The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was no consensus. I won't bore you, it's fairly obvious on reading this which way it has to be closed. We can always discuss this again later, but this debate has failed to reach any consensus. Courcelles 23:58, 12 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Criticism of Israel[edit]

Criticism of Israel (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)
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Just noticing that the person recommending deletion made other articles one of his main arguments. So it seems relevant to note that there are BOTH a Criticism of Islam and a Criticism of Islamism article and neither has been suggested for deletion. That easily could be seen as a POV fork of Islam. Do you see this deletion as a precedent for those? Let's at least be consistent. CarolMooreDC (talk) 21:15, 9 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Carol, you are surely aware that you are comparing a religion, a theologically inspired political movement and a sovereign state? In other words, there are no forks, and the articles are not epistemologically related. Although the scope of the later article is yet to be clearly defined, so there may be some analogies as it develops Koakhtzvigad (talk) 11:42, 10 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The fact that wikipedia defines Israel as "a Jewish and democratic state" also makes the religious angle relevant. However, to make another argument using article comparisons, if those two criticism of Islam articles exist, plus Criticism of Judaism and Criticism of Christianity articles, how can there not be an article criticizing this or any other state, assuming sufficient WP:RS? CarolMooreDC (talk) 11:59, 10 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
What are you trying to say? You suggested that a deletion of this article should be a precedent for deleting articles criticising Islam and Islamism. At that rate there will be established an effective regime of censorship against any criticism of anyone and anything.
Now you are arguing that there should be articles offering criticism of any other state, and for that matter political philosophy or religion?
Aside from the controversial nature of the assumption there are "three Abrahamic religions", there should not be any impediments to articles describing valid criticism of anything, provided logical approaches and methods (criticism is a form of logic) are used; for example Criticism of MacDonalds Corporation, or Criticism of Hollywood film content, etc. The Arts has a slew of such articles under Arts criticism: Architecture criticism, Visual art criticism, Dance criticism, Film criticism, Literary criticism, Music journalism, Television criticism, and Theatre criticism. Then there are more intra-disciplinary articles such as Criticism of American foreign policy, Criticisms of Salvador Allende. Which is why I find the attempt to delete this article rather strange Koakhtzvigad (talk) 13:11, 10 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry if I was confusing. Just making clear that using the lack of other criticism articles to excuse deleting a criticism article ridiculous, when there are criticism articles about more sensitive topics (with obviously overlap with Israel in the Criticism of Judaism case). And looking at Abrahamic religions, I see there are more than three; my error. Yeah, wikipedia for teaching me something everyday!! CarolMooreDC (talk) 21:17, 10 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
not entirely sure what god or arguing for the non-existence of Israel has to do with anything. --brewcrewer (yada, yada) 21:42, 26 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You claim that it's a POV fork of Anti-Zionism, but they're not the same thing. Read WP:POVFORK - a POV fork is "another version of the article (or another article on the same subject)...developed according to a particular point of view." Your claim that it is one only makes sense if you believe that any criticism of any Israeli government policy is equivalent to suggesting that Israel should not exist, which is patently ridiculous. Roscelese (talk) 21:51, 26 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
i never claimed Criticism of Israel is a POVFORK because its the same thing as Anti-zionism and i still have no idea what you're talking about regarding the non-existence of Israel.--brewcrewer (yada, yada) 22:05, 26 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yup, you sure didn't advocate for the deletion of Criticism of Israel as a POV fork of Anti-Zionism. How could anyone even imagine that you would do that?
I've voted; I'm done here. Good luck. Roscelese (talk) 22:15, 26 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
i advocated for the deletion of of Criticism of Israel as a POV fork of Anti-Zionism, but not because they are the "same thing."--brewcrewer (yada, yada) 22:18, 26 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Ghits, using the examples suggested by brewcrewer and the "find sources" tool at the top of the page, gives the following for {"Criticism of [ ]" -wikipedia}: Israel 2,260,000 / Saudi Arabia 30,900 / Sudan 4,940 / South Africa 37,000 / Germany 36,100. In other words, Criticism of Israel is twenty times more ghit-notable than the other four countries combined.
