Talk:Pallywood/Archive 2

Latest comment: 17 years ago by Coroebus in topic Jayjg's revert
Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3Archive 4Archive 5

Originating Pallywood?

Chris, why do you say Landes originated the term (not sure that's very good English)? SlimVirgin (talk) 23:04, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Don't worry, I'll forgive the grammar. ;-) You have a good point... Landes himself isn't very enlightening (see [1]). I've found an isolated example of the term being used in 2002 ([2]). The first mention of the term in connection with Landes that I've been able to find is here, in French ([3] ). I suspect that the term may have been invented on multiple occasions - it's not exactly original to portmanteau-ise Hollywood with something else (compare Nollywood, Tollywood and Kollywood for examples). But the first reliable usage of the term that I've been able to find is Landes himself. I think Leifern's current version of the "origins" section is fair enough - we don't really have enough evidence to tie it directly to Landes, but he certainly seems to have been the chief populariser of the term. -- ChrisO 23:58, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
I feel that we're adding OR to the article by trying to guess where it was first used. I know that it's been used by ME commentators for many years, but where we'd find that written down, I don't know. SlimVirgin (talk) 00:21, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
Actually, take a look at this, from Boston U's own internal newspaper: [4] It says specifically "Landes claimed many scenes of violence against Palestinians are staged and coined the term "Pallywood" to describe the industry that produces this footage." Since it's obviously sourced to Landes himself (who's interviewed in the article) I think we have our reliable source. -- ChrisO 00:23, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
Chris, you're continuing to revert. [5] Any undoing of another editor's work is a revert; see WP:3RR. By all means, add material, but please don't keep undoing my edits. Would you mind putting that material back where it was? We shouldn't start with Landes as though he invented the term, because he clearly didn't. SlimVirgin (talk) 00:39, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
Umm, no, that's not a revert. I'm not undoing your edit, I'm simply changing its order in the paragraph. 100% of your words are still in the article - nothing whatsoever has been removed. Regarding starting with Landes, it seems the logical thing to do given that Landes' usage of the term is basically what the entire article is about. I suppose I could live with it being at the start of the paragraph though. -- ChrisO 00:47, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
Any undoing of another editor's work counts toward 3RR. Please read the policy. I added that material to the beginning of the section for a reason, namely that I wanted it to be there, and you've moved it. You keep wanting to draw attention to Landes as the first user, the first popularizer, whatever, and I think that's OR or, at best, not entirely clear. All I'm asking is that you add material without undoing what I've written, and I'll try to do the same for you. In that way, we can cooperate, instead of editing in conflict. SlimVirgin (talk) 00:52, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
(I can't believe I'm having to do this.) Please go and look at http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Undo : "To reverse the effects of an action." Your edit was not reversed. 3RR does not prohibit amending an edit (unless "undoing" has suddenly acquired a meaning which isn't in the dictionary). Claiming that an amendment which kept 100% of your text intact - moving it down two lines - was a "reversion" is just silly. -- ChrisO 01:19, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
Chris, what's your source for "Although Professor Richard Landes of Boston University has often been credited with coining the term ..." You gave only one example, the Molly Hunt article. Also, why start with "although," when you can simply start with what came first? Starting with "although" is you trying to build the case that Landes is the first usage that matters; it's OR. SlimVirgin (talk) 00:56, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
Google for "pallywood landes coined". You'll find quite a lot of people crediting Landes, although from the look of it quite a few of them seem to be quoting the Molly Hunt article. As for Landes being "the first usage that matters", haven't we already effectively stated that (or at least Leifern has) with the line about Landes popularizing it? Popularizers do tend to be the first important users of a concept, surely? And I note that Jayjg seems to agree with my view given his latest edit to the article ([6]). -- ChrisO 01:19, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Note: Please see the village pump policy discussion regarding the title of this article

here. Thanks. --ĶĩřβȳŤįɱéØ 17:07, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

No one seems to be talking about this article specifically. I should like to point out that I intend to edit this article as an entry on a neologism (which arguably doesn't really need its own entry) and if we want an article about media manipulation/fabrication in the Arab/Palestinian-Israeli conflicts then we need to have a separate article with a much more neutral name (such as "Allegations of..." or "Media Manipulation in the Arab-Israeli Conflict"). Currently Media coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (which could probably deal with this sufficiently) redirects here, which is inappropriate. --Coroebus 20:08, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

It does? It looks like its own article to me. --ĶĩřβȳŤįɱéØ 04:19, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I din't make myself clear, I meant that the Media coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict article links to here for coverage of media falsifications, which is innappropriate. --Coroebus 11:02, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Toronto Star Article

Here's the relevant section for future reference:

Since Hajj's work was discredited, the right-wing blogosphere has shifted into high gear, seeking out other potential instances of photo manipulation. Many are examining images from Qana, the site of an Israeli bombing last week where at least 28 civilians were killed. Others are digging into events in Gaza, claiming images from that Israeli-Palestinian conflict have been staged or edited for the cameras. Right-wing bloggers have dubbed that "Pallywood."

--Coroebus 20:30, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Boston Globe Article

Relevant section:

It is against this backdrop that the Dura family initially embraced its high-profile role. French television broadcast a now-iconic image of young Mohammed cowering in his father's arms before he was shot dead on Sept. 30, 2000. His father carries the scars of eight bullets that struck him, and his right hand is a ball of gnarled fingers he can't move.

There has been heated debate in recent years whether the Duras were even struck by Israeli bullets during the gunfight or whether they were instead hit by wild Palestinian gunfire. A campaign led in part by Boston University Professor Richard Landes has sought to portray the Dura case as an example of "Pallywood," or theatrical Palestinian propaganda.

But there's no question that Mohammed became the most famous "martyr" of the intifadah. His image was issued on postage stamps in Arab countries, and Algeria sponsored an international poetry festival in his memory.

--Coroebus 22:55, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Jayjg's revert

Thanks. Please don't remove valid references, and please don't start sections with "Although", a word to avoid. Also, the word is extremely widely used; it gets 160,000 Google hits. Jayjg (talk) 21:35, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
Utterly irrelevant now, given this is a dead discussion, but for anyone in the know, Israeli apartheid gets167,000 Google hits. --Coroebus 08:32, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
I removed references for valid reasons (see the diffs), for example because they did not use the term in the text. Please justify each citation with reference to my reasons given. You may not like my use of the word "although" but your reference to WP:WTA is meaningless in the context ("These words can imply that one alternative is less favored than another" hardly applies to this situation). The word may be widely used but that is also irrelevant if you do not have sources to back up the claims in the article - please not that I have left in primary sources that you would usually remove if they disagreed with you as OR. I find your blind revert in bad faith, please engage with my reasoning --Coroebus 23:16, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
I have removed the Front Page Mag "Jenin Jenin Film-Maker Admits Fraud" reference from the lead because it does not mention "Pallywood" and thus is not a suitable reference to support the intro line "The term Pallywood, a portmanteau of Palestinian and Hollywood, is used to refer to the alleged staging of news events by Palestinian and other cameramen to portray Israel in an unfavorable light." You may think that this is about an example of "Pallywood", but (a) you need a source to say it is an example of "Pallywood", and (b) it doesn't belong in the intro because it doesn't have anything to do with establishing the meaning of the word. Try and engage with that fairly straightforward argument (by say, pointing out that it does in fact use the word, and pasting the relevant text) rather than blind reverting with an unhelpful edit summary like "restore sensible version". --Coroebus 12:31, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
I have changed the origins intro to "Although the term "Pallywood" has existed for several years it was popularized by..." because the reference is to a single newsgroup usage (possibly even the origin!) which does not support the original line "The term "Pallywood" has been used by online debaters for several years" because it does not establish that it was used more than once (that is not to get into the OR nature of using the source). I have used "although" in the sentence because it makes perfect sense ("although it had been used before it was popularised by..." is perfectly correct English) and it does not violate [[7]] because it is not an attempt to "imply that one alternative is less favored than another" but rather to "emphasize a notable change":
Acceptable use:
"Before <event> <this>. After <event>, however, <that>."
Again, see if you can address that argument. --Coroebus 12:49, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
Ah, Jayjg has reverted again saying "please review WP:WTA carefully, thanks". It is both rude to refuse to address my arguments here but also makes him look silly - reading WP:WTA makes quite clear that "although..." is acceptable when it is in order to "emphasize a notable change" (as opposed to "[s]tructures where two alternatives are contrasted"); chronological use (shown above under "Acceptable use" quoted from WP:WTA) is acceptable (which is what my edit says: "Although the term "Pallywood" has existed for several years it was popularized by Professor Richard Landes" - i.e although before Landes it was used, it was after Landes's film it became widespread - perfectly acceptable chronological use). --Coroebus 18:20, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Right wing

Chris, you're trying to discredit this by saying that only right-wing bloggers have used it. I'd like to see that Star article, and also to check whether other media refer to its use. It's not only the Toronto Star that has talked about it, as the sources on the page show, and there are others besides these.

