Talk:Academic boycott of Israel

This page is subject to the extended confirmed restriction related to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Too long

Many sections are way too long, with too many and excessive quotes. Qualitatis (talk) 15:36, 6 April 2016 (UTC) The alternatives are either summarize UK, US and SA and move it to separate pages, or summarize and delete the bulk. Furthermore, all country sections should be merged into a timeline chapter.--Qualitatis (talk) 13:33, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

Unless I hear any objections, I intend on making the following trims to the University and College Union section:

1. Remove the short paragraph beginning "Japanese physicist Shin-ichi" Y
2. Remove the sentence that begins "Quinn claimed that" Y
3. Remove two sentences beginning with "Hirsh commented that" until "rules of confidentiality." Y
4. Remove sentence that begins "On 26 August 2008" Y
5. Summarize the paragraph that begins "A joint open letter" Y
6. Summarize the paragraph that begins "At the 2009 congress" Y
7. Remove the two sentences about Martin Ralph Y
8. Remove sentence that begins "She also stated that: 'It is a recipe" Y
9. Remove two sentences beginning with "There is the potential" until "each other's destiny" Y
10. Remove the sentence that begins "Another motion passed" Y
11. Summarize/combine the first two sentences of the 2011 subsection Y
12. Remove the sentence that begins "The union and" Y
13. Remove paragraph beginning "In July 2011"
14. Remove sentence beginning "Hawking's decision was" Y
15. Remove paragraph about Omar Barghouti in the 2013 subsection Y
16. Remove everything in the 3rd paragraph after the word "unacceptable" Y
17. Remove parapgraph beginning "Writing for British newspaper" Y
18. Remove paragraph about Ian McEwen Y

--GHcool (talk) 19:32, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

Phase 2

There's still more fat to trim. Unless I hear any objections, I intend on making the following trims:

1. Remove the two sentences beginning with "The major potential" until "from within Europe." Y
2. Remove paranthetical sentence beginning with "No other Middle" Y
3. Remove the two sentences beginning with "The meeting was" until "outside this meeting" Y
4. Remove the second resolution in the "National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education" section and make the 1st paragraph flow more elegantly into the second Y
5. Remove the sentence about Frank Wilczek. Y
6. Begin the Brian Klug quote with the sentence that begins with "But even if" Y
7. Remove the sentence that begins "Paul Mackney, the" Y
8. Remove the sentence that begins "It shared the goals" Y
9. Remove the sentence that begins "Out of the 9,359" Y
10. Remove the sentence that begins "In this sense, they do contribute" Y

--GHcool (talk) 01:54, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

Phase 3

There's still more fat to trim. Unless I hear any objections, I intend on making the following trims:

1. Remove the sentence that begins "On 30 June 2011" Y
2. Remove the sentence that begins "The campaign for" Y
3. Remove the "Israel" section Y
4. Remove the bulleted list in the "Criticism" section Y
5. Remove "Academic boycott of South Africa" and "Academic freedom" from "See Also" section Y

--GHcool (talk) 17:39, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

Quote from UCU judgement

I've added a quote from the UCU judgement in 2013. The preceding section goes into some details as to the events that preceded and led up to the court action, most of it from the POV of the complainants. The fact that their case was comprehensively dismissed and that the Tribunal was so scathing as to the emptiness of their case and critical of their motives in bringing it is an important counterpoint. I believe it should stay because of WP:BALANCE.Steve3742 (talk) 01:49, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 5 external links on Academic boycott of Israel. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

• Added {{dead link}} tag to http://alternativenews.org/images/stories/downloads/Economy_of_the_occupation_23-24.pdf
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20120925004831/http://www.adl.org/PresRele/IslME_62/4826_62.htm to http://www.adl.org/PresRele/IslME_62/4826_62.htm
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070927221627/http://www.thes.co.uk/current_edition/story.aspx?story_id=2030206 to http://www.thes.co.uk/current_edition/story.aspx?story_id=2030206
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20111005193640/http://www.jta.org/news/article/2009/03/12/1003651/aft-rejects-academic-boycott-of-israel to http://jta.org/news/article/2009/03/12/1003651/aft-rejects-academic-boycott-of-israel
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090618082354/http://australianbdscampaign.wordpress.com/2009/02/07/australian-university-students-support-bds-campaign/ to http://australianbdscampaign.wordpress.com/2009/02/07/australian-university-students-support-bds-campaign/
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20100823113949/http://www.jwire.com.au/news/sydney-students-call-for-israel-boycott/1516 to http://www.jwire.com.au/news/sydney-students-call-for-israel-boycott/1516

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

• If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
• If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 17:59, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

Lead fails to meet neutral POV

Summary

An edit removed a sentence from the lead that summarized the viewpoints of proponents of the boycott while leaving a sentence summarizing those of detractors, resulting in a breach of WP:NPOV guidelines. I propose that the sentence (or one similar to it) be reintroduced to the article in the same spot, and the references for it updated as needed.