  • The clearest examples of WP:RS confirming this are the first three references in the article - the relevant quotes are shown clearly in the footnotes. The notability of the criticism is indisputable.Oncenawhile (talk) 16:22, 27 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • In case helpful, here is another WP:RS - the American Jewish Committee called the term "criticism of Israel" a "ubiquitous rubric" - see the WP article which includes the quote here Progressive Jewish Thought and the New Anti-Semitism Oncenawhile (talk) 17:34, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Response to Keep To be clearer, the title, Israel, represents a country, which means a region within a sphere of influence of a government. If the government is wrong, then, criticizes the ruling party such as criticism of Israel government. If the practice of people in Israel is wrong then, criticize the practice. There is by far, no way to criticize Israel which is far more general term. Soewinhan (talk) 09:35, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Soewinhan, that is incorrect - the article title uses Israel in exactly the same way as the Israel article - i.e. as the commonly accepted shorthand for State of Israel. As you will no doubt be aware, a State is defined in WP as the formal institution on which a political community is organized under a government. Oncenawhile (talk) 09:57, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Re It is a state, but a state has many variations. Not only a government represents a state, but also people, culture, and so on. The title is not clear about what the article is criticizing. I will agree with Criticism Of Israel Government. For example, if you want to criticize Military Junta of Burma, you can't title criticism of Burma of course.Soewinhan (talk) 10:35, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have received an answer to this: "The page was a word-for-word copy of this revision of Allegations of Israeli apartheid and was prodded and subsequently deleted with the rationale "unneeded fork of Allegations of Israeli apartheid". As such, there is no unique content to look at". The current article is clearly a different kettle of fish, being clearly focused on the criticism as a phenomenon. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Oncenawhile (talk • contribs) 15:51, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Consensus is based on strength of arguments, not number of editors. Your comment looks more like gaming than logic - with respect to your challenge in brackets, many examples are cited above - as a dissenting editor you are welcome to provide specific examples of how the core info in the article could fit in to the other articles you reference. Your disparaging of the keep votes is absurd in light of the detailed commentary from supporting editors above - all the arguments have been set out clearly and are based on WP:N, and you have not attempted to counter any of them (nor have any of the other opposing editors). Your reference to the parallel discussion is helpful - there is consensus from both sides in that discussion that the topic is notable - the only (and ongoing) debate is with respect to how much focus it warrants within the main Israel article. Oncenawhile (talk) 20:41, 3 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Daily care: Yes, you have a good point there - there are already three articles in WP that do describe the vast majority of criticism: Human rights in Israel, Israel and the apartheid analogy, and Anti-Zionism. But there are a few reasons why a dedicated article would be useful to readers: (1) the Israel article has no mention whatsoever of those topics; (2) there is no "criticism of Israel" category to link those various articles; and (3) there are several other topics that are not yet present in any article in WP, such as (a) Distinguishing legitimate criticism of Israel from anti-Semitism; (b) Criticism of Israel, manifested as comparisons with Nazi Germany; (c) Criticism of Israel regarded as antisemitism (outside of New Antisemitism context); and (d) Criminalization of criticism of Israel. What article would those four topics go into in WP, if not this article? I supposes they could all be shoe-horned into the New Antisemitism article, but that seems like a stretch. --Noleander (talk) 01:05, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
To add to this, there are at least 15 articles which contain information relevant to this page: (1) Anti-Zionism; (2) Human rights in Israel and Human rights in Israel#Human rights record in the Occupied Territories; (3) Relationships between Jewish religious movements; (4) Israeli Settlements; (5) Economy of the Palestinian territories; (6) Israeli-occupied territories; (7) Palestinian refugees; (8) New antisemitism; (9) Israel, Palestine, and the United Nations and List of United Nations resolutions concerning Israel; (10) Public diplomacy (Israel); (11) Loyalty oath#Israel; (12) Israel and the apartheid analogy; (13) International law and the Arab–Israeli conflict; (14) Boycotts of Israel; (15) Disinvestment from Israel
