Talk:Palestinian territories/Archive 2

message: Whos POV is the title (I'm guessing Palestinian). It should be in the intro.Bensaccount 21:17, 29 Mar 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Done -- uriber 21:24, 29 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Title

message: The first major part of this article, with the heading "Claims" is so awful that it's painful to read.  Much of it is downright childish and frankly I think it is an embarrassing blight on Wikipedia.  Who is going to complain if I delete it completely?  --Zero 12:04, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Do you not think there is anything of value in it?  Is there a place on Wikipedia for the competing claims of Israelis and Palestinians regarding this land to be presented? Jayjg 14:44, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok, but I don't think that what is there does justice to either side.  A complete rewrite would be best, but I still think that what is there now is worse than nothing at all. --Zero 15:15, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I bet you'd be really good at a complete re-write. ;-) Jayjg 16:02, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  The section of the article called "Claims" 

message: Often people refer to non-sovereign lands which are within the traditional boundaries of "Palestine", but outside of the generally recognized borders of Jordan and Israel, as being "Palestinian territories". As mentioned above, since the late 1990s, this has included most of the Gaza Strip and large sections of the West Bank.
*This usage tends to convey a complex of ideas, chiefly the view that (1) there exists a Palestinian people who (2) deserve their own homeland which (3) ought to include Gaza and West Bank.
*Adherents of this point of view or users of this definition commonly use the term "occupied Palestinian territories" (see article).
: Hey, this is rather good. This should be in the introduction instead of the ridiculously POV thing that is there now! This is the common view of what the territories are and should lead the article. Yes, the article must include minority views, but the minority views should not be highlighted in a way that makes it seem that Wikipedia endorses them. Dr Zen 00:34, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Chunk of text

message: Went askew after I added the flag.  Tried twice to fix it.  Anybody?  deeceevoice 20:46, 10 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: You have included a flag of the State of Palestine; if you include this, you'd have to include the flag of Israel as well. The article already goes over competing claims to the territories; let's not over-politicize and already politicized set of articles by taking the position of one side. Jayjg (talk) 20:57, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

text: If you do please put in the flag of Israel as well, or I'll have to take it out again. Jayjg (talk) 21:02, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

text: Your equation of the Palestinians with black South Africans during the apartheid regime (or Israelis with white South Africans) displays a bias which is apparent from your inclusion of the flag as well.  Israelis live in these territories as well as Palestinians; hundreds of thousands of them, and they claim these lands too.  You see how political things get when one starts to support the claims of one side over another?  You pre-suppose that these lands all belong to the Palestinians, which is hardly NPOV; why not leave things NPOV instead?  Or better yet, why not get consensus for this controversial change before trying to force it on the article? Jayjg (talk) 21:11, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

text: It is not the flag of the territory, and when it was created it also referred to the territory of Israel, which was claimed by the State of Palestine.  For many it still does.  The flag you keep trying to include is the flag of a political entity, not a territory, and Israelis too are a "people of that territory".  No flag at all is what makes sense in the context of the article, but if you want to put it in, you can certainly put it up for RfC. Jayjg (talk) 21:21, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

text: There is no article on Flags on non sovereign lands; the red-link should tell you as much, so your argument makes no sense.  Oh, and can you think of any other entity under whose autonomy the territories are governed?  I can think of one. Jayjg (talk) 21:31, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

text: Right; and Flags of non-sovereign nations implies no exact territorial boundaries. Jayjg (talk) 21:40, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

text: Oh good.  Glad we were able to get to that. Jayjg (talk) 21:52, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

text: It's not what I want; NPOV insists they be the same size, and Wikipedia demands NPOV. Jayjg (talk) 22:28, 10 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Position of "Claims"

message: None. Never has been. Israel owns the land and always will. Get over it.--Elitcher 01:14, 11 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  There's no flag of Palestine 

message: The wording of this article -- which I see as substantially fair and balanced, refers to 2002 as a status point.  Since it is now 2005, perhaps we might consider an update.  What about the controversy of the Wall?  I've got deadlines today.  Someone might wanna have at it, since it's a matter that has attracted worldwide attention and a hell of a lot of controversy -- and condemnation.  deeceevoice 10:26, 11 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The controversy about the security fence is well covered in the articles about the fence and the West Bank; there's no need to continually duplicate information from one article to the next, then you just get divergence.  As for a 2005 update, that's a good idea. Jayjg (talk) 14:51, 11 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: A general update?

