Talk:Denis Michael Rohan

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As I got into the process of creating this article I began to wonder whether there is a reason why no one else has written about this subject before. It seems so loaded and destined to provoke POV responses from Arabs, Muslims, Israelis, Jews, Christians, Worldwide Church of God and all of its many breakaway factions, Australians and who knows who else? It is almost as conspiratorial as a biographical entry for Lee Harvey Oswald in trying to address the question of why he shot President Kennedy ... assuming that he did shoot President Kennedy. So if you are reading these words please understand that in putting together the article that I am not trying to take any side but to report upon an incident which in turn has led to many continuing acts of killing and destruction which have been performed in the name of this one initial act of arson. I also need to point out that in 1968 when this event took place, the Worldwide Church of God was not accepted as a mainstream Christian religion but as a cult which had emerged by blending together various beliefs from different religions and all of that was glued together by a very specific chain of prophecy distributed via a multi-million dollar publishing and broadcasting empire. MPLX/MH 19:11, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I'm considering writing a brief Arabic article. Most English sources that mention his ethnicity say he's not Jewish, while most Arabic ones that do say he is. The former seems far more plausible, considering, but does anyone know an article that provides an unarguable source on his ethnicity? - Mustafaa 23:57, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Mustafaa: That sounds like a good idea. Sorry I cannot help you immediately with the information that you are looking for, but the best sources are: a) official Israeli government records since they took him into custody; b) the omnibus web site of everything about Armstrong that originates from New Zealand and the webmaster's name is Gavin (I am not Gavin.) Also, you might want to check out Ernest L. Martin. This is an article that I have been building that is also related to both the Temple Mount; the Ambassador/Hebrew University digs and therefore Herbert W. Armstrong. Martin held in a book that the son of Dr. Mazar held that the Temple had been mislocated on Temple Mount. There is a related web site and book if you follow the links. Lot's of luck. This seems to only add more fuel to the fire, but this time to the idea that Rohan had the wrong location to begin with and therefore ... everyone else who thinks that the Temple was on Temple Mount is also mistaken. You should have lots of fun with that (tongue in cheek), meaning that everyone will start throwing bricks in the direction of your new article. Such are the joys of writing about controversial matters, you can end up with no one liking what you write. Just be sure to document everything! MPLX/MH 23:20, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)

NPOV

Just read the opening paragraph, holy otters noses, talk about biased POV. Any more whitewashed and agenda pushing and I'd have thought it was a leaked government election advertisement due to the BS factor alone. This man is also a notable Jewish-Australian, he had no action with the church mentioned, so why is the church mentioned? Clarification is really needed, it's all just too POV defending some church. Jachin 12:54, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree. POV problems in this need to fixed. I don't think if this article is about Michael Dennis Rohan it should travel far afield with stuff about rebuilding the Temple unless it is germane to Rohan. Some of it comes across as shilling for obscure authors and ideologies. I moved the section on other sources to the external links and edited a lot out, and I even think that it probably should be cut. It's other sources yet it had three articles from one guy - David Ben-Ariel. From searching around, he seems to be some totality non-notable guy pushing some idiosyncratic views. He's a religious-based white supremacist. I don't think NPOV requires the inclusion of the thoughts of every obscure blogger and self-publisher who has an opinion somewhat related to the topic. Quite the contrary, views of obscure, non-expert individuals should be shoehorned in various articles when they're not significant contributions on the topic. --JamesAM 18:40, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Who said he was a Australian-Jew?

Jachin, what led you to believe that this man is/was a Jew? It was the Arab press that claimed he was Jewish. Rohan was an Australian who arrived in Israel with a (Christian) evangelistic mission - according to all reliable press accounts. This event was given front page coverage at the time (complete with photograph of Rohan showing a "Plain Truth" magazine sticking out of his pocket.) The publisher of that magazine disowned Rohan, but the magazine did contain an article by the publisher's son (Garner Ted Armstrong) that gave the impression that Jesus Christ would return when the Dome of the Rock was removed and the Jewish Temple restored. Rohan decided to bring about that event and it created a crisis for Israel. Yassir Arafat always maintained that Rohan was an Israeli agent who sought to destroy Islam and it was from this single act that the beginnings of the "Al Asqua Martyrs Brigade" (excuse spelling) began with the mayhem which continues until today. The problem is that there is no reliable source to show who Rohan was since Israel arrested Rohan, isolated him and caused him to vanish from the scene. So to claim that he was a notable Jew creates a tremendous insult to Jews who have always repudiated that claim. Even Rohan identified his cause with Armstrong which led Armstrong to repudiate his claim. The only group that has built upon the original event and kept its memory going is the PLO faction who have identified themselves as martyrs in the name of the Al Asqua mosque. I believe it is very useful and very enlightening to have all the various voices commenting on this issue, because it shows how the act of one lone individual with a mental defect can inspire generations of people to commence killing in the name of avenging something which in reality, we know very little about. It would be helpful if the official Israeli government investigation into this matter could also be added to the article. However, while Herbert W. Armstrong was alive he was a constant visitor to Israel and a financial benefactor for several cultural activitiews there. In reality it is a story that those who know the facts don't want to talk about, and a story for those who don't care about the facts but want to use it to cause as much trouble as possible. For this reason it stands as an article (somewhat like those akin to Sirhan and Oswald) of madmen whose acts change the world for the worse and leave a trail of murky conspiracy stories in their wake. But for us to decide which stories should be edited out will really turn the article in a POV rant for one side or the other. The only facts known are that Rohan existed, he did commit the act and that his act has been used to fan the flames of terrorism.

