Talk:1947–1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

The Arabs Has initiated the 1948 Arab Israeli war

• Please respond in the Discussion section and not here
• The argument is about this sentence: "For four months, under continuous Arab provocation and attack, the Yishuv was usually on the defensive while occasionally retaliating." , which I inserted in the leader (together with long quotes), but was deleted later. Here is the Diff page.
• "the spiraling hostilities and the Arab successes had bitten deeply into international support for partition and Jewish statehood—as the Arab initiators of the violence had hoped." ( Morris,1948, p.113). This quote is important, since it highlight 3 aspects:

1. The Arabs started the war
2. Their rational was repeating their 1937-1939 successful rational: The violence was a tool to press the super powers to retreat from the Peel Palestine partition. The Rational was successful again, but until the end of march 1948 only. (The Hagana went then on the offensive).
3. The Yishuv rational was the mirror view of the Arab's one: keeping quiet without violence, was a pre requisite to a successful partition, which was the Yishuv aim.

• Wiki policy prefer using secondary sources, so I will quote Morris, Gelber and Golani. (I am not using Karsh interpretation. Please Avoid Pape and Shleim). I will quote primary sources too. Even the anti Israeli Kirkbride, and the not pro Israeli UN, said that the Arabs were initiating the violence.. Ykantor (talk) 18:45, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

• The article is somehow misleading at the moment.

1. Pluto eventually "agreed" recently to insert a few words "was initiated by the Arabs" in the Synopsis. The words appears as a annex to "much of the fighting in the first months of the war took place in and on the edges of the main towns", in order to give the impression that the Arabs initiated this kind of fighting only. (not true)
2. the words "was initiated by the Arabs" are misleading. It might be understood as the Arabs has attacked once or twice, and the war started rolling. In reality, the Arabs kept attacking and the Jews were on the defense (usually, not always). for the rational behind it- see later.
3. Although it is very important, it is not mentioned in the lead or elsewhere.
4. Behind both sides behavior (Arabs attack, Jews try to minimize response) there is a rational. The Arabs wanted to De-stabilize the country , in order to cause the U.N to retreat from the partition, and they were nearly successful (The U.S.A shifted from partition toward trusteeship). Because of the same rational, the Jews wanted to calm the situation, in order to enable the partition ( i.e. a Jewish state). As Pluto does not "allow" it, the article will stay as is - misleading.

• Supporting quotations:

1. ref group=quotes name="Morris2003p107">Benny Morris (3 October 2003). The Road to Jerusalem: Glubb Pasha, Palestine and the Jews. I.B.Tauris. pp. 107, 108. ISBN 978-1-86064-989-9. Retrieved 19 July 2013. "At meeting in mid January 1948 with kirkbride" kirkbride told Abdullah that: "nor could Britain agree to legionnaires not under its command operating in Palestine- especially in view of the fact that in the majority of recent cases [of violence in Palestine] the Arabs were the aggressors</ref>
2. ref group=quotes name="Morris2008p77">{{cite book|author=Benny Morris|title=1948: a history of the first Arab-Israeli war|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=J5jtAAAAMAAJ%7Caccessdate=20 July 2013|year=2008|publisher=Yale University Press|
   1. pages=76, 77, 79, 98, 101, 117|quote="p. 76-77,"there was also a clear, organized Palestinian Arab response to the UN resolution. Guided by Husseini from Cairo, the AHC on 1 December declared a three-day general strike in Palestine to begin the following day. On 2 December a large Arab mob, armed with clubs and knives, burst out of Jerusalem’s Old City and descended on the New Commercial Center at Mamilla Street, attacking Jewish passersby and shops. A number of people were injured, one seriously, and the district was set alight. The mob then proceeded up Queen Mary Street and into Jaffa Street. Haganah intelligence identified two AHC officials, Muhammad Ali Salah and Mahmoud Umari, as leading the crowd.;
   2. p. 79 ,"Arab armed bands attacked Jewish settlements, and Haganah units occasionally retaliated" , "during the war’s first four months the Arabs were generally on the offensive and the Jews were usually on the defensive." ,
   3. p. 98, "In late December, Husseini reportedly sent Jerusalem NC leader Hussein al-Khalidi a letter explicitly stating that the purpose of the present violence was “to harass (and only to harass)” the Yishuv, not full-scale assault. In January 1948, High Commissioner Cunningham assessed that “official [Palestinian] Arab policy is to stand on the defensive until aggression is ordered by the national leadership. That widespread assaults on Jews continue and are indeed increasing illustrates the comparatively feeble authority of most of [the National] Committees and of the AHC. . . . The latter is anxious to curb Arab outbreaks but probably not to stop them entirely.” During the winter, perturbed by appeals from the notables of Jaffa and Haifa, Husseini appears to have agreed to non belligerency in the towns and to have ordered a shift of the focus of hostilities from the main towns to the countryside. On 22 February, the Haifa NC ordered a “cessation of shooting, and a return of each man to his regular workplace.” It is unlikely that such an order was issued without prior AHC endorsement. Many of the Arab attacks in November 1947–January 1948 were “spontaneous” and even contrary to the mufti’s wishes. Others were “incited” or led by Husseini agents, but in unconcerted fashion. Gradually, however, and partly because of Haganah, IZL, and LHI retaliatory attacks, the whole country—or at least the areas with Jewish concentrations of population—was set alight." ,
   4. p. 98, "armed bands attacked convoys and settlements, often recruiting local militiamen to join in. Gunmen sporadically fired into Jewish neighborhoods and planted bombs. The Haganah, busy reorganizing, and wary of the British, adopted a defensive posture while occasionally retaliating against Arab traffic, villages, and urban neighborhoods. The Haganah mobilized slowly, at first hobbled by the belief—shared by much of the Yishuv104—that it merely faced a new round of “disturbances.” Only in early January did the Yishuv’s leadership wake up to the fact that the war that they had long predicted had, in fact, begun" ,
   5. p. 101. "Most of the violence was initiated by the Arabs" ,The Arabs "planted bombs and mines along urban and rural paths and roads" , "The first organized Arab urban attack was launched against the Jewish Hatikva Quarter, on the eastern edge of Tel Aviv" ,
   6. p. 117 , "For four months, under continuous Arab provocation and attack, the Yishuv had largely held itself in check, initially in the hope that the disturbances would blow over and, later, in deference to international— particularly British—sensibilities. In addition, the Haganah had lacked armed manpower beyond what was needed for defense"
3. Benny Morris, refugees revisited, p. 81, "Haganah operations were usually authorised and effectively controlled by the general staff. Moreover, notwithstanding the British view of Haganah operations, the HGS, through December 1947 – March 1948, attempted to keep its units’ operations as ‘clean’ as possible. While coming to accept the general premise that retaliatory strikes against traffic and villages would inevitably involve the death and injury of innocent people, orders were repeatedly sent out to all Haganah units to avoid killing women, children and old people. In its specific orders for each operation, the HGS almost always included instructions not to harm noncombatants, as, for example, in the attack on the village of Salama, outside Jaffa, in early January 1948, when Galili specifically forbade the use of mortars because they might cause casualties among non-combatants.73 On 8 January, Ben-Gurion said that so far, the Arab countryside, despite efforts to incite it, had remained largely quiescent. It was in the Yishuv’s interest that the countryside remain quiet, and this depended in large measure on the Yishuv’s own actions. ‘We [must avoid] mistakes which would make it easier for the Mufti’ to stir up the villages, he said.74 Regarding the countryside, the Haganah’s policy throughout February and March was ‘not to extend the fire to areas where we have not yet been attacked’ while at the same time vigorously attacking known bases of attacks on Jews and, in various areas, Arab traffic.75 This policy also applied to the Negev. The JNF’s YosefWeitz, the chairman of the Negev Committee (the Yishuv’s regional supervisory body), put it this way: ‘As to the Arabs, a policy has been determined: We extend our hand to peace. Every beduin who wants peace, will be satisfied. But if anyone dares to act contrariwise – his end will be bitter.’76 A few weeks earlier, on 12 February, the commander of the Negev Brigade, Nahum Sarig, instructed his officers:
   1. Our job is to appear before the Arabs as a ruling force which functions forcefully but with justice and fairness.
   2. We must encourage the Arabs to carry on life as usual.
   3. We must avoid harm to women and children.
   4. We must avoid harm to friendly Arabs."
4. ref group="quotes" name="gelber2006p3">Yoav Gelber (1 January 2006). Palestine 1948: War, Escape And The Emergence Of The Palestinian Refugee Problem. Sussex Academic Press. p. 3. ISBN 978-1-84519-075-0. Retrieved 13 July 2013. the Palestinians and the Arab League — not the Yishuv — promptly rejected the UN resolution on partition following the vote in the General Assembly on 29 November 1947. Immediately and intentionally they embarked on frustrating implementation of partition by violence. At first, they instigated disturbances and gradually escalated them to a lull- scale war. The Arab League backed the Palestinians' campaign from the beginning and the Arab states joined in the fighting upon termination of the British mandate, invading the newly established Jewish state. The Arabs stubbornly repudiated any compromise that provided for a Jewish state, no matter what its borders were to be. Only in the wake of their military defeat did the Arabs make UN resolutions a cornerstone of their case and demand their strict fulfillment. Any study describing solely Palestinian suffering is one-sided and incomplete without properly weighing this plain truth: As victims of war, the Palestinians' own conduct gives adequate cause to deny them the adjective "innocent". Truly, they have paid a heavy price in this and ever since. They have been victims. But to a large extent they are the victims of their own follies and pugnacity, as well as the incompetence of their Arab allies.</ref>
5. Jewish Transjordanian Relations: 1921 - 48, Gelber, p.243, "in mid december 1947...the Arab league determination to embark an organized anti Jewish terrorism in Palestine instead of the sporadic disorders"
6. http://www.haifa.org.il/OurCityFile/%D7%9E%D7%A4%D7%A0%D7%94%20%D7%97%D7%99%D7%A4%D7%94%20%D7%91%D7%90%D7%A0%D7%92%D7%9C%D7%99%D7%AA.doc ,Moti Golani, middle eastern studies, Apr 2001, 37,2 , p.93? , The “Haifa Turning Point” The British Administration and the Determination of the Civil War in Palestine, December 1947-May 1948, Golani p 105 :"Cunningham was aware that the Arabs had triggered the violence, but he was dumbfounded by what he thought was the Jews’ eagerness to retaliate Ykantor (talk) 06:49, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

ref name="AlexanderBogdanor2011">Edward Alexander; Paul Bogdanor (31 December 2011). The Jewish Divide Over Israel: Accusers and Defenders. Transaction Publishers. pp. 82, 107. ISBN 978-1-4128-0933-7. Retrieved 13 August 2013. p. 82
when the united nations voted for a two state solution in 1947, the jewish community under british mandate overwhelmingly accepted the plan, while the arab world unanimously rejected it. fighting immediatelly erupted, with arab leaders frankly admitting that they were the aggressors (35)
p. 107 (35) jamal husseini, of the higher arab committee of palestine, informed the united nations:"The representative of the Jewish Agency told us yesterday that they were not the attackers, that the Arabs had begun the fighting. We did not deny this. We told the whole world that we were going to fight". Security Council Official Records, April 16, 1948.</ref>

The same Jamal Husseini quote, appears in http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/1948_War.html citing: Security Council Official Records, S/Agenda/58, (April 16, 1948), p. 19. Ykantor (talk) 14:04, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

Discussions & comments: The Arabs Initiated

About Moti Golani and right working method on wikipedia

Ykantor,

Moti Golani is indeed a reliable source. But not because you downloaded a file from the Haifa website but rather because this paper can be found on JSTOR : [1]. He writes that the Arab triggered the war. Morris remains a much better source for this claim anyway and all in all this doesn't contradict what I explained you in reporting other historians analysis : this is controversed.

Anyway and much more important. You keep pursueing me and many others on several places on wikipedia because you don't agree with what we explained to you about the British position in the '48 war... I explained you that googling to get quote was not a right way of work too. Did you notice that the source that you bring here states what we told you at many times :

"The research, primarily Israeli and British, on Britain’s place in the Palestine war has come a long way, to the point where the question of whether the British supported the Jews or the Arabs is no longer addressed. (...) [D]uring the war the British pursued a policy in Palestine that was neither anti-Zionist nor anti-Arab, but pro-British"

This is what we told you many times...

More strangely is that this source, the source that you refer to, supports Avi Shlaim, a source that you state no farther than here above you don't want to be used because he would be biased... Refering to former sentence, Golani states that "Avi Shlaim is right when he says [so]"...

Your technique of googling for quotes is not a right way of working, particularly when working on contextual issues. As explained to you and proved here above with the article of Moti Golani, you miss the global picture, you miss and cannot (and therefore cannot comply with) wp:undue problems with wp:npov issues.

Pluto2012 (talk) 08:50, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

• pluto:Moti Golani is indeed a reliable source. But not because you downloaded a file from the Haifa website but rather because this paper can be found on JSTOR". You did not understand. I try to assist other editors to check my contribution. So, deliberately I link to a download (when possible).
• pluto:He writes that the Arab triggered the war. Morris remains a much better source for this claim" . How do you know that? if it your personal opinion only, you should specify it.
• pluto:You keep pursueing me and many others on several places on wikipedia because you don't agree with what we explained to you about the British position in the '48 war". You conveniently miss some important details.