It would be helpful if editors could strike a "don't care" position, rather than constantly trying to undermine the thing they're writing about. It would lead to better writing, for a start. SlimVirgin (talk) 00:22, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Why do you keep reverting? SlimVirgin (talk) 00:24, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
No, I'm simply reflecting dispassionately what the sources say. I don't care who uses the term. But if we have a source saying that it's used by right-wing bloggers - the journalist obviously thought it important to make that political distinction - then we should state that in the article. Why are you so reluctant to quote the exact words of the source? I've added direct quotes from Landes and Frum to the article; you've not objected to that; why are you objecting to the Toronto Star? And why are you constantly attacking my good faith in editing the article? -- ChrisO 00:32, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
Chris, you can't hand on heart say that your editing of this article has been dispassionate. You argued strongly for its deletion, and since then you've tried to undermine all its sources. Why do you want to pick out that particular journalist, as though he's the only one who has commented on it? SlimVirgin (talk) 00:34, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
Let me be blunt. When I first came across this article, I viewed it as a shoddily-written, badly-sourced piece on a non-notable subject. My criticisms of this article have always been about the notability and quality - not the subject matter. On the other hand, many of the people who voted to keep the article argued that it was notable, without saying why, or didn't bother making any policy arguments at all and simply argued from a political POV (Jaakobou and Leifern were particularly egregrious examples of this). Your own approach to this article has been less nakedly partisan, but I don't think you can say, hand on heart, that you're dispassionate about it. You've repeatedly made claims of disruption and POV-pushing - but I guess to a partisan, anyone who doesn't share your POV must be a partisan for the "other side". Personally, I detest both sides in the Arab-Israeli conflict - but I think articles on the subject should treat both sides fairly and equally, which is where you seem to have a problem. Perhaps you don't see that yourself, but that's certainly how it comes across to an outsider.
You're not an outsider, Chris. SlimVirgin (talk) 01:10, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
Do you see me editing Arab-Israeli articles normally? It's an area I try to steer clear of. Unfortunately it's simultaneously one of the areas of Wikipedia that most needs attention and one of the worst to edit. So many of the more obscure articles are badly written and sourced - some of the articles are frankly a disgrace. But unfortunately there are some very vociferous and active editors who like to use Wikipedia to promote their POVs and blatantly ignore NPOV. They act in bad faith and assume that everyone else is acting in bad faith too - they edit war, they revert blindly, they don't bother engaging in debate, they act as though they own articles, and so on. Both sides do this, though probably not to an equal extent. I've edited on Wikipedia a lot longer than you have, so believe me, I've seen how it works. I'm sure you've come across the same thing - but you should really consider whether you've fallen into the trap of becoming what you've no doubt been fighting. -- ChrisO 01:40, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
As for the Star, the relevant quote is above at #Toronto Star Article. It's not "the only source you want to mention" as you claim - I've not found any other media sources saying who (other than Landes) uses the term. If you can find anything, please do. What I don't understand is that you have no objection to citing the Toronto Star to support the contention that bloggers use the term, but you immediately throw a fit when the actual words of the article are quoted. You're flying in the face of WP:ATT: "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is whether material is attributable to a reliable published source, not whether it is true." The article specifically attributes the usage of the term to right-wing blogs; this is completely compatible with the statement by Landes himself that his supporters are "primarily politically conservative". So I'm going suggest three choices here: 1) remove that sentence about bloggers altogether if you don't think the Star is a reliable source (and explain why you don't think it's a RS); 2) quote and attribute the quotation without hiding it, as you're trying to do now; or 3) find another source that describes who uses the term. -- ChrisO 00:55, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
Lots of sources have said that bloggers use the term. We can see for ourselves that bloggers use the term. There is no need to search for a source that says it's only right-wing bloggers who use it, and then write the sentence as though that's the only source who has commented. This is so tiresome. :-( SlimVirgin (talk) 01:10, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
I would like to point out that the Toronto Star source is the source that was in the article to support the line "The term has been widely adopted by bloggers, particularly during the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict where assertions of media manipulation were also made." which was a modification of the original line "The term was widely adopted by right-wing bloggers, particularly during the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict where assertions of media manipulation were also made." (which is pretty much what I've changed it back to), but was then edited out to the current version by Leifern and ChrisO. --Coroebus 12:18, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
"Lots of sources have said that bloggers use the term." Cite, please. If you can cite it, let's use it in the article. "We can see for ourselves that bloggers use the term." Original research - you know we're not allowed to add what we can "see for yourselves". Come on, you can do better than this. The development of this article has been plagued by people making vague assertions without providing sources or resorting to OR. You of all people should know that isn't a good thing. -- ChrisO 01:40, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
I seem to have started off a little edit war through actually reading cited sources to see if they support the written text and making some fairly innocuous changes. Funnily enough Jayjg and SlimVirgin seem to have rather different standards for verifiability when an article chimes with their POV (see Allegations of Israeli Apartheid for a similar article from the other POV where WP:NOR and WP:Verifiability are enforced with rather more gusto by these same editors, and where usage must be notable and/or academic). The rank hypocrisy is quite breathtaking. Now let's be serious here, if you want to include a particular sentence back it up with a reference, "it gets 160,000 Google hits" and "We can see for ourselves that bloggers use the term" are clearly not sufficient. --Coroebus 12:04, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
What makes SlimVirgin's position particularly ridiculous is that she apparently has no objecting to referencing the Toronto Star for the assertion that bloggers use the term, but she does object to actually quoting the reference. That makes it very clear what's going on - she has a POV objection to the source. Fortunately, "I don't believe it" isn't a valid reason for editors to remove content. -- ChrisO 12:38, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
I just noticed this, and I don't know what it refers to. I don't really appreciate being thanked for my collaboration on the one hand, then being told I'm ridiculous soon after by the same person. What changed? SlimVirgin (talk) 11:44, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
Nothing changed - I said your position was ridiculous, not that you were. Please re-read the above. The Toronto Star article provides evidence of who uses the term; why do you object to quoting the article when you don't object to citing it? If the article is reliable enough to be cited, surely it's OK to quote it? What are the "lots of [other] sources" that you mentioned earlier - can we please have some citations? Allegations of Israeli apartheid goes to some lengths to define who uses the term. This specificity is, I think, is something you were pushing for (quite rightly too) - but here you seem to be arguing we should use a vague formulation instead of the specific attribution from the Star. Why the difference? -- ChrisO 15:11, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Coroebus's revert

I have shown that Jenin Jenin is also associated with Pallywood, and you have still chosen to revert, asking to 'include the source that makes the connection', even though it is not at all relevant to the sentence being sourced. It however relevant to the first source, and who has heard of a source for a source?

I think the issue here is not individual sources, but users trying to do anything in order to portray Pallywood as a term used exclusively by fringe extreme-right movements. Assuming you are not such a user Coroebus, please state valid reasons for removing a perfectly legitimate source.

-- Ynhockey (Talk) 13:07, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

The article is called "Pallywood", and the intro sentence says "The term Pallywood, a portmanteau of Palestinian and Hollywood, is used to refer to the alleged staging of news events by Palestinian and other cameramen to portray Israel in an unfavorable light.". The refs at the end of this intro sentence must be about the term "Pallywood" in the context of staging news events because that is quite simply how referencing works. You can't include a reference because it is somehow related to another source, it must be related to the sentence you are referencing!

You have suggested a reference that associates Jenin Jenin with the term "Pallywood" but you want to include a reference to an article about Jenin Jenin that doesn't refer to "Pallywood" at the end of the intro sentence. That is unnacceptable because the sentence is not about events that have been referred to as being associated with "Pallywood", but the word "Pallywood" itself. The only place that article could fit would be in the "Alleged examples" section, but even then this "Pallywood" article shouldn't really be referring people to sources about the events per se, but rather to sources associating those events with the word "Pallywood".

I'm not sure how removing a Front Page Mag ref, whilst leaving in one from the Int Herald Tribune is an attempt to portray the term as used exclusively by fringe extreme-right movements, or how inclusion of this irrelevant link combats that. --Coroebus 13:49, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

The alleged examples section already implies that Jenin Jenin is an example of Pallywood, while Richard Landes clearly makes the connection on his website. Including pages from Richard Landes's website (Second Draft.org) in the article's body is somewhat silly considering it's the first external link under 'further reading'. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 14:13, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Clarification as to what this article is about

What is this article about? As I've said here there seems to be a conflict as to what different editors think this article is about. It is titled "Pallywood" and says:

The term Pallywood, a portmanteau of Palestinian and Hollywood, is used to refer to the alleged staging of news events by Palestinian and other cameramen to portray Israel in an unfavorable light.

Which suggests to me, and others, that the article is about the word "Pallywood" in a similar manner to Allegations of Israeli Apartheid being about the allegations. Other seem to think that the article is about "staging of news events by Palestinian and other cameramen to portray Israel in an unfavorable light" per se. If the latter is the case I would propose that the use of such a partisan neologism is unencyclopedic and that the article should be merged into Media coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or renamed to something like Allegations of media manipulation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. How about a poll?


Vote 1, What is this article about?

