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Genocide perpetrators category

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Since the Gaza genocide page now identifies the genocide as fact rather than allegations, shouldn't Netanyahu be added to the category like with Uyghur genocide perpetrator Chen Quanguo? JPHC2003 (talk) 00:58, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That category is reserved to those who have actually committed genocide, i.e. rebel leaders or army generals. Netanyahu is a head of state. Aesurias (talk) 06:17, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
He is the head of state of a “nation” that is actively committing a genocide, no different to a rebel leader 2405:6E00:2624:D2CC:72:D715:B788:BEAD (talk) 04:23, 14 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm unsure why you would say that because it's categorically untrue. The point about the rebel leader is that they are actively participating as part of a militia (or rebel group). Netanyahu is a democratically-elected (albeit disliked) head of state, and while certain human rights groups have categorized the Gaza war as a genocide, others have said the opposite, and the ICJ proceedings will stretch on through to 2026.
Even if they classified the Gaza War as a genocide, I doubt Netanyahu would be suitable for the list, though army generals would be. The list is full of people who organized and planned specific genocides and massacres, and that is not Netanyahu's area of expertise. Aesurias (talk) 04:43, 14 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Netanyahu has not been adjudicated by any national or international body to be responsible for a genocide(a war crime); the ICC wants to try him, but needs someone to arrest him and hand him over(exceedingly unlikely). WP:BLP applies even to world leaders. 331dot (talk) 08:25, 14 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Just to add to this, he cant be written as accused or in fact until there is a charge and conviction, per BLP rules. The ICC charges do not include genocide. This is like saying someone is accused of murder or is a murderer when they are only charged with assault. ←Metallurgist (talk) 05:11, 3 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