1. I have opened a dispute (in your language it is called "pursue"). a volunteer user:smileguy91 started to deal with, and abandoned it.
2. The dispute was re-opened by the DRN volunteer user:Guy Macon but he abandoned it too.

then I continued with another forum, and so on. During one of them, [[user:pluto2012] just ignored the dispute although he was invited. Is that a proper behavior?

• PLUTO:I explained you that googling to get quote was not a right way of work too." You do not understand, that Wikipedia purpose is good, correct and well supported articles. why should you tell other people how to look for cites for support ?
• pluto:with the article of Moti Golani, you miss the global picture, you miss and cannot (and therefore cannot comply with) wp:undue problems with wp:npov issues." .If I miss the global picture, than Gelber, Morris etc. are missing the global picture too. They are respected (even by yourself) main stream historians. Actually, you are taking the fringe side, with only 1 cite: Rosemarie Esber, to support your false claim, that the Arabs have not started the war. (You mentioned some Arab historians but have not cited any of them. You mis-cited Gelber and Morris.)
• pluto:This is what we told you many times". If you repeat a fringe claim many times, it is still a fringe claim.
• pluto:More strangely is that this source, the source that you refer to, supports Avi Shlaim, a source that you state no farther than here above you don't want to be used because he would be biased.". Well, you are confused a little bit.

1. Shlaim is indeed biased and his interpretation should not be used, in my opinion. (unlike his factual sentences).
2. Golani might be right in one occasion (the arabs started the war) and might cite Shlaim's interpretation, which is wrong in my opinion.
3. As you discredited Karsh but later cited him, are you the right person to talk about reliable sources? Ykantor (talk) 21:34, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

• Ykantor, please stop saying things that are not true about WP:DRN volunteers. I did not abandon your case. I simply told you that I could not take it.[2] In addition, you conveniently omit the fact that another DRN volunteer did take the case, and that he closed it because "as it is currently stated this request it is either a conduct dispute (over whether or not a certain act is vandalism) or a help request, neither of which is within the purview of this noticeboard."[3]

Also in your comments above above you ask, "[another editor] just ignored the dispute although he was invited. Is that a proper behavior?" The answer is yes. Anyone is allowed to ignore anything you file on any noticeboard, and indeed many Wikipedia editors choose to never respond to any such accusations, choosing to let the record speak for itself. The burden is on you to provide evidence of misbehavior. Nobody is required to defend themselves on Wikipedia.

Also see Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2013 July 27#I have opened a dispute but the other editor does not respond. What's next? --Guy Macon (talk) 23:36, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

• I apologize for using the term "abandoned". I should have used other term e.g. The process was stopped without a decision. I appreciate the DRN volunteers hard work. It was mentioned here to clarify Pluto ridiculous claim of pursuing him.
• yours:"Anyone is allowed to ignore anything you file on any noticeboard, and indeed many Wikipedia editors choose to never respond to any such accusations, choosing to let the record speak for itself". Although it is allowed, a decent editor should not be afraid to write his view, in my opinion. Concerning "let the record speak for itself", what record Pluto has?

1. of routinely attacking me personally
2. of hiding the supposed errors / flaws in the section he vandalously deleted against the rules
3. of exposing the personal details of another editor (under his previous name user:ceedjee)
4. of asking other editor to be his sock puppet? ( that what the other editor understood) Ykantor (talk) 09:03, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

Please note that I did not abandon the dispute out of neglect; I just think that this dispute is just too difficult to resolve due to extremely strong beliefs on either side. smileguy91^talk 04:30, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

• I appreciate the DRN volunteers hard work. It was mentioned here to clarify Pluto ridiculous claim of pursuing him. Having say that, it was somehow disappointing that you took the case at 9 June, and your next and last writing was at 19 June, without a hint that it is the last involvement.
• May I ask what is so special with the "extremely strong beliefs on either side."? The, offender, Pluto, has violated Wikipedia rule by deleting the section. He could have been told to recover the section, and then an discussion could evolve in the talk page. When the offender erased the section, I was adding cites, and in a short time the section would have been nicely supported. Ykantor (talk) 08:14, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

Please note that what i am about to say would be the same if I thought you were 100% right or 100% wrong about the other user. (I haven't bothered looking at the history, so I really do not know or care).

If you believe that another editor is misbehaving, there are places to report him. Each has its own rules, but all of them need you to provide diffs, which you get by going to the history of the page the editor edited (talk page, article, it doesn't matter; they all have history tabs) and using the compare selected revisions button Here is an example:[4] -- that's your most recent edit.

Once you have diffs proving every rule violation you want to claim, now you need to find the exact policy that is being broken. Once you have all that evidence, post it in the proper place. For sockpuppetry that's WP:SPI. For spamming its WP:AIAV. For edit warring, it's WP:ANEW. There is a nice list at WP:CONDUCTDISPUTE. If you don't know where to post the report, go to WP:ANI and be sure to mention that you could not figure out where to report the behavior. Go to the right place and file a report. Talking about user misbehavior here is a complete waste of time. --Guy Macon (talk) 10:19, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for your help. I do not want anyone to be punished, so I will not apply concerning Pluto's misconduct. I just want the article to be correct, while Pluto's aim seems to be mainly Anti-Israeli. BTW Whatever I wrote is fully supported. e.g. "Si je comprend bien, Pluto2012 vous propose :d'agir comme WP:MEAT de Pluto2012" which means: "I understand well. Pluto propose that I will be his meat puppet" (the reply of user:Racconish to pluto). Ykantor (talk) 13:19, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

In that case, you need to stop accusing him (writing things like "routinely attacking me personally", "vandalously deleted against the rules", "exposing the personal details of another editor", and "asking other editor to be his sock puppet"). You need to stop accusing him anywhere on Wikipedia. You need to either take the complaint to the proper place or drop the WP:STICK. Repeatedly accusing another editor of wrongdoing while declining to report him in the proper place is WP:HARASSMENT.

Also, your claim "Whatever I wrote is fully supported" is not supported by the diff you posted. (BTW, please put "[" and "]" around the diff so it looks like [5] and not like http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Racconish&diff=prev&oldid=565213460 ) To support an accusation against Pluto2012, you need a diff of Pluto2012 doing something wrong. Your diff just shows Pluto2012 deleting something written by someone else. Furthermore, you claim that the words "propose :d'agir comme WP:MEAT de Pluto2012" are the reply of user:Racconish to pluto, but that isn't true either. They were written by User:Visite fortuitement prolongée in a reply to User:Racconish[6] (see how I backed up what I just wrote with a diff showing exactly where the statement in question was added?)

It appears that, not only are you making accusations in the wrong place, at least some of them are false accusations. I am going to WP:AGF and assume that you simply didn't know how to figure out who said what, but now that you know I expect that in the future any claims you make about another editor saying something will be backed up with a diff showing them (not someone else) saying it (not saying something else).

By the way, while I do not speak French, Google translate says that "Si je comprend bien, Pluto2012 vous propose d'agir comme WP:MEAT de Pluto2012" means "If I understand correctly, Pluto2012 offers to act as WP:MEAT of Pluto2012". Are you sure that it means "I understand well. Pluto propose that I will be his meat puppet"? --Guy Macon (talk) 17:43, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

• As I do not want anyone to be punished, I accept your demand and try to avoid it in the future. I was angry with his absurd and provocative claims such as "You keep pursueing me and many others on several places on wikipedia because you don't agree with what we explained". BTW is not it a personal attack?
• It is very important to me to as reliable and accurate as possible. I wrote initially:"of asking other editor to be his sock puppet? ( that what the other editor understood)", and this is still accurate. I had later a minor mistake with the identity of the other user (not user:Racconis but User:Visite fortuitement prolongée ).
• Because of my weak french, I double checked with both automated translations of Google and Bing. The Bing translation is:"If I understand well, Pluto2012 offers: to act as a WP: MEAT of Pluto2012". So the translation should have been: "if I understand well. Pluto propose that you will be his meat puppet" (one word is different). So, it seems that my initial claim is still fully justified. However, If you find that the meaning is different, I will apologize of course.
• Thank you for your technical corrections. I will try to follow it. Ykantor (talk) 21:27, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

• There are 2 (two) words difference between "I understand well. Pluto propose that I will be his meat puppet" and "if I understand well. Pluto propose that you will be his meat puppet".
• Please do not mislead about what I write. "if I understand well. Pluto propose that you will be his meat puppet" is still an incomplete and inacurate translation of that (how a comma became a dot is beyond me).

Visite fortuitement prolongée (talk) 20:05, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

Ykantor, please do not mislead about what I write. Racconish did not wrote "Si je comprend bien, Pluto2012 vous propose :d'agir comme WP:MEAT de Pluto2012". I did. And your quotation is too short. And your translation is wrong.

By the way, how did you found this Pluto2012's edit if not by "pursuing him"? Visite fortuitement prolongée (talk) 20:32, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

About WP:AGF

I want to underline that I patiently explained the WP:NPoV and WP:Undue issues to Ykantor more than 2 months ago and he refused to confirm he understood and accept to comply with these principles a constructive way : Wikipedia principles on Ykantor's talk page.

Ykantor has difficulties in listeting to others advices. He was explained on the help desk it is not a good idea to add (long) quotes to references ; it was explained him again : on his talk page but he keep doing so : no latter than today. This "quote attitude" is even more a problem than the fact it would support the material that he adds is not agreed.

Pluto2012 (talk) 09:35, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

• pluto:I want to underline that I patiently explained the WP:NPoV and WP:Undue issues to Ykantor more than 2 months ago and he refused to confirm he understood and accept to comply with these principles a constructive way ". You try to force other people to adapt your mistaken attitude. According to your false claim, if one rectifies an article error, he can not simply re-write it correctly, since it is a POV case. So the poor editor must balance it with an opposite view (i.e. the error) just to avoid a POV. This is of course an absurd. Actually, I try to avoid removing text (even false text). I usually add a sentence which show the correct version, without harming the initial writing. But user:pluto2012 is hardworking deleting lot of proper contributions.
• pluto:Ykantor has difficulties in listeting to others advices. He was explained on the help desk it is not a good idea to add (long) quotes to references ". This is ridiculous. Pluto does not understand the issue, although I have patiently told him. There is an Help:Footnotes#Explanatory notes (a long quote) which may be used in order to reduce the clutter in the article.(This is an excellent tip I received at the help desk from user:wikid77). However, Pluto insists that it is a bad practice to use those explanatory notes. Once he fix an idea like that, he insists on that and does not listen to other editors in this issue. Ykantor (talk) 22:08, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

to pluto: why do you recycle the same false claims

you recycle the same false claims e.g. long quotes,"You keep pursueing me", "you miss the global picture". I do not see why I should reply again and again to these false claims.

Concerning "who started the war" , according to you I miss the global picture. However, This is the view of Benni Morris, Gelber, Golani and also Kirkbride (usually anti Yishuv) and Cunningham. Apparently all of them miss the global picture too.

Anyway, as you know I have asked for a 3rd opinion. Let us see what is their opinion. Ykantor (talk) 17:44, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

Just in case: (Benny Morris, refugees revisited, p. 81) "Haganah operations were usually authorised and effectively controlled by the general staff. Moreover, notwithstanding the British view of Haganah operations, the HGS, through December 1947 – March 1948, attempted to keep its units’ operations as ‘clean’ as possible. While coming to accept the general premise that retaliatory strikes against traffic and villages would inevitably involve the death and injury of innocent people, orders were repeatedly sent out to all Haganah units to avoid killing women, children and old people. In its specific orders for each operation, the HGS almost always included instructions not to harm noncombatants, as, for example, in the attack on the village of Salama, outside Jaffa, in early January 1948, when Galili specifically forbade the use of mortars because they might cause casualties among non-combatants.73

On 8 January, Ben-Gurion said that so far, the Arab countryside, despite efforts to incite it, had remained largely quiescent. It was in the Yishuv’s interest that the countryside remain quiet, and this depended in large measure on the Yishuv’s own actions. ‘We [must avoid] mistakes which would make it easier for the Mufti’ to stir up the villages, he said.74 Regarding the countryside, the Haganah’s policy throughout February and March was ‘not to extend the fire to areas where we have not yet been attacked’ while at the same time vigorously attacking known bases of attacks on Jews and, in various areas, Arab traffic.75

This policy also applied to the Negev. The JNF’s YosefWeitz, the chairman of the Negev Committee (the Yishuv’s regional supervisory body), put it this way: ‘As to the Arabs, a policy has been determined: We extend our hand to peace. Every beduin who wants peace, will be satisfied. But if anyone dares to act contrariwise – his end will be bitter.’76 A few weeks earlier, on 12 February, the commander of the Negev Brigade, Nahum Sarig, instructed his officers:

• (A) Our job is to appear before the Arabs as a ruling force which functions forcefully but with justice and fairness.
• (B) We must encourage the Arabs to carry on life as usual.
• (C) We must avoid harm to women and children.
• (D) We must avoid harm to friendly Arabs." Ykantor (talk) 18:18, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

Ykantor,

I provided you the analysis of Nur Masalha, Walid Khalidi, Saleh Abd al-Jawad and Rosemarie Esber. You should have looked for these sources by yourself and at least you should understand reading their mind that the question of who initiated the war is controversial.

Yoav Gelber keeps some distance with the question.

