Talk:Jish

Article class

I have checked sources, and improved readibility for this article, making it a C-class. I removed the "Blood brothers" [1] reference, which is highly unreliable source (it is a clear propaganda book, with no actual accuracy). In order to improve it to B-class there is a need to improve unreliable sources (like Palestineremembered) and add info.Greyshark09 (talk) 17:54, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

I will reintroduce it, as the Jish massacre is also documented elsewhere, including in Morris. That source should also be used. Cheers, Huldra (talk) 11:35, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Good work. However, we should use Morris, not some private citizen who happened to write a book. Little more improvements and the site will be B-class.Greyshark09 (talk) 17:15, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Elias Chacour is not "some private citizen who happened to write a book"; he is an Archbishop of the Melkite church. As such, it is noteworthy, even without Morris. I will reintroduce him. Cheers, Huldra (talk) 21:23, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

With all the respect to Elias' Shaqur testimony, you bring a primary source with apparent and wild exaggerations in the lead section (tens of thousands were not killed in 1948).Greyshark09 (talk) 18:50, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

its attributed to him, he is an Rs for his own observations. i dont't see the problem at all. you can add a verify tag if you insist its a problem or better yet find another source more to your liking. Tiamut^talk 19:02, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Excuse me, but that is nonsense, this is a typical non-RS source.Greyshark09 (talk) 19:08, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Ok, I have added the Arab-Israeli Arbitration Enforcement template, as a edit-war is brewing. Greyshark09: please self-revert.

Also: I do not understand your argument ("apparent and wild exaggerations in the lead section (tens of thousands were not killed in 1948)") ...we are not adding anything to the lead-section. We are adding a personal testimony, which is basically backed up by the finds of historians like Morris in Israeli archives. And you better find a WP:RS which claims that Shaqurs statements are unreliable, before you claim that here. Cheers,Huldra (talk) 19:37, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Clarification - i cannot self-revert, as i'll be sanctioned. I seize my reverts per WP:3RR. Regarding the lead i meant Chacour's book - [2]. I would quote another quote from his book "An exile in his native land, Elias began a years-long struggle with his love for the Jewish people and the world's misunderstanding of his own people, the Palestinians. How was he to respond? He found his answer in the simple, haunting words of the Man of Galilee: 'Blessed are the peacemakers.'". It sounds more a Christian faith book than a history book, sorry. And regarding "tens of thousands killed in 1948" - nor Arabs (including all Arab armies, who invaded Palestine/Israel) nor Jews carried "tens of thousands" of killed. The entire death toll of the war was around 20,000, mostly military and militants: 4,000 Jewish civilians and probably a similar number of Arab civilians were killed (Morris puts the number of massacred Arabs at 800).Greyshark09 (talk) 19:54, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Excuse me, but I do not understand you when say that you will be sanctioned if you self-revert! On the contrary, I will report you if you do not self-revert.

As for "Christian faith" books: well shall I go through wikipedia and remove all the history from Rabbis, because they were "Jewish faith" books? (Which say, eg Rabbi Schwarz, here used in Alma, Palestine surely were.)

I am not going through everything that Shaqurs has written, but so far I have only seen anon sources claiming that he is unreliable an an eyewitness.Cheers, Huldra (talk) 20:30, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

source reliability

Suggestion for settling the issue - let's put the source (Chacour's book) on the relevant noticeboard and both parties agree to accept the arbitration whatever it is (i agree)? Is it acceptable to you (Huldra, Tiamut)?Greyshark09 (talk) 19:58, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

hearing more opinions from outsiders is always welcome, but there is no binding result assured. so go ahead and place it there and we'll see what happens and take it from there. cool?Tiamut^talk 20:20, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

As for taking it to Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard; well, then we have to take a lot of other things there, too. From Schwarz, to the case of Balad al-Sheikh, filled with primary sources from a "Zionist-Jewish initiative" newspaper. Are you willing to do that?

But for a start, Greyshark09: Please show some good faith and self-revert. Cheers, Huldra (talk) 20:30, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

There is no general rule against putting primary sources, but there is a general guideline that exceptional claims (massacres, murders etc.) must be supported by strong sources, which are preferably not primary and most importantly - reliable and verifiable (Morris, Massalha, Karsh etc. for the Israeli-Palestinian issues). Chacour fails all of this regarding the alleged quote:

> he is a primary source - not an historian, and not even a scholar, thus problematic for the massacre claim. I would like to mention 1660 Safed massacre, which i participated in discussing - eventually the massacre (claimed by a single primary source) was largely unsupported by WP:RS, and thus we challenged it and renamed the article to 1660 destruction of Safed.