  • This article is about the term "Pallywood" only, and not events that may have been described as "Pallywood".
Support --Coroebus 14:22, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
cf. Hafrada.--Coroebus 22:10, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
Reject - such an interpretation is novel and not consistent with the introduction itself. And in clear violation of Wikipedia policy. --Leifern 01:19, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
Reject if it's taken to the level of WP:POINT. SlimVirgin (talk) 15:31, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
Reject per SV. Briangotts (Talk) (Contrib) 15:34, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
Support. If we're to have an article on this non-notable neologism, it should be confined to that neologism and its originators. -- ChrisO 15:41, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
Reject - if an RS described something as "term X", why not mention it? ←Humus sapiens ну? 20:38, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
Reject - The term is nothing without the events the term describes. --GHcool 21:04, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
The issue was not mentioning RS references to X as "Pallywood", but rather to extensive discussion of X outside of the context of it being called "pallywood" (see below about "that may be reasonably described as "Pallywood" even if they have not verifiably been so described"). --Coroebus 21:31, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
Reject - this is obviously key to discussion of the term. TewfikTalk 19:29, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
  • This article is about the phenomenon of "Pallywood", including those events that may be reasonably described as "Pallywood" even if they have not verifiably been so described.
Support - the term's notability is dubious, but the subject it describes is clearly notable, and happens to have no one name other than Pallywood. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 14:54, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
Reject - there's a difference between "bias media covrage" which is an international phenomena, and "pallywood", which talks about "palestinian produced" fabrications - as such, the 'jenin, jenin' film, which was produced, directed and written by muhamad bakri - later attacked for fabrications and lies - is an obvious example of an admitted pallywood production. btw, this whole thing has been discussed in the "nomintaed for deletion" voting. i'm thinking pallywood could be a sub-article in the media covrage article (small mention and ref to full article from the med cov article). another suggested sub-cat should be about the british media and another about the arab/muslim media who are probably the most enthusiast in promoting pallywood productions. Jaakobou 23:24, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
Support, it's self-evident. --Leifern 01:18, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
Support within very strict limits, for unambiguous cases. Jayjg (talk) 15:25, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
Support so long as the source is clearly and unambiguously talking about that phenomenon; shouldn't be interpreted loosely. SlimVirgin (talk) 15:31, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
Support per Jaakobou. Briangotts (Talk) (Contrib) 15:34, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
Reject. The issue at hand is alleged media manipulation. Using the term "Pallywood" as shorthand for that is grossly POV; it's associated exclusively with one side's arguments, it was coined to advance those arguments, and it's little more than a slogan intended to link a series of allegations. The contrast between the "support" votes above and the same people's positions on "Israeli apartheid" is instructive. -- ChrisO 15:41, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
Support - again, quoting RS is fine. POV censorship is not. ←Humus sapiens ну? 20:38, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
Support for unambiguous cases --PinchasC | £€åV€ m€ å m€§§åg€ 23:59, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
Support all articles on Wikipedia should discuss the term and the phenomenon the term describes. --GHcool 21:04, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
reject Not the case at all. Wikipedia is not a dictionary. It is an encyclopedia. the events are part of the encyclopedia content.--Sefringle 03:34, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
Support - this is obviously key to discussion of the term (perhaps with PinchasC's caveat). TewfikTalk 19:29, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Vote 2, If this article was to be declared about the phenomenon of "Pallywood", including events describable as such, should it be

  • Called "Pallywood"
Support - I don't know what "describable as such" means. Surely we can mention the fact that some RS used this term, if any. ←Humus sapiens ну? 20:38, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
Describable as such is intended to mean that it may not be referred to as "Pallywood" but meets the general description (i.e. media fabrication in the context of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict) --Coroebus 21:31, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
Support. It is about Pallywood, not other--Sefringle 03:35, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
Support --Coroebus 14:22, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
Although I'd probably keep the "Pallywood" article (about the word only - pretty similar to the current article) even though, as a neologism this is against Wikipedia policy, because I think it is actually a useful service we can provide giving the meaning of new words and some context about their use. --Coroebus 22:11, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
Reject - it's a distinct phenomenon from the coverage itself. --Leifern 01:18, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
In that case you might want to consider adding your vote above ("Pallywood") or below ("Allegations of media manipulation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict" or something similar). --Coroebus 12:01, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
Support Wikipedia isn't the place to promote little-used neologisms invented by activitists. Catchpole 12:32, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
Reject. Pallywood is a unique term discussing a unique phenomenon not covered by or distorted by this name. Jayjg (talk) 15:24, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
Reject.Briangotts (Talk) (Contrib) 15:34, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
Reject - per above. ←Humus sapiens ну? 20:38, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
Reject. --PinchasC | £€åV€ m€ å m€§§åg€ 00:00, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
Support only because I haven't heard the term used very often in the mainstream media or academia. --GHcool 21:13, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
Reject - two different, if related topics, TewfikTalk 19:29, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
Support, in order to avoid countless notability disputes. The term itself doesn't matter, the subject matter does. Media coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a relevant article and a good place for this information, but I feel that there is enough information to warrant an article of its own, whatever it be named. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 14:54, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
Support. I think this is a reasonable solution - it would allow a more neutral and thematic approach to the subject, rather like Allegations of Israeli apartheid does, and as you say it'll avoid the notability disputes. I'll propose the move formally. -- ChrisO 11:09, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
Reject. Pallywood is a unique term discussing a unique phenomenon not covered by or distorted by this name. Jayjg (talk) 15:24, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
I can't even parse the question. SlimVirgin (talk) 15:33, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
The idea was that the three options (stay called "Pallywood", merge into [[Media coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or rename to something less POV, would cover all possible viewpoints - unfortunately everyone has voted support/oppose instead of picking one of the three options so it obviously wasn't that clear. --Coroebus 18:01, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
Reject per Jay.Briangotts (Talk) (Contrib) 15:34, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
Reject per above. ←Humus sapiens ну? 20:38, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
Reject Pallywood is a uniquely Palestinian phenomenon. Unless it can be proven that Israelis stage and cover events in ways that do not adhere to standard practices of ethical journalism, then implying that this is something done on both sides is unnecessary and deliberate anti-Israel spin. --GHcool 21:13, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
Reject Clear POV. It is not alleged. Calling things alleged is a way of discrediting facts.--Sefringle 03:36, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
See Allegations of Israeli Apartheid. In this case the incidents mentioned in the article are all controversial (Sabra and Shatila massacre, Temple Mount, Muhammad al-Dura, Battle of Jenin) and we would really be pushing the bounds to claim that they are unequivocal examples of Palestinian media fabrication!. --Coroebus 09:27, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
Reject - two different, if related topics, TewfikTalk 19:29, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

--Coroebus 14:22, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Why is this neologism notable in the first place? Nobody seems to have answered this question. Could people please have a look at my comments under #Notability questions above? -- ChrisO 14:42, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

I regard the debate about this article as being similar to that of Apartheid wall versus Israeli West Bank barrier, as the deletion vote was equivocal we have to work for the best outcome given the situation we have. --Coroebus 15:57, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
As noted before, I'm okay with a different title, as long as Pallywood redirects to it. --Leifern 01:18, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
Fair enough. -- ChrisO 11:09, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
Reject - currently, there's no better name for media fabrications produced by palestinains - the titls (allegations of) "media fabrications by palestianins to villify israel" would be a ridiculous and poor replacement for the current informative and well representing title to the phenomenon. for now, i suggest we keep this title in refrence to "controversial palestinian productions produced in order to villify israel". Jaakobou 21:18, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
You probably didn't mean to put this here, meant to be under "Renamed Allegations of media manipulation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (or something similar)"? --Coroebus 09:17, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Requested move

The following is a closed discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was Following on from the discussion above, I'm formally requesting a move of this article to Allegations of media manipulation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (as per Ynhockey's excellent suggestion). The reasons for doing this are:

  • Neutrality. "Pallywood" is a highly partisan neologism used by only one side in the dispute. If we are to have an article about the issue of alleged media manipulation in this conflict it needs to be under a neutral title. (Compare Israeli apartheid with Allegations of Israeli apartheid).
  • Notability. The present article is about a video essay by an American academic working outside his professional field in a personal capacity as a political activist. This has led to disputes over whether the video essay is notable. We can avoid such disputes by subsuming the content of this article into an article with a wider scope, as Richard Landes obviously isn't the only person making such claims (and of course the claims were made well before Landes got involved).
  • Wider scope. This would permit the issue to be covered in better detail with a wider context, rather than confining it to the very narrow subject of Landes' video essay.

If there is a general consensus that this would be beneficial, I propose to make the move five days from now (Saturday 25 March). The present article name (Pallywood) would then redirect to the new article. -- ChrisO 11:30, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

I object to this. It's a well-known term, and the AfD on it was keep. AfDs discuss whether the title should exist, not the contents, and it was decided that this should exist. SlimVirgin (talk) 11:41, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
The contrast with your stance on Israeli apartheid is instructive. -- ChrisO 13:25, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
Oh, is it now? Please enlighten me as to what your assumption of bad faith instructs you. SlimVirgin (talk) 15:37, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
Bad faith? No. Inconsistency? Yes, blatantly and unambiguously so. I recall your arguments for why "Israeli apartheid" should be moved to "Allegations of Israeli apartheid". Misrepresentation? That too. The AfD was not keep (look at the top of this page!) and the term is plainly not "well known" among anyone other than partisans and activists - zero academic or book references, and a bare handful of newspaper references. I'm not calling you a baddie - I don't do that, it's infantile. I am calling you out for being inconsistent and inaccurate. -- ChrisO 15:59, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
OK, a couple of points here:
  • I disagree with ChrisO's three reasons: the article isn't, nor has ever been about Landes's video or about the term itself. It's about fabricated media events for propaganda purposes, whether or not the term "Pallywood" applies to it or Landes has written about it.
  • I don't think that Allegations of media manipulation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the right title, either. For starters, it's not limited to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (in fact, there is ample evidence there is no such thing as a limited Israeli-Palestinian conflict to begin with), and this topic is more specific than mere "media manipulation," which could include the kind of spin that every government seems to do now.
  • I am open to moving it to a more descriptive title, though I'm still mulling over what the right one would be. But SlimVirgin is right - we are still operating under the mandate of the AFD, so we can't just run off and do these things without asking for trouble. --Leifern 12:27, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
If the article is about allegedly (an important qualification!) "fabricated media events for propaganda purposes", then let's call it that. The term by itself is uninformative and POV, just as "Israeli apartheid" by itself is. I'm sure you'd agree that we need to treat partisan terminology consistently, whichever side it comes from. -- ChrisO 14:09, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
In this case I think there is a case to be made that much the same principle applies, though - just for the record - there is a difference between alleging events and alleging an interpretation. "Apartheid" is an interpretation of the meaning of largely undisputed events; media fraud are alleged events themselves. --Leifern 15:10, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Just a correction for both of you - the AfD result was no consensus, not keep or delete. Since there's no consensus, there's no decision or "mandate" to bind us. The outcome of the AfD means that we have to work to find a new consensus. Ynhockey's suggestion could offer a way ahead without this squabbling over POV and notability. -- ChrisO 13:23, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

