User talk:Harlan wilkerson

Welcome!

Hello Harlan wilkerson, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

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I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and ask your question there. Again, welcome!  Dolphin51 (talk) 00:54, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

User talk:Harlan wilkerson/3. Shortcomings
User talk:Harlan wilkerson/Jordan Recognition
User talk:Harlan wilkerson/Transjordan joint mandate 1947
User talk:Harlan wilkerson/Book Collection
User talk:Harlan wilkerson/WWI treaties and newly created states

Mediation: Israel and the Apartheid analogy

Just an FYI, we are running a straw poll on title choices on the mediation page - see Wikipedia:Mediation_Cabal/Cases/2010-04-14/Israel_and_the_apartheid_analogy#Straw_poll_on_titles. If you pitch in a vote or three, we can move this along. --Ludwigs2 06:02, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Churchill reference in Six-Day War article

Hi Harlan,

Given your apparent familiarity with the source material, have you looked at Randolph Churchill & Winston Churchill, The Six Day War, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1967, which is used to buttress some interesting claims in the lead? Apparently, it says, among other things, that there was an order issued by the Egypt Commander-in-Chief to his troops in Sinai which referenced the importance of the "reconquest of the plundered soil of Palestine". I don't have the book myself and I've been unable to find a virtual copy. Since the lead, as it was previously written, had a distinct pro-Israeli slant, and since Churchill was known to not be particularly fond of Arabs, I was curious to see what primary sources he references in the book to support this assertion. I'm not saying it has to be wrong (the statement in itself doesn't necessarily imply anything in regards to the preemption issue, as was mentioned here by Phersu), but I'm interested what a non-biased reading of the source would infer. Shoplifter (talk) 08:10, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

I own a copy, but most of my older books are packed away. I'll have to dig it out and get back to you, but if I recall correctly, the Churchill book was discussing a speech delivered by President Nasser near the end of May in which he said that if war came the UAR should be prepared for a Holy War to restore the rights of the Arabs which had been stolen, to reconquer the plundered soil ... & etc. At the time, the UAR was asking for Israel to withdraw its military from the DMZ's and allow the Arab cultivators to return and work their farmlands in accordance with the status quo ante conditions that had existed under the Armistice Agreements. Nasser had provided categorical assurances to the UN Secretary-General, the governments of the US, UK, & etc. that there wasn't going to be any Egyptian first strike.

Multiple sources, including the FRUS, UN Yearbook, & etc. say that the UAR states had complained to their Mixed Armistice Commissions and the Security Council that Israel had:

• Declared the armistice agreements null and void;
• Declared its sovereignty over the DMZs and had subsequently occupied them with its military;
• Closed the DMZs to the indigenous Arab cultivators after declaring them a security threat;
• Dispatched Jewish cultivators into the no-man's lands. harlan (talk) 11:03, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I see. I'm not surprised. This certainly deserves a neutral re-write, being the introductory passage to the article, but I'm sure it will be contested like everything else. If I had the source, I would bring it up in the talk page, but I wouldn't hold it against you if you are tired of engaging in these constant battles over biased referencing by other editors. Thanks for clarifiying it to me though. You are undoubtedly one of the most erudite editors on the Arab-Israeli conflict at Wikipedia. Shoplifter (talk) 11:50, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

By the way, regarding my comment about Churchill's view of Arabs in general, and Palestinians in particular, here's a few remarkable quotes:

“The Arabs are a backwards people who eat nothing but Camel dung”

"So far from being persecuted, the Arabs have crowded into the country and multiplied till their population has increased more than even all world Jewry could lift up the Jewish population."

As for the ‘invasion’, it was the Arabs who had come in after the Jews, he maintained, and they had allowed the Jewish hill terraces to decay. “Where the Arab goes”, he generalised, “it is often desert”.

In language later appropriated by the Israelis, Winston Churchill had this to say about the Palestinians in 1937: "I do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place."

Of course, these views are not surprising, given the racist-colonialist context. The question is how any editor anno 2010 would think that a work relating the conflict between Israel and the Arab states, written by a person who expressed such sentiments, could be trusted as a reliable and unbiased source. This is especially pressing considering the prominence of this particular source in the references for the article. I do think that all published writings should be cross-checked for accuracy without regard to the personal views of the author. But considering all the flak that Finkelstein (whose political opinions hardly can be equalled with Churchill's unabashed racism and negationism) has received, without his work even being used in the article, it's certainly unjust that Churchill gets a free pass. Shoplifter (talk) 12:15, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Israel, Palestine, and the United Nations

Harlan, I disagree that your additions were whiten in neutral stile or pertinent.My edit was made in attempt to improve the article and not to distract. I think you using your sources selectively to promote an opinion, and i see other in discussions believe so also. Frome what I understand this constitutes WP:SOAP, as you as addition must balanced to put entries, in a reasonable perspective, and represent a neutral point of view. RegardsIgorb2008 (talk) 00:14, 24 July 2010 (UTC)