Talk:Esh Kodesh

Map coordinates appear to be wrong

The map coordinates give a street or road named Esh Kodesh, which is southwest of Jersualem. Yet the village is identified in the article as being "near" two other places (Shvut Rachel and Qusra) that are described as being about 30 miles north of Jerusalem. 108.246.205.134 (talk) 16:26, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

POV tag

Care to explain so we can discuss whatever you think the problem might be? We can't fix it without a discussion.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 22:39, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

The conflict is designating Esh Kodesh either as an Israeli outpost or a village, describing the location as either in the West Bank or in the Israeli administrative district of Judea and Samaria and the inclusion of a sole source opinion that Esh Kodosh is "illegal".. Z554 (talk) 23:28, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

The Jerusalem Post calls it an "illegal outpost": "But Channel 1 reported that access roads were still being paved to the illegal outpost called Esh Kodesh, set up as a satellite community to Shvut Rachel." (from source cited in article). WP:WESTBANK says we call it the West Bank rather than Judea and Samaria.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 23:33, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

The Jerusalem Post also says it's illegal in another source used in the article: "The settlers who come there in the hope of eventually reestablishing Homesh are breaking military law. So are the settlers who live on Esh Kodesh and Sde Boaz.". Regardless of that, one source is enough.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 23:40, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

There has been no finding of fact that Esh Kodesh is de facto "illegal". It is, therefore, POV to include it as if it were fact, and beyond the scope of relaying information about Esh Kodesh to the reader. Esh Kodesh is located in the Israeli administrative district of Judea and Samaria. Whether or not a group of quasi-anonymous wikipedia editors reach a "consensus" that Judea and Samaria should be referred to as the "West Bank" does not change the objective fact concerning the location of Esh Kodesh in Judea and Samaria. http://settlementsofisrael.netzah.org/esh-kodesh.phpZ554 (talk) 23:50, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

So you support WP:POV but you ignore WP:RS? How's that supposed to work? Anyway, who's supposed to be the finder of fact? Why should anyone believe you over the Jerusalem Post, anyway?— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 23:54, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Read this from the documentation of the template you're putting on there: "This template should only be applied to articles that are reasonably believed to lack a neutral point of view. The neutral point of view is determined by the prevalence of a perspective in high-quality reliable sources, not by its prevalence among Wikipedia editors." It is the sources which tell us that Esh Kodesh is an illegal outpost. That's what the Jerusalem Post calls it. Your opinion is not relevant here. Find sources which support the edits you want and then we can have a conversation.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 00:15, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

The Jerusalem Post is not a court of law. Your argument in unconvincing. The POV designation is valid. Z554 (talk) 00:23, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

They're not my arguments. I have no idea whether the place is legal, illegal, an outpost, a village, a hamlet, a trailer park, or what, and I don't much care, either. The Jerusalem Post is a reliable source in the wikipedian sense, and that's how we do things around here. Try reading WP:RS please before you put the tag back on. Please read the rules on 1RR too. They're linked to right at the top of the talk page.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 00:27, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

To reiterate, Esh Kodesh is located in the Israeli administrative district of Judea and Samaria. The Jerusalem Post is not the final authority on the status of Esh Kodesh. The Government of Israel is. The POV designation should not have been removed unilaterally. Z554 (talk) 00:33, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

It was removed bilaterally, in the first place. In the second place you put the template on there for the wrong reasons according to the template documentation, which specifically says that reliable sources determine what's a neutral point of view. You can't just decide on your own that the JPost isn't a reliable source and then slap a template on there. It's just really not OK.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 00:36, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

<- I have removed the tag. If there are reasons for the tag to be there that don't rely on transparent POV pushing let's hear them. I won't respond to comments that violate the WP:NOTADVOCATE mandatory policy. Sean.hoyland - talk 07:57, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Qusra

Why remove the fact that Esh Kodesh is near Qusra?— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 05:22, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Esh Kodesh the book of sermons

I think this is excellent material. The source says:

One of the outpost's residents (who declined to have his name published) explains that the site is also named for the original Esh Kodesh, and not only for the guard. "Some of us [there are seven families living in the outpost] were familiar with the book even before. We also knew Rabbi Binyamin Herling, a man of Samaria, who was murdered at Mount Ebal, who was also a student of the book. We felt the existence of a tie between the Admor, who died for his Judaism in the Holocaust, and the guard who was named for him and was murdered in Jerusalem."

I think it would be nice to make it clear in the article that the outpost is named for the book as well as for the person named after the book. I'm at 1RR and don't want to mess with it tonight, but I think it'd be a good thing, and will do it later if no one either objects or beats me to it.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 05:26, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

their presence generates hostility

This part of a sentence:

where their presence generates hostility

doesn't seem to be supported by the source it's cited to. The source says:

Mishmeret Yesha is a grassroots non-profit organization that helps more than 100 settlements throughout Judea and Samaria train and equip their own "rapid response teams" to meet the security challenges of living in the midst of a hostile Palestinian population.

That is, it says that the Palestinians are hostile. It does not say that the presence of the settlers generates hostility. I think it should be reworded to conform to the source or else another source should be found to support that part of the current version. Thoughts?— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 05:30, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

why did the IDF put the base there?

