Talk:Killings and massacres during the 1948 Palestine war
What's your working definition of "massacre", here? Martin
- 10+ non-combatant people with deliberate intent. I don't know really because I copied most from other sources. Is it a bad definition? BL
- Well, sometimes "massacre" can refer to an overwhelming military defeat/victory. Also, it's a rather emotive word, and it implies things about the manner of death that might not be the case. Perhaps civilians killed during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war? Or collateral damage in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war?
- Like Delirium, I'm unconvinced that a straight list is necesarilly the way to go - it seems to me like you'll end up with a lot of stubs. I'll happilly wait to see what you make of it, though. I enjoy being pleasantly surprised.
- I am glad that you've made a page that lists incidents on both sides on the one page - I've said before why I think this is a good idea. However, two of your sources seem predominantly from the Palestinian side of the conflict - I think it would be good to also use some Israeli sources.
- The crimes of war site you link to has some general background on why these things happened. I think you need to include something along these lines - I'm quoting here:
- The Haganah, and subsequently the IDF, overran large Arab-populated areas—some four hundred villages and towns—whereas Arab forces conquered or overran fewer than a dozen Jewish settlements in the course of the war. To this must be added the fact that the civil war in Palestine, which ended in mid-May 1948, raged in a country nominally ruled by a British administration. Neither Jews nor Arabs could legally hold prisoners and, for months, neither had facilities to hold large numbers, so prisoners either were not taken or were shot. fair use
- Anyhow, good luck :) Martin
It seems kind of odd to single out this war for such a detailed set of sub-pages. If, for example, we were to make a separate page on wikipedia for every single incident in history in which 10+ non-combatant people were killed with deliberate intent, we'd be swamped with literally hundreds of thousands of pages. Just the Bosnian war would take up a good thousand or two, and Chechnya a few hundred more, and so on. I don't object to a single page on "Massacres commited during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war" however, which would hopefully have some discussion in addition to a list. --Delirium 00:38 15 Jul 2003 (UTC)
- It's my topic of interest, odd as it may be :-). The main reason I added it was for me to have a page from where I could add entries. I am planning to add pages to the table but research takes time. Bandwith is cheap, just look at all counties :-) --BL
This isn't an encyclopedia article, folks. This is agitprop, plain and simple. RK
I agree completely. Also, just from a factual point of view, I find it hard to believe that 94% of "masscares" committed in the war were by Zionist forces. --Alex S 02:22, 8 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Also, I just checked up on the sources used. The main one (the bottom link, conveniently), is completely and utterly biased. The message on the site's homepage reads "The world must know that Every Zionist on our homeland Palestine is: colonist stranger, racial, terrorist, immoral, and the US administration is, imperialist, Zionist, racial, terrorist, immoral.." In my opinion sing a site like this for a resource undermines the integrity of Wikipedia, and all information from that site not corroborated by a more NPOV one should be rejected. --Alex S 02:28, 8 Jan 2004 (UTC)
I agree with you on the third link; it is dreadful. The first is not too good either. The second (article by Morris) is accurate as is all of Morris's work on this subject. The forthcoming edition of his book "The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited" is supposed to have a very detailed study of this issue based on the Israeli archives. As for proportions, the great bulk of the fighting was done in Arab areas and often amongst the Arab population. Comparatively little fighting was done amongst the Jewish population. Moreover, far more Arabs (soldiers and civilians) fell into Jewish hands than vice-versa. So it would be very surprising if the ratio of Arabs to Jews amongst the perpetrators and victims was anything else. Overall this was actually a fairly bloodless war as far as wars go (which is not a great compliment to us humans). --Zero 13:55, 9 Jan 2004 (UTC)
My main problem is that it seems a little bit far-fetched to call every incident in which nine people died a "massacre". By that definition World War II alone had probably close to a million "massacres", while it is generally recognized to have far fewer. Plus, massacre is sort of an inherently opinionated term—it conjures images of unarmed women and children being mowed down by army men with machine guns. I'd propose that, like the word "terrorist", we avoid using it except where necessary. My Lai Massacre should be there, because it's nearly universally known as such, but these should be listed somewhere else. --Delirium 10:01, Jan 25, 2004 (UTC)