Talk:Israel/Archive 8

message: The map shown in the article's "Geography" section includes the Golan Heights as part of Israel proper.  This is contrary to the internationally accepted boundaries of Israel.  I'm going to look for a map that excludes the Golan Heights, hopefully one that indicates the dispute (is there even a dispute?  The Golan Heights article notes that the Israeli government has denied that its laws regarding the territory amount to annexation.).  Marsden 11:37, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Contrary to what happened in Gaza and the WB, the Golan Heights were annexed by Israel after 1967, and I personally have seen a lot of maps include it but not the WB or GS... I don't know the UN position on that but I would leave it as it is. --Sebastian Kessel Talk 15:18, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: UN Position is that it's occupied territory.  I'm going to change the map; I encourage you to insert some language about Israel's position.  I wasn't able (at least not with the energy I was willing to put into it) to find a position on GH on the Israeli government website.  Marsden 17:22, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

text: Doesn't matter what Israel officially has or hasn't claimed. The article shouldn't describe Israel from an Israeli (right-wing) POV, but rather from a global. The UN position (and the U.S., EU, etc) is that GH is occupied territory. Israel, officially, doesn't have nuclear weapons, but all reliable encyclopedias and reports disregards that as there is plenty of evidence that Israel's official position is contrary to the reality of the situation. --saxet 01:48, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

text: Right-wing was not to equate with Israeli but to separate from my Jewish Israeli siblings (and left-wing Israeli who abhor the bs propaganda). I don't hide my POV, read my comment under the section title 'This version'. Believe however that Wiki articles should be NPOV. If you're presenting a minority view you should present it as such and not write it as undisputable fact and then say whatever the rest of the world thinks is irrelevant. --saxet 02:29, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

text: No, anyone can edit Wikipedia. No approval need to be sought. If you revert my edits for no other reason than that you felt I should have asked your permission you're acting in bad faith. You should assume good faith regarding my edits and if you have any questions you can ask me on the talkpage. I edited a sentence that said that the Palestinian government refused to dismantle its terrorist groups. Not even Sharon believes that Abbas operates terroristgroups. Why did you revert my edit? Do you honestly believe that cheap propaganda like that belong in Wikipedia? --saxet 03:58, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: This whole issue will be more easily resolved if editors actually cite sources.  For example, Freedom House gives Israel the highest rating for political rights, and religious freedom, and the equivalent of India or Brazil for civil rights. .  Our opinions as editors are not what is relevant, please cite references to move discussion forward. Otherwise, inevitable revert wars result. --Goodoldpolonius2 02:42, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

text: Thanks. I provide sources from United Nations, CIA, EU, Harvard, Oxford, Dalai Lama. If Goodoldpolonius2 wants me to I can throw in Desmond Tutu for good measure.  Freedom House just doesn't measure up. Look, no one benefits if this article continues to be cheap propaganda. It doesn't win any minds, it alienates. Let's describe reality instead. --saxet 03:32, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Map problem 

message: :In 1939 the British gave in to Arab pressure and abandoned the idea of a Jewish national homeland, as part of a policy of appeasment favored by Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain.
Is it a fact that the British abandoned the idea of a Jewish national homeland as part of a policy of appeasment?--Doron 11:07, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: This looks like a personal attack but I am going to assume good faith for now. Perhaps you misunderstood my comments in User_talk:Roeeyaron#Altered image. As a matter of fact I strongly warned him against silently altering images. ←Humus sapiens←ну? 09:52, 25 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I probably misunderstood your comments and I apologize if you felt what I wrote was a personal attack. I read "Create a new image, get another or edit this one but please do it openly. In this particular case, I would make a copy of that image, provide a link to its origin and explain the changes and the reasons" which I (mistakenly then) thought was an encouragement to manipulate the CIA image. I guess that I also was surprised that you created that image, Roeeyaron shortly after photoshopped it, yet you didice the changes until I, a few weeks (?) later, pointed out the dishonesty. --saxet 10:10, 25 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Lovely. Now you quote me out of context. I said: "if the image is presented as coming from a particular source, it should not be doctored." Yes, I updated that image with no alterations but didn't add it to my watchlist. Remember, "propaganda always backfires"? ←Humus sapiens←ну? 10:25, 25 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Yes, but what made me write that I felt you encouraged Roeeyaron was the two sentences included above. Since I understood those two sentences to be contrary to the lead-in sentence you just included I first thought that you were either a bit confused or that you just included the first sentence to keep your back clear from possible charges of vandalism. I assumed good faith and didn't report the alteration of the image. If I made any wrong assumptions regarding your motives I apologize. It does, propaganda always backfires while views, opinions and ideas lives on. --saxet 10:44, 25 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Appeasment 

