly is.
@Corriebertus when you say "One editor among us", are you referring to me? Then next time please just ping (Template:ping) me. I see you mentioned Skitash, let me ping them: @Skitash:.
Indeed these are all backed by sources. Your edits have been reverted by two users and I oppose them too.VR(Please ping on reply)13:35, 2 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Raskolnikov.Rev: proposed to me, to discuss here my proposal for a change in the lead section, third paragraph, replacing its second sentence: “While initially seeking a state in all of former Mandatory Palestine it began acquiescing to 1967 borders in the agreements it signed with Fatah in 2005, 2006 and 2007.” (My proposal today is not exactly the proposal of 25 Sept 2024, but the gist of it is again: Hamas does not ‘acquiesce…’.)
To ‘acquiesce to’ something means: [1] to accept or consent by silence or by omitting to object; or: [2] to rest without opposition and discontent (usually implying previous opposition or discontent). The Wikipedia lead text until today speaks of Hamas “beginning to acquiesce to 1967 borders” in certain wikilinked agreements in 2005, 2006 and 2007. In the context (“While initially seeking a state in all of former Mandatory Palestine Hamas began acquiescing…”), this suggests that Hamas in the 2005 text declared: [1] to no longer seek “a state in all of Mandatory Palestine” but settle for (the prospect of) a state merely in “1967 borders”, and/or: [2] to end their (previous) opposition to such smaller Pl. state (by no longer seeking that larger Pl. state); and that Hamas did so again in those wikilinked agreements in 2006 and 2007.
But I see none of those two assertions [1] and/or [2] being stated in any of those three wikilinked agreements: 2005 (P.CairoDecl) is about (cosmetically) merging twelve Palestinian factions by stressing the goal of a “Palestinian state” (but not limiting that P. state anyhow); 2006 (P.Pris.Docum.) was again an attempt at conciliation of the Pl. factions, by (vaguely) calling for the establishment of a Pal. state “on all territories occupied in 1967” (which is rather vague if we consider that the PLO had recognized Israel while Hamas still considered allmandatory Palestine as to be occupied) but there’s again no mention in the PPD document of the signatories abandoning any claim on any part of that previously mandatory Palestine; 2007 (Fatah–Hamas M.Agr.) is about ending the Fatah–Hamas bloody confrontations by stressing the shared goal of “confronting the occupation” but is not discussing boundaries of a desired Palestinian state.
Some editors will argue now: it doesn’t matter what we ourselves read in the documents, it matters what scholars and other reliable sources read in them. For example: colleague @Raskolnikov.Rev: has recently (25 Sept.) contended, in this Talk, that the ‘fact’ of Hamas acquiescing to 1967 borders has “plainly” been stated by sources Roy 2013, Baconi 2018 and Seurat 2019; and he has kindly requested for a discussion here on this talk page, about this question. Well, I’m sorry to say, but the ‘fact’ of Hamas acquiescing to 1967 borders has not been “plainly” stated by sources Roy 2013, Baconi 2018 and/or Seurat 2019 (following the above given definition of ‘acquiesce’ in Wiktionary; if you adhere to a different definition, please tell us so):
The Baconi(2018) quote fails as effective source: accepting/creating “a Pal. state on 1967 borders” does not in the least preclude the possibility or reality that after gaining that ‘small’ state Hamas will continue its striving for ‘all Palestine’. Source Seurat(2019) likewise fails: “acceptance of the 1967 borders” does not in the least preclude further struggle for ‘all of Palestine’ after that acceptance. Roy(2013) is quoted as: Hamas will “accept” a “solution” comprising “Israel” next to “a Palestinian state within 1967 borders”. But also that phrase does not say or imply that after that step, Hamas will desist from pursuing their Pal. state in ‘all of Palestine’, like they declared in both of their charters (1988 and 2017), on a press conference on 1 May 2017, and again (see our subsection Hamas#2023–present) on 24 Oct 2023 and in January 2024 and implicitly in April 2024.
Ofcourse, it can be disappointing, to realise that Hamas is not yet (proven to be) acquiescing to that definitive solution of that smaller P.state, because it means that that road will remain difficult as long as Hamas is powerful and sticks to that opinion. But writing in Wikipedia that Hamas has acquiesced to that smaller P.state, when it is not true, will not likely induce Hamas to adapt its opinion to make it match with the picture described (and hoped-for) by Wikipedia.
Therefore, a correct statement in the lead section about this point, summarizing relevant information from our article (section Hamas#Policies towards Israel and Palestine) – while I concede that ofcourse a ‘relevant summary’ can be phrased and written in many other wordings, too – would be: ‘Hamas in their 1988 charter and 2017 charter, and again in 2023 and 2024, declared to seek an Islamic state in all of formerly Mandatory Palestine. Also, Hamas several times has stated or suggested that it would, under further conditions, accept a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders.’ Please, note:
I’ve added the word ‘Islamic’ in the sentence about Hamas seeking a Palestinian state. This addition seems relevant in the lead section: on one hand, the idea of living in an explicitly ‘Islamic’ state may repel some non-Muslims (and also some Muslims); on the other hand, Hamas may have chosen to explicitly frame their quest as an Islamic quest to choke internal Palestinian opposition and foster more fanatic Palestinian support;
As to sentence 2 in this fragment (“several times…”): a lead section is meant to shortly summarize important issues from the larger article, not to repeat those issues at full length. The Wikipedia visitor will have to understand, that he can find those “several” instances the lead refers to, in the pertaining section of the article (Hamas#Policies towards Israel and Palestine). An open question however is: do such summarizing statements in a lead section need any ref sources, and if ‘yes’, how many? Strictly speaking, I think they can go without any ref, because the corroboration is given elsewhere in the article. In this case though, I would suggest to give the statement (“several times…”) one ref source: the ref given in section Hamas#2008–2016 for Mashal’s statement in 2008(Jazeera,22Apr2008). Another possibility is to repeat all relevant ref sources as given in the article: March 2006, June 2006 Haniyeh, Aug 2006, Nov 2008, Sep 2009, May 2010, Nov 2010, Dec 2010, 1 May 2017, 2018, Nov 2023, Jan 2024, and Apr 2024. Also, we can add the three ref sources (Seurat,Baconi,Roy) currently mentioned in the lead section by the incorrect statement about ‘acquiescing’, because all three confirm (in an optimistic voice?) Hamas’s readiness to accept a state on 1967 borders.
@VR: on 2 October wanted to make this discussion into a personal battle by attacking me with the argument: “Your edits have been reverted by two users”. This allegation is off-topic, disturbing noise and a personal attack. Also someone will (again) complain about my ‘too long’ talk posting, which is also a PA: a delicate and complex issue sometimes requires careful discussion. --Corriebertus (talk) 20:35, 9 October 2024 (UTC) @Skitash and Vice regent: I forgot on 9 October to ping two other colleagues here, who in the past have shown interest in this edit issue. The ‘ping’ template tells me, I need to “add new lines” (plural), now; I hope, this works. --Corriebertus (talk) 07:36, 11 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It has been my impression that, per sources like this one, "Hamas advocates the liberation of all of Palestine but is ready to support the state on 1967 borders without recognising Israel or ceding any rights" [Khaled Meshal]. Of course, Bibi and co will point to the first part but that second part looks like acquiescing to me. Selfstudier (talk) 16:20, 12 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Corriebertus, stop making highly contentious edits on the page without consensus. You failed to get support for your proposal, and you should seek to get acceptance for it before you go ahead and make the edits.
I still oppose your suggestion because the long-standing text is accurate, reflected by RS and does not need any alteration or artificial ambiguity introduced to it. Raskolnikov.Rev (talk) 16:32, 12 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's... complicated? Hamas has said, and done, different things at different points in time; and various commentators have lent different degrees of trust or weight to those statements and actions. I think that our current lead is accurate as far as it goes, though, specifically noting what Hamas said and agreed to at key points (which received substantial coverage) while noting the differing interpretations of its long-term goals. It isn't easy to squeeze this all into one paragraph in the lead, and inevitably there are going to be people who feel it should lean more in one direction or another, but overall it hews closely to what the sources say and doesn't omit anything important. We could perhaps replace acquiescing with accepting (the word "accept" is used in that context in two of the sources cited); I don't think it's a huge difference, but it would perhaps be slightly less awkward wording anyway, since acquiescing is a slightly flowery word in context and implies a degree of grudgingness or passiveness that perhaps the sources don't support. --Aquillion (talk) 01:53, 13 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't have a strong opinion about mentioning these documents in the lede. The charter has never been revoked so it remains an important document. We may mention these documents but we can't ignore much recent statements because of the documents they agreed to almost 20 years ago. Alaexis¿question?19:13, 13 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The situation is simple. ‘Acquiesce’ roots in the Latin word ‘quies’, it means: being at rest, at quiet, at calm, at peace of mind. Wikipedia should not state that Hamas is at peace with a ‘state in 1967 borders’, because we have no information telling us that they are (as I argued and explained at length, here on 9 Oct) – at least nothing in the 2005–06–07 documents says they are, and nothing in the three ref sources (Roy etc.) says they are (-- which is not to deny, though, that Hamas at times has stated or suggested to ‘accept’ such a state in case someone would ‘give’ it to them). So, sentence 11 of the lead of Hamas (‘…acquiescing’) should be corrected, replaced. (I gave a proposal for that, on 12 Oct, which is open for discussion and improvement, but is more correct that the current lead sentence.) But six (or more?) editors (@Vice regent:, @Skitash:, @Selfstudier:, @Raskolnikov.Rev:, @Lf8u2: and @Aquillion:) – one of them having conceived this current (wrong) text on 15 Dec 2023, 17:25 – insist (in this section or in an edit summary on last 11 Sep or 12 Oct) that the lead is very correct and should not be altered, though they don’t bring up any argument that refutes my reasoning (of 9 Oct); in fact, they don’t react on any of my given arguments. But merely ‘talking’ on talk page without reacting on what others have stated/contended in that section, I think is not discussing in the sense of trying to foster a mutual understanding or consensus — which I’ve understood to be the purpose of the Wikipedia talk pages — it seems more like abusing the talk page.
By the way: the issue of ‘Hamas [yes/no] accepting the 1967 borders’ appears to have been (sort of) ‘discussed’ at talk page between 13Oct2023 and 13Nov2023 (see Talk:Hamas/Archive_23#RFC:_Should_Hamas_be_described_as_accepting_the_1967_Israeli_borders_in_the_lead?). Approximately fourteen editors contributed to it, people like: @KlayCax:, Vice regent, @RadioactiveBoulevardier:, @Bharel:, @Iskandar323:, @Senorangel:, @Cjhard:, @Penguino35:, @Alaexis:,
@חוקרת:, @TarnishedPath:, @Mhhossein:, Aquillion, and Selfstudier, in approx. 44 postings. Reading it now, a year later, for me it is rather hard to follow. Each of the 14 contr seems to try to ‘adapt’ the ‘RFC question’ in the direction that he/she prefers. But the word ‘acquiesce’ is never mentioned, and the question of whether HAMAS ‘at heart’ was or is ‘at peace with the 1967 borders’ was not the initial RFC-question and also seems not to have become the predominant issue of that conversation. Which I don’t ‘reproach’ them for: apparently, they had other (perhaps 13 different) urgent uncertainties in the Wiki article which they wanted to solve (first). Between 25 Oct (or 13 Nov) and 15 Dec 2023, several(!) edits then have been made in the lead, to this disputed sentence over ‘(accepting) the 1967 borders’ (at some point even the word ‘acquiescing’ creeped in…), apparently without the discussion having been re-opened on talk page (unless someone tells me that it has). This shows, that: (a) the “consensus”, that an editor on 13 Nov 2023 had proclaimed, perhaps was not all that strong and clear; and that: (b) (surely) the editor who on 15 Dec 2023 created the current sentence around ‘acquiesing’, unjustifiedly appealed to that ‘old’ (alleged, presumed) consensus of 32 days earlier in that discussion where the word ‘acquiesing’ had played NO role and the concept it stands for at most had played a (very) marginal (implicit, unoutspoken) role (for some of the contrib’s). --Corriebertus (talk) 14:51, 21 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Why do we need weird "Meanwhile, reports are that" before "in the early 2020s, Hamas leaders occasionally still called for the annihilation of the state of Israel." The source doesn't hedge it this way and there are many other sources reporting on these calls made by Sinwar and others. Alaexis¿question?21:21, 9 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
True, I do not see that hedging in the source, which reads, That’s not to say that Sinwar and other Hamas leaders did not occasionally call for Israel’s annihilation. In a 2022 speech, Sinwar warned Israelis that Hamas would one day “march through your walls to uproot your regime.”Andre🚐21:24, 9 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Annihilation is WaPo's wording, not mine. That's all the quote that's given. I don't know which 2022 speech they are referring to. I don't see that particular phrase coming up in any other sources or the original speech as transcript at all, but maybe you could find it if you can translate it into Arabic and search Arabic-language RS. Assuming it was originally delivered in Arabic and not English or Hebrew in which he is both conversant if not fluent, right? Andre🚐04:07, 10 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The current sentence as it stands is not good and not supported by the given source, which is why I restored a {{clarify}} tag that was added back in February for the same content. The source says "Hamas leaders" yet only quotes Sinwar, and the chopped up quote is ambiguous and doesn't necessarily refers to "annihilation" - if anything, as VR said, sounds more like regime change. I would either remove that line or tweak it to include attribution so it is clear that this is WaPo's position instead of using wiki voice. - Ïvana (talk) 05:07, 10 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree - this doesn't need to be attributed because WaPo is generally reliable for this information. Wapo says Hamas leaders and Wapo says annihilation. There's no reason to attribute this here, and it's not WaPo's position. WaPo is WP:GENREL and these are easily verified facts -- or at least, absent any equally or more reliable source contradicting this one, we have no reason to doubt it other than a bit of nitpicking about the quote versus WaPo's summary of it. WaPo doesn't need to show all of their work for the statement in the quote - they aren't Wikipedia. Andre🚐05:12, 10 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
WaPo also isn't a scholarly source, and there's no reason to rely on news sources that might be misinterpreting quotes when we have multiple book length treatments on the ideology of Hamas.VR(Please ping on reply)06:50, 10 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with VR. Since these are "easily verified facts" you're welcome to find a better source that explicitly supports the sentence in its current form. - Ïvana (talk) 12:47, 10 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This is an isolated demand for rigour. If your suggestion is to use only scholarly sources then a lot of the content would have to go. For example, Al-Hayya's words about the possible truce are supported by AP [2], which is also not a scholarly source. Do you suggest removing it or adding "reports are that" to that sentence too? Alaexis¿question?18:14, 10 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I agree - there's no need for a scholarly source in place of AP or WaPo for statements that are simply quoting and characterizing some speeches that journalists can be trusted to explain - unless there's any better source either contradicting that or to replace it with. Andre🚐18:36, 10 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
For non-recent events I fully agree we should mainly be relying on scholarly sources. Can you make a list of material in this article that is not cited to scholarly sources in a section below? Over time we can all try to find scholarly references for that material. VR(Please ping on reply)00:56, 11 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Vice regent the early 2020s are arguably too recent, I think that the scholarly coverage of the topic is still limited. I think it's fine to use newspaper articles when we talk about things that happened less than ~5 years ago, especially when it's not contradicted by better sources as @Andrevan noted.