There is no article which connects them despite the fact that the sources provided prove the notability of the Criticism of Israel beyond any doubt (no editor has questioned or provided a challenge to the sources). Therefore there is no article which states that Criticism of Israel is a highly important topic, important to academics, the government of Israel and the people of Israel - as shown in the WP:RS, and not disputed by any editor. Oncenawhile (talk) 10:38, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think creating the category to link those pages together sounds like a fair idea. As to Noleander's specific questions, I'd say that a) belongs to Antisemitism, b) may not be notable, c) is the same thing as a), and d) is not notable or (if this is the case in Israel) goes to Human rights in Israel. User Oncenawhile doesn't need to reply to every comment in this discussion (see WP:BLUDGEON) as editors' arguments can speak for themselves. (don't take this in an unkind way, I also occasionally have that tendency) --Dailycare (talk) 09:48, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Logan Talk Contributions 04:25, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • "No country has article about criticism" - see discussion above, this is not a valid argument, and even if it was, WP:RS suggest Criticism of Israel is highly notable compared to other countries
  • Re. I am not objecting notablility of criticism. I am objecting the general term, using only Israel to criticize just a ruling body of a country. You are criticizing a government of a country, and not entire country. So, the term is not definite. Soewinhan (talk) 10:48, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • "People need to see Israel and Zionism are different" - agree, hence Anti-Zionism is just a subsection in this topic
  • Re the rest of your comment, see above - the article title uses Israel in exactly the same way as the Israel article - i.e. as the commonly accepted shorthand for State of Israel, and a State is defined in WP as the formal institution on which a political community is organized under a government. The 20 million ghits referred to above confirm this is standard practice. More importantly though - no one is criticising anyone - the article describes the criticism as a phenomenon and no more. Oncenawhile (talk) 10:06, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Response. See above. You need to take note that the term State (Israel) is vaguely defined as ruling body. For example, if you want to criticize Burma junta, you can't title Criticism of Burma ,of course. Soewinhan (talk) 10:37, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The 2 million ghits (now 2.5m if you hit the findsources button) would disagree with you. But since consensus is about compromise, perhaps your suggestion above is the right thing to do, but we would need a redirect from "Criticism of Israel". Oncenawhile (talk) 10:52, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with that. Soewinhan (talk) 11:25, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Soewinhan: I agree that Criticism of Israeli government would be an okay title. It is certainly better than the current International criticism of Israel, because many significant critics are within Israel (peace movement, etc). Another variant would be Criticism of Israeli government policies, but maybe that is too verbose? --Noleander (talk) 21:08, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • I think if we add "policies", "government" is unnecessary since it is clear that a policy is from a government. How about Criticism of Israeli policy on Palestinian issues? Maybe it's much more verbose :) Or simply, Criticism of Israeli policy on Palestinians? But, 6 words. Soewinhan (talk) 21:35, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Noleander, Israelis criticize the Israeli Government for all the same reasons that any other citizens criticize their governments, but by far the greatest volume of criticism is international. However, since Israel is also a name of a people, and they are also criticized, it seems to me that there is no need to add government, but simply reflect this in the article. Koakhtzvigad (talk) 15:42, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Also, I agree the title should change to simply 'Criticism of the Israeli government'. Passionless (talk) 15:51, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In a legal sense Israel has the same identity as Wikipedia, Federal Reserve, Jehovah's Witnesses (as a corporation), or any number of public personalities which at national levels are represented by the statutory corporation. By allowing the article, Wikipedia therefore seeks to allow a public setting out of the facts and legal reasons (see: cause of action) in any such process

That so few such articles exist in Wikipedia may suggest that although it is open for editing by anyone, the available material is not open for anyone to read, being subject to Wikipedia's own censorship Koakhtzvigad (talk) 02:08, 7 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Betsy: Those are good points you raise. The essential problem is that the article Israel does not (and - as a practical matter - will never) include a summary of the vast amount of criticism (human rights, etc). Becuse the Israel article will not contain such a summary (there was one once, but it was deleted from the article) the second-best alternative is a stand-alone article such as Criticism of Israel. You mention the possibility of creating a new category "Criticsm of Israel", and that is not a bad idea. However, there is a large amount of textual material on the topic, such as Distinguishing legitimate criticism of Israel from anti-Semitism, Comparisons with Nazi Germany, and Criminalization of criticism of Israel. If Criticism of Israel were deleted, into which article should that material go? And (whatever the answer is) is that best for the readers? --Noleander (talk) 18:04, 7 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