There's no consensus for this move, as the tiny poll above indicates. Jayjg (talk) 15:26, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
That's the point of having a requested move discussion - to state the proposal, advertise it and get a wider range of views. -- ChrisO 15:32, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
No consensus in an AfD means keep, Chris. SlimVirgin (talk) 15:34, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
No consensus in an AfD has the practical effect of keeping an article, which is a very different thing from the community deciding to endorse or delete an article. It's the same as a no-consensus outcome on WP:DRV - the community neither endorses nor rejects deletion, but the practical effect is for the deletion to stand. Don't confuse judgements with outcomes. -- ChrisO 16:10, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
I think the point is that there's an presumption that we keep articles unless there's a clear consensus to delete them, sort of like a presumption of innocence. Some deletionists may disagree, but it's not just a practical consideration. --Leifern 16:21, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
Exactly. But we shouldn't mistake deadlock for endorsement. -- ChrisO 16:24, 20 March 2007 (UTC)


Any other suggestions for titles? Allegations of Media Fraud in the Arab-Israeli conflict, Allegations of Anti-Israeli Media Fabrication, Palestinian Anti-Israeli Media Fabrication etc. --Coroebus 19:34, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

It would be preferable to have a title that could encompass allegations presented by both sides. An article focusing on one side to the exclusion of the other would be extremely unbalanced. Whatever title we choose, I think it has to include the word "Allegations" or a synonym for that - we must make clear that these are allegations, without being seen to endorse anyone's claims. -- ChrisO 19:37, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
The title shouldn't beg the question, of course. But balance isn't the same as accuracy. I'd hate for us to think that for every case of news fabrication on one side, we must produce one for the other. It's the kind of moral equivalence that is so dangerous in this debate. --Leifern 20:40, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
Agree with Leifern. Also, please see WP:TITLE. ←Humus sapiens ну? 20:41, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Just to clarify, I did not propose necessarily moving the article to Allegations of media manipulation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but instead moving it away from Pallywood (voted in support of: Renamed Allegations of media manipulation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (or something similar)). I have the following reasons for my opinion:

  • Pallywood is a controversial term, and while it is well-known and documented for some (such as myself), for others it is simply a neologism with 'zero academic or book references'. We don't even know who came up with the term (clearly it preceded Landes) and how it is used by who today.
  • The scope of Pallywood, even when accepted as a notable subject, is debated - some say it's just the term, others say that it's the whole concept. Then there's the argument about what the 'whole concept' is. Does it include just staged media events and photo/video fakes, or the entire issue of using photography for propaganda (i.e. Jenin Jenin)? Does it only include the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the entire Arab-Israeli conflict (also Hezbollywood), or a concept that can be applied to any form of propaganda by any nation?

Basically I think it's important that Pallywood is documented on Wikipedia (actually most of the 'allegations' have been proven, like the entire Jenin Jenin, what the Palestinian side has made of the Battle of Jenin on the whole, and other events documented by Landes, Pierre Rehov, etc.), however, naming the article Pallywood is not very helpful to this very process. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 18:55, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

It was requested that this article be renamed but there was no consensus for it to be moved. --Stemonitis 10:12, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Notability concerns

From Wikipedia:Avoid neologisms.

"To support the use of (or an article about) a particular term we must cite reliable secondary sources such as books and papers about the term — not books and papers that use the term."

I am concerned that this article is not built on reliable secondary sources about the term. Catchpole 08:06, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

See also my detailed comments under #Notability questions above. I'm still waiting for a reply from the article's supporters. -- ChrisO 08:51, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
Strictly speaking the handful of reliable sources that have mentioned the term are not using it but talking about it (see the Lexis Nexis newspaper hits I mention here. --Coroebus 09:15, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
Catchpole, you have crossed the line into bad behavior now. This has been discussed ad nauseum, and it should be clear that this is not a dictionary entry, but an article about the phenomenon of staged and fraudulent media events. This is without question a notable topic within the broader issue. Your efforts to first redefine the topic to something ridiculously narrow and then disqualify it based on your new and novel interpretation have no place here. --Leifern 11:57, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
I've raised four specific concerns at #Notability questions. You haven't addressed any of them. Why? -- ChrisO 14:35, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
I have addressed all of these many many times on the talk page here and on the AFD, which you've tried repeatedly to circumvent. This article is unequivocally about fraudulent attempts at creating news for propaganda purposes. It is distinct from the general topic of media coverage and deserves its own article. The three other definitions are nothing but strawmen. We have gone over this many times before, ChrisO. I am deleting the tag again, as it has no merit. --Leifern 23:36, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
It is clearly not without question. A herd of bloggers posting "Pallywood" on each other's blogs is not inherently notable. Catchpole 17:20, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
what is clearly not without question is that wikipedia is supposed to give an explanation and examples on the very known term (150,000+ google hits) when someone looks for it. the "notability" questioning is ridiculous. Jaakobou 17:42, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
It doesn't work like that - Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate source of information. We've never relied on the number of Google hits to establish notability, and if you read WP:NOTABLE you'll see that a crude metric like that isn't included. Let me give you a comparable example. I've seen the term "Bushco" used on left-leaning blogs as a slang term for the George W. Bush administration. A Google search for "Bushco" shows 910,000 results, the vast majority of which are from anti-Bush bloggers. But the term doesn't seem to be used to refer to the Bush administration anywhere other than on blogs; consequently it's not notable, we don't have an article on it, and I'd never support the creation of one. "Pallywood" is in exactly the same category - in fact your evidence suggests that it's even less notable than "Bushco". -- ChrisO 23:17, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

BushCo can maybe fit into a "bad slang" dictionary, there's no phenomenon behind it unless you want to use it to describe bush haters maybe (but that has yet to happen). The comparisment is cute but it is also easily distinguishable from Pallywood and doesn't measure up, not even close. Jaakobou 23:39, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

As far as I understand it - I'm not American, so there may be nuances I haven't understood - "Bushco" is meant to portray the Bush administration as a (corrupt?) corporation; effectively, a one-word slogan encapsulating a political argument. That seems to be very similar to the way that "Pallywood" is used - as a one-word slogan encapsulating the argument that Palestinians fake media coverage. You seem to be making two a priori assumptions: 1) that there actually is a phenomenon of Palestinians faking media coverage (a proposition which I neither accept nor deny - I'm genuinely agnostic on the question) and 2) that "Pallywood" is the best term to use to refer to it, rather than something wordier but much more neutral like "Allegations of media manipulation...". Obviously I disagree with point 2, since all the indications are that "Pallywood" is neither a neutral nor a notable term. I would make exactly the same argument if someone tried to create an article on "Bushco". -- ChrisO 00:39, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
Comment: Google searching is useful for establishing lack of notability, but much less notability. However, I would like to note that "Pallywood -blog" on Google renders 21,000 results, meaning a vast majority of those might well be 155,000 hits are blogging or related activities. But this is not my main complaint - please do not remove any tags until after discussion has been completed, unless it is in bad faith - and this is not bad faith. This is a legitimate concern with a legitimate policy. x42bn6 Talk 00:42, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure I see the point of having the tag there when the article was just kept on AFD. Friday (talk) 16:52, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Catchpole, your concern is suspect given your insistence on inserting original research based entirely on books and articles that use a term in other articles: [8]. Jayjg (talk) 17:02, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Play the ball not the man. Feel free to supply reliable sources discussing Pallywood. The AfD discussion was closed as no consensus.Catchpole 17:14, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
And that means "keep." SlimVirgin (talk) 17:22, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
The ball here is whether or WP:NEO applies. You claim it applies here, yet edit in violation of it elsewhere. Which is it to be? Please state your viewpoints explicitly, so we know how seriously to take your alleged concern. Jayjg (talk) 17:25, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
Can we please stay on the subject of this article? Are either of you going to address the questions at Talk:Pallywood#Notability questions? -- ChrisO 18:13, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Note

If a user removes the Noteability tag before this discusion above is concluded I will block them for edit waring. Betacommand (talkcontribsBot) 01:22, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

...Which would be 1) overturned as baseless and 2) made with a conflict of interest. This certainly looks notable and deserving of an entry to me. Picaroon 01:45, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps you could add your comments on the Talk:Pallywood#Notability questions above, in that case. We have an endless parade of people saying "this is notable" but never saying why other than "it gets Google hits".. Let's get the why on the record. -- ChrisO 01:47, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
With pleasure. Picaroon 02:00, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
Betacommand, you've restored the tag twice, so you can't take admin action in relation to this article for awhile. SlimVirgin (talk) 17:02, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

OR

Friday, which bits do you think are OR? SlimVirgin (talk) 17:21, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Nevermind, I just thought it might be a better description of the concerns people had. Didn't want to seem like I was ignoring talk page discussion. I don't have much opinion on the content issue. Friday (talk) 18:44, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
Okay, fair enough. I've removed it because everything looks as though it's pretty well-sourced now. SlimVirgin (talk) 18:48, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Notability questions

Note: This is a refactored version of a post of 17 March.

