Talk:Political status of the Palestinian territories

message: What happened in the West Bank *between* 1967 and 1993? -"mitch"
Thousands of Palestinians have died in this struggle, including hundreds of children. Muhammad a-Dura has streets named after him in Palestine and Jordan. Scenes of his death, captured on film, spurred on the Intifada. This obsession with a naive, blonde American girl, who came to "help" and actually got caught up in the violence is ridiculous. It is an affront to the many people who had no choice but to be there, and who paid for it with their lives. How ironic that her death is being identified with the tragedy of the Palestinians, and not the hundreds of other deaths that occur almost daily. Danny
: How about you write what you want to write about, and I write about what I want to write about, and we get on with the business of creating the world's largest free encyclopedia rather than criticising each others choice of subject matter? Martin
While plenty of snide remarks crop up in my mind, I will put them aside and simply point out that you haven't actually responded to my comments. Nevertheless, I will answer yours. An encyclopedia is supposed to describe historical events that took place. History is an interesting thing. It is easy to falsify--people do it all the time. I do not mean putting false facts either. History can be distorted by omission--discussing American history without mentioning the Civil War is a distortion by omission. There are also distortions by exaggerating the importance of events--debating the ethnic origins of Copernicus (Prussian or Polish) while barely delving into his contribution to science is just such a distortion, and it has happened. You seem to want to write about the Intifada. Fine. Just don't distort the importance of events. How many people actually died in the Intifadas in Rafah, Khan Yunis, Gaza, Deir el-Balah, etc.? What were the causes of their deaths? That is why Rachel Corrie and others were there in the first place. Your writing has given me a far greater understanding about why Malcolm X didn't want help from white people. Danny
I thought it was a valid response, though perhaps slightly tangential. Ahh well.
: Thousands of Palestinians have died in this struggle, including hundreds of children.
:: I know. Thousands of Israelis, too.
: Muhammad a-Dura has streets named after him in Palestine and Jordan.
:: I didn't know that. I find that interesting. You may be interested to know that I've seen unconfirmed rumours that the same may happen to Rachel Corrie. Didn't seem important, though - I assumed that happened to all the Palestinian "martyrs".
: Scenes of his death, captured on film, spurred on the Intifada.
:: I've seen the photos - in fact I remember one of them winning the prize for best photo at the "what the papers say" awards in the UK. I wasn't aware that they exacerbated the Intifada, but it doesn't surprise me.
: This obsession with a naive, blonde American girl, who came to "help" and actually got caught up in the violence is ridiculous.
:: My approach to writing about the Israel-Palestine conflict is generally to work from the bottom up, writing about specific details, incidents, people, etc. Corrie is one of these details. I find that approach neither obsessive nor ridiculous. Indeed, for a non-historian like myself, it makes a lot of sense to concentrate on specific incidents that can be more quickly understood, rather than thinking that a total novice can accurately summarise a long and bloody conflict.
::: I guess these are the points that I find most contentious, so I will answer here. Yes, details are important, but for them to be dealt with adequately, they have to be put into the proper context. When details overshadow this context, history is distorted. Furthermore, the problem is that you have chosen this specific incident as a focus of concentration. If anything, it is anomalous to the conflict--Israelis and Palestinians fighting over a piece of land. You are taking it from the perspective of someone who was not intrinsically involved in the conflict, who chose to get involved, and who died as a result. The fact that it was newsworthy at the time, more than any of the other people, both Israelis and Palestinians, who died, indicates that it is the exception to the rule and not indicative of what the conflict actually involves. As such, it doesn't contribute very much to understand the issues at hand. Furthermore, as "novice," I hope you were referring to yourself. I spent twenty years living in the region, speak Hebrew and Arabic (Palestinian, not classical), and spent more than a little time in Gaza. I've also researched and written extensively on it and met most of the key players and plenty more lesser known ones. But you're right, a novice cannot accurately summarize this long and bloody conflict. Earlier you talked about writing an encyclopedia--one of the keys to doing that successfully  is accuracy. Danny
:: Novice = absolutely myself. I'm not a historian, and the closest I've physically come to Israel was a year in Cyprus.
: It is an affront to the many people who had no choice but to be there, and who paid for it with their lives.
:: I don't see that writing about the death of one person is offensive to other people who have died. If I felt that then I'd never write about anyone's death, and surely that would be a bad thing?
: How ironic that her death is being identified with the tragedy of the Palestinians, and not the hundreds of other deaths that occur almost daily.
:: I believe that the wikipedia articles in question do not identify Corrie's death with the tragedy of the Palestinians. Do you believe that they do? Or are you making a larger point about the wider coverage?
That clarify things at all? Martin
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I've just realised that this text (taken from the CIA factbook) is in fact a carbon copy of the same text of the West Bank. Minus my and your additions, of course. I'm now unsure how to proceed - do we need a seperate article on the history of the Strip, or can the info be distributed between articles such as Gaza Strip, Palestinian Authority, Israel, etc? Martin
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Zero, please explain the reason behind removal (not even moved to talk) the following paragraph:
---
As a result of 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Jordan occupied Judea and Samaria and called it the West Bank. Jews and Christians were forbidden to visit their holy places. Ancient synagogues were razed or used as stables filled with dung-heaps, garbage and carcasses. Libraries and centers of religious study were ransacked and destroyed. In Jerusalem, The Western Wall is turned into a slum. The former main synagogue of Jerusalem Hurva Synagogue was dynamited. 
On the Mount of Olives, 38,000 tombstones were removed from the ancient Jewish cemetery and used as paving stones for roads and as construction material, including use as latrines. Parts of the cemetery were converted into parking lots, a gas station, and a hotel. Jews were not permitted to live in Hebron, nor visit or pray at the Jewish holy sites in the city. The Jewish Quarter was razed, the Jewish cemetery desecrated.    
       