I would not be against a different approach of using only scholarly sources but adopting this standard just for this article doesn't seem like a realistic alternative given how Wikipedia works with editors trying to add the latest outrage to it. Alaexis¿question?11:17, 11 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
They mean the destruction of the 'Zionist project', i.e. the State of Israel. They don't mean replacing Bibi Netanyahu with a Prime Minister of Israel that they prefer
I cannot believe this even needs explaining more than a year on from the 7 October massacre
Saying that there are reports of something does not mean that there is "hedging" or ambiguity, it merely means that there are reports of something.
This has been long-standing text and your removal of it on the mistaken assumption that it is somehow "hedging" is controversial. If you want to remove that, then seek consensus for it here first.
On this point, I agree with Ïvana, Raskolnikov (and perhaps VR). ‘Annihilation’ is (since 1945, Endlösung, nazis) the most traumatic and thus alarming word, anyone can use or choose, in relation to Jews or the Jewish state of Israel. That’s why, as long as we have no explicit quote, from WaPo or any other source, that in the 2020s a Hamas leader concretely has called for ‘annihilation’, we must allow for the possibility that someone in the editorial board of WaPo has been ‘twisting’ or paraphrasing a less rigorous or a different word of Hamas into “annihilation”. Exact words matter terribly much. --Corriebertus (talk) 18:59, 10 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
While WaPo is a RS, reliance on a single source for a broad claim is not ideal. The article attributes a particular posture to all Hamas leaders, yet it only quotes Sinwar, whose statement is ambiguous and open to interpretation; it could suggest regime change rather than outright annihilation, as VR has noted. I also agree with Corriebertus re "annihilation" being a charged term that evokes a particular sentiment in this context; more of a reason to be cautious about its alleged use. What we could do is include the quote as it is, without assigning a meaning to it; readers can do that by themselves. So we could do something like In 2022, Sinwar, the leader of Hamas in Gaza, reportedly cautioned Israelis that Hamas would one day "march through your walls to uproot your regime." (slightly reworded so it doesn't fail WP:COPYVIO). There is a possibility that WaPo is paraphrasing him, and none of us know the exact content or context of the speech; but that's the closest we have to an actual quote. - Ïvana (talk) 00:33, 11 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed, but, nobody has offered any evidence to doubt this or any reason to suspect it is an error. Hamas leaders have called for annihilation all the time. [3][4] It's really not that controversial. Andre🚐01:02, 11 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
What exactly is editorializing here? Sinwar and other Hamas leaders called for annihilation. That is an uncontested fact in RS. Andre🚐02:15, 11 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
WP is a reliable source and there is no reason to doubt their assessment. In a few years we'll have scholarly sources analysing the ideology of Hamas in the late 2010s and early 2020s and then we can replace newspaper articles with something better.
Until then we can use the summary from WP. It's not just Sinwar, there were calls for the destruction of Israel from all kinds of Hamas officials, starting from Ghazi Ahmed calling for performing as many October 7's as needed until Israel is annihilated ([5], [6]) to mid-level preachers during their sermons. Alaexis¿question?10:59, 11 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"Israel is a country that has no place on our land. We must remove that country, because it constitutes a security, military, and political catastrophe to the Arab and Islamic nation, and must be finished. We are not ashamed to say this, with full force."
News anchor: "Does that mean the annihilation of Israel?"
Hamad: "Yes, of course.
[...]
"The existence of Israel is illogical. The existence of Israel is what causes all that pain, blood, and tears. It is Israel, not us. We are the victims of the occupation. Period. Therefore, nobody should blame us for the things we do. On October 7, October 10, October 1,000,000 – everything we do is justified." Source
Yahya Sinwar, December 2023,
""We support the eradication of Israel through armed Jihad and struggle. This is our doctrine. The occupation must be swept [away] from all our land." Source
Ismail Haniyeh, 26 July 2020,
Interviewer: "What are your political principles?"
Ismail Haniyeh: "We will not recognize Israel, Palestine must stretch from the [Jordan] River to the [Mediterranean] Sea, the Right of Return [must be fulfilled], the prisoners must be set free, and a fully sovereign Palestinian state must be established with Jerusalem as its capital."
Further sources reflecting the repeated and verbatim calls for the "annihilation" and/or "destruction" of the State of Israel by senior Hamas leadership:
With all due respect: colleagues Alaexis and Andre above contend that there are ‘many’ calls ‘for the destruction of Israel’; but for specifically the period 2017 – 6 Oct. 2023 (the subsection that we are actually scrutinizing in this talk section), they as yet haven’t delivered proof of such a call. The world, and perhaps also the behavior of Hamas officials, may have changed on 7Oct2023, so a distruction call after 7 Oct proves nothing about the period preceding that day. Andre mentions one call after 7Oct2023, and also a Hamas Sermon in April(!) 2023, but that sermon calls for Allah to "bring annihilation upon the Jews" – and, even though it is a terrible prayer (I’ve placed it today in Hamas#Antisemitism), it does NOT directly refer to the State of Israel. Apparently, if I listen to both Andre and Ïvana, even WaPo,13Nov2023, does NOT deliver any quote, from the early 2020s, for calling for “the annihilation of the state of Israel” AND DOES NOT EVEN CONTEND that such quote exists(!!), WaPo only gives a quote about “…uproot your regime”. In that case, the solution for this whole talk section seems to me very easy: let’s replace, in the here scrutinized subsection Hamas#2017– 6 Oct. 2023 (new charter), the sentence “…2020s,… occasionally…annihilation of…Israel” with the sentence, given in green text, by Ïvana, above, 11Oct.00:33 -- (but without the word "reportedly"). --Corriebertus (talk) 17:01, 11 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Well, thank you for improving the article by adding that part that you added. I think when Hamas calls for bringing annihilation upon the Jews, it's reasonable to understand they mean Israel. However, I can see that it's not an exact quote. However, an exact quote from Hamas isn't necessary if reliable sources characterize their position as such, that would enable our wikivoice to do so as well. How about a scholarly source, Hew Strachan and de:Holger Afflerbach 2012, which states that Hamas believes annihilation of Israel is necessary for creating a pan-Islamic empire.[1], or Confronting Antisemitism published by DeGruyter, edited by Dina Porat, Lawrence Schiffman, et al, written by Ljiljana Radonić, which states that Hamas still wanted to wipe Israel off the map even after the 1988 charter.[2]. Or Alvin Hirsch Rosenfeld 2015, who says Hamas has repeatedly called for the annihilation of Israel and all Jews.[3]Andre🚐08:17, 12 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Corriebertus, each statement can be interpreted differently. Perhaps you don't see the call for the destruction of the state of Israel in the words "uproot the regime." However the WP is entitled to make their own interpretations.
There is at least one more example from the same period. Haniyeh said in 2020 that one of their principles is "Palestine from the sea to the river" (around 11:40). This doesn't leave much space for Israel. I don't want to argue about this here, my point is that all these statements taken together make "Hamas sometimes called for the destruction of Israel" a reasonable summary. Alaexis¿question?19:44, 12 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Corriebertus, any comment on the scholarly sources I offered in my prior message immediately above this? And I notice you implemented your proposed edit, but I do not really see a consensus on the talk page here. Can you please review the antisemitism sources about annihilation and the non-deviation from Hamas' charter and let me know what your thoughts are? They should all have appropriate page Google Books previews. Andre🚐18:50, 12 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's Sir, You can see in user page. What I want changed is that there are some content in pages related to Hamas that seems partial. It always makes some claim that it all started on 7 October which is incorrect, Airstrikes and attacks on people of Gaza or Palestinian paramilitaries occurred before 7 October 2023. BangladeshiEditorInSylhet (talk) 19:06, 10 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hello Sir. I notice on your user page that you are already ‘extended confirmed’, but also that you feel rather little self-confident in your editing. Well, that’s a really honest thing to admit. I’d advice: simply go ahead, try things out, and don’t worry about mistakes. If you always edit with good faith intentions, there will always be colleagues to help you along when things might go wrong.
You say: “…there are some content in pages related to Hamas that seems partial. It always makes some claim that it all started on 7 October which is incorrect [etc.]”. That statement is too vague for me to agree or disagree with. Ofcourse, I agree, that the problem of Palestinian oppression is much older than 2023. But that isn’t being concealed. Take, for example, article Hamas: the first sentence already refers to ‘Palestinian nationalism’, as opposition to Zionism. The third sentence refers to Intifada and Israeli occupation. Et cetera.
Nevertheless, if you seen a place in Wiki where more attention should be given to the history before October 2023, just simply do that, and give a clear motivation for that edit in the edit summary line (box). If your motivation is honest and strong, colleagues won’t revert your contribution. --Corriebertus (talk) 18:23, 22 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Corriebertus You also made mistakes in your response, In your user page, you told us to correct and tell mistakes, I will now say it.
In 1st one, you said "Hello Sir, I notice on your user page... etc"
you were supposed to say: "Hello Sir, I noticed on your user page"
In 2nd one, you said "Nevertheless, if you seen..."
you were supposed to say "Nevertheless, if you see..."
Even though, I am from Bangladesh, a non-English speaking country and I studied mostly in non-English schools, I mostly know the basics and the mistakes of speaking English or typing a message or response, I will correct you if you make any mistakes. BangladeshiEditorInSylhet (talk) 13:04, 23 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Andrevan can you find me quotes where Hamas calls for the annihilation of all Jews, like you tried to add to the article here:[7]? Furthermore, whether or not opposition to the existence of Israel (which Hamas has indeed done) is antisemitic, is an open question and should not automatically be categorized under antisemitism.VR(Please ping on reply)16:43, 13 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The source was in the edit, reliable scholarly sources. There's no policy-based argument that requires a direct quotation if reliable secondary sources make a characterization. Andre🚐17:02, 13 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Also, might I add, if one person affiliated with Hamas made such a statement, it doesn't make it a "Hamas statement". We don't say that it is the official position of the Likud party to "burn Gaza", just because one of its MKs made such a statement[8].VR(Please ping on reply)18:19, 14 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Andrevan, this comment was directed to you. A source that simply says "Hamas says..." is doing a sloppy job. It should be able to name who in Hamas said what. A supporter of Hamas or a low-level official of Hamas does not represent the organization as a whole.VR(Please ping on reply)19:49, 14 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Adding Israeli soldiers' opinion of Hamas to this article is like adding Turkey's opinion that Israel is the "most fascist, racist" state[9] to Israel. If there is any merit to such claims, they will have been made by RS themselves.VR(Please ping on reply)18:32, 14 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
OK, well at least that's an argument responsive to the actual material, unlike whatever VR is referring to here, which I still can't figure out. Still, I would argue in good faith that the book if unrebutted is sufficient for such a claim. Would you accept it if I find 2 more books saying that, or what's the bar? Andre🚐18:48, 14 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Your first one says Supporters of the Hamas organization will sometimes present Jews in anti-Semitic way. Why? The answer is in this article. The Jews are depicted as running after money and profit who buy the Arabs with money or as cruel soldiers who attack the innocent. Sometimes, in times of tension, caricatures will appear that explicitly call for harming the Jews. Supporters of Hamas are not Hamas. It also says Hamas’ ideological documents speak in two voices regarding the Jews. In one voice, Hamas describes the battle against the Jews with national, anti-colonial colors. In an official book by Dr. Ahmad Yousef, the former adviser of Isma’il Haniyya, (today chairman of the Hamas Political Bureau,) Hamas described its stand regarding the Zionist project by emphasizing that the struggle with the Zionist project is not a struggle with the Jews because of their religion. Hamas does not go fight with the Jews because they are Jews. The organization works against the Jews because they capture and attack. They captured the land of Palestine and exiled its residents. (al-Yousef, 2017, pp. 13, 207, 235, 243) Hamas declares that it “differentiates between the enemy that exploits and captures the land of Palestine and the Jews who live outside of occupied Palestine” (al-Yousef, 2017, pp. 251) whom Hamas does not attack. On May 1, 2017, Hamas publish its document of General Principles and Politics. Hamas described itself as a “Palestinian nationalist movement” and the anti-Semitic overtones of the Charter were entirely scrapped, replaced by a distinction between Zionists and Jews (Seurat 2022, p. 17). It then goes on to discuss views that are not from Hamas on social media. Please quote what in it supports what you are claiming here.