During a recent Articles for Deletion discussion on this article, the issue of notability was raised. Several of the contributors to the discussion asserted that the subject of the article was notable, but without explaining why. In order to get the notability of the subject established on the record, I'd like to use this section to explore four key notability issues. I've added a space below each issue for responses from other editors (in order to keep the page tidy). -- ChrisO 18:24, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Alleged media manipulation in general

The subject is clearly notable, but it's already addressed in considerable detail at Media coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Why is this a separate article rather than a subsection of the "Media coverage" article? -- ChrisO 00:15, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Responses to this question

from the "media coverage" acticle:

Outright forgery - video footage, quotes, and other items are fabricated to bias the presentation. See Pallywood for such allegations.[9]

for the umpteenth time: "media coverage" is too wide an article (as it should include worldwide media) to give a broad perspective account to palestianian produced stagings intended to villify israel or the term pallywood and it's common usage... i'd perhaps be supportive in a basic description (similar to the way History of Israel is written inside Israel) under a title of "Palestinain Produced Hate-Art against Israel" or "palestinian media manipulations and productions", but that would not negate the way the Pallywood article is currently written. Jaakobou 19:07, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I also think - in fairness to media organizations, reporters, etc., who are accused of being biased in their presentation of news from the region - that there is a difference between reporting facts in a biased way, and engaging in fraud for propaganda purposes. In other words, this topic isn't primarily about "coverage" - it's about propaganda of the worst possible kind. --Leifern 19:22, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

The neologism "Pallywood"

As the references in the article show, the term "Pallywood" has barely been mentioned by the mainstream media. It's certainly not being used regularly by any media source that I can find, and only certain partisan bloggers seem to be using it regularly. If the use of a term is almost entirely confined to non-notable, non-reliable sources, is that term really notable? -- ChrisO 00:15, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Responses to this question

I have had a look for mainstream mentions of "Pallywood", particularly with regard to whether it is an acceptable title for an article about allegations of media manipulation (see poll below). Google scholar throws up one reference (Steinberg) but the mention is in an endnote to Second Draft ("Nidra Poller, ‘Myth, Fact, and the al-Dura Affair’, Commentary, September 2005; see also http://seconddraft.org/streaming/pallywood.wmv."), and a Lexis Nexis search finds 17 references in English language news:

"misinterpreted or -- as an American academic put it -- artfully staged Pallywood theater." NYT & Int Herald Tribune
"A campaign led in part by Boston University Professor Richard Landes has sought to portray the Dura case as an example of "Pallywood," or theatrical Palestinian propaganda." Boston Globe
"Landes claimed many scenes of violence against Palestinians are staged and coined the term "Pallywood" to describe the industry that produces this footage. He said this "staged" information is a way to further the Palestinian cause and to try the views of those who see it. Visitors to seconddraft.org can watch Pallywood, his 19-minute documentary, as well as several segments of unedited footage shot at Netzarim Junction, a disputed territory in the Middle East." Daily Free Press
"They dub the Palestinian propaganda complex, "Pallywood," and ask hard questions about the readiness -- eagerness -- of much of the world media to be deceived" National Post
"Right-wing bloggers have dubbed that "Pallywood."" Toronto Star
"to the dissemination of "Pallywood" terrorist video productions" Kansas City Star & Augusta Chronicle (Michelle Malkin)
And assorted non-mainstream sources: a letter to the editor, Atlas Shrugs, The Jawa Report, Say Anything, and some Second Draft press releases.
Notice both that all uses of the word are attributed to someone else (normally Landes), except for Michelle Malkin (who still writes in parentheses), rather than using the word as part of their usual vocabulary to describe the phenomenon of media manipulation. Clearly the word is both a marginal neologism but, more importantly, is not widely used to describe media manipulation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and is thus an unnacceptable title for an article about said subject --Coroebus 21:00, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
Should probably also point out WP:NEO:
Support for article contents, including the use and meaning of neologisms, must come from reliable sources. Wikipedia is a tertiary source that includes material on the basis of verifiability, not truth. To support the use of (or an article about) a particular term we must cite reliable secondary sources such as books and papers about the term — not books and papers that use the term. (Note that Wiktionary is not considered to be a reliable source for this purpose.)
Neologisms that are in wide use — but for which there are no treatments in secondary sources — are not yet ready for use and coverage in Wikipedia. They may be in time, but not yet. The term does not need to be in Wikipedia in order to be a "true" term, and when secondary sources become available it will be appropriate to create an article on the topic or use the term within other articles.
An editor's personal observations and research (e.g. finding blogs and books that use the term) are insufficient to support use of (or articles on) neologisms because this is analysis and synthesis of primary source material (which is explicitly prohibited by the original research policy). To paraphrase Wikipedia:Attribution: If you have research to support the inclusion of a term in the corpus of knowledge that is Wikipedia, the best approach is to arrange to have your results published in a peer-reviewed journal or reputable news outlet and then document your work in an appropriately non-partisan manner.
--Coroebus 11:39, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for those data points, Coroebus. I did a search on Factiva and found 17 results; all the same media articles you quoted, plus a few press releases from Landes himself. The fact that we've had virtually identical results from two different databases shows, I think, that the term has had only very limited media coverage and no regular usage at all. -- ChrisO 01:51, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Richard Landes' film "Pallywood"

The term "Pallywood" was popularised among bloggers by a 17-minute personally authored, self-distributed video essay of the same title by Richard Landes, a medieval historian at Boston University. It's never been reviewed in any mainstream source and it lacks any other notable aspects as a film - for instance, it has no IMDB entry. It's also purely self-published. The latter fact raises questions about whether we should be citing it in the first place (see also the next point). What makes it notable? -- ChrisO 00:15, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Responses to this question

Nobody has claimed that the film itself is notable, though it may be. Strawman argument that needs no further response. --Leifern 19:22, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Richard Landes' political views

"Pallywood" the film is essentially a vehicle for Landes' personal political views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Landes is a medieval historian; he's not an expert on the I-P conflict, he's never published any academic papers or books on it, as far as I know he's not written newspaper articles about it and his self-published material appears not to have been quoted by any mainstream sources that I've come across. His own user page at Boston University makes no mention of his Middle Eastern activism [10]. In short, it appears to be an entirely private endeavour, separate from anything he's doing academically.

Clearly this falls well outside the scope set out by WP:ATT: "Where a well-known, professional researcher, writing within his or her field of expertise has produced self-published material, these may be acceptable as sources, so long as his or her work has been previously published by reliable, third-party publications" (my bolding). Why are Landes' personal views notable, given that he's acting in a personal capacity outside his field of expertise and doesn't seem to be regarded by mainstream sources as an expert (or even a reliable source) on Middle Eastern affairs? -- ChrisO 00:15, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Responses to this question

Again, a strawman argument. Nobody has claimed Landes's political views are notable, not even - as far as I know - he himself has done that. Question needs no further answering. --Leifern 19:22, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

General responses

ChrisO, we have gone over all these arguments before in the AFD. The term gets lots of hits on Google, even if you substract out those that mention Landes. I have nowhere before in Wikipedia come across an argument that it needs to be cited in Lexis/Nexis a certain number of times to be notable. And I reject your premise that the topic of media fraud is covered adequately in other articles. This article has gone through an AFD before; it failed. Let it go.--Leifern 01:14, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
I suggest you have a look at some quotes from previous discussion on a very similar article, and compare with the current discussions. --Coroebus 20:56, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for posting that - I've not been following that debate. I won't say I'm surprised at what you've found. -- ChrisO 22:34, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
All of us who believe this article should exist, base it on the premise that it is about a number of specific (alleged or documented) incidents in which anti-Israeli activists have staged news events for propaganda purposes. As I have pointed out on discussions about Allegations of Israeli apartheid, the "apartheid" charge is not about specific incidents - the vast majority of these are undisputed - but about an interpretation of what those incidents are motivated by and what they are intended to accomplish. Nobody has proposed that this article be about the term Pallywood, or the movie, or Landes's political views, and so your putting those up amounts to a strawman fallacy. As for the point that this phenomenon is already covered in another article, this a) has been rejected through the AFD; and in any case should be proposed through other avenues. --Leifern 18:50, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
You seem to be unaware of Wikipedia:Notability (emphasis added): "A topic is generally notable if it has been the subject of published material which is independent of the subject, reliable, and most importantly, attributable. The depth of coverage and quality of sources must be considered in determining the number of sources required and whether the coverage establishes notability. Multiple sources are preferable and should be independent of each other... For example, popular Internet fads may be the subject of few or no reliable sources and fail to be notable" I don't believe we've ever accepted Argumentum ad populum as a valid argument for notability. But thank you anyway for addressing one aspect of the issue, albeit a question I wasn't asking. Could you please answer my four specific notability questions above? I'd like to get the answers on the record, since none of this article's proponents seem to have given any policy-based (as opposed to politics-based) rationale for the article's notability. -- ChrisO 01:39, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
As for point number (1) - I'm thinking that the article should possibly me made into a sub category (such as History of Israel on Israel) on an article titled: "Arab Media Manipulation" article, a generic "media covrage" article would make a search for "pallywood" impossible and would render wikipedia unusable for a person who wishes to learn about the phenomenon. Chris and Coroebus, all your other points are pointless and repetative "notability questioning" which has allready been addressed with on the AfD voting. Jaakobou 17:55, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
  • I think the notability tag should be removed. First, although this isn't always the case, it is most of the time: if an AfD doesn't show consensus to delete, the subject in question is at least somewhat notable. This is one of those cases. A variety of sources in at least three different forms of media have been supplied, and, while I question the reliablity of the groops.goougle link, all the others I can see look reliable enough to serve this purpose, which is asserting the notability of this term.
  • Second of all, what does the pro-tag group of editors think leaving that ugly tag there is going to accomplish? The Wikipedians most qualified to write this article are already here - no one who patrols the category which that tag feeds into is going to come along and assert more notability than is asserted now (and, as I already noted, it asserts plenty.) This coming from someone who 1) geniunely doesn't care for either side in the Arab-Israeli dispute and 2) is a deletionist with higher standards for notability than many. Picaroon 01:58, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Landes film