Regarding Alek Kirkbride, he is not an historian. He is a primary source and more was the British ambassador in Amman. He lacked information about what happened in Palestine. Regarding primary source, Alan Cunningham, quoted by Esber, was the High Commissioner and McMillan was the Chief commander of the British troops in Palestine. Eliyahu Sasson and Ezra Danin were Jews and totally on the Jewish side, which gives credit to their report.

The primary facts tends to show that the responsibility of the fights and the escalation is of the responsibility of the different militia of the Yishuv but that is controversial among scholars and always complex in such situations.

You don't seem to know who was Yosef Weitz and what he is reported to have done to refer to him.

Pluto2012 (talk) 21:09, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

Comments by Aua

• Comment - took me a while, but I think I agree more with Pluto's assessment here. The picture was just too complex for the blame to go on one side. This is not to mention there was already a low level warfare going on from before. Pinning an exact date where you can say: "hey, X started it!" seems to be an act of disingenuous academic speculation.

Cheers, Λuα ^{(Operibus anteire)} 19:13, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

Sorry but you are missing the point. It is not a matter of a specific event or a couple of attacks. So I have to repeat: A quote of Morris, 1948,p. 117 " For four months, under continuous Arab provocation and attack, the Yishuv had largely held itself in check, initially in the hope that the disturbances would blow over and, later, in deference to international— particularly British—sensibilities". Ykantor (talk) 10:07, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

to Pluto: Your comments (at the section: material)

Generally, you claim that according to some sources ( e.g. Walid Khalidi , Nur Masalha, Rosemarie Esber) it is not true that the Arabs initiated the war and kept attacking. Thus you conclude that the issue is controversial.

My opinion is that Morris, Gelber, Golani are correct, and the Arabs constantly attacked the Jews and kept the war rolling on. It is clear that it is not a 100% case, and the Yishuv was not always perfect. In my opinion, Khalidi ,Masalha, Esber writings are a fringe view.

It might be better to call someone else to decide whether it is controversial or fringe views.

Your writing make it difficult to reply to your claims. e.g. You take Morris sentence and try to show that the plural "s" make it other view, you quote 1 Gelber sentence for a specific case and extend it to the general case.

Each side should accept his wrong doings. Wikipedia should be correct. The Arabs has attacked the Jews at 1920, 1921, 1929, 1936-1939 and at 1948 too. Ykantor (talk) 04:24, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Ykantor,

• You already received answers from 2 uninvolved people for this specific topic and they wrote that they were more convinced by my arguments than by yours.
• Khalidi, Mashala or Esber are historians and they are as much WP:RS as Morris or Gelber. Saleh Abd al-Jawad is a special case but he is WP:RS for wikipedia too. All base their analysis from testimonies and events as historians should.
• Regarding Gelber, the global picture he gives in the chapter dedicated to the topic shows the complexity of the situation and he doens't claim one side or the other would be responsible of the events.
• Some [Israeli] historians go back to 1920, 1921, 1929, 1936-39 events to prove the Arab violence and sole's responsiblity but they are answered by Benny Morris or Nur Masalah when they talk about the 'transfer idea' and the fact mainstream Zionism was perfectly aware of the "Arab problem" for the Zionist project and that they wanted to get rid of the Arabs of Palestine. Others, [mainly pro-Palestinian or so-called left] historians underline the Arabs were at home and they lived a form of colonialism (by British) and that Palestine was, from their point of view, unfairly given to Jews by Balfour without taking their rights into account. In that sense, they would only have defended themselves...
  A more "neutral" point of view is defended by French historian Henry Laurens who underlines that both Palestinian Arabs and Jews were engaged in a zero sum game. With empathy, he adds that both sides had strong fears : the Arabs feared to be expelled from their land and the Jews feared the violence of Arabs... He sees the 1917-1948 period as a Self-fulfilling prophecy that lead to the '48 war. Even if this analysis is very clever and human, it is anyway a fringe theory in term of number of publications suggesting this idea.

Pluto2012 (talk) 05:01, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

to your points:

• You already received answers from 2 uninvolved people for this specific topic and they wrote that they were more convinced by my arguments than by yours. We have to see the reasons yet.
• Khalidi, Mashala or Esber are historians and they are as much WP:RS as Morris or Gelber. Saleh Abd al-Jawad is a special case but he is WP:RS for wikipedia too. All base their analysis from testimonies and events as historians should. I am not in a level to decide who is a Rs. Let us leave it to those who knows who is who.
• Regarding Gelber, the global picture he gives in the chapter dedicated to the topic shows the complexity of the situation and he doens't claim one side or the other would be responsible of the events.. In my option, Gelber says That the Arabs initiated and continuesly attacked. However, As I repeatedly said, the Yishuv was not always right.
• Some [Israeli] historians go back to 1920, 1921, 1929, 1936-39 events to prove the Arab violence and sole's responsiblity but they are answered by Benny Morris or Nur Masalah when they talk about the 'transfer idea' and the fact mainstream Zionism was perfectly aware of the "Arab problem" for the Zionist project and that they wanted to get rid of the Arabs of Palestine. Others, [mainly pro-Palestinian or so-called left] historians underline the Arabs were at home and they lived a form of colonialism (by British) and that Palestine was, from their point of view, unfairly given to Jews by Balfour without taking their rights into account. In that sense, they would only have defended themselves... I would have think like the Arabs (transfer, their country) if I would have been born as an Arab. However, it is not justifying the Arab violence and attacks and killings. Once I read about one of the Anglo American (1946) commitee members who said that all witnesses (both Arabs and Jews) were convinced that their case only was just, except Weizman, who admitted that both side have their case so there should be a compromise. I support Weizman.
• A more "neutral" point of view is defended by French historian Henry Laurens who underlines that both Palestinian Arabs and Jews were engaged in a zero sum game. With empathy, he adds that both sides had strong fears : the Arabs feared to be expelled from their land and the Jews feared the violence of Arabs... He sees the 1917-1948 period as a Self-fulfilling prophecy that lead to the '48 war. Even if this analysis is very clever and human, it is anyway a fringe theory in term of number of publications suggesting this idea. As said, both sides had their justice, but nothing is justifying the killings.

I am a lone editor here, and I do not know what would be the final Wikipedia decision, but I know that there is only one correct description- The Arabs has repeatedly attacked. Ykantor (talk) 10:39, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Jamal Husseini proudly confirmed in 1948 that the Arabs started the war

As I added above (section:The Arabs Has initiated the 1948 Arab Israeli war) Mr Husseini told the security council in 16 April 1948 :"The representative of the Jewish Agency told us yesterday that they were not the attackers, that the Arabs had begun the fighting. We did not deny this. We told the whole world that we were going to fight". In my opinion that undoubtedly prove who willingly started the war. Ykantor (talk) 14:13, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

Ykantor,

It is a testimony (tertiaryprimary source) [edited : of course, distraction from my side] and it is an important one that historians (secondary sources) must have taken into account. It doesn't prove anything. He may be wrong or it may be a form of war-propaganda as suggested by the "proudly" tone that you underline. I have provided here above material from secondary source quoting tertiaryprimary sources [edited: see above] that say exactly the contrary.

That is a controversial topic. I explained this to you many times.

(And in my opinion -that is,unfortunately for me, worth nothing on wikipedia- they both started this war).

Pluto2012 (talk) 17:29, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

A tertiary source is an index and/or textual condensation of primary and secondary sources. It seems that it does not suit this definition.

Anyway: There are a lot of Arab leaders quotes (around the partition resolution date) that talking openly about attacking the Jews.(The Yishuv and in other Arab states).

1. Mr Husseini was one of the 2 main leaders of Palestinian Arabs at that time
2. He talked to the security council, which is of course a rather respected forum.
3. It is registered with their documents

In my opinion, it very difficult to claim that it is false.

Moreover,a report to the Security Council: "Powerful Arab interests, both inside and outside Palestine, are defying the resolution of the General Assembly and are engaged in a deliberate effort to alter by force the settlement envisaged therein." (A/AC.21/9, S/676, 16 February 1948, http://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/FDF734EB76C39D6385256C4C004CDBA7).

will you accept an opening a dispute? Ykantor (talk) 18:29, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

No need for dispute. We simply don't take someone's statement as evidence to "undoubtedly prove who willingly started the war." Secondary sources and a more thorough discussion of the issue is needed in the article. If we went by what Arab or Israeli leaders said, we wouldn't have an encyclopedia, but a patchwork of political/national agendas-driven articles often contradicting each other.

Cheers Λuα ^{(Operibus anteire)} 20:19, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

Ykantor,

I wrote : "He may be wrong or it may be a form of war-propaganda as suggested by the "proudly" tone that you underline."

You answer : "It very difficult to claim that it is [a] false [testimony]"

More, you have been given numerous quotes from 1st and 2nd sources that state the contrary of what you consider to be the mainstream thesis, not to say the "truth".

That is a controversial topic.

Pluto2012 (talk) 11:20, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

Ykantor occupies my living room without my permission and declares that it belongs to him. I try to thrown him out and never deny it. Ykantor adds to the article that I admit it was all my fault. Oh please, this gets worse by the minute. Zero^talk 11:53, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

• I try to thrown him out and never deny it. This is excellent. That is exactly the what we should agree upon.
• occupies my living room without my permission and declares that it belongs to him . it is not within this specific discussion. However, it is correctly describing the Arabs feeling.
• I admit it was all my fault. The term "fault" (or similar) was not used and in my opinion should not be used. The situation should be described accurately.
• Would you accept a paraphrase of your writing: "The Arabs has tried to throw the Jews out, and have never deny it". ? Ykantor (talk) 16:29, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

Doctored image

Removed File:Qawuqjis armored vehicle.jpg. It has been suggested by Graphics Lab editors that the dagger and star emblem in the photo was added at some point after the photo was taken. It is likely doctored image. – JBarta (talk) 08:47, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

I agree. If it is supposedly a fake, it should not be in the article. However, It is rather strange, why should someone fake an emblem, while the real one was about the same. e.g. book "1948: The First Arab-Israeli War" by Benny Morris, chapter "Operations Yoav and Hiram", page 340, "Qawuqji’s troops fled in the direction of the Jermak...We captured two...armored vehicles taken from us in the Yehiam Convoy and now decorated with the symbol of the ALA, a bent dagger dripping blood, stuck in the heart of a Shield of David" Ykantor (talk) 11:50, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

to aua: Why did you deleted "Due to the dangerous situation of the starved and besieged Jerusalem, Ben Gurion ordered the operation Nachshon|"

the diff file

your reason:"Poor grammar is an eyesore; "they had set in motion a shifting of a strategy- from a defense to offensive operations." Reads like POV to me with WEASEL words"

1. If the grammar is poor, it may be improved, rather than deleting it.
2. If you claim for a POV or WEASEL words, where is the problem?
3. Why have you deleted the: {Citation needed|reason=there was no order to apply this plan|date=September 2013}}. Have you read the rules concerning the "citation needed" tag ? Ykantor (talk) 23:27, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

I appreciate your willingness to engage with others on these topics, Ykantor. Many other editors just get offended, resort to 3RR and get blocked.

But let me address your concerns. There are many problems with what you added, but we can start with the poor wording overall. It really isn't anyone's responsibility to tidy up after others. Second, "dangerous situation in Jrslm." What does dangerous mean? Who does it refer to? Was it dangerous for Jews, Arabs, Brits, or someone else? Was it dangerous for all, and as such it needed an Israeli attack? Same goes with starvation and other adjectives. Who was starving? Was that the reason BG launched the attack? Any sources (and there better be more than Morris to support this) to back this up?

And my bad on the citation needed tag. You're right. You can put it back or I can do that for you if you want.

Cheers, Λuα ^{(Operibus anteire)} 23:53, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

I share Aua's mind.

I add my traditionnal concern regarding NPOV. Ykantor, is there no other view among scholars regarding the motivation of Nachshon operation ?

You cannot add an information without being sure of this else, you do not comply with NPoV.

Pluto2012 (talk) 06:41, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

• Here is a source: ref name="Morris2008p233">Benny Morris (1 October 2008). 1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War. Yale University Press. p. 233. ISBN 978-0-300-14524-3. Retrieved 14 July 2013. "By late March, Jewish Jerusalem, despite occasional British intervention, was under siege, its 100,000 inhabitants sorely pressed for food, fuel and munitions. On the night of 31 March – 1 April, Ben-Gurion and the HGS decided that the Haganah's first priority was to relieve the pressure on Jerusalem. Representatives of Jerusalem's Jews had appealed to the JA for 'real action'. The community was 'already hungry and if, heaven forbid, their morale should break there was a danger of a general collapse of the Haganah front line'.531 At Ben-Gurion's insistence, a force of 1,500 troops was mobilised for the largest Jewish offensive to date. The objective was to push several large convoys through to Jerusalem. Strategically speaking, as a senior Haganah officer later put it, Nahshon marked the transitional stage between the prior, defensive, 'policing' approach of safeguarding Jewish convoys by manning them with guards and the 'military' approach of protecting the convoys by conquering and holding the routes themselves and the heights dominating them"</ref>
• What is wrong with Morris?
• In my opinion, You are welcome to rewrite it in order to improve the aentence style.
• The words "starved..dangerous" are used as I try to concise the sentence. It can be expanded.
• As much as I know, there is no other reason for operation Nachshon. Actually, This is one of a few only cases in which Ben Gurion has forced the commanders to act against their wishes. Ykantor (talk) 15:39, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

See eg : Walid Khalidi, Plan Dalet Revisited, Journal of Palestine Studies. He argues that Operation Nachshon was organised outside the territory allocated to the Jewish State and that the purpose was to conquer as much territory as possible. I don't agree with Khalidi but Khalidi is wp:rs. Pluto2012 (talk) 16:57, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Khalidi (your source) says (p. 17)"Operation Nachshon- to carve out a corridor connecting Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and by so doing to split the Arab state (Defeated)". He does not say:the purpose was to conquer as much territory as possible. Concerning "outside the territory allocated to the Jewish State "- He does not mention it but it is correct. BTW Khalidy says "The British government was not hostile to the idea of partition" ! Ykantor (talk) 10:07, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

Ykantor,

I read this article some 6 or 7 years ago and I gave the link without checking. So after reading your message, I thought that I was mabye wrong. So I checked. And I am upset because you make everybody lose time again and again.

p.17 : "The plan visualized a series of operation which, if they had succeeded, would have left the whole Palestine in 1948 under Zionist military occupation".