Your second one is from the JCPA, an avowedly partisan think tank. Second, it says various people have made various statements, but I again do not see where it shows that Hamas itself has made the claim youre making here, namely that it seeks to annihilate all Jews. For your third, I have searched for every instance of "Hamas" and reading the results I do not find what you are claiming here. Again, please quote what it is that it says that supports your statement here. But that is again not a source focused on Hamas, but whatever, quote please. nableezy - 19:43, 14 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
1. Bartal, while he did serve in the military, is now a historian and author. He quotes Hamas' words so it's not his bias. He's reliable enough for quoting Hamas. p.176 According to Hamas’ outlook, the Jews are the enemies of God and the Islamic faith and that is why the Hamas organization continues the anti-Jewish tradition of the Muslim Brotherhood described above. (al-Yousef, 2017, p. 101) In addition, even in the Hamas Covenant, Article 7, and in the book by Hamas activist Achmud al-Yousef, the Hadith of the “Stone and the Tree” foretells that on Judgement Day there will be a heavy battle between the Jews and the Muslims over Jerusalem and the stones and the trees will cooperate with the Muslims and will turn in the Jews to those who worship God. This Hadith, which appears in Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī (d. 870) and in Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim (d. 875) where you cannot separate between the struggle over Jerusalem with its religious link. (al-Yousef, 2017, p. 52) In other words, the war between the Jews and the Muslims in Palestine is a religious war and the establishment of the State of Israel proves, so as to speak, the correctness of the prophecy hidden in the Hadith. And if so, the Israeli-Palestinian struggle is not a national war or an anti-colonial war but a religious war. Speakers for Hamas, including al- Yousef, argue that the Hamas Covenant was written in 1988 at the start of the first Palestinian intifada and represents a period of time as well as the writings of those who founded the organization. Israel and its supporters take the anti-Jewish statements that are attributed to the charter out of context. The Muslims admit that there are antisemitic sayings in the Hamas Charter but this does not lessen their criticism on Israel. (Abu Sway, 2017, pp., 121-122, 127) p. 179 Hamas makes no distinction between Judaism and Zionism, and uses Zionists and Jews synonymously and interchangeably. Judaism is a “religion that stipulates racism and hostility towards others in its books and incites to unjustly usurp Palestine under the slogan of the Holy Land.” Zionism, according to this view, transforms these Jewish ideas into reality. Likewise, terrorism is an integral and inherent pillar of Judaism, which stems from the teaching of the Torah, and which finds its expression in the Zionist massacres in Palestine. (Litvak, 2005) Hamas’ main belief is also expressed in the official announcements of the organization which was already publicized in 1995 under the name “Filastin al-Muslima”. It was publicized according to which the conflict with the Jews is a divine decree. The struggle is forever and according to the Quran the only way to solve it is through jihad
2. Spoerl p. 216 with detailed footnotes (see note 74) - member of the Palestinian legislature Marwan Abu Ras gave a Friday sermon at a mosque in the Gaza Strip in which he said, “History attests that in every era, the Jews were the most abhorred of people. Throughout history, the most hated race was the Jewish race…. Why did [Hitler] hate the Jews? Because they are a people of treachery and betrayal…. Therefore, we can never accept the Jews….” Bear in mind that the speaker was a Hamas elected official and that sermons at Gaza Strip mosques are strictly monitored and controlled by Hamas and staffed by Hamas appointees.....February 8, 2010, Al-Aqsa TV ran an interview with Abdallah Jarbu, the Hamas deputy minister of religious endowments (the ministry responsible for staffing and supervising mosques in the Gaza Strip), in which Jarbu said: [The Jews] suffer from a mental disorder, because they are thieves and aggressors.… They want to present themselves to the world as if they have rights, but in fact, they are foreign bacteria—a microbe unparalleled in the world. It’s not me who says this. The Koran itself says they have no parallel: “You shall find the strongest men in enmity to the believers to be the Jews.” May He [Allah] annihilate this filthy people who have neither religion nor conscience. I condemn whoever believes in normalizing relations with them, whoever supports sitting down with them, and whoever believes they are human beings. They are not human beings. They are not people. They have no religion, no conscience, and no moral values.
3. This one is a review of several books with footnotes. p. 127 Islamist ideology contains the “germ” of a ruthless “solution of the Jewish question,” similar to National Socialist ideology. Islamism, too, is an apocalyptic ideology that seeks to redeem the world from the evil, inhuman Jews, and the two ideologies share a similar aversion to modernism and the West, capitalism, and imperialism,39 but historically Islamist antagonism toward Western civilization began long before the 1930s, stemming first and foremost from Islam’s dichotomous worldview of good and evil, believers and non-believers, and from Muslim predicaments in the modern world. Classic European antisemitism penetrated the Islamic fundamentalist worldview, the Hamas Charter being a glaring example p. 133 e ‘timelessness’ of enmity of the Jews” clarifies the motif of the eternal enmity of the Jews that is so dominant in Islamist thought today, suggesting no room for reconciliation and justification of genocidal measures against them to free humanity from their evil. MAndre🚐22:31, 14 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Nothing in 1 says anything about killing all Jews. A member of the Palestinian legislature does not speak for Hamas. And it also does not say anything about murdering all Jews. Nothing in 3 says anything about the annihilation of all Jews. The view on Islamism being an apocalyptic ideology that seeks to redeem the world from the evil, inhuman Jews seems to be way out there in WP:FRINGE territory. nableezy - 22:37, 14 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm happy to workshop or add new text akin to what is written here. 1 goes to no distinguishing between Israel and Jews and a religious war of jihad further supporting the statements in the article, and also specific violence toward Jews. 2. This member was a member of Hamas, obviously, which is one of the parties in that parliament. and the source further does say basically Hitler was right, dehumanization, and "annihilate this filthy people" which seems pretty specific to what I've added. 3. Specifically talks about the ties to the Final Solution ie genocidal rhetoric, and mentions that explicitly "genocidal measures against them to free humanity from their evil." Don't see how all three of these don't directly support the claims, but let's take a beat and we'll do some different ones, since there's no shortage of supportive source material. Andre🚐22:58, 14 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
A single Hamas member does not mean Hamas said something. Or would you suggest including the most insane thing some Likud member said in that article? nableezy - 23:15, 14 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Eh, depends who and what it was? This is a guy going around being a Hamas spokesman? He also has a position of "the chairman of the Interior and Security Committee" [10][11] It also says Bear in mind that the speaker was a Hamas elected official and that sermons at Gaza Strip mosques are strictly monitored and controlled by Hamas and staffed by Hamas appointees. Andre🚐23:40, 14 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That is quite literally saying any random Likud member of the Knesset should be taken as speaking for the party, including when calling for the wholesale murder of Gazans, eg here. nableezy - 01:10, 15 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The Likud article currently reads, In the 2019 elections, Likud was widely criticized as a "racist party" after scaremongering anti-Arab rhetoric by its membersAndre🚐07:08, 15 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
And we include there are antisemitic things here as well. It does not include that Likud supports genocide based on the ranting of some MK. nableezy - 12:16, 15 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Bassam TibiFrom Sayyid Qutb to Hamas: The Middle East Conflict and the Islamization of Antisemitism see p.5 [1][12] p.7 According to this Islamist argument, the Jews are “evil” and contaminate the world to the extent that they deserve to be annihilated. p.10 neither Qutb nor Hamas distinguish between Judaism and Zionism; p.19 Charter of Hamas ... this Hadith... prescribes the “killing of the Jew” as “a religious obligation” p.17 Palestinian al-Antawabi does not employ... anti-Islamic Zionist entity. For Antabawi all Jews are permanently conspiring in a cosmic war against Islam. His conclusion is that Jews can therefore never be appeased. Antabawi’s ... mobilized against the Jews on the grounds of a combination of the Qur’an with the gun.” 2012 Hamas declares the Jews “an entity” inimical to Islam. p.77-78 Hamas resolves not only to fight Jews and crusaders with weapons but also to neutralize their intellectual impact... Paul McGough, met with the Hamas leader Khalid Mishal and asked for his views on an adjustment of the charter; McGough reports: “On the critical question of rewriting the charter, which calls for the destruction of Israel, . . . [Mishal] was unbending: ‘not a chance.’[2]Andre🚐07:19, 15 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Do we agree that the Bassam Tibi sources are reliable, impartial, and usable in the article? Do we agree that the sources characterize Hamas' position as religiously anti-Jewish? Does this not support the previous Alvin Rosenfeld book Deciphering the New Antisemitism that says basically the same thing? Andre🚐22:11, 15 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The 1988 Charter indeed made antisemitic statements, ascribing negative attributes to Jews, but didn't call for killing "all Jews". However, these were then dropped in the 2017 charter which differentiated between Jews and Zionists. Tibi's article was written in 2010.VR(Please ping on reply)00:30, 16 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It does not support Hamas has called for killing all Jews, which is what this is about. And we already cover antisemitism in the charter. nableezy - 00:45, 16 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The reference to this Hadith is a telling story in itself, it prescribes the “killing of the Jew” as “a religious obligation” so, in your reading, this is not about killing all Jews but only of one specific Jew? And who is that? Was the one Jew present at that music festival, and the matter is already solved?
This whole discussion is silly. It is obvious what would happen if Hamas took over Israel: the same thing as last October, only on a much bigger scale. They say they want to kill Jews, and when they get a chance, they do it. The problem is that some people do not want to hear it because it does not fit their worldview. It strongly reminds me of those Holocaust deniers who argue that the German word "ausrotten", which appears in Nazi documents, has another, more harmless meaning beside "extirpate", "kill off", "eradicate", "exterminate" and "wipe out". Well, it does not, and it never had.
Tibi is a very good source, and that section explicitly says they want to kill "the Jew". Maybe that wording "the Jew" is acceptable for everybody here? It is clear enough for those readers who are not ideologically committed, and, judging from this discussion, it seems to be unclear enough for those who are. --Hob Gadling (talk) 11:13, 16 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
We already cover the charter in depth. And that it frames the struggle for Palestine in religious terms is something we cover. Tibi is also outdated, but even that does not support what is claimed here. As far as your it’s obvious, I am no more interested in your personal opinions than you would be of mine on what is obvious about Israel’s intentions to wipe out the Palestinians. I decline to address the outrageousness of your personal attacks here. nableezy - 13:48, 16 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Spoerl p.217
In May 2017, Hamas released “A Document of General Principles and Policies” in which it made the following statement: “Hamas affirms that its conflict is with the Zionist project not with the Jews because of their religion. Hamas does not wage a struggle against the Jews because they are Jewish but wages a struggle against the Zionists who occupy Palestine.”56 There are at least six reasons for not taking this claim seriously. First, anti-Semitism is central to Hamas propaganda, as documented copiously below, and Hamas has not renounced or ceased producing such propaganda. Second, Hamas has made it clear that it has not revoked its 1988 Covenant, which remains its statement of foundational principles.58 Third, strictly speaking, the Hamas Covenant of 1988 focused its anti- Semitic language on Zionists, for example, describing The Protocols of the Elders of Zion as the blueprint for the Zionist project (Article 32) and accusing the Zionists of aiming to “annihilate Islam” (Article 28). The May 2017 “Document” continues in this vein, albeit in somewhat less florid language, asserting that “the Zionist project does not target the Palestinian people alone; it is the enemy of the Arabic and Islamic Ummah posing a grave threat to its security and interests. It is also hostile to the Ummah’s aspirations for unity, renaissance, and liberation and has been the major source of its troubles. The Zionist project also poses a danger to international security and peace and to mankind….” (#15). As in the 1988 Covenant, the 2017 “Document” merely takes all the classical tropes of anti-Semitism and focuses them on Zionism, noting that “it is the Zionists who constantly identify Judaism and the Jews with their own colonial project and illegal entity” (#16). In effect, Hamas is saying that it is at war with all Jews except those who are anti-Zionist, thus it is not anti-Semitic. This can hardly be regarded as a serious repudiation of anti-Semitism.... Fourth, the release of the May 2017 “Document” coincides with a tightening of the grip of hardliners on the Hamas Politbureau....The suggestion that leaders such as Fathi Hammad have abandoned anti-Semitism is hardly credible...Fifth, Hamas has a well-documented history of dissembling, especially when addressing non-Muslims.