I'm confused about why we said this was self-distributed. It was broadcast by 60 Minutes. Do we mean that he previously arranged for it to be broadcast elsewhere, or was 60 Minutes the first North American showing of it? SlimVirgin (talk) 18:50, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

You are mistaken. The film Pallywood contains footage from 60 minutes, but it was not broadcast on the show. There also has been mentions on 60 minutes of the term Pallywood (I think, it would be best to find the original transcripts to document this), but the documentary itself was not shown in full (if anything a quick bit of it might have been briefly shown to illustrate a point, as they commonly do in their stories.) If you think about it, it doesn't make sense for the documentary to be shown in the medium as 60 minutes is all about original reporting by its star team, it does not rebroadcast features made by others. --70.48.242.216 21:35, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
Further research indicates that CBS 60 minutes may not even have mentioned the term Pallywood or devoted a segment to it. Rather bloggers and others have accused CBS 60 Minutes of doing a "Pallywood" segment, a segment that is alleged to be based on anti-Israel staging. I can understand how these two things can be confused. --70.48.242.216 21:41, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
I'm totally confused. The CBS thing clearly uses the word Pallywood in the title. I thought it was the Landes film. You're saying it was something else, and only used footage from the Landes film. But the two begin identically. What is leading you to say they were different films? SlimVirgin (talk) 23:26, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
A secondary concern is the OR link to a newsgroup posting in order to make the claim that the term has been used for a number of years. IMHO, both the OR claim based on the newsgroup posting and the claim that CBS 60 Minutes broadcast the documentary have got to go. I am sure there are sources that can be used instead of the OR newsgroup source in order to establish the usage of the term prior to the appearance of the Pallywood documentary, but this is not my area of expertise. --70.48.242.216 22:18, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
My experience is that the clique editing this article have no interest in WP:NOR, WP:NPOV, WP:RS, WP:V or indeed anything other than their own narrow partisan POV. The article is an exercise in soapboxing - nothing more. -- ChrisO 22:22, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
Chris, I've never edited an article without trying to stick to NOR, V, and NPOV, so I'd appreciate it if you'd withdraw what you said. SlimVirgin (talk) 23:26, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
I didn't call you part of the clique. -- ChrisO 23:29, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
ChrisO, I suppose we can exchange insults, but what I find is that there is a far more active clique that seems to be very anxious to remove not just this article but any mention of the specific and documented incidents that substantiates it. If anything is partisan, it's that relentless effort to censor very inconvenient truths. --Leifern 22:35, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
Trust me, your activities and those of your enablers have been noted by more than just myself. -- ChrisO 23:00, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
I've removed the OR claim and I have removed the claim that it was broadcast on 60 minutes. The first usages of the term should be added back in when someone finds an appropriate source. The claim of the broadcast on 60 minute I fear is simply incorrect. I did a search on the CBSNews.com website for Pallywood and it turned up 0 hits even though there is usually a separate news story on CBSNews.com for each 60 minutes segment going back much further than 2005 (the date that the article claimed it was broadcast.) It may have been removed from their website, but I doubt it. --70.48.242.216 22:26, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
Anonymous editor, please familiarize yourself with WP policies and standards before trying to uproot articles. Among other things, if there is an undocumented claim, you should tag it as lacking in reference rather than deleting it. --Leifern 22:35, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
Hi Liefern, I am very familiar with Wikipedia policies. Thanks. I've used Google to translate to English the original German source of the 60 minutes claim. It reads: In the media one speaks 60 Minutes since an look up-exciting documentation of the US magazine „“of „Pallywood “- following Hollywoods film industry. I can't say for sure what that means except there is a connection between Pallywood and 60 minutes. On this page, it describes the main Pallywood movie as "An 18-minute edited film by Richard Landes that critically explores the al Dura incident and subsequent media treatment, including a 60 Minutes report (download 39 MB)." This second mention strongly suggests that the film Pallywood includes the 60 minutes report as part of its critical examination of the incident. I am going to download the movie to see what the 60 minutes report is about and whether or not it includes a rebroadcast of the movie as this article previously claimed, but I strongly doubt it at this point. --70.48.242.216 22:40, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
The film Pallywood opens with a 60 minutes report about the conflict and then goes on to criticize it and other media coverage. I guess that settles what the primary connection between Pallywood and 60 minutes is. There might be another connection, but I haven't seen any sources to that extent. --70.48.242.216 22:48, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
So this is not a 60 Minutes segment? SlimVirgin (talk) 23:28, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
So, interesting that you should discount a reference in a language you don't know. As it is, I do read German, and the relevant paragraph is this:

Pallywood


...which translates to:


--Leifern 22:52, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Bad grammar on Landes' part, I'd say. It sounds like his non-notable video essay includes the "60 Minutes" segment in an attempt to lend it some credibility. If so, the line 70.* quoted should have read something like: "An 18-minute edited film by Richard Landes that critically explores the al Dura incident and subsequent media treatment, including and includes a 60 Minutes report." -- ChrisO 23:00, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
There are many claims on the web that Pallywood is a documentary shown on 60 Minutes, but there are no good sources to this extent (and it doesn't make logical sense as that isn't what 60 Minutes does, it does original reporting only.) I believe that this resulted from people misunderstanding that 60 Minutes was one of the main subject of the film. I recommend that you contact the professor who created the documentary to clear this up once and for all. I am done with this issue. You are free to include in this article whatever content makes you happy, I won't stop you. --70.51.235.86 23:03, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
Reposting this here in case you miss it above. Are you saying this was never shown on 60 Minutes? SlimVirgin (talk) 23:30, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
That is exactly what I am saying, that documentary was not shown on 60 Minutes. The documentary leads off with a clip from "60 Minutes", which is why you get that impression, but then the narrator of Pallywood starts talking over the video saying "Millions of viewers watched this in depth news report. Scenes like these of action and injury are a major source of information...." Also you can see from the background image used in the 60 Minutes clip, it is a segment entitled "Crossroads". A quick search turns up some information suggesting that it was originally broadcast in November 2000 and examined the IDF recreation of Mohammed al-Dura shooting as per this mention of the segment in this news article [http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=18774]:
A film crew from CBS' "60 Minutes" was there to capture the re-enactment, and broadcast its report on Nov. 12. The report, titled "The Crossroad," concerned the larger issue of the controversial Jewish settlements in the Gaza strip -- populated by more than one million Palestinians -- and the Israeli army outpost located at the Netzarim junction to protect those settlements. Anchored by Bob Simon, "60 Minutes" characterized the IDF's shooting re-enactment and findings as inconclusive.
When was Pallywood the documentary created? I am pretty sure it was created more recently than 2000. --70.51.235.86 06:36, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
September 2005, according to Landes' press release announcement. ("Boston U. professor claims media 'staged' footage of Middle East conflict", U-Wire press release, September 22, 2005). -- ChrisO 07:13, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Yes, it was created in 2005, I believe. Thank you for that information, and I apologize for not paying proper attention. I did wonder why 60 Minutes would use a film by someone not employed by them, which would be unusual, but instead of letting my confusion tell me something, I shrugged it off. I'm sorry. SlimVirgin (talk) 07:14, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

9/11 celebrations

Liftarn, your source doesn't mention Pallywood. Did we decide sources must actually mention it, or not? SlimVirgin (talk) 08:30, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

True, I put it under the See also instead. // Liftarn
Actually, i'm not sure about the final descision for "sources including the word pallywood", i thought the almost-concensus was that the word is not a neccesity, however the article about the film 'Jenin, Jenin' was repeatedly removed from the "admitted stagings" and from the entire article... and i'm not sure on the "concensus"(?) reasoning for the removal.
In any event, regardless of the descision on the word Pallywood in sources (or lack of it), I believe Pallywood should describe "prominent palestinian produced/staged events meant to villify Israel" (and this inclusion of the celebration article most certainly doesn't fit).
User Liftran, under the assumption of good faith I'm expecting/hoping for a normative reasoning on the inclusion of this linkage... even under "see also". Jaakobou 09:29, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
Why shouldn't it be included? It is clearly realted. If not then a lot of other things should be removed from the See also section. // Liftarn
Please avoid WP:POINT in the future. Why is it "clearly related"? Is it an example of Palestinians faking news stories for effect? Jayjg (talk) 19:25, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
Yes, it is. Not the intended effect obviously, but still a staged event. // Liftarn
Other than to make a WP:POINT, totally irrelevant here. Liftarn, you only discredit yourself with such propagandist edits. ←Humus sapiens ну? 08:40, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
Don't call the kettle black. // Liftarn
DFTT. ←Humus sapiens ну? 09:02, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
So you admit it? // Liftarn

See also

Ok, so what detemines what should be included under See also and what should not? The only I found was Wikipedia:See alsos and that's no good. Wikipedia:Guide to layout#See also gives no guidance either. // Liftarn

Sandbox

The results of our discussions about what this article is actually about seem to be that it is about the phenomenon of "Pallywood", including those events that may be reasonably described as "Pallywood" even if they have not verifiably been so described and (through the negative approach of voting against any alternative) that it should be Called "Pallywood". Now I completely disagree with what seems like the victory of partisan politics over consistency, but so be it.

