User:IOHANNVSVERVS/sandbox

My statement regarding this AE report

Background

The article where this dispute takes place was created in 2007 [1] by a user named Screen stalker. Screen stalker appears to have been involved with (and banned for?)[2] the 2008 CAMERA conspiracy.

On its surface the page was about the causes of the expulsion and flight, but in fact the article was a POV fork which served to promote the idea that the causes are a matter of dispute and to minimize and whitewash the responsibility of Israeli forces and the violence that was perpetrated to cause the exodus.

Before DMH223344DMH's June 24 edit which began this entire content dispute, the page was much the same as it was created (see the page as it stood on June 23 2024), essentially an article promoting Nakba denial, with the lead saying of the causes only "The causes for this mass displacement is a matter of great controversy among historians, journalists, and commentators."

Compare that to how the page looks today [3] and the difference is drastic.

"Edit war" timeline

June 24 04:11 - DMH223344 changes a sentence in the lead from "The causes for this mass displacement is a matter of great controversy among historians, journalists, and commentators." to "Most historians today agree that forceful expulsion was the primary driver of flight.", with edit summary "as per talk page", referring to this discussion

June 24 5:39 - xDanielx reverts DMH's edit, restoring "The causes for this mass displacement is a matter of controversy among historians, journalists, and commentators."

June 24 06:01 - I restore "Most historians today agree that forceful expulsion was the primary driver of flight."

June 24 15:38 - I rewrite the sentence to become "There has been significant historiographical debate as well as denialism regarding the causes of the Palestinian exodus, however today most historians agree that forceful expulsion was the primary driver of flight." and add a citation.

June 24 17:06 - ABHammad reverts my edits and restores the original "The causes for this mass displacement is a matter of controversy among historians, journalists, and commentators." This despite having not participated in the talk page discussion.

July 1 01:26 - I create and add to the body the short section titled "Present scholarship", stating "Present day scholarship generally considers that violence and direct expulsions perpetrated by Zionist forces throughout both phases of the 1947-1949 Palestine war (both during the civil war phase and during the 1948-1949 Arab-Israeli war) as the primary cause of the displacement of the Palestinians." I provide two citations for this content, one of which (Slater) contains reference to multiple other RS.

Aug 2 15:40 - DMH again changes the lead sentence to read this time "The causes of this mass displacement have been a matter of controversy among historians, journalists, and commentators, although scholarly consensus is that violent expulsions were the main factor."

Aug 3 19:50 - Alaexis reverts DMH's edit, restoring "The causes of this mass displacement are a matter of controversy among historians, journalists, and commentators." Their edit summary states "no sources have been provided". — I'd like to point out that this edit summary is a false statement

Aug 3 20:62 - I revert Alaexis' edit, with wdit summary "See "Present scholarship" section" (the sources for the removed content were in that section)

Aug 10 - I add another citation to the Present scholarship section

Aug 13 15:48 - xDanielx removes the entire "Present scholarship" section along with its sources and restores to the lead "The causes of this mass displacement have been a matter of controversy among historians, journalists, and commentators." Edit summary "Per talk thread, remove recent paragraph which doesn't reflect a mainstream view, and where the sources don't back the text in a very clear manner"

Aug 13 18:56 - I revert xDanielx's removal of sourced content

Aug 15 17:31 - xDanielx again removes the entire "Present scholarship" section repeating their Aug 13 removal. Edit summary "Remove paragraph again - the sourcing issues raised on talk page haven't been addressed, and as User:Alaexis said there was never a consensus for adding this"

Aug 15 17:36 - I again revert xDanielx's edit, with edit summary "Restore sourced content"

Aug 15 21:20 - Alaexis reverts my edit, removing the "Present scholarship" section with all its sources and restoring to the lead "The causes of this mass displacement have been a matter of controversy among historians, journalists, and commentators." Edit summary "no consensus, see the issues at the talk"

Aug 15 22:27 - nableezy restores the "Present scholarship" section, rewriting it. They restore the lead to "The causes of this mass displacement have been a matter of controversy among historians, journalists, and commentators, though most scholars have found that the majority of Palestinians were expelled or fled due to fear in the first stages of the war."