Idk what it is youre researching for, but the dispute is about phrasing that Hamas's goal is the "annihilation of all Jews". If you want to discuss antisemitism by all means, but the claim under dispute here remains poorly sourced. nableezy - 01:21, 22 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The point of the above is that Hamas didn't repudiate their 1988 charter or antisemitism with the 2017 charter that was brought up in this thread. Is that point under dispute? Andre🚐01:25, 22 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
No, this thread was about you putting in to the narrative voice of Wikipedia that Hamas has repeatedly called for the annihilation of Israel and all Jews. nableezy - 01:28, 22 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Which appears verbatim in reliable sources. Would it be helpful if we soften the language? Because that is what Bassam Tibi and Alvin Rosenfeld said. Is it the specific wording or the concept? If the wording, can you propose a wording for this concept that is acceptable based on the sources? Andre🚐01:33, 22 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think it's worth adding the attitude of two of officials to civilian casualties. In a speech on the occasion of the anniversary of the massacre on October 7, Khaled Mashal spoke about the past year and claimed that Hamas is winning "because our losses are tactical and the enemy's losses are strategic." Following Palestinian criticism at net, he apologized. In an interview with a podcast over the weekend, senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan said: "This is a war. No one should consider the women and children who are killed victims. The first victims that should be looked at are first of all the ranks of the fighters, and the ranks of the leadership. We lost Ismail Haniyeh and Saleh al-Aaruri and other commanders in Palestine and beyond." He did not apologize for it despite criticism on the net.
https://www.kan.org.il/content/kan-news/opinions/813068/ --77.127.184.99 (talk) 23:11, 16 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That's a bit thin and doesn't go so far as what you are saying. Yes, Netanyahu is accused of propping up Hamas at the expense of Fatah but that's not the same as tacit support by intelligence. Andre🚐20:29, 18 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Page ‘extended-confirmed protected’: is that (still) justified?
What are the arguments, and what the criteria? When and where will this judgement be re-assessed? --Corriebertus (talk) 08:44, 20 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Hemiauchenia: Lede is a summary of the body; readers do not expect to read every single country that has designated Hamas as a terrorist organization as much as they do not expect to see every single country that does not see it as such. The burden of achieving consensus lies on yourself as the inserter of these details. [13]Makeandtoss (talk) 12:45, 20 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This has been the stable compromise consensus for months in this page without objection, check the page history. People have inevitably quibbled about how Hamas's designation as a terrorist organisation should be characterised, from "many countries" to "a few Western countries", and just listing them seems to have provoked the least objection. It's not all the countries either, as Paraguay is not listed due to lack of significance. Hemiauchenia (talk) 15:42, 20 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Then obviously the correct phrasing would be "a number of western countries". Consensus can be challenged and developed. I see no reason why we list the pro-terrorism label countries and not the ones opposing it. NPOV should be restored. Makeandtoss (talk) 13:59, 21 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
What countries oppose it? Not designating Hamas as terrorists is not the same as opposing such designation. Also, there are also non-Western countries that designated it as a terrorist organisation. Alaexis¿question?20:30, 21 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
58 countries in the United Nations opposed this desgination. So we are clearly giving way more due weight to one side here. Addressing your concerns, I think the best middle ground solution that we came with here is replacing the list with this summary: "a number of western countries". @Alaexis:@Hemiauchenia:Makeandtoss (talk) 07:50, 9 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This edit violates NPOV. The source clearly mentions the attack on Israel while discussing the rising popularity of Hamas, so we should mention is as well
“
The survey found a great deal of support in the West Bank and Gaza for the Oct. 7 attacks. Supportive views of Hamas are now strong in the West Bank, with almost 90 percent being very or somewhat positive, but in Gaza it's just over 50 percent—undoubtedly reflecting many years of Hamas misrule.
There is no consensus on the reliability of The Daily Beast. Most editors consider The Daily Beast a biased or opinionated source. Some editors advise particular caution when using this source for controversial statements of fact related to living persons.
This is clearly a controversial statement of fact related to living persons, especially since "Hamas misrule" is not a neutral statement. Additionally, the piece in question was written by a staffer at the decidedly non-neutral The Arab Gulf States Institute. Maybe we should remove that portion altogether, unless we can find a reliable, neutral source. Smallangryplanet (talk) 09:58, 23 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
We cannot state that Hamas accepts Israel in the present tense using Graham Usher's 2006 book. We should either add the year like I've done or remove it altogether (we have a long section dealing with the Hamas' attitude towards Israel). Reverting my addition without providing a valid reason is a violation of policy. Alaexis¿question?20:43, 21 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I agree, @Smallangryplanet: it seems like you're using reverts as too much of a bludgeon, undoing various changes at once without sufficient explanation. Reverts should generally be finer-grained and concerns more clearly articulated. — xDanielxT/C\R21:53, 21 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It was long-standing consensus to not include the 2006 year specification in-page, and I don't see any need for why it has to be included, unless there's some evidence that Usher has changed his analysis or it has been supplanted by recent evidence. None of that has been provided, in fact the page has content that says otherwise.
Where was this consensus? We don't date attributed statements by default, but Alaexis made what seems like a reasonable point that it might make sense in this particular case since the source predates a very pertinent event. — xDanielxT/C\R22:17, 21 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The Usher reference has been on the page without a date specification since July.
I disagree that it's reasonable to add the date specification in-page when there's no evidence that the author in question has altered their view, and despite pertinent recent events, the claim stated by the author has been confirmed subsequent to that as well, with Hamas leaders again reiterating their "long-term truce" proposals as noted on the page.
But in any case, we have no idea how the author responded to those events, and there's no reason to speculate by adding in-page date citation and thereby suggesting it's outdated now. Raskolnikov.Rev (talk) 22:27, 21 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
WP:AGEMATTERS. Also it's just common sense that something that was written 18 years ago should not be stated in present tense given lots of things that happened since then (Gaza takeover, 2017 document, the current war, etc). Alaexis¿question?19:35, 22 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, and as WP:AGEMATTERS notes, Be sure to check that older sources have not been superseded. You have not presented any evidence that this has been the case. On the contrary, you list an event like the rewrite of the original Hamas charter that further confirms what Usher concluded, and the same is true with respect to the "long-term ceasefire" proposals that are noted on the page and extend throughout that period, including the reiteration of it post-October 7. Raskolnikov.Rev (talk) 19:43, 22 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
My point is very simple, either you should use past tense for something written in 2006 or you should remove it altogether. I'd prefer the latter but I'm fine with the former as well. Alaexis¿question?19:50, 22 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You're right, I misjudged by a few hours.
Will revert you again shortly unless someone else gets to it first, and ask you to not remove longstanding RS content that's being discussed in Talk and does not have consensus to be removed.
You need to establish consensus to keep this in the article, WP:ONUS is very clear about it The responsibility for achieving consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content. We can see in this thread that there is no consensus for keeping this passage as is.
"Will revert you again shortly unless someone else gets to it first" doesn't seem like a proper attitude for building encyclopaedia collaboratively. Alaexis¿question?20:01, 22 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
As I have noted before, the RS text has been on the page since July, and you removed it now despite there being opposition to it in Talk.
You need to seek consensus to remove it, and in my view have failed to provide any good reasons for it. Moreover, after first attempting to add a date to it which was reverted by another editor precipitating this discussion, you moved to removing the entire text and source altogether.
We don't add year specifications for many if not all of the other references cited in the text, this is because the date is included in the reference citation itself. Do we know that Usher has changed positions since 2006, or is this speculation? Insisting on including this year seems like an NPOV violation, because the only reason I can think of for including it is to imply that the opinion has changed. As @Raskolnikov.Rev notes, do we have any evidence that Usher's opinion has changed? If not, I don't see any reason to include the year in the text. If it has, we should include that information. Smallangryplanet (talk) 09:35, 23 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In that case, I'd agree with Alaexis, that yes we should add the year. However, we have more recent sources about Hamas' implicit acceptance of Israel, I'll add them. I'm more concerned about the Martin Kear source. I just checked it and it doesn't seem about recognizing the existence of Israel, rather about whether it sees as a "Israel as a legitimate actor".VR(Please ping on reply)03:56, 25 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Disagree about the year citation for reasons mentioned, again we don't do that for the other citations on the page unless there's good reason for it. I'm not sure about the Kear reference, haven't looked into it, but if it's not correct then yes it should be fixed. Raskolnikov.Rev (talk) 04:27, 25 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I understand where you're coming from. If we did that for every citation, the article would become a huge mess. @Alaexis, do you think some significant evolution happened post-2006 that would lead us to consider this dated? From my understanding, Hamas has moved towards, not away from recognizing Israel since then with its 2017 Charter.VR(Please ping on reply)04:39, 25 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, that was the point me and @Smallangryplanet made. Usher's statement was further strengthened by subsequent events like the 2017 Charter and the continued issuance of the "long-term ceasefire" proposals, including post-October 7, and there's no evidence that he changed his views, so conditions to include date-specification aren't met. I believe the main concern was with ensuring NPOV in the section though, but that should be addressed with additional information and sources, which is being done now. Raskolnikov.Rev (talk) 04:50, 25 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Vice regent, well, they've made a lot of contradictory statements since then (see Hamas#2017–_6_Oct._2023_(new_charter)) sometimes indicating potential acceptance of the 1967 borders and sometimes saying that they claim everything between the river and the sea but they've been pretty consistent in refusing to formally recognise Israel (example).
The dispute is due to *some* scholars saying that Hamas has implicitly recognised Israel while others consider it a ploy. There are plenty of newer sources dealing with the topic and in any case there is absolutely no reason to use 20-years old sources to describe the current situation. Alaexis¿question?22:54, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Alaexis The reason for the Usher source is to directly address formal vs informal recognition. That section is specifically about the question of Recognition of Israel in general, so RS that directly address that question, regardless of age, are relevant to include.
The sources are also pretty clear that the 'long term peace' position of Hamas includes informal recognition "as a political reality" from 2006 onwards. (This is further reinforced by later statements.) See the section you linked, those preceding it, and here for additional sources. Smallangryplanet (talk) 10:23, 30 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Per @Vice regent I looked into the Martin Kear source and @Alaexis did not include the full context in a way that changed its meaning; I fixed the source with his actual view (and I've included the relevant quote from the book in the citation). I have also removed the incomplete reference to the 2006 Quartet response (Kear directly addresses it, differently from how the quote was originally presented), and Seurat confirms on pp 199 of that resource:
Signed in June 2006 by Hamas and other Palestinian factions, the Prisoners’ Document implicitly recognized the June 1967 borders, agreed on the construction of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as a capital and accepted limitations to the resistance in the territories occupied in 1967. It was approved on 28 June 2006, following consultations with the entire Political Bureau, whose extensive participation was confirmed by Khaled Hroub, Alvaro de Soto and Paola Carid.
Please ensure when adding sources here that they (1) address the general question of Hamas' policy towards recognition of Israel and (2) that the sourcing is accurate and complete. Smallangryplanet (talk) 07:18, 25 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
We have two subsections Evolution of positions and Recognition of Israel. The latter deals with the formal recognition of the state of Israel (or lack thereof) while the former discusses different aspects of the attitude towards Israel, including the Prisoners' document and the implicit recognition of the 1967 borders. This quote says nothing about the recognition of Israel and therefore is not relevant for the subsection Recognition of Israel unless we change its scope. Alaexis¿question?16:20, 25 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Alaexis I was talking about the Kear quote, which does explicitly deal with Recognition, and is then backed up by Seurat talking about the Prisoners' Document, which we could possibly put in the Evolution section. (I don't think that's necessary since Seurat is already cited there and the same point is made.) Smallangryplanet (talk) 09:48, 26 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Whether Hamas would recognize Israel is debated is a weird first sentence of the section. Wikipedia is not a WP:CRYSTALBALL. I've requested a source for that the other day and no source was provided but now I think that it shouldn't be in the article at all. Alaexis¿question?15:16, 26 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It is a factual statement - as immediately shown by the contents of the section. I think we would be trying to WP:CRYSTALBALL if we made a specific pronouncement about recognition, since all of the following content in the section shows that it's not quite that cut and dry. Smallangryplanet (talk) 08:45, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The use of the word "would" signifies that this is "a situation that you can imagine happening" [16].
I... what would you accept as an alternative formulation of the sentence? The content of the section itself makes it abundantly clear that it is something that can be imagined happening, and to claim one way or the other is explicitly WP:CRYSTALBALL if not hilariously not WP:NPOV. Smallangryplanet (talk) 13:54, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
What is the purpose of this sentence? The rest of the paragraph describes with the current/historical situation. I just don't see what additional information it gives to the reader. Alaexis¿question?21:40, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
WP:CRYSTALBALL does not apply here. We aren't speculating but simply presenting opinions by WP:RS as per WP:DUE. Some other examples where we see this are:
Judeo-Catalan (uses is debated for the question of whether the subject even exists)
Theia_(planet) (uses is debated for a topic related to the subject)
As per WP:BURDEN, All content must be verifiable... It is satisfied by providing an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports the contribution. The current content already meets this bar as the claim is backed by reliable sources.
I'm assuming good faith, so won't accuse you of WP:BADGER. Picking at random, the 2nd paragraph citing Moussa Abu Marzouk who served as the VP of Hamas' political bureau directly addresses this point. As does the next paragraph which goes into the scholarship of Martin Kear.