RFC: First sentence

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MOS:FIRSTBIO states that the opening sentance should be "avoiding subjective or contentious terms". I furthermore states that one should "try to not overload the first sentence by describing everything notable about the subject; instead, spread relevant information over the lead paragraph." As such, calling him a "fugitive under international law" seems out of place. Nehushtani (talk) 05:54, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It is neither subjective nor contentious to state that he is a fugitive from the ICC warrant against him- that is just a fact. It can be disagreed with(as he and others do) but that doesn't change the fact that it exists. As a relatively few humans are subject to ICC arrest warrants, it seems important to place in the lead. 331dot (talk) 07:55, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Context
  • For those reading, see the contested change here: [1]
  • Original comment on change in revision history: Added "and fugitive under international law" to lead sentence per ICC arrest warrants according to hundreds of documents meeting WP:RS criteria - highly relevant and WP:NOTABLE information (discussed elsewhere in the article) that is deserving of inclusion in the lead sentence due to its significant political significance. To contest this change, please begin a discussion in the talk page explaining your reasoning.
Summary:
  • Should fugitive under international law be in the lead sentence?
  • Fugitive means "a person (such as a suspect, witness, or defendant) involved in a criminal case who tries to elude law enforcement especially by fleeing the jurisdiction" per the Merriam Webster Dictionary [2]
Response to Nehushtani's claims
Avoid subjective terms
Avoid contentious terms
  • Since there's not many reliable methods to reliably assess the emotional salience of a word, I resorted to the least bad method: giving this prompt to an LLM (ChatGPT) using all example words in WP:CONTENTIOUS except for "-gate" and "pseudo-" and sneaking "fugitive" in the middle:
    • Rate each of the following words based on their emotional saliences on a scale from 1 to 10, assuming this word is being used as a label for an individual: cult, racist, perverted, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, misogynistic, sect, fundamentalist, heretic, fugitive, extremist, denialist, terrorist, freedom fighter, bigot, myth, neo-Nazi, controversial
    • The average of all salience ratings except "fugitive": 7.33
    • The salience rating it gave "fugitive": 6
    • So fugitive is a term below the average of the salience ratings. I think this makes sense at face value considering the example contentious terms provided. This means fugitive is arguably on the outer fringe of contentious labels, which we should factor into our discussion.
  • Per WP:CONTENTIOUS, [contentious terms are] best avoided unless widely used by reliable sources to describe the subject. We have already shown "fugitive" is widely used to describe the subject (Netanyahu), so WP:CONTENTIOUS does not apply.
  • Finally, in this case "fugitive" is a legal term. There is no better term to describe Netanyahu insofar as he is avoiding arrest.
WP:FIRSTBIO says to try to not overload the first sentence by describing everything
  • This is silly. The full sentence was "Netanyahu[a] (born 21 October 1949) is an Israeli politician, diplomat, and fugitive under international law who has served as Prime Minister of Israel since 2022." This does not read like overload.
Additional justification
I have created a WP:RFC for this discussion.
Per this reasoning and current support from 331dot, I am re-implementing this change until the discussion is closed.
Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 07:58, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I am adding to this discussion that Nehushtani is accusing me of violating WP:ONUS per User talk:Alexandraaaacs1989#Your recent edit. Others are welcome to chime in to voice support or opposition. Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 10:32, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I see a discussion has opened up so I'll go over the various points brought up and present my opinion on each one. In all, I disagree with the use of the term "fugitive" in the first sentence:
- Subjectivity: The description doesn't seem subjective, its backed by ample sources and is a reasonable way of putting things
- Contentious: I'm not particularly swayed by ChatGPT's assessment. The term contentious means "likely to cause disagreement or argument". There's no arguing the accuracy of the term, but a term like "fugitive" is undoubtedly going to cause a lot of arguments about the subject and the righteousness of the motivations behind the issuing of the warrant, which seems to be more accurate to the point made at FIRSTBIO. No argument is going to stem from the descriptions "Politician" and "Diplomat" in the same way They're bound to from "Fugitive".