message: Claims must be sourced and NPOV, the points "not in contention" were not accurate, and Ishmael is seen as the ancestor of the Arabs, not the Muslims; Islam is a faith. Please don't revert inaccuracies just for the sake of reverting. Jayjg (talk) 18:47, 29 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Latest edits

message: What is the meaning of this sentence?  There are Palestinian Arab Bedouins as well and Palestinian Arab Christians.Yuber(talk) 16:08, 30 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Bedouins in Israel do not all consider themselves to be Palestinians, nor do all Christians. Jayjg (talk) 19:48, 30 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bedouin and Christian 

message: Re the section "The Palestinians also say that increasing amounts of Palestinian land have been annexed by Israel since Israel was created. Also, they say that the populations of the territories under Israeli control have been harassed, killed and denied their basic rights. Israel counters this argument by denying it entirely."
This article lists claims about rights to the territory, not general beefs each group has with each other.  The argument given is not an argument about why the Palestinians have a right to the territory, but rather a general and unsourced complaint about Israel.  Also, the argument made for Israel is a strawman argument and essentially meaningless. If you don't restrict the scope of the article to its actual topic, next you be getting long back and forth arguments about suicide bombers, etc.  Please keep the article on topic. Jayjg (talk) 18:45, 30 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The "increasing amounts of land annexed" phrase is very relevant to the territorial dispute.Yuber(talk) 19:41, 30 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: But the section isn't about the dispute, it is about the differing claims to the land.  Claiming that Israelis are annexing it has nothing to do with whether or not Palestinians have a prima facie claim to it.  Again, please keep in mind both the scope of the section, and of the article. Jayjg (talk) 19:47, 30 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Non-relevant arguments 

message: Cybbe, while cypherx's removals were perhaps overbold, he has a point.  More than being POV, there is much here which seems to me to be original research and non sequitur.  That "occupied Palestinian territories" "connotes much more than a definition, but a host of related propositions that amount to a preventive political argument about the disposition and status of the land"  is highly disputable.  I don't want to really open this can of worms, but the longterm usage of the term by the US, the State Department in particular shows how dubious this is.  Is it really the case that the State Department holds these views or would phrase its position as this section implies it must?  Or is it just saying no more than (a) these are territories (hope no one disputes that)  (b) they are in a region which has been known as Palestine ("Palestinian" is ambiguous, could mean this, could mean belongs to people now known as Palestinians)  (c) the only part with any content at all - that they are occupied, a word which Israel itself has at times accepted (SC 242)?--John Z 00:06, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cypherx's deletions 

message: Occupied Palestine is a term used only by supporters (to some extent or another) of the Palestinian or Arab nationalist cause. Between 1948 and 1967, it was used exclusively (as far as I have seen) to refer to the territory which had become the state of Israel. Of course, many Palestinians felt that they were living under occupation in the West Bank (this feeling wasn't, I think, as common in Gaza) and legally it would indeed appear that these were occupied territories. But the term 'Occupied Palestine' wasn't used to refer to them.
Since 1967, the term 'Occupied Palestine' was used to refer to all of historic Palestine. Change in the use of this term dates to the Palestinian acceptance of the two-state solution. Since then, supporters of the moderate Palestinian position have increasingly used the term to refer solely to the West Bank and Gaza. However, it is also still used to refer to all of historic Palestine, cf . For the sake of accuracy, the actual use of the term should be stated. Palmiro 17:03, 15 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think there's anyone who uses the term Occupied Palestine to refer solely to the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.  Palestinians who favor a two-state solution typically use the term Occupied Palestinian Territories to refer to those areas.  The want it recognized that, by agreeing to accept Israel in its pre-1967 borders, they are conceding 78% of historic Palestine in the interests of peace.Brian Tvedt 02:09, 1 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Israel has no "pre-1967 borders" it has 1949 Armistice lines that were explicitly not borders, at the insistence of the Arab side.  As for "conceding 78% of historic Palestine", "historic Palestine" included Jordan, which is majority Palestinian. Jayjg (talk) 04:58, 1 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: (sigh - not this argument again) According to King Abdullah it's not majority Palestinian (of course this coming from a dictator so who knows?), but there's been no official census taken to verify the "majority Palestinian" argument, just a lot of wishful thinking. Anyway, whatever the percentage, they are Jordanians now - of Palestinian origin - but Jordanian. Just like a lot of people of Irish origin in Boston or German origin in Switzerland. Anyway, back to the point, Brian is probably right, "Palestinian territories" is almost always used to refer to WB&G (with or without the word "occupied" preceding it) while "Palestine" or "occupied Palestine" is used by many to refer to the land of Palestine between the river and the sea. There are other phrases too, like "aradi il-dakhil" - "the inside lands"; or "aradi il-48" - "the 1948 lands" to refer to lands that became Israel in 1948. It's just our euphemistic counterparts to "eretz yisrael" or "yehuda ve shomron" or whatever. Just because we have thicker eyebrows doesn't mean we are the ones who should get scrutinized for every utterance. Anybody got some tweezers? Ramallite (talk) 14:16, 1 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Occupied Palestine