Again, as per WP:CRYSTALBALL we can't predict the future. If tomorrow we see the collapse of Israel and the establishment of Palestinian sovereignty including the political rise of Hamas, we cannot know what will definitely happen. However, the works cited in the section provides credibility to the opinion that there definitely is a debate about whether Hamas will recognize Israel with strong points from all sides. CoolAndUniqueUsername (talk) 23:03, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This is not a sufficient source. We have other Hamas leaders saying different things. In 2024 [Meshaal] pointed out that this position “comes to facilitate Palestinian and Arab consensus at this stage, but without giving up any part of our right or our land and without recognising the usurping entity [Israel].”[17]
After Hamas had won the 2006 elections, the recognition of Israel was one of the preconditions the Middle East Quartet set for Hamas to receive diplomatic acknowledgement and engagement. Hamas refused to accept it.[1][2]
Graham Usher said that while Hamas did not consider Israel to be legitimate, it accepted Israel as political reality.[3] According to Martin Kear "Hamas operationalises its resistance to Israeli occupation through its invocation of jihad" and therefore refuses to recognize Israel as a legitimate actor.[4]
”
Why were the first and last sentence removed here? They discuss the recognition which is the topic of this section. If the problem with mentioning the quartet's conditions is that it was 18 years ago, then Usher's opinion should go too since it was written at the same time and in the context of the same 2006 elections (This article examines the lead-up to the recent Palestinian legislative elections). Alaexis¿question?19:27, 26 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It was removed because the claims were misrepresented, and the quartet condition was removed because it was immediately superseded by the Kear quote. (Usher's one was not.) Smallangryplanet (talk) 08:41, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure I understand. Kear's quote (According to Martin Kear, without expressly stating it Hamas agreed to respect the Oslo Accords, and by extension Israel's existence: "The signing of the 2007 Mecca Agreement also meant that Hamas had met two of the three stipulations set down by Israel and the Quartet: recognising Israel and respecting all previous Israeli-Palestinian agreements") does not supersede what Seurat and Musgrave wrote. If their opinions differ we should describe all of them per WP:DUE.
Which claims were misrepresented? The text I added "Hamas operationalises its resistance to Israeli occupation through its invocation of jihad" and therefore refuses to recognize Israel as a legitimate actor says exactly the same that Kear wrote In contrast, Hamas operationalises its resistance to Israeli occupation through its invocation of jihad . Accordingly, Hamas refuses to recognise Israel as a legitimate actor, and is willing to inflict violence on Israeli military and civilian targets. Alaexis¿question?11:50, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The section about the Quartet suggested that Hamas had not met the conditions, full stop, but we can see that they conditionally met 2/3 of them.
I think we have differing understandings of what that section of the Kear source is saying. Here's the full quote:
Israel ensures its self-defence by asserting control over land through occupation, particularly in the West Bank. As discussed in Chapter 3, Israel’s control is achieved through expulsion, land confiscation, settlement building, and economic and political restrictions (Kapitan 2011: 495). Israeli governments have also propagated the narrative that any concrete moves towards an independent Palestine represents a direct threat to the existence of the Israeli state. This allows the GoI to characterise any form of resistance from Palestinians as acts of terrorism. This applies particularly to Hamas, whose resistance to Israeli occupation is understood by the GoI in purely military terms. As discussed earlier, affixing value-laden terms like ‘terrorist’ onto Hamas allows Israel to depict Hamas’s resistance efforts as lying outside the boundaries of acceptable political behaviour. Because the type and levels of violence utilised by Hamas cannot be considered as ordinary, but extraordinary, it necessitates that Israel respond with levels of force that are extraordinary to deter and punish Hamas and its supporters (Strom & Irvin 2007: 586). In contrast, Hamas operationalises its resistance to Israeli occupation through its invocation of jihad. Accordingly, Hamas refuses to recognise Israel as a legitimate actor, and is willing to inflict violence on Israeli military and civilian targets (Baracskay 2015: 526). Within Israel’s self-defence discourse, Hamas uses the concept of jihad to injure the Israeli state, and to bring about its eventual downfall (Litvak 2010: 721–722).
Seen in isolation, the sentence you paraphrased - crucially, missing the in contrast - gives the impression that Hamas just kind of... does that, for some mysterious reason... while the full quote makes it clear that Hamas is responding like for like, but in a situation in which anything it does will be perceived as 'terrorism' even when it is perfectly legitimate under international law to resist "expulsion, land confiscation, settlement building, and economic and political restrictions" by any means, including force. Smallangryplanet (talk) 14:10, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
But this is the article about Hamas, not Israel. There are plenty other articles in which the Israeli policy is discussed. This section is not about their designation as a terrorist organisation but only about their recognition of Israel. The first part of the paragraph you cited tells us nothing about this is is simply irrelevant for this section. Alaexis¿question?21:56, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It would be WP:UNDUE to ignore the context of Israel in a section about Hamas' potential recognition of Israel. The first part of the paragraph in question explains why Hamas' recognition of Israel is complicated, since Israel treats any activity towards an independent Palestine (violent, non violent, etc) as a direct threat. Leave that out, and we end up suggesting that the Hamas/Israel relationship is solely because of some unspecified malevolence on Hamas' side, which is an obvious NPOV violation as well as a WP:NOTADVOCACY issue, because we would then be advocating for exactly the view described in the first couple of sentences of that paragraph. Smallangryplanet (talk) 11:08, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It looks like we'll need an RfC. Any reader who'll get to this point in the article will know about the Israeli occupation, we don't need to repeat it everywhere. Alaexis¿question?22:59, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Right. I am not saying we need to include the entire quote. You asked me which claims were misrepresented, and I was answering that and explaining why. I don't think we need an RFC here; we just need to include like one extra sentence.
Graham Usher said that while Hamas did not consider Israel to be legitimate, it accepted Israel as political reality. According to Martin Kear, because Israel treats "any form of resistance from Palestinians as acts of terrorism", and therefore responds to any resistance with extraordinary force, Hamas responds by operationalizing "...its resistance to Israeli occupation through its invocation of jihad ... Accordingly, Hamas refuses to recognise Israel as a legitimate actor..."[4]
Okay, let's look at these two issues separately. You wrote The section about the Quartet suggested that Hamas had not met the conditions, full stop, but we can see that they conditionally met 2/3 of them. This is not how we deal with disagreements amongst sources. We have Musgrave saying on p. 136 that The second precondition was ‘recognition of Israel, ...As expected, Hamas immediately refused to acquiesce to these principles. Seurat says on p. 67 that the recognition of Israel was an unacceptable demand[] in the eyes of Hamas. Then we have Kear who thinks that they implicitly recognised Israel. Per WP:DUE we should mention the main viewpoints and give due weight to them - in this case we have more sources that say that Hamas did not recognise Israel. Alaexis¿question?21:52, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
No, that's not how it works. WP:DUE is very clear about it Neutrality requires that mainspace articles and pages fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in those sources. There are two viewpoints and we need to represent both in proportion to their prominence. Alaexis¿question?22:57, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm reading Usher's article now and he's also writing about the recognition in the context of the 2006-2007 political developments (the section which supports the text in the article starts with The precondition for any accommodation is going to be flexibility on Hamas’s part. And since the elections, Hamas has been shoveling out flexibility in spades. I believe that it should also be moved to the 2006–2007 subsection. Alaexis¿question?22:25, 30 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I've also read Usher and he's not making a conditional claim based on the election, he's making a more general statement w/r/t Hamas' overall position on accepting Israel as a political reality. He notes that Hamas reasserted its long term hudna or ceasefire proposal, which predates 2006 (and extends pretty far into the period after). So IMO it should be kept in the general section. Smallangryplanet (talk) 10:04, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
^Musgrave, Nina (2023). Cook, Joana; Maher, Shiraz (eds.). The Rule Is for None But Allah: Islamist Approaches to Governance. Oxford University Press. p. 136. ISBN9780197690390.
^Seurat, Leila (2021). The Foreign Policy of Hamas: Ideology, Decision Making and Political Supremacy. Bloomsbury Academic. p. 67. ISBN9781838607487.
^Kear, Martin (2019). Hamas and Palestine: The Contested Road to Statehood. Routledge. p. 178. ISBN9781138585416. {{cite book}}: |format= requires |url= (help)
Per MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE and WP:CATV, context about Hamas' militarism and anti-imperialism needs to be added to the article body, otherwise those respective descriptors must be removed from the infobox and category list. Adding ideologies, especially with "disputed" in parentheses, without adding an explanation in the article body is not an improvement. Readers are left more confused than when they began reading: What militarism? Opposition to what kind of imperialism by whom? What dispute? Who claims these labels? etc. Yue🌙18:45, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 28 October 2024
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In the History category of the page at the very end it states: “On October 16, Sinwar was assassinated by Israeli agents.” This is inaccurate.
It was published by many reliable sources that Sinwar was killed by Israeli soldiers during a routine patrol in Rafah while he was trying to escape from his bunker together with 2 other Hamas militants. It was not an assassination. The Hamas militants were shooting at the Israeli forces and only after the Hamas militants were killed by the soldiers, they found out they killed Sinwar.
Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Yahya_SinwarDavidn7272 (talk) 11:49, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hi. I've come across a sentence in the section Organization -> Finances and Funding where the word 'waqf' is mentioned. At first I assumed it was a typo, but there does exist a Wikipedia page explaining what 'waqf' is/means here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waqf.
A quick search shows that there are two other mentions of 'waqf'in the Wikipedia page for Hamas, both of which are linked to the Wikipedia page for it. My suggestion is that this particular instance of the word is also linked to the Wikipedia page in order to avoid confusion. 2A02:A46F:9269:0:55BB:652D:D698:676F (talk) 20:54, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Not done: There should be at most one external link for each article's primary topic, per WP:EL. I also don't see the encyclopedic benefit of adding a link to Hamas' communications. Yue🌙23:00, 30 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Tareq Baconi is a research fellow but he's also a board membet of Al-Shabaka, a think tank that aims to strengthen[] the popular movement for Palestinian liberation with the theoretical and analytical policy foundations to both dismantle the current structures of oppression and build a liberated future. So it's clearly a biased source, it's not necessarily unreliable per WP:BIASED but it should not be given undue weight. If it's used it should be balanced by other sources that have different views. Alaexis¿question?14:34, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
1. Whether Hamas would recognize Israel is debated.[142][143][144] Hamas leaders have emphasized they do not recognize Israel,[77] but indicate they "have a de facto acceptance of its presence".[145] Hamas's acceptance of the 1967 borders acknowledges the existence of another entity on the other side.[130] Some scholars believe Hamas's acceptance of the 1967 borders implicitly recognizes Israel.[131][146]
2. According to Martin Kear, Israel treats "any form of resistance from Palestinians as acts of terrorism", and therefore responds to any resistance with extraordinary force. In contrast, writes Kear, Hamas operationalizes "...its resistance to Israeli occupation through its invocation of jihad ... Accordingly, Hamas refuses to recognise Israel as a legitimate actor..."[148] However, Kear goes on to note that without expressly stating it Hamas agreed to respect the Oslo Accords, and by extension Israel's existence: "The signing of the 2007 Mecca Agreement also meant that Hamas had met two of the three stipulations set down by Israel and the Quartet: recognising Israel and respecting all previous Israeli-Palestinian agreements."[148]
3. Graham Usher said that while Hamas did not consider Israel to be legitimate, it accepted Israel as political reality.[149] Tareq Baconi explains that Hamas' implicit recognition of Israel is in contrast to most Israeli political parties who have long opposed the idea of a Palestinian state.[150][145]
Option 1: Keep all three elements as they are
Option 2: Remove or alter one of the three elements, specify which exactly and how you wish to alter it (remove entirely, add something to it, etc.)
Option 3: Remove or make additions to all three elements, for example, remove line 1, keep the truncated version of the Kear quote without any additional information, add year specification to Usher and remove Baconi (or if possible, include RS with alternate opinions)
There is an ongoing discussion below that may result in changes to the wording of the questions and answer options. Hopefully the RfC would be finalised shortly. Alaexis¿question?22:47, 5 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Option 1: For the reasons I've listed below in the discussion section, of which the tl;dr is basically that I think it would be WP:UNDUE to not include information about Israel in a section about Hamas' recognition (or not) of same. It's all RS content and the challenges to it seem like an attempt to dilute strongly established facts based on RS. Smallangryplanet (talk) 12:28, 3 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Regarding the first bit of content, I'm not sure about including have a de facto acceptance of its presence without attribution. I don't have access to that source, but I assume it's based on the "national consensus" sentence, which other scholars interpret a bit differently. The Legrain source calls it a de facto armistice without a de jure recognition. Legrain is essentially describing a hypothetical scenario where Israel withdraws to 1967 borders and Hamas cease fires in pragmatic recognition of the current power dynamics, while ultimately maintaining that no part of the land of Palestine shall be compromised or conceded. Legrain calls it a false object of satisfaction to interpret this scenario as a two-state solution, which would imply safe and recognized borders. Also while there have been some murmurs about the possibility that Hamas would recognize, e.g. in an interview with Mousa Abu Marzook, I think it's broadly considered unlikely and not particularly "debated". — xDanielxT/C\R19:18, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
How about a simple question about how to treat Hamas' claims versus the de facto realities. Should the article present Hamas' recognition of Israel as: 1) real, 2) false, or 3) debated. Andre🚐22:18, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's not WP:RFCNEUTRAL because it's a leading question. It's not WP:RFCBRIEF. I'm not saying you can't ask more than one question but I asked the question that seems to be the root question: do we give Hamas any credit for seeming to accept Israel or do we present the reliable sources who doubt, with good reason, the sincerity of those commitments, or portray a balance (at the risk of a WP:FALSEBALANCE?)? This RFC is in the weeds with the current text. I understand why and I'm not saying it's a POV-pushing RFC, I'm saying it's not neutral because it favors the specific textual portions already present and it's hard to unpack the actual issue. Andre🚐22:47, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The text that's in the section right now - including the phrases that this RfC is about / were challenged - are all backed by RS. So abstracting away the entire section into three vague, general standards of "Agree that Hamas recognizes, doesn't agree, or in the middle" does nothing to resolve the specific challenges being made, and will dump us deeper into the weeds. That question is also malformed, and ignores entirely the issue of de facto vs de jure recognition, which the current RS in the section discusses. Smallangryplanet (talk) 23:30, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You could still write a better, more neutral RFC with more specific propositions. E.g. should the article cite Kear, yes or no? Andre🚐23:38, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That is not the question at hand here! If you would like to create a separate RfC for that, be my guest. But this is what I thought @Alaexis and I agreed on as topics for an RfC. So that is why this content is in here. I don't know what else to tell you. Smallangryplanet (talk) 23:43, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Well, we have one more editor who also thinks that it's an odd RfC, so maybe Andrevan is right.