- Notability: The page is supposed to include activities that made the person notable. The arrest warrant is not a primary reason why Netanyahu is notable. The Vast Majority of reporting and sources on Netanyahu, both past and present, discuss his political and diplomatic career. Alexdandraaaacs1989 mentions that he found 281 news articles with the term "ICC arrest warrant". I unfortunately don't have access to the NOW corpus, and I'm sure people more experienced with this sort of search could provide more accurate statistics, but a search for "Benjamin Netanyahu" on Google's news section (with the time set to "All Time") returns 50,000,000 results. Setting the time to Oct. 7th returns 28,400,000 results, and setting it to the issue date returns 4,360,000 results. Assuming that the number of sources referring to the warrant is 10 or even 100 times higher than the mentioned result would mean a fraction of a percentage of sources address the warrant (searching "Benjamin Netanyahu ICC Warrant returns a few thousand results)
- I will also note that a similar discussion (not an RFC) was held over applying the term to Vladimir Putin. The discussion was inconclusive but determined that the term fugitive is inadequate per WP:ASTONISH, I don't know if I agree with that sentiment but I think it warrants a discussion. Totalstgamer (talk) 10:49, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I reverted the inclusion of the sentence until we close because you voiced support.
Contentious can also mean "involving heated argument", which is kind of what I was getting at with the emotional salience thing. Regardless, I think the "likely to cause disagreement or argument" interpretation is resolved by how Netanyahu being a fugitive is an incontrovertible fact according to multiple WP:RS sources, per my prior reasoning.
"fugitive" is undoubtedly going to cause a lot of arguments about the subject and the righteousness of the motivations behind the issuing of the warrant - Such hypothetical arguments are not backed by WP, as Wikivoice policy relating to the Gaza genocide changed to using "there is a genocide" language because there is consensus among experts. If Wikivoice supports claiming genocide, then it certainly supports the much weaker claim of war crimes, which are similarly documented in multitudes.
The arrest warrant is not a primary reason why Netanyahu is notable - Hmm, well even assuming this is true, it certainly implies his controversial nature in modern discourse, which is true to the spirit of his notability. That said, he is literally subject of "the first arrest warrant against the leader of a Western-backed democratic country for war crimes", which is historical and undoubtedly notable.
There are many methodological issues with using Google queries as your basis for querying this type of issue. One is that the nature of Google's query is ambiguous. Google themselves talk about how they "Search uses context to improve results" [4] meaning your search is tailored to your user data, and it's not clearly defined what qualifies an article for inclusion in that number. Even so, 4 million out of 28 million results relating to the ICC warrants (assuming that's what you were saying, since it wasn't exactly clear to me what your query consisted of) is a high ratio.
WP:ASTONISH is interesting. If others agree "fugitive under international law" is too bold of an opening, perhaps we could soften the language to say "...is a politician, diplomat, and the subject of an ICC arrest warrant for war crimes". But I do feel like the "under international law" part softens the word "fugitive" quite a bit because it offers more specific explanation that do not leave the reader shocked, surprised, or confused by what they read.
Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 11:10, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
- On the term fugitive causing arguments - I think the question of whether something should be presented / presented as true is different to the question of including it in the first sentence (Especially given the difference between biographies and other articles). "Likely to cause disagreement" isn't necessarily resolved by the statement being narrowly true, since the point is that the first sentence should be as basic and uncontroversial as possible. This is also why i don't understand the argument that its a hypothetical statement. Is "fugitive" not obviously a more argument-prone term than "politician" and "diplomat"?
- On the reason for notability - Implying is controversial nature in modern discourse is the inverse of what the first sentence is typically supposed to do in biographies, and has absolutely nothing to do with "the spirit" of his notability. Netanyahu is notable for holding political office and for his actions while in office, had they been completely uncontroversial, it would still be the primary reason for his notability
The reason i used google searches is to provide some sort of numerical backing to what is ultimately a pretty foregone conclusion in terms of coverage of Netanyahu. The result i found was not 4 million out of 28 million, it was about 3000 out of 4 or 28 million (depending on how you set the date), which is a very small fraction of overall coverage. Maybe a search of Netanyahu in NOWSearch would provide a better numerical estimate but the scope of coverage of Netanyahu is likely orders of magnitude larger than hundreds or thousands of articles in the last year. Regular coverage of Netanyahu rarely if ever touches on the warrant, and usually only in events inextricably tied to it (such as his recent flight to the united nations), and that is ignoring the overall history of Netanyahu's coverage from before the warrant was issued.