/then there is the list of the operation/

p.18 : "It will be noted that of 13 full-scale operations under plan D 8 were outside [italic is from Khalidi] the area given by the UN to the Zionists"

Pluto2012 (talk) 17:31, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

• You wrote initially that operation Nachshon purpose (according to Khalidy) "was to conquer as much territory as possible". Your other Khalidy's quote, deals with another issue , which is a result of a series of operations. However, According to Morris, operation Nachshon was an Ad Hoc operation.

1. Morris, 1948, p. 116 ; At the time, Ben-Gurion and the HGS believed that they had initiated a one-shot affair, albeit with the implication of a change of tactics and strategy on the Jerusalem front. In fact, they had set in motion a strategic transformation of Haganah policy. Nahshon heralded a shift from the defensive to the offensive and marked the beginning of the implementation of tochnit dalet (Plan D)—without Ben-Gurion or the HGS ever taking an in principle decision to embark on its implementation.
2. Morris, 1948, p. 119 ; Plan D itself was never launched, in an orchestrated fashion, by a formal leadership decision. Indeed, the various battalion and brigade commanders in the first half of April, and perhaps even later, seemed unaware that they were implementing Plan D. In retrospect it is clear that the Haganah offensives of April and early May were piecemeal implementations of Plan D. But at the time, the dispersed units felt they were simply embarking on unconcerted operations geared to putting out fires in each locality and to meeting particular local challenges (the siege of Jerusalem, the cutoff of the Galilee Panhandle from the Jezreel Valley, and so on). The massive Haganah documentation from the first half of April contains no reference to an implementation of Plan D, and only rarely do such references appear in the Haganah’s paperwork during the following weeks. Plan D called for securing the areas earmarked by the United Nations for Jewish statehood and several concentrations of Jewish population outside those areas (West Jerusalem and Western Galilee). The roads between the core Jewish areas and the border areas where the invading Arab armies were expected to attack were to be secured. The plan consisted of two parts: general guidelines, distributed to all brigade OCs, and specific orders to each of the six territorial brigades (gEtzioni [Jerusalem], Kiryati [(Tel Aviv], Givgati [Rehovot-Rishon Lezion], Alexandroni [the Coastal Plain], Carmeli [Haifa], and Golani [Jezreel Valley]). The preamble stated: the aim “of this plan is to take control of the territory of the Jewish State and to defend its borders, as well as [defend] the blocs of settlement and the Jewish population outside these borders against a regular enemy, semi-regular[s] [that is, the ALA], and irregulars.” Previous Haganah master plans had referred either to the British or the Palestinian Arab militias or a combination of the two, possibly aided by Arab volunteers from outside, as the possible enemy. Plan D was geared to an invasion by regular Arab armies. It was to be activated when “the forces of the [British] government in the country will no longer be in existence”—meaning that it was to be activated somewhere in the hiatus between the British withdrawal and the Arab invasion. When it emerged that no such hiatus would exist, the HGS prepared to activate the plan during the last week or two of (by then largely nominal) British rule.

• yours ""It will be noted that of 13 full-scale operations under plan D 8 were outside [italic is from Khalidi] the area given by the UN to the Zionists"". Again, it is another issue. operation Nachshon was an Ad Hoc operation and was initiated without any connection to Plan D. However, as I already said, it is correct that operation Nachshon was outside of the partition envisaged Jewish state. Ykantor (talk) 12:43, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Pov pushing with images

Pov pushing with the use of images is well known. There is even an article dedicated to this issue (but in the media) related to the I-P conflict... Media coverage of the Arab–Israeli conflict.

The same issues was already exposed on the article about the Six day war.

It is not a question of having an image "for each side". Images must be equilibrated, not introduce bias or useless emotions (ex. pictures of snipers who shot at civils or children around a armoured car...). The notoriaty and the reliability of the picture is also important...

Pluto2012 (talk) 15:35, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

Deleted content.

Someone deleted a lot of content from the intro section of the article. Can it be added back? Lightsmiles (talk) 20:11, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

British intervention

The article states that the British did not intervene. This is factually incorrect. Morris is cited, but, if my memory is correct, Morris actually says that it is untrue that the British did not intervene and that, on different occasions, they intervened against both sides. I'd take a guess that their biggest intervention was at Jaffa, where they stopped the Zionist attacks until the mandate expired. It's often stated in Zionist-oriented sources that British troops stood by while the Mount Scopus convoy was butchered. Actually, members of the convoy were offered shelter in British armoured cars, but, preferring to wait for rescue by Jewish forces, they turned the offer down.     ←   ZScarpia   00:45, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

You are right that the British intervened but these interventions were exceptions. They intervened at Jaffa (after the Fall of Haïfa) to prevent the city to be overun by IZL. An officer took the personnal initiative to try to rescue the Mont Scopus convoy (one of his man was even shot) but his offer was rejected.

After the Partition vote, they had decided to withdraw and to intervene only when British interests involved.

They didn't prevent the siege of Jerusalem and didn't escort Jewish supply convoys. They didn't prevent the entry of the Arab Liberation Army (that's something incredible to let foreign fighters enter a terrority you control and are responsible of...). They didn't either prevent the expulsions and the fightings in the mixed cities.

Pluto2012 (talk) 08:35, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

In the interests of factual accuracy, then, shouldn't the wording be changed?     ←   ZScarpia   15:34, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

Could you say what words are problematic ?

In the lead, it is written : "(...) while the British, who had the obligation to maintain order,[5][6] organized their withdrawal and intervened only on an occasional basis." In the core, I also found this : " The impasse persisted as British forces didn't intervene to put a stop to the escalating cycles of violence generated by IZL and LHI terrorism and Arab skirmishes."

For me, both sentences are correct.

Are these sentences problematic or is there another one in the article ? If so, which one ?

Pluto2012 (talk) 17:33, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

The second sentence is the one I'm questioning: "The impasse persisted as British forces didn't intervene to put a stop to the escalating cycles of violence generated by IZL and LHI terrorism and Arab skirmishes." Firstly, although the British tried to avoid becoming entangled, it's not factually correct that, as the sentence implies, the British did not intervene at all. Secondly, it's questionable that there was an impasse. If an impasse had existed, it was in the negotiations leading up to the British decision to withdraw, when the Arab and Zionist sides could not be brought to an agreement, even when told that the British would withdraw unless an agreement was reached. Thirdly, it's questionable that, even if they'd wanted to, the British had the resources to stop the violence. Fourthly, intervening to a greater extent probably would have brought further opprobrium from either or both sides - after all, both sides blamed the British for creating the problem: the Arabs for sponsoring Jewish immigration, the Zionists for not allowing unrestricted Jewish immigration. Fifthly, intervening effectively would probably have required the use of methods which would have brought condemnation. So, briefly, the sentence asserts a number of things which are incorrect or questionable, principally that the British did not intervene and that the situation would not have persisted if the British had intervened more.     ←   ZScarpia   18:12, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

English is not my mother tongue. From my understanding the sentence doesn't imply that British didn't intervene at all but that they didn't intervene enough to put a stop at the violence. But I agree with your other comments.

Would this be accepable (or do you have another suggestion) ?

"IZL and LHI terrorism and Arab skirmishes fueled the spiral of violence whereas the British forces had decided not to intervene any more in a conflit they could not stop and in which they had lost too many soldiers yet."

Pluto2012 (talk) 19:27, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

ArbComm violations and other things...

Just as a quick reminder to everyone (and especially one editor pushing a certain POV here) that this article is under ArbCom. It's 1RR. Ykantor, you broke that today with the addition of the photo (twice). Pluto makes a good case above and I'd recommend discussing with him/her above first before adding. As it's been pointed out to you, it's not an issue of each side having a picture.

Second, how did the last paragraph in the lead change? In October of last year, it looked like this. Now, it has some POV nonsense masquerading as sourced information. Amusingly, Iraq is now a "surrounding" nation re: Palestine/Israel. We should probably go back to the old one. A mention of the Palestinian refugee crisis is warranted in the lead as well, seeing as it was one of the major consequences of the war.

Cheers, Λuα ^{(Operibus anteire)} 00:27, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Is there any reason why the photo of Professor Fekete with a jerry can is of particular interest or significance? I don't have any objections to its inclusion except that, as far as I can tell, it has neither of those qualities, nor is it a striking photograph.     ←   ZScarpia   15:54, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

I opened a section here above some months ago to point out the risk to influence NPoV with pictures.

I don't see any interest in this picture but the problem is it is highly emotional with an old man who seems disabled (see his left leg) carrying smalls cans of water. If it was a notorious on the topic that could be discussed but here I don't think it is a good idea to add the picture.

The problem is exactly the same with the picture of the Haganah armoured car with children all around or with the one of al-Qawuqji armoured car with the stabbed Magen David. They are not notorious but carry propaganda information on a topic.

Pluto2012 (talk) 16:53, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

to Aua: I apologize again for the my 1rr deletion. It is the 2nd time during the last days. I have to be more careful

* Concerning the end of the lead section, the previous lead end is rather vague since it does not state that the Arab states invaded. There was a discussion whether the Arab states invaded Israel (too) or ex-Palestine territory. In my opinion the name Israel should be used as it was declared, but name is not so important , hence I accepted the other term. However, it is important that the Arab armies immediately attacked Jewish settlements.

* I agree with you that the Palestinian refugee crisis should be amended to the lead as well.

* Concerning images I do not agree with you. Added photos are beneficial since the article is more attractive. Photos are much more influential that words. Some people can not concentrate and do not like to read much, hence photos are very important. e.g. During the war for liberation of Kuwait, (Occupied by Sadam Hussein) The American president assistants noted that he did not read the updates but rather preferred to watch the CNN news. Hence his next updates were a TV news styled as the CNN news, prepared especially for one person only- the president of the U.S

I am the only one that added photos (of both sides) during the last half a year, since starting editing these articles. I welcome any photos edition, and emotional photos are better since the article become more attractive. I am sure that there sufficient emotional photos of the Arab side, but I do not read Arabic so I cannot access them, Why won't you look for such photos?

to be continued Ykantor (talk) 17:50, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

"Photos are much more influential that words. Some people can not concentrate and do not like to read much, hence photos are very important." (Ykantor)

Great. That's why they must be perfectly chosen for the reasons that were pointed out before. Pluto2012 (talk) 20:01, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Ykantor. English is not your first language I gather, but saying you put in photos because they 'are much more influential words' after writing about the beneficial character of the attractions is extremely dangerous. Our job here is to be masochists and make articles accurate and neutral to the point that they don't influence, but inform people (sufficiently so hat they can make up their own minds). That's the ideal, anyhow.Nishidani (talk) 20:17, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

to Nishidani: Should we remove the emotional photo of the Arab refugees as well? In my opinion it is an important photo and should stay in the article, but extrapolating your words, it should be removed !

* An accurate and neutral article does not necessarily means a boring article. It can be both accurate and neutral with an added attraction of interesting photos. Instead of deleting a relevant and interesting image, why won't we add an emotional image that shows the other side? Ykantor (talk) 20:27, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Because emotional images, whatever the side in favor of which they are provided, are not welcome in history articles. History's study must remain "cold" and distanciates from the events.

As far as images are concerned, NPoV is not achieved in providing emotional images from both sides. It is achieved in providing images that illustrate with an as neutral way as possible the main milestones of the events.

Pluto2012 (talk) 23:57, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

You have not referred yet to : Should we remove the emotional photo of the Arab refugees as well? In my opinion it is an important photo and should stay in the article, but since it is an emotional photo, it should be removed according to your views.

It is a pity that you have opened a pandora box by questioning the copyright status of the Fekete photo. If accepted, it may result in deleting this article Arab refugees photo as well. A very short minded thinking. Ykantor (talk) 14:36, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

What, you think it isn't good to be careful about copyright? Itsmejudith (talk) 16:50, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

It is written that the application of this rule is not active but it is applied when there is a complain concerning a specific object. BTW who could sue for a copyright infringement if no one holds the rights? it looks illogical. Ykantor (talk) 19:30, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

As explained over there on commons, all images that are in the public domain in Israel are not in the public domain in the USA and due to that, must be removed from commons. That concerns all the images of this article. This is quite new. I uploaded many pictures that will disappear. Anyway, 1945 is the limit. Before it is ok.