> he is not reliable - he claims for instance "tens of thousands of Palestinians were killed in 1948 war", while the number of killed Palestinian/Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs combined is several thousands altogether. This is an extreme exaggeration, which deems the reliability of his account. There are other examples of clear misrepresentation of facts and numbers.

> not verifiable - There is not other source to support the claimed "grave of victims of massacre".

> further more, it is possibly a synthesis as well, as the quote is broken - it is not clear if Chacour attributes the grave to the 1948 war (maybe it is attributed in the full text, but i could not access it).Greyshark09 (talk) 16:47, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

> I absolutely agree with you that "for exceptional claim, we need exceptional sources," But , surely the point is that in this context we are not putting anæ exceptional claims into the article; we are instead putting in an eyewitness account to actions (ie mass killings) which are corroborated elsewhere. From Morris we know that the issue of killings in Jish surfaced, (and what is even more telling: Israeli archives which should by now have been public, are still secret. Why?). Now: if Chacour was the sole source; then I could have understood you. But he isn´t.

Morris doesn't say "mass killings" and his numbers are rather small, even two dozen bodies (if truth) are not "mass". Also whose bodies are those? is Chacour an expert in forenzics? You claimed he got to Jish, after being expelled from Iqrit in 1949 - that is much after the war, so he is not an eye witness and not even close. He claims to see a grave in 1949, where "two dozen bodies" were put, not clear how he counted them at least a year after the war - that is certainly not an "eye-witness" account from 1948.Greyshark09 (talk) 18:26, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

> As for your claim that he has made non-reliable claims: I have not studied what claims he has made, but I would, on priciple, differentiate between the claims of the war "in general" (ie, as to how many were killed in total). Obviously, no single person was a witness to all killings; such numbers must, by nature, be an estimate. Accurate...or not accurate.

He doesn't claim to be a killing witness, he claims to see a grave and we do look at reliabily - if his book contains a seriously flawed basic information on casualties in the war, it puts doubt on his other killing / graves/ etc. claims.Greyshark09 (talk) 18:26, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

> There are no WP:RS who has claimed that he is unreliable as an eye-witness, AFAIK. (Though apparently the net is filled with anon sources claiming so.) Yet another net campaign to slander someone just isn´t good enough. Cheers, Huldra (talk) 17:35, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

The last one is an antagonism - it is needless to prove you that "white is not black", and that you need reliable sources which describe "unreliability" of another source - nonsense. Reliabilty of source is not established by other sources, but by source quality and content. Needless to say that there is no point to mention "some readers", who claim non-reliability - "some readers" are not a source.Greyshark09 (talk) 18:26, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

I am sorry, I simply do not understand the sentence about "the last one is an antagonism", could you please elaborate. And I am adding more sources to the article: the Jish massacre (and "massacre" is the word sources are using) is rather famous; Ben-Gurion himself ordered an investigation about it. Cheers, Huldra (talk) 20:08, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm putting Chacour on noticeboard for reliable sources.Greyshark09 (talk) 21:53, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

user:Zero0000, could you help here with your insight on reliable sources - why Elias Chacour is not considered a reliable source for "massacres" he allegedly witnessed at infancy? I think, he can be perhaps serve as primary source, but not a very good one and we should indicate that it is his claim and not a professional citation.GreyShark (dibra) 17:49, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Chacour is a primary source whose claim can only be presented as his claim. But that is how it is presented already, so I don't see the problem. Zero^talk 19:21, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

internal refugees

What is the source that refugees from Iqrit went to Jish? I can't see it in Morris. According to a source I have, those from Iqrit who remained in Israel went to Rame. That is what Iqrit says too. My source says the internal refugees who settled in Jish were from Haditha and Kafr Birim. Zero^talk 13:17, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

I think you might be correct, Morris said something about Iqrit migration to Rame, not Jish. Someone has to check it.Greyshark09 (talk) 22:04, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Geography section

Seems to me it is largely dealing with the history of the 1837 earthquake, not so much on the "geography" - i think it should be merged into Ottoman history section. On geography we can add the recent opening of a new road to Dalton, and the location of Jish near Mt. Meron.Greyshark09 (talk) 11:58, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Maronites

