Talk:Ofer Cassif

This article must adhere to the biographies of living persons (BLP) policy, even if it is not a biography, because it contains material about living persons. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately from the article and its talk page, especially if potentially libellous. If such material is repeatedly inserted, or if you have other concerns, please report the issue to this noticeboard.

This page is about a politician who is running for office or has recently run for office, is in office and campaigning for re-election, or is involved in some current political conflict or controversy. For that reason, this article is at increased risk of biased editing, talk-page trolling, and simple vandalism.

If you are a subject of this article, or acting on behalf of one, and you need help, please see this help page.

Israel Mid‑importance

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Israel, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Israel on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.IsraelWikipedia:WikiProject IsraelTemplate:WikiProject IsraelIsrael-related

Mid

This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

Project Israel To Do:

Here are some tasks awaiting attention:

Assess : Rate the Unassessed Israel-related articles and Unknown-importance Israel-related articles.
Cleanup : Cleanup listing for this project is available. See also the list by category and the tool's wiki page.
Collaborate : Participate in WikiProject Israel Palestine Collaboration.
Copyedit : Timeline of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict in 2005
Deletion sorting : Participate in discussions at WikiProject Deletion sorting/Israel.
Expand : Ayala Procaccia, Diamond industry in Israel, Edna Arbel, Levin Kipnis, Rami Kleinstein, Sephardic Haredim, Zman Tel Aviv, Nachum Heiman, Public Defence (Israel), Prisoner of Zion, Trial of Benjamin Netanyahu, Day to Mark the Departure and Expulsion of Jews from the Arab Countries and Iran, Pre-Modern Aliyah
See also Articles needing translation from Hebrew Wikipedia.
Geographical coordinates : Add geographic coordinates to Israel articles missing geocoordinate data.
Infobox : Add infoboxes to Israel articles needing infoboxes.
Maintain : See Israel articles needing attention.
Map : See discussion at Module:Location map/data/Israel. Add maps to articles in Wikipedia requested maps in Israel.
NPOV : Jewish exodus from Arab and Muslim countries
Photo : Add pictures to articles in Wikipedia requested photographs in Israel.
Stubs : See Israel stubs.
Update : Basic Law proposal: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People
Other :
- Translate to Hebrew : David Bar-Hayim, Guy Bavli, and Guy Oseary.

Politics Low‑importance

	Politics portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Politics, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of politics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PoliticsWikipedia:WikiProject PoliticsTemplate:WikiProject Politicspolitics
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Biography: Politics and Government

	Biography portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography, a collaborative effort to create, develop and organize Wikipedia's articles about people. All interested editors are invited to join the project and contribute to the discussion. For instructions on how to use this banner, please refer to the documentation.BiographyWikipedia:WikiProject BiographyTemplate:WikiProject Biographybiography
	This article is supported by the politics and government work group (assessed as Low-importance).

Socialism Low‑importance

	Socialism portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Socialism, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of socialism on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.SocialismWikipedia:WikiProject SocialismTemplate:WikiProject Socialismsocialism
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

"Far-left"

Calling him far-left, especially by sources critical of him, can't be put in Wikipedias voice in the lead. Please mind NPOV on this BLP article. It should be attributed and in context. So something like "After Cassifs criticism of Israel, many commentators have considered his positions to be 'far-left'".VR _talk 14:18, 11 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Not really seeing the issue here. Bezalel Smotrich is rightly referred to as far-right in his bio, so not sure why the equivalent wouldn't be done here. Cassif is a representative of the Communist Party, so this isn't really a disputed label. Cheers, Number 5 7 14:39, 11 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes it is. Other sources describe him as merely "left-wing"[1][2] or "leftist"[3][4]. VR _talk 14:53, 11 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I can see, only the MSNBC actually labels Cassif himself; the others refer to Hadash. And similarly, one can also find sources describing Smotrich as only "right-wing"[5][6][7]

I appreciate far-left is often used as an insult (there were many attempts to label Meretz as far-left on here), but it really shouldn't be an issue to label a Communist politician as such, and there is a false equivalence in labelling Smotrich but not Cassif. Number 5 7 15:10, 11 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Admittedly, there are far more sources on Cassif's party, the Hadash, than there are on Cassif himself. Here are some more sources that directly call Cassif a "leftist"[8][9][10][11][12].