Instead of referring to Pandorra, an Israeli should refer to Salomon judgement. The one who destroys should not be given the case.

Feel free to apply your Nekama Tena :-)

Pluto2012 (talk) 00:22, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

Reference style

Any objections if I convert to [[7]]? I wasn't familiar with the current style, so I checked on the Helpdesk, and apparently it is an old template. Itsmejudith (talk) 10:38, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

As far as we use one and only one convention, that's ok for me. Pluto2012 (talk)

Periodisation

At the moment we have a "beginning" phase from November to April, and a later phase from April to May and onwards. It seems a bit odd that the "beginning" should last so long. Itsmejudith (talk) 11:49, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

I agree that the current structure is misleading. The one 6 months ago was much better and clear.

Instead of "beginning", what about "First phase" ?

This coincide with the 1st phase to whihc Benny Morris refers in his book about the "refugee problem" even if the topic is not the same.

Pluto2012 (talk) 23:45, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

Yes, "First phase" is better. Itsmejudith (talk) 10:00, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

And yes, that structure was far, far better. Reads like proper history. Organised chronologically. I'm not saying that that's the only way to write history, but it is one of the easiest. KISS everyone! (Keep it simple, stupid.) Itsmejudith (talk) 10:13, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

Overview section

Not a good structure for a history article. I suggest that this material be worked into appropriate sections in the article. Itsmejudith (talk) 21:01, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

It is an old discussion between both of us ;-)

Why is this not appropriate ? I always found better to have this "summary"...

Pluto2012 (talk) 21:03, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

It's because it's a short encyclopaedia article. Summary isn't good either. Itsmejudith (talk) 21:18, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

I understand and agree with the 1st sentence but on wp:fr, for example, summaries are welcome and you can find many in different articles.)

But why is that summary not good ?

By the way, I don't mind much if we remove this. Pluto2012 (talk) 00:00, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

I don't edit fr.wiki much and don't know their policies well, but I do know that many things vary from our practice. It's not the quality of the summary in this article that I was pointing out, it's starting with an "overview" section. From memory, it's deprecated, but I need to look up where. Itsmejudith (talk) 10:55, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

The way it's normally expressed is that the lead paragraph should be the overview. If you look at some FA articles, you'll see that they do this. In Battle of Arras (1917), a military history article, the overview section was taken out as it went to FA. Itsmejudith (talk) 11:01, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

What do you think is the best :

• add this to the lead ?
• put this at the end of the article ?
• just remove this ?

I don't think option 1 is wise because it will make everything too long.

I understand the fact that there is no article with a summary on wp:en and therefore that it should be deleted.

Pluto2012 (talk) 00:16, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

I wanted to split it so that the different information would go in the appropriate sections. I could still try to do that, but when I looked, I found that the structure of the article isn't very clear, which is why I started the next talk section about periodization. Itsmejudith (talk) 10:30, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

• Whatever you did, atm the 'overview' section should be more appropriately named 'overview of the second phase of the war'.--PLNR (talk) 18:51, 24 January 2014 (UTC)
• I have removed the section, which is now a standing NPOV violation in terms of coverage. Either return to the previous state of this section or finish whatever you had in mind. For quick access removed materials can be found here [8]. Thanks. --PLNR (talk) 06:09, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

Introducing comments

There is disagreement between Ykantor and I. He insists to state that the Arabs started the war. I said him that it was controversed and complex but he doesn't agree.

They did start the war, after the UN created the partition plan, and the British left the Arabs immediately attacked. Otherwise there would not have been invading armies. This goes to prove that it was a war between Jews and Arabs/Muslims, not anything else.Saxophonemn (talk) 17:00, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

Well, if from your point of view, the 1st Arab attack refers to the "invading armies", then the Yishuv attacked much sooner in April. That's a Palestinian thesis that you defend.

Your intervention is very instructive anyway. It indicates what is the "collective memory" about this war and the "forgotten civil war"

Pluto2012 (talk) 22:23, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

The Arabs started the war and "For four months, under continuous Arab provocation and attack, the Yishuv was usually on the defensive while occasionally retaliating".(Morris2003p107). There was a rational for the Arabs attacks and for the Yishuv containment, as highlighted by by the Arab League general Safwat:"Despite the fact that skirmishes and battles have begun, the Jews at this stage are still trying to contain the fighting to as narrow a sphere as possible in the hope that partition will be implemented and a Jewish government formed; they hope that if the fighting remains limited, the Arabs will acquiesce in the fait accompli. This can be seen from the fact that the Jews have not so far attacked Arab villages unless the inhabitants of those villages attacked them or provoked them first." The Arabs attacks were a repetition of the same tactic that was successfully applied after Peel commission recommendations, and caused the annulling of the Peel proposed partition. But this time, The Arabs succeeded to isolate Jewish Jerusalem, The Negev and some Galilee settlements, and other villages (e.g. Ben Shemen, close to Tel Aviv). Initially, the Yishuv supplied those besieged locations by convoys, but at the end of those 4 months the convoys system failed. Then, in early April 1948 the British soldiers have already abandoned most of the country and the Haganah that just received a shipment of 5000 rifles, could afford to open the supply routes by destroying the Arab villages along the roads Ykantor (talk) 22:35, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Exactly when does the four months referred to by Morris run up to? Obviously, in the period just before the end of the mandate and the subsequent intervention by regular Arab forces, attacks such as the ones on Deir Yassin, Haifa and Jaffa occurred. Those don't fit the descriptions given in the quotations that you've supplied.     ←   ZScarpia   02:00, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

It is Morris description of the 4 months from the U.N resolution up to the end of March 1948. The later 6 weeks , April and 2 weeks of May, refers to the period in which the Haganah took the initiative. If you are interested, I can quote more of this Morris's page. Ykantor (talk) 17:24, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

• The answer was provided 9 months ago. Pluto2012 (talk) 17:47, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Mishmar Haemek

concerning this Diff , Pluto added to this article text: "The villages were plundered by some kibbutznikim and razed to the ground with explosives with accordance to Plan Dalet", the citation of Morris 2003 p. 242-243.

The text of Morris 2008 p. 133 is:"both, retrospectively, were seen as stages in the implementation of Plan D" , which is not the same as "with accordance to Plan Dalet". Will it be possible to verify that Morris 2003 text, supports the article text (unlike the Morris 2008 sentence) ? Ykantor (talk) 20:30, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

It's probably better to use the, later, 2008 copy as a source in any case, even if the text differs. I think that the 2008 copy would be a reprint of the 2nd edition which, I again think, came out in 2004.     ←   ZScarpia   23:00, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

I don't remember if I am the one who added this but that may be the case. If so, I just made a mistake in the date because Morris (2003) should not talk about this. So, 2008 is the right sentence;

In 2008, Morris writes that these events were "retrospectively [] seen [by historians] as stages in the implementation of Plan D". Who else would have made this analysis "retropectively" ?

That means that we can write these events were performed "in accordance with Plan Dalet".

We don't have to copy/paste what historians write.

Pluto2012 (talk) 06:26, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

There is a difference in meaning between saying something was seen as something and something is something: the former leaves open the possibility that the thing under consideration is not, in actual fact, what it is seen as. I'm sure I've seen citations to 2003 copies of Morris's book elsewhere, which are presumably reprints of the first edition, so the date given could be correct.     ←   ZScarpia   10:27, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

ZScarpia,

If it was seen retrospectively as "something". It means that -before- it was not seen that way or just not analysed at all ; but that later, it was analysed that "way". That's what Morris means.

The different Haganah operations in April-May were carried out according to the directives of Plan D. That is well-known and was debated many times.

Morris, The Birth... Revisited' writes, p.165-166 writes: "Elsewhere, Haganah brigades unleashed offensives and counter-offensives in the spirit of Plan D without quite realising that this was what they were doing. But in Operation Nahshon (2–3 April – 20 April), in the Jerusalem Corridor, and, to the north, in the battles of Mishmar Ha‘emek (4–15 April), Ramat Yohanan (12–16 April), Arab Tiberias (16–18 April) and Arab Haifa (21–22 April), Operation Yiftah, in eastern Galilee (15 April – 15 May), and Operation Ben-Ami (parts I and II), in western Galilee (13–22 May), the Haganah, for the first time, systematically conquered and emptied of inhabitants (and often levelled) whole clusters of villages, clearing lines of communication and border areas."

The precise facts are that they had often not received written orders to follow Plan D for these operations but that they followed the general rules of Plan D that they had received and were instructed before.

And in any way there are other WP:RS sources that do not care about this nuance such eg as Khalidi. Pluto2012 (talk) 10:43, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

I refuse to lose my time any more with Ykantor. He is just a pov-pusher and comes back again and again with this. He just deserves to be banned. And that's it. And please, don't make us lose our time in "feeding the troll".

Pluto2012 (talk) 10:40, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Please stop cursing. e.g. Troll.

-If Morris and Khalidi has opposing views, both views could be cited. e.g. According to Khalidi... but according to Morris ....

- The Plan D planners assumed that the plan would be applied after the British evacuation but before the expected Arab states invasion. Hence, it was not applied at early April 1948.

- it is not a coincident that the "Haganah brigades unleashed offensives and counter-offensives in the spirit of Plan D without quite realising that this was what they were doing' . (e.g. operation Nachshon). Any military planner , anywhere would have use the same guidelines e.g. "The strategy called for the fortification and stabilization of a continuous Jewish-controlled line within the areas of the designated Jewish State and along its putative borders, and for the harassment of, and interference with, the Arab forces as they moved in. The success of this strategy depended on three elements: cleansing the area along the Jewish States's borders of an Arab presence; fortifying the Jewish settlements along the line of advance of the Arab column; and hit-and-run raids against the Arab troops as they advanced" (Tal 2004 p. 65). For instance, Jewish Jerusalem was besieged, starved and on the verge of collapse. The Convoys supply system failed. The Haganah had to destroy the blocking Arab villages in order to save Jewish Jerusalem. Ykantor (talk) 19:53, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

A proposed section: Palestine1948- April,May Truce proposals

I propose to add following text as a new section to the article

Palestine1948- April,May Truce proposals

I will appreciate it if the comments will be added to the next "Comments" sub-section, and not to this one.

• United Nations Security Council Resolution 43, adopted on April 1, 1948. It called on both the Arab Higher Committee and the Jewish Agency to immediately cease all acts of violence, and to arrange for a truce.

  - United Nations Security Council Resolution 44 at 1 Apr 1948 requested the Secretary-General convoke a special session of the General Assembly to consider further the question of the future government of Palestine. The Arabs demanded immediate independence and sovereignty over all of Palestine, not a prolongation of international rule, as embodied in an open-ended trusteeship. the Zionists insisted on declaring statehood on the termination of the Mandate, according to the November 1947 partition resolution.

• United Nations Security Council Resolution 46, adopted on April 17, 1948. It called on both the Arab Higher Committee and the Jewish Agency to immediately cease all acts of violence, to stop outside combatants from entering the territory, stop importing weapons. It called both sides and the neighboring countries to cooperate in any way they could, particularly enforcing the movement of fighters or arms into the territory. The AHC representative Jamal al-Husayni rejected the decision. The Yishuv accepted the military terms of the Resolution, but rejected its political terms. Nneither side respected the truce.

• United Nations Security Council Resolution 48, adopted on April 23, 1948, called on all concerned parties to comply with Resolution 46, and to establish a Truce Commission for Palestine. The United Nations tried to negotiate a truce throughout Palestine or at least in the holy city, but to no avail, despite official Jewish and Arab agreement to many of the proposed clauses.

• On 16 April the General Assembly convened in special session. There, during the next four weeks, the trusteeship proposal as well as separate proposals for a a general truce or in Jerusalem were debated On 4 May 1948 the general assembly voted for truce. The Arabs accepted only if the The Yishuv would give up the Partition. The Yishuv accepted conditionally

  -The Assembly adopted resolution 185 (S-2) of 26 April 1948, asking the Trusteeship Council to study measures for the protection of Jerusalem, .

  -United Nations General Assembly Resolution 187, 6 May 1948 - PROTECTION OF THE CITY OF JERUSALEM AND ITS INHABITANTS: APPOINTMENT OF A SPECIAL MUNICIPAL COMMISSIONER. United Nations representatives tried to negotiate a truce throughout Palestine or at least in Jerusalem, but did not succeeded, despite Jewish and Arab agreement to many of the proposed clauses. The truce proposals included a cessation of fighting, prohibition of entry of foreign troops into Palestine, and a limitation of Jewish immigration.

  - General Assembly Resolution 186 on May 14, 1948 called for an appointment a Mediator in order to secure a ceasefire in Palestine;

• The Americans drafted truce proposals, which included a military and political standstill that required the Jews to curb immigration severely, and to defer establishing of a Jewish state. Israel consistently rejected the linkage and the deferment of statehood.

Comments to: Palestine1948- April,May Truce proposals

Please post here your comments.

