::::::Thanks, Abd, for your thoughts, much of which I agree with and much of which I had already thought of but hadn't expressed.  However, I really think this is not just minor and technical.  To me, the connotations at least of the two phrases are quite different, and perhaps the meaning.  If I were Jayjg I would be quite annoyed at having such a phrase attributed to me which I didn't say (especially since it's being used as a basis for an accusation of saying something he allegedly very much ought not to have said).  Such annoyance in itself can detract significantly from progress.  I'm trying to untangle this discussion, and the way I see forward is to clarify meanings and remove unnecessary annoyances.  Anyone can misquote by accident: when it's pointed out, one should correct it.  If the quotation marks were not intended to indicate direct quotation of Jayjg but something else (what?), I think MeteorMaker should say so. 
 ::::::What if this were a quote from a source?  What if the source actually said "It corresponds roughly to the northern portion of the modern West Bank territory" and an editor said of this, using quotation marks, "This source says 'Samaria is now called "northern West Bank"'"?  Once could argue that the two phrases are equivalent.  One could argue that they are not. What if someone else said, "Hey, you've used quotation marks, but the words you've given are not the same as the words in the source!" and the other person replied "If you honestly think it's inappropriate to condense "It corresponds roughly to the northern portion of the modern West Bank territory" to "This source says 'Samaria is now called "northern West Bank"', kindly indicate in what way the meaning has been changed"?   What if the other editors didn't have access to the original source, or didn't bother checking it because they trusted the person who was presenting a quote? That's not the way to build an encyclopedia; and accusing Jayjg of "extremely bad faith assumptions", lying,  etc. for using a phrase which he didn't use is not the way to collaborate with other editors. I've asked MeteorMaker to assume good faith and to try to understand why Jayjg said what he said;  stating that he said something different, and which in my opinion would be more difficult to understand or justify, is a step in the opposite direction and a step which there is no good reason for taking. ☺