Talk:Palestinians/Archive 3

message: The text translates the Levant into al-Sham...shouldn't it be al-Mashriq? I'm not 100% sure about that, but that's how I've always known it... --Jad 08:07, 18 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Just A Side-Note

message: There seems to be a misunderstanding that the current predominant usage of Palestinian refers only to Arabs.  Ignoring for the moment those Palestinians who regard themselves as Canaanite, the commonest usage of the term "Palestinian" includes (without being limited to) the pre-1967 inhabitants of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, including most Samaritans, and a couple of thousand Neturei Karta Jews consider themselves, and are considered by the Palestinian government, as Palestinian; and Palestinians often call the small minority of Israeli Jews whose ancestors lived there before the Mandate "Palestinian".  You may find the Definitions of Palestine article informative in this respect, or indeed the remainder of this article. - Mustafaa 00:56, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Opening paragraph

message: Why don't we change the phrase (note the the) 
:...the the people, mainly Arabs, whose ancestors had inhabited British Mandate Palestine during the centuries immediately before 1918... 
:to neutral: ...the people, mainly Arabs, who had inhabited the territory of the British Mandate of Palestine before 1918...
My reason: "ancestors during the centuries" is unnecessarily politically charged argument: the "Palestinians - from time immemorial, Jews - recent immigrants". 
Mustafaa says: "not unnecessary at all - without it, the definition would have to exclude almost half of all Palestinians alive today". I don't see how it excludes anyone: "the people" includes ancestors, no matter how long they lived there. As a matter of fact, the article should include the etymology of the term, the Philistines, Hadrian, etc. ←Humus sapiens←Talk 03:02, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: We can't lose "ancestors" or we lose almost all Palestinians.  We can and should lose "British Mandate" because it didn't exist before 1918.  ("Palestine" is less well defined but that matches reality in the definition of "Palestinian".)  However, I think that "centuries" is unnecessarily restrictive.   I suggest "whose ancestors had inhabited Palestine during the period immediately before 1918".  --Zero 03:14, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  "during the centuries" 

message: I was redirected to Palestinian from Israeli Arabs.  I was expecting though to find an article about arabs living in Israel though. Now correct me if I'm wrong but don't palestinians consider themselves neither israeli nor arabs?   02:15, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I made an article stub for Israeli Arabs. Correct me if I'm wrong, Mustafaa, but they are not identical with the Arabs you described in your Palestinians article. --Uncle Ed (El Dunce) 21:41, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Not identical - rather, they are a decidedly atypical subset of them. I've expanded the article a bit (but you know, it's poor form to have the only link in an article on this conflict be to a manifestly partisan site, though I do realize Google isn't very helpful in this regard.) - Mustafaa 22:08, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

text: Sorry: I agree about the "poor form" thing (makes me feel like Captain Hook being chided in Peter Pan). Thanks for noticing the stub so quickly and adding some balance. I cannot do this by myself! --Uncle Ed (El Dunce) 12:33, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Israeli Arab redirect 

message: This is getting absurd.  What exactly is Jmw0000's objection to quoting one of the defining Palestinian political documents on the definition of a Palestinian? - Mustafaa 01:07, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Although I'm trying, I still don't understand your objection. The words "Zionist invasion" are in quotation marks to indicate that this is taken directly from a source, they are not the words of whoever wrote that sentence. It cites one definition for the word "Palestinian", not the definition.  And it is outdated, because for example the phrase "from the male line" is not true nowadays (either male or female can bestow a Palestinian ID card on offspring). Ramallite (talk) 21:39, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: NPOV

message: Editors of this article may be interested in Wikipedia:Wikiportal/Palestine. - Mustafaa 23:05, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: WikiPortal

message: Since when are Arabs who entered after 1918 not considered Palestinian? The PLO Charter includes Arabs up to 1947 and I'm sure the current PA accepts this, so where does this idea that it only includes people up to 1918 come from??? Kuratowski's Ghost 21:10, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: 1918 is the last date before which both Arabs and Jews are accepted as Palestinians by modern-day Palestinians. - Mustafaa 18:08, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Immigrants after 1918 not Palestinian? 

message: There is a debate about who is or is not a Palestinian.  There is a similar debate about who is or is not an American.  But most people when they hear the word know what it means (even if they wish that word wasn't used to mean that).  For some a Palestinian is defined by residency: a Palestinian lives in Palestine.  The same is true of an American: he or she lives in American (that is, the United States).  Today scholars research the origins of the Palestinians.  In the future, historians may marvel at the diverse and varied origins of the Americans.  Are the Palestinians a stateless nation?  What then the Americans: a nationless nation?  I've heard that there are no Palestinians, but only Arabs; that Palestinian is "made up".  Are there Americans then?  There are many people of the Earth with a long, unbroken, pure history of ethnicity reaching back into prehistory, but I wonder how accurate these histories are.  I wonder if the Palestinian and the American pattern of national origin is not a fine human tradition reaching back through the millenia to our beginnings. -Acjelen 22:45, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Word Palestinian similar to word American 