• I am not opposed to the principle but why so much details ? I would suggest : "Between 1 April and 15 May, Security Council and General Assembly voted several resolutions to try to stop the violences in Palestine. Pluto2012 (talk) 20:48, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

Errors and POV

The Arabs started the war. This sentence is wrong: Soon after, violence broke out from both sides and became more and more prevalent.. This sentence erroneously imply that both sides, the Arabs and the Jews, are equally responsible for the war eruption. This is not true, as the Arabs started the war and continuously attacked the Jews (e.g. Blocking Jerusalem), While the Yishuv was interested to calm the situation , in order to maximize the chance of the partition.

see The Arabs started the war. some sources:

• "For four months, under continuous Arab provocation and attack, the Yishuv had largely held itself in check, initially in the hope that the disturbances would blow over and, later, in deference to international— particularly British—sensibilities. In addition, the Haganah had lacked armed manpower beyond what was needed for defense" (Morris 2008 p. 117)
• "The Jews accepted the partition plan; all the Arab states and the Palestinians rejected it vehemently. The Palestinians launched a campaign of violence to frustrate partition and Palestine was engulfed by a civil war in which the Jews eventually gained the upper hand… The Palestinian attack on the Jews provoked the civil war while the Arab invasion in May 1948 provoked the official war" (Ngaire Woods; Avi Shlaim (1996). Explaining International Relations Since 1945. pp. 219–236 ch. 10 )
• "Arab leaders frankly admitting that they were the aggressors" (Edward Alexander; Paul Bogdanor, 2011, The Jewish Divide Over Israel: Accusers and Defenders. Transaction Publishers. pp. 82, 107 )
• a U.N report to the Security Council: "Powerful Arab interests, both inside and outside Palestine, are defying the resolution of the General Assembly and are engaged in a deliberate effort to alter by force the settlement envisaged therein." (A/AC.21/9, S/676, 16 February 1948, http://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/FDF734EB76C39D6385256C4C004CDBA7
• Arab leaders quotes:

1. "Al Husseini…In March 1948 he told an interviewer in a Jaffa daily Al Sarih that the Arabs did not intend merely to prevent partition but "would continue fighting until the Zionist were Annihilated" (Morris 2008 p. 409)
2. The Arab League general Safwat:"Despite the fact that skirmishes and battles have begun, the Jews at this stage are still trying to contain the fighting to as narrow a sphere as possible in the hope that partition will be implemented and a Jewish government formed; they hope that if the fighting remains limited, the Arabs will acquiesce in the fait accompli. This can be seen from the fact that the Jews have not so far attacked Arab villages unless the inhabitants of those villages attacked them or provoked them first." (source: General Ismail Safwat report, 23 March 1948, cited from Journal of Palestine studies, 1998, no. 3, p. 70 )

- Added by Ykantor without signature (Pluto2012 (talk) 07:29, 29 June 2014 (UTC)).

There is no error and even less pov.

This was discussed here. Pluto2012 (talk) 07:28, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

Your attitude does not suit Wikipedia's policy which say that if there is a dispute, then both views should be presented. The present article depict one side only, which is the side that try to minimize the Arabs wrong doing. Ykantor (talk) 19:12, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

The name of this article.

Why are the words "Civil War" capitalised? Zero^talk 22:48, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

I never understood the rules about the capitalisation.

Why "W" in 1948 Arab–Israeli War ?

Why "w" in 1948 Palestine war ?

Pluto2012 (talk) 05:26, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

There is a Wikipedia policy that "the initial letter of a title is almost always capitalized by default; otherwise, words are not capitalized unless they would be so in running text." I believe this means "Civil War" is incorrect. I'm not sure about "Mandatory" either, since it was not an actual name, though in that case it serves to distance the word from the more common meaning of "mandatory". The examples of "war" need to be referred to reliable sources, since the word is often regarded as part of a proper name, e.g. Second World War. Zero^talk 13:06, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

I don't know English enough to help. All I can say is that in French the rule to decide which letters are capitalised and which ones are not is difficult but very clear and without ambiguity.

In English, I noticed that the in the titles of books, all nouns and adjective first letters are capitalised. Eg, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited.

I am sure Nishidani could help :-). Pluto2012 (talk) 20:33, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

I'm sure Nishidani could, and I think I can too. In English we capitalise every word in a name. So we have "the University of Kent" but "a university in Kent". The "Second World War" (name of the war) but "the second major twentieth century war" (description of the war). In this case, I don't think it is a recognised name of the war so it shouldn't have capital letters. Whether we have a capital for Mandatory Palestine is a question in its own right. Compare "South Africa", name of the country, with "southern Africa", region. Or the "Commonwealth of Independent States", capitals for every word of the name except "of", but "independent India", description of India. Itsmejudith (talk) 20:51, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

How do buses skirmish?

This seems problematic as a matter of english usage "Arab snipers skirmished Jewish buses". I'm not sure how buses skirmish. In fact, I think it's a physical impossibility. I would suggest replacing the word skirmished with attacked, fired upon, or assaulted as likely more accurate characterizations. I don't have access to the cited source and there seems to be no online link. TMLutas (talk) 01:52, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Possible copyright problem

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Discussion relevant to this topic

It is proposed to rename Jewish insurgency in Palestine → Jewish insurgency in Mandatory Palestine.

Please discuss it on Jewish insurgency in Palestine talk page.GreyShark (dibra) 14:58, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

Requested move 29 September 2015

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Not moved. There is a numerical majority against this move, and nobody has supplied references that contradict those of User:Pluto2012. We would need a scholarly consensus this was not a civil war. To conclude otherwise risks being WP:OR. A sentence like "I cannot see that the UN or others would have regarded the ensuing conflict as being a civil war.." cries out for sources to establish what UN members actually thought. EdJohnston (talk) 16:12, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

---

1947–48 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine → 1947–48 War in Mandatory Palestine – At the stage of history of the war the UK government had dropped any concept of a British Mandate for Palestine.

The new UN mandate was for there to be two states and this was not a civil war. The United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine had very clearly proscribed areas of land allocation which are indicated in the map shown. The partition plan clearly specified separate areas for both an Arab State and for a Jewish State with no support being given for a continuation of Mandatory Palestine. No faction within the war advocated a continuation in the existence of Mandatory Palestine and this was basically a territorial war with ethnic cleansing motivations being existent on both sides.

GregKaye 06:38, 29 September 2015 (UTC) --Relisted. DrKiernan (talk) 12:52, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

• opposed Hello GregKaye. You argue that the period from December '47 to May 1948 was not a civil war. I don't want to argue why it was but rather to refer to sources. Yoav Gelber, Benny Morris, Ephraim Karsh or Henry Laurens (scholar), all References on the topic and who published books on the 1948 Palestine war (see bibliography) use this precise terminology: "civil war". Pluto2012 (talk) 17:00, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

Pluto2012 in searches in books:

"1947–48 war" "Palestine" got "About 384 results"[9] while

"1947–48 civil war" "Palestine" got "About 65 results"[10]

Per sources I think that we should just call it a war and leave it to the reader to decide the context.

The first three scholars that you mention all write from the Jewish perspective. The Henry Laurens citations do not provide links to his actual texts or direct quotations from his works. I would be interested in wider views on the subject. In what sense could this have been regarded as being a civil war? The intended and authorised divisions of areas were clear. GregKaye 07:25, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

Hello GregKaye,

• Benny Morris is The Reference on a 1948 War. He is a New historian so not really pro-Israeli even if...
• Yoav Gelber is A Reference on the 1948 War. He considers himself as a tradionnal historian.
• Efraim Karsh is a controversed reference on the 1948 War because he is a defender of Israel.
• Henry Laurens is a French historian, a Reference on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and who has more empathy for Palestinians than for Israelis. He has published 5 books on the I/P conflict. Please check the title and content of the 1st chapter of the 3rd one.
• If you fear this could be a pro-Israeli view, Ilan Pappé whose most of work is not reliable due to his pro-Palestinian bias, writes "at the bottom of p.45 of one of his book that it was a civil war.

The reasons why it was a civil war (or an intercommunal war) is that the country was under British authority and that citizens of this country fought against each other with the authorities failing to prevent this. The consensus is total among historians to refer to this period as a civil war. And they agree on nearly nothing ;-) Pluto2012 (talk) 17:21, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

Your google research is not relevant. It doesn't take into account the existence of the 1948 Palestine War that covers both periods. Pluto2012 (talk) 17:23, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose It was a civil war as it took place within a single territory. Only after 14 May 1948 did it become a non-civil war. Number 57 08:47, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose Most (if not all) experts in the field call it a civil war. Not to mention that it was in fact a civil war by any reasonable duck test. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 13:06, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

Number 57 Is your reference to 14 May 1948 in reference to the Israeli Declaration of Independence? On what reasoning do you say that the war was conducted on a single territory? The United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine was published on 29 November 1947 with text that "... the majority of the Special Committee, ... Recommends to the United Kingdom, as the mandatory Power for Palestine, and to all other Members of the United Nations the adoption and implementation, with regard to the future Government of Palestine, of the Plan of Partition with Economic Union set out below;"

The international recognition was given to borders that the Mandatory Power (the UK) fully supported. The UK left with a clear demarcation of territories being laid down and then there was war - plain and simple war. WWII was largely conducted within the single territory of Europe.

I cannot see that the UN or others would have regarded the ensuing conflict as being a civil war as boundaries had been very clearly proscribed. Boundaries had been left and still there was war. A "single territory" argument seems to me to be extremely weak on the basis that borders had been proscribed by the UK and approved by the UN.

No More Mr Nice Guy Can you please give a substantiation to your claim? It was a war one way or another. Whether or not it was a civil war is, at best, a matter of interpretation.

GregKaye 10:37, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

An interpretation best left for experts. I think you may be a little unfamiliar with the subject matter here. AFAIK most experts in the field call it a civil war. I don't have the time or inclination to find more diffs beyond what Pluto supplied you above. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 15:35, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

---

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Merge articles?

This whole subject is a bit confusing. Could someone merge a few articles to clear up the redundant mess?

• 1947–48 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine
• 1948 Palestine war
• 1948 Arab–Israeli War

These are obviously the exact same war. There's no sane reason to have redundant articles that only increse confusion. I realize that would result in a relatively long article, but as long as the information would be in chronological order, it would be a major improvement. GMRE (talk) 16:41, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

This is not really confusing.

The 1948 Palestine war covers both periods and both other articles are detailled articles.

This is explained in the lead.

Historians divide the war into two phases:[10][11]

The 1947–48 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine (sometimes called an "intercommunal war")[12] in which the Jewish and Arab communities of Palestine, supported by the Arab Liberation Army, clashed, while the region was still fully under British rule.

The 1948 Arab–Israeli War after 15 May 1948, marking the end of the British Mandate and the birth of Israel, in which Transjordan, Egypt, Syria and Iraq intervened and sent expeditionary forces that fought the Israeli army.

Pluto2012 (talk) 16:51, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Yes it is confusing. How is it obvious that 1948 Palestine war covers the entire period when that entire period spans from 1947 to 1949, as the article itself admits? It also involved other players from outside Mandatory Palestine and there was fighting in other areas. There are now three articles on much the same topic. 62.0.34.134 (talk) 11:28, 19 May 2016 (UTC)JD

To editor "GregKaye" (above)

Errrr, excuse me? All due respect, but what are you talking about? You are erronenous on every single level. The civil war began in November 1947 between Arabs and Jews in Palestine, while the Mandate was still in effect, and in May 1948 it morphed into the 1st Arab-Israeli War. As you yourself admit and the resolution itself explicitly states, UNGA Res 181 was a *RECOMMMENDATION*. It created nothing and formalized nothing. It suggested, and the suggestion was not implemented; the Arab side rejected the Plan, and decided to prevent partition of Palestine, by force. UNGA resolutions are by definition recommendations, not legally binding dicates. No borders were formally prescribed (not "proscribed"). The British, moreover, did not support those recommended boundaries. They abstained in the UN vote, and then explicitly refused to implement it, due to the objection of the Arab side. The British authorities refused to cooperate with the UN committee who had arrived in Palestine to look into the issue of implementation of partition subsequent to the passage of UNGA Res. 181, so the UN commitee disbanded and left. Moreoever, the Mandate was still in effect until May 15, 1948, so even if one were to assume that boundaries existed after that date, there were *NO* internal boundaries in Palestine before that time, so the conflict before that date has been clearly denoted as a civil war, and rightly so. In the same period, the UN Security Council itself refused to adopt or implement the Partition Plan. It passed UNSC Res. 44, authorizing the General Assembly to "consider further the question of the future government of Palestine"...as a result of which a UN Mediator was appointed and came up with fresh proposals that were in stark contrast to the Partition Plan. The UN Security Council also passed several resolutions that established a neutral position for the UN with respect to the issue of partition, "without prejudice to the rights, claims, and positions" of either party, and called upon the parties to refrain from "any political activity which might prejudice the rights, claims or position of either community" (UNSCR 46; basically trying to prevent either the Arabs or the Jews from proclaiming an independent state in Palestine). You need to bone up on some of these facts. 12:04, 19 May 2016 (UTC)JD

Casualties figure in the Infobox

I wanted to add a small bit of information from Gelber's book (2004) that close to 300 British personal were injured during the evactuation but I couldn't understand what are the 1/4 and 5/15 in the casualty figures. Are those supposed to be dates? 1 April and 15 May? I think whatever it may be, it should be changed cause I am not sure if it's only me or it is hard to understand if you are an avarage reader.--Bolter21 (talk to me) 11:45, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

Unless I am completely blind and I missed something--Bolter21 (talk to me) 12:06, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

You aren't blind. I'm pretty sure "1/4" means "casualties by April 1". It should be written more clearly; for one thing the world doesn't agree on 1/4 versus 4/1. Zero^talk 12:42, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

The day is before the month and if you disagree I condamn you to learn the metric system and centigrade for christ sake. ~1,200 Jewish casualties in one month? (From April to 15 May)--Bolter21 (talk to me) 12:51, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

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RfC on article names

Please see the RFC discussion at Talk:1948 Palestine war, the outcome of which may impact the name of 1947–48 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine and 1948 Arab–Israeli War as well. Onceinawhile (talk) 12:18, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

Merge

Propose to merge Barrel bombs in Palestine and Israel into 1947–48 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine due to the fact that the source article may fail to pass WP:NOTABLE guideline of Wikipedia, though does contain some valuable information about weaponry used during the war. Currently this article is 111kb, while the Barrel bombs in Palestine and Israel article is 21kb. If merged, would suggest it would be under "Weapons" section to be developed with more information.GreyShark (dibra) 14:05, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

• oppose merger. The article is a history of the barrel bomb in this region regardless of time period. It's currently focused on 47-48 but it doesn't need be. The article starts with the first bomb on September 29, 1947, which predates 1947–48 Civil War, and it ends with the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, which post-dates the Civil War. It's not a good fit chronologically, and more so there is a WP:WEIGHT issue to import all of this information and photos concerning a single weapon. Finally the article doesn't have a NOTE problem, barrel bombs were highly notable during this period as evidenced by the many sources. -- GreenC 14:59, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

No evidence for direct Soviet involvement in Czech arms deal

Statements in the article such as "Stalin's decision to support the Zionist cause" in connection with "armament contracts in the East", and "Stalin's decision to breach the embargo and support the Yishuv with arms exported from Czechoslovakia" are without support and unsupported by the available facts.

