Jayjg returns to his POV pushing, on I/P topics, of course Options

[Sololol]

I checked back in on ol' Jay just to see what he was up to. He'd always seemed pretty mild-mannered when I'd run into him. If anyone would like to see Jayjg in all his full POV pushing glory go take a gander at his recent activity. After a stint of good behavior he's back at it again.

A particularly uproarious line culled from Jayjg's offensive against including the BBC as a source for "the international community thinks settlements are illegal":
"As is obvious, rock-solid sources also consider the term "international community" itself to be essentially meaningless; I'm sorry that this points out a fundamental flaw in the article's first sentence. You can try to play literary acrobatics as much as you want to, but there are several sources, written in the highest quality publications by experts in the field, that say that the "international community" is an essentially meaningless term."

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=449242561

The master is back in his workshop. Keep the lols rolling, Judah.

[Cla68]

I checked back in on ol' Jay just to see what he was up to. He'd always seemed pretty mild-mannered when I'd run into him. If anyone would like to see Jayjg in all his full POV pushing glory go take a gander at his recent activity. After a stint of good behavior he's back at it again.

A particularly uproarious line culled from Jayjg's offensive against including the BBC as a source for "the international community thinks settlements are illegal":
"As is obvious, rock-solid sources also consider the term "international community" itself to be essentially meaningless; I'm sorry that this points out a fundamental flaw in the article's first sentence. You can try to play literary acrobatics as much as you want to, but there are several sources, written in the highest quality publications by experts in the field, that say that the "international community" is an essentially meaningless term."

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=449242561

The master is back in his workshop. Keep the lols rolling, Judah.

If you guys are going to insist on trying to say that the Israeli West Bank and Golan Heights settlements are illegal in Wikipedia's voice or according to the "international community", you're going to continue to face understandable opposition from other editors, apparently including Jayjg. If you phrase it like this, "According to the International Court of Justice, Stephen Bowen, the BBC, and so-and-so, the settlements are illegal"[followed by extensive sources], then you might make some headway. Insisting on putting controversial statements in Wikipedia's voice or making sweeping generalizations, even if some of the sources are doing so, is not going to get you anywhere.

[nableezy]

If you guys are going to insist on trying to say that the Israeli West Bank and Golan Heights settlements are illegal in Wikipedia's voice or according to the "international community", you're going to continue to face understandable opposition from other editors, apparently including Jayjg. If you phrase it like this, "According to the International Court of Justice, Stephen Bowen, the BBC, and so-and-so, the settlements are illegal"[followed by extensive sources], then you might make some headway. Insisting on putting controversial statements in Wikipedia's voice or making sweeping generalizations, even if some of the sources are doing so, is not going to get you anywhere.

I honestly cant understand this. The supposed controversial statement is that the settlements are illegal, not that the "international community" considers them illegal. There has not been any serious argument put forth that the "international community" does not consider the settlements illegal.

Do you have any idea how long of a list "according to {X}, the settlements are illegal" would be? It would include, for starters, the UNSC, the UNGA (and almost every member state), the ICJ, the ICRC, the high contracting parties of the Geneva Conventions, the EU (and each member state), the Arab League (and each member state), the African Union (and each member state), the OIC. That doesnt even start listing the academic sources, from Adam Roberts, to John Quiqley, to Francis Boyle, .... The sources group all those organizations and states into a group that they call "the international community". They say that this "international community" considers the settlements illegal. How exactly should we include the fact that the illegality of Israel's colonies in the occupied territories is accepted by nearly every single competent party on the planet? Or should we instead pretend that this is a "controversial statement" made by "some of the sources" (or, as in this case, all of the sources with not one opposing)?

That's a reasonable argument. Unfortunately it's not what started this little skirmish. Here's the original edit Jay reverted. Here's the source the contested material was drawn from. And Jay's reasoning. In short, that the BBC can't be considered an RS for legal opinions and that its opinion doesn't belong in the lede.

Note, dear reader, that the BBC isn't actually weighing in on a point of law but reporting what world governments have said. "The British Government believes that Israeli settlements on occupied territory are illegal. So does every other government in the world, except for Israel."

Forget the BBC, citing to that was sloppy. Look at the sources there now, and look at the argument being made against those sources.

[Sololol]

Forget the BBC, citing to that was sloppy. Look at the sources there now, and look at the argument being made against those sources.

Please, that particular talk page post was too good to miss. A sloppy citation is morphed into the BBC attempting to insert its unqualified legal opinion into our innocent encyclopedia. It's almost as good as "we can't talk about the international community because other sources say it doesn't exist." Which is a shame because he could be expanding the rather pathetic section on what the Israeli position actually is as articulated by their legal system instead of the current collection of regurgitated MFA/CAMERA nonsense talking points.
Go read Ian Lustick's "Israel and the West Bank after Elon Moreh: The Mechanics of De Facto Annexation." for an in-depth exploration of the legal framework set up to justify and administer the occupation, it's actually fascinating stuff.