In case helpful, attached[2] is a list of the currently existing articles entitled "Criticism of". Given the high notability (as set out with sources above and not challenged), "Criticism of the Israeli Government" would not be out of place amongst the existing precedents.Oncenawhile (talk) 18:53, 7 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Minor usage note: There are three similar terms, and their usage (ranked form most-used to least-used) is: (1) Israeli govenment; (2) Government of Israel; and (3) Israel government. I think the latter is discouraged because Israel is primarily a noun, not an adjective. (PS: I would not object to the rename, as detailed above in the identical rename proposal by user Soewinhan). --Noleander (talk) 19:26, 7 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Sven: I think the "undeletion request page" you are talking about is here. That discussion is about a 2006 version of an article with the identical name "Criticism of Israel". That previous version was, apparently, a duplicate of some other article, and so it was deleted. The comment about "large sections being word for word copies" is referring to that 2006 article, not to the current article being discussed here. I don't believe this article has any duplicate text. That said, I agree with your suggestion that this article would benefit from improvements to its content and organization. --Noleander (talk) 07:17, 8 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This article is less than a month old, of course it needs alot more work done, but I'm sure the article will grow quickly with all the interest in it. Passionless (talk) 08:26, 8 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Comment The article "will grow quickly" as POV-pushers from both sides descend, and any reader who stumbles upon it at moment X is likely to find it in some jumbled state with unbalanced WP:POV for one side or the other and content FORKs galore, since most sections of this article cover material already addressed at length in other places. This article should be dis-aggregated to existing articles; the SYNTH POINT of creating one humongous "criticism of israel" is to point fingers at how much criticism exists, not a valid Wikipedia goal. To clarify, I am NOT saying that is the goal of any people voting "Keep" here, but I fear that SYNTH will be the result of keeping this article. betsythedevine (talk) 13:49, 8 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Betsy: You write "most sections of this article cover material already addressed at length in other places". However, there is quite a bit of material in this article this is not covered in any other WP article, such as: Distinguishing legitimate criticism of Israel from anti-Semitism, Comparisons with Nazi Germany, and Criminalization of criticism of Israel. If this article were deleted, which articles would that material go into? And would spreading the material across several articles be better than a centralized article that follows the WP:Summary style guideline? And how can SYNTH be a concern, when notable authors such as Dershowitz explicitly discuss all of these topics in their widely read books on Israel? --Noleander (talk) 16:13, 8 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The Anti-Semitism and Human_rights_in_Israel articles seem a much better home for the material you mention instead of creating a FORK with some stuff there and other stuff elsewhere. I would also urge interested editors to read the very thoughtful essay WP:CRITICISM. It is easy to find reputable authors writing in WP:RS who are strongly arguing for some particular POV, for or against Israel, so just about any laundry list can probably be found out in the wild. Just from my experience here in Wikipedia, it seems to me this article will be a WP:BATTLEGROUND, an embarrassment to the project, and a source of endless ANIs, SPIs, and other trainwreck wasting of the admins' time. Anyway, I respect your different opinion Noleander and I am grateful for your WP:CIVIL expression of your arguments too. betsythedevine (talk) 16:31, 8 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Betsy,
  • In the WP:CRITICISM essay, there is an example provided relating to the 2008 Summer Olympics - this situation is a good corollary of that (albeit more extreme since no mention in the main article - see Noleander's comment at 02:02 / 2 January 2011 above), and therefore this article is required according to the essay
  • With respect to your use of the emotive word "embarrassment", the point that Sven Manguard makes above about this situation being interpreted as a whitewash poses a much bigger risk of embarrassment to us all
  • I would appreciate your views as to where explanation of the overall phenomenon of Criticism of the Israeli government would go without this article (a topic highly notable and important to academics / Israel Government / Israelis, as shown in the WP:RS, and not disputed by any editor)