If you start a discussion on Talk:Bezalel Smotrich, please ping me there. VR _talk 15:53, 11 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not going to start a discussion there, as I feel Smotrich is correctly labelled. I am concerned about the poor rationale for removing what should be an uncontroversial label here. Number 5 7 15:56, 11 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Also if Cassif is a communist, first that should be added to the article, and second a communist label is more specific than far-left. But is he a communist? VR _talk 16:05, 11 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, he is a member of Maki. It mentions in the Al Jazeera source you cite above that he is a "proud communist". Number 5 7 16:10, 11 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

In that communist would be much more specific. Far-left, per our own wiki page, is ambiguous. VR _talk 16:54, 12 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There's no issue here. Far-left is not an insult or the opinion of opposing commentators, which would be WP:UNDUE. It's a phrase that multiple RS -- from across the political spectrum -- use to precisely describe his political positions. Compared to center-left parties like Yesh Atid and Labor, Cassif is much further to the left.

Besides, it's completely uncontroversial to label the communist party a "far left" party in any country. This is the same at Bezalel Smotrich, Itamar Ben-Gvir (for which we use even fewer RS to make the case). If one is to make the case for more big-tent terms such as "left-wing" here, then I would expect them to also make the case on other pages where "far-right" or "far-left" is used; otherwise, we're treading into WP:NPOV territory.

Here's Haaretz -- a left-wing, progressive paper of record -- also using "far-left": [13]. Here's Dawn News, a Pakistani paper that is not the most Zionist, also using "far-left": [14]. Here's The Messenger, a centrist, non-Israeli website,also using "far-left": [15] Longhornsg (talk) 19:43, 11 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

And no, he did not "become far-left" by being 1 of 120 Knesset members to support South Africa's ICJ case. There's plenty of souring, including from Haaretz, using that term for many years. Longhornsg (talk) 19:47, 11 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Quote about being a conscientious objector is not impartial.

During the First Intifada, he went to military prison four times as a conscientious objector, for "refusing to oppress the Palestinians, to take part in the oppression and occupation of the Palestinians."

I believe it would be best to reword the idea by removing the quote to maintain WP:IMPARTIAL. The sentence can explain why he was a conscientious objector without including his opinion on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Cassif was sent to military prison four times as a conscientious objector during the First Intifada.

Unbandito, I invite your opinion on this since you were the last person to touch this section. Babyblasphemy (talk) 01:09, 1 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Seems like a clear improvement to me. IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 04:37, 1 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I do think that in order to explain why he was a conscientious objector, we need to include his opinion on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, insofar as it is relevant to his decision not to serve in the IDF. In this case, I felt that the most concise and honest way to explain why he was a conscientious objector was to include a quote from the article where he explains his objection to military service. There might be some way to say it without quoting him directly, but you would end up basically reproducing the quote anyway. Unbandito (talk) 05:36, 1 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

We are clearly indicating this is Cassif's opinion and are not making the statement in Wikivoice. It seems reasonable to include his opinion is his own bio. We quote Cassif and others elsewhere in his bio, such as calling Ayelet Shaked "neo-Nazi scum", "I object to the ideology and practice of Zionism... it's a racist ideology and practice which espouses Jewish supremacy", calling the Israeli government "fascist", "... a government whose members and its coalition are calling for ethnic cleansing and even actual genocide ...". Burrobert (talk) 09:41, 1 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It may be clear to you that is is only Cassif's opinion, but I feel we could do better at emphasizing that. The seamless transition into the quote indicates to me that the quote has more weight than it is due. Perhaps something like so may be a better middle ground:

During the First Intifada, he was sent to military prison four times as a conscientious objector for what he described as "refusing to oppress the Palestinians, to take part in the oppression and occupation of the Palestinians." Babyblasphemy (talk) 02:28, 2 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Fine with me. Burrobert (talk) 06:27, 2 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Sources with regard to the ethics committee reasoning

It would be good if a more immediate source could be attached to the claim about Cassif characterising Jenin armed groups as "freedom fighter[s]". I don't know Hebrew to research it myself. Y. Dongchen (talk) 08:16, 26 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The ToI source says "he described Palestinians fighting against the IDF in the West Bank city of Jenin as “freedom fighter[s]". It doesn't mention "armed groups". What extra source do you need for this? We can't use his actual tweet as a source. The Times of Israel is used five times as a source in Ofer's bio and is generally regarded as sufficient for claims of this type. Burrobert (talk) 11:22, 26 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]