In which case, the article itself does not seem to represent what most people think it is supposed to be about, in particular, it reads as being about the word "Pallywood", and Landes's film in particular. So I've very roughly cut the article up a bit here as a sandbox to reflect the sort of structure I think it should have. Please comment/contribute. --Coroebus 16:55, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't think that replacing every section with one line really follows from the discussion above. I'm not sure what your vision was, but you may want to reread the Talk. Cheers, TewfikTalk 06:06, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
it's not "horrible", but it's lacking and i don't see a reason to exchange it with the current better version. Jaakobou 10:10, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
Each section is currently lacking because the current article has so little that is actually on the subject. If we are going to say the article is notable because it is about Palestinian propaganda the text should be about that - not the "strawman" topics above of Landes' film and the word itself. --Coroebus 20:30, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
it's getting tiresome to debate what's in and what's out in such a manner, i thought we've gotten some type of consensus and i believe any further conversation should wait until this article (and the general subject) is further contributed to considering the hangup caused by all the recent two month(!) long debate. Jaakobou 11:29, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
Well I think it is useful to have a general structure we can all agree on - after all much of teh argument was on what the article was actually about - it seems silly to then decide that we don't care what state teh article is in - for instance, I would want to expand on the 'examples' section since that is what the article is essentially about, whereas we currently focus excessively on Landes and his film. --Coroebus 14:15, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
if you want to expand on something, go ahead and do it... or at least write it first on the talk page if you're uncertain about it's validity in the article. Jaakobou 10:19, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Foreign Language Sources

What's the policy on foreign language sources (e.g. the various German language ones appearing in the article. Presumably there's a preference for ones in the language of whichever Wiki they're on but are they ok as long as they say what they are meant to support? --Coroebus 14:13, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

If you find an English source about the lucrativeness of the job for palestinians, then it would be preffered to the germen one. Jaakobou 08:44, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
However, online translators (Google, Altavista...) can translate from German to English quite well. For example [11] // Liftarn
I was wondering about the principle really - while the main European languages (Spanish, German, French, Dutch etc) are pretty easy to confirm the content of, what about the more esoteric ones that we have to take someone's word on? Also, someone added a German article for "Pallywood" being used in the mainstream press (which obviously Sueddeutsche Zeitung is), but I was wondering whether you can use usage in language X to support a claim in language Y - I seem to recall something funny about Hafrada along those sorts of lines. --Coroebus 17:29, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Cameramen

Why do people keep trying either to remove this or shorten it? The source is discussing the Pallywood allegation. He makes the point about the cameramen, which is directly relevant for obvious reasons.

Those of you who are trying to keep it out of the article or minimize it — if practically all images that were aired from the West Bank and Gaza were taken by Israeli cameramen, would you be fighting to keep that out of articles about the conflict? SlimVirgin (talk) 20:04, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

I removed it from the intro, then changed it to read closer to the source when you added it back minutes later in its own section. The source reads something like:

The world's large TV-broadcasters, CNN and ABC, news agencies such as Reuters and Associated Press, and German TV-companies work almost exclusively with Palestinian cameramen, if it concerns reports out of the Gaza Strip. The pictures of the hopeless world in the Gaza Strip are made primarily by Palestinians. Working as a cameraman for western media is considered to be one of the most lucrative jobs in the Palestinian areas. Some earn up to 250 USD a day. Some Palestinian families do not even earn as much in half a year.

Rather than the original odd phraseology "Pictures that are aired to the world...'cameraman to western media'" (which was better in the version you added that I accidentally wrote over). I was hardly trying to prove some partisan point by reflecting better what the source says (incidentally, I still don't like the "Images sent around the world from the West Bank and Gaza Strip" line which both includes references to the West Bank that isn't in the source, and the odd phrase "images sent around the world" which isn't in the source).
The source is discussing the allegation of fabrication but that does not mean that every line from the article must be repeated here which is why I removed the reference to how much cameramen make, and wages in Palestine, because I'm not clear what the relevance to the article is. I don't particularly care about keeping it but I don't see why we should. But then we're not trying to make an encyclopedic article but rather further just another battle in a tired and predictable little media war. --Coroebus 21:19, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
I can't see a legitimate reason to remove it. The source is discussing Pallywood. He uses the term explicitly. He makes the clearly relevant point that the Western media relies almost entirely on Palestinian cameramen for images from that area, and that the job is an extremely highly paid one compared to almost any other in the area.
As I said, if this was an article about whether images coming out of that area were too pro-Israeli, and if one of the sources pointed out that all the images are taken by Israeli cameramen, you and CJCurrie would be clamouring to have that material included. I can only imagine the howling that would take place if anyone tried to remove it. Please try to be fair and consistent. SlimVirgin (talk) 22:48, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
The article (google translation here) is discussing the Gaza Beach explosion, and it mentions "Pallywood" right at the end saying (can't be bothered to clean up the translation):

Pallywood The fact that Palestinians in the Middle East war falsify around the pictures or bring wrong pictures in circulation is not new. In the media one speaks 60 Minutes since an look up-exciting documentation of the US magazine „“of „Pallywood “- following Hollywoods film industry. In the documentation are to be recognized for example Palestinians from the youngest Intifada, which carry a dead one on a stretcher. One stolpert, the alleged dead one falls on the soil - and jumps swiftly again back on the stretcher, lies down and acts like a dead one.

Recent example of the attempt of Palestinians to lead around the world public at the nose is the attack of the Israeli Air Force on past Tuesday on three members „of the Islamic holy war “, with which eight civilians, among them two children, were killed. After the attack on the car, in which the members of the group of terror sat, one sees three men short, how they remove a short-range missile in wind hurry from the car.

But the reference to Palestinian cameramen comes near the beginning and is not explicitly linked to Pallywood allegations. My objection is to the wording (I don't mind a reference to most Gaza Strip cameramen being Palestinian particularly, but may move it to a Palestine specific section when I expand the examples since it isn't relevant to Lebanon), which I don't think represents the source very well, and to the pay reference, which is interesting but I can't see the relevance for unless you're trying to imply something. It is not about whether you "can't see a legitimate reason to remove it" but whether there is a legitimate reason to keep it. --Coroebus 10:19, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
If the source is truly "discussing the Pallywood allegation" and the reference is "directly relevant", then we should make the connection explict. CJCurrie 22:45, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
By all means read the article and do that. SlimVirgin (talk) 22:48, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
I can't read German, Slim. Could you please tell me if the author has drawn a specific connection between "western reliance on Palestinian cameramen" and "allegations of Pallywood"? If no such connection exists, then I will reiterate my contention that the paragraph should be deleted. CJCurrie 22:52, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
I don't rememeber how explicitly he draws the connection, but it's in the same article. I feel you're engaged in WP:POINT now. Please answer this honestly: Suppose the article were called "Israelwood," and it was about how the Israeli govt distorts images coming out of the West Bank and Gaza. Suppose we found a mainstream newspaper article that reported that almost all images aired in the Western media from that area are taken exclusively by Israeli cameramen working on a freelance basis, often working alone, who are paid an enormous amount compared to the averge wage. The newspaper article explictly uses the term "Israelwood."
What would your response be if I kept on deleting the information on the grounds that it was irrelevant to Israelwood; and then I conceded it could remain only if the source has drawn an explicit connection between Israelwood and the fact that all such images are taken exclusively by Israelis — an even more explicit connection than discussing the same two issues in one article? Would you not now be halfway up a wall, tearing your hair out and screaming at me? SlimVirgin (talk) 23:08, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
You may find this hard to believe, but it wouldn't necessarily prove anything if a mainstream newspaper reported that most images aired in the western media from the West Bank and Gaza were taken by Israeli cameramen working on a freelance basis. The report would be significant if a majority of the cameraman were representatives of the government or military (or a settler group), or if they were generally believed to share a common political bias. The mere fact of nationality, however, would not be sufficient grounds for us to include the reference. For all we know, half of our hypothetical cameramen could be Peace Now members.
As currently worded, this article simply states that a majority of cameraman are Palestinians working for high wages relative to their communities, and leaves the obvious insinuation that the images are "not to be trusted" for that reason. I find this more than a bit insulting, to say nothing of it being unencyclopedic.
Unless the source article has made a specific connection between the accusation of "Pallywood" and the nationality of the cameramen, the reference should be removed as irrelevant to the subject matter. Could I please request that someone who can read German review the source text, and determine its applicability? CJCurrie 00:19, 5 April 2007 (UTC)


This whole argument nicely underlines my concerns about foreign language sources. --Coroebus 10:19, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
I agree, there does seem to be a bit of an insinuation in the phrasing - it implies there's an economic motive without coming right out and saying it (or attributing that claim). If people feel that the point needs to be made - I'm not sure it's encyclopedic, given how speculative it is - it would be more satisfactory if we could say something like "according to X, the high wages (relative to local averages) paid to Palestinian cameramen may give them an incentive..." I don't think we should be trying to express it as a bare fact and leaving the reader to connect the dots. What do you think? -- ChrisO 06:16, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
I would expect editors to start complaining that the article 'doesn't say that', and that it is OR. In this kind of case where the source articulates a clear implication without stating the conclusion as clearly, it is best to maintain the same level of ambiguity or detail as the source does, hence keep the current phrasing. TewfikTalk 18:59, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
In other words, to convey the insinuations of the source material? I'm sorry, but I'm not convinced that this is a good idea. CJCurrie 23:16, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Article is severely POV

The lead of this article today [12] is reasonable (if we accept that Wikipedia functions as a dictionary and not just as an encyclopaedia). But every subsequent line and section seems to have been written in order to POV that "Palestinians manipulate the media and Israel gets a raw deal". There is nothing included that could be called NPOV. Readers of this article could be excused for thinking they'd been reading propaganda. And not even well produced propaganda - note that the incidents refered to were all triggered by Israel. In only one of those cases might Palestinian cameramen even seem to have capitalised on actions by Israel! PalestineRemembered 15:42, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