I'm struggling with coming up with a reasonable number of questions with a small number of mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive answers that would cover all the issues we've been discussing.
Still, maybe we should stop the current RfC and try to streamline the questions:
Q1: Should we discuss the hypothetical recognition and how prominently?
A. Yes, the way it's done now.
B. Yes, less prominently
C. No
Q2: Should we mention the Israeli framing of the conflict with Hamas per Kear in the recognition section?
We can make Q1 more specific, for example "Should the section on the recognition of Israel by Hamas discuss hypothetical recognition (whether Hamas would recognise Israel) and how prominently, based on the sources in the current version?"
@Raskolnikov.Rev in case we'll have a reworded RfC, I think it'd be better to wait until we restart it before answering. Otherwise it'll be a mess and the uninvolved users whose input we're seeking would be confused. Alaexis¿question?21:42, 5 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This seems like an improvement, though to take a step back, is an RfC needed? We could hold a brief RfC to collect some input, but I don't think the goal should be to reach decisions which get cemented with a formal close, making it difficult to adjust in the future. I think that should be more of a last resort for when there's a history of controversy and edit warring over certain specific issues. — xDanielxT/C\R18:45, 5 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah - I agree with this, and the Q1 improvements here. Much clearer than my attempt. I'll close this RFC - shall I open a new one with updated questions or do you want to go for it, @Alaexis?
@XDanielx I think it is good to have a formal RfC just because then we can come to a decision hopefully w/uninvolved external editors chiming in, rather than having to go around in circles about these things for ages. Smallangryplanet (talk) 10:38, 6 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Option 1 The first sentence is backed by RS directly and the rest of the section, and there is no reason whatsoever to remove or alter it. It clearly is a debated question whether or not Hamas would recognize Israel, and the de facto versus de jure recognition issue is intrinsically bound up with that, as is immediately clarified by the subsequent sentences and again the section more broadly.
The second sentence accurately cites an RS on the question of recognition. Removing essential parts of that to solely keep the part saying Hamas is "devoted to Jihad" fundamentally distorts Kears' analysis.
The third sentence containing Usher does not require a date specifation as he is making a general analysis and claim and not a conditional one, which moreover was further confirmed by later events and is backed by the other RS in the same section, including the Baconi immediately following it, which should also be kept because it is RS. Perceived bias does not mean that a source is not RS.Raskolnikov.Rev (talk) 18:34, 5 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Alaexis has argued that the first sentence of the first example should be removed as it is not backed by sources (though these have now been added), and that the second must remove any mention of Israel/the occupation and de facto recognition on relevance grounds - This section is not about their designation as a terrorist organisation but only about their recognition of Israel. This would mean the Kear quote would solely consist of "Hamas operationalizes...its resistance to Israeli occupation through its invocation of jihad ... Accordingly, Hamas refuses to recognise Israel as a legitimate actor...". The third example must include a year specification for Usher because it is somehow a conditional statement, superseded by other events, and Baconi needs to be removed or balanced out for bias/WP:DUE reasons.
I have argued that the first line was backed by sources in the entire section, and have now added direct sources (of varying viewpoints) as well. It should stay as is because it is RS backed content that is relevant to the section.
On the second example w/r/t Kear I have argued that if it is to be included on the page, it has to be done so with proper context including Kear's actual position on the question of Hamas' potential recognition of Israel. This means including that Kear does not solely describe Hamas as a fanatical jihadist group, a frankly gross distortion of Kear's actual position in the cited text, which includes the context of Kear saying that Hamas may have de facto recognized Israel.
Regarding the Usher line (3rd example) the point has been made extensively that no year specification is necessary here, as it is not standard Wiki style guide to add year specifications without good reason – such as the statement indeed being conditional, contextual, or later reversed by the speaker, in which case we would need to mention that as well. (In the case of conditional/contextual there wouldn't even be a reason to include it here.) Usher was explicitly not making a conditional statement, but rather a general one: Few Palestinians believe Hamas could ever recognize Israel as a legitimate polity as opposed to a “political reality,” which it already accepts...[1] Usher's statement is backed by other sources in this and the following section from 2018-2024[2][3][4][5][6][7], which is unsurprising as this conclusion was only strengthened in the years since, with Hamas' signing of the Mecca Agreement in 2007, the repeated reassertions of the long-term ceasefire/hudna, which extend to beyond October 2023, and the 2017 rewrite of the Hamas charter. There is also no evidence that Usher changed his own view on the matter. The statement is not conditional and there is no reason to add a date specification to it and thus make it artificially appear conditional and possibly superseded by later events.
Additionally when it comes to Baconi, the claim that it is not WP:DUE is solely based on his affiliation to a group that seeks "Palestinian liberation." But bias does not mean that a source is not reliable/RS, and in the case of Baconi - a subject matter academic expert, I see now reason whatsoever to remove it. If Alaexis has NPOV concerns they can add RS sources to counter it, as they attempted to do with Kear (and Seurat) while misrepresentingthem.
Smallangryplanet (talk) 12:24, 3 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I don't want to be a wet blanket but there are some problems with this RFC. The RFC needs to be neutrally worded and not contain arguments, those can be included below the line as part of !votes or in discussion. It needs to be simplified as much as possible, what is this really all about, whether Hamas recognized Israel or not? And then to what extent? Else random !voters are likely to get a bit confused, my 2 cents. Selfstudier (talk) 11:53, 3 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The sentence Whether Hamas would recognize Israel is debated should not be the first sentence of this section. We should start with facts rather with WP:CRYSTALBALL speculations. It's like starting the article about the Golan Heights "Whether Israel would return the Golan Heights to Syria is debated" [19].
The "debate" framing is not supported by the sources. The USIP source actually states that "Hamas might never 'recognize' Israel in the conventional sense" - this is not evidence of debate, but rather the opposite [20]. The Haaretz article refers to a single statement by Abu Marzouk suggesting possible recognition, which was directly contradicted by Abu Marzouk himself just one week prior when he explicitly rejected recognition of Israel [21]
The overwhelming preponderance of statements from Hamas leadership consistently reject recognition.
This creates a WP:FALSEBALANCE issue - we're presenting a single outlier statement as equal to the organization's consistent official position. Khaled Hroub's analysis of conditions under which Hamas might theoretically recognize Israel can be included later in the section but it should not be presented as the leading framing. Alaexis¿question?21:43, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with this. The other source argues that it's "not inconceivable". There's a bit of variation among sources in terms of whether it won't happen or it's possible but unlikely; in any case I'm not seeing any "debate". — xDanielxT/C\R21:56, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The current use of Martin Kear's quote has issues with WP:COATRACK and WP:UNDUE. The section's scope is specifically about Hamas's position on recognizing Israel, but the quote begins with an extended discussion of Israeli policy.
Kear contrasts the framing used by Israel (any form of resistance from Palestinians as acts of terrorism) and Hamas (it operationalizes its resistance to Israeli occupation through its invocation of jihad ... Accordingly, Hamas refuses to recognise Israel as a legitimate actor). He does not establish any causal relationship between them. He doesn't argue that Hamas's position on recognition is a response to or influenced by Israeli policy.
The passage should be trimmed to only include the relevant portion about Hamas's policy Hamas operationalizes its resistance to Israeli occupation through its invocation of jihad and accordingly refuses to recognise Israel as a legitimate actor. Alaexis¿question?22:02, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Usher wrote it in 2006 before the takeover of Gaza by Hamas, several small-scale conflicts between Hamas and Israel, the 2017 document and the current war. There are many sources published in the last 5-10 years that deal with the policy of Hamas. We don't need it in this section, we should rather move the sentence to the Hamas#Evolution of positions section. Alaexis¿question?22:08, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
^Zartman, Jonathan K. (2020-03-19). Conflict in the Modern Middle East. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO. ISBN978-1-4408-6502-2.
^Jacqueline S. Ismael; Tareq Y. Ismael; Glenn Perry. Government and Politics of the Contemporary Middle East Continuity and Change. Taylor & Francis. p. 106?.
@Alaexis Though the issue seems to have already been settled, I just wanted to post what the original sources were citing in hopes it might prove helpful in someway.
"This new document, a new charter, included substantial revisions of Hamas's policy positions, including a de facto recognition of Israel, while removing its previous anti-Semitic language and religious overtones."
"In research conducted by the Ramallah-based Near East Consulting Institute, 77 per cent of Hamas supporters responded in favour of a negotiated settlement to the conflict;°” moreover, Hamas on multiple occasions has accepted, in principle, the existence of Israel, as delineated by its 1967 borders” and dropped the call for destruction of Israel from its manifesto."Butterscotch Beluga (talk) 23:01, 6 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The question is whether tangentially related information (like Hamas dropping the calls for the destruction of Israel from their manifesto) belongs to this section. It's not directly related - it's possible to not call for a country's destruction while not recognising it.
We have two options
Narrow scope - we only mention sources that discuss the recognition explicitly. In this case and note that the group has "dropped the call for the destruction of Israel from its manifesto" should be removed from the section.
Broad scope - we include related stuff like "acceptance in principle", "calls for destruction", etc. I have no problem with this approach but then we should be mindful of NPOV and not present one scholar's opinion as a fact when in fact a disagreement exists (for example not all scholars agree that the 2017 document de facto recognised Israel).
I don't think the whole quotations are strictly necessary to confirm their stance on potential recognition, but I do think these quotations explicitly relate to the topic i.e. "a de facto recognition of Israel".
I'm uncertain on how this info should be specifically handled however, but I try to double check failed verifications when I can to see if the community can find anything salvageable. Likewise, I was only giving the whole quote in an attempt to put them in their proper context. Butterscotch Beluga (talk) 23:16, 8 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Re: this thread from last month, which was already archived
Shouldn't the [never-revoked] 1988 Charter be properly introduced in the lead (and not just in relation to the 2017 charter)? Removed here. BobFromBrockley (talk) 10:58, 3 October 2024 (UTC) Pinging Makeandtoss - was it the word "genocidal" (which I thought summarised body, but could easily be dropped)? BobFromBrockley (talk) 14:21, 3 October 2024 (UTC)
As the most-referenced document in the org's history, it was noticeably buried in the lede. Most coverage of Hamas before 2017, and most discussions of the new 2017 document, address the uncompromising calls for jihad in the 1988 document. Your previous edit also felt a bit out of the flow however, and there's also a bit of duplication in that paragraph. I took a pass at cleaning it up w/ existing language. – SJ +22:59, 8 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There is a particular confusion about the relationship between the 2017 Hamas policy document and the 1988 covenant/charter which I've only seen on Wikipedia: whether discussions about the history of Hamas as a movement should describe its purpose and principles in terms of the 2017 document, and how much space to devote to discussing 'differences' between 1988 and 2017 documents (which are in no way two revisions of the same text, in length or scope or language).
I used the term 'policy document' for the 2017 doc when it is introduced for the first time, to avoid that confusion. – SJ +01:09, 9 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
What exactly is the confusion about the 2017 Hamas charter that is explicitly referred to as such in the cited RS, and its relationship to the 1988 charter which is explained concisely and clearly per the cited RS?
Regarding whether the purpose and principles of Hamas ought to also be described in terms of the 2017 document (it is not solely done so), and how much space to devote to the difference between that and its 1988 charter, I am open to suggestions on how to alter that, but the changes you made did not adequately reflect the cited RS, and for some reason minimized the import of the former in favor of the latter, despite the fact that that is the new charter. The name change from "2017 charter" to "document" that you put through the entire article further reflects that. Raskolnikov.Rev (talk) 01:53, 9 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hello RR, the point of confusion I meant is captured by the phrase "While the 1988... the 2017 charter removed the antisemitic language", which implies a) that there is a single bit of 'antisemitic language' in 1988 to remove, b) that 2017 revised 1988 rather than being an additional complementary document, c) that there is no antisemitic language in 2017. These specific claims are not made in the sources, and there are better ways to summarize differences between the two charter/documents than by using the language of 'removal'.
Something that notes that the 2017 principles toned down certain kinds of language, while still being considered antisemitic in less obvious ways, might better capture what a range of analysts seem to say about the two documents in relation to one another, and in relation to the interviews with movement leaders saying that the new publication reflects not a change of principles but an adaptation to a changing environment.
I tried to clean up less contentious parts of that paragraph, which should introduce the original charter when discussing the origins of the movement around 1988, but left the last sentence for discussion here. – SJ +23:22, 11 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"These specific claims are not made in the sources, and there are better ways to summarize differences between the two charter/documents than by using the language of 'removal'."