As shown in the book "The Origin of the Arab-Israeli Arms Race: Arms, Embargo, Military Power and Decision in the 1948 Palestine War", by Amitzur Ilan, the Soviet Union was not directly involved in or a driving force behind the Czech arms sales to the Jewish community in Palestine or the State of Israel.

https://books.google.co.il/books?id=Bv-vCwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=israel+arab+arms+race+amitzur&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjVsp-C0MncAhWLDMAKHWPVDuUQuwUIKzAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

The Czech arms sales to the Haganah began PRIOR to the Communist coup in Czechoslovakia in February 1948. One of the main driving forces on the Czech side was the Foreign Minister Jan Masaryk, a NON-Communist and pro-Zionist who remained in office even after the coup and installation of the Communist government, until his death in March 1948 (either by murder or suicide). Masaryk's approval prepared the groundwork for his successor, Clementis, to sell arms to the State of Israel once it was established.

All the officials on the Czech side of the deal were Czechs...there were no Soviet mediators or agents involved in the negotiations.

(The Czech officials involved were later tried, convicted, and sentenced to death or life imprisonment in a Stalinist show-trial in Prague in 1952).

The arms did not include Soviet equipment, and they did not involve transit through Soviet territory.

The Czech arms sales continued after the USSR turned against Israel.

The author of the above source (which supersedes many of the claims made in an earlier work by Arnold Krammer cited in this article) does not doubt that the Czech arms sales had Soviet approval, but demonstrates that it was not a Soviet plan coordinated from Moscow.

Jacob D (talk) 16:00, 31 July 2018 (UTC)Jacob D

1948: a bipartisan proposal

Please comment here on a bipartisan proposal to help fix the long-running structure/title issue on our articles covering the 1948 war. Onceinawhile (talk) 13:18, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

Please comment at Talk:1947–1949 Palestine war#RfC: Should the three articles have a common prefix?. The current proposal would move this article to 1947–1949 Palestine war (Nov 1947 – May 1948). Once we have this issue of standardizing the titles out of the way, it would be good to debate one (hopefully last) time what the appropriate name for the group of articles is. Onceinawhile (talk) 14:54, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:1947–1949 Palestine war which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 12:00, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 15 May 2020

I would like to propose a modification to 2.4 Death toll section because the estimations of the death not are not in a chronological order. I think having the different sources for the death toll in chronological order and then by sources ease the understanding of the paragraph.

From:

Death toll

Morris says that by the end of March 1948, the Yishuv had suffered about a thousand dead. Ilan Pappé estimates that 400 Jews and 1,500 Arabs were killed by January 1948. In December the Jewish death toll was estimated over 200 and, according to Alec Kirkbride, by 18 January 333 Jews and 345 Arabs were killed while 643 Jews and 877 Arabs were injured. The overall death toll between December 1947 and January 1948 (including British personnel) was estimated at around 1,000 people, with 2,000 injured. According to Yoav Gelber, by the end of March there was a total of 2,000 dead and 4,000 wounded. These figures correspond to an average of more than 100 deaths and 200 casualties per week in a population of 2,000,000.

To:

Death toll

In December the Jewish death toll was estimated over 200 and, according to Alec Kirkbride, by 18 January 333 Jews and 345 Arabs were killed while 643 Jews and 877 Arabs were injured. The overall death toll between December 1947 and January 1948 (including British personnel) was estimated at around 1,000 people, with 2,000 injured. Ilan Pappé estimates that 400 Jews and 1,500 Arabs were killed by January 1948. Morris says that by the end of March 1948, the Yishuv had suffered about a thousand dead. According to Yoav Gelber, by the end of March there was a total of 2,000 dead and 4,000 wounded. These figures correspond to an average of more than 100 deaths and 200 casualties per week in a population of 2,000,000. LordPompidou (talk) 17:01, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

 Done - Thanks for your contribution! — Tartan357  ^(Talk) 07:15, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

References

Statements that are not documented

"This situation's changing was due to the contacts made in November 1947 and afterwards." - What contacts where made and how did these "unknown" subjects result in the massive and mysteriously military advantage towards israel? Saltviking (talk) 20:09, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

Yishuv/the Yishuv

What is/was it? It's mentioned over thirty times in the article, but never explained! 104.153.40.58 (talk) 21:37, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

See Yishuv. I added a link. Zero^talk 09:05, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

Thank you. 104.153.40.58 (talk) 19:44, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

Title

Is "civil war" the best term? --Yomal Sidoroff-Biarmskii (talk) 21:00, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

"Civil war" does not seem to be a correct term, as it was rather an anticolonial war, fought by the guerrillas issued from within the native Palestinian Arabs, against both the British military occupiers and the Zionist settlers militias. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 185.161.118.125 (talk) 15:04, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

Agree to that. The title is more of a political propaganda than an accurate descritption of historical events. Considering that all but one of the founding fathers of Israel were not born in Palestine (neither in Ottoman Palestine nor British Mandate Palestine), it is extremely misleading, to say the least, to describe the conflict between the Palestinian natives and those new Zionist immigrants as a "civil war". A more accurate title would be "Palestinian Insurgency (revolt/war) of 1947-1948", unless someone can come up with a better title. But "civil war" is definitely misleading at best and political propaganda at worst. --94.249.28.49 (talk) 06:34, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

As no states were at war against each other, it can be called an "intrastate war". But the terms "intrastate war" and "civil war" are being used interchangeably, so it might be acceptable to keep it. Toterkal (talk) 08:33, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

Such a big fault. British forces, which resemble the british state, fought against the jewish and the arab in the state of palestine. So neither "intrastate war" nor "civil war" describes the case. Toterkal (talk) 08:42, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 10 February 2022

Change (According to Benny Morris, ) to (According to Benny Morris, an israeli historian, ) As adding this fact can help the reader in understanding the historian's background. Toterkal (talk) 08:14, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

 Done ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 11:49, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

Who started all this?

The day after the UN decision of two states, the arabs of the mandate still held by Britain, started the war against Israel 2A02:14F:1F6:5471:50DE:666A:D331:C7C8 (talk) 03:17, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

? No Israel in 1947. Selfstudier (talk) 10:41, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

Requested move 8 October 2022

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: consensus against move. —usernamekiran (talk) 16:25, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

---

• 1947–1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine → 1948 Palestine war (civil war phase)
• 1948 Arab–Israeli War → 1948 Palestine war (Arab–Israeli phase)

– Follows the recent move of the parent article, and the earlier discussions confirming scholarly treatment of this topic which resulted in formal RfC consensus that all three articles should have the same prefix.[11] The RfC closer wrote: There is a consensus in favour of a common prefix. There is a clear consensus among involved editors that the current article names are problematic. The problems identified included the current set of titles causing confusion for readers because "1948 Palestine war" and "1948 Arab–Israeli War" are commonly used as synonyms, and also that no sources delineate the 1948 conflict into separate wars as our current titles do, only different phases. Onceinawhile (talk) 01:05, 8 October 2022 (UTC)

Comment: First, I do very much understand how this would be a sensible step forward in terms of reader navigation, as I am sure that first-time readers unacquainted with the topic get thoroughly confused at present, and yet I also wonder if this makes the titles a little too artificial and unnatural in their own right. Iskandar323 (talk) 13:43, 8 October 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose. The proposal is more problematic than the current setup. Srnec (talk) 01:10, 9 October 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose. The current titles make more sense. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:16, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

@Iskandar323, Srnec, and Necrothesp: thanks for your comments, some more constructive than others. Please could you proposal alternative solutions to this long-acknowledged problem? Onceinawhile (talk) 07:41, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

Overall, I think 1948 Arab–Israeli War is clearly understood; 1948 Palestine war and 1947–1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine less so. Assuming this, as a very first step it would be worth adding a proper hatnote at 1948 Palestine war to clearly distinguish it from the 1948 Arab–Israeli War or the 1947–1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine, as that could be one source of immediate confusion. This page is meanwhile the one with the most obviously elongated and complex title, so it makes sense for the renaming to start here. I'm interested to know what the bulk of sources actually call this 'phase' - 'civil war' is certainly among the terms, but not a clearly dominant one. Iskandar323 (talk) 08:04, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

Thanks Iskandar323 for your comment. Previous analysis at Talk:1948 Palestine war/Name has shown that the term "1948 Arab–Israeli War" is used in scholarship to cover the whole period, i.e. the period that forms the scope of our article 1948 Palestine war. This means two things: first, there is a disambiguation problem between our article names, and second, our 1948 Arab–Israeli War article has a scope which doesn’t follow the sources. Onceinawhile (talk) 09:04, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and expanded the hatnote for now in any case. Should help for now regardless of the discussion talk. Iskandar323 (talk) 11:21, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose change to 1947–1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine, for choice prefer Palestine war in some version rather than 1948 Arab–Israeli War. Talk:1948 Palestine war/Name#Scholarly quotations on the debate over the name is what we want to be looking at when trying to make sense of our titles not what particular sources say. From those it is clear that never the twain shall meet (different narratives). The title here is describing 47/8 between Jews and Palestinians, both theoretically "Mandate Palestinians" at the time, any title that reflects that is fine by me. As for the other two, well one for each narrative is also fine (bit like the Temple Mount thing, duplication bothers me less than one sided narratives).Selfstudier (talk) 09:35, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

  @Selfstudier: I agree with your statement but don’t understand your conclusion. Every single one of those scholarly quotations describes multiple names for the same conflict. None of these scholars use the term “1948 Arab-Israeli war” (or any other term for that matter) for just the bit after 15 May 1948. None of them. Onceinawhile (talk) 12:31, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

  To change that title, there should be a discussion on that page. Ditto 1948 Palestine war. Or a merge. Or whatever. What I am saying is that these titles are essentially descriptive and probably the result of attempts to reconcile two different narratives rather than common name as such, although I agree that Palestine war is more logical and I prefer it, I also preferred it when it said 47/8 but there you go. You just know that you are going to get a bunch of objections to any attempt to change 1948 Arab-Israeli War. Why is War capitalized anyway? Selfstudier (talk) 12:44, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

  This discussion is already on that page. There is a tag at the top of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War page pointing to this discussion. This is the correct process for discussing changing names of two related articles simultaneously. Onceinawhile (talk) 13:18, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

  Ah, OK, change my vote to answer both cases then. Selfstudier (talk) 13:30, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Post-RM discussion

@Onceinawhile: Do you think we ought to have three articles as we currently do? I was going to respond to your question with this question, but the RM was closed first. Srnec (talk) 18:08, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

Hi Srnec, for us to match scholarship we would have just one article with the word war in the title. At the moment our three articles have readable prose size of: 30 kB (4867 words) [1948 PW], 61 kB (10218 words) [1948 CWIMP] and 93 kB (15409 words) [1948 AIW]. Merging them, removing the overlap, and with thoughtful copyediting, would achieve a combined article of 120 kB (18000 words). That is the best outcome for our readers who undoubtedly want to understand a single topic in a single place. Onceinawhile (talk) 14:18, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

I dont think that is true at all. The international phase and the civil war phase are definitely treated as two distinct parts of a wider overall conflict. nableezy - 15:31, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

@Nableezy: what is not true? Your statement is correct but does not contradict mine. There was one war with multiple phases. Benny Morris in his book “1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War” divides the whole thing into four phases. Ephraim Karsh in “The Arab-Israeli Conflict: The Palestine War 1948” divides it into two stages. But it was one war. Please be more specific about what you don’t agree with. Onceinawhile (talk) 14:36, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

I think Onceinawhile's argument cogent. There is a lot of repetition over the three articles, which could be cut significantly by treating the war as one with two phases, 30 November 1947-14 May 1948, and thereafter. The only significant objection I can think of is work-load: merging the three would be heavy yakka, but that should not be a problem if there was some readiness to do it. Most wiki articles sprawl out by the nature of tidbit editing, and, in time, our encyclopedic ends are only met when we grasp the elephantiasis by the balls and squeeze'em.Nishidani (talk) 15:26, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

I am not convinced that there should only be one article and even if that were to be the case, there will never be agreement on a single name judging by past discussions. I say Palestine War, someone else says AI war -> Nocon. Selfstudier (talk) 16:02, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

May 2023

Dovidroth, can you please explain how this edit makes the article better? إيان (talk) 03:18, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

Can you explain why the picture you replaced the infobox with (which is already repeated in the article dealing with that specific battle) is better than the long-standing image that has been in this article for years? Dovidroth (talk) 03:23, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

The Battle of Haifa was a major event in the 1947–1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine and in the greater 1948 War, representing a tactical and strategic shift and the opening of a major supply line that would impact the rest of the war.

