Talk:Hamas

"two spokesmen, four stances"

There appears to be now original research in this article where editors are introducing themes in Hamas' positions that are not found in scholarly sources. For example, can someone tell me which scholars say Hamas had "two spokesmen, four stances"? If not, why is this in the article? VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 01:34, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

I see it was introduced by Corriebertus. In fact, most of that edit appears to be WP:SYNTH and WP:OR. Much of it is also unsourced.VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 01:36, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

I went ahead and changed the section titles, mostly removing what I felt was OR. If anyone has objections, let me know.VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 04:35, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

@Corriebertus: can you kindly explain this edit? VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 08:42, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

Well, that should be very clear: VR has, in a complicated edit on 7 July, ‘decided’ that the truce offer from Yassin came after the year 1992 (by unmotivatedly changing some subheadings) but we don’t have any real information about when that truce offer was made. --Corriebertus (talk) 13:55, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

References for casualties being "vastly" comprised of non-combatants

Only 1 of the 3 references provided actually includes the qualifier "vastly", while the others only mention the estimated number.

If this article must to mention civilian casualties in the latest conflict, it should defer to sources in the more relevant article, Israel–Hamas war, which includes a news article with a quote from a WHO spokesman that estimates a 56% civilian casualty rate, which is not a percentage compatible with the usage of "vastly".

I propose removing the 3 news sources in this article and replacing them the source from the Israel–Hamas war article. Tog000 (talk) 19:44, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

Agreed. The only source for "vast majority" seems to be Anadolu Agency, which WP:RSP says is frequently described as a mouthpiece of the Turkish government that engages in propaganda, owing to its state-run status. More neutral sources also use slightly broader language like "killed during the war" rather than "Israel killed".

I'll just remove the extraordinary claim for now, but no objection if someone wants to add that milder claim with the other source. — xDanielx ^T/_C\^R 16:15, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

Not an extraordinary claim. Even with down revision >50% of the casualties are women and children[1].VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 17:12, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

"Islamic Salvation Party" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect Islamic Salvation Party has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 June 15 § Islamic Salvation Party until a consensus is reached. Anonymous 20:01, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 25 June 2024

Remove Venezuela from the list of state allies in the infobox. Neither of the two sources referenced verify this claim, and it was originally added by a user who is now blocked. Kinsio (talk) 19:47, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

 Done Got approved for extended-confirmed so I did it myself :) Kinsio (talk) 01:45, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 28 June 2024

This claim has no basis in history and seeing as it lacks a source should be removed. "campaigned for the wearing of the hijab, which is not a part of traditional women's attire in Palestine,[citation needed]" The photo for who Khalil Raad is the source in this link (https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2023/5/15/the-photo-archive-bringing-pre-nakba-jerusalem-alive) shows a primary example of a Palestinian women in traditional dress wearing hijab. Numerous other photos exist, but a simple Google search explains that hijab was worn by Palestinian women traditionally and varied by social status and class. Tamush05 (talk) 08:47, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

 Done M.Bitton (talk) 01:42, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 30 June 2024

Add before "political and millitary movement" that it's a terrorist organization. Somebody938467 (talk) 10:11, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

Not done This has been the subject of extensive discussions before and consensus is presently not in favour of doing this for reasons elaborated on there. Yr Enw (talk) 10:23, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

Thats just not good enough. Terroism is "Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of violence against non-combatants to achieve political or ideological aims." According to wikipedia itself which is exactly what Hamas has done for almost a year now. This needs to be corrected regardless of what people think, facts don't care about feelings. 115.189.96.16 (talk) 18:23, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

As I said, this has been the subject of extensive discussions before and consensus is presently not in favour of doing this for reasons elaborated on there. So, if you disagree with that, those discussions are where to air your feelings. But you may not do this at present, due to the decision of the Arbitration Committee to restrict non-EC users (see here) from editing articles or talk pages relating to Israel-Palestine, with the sole exception of creating edit requests (I think it's this one [2]).