This is not true. The first cited source, Seurat, explicitly states this: "Another noteworthy change: the anti-Semitic overtones of the Charter were entirely scrapped, replaced by a distinction made between the struggle against Zionism and enmity against the Jews."
And there are many other RS that say the 2017 charter removed anti-Semitic language. Here is one published earlier this year that explicitly uses the same phrasing, saying "anti-Semitic clauses were removed" in the 2017 charter.
And here is another: "The new document contains none of the anti-Semitic articles and sentences that characterized the charter. Supporters of the movement, especially in the West, advised it long ago to change these provisions."
I will add that as an additional source.
I'm not sure why you are making a claim that is simply false and then removing content under the guise of "stylistic cleanup" when it's clearly a major POV changing edit that requires consensus to go ahead.
Sorry, but are you addressing me? I can't tell. First of all, lede is a summary of body, and it is already too long, so it needs trimming, not expansion. Second, the charter is already briefly mentioned in lede and anything beyond that is undue weight. It's not buried in the lede, its charters are already mentioned twice. Due weight is not determined by how much publicity something gets in public, particularly pro-Israeli, circles. Makeandtoss (talk) 07:37, 9 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I also want to add that while the 1988 charter's mention appears later, the charter's ideas are not "buried in the lead". The second sentence says "While initially seeking a state in all of former Mandatory Palestine" – this is the core idea for which Israelis have a problem with Hamas, that they seek to replace Israel with a single state. Would it be better to rephrase this as "While initially seeking to replace Israel with a state in all of former Mandatory Palestine"? Raskolnikov.Rev, Sj, Makeandtoss, Bobfrombrockley.VR(Please ping on reply)05:31, 10 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Sj, I find in this edit you misrepresent sources, but maybe I'm mistaken. You changed "began acquiescing to 1967 borders in the agreements" to "began referencing 1967 borders". Did you read the sources cited before you made such a significant change? The sources clearly say that in these agreements Hamas agreed to compromise to a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders, not that there was a mere "reference" to is.VR(Please ping on reply)17:14, 10 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Sj Once again made the same edit using the phrasing "referenced" instead of acquiesced even though that is matched in the cited RS. This appears to be an attempt to push a certain POV, which is fine if there is consensus for it, but there plainly isn't. These exact changes were proposed and rejected in the past. I don't know why they're being edited in again without seeking consensus for it in Talk.
Hi Rev, I left a comment above as well. I don't see "acquiesce" anywhere in Seurat? If anything I'm trying to make the language neutral to the tension within Hamas that she describes throughout that source.
"Hamas has always oscillated between its attachment to the ‘historical solution’, which foresees the liberation of the whole of Palestine, and its capacity to recognize the validity of the ‘interim solution’, which prescribes the creation of a state with the 1967 borders." (p.20);
she quotes Abou Musameh in 2012, "For us, the struggle has not ended, and this is why the building of a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders remains a tactical goal. For Fatah, the conflict is over; this is why for them it is a strategic aim. We do not believe in a two-state solution. Fatah believes in the two-state solution; this is why they have recognized Israel." (p.48);
she notes that "Meshal refuses to consider this document as a new Charter: he maintains that this document amends but does not abrogate the original 1988 Charter." (p.68)
I don't think we should be choosing one or the other side of that tension to describe as 'the position of Hamas'. I'm not partial to 'referenced' but 'acquiesced' implies accepting without protest which in this case seems out of place. How about '[provisionally] accepted'? – SJ +23:39, 11 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Several points: Seurat is not the only source cited for that information, and the part of it that is cited matches her description of acquiescing to 1967 borders in the post 2005 period. In fact the passage is quoted in the cited source: "Indeed, since 2006, Hamas has unceasingly highlighted its acceptance of the 1967 borders, as well as accords signed by the PLO and Israel. This position has been an integral part of reconciliation agreements between Hamas and Fatah since 2005: the Cairo Agreement in 2005, the Prisoners' Document in 2006, the Mecca Agreement in 2007 and finally the Cairo and Doha Agreements in 2011 and 2012." pp. 17–19.
There are many other parts in her text where she reiterates this point, for example p. 47:
"Palestinian factions, the Prisoners’ Document, also called the National Conciliation Document (Wathîqat al-Wifâq al-watani). This text implicitly recognized the validity of the June 1967 borders and agreed on limiting resistance to the land occupied in 1967."
p. 199:
"Signed in June 2006 by Hamas and other Palestinian factions, the Prisoners’ Document implicitly recognized the June 1967 borders, agreed on the construction of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as a capital and accepted limitations to the resistance in the territories occupied in 1967. It was approved on 28 June 2006, following consultations with the entire Political Bureau, whose extensive participation was confirmed by Khaled Hroub,9 Alvaro de Soto and Paola Caridi."
The question of the 2017 charter being called a charter is not particularly controversial. There are countless RS that refer to it as a charter, they are cited as such, and the 2017 page is titled as such. If you disagree with this phrasing, you would have to make a separate case for why the 2017 charter should not be called that, and gain consensus for it.
Regarding the use of the phrase "acquiesce", someone already brought this up over a month ago here, and failed to gain consensus that the phrase was not suitable for describing this because somehow not neutral. As I said in that discussion as well, I fail to see how this is the case.
Acquiescing is I think more suitable than accepting because it contains exactly the reluctant nature of their acceptance of the 1967 borders and the fact that they resolutely opposed it beforehand. This is actually the more neutral phrasing of it.
I would certainly oppose the addition of "provisionally" as that is simply not backed by the cited RS, but changing it to "began accepting 1967 borders" is also fine. I just see it as less accurate than "began acquiescing to 1967 borders in the agreements it signed", so that's still my preference. Raskolnikov.Rev (talk) 00:14, 12 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
RfC: Semantics and Contents of Recognition of Israel Section
When discussion has ended, remove this tag and it will be removed from the list. If this page is on additional lists, they will be noted below.
There are three questions:
Should the section on the recognition of Israel by Hamas discuss hypothetical recognition (whether Hamas would recognise Israel) and how prominently, based on the sources in the current version?
Yes, in the first sentence as in the current version
Yes, less prominently later in the section.
No
Should we mention the Israeli framing of the conflict with Hamas per Kear in the recognition section?
Yes (as in the current version)
No
How should we include Usher's 2006 opinion?
In the recognition section without the year (as in the current version)
Procedural close: The question starts of by making a statement of fact about Hamas' recognition being hypothetical, which is a POV. This is not a brief, neutrally worded question. TarnishedPathtalk07:29, 11 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Here "would" is used to describe a hypothetical situation. I'm fine with replacing the current wording with "...discuss whether Hamas *would* recognise Israel..." if that helps and if the editors who have participated in the rfc don't mind. Alaexis¿question?21:18, 11 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Alaexis What's the proposed change, sorry? Change Should the section on the recognition of Israel by Hamas discuss hypothetical recognition (whether Hamas would recognise Israel)... to "Should the section on the recognition of Israel by Hamas discuss whether Hamas would recognise Israel..." ? Smallangryplanet (talk) 16:00, 12 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Considering that we've got a new answer to this question, I don't think it's a good idea to change the wording at this point. Would-statements describe hypothetical situations - there is nothing non-neutral here. I would've be fine with the alternative I suggested but if we restart this whole thing again we'd be really testing the patience and attention span of uninvolved editors. Alaexis¿question?22:26, 12 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
1A As I've said ad nauseam up and down this page, there's RS showing that there is debate, there is debate on this here talk page, we're quite simply describing reality. Smallangryplanet (talk) 13:14, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
A. Yes The cited RS is from a reputed subject-matter scholar, Martin Kear, whose book is specifically focused on this topic, and whose insights cited in the section are directly relevant to the question of recognition. See no reason whatsoever to remove this, but I agree with @VR's trim suggestion here. Raskolnikov.Rev (talk) 12:53, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
3 A. Usher's statement is notable and there's no clear reason to have a date (which is given in the citation). If we started putting dates on every sentence in this article, it would become an unreadable mess.VR(Please ping on reply)05:35, 10 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
3 A As I noted in the discussion here, Graham Usher is a subject-matter expert whose cited point on the page is not conditional, and in fact later events only further bolstered its accuracy. So there is no reason to remove this RS, and no reason to artificially make it appear as being conditional by adding a year specification. The Kear and Baconi back it up as well. Raskolnikov.Rev (talk) 12:58, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
At least if I read right, this RFC is talking solely about the Recognition of Israel section, whereas the previous RFC was just about the acceptance of borders in the lead of the article. While of course the two should line up, I don't think any of the options here contradict the lead - the current version of the lead says While initially seeking a state in all of former Mandatory Palestine it began acquiescing to 1967 borders in the agreements it signed with Fatah in 2005, 2006 and 2007. In 2017, Hamas released a new charter that supported a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders without recognizing Israel. I would think that recognizing borders and accepting Israel are the same thing, but that second sentence is well-cited, so apparently not and Hamas itself draws a distinction between these two things, which means the outcome of the previous RFC doesn't tell us anything about how to handle the recognition section in the body. Perhaps we could have a sentence in this section that mirrors the one in the lead, though, with a bit more detail on the distinction between accepting borders and recognizing Israel (though some of the quotes seem to tacitly touch on it.) --Aquillion (talk) 19:40, 11 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Comment on clarifying that sentence in the lede emerging from the previous RFC: from a different ongoing discussion, in that sentence in the current lead "acquiescing" seems too strong, as per the artful sidestepping VR quotes below. Also the phrase "in agreements signed with Fatah in 2005, 2006, and 2007" seems a direct quote from Seurat but it is confusing – only the 2006 prisoner's document mentions borders, and it was more than an agreement signed with Fatah. What were the other agreements? They are not mentioned in the body, nor is any trend during 2005-07 mentioned in that way in the body. – SJ +22:07, 12 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"According to Martin Kear, Israel treats "any form of resistance from Palestinians as acts of terrorism", and therefore responds to any resistance with extraordinary force. In contrast, writes Kear, Hamas operationalizes "...its resistance to Israeli occupation through its invocation of jihad ... Accordingly, Hamas refuses to recognise Israel as a legitimate actor..."[148]"
The above statement, in its entirety appears to be irrelevant to discussion of whether Hamas recognizes Israel. "recognise Israel as a legitimate actor" is not related to diplomatic recognition of whether Israel has a claim to pre-1967 territories. Not all instances of the word "recognise" mean the same thing, and its clear from the context here that its not talking about diplomatic recognition. But the following does appear to be relevant:
"However, Kear goes on to note that without expressly stating it Hamas agreed to respect the Oslo Accords, and by extension Israel's existence: "The signing of the 2007 Mecca Agreement also meant that Hamas had met two of the three stipulations set down by Israel and the Quartet: recognising Israel and respecting all previous Israeli-Palestinian agreements.""
However, it is slightly misleading. Earlier in the paragraph, Kear does indeed say Hamas had "artfully sidestepped the ideological black hole tied to any explicit recognition of Israel's right to exist. Hamas's leadership demonstrated a willingness and ability to push through this key ideological concession to remain an integral player in the Palestinians politics."
So it seems Kear is saying, correctly, that Hamas implicitly recognized Israel by agreeing to a Palestinian state on only WB and GS, but refrained from giving any explicit recognition of Israel. This should be made clear.VR(Please ping on reply)05:48, 10 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I would rephrase it as this. "Martin Kear points out that in the 2007 Mecca agreement, Hamas agreed to respect PLO's previous agreements with Israel, including the Oslo Accords that Hamas had previously criticized. After the Mecca Agreement, Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal said any future agreement with Israel must establish a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital, and an acknowledgement of the Palestinian right of return. Kear interprets this statement as Hamas further implicitly recognizing Israel, while withholding explicit recognition." VR(Please ping on reply)06:23, 10 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That Hamas "implicitly recognised" Israel is a viewpoint shared by some (though by no means all) observers and it's already mentioned in the first paragraph of the section, so there is no need to repeat that.
The reader may wonder having read that why Hamas is not ready to explicitly recognise Israel, and Kear provides the explanation: the religious framing of the conflict. This is not found elsewhere is the article and clearly notable. Alaexis¿question?21:44, 10 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
No, Kear says Hamas' not giving explicit recognition of Israel has more to do with it withholding recognition as a bargaining chip. This is, incidentally, Baconi's position as well. The part about "recognise Israel as a legitimate actor" isn't about diplomatic recognition. The word "recognise" is a polyseme.VR(Please ping on reply)06:49, 11 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not opposed to mentioning the "recognition as a bargaining chip" perspective in the section again. That shouldn't be controversial, we don't need an RfC for that.
Kear’s research, according to his profile blurbs on various platforms, is focused on a specific analytical framework and may not be applicable outside said framework. Anyway, I am not sure there is not a WP:DUE problem. RadioactiveBoulevardier (talk) 05:46, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The sentence Whether Hamas would recognize Israel is debated should not be the first sentence of this section. We should start with facts rather with WP:CRYSTALBALL speculations. It's like starting the article about the Golan Heights "Whether Israel would return the Golan Heights to Syria is debated" [22].
The "debate" framing is not supported by the sources. The USIP source actually states that "Hamas might never 'recognize' Israel in the conventional sense" - this is not evidence of debate, but rather the opposite [23]. The Haaretz article refers to a single statement by Abu Marzouk suggesting possible recognition, which was directly contradicted by Abu Marzouk himself just one week prior when he explicitly rejected recognition of Israel [24]
The overwhelming preponderance of statements from Hamas leadership consistently reject recognition.