This is how the sentence now reads:

In September 2011, the Israel Defense Forces established a base near Esh Kodesh[1] after Israeli security forces were called in to break up a clash between the settlers and a group of 300 villagers from Qusra.[9]

The source that the clash is cited to does not mention the base and therefore says nothing about whether the base was put there after the clash or not. To put it in the same sentence like this seems to me to be synthesis because it creates the impression that the base was put there in reaction to the clash. The more detailed article that the existence of the base doesn't make this connection, and in fact doesn't even say when in September the base was put there, leaving open the possibility that it was not in fact put there after the clash. I think that the clause about the clash must be removed unless it can be adequately sourced with something that explicitly relates the placement of the base to the clash.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 05:38, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

frontpagemag.com

Is not a reliable source for factual matters: Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_3#Is_FrontPageMag.com_a_reliable_source.3F and other RSN threads as well. I think that everything in here that's sourced to that article ought to be sourced to other stuff.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 05:44, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. It's actually embarrassing that such a trash source is cited. Zero^talk 20:37, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Really why did the IDF put the base there?

The sentence now says:

In September 2011, in the wake of the Palestinian Authority's plans to request unilateral recognition at the United Nations leading to expectations of unrest,[9] the Israel Defense Forces established a base near Esh Kodesh[1]

But the source that the part about the wake of the PA's plans doesn't mention the base either. This is all textbook synthesis. The sentence makes it sound as if the expectations of unrest were related to the establishment of the base. The source doesn't mention the base. I think that both those sources must go and the material cited to them must go as well unless there is a source that actually mentions the base that mentions the expectations of unrest or the clash in the following sentence.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 06:00, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

September 23, 2011

Now we have this sentence:

On September 23, 2011, Israeli security forces were called in to break up a clash between the settlers and a group of 300 villagers from Qusra.[10]

The source doesn't mention Esh Kodesh at all. How is this even relevant? I think it should be removed unless a source which relates it to Esh Kodesh can be found.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 06:03, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Note as well that the reference for this is now a dead link. http://times247.com/articles/arab-mob-assaults-village-shouts-kill-the-jews It redirects to an error at washingtontimes.com This should be removed until a source can be found Dicesd (talk) 22:05, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Use of "Samaria" vs "northern West Bank"

The naming convention WP:WESTBANK says that

"West Bank" or "the West Bank" (capitalized) is the most commonly used name for the land area known by that name, and is to be used. The terms "northern West Bank" and "southern West Bank" can be used to refer to parts of it..

Therefore, we should say "northern West Bank" and not "Samaria", regardless of wordings used in specific sources. --Frederico1234 (talk) 13:05, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

frederico - you are right for the general terms and places like the lede. but, for this specific piece, inside the article, the RS is acceptable since it is quoted directly. no one is denying the use of 'west bank' or 'northern west bank' throughout the article. just here it is a direct quote. Soosim (talk) 14:02, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

But why is there a need for a direct quote here? Correct me if I'm wrong, but "Samaria" in the quote "Samaria hilltop" does not appear to have any additional meaning except for locating the place. For locating the place, "norther West Bank" is preferable, as it uses more common terminology. This appears to me like a way to circumvent the naming convention. --Frederico1234 (talk) 14:50, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

it is a "samaria hilltop" not a 'northern west bank hilltop'. it describes the hilltop, not the west bank. Soosim (talk) 15:07, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

It seems to me completely obvious that the naming convention prohibits this use of "Samaria", and that the "direct quotation" argument is not a valid excuse. It is not an example of when a direct quotation is appropriate. Otherwise the naming convention has no meaning whenever a source uses the word "Samaria" as someone will just add quotation marks whenever they like it. The naming convention is intended to prevent this sort of thing. Zero^talk 16:15, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

It seems to me that it's in everyone's interest as well as the interest of the encyclopedia not to skirt the naming convention by quotations. There are plenty of reliable sources that refer to the "occupied West Bank." Is that really what we want to spend our time doing here?— alf laylah wa laylah (talk)

Now comes the laundry list of attacks

And this article's chance of quality is gone. There have been hundreds of violent incidents around the place done by both sides. We're going to end up listing them all, one at a time, because 1RR lets us add crap but makes it hard to remove. We have so far:

1. On September 23, 2011, Israeli security forces were called in to break up a clash between the settlers and a group of 300 villagers from Qusra.[11][12
2. Due to the growing tension, residents of Qusra armed with flashlights and sticks began to patrol the perimeter of their village at night to thwart possible incursions by Esh Kodesh settlers.[13]
3. In 2010, the Israeli Supreme Court sentenced a resident of Esh Kodesh, the son of Orit Struk, head of the Human Rights Organization of Judea and Samaria, to 18 months in prison for the kidnapping and assault of a Palestinian teenager. [14]
4. In September 2012, a large group of Arabs from Qusra armed with clubs and sticks attacked three residents of Esh Kodesh while they were walking in the community vineyards on the Sabbath.[15]

All added in a tit-for-tat process with no concern for chronology, relevance, or even coherent prose. I see about thirty more of these in various sources. None of them help the reader, none of them are useful. They're not good editing. But I have the feeling that they're just going to grow, back and forth depending on who's the perpetrator, until the article is 50K and says nothing useful anymore. Can everyone slow down and discuss some of the actual issues that have been raised on the talk page?— alf laylah wa laylah (talk)