The reference to Rohan being an "evangelical Christian" is also incorrect. Armstrong was not "evangelical Christian" any more than say the Mormons are. The article reflects the chaos of the Middle East and the irrationality of all of the various beliefs in play there. But the irrationality of it all is a self evident fact in the current wars that are ongoing there and it is impossible to solve that violence by siding with any religious view - they are all crazy.

Article name

I am wondering why this article is at Michael Dennis Rohan rather than, say 1969 al-Aqsa mosque arson Only two or three sentences of quite a long article describe Rohan; the rest is about the arson and the international response to it. jnestorius^(talk) 22:56, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

ABC web feature; his name

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation has a web feature on Mr Rohan with some interesting material. One of the things that can be seen there is an Australian identity document. His name written there is "Denis Michael ROHAN" - note the order of the words and the number of "n"s in "Denis". This type of document is not so solid proof of name as a passport, but anyway I wonder if the name of our article is actually wrong. Zero^talk 07:14, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Ok, poking around in declassified Australian achives reveals a scan of his passport. It reads "Denis Michael Rohan" and that's about as official as it gets. I'll rename the page. (Btw, Denis Michael Rohan is also how he was charged in the Jerusalem court. Otoh, there is an ASIO memo in the archives calling him 'Michael Dennis William Rohan".) Zero^talk 08:53, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Btw, the audio interviews on the ABC site make clear his popular name was "Denis", not "Michael". Zero^talk 09:05, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Where's the beef?

At present the article tells us about Rohan's motives, followed by some reactions to his attempt. A section telling us what actually happenned on August 21 1969 is missing. ליאור (talk) 20:09, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Indeed. Exactly what I was going to point out. I know this is an extremely touchy subject, but this article is MOST unsatisfactory. It gives us almost no picture of the man himself and his background, the event itself (him setting fire to the mosque), the level of damage to the mosque, his trial and the legal process by which he was found insane, details of his mental issues / ilnesses (schitzophrenia, according to the court's findings), what happened to him post-deportation, etc, etc. Instead, way too much space is spent on "responses" by various parties, which, whilst perhaps important, are secondary. Can someone do some research and fix these issues? 58.165.79.107 (talk) 13:27, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

ooook, thanks to a fellow wikipedian's mention above, I checked the Australian Archives (naa.gov.au) - and sure enough, PLENTY of info on this guy and this incident, including the exact sequence of events on the day, the trial, the full judgement of the court, the Australian Government's actions in relation to the case, and its' communications with the Israeli government. I'm not a brilliant Wikipedian, but does anyone feel like mining this trove and adding some crucial info to this artice?

Also, I can't seem to find any info on his subsequent life post-deportation. Any leads? 58.168.19.226 (talk) 17:12, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Dome of the Rock or Al Aksa?

The Dome of the Rock is the central shrine on the Temple Mount. The Al Aksa is the mosque at the southern wall. Which is it? My understanding is that he set a fire in the Dome of the Rock. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.12.28.5 (talk) 15:42, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

It was the southern mosque. Onceinawhile (talk) 20:30, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

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Date of death

HOLY SPIRITS

ROSS DUNN

1610 words 7 October 1995

Sydney Morning Herald

SMHH

7

English

Copyright of John Fairfax Group Pty Ltd

Rohan was eventually sent back to Australia where he spent the rest of his life in a mental hospital and died under psychiatric care.

Based on this I edited the article on 10 May 2011 with the sentence "In 1995, he was reported to have died under psychiatric care."

On 31 Dec 2011 here this was incorrectly modified to a death date of 1995. I don't really watch the page, but I didn't fix it as the text had the original sentence in it. But over time that was edited out too.

However, since then https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/latenightlive/apocalypse-now:-the-political-legacy-of-denis-michael-rohan%E2%80%99s/11434960 stated reports of his death were an exaggeration.

In 2009 my colleague Anna Whitfeld and I produced a Background Briefing about Rohan.

We discovered from his family that Rohan wasn't dead and lived somewhere in Australia.

Still it was a shock a few years later to get a call out of the blue from Rohan as I sat at my desk at Background Briefing. Why did Rohan want to chat with me?

At that time there were regular media reports about demonstrations surrounding the mosque.

"Things will hot up," he told me. And he was right about that.

The Temple will be built, he said, bringing on the Apocalypse and the return of Christ.

I tried to keep Rohan on the phone, but he hung up.

Rohan died a few years later, still largely forgotten in Australia, but not in the Muslim world.