This creates a WP:FALSEBALANCE issue - we're presenting a single outlier statement as equal to the organization's consistent official position. Khaled Hroub's analysis of conditions under which Hamas might theoretically recognize Israel can be included later in the section but it should not be presented as the leading framing. Alaexis¿question?21:59, 10 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think the sentence could definitely be tweaked to provide more context, but it's not WP:CRYSTALBALL - that policy is that we're not supposed to speculate about the future ourselves. Predictions by experts about what Hamas might do or accept in the future, on the other hand, are highly relevant to this article and ought to be covered. We could find more sources for it, but I do think that it's sort of the entire purpose of the section; the article is already clear that Hamas doesn't recognize Israel currently (that's implied by the first sentence of the section) and sources indicating that it doesn't do so don't contradict people talking about the future. Nor is a source saying Hamas might never 'recognize' Israel in the conventional sense, emphasis mine, really in contradiction with it - that describes the possibility as something debatable, which is what our article says! --Aquillion (talk) 19:47, 11 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Well, the question is why we should center the hypothetical future recognition rather than the current and historical reality. I'm not opposed to mentioning it somewhere in this section btw. Also, there are major issues with sourcing for this statement. Alaexis¿question?21:27, 11 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Usher wrote it in 2006 before the takeover of Gaza by Hamas, several small-scale conflicts between Hamas and Israel, the 2017 document and the current war. There are many sources published in the last 5-10 years that deal with the policy of Hamas. We don't need it in this section, we should rather move the sentence to the Hamas#Evolution of positions section. Alaexis¿question?21:59, 10 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
For the same reason why we can't say in present tense that Israel offers East Jerusalem to the Palestinians because they did it in 2008. Lots of things have happened since then, including Hamas rejecting the two-state solution. Also, dozens of books and scholarly articles have been published more recently and we should use those when talking about the current situation. Alaexis¿question?21:34, 11 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The first link is from 2019 and seems like a typo, and the second link quotes Meshal after he was no longer the leader of Hamas. We wouldn't say "the United States considers Israel to be an apartheid state" based on the writings of an ex-president. You're most welcome to quote recent sources, but you don't seem to have done that.VR(Please ping on reply)05:49, 12 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, I've fixed the typo. Haniye, the head of Hamas, said in 2020 that one of the principles of Hamas is 'Palestine from the sea to the river' around 11:40. Maybe in your opinion this is consistent with "accepting Israel as a political reality" but many scholars disagree with that. [1][2]
I'm happy to include those references, but lets clarify them first.
Nasir Faeq on page 33 quotes (Hroub 2000) and "guidelines [that] are summarized in a statement by the Political Bureau of Hamas dated April 1994" as saying Hamas wouldn't recognize Israel. There appear to be no references later than 2000 that Faeq quotes in which Hamas rejects recognition, correct?
Alsoos quotes Hamas's 1988 Charter as rejecting Israel's recognition (page 6 and 7) before noting that "However, after its electoral victory in 2006, Hamas did not implement the Charter as policy, but instead agreed to work within the Palestinian political system based on secular Basic Law." It also quotes Haniyeh saying "Hamas will not recognize the Zionist entity" in 2003. Again, there appear to be no references later than 2003 of Hamas rejecting recognition, correct?
So there don't appear to be any contradiction here. It seems Hamas was adamant about not recognizing Israel prior to 2005-ish, when it starting signing agreements that accepted the 1967 borders.VR(Please ping on reply)03:55, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm going to propose different wording options, please give me feedback and I'll amend my proposal accordingly.
Hamas's leaders have emphasized they don't recognize Israel. But, Hamas has also repeatedly accepted the 1967 borders (such as the 2006 Prisoners' document and the 2007 Mecca agreement), thus acknowledging the existence of another entity on the other side. Whether Hamas would recognize Israel in a future peace agreement is debated.
Mousa Abu Marzook, then the vice-president of Hamas' Political Bureau, explained his party's position in 2011: while Hamas did not recognize Israel as a state, it considered the existence of Israel as "amr waqi" (or fait accompli, meaning something that has happened and cannot be changed). He called this "de facto recognition" of Israel. Likewise, Graham Usher writes that while Hamas does not consider Israel to be legitimate, it has accepted Israel as political reality.
In 2017, Hamas once again accepted the 1967 borders in its new charter, that "drop[ped] the call for the destruction of Israel from its manifesto." But it did not abrogate the old charter, and other scholars believe that Hamas retains the long-term objective of establishing one state in former Mandatory Palestine.
Tareq Baconi explains that Hamas' implicit recognition of Israel is in contrast to most Israeli political parties who have long opposed the idea of a Palestinian state.
Hamas leaders have repeatedly emphasized they do not recognize Israel.[1] But Hamas has also repeatedly accepted the 1967 borders in signed agreements (in 2005, 2006, and 2007[2]) and in its 2017 charter, thus acknowledging the existence of another entity on the other side.[3][4] Whether Hamas would recognize Israel in a future peace agreement is debated.[5][6][7] Several scholars have compared Hamas's lack of recognition of Israel to Likud's lack of recognition of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza.[8][9][10][11][12]
The 1988 Hamas charter strongly rejected any recognition of Israel.[13] In 1994, the Political Bureau of Hamas repeated this rejection.[14] However, after Hamas won the 2006 elections, it did not implement then 1988 Charter as policy, and instead agreed to work with the existing Palestinian political system.[13] In the 2007 Mecca agreement, Hamas agreed to respect previous agreements between Fatah and Israel, including the Oslo Accords in which the PLO recognized Israel.[2] Both in the 2007 agreement and in the 2006 Palestinian Prisoners' Document, Hamas agreed to a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders. Scholars see this as "implicit" recognition of Israel because by accepting a Palestinian state limited to the 1967 borders, Hamas acknowledged the existence of another entity on the other side.[3]
Mousa Abu Marzook, then the vice-president of Hamas' Political Bureau, explained his party's position in 2011: while Hamas did not recognize Israel as a state, it considered the existence of Israel as "amr waqi" (or fait accompli, meaning something that has happened and cannot be changed).[15] He called this "de facto recognition" of Israel.[15] Likewise, Graham Usher writes that while Hamas does not consider Israel to be legitimate, it has accepted Israel as political reality.[16]
In 2017, Hamas once again accepted the 1967 borders in its new charter, that "drop[ped] the call for the destruction of Israel from its manifesto."[17] But it did not abrogate the old charter, and other scholars believe that Hamas retains the long-term objective of establishing one state in former Mandatory Palestine.[18][19]
Tareq Baconi argues that Hamas has learned from the fact that, in the 1993 Oslo Accords, the PLO made a "historic concession" in recognizing Israel on 78% of the land of historic Palestine (along the 1967 borders), but was unable to convince Israel to recognize Palestine on the remaining 22% of the land. Having already recognized Israel, the PLO was unable to use recognition to extract any further concessions from Israel. Thus, Baconi opines, the lesson for Hamas was that you can't negotiate from a position of weakness.[20]
Thanks, I believe that this version is even better but it can be improved, mainly to comply with WP:DUE. I'll respond in greater detail later.
I couldn't find anything about the recognition on page 206 of Brenner's Gaza Under Hamas: From Islamic Democracy to Islamist Governance. Could you re-check and provide a quote that supports this passage? Alaexis¿question?05:45, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Alaexis are you looking at a different edition? Here it is on the google books copy: Of equal key importance was Hamas's revised position on the establishment of a Palestinian state. The new document still referred to Palestine as the territory 'from the river to the sea. However, it also added that it accepted the pre-1967 lines as the borders of a Palestinian state, with Jerusalem as its capital and the right of return for refugees. While not explicitly saying what would be on the other side of these borders, this nevertheless acknowledged the existence of another entity there. In addition, Hamas expressed that it would be ready to back 'any peace agreement', would it be approved in a popular referendum. These new formulations amounted to nothing less than a de facto recognition of Israel. During its deliberations, the movement had reached an internal agreement on accepting a two-state solution. (Brenner, p.206) Smallangryplanet (talk) 10:13, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That's weird, I'm looking at the 2017 edition and I can't find this text anywhere in the book. The google books link unfortunately doesn't work for me, it says "no preview available." Google Books says that the book was published in 2016, I dunno, maybe there were different editions indeed.
I'm sure that this text is legitimate, hopefully we'll find the reason for all this confusion.
This is good, but flagging two things: The "Faeq, Nasir; Jahnata, Diego (2020-09-12)" source appears to be published by a pay to play publishing mill so fails WP:REPUTABLE. The authors are also nowhere to be found as working scholars (at least I haven't been able to), and the piece itself is as expected riddled with basic grammatical errors.
Also I think we need an explanation for the de facto acceptance of Israel as a reality and the lack of a formal, official recognition. Baconi is cited but I don't think it covers exactly the three specific points he makes in this regard on the cited page, 230:
"While Hamas may indeed continue to harbor ideological aspirations for the liberation of the entirety of Palestine after such a peaceful settlement, the likelihood that the movement would have popular backing for such a step is likely to be nonexistent if a just settlement is offered. Khaled Meshal has even offered written guarantees to international mediators underscoring this, noting that Hamas would abide by the outcome of any referendum to a peace deal delivered to the Palestinian people, including deals that entail mutual recognition, while stressing that Hamas would not accept those outcomes until the deal is implemented.97
It is more likely the case that Hamas is simply maintaining this ideological intransigence as a negotiating tactic and a matter of principle, tying into the movement’s legitimacy and its effectiveness as an interlocutor. 98 The movement believes that conceding the remaining cards that Hamas still clings to would ensure that Palestinian rights continued to be forfeited, as had happened following the PLO’s recognition of Israel. As one leader explained, “Why should we be forced to explicitly recognize Israel if we’ve already indicated we have a de facto acceptance of its presence?”99
Hamas’s implicit acceptance of Israel has gone far beyond what many Israeli political parties, including the dominant ruling Likud party, have offered Palestinians within their charters. With their refusal to recognize the right of Palestinian self-determination, their insistence that the Palestinian people never existed, and the intermittent resurfacing of the “Jordan option,” several Israeli political parties have long opposed the notion of a Palestinian state.100 In 2013, Prime Minister Netanyahu publicly reneged on his highly touted 2009 Bar Ilan speech in which he spoke of the possibility of a demilitarized Palestinian state.101"
So we have Baconi saying Hamas leaders offered written guarantees to accept any peace deal, including formal recognition, if certified by referendum (it's not only Meshal, but others have reiterated this too at later points) 2) That they are holding on to not extending formal recognition as both a negotiating tactic against the Israelis who have not offered the same in return and they see conceding this as the PLO did as forfeiting their rights, and then the de facto point is made again but that's superfluous here, already noted in the section. 3) It points to many Israeli political parties including the ruling dominant Likud not extending the same acceptance to Palestinians within their charters.
Talk page seems to get extremely long (206,066 bytes), which may be a good sign for our desire to discuss, but may also be unconveniently long. In the past (June24) the auto archiving delay has been shorter (21 days or shorter). Today the delay is 25 days. Although it may not quickly help very much for shortening the talk page, I now reduce the delay down to 20 days; it might perhaps even be useful to reduce that delay a bit further. Corriebertus (talk) 10:11, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
^Cite error: The named reference Jazeera,2May2017 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^ abKear, Martin (2019). Hamas and Palestine: The Contested Road to Statehood(Hardcover). Routledge. p. 217. ISBN9781138585416. Without expressly stating as much, Hamas had agreed to 'respect' UNSC Resolutions 242 and 338, the once reviled Oslo Accords, and by extension, the problematic issue of Israel's existence. While Hamas had previously proposed hudnas with Israel, this was the fi rst time that they had signed any Agreement that tacitly accepted that any future Palestinian state would only consist of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem. After the Agreement, Meshaal reiterated Hamas's position concerning its understanding of what any prospective peace agreement with Israel would look like: that any Palestinian state should be established along the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital, acknowledgement of the right of return for all Palestinian refugees, the dismantling of all West Bank settlements, and the complete withdrawal of all vestiges of Israeli rule ( Tamimi 2009 : 261; Caridi 2012 : 248). This truncated version of any future Palestinian state was a key ideological concession from Hamas that finally brought it in line with Fatah, and more importantly, with the views of most of the Palestinian public.
^ abBrenner 2022, p. 206. sfn error: no target: CITEREFBrenner2022 (help)
^Hroub, Khaled (2010). "Hamas, Israel and Judaism". Hamas: A Beginner's Guide (2nd ed.). St. Martin's Press. p. 55. ISBN9781783714667. Would Hamas ever recognize Israel and conclude peace agreements with it? It is not inconceivable that Hamas would recognize Israel. Hamas's pragmatism and its realistic approach to issues leave ample room for such a development. Yet most of the conditions that could create a conducive climate for such a step lie in the hands of the Israelis. As long as Israel refuses to acknowledge the basic rights of the Palestinian people in any end result based on the principle of a two-state solution, Hamas will find it impossible to recognize Israel.
level-5 vital article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.
Done @Davidn7272 Good point - fixed. Smallangryplanet (talk) 13:04, 28 October 2024 (UTC)
Not done: There should be at most one external link for each article's primary topic, per WP:EL. I also don't see the encyclopedic benefit of adding a link to Hamas' communications. Yue🌙 23:00, 30 October 2024 (UTC)
![[14]](https://img.youm7.com/large/201804300158305830.jpg){kind=link}