This article is about Palestinian media manipulation. Obviously it will deal with Palestinian media manipulation. If you can come up with enough notable sourced material about Israeli media manipulation, feel free to create an article. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 15:48, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
I don't know what you mean by "triggered by Israel," but that's beside the point. PalestineRemembered, the article is about allegations of a certain phenomenon. It is up to the reader to determine whether these allegations are substantiated enough to be believed, it is not up to you to decide whether they should hear about them. --Leifern 16:52, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
I do think there's a point on the 1st line that needs clarification (which I've done). The previous version said: "Pallywood (a portmanteau of "Palestinian" and "Hollywood") refers to news events that are alleged to have been staged by Palestinian and other cameramen to portray Israel in an unfavorable light." The term is obviously a neologism - you won't find it in any dictionary - so I've noted this. More fundamentally, "Pallywood" is a term which is used to refer to allegations that news events have been staged - it's a shorthand for a series of charges, in a similar sort of way to how "Watergate" is used as a shorthand to refer to a number of discrete events. To reflect this, I've changed the line to read "Pallywood (a portmanteau of "Palestinian" and "Hollywood") is a neologism used to refer to allegations that news events have been staged by Palestinian and other cameramen to portray Israel in an unfavorable light."
I think it would be useful to say who exactly uses the term, as we don't say that at the moment. Plainly it's a partisan term used by supporters of Israel; I can't imagine any Palestinian sources using it, for instance. It's not in the same category as "Watergate", which everyone uses regardless of partisan allegiances. -- ChrisO 10:32, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
i thought the change was a linguistic error. Jaakobou 15:38, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
Thankyou for explaining to us the real point of editing this article. It is not "in order to help people understand the word Pallywood" (which would be a contravention of Wikipedia policy anyway, as I said), but is to WP:SOAPBOX and "deal with Palestinian media manipulation". Perhaps closer attention to the policies of Wikipedia would benefit everyone concerned, including genuine editors who are here to write an encyclopaedia and not have their time wasted. PalestineRemembered 15:57, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
please avoid personal attacks. an AfD was raised two months ago and many people have participated on the discussions. the phrasing "refer to allegations that news events have been staged" is a linguistic mistake which makes pallywood refer to allegations rather than be the title of such allegations. as for the "neologism", it is, as a co-editor allready explained to me in the past - a redundant repetition. Jaakobou 16:09, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
I removed "admitted," because the source is Front Page Magazine and World Net Daily; because they're referring to just one filmmaker; and because he apparently admitted to artistic licence, not to the staging of a news event, so the example is not quite what's being discussed here. SlimVirgin (talk) 18:50, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for that explanation. I'm not familiar with FPM, but the WND stories I've read have all been frothingly insane (e.g. "[http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=53327 Soy is making kids gay]" - hard to believe that's not in The Onion!). I can understand why it's widely nicknamed WorldNutDaily; I absolutely wouldn't use it as a source for anything. -- ChrisO 18:57, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
Well, I thought I had removed it, but my edit's not showing up in the history; I must have had an edit conflict with you, Chris, or there was a server glitch. I agree about WND. Front Page Mag's worth avoiding too, as a rule of thumb. Occasionally, it'll have something okay in it, which is why I don't like to rule it out entirely, but on the whole it's pretty extreme. SlimVirgin (talk) 19:04, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
You did remove it, quite some time ago; Jaakobou restored it to the article a few edits ago and has repeatedly been restoring it since. -- ChrisO 19:13, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
I removed it again around the same time you did today, but the edit didn't show up. And now I've done it again. Jaakobou, the source isn't good enough. It's Front Page Mag referring to World Net Daily referring to some deposition. But even with a good source, it's not appropriate for the lead, because it's just one filmmaker admitting to something unclear. The point of the lead is to provide an overview of the subject, which is that the term Pallywood is used to refer to allegations that ... etc. SlimVirgin (talk) 19:22, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
  • some links to validate the admittion and lie in jenin, jenin:

http://e.walla.co.il/?w=/214/675518 bakri in admission. http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasite/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=328872 by prof. einhorn. http://www.bambili.com/bambili_news/katava_main.asp?news_id=5662&sivug_id=6 paraphrasing the judge as approving lies to be aired and that in her opinon the free market will decide.

It's just not appropriate for the lead. If you have a source that clearly refers to the film as an example of Pallywood (or, even without using that term, refers to it as an example of the thing that "Pallywood" refers to), then you could create a section on it, but it would have to be written carefully, with good sources and no OR. SlimVirgin (talk) 19:28, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
the links make it quite clear that this is an example that the public regards as a palestinian attempt to villify israel and israeli soldiers. i'm adding a few other links which illustrate that part:

http://e.walla.co.il/?w=/201/856175 http://e.walla.co.il/?w=/214/405284 http://www.business.msn.co.il/news/Internal/CultureEducation/200502/20050223163700.htm

-- Jaakobou 19:58, 22 April 2007 (UTC)


User:Jaakabou - you've been informed of Wikipedia policy before - non-English web-sources may be acceptable if you provide a translation done by a WP:RS. Posting 3 foreign-language URLs is not following policy. PalestineRemembered 19:44, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
like i've allready said: it's about direct quotes - not general refrences. Jaakobou 19:58, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
This seems to be an example of creative license rather than staging as such, so it wanders off-topic a little. SlimVirgin (talk) 20:12, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
i'm reading from your reaction that you don't read hebrew. Jaakobou 21:07, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
There's nothing about staging. Which source are you relying on for which claim? SlimVirgin (talk) 21:09, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
here's an admitted staging (a.k.a "mistake" editing) and a long explanation about one of the frauds in the film. and here - a prof. talks about some more of the blatant lies in the movie ("bombarded the hospital 11 times", "hand cuffed a handicap and then murdered him in cold blood", "the tank ran over him, i swear to god, went on top of him over and over and kneeded him into a paste together with the ground") and that freedom of sppech is a foundation rule but it does not protect the spreading of lies.
extra sources
camera review of both films - "jenin, jenin", and "the road to jenin"
another article calling: "The movie is riddled with outright lies, misstatements, half-truths, and Palestinian propaganda."
I figure this establishes the "pallywood" attribution, and also the admitted part. Jaakobou 08:59, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
Bakhari doesn't admit to staging events in these links, or even to deliberate creative editing, but to having made "mistakes" in the way he edited certain sequences. He admits to creating false impressions, but says he did it unintentionally. Whether he's to be believed or not, this is not what's normally meant by Pallywood. Landes was using Pallywood to refer to the entire staging of events. There's clearly a connection between that and creative editing, but the sources you've found aren't strong enough for Wikipedia to make that connection without it being OR. SlimVirgin (talk) 18:55, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
Can we have some translations (of the reliable sources) please - this is the English language wikipedia and if we allow untranslated/not readily translatable foroeign language sources like this we may as well hand over control to anyone who can find sources in a language we can't verify. --Coroebus 10:04, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
i can translate it, but i don't think it would qualify - my wuestion is, why would anyone object/contest to something that has been validated by numereous sources including the infamous frontpagemag, but also the far less infamous israeli supreme court of justice? (yes, no trasnlations there either). Jaakobou 11:31, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps because they just have your word for it. --Coroebus 11:33, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
and non of the links is worth anything? here's an english one ""Jenin, Jenin" was banned in December for its portrayal of fictional events as truth.", ""The film portrays itself as a documentary, and presents so-called testimonies and facts," the reservists charged in their lawsuit. The soldiers claim the film includes scenes of alleged cruelty on their part, including unjustified gunfire and the harming of innocent children, and that all these incidents are fabricated." - Jaakobou 12:32, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
That link is a source to that five IDF reservists didn't like the movie. It only gives information about the opinion of those reservists. // Liftarn
Amnon Rubinstein from Haaretz: comentary, and reprint (scroll down) - archived original. i think among my links, there were quite a few more people than just the 5 reservists. get over it, the film was considered palestinian propaganda also by the supreme court judge who allowed it's screening. Jaakobou 12:56, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
I think the problem is that the only evidence you have that it is 'admitted' to be fabricated ultimately derives from [http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=42404 worldnetdaily] who say they have "obtained" a deposition by Bakri that says X, Y, and Z. I can't seem to source any other references to this deposition. --Coroebus 13:08, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Sabra and Shatila?!

This section says "citation needed." Indeed. But can someone explain how this would qualify as an example of "pallywood"?--G-Dett 21:11, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

I simply expanded the examples of pallywood previously in the article. If a reference cannot be found then it should go. --Coroebus 21:14, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
In that the massacre had little to do with Israel, and was not conducted by Israel, but was still portrayed by the media as an Israeli action, failing to mention the Lebanese militias who actually committed the massacre. It doesn't necessarily satisfy our definition of (news events alleged to have been staged by Palestinian and other cameramen to portray Israel in an unfavorable light), but it is indeed a perversion of a real event (not staged) to portray Israel in an unfavorable light. Granted, I don't mind if you remove the section (I didn't add it anyway), but the above is probably the rationale used for adding it originally. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 21:17, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
Are there people editing this article who believe the term "Pallywood" should include any media coverage alleged by some to be biased against Israel? Whether or not the coverage is Palestinian, and whether or not it allegedly involves staging?--G-Dett 21:25, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
Yes, and they'll probably be by in a minute to revert you. --Coroebus 21:36, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
Someone's going to revert-war over unsourced material not directly related to the article topic?--G-Dett 21:39, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
Hard to believe, but there it is. The story of this article's development has been one long series of violations of WP:SOAP. -- ChrisO 21:42, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
I believe you've mistaken this article for Allegations of Israeli apartheid. Jayjg (talk) 23:23, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
No, that would be WP:POINT, like your creation of all the "Allegations of x apartheid" articles. But we won't get onto that topic here. -- ChrisO 23:25, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
Your sentence is unclear, and I believe I created only one of the seven "Allegations of apartheid" articles, so your claim is false as well. And if you don't want to get into something here, then don't, instead of doing the opposite. Jayjg (talk) 23:29, 1 May 2007 (UTC)