So the date of death (from ynetnews, an article by Yaron Druckman, 23 August 2015) (user Nedrutland, 21 Aug 2019) of 6 Oct 1995 has actually come from the date of the original SMH article from Wikipedia (Fairfax Store had it as 6th October 1995). It is wrong. Circular sourcing. Somewhere the Ross Dunn article date has been misunderstood as his death date. But his death date is unknown - just some year between 2009 and 2019.

Please: remove date of death change date of death to "unknown" - or if possible, "unknown, 2009-2019". Cancerward (talk) 10:49, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

 Partly done: Many sources report a 1995 date; it is not clear how many of them are just repeating earlier sources. I have added a clause about the conflicting claim. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:50, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

Multiple sources in 2009 and 2019 (Australian Broadcasting Corporation journalist) said he was still alive in 2009, so the date of death 1995 should be removed. The 1995 references trace back to the Ross Dunn article of 1995, through Wikipedia. ynetnews should not be considered a reliable source for the date of death of someone living in Australia - but the point is moot anyway - the ABC journalist verified via family and church that he was living in 2009, spoke to him on the phone, and he died after that.

2009: https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/backgroundbriefing/rohan-and-the-road-to-the-apocalypse/3070866 But as far as Background Briefing can establish, Rohan is still living in Australia, although he's had no recent contact with family members.

Rohan maintained his association with the World Wide Church of God, and Background Briefing was informed by the local Sydney church that he came to visit about four years ago. Cancerward (talk) 23:37, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit extended-protected}} template. We appear to have a conflict among multiple sources. We have to go with what the sources say. Please propose phrasing that balances the sources that we have. The version in the article at present possibly overweights the "1995" sources and could present a more balanced view. What words do you propose? – Jonesey95 (talk) 04:46, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation is an extremely reliable media organization that did an in-depth investigation in 2009. If they found that he was still alive at that time based on interviewing relatives and his church, and later even spoke to the guy himself, then he was still alive. Sometimes sources get it wrong but we are not obliged to repeat their errors. (And now there is a consensus to change the wording so I will.) Zero^talk 08:32, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

He's quite dead - and I'm quite confused as to why this page keeps getting munged. Not enough people watching. Cancerward (talk) 09:55, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

 Note: Edit requests must be non-controversial, Cancerward. As there is ongoing discussion about what to do regarding Rohan's death date, the template should remain set to "answered=yes". —Sirdog (talk) 04:03, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

All right, https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/latenightlive/apocalypse-now:-the-political-legacy-of-denis-michael-rohan%e2%80%99s/11434960 says "Rohan died a few years later" (article date 21 August 2019). This article is frustrating because well-established facts are edited away over time or mistakes are introduced, and this has been happening regularly since 2011! To quote Zero, "The Australian Broadcasting Corporation is an extremely reliable media organization that did an in-depth investigation" in 2019 as well. There's no ongoing discussion about his date of death because I last brought this up in February 2020 on this page.

So, my non-controversial suggestion: change to past tense "... was an Australian arsonist" and again, revert article to: "Date of death: 2009-2019" or if this isn't possible, "Date of death: unknown"

This is not controversial because there's no reliable source stating that he is still alive. Cancerward (talk) 06:06, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

 Done Several people including me read your request without realising that you were presenting a reliable source that he has died. Now that I get your point, I'll fix the article. Zero^talk 06:30, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

Thanks @Zero0000 can we correct to death date to 20 March 2013 now based on https://www.mountgambier.sa.gov.au/cemeteries/rohan-michael-denis Cancerward (talk) 00:46, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

@Cancerward: A purist might argue against this on primary source grounds, but the name and age check out and it fits the ABC evidence, so I added it. Zero^talk 01:07, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

I'll echo Zero's sentiment and also make a separate apology as I somehow did not perceive that the "ongoing discussion" I alluded too was actually 3 years old. Not one of my best moments, to put it mildly.  Self-whale... for when a trout just isn't enough. Thank you for your edit request. —Sirdog (talk) 06:40, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

Article name is wrong, why the insistence on not changing it?

I've tried to change the article name to the 1969 "burning of Al Aqsa mosque" , but it says the article is protected from vandalism"!! I wonder why there is an insistence from the article writer and wikipedia to not change it ?! It doesn't take a rocket science to realize that this is a pro Israel article title to divert people attention away from that tragic accident ; to not let as many people as they could from finding this article on wikipedia. This is a shameful act ; to suppress people rights to learn about historical events. This must be corrected immediately Alw88 (talk) 11:50, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

See new article at Al-Aqsa mosque fire. Onceinawhile (talk) 20:30, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

Grammar mistake?

Second to last sentence of second paragraph reads: "Some sources claimed that he had died in 1995, but a 2009 investigation by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) found that was still alive."

Someone with permission should fix. Callum Cuda (talk) 06:30, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

Fixed, thanks. Zero^talk 08:53, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 23 May 2024

Denis Michael Rohan was an Evanalangical Fundamentalist Christian Terrorist who attacked The Muslim Masjid Al-Aqsa. 108.28.9.131 (talk) 17:17, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. M.Bitton (talk) 20:57, 23 May 2024 (UTC)