Perhaps you also need to read about the Problem of universals to realise these "facts" you're spouting are based on concepts that humans invent to refer to phenomena in the real world. Terrorism is a word, a label, a human invention. The violence to which it refers is, of course, real, but what word we use for it isn't as magically set in stone as you suggest. I mean, the word has only existed for a couple hundred years. And if we proceeded to apply it in the way you suggest, it would lose all utility because we'd be sticking it on every page for every single country on earth. Yr Enw (talk) 09:14, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

Conflicting estimates of size of Qassam Brigades

I noticed as of Corriebertus's recent edits there are now two conflicting estimates of the size of the Qassam Brigades in the article. Can anyone familiar with the topic comment on whether there are any sources evaluating the relative reliability of these different estimates? It doesn't really feel right to just say "some sources say this, some sources say that, other sources say third thing..." They're both ranges too, so I feel like the least confusing-for-the-reader way to do this would be to have one estimate inline and if there's a need to put an asterisk on that number, that can be done in a footnote. Kinsio (talk ★ contribs ★ rights) 20:14, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

Notified: Talk:Al-Qassam Brigades. Kinsio (talk ★ contribs ★ rights) 20:27, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

I must say or concede, that my editing on 2 July on section #Military wing was rather lazy and/or lousy. I had found those differing third and fourth estimates of that size of QB in our own sub-article about the topic. So no, we don't have two, we have indeed four estimates. But that can be stated in a more transparant way in our article, I agree. I think though, it is too difficult for us, and/or not our task, to assess which estimate is 'most reliable'. Four estimates lie rather far apart, so I think we may (and must!) assume that the outside world does not have a sharp idea or picture of those brigades' strength etc., and we (Wikipedia) should not try to hide that fact (= the acknowledged uncertainty of that strength) from our readers by giving one simple (seemingly 'certain') estimate and stalling that obvious uncertainty only in a footnote. --Corriebertus (talk) 08:02, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

It sounds like we should find a source discussing the implications of how far apart these estimates are (unfortunately, simply saying that and providing sources A, B, C, and D with the variance in their numbers as evidence would be WP:SYNTH). I'd need to check the sources to be sure but we may even be able to use different sections of the same sources for this, as estimates typically also come with a discussion of the level of confidence associated with them. (And for what it's worth, because of the same sort of WP:OR concerns, I wasn't suggesting that we try to make that determination of reliability, but rather find a source discussing it that we can refer to.)

Corriebertus, since you've been looking into this, could you list the four sources you mentioned here for ease of reference? Kinsio (talk ★ contribs ★ rights) 15:48, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 6 July 2024

decison = decision 2603:8000:D300:3650:B089:CD81:58FB:92D (talk) 22:09, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

 Done Would've been easier to figure out what you meant if you used more words, but I did finally manage to parse it out. Good catch. Kinsio (talk ★ contribs ★ rights) 23:10, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

Restoring summary

I restored the summary of Hamas' political positions verbatim as it existed in this edit I think the summary at the top of every section is important given how long the sections are. And the section on political positions is indeed way too long, with a lot of verbatim quoting. We should ideally be paraphrasing and summarizing.VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 04:37, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Summarizing Hamas' policies towards two-state solution

Given this article is way too long, I'd like to go ahead and summarize the section on Hamas policies towards the two state solution. We should give the most WP:WEIGHT to scholarly sources, and less weight to news reports in news sources that never made it into scholarship. If no one objects, I can start.VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 04:57, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

The many statements of Hamas about how to regard or how to ‘deal’ with (the existence of) Israel are undoubtedly (very) complicated, because, as I explain today in Talk section “two-state solution” Needs not and should not be in that section heading, different spokesmen etc. keep phrasing (perhaps also changing) Hamas’ attitude/policies towards Israel very often differently than the previous time. The fact that those attitudes are often published via news media or ‘charters’ and not via ‘scholars’ doesn’t make them less relevant, but also perhaps not easier to understand. Therefore, I strongly disadvice colleague VR to go ahead with, as he calls it, (drastically) “summarizing the section on Hamas policies towards the two state solution” (ofcourse he means the section on policies towards Israel) for his alleged reasons that the article (and this section!?) would be ‘way too long’ and ‘non-scholarly’ sources should be shunned, slighted, scorned, disregarded or downplayed. Yes, the article is rather long, partly because the Pal.-Isr. conflict is older than a century and very complicated. Especially the issue ‘policies’ is mindtwistingly intricate, thus should get the place and length in the article that it needs for clarity, without smuggling away positions/statements/information that don’t please us, on the pretext that they are ‘not scholarly’ etc.. Western countries including Israel have the infrastructure and facilities and luxury for scholars; many Hamas adherents don’t even have a house, nor much certainty of having a meal (or merely to still live) at the end of the day. Section ‘Policies’ is core business in this article and should be treated with care, not shortened carelessly or for the wrong reasons/motives that I just tackled. If the length of the article really is problematic, I note that two sections are longer than section ‘Policies...’: sections “Organization”, and “Violence” (nearly twice as long, and its subsection “terrorist designation” alone is already almost as long as section “Policies…”). One or both of them might be largely replaced to a sub-article. Especially “Violence” is a rather trivial issue: Hamas is at war, doesn’t deny that, and war means violence. You can spell out every war act of Hamas in great detail, tell them they are terrorist, terrorist terrorist terrorist terrorist, many pages long, but that doesn’t change Hamas much and hardly helps anyone to understand that political/military organisation nor to end that shameful and heart-rending war. That pretty multicolor very long wikitable “Terrorist org.” might be replaced to a subarticle, perhaps even with (most of) that whole topic ‘[Hamas] violence’. --Corriebertus (talk) 21:16, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