message: The article says this is undisputed:  "The Israelis are descended from people who lived in the area prior to the year 70 CE. Most of them were driven out and scattered at that time...".   The last part is certainly disputed and is in fact well established as wrong.  The Romans deported some Jews but the mass of the population were only excluded from Jerusalem and its surrounds.  The Jewish population remained large in other parts of Palestine, especially in the Galilee.  It was not until the 3rd or 4th century that Jews became a minority and even then it was partly because of Jewish conversion to Christianity.  See any good history book.  --Zero 03:24, 4 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  An undisputed fact that is false 

message: My specific issue is that in the "Legal Status" section, the parts about East Jerusalem is too weak with regard to "international bodies."  The legal status of East Jerusalem is not that international bodies do not recognize Israel's annexation claim, but rather that the UN Security Council has specifically rejected it.
I'm also sure that there are many other POV problems with the article as well.  Marsden 14:12, 14 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Is the UN Security Council the source of all international law? Jayjg (talk) 21:23, 14 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: UNSC (binding), UN General Assembly, and International Court of Justice (rulings binding, opinions not). Ramallite (talk) 03:53, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

text: The UNSC makes binding law only for items on which it chooses to.  The UNGA never makes international law.  The International Court of Justice only makes binding law for those who have gone before it willingly. Jayjg (talk) 16:45, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The ICJ used only "binding law", only existing IL in its legal analysis shown in its advisory opinion. The worlds greatest legal expertise reached the (unanimous might i add, read the dissenting judge Buergenthals opinon) conclusion that under IL, these territories were occupied. They didnt create anything, they used law already binding upon Israel. While the decision itself is not binding, all the treaties and all the law used by the court, is. As for the UNSC, it has used the term occupied territories for binding resolutions (in this context). And the GA resolutions reflect the viewpoints and opinio juris by the vast majority of UN member states. --Cybbe 17:22, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

text: Advisory opinions are just that, and they have no relevance to International Law.  The UNSC has not ruled on the issue using actionable Chapter VII resolutions, so the status of their statements as binding International Law is also questionable.  UNGA resolutions are simply political posturing, they have nothing to do with International Law. Jayjg (talk) 19:03, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

text: Sorry, but you did not adress my issues. --Cybbe 20:19, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: You raised no issues, you merely made incorrect assertions. Jayjg (talk) 20:43, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Which of my assertions were incorrect: that the ICJ used law binding upon Israel, that UNSC has used the term "occupied" in countless resolutions, or that GA resolutions reflect the viewpoints of the member states voting in favour of them? --Cybbe 21:29, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

text: The first is incorrect, the other two are irrelevant. Jayjg (talk) 21:32, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The first is entirely correct, and I wonder on what basis you state that advisory opinions have no relevance to international law. They are statements of international law, or if you like opinions as to how international law applies to a given case. They do not legally impose any requirements on any party per se, but they clearly represent as authoritative a judgement as to what international law is as one could hope for. Palmiro | Talk 21:53, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The ICJ asserted that certain of its opinions were facts and that various things were international law and binding on Israel, but its jurisdiction does not extend to Israel. Jayjg (talk) 22:03, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Added NPOV warning 