On ASTONISH, i prefer the alternate phrasing you provided, which I think is clearer, but I'm not particularly opposed to fugitive to begin with. Totalstgamer (talk) 12:12, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
When I referenced "hypothetical" arguments, I was saying that while some might contest "fugitive" (like has already happened), it is well-documented by WP:RS and should therefore be included because such claims that it is subjective or controversial are objectively ungrounded in Wiki policy. Marjorie Taylor Greene's lead sentence correctly calls her a conspiracy theorist, which you could oppose on the same grounds, even though this label is objectively true and emotionally salient.
I am just a bit surprised more commenters aren't considering Netanyahu's notability attributable to him being a perceived war criminal by the public. When people think of Netanyahu, I feel that's most people's first instinct (at least here in the US), and speaking to his controversial nature through a short, unprecedent historical fact ("The warrant against Netanyahu is the first against the leader of a Western-backed democratic country for war crimes.") that carries significant weight under international law certainly seems justifiable.
Still, I advise against using Google queries to generalize claims. More, news outlets don't really re-report events that already happened. You could argue Donald Trump losing the 2020 election and contesting it no longer really being talked about by news outlets means that it is not notable, even though this isn't true (not that I'm saying this should be in his first sentence). Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 21:24, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Don't Include "Fugitive" in Lead Sentence - It's obvious including "fugitive" in the lead sentence would be inappropriate for a variety of reasons in addition to the MOS:FIRSTBIO that Nehushtani cites. There's WP:ONUS, WP:DUE and WP:RECENTISM for starters. Bibi may certainly be a criminal from both an international and domestic perspective, but calling him out as "fugitive" in the lead sentence would be like calling Donald Trump a "convicted felon" in his lead sentence. Both things are true, but simply not what the subjects are most notable for. NickCT (talk) 13:54, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Trump case is compelling (if we ignore that potential lawsuits by Trump against the WMF are a possible factor in this decision), but then there's other cases like Marjorie Taylor Greene's article where they refer to her as a "conspiracy theorist", which I feel you could criticize under the same grounds. More, being a convicted felon does not carry the same weight as the ICC warrant from a historical standpoint. WP:RECENTISM's lead paragraph states it refers to writing without an aim toward a long-term, historical view, which does not apply because this is one of the most notable long-term historical events that will be remembered in the future ("The warrant against Netanyahu is the first against the leader of a Western-backed democratic country for war crimes."). I don't see how WP:ONUS applies outside of this discussion, as that's more of a meta policy. As for WP:UNDUE, is the first leader of a western-backed country for war crimes being subject to arrest under international law really not WP:DUE? MOS:FIRSTBIO states to include One, or possibly more, noteworthy positions, activities, or roles that the person is mainly known for, avoiding subjective or contentious terms, and Netanyahu is well known for being a war criminal—in fact, that's the first thing most people think upon hearing his name, and that's the essence of what the warrants get at. If not including "fugitive" (even though I strongly recommend use of this word), perhaps something else hinting at his controversial nature should be added to the lead sentence, like "...is a politician, diplomat, and the subject of an ICC arrest warrant for war crimes". Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 21:10, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    re "Greene" - The difference between Greene and Trump/Netanyahu is that Greene's political position (i.e. US representative) is substatntially less notable than Trump/Netanyahu's (i.e. President/Prime Minister); hence, Greene's other roles (i.e. conspiracy theorist) are more notable relative to what she's primarily notable for.
    re "this is one of the most notable long-term historical events that will be remembered in the future" - I think you may be missing the point of WP:RECENTISM. You have no idea what will be remembered in the future. Neither do I. Neither does anyone. We don't have crystal balls. Stuff that happens today/recently usually seems more notable than it will in future.
    re "UNDUE" - We don't determine whether something is WP:DUE based on how important we feel it is. "DUENESS" is a measure of how often something has been talked about in reliable sources. You want to argue that there are an equivalent number of sources talking about Bibi being a fugutive, as there are talking about him being an "Israeli politician" and "Prime Minister of Isreal"?