*Desecration 1948-1967 Photos   
*Holy Sites Desecrated 
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The accusation of "101%" POV doesn't really work against photos and facts. I can collect more. Thanks. Humus sapiens 10:33, 23 Dec 2003 (UTC)
replies: text: Sure, I'll explain.  The title of the article is History of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.  It is not Vitriolic attack on all the terrible things done in Yesha by the Arab animals.  Hundreds of thousands of people were living their lives out and the only thing worthy of reporting is the fate of cemetaries and synagogues.  Meanhile Israel was busy destroying or taking over hundreds of Arab villages, all of which had cemetaries and many of which had mosques.  At least one hundred mosques (some say 300) were destroyed and quite a few (some major) were taken over for secular use.  You are right: the destruction of ancient structures like the Hurva Synagogue was a major cultural crime, but both sides did it.  You can show me a photo of a synagogue turned into a stable?  I believe you.  I can show you a photo of a mosque turned into a bar.  What I'm saying is that your paragraph is unacceptably partisan. It also has a sort of hysterical tone that doesn't belong here. --Zero 11:33, 23 Dec 2003 (UTC)

text: Here is an article from Haaretz on this subject. --Zero 11:55, 23 Dec 2003 (UTC)
replies: text:  Partisanship, hystery and bad wording are inappropriate for an encyclopedia. Proven facts should be stated in concise neutral language and links shoud be given. Perhaps accounts from both sides? Simply removing big chunks of text with links is not constructive, as well as denying historical facts and govt. policies. This is the reason why there is Talk page. Humus sapiens 23:10, 23 Dec 2003 (UTC)

text:  That something is a fact is only one of the necessary criteria for its inclusion in an encyclopedia entry.  There is also the issue of omission, context and balance.  Read what Danny wrote in the top half of this page.  The trouble with facts is that the supply of them is almost endless.  How about the thousands of pages of statistics that UNRWA produced listing the refugee camps in the WB with countless details of the housing, nutrition, education, health, etc etc of the refugees?  Should that be included?  Military and paramilitary developments?  Raids on Qibya and Samu?  What about the relationships between the refugees and those that were there already?  What about Jordanian-Israeli intrigues?  Did you know that there was a British plan to attack Israel if Israel tried to take the WB by force (early 1950s)? The Palestinian-Jordanian interaction was very complex and more important historically than sacred sites, which is not to say that the latter is not important.  Concerning the matter of destruction of buildings and cemetaries, because it occurred mostly in the context of a war and was done to all parties (Christian too) by both sides, it belongs in an article that deals with the war.  Otherwise the context is lost.  That's my opinion. --Zero 04:35, 24 Dec 2003 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

message: Should the title be "political status of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip" instead? — Instantnood 17:17, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, many times "West Bank and Gaza Strip" are used as a phrase, so I think that's the way it was used here. Jayjg (talk) 18:19, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Missing ''the''

message: It seems to me the political status of the West Bank and Gaza Strip today is so different, that it is a very incorrect thing to treat them as one unit Pt, which is also very much ambiguous. For example the West Bank has a separate page by CIA , with this of Gaza Strip . They are also de-facto ruled by different administrations and the political situation is now completely different in both. I herewith propose to split this article to "Political status of the Gaza Strip" and "Political status of the West Bank".Greyshark09 (talk) 16:26, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Since 2007, as you have said, the status of West Bank and Gaza Strip became sufficiently different, even though you really like to use the Pt word.Greyshark09 (talk) 15:27, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Split

message: I have reverted a move to Political status of Palestine . This should be taken to RM if it's to go ahead. Andrewa (talk) 02:03, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Undiscussed move reverted

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: This is almost a stub, its content can easily go in State of Palestine or in Legal status of the State of Palestine or even split between the two and delete this.Selfstudier (talk) 14:39, 24 May 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Since this article deals with the Palestinian Territories and not State of Palestine, it can be merged into Palestinian territories. You may have noticed above that a proposal to merge this into Legal status of the State of Palestine was rejected previously. Has anything changed since ? It seems like you are WP:FORUMSHOPPING, since you began this discussion here in parallel to Talk:Legal_status_of_the_State_of_Palestine#Merge, without mentioning either on the other venue. “WarKosign” 20:25, 24 May 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: I looked up forumshopping, I am not doing that, I gave my reason on this page about this article ie it's virtually a stub sitting in space doing nothing and ought to be somewhere else, I don't really care where. If moved to Palestinian Territories then that solves the other problem as well (where I supported the merge for the same reason, to get rid of this page), 2 for price of 1.Selfstudier (talk) 11:21, 25 May 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Does absence of comment equate to agreement? How would one go about merging here with Palestinian territories?Selfstudier (talk) 12:07, 11 June 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  This should be moved (somewhere)