“two-state solution” Needs not and should not be in that section heading.

On 7 July, a paragraph of text was parachuted in the top of section Hamas#Policies and attitudes towards Israel (while also things in it were changed/added and its title changed), with a (scarce) motivation suggesting this top text be a “summary” of the whole section. I’m not yet convinced that it indeed is a sufficiently relevant, representative, and balanced (and correct!) summary of that section: even if all separate statements in that parachuted text would be correct – what I’ll further have to check later – that alone wouldn’t guarantee it to be a balanced, useful, ‘good’ summary.
But my two corrections today, on that 7 July edit (after my first correction on 8 July), concern its unmotivated changing of the section title and its undue emphasis on a vague statement of a professor.
There is no concrete, clear, permanent “two-state solution”(-proposal) for ‘the P.-I. conflict’ currently being proposed, discussed or negotiated (in official political circles), and hasn’t been since 15 May 1948 – thus such t.s.-solution-proposal also has never existed during Hamas’ existence (=since 1987) (and the vague contention/opinion of prof. Ayoob mentioned in this section doesn’t change that fact). But then, to use that word ‘t.-s. solution’ as prominently in the heading and also in the first sentence of this (sub)section as is done recently on 7 July would needlessly and unjustly suggest (and thus easily mislead readers into thinking) that there is – especially if the Wiki text even states that Hamas has had (changing/evolving) “policies towards” such a thing. “The” or “a” t.s.-solut. hasn’t existed during Hamas’ lifetime, logically Hamas hasn’t commented on it, logically such comment can’t be found in this Wikipedia article’s section, thus the assertion in this ‘summary’ of Hamas having “evolving policies towards” two-state solution is incorrect and baseless, thus the changed section title incorrect, baseless and misleading. (By the way: saying that a Wiki text or heading can too easily generate incorrect conceptions/ideas of ‘facts’ within some readers’ minds isn’t saying that the involved editor had the deliberate intention to mislead anyone.)
The only information, more or less involving ‘two states’, mentioned in this section, are statements from different Hamas spokesmen and in some Hamas texts, starting 2006, most every time in different wordings, statements that are either vague [March2006;May2010], or alluding to a (not-permanent but) temporary two-state-situation [several offers of truce through the years;1May2017;Jan2024], or both [April2008;Sep2009;Nov+Dec2010;1Nov2023], so all of them Hamas statements – for one or two reasons – do not comment on a/the ‘two-state solution’ within the definition of that term as given in the Wikipedia article on that lemma (and the vague contention/opinion of prof. Ayoob mentioned in the section doesn’t change that fact).

Meanwhile, I’m replacing that statement of prof Ayoob of 2020 (over “two-state solution” etc.) from this summarizing top paragraph to subsection §Comments from non-Hamas-members, because it is very vague and would be overvalued when placed in this summary. A concrete t.s.-solution(in Wiki definition) is currently not in discussion, the 2017charter itself doesn’t propose one, “acceptance of the preconditions…” for a non-existing plan is an extreme vagueness; this (utterly vague) ‘opinion’ of a professor does not even imply or say that Hamas itself has any opinion about any t.s.-solution(in the Wikipedia definition) and thus doesn’t add any concrete information about Hamas’ policies/attitudes towards Israel (or towards ‘t.s.-solut.’), so it may fairly well be placed in subsection §Comments from non-Hamas-members but it would be misplaced, undue, unbalanced/tendentious, unnecessary to have just this one (rather vague) ‘opinion’/statement of one (fairly obscure) professor—among the 19 other opinions in our article of outsiders about Hamas policies etc. — in this summarizing subsection here. (But while replacing it there, it needs also to be corrected, in the way I’ve already explained here on 6March2024.) --Corriebertus (talk) 21:14, 10 July 2024 (UTC)