message: The historical labeling of Palestinian was for Christian Levantines, not Muslims or Jews.  Their ancestry in the region went back to the Philistines, which included brief periods of prominence at junctions in between.  When Syria Palaestina was made Roman, it was for the "benefit" of the Hellenic population of Palestine.  When the Kingdom of Jerusalem was made Catholic, it was for the "benefit" of Orthodox population.  In any case, Palestine as a name is not Arabic or Hebrew.  Philistines were the anciently resident Japhethic or Caucasoid citizens of the land, regardless of what is now going on with the Arabs and Israelis battling over it.  This is like Galatia and Troy in present day Turkey.  TheUnforgiven 23:04, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I hope you're just kidding, and don't seriously believe any of that. Tomer TALK 23:35, July 10, 2005 (UTC)
Hey, you can shove your POV nonsensicals about the Arab-Israeli conflict to a tee.  It still doesn't prove that either one of your sides is right.  It's not just you lot who have lived there, but your incessant violence is sure to keep it that way.  TheUnforgiven 23:42, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

text: Look, I'm truly sorry to have to be the one to tell you this, but none of what you're saying makes any sense whatsoever.  Tomer TALK 02:58, July 11, 2005 (UTC)
You are not sorry one damned bit.  You have yet to refute what I have written.  All you do is pass the insults as if it were salt on the dinner table.  This is on every article in which we disagree.  If you have something useful and constructive to say, then don't be a harpy troll.  TheUnforgiven 03:06, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

text: Mustafaa, with all do respect, if The Unforgiven really wrote the paragraph preceeding yours, I think we can safely say s/he is best left ignored. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 22:14, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Historical Section 

message: This article on Palestinian demographics was twice removed from the article: first because it is "unnecessary", and then because "Actually it's a pack of lies. Gottheil is the economist who pretended to be a demographer for Joan Peters". Please provide a link/ref to a better research or explain what is wrong with this one. Thanks. ←Humus sapiens←Talk 07:41, 12 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  demographic research 

message: I am not sure what to make of it.  However, before restoring the material TheUnforgiven deleted, I would ask someone to provide sources, I mean (with all due respect) to Ibn Kaldun, the passage referred to other scholars.  I'd appreciate knowing who they are. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 22:17, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I was just about to suggest the same. We Palestinians know where we came from, but could editors of this piece please cite sources to prevent unnecessary revert wars? Ramallite (talk) 22:20, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

text: For various reasons, the Umayyads paid special attention to Palestine.  The process of Arabization and Islamization was gaining momentum there...  Conversions arising from convenience as well as conviction then increased.  These conversions to Islam, together with a steady tribal inflow from the desert, changed the religious character of Palestine's inhabitants.  The predominantly Christian population gradually became predominantly Muslim and Arabic-speaking. (Palestine, in 15th ed. of EB, 1990)
The purely genetic arguments for continuity are already well described. - Mustafaa 23:19, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  TheUnforgiven's recent cut 

message: A number of people have been deleting this link:
* The Smoking Gun: Arab Immigration into Palestine, 1922-1931 by Fred M. Gottheil
Apparently there are some comments in Talk: by Zero0000 as to why, but I can't see them here.  From what I can tell, it is more encyclopedic than 90% of the links provided in Palestinian related articles.  Can someone articulate the specific objections? Jayjg (talk) 20:20, 14 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Although I haven't messed with that link myself, it seems that whoever wrote "The Smoking Gun" is neither a professional in his field, nor supported by people who are. If so, then this link is, according to Wikipedia policy, a dubious source. Furthermore, that the writer is so easily refuted in his claims reinforces the dubious nature of the article. Therefore, the article is actually inflammatory and misleading. So if what Zero says above is true, adding this link here would be like adding a link to the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" under Wikipedia's "Zionism" article, and worse, having it be one of only two external references there. I think it's worth investigating Zero's claims before attempting to re-insert. (Zero?) Ramallite (talk) 20:59, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

text: Although most non-encyclopedic and biased ones - coming from any side of any conflict - still have some truth to them in that they may state facts but exaggerate their implications, e.g. A poked fun at B (fact), therefore A must be proficient at playing a Swedish harmonica and is also a hater of blind Bhuddists (exaggerated implication). These could serve as a source that A poked fun at B because of (whatever reason) as long as there is an opposing view stated in order to maintain neutrality. We run into this in science all the time: a journal article will describe a set of well-designed experiments  in which the authors came to a certain conclusion, but another scientist reads the paper, sees the same data, and arrives at a completely different conclusion. As long as the data is sound, the paper can be sourced and interpreted at will. But when the data itself is fabricated (as seems to be the case above), that's something else. Ramallite (talk) 21:34, 14 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Link?