What does the old image illustrate? إيان (talk) 12:19, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

The battle for Jerusalem was even greater and more important than Haifa's. Also the image of Jewish fighters in Katamon is nowhere else in Wikipedia, while the Haifa image already is. Dovidroth (talk) 16:19, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

There is no policy against using an image in more than one article. The old image is a poor illustration of the civil war phase and even of the Battle for Jerusalem itself. It offers no context; the soldiers have their backs to the camera, taking cover behind a random rock wall and shooting at an unidentified target. In addition, while the Battle of Haifa is widely acknowledged as a major event in the civil war phase specifically, consequential parts of the Battle for Jerusalem happened after the declaration of the State of Israel and through July, in the next phase of the war. إيان (talk) 17:46, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

The picture you removed and has been in infobox for many years took place during the civil war phase. I don't know what more context you need other than Jewish militias in Katamon during the battle for Jerusalem. There is no wiki policy against pictures of people having their backs to the camera or shooting at an "unidentified target" as opposed to irregular fighters or soldiers simply walking in Haifa (instead of taking cover, like you do in combat, which the picture from Katamon portrays). Dovidroth (talk) 03:46, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

إيان appears to have the better argument here, principally that the existing pic is devoid of context and the proposed of more significance. Selfstudier (talk) 08:36, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

While Haifa was an important battle, I think Jerusalem edges it out.

1. Jerusalem had a massive symbolic value to both sides.

2. Jerusalem had 100,000 Jews living there at the time, and if the besieged city were successfully conquered then it would've been a massive loss for the Israeli Military, and Government.

3. Controlling Jerusalem would've offered the Israelis easier access to the West Bank, since they would control the heart of it.

4. Haifa could've easily been replaced by Nazareth and Tiberias, which would've also granted them easier access to the Golan Heights. Crainsaw (talk) 15:11, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

The Battle for Jerusalem was both before and after the declaration of the State of Israel; the Battle of Haifa was specifically in the civil war phase. And again, the old image was not particularly illustrative of even the Battle for Jerusalem. إيان (talk) 15:28, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

But the war had De Facto already begun, like the Sudetendeutsches Freikorps, and their Undeclared war with Czechoslovakia. And there are no guidelines about which image to use, it just has to descriptive of the topic, which this image is Crainsaw (talk) 15:43, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

The other is also descriptive of the topic as well as being just better. I'm open to finding another picture that is better still. Selfstudier (talk) 15:50, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

Sure, if someone finds a more descriptive image, change, it, but a couple of men walking around with guns isn't enough to qualify as the image for the war which started the Arab-Israeli conflict Crainsaw (talk) 16:02, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

I wouldn't disagree with the importance of the battle for Jerusalem but the pic is not the battle of Jerusalem nor even the related Operation Yevusi, it's a random pic of some soldiers behind a wall. Selfstudier (talk) 15:31, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

First of all, the image is from the Katamon neighborhood in Jerusalem and was taken during the battle for Jerusalem right before Israel's declaration of independence. There are even commemorative plaques in Katamon about this. Secondly, his replacement is not acceptable, since that image is from the infobox of a different article dealing specifically with the battle of Haifa. No reason to repeat here. It's a bad change, not an improvement at all (not to mention it's not a very good picture depicting combat anyway). Dovidroth (talk) 15:40, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

Tombah إيان and Dovidroth, stop edit warring and changing the infobox image till consensus is reached, just leave it as it is right now. Crainsaw (Talk) 18:06, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

What is the date for this Katamon image? This article is only the civil war phase. Selfstudier (talk) 16:24, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

May 1st, 1948 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Katamon.jpg Crainsaw (talk) 16:28, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

Then there are no IDF soldiers, it is still during the mandate. Selfstudier (talk) 16:48, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

The IDF was founded 25 days later on 26th May, and it was partially composed of former Haganah soldiers (The ones in the image), and various other paramilitaries and militias who's main goal was protecting jews in cities, against gangs, and jewish settlements. Crainsaw (talk) 16:56, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

Operation_Yevusi#Katamon seems more on point. Selfstudier (talk) 17:09, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

This one? It does, but let's establish consensus Crainsaw (talk) 17:13, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

Consensus vote

Which image should we choose? For discussion, go to the section above.

• 
  Jewish militants in the Battle of Haifa, part of Plan Dalet and a major event in the final stages of the civil war in Palestine.
• 
  Jewish militants at Katamon, Jerusalem.
• 
  Palmach soldiers attack the San Simon monastery in Katamon, Jerusalem, April 1948 (battle reconstruction)
• 
  Jewish fighters on the Jaffa front in 1947 (Dovidroth's addition)

• I think we should keep File:Katamon.jpg which was originally in the infobox. Crainsaw (talk) 17:13, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

• I think we should not keep File:Katamon.jpg and instead replace it with something else, haven't decided what yet.Selfstudier (talk) 17:34, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

• I think we should definitely keep the current image from the fighting in Katamon that has been in the infobox for so many years. It's an appropriate picture showing combat during the battle for Jerusalem. The last proposed image is not even from the civil war itself but a later reconstruction for documentation or entertainment purposes (you can even see the soldiers smiling for the camera). As for the image from the battle of Haifa, I have already explained why it doesn't belong here but in a different article. Dovidroth (talk) 03:58, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

• Replace the ambiguous old File:Katamon.jpg that illustrates nothing with one that actually illustrates something about the civil war phase of the 1948 War. We see the irregular militants typical of this phase, their weapons, etc. As explained above, the Haifa image is a better representation of the civil war—the battle was a major event in the civil war with consequential impact on the outcome of the later Arab-Israeli War, per reliable sources:

Golani, Motti (2001). "The 'Haifa Turning Point': The British Administration and the Civil War in Palestine, December 1947-May 1948". Middle Eastern Studies. 37 (2): 93–130. ISSN 0026-3206.

Morris, Benny (2008). 1948: a history of the first Arab-Israeli war. New Haven (Conn.): Yale university press. ISBN 978-0-300-12696-9.

Khalidi, Walid (2008-04-01). "The Fall of Haifa Revisited". Journal of Palestine Studies. 37 (3): 30–58. doi:10.1525/jps.2008.37.3.30. ISSN 0377-919X.

I'm surprised this improvement has been met with so much WP:Status quo stonewalling. It's clearly and objectively a higher quality and more illustrative image. I'd be open to a better, more illustrative and representative image than the Haifa image if one can be found. إيان (talk) 04:05, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

I'm not saying that the Infobox image shouldn't be replaced, I'm just saying the Haifa Image isn't illustrative enough, and that we need to find a better alternative. Crainsaw (talk) 12:52, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

When a better alternative is found, I'm sure I would support it too, but for now the Haifa image is better than the Katamon image. إيان (talk) 18:32, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

No, it's not. Far from it. Dovidroth (talk) 05:49, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

No image at all may be the best outcome, and that is what is advised, per MOS:LEADIMAGE if there is no agreement. Images are not required, and the infobox is already lengthy due to being packed with information. None of the images convey much additional information, apart from individually providing grainy, low quality snapshots of very limited aspects of the conflict and/or fighting. Iskandar323 (talk) 07:57, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

That is not what the policy says. If you don't have a better alternative, leave the infobox image alone, as it has been for several years. Dovidroth (talk) 12:09, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

"Lead images should be natural and appropriate representations of the topic; they should not only illustrate the topic specifically, but also be the type of image used for similar purposes in high-quality reference works, and therefore what our readers will expect to see. Lead images are not required, and not having a lead image may be the best solution if there is no easy representation of the topic." (my bolding) - I'm curious as to how else you interpret this. Plenty of pages have no lead image. Iskandar323 (talk) 12:27, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

There are plenty of easy image representations of this article, including the current one. Dovidroth (talk) 13:09, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

If there are plenty of easy image representations of this article why don't you propose a few since there has been substantial disagreement with the ambiguous Katamon image. إيان (talk) 13:51, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

At least three editors (Tombah, Crainsaw and myself) agree that the long-standing image is better. Only you started this unnecessary mess by replacing it with the Haifa one (which, again, is repeated in another infobox article). Dovidroth (talk) 14:21, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

Crainsaw above: I'm not saying that the Infobox image shouldn't be replaced, I'm just saying the Haifa Image isn't illustrative enough, and that we need to find a better alternative.

So it's just Dovidroth and Tombah, again, WP:Status quo stonewalling with no valid argument. That the image appears in the Battle of Haifa article, child article to this WP:Summary article, is not a valid argument against it.

So if there are indeed plenty of easy image representations of this article, please provide some because the arguments presented for clinging to the ambiguous Katamon image are invalid. إيان (talk) 15:11, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

And if we don't find a better alternative, we should keep the original image. Crainsaw (talk) 16:29, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

There are three who don't think the Katamon image is a good idea so I think not having any image is a reasonable solution while we try to find an acceptable alternative. Selfstudier (talk) 15:23, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

Apparently Dovidroth wishes to present this image for consideration, though they abandoned the discussion for consensus and unilaterally added it to the article infobox. No arguments have been presented for what it illustrates about the topic or why it should be in the infobox. It's not an improvement. إيان (talk) 16:31, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

I don't understand. What is your specific objection to the last image I added? You said you had a problem with people showing their backs to the camera, so I added a picture with a closer look where you can see the faces. It's a picture from Jaffa during the war in 1947. What's the problem now? Dovidroth (talk) 03:39, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

I reverted since there is a current discussion. In my opinion we would be better off without an image at this point. Selfstudier (talk) 16:44, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

I agree. The infobox is already pretty lengthy, stretching well beyond the stunted lead and almost out the other side of the largely in-line citation-lacking background section, and no single grainy black and white does a good job anyway. Iskandar323 (talk) 05:47, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

For me, it's either the original File:Katamon.jpg, or this image, proposed by Dovidroth. Both are equally good. Tombah (talk) 09:41, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

I still think we should keep File:Katamon.jpg its the best we have so far, I think the rest of you want to unnecessarily remove a good image and replace (or even just delete) it with worse ones. Crainsaw (talk) 15:25, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

Dovidroth What is your specific objection to the last image I added? The main issue is that it was added with disregard for the discussion, in which there was consensus that no image is better until something is agreed upon in discussion. The issue with the Katamon image, again, was that it was ambiguous and devoid of context and not distinctively illustrative of any particular features of the war. The image you added without discussion of the Jewish militants behind the barricade is better than the Katamon image in that it illustrates irregular soldiers and their weapons, but that's about it. Combat on the Jaffa front in 1947 was not particularly consequential to the outcome of the war (and no reliable sources have been presented to suggest so); the city was not taken until the spring of 1948. The image is also misleading as an illustration of the topic because it shows Jewish forces in a defensive position, when the strategic shift to the offensive was the defining and consequential aspect of the civil war phase. If there is going to be an illustration, it should be a representative variety, using a template such as template:Multiple image like we have at World War I. It should feature all belligerent sides and represent major features of the civil war period of the war—asymmetrical warfare and sabotage, massacres, irregular militants, urban and rural combat, major battles etc. And images and what they represent should be supported by reliable sources and discussed here first. إيان (talk) 15:40, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

Multiple images a la WW1 also OK. Seems there is still no consensus, I am not impressed with the arguments in favor of Katamon, I am not even clear about what they are, seem to be of type "Ilikeit". Selfstudier (talk) 16:13, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

Seems like the discussion has been abandoned, but I support Template:Multiple image lets add all 4 images above, it's better than no images at all Crainsaw (talk) 20:54, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 29 October 2023

Change "Transjordan" to "Jordan". as the HyperLink it links to suggests, in : "When the British Mandate of Palestine expired on 14 May 1948, and with the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel, the surrounding Arab states—Egypt, Transjordan, Iraq and Syria—" Gezellig~hewiki (talk) 15:37, 29 October 2023 (UTC)

 Not done: was known as "Transjordan" until 1949. Elli (talk | contribs) 22:54, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 9 November 2023

Opening paragraph in Background should link to Balfour Declaration, as it provides further historical background and itself is an essential part of the background to pre-1948 conflict. 76.64.190.216 (talk) 20:58, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

 Not done for now: The first mention of "Balfour" is in the section "Meeting of Golda Meir and King Abdullah I of Jordan (10 May)" and is not present in the section desired. This may be the issue your request is wanting to address, but you'll need to provide the exact prose to add along with reliable sources to support it (if it's already in the article just paste them here). —Sirdog (talk) 04:36, 10 November 2023 (UTC)