Details

Prior to revision 1136413434, the final paragraph of the lead summarized both the arguments of proponents and critics. However, in that revision, user @Esperfulmo removed the sentence which summarized the views of proponents from the article, without editing the sentence which summarized the views of critics.

Per WP:Lead guidelines, the lead should "summarize the most important points, including any prominent controversies." First, removing this sentence fails to meet this criteria, especially with regards to the latter point, and thus reduces the encyclopedic value of this article. Secondly, simply summarizing the viewpoints of the critics of the boycott is against WP:Neutrality guidelines because it grants Undue weight to one set of positions while omitting even the mention of the opposing side's views.

Here is the sentence that was removed:

Proponents have argued that the situation, particularly in the occupied Palestinian territories, constitutes an example of apartheid in Israel.

Per the edit summary, the edit was made to delete "an obviously questionable contested statement since 2014." The contestation is present in the "failed verification" tag above. The reason text given in that tag is as follows:

A search for the word "apartheid" in this document has only 2 hits and neither supports the claim.

I have not yet acquired the materials in the contested citations so I am unable to personally verify whether the citations do or do not support the claims made in the sentence. However, no neutral, informed party can claim that the this sentence is "obviously questionable." In the last few decades, numerous individuals and organizations have referred to the de facto state of affairs in Israel and/or the occupied Palestinian territories as a state of apartheid. Regardless of whether you agree with that position, factually, many reputable bodies and scholarly sources have made that claim. This is well documented at the page Israel and apartheid itself. Thus, I must say with utmost respect that the edit belies either an ignorance of the facts or a bias, or I have grossly misinterpreted what the editor meant in their edit summary (in the latter case, I invited the editor to clarify). However, I have refrained from reverting the edit due to the fact that this is a contested subject and am instead opening a discussion here to try and reach a Consensus regarding how to rectify the present situation.

To that end: even if the sources cited above do not themselves support that claim, the logical change that should be made to the article is to replace the sources with ones that do, rather than deleting this sentence altogether. As already discussed, wholesale removal of this sentence causes the lead to fail to meet established Wikipedia guidelines on neutrality and undercuts the efficacy of the lead section altogether.

I am happy to volunteer alternate citations, but first I wanted to offer the opportunity to Esperfulmo and any other parties to respond and provide input on the issues I have raised. Brusquedandelion (talk) 08:42, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

The statement failed verification for a good reason: it's fabricated. Apartheid is a good starting point to understand what apartheid means. Having thousands of people agreeing that Israel is an apartheid doesn't make it real. Thanks. --Esperfulmo (talk) 11:51, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

You are misunderstanding the point of Wikipedia and what a NPOV entails. While I do believe Israel is an apartheid state, this view, just like your own view to the contrary, is not material to the discussion here. I will not get bogged down in a debate about the veracity of allegations of Israeli apartheid; there is already a page summarizing such debate at Israel and apartheid. This is because I am not saying the article should itself make the claim that Israel is an apartheid state, only that it should summarize the viewpoints of proponents of the boycott, many/most of whom do believe that Israel is an apartheid state. Your personal feeling as to whether they are correct or not is immaterial to whether such a sentence should be included, just as my personal feeling that Israel is an apartheid state does not allow me to delete the sentence summarizing the views of those who disagree.

The mere fact that such an article as "Academic boycott on Israel" exists implies that the movement has supporters, and in order to uphold its own credibility as an encyclopedic project, Wikipedia has an obligation to explain what the views of those proponents are.

By comparison, certain members of the Zionist movement, both inside and outside Israel, believe in the fringe position that Palestinians are not a "real" people. Without agreeing with them or taking this view at face value, the Wikipedia article for that topic nevertheless summarizes their views.

Please review the Wikipedia guidelines on NPOV, Undue weight, and Lead writing before responding further, as your initial response indicates you have not familiarized yourself with these topics. Either that or you know deleting statements from the page Israel and apartheid that argued in favor of the apartheid analogy/allegations would be quickly reverted, and you are instead using a more "marginal" page to impress your bias upon Wikipedia. Brusquedandelion (talk) 00:38, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

References