message: Request to internally link, somewhere (anywhere)? TIA. El_C 00:10, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: P.S. I haven't reviewed Special:Whatlinkshere/Palestinian_territories! El_C 00:13, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: internally linking *this* article

message: Are the Shebaa farms really part of the Golan? If, as appears likely, they are Lebanese territory, this would seem to be incorrect. Does Israel consider them part of the Golan? Palmiro | Talk 23:31, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Recent edits (Shebaa farms) 

message: all the countries in the Middle East are listed in the box  but even though it's labeled Countries and territories in the Middle East, the Palestinian territories aren't includes - it looks weird
:Yes, it should be included. Palmiro | Talk 14:10, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Now added. From the template history it appears it was there (but listed as "West Bank" and "Gaza Strip" separately, which is inappropriate) until September, when an editor removed it with the edit summary "Gaza Strip and West Bank are not countries" - true but irrelevant, given the template heading. Palmiro | Talk 18:40, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Box: Countries and territories in the Middle East 

message: I have four unbiased proposals:
1. Jerusalem is the capital of both Israel and Palestine
2. West Jerusalem is the capital of Israel and East Jerusalem is the capital of Palestine
3. Tel-Aviv is the capital of Israel and Gaza City is the capital of Palestine (because they were both temporary caqpitals in 1948)
4. Yerushalyim is the capital of Israel and Al-Quds is the capital of Palestine
:No.  All of these claims are in fact disputed.Savidan 06:22, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Capital 

message: Hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Arabs who lived within the current borders of Israel before 1948 were not allowed to continue to live there after the 1948-1949 war ended, and most of these Palestinians and their descendents came to reside in the current Palestinian territories or other countries.
I'm not saying that I disagree with, but I'm wondering if this is a mutually accepted number of refugees by both parties in the conflict. Since this is a hugely contested article, I didn't change this in deference to the fact that this may have been discussed earlier with sources. Savidan 06:21, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I guess that it says "hundreds of thousands" in order to be not disputed.  Nobody claims the number is less than that.  --Zero 08:32, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Points not in dispute 

message: Can anyone indicate how the Israeli government normally refers to the territory/territories collectively? Does it have an official collective designation for them; if not what is its stated rationale for not having one, and how does it refer to them in practice? Some brief indication of this in the intro would be good, since neither of the two terms given are generally used by Israel or its supporters as far as I know. Palmiro | Talk 17:51, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Israeli terminology 

message: This whole section reads like something somebody wrote on the basis of what he/she thought were the arguments that might be put forward on either side. I would suggest that if we were to have a section of this sort, it would be much better to quote official positions of either side, and then, making clear the distinction, other positions advanced by various political tendencies among the Israelis and the Palestinians. I am unsure what the best way to deal with the current section is -  I would quite like to delete the whole thing, but I don't have the time to research and write a replacement at the moment. I have put in a section-OR tag. Palmiro | Talk 18:39, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I might add that it also makes no distinction between legal claims and propaganda/public relations positions taken by the parties. Palmiro | Talk 18:58, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Claims/Israeli claims/Palestinian claims/points not in dispute 

message: This is not in dispute? How can this be proven? Many people may have converted to judaism in the last 2000 years. That would explain why German jews look more like Germans than like Morrocan Jews or Iraqi Jews.  I dont know why this point is not in dispute according to this article... I dispute it in any case. So i am erasing it :-)--Burgas00 19:30, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I´d like to delete the whole section...but if that isn´t possible we can keep this one because the inclusion of the word "many" covers your objection.  --Zero 20:01, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

text: How about changing the phrasing to "Many or most Jewish Israelis claim descendence from people who lived in the area prior to the year 70 CE." or something? Maybe it is no point. I agree that it is a highly disputable "fact--Pertn 10:12, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

text: I agree with both. We can change to "claim descendence...) but maybe the whole section should simply be scrapped. --Burgas00 11:25, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Many or most Jewish Israelis are descended from people who lived in the area prior to the year 70 CE. 