    re "in fact, that's the first thing most people think upon hearing his name" - I guess you've polled "most people", huh? Citation needed I think. NickCT (talk) 13:36, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • My instinctive reaction is don't include in lead sentence, because it's not what he is best known for. It feels a bit subjective, but then it is a term used in a lot of RSs. It should probably go in the lead paragraphs, just not the first sentence. Yr Enw (talk) 20:08, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Netanyahu is well known for being a war criminal—in fact, that's the first thing most people think about upon hearing his name. Does a fact hinting at his highly polemical nature on the international stage really not deserve inclusion in the lead sentence? Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 21:15, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That's the first thing most people think about upon hearing his name. That's a pretty bold claim, and I'm curious to know how you drew that conclusion. Also, even if he is primarily known for war crimes rather than his status as prime minister, the same can be said for Adolf Hitler, whose crimes (and therefore indirectly his status as a war criminal) are not mentioned until the 4th sentence. Vladimir Putin's status as a fugitive of from the ICC isn't mentioned until the 4th paragraph of his article. I know these are technically WP:OTHERSTUFF examples, but I don't believe there is any precedent for including Netanyahu's status as a fugitive in the first sentence. - ZLEA TǀC 22:43, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You are right to call out that what I said was a very strong, contentious, and arbitrary claim, but I think you understand what I'm getting at—he's an extremely controversial figure, and this very quickly comes to mind, vis-a-vis constant news about Israeli warcrimes.
Wiki policy is constantly changing, and this discussion can establish new precedent. Even so, regarding Hitler, Hitler's article's first sentence talks about him being dictator of Germany during the Nazi period, which certainly establishes his controversial nature. That's the essence of what I'm getting at—establishing early on that Netanyahu is not just another world leader, but is subject of censure from the international community for his role in war crimes and genocide (we obviously wouldn't have to say all this explicitly). I am fine using a softer sentence instead like "...is a politician, diplomat, and the subject of an ICC arrest warrant for war crimes", I mainly just think mention of his controversy is undoubtedly WP:NOTABLE enough for his lead sentence. Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 23:26, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes he is a war criminal, but I think the cases of Hitler and Putin are instructive here, and we should follow them. A new consensus on how we frame those articles is completely unnecessary because the fact that those things aren’t mentioned in the first sentence doesn't take away from the fact we still know they are important. Yr Enw (talk) 06:13, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
ALTERED PROPOSAL:
It seems like there is consensus against using the word "fugitive" in the first sentence. A user suggested moving the arrest warrant sentence to later in the first paragraph. Therefore, I propose appending the first paragraph like so:
Having previously held office from 1996 to 1999 and from 2009 to 2021, Netanyahu is Israel's longest-serving prime minister.
->
Having previously held office from 1996 to 1999 and from 2009 to 2021, Netanyahu is Israel's longest-serving prime minister. Netanyahu is also the first leader of a Western-backed democratic country subject to an ICC arrest warrant for war crimes.[2][3][4]
Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 17:12, 3 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It is clear that 'fugitive' should not be present in the lead sentence. While it's certainly relevant, if you went up to people on the street and asked 'who is Netanyahu?', they wouldn't say 'he's a fugitive', they'd say 'he's the Prime Minister of Israel'... Aesurias (talk) 06:15, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Alright no problem, I removed the RfC and will go with consensus against. Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 07:06, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Include recentism isn't towards things that are very notable. Very few people become prime minister and very few people become ICC fugitives, both should be mentioned. If we had to choose between which is more notable, well less people have become ICC fugitives than the number of people that have ever served as prime minister/president/chairman of any country.List of people indicted in the International Criminal Court is very noticeably shorter than List of current heads of state and government and a theoretical all-time head of state would be longer. Thanks, 🇪🇭🇵🇸🇸🇩 Easternsahara 🇪🇭🇵🇸🇸🇩 20:34, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
RfC has already been removed as there was overwhelming consensus against what you've said, but regardless I'm sure you're aware that your message makes little to no sense -- comparing the lengths of Wiki lists is not a valid argument, otherwise why couldn't I say that he's the only man to serve as Israel's PM across multiple decades, and therefore as he is the only one on the list, that's more notable? Aesurias (talk) 20:37, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