message: Does Desmond Tutu's opinion belong in the introduction to the article about Israel? In what capacity does he state his opinion -- is he a reputable authority on the human rights situation in Israel?--Doron 22:30, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Would you prefer Amnesty International? --saxet 00:31, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

text: Well, if Tutu fits your definition of a self important anti-zionist, then 99.9% of the world (including 50% of Israeli Jews) are self important anti-zionists. That would mean your opinions represents such a small minority that they needn't even be considered. --saxet 00:25, 25 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Don't kid yourself, less than 10% of Israeli jews voted for anti-zionist parties. Desmond Tutu remains a leftist useful idiot, all the same. Klonimus 04:59, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  I have an uncle who says that anyone who is left of Kahane is a leftist anti-zionist idiot. --saxet 09:04, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I wish he were right.--Doron 18:51, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

text: Agreed. "It is official policy to preserve Israel as a Jewish state in both an ethnic and a religious sense." is sufficient for the introduction. The article should however go into more detail regarding the segregation of Israeli Arabs. --saxet 01:50, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

text: Considering that you pushed for the sentence "Israeli Arabs enjoy full political and civic equality in Israel" to be included in the introduction, I sincerely doubt that if you rewrote the article I would find the result factual and NPOV. After looking at your history, it's kind of hard to assume good faith regarding your self-proclaimed position as an unbiased voice of reason. As I've said, this and all the other Israel-Palestine related articles will get cleaned up from the ludicrous rightwing pro-Israeli POV that saturates all the pages, it's only a matter of time. Propaganda always backfires. Ten years ago my Jewish friends were angry with me for not being 'loyal enough' in regard to Israel, today most of them have nothing but contempt for the Israeli Jews that are fundamentalists. --saxet 10:00, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

text: If you say so. BTW, Ariel Sharon also support a Palestinian state in Gaza and most of the West Bank  so I guess he, just like you, is unbiased. Go figure. --saxet 11:41, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

text: I'm aware of that. :) --saxet 16:49, 25 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Desmond Tutu 

message: Alright, so recently there seems to be a disagreement about the borders of Israel... so put your opinions here and play nice. Sasquatcht|c 04:50, 25 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The real dispute is, are Israel's attempted annexations of East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights legitmate?  Neither of these, however, affect whether or not Israel has borders along the Gaza Strip or the West Bank; the East Jerusalem matter might move the position of the West Bank border, but no nation -- not even Israel -- claims all of the West Bank for Israel.  And no nation -- not even Israel -- claims even a stitch of the Gaza Strip for Israel.  Marsden 05:09, 25 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Hmm... I guess this is whole Taiwan/China, Palestine/Israel territory issue. I would tend to support that the Gaza Strip and the West Bank are independant from the government of Israel and thus should not be considered part of the state of Israel... would like to hear more opinions. Sasquatcht|c 05:12, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

text: What the article says in the sentence in question should be about the physical dimensions of Israel, not about the prospects of future negotiations.  To omit the Gaza Strip and the West Bank from the sentence gives the impression that Israel ends only where Egypt and Jordan begin.  (That Israel is the "only successor state ..." is a pretty remarkable statement from someone who had just  protested that the discussion should not be about the whole issue, Adam.)  We do not need to know where exactly the borders between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank and Israel are for the purpose of the sentence; we only need to know that they are there.  I'm pretty confident that no legal claim has ever been made that the Gaza Strip and the West Bank should disappear, and Israel should acquire all of their territory; Israel certainly has never made this claim.  Why should an article in Wikipedia implicitly make this assertion?  Marsden 15:58, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