Thanks also to you for your consistently WP:CIVIL and nice tone. Oncenawhile (talk) 17:37, 8 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Just a quick reply since I've already said so much -- I'd prefer a list. By the way, I came here via a link from Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Animal_conspiracy_theories_involving_Israel, in my opinion a POV problem of opposite sign--I'm also voting to delete that one. Funny, I see myself as an inclusionist more than a deletionist but what I like to see included is more information and less argumentation. betsythedevine (talk) 19:11, 8 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep: and create articles on criticism of all sovereign nations. --Neptune 123 (talk) 15:08, 9 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Just trying to think how that would work...wouldn't it be more manageable to have separate articles on specific policies being criticized? Such as "US policy on immigration", "US policy on nuclear weapons", "US policy on capital punishment", etc. with each article explaining the policy and also including criticism of the policy. (I use the US not Israel as an example because I know more about my own country's policies.) If you do the thought experiment of cobbling together the criticism sections of all the very different criticisms people make of US policy in just those 3 very different areas, it seems to me the result will be a less encyclopedic and less useful article. By analogy, the criticisms people make of Israel's policy on settlements are very different from the criticisms people make that Israel should not have been created in the first place. Surely it would be more informative to put the former criticisms into an article that discusses Israel's policy on settlements, and the latter into a different article that discusses the reasons Israel was created where and when it was. betsythedevine (talk) 15:31, 9 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Neptune is the second person in this AfD that has suggested that it is a good idea for all countries to have a "Criticism of.." article in WP. That particular suggestion is interesting, but should probably be discussed at a more prominent location (village pump?) than this AfD. Personally, I see some merit to it, because (1) WP's indexing/searching capabilities are very limited, and "Criticism of" articles that follow WP:summary style can help readers navigate; (2) Although categories and lists could provide a similar service, they do not provide for textual explanation, detail, or context; and (3) the main country articles should contain an overview of the criticisms, but instead tend to be puff pieces that read like Chamber of commerce brochures. For those reasons, Neptune's suggestion is sensible. --Noleander (talk) 15:45, 9 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Note there is Category:Israel and Category:Politics_of_Israel one of which - whatever happens with this article - probably needs a "Criticism of Israel" subcategory for all criticism, external and internal. CarolMooreDC (talk) 21:08, 9 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - I'm looking forwards to Criticisms of Saudi Arabia and Criticisms of Syria. I might decide they're all cruft and vote to delete them all. Not for the moment, though. Templar98 (talk) 17:51, 10 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I see no reason for the creation of criticism pages for other nations, the case of a criticism of Israel page is akin to pages such as Common misunderstandings of genetics and Objections to evolution. These pages were created, and kept, because of the need for a page solely devoted to it. While the average scientific theory, such as gravity, may have objections/criticism the extent is not great enough to warrant a seperate page, though certain theories, like evolution do garner enough criticism to warrant a seperate page for criticism. As mentioned by Oncenawhile previously, criticism of Israel recieves a massively amount of ghits compared to similar searches of other nations. The extent of criticism of Israel certainly warrants its own page, while most other nations criticisms are either much smaller, that the page would be a stub, or a majority deals with one specific area, like the US and Criticism of American foreign policy. Israel has a large number of pages on specific criticisms of it, and does require a page to link them together in the same way that Objections to evolution is mostly just a collection of summaries of pages which criticize evolution. Passionless (talk) 00:24, 11 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
And just so no one retails with this, I am not saying that the criticism of Israel article should exist because these others do, I'm just saying this article has the same function as these others. Passionless (talk) 03:25, 11 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Courtesy Break and Reslist[edit]

We are nowhere close to a consensus on this as far as I can see, so I'm breaking and relisting. Let's see if we can come to a conclusion this go around.

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Dusti*poke* 07:42, 12 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This is as close to consensus as we can ever hope to achieve on such a sensitive topic. And anyway, a quick look at the the other AfD discussions for "Criticism of" articles here[3] shows whilst many such discussions have a mix of votes, no such "Criticism of" article has ever been deleted if it was well sourced with notable substance which could not all fit in the parent article (in this case Israel).
A second relisting is wasting time, and more importantly the AfD tag on the article is discouraging improvements - the article was only 10 days old when it was nominated for deletion and needs more work.
Oncenawhile (talk) 23:43, 12 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I second the motion to close and keep. CarolMooreDC (talk) 23:48, 12 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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