While we are on the subject, someone loaded the lede with an assertion that he committed genocide. This is BLP, so it needs a conviction (Israel itself is a separate issue, which consensus has determined that there is global consensus for, whether that is actually true or not). And further down, there was an awkward construction that seemed to intend to say that he is accused of genocide, but the word accused or alleged was missing. Im not even sure thats the case on the basis of the warrants, which specify other alleged crimes, but I would have to look again. These words are all getting bandied about so much they are losing meaning. Metallurgist (talk) 19:58, 16 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I second this entire paragraph Aesurias (talk) 19:59, 16 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Notes

  1. ^ Pronounced /ˌnɛtənˈjɑːhuː/ NET-ən-YAH-hoo;[1] Hebrew: בִּנְיָמִין "בִּיבִּי" נְתַנְיָהוּ, romanized: Binyamin "Bibi" Netanyahu, pronounced [binjaˈmin netanˈjahu] ⓘ

References

  1. ^ "Netanyahu". Dictionary.com Unabridged (Online). n.d. Retrieved 29 April 2020.
  2. ^ Pita, Antonio (24 November 2024). "Arrest warrant puts Netanyahu in orbit of disgraced leaders". El País. *Henley, Jon (22 November 2024). "Hungary invites Netanyahu to visit as world leaders split over ICC arrest warrant". The Guardian.*Amanpour, Christiane (21 November 2024). "ICC Issues Arrest Warrant for Netanyahu". CNN.
  3. ^ Siddique, Haroon (21 November 2024). "Why did ICC issue Netanyahu arrest warrant and what are the implications?". The Guardian :. Retrieved 3 October 2025. Benjamin Netanyahu has become the first leader of a "western-style" democracy to have an arrest warrant issued in his name by the international criminal court. {{cite news}}: line feed character in |work= at position 13 (help)CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link)
  4. ^ Dworkin, Anthony (21 November 2024). "The International Criminal Court and Netanyahu: A test for European principles". European Council on Foreign Relations (Policy Alert). Retrieved 3 October 2025. This is the first time that the court has issued a warrant for leader of a Western ally and represents the most dramatic step yet in the court's involvement in the war between Israel and Hamas.

Mileikowsky

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Please say your opinion in Talk:Mileikowsky#Invalid original research --Altenmann >talk 04:26, 8 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Confusing descent categories

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  • Israeli people of Belarusian-Jewish descent (−) (±)
  • Israeli people of Lithuanian-Jewish descent (−) (±)
  • Israeli people of Polish-Jewish descent

A descent may be either by ethnicity or citizenship. Citizenship was Russian Empire, ethnicity was Litvaks. References exist for these. Are there any refs that he was e.g., of "Belarusian Jewish descent"? That his ancestor was born in Belarus does not make him Belarusian Jew: there was no state of Belarus and there was no Belarusian Jewish ethnicity: they were merely Jews that happened to live in the area of Russian Empire which is now associated with Belarus. For comparison, in the 19th century US immigration records there were Russian Jews, and no Lithuanian, Belarusian, Polish, Ukrainian, or Georgian Jews. Opinions? --Altenmann >talk 05:27, 8 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

RfC on stating Netanyahu is committing genocide?

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The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
Malformed RFC, will repost again. HadesTTW (he/him • talk) 14:09, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia recognizes that there is a scholarly consensus that the Gaza genocide is ongoing, and is caused by Israel. Therefore, Wikipedia states that a genocide is ongoing in wikivoice. This in turn asks the question if Wikipedia should also recognize that Netanyahu is a genocide perpetrator, given how he is the Prime Minister of Israel and implicated in many of the sources that agree on the genocide interpretation. Is there similar consensus, with WP:BLP in mind, that Wikivoice should explicitly state that Netanyahu is a perpetrator of the Gaza genocide? If so, then shouldn't Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders should be added to Category:Genocide perpetrators? HadesTTW (he/him • talk) 21:46, 21 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