text: Israel does have borders with the West Bank, but they are not "international borders". Israeli law does not apply to most of the West Bank (except E. Jerusalem) and one could argue that the line where Israeli law stops being applied and military law starts is in fact a 'border'. Many official government maps do not include the WB, although some do. In any case, Israel does not regard the WB officially as part of its territory, otherwise I'd have an Israeli ID card myself and there would be no such thing as checkpoints and closures. I'm still confused as to what's the point of having this argument anyway. Ramallite (talk) 13:03, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: They may think whatever they like, but the fact is that Israel does not claim sovereignty over these territories.--Doron 18:51, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Borders of Israel 

message: I notice a lot of editors here prefer to use other words than 'occupied' to describe the occupied territories. I suggest we use the correct word 'occupied' and then include a sentence along the lines of  "However, some Israeli Jews do not consider the territories to be occupied but...".
Why the word 'occupied' should be used in Wikipedia articles is because: United Nations uses it, Amnesty International uses it,  U.S. Department of State uses it, the CIA uses it, the Human Rights Watch uses it, Reuters uses it, and so forth.
--saxet 23:04, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Aside from any other issue your change is completely grammatically incorrect; you can't "occupy" the West Bank from Jordan, you can only "capture" it from Jordan. Jayjg (talk) 23:15, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Then we can fix the grammar issue, but agree on that the word 'occupied' should be used. --saxet 23:47, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

text: I'm curious, why is it "completely gramatically incorrect"? Many edu, gov, com sites phrase it that way. --saxet 23:53, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: There is of course absolutely no need for "occupy" to have an indirect object; I occupy the chair I am sitting in, but I do it from no one.  Marsden 00:16, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

text: So is Gaza still "occupied" as the article says? I read a news item that Israel declared the Gaza-Israel border an "international boundary".24.64.166.191 06:01, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Occupied vs captured/controlled/etc 

message: The CIA World Factbook , source of the much disputed map in this same page proclaims the capital to be Jerusalem.
Let's try to keep politics out of this wherever possible. The footnote makes very clear the world's position on Jerusalem as Israel's capital. And if I remember correctly, the US hasn't made a statement either way.
--Sebastian Kessel Talk 23:55, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Sometimes when you "try to keep politics out" you're actually being political. As for this particular issue, if the United Nations Security Council has an official position on this, we should go with that position. I gather they're the ones who 'decides the rules' (for good and bad) when it comes to international law. --saxet 00:27, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

text: Isn't the problem that Jerusalem (under internation law) might not be considered as a city belonging to Israel, and thus can't be the capital? A (poor) analogy: Russia couldn't (under international law) declare Kiev as their capital. --saxet 01:28, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

text: But Israel declared Jersusalem to be the capital, not West Jerusalem. --saxet 01:35, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

text: Maybe you are right. --saxet 01:57, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Capital 

message: why is it that that the PLO article says the PLO is planning to create "a national authority over any piece of liberated Palestinian land", but when I point out that Israel happens to have actually liberated some "Palestinian land", it is immediately deleted from the article? is it ok by Wikipedia policy to say that all the land there is "Palestinian land"? Israelis can only "occupy" it, and Arabs can only "liberate" it? John McW 03:46, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Since you have no idea what I believe, please avoid speculating about it, and in the future please refrain from dragging me into your unrelated discussions with other editors. Jayjg (talk) 15:24, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

text: [sigh] Speculations and presumptions about other editors' beliefs are not only irrelevant but unproductive since it diverts the focus away from actual article contents. --MPerel ( talk | contrib) 18:55, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

text: Which was my point. I didn't state that Wikipedia should acknowledge anything. Anyways, how did you reason when you wrote that "liberated" was a POV word? What would be a NPOV word for actions resulting in an occupied territory being not occupied? "unoccupied"? As for John McW, if you look at the changes he recently made to this article (which got reverted), you will understand what his objections are. --saxet 05:50, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

text: Nicely stated call for objectivity, Adam.  I had to add your words to my "Favorite quotes" section... : ) --MPerel ( talk | contrib) 18:53, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Arguing that the "liberated" is NPOV when a territory is "occupied", when there is a debate about whether or not they should be described as "liberated" or "occupied" in the first place is completely circular. Jayjg (talk) 15:24, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