Aug 15 22:56 - I restore the "Present day scholarship" sentence with its multiple citations and add an additional citation to address concerns about the content not being sufficiently supported by the exisiting sources. This is where I am said to have violated 1RR. I didn't consider it a revert since a) I added an additional citation in this edit, directly addressing concerns raised in objection to the content, and b) because I was restoring sourced content that was wrongfully removed. Surely the edit I reverted [4] was not justified and disruptive, no? I believe I saw somewhere that ARBCOM or some sort of Wiki authority formally declared that removal of sourced content is disruptive. If this is determined to be a 1RR violation then I apologise; I generally try to be very careful to follow all policies and to be a conscientious editor.

Aug 15 23:14 - I add a new pragaraph about causes to the lead reading "Causes of the exodus include direct expulsions by Israeli forces, destruction of Arab villages, psychological warfare including terrorism, massacres such as the widely publicized Deir Yassin massacre[2]: 239–240  which caused many to flee out of fear, typhoid epidemics in some areas caused by Israeli well-poisoning,[3] and the collapse of Palestinian leadership including the demoralizing impact of wealthier classes fleeing."

Aug 20 19:26 - Alaexis removes the entire "Present scholarship" section (now titled "Modern scholarship") along with all of its sources. Edit summary of only "no consensus re this section - the discussion is ongoing"

Aug 21 19:33 - I revert Alaexis' removal, edit summary "Revert unjustified removal of sourced content"

Aug 20 20:00 - I add another citation to the "Modern scholarship" section.

Aug 26 14:52 - xDanielx again removes the entire "Modern scholarship" section along with its many sources. Edit summary "Per talk discussions, the sources don't really support this (at least in the clear & explicit way WP:V requires), except maybe Khalidi, R. R. (1988), which is not particularly modern and more importantly does not claim a consensus on the matter."

Aug 26 17:29 - I revert xDanielx's removal, edit summary "Restore removed sourced content"

Talk page discussion

Note that throughout this content dispute there were no less than 6 separate talk page sections devoted to this: "Causes" (begun by myself), "Why is the first section on inaccurate historiography?" (begun by DMH), "Changes to lead" (begun by myself), "Proposed change to lead" (begun by myself), "Present scholarship (begun by myself), and "Present scholarship (2)" (begun by xDanielx)

I made ~30 comments in these discussions and presented at least 4 high quality reliable sources. (Levivich also provided 7 RS here). I don't believe Alaexis provided or made reference to a single RS supporting their position, and xDanielx I don't believe cited any sources either, except for one 1991 article by Benny Morris, presented in regards to a somewhat tangential/minor point.[5]

The most recent exchange on the talk page occurred when on Aug 27 04:50 xDanielx writes on the talk page "@IOHANNVSVERVS: again please don't revert without addressing the issues raised. There are several unanswered threads above explaining in detail why the sources are deficient." I reply saying "I have addressed the issues you've raised. The content is well sourced. If you think the paragraph needs improvement then improve it. I don't see how there is any justifying the wholesale removal of all this content and its sources." xDanielx doesn't respond.

Conclusion and counterclaim

I can see that I may have violated 1RR, although that remains unclear to me, and I did not do so intentionally; neither is it characteristic of my editing to do so. I'm also not sure that my reverting can be called edit warring, although I am aware that it is at least borderline edit warring. I hope administrator's here will take into account the mitigating factors of my extensive participation on the talk page and my extensive use of high quality reliable sources, as well as, most importantly, that my reversions were restoring sourced content which I understood to be have been wrongfully and disruptively removed with little to no legitimate reasoning given. I understand that being right is not enough, but it wasn't just a tug of war over "content x" vs "content y", it was "include well sourced content" vs "exlude it for little to no reason".

It is my opinion that xDanielx, Alaexis, and ABHammad have been disruptive in removing sourced content, and that they have done so to promote a "pro-Israel" POV (promoting Nakba denial). These editors have engaged in such POV pushing elsewhere on Wiki and I can provide examples of that if/when appropriate. (I will strike this if it is considered casting aspersions, but presumably this is the appropriate place to report users for misconduct such as POV pushing).

-IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 22:21, 10 September 2024 (UTC)