For the record, this will result in the lede being changed from:
Netanyahu's government has been accused of orchestrating a genocide in Gaza
to
Netanyahu's government has orchestrated a genocide in Gaza. Pinging @JPHC2003, @Aesurias, and @331dot. HadesTTW (he/him • talk) 21:48, 21 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm not saying there is no way to do this, but care needs to be taken to be consistent with BLP, which applies even to Netanyahu. He has not been judged by any national or international body to be personally guilty of committing genocide(the ICC wants to try him, but that's very unlikely to occur). I don't think we can go by scholarly consensus in assigning blame to Netanyahu personally, but maybe to the government. 331dot (talk) 22:10, 21 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Oppose I dispute the notion that there is "strong consensus" that a genocide is occurring or that Israel (or its leaders) are genocide perpetrators. Considering that no one has been found guilty of genocide, that there remains a lively debate whether a genocide is occurring, and the high bar needed to factually label someone a genocide perpetrator, I oppose the suggested edits. Per WP:DUE, the differing viewpoints should be discussed for what they are: differing viewpoints held by people or institutions. The article should discuss notable arguments for and against, properly attributing them to critics or supporters.
Wikipedia doesn't make news; it conveys it. Whether you personally believe that Netanyahu is a "genocide perpetrator" is irrelevant. Jcgaylor (talk) 06:11, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
(Summoned by bot) Absolutely not, and I say that as someone whose personal perspective (and deep knowledge of international/institutional standards for such labels) leaves me with zero qualms about those who use the descriptor of genocide for these events, in their individual capacity. But that is not how policy directs us to handle these kinds of situations on this project. First off, Wikipedia does not "recognize that there is a scholarly consensus that the Gaza genocide is ongoing, and is caused by Israel." What the OP pointed to was a WP:LOCALCONSENSUS regarding specific wording in particular contexts on one article. Wikipedia does not, by and large, create blanket approaches to framing content on one subject across the breadth of all related articles, and in the rare cases it does something kinda-sorta close to that, the discussions are held in a central community space and are subject to high levels of scrutiny. So the OP clearly needs to familiarize themselves with WP:CONLEVEL and related policies before opening another RfC on a WP:CTOP in the future. They also need to review WP:RFCNEUTRAL, as the prompt here clearly fails that principle, exhorting the respondent to adopt their personal view and framing the matter accordingly.
Finally, putting all of the procedural issues here to the side, this is just not a change which is advisable or consistent with relevant policy; in cases of such highly controversial subject matter and claims, with an indescribably massive corpus of sources running the gamut from WP:PRIMARY to WP:SECONDARY, and WP:TERTIARY, and huge variances of perspectives between them, we do not use Wikivoice to treat any one outlook as empirical fact. Rather, we assiduously apply WP:NPOV and WP:ATTRIBUTE to give the reader all relevant information and context and access to even more, and allow them to make their own judgments. Frankly this is all Wikipedia 101, and I'd almost argue this RfC should be closed for its procedural defects and almost certain WP:SNOW result. SnowRise let's rap 22:38, 22 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm willing to close and re-open this RFC with corrections regarding the premise and level of consensus established for the Gaza genocide and a more neutral prompt.
That being said, I still don't see why a RFC shouldn't occur to determine if the sources and pre-existing Wikipedia policy allows for Netanyahu to be described as a genocide perpetrator in no uncertain terms. While "we do not use Wikivoice to treat any one outlook as empirical fact," strong terms, such as stating that "There is a scholarly consensus that Netanyahu's government has orchestrated a genocide in Gaza" are fully capable of being put in articles, and we should have a discussion if they should. HadesTTW (he/him • talk) 05:40, 23 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
To be clear, I think there is a colourable argument to be made for "There is a scholarly consensus that Netanyahu's government has orchestrated a genocide in Gaza." being appropriate, provided a census of scholarship actually suggests that. That said, there's two important points of policy to consider in making that determination:
1) the sources must actually frame Netanyahu (and/or his government) in this way, in express terms. We cannot make the leap from sources stating that the activities themselves constitute genocide (or even those which state that the state of Israel is conducting a genocide) and then use transitive reasoning to state "Netanyahu must therefor be guilty of organizing a genocide as the leader of that state." As obvious as that link might seem to us, it would still be WP:SYNTHESIS, a form of WP:Original research.
And 2) If the sourcing does exist to satisfy WP:V, and there is enough WP:WEIGHT to permit us to say that there is a scholarly consensus for "Netanyahu is described as X" the wording should still need to be attributed, even if only by a high-level, generalized phrasing like that in your hypothetical statement (the one we both talkquoted). This is important not just for NPOV purposes, but also because abstract academic assessments are only one dimension of the world of relevant sources (albeit a very important one), and are mostly WP:PRIMARY aside.
But if you are going to make an argument for inclusion, don't expect to win support easily; you'll need to make a pretty robust showing of sourcing to establish a presumption that, in all the world of academic sources out there, the strong majority support the position that Netanyahu is conducting a genocide. That might seem like a slam dunk considering the number of sources critical of Israel's present conduct in regard to Gaza, but you may find it more difficult than you imagine. And for my part, I do think you might need to re-open with a more attributed version of the proposed language. SnowRise let's rap 07:49, 23 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@HadesTTW: Re caused by Israel are you joking?? Israel retaliated in self-defence after Gaza attacked them. See Gaza war. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 16:39, 23 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Let's keep in mind that different people view the ultimate causes of the conflict differently even if the immediate cause is pretty clear. 331dot (talk) 19:44, 23 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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