text: I think John is arguing that there is a double-standard or POV being displayed here - when Israel captures the West Bank, it is "occupied", but if the PLO were to capture the West Bank or even Israel, it would be "liberated". Jayjg (talk) 15:24, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

text: Here is another example: Palestinian Islamic Jihad is described as a group "whose goal is the liberation of historical Palestine". Jayjg (talk) 18:01, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

text: Did I miss something obvious? Why don't those who are objecting to these statements go to the articles, put the disputed sentences in quotation marks to indicate that they are quoting the source and not reflecting Wikipedia POV, and move on to their next topic of mischief? (I mean that in the most humorous way possible). If you do so, please place a sentence in quotation marks, not a specific word, because a specific word will invite more NPOV battles. Ramallite (talk) 19:02, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

text: Oh - and by the way, in the scheme of things, one should think of what's being liberated as the people, not the land, and relate the nature of the conquering army to the natives of the land being conquered. This makes classifying "liberation" vs "occupation" a lot easier. But that's just my opinion. Ramallite (talk) 19:09, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: If Islamic Jihad or the PLO ever "liberated" Israel, I suspect the vast majority of "natives" would consider it something other than "liberation", assuming they survived. Jayjg (talk) 19:16, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Well I guess it wouldn't be called "liberation" by the above definition then. The "assuming they survived" part I don't follow, because having grown up in this society, I think that Hamas/IJ's barks are worse than their bites, and this would be especially true once the humiliation factor is removed (not counting the virgin-seeking loons of course). But it will take years to undo the negative stereotypes that have developed between both sides due to constant propaganda. In any case, I don't think the scenario you suggested is anything to worry about, it won't happen. Ramallite (talk) 20:00, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I doubt that the dozens of people murdered and hundreds seriously injured by Hamas and Islamic Jihad would consider their barks to be worse than their bites.  They are the "virgin-seeking loons". Jayjg (talk) 21:29, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

text: I don't, I think disputed items should be left in quotation marks to imply context and left as is, like I said above. Otherwise, misrepresentation results. If I state that "Ramallite likes coke", I wouldn't want a Pepsi fanatic to change that to "Ramallite hates Pepsi". I think all this nitpicking is a waste of time by the way. I think it serves NPOV best to state the POV of both/all sides  when it comes to topics such as these (especially when there is no alternative to 'liberate" and "occupy" - certainly not "conquest"), and place them in quotation marks when it's necessary. Ramallite (talk) 05:19, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

text: I agree that the word "liberated" shouldn't be used until the Palestinians have actually been liberated. Which they will be, but not by Hamas or Islamic Jihad, but by an international coalition put together by the United Nations on June 24, 2009. Or something like that. As for the fear & paranoia crowd, you might have a point; South Africa was lucky that those ANC thugs never managed to come into power, Nelson Mandela would, for sure, have slaughtered the entire white population if that would have happened. Anyway, I have no clue why this section/discussion is here on Talk:Israel and not on Talk:Palestine Liberation Organization, where it belongs. --saxet 00:56, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The only way the Palestinians are going to be "liberated" is if they get rid of the terrorist groups that dominate them and the propaganda machines they call "schools". your fantasies about the United Nations ever doing anything effective make as much sense as the rest of your statement, the ANC has nothing to do with zealot suicide bombers. John McW 12:03, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The terrorist groups you refer to are ideologues that are not dominant, but a vocal minority on both sides that have unfortunately dictated their views to a silent majority. Funny, I went to these schools, and I have no idea what you're talking about. Can you please point out exactly what you've seen or read? Thanks  Ramallite (talk) 15:05, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Liberated

message: "For over 3,000 years, Jews have held the Land of Israel to be their homeland"
What about the native non-Jewish citizens of egalitarian, non-racist Israel? What do they consider their homeland? The article seems to be written from a certain POV.24.64.166.191 05:32, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Jews have held the Land of Israel to be their homeland 

message: Shouldn't 
*Israel#Wars be a subheading under Israel#History?
*Israel#Constitution be a subheading under Israel#Politics and law?
Fintor 14:47, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposed re-ordering of paragraphs