Current version here. Thanks Greyshark09 for reminding me that Maronites do not consider themselves Arabs but rather sometimes Phoenicians, just "Christians of the Holy Land" or even Lebanese. Chacour said that the civilians expelled from the razed village of Iqrit were resettled (in part!) in Jish too. At least his family was and he writes he knows some. Please leave in the Greek Catholic Melkite, Maronite and Sunni Muslim parts and the Israeli Arab (or "pre-1948 Palestinian") self-identification of Melkite Christians and Sunni Muslims. Let allow them their own identity please. But thanks for reminding. Please let us not practice total reverts.NiederlandeFW (talk) 13:18, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

I fixed you edit from Maronite Arab Christians to just Maronite Christians. In relation to Jish, the Maronite community is especially sensetive about their self-identification as non-Arabs.Greyshark09 (talk) 19:58, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Demographics

@Al-Ameer, as far as the sources state, modern Jish is a mixed town with the largest group being Maronites (~40%), and lesser groups of Melkites, Arab Orthodox and Sunni Muslims.Greyshark09 (talk) 21:04, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

I know of the general demographic make up of the village, but wasn't sure if the members of the other Eastern Church (not the Maronites) were Melkites or Orthodox, or both. Anyhow, which sources are you referring to? The Demographics section says 55% Maronite, 35% Orthodox and 20% Muslim (no Melkites) and is supported by a dead link reference. The lead just says mostly Maronite and Melkite with a Muslim minority (no Orthodox). There needs to be some RS-backed clarification. --Al Ameer son (talk) 16:40, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

I looked up in the Israeli CBS - 2010 census says the population was 34.1% muslim (i assume all Arab Muslims, since there are no Circassians in that village) and Christians make up the rest. It doesn't say on Christian affiliation.

One article in Israeli YNET says the following (google translate from Hebrew) [3]:

On the slopes of a hill, at an elevation of 860 meters surrounded by cherry orchards, pears and apples, built houses, especially church building looks from afar. Number of inhabitants 3,000 divided by 55% Maronite Christian, 10% Greek Catholics and the rest are Muslims.

I guess we can use both of those and disregard unsourced info on Orthodox Christians.Greyshark09 (talk) 19:10, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Sounds good. --Al Ameer son (talk) 19:19, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

 Done and i also replaced one of the dead links.Greyshark09 (talk) 19:38, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Aramaic

The sources for the few sentences about Aramaic are weak. The main source is a story in a Vatican newspaper that claims dubiously that Aramaic is "the language of choice for Christians in the Middle East". This article seems to be more balanced, but it would be a good idea to keep looking for more sources. Zero^talk 01:58, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Incidentally, at the 1931 census there were 35 people in Palestine who listed Aramaic as a language they "habitually use". They were all Jews. Zero^talk 02:00, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Let's remember that Maronite identity was pretty much blended with pan-Arabism back in 1930s, so the population figures were largely Jews vs. Arabs in Mandatory Palestine. If you look in other Middle Eastern states/territories at the time, then even Jews were not existent officially, due to their identification as "Arab Jews", who speak Arabic. A surviving law of this type is identification of Syrian Jews as "Mussawi Arabs" in the Syrian Republic, which to my best knowledge is still in tact; i would not be surprised if Maronites are identified as "Maronite Arabs" as well.GreyShark (dibra) 13:21, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

British Mandate

Presently the article has a sentence " Between 1922 and 1947, the population increased by 70%", sourced to Moshe Brawer, in a book edited by Ruth Kark. I just don´t understand where he gets those numbers, the 1922 census gave 721 people, the 1945 data was 1,090: that is not 70%. And I am not aware of a 1947-census? Huldra (talk) 23:30, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

Yes, it is doubtful. I'll check that book next time I'm in the library. Zero^talk 12:34, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

Check your email. Brawer is very vague on where his population numbers for 1947 come from. He says he used the census for 1922. I'll make a guess: he used the 1945 Village Statistics and adjusted them for a few extra years. He only gives percentage changes so we can't check properly. Also, his percentages are all rounded to multiples of 10. Here are the last four villages in his table. I'll give as "mine" a percentage 1945/1922 adjusted for two more years years, and Brawer's value.

Tur'an: mine 92%, Brawer 90%. Reineh: mine 77%, Brawer 80%. Fassuta: mine 160%, Brawer 120%. Jish: mine 61%, Brawer 70%.

You can see that the correspondence is rough but not random. I think we can do without Brawer's data, since he doesn't explain it and we can cite actual population estimates. Zero^talk 09:46, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

Since we can link directly to both the 1922 census and the 1945 Village Statistics; I think that is enough, Brawer doesn´t really add any "hard" facts; I agree: we can remove him (that is: on the assumption that the 1922 and 1945 data actually *is* in the article), Huldra (talk) 23:38, 11 September 2015 (UTC)