message: I think Palestinian territories and Israeli-occupied territories have (1) lots of currently overlapping material and (2) lots of material that could be included in the other article. Perhaps these can be merged at some point. (Note: one obvious difference is Golan/Sinai which are not Palestinian but are often (erroneously) included depending on which of the many terms is used.) To this end, I merged common parts of the first two paragraphs of the introduction as a start. They are not identical (Golan/Sinai) but very close. SeattliteTungsten 07:49, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I am going to restore Ramallite's phrase that this term is in "the context of a Palestinian perspective". Please see the discussion above about that. Objections? ←Humus sapiens ну? 11:23, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Looks good. I folded your changes back into Israeli-occupied territories to continue the unification. Sorry about ax'ing that phrase. I agree it should be in. SeattliteTungsten 17:12, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

text: The original phrasing said "territory captured by Israel in the Six-day War of 1967 whose status is pending..." which could be mistakenly read that "all" of this territory captured (incl. Golan and Sinai) is now "pending..." which isn't true. (Remember the "all" controversy from UN 242 whereby people want to add "all" to the meaning of the English version?) Instead of being open to that inaccurate reading, better just to say "except Golan and Sinai" when the definition starts "territory captured by Israel in the Six-day War". Using "whose status is pending agreement with the PLO" as a definition I think confuses what/where the territories are with current attributes about them that are discussed later. For instance, now that Hamas has replaced PLO as the negotiating party would this mean we have to change the definition of the territories to say "whose status is pending agreement with the Hamas led PA"? It doesn't make sense that we should have to change the definition for this reason. The territories are defined as what they are and the final/pending status is discussed after. SeattliteTungsten 18:16, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

text: The problem with using a definition "geographic areas in the Middle East captured by Israel in the Six-day War" as a definition is that it could be understood to include Golan and Sinai because these were "geographic areas in the Middle East captured by Israel in the Six-day War" but are not part of this article. To prevent misunderstanding relative to "captured by Israel in the Six-day War", it should explicitly exclude Golan and Sinai. Alternatively, we could just say, "The Palestinian territories are geographic areas in the Middle East including the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza" and save "captured by Israel in 1967" for the history section or a paragraph describing what delimits the border of these regions. SeattliteTungsten 18:50, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reconciliation between [[Palestinian territories]] and [[Israeli-occupied territories]] - 1 

message: As I wrote above a while ago, I objected to this "is a term used to" phrasing.
Here are my reasons better defined:
# It's grammatically awkward. We know it's a term, EVERY title in this encyclopedia is a 'term'. 
# It's thinly veiled well-poisoning. It's as if one is saying "It's not supposed to be this way, but some people insist on using this term".
# There is nothing wrong with "refers to", especially since it was I who unnecessarily qualified it a while back with "from a Palestinian perspective" even though it's from a lot of other perspectives as well. It is a stronger intro to say "refers to" instead of adding to the number of qualifiers.. ('is one of many terms' -  'from a Palestinian perspective' - 'other terms used to describe the same area are') - one feels you almost need to add 'only on Wednesdays from 2-6pm on non-rainy days'. 
# See Judea and Samaria for an example.
I see no honest reason to revert my change (which is a little of what was left after a lengthy debate on this page, see above). If I had to choose the best reason, it would be the POV factor of #2 above, with #1 not far behind. Say what you want about it, but there is no way you will convince me that 'used to describe' is more "accurate" than 'refers to'. Ramallite (a term used to describe an editor who just wrote the preceding piece). 20:28, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's one of a number of terms used to describe that area, in the absence of an agreed or universally recognized term. Saying it's "one of a number terms used to describe" makes that clear, whereas "refers to" doesn't. SlimVirgin (talk) 20:37, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've changed Judea and Samaria to say the same. SlimVirgin (talk) 20:42, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

text: Sorry, Ramallite, I didn't follow your point. The area is referred to by a lot of different phrases or names. There is no internationally agreed term for it. The phrase "refers to" doesn't quite capture that, so I've changed it to "is one of a number of terms used to describe," and then we list the others too. The article Judea and Samaria now starts in roughly the same way. SlimVirgin (talk) 01:16, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Use of "it is one of a number terms used to describe" is clear and neutral. Works for me. —Aiden 03:20, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  What the....