Talk:Israel begins using sonic booms against Palestinians

Israel defended its raids, saying the booms are designed to be a show of force to militant groups in the region.

This is a bit of a stretch. The BBC article doesn't assign this statement to anybody but a "correspondent". The Guardian talks about "an army intelligence source". The army doesn't operate any aircraft. Giving the impression that "Israel" is making an official statement on the purpose of the sonic booms when it is merely an un-named source from a different service is stretching NPOV a bit far.

I'm also puzzled about the physics of the situation. Israel isn't big enough for an aircraft operating at supersonic speed to make a full circle within its width. The Gaza Strip is only a few kilometres wide and it seems rather strange that a sonic boom could be confined within its area. In fact one of the articles talks about a sonic boom intruding "hundreds of kilometres" over the border. Surely a series of sonic booms over the Gaza Strip would also trigger complaints from neighbouring Israel communities? --Skyring 11:03, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Title change, NPOV issues
Sonic booms are not considered "attacks" by many people, so unless you are taking sides, the title cannot stay as per NPOV. The article itself needs to be polished up, too - things like this:

should be avoided unless extremely important, as the source cannot be verified as a spokesman for the Isreali government. --MrMiscellanious (talk) (contribs) 21:39, 11 November 2005 (UTC)


 * The quote is clearly central to the article, but without ascribing the quote it's difficult to use safely. So I've changed the article to reflect it came directly from the Guardian, who report the military is preventing the official's name from being used.


 * As for the sonic boom - it certainly can be an attack. It causes physical damage, sometimes very severe, and is an element of psyops, a form of military action. In this case there is also clear statements it is being used militarily, and so qualifies as an attack.


 * Please re-examine the article to see if, given the above, it now meets NPOV? - Amgine 00:15, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
 * I won't republish, but at this point it barely matters whether the article is in development or published, or NPOV-tagged; it's over a week old. After being pushed back into develop, nothing was done to improve it for several days.  This is of course mostly the article submitter's responsibility. - McCart42 (talk) 01